How are you going to earn your first free beer?

Help Me Help You (Please don't sue me Mr. Cruise)

Alternate titles:

• How I got my first brewery job.
• Where do I fit in?
• Too many cooks in the kitchen make Mad Haven sell more beer.

I like to ask people what they think. I feel that the best way to be heard is to listen. I feel that by having open ears, eyes, and mind, you can truly learn what someone wants, and either give them that or fully understand how to explain your idea. This is one reason why I’m always asking for your ideas, advice, opinions, and votes. I also like to network. Not the Chamber of Commerce “Hello my name is” style of networking, where you hand out your business cards to everyone in the room and try to gauge how they can help you. I like the kind of networking where I get to know someone, become friends, and keep in touch. And hey, if it so happens that another friend can be of assistance to this new friend? Sweet. Connection made. You two go have fun.

What I’ve been learning with my non-stop talk about the brewery is that while everyone has their own aspirations, problems, whatever, a lot of people really like beer, and want to be involved somehow. It’s pretty awesome when I get a Facebook note from someone saying “Hey, we haven’t talked in 12 years, but my brother’s dog’s vet’s uncle’s best friend is an accountant who wants to work for you for beer”. Ok that hasn’t happened yet, but I’m waiting… Seriously though, the contacts, connections, and assistance that has been flowing from all corners of space and time has been amazing. Hopefully they’ll all be knocking on my door still when I start asking for money. Just kidding. Nah, I’m not kidding.

So here it is. How you can help:

• If you have an idea about the brewery, beer, business, Denver, marketing, whatever, tell me!
• If you give me an idea, don’t be offended if I don’t use it.
• If I use your idea, give yourself a pat on the back, come have a drink with me, don’t ask to own half the company.
• When I ask for advice, be honest. I can take the criticism, and in fact need to be knocked down a few pegs more often than not. Don’t blow rainbows up my.. just be honest.
• When I ask for something specific, like, a lawyer, tell me everything you’ve ever learned about working with lawyers. Or give me  your friend’s number who does estate law. I bet she knows someone good, and I’ll help make the connection.
• Spread the word. Talk about me. Talk about the brewery. The idea. The name. Talk about beer. Drink a beer. Buy me a beer! Try one of my beers. Just keep the conversation going. That helps more than you think.

That’s all nice and vague. When it comes time to open, I will need help. I’ll need help getting stickers out, inviting people to the opening day, building stuff, brewing, bottling, distributing, and a million other things. Seriously. If you want to help me make beer, come help. I won’t have any money to pay employees for quite a while, but I’d love to share some beer. You have no idea how much fun it is to give a beer you made to someone else. You seriously have to try it. It’s intoxicating. (No pun intended)

In the meantime, there are certain roles that I could use some help with. (There are certain roles with which I could use help – that’s for you, Erika)
Again, money will be tighter than tight for a while, so the people I’m looking for  need to be passionate about what they do, passionate about small business, passionate about beer, and comfortable taking little money and a lot of beer. Certain roles include financial, legal, engineering, construction / contracting, marketing (all of it: Ads, PR, Strategy, etc.), design (logos, branding, etc.), and a few thousand other things. If you or someone you know wants to help with these roles, leave a comment or shoot me an email, tweet, whatever. Business Plan guidance would also be very, very, very much appreciated.

Oh, and buy the beer. Drink Mad Haven.

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