What the Wine Industry Was Missing—Until Now | Ep 234 with LaToya Jordan and Brianna Shelko Founders of Marble Wines

0:00Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Founder Story. We always enjoy having two guests and I'm excited because I really like drinking wine. I like to understand about how wine and community are coming together. And that's why we have these two amazing co-founders. We have LaToya and Brianna, the co-founders of Marble Wines. And I can't wait to hear about your expansion now into New York. But if you both can give me a little download of what is the history of why you started this company? Well, we started Marble after I had an experience trying to assist somebody else with getting their wine label off the ground.

0:41And so ultimately, I had acquired all of this knowledge, all of these contacts, and I had done all of this work. And at the end of it, I really didn't have much to show for it, except for like a couple of checks that I spent really quickly. And so we decided that, you know, we wanted to do something on our own, right? I wanted to be able to take that information and utilize it and do it kind of a way that I wanted to do it. And when I approached Brianna about it, she was 100 % on board with it and immediately wanted to be involved. Yeah, Latoya and I have worked together historically as well. Back when I owned a social media agency, she was a client for a couple years on and off and we would work on really fun projects together.

1:27And every time we were on the phone with each other, just felt like old girlfriends, just yapping. We almost never talked about what we were supposed to be talking about. And so it was a good fit from the beginning. So when Latoya approached me about it, it was a no brainer for me. It was great. So how is it going from your past lives now, your past careers to jumping in this together and going into the wine industry, which I know Latoya said you had some experience helping somebody else. But now that you're doing it for yourself, how has it been? It's been great. It's been a lot of fun. And the wine industry is it's a slow grind, right?

2:06It takes a minute to break a product into the market. But being able to like go out, I tell people all the time I have like the best weekend job because I get to drink and socialize. And those are two things I'm really good at. We also, you know, we partner with some other third parties that assist us with compliance and all of those types of things. So we don't necessarily get fully ingrained in the minutiae of all of the regulatory things that we need to maintain our license as importers and wholesalers. But it's been great. We've enjoyed it, you know, a thousand percent. Was there something that you realized about the wine industry now that you've been getting, you know, you've been getting into the wine industry and you've been talking to your customers or consumers that, you know, future consumers?

2:55Is there something that you're finding out that you didn't think about before? So the biggest challenge that we've had has been around distribution. We did not understand that distributors can be a gatekeeper to the marketplace. So we've had to really try to strongly navigate that space. And then I would think the other thing that we kind of learned is that it's one is such a subjective experience. Right. We encounter people. But our first blend that's on the market is a red blend. And we encounter people who say, you know, oh, I don't drink red wine or I don't like red wine. And we've done something very unique with our particular red blend that when we introduce it to customers who don't typically drink red wine, they actually really like it and think that it is a red wine that they can drink.

3:45So we've actually called this a transitional wine. So if you only drink white or if you think you don't like red or you only like sweet red, this is a good product to transition you and kind of open your palate and your mind to other things that you might like. And to add on to that, too, you know, something Latoya and I figured out just a little bit along the way is that women felt like they were not represented in the brands. So they'd be shopping in the store and, you know, there's your favorite brands. There's the Stella Roses and, you know, stuff like that. But when we were doing our focus groups, it was like, I don't feel represented in a wine brand yet.

4:24You know what I mean? So that was that was another cornerstone that we really wanted to conquer while we were in business. I'm curious if you can dive more about the, like you're saying, being able to feel represented as a woman in the wine industry and at the same time building community for people to come together and a safe space for women, not just, you know, to drink wine, but also to network and, you know, create friendships. How has that been? That's been a great journey for us as well. We really started by adding in the representation with the label itself. There's a woman on the bottle that really doesn't necessarily have any race at all.

5:09It's just, you know, an artistic drawing of a woman on the bottle. But where the representation comes in is that those sunglasses are gold metallic and they're reflective. So every woman who actually holds the bottle will get to see a little bit of their reflection on the label. So that was just a unique way that we were able to try to bring in the representation that women, you know, really said they wanted. And then we connect with women just through the events that we do. We hosted our first, we joined a lot of other events, but we hosted our first event this year. We did a Galentine's Day.

5:46So we got about 12 to 15, you know, women from different professions, different walks of life out to dinner. We served marble wine. We had conversation about careers, families, love, all of the things. And it was a really great experience. I really like that you're saying it's almost like they can see themselves in the wine. What an genius way to come up. When you think about the marketing of this, are you having to go about it differently? Because maybe many brands are looking at more male-focused customers that they are marketing to. When you see a huge category of women, maybe even more women drink wine.

6:30I don't know. How have you had to change your marketing to make sure you appeal to that customer? that customer. For us, from at least a social media perspective, it's been interesting to see who's engaging with the brands. Almost all of them are women and almost all of them have some kind of form of entrepreneurial and or baking background, chef background, which makes sense, right? Culinary arts background. So we've been trying to figure out the best places to meet them, both in person, you know, foot traffic, but also online. And that's been a little bit of a challenge just because a lot of the culinary experiences are done in person.

7:10You know, you go to a restaurant, you, and that's where LaToya has really taken the bull by the horns. And, and she went straight to New York and got us distribution in New York. And we're going to start there to, for that foot, that foot traffic experience where we're in those, those retail stores. So that way maybe more there's more affluence in the city and not just online but it is it's hard to explain how something tastes and how something how wonderful something is just from an online experience so that's why you know the distribution is so important when it comes to wine too but it's that's the only challenging part is trying to translate just how wonderful and velvety and fruit forward this wine is without it being an in-person experience um yeah so like brianna So we got into the New York market.

7:58And I think for us, I think where the story is different is that you have two women who are so different from one another working together to bring this product to other women. Right. You know, there's obvious differences that we have, but we also there's an age gap between Brianna and myself. I'm 43, almost about to be 44. And Brianna is in her early 30s. And so we have an age gap. There's a generational gap. There's a gap from an ethnicity perspective. And so that in itself is just a unique story that you don't see every day, particularly in the line space. and so when we go out into these you know events we get to meet with all of these different women and it's not just oh it's a black brand or it's just a brand or it's you know it really connects with women because they get to see two different very different women working together having fun together our events are always fun like we're going to make sure that they're always fun You know, laughing and celebrating and drinking wine together.

9:18And that's what it's supposed to be. Wine is a social experience. Well, I see Marble Wines as being, you know, the fastest growing wine company, maybe the most successful wine company in history in the U.S. I could see it has an incredible potential. Can you talk about what's happening in New York? Sure. So we got distribution started this year in New York. We are in two retail stores right now in Brooklyn. And that's Happy Cork. And that is also Bedvine. And so we were there in March doing events. And I will actually be back this weekend on Friday at Happy Cork from 6 to 8 doing a tasting. And I will be in Bedvine on the 21st from 6 to 8 p.m.

10:01doing a tasting. Well, this is very exciting. So people want to get in touch with you. They want to find out how they can attend. And they also want to know more about the brand as well. How can they do so? Social media. We have the flyers and the dates, the times, the locations, the addresses to those places. They're free events. So you can pop in anytime between 6 to 8. Come say hello. And, of course, try to look. On Instagram, we're at Marble Wines and www.marblewines.com. And you can follow us for more information on all of future events. Well, I'm very excited. I can't wait for you to come back in a year.

10:36tell us how it's going then I'm sure it's going to be just incredible really love what you're doing and I can't wait to hear more Latoya and Brianna from Marble Wines I hope everyone checks it out and then goes to your event in New York and then it sounds like they can buy it from New York after that so really excited and thank you for joining us today thanks for having us