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Understanding Early Adopters - The BIRA 91 Story - YouTube
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for a while now i've been looking for an
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interesting story to explain the concept
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of early adopters
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so as part of that process i asked
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myself what i was an early adopter for
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and what my behavior was as an early
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adopter
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so the first thing i looked at was the
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technology space
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and i was an early adopter for
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smartphones and apps
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back in the day uh in the early days of
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the smartphone
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uh but i no longer am you know i mean i
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i use uh i use a three-year-old phone
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uh which is probably a five-year-old
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model so definitely not a early adopter
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for uh phone smartphones anymore and
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then i asked myself you know what am i
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an early adopter for and you know i came
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up with two things
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the first was music i love listening to
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music and i try keep trying new music
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and back in around 2012 i had actually
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set up a dlna-based flac
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uh streaming network at home so that i
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could listen to music anywhere in the
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house
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at you know high fidelity and when apple
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started streaming lossless music in
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india last year i was probably one of
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the first to turn it on
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but the whole space of
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music streaming with all the bit rates
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and lossless audio and all of that is
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very geeky and not really relatable to a
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lot of people
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then i looked at the second industry for
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which i'm an early adopter alcohol
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uh i have been experimenting with
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alcohol and beers in particular for
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quite some time now
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so
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i figured that would be a very
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interesting space
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uh
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to you know to look for stories about
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early adopters in today's story we will
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look at you know how i discovered beera
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and you know how beera grew its market
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share and you know the role the early
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adopters played in how that happened
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before i get into the story let me give
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a little bit of background about the the
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main protagonist which is not me
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which is beera91 and also a bit of
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context about the market at the time
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beerus 91 is a is a venture capital
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backed beer manufacturer they had
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headquartered out of new delhi and they
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launched their first two beers in india
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in early 2015.
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the two beers they launched at the time
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were beera white and beera blonde
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and
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they launched it in new delhi in early
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2015.
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and in late 2015 around the november
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time frame they launched these two beers
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in bangalore as well
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beera 91 is currently one of the fastest
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growing beers in the world and they have
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about seven or eight
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flavors of beer today
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the beer market in india is dominated by
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kingfisher
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and
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there are local brands such as
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golden eagle in tamil nadu
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high voltage in the andamans and the
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king's beer in goa
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these are available locally and very
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popular with the local crowd but at a
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national level
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if you go into a new place the beer you
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would ask for is kingfisher
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imported beers such as whole garden
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corona
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are also available
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but they are available probably only in
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the tier one cities and they're priced
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at about four times the price of
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kingfisher
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with that context set let's get on with
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the story so this happened in november
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or december of 2015
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i used to work for a company called
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sabre at the time
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and i used to have calls till late in
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the evening monday to thursday
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but on friday evenings i would not take
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any calls and i would sort of wind up
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work early and on my way back from
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office i would stop at the neighborhood
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liquor store
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and pick up four four bottles of whole
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garden and then my wife and i would have
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that over friday night dinner to kind of
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wind down for the weekend
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so one day when i was at the store
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i went to pick up my whole gardens and
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then i noticed that this new beer which
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was kept right next to her garden it was
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an interesting looking bottle had a
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picture of a monkey on it um so it
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peaked my curiosity i picked it up and
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uh you know this is something i always
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do pick up a bottle and you know read
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the story on the label
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so this beer
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which is called beer
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beer white
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uh was apparently an indian beer being
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manufactured in belgium
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and it was a wheat beer
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um so i figured you know this sounds
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interesting i should probably try this
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and then i asked the shopkeeper you know
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uh
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do you you know
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any any uh inputs on this beer he just
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said it's a it's a new beer very helpful
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right
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uh and then i looked at the price uh it
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was half the price of whole garden
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uh so what i did was i picked up three
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bottles of whole garden one bottle of
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beera went home tried it loved it next
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week i picked up four bottles of beera
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no who gardens right and the week after
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i went back and i picked up a whole
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crate of beera and we threw a party that
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weekend and uh you know the beer that
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was served uh was beera and over the
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next couple of weeks we had a couple of
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more parties and the beer being served
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was always beera from then on
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right and uh people uh the guests my
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friends my family you know the guests
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they loved it and they also started
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trying out beera on their own
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and uh once beerus started gaining
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popularity and market share you know
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they started their manufacturing
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operations in india uh which helped them
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bring the price down so that it was you
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know it could compete more with
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kingfisher on price on on in terms of
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price
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me though
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while i was buying beera as my staple
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beer i kept trying other brands that
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kept popping up like simba
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white towel
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uh there was the eight finger ready
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people's lagger um
