Why Founding a Startup is like Bootlegging
A startup is often a different company by the end of each week, sometimes by the end of the day, and founders are constantly searching for stories that will explain the present and illuminate the future. A useful context unifies and inspires the team as well as helps founders better understand their past. It is in that spirit that I recently found myself comparing our startup to bootlegging.
Ever since I was twelve, I was intent on learning to distill. I tried and failed for years, getting plans for home stills from the internet and hiding everything in a corner of my closet. Eventually I met someone who taught me how to brew beer. Once I knew how to actually ferment something, the crucial discipline of sterilization to germinate something new, the gates were open. By sixteen we’d welded together a still with the tacet support of the local homebrew shop, and by the end of that year we were making smooth 170 proof spirit.
The very first days of a startup mirror the preparation of your wort, the soup that once fermented becomes ready to distill. As a brewer you use a general idea of your end goal to identify the ingredients you need. Timing is critical in this stage, with each ingredient added not only in the correct amount but at the perfect time and temperature, just like a founding team.
Once the wort is prepared, you have your base — the essence of every possible outcome. Now fermentation is key. Your founding team needs the right conditions to mix together and become something new. It is in this stage that all the alcohol you’ll get from your run is made. All the value that your company will one day sell is generated during this sensitive time, when a wort is often left in a dark closet, sealed away with just enough air to breath.
When you think you’re ready to go to market, the wort is poured into the still and the temperature slowly increased. The anticipation is building as you watch the end of that copper wire, waiting to see the first drops appear. But those first drops, like your very first customers, aren’t what you’re going to bottle. There’s still pain ahead. Just like any launch has some maneuvering before you find your fit with the market, every run’s hearts, the actual ethanol, is preceded by its heads, poisonous methanol that you need to be vigilant enough to toss.
One founder told me there are two stages of a startup — before product-market fit and after. This is the time when every so often you collect a sample of your run and test it to see whether you’re still pulling heads or have gotten into the hearts. You watch as the temperature climbs slightly, the smell changes, the ABU falls slightly, and then you know, with intuition as well as analysis, that you’ve achieved your goal. Careful calibration and relentless adjustments have finally yielded spirit.
As a founder, it helps to think in stories. We’re all writing our own story, figuring out what characters we play and how it’s going to end. Next time you raise a glass with your team, think about all that went into that moment.
