Investors Reject Female Entrepreneur for Sarcasm and Humor

Did you know I actually have a business? It's true. I'm not a full-time blogger, mostly because I like to eat and pay my cable bill. It's actually doing well...so well, in fact, that I decided not to sleep in order to do marketing, compliance, sales and accounting all by myself. It's really the only thing I could cut from my schedule. This lasted a week until I lost my mind and decided maybe I should hire someone. I now make enough to pay my cable bill, but not quite enough to pay someone else's so I decided to look into investors. It's not easy but apparently a friend knew a guy who knew someone else who had thousands, and other friends who also had thousands that wanted to risk money on my business. So I put a plan together, had an accountant and a multi-million dollar money manager look at it and scheduled a meeting with said investor.
I was so nervous. I brought samples to give as a gift and show my palate, wore a professional dress, showered...you know, all the stuff you're supposed to do. The investor was wearing khakis and a zipper-down fleece vest. Maybe I over-shot it, but success! I passed round one of Shark Tank with Golfers! After a month or so, we set up another meeting at his office to go over more numbers. He wanted to work on valuation and tweak my plan. Sounds good! He said we should look at my company stock being valued at $X dollars per share and I told him I wanted to sell no more than 10 shares. I wanted to be in charge since the company was my brand and baby. Round two passed! He looked in my eyes and once again said he was in! To my face he said that this was his promise, his word. I felt honored to work with such a stand-up guy.
Round three...Golfer Guy set up a meeting with all of his investor colleagues. I printed copies of the business plan, wore a dress with nice shoes and once again showered. GG told me to leave the plan in my bag and simply speak to the proposal and business itself. For the next six hours, other golfers of various degrees of drunkenness and tardiness sauntered in, commenting on my attire and looks. But hey! I'm supposed to be one of the guys right?!?! It wouldn't be the first time I was the only egg at a sausage fest so I sucked it up. As the night went on and the guys drank hundreds of dollars of wine that I brought to show how good my selection was, the comments got worse and my feet started to hurt in those stupid shoes. Plus I was the only sober one at the table, trying to uphold my professional side of the bargain. Then one guy, I'll call Big-Swinging Dick (BSD), tells his friends that this risky venture might be- wait for it- risky. He wanted to warn them that they might not get their investments back, which is of course what investors are there to evaluate. He owned two whole stores and had seen brands come and go, after all. He knew a guy that had a struggling vodka line, who was spending millions that he inherited from his family's grocery chain, on a new wine line-up that was having trouble. First, selling a new vodka right now is like trying to develop a new kind of apple. There's too many choices already and the market is pretty well established. Also, just because you sell vodka does not make you qualified to sell and develop wineries. Lastly, if this guy was such a good business-man, why was he throwing millions at anything that wasn't working? We went back and forth about this and how I had grown brands on a national scale versus his two stores that were a few miles apart, and he came to see my point. He kept pointing out the things I didn't have in terms of PR and press, which I had detailed in the plan, was what I was asking for in terms of their investment. See, I had been doing this in every market in the US for years and knew where this business had been and where it was headed. Not my first rodeo.
Moving on... I stand and start slowly packing things up to head back to my hotel that had duct-tape holding up the toilet dispenser and stains that I could only guess were tears of former guests wondering where their life had gone wrong, or blood. They all get up, still drinking, and proceed to tell me jokes about dildos they placed in their friends bag so the TSA would see. Hilarious! But hey, the future of social media and marketing is all about humor and gearing things towards millennials so this should all be ok.
The next day, I get a call from GG that they loved me and my plan. They were in he said! I have no real idea why because they seemed to know so very little about the wine business and didn't actually get to see my business plan, but Snarky and Spirited was going to go to the next step! I thanked GG profusely. Thank God because I had spent hundreds on wine, that I didn't have and time which was even more precious. Now maybe I could get a few hours of that sleep everyone was talking about.
I owed GG everything for putting this together and on his solid, promised word that this was going forward. He once again assured me he was in, also that he was going to Florence and could I put together a private tasting for him and his daughter. For my new savior? Of course! I called one of the small families I represented and asked them to set aside a day for a VIP and taste him on the good stuff. They could bill me back for anything they incurred. 

GG got back from his trip and said it was magical. The time, money and effort we spent was apparently worth it! Not only that but GG owned a few restaurants so maybe he could get my wines in there. Seemed kind of natural to assume but ok! Nice to hear. He also wanted to discuss monthly meetings and that he needed to be on the board of trustees. Not generally necessary for a manager-owned company run by a team of one, but I was kind of stuck now. He had told me he would be hands off so maybe this would only be out of curiosity.  Meanwhile, I started interviewing people and putting feelers out for employees. I was finally going to get help in at least one of the three states I was running! Yay!

A couple of weeks go by and my calls aren't being returned and my emails are going unanswered. He's busy and had done this before so I wasn't worried. Another week goes by and I finally get ahold of him. GG tells me that despite his word and those of his drinking crew, they're out. I'm pretty sure I threw up before passing out from shear panic. He said that something financial came up at his company and that maybe he could get involved later. He said in good faith he also couldn't ask his millionaire golfer friends to invest thousands into something he wasn't going to invest in, but that he felt really bad about it. 

Fast forward another couple of months...I hire some very qualified brokers that take a commission from actual sales rather than a full salary, another state is under way and things are looking up. I didn't really need these investors muddying my vision and after all, the direction I was taking was really working.

Come to find out that the real reason they didn't want to invest was that they had read my blog, they wanted to know more about me as a person, and that it was off-putting to them. Apparently, despite their unprofessionalism, severe drinking problem and sexist remarks, my joking about pumpkin-pie making was to racy. Over a decade in the business, being a member of Mensa, two highly-regarded wine degrees and an MBA just weren't going to cut it for these guys. They needed my qualifications, my successful business plan and experience, just without the humor and personality. I'm not sure what they expected with a company name like Snarky and Spirited but I'm glad they bowed out. Whether this succeeds or fails, I'm doing this my way. It's working for Amy Schumer, I mean, despite her being a woman and all.

The Day After

Living across the street from a bar has its upside, but believe it or don't, its downside. I know right? Well the sh*tshow that is St Patty's day is the biggest one I can see. My dog had the cha-chas last night so I chose to stay in and clean runny poop instead of wading in Jameson-laced frat-guy puke. Crazy.

While I listened to couples scream, projectile vomit, conduct bizarre cat-fights and perform general acts of vandalism, I thought it was time to write another article. Being that I've been trapped inside a great deal this winter, I could've written before but I didn't want to. I was to busy going after Old Man Winter, trying to kick him in his icy balls.

Seeing the crazy snowpocalypse we encountered up here while my bitchface friends on the West Coast and South showed pics of suntanning, I thought about global grape-growing. See, as the average temperature of the globe increases, the polar ice caps continue to melt, thereby shifting the jet stream down

and creating this extreme bullsh*t weather. Ask any scientist. Any of them. That's where I get my information on scientific studies, not "newsmen" because most of their heads are generally filled with air. I digress...

So as we see average temperatures increase, there is an obvious effect on crops. Good wine comes from picking grapes at that ideal spot where sugars and acids are in balance. Tough to do in super-hot areas where ripeness can occur quickly and acid levels will drop fast. So you're seeing places in England and Northern Europe growing grapes now where alcohol was typically made from grain or fruit off trees previously. What does this have to do with St. Patty's day? Absolutely nothing, but I needed to vent.

There are quite a few local vineyards popping up all over the US. Some of them shouldn't be, but as they learn their trade and plant the right varietals, I think we'll start to see more wine from unusual spots. I'm a firm supporter of this and supporting local farmers in general. What are some of the best? They're everywhere. Go out and try them! I don't know what you like for God's sake!

Happy tasting! I have to dodge blown-chunks on the sidewalk now...

My Homage to Martha

I woke up this morning late after a night of debauchery at the casino. I thought I should do something wholesome to counterbalance my bacchanalian evening. I decided Dan felt like it too so off we went for the corn maze. We got there and it seemed like a lot of work hungover. He asked if we couldn't just get a pumpkin and call it a day. It didn't take much for me to cave as he reminded me the Packers played at one. First though, I thought we should take the dog on a hike through the falling leaves. An hour later after getting lost, we headed back. 

Now, the Sicilian loves pumpkin pies, and since I'm such an a@@hat for making him kind of go to a corn maze, I decided I'd buy two pumpkins at that market: one for carving what will be a ridiculously bad-looking decoration and the other for making a pie out of scratch. Ambitious right? Exactly. Dumb as f*ck considering they sell cans of this sh*t or pies already made.

So I'm not going into the recipe for you. Use your Google machine like a normal person. I will show you pictures though, to inspire confidence. You can do it, sure, but it takes wayyyy longer than if you were to just purchase the damned thing pre-made. Three hours later and a lot of f*cking swearing, these little bastards were ready. I mean, I even did the crusts from scratch. 

Let me tell you, Dan was ecstatic and the Packers won so I guess it was a good day.

Not to be wasteful by the way, I roasted the seeds with olive oil and salt so Dan could eat. I forgot to feed him during all of this and he's helpless without me.

What's my point? Oh yeah...this is amazing with spiked cider, Pure Cider, or Possman's cider. We bought apple cider at the harvest farm area and of course added some trusty Busted Barrel Rum on the hike. I mean at home. We drank spiked cider at home. You know what? Shut up. We were hungover. What did you do today?

Anyway, the Broncos game is about to start so I gotta go. Also I'm too drunk to write anything else.

Fall and Queso Dip

The leaves are changing color here in the North East, football is in the air, and I'm reminded once again about what's most important...queso dip, and selling as many cases as I can for the next few months so I don't starve in January. That's not entirely true, I also care that nothing happens to Jordy Nelson or Payton Manning.

Statistically, 50% of wine sales (totally made up) are done in three months, affectionately known as OND. Although I don't know who in the wine business has anything but contempt for the holidays. I've been clocking 8-12 miles a day working the market. My Achilles' tendon is so swollen I need a third shoe for it. The distributors are overwhelmed because a thousand wineries are asking them to sell more. A little squeaky sh*t like me gets put in a  proverbial time out. The sommeliers and retailers try their best to accommodate us. Either that or hide when they see wine bags rolling in. For me, right now, it's do or...watch my company fail and move back in with my parents. I could also have a nervous breakdown and check myself into a psyche ward for a break. Neither sounds appealing.

When someone (my cousin Alex) says how great it is to start hearing Christmas music in September, I want to slap them (her.) All it is to me is a countdown to either my success or my moving into the elevator at the 33rd street station (by far the cleanest.) Oh sure, I love Christmas Day, carving pumpkins and ice skating in Rockefeller center, but I won't have time to celebrate until January 2nd. This makes what the rest of you are enjoying while we suffer, rude. 

I'm just kidding (no I'm not.)

Anyhow, that brings me back to queso dip. On my "weekends", when I'm sending emails to buyers, who will probably ignore my request to seeing them the following week, I can also watch football and eat fattening queso. In this way, I'll have something to work off next Spring for bikini season and at the same time feed, rather than actually address, my emotions. So repeats the circle of life. 

In the spirit of giving, here is my queso recipe (basically from the box):

1.) one can of Rotel

2.) one package of Velveeta "cheese"

3.) a splash of cheap beer 

Add ingredients together in a crockpot or Le Crueset and heat on low, stirring so as not to burn the dish. Drink the rest of the beer. Shovel hot dip into your face with corn tortilla chips. Drink another beer.

The pairing works beautifully but if you don't want to guzzle more beer, riesling or a rosé works as well. A good apple cider that's spiked like Possman's, is both festive and appropriate for fall. 

You're welcome.

Fallen Leaves- don't judge my work. I'm not a photographer 

Importing Wine

My web designer, incidentally my sister, reminded me that I needed to write June's blog. I don't want to disappoint all five of my fans nor incur the wrath of my sister. If you've ever seen her first thing in the morning, you'd understand. My other sister (who's currently reading this for errors in grammar) and I coined the term "bitchface" from these early morning terror attacks on our breakfast. I think she's really lovely other times of the day but I'm not willing to test this theory. Here goes...

So you had this wine in Europe and it was amazing. "Why can't I get it here" you ask? Well, I suspect it was probably made more awesome due to the fact that you were on vacation sitting at the Plaza Mayor in Madrid eating enough Chorizo to give you the meat sweats. Same goes for Italy, where everyone stuffs Prosciutto or Wild Boar straight into your mouth the second you set foot off the airplane. So that's not to say that the wine you had wasn't really great but there's more to this process then picking a wine you like...

Anyhow, I've just signed on a few wineries that I'm bringing to the US from Italy to start my importing venture. It's not as easy as you'd think but I make this look good. First, you have to research what's selling in tremendous volumes and NOT buy that. For example picking up a California Chardonnay and trying to enter the market with it right now would be dumb as sh*t. Why? Because if you haven't been riding that train for a decade don't try and jump on it now. The other passengers already on board will throw your stupid a@@ right off, back the train up, flatten you then ride back forward over your head to finish you off. This is a several billion dollar legal drug-trade folks not a bake sale.

So, I picked the Colli Orientali to start because it's gaining speed in the US but has not achieved Chardonnay-levels in volume and has cool-a@@ varietals like Friulano. Next I had to find someone not in the US that made amazing wines that local Italians respected. Enter Paolo Valle. He's won over 400 gold medals and has sold out every vintage, exporting everywhere except the US. Winner! Now I need to convince him I'm the importer for him and to give me some wine, but there's one problem...he speaks no English and I speak no Italian. This is where having an Italian guido on call comes in handy. I dragged my bf on this trip in need of a translator, lying that we were simply going on vacation. Honestly I don't know why he stays with me. He did his duty, Valle signed with me and we bid farewell and headed for Tuscany. My other sister, brother-in-law, and nephew from Belgium met us for moral support and I suspect, free wine. I forced them all to taste for research in need of the lay person's opinion, thereby weeding out very good wineries but that my entourage underestimated in cost. My nephew was there mostly to keep me company, acquire a taste for gelato, olive oil and wild boar. He's not even 2 yet, but is the most amazing baby and I need him for moral support. I spoil the sh*t out of him now in the hopes that he'll visit me in the home when I'm pooping myself...like in five years most likely.

Anyhow, we finally found a Chianti to bring back to the states. Yes there are tons of Chiantis but not one's of the caliber I wanted. This was the best Chianti Classico Riserva I'd ever had. The only problem is that it would be the most expensive one out on the market by like $30 a bottle. I'm a good salesperson but I'm no miracle worker. Jesus can turn water into wine but I can't sell a $70 bottle of Chianti if I had a gun to my head. We spent days convincing this guy to lower his price over many espressos, and almost lost the contract from misunderstandings in translations and my nephew eating all of their cheesecake. It was good cheesecake and because he's perfect, I wasn't upset. The winery agreed and I left Italy, and my family to conquer the US. Next step though, was to get the wine into the US past the concrete-like waters of the TTB and convince first, distributors, then accounts to buy it, or as I call it, a royal pain in the dick. I'd rather get my right ovary removed with a spoon then deal with the paperwork the alcohol division requires for importing wine. I may have mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating as it is the bane of my existence. But more on step 100 through 5000 of my exciting journey soon. I'm late for my high school reunion to see how old we've all gotten and catch up on 20 years of gossip. All girl's school so it'll be a ton...

Happy Cinco de Mayo...or Why the F@ck Did I start my Own Business?

So it's Cinco de Mayo and naturally I'm watching a hockey game from an Irish Pub in Hoboken. It's amateur night at the Mexican joints, so...pass. I'm close enough to my apartment right now that I get wifi from here and my favorite pizza place delivers. It's the ultimate in laziness. I'm justifying my actions by writing this blog. I'm working.

Anyhow, what's my point? I've started my own business. Did I tell you that? Well I did. If you're thinking about it, I would suggest taking up a fishing business in Spain instead. Maybe pottery? A second language? I'm somewhat ambitious so I went the other way. No, the blog isn't my business but my fun pastime to release my creativity and spew nonsense to a somewhat captive audience. I either have three fans that have read my blog a thousand times, or a thousand people that have read it three times. I'd like to hope the latter but I'm guessing it's somewhere in between. Thanks anyway.

What do I do other then this stupid sh@t, you ask? How kind. Well I started an importer/broker. Basically I work all the time, have gone blind with government paperwork, and make no one happy. It's awesome. My baby...a foul-mouthed, demanding, money-draining full-time bastard baby. There's no father.  I look forward to the weekends so I can do paperwork uninterrupted. It's super-pathetic. Anyhow, you may still be asking me, " Snarky" (we're not that close that you get to call me by my first name), " how do you go about starting your own broker and importer?"  I would reply that you're either brain dead or a glutton for punishment. If you still want to know here goes.

1.) Study wine and business for so many years that you hate it. All of it, but pretend you're still passionate. Also move to different territories every two years.

