This week on the Building Interest Podcast, we are joined by Henry Manice, Co-Founder of Mighty Squirrel Brewing Co., activist, and Massachusetts native. Listen as Henry discusses starting a global clothing company while finishing his undergrad, how his international leadership studies have shaped his mindset, and following his passion for helping others.

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Episode Transcript:

Greg Farber:
Whether you're seeking inspiration, wisdom, or a fresh perspective on leadership and entrepreneurship, the Building Interest podcast has you covered. Together, we explore the successes of groundbreaking leaders, the triumphs, the challenges, and the invaluable lessons learned along the way. Our discussions go beyond strategic decision making and delve into the personal hobbies and passions that keep these leaders inspired and grounded in their work. I'm your host, Greg Farber. Let's jump right in. Today we're joined by Henry Manice, co-founder of Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company. Passionate activist, innovative entrepreneur. Thanks for coming. We're happy to have you here.

Henry Manice:
Thanks, Greg. It's great to be here.

Greg Farber:
So I got to kind of start at the beginning, and we noticed you have a very impressive educational resume, Phillips Academy and Vanderbilt. You got a degree in, I got to read this, it's a lot of words, human and organizational development, international leadership and economic development. These words kind of spoke to us because we love to talk about on our podcast, leadership, entrepreneurs and things. So tell us a little bit what was that focus area like to kind of get you started on your path?

Henry Manice:
Sure. So, the short for Human and Organizational Development is just HOD, that’s what we call it that at school. So I actually started off in the school of Arts and Sciences and I hadn't declared a major. And a friend of mine had taken some HOD classes that first semester and said that they were they were amazing. And so I got curious, and I took a class and then ended up shifting over to the school that had that major within Vanderbilt, and I, I loved it. Basically, it started out with some human psychology and then you see sort of the next classes, you know, how do people fit into groups and groups turned into high performing teams going through all the different phases of first, everyone being very polite as they're getting to know each other, and then some people are more assertive than others. And then then there's some storming that comes along with the with the group as you're working on a, say, a group presentation. And then you realize that you do have to drag the project across the finish line and you all want to do well. So then, you know, eventually, you go through this norming phase and, and hopefully, you reach a high performing phase. So I was sort of fascinated by that process because we lived it out in the classroom. And then the next sort of module was, was seeing, okay, how do the teams fit into organizations and companies?

Greg Farber:
And so that's where the leadership and the economic development kind of comes in.

Henry Manice:
Exactly.

Greg Farber:
So rather than studying economics for money or finances sake, as an as an accounting principle, you're moving into economics coming from that human background.

Henry Manice:
Correct. Exactly. And it's, you know, basically, especially with the international piece of it, is to see how interconnected organizations are with politics and community. And, there's no real silo for any of them. And, and so we studied a lot about that, sort of that, that world of connectedness, between organizations and also between organizations and, and the government, the community. So that, that really interested me and, and, and, you know, understanding how to run an organization. That was sort of the leadership component is, you know, how do you run an organization effectively and how do you structure it and how do you create a good, healthy culture in a company and all those sorts of things?

Greg Farber:
Was the idea of having a brewery sort of born out of a school project or did that come later on?

Henry Manice:
It definitely came later on. But, when I was at Vanderbilt, I started a clothing business with a friend of mine there called enjuba, and that's where I had my first taste of entrepreneurship and building a company and a brand. And I really enjoyed it. And then it wasn't until years later that I got into the beer space. So.

Greg Farber:
Gotcha. Now, so what's that like? You go from idea to launch and we can come back to enjuba later. I definitely want to talk about that, but let's kind of stick with the brewery for now. You have this idea, you decide you want to do this. How do you get to the point where you actually have doors you can open? What's that process along the way?

