Final Kegstand Update: January 2022

Hey Team,

This update has some very unfortunate news.

We have determined our FiberLite design is not viable and has decided to cease operations and dissolve the corporation. This was an incredibly difficult decision, but we're so grateful to have had your support throughout this journey.

To provide more detail, we brought on a new engineer a few months ago, Blake Wagner, who has been working on resizing FiberLite kegs for the Brazilian market as well as insuring they can be used safely, while still being 40% lighter. Unfortunately, he determined that the lightest weight that can be achieved without risking a sub-optimal burst pressure is 21.55 lbs. That is only 20% lighter than traditional kegs and 1/10th of a pound heavier than our competition in the lightweight keg space, the Schaefer EcoKeg. Also noteworthy is that the EcoKeg is 40% cheaper than FiberLites. With no competitive advantage to back up our premium price, the best option at this point is for us to move on from Kegstand.

The biggest and best thing we will take away from this experience is a network of truly incredible, inspiring, and kind individuals. With 100% honesty, we would never have made it this far without each and every one of you. Whether you; gave up your time and expertise, helped us connect with brewing industry folks, agreed to take a chance on our prototype kegs, watched our pitches, voted for us in the Esprit Venture Challenge, shared one of our posts, downloaded our content, or signed up for our brewing industry newsletter. You gave us energy, knowledge, and connections that excelled us far beyond where we ever imagined we could go.

For brewers: If you'd like to access any of our downloadable content or blogs in the future, we will keep them up and available on our site: Kegstand.us

We hope to stay in touch with all of you and find ways to give back to the incredible communities we're lucky enough to be a part of; the brewing industry, the Colorado startup community, and the community we're proud to have built.

Overall Achievements

Learned the process of creating an LLC and how to convert to a Delaware C-Corp
Learned and practiced corporate procedures
Filed a Provisional Patent and a PCT application
Built a newsletter audience with over 100 breweries
Competed in multiple pitch competitions - winning money at several of them
Raised $25k in non-dilutive funding
Built a strong company culture that cultivates company and individual growth within a small team
Built a community of brewers, advisors, industry experts, and supportive friends and family
Exercised our leadership skills with our amazing interns, Pax Armon and Amanda Waskin
Gained extensive knowledge (near an unhealthy amount) about pressure vessels with the help of our partners at Steelhead composites
Laid the groundwork for an international partnership with the largest keg leasing company in the 3rd largest beer market in the world, Brazil's 304 Importacao
Designed, tested, and iterated a highly effective and successful website
Executed a successful search engine marketing strategy, making us the #1 google result for the word "keg" and 3rd for the words "lightweight keg" (for a few months)

Cheers,
Ashton, Blake, Daniel, and Jimmie