How We Started
The idea for Red Flags Brewing Company came up one night when our two founders were out to see a band at a local bar in Hebron, Connecticut; The Greenleaf Cafe. While Kadin and JoAnn were catching up over his travel back to Connecticut a girl approached Kadin and began to try to get him to buy her drinks and maybe take her home. After a little bit Kadin approached the bar and the bartender tried to make him see she was bad news. Later Kadin moved on because he felt like something was off, That's when JoAnn said there needs to be a drink or something for those of us who can't see the red flags. She began to say its gotta be like the angel shot, but something the bartender can give to you, or a friend can get you to let you know that someone is bad news.
Thus Red Flags Brewing Company was born, The company has two missions behind the beer and hard seltzers, one as a joke for those friends who never see the red flags. This could be out at a bar, a party, or a gag gift for someone after a divorce. The most important mission behind Red Flags Brewing Company is SAFETY! Having a drink in bars that a bartender can give someone when things are not looking good or a friend can get to you; this helps the party see and understand that the person they are talking too may not have their best interests at heart or could cause emotional or physical harm to them allowing them to try to move away.
Time to launch
With any new company there are start-up costs. Starting a brewery is no different, We have beer and hard seltzers that we have created. We also have obtained our business paperwork from the state. That's where we run into the next steps:
1. Obtain a Texas Brewers license.
2. Obtain a lease of a property.
3. purchase large scale brewing equipment
4. Purchase large amounts of materials for brewing.
5. Begin large scale marketing campaign.
6. Purchase a forklift
7. Purchase packaging materials
8. Contract with distributors
9. Purchase delivery truck.
10. Hire employees
11. Begin sales
As you can see we have a long list of items to complete. Not included in this list is obtaining other states licensing so we can distribute outside of Texas. This stage will be a staggered step based on sales and demand.
The Breakdown of Costs
As shown above we have a long list of items to complete before we can get to stage 11 of beginning sales. So new we will break down the costs.
1. To obtain the Texas Brewers license the cost is $3000 We would like to obtain our lease before we apply for this license so we do not need to do a correction of the address.
2. With the lease of a property we have looked at several properties, we have found a 10,800 SQFT property with two loading docks and one drive in bay. The total warehouse/ brewing area is 10,000 SQFT. This property has 800 SQFT of office space. The cost of this is $9.00 a SQFT/a year, This is $97,200 a year.
3. Now we get to the fun part, Brewing equipment! A large part of time in brewing in the Fermentation process. This take about 2-3 weeks in large tanks and an addition two weeks in bottles. Our plan is to start off buy buying two mush systems to do the cooking process this will come with two fermentation tanks each system will make 200 gallons of product. These systems will cost $40,000 each. We also plan on adding more fermentation tanks to allow us to make more product, These will cost $11,000 each. We hope to add four extra at the start but it is not imperative, just allows us to make more product, for example our seltzer has 4 different flavors so we prefer to use 4 different tanks. This would leave us with only two tanks to use for beer production.
4. This step is more simple we plan on spending $25,000 on the purchase of things like hops, malt extract, sugars, and flavorings. This is an over stock of the needed ingredients to begin to produce our beer and seltzers at a much larger scale.
5. This step is imperative at this stage of the business, we plan on launching this stage at the 45-30 day mark of production completion to generate enthusiasm in the brand. This will have a budget of $50-75,000 This budget also includes the cost of billboards if marketing chooses to do so.
6. With the step to move pallets of beer and seltzers as well as move deliveries this is a needed item in the warehouse. We plan on buying a used forklift this will cost around $17,000
7. The purchase of packing materials is just that simple, this also includes the cost of designing, branded and recognizable packing will be important for the future of the brand total cost will be about $20,000
8. Contracting with Distributors will be a vital stage now that production is complete we have branded packaging and we also have a following on social media, as well as traffic from news outlets, we can begin to get distributers to pick up our beer and seltzers and get them to local gas stations as well as liquor stores, and bars. This will have a low cost of passing out branded merchandise, maybe a few dinners and giving out product for them to try. so we expect this to cost $5,000
9. Buying a truck will be helpful for the purchase of materials that may take longer on shipping than needed or to simply get our product to the distributers warehouse. We plan on buying a Refrigerated truck to do this and it can fit approximately 6 pallets. This truck will cost $90,000
10. Hire employees is the fun part this will be something that will happen from day one, however we added it at the end for the future expansion we expect over the first year. we plan on adding a 10-20 employees within our first year in business starting employees at a starting wage of $20 an hour. We also plan on making sure employees have a full benefits package. We are asking for the buffer funds to hire employees while in start-up stage of $300,000 However these funds are again just the buffer for us until we move to full sales.
With all this information above we hope that you see the amount of work we have already put into Red Flags Brewing company. That is why we have created rewards for your donation to our mission. We want to create a better dating environment making sure everyone is safe but also have that drink you can make fun of your friends with.
The Impact
Red Flags Brewing Company will have several impacts, The most important one for us is safety, All too often men and women go to the bar and end up going home with a person that may cause mental or physical harm to them. The sad part of this is most bartenders watch this happen and they do their best to alert that party but all too often they are unsuccessful. Taking a simple drink that that bartender or a friend can give to that man or women will allow them to hopefully understand that they need to get away from that other person allowing them to ask for the angel shot if unable to leave.
The next impact we hope will come from our beers and Seltzer is the fun you can have with your friend and family who just all too often miss all the red flags in the people they date this is why our slogan is "Since you can't see them; We'll put them in front of you" We hope this will cause fun between friends and family.
The last large impact is for the community around Seguin, Texas, That is job creation. As we stated earlier we plan on adding 10-20 positions within the first year. This will open up amazing opportunities for the local community as well as the entire state of Texas as we continue to expand in the coming years.
Risks & Challenges
With any business there are risks and challenges and we know that. Some of the risks are:
Brand recognition- We understand that to sell our beer and seltzer people need to know our name and with that as stated above we plan on doing two things, one being a hard marketing campaign before release. Two creation of packaging and labels that will be something for people to always remember when they are at the store or bar.
Competition - We know we are not the only beer and seltzer company out there, We plan on combating this with not only our mission but by creating flavors that are what we would expect from other companies.
Economy - The current economy is not looking the best, more and more people are staying home with the higher gas prices, so we plan on making it a focus to ensure we have a higher stock availability for local shops in the case that we are generating more sales from that side of distribution.
We know that there are many more risks that the three we have listed and we may not have thought of them yet, encountered them yet, or simply didn't list them. As we begin our journey we will update everyone with all the things we have run into.
Other Ways You Can Help
We understand that not everyone can contribute, However, that does not mean you can't still help!
Getting our information out is the best way to help, one can use the sharing tools her on Indiegogo, follow us on Facebook @RedFlagsBrewingCompany, Follow us on TikTok @RedFlagsBrewingCompany and/or Share our Socials!
