My brother-in-law Chris informed me that Entrepreneur had a piece on micro-brewing this month, and he was right—it's all about New Belgium and its co-founder, Kim Jordan (who apparently just split with her husband, the other co-founder, if anyone's, you know, interested). The gist is that it's a near-$100 million brewery with the soul of a micro-brewery, because she bikes to work and wears jeans and thinks conservation is "sexy." Whatever. My take is, she created something she was passionate about and people really like—the culture doesn't make the product successful, it's the reverse: a successful product allows that culture to exist. If New Belgium weren't making insane money, they'd be spending a lot more time trying to be profitable and a lot less time watching "An Inconvenient Truth" in the breakroom and listening to Phish. Anyway, good for the smallest macro-craft brewer in America.
Great post.
ReplyDeleteThanks! With a little seed money, and a completely different wife, that could be me in a few years! Um…a few dozen years!
ReplyDelete