Million Dollar Monday
Million Dollar Monday
Tapping into an Untapped Market with Josh Goodman
Show Notes & Resources
Josh Goodman is Founder and CEO of PourMyBeer, a leading self-serve dispense technology company providing restaurant operators increased efficiencies and sales, while providing patrons with a better experience. Goodman has been recognized as an Inc. 5,000 award-winner, a two-time entrepreneur, 360-award winner, and a leader in his industry. PourMyBeer has over 10,000 taps in 23 countries, and most recently Coca-Cola European Partners chose to invest in the company. Goodman’s investment in his own technology and his people has provided a foundation for the company’s growth and success.
Chapter Summaries:
0:41 - Introducing Josh Goodman
1:25 - PourMyBeer
3:51 - What Sparked the Idea
7:40 - No Need to Panic
14:10 - Measuring Sucess
18:09 - Solving an Issue
21:32 - Big Mistakes, Big Lessons
Key Takeaways
- Learn how to solve problems without panicking.
- Until the business doesn't need you, you don't have a business, you have a job. So you know, where I've been focusing, a lot of my energy is building and getting the right people and the right processes in place.
- The universe keeps throwing the same problems at you until you learn how to figure them out.
- I'll never be the smartest person in the room. Uh, but I can tell you I don't make the same mistake twice. And I do believe that I've made more mistakes than anyone else out there. In fact, I would go as far as saying we've made more mistakes than all of our competitors combined. But we've never made the same mistake.
- Learn how to do your own bookkeeping, learn how to do your own finances, watch videos, talk to the smartest people, you know, um, it doesn't mean you have to do your own bookkeeping longterm, but be conscious of what your balance sheet looks like.
- But I guess my lesson there was don't sign contracts with expecting that the person on the other side sees a life the same way you do.
- That’s another lesson learned, do your due diligence on people that you're going to go into business with.
- I think it's always important to look at how the dots are connected.
- We may not get it right 100% of the time, but we will make it right 100% of the time.
Resource Links:
Website: PourMyBeer.com
Josh Goodman: Linkedin | Instagram
Company: Linkedin | Instagram |
Hello and welcome to Million Dollar Monday. I'm your host, Greg Muzzillo, bringing you real successful people with real useful advice for people with big dreams. I understand big dreams. I turned an investment of$200 and a lot of great advice from some really successful people into my big dream, Proforma, that today is a half billion dollar company. Well welcome for the first time in the history of Million Dollar Monday, which has been about a year. I have a guest who's in an industry I never heard of. I am excited for you to meet him here shortly. He is an Inc 5,000 award-winning business and entrepreneur. He is a two time entrepreneur, 360 award winner, and he is the industry leader in an industry called the self pour industry. We're about to learn a whole lot more about Josh Goodman, Josh Goodman. Thanks for joining us.
Josh Goodman:Thank you, Greg. Happy to be here.
Greg Muzzillo:Great to have you all right. First of all, just tell people briefly, what is the self pour industry, then we're gonna go back and hear the whole story.
Josh Goodman:Yeah, so you know, I like to refer to it as you know, everyone's pumped their own gas. So when you pull up to a gas station, you pump your own gas and whatever you put in your car, you pay for, if you can only afford$2 and 33 cents of unleaded, that's what you pay for. If you can afford to fill it up, it's a hundred bucks, whatever, we've taken that same concept and applied it to the going out industry. So you can go to any of our locations across the country and dispense, 2.3 ounces of one product. It could be beer, wine, cocktails cold brew coffee, and you get charged by the 10th of an ounce. And it's seamless.
Greg Muzzillo:All right. So just like pump my own gas pump my own drink. And the name of the company is appropriately enough, PourMyBeer. All right, let's start at the beginning, Josh.
