Why He Left the Business He Spent 11 Years Building, with Joe Slater

This week on the Ways to Wealth Podcast, Charlie speaks to Joe Slater, co-founder of Six Barrel Soda and head of product at Consumer NZ. Joe built six businesses across hospitality, beverages, distribution, and e-commerce before stepping out of his own company and getting a job for the first time in years. The transition from founder to employee raised a question he hadn't expected: can I do this, and who am I without the business?Joe started with a caravan cafe on an old car yard in Wellington in 2008. He opened a bar and restaurant shortly after, then launched Six Barrel Soda in 2012 during the early days of the craft beverage movement. The brand grew to export to six countries, landed in Target stores in the US, and was eventually sold to St Andrews Limes in early 2025.But the exit wasn't a straight line. Joe talks about the burnout that led to him stepping out of operations, how he found and hired his replacement in six weeks over a single coffee, and the systems he put in place years earlier that made the handover possible.He also spent three years at Creative HQ running startup programs and coaching pre-launch founders. That experience gave him a different view of what makes businesses succeed and fail, and he is direct about the traps he sees founders walk into, from copying other companies instead of being themselves, to not understanding how long it takes to make money, to raising capital before knowing what they actually want.The conversation covers what it feels like to go from running your own thing to having a boss, why full-sugar Coke sales still go up every year despite the health movement, and what Joe and his wife are planning across the next 20 years.Watch all episodes of the Ways to Wealth Podcast here.Check-out Joe’s Linked-in here.#waystowealth #sixbarrelsoda #consumernz #entrepreneurship #startup #nzbusiness #craftbeverages #founders #smallbusiness #burnout #exits #wealthbuilding #businesscoaching #wellington