We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Graham Wasilition. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Graham below.

Graham, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share a story with us from back when you were an intern or apprentice? Maybe it’s a story that illustrates an important lesson you learned or maybe it’s a just a story that makes you laugh (or cry)? Looking back at internships and apprenticeships can be interesting, because there is so much variety in people’s experiences – and often those experiences inform our own leadership style.

It wasn’t actually an internship but it was an entry level engineering position I took right after undergrad college working for a very large and reputable tech manufacturer. There was about a week of “orientation,” onboarding new college grads (like me). On the second day, the president came to address the, roughly 40, new hires I started with, as part of his welcome address he mentioned that he had “an open door policy” and we should come see him anytime.

I decided to take him up on it and I came to the office early the next day and went to his office. I walked right up and told his secretary that I was there to see the president.

She gave me a “who do you think you are?” look but called him with the news that a 22 year old new hire was there without a meeting to see him.

He welcomed me into his office and we had a 30 minute chat about my interests, the business, and the opportunities. Right before I left he said that no new hire had ever actually taken him up on his open door policy, especially the 3rd day of work, and he was impressed that I had.

I didn’t realize it at the time but that decision put me on the fast track to work with the executive team and gave me opportunities that my peers did not have.

I share this story to highlight that curiosity and courage to connect with leaders in and around your business can open doors you didn’t know were even accessible.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers?

I originally got into liquor because I chose it out of the clear blue. After 3 years working a corporate engineering job, I decided I wanted a career where I could travel well, eat well, and drink well and I assumed the liquor industry offered those opportunities so I started a liquor brand. It is that straightforward. Ultimately, it wasn’t easy and after a few years, I decided the liquor business wasn’t for me, especially as I got older, got married, and started a family.

Fast forward to my current project, Tenneyson.

My good friend, and now co-founder, Michael and I were chatting about how we are laser focused on building businesses but how alcohol gets in the way sometimes. We still liked having social, or wind-down, moments with a worthy tasting sippable beverage but wanted to retain the drive and momentum that we needed to get projects off the ground.
It was an “aha” moment for us and it seemed like a lot of others too. Especially as lock downs highlighted peoples relationship with alcohol.

We decided to combine my premium spirit entrepreneurial experience with Michael’s plant-based wellness entrepreneurial experience and create a bold, complex, flavorful and sophisticated plant-based drink that we would be proud to sip.

When we began to look into the category there seemed to be a lot of similar options that walked, talked, and looked the same but nothing that struck a chord with us as consumers. We wanted something different. We wanted to take a more diverse and edgy approach. We saw that most alcohol alternatives chose one of two paths: Mock or mimic a traditional category like whiskey, gin, tequila, rum, etc OR they proclaimed to replace the effect of alcohol with buzzword heavy descriptions of their “functionality.”

We weren’t interested in either. We wanted to take an original approach to the flavor and deliver something bold, complex, flavorful, and sophisticated without over-promising and under-delivering like we felt a lot of the products, I previously described, did.

We aren’t trying to replicate a product that exists. We are delivering a new experience that is flavor driven and non-alcoholic but forces you to slow down and sip. We also wanted Tenneyson to feel “worthy” by delivering in some of the edgy, aspirational ways that premium adult beverages tend to do through the package, the cocktails, the voice, the advertising content, etc.

Can you talk to us about how you funded your business?

This is always something young entrepreneurs are interested in and realistically there isn’t only one right answer. The thing that I found most helpful as an early stage founder was to always ask for advice first rather than money. People seem to be much more responsive to requests for advice which gets your foot in the door rather than asking for money out of the gate. Probably heard it before but: if you ask for money you generally get advice, ask for advice and it leads to money. Think it is a good general approach.

Can you talk to us about manufacturing? How’d you figure it all out? We’d love to hear the story.

Finding trustworthy and capable co-manufacturers is always a challenge. Mentors and other founders can be a great resource to help connect the dots as well as be a reference for you and your startup business. Manufacturers have a lot of capital tied up in their production facilities and they want to utilize that equipment as much as possible so it makes sense that they are interested in producing for larger, stable brands that can consistently forecast production runs and that have the resources to pay. A lot of times that is not a start-up.

Unfortunately, startups usually want to run very small production runs and are generally scraping capital together to pay for these small runs. Therefore, it pays to have a warm introduction from a mentor, or seasoned entrepreneur, who can vouch for you personally as someone they believe could build a business that will eventually deliver large, consistent runs.

Finding the best, or any, manufacturing partner that will work with you is sort of like raising money. You need to have a lot of conversations and tell a consistent story about how you will grow your brand, and therefore your business, with the manufacturer over time.

Eventually you will find someone who has the capability and is willing to work with you to get some smaller runs knocked out in hopes of larger more consistent runs in the future.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://tenneyson.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tenneyson/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Tenneyson
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/graham-wasilition-570b45a/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/Tenneyson

Image Credits
Kathy Morales, Risa Dexter, Graham Wasilition, Michael Bumgarner