IGNITED | Josh Counsil
Download MP3Doug Jones (00:19.054)
Hi everyone, welcome to the Ignite podcast. I'm your host, Doug Jones, CEO of Ignite Atlantic. And we love to feature the great companies and entrepreneurs of Atlantic Canada and the impact they're making. Today, we're honored to have a friend of mine, Josh Counsil as our guest. And he is the founder or co-founder of Good Robot Brewing. And Josh is what he describes as a recovering engineer.
which is an interesting term, turned entrepreneur. And part of that is he's really gotten into keynote speaking and helping other companies around the region. He co-founded Good Robot Brewing back in 2015 with Angus Campbell and Doug Kehoe. And he describes himself as an entrepreneur who struggles with that title, I think it's fair to say.
He's got an interesting family background and we'll get into that a little bit, you know, really raised by from what he's told me in the past, murder mystery dinner theater owners. And I'd like to learn more about that. But he's co-founded multiple award winning business and good robot, you know, is a,
a really good brand by itself, but they've emerged as one of Atlanta Canada's most innovative and beloved breweries and kind of known for unconventional brewing experiences. And I think we'll get into some of that detail through our conversation, but welcome to the podcast, Josh. Really appreciate you coming and being part of it.
Joshua Counsil (02:11.499)
That's okay. appreciate the invite. It's been a long time coming. I'm just a little technology disabled, if you will. So, that was the first time we tried to do this. I mucked it up on my head.
Doug Jones (02:15.15)
Yeah. No, that's all right. And the funny part is as a recovering engineer, he'd think he'd have more technology savvy, it's... Yeah. You know, there's a bunch of parts I'd like to get into with you, but...
Joshua Counsil (02:32.689)
There's a reason I left the field.
Doug Jones (02:43.434)
Starting off, really like a good origin story. you know, maybe you can share the story of how Good Robot was kind of founded, because I know you're in another career path and with your co-founders, maybe you can give us little insight into how it was established.
Joshua Counsil (03:05.011)
Yeah, we are, all three of us recovering engineers. We met at Queens University on the engineering floor, which before university I thought would be the cool place to be. That's how you learn lessons. I met Angus and Doug on that floor. Doug was actually one door over from me. Angus was a few doors down and he was the one getting trouble for playing his music at night.
Doug Jones (03:21.496)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (03:32.967)
Angus' background, he's from Cape Breton. He actually, his entrepreneur roots start as a wedding DJ when he was a teenager. He borrowed some money and became a wedding DJ, got his own equipment, did very well with that. He and Doug studied chemical engineering and they were trying to get a startup going of basically these rollout photovoltaic cells. They're basically highly transportable, what do call it, solar panels. And I studied engineering.
because I wanted to be an Imagineer. I wanted to work at Disney building rides because that sounded really fun. And when I told my career counselor I wanted to be an Imagineer, she heard the word engineer and said you got to study math and science. And as it turns out, the mechanical functioning of the ride is really not all that interesting to me. I just like the part where you scream and get your photo taken. So.
Doug Jones (04:06.584)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (04:25.07)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (04:27.027)
But you know, that sort of experiential piece, I think, is really bred into me. And at college, we just had this house of misfits that we lived at. We were housemates for three or four years. know, Queens University was pretty cliquey. You had a lot of wealth there. You had a lot of, you know, our next door neighbors were the lacrosse team. Across the street was the football team. Next door was the cheerleading squad. And we were all these bizarre, scrappy...
engineers and one Biosci student who didn't quite fit the mold. So we kind of hung out with the guys who worked at the Poutine shop and the bouncers from the nightclub. you know, our parties that we threw were always this hodgepodge of non-homogeneity, if you will, really mixed bag of, you know, stoners and party animals and football teams and everyone, everyone was welcome.
Doug Jones (05:07.331)
You
Joshua Counsil (05:26.539)
And I think that really translated into this community feel that we really liked. And when we went into our engineering careers respectively, me in Seattle, Angus in the oil fields of Alberta and Doug in Ministry of Environment in Ontario, I think we were lacking that sense of very multi-discipline, multi-cultural camaraderie and community building that we had in college. was so fun. And so...
Doug Jones (05:26.786)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (05:54.091)
One day I got a call when I was in our New York office from Angus and he said, you know, I think, I think Doug and I are considering building a brewery in Halifax. And I had never visited Halifax, but I quit my job that week. I don't even think he invited me, uh, formally out of the project, but I just sort of let myself in and, uh, quit my job after talking to my parents and flew to Calgary to live with Angus to write the business plan. And then onto Halifax in 2014.
where we started fundraising and building. And from there, we started with one brew publication. And the whole sort of ethos that we didn't have defined at the time was the sense of kind of camaraderie for misfits or a very come as you are celebration of individualism.
Doug Jones (06:42.38)
Right, yeah. And you've really emerged as that, for lack of a better term, that quirky kind of brand. know you've had a lot of different ways to position yourself in the marketplace, not just from the name Good Robot Brewing, which is a great name, but.
But tell us, because I know the journey for starting a brewery is fraught with peril. There's all kinds of the, you know, from a business case to get a brewery off the ground is super complex. You must have run into a lot of barriers that were financial, you know, holes in the ground. You know, so.
Joshua Counsil (07:32.98)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (07:35.638)
So what types of things did you have to do to gain reputation in the marketplace? What kind of activities did you do to get people in the doors? Because that's often the hard part is getting them to try or to experience what you're selling.
Joshua Counsil (07:54.001)
Yeah, I think it's funny you mentioned financial holes in the ground because there literally was a hole in the ground. We did it. We were engineers and we built our place by the book and we got the permitting and everything. And they made us install this $25,000 manhole so that they could sample environment. Nova Scotia could sample effluent leaving our building to make sure we weren't dumping any toxins down the drain.
