After spending twenty years in the electronics payment industry, Tim Herdklotz decided to leave it all and start making beer.
Tim is now President and Co-Owner of Booneshine Brewing Company, the wildly popular microbrewery, tasting room, and restaurant located in East Boone. Along with his co-owner Carson Coatney, Tim saw a microbrewery trend happening across the country and decided to jump on that movement to fill a gap within the High Country’s gastronomical ecosystem.
In 2015 they served their very first beer, starting out with just two employees. Now, Booneshine has over 70 employees on the payroll, and a scalable, thriving microbrewery business that never stops giving back to its community.
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Note - Transcripts are created using AI technology and may not read 100% accurately. We apologize for any misspellings or mistakes.
1 (3s):
What are the things that make Boone shine? If we can play our part and give people great beer, great food and a great environment, then community's gonna happen. And if it does, the High Country's gonna be a better place. And so we're focused on, really focused on that now, but it's been kind of part of our DNA since, since the beginning.
2 (32s):
Welcome to Made in the High Country, the podcast that takes you behind the scenes of Western North Carolina's entrepreneurial landscape and the people within it. I'm Samantha Wright, and on the show today, how one man after spending 20 years in the electronics payment industry decided to leave it all and start making beer. Tim Herdklotz, grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, and attended college in Clinton, South Carolina, as well as Boone. And while he loved his time at App State and living in the high country, he spent the following 20 years after graduating, climbing the corporate ladder of technology companies, mostly in the Atlanta, Georgia area.
2 (1m 23s):
He worked in software development, product management, technical sales and more. And while his experience was overall a happy one, Tim reached a 0.1 day where it was time for a change.
1 (1m 36s):
You know, when you come out of school, let's say you study and, and you get, you get a degree in business or a technology degree, and you're like, okay, I'm gonna go and change the world. And, you know, either start a business on your own or maybe end up in the corporate world like I did initially. And there's, you know, you want to, you want to succeed and so you wanna prove to yourself that you can do it. And I was fortunate enough to have lots of opportunities and, but one day I just kind of realized that I had, I had kind of achieved what I had set out to do. I'd kind of proved to myself that I could do it, and I was climbing up the corporate ladder and could have kept climbing up the corporate ladder there. But what I realized was, the higher you go, the more, at least in the corporate world that I was in, the higher you go the, the less time you actually have for family and friends outside of work.
1 (2m 23s):
And, and in just more, more responsibilities, it certainly brought rewards as well. But I just kind of decided that I was kind of done with that phase. I had proved myself that I could do it and I was just ready to do something else.
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Tim is now president and co-owner of Boone Shine Brewing Company, the wildly popular micro brewery tasting room and restaurant located in East Boone, along with his co-owner, Carson Coney, who is the owner of equally stable businesses within the high country, notably stick boy bread and Melanie's food fantasy. Tim saw a micro brewery trend happening across the country and decided to jump on that movement to fill a gap within the high country's astronomical ecosystem. In 2015, they served their very first beer starting out with just two employees. Now, Boone Shine has over 70 employees on the payroll and a scalable, thriving micro brewery business that never stops giving back to its community.
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But if you think there's little in common between Tim's technology and corporate experience and running a microbrewery, think again,
1 (3m 36s):
If you look at the history of craft beer in the United States, the very first home brew clubs actually came from software engineers in California. So there is, there's actually a connection between just engineering minded people and people who are willing to make their own beer. So we have that, but really the, the skills that have been most transferable, I think have just been lessons I've learned from working on teams and communication and different ways to communicate and different ways to lead. That's been kind of the biggest thing that has transferred over Lots of my experiences in the corporate world are different, but, but similar in terms of, you know, you're solving problems, you're working with people, you need to be able to recognize that we're all different and to manage, you know, one person, you can't manage everyone the same way.
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You actually need to know a little bit about each individual and the best way to lead them and best way to kind of partner with them. And so leadership and communication skills have definitely been, been the most transferable.
2 (4m 40s):
And have you always been interested in technology? Like, looking back, can you pinpoint the different influences that led you to work in the corporate tech scene as a career?
