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- [00:00]
John Davidson
What's up, guys? JD Here. And on today's show, it is a Making it classic. My conversation with Manjeet Minhas. This is a fan favorite. It Originally aired in September 2022. If you don't know Manjeet, she is a rock star of a businesswoman entrepreneur, built one of the world's largest independent breweries, hundreds of millions in revenue, and how she got there. It is a crazy story. You guys are going to love this episode. That's coming up in just a sec. If you're a fan of this podcast, make sure to leave a rating and review wherever you're listening. Apple, Spotify, YouTube, that's how I know to keep making this stuff. And to get my best stuff to your inbox, head over to JohnDavids.com now, let's get to the show. You're listening to Making it with John Davidson. How would you describe what you do? What is your company right now?
- [00:56]
Manjeet Minhas
Well, that's a fun one. I would say that my company is Manhattan breweries, distilleries and wineries. And we brew. We create beer, spirits and wines from scratch in seven different manufacturing facilities around the world. And then we brand them, we market them. We don't own the retail outlets because we're not allowed, but that's really what we do, is we make alcohol. Seven.
- [01:24]
John Davidson
You have seven facilities. I found two. I didn't know there were seven.
- [01:28]
Manjeet Minhas
Yes, yes, we do.
- [01:30]
John Davidson
Wow. Okay, we'll get into that in a second. So just to give everybody some context, I found some sort of numbers and stats online. I'm sure these are going to be outdated. So says on wikipedia that in 2014 you had revenues of 155 million. I'd imagine they're much higher than that now. Can you give us a sense, though, just like how many employees? You said seven facilities. How many bottles of beer do you sell? Any context?
- [01:56]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah. So we have about a thousand employees. And of course, every year we are getting more automated, as is manufacturing because kind of like people say in the airline business, if my plane isn't in the air, I'm not making money. And for me, if my machines aren't running and they're not packaging and not brewing, not making money either. So we run as often as we can. 24, seven operations, we're down for two hours in the middle of the night, one to three or two to four, depending on which facility where for maintenance, because I am an engineer by education and so is my brother. So we truly believe in preventative maintenance. But we, like I say Sell in Canada, the U.S. and 16 other countries around the world. And we partner for white label, private label and our own brands with major companies. Everybody from Costco, we make all their Kirkland Light around the world to Trader Joe's, we make seven brands of beer and you know, the rum for them to Sam's Club, Walmart, 711 in Canada, Safeway, Sobeys, we make all of their private labels in Alberta. Many big chains such as ace that own 200 stores. So the list goes really on and on as to what we do. And we're a combination of our own brands and private label, white label.
- [03:12]
John Davidson
And you have a lot of brands. Like if you just search for minhas brands, there's like, I mean, I have to scroll down the page to get to the end. So I'd imagine a portion of these are white label and some you own. Why do you have so many brands? What's the purpose versus having like just one or two hero brands?
- [03:32]
Manjeet Minhas
Well, of course, just like anything, when we were getting into the business 23 years ago, we did. And we created brands in different markets that were speaking to the different customers. And sometimes that creates different brands. Of course, if I could go back, I probably would change some of that. I maybe would have one brand. But like a lot of big brands, if you see a brand across this country, let's say one that we all know, for example, that has the big Canadian flag on it, it is actually different in different provinces because tastes profiles are different. So what we decided to do was to be the local brand in each province before that was kind of fashionable. And so, yeah, it complicates things a little bit, but it definitely makes us have the agility and ability to be able to be nimble, to be able to be quick and change. Often the marketing, the branding, or even the recipe of the product based on what we're hearing from customers. And when you're new, it's really hard to say what is going to stick, what is going to be successful. So we did a lot of, hey, what do you need? To the big retailers, we'll make that and we'll create some of our own brands also. And both have their own advantages. Some are to fill up manufacturing facilities and tanks and lines. When you're making 600 cans a minute, you need a lot of beer in order to fill those lines. And so, you know, some was opportunities that we saw that last just a couple years and they're in and out. Not every brand that we make actually lasts five years or a lifetime. And Some are just quick hits. And so I think that anybody that is coming up with products knows that what is their bread and butter and what has been around for a long time, such as our Mountain Crest Classic Lager, our Alamo Tequilas, or Blondie's Irish Cream. Variety of things that have been around for a long time. But there's a ton that come and go and those are the high margin products. But also they often have other purposes behind them.
- [05:35]
John Davidson
Yeah. So if you look at the top 50 brewers in the world, different lists, you're always sort of in the top 15 or 20, I'm finding. How did you guys start this business? So you and your brother start this business, I think like 20 or 25 years ago?
