Ep#11: Launching a Non-Alcoholic Beer with Andy Miller - Heaps Normal

Welcome to Startups Decoded where we uncover what it really takes to build and scale startups. I'm Andy Walsh, founder and strategist. Each week we will bring you actionable insights and real stories. Let's dive in. Hello and welcome back to Startups Decoded. Today I have Andy Miller, who is the co founder and CEO of Heaps Normal, a beverage company specializing in non alcoholic beer, but doing a lot more and will let him explain a little bit about that and what he's into. But first, I'd love to welcome Andy to the show.

Hey Andy, thanks for having me.

Andy's for days.

Yes. It's going to get very confusing.

It is. I have a lot of Andy's in my network but I, I'm not allowed to have a favorite. But I'm going to make you my.

Favorite Andy favorite for the next hour at least.

Yeah, absolutely. That's what I tell every Andy. But today we're here to talk about Heaps Normal, which is your beverage company to kick off before we go into what you're doing. I like to be able to understand people's background and what led them to what they're doing. You're a startup that it's in very much in the scale phase right now, so you've gone through a lot of iterations. But any founder that starts a business typically has an interesting path before that as far as experiences, insights, problems that they observe, et cetera. So I'd love to be able to sort of explore that at the start. As far as where you came from from a career perspective.

Yeah, I, I always set out to, I had a very varied career pathway, put it that way. And at some point along the way there I, I thought, hey, this is, this is going to be my superpower is just being a generalist. And so many of the people that I was working with, you know, mentors of sorts, managers, advisors, said to me, you know, look, you got to specialize, you know, the people aren't going to know what to do with you, that your kind of patchwork of experience is, doesn't translate to a job. And I thought I knew better as a youngster and kept, kind of, kept just following my heart in a lot of ways to sound a little bit cheesy. But you know, went, went with opportunities that felt good to me and you know, post rationalized the link between all of these, these things and that ended up being taking me from, you know, working in a creative agency on the account side into then into the creative side, then into a media Business at Triple J in, in Sydney, then into TV and then over, over to China into music and then into activism through working with Greenpeace, which felt like a very left hand sort of turn. But I host rationalized that at the time by saying, you know, that Greenpeace was kind of like the Ogilvy of the NGO world. And so it was this opportunity to scratch a niche that I had for a long time to really do something that had meaning and purpose and was contributing something good to the world. And then my focus eventually, eventually came down to strategy. And when I came back to Australia I had a really great opportunity at a small agency called Pollen Digital to, to really get rid of any people management responsibilities, work with a really talented team, doing really interesting work that was not just creating banner ads, it was creating really interesting business solutions and creative projects and just for focus on building that craft. And so strategy became that focus. But I think again in hindsight I reflected that on the idea, at least for me, that I felt like to be really good at strategy and to have the perspective and the context, you've got to have some of these different experiences and that might be studying something like, you know, studying art history or something completely unrelated to advertising and communications. So whether it's that or whether it's just, you know, different jobs in different industries, feel like to, to really have that interesting perspective that you can bring to strategy, you really need to be drawing on something outside of just that agency world that is, is easy to get swept up in.

That resonates so much with me. I've had similar feedback in my career as far as changing direction, going into different lanes. But I look back now and I don't think I could do what I do now if I hadn't had that breadth of experience. And I think you hit on a theme there which I'd love to be able to explore further, which is around that seeing the world through different lens in the, in the challenges that you face and whether you're on agency side, you're on client side, like Greenpeace obviously is such a different experience than working for a big commercial company. And if you were to put everything that you've done historically into a pot, I can see a very direct and linear sort of outcome with what you're doing now with heaps normal. And I didn't know the Greenpeace story, so I'm glad that I know that about you now. But you can see that come through in the culture and the purpose and what you're doing. It's more than just a product that you're creating. I feel like there's a much bigger story to Heaps Normal from England with Australia and then continued through and Australia has taken it on in its own version. And I think changing that is a huge shift. So having a product available that allows people to participate in a way where no one's making judgment and you still feel like you're having a great product experience changes it. And it's only, and I don't know the category as well as you, but as far as the history, like a 0% or not non alcoholic beer is pretty fresh as far as like the category and market share and that choice. So it's one, having the product availability, but it's two, also the social stigma that goes around that. So in the work that you've done. Actually one quick question. How long has Heaps Normal been alive.

