Is the Sober-Curious Movement Here to Stay? With Libby Wines

Ethan Peyton: Hey everybody and welcome to the Startups Avant podcast. I'm your host, Ethan, and this is a show about the stories, challenges, and triumphs of fast-scaling startups and the founders who run them. We've got two guests on the show today, the founders of, I'm gonna try that again. We've got two guests on the show today, the co-founders of Libby Wines, Grant Hemingway and John Green. Libby is a sparkling wine brand whose founders have spent the last 17 harvests exploring how they could bring the pure joy of bubbles to the world of wine. 

These guys both bring a lot of experience to the table, but differ widely in their individual expertise. I'm excited to get the scoop on what they are up to, but before we do that, a quick reminder that you can help us reach our goal of 100 reviews by episode 100. just head over to Apple Podcasts or Spotify and leave us a rating or review. A 45-second job for you equals a huge boost for us. So we appreciate your help. All right, let's get down to business. John, Grant, welcome to the show. Could you each give us a quick introduction? Just tell us your name and let us know what you're up to.

Grant Hemingway: Yeah, thanks, Ethan. Grant Hemingway, co-founder and CEO of Libby Wines, chiming in from lovely Napa, California, where I'm fortunate to call home, makes it easier for the business being in this part of the country based on the fact that I live in wine country, all of our production and operations are here, which I manage alongside our growing team, but I'm a beverage nerd. through and through. I've been in the beverage industry all my career. And Libby is my latest foray into wine, but I've held a variety of roles in the industry, ranging from production to management to great growing to all of the many facets of the industry. But excited to dive in with you and give you guys a little bit more about Libby.

John Green: Yeah, I'm John Green. I'm here in Grand Rapids, Michigan, co-founder of Libby alongside Grant. My background, I was executive chairman of Founders Brewing Company here in Michigan. Also an investor advisor to Long Drink, Natterjack Irish Whiskey and Papa's Pilar Rum, if you've had that. But this was just such a great opportunity to partner with Grant in the wine space and tie in a number of the learnings from some of the other businesses that have been involved.

Ethan Peyton: Yep, and I'm super excited to hear more about how these two different experiences have kind of come together to build this brand. Obviously, you both have experience in beverage, but it seems like you've kind of taken different paths to get here. So exploring that. Sorry, oh my God, there it is again. Please hold. I don't know where that came from. We gotta get rid of it though. All right. So yeah, exploring the two different sets of experiences I'm stoked to get into. But let's start at the very beginning because I'm sure that y'all are gonna do a whole lot better job than I did in my quick introduction. But what is Libby?

Grant Hemingway: Libby is the kind of the brainchild of John and I, months, even years of conversations around looking into the wine industry and figuring out, where's the puck headed. We saw a lot of opportunities in session-able beverages, if you will, to kind of lower ABVs. I think that's a big trend that's here to stay in the beverage space. But in all of my years of experience in dealing with the wine industry, we haven't had an answer quite yet for what session-able means and how we can cater products being wine-based, grape-based to this audience of younger consumers and the modern consumer that's looking for something. 

So it started out with that idea of trying to optimize. and quite frankly modernize the wine category, we took a slightly different angle in that we also made it sparkling. So it's this fusion of two very healthy growth trends, which we correctly identified, thankfully, two years ago when we first launched Libby and saying, this is gonna be a lower-alk play that also taps into the sparkling market. So... in a general sense, that was the kind of founding concepts for the product derivation. What we also saw though for Libby, which is where we see the brand heading, is a lifestyle play, really trying to understand that the wine category has been traditional, it's been elitist, it's been very exclusive, and that needs to change. dramatically needs to change because the metrics for the wine industry aren't the greatest in terms of inviting new customers in and younger consumers are electing to go elsewhere. And if the wine industry wants to have, it's a centuries-old industry. If we wanna have centuries more to go, we need to wisen up and we need to start listening to our consumers. And so John and I really rallied behind that. We built a team around that and... Libby just is striving to modernize, disrupt, and bring forth a better narrative and a better product to the consumer.

Ethan Peyton: So I want to go back to a word you used, session-able. Can you give us kind of a, what does that word mean?

Grant Hemingway: I'm gonna let the father of session-able take that question. 

