#100 Jeff Glennon, The Man Who Left Technology for Beer

Summary

Jeff Glennon used to be an agile consultant helping companies align their departments to deliver better software, but he left that world behind and is now the Chief Operations Officer at Night Shift Distributing, a distributor of craft beers and other beverages in Massachusetts. Jeff talks to me about his move, the skills he brought with him and what he has learned.

Details

What he used to do, moving to Nightshift Brewing, bringing his skills from the software world. Setting goals, doing it as a team, "commitments", scaling, going beyond the local customers, opening another location. Being the chief operating officer and leading sales at same time. Differences and similarities between agile consulting and role as COO.
An agile approach to beer distribution, partnering with their customers, when to drop a partner.
Scaling problems, logistical challenges, capital investments, big decisions affect many families, how they make big decisions, strategy is a day to day and week to week thing. Three to five year plan. It's not lines of code it's beer, the similarities between the software and beer worlds. What he has learned in two years, "the value of stopping for a second", saying no and letting people challenge you is important. Jeff doesn't plan to go back to tech. "It's just beer"