Henry Manice:
Well, it really starts with a friend. When I moved out to San Diego to work for, I was actually working for a medical device company, and I was a product manager out there. I started in January 2010 and a few months later, Naveen, who's my co-founder in Mighty Squirrel, Naveen Pawar, started working a few desks down from me and on his first day of work, I asked him if he wanted to go and grab a beer. We really hit it off because it turned out that we both had started businesses before, and there was just so much shared experience in that. And we discovered even on that first beer, but also as we got to know each other better, that we had a lot of, you know, shared values and shared interests in how we would run a future business someday.

Greg Farber:
And you just didn't like that beer and you thought, ‘we can do this better.’

Henry Manice:
At that time, we actually were far away from thinking about starting a brewery. But we weren't that far away from deciding that we wanted to do something together. One of the things that I, loved about, you know, my previous entrepreneurial experience with enjuba was I did it with a friend of mine and a co-founder, and you share that whole journey. And so when I met with Naveen and had a similar connection, we kind of settled on, ‘Okay, we want to start something and we're not- there's no crazy rush for that.’ We're both learning a lot from where we're working now and enjoying our jobs but it kind of planted the seed.

Greg Farber:
But you don't have to do it all yourself if you have someone walking the path with you.

Henry Manice:
Exactly. And the other element of it that I, you know, again, with my previous experience, and also what I was looking forward to with the brewery with Naveen is that, you know, if all else, if things don't shake out as we had hoped or, or the business fails, then I've shared that experience with a friend. And there's just so much that goes into the relationship as you're building something like that, you know, I kind of felt like it was always going to be worth it. Regardless of the final outcome.

Greg Farber:
There's more passion and reward along the way than even if the outcome doesn't work out.  And of course, the opposite has happened. The outcome is fantastic. You guys just opened a second location outside of Fenway Park. So things presumably are going very well.

Henry Manice:
Things are going really well. And yeah, it's been an amazing journey. And, you know, Naveen and I, we decided that we were going to start a brewery in 2011. December 17th, 2011 is when we got our first home brew kit from Kmart and brought it back to my kitchen. Our apartments were wall to wall, and just started homebrewing. So actually we homebrewed for a couple of years.

Greg Farber:
So you really can get somewhere with those homebrew kits.

Henry Manice:
Yeah, exactly.

Greg Farber:
I’ve often thought about trying one but I've never gotten one.

Henry Manice:
I think it was $20 and it worked and you know, we. We, we still brewed for several years in my kitchen before quitting our jobs and moving to Boston to set up shop. So it was you know, it's been a long journey since. And then we got going and built out the team.

Greg Farber:
Now Boston's known for some local breweries that have been around for quite a while. And we've all noticed sort of you walk into a store and it's gone from a few beers on the shelf to hundreds of options, very competitive space. What's it like to be a leader of a company and of an industry, of a market space, in this. Selling beer with such a competitive mindset and all these different tastes and customers and things, what is that like to try to, to meet that, demand?

Henry Manice:
It's nonstop. It's definitely a fire hose. But we, you know, Naveen and I, we kind of, I guess we thrive off of, uncertainty and the challenge of it. And we don't generally get stressed out by things, but every day, it's just a battle to make the best possible product, to make it consistently, to make sure that, we have the best possible team and that our team enjoys working there and all those sort of dynamics. And, so all of those things have to come together to, you know, internally and externally to eventually have a product that hopefully people enjoy.

Greg Farber:
You mentioned consistency, and of course, you're constantly rolling out new sort of flavors. Is flavor the right word to use?

Henry Manice:
Sure. Beer styles. Flavors.

Greg Farber:
Styles perfect. We'll go with beer styles. you're constantly rolling out new styles as well. How do you balance that sort of established- Okay. You made something, you found that's what the people like. Versus trying to now make something new and innovate a new style.

Henry Manice:
So as my co-founder Naveen likes to say, the only guaranteed thing is change. And the market is constantly changing, so we have to keep our ear to the ground, and we can't be complacent. So we do have some, beer styles, and one beer in particular, Cloud Candy, that's our top seller. And we've gotten great traction with that. But that's not everything. And a big part of our, I guess, positioning it sounds like an oxymoron is to have a very diverse portfolio of beers. Usually, you know, market sort of positioning is to have, you know, what's your one unique thing. And, part of what makes us unique in some ways is that we have a broad range of beer styles, and there are other breweries that are more focused on, say, IPAs or lagers. and that's not something that we ever want to do. So even though our top seller ended up being Cloud Candy, we love to experiment and even, you know, come out with recently we launched seltzers. So we have hard seltzers and hard smoothies and, nonalcoholic beer. So we try out new things.

Greg Farber:
How's that selling?

Henry Manice:
So far it's been great. We're not selling on shelves yet. We just launched it in parallel with Fenway. So we launched the Fenway location on March 14th this year. And the hard seltzers, the hard smoothies, and the nonalcoholic beers, all of those are just in the taproom. We're getting feedback from people. The reception has been fantastic so far, so hopefully we can bring that to shelves soon.

Greg Farber:
Now, you mentioned having that diversity of product available. Would you say that's your primary differentiator, against your competitors, or is there something else that is kind of the secret sauce to Mighty Squirrel that you feel really sets you apart in the way that you run the brewery or you said the vision for your business.

Henry Manice:
I think that I think the diverse portfolio is one that's, that's what the customers is sensing. And then building spaces that are timeless, that are long lasting, that are super high quality. And we're trying to- I mean, Mighty Squirrel, we're trying to create a fun brand, a joyful brand, and-

Greg Farber:
An experience around the product.

Henry Manice:
Exactly. Our taprooms are an expression of that. So when you when you come to our taprooms, they're bright, they're cheery, they're joyful. And I think that's part of our, you know, hopefully a long lasting recipe. And then the other part is actually very much internal. And that's every decision we make, we want it to be for the long term. So when we started this business, we wanted to build a company for the next hundred plus years. That's been our goal since the very beginning. And every decision we make and everything we do is really centered around that. And so I guess our secret sauce and we're definitely not perfect, but our long term thinking, hopefully will make it so that we can continue to share our beer and our taprooms with people for a long time to come. And that, you know, financial discipline is a big part of that. And, making sure we're not getting, you know, ahead of ourselves and planning our work and working our plan and all that kind of thing. And so that we could perhaps be a competitive advantage, compared to other businesses where, maybe they're not as, as focused on that.

Greg Farber:
Not losing sight of the fact that, yes, you want to have a joyful experience and you're creating a product, but you're also running a business that you want to position for the future.

Henry Manice:
Right.

Greg Farber:
So I'm always looking for some nuggets for our listeners. And I think here's a chance at a good one. We want people to have something they can take away. And oh, I heard this. And then something resonated with me. I want you to think about what you know now. You've got this successful brewery, you've opened a second location. Things are going great by your account. Is there any piece of advice that you wish someone had given to you prior to starting your business? Where, man, we walked right into this roadblock and we did not see it coming. Gosh. It doesn't have to be specific to brewing. It can be about the business side of things as well.

Henry Manice:
Right? Yeah. I mean, the thing about starting a business and running a business is it's very unpredictable. And we make all sorts of plans and assumptions for things. And, and it never exactly works out that way. and so we've gotten a lot of, great advice from people and some of which we've followed, some of which we haven't, by and large, when we look back at the advice that we didn't follow, we think, gosh, I wish we had listened to that. That made a lot of sense. And, you know, but sometimes, sometimes if you if you always follow that path and everything sort of happens for a reason, right? We wouldn't be, where we are today. You know, there's sort of a unique path. So I think it's okay. We don't we don't, we don't spend too much time blaming ourselves or whatever it may be or having regrets. Right.

Greg Farber:
I'm almost hearing a little bit of the opposite of what I was, what I was fishing for, which is, yeah, it's great. Listen to advice, but almost forge your own way and be willing to make potentially those mistakes. Or don't listen to the advice because that will make your brand unique. Is that a little bit of what I'm hearing?

Henry Manice:
I would say yes. Not sort of intentionally not following advice, but yeah, it's exactly I mean, you have to have your convictions and it's also complicated, especially like, you know, my co-founder Naveen and I are, you know, wrestling with things all the time. And sometimes you get advice and that person isn't on the ground with you and understanding some of the nuance. And there's only so much you can convey, to someone versus them being in the room with you. And so then you make a decision accordingly. And, and it may or may not be a good one. And but I guess if I have to think of one thing that comes to mind here. When we started Mighty Squirrel, we bootstrapped it initially and then we raised money. And, I don't think anyone could have prepared us for that feeling of taking on investment from friends and family

Greg Farber:
Or the gravity of you have other folks money and time you're now spending.

Henry Manice:
Exactly. And that sort of lives with you forever and becomes, it's always on our minds. We're really excited to provide a return to investors and you know that'll make us proud. And we're lucky enough to have built a, hopefully, you know, a long term business where we can do that. But it's, you know, when we when we first raised money in 2014 and then in 2016, we had we had spent the money and 2016, we weren't doing well at all. And we were staring down the barrel of, you know, does it make sense to shut this down or somehow give it another go and fuel up? And, there was just this really intense feeling. It was quite emotional, actually, that let's take a second crack at this and, it's not just about gambling, but, you know, we really felt like. Alright, let's take a second crack with this new plan. And give ourselves a chance to pay those investors back.

Greg Farber:
You feel like they believed in you, and you should honor that. And continue to go forward. That's awesome. I don't think we've ever had that particular sort of element of running a business and leadership come up. That's awesome. One more thing about beer, and then we'll go in a different direction for a second. Why Mighty Squirrel? Was there a squirrel that jumped out of a tree and attacked you one day and you said, I'm going to make a beer now. What happened?

Henry Manice:
Actually something similar. I was out on a beach.

Greg Farber:
It's totally made that up.

Henry Manice:
Yeah, it's. It's pretty spot on. Actually. It was. Naveen and I were out at a taproom, and we had an idea for our original beer. We wanted to talk in code, so Naveen said, you know what's going to be our code word? And it just was a knee-jerk. And I said, I'll call it a squirrel because a squirrel had stolen my taco out at the beach the day before. Very aggressive squirrels in California coming out of the rocks and pouncing on my food. And so, for the next two years, it was all about, you know, we called it squirrel beer and taming the squirrels and removing squirrels and adding squirrels. And it was never supposed to be our company name. But after, you know, we didn't tell anyone other than our parents what we were working on in the kitchen. And, and so we were then going to unveil, this, this code word. And then we decided, actually, you know what? We've come to love squirrels and let's think about what kind of squirrel we want. So we landed on Mighty Squirrel.

Greg Farber:
I think there's a certain brilliance in having a name that has nothing to do with what you're doing, because people remember it.

Henry Manice:
Exactly.

Greg Farber:
Right. There's no forgetting I had a Mighty Squirrel beer like that just sticks with you. Like, what does that even mean? I love it, All right, I promised we would get off the beer for a minute and go in a different direction. And you mentioned, I believe it's called enjuba was another venture that you started. In fact, turns out you started at first. We had some notes about what that is, and it sounds amazing, but let's hear it in your words. What is enjuba and how was that, instrumental in kind of moving your process forward in terms of entrepreneurship and building companies.

Henry Manice:
So enjuba means the rising sun in Lugandan, which is the Ugandan language and I started it in 2006 with a close friend of mine, Wil Keenan. freshman year and basically the quick backstory is that Wil and I had seen this very moving documentary called “Invisible Children” about child soldiers in northern Uganda and we kind of got exposed to some terrible things that were going on the other side of the world. And we became, very interested and curious and looked for ways that we could, spread awareness and get involved in some way. And so we actually started going down, a political advocacy track and went to DC to ask senators to support more foreign aid for Uganda. And then they sort of explained that it's a little more complicated than that. And the money doesn't, you know, always end up where it should be and different priorities, etc.. And so anyways, Naveen and I- I'm sorry, Naveen's my Mighty Squirrel co-founder. Wil, and I we were at Bruegger’s Bagels in Nashville one morning and I thought, you know, what can we do that's a little bit different where we could, do something hopefully positive over in Uganda. But not necessarily the, the political route. And we were a little frustrated with the red tape. So we both loved video and photography and, and thought, hey, maybe we can write a business plan and fly over to Uganda and put together a team of artisans and design products. So it was a clothing business and also share their stories. So if you go to our website, you could click on a handbag or sandal and or a belt and see it made by the artisan start to finish. In a quick video clip for that connection between the producer and the purchaser.

Greg Farber:
Primarily marketed locally or then exported.

Henry Manice:
Actually, we were we were selling it over in the US through our website. So, both of our closets in our dorm room were packed with all kinds of jewelry and clothing. So that was our warehouse. And then we'd go to the UPS store and ship things off.

Greg Farber:
So rather than have the government funnel money potentially to the wrong folks, you guys decided to find, a business plan that would ultimately funnel profits back into the community where it was coming from?

Henry Manice:
I guess, yes. I guess we kind of viewed it as a pretty different and distinct thing, just that sort of matched our interests and skills. And we had this sort of sense of agency that we could do something together and hopefully have some positive impact. I mean, we were tiny and small and the government is doing amazing things for countries all over the world and being helpful. We just sort of thought maybe we could find our place, a little bit differently. And, and so we.

Greg Farber:
Have you been back? Are you seeing an impact from what you're doing?

Henry Manice:
I have been back numerous times. I go over there most years and enjuba actually has continued on. So it was originally a clothing business and then we started a class on entrepreneurship and a secondary school over there.

Greg Farber:
Wait, you started a class on entrepreneurship there?

Henry Manice:
Right. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. So being young college kids in our heads, I guess we thought that in order for a business to be good, it had to have a nonprofit arm that we had to do some good with our profits. And so our idea was, hey, maybe we can make this profitable clothing business and then send profits over to our nonprofit arm that can be focused on, say, education. And then that would make sort of the whole thing good. And what we found out, over the years is just that the bottom line for profit clothing business was having as much of an impact or more in a lot of ways than the nonprofit. And in providing incomes and just the whole experience of working together, with a team and bringing people together and having all the artisans being excited about creating high quality products and having the international component all those things, you know, that we didn't need a nonprofit arm to justify that at all is kind of what we what we learned. Having said that, we loved working, you know, on the on the class and over time enjuba actually evolved into a microfinance bank, because we originally started giving some loans to the artisans. We had a savings investment program that we set up with them to get micro loans. And then we started giving loans to to hundreds of people. And then and then in parallel, we started at Spelling Bee and it seems a little bit random, but it was in the education space and and the spelling bee really took off. So over a million half kids have gone through.

Greg Farber:
And all this is happening there. In Uganda.

Henry Manice:
It's happening over in Uganda. And so when we realized that the spelling bee, was, I guess, more of a competitive advantage over there compared to microfinance. There's a lot of microfinance. So we actually removed the distraction of the microfinance and shut that business down so that in enjuba now is entirely focused on improving education over in Uganda.

Greg Farber:
Wow. I don't know what to say that that sounds absolutely amazing. And two such different businesses. And yet it sounds like a lot of the same sort of thought process in how to test things out and decide what's working and what's not working.

Henry Manice:
You just got to keep at it, you know, with enjuba, it evolved over time and it just, you know, you never know where things are going to lead. And so enjuba is now a spelling bee and a school. And we've got, you know, sort of a few other programs that we're working on. And, but it's the same brand, it's the same mission. you know, and some of the same team members I've been working with since the clothing business days. And with Mighty Squirrel, you know, it's just been, a very unexpected journey in so many ways. But you kind of just, Naveen and I have kept our heads down, and you see where it goes.

