BREWDOG is being sold, but its losses could make small investors’ shares worthless. Luckily the founders are still incredibly rich, so here they explain how to fail lucratively.
Be edgy
Investors love anything ‘edgy’, so naturally they were impressed by ‘Punk IPA’. Sure, craft beer has absolutely nothing to do with punk and you won’t find any songs by The Clash about India pale ale with a hint of lychee. But at least beer is cooler than Punk Dishwasher Tablets.
Overpromise
We made the mistake of creating a good product which is physically real. Elon Musk has taken the more efficient approach of focusing on products that exist purely in his imagination, such as moon cities and robots that actually work. So it seems the best thing to do is think ludicrously big. What about a teleportation hat that also makes people fancy you? Set up some meetings with investors, you can fill in the details later.
Remember to pay yourself in real money
Make sure you sell plenty of your shares for real money to put in your bank account before everything goes tits-up. The last thing you want is to be heavily invested in your own brilliant business idea.
Only have one good idea
We can all learn from Mark Zuckerberg, who came up with the excellent idea of staying in touch with your friends and relatives via simple text chats on Facebook, with some handy features like reminding you about birthdays. Once you’ve had your good idea, move on to shit ones like the Metaverse and AI glasses. It doesn’t matter if they fail disastrously because you’re already worth $264 billion.
Remember the media has no critical thinking skills
Especially true of tech companies, but it applies to any business which is vaguely interesting or zeitgeisty. Do you predict your part-time dog-walking franchise will soon be worth £6 trillion? Sky News won’t bother to google it.
Spend insane amounts of money
You may recall James Dyson’s headphones with an air-purifying mask that no one wanted because they cost £900 and made you look like Bane. That easily cost him tens of millions, but if you’re a visionary entrepreneur mistakes don’t matter. Splash £20 million on R&D for your pet project of a smart duvet that climbs inside the cover by itself.
Don’t be a boring businessperson
The master of this was Adam Neumann, founder of WeWork, the flexible office space start-up. Adam openly did weed and tequila shots in meetings, and was so different to a typical businessman everyone forgot there weren’t enough hipster freelancers and renting a desk is a pointless faff anyway. When WeWork went bankrupt he walked away with $1 billion. A true business genius.
