← Business Wars
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- [00:00]
Narrator (David Brown)
Audible subscribers can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free right now. Join Audible today by downloading the Audible app. It's January 2, 2017, at the offices of the investment firm Point72 in Stamford, Connecticut. Bill Shufelt pulls up a chair in a glass walled meeting room. Shufelt has the broad frame of a former college football star and is seen as confident and outgoing, the kind of guy who winds up the center of attention at corporate events and parties. But today he's full of nervous energy. He has a big announcement to make and he's not sure how it will go down. Shufelt's boss stands at the front of the room to kick off the team's first meeting of the new year. All right everyone, welcome back. Hope you all had some good time off, didn't hit the eggnog too hard. Anyone have any major epiphanies over the break? The room chuckles and for a second Shufelt considers letting the moment pass because once he says what he's about to say, there's no taking it back. But then he raises his hand. Actually, I do. Everyone turns to face him. Schufelt takes a deep breath, then says the most important words of his career. I didn't want you to all hear this from hr, but I gave my notice this morning. I'm leaving the company. What? What's this about? You're kidding me. Shufelt has been with Point72 for six years, focusing on health care stocks and doing well. His boss tries to keep his composure. Well, we'll be sorry to lose you, Bill. Mind if I ask where you're heading? Those cowboys at Citadel aren't stealing you, are they? Shu Felt shakes his head, then steals his nerves and finally shares the idea that's been burning inside him. No, I'm going out on my own. I'm going to start a brewery that makes non alcoholic beer. What's that about Kidding me? Takes a moment for the other traders to realize this isn't some kind of post Christmas joke. One of Shu Felt colleagues leans across the table. Wait, you're serious? I mean, I mean it's great that you don't drink at all, but do you really think there's a market for no alcohol beer? Most of that stuff tastes awful. Yes, exactly. I've been researching it and I think that's the problem. Most non alcoholic beer is undrinkable. I'm going to change that. The colleague nods, still unconvinced. Well, have you talked to Jackie about this? Shufelt smiles. He understands the implication he's about to walk away from a very healthy paycheck to sell a product that, as far as anyone in the room can tell, nobody really wants. His colleague is asking him if his wife is truly okay with this decision. Shufelt looks his friend right in the eye, suddenly feeling much more certain. Jackie's the one who's making me do it. At the moment, Shufelt's plan sounds almost ridiculous, because in 2017, non alcoholic beer isn't a booming new category. It's a punchline. The company that Shufelt's about to start will be called Athletic Brewing, and he's betting everything on his belief that millions of people want great beer without the buzz. But brewers have been chasing that idea for decades. So the real question is, what makes Shufeld think he's the one who can crack it? You know that moment when you order food and suddenly everyone around you gets very interested in your dinner?
- [03:44]
Podcast Host (Leon Nayfak)
Yeah.
- [03:44]
Narrator (David Brown)
That's what GrubHub does. Gives you deals so good you'll have to guard them. Gold Days of grubhub plus is here. Four weeks of grubhub's best offers all month long in May, only for grubhub plus members. And if you're not a member, you can sign up now for just 99 cents a month for six months. That's 90% off Grubhub members. Auto renews and terms apply. Sign up now on the app or@grubhub.com plus gold. Don't miss it. This message comes from Betterment. Dan Egan, VP of Behavioral Finance and Investing, explains how Betterment takes the time consuming work out of smart investing. I grew up learning about finance and investing myself and realizing that I needed to reinvest dividends and rebalance my portfolio and if there was an opportunity to
- [04:30]
Podcast Host (Raza Jafre)
tax loss over time.
- [04:32]
Narrator (David Brown)
And then I realized that I was doing all of these things that were pretty straightforward to implement.
- [04:36]
Podcast Host (Raza Jafre)
I just needed to spend my time doing them.
