Brewing a beer brand alongside software projects.

Hook & context

On paper, a beer brand doesn't belong in a portfolio of software and services. Physical product, regulation, logistics, and thin margins all scream “bad idea” for a solo founder. And yet that mismatch is exactly why Jukebox Beer exists: as an experiment in building a lifestyle brand that forces different muscles to develop.

This story is about what it took to get a beer brand off the ground while keeping software projects moving: the tradeoffs, the fun parts, and the very real operational drag of working with atoms instead of bits.

Starting point

The starting position was a functioning software/services business, an offshore team that could handle much of the day‑to‑day delivery, and a long‑standing obsession with beer and music culture. The question wasn't “Do I like beer?”—it was “Can this ever be more than an expensive hobby?”.

Time and money were both limited. The brand needed to start small, piggyback on existing production infrastructure, and avoid anything that required heavy upfront capital like owning a brewery or bar. That constraint shaped everything: from product decisions to how brand moments were designed.

Key decisions

Decision 1: Contract brewing instead of owning production.

Rather than raising capital to build a brewery, Jukebox partnered with existing brewers. That traded margin for focus: more time on brand, distribution, and community; less time on stainless steel and maintenance. It also made it possible to test the concept without betting the entire portfolio on one physical plant.

Decision 2: Design around moments, not just products.

The brand was built around specific use cases—listening sessions, small gatherings, certain venues—rather than generic “craft beer” marketing. Labels, events, and partnerships were chosen to anchor the brand in those moments. This made marketing more constrained but also more honest.

Decision 3: Keep the operating cadence brutally simple.

Complex inventory and distribution systems can swallow all available time. The early phase kept SKUs minimal, channels few, and data collection manual on purpose. That didn't scale forever, but it kept the brand alive while other projects still needed attention.

Systems & habits

Running a physical brand next to software projects required a strict weekly rhythm so it didn't consume everything else:

• One fixed “beer day” each week for meetings, logistics, and paperwork—no mixing with deep software work.
• Clear production windows: planning brews and packaging in batches, rather than constant micro‑adjustments.
• Shared checklists with partners for launches and events so nothing depended on memory.

These constraints also fed back into the software side: they forced a level of delegation and clarity that ended up improving how the entire portfolio ran.

What broke & what changed

The most jarring difference from software was how unforgiving physical mistakes are. A misprinted label or poorly planned batch isn't a quick redeploy; it's sunk cost sitting on a pallet. That made planning feel heavier and slowed the pace of iteration.

There were also seasons where the brand pulled more attention than it should have, simply because it was more tangible and fun than another sprint review. Recognizing that bias—and putting hard caps on how much time it could consume—was necessary to keep the rest of the portfolio healthy.

Results & current state

Jukebox didn't become a unicorn; that was never the point. It became a modest but real brand with regular customers, recognizable artwork, and a clear personality. It also became a live testbed for everything Coterie cares about: context switching, operating systems, and the limits of running multiple bets at once.

The real outcome was insight: a more grounded sense of when it makes sense to add another project to the stack, and what to demand of its economics and operations before saying yes.

Lessons & how it feeds Coterie

This story is one half cautionary tale, one half permission slip. It shows both the costs of taking on a physically heavy project and the ways a carefully constrained experiment can sharpen your operating system for everything else.

The lessons here roll directly into the Coterie Playbook on running multiple businesses: how to set thresholds for new projects, how to cap their surface area, and how to decide when to double down or walk away.

If you want to see how the brand expresses itself in the wild, Jukebox.beer is where the story continues.