-Next on "Start Up," we head to Wilmington, North Carolina, to meet up with George Taylor, the founder of TRU Colors Brewery, a brewery on a mission to stop gang violence and unite communities across America.

All of this and more is next on "Start Up."

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No nonsense, just business.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -My name is Gary Bredow.

I'm a documentary filmmaker and an entrepreneur.

As the country focuses on recovery, small-business owners everywhere are still fighting to keep their dream alive.

So we set out to talk to a wide range of diverse business owners to better understand how they've learned to adapt, innovate, and even completely reinvent themselves in this ever-changing world.

♪♪ This is "Start Up."

♪♪ The commercial brewing of beer has taken place since at least 2,500 B.C.

In Ancient Mesopotamia, brewers derived social sanction and divine protection from the goddess Ninkasi.

Brewing was initially a cottage industry, with production taking place at home, but by the 9th century, monasteries and farms would produce beer on a larger scale, selling the excess.

A handful of major breakthroughs, including the steam engine, have led to the modern brewery and its ability to produce the same beer consistently.

It gave brewers the ability to mix liquids more reliably while heating and a quick way to transfer liquid from one container to another.

Today I'm going to meet up with George Taylor, the founder of TRU Colors Brewery, a company that employs active gang members.

From what I know, George started this business with one goal in mind -- to stop gang violence and unite communities across America.

It's hard for me to even begin to understand the depth of this mission or how a brewery can stop gang violence, so I'm pretty excited to meet up with George and his team and learn more.

[ Siren wailing ] ♪♪ Take me back to the -- to the day, I guess, that you heard about the 16-year-old being shot and killed in the community.

What were you feeling?

What was going through your head?

-Honestly, it just...me off that there's somebody in our community who would drive down the street, wave a pistol out of the car, and pull the trigger and kill somebody in our community.

And I wanted to understand, "Okay.

Who are these people?"

I'm hearing that there's gangs out there that are shooting everybody all the time.

Who the...are they?

-Where are they and who are they?

-Yeah.

"I want to meet you."

Because this is B.S., right?

So, I call the D.A., who's a friend of mine, and was like, "Hey, man, I want to meet whoever y'all think is top gangster, 'cause I don't get it."

He connected me with some of the gang task-force folks who hooked me up with who they thought was top gangster in town.

And that kicked off like three years of me being around gangs, just trying to understand what was going on.

And I went into it probably like most folks.

Like, if you watch the news and read the paper, you believe that gangs have, like, two purposes in life -- to carry a gun and sell drugs.

That's what I thought, anyway.

What I found, though, actually was, one, that's completely false.

They have written key values and mission and vision statements like an organization, like a company would write.

-Really?

-Yeah, it's for real.

I've read it.

One of them has a book that's 67 pages long that outlines all that they stand on, and you and I would want to join these clubs, right?

They stand on things like brotherhood and community and knowledge, growth, all this stuff, right?

Nowhere in it does it mention a gun or a drug.

And so that's really important to understand.

There is no correlation between gangs and violence.

The correlation between violence is with economic issues and societal exclusion.

You know, you cut off a whole group of people and you set them over in a housing project and you say, "You got no opportunity," we're gonna have issues because they can't put food on the table.

They can't -- They can't provide for their family, right?

-Basic necessities.

-That's the driver of violence.

It all comes down to money.

And so that was sort of an aha moment.

Like, "Okay, well, if that's true, then the only way to solve this problem is with an economic solution, right?"

-Sure.

-And that's how TRU Colors sort of came to be, was we needed to put together an economic -- for-profit economic solution.

And if we could -- And the theory was, if you did that, then the violence would stop very, very quickly.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Did you grow up in this area?

-Yeah, I didn't grow up on this side of town.

I grew up on the north side of town.

You know, so same type of scenario.

I mean, it was rough growing up there, too.

The difference between the environment I grew up in and the environment someone else in the suburbs might have grew up in is what you come into contact with in your neighborhood.

What is your environment like?

When we left from school, we crossed those corners where those people who didn't go to school were standing at all day.

-Right.

-So we would see these guys out in the neighborhood, you know, nice cars, flashing money... -Selling drugs a lot of the time.

-Yeah, you know, that lifestyle was enticing because when we got home, we came home to a struggling mother.

You know, we came home to a family and household that didn't have much.

-Sure.

-And the product that was introduced to us right at our fingertips was right on the corner.

So that's how we get introduced to the street.

-What's one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about gangs in general?

-It's that gang members just shoot people because they are rival gang or that, you know, gang members are just a big organization for organized crime.

