Creative Distillation - Transcript for Episode 50: Brynn Keenan (Grist Analytics) on Turning Passion and Science Into a Successful Venture
Stefani HÌý 0:06 Ìý
Welcome to another episode of Creative Distillation. Your hosts Jeff and Brad from the Â鶹ӰԺ is Leeds School of Business discuss entrepreneurship research while enjoying fine craft beverages for the first of Creative Distillation's two part, season four finale. Brad and Jeff speak with , founder and CEO of , a firm helping breweries of any size with sustainable testing, data management and other aspects of quality control in brewing. Brynn talks about how she combined her love of beer and deep scientific background into a successful company serving a wide swath of the brewing industry. This episode was recorded at in Â鶹ӰԺ, in front of a live audience of MBAs from the Leeds School of Business. Enjoy and cheers.
Jeff YorkÌý 1:04 Ìý
Welcome to the season finale of season four of creative distillation where we distill entrepreneurship research into actionable insights, and we are coming to you live. Yes, with the second inaugural class of the Leeds School of Business Executive MBA Program. I am Jeff York, the research director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business at the University of color in beautiful Â鶹ӰԺ, Colorado here with my co host,
BradÌý 1:34 Ìý
Jeff it's Brad Warner. I do a lot of things at the University of Colorado, but I am an entrepreneur, and we pay him for Yeah, a couple of them. And it's great to be with an esteemed professor tonight. Our rich Welcome.
Jeff YorkÌý 1:48 Ìý
Nice. Well done. Well done. We have other esteemed professors in the audience tonight. So Brad, it's the end of season four. Rebecca twisted pine. We've been here before we have did we do reflections on season four? We did. We did. Oh,
BradÌý 2:01 Ìý
we have some great reflections. Season Four, by the way was a blast. I mean, yeah, I think so. Right? Yeah. Yeah. My highlight of season four for me was watching rats attack Joel's feet,
Jeff YorkÌý 2:10 Ìý
I think yeah, the highlight for me was definitely watching Joel dodge the rats. That was exciting. For sure. I think our whole road trip to LA was was incredible. I think we're gonna surpass it tonight. I'm absolutely positive that because we have an amazing guest. And I just want to before we introduce her, let's do a quick trip down memory lane. Doo doo doo doo doo. So we'd look back and we think back to a Halloween ago. We were here at Twisted pine. It wasn't last Halloween where we met the dancing tree and discussed Bucha it was the Halloween before and Brad had his favorite beer experience ever. Okay,
BradÌý 2:45 Ìý
so for all of you that don't know me, I hate Halloween. I love Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I hate it. Yeah. Just who I am. And yet the second thing that I hate is you don't put pumpkin into beer. Period. What do you think?
Brynn KeenanÌý 3:09 Ìý
ÌýYeah, I feel like To each their own. You know,
BradÌý 3:11 Ìý
I agree. I'm making blanket statements about I'm not making a blanket statement. I'm just talking about my feelings.
Brynn KeenanÌý 3:17 Ìý
I respect that. Yeah, I think I think hating pumpkin beer is a very respectable opinion.
Jeff YorkÌý 3:22 Ìý
Oh, wow. I'm just I'm shattered here. So so here we had breads favorite pumpkin beer ever, perhaps because it was they put whipped cream on top? Oh my god. Did you hear I twisted pine?
BradÌý 3:38 Ìý
Don't do that anymore. Do you know? What's your?
Jeff YorkÌý 3:44 Ìý
What are you talking about? Right. So you will introduce our guests, Brad?
BradÌý 3:47 Ìý
Sure. So we have Brynn Keenan. Tonight. Brynn is the CEO and founder of grist analytics. So welcome, Brynn. Great to see you.
Brynn KeenanÌý 3:56 Ìý
Thanks for having me.
BradÌý 3:57 Ìý
Yeah. So why don't you just give us an overview of who you are and what Grist is doing?
