The founder of the best-selling Black-owned spirit brand shares why she prefers to work with individual investors over VC firms and how they helped her reach $100 million in sales

• Fawn Weaver's Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey is the best-selling Black-owned spirit brand in the US. 
• She chose to take funding from individual investors, not from VC or private-equity firms. 
• Weaver formed a network that naturally expanded her brand, as the group used her product regularly.

Fawn Weaver founded her whiskey brand, Uncle Nearest Premium Whiskey, in 2017 after being inspired by the story of Nearest Green, the first known African American master distiller.