Zero to $90M Revenue in Five Years, How Athletic Brewing Created the Non-Alcoholic Beer Category with CEO Bill Shufelt

Apr 18, 2024

Bill Shufelt, Founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing, talks about creating the non-alcoholic beer market in the US, struggles with investors, designing cool cans, and explosive growth in 2019. The discussion includes health benefits, starting the company, meeting the perfect co-founder, and using TikTok for product launches.

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Introduction

00:00 • 2min

Revolutionizing the Non-Alcoholic Beer Market and Achieving Rapid Growth

01:31 • 3min

The Rise of Non-Alcoholic Beer

04:02 • 14min

Crafting Non-Alcoholic Beer: From Idea to Market

17:50 • 20min

Brewery Expansion and Growth Strategies

37:49 • 14min

Long-term Vision and Market Potential of Non-Alcoholic Beer

51:54 • 4min

The Shift Towards Informed Health Choices

55:43 • 5min

Navigating Early-Stage Company Financials

01:00:39 • 16min

Navigating Delegation and Trust in Business Growth

01:16:29 • 2min

Brought to you by Attio, the next generation of CRM: https://bit.ly/AttioThePeel Bill Shufelt is the Founder and CEO of Athletic Brewing, the craft brewer that created the non-alcohol beer market in the US. Bill takes us inside the early days of starting the company, including realizing there was an opportunity to make non-alcoholic beer, finding a co-founder, struggling to find early investors, building multiple breweries, and getting into Whole Foods before launching. Our conversation is a case study on creating a new market - I hope you enjoy. Timestamps: (00:00) Preview (04:10) Becoming the #1 beer in Whole Foods
(05:54) The history of non-alcoholic beer
(10:41) Why an outsider had to create this new category
(15:34) Health benefits of avoiding alcohol
(17:51) Turner tries the beer
(22:49) Bill’s wife pushing him to start Athletic Brewing
(26:38) Writing a 96 page white paper on non-alcoholic beer
(28:42) Quitting his job to start six months of research and networking
(30:21) Meeting the perfect co-founder after 100’s of meetings
(32:34) Putting his life savings into a warehouse and brewing equipment
(33:04) The importance of setting company values early on
(34:23) Brewing the first beer in Gatorade jugs
(36:16) Selling the first bottles to retailers
(37:42) Explosive growth in 2019
(39:39) Why new products and D2C helped them scale so fast
(40:39) Using TikTok to sell-out new product launches in 30 seconds
(42:00) The value of doing early customer service himself
(44:45) Getting to 61% market share in non-alcoholic beer
(46:10) Struggling to raise the first angel round
(48:34) Using consistent investor updates to easily raise the Seed, Series A, and Series B
(50:47) Transitioning to institutional capital for its Series C
(52:33) Betting on a new category to expand market size
(55:44) Information access is enabling healthier consumer behavior
(58:11) Bill’s early strategy for marketing the product
(1:01:43) The importance of over communicating with your investors
(1:03:44) Why retailers like Athletic Brewing’s unique omni channel approach
(1:06:16) How building its own breweries and supply chain enabled its unique strategy and better margins at scale
(1:09:04) Getting into Whole Foods before launching
(1:11:31) Doing unscaleable things over and over again
(1:13:50) Why entrepreneurship is a long game
(1:14:22) Most of Athletic’s new products come from the team Check out Athletic Brewing: https://athleticbrewing.com/ Where to find Bill: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bill-shufelt-650059138 Where to find Turner: Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak/ Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/