Tag Archives: meadery

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 8: Bos Meadery

August 5, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Bos Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Colleen Bos, a medieval historian and homebrewer for more than 9 years, started Bos meadery in an effort to provide the meads she likes to drink to the local Madison, WI market. Madison is a hotbed for local food and beverages, including at least 11 breweries, many local bars and eateries, and the Old Sugar Distillery. Madison is even well known for the largest producer’s only farmers’ market in the US, the Dane County Farmer’s market.

Bos started her meadery close to downtown Madison to ensure foot traffic when they are able to build out their tasting room. Prior to the Kickstarter project, Bos had already secured the space and equipment necessary for the meadery, and needed the last bit of funding to purchase the materials to bring Bos Meadery to market. This included honey, yeast, fruit juices, bottles, corks, etc., with any remaining funds going to help furnish a tasting room.

The Bos Meadery Kickstarter project sought $11,000 and offered 15 funding tier options. The funding options started at $15 for a tour and tasting, up to $3,000 for the opportunity to consult with Colleen on creating a mead recipe, being a VIP at the Bos Meadery Launch Party, and lots of swag that included a t-shirt, drinking horn, wine glass, and travel corkscrew.

The Bos Meadery Kickstarter project was available for 32 days. During this time, 166 backers provided $15,767, beating the funding goal by 43%. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Bos Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Bos Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Bos Meadery received backers for 12 of the 15 funding tiers available. The most popular item by far was the $15 option to receive a tour and tasting with 48 backers. The second most popular item was a funding tier for $45 that included a Bos Meadery wine glass and a personal tour and tasting, with 19 backers. The third most chosen option received 16 backers, and added to the second most popular item, with the backer’s name listed as a founding supporter on a plaque at the meadery, a t-shirt, and a travel corkscrew for $200.

Even though the first tier item received the most number of backers, it only accounted for 5% of the total funding received. Rather, the two tiers contributing the most funding to the project were tier 11 receiving 23% of the total funding and tier 9 (the third most popular described above) receiving 21%. Tier 11 included everything in funding tier 9, with the additional of a quality drinking horn.

And that covers the last successfully funded meadery Kickstarter project. Check back with us next week as we wrap it all together and provide some recommendations for your next Kickstarter project, specifically focusing on the items that are most likely to be purchased if you start a beverage related crowdfunding project.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding Your Meadery, Part 7: Melovino Meadery

July 29, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Melovino Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Sergio Moutela, founder and meadmaker at Melovino Meadery, created New Jersey’s first official meadery with the help of Kickstarter. Moutela grew up helping his grandfather produce homemade wines, and per his Kickstarter funding video, “earned [his] purple foot from a very young age.” As an adult, Moutela began exploring with home winemaking and brewing. After submitting Moutela’s homemade concoctions to many competitions, he realized his mead came away with many more medals than his beers. As such, he decided to take the plunge and begin the journey of creating Melovino Meadery.

When Moutela started his Kickstarter project, he had already secured a Federal winery license, was working on receiving a state license, and had purchased much of the necessary equipment to run the winery. However, Moutela needed just a bit more money purchase the ingredients for his first mead production runs.

Melovino sought $15,000 through Kickstarter, offering 16 funding tiers starting at a $10 Melovino Supporter sticker up to $2,000 to assist Moutela with the development of a new production mead recipe. During the 36 day project, Moutela raised exactly $15,000 from 59 backers. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Melovino Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Melovino Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Melovino received support for 12 of the 16 available funding tier options, and secured two backers at the highest funding tier (to consult on the creation of a new production mead recipe). With the large variance in backer purchasing decisions, the three funding tiers providing the most amount of funding from the backers were: funding tier 16 received $4,000 from two backers to consult on creating a new production mead recipe; funding tier 11 received $1,600 from eight backers that included a wine glass, t-shirt, deluxe personal tour of the meadery, the backer’s name on the MVP (MeloVino Pledgers) plaque; and funding tier 10 received $1,000, and included everything in the tier 11 option except only a personal tour (not deluxe).

Given how broadly the Melovino backers spread their support, it is difficult to draw many conclusions from this project. One interesting item is worth noting, however. Tiers 5 and 6 included options to purchase wine glasses, and received six and four backers respectively. Tier 7 included a t-shirt and sticker, and received no backers. This may suggest that wine glasses are a more popular item than t-shirts when given the option to purchase both. These three tiers are within $15 of eachother, so it is unlikely the difference in popularity is solely due to price.

