HEINEKEN wanted to enter the specialty beer market through a digital platform and approached SparkOptimus for help. SparkOptimus convinced HEINEKEN to take a direct-to-consumer approach and set up Beerwulf as a separate venture. They helped assemble the team, build the technology platform, and launch Beerwulf.com within seven months. After launch, SparkOptimus helped optimize operations and scale the business through data-driven insights. The venture enabled HEINEKEN to rapidly launch and grow in the specialty beer market.

1. Ventures and scale-ups
WHAT THEY WANTED
HEINEKEN wanted to play into the consumer trends of discovering & enjoying
specialty beers and driving sales through a combination of traditional and digital
channels and approached SparkOptimus to support them.
WHAT THEY SAID
SparkOptimus has been an outstanding and hugely valuable partner for us. We could
never have pulled this off in such a short time without their support, ranging from
providing global digital best practices and objectively selecting the best partners to
building our complete team & processes from the ground up
Hans Böhm
MD Beerwulf (aka 'Leader of the pack')
WHAT WE DID
The first thing we did was convince HEINEKEN to take a pure digital direct-to-
consumer approach and set a much higher sales ambition to truly disrupt the market.
We helped to get executive level support by creating a bold vision around an e-
commerce platform that meets both consumer & (small) brewer needs. Finally, we
argued that HEINEKEN should appoint a senior managing director to lead this
venture early on in the process.
SparkOptimus led the venture from the first day and stayed until Beerwulf.com was
fully operational, while gradually transferring initiative-taking from SparkOptimus-
people to Beerwulf-people. SparkOptimus and the Beerwulf team together build the
new venture through our proprietary business building approach: (1) plan & prepare,
(2) build & launch, and (3) optimize & scale.
The key principle behind this approach is to rapidly work towards a ‘minimum viable
proposition’, which allows for testing the customer demand as soon as possible and
avoids large upfront investments. Once live, daily operations deliver insights to
optimize in a way that cannot be done beforehand as an academic exercise. In the
fast-growing & ever-changing digital environment, achieving scale & market
leadership quickly is key to success. Our approach ensures optimal speed & agility,
while preparing for scale from the start.
1. Plan & Prepare
Together we developed the proposition and made the business plan balancing
customer requirements & business economics. This included building the minimal
viable proposition in an iterative way for launch as well as developing a longer-term
vision to work towards. For example, we iterated the expected impact of offering
best-in-class delivery versus on-par delivery options on the bottom line.
The resulting proposition (assortment, pricing, user experience, service & advice,
payment & delivery) was translated into organization & technology blueprints
following a set of SparkOptimus principles for optimally scalable businesses. (e.g.,
‘build the organization as a multidisciplinary conversion optimization machine’ and
‘develop a modular best-of-breed technology landscape’). Based on our idea, the
venture was set up as a separate entity reporting directly to HEINEKEN’s Board
with a fitting ‘venture capital’-inspired governance to avoid being smothered by the
existing business.
As final part of the preparation phase, we created a week-by-week masterplan. Each
key team member owned one or more work streams to distribute responsibility and
generate ownership. The masterplan enabled the team to track overall progress and
look ahead, which allowed for a go-live in seven months.
2. Build & launch
SparkOptimus and the Beerwulf team together built & launched the entire venture
through three key activities: (i) assemble the team & strategic partners, (ii) build the
technology platform, and (iii) prepare for MVP soft-launch.
Assemble team & select partners: The venture team consisted of HEINEKEN
employees and externally recruited candidates. We set up the organization following
our best practices for a disruptive organization, building it customer-first with agile
processes and a focus on intrinsic talent. We temporarily filled operational gaps with
SparkOptimus staff, taking on roles such as digital marketing manager, product
owner, and BI, while we supported the hiring of key team members. As the team was
taking shape, SparkOptimus stayed on to transfer skills and to ensure the proper
processes, metrics, and dashboards were in place for data-driven decision making.
We created a high-paced working environment on an agile rhythm, with the
masterplan as the foundation. After each sprint the team reviewed progress,
discussed new insights, and adapted the plan.
SparkOptimus identified & selected external partners to build the technology &
marketing platforms. We agreed on the principle to insource core capabilities, but
decided to start with external partners to accelerate in the short term. Partner
selection was done in an agile way as well: no long RFP documents, but an approach
in which we ran pilots with potential partners to gain practical insights, learn how to
work together, and check the fit with the venture team.
Build technology platform: We defined a modular technology landscape using a
combination of best-of-breed & customized solutions, staying away from monolithic
ERP-type solutions as this was seen as risky & not flexible enough. We streamlined
the actual platform development through on-the-ground product ownership.
Prepare for MVP soft-launch: We built a marketing launch plan by identifying
relevant target groups for each phase and determining content, reward mechanisms,
and channels. We developed & implemented key processes to ensure a smooth
operation after go-live (e.g., how to onboard a new beer in 48 hours) and organized a
closed beta test to test the operation end to end.
3. Optimize & scale
After launch, SparkOptimus made sure the team focused on continuous
improvement & shifted gears from a ‘project’ to a ‘business-as-usual’ way of working.
We refined the proposition based on data-driven insights & prepared the
organization for scale-up. Also, we started active insourcing of capabilities (e.g. IT
development). We ensured constant availability & use of relevant data throughout
the team and implemented a commercial meeting rhythm - fully driven by KPI
dashboards - to drive data-driven discussions & decision making. When the
operation was ‘stable’, we launched the first mass media campaigns to reach a wider
audience.
WHAT WE ACHIEVED
SparkOptimus enabled HEINEKEN to go from idea to launch within nine months,
while building the organization and its capabilities. A crucial factor for success in
achieving this was our proposed setup of Beerwulf as separate entity with
appropriate corporate governance. While the Beerwulf team started out with only
the MD and key leads in place, we helped it scale to a fully operational team with
roles ranging from IT Manager to Assortment Hunter. Using our unique approach
and principles, we ensured an agile way of working from day one, enabling Beerwulf
to learn & achieve rapid growth quickly.
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