- [05:51]
Manjeet Minhas
23. 1999. Yeah.
- [05:53]
John Davidson
So you didn't inherit like a giant brewery and now you just run it. I mean, you actually built this thing.
- [06:00]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah. And so we actually built, unlike now, when we started, we were sales, marketing and branding company. We got our products co packed and they were made by others throughout North America, but mainly in the United States. I'm in our tequila in Mexico. And we decided that we were going to be a private label brand for retailers. First my parents liquor stores. My dad was laid off as an engineer in the bust in 94. And then retail liquor was privatized in Alberta then and they opened up liquor stores here. And so that's how we started, my brother and I, a private label brand for their stores, which was unheard of at that time. And then as we saw that there was some legs to it and that there was definitely a niche market, we started to grow and expand it. And what happened was we went to a brewer then in the United States, that was in Wisconsin, second oldest brewery in the U.S. started in 1845, family owned still. And they were willing to try some new things with us. We invested in the brewery, bought some machinery because they weren't really keen on doing that. And then as we grew it, we very quickly, within a couple of years became 90% of what they were brewing. And then we forced them to sell it. It wasn't for sale, but we used our negotiating techniques. And I think that that is one of the great cornerstones to my success, is I am a good negotiator. And we first negotiated and got them to celebrate and then we negotiated a price that we could afford in cash. And then we became manufacturers and actual brewers, not just a sales, marketing and branding company. And that was in 2006, just to backtrack.
- [07:41]
John Davidson
So you started the story of Creating private labels for your parents store. What year was that?
- [07:46]
Manjeet Minhas
In 1999.
- [07:48]
John Davidson
Okay, so in 99 you start this. In 06 you have a brewery. The second oldest brewery in the U.S. okay. And then take it from there.
- [07:56]
Manjeet Minhas
And so then in 2006, when we bought the brewery, we renamed it and we grew its capacities. It was already very large, but we grew what it was able to do. Different can sizes, more storage, et cetera, et cetera. And then after that we never looked back and started building breweries and distilleries from scratch. Calgary, Regina. We also built a distillery in Monroe, Mexico, and then our rum from Barbados. And it was one of those things that once you understand that they are two separate businesses in the selling of the product and then the manufacturing of the product, two different teams, two different businesses. And then we started being more vertically integrated to understand where our cost centers were. Like what was costing us the most money. So bottles, graphic design, et cetera. And so we created our own companies. We have a graphic design company, a print shop, a glass blowing factory, a trucking company. Because logistics, well, that was costing us a lot and big headaches. We wanted to have control over more and more of our end to end processes and where we were spending the most amount of money. And so we set up shops and they were their own businesses in themselves. A TV and film production company, for example, because we wanted to make all of our own ads and we wanted to do them quicker, we wanted to pump out more and slicker presentations. And so I think that a big part of our growth was definitely focusing on sales, but also focusing on the back end of what made us nimble, what made us competitive. Going up against companies that have been around for hundreds of years and had a ton more money and expertise than we did and still do sometimes.
- [09:44]
John Davidson
I can't believe that I knew about the film studio part. But you own the trucks, you own all like you own kind of end to end. You can get your product from A to Z by yourself. Pretty much, yeah.
- [09:56]
Manjeet Minhas
We just don't farm. So we, you know, we still go to the farmers for the not yet malt in the yeast. My dad always jokes, you know, our ancestors were farmers in India and maybe we'll go back there. And I always say, no, no, no, that I leave up to the pros.
- [10:11]
John Davidson
Okay, very cool. So that's where you started. Now I have to imagine that a lot of this. You mentioned you're a good negotiator, you got the deal on that brewery in Wisconsin. But this sounds like a Pretty capital intensive business. So how did you fund it? I'm curious how you fund it today. I mean, obviously you have cash flow, so it's a bit easier. But how did you fund it? Kind of for the first five years.
- [10:32]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah, it was definitely very purposeful. I've always been in charge of the finances of the company, not my brother. And it's definitely a lot of spreadsheets, a lot of planning, but understanding where and what your money goes farther and same thing, some negotiating to say, I can pay you. I'm very old school that way because I was taught by my immigrant parents that way you pay and you buy with what you have in the bank and you don't overextend yourself. And so it's definitely an art of maneuvering money around to make sure we're getting paid on time and building those relationships and vice versa. And with suppliers, with a lot of suppliers, for example, I was able to negotiate, I'll pay you within 10 days and you give me a 1% discount. And that adds up. And so I think that you really just got to get creative to say what is valuable to you and what is valuable to your suppliers and people that you owe money to and vice versa. And so it definitely is understanding and an open conversation to them to understand where your pinch points are with money and where theirs are and what's important to them. And I think that most people are willing to talk about that as long as you start the conversation. Nobody wants to admit sometimes and talk about money, but for me, it's always the first thing I talk about.
