“I do have a demographic. Everyone.” How Fawn Weaver built a spirits giant when everyone told her she couldn't

Are you a This is Working regular or maybe this is your first time? I'd love it if you'd take this survey and let me know what you think of the show. As TiW guest Joaquin Duato said earlier this year: "Being able to provide feedback and to receive feedback is foundational for your success." And now, on to the world's most unlikely whiskey giant...

Fawn Weaver had a dream: To make the world know the name of the first known African-American master distiller. Nathan “Nearest” Green was one of those too-many stories that gets forgotten, or buried, or ignored —? even though (or perhaps, because) one of Green's students was a different kind of name: Jack Daniel, a name so well known even tee-totallers can ID it..

Fawn, an entrepreneur and author, started researching Green for a book, but ended up going way deeper. Commuting from LA to Lynchburg, Va., she got to know Green's and Daniel’s?extended family, and eventually bought the 300-acre farm where Jack Daniel’s whiskey was first made. But when you are a serial entrepreneur, you're always thinking about the opportunity.

A lightbulb went off: Telling Green’s story would bring a deserved spotlight.

Creating a whiskey in his name — in his honor — would bring his legacy to life.

The problem? Weaver had no background in the competitive spirits industry, a notoriously male-dominated space. No problem for someone who's already crashed through many pain barriers with her own version of a superpower: leveraging habitual underestimation into a strategic advantage.

Fast forward eight years. Weaver’s Uncle Nearest, Inc. is the fastest growing American whiskey brand, with a $1.1 billion dollar valuation, and a ridiculous number of awards to its name. Was it easy? Of course not. In her recent book, Love & Whiskey, Weaver describes how relentless determination was required to break barriers. As she told me: "This was actually crazy," Weaver said. “I'm coming into the bourbon industry in which at that time, any statistic would tell you that the consumer of bourbon was almost entirely white men. So I am coming in with a story that is unapologetically African American, that is Southern to its core.

"It's a beautiful American story, but there were people when I came into the industry that thought, ‘It's an African American story and African Americans don't drink bourbon’," Weaver said. "And what they didn't understand and what they weren't able to wrap their mind around is I realized the only reason the only people drinking bourbon were white men is they were the only ones being marketed to."

The only reason the only people drinking bourbon were white men is they were the only ones being marketed to.

Cracking this new market wasn’t simple. The spirits business is heavily regulated, limiting direct-to-consumer options, and shelf space is dominated by giants. You need to get distributors to believe in you and retailers to give you a shot.

So Weaver got … creative.

"So if someone would say to me, 'What's your demographic,' I would look at them, whether it was a distributor or a retailer or whoever, and I would look at them and try to guess who they thought my demographic should be. And then I would just parrot it to them,” she told me.

"I mean, literally that's what I did for probably two and a half years before I finally shared that what we were doing was targeting every single one of those groups. I had parroted to all of these people because general marketing tells you, do not market to everyone. You must have a demographic. It's too expensive to not market just to a demographic.?

"And I said, 'I do have a demographic. Everyone.'"

There is always more to the story, and in this episode of This is Working, Weaver teases out her playbook. Short version: By staying focused on her long-term vision and not worrying about immediate recognition, she gave Uncle Nearest the time and space to grow into what it is today.?

That’s a powerful lesson for any leader: Sometimes the best move is to build quietly and steadily until people can’t ignore your success.

Watch the interview here.

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On LinkedIn’s video series, This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving difficult problems. See more from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole, INSEAD dean Francisco Veloso, Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresvant, Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, AI leader Fei-Fei Li, former US President Barack Obama, filmmaker Spike Lee, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, cosmetics legend Bobbi Brown, F1’sToto Wolff, and many more.