- [04:39]
Narrator (David Brown)
Betterment automates those same good practices so that I know I'm doing portfolio management and goal based planning in a way that makes sense and is responsible without me having to spend hours of my life doing it. Learn more@betterment.com Investing involves risk performance, not guaranteed. Betterment does not offer tax advice. TOH may not be suitable for all customers. Low learn more@betterment.com TLH terms. From audible originals I'm david brown and this is business wars. When Bill Shufelt walked away from a high flying finance career to start brewing non alcoholic beer, it sounded like madness. A business plan built around removing a product's main selling point. But almost a decade later, his startup, Athletic Brewing Company has become one of the flag bearers of the non alcoholic beer revolution, a movement that reflects a huge generational shift in how people relate to alcohol. Today, Athletic is valued at more than $800 million, and it competes head to head with multinational beer giants like Heineken, whose rival Brew Heineken 00, has also been a leader in the zero proof revolution. But Schufeldt's journey didn't begin with a grand mission to change the dream drinking culture. It began with something much more personal. A desire to change himself. This is Episode one Brewing the Impossible. It's 2013, four years before Bill Shufelt quits his job. It's 5am and he's already halfway through his usual morning workout, running on a treadmill before heading into the office. Only today, something feels off. Shufelt feels far more out of breath than he should be. His lungs burn. His legs ache. Anyone who works out knows that sometimes you just have an off day. But this isn't just one bad morning. It's been going on for weeks. Shufelt was a star football player at Middlebury College in Vermont and now runs ultra marathons. Competition gives him a rush, the same kind he gets from his career in finance. Shufelt always wants to give 100%, which is why this worries him. He's only been running hard for 20 minutes, but he's already huffing and puffing. He has a race in a few weeks, and now he's wondering if he'll even be able to finish it. Shufelt steps off the treadmill and leans forward, hands on his knees, trying to recover. When he straightens up, he catches a glimpse of himself in the gym's mirror, and suddenly a thought flashes through his mind. It's the alcohol. His job as a trader means entertaining clients at least three or four times a week, and that usually means booze. Plus, Shufelt is a sociable guy. There's also hangouts with friends, date nights with his wife, birthdays, bachelor parties. In fact, there's rarely a night when he isn't drinking something. It's not that he feels out of control or has a problem with alcohol, but he knows that when something is slowing him down, he doesn't like it. So right there in the gym, still catching his breath, he makes a decision. He'll stop drinking for a month to see how it feels. At first, Shufelt treats the whole thing like an experiment. But within a few weeks, he begins to notice real changes. His work and his workouts improve so dramatically that he decides to carry on. Three months later, he still hasn't had a drink and he feels great. He's sleeping better, his mood has lifted and he's feeling more focused and productive than ever before. Shu felt worried that giving up alcohol would make him stand out socially. The people would ask questions or assume perhaps something was wrong. It could even affect his career. But to his huge relief, his work colleagues are supportive, but Schufelt's about to discover that the rest of the financial industry isn't always so forward thinking. Sometime later, Shufelt is having dinner at an upscale steakhouse. The food has just arrived and the waiter smiles at the group sitting around the table. Can I get you gentlemen another round of drinks? One of the guys looks around enthusiastically, his cheeks already flushed from the first bottle of wine on top of several pre dinner cocktails. What do you think, fellas? Another bottle of the red. Shu felt smiles and beckons the waiter over. We'll have another bottle of the Barolo and a Diet Coke for me. The guy who asked for more wine catches this and looks over. No wine for you, huh? What's the matter, you crashed your car or something? The joke lands with a dull thud. Despite himself, Shufelt feels his face flush with irritation. Nah, I just have a busy day tomorrow. Besides, too much alcohol affects my ultramarathon times. The slight awkwardness of the moment is smoothed over when the waiter returns with a bottle of Barolo and Shufelt's soda. But Schufelt can't shake his annoyance. Not only has he been singled out for not drinking, but as he looks down at the $200 Tomahawk steak in front of him, he suddenly feels foolish for having to pair it with a Diet Coke. This is his second soda of the evening, and the artificial sweetness is beginning to taste sickly in his mouth. Ordering soft drinks in a nice restaurant always makes him feel like a six year old sitting at the grown ups table. Still, he doesn't want to let his irritation show, so he keeps his expression neutral, takes a bite of steak and returns to the conversation buzzing around him. But that frustration lingers in the back of his mind. It's 2014 and Schufelt and his wife, Jackie, are walking along a Caribbean beach as the sun sets. They've had the perfect vacation day, swimming in the sea and relaxing on the white sand. And now they're looking forward to dinner.