1 (4m 52s):
Yeah, so I was in high school, I was interested in, in computers. So in in particular personal computers. My, my father got me into that with a, we purchased an old, it was an old Atari computer at the time when, when Atari computers were actually business computers, somewhat, not necessarily just games. And I was interested in, in the personal computer and kind of the technology side of things. And so I specifically, when I went off to school, I wanted to get experience in both the business side as well as the technology side. So one of the things my father had told me was that in, in the corporate world or in a lot of businesses, you have a, there's kind of a natural gap that forms between the technology side of the business and the business side of the business, or the operating side of the business.
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And he felt like, he kind of, kind of said, it would probably be good if you got experience in both and could actually sit in the middle. It would give you a lot of opportunities. And so I specifically kind of sought that out in both having a business administration degree and then also information systems so I could kind of navigate between the two sides within, you know, whatever business I ended up at.
2 (6m 5s):
So it seems like you really landed this job that utilized all of the skills that you had been learning throughout your life and through your college experience on the sort of operations side of business as well as that tech behind the scenes backend of things. Did that feel satisfying to you? Were you like, man, like I made it, you know, this is nice.
1 (6m 28s):
Yeah, it did. It, it turned out to be a good thing that I, that I had both a business background and technology background, and it did open lots of doors for me in the corporate world, and I did everything I was, I was in software development purely for, for a few years, but after that, got into product management and then did some business development as well as kind of business unit management. And so the, the background that I had and experience that I had certainly helped, gave me lots of opportunities in that world.
2 (6m 60s):
It sounds like overall you had a, a very positive experience with your time in the corporate world. You know, like your transition, this career change, getting out of the corporate world, it wasn't this do or die type of situation, right? But rather a conscious choice or realization that you just wanted something different out of the next part of your life,
1 (7m 23s):
Right? I just was, I had proved myself that I, I I could do it and I just, I made a conscious decision to, to move on and, and it actually kind of ties into the story of wanting to move back to the high country. It became, I just kind of realized in the end that, that the environment that I lived in and had a really direct impact on the quality of life and that became important. Just I realized how important it was prior to that. I was in Atlanta for, for about 13 years of, of working there, and I was just ready to, ready to move out of that world. I do have a funny, a funny story. I kind of a confirming story. When I was, I had made the decision that I was gonna step down for my role in the corporate world and I was, I had a, a resignation letter written and I happened to be, I was gonna turn it in the next morning, just the way the timing worked out.
1 (8m 16s):
I needed to turn in my resignation ahead of a trip that I had planned. And so I had it all written, it was ready to go, I was gonna turn it in the next morning. I happened to be on a sales trip, like a sales award trip in Hawaii of all places. And the night, the night before, they had an outdoor picnic and they had this band and couple cool things came out of it. First was the outdoor picnic. They actually had a local brewery there. So I'd already decided I was gonna start moonshine, which we, we can certainly talk about how that happened as well. But I already knew I was starting a brewery. So they had a local brewery there, which was great. And then one of the songs that they played that night that the band played was actually a song by the band Boston.
1 (8m 57s):
And the name of the song was Peace of Mind. You've probably heard this song before, it's a very familiar song, but I'd never really l listened to the words as closely as I happened to that night. The words go like this, now you're climbing to the top of the company ladder. I hope it doesn't take too long. Can't you see they'll come a day when it won't matter, come a day when you'll be gone. I understand about indecision, but I don't care if I get behind people living in competition. All I want to do is have my peace of mind. And it just clicked. It just hit me with confirmation or affirmation that it was time for me to move on from the corporate world. And I just, I enjoy that story.
1 (9m 38s):
Every time I hear that song, it takes me back to that time,
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Okay, well we obviously couldn't afford the rights to the actual song, but I'm doing my best here to put you in the mood of that 1970s rock vibe. You know, sometimes those affirming moments can be so important, especially in those big life decisions, which, you know, you'd been in the corporate world for about 20 years, so it probably wasn't you were ready, right? But for other people, those big changes, those decisions, they can feel really scary, right? But I believe when you're having those affirming moments, those coincidences that are hitting you, right, a song on the radio or a, a conversation you overhear that just sort of hits you in this way, that pokes at you and says, yep, that decision you've been mulling over the this is the right, this is the way to go.
