MAKING GOOD BEER WITH YOUNG HENRYS
Dan Hampton – Director and Head of Sales and Oscar McMahon – Director and Co-Founder of Young Henrys, met when they were both running beer clubs in their local pub. They were doing the exact same thing when their paths crossed and thought “What if we create a beer company that was as in touch with the people who drink the beer, as the beer clubs were?”
As a relatively small start-up, Young Henrys knew they were never going to be a mass company who produced a mass product. This means they have the ability to operate in a way that suits their immediate community and their own tastes.
Dan and Oscar talk about how it’s never easy to start a new business. When their business began there was a lot of red tape around tasting bars because there weren’t many established craft beer breweries at the time. This has since changed, with over 700 craft breweries, brew pubs and contract brewers currently operating in Australia.
When making mistakes in business, Dan and Oscar always say that if at the time they thought it was the right thing to do and they did it, then that’s okay. They explain this is why they’re always able to share their failures and wins with their employees. The transparency is a really important part of their company culture.
On leadership, the pair talk about how they work as hard as everyone in the business: “We need to lead from the front. We need to work shoulder to shoulder with our teams, and we need to be accessible to everyone within our teams”.
Dan and Oscar put Young Henrys success down to their employees. The one piece of advice they’d give other business owners is to find good people to work with – don’t try do it all yourself.