“When my co-founder Mel and I moved to Charlotte, we tried to find information about all of the fitness activities taking place at local breweries, but the details about these events weren’t readily available anywhere that we could find. We kept talking about how cool it would be if someone would start a centralized calendar. It just made sense to us, but no one was offering a guide to help you find all the yoga classes, run clubs, and other fitness activities, let alone how to find the newest additions.
After about a year, we decided we should just do it ourselves. We’d make the ultimate guide to beer fitness in Charlotte so people could find the details they needed to get involved in the community. That’s how Work For Your Beer got its start.”
Alicia Thomas and Melanie (Mel) Fox saw a need and acted on it. They recognized the one-two punch of breweries and fitness fulfills a social need that newcomers crave.
“I was intimidated by fitness before I moved to Charlotte. The idea of going to a fitness studio was terrifying to me. But breweries weren’t scary. I started doing yoga at breweries, then dance fitness classes, and I’ve loved all of it. The brewery scene has been a gateway into fitness for me.
Mel’s motivations are different. She’s always been into the fitness scene—she’s very athletic, but she doesn’t want to spend a ton of money on fitness studio fees. She likes to try different activities and meet new people, so beer fitness classes are a perfect fit for her.”
With a logo depicting a barbell and a mug of beer, their target audience – primarily millennial newcomers – gets it. Work For Your Beer consolidates all the deets on the more than 85 fitness classes taking place every week in (thus far) 16 of Charlotte’s 18 breweries. And the list keeps growing.
Playing to their strengths and interests, Mel takes on events while Alicia manages content development and giveaways. Both are experienced in digital marketing, so knowing how to intuitively build an easy-to-navigate website was relatively simple compared to learning how to validate and grow a business.
“We started with an Indiegogo kickstarter to pay for hosting and launching a website. Doing a campaign like that gave us a great gauge on whether the community wanted this service. We easily surpassed our fundraising goals, so we knew we were on to something.”
Since its December 2016 launch, Work For Your Beer has seen tremendous audience growth. The business boasts nearly 3k email subscribers, more than 10k social media followers, and 13k unique website visitors per week. Their research validates why.
There are more than 260,000 people in the Charlotte area interested in beer and fitness. The continued population growth in the region means there are always newcomers on the hunt for the type of social interactions Work For Your Beer highlights.
Alicia and Mel have already expanded their services to provide digital marketing expertise to their brewery partners and have also expanded the team, adding a director of partnerships focused on community outreach and advertising. They also tap the enthusiasm of several student interns who help with events and researching the best cities for future growth.
“We have our pitch down pat, but we are still a new business. So we take advantage of all opportunities for feedback. We want to expand to other beer-centric cities, but we’re still determining the best way to do that. Our vision is to be the ultimate guide to beer and fitness in Charlotte – and then, other cities.”
These two determined entrepreneurs are already in-tune with what a successful business is all about: See a need, and meet it.
Cheers to a knock-out start!
Biz Beginnings 