From Small Savings to a Billion-Dollar Empire

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This $9,000 gamble  became a $2.4 billion jackpot.  Here’s the untold story.  #TurningMillions #FromThousandToBillion #BillionaireJourney #MindBlowingGrowth #WealthSecrets #InvestingStory #RiskAndReward #FinanceMagic #DreamToReality #SuccessBlueprint #BillionDollarMove #EpicGrowth #WealthShift #MoneyMindset  Join thousands who saw this — start your path.

Transcript

00:00Asking a billion-dollar founder for advice.

00:03What do I need to know to start a business?

00:06Amazing question.

00:07I think you need to know.

00:09This guy went from him and a buddy in his garage

00:12with their dog to a multi-billion-dollar company

00:15called BrewDog.

00:16And I went to London to meet with him

00:18in this fancy penthouse to figure out

00:19the seven secrets that he has to how

00:22do you start from a company with nothing

00:24to a multi-billion-dollar conglomerate.

00:26Our strongest suit when we set out our business

00:29was we had no idea what the hell we were doing.

00:32Every single bottle we filled by hand,

00:33we labeled by hand, and we capped by hand as well.

00:36And now, like selling a million a day

00:39is way easier than selling that first case.

00:42You've got to fight to sell that first case.

00:44His idea was that maybe you, like him,

00:46are sitting in a cubicle that you don't like

00:48in a job that you hate, trying to climb to the top,

00:51and you don't know the next step to take.

00:53The first two years of our business was so difficult.

00:56Everything was on the line.

00:57We had no option to make it work.

00:59I was selling beer at local farmers markets,

01:01and nobody wanted to know.

01:02Was there ever one moment in your business

01:04where you thought, we're definitely gonna fail?

01:06I would have died in a ditch

01:08rather than have the business fail.

01:09So we're gonna steal James' homework.

01:11You might want to grab that pen and paper.

01:13You've seen horrible things happen to people around you,

01:16and you've been through real adversity.

01:18Can you tell about some of those stories

01:19before we were sitting in your penthouse?

01:21So I studied law and economics at university,

01:25and I got a job as a lawyer, and I just hated it.

01:28So I spent two weeks in a cheap suit doing glorified admin,

01:31and I thought, I'm not gonna spend my life doing this.

01:34And I almost kind of saw myself in my 60s,

01:36like sitting at the same desk doing the same job.

01:37I was like, no, I'm out.

01:38I wanted to do something completely different.

01:41So after just two weeks, he left,

01:43and of all places went to the North Atlantic

01:45to begin life as a crab fisherman.

01:48He spent seven years on a boat in the middle of the ocean,

01:52and that training gave James what he needed to go on

01:55and build a billion dollar company.

01:57I became a captain, and that taught me so much

01:59about resilience, that taught me so much about teamwork,

02:02that taught me so much about kind of being calm and steadfast

02:06in the face of adversity.

02:08We had some kind of rough days, we had some big accidents,

02:10we had somebody washed into the sea one day,

02:12and we kind of managed to get them back.

02:14And I think all these experiences mean

02:16when we face challenges in our business,

02:18it's not as bad as being helped by a huge rogue wave

02:22at two o'clock in the morning

02:23in the middle of a North Atlantic storm.

02:25When your line of work demands

02:27that you face death every day,

02:29you realize that like PowerPoint ain't gonna kill you.

02:32And there's some magic to that, right?

02:34Like why would we wait until our 60s to adventure?

02:36Why not do the hard, interesting things

02:39before we settle down to a life of PowerPoints, P&Ls, and suits.

02:43And that's what James did.

02:45From there, he started BrewDog with his friend and a dog,

02:48but it maybe actually began on the deck of a fishing boat

02:52in the middle of nowhere.

02:54A Scottish microbrewery has caused an outcry

02:57among health campaigners with the launch

02:59of Britain's strongest beer.

