I was a fucker at school. I still regret that (especially now my wife is a brilliant teacher).  It was just a bit dull. Miraculously, I scraped an average education and got an average degree from an average University. That meant I ended up on a graduate scheme with a big American IT company. I didn’t last long. I packed that in and went to work for a cracking little business that I did believe in (the only phone and broadband provider in the UK owned by its customers) and spent a few happy years as their head of marketing. But I was still frustrated. Something was missing.

It was there that someone told me about the DO Lectures. I started watching them online. This type of learning was right up my street. Clever people with great ideas challenging the way we do things and using ideas to make the world a better place.

When I saw that the DO Lectures were running day courses I leapt at the chance to go (DO Lectures proper was a bit too steep). So I went to Cardigan and listened to David Hieatt talk about “How to build a brand with very little money”.  We didn’t fit in the chicken shed (DO Lectures HQ) so we did the course from David’s living room. I realised for the first time that business can be about doing what you love. If you do that, other people will love what you are creating. That’s what I was missing. That’s what I would do from now on. I cried on the drive home.

I love beer. I’ve been obsessed with it for years. I love learning about it. I love the stories behind it.

I also love how the internet can be used to bring people together to learn about stuff. I wanted to connect all of that to help people drink beer made by small, local, independent breweries, the kind that put their hearts, souls and ideas in to what they are making. That’s what I would build a business on.

I started a plan which I worked on for the next 6 months. Then I went to the DO Lectures main April event (I scraped together every penny I had to go. I even borrowed a bit). I knew that this was the place to take my little idea. I knew that this would be the place to learn from people changing the world. I wasn’t wrong.

The first couple of days at the DO Lectures were difficult for me. I met and heard from so many incredible people doing amazing things. It made me ask myself “What can I do? What am I capable of?” That’s a difficult question to ask the mirror when you’re not fulfilling your potential.

By the end of the weekend, I didn’t want to leave. The time spent round the fire in the evening is as valuable as the time sat in awe listening to the speakers by daylight. There are ideas everywhere. People want to challenge everything. They want to make the world a better place. They also want to support you to do the same. Countless people that I met at DO have stayed involved with BeerBods offering advice and feedback to help us do better things and do things better.

Another thing happened whilst I was there. A grenade went off in my head. The plan I had been working on wasn’t finished but I needed to start this project now. So I started telling people my idea as

if it already existed. Then weirdly, it did exist. I registered it as a business the day after I got home.

With no team (I had a full time day job), no investment, no marketing budget and no alcohol licence (that got me in to a spot of trouble), I launched BeerBods in September.

If I was the only customer I’d be quite happy. It’s still early days, but in 3 months we’ve got 500 subscribers. I’ve just quit my day job. Now that we’ve got a business model I think works we’ll be doing some crowd funding in  the Spring. The community who make BeerBods what it is will actually own a part of it.

I’m doing what I love. More and more people are drinking, learning and talking about better beer. It wouldn’t have happened without a day sitting round David’s living room table or a wet and windy weekend in a tent in West Wales.

Drink better beer.

Matt Lane

Founder

BeerBods

www.beerbods.co.uk

@BeerBods

@MattDNLane

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1, Find something that matters to you. Start a business to change it.

2, Profit is good. Profit and purpose are better.

3, People with a mission have a far greater

energy than those who don’t.

4, Don’t listen to people within the industry that you buy cialis online are about to change. They only know the way it is done now. And they will not benefit from the change.

5, New technologies are good. But they need an idea. Always.

6, Embrace the counter intuitive.

7, Those who have the most to lose will become your biggest enemy. They will resist you, ridicule and in the end, try to copy you.

8, Use the media. David Versus Goliath always makes for a good story.

9, Purpose scales well. But you will have to learn to use your limited resources: money, time, and energy.

10, You are flying solo. There are no maps to take you where you are going to. Trust your instinct.