Josh Goodman:I would say growing up, you know, my dad owned a carpet business. So naturally I was around what it, back then entrepreneur, wasn't really even a word in the, in the eighties. Um, but you know, he was an entrepreneur. Ironically, I didn't get as much of a window into the business side of it. He, he had me go and like rip up, carpet and put it in trucks and do the manual labor stuff. And he slipped me 20,$30 to help out. But really what sparked me, from a business entrepreneurship perspective, wasn't until the senior year of high school, or I'm sorry, senior year of college, going into my senior year, I realized I needed to get some practical work experience. And all I had really done up to then was waiting tables, working at a pool. I actually laid gym floors one summer, which was awesome working for my dad, obviously. I even bailed some hay at a friend's family farm, but that summer I saw some advertisements for something that said$15 was based appointment. And you get paid commissions on whatever you sell. Didn't know what I'd be selling, but I went to the interview and it was Cutco knives. So that summer I sold like$20,000 for the knives made, you know, probably in the neighborhood of five to$8,000 that summer, which was more money, that was a million dollars to me at that point in my life.
Greg Muzzillo:Absolutely.
Josh Goodman:You know, that was my first kind of taste of entrepreneurship and that really just lit the fire.
Greg Muzzillo:Awesome. All right. Then what happened after
Josh Goodman:That? Going back to kind of the origin story. I was in a bar in Baltimore where I lived at the time and meeting some friends and we just, we were meeting up before a game and wanted to get a few drinks. And we walked into the bar and it was it's in Federal Hill, which is kind of a, you know, working class part of Baltimore, where the local hangout. And we couldn't get a drink. It took about 20 minutes just to get one person's attention to come over and take our order. Um, then we didn't place our order in, you know, we didn't get another drink for 10 minutes. And by the time we got our first round, it was time to go. And I just kept thinking, this is a broken process. Like I'm not only an unhappy customer. Um, there's probably another 70 or 80 unhappy customers. And then the owner is losing the revenue that they could have gotten if I could have just poured my own drinks. I actually left my friends at the bar. We were supposed to go to an Orioles game that night and I left him at the bar. I said, I got this idea. I gotta really kind of, I wanna dive deep on it. So I went home and I was up till probably three or four in the morning, typing out the business plan and you know, how it would look and work. And I didn't have a name for it yet, but I caught it like the adult beverage dispense system kind of like an ATM, but for beer and that was the original kind of start. And I mean, that was back in 2008.
Greg Muzzillo:So that's 2008. I know you went through a couple of experiences that sort of led you to the official beginning of PourMyBeer and long story short, you just got yourself to the point, you know, you and I had a chance to visit. You got to the point where you realized you needed to have your own technology and your own systems. Um, and I think if I remember correctly, that was around 2012, 2013, is that right?
Josh Goodman:Yep. You're right spot on there, Greg. And you know, uh, Entrepreneur Magazine did a really good job at laying out the stages of the business. Uh, I was really impressed with how they did that, but it was the first stage was, was kind of trying to do it on my own with that. I did like a little mobile beer table. Um, and then I was put in touch with this company in Ireland that had already developed their own mobile beer table for Diagio on a large scale. And so I just, you know, I was like, well, I'll just piggyback off them. They've already got the engineering, they've got it figured out it's wireless. Um, and so I flew over to Ireland in November of 2009, had an amazing experience, they wined and d ined me threw the Guinness a t me and, you know, just really, u m, it was great. You know, I got a lot of, uh, had a lot of confidence coming back in there and you know, one of the things I'd say to any entrepreneur is, you know, we did that. I would call it idiotic, uh, entrepreneur math, where there were 7 million people in the country of Ireland. Um, and they did around 5 million Euro in business. So we're thinking America has 300 million people. Right, right. It's conservative to assume we'll do 150 million the first year. Um, so they got me to agreed to doing a deal where I got 5% of the net profits of the company, um, which was, you know, nothing. Um, and then like a really, really low ball salary. But I was so eager just to get something going. I was like, I don't care. It's a rookie contract. I'm gonna outperform my contract and we're gonna renegotiate it a year from now, but I did agree to a really terrible deal. And I don't regret agreeing to it because they were sticking pretty hard to what they thought was fair. Um, but you know, it got the ball rolling and then we started, you know, essentially I viewed it as me being able to get my masters in business on their dollar. Um, cause they were gonna let me run the US organization. And I felt that was far more valuable than any percentage or salary.
