Flying Bike Open House Recap

Posted July 24, 2014

On a warm Tuesday night the Flying Bike Board of Directors hosted a meetup in our potential new space, which by all accounts was a rousing success!

With matching pledges, we raised $16,000 just that night, bringing us ever closer to our goal of $300K! As of last night, our investor base has increased by 50% (over just two weeks ago) as people realize that we’re closing in on our deadline, and stepping up to the plate.

We definitely met the goals that I personally had set for the meeting:

Open up the new potential space to members & investors so that they can see for themselves what we're planning.
Allow members to interact 1 on 1 with the Board members to provide ideas and feedback, and get updated with the latest status of their brewery.
Raise the urgency of the Investment Campaign, and secure more pledges!

Tuesday night over 60 people showed up to look at the space, look over the renderings we put up to show the conceptual drawings of your brewery, and to hear from the board members what the current state of the investment campaign is. Another very important aspect of this meeting, was to meet each other and share our group excitement about Community Supported Beer!

This event also provided a great opportunity for all of the board members to interact with other like-minded members and relate just how much work we have been doing. Things have been really intense this spring and summer, with loads of planning for events (Member meetups, Tour de Pints, beer brewing at Stoup) as well as lots of evenings and weekends working on this investment campaign, outreach to members, iterating legal documents, and the actual act of fundraising. It's hard to see from the inside sometimes when you have your head down doing things, but I had many members come up to me and state that they were impressed with our progress and proud to be members.

"I want YOU, to Invest in YOUR Brewery!"

I got up to speak a bit, and for those that weren’t there, I’d like to reiterate a couple of points.

The Co-op model is really very different – especially for a brewery. While you can go to many different great breweries around town, this will be one where you can actually participate in it – besides just supporting it with your business. Here’s some things that YOUR brewery can do for you as a member that for the most part, no other commercial brewery can do:

You have a vote in how the brewery is run, what is on tap, and what the direction of the brewery will be. Everyone has an equal vote – regardless of the amount of investment they make.

As a member you have voting rights to choose our Board of Directors – and you have the opportunity to run for a board position to direct the execution of running and growing the Brewery! We have 3 spots coming up this fall - you want to roll up your sleeves and join us? Run for a board position!

Member-Owners have exclusive access to member-only events, whether they be brewing classes, beer related classes (food pairing, beer tasting, beer education), new beer release parties, soft openings at other breweries (as we’ve done already), and brewing competitions! And at events that we open to the public as a fund-raiser, members will get a discount.

As a member you have the unique opportunity to enter our exclusive beer competitions to grow our recipe book, and if the membership chooses your beer, participate in the scaling up and brewing of the first batch. You will see YOUR beer brewed in YOUR brewery at commercial scale! Ask Dan Schmidt how that feels!

As a member-owner you have exclusive access to Flying Bike only deals with other vendors from time to time.
For instance, right now we have a discount of 20% for supplies for the CDA competition from Micro Homebrew in Kenmore. Members are also eligible for Early Bird discounts up to the date of the event, for the Washington Brewshed® Beer Fest. (email us for the promo code)

Flying Bike Co-op members will have either a discount on beer, or dividends, or the choice to plow our profits back into the brewery to grow our capacity or capabilities. As a member, you will vote to decide what the priorities will be for profits in the responsible operation of our brewery.

As a member you will be able to sign up to volunteer in the brewery, helping brew & cellar batches, and learn the process of a commercial brewery & taproom. Hands on OTJ training & education is available to members on a scheduled basis and is an invaluable way to contribute to the success of your Brewery!

Oh, and when you join, we welcome you as our newest co-owner & member with a Flying Bike Pint Glass, sticker, and a Member T-shirt (and we have founding memberships available until the night before we actually open our doors – so don’t miss out!). This ain’t just a mug club, folks!

One thing that I would have liked to emphasize that I didn’t, is that we need our current members (yeah, YOU), to invest. The minimum amount is $500 (set by escrow, not us), which is 2 shares.
And then as a member-owner, we need you to do a couple more very important things:

1. Get your friends that are members already to put in their $500, and

2. Call your friends that are NOT YET members, get them to sign up – and then to invest.

The investment details are here – and I’ll be honest, it may not be for everyone. But yet, as one member-investor put it,

"A friend was sort of unimpressed with the return on
investment. I told him the ROI was A BREWERY!"

Here’s another perspective for you: So far just 7.5% of our total membership has invested – that’s seven and one-half percent of 800 members carrying this campaign. They want to help build your brewery - OUR brewery.

So that means if only half of the remainder (or about 350 folks) put in just the minimum $500, we’d reach our goal with some to spare.