Welcome to the Community Call Podcast.
I am Melissa Travers, Director of Community here at BevNET & NOSH, here with my co-host Carolyn Craven, COO of BevNET.
If you're enjoying the show, please follow and review us wherever you listen.
In place of our usual Community Call, we are so excited to bring you this special edition of the podcast, featuring a conversation with Carolyn Craven, COO of BevNET.
This episode will give you a glimpse behind the scenes as we prepare for BevNET Live on December 8th through 10th, NOSH Live December 5th and 6th, and Brewbound Live December 11th and 12th in Marina Del Rey.
Most of you are tuning in as you're getting ready or en route for our events, so we wanted to share the journey it's taken us to get here, the trials and milestones from the past 30 years.
We connect with so many emerging brands who face challenges daily, and we hope this look at our evolution offers both inspiration and insight in what it's taken to keep us pushing forward.
Carolyn Craven, it's so, so great to have you here.
Thank you.
I'm excited.
I've never been in the studio before.
I mean, I've peeked in, but I've never actually sat in a seat, so I feel so fancy.
Carolyn, you are the person behind the scenes, working from early morning to late at night during our events and everything else that we do.
So as someone who keeps the machine running, I think it only makes sense to have you with a microphone in your hand.
Well, thank you.
I think they try to keep me behind the scenes because they're afraid if they let me talk, I'll never shut up.
But I'm obviously part of a huge team that keeps all the cogs running.
But yeah, I appreciate that.
It's really good to be here.
I'm excited to share some of our story.
When I heard the story of BevNET, I was so surprised.
So let's start with that.
30 years of BevNET?
Almost.
Yeah, 1996, which is really scary to say.
It's crazy.
So a lot of people don't necessarily know how BevNET got started.
John, who is my husband and the founder of BevNET, started off with just BevNET later included, NOSH and Brewbound, doesn't necessarily always like to talk about the story.
I think he doesn't like to shine the light on himself necessarily, but I love sharing it just as I think, especially talking to young brands, emerging brands, I think sharing stories of how you got started and how you got through challenges is really important.
It's what brings people together, sharing all those pain points and funny stories along the way.
So it got started back in 1996 at Boston College.
John and I started dating almost 30 years ago, our freshman year at BC.
I think I knew he was a beverage nerd and a computer nerd from the very beginning.
Still a nerd?
Yeah, still a nerd.
So he's a computer science guy.
This was way back in the mid-90s when the Internet was just starting to become a thing.
People are starting to hear about it.
John was actually the first person I ever knew that had an e-mail address.
So that's really dating myself, but that's how I knew he was a techie from the beginning.
I also knew he was into beverages very early on, hanging out in his dorm room.
Early in our dating life, I opened his closet, and I think he had two or three shirts.
And then the rest of the closet was stacked floor to ceiling with Mountain Dew and Snapple.
We've come a long way since Mountain Dew and Snapple.
Yes, although nothing wrong with Mountain Dew and Snapple.
But yeah, not really our beverage of choice these days.
Basically, it started off, he was into beverages and a computer nerd.
So, you know, he used to kind of get on like some of these like FTP chat sites, kind of talking about beverages, realized there were other people that like to talk about beverages.
And then, you know, this thing called the Internet came along and he was a coding guy.
And, you know, he basically created back in the mid 90s, you know, today what you would call a blog, but there was really no name for it back then.
It was really just kind of a message board talking about beverages.
And, you know, over a couple of years while we were at BC, it started to evolve.
Like, more people started noticing it.
And I think the light bulb kind of went off, that like he could use this to his advantage.
So we started, you know, going to just like the dining halls with like my meal card or going over to the, you know, convenience store across the street and getting drinks.
And he started writing about them.
So started reviewing them and really just being kind of silly and tongue in cheek.
But people started noticing and we were like, hey, if, you know, we call people up and tell them we're going to write about them on this new thing called the internet, like they might send us free stuff, like we can stop using our meal card and our money, right?
So and lo and behold, they did.
We ran this out of my dorm room.
We used to call people up and tell them, and we're like, hey, we're going to, you know, we're part of this new company called BevNET.
We're going to write about your product.
And they would just send us cases of product.
So started off just because we were kind of some poor college kids and we found a way to, you know, get some free product.
And eventually we started making some banner ads with clip art from Microsoft Word and, you know, getting 100 bucks a pop for it.