Greg Muzzillo:That's a great perspective.
Josh Goodman:Yeah, no it definitely came with its challenges. Like, you know, one of the challenges I remember specifically, we didn't have a forklift and so they were delivering 20 of the 500 pound tables to unload off the truck. So I literally ran up and down like four rows of office buildings asking if someone owned a forklift, since my dad owned a carpet company, I was like, I'm OSHA certified. I know how to drive a forklift. Can I give you 50 bucks and I'll just, you know, I'll bring it right back. And I was able to get'em unloaded and you know, but it's little problems that you just get thrown these problems nonstop and you're learning how to solve them without panicking. Um, that's a, that's a muscle that you do not gain until you flex, you know, work it out a lot. Um, and then, you know, so 2010 we grew up from 200 grand to 800 grand in 2011. And then, um, you know, my business partner at the time Declan and I were, we were just, you know, selling our tails off and we had one other employee helping on the installations and we got to 1.2 million and then we found out the Irish company wag going bankrupt, which was not fun to hear. Um, they didn't disclose that to us. Uh, at all. We found out through a third party and then we, we ended up partying ways with them towards the end of 2012. And that's when we started PourMyBeer. So Declan and I started the company and we really didn't have a plan. You know, it's kind of like that ready fire aim kind of concept. Or, uh, we didn't have a real plan. We were just like, look, we've got, we've got the knowledge of how to sell it. We gotta find another supplier, but you know, you know, we'll figure it out. And I think that, that, that's one of the things that some people get caught up on the fact that they don't have a plan. Um, and they just, you know, they just stop in their tracks and I think it's important to, to be okay with not having a plan, um, and being kind of under a lot of stress.
Greg Muzzillo:Well, you were forced into that situation too, your supplier at the time or partner or whatever you call them was going bankrupt. So you really didn't have a choice much other than to get on the fly and figure out a plan on the fly.
Josh Goodman:Yeah. Yeah. So then ironically enough, around 2013 is when a company out of California had just raised close to a million dollars to launch their own self pour product, but they had failed to secure any customers in about a year and it was being run by a lawyer and, you know, a tech person. Um, but they had not gained one customer. And so, you know, Declan and I reached out and said, look, we don't know how to sell. We don't have a product, so maybe we can work together. So we actually did work out an agreement where we sold about 30 of their systems. And, you know, quite frankly, if their systems would've worked, we'd have probably stayed in business with them, but they failed miserably. I had customers cursing me out, yelling at me telling me how I had sold'em a lemon. Yeah. Yeah. And it was it was terrible, you know? Um, and again, that's another lesson learned like, uh, you know, do your due diligence on people that you're gonna go into business with. And then, you know, there just kept being these, we call it the slapping hand, like a hand just keeps slapping you until you like push the hand away. And the slapping hand was like, they didn't care that their technology didn't work. They just were really focused on getting customers and didn't care how well their system worked. And, and we, you know, our values just weren't aligned. So, uh, at the time we had hardly any cash left and, you know, we, we ended up, you know, that concept of burning the boat, you know, when you get to an island you don't have, so we, we basically fired them as a vendor and said, we never wanna do business with you again. Um, and we ended up, uh, Declan ended up having to leave the company and go get a regular job because you know, the company had no money. Um, and then that's when I, I really cemented a relationship with one of the companies in Austria that we'd done business with. Um, and I sold them on me as a person, our track record of, of what we'd done over the last few years. And we had indirectly done business with them through the company in Ireland because Ireland would actually secure them to deliver product for us as we well, but I said the current product that's available is not something that we can scale. And I went to them with the proposition that it had to be so simple that my six year old son could install it and support it. Uh, and that was how we built the product together. And I agreed to pay them, upfront for orders that had not been fulfilled. And I agreed to give them equity in the company if it was fulfilled. And it was just one of those I'd been through so many, I guess, negative relationships or toxic business relationships. You know, I was, I don't wanna say it was jaded, but to get into a relationship with someone who genuinely cared about you as a person and treated you the way that they've treated me since day one, it was just, it was worth all the pain I went through, you know? Um, it made me appreciate a healthy business relationship over an unhealthy one.
