My Journey From a Big Corporate to Entrepreneurship, Chat With Andrea Menegon

Yasi: Welcome to the Fast Track podcast, Andrea.

Andrea Menegon: Thank you very much, Yasi, for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Yasi: I’m so eager to hear about your personal story or international career or entrepreneurship and let’s start with the first intro. Tell us a little bit about your international work experience with Heineken, what kind of interesting brands and the projects that you have worked on in the past?

Andrea Menegon: Yeah. Sure. So, as I mentioned, I would say long, multiple years experience working with the Heineken company, 10-year experience, which finished just a few months ago, back in April, this year.

I started in 2011 as an intern, joining the global headquarters in Amsterdam, and just after having finished my master’s thesis in international management. Actually, I started as an intern in the global HR team. That was quite a thing because, you know, my interest has always been for more, let’s say, for the marketing function, and I wanted to join a company like Heineken, to develop my skills, especially within marketing, but there’s, you know, especially at the beginning, when you have to start your career, it is quite difficult to find right from the very first day, the right opportunity for you, you need to find a way to make it through to the companies.

Back in the day, I found this in the HR function, working on a project, which was about change management. So, I decided to join the team. I had a six-month experience, and after that I was able, you know, to move to the marketing team and start my career as a marketeer. I spent overall, around seven years in the Netherlands, in Amsterdam covering three different roles.

First, part of the European team working on the Heineken brand; second, moving to the team which was basically responsible for global strategy and global innovation of the Heineken brand, which is our flagship brand, of course. And after that, moving to our export and global duty-free business unit, which is actually a separated team within the global headquarter, which takes care of the business in the duty-free channels, such as airlines, airports, military bases, and also, FedEx, which is quite funny and unusual environment. As the last experience, I moved back to Milan in 2011, in Italy

Yasi: 2011 or 2018?

Andrea Menegon: Sorry, 2018, back to my home country. And I joined the Italian operation, working as a senior brand manager, responsible for the Heineken brand in the local markets, in a market where the Heineken brand is quite developed, has been present for more than 40 years. So, there is also, lots of very interesting and exciting projects going on in that perspective. Overall a very, very nice experience.

Yasi: Yeah. You have exposure in the global, local market and export and to ask on behalf of our audience, for someone who has worked in the same company for a long time, how to find different roles to rotate within company? Is there any experience that you can share with the audience?

Andrea Menegon: Yeah. I mean, I think that as a starting point, a company like Heineken does facilitate these kinds of moves. I would say also, within a relatively short period of time, obviously it comes down to your willingness and openness to, you know, move, to relocate, grow, and also, your commitment to the company. I mean, obviously it goes both ways. So, the company has a starting point. That’s wanting to facilitate an open environment where people can grow relatively fast, but in the end, it comes down to your ability to grow, but also, your passion for the company.

Also, the way you share to the company that you do care about it, and that you want to build a long-term career within Heineken, or I guess also, different multinational companies like ours.

Yasi: When you mentioned share your willingness to the company, because the company is our organization.

So, practical tips, how would you encourage people to do that? Who should they talk to, or what should I do you know, if they want to have a different perspective like experiences within the same company?

Andrea Menegon: I guess if I relate back to the experience at Heineken, there are two channels. Basically, the first is definitely your line manager.

Definitely. So, it’s very important, I guess, that you share with your manager very openly your ambition and your willingness to grow so, that he does know, and that he can also, plan and behave in a way that can support your growth. In the end is responsible for you as a human resource basically.

And the second channel we’ll say is about your network because obviously even for such a big company like Heineken that doesn’t mean that the right opportunity is up there every single day. So, the more you also, build relationships with your colleagues, the more you listen to new opportunities that may arise, the more you stay curious and open, the easier also, for you to find the next chance, the next opportunity. So, I think that is also, very, very important, of course.

Yasi: Yeah. Right. Network is so, important. Network brings people more opportunities than what they would have without the extended network within companies, within business.

I totally agree. And then back then in Amsterdam, I know that you have even opened a bar with a friend. So, why are you still have your full-time job and what made you dive into this business venture? Why did you start opening your own bar in Amsterdam?

Andrea Menegon: Yeah, that was true, that was back in 2015.