03:01Tokyo Beer from the brewery BrewDog is marketed as an

03:05intergalactic fantastic oak-aged stout.

03:08But what actually makes it really unique is that it's

03:1012% alcohol stronger than most wines.

03:15One of the keys to making millions is the cross-pollination

03:18of ideas.

03:19It's not staying in your lane with a bunch of alcohol companies

03:22that do the same commercial after the same commercial

03:24after the same commercial.

03:25What does that look like for BrewDog that's led

03:27to your billions?

03:28So our strongest suit when we set out our business

03:31was we had no idea what the hell we were doing.

03:33So if we'd known beer, if we'd known sales,

03:35if we'd known distribution, if we'd known our industry,

03:38we'd have gone down the same path as everyone else

03:40and we'd done the same things as everyone else.

03:42And therefore you can't compete, you can't close that gap.

03:45So I love hiring people who've got no experience of beer

03:48or distribution or what we do, because if I do,

03:50they'll just tell me, well, you can't do this

03:51and you can't do that.

03:52And the best companies find a way to do the things

03:55that their competitors won't do and can't do.

03:57If you do the same as everyone else,

03:59you're going to get the same results.

04:00As a small company, that means you are dead completely.

04:03So it's finding a way to do things differently

04:05than an entire industry.

04:06What if not knowing is a superpower?

04:09I don't know anything.

04:11I don't know anything.

04:12Most people get into an industry

04:14and they think that they have to know everything

04:16in order to succeed.

04:18There's a funny truism here.

04:19When you don't know the way things are done,

04:21you can break the way they're done.

04:23Most people in the alcohol industry said,

04:25you can't run ads this way.

04:27They said that you have to go through these distributors.

04:29They had all these can'ts.

04:31And it turns out every time there's a can't,

04:33you should actually ask the question,

04:35is this a people usually don't

04:38or is this a legally I'm not allowed to?

04:41If the law isn't involved

04:42and you're not going to have to wear orange,

04:44I think you need to break things more often.

04:46And so does James.

04:47And what that actually means,

04:48if right now you're watching this and you think,

04:50I want to start XYZ company,

04:51but I don't know anything about it.

04:52What if that is actually the one thing

04:54that could make you more successful

04:56than somebody who's been in that industry

04:58for 10, 15 or 20 years?

05:00In fact, that's usually how it happens.

05:02Otherwise, how would you have Uber?

05:03Would Uber have gotten created

05:05if a bunch of former taxi cab members came together

05:08and said, let's start something

05:09that will totally disrupt the industry.

05:11In fact, is kind of illegal,

05:13but we're going to do it anyway.

05:14The only way to get to billions

05:16is by doing something completely different.

05:18The only way to do something completely different

05:21is to not know any better.

05:23Speaking of doing things differently,

05:26this is one of my favorite stories.

05:29This is called Elvis Juice.

05:30This is Elvis Juice.

05:31And Elvis Juice, you got sued for

05:34and then did something totally ridiculous.

05:36And now you have tens of millions of dollars

05:38of sales in this.

05:40After we launched it,

05:40we got a letter from dead Elvis's legal team

05:43or the people who own IP saying

05:44we couldn't use the name Elvis in a beer.

05:46And if we did, we had to give them a license fee

05:48for every can case bottle that we sold.

05:50So myself and Martin, my co-founder,

05:52we legally changed our names to Elvis.

05:54I sent them a letter back saying

05:56they had to give me a license fee

05:57because they were using my name and all of their music.

05:59The most difficult things that any business

06:02or any business leader faces

06:03are the biggest opportunities.

06:05You've just got to look at them with resolve,

06:07with tenacity, try and flip the situation in its head.

06:10And they're always the opportunities for the most growth.

06:12They're always the time you've got most potential.

06:15And most people just don't see that.

06:16So for us, what's always been key is using adversity

06:20as a catalyst to get better at everything we do.

