RUARI Fairbairns set up One Year No Beer four years ago to help people give up alcohol. The business helped to tackle alcohol consumption during lockdown by offering its 28-day challenge for free, with the team sacrificing their own salary for three months. The programme is now in 90 countries.
Name: Ruari Fairbairns
Age: 39
Position: CEO and founder
WHAT IS THE BUSINESS CALLED?
One Year No Beer
WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
I AM originally from Mull. I started my first business when I was 15 and by the time I was 25 I had five enterprises. I got accepted for series two of the Apprentice but I didn’t get on TV. I bumped into an oil broker and got a job doing that. I had to entertain customers so I was drinking a lot. I didn’t have a problem with alcohol but I decided to give it up. There was no area of my life that didn’t improve. I thought about how to help others realise the benefits. We launched in 2016 and have members in 90 countries. We have all types of drinkers and it is a lifestyle choice for anyone drinking more than three glasses of wine a week and want to feel happier and healthier. We hit £1.4 million worth of crowdfunding in 2015 and we now have £3m in total.
I was a really hyperactive child. My parents were offered an ultimatum when I was six years old that said I could either be on drugs or go into counselling. I had some suicide attempts aged 13 and at 14 I wrote a letter to Richard Branson. This led to me being on BBC News and I met the Dalai Lama. After that all of my life made sense and I handed in my notice as an oil broker. You feel deeply connected to your mission and purpose when you watch things unravel in front of you.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
PEOPLE are offered content such as audio, reading information and videos that make you think about alcohol differently. We are completely hoodwinked by alcohol then realise it doesn’t make us happier. It helps people change their relationship with booze and they see it for what it is. People can post into the community for help.
WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
THOSE aged 35-50 who are professional and hardworking in the ABC1 category. However, we have people from all walks of life in the programme. The vast majority of people say it changes their life. Anyone can not drink. All we’re doing is reaffirming the limited belief that alcohol is crucial to life. We need to learn how to socialise, get success and and do deals without booze. We now have three One Year No Beer babies. One guy in Dubai had three rounds of IVF and 100 days into the challenge his partner was pregnant. Some people have lost up to five stone which is an enormous result. People rely on alcohol to dumb out emotion and the challenge forces them to tackle it head on.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
WE’RE not on the same stratosphere as other businesses that offer the same thing. We’re prevention, not recovery. We’re not going to put people in a box and tell them they will have a problem for the rest of their life. There is a tendency to believe that you don’t have a problem unless you are having whisky for breakfast. We attract people who are looking for more calmness and want to be a better parent, sleep better and lose weight. We want to be right at the front in terms of prevention.
IS SCOTLAND A GOOD PLACE FOR THIS TYPE OF BUSINESS?
SCOTLAND has been slower to come to the forefront than England but we have people from all over the world. It’s a fantastic place to run a digital business. Now the company is fully remote we are no longer bound by geographical boundaries. We have had no help from the Scottish Government or health services – we have got things done another way but we know that support will come as we demonstrate a bigger level of impact.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS’ TIME?
I HOPE that we are able to have a big impact on the world. With the ambassador programme we can have local resources globally. We want to allow people to feel empowered and make a change on a local level. We offered the programme for free at the start of lockdown and had 2500 people volunteer to help key workers. It’s amazing for us to be able to do that and contribute to the country. We are in the final stages of a crowdfunding programme at the moment which will allow us to scale up.
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