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Niche Digital Platforms: Scaling Local Wine Events Worldwide with Eric Orange · The Growth Class with Phil Masiello

• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Back in 2000, while working as a wine sales rep, Eric Orange hosted a high-end wine dinner.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: Food was great, wines were phenomenal, but almost nobody showed up.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: And he recognized that the industry lacked a centralized hub for local events.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So he launched a simple online bulletin board.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward to today, localwineevents.com.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's the longest running platform of its kind in the world, having listed over one million wine, food, beer, and spirits events across more than 500 global destinations.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: On top of building a massive digital platform, Eric brings over 40 years of hands-on wine industry experience.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: He holds certificates from the court of master someliers and the International Wine Guild, serves as a publisher of The Juice and is a proud military veteran.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: So welcome, founder and CEO of Local Wine Events, Eric Orange.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Eric, thanks for taking the time to come on.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: I really appreciate you.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I really appreciate your reaching out.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: It's been uh I've I've been excited all week, waiting to wait in the chat with you.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean it's a great, it's a it's a great business, but you know, take us back to that time in July of 2000 when you you know you put together this dinner and nobody showed up.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, it was so disappointing.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was embarrassing.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_01: I had uh a woman in from France.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: We were we were highlighting a practically unknown champagne.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's called Champagne Ruinard, Dom Ruinard, who was a a fellow monk with Dom Perignon back in the day.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_01: Um the wine is fabulous.
• 1:57
  SPEAKER_01: The dinner was at a really nice restaurant in Denver.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and again I had six people show up and it was just and yet I knew people wanted to know what was going on.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: I had had uh uh a doctor actually hand me a business card and say to me, email me when something's coming up.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I'd like to hear about these kinds of events.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_01: And uh that was kind of the the the genesis.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I I started thinking, how do you let people know?
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_01: People do want to know, how do you let them know?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: Back then it was you know radio, newspaper, if you you know had a three-week lead time, um, you know, maybe uh uh uh put up a placard in a retail store, but you know, the bottom line was there just was not a a centralized way of letting people know what was going on.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, about that time, I mean this was this was 1998 or so is what I kind of consider the the the boom of the internet.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it was there before, but in that year Netscape came out and AOL launched their stuff and people started recognizing that this thing was was valuable, and and that's when I kind of put it together.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: I thought, you know, if if if we just all had one place where we because I wasn't alone.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are you know thousands of people in my position doing the exact same thing.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so the idea was there, let's just put all of these kinds of events into one location by local location by city, and you know, let them know what's going on.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: I contacted the other supplier reps that were in my position and said, hey, if you got a dinner coming up, let me know about it.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: Um and then I I started developing the idea that I I realized I needed help.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_01: I went online, I went to Yahoo, I think it was, where I found a programmer in Slovenia and uh Yitzhak was his name.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And Yitzhak had really good command of the English and was also very intuitive.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_01: So I would suggest things, send his uh my ideas, and he'd come back with some suggestions.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: And together within about six months, we put together the site.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: It cost me$1,500 to go live.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: And we went live.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh at initially I started with 50 cities, and I had a rationale for that based around Mortons of Chicago, because if you're a wine buyer at a Mortons of Chicago, you have some power with the local wholesalers, the people who are selling you wine.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And I thought I could convince them to tell the wine reps if something was coming up posted on this site.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it kind of took off rather quickly.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, within the first six months, US News and World Report mentioned it um and and wrote to me that this was at a time when everybody started recognizing the value of links.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: And before Google even.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: And so they wrote to me and said, Hey, we we mentioned your your site, here's a link, you know, and and that kind of launched it.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, at that point, I think it gave legitimacy to the site.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: Between that and my extensive wine background, uh people within the industry really started taking a look, taking a notice.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um the restaurants really were the ones who jumped on it first, recognizing again, it's free marketing.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_01: Why why wouldn't you?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: You know?
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: So that's uh that's where it started.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: And and it just it took off.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, within short order, you know, I had 40 to 50,000 subscribers to my newsletter, and you know, we were we were on our way.
