Twelve years,
measured in milestones.

Three of us, two desks, one fax machine. The lease cost more than the first month's revenue. The contract that paid the rent was signed on a napkin at Rum Doodle — two cases of pilsner, one case of cider, delivered the same night in a hired tuk-tuk because the truck wasn't here yet.

What we figured out that month, by accident: the bars didn't want a catalogue. They wanted someone to pick up the phone at 6pm when a shipment was late. Twelve years later, that's still the entire job.

"If you can move it cold from Esbjerg to Kathmandu without losing the head on the pour, the rest is just paperwork." — Rajan K., founder

We imported it from Mumbai. The papers took eleven weeks. The truck took four days to drive up from Birgunj, and broke down twice on the way — once near Mugling, once at Naubise. We slept in it the first night it sat outside the warehouse, just to make sure no one stole the compressor.

What changed was the pledge: from then on, every bottle on a SalesHub invoice came with a temperature log. If a leg of the journey went warm, the bottle didn't ship.

Carlsberg Group signed us as authorised distributor for the four largest markets in Nepal. The pitch was simple — we showed up with our temperature logs from twenty-two months of running the reefer truck, every single page, in order. They asked about volume; we answered about freshness. The contract was issued three weeks later.

That month we hired six more drivers, two warehouse leads, and one quality auditor. We also stopped sleeping in trucks.

Bars were shut. Restaurants were on takeaway. Our biggest line — draft kegs — went to zero overnight. Trucks ran half-empty. The warehouse smelled like hand sanitiser and rejected pallets.

What we did: extended payment terms for twenty-three small venues, fronted three months of stock to two beloved bars in Lazimpat, and didn't lay anyone off. We came out the other side with every single partner still on the roster. They never forgot, and neither did we.

"You don't earn loyalty in good years. You earn it in the bad ones." — from the freshness pledge, v.04

Eighteen hundred pallets. Eight loading bays. The lakeside warehouse we'd been eyeing for three years finally came up for lease. We took it the same week. The ribbon-cutting playlist was atrocious — we will not be releasing the names involved.

What it unlocked: same-day delivery to every Pokhara venue, and a six-hour cold-chain link to Chitwan. The numbers we hit that quarter still set the floor for new market launches.

Red Bull added to the truck. Somersby in apple and pear. A handful of premium mixers from a small distillery in Birgunj. Suddenly we weren't just a beer distributor — we were a cocktail bar's best friend. The bartenders started showing up at our office unannounced, which is the highest compliment in this industry.

The shortlist grew from six labels to twelve. We turned down forty-nine in the same year.