For your perusal.

[carpet19]

Hello

"The concept is simple. A brewery in every home. Thats right, think outside the box and keep an open mind."

This statement keeps entering my mind and you know, i dont think its too mad. This is basically what i want to do and i need ideas on how to move forward. I have a passion and for that reason alone i intend to see it work. I sincerely believe, that like in the 70s, home brewing is ready to boom and i am ready to try and help it along. To this end i am performing all grain brewing demonstrations at various beer and food related festivals in the north of england, hopefully branching further afield when time and finances allow. Until the brewery equipment i am selling starts to take off, which i am confident it will, ( I already have 3 firm orders at the moment and i have just started this concept in the last month) I am financing the demonstrations myself. It is an extremely tight budget and for that reason i am looking for some form of sponsorship to enable me to carry on with the demonstrations. Please see the attached weblink for an article that was recently reported on my concept. http://www.journallive.co.uk/north-east ... -27189365/

I am not a business man. I sometimes think i have no idea what i am doing half the time, but i am simply trying. If i can make some sort of income from this, in whatever way possible, then thats ok with me. Please, give me your ideas for moving forward with this venture, that is indeed if you feel the concept has any validity at all. Or maybe i am just a bit mad and simply dreaming and fooling myself that this business would ever work. You see, there i go again, getting all disheartened. Stop it.

Looking at the clock its now 6am, already been up 4 hours. Madness. Ahh but then they do say with every bit of genius, an equal amount of madness also exists somewhere.

Sorry, starting to rant a bit now.

Any suggestions, comments, good or bad but honest nonetheless would be gratefully received, as would a cheque for a few grand to help things along. Dont laugh, im serious. Anybody know of any brewing Dragons willing to invest in my concept.

Just an idea. But i could travel to home brew shops and do a full demonstration outside or inside your premises. You could advertise it in your locality and potential customers of yours could come and watch. Not just to hopefully buy my equipment but just to get them interested in brewing. People really are interested in seeing the brewing procedure and i can offer that anywhere. Would home brew shops pay me to do the demonstrations?, I dont know . You tell me. you can see where im goingwith this train of thought.

Anyway, thats it for now.
Keep well.
Regards.
Wassail
and all the rest,
Ken Oliver.


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[BigYin]

Well, I'm certainly not in a position to invest - although I do wish you every bit of luck!

A few thoughts though.

You are trying to enter a pretty competetive marketplace - just look at the sheer number of online shops selling homebrew gear, most stock items within £1 of a competitor...

Where you can be different is offering a complete, custom made, home brewery, and providing a personal set up and demo service to a client.

The costs in that are varied - if a customer accepts a setup is going to be built to their requirements they should be willing to wait a week or two for delivery, so you don't have to lash out money on stock items until you have a firm order. On the flip side, you have to factor in a day lost to building kits up for each sale made, and the travel costs of getting to your customer...

The next thing to consider is just how professional your kit is that you are supplying? If you pay a premium for a fully built AG brewery, presumably you can expect a very high standard of build, as well as after sales back up service for any susequent faults etc.

I'm sure I've seen full stainless steel brewery on sale for £1500 delivered, set up and demo'd - but that seems extremely pricey to me :shock:

Out of interest, what kind of price are you managing to sell kits at, and what are you supplying for that? Might be worth seeking input on value for money etc so you aren't losing sales for the sake of a few quid here and there?

Also be interesting to see what kind of brewing background your clients have? - Most brewing newbies - myslef included - probably had no idea you could do AG brewing - and if you could, it looks like way too much hassle, and the homebrew kits are much more appealing as they represent a much smaller initial investment - so much less money lost if it turns out this hobby aint for you.... :hmm:

 

[31bb3]

Sorry not got any finances to invest however if i was you i would try offering a plastic setup and a stainless a lot of people are a bit reluctant to spend £1500 on a nice shiney setup i know the long term its better if you could offer plastic at around the £200/300 bracket i think you would possibly get some interest Hamstead HB do plastic 30ltr tower setup for the £300 mark but no demo (you can ring or ask at time of purchase )
I know all on the forum are passionate about this hobby but some are a bit overwhelmed by the process of AG so spending a fortune is not for everyone.
This is only my opinion i recently went AG and love it but didnt want to spend a lot incase it wasnt for me i have friends who are interested but feel its too complicated
I hope i havn't overstepped the mark it may be an option :hmm:
I hope your venture works out :thumb:

 

[graysalchemy]

Good Luck Ken with your venture.

Being in business myself my bit of advice it is not easy.

My first concern that I think you need to look at is if you want to attract an investor or sponsor they will want something in return ie part of your profit. You need to look at how much money you are making and how much you are prepared to give away. Would you be prepared to give away 50% of your profit?

If you go down the rout of selling your kit to other homebrew shops and online setups they will want to buy them off you at Selling price minus VAT minus probably 50%.

So a kit with a selling price of £1500 is £1276.60 ex VAT They will want to take 50% of that as profit so you will be left with £638.29. which you will have to take out all you material costs.

I have commercial framing/art business and my goal has always been to supply a large chain store but when you look at the margins involved its not worth getting out of bed for. I now sell higher priced original artwork and prints to a select network of galleries and make a reasonable living.

If you attract an investor you will obviously be selling them at the full £1500 (you probably will not have to be vat registered so nothing to the vat man). For arguments sake the cost you £700 in materials to make you will be left with a handsome profit of £800.00 but you will now have to pay your investor a percentage of that.

Personally for for what it is worth I would grew your business organically taking small steps. I would do local shows and gage interest. Choose your shows wisely as anyone who does shows (especially those for the general public) will tell you they are not always the best way to spread the word and you certainly won't sell many products that way. This way travel and accommodation will be kept to a minimum. Listen to customer feedback and tailor your product to the interest generated. If that means making a smaller cheaper setup then so be it.

You would probably do best by selling online with your own website and ebay (I know you already do this).

Finally one skill you do have and should make full use of is your marketing skills. You have got yourself publicity on this forum (for better or worse) and you have secured a write up about yourself and business and then made us all aware of it, you couldn't do better than that. You now have to take this to the next step get a local paper magazine interested and hey who knows Sunday Times.

Anyway best of luck. If you want any more advice pm me and i will be glad to help.

:

AG

 

[Growler]

Sorry not got any finances to invest however if i was you i would try offering a plastic setup and a stainless a lot of people are a bit reluctant to spend £1500 on a nice shiney setup i know the long term its better if you could offer plastic at around the £200/300 bracket i think you would possibly get some interest Hamstead HB do plastic 30ltr tower setup for the £300 mark but no demo (you can ring or ask at time of purchase )
I know all on the forum are passionate about this hobby but some are a bit overwhelmed by the process of AG so spending a fortune is not for everyone.
This is only my opinion i recently went AG and love it but didnt want to spend a lot incase it wasnt for me i have friends who are interested but feel its too complicated
I hope i havn't overstepped the mark it may be an option :hmm:
I hope your venture works out :thumb:

I agree with this

I would love all the pumps, bells and whistles of a shiney brewery but can't justify the outlay when I don't know if I will be able to use it where as I would be intedrested in a plastic brew system to make 5 gallon at a time to start out with :thumb: