Brewery Buddy founders —left to right: Wes Eldridge, Josh Sahib, Parker Brown, Steven MacNeil, Kayla Terry
BREWERY BUDDY
HOPS TO THE TOP
LOCAL STARTUP CONTINUES TO SEE SUCCESS
BY BRITTANY DOWNEY
What began as an idea mongfriendshasturned into a successful startup
business plan. Brewery Buddy, an online
management service for craft brewers,
was established September 2014 and
has seen continued success with
each passing day. Entrepreneur Josh
Sahib and Wes Eldridge are
managing co-founders, while
teammates Parker Brown, Steven
MacNeil and Kayla Terry are also co-founders. The five-member team
entered the Tuscaloosa Startup
Weekend last September and ended
the weekend with a business plan and
the resources to help it succeed.
That weekend proved to be
the launchpad for success. Brewery
Buddy has taken off and fulfilled
multiple checklists in forming a
business. The team has completed
these tasks and more since
September. They also entered the
statewide startup competition,
Alabama Launchpad, and brought home
a piece of the prize: $24,600.
“It’s been a busy few months while
working on all these different
things in tandem,” Sahib says.
“We’ve been trying to get our LLC
done and working on the software. But
it’s been really fun to see so much
progress in such a short amount of
time.”
The win at Tuscaloosa
Startup Weekend gave Brewery
Buddy the resources to pull
together the missing pieces of its plan.
Time with consultants, lawyers and
potential customers has helped the
team fill in the question marks as
they continue to work toward a
successful product.
While the software is still in
beta testing stages as of April 2015,
Brewery Buddy has been working
closely with Druid City Brewing and
Black Warrior Brewing in Tuscaloosa
to get feedback
as Sahib and his team continue to build
their product and make improvements.
“I can’t take all the credit. I’m
fortunate to have a really strong
team around me,” Sahib says. “We
want to be a successful business.
There’s a need for this, and we’re
working our tails off to make it
happen.”
The team will continue to
conduct tests, tweak the software
and make refinements before they
make an all-out public launch.
“Our service is going to have
differenttiers of services for our
different breweries,” Sahib says.
“The needs of a large brewery are
going to be different than a smaller-scale brewery. We want to make sure
there aren’t any bugs in the software
and our customers are happy.”
Want to read more
about Brewery Buddy? Check
them out at BreweryBuddy.co.