- [11:54]
John Davidson
It's so true. And just to be clear, but you didn't raise venture capital. You didn't raise a ton of money selling equity in the company. It was mostly borrowed money, debt, vendor deals, or whatever it is.
- [12:06]
Manjeet Minhas
So zero debt, no investors, no loans. My brother and I have bootstrapped it and paid with what we had in the bank, always because we own 100% of the company. 50, 50 each finds maybe. I, you know, some days think I own 51%, but I don't. It's 50, 50. But no, for us, it was very important that we wanted to do things on our own time, on our own schedule, and not ask anybody, whether it be a bank or whether it be another individual, as to when and how we were going to spend our money. Because we've taken some pretty big risks. Not all of them have panned out for us. And so we truly believe that failure is a part of our success. And we've learned from Those failures. It has, though, definitely given us more muscle memory in order to take bigger risks. And so it very important to us always and still is for us to be the king and queen of our own domain, to say, if I'm writing a check, I'm not asking anybody else that I'm investing in tanks or I'm going into a new market that I might not have all the research done on, and I might be on a wing and a prayer. Not usually, but I don't. I can make the decision tomorrow and move the day after.
- [13:20]
John Davidson
Yeah, I think that is so underrated. There's such a glorification of raising money, raising more money, selling this and that. And at the end of the day, you become an entrepreneur because you want to make your own decisions, not because you want to answer to a board or a boss or anything like that.
- [13:36]
Manjeet Minhas
Well, I always have believed that you spend too much brain power and time and energy than worrying and answering to your essential lead bosses who are finding you. And so I think if you can spend that time, energy and brainpower in trying to grow the business and thinking of creative, innovative ways to beat your competitors, that is much better energy and time spent that will pay off in much bigger ways.
- [14:05]
John Davidson
Yeah. So tell us about your first big deal. I'd imagine that it was incremental. You sold a little here, a little there. But did you have that first, like, $3 million contract or that PO that that put you on the map?
- [14:18]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah, in Canada, that was with Sobeys, and in the US it was with Trader Joe's. Trader Joe's came to us, and we were then ranked, you know, the ninth largest brewery in the US and now we are the ninth largest brewery in the world. But they came to us and then Sobeys, we went to them and knocked on their door a lot. And that was really pivotal for us because, of course, they were a name stay in Canada. And if you could get through all of their hoops, you kind of done something right. And that was a big badge of honor for us. Definitely. And it was a big deal.
- [14:53]
John Davidson
How much time of knocking did that take?
- [14:55]
Manjeet Minhas
Two years.
- [14:57]
John Davidson
Two years. Okay, Two years to land that prize. And I'm sure that whole time it wasn't always encouraging and you were, you know, getting told no, no, no, but you just kept going.
- [15:06]
Manjeet Minhas
So I always like to think that when we bring a product to somebody and or a plan, that when I hear no, because, trust me, I hear no a lot, and I still do, everybody thinks I get yes for everything. Still no I think of no as next opportunity, meaning that, listen, if that beer isn't the right fit for them, come up with another product, come up with another name, come up with another logo, look into something different. There's lots of different alcohol categories and so there's lots of tweaking that can take place. I very rarely give up. And I say our sales teams are like that, too. I don't lead our sales teams. My brother does. But with the big, big customers, him and I definitely are there and are always there to present, to nurture, to deal when shit hits the fan, because it always does. We're dealing with a live product, let's face it, and things happen.
- [15:59]
John Davidson
Yeah. So talk to me about your division of responsibility. So you mentioned that you do the numbers. What else do you spend your time on?
- [16:08]
Manjeet Minhas
So big part of, I think our success was that Ravinder and I decided that as partners, we trust each other and we have great. A lot of similar skill sets, but we are different and we needed to put our hand up and decide what we were going to do and do it individually, come together when needed, talk a lot and communicate. But we were going to trust each other and we were going to do and oversee different parts of the business without overlap. And so he definitely early on handled all of our sales teams, all of our new product development, and did a lot with our government relations. Because we are in liquor, it is not status quo. It is something that is taxed highly. And I'm told all the time it is a privilege, not a right to have a liquor license around the world. So therefore, government relations is important. So he definitely saw that. I recently, but two years ago, took over government relations portfolio and I oversaw marketing, finance and hr. And of course then as we started to grow, we started to have to let go in order because we wanted to do some other things, such as board work, such as start the other companies. And so we hired some great executives, teams. Now we have great presidents and VPs that oversee all that. But we're still in touch definitely on a daily basis because in the end of the day, my name is on the check still.