And we quickly learned that every other brewery, whether it was in our neighborhood or in the province, just didn't even bother applying for permit. They just built a place and opened it. And so I think we kind of learned the hard way of, you know, this is this is the bootlegger province, right? This is, you know, do it and beg forgiveness. Because if you try to do it the right way, you'll jeopardize your financial future. We actually changed our name.
Doug Jones (08:30.966)
It just did it.
Doug Jones (08:37.347)
Right.
Hmm.
Doug Jones (08:45.198)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (08:49.995)
three weeks before opening, we were called Rot Iron Brewing. And Break House, who is the agency that designed our taproom, just couldn't wrap their heads around us calling us that because it was so stoic and bit hyper masculine and it just was not a reflection of who we are, which was kind of goofballs. So they suggested we go with Drunk Robot, which I loved, but was not legal technically in the alcohol space.
Doug Jones (09:10.083)
Right.
Doug Jones (09:17.13)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (09:18.507)
So we went with good robot and and so we had to rebrand merchandise and everything on top of already opening a business in three weeks. We had to do that. I think we captured attention pretty early on because Nova Scotia is I just did this in my keynote at Fox Harbor for Tourism Industry Association. Nova Scotia.
You know, Halifax has this campaign about being bold and innovative and certainly those elements exist. But so much of what has made Nova Scotia successful is this scrappiness. Doing a lot with very little and also being kind of weird. You know, we're not known for being a really polished Hollywood A-list province. We're known for Maude Lewis and we're known for Frankie the Weatherman and all these things. So if you can mimic that.
Doug Jones (09:55.884)
Right.
Doug Jones (10:01.12)
Okay.
Doug Jones (10:12.013)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (10:15.839)
you could do pretty well. when we, I think two years before we even opened our doors, I was creating blog content and social media content about the journey and how the journey is so, so messy. You know, unlike our engineering careers, which were, there's nice systems and everything. Everything that went wrong could, you know, from equipment showing up late to the infringement.
Doug Jones (10:29.794)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (10:36.204)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (10:42.539)
to all these things. And when you share those behind the scenes stories, by the time we got to opening day, we were so crazy hyped that there was just this organic pull. so we grew pretty well that first summer with just a retail store and a brewery. The real challenge came when we opened our tap room, which it was supposed to open in the fall.
Doug Jones (10:52.632)
Right.
Doug Jones (10:58.68)
Hmm.
Joshua Counsil (11:09.725)
It opened December 17th, 2015, right before the Christmas season. Right smack dab in the middle of the Christmas season when all the plans are laid out already. And then going into January, the worst month of the year for hospitality and brewing. that's, that's, that's what it was like. Okay. We just spent however many hundreds of thousands of dollars building this place. And now we're weeks away from bankruptcy. If something doesn't, if we don't start putting some butts in seats. So.
Doug Jones (11:18.083)
Right.
Doug Jones (11:22.983)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (11:31.33)
Right.
Doug Jones (11:37.42)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (11:38.601)
That's where we had no budget left and you just had to use crazy ideas to capture attention. know, things that, trailer park boys would be proud of. And, you know, some of those things included, I mean, we, were good at attracting attention. We, we, we did a silent reading event, which was a concept I borrowed from Seattle. That cost zero dollars of marketing budget. And the concept was so novel.
Doug Jones (11:44.802)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (11:49.476)
Hahaha.
Doug Jones (12:00.013)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (12:07.851)
of a bar in Halifax known for Kaleigh's and Kitchen Parties doing an event where you shut up for two hours and drink beer, there's no music, there's no talking, that's hard for a maritime to do. And it was so novel, it stood out and with only three days notice and a Facebook post, we filled the place.
Doug Jones (12:18.434)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (12:25.676)
Yeah, it's interesting you mentioned that because that was brought up to me this week. Somebody, you know, from our Sydney location was talking about, I said, what do you do on the weekend? I went to a silent reading thing at a cidery. I'm thinking, I know where that came from. You know, so, you know, that's unique and I'm sure you attracted a different clientele.
Joshua Counsil (12:46.675)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (12:56.366)
at something like that compared to the typical party crowd.
Joshua Counsil (13:02.751)
Yeah, absolutely. was a crowd of introverts like pubs and they like people and they like drinking. They just don't necessarily want a small talk. So when you force them into a room together and they read for two hours, suddenly they're itching to talk. And what they notice is they're looking around, they're going, that guy's reading Jack Kerouac. I love Jack Kerouac or I don't like Jack Kerouac. And now I have a reason to talk. So about half or two thirds of the people would actually stay after silent reading and keep chatting.
Doug Jones (13:04.174)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (13:08.568)
Yeah.
Right.
Doug Jones (13:17.325)
Mmm.
Joshua Counsil (13:31.019)
And they now had a connective tissue that made introversion no longer a barrier to conversation. So it was always a fascinating social experiment.
Doug Jones (13:31.139)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (13:38.752)
Yeah, I love the aspect of community and making people feel a part of something bigger. and I think, you know, for a lot of introverts out there, you know, those social situations can be fairly awkward, but this is a new approach to, you know, building that community. And the cool part is it's built around your brand and it does...
Joshua Counsil (13:49.248)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (14:08.327)
it did help to establish you as a unique offering in the ecosystem. there's another thing I'd love to hear more about is condom gate. whole, yeah, rubber gate, whatever you want to call it, but maybe you can share that story a little bit.
Joshua Counsil (14:15.071)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (14:26.281)
Rough case. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. think that was one month later. If you actually look at our, I don't know if you can access it publicly, but if anyone's curious who's listening, I can send you a picture. If you look at our Google search traffic over time, between January and October 2016, which would have been
you know, six months into retail and brewing and one month into our taproom opening, we had about three big PR incidents, four actually, that attracted a lot of organic reach and really helped build a base and drove a lot of website and in-person traffic. Silent reading was one of them. The next one was rubber gate. And what had happened was
Doug Jones (15:24.408)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (15:25.759)
You know, Halifax has lots of pubs. So we wanted to create something that was atypical. That was a ZIG where other people were zagging. And Valentine's Day is typically catered towards couples. And we were living in an alternative with a lot of people, or we were living in neighborhood with people with alternative lifestyles. And a lot of them unmarried and a lot of long-term...
