2. Wine entrepreneur Brice Baillie on leaving corporate finance, building a sustainable business and bringing wine to the masses

Hello, bonjour, ni hao, and salut. Welcome back to the Impact around the World podcast. I'm Cassandra Pittman, edX Country Manager for the UK and Ireland and host of the show. On this week's episode, I'm thrilled to be joined by one of our star entrepreneurs, Brice Baille, the founder and CEO of Obvious Wines. Brise graduated from EDHEC in 2006 before working in corporate finance for L' Oreal in New York and Los Angeles. He recently decided to venture out on his own and follow his passion for bringing authenticity to the wine industry. You might have even seen him on the American business reality show Shark Tank, where he successfully pitched for $160,000 in investment. Originally from Champagne, France, obviously Bries has now built a wine brand focused on making the wine selection process more approachable, democratizing wine. What's not to love? Welcome, Brice. How are you?

Good, thank you. Thank you very much, Cassandra.

So we are recording this towards the end of August. I know, as you and I were discussing just before we hit record, I grew up not far from where you live now in California, so it's still got a very special place in my heart. And I know that California had some initial success with COVID and is now struggling again. So my first question is just, how are you? How are you? How are your friends? How are your family? How's your community?

I'm good, personally, thank you. It's been like everywhere else in the world, it's been kind of a roller coaster, an emotional roller coaster, but we're good. I mean, my close friends and family, everyone is pretty safe until now, so we can complain on that level.

That's good, that's good, that's good. And what does lockdown look like there now? Are you still. Are you still restricted?

No. I mean, that's part of the problem is that, honestly, you don't really see that. I mean, there's no official lockdown, and life seems to be. It's a different type of life where everyone is wearing masks. But restaurants have reopened, only the Terrace, which is actually a good thing, because in California, usually there is no terrace, like in France or in Europe. And now they're starting to put tables everywhere outside, so it's actually pretty nice. But, you know, a lot of stores have reopened. People, you know, go back to work, some of them, and traffic is back. And as you know, as a former Californian, traffic in LA is. It's probably the worst thing. And during COVID there was no traffic. It's like, for the French people imagine the. The periphery without anybody on it. But now even traffic is back, so things are kind of back to normal with a different type of normal, even though the numbers are still pretty bad.

Yeah. Yeah. So I want to talk to you a little bit about. I think you're, so far the only entrepreneur. We've talked to a lot of people in this series who are doing entrepreneurial things, but in addition to having more traditional careers, I want to talk a little bit about what the experience was like, particularly at the beginning for somebody that didn't have that sort of safety net and where you got your sources of support. Were you worried about what the business might look like when Covid first hit?

Yeah, I mean, I was very worried. And, you know, we got hit pretty hard because, you know, my business, you know, it's very recent business. We started in 2018, so it was really just two years we were in business. When Covid happened, we were also growing, so we had hire several people to help support the growth. I was also in discussion with different VCs, were about to invest, and of course, this didn't happen. So, no, we got hit pretty hard. You know, most people think, oh, you know, wine has been doing very well. And it's true, like, retail stores have been doing very well, but we were highly dependent on restaurants. Restaurants sales were 50% of our revenues, so we lost that overnight. And. But thankfully, it was offset by the increase in retail sales. And online. Online has been like, a big surprise. Like, we had, like, a huge spike on online orders, which is. Which was good for us because it, you know, it was proving that, you know, people were really looking for our wines. So that. So at the end of the day, we ended up kind of not losing too much. But we, you know, unfortunately had to make tough decisions in terms of employees and, you know, having to let go some people.

I also want to. I feel like we need to introduce people to what Obvious Wines does before we talk too much about that. And I feel like the way into doing that is in your personal transformation from, I think it's you who termed yourself a former wine snob into now somebody with a deep appreciation for making the process more approachable. Can you tell us about that?

Yeah, I mean, the whole idea started when I saw a lot of my American friends and family being very intimidated by wine. You know, coming from France, where, you know, you can drink a fancy wine or a very cheap wine, and it doesn't really matter. I mean, if you are into wine, you're going to really be Careful about it. If you're not into wine, you won't have this intimidation or, you know, and here people don't really dare to ask questions. They don't air to, as, you know, the waiter or the sommelier. And, you know, they're very like scary people, the sommeliers here. And the idea was, okay, how can we change that? Wine is a fun product. People enjoy it and they have fun when they drink wine. Why does it have to be this obscure, very scary thing? So that was really the starting point of the idea and the concept of obvious wines. But the other piece, which is very important is that I didn't want it to be just a marketing concept.

