Bright Ideas: Non-Alcoholic Beer and Startup Success with Bright Barrel’s Caleb Drown and Brian Garrison

[00:00:02] What you want when you want it, where you want it. This is the MESH. Today we have two guests, Caleb Brown and Brian Garrison, who have created a non-alcoholic beer brand and will be sharing their entrepreneurial story. Plus on today's show, the always

[00:00:43] exciting lightning round, and we'll share some interesting small businesses that you should be checking out. Hello, my name is Jeff Nouvelle. I'm your co-host. I'm Director of the Manufacturing Solutions Center in Connover, North Carolina. I'm joined by my co-host Gary

[00:00:57] Mueller, who is Executive Dean of Economic Development and Corporate Education at Calabal Community College in Hickory. That is a mouthful. Gary, how you doing? Jeff, I'm doing great. Although it's hottest places, but I do like hot weather better than cool weather.

[00:01:13] You like hot weather, you say you're here in a long sleeve shirt, you're like, you know, you can use a cold beer. That's a good idea. Okay, we actually have samples. I'm excited. From our guest today. So, really excited about these samples because I'm allergic to alcohol.

[00:01:30] That's my story. You've told me this before. I mean, it's this is someone that doesn't like the drink beer and goes around saying I'm allergic to alcohol. That's a good way

[00:01:39] to get around. So I question your allergies, but can I take one of these to Atlanta to celebrate our skillshow say team? I think you should hand them out to all of the high school kids. That'll be really good.

[00:01:52] Okay. The last time they go to the skillshow say conflict. I think you would be the best anyway. You would be the bell of the ball, Gary. So anyway, we have our guests with us. We have Caleb Brown who is a Marine. Thank you for your service. Yes.

[00:02:09] Turned humanitarian in entrepreneur who has been shaped by his journeys and interested in innovation. He grew up in the Chicago area. But he's made his home here in Wilkesboro in the Appalachian

[00:02:24] area of North Carolina and we're also joined by Brian Garrison who is a, to join the name of the company Brightbearl as a co-founder in 2024. And he sort of got an entrepreneurial background himself. He put in a lot

[00:02:38] of sweat equity when he was a young man doing a lawn work and whatnot. And he actually started his own insurance business which you might remember Brian from previous ad for exchange podcast Caleb

[00:02:51] Brian, welcome on the on for Nordic change. Welcome back to the on for exchange. Thank you guys so much good to be here with you. Also, my son, I'm sorry. He's a Marine. Always a Marine, right? All right. Yeah, when some Marine always a Marine. That's right. Great.

[00:03:06] And how are you doing Brian? Doing great. Doing great. It's always good to see you. Same here. So Brian Caleb, you guys are starting a non alcoholic beer brand called Brightbearl.

[00:03:18] Why non alcoholic beer? Who do you plan to market it to? How big is the audience out there for non alcoholic beer other than my friend Gary? Yeah, sure. Well, hopefully we have two fans now.

[00:03:32] But yeah, so just just to give you a little bit of a backstory with this I have had a story journey with alcohol just throughout my life. Really, I would say in the Marine Corps and

[00:03:48] for much of my adult life, I drank pretty heavy and I love beer. I love I love a good gin and tonic but I've needed to really dial it back. And one of the things that became pretty clear to me was

[00:04:02] I was training for a triathlon and I had to cut alcohol out during the time I was training, intense training and my little sister who'd gone through AA introduced me to some non alcoholic beer.

[00:04:19] Now the last time I had drank non alcoholic beer. I was in the Marine Corps. I was any rock and in under general order number one, you can't have beer. But they do have Odoels out there

[00:04:32] and I remember trying it and just being incredibly disappointed with the experience. And so when my little sister offered me the her non alcoholic beer, I was definitely skeptical but

[00:04:47] I drank it and I was surprised how good it actually tasted. It was a craft quality. And so I started looking around for more non-alcoholic beer options and especially down here in

[00:04:58] Western North Carolina. It was hard to find on the shelves. You could get a couple big brand options but really very little craft non-alcoholic beer. And even when I started looking, I bought some online because one of the nice things about non-alcoholic beers you can ship