Brynn KeenanÌý 4:01 Ìý
Yeah, absolutely. So I'm Brian. I've worked in craft beer since I was in college. Essentially, I started washing kegs when I was a freshman and fell in love with the community graduated with biochemistry and went into quality control for craft beer, kind of in the explosion of craft beer and ended up at lefthand as yeah as a lab tech. And design gris. When I was there, we had a bunch of data all around the brewery, it was really difficult to turn it into insights grew grist, the software platform that I started takes data from all over the production facility from brewing to packaging. It automates the statistical process control on that data. And it turns it into a format that brewers and non technical packaging staff and admin users and brewery owners who may not know a whole lot about brewing beer can use to make better beer with less money.
BradÌý 4:58 Ìý
So when you were scrubbing kegs, where you thinking, wow, how do I measure this?
Brynn KeenanÌý 5:04 Ìý
I think when I was scrubbing kegs, I was like, I'm gonna be late for class.
BradÌý 5:09 Ìý
Can you talk about a couple of your customers?
Brynn KeenanÌý 5:11 Ìý
Yeah. So we are in upslope in Â鶹ӰԺ outer range. Well works. Rowdy mermaid.
BradÌý 5:19 Ìý
Yeah. The mermaid episode. Well, let's get to beer and bourbon and beer and bourbon. Okay.
Brynn KeenanÌý 5:29 Ìý
You're gonna have to drink a lot of kombucha.
Jeff YorkÌý 5:33 Ìý
Kombucha now it's an emerging category.
BradÌý 5:38 Ìý
So back to Chris, though, is there a generalization that you can make about breweries that you found that surprising to you? That maybe is common amongst some of your customers?
Brynn KeenanÌý 5:47 Ìý
Yeah, so we have a there are 10,000 breweries in the country about and a ton of those are really small breweries and our minority are really big breweries. And the size of brewery is really important for us. So 3000 Barrels up to 80,000 barrels, essentially, they're growing. They care about quality, they have some loyalty with their customers, and how strong we are in that specific category. Distributing breweries,
BradÌý 6:17 Ìý
3000 barrels to 80,000 barrels. That's quite a spread. Yeah,
Brynn KeenanÌý 6:21 Ìý
yeah. Yeah. But after 3000 barrels, or problems become very similar. Oh, interesting.
Jeff YorkÌý 6:26 Ìý
What kind of problems emerge at 3000 barrels that people don't have, like, right up until that
Brynn KeenanÌý 6:30 Ìý
point, but yeah, their teams are bigger. So they're managing workflow and the seller across, you know, potentially five to 10 people, you know, smaller than average 3000 barrel brewery, so they're struggling with workflow, potentially missing events, that's leading to long seller times seller capacity is the biggest bottleneck in the brewing process. So And meanwhile, they're trying to meet orders from their distributor on time. distributors are the biggest customer of the brewery.
Jeff YorkÌý 6:59 Ìý
Oh, that's how many employees is that like, 3000? barrels? Like, what do you think? Like? I'm just trying to think of how you generalize that? Is that a similar thing? I mean, I'm thinking that happens a lot to most entrepreneurs, once they reach a certain level of success, right? Like outside of the craft brewing industry, like you get to a certain level, and all of a sudden, if you're making a thing, and it's not like, we just have a platform, and it scales, you know, then yeah, you start to go crap. Like this is a lot harder than it was up until this point.
Speaker 4Ìý 7:31 Ìý
Yeah, for sure. So 3000 I don't know how many people would be at the brewery at large, but probably four to 10 in production.
Jeff YorkÌý 7:42 Ìý
Right, right. Yeah. So so let's get to the point where you're trying to actually,
BradÌý 7:45 Ìý
I'd love to know actually, how many barrels come out of twisted pipe? I mean, what kind of what size of brewery Do you think that we're sitting in right now?
Brynn KeenanÌý 7:50 Ìý
I feel like it would be weird to guess but okay. You guys have to guess too though. I'm gonna have not well first of all, okay, so a barrel is two kegs. Essentially, that's the volume
Jeff YorkÌý 8:07 Ìý
divided by two and then that's how many cakes will give you some points.
Brynn KeenanÌý 8:09 Ìý
So I think a upslope, like I don't even know I'm gonna get this wrong. 50 60,000 barrels, left hands like 60,000 barrels. Yeah. At a range probably like 10,000 or something. Yeah,
Jeff YorkÌý 8:22 Ìý
well, Burke's would be right, probably around 10,000 as well, I
Brynn KeenanÌý 8:24 Ìý
would think so. They're smaller than I think. Yeah. And you never
Jeff YorkÌý 8:29 Ìý
put everything in a big kin and like, make it crazy. So yeah. Oh, so I'll hook you up with those guys. Well, we can we can take you on an odyssey of experience with well, Burke's grad. The highest highs to your lowest lows will make your pumpkin beer look like
Brynn KeenanÌý 8:51 Ìý
lowest low after your sugar crash. With cream.
Jeff YorkÌý 8:56 Ìý
They make the weird anyway, we'll talk about them on different episode. We're actually here at twice two points. So we should talk about
BradÌý 9:01 Ìý
I'm guessing 5000 is my guess for here.
Brynn KeenanÌý 9:03 Ìý
1500 Oh, really? hat? Yeah, for 3000. Yeah, cuz
Jeff YorkÌý 9:07 Ìý
they're not really distributed. I don't know. Like, they're not distributing cans are not like that I know of anyway, now. This is Tapao. So it's a much smaller operating factchecking. So they wouldn't be like needing Well, they probably could benefit from like your software, but they're not at the point where they would like feel that need until they started to hit that distribution while these entrepreneurs experience. Well, let's say some of these beers we got here. We've got three beer flight tasting the audience, you people and people out there get the patio pounder. All right. Well, one brave person you have an awesome patio here. I'm sure it's where the name comes from. Oh, yeah. I'm sure. Especially an IPA. So session IPAs? You know, we've had tons of these, Brad. Yeah,
BradÌý 9:55 Ìý
let's give it a shot. Cheers folks.
Jeff YorkÌý 9:58 Ìý
Cheers. Honey condors anybody
BradÌý 10:02 Ìý
going along with our tasting as we go, there's a couple right?
Jeff YorkÌý 10:08 Ìý
Got a lot a lot of bitterness in this right up front. Yeah
BradÌý 10:25 Ìý
like it. For me, it would be patio poor, but I put out like the brewery. I'm a blogger personnel Jeff so this would never fit my profile. Yeah, yeah. What do you think?
Brynn KeenanÌý 10:36 Ìý
So I will say I love a session IPA. Really, you know, an unpopular opinion.
Jeff YorkÌý 10:41 Ìý
Yeah. Okay. Why are you surprised? Because I mean, I'm gonna say the thing of you've heard a million times. If you're gonna make an IPA, just make an IPA and those you know, don't take it and try to like, make something that can be drunk. A lot of that doesn't really taste like an IPA. That's generally my thoughts on it.
Brynn KeenanÌý 10:59 Ìý
Yeah, I think that's the brewing world agrees.
Jeff YorkÌý 11:04 Ìý
Beer nerds would say that, right? Yeah.
Brynn KeenanÌý 11:10 Ìý
Somebody told me this the other day, and I don't know how true it is. But they don't do that well in the market. Because their whole shtick is that they're lower ABV, they're easier to drink, right? So they're not as good of a value for people who are buying beer for for a boss. I didn't realize was such a large
Jeff YorkÌý 11:27 Ìý
session. I can drink. So session is like a session beer means you can drink a lot of it right? It's lower alcohol, usually in a range of like, the lowest would be like 3% in America up to like, four and a half percent would be the upper limit. I guess.
Brynn KeenanÌý 11:43 Ìý
That's part of the reason people don't like them is they don't have a green bill that supplies enough sugar to make a big beer. So they say it's not big enough to be the backbone for a good hot bill.
Jeff YorkÌý 11:55 Ìý
But as far as session IPA goes, that's pretty good. I mean, it's got a hot hot forward thing definitely get a lot of hop aroma.
BradÌý 12:04 Ìý
Do you guys think a patio pounder out there? ordered?
Jeff YorkÌý 12:12 Ìý
5051 Thumbs up boring. Thumbs up. I will say it is a good session IPA. I'm not ever I cannot remember ever being excited about session IPA is the
Brynn KeenanÌý 12:26 Ìý
type of beer that I would drink and I would enjoy but I would never have thought about it.
Jeff YorkÌý 12:29 Ìý
Right? Right. It's just sort of the idea. If you got a beer called the pounder, it's not like, you're gonna sit and contemplate
Brynn KeenanÌý 12:38 Ìý
like the patio pounder meant.
Jeff YorkÌý 12:42 Ìý
Like a slight touch of mint and
BradÌý 12:43 Ìý
I think we need to move on from beers. We have some other ones here.
Jeff YorkÌý 12:50 Ìý
So Brent, you and I have some things in common. You are from Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. I am yeah. Are you by any chance at Wonder warrior?
Brynn KeenanÌý 12:57 Ìý
I am a wanderer I am.
Jeff YorkÌý 13:01 Ìý
We went to the same high school. Just to figure that out. Just Oh, yeah.
BradÌý 13:06 Ìý
Yeah. Do you look familiar? No.
Jeff YorkÌý 13:09 Ìý
Generations apart.
BradÌý 13:14 Ìý
We will talk about I think I thought you went back to your high school every year. Yeah, every year.
Jeff YorkÌý 13:20 Ìý
We all love high school so much. We get together every frickin year. I'm curious, though, like so I did go back a while back and there is a lot more beer in Charleston South. So Mount Pleasant is right across the Cooper from Charleston, South Carolina is virtually unrecognizable from when I grew up there. But, you know, a lot more brewing happening in Charleston than I ever would have thought. Yeah.
Brynn KeenanÌý 13:45 Ìý
Yeah, yeah. I mean, the people traveled to Charleston from all over the world for the food. So it makes sense that, especially when craft beer is building. Yeah. It's a beautiful,
BradÌý 13:54 Ìý
it's beautiful. And the food is great. Yeah.
Jeff YorkÌý 13:57 Ìý
I'm thinking like sushi and IPAs are probably a pretty big thing in the southeast. I don't really know. I think
Brynn KeenanÌý 14:02 Ìý
so. I think people like their alcohol to go down easy in the South.
Jeff YorkÌý 14:09 Ìý
All right. Next beer we got here we got
BradÌý 14:12 Ìý
Perla negra Perla Negra, Perla negra.
Jeff YorkÌý 14:15 Ìý
I'm Mexican dark lager.
BradÌý 14:17 Ìý
I'm excited about this one.
Jeff YorkÌý 14:18 Ìý
You are much happier. Like virtually no aroma, maybe a little caramel malt kind of thing. Nice Mexican lager. That's a Mexican lager.
BradÌý 14:31 Ìý
Would you say this is a typical Mexican lager?
Brynn KeenanÌý 14:33 Ìý
I would say it's a pretty typical dark Mexican lager. Yeah.
BradÌý 14:37 Ìý
Folks, Mexican lager, we'd like it better than the patio for
Jeff YorkÌý 14:45 Ìý
the person I know this person who really did not like the patio planter. She liked this one. That's good. And everybody else likes everything. They're just easy to please.