Doug Jones (15:51.212)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (15:54.635)
couples but no families. So we created a Valentine's Day event, I think it was called Blue Valentine after the Tom Waits song. That was kind of funny and irreverent and sexy and raunchy and it had burlesque, you know, there was a guy smoking a cigarette and a woman who had balloons, she was covered in balloons but naked underneath and he would pop the balloons. People, customers would get up on the microphone and tell embarrassing sex stories. I couldn't believe what they would tell a crowd of people in the pub.
Doug Jones (16:09.422)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (16:13.258)
You
Joshua Counsil (16:22.889)
But one of the things we wanted to do for it that we thought was a fun, kind of irreverent, saucy idea was to get some branded condoms with our mascot, Robie the robot. And we got them made in the States and they got seized at the border by Canadian Border Services because they're considered a medical device, which you're not allowed to brand in Canada. So they took them, they sent me this hilarious letter. You know, I've never gotten such a serious letter about something so ridiculous.
Doug Jones (16:37.133)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (16:43.116)
Right.
.
Doug Jones (16:50.967)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (16:51.443)
And I took a picture of it, put it on Facebook, called it, you know, good robot promotional fail number 437. And and immediately, I mean, it was within five minutes I was getting calls from the media. I didn't expect that. I thought people would just have a laugh. didn't expect that to go as far as it did. It ended up in the US and the UK and on BuzzFeed. I still think we're the only brewery to be featured on BuzzFeed, which is pretty cool. You know, at one point and maybe still.
Doug Jones (16:58.83)
you
Doug Jones (17:18.498)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (17:21.263)
the content website of the internet. And our fans, one of our fans, just wrote hashtag rubbergate in the Twitter section or the Facebook section or something. And we couldn't stop laughing at that. suddenly you had eyes on us again, you had people coming in for this event and it really solidified our brand as we're not one of these companies that takes beer very seriously.
Doug Jones (17:23.714)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (17:28.426)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (17:49.587)
which was sort of what the park was.
Doug Jones (17:49.868)
Right, yeah, yeah. The interesting part to me is,
Joshua Counsil (17:53.856)
Yeah.
.
Doug Jones (18:00.716)
Those types of things can be taken in such a negative light by a lot of companies. what I noticed with your team was you leaned into those things and you really celebrated the fact that you were making mistakes. The authenticity of what you were doing, and I think you alluded to that when you were talking about the social media and prior to us starting the recruitment,
Joshua Counsil (18:07.339)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (18:14.313)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (18:30.65)
recording of this, we were talking about, you know, the ugly parts of business. You know, a lot of people don't disclose the problems that are happening behind the scenes. We want to have such a polished image out there. Whereas Good Robot kind of celebrated the fact that, you know, we're doing things a little differently and we're making mistakes and we're doing this. But I think it ended up
you know, for lack of a better term, ended up being an attractant to you. I think, you know, people celebrate the fact that, you know, they're like us, you know, which is kind of a cool storyline. So do you find as your business grew and...
Joshua Counsil (19:17.952)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (19:28.718)
You know, you've certainly had a lot of growth over the last few years. Are you, are you taking yourselves more seriously or has it changed that mindset?
Joshua Counsil (19:36.971)
Yeah, I don't know if the framing is taking ourselves more seriously, but certainly, you know, when COVID hit and it forcibly shut down our hospitality operation,
We leaned into e-commerce and we started taking wholesale more seriously. And suddenly our retail, we bought a canning machine with 60K because capital was cheap at the time. Interest rates were zero. They were paying you to take money. And overnight, our retail tripled. I'm talking within like a week. So we realized, you know, I think the analogy we used was this is kind of this brand is a gorilla in a cage.
Doug Jones (20:08.344)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (20:25.179)
and we're holding it back. Let's see what happens if we let it out. So we decided to expand and we had run out of capacity the previous three years. Every summer we ran out of production capacity. So we were outsourcing some of our capacity and we thought, you know, there's got to be a higher premium way of doing this. Co-packing, beverage co-packing is very
Doug Jones (20:27.779)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (20:53.417)
popular in Ontario and Western Canada, in the States it's the norm, but it didn't really exist in Atlantic Canada to the degree it does there. actually, alcohol co-packing was illegal until 2021. So they changed that legislation that summer. So we borrowed about six, six and a half million dollars in mixed private equity and public charter banks and Crown Corps to create the Beverage Factory, which is a world-class
Doug Jones (21:20.341)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (21:22.941)
beverage production facility and we can make everything from energy drinks to non-alcoholic wine. The culture at that factory, the people there that are attracted to production and packaging and precision and efficiency are very different than hospitality. Hospitality wants to have fun with their friends. They want to indulge. They want to party. That factory wants to be
Doug Jones (21:40.686)
Yeah, guess.
Joshua Counsil (21:52.383)
done at 3 p.m. and they want the product to be perfect every time and they don't want any anything that's going to throw a wrench in the works and they're thinking about their financial futures. Two very different people, right? And so you've got this beverage factory and then good robot the brand. So at the beverage factory, you know, we're not doing stories about condoms and and you know, wrought iron brewing and whatever.
Doug Jones (22:00.674)
Right.
Doug Jones (22:04.288)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (22:14.7)
Right. Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (22:18.345)
The Beggar Factory is more like wrought iron brewing. I'm saying it out loud, right? And goodwill about the brand with its sales wholesale team and its marketing team and its hospitality units and its exports. That's more similar to the the original company. So now we've got two companies operating under one incorporated as one with extremely different cultures at the team level. So I think there is a level of seriousness.