• 5:29
  SPEAKER_01: Um Google AdSense came along in the early days.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: I was one of the the pioneers there.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, they invited me out to the Googleplex Um for a a or a rally, if you will.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: There were several of us brought out there, but it was because you know, now I had ads being fed to the site that were pertinent to not only wine, but the location.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, if it's a Napa wine event, then I was getting fed Napa B ads.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, first I was making ten dollars a day and then making a hundred dollars a day, and then making three hundred dollars a day while I slept.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_01: I loved it.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: I didn't I didn't have to do anything other than just keep the site going.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh and that gave me the ability to afford my own server.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um in the early days we shared servers, you know, and I'd be on a server with 200 other companies, and if somebody wrote buggy script on their server, it could take me down for days.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, when that Google money started flowing in, I realized, all right, this is an opportunity to get my own server, not only my own server, but a mirror server, so if it went down, I could back it up.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that that changed things.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that gave me uh some breathing room, basically, to to allow the site to develop and you know spread the word.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's an it's an amazing story, but it you know, it just goes to show you sometimes the simplest ideas solve the uh solve complex problems and you know people respond to it, you know?
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_01: They did indeed.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: It was like I said, it was a very simple, very simple concept.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: Put them all in one place, let people find out what's going on.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: And it was you know, there were others that launched in my in my beginning, uh the wine spectator itself tried to try to page of the events, but their events were listed there was no order to them.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: The first one was in Chicago, the second one was in New York, the third one was in San Diego, and it's like I mean, you had to scan to see if anything was in your neighborhood.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's and I realized people ask by name.
• 7:35
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they you know, they the literal search term was wine events in Denver, wine tastings in Chicago, and that's how we set up the site so that people could, you know, based on their own location, find things in their area, or travel to if they were heading out.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's uh you know, it's great.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: But um so you spent you really spent your entire career in the wine industry, right?
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh yeah, more or less.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I I was on a submarine in the Navy and a buddy was uh a a cook in the Navy who had joined the Navy specifically to get experience to be accepted into the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York, just outside of Poughkeepsie.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: And when I got out of the Navy, I did not want to work for the government.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_01: I had a top secret security clearance, but that all that got me was a job in government, and I really didn't want to do that.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: So I joined him in New York, uh, just looking for something to do.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_01: And it's funny, but I saw an ad in the paper that said farm winery seeking experience farm health, and I called him up and told them I was from Wichita, Kansas, and they just automatically assumed that then I came from a farm.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I went out and applied for the job.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: They asked me if I could drive a tractor, and I said, sure.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: You show me how to turn it on, turn it off, I'll I'll figure out how to drive it.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what I did.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: I spent the next uh almost six years drawing grapes, making wine, and learning about wine.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: And the the winery was owned by a uh uh a wealthy man.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_01: His name was John Dice, and he was a part of Wakefield National, which was a major conglomerate back in the day.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: And every time I would ask him a question, he would come back with a new book, wine book, that explained the question and and answer.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: So I had I developed this library of wine books about wine, about throwing, about tasting, about all of that.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_01: And just I enjoyed it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it was uh it was a way to make a living that uh was was pleasant.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: It you know, I was out in the fields uh being a farmer, but it's cool.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_01: But being a farmer is tough.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know riding on a tractor all day long with a plow behind you is is is no joke.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Was that in New York?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, just outside of uh Poughkeepsie, a place called Millbrook, New York.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Millbrook Mineyards is uh it's still there.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they've they've done well for themselves over the years.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: They they produce good wines, they have a a facility for events.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh it's a nice place.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I've always enjoyed it.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: I enjoy still going back there when I get a chance.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: Does he still own it?