Brynn KeenanÌý 14:52 Ìý
I'll say your thoughts on the session IPA. I'm here with dark lagers
Jeff YorkÌý 14:56 Ìý
really just don't care. Yeah, it's just like not
Brynn KeenanÌý 14:59 Ìý
the ratio of malt to aroma that I'm looking for
Jeff YorkÌý 15:05 Ìý
in this one or just
Brynn KeenanÌý 15:06 Ìý
in general. Okay, the style. Well, you
Jeff YorkÌý 15:08 Ìý
know, this like the reason Mexicans made dark Lager is they really did a bunch of German immigrants made dark lager in Mexico. And that's how this style got established there. But to me, it's always like the Germans came over to Mexico. They tried to make their German beer, then it just got really bad.
Brynn KeenanÌý 15:30 Ìý
They were like, is this the only yeast you
Jeff YorkÌý 15:35 Ìý
should not do a German accent. So Britain, what do you think about the band fish? Okay.
Brynn KeenanÌý 15:41 Ìý
Do you have a 30 minutes? Because that's how long a song lasts? Yeah. No.
BradÌý 15:51 Ìý
That's about the ratio.
Jeff YorkÌý 15:55 Ìý
All right, sorry. That's a running gag. So yeah, I mean, this is really good. It's really clean. It's like what you expect from an amber lager? It's not particularly exciting. They've given us a flight of pretty straight up typical beers here. It's well done. You know, I do like I like dark lagers, though. Like I like dunkel. Yeah. That's a different story. Yeah. I
Brynn KeenanÌý 16:13 Ìý
feel it's like it's totally different. You know, so crispy, right?
Jeff YorkÌý 16:16 Ìý
Right. Like that, Chris? Just big Slam of malt, where it's almost like a candy like thing. And they say that, but that's fine. It's a dark lager.
BradÌý 16:25 Ìý
It's Oktoberfest is awesome.
Jeff YorkÌý 16:26 Ìý
Well, right, good Oktoberfest. Yeah, it's like a huge difference between like, a lot like the other craft breweries. I don't know why they make this like, kind of, like, Duna. why? It's because people buy bonds, and drink lots of it. They make this kind of like really thin Oktoberfest. But when they make a good one, that's really good. Yeah, we gotta do a podcast and we're
BradÌý 16:44 Ìý
done. And they're
Jeff YorkÌý 16:46 Ìý
all right. Well, that's that. What do you think, Brian?
BradÌý 16:49 Ìý
I'm looking forward to the intercepts. Yeah, you're not a fan of this one. Yeah, so far these but you know what the logger that I had before the before we started recording is great.
Jeff YorkÌý 16:58 Ìý
Yeah, I have a caution for that was really good. Golden Boy golden boy, golden boy,
BradÌý 17:09 Ìý
my father was a rancher and the first horse at the ranch. His name was golden boy. So now I'm going to acquaint you that beer and goes
Jeff YorkÌý 17:18 Ìý
yeah, Palomino horse. You gotta go right away. That's right. All right. So let's try this. This intercept IPA.
BradÌý 17:25 Ìý
Alright, let's go for it. Intercept folks.
Jeff YorkÌý 17:28 Ìý
Never stopped IPA coming up. helped me out with some some news descriptors here. Brian. What do you get? Because Brad will never say what he smells.
BradÌý 17:37 Ìý
I'm wishing for bourbon. This is actually this is much better than the citrus rice.
Jeff YorkÌý 17:42 Ìý
I trust for sure. Yeah, yeah, like some orange almost a little lemony kind of thing. Which really nice. We should cheers us since we have glass. Oh, we can do that.
Brynn KeenanÌý 17:52 Ìý
This is actually what I've been drinking all night. Oh, yeah, there
Jeff YorkÌý 17:56 Ìý
we go. See we should have asked her what to drink.
Brynn KeenanÌý 18:00 Ìý
Yeah, I do. I do really like this beer. It's super
Jeff YorkÌý 18:03 Ìý
very west coast. IPA for sure. Not hazy also doesn't have like the biting like super hops added during the boil haze thing going on? Yeah, it's weird. I was just down in California and like, everywhere I went, it was like hazy IPA.
