When Eric Story and Alison Smith-Story started their winery in 2014, they didn’t follow any conventional path. An old saw advises that to make a small fortune in the wine industry, you should start with a large one. That was not an option, so they went the modern way.
“We didn’t have an inheritance, and we hadn’t started and sold a software company,” Alison explains.
So they turned to Kickstarter to create Smith Story Wine Cellars, which now operates out of a custom crush winery in Sonoma County. “We are the first winery we know of to be crowdfunded.”