The move
Snooth moved offices today. It's been a long week of furniture assembly (we've estimated around 140 hours so far), schlepping boxes of wine (around 150 back breaking cases), and hauling trash out of both the new and old space (around 2,000 cubic feet of trash). I had meant to write more, but I'm beat, so will leave you with a tour of the new space (we're about 60% settled, we need to decorate and position the furniture properly).
Wall of unopened wine boxes:
Watch the video here:
New Snooth Office tour
Snooth’s New Offices
Snooth is moving to new digs this Friday, and this is a preamble to me writing a post on the need to ignore fear. In the interim, here's a few shots of the work in progress. The space is being rebuilt. It was a raw space, so we've put up some 6-foot high walls to create some separation. The first shot shows two of the 5-man pods, built in this way. Then there are some shots of the conference rooms, and because we're moving in just a few days and don't have time to wait for the paint to dry, we're having the furniture shipped in at the same time.
It's a huge step up for Snooth, which began in Mark's kitchen in Brooklyn, before we moved to a shared space (3 desks) and then onto our current space (12 desks now, but meant for just 8). This new space, is 4,500 square feet and will be built out for 30+.
Snooth Survey Results
Over the week of April 12-18, 2010, Snooth conducted a reader survey which received 5,050 responses. The survey was promoted via a single email on April 12, with the opportunity to win several prizes totaling $5,000+ in value in exchange for survey participation. The email was opened at slightly above the normal Snooth newsletter rates, but clicked at a very high 22% clicked/opened rate.
I’ve included some specific results below, but the main takeaways were:
• Snooth has a US-centric, affluent, well-educated audience and users typically visit the site weekly or more.
• In addition to Snooth, our users typically use Facebook, Twitter (although ¼ as likely as they were to use Facebook), Epicurious, Food Network, Food and Wine, etc.
• Respondents mainly use Snooth to read reviews, buy wines, and read the forums.
• Users are most interested in reading more about wine education, recipe pairing, and discounts and deals.
• A huge percentage of users wanted to see a few specific things that we’re keeping under our hat until we launch them (literally 94.1% of the respondents asked for one item in particular). We’re working on these and will launch them soon. It’s exciting to be able to build something to such specific customer demand.
We host these surveys several times per year, and it's very interesting to watch the demographic of the site broaden as we reach an ever-larger audience. The feedback we receive from these is invaluable and we take the whole process very seriously. In fact, each and every employee read each of the 2,712 comments we received in the open fields for the survey, and we’re busy incorporating the most popular items.
Survey Specifics
Geographic Breakdown
Although prizes were offered only to American residents, 22.8% of respondents were foreign. The state with the highest number of respondents was California.
Household Income
52.6% of respondents’ HHI is $100k or more.
Frequency of Snooth Usage
81.7% of respondents visit Snooth once a week or more.
What level wine lover are you?
55.1% of respondents are casual enthusiasts; 33.3% are more committed wine lovers.
Social Networking
96.9% of respondents use Facebook:
Interview with Craig Wolf, WSWA
I attended the Wine and Spirits Wholesalers of America (WSWA) convention in Las Vegas a few weeks ago where I interviewed Craig Wolf, President and CEO of the WSWA.
I had meant to write up the interview on Snooth, but I've been unable to bring myself to do it. Snooth's role is not that of a political entity - Snooth is an information service which aggregates publicly available information about wine. Snooth does not have a channel preference - we support direct to consumer, as well as retail 3 tier purchases. We just help educate people about what's in the bottle.
On one hand, if you read Tom Wark's Fermentation blog you'd expect Craig to be the devil incarnate. On the other, Craig is a well educated, put together guy. He didn't look like the devil when I met him.
There's no doubt that if the WSWA had their way, wineries would not be able to ship wine to consumers direct. If this occurred then many wineries would go out of business, as Direct-to-Consumer (DTC) is the most profitable channel, and for many of the smaller wineries that struggle to get good representation at the retail level, represents their lifeblood. Consumers would clearly have less choice if this occurred - the choice of buying from the winery would be removed and the choice of buying wine from these wineries forced into bankruptcy would be removed. I believe in freedom of commerce, and so believe that removing these choices is a bad thing.
When Craig and I actually sat down, here's what we spoke about:
- WSWA is perceived as representing large spirits companies only. They have ~350 members and have begun to invite press to their events to raise their profile.
- There's a need for clearer laws. There are new business models being created in the space (online commerce, marketing agents etc) and many operate in gray areas.
- The state liquor boards have no money and often cannot afford to enforce or define existing laws which hampers new legitimate business growth.
- WSWA would like to create an online trading platform where wineries can list products and wholesalers can browse and buy.
- Apparently the British have a drinking problem because of the vertically integrated supply chain (I was a little shocked at this one). I mentioned Quebec, which has a totally regulated supply chain, as having similarly high alcohol consumption. [I'm not sure why my point was not valid].
Telling me that my countrymen are a bunch of drunks was the dumbest statement, saying that we really need clear laws for all parties concerned was the smartest. As an entrepreneur, all we want to do is build businesses. When the laws are not even clear, its hard to begin.
Hello World
In the past, I've written blog posts for Snooth and The Daily Beast amongst others, and reported for a few newspapers, but have never had a blog to call my own.
I'll write about the business of wine, starting tech companies in New York and other things that catch my interest: data, SEO, psychology of human behavior etc.