Uncle Nearest CEO Fawn Weaver Debunks Notion That In Order To Not Fail As An Entrepreneur You Must Sell Your Company
Fawn Weaver does not believe selling your company is necessary to show you didn’t fail as an entrepreneur.
As AFROTECH™ previously told you, Weaver is the founder and CEO of Uncle Nearest, a whiskey brand honoring the spirit of “Nearest” Green, a formerly enslaved man credited for teaching Jack Daniel how to make whiskey. The company has achieved remarkable success. It has a 458-acre distillery with the world’s longest bar (518 feet) in Shelbyville, TN, and sells its whiskey in more than 30,000 stores, bars, hotels, and restaurants. Additionally, the company surpassed a valuation of $1 billion, but if you think for a second Weaver plans on selling, think again.
She has not warmed up to venture capitalists, private equity, or institutional lending. Instead, Weaver has relied on the support of individual investors. By 2023, she raised $225 million through this route, with individual investors not owning more than 2% to 3% of the company each (employees own less than 3%). Weaver maintains control of the business with a 40% stake. However, she does intend on buying out her investors in the future.
On the “Black Tech Green Money” podcast hosted by AFROTECH™ Brand Manager Will Lucas, Weaver addressed the importance of maintaining ownership of one’s company and demystifies the belief that selling it is required to prove a business is a success.
” I think that there is this thought process that if you don’t fail, then your goal is to sell. When I look at one of our investors — and she’s an incredible advisor to me as a woman — by the name of Helen Johnson-Leipold, you can find her on the Forbes list really high up. She is an S.C. Johnson heir. All of the S.C. Johnson heirs are good. Whether they work in the business or not, they are good. Why? Because S.C. Johnson decided he wasn’t going to sell,” Weaver explained on the podcast. “You can go through all of our greatest companies and in every single instance, how beautiful is it when we set up the next generation to not have to start from scratch. And so many that sell, a part of why they go back into business is they blow through that money so fast. So now they’re trying to start again instead of just keeping the original vision.”
She continued, “I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with selling. Don’t get me wrong. If you want to build to be acquired, that’s a beautiful thing and there’s nothing wrong with that. But if God has placed it on your heart to hold for the next generation and has told you, you are the steward in this generation, giving it up is not an option. So for me, giving it up isn’t an option.”
Full Episode
To watch the full episode of the “Black Tech Green Money” podcast, click here.
