BrewDog (Firm) - Business for punks: break all the rules--the BrewDog way

PORTFOLIO / PENGUIN

An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

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New York, New York 10014

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Copyright 2015 by James Watt

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Originally published in Great Britain by Portfolio Penguin, an imprint of Penguin Random House UK

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

Names: Watt, James, 1982- author.

Title: Business for punks : break all the rules--the BrewDog way / James Watt.

Description: New York : Portfolio, [2016]

Identifiers: LCCN 2015044128 (print) | LCCN 2015048349 (ebook) | ISBN

9781101979921 (hardback) | ISBN 9781101979945 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Watt, James, 1982- | BrewDog (Firm) | Beer

industry--Management--Great Britain. | Entrepreneurship. | Management. |

BISAC: BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Entrepreneurship. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS /

Motivational. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Small Business.

Classification: LCC HD9397.G72 B749 2016 (print) | LCC HD9397.G72 (ebook) |

DDC 658.15--dc23

LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015044128

Version_1

If we will disbelieve everything, because we cannot certainly know all things, we shall do much what as wisely as he who would not use his legs, but sit still and perish, because he had no wings to fly.

John Locke (philosophy punk)

To me, punk is about being an individual and going against the grain.

Johnny Ramone (archetype punk)

I always said punk was an attitude It was all about destruction, and the creative potential within that.

Malcolm McLaren (original punk)

In the 1970s punk rock changed the world. It was more than just music. It was a cultural phenomenon. At BrewDog our business is built on the punk mentality. At its core punk is about learning the skills you need to do things on your own terms. At BrewDog we reject the status quo, we are passionate, we dont give a damn and we always do something which is true to ourselves. Our approach has been anti-authoritarian and non-conformist from the word go.

Completely inspired by everything punk, we set out to offer a modern-day rebellion against tasteless mass-market beers as well as a hard-core revolt against brands which are so bland they melt into oblivion. We took an anarchic, DIY, decidedly reckless approach as we tore up the business rule book and did things on our own terms. The results have been electrifying.

Rewind to 2007. Based in a shed, on a remote and godforsaken industrial estate in the north-east of Scotland, BrewDog came howling into the world. Martin Dickie (my best friend) and I set up one tiny brewery with one very big mission: to revolutionize the beer industry in the UK and completely redefine British beer-drinking culture. This book documents the philosophy that has driven our wild roller coaster, which has seen BrewDog become a cataclysmic catalyst for the craft-beer movement in the UK and beyond.

Before founding BrewDog, having turned my back on my legal career, I cut my teeth on the high seas of the stormy North Atlantic, starting on the deck of a deep-sea trawler and eventually becoming a fully qualified captain. Spending five years working in one of the toughest environments on earth and learning to become a captain taught me so much about people, leadership, teamwork and adversity. It was incredibly tough but I loved every second of it. Ultimately for a crew to be effective leadership needs to come from the top down, the bottom up and everywhere in between.

Many of my unorthodox business strategies that put wind into the sails of the pirate ship that is BrewDog were forged on the tempestuous Atlantic Ocean. In one of the most dangerous jobs on the planet there is no place for doubt; risk is all encompassing, leadership needs to be quick as well as decisive, and survival is always the first step to success. Hanging up my captains hat was tough, but I had found something I loved even more than the ocean: craft beer.

I had always been passionate about beer and began home brewing with a vengeance in 2004 as Martin and I brewed up a storm in our garage. A chance meeting with legendary beer writer Michael Jackson led to Martin and I deciding to take the plunge, follow our dreams and start our very own craft brewery. Michael, upon tasting one of our home-brewed concoctions, told us to quit our jobs and start brewing beer. It was the last bit of advice we ever listened to.

Over the last four years BrewDog has officially been the fastest growing food and drinks producer in the UK and simultaneously the fastest growing bar and restaurant operator, topping the growth charts in not just one but two industry sectors as business has gone from strength to strength both domestically and internationally. Our business, which started with only 30,000, now has a turnover in excess of 50m and has been solidly profitable every single year since our inception.

What started in 2007 with two humans and one dog has, in less than eight years, grown organically to a business which employs over 500 people. We now ship our BrewDog beers to over fifty countries all around the world as we look to challenge peoples perceptions of what beer is, and ultimately make other people as passionate about great craft beer as we put the flavour and craftsmanship back into peoples beer glasses. Martin and I also host the longest running beer show in TV history with BrewDogs now being aired in over twenty countries.

Our brewery, still in the north-east of Scotland, is one of the most technologically advanced and environmentally friendly in the world. In addition to our state-of-the-art brewery we now own and operate over forty BrewDog craft-beer bars in flagship locations in Tokyo, London, Edinburgh, So Paulo, Rome, Barcelona, Helsinki, Berlin and Stockholm. And we have just started building a flagship brewery in Columbus, Ohio.

Starting an ambitious small business with next to no capital is gritty, intense and encapsulating. Our blissful naivety and lack of experience proved to be our strongest suit. We did not know how things were meant to be done so we just went ahead and did them in our own way. Inadvertently creating a whole new approach to business along the way.

Business for Punks outlines this revolutionary philosophy and elaborates on the good, the bad and the ugly of learning how to run and grow a company the hard way.

The small-business landscape has changed radically over the last few years. Business for Punks is a manifesto for a twenty-first-century business. Rip up those stuffy old text books, reject the status quo, tear down the establishment and embrace the dawn of a new era.