I would love your input here. Here’s the general premise for an in-home wine club — think book club or scrapbooking club, but instead, getting together to taste and learn about wine:
A group of friends organize around an interest in wine
They place an order for regularly delivered wine selections at their choice of price points (low, medium, high) and around a pre-determined set of themes (region, type of wine, season)
The shipment includes not only the wine but recommendations on supplies needed, such as the best kind of glasses, suggestions for food pairings and other pointers on serving such as temperature and decanting.
Also included is a DVD to play during the wine club meeting. It features background on the wine, suggestions on how to taste it and conversation starters to get club members talking to each other about what they do or don’t like about the wine.
Picture getting together with maybe eight of your friends every month or so to taste wines in someone’s home, sharing the cost of the wines and learning about them together — does that sound like something you might want to do?
Thanks to Twitter, I learned about the Slow Money conference — I hadn’t heard of it until I saw Stowe Boyd’s 140-character updates Thursday.
BusinessWeek writes:
There’s a conference going on in Santa Fe this week about Slow Money. The idea behind slow money, modeled on the 20-year-old slow food movement, is to create an infrastructure for investing in local food systems.
Financial markets exist to connect people who have extra capital (in retirement accounts, pension funds, nonprofit endowments, personal savings, etc.) with people who need it (to go to college, buy homes, start and expand companies, buy inventory and equipment, etc). In the old model, a bank, fund, or other institution is usually the intermediary in the marketplace. That intermediary invests capital from savings wherever it has the greatest return for the institution’s shareholders — and sometimes that meant a lot of money flowed to destructive assets, like subprime mortgages.
The new model is a way of allocating capital that accounts for other factors, like how it affects the local community. When businesses borrow or get investment directly from their customers (in the CSA model, for example), that means that customers’ interests are aligned with creditors’ or shareholders’ interests — they’re the same group. In a local economy, they’re part of the same community, too, so they have incentives to create value beyond just pure financial returns, by doing things that benefit the local environment and community. (E.g., a farm chooses not to use pesticides that pollute the local water system — a benefit local shareholders see.)
Slow Money. It’s a new economic vision. It’s an emerging network of investors, donors, farmers, and activists committed to building local food economies. It’s about the soil of the economy. It’s the beginning of the “nurture capital” industry.
Slow Money founder Woody Tasch explains his view in this YouTube video:
Slow Money appears to take it to the next level, calling for investment with a social mission. The Slow Money principles say:
Paul Newman said, “I just happen to think that in life we need to be a little like the farmer who puts back into the soil what he takes out.” Recognizing the wisdom of these words, let us begin rebuilding our economy from the ground up, asking:
What would the world be like if we invested 50% of our assets within 50 miles of where we live?
What if there were a new generation of companies that gave away 50% of their profits?
What if there were 50% more organic matter in our soil 50 years from now?
What do you think about investing locally? About businesses committing to giving away a percentage of their profits? About businesses raising capital from customers?
Matt and Rene Greff run two popular businesses – Arbor Brewing Co., a brewpub in Ann Arbor, which spawned Corner Brewery, a microbrewery in Ypsilanti where they bottle beer for retail distribution.
Both places draw big crowds and reviewers praise their beer. It’s quite the successful little empire.
Matt and Rene talked to the Kalamazoo Gazette’s KalamaBrew, which features a five-minute video of the couple talking about their career path. I can't make the embed code work, so click here to watch it on MLive.
Matt and Rene are two of our very favorite people back home, and we’ve talked at some great length about their bumpy early days as entrepreneurs. Neither of them had ever worked in a restaurant or bar and they simultaneously struggled with a steep learning curve and the closure of a huge city parking structure across the street from the pub.
Their journey from corporate cubicle dwellers to fledgling entrepreneurs to Ann Arbor area institution struck me as a perfect story of transformation. Since they’re working night and day on Corner Brewery, we had a tough time connecting by phone for a blog interview, so they shared their some thoughts by e-mail. Most of the quotes below are jointly written, as they passed my questions back and forth electronically before returning them.
