It wasn't that long ago that GBH pivoted from an editorial site to a strategic and creative studio focused on the beer industry. About three years ago, in fact. And while everything feels like it moves incredibly slow to the people heads-down in the work of building a business, when I take a step back, I'm astounded by how much we've accomplished in such little time.
About 18 months back, I was struggling to stretch myself across the entire business, from writing feature stories to developing new brewery brands to producing events like Uppers & Downers. All of this without mentioning the fact that I've been raising two boys with my wife Hillary. Anyone who's started a business is probably holding their breath right now remembering what that journey felt like. Once we defined the various aspects of the business through that early hustle, we began the progressive work of hiring in a team that could help each one of those elements of GBH grow into its own.
We hired Mike Duesenberg, our art director, to lead our creative work. We picked up Austin L. Ray to run our editorial independently from the business. We put Hillary in charge of experiences and partnerships. We hired a news writer for Sightlines. We brought on expertise in musical scoring, sound engineering, and videography. And we expanded our editorial team across the country and across the globe, covering every region of the US, as well as the UK, Belgium, the Czech Republic, and more to come.
We took home our second SAVEUR award this past month for editorial. And right after that, the team nabbed three NAGBW awards for travel, criticism, and the podcast. But perhaps the most indicative recent milestone is this tiny b-Roll post—number 200.
We're now close to posting a b-Roll a day. Only a year or so ago, it was more like one a month. b-Roll was the biggest struggle for the site to produce because I had personally become the bottleneck in the organization. Hell, I can't believe it's an organization. And that means that even I'm learning about these small moments in beer happening all over the world from my own team. I've become part of GBH's own audience. I wake up in the morning, get a ping about a new feature, news report, or b-Roll going out, and oftentimes, that's when I experience the stories, just like you.
It's thrilling to see it all happen, and I experience it with the same excitement and dedication that I once gave GBH back when I was on my own. It's not a one-man show anymore. Now, it's made up of the voices of more than a dozen unique storytellers, all with the same vision.
Go team. I can't wait to see what we come up with next.
—Michael Kiser