[00:05:18] across the US, there's no limitations because it's non-alcoholic. And so when I ordered product I would get it and even then the branding on it was just really lacked any creativity. You know, good craft beer often has great creative vibes in their branding. And so

[00:05:40] and so that was really a part of the launch of this was recognizing. Putting good craft non-alcoholic beer in cans and products that really reflect the Appalachian region is something that I really

[00:05:55] wanted to do. I've lived now in the Western North Carolina area since 2017 and have fallen in love with it. And so that was really the genesis. In terms of types of people where why drink non-alcoholic beer,

[00:06:14] one of the biggest reasons is for health reasons. So non-alcoholic beer has about half of the calories that a traditional beer has. Sometimes even significantly less than that depending on how you brew the product. But it's high in polyphenols. So actually if you took alcohol out of beer,

[00:06:36] fermented products are good for you. And so a non-alcoholic beer has high levels of polyphenols which are very good for cardiovascular health. It's high in electrolytes so it becomes a really good recovery drink. So other brands have started to really market into like that marathon and

[00:06:56] triathlete crowd and you're starting to see more and more non-alcoholic beers pop up in the world of athletics as well, just because of that aspect that it really is a good recovery drink postwork out.

[00:07:12] The other aspect for me when I was training in my triathlon and drinking non-alcoholic beer, it was kind of a weird experience to actually be able to sit down and drink a beer and then go

[00:07:24] for a 30-mile bike ride. But you could and it was like you had been hydrated before you started going. Now I don't know if I'd recommend the carbonated forms of anything while you're out on the road,

[00:07:38] you probably want something that's a little less carbonated but before or after it's an excellent product for that. So those are some of the big reasons. Okay, very cool. I'm sipping on it and I'm enjoying it. So choosing business partners can be a dangerous game. You know sometimes

[00:08:04] I was looking at me when he says that they can't end in divorce, you and I have been together for a long time. So I mean, tell us a little bit about how YouTube met and partnered up and

[00:08:20] how's it going? Will Caleb salt me out for some insurance consultation? So that's how we initially met was a small business center director referred Caleb to me for some insurance consultation. That's what kind of insurance coverage his business was going to need. So we met what month

[00:08:48] was it Caleb? In toward the end of January and started that whole process and then I was just really intrigued with his story, with what he was creating and more importantly the type of person

[00:09:06] he is high integrity. So over the next few months we really began to develop a relationship and just I couldn't be more impressed with him. So what he has formed with his brand and the labeling

[00:09:25] our artwork just really impressed me. So I was I was ready to come on board. Yeah, I would I would just add to that. I am I've always so from my time in the Marine Corps

[00:09:40] working as a humanitarian worker internationally I lived overseas in a number of different countries worked in different contexts. I think all of that prepared me well for starting off in entrepreneurship

[00:09:56] and I can I'm happy to talk about some of those reasons if you guys want but one of the things I've never been good at is going it on my own and being a solar manure. And so I think when I

[00:10:10] started with this it quickly emerged I've got limited capacities and I need someone who can compliment my weaknesses but also I just you know having a business partner for someone who externally processes and wants to have either affirmation or someone kind of challenge them

[00:10:36] is something that I found. I you know September was when we started this business. September through December I was mostly running it. There were other people that were part of the journey. There's some artists out in Tennessee that do a phenomenal job with with our artwork and

[00:10:54] app state university working with them at their lab affirmation sciences. They're the ones that have really helped us dial in a really good line of products. What you guys are trying is just first version of what we're going to continue to develop multiple different types of non-alcoholic

[00:11:14] beer. So for me I did have other people that were feeding into it but I think I went into the into entrepreneurship thinking oh I love the feeling of ownership and the buck stopping with

[00:11:32] me and then I got into it and I was like oh my goodness I need somebody to share this buck stopping with like I do not want to head here. So when Brian and I started talking and he expressed

[00:11:45] interest I just felt like it was a real real need opportunity our value systems align really well he's got a good network in this area but but more importantly we just formed a pretty quick friendship