Which.

Is why I only partner with family owned vineyards. Everything is estate grown. So I know exactly how the wine is made, where it's from. All the wineries are at least sustainably farmed. Some of them are practicing organic or certified organic and biodynamic. So that aspect to me was also important was, okay, let's change the way people view wine, but also let's make sure we do that with good wine that is not mass produced by an industrial wine conglomerate.

Yeah, I think it's such a wonderful example of how you can fuse your values for sustainability if you have them in a business without starting a business that leads with sustainability. Does that make sense? Saying, and I'm not gonna, I'm, I'm starting a wine business, you know, because I'm passionate about wine. And you could be starting a business in, in anything. And if you say, but I'm also passionate about sustainability, there are ways to fuse that into any business, any business model.

Yeah, no, correct. And yeah, it's funny you say that because it's actually a challenge sometimes for people to understand that, especially, you know, like investors or because they think, oh, they want to put you in a box. Are you like a sustainably focused company? Are you like just focusing on that? This is your claim, you know, oh, I'm trying to be vegan and eco friendly. Or are you the obvious wine, trying to make wine easier? And I'm always trying to explain we are both and one doesn't have to be without the other. You can have a cool concept which happens to be sustainably produced and, you know, very respectful environment. And I think in the future every company would be like that and it would just be the norm. And only the companies that don't have those aspects would be just rejected by consumers. But yeah, it's very important to have, I think, both today.

Do you see obvious Wines expanding internationally, or do you think this is a need that is fairly exclusive to the US Market?

No, I mean, we've had a lot of importers reaching out from different countries, like in Denmark, Sweden, even India and Mexico and Colombia and not the UK yet. So we had people reaching out because the concept, I think, can resonate with consumers all over the world. And the wines are also labeled in English, so it could work everywhere. Right now, we're not at a stage where we can really do that. I mean, technically we could, but also don't want to spread ourselves too thin and start developing into countries without having the right marketing strength and the right people in place to help grow the market. It's not just about selling a wine into a new market. You want to make sure you we are there and we explain to people what obvious wines is, etc. So I hope one day we can expand internationally. Right now, I think it's too big for us right now.

Yeah, well, I mean, we're still a baby.

We're still a baby.

The American market's also pretty big. I mean, 330 million people is a lot of potential consumers.

Yeah, I mean, it's the first. It's the number one country in terms of consumption wine. So it's the biggest market in the world for wine drinking. So we have a lot to do here.

Yeah, definitely. So what did you study when you were at Edec?

I mean, at that time, you know, it was really. So I did like the Grande Cole program. I'm sure it changed name since, but it was really the general cursors. You know, the first two years, it was a lot of different things, like, you know, marketing, supply chain accounting, you know, systems. So really like generalist second year as well. And then my third year, I didn't do a specialization. I ended up doing an exchange program in Thailand.

Okay.

So it was more like a travel specialization. My last year.

Yeah. So I was. I wanted to ask, you know, were you. Was your move to New York, was your move to the States deliberate? Were you trying to gain another continent of experience? And now obviously, you had studied in France, studied in Thailand, and then moved to New York. How did that happen?

Yeah, I mean, it was more like a personal thing. I actually didn't want to go to the U.S. i wanted to go to Asia, to Bangkok or to Singapore. I was really into Asia. And then my girlfriend back in the day got a job in New York. And then after one year working for l' Oreal in internal audit, which was like three years program I asked them if they could help me move to New York and they were super nice enough to help me do that. But no, initially I didn't want to go. So it was really just. I was just following my girlfriend. And then life happened and we separated and then she went back to France and I stayed in the US And I'm now married to Nasha, who's from Miami, from Florida. So now half of my family now is American.

Do you have children? No, no, no, because I'm shacked up with a Brit here and we have a young son now, but who's just now starting to talk and he doesn't have an accent one way or another yet. But I'm going. It's going to be so weird to hear my own child speak in a British accent and not like me. You know, it's going to be strange.

Oh yeah, it's true. I mean, it's going to be. Yeah, one or the other. I mean, I mean, we want to have kids and for sure my biggest concern is them having an American accent. No offense when they speak French, but yeah, I think I will not accept that.