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Determination. It’s the invisible force that keeps you running when your lungs are burning and your legs feel like they might buckle beneath you. It’s what keeps you staring at the page, re-reading words until you arrange them in such a way that just feels right. It’s what keeps you looking for the needle in a haystack when trying to find some broken code that has messed up the web page you are building. It’s the quality that can see you through the most insignificant tasks, to life’s biggest tests. It pushes us forward, when maybe we would rather stay put, or even go back. It’s about making and re imagining a future when you aren’t even certain that you have one.

How do you find the strength and resolution to see a project or a plan through to fruition? How do you motivate yourself once you have made a decision to make something happen? How do you stay determined when the odds are stacked against you?

Gav Thompson is one of the most determined people you’ll ever meet. As if to illustrate this fact, even his attendance at the Spring Do Lectures required a fair dose of grit and determination on his part. He had made it, despite the fact he had a broken shoulder and was meant to be on the operating table. Despite his fear that he’d be seen as just another ‘corporate wanker’ by the attendees. Despite the fact he had been told a few years back that he would never speak again – but he spoke, and he shared his story. Thompson had it all. An incredibly successful and lucrative career in Advertising (he produced one of the most popular adverts in history for Guiness. Remember the black and white surfing/horses one?), a beautiful wife and kids. But life, as it invariably does, had other plans. In his talk he shares the lessons he’s learnt since he made the bold decision to leave his previous life behind, by walking away from his advertising career:

1. There’s no cure for mortality.

Shortly after the birth of his children and leaving his job Thompson was diagnosed with tongue cancer, for months he wasn’t able to speak and thought that his time just might be up. He shared the lesson he’d learnt in the hardest of ways. Life is short, don’t assume that time will stretch out ahead of you, indefinitely. You could reach the end of your journey before you hoped and planned. Use that fact to make the most of each and every day of your life.

2. Treat time with the reverence it deserves. 

Following his illness Thompson and his wife unfortunately separated and divorced, his wife and children moved back to her home country of South Africa. Now, when he spends time with his children he appreciates every precious moment he gets with them. Try not to waste too much time grieving for what was, or what you imagine your life should be. All you have is now and this. Appreciate what you can, whilst you can.

3. Words, speech and communication are your gifts – Use them.

With help from his doctors and surgeons, Thompson eventually got his voice back and has put it to very good use by convincing the giant corporation O2 to run such fantastic community and educational initiatives as giffgaff and O2 Learn. You get the distinct feeling when watching Thompson speak that he relishes the challenge of being the ‘The Pirate Inside‘, making a change from the inside out.

4. Small ideas can lead to very big things. 

O2 Learn and giffgaff, like many great ideas, started as scribbles in Thompson’s notebook. Don’t dismiss your ideas before you even begin. It may just be the start of something that changes your life, and maybe even the lives of others. With O2 Learn, Thompson wanted to address the fact that the provision of education for children is just not

good enough. With only 58% of children of secondary school age attending school worldwide Thompson has helped provide the most accessible and largest classroom in the world. It helps talented teachers share their gift by allowing them to submit a film of their best lesson, which O2 then makes available on their website. Whilst giffgaff, which translates as ‘a mutual gift’, is a mobile network that is run, in part, by it’s members. It’s a new and very inclusive way of running this kind of business and has achieved the highest community index in the world.

5. What will your Legacy be? 

What will you be able to tell the next generation about what you have done with your life? Thompson wants to be able to tell his kids about what he has achieved and for them to be inspired. He’s learnt that there is plenty of humanity to be found within large corporations, it doesn’t need to be Corporate Vs The Charity/NGO/Social Enterprise sector. Corporations exist and have a lot of power, but most people within them want to do good. Help them to do that.

6. There’s only today! 

Thompson ends his talk with a rousing call to get things done – Today! You never know what is around the next corner. Be determined! This one is the only chance you know you will have. Thompson has been determined. Determined to live a life that he wants to live, doing what he wants to do, to get his voice back and use it. And he certainly is – to awesome effect. Inspiring.

There is nothing made by human beings that does not involve a

design decision somewhere – Bill Moggridge