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah, absolutely.
Josh Goodman:I think people let them just like in life, they get into unhealthy relationships and they just stay in'em you gotta get out of them.
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah. All right. So this company helped you actually develop the solution that worked, that you were able to take to the market. That really is the, uh, backbone of PourMyBeer.
Josh Goodman:Yeah. So 2015, a kind of funny story that happened there is, it was, you know, I flew over there in March I got to see the prototype in person. Then we went skiing in the Austrian Alps, which was amazing. I almost died on in the Austrian Alps that's in the book, coming out later next year. But, after that it was March and I got to bring the working prototype back with me. Um, but I had already collected the deposits from customers. So, you know, when you collect money from someone and you don't have a product yet, it's a very stressful time between when you're gonna install it. And you know, when you've got their money and I was always very upfront with our prospects and I actually took that sample set and I didn't have much money left in the bank. I mean, I had taken out a 70,000 loan and it was taking money out of my account every single day. It was one of those payday loans and it was, it was very stressful because we got down to like less than$10,000 or no, sorry, less than$3,000 in our account. I figured I only had about eight more days left until I was overdrawn. So I took some of the money flew to California. I had five meetings and I was like, I just gotta come back with two, two deposits out of the five to stay alive. And I did, I was able to come back with two deposits out of the five, um, and you know, long term, I ended up getting all five deposits down the road, but you know, I just needed two right then to kind of stay alive
Greg Muzzillo:Flash forward as to where is the business at today as it relates to how you met measure the size and success of the company?
Josh Goodman:Yeah. The easy way to measure it is in revenue, but I think more importantly, you know, someone once told me early on when I was trying to secure an investment from them, they said, um, you know, until the business doesn't need you, you don't, you don't have a business, you have a job. Um, so you know, where I've been focusing, a lot of my energy is building getting the right people and the right processes in place. Our product is rock solid. You know, it can always be improved upon, but where we're measuring our success today, versus a few years ago, I mean a few years ago was survive. It was just survive, you know, get some wins, survive, uh, you know, having an investor like CocaCola European partner, Euro Pacific partners in our company helps validate kind of the longevity of our company. And yeah,
Greg Muzzillo:So just, just for our listeners, you kind of glossed over that, but somewhere along the way, um, you got an investment from, a Coke group Coca-Cola group to invest in the company and become an equity partner, which is pretty substantial.
Josh Goodman:Yeah and I think it's always important to look at how those dots connected. So we did a project for a company out of New York city, branded hospitality. And they had a place called, Duke's. Um, and they've got about 30 other restaurants in the city, but branded hospitality created branded strategic, which is an investment arm and invests specifically in the restaurant hospitality industry. So our company was their first investment and then they introduced their portfolio to Coca-Cola Europe, the bottling division for Coca-Cola. And they said, we'd love to talk to this innovative tap solutions company, doing businesses for PourMyBeer. And so those conversations progressed and then I met'em in Europe and they, they liked what we were doing. They liked how we were doing it. And they said, look, we'd like to, you know, make an investment in your company. And so we went through the due diligence process and, kind of a funny, not funny COVID story was we had the deal done in February of 2020. It was all but signed, dotted delivered, and then COVID hits. So assets get frozen deals, get put on hold, restaurants close the down. I mean, it could have been utter dooms day for our company, but we built such a good foundation with our team and our cash and just our business in general, that we were able to, you know, weather the storm. And then, you know, lo and behold, September of 2020, Coca-Cola came back to the table and said, look, let's get this deal done. It's already 98% done. We took off from there. I mean, we doubled in revenue from 2020 to 2021. And even in 2020, we were up 10% from the year before, even though we, really had a few months where we couldn't do much business.
Greg Muzzillo:Right, right. So you're in how many bars or establishments are you in today?