Follow us next week as we cover the only remaining successful mead Kickstarter project, from Bos Meadery, Madison, WI’s first meadery.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding Your Meadery, Part 6: Leaky Roof Meadery

July 23, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Leaky Roof Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Leaky Roof Meadery produces a line of 6.5% alcohol carbonated meads. Leaky Roof’s three founders met working at a small production meadery in Rogersville, MO. However, the business fell through before ever opening its doors, leaving Todd Rock, Jhett Collins, and Andrew Steiger to set off on their own. After searching for a suitable spot for a meadery, the three decided to build in Buffalo, MO.

The Leaky Roof Meadery takes its name from the Kansas City, Clinton and Springfield (KCC&S) Railroad, nicknamed the Leaky Roof Railroad. In the 1870s, plans were drawn up and work was started to run a branch off this railroad up to Buffalo, MO. However, the railroad went bankrupt prior to completion, leaving Buffalo, MO as one of the largest ‘landlocked’ communities to never benefit from the presence of a railroad.

In the initial planning stages, the Leaky Roof Meadery realized demand for their product outstripped their production capability. Thus, they went to Kickstarter to seek the funds necessary to build an expanded canning line that would help them meet market demand.

The Leaky Roof Meadery sought $25,000 to build their new canning line, and offered funding tiers from a $1 “build your own” option, up to $5,000 to name the new canning line. Over the 60 day funding period, the Leaky Roof Meadery raised $25,050 from 160 backers, just barely beating their funding goal. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Leaky Roof Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Leaky Roof Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

The Leaky Roof Meadery project is unique in that they offered most of their items stand-alone, with packages combining the items vs having every subsequent tier including the options from the tiers above them. They further drove this home by providing a “build your own” tier at the $1 level, and listing individual prices for each of the items available. This resulted in six of the sixteen funding tier options receiving at least 13 backers, with the most backers supporting tier 7 and tier 10 with 23 backers each.

The items offered by the Leaky Roof Meadery included coasters, stickers, koozies, pint glasses, tickets to the LRM Grand Opening, a blue “Bringing the Railroad” t-shirt, a Kickstarter only “Track Crew” t-shirt, a Kickstarter edition Growler, founder’s plaques, catered tours, and the option to name the production fermenters and canning line.

The most popular items included a t-shirt, founder’s plaque displayed in the taproom, a ticket to the Grand Opening, and a specialty pint glass. The most funding was received from the canning line sponsor, netting $5,000. The next greatest amount of funding came from the tier 10 level, receiving $2,300, followed closely by tier 14 with $2,000.

The Leaky Roof Meadery’s decision to offer multiple tier options and a build your own plan was met with great success by their backers. This provided the flexibility to purchase exactly what the backer wanted, without throwing money away on the items summed up in the funding tier with the item the backer was most interested in.

But is flexibility the key to financing your meadery through Kickstarter? While inherently this gives backers the option to purchase what they want, they might only purchase a single item vice spending more on multiple items bundled in a single tier.

Check back with us next week as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery Series. Next up, Melovino Meadery from New Jersey, whose Kickstarter project can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 5: Golden Coast Mead

June 5, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Golden Coast Mead Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Golden Coast Mead, started by three young entrepreneurs, Frank Golbeck, Joe Colangelo, and Praveen Ramineni, began in 2010 by leasing equipment and borrowing space to create 70 gallon batches one at a time. Their ingredients are locally sourced using orange blossom honey and water from Palomar Mountain Spring in San Diego. In May of 2012, they had realized the demand for their mead was greater than they could meet through their production space, and the three began their Kickstarter project.

Golden Coast sought $19,906 to purchase the necessary meadery equipment to move into their own brewing space. This included one bond for a winemaking license, two 150 gallon fermenting tanks, three 300 gallon flex tanks, one 300 gallon bright tank, eight hoses, one pump, one compressor, and a used forklift. The funding tier options included 11 separate funding tiers, starting at $1 for a mention on twitter to their 6,000-plus followers, up to $5,000 to have a bottled named and label designed in the backers honor.

During the course of the 60 day project, Golden Coast Mead received $20,471 from 172 backers, beating the funding goal by 3%. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Golden Coast Mead’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Golden Coast Mead’s Kickstarter project.