• 10:19
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I believe he does, yeah.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: I got in fact it's funny, but I heard uh there was a fellow that that went to work there who just pinged me on LinkedIn last week uh for a connection.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: I was like, 30 years, I've been gone.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: You just all of a sudden he pops up.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: It's like really he said, yeah, you just retired, but but they're still out there.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's funny.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I know.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I grew up in New York, so I know I know the Hudson Valley.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: I know uh, you know, I there's there was uh a winery um up by uh up in Washingtonville, uh New York, and then there's wineries out on Long Island and then up in the Finger Lakes.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Um so Yeah, and we we you know that's a it's a cooperative effort, the wineries.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you you get to know the other wineries and help each other out where you can.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you need a piece of equipment, you can borrow it from one of the others.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: We were we were always you know hobnobbing with the others.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_01: So I got to know several of the wineries in the in the area.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: One was called Ben Marl, I forget Cascade Mountain Vineyards was over in Aminya.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: All of them were were nice places.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, the it it's it was it was an area where people were drawn to the experience.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: Um and I see that even today.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, people want to experience it.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_01: Now if you've if you've been to one vineyard and walked through the growing process, you've seen them all.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: But just being there and and and smelling the the the wineries and the and the the just the laid-back atmosphere, it's it's just a it's a great experience.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we used to the weekends were big, people would flock out.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I don't it's it's it's always weird to me because things happen in groups for some reason for me.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And I spoke to a guy yesterday who owns a winery in California and he was talking about how the industry has changed, consumption is down.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: You know, a couple of years ago he was shipping a hundred thousand cases a year, and now he's down to like fourteen or fifteen thousand.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and he said um i the whole industry by in California for him, it's it's going through a decline for for he he thinks it'll come out in the next like two years, but it's been uh problematic.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And when he first started back in the eighties and and founded his winery, there were four wineries in his in the area where he is, which is Paso Rogelace.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, now there's fifty.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: And they just have tasting rooms and you know, it's just this big this big thing.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: So there's competition, which has hurt him, and then distribution and some other things, but yeah, that was a big boom time in the the eighties.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I remember it w it sort of launched off of uh 60 Minutes.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_01: 60 Minutes did an episode called the The French Paradox, which dived into why French people who eat a lot of fatty foods and drink and you know their and their heart disease was so much less than ours.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: And the bottom line was they attributed it to red wine.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember thinking at the time, wow, that's gonna really and and and I was selling wine at the time, and I remember standing in a store where there was an older couple and they were looking for a sweet red wine.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: They wanted red wine, but they they didn't like the bitterness of the dry wine, so they were looking for something sweet, but they wanted red because 60 minutes told them that's what they needed.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, it's uh it sparked off a a really good run in the wine business for you know 30 years.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's been uh you know on a on an incline.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I I it certainly has changed.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I had this conversation just the other day.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I believe that they're you know the people are s are drinking less, but they're drinking better.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of the way it it it looked.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean they're willing to again it's it's uh it's about the experiences.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: We had we just did a survey with uh with a group called Come Over October, where their you know their goal is to just give you a reason to go out, basically.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what the bottom line was in the survey was you know, give us a give us a reason to to have an occasion and and we'll we'll do it.
• 14:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's kind of the way it is.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, in the old days if there was a lot of interest in uh self-wine education.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_01: People were interested to to know about the grapes, about the terroir, about the you know, the production of of the wines.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: And that's still there, but I think they want it more uh again, it's it's evolved into more of a give me a give me a good experience.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's what we do.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we've built this platform, we have now 250,000 subscribers to our weekly newsletter, and we're uh we're in the business of uh connecting people to events.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_01: These are the items that are coming up, these are places to go and you know, bring your friends.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_01: Enjoy enjoy it.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: I mean it's a it's a it's an enjoyable experience uh a wine dinner.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_01: You got a winemaker standing up there telling you, how he made the wine.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's a it's a it's a fun evening for a group endeavor.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: He made that point um that w they have these tasting rooms, and he said when the winemaker is in the tasting room, sales go up.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: He said and yeah.
• 15:50
  SPEAKER_00: And he said when the owner of the vineyard is in the tasting room, sales go up.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's uh there really does.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there are some events out there that will only allow a principal from the winery, either the winemaker or the owner, to to be there because it it it makes a big difference.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, when you meet, you know, Dan Duckhorn who makes the wine, it it's it's it's an experience.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, uh, you know, Dennis Cake Bread, you know, that's some of the best wines out there.
• 16:22
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, you know, here this fellow is doing the doing the dinner himself.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: It means something.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: I I was involved with a specialty food chain in Washington, D.C.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: for a number of years called Sutton Place Gourmet.
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um we used to do these cooperative dinners with like John Louis Paladin in DC and some other great chefs, and they always brought in these wine makers from around the world, some French, some California, etc.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was fantastic.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it was it was lovely.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_01: That's a great way to spend the evening.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_01: I've always said wine has been very, very good to me.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's there's a lot worse businesses you can be in.
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_01: But exactly.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: We used to do we used to do uh we we would go in in Colorado, in Denver, I sold through a wholesaler, and every year we would do what we call the mountain tour, where all of the suppliers and the wholesale reps would uh travel around from from Denver to Breckenridge to Vale to Aspen to Steam Steamboat, Tell Urite, and every night we we would well we would put on these tastings for the for the the local buyers, but every night was a five, six, seven course meal and some of the finest mornings ever.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, let me tell you, after a week of that, yeah, I was ready.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_01: I was ready for a burger and a beer.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_01: You know, because every night was these lavish dinners.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know, if you put a price tag on them, they'd be in the hundreds, hundreds of dollars per person.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and and and I I realized, I mean, me and a buddy used to joke, it's like, I can't believe they pay us to do this.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_01: You know.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's just a great way to make a living in the fall in the in Colorado.