Josh Goodman:So worldwide, we have over 350 locations, um, including cruise ships that we're on, that they're using our technology. Uh, and you know, we're, we're starting to make a lot of headway in the hotel industry where the guests can use their room card to deploy their own beer, wine cocktails. Um, but you know, know, uh, 23 different countries currently bulk of our installations are in the United States. So if you were to go to our website, PourMyBeer.com and look at the locations, it'll automatically find the locations nearest to you, but, you know I still am in awe of what, what we're building. And also that we're still at the very kind of beginning of what I believe is gonna be a much larger, absolutely business. Um, and you know, I really still get a lot of excitement and, you know, like Christmas morning excitement to a packed bar, that's using our technology and see that nobody's waiting because I can legitimately say that I solved that problem, you know, and originally that problem was the problem we solved was I call it the hamburger of self poor. So, you know, a hamburger is two, two buns and a patty. So the patty is all the transactions in between. The bun is checking into the restaurant and checking out of the restaurant. Um, we really focused on the patty when we started the business and we had that down pack, like what you poured showed up. And, but the onboarding and offboarding was really bumpy, but by integrating with like Toast and Clover and My Access Point and Zonal and and all these major point of sales companies, we've made it. So the onboarding process is quick. It's like 20 seconds. And then there is no offboarding process. So you can literally just drop your card in a bucket on the way out in a, you know, a 10% jar, a 20% jar, a 30% jar, and you get, you, you add your tip without having to be there. So, you know, that's where I feel like we've really made some, some massive steps in the last few years. And when you asked about how I judged kind of the metrics and the numbers, it's definitely on number of locations. I mean, yes, I'm focused on revenue. Uh, you know, I do believe, you know, today we're valued at a 20 million company. I believe next year we should be in the 50 to 60 million range based off the contracts and the pipeline we have, you know, and we are talking to some of these bigger players now, they're seeing our technology in use and, you know, they wanna see that you've been able to grow. Um, no one wants to do business with a 10 or 20 location company.
Greg Muzzillo:Do I put in my credit card? How does this exactly work, do I go up to the tap itself and just put in my credit card and pour what I want?
Josh Goodman:Yeah. So the, the main way that most of our customers implemented is you, uh, you walk into a bar tap room, you have someone that we call a card dealer, um, and they, they take your credit card and check your ID, and then they swipe your credit card into their point of sale system. And then, then what they do is they connect our card to the tab that has been created under your name. So it would show up as Greg in their point of sale system and this card, as well as any other card you wanted to connect to your account would automatically post the transactions on your open tab. So no different than if you said, you know, I'll take, I'll take 10 beers. Um, put it on my tab instead of someone having to physically do it, it's posting every transaction on your tab. And we've got customers doing a half a million a month through our system where 50,000 of that is margaritas. And we have another customer in Chicago, that's doing close to 200,000 a month. And he was like, there was, we had over, uh, 28,000 transactions over the weekend. He said, we did that with six employees. And so, you know, typically to do 28,000 transactions, I mean, think of, you know, you need an army of people,
Greg Muzzillo:You know? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Josh Goodman:Um, and that's, you know, that's a test to what we built. We built a system that, that allows you to run your business more efficiently, but it's also, it's a win for the customer because they're getting to sample it. You're selling them instead of a beer or a cocktail. You're selling an experience and that's where the magic happens. That's what I truly find joy in anytime I see it in action.
Greg Muzzillo:It's almost mind boggling to think of all of the places that this technology and solution could apply. Tell our listeners one or two of the biggest mistakes you made and what lessons come with it. And one or two of the biggest successes, and what lessons come with that.