And I would say the attitude for entrepreneurship dates back even earlier, because by the time I was studying in my bachelor’s degree, in my hometown in Italy, I had the first experience working as an entrepreneur of music events. So, I was in my early 20’s and together with a friend, you know, we started to organize music events.

We really enjoyed that experience. It took a few years before I moved abroad. And so, after a few years that I was working at Heineken, I felt, again, that, you know, something was missing in a way that I wanted to go back to entrepreneurship, at least with a side project. That’s why we thought about opening an Italian restaurant, which was called Piadina bar.

And it was basically a concept developed around a very traditional sandwich product, which is very well known, especially in the center of Italy, but it’s not so, much known outside of Italy. Actually, in the Netherlands, it was not at all known before we came up with it. Together with two friends, actually to two business partners, we developed the concept and finally, we opened the restaurant in October 2015, right next to the office, quarters, so, in a way, it also, became a bit of the second cantina for Heineken employees during lunch. It was quite funny experience.

Yasi: How did you balance your entrepreneurship stuff? Like manage the business, at the same time you have full-time job. How did your daily life look like, or your weekly schedule look like?

Andrea Menegon: That’s a good question. Yeah. So, this is a very good question, and I think it’s also, one of the challenging parts of that experience. Having already quite a busy job, like the one I had at Heineken, and in addition to that, also, finding the time to, you know, help my business partners.

Obviously, I was not at all alone myself, but still having to find the time to help my business partner, especially in the first year in 2015 was quite demanding. But if practically speaking, that means that you have very early wake up calls in the morning in order to find a few hours to invest in the startup project before you go to the office during your 8, 9, 10 hours at Heineken and even after that, at evenings, again, you meet your business partners and again, you’ll talk about your restaurant. So, in the end of the day, it’s a very busy week, obviously also, involving weekends. And that goes at least in my experience, it went on for around a year. I would say that the year, which led to the opening and basically, involved all the work that needs to be done before you can open; so, the development of the concept, the setting up of the team, the startup on the location and all the activities that basically relate to the startup phase of the restaurant itself.

Yasi: Wow, and then afterwards, did you do it another year working seven days a week, or how did you manage it after the restaurant was opened?

Andrea Menegon: By the time the restaurant was open in addition to having a dedicated manager for the restaurant, which is one of my business partners, we also, had a full, dedicated team that was managing the operations and, you know, taking care of the customer.

So, I have to say that the workload gradually went down and down. Also, the work and life balance went better as the years were going on.

Yasi: Oh, that’s amazing! So, you’re still growing your job, but at the same time, you also, gained experiences as an entrepreneur, as a business owner. I think that’s really amazing that you managed to do both at the same time, because starting a business is definitely not easy.

Andrea Menegon: No, not at all. Yeah. I recognize that. It was a challenging time, and also, for me was good to do it still early age, but also, as a take-out of that experience, you know, what I learned is that I’m not sure I want to do again, ever in life, two things like this at the same time, because, you know, I mean first of all, life is not just about work, first; Second, you also, need a, really, a lot of energy to be able to, you know, to put on a daily basis into the activities. If you want to do one thing fairly well done, just focus on mastering. That was the learning for me.

Yasi: Yeah. Okay. And then where is it now, given the COVID situation and you are not in Amsterdam anymore?

Andrea Menegon: Well, in that sense, we were kind of lucky because we had it open for four years and a half roughly. And in 2019 we decided to sell it. And the reason was that the business manager wanted to move back to Italy. And by the time we took a decision to sell it, that was just around eight, nine months before the pandemic came in.

So, in that respect, we can say we were a bit lucky as well.

Yasi: Yeah. So, you make the exit, interesting. And also, very lucky. Yeah, indeed. Yeah.

Andrea Menegon: I mean, yes.

Yasi: And you moved back to Italy then was a new role within Heineken company in Italy. And now you are the CEO of a craft beer brewery. So, I want to dig a little bit more, how you made that change?

Andrea Menegon: Yeah. As I mentioned, I, I spent the last three years and a half working in Milan as a senior brand manager for Heineken. And basically, what happened is that after 10 years working at Heineken on one side, I felt I had learned a lot, talking about especially the marketing function. And obviously, I mean, there is always to learn in life and your career.

