As the barriers to enter the beer and beverage industry reach all-time lows, the failure rate of breweries and brands is climbing to all-time highs. One of the primary reasons stems from underestimating what it takes to succeed in distribution, particularly when expanding into new markets. This reality is the driving force behind the work we do at BrightBev.
Too often, brands view a new state as a finish line rather than the beginning of another investment cycle. When founders make this error, the result becomes predictable. Markets are routinely under-resourced, whether that’s through insufficient marketing support, too few market visits, limited programming, or a lack of local representation on the ground.
For years, many craft breweries could get away with these shortcomings because category growth covered up a lot of mistakes. A massive demand tailwind also made it difficult to calculate a true ROI on a sales rep. Today, with shelf space under pressure and margins tighter than they once were, the cost of underinvesting has become much easier to spot.
The challenge is that the very investments that feel premature on a spreadsheet are often the ones that determine whether a new market ever reaches its true potential.
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