Doug Jones (22:21.344)
Right. Yeah.
Doug Jones (22:43.606)
Hmm, right.
Joshua Counsil (22:47.741)
at the beverage factory because if you have to be, if your product is a little bit off, you know, it's okay if at a bar you have 400 customers one day and one person has a not great experience. It's not the end of world. If one product has one little minor thing, there are a hundred thousand consumers drinking that product.
Doug Jones (22:50.274)
You have to be, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Doug Jones (23:01.623)
Right.
Doug Jones (23:10.22)
Right, right, right. It's, yeah, and it can be difficult to run a company with two distinct cultures inside of it. So your approach as a leader in that company has to be so different. And knowing you, I mean,
I'm assuming you're more on the good robot side of the way you kind of operate, because I know how creative you are. So it can be a challenge for a leader to manage those two distinct cultures, I guess. So, yeah.
Joshua Counsil (23:50.995)
Yeah, it's funny. I wear both right like all three founders really wear both angus, Doug is a little more focused on the factory I am the technical sales arm along with angus of the co-packing service So i'm selling to cideries energy drink brands companies internationally the you know the largest Some of the largest companies in the world. I have phone calls with
Doug Jones (24:00.547)
Right.
Doug Jones (24:19.426)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (24:19.583)
the largest brands from different countries and you're wearing that hat that says, you know, I'm the condom guy, but also take this very serious because we do know what we're doing. It's sort of like, you know, the very high performing, I'm not a high performing business person by any means, but the very high performing business person or athlete, let's say, who finishes their day and they really want to have a pina colada. You know?
Doug Jones (24:25.838)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (24:44.214)
Right, right.
Joshua Counsil (24:45.309)
It's like, you know, I like having a good time, but I take that side of it very, very seriously.
Doug Jones (24:52.086)
Yeah, you know
I kind of identify with that too, because I think having fun in what you do is very important. I think it leads to longevity in the industry too. And I don't think you can take your life so seriously that you're not having fun along the way. So I think you're kind of balancing those things, but it's often tough as a company scales, because there's so many different
Joshua Counsil (25:15.401)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (25:25.582)
pressures on an organization, the leadership, the teams to help drive that. And I think there's an expectation sometimes that you are now grown up, if that makes sense. I think you said you don't consider yourself that...
Joshua Counsil (25:42.893)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (25:51.336)
super experienced business leader, but I don't think many of us do, quite honestly. Everybody's got imposter syndrome of some type. But as you grow and learn, I think you emerge into becoming the leader that you're supposed to be. I don't think you have to follow other people's rule books for this, but.
Joshua Counsil (26:02.123)
Sure.
Joshua Counsil (26:16.927)
Yeah. Yeah. That's a point.
Doug Jones (26:19.394)
You know, looking at the co-packing aspect, because what's interesting to me about the co-packing industry in general is you're essentially helping lift up the entire industry. You're giving opportunity to have the manufacturing process done here in Atlanta, Canada, supporting potentially your competitors and others, but you know,
that collective is a interesting approach. It's not an approach that a lot of people would, there's such a competitive nature sometimes in business, but you've created an opportunity to help your competitors actually produce product and get to market. You know, was there a thought process for you when you get...
Joshua Counsil (26:59.445)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (27:12.77)
got into the co-packing or did you just see a void in the marketplace or you were tired of sending your product elsewhere for packaging?
Joshua Counsil (27:21.705)
Yeah. This book really, you know, the beverage factory is really Angus's vision and Angus and Doug doing a lot of the heavy lifting. I'm not, as we witnessed by me starting this podcast, I'm not a great technical guy. You don't want me, you don't want me working behind the bar and you don't want me operating the factory equipment. Something gets lost between head and hand with me. So.
Doug Jones (27:39.596)
Right.
Doug Jones (27:47.831)
Right.
Right.
Joshua Counsil (27:51.211)
You know, but I am good with I am good with with people and especially strangers. So I was on the fundraising side of that project and helping to develop certain systems, especially on the sales side. And refresh my memory, Doug. I took a bit of a garden path there. What was the question again?
Doug Jones (27:56.845)
Right.
Doug Jones (28:01.218)
Right.
Doug Jones (28:05.528)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (28:12.504)
Well, I'm just interested in the fact that you're helping your competitors by selling them access to this. I think, you know, back to your point, you're the consumer facing part of this. So you're actually interfacing with your competitors. And what I'm interested in is like, what's your...
Joshua Counsil (28:20.061)
Right. Yes.
Joshua Counsil (28:30.292)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (28:34.197)
Tick tock.
Big time.
Doug Jones (28:41.07)
If you had to kind of summarize this, like how are you, what's important to you in helping your competitors succeed in the marketplace? What impact do you think that's going to have in our economy, but also in the beverage industry?
Joshua Counsil (28:50.154)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (29:00.619)
The commonality is that everything needs to be manufactured at the end of the day. If let's say, you know, over the next 70 years, beer has been decreasing as a category for well over 30 years, on average about 1 % per year. We're not going to hang our hat on beer, even though I personally love it. You know, one thing that we learned very early,
Doug Jones (29:14.702)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (29:21.837)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (29:25.843)
And that I still see a lot of operators, owner operators in Nova Scotia struggle with is that you're not your consumer. So for me, I never feel the conflict. I understand it rationally of we are producing a product for, let's say a non-alcoholic brand, which would be considered an indirect competitor of our alcoholic beer brand that we produce. Or we're producing even more directly.
Doug Jones (29:49.708)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (29:54.407)
another brewery's beer who shares the same shelf space at the liquor corporation that we do. Right? That brewery might also have a bar in our neighborhood. So there's really three arms of the company. You've got the beverage co-packing, you've got the wholesale and restaurant sales of our kegs and cans of good robot beer, and then you've got the hospitality, which we have three venues.
Doug Jones (29:56.312)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (30:07.054)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Doug Jones (30:23.822)
Hmm.