2 (10m 43s):
Those, I think those coincidences hit us in those ways because in our gut we know it's the right decision As entrepreneurs as just humans, really, sometimes we have to learn to really trust that gut and be grateful for those signs that come along. So thank you Boston. You know, great song, great moment. Thank you for sharing that. Tim, I wanna hear next from you, Tim, is how you went from that decision. You already knew you wanted to make beer, but knowing you wanna do something and actually achieving it are two very different things. So what were those first steps, like getting started, opening up Boche, making your own beer for a living?
1 (11m 30s):
Sure. So yeah, there's lots of steps along the way. I think initially, you know, we had a product and our product was beer. So just like any product, our initial focus was, okay, what is the product and can we make it at the level of quality to to, to actually sell it? Who are our customers and customer base? And so at the, the time when we were starting there, when we were starting planning, there weren't any breweries yet in Boone. And so we, we were pretty confident there was a market just because of what was happening all over the country and interesting craft beer and Boone just wasn't there yet. I think Appalachian Mountain Brewer was getting close to starting, but so, so basically a focus on can we have the right product and then is the market there?
1 (12m 15s):
And then, and Boone a really, it is a really tough, tough to find space for a manufacturing business like a brewery just because we don't have a lot of empty warehouse space or anything like other larger cities might. So that was, that was a challenge. Our friend Patrick, who owns Basil's, ended up bringing us in next, next door to Basils and we started there, but one of the, I guess one of the most significant steps along the way related to obviously we wanted the product to be right, we were really focused on quality and we set the bar high. We rec, we recognized that, you know, we had a lot to learn about starting a brewery. We were both home brewers and so technically we knew how to make beer at a small scale.
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But one of the, one of the biggest things for us was actually coming up with the name Boone Shine and then deciding kind of what, what direction to go with marketing it. And it's kind of a neat story. We, we had gotten together with some friends that had been helping taste our beers along the way, our sample beers. And we had gotten together with them to kind of paint a picture of what do we think, what do we think moonshine, what, what kind of names, what do we think we should name the business? Actually Boey wasn't even a thing yet, but the concept was, you know, quality beer, the outdoors, the high country, you know, trying to make the high country a better place. I think we had some pictures of different things that we wanted to represent our brand that we then had some friends look at, and we came up with a list of just ideas for names and the name.
1 (13m 44s):
One of our friends came up with the name Moonshine, and it just immediately clicked with us. It's kind of, when you think about moonshine, if you've never heard the word before, you initially think about moonshine and you're like, oh, okay, I see the, the, the correlation there. It's kind of fun. Moonshine is kind of a funny historical thing actually where we live here, but we, we liked it beyond that, just in that making Boone Shine and Boone in the high country and what's great about it, we said we could call our beer Boone Shine, but we could also just focus on making the high country better. And so that name kind of clicked right away when somebody, somebody kind of threw that out as an option.
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So we took that and kind of ran with it.
2 (14m 27s):
And when you were in that smaller space next to Basils, you were doing really well. You guys were doing so well, in fact that you were kind of outgrowing the space. How did you go from there to the building you're at now and and scale so quickly or grow so quickly? I know that Scale Up, which is a course that is offered through Mountain Bis work's from time to time, was was a part of your journey. Would you mind sharing about that? Because it's that scale up course through Mountain Biss is such an amazing resource and you know, whenever it's offered, we try to put the word out there because it's such an incredible course for small businesses to take when they are ready for that next leap.
2 (15m 11s):
So would you mind sharing your experience with that course specifically and how it helped Moonshine move from, from that small space to the larger one?
1 (15m 21s):
Sure. Happy to. It was, it was actually fan, it was a big part of our story and mostly because of the timing. So we sold our first beer in 2015. We were right in next door to Basils, it's actually part of Basils currently. And then by early 2017, we had pretty much maxed out that space. We were, we were out of space and we needed to make some big decisions. If we wanted to keep growing. We, we knew we needed to move and find a bigger space. And we, we originally had a, I think we had a three and five year business plan when we started Boheme. And we basically blew through that in terms of the financial side.