Three of the Golden Coast funding tiers garnered support from more than 30 backers each (tiers 4 through 6). These funding levels, inclusive of the funding tiers less expensive than them, included a founder sticker and t-shirt for $25, founder pint glass for $50, and a 12 ounce jar of Golden Coast’s honey for $100. However, despite constituting the most popular items, combined these three options only accounted for 33% of the total funding received from the project.

Funding tier 7, priced at $500 for a permanent founder’s plaque, an invitation to the launch party, and a free tour and mead tasting, provided the most funding to the completed project, totaling $6,000 of support from 12 backers. Funding tier 8, including the backer’s name on a cask to be opened at a local gastropub received $4,000 from 4 backers. Funding tier 9, which included the backer’s name and portrait on one of the six production tanks financed through the Kickstarter project, received $2,700 from 2 backers.

Golden Coast Mead’s Kickstarter project provides valuable insight concerning the most popular funding items (stickers, t-shirts, pint glasses and honey), but they still received the largest amount of funding from a smaller number of backers willing to provide a larger sum of money for a more exclusive reward.

Have we identified a trend here? Does a successful project result in large numbers of backers purchasing low priced items, spreading the word about the project to the catch the eye of the high rolling backers who are mostly interested in the exclusive, high priced items? Check back later in the week to find out as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining Leaky Roof Meadery’s Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding your Meadery, Part 4: Algomah Acres

May 31, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is a continuation of our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, examining the funding tiers of successful mead Kickstarter projects to identify commonality between funding levels and determine what items are most likely to be purchased by a project’s backers. For a list of articles in this series, see the first article here. In this article, we will examine the Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery Kickstarter project, which can be found here.

Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery started as a passion and a lifestyle for Melissa Hronkin and John Hersman. Seeking to support sustainable farming and artisanal products, they combined their love of beekeeping with arguably the most sustainable form of alcohol available, mead. Made from only honey, traditional meads require no irrigation, fertilizer, or toxic pesticides, and are still labor intensive as the process to raise bees can not be mechanized like the processing of fruit orchards and vineyards.

To support this dream, Melissa and John started a Kickstarter project in July 2011, and ran the project for 60 days. Their initial funding goal was $9,300, and 170 backers provided a total of $9,676 to beat their goal by 4%. These funds would support the initial licensing fees and equipment purchases necessary to get bring the Sweetness and the Light to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

The Algomah project included nine funding tiers from $1 up to $2,500, with options from thank you cards and beeswax lip balm at the low end, up to a gourmet meal for 2 that included all other items available. Details concerning the funding tiers, number of backers who supported the funding tiers, and the total amount of funding per funding tier can be found in the figures below.

Raw data of Bee Well Meadery’s Kickstarter project. — Raw data of Algomah Acres Honey House Meadery’s Kickstarter project.

Analysis of the backers and total funding received per funding tier for Algomah Acres’ Kickstarter project.

The most purchased tier included a thank you card, lip balm, 4 oz jar of honey, and an invitation to the Harvest Party at the Algomah Acres Honey House a month after the conclusion of the project in October, with 69 total backers (almost 50% of the accounted for backers in the funding tier table above). However, this funding tier only accounted for 24% of the total funding received. The tiers that included a t-shirt and gift box, and a custom painted bee hive in addition to the other funding tier projects, brought in 24% and 21% of the total funding, despite only having 7 and 3 backers respectively. The two most expensive tiers, which included the option to help craft a production mead recipe and the option for a special dinner for two prepared by the head meadmaker, did not receive any backers.

While Algomah didn’t include a mead club membership option in their funding tiers, their project shows that unique ticket based options can drive backer purchases. Unfortunately, this tier’s success cannot fully be attributed to the Harvest Party invitation, as it included 4 oz of honey from the Algomah Acres. However, $25 for 4 oz of honey is an extremely steep price, so it is assumed that the majority of the interest in this funding tier was related to the Harvest Party ticket (if not only due to the this being a relatively cost friendly tier with the lower tier at $5 and the next most expensive tier at $50).

Check back with us next week as we continue our Crowdfunding your Meadery series, determining the most popular products amongst the successfully funded meadery Kickstarter projects. Next up, Golden Coast Mead, whose Kickstarter project can be found here.