• 18:09
  SPEAKER_01: You couldn't it couldn't get any better.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, no, that's great.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's true.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: You you get those you get those runs where you're going out to dinner, even in business, you you gotta you've you're entertaining like four or five nights and and it just gets almost exhausting because you know you've got to you know you shouldn't be complaining.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: You shouldn't be complaining, but at the same time it just it gets exhausting.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for for us it was around shows, whether it's food shows or business shows, you know, events and and and places like that at the Javit Center or whatever.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, you have to go out to dinner with either clients or with you know, or there's somebody's taking you out to dinner and it's it's just it's hours night after night.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_01: You know, and and it is hours.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you start at midnight or start at at eight o'clock, you finish after midnight, and then typically the cigars and the porch come out.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: It's like all right, I guess if I have to.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, all right, if I have to, I will.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's funny.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh it's it's an amazing it's an amazing world.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um so but but but localwineevents.com, it's not just about wine anymore.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: It spans food, it spans beer, it spans spirits, it's it's totally expanded into different markets and verticals, right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: It has.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_01: I I called it wine because that was my background.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, typically wine dinners predominate.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_01: You know, there are bitter dinners, there are scotch tasting dinners, there are I mean hell, even today they have cannabis dinners.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_01: I know.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um for whatever that is worth.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: But I'll probably get some shit from somebody with cannabis business.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: Come on, sitting down smoking while you're eating.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, not me.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: No, it doesn't matter.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anyway, but yeah, we we've I you know I I've thought of trying to change the name to, you know, drinks business or drinks events, but it it is wine.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_01: Typically it's wine.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um we also have again, we've we've had chocolate tastings, we've had cheese tastings uh posted on the site, and we welcome all of those.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but it is predominantly a a wine focused business.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_01: But again, it's it's it's it's become it's evolved into more about the experience.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: You want to really kind of jazz up the description of what you're gonna do because you know the the the major tastings, and there are big ones, almost every city has a big, you know, wine festival.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it it they've gotten a lot of them got too big.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I won't name names, but some of them are just you know, you stand there's five people deep at the table and you can't get up there just to get a sip because they're all jawing with the with the guy or each other.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um it it just it's it's not the same as to go to a small tasting uh where there's a a lot more intimacy with the people who are pouring the wines.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um I I mentioned to you when we spoke earlier the the wine fest at St.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_01: Michael's has a you know, they have an event where you sit down with the wine maker and there's you know AW at a table and he has he or she has you know maybe half a dozen wines and they for 15 minutes you sit and talk to that person and you taste those wines as they tell you about them.
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_01: Uh that's a great experience.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_01: The only issue is just you got 40 wines to taste in the next two hours.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_01: You have to pay yourself, and you don't want to be making purchases on the spot.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_01: Take notes, look it over, sleep on it, come back tomorrow and order your wine.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_01: But you know, those are those are great experiences.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's what people want.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_00: You're 100% right.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: They get almost some of them have gotten so big they're almost like fares.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost like uh and and and it's it's it's lost its uh it's lost its touch so to speak crowds crowds are just not enjoyable especially when they start to get buzzed you know it gets it gets loud it gets boisterous I mean there's still a place for them but I I think most of the bigger ones have have sort of rejiggered their their their concept into a little more parceled intimate types of tastings within the big event itself so I think it depends on who you want to target if you want to target serious wine people you do it in a different way there's one here uh outs uh about uh in between here and Frederick Maryland and I I we tried to go to it one year the the the line to get in just to park the car we we sat there for half an hour and didn't move I said I can't do this and then but but we went another year and it was just like it was just like a big drunk fest.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't a wine event anymore.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: It was like a big drunk fest with music and stuff and I I said you know I don't want to I don't want to do this.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah you're not learning a lot there.
• 23:14
  SPEAKER_00: No you're typically just buzzing and enjoying that you know what's funny you said you know and I don't want to I I don't want to belabor the point about cannabis but these you know the we we've had cannabis people and and C BD companies come to us to help them market.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we don't I don't do it because first of all I think that C BD is just ridiculous.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just but but what I learned in the cannabis world is that I it it's not the same as wine tasting or scotch tasting.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody goes to a wine tasting event and says I'm just gonna go and get drunk.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: They go there to learn something about wine test taste the wines do they get buzzed?