Look, I mean, I would take speaking French with an American accent. If I could just get myself to a point where I could speak well enough to be understood, that would already be a win for me. So we don't have the largest community of alumni in California, but I do know that the alumni that we have are quite engaged, they're quite active, and we have quite a few entrepreneurs in California have been able to lean on the support of the edict community through this Covid time.

A little bit. A little bit. I mean, Patricia, who's managing the whole region for the EDHEC alumni, she's been very great at right away asking how she could help. We also did a happy hour, like a virtual happy hour where I presented the wines and brought people some of my knowledge about wine tasting. So on that it's been useful. I haven't really reached out to some EDEC alumni specifically. You know, I think in the middle of COVID it was really just trying to understand how to operate and trying to see how things were going. You know, you kind of like.

It's triage, isn't it? Yeah, yeah.

And it's. It's not really the time where you can really. I mean, I didn't feel the need of reaching out to the CADM9. Yeah.

How did you end up on Shark Tank?

I don't remember. No, for real. I think I applied, but I think it was probably one night in the middle of 10,000 things I was doing, someone probably just told me, hey, you should apply on Shark Tank. I was like, yeah, whatever. And I applied for it. I can't find any trace of my application. So for real, it was like, in April. I applied in April 2018, which was like, three months after I started Obvious Wines. I only had two wines. I was alone, had no employees, I had no money. So I applied very randomly. And it's a few months later, they called me back and they were like, hey, we're interested. Can you Send a video, etc. And this is when it started. And it was a very long process, very long application process where you have to fill so many forms, give a lot of information, do different types of videos. And during the whole process, you know, they tell you that your chances of being selected are very low. And then even after they film it, you're not guaranteed to be aired. They film a lot of segments that don't end up being aired because it's tv. You know, most and foremost, it's tv. So they need to have good content. They need to have more content than what they need just in case something goes wrong. But, yeah, so I don't really recall doing the application.

Is it. I apologize if this is too direct a question, but I've always wondered about this sort of thing. Is it a blessing or a curse? I mean, do you think it was a good thing, or do you feel like you're just kind of not. You're just. Obviously, you're doing lots of different things, but do you feel like you're now known as that guy who was on Shark Tank?

I think it is a blessing and a curse, but I was very aware of it when I went on it. So I knew it would help online sales. I knew it would help getting some visibility. It helped a lot getting some distribution in other states. Because the way the US Work in terms of wine distribution is very complex. Each state, you need to have a company that's gonna handle your distribution and then resell to retailers and stores and restaurants. So it's very hard to get distribution because they're like, okay, it's kind of a catch 22. If you don't have distribution, you can prove that your concept sells well. And if you can prove that your concept sells well, then nobody is gonna take you on. So on that aspect, Shark Tank helped a lot, but it's more a blessing than the curse. The cursed side is more like. For instance, if you go on our website, you're not gonna See any mention of Shark Tank because restaurants, I don't want them to really see that. But mostly because I don't want people to know us as, oh, this is the wine that was on Shark Tank. I want people to know us as. That's obvious. Wine. Trying to make wine simple, approachable and clean and eco friendly. That's what I want people to know about us. So it's, I mean, it's definitely a blessing. The curse is just once in a while, you know, we're going to have like a fancy restaurant that might be like, oh, you guys were on Shark Tank, so we don't want you. That happens.

Yeah, but you couldn't just bootstrap this whole business from the ground up by yourself, Breece. So we don't want you.

No, no, no.

You know what I mean?

You could, you know, I think we would still have been growing, you know, I think it's just, it helped, it facilitate, it helped getting into some more states. What we've done in California, we've done it without Shark Tank and we didn't need that. But definitely getting into like Florida and Texas and soon New York was, you know, really helped by Shark Tank. And also like the deal I did with Laurie on stage didn't. Didn't happen.

Oh, it didn't?

No.

Oh, interesting.

Yeah, a lot of those deals don't happen.

I mean, I thought that they must not because that's reality TV for you. But I, you know, I didn't know you. I didn't know actually how it works.

Yeah, I mean, for a lot of reasons, you know, the timing of when it's negotiated, you know, if they take their time, then in the meantime your company keeps growing and you know, if you have a final negotiation five months later, then, you know, in the life of a startup, five months is a lot. So what you are five months later is different. And the other aspect is without revealing, like legal stuff, but how you make a deal, you know, the terms and the legal aspects are very important and it's not, I think, that easy for a shark and an entrepreneur to agree on those terms. You know, you have the money, the valuation, fine. But you know, a deal is not just money and valuation. You have so many aspects of control and dilution and etc. So we didn't agree on the terms and it was totally fine.

