Good People, Good Markets

Early this Tuesday morning, we went to our first Chamber of Commerce meeting in one of the markets we want to be in, and were very glad to meet some great people and learn good things about conducting business in that community.

Our thanks to Calabasas Chamber of Commerce and their "deputies" at the "Good Morning Calabasas" breakfast.

Y'all have to admit, it was somehow appropriate we ended up taking home a door prize of a bottle of wine from a random business card drawing:) We got a good laugh out of the coincidence!

It was a pleasure to attend a well-organized function that said it was about "relationship building" within the business community, and delivered on that in spades.

We look forward to being an active partner in the community as our business grows.

People are People

Larry & I had a great time this evening at the reception/mixer for the kickoff of the Keiretsu Forum's SoCal Angel Expo, and we really enjoyed all the folks we met this evening; we look forward to more conversations at Tuesday's expo.

One thing we keep coming back to is that, no matter what kind of investor or entrepreneur you are, people are people.

Be honest, be passionate about your business and the conversations and the types of discussion all come out the same way. Somewhere in there you find ways to connect.

Whether we get to listen to the pitch and conversations about another startup (and learning new things about our own market conversations) or whether we have an opportunity to speak about what excites us about our new business - people are people, and in the listening and the speaking of a conversation, the truth about what kind of person you are and what kind of people you're having a conversation with, is revealed.

We're very glad to be participating in the upcoming Southern California Angel's Forum and are glad for every conversation that comes from it -because at the end of the day, people are people, and we all learn from each other.

Wine 2.0 Competition Totals

Well, the voting for the Wine 2.0 Competition over at Vator.tv is closed and they're slated to announce the "winner" next week selected from the top 3 finalists in a number of metrics.

I have to admit, the contest itself got me pretty competitive, and it was amazing to watch Crushpad's last 48 hour run on the votes. They managed to go from 5 votes, to over 200 in those last two days. Congratulations Crushpad:)

Then again, if Vino Veritas was already a $15m/year company with very happy customers, you bet we'd be reaching out to our fan base for support too. But out of the other four early-stage companies in the competition, we're very happy to have come out where we did (thanks to Yokum Taku, for the heads up to this competition back in August!)

Below is a breakdown of the final top 5 metrics:

We're also really pleased to have placed as the highest rated pitch of the competition and moreover to have had such positive response on the comments and questions we've received from participating in the competition. Everyone's input has contributed greatly to helping us further understand our market, and how to better communicate our own goals and visions for the company.

To the Vator.tv folks, thank you for creating this site for entrepreneurs to try things like this, more than just a platform for competitions, it's been a great way to raise visibility and do early market testing for our startup.

To everyone who voted, rated, commented & referred, a huge THANK YOU for your support and encouragement - it's much appreciated.

Whatever shakes out from the "top three" selection by Chris Moore, we're happy to have had the opportunity to participate in the competition!

(Oh, and just so we can keep up the competitive spirit, we went ahead and placed our pitch in the AO100 competition at Vator too! Why not?).

Last TWO days of the Vator.tv Wine 2.0 Competition

It's down to the last TWO days of the venture capital competition on Vator.tv and there's a lot happening in our world. Even if you've already seen our old video, there's a whole NEW presentation up, and we would love to have your vote AND your rating on our newest pitch (much clearer, more fun and higher production values, really!).

I know it means logging in or registering but PLEASE, if you can take 5 minutes to do so, please do. Vator has added two separate ways to vote and rate a pitch;

Click HERE to view and RATE the new video!

Click HERE to VOTE for us!
(click on the green VOTE for this pitch under our video! Login and make your vote count!)

Thank you everyone for your fantastic support.

On Competition

Competition is healthy, and necessary for any business to survive and grow.

If you don't have competition, you don't have business.

Interestingly, in a business that has traditionally been very quiet, barely marketed, and highly protectionist (and in some cases, wine storage itself being claimed an intellectual propertly - uh, ok), we seem to be stirring the wine storage pot up a bit.