How did you keep up your dedication to running the business when you were initially struggling?
We had no choice! When things were nearing the lowest point, we actually called our attorney who specializes in bankruptcies and asked him how that all worked. He simply told us it was not an option for us if we wanted any sort of future so we had better figure out how to make it all work.
More than that, we had put so much of ourselves into starting the brewpub that allowing it to fail would have been like letting a loved one die if you could save them.
It was also critical that we were in this together as husband and wife and business partners. We fed off each other and were always there to pick each other up and keep going. It was the sole focus of our lives and we dedicated literally every waking (and sleeping) moment to making the brewpub succeed.
(Matt and Rene have talked to us over the years about how miserable they were with their flailing business, until a book called Conversations with God inspired them to take charge of turning it around.)You’ve told us the story of reading Conversations with God and having it transform your business. What about that do you think was most important in getting to where you are today?
The most mind-blowing and life altering concept was that we were living exactly the life we had created – the conditions of our lives and our business were the result of every single decision and action (small and large) that we had made either consciously or unconsciously up to that point. We realized that it was nobody else’s fault that we were in a difficult situation. And more importantly that it wasn’t a matter of blame at all. We are all subject to the laws of cause and effect and if we wanted a different business outcome or different lifestyle, we just needed to make different choices to create that outcome.
So we set about making conscious rather than unconscious decisions – being proactive rather than reactive. It gave us a sense of control and endless possibilities and our attitude toward the brewpub and our lives changed literally overnight. We clarified our goals and remained open to the infinite possibilities for achieving those goals.
We started with creating a positive rather than a stressful work environment for our staff (which was definitely in our control as the bosses) and from there everything else just started to flow.
Matt and Rene Greff sport tattoos of the logo for one of their beers, Sacred Cow. My husband, John Tebeau, designed their logos, labels and six packs.
What do you think you did right to get you where you are?
From the very start, we had a vision of a business that was rooted in the community. Our goal was to practice what we called capitalism with a conscience which encompasses everything from paying a living wage to recycling to being responsible in the way we serve alcohol.
We also had a vision of our favorite European pubs that were not only great places to eat and drink but were the social nexus of their communities. Since we didn’t have money to donate, we donated our time, our space and our goods and services and created lasting partnerships with dozens if not hundreds of local non-profits. We never shied away from supporting causes that we care about.
Because of those ties, even when we were really struggling we had such loyal supporters who were all pulling for us. And because we’ve opened our doors to so many groups over the years, we’re the first place many people think of when they want to host a fundraiser or a political event or a social gathering.
So not only have we gotten a lot of business but we’ve attracted the absolutely best and coolest people as regulars. That makes running the business so much fun. It makes us really happy when someone tells us why they love ABC and they start with “You are so active in the community” then quickly add “oh, and I love your beer and food, too!”
What do you wish you had done differently?
Not sucked from the beginning!
I wish we had spent more time planning how to actually run a large restaurant. We were so focused on just getting the place open and assumed it would be easy to run a restaurant once we got it open.
Obviously not the case.
We spent the first two years learning every job in the entire operation to get a grasp on how to successfully operate the brewpub.
The other thing we wish we had done differently was raised more money for the project. We really tied our own hands by trying to do the startup on the cheap and it would have been nice to have a safety net of operating capital for when times were tough. I think we were like a lot of first-time entrepreneurs. We didn’t want to consider the worst-case scenario and learned the hard way that it is better to fully consider how badly things could go wrong than to be blindsided by it if that’s how things end up going.
The label for Sacred Cow ipa, which features the logo that's now tattooed on Matt and Rene. My husband, John Tebeau, designed the logo and the labels.
What do you think you learned from your past jobs/experience that’s helping you now?
Matt – One thing I learned was what I didn’t want my own business to look and act like. One of the reasons I was ready to flee the corporate world while only in my mid-20s was because as an employee I felt disconnected from the goals and successes of the company I worked for and felt unappreciated and replaceable.
