2024 - The year I paid off my Business Debt

I started I Heart Beer in 2017 with a decent business plan in place but with zero industry experience. I lost upwards of $25,000.00 on my first event which was disappointing but not our of the ordinary for running a first time event. Larger events like music festivals take upwards of 5 years before they start seeing a profit so losing $25k wasn't the end of the world for me.

The following event in Guelph I made $10k and that's when I knew I was on to something. I was never going to get rich doing beer festivals but I could see myself providing a really good middle class lifestyle for my family if I was able to scale the business to 8+ events per year.

As I was running the festivals, I was also working a full time job so that way I wasn't reliant on the events to feed my family. It was a lot of work and sacrifice for both me and Katie but we both saw an opportunity to have my own business and spend way more time with the family.

For the first 3 years, I put all the profits back into the business in order to grow it as quickly as possible. My goal was to expand to a point where I was making 1.5x what I was making at my current job. My main motivation to leaving my work was a 2+ hour commute that was getting worse by the year, continental shift and not being able to spend a ton of time with my family including my mom because of my work schedule.

In 2020, I was ready to make the leap to full time at the end of the year.. I had 7 festivals lined up and I had expanded to a point were I was going to make 1.65x my salary. The first 2 events went flawlessly and then COVID hit. By the time COVID was over, I was $100,000.00 in debt and didn't know how quick festivals would bounce back.

In 2022, I decided to do a charity event to raise money for children in need in the KW region. The goal was to raise $10,000.00 and if things went well I would run the event the following year and aim to double the donation. The event was great but I just couldn't get the attendance needed to sustain such an expensive event and that 1 outdoor event ended up costing me $50,000.00 plus the $10,000.00 donation. At that point I was now $160,000.00 in debt.

In 2023, things started to open back up and I told myself it's now or never and I expanded the event to 10 different cities. Overall the year was a success but I had put all my profits into paying off the debt. I was still roughly $70k in debt at the end of 2023.

Fast forward to now and I've been able to pay off the remaining debt which is such a great feeling. Our mortgage will be paid off in the summer of 2026 and then we will have zero personal or business debt.