This week’s 1 Million Cups at the Kauffman Foundation featured pitches for S.D. Strong Distilling, a small-batch craft distillery in Parkville, and P2Binvestor, a crowd-funding platform for receivables-backed lines of credit.
S. D. Strong Distilling
Steve Strong, founder of S.D. Strong Distilling, began by sharing his surprise when he learned that the law required him to build a distillery before he could even apply for a license to manufacture alcoholic spirits.
“I thought, ‘That’s insane,’” Strong said. “Who would do anything like that? So that’s what I did.”
Strong’s boutique distillery is located in a cave 65 feet below Parkville University, and public tours with tasting opportunities are scheduled to begin later this year. The company currently produces only vodka for sale in Missouri and Kansas, but plans call for gin and rye whiskey to be added to the roster.
A longtime musician and guitar salesman in Kansas City, Strong was introduced to self-made booze when a bandmate in a rockabilly band gave him some “moonshine” that he’d made in his garage. “I got interested and started messing with it,” Strong said.
Strong’s biggest challenge since selling his first bottle of vodka in March 2013, he said, was getting customers to “remember who we are and come back” for the local product.
Quality doesn’t appear to be an issue. In a 50-person blind taste test, S.D. Strong Vodka was picked six to one against several other popular vodkas. “It definitely is as smooth as you will find,” Strong said.
P2Binvestor
Up next was Krista Morgan, COO and co-founder of P2Binvestor, which she described as the first and only crowdfunding platform for receivables-backed lines of credit.
Morgan explained how her Denver-based company supplies small businesses with working capital by crowdfunding their invoices to accredited investors on the P2Binvestor website. Investors get a monthly return for lending.
“We’re like a private investment club, and investors choose which company they want to invest in …” Morgan said. “It’s our intention to fund a ton of industries, because our investors are looking for diversification … There is so much room in the alternative online space for capital.”
When asked to describe her company’s “perfect” business loan customer, Morgan said it was a company with $3 million to $7 million in annual revenue and $200,000 to $600,000 in monthly receivables.
“But I think my definition of ‘perfect’ is going to grow,” she said.