Greg Farber:
I’m nervous to ask now if that leaves you with any free time. I was going to dig into a little bit of Henry, the person outside of work. You're probably going to tell me you have three other ventures going and you have no free time. What do you do for you?

Henry Manice:
So I actually have- I'm married. My wife, Anna, and we have we have two kids, Luke, who's six, and Owen just turned one. And so whenever I can, I love spending time with them. But being an entrepreneur and Mighty Squirrel is just so integrated into the fabric of our lives. So there isn't a distinct, separation from the two. And, having said that, I do, actively try to find times where I can disconnect. But it's, you know, Mighty Squirrel is a big part of our life and so in terms of free time, I'm pretty busy with Mighty Squirrel and the whole Mighty Squirrel team have, you know, they're also our friends we've got now we have over 100 employees. and we're working day in, day out with them. So it's hard to even imagine that work because I really enjoy working with all of them. And then family time and activities for, you know, Luke. Owen's a little young right now, but

Greg Farber:
It'll only get busier.

Henry Manice:
Exactly.

Greg Farber:
So if it's not as secret as maybe the latest beer recipe. If you can share, are there any new plans for you on the horizon? Anything personally or professionally that, kind of the next thing in the works? I know you just opened another location so that that was a big milestone already. Kind of looking forward. What's next for Henry and the beer team?

Henry Manice:
I would say professionally our big goal right now is and it's a close goal of mine directly is to find every possible way to make that business sing. And to make it sing you need, just process and procedure and finding ways to empower my team more and I think I would like to think that we're not micro managers. We live and breathe the business every day. We love it. We're very active, but we do try to empower everyone on the team. But we want to take that to the next level. Which will allow us to, I think, to be even more successful for the long term. So professionally, that's going to be a big focus.

Greg Farber:
Is really build out that culture,

Henry Manice:
Build out that culture there, and, speaking of culture, what ties to that is if we work really hard and things are going well, then it makes it all fun and exciting and worth it. But if you work really hard and you're not really getting good results and you're burning the midnight oil and it's just exhausting and, you know, you get home from work and you don't have a smile on your face, whether it's me or anyone on our team, like, that's not a success for us. And even if sales are good, so our ultimate success is that, of course, we want to have a beer that customers love and places that customers love coming to. But, you know, the big goal is that the 100 people on our team when they go home after, you know, a good, solid day of work, they're in a good mood when they shift gears to, you know, their families, their spouse, or their friends, whatever it may be. And a lot goes into that to sort of find that, To create a place where that happens, and it's not easy, right? And we continue to be surprised at different times, but it's very much on our minds. And so I guess professionally, that's, that's a big focus.

Greg Farber:
It’s a good vision. It speaks to that idea of building a company for the future that's going to stick around. So I like that. So here we're going to do a bit of a rapid fire segment that we added this year. So I'm going to ask you a series of this or that questions. And you just choose if you prefer, one over the other. It's been something that's been really interesting to see how our gut instincts kind of help guide us. So feel free to elaborate on the answer, but the idea is to answer quickly. Even if you had a moment to think about it, you might answer differently. Okay, what's more important? A big milestone or a small win?

Henry Manice:
A small win.

Greg Farber:
Even with the big new opening, the small wins are how you got there.

Henry Manice:
Exactly.

Greg Farber:
What about finding inspiration or being an inspiration to others?

Henry Manice:
Finding inspiration.

Greg Farber:
Yeah. How do you do that? Where do you find your inspiration?

Henry Manice:
It comes from everywhere. It comes from.

Greg Farber:
From the small wins.

Henry Manice:
It comes from the small wins. But you know, it comes from family, it comes from friends. It comes from our teammates. And everyone has something that they can share with the world that no one else can based on their unique experience. And so, yeah, I think, you know, one of our- we have three core values at Mighty Squirrel having a sense of responsibility, being open minded and being generous, internally and externally. But that being open minded, and, you know, it's something that my, my co-founder, Naveen, he always says it's perspective and it's so true. And so I think if we open our ears and our minds, you know, you find bits of inspiration in ways that you, where you didn't necessarily expect it.