Joshua Counsil (30:23.829)
two in Halifax and one in Elmsdale. And there are what might, a lot of people might perceive conflicts of interest everywhere you look. Just putting another competitor, putting another product on at our bar, for example, let's say a keg of non-alcoholic wine, just for simplicity. The selection of that ends up causing some ruffles within our own company. The sales team wants to
Doug Jones (30:33.197)
Yep.
Doug Jones (30:50.125)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (30:53.673)
put stuff on at our bar where they can do an exchange where we sell our beer at that person's bar and they sell their product at our bar. The Copac team wants to tap our Copac products at our bar. The hospitality team wants to put stuff on that's exciting to their guests. So you're always sort of doing this dance of trying to get everyone to swim together. But really, Atlantic Canada is so small and it is so hard to do business here that
Doug Jones (31:01.102)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (31:06.626)
Right.
Doug Jones (31:10.167)
Right.
Doug Jones (31:20.398)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (31:22.803)
you do kind of have to be more more collaborative. You have to be less cutthroat. What works in Ontario doesn't always translate here.
Doug Jones (31:26.776)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (31:33.068)
No, and I think it's part of our culture to collaborate in Atlanta, Canada, and I think we could benefit from more of that because it's very difficult, as you said, and the beverage industry is one of those industries that's very difficult for one company to do it. We've had examples with, you know, Keith's and with Olin's and Moosehead and all these brands.
Joshua Counsil (31:54.591)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (32:02.446)
Um, but for there's been a lot of people like the micro brew experience is really interesting to me because over the last decade, especially you, you tend to see these micro brew places popping up in all these smaller communities around the province.
But the challenge becomes sustainability. How do you grow that brand? And certainly you guys started with a small footprint at the beginning, but you've expanded. But we've also seen some of those other companies not succeed over the last number of years. It's been a difficult, and I think it's fair to say across the whole industry, I think you've seen
Joshua Counsil (32:45.493)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (32:54.806)
I don't know if it's a right sizing. What's your kind of opinion on what what's transpired over it? Because COVID certainly played a part, as you said, but it also created opportunities. So, yeah. So do you see that trend with the with the community microbreweries being stood up? Do you see that continuing or what are you seeing on the ground across Nova Scotia, especially?
Joshua Counsil (33:06.942)
Always, yeah.
Joshua Counsil (33:16.319)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (33:20.287)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (33:26.323)
We were number 14 to open in the province. At its peak, there were more than 70 breweries that opened. In the last two years, top of mind, I could name about 10 that have gone under and several that were strong in the wholesale department. The right sizing is...
Doug Jones (33:33.912)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (33:43.203)
Yep.
Doug Jones (33:49.944)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (33:54.811)
We're obviously feeling it as an industry. It happens with every industry, right? You're seeing, we've been right sizing for probably about a decade now and just been really feeling it the last few years. It was way too much capital given out to way too many different people with plans. And then somebody at Toronto Dominion says, we got to call, we got to reduce the risk on our
Doug Jones (34:02.168)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (34:17.272)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (34:24.427)
micro brewing portfolio. So Johnny, why don't those 10 loans you gave out in Atlantic Canada, why don't you pull four of them? You know, and then these, you know, they can't service the debt. So they go under. It's, you know, it always hurts as a consumer and somebody who knows a lot of these people personally, but it's also a reality that every overvalued
Doug Jones (34:25.902)
you
Doug Jones (34:33.24)
Wow. Yeah.
Doug Jones (34:39.394)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (34:47.938)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (34:51.497)
Category happens and the way it gets overvalued is hype. We're all gorillas at the end of the day investors invest emotionally they they pretend to be rational But when something is exploding and you're seeing it in the media crap your crap your There's one of my neighborhood and even my barbershop sells them. I got to get in on this they get in on it It becomes overvalued Suddenly there's news about one of the public Offerings and it's way undervalued from what they predicted
Doug Jones (34:55.235)
Mm.
Doug Jones (35:09.28)
Right. Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (35:19.859)
Investors get skittish. They pull their money. Banks get skittish. They call the loans. And you see a bunch of them drop off. The other thing I see is not necessarily on the lending side, but also the sales side. Nova Scotia and think Atlantic Canada is traditionally a production place. We're really good at forestry. We're really good at fishing. But what do we do with all that stuff?
Doug Jones (35:19.874)
Yeah.
Hmm.
Doug Jones (35:40.728)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (35:44.502)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (35:46.783)
Well, we sent it to Asia and we sent it to the US and we sent it to Western Canada, right? Beer is sort of the same. I see the same thing happening with the owner operators. I don't like that sales and marketing stuff. You know, they tell the field of dream story. If you build it, they'll come and they don't. And marketing and selling, find in Atlanta, Canada below average compared to more competitive markets. So they produce a really good product, but they don't know about positioning. They don't know about
Doug Jones (35:51.299)
Right.
Doug Jones (35:59.104)
Hmm. Yeah.
Right. Right.
Doug Jones (36:11.832)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (36:16.648)
consumer packaged goods labeling, don't know about pricing, promotions, product placement, and measuring consumer insights and advertising. They just pay, you know, a 21 year old 20 bucks an hour out of college to run their social media account, if that. And in the absence of marketing and sales, if you're not growing, you're losing. And I've seen some brands with some great products and who had the wholesale listings, not sort of keep
Doug Jones (36:22.702)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Doug Jones (36:29.198)
Right, right.
Doug Jones (36:38.306)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (36:46.187)
that standing and slowly they lost one and the other than the other. And then we come in along with other brands and the domestic and import brands. And we're pushing like crazy where we did 360 samplings last year. That's a sampling every day. That's six times what the biggest domestic brands do. So you really got to hustle to grow and to say afloat. I see a lack of that on the sales and marketing side in Atlantic Canada and especially brewing.
Doug Jones (36:47.702)
Right.