[00:12:01] as we started talking and yeah it was that combination of factors that I think for me made it made it any a very easy decision to go into the partnership. So well it's great that you guys

[00:12:16] get along and hit it off so quickly because you do need even if you're out there by yourself you got to have people around you that are going to support you and of course if you're in a partnership

[00:12:26] even better just like Jeff and me. Yeah well so I mean if you guys figured out weighted are there are you still do structure your work in a certain way where we're Caleb you're responsible

[00:12:38] for certain things and Brian's responsible for certain things I mean how do you guys figure that part of it out? Yeah yeah so we so where I'm where I'm most skilled is on the operational

[00:12:52] logistical side of things and so that's that's been a little bit more my focus on the product development as well and figuring out what types of beers we're going to make and then work in

[00:13:03] with the university team it's all it's all a pretty complicated process to create a good non-alkalic beer. It's there there are elements to it that require real precision and so those are things

[00:13:17] that I enjoy doing working in the lab working on these kinds of things and then trying to figure out supply chain and that sort of thing but that's kind of where I think I stop all the

[00:13:30] two-go-bridled terms of where you're straight side. Yeah and I'm pretty much the sales and marketing guy, sales and marketing oriented and taking run with it. Good combination. Yeah. And I heard in the

[00:13:43] words supply chain or the term supply chain we never heard about that before COVID and all these things now everybody's talking about. Oh yeah yeah it's true. Which is good because every business

[00:13:54] is working and needs to be aware of that. Yeah. Big or small. Well well well well well speaking of supply chain, speaking of sales I mean tell us a little bit about how you're distributing or

[00:14:06] or how you plan to be distributing things so you know what what sort of sales channels are you guys selling to or trying to sell to at this point in time. So it's important to know where we're

[00:14:18] at this time when we're doing this podcast we have our first fully commercial product in fermentation tanks right now getting ready to can next week what you guys are trying is still

[00:14:36] our very small scale we brewed it in what's equivalent of a half barrel system and now we've got run through 30 barrel systems. So our first commercially available product will be available by the

[00:14:48] end of next week and we'll be hitting shelves and I'll talk about some of those shelves and channels here to second but like your shelf hopefully not just myself. I will have a few cases on my shelves.

[00:15:04] So yeah so we are we're really looking at four different channels the first channel is selling direct to consumer and that's through our online marketplace. We expect by July 10th we'll have the whole system set up so people can place orders and we'll be shipping our non-alcoholic

[00:15:26] beer to people anywhere in the US we'll be able to do that. Then our next channel is breweries, bars, restaurants sort of on premise drinking facilities so that really was one of the first

[00:15:47] areas we identified as a gap. We went to several breweries when in an as for non-alcoholic beer. If they had non-alcoholic beer it was never on their menu. It was just something they had

[00:15:57] just happened to have a case in the back of their fridge for people that might ask and so that was that scenario we really see as an opportunity because if you can start if we can put it on our

[00:16:09] website that you can go to a local restaurant that's carrying non-alcoholic beer we can help them market that product but then they also are carrying it and hopefully selling that product and one thing that we haven't spoken about is just the remarkable growth in the non-alcoholic beer segment.

[00:16:29] So four years ago it was about 0.8% of the total beer market in the US that was non-alcoholic beer. Now it's over 5% just in the last four years and if you look at a place like Spain or Germany

[00:16:46] they're non-alcoholic beer market which is much more mature than ours sits around 13% so of the total beer market. So even as people are drinking less alcohol generally that's a trend in the US.