The company made it clear that the organizational priorities were profits, customer satisfaction and employee satisfaction in that order. I felt that if you put employee satisfaction first then customer satisfaction and financial success would naturally follow. Obviously this was easier said than done but we continue to put employee happiness and job satisfaction at the top of our priority list.
What advice would you give your 21-year-old self now if you could?
Figure out what you are passionate about and pursue that regardless of whether it is a traditional career path or not. Your life and work should not be compartmentalized. They should be intertwined to make you who you are. If you follow your heart and passion then success will follow. Although it may not be success in the traditional sense, you will be profoundly happy. I feel like our 42-year-old selves are proof this is true.
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Rene and Matt have both been interviewed by Dave Askins in his Teeter Talks series.
Corner Brewery turns up pretty frequently on Mark Maynard’s Ypsi-focused blog.
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Blogging disclosure: I am rarely unbiased about anything I write about. Think of Newvine Growing as my version of Oprah’s favorite things. In the case of Matt and Rene, we’ve been friends with them for more than a decade, and they’ve generously shared their beer with John — sadly, I don’t drink beer. They’ve also been clients of John’s as he designed logos, labels, six packs and tap handles for them.
Previously on Newvine Growing (read that in the Battlestar Galactica opening sequence voice) I’ve profiled people who’ve reinvented themselves by changing jobs and starting down a new career path.
That’s all well and good, you think, but when unemployment is hitting double digits in some states, maybe this isn’t the best time to make that big switch. Not only are jobs not so plentiful, but if you do find something and then layoffs come, you’re the new guy with relatively little experience and thus not as valuable as your peers.
Some of the best career advice I’ve gotten came from Al Cotrone, head of the career services office at Michigan Business School. He suggested using your current job to develop the skills and experiences you’ll need in your dream job.
How about taking that one step further? What if you transform your current job into your dream job, or something close to it, by building in new activities?
Most professionals have at least some flexibility in how we spend our day. We have some choice when it comes to the projects we take on, the committees we join, how we execute our assignments. What if you used some of that discretion to make your job into something that excites and challenges you more?
I’m really excited about social media, so here are two examples of people who transformed what they do not by getting new jobs but by using new tools to do their old jobs in new ways.
Case study #1: Gary Vaynerchuk, Wine Library TV
Gary’s parents owned a liquor store, and like many people with a family business, he was put to work early. But just punching the cash register while people came in to buy hooch didn’t excite him.
Instead of rejecting the family business, he found a way to make it more interesting. His Web site tells the story:
Gary’s roots in wine tasting come honestly – his Russian immigrant parents owned a liquor store when he was growing up. Bored at the cash register, Gary began reading Wine Spectator and Wine Advocate and realized collecting wine offered an allure similar to his previous hobby of collecting baseball cards. As a teenager, tasting wine was legally impossible, so Gary set out to train his palate “backwards”. To study various flavors associated with wine, Gary tasted obscure fruits and vegetables, along with earthly influences, including grass, dirt, rocks, tobacco and wood. “I probably consumed more New Jersey grass in my teens than any lawn mower.” By familiarizing himself with the numerous tastes that contributed to a specific wine, Gary was able to detect subtleties that an ordinary palate wouldn’t recognize.
With a wealth of knowledge and an entrepreneurial spirit, Gary spent every weekend of his college years at his parents’ store, rebranding the family business as Wine Library and establishing himself as a respected expert. As the store’s only wine buyer, he sampled every wine that entered the store. Customers depended on Gary for his advice and within a five year time period, Wine Library grew from a $4 million dollar business to a $45 million business.
His restlessness with doing things the old way boosts business tenfold. Even if he wasn’t working for his parents, the bosses probably would have liked those kinds of results.
Selling more wine in his local shop wasn’t enough, though. Gary realized that his unpretentious way of talking about wine connects with people and he expanded his reach with Wine Library TV. Here’s Time talking about the inspiration for his empire.