And so, you know, it really just started off as kind of a small little side hustle as college kids.
And, you know, it was kind of a side gig for a while.
We had quote unquote real jobs for a couple of years.
And but then a couple of years in, I think, you know, John really saw that there was some opportunity for this.
And he was like, hey, I'm going to make a go of this.
I want to do this full time and fast forward 25 years later.
We're now, you know, obviously like a real company and added on NOSH for food and Brewbound for beer.
And it's obviously wasn't just a fast forward.
There were, you know, lots of fast forward.
Yeah, very fast forward.
It did go fast, but lots of bumps and adventures along the way, which we're going to talk a little bit about today.
So it started as a way to get free beverages as poor college kids.
And then you moved on to who is creating the clip art ads.
It was a joint venture, but I definitely did some of those.
They were really bad.
I would love to see some.
Oh my God.
I still remember there was one for a company called Java Cola.
And I just had this like terrible like tagline about, I don't even remember, but it was like there was like a clip art coffee cup and a Venn there Java Cola bottle and this terrible tagline.
I don't know how BC ever gave me a marketing degree because it was really bad.
But, you know, hey, you live and learn.
I mean, it's just like you're going along, like you don't know what you don't know and you just kind of go forward anyway, right?
Well, you and I were talking about this before we decided to kind of record how BevNET got started.
But this is how so many of the emerging brands in our ecosystem get started.
It's not like you know what you're doing 100% when you start.
You just sort of have to make it up as you go along sometimes.
Totally.
I mean, I think certainly there are brands that have a really fleshed out business plan and they spend a lot of time planning, but they're opportunistic.
They see something, some white space in the market.
They see an opportunity.
And sometimes you just got to kind of jump in and get your head fully wet, even if the water is freezing and you don't know how to swim.
And that's kind of what we did.
We were just like, we're just going to go do this thing and have an adventure and figure things out along the way and screw a lot of things up.
But hopefully not so many that you can't keep going.
Yeah, it worked out pretty well from where I sit.
What about the print magazine?
When did that come out?
That came along a number of years later.
John's dad was kind of an advisor to BevNET and the chairman for a number of years.
And he was involved in the publishing world.
That was kind of his career for many, many years.
So he was the one that basically kind of, you know, tucked us into buying the magazine that is now BevNET Magazine.
So we inherited our wonderful colleague, Barry, from that, who's been with us for a very long time now.
And it's so funny.
John often jokes around that we're like the only publishing company that started online and then went print.
You just kind of find opportunities along the way.
And we're like, yeah, that works for us.
And it's been great.
If people are still getting the print magazine, print isn't totally dead.
No, it's definitely not dead.
No, absolutely.
Yeah.
No, I mean, I'll be honest for like, I thought he was crazy when I was like, you're buying a print magazine?
What are you doing?
There's been times along the way where I'm like, are we sure this is what we want to do?
But no, it's been great for us.
And I'm definitely glad he called me crazy and kept going with it.
Because it's great.
It's a different medium.
I mean, I think that's, to be successful, you do kind of have to diversify, right?
Like, I mean, we had the, you know, just really the online presence for a long time, then went into print and then went into events.
And that's obviously, you know, been become a huge part of our business too.
Well, let's talk about events.
We're coming up on our winter events, which is a time of year.
I mean, things are a little crazy, but we all look forward to them so much.
They're such a, like you say, a big part of our business.
How long have has BevNET been running events?
So, our first one was summer of 2009.
So, 15 years ago, we haven't had quite 30 events because there was kind of that lovely thing called COVID in the middle of it that we had to go virtual for a couple of years.
But yeah, 15 years of BevNET Live and then a little bit shorter on NOSH Live and Brewbound Live.
And the first BevNET events were nothing like they are today.
Oh my God, no.
John and his dad were kind of were talking about the fact that we should do events.
And we were like, all right, let's do it.
We've never put on an event before.
Like we have really no idea what we're doing.
But again, let's jump in, let's try it.
So our first one was at the Essex House in New York City.
Back in June of 2009, I was digging through my emails because I am an email hoarder, I save everything.
And I found some of the original emails about talking about our sandwich platters.
And I was outraged, they were charging us $3 extra for per person.
So it's funny to look back on some of that stuff.
You know, BevNET has always been a company that was kind of geared towards and developed for smaller brands, emerging brands, kind of innovative brands.
And really back then, there were other beverage events, but they were definitely more for established brands, for the Coke and Pepsi's and Dr.
Pepper's of the world.
And there really wasn't anything for smaller emerging brands to kind of get together and network and learn about the community and things like that.
So that was really kind of where we were coming from.
So we put together this event.
And I won't say it was a hot mess, because it was, you know, I don't want to disrespect anything that anybody did, but we definitely didn't know what we didn't know back then.
You know, we still, we were, a bunch of us in the office were kind of joking around earlier about, you know, just some of the crazy things that we did.
I mean, we were, we had, you know, samples sampling at the event, but it wasn't, you know, nice coolers like we have now.
We had ice buckets and with the samples under the tables, and we were literally crawling around on the floor, like refilling them.
We didn't know you could have digital stage timers, so we were holding up placards, you know, for, for speakers, and they just kept talking.
And it was just, but at the end of the day, I mean, people I think were excited to have a space, you know, to come together, and we got through it and we were like, all right, like a lot of bumps, but it wasn't that bad, and you know, we're going to keep doing it, so.
When did you start to notice the number of emerging brands burgeoning to the point where our events have gotten as big as they are today?
I mean, I guess I can't tell whether they were always there, but because there wasn't really a platform for them, we really only heard about Snapple and Mountain Dew.
Yeah, I think they were definitely always there.
You know, even from like the very beginning of BevNET, I mean, we dealt with a lot of small companies.
I think they just really didn't have a platform.
So I think, you know, obviously, like the dawn of, you know, the Internet in the mid-90s started to give these brands, you know, a way to have additional exposure.
So, you know, it's obviously it has continued to grow.
But, you know, I mean, since our, the beginning of kind of our time at BevNET, it's, I think these, there's always been, you know, lots of small brands and brands trying to kind of make make it into the space.
They just didn't always have a platform.
So now there's, you know, not only BevNET, but obviously, you know, lots of, you know, companies that are out there supporting smaller brands, which is obviously fantastic.
And, you know, you see a lot more innovation because of it.
Well, after 15 years of BevNET events, there's got to be a few BevNET lives that had some very challenging moments.
Can you think of any like, just, oh my God, what do we do moments over the years?
Oh, sure.
I mean, a lot of them are like relatively small, but they, you know, they cause, you know, panic.
I remember, I mean, just the first thing that pops into my head, like, NOSH Live a couple of years ago at our pitch slam.
We, you know, we used to do, we now do private sampling for the, for our judges, for our competitions, like off stage, partially because of this thing that happened.
And it wasn't a big deal, but it definitely causes you like moments of panic because you don't ever want your attendees to kind of see behind the curtain, right?
But we had somebody pitching, I think it was a pasta brand, and the pasta was just not cooking fast enough.
And so they were like literally getting ready to take the stage for our pitch, and we were supposed to be serving the judges this pasta, and it was not ready.
And so we just had this like, Sarah, our events coordinator was like, we got to call it, we got to call it.
So she's like, you got to make the call.
I'm like, all right, we're switching, we're switching.
So there's a lot of like those things or speakers that just don't show up and they get called on stage.
And you've got to kind of let the moderator know like, they're not here.
Like literally sometimes I'm like in the back going, no, like making gestures.
And so yeah, I mean, there's definitely like a lot of kind of behind the scenes, crazy things that have happened.
I mean, there's definitely some.
We did some like weird things in the beginning.
Our very first BevNET Live, we had an awards dinner that went on for like three and a half hours with Mark Hall from Monster Energy.
And it was, let's just say it was quite a production.
I won't go into too many details, but it was something and you're just like, oh, what is even happening right now?
And then of course, there's the infamous Jack O'Walk session from a couple of years ago.
Our editor in chief, Jeff Kleinman, handled it better than anybody possibly could.
It was pretty crazy.
We've had speakers jump up on tables.
We've had, Jack was quite rambunctious up on stage too.
So you always have these like unpredictable moments and you know what?
You just gotta roll with it.
Like what else are you gonna do?
Like this is just, you just do the best you can.
I mean, that's always the case, right?
Like no matter what you're doing in like your business, like these things get thrown at you and you just gotta roll with it.
And sometimes nobody's watching and you get lucky.