I mean, that goes without saying, you can always learn more, that’s for sure. But on the other side, after 10 years, you see that your learning curve maybe goes a little bit slow work on parts of the first year. And I think that’s physiological, that’s obvious. And at the same time in parallel, I still felt the need for entrepreneurship.

So, that was really sort of a drive that I always had since my early 20’s. After 10 years in a big multinational company, I really thought, okay, now I want to go for something more entrepreneurial, fully dedicating to that. And that’s how the opportunity to join this startup came up right in my region.

We are talking about the startup, which is already operating for a couple of years, to set up in 2019 by a group of founders and the shareholder which came up with, I think, a very innovative and also, distinctive brands idea, especially for the Italian market. And the idea is basically the first shared brewery ever in Italy. When I say shared, it means shared amongst a large group of shareholders, which were involved through a crowdfunding campaign, which I guess for you, Yasi is a very well-known concept, having an international background that also, having had the experience in the more the Northern European countries, but in Italy is still quite not developed.

So, for the Italian market is quite in normative costs have doubled.

Yasi: So, the crowdfunding was done on a platform or how is it carried out?

Andrea Menegon: It was not on a platform. Yes, it was done back in 2020. And from the very first campaign, it already involved more than 200 shareholders. So, a large group of people, which don’t just want to invest in the equity of the company, but also, feel the passion and enthusiasm for the project itself, therefore wants to be involved in a way in the initiatives, the marketing, the operations of the company itself.

Yasi: That’s very interesting because usually crowdfunding campaign, if it’s on platforms, usually it’s the product. And or if we talk about large project, I mean the blockchain space, you talk about ICO STO. But a microbrewery in Northern Italy, out of nowhere.

Okay. Not nowhere. Most people don’t know where it is. It’s called Udine. Is that how it is pronounced in there? So, interesting. And when did you join the company? You already know them before, during the crowdfunding phase, or afterwards, like how did it happen that you meet the team there?

Andrea Menegon: So, I met the team around a year ago through a friend of mine, which is a friend in common amongst the founders, but I joined just two months ago. So, I also, very recently joined obviously after quite a long period, thinking about the challenge and also, you know, having been in discussion with the with the founders around, especially the ambition of the company.

And I must say that not only the founders said the great idea in terms of shared brewery, but also, they do have a very strong ambition to continue to grow and to develop the brewery, which is what. I was very much enthusiastic and attached to do this project from the very first day I got to know them.

Yasi: I really believe that when someone works in a startup, and you really have to have the mission driven business. When you have the mission and you have the aligned vision, it’s much more interesting to work on your daily tasks.

Andrea Menegon: Absolutely, i agree.

Yasi: So, now you work on this role as a CEO of this microbrewery for two months. How is it different compared to working as a brand manager in a big company with budget?

Andrea Menegon: I would say it’s completely different. Obviously, we are still talking about beer and obviously in a way that the main drivers of the business are compatible. As you manage on the scale is so, different that makes, you know, the daily work completely different.

And I will say, one of the main things to realize is the difference in terms of resources or talking about budget, but also, talking about, you know, number of people. If you will come from a company like Heineken, there is somebody taking care of, you know, every single detail of operation, cross functional level.

Whereas when you talk about the small craft brewery, you really have a small team of passionate people who take care of basically everything by themselves. And you come with a 10-year experience of a large company, and you would hope to expect the same level of standards, cross-functionally but obviously that cannot just be the case.

So, in a way, one of the main initial challenges is also, to find the balance between what you can expect, at least in the short term, and also, what is feasible to achieve based on the limited resources that you have in a small startup brewery.

Yasi: Totally agree. I think working on international brands, especially on a big brand that you have so, much budget and actually it’s so, much easier if you think back, right.

Considering if you’re working a startup with solely to budget, it’s just so, easy when you have much more money to spend out. Everything’s easier, relatively speaking.

Andrea Menegon: Yeah, sure. For sure. You have more resources in a multinational company. Yeah. But obviously that also, lots of pros for working in a smaller company.

