The Decision That Built a Business Across 16 States | Scott Hand | Part 1

Part 1 of a 3-part conversation with Scott Hand, Chief Brand Officer at Urban Artifact, the Cincinnati-based craft brewery known for fruit-forward, wild-fermented beer; and the founder of an architecture practice he continues to run alongside the brewery.

In this episode, Scott shares the unlikely origin story behind Urban Artifact: how an architecture background designing performance venues led to a business plan for a music space, how a brewery became the economic engine behind it, and how a last-minute partner crisis forced a high-stakes decision that shaped the business from day one.

This conversation breaks down what founders don’t see until they’re inside the build, the difference between a plan and the reality of closing a deal, how partnerships form under pressure, and why clearly defined roles matter more than titles or hierarchy.

Scott also explains how Urban Artifact found its true positioning not by copying what “normal breweries” do, but by committing early to a niche, fruit-forward beer and wild fermentation; and building both the product and brand voice around that decision.
For anyone building in a crowded industry, this episode is a clear lesson in differentiation, focus, and long-term thinking.

This conversation continues in the next episode.

Chief Milestones is a video podcast featuring honest conversations with founders, parents, and investors about building real businesses, staying healthy, and raising families.

New episodes release Tuesdays and Fridays.

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Transcript

Scott’s role at Urban Artifact and his architecture practice

Scott Hand 0:00

That pathway was me trying to study, made a business plan on how to make a music venue and how to make a music venue make money. When we got together, I realized I could either make these guys my partners or they're gonna end up being my competition shortly. Moment we landed on the fruit and the wild yeast perspective, that was the end for us. That was we knew that that was the thing we loved because it turned into really fantastic product.

Reshma Vadlamudi 0:26

Did you always envision something fruit forward and wild fermented, or did that evolve with the brand?

Scott Hand 0:32

It fast forward 10 years, we distribute to 15 different states, address it and know that it's a piece of your whole puzzle from the beginning. It's a cornerpiece.

Reshma Vadlamudi 0:44

So, what are the top things you would recommend to someone who wants to start a brewery today?

Scott Hand 0:49

First advice would be to come up with I'm Scott Hand, um, the chief brand officer at Urban Artifact with the craft brewery here in Cincinnati. I also uh run my own architecture practice, um, and that's where my background is actually in and how um that whole piece ties into the brewery and is a wild and interesting story that we'll get into in a little bit. But I still operate and run both of those concurrently at the moment.

Why a brewery - and how architecture led to the original business plan

Reshma Vadlamudi 1:27

Why a brewery? And what drew you to the craft beer world and how did that evolve into urban artifact?

Partners or competitors: the moment the paths collided

Scott Hand 1:35

It's a good question. And in order to answer that, I have to go back and actually kind of explain my architecture background first. Um I graduated from University of Cincinnati with an architecture degree. After that, I moved to Chicago and I worked at my dream job for eight years, worked at a tiny little architecture practice, um, specialized in performing arts facilities. So we did theaters, um, you know, uh performance arts like buildings, ballet theaters, recording studios, anything that had to do with performing arts, acoustics, and things like that. And that was really what my heart it still is, honestly, in is making buildings for that use. So I worked there for uh eight years, and then my wife and I moved back to Cincinnati. This is home to us. Um, and I tried, but there isn't a lot of opportunity to do that type of design work here in Cincinnati without having to be at a big firm. So they do, you know, we don't have nearly the the arts industry that Chicago does. So there isn't as many little theater groups that are all growing and big making making moves that require architecture practice, specialized in that sort of thing. Um, so being who I am, I started to think of ways I could do that for myself. Um, and this was 12 years ago at the time. Um, and part of me trying to think of how I can make my own music venue or performing art space and how it would make money once I put that business plan together. Um, the drinks and the concessions and the brewery industry and all kind of came together. This was at the time when, especially in Cincinnati where the craft beer was booming. Um, that year that we ended up opening, there were five other craft breweries that also opened in Cincinnati. Um, we opened in 2015.