For just over four and a half years and we'll be coming up to five years pretty soon.

Amazing. And that's, that's huge to launch a product that at the time was still very new. People weren't actively seeking out non alcoholic beer and then turn it into the success that you have is, is such a huge success in my mind. And we'll talk about that a little bit later. But as far as the difference that you've seen in culture, I'm always fascinated on research. I'm a strategy guy too. Would you say in the work that you've seen and you've done from a company level or even outside research that the perceptions around non alcoholic drinks from when you started five years ago to today, has that shifted?

Yeah, it's mind blowing how much it's shifted in such a short period of time. Talking about how long it usually takes to shift culture, I think the other truth in sort of culture change is that it comes in bursts. And so there might not be change for a long period of time, but there are lots of things bubbling away. And then all of a sudden quite a few macro kind of elements come together and you know, and it makes it feel like something changes overnight, which is I think what has happened with non alcoholic drinks. And so, you know, part by design, part by, you know, very good fortune. Like the timing of Heaps Normal launching in Australia couldn't have been any better for us in the sense of those, those macro behaviors really colliding, you know, the better for you kind of movement within the alcohol industry. People, you know, increasing their spending on wellness and then even something as horrific as, you know, what everyone went through with the pandemic, I think was another catalyst for a lot of people to, to reassess a lot of habits in their lives. A lot of decisions around, you know, the lifestyle that they were living, not just in terms of alcohol, but in terms of digital media consumption or exercise or anything. Their relationship with people that they love. Yeah, it was another one of those things. So I think there's a lot of, and there's probably a couple there that I, that I haven't mentioned. But yeah, I think that the catalyst of these big, you know, consumer behavior movements I think has really kind of come together to change it. And then probably coming back to your question, noticing the difference now compared to five years ago, it still blows my mind. We recently tell you a story about, you know, someone in our network recently who, who gave me a call and said I didn't really realize just how much of an impact Heaps Normal and you know, other companies like that had on drinking culture in Australia. Until I went to a couple of these industry events and there were a few tins in the esky and he said, I realized like first of all, Heapstom was the first thing to go, you know, it was an esky full of booze all free and the first thing to run out was heaps normal. And he said, and the more interesting thing to me than that was that he said, and what I realized in observing everybody over the course of a few of these events was that I think Heaps Normal is everyone's first drink. Because this behavior that he observed was that people were turning up and they were trying to gauge what was the social interaction going to be and how were they going to, to engage with this, this environment? You know, were they, was this a very sort of straight up and down event where they wanted to kind of keep their head and probably just have one drink and leave or have some more kind of serious conversations with people or was this a, you know, let loose, you know, go kick on to a, to another bar later. Kind of more of a party atmosphere. And so this sort of idea of, you know, coming in, having a non up beer first drink was something that then sort of allowed them to comfortably integrate with, you know, everyone else in the room and then, you know, in their own way make that decision around, you know, are they going down the party path or are they going down the, you know, quiet night kind of path?

That must be very humbling to have someone reach out and share that story with you.

It is, it never, it never gets old. It's really energizing for us because it means that the mission that felt very lofty and you know, hard to kind of pin down to how our day to day work contributes to it is, is actually working and that the things that we're doing on a day to day or week to week basis and that all of our team are contributing to is having an impact.

Yeah. And. And I see it with my own behavior and I definitely would think I would be one of the early customers on heaps normal when I was back in Sydney there for a little bit and carry through now here as well. And it's interesting like the end of the day or the first beer at an event, like normally the first one disappears pretty quick and sort of sets up the tone for the night. So having a non alk beer for the first one or two, it just changes the course of your night. And I see the difference in behavior and, and I think the health flow on effects as well. And I don't want to go too much into this today because it's a much bigger conversation. But alcohol still feels like it's one of those things that has very long term health problems associated with it. Just like cigarettes had. Cigarettes were banned a long time ago in Australia. Not banned, sorry, taxed and significantly sort of reduced as far as people smoking. And alcohol hasn't had that scrutiny yet in the same sense because the social norm is that drinking in excess is okay. And I think what you're doing is changing that and to sort of swing that into a question. He covered it there a little bit. But a lot of brands now are trying to find a way to put purpose into their brand strategy. It wasn't a purpose led company to start with and they now know that they have to build relationships with their customers in a way beyond the product and their brand story goes around that. And you've done a lot of initiatives to change and shift the dial on how people relate to what you're doing. So from a validation perspective in that like what sort of things are you doing? Because product validation is such a critical thing and I talk a lot about it with the companies that I'm working with directly is how do you get that customer feedback and sort of what sort of things are you looking for to hear from people through that process to make sure that you're still staying true to not just the product but the brand as well.