To that, we say "GREAT!"

The wine business is changing, and the old way of storing wine someplace you can't even find on a map, or online, is not the direction it's headed in.

Personally, I like competition. It means that sometimes we win, and sometimes we just get the bar moved up to a new playing field - which is good for us in many ways.

New Wine 2.0 Competition Video

As promised, here's an embedded copy of the new video for the Wine 2.0 competition at Vator.tv.



We'll be doing our (last) push on asking folks to vote for this new promo in the next week or so before the end of the contest (interestingly, Vator.tv *just now* added a "Vote" button for the Wine 2.0 competition - which is apparently different from "rating" a video, so for anyone who has a moment to go vote for our pitch, we'd much appreciate it!

NoCal Report

We had an awesome trip (again) up to San Francisco and Napa.

Larry & I got the opportunity to do an interview with Bambi Francisco and the folks at Vator.tv (watch for it in the near future on the Vator.tv site), and also to have a great chat with Michael Stajer of WineCommune and JJ Buckley. We love getting to know more people in the wine industry as a whole, especially when it's someone who's worked hard to build his business over the last 8 years as Michael has. (We also love buying wines from them, and you should too!).

On the ride up, I attempted to finish editing, compositing and doing the audio work on our latest promo/pitch for our startup. The pitch is now up at Vator HERE, but I'm also going to embed it in it's own post following this one.

I can't say I ever tried editing on a laptop on a bumpy highway at 90 miles an hour. All I can say is that I can't really recommend it. It's hard. Here's a pic Larry snapped off on the way. I look happy in there, right?


I finished the piece as we pulled into the Vator TV shooting location at The Presidio, with the final render coming out at 2:53pm, our scheduled meeting time was 3:00, so we quickly changed shirts in the parking garage and boogeyed upstairs. (which, all we can say is *wow* - amazing architecture and offices there...)

It was great to meet and talk with Bambi, Roland, Meliza and Carl from the Vator team - thanks for making the interview a great experience!

We also took a few hours on Friday to check in with our friend over at Bacchus Caves, David Provost, who graciously took us to check out his companies latest masterpiece up in the hills of Napa. The work they've just completed at a private family's cave was just astounding and made us all that much more enthusiastic about our partnership with them.

Moving Day!

Right on, we've finally found a (workable) office and it's moving day! Furniture, etc. in today, networking etc. in tomorrow.

Moving furniture in the middle of a really hot day is always a good time, but we're stoked to have a place to put our office furniture!

More productivity to follow, etc.

"Wine" of the Times

OK, I know I've posted a little bit about the this concept of "Wine 2.0" floating around out there and how our services and facilities will tie into this rapidly changing market, but it's a GOOD day for us when a topic about wine shows up on the front page of Digg.com, getting voted up to front page within 2 hours of posting, and garnering 460 "diggs" in just under 6 hours.

Geeks rule the world, AND they like wine (not just the Linux sort either). Awesome!

Angel Financing, Table for Two, Please?

As we proceed with Angel discussions, I have to note that in spite of all the management and angel information you might have ahead of time, it's easy to lose sight of other really important things a potential Angel investor may (or may not) bring to the table besides cash.

When you're burning through what resources you do have, busy building the train and laying the track, worrying that you're not going to get the coal you need to get your locomotive to actually move down the tracks, it's hard to *not* think only of the liquid capital.

But if you get a lucky break and get to step back for a minute at your field of potential partners, the differences and the value propositions that extend beyond "just the money" begin to make themselves evident.

A great angel investor isn't a great angel because they have gold in their pockets, they're a great angel because they can, and have, flown before. They're great because they have experiences, knowledge, resources they can contribute to your new business AND an (obviously) enthusiastic interest in the road you've chosen for your company.

I know I've never taken a large risk for anything that I wasn't really enthusiastic about, and I would hope nothing less for our partners.

Larry & I are both definitely excited about the value beyond cash that our angel investors bring to the table.