The first brewery that was built by crowd funding ten years ago keeps expanding rapidly. It all started in one of its co-founder’s mother’s garage – and right now they employ 800 people and keep opening bars all over the world. Their edgy craft beers and punk attitude have created an entire cult around the Brewdog brand.
Their shareholders – pardon – Equity Punks, now have a good reason to crack open a few bottles, as San Francisco-based private equity house agreed to buy 22% of the company. This means that early investors in Brewdog will now be able to make a return of 2,800%, as this ‘punk’ beer firm’s worth is now estimated at 1£bn. A wonderful outcome, especially considering the fact that the company owners had to use a £20,000 bank loan a decade ago to even start brewing!
They promise to remain focused on their goal to make others as passionate about craft beer as they are, which is why they quit their jobs and started brewing in the first place. The two co-founders won’t allow the deal to go to their heads, but ‘Martin did buy himself a new jumper’, as we learn from James.
Jokes aside, not only are they making the world a better place by brewing great craft beer and educating their customers to choose quality beer over generic industrial sludge – they also strive to be the best place to work, all the time.
We witnessed their wonderful employee-based initiatives, ‘The Unicorn Fund’ and ‘DogTales‘, being awarded at The UK Customer Experience Awards. They won two categories for their outstanding increase in employee engagement which they achieved in the most imaginative and thoughtful ways.
After all, how many employees can say that they share 10% of their company’s profit evenly among themselves, are informed about company goings on by a fun and engaging newsletter, and always feel like they’re a part of their company’s success? For now, not many.
Check out their ‘Decade of Dog’ video below, and to the Brewdog crew we just have to say – keep up the good work, you punks.
Interesting Links:
- ‘Nudge Theory’ Empowers Employees
- A Word from the Winners of the UK Employee Experience Awards2017
- Adobe, Beer & Robberies