Finding our voice

We are going crowdfunding!

About a year ago we first started talking about crowdfunding as a route and focused on Crowdcube as the partner. Their enthusiasm for our distinctive story and understanding of their investor group is probably what convinced us that fundraising in a pandemic was viable.

There are some serious concerns though. We have known from the outset when James (K) designed our fundraising strategy. Effectively a retail only model has meant that somehow almost every conversation feels like an investor one. It’s like a series of Dragons Den conversations without the luxury of knowing the same 5 characters are here every week and pretty full on.

I remember 20 years ago in my induction when David Grant one of the owners of Wm Grant and Sons looked me in the eye when I asked a question about production and said trust me James making it is the most straightforward part because you control most things. Selling and selling through (not to) distributors and getting paid is far more complicated and challenging. He was right, and when you strip Wm Grants or SABMiller off your business card it just gets harder.

At the start you are selling a dream, a vision and you just hope beyond reason that the logic you told yourself to give up a successful and lucrative career for adventure is all solid and that’s enough for some, but now well you need more. We are distinctive, have a strong board, proven demand (though could always do with more), it’s a growing market and we know lots of distributors.

So when you look at Crowdcube’s platform and us versus the new wave of Irish distilleries I think we stack up well, but there is a lot more work than we were prepared for and my goodness we need to step up , be brave, we need help to find our voice ….time for Rory Steele and his band of Steelyfoxes….