- [11:32]
Jackie (Bill Shufelt's wife)
So what do you think? Shall we head back to the hotel? Or we could try the Crab Shack. It's supposed to have the best Seafood on the bay.
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Narrator (David Brown)
Shufelt doesn't answer. Instead, he stares out over the waves, clearly somewhere else in his head.
- [11:48]
Jackie (Bill Shufelt's wife)
Belle, you there?
- [11:49]
Narrator (David Brown)
Huh? Oh, sorry. Yeah, let's go for the seafood, I guess.
- [11:54]
Jackie (Bill Shufelt's wife)
You okay? What's. What's going on?
- [11:57]
Narrator (David Brown)
By now, Jackie has learned to recognize when something is troubling her husband. It's just, you know, we're gonna go to the restaurant and I'm gonna have, what, a virgin pina colada? Then the food will come, and I'll either have to get another one, which gets kind of gross, or switch to a Coke or seltzer, which just gets boring. Honestly, I don't know what I wouldn't give for a really nice cold beer right now. I don't want to drink alcohol again or anything, but I do feel kind of silly always ordering sodas. I just wish there was a really excellent beer with no alcohol in it so I could have that taste again. Somebody should make one.
- [12:33]
Jackie (Bill Shufelt's wife)
Why don't you?
- [12:34]
Narrator (David Brown)
Schufelt is so lost in his own thoughts, he almost misses his wife's words. What?
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Jackie (Bill Shufelt's wife)
Why don't you? If you want a beer with no alcohol, why don't you make one yourself? People start businesses all the time. You're smart. You could do it.
- [12:50]
Narrator (David Brown)
Shufelt stops in his tracks, a new vision already beginning to form in his mind. Later that year, Shufelt is sitting at his kitchen table long past midnight, bathed in the glow of his laptop. Ever since he and Jackie returned from their Caribbean vacation, the idea of creating a high quality non alcoholic beer has taken over every spare minute of his life. He's still working at point 72 and hitting the gym every morning. But now when he gets home, he dives into his research every night, trying to understand why non alcoholic beer has always been so disappointing. Jackie, who is studying for her mba, has taught him how to analyze potential market opportunities. And combined with his own background in forensically scrutinizing companies, a fascinating picture starts to come together. Shufelt learns that non alcoholic beer first gained traction in the US after alcohol was banned in the 1920s. With their products now illegal, many breweries survived by producing non alcoholic beer, known back then as near beer. To make it, they'd brew regular beer, then boil off the alcohol. But this boiling process also tended to destroy the flavor of the beer itself. The result was something that resembled beer, but tasted terrible. And crucially for Schufeld, no one in the US has really updated this process for nearly a century. Back in 1990, Anheuser Busch, the brewery behind Budweiser and Michelob introduced a non alcoholic beer called Odoul's, brewed using a similar method. But Odules never really took off. By 2017, O' Toole's had become that dusty bottle at the back of the cooler that everyone has kind of forgotten about. But while this has all been useful research for Schufeld, what really captures his attention are the numbers he's looking at right now. He's been gathering data about what people think about non alcoholic beer, and the results are blowing his mind. According to industry data, non alcoholic beer accounts for just 0.3% of beer sales in the U.S. and yet over half of the people he surveyed say that if there were a great tasting, non alcoholic option, they would buy it. That is an enormous gap. Shufelt realizes there's a huge potential market out there that the major breweries simply aren't serving, maybe because they've never bothered to imagine it exists. As he stares at the data on his laptop screen, Shufelt feels a wave of excitement wash over him. Because for the first time, the idea that began as a casual complaint on a beach vacation is starting to look like something bigger. Maybe even a once in a generation opportunity. It's New Year's Day, 2017, more than two years after Schufeld and Jackie's Caribbean vacation. Since then, Schufelt has become a man possessed. Every spare moment has been devoted to investigating what it will take to make a high quality, non alcoholic beer and how it might transform the entire sector so that not drinking is no longer a source of stigma, but instead a healthy, positive lifestyle choice. That evening, he sits down with his wife and makes his pitch, outlining the huge gap he sees in the market that's just waiting to be filled. Jackie listens carefully and then gives him the same answer she gave him on the beach. Go for it. But Shufelt wants to be clear with her about what that really means. This is not a side hustle. It'll mean quitting his job, walking away from his Wall street salary and risking everything they have. And there's another complication. He's never brewed beer before, not even with a home brewing kit. Now he's talking about setting up a commercial brewery to make a product that, for all he knows, might not even be possible to make. Once again, Jackie tells him to go for it. She doesn't want to be sitting here in 20 years, listening to how he never followed his dreams and wondering what would have happened if he tried. For a moment, Shufelt feels almost overwhelmed by the depth of his wife's unconditional support and belief in him. He embraces her, knowing that the next day he's going to walk into work, quit his job, and throw everything at a new adventure that could make or break his family's future.
