Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Haidar Hachem. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Haidar thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

It was honestly a lot easier than I thought it would be. While I still have struggles/moments of anxiety on what to do next/money/etc. I have to say that I’ve been blessed surrounded by the people that I have in my life and in this amazing service industry community.

So basically it all started as an idea. Me talking to my wife about wanting to open a brewery and then actually registering our business name on Sunbiz. That is really the first biggest step in getting the ball rolling. Then we sat down and discussed our business plan; we didn’t want to open a brewery straight away because we first wanted to get our name out there and second wanted to make some money.

That being said, I went to the person I knew that had been contract brewing for a while (Luis Suarez of Old Deck Brewing) and asked him to give me the complete rundown of what I needed to do. Then after that, I had to approach several breweries before I found one that would let me contract brew out of there. Thankfully the first people who gave me a chance were Unbranded Brewing Co and I am currently brewing bigger batches and canning at Prision Pals Brewing.

Now after registering our company in 2020 and after having brewed 5 contract batches in 2021, Mari and I are on the hunt to open a taproom!

Haidar , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Haidar Hachem and I honestly am only in the industry because of my wife and a man named John Falco.

When I started dating Mari back in 2017, she was already deep into blogging/content creating for local Miami restaurants. I would get bored when I would have to sit there and wait to eat, so I started my own blog/instagram page, specifically for beer. I got into interviewing brewers/taking brewery tours whenever I could and soon enough Mari and I would plan trips specifically to hit all the breweries we could in different states. I proposed to Mari in 2018 & we got married on the mezzanine in Lincoln’s Beard by John Falco (my boss) as our officiate in 2019. And during all this time I was working in the field that I got a degree from FIU in which was Civil Engineering with a discipline in Strucutural Engineering.

So a month or two after Mari and I got married, John approached me and asked whether or not I would like to brew for him at Strange Beast Brewpub. I said “FUCK YES!!!”. So a while after that I was working two jobs; I would finish my day at the office and then I would rush over to Strange Beast so I could work my shift. Before we even started brewing there I worked as a server front of house and even in the back of house on the line making pizzas. Then we started brewing and all was history. I stopped working both jobs officially Sep. 1, 2019 when Mari and I left for honeymoon. After that I was only a professional brewer.

Now we’re at the stage that we’re making our own company. Mari and I are 50/50 owners of Shōjō Beer Co. This concept started back in 2020 when the first covid shutdown happened and I had to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, did I want to go back to civil engineering? Or did I want to push forward into this industry that I fell in love with. Shōjō started because my good friends Lissette & Michael Hernandez started their food concept “Hungry Yokai” and I loved everything about it, so Mari and I searched and searched and we came upon a yokai that we know and love (he’s basically me) and we decided that’s what we were going to call our brewery. Here we are, 5 contract brews later and we’re already looking for a place. Life comes at you real fast, but we’re excited to see what the future holds for Shōjō!

We’d love to hear about you met your business partner.

Out the gate, my co-founder/partner is my best friend and my partner in life Marilyn Orozco.

We are 50/50 owners of Shōjō Beer Co and while I brew, she literally does everything else.

So this is actually a really funny story.

Back in 2017, I was heavy into running. I’m an ultra runner, so anything on the trails, in the mountains, or anything 30+ miles was my happy place.

I am also a running coach as well, so that’s a little fun fact for you.

I was coaching one of my good friends Jade for a half marathon. She wanted to have a better PR for the half marathon distance so I told her I would help her out. I honestly hate road races, they are the most boring thing to me, but I told her I would pace her that race to make sure she kept on track to reach her goal.

That day back in 2017 was the only cold day in Miami. It was overcast, windy as all hell and raining intermittently. So me, I was fine, I didn’t care at all, but most other people were miserable trying to finish the race.

At mile 12 I remember hyping everyone up “COME ON GUYS! WE GOT THIS! WE’RE ALMOST THERE! YOU SIGNED UP FOR THIS, I DON’T KNOW WHY YOU’RE MAD! COME ON! THERE’S BEER AT THE END!!!” Is typically what I was screaming to everyone. Jade said something to me annoyed and I busted out laughing.

This is where I “met” Mari. From her side of the story, this was her first half marathon ever and with the terrible weather conditions, she was one of those miserable people at mile 12. She decided that she was fine walking the last mile because she stayed the course and was almost done with her longest race to date. Then she heard my laugh, did a quadruple take, and saw me running with my piggy Laplander hat & a speedo; yes, that’s all I was wearing. So according to her, I helped/motivated her to finish the race because the “naked man” couldn’t have ran that whole race and been in such a good mood by himself. So Mari actually finished her first half 5 seconds before Jade and I did (Jade PR’ed by the way even though she ran a full marathon two weeks earlier) and I was in all of Mari’s official finish line photos.

As Mari found out down the line, if I’m in the vicinity of a camera, I’m gonna photobomb it. So when she was taking a picture with her medal, I jumped in the background. I didn’t post anything about the race that day, but when she saw her camera and the naked guy behind her, she tried to find me to thank me. She found a photo that Jade tagged me in, Mari tagged me her MCM for helping her finish the race and then I proceeded to slide into her DM’s & the rest is history.

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

This is a fun one; I’m actually in the process now of getting funding.

It all breaks down what you want to do; do you want to have loans? Or do you want to have an investor. How much say can the investor have? Angel investor? Silent Partner? Partner on the board to make full on decisions?

These are questions you have to ask yourself or your partner(s).

We’re currently in the process of getting loans from banks as well. What I just learned recently is that especially now banks won’t give loans to startups. You’ve had to have been in business at least two years and have tax returns/yearly earnings to provide before your meeting with the bank.

I’ll keep you posted on how it goes.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://Shojo.beer
• Instagram: @shojobeerco / @thirsty_samurai_piggy
• Facebook: @thirstysamuraipiggy
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samuraipiggy/
• Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/samurai_piggy
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCjtYk5AtUqE3O5riI_QFdVQ