Bill Shufelt
Co-founder & CEO, Athletic Brewing Company. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveLinkedIn ↗athleticbrewing.com ↗
Bill Shufelt co-founded Athletic Brewing Company in 2017 alongside brewer John Walker, building it into America's largest and top-selling dedicated non-alcoholic craft brewery. A former hedge fund trader and endurance runner, he started the business after quitting alcohol in 2013 to develop full-flavored craft brews without alcohol.
1shows
1appearances
17statements
1resolved
1supported
0contradicted
100%fully supported
Everything Bill Shufelt said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Shufelt: Non-alcoholic beer will account for over 50% of beer consumption
“In my head, I think it's going to be over 50% of beer.”
Shufelt bought his own beer off store shelves to trigger reorders
“There were definitely times where on Sunday, I would roll through a bunch of stores and clear out the shelf to make sure there were reorders the coming week.”
Shufelt: Non-alcoholic beer was radioactive for major brewing companies' flagships
“From a branding perspective, it was a totally radioactive category for any major beer company to put their flagship in.”
Shufelt: Early surveys showed 55% would drink great non-alcoholic beer
“And I found typically with, like, 55% frequency, people would drink a great non-alcoholic beer if it existed.”
Shufelt: Athletic Brewing Avoided Direct Marketing to Recovery Communities
“So I have a huge amount of respect for the recovery world, but I also never wanted to market to those communities because I don't want to tempt anyone into bars who may be vulnerable or susceptible to taste. And we just wanted to lift it up as like a place of …”
Shufelt: Non-Alcoholic Beer Unlocks New Occasions Instead of Cannibalizing Sales
“Non-alcoholic beer, I was telling them is something that, that people are still going to drink their beer or their cocktail, like one night a week when they go out to dinner or do something fun. But this is a beer. People are going to drink seven nights a week…”
Shufelt: Low foot-traffic sampling forces faster sales pitch iteration
“If only one or two people is approaching you every 20 or 30 minutes, and you have a bad interaction, or you don't really get your point across, or your pitch falls flat, you learn to iterate really quickly if you don't have many opportunities.”
Rejection from contract brewers forced Athletic to build its own facility
“If no one wants to make this beer for us, I'm gonna eventually find the right person to team up with, and I'm gonna build it ourselves, or we're gonna actually build a brewery.”
Shufelt: Athletic Brewing Raised Angel Round from 66 Individuals After 120 Meetings
“I ended up doing a 120 investor meetings. 66 individuals supported us in the angel round, and that group of investors has been some of our best ambassadors, our believers.”
Shufelt: Athletic Brewing Angel Round Had a $5M Valuation Toggle Cap
“It was, so it was basically, it had a toggle. If we never got off the ground, I was trying to ensure investors would get their money back, but if it did get off the ground, it would toggle the five million dollars.”
Shufelt: Athletic Brewing Secured 300 Retail Commitments in Connecticut
“And over time, I built up 300 commitments in the state of Connecticut.”
Athletic Brewing doubled capacity in summer 2019 but outgrew it quickly
“So for that summer of 20 19, we brought in a wave of bigger tanks and doubled our capacity, and we outgrew that three months later, and so we're out of stock again after three months and doubling our capacity”
Athletic Brewing Purchased a San Diego Brewery on March 17, 2020
“We made the biggest financial investment we've ever made on March 17th, twenty-twenty. John and I committed to purchasing a brewery, 3000 miles away in San Diego.”
Shufelt: Athletic Brewing is a top 10 US craft brewer by volume
“Yeah, Athletic is top 10 craft brewer's number one biggest non-alcoholic beer breweries.”
Shufelt: Non-alcoholic beer exceeds 10% share at certain national retailers
“And there's certain channels and national retailers where non-alcoholic beer is now over 10% of all beer.”
Shufelt: Wall Street finance involved 150 to 200 boozy dinners annually
“In the finance world, especially at that time, it was very common to do three or four work dinners a week, and steakhouses, boozy dinners, and Inevitably, it was probably almost a 150 to 200 work dinners a year.”
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Bill's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Co-founder & CEO, Athletic Brewing Company | 1 | 17 | 100% 1/1 | full record on How I Built This → |