Yeah, it's a big question. I before I answer that I wanted to go back to what you said just a second before which was about the role of alcohol and relationship to other, other things, other industries like cigarettes. And I can definitely see some similarities there. And I guess it does dovetail into what you're, what you're asking about purpose there because we, we, we genuinely believe that, you know, we should just party on purpose. You know, that's the message, that's the way that we think about it. And that means that if you want to have a cigarette, have a cigarette. If you want to have a drink, have a drink. And there's no judgment, there shouldn't be any judgment from anyone in those decisions. And I think the only thing that we kind of, you know, believe about that is that you should do it on purpose. You know, you should do it deliberately, do it knowing the pros and the cons. And then, you know, the theory I think behind that is that if you're doing it on purpose, you're not sort of mindlessly consuming it as a crutch or as a kind of distraction to something else, like whatever that is. It's, you're, you're using it specifically for an outcome that you want. And that's like, you know, we're all adults, we can make these kinds of decisions. And so I think there's a purpose like to that as well, in the sense that I think in a lot of purpose driven businesses, they're very black and white and it's, there's this idea that, you know, if you, you know, this is the purpose in its purest form and if you don't get on board with that, if you're, you know, if you're diluting that, then it's a slippery slope and we're not going to get to where we, where we need to get to it. You know, whether it's changing drinking culture or whether it's addressing climate change. And I genuinely believe, and I think what I've learned in particular over the last four and a half years is that that's not true. What, what that does by taking that hard line, it just prevents people from getting on the journey with you. And the most important thing to change drinking culture or to address single use plastics or obesity or sugar or climate is to get people on the journey if they don't start, you know, and if you kind of create a hard line, they're going to create a wall too on their side and you're just going to keep banging your heads together and really, you know, not getting anywhere and you're going to waste a lot of time. So that's what we've learned about It. And I think it's what we've learned about taking that position, which just felt natural to us. It wasn't, you know, we didn't have this sort of clear, long term, sort of strategic theory of change when we launched it just, it came from a gut feeling that this was the right way to approach this. And we've certainly learned over that time the value of. Yeah, like just getting people on the journey, but also maybe to kind of touch on another element to that, the, the role of play and bringing a lightness to purpose. LED business.

Yeah. Nice. And I think within that too, the way that you show up reflects that very directly. And if you think about the growth of the 0% category, I look at someone like Heineken, who's part of the F1. They have huge distribution globally, massive marketing budgets, et cetera. So for them, it's the distribution part of it opens up doors immediately. Whereas you came, I would say, sort of grassroots, bottom up, where you're showing up in culture in a way where you're an alternative and you're giving people a chance to trial and get on that journey that you talked about where it's like you're not being told what to do, you're actually actively trialing and making your own decision. And I think giving people choice is a really great way to get people to think about change rather than telling them that they have to change because that's never going to work. And you see it across all sorts of categories. Right. It's. People don't like to be told what to do.

I see it with my kids, you know, tell them not to do something, you can guarantee they're going to go and do it five seconds later.

100%. 100%. And I think it's like the modeling part of that is a big thing too. And I think in drinking culture it's. It's the same if, if you have a drink in your hand, no one asks you a question. Right now I would see heaps normal as a product in hand. If someone else is having an alcoholic beer, there probably won't be much debate about that anymore between friends, which is a great step forward. I'd love to be able to talk a little bit about some of your community programs, the things that you're doing to actually support creative culture and other ways to build brand relevance in an audience that, you know, in the early adopter stage can be a little bit fickle and maybe hard to connect with.