And sometimes you've got a couple hundred people in a ballroom and a whole bunch more at home watching the whole thing unfold and you just gotta go with it.
So sometimes you have to jump up on the table with them.
Yeah, I don't I don't recommend that, especially at our age.
And the tables, maybe.
We were talking a little bit about faking it till you make it, which certainly I'm sure there was a lot of faking it during those moments.
I think it's always tricky for any business to understand when to grow.
So, we had the New York event.
When did we expand to doing them in California, too?
Yeah, so just a couple of months later.
So, it's funny, we finished that first New York event and took a big deep breath and couldn't believe how difficult it was, but we were like, all right, we can do that again next year.
And then one of our sponsors, Wild Flavors, who subsequently acquired by ADM, came up to John after the event and was like, oh, you know, like, that was cool.
Like, you guys should do this on the West Coast.
And John was like, oh yeah, we're totally looking into that.
And we totally were not looking into that.
Like, it was definitely, definitely a BS moment.
But I think probably we had plane tickets within two weeks or something.
And he and I got on a plane and we booked a bunch of, you know, appointments at hotels and, and we went out and we're like, yeah, we're going to have a West Coast event.
And yeah, you do.
I mean, sometimes you just got to like have the confidence to, to fake it till you make it.
And that's not always easy to do.
But I think, you know, if you're passionate about what you're doing and you're like, you know, willing to take some risks, like it can really pay off.
And, you know, our winter events in Southern California, you know, are now our biggest events.
And so it was, it was definitely a gamble that paid off for sure.
So thank you, Wild Flavors.
Thank you, Wild Flavors.
Well, as you have the opportunity to hire more people, that probably means you have to fake it a little bit less because ideally you're hiring people who have done it before.
Oh my god, yeah.
I mean, what a difference like having like professional events, people versus like trying to do everything ourselves.
So yeah, I mean, that's for sure.
I think, you know, one of the biggest lessons we've learned along the way is being humble enough to realize like what you don't know and hiring people that are much better at certain things than you are.
And I always say we have the best team.
I know everybody says that, but we really do.
You know, when we go around and celebrate people's anniversaries, it's 10 years, it's 15 years.
People stay at BevNET for a long time.
Yeah.
Barry just had his 20th.
Yeah, I know.
That's amazing.
And actually, I think it was even, some people have actually, they're on their 20th anniversary technically, but they've actually been with us longer.
I think we just were so small that we didn't even really have payroll back then.
So that's their official date.
But yeah, we do.
We have a lot of long timers, which is really awesome.
It's definitely flattering and makes us feel really good.
It says a lot about the organization of people stay for that long.
I don't know.
It says something.
I'll say it.
You can say that.
What's one of your favorite parts of BevNET Live?
Oh, the competitions.
Definitely.
I say it.
I say it every time.
So I think John has been trying to take things away from me over the years, just because I'm always like, oh, there's so much on my plate around events time.
He's like, why don't you let somebody else handle the competitions or something?
I'm like, no, no, no.
It's really, it's my favorite.
So we have the New Brevard Showdown for BevNET Live, as well as the Cocktail Showdown, the first day of BevNET Live.
Then we have Pitch Slams for NOSH and Brewbound.
I love getting to work with the emerging brands participating in those, getting them prepped.
We do webinars and things like that to get them prepped.
Really, it's just so exciting to see folks who were really early in their journey, how much passion they have, how excited they are about their brands.
It's such a nice community.
Really, the beverage and food community is just amazing in general, I think.
It's like once you get into food and beverage, I always joke around like you never leave.
You just bounce around to different food and beverage companies because nobody leaves because it's such an awesome community.
I think I feel that most working with the participants in the competition because they're fresh, they're not jaded, they're just really excited about the opportunities out there.
That's a really fun thing about the events.
It's a great contest.
There are so many brands who have won BevNET Live or NOSH Live and have gone on to do really great things.
It's exciting for all of us.
Definitely.
I love seeing years later what some of these brands have done.
Super exciting.
Let's talk about some of the things that attendees should make sure they do when they come to BevNET Live, NOSH Live, and Brewbound Live.
First of all, definitely don't miss the pitch competitions because those are super exciting.
I know.
They're early in the morning.
I know it's hard to get up for those, but bring your coffee because it's really exciting.
It's so much fun.
