Catherine Clark: You started your distillery at just 19 years old, which takes guts – it’s not exactly an industry filled with women, and it’s highly competitive. Can you take our audience behind the scenes on why you chose this industry in particular, and why?
Manjit Minhas: Yeah, I’m born and raised in Calgary, Alberta, which is where I’m sitting today. I was raised in a typical middle-class Calgary upbringing, which meant my dad was in the energy sector – in the oil patch – and was an engineer. That’s what I thought my life was also going to become. I’m older than my brother by a year and a half, and I was good in math and science, so engineering is what I thought my career path would be. I had a passion for it, for sure, but it’s also a really good life here in Calgary to be an engineer.
While I was studying engineering, my dad had been laid off a couple years before from the oil sector, which takes busts and booms. In a bust cycle, he opened up liquor stores in Calgary because they’re privatized and have been for 31 years. So I kind of got my entrepreneurial upbringing from being in the stores with my parents – learning about sales, leases, and what products were not only popular today but so many things. Just being a fly on the wall, being there all the time, and my dad being really good at what he did but also willing to share the ups and downs of entrepreneurship.
That’s kind of where the business started. When I finished my first year of engineering, I came up with an idea of a private-label brand of spirits for my parents’ stores. My brother and I always had the dream of being a sales, marketing, and branding company – not manufacturers. I think that’s where some people now dream to have it all. They don’t start small. We started small, with one customer: my parents. Then we grew from there, got really good at what we did by understanding the niche we were filling in the marketplace, and then slowly but surely grew to be manufacturers – breweries, distilleries, wineries around the world – and then became vertically integrated in many other parts of the business. We were really looking at our balance sheet, our high-expense items, and asking: how do we have more control and stave away competitors and disruptors, which will come into the industry as we once did?
Where we started in the David-and-Goliath story, we were the David, and now we’ve kind of become the Goliath.
Jennifer Stewart: I imagine the beer and spirits industry is notoriously tough – especially for women – and now you control an empire, to your point about being the Goliath, with annual revenues exceeding $200 million. What strategies did you rely on throughout your career to make sure people took you seriously when you were young?
Manjit Minhas: Yeah, well, first of all, entrepreneurship is never the easy path – no matter what it is or when it is. You give up stability for possibility, right? And I think so many people don’t understand the sacrifices you have to make. But you say, “I’m going to do something for myself,” and what you end up doing is you eat what you hunt – meaning if you don’t solve the problems of the day, you don’t eat. You don’t make profit. It is the tough path, but that pressure is where the magic happens. That’s what it is for me.
No matter what industry people choose, they’re all competitive. There’s nothing without a player before you and someone who will come after you. For women in industries that don’t have many women – that are definitely male-dominated – I’d say it’s changing. I’d like to think many industries, including my own and even the energy sector, are changing. Change is slow – you move three steps forward, two steps back – but for those who can handle it, the reward is unmatched. There’s freedom, purpose, ownership of your time and energy, and ownership of how you’re going to change the world by solving that problem.
For us, there really were a lot of those, and continue to be. I think there’s lots of opportunity and challenge, and in this day and age it’s no different, with all the challenges hitting entrepreneurs and founders more than I’ve ever seen in 26 years.
Catherine Clark: You say you’re competitive, but I also think there’s a real element of bravery in how you approached building your business. Where did that bravery come from? Were you born this way, or did you model it after someone in your sphere?
Manjit Minhas: No, I’ve not always been that way. And I’d say in a lot of ways now, I still am not. For me, no just means “next opportunity.” I’m not someone who takes no very easily. I think that comes with confidence, but also with the idea that I have something to offer – and that I like to think, and keep telling myself, that I am smarter than those around me.
I think so much – especially for women (men have it too, but not as much) – is that we have that inner voice telling us we’re not smart enough, not educated enough, haven’t done enough courses, aren’t waking up early enough, aren’t pretty enough, aren’t skinny enough… I could go on and on. I say all those things to myself too. But I’ve had great people in my sphere over the last four decades – starting with my parents, then mentors, some family members, and friends I choose. Because I choose that. I’m always evaluating the people around me. I truly believe people inspire you or drain you. You’ve got to choose those people.
So I’m always picking people who push me to do things better and who help tell me I’m not the things that inner voice says. And sometimes that takes taking some risks. People think entrepreneurs take big risks – no, I take a lot of small risks that add up to big risks over time. I take a lot of calculated risks. I try to control as much as I can – that’s a personality trait – but it helps me be braver about what I can’t control and the unknown.