06:23In order to go up against multi-multi-billion dollar companies,

06:27this founder has had to come up with a format

06:30to turn one dollar into ten every single time.

06:33We talked to us about how you do that

06:35and how you came up with this framework.

06:36One of the tests is would or could another company do this?

06:39If we spend one pound, one dollar on this thing,

06:42does it hit with the impact of ten Heineken,

06:45ten Budweiser, ten Miller dollars?

06:48Because unless the things that we spend our limited budget on

06:51hit ten times as hard as our big competitors,

06:53we've got no way to close that gap.

06:55Here's an example.

06:56James would ask his team,

06:57would Heineken build a commercial

07:01all around a Putin parody

07:03where he pretends to be gay

07:05and James dresses up as Putin

07:07and then give all the proceeds to gay rights

07:10because Putin famously kinda homophobic?

07:13No, Heineken's not gonna do that.

07:14Would Corona project themselves naked

07:18onto the houses of parliament

07:20in order to win an argument against monopolistic tendencies?

07:25No, Corona would never do that.

07:27What's the lesson in all of this?

07:29He needs this one to ten ratio

07:30and the only way to get that is to ask

07:32what aren't the big guys willing to do?

07:35And because we have less to risk,

07:37we have less money to use,

07:39we're gonna do it.

07:40They're worried about predicting the downside.

07:42We're interested increasing the upside.

07:46Tell me your five year plan.

07:47How can you get there in three years?

07:49Even better, how do you get there in 12 months?

07:51We've got something that's a change in our culture

07:53is we want to count time in dog years.

07:55So if a normal company does it in seven days,

07:56we want to do it in a day.

07:57If a normal company does it in seven weeks,

07:59we want to do it in a week.

08:01So moving quickly is our competitive advantage

08:03against bigger, slower incumbent companies.

08:06So that speed has been so important

08:08to everything we've done as a company,

08:12counting time in dog years.

08:13The fastest usually wins in company building.

08:16If you can get to the product first,

08:18if you can get to the client first,

08:20you usually get the first sale.

08:21Think about it this way.

08:22If you can now take 52 weeks a year

08:24and compress them by a rate of seven,

08:28you have increased your earnings by not doing more work,

08:32but by doing the things that matter faster.

08:35So for somebody listening that can't even imagine

08:37selling a thousand of these,

08:40what would you tell that person?

08:42The first units are the most difficult

08:45and you need to build up some momentum after that.

08:47But it's like how you can engage those early customers

08:50determines your destiny.

08:51It's almost any business you need

08:53to build up inherent momentum.

08:54You do that by amazing product quality,

08:57fantastic experiences,

08:58but it's the first ones that build that momentum.

09:00So the first hundred are the most important hundred.

09:02If you've got to fight tooth and nail

09:05and so many people get disheartened

09:07because they think, okay, we can't sell millions

09:08because we can't sell that first hundred.

09:10Get to the rounding error.

09:12What this basically means is your first dollar

09:14that you make is your hardest.

09:16Then your first 10, then your first hundred,

09:19thousand, a hundred thousand, million.

09:21If you break it down instead of thinking,

09:23how do I make my first million bucks?

09:25But how do I get to that first one?

09:26It turns out you fail less

09:28because most people don't fail

09:29because something is hard.

09:31They fail because they quit.

09:32You're tricking your brain into this idea of

09:34all I have next is that tiny little step.

09:36You felt this before when you've been on a hike

09:38or when you've been on a long run.

09:40And instead of saying, I need to do three more miles,

09:42you go just like until that tree,

09:44until I hit that stop sign.

09:46In business, what will kill you is your lack of tenacity.

09:50And the only way to build tenacity

09:52is to break things down in bite sized chunks.

09:54You narrow down your goals from hitting something in a week

09:57to hitting it in one day

09:58and you make a dollar more than you did the last

10:01until you get to your next ten or a hundred,

10:04you have a higher likelihood of succeeding.