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and a white rhino hopper and whatnot i
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just kept trying different beers to see
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you know if there was anything new that
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was coming out which is really
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interesting and sometime in 2019 i
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noticed that the flavor profile of beera
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changed slightly maybe it was just me
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but i felt it changed slightly and i did
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not like it anymore and i stopped buying
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beera completely
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and in 2020
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i discovered a new beer
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geist beer you know
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and they had a brewery right next to my
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house
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and they start you know and they started
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selling growlers you know two liter
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growlers that you could take home and
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drink so
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so i completely stopped beera and
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shifted to uh shifted to uh guys beer
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and in january of
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2021 which is last year i stopped
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drinking beer completely and now i drink
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only fresh lime soda
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but i still go to the liquor store every
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now and then to pick up
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new brands of beer or new brands of
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alcohol to get my friends and family to
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try them out
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now let's look at what are some of the
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key learnings about early adopters from
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my own behavior here
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the first one is that
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just because i am
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not an early adopter for tech for
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technology did not mean that i was not
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an early adopter for something else
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which is beer in this case
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and it probably also means that i could
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be an early adopter for
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other things which are similar to beer
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so for example i when i go to a new
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restaurant i would always order the most
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exotic sounding item on the menu just to
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you know just to try it out right now
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what's what's to lose right
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so early adopters you know tend to show
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similar behavior in adjacent industries
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or adjacent spaces
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the second thing is that early adopters
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love to take risks they don't mind
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making few few mistakes but they don't
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want to miss out on the next big thing
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just like you know
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while i was buying uh whole gardens at
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the time i didn't mind picking up a
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bottle of beera just to try it out and
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if i liked it great if i didn't i didn't
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lose much just one one beer that night
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right so not a big deal
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the third is early adopters love to show
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off their new finds just like you know i
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threw all those parties where the beer
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being served was uh
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beera you know they love to show off the
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new finds and gives them a kick you know
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they they want to be considered cool in
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that space so it that is something you
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know so you can rely on your early
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adopters
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for word of mouth
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the fourth thing is that
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you know early adopters need not stay
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loyal with you
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just like they tried
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you and you know loved you does not mean
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that they will stay with you forever
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just like i tried you know even though i
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was buying beera regularly i kept trying
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other uh other brands on the side and at
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the drop of a hat or you know or a
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perceived change in flavor i completely
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shifted from beera and went on to the
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next cool thing which was geist
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right so
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so don't expect your
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early adopters to be with you forever
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what you need to do is you know move on
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from early adopters to the early
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majority and the late majority because
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they're more likely to be loyal and stay
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with you early adopters keep
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moving on to the next big thing
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now let's look at what are some of the
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things that beera did really well from
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an execution perspective i think the
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first is that they nailed their early
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adopters really well
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they figured that you know they wanted
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to target people who had moved on from
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kingfisher already they didn't like
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kingfisher but had moved on from
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kingfisher and those people were likely
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drinking imported beer
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and these people did not mind paying a
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premium you know they were paying four
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times the price of a
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so that's the people they were targeting
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and that's why they placed their beers
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in liquor stores right next to the
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imported ones uh especially with beera
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white which is a wheat beer they were
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targeting uh wheat beer lovers
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and that's why they kept it right next
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to whole garden and it got picked up
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right
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the second thing they did really well
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was ensuring the quality of the product
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uh the beer at the time was top notch
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and
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the early adopters like myself were
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really happy with it that we continued
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to buy it and spread the word
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uh so they ensured that the quality of
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product was top notch
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and the third thing that they did really
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well was that once demand picked up they
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moved their operations or they moved
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their manufacturing operations from
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belgium to india so when they started
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operations they'd set up a factory they
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probably outsourced a factory in belgium
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and then they were importing beer into
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india this resulted in a higher cost due
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to primarily transportation and taxation
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but once they validated demand that this
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beer would sell in india
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they set up a manufacturing implant in
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india which helped them reduce cost
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drastically and compete with kingfisher
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and today
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beera is probably the brand that can
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take on kingfisher in the medium term in
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india
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regardless of whether you're working on
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a new product or working on a new
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feature on an existing product to take
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it to a new market
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it is really critical to
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nail your early adopters and target them
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really well
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and if you want to bounce off ideas give
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me a shout and let's chat over a fresh
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lime soda
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and if you have an interesting story
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about early adopters let me know i would
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love to chat with you and find out and
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possibly even interview in one of the
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upcoming videos
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if you found this video insightful do
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give it a like
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thank you for watching
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you
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