Grow A Small Business Podcast · Troy Trewin

From Filmmaker to 4,000+ Members: Bobby DeMars of Blind Barrels shares how he built a double-blind whiskey membership, scaled fast, beat industry hurdles, and created a community-driven craft spirits brand. (Episode 754 - Bobby DeMars)

·1 hr 2 min·3 clips

Blind Barrels grew from 200 members to over 4,000 and says it has doubled every year and grown 22% per quarter.

March 2022 starts the business timeline. The guest traces the idea to filmmaking work drying up during COVID, then a friend pulling him into a blind whiskey tasting. The early demand was easy to see. By the end of the first year, the membership had 200 members. It has since passed 4,000 and has been rising 22% per quarter. The host keeps the conversation close to the numbers: growth, team size, pain points, and the practical calls behind a small business getting bigger. The team changed too. What started with two people is now around 10 full time equivalents, which gives the story a real operating shape instead of just founder mythology. The filmmaking backstory earns its place. The guest talks about a film tied to the NCAA and college athlete name, image, and likeness rights, and describes it as part of the Supreme Court story around NIL. The funding section gets practical quickly. He explains a roughly 400,000 dollar crowd raise through Wefunder, with accredited and non-accredited investor paths. The mechanics were not simple. He separates equity crowdfunding from reward-based pre-sales and explains a SAFE note as debt that can convert into equity. The industry pressure is sitting right there: tariffs, a strained whiskey market, and younger people drinking less. His answer is steady. He sees Blind Barrels as an experience company first, not only a whiskey company. Restaurants become a useful test channel, with blind flights attracting younger people and hinting at room beyond traditional whiskey buyers. The stress talk is unusually useful. Meditation is less about emptying the mind and more about noticing panic before it takes over. The ending stays loose: a joke about whether the prepared growth summary came from ChatGPT, then thanks and the usual review request.

As heard by us

A grounded membership growth story with real numbers and a clear look at the pressure behind them.

Bobby DeMars frames Blind Barrels as a steady recovery story: a COVID-era setback in filmmaking gave way to a blind whiskey tasting, then a membership business that launched in March 2022, hit 200 members by the end of that year, and is now over 4,000.

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Why you'd press play

You want a founder story that starts with filmmaking, turns into blind whiskey tastings, and scales fast.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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