Greg Farber:
Nice. So I read this question from the idea of brewing and your business. You mentioned lots of different beer styles versus, you know, consistency and obviously operational stability. What's more important to you, the design or the data?

Henry Manice:
Data, meaning...?

Greg Farber:
Whatever you want it to mean. I'll tell you what I thought, but-

Henry Manice:
Gosh, gosh, that's a hard one. I'm a nut for design and

Greg Farber:
A nut for data.

Henry Manice:
And I'm also a nut for data. So that's a tie for me.

Greg Farber:
Okay. We’ve never had a tie before I like it. So I was thinking data in the sense that ooh this really sold. So that's a key part of what we want to do. But maybe if it wasn't a beer style that you actually want to sell, maybe you didn't like it. Maybe the design is more important than the fact that it's sold, in that long term vision. I like that, though. A tie. You mentioned that there's always change. Do you prefer the routine or the spontaneity?

Henry Manice:
Spontaneity. I definitely prefer the spontaneity. Having said that, a big part of our business is continuity. And like I mentioned before, process and procedure and making things hum, and so with that becomes sort of consistency. Right? You're trying to make sure that everything is made, exactly the same, so that the customer's always having the same experience with, with the beer that they're having, that they've come to expect. But in order to I guess we sort of feel like in order, to have that consistency, you actually have a lot of spontaneity, and creativity, I would say to, to make that happen, you know, how do you find ways, to make it so that the team knows how to work together? It's like a little mini symphony to have that consistency. So I don't know, they're sort of related.

Greg Farber:
Now that makes a lot of sense actually. passion or purpose? No more ties.

Henry Manice:
No more ties? Passion or purpose? I would say purpose.

Greg Farber:
I had a feeling you might go that route because of the comments you made earlier about your initial investors and sort of the stakeholders, and then that greater purpose. But I see so much passion in what you're describing and with enjuba and with Mighty Squirrel and just your general demeanor.

Henry Manice:
Well, I don't, because you said no more ties, but I, I really think-

Greg Farber:
We can't have two ties in one episode.

Henry Manice:
But I think if you have a purpose and for example, I mean, our Mighty Squirrel’s purpose is to be adventurous and celebrate mighty moments, and to try out new things and knock down walls, and sort of things like that. And so we, I think, you can't help but be passionate if there's purpose, it may be hard the other way around. You can have short spurts of passion, but if the purpose isn't there.

Greg Farber:
Then then you don't care where you’re going.

Henry Manice:
I'm not sure it can last that long. So I think the purpose comes first.

Greg Farber:
Okay, last one, you mentioned Cloud Candy as your best seller, but what's your favorite?

Henry Manice:
It depends on the day of the week, time of day, season. But I would say -

Greg Farber:
Favorite breakfast beer? Lunch beer? Dinner beer?

Henry Manice:
You know, I like lots of different beers at different times, but Cloud Candy is definitely a special beer for us. It was, we had a series of pivots in our business coming into the beginning of 2018, as we embarked upon building a brewery, and with our first brick and mortar. Prior to that, we were contract brewing for several years. So different breweries were brewing our recipe. And, so we were building our brick and mortar, and we were also transitioning to a different brand theme, or we were having sort of unique brand names and brand imagery for each beer style. And Cloud Candy was the first in that transition. And people have really enjoyed it. So it's been a huge part of-

Greg Farber:
It's very personally meaningful.

Henry Manice:
II mean it helped our business turn the corner. Right? I mean, we were pounding the pavement. We were all working really hard. But we just weren't getting a whole lot of traction. And we felt like building a brick and mortar brewery and brewing our own beer and really plugging into the community was a big step. And having a beer that we really took to the next level. There was a lot that went into making that recipe and refining it. And so Cloud Candy's a big one for our team, and we kind of build around that.