And that's -- that's just not the case.

That couldn't be further from the truth.

These organizations were built to protect the community.

-First time that you met who was supposedly the head gang leader.

Tell me that story.

-So, the cops were helping me meet this guy, and he was having a meeting with his parole officer.

And cop comes in and goes, "Hey, man.

There's this white dude who wants to meet you.

He's interested in what's causing the violence."

You know, I don't know exactly how he framed it, but that was generally it, and so you can imagine what's going through this dude's head.

He's like, "This is some really elaborate sting operation.

I'm about to get screwed."

-Yep.

-So, anyway -- But he finally says, "Okay.

I'll come."

At the time, I had a software company called Untappd.

We just sold last year to a private equity group.

-Untappd.

-Untappd.

The beer app.

And the cops are, of course, worried that something's gonna go down, so we have police out front, we have police behind.

We go up to the conference room, and I have a PowerPoint deck like it's like a startup pitch, right?

I'm like, "Hey, man.

Here's what I'm thinking.

Like, here's what I'm seeing, here's what I'm thinking.

Like, what do you think's causing the violence?"

And, like, all this -- We started talking about it.

And he was kind of quiet, but at the end, it's like, "So, what do you think?

Is this -- Is this possible?"

And he goes, "Yeah, I'm with it.

What do we need to do?"

And so from that point forward, we started having every Saturday at Untappd -- We hosted a meeting.

If you were affiliated, if you're in the gangs, free coffee and doughnuts.

We're gonna talk about what's going on.

And so eventually it got to meetings like 70, 80 people.

-Gosh.

Rival or just Bloods?

-Rival.

At the time, like, these streets were hot.

We were seeing one to two gang-related shootings a week back in those days, so the streets were hot.

Folks are coming in.

There's no question that last night this guy was shooting at this guy, and so there's...going on.

But never did we have a problem.

I mean, people clicked up around the room, and I remember as we started getting into this, you know, after some time went on, you know, I would always ask, "Do you really think we can come together and this thing can be chill?"

You know, I can't have this -- Because we were gonna, like, sort of do some tests within Untappd.

We used Untappd almost as like a Petri dish for some of this.

-Sure.

-One time, this guy Steve, who's still around here -- Steve finally said, "Listen, dude.

Quit asking the same question.

Opportunity is a great equalizer.

You give us opportunity, and we'll get it done."

And he was right.

♪♪ -He said, "Hey, man.

Please don't hang up the phone.

This might be the best phone call that you've ever seen in your life."

-Wow.

That's curious.

-Now, how many times do you -- I'm not feeling good about this at all, you know?

But he told me that there was an entrepreneur in town who wanted to start a brewery... -Okay.

-...that would give opportunities for other gang members to decrease violence and push entrepreneurship into the community.

-What was your initial thought right then and there?

-So, my initial thought with that was, "You've got to be crazy.

This is a big trap.

This is some kind of scheme.

You know, something is not right with it."

But at the same time, I said this to myself.

I say, "You know what?

What's the risk in that?"

Yeah.

-I'm willing to take that risk to see if it's right because I know that this could be a big opportunity, not only for me, but for other people out there, too.

And that was the ultimate decision that I made in pursuing to see what it was about.

-And then once you got in, what did you think?

-Man.

So, I met George.

He showed a presentation of his thoughts and ideas on how this could work.

-Yeah.

-And he asked me, did I think that the streets would take heed to it?

-Yeah.

-And I told him, absolutely, you know?

Because it's easy to see the news and what the media portrays as a gang member when, you know, they're on the news for a shooting or selling drugs.

-Right.

-But, you know, how many people take the time to actually get to know these people other than those situations?

I had that experience.

I grew up with these people.

And I know that they are good people that often make decisions that are not so good.

-The mission was a social cause first and needed to be supported by a profitable business.

Why beer?

Why'd you choose beer?

-So we chose beer because, you know, obviously, having been with Untappd, we had a lot of good connections within the beer industry.

And then we chose beer, too, because there's just so many different types of jobs.

So, we're going to be hiring all these different people.

And so think about it.

I've got canning and kegging and brewing and shipping.

I got studio production.

We've got educational stuff.

I've got H.R.

and finance and marketing and on and on and on.

-Awesome.

-I got a taproom here, right?

So there's so many different types of jobs that almost anyone can find something that works for them, right?

-Sure.

-And then the other thing is that we believe that beer is a really great way to start that challenging conversation.

-How did the structure in the organization begin to sort of take shape for TRU Colors?

-The theory was, in the beginning, could you take guys that had really good street skills and would they convert into legit business skills?

So, let's say you're really good at selling stuff on the street.

Could you sell beer or software?

-Yeah.

Yeah.

-So, the first test we did is we took three dudes who are really good at selling on the street, like I said, and we just threw them into the Untappd sales team.

They're a stereotypical gang.

Right?

Tats all over.

Dreads down to here.

One of them had an ankle monitor on from the feds.

Amazing.

Yeah.

-And we chuck them into this conference room with a dozen white millennial college grads.

Like, what could go wrong?

-Incredible.

-And then in three months, which is the typical ramp for a salesperson at Untappd, they were in the top 50% of their class, and one of them, Blanco, broke the record -- and I heard the record still stands -- for number of sales per day.

Crushed at selling analytic software, right?

They didn't know what analytic software was when they came in.

And so those sales -- -Sales are sales.

Sales are sales.

-It don't matter what you're selling.

And, by the way, marketing is marketing.

Finance is finance.

If you can count money on the street, you can count money in here.

You'll see, like, in TRU Colors, 85% of our team is coming in off the street.

And, you know, they're in every area from accounting to marketing, to sales, H.R., to beer to production, to education, whatever.

♪♪ ♪♪ -My name is Anthony.

Some call me "Big Ant."

Some call me "Shaka."

And I'm the TRU Community manager.

-What drew you in or got you involved with George and this place to begin with?

-Actually, I was in prison when I first heard about this company.

-Mm-hmm.

-I was online just scrolling, and I saw some guys that I knew from out in the streets that were, you know what I'm saying, rivals that I was really surprised.

-Working together?

-Like, "What is this dude doing with this dude?"

They're working together.

Like, what's going on?

So immediately I reached out to some of the guys that I knew were working here that I knew from the streets, and I asked them what was going on, and they let me know, like, it was a job.

"We make beer."

And it's rival gang members trying to stop violence.

Wow.

-And at that point in my life sitting in prison, I'm thinking about what I'm gonna do when I come home because I can't come back here.

I got to think of something.

You know what I'm sayin'?

So that sounded like the perfect thing for me to do.

What type of impact are you seeing, like, on the street from this, from folks that have not come in yet?

-Oh, it's really strong.

People are receiving it.

You know, at first, they were kind of like wary of it.

-Nervous.

Yeah.

-But at the end of the day, it's an opportunity for guys to really get out of that survival mode that we've been in for so long where we're out here scrambling, trying to make life happen, and we just don't have no direction on as how to do it.

But this right here is a way for us to come together and just do the things that already gangs were put here, created to do, you know what I'm sayin'?

As a Blood, as a Crip, or a G.D., our -- their main -- those -- our founding fathers came together to protect the neighborhoods, to uplift the neighborhoods, to protect our women and children, and just give back.

And that's empowering us to do that here at TRU Colors.

-What's your criteria for bringing someone, I guess, new in from off the street?

-The two main goals we look at every month to determine whether the bus-- whether the company is doing well, how many people got hurt last month, how many people got shot, and then what did we do to bring communities closer together?

Those are the only two metrics that matter here.

And everything we do, whether it's selling beer, putting out videos, or any of the zillions of things we do around here have to align with those two goals.

So that means that from a recruiting standpoint, I'm not -- If I'm looking for a marketing guy, you know, if you got marketing skill, that's cool, but if not, what I really care about is can you help me keep peace on the street?

We have a five-month onboarding program.

-Okay.

-Okay?

And what we do is we bring in generally classes of 12 or groups of 12 folks.

We intentionally hire people that don't get along.

So we intentionally hire rival gangs, rival gang members.

Maybe they had been shooting at each other, maybe been fighting... -And you're putting them in a room together in a training class.

-We sit them right next -- -Oh, my gosh.

-The people who dislike each other the most, I make them sit right next to each other.

And so the first two months is what we call boot camp.

We come in.

We hire you.

So you're a full-time employee.

We pay you $30,000 a year, and we give you health insurance on day one.

Then, as I said, we believe strongly that experiential learning helps sort of, like, reset your head on what's possible way better than words.

So the final experience to sort of get "initiated" into TRU Colors is you have to jump out of an airplane.

-This is getting better by the second.

-It is.

I love jump day.

I love jump day because -- because -- Well, first of all, none of these guys ever been in an airplane hardly, so they're scared to take off, much less jump out.

-It gets them in a plane.

-They get interviewed on the way up.

"What do you think?

Are you scared?"

"Oh, no."

You know, they're guys and all that.