Yeah. A recent example that comes to mind is releasing Creating heaps normal records kind of, it might seem like a bit of a left of field kind of thing to do for a non alcoholic beer company, but for us it was maybe to answer your question directly first, we believe that you, to make that genuine connection, you've actually got to be offering something to your community, not, not trying to push a message onto them. And so for music fans and for musicians and the music community, we noticed that there was this, this gap where, you know, big record labels, you know, weren't able to fulfill. It wasn't really their role. And there were a lot of, you know, great artists and musicians who, and records that weren't being made. And so we, and you know, really more difficult now than it ever has been for emerging artists to make ends meet and to have the time and an income to be able to pursue their craft. And so we just thought, hey look, this is an opportunity that feels something that we're deeply interested in having worked in this space before and believing from from the very beginning that musicians and bartenders are really on the front lines of drinking culture. So there's, there's an authenticity to our relationship there. And yeah, we, we noticed that, we noticed this opportunity to create something and to solve a genuine challenge for, for artists and in the music industry. So we created heaps normal records to create the records that otherwise wouldn't have been made and to give, just to give a hundred percent of the profits from those projects directly back to artists to help them build momentum into the next project for them. And that, that was something that we didn't just launch overnight. It was, you know, a culmination of, of meaningful investment in that audience and in that industry over the last four years where we've been working with labels and managers and artists to ensure that there's genuine, delicious, non alcoholic options for artists in their rider when they're, when they're touring and playing, you know, 10 or you know, more nights straight, even if you want to have a drink, you probably don't want to be drinking every single one of those nights because by the end of the tour you're, you're just going to be a shell of a human. So at least, you know, that would be my experience and an experience that we've had a lot from, from artists that are in, in our, in our circle. So yeah, I think that, that you know, supporting or you know, donating to support ACT and working with them, got a long standing partnership with them and then music venues as well is probably another really important channel that we've been just investing in because we believe in it over the last four and a half years. So yeah, then we noticed an opportunity to bring all of that together under this umbrella of Heapsomal Records and take it to another level.

Yeah, and we obviously met back in the day through music and our mutual love from a consumer perspective, but also on the profess professional side and being in that industry, it's definitely something that is like the slogan that is thrown around is that rock and roll lifestyle where doing everything in excess is almost assumed and celebrated. So being able to one support artists on a career that as you said, is getting harder and harder each day for artists to be able to not just make money, but survive. So endorsing and uplifting creators is a powerful way to connect to a community. But you're able to use that as a way to help change what is defined as normal. And the name itself does a good job of sort of like a provocation of sorts, I guess in the sense of how do people define what normal is? Like what, what is like the cultural norm within that space. So it makes a lot of sense to show up there and to sort of to build on that a little bit. The way that you then show up and you're supporting artists, etc. When you're then thinking about how you tell that story to a wider audience. Because obviously part of that is the artists themselves getting the benefit. But do those partnerships then become part of your storytelling and campaigns from a brand level?

Yeah, we try not to ask too much of our consumer audience other than to enjoy, enjoy what we're putting out into the world. You know, whether that's the beer or whether that's the stories that we're telling. So we, we try not to beat people over the head with closing the loop on and, and kind of, you know, the, the lesson in the message and really just throw a party, you know, make it a good party and people will like figure it out for themselves. You know, like the first time you go out and you don't drink or you, you have a couple of non elks in between, you know, your other drinks and you still have a great time. Like I think that's when the penny drops for a lot of people and they realize that, you know, like I can still be my authentic, fun, joyful, crazy, creative, you know, whatever it is for you like self and, and like I don't rely on any of these other things like alcohol or anything else like for that to happen. You know, sometimes that's just an excuse we make it for ourselves, you know, to be who we really want to be.

Yeah, and that's so important. I think that it'd be a lot of people that would feel that alcohol gives them a security blanket of sorts to be able to relax. And not everyone is an extrovert and can blend in socially and alcohol is definitely an enabler in that sense to be able to do it. So to find confidence in yourself to choose a non alcoholic version and then socially interact and build confidence. Like there's a few positive things happening in parallel with that. Right. There's a behavior shift in yourself, but there's also a health change in the flow and effects of not consuming alcohol. So I think it's so fascinating and I love the brand story of what you created and I think one of the things I'm curious on too, I'm not up with the data, but when you started like doing the clock back, you pretty much launched right at the start of the pandemic and in that point where alcohol consumption shifted dramatically as you touched on earlier within that what sort of do, you know, estimate wise, what percentage, percentage of beer sales in Australia were not a hacoholic beer when you first launched in market?