2.) Your boss tells you what to do for the last time and you quit.

3.) Your cable bill shows up on your email (you still get a paper bill? Do you rollerblade to work too? What an a@@- JK! Keep reading!) and you don't want to miss Game of Thrones. You've invested too much time.

4.) Start getting your FBI fingerprints now. That sh*t takes forever.

5.) Call the TTB or (insert your State's) local alcohol government bureau roughly a month before you want to start. You'll be on hold at least that long and probably get hung-up on a few times, or transferred to the Real Estate division. They sent me a survey recently asking how they were doing and I told them I hate them.

6.) Don't tell the TTB you hate them

7.) Pester the sh*t out of distributors, your former clients, and everyone that said they'd totally support you. They'll be really busy but you'll hear from them. No worries! They said they like supporting the little guy and that's you! (or me in this example)

8.) Have a lot of money or sell everything. Get rid of cable. You can pirate off of your local Starbucks. Sell your car. Take up praying if you didn't before. Also maybe default on all your credit cards. The dragons have to win out on Game of Thrones anyway. Don't they?!?

9.) Fill out more government paperwork once a state picks up your wine

10.) Learn another language to start acquiring wineries. I recommend soap operas. Or date an Italian.

11.) Write the TTB a nice note.

12.) Eat Ramen

Well, someone hit said car that I'm trying to sell today so I need to call insurance. Also a bird crapped on it, so I need to rewash. I'm great! So happy! Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh......

USA vs France

Here's a perspective from a friend and colleague on their recent travels in France  from the view of an American Somm...

The Sommelier, the Somm, the wine expert, that person who knows wine.  Whatever you want to call us we are everywhere. This was my first trip back to Europe since turning to a career in wine.   After two weeks in France and 3 Three Michelin starred restaurants later, I have come to the conclusion, France and the US are nothing alike, at least on the wine side (other than we both have a love of fermented grape juice.)  In the U,S we are trying our best to get rid of the intimidating feel of the sommelier. No longer do you have to tell someone how to pronounce soh-mel-yay (then repeat it 5 times, then when they finally say to you “So-mel-lee-er?” you just nod your head and say perfect), but we are now just Somms. No tuxedos for us, a nice suit will do. And the wine list; yes, we are all in competition for having the biggest selection, most vintages and obscure wines in a book, but the list can be held without you feeling like a child.  Look at the 3 photos of me with the wine list.  I have guests complain about 27 pages, imagine if I were to pass you one of those tomes.  

The worst to me and my biggest no-no on the floor, is an elbow in the face. We are taught open hand service, if you cannot pour from the right side of the guest, then pour from the left with your left hand. My poor sister at one of the meals, who had the corner seat where the wall was directly to her right, kept having to duck to avoid getting knocked out. This happened in every restaurant.

All three restaurants of course had tasting menus, but no pairings offered.  When we did ask to have a pairing at our final and most famous restaurant, it was charged by the glass, my memory at looking at the bill (yes, the most expensive meal to date) is seeing 2 glasses at 44 euros each, 88 additional euros for 2 courses (he paired with every two as there were 12 courses)…but there were others in the 40’s as well. We had 6 wines and a glass of champagne each.

Actually my biggest complaint was when we did the pairing.  Throughout the meal, the Sommelier assigned to our table would show my husband the wine then try to walk away, he actually cupped the wine in arm to not show me.  I am trying to this day to not take it personally, but it happened every time…I have never seen a presentation like that before, especially since I hold the bottle like Vanna White displaying a tile on Wheel of Fortune. This is the modern era, women are winemakers andconnoisseurs now.  But this isn’t a rambling on feminist rights, itwas just flat out annoying and disrespectful. And yes, my loving husband did send the sommelier to me saying I was the one who knew wine, but it made no difference.

But my most special moment; they drip wine too!  It happens, and I curse under my breath every time it does, but wine was dripped on the table at Three Michelin starred restaurants, and they didn’t seem to care.  I still may quietly curse when it happens to me, but I feel better knowing that the “best of the best” do it too.

Though I would never give back the chance to eat in those delicious precise restaurants, and I would go back to all of them in a second, especially on someone else’s dime, it is one of the few times I am happy to say I work in the USA in this industry.  We have surprisingly high expectations for ourselves and do what we can for a most proper but not pretentious service.

Sincerely,

Pandora the Explora'