Greg Farber:
So now we'll go to another new segment for our podcast this year. and when we talked prior to and kind of scoped out the episode a little bit, we talked about you bringing something with you today, whether it's a physical thing or a story or a memory or something that inspired you and something that you could share with us.

Henry Manice:
So this is actually one of our first handbags that we made with enjuba

Greg Farber:
Oh this is from enjuba? Oh wow.

Henry Manice:
So this was the leather messenger bag by our artist Kalonji. And the reason why I brought this in.

Greg Farber:
That's really nice.

Henry Manice:
Thank you. So the reason I brought this in is because these buckles, are unique, because in Uganda, it was impossible to find buckles, that you could get more than four of. So we started doing is we went to these different, sort of artisan shows around town and we would buy, say, some old belts, and then we’d cut the belt to get the buckle to put on these bags. And we realized, well, that works for 1 or 2 bags, but you can't really scale that. And so we were really, struggling with that. And the Ugandan that we were working with at the time, Francis, or sorry. Aaron, got the idea of well, let's just go to a mechanic and have them bend the wire as needed. And, we thought that was a pretty fun idea. And so we were able to make lots and lots of buckles because of that. And we literally just walked into, a car mechanic. And so, I guess two things out of that. One is I’m really inspired by my Ugandan friend who had the idea to, just think of that and, you know, it's pretty creative and also showing up to a mechanic and the mechanic not wondering why we weren't bringing a car and just taking us up on the project and got creative and we started twisting the metal in different ways and created this. And then we actually then returned with the bag once it was finished to show him. So I actually have a photograph of that moment. He was pretty psyched to see this bag. So here he is. Here, this is the mechanic.

Greg Farber:
Wow. Oh, yeah. There's the bag.

Henry Manice:
And then this is the. This is the actual bag here. So,

Greg Farber:
As it's as it's being made.

Henry Manice:
This is the, these are two artisans, But Kalonji is the one who made this bag, and Julius was another artisan. And we had actually given a micro loan to Kalonji to buy a sewing machine, because in the first bag, he was doing everything by hand, all the stitching. And so then he was able to get a sewing machine, but he didn't know how to use the sewing machine. But we had this other artisan, Julius, who did know. And so he came and taught Kalonji how to use a sewing machine on leather. And he kind of went from there.

Greg Farber:
This is a pretty tall bar. This is amazing. This is an innovative thing you've done here. I love the repurposing of rather than going and buying a bunch of the buckles from some other factory somewhere, finding a way to make your own and involving them. This is, I'm inspired by your story. Thank you for bringing this today.

Henry Manice:
Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, I think just and that's part of the fun of entrepreneurship is when you get started, like when we were starting the beer business, you know, you just you're starting from scratch and as you build it, you have to constantly, think about different ways of doing things, and not really get constrained, by necessarily what exists. And so I always think back to this experience with my Ugandan friend and the mechanic, the belt buckles.

Greg Farber:
Finding inspiration. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for coming today. I thought this was a really interesting kind of walk down a totally different business. We've talked so many different types of leadership and entrepreneurship and to learn about your journey and what makes it work for you is really been interesting. Any last thoughts or comments or anything you'd like to share? And again, thank you so much for coming on today.

Henry Manice:
Well, I really appreciate you reaching out to me and, enjoyed the conversation and meeting you all.

Greg Farber:
Thank you again. Don't forget to subscribe and rate our show. The Building Interest podcast is live on all podcast platforms, YouTube, and TikTok. We want to hear what you think of each episode and encourage you to submit your questions that you'd like us to cover, so please find us on our YouTube or TikTok and comment your thoughts. All opinions expressed by Henry Manice are his own and not the opinions of Leader Bank NA. Leader Bank is not affiliated with the Mighty Squirrel Brewing Company or enjuba. For more information on today's subject, visit LeaderBank.com. In addition to past episodes, you can find our learning center blog for more insights. This podcast is a production of Leader Bank, an Equal Housing Lender, Member FDIC, NMLS Number 449250.