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. Am I right in reading that your first focus groups were done in your own home by delivering wine tastings to your friends?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, you've done your Research.

Yeah, I come prepared, Brice. I come prepared.

Yeah, she did.

So had you trained at that point as a sommelier or something like a sommelier? Or had you just been somebody who appreciated wine?

I just drink a lot.

Yeah.

No, no, I was never trained. I mean I grew up in champagne. My first jobs were to do the harvest. I've always been super interested by wine, but. And I did some trainings in the US but more to learn about Californian wines. Because when I arrived I was also very lost about, you know, wines from California. And you have such a high diversity between the different regions. You know, French guy arriving is like, oh, it's wine from California. But no, you have, you know, it's like France. You have so many different regions with, you know, different climate, different soils. So I learned a lot by myself. I've read a lot, I've tasted a lot. And yeah, the first focus groups were. Yeah. With friends at the house and I was blend. You know, we had different blends that I made with a winemaker and I just have it had those friends tasting the wines, like blind tasting the wines and telling me what they think about the wines. And we used to do that a lot actually, only with American people. French people were banned, could not come. Just because I didn't want the opinion. I didn't want the taste and the palate opinion. I think American and French people have different palates and different preferences when it comes to wine. So. And you know, obvious wine was really developed by and for American people. So that's why I didn't want to include them.

No, that makes perfect sense. Do you drink your own wine now? I mean having. Having grown up with a French palate?

Yeah. No, I mean I love all my wines, even the California one. Otherwise no, I would never on the market a product that I don't like for sure.

Did you. I mean after having. Because I think you had a career. So if we. You graduated in 2005. So it would have been about a 10 year career in finance. Had you had entrepreneurial ambitions that that whole time and you thought, one day I'll start my own company or how did that, how did that process happen?

No, I've never had that. I mean I have a few friends, former edX who started companies and I've always had so much admiration and I've never fail capable of doing that. To be honest, I was like, this is not for me. It's just impossible. So much uncertainty. And so now, I mean I had, you know, I started with l' Oreal in France and then New York. And then I was. I was really not ready for that. But what happened is that l' Oreal acquired a company called Nyx, Nyx Cosmetics. And back in New York, I was working for One of the CFOs that handled the acquisition. So right after the acquisition, he asked me to go to LA and handle the post merge in terms of finance and operations and systems and to kind of start creating a team for that, which is what I did in la. And arriving in la, I saw this company that used to be a startup, and I started to meet a lot of people who were in the startup world. And I think it's just by speaking with people, I realized it was possible. You could. If you had an idea and a concept and you could do it. So that kind of. It started to grow in my mind. And then in parallel, I started to think about different ideas. And so it came naturally. But for sure, the ecosystem and being around people who have done it really helped. I think if I had stayed in New York, I would never have done it. Yeah. But also the other thing maybe is that in New York, I had created a theater company with a friend, and I think that helped. It was like my first step into entrepreneurship. We were doing theater classes for French people. We were also helping French companies to produce their plays in New York City because they didn't know how it works in terms of regulations and permits and marketing. So that was kind of the first entrepreneurial thing. But I did a lot of business plan, and I realized quickly that you can never scale or make money with theater. Wine is the same in a way. It's also hard to make money, but at least you can scale pretty quickly.

It strikes me that both of the entrepreneurial things you did were about things you had a deep love and passion for, you know, outside of work. Do you think that that passion, that personal passion you have has been essential in, you know, getting through the ups and downs of your entrepreneurial journey?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it's. It's cliche, but it's true. You know, you. I mean, 24 hours, seven days a week, you never stop. You never stop thinking about it. You never stop working on it. So if you. At least for me, if I didn't like the product or what, I. I mean, it would be impossible. And, you know, at l', Oreal, I really like the products. I always love l'. Oreal, and I think I still like this. This company. I think what they do is. Is amazing. And you have great people there. But, you know, I'm not a user, I'm not a. So I think my understanding will always have a limit. And I always felt like, you know, there will be some, some limits into what I can accomplish also because I was not just completely embracing the product, but again, that's, that's very personal. You know, some people have ideas and they just, you know, they are more like opportunistic and try really to please the market and things like that. And so it's. I think everyone is different on that aspect.