You know, not scared at all, and then they get in the plane, and the videographer's in the plane, too.

And then you're start-- That look there.

You're starting to see it.

Yeah, exactly.

And then they land on the ground, though, and... -Elation.

-"So what do you think?"

And everyone has their own way of saying it, but the general -- the general theme is, "Man, that was scary, but I did it.

If I can do that, I can do anything.

And I left all my...up there.

Let's get to work."

And that's the whole point, right?

So, when their feet hit the ground, then their salary goes to $35,000, and they become an intern.

And then on the 90th day, they're voted on their team, their salary, and title goes to whatever it is they have been trying to get.

-Sure.

-The minimum salary in here is $37,500.

-That's the minimum.

-That's the minimum.

-I just have to commend you on this, man.

It's just -- Yeah.

Mind-blowing story.

Like, the -- the approach and the compassion and your sort of social awareness.

-In the end, we're trying to drive an outcome, and everything we do comes back to those numbers I told you about in the very beginning.

Everything.

And the way we do it is because that works.

And, you know, for context, you know, I told you we were seeing one or two gang related shootings a week back in the day.

-How many now?

-We're down -- What are we?

June 5th, There's been two this year.

-Two this year.

-Yeah.

♪♪ -You are an integral part, like, a key part of something that literally has the possibility to create major, if not national and global change.

I mean, how does that feel for you as a person?

-It's my "why," too.

You know, I have a "why" similar to the guys.

I, you know, grew up in Brooklyn, New York, in Canarsie.

Alcoholism hit our house, and something happened, and I ended up in trouble.

I served a couple of years in prison and came home and realized that the American dream I wanted wasn't the house or the picket fence or the tall, dark, and handsome guy.

It was about making impact in the lives of others who may have been in similar situations like me.

My shaped experiences helped me where I am today.

There's some things that you just can't learn because there's not a book written for it.

And so a lot of what I do here is what I needed when I was going through my situation.

And so we just decided to define it and to develop it here in TRU Colors.

-Is there any significant story that you can tell of, like, a very dramatic change?

-One of the original team members that we had -- His name is Dayshus.

We call him "Tank."

He served 10 years in prison, and two months after getting out of jail, he got the job at TRU Colors.

Right?

-Okay.

-Could you imagine serving 10 years and coming home to this opportunity?

-10 years.

Wow.

-He wouldn't speak to anyone.

He was really silent.

He went through our original onboarding class.

And he said that what kept him, you know, focused and what kept him inspired was working out, so when he came here, his heart was to be director of health and wellness.

So today, Tank not only is not silent, he's speaking, he's engaged, had his first child, and he is our director of health and wellness.

It's a powerful turnaround.

-It's amazing.

And also just the impact on recidivism.

-That's right.

-A lot of folks are not returning back to jail.

-They are not.

They are staying right here.

And, you know, some people, even if they don't stay here and they relocate 'cause of family, they still end up in that changed place where they are working a job or doing something brand-new.

And so the magic happens when you believe.

It happens when you learn those skills and when you apply those skills in what you're doing and move forward in them.

-How does -- How is the business structured?

Where's the money coming from?

'Cause you're not actually selling beer yet.

-So we haven't sold a product yet.

We've had payroll for three years, I think, or something like that.

Yeah, I funded it up until -- I don't know -- a year and a half ago, two years ago.

-Can you say how much money roughly?

-Several million dollars.

-Several million.

-Since then, we've had a number of private individuals who have come in and assist, as well.

And then earlier this year, in April, I think it was, Molson Coors, who -- wonderful group of people, amazing organization -- also took a minority investment stake in TRU Colors.

-How close are you to production, to sales?

-Initially, we're launching across North Carolina all at once.

-Sure.

-You should see it in retail stores the week of the 21st, I believe it is, of June.

We don't have a can of beer in the market, but we're launching.

And, you know, we have Harris Teeter and Food Lion and Whole Foods and on and on and on.

All these major chains... -All ready for your product.

-...taking our product, yeah.

So many people have just stepped up and want to be part of what we're trying to achieve.

-Tell me some of, like, the hurdles or challenges that you've had to overcome, like, with just setting up a new brewery.

-Oh, gosh.

Yeah.

There's just so much work to be done.

You're trying to dial in equipment.

You're trying to train a team.

You're trying to build the teams.

But at the same time, it's some of the best work.

It's the most memorable work when you work at a brewery.

-Fulfilling.

It's not just making good beer.

You're making serious change.

-Yeah, you're making serious -- You're making history.

You really are.

-Tell me about the beer.