- [17:31]
John Davidson
So, yeah, you got to sign those checks. And Ravinder, I'll do a different episode with him one day. But, you know, if you meet Ravinder, very, very warm, inviting guy, always well dressed, with that beautiful hublot watch, talking to everyone. I remember we were in a boardroom maybe three, four months ago, and like, we were all sitting down and he was standing up, talking to the guy over here, over there. He's just wants to hand out his business card. So I can tell that he's the sales guy and he's the government relations.
- [17:58]
Manjeet Minhas
Guy for 20 years. So.
- [18:00]
John Davidson
Yes, absolutely. So what does your direct report look like today? So how many people report to you? How often and sort of what is their job?
- [18:11]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah, not many anymore. And I think that that is something that you build over time, trust and processes, but also you let smarter people do things better than you. And we all get stagnant sometimes after a while and we only know certain things. So definitely our CFO still reports to me and then our CEO, and that's about it. And so those are the two important things that I still feel I need to have a pulse of the company. And we have a board of advisors, and that is something that we tap on into a fair bit when we're, you know, the downside only of when we started, I was 19 and I never worked for any. My brother and I both never worked for any large company is that as we started getting bigger and bigger, we needed to create things like company culture and different processes that we never in an org chart, that we never were a part of ourselves. And so we were hiring people that were much older than us. And it was interesting to understand that how others did it. Not to mean that we were going to copy them, but we needed to sometimes know best practices. And so then we came up with a board of advisors that were in beverage, in alcohol, in manufacturing, just to learn from, to understand how do others do it, what is a good fit for us, but also where do we go to learn from. And I think a big part of that is also that they're mentors, not only advisors to Orbinder and I. Yeah.
- [19:41]
John Davidson
So one thing you've done really smart. And I actually just in doing some research today, found stuff that I hadn't even known before is you've done partnerships with some pretty famous people. So one of the names I saw today, so I had no idea. But you're involved with Happy Dad.
- [19:57]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah, we make all their products for them.
- [19:59]
John Davidson
Some of our listeners will know, some won't. So Nelc is huge. So if you don't know Nelc, my number might be wrong here, but they have like a $50 million or $100 million business with their hard seltzer. So this is not like a little partnership. This is one of the biggest seltzer brands I'd imagine in the world right now. So how did this thing happen?
- [20:18]
Manjeet Minhas
So they called our business development manager, and as many, many people do, of course. And they were going through the processes as to what we could make and this and that and minimums and this and that. We don't do a ton of co packing. It's something that we don't love to do for a variety of reasons, but we entertain a lot of. Because you never know, right? And once we got to the stage where we were comfortable, we would own some of the branding and we always have to have plan B because sometimes these things don't work out. And we were at the final stages of signing. Our president in Wisconsin asked me and my brother if we would be on the call. Give us a quick synopsis. Literally the night before, my brother and I are texting each other at 11 o'clock at night saying, I've got another meeting, you've got another meeting. Can one of us jump on for five minutes to say hello to this new customer? And then he's researching as he's talking to me and he's like, oh my God, these guys are huge. And I said huge for what? And he's like, oh, they're pranksters. They've got like Most subscribers on YouTube in the world, et cetera, et cetera. And I was like, okay, but that doesn't mean they're business people. Then we find out about the full send brand. I asked my 19 year old nephew, he loses his shit literally as I call him that night. I'm like, okay, well maybe one of us should be on the call. My brother's like, okay, I will pause my other one and go quickly on for five minutes to say hello. And he gets on the call. And so you mentioned earlier that my brother is always nicely dressed. He was not that morning. He's in a T shirt, he puts on a ball cap and of course they're recording this there in our boardroom in Wisconsin because they let a video out a couple of weeks later and everybody then saw my brother on this video status on YouTube. And so word got out that they were visiting and they were at our brewery. We had literally I heard 5,000 people at the door. Even though we, it was top secret. But somehow somewhere, somebody saw them in town and we started making happy dad hard seltzers. We just did our one year finished a one year anniversary couple weeks of making them. We haven't even distributed to all 50 states because we couldn't keep up with the demand of the product. It is the number one seltzer in the United States. We haven't been able to expand into Canada, LCBO and everywhere is slated, but it is coming. But like I say, the demand has just been amazing in the US and so, like anything, we like to do it with a plan. So each state has a big launch, and we do it properly. Everybody is there, and we do big parties, and. And it's great. And we're coming up with new flavors. We had a banana and a fruit punch that was just launched two days ago, and so some special editions. But it is something that we noticed a couple years ago. And, you know, Pandemic gave us some time to kind of sit down and look at 10 years forward. And we really realized what we're really good at and what we're okay at. And what we're okay at is the marketing side. And so we decided that let's partner with some people who are really good at marketing, and we're really good at making a really great product and getting it out there at the best price possible. We're really good at distribution. And so let's make forces, collide and have some partnerships and see where it goes.
