Last week Tyler wrote about how I (Ross) tried to navigate from Waterville to Camden using google walking directions. Everyone had a nice laugh.
Fast forward a few days, we're driving in Mass, Tyler at the helm. After about 30 minutes of being on this weird, small, bumpy road with traffic lights every block, a beautiful moment of karma exposes itself. We were following the walking directions.
The world is a just place.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Reflections and Redemption
I write in a journal just about every night. This is a slighty edited (written in scribbled cursive to make it difficult for someone else and myself to read) except from September 27th 2011.
"Today we met with Nappi Distributors, got a lot of information. As I learn more about marketing this product and selling, it's about the personal touch. How can we differentiate ourselves in every way possible? Yet, still be appealing to the final customer. Our slogan may become, The Way Cider Should Be. Create a whole theme around it. Should be in cans. Should taste like apples. Should support local agriculture. Might work. I can't wait to get producing. Watch and guide our brand development. Why do all processes of a business come down to marketing and selling? That's what it's all about. Master it (and finance), be employed forever..."
I hope every six months for the rest of my life I can look back at those previous months and think, "Wow, I'm glad I have the ability to learn because if I still only knew what I knew then, I'd be in a tough spot." Yet, there are ideas here that except I still hold very close to me, such as the personal touch point. I was talking with a man who works at a place our cider is served today. He was dropping knowledge left and right. My favorite one was, it's all about the experience people have when drinking a beverage. He then went on to describe the arch of his craft beer/cider drinking career. He is currently very deep in the craft beer/cider culture and loves trying different drinks, but he said the ones he drank when his interest in craft beer/cider first started hold a special place in his heart because it was the experience he had with the beer or cider. He thought, "Wow, this tastes incredible I can't believe I've never had this stuff before. Amazing. And... there is more of this in the world!!! What a wonderful place we live in." (I paraphrased that, but that's generally what he said) The frame of mind we have before an event determines if it's a good or bad experience. Back to the personal touch point, the execution of this is all about getting around and talking to people about our cider. Giving people a positive frame of mind to drink our cider with and hoping they pass it along, that's currently how I believe a strong brand is built. Tomorrow it may be different.
The take away: Whether you are having our cider or waking up tomorrow and going to work, try it with a positive frame of mind and the experience will probably be better. If you need someone to give that to you, call me: 650 279 2417.
Typically, Ross ends a post with a story about Ben and I. The two of us are usually blissfully unaware of the blog post and the stories it contains until it's too late to protest. Consequently, I've learned to brace myself for his posts. As some may already know, I get embarrassed when stories of me are told by another person and I often finish reading the post with a slightly elevated heart rate and rosy cheeks. With that said, I'll end with a hat-trick of stories about Ross, navigation, and packaging.
One sunny April day, Ross (hereafter referred to as Fernando Magellan) was heading down to the mid-coast of Maine to visit some bars and restaurants. Unsure of himself when navigating East-West in Maine, Fernando decided to use the "Maps" app on his iPhone. He typed in where he was going, pressed Route and viola, Fernando was suddenly a blue dot on the screen tasked with simply following a lighter blue line to his destination. The voyage was going as planned until Fernando began to notice he was often taking the path less traveled (read: very slow and small side streets). Determined, Fernando dutifully followed the light blue line, until it turned onto a dirt path. Confused and feeling betrayed by the "Maps" app, Fernando fumbled with the phone to discover what was wrong. As it turned out, Fernando had accidentally left the directions on the "walking" setting instead of "driving". After fixing the problem, Fernando reached his destination only losing time and respect for the "Maps" app.
On another sunny day in April, Ross (hereafter referred to as the UPS Man) had finished setting up the Downeast Cider Facebook Store and just received the first order. Giddy, the UPS Man scurried around the apartment looking for the perfect box to ship the 10 glass mugs in. Jackpot! He found it. Beginning to stack the mugs in, the UPS Man began to realize the mugs took up more space than anticipated. Instead of looking for a larger box, the UPS Man turned it into a game; I'm going to get these 10 mugs into this box and ship the box 3,000 miles. After stretching the box well past it's limits to contain the mugs, the UPS Man had victory within reach. At which point a spectator of the game commented, "I'm not sure that looks professional." Unflinchingly, the UPS Man responded, "It's not professional, but nothing inside this box will break. This baby is sturdy." The observer thought, he's correct, all the box has to do is make it 3,000 miles without anything inside breaking, looks don't matter...