Josh Goodman:Uh, so, my lawyer, he's made a quote that really sticks with me and it plays into what you just said. He says, the universe keeps throwing the same problems at you until you learn how to figure'em out. Um, one of those problems that kind of brought it was brought to head last year was I had a vendor. I was introduced to this person as a potential investor. And they said they wanted to offer some financial services. So I, you know, I'd signed up for'em and I figured I'd take the financial services for a few months if I didn't like it, I'd cancel it. Um, so I signed the agreement and then, when I went to cancel it, instead of canceling it three months, I canceled it three months and like four or five days. And they were like, well, hold up, you know, it autorenews for a year, if you didn't cancel in three months. And, you know, I was really in a state of disbelief, because this was before COVID or whatever, and then COVID hit and whatever it was another kind of insult to injury. But I guess my lesson there was don't sign contracts with expecting that the person on the other side sees life the same way you do. Um, like just doing what you feel is the right thing to do. Um, because if someone ever came to me and said, Hey, I didn't get outta the contract, but it was four days late, I would never say, okay, well you owe me for nine more months of services, even though you don't want them. I just, I wouldn't feel morally right about doing that. But so that's one lesson I would say, you know, read the contracts and don't assume that everyone sees the world the same way you do. Um, and then the other one that, you know, I've said this on a few platforms that hopefully people are listening to is learn how to do your own bookkeeping, learn how to do your own finances, watch videos, talk to the smartest people you know, um, it doesn't mean you have to do you're own bookkeeping long term, but be conscious of what your balance sheet looks like, what your P and L looks like. I've created my own version of a P and L in an Excel document. But you know, if I could go back and talk to 25 year old, 27 year old Josh, I would say, take classes on QuickBooks, learn how to do it yourself, learn how to input things, learn how to check it. Um, you know, but then again, at that time, my life I was just trying to stay alive. I wasn't as focused on are my books clean. Um, yeah. But yeah, there's, there would be the two areas that I would.
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah, for sure. Understanding at some level the finances is the key to everything because as they say cash is king, all right. The biggest success and the biggest lesson now for our listeners.
Josh Goodman:Biggest success. Um, you know, I would say focusing on just loving on your team, you know, like I would say like, you know, if you can, if you can empower your team to kind of create on their own and, you know, applaud them when they create structure or processes, I've found such joy in seeing our team collaborate and bring projects to fruition from our CRM improvement to, you know, we added a customer success person to our company this year. And, you know, our marketing director, just seeing people blossom into the people that you believed they could be when you brought them on and exceeding your expectations. I think that's what really, I've found a ton of joy in over the last, you know, 12, 24 months.
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah.
Josh Goodman:I hate to end on a failure, but I guess, uh, biggest failure that's, uh, you know, I'm a big advocate as a former college athlete. Like I always tell our prospects, like not the smartest person, I'll never be the smartest person in the room, but I can tell you,
Greg Muzzillo:I always, whenever I hear somebody say that I always know look out because here comes something really smart. Go
Josh Goodman:Ahead. Well, you know, I believe that I don't make the same mistake twice. There
Greg Muzzillo:You go. And, and
Josh Goodman:I do believe that I've made more mistakes than anyone else out there. In fact, I would go as far as saying, we've made more mistakes than all of our competitors combined. Um, but we've never made the same mistake and that's something that, you know, it kind of goes along with, you know, the phrase that I, I really try to bleed into our team is, you know, we may not get it right a hundred percent of the time, but we will make it right a hundred percent of the time. And, you know, just having that focus on your team, your customers, and just constantly learning, like I learned from our team. Um, I always applaud, you know, when I do gain something from them that I didn't know before, uh, you know, because, you know, we're all here to help each other. We're all teammates, you know, we've got that upside down triangle mentality, you know?
Greg Muzzillo:Yeah. Um, clearly we're all in it together and the more let people do the more they'll wanna do. And by listening to you that you are really at the very early stages, even though you've achieved some very good levels of success, you are at the early stages of something I think is going to be massive. I look forward to hearing when your book is done. And most importantly, I thank you, Josh for spending some time with us.
Josh Goodman:Thank you, Greg. And hopefully your listeners enjoy it. And if they have a question, feel free to have them, you know, ping you or come direct to our social media and ask there, but, you know, just want to be helpful for any other entrepreneurs out there. They
Greg Muzzillo:could also just put it in the comments. We'll have comments depending upon where they read this at so they can put their questions and comments in the appropriate medium and we'll follow up, Josh. Thanks again.
Josh Goodman:Thank you, Greg. I'm glad you decided to reach out and I'm glad this all worked out.