- [23:45]
John Davidson
Mm. I'm hungry. You guys hungry? I could go for some fried chicken right now from Jollibee. And no, this is not a commercial for Jollibee. This is a commercial for Influicity. That's my marketing agency. And Jollibee is one of our amazing clients. You can see how we help drive more foot traffic to their restaurants across America at Influence. Check out the case study. And hey, while you're there, check out all the other case studies from the amazing clients we work with. Influencer marketing, podcasts, social media, content, AI and so much more. And if you want to work with us, just hit the let's Talk button over at the top of the website. That's influicity.com and I'll see you there.
- [24:27]
Manjeet Minhas
So Happy dad was the first one we did, and it was a major hit. And so now what we have coming is actually a rum seltzer bread with Aisha and Steph Curry coming out next year. And then we have Money Bags Vodka coming out with Gene Simmons and Kiss, and they've all been so amazing to work with. We work with them directly. They are equity partnerships. They're not endorsements, because we don't believe in that. We want skin in the game, and we want you to be really good at what you do, and there be a plan. And. And so I think that everybody and every entrepreneur has to understand what they're good at and who else is good at something else that compliments them. And you need to be able to take that risk, to say, how do we continue to grow and how do we continue to take educated and planned risks that can benefit both partners?
- [25:18]
John Davidson
I love that. And I love that you're structuring it as equity partnerships. So it's not just like, let's create a product and slap your name on it and then you'll show up for a promo. It's like, no, no, no. This is a business venture that we're doing together and if it succeeds, we all win. And if it doesn't, we're both going to lose on this. So that's really, really smart.
- [25:37]
Manjeet Minhas
Well, because the problem is that a lot of times those other partnerships we've all we get. I can literally name off 50 brands right now that that happened to and they're dead. And nobody knows where they are yet because everybody has excitement to begin with and so do customers. And then it dies. Because it takes work. It takes hard everyday work to get distributed, to get it there, to get it selling, to get it continually selling, to get shelf space and to keep it in a variety of different things. So I think a lot of people forget that any brand and company that is around for a long time and actually profitable does it and does it well all the time and does it for a long time. They do it day in and day out. It's not just a one hit in and out.
- [26:21]
John Davidson
Yeah, that's so true. One quick thing I'll mention. So we're doing something with Mr. Beast right now, and he just came out recently with Mr. Beast Burger. I don't know if you know the story, Manji, but MrBeast Burger is a burger brand. Mr. Beast is, I don't know, one of the biggest, if not the biggest YouTuber right now. Came up with this burger, opened the first and only physical restaurant and 10,000 people showed up for the opening. They had to shut down the mall. And the company behind that restaurant that's working with him did something else with shaq recently. Shaquille O'Neal. And they said, you know, Shaq, great guy, brought out like 300 people. Mr. Beast, 10,000 people. So it just goes to show you, this changing of the guard in the kind of celebrity world. And you've seen this with Nelc also, like, I'm sure you've got great partnerships with Steph Curry and Gene Simmons, but somebody like Nelk or a group like Nel can just absolutely break shit because they're just so popular. And it's a different kind of fame versus traditional celebrity.
- [27:19]
Manjeet Minhas
Absolutely but the thing is that sometimes they have to understand is that there's business behind it. And so there has been some coaching to say, okay, how do you sustain the business? It's not just about 1 8, because you spend more money than you make, of course, to launch a product and the profit comes months later. It doesn't come right away. And so that is something that business people need to understand sometimes. And a lot that I say on Dragons Den, what your balance sheet look like, what's your costs look like, what's the sustainability of this? Because we're trying to create a business, not just a wet hand wonder.
- [27:57]
John Davidson
Yeah, okay, you brought up Dragons Den, so let's go there now. So talk to me about kind of the stuff you see on there. I mean, obviously it's cut down for television. We don't see all of it. What's the biggest problem that you see in entrepreneurs that come to pitch you? What are they missing most of the time?