BradÌý 18:20 Ìý
Thumbs up. Oh, yeah, we're getting sideways. Overall, though, I think
Jeff YorkÌý 18:27 Ìý
people hoisting glasses.
Brynn KeenanÌý 18:29 Ìý
Yeah, like the hazy IPA thing. It's kind of like the Jin z like baggy jeans, or it's like
Jeff YorkÌý 18:40 Ìý
sister who's taking offense.
Brynn KeenanÌý 18:43 Ìý
Like, it's like, let's just move on.
Jeff YorkÌý 18:49 Ìý
As a parent of a 1618 year old who aren't wearing baggy jeans right now. I'm kind of like, remember this? Yeah. The 80s Nostalgia is gone. Now. It's 90s. Nostalgia. Yeah,
Brynn KeenanÌý 19:01 Ìý
as a decade, I never would have thought would be held to such 90s. Yeah.
Jeff YorkÌý 19:06 Ìý
Yeah, yeah. There was some good music. I don't remember it. But anyway, it was good. So IPA really nice, super clean, nice West Coast style IPA. Yeah, it's nice to say about it. I mean, it's,
BradÌý 19:21 Ìý
yeah, you know what, and I'm a bad judge for these beers, because I have a lager person. And so they just don't fit what I like.
Jeff YorkÌý 19:27 Ìý
Yeah, so you just gotta go order another lager. Yeah, so Brad's had a problem with beer lately. Beyond whipped cream. Oh, yeah. So
BradÌý 19:35 Ìý
the biggest problem with beer is until we started doing this podcast, I was always drinking bourbon. Jeff right. muskies. And we did that, and an occasional Martini. And so all sudden, we started going to these great breweries, and I looked on the scale last week, I gained 15 pounds. And I couldn't think of anything in my life that changed other than Hey, him. So I'm back to Bourbon. Yeah.
Jeff YorkÌý 20:04 Ìý
That we were going to that many breweries is that you switch to drinking.
BradÌý 20:08 Ìý
So at home, I go in and we go to a brewery I bring a six pack home. And that just you guys look at me. I'm not just a one beer person. Come on. And yeah, so right now I'm back to Bourbon. By the way, it's never just give up drinking for a couple of months. No, it's just which one has the fewest calories. You're like any more balanced. That's hilarious. So
Jeff YorkÌý 20:30 Ìý
tell us a little more about the process and start your business. I mean, this isn't just like, I mean, you guys are raising money and stuff, right? I mean, this is not a small like, hey, let's help out some local Colorado.
Speaker 4Ìý 20:43 Ìý
Yeah, it's so we closed. Well, we're over committing around right now through an SPV. But we closed our first 600,000. Yeah, the end of the year. It's awesome. Thanks. Yeah. Yeah.
BradÌý 20:59 Ìý
That's a big deal. What do you use the money for? Or is it for growth? What do you what do you actually need money for?
Brynn KeenanÌý 21:05 Ìý
Yeah, so we started raising in June, and at that stage, it was just me. So somebody had built the MVP of the software for equity. And no bugs were getting fixed. No features. And I was selling this absolute pile of trash to as many breweries as possible.
Jeff YorkÌý 21:27 Ìý
This person, she is
Brynn KeenanÌý 21:29 Ìý
awesome. I was just like, so critical, you know, and I see how good it is now. And it's like, I can't believe that many people bought it.
Jeff YorkÌý 21:37 Ìý
Isn't that amazing? You found a real gap in the market. People needed something.
Brynn KeenanÌý 21:41 Ìý
Exactly. And they and they, they did love it.
BradÌý 21:44 Ìý
Yeah. All the breweries who were they loved your piece of crap they loved. Yeah.
