December 27, 2005
belated merry christmas etc
Hope everybody had a nice Christmas etc.
Stormhoek is currently gearing up for its American launch. A lot of the work recently has been going into sorting out the new American distributors– one in New York, the other in Seattle. I think the brand will sell more easily in the US than in the UK, the way it’s being marketed [i.e. as a form of business porn].
Having been in the wine business for about a year, my initial hunch seems as true as ever i.e. that most wine marketing is done rather badly. My job for the next two years will be finding out where the edges are, and hopefully pushing them.
This is the advantage of living somewhere cheap and easy– you can afford to take risks. No country club memberships to pay for. No Tribeca lofts to maintain.
You can afford to piss people off.
[BONUS LINK:] Jason Calacanis has a wonderful list of his “Predictions for 2006.”
A year ago I felt much more clued in with internet trends than I do now [Basically, it was a time issue– I could either spend more time following the net or selling suits; I chose the latter]. Jason’s extremely clued-up list brought the fact home, sharper than ever.
I couldn’t agree with you more about living somewhere cheap so you can afford to take bigger risks. My co-founders and I moved from San Diego, CA to Prague, Czech Republic for a year to launch our new business. Even though our company is in the US, we can live very well here and afford to make some bigger bets on our company.
–Charles
Same as Hugh — viva Espana!
Hey who knows…maybe there’s another thing for you to do — a spare time thing that is — run the Hughtrain Travel Club…who knows where folk could end up…
What the English think about wine; we like pretty. I hope your readers think long and hard about that when it comes to designing your label.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/4564206.stm