Yeah, first of all, like what a fucking terrible time to launch anything, right? Especially a drinks brand that relies on people being out at pubs and you know, on premise and that sort of thing. Pretty scary. And at that time to continue on that theme where like what were we thinking launching a non alcoholic beer company in the middle of a pandemic with a summer beer style in winter, an unknown brand and yeah, there were, there were a lot of things there that didn't really make sense. So we must have really, really believed in it. But yeah, I think, you know, the statistic there to support that was that, you know, at least in Australia at the time it wasn't even a fraction of a percent of how many of what you know, the share of non alcoholic beer compared to the rest of the beer industry. And to put that in perspective, you know, I think a lot of people feel like non alp drinks are ubiquitous now and you know, but in Australia it's still only, you know, 1, maybe maximum 2% of the total drinks industry. So you know, it's got a long way to go and I think now is just the time. Now is when it's starting to get really exciting.

Yeah. And I see the trend on the other side on the health part and you touched on it a little bit before, but one of the biggest forecasted trends in Startups and investment in 2025 is longevity. People are really focused on what are the things they can do to maintain a healthy life. Not just now, but also into the future. So what are some of the long term effects that you have? And I think most people are very much living day to day as far as I'm making a choice today and I'll deal with the consequences tomorrow if I have to, but no one's thinking about it 15 years, in 30 years, what does that mean? And I think that will also combine, I think very elegantly with what you're doing where it's people are actively start to seek out alternatives even if they're not aware of it or they haven't trialled. I think that that will create this great momentum which I'm excited about too in changing that culture. And again building on that part. Some exciting news on your side. We were talking before the show, you've just got back from California where you've now extended the distribution of Heaps normal into Whole Foods stores in California.

Yeah, we're pumped. Whole Foods is such an exciting business. It's incredible, you know, sitting down with some of their, their team to learn just like you know, a business of their size how, how well they've been able to continue to carry through the values of that business that they started with. It's really, really truly incredible and inspiring all the way down to, you know, just how seriously they take bringing in new brands and products into their range. You know, we went through a series of like intense interviews with, with a panel of buyers at Whole Foods to unpack not, not just the, the details of the product but everything else that we're doing outside of that as a business from B Corp certification to you know, 1% for the planet and you know, the Heaps normal records and you know, other other kind of brand and creative, you know, initiatives that, that are going on, you know, behind the scenes, how we're supporting our local community and that sort of thing. Those things really carry weight for them. And I was really surprised is probably the wrong word but just you know, really inspired like to hear that a business of their scale has managed to retain those things.

Yeah, and I think that if you look at trends in health like we touched on before and, and they're definitely living and breathing that focus on their category range and the scrutiny and, and that's my like first time I've heard around how they treat new products being displayed and it's obviously huge distribution. I don't know how many stores you're in, in California right now. It's. It's in Northern California, right?

Yeah, we're, we're trying to be really focused about our entry into the U.S. it's, it's such a, such a huge market and yeah, we just want to make sure that we're doing it right and, and having, having a meaningful impact wherever we, wherever we go. So, yeah, I think eventually we, we hope to be available across the U.S. but we're just starting small and, and, you know, I think things like, you know, genuine relationships don't scale. So we're doing that at the pace that we can, we can maintain those kinds of.

Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. And I've, my experience here is that distribution in the US Is very different. In Australia, you have a lot of major chains that have national distribution and one partnership can open and access so many stores at scale. So those relationships and partnerships are obviously very important from a distribution. But here there are no chains like I'm in New York and, and it just doesn't exist. There's no bottle shop chain. So you're selling to a lot of independent owners across different locations. So that the time involved to do that is very different compared to Australia. But I also think that as an Australian living in America, there's a lot of people have a soft spot for Australia and our culture, and it will be interesting to sort of see the uplift on that in California and nationally. And selfishly, I'd love to see it here in New York. And told me just before the show that I can actually go to Old Mate Bar in New York City and get myself a Heaps Normal, which is going to be a destination for me this weekend for sure.

