ABOUT US

Hey, I’m Tim Loucks and I’m the Founder of SquareKeg! The initial SquareKeg idea was born in November of 2017, literally in the middle of the night- 2:30 am to be exact. It was truly one of those “lightbulb” moments, which I’ve experienced dozens of times before, but this one was different. I was awoken from my sleep and couldn’t help myself but to jot down all of my ideas on how I was going to change the world with SquareKeg. The remainder of the night was sleepless and the next morning, well, the rest is history.

The SquareKeg dream was to create a better way to keg beverages, both for individual consumers and commercial businesses. Round kegs simply don’t stack well/safely, they waste valuable space, and you can’t stack & tap them simultaneously without the use of cumbersome shelving or other stacking contraptions. I think everyone would agree that the “gold” is the liquid inside a keg (beer, wine, kombucha, cold brew, cocktails), so wouldn’t it make more sense to maximize our existing, finite spaces and use kegs that would enable us all to store and serve more volume from within the same spaces? We thought so too! I also wanted those like you and I to have a better way to consume beverages on tap in our own homes. Not all of us have room for a commercial kegerator, nor do we necessarily want one. But we all enjoy fresh beverages on tap and would all agree that pouring draft is 10X more fun than popping a can or a bottle.

 My mission is to change a 100+ year old paradigm and to create the most efficient, ROI producing keg fleets in the world, while giving consumers the most satisfying ways to consume beverages on tap- ANYWHERE!

I was born in Detroit, Michigan and had a very modest upbringing. As a young child, I always had this wild ambition that I could accomplish something amazing- something that could impact thousands of people, if not populations across the entire world. I guess I always looked up to the true innovators and risk takers, because let’s face it, if it weren’t for them, the world would always stay the same. That seemed boring to me and I wanted to bring some real excitement into the world.

I was not a great student! Haha. Although I was gifted with smarts, school was just boring as hell to me, so I never applied myself. In fact, I barely graduated high school. Following high school, I dabbled with construction jobs or any job where I could make the most money possible, without a college degree. At this point, I knew I wanted to start a company, but didn’t have a clue what that would be. It was at this point that I married my beautiful wife and we started a family. Knowing that I would need to step up my game to support a family, I followed society’s playbook and enrolled in college. When I started, I was working full time as a sign salesman, taking a full load of classes, all while trying to be a great father and husband, which is a lot to bite off. Fast forward 7 years and 3 kids later, I finally graduated from Eastern Washington University with a Bachelor’s Degree.

What felt like a great accomplishment at the time, soon led me down a path which I’d later regret. I had always been told that after high school, you go to college and get a degree, then go work in the corporate world. At the time, I thought I had made it! Good salary, great benefits, etc. But after 10+ years of working for some of the largest medical companies in the world, I found myself miserable and empty, some days to the point of feeling sick. Too many meetings, just to have meetings. Too many micromanaging bosses. Too little creativity, being forced to work inside the box. Working my ass off to make someone else better off. I tell this story, because I know there are millions of people out there with crazy abilities, that are also constrained by the all-too-well-known “golden handcuffs”. I knew I had to find a way out at any cost, but what could I do?

 Meet SquareKeg!

The idea of SquareKeg was honestly the rebirth of myself! It was something that allowed me to dream and express my creativity every day. Something that the corporate world crushes every day.

When I started this company, I had a great network, but literally ZERO network that would help me on this particular path. I had to get really creative and reach out to a TON of people. I needed a complete team to pull this off, so I went to work. Through endless emails, calls, and drop ins, I put together a team that would ultimately help me make this dream a reality. And this took months and months. I needed help with prototyping, drafting/design, engineering, manufacturing, tooling, creative/branding design, website development, ad buying and management, business and patent legal, and a whole lot more. On top of building a reliable team, we went through dozens of idea/design/engineering/manufacturing process iterations, before we settled on the final product. I think this is the reason that most people with great ideas don’t see it through to the finish line. It’s A LOT OF WORK!

Early 2021, we worked with a local metal manufacturer to make our initial product, SquareOne, but over the past 11 months, we have evolved and are now manufacturing our kegs from start to finish, in-house, right here in Spokane, WA and the best part of all, we are creating domestic manufacturing jobs. Almost all of our suppliers are local or regional, and we’re extremely proud of that as well.

We have shipped SquareKeg products to all 50 states and have started shipping internationally, all within the past 12 months. This has enabled me to realize a lifelong dream, which is to work for myself and to leave corporate world behind. I left my corporate job for good in 2021 and haven’t missed it for one second.

Moving forward, we have a very exciting product development pipeline that will bring efficiency and fun into the kegging world and I can’t wait for our products to become integrated into your lifestyle and/or business.

The sky’s the limit!