Jim Koch – American Entrepreneur

January 30, 2011
 
Dan Katcher

Last week I got invited to attend an event at the Sam Adams Brewery in JP. The event was put on by the Gilt Groupe and it featured a tasting of Sam Adam’s new Infinium beer, a champagne style beer that will knock your socks off. The feature of the event (not counting the beer) was a talk and a tour of the brewery by Jim Koch. Jim covered the history of his company, the creation of Infinium, and also told us a lot how about how to brew beer.
If you haven’t heard Jim speak, you should. If you haven’t been to the brewery for a tasting night, you should. And if you can find a way to combine the two, well, that’s cash money.

Jim Koch in his element
Jim is the consummate entrepreneur and listening to his story should be inspiration for anyone who is doing a startup. His passion for creating a great company, for redoing an industry, and for changing how things are done is infectious. And he tells a great story. Jim’s story about early days, about promoting his beer, bar by bar, bartender by bartender, is a good one.
What’s interesting to me is watching how Sam Adams has grown through the years. They used to have 1 beer, their Lager. Twenty-something years later, check out how many different beers they cover (note: age verification required. hint: pretend you’re at least 21). You might not like all of their beers, but Sam Adams has such a wide variety that I bet you find something you like. The Sam Adams brand has something for everyone – and they manage to wrap all their brews under the Sam Adams banner in a way that should be studied by app makers, in particular game studios.
What’s also fun about Sam Adams is how much they encourage innovation. Sam Adams is continually bringing out out new varieties of beer, and they are incredibly active in encouraging brewers to try new things. They encourage the community to innovate with them: Sam runs the Longshot contest every year and the winner gets their home brew produced and packaged by the company. And they experiment constantly with new ingredients and new processes. The result: an entrepreneurial organization that has experimentation at its core.
All of which brings us back to Infinium. With Infinium, they created a new process and a new brew that had never been done before. Notable quote from Jim Koch that night? “I’m with Steve Jobs, who is famous for saying ‘consumers don’t know what they want’”. Of course that line caught my attention. And my takeaway? In the context of Sam Adams, they created Infinium not because consumers were crying for it, but because they wanted to do something crazy and notable. Sometimes you just have to put stuff out there because it’s in your head and no-one else is going to think of it. Which is completely relevant for app makers. Nobody asked for Angry Birds or Cut the Rope. Just some crazy developers who had an idea that took hold of their heads and they put it out there.
One final note, did you know Sam Adams also encourages entrepreneurship outside their company by running a unique program called Brewing the American Dream, which funds entrepreneurs in the food, beverage, and hospitality industry through small loans? Sam works with the non-profit ACCION USA, which is a leading micro-lender, to make loans from $500 to $25,000 to lower and moderate-income entrepreneurs, and complements that with organized seminars, mentoring and speed coaching events. Way to go Sam!
So let’s raise one to innovators. I’m raising a Winter Lager. What’s your choice?

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.

Rise Of The Mincubator

January 22, 2011
 
Dan Katcher

We’ve moved – just down the street, not far from our previous hosts (LocaModa) on Sidney. We are now at 84 Hamilton St, still in Central Sq (which is absolutely fabo-licious), right across the street from the Myerson Tooth Corporation and just down from the Good News Garage (of Car Talk fame).

84 Hamilton
Our new hosts are CityVoter, client and friend to the startup. The story goes like this. One day, after looking at a potential sublet space, we happened to bump into Josh Walker from CityVoter at Starbucks. “What up?”, sez Josh. “Looking for space”, sez us. “You should check out our space”, sez Josh. “Can we bring our friends?”, sez us. “Sure!”, sez Josh. And so, our Mini-incubator (or Mincubator as it’s commonly known), consisting of Rocket Farm, Noteflight, and MedicalRecords.com, moved, en-masse, from LocaModa down the street to CityVoter.
The lessons here? 2 biggies.
1) As an entrepreneur you have to dream for what you want and never stop asking. When LocaModa informed us (Rocket Farm, NoteFlight, and MedicalRecords.com) that they were expanding and needed their space back we set a goal: “let’s keep all three companies together and find another place where we can keep the magic going.” All three companies have been hosted, gratis, by LocaModa for almost 2 years. Thanks LocaModa, we wrote back in August. And the Mincubator has been great. We (RocketFarm) are working with Noteflight on a project to bring their amazing music technology to the iPad; we brainstorm all the time with Ace from MedicalRecords. So keeping the companies together was obvious. Bumping into Josh from CityVoter was happenstance. Asking about space was not! You have to dream about what you want and never stop asking and trying for it. Determination rules all in startup land.
2) The second lesson is the miracle of Mincubators. Stephen Randall from LocaModa blessed us with internet and a ceiling, and a collaborative environment for almost 2 years. Now Josh Walker from CityVoter comes along and does the same thing. Is this a characteristic of Dace portfolio companies? Not sure. But we are sure that we love it. It’s amazing as a startup to have that kind of sponsorship from bigger companies.
Word is that the Mincubator concept is active and growing throughout Cambridge and the Boston area. David Cancel from Performable is rumored to be interviewing startups to help fill out their new space in Central Sq. From the intrepid Dan Stevenson from T3 Advisors: “As far as mini-incubators, here is a list of companies and/or clients that really support the ecosystem by helping give start ups a home:”

  • Viximo in Cambridge
  • Conduit (now Zynga)
  • Wistia in Somerville/Davis Square
  • PerkStreet in Boston
  • BzzAgent in Boston
  • CustomMade in Cambridge
  • Emo labs
  • Good job companies!

Be determined. Live the Golden Rule of helping others.
Know of any other Mincubators in the area? Add them below.

So, if you don’t know where to get started with a blueprint for your app, Rocket Farm Studios can take the pressure off.