Doug Jones (36:57.867)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (37:04.14)
Right. Yeah.
Doug Jones (37:11.426)
Yeah.
Yeah, and you've recently expanded into other markets too outside of Atlantic Canada and launching new products there. Are you seeing the opportunity? And I wouldn't say, I wouldn't want to use the term saturation in our market, but you continue to look for other potential markets, right? As far as, I think you're an LCBO in Ontario at this point and.
Joshua Counsil (37:43.899)
We were. We were for one summer. We were the only in 2023, the only Nova Scotia brand on on shelf in the beer category, which is cool. But but you don't really make a ton of money out of market. And craft is a weird category because its definition basically means small. It's like a category, you know, that that basically means local. so when you move out, we've seen this in the States a lot. A really successful brewery in Oregon goes over.
Doug Jones (37:45.336)
we were.
Doug Jones (37:51.522)
Right. Yeah.
Doug Jones (38:02.156)
Right, right. Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (38:12.619)
you know, one state East into Idaho or Utah, let's say, and they lose their and they lose back home because they're now too big from their original market. And this new market doesn't know who they are. We've seen this over and over and over. So Atlantic Canada, feel is one market and we were, we're growing really well here. We've been growing about 50 % year over year on our wholesale side. Um, our sales seems very hungry and then they fight like hell. So we're doing.
Doug Jones (38:23.03)
Right.
Doug Jones (38:39.918)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (38:41.067)
This is always going to be the meat and potatoes right here. The export is more like, it's kind of, it's again, it's not a rational piece almost. It's just, it's fun and it's, it's sexy and there's a bit of a strategy behind it, but it's, Nova Scotia will always be sort of the heart of the opportunity.
Doug Jones (38:43.854)
Okay, yep.
Doug Jones (38:51.202)
Right.
Doug Jones (38:55.278)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (38:59.02)
Yeah, well, that's yeah, and I think that's a good point about the word craft because I've seen that I've done a lot of work in in Kentucky, the home of Kentucky bourbon and you see a lot of small, you know, not so many microbreweries, but you see a lot of small batch distilleries through Kentucky and they really limit their supply, but they have to price accordingly.
too, so that they have consistent revenue. But there's some uniqueness about that. One of the ones that you kind of introduced to me was your new Diablo beer. And it was interesting because I think when you told me about the beer, you started by saying,
Joshua Counsil (39:44.619)
Thanks.
Doug Jones (39:53.196)
You know, it's a Mexican inspired, you know, jalapeno, you know, all that stuff. So you, you get all these senses going in your head about what this is going to be. There's some danger involved because there's, you know, something that's hot inside of that. But, but we tried it and I really enjoyed it. I've actually seen it on a number of, a number of taps.
Joshua Counsil (40:09.152)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (40:22.634)
in, in Halifax recently, and I've, I've sampled it a few times because I, I like, I don't want to judge on one sampling. like to have at least 50 to 60 samples. So, so I'm sure it's good, but, but yeah, but with, with products like that, I think you're, you're introducing new products similar to Diablo and other, other, other products.
Joshua Counsil (40:34.695)
Yeah, we take these left-wing.
Doug Jones (40:51.79)
Do you see that as the future to keep innovating, keep bringing new recipes, new product to market, or is there a kind of ceiling to how many products you wanna introduce?
Joshua Counsil (41:06.687)
Yeah, it's the the focus is Focus is a really good thing in business We already have a business that's so you know, I mean looking right if you look in the room here this video, right? This is a chaotic room. This is It's somewhat emblematic of our business as well balancing hospitality consumer packaged goods and manufacturing services that's
Doug Jones (41:24.642)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (41:35.645)
a lot of different arms. Within the craft beer side of it, there has to be what they call for the listeners at home, a skew rationalization where you make, let's say 40 products and you cut the bottom 30 or 20 that are only contributing 20 % of the revenue. And you focus the time, attention to resources on the top to really grow those. The challenge with craft beer,
And really any alcoholic product in Canada where it's a heavily controlled regulated substance is it's not really up to the consumer And it's not really up to us either Right. We we had two years ago our two top selling products in house of the year were not listed at the liquor corporations because they Didn't feel that's where the market was going. They instead wanted a multi-pack light lager
Doug Jones (42:13.186)
Right.
Doug Jones (42:29.048)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (42:33.931)
which we had never really produced was not our forte, was not what we were known for. But we've been producing two now, our Good Robot Logger and our Good Robot Ultra, which is our Michelob Ultra equivalent, 100 calories and 4 % and three grams of carbs. And they're now our number two and three products because the liquor corporation is the one who says, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do that. We're going to tell the consumers what
Doug Jones (42:39.479)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (42:47.98)
Right.
Right.
Doug Jones (42:59.341)
that.
Joshua Counsil (43:03.659)
they want based on what we see happening elsewhere, what we see in New England and Ontario. So innovation within craft beer can be really tough for that reason, but we can make anything. We can make energy drinks, cocktails, know, non-alcoholic cider. So there's room elsewhere outside of alcoholic beverages for us to innovate and do something more in the vein of liquid death. The water brand from the States, for example.
Doug Jones (43:03.682)
What to drink. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
Doug Jones (43:16.866)
Right.
Doug Jones (43:32.566)
Right, right. So that's interesting that, know, because certainly I've seen that going into the liquor stores in Nova Scotia and seeing, you know, one or two products from Good Robot on the shelves or whatever it may be, but knowing that there's more out there. where do people get those? they...
Is it designed for the experience, like going into the taprooms or your, know, yeah. Do you have like e-commerce ordering and things like this? what's the trend happening for how do consumers get your product if it's not on the liquor store shelves? Because a lot of people may not realize how to do it.
Joshua Counsil (44:04.533)
Sometimes, yeah.