Brynn KeenanÌý 21:51 Ìý
And, yeah, and we did that. Because you know, it's so much easier to raise money once you have revenue coming in. So I sold it to 15 breweries, and then we started raising. And that was huge. It made it so much easier.
BradÌý 22:04 Ìý
And we've pushed up there, you had customers and then raised what a concept.
Jeff YorkÌý 22:10 Ìý
Out there, pay any attention to this, you can totally raise money without any cost.
BradÌý 22:15 Ìý
The customers are key. Right. And the feedback that they probably gave you was a credible
Jeff YorkÌý 22:20 Ìý
evidence that you had this like MVP out there and people were buying it up, right? That's,
Brynn KeenanÌý 22:24 Ìý
that's awesome. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, it made it it made the whole process. So much easier than it would have been without that. And so we raising was safe. So it was rolling, we could start spending the money. We hired a software developer, we hired a salesperson, we're hiring a marketing person, soon here. Those are the three key positions that we needed to drive the product drive growth
BradÌý 22:48 Ìý
and sales, keep your cost down and make it simple. Yeah, as long as you close that round. Yeah. Yeah.
Brynn KeenanÌý 22:55 Ìý
Absolutely. It was great. You know, you know, people have mixed feelings about raising money, but it accelerated our growth. It made it more fun. And it made it a product that I'm proud of,
BradÌý 23:05 Ìý
and you don't have to eat ramen anymore,
Brynn KeenanÌý 23:07 Ìý
and I don't have to eat ramen anymore.
BradÌý 23:11 Ìý
Yeah. Awesome.
Jeff YorkÌý 23:13 Ìý
So did you? Do you ever think you would be an entrepreneur when you were washing kegs and study? Your degrees in microbiology? Is Biochemistry, biochemistry? I'm
BradÌý 23:23 Ìý
sorry. That's okay.
Jeff YorkÌý 23:24 Ìý
Most people studying biochemistry, at least I know of are usually thinking about career as an entrepreneur. I mean, was that something you were thinking about?
Brynn KeenanÌý 23:32 Ìý
So I would I was I was working in a lab. Right. And I was working at Holy City, bring it
Jeff YorkÌý 23:40 Ìý
to Charleston, Charleston, I love it.
Brynn KeenanÌý 23:46 Ìý
It's a great place and
Jeff YorkÌý 23:48 Ìý
my high school friends. I want to ask you this. When you go hang out with your friends from high school in Charleston? Yeah. Is it all the exact same people at every party you go to? And they all went to Wando? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. So this is the thing like about the south like the real south, people don't expand their social circles. Wow. That's crazy.
BradÌý 24:09 Ìý
I'm hoping Joel plugs in Dueling Banjos right now. No.
Jeff YorkÌý 24:19 Ìý
You heard our podcast interest theme song.
Brynn KeenanÌý 24:24 Ìý
Yeah, but I was working at Holy City. And I was looking at PhD programs. And I was like, gosh, that's a lot of life to spend on something. And I was talking to my lab partner. And I was like, now back
Brynn KeenanÌý 24:44 Ìý
to my love partner, and I was like, you know, I think what I'm gonna do instead is go build a lab for this brewery because they need one. And then once I learned how to do it, I'll do it for other breweries. That's awesome. And I'll just go around and that'll just be my job. I'll just build labs for breweries and he He was like, if that were a job, somebody would be doing it. Yeah, I texted him the other day. And I was like, Hey, we're doing check it out.
Jeff YorkÌý 25:15 Ìý
Very nice. So you've like, really? I don't know, to me you epitomize the whole idea of take what you know, you know what you could actually do? And then turn it into a venture. And just but you have an insight. I don't have my phone because you know, our marketing manager who introduces the podcast, Stephanie has said, Jeff, you have to give the phone to someone and they have to take pictures, just
BradÌý 25:36 Ìý
like the new Eric, you have an Eric's laid up with a torn Achilles. Yeah. So give them an actual insight.