- [17:54]
Podcast Host (Raza Jafre)
I'm Raza Jafre and in the new season of the Spy who, we tell the story of Dr. A Q Khan, the spy who sold nuclear secrets to Iran. He was the scientist spy who stole nuclear technology from the Netherlands and used them to give Pakistan a bomb. But he didn't stop there. He became a black market atomic salesman, the fix it man for rogue states seeking nuclear weapons, including Iran, Libya and North Korea. And that left the CIA and MI6 in a race against time to put him out of business before the world's most wayward regimes get hold of the world's most destructive weapons. Follow the Spy who Now Wherever you listen to podcasts, you can also listen to the full season of the Spy who Sold Nuclear Secrets to Iran early and ad free on Audible.
- [18:54]
Podcast Host (Leon Nayfak)
I'm Leon Nayfak, best known as the host and co creator of podcasts Slow Burn, Fiasco and Think Twice Michael Jackson. I'm here to tell you about my show, Final Jerry Springer, whose name is synonymous with outrageous guests, taboo confessions and vicious onstage fights. But before the Jerry Springer show became a symbol of cultural decline, its namesake was a popular Midwestern politician and a serious minded idealist with lofty ambitions. Through dozens of intimate and revealing interviews with those who knew Springer best, I examined Springer's lifelong struggle to to reconcile his TV Persona with his political dreams and aspirations. Named one of the best podcasts of the year by the New Yorker and Rolling Stone, Final Jerry Springer is a story about choices, how we make them, how we justify them to ourselves, and how we transcend them. Or don't. Listen wherever you get your podcasts or binge the whole series ad free right now on Audible. Start your Audible subscription in the Audible app.
- [20:05]
Narrator (David Brown)
It's February 2017 and Bill Shufelt is in trouble. It's been six weeks since he left his lucrative career in finance to follow his dream of creating a high quality non alcoholic beer based on his market research. He figured he would do what almost all craft beer companies do, which is to partner with a contract brewer who will help him develop the recipe and actually produce the beer. The only problem is that every single contract brewer he contacts laughs at him. They say there's simply no way to make a non alcoholic beer that doesn't taste like garbage. They want nothing to do with it. Schufeldt tries to explain that brewing brewers in Germany have developed new techniques to create non boozy beer that actually tastes great. But the answer is always the same. No way. At the beginning of this process, he put a map of the United States on his wall covered in pins, each one signifying a potential partner. But gradually, each pin has come off one by one, and now the map is virtually empty. Several of the contact bridges brewers even rubbed salt in the wound, telling him with a smirk that they're doing him a favor by saying no. Because there's simply zero demand for non alcoholic beer. And if he keeps pursuing this idea, he's going to lose all his money. Now, when people in any industry say you can't get there from here, they might really be telling you you're onto something. Perhaps you remember our series on FedEx. It too faced disbelief and mockery from people on the inside. Of course, it always makes sense to ask, if this is such a great idea, why aren't others doing it? But sometimes the most valuable signal in business isn't excitement. It's the one flashing, give it up, there's nothing here. Instead of giving it up, Shufelt doubles down. If he can't find a contract brewer to work with, he'll just have to do it himself. And that means raising money, finding a master brewer, and building an entire new brewery from scratch. A few weeks later, Shufelt is staring down at the blue glow of his phone, steeling himself before answering. Hello, Bill Schufelt speaking. Hi, Bill, it's John Walker here calling from Santa Fe. Nice to finally connect. Schufelt feels a surge of excitement and nerves. John Walker is a master brewer who has won numerous awards for his original and daring approach to craft beer. After being rebuffed by every commercial brewery he approached, Shufelt has been advertising for a master brewer to come in and help him develop a new kind of alcohol free beer. The only problem is he gets the exact same response every time. As soon as they hear the words non alcoholic beer, they laugh and hang up. So Schufelt has been forced to resort to a little underhanded trick. He began posting job ads without mentioning he was working on non alcoholic beer. Instead. His ads talk about how it's a chance to explore the