Entrepreneurs of Budapest: Marcell Pal & The Brewie Team
Entrepreneurs of Budapest is a deep-dive into some of the people and stories that are building startups (often not their first) in Budapest today. We invited local startup founders and teams to tell us about their personal entrepreneurial journeys, their thoughts and impressions on building a company in Budapest, and their hopes and desires for the future startup scene in Hungary.
A few weeks ago, Marcell Pal and the exponentially growing Brewie team met up with us to share thoughts on starting a startup, maintaining and motivating a happy and cohesive team, Budapest vs Berlin, and water pipes.
Hi Marcell, thanks for taking the time to speak with us! Tell us a little bit about Brewie, and where the inspiration for an automated home brewing startup came from.
So the whole thing started back in 2013 in the summer, at that time I was studying in Denmark. I came home and visited my friends including Andrew, one of my co-founders today, and that was the first time that he showed me a beer that he himself brewed.
I was very surprised because I didn’t know that you can brew beer at home — I didn’t know that it was possible and I didn’t know that it was legal. If I had known I would have started earlier.
The quality of home brewed beer is really good, but the most surprising part for me was that it was really cheap. About 20–30 cents per glass. I was so amazed with this whole thing, that I really wanted to do something with this idea.
We thought, why not make a machine that automates brewing, because it’s really cool, and we can make cheap beer for ourselves.
In one year we made the product until one step before production and then we did a crowdfunding campaign where we got the funding. We didn’t want to take investment so that we could have more freedom.
Had you always wanted to have a startup of your own or did the idea for Brewie inspire you to start?
My personal background is in marketing, business, and economics, so I was always interested in how you actually start a business, get a company, and get people to work for you. I did my internship in Berlin at a startup for that reason, because I wanted to have my own company down the line. But I never expected to have my own company so early in life.
Photo: Zsolt Pintér
What were your takeaways from working at different startups before you began Brewie?
I pretty much saw all of the mistakes that you can commit. These are mostly organizational and communication oriented. I learned less about how you raise money, etc., and more about how you build a team and maintain it. That was a really invaluable experience.
What is it about the startup world that is so attractive to you — why startups? Why not join a larger company?
For me freedom is important. I’m interested in a lot of different areas and I like to have the freedom to explore each of them. I believe that having a startup and working in the startup scene enables you to experience and learn about different things.
Making ideas happen, making something that’s just a dream into a reality. I really like that part.
Is that what inspires you everyday?
Yes, my motivation is creating things. I like facing challenges, its a good feeling to solve them.
Berlin is quite a startup mecca, what were your impressions of working at a startup there?
It’s really cheap to live and work in Berlin. it’s one of the cheapest western capital cities. And the atmosphere is really similar to the startup way of thinking. It’s really free and diverse with a lot of people from different backgrounds and cultures, and there is just always something interesting happening all the time.
When I moved to Berlin, first I was surprised by the crazy things happening at any time of day. After a while, I just got used to someone getting on the subway in a giraffe costume.
Having experienced working with startups in both places, how would you compare Budapest to Berlin?
I believe Budapest is similar to Berlin in many ways. It’s less diverse, so you don’t have that many kinds of people, you have fewer foreigners. But the lifestyle, the price, it’s very similar.
Although I’m not sure how hard it is to register a company in Berlin, and pay taxes. In Hungary, that’s a real issue. Not just about the extra tax, but the extra work you need to do to enable yourself to pay that tax, and how much tax you have to pay. You always have to keep track of what the law says, because every month it’s changing and it’s a lot of work to keep track. From that perspective, Budapest might not be the best place to be.
On the other hand, you can have employees for a lower cost than everywhere else in Western Europe and the quality of employees is just as good as everywhere else. So right now we’re just a small company but it’s a lot easier to employ people here than anywhere else.
Photo: Zsolt Pintér
What are your thoughts for the future of the Budapest startup ecosystem?
The Hungarian business climate really needs to change if we want to see Budapest actually become a startup city.
Currently as it is, the taxes are confusing but also way too high — and there are so many rules and taxes because the government knows that so many people cheat on their taxes. But for example, if taxes were lower and feasible for a small business, then people would be much more likely to pay them because most people like to work legally. It’s a classic chicken and egg problem.
Also, there are so many artificial barriers to making a company. For example in Hungary, to establish a company you need to have 10,000 euros. It doesn’t make any sense. In Denmark, all you need is 20 cents, and you can do it super fast. 10,000 euro is a lot of money for a small company and it’s an artificial number.
One last question… What do you know now that you would tell yourself back in the beginning?
So many things. But most of all just to be patient, and be prepared to work hard. Because it’s so much work. And luckily we love it so we’re inspired to do it every day.
I was always into realizing funny ideas. When we were in high school, we really enjoyed smoking the water pipe, and we did it often. So we decided we were going to hold the first official ‘Water Pipe day.’ We built a 3-meter water pipe — the world’s biggest one. We just stuck up a bunch of posters on the walls, because there was no Facebook back then, and we invited everybody to come smoke water pipe on the lawn. In the end, about 100 people showed up, and we were totally surprised, but it was awesome.
Photo: Zsolt Pintér
Many thanks to Marcell for taking the time to share the Brewie story with us!
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