Rob Heyns Email & Phone Number

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

Break Free Beverages, in partnership with Liquidity, develops new business in the Beverage industry, with a focus on Route-To-Market and Brand Development for Export, DTC (DirectTo Consumer) and Monthly Clubs. It is also the operational company for Avante Brandy.

South Africa

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

Creating Bespoke Solutions in the areas of New Product Development and Route-To-Market with a Consumer-Centric focus and strong Digital application.Successfully launched Real English - An e-commerce, DTC and subscriptions business for RED Distillery in the UK.Created custom drinks gifting ranges for Yuppiechef; Norman Goodfellows and German importer-distributor, Sudafrika Genuss.Developed a range of alcohol-free tequila cocktails for Australian importer-distributor, The Curious… Show more Creating Bespoke Solutions in the areas of New Product Development and Route-To-Market with a Consumer-Centric focus and strong Digital application.Successfully launched Real English - An e-commerce, DTC and subscriptions business for RED Distillery in the UK.Created custom drinks gifting ranges for Yuppiechef; Norman Goodfellows and German importer-distributor, Sudafrika Genuss.Developed a range of alcohol-free tequila cocktails for Australian importer-distributor, The Curious SpiritCreated and launched experience and gifting focused drinks site, www.thebeverageclub.co.zaWe launched an innovative gin brand in the middle of lockdown and it failed hopelessly.Learnings:Apply Lean Start-up always, don't just talk about it!Always solve people's problems as a default to innovation. Show less

Cape Town Area, South Africa

www.leagueofbeers.com is an online craft beer store and experience that works on growing the craft and artisanal beer industry.We launched at the genesis of the craft beer revolution in SA. Our original hypothesis: Get great beer to people who love it and people who don't yet know that they will love the beers.Many pivots and adaptations further, we launched 100's of craft beer brands into SA and delivered half a million mixed cases of craft beer to beer fans in SA.Of the… Show more www.leagueofbeers.com is an online craft beer store and experience that works on growing the craft and artisanal beer industry.We launched at the genesis of the craft beer revolution in SA. Our original hypothesis: Get great beer to people who love it and people who don't yet know that they will love the beers.Many pivots and adaptations further, we launched 100's of craft beer brands into SA and delivered half a million mixed cases of craft beer to beer fans in SA.Of the many items that we had to add to our strategy, the following are noteworthy: e-commerce marketing; PR; eventing; beer judging and appreciation; sourcing and procurement; negotiation; innovative profit models (multiple iterations); buying; gift product creation; subscriptions business; creative selling; JIT inventory; Lean Start-up and more. Show less

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

I work within Southern Skies across wine.co.za, cellardirect.co.za, wineshow.co.za, cybercellar.co.za, oorskotwyn.co.za, thebeverageclub.co.za, and vintelligence.co.za to help develop more and more customer-centric offerings.

Cape Town, Western Cape, South Africa

I work alongside the fast-moving, dynamic Sales team at The Delta to find the best-suited solutions and opportunities for our venture clients. I collaborate closely with founders and their teams to identify which of our end-to-end services would best catalyse their venture’s growth.

Cape Town Area, South Africa

Tiny Keg is Africa's first mobile canning solution and ecosystem.Tiny Keg is a mobile canning provider for small and medium-sized market breweries of craft beer, wine and other beverages based in Cape Town. We offer high quality, bespoke and affordable packaging services.Websitehttps://tinykeg.com/Learning's with Tiny Keg:Porter's 5 Forces is real and very applicable to strategy. This helped us to see our start-up as the start of an ecosystem of services. When we… Show more Tiny Keg is Africa's first mobile canning solution and ecosystem.Tiny Keg is a mobile canning provider for small and medium-sized market breweries of craft beer, wine and other beverages based in Cape Town. We offer high quality, bespoke and affordable packaging services.Websitehttps://tinykeg.com/Learning's with Tiny Keg:Porter's 5 Forces is real and very applicable to strategy. This helped us to see our start-up as the start of an ecosystem of services. When we launched mobile canning in South Africa, there was no industry so we looked to create demand through education which spoke to why canning is a great substitute to other packaging types. We then ensured the all elements of the supply chain for small and medium sized canning runs was in place, from can supply in a partnership with BevCan - Nampak to label and sleeve sourcing and then application. We are currently working on leveraging digital channels to further increase consumer demand.Craft beer is popular in SA, but we are a country of many, great wine-makers and the demand for SA wine in can has driven immense growth for our customers in various export markets. There is a big difference between a cool idea and building a physical packaging business! Show less

