Jalapeños, Crop Tops & Condoms: The Best Marketing Costs Nothing

Big brands burn millions on marketing. Startups? We have jalapeños, crop tops, and condoms. In this talk, I'll share how Good Robot Brewing went from weeks away from bankruptcy to a thriving brand without spending a dime on traditional marketing.

Presented By

Meet Our Speaker

Joshua Counsil
Co-founder | Director, Marketing & Communications Good Robot Brewing

Raised by murder mystery dinner theatre owners, Joshua Counsil is a recovering engineer, business founder, and keynote speaker who learned the entrepreneurial journey the hard way: by doing it in public. In 2014, Joshua and two university buddies quit their engineering careers and founded Good Robot Brewing in Halifax, Nova Scotia. What started as an 800- square-foot garage brewery grew into a multi-venue tourism-hospitality and CPG business, known for standout customer experience, distinctive brand storytelling, and rapid growth on a shoestring budget.

In 2023, he and his partners launched The Beverage Factory, a beverage co-manufacturing/co-packing facility that now produces beverages for dozens of companies, from startups to $4B multinationals. Joshua ’ s talks are built for operators, marketers, and leaders who want practical takeaways. He blends real stories (PR nightmares, near-bankruptcy moments, big pivots) with simple frameworks audiences can use immediately. His most-requested themes include $0 marketing that drives real-world results, turning customer feedback into cheap market research, building world-class customer service on small budgets, and protecting creativity as teams scale. Good Robot has won 30+ awards for innovation, business, customer service, marketing, tourism-hospitality, and more, and has been featured in Forbes, CBC, CTV, WestJet Magazine, Global News, and BuzzFeed.