Mead Industry Analysis

Crowdfunding Your Meadery, Part 1

May 20, 2014 Allen Jones Leave a comment

This is the first in a series of analyses conducted to identify common threads between the successful meadery projects on kickstarter.

Part 2, analyzing Vanaheim Gold’s project can be found here.

Part 3, analyzing Bee Well Meadery’s project can be found here.

Part 4, analyzing Algomah Acres’ project can be found here.

Part 5, analyzing Golden Coast Mead’s project can be found here.

Part 6, analyzing Leaky Roof Meadery’s project can be found here.

Part 7, analyzing Melovino Meadery’s project can be found here.

Part 8, analyzing Bos Meadery’s project can be found here.

Best Practices for Crowdfunding your Meadery, found here.

Crowdfunding your Meadery: An Analysis of Meadery Funding Raised on Kickstarter

New meadery owners face numerous challenges, from an intense regulatory burden designed to protect the existing of the beer and wine industries, to the time required to educate potential customers that mead is not just a mispronunciation of “meat.” Maybe most importantly, a meadery owner must also find the initial startup funding to create the meadery.

The upfront cost to enter the alcohol industry keeps many aspiring meadmakers from taking the plunge into the commercial market. It often takes more than a year to secure a winery license, during which rent is still being paid. Then there is the time it takes to ferment and age that batch before selling it on the market. When factoring in the costs of the fermenting and bottling equipment itself, and that honey as the primary fermentable is significantly more expensive than grapes (traditional wine) or cereal grains (beer), it is easy to see that it takes a small fortune to start a meadery. Luckily, recent changes in the crowdfunding marketplace provide a viable option for meaderies to seek funding directly from their potential customers before that first batch is ever started.

At the time of this writing, twenty meadery projects have sought funding through Kickstarter. Seven were successful in securing funding to start or expand a meadery. What set these seven projects apart from the others and led to their funding? Read on to find out.

What is Crowdfunding?

Crowdfunding is the process of acquiring small amounts of funding from a large number of people, compared to traditional venture capital funding in large increments from a small number of donors. The majority of crowdfunding to date has been rewards based; that is, for a given amount of money the funders will get a small reward. Equity crowdfunding (where donors buy an equity stake in the company) also exists, but for the purpose of this article, only rewards based crowdfunding is examined.

Kickstarter is the largest and most well-known crowdfunding site, and is the only platform considered in the following analysis. Other crowdfunding sites, such as Indiegogo, Crowdfunder, Rockethub, etc., may also be great options to seek meadery fundings. However, based on quick searches, Kickstarter was the most commonly used project for meadery funding projects. For those seeking more information about these platforms and which is best for you, see Top 10 Crowdfunding Sites for Fundraising, at Forbes.com.

Kickstarter Project Analysis

A search for keywords “mead” and “meadery” of the Kickstarter project database returned a total of 20 attempted projects, seven of which successfully met their funding goal. The successful funding goals ranged from $3,950 to $25,000, with an average project value of $13,311. The number of backers per successful project ranged from 47 to 218, and the average amount of funding provided per backer was $120. Figure 1 presents the funding goals and totals per meadery, and Figure 2 shows the number of backers and average backer contribution.

Funding Goal and Total Funding Received — Figure 1. The funding goals and the total funding received for each of the successful meaderies.

Number of backers and Average Contribution — Figure 2. Number of backers and their average contribution to the successful meadery projects.

Check back soon for in-depth analysis of each meadery’s funding tier decisions, their performance in receiving backers at each funding tier, and an analysis of what rewards are the most successful when deciding on what you want to sell. I’m not sure the data will provide the best reward exactly, but there I believe there will be at least some correlation between the types of rewards purchased among each of these meaderies. For instance, I know I would be most interested in purchasing glassware (I already have enough t-shirts). But is that the most chosen reward among the meaderies? And how much money could you reasonably expect to make if you sold a pint glass for those session meads? And is a pint glass the most wanted glass type, or is it tulip shaped glass with a stem for the standard strength meads, or maybe even a tumbler for any sack or distilled meads? We’ll let you know what we find out as the week goes by.

Got any other analysis you’d like to know about meaderies and Kickstarter? Let us know in the comments section and we’ll try to include it in the upcoming series. And if you run a meadery and want to share your experience, we’d love to hear from you!