“I can’t write, so I missed the whole blog thing, and I was pissed,” he says. So when he saw Andy Samberg’s Saturday Night Live video Lazy Sunday explode on YouTube, he got himself a video camera and started winelibrarytv.com Few people look quite so excited to be talking to a camera. He’s more hyper than Emeril, more cheerful than Rachael Ray, more street than Bobby Flay and cockier than all of them combined. “Do I think I have that much charisma? I think I have more. I know I could be the host of SportsCenter in two years if I changed my show today to sports,” he says.
Only on the Web could Vaynerchuk review wine, not just because he describes one as the “kind of bottle you want to take on your date and hope she consumes the entire thing, and then it gets interesting” but also because he’s trying to sell wine on the very same website where he’s rating it–which, despite his deep knowledge and spot-on nose, reduces his trustworthiness.
Wine Library TV has developed a tremendous following, and having a taste for what that kind of audience can do, Gary keeps on expanding. Now it’s a show aimed at women, just announced this week. From TechCrunch:
Gary Vaynerchuk is going after the Oprah set. The wine wholesaler who launched a career as a Web video celebrity talking about wine and marketing just launched Obsessed, a new video talk show hosted by Samantha Ettus. With Obsessed, Vaynerchuk hopes to move beyond niche programming on the Web to appeal to a mainstream audience.
The format of the show is an in-depth 30 to 40 minute interview with guests that appeal to 25 to 55-year-old women. The first interviews on the site right now are with food writer Mark Bittman and floral designer Preston Bailey. Future guests will include Today Show travel editor Peter Greenberg, TreeHugger founder Graham Hill, and BlogHer founder Liz Stone. (They are working on some bigger names as well).
Are you not in awe yet? Check him out talking at Web 2.0 in New York this past fall. He’s like the poster child for career transformation. Warning: if you’re easily offended by the f-bomb, Gary is not for you, but he’s got passion:
Case study #2: Ariel Hyatt, Ariel Publicity
I first met Ariel when our mutual friend, Rachel Masters, put Ariel up to talking about her company to a bunch of Michigan BBAs and MBAs with an interest in entertainment and media. Ariel graciously said yes and invited us her offices to learn about her approach to helping musicians make money without going the traditional route of pursuing a mainstream record contract. At that point it was about touring and street crews and other heavy-lifting routes of generating a fan base.
We got a peek at the pre-Cyber PR Ariel, before she had the a-ha moment — if she really wanted to succeed at promoting her musicians, she had to figure out a new way to not only promote them but to get the word out about herself. Her old Web site was sort of an online business card. Now she’s a multimedia empire – she’s got a blog, she’s got a book, she’s got an e-Zine, and her Web site links to all the social media places you can find her. And she challenges her clients to follow suit, as in this Twitter pitch contest she’s running.
Running my music PR firm is a lot like running your music career. Like you, I need to build my story and my brand, get fans, and earn a living.
I struggled for years and I had decent success but at the end of every year I noticed the same pattern – I was not GROWING and I was frustrated. This led me on a journey to figure out how to boost my own business.
I spent the next two years attending workshops and I flew all over the country to study with some of the biggest names in Marketing and PR and Sales. In these seminars I learned about new technology and how really successful business owners create sales and PR.
While attending these Internet Marketing seminars I was amazed at the people I was meeting.
I was meeting people who were earning hundreds of thousands of dollars online. Some of them were earning millions.
People who were NOT NEARLY as talented and interesting and creative as my artists were getting rich online.
I could not believe it!
I could not understand why not a single person in the music business seemed to understand any of these tactics or techniques.
In fact I never ran into a single musician or music industry person at any of these events.
I slowly began to implement what I was learning at all of these seminars and workshops me and my business REALLY began to take off!
I created a program that combines social networking and Internet marketing techniques and it was becoming so successful for my business I decided to write out a step-by-step program for my PR clients.
Then I realized this information is exactly what all artists need to know.