most innovative sector in craft beer. Now he finally has a talented master brewer on the line, but everything depends on depends on keeping him there long enough to explain the idea. Hi, John, thanks so much for getting in touch. But before we start, promise me one thing. Okay. No matter what, don't say no right away. Whatever we Talk about. Just take the weekend to think about it first, okay? Okay. All right. Well, now, what I'm trying to create is a brand new non alcoholic craft beer. Sorry, wait a minute. Did you just say non alcoholic? You mean like o'? Tools? That stuff's awful. Thanks, but I think it. Now, come on. You said you'd hear me out. Shu felt can feel Walker slipping away. That same knee jerk rejection he's come to know so well. But he has to keep Walker interested. He's running out of options. I'm not talking about making another o'. Tooles. I agree. It's swill. What I'm talking about is something brand new. A genuinely great tasting beer that just happens not to have alcohol. Something you'd actually be proud to drink and proud to make. Huh? Is that even possible? Well, not using the old methods where you make a regular beer, then boil a life out of it. But I've been talking to some master brewers over in Germany and they figured out new ways of approaching the process. There's a whole new world of techniques out there, but no one over here even knows about it. Germany, huh? Well, they do know their beer. It's just. Do people even want non alcoholic beer? Shufelt can feel the change in Walker's tone and knows it's time to play his ace card. That's just the thing. I've been doing market research and 55% of people say they would regularly drink a no alcohol beer if it tasted great. But we don't need to capture 55% of the market. We just need 1%. The US beer market is worth about $115 billion a year. Do you know what 1% of that is? A lot. Exactly. This is a space the big breweries have missed and is there for the taking. Think about it. Budweiser, Brooklyn Brewery, all those guys, they all chase the one hour a day when people drink beer. But what about the other 23 hours? What about all those moments when you'd love a beer but you don't want to get drunk? That's all up for grabs. Well, listen, Bill, this is all a lot to take in, but I did promise to hear you out. So give me the weekend to think about it and I'll get back to you on Monday. Shufelt feels a wave of relief. It's not a yes, but it's also not a no. And right now that's progress. Now, I want to underscore something here so it doesn't slip away. One thing experienced founders learn is that you don't always need to dominate a market to build a huge business. Non alcoholic beer barely registers in the current market. But Schufeldt isn't pitching that market. He's pitching the whole US beer industry. You capture even 1% of that and you've got a massive company. It's Sunday, two days later, and Shufelt is still at his computer, having worked through the weekend. A new email flashes up on his screen. It's from John Walker. Shufelt steadies himself because it feels like everything is riding on what comes next. He clicks it open. Hi, Bill. I was gonna say no, but I see it. It sounds like such a fun, innovative challenge, and it seems like a wide open area with positive impact. Ha ha. Shufeld jumps up from his chair and shouts in triumph. For the first time since quitting his job, something has finally gone his way. Several months later, Schufelt stands inside the makeshift brewing facility that Walker has set up in his parents garage in Connecticut. The smell of hops fills the air. After their call, Walker moved his entire family from New Mexico to Connecticut, where Shufelt lives. The two of them have been experimenting with no alcohol brews ever since. From the start, Schufelt and Walker made one absolute commitment to themselves. They would never, ever compromise on taste or quality. Instead of boiling or filtering out the alcohol from standard beer, they would find a way to brew beer without alcohol. They started from scratch, methodically tweaking each element of grains, sugars, temperature and acidity levels until they figured out what worked. But that commitment has meant a long, slow process and a lot of disappointments along the way. Walker stands in front of a five gallon Gatorade jug that contains his latest experiment. He pours a glass for Schufelt and himself. The two clink glasses and each take a swig. And then they grimace. The brew is sour, tangy and vile. It's an improvement on some of their past disasters, but it's nowhere near the quality they're both aiming for. Shufelt forces a smile as he dumps the rest of his glass into the sink. He jokes that it still