In addition to removing the business-side hassle, Naked allows winemakers to craft the “wines of their dreams” and build their own personal brands. After the wine is made, Naked buys the entire inventory, and handles marketing and distribution. If the proposed wine tickles the fancy of Naked’s staff, the winemakers are paid an “advance,” funded with Angel money. Naked’s process is fairly simple: A winemaker pitches a wine idea, aiming to distinguish their offerings with such factors as terroir, aging techniques, and nontraditional grape combinations. Gormley set out to create a “virtuous circle”: where “everybody gets more for less”: customers get more value, and winemakers get more freedom. Nobody really knows how much wine is being made, sold or drunk.” What about the winemakers? For them, it’s a relatively easy way into a business that can have high barriers to entry, including costs, risk, and in Gormley’s words, a market that is “managed.” In an interview with The Financial Times, he claimed, “Inventories are artificially constrained to force prices higher. The wait creates a “fear of missing out” and a sense of exclusivity – and allows would-be Angels to start building up their accounts. While Naked Wines has a robust marketing machine that includes its ubiquitous $100 discount offers, prospective Angels usually have to wait about a month before they get their wings (if not their wine). It funds winemakers by collecting money each month (currently $40) from customers - AKA “Angels” - which goes into the Angels’ Naked Wines accounts, to be spent on wine. Many of their winemakers have “day jobs” at well-known vineyards, making wines for labels that are household names.Įven more distinctive than the wines, though, is Naked’s business model. Unlike online wine clubs, most of which sell wines that are readily available elsewhere, sometimes through affiliations that are loosely related at best (think media properties, for example), Naked’s wines are proprietary. The result: Naked Wines, an online wine retailer that’s as distinctive as the wines sold on its site.
So he blended the “pitch your product” competition of Shark Tank, principles from crowdfunding and angel investing, the ease (and steady income) of the subscription model, the enthusiasm of tens of thousands of wine aficionados, and the expertise of wine producers eager to be entrepreneurial and experimental.
Gormley wanted to offer consumers high-quality wines at a more palatable price point, and to enable winemakers to make unique wines.
#Naked wines serial
That was the challenge for Rowan Gormley, a serial entrepreneur who has founded, among other businesses, Virgin Wines. How do you disrupt a business whose product is 9,000-plus years old and is based on a cycle as simple as cultivate, commercialize, and quaff?
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