Quench Your Own Thirst: Business Lessons Learned Over a Beer or Two

by Jim Koch

Overview

NATIONAL BESTSELLER and named a 2016 Best Book of the Year by Inc., Business Insider, and Forbes

Founder of The Boston Beer Company, brewer of Samuel Adams Boston Lager, and a key catalyst of the American craft beer revolution, Jim Koch offers his unique perspective when it comes to business, beer, and turning your passion into a successful company or career.

“Boston Beer’s Jim Koch offers readers a six-pack of wisdom.” – The Boston Globe

Pull up a chair and crack open a Sam Adams. It’s time to leave behind business as you know it.

Quench Your Own Thirst covers everything from finding your own Yoda to Koch’s theory on how a piece of string can teach you the most important lesson you’ll ever learn about business. Koch also has surprising advice on sales, marketing, hiring, and company culture. His anecdotes, quirky musings, and bits of wisdom go far beyond brewing. A fun, engaging guide for building a career or launching a successful business, Quench Your Own Thirst is the key to the ultimate dream: being successful while doing what you love. So, are you quenching you own thirst – or someone else’s?

"Like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Larry Ellison, and the other greats, Jim Koch's entrepreneurial journey is motivated by a deep commitment to making superb products and building a unique culture that reinforces innovation and risk-taking. This book tells a compelling story about how he did it. The lessons will be invaluable for anyone starting a business or building a career." —Bill Hambrecht, co-founder or Hambrecht & Quist and chairman of WRHambrecht + Co

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250135018
Publisher:	Flatiron Books
Publication date:	09/26/2017
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	395,149
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Jim Koch is the founder of The Boston Beer Company and brewer of Samuel Adams. He founded the company in 1984 using his great-great grandfather’s recipe and set to the task of revolutionizing American beer. Samuel Adams Boston Lager has been an important catalyst in the American Craft Beer Revolution for more than thirty years, bringing full-flavored, award-winning beer to the American beer landscape. The Boston Beer Company has become one of the leading American craft breweries and now accounts for just over one percent of the U.S. beer market.

Table of Contents

Introduction
PART I: Mashing
1. Blow It Up
2. Turn Your Receiver On
3. Open Yourself to “Holy Shit”
4. Make It Better or Cheaper
5. Do the Math
6. Avoid “Smart” Investors
7. Look Hard for Talent. Then Look Again
8. The Best Marketing Plan Ever
9. Find Your Yoda
10. Sacred Cod Boston Lager?
11. The Difference Between Sex and Masturbation
PART II: Boiling And Cooling
12. String Theory
13. “I Make My Money When I Buy the Goods”
14. The Strength of the Weak
15. The Golden Rule of Selling
16. My Best Sales Call of All Time
17. You Can’t Hear with Someone Else’s Ears
18. You Don’t Climb a Mountain to Get to the Middle
19. Give Them Something to Talk About
20. When You’re Right, Push It
21. Take the Giant Turds in Stride
PART III: Fermenting
22. Grow Skinny
23. If You’re Not the Lead Dog, the Scenery Never Changes
24. Launch Your Long Shots
25. There’s No Pretending About Quality
26. The Most Expensive Education You’ll Ever Get
27. We Take Beer Seriously, but Not Ourselves
28. The CEO Flies Coach
29. The “Fuck You” Rule
30. Always Raise the Average
31. Make Your Public Offering Public
32. Learn to Take a Punch
PART IV: Maturation
33. Grow When You’re Not Growing
34. Endure the Endings
35. Mind Your Protection
36. If the Sun Is Shining, Look Out for an Avalanche
37. The Recall: Our Best Crisis Ever
38. Let Helga Do the Talking
PART V: Packaging
39. Practice Fingerspitzengefu¨hl
40. Stop Painting and Start Partnering
41. Welcome the Dude with the Gold-Painted Toenails
42. Quench Your Own Thirst
Acknowledgments
Jim’s Bookshelf
Notes
Index

Editorial Reviews

12/21/2015
Koch, founder of the Boston Beer Company and brewer of Samuel Adams beer, offers a worthy history of his company’s origins and the road to capturing a very respectable 1% of the American beer market. Koch was born into a family with five generations of brewers and became a successful management consultant. In 1984, he decided to resurrect the family brewing business using a recipe dating back to the 1860s. Within four years, the company was experiencing exponential growth. Koch both chronicles the company’s success and explores issues that many entrepreneurs wrestle with, including determining which kind of business to enter, and getting started once that decision is made. He recounts his struggles to get financing and find the right name; Liberty Tree, Sacred Cod, and Whipping Post were among the candidates before he finally settled on Samuel Adams. Other turning points include taking the company public, sustaining attacks from industry giants such as Anheuser-Busch, and handling the difficult departure of his founding partner, Rhonda Kallman. This is an engaging and well-written blend of stories from a beloved company’s founding and sound guidance on surmounting common dilemmas faced in business and in life. Agent: Jim Levine, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary Agency. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

"Koch takes you into his confidence with an affable, gravelly voice, detailing lessons learned; frank stories of mistakes and failures; and thoughts on how a focus on quality, community, and innovation have propelled his work. You don’t have to be a hophead to glean insights, as Koch’s down-to-earth language, deadpan humor, and clear passion for beer help pull listeners in (his loving description of tasting the company’s signature Sam
Adams Boston Lager charmingly borders on the erotic). With short chapters and amusing anecdotes, this is an enjoyable listen for budding entrepreneurs, craft-brew drinkers, and anyone who enjoys learning the ins and outs of a unique industry." -Booklist

From the Publisher

2016-02-28
The founder and brewer of Samuel Adams shares the story of Boston Beer Company, his business philosophy, and entrepreneurial tips. Today, craft beer is all the rage, but that wasn't the case in 1984, when Koch decided to quit his successful job as a management consultant to start the Boston Beer Company, which would become famous for Samuel Adams Boston Lager. Inspired by upstart San Francisco-based brewery Anchor Brewing, Koch set out to brew a high-quality, premium beverage that was basically nonexistent in the beer market at the time. In doing so, he became a pioneer of the craft, home-brew, and small-batch movements. However, Koch's desire to start a brewery was not a whim. He is a fifth-generation brewer, and the Samuel Adams recipe has been in the family since the 1860s. Invoking "the spirit of a tavern conversation," Koch's chatty prose is fun and jocular as he recounts the old days when he sold Samuel Adams by hand while touring Boston's bars and restaurants, giving impromptu taste tests and letting the quality of the beer do most of the talking. Koch does more than tell old war stories (a bar manager once pulled a gun on him during a cold call). He also shares nuggets of common-sense business wisdom, such as investing in the product over marketing, pursuing organic growth over growth at all costs, and setting challenging but attainable goals. Koch's wisdom is summed up in his koan: "No one climbs a mountain to get to the middle." As the brewery landed more accounts and sales increased domestically and abroad, it experienced all the growing pains of a budding business as Koch's once-ragtag organization quickly morphed into a more streamlined and professional operation. Always true to himself, the author's belief in Samuel Adams and the people around him is what makes his story and philosophy so genuine and endearing. Koch's down-to-earth personality, business advice, and passion are good models for those interested in making their own ways.

Kirkus Reviews