On a rainy evening in March 2019, at a truck stop halfway between Coldwater, Michigan, and Toledo, Ohio, Kevin Mullan found himself covered in diesel fuel and questioning the dream he thought he’d realized.
“What I’ve learned as an entrepreneur is that you will have more doubts—about your idea, your business, and yourself—than you will ever have confidence,” Mullan tells me. “To be successful, you can’t dwell on your doubts. You have to lean into the confident moments.”
Long before that night, Mullan had been struck by an idea that grew into an obsession. He wanted to build a mobile beer-service vehicle to take local craft brews to events around Toledo—and he wanted to base it on a fire truck. He spent years looking for decommissioned fire engines, and he lost so many eBay auctions that he almost gave up on his plan. Finally, he saw a Facebook Marketplace listing for a 1987 E-ONE Pumper truck that had fought fires in rural Michigan for more than 30 years. After some quick negotiations, Mullan soon found himself in a farmer’s field, 100 miles from home, with the keys in his hand.