John Green: Oh, that's a little too much. You know, actually, I'm glad you asked the question because frankly, that's what got me excited about getting into the wine business. You know, after many, many years of selling craft beer and going to events, we, we realized, you know, we could, we could make a session-able beer that has a great flavor without as much alcohol. 

So we developed at Founders, all day IPA, which quickly became a hit across the country. And for me personally, I needed a break. I needed to be a bit more responsible with my consumption, wake up the next morning and feel good. And I heard that story from a lot of people. 

So within the wine space, and I have always absolutely loved wine, especially Napa wines, I've just always felt like there was an opportunity to do something that's refreshing, tastes great, lower alcohol, lower calorie. And that came out of many conversations that Grant and I had about, what are we passionate about? What do we believe in? With all of his experience in wine, it just clicked and it checked so many different boxes. I think since then we've found that we're not alone in our thinking, that there are a lot of people out there, many much younger than me, who do care about what they put in their body, and they do wanna feel good the next day. So there is an occasion for a product like Libby, and we're excited to bring it to the market.

Ethan Peyton: So session-able just meaning that I can walk out of the bar on my own two legs, is that correct?

John Green: That's a good description. I think, you know, if you look at the word session, I believe it actually started in Europe, in the beer, the beer world, where the idea of having a session was when you're on break, which is hard to believe now. But when you were on a break, you could go get free beer and have a session. And that way that word made its way over to America, especially with the launch of craft session-able beers, and now it's become quite commonplace.

Ethan Peyton: All right, so you'll have to forgive my ignorance here. But in my mind, I'm not experienced in the wine world or the beer world. I will drink wine and beer, preferably not on the same day. But I buy them in the same place at the grocery store. I can order them both when I'm at the bar. Is there? But it seems to me like the way you guys are talking is that there's a pretty hefty difference between the kind of wine world and the beer world. And is that just kind of like in the mind of the consumer or is that also in the background of the business as well? Obviously, the two products are made very differently, but what's, is there, are they kind of similar or is there just such a massive difference that I just don't see?

John Green: Yeah.

Grant Hemingway: They're strikingly similar. Yeah, they are strikingly similar in terms of, you still have the rigors of the three-tier system. You are still a federally regulated product. Even at its core production, you're talking about a fermented beverage, which is utilizing sugars to convert into alcohol. 

Where I think the differences lie, and quite frankly, from my experience, heavily in wine and spirits, is I was sitting in a backseat to the craft beer surge and looking at the creativity, looking at the way that they were marketing and innovating with different flavors and different hop profiles and just a variety of different pack sizes. I mean, it was inspiring to watch, quite frankly, in the wine industry where things had gotten a little complacent and stale. 

But... what we see now is the necessity for wine to really kind of come outside of the box. And I think when you're looking at, if you're the consumer and you have this option to look at a bevy of, I mean, it's exploded, right? The litany of choices that we have… we’re spoiled, but we also need to realize, you know, if you're going to be selecting one product over another, know, what are the reasons? Like, you know, Ethan, why are you electing to drink a beer over a wine on a particular day or a particular occasion? And starting to really, you know, utilize the consumer insights to our benefit and hopefully expand the wine drinking occasions, you know, outside of the monumentous, “oh, we just, I got a raise, let's pop this bottle of bubbles.” 

I think that you know, a lot of it has to do with the way it's marketed the way it's made. And I think that the lower alcohol has a lot to do with that. And I think technology has as aided in our ability within the wine industry to put forth what John described as full flavor, but yet still lower alcohol. So it's a really fun time, I think, in the history of wine to, to look at it and say, okay, numbers aren't as good as they once were, but how do we get back to, you know, a period of growth? And it's just going to take ingenuity and passion to get us back to that place.

Ethan Peyton: So y’all’s product is lower calorie. It's obviously lower alcohol by volume, which is something that we've mentioned several times. It's gluten-free, vegan-friendly, non-GMO. What of these factors is the most important to your brand and why are all of them kind of important to the way you operate?

John Green: I mean, my response is different benefits for different people. So, frankly, that presents a big challenge for us on the marketing side. You know, some people are going to be focused entirely on that low alcohol. Others, it will be the low-calorie. 

For some, it might be the fact that we're not, we're not putting any additives into the wine product itself, which frankly is a big contributor to why maybe some of us feel better the next day. So, I mean, there are a lot of benefits of it. We check a number of boxes. You know, I just wanna add to what Grant said earlier. I think what's really unique about Libby is every day is a celebration. 