Joshua Counsil (44:14.155)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (44:24.815)
I had, I'm, really good. I'm not good at day to day operations, but I'm good at either starting something or finishing it. I'm, I'm known in college, the guy who ran through walls quite literally. And, I shut down our e-commerce division. It was underperforming. obviously it was almost a million dollar brand or arm of the company during COVID. By the time we shut down, was about a $250,000.
Doug Jones (44:39.574)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (44:52.875)
the arm of the company each year and we were doing an average order to somebody's house was about $75 which is pretty big it's a lot of beer and it was still we were losing about 20 bucks in order so we had to outsource that we outsourced it to Harvest, Wines and Meeko and now they're doing our order fulfillment so you can get it there it's a relatively small segment that likes that experience
Doug Jones (45:02.455)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (45:07.96)
Wow.
Doug Jones (45:14.486)
OK. OK.
Doug Jones (45:21.591)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (45:23.879)
the Wholesale the private stores who sort of have grandfathered in licenses, so harvest wines and their three locations Are great and then yeah, our three stores are where you can get in our bars are where you can get the most variety The interesting thing is we started in 2015 with a taproom and the taproom crowd always wants what's new and exciting and sexy Okay, I had this two weeks ago. What do you have this new?
Doug Jones (45:40.238)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (45:50.296)
Yeah.
Right.
Joshua Counsil (45:53.737)
The wholesale crowd likes what's predictable and tastes the same as it did a month ago and always available. So you have to balance those two. We haven't really made a good robot beer that is new in quite some time. And we probably won't for the next year or so, unless wholesale requests it because we're so busy producing other people's products at the factory. The good news is that the good news is that like the market still hasn't recovered from covert.
Doug Jones (45:57.112)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (46:10.188)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (46:17.482)
Right, right, yeah.
Joshua Counsil (46:23.269)
from COVID in terms of consumer taste. So in Halifax, there's not many bars where you can get a really good selection of the 60 plus breweries from around the province. You kind of see the same five or six brands everywhere you go, which means that we've got our six or eight core products that Good Robot makes at the bar. And then we're filling the rest of the taps with the other breweries who are still making fun, exciting new things every week. So again, it becomes that
Doug Jones (46:33.102)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (46:49.293)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (46:50.815)
that opportunity of collaboration and kind of helping to grow the category a little bit.
Doug Jones (46:54.894)
Yeah, yeah. And still creating the unique experiences in your beer garden and your tap room. And I'm sure we're gonna go have a brew at one of these locations in the next little bit. just...
Joshua Counsil (46:57.419)
So.
Joshua Counsil (47:13.983)
Cool. Yeah.
Doug Jones (47:16.598)
You know, a couple of last things, because I know you're busy making beer and all that good stuff or running around selling beer. But what's your favorite good robot beer yourself? What's your recommendation?
Joshua Counsil (47:27.371)
Thank
Joshua Counsil (47:33.609)
So there is very little consistent about me, including my taste. Currently, for the last maybe six months or so, it's sort of a three-way tie. I love the Diablo right now because it's like a lager plus. A little bit of lime, a little bit of jalapeno. It's not huge, but it's nice if you want a little bit more than just a light refreshing lager.
Doug Jones (47:53.655)
Hmm.
Joshua Counsil (48:03.435)
And my buddy who's a director of operations at a hotel school. He called it the the best hangover breakfast The best hangover drink he's ever had so that's another interesting positioning opportunity. Maybe I love our ultra When I want you know a quickie and it's hot or it's been a long day at the factory and I just want it there's something fun about that sleek that slim can it comes into
Doug Jones (48:13.07)
All right. Yep.
Doug Jones (48:19.884)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (48:30.283)
It just feels like a different experience when you're crushing them in the parking lot with the packaging team and having a cigarette after work or whatever. And then I'd say the third would be our double IPA. There's a great story behind it. While the low and no alcohol categories were skyrocketing for the last few years in terms of media perception, and that's how, again, people invest and they assume, oh, you must be doing so well with your non-alcoholic beer because I see
Doug Jones (48:30.594)
Right.
Doug Jones (48:33.934)
Right. Yeah.
Doug Jones (48:42.914)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (48:59.243)
The news everywhere, everyone wants non-alcohol. It's still a really tiny segment, knowing low alcohol. So we had this guy, Harish, who was working with us, and he comes from a consumer packaged goods marketing background at Wreck-It, a multi-billion dollar firm in the States. And he just stood in a store at NSLC and he talked to customers. He said, why are you buying that IP instead of that IP? And they were all saying, well, they're the same price, but that one's got more booze in it.
Doug Jones (48:59.486)
Mm-hmm. Mm. Right.
Doug Jones (49:12.686)
Okay, yep.
Doug Jones (49:28.386)
Hahaha
Joshua Counsil (49:28.587)
Now, you don't necessarily think, you know, the craft beer consumer, oh, you know, they don't care so much about the ABV, you got all these fancy styles coming up. No, they care very much. And so he had this idea to pivot our Tropical Storm IPA series, which was four different beers made with four different hops. He pivoted it into a tropical storm category, similar to a hurricane. And, and
Doug Jones (49:38.733)
Hmm.
Doug Jones (49:48.194)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (49:56.715)
And depending on the strength of the ABV, that was the strength of the category. So I forgot this hand gesture, zooms my camera in and out. So I just got, yeah, yeah, I'm very, I just got a crazy zoom up on me. So he created this tropical storm category four, which was 4%, five, which was 5%, six, and all the way up to seven. And the most important attribute was the ABV, which was front and center right on the front of the can.
Doug Jones (50:03.118)
That's okay. You feel very strongly about this.
Joshua Counsil (50:25.547)
And that was the first thing you see on show. Four, five, six, it tells you the ABV. Those products became our number one selling product in-house via e-commerce and retail that year. And we had a lot of like his and hers couples. She liked the four, he liked the seven. So all this, it was interesting. The seven, and by the way, in terms of sales, in order, seven, six, five, four, when they're sold individually.
