The Beekman 1802 founders are gearing up to share 15 years worth of wisdom. 

On July 1, Beekman 1802 founders Dr. Brent Ridge and Josh Kilmer-Purcell will release their book “G.O.A.T. Wisdom: How to Build a Truly Great Business” published by the Harvard Business Review Press and available at all major booksellers. The book explores the brand’s history over the past 15 years and the team’s wisdom on “how to grow a business the good old-fashioned way,” according to Ridge. 

“We thought it was a good time to relay what we had learned in that process, but also about two years ago, when we first started putting the book together, we could see this rise in tension between the haves and the have-nots, and small business and the middle class and the shrinking of the middle class,” he said. “There were so many representations of super success… We thought there really isn’t a good representation or good manual for how to grow a good, solid business, starting from main street. [At] Beekman, we really do still consider ourselves a Main Street brand, and because of that, we have a deep insight into not only Middle America, but full middle-class America.” 

The book is broken down into 12 key principles, such as “Two Heads Are Better Than One,” exploring “how to be a partner,” and “Love Thy Neighbor,” which looks at “how to market kindly.” 

“It really does cover all the aspects of starting and growing a business, from how to make your first hires, how to delegate, how to create company culture,” Ridge said. “It’s a really great primer for people who are interested in either starting a business or making the business that they have started stronger.” 

The book focuses on several key themes that have driven the Beekman business, chief among them love. 

“The idea of creating a love brand is something that I think companies that have started in the past five years have no notion of,” Ridge said. 

The book’s title is, of course, inspired by the goats that supply the milk that powers Beekman 1802’s microbiome-supporting products, and the overall concept of building a great, sustainable business. 

“I’m a voracious reader of business books, and after you’ve read more than five of them, you realize it’s usually always the same information,” Ridge said. “So we had this idea of going back to old proverbs and old maxims that have been utilized for hundreds or thousands of years, the same maxims that are in every different culture… These same foundational principles that have inspired people for hundreds of years, they’re still practical and useful today.” 

While the principles may be familiar to readers, the book’s goal is to offer new and insightful ways of applying these age-old wisdoms. 

The book pulls from Beekman’s brand history as the main narrative, as well as business psychology research to amplify the team’s approach to success. While the book explores the art of business, Ridge knew that they would be speaking to several audiences with it. With that, he said the book will explore moments in the brand’s history that friends and followers likely haven’t heard before. 

“One [reader] is the general business audience that Harvard Business Review speaks to. Then we knew that it would be our loyal customers, and so we wanted to make sure that we gave enough behind the scenes to things that they have never heard us talk about before, so that they feel like they’ve been rewarded for reading the book,” he said. 

This loyalty to their customers, who the Beekman team calls neighbors, also shines through the book’s dedication, which states “To all the neighbors who grew this.” 

In addition to offering consumers and business readers an inside glimpse into Beekman, it was a sort of therapeutic experience for Ridge and Kilmer-Purcell. 

“When you’re an entrepreneur and you’re growing a business, you don’t always take the time to reflect on the journey, because you’re just in it,” Ridge said. 

While the book marks a major moment in Beekman 1802’s history, Ridge said it marks a significant shift for the overall industry, as this is the first book the Harvard Business Review Press has published based on a beauty brand. In addition, the Harvard Business School will be doing a case study course on Beekman 1802 later this year.

“The fact that this was their first book that they did based on the beauty industry does show how important the beauty industry has become, just in terms of the bigger business world,” Ridge said. “It has become such a cultural touch point for all businesses.”