1 (16m 2s):
We blew through that really quickly, and then we were, we were like, okay, we need to another three to five year plan. And we were approached to, to participate in the scale up program that was happening here in Boone through locally. Jeffrey Scott helped with it and Mountain Bis works. And so the timing was absolutely perfect because we were gonna need to come up with our next plan anyway. And we had some pretty significant milestones that we needed to meet with that plan. And so Scale Up actually walked us through that process of everything from, you know, how would you pitch your business all the way to what are some concrete steps that you can take or need to take to actually scale that business?
1 (16m 43s):
And so we had a presentation that said we're gonna, trying to remember the, the exact steps, but it was like, find a new property, move the brewery there, scale up production, add our own tasting room. And if, if I go back to look at that plan that we developed during the Scale Up class, we, we've done all of those things. Now we're actually at the point where we need another plan. But it was extremely helpful. The content was great. I I would definitely encourage any small business that's that started, that's at the point where they've got things rolling, but they need to figure out how to scale that up. Highly recommend that program.
2 (17m 21s):
And when you moved to the new space in East Boone, in the sort of industrial park, as it's vaguely known as you ended up adding a restaurant, you added food to the business plan. Was that fairly complicated? Was that, I imagine that's sort of a whole extra layer of, of management and stress and complication adding food to a brewery?
1 (17m 46s):
It did, but it, it helped in that we had established kind of an early, we, early on we established that we wanted the, a really high bar for equality in everything that we were doing. So when we brought on the food naturally, we had the same expectations already in place that, all right, we need to not just do the basic minimum, but we actually want to do kind of better than people would expect in terms of the overall quality of, of the food. And so that was, was kind of already built into the culture when we started the restaurant and our, our initial chef, chef Adam that helped us get started. He quickly kind of fell right at, he quickly saw that vision. He was like, you guys have great beer, I need to come up with a menu that's, that's just as good.
1 (18m 31s):
And so I think he kind of, he kind of realized that and got it from day one. So we're, we're fortunate to be where we are on the food, but, but it was definitely already part of the culture.
2 (18m 43s):
Absolutely. You guys really knocked it out of the park. And I'll take this opportunity to say thank you because you have personally donated so much beer and amazing food to our events at Startup High country. And that's, and not just us, but you're really such a giver. And one thing that, not just me, but a lot of people say this about you, they just really appreciate how dedicated you are to our local community. And you serve time on the Mountain Bis works board, you, you sponsor soccer teams. Tell us a little bit more, give us the details about your involvement and, and what drives you to not just be a business owner here, but really a leader and someone that gives back to the entrepreneurial community here.
1 (19m 30s):
Sure, yeah. Giving back has been just kind of part of our DNA since we started at, at the very beginning we, Carson and I knew we were gonna want to give back. One of the things I asked him when we were first starting was how, you know, how did Stick Boy become like such a fixture in the community if, you know, stick boy's everywhere, they're, they give back a lot, they sponsor a lot of things. You go to events and Stick boys just has a, has really does a lot of community. And one of the things that Carson said that, that struck me then and still rings true today is that, you know, to, if you want to become part of the community, you just kind of have to do community. Like just, just do it. You don't, don't talk about it, don't try to market around it, but just do community.
1 (20m 11s):
And we, we've tried to do that since day one and we've been fortunate to be able to work with lots of different organizations here in the high country. We're proud of that. In fact, we're, we're kind of shifting gears now a little bit on our marketing. When we first started Boche, we were focused on making Boone Shine and, and it was kind like we were making the beer and we're making the company because nobody knew who we were. And now we're kind of shifting that into make Boone Shine and, and it really ties into the high country as well. But what are the things that make Boone shine? If we can play our part and give people great beer, great food and a great environment, then community's gonna happen.
1 (20m 51s):
And if it does, the High Country's gonna be a better place. So we're focused on really focused on that now. But it's been kind of part of our DNA since, since the beginning. I remember going to the very, I think it was the very first, it wasn't called High Country Startup in the past. It was the, I think it was just Silicon Holler is what they were calling the meetups. And I think I, I think I attended the very first, or one of the very first ones, and we had just started Boone Shine and I carried in some, some, some, yeah, some glass growler of some of our beers and donated for that very first meeting. And we still give, we still provide beer for the meetings to this day. So I'm, I'm proud of our involvement there and it's been just great to see start up high country and what, what all is coming out of that now as well.
