{"id":38306,"date":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/five-lessons-for-growing-a-successful-startup-from-vinomofo-founder-justin-dry-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T14:55:35","slug":"five-lessons-for-growing-a-successful-startup-from-vinomofo-founder-justin-dry-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/five-lessons-for-growing-a-successful-startup-from-vinomofo-founder-justin-dry-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Five lessons for growing a successful startup from Vinomofo founder Justin Dry – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/div>\n

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Justin Dry, the co-founder and co-CEO of
group buying wine deal platform Vinomofo. which recently closed a $25 million round of funding.<\/a><\/p>\n

Although Vinomofo is now seen as one of the biggest success stories to come out of Australia, this\u00a0was not always the case.<\/p>\n

In the podcast interview, Justin shared what he described as their \u201clean years\u201d, when he and his co-founder (and brother-in-law), Andre Eikmeier, struggled with different
business models as they tried to make ends meet.<\/p>\n

They pivoted four times over four years before they\u00a0found the right fit.<\/p>\n

He also shared how Vinomofo grew its\u00a0community to close to half a million followers, how they\u00a0choose between multiple investment options on the table and much more.<\/p>\n

The interview was tremendously insightful and Justin was very open about the story behind how\u00a0Vinomofo started and the keys to the success of the company.<\/p>\n

Here are my five main takeaways:<\/p>\n

1. Be passionate about your problem<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s often said that to be successful in a startup, you should build a business around something you\u00a0love.<\/p>\n

Justin and Andre are clearly obsessed with the wine industry and that was a big part of their ability\u00a0to stay resilient over four years. It\u2019s never easy dealing with financial pressures especially when you\u00a0add on additional responsibilities of caring for family members and children.<\/p>\n

Over the four years, both Justin and Andre came close to quitting several times, but their passion for\u00a0the industry kept them going over that difficult period.<\/p>\n

2. The power of building a community<\/h3>\n

Although Justin and Andre did not find a way to effectively generate revenue from their earlier\u00a0business models, they did have a strong and engaged audience of followers that they built trust\u00a0with over a four\u00a0year period.<\/p>\n

This strong connection to their \u201cMofos and Moffettes\u201d has allowed them to build and scale their\u00a0business quickly, with their community acting as evangelists for the company, helping them spread\u00a0and grow early on without the need for a large marketing budget.<\/p>\n

3. You can\u2019t fake the funk<\/h3>\n

One of the things that Vinomofo is best known for (and that gives them a competitive advantage in\u00a0the space) is their authenticity and the consistency with which they stick into the parameters of\u00a0their brand.<\/p>\n

This covers everything from the way they talk to their customers, how they serve their
customers and also the type of products they make available on their platform.<\/p>\n

There wasn\u2019t a thought process in the tone of voice used by Vinomofo to target a specific audience\u00a0or demographic. They have built a strong brand presence by being authentic to the values shared\u00a0by Justin and Andre which is then translated across the business.<\/p>\n

4. Solve a problem people want<\/h3>\n

It seems simple enough, but when you are operating your startup, it can get difficult to draw the\u00a0line between solving your customers problem and building a solution to problems you assume (or\u00a0want) your customers to have.<\/p>\n

As Justin mentioned in the interview, they tried to build social networks and review based
platforms, but it took them four years to act on the fact that people wanted high quality wine, at\u00a0heavily discounted prices, sold to them in a way that they didn\u2019t feel intimidated.<\/p>\n

5. The journey is just as important as the destination<\/h3>\n

From an outsider\u2019s perspective it may seem as if the company would have been more successful if\u00a0they had started with their current business model all those years ago, but\u00a0Justin maintains\u00a0that the business would not have been as successful were it not for the four years that they spent that\u00a0time learning about how to run a business, building relationships within the industry (which allowed\u00a0them to get exclusive deals on products) and building an audience that allowed Vinomofo to\u00a0quickly scale and grow their business.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s easy to look at companies such as Vinomofo and think of them as overnight successes, but it\u2019s\u00a0important to realise all of the work, networking and lessons that it took for Justin and Andre to be in\u00a0a position to take advantage of the opportunity they saw.<\/p>\n

You can listen to the entire podcast interview with Justin on iTunes<\/a>, Stitcher<\/a> or by heading over to startupplaybook.co<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Follow StartupSmart on<\/em> Facebook<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0Twitter<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>LinkedIn<\/a>\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0<\/em>SoundCloud<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I had the pleasure of interviewing Justin Dry, the co-founder and co-CEO of group buying wine deal platform Vinomofo.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38306"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38306"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38306\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61718"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38306"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38306"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38306"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}