So champagne has always been this thing in American culture where you know, oh, if you have a big celebration, you get a bottle of champagne. And how many times have you heard from people that said, I don't even like champagne, or it's too carbonated. And so we wanted to offer an alternative that's much more approachable. And, you know, like I said, you don't need a special occasion to be able to enjoy it.

Ethan Peyton: So you brought up marketing. So let's talk marketing for just a second. And maybe, who knows, maybe you already answered this question, but when I go into the little bodega or gas station or whatever in my neighborhood and I look at the wine aisle, there's a lot. I mean, there is, and they've got it separated by whites and reds and different regions and different price points and all that being the case, ton of product there. So how do you make your product stand out on the shelf when there's all of this other stuff there?

Grant Hemingway: Yeah, the intimidation that happens for each consumer when you walk into the wine aisle is real. I think it presents a host of challenges for us as suppliers to really try to stand out on shelf. But we spent an inordinate amount of time on the front end, really discerning on each packaging decision, the cue it made from the color of our glass to the shape of our bottle, to the closure that we used. We elected to go crown cap. which is commonly used in a lot of other beverage categories, but not widely used in the wine industry and yet immediately signals carbonation to the consumers, felt more approachable, felt totally counterculture to the foil cork and cage of the elaborate kind of champagne setup. 

So I think a lot of it has to do with understanding what decisions you're making and how they're going to convey certain aspects to your consumer. Label, you know, a label shape, certain things. I mean, I guess what was, what was great is having John and I's background, collectively understanding of supply chain and, you know, the limits that some of those supply chain presents, but also just really trying to, you know, make sure that, you know, when, when Libby was eventually put on a shelf, it had shelf appeal, it had kind of an opportunity or encouraged of, we call it like a tactile, like, oh, that looks interesting. Let's go see what that thing's about. 

And then you get kind of a digitally connected world where it's like, you know, utilizing QR codes or having our marketing team be very, you know, connected and cohesive across all digital platforms so that it's encouraging a further consumer engagement, which is, you know, something that 20 years ago wasn't really relevant. And now it's just like table stakes. You better have a cohesive digital strategy across all platforms. Because that consumer is gonna touch your brand in so many different ways.

Ethan Peyton: I remember a couple of years ago there was a wine, I don't remember the specific brand, so maybe that goes into who knows what brand it was. But it was like if you pointed your camera at it, then the label of the bottle would start doing some sort of movement or something like that. And I don't know if that's just schtick or if that actually makes enough of a difference for people to buy that product. What do you think?

Grant Hemingway: You're talking about augmented reality and that was 19 crimes,

Ethan Peyton: Ah, I thought that was it.

Grant Hemingway: Which pulled off a brilliant campaign. 19 Crimes is a brand I feel like has been willing to try things out, fail forward, fail fast. They've got a great program going with Snoop Dogg right now. Good example of a wine brand trying to bring in new audiences, different consumers and just try different things. 

But yeah, I think it could be considered a gimmick, but it worked. And, you know, it got people engaged with their brand and allowed for their digital team to bring more immersive experiences. And I think that that's a great example of a wine brand trying something different. And I think at Libby, we're very much cut from the same kind of strategy. We're not afraid to fail. And I think that's where John and I have really aligned on things that we don't know what we don't know. We're not going to learn if we don't try it. If it fails, we move on, we move fast. And yeah, I think the whole team is rallied behind that concept.

Ethan Peyton: I once heard a quote that was, if you want to make a small fortune in wine, you have to start with a big one. And that always cracked me up. But it really seems like you guys are running this as a startup and not like just jumping in and just being another wine, which is super cool. I wanna talk a little bit about trends. And I know you brought up some trends a little earlier. 

So there have been... You know, there's a bunch of different trends that can be pretty obviously pointed to in the beverage world specifically like light beer in the 70s. Obviously, that one stuck energy drinks. That's not alcohol, but energy drinks had a big pop in 2006 and rebounded in 2022. Hard seltzer, obviously, in the past few years. And we'll see if that sticks around as a trend. And then also non-alcoholic beer. kind of had a moment in like the 2018 time. So do you think that, are you guys jumping on to a trend or do you feel like you're trying to start a new wave on your own?

