Crushpad is a San Francisco winery where you are the wine maker.
Crushpad provides grapes from the West Coast's top vineyards, an
industry-acclaimed wine making team and a state-of-the-art winery 100%
focused on making wine in small lots. You choose your level of
involvement and we do the rest. No matter where you live, you can now
make your own wine.
Crushpad democratizes the wine industry by enabling wine enthusiasts across the country to create luxury wines from California 's most renowned vineyards. Its community is supported by crushnet.com, a social network site that enables wine enthusiasts to connect, create wines and redistribute them back into the community.
Crushpad's primary revenue source is the sale of custom wine. Customers pay between $5,000 and $10,000 per barrel (25 cases) of wine, inclusive of packaging. Customers tend to form groups of 3-8 people who share the barrel and experience.
3+ years in developing proprietary small lot winemaking software, an online social networking environment for winemaking, a strong brand and over 2500 rabid clients. Crushpad's management team is a unique blend of wine industry and technology industry executives.
Michael Brill is founding President, CEO of Crushpad. He's co-founded 3 software firms. Michael Zitzlaff, Vice President, leads the winemaking team. Ken Myers is CFO. Paul Cattrone is CTO. Jenny Doll is Creative Director.
Crushpad has developed numerous operational and information systems to enable scalable, small-lot winemaking. With over 650 unique wines in 2007, Crushpad makes more distinct wines than any other winery in the world. Crushpad also has filed a broad business process patent underlying crushnet.com that covers investment syndication, wine allocations and the complex flow of funds in a highly regulated industry.
As a professional investor I get to see lots and lots of different business models. When I first read about Crushpad I knew immediately that they were building something unique and cool. Partnering with the people behind this company was an easy decision to make.
Crushpad makes a dream come true. Many of us would love to make wine but do not have the time, land, knowledge or professional equipment to make that dream come true. With crushpad they help you make wine to your taste and provide the staff and expertise to be successful.
I started making wine when Crushpad opened their doors in 2004. It was a leap of faith for that first harvest, but Crushpad has more than delivered in helping this aspiring winemaker create award-winning wines!
Michael Brill and the CP Team deliver (and then some)!
I was fishing around for some investment opportunites back in early 2004 while working my way around a few wineries in Napa looking for some exciting products to add to my collection. Somehow in the middle of my tasting notes someone had given me Michael's phone number and said he was organizing a wine production company in San Francisco. We talked over the phone and I was impressed by his exuberance but frankly, passion often blurs the path to success so I was of course skeptical. When I recieved the prospectus, it blew me away. And, so here we are today. The real story in my opinion is one of great vision, planning and perseverance. That to me sums up Michael Brill and the Crushpad team. This group does not just talk a good game, they deliver. In 2007 I'll make around 100 cases of wine with the majority of it going to China, where I live. This year I poured my 2004 vintage wines in San Francisco, New York City, Houston and at exhibitions in Shanghai and Beijing. The route-to-market in China is different than the US. A first I believed the restaurant and hospitality segments would drive the business and eventually retail would take off. The truth is that the private buyers, enthusiasts, collectors and clubs now springing up are capable of consuming all of my product - at healthy margins. So what does this point have to do with Crushpad you ask? Well if I am right, which happens occasionally, Crushpad will soon be producing private labels for a significant number of enthusiasts in China. Globalization can be exciting - especially if we can refill some of those empty containers going back to China! If you're not making wine through Crushpad, you need to consider it. It's more than just wine. It's networking, relationship building and being part of an inclusive community of people who you will find, share many interests.
Crushpad is unparalled in its ability to help aspiring winemakers make world-class wine -- whether for personal consumption or to build an award-winning boutique wine label.
As a successful home winemaker for many years that wanted to "take the next step", I would never have started a full-scale winery, but with Crushpad I can achieve my goals and have a lot of fun doing it.
Check it out if you haven't seen Crushpad in action...
this is a tremendous organization. great people, great facility and the wines that i've done have been outstanding. I can't say enough great things about Crushpad.