Ariel created a new path for herself by recognizing a need and by turning herself into the expert. She didn’t just keep doing the same thing more or harder, or lamenting that some other thing might be fun to do if she didn’t already have a job. She flung herself head first into a new area with a focus on how to marry that up with her existing knowledge and passion for indie music.
That’s part of what’s so powerful about both Ariel and Gary — they were already experts in an area, and they didn’t give up that knowledge and credibility by transforming what they did. They developed new tools to do their jobs in a radically different way.
Instead of being one of a gazillion PR people out there who can help musicians with a press release about their latest tour, Ariel differentiated herself by offering something new, and in the process, she became part of the story. It’s a brilliant way to both get a leg up on the competition and get free publicity for your business. For example, here’s an 85-minute audio interview with Ariel on her Web 2.o techniques. What would it cost to buy an hour of time promoting yourself, if you even could?
Granted, this kind of transformation might be easier when you’re an entrepreneur. You’re the boss so who’s going to say no?
Here’s the challenge: how can you adapt this idea to a 9-to-5 reality? Does it mean doing it on your own time, as Gary suggests? Or could you carve out a little time each day or each week to begin to change your existing job into something new? Or both — maybe learn the skills at home, then make a pitch to your boss?
You might not think of Joel Peterson as a transformation story — he grew up in a wine-loving family, and he started Ravenswood in his 20s then stuck with it until he made millions from a wine that’s become a household name.
Ravenswood founder Joel Peterson, center, with me and John in Sonoma fall 2008
But I think the way it happened speaks to evolution and passion. And since it’s my blog, I not only get to decide that it’s a fit, I get to show off a picture of me and John with Joel at the Valley of the Moon Vintage Festival in Sonoma.
First of all, when he started Ravenswood, it seemed like a long shot. It was not a foregone conclusion that he’d be able to pay the rent making wine.
He started out as a part-time, small-time winemaker, making single-vineyard Zinfandels in the 1970s when the grape had little respect.
In 1976, at the age of 29, he and business partner Reed Foster, whom he met in that group, started Ravenswood with $4,000, no vineyards and no winery. For labor, they called all their friends to help for free.
“I went through a lot of friends in the first year,” Peterson says.
If you’ve spent any time at all buying wine in the last decade, chances are you’ve seen Ravenswood wherever you shop. So it might come as a surprise to you that Joel has not been raking it in like the Gallo family. He kept his day job while he worked on wine on the side. For most of his life, he was a hypenate — a scientist-winemaker.
For the first 15 years of the winery, the loquacious Peterson earned his living in a job with almost no conversation required, working in the clinical laboratory at Sonoma Valley Hospital from 1977 through 1992. (He didn’t draw his first salary from the winery until 1991.)
“Microbiology is very meditative,” Peterson says. “Your only responsibility is to the petri dish in front of you.”
Still, for a guy who’s clearly got patience, he didn’t do it all just for the love of the grape.
“This is a business. At the end of the day I can’t do what Helen Turley does,” says Peterson, referring to one of California’s most-sought-after winemaking consultants for top-end wines. “I can’t tell people … it doesn’t matter if we make money. Because it does. Otherwise it becomes a hobby, unless you charge exorbitant prices for it. But I’ve never wanted to put wine up on a pedestal. Wine should be part of your everyday life.”
In 2001, two years after going public, Ravenswood was bought by Constellation Brands for $148 million. Peterson, whose hair reached his hindquarters in the winery’s early years, was the largest stockholder, making him that rare bird many students at UC Davis’ Department of Viticulture and Enology aspire to become — a winemaker-turned-multimillionaire.
And the evolution continues. When he sold to Constellation, he became part of a corporate operation.
Peterson still loves what he now calls a “brand.” He has proven to be surprisingly good at, and interested in, being a corporate executive — albeit one who wears Hawaiian shirts and cowboy hats.
”I always said I would never own a vineyard,” Peterson says, while walking among his vines, but being a multimillionaire can change one’s point of view.
To learn more about Joel Peterson’s evolution to California wine elder statesman:
