COVID-19 fosters wave of business innovation, Back Forty Beer founder says

The COVID-19 outbreak wreaked havoc for a lot of businesses but also is fostering a new wave of entrepreneurship and innovation, the founder of Back Forty Beer Co. told the Hoover Area Chamber of Commerce on June 18.

Jason Wilson, who founded Back Forty Beer Co. in Gadsden 11 years ago, told Hoover chamber members in an online meeting today that he doesn’t think the COVID-19 outbreak is going to cause a depression. Rather, he sees it as a disruption that will cause a massive transition of wealth for a lot of people.

“I think there are a lot of successful people that are going to lose everything if they’re not willing to pivot and keep up, and I think there are some really young entrepreneurs who are about to make a fortune in this because they’re willing to work around the clock and work hard when an opportunity presents itself,” Wilson said.

About 75 percent of S&P 500 businesses were founded during a time of depression or catastrophe, he said.

“I do believe that what we’re going to see ahead of us is a massive resurgence in our economy of innovation and technology,” Wilson said. “I think you’re going to see a tremendous surge in innovation and creativity and new business ventures as a result of this because I think you just woke up millions of sleepy entrepreneurs and business owners who for the first time in a long time maybe had to get after it a little bit.”

He felt that way about his business, he said. Almost overnight, Back Forty Beer Co. lost about 60% of its customers when bars and restaurant dining rooms were shut down due to COVID-19, he said.

The leaders of the company panicked and lost a lot of sleep for four to five days, but they had to pick themselves up, dust themselves off and figure out how to survive as a business, Wilson said.

They had to figure out what to do with all their alcohol, he said. They have a list of 50 things their company would do if it weren’t producing alcohol, and one of the things down the list was produce and sell hand sanitizer because alcohol is one of the ingredients, he said.

It was a “eureka” moment. Within about a week, they converted some of their canning and packaging lines for hand sanitizer and located supplies of hydrogen peroxide, glycerin, ethyl alcohol, containers, fine mist sprayers and pumps, he said.

Over the past 12 weeks, Back Forty Beer Co. has sold more than $1 million worth of hand sanitizer, he said.

And that line of business is here to stay, he said.

“I don’t think it’ll always be this incredible shortage of hand sanitizer out there, but I do think the demand for hand sanitizer has increased exponentially for good. I don’t think that’s going away.”

His company is constantly looking at ways to adapt and improve, he said. They are students of continuous process improvement.

“I think it’s something you have to instill in the character of your business and the culture of your business,” Wilson said. “It’s not just something you should be doing in a crisis. You should be fostering innovation and creativity throughout anything.”

He shared a story about St. Joe’s Paper Co., which at one time was the third largest paper company in the world. When American paper companies began getting their wood from South America, they started divesting their vast land holdings in the United States, he said.

St. Joe’s Paper Co. owned half a million acres of land, most of it in the Florida panhandle, Wilson said. Noticing strong demand for beach houses, the company divested itself of more than $1 billion worth of paper manufacturing assets along U.S. 98 between Destin and Panama City, and now St. Joe’s Development Co. is one of the largest real estate companies in the panhandle, he said.

The result is communities such as Seaside, Seacrest, Seagrove, WaterColor, WaterSound, Rosemary Beach and Santa Rosa Beach, he said.

Companies have to be willing to reinvent themselves, Wilson said.

Other business changes coming due to the COVID-19 outbreak are more people working from home, which could impact the real estate industry, and more automation, he said.

More manufacturers are investing in robots, Wilson said.

“Automation is the future of this whether we like it or not,” he said. “Robots don’t’ get the coronavirus. Robots don’t need FMLA (the Family Medical Leave Act). They don’t need health insurance.”