- [28:15]
Manjeet Minhas
Usually a couple things. One, I would say they're missing a real understanding of how much the product costs, how much it costs to actually get it on a shelf, what the margins really are and in the end of the day, what they keep. And so I think all the money matters. The financial planning, they really often don't understand. But I would say the other part is the selling, the pitching part, that a pitch is a transfer of passion. You have to be able to tell your story succinctly. You have to be able to get your customer or your investor to really understand what the benefit for them can be and get them to understand what your product is. So many people eat, sleep and breathe their own product or service, and especially when it comes to products, they understand it, but they don't get that others don't, because they're really not good at selling. And so I think that every entrepreneur, but I also believe that just every person now has to be really good at selling, they have to be good at storytelling, they have to be succinct, they have to be not only encouraging and emotional, they have to answer the five basic W's. Who, what, where, when, why. And then if you're looking for money, as to how you're going to make this a business. And so I think that there's just not enough, sometimes thoughtfulness put into understanding what a pitch is.
- [29:38]
John Davidson
Yeah. Can you point to one like big success, maybe your biggest deal in the Den, what's been the one that's done it really right?
- [29:46]
Manjeet Minhas
Oh, there's been lots of successes and I think Success is interestingly defined when it comes to, you know, money I've received back in the bank is different necessarily than the one that I maybe enjoy and or have seen gone from startup to on shelves and seen such a growth as far as the entrepreneurs and the company goes. So I think that the definition of success is just not always who's made the most money because they all come at different stages. In the Den somewhere, like literally on a piece of paper, there was a product called Toddler Monitor that was like literally on a piece of paper, these two fabulous women. And now it's in store, isn't doing really well. There was Peapod Mats. That was my first year in the Den and other than kind of the product as to what its qualities were, we totally repackaged it all and got it everywhere from Toys R Us to seniors homes. And that has been fabulous. Make my belly fit. I have a lot of great CPG products and a lot in the toddler space too, which is a lot of fun for me because I had young kids or grown up a little bit now, 10 and 13, but I understood that space more than some of my other fellow dragons because they weren't in that they had grown adult children and or no children at all. And so I really think that what you invest in as an investor, you have to be able to not only identify, but sometimes see where the market gaps are that you can fill in. And so food and beverage CPG products is definitely my forte. Not to say I haven't invested in tech, but I will say those have been total fails.
- [31:25]
John Davidson
And so they're so fun to talk about, but they're just most of the time bad businesses.
- [31:32]
Manjeet Minhas
Well, because there's a lot of big numbers involved and a little pie in the sky, but which we all, hey, we all got a dream. But I can say that those have been the most unsuccessful for me. And so, you know, it depends. This season, our season starts September 15th. This year we shoot it in the spring, in May for a month in Toronto. And like you say, we see them for 45ish minutes. And if they make air, because only half of what we c actually makes air goes down to six, seven minutes. So we don't give away money that fast or make deals that fast. And also there is due diligence after, of course. But, you know, there's a lot of deals that I'm excited about this year because there was a lot of great entrepreneurs that came out of the pandemic that were either laid off, that took the leap of Faith. Because they saw the opportunity to now that have made some really great businesses in a short amount of time.
- [32:25]
John Davidson
Yeah, yeah. So let's talk about failure for a second. You are the great Manjeet Minhas. Tons of success, but I've heard a couple stories. I think you got into wine at one point. It didn't go so well. And I'm sure you've had missteps along the way. Can you give us, like, something that you tried that just didn't go that well?
- [32:43]
Manjeet Minhas
Oh, yeah. One day I will write a book about all of them, because there's a lot. And I think the average my accountant was selling me was that for every one product that has been successful, we've had four that have not made it. And, you know, I think that's. That's not a bad average, but it is part of the journey of being an entrepreneur and part of the journey of putting out products into the world. And so, yeah, one of the biggest failures that we had was our whole wine portfolio a number of years ago. We went to different countries, I sourced, we tasted, we came up with interesting brand names. We had some great launches and some great initial success for the first month or two. But we didn't have buyback, we didn't have velocity off of shelves and people that were coming back. And I think that that is really. Sometimes when we ask people, even in the Den, what is your velocity as and how many people are coming back, what are your repeat customers? That is super important. We didn't have that. There was a variety of reasons. After we discovered, of course, when the names were too hard to remember, our wine actually wasn't fantastic either. The price points were not where they needed to be competing in a really highly competitive market. And we necessarily didn't pick the right partners in order to launch with for wine. And so we didn't also have the same salespeople. We were using beer salespeople for wine. Totally different. And so lots of learnings, but definitely we decided at a certain point to actually pull. It was a big decision to pull the product from shelves because it was not selling. We was starting to overshadow some of our other great brands in spirit and beer that were doing really well. And so, yeah, for a long time, I had a lot of wine in my basement to remind me that I'm not the smartest person in the world.
- [34:44]
John Davidson
Yeah. Yeah, that's really funny. I tried an E commerce business for, like, seven months during the pandemic, and now I just have a bunch of, like, boxes of stuff sitting in my basement. And I don't want to get rid of them because it's a reminder, like, not to do that again.
