Contrary to an age-old witticism, youth isn’t always wasted on the young. Moses Tut, 24, is a sterling exception to that rule as vice president of Strategic Partnership at Running Tap. The new venture, a boutique distributorship, is a flourishing success that has, in a year and a half, innovated one of the world’s most popular businesses: buying and selling alcoholic beverages.
Founded by Moses’ brother Isaac Tut, CEO, and Chris Ho, co-founder, Strategic Partnerships didn’t just build a better mousetrap but remodeled the mechanism ingeniously enough to make competitors wonder, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Running Tap, Minnesota’s first such company and the nation’s second, delivers from breweries direct to homes, offices and events. Via an instantly far-reaching Internet marketplace, the enterprise swiftly evolved into a Midwest entity of consequence.
The company is methodically poised to increase success. What began last June with three breweries and a dozen clients now handles 24 breweries and over 600 clients.
Talking over a late breakfast in a South Minneapolis eatery, Tut, stately and soft-spoken, imparted, “My upbringing, very disciplined, [is] where I attribute my success or maybe my positioning and grounding.”
His modesty in crediting his parents is a matter of fact, as is his tone throughout the conversation. “Everything is my parents and the foundation they built for myself and my siblings. A mindset that is straightforward.”
Tut recounted his father and mother escaping war-ravaged South Sudan. “Our parents getting us out. Basically fleeing for their lives for about 10 years, going from refugee camps to refugee camps [in Ethiopia, then Kenya], trying to find a safe place, really built that resiliency.”
He noted that only one percent of refugee families manage to relocate, some spending their entire lives in camps. In 1999, the United Nations Commission on Refugees granted the Tut’s entry to America. “I would say that’s when our journey began.” Their journey, it turned out, completely reversed their fates from refugee status to entrepreneurial prosperity.
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“I listen to everybody’s perspective before giving my own. That mutual regard I think is first and foremost.”
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Before Running Tap, Moses Tut had established himself as a presence of consequence. Since 2013, he has presented or performed at over 100 educational institutions, conferences, and forums, speaking on cultural competency. He currently advises a program that facilitates admission of South Sudanese students to colleges and universities around the world.
He also created the Sioux Falls Youth Initiative, a nonprofit providing extracurricular athletic programs infused with educational and life skills. In 2016, Tut addressed the OTA Bismarck Conference representing the tri-state region of Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.
He moved to Minneapolis to get Running Tap on its feet and joined the Global Shapers Minneapolis hub, a network composed of dynamic leaders under 30 who want to develop their leadership potential towards serving society. With more than 3,500 Shapers in over 450 hubs worldwide, this unprecedented initiative unites an extraordinary array of young decision-makers to effect change.
Inevitably, he does take a certain amount of credit. After all, discipline can’t explain everything he’s accomplished. “I’ve heard many times that it’s almost like I have a wise spirit or [an] old spirit in a young body. Because I perceive things in a certain way that most people [of] my generation don’t.”
He added, “I listen…to everybody’s perspective before giving my own. Respecting elders. Respecting different ethnicities, cultures. Just having that mutual regard I think is first and foremost.”
What prompted him to adopt this attitude to being a businessman? “You have to turn on the lights, pay the bills.” Hence, his experience and acumen are brought to bear at Running Tap.
Here’s how wetting your whistle this way works: The Running Tap website is as important to product as it is to presentation — in fact, it’s paramount in merchandising, since consumers do judge a book by its cover. The website is state of the art from handsome layouts to vital, practical information and, for good measure, a PSA. There you’ll see exactly what they offer your taste buds – brews that are critically acclaimed medaled in competition, or highly rated by the public, your fellow drinkers.
Placing a credit card order, you purchase from partner Minnesota breweries — no markup — paying for convenient, prompt delivery service, Tuesday to Sunday, within 20 miles of the company’s downtown Minneapolis site.
Plan ahead. This takes more or less a couple hours, for a good reason: It arrives at your door after a short trip directly from the brewery, which means the beer is fresher than what you get at the store or, for that matter, bellying up to the bar for what’s on tap.
There usually are exclusive deals on bundles, just check the website’s sales collection. Simply have I.D. ready when the driver shows up. Then, go back to watching the game while cracking open a few, returning to the party or whatever it was you were doing that called for special delivery of suds. Further, there’s the option of saving time and a delivery fee by placing your order and then swinging by the Running Tap Offices to pick it up.
For more information, email info@running-tap.com with any and all questions.
Dwight Hobbes welcomes reader responses to P.O. Box 50357, Minneapolis, MN 55403.
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