Reshma Vadlamudi 3:27

Okay.

Scott Hand 3:27

So, but that pathway was me trying to study and made a business plan on how to make a music venue and how to make a music venue make money. So I wanted to do that for myself. And along the way, we I crashed into my my current business partners, um, and they were already going to start a brewery. So they already had a business plan that they were gonna make for specialized in brewery, just that, but they didn't have a place, they didn't have the venue, they didn't have any the on-site piece to start it with. They were just gonna make uh beer because that's what they loved. Um, and I was there for making the experience. And so when we caught together, I realized I could either make these guys my partners or they're gonna end up being my competition shortly. So we might as well figure out how to make it work. Um, so we launched Urban Artifact um with a six nights a week live music venue in the basement of the church, um, and make an incredible craft beer at the same time.

Early steps: money, production, and planning for distribution

Reshma Vadlamudi 4:28

So, and then what were the first few steps you took in starting the brewery? Like, or was this all figured out by your partners? Like, what did you have to do legally, financially, and uh creatively?

Scott Hand 4:44

There's there's a lot to that question. Um, and I can answer it in a couple different ways. Obviously, there we've got our building, which I know that you want to get into. The historic church building is one whole piece, but from a business perspective, we had to kind of figure out what the brewery was going to do, where our money was going to be, where we were thinking of pushing the event the business eventually. And it's tough when you haven't started because you don't know what you don't know at the time. Um, we thought, uh, and again, remember this was 2015 with the craft beer broom, there was a lot of other people opening and making good money on just their tap room. So we had really high expectations for being a neighborhood destination. Um, part of the reason for jumping into that historic church building in the heart of Northside allowed us to be Northside's brewery, Northside's venue. It's a big space. Um, and that was one of the things that we were banking on. But also, amongst all that, we also had size the brewery, done the pieces of the production puzzle to make sure that we were ready for distribution and moving out of that, like not using that as our only revenue stream, um, which was definitely wise in retrospect, even though we we didn't even put enough emphasis on it at the time. Um fast forward 10 years, we distribute to 15 different states. Um, we are growing other pieces of beverage manufacturing and also distributing. Um, and the on-site piece, which is still our like our our anchor, is not necessarily where our financial anchor is. It's it's where we spend our time and our our hearts because we're there every day, but it's not necessarily the thing that's driving the entire business anymore. Uh but it definitely was when we started, yes, exactly. Especially with the the emphasis on the experience and the music and all that stuff happening.

The two-weeks-before-closing partner crisis

Reshma Vadlamudi 6:41

Okay. So for me to understand this, so first you're I you told me that your partners had the plan of bringing this brewery to life, and then you joined them. Um so what came first? Did they already have the building by then? Or uh what was in place before you met? And then how did the plans evolve as you guys met? What was the first step you guys took?

Scott Hand 7:10

Oh, it's this is so it's a wild story. Okay. Um, I'll do the shortened version and then you can you can ask me to elaborate if you want. But ultimately, actually, I had started the whole business and the business plan with two other people. Um, one was a music person, um, and one was another brewer. And I had the whole business plan ready to set to go with those two folks. Um, and the brewer ended up dropping out and canceling essentially two weeks before we closed on our bank loan. Um, and then the musician partner ended up staying through that but left a year later. So we actually still launched the business with him, but he ended up not sticking around. So, but after the brewer dropped out, and it was a whole whole weird divorce sort of thing.

Reshma Vadlamudi 7:59

Yes, it's um it was because it's a brewery and you don't have a brewer.

Scott Hand 8:03

So exactly. I had the whole business plan all set and ready to go. I had landed on actually this the place we're at now was our second location. I had already done a whole study and tried to um purchase another building, and that fell through, and then we landed on this one, moved forward. Um, and so within with that two-week lead time of hey, the bank thinks we're gonna close, I've had already met Brett and Scotty, who are our current partners and roped them back in. In fact, Brett was hiking the Appalachian Trail at the time, canceled that, came back to Cincinnati to meet, talk through everything, raise a little bit of money, and then close on that bank loan to get us started. Wow. So it they were gonna do it, but they were not on my timeline, right? They were they were still years off, and so I kind of roped them in maybe ahead of schedule, but I think we're all happy now. It's been great, but it was a real wild kind of start.

