Today we’d like to introduce you to Lucas Philips.
Lucas, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I started BrewBike as an 18-year-old freshman at Northwestern. In high school, I knew I wanted to start my first real business while in college.
In the Fall of 2015, I joined The Garage, which is the student incubator that had just opened its doors for the first time.
With the guidance of administrators at The Garage, I started to look for a problem to solve. Within a month or so, I got hooked on how damn hard it is to get great coffee at Northwestern. As quality gets better, lines get longer. No one has time to get good coffee between classes. Additionally, the best coffee on campus is Starbucks. But in our customer-interviews, we found college students are interested in more local, authentic brands targeted at young people.
Over the next few months, I recruited a team of undergraduates to find a way to bring convenient, quality coffee to campus with an authentic brand.
Our team tested many solutions. We worked in the Sodexo-run coffee shop in the library for months before quitting. Then we tested a coffee bus idea, a coffee tent idea, etc. We then met Matt Matros through The Garage’s mentor-network, who told us to look into a cold-brew bike. The solution was perfect – low-cost, lean, food-safe, and mobile. So, in the Spring of 2016, we launched an Indiegogo crowdfunding to raise $5,000 to manufacture the BrewBike. We ended up raising over $10,000. That Spring, we also did product-tasting to launch our brand and determine our house-blend based on customer feedback.
That summer, we participated in The Garage’s summer accelerator program, Wildfire, where we received another $10,000 in funding and 10-weeks of entrepreneurial learning.
We launched the BrewBIke in the Fall of 2016. Our plan was to park it in the highest foot-traffic locations on campus where coffee is needed most. We struggled to sell enough coffee to breakeven and learned it takes a while to change people’s daily routines. Then it got really cold, and we put the bike away for the Winter.
At this point, our team was aligned with closing the business for good. We had burned through our cash, maxed out credit cards, and had no source of revenue until late-Spring.
But then, an opportunity came from the heavens. We secured a space for a coffee kiosk in Annenberg Hall, which is a centrally-located academic building that houses the School of Education and Social Policy. This is the school to which I and a few other team members belong. Within weeks, we built a coffee kiosk using as lean a strategy as possible – a table we borrowed from The Garage and a used kegerator. The shop broke-even. Similar to the bike, we only sold cold brew and pastries at the Shop in order to maintain a super convenient customer-experience.
That Spring, we re-launched the bike, kept running the shop, and introduced our third vertical to the campus coffee marketplace: Keg Subscriptions. Fraternities and sororities demonstrated an interest in our coffee. With their interest, we developed a model of installing kegerators in their kitchens and delivering 5-gallon kegs of our cold brew to their kitchens. Again – this model was directly targeted at providing great coffee, incredibly conveniently, and with cultural authenticity.
In the Fall of 2016, we generated about $180 in revenue per day. By the Spring of 2017, we generated about $1100 in revenue per day. Our team grew from about six employees to over 30. Undergraduate students run every aspect of the business, including brewing our coffee in-house every night.
Last summer, I renovated the BrewBike shop myself in an effort to stay cost-conscious. It is now a beautifully-branded retail location.
This Winter, Randy Paris and John McComb, both Booth second-year MBA candidates, approached me and asked if they could apply to the New Venture Challenge with BrewBike’s business model. They wanted to scale our model to campuses across the nation. After meeting with them and determining culture fit, we proceeded.
This Spring, Randy, and John recruited a team of three other Booth students to execute in the accelerator program. At the same time, I was operating the business at Northwestern and working on my pitch at VentureCat, Northwestern’s pitch competition.
Three weeks ago, we placed second overall in VentureCat, winning $20,000 total. The next week, we placed fourth overall in the New Venture Challenge, which is the #1 nationally-ranked academic accelerator program. At NVC, we took home another $45,000 in funding, $12.K from the Polsky Center, $12.5K from Booth, and $20K from the Pritzker Group, whose accelerator program we are participating in this summer.
In August, we are launching a retail location in a student-housing facility at Arizona State University’s Tempe campus, which houses 52,000 students in the heat of the Arizona sun.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Of course, the journey has had its ups and its downs. For me, the highs are when we secure growth opportunities and when our team members are happy, driven, and mission-aligned. The lows are when we have cash-flow issues and people-problems.
I have grown from the lows way more than the highs. Early on, I failed at a number of work-relationships. I actually lost long-term friends due to my lack of leadership and management skills. Those failures prompted me to take a deep-dive into leadership and management development. After taking courses, reading books, and testing different leadership styles, I feel much more comfortable leading my team and managing others. I still have a ways to go.
Alright – so let’s talk business. Tell us about BrewBike – what should we know?
In the early days, I did everything, regardless of its prestige, in an effort to learn every aspect of the business. Once I learned how to do things, I started to hire people to take over established systems, such as managing our baristas, optimizing operations, and marketing our services. Currently, I still do our accounting and legal work. I also still source and vet new business opportunities at Northwestern.
Day-to-day, I am currently way more involved in growth to ASU than I am operations at Northwestern. That brings me to what I am most proud of – our team of undergrads, which has taken on all of the day-to-day operations responsibilities. Our team is the driving force of our excellent operation. Additionally, because students are at the heart of our business, they enable us to build a brand with a cultural authenticity that truly resonates with young people.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
I try to maintain a growth mindset, remain resilient, and never compromise my integrity. In order to grow BrewBike, I need to maintain these values throughout my journey.
Pricing:
- 14oz Original Cold Brew – $3.29
- 20oz Original Cold brew – $3.99
Contact Info:
- Address: Mailing address:
BrewBike
1555 Sherman Ave
Suite 182
Evanston, IL 60201 - Website: brewbikecoffee.com
- Phone: 646-703-4251
- Email: lucas@brewbikecoffee.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brewbikecoffee/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/brewbikecoffee
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