Building a Mead Business Part 2
From Hobby to Business
For years, I kept getting asked the same question:
“When are you going to sell this stuff?”
And for years, my answer was pretty much the same.
“We're not a business.”
For about three years, I was told that making and selling mead from home wasn't going to be possible. I kept looking into it, asking questions, and trying to work out what would actually be required.
Then eventually, I found someone in Customs who was willing to say, “Yes, it can be done,” and, more importantly, was willing to help me understand how to do it properly.
That changed everything.
Kylie, my wife, had always been my biggest supporter. She'd watched the hobby grow, watched the equipment take over the house, and somehow remained supportive through all of it.
So, in January 2025, we took the plunge.
Neilson Meadery became an incorporated company and the mountain of paperwork began.
And I quickly discovered that making mead and running a mead business are two very different things.
Homebrew competitions are always so much fun!
Learning Everything… Again
I knew how to make mead.
Or at least, I thought I did.
Suddenly I had to learn about alcohol licensing, MPI requirements, food safety, laboratory testing, labelling, bottles, suppliers, shipping, websites, accounting, production planning and setting up an actual production space.
Basically, if it had anything to do with selling a bottle of mead, I had to learn about it.
And every single one of those things costs money.
The business has been funded entirely from my overtime. Every dollar going into Neilson Meadery has come from somewhere else—either from the family budget, or from time that could have been spent with the family.
Space became another problem.
At one point, the end of the kitchen was effectively my production area. What started with a few small batches had turned into equipment, ingredients, bottles and everything else that comes with trying to produce something commercially.
And then there was the simple reality that almost everything needed to be paid for before I could sell anything.
It was a bit daunting.
When Did It Become a Product?
Our first two commercial meads!
The funny thing is, I'm not sure there was ever one specific moment when I decided that my hobby was now a business.
It just kind of happened.
Over the years, the reputation slowly changed.
It went from:
“Viv makes pretty good mead.”
To:
“You've got to try Viv's mead.”
And eventually:
“When can I buy some?”
Friends, people from NAAMA and ETHA Homebrewers events, Facebook followers, and pretty much anyone who had tried my mead helped push me to keep improving.
Every bit of feedback, every suggestion and every person who came back for another taste helped turn something I enjoyed doing into something people actually wanted.
That was the point where it stopped feeling like just a thing I made.
It was becoming a product.
Starting With the Traditional
Filling the kitchen with mead! I appreciate Kylie’s sacrifice.
When it came time to decide what we were actually going to sell, the first choice was pretty easy.
It was the recipe I'd made the most, and it gave me a solid base to work from. If I couldn't get the traditional right, there wasn't much point trying to build a whole range of flavored meads around it.
So that became our starting point.
The more experimental flavors would come later.
Originally, I had planned for the range to sit under the Old Gods Mead name, with different meads representing different figures from Norse mythology.
But as we worked through the branding and the business, we simplified things.
Neilson Meadery just felt right.
It's our family name, it's personal, and it gives us plenty of room to grow.
The Old Gods idea isn't gone, either. Those products will still have their place down the track.
Then We Opened
Eventually, after all the paperwork, planning, testing, spending and second-guessing, we actually opened.
And then came the part that nobody can really prepare you for.
We'd spent the month leading up to launch advertising our hearts out, despite having absolutely no budget. I was personally posting wherever I could, sometimes getting told off for it, but hey, you have to get the word out somehow!
Slowly, the excitement started building. People were making promises, showing interest, and we were starting to get a little bit of hype going. Whether it was genuine excitement or just my own optimism, I was starting to believe we might actually pull this off.
Launch night finally arrived. We stayed up until midnight, watching the clock as it crept closer to July 1st, 2026. The moment it hit midnight, I pressed the button.
WE WERE LIVE!
Five minutes later, Kylie headed off to bed. I promised myself I'd stay up until the first order came through. Surely, after all that build-up, someone would order tonight?
Midnight came and went. Then 1 am rolled around. I was tired, and if I'm honest, starting to feel a little disheartened. Eventually, I gave in and went to bed. Oh well, tomorrow was another day.
At around 8 am, I woke up with a start and immediately grabbed my phone. No emails.
Oh no. Something must have gone wrong!
I checked the email system. Connected. Checked the website. Online. Tested the shopping cart for what must have been the hundredth time. Everything was working.
So why hadn't anyone ordered?
That's when the dread started creeping in. Had I just wasted all that money? All those late nights, all that overtime, all that time away from the family. What if nobody actually wanted to buy our mead?
Then, around 10 am...
DING!
An email!
AN ORDER!
And just like that, all those doubts started to disappear. The floodgates had opened. People were actually buying our mead!
After all the years of making it, talking about it, and dreaming about selling it, it was finally happening.
About a week after opening, Asgard came on board to support us, and suddenly this thing that had been living in my head for years was becoming very real.
Our poster now sits on the wall next to Ozzy, we are honored!
But here's the honest part:
I still don't really know what I'm doing.
We're only two months in.
We (mostly Kylie) are still learning how to balance the accounts. I'm still trying to get sediment completely under control. I'm still figuring out how much stock I need to have on hand when things sell faster than expected.
I'm constantly trying to work out where the line is between growing to meet demand and getting ahead of ourselves.
There are plenty of things I haven't figured out yet.
And I think that's probably okay.
Because this isn't a story about how I built a perfect business.
It's a story about building one as I go.
And so far, it's been one hell of a ride.