How they split roles without a CEO

Reshma Vadlamudi 9:00

Yes, yes. So you were in it from the start now, but then you had to bring on two other partners. Um so they take care of the brewery side now?

Scott Hand 9:13

We've kind of been really lucky. Um, and I I say luck, but also it's been by design. We we don't have a CEO. There's not one person who's in charge of the entire business. Um, we've kind of fell real quickly into the things that we do best. Um, Scotty's in charge of the finance and the sales, which sounds like two separate things, but those are the things he likes doing. Um, I fell into the branding and the experience part. Um, the marketing piece falls into that. Um, and then Brett's in charge of all the brewing operations. We all need to coordinate. All of those things have to happen together and one heart, but they we don't really step on each other's toes that much. So it's real fancy thinking that you could plan that. I can't imagine that we could have planned that, but it did happen that way, and I'm really happy that it did.

Reshma Vadlamudi 10:05

So before that, how long did you know both of them? Were they your friends?

Scott Hand 10:10

Uh so the the other two folks who weren't aren't part of the business any longer, I knew both of them. Musician I had been friends with for a long time, um, and the brewer I had known for a couple years, and we had been working on this plan together. Um, and so that's the weird part. Scotty and Brett, the current partners, I only knew them essentially face to face for a couple weeks before we signed a rather big SBA loan for us to move forward with.

Reshma Vadlamudi 10:36

Nice. Yes, I'm so glad everything worked out. Yes, like when you took that leap of faith, this wouldn't have been your thought. No. You were able to say this after the fact that you already did it, right?

Scott Hand 10:49

Yeah. I mean, at the time it was like there's no option. We're we're doing it, we're moving forward regardless. Yes. Um, I've had the support of my wife to just make these decisions and run with it because things tend to get figured out if you put enough effort into them. Yes. But also that's not the maybe not the wisest advice to give.

Why business plans are for research, not prediction

Reshma Vadlamudi 11:12

Uh, but then I feel like all entrepreneurs end up doing that. Like you could plan for so many things, but it's not at least for us, it never worked out those the way we planned for. It's pretty common for someone to go out of the deal the last minute, and you should always think about backup, and it's been the same for us. The experience has been the same. The people that we thought would be in the deal no matter what, who were not the ones we could always count on. And then we'll meet this random person out. Maybe like you said, not even two weeks for us. Maybe we know them for a couple hours sometimes, and then they end up being on the deals, doing repeated deals with us, and that's being our thing too. And uh yeah, it's it's wild to to hear these things, but yes.

Scott Hand 12:06

Yeah, I think the the part that's interesting to me is that there's no there's no way to actually anticipate that. Like the business plan you're told to write the business plan because you think it's a plan, but the business plan is mostly just so that you have a reason to research everything.

Reshma Vadlamudi 12:24

Yes.

Scott Hand 12:25

Not not to follow it as a plan, just so that you know all the things that can and potentially will go wrong, and then you can have enough information to to go back and adjust it later. It's one of the things why I I argue so much against using like Chat GPT to write your business plan. You should you shouldn't do that because you should know it. Right? You want to be the one who put your whole soul into that so that you knew all of the pieces. In case this part goes wrong, you don't want to have to go back to the computer to ask why it went wrong. You should know so that you can pivot as quick as possible and make a new change.

Reshma Vadlamudi 12:57

It's so crazy when you hear the same stories from a different entrepreneur. So you guys got together and then you were able to close on this. So did you have the place and everything by then? By the time you closed on the loan, you had the location picked out? Yes. And okay.