Fast forward 1 week... Dialogue transcription of phone call with customer...
Now, That's Logistics.
"Today we met with Nappi Distributors, got a lot of information. As I learn more about marketing this product and selling, it's about the personal touch. How can we differentiate ourselves in every way possible? Yet, still be appealing to the final customer. Our slogan may become, The Way Cider Should Be. Create a whole theme around it. Should be in cans. Should taste like apples. Should support local agriculture. Might work. I can't wait to get producing. Watch and guide our brand development. Why do all processes of a business come down to marketing and selling? That's what it's all about. Master it (and finance), be employed forever..."
I hope every six months for the rest of my life I can look back at those previous months and think, "Wow, I'm glad I have the ability to learn because if I still only knew what I knew then, I'd be in a tough spot." Yet, there are ideas here that except I still hold very close to me, such as the personal touch point. I was talking with a man who works at a place our cider is served today. He was dropping knowledge left and right. My favorite one was, it's all about the experience people have when drinking a beverage. He then went on to describe the arch of his craft beer/cider drinking career. He is currently very deep in the craft beer/cider culture and loves trying different drinks, but he said the ones he drank when his interest in craft beer/cider first started hold a special place in his heart because it was the experience he had with the beer or cider. He thought, "Wow, this tastes incredible I can't believe I've never had this stuff before. Amazing. And... there is more of this in the world!!! What a wonderful place we live in." (I paraphrased that, but that's generally what he said) The frame of mind we have before an event determines if it's a good or bad experience. Back to the personal touch point, the execution of this is all about getting around and talking to people about our cider. Giving people a positive frame of mind to drink our cider with and hoping they pass it along, that's currently how I believe a strong brand is built. Tomorrow it may be different.
The take away: Whether you are having our cider or waking up tomorrow and going to work, try it with a positive frame of mind and the experience will probably be better. If you need someone to give that to you, call me: 650 279 2417.
Typically, Ross ends a post with a story about Ben and I. The two of us are usually blissfully unaware of the blog post and the stories it contains until it's too late to protest. Consequently, I've learned to brace myself for his posts. As some may already know, I get embarrassed when stories of me are told by another person and I often finish reading the post with a slightly elevated heart rate and rosy cheeks. With that said, I'll end with a hat-trick of stories about Ross, navigation, and packaging.
One sunny April day, Ross (hereafter referred to as Fernando Magellan) was heading down to the mid-coast of Maine to visit some bars and restaurants. Unsure of himself when navigating East-West in Maine, Fernando decided to use the "Maps" app on his iPhone. He typed in where he was going, pressed Route and viola, Fernando was suddenly a blue dot on the screen tasked with simply following a lighter blue line to his destination. The voyage was going as planned until Fernando began to notice he was often taking the path less traveled (read: very slow and small side streets). Determined, Fernando dutifully followed the light blue line, until it turned onto a dirt path. Confused and feeling betrayed by the "Maps" app, Fernando fumbled with the phone to discover what was wrong. As it turned out, Fernando had accidentally left the directions on the "walking" setting instead of "driving". After fixing the problem, Fernando reached his destination only losing time and respect for the "Maps" app.
On another sunny day in April, Ross (hereafter referred to as the UPS Man) had finished setting up the Downeast Cider Facebook Store and just received the first order. Giddy, the UPS Man scurried around the apartment looking for the perfect box to ship the 10 glass mugs in. Jackpot! He found it. Beginning to stack the mugs in, the UPS Man began to realize the mugs took up more space than anticipated. Instead of looking for a larger box, the UPS Man turned it into a game; I'm going to get these 10 mugs into this box and ship the box 3,000 miles. After stretching the box well past it's limits to contain the mugs, the UPS Man had victory within reach. At which point a spectator of the game commented, "I'm not sure that looks professional." Unflinchingly, the UPS Man responded, "It's not professional, but nothing inside this box will break. This baby is sturdy." The observer thought, he's correct, all the box has to do is make it 3,000 miles without anything inside breaking, looks don't matter...