[00:16:59] A lot of people are starting to replace that with non-alcoholic beer. So it is it's something that we're going to breweries, restaurants and bars and we're telling people you have an opportunity to really add a revenue stream to your business by carrying a non-alcoholic beer and so that's

[00:17:17] our compelling case when we meet with individuals in that space. So that's our B2B side. One other channel that's probably more next year for us is getting it onto the shelves of grocery stores and so that's something where we're working or certain-of-conversations with pricing departments

[00:17:39] and distributors and that kind of thing but that is just a little bit down the road and then our fourth channel is selling it ourselves at pop-ups. That's where Brian and I go in maybe

[00:17:51] local history festival, that kind of thing where we can go in and we can just set up and offer our samples to people. People can buy our product. The margins on that are much greater of course

[00:18:03] the time investment also is much greater but that also gives us that face to face interaction where we can get people giving us quick feedback on our product because we really see this as an iterative

[00:18:16] process. We've just launched with this, this is like version I don't know this is probably version 12 you guys are trying of like a line. It is safe to drink though. It's safe to drink. It's safe to

[00:18:28] drink. It's safe to drink. It's safe to drink. It's safe to drink. It's safe to drink. It's safe to drink. I did not know what to expect with a non-alcoholic beer. I suspect I've had one or two

[00:18:38] in the past but I generally don't drink non-alcoholic beer and this it's I would say it was always refreshing that's that's the goal that's the goal of it. Sounds like an advertisement. It's almost refreshing.

[00:18:51] You can use that. That's right. Well you talked a little bit about the branding aspect of it so bright barrel where did bright barrel come from and you got some cool artwork on the

[00:19:10] can that we're looking at here? How did that come about? Maybe I've just got to go back to again the origin. We have had a name change so when I started this company I again I didn't know

[00:19:25] very much about business and living in Wilkes County everything is about the bootleggers and the race cars and the revenue men that chased the bootleggers up into the hills you know that kind of thing

[00:19:40] and so when I pitched this or came up with this idea I thought it would be really cool to have a non-alcoholic beer that celebrated the revenue men and the people who kind of went after the

[00:19:51] bootleggers and so that was my original vision and so I went and gave a pitch in Wilkes a Wilkes pitch night the Wilkes EDC held a pitch night and I pitched a non-alcoholic beer to them

[00:20:08] that was built around the air of the prohibition and I called my company prohibition bruise and so it was a very fun idea but it didn't get very far into it before I ran into a trademark

[00:20:21] attorney who started telling me you do very quickly get a season to cis letter let me show you some of the places where people have used prohibition before and even though I don't think there's another non-alcoholic prohibition company I you know you look at these categories and

[00:20:37] close enough to give you aggravation and exactly exactly so I had to walk it back but I personally there there are several reasons for bright barrel bright I chose because it was something that I've gone through a pretty tough season just personally a divorce loss of a

[00:20:58] job back to back things that happened quickly for me and so I felt like this was this business was offered a brightness and a hope for me going through that dark season um that's one.

[00:21:11] A second element of it is the that you drinking a non-alcoholic beer I've always felt that aspect of brightness my mind at the stage sharp I'm able to go out my body stays strong

[00:21:25] and not you know when I drink alcohol it's great to get that nice buzz but then you kind of slowly all your senses dull over the course of an evening and so drinking non-alcoholic beer maintains

[00:21:36] that edge and that's something I wanted to capture in the name of our company as well. So barrel is really just gives it a sense of craft which is something we really want to emphasize as well

[00:21:47] we're craft in the art craft in the production and that's something we want to really push so that was that was the origin of that name. Now you said you're currently brewing in a

[00:21:59] 30-birl system are you are you brewing or do you have some you know where is it being brewed how is how does that work? Yeah we are brewing in Nashville, Tennessee that's now and part of the

[00:22:12] reason we're brewing there is because the process you have to fall for a non-alcoholic beer to make it food safe is you've got to run it through a rate we do really a regular fermentation process we've

[00:22:26] got a couple modifications in terms of temperature control in terms of types of yeast we use but apart from that you're really brewing a beer and that's why it tastes pretty close to a beer

[00:22:37] flavor but then what you do at the end to stabilize it make it shelf stable and make it food safe because alcohol kills a lot, it kills brain cells but it also kills any bacteria microbes that

[00:22:52] might grow in a product and there are some non-alcoholic beers out there that do sell un-pasturized product but we really wanted to be able to offer something that was shelf stable that could you know wasn't going to risk exploding sometimes there's re- fermentation that happens in non-alcoholic

[00:23:11] and the way to do that is you pasturize and so these guys who are working with the Nashville Tennessee they've got that capability and so again we're trying to start with as low of overhead

[00:23:25] as we possibly can we do see down the road we love to bring spring stuff in internally and be able to be able to run all of our own production internally but at this point in time

[00:23:38] to be able to get product on shelves the space is growing and getting more crowded non-alcoholic beer is starting to catch on there's opportunity and so we want to be able to be a leader in the space

[00:23:52] pretty quickly and so those are all reasons why we're working right now with a contract brewer but we design the product so that's where and the recipe and the process we worked at

[00:24:04] App State for over six months to develop our first real non-alcoholic beer and that was you know working with multiple yeast strains it's multiple temperature controls trying to figure out it's just it's really a there aren't different people do it different ways

[00:24:24] and everyone's still kind of figuring it out so it's very exciting but it's very helpful to have a PhD chemist who's working with you and a microbiologist who's in the actual lab

[00:24:35] we're just kind of guiding you and showing you how to do a lot of the basics so I would always think and I'm not an expert in making the beer I'm drinked a beer but I don't

[00:24:47] make the beer of just having that consistency once you go to production you know of of making sure that yeah bass number 12 tastes great but now you've got an authority barrel system and

[00:24:58] is it gonna taste like this when it comes out yes we hope so that is our hope next week we're gonna all be testing it we're gonna find out but you guys are catching us at a moment where I

[00:25:13] don't I don't have about a percent of that so you know this is not to produce it if I guess that's right good point yeah yeah so I'll set well said you six facts let's get a bit of a six facts

[00:25:24] people think you're not gonna do it so I assume you're going to as well and if you think sounds like you're dealing with reputable brewers that know how to do this stuff yeah

[00:25:32] yes there's a very standard formula that you know it's not like the secret coke formula but it's they you have to maintain that consistency you do you do and so you know we we have

[00:25:46] on a small scale at a half barrel in a three barrel size we've been able to establish some consistency at that size and that's really what we wanted to do before we took it to a 30 I mean

[00:25:56] just the money we're sinking in to run it at that scale is significant but of course they're new people doing it they're got different machinery they've got we've got all the same products we gave them a very specific recipe card and process these temperatures are what you need

[00:26:12] to control too so but we'll find out next week well you you mentioned that it's a significant investment to to make the sort of volume of beer that you're starting to make so talk to us a

[00:26:27] little bit about funding was just all self-funded if you got and you've gotten other people to get involved with this you know or investors lined up how does this work yeah funding has

[00:26:42] been a challenge thus far we've it were all organic with it so it's just you know Caleb and I one of the things that with funding that we've discovered in our conversations with lending institutions is that they really want you to focus on either inventory or an asset

[00:27:08] so the entrepreneurs that are listening or would be entrepreneurs that's some helpful feedback is they really want lending institutions want you to be very specific when you're asking for funding related to either inventory or an asset and it has been challenging right Caleb

[00:27:30] yeah yeah we've I mean across the board our first experience when you know we bootstrap this together we brought our money together and to make this happen but but we're already starting to look

[00:27:43] at that next step and you know what the next order will be and wanting to scale and so to be able to do that it's either through investment or through lenders and what we feel most

[00:27:54] comfortable with right now and what we what we need is is a certain amount that we think a lender would be more appropriate for and then maybe once we establish a lot of our kind of key metrics

[00:28:06] and we're caught a hundred percent in our business plan it's working the channels we're selling and all the channels then we will go out to investors and start to pitch scaling this but what

[00:28:19] we found quickly with lenders is that somehow my mind going in I just thought money is available in the US for businesses like it's easy to come by but most lenders want two years of

[00:28:33] financial statement so we've had the hardest time finding people will even just consider you and won't reject you in your first application it's tough to have two years of financial statements when you're getting started exactly like impossible right exactly yeah in due projections

[00:28:51] of course and I guess they're talking about inventory and assets they're talking about something that's so something that you can grab if you don't put them back exactly and come and that's not unusual yeah but we've the point about assets in inventory you know at one

[00:29:07] point I thought we'll just give them we just know what our gap is in our projections you know we've got this these are projections for this year we've invested this amount we're going to have

[00:29:16] this amount of sales so here's what we need and then we just go to a bank and say and that's not how works then that's where the assets it inventory they're like well what are you actually paying for

[00:29:26] and then we're like well this these and you know I feel like every conversation we've learned a little bit more but we've definitely faced a lot of rejection to actually get to a point where

[00:29:37] we still don't have the full answer but but we have a lot more information about how to proceed on this so well I mean I think that your the challenges that you're running into are

[00:29:51] not unique I guess I'm just curious to whether it's easier for a non-alcoholic beer type idea to get funded than an alcoholic type beer and that different market challenges different challenges as well I mean the licensing and everything that you have to do with the

[00:30:10] alcoholic beer I would think were more significant so I don't know sort of the interesting situation that you find yourself so it is one of the things I found is when you do those drop-down menus and you're trying to select what your business category isn't then you

[00:30:24] subcategory we never fed any of those it's sometimes your force to just okay this is the closest we can come to it well those banks don't like restaurants we'll just go there avoid that

[00:30:36] yeah well so your you're you're you're brewing now you said that beer will be available for purchase online in July and I should add we we actually are at restaurants several restaurants

[00:30:51] right now are carrying our our early product so we originally went in thinking that we would just let people sample what you guys are trying right now and what we found was there were a lot of

[00:31:05] places that actually were very eager to bring a local non-alcoholic beer option into their restaurant and so we're in seven we are here in Hickory uh grandfather's barbecue city wall brewery standard orster charlie then if you're up in Asheville the corner kitchen restaurant

[00:31:28] is carrying and they've actually did a reorder recently on a particular brew so good sign that's a good sign yeah so uh and then it will spur where a couple places in Wilkesboro's and there be stroe

[00:31:40] in Wilkesboro's carrying our product or call places well yeah so we we are getting we have some sales and we're getting early customer feedback and that's been critical for this and at a curiosity

[00:31:54] when you when you go into a restaurant or you're saying you don't have a non-alcoholic beer here's one or you like saying tastes this tell us what you think or or is it a combination of those things

[00:32:04] it's a little bit of both uh we go in with often it's good to just start with some questions so we we get a meeting and we go in and we start just prompting about you have something for

[00:32:21] you know someone's pregnant you know especially if you're in a brewery or something like that do you have something for you know you guys you guys have a running runners club that meets here on Tuesday nights what are you guys able to offer the runners that don't want

[00:32:35] alcohol that kind of thing and just just kind of prompting the conversation and and then if it is you know often like we've found like they don't even have it on their menu

[00:32:46] and so they'll say you know no one no one buys non-alcoholic beer we've had that statement a couple times and when you drill down a little bit more you find well there's no why would anyone buy it

[00:32:59] they're at a bar and they don't they just look at the menu it is water or something not on the menu yeah so those kinds of things that I think are really helpful they're probably not playing caviar

[00:33:09] they're either exactly exactly so we so that's what that's what we feel like we're really um educators in a lot of ways both educating public on the benefits of non-alcoholic beer but also these small business owners on the value of carrying a product like this

[00:33:27] oh cool yeah good partners with the crane for it yes with the missions here they're very good people so as we sort of wind down a little bit yeah are there you guys

[00:33:39] and a brand's been sort of an entrepreneur of Caleb you're on your entrepreneurial journey of what what lessons do you want to share with folks in terms of what what you've had to come across

[00:33:53] in your journey so well at one addition to saying that I think a partnership is really important I do think working with a business partner is something that I've just really benefited from another thing that I think has been a really important part of this journey is

[00:34:20] being willing to start something even when it's not perfect and moving forward with it and iterating on it as you go I've seen that on all different kinds of scales uh partially as with with our

[00:34:34] non-alcoholic beer our first couple iterations on it when I started sampling you know it took some tough skin to get some people's real critiques but but I needed to be humble and just ask

[00:34:47] I'm like please be honest with me and even even you know with you guys like it's it's still like I still want that constructive feedback so we continue to perfect this product um so that that is a really