John Green: I mean, I guess I would say that it's there's a big change in lifestyle. Really? I wouldn't quite call it a trend. I think people are realizing that you know, as Warren Buffett says, you have one body. You need to take care of it. And there's so much more information available. And in fact, to your earlier point about what I would describe as skew-magedon. 

There is much more information out there that the consumers are digesting before they even walk into the store. And oftentimes know exactly what it is that they wanna buy. And I think as that information is flowing, there is much more discussion about the positive and negative benefits of drinking alcohol. And with that, I think it's, you know, frankly, our timing was... was impeccable. It wasn't like we're these brilliant, you know, you know, magicians that knew exactly what was going to happen. We just had this, you know, we started again, looking internally and saying, what's important to us. 

And then as we talked through it, we recognize there were a lot of other people in our camp that were more concerned about what they're consuming. So I don't know. I mean, I guess you could call it a trend, but I think there's just major changes in the way we're living, and we're just much more aware and responsible for our consumption.

Ethan Peyton: So then do you think that, I mean obviously people have always wanted to be healthy. There's always been a section of the population that has been health food conscious and another section or maybe the same section that's been like I need to go and be physically fit, I need to work out. 

But the general population seems to kind of be on an upswing of let's buy organic, let's be a little healthier. And obviously, if they are moving in that direction, that means that they were in an opposite direction prior to that. So do you think that this I don't want to call it a health movement, but this raising of consciousness of let's treat our bodies and let's be healthier, do you think that that's gonna stick around?

Grant Hemingway: I believe in a big way, in fact, of probably a growing capacity. We coin it like the wellness movement. This wellness movement across all consumables, all CPG products has transformed into a trillion-dollar industry, right? If you were to look at all the wellness plays. 

And we take cues from those other industries outside of the alcohol and the beverage industry in terms of... how they're promoting their transparencies, their authentic way of marketing and making sure that feeding into John's comment around transparency and letting the consumer realize what it is they're putting into their body. I think, Ethan, to your point of light lager, the Miller Light, Coors Light, Bud Light movement that happened in the 80s, that was a direct response to gym culture all of a sudden becoming a thing. 

And then you look to hard seltzer, maybe the next iteration on light lager, which, yes, it has kind of some of those different artificial flavors, but it was easy to understand, I'm getting a mango flavored 5%, 100 calorie beverage. And it created a fourth tier. 

Back to my earliest comment, wine hasn't had that answer. We don't have that wellness attribute, despite, and this is my personal belief, being the most naturally and best formed alcoholic product because we're coming from mother nature and grapes. I think we've sat by our laurels or rested on our laurels and said, oh, there's a natural or an inherent consumer belief that wine is the best product. I don't think that's the case anymore. I think we've lost our way and stopped listening to consumers. And so because of that, I believe that this trend is going to continue in a major way. And we need to be listening to consumers and giving them a product from a wine-based derivative that fits their cultural needs.

Ethan Peyton: All right, let's jump into more of the hard business stuff. John, I know you played the role of Executive Chairman at Founders, which obviously, as you mentioned, is an incredibly popular craft brewery company here in Michigan. Shout out to Michigan, hooray. And you've also been involved in several other beverage companies. So I wanna get your specific advice. When you are looking to start a new brand, what are the must-have ingredients that that brand needs to have the best chance at success?

John Green: It's a great question. I think, obviously you have to have a great product. The liquid, as we always refer to it, has to be something that really resonates with people. It's enjoyable. And obviously, there's branding, there's packaging, but from a business standpoint, you've gotta have a good team that can execute. And frankly, I often mentor people in business and that topic always comes up. It's like, what's the special sauce? Well, it's the people. The people are the ones that build these businesses. Yes, you have to have a great product. You have to be capitalized. You have to have a strategy. In our world, distribution is very important. So there are a lot of ingredients, you might say, but I can honestly say that you cannot build a successful business without the right people.

Ethan Peyton: All right, so then, and that's a perfect answer. And that isn't just for beverage companies, that's for any company. A company is just a group of people that are collectively working towards one goal. But for CPG specifically, if you could only give one piece of really actionable advice to folks that are looking to start a CPG brand, what would that one piece of advice be?

