Best-Laid Plans

It has been said - and holds true, especially with startups as cash-strapped and tiny as ours. Delays happen.

We projected a summer opening. We were all excited and ambitious and…foolhardy, is that it? Scope creep pushed out our start date, but we’re getting closer.

Space hunting has taught us some valuable lessons. I had no idea what was involved with leasing. You gotta be a little savvy, which I’m not. You gotta learn about commercial real estate, which I’m still doing.

I learned that a broker is a good thing. I also learned that a broker can’t read your mind and is not a distiller. You need to be patient and kind and also accept that you’re gonna feel like a turd when you turn down offers. They know more than you about real estate and you know more than them about making booze, so you have to find a middle ground - a sort of “sandbox” where you can exchange ideas.

I learned that having a contractor around is AMAZING. Luckily, I know a guy who is totally honest and excels at what he does. You might think a spot is perfect and then he comes in and goes, “oh no way man, this is gonna cost you another 8 grand.”

Eventually, I kinda dropped the broker because our niche - a tiny space with giant industrial requirements - is tough to find for commercial brokers accustomed to closing deals for 10,000-square-foot mega-warehouses with indoor cranes and loading bays and offices and stuff. But I definitely kept the contractor.

So, learning is part of the process, but we still need a space. We can’t fit the still in the space we currently have. On the bright side, we are getting sharper at every aspect of distilling, fermenting and storage. We also randomly got some delicious strong honey mead out of the process.

Onward!