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_00: Sure I'm sure they do.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_00: Same thing with scotch but they take it seriously but in the cannabis world there's one goal and one goal only and that's to get high.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: That's it.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: So don't don't try and you know turn it into an event where you think you're gonna be pompous and we're gonna teach you about can nobody cares.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: They they line up outside the cannabis stores now on Saturday morning buying pot they're not there to learn anything they just want to get high.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not I mean they I I've seen some of them where they were trying to sell the terroir of their of their row of their cannabis the location it'll be decades before that shit flushes out.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_01: I mean you might you might be able to tell a humble goal from something else but it's your point most people don't care as long as it's affordable and it gets me high you know so I I think the idea that they're going to try and create some place with cannabis is far down the road far down the road.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah yeah we had a uh a company here that uh wanted to hire us and I kept asking well what's what's what's your point of difference and he kept telling me well we have you know two MDs four PhDs you know blah blah blah blah I I said but nobody cares about that like what are you doing what are you trying to sell you know you you oh it's therapeutic yeah okay I I get it maybe maybe there's some studies out there that say it's therapeutic but your core customer base it's want to get high that's it that's the whole point that's absolutely right so anyway um I I always think that that's funny but trying to wrap that around a a serious event just boggles my mind you know let's let's be clear about what we're trying to do here so yeah so so yeah so so so what's next what what are you what are you gonna do with the site or what are you doing with the site you know Phil I need help honestly I I have tried to figure out where to go with this thing beyond what I have I mean we we have a huge database of of of content that is I I I think we need to to dive a little more into AI in in terms of what exactly our our customers are looking at.
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_01: You know what do they click on?
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: What are their interests are they you know if they look at my newsletter and they skin through the whole thing and you know there's only one event that interests them I need to know that.
• 26:34
  SPEAKER_01: I need to figure out how to track what their you know what their interests are a little more granularly than I am now.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_01: I mean right now sure they're interested in events in in Philadelphia wine events, food events, you know, what have you but I I think I need to to to build that database a little stronger in terms of their their actual desires, what they're what they're looking at.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_01: But you know we have uh we have we get fourteen between fourteen and nineteen hundred postings each week uh of people who are you know doing the events they're posting them themselves uh they get included in the juice that goes out twice a week you know here's what's coming up for the next thirty days on Tuesday here's what's coming up this weekend um for Baltimore for Chicago um all make it scale uh you know even bigger and reach more people uh you know that's our our our goal is to is to to to blow it up and and you know really calibrate the monetization of it a a lot cleaner than we are right now.
• 27:44
  SPEAKER_01: I mean we you know we have advertising, we have editorial takeovers, we have people who want to promote a particular event, a particular city those are all good revenue streams but um I'm I'm working on it.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: I am still trying to figure it all out.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's you know the the goal at this point is to is to utilize the the s the base of what I have and and recognize that it's it's a it's a valuable uh it's a valuable data set.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: You know it's people who are into food and wine typically I mean at this point they're older they have disposable income uh you know it's a uh in our case 70% women professional women is is our our database uh you know there's a lot of value in that I just need to I need to to to feel feel a little more I don't know I I need to get it figured out that's what I'm working on.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah well women make the decisions in the house most of the time so that doesn't surprise me you know so yeah um it was a great conversation we're almost out of time I appreciate you coming on uh anything else you want to share obviously people go it's uh it's it's uh uh localwine events dot com that's where they're going to uh that's right and we you know we've been here now 25 years over 25 years 250,000 consumers we have roughly 3000 people in our databases designated as trade uh meaning they're in the business and we have that segmented whether they're a restaurant or a media company or a uh a you know wholesaler um you know we're we're we've gotten bigger than just an events calendar uh but we again we need to to capitalize on that and it's um you know monetization and scale is the next step we we need to to to beat that up and and keep it rolling but you know if you if you want to know about food and wine related events or food and drink related events welcome wine events.com you know we've been here a long time made it through covert that was a tough one when every event in the world got canceled Monday in March 2020.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah we're still still going strong.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well uh we're about out of time I appreciate you coming on and sharing and uh it was great conversation.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks a lot.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks Phil I agree thank you very much thanks for having me my pleasure