It's so much fun.
Definitely sample, sample, sample, for sure.
We've got tons of great products out there, so it's a really just great way to see what's new and interesting in the different spaces.
I would say definitely take advantage of all the great networking.
We've got networking portals.
Don't miss those.
I know we get a lot of emails from us, but there's a lot of really important information on those emails, so definitely check those emails for instructions about the networking portals because it's a great way to connect with folks ahead of the events, set up meetings and things like that, look at the list of attending companies, figure out who you want to talk to.
So for sure do that.
Definitely pay really close attention to the agenda.
Lots of awesome content on our main stages, but there's also a lot of other stuff going on throughout the events that people may not always realize if you don't look at the agendas closely.
So you've got Bootcamp for NOSH, Beverage School for BevNET.
There's a lot of workshops going on that are a little bit smaller.
So I think there's a tendency to just go with the herd sometimes into the main stage content, which is great, but sometimes you might be missing out on some of the smaller sessions as well, which is an opportunity to learn about something that might be really specific to you.
It's also an opportunity to meet other people because you're in a smaller group situation.
So I would say definitely do that.
And then I think coming to these events, I think everybody has these goals and expectations, whether it's coming to a BevNET Live or a NOSH Live or a Brewbound Live or Expo West or any of the other larger shows.
You want to get certain meetings, you want to get your brand in front of a certain investor, you want to maybe pick up a new retailer, meet different people.
But I think it's also really important to think about the other opportunities as well.
Other people you might meet, the other brands you might talk to and suppliers and things like that.
And even if something doesn't go exactly as planned during these events, I think still kind of looking at it for the opportunities that you did have and trying to kind of put a positive spin on it.
So that would be kind of my only advice.
Your point about attending the bootcamps and the workshops is such a good one, not only because the information there is so crucial and helpful to emerging brands, but like you say, it's a smaller group of people, which makes the networking so much easier.
I mean, I can see it when I'm in those rooms, you see people sort of gather before or after the presentation.
And as an entrepreneur, oftentimes you may be the only person in the business or you may only have one other person in there with you.
If you don't have four or five people that you can call when things either aren't going right or they are going right, then it's kind of a lonely road.
So it's a great opportunity to meet retailers and investors, yes, of course, but also to build a network of people around you so that you're not doing it alone.
Absolutely.
The bootcamp and beverage school are definitely great from an educational perspective, but for sure, like you said, it's also a wonderful way to meet other brands who are in a really similar kind of stage in their journey as you are.
You know, and I think same thing with like the pitch competitions.
I think a lot of those folks, like they stay in touch with each other for years, you know, because they've kind of come together in this space and this time in their journey that was really similar.
And so they're there to kind of bounce ideas off each other.
And so, yeah, I think definitely like, you know, look for those opportunities.
I think that's the great thing about this community too, is I think people are really open and willing to share like ideas.
I mean, you see it in our slot community all the time.
Like people are so good about like sharing resources and ideas.
And, you know, there's none of this, there's just not as much competitiveness, especially like in kind of the early stage.
Like they want to share, you know, and that's why like I love, you know, telling stories and having other entrepreneurs tell stories because it's, you know, it is a sharing of a wealth of knowledge.
I think people don't really understand always what you're doing or why, you know, sometimes they think you're crazy.
Having other entrepreneurs to talk to and commiserate with is super valuable.
And I think not everybody really recognizes that value and it really is big.
Well, all this talk about BevNET Live, NOSH Live and Brewbound Live is making me really excited for our events.
It's going to be so great to see so many of you at our events this December.
Marina Del Rey, you can still register if you haven't had a chance to do so.
And we look forward to that and we look forward to seeing you there.
Thank you so much Carolyn for telling us the story of BevNET.
Thank you, Melissa.
It's so funny, I thought you were going to say all this talk is making you thirsty because it really is making me thirsty.
Is it time for a cocktail?
It's making me thirsty too.
Let's go get a drink.
Thanks for having me.
That concludes another episode of the Community Call Podcast.
If you've enjoyed this show, please give us a review and follow us on Apple Podcasts or your listening platform of choice.
To join Community Call live on Zoom, go to bevnet.com/communitycall to see what's coming up and register for upcoming shows.
And don't forget to join our BevNET, NOSH and Brewbound Slack Community at slack.bevnet.com.
