How we started our own micro-brewery business

Many people start their own business because they dream of riches, while others simply want to earn a living from something they truly love. The latter is true of Liverpool-based Grateful Dead fan John Marsden and his wife Julie, who set up The Melwood Beer Company in 2013.

“For many years I’d dreamt of running a microbrewery business with my wife, Julie. I’m passionate about beer, but I don’t like the mass-produced, watery, gassy stuff you get in pubs and supermarkets.

“In March 2013 we opened The Melwood Beer Company. We make high-quality beers that taste great and are totally natural – we don’t use chemicals. To start the business, I used earnings from my work as a self-employed hospital operating theatre technician and Julie worked as an administrator at Alder Hey Children’s Hospital.

“Our premises are special. I’d mentioned to a patient that I was looking to open a microbrewery and she told me about an old dairy near her house” John Marsden

Ideal premises

“Our premises really are special. I’d mentioned to a patient that I was looking to open a microbrewery and she told me about an old dairy near her house, which until recently had been home to one of the North West’s first craft breweries.

“After seeing them, we just had to have them. They were perfect, and in such a beautiful setting near to Knowsley Safari Park – some days you can actually see the rhinos and zebras. Our offer was accepted and as a result we started the business sooner than anticipated. It all happened so quickly.

“We fitted the place out with all the necessary tanks and equipment and worked with a brilliant local welder. We also had to source supplies, create our website and develop our branding, as well as try to win our first customers, but come the end of March our first supply of beer was ready.

“We installed a five-barrel system, which enabled us to produce up to 800 litres per brew, which is 20 casks, each containing 72 pints. We had four fermenters, which gave us the capability to brew up to four times a week [ie 80 casks], providing the demand was there.”

In December 2015, John and Julie moved into The Kennels – a larger building which used to house the estate’s gun dogs. The extra space enabled John and Julie to finally do everything they were planning – with dedicated rooms for bottling, kegging, casking and tasting. In May 2016, they were visited in their new premises by the crew of Food Unwrapped who filmed the brewing of a special beer.

“All our beers are single malt varieties and their names are inspired mostly by bands, singers or songs” John Marsden

Grateful Dead

“Music is my other great passion and I play Hammond organ in a Grateful Dead tribute band. All our beers are single malt varieties and their names are inspired mostly by bands, singers or songs.

“We do an ‘Icons of Rock’ series and our first was Mojo Rising [The Doors/Jim Morrison], then there was Fools Gold [The Stone Roses]. Julie also developed an ale called Knowsley Blonde. A while ago, she made a beer called Father Ted, in honour of her late father. We also produce one called Citradelic, which is very popular.

“Our branding incorporates the famous Grateful Dead lightening bolt skull logo, which was originally created by the band’s soundman Owsley Stanley in the 1960s. Sadly, he died in 2011, but I emailed his family to ask permission to use the logo and they said yes.

“We plan to start selling branded clothing through our website, which will hopefully help to raise our profile. I used our home-based computer to create our website and branding and I produce all of our pump clips, stationery, labels, etc at home. As well as saving money, I enjoy doing it. I get a real buzz from seeing the pump clips in public.

“Brewing beer involves a lot of hard work, but it doesn’t feel like it because I love it so much” John Marsden

Labour of love

“The name of our business is inspired by Liverpool FC’s [former] training complex, which is close to our home. Brewing beer involves a lot of hard work, but it doesn’t feel like it because I love it so much. It’s not like a job. Our beers are very good – the reaction has been brilliant – and with our passion and commitment, I’m confident our business will do well. We’ve sell to wholesalers in Yorkshire and Greater Manchester and our sales in Merseyside continue to grow.

“I don’t know whether the business will make us rich, but I’d be happy if it generated a wage for us both. If it does make us rich, that would be the icing on the cake, but just to be able to walk into a pub and see people enjoying our beer means we’ve already achieved a long-held dream.” 

“Find a way to be special – that way people will buy your products rather than someone else’s” John Marsden

John’s three top tips

• “Base your business on something you love. That way it won’t seem like work and it will drive you on when the going gets tough”

• “Ask for help from other businesses. We’ve had some really useful free advice from other brewers on Merseyside – you really wouldn’t believe how helpful people have been.”

• “You must set yourself apart from your competitors. Find a way to be special – that way people will buy your products rather than someone else’s.”

• This profile appeared originally on the Start Up Donut website. John and Julie went on to open their own successful micropub, The Bard, in Prescot on Merseyside.

My biggest leap of faith

Taking risks is part and parcel of being in business, but some are particularly significant. Mark Williams asks five entrepreneurs to look back to a time when they took a leap of faith.

Wendy Tan White’s first major leap of faith wasn’t, as you might expect, when she started Moonfruit with Joe White and Eirik Pettersen during the first dotcom boom. It was carrying on when the dotcom bubble burst in 2001, she reveals.

“Funding ran out, so we had to cut the team from 60, to 10, then two, which was very tough,” she says. “But we totally believed in our mission to enable small firms to build their own websites.” By 2012, when the business was sold to the Yell Group for £23m, seven million websites had been built using the pioneering Moonfruit platform.