1 (21m 37s):
It's been great to see that develop.
2 (21m 39s):
Well we certainly appreciate your role in that and, and we love all the free beer, so thank you for that. Tim, I'm curious, compared to your life in the corporate world, looking back, comparing your role as an entrepreneur now, what's one of your favorite parts of something that you get to do now that you never got to do in your time in corporate?
1 (22m 3s):
I was telling somebody yesterday, they were asking me what I was working on. I was like, what's payroll day? I'm entering a bunch of numbers in just, but I said it's the, it's one of the best days for me bec as a business owner because you get to realize that wow, we've actually created 70 jobs, there's 70 people that are, I mean, they're, they're actually helping us. I mean they're, you know, if it wasn't for our staff, we wouldn't, we wouldn't be here. But at the same time as a business owner, it's like, wow, we, we we're making a difference in people's lives by just creating jobs. So Stephanie, it's it's a little intimidating at times. I will, I will lie to you. It's challenging, but
2 (22m 42s):
It's like the responsibility, the pressure.
1 (22m 45s):
Yeah. Just, you know, you are respon Yeah. You feel that, actually, that's a good point. The difference between the corporate world and, and being your own, you know, you're owning your own business. There's a lot of real positives in owning your own business and the freedom and control and all those things. But, but the, the flip side of the challenge is that, you know, you, you're responsible for, for people's livelihoods and that that definitely is an extra level of responsibility.
2 (23m 13s):
Are there any last words of advice that you want to share for entrepreneurs or aspiring ones out there?
1 (23m 21s):
Sure. I would say specific to the high country, just we are so fortunate to live here, just reco, it's easy to take it for granted. So just recognizing how fortunate we are to be able to do what we're doing here. But second, I would say we're, you might not think you're an entrepreneur, but, but actually I think we're all entrepreneurs. Whether, whether you've got a corporate job or whether you're working in a restaurant or whether you've got a flower shop or whether you're just, you know, you're in school and when you're a college student, I would, I would argue that we're all entrepreneurs because we do things that we've never done before every day. Whether it's cooking a new meal or whether it's, you know, working on a project that maybe you've never done before in school.
1 (24m 5s):
I think anytime you're, you're doing something that, that you've not done before and you're taking initiative to, to build something new or learn something, I would, I would argue that's, that's being an entrepreneur and you can take those skills into building your own company one day.
2 (24m 21s):
That's so well said. Well, thank you for sharing all of this. What a unique story. And thank you again for all that you do to give back to the community that you live in and obviously love dearly. Before you go, we always like to end the show off with a little insight into what your latest high country moment was.
1 (24m 44s):
I'll do two real quick. One was going for a lunch run yesterday in Brookshire Park and up the trail that goes, there's a high meadow that that looks down over the park and just how gorgeous the leaves in the sky and just sat there and just kind of soaked it in. So, so we're going for a run, be one. And I would say the second one is I'll give a shout out to the app, Appalachian Theater downtown, coming back to life, and I've been going to events there recently. I'm going to another one on Friday and I happen to live downtown. I can literally just walk down the street, go to the theater, and enjoy world class performers. I think that's really special in the high country.
2 (25m 33s):
Thanks so much for listening to today's show. This episode was produced and edited by me, Samantha Wright, community Director at Startup High Country. Learn more about our workshops, resources, and events@startuphc.com. If you have just 30 seconds or so right now, please do us a solid and rate and review this podcast, then share it with a friend. It helps a lot with other people finding the show. Thank you so much. Startup High Country is supported by nsea Idea, a private foundation that supports entrepreneurship in North Carolina through grants and innovative programs. Thank you to the Wataga Economic Development Center for their support and for helping to build the entrepreneurial landscape of Western North Carolina.
2 (26m 21s):
I'm Samantha Wright, and you've been listening to Made in the High Country.