needs a little work, but beneath his forced humor, Shufelt feels a rising panic. When Walker moved across the country to join him, he had set out to raise $3 million in initial funding for this project. Compared to the sums he used to deal with trading health care stocks, it's a tiny amount. But so far, investors have reacted in the exact same way as the contract breweries did. They take one look at the tiny size of the alcohol free beer market and walk away. The pitches are made even harder by the fact that Shufelt doesn't have a sample product for them to taste. He and Walker believe it's possible to create a great zero alcohol craft beer. Thing is, they can't prove it yet. Meanwhile, Schufelt is burning through his family's savings. If they don't get a breakthrough soon, he's going to be in real trouble. Later that year, Shufelt is sitting at his kitchen table with his head in his hands. Jackie watches quietly as her husband explains just how badly the business is going. Not only have he and Walker failed to create a drinkable product, he is struggling to get any investment, let alone the $3 million he's aiming for. Shufelt sighs and looks up at his wife. Oh, I should go back into finance. Take the steady paycheck. At least I could pay John back for all the time he spent on this project already. Jackie doesn't say anything. Instead, she walks over to the bookshelf and pulls down a well worn paperback. She slides the book across the table. It's the Alchemist by the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho.
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Jackie (Bill Shufelt's wife)
Hey, remember how you used to read this book to me when we first met? You said it was your favorite book and that you read it over and over again. Remember the line about how when you follow your true dream, the entire universe conspires to help you? Well, you're not quitting now. You're going to keep pushing and it's going to work.
- [30:51]
Narrator (David Brown)
Shufelt appreciates the encouragement, but while these words are inspiring, he knows that the Marketplace is unforgiving. 70% of startups fail within their first five years and unless something changes soon, his business will become one of them. It's winter 2017, and in suburban Connecticut, Bill Shufelt is ready to test John Walker's latest brew. Walker pours a pint from a five gallon Gatorade jug. For months they've been trying to produce a non alcoholic golden ale that passes their taste test, but every time the result has fallen short of their dream pint. Walker hands him a glass of hazy golden beer that's topped with a thin white head. Shufelt raises it to his lips. He takes another sip, then smiles. The brew in Shufelt's hands tastes crisp and fresh, but with a citrusy zest. The flavor is complex, the initial zing followed by an earthy, almost spicy aftertaste. In short, it's everything a top level craft ale should be. Shufelt looks over at Walker, who just nods while grinning enthusiastically. Walker's already tried it. Shufelt drains the rest of his glass. This is the breakthrough they've been waiting for. Their new brew will soon get a name, Upside Dawn. And so will their company. After consulting a branding agency, they select the name Athletic Brewing. Not only does it speak to the company's courting of fitness fans, but they also feel Athletic is a name that will be easy to hear clearly in a noisy bar. The brewing is not the only breakthrough. Schufelt's also making headway with getting investment capital. A few months earlier, a buddy from Middlebury College organized a dinner with Shufelt and four other alums. Shufelt made an impassioned pitch and by the end of dinner, each of them agreed to put in $5,000. Now, 25,000 is a long ways off from the 3 million Shufelt is aiming for. But it's a crucial first step and it inspires Shufelt to change his strategy. Instead of chasing large investments from financiers and angel investors, he starts raising small amounts from private investors, often friends and family. Eventually, check. I check. Shufelt draws together a pool of 66 individual investors and gets close enough to his 3 million dollar target to get the business going. He and Walker build a 10,000 square foot production facility in Stratford, Connecticut, and Athletic Brewing is officially born. But now that they have beer and investors, they need drinkers. Athletics starts out like most craft beer companies with a small scale setup, turning out artisanal batches of lagers and IPAs, trying to figure out what works. In addition to Upside dawn, they create Run Wild, their flagship ipa. They also do occasional specialty batches, which allows them to test the market and