Yeah. Because for one of the things that I realized the very first days is also, the decision-making process. That is really something that strikes me every day. You come from an experience where in order to make any business decision, you have to go through an almost scientific process, basically making sure that any single variable is taken care of, it started before you make the call. Whereas when you work in a more entrepreneurial environment, you also, realize that you have to make quick decisions. Sometimes you have to make decisions based on your experience, based on your gut, and that is also, something that thrills me in a way, because it’s really where you can build on your experience, working in the industry, and basically, you know, navigating this phase of the business in a way that hopefully will enable the company to grow as fast as possible and in a way that obviously also, is not just fast, but also, sustainable.

Yasi: Yeah. Also, it’s about like dare to take risks. You don’t have the scientific approach, but based on your experience, gut feeling, you know, maybe it’s more like reasonable or better choice, but still there’s a risk associated to it.

Yeah, the microbrewery is called 620 Passi.

Andrea Menegon: That’s true. Yeah.

Yasi: Yeah. Okay. So, what is the plan for 620 Passi in the coming years?

Andrea Menegon: So, let me also, pronounce it in Italian.

Yasi: Yes, please.

Andrea Menegon: Sounds more authentic. So, the name is Seicento venti Passi. Maybe also, good to tell you that the name originates from a small village next to the sea, in my country, in my region, where the whole idea about the brewery came up from the founders.

That city is called Marano, it’s a small village, it’s a nation fisherman village where there used to be guardians of the village, which were walking around the village walls overnight without lights. Therefore, they had to count 620 steps by night in order to know they would have done a full round of the walls.

That is why the brewery is called 620 steps.

Yasi: Wow. Interesting. Thank you.

Andrea Menegon: The plan is to basically leverage the rest of this year, 2021, the coming six months basically. In order to basically set up a structure of the organization, of the team that really enable starting from the first year and acceleration of the business.

Obviously, we are talking about the craft breweries, in terms of ease, in terms of numbers. They stay relatively smaller compared to those numbers of multinational, large breweries, but still, the ambition is to grow and to grow quite fast. So, next year we’ll be in a way, a real first year of launch after my arrival.

That means that over the next month, there is really a lot to do with setting up the main initiatives and prepare in the battlefield.

Yasi: Based on my personal experience, also, in the beer industry, that microbrewery is really booming. Like people now prefer to drink craft beer than a mass market beer, right?

Andrea Menegon: If you look at the trends from the consumer side, even talking about, let’s talk at the net of COVID because obviously the last 12, 18 months were quite particular because of COVID. But if you look at the market when, before 2020, so, 2019, first of all, the beer market is growing and I’m talking about the Italian market; and second, one of the main reasons why the market is growing, as you mentioned, is because people are getting more and more interested by the product choice, the product itself, you know, different product tastes. Even in a country like Italy maybe France, which traditionally is more skewed to wine, this is quite a booming trend, which obviously is, as you mentioned, it’s facilitating the growth for local craft brewers.

Yasi: All right. So, my next question is which beer or which types of beers I don’t know how to pronounce it in Italian, from your brewery that people should look out for next year?

Andrea Menegon: So, at the moment we have a portfolio, but three beers that we sell throughout the full year, we have a long beer, which is called Arsura, it’s a golden ale. We have a brown beer. It’s an Ipa, which we call Fipa. And then we have a red Belgium style beer, which is called the Cortona. All of them are very good beers. And obviously I cannot say that myself, but I’m talking about the feedbacks that I am hearing from our customers, but also, from the consumers and what people say about our beers is that compared to craft beers, which sometime happened to be a little bit less accessible, compared to the more like the bigger brands in terms of taste profile, those beers are quite enjoyable and also, quite easy to drink. So, you sort of have a very good balance between a rich, full body taste, but also, a product which is easy to drink and easy to enjoy.

And next to these three brands, we also, have what we call more seasonable products. During summer, we make available blanche — white beer, which we call Caligo. During the winter, we have a black beer, like stout. And then we have a cannabis flavored beer that we sell through spring and autumn. Overall, six beers. Yes.

Yasi: Amazing! A microbrewery, but you have the full fletch of different flavors for different seasons and I’m sure the audience would also, be interested to the beer lovers and watch it out, next year they’re going to launch, and if you want to learn more about the brewery and learn more about Andrea and I will leave all the links in the show notes.

Thank you so, much for being here, Andrea.

Andrea Menegon: Thank you very much, Yasi.