A lot of what I do – even today – is saying yes more than no. Yes, I still get butterflies all the time, but I’ve discovered that where I’m uncomfortable is where I grow and have the most fun. Or I come home with a crazy story about why I’m never doing that again. There’s beauty in both – growing and finding new opportunities, and also the “hell no, never again,” but at least I tried it and got that curiosity off my mind.
Women deal a lot with seeing what others are doing and having that FOMO – “What am I missing out on?” But sometimes when you say yes and give a couple of hours of your time and energy, you realize, okay, that’s not for me, or maybe I didn’t have the full picture.
Being brave comes from confidence – confidence that it’s okay if you fail, that you can move on. I’m a big believer in looking forward and moving forward. I don’t reflect too much on the past. That’s not me. I’ve never been one to have regrets. That’s really a personality trait I’ve hardened over time – I can’t go back and fix it.
Jennifer Stewart: You talk about your circle and surrounding yourself with people who believe in you – people who aren’t intimidated by your aspirations. I’m curious: has your circle gotten bigger or smaller as you’ve gained more success?
Manjit Minhas: Bigger. I would say bigger. A lot of people say it gets smaller. I think entrepreneurship is hard – it’s a lonely world as a CEO, even as an entrepreneur – but I’m blessed and lucky to be in business with my brother. We own everything 50/50. We are very close as siblings – there are only two of us – and so I have that person to yell at, shoulder to shoulder, and to cheer with. I have that innately in a sibling who is also a business partner, so I’m lucky that way. I totally know that.
But my network and my group of friends has become bigger – and it’s become bigger because I’ve let it become bigger. I’ve discovered there aren’t three people who have it all for me, that I learn from. There are some people who bring out different parts of me, some people I learn from, some people I’m in awe of, and some people who come and go. I think all of those mentors, allies, friends, and people I listen to more than I talk to are all in my sphere and have a different purpose. I cherish all of them.
I’m a person in the sandwich generation, meaning I have aging parents and in-laws in their 70s and 80s who have health issues. And, like I said, I have young kids too. So managing that – I’m discovering – is different, too. I feel like in all the life stages I’m in now, it has definitely made my circle wider rather than smaller.
Catherine Clark: Is it overwhelming to balance all of those things, given the size of your career?
Manjit Minhas: No, I think just like anything, I do it in moments in time. I have a great support team. Nobody does it on their own – absolutely not. If I thought about all the hats I wear… but I think most women would tell you the same. We all wear multiple hats, and if you think about it like that, yes, it would be overwhelming. But I never think of it that way. I think of it as every hat and responsibility I have comes with its own team, and I’m always willing and ready to ask for help.
One thing a mentor told me very early in my career was: you cannot do it all. You can do it all maybe in a lifetime, but not all at one time. You’ve got to ask for help. And I thought, doesn’t that make me a lesser CEO, mom, wife – all the things? And she said absolutely not. It makes you understand who has the talents and skills that you need, and that you’re not going to be good at all of those things – nor do you need to be. You just need to know who to tap and who to ask for help.
Jennifer Stewart: What’s the top personal and professional risk you’ve taken that you’re most proud of?
Manjit Minhas: Personally, Dragons’ Den. I was always behind the scenes, for sure. I was not the face of the company – my brother was, for a lot of reasons, mainly because I was uncomfortable with that.
Professionally, I’d probably say getting out of the office and out of the day-to-day when I was pregnant with my first daughter. That was amazing for me, because I thought, Oh my God, I don’t know how this is going to go. I had lots of people around me who told me great stories but also horror stories. I thought, Oh my God, what if I get this colicky baby and I don’t want to go back to work – really, who knows what happens? So I had those 10 months to build an executive team and get out of the day-to-day, and I haven’t looked back for 17 years now.
It afforded me time to sit on boards, volunteer, do more philanthropic work – all the things that were on my bucket list that I had no time to do. Professionally, it would be building that executive team and taking myself out of the equation – having presidents and just being a strategic owner-advisor. That was a big risk. As an entrepreneur, you’re used to doing everything and being in touch with every major decision. Letting go and not micromanaging – oh, that was nerve-wracking.
There were lots of times I’d think, I could have done better, and then I’d think, and it’s okay. I’m doing other things that are more high value. So I think that for any entrepreneur – but for me, for sure, because I’m such a control freak and micromanager – that was hard.
You discover there are smarter people than you who can do it better, who can have better processes and systems and technology. Sometimes we all need to step back a bit. It’s hard, though. It’s hard. Sometimes it still is hard.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