Tan White admits that leaps of faith still “bring the same vertigo and butterflies”, even after years in business. Her latest, 18 months ago, saw Tan White and husband Joe join Entrepreneur First (EF), the London tech accelerator started by Matt Clifford and Alice Bentinck in 2011. “We joined because we want to help the best talent to build world-class startups from scratch. We were also looking for something that was worth betting our time and money on,” she says. “Matt and Alice are exceptional people.”

In May, Entrepreneur First had its first major exit, when Twitter acquired AI start-up Magic Pony for $150m. “We’ve raised £40m to extend EF’s company-building programme from six months to two years, and invest further in companies. We’ve personally invested in 12 businesses in our portfolio of 20 – and mentor many more. Becoming investors has been a totally different leap of faith.”

I was continually being told people wouldn’t buy online, but the business grew to be worth £250m – Chris Barling

Software solutions

Tech entrepreneur Chris Barling was 40 when he took a life-changing chance to set up his own business. “I left a well-paid job with Cable & Wireless to set up [ecommerce software provider] Actinic in 1996,” he says. “My co-founder and I funded the launch and my family of five had to live on £8,000 in that first year.”

Software development involves considerable investment before any revenue comes in, he adds, often leaving owners short of cash. “It was a major leap of faith. I was continually being told people wouldn’t buy online, but the business grew to be worth £250m.”

Barling estimates £10bn of sales went through Actinic-powered websites before he moved on in 2014. He now sits on the board of a FTSE 100 company and two high-growth tech startups. And he has started Powered Now, a provider of invoice, estimating and scheduling mobile software for small trade businesses, such as plumbers, electricians and builders.

“Again, I’m told trades people will never be keen on technology to run their business. [But] they will, because now it’s mobile, like them, and simpler. It’s taken personal investment, but now we have more than 1,100 paying customers and 60,000 trade businesses have downloaded our app. Entrepreneurs must sometimes take leaps of faith. It’s hard, but can bring the biggest rewards. It should never be an [unconsidered one] though.”

Space man

“In 2012, after Airbnb started to take off, it just came to me and stayed in my head,” says 24-year-old Ross Bailey of starting his business Appear Here. “Maybe something similar could help fill the huge number of empty UK retail premises.”

To test this theory, Bailey and a friend took a short-term let on premises near Carnaby Street and sold T-shirts to coincide with the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Others showed interest and the viability of the pop-up shop concept became clear. The company launched in February 2013 and is now a leading online marketplace that connects landlords with brands and businesses seeking short-term retail space in the UK.

My leap of faith was simply telling others about my idea. Some said it was rubbish, but one person said I shouldn’t over-think it – Ross Bailey

“My leap of faith was simply telling others about my idea,” Bailey reveals. “Some said it was rubbish, but one person said I shouldn’t over-think it. Try it out and if it fails, it fails.

“There’s something powerful about telling people about your idea. Many people want you to succeed. Ultimately, you win or you lose, but the initial momentum begins.” Appear Here now has offices in London and Paris and more than 40 employees, having raised some £5m in funding.

Growth platform

Saurav Chopra took a chance in 2014 when he cofounded Perkbox, a platform employers pay to use to provide employees with “access to more than 200 perks, an online reward and recognition system and a wellness hub”.

Chopra explains: “Parent company Huddlebuy was a highly profitable lead-generation business, turning over £1m-plus, but we wanted to build something we could scale worldwide. [Starting a new business] that wasn’t generating any revenue required a huge leap of faith.”

Justifying the idea to his board, investors and employees was incredibly hard, admits Chopra, and Perkbox was one year in the making before launching in 2015. “Just two years after deciding to pivot, revenue has grown by 13 times, and we’ve gone from 15 employees to 100, without any external funding.”

Chopra believes that entrepreneurs must regularly take leaps of faith – these are mostly small, but occasionally very significant. “They key is to minimise risk,” he says. “Evaluate as much data as possible; get input from key team members; and feedback from potential customers. Once the decision’s been made, you must communicate your rationale and plan to the rest of the team.”

I’m a passionate Liverpool FC fan and the thought of a short drive to Anfield was too much to resist – Steve McGauley

Mersey paradise

Steve McGauley’s leap of faith involved relocating his marketing agency from London to Liverpool. “I started Liquid in 2000. Three years later, after growing steadily, moving to the north west seemed the next natural step.

“I’m Yorkshire born, but my dad’s a Scouser and my family live in the north – it’s where I feel most comfortable. I considered Manchester and Leeds, but I’m a passionate Liverpool FC fan and the thought of a short drive to Anfield was too much to resist,” he laughs.

While it was a big move, McGauley says agencies don’t need a London postcode to compete. “We have a high success rate of winning work against agencies regionally and in London,” he adds. “We have the same work ethic and creativity, but charge less usually.” Liquid now has 17 employees and an impressive client list that includes Levis, Warburtons and Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

The main reason for relocating was better quality of life, he says, particularly at a time when he and his wife wanted to start a family. “London consumes you; working very long hours is expected. Personally, I never had any doubts. I believed in my business and in Liverpool.

