Digital Spaces meeting Physical Opportunities

It's interesting to see the reactions of a number of strictly software investment VC's and Angels when we start talking about how much Series A we're going to raise to open our first facility.

But what I think gets lost in the shuffle a lot right now is that there's an awful lot of investing in the web 2.0 space (which is a space that is an integral part of our business model, for sure), but that Vino Veritas is a real-world business. We'll own real-estate. A lot of it.

Each underground structure, depending on topography, will require between 3 and 6 acres of land.

As part of our green initiatives, the vast majority of that land remains in a natural state save for a small parking area and the portal entrances to the storage and service areas and any event space areas we may do some vineyard landscaping around.

The point is, from day one of actual operations, Vino Veritas will never be vaporware.

We will never be the product that doesn't make it to market or the gadget that never really worked.

We are finite, physical services & personal inventories of assets tied to an infinite backend of information.

While the digital age is all about unlimited product shelf space and zero-delivery costs, etc. etc., we're positioning to build a business that makes the best use of a digital world and marrying it to a real world inhabited by a naturally social group.

I think that's a tremendous opportunity.

The StartUp Two-Step

I found out yesterday that it's really good exercise when you're put on the spot in front the managing partner of a large VC fund and given 2 minutes to encapsulate your whole business and why in the hell he should be interested.

Apparently, it was good enough to get a business card and a "I'm traveling for about 10 days, follow up with me after that."

We may or may not do business with this particular fund, (my gut says probably not) but in any case it was an awesome experience and test to find out if we really do have our stuff together.

The answer to that is a resounding "YES."

As a matter of fact, out of a room full of web 2.0 startups, we definitely felt and came off as the guys doing "something really different," and that alone was worth a lot.

This Friday I'm officially done at the day job to focus on Vino Veritas full time, and as my partner Larry likes to say, time to "Let us Go Forth and Slay Dragons."

Ya man, let's go.

Vendors/Service Providers = Partners

Larry & I have both been working really hard on identifying and opening conversations with the skilled folks that it's going to take to make this venture work, and in the process working out our own personal definitions of the relationships we believe are critical to making this kind (or any kind) of business work.

In these relationships, we find that we *have* to be interested somewhat in the success or failure of the businesses who provide services to us as well. If we don't care about what they do, and take the standard "you are here to serve us" attitude that tells vendors that they are inferior to their clients, there's very little reason for the vendor or service provider to invest their best work in our business. We're not interested in mediocre work from anyone.

We believe that if our (major) vendors are not invested in our success either because it helps their company profit or because it brings them some kind of significant benefit, we are not going to be able to fully benefit from the services that vendor supplies.

Hence, we refer to folks we're working with, like Bacchus Caves, and WSGR, as "partners" because we've established that we as Vino Veritas are keenly interested in adding to the success of their businesses, as they in turn contribute above & beyond to the success of our business.

David Provost & Brian Simmonds over at Bacchus didn't need to invest the time they have with us. They're busy enough and successful enough that they turn away clients. Instead, they took their own time over weekends and weekdays to help us get a good understanding of what it takes to build outstanding underground structures. Costs, time, considerations, geology, all the things that they went out of the way to get us up to speed on. (Thank you guys!)

Yokum Taku, Scott, Jake and the team at WSGR didn't have to spend the time with us talking through (and continuing to talk through) the myriad of topics we still have to learn, nor did they have to execute all that they've already done with the amazing speed they have done so. (And I have a pretty good point of reference on this - I've been working for years with equally expensive Entertainment Lawyers whose level of service comes nowhere near the level that WSGR has been performing at). Their team's contributions drives us further and faster towards success at Vino Veritas just to show that all their hard work resulted in something really cool. (And thank you, again WSGR folks - we'll continue to work hard to make y'all proud.)

There's already a very long list of professionals that we work with on an almost daily basis (and we don't start full-time work on this for another week!), and we're grateful for the skills and talents that each of them bring.

We are proud to be building these conversations, relationships and mutual business & personal investments with each of these companies and people it's taking to turn this idea into a reality.

Rethinking "Audience"

I wanted to repost an entry I made a couple of weeks ago on my old Media blog that I'd written before getting this Vino Veritas blog setup - so here it is:

As I set out on the new venture of Vino Veritas there's a concept doggedly following into the business that I'm really very happy to have along for the ride.

I find it just about impossible, given my entertainment industry experience, to separate the term "client" or "customer" from "audience."

In many ways this seems to tie in well with the whole Web 2.0 experience where people are getting excited again about the interfaces and manners in which data and things that are useful are displayed to them.

We're uniquely positioned to take all that we've learned over the years in productions & set designs and storytelling and simple imagination and apply it to a whole new audience and that's really exciting.

From the lighting and finish choices, to the security functions, to the RIA application interface and how it will look, feel, engage and ultimately entertain our clients, this is really going to be a lot of fun.

Seems a whole lot more appropriate here on this blog.

On Competition

It's funny as we refine the differentiating bits and pieces of our new business here at Vino Veritas and looking at our competition and how I feel about them.

I'm spectacularly happy that self-storage companies already out there are building out additional climate-controlled capacity at breakneck speeds, because our approach at VV is dramatically different.

And at the same time I'm learning to relish the competition, and enjoy thinking about just beating the pants off of 'em. That's the bit that gets me thinking about clarifying what I mean by beating the pants off our competitors.

First, there is no one (yet) that will compete with the combination of climate controlled storage needs, related services, and socially-enabled sharing of what's being physically stored by means of rich-internet application.

There's a very significant barrier-to-entry both in terms of limited numbers of people who can physically build these structures successfully and in terms of knowledge and skill sets required to pull off the services and RIA combination.

Second, I'm not the kind of competitor who is out there to drive our other competitors out of business. There's a huge pie out there, and quite frankly, we probably couldn't build enough underground storage in the next 10 years to put anyone out of business.

We might be able to encourage them to stick to their traditional above ground storage businesses, but at the end of the day, competition doesn't mean destroying other businesses offering similar services.

What healthy competition does mean is that we win market share by doing what we set out to do and doing it better than anyone else out there. (*and Hint: doing it better doesn't happen in a vacuum - it happens by experience and conversation).

Now there's a challenge we're ready for.

No Chairs or Walls, but we've got Desks!

We may not have an office yet, but we've got our office furniture!

In a fortunate turn of events, my old employer is remodeling their entire set of offices and decided that some of their furniture had to go.

We worked out a great deal, and loaded up everything last night, then dropped it at Larry's house while we look for A) the money to pay for an office, and B) an office.

The really cool thing is that we got a nice batch of all matching furniture, at 90% less than we had budgeted.

Very cool! I'll post pics of our digs as we find them and get settled in.

Test Post - Welcome to Vino Veritas

This is Jon Lawrence's new blogspot as CEO of Vino Veritas:)