Josh grew up in Chester, Virginia. He was an avid athlete and received a football scholarship to play Linebacker at Shippensburg University, where he set the career solo tackles record. Prior to founding PourMyBeer in 2009, he worked in Business Development with Modis, an IT Staffing firm. He was responsible for building the Baltimore Metro market for the company. He landed several blue chip accounts that took that market from non-existent to top producing market in a matter of 24 months.
Josh’s concept of PourMyBeer came to light when he was having a few drinks with some friends before a baseball game. The bar was extremely busy, getting a drink was more than a challenge and the service was subpar. Josh began to focus on a solution to the reason poor service exists and came up with an idea to create a system that was essentially an ATM for beer, wine and cocktails. This idea turned into PowerPoints and the PowerPoints led to an itch to bring a solution that solved this problem in the market.
What is PourMyBeer all about?
PourMyBeer is the leading self-pour beverage system with 7,000 self-pour taps in service in over 270 locations around the world. We are all about efficiency and improving the customer experience. I’ve never met anyone that would prefer to wait in a toll booth line to pay a toll vs. using an EZ pass to pay the toll. That’s what we do for the hospitality industry. Rather than having to go through 5-7 steps to get what you want, we allow the guests to go from door to pour in less than 60 seconds.
Tell us a little bit about your background and how you started your company?
The company was started from a place of uncertain certainty. I was certain that this problem for patrons and owners existed, I was uncertain how to solve the problem or even how to begin to build a business around that solution. The first four years were spent learning how not to solve the problem. I tried to solve the problem by using taps at the tables, then reselling another company’s technology until I finally realized I had to build my own product from scratch to have a chance of growing it. I also say that I don’t claim to be the smartest person, but I do claim to be a person that’s made a ton of mistakes and has learned from every one of them.
What was the biggest problem you encountered with your business and how did you overcome it?
There have been countless challenges along the way, but one of the more entertaining ones looking back was when we were told that a week from being notified, a POS company was pushing an update that would impact our API connection. We had 35 locations that were 100% reliant on our integration and had to stop all our dev work to focus on updating the API connections.
We created a Calendly link and got all our locations set up for the update and pulled off the update with about 6 hours to spare on the last location. It was a stressful week for all involved, except our customers.
What were the top mistakes you made starting your business and what did you learn from it?
I’d say that I didn’t learn the accounting side the way I should have. I used an excel spreadsheet to keep track of who I owed and who owed me and how much money and credit I had to keep the business going. If I could go back in time I’d make myself take a basic accounting course with QuickBooks and work more closely with our bookkeeper so I was on top of that side of the business.
What is one thing that you do daily to grow as an entrepreneur?
I take care of my health and use the 5-minute journal. We are living computers and sometimes our hard drives get corrupted. Starting the day with gratitude and sweating every day are 2 of the 3 things I highly recommend to any entrepreneur. Also, make smart eating choices with healthy snacks and drinking lots of water. There’s the old saying about the importance of sharpening your axe.
“If I only had an hour to chop down a tree, I would spend the first 45 minutes sharpening my axe.”
– Abraham Lincoln
What are three books or courses you recommend for new entrepreneurs?
Mindset by Carol Dweck, The E Myth Revisited by Michael Gerber, Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink
What is the one thing you wish you knew before starting your business?
How to code in .Net so I could build some of my own software or improve it.
What has been your most effective marketing strategy to grow your business?
View every sale you make as a seed. If you build relationships with your first 50 sales and they like you and are responsive to them and their needs, they’ll go out of their way to help you grow your business too. Sales lead to more sales when you do this.
If you only had $1000 dollars to start a new startup, knowing everything you know now, how would you spend it?
$30 to set up your QuickBooks online, $100 to help get a logo made by design pickle or another company. Get your website through Google Domains and your email address for another $50. Buy a copy of Vivid Vision for $25 and write about your business three years from now. Build your website with some help from a friend or contractor for $400. Go sell your product, focus on getting that first customer and spend the remainder of your money on making sure that first customer is happy and improving your product.
What’s your best piece of advice for aspiring and new entrepreneurs?
Continue to get feedback about your idea and business. Tell people to tell you what’s wrong with it, how you can improve, etc. This is assuming your idea/ business is actually alive, but always seek advice, but don’t implement all the advice you get. You’ll get bad advice along with good advice and no one will tell you which is which.
What is your favorite quote?
Don’t wish it was easier, wish you were better.
-Jim Rohn
Don’t wish for less problems, wish for more skills.
-Jim Rohn
Don’t wish for less challenge, wish for more wisdom.
-Jim Rohn
Facebook advertising, Webinars, replacing our top competitor locations aggressively.
How is running a tech company different than what you thought it would be?
I thought I’d create a product and it would be like the stories. I’d read about other successful companies and I’d go from selling 10 systems to 1000 overnight. I realize now that we couldn’t have supported that type of growth with our business model, but when you’re just getting started, your level of optimism must be extremely high to make it through the difficult times.
How can readers get in touch with you?
Contacting us via email is the most efficient way to connect with us. sales@pourmybeer.com We pride ourselves on responsiveness and we WILL respond to every email.
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