Scott Hand 13:14

Yeah, so part of that whole pr pre-work was having the the location, um, the building plans, essentially all the equipment was ready to purchase, which that was a whole other thing. Like Brett had to come in and figure out how to make the brewery work when someone else was the one who spec' and designed it. Um, I'm not sure he would have done a ton different, but it was not what his original intention was going to be. So yeah, we had that all ready set to go. Um, I had I don't think I had the building permits pulled because we didn't own the property at yet. But when we closed on the loan, the loan was also to purchase the building.

Reshma Vadlamudi 13:53

Okay.

Bootstrapping the launch with an SBA loan

Scott Hand 13:54

So it was all bundled together. We bought the real estate, we got a business loan for the operation startup, all the renovations and the equipment capital to get moving.

Reshma Vadlamudi 14:04

Okay.

Scott Hand 14:05

Um, compared to the other folks who opened that year um or nearby and are currently still operating. We are we re we really bootstrapped it. So we did that whole project and started the whole business with essentially a one million dollar SBA loan. Um, compared to some other folks who like Braxton and Mad Tree who were nearby, theirs are many, many times bigger than what we started with.

Reshma Vadlamudi 14:34

Okay. So they started in 2015 too.

Scott Hand 14:38

Around that same time, yeah. Rheingeist was a couple years earlier. Mad Tree had started a smaller one, and then they did a really big expansion a few years after that.

How the fruit + wild fermentation niche became the brand

Reshma Vadlamudi 14:47

Did you always envision something fruit forward and wild fermented, or did that evolve with the brand?

Scott Hand 14:54

So that is probably the the thing that I use the most, right? That's that's who we are. That's the brand now. It wasn't necessarily the thing we thought was going to be the winning direction, but it was definitely going to be a thing we were going to do anyway. Um, the wild stuff was absolutely Brett's always passion. Um, he was it still is big into the wild yeast, big into making beer in that fashion. Um, and those first couple years, we did a ton of experiments with that. Um, didn't necessarily know that it was going to be the thing that we needed to do, but that is the number one piece of advice that I give now is we should have picked that niche sooner and dove into it even faster. Um by the so we opened in spring of 2015. By summer of 2016, that was our focus for sure. So we spent essentially one year of figuring out alternatives. We thought that people were gonna go to a tap room and expect us to have an IPA and a brown ale and other types, like the whole spectrum. And that's really typical. You go to one of those small little craft breweries in a neighborhood, they've got one of everything. And usually that's what their brewer got into it for. They want to put their passion onto this spectrum of what typical beer is. Um, we found that we can do that, but that's not a differentiator. So the the moment we landed on the fruit and the wild yeast perspective, that was the end for us. That was we knew that that was a thing we loved because it turned into a really fantastic product. And it was a reason for us to go big into something that no one else was doing.

Reshma Vadlamudi 16:40

So is it from the brand perspective uh you're talking about, or is it because people loved it more than anything else? Or what what's making you say this?

Scott Hand 16:50

Um, it's both. I I for I know that sounds weird. Um, some other breweries, lots of other breweries, are maybe more marketing focused. They'll figure out what position they're gonna take and then they kind of brew something to fit into that shelf space. Or they're they are going to do one of everything, so they need to have uh a voice and lend that voice to you know all the whole different variety of things. And we found both that people were really loving the fact that we did the fruit and wild geese stuff different, but also that it was such a unique way to create a voice. So that became the brand because we were good at it, and it really was at the same time. Like it wasn't one leading the other, it was, hey, this works, let's dive into it.

Reshma Vadlamudi 17:40

So you guys still nailed your product uh almost the same time as your marketing.

Scott Hand 17:46

Yeah. I don't I would argue that we, and I would be the one to argue it, that we didn't really have a good voice or market position until we had that.

Reshma Vadlamudi 17:54

Okay.

Scott Hand 17:55

Um, you know, the urban artifact brand has kind of a a concept and an aesthetic that you can build around, and that was the original goal. And I'd say before we launched, that was what I was in my head. But as soon as we landed on the fruit, all of a sudden everything clicked, and we're like, yes, this is the thing we can keep doing and we can keep iterating both to build what we're doing, but also to be the differentiator in the market. And that's to me where the real value is at.

Advice for anyone starting a brewery today

Reshma Vadlamudi 18:21

So, what are the top things you would recommend to someone who wants to start a brewery today?

Scott Hand 18:26

A bunch of different directions to go with that. So the first advice would be to come up with what sets you apart from everything else. And if it's if it's the scale and size, if you want to be a good neighborhood brewery, find your neighborhood and make sure that you can be an asset to them. But if you want to be big in the store, figure out what's gonna make it different in the store. So, like there's two wildly different directions you could take with that. Um we pushed it to the store side. So distro and retail is our biggest revenue generator. So that's the thing that sets us apart. And I would say that making that differentiation is the key to going big in that direction. Um, having that special brand voice or a product that shines above everything else is way more important than trying to sell that you're local to a shop that's not. So, in order to be in Kroger stores in different states, they don't care that we're in Northside. That doesn't matter at all to them.

Reshma Vadlamudi 19:34

Yes.

Scott Hand 19:35

Even though I still draw the church building on a lot of our marketing materials, like that's intrinsic to who we are, but that's not the market differentiator to them. Yes. The fruit and the flavor and the product is the differentiator.

Reshma Vadlamudi 19:46

Yes, exactly.

Scott Hand 19:48

So the advice is figure out which direction first and then try to hone your skill set to to be good at one of those.

Reshma Vadlamudi 19:57

Let's say they have the neighborhood figured out. They say that I want to go the retail route. What's the next step that they have to take?

Scott Hand 20:04

Ooh, um I'll I'm gonna have to keep talking in like two different options, right? Um for the neighborhood piece, it would be figuring out how to how to be that home. Like you got to know your neighbors, you have to know your community, be the thing that people are gonna want to see in that neighborhood so that they have a reason just to show up and hang because a craft brewery is a bar, it's of home, it's a third place when those are disappearing in in regular neighborhoods. So being able to rely on that means you can't just be your own personality, you have to be part of that community, um, which is almost different than the other direction, right? Going big in retail and distribution is about partnerships and building all of those other relationships that aren't necessarily local. You need to know your distributors, you need to know your retail partners. Um, if you think you're gonna get into big chains like Kroger and Walmart, you need to know how all of that works. That's not a thing that happens overnight. That's something Scotty, my business partner, has spent years building. Um, and it's not something that it's like you can't just follow a lesson plan to get there. You have to go through a bunch of hoops and handshakes in order to get there. Um, and but the sooner you start that, the sooner you can you know land on something eventually.

What most founders underestimate about marketing

Reshma Vadlamudi 21:32

So, and then what do most people underestimate when getting into this industry?

How to build a brand from day one

Scott Hand 21:36

The uh I guess the the biggest thing I've seen people underestimate is how or overestimate perhaps is how much they think their own passion translates to marketing. Usually people get into brewing because they love it. It's fun and they love the the aspect of both doing it, the recipes, the drinking. Um that's really hard to sell because that's a personal experience that you do for yourself. You know, you can like making your own teas and coffees, and but it that's a hard thing to translate, you know. Yes, making it and packaging it and putting it on a shelf and then walking away means that you don't get to tell somebody how much effort you put into it if it's not written on that label. Yes. So that's the number one thing I think people forget is that the brand has to be able to speak on its own.

Reshma Vadlamudi 22:32

How can someone start working on the brand from day one?

Scott Hand 22:35

There's no wrong way to start on that. I think is a pretty I I I'm not an expert. I've done it for myself, but I'm not sure that I know enough to say that you're doing it wrong. Don't do it that way. Working on it at all is probably the most valuable thing. Just putting attention on it and not just hoping that it's a thing that will come together later. Yeah. The being able to just address it and know that it's a piece of your whole puzzle from the beginning. It's a quarter piece, I would actually argue, if you're you know, jigsaw puzzle analogy. It really is the thing that holds down what's going to happen in the future. So don't just leave it and hope that it'll fill in the middle.

Reshma Vadlamudi 23:19

Yes. We are talking about urban artifact now, but then that's not how we met.