Campaign Success: Lister’s Brewery

Lister’s Brewery is a West Sussex brewer founded in 2014, by a father, son and daughter team. The company is currently live on Crowdcube, having raised over £140k from 400+ investors. We caught up with Co-founder, Katie Coakes to find out more about their Crowdcube crowdfunding success.  

What attracted you to equity crowdfunding?

The idea of welcoming many investors on board was a huge draw. We liked the idea that we could use the campaign to gain a whole new following as well as raising the much-needed investment to fund our growth. Lister’s has been growing at such a speed that we also needed to raise investment quickly, and crowdfunding was a potentially faster way to do this than traditional forms of raising finance.

Were there any resources or external support services you used for your Crowdcube campaign?

We used Drop Studio to make our video, and we also used their accelerator programme. They produced a fantastic video and have provided some great advice and guidance along the way. As this was our first time crowdfunding, it was invaluable to have professional advice to help pave the way.

What’s been the most challenging part of the process?

Understanding the investor mentality and the importance of the different phases of the campaign has been the most challenging bit. Understanding the importance of being at certain stages of being funded and getting over the quiet periods, or sticky middles, and also deciding when to go live with the public campaign have all been interesting stages to overcome.

If you could go back, what would you do differently?

There’s not much, to be honest, everything we’ve done has impacted on the positive result we have found ourselves in – even the impact of Covid-19 has strangely been positive in many ways. 

How has the Covid-19 crisis affected your Crowdcube campaign?

You can read Katie’s response, along with others in our dedicated Coronavirus post here.

What would be your top crowdfunding tips?

Except for having a well-thought product, it is crucial to prepare your equity crowdfunding campaign well in advance. Making sure that your potential audience is there where you want it to be. Equity crowdfunding is building unusual B2B relations which have to be fostered by online and offline activities.