Moving to Liverpool has been one of my best decisions. The talent and drive here reminds me of London, but the people in Liverpool tend to do things with a smile on their face – Steve McGauley

“I’m thankful for my time in London,” he adds, “but moving to Liverpool has been one of my best decisions ever. The talent and drive here reminds me of London, but the people in Liverpool tend to do things with a smile on their face.”

While leaps of faith can be terrifying, when they’re taken with careful consideration of the risks and benefits on the line, they can be the push that a business needs to grow and thrive. What will your next leap of faith be?

• Written by Dead Good Content founder, Mark Williams, this feature appeared originally on the Small Business Network pages of The Guardian website in 2016.

Create your own low-cost customer enewsletter in five simple steps

In my previous post, I made the business case for enewsletters, which can be a highly effective marketing tool for accountants and other service-based businesses. For little cost, you can market your services to prospects, current and former customers.

But what are the key legal considerations and what steps should you take if you want to your enewsletter to succeed?   

1 Build and segment your enewsletter contact list…

Obviously, you’ll have email addresses for existing clients. And although you may have them for former clients and prospects, if you haven’t gained their informed consent, email them all to tell them about your new enewsletter, including a link to your website’s enewsletter subscription page.

Gather your signed-up email addresses into one enewsletter contact database. Segmenting this into different types of customers and targeting each with variations of your enewsletter can greatly increase your success. Separating private individuals from businesses is an obvious place to start, but you could segment your database into leads, customers and previous customers.

Top tip >> Segment your business customers by age, size or sector, so that you can better serve their specific information needs.

2 Get more subscribers to sign up

Enabling visitors to easily subscribe via your home page and others is a must. Give links good visibility, but avoid invasive pop-ups and anything else that could annoy.

Don’t ask for too much information at first. You just need a name, some basic details and an email address. On your sign-up web page, tell subscribers how you’ll use their email address. If you plan to send other marketing emails, allow them to opt out. Include enewsletter sign-up links in your email footers and social media posts and profile pages. Publicise your enewsletter offline, too.

Top tip >> Don’t waste money buying email lists, because the quality can be poor. Instead, always seek to grow your subscription list.

3 Draw up an enewsletter content plan

Create this for the next 12 months. Plan in content when it will be most relevant and useful to recipients. As an obvious example, if you are an accountant, you include a piece on Self-Assessment in your November or December enewsletter ahead of the 31 January tax return online filing deadline.

Also align content with your marketing aims. For example, you may want to try to sell a particular service at a certain time, so you include related content in the preceding month’s enewsletter.

You should also plan content around topical, seasonal, national or international events. Provide an engaging mix of topics and content format in each newsletter. Be original. About three items of content per newsletter is a good target – think quality not quantity. This content should live on your website. Create an archive page, so visitors can read your previous enewsletters.

Top tip >> Your content should be rich in value. Tell recipients something new. Solve their problems. Help them to succeed. Save them time and money. Also showcase your expertise.       

4 Choose the right enewsletter solution

There are many enewsletter management platforms/apps. They include MailChimp, Mailjet, GetResponse, MailUp, MailerLite, Emma, Campaign Monitor, Constant Contact, MailUp, AWeber, Benchmark, Sendloop, SendinBlue and ConvertKit.

Some offer a free service, with limited features/benefits, but these can still work well if you have a relatively short mailing list. The more you pay, basically, the more you get, and monthly deals are available from about £10-£15 – a relatively low investment.

So, how does they work? You import your database, create an enewsletter design or use/customise a responsive template (so your email looks good on all devices) and schedule your distribution. Most paid solutions enable you to segment, A/B test, custom brand your enewsletters and gain advanced audience insights, so you can improve your success rate.

Top tip >> Make it easy to share your newsletters via email links or social media sharing buttons. It can help to grow your subscription list.

5 Preview, send and analyse

After all of your content has been written – and proofed – most enewsletter platforms/apps allow you send test versions to yourself, to check it looks good on desktop and mobile device, and won’t be deemed junk mail. If all is OK, you can send or schedule your enewsletter for distribution.

You can never be totally sure how your enewsletter will perform, but most enewsletter platforms/apps provide analytics, so you can see what worked and what didn’t. Key metrics include open rate, click-through rate and unsubscribe rates.

Top tip >> Always analyse performance data. Learn lessons and make improvements. Don’t give up if results aren’t great straight away. Success takes time and effort.

Some important legal requirements

• Your must comply with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) requirements when it comes to personal data.

• Recipients should also have given their explicit consent to receiving your enewsletter. Individuals and organisations must opt-in to receive your email. Get verifiable consent via an affirmative action.

• Recipients must be able to unsubscribe easily.

• Each enewsletter must clearly state your business name, registration number if a limited company, your postal and email addresses. You can’t conceal your identity.

• Anti-spam laws restrict the sending of “spam” (unsolicited marketing emails) to subscribers.

• Never send unsolicited enewsletters. Most of us hate them – don’t we?

• Written by Mark Williams, founder and content director of Dead Good Content. Copyright 2020 © Dead Good Content.