[00:35:00] important component I think I've but but what it also like it starts to give you street credit it starts to you you start educating yourself as you're going out and just trying and having

[00:35:15] conversations and these kinds of things and I think in the past what's helped me back from because I wanted to be an entrepreneur for a long time and I bounced ideas around but I'm always

[00:35:26] I always kind of hit this point where I just kind of stop because I'm like well that actually now it requires me to walk out the door and go knock on someone else's door and actually like

[00:35:40] what if they laugh at me you know when this happens so that's really what's that I think that's a struggle has been a struggle of mine is it's fear what what others think and I'm getting

[00:35:52] much better now with this product like you also develop a confidence in it you know as you get we have the repeat sale at corner kitchen and that was that was a real affirmation until that

[00:36:05] point you can get anyone to carry your product once but it's once you have that resell that you're like okay that pillow break it's just a little bit more like so it's those kinds of things that

[00:36:15] don't happen unless you step out and take that risk Brian anything you want to add to that great points Caleb you know the narrative among a lot of entrepreneurs really trying to make it is

[00:36:31] that you have to hustle and hustle and hustle and you do not discrediting the hustle nature but I would caution entrepreneurs or especially new entrepreneurs create margin how important margin

[00:36:47] or space is fine time to go on that walk take a hike because some of your most creative ideas will come to you when you're away from your business I'll take a step back that's right

[00:37:04] finding that balance is key yeah and that's been really important and sometimes I don't I'm not 100% sure I found the balance yet but but I think if you can get to that headspace where

[00:37:19] you can just say okay I'm taking the day like I'm I'm I'm just I'm not going to stress about the business I know it feels like it's always hanging over over my head success you know I'm not there

[00:37:30] yet but I think even in this because it's a long it's a long game you know you're not you're not just crashing on something for six months and then moving on one other one other thing I just wanted to

[00:37:43] share to was just I think it's really important to find people that want to grow with your business so we with our business because we're trying to keep our overhead really low we're working with

[00:37:59] we have people that have been doing this for a long time and have established schedule and kind of our you know have have a decent customer base and then we've got people who are new you know someone who's

[00:38:13] new in SEO space or someone who's new in yeah marketing that kind of thing website design that kind of thing and when you find those people who are new like you you end up getting way greater access to

[00:38:29] those people and they're far more interested in your business success because that gives them greater success as well and so we've found some places where we've gone where people are just like have their business system figured out have their partners and you're just one more those are those

[00:38:49] really hard sometimes to work with and the people who are eager are the new startups as well and so if you can grow bring a few other startups along with you on the journey it things move much

[00:39:02] more quickly. Thanks. Probably more risk more risk because you're relying on other new startups might not have a huge big experience but I'll take that humility in that hunger over an institutional success. Hopefully they're bringing energy and excitement to the process.

[00:39:21] Well guys we really appreciate you joining us today and then you know it's you know I'm digging it you know and I love it that spirit I've had in a long time. Yeah well very easy but

[00:39:34] we appreciate you guys being here and if you're up for what we're going to do our lightning round if you're up for that yeah this this month or lightning round is sponsored by

[00:39:44] by global gym do you need to lose some weight and get in shape go to a different gym but if you're already look good if you go to global gym is checking on the internet I think you know Caleb

[00:39:54] could go global gym the rest of us sorry Brian maybe not so much but anyway so good. You're welcome. You should take questions all the time. All right quick questions quick answers

[00:40:07] and Brian you have to play too so you're both playing here okay all right favorite vacation spot Caleb you rock favorite vacation spiral rock. I it's I spent two years there I have some of my best

[00:40:21] friends live at Iraq so Northern Iraq up in the mountains so I'm not talking desert but that's first thing that popped into my head that's the first time I've talked about it I would often what

[00:40:30] you got Brian oh wow I'm going out west to Jackson Hole Wyoming okay that's good things about that all right favorite TV show or movie Caleb you have a recommendation for us can I guess the point is