Yeah. Well, hopefully they've restocked the bar after their launch. I think they was publicized recently that they drank the bar dry on their launch, which I'm. I'm going to assume included drinking Heaps Normal dry as well.

That's a positive story. And New York City, it's a city unlike any other as far as groundswell and how getting it in the right hands and getting people trialing can create a movement in its own right. And I think the way that you're built, your brand and the product side by side with their own unique sort of view on the world, I think will resonate a lot with New Yorkers as well. So I'm super excited for you guys. Anything that's coming up for you in 2025 that you're excited about that you can talk about from product initiatives to Anything that's happening on the. The brand side or label side, Any artists we should keep an eye out for?

Yeah, we've got another. We're working on another Heapsnoml record release, our second release at the moment, so we'll be able to share more about the artists that we're working with there very soon. We, as we've talked about, we're on the ground in the US now and we're really excited to be getting stuck into the hospitality industry over there. We met, you know, a lot of incredible chefs and bartenders in Northern California that we're going to be collaborating with on merch and events in the near future. Um, and yeah, the. The other one, I suppose, is we're getting very close. Probably not speaking out of tone, but we're getting very close to launching in the UK as well. So that's going to be coming in the next. Next few months.

That's huge. And that's. That's no mean feat as an independent brewer out of Australia to open up that distribution. And I think, again, the Australian culture helps, but I think what you've created as a brand is going a long way to be able to do that. So that' exciting and I love the brand too. Like anyone, I encourage you to look up Heaps Normal. Their little icon they have, which is a little brain, is super cute. And I think it makes sense that people want to collaborate on merch. It's quite a standout piece and I would wear it myself, so I love that character.

Thanks. Thanks, mate. I think it reflects, you know, the little. The sort of. The weirdness, I think that we like to embrace in all of our own sort of personalities. And, yeah, I think we didn't get a chance to touch on it just yet. But like you're saying, I think, you know, there's this sort of idea of, you know, crazy Aussies that resonates with a lot of folks in the us. I think, you know, even more to that point that there is, you know, we believe we're all a little bit weird and we, rather than sort of, you know, try and mask that or, you know, try and, you know, feel like we can only let that out, you know, when, you know, where we're drinking or, you know, when we're, you know, behind closed doors, you know, we. We want to celebrate that little. That weirdness in all of us because we feel like it makes life more interesting. It makes, you know, it makes the party more interesting and, you know, it sort of, if you are able to. If you feel comfortable. And if you feel joy in being that authentic version of yourself and revealing those things that might be a little bit different about you, then you're also engaging in play. And that's when the fun really starts to happen and the stuff that really excites us. So, you know, I think genuinely for us, that's what, that's what it's all about. I've probably just given away all the secret sauces that there is behind Heaps. No more. It's not, it's not actually about beer. It's just about. It's about feeling joy in the decisions that we make and feeling confident to be ourselves and to reveal ourselves to other people. Because I think that's where genuine human connection happens.

Such an elegant way to think about it and probably a good way to finish up the show today. I don't think I could ask a question after that. That was. That, that was beautiful. And I said. And we touched on it with, with kids, like kids have this beautiful way to be able to make you not think about who's watching, having fun, being in the moment. And young kids are just the best to be able to bring out. That's that creative energy that we, for whatever reason, peer pressure, I would assume, get self conscious about what people think and not be true to ourselves. So being able to be the best version of ourselves and celebrate being the individual would make the world a much better place. And I think right now people need some positivity and finding those moments. So I think it's a great thing to be able to create a movement around being an individual, not just selling a product.

Yeah, thanks. I'm really stoked that to have you as one of our first customers and as someone who's still following our journey. So really, really grateful for the interest and the time to chat.

Amazing. Thank you. Andy Millar. Andy is CEO of Heaps Normal Non Alcoholic Beer out of Australia, but now in California. It's been for me a real treat. Andy and I've not had a chance to have a chat for a while so a podcast is a great way to do that. You're listening to Startups Decoded. We come in every Wednesday so episodes dropping more guests like Andy. Please follow Share Positive five star ratings are appreciated but I'll see you next week.