I thought I would start a fresh thread on my attempts to acquire the RateBeer assets. I want to summarize a few aspects of this effort:
1) Why I am still motivated to acquire the assets from ABI
a) Historical and cultural preservation
RateBeer is almost 25 years old and has played a major role in the modern development of craft beer in the 2000’s and early 2010’s. It facilitated many people’s beer drinking and rating passions, and forged communities all over the world. With over 1.3 million ratings and 15 million beers on the database, RateBeer boasts an important historical and cultural footprint in the world of beer. There is still a major role for RateBeer to play in the beer world. While Untappd caters to the casual beer drinker, RateBeer is more geared towards dedicated beer geeks and fostering community among those with this dedicated passion.
b) RateBeer should be run by someone or some group from the RateBeer community
RateBeer was always about community: bringing together people with a shared passion and obsession for trying and rating new beers. Ideally, the project would be run by a community member, one who has been on RateBeer for a while, who understand and is part of the community, and with the passion to help realize the full potential that this project still has. While I haven’t been here since the beginning like some others, I’ve been here over 15 years, met dozens of other RateBeerians all over the world, forged invaluable friendships through the community, and rely on it for every trip I take to figure out where to find good beer.
c) I have the resources and connections to run this responsibly
Fortunately, I have the financial resources and connections (in the business world and software development world) to acquire, re-develop, and manage this project long-term. Though business and software development are not my areas of expertise—I’m a statistician!—I have enough connections in each world to delegate and manage those that do possess the expertise.
2) What my efforts have been thus far
a) brief summary on efforts to acquire the assets
Long before the announcement of RateBeer’s shutdown, back in late 2023, I thought I would see if it would be possible to acquire RateBeer from ABI. Given ABI’s lack of interest in the website, I thought they might jump at the opportunity to unload the asset back to the community. Eventually, I got a hold of the global director of mergers & acquisitions (M&A) at ABI and had several conversations with her. She told me they were willing to divest and that they would respond to serious offers. I drafted a Letter of Intent, proposing that they continue paying the rather exorbitant hosting costs for a few months (for a transition period) while I hire the right personnel to acquire the assets. I received a fairly prompt response saying that they were looking for someone to take over immediately. I sent another offer drastically lowering the transition period. This also wasn’t congenial to them, and I was told they would continue to hold on to the asset for some time. This made little sense to me given that they would continue to burn cash on the hosting costs for an indefinite period whereas I was offering to relieve them of this after a few months. I was also told they were worried about selling to a solo community member and having the sale go bad, wasting their time, resources, and getting bad PR. I tried to assure them that I was well-positioned to handle the transaction.
b) what I speculate are the roadblocks
After consulting some business contacts of mine, it became clear to me that the legal costs associated with selling the assets to a community member would likely be far greater than those associated with simply shutting down the website. To those at ABI reading this, I assure you that I can make this as seamless a transition as possible.
3) What my plans would be if the assets are acquired
a) re-develop, modernize, make more efficient
We all know RateBeer needs a major overhaul. My short-term goal after acquiring the assets is to re-develop RateBeer from scratch. We need a more modern and efficient website in countless respects, where the functionality issues we’ve had to deal with for years are a think of the past.
b) listen to RB members’ perspectives on what they want RB to be, with special attention given to power users
To do a) effectively, I plan to enlist RB members’ feedback on what they see as the top priorities for the website. So, if you’re willing to spend a little time, we would invite users to do interviews to figure out an optimal path.
c) re-develop revenue channels (longer-term)
After re-development, we would start re-establishing revenue channels to be able to sustain the operating costs of RateBeer. I won’t go into much detail here, but we have many ideas that aim to recreate partnerships with industry.
4) What I want from the RateBeer community right now!
-Chime in with your support for this project!
-Are you willing to get involved in some aspect of this project, whether through expertise in software development, admining/volunteering, media, or otherwise?
-Please circulate this thread as widely as possible. Not everyone on RateBeer checks the forums frequently. Please send to any contacts of yours through e-mail, Messenger, WhatsApp, etc. If you have any media contacts, please send them the thread and urge them to do a story on this. We already had The Beer Connoisseur magazine write a great piece, but we need more coverage.
Let’s show as much support for this beloved website as we possibly can.
Thank you very much for reading, for your support, and for your enthusiasm in preserving and rejuvenating RateBeer!
Matt Berkowitz (mcberko)
Update: I just heard back from my M&A contact at ABI. She simply confirmed they’re not looking to sell. Unless there’s some last minute change of mind, which I see little reason to think will happen, the last day to download ratings will be Jan 18, and the site will go dark on Feb. 1.
