A serial entrepreneur and brand development specialist based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, Jeramy Keith Biggie is the owner of a craft brewery that has been in operation since 2015. He has a background in marketing consumable product experiences, technical product development, and engineering and software product design. Prior to launching the brewery, Jeramy Keith Biggie was a senior associate at Booz Allen Hamilton, where he managed a series of research and development software application development initiatives for the creation of novel enterprise asset management solutions.
Jeramy Keith Biggie previously worked as a senior program manager at Science Applications International (SAI). He spent two years in this position, during which time he oversaw three Distributed Common Ground Station-Army Intelligence enterprise software support contracts with the US Army worth more than $100 million. His other responsibilities included business and proposal development, contract negotiation, and personnel management.
He spent a decade at SAI, having originally joined the company as a project engineer in 2003. Before that, he spent four years in the same role at Northrop Grumman Newport News. He belongs to the National Society of Professional Engineers and the Military Operations Research Society, and holds a bachelor of science in civil engineering from North Carolina State University.
What is your typical day, and how do you make it productive?
My workdays have a considerable amount of flexibility baked in to manage the unpredictable nature of operating in a highly social environment. I operate a craft beverage manufacturing business, a coffee company, and an expanding series of restaurants/event venues. Each day is unique and there is a fair amount of customer and team engagement, troubleshooting, and product planning. I really have a strong interest in understanding what excites people, the underlying mechanisms that drive the competitive behaviors in the craft beverage and customer experience space, as well as understanding what brings people together and how to enhance those experience so that the environment and products become an indispensable part of their lives.
Experience has taught me that greater than any other aspect of your business, how you make people feel about themselves through the experience and product(s) and how well you usher them into their community are the greatest drivers of success. Informing these ever-present internal considerations is an unceasing curiosity driving me to read continuously about all aspects of people’s lives, culture, science and technology, social issues, pop culture, news, politics, and any and all cultural curiosities I uncover. I can honestly say that curiosity drives most endeavors and decisions.
How do you bring ideas to life?
I tend to be most creative by eliminating distractions and using delegation and trust in people effectively to allow me to focus on whatever creativity and problem-solving ideas have bubbled up in my mind. Beyond that, I focus on curating a highly capable, passionate, and diverse team of people with varying life experiences to help inform and refine ideas. This is a critical component of any successful endeavor, and I pride myself on my ability to identify talent in unexpected places and cultivate success in people by using flexibility, patience, and soft skills to weave their strengths into a role where they have the best chance for success. I believe in promoting from within whenever possible.
What’s one trend that excites you?
Casual luxury is a trend that I’m particularly enamored with at present. The ability to create brands that elicit the feelings of luxury – enhanced taste and personal merit by association – combined with exceptional quality, accessibility, reasonable pricing, all reinforced by a social community of like-minded consumers is the holy grail of success in consumable social products and service.
What is one habit that helps you be productive?
FOCUS. I prioritize what’s critical and what’s most important to me, usually because it’s the most compelling and exciting concept in my mind at the time, and I do not allow the infinite number of possible distractions to carry me away. I’m not always successful in this but I usually am, and it’s always been worth it.
What advice would you give your younger self?
I think I would tell my younger self the same thing that many others would: “pursue what you’re passionate about, what excites your spirit, and do not let the need for basic means rise above third or fourth in your consideration of where to focus and how to spend your time.” You’ll find a way to thrive and be infinitely more satisfied by doing the hard thing that excites and scares you versus the thing you know that’s already right within your grasp.
Tell us something you believe almost nobody agrees with you on?
Mathematics is the most beautiful, ever-evolving language ever written, change my mind!
What is the one thing you repeatedly do and recommend everyone else do?
READ, without ceasing, anything that interests you. Seek out new material constantly. Your mind will always find novel ways to bring it all together with new and exciting creativity, but only if you keep the curiosity.
When you feel overwhelmed or unfocused, what do you do?
When I feel overwhelmed, I’ll go for a walk, run, or exercise to clear my mind and reset my emotions. Sometimes, if it’s quite a heavy burden, I’ll take a short rest and then re-engage more effectively.
What is one strategy that has helped you grow your business or advance in your career?
Finding the things I love in this life, learning everything I can about it in great detail till I feel reasonably confident, believing in myself to execute, sharing that excitement with others, and believing that I can curate passion and good times for others.
What is one failure in your career, how did you overcome it, and what lessons did you take away from it?
I’ve had moments where I didn’t listen to my instincts because I believed someone else’s opinion or interpretation of facts. I believed what was being given must be better informed than my own analysis and experience. I’ve almost always regretted when I made a fear-based decision and didn’t take the time to listen to my inner voice and try to understand what it was telling me.
What is one piece of software that helps you be productive? How do you use it?
It sounds simple, but spreadsheets have limitless flexibility to help you analyze and create any scenario. AI is a wonderful information-gatherer to assist you in having the proper tools for well-informed decision-making and Google SketchUp has been wonderful to help bring to life highly functional spaces.
Do you have a favorite book or podcast you’ve gotten a ton of value from and why?
Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart. While this book will seem to be way too focused on the emotional aspects of life, it’s a Godsend for the busy doer of things, helping to reflect on your emotional well-being and understand your own emotions, examine what makes you happy, what drives your behavior, and what impacts your relationships positively and negatively with family, friends, and coworkers. It’s provided clarity and insights for me personally that have been invaluable in my own personal journey toward being a better father, husband, entrepreneur, and friend.
What’s a movie or series you recently enjoyed and why?
3 Body Problem. It was such a unique and fresh take on a science fiction genre that I’ve always loved. The book(s) are even better.
Key learnings
- Protect, stoke, feed, and grow your intellectual and interpersonal curiosity. Doing so will ensure you have the richness of experiences and information to stand out in whatever field you choose.
- Avoid fear-based decision making entirely. Trust yourself when making tough decisions. Listen to your heart and mind in these moments and you’ll never regret it.
- Find people you admire, respect, and believe in for whatever reasons. Cultivate relationships, leverage their insights and knowledge to inform your life and decision-making process, and provide the same for others.