“Not Your Grandfather’s Scotch”: American Woman Starts Global Whisky Brand

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

Here are two fun facts about today's story. It features the first crowdfunded scotch whiskey in history, which successfully raised almost $50,000 on Kickstarter. And it was founded by the first American woman to ever create a blended scotch whiskey company. She calls it not your grandfather's scotch and her inspiration comes from a breakup. The San Francisco designer falls out of love with her ex and in love with scotch, building this international whiskey brand with money she had originally saved for couples counseling.

You know what they say, when one door closes, head to the liquor store. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Sydicell School." Not your grandfather's scotch is coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]

Creative director and graphic designer, Karen Luna Ostasecki was fresh out of a breakup when a friend introduced her to the next love of her life, scotch whiskey. After years of tossing back uninspiring gin and tonics, it was truly love at first sip.

Karen had previously set aside money for weekly couples counseling. But after that door closed, the money was burning a hole in her pocket. Conveniently, there happened to be a whiskey shop located right next door to her workplace. Thus began a new kind of therapy session. Every Friday, she'd walk in and buy two or three beautiful, expensive bottles of scotch.

As any therapist will tell you, hobbies can be a healthy and productive way to deal with a breakup. And what's building a collection if not a hobby? After a while, Karen says she became quite the connoisseur, with 300 glistening bottles of scotch lining her shelves. There was something exciting about trying out a new bottle, taking the time to note the subtle differences in flavors and sharing them with others. But she quickly discovered that her love of good scotch was not as universal as she thought.

To Karen, the superior nature of scotch whiskey was as clear as the golden scotch in her tumbler. But she found that most people in her age group did not share her opinion. They told her that scotch was their grandfather's drink, or that it tasted like gasoline. Shocked by these reactions, Karen was determined to bring a love of scotch to a younger demographic. The question, though, was how?

Her work as a creative director was incredibly demanding. Also, she already had a side hustle as a freelance graphic designer. Her schedule was as airtight as an aging cask. But true love conquers all, even the busiest of work schedules. After tossing around the idea for a bit, she decided that the best course of action was to host tastings.

Her first event drew a good crowd, but after being billed as a scotch tasting, Karen found that it mostly drew people who already liked scotch, which wasn't her goal. From then on, she de-emphasized the name and started hosting tastings in what she calls some pretty weird places, jewelry shows, trunk sales, and so on. You name it, and Karen was probably there at one point or another, a bottle in hand. She soon discovered that people were ready for a new whiskey, one that would completely change the way people think about scotch, a whiskey that is affordable, accessible, and of course, delicious. And Karen herself needed something new.

Day after day, she was stuck behind a computer desk making designs. She wanted to be the woman to bring this new whiskey to the table, or, you know, to the bar. After many experiments, she had a formula for a recipe, but no real way to produce it. She went to Scotland several times and even wrote to 80 distilleries who could potentially produce her product. The result was 80 rejections.

Then she finally got a yes from a producer who would later become her importer. It was a father and two-daughter team, and they walked Karen through the process and eventually became her business partners for the launch of the new brand, Sia Scotch Whiskey. As for that recipe, Karen clearly defined her audience, younger men and women who may not like scotch yet, but are into bourbon and rice. She made sure Sia had a lot of the smooth notes of vanilla and caramel that made bourbon and rice popular so that it could serve as a good transition point. And when it came time to design her packaging, Karen talked to dozens of bartenders, bar managers, and store managers about what they considered important in terms of liquor bottle packaging.

Among other things, they said to make sure it doesn't take up too much space and that it's easy to grab from the shelf and pour. After purchasing her containers and designing the labels, Karen was out of money. Luckily, a friend suggested Kickstarter, but could you use the platform to crowdfund alcohol? She reviewed the rules and found that while you can raise money for a product with alcohol, you can't give alcohol as a reward. If you're familiar with Kickstarter, generally the product is the reward.

So Karen did what she did best, she got creative. Using all of her resources and connections, she offered private tastings with chef-prepared meals, a stay in a luxury San Francisco loft, and even a private plane tour of the city. The most expensive reward was to have your name printed on 1,000 bottles of Sia Scotch whiskey for the low, low price of $10,000. To Karen's surprise, someone actually purchased her top tier perk. In total, she raised nearly $50,000 for 200 cases of Scotch.

And that's how the business took off. Just a few months after launching, Karen left her job to focus on Sia full-time. She realized that this new venture wasn't something that she could do halfway, but she also says that starting it before leaving her job gave her confidence to move forward. Today, the Sia Scotch brand continues to grow. After selling a few hundred cases in year one, the brand has grown at least 20 to 30% each year.

And in the past 12 months alone, Karen's one-time hustle has had a massive jump in growth of over 150%. Karen is working every day to share her love of Scotch and make Sia the world's favorite whiskey. And to think, it all started from a breakup. [Music]

All right, here are a couple of lessons from Karen, things that she learned along the way. First of all, don't expand too fast.

A liquor brand in particular needs ambassadors to truly create an inroads. So in her first year or two, Karen was trying to go national. She was traveling across the country all the time and finally realized that she needed to pull back and instead focus on going deep in California and Nevada. So that's what she did. And only now is it becoming more of a national brand.

Now she's got orders from Target and Safeway, some other big stores, but this is after she's taken the time to lay that foundation. Next, packaging is so important. We talked about that a little bit in the episode. Karen also ordered samples from all the top glass producers and filled them with apple juice. It's a similar color to whiskey.

And the one she liked, she put next to all of her Scotch bottles so she could see how they would look in a store, how they would compare. She wanted something that would stand out, but also not look out of place. And then finally, one more lesson from her in the form of a direct quote. She says, "If you're out there and you're working your full-time job like I was doing, then write down how much money you think you will need to get going, including your salary. Take that number and then triple it.

Don't quit your day job until you have that much in savings so that you can really move forward full force with your business when you feel ready and confident." All right, I hope that is helpful to someone out there. And Karen, thank you so much for sharing your story. I will be on the lookout for Sia Scotch Whiskey. I am one of those bourbon drinkers who doesn't love Scotch so much, at least not much of it, but I think maybe this product was meant for me. So I will check it out and look forward to trying it.

Listeners, I hope you enjoyed it. Inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. We are on episode 952, which means that our show notes are at sidehustleschool.com/952. Thanks so much, my friends. Tomorrow, the weekly recap is coming up and then a whole new set of stories all next week.

Once again, my name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]