Beverage Industry Insights and Data

Interested in starting your own entrepreneurial journey in publication but unsure what to expect? Then read up on our interview with Duane Stanford, owner of Beverage Digest, located in Atlanta, Canada

What's your business, and who are your customers?

We take beverage business professionals behind the scenes where the most important industry decisions are made. Our newsletters, reports, and conferences are a portal to facts and insights that aren't available in the mainstream, less specialized media. Beverage Digest is an extension of an executive's market intelligence unit.

Tell us about yourself

After 25 years as a journalist covering all levels of government and then the largest multinational consumer companies in the world, I was enticed to enter specialty publishing as a way to control my destiny, own the coverage decision process, and exercise my entrepreneurial muscles.

What's your biggest accomplishment as a business owner?

Collaborating with this exceptional team to modernize and most importantly grow a 40-year-old business that now operates like a startup. We have reorganized the business to embrace the power of coding, digital automation, and more, with the goal of producing better back-end processes and, crucially, better products for our customers.

What's one of the hardest things that come with being a business owner?

For a small business, determining when to invest. At what point will adding a capital or human resource be additive and not a distraction because you are too early? Sometimes gutting out a resource shortage is the right call because you don't yet fully understand how you will most efficiently and effectively deploy that new resource.

What are the top tips you'd give to anyone looking to start, run and grow a business today?

1. Trust your abilities and skill set. Working outside your comfort zone is by definition scary. Remember the times when new endeavors felt almost impossible and you believed you were ill-equipped. Then remember the process of taking one-step at a time and where that got you. There is power in that perspective.

2. Do what makes sense. If you only have time to take a bite of the apple or eat half before a hike, do that. Don't wait for the perfect time to eat the whole apple. There is energy in acting, however small.

3. Don't be afraid to seek professional services from friends and acquaintances who are good at what they do. They have a vested interest in your success and they charge a fair price. We've known (and therefore vetted) our bookkeeper, our tax account, and our insurance broker for 20 years before we owned a business. Pick them for their true expertise, however, not merely because they are friends.

Owning a business is the most rewarding experience of my professional life. I highly recommend it.

Where can people find you and your business?

https://www.beverage-digest.com

https://www.linkedin.com/company/beverage-digest

https://twitter.com/beveragedigest

If you like what you've read here and have your own story as a solopreneur that you'd like to share, then email community@subkit.com; we'd love to feature your journey on these pages.

Feel inspired to start, run or grow your own subscription business? Check out subkit.com and learn how you can turn "one day" into day one.