Fast forward 1 week... Dialogue transcription of phone call with customer...
Customer: Received the mugs we ordered today.
Downeast Cider Associate: How are they, sir?
Disgruntled Customer: Five of the ten didn't survive the voyage.
Downeast Cider Associate: I'm not sure I understand.
Increasingly Disgruntled Customer: Five broke.
Downeast Cider Associate: We'll replace those free of charge and toss in something extra for the kids.
Satisfied Customer: Why thank you! Downeast Cider House has the best customer service ever!!!
Now, That's Logistics.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
1st quarter down, still in business
So it's been a long time since I've written anything. There's two reasons for that. One, we are really busy, which I'll expand upon later. Second, there is a RAT amongst us. Yes, a rat. Whenever I share something that is borderline "appropriate" or "not public information", this person goes running to tell on us. It's annoying because I'd prefer to share the entertaining stuff with all of you, but this person is ruining the fun for everyone. I am asking you politely to stop. Yes, we know who you are (your name has 5 letters). Please, just relax.
Anyways...back to hard cider. Like I said, we've been really busy getting ready for launches in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In addition, we're finalizing everything we need to launch our cans as well. Oh yeah...we're adding a new flavor with all of this. Add this to the normal routine of selling and producing cider for a rapidly growing list of accounts throughout Maine (http://downeastcider.com/locator.php), paying the bills, supplying accounts with swag, going to beer/cider festivals (http://www.kjonline.com/news/a-sampling-beyond-just-beer_2012-04-07.html) and promo nights, and you've got a busy crew.
That's not to say we're not having fun. Almost everyone we've met along the way has been helpful and supportive. We've been bothering anyone who will listen, trying to get advice, and have found a lot of open ears. We see many of the Maine breweries at various events, and I can't say enough good things about them. They have their own stuff going on but they're always willing to help us out with this or that. The customers have also been great. Thank you to everyone for your support, advice (both positive and negative are welcome), stories, and kind words. As a small, and flexible company, we absolutely listen to anyone and everyone, and attempt to fulfill your wants and needs while sticking to our principals. If you think we are failing, email or call Ben or Tyler and let them have an earful...I was on your side.
Random side note here. We were at the Central Maine Brewers Festival last weekend and found ourselves in the booth next to Shipyard. Their set-up obviously had a little more pizazz than ours, and we found ourselves with a bit of an inferiority complex. To compensate, we had Ben's parents, who were coming down to the event, drop by our apartment and pick up a bunch of stuff. In another impromptu decision we decided we should sell the stuff, which included mason jar mugs and tin wall tackers, at cost. We were also giving away our cork coasters, which are kind of expensive, and realizing this, people were nabbing like 5 at a time (we eventually figured out that the less coasters we put on the table, the less likely people were to take a ton). So in a bit of rolling thought right now, I think I'm going to attempt to set up an online store via facebook where you can purchase whatever POS (Point Of Sales, not the other POS) we have...pint glasses, mugs, tin tackers, shirts, etc...so keep an eye out if we ever get to that.
I think that covers the general gist of what we're up to right now. If you're telling yourself, "I'm pretty sure that was just random streaming consciousness of seemingly non-connected ideas that followed absolutely ZERO organized, or otherwise thoughtfully planned direction" then I say to you:
you get exactly what we're doing right now.
Oh, and I usually end these by making fun of Ben and Tyler in some way, and I don't see why that has to stop so I thought I'd share a brief story about the three of us in college. When we were thinking about starting a hard cider company, a fad known as Four Loko was taking the country, and college campuses, by storm. For those that don't know, Four Loko was a 24 oz alcoholic beverage that had something to the tune of the equivalent of 4 beers and 4 coffees (still exists, but the caffeine was removed and the alcohol was toned down). That company was started by a few Ohio State alumns, which sparked an "if they can do it we can do it" attitude (obviously we went in a slightly different direction with our product...). Anyway, we only got to drink these infamous cans once, and I think I can safely speak for not only myself, but Ben, Tyler, our friends, the Bates College campus, and anyone who came withing striking distance of us on that fateful night, it was a good thing we only made one go of it. Unfortunately this isn't the right forum for describing what happened that night in full detail, but I can show you a picture of us from the beginning of the night, when things were normal:
To say the night went downhill from here might be doing downhill an injustice. For the protection of those with "real jobs" I went with some high tech editing all over this photo.