John Green: At the very beginning, I think it's important to test. Test before you invest is what I might say. You can do that very easily. You can develop a product without putting a lot of capital forward. You can get all your friends and family around and say, what do you think about this? Be honest, what do you like, what don't you like? You can test the branding, the packaging. Obviously, you've got to look at price points and margins and the business side of it. But none of that happens if you don't have a great product, something that's new and innovative and is picked up by people of not just maybe one segment of the population, but across a number of segments, male, female, different age groups, demographics, you look at all those variables. So I mean, when you're getting started before you go in and start pumping millions of dollars into a business. you know, take a page out of Lean Startup and just go out and test. That would be my initial advice.

Ethan Peyton: Well, and that's excellent advice, and I'll tack one more piece on top of that, is that if you are testing, you can't be so in love with your own product that you're unwilling to make changes. Because if you have this, like, you know, this I have made the best thing ever mindset, and you put your blinders on, and you can't see that everybody else is like literally spitting your product out when you hand it to them, that's, you know, that's gonna be a problem. So, you've gotta be able to remove your own bias. So now that I took a turn, Grant, do you wanna kick one in for us on that?

Grant Hemingway: I'll grant it something very personal because I mentioned at the top of the podcast that I live in Napa. This is a very wine-based, tourist-based part of the country. I feel like the only way that I actually get a better understanding for what a product can do, specific in the wine industry, is getting outside of this bubble. 

And so I always encourage my peers to travel to other parts of the country or engage with consumers from different backgrounds and try to understand, what are they looking for? I mean, that would be general advice, not just specific to the wine industry, but for me, particularly like getting outside of this bubble, getting outside of my comfort zone, and putting myself in other people's shoes to try and understand the Ethan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, what are they looking for from a wine product? Because it's gonna be wildly different from when they're on this trip to Napa, which I fully support, come to Napa. 

But it's also, when they're not in Napa, when they're at their home, when they're going out to a restaurant at their local eatery, what are they looking for? And maybe they don't even know that it exists yet. So how do we put it in front of them so they connect the dots? So it's kind of... piggybacking off of John's comment of testing, but it's just listen, listen, listen, be observant and try to understand that there are different parts of the world that are asking for different things.

Ethan Peyton: So there's another big section of CPG that maybe the people that are developing the products haven't quite thought of yet, and maybe some of them have, but... That's distribution and I think it can be a tough thing to do if you've never done it before and especially if you're gonna be hitting multiple channels. So how have you all solved for the problem that is distribution and what are some recommendations that you have for new companies that wanna get it right, right off the bat?

Grant Hemingway: In the alcohol industry, we've got the complexity of the three-tier system. But if we take a step back, one of the early theories we wanted to test out was the direct-to-consumer model, which outside of the alcohol industry, most CPG brands should be entertaining the e-commerce channel. Obviously, it's been aided by significant growth and search through the pandemic. 

But for alcohol in particular, being wine, we actually do have the opportunity to do a pure play direct-to-consumer. When we started looking at, I'll call it omnichannel, our pivot into wholesale and utilizing the three-tier or distribution model to get into retail, I think it's important for founders to really understand timelines, to understand strategies, understand the costs involved because they can be significant, not only from margin reduction, but in the team that you have to employ, some of the licensing. 

And also just from a timeline perspective, understanding what is your expansion strategy. I think what John and I are really advocates of is going deep, not broad. And so, you know, for alcohol in particular, you can be focusing on a specific metro you could be focusing on one state and I think that's what a lot, and honestly, I'll give John some kudos like what founders did really well and a lot of craft beer suppliers have done. It's like a very kind of systematic expansion where they focus on a metro than a state than a region. And then and then it's like are we ready for national? 

And I think a lot of brands, you know kind of fall victim to that where they really want to grow beyond their means and the brand might not be ready for it. We know that Libby's, at present day, the three of us talking, we're not ready for the national scale. We'll know when we're ready and we wanna make sure that we've got all the right indicators and pieces in place. But I think distribution is often overlooked because you have the best product in the world. But if you don't have a distribution to get it into consumers' hands, no one's gonna know about it.

John Green: Yeah,

Ethan Peyton: So

John Green: and I'll...

Ethan Peyton: John, before you kick in, Grant, I wanna quickly ask you to, if you could give us a quick definition of that three-tier system, and then John,

Grant Hemingway: Oh yeah.

Ethan Peyton: I wanna fire it over to you if there's some additions you wanna put on top of his answer.

Grant Hemingway: Yeah. So within the alcohol industry, we've got a three-tier system. This is something that is a byproduct of prohibition in which in order to land at a retailer, we have to go through a licensed wholesaler. It also comes with a bevy of complexities in compliance, in taxation. and understanding the real nuanced dynamic of each unique market, whether it's the channels that you can go into or the pricing strategies that you need to have. 