10:06And the higher likelihood of succeeding

10:08is all due to one tiny step at a time.

10:10You have a really cool principle that you stole,

10:12quote unquote, from Disney.

10:14What is it? I thought it was brilliant.

10:16Don't fix potholes, build peaks.

10:19So in any type of consumer experience,

10:21you don't remember the things that meet your expectations.

10:25And so many companies focus on meeting customer expectations

10:28and you just get lost.

10:29You've got to build peaks.

10:31You've got to have memorable moments.

10:33You've got to have moments of magic.

10:35You've got to surprise.

10:36You've got to delight.

10:37And that's how you connect with a customer.

10:39So many companies think that logic governs customer decisions.

10:43Complete nonsense.

10:44It is all emotion.

10:45And you only connect emotionally by doing something unexpected,

10:48by doing something different, by building that peak.

10:50And we like to kind of keep it fresh and do different things.

10:52So at the end of every meal someone has in their establishment,

10:55we're going to play rock, paper, scissors for the customer.

10:58If they win, they get a dessert in the house.

11:00Really? Yeah.

11:00So I literally, I'm there, I'm eating, drinking.

11:03I go to sign my check and you go,

11:04whoa, whoa, whoa, one, two, three.

11:06Yes. Stop.

11:07Let's try it. See if you get an extreme today.

11:09Okay, ready?

11:10Oh, fuck. I fucked up.

11:11Rock, paper, scissors. Ready?

11:13Wait, so you go rock, paper, scissors, shoot.

11:16Okay, now what happens?

11:17I think this is just going to work.

11:19We've messed up twice.

11:21There's a famous story about Walt Disney,

11:24where every time he went to one of his parks,

11:27would walk in the front gate of his park,

11:29surrounded by all of his senior executives.

11:32And while they were in their suits paying attention to strategy,

11:35he would look around, find a piece of trash anywhere,

11:38pick it up and put it in the trash can.

11:40Then he would do this a few other times.

11:42Was he just OCD?

11:44No, he was actually sending a message.

11:46Every detail matters.

11:48The magic gets stolen when a small piece of trash clutters it up.

11:53People notice perfection.

11:54And that was Walt Disney's secret.

11:56James has the same strategy.

11:58Now his magic moments look a little bit different.

12:00They might look like a beer can that looks like this.

12:03totally different on a shelf that looks like this.

12:07What is a magic moment that you have at BrewDog

12:10that led you to billions?

12:12We have got a podcast studio.

12:14We have got a slide.

12:15We've got a hidden cocktail speakeasy.

12:18We've got duck pin bowling.

12:19And again, it's kind of great and unexpected moments

12:22that connect you with your customer

12:23and also kind of underline

12:25what you're passionate about as a company.

12:27And it's been a huge success.

12:29Every business needs a magical moment.

12:31And if you don't have one,

12:32you don't have a business,

12:33you have a product that can be commoditized

12:36and copied by everybody.

12:40Anyone who's running in a business,

12:42like so much of the time,

12:43you could be running on empty or close to empty.

12:45Like that just doesn't work.

12:47You've got to put awesome things in

12:49to get awesome things out.

12:50You've got to listen to fantastic podcasts.

12:51You've got to read fantastic books.

12:52You've got to travel to interesting places.

12:54You've got to spend time with interesting people.

12:56And all of my best ideas come from these things.

13:00So it's important to make the time to do these things

13:02in my schedule as well,

13:03because that's where the big concepts,

13:05the big ideas come from.

13:06You've got to put some awesome things in

13:08to get that inspiration.

13:09Garbage in, garbage out.

13:10That was one of his main strategies.

13:12And let me tell you what he means by this.

13:14Michael Jordan was super famous for one thing,

13:16being the best at basketball, right?

13:18He's a billionaire.

13:20He's a legend in sports.