Cape Town Area, South Africa

What a journey! Some of the best and worst days of my career!We launched in 2017 through crowdfunding (see separate section) to large success by breaking the South African product, pre-sale crowdfunding record, and with an unknown brand!This lead to a Capital raising which included some conflicts between initial and later investors but ended with a significant raise in 2018, just as our crowdfunding funds were running out. We then created gin baubles for Makro at the end of 2018… Show more What a journey! Some of the best and worst days of my career!We launched in 2017 through crowdfunding (see separate section) to large success by breaking the South African product, pre-sale crowdfunding record, and with an unknown brand!This lead to a Capital raising which included some conflicts between initial and later investors but ended with a significant raise in 2018, just as our crowdfunding funds were running out. We then created gin baubles for Makro at the end of 2018 and sold 175 000 baubles through Makro to customers across SA! In 2019, we created gin eggs and later in the year, Advent Calendars for Pick 'n Pay, Crackers for Checkers and updated Baubles for Makro, this culminated in R25M in revenue and placed us in the top 3 SA craft gin brands for sales. In 2020 we faced lockdown and had survival strategies and some sales, in between liquor ban lockdowns we sold some sanitiser, but misread this market (had a brand hammer and saw brand nails, in a commodity market).But then it fell apart... Our partner and director had been engineering an aggressive hostile takeover which included claims against me as well as theft of stock and cash, which enabled a liquidation. This partner bought the brand in the liquidation auction but was then found in a legal hearing to be 100% guilty (with myself and other two directors as 100% innocent) and owing the business close to R8M in damages. It was a brutal time. The learning's, lessons and hard-knocks of this process include:Consultative (Jobs-To-Be-Done) selling is far more powerful than flogging product. Fast growth leads to many mistakes and big learning's.Always question the status quo. It is too expensive not to. Play to your unique strengths and value proposition and focus on that.Documentation and Governance are vital! Be careful who you trust - "love is blind" Show less

Cape Town Area, South Africa

Yuppiechef bought League of Beers from us in 2013, 12 months after launching.The deal was: Scale League of Beers and get to profitability (which we did) AND build up an alcohol category on Yuppiechef (which we did, our biggest successes were craft beer, craft gin and alcohol free).We were a forerunner in Alcohol Free and Craft Gin in online, launching brands such as The Duchess, Time Anchor Blue, Cruxland and even Sugarbird which all grew to national success. League of Beers… Show more Yuppiechef bought League of Beers from us in 2013, 12 months after launching.The deal was: Scale League of Beers and get to profitability (which we did) AND build up an alcohol category on Yuppiechef (which we did, our biggest successes were craft beer, craft gin and alcohol free).We were a forerunner in Alcohol Free and Craft Gin in online, launching brands such as The Duchess, Time Anchor Blue, Cruxland and even Sugarbird which all grew to national success. League of Beers launched and built many craft beer brands and played a seminal role in growing and leading the craft beer industry in SA. We delivered close to a million cases of beer to beer fans across SA. In our aim to achieve profitability, we experimented with numerous business model innovations and in the process found new ways of deliver industry wide value in the alcohol sector.We also developed the #TastingLeague, which became one of the first community driven social media initiatives as a way to spread the word for the brands we were working with, increase engagement dramatically on social media and with zero marketing spend.Our learning's: Demand and Trend analysisInnovative digital and social media marketing approachesValue driven negotiationsBusiness model innovation (multiple times over)Tight inventory planning for cash flow maximisation https://www.yuppiechef.com/ Show less

South Africa

Broke the South African Crowdfunding Record: R1.06M in pre-sales.We launched a brand new gin brand through a crowdfunding campaign with the objectives of: - Raise capital in product pre-sales - Test and validate demand for a new fynbos gin brand - Build an initial following of supporters We ran multiple marketing, sales and PR initiatives over a 7 week live campaign (full time span includes pre-strategy, product production and delivery).We had multiple products… Show more Broke the South African Crowdfunding Record: R1.06M in pre-sales.We launched a brand new gin brand through a crowdfunding campaign with the objectives of: - Raise capital in product pre-sales - Test and validate demand for a new fynbos gin brand - Build an initial following of supporters We ran multiple marketing, sales and PR initiatives over a 7 week live campaign (full time span includes pre-strategy, product production and delivery).We had multiple products variations, target markets, channels and marketing tools, and even audience narratives. We tested and refined on a weekly basis so as to maximise uptake and growth every week, with an overarching goal of demystifying and building trust. I wrote articles that I have included below to describe our pre-thinking and demystification as well as the post-match overview of the successful campaign. Show less

Cape Town Area, South Africa

Managed the Brand and grew it extensively in the Western, Eastern and Southern Cape as well as in Natal.

Pgdem, Entrepreneurship/Entrepreneurial Studies, A

Activities and Societies: Genesis Start-up Project Full time study of the strategies of entrepreneurships coupled with practical running.

Honours Bcomm, Logistics, Marketing, Hr

Activities and Societies: Maties Rugby, Residence Leadership and Organisational Activities General business courses with majors.

Matric, Maths, Science Etc., B

Activities and Societies: Sport: Basketball Captain Rugby 2nd team Drumming Tai Chi Waterpolo