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THE AMAZON OF WINE
Yes, we will speak about Vinino. Unfortunately, we´ve been knocking the
door many, many times, but received not any answer neither from both of
the founders, not from the press people. So the information presented to
you, is collected from internet sources - mainly Darrell Etherington, a writer
at TechCrunch, focused on science, space and tech startups, Slovak art lover,
gallerist, investor and BrainTrust founder Marian Gazdik, Jill Barth from For-
bes and Heini Zachariassen´s quotes, notes and aswers.
Vivino is an interesting company for many when he bought a bad bottle of wine. After
reasons, but chief among them might be just buying enough of them, he decided to solve
how similar its vision today is to the one it star- the problem. Like any other „overnight“ suc-
ted out with. Founder and CEO Heini Zachari- cess story, it took 10 years. Not because they
assen told Darrell Etherington in an interview couldn‘t burn more money, but because they
that the app has been remarkably immune to wanted to build a sustainable company.
the pivot - something as natural as breathing That core value proposition is what leads
in the fast-flowing startup world. to a lot of Vivino’s initial downloads and sub-
“I can look at my slide, from when I pitched this sequent usage. The scenario is likely familiar:
10 years ago,” he told “It says, „Hey, you scan You’re sitting in a restaurant and browsing the
a bottle of wine, then you can buy it.“ That just wine menu, or staring at a crowded shelf in
makes a lot of sense to anybody, so it really has- a wine store.
n’t changed much.” For myself, I think I likely searched for some-
When Vivino launched, there were already thing like „wine recommendation app“ and
1,000 other wine apps available on the app found Vivino via the App Store, installed it and
store. It all started with a frustration. Heini was was snapping photos of labels or menus wi-
one of those wine enthusiasts who liked wine, thin minutes. The recommendations provided
but was no wine expert. He got frustrated somewhere to start, and since then the app
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