PS - If you're wondering about the clothes, I'm not 100% sure. I want to say it was Halloween, but in all honesty, I'm not sure it was.
Anyways...back to hard cider. Like I said, we've been really busy getting ready for launches in New Hampshire and Massachusetts. In addition, we're finalizing everything we need to launch our cans as well. Oh yeah...we're adding a new flavor with all of this. Add this to the normal routine of selling and producing cider for a rapidly growing list of accounts throughout Maine (http://downeastcider.com/locator.php), paying the bills, supplying accounts with swag, going to beer/cider festivals (http://www.kjonline.com/news/a-sampling-beyond-just-beer_2012-04-07.html) and promo nights, and you've got a busy crew.
That's not to say we're not having fun. Almost everyone we've met along the way has been helpful and supportive. We've been bothering anyone who will listen, trying to get advice, and have found a lot of open ears. We see many of the Maine breweries at various events, and I can't say enough good things about them. They have their own stuff going on but they're always willing to help us out with this or that. The customers have also been great. Thank you to everyone for your support, advice (both positive and negative are welcome), stories, and kind words. As a small, and flexible company, we absolutely listen to anyone and everyone, and attempt to fulfill your wants and needs while sticking to our principals. If you think we are failing, email or call Ben or Tyler and let them have an earful...I was on your side.
Random side note here. We were at the Central Maine Brewers Festival last weekend and found ourselves in the booth next to Shipyard. Their set-up obviously had a little more pizazz than ours, and we found ourselves with a bit of an inferiority complex. To compensate, we had Ben's parents, who were coming down to the event, drop by our apartment and pick up a bunch of stuff. In another impromptu decision we decided we should sell the stuff, which included mason jar mugs and tin wall tackers, at cost. We were also giving away our cork coasters, which are kind of expensive, and realizing this, people were nabbing like 5 at a time (we eventually figured out that the less coasters we put on the table, the less likely people were to take a ton). So in a bit of rolling thought right now, I think I'm going to attempt to set up an online store via facebook where you can purchase whatever POS (Point Of Sales, not the other POS) we have...pint glasses, mugs, tin tackers, shirts, etc...so keep an eye out if we ever get to that.
I think that covers the general gist of what we're up to right now. If you're telling yourself, "I'm pretty sure that was just random streaming consciousness of seemingly non-connected ideas that followed absolutely ZERO organized, or otherwise thoughtfully planned direction" then I say to you:
you get exactly what we're doing right now.
Oh, and I usually end these by making fun of Ben and Tyler in some way, and I don't see why that has to stop so I thought I'd share a brief story about the three of us in college. When we were thinking about starting a hard cider company, a fad known as Four Loko was taking the country, and college campuses, by storm. For those that don't know, Four Loko was a 24 oz alcoholic beverage that had something to the tune of the equivalent of 4 beers and 4 coffees (still exists, but the caffeine was removed and the alcohol was toned down). That company was started by a few Ohio State alumns, which sparked an "if they can do it we can do it" attitude (obviously we went in a slightly different direction with our product...). Anyway, we only got to drink these infamous cans once, and I think I can safely speak for not only myself, but Ben, Tyler, our friends, the Bates College campus, and anyone who came withing striking distance of us on that fateful night, it was a good thing we only made one go of it. Unfortunately this isn't the right forum for describing what happened that night in full detail, but I can show you a picture of us from the beginning of the night, when things were normal:
To say the night went downhill from here might be doing downhill an injustice. For the protection of those with "real jobs" I went with some high tech editing all over this photo.
PS - If you're wondering about the clothes, I'm not 100% sure. I want to say it was Halloween, but in all honesty, I'm not sure it was.
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