gives Walker the chance to flex his creative muscles. Shufelt knows he'll have to go through the same process with customers as he did with Walker and his investors, changing their perception of non alcoholic beer from the sad, dusty bottle at the back of a barroom fridge to something exciting, liberating and aspirational. On one level, that's a classic move. Redefine the context so you're pitching what feels like a positive choice instead of a compromise. But in this case, Shufelt isn't just pitching a drink. He's trying to force a reset in how people think about an entire category of adult beverages. That's a much bigger lift than it might seem on the surface. But now Shufelt's key question is where to start making this pitch. Then he realizes something. He needs to start with himself. He is the target customer, a career oriented, goals focused achiever who loves work, fitness and sports. And so Shufelt begins getting up at 4am and driving out to Ironman events, Spartan races, 5k runs and every other sort of endurance event he can find, and handing out free samples of athletics brightly colored cans. Once the athletes can be convinced to try it, the response is overwhelmingly positive. They love it. Not only do athletics craft ales taste great, the lack of alcohol means it also contains far fewer calories than regular beers and many soft drinks too. Athletics core brand message is is about liberation, right? This is a beer you can drink after running a marathon. It's a beer you can drink at a work function when you want to keep a clear head. Heck, it's a beer you can even drink at work. The message Athletic's sending is about changing the perception of non alcoholic beer. It's no longer a substitute for normal beer when you can't drink. It's a whole new option for when you want to drink. No matter what time of day or what goals you want to accomplish. The free samples at endurance events seed interest. Slowly, words start spreading. Orders begin rolling in. And here Athletic has an edge. Because of drinking age laws, there are restrictions on selling regular beer online, especially when shipping it across state lines. But as an alcohol free beverage, none of these restrictions apply. Plus, when you buy regular beer, up to 15% of the price comes from state and federal alcohol taxes. But of course, these taxes don't apply to athletics brews. Even so, Schufeldt prices Athletic's beer close to premium craft beer. He wants Athletic to be associated with upwardly mobile, aspirational craft beer brands, companies like Samuel Adams or Sierra Nevada, which drove the craft beer revolution in the early 2000s. But she felt, knows that for Athletic to really grow, they can't just sell their product online. They need shelf space in retail stores. So once again, Shufelt starts by thinking about himself as the typical Athletic customer. He thinks about where he shops for groceries and quickly zeroes in on Whole Foods as his Target store. He walks into his local Whole Foods and makes his pitch, only to be told he has to talk to the regional buyer in Brooklyn. So Schufeldt loads his car up with samples and sets off for New York. He knows this will be a make or break meeting. If he can convince Whole Foods to stock Athletic, it could become a nationally recognized brand and his unlikely idea might finally have a chance to succeed. But if they say no, Athletic might never grow beyond being a quirky, artisanal local brewery. And Shufeld may have to start wondering whether the brewers who laughed at him were right. Follow Business wars on the Audible app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen to all episodes of Business wars ad free by joining Audible from Audible Originals. This is Episode one of Athletic Brewing and the NA Beer Revolution for Business Wars. A quick note about recreations you've been hearing. In most cases, we can't know exactly what was said. Those scenes are dramatizations, but they are based on historical research. I'm your Host, David Brown. J.S. raffaele of Yellow Ant wrote this story. Research by Marina Watson Voice acting by Chloe Elmore. Our senior producers are Jenny Blume and Emily Frost. Karen Lowe is our producer emeritus. Fact checking by Gabrielle Drolaine Our professional producer is Tristan Donovan of Yellow Hand. Our Managing Producer is Desi Blalock. Kyle Randall is our lead Sound designer. Sound design by Ryan Potesta Executive Producer for Audible Jenny Lauer Beckman, Head of Creative Development at Audible Kate Navin, Head of Audible Originals North America Marshall Louie Chief Content Officer Rachel Gyaudzin Copyright 2026 by Audible Originals, LLC Sound Recording Copyright 202026 by Audible Originals LL.