Making my first barrel this year. The business idea is a very sound one and that gave me confidence to invest my money in making a barrel. I would not have done so if I did not believe in the company. I'm not saying anything new that Michael hasn't said, but what struck me early on about CP is that it is the intersection of a number of trends: * Growing interest in wine from an affluent community. While wine is becoming increasingly available to all legal age groups, I believe that the underlying driver of the growth of the market is the steadily increasing number of baby boomers. As they enter their peak earning years and/or retire early, they are looking for increased personal satisfaction and an expression of their creativity. And, they want to do so in a safe and structured environment as CP provides. CP is not inclined to let you make a bad barrel of wine (you won't like it and would reflect poorly on their stewardship). You also don't have to do any of the heavy stuff (washing barrels) or take any of the risks (dollar investment beyond the cost of joining CP). It's what the boomers want. I wonder what is the median age of the CP community?
* Disaggregation of the wine industry and finding value points within it. Just like the computer business and the auto business, the giant behemoths are breaking apart and new value opportunities are found. So, CP can aggregate the best of the vineyards and the aspiring winemakers to create their own personalized product. Both come together and CP is the catalyst for change.
* Personalization - Watches, cars, clothes, even our presence in Web 2.0 (facebook, myspace, here...) is a means of projecting who we want to be. We used to have to take the wines that we given us by the wineries. Now we can create our own and whether our interest in truely in the wine or whether it's to project a certain cache' by having our own wine, the opportunity is there.
* Blend of internet/brick & morter - Crushnet is a great idea to capitalize on this new market of wine making enthusiasts. And this is true for a lot of reasons as there isn't a better way to reach people quickly and to mobilize them to action than the internet. Also, the target market of CP is an affluent base of people. The new affluence in the US is a technology aware community and they know how to use the internet. I think that crushnet has a lot of potential to mobilize people to participate and eventually generate significant revenue on it's own as an adjunct to CP's main business of winemaking. Thanks CP for giving me the opportunity to make my own wine and learn the process. Cheers!
Finalist in Wine 2.0 Business Plan Competition
Follow Crushpad, Inc. on Vator.tv
To all the CP folks--you guys are awesome!!
Casey & Jeremy
blog.coveredbridgecellars.com
Michael Brill and the CP Team deliver (and then some)!
Marilyn Sherman
www.flyingwine.com
As a successful home winemaker for many years that wanted to "take the next step", I would never have started a full-scale winery, but with Crushpad I can achieve my goals and have a lot of fun doing it.
Check it out if you haven't seen Crushpad in action...
Mark Weiner
www.twinoakscellars.com
* Growing interest in wine from an affluent community. While wine is becoming increasingly available to all legal age groups, I believe that the underlying driver of the growth of the market is the steadily increasing number of baby boomers. As they enter their peak earning years and/or retire early, they are looking for increased personal satisfaction and an expression of their creativity. And, they want to do so in a safe and structured environment as CP provides. CP is not inclined to let you make a bad barrel of wine (you won't like it and would reflect poorly on their stewardship). You also don't have to do any of the heavy stuff (washing barrels) or take any of the risks (dollar investment beyond the cost of joining CP). It's what the boomers want. I wonder what is the median age of the CP community?
* Disaggregation of the wine industry and finding value points within it. Just like the computer business and the auto business, the giant behemoths are breaking apart and new value opportunities are found. So, CP can aggregate the best of the vineyards and the aspiring winemakers to create their own personalized product. Both come together and CP is the catalyst for change.
* Personalization - Watches, cars, clothes, even our presence in Web 2.0 (facebook, myspace, here...) is a means of projecting who we want to be. We used to have to take the wines that we given us by the wineries. Now we can create our own and whether our interest in truely in the wine or whether it's to project a certain cache' by having our own wine, the opportunity is there.
* Blend of internet/brick & morter - Crushnet is a great idea to capitalize on this new market of wine making enthusiasts. And this is true for a lot of reasons as there isn't a better way to reach people quickly and to mobilize them to action than the internet. Also, the target market of CP is an affluent base of people. The new affluence in the US is a technology aware community and they know how to use the internet. I think that crushnet has a lot of potential to mobilize people to participate and eventually generate significant revenue on it's own as an adjunct to CP's main business of winemaking.
Thanks CP for giving me the opportunity to make my own wine and learn the process.
Cheers!