Doug Jones (50:43.117)
Right.
Doug Jones (50:51.075)
Yep.
Joshua Counsil (50:52.543)
So this double IPA is now the category eight. It's the 8%, which means more malt, more hops, more flavor, more booze. And it's just a big, fun, super approachable tropical experience.
Doug Jones (51:00.066)
Right, yeah. It's kind of that mentality of more is better, right? If it's got a bigger number on it, that's the one I want. because often, you know, an 8 % beer doesn't end well with me. it's probably not the best choice, but I think that's the one I want because it's, got more in it. So it's interesting, but.
Joshua Counsil (51:07.755)
Yeah. Big number.
Joshua Counsil (51:18.815)
No.
Joshua Counsil (51:26.741)
Yeah.
Doug Jones (51:28.536)
But yeah, so I'm anxious to try the Ultra. That's what I'll sample with you there next week. But you know, the different, I'm kind of like you. I kind of go between, I like sampling new things. So whether it's a new beer or a beer I haven't tried before.
Joshua Counsil (51:37.535)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (51:53.902)
and moving around, guess my palette kind of adjusts to wherever I take it. But it's good that you have a variety like that and different types of offerings.
Joshua Counsil (52:07.177)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (52:08.352)
I always like at the end of podcasts is just getting a, you know, I know that, that now you're, you're sharing your experience, doing various speaking engagements. Of course we've had you in at Ignite and, and, introducing you to some of our startups, for, advice. And, you've been very generous with your, with your time. but I'd like to get a piece of advice.
Joshua Counsil (52:30.571)
That was so fun.
Doug Jones (52:37.838)
from you for the entrepreneurs out there and the startups that are building something in smaller communities and which tends to be where we focus of course, but a piece of advice to get through some of those pain points. You talked about that near bankruptcy experience and moving through that. What's one piece of advice that you would give an entrepreneur to help them with? Let's look at mindset. How do you develop a mindset to
to get through some of those challenging times in business.
Joshua Counsil (53:12.201)
Yeah, I struggle with that myself and you know, it's going to be the theme of my upcoming chat with my psychologist. One thing I learned in the last few years from a psychologist was about ACT theory. And I can't remember top of mind what it stands for. But in Cole's notes, essentially, it's act on your values, not on your feelings.
And I have a brain that is very challenging. It confuses a lot of things. Thoughts get wound up in emotions. And we're currently dealing with a pretty challenging time in the company. Lots of growth. Everything's reopening for the summer. So what I have is basically this spreadsheet of different columns of things that matter to me, from family to friends to financial to...
travel to my partner hailey to so on and so forth and every quarter Sort of like strategy. I just fill the columns that matter with one thing That enables that cup to be filled so that I don't get swept up into it. and and also Warnings to myself about when i've acted on feelings instead of Instead of values. So that's one way is it's just to look at what matters to you
Doug Jones (54:24.216)
Mm-hmm. Right.
Doug Jones (54:36.814)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (54:39.933)
and to move forward even if it feels bad at the moment. The other piece I'll say is, this is from my psychologist Dr. Conrad, during challenging times there's these three prerequisites that he recommended are useful to get through those times and they pertain to your relationships in work, they pertain to your romantic relationship, to your friends, but every successful relationship is contingent upon these three things.
Doug Jones (54:44.29)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (55:09.611)
One of them is competence. Only one of them. So you mentioned Imposter Syndrome. A lot of people, especially Western society, we tend to feel technical competence is required for us to do the job. And often we have to do things, most of the time I find with entrepreneurship, we have to do things that we're not technically competent in. Trial by fire all the time. So that one is often...
Doug Jones (55:33.954)
Right.
Joshua Counsil (55:38.245)
Often a zero out of one for whatever we're going through. But the good news is it's only one of three the other two are autonomy and relatedness and autonomy would be do you feel a sense of ability to communicate your needs and or act upon your wishes Which is really important The other one's relatedness and that's do you feel mutual compassion for the people that you are with whether it's your
Doug Jones (55:41.102)
Right. Right.
Doug Jones (55:47.683)
Mm-hmm.
Joshua Counsil (56:06.921)
romantic partner or your friends or whatever and it is, is it a two way street? Even with just those two assets, relatedness and autonomy, you can do some pretty remarkable things. You could be a completely technically incompetent leader in a category. And we've seen this certainly in the business sphere, in the political sphere, right? But they might have a right? They might have a great team.
Doug Jones (56:11.288)
Right.
Doug Jones (56:23.372)
Right.
Doug Jones (56:29.878)
Yeah.
Joshua Counsil (56:33.795)
and lot of self-confidence and an ability to make stuff happen. So if you can hang your hat on those two, that has certainly helped me through some hard times.
Doug Jones (56:37.88)
Mm-hmm.
Doug Jones (56:45.164)
Yeah, and I think to just to piggyback a little bit on that is I think what I've seen in your journey is the ability to take action and not stop moving your feet and turn a negative into a positive similar to what you did with the rubber gates and others where other people would turtle, kind of go back into their shell.
you kind of leaned into it and I think that's a powerful lesson for entrepreneurs as well is that how do you stay on the positive side of things even in tough?
tough spots. it's, yeah. So listen, Josh, I know you're a busy guy. So I really appreciate you coming on the podcast and sharing some of your story, but some of your insights. and I would encourage anybody to, to go to your facilities, check out the
I'm looking forward to the beer garden by the Commons this summer and checking that out, there's some products from Good Robot around the Maritimes, of course. And certainly if you get a chance to listen to Josh speak.
you know, at a variety of things. And I know you're on quite a few other podcasts that have been really well done. hopefully the listeners will chime in and share their insights. So again, thanks very much, Josh. Look forward to connecting with you soon. And thanks for everything.
Joshua Counsil (58:26.357)
Thank Thank you, Doug. I'll see everybody at the pub.
Doug Jones (58:32.792)
Sounds good.