So I think that's one, if I'm speaking to a very specific audience of alcohol entrepreneurs, really understand the state-by-state specific laws and wholesaling. dynamics that need to be at play because I'm 17 years into this, I'm still learning. Every day I'm learning something new about a market dynamic or the way that a wholesaling strategy can work in Arizona versus Michigan. It's so wildly different, but making sure that when we do go into Arizona, we understand each of those nuances so we can take advantage of that and have a successful foray into wholesale.

John Green: So just to add a few more comments to what Grant said, I think getting it into the distributor is really important, but what you do next is equally important. And in our opinion, by going deep in a market, what that really means is that you invest in people. Nobody is gonna sell your product better than your own team. So you gotta understand, distributors have hundreds, and in some cases, thousands of SKUs that they're representing when they go out into the bars, restaurants, retailers.

And, you know, it's very competitive. You know, we talked earlier about SKU-mageddon. I mean, it's brutal. So if you have somebody in the market who is doing tastings, you know, we often refer to it as liquid to lips. If you believe in your prep, your product, you have conviction in your product. You want people to try it because once they try it, they'll buy it. And then they'll come back and buy it again. And they'll also be brand ambassadors for you within that community. So it's really important to do tastings. Holding events at different establishments is really important as well. Educate people on why is Libby different from every other wine that's available to us. So we're there to help the distributor, but also truly be the voice for the brand and go out and educate the community and hopefully aid in the distribution in that specific market.

Ethan Peyton: Distribution's a big game. Sounds like it's a beast with many tentacles. And it sounds like you guys have a pretty good strategy in how to make it work. So thank you for sharing all that advice. I really appreciate it. All right, we're gonna move on to my favorite question, and I'm gonna ask you each individually. And let's go with John first. John, what is your number one piece of advice for early-stage entrepreneurs?

John Green: I would say focus. Oftentimes I've seen where somebody might have a really good product or service team, but they continue to go off in different directions. And, you know, one of the things you realize is that your time is one of your most valuable resources. You have a limited amount of time, so you really need to be smart at how you apply that time. You may have a project idea and then it leads to, or a product idea that leads to new product innovations, new packaging formats. And it's important to be disciplined and say no. Not only your time, but you gotta understand every time you add a different product or a different package, there's a significant cost to that as well. So focus, focus, focus.

Ethan Peyton: All right, now hold on. Focus, focus. If I look in the hallway behind you, didn't we hear earlier that there's like a couple of different brands that are being represented in there?

John Green: There are, fortunately, I have really good partners like Grant who are able to operate those effectively, but no, you're right. I mean, that's the problem. You start to have some success and it's difficult to say no, you get really excited about these disruptive products. And this has become my hobby. I mean, this is what I love to do. This is where I spend my time. And truthfully, variety contributes. 

You know, Grant and I got together a few weeks ago and we had CEOs from three other companies that joined us for dinner. And we were able to share ideas, some learnings, what worked, what didn't work. How was that distributor in Texas for you? Well, let's talk about that. 

And so there's this sharing of information that happens. You can apply learnings from, you know, an RTD company like Long Drink, which is one of the fastest-growing spirit-based cocktails in the country right now. There are lessons from Long Drink that could apply to Libby as an example. Lessons from Libby could apply to Natterjack Irish Whiskey, which just launched here in the States not too long ago. So there is this sharing of learnings, and that's what I get excited about.

Ethan Peyton: Well, you've also got the experience of years of being in this industry. I think if you were to go and if you were to tell me that you're going to start like a parachute company, then I'd probably be asking questions. 

But yeah, it really seems like. you're still able to focus on the industry and the things you know and your expertise. You're just able to apply them to multiple different spaces. So you get a stamp of approval from Ethan, which is worth exactly what you paid for it. So Grant, let's move to you. What is your number one piece of advice for early-stage entrepreneurs?

Grant Hemingway: I think it's preaching patience. I think, to John's point about focus, that's vital. But also just having the patience to let things play out because it might not be an immediate success. And I think a lot of it's timing to everything. I have had distributors in markets specific to Libby say, we're not ready for this. Like this is too early. for us. And you have to listen to those insiders that have the market understanding, and they're telling us, I can see this coming, but we're not ready for it. 