We have a large and growing portion of our current students and recent alumni who have entrepreneurial ambitions either to pursue right after graduating or at some point. I don't know if you know, but we have a spot in Stationeff and we're looking at doing some really exciting things in California as well. If we have some of our younger students, or maybe younger is not the right word, but less experienced students or recent graduates who have these ambitions, what advice would you have for them?

I mean, to echo what we just talked about, I think finding something that really resonates with them and for which they have passion, I think it's super important. You know, even if it's not the product itself, the process of doing it, or the process of putting it in the market, they need to have the passion behind it. And I mean, I have a lot of advice, but I don't know. And from my experience as well, I think having worked in a company, having worked on different types of jobs, I think helped me a lot because it's such a, you know, you do everything. You do HR and legal and, you know, logistics and operations and marketing and graphic design, and you do everything and some aspect can really hurt you. Like accounting can really be damageable if you don't do it properly. So I think, you know, if you're not ready, getting some experience working for different companies, I think it's a plus. So anyway, so my conclusion is like, don't rush into it if you're not ready or if you don't have the right support, like financial or even in terms of experience, don't rush for it. It's better to take your time.

Related question. For our students that are just graduating this summer or very recent graduates who are entering the market now, do you think it's unwise to be thinking about a startup right now in the current climate, or is now the time of opportunity?

It's a good question. It's a tough question. I think there are always opportunities. I mean, yes, economy has been hurt, but People are still consuming. You still have a lot of innovation. The investors are still trying to invest, and so there's still money out there to help to fuel your growth. I think talent is cheaper, so you can also hire people with a better expense for less money. So, no, I think it's still a good time. I think there is never a bad time to innovate and create something new. The only caveat maybe, is if it doesn't work, what's your backup plan? And maybe right now it's more difficult to have a backup plan.

Yeah, definitely. Speaking of innovation, how are you fulfilling your interest? I know that you have a keen interest and passion for theater. Have you been able to continue to pursue that during lockdown?

I have not. I have not. I mean, honestly, since I started Obvious Wines, I have really been focusing on that mainly. And, you know, I started surfing when I arrived in LA and I kind of stopped and I stopped theater. I mean, a cool is just, I think the energy and focus my company requires for now. I've kind of, like, gave up on other things. It would come back, but.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What do you do now to blow off steam? If you're not surfing and you're not watching theater? Is it just drink wine?

I drink wine. I like to go out of town and, you know, drive around or go somewhere. Yeah, no, it's true. I don't blow up a lot of steam. Maybe not enough.

All right, well, next time we talk, we can talk about the thing you're doing to blow off a bit more steam. Well, I just really want to thank you for sharing your thoughts with us. I mean, our objective with this series is we know that most of our alumni cannot meet in person still, or if they can, not at the scale that we used to. And we want to help the alumni feel connected, the community to feel connected, connected to one another, even if they're not close, even if they can't see each other. And it's true in every industry, but particularly for entrepreneurs. You mentioned the value of being in an entrepreneurial ecosystem. And I think people who are particularly those who are just starting out, but not necessarily just those, they don't have as many of those natural ecosystems to tap into now. And so I think this conversation has been super valuable. If people want to learn more about you about Obvious Wines, where should they go?

I mean, if they want to know more about Obvious Wines, our website is full of resources. And if they want to know more, I mean, I'm always open to discuss. I've been taking calls from, you know, with alumni all the time. Some super open to discuss and to give advice for what they're worth. So now they can just reach out to me on LinkedIn. It's probably the best way to do it, but yeah. And thank you so much. Thank you so much for listening. I was very happy to share my experience and what we do well.

I can't wait to be able to travel again, not only to see my family in California, but also to try some obvious wines.

Yes, let me know and I will send you some once you're in California for sure.

Oh, I will do. Thank you so much. Have a wonderful morning in California and I hope to meet you in person someday.

Yeah, same, same. Thank you Cassandra.

Thank you very much. Impact around the World is an initiative of the pioneering EDHEC Delegations team and EDHEC alumni. A huge thank you to my fellow country managers, Patricia in California, CC in China, Nilesh in India, and Joyce in Singapore for helping to make these interviews happen. We're committed to building a community beyond the classroom for you, our 46,000 alumni in over 125 countries. Follow us on Twitter @EDech alumni or visit the alumni website at alumni. Edec. Edu to find out more about how you can connect with the EDHEC community closer you and around the world. Thanks for listening.