- [34:58]
Manjeet Minhas
But listen, I live by the motto always, that you have to advocate and scream from the rooftops about your own success and what is going well. So I tell women all the time, especially be willing not to be humble. But I do think that we all often do need to take a piece of. Eat a piece of humble pie when things don't go according to plan. And so I also am a true believer in having goals that you have that are always there, but the plan changes. So one of my greatest mentors told me, write your plans down, but write them in pencil. And so with wine, that's exactly what we did. I always still wanted to get into the wine business. I never give up. And so then 15 years later, as I always had it, I was always still researching. I always had teams doing some R and D for me in the background. And then a couple years ago, we came up with Dragon's Tears wines. We did it very differently, though. I didn't go to other wineries. We bought the vineyards ourselves. We cultivated, we made it ourselves. So it was. I knew then by then, and I.
- [36:04]
John Davidson
Had, you are in the farm business. You own vineyards, you got it.
- [36:08]
Manjeet Minhas
And so I got winemakers then to tell us how to do it right. And we took our time. We had a slow launch, not a loud launch, and it was very different this time around. And so far, so good. It's been going very well where we've launched, but we've been slow with launching because, yeah, I was a little bit gun shy for sure, and I didn't want an egg on my face again. So I think that the fact that we didn't give up and that 15 years later I came out with it again, just goes to prove that just because you did it one way and it failed, doesn't mean you can't take another stab at it.
- [36:44]
John Davidson
Yeah, that's a great lesson. Let's talk about playbooks. So I like to share with people a, if they want to follow in your footsteps and do what you do, like, that's one path. But I'm sure there's also other things. So if you were starting today, a, would you do your thing again or would you find other paths? Maybe in the beer industry, in the alcohol industry? Any ideas you can share?
- [37:08]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah, no, I would do it for the most part. Again, one thing I think that is always important. Now, of course, we research things to help, but by then, at that point, we were very naive and we just went with our gut in a lot of the ways as a customer, also as what others were telling us that they needed. And we kind of filled their gaps. And so I think definitely I would do it again. As far as starting as the sales, marketing and branding company, I would not start as a manufacturer. I would get other people, like I said before, that do things really well and make, you know, vodka and, and tequila and beer. Well, and give it to us. And we would make sure that we had a business and a market for it first. Yeah, there isn't much that I would change. I would maybe not be so naive when dealing with governments in this country, especially as to thinking that just because I have a good product that life is fair. I learned the hard way that life is not fair. My dad used to tell me that a lot and I didn't believe him. And I definitely came to that conclusion on my own. I truly believe not in having regrets. I think that we all make the best decisions and put our best foot forward at a certain point in time. And to look back and have regrets doesn't really help. You can learn, but it also sometimes can hinder you from sometimes taking risks in the present. So I think fear is temporary. You got to get through it. You gotta learn from the past, the good and the bad. But not having regrets is something that I'm a true believer in.
- [38:46]
John Davidson
Yeah. So when you started just to kind of go back here for a second, because this makes a lot of sense, you started as a, basically a sales, marketing and branding agency for alcohol brands. And then when you discovered that you knew a lot about the business, you went ahead and bought a brewery. And then at that point you started launching your own brands. And so it actually makes a lot of sense. The steps that you've taken along the way have made a lot of sense. When did the other things come in? That's kind of step 1, 2, 3. When did kind of the film studio trucking, was that over the course of like 10 years. Are those things that you're still doing?
- [39:22]
Manjeet Minhas
Yeah, so those were actually much quicker. So the first from starting to owning that first brewery took seven years, 1999 to 2006. And a lot of that was us building money in the bank, building expertise, finding great team members, but then also understanding the segment in the business that we were in, but also deciding to be in it full on. I was an engineering student and so was my brother, and we're good Indian kids. And my mom had Told us my dad not as much, even though he was an engineer. We had to be doctor, lawyer, engineer. And so I'm older than a year and a half. And I get why parents, I'm a parent myself, but also immigrant parents, especially education is very important to understand that. That's how we were raised as a middle class family, because my dad had a good job as an engineer, came with nothing from India. And so it was important to us to do that, I think, not only for our own personal confidence, but definitely from my parents too. And so we then after that took kind of the full leap and put both feet in and decided that we were going to try this out full time and not look at an engineering career. And so I think that it's helped us in a lot of ways to understand the manufacturing business, to understand decision making. But also I think for me, it gave me a confidence to say that if this didn't work out, I still could put food on the table and have a career. And. And so I truly believe that confidence building is something that those first 10 years did in order to, for the next five years to say that we can build all these other businesses and we can figure it out. And so, yeah, it was about five, six years that we went down to the numbers where our cost centers were. Can we kind of squeeze out some more pennies? Because in the beer business, it's a pennies business as far as the margin and the profit goes. And so that was pretty quick. Where we discovered if we wanted to be major players and we didn't want to go out and look for money elsewhere, we needed to start doing things a bit smarter and different than everybody else.