And I think that happens in a variety of products and industries where you get people that are out in front of the curve and might be tipping their hand too soon, or the latter happens. you're not the first to crest the wave. And now all of a sudden you're behind the competition. So I think the focus is a huge component of making sure that you know when the time is right to strike, but it's also advocating for patience and making sure that you give things ample time to really give you the data and insights that you know when it's right to.

Ethan Peyton: All right guys, tell me what is next for Libby. What are we gonna see? What are we gonna see here in the next few months, years?

John Green: Go ahead, Grant.

Grant Hemingway: We, yeah, I mean, we're gonna go right off of that focus comment and just blow it out of the water. But no, we've been listening to the consumers. We've got a format innovation, actually two format innovations, not sizable in terms of like R&D, but just listening to our consumers. One of the things we've got forthcoming this summer is a format we're really excited about which is kegs. 

And because of the nature of Libby being, you know, forced carbonated, we actually get to open up the environment of the on-premise with a really cool innovation which is sparkling wine and keg. The traditional wine kegs are fairly nascent. Obviously, there's massive sustainability benefits to the format of stainless steel over glass. But we're just excited to bring sparkling wine to new occasions and new environments because that's a whole one of our driving goals at Libby is to just expand wine into new environments, new occasions. 

The second one is a resealable, we'll call it because we listen to the consumers loudly and saying that they don't know what to do with a bottle that's half drunk. And specific to carbonation, that's a big-time pain point. And so rather than just, you know, abiding by what's been happening for the last 600 years, we said, let's fix this. And so we've got a format innovation coming out in 2024. 

So those would be two. say more operational things that we've got on the horizon that we're very excited about, one short term, one a little bit more midterm. But then furthering the point of which I think our team is very passionate about this next initiative, which is inclusivity in the wine industry is a problem. And one of the ways that we feel like we can start to change that is through education. And so Ethan, you even talked about intimidation in the wine aisle. Well, how do we make people feel less intimidated by the wine category? We've got to arm them with more knowledge. 

And so Libby U is a campaign, a marketing campaign that we put forth as a team to put forth 10 scholarships to allow entry-level wine, you know, beginner novice who wants to just understand more about wine. Well, we're going to put you through a W-set course. to help you feel more confident and more knowledgeable about the category so that when you're looking at the menu when you're in the wine aisle, you're not feeling that level of intimidation. And we are prioritizing those from, underrepresented communities because those seem to be the most afflicted by this issue.

Ethan Peyton: All right, there's a lot, there's a lot to look forward to. So everyone, if you haven't checked out Libby, you should check out Libby. They're gonna help us all out and we're not gonna be too drunk, just half drunk as you said, right?

Grant Hemingway: That's right.

Ethan Peyton: All right, last question. Where can people connect with you online and how can our listeners support Libby?

Grant Hemingway: Well, we've got the full digital array of e-commerce. So drinklibby.com is that. And then further that, the social handles at drinklibby. And we're very active and our whole team is very active on social, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok. It's tough to keep up with all the platforms these days. 

So in addition to all the social platforms, we've got a big push into wholesale. And so if listeners are really interested in Libby, we have select markets, Michigan being one of them, but also Georgia, Ohio, making a push now into the southern reach of Florida and Texas, and Arizona. As we grow, definitely support the brand, look for it at your local eatery or bar. buy it at the local retailer. 

And if they don't have it, the best thing you can do is ask these bartenders, ask these wine buyers, hey, what do you have that's lower out? What do you have that's innovative in the sparkling set? You don't even need to mention Libby, just show that you are interested in the category. And yeah, if you wanna throw us a bone, definitely ask for Libby. But it is, I think the biggest feedback we get is, consumers are starting to ask for this. And that's a big indicator.

Ethan Peyton: All right, you heard the man. Tip your waiters and waitresses and ask them specifically for Libby. All right guys, this has been a ton of fun. Thank you for coming on. We are going to put all the things you talked about, all the links, everything else in the show notes today. And for folks, you can find those show notes over at startupsavant.com slash podcast. And I vote that we all crack a cold Libby and enjoy the rest of our afternoon. Thank you guys for coming on.

John Green: Thank you, Ethan.

Ethan Peyton: Alright, that’s going to be it for this week’s episode of the Startup Savant podcast. Thanks for listening in!

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