I started my company BPWine in 2007 with 2 partners: Stefen Blicker and Brent Pierce, I was 25 at the time and had always dreamed of owning my own business. We struggled through some tough times (lawsuits, market crashes, etc) but ultimately thrived. Our big break was starting Last Bottle Wines, a flash site that sells one wine a day at best in market pricing. It was an immediate success, starting in 2011 and still continues today.

My partners in 2020 wanted to retire and we decided to take Last Bottle to market. We had no real way of knowing the market value of the company and without this I could never put an offer to buy out my partners. It was a long and hard process dealing with private equity firms, lawyers, and investment bankers (all while running a company that had doubled in the previous 2 years). We got an offer from a P.E. firm and I declined the offer, I then worked on buying out my partners through banks and financing.

A few months into the process of securing funding to purchase the company we got another offer that exceeded what I was comfortable paying my partners. Ultimately we sold, closing on New Years Eve 2021.

Fast forward 2023 – I’m still working at Last Bottle, my partners have both retired and I am unhappy. Not being in control of my own business (employees, financials, etc) was unbearable. I was stressed, unhealthy, and unhappy. I decided I had to quit, for my sanity, but also because I wasn’t committed to the future. So then I found myself unemployed and unable to work in the industry (non-compete). Cue sad violin music... start movie...

Luckily, Stefen, Brent and I are still great friends. Here’s a conversation I had recently with Stefen where we talk a bit about transitioning our focus from buying high priced cellars to a model of finding great deals on great wines, and the very rapid growth that ensued, and the many many mistakes and lessons we encountered along the way.

This conversation has been edited for clarity and grammar (AKA thanks to my editor for helping us not sound like idiots!).

STEFAN: After two years in our new business [Blicker Pierce Wagner], it was pretty clear that compared to our initial business plan of buying cellars and reselling them, this nascent Last Bottle concept was where we needed to put all of our energy and money. Our intention moved toward growing Last Bottle (including needing a lot more space ). And we grew relentlessly, like 200-300%, like crazy for the first few years. And we knew it wasn't slowing down anytime soon.

CORY: Right, and we sort of shifted from buying the most collectable wines in the world to buying wines from similar quality that didn't have the elevated price tag. And this is something I don't want to get lost, we were not buying bad wines; in fact, our attention to quality was really high despite the price points, maybe higher. And that's why I say we probably have tried the largest amount of terrible wines of any wine taster in the world (maybe there’s a few places have tried as much as us). I think the one thing we always tried to do was make sure what we were offering was still super, super high quality because of our background in fine wine.