Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Kickstarter and Beyond


Ok, the hard work is behind us.  We’ve got all the money we need and we should be open in the near future…NOT EXACTLY.

Fact: Our Kickstarter goal was a fraction of what it is going to take to get FSBC up and running.
Wait, what?

Yes, it’s true.  You cannot open a brewery with $45k. You cannot open a brewery with $52,350 or  $100k.  You might be able to shoe string together something that sort of works for $200k if the stars all align just right.

Unfortunately we need to spend a large portion of our funds on Kickstarter incentives.   We need a building.  We need a large building.  We need a building with industrial capacity utilities.  We need concrete floors, with drains in them.  We need lots of shiny, expensive stainless steel equipment.  We need kegs, a cold room, tables, chairs, draft equipment, lighting, comfortable bathrooms…  In a perfect world we would walk into a building with all of this in place and start brewing tomorrow.  It doesn’t exist, never has in Randolph County.

So what was the point?

The point of Kickstarter was to gain the support and loyalty of the local community.  It was not intended as a test however if it was, we (or should we say you) passed.  We needed some startup capital to continue brewing beer on a small scale to get our name out there, we needed money to put a lease on a building, we need to print up t-shirts, we need to start the legal paperwork with the Federal, State and local government, we need to pay our lawyer. 

Where do we go from here?

As one of our good friends put it: “You done good, now comes the hard part”.  

Plain and simple, we need a lot more money.  Over the coming months we will explore all of the potential inventors we have been meeting and making plans with.  Will it be easy?  No.  Will it be a challenge? Yes.  Will we be able to achieve our next goal?  Absolutely.

If the Kickstarter campaign has shown us anything it is that Asheboro is ready for a brewery.  The support we have received has been nothing short of amazing.  Think about this:  FSBC was the largest fully funded Kickstarter brewery campaign, EVER.  FSBC was the fifth largest fully funded Kickstarter food project, EVER.  The four fully funded Kickstarter food projects that earned more money than us came from Brooklyn, Washington D.C., San Francisco, and Seattle.    Enough said.

One of the lessons we have learned from breweries recently opened and those still in planning is not to predict or announce an opening date until just before the actual date.   Realistically, we are looking at close to a full year.  

Rest assured friends, family and strangers.   We will be working tirelessly to get our doors open as soon as possible. We want to be able to charge you for our beer instead of giving it away!  Please keep up with us on Facebook, Twitter, our newsletter, website, blog-posting….. 

By Andrew
andrew@foursaintsbrewing.com

3 comments:

  1. Ya'll are off to a great start, so keep the nose to the grindstone and forge ahead! Good luck fellas!

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  2. Thanks Will, it's been a lot of hard work so far. We've got lots more hard work to go!

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  3. Thanks for giving the behind the scenes information. Some very impressive Kickstarter info, and in this economy too! Some things are just meant to be.

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