Jeff YorkÌý 25:42 Ìý
I think Britain is a great example. Right? Like people who, I think we have this misconception that people like No, from the time they're born, they're gonna be an entrepreneur. And they're just obsessed with like, I'm gonna be an entrepreneur, and then the lemonade stand. We've all known people who they think they're going to be an entrepreneur, and they have all these ideas. And they're always the idea person. And it's like, yeah, okay, but they never do anything. And they don't actually know anything about anything. Whereas I think Brent is an example of someone who actually has some pretty deep knowledge on a topic, had a passion about a industry she cared about, and saw a market opportunity and then saw who she was what you could do and actually execute,
BradÌý 26:18 Ìý
and she couldn't see it. Right. She took a small product and tested and had feedback with it. Right. So I think, I mean, that's amazing. So
Brynn KeenanÌý 26:26 Ìý
you guys can come back anytime.
BradÌý 26:29 Ìý
gratulations. This is a great success story. And I think it's a great example, though, Jeff, you're right about actually the the process that you nailed the process. You did it right. You didn't get ahead of yourself. Customers. Yeah, you had a source for you.
Jeff YorkÌý 26:42 Ìý
Thank you, that was just amazing how often people think like entrepreneurship is about raising money, not about getting custom.
BradÌý 26:50 Ìý
Well, you know what, though, Jeff, that's funny to us. But actually, I think that that's a common misconception. I think we can ask around the room, even if I don't know if folks in here are starting businesses or not. But if you think that your biggest hurdle is raising money, you got a problem. Right, right there you have a problem. And I think that that's really important, an important takeaway from this group, and anybody that we work
Jeff YorkÌý 27:11 Ìý
with, absolutely. I mean, it's, sometimes there's brief blips in time, such as the.com, boom, where you can just raise money, but it doesn't work out very well as many of my investments during that time period I've shown. So anyway, that's been awesome. Yeah, thanks. So people will find you. They can just google grist analytics. I checked out your website earlier tonight. It's very nicely done. I appreciate that. And you guys are based here in Â鶹ӰԺ. We are Yeah. Very cool. We love talking to older entrepreneurs. And what to say about this twisted time, like so. I gotta say, I'm gonna say this an awesome community brewery. They have an amazing atmosphere. patios. Great. You don't have to get whipped cream on your phone. I really liked this IPA. I really liked the coach. But I would go with the IPA.
Brynn KeenanÌý 28:03 Ìý
Yeah, I agree. 100% that I'm going with a
Jeff YorkÌý 28:06 Ìý
lager. But you're drinking a lager? What's
BradÌý 28:09 Ìý
the bartender? What's What's the logger
Jeff YorkÌý 28:13 Ìý
logger. So if you want a logger, get the Eldorado logger. If you want a ale get the IP intercept. And if you want something in between, actually, I quite like golden boy. Anyway, it's been awesome hanging out. That's it for great distillation. I'm Kostas Brad. We're cheers. Cheers. Yeah.
Stefani HÌý 28:39 Ìý
We hope you enjoyed this episode of Creative Distillation recorded in front of a live audience at in Â鶹ӰԺ, Colorado. Learn more and order merch at . Learn more about Bryn Keenan on her and . We'd love to hear your feedback and ideas email us at CDpodcast@colorado.edu, and please be sure to cubscribe to Creative Distillation wherever you get your podcasts. The Creative Distillation podcast is made possible by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Â鶹ӰԺ's Leeds School of Business. For more information, please visit deming.colorado.edu. That's D-E-M-ING and click the Creative Distillation link. Creative Distillation is produced by Joel Davis at Analog Digital Arts. Our theme music is "Whiskey Before Breakfast" performed by your humble hosts, Brad and Jeff. Thanks for listening. We'll see you back here for another episode of Creative Distillation. If you've enjoyed this episode, you may also enjoy Leeds Business Insights, check them out at .