About Liquid Labs

Built by Operators Who Know How to Move from Concept to Commercial Scale

Liquid Labs brings beverage commercialization, manufacturing operations, lean systems, capital stewardship, and disciplined execution together under one leadership team.

Our Mission

Help beverage companies make better decisions earlier by connecting product strategy, formulation, consumer evidence, validation production, and operating execution.

More Than 7,000 Square Feet Dedicated to the Work That Creates Confidence

The Franklin facility is designed for recipe formulation, production-like samples, first controlled runs, validation production, and material changes to existing products. It is intentionally right-sized for learning and documentation—not commodity-scale production.

Values

  • Evidence before inventory
  • Technical reality before marketing promises
  • Clarity over hype
  • Explicit responsibilities
  • Category-specific rigor
  • Documented decisions
  • Controlled change
  • Transferable operating systems
  • Methodological honesty
  • Better decisions, made earlier
Leadership

A Team Built Around Technical Judgment and Operating Discipline

Liquid Labs is led by operators whose careers span beverage development, global manufacturing, lean systems, quality, supply chain, capital stewardship, and commercial scale-up. Each brings a different discipline to the same objective: create a beverage system that can be made, measured, transferred, and improved.

Derrick Morse, Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Liquid Labs
Founder & Chief Executive Officer

Derrick Morse

Where Beverage Science, Brewing, Brand Building, and Operations Meet

Derrick Morse has spent more than 20 years building beverage and consumer packaged goods brands from the liquid up. His experience spans craft beer, ready-to-drink cocktails, coffee, functional beverages, energy drinks, nonalcoholic products, and hemp-derived cannabinoid beverages where lawful.

Born and raised in Colorado, Derrick grew up around the outdoor culture and independent brewing scene of Denver and Boulder. He studied nutrition and food science at the University of Colorado Boulder, with a minor in kinesiology, before beginning his career in marketing and beverage sales. He later moved fully into brewing leadership roles in Colorado and Tennessee, where his work earned national recognition, including gold and bronze medals at the Great American Beer Festival for Westbound Braggot.

Across more than two decades in beverage and CPG, Derrick has helped build brands, teams, facilities, and operating systems across brewing, beverage development, pilot production, co-manufacturing, quality systems, supply chain, and commercial scale-up. That experience taught him that a strong beverage business requires far more than a promising formula. It requires disciplined development, sound documentation, production reality, and commercial infrastructure that can support growth.

Through Liquid Labs, Derrick helps entrepreneurs and established brands move from an early concept through formulation, bench trials, sensory evaluation, consumer feedback, pilot production, validation, and scale-up planning. His work connects the science of formulation with the realities of manufacturing and the discipline required to build a commercially repeatable beverage system.

Derrick’s operating philosophy is straightforward: a beverage is not commercially finished simply because it tastes good. It must also be safe, compliant, stable, repeatable, scalable, and financially viable. Liquid Labs was built around that philosophy so brands can build the evidence before they build the inventory.

Outside the brewery and lab, Derrick is still a Colorado outdoorsman at heart. He enjoys skiing, mountain biking, and spending time with his two kids, who remain his greatest adventure and a major reason he stays focused on building something meaningful for the future.

Bill Nieboer, Operating Partner and Chief Operating Officer of Liquid Labs
Operating Partner & Chief Operating Officer

Bill Nieboer

Where Operational Discipline, Quality, and Continuous Improvement Meet

Bill Nieboer has spent more than 30 years leading complex manufacturing, operations, and engineering organizations. His experience spans medical devices, automotive, industrial manufacturing, global supply chain, and operational transformation—helping companies improve performance, strengthen teams, and build the systems required to grow.

Bill earned a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Calvin College before beginning a career centered on manufacturing leadership and continuous improvement. From plant and business-unit management to executive operations roles, he has worked in environments where quality, safety, cost, delivery, and disciplined execution directly shape a company’s ability to compete.

Across three decades of leadership, Bill has built teams, launched facilities, led multi-site operations, improved profitability, and guided organizations through restructuring, expansion, and operational change. His experience includes P&L leadership, Lean and Six Sigma implementation, new product introduction, supply chain management, quality systems, and global manufacturing operations.

At Liquid Labs, Bill builds the operational foundation behind commercially repeatable beverage businesses. His work connects facility execution, production readiness, supplier coordination, quality systems, capacity planning, documentation, and continuous improvement.

Bill’s operating philosophy is straightforward: the best time to solve a problem is before it becomes expensive. A successful product must be supported by a system that is safe, reliable, measurable, and able to improve as the business grows.

At Liquid Labs, Bill is focused on matching strong ideas with strong execution—giving founders and established brands a practical path from formulation and validation to commercial readiness.

John Willcox, Partner at Liquid Labs
Partner

John Willcox

Where Strategy, Capital Discipline, and Scalable Operations Meet

John Willcox has spent more than 25 years building, scaling, and improving manufacturing organizations. His experience spans automotive, electrical and technology products, nutritional supplements, industrial operations, global supply chain, automation, and early-stage business growth. Throughout his career, he has worked at the point where strategy must become measurable execution.

John earned a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Economics from Michigan State University and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. He began in production planning, inventory control, and operations leadership before advancing into plant, business-unit, and executive roles with full P&L responsibility.

Across his career, John has built high-performing teams, turned around underperforming facilities, expanded manufacturing across the United States and international markets, integrated acquisitions, implemented automation, and created continuous-improvement cultures. His work has improved profitability, shortened lead times, strengthened customer performance, and made growth more repeatable.

At Liquid Labs, John focuses on capital stewardship, strategic relationships, governance, and long-term growth. He helps connect the company’s technical and operating work to disciplined resource allocation, accountable performance, and infrastructure that can scale with demand.

John’s operating philosophy is straightforward: growth is only durable when people understand the goal, the operating system makes performance visible, and leadership acts on the data. Strong teams, clear KPIs, lean processes, and capital discipline turn opportunity into enterprise value.

At Liquid Labs, John helps ensure that innovation is supported by the strategy, governance, relationships, and execution discipline required to build a durable commercialization platform.

The Liquid Labs Approach

Different Disciplines. One Commercialization System.

Traditional beverage development fragments responsibility across strategists, formulators, researchers, suppliers, co-manufacturers, and operators. Liquid Labs connects beverage judgment, manufacturing discipline, governance, and physical validation so the product and the operating system can advance together.

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