What are you gonna make here?

-Yeah.

-What's gonna be the prize?

-Our first beer we're making is a premium light lager, American style.

It's called TRU Light.

It's 96 calories.

2.6 carbs.

-That will be the flagship.

-That's our flagship.

That's it.

-Has it always been sort of harmonious?

Has there been issues?

Have there been problems?

-Entrepreneurship and startups, it's iterative, right?

You don't -- You try things.

-Of course.

-In my software career, we'll try things, and maybe it didn't work.

It's, like, a buggy software or whatever.

It sucks, but life goes on.

There are decisions I've made over the past handful of years where I know indirectly I caused someone to get hurt.

And so it's -- it's just a very challenging business in that regard.

And so you've got to come to grips with that in a way that is much different than a typical startup, certainly a tech startup.

It's not like I can call and go, "Hey, man, when you hired 75 gang members and you had this issue, how did you solve it?"

-There's nobody to call.

-There's nobody to call.

-No.

There's nobody to call.

-You're trailblazing here.

What does success ultimately mean for you with this venture?

I'm not gonna call it a company.

It's a company, but it's so much more than a company.

-It's really important to everyone in this company that we spread our message at a national level, that we spark change in a number of cities and hopefully all across America.

I have to believe that there are dozens of other entrepreneurs out there like myself who might see this and go, "Wow.

I never thought about that.

I could do that."

My hope is that people realize that these are economically driven problems, which means you can solve them through economics, which means entrepreneurs, startup folks -- I mean, startups are pretty gangster anyway, right?

I mean, they're hard.

-You gotta be tough.

It's not for the weary.

-It is not for the -- No.

If you have those skills and you have that, you know, mental ability to deal with all that crazy, then this is for you.

And so I have to think, around the country, there are dozens of folks that I hope will see what we have going on and do the same.

And then, you know, we also hope that, just in general, people think about how petty some of our differences are that we're fighting on -- mostly online -- and stop and come together and have that conversation.

-You got to be excited for the beer to actually come out and things to... -Man.

It's like a dream come true.

-It's incredible.

-Like, it literally came from a pitch on a laptop.

-Yeah.

-Now when you actually come in in the morning and walk in and see it and feel it, I mean, it's crazy, man.

George has really done everything that he said he was gonna do.

-That's rare these days.

-Everything.

I mean, everything, you know?

So...much respect to him.

-I'm rarely speechless, and my friends, family, and coworkers would certainly attest to that.

However, my experience today left me speechless on several occasions because today was about listening -- listening to active gang members talk about their experience on the streets... listening to them explain to me that there's a sophisticated corporate structure to gangs that's rooted in morals and values... listening to the things that make gangs attractive to many young people, like protection from police brutality and violence within a community of people struggling to survive... listening to the fact that the vast majority of gang members do not want to hurt anyone or sell drugs or make a living constantly looking over their shoulder or wonder how they're gonna feed their family or having doubts that they'll ever live to see 20 years old, things that so many of us take for granted.

I also learned that socioeconomic conditions always seem to go hand-in-hand with violence, and a lot of these conditions were structured deliberately years ago with intention.

But when presented with an opportunity, a person who's successful at selling drugs may thrive at selling software or a person recruiting new gang members may excel as an H.R.

director.

These opportunities never seem to have been presented, as far as I know, ever, until now with George.

And it all seems so common-sense.

We're all human beings, and the boundaries that have been created are the only things that separate us.

We all want a nice home to live in.

We want to be able to put food on the table, the respect of our loved ones.

And more than anything else, we just want to feel safe.

And every human being should have a fair opportunity to earn these basic life necessities.

George's mission with TRU Colors couldn't possibly be simpler in its immeasurable complexity to end gang violence and provide opportunities in underserved areas.

And as arduous as his mission may seem, guess what.

It's working.

And with all the traditional business success metrics aside, that's enough for George.

For more information, visit our website and search episodes for TRU Colors Brewery.

Next time on "Start Up," we head to Charleston, South Carolina, to meet up with Andrew Hare and Matt Daniels, the founders of Vertical Roots, a company that's grown into the largest hydroponic container farm in the U.S. Be sure to join us next time on "Start Up."

Would you like to learn more about the show or maybe nominate a business?

Visit our website at startup-usa.com and connect with us on social media.

♪♪ -♪ We got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Got a long road ahead of us ♪ Before we pay our dues ♪ We got a long road ahead of us ♪ ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ A long road ahead of us ♪ Before we pay our dues -...to this, as well.

-Is anything in it?

-Nope.

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