13:21He's probably one of the few people

13:22where everywhere he goes,

13:23somebody wants to shake his hand,

13:25even decades later.

13:26James thinks the same way Michael Jordan does about one thing,

13:31which is the way that you prepare for anything

13:34affects the way you do the thing.

13:36You told me that right now you sit at, like,

13:39number 14th biggest beer in the world.

13:41Do you think you'll feel any different at number five

13:44than you do at 14?

13:45I think I'll just want to get into the top three.

13:47I think that's right.

13:50And then what happens when you get to the top three?

13:52Top two.

13:54So Michael Jordan, before he played,

13:56had a routine that was so specific

13:58he would never change it every single time.

13:59Every game before he played,

14:01he grabbed a pair of brand new shoes,

14:04his own shoes, Jordan's, unlaced out of the box.

14:07Why?

14:08Because he remembered back when he was a kid

14:09and getting a pair of shoes was a huge deal.

14:12This was a reminder of who he was

14:14that he got a new pair every single time.

14:16One time, his coach, Tim Grover,

14:19knew that he was running late.

14:20So he grabbed a pair of shoes for Michael.

14:22He opened up the box.

14:23He laced them up and had them ready to go.

14:25Michael refused to wear those shoes.

14:26He said that the way you do anything

14:27is the way you do everything.

14:28And every time I play, I do this exact same process.

14:33And getting in that frame of mind

14:35will allow you to create a business

14:37that is completely different from the rest of humans

14:39who are letting in all the information

14:42that's surrounding them without any sort of filter.

14:44If you put a bunch of garbage in,

14:46you'll get a bunch of garbage out.

14:47And the greats control everything that goes into their brain.

14:51Time to take out the trash.

14:53So I often get asked what I think of what we as a team

14:56have built so far, and it is phenomenal,

14:58but I'm almost a little bit indifferent to it.

15:01What for me we've built so far is a platform to go on

15:04and do something meaningful, to do something impactful.

15:07And I'm excited about, okay, where do we go from here?

15:10And we want to build one of the top five beer businesses

15:12on the planet, but we also want to do it

15:14and showcase a community-owned business.

15:17We want to showcase that business can be a force for good,

15:19and we also want to do all we can

15:21from a sustainability perspective.

15:22So we don't just want to build one of the top five beer

15:24businesses on the planet.

15:25We want to do it our way, and we want to do it

15:27that has a positive impact on our community,

15:29and our team, and on the planet as well.

15:31We've completely forgotten why we are entrepreneurs.

15:34When did we become a group of vitamin D deprived,

15:37all bird wearing, alternative milk drinking,

15:39extreme power pointers?

15:41Many of us got soft.

15:43We don't climb mountains, we don't break bones,

15:45we sit behind keyboards bragging about how

15:47ChatGPT did all the work.

15:49What an awful thing to strive for.

15:51How can you make the most money by employing the least people

15:55and doing as little work as possible?

15:57Or how can we just get mailbox money, I hate that term,

16:00and then tweet about it.

16:01The secret is that entrepreneurs don't exist

16:04just for a bunch of zeros.

16:06We exist because we're crazy enough

16:08to actually will things into existence.

16:11We're supposed to be the next generation of explorers,

16:14addicts to the masochistic mission

16:16of achievement and ownership.

16:18Have you ever had that feeling of being so damn unemployable,

16:22your only option is owner?

16:24The inability to sleep because a vision's so big

16:27they pull you up from bed in the dead of the night.

16:30Dreams so futuristic, people laugh when you tell them.

16:33Those are the entrepreneurs I admire.

16:36That's why I think the real entrepreneurs of today,

16:38they don't want passive income, they want fucking empires.

16:42And I think if you're here,

16:44you're not just looking for mailbox money,

16:45you want a fucking empire too.

16:47And if that's the case, you should subscribe

16:49because the next video is gonna help you build that bad boy.

16:52So hit that button.

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