In This Episode You’ll Hear About:

• How Alix got the language bug early on and was able to travel abroad in exchange programs while in middle school and high school
• How her time at Dartmouth went and how she realized that entering the world of finance was not actually what she wanted to do
• Why serious reproductive health issues in her mid-twenties created a huge shift in her perspective on what being a woman in business looked like and what it could look like
• How she started to formulate her idea of addressing the party and drinking culture to make it something more unifying and positive for everyone
• How fundraising for Bev has gone and what advice Alix has for entrepreneurs who are fundraising
• What challenges can occur when you’re a new small company and then how the challenges change with growth and how they are continually conquering them at Bev
• How Alix has grown as a leader and how she works hard to keep a balance between life and work while leading a team and growing Bev to continued success

To Find Out More:‍

drinkbev.com‍

Quotes:‍

“If I want to really go build something and do something, I need to figure out my path there that doesn't necessarily have to mean being the boss the whole way through. You start small.” 

“I had a brand and an ethos before I had a product... Sort of a message I wanted to put out and a dream I had about a different way of interacting and caring about each other.”

“I think part of me wanted to build something that could say, hey, there's a way that we can do this that's unifying, that's approachable and that's really positive.” 

“Having that sort of unapologetic brand and point of view... You can't be everything to everyone, but you can be a lot to someone. And that's what I hope that we can be.”

“I think the part that's been hardest about hiring is that as the company scales and grows, not everyone scales with it.”

“If you have someone that kind of claims to know how to do exactly what you're asking them to do, especially in the early stages, that could be a red flag to me. There has to be humility around what we're doing because it hasn't been done in this way.”

“Fundraising is grueling. And I think people don't teach you how to do it. It's a skill in its own right.”

“You have to create a sense of urgency while staying true to who you are and true to what the business is doing and how you're performing, and there are tricks of the trade-in doing that.”

“You have to remember that your investment is just a deal passing someone's desk. And so how do you make that pop off the desk?”

“I try to start my meetings nowadays where it's like, OK, what stage do you do? What's your investment thesis? What's your process look like in terms of timeline? What's your check size? Do you have an ownership threshold? Like getting all of those things out fast, furiously and early, I think is really important.”

“You can be doing great and have 300K in your bank account when literally two days ago you had three million dollars because you had to buy all this product. And I think it's a common misconception that a company that's doing well is always OK. Because that's not the case.”

“The problems don't get easier, they get different.”

“You have to be the foundation for other people. And so you really need to learn how to motivate and pick yourself up. And resilience is so important.”

“If you're in early stages, just keep going. And I know it sounds so silly and simple, but I think founders often fail because they give up and there is a way to build something that you want to build and that you're proud of. And you really just have to keep going.”

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