- [41:37]
John Davidson
Yeah. And just one other thing, this is such an amazing hack that I love, is that when you want to start being an entrepreneur and you don't have startup capital, the quickest way to do it is to just come up with some kind of agency model because you can do all the work, you can learn a ton along the way and get paid while you do it. You're building up those cash reserves. And so the time that you spent those seven years doing the branding work gave you all the education you needed. You know, yes, you weren't going to end up being a doctor, a lawyer and accountant, but you were still getting a great education, which is super important.
- [42:11]
Manjeet Minhas
Yes. Well, later I hired accountants to teach me how to read a balance sheet because I never took those courses. Now my daughter that is in great age is learning financial literacy because it is so important. But yeah, 100 agree with you.
- [42:25]
John Davidson
Okay, let's finish up talking about kind of where you go next. So obviously there's a lot of global expansion you could do. There's M and A, you could buy, other companies you could be bought. Where do you see yourself in 10, 20 years?
- [42:37]
Manjeet Minhas
So I would say that I'm definitely not going to be bought as long as I've got my name on, on the building. Not to say that we haven't over the last two decades gotten some, you know, interesting offers. I'll leave it at that. But definitely my brother and I are pretty adamant about that we will not sell.
- [42:55]
John Davidson
And sorry, just pause here saying why? Because I actually find that really interesting. Why wouldn't someone came to you and said, hey, here's a half a billion dollars, Take it, go away. Why wouldn't you do that?
- [43:06]
Manjeet Minhas
Because I still believe that we have so many things to do within the industry and there's so many things that I personally want to do within not only our company, but it feels like a family. There's been so many people that have been with us from the beginning and grown with us. But like I say, we like to be rebels in the industry and just to be bought up by somebody big or private equity company that owns the big two breweries in the world now, that to us just wouldn't be satisfying. And we're not only in it before a big check. At the end of the day, we do fine. But it's exciting still for us. As soon as it becomes not exciting, yeah, definitely, we'll go in the wind. But also, I will never have my name. It will never be called the Midhouse Brewery, Distilleries and wineries with somebody else owning it. And that I learned from a Molson family member. But I think that for us, there's just a lot of pride still in what we've built and are continuing to build. We're just not done yet. And as far as expansion, yes, definitely we have lots of plans. You know, of course Covid created some delay in some of those plans, but it also helped us be more efficient and look at our own operation. And I think that when there's external factors like that, I think of it as not a hindrance and a challenge, but something that has come at the right time. So we definitely looked at our internal operations over the last two and a half years, become way more efficient and figured out where we could use technology more and where our gaps are. Because sometimes when you do grow so fast, you do reap frog in some of those foundational elements and we're working on those. But like I say, it's still exciting. And personally, I don't know if you would ask me eight years ago, I wouldn't have said that I would be on your TV every Thursday night. And so I always do make plans for myself. But I also am open to opportunities and I think that is a lot of fun for me, whether it be interesting board work, private public companies, charities, not for profit sector, but also just for myself. Where and what I can give back and do is something that I'm always open to wondering what's next and entertaining a lot of ideas. I am at the moment. So we'll see. I don't know what pans out ever, but I definitely am somebody who says yes more than I say no in my personal life. Sometimes I wonder about that, but for me personally, because I'm always looking to meet new people, to network, to try new things. And I think that that always benefits not only me, but definitely my business at the end of the day.
- [45:48]
John Davidson
Well, you've done very well at it. My last question on of all those beautiful bottles behind you, which is the best drink?
- [45:56]
Manjeet Minhas
Oh, goodness, goodness, goodness. You know, that's a tough one. It depends what day of the week it is and how my day is going.
- [46:05]
John Davidson
They all look good.
- [46:06]
Manjeet Minhas
Tough day. So I would say the coffee, liqueur, espresso, martini is something I definitely will be enjoying in about an hour.
- [46:15]
John Davidson
Manjeet, this was awesome. Thank you so much for coming on today.
- [46:19]
Manjeet Minhas
Thank you, John.
- [46:20]
John Davidson
Thanks for listening. Hope you enjoyed this episode. If you haven't already done so, make sure you subscribe to us wherever you listen to podcasts. We'll talk to you guys next time.