[00:40:47] the first thing that pops into your head the wire is my favorite TV show classic very good that's a good one um my favorite movie the showshank redemption very good movie okay good some good recommendations

[00:41:03] for the people today all right Brian would you how would people characterize you as sweet salty or sour a little salty a little salty okay I would a guess that they're Caleb yes that sweet you're sweet okay

[00:41:21] I can I I'm gonna go now let's get on though yeah that's right Brian if you are an Olympic athlete what sport would you compete in hmm shuffleboard okay I'm going out good to know and that's a sport

[00:41:40] worldie lookers for you Caleb what about you Bob's letting Bob's letting I love the team aspect of it I love the the cold okay no it's all right mr. Iraq loves the cold all right the last question

[00:41:58] Caleb what would you what is your spirit animal a crow okay my you bro okay yeah it's it's a social animal it's I like to think I've been told it said I tried to be as fire to be so I guess that would be

[00:42:19] my story some of us don't know how intelligent the crow's or we'll we'll go with that all right I'm going lion okay that's a king the king you're the king yeah all right king of the jungle

[00:42:31] king of the jungle okay well guys if people want to find out where they can find out more about bright barrel maybe buy some of the bright barrel where should they be looking yeah so I would

[00:42:43] check out our website and follow us it's www.bright-barrel.com and I would just say a lot of people spelled barrel BARR EL it's actually BARR EL so that's right there's barrel with one hell what

[00:43:00] hell yeah that's what else two hours one out in the dictionary it's one out you research that all right well we we really appreciate you guys joining us today we always like to end up our podcast

[00:43:13] given a shout out to small businesses that we might have come across so those you have anything you want to share this time I'll just say from my side Wilkesboro copper barrel in cinder b-stroke

[00:43:27] they've been um they're great barbecue great moon shine as non-alkog beer drinker but they they've also been a phenomenal partner for us and great mentorship and in giving us space and helping

[00:43:42] us fill this business so super very good here you have one I do of course I always like to focus on pets dogs or food so today is back to food of course we move from kind of to share us forward

[00:43:59] right down into the busiest part of the they're growing part of our county neighbors 828 artesian kitchen anybody heard of it just opened up it's literally right across the street from our town home

[00:44:14] it's really good highly recommended good at time food I just had pizza and they have great desserts to go with it so thumbs up for Gary 828 artesian kitchen neighbors 828 neighbors neighbors 828 neighbors 828 yeah got you said that yes and that's in cautobac County and

[00:44:38] beautiful's herals forward yes okay right near the public that's a good land right near the public okay and I want to give it a shout out to a company that I came across called refiberd

[00:44:50] and it's REFIB or E D R E D that's right and they're starting up the specializing in advanced material detection of textile waste they're really trying to work to keep textiles out of our landfill

[00:45:06] Gary you probably did not notice but 186 billion pounds of textile waste is discarded each year and over 80% of it ends up either in landfills or being incinerated and we're trying to figure out ways

[00:45:17] to to reduce that number and make it reused and the founders of the company they're coming up with a way to identify and sort textiles waste so that it can be recycled reuse put into other

[00:45:31] products so check them out and get gold and you're right I didn't know that either but I'm learning but if you go to refiber.com that's REFIB or D dot com you can learn about the work that they're doing there

[00:45:46] so anyway check them out so we want to thank Caleb and Brian for joining us today we want to give a big thanks to our friends at the mesh podcast network you should check out the mesh at the mesh.tv

[00:45:59] and see all the cool podcasts they're going on there and everybody how to stay cool out there stay hydrated you might want to grab a non-alcoholic beer go find bright barrel and the website get

[00:46:12] you some it's pretty tasty it feels pretty refreshing so you know I usually I'm drinking coffee during these things but I'm giving up the coffee for non-alcoholic beer so I trade my 32 ounce coke for this okay

[00:46:23] that's a big deal all right well see you guys next month take care thank you you've been listening to the mesh and online media network of shows and programs ranging from business to arts sports to entertainment music to community all programs are available on the website

[00:46:58] as well as through iTunes and YouTube check us out online at the mesh.tv just go to our other network shows and give us feedback on what you just heard