Today we’d like to introduce you to Chantam Duong.
Hi Chantam, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I grew up in Austin and loved every bit of it – from the people to the tacos and everything in between.
Naturally, I grew up wanting to be a Longhorn. I wasn’t accepted into UT my first year, so I went to UT San Antonio and transferred in my sophomore year.
When I transferred to UT, I was passionate about studying marketing as my degree but didn’t initially get into the business school. I joined several student organizations and took many other courses outside of the business school that I felt would help me in the field of work I wanted to go into.
That led me to take on several leadership positions, exploring various courses I would have never discovered otherwise (like advertising, sports management, and design thinking), and connecting with many different people across the university.
After I graduated from UT (yes, with a degree in Marketing and Management Information Systems!), I worked in several different marketing roles at a corporate tech company and a smaller financial services company. I wanted to experience “how things work” from the bigger businesses to the smaller ones and work with teams that inspired me.
Then, COVID had hit and everything shut down.
My long-time best friend (from middle school!) Rachel had given me a call. As her side passion at the time, she was a wine influencer and blogger that helped make wine more approachable to consumers.
I learned that a majority of the wineries in the US are small producers, and most of them sell their wine in person in their tasting rooms. On top of that, we found that the majority of these wineries didn’t have the e-commerce infrastructure set up to sell wine online or the marketing teams or budget to spread the word.
With everything being shut down, these businesses were really struggling and she called me to figure out if there was something we could do about it.
We came up with the idea to launch a campaign to support wineries during this challenging time: we called it #SupportOurWineries. The goal was to bring awareness to wineries, specifically those most people have probably never heard of, and include a link to their website for people to support and shop directly from them.
The response from the community was astonishing. Within a couple of weeks, we had over 250 wineries join the campaign and thousands of people supporting wineries across the globe. From there, I couldn’t stop digging in and learning more about wine from a consumer and an industry perspective.
And that was the beginning of the company I started with Rachel and my co-founder Kieran today: Vinebase.
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Smooth may not be the word I would use to describe my journey, but perhaps grateful is another way I look at it. To be honest, every day can bring a new experience, but I take that as a challenge to learn something new and an opportunity to grow.
When things don’t go as planned, I always try to stay scrappy and find a creative way to get there. That’s where a lot of vulnerability and growth happens for me. Whether it’s the path to pursuing an education or being a startup founder, I’m very fortunate for the community of family, friends, and mentors that have supported my journey – even when my ideas may seem crazy.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know?
I am the co-founder of Vinebase, a platform that helps independent wineries grow their direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses. Our mission is to bring more equality to the wine industry. Many of the wineries we support today are smaller, independent businesses that don’t have large teams or budgets to run their businesses but have fantastic wines and fascinating stories.
We’re proud to be a platform that helps amplify the voice and access to these independent wineries. We’re building a DTC marketplace and the tools that make it easy for wineries to share their stories and engage with an audience of consumers who are eager to discover new wineries and support businesses based on their values.
We also take pride in celebrating the uniqueness of each of our wineries — we make it easy for consumers to discover wineries based on attributes that are unique to each winery, like if they are a female-led or minority-led winery or a family-owned or first-generation winemaker.
I am proud of the impact we’re able to have on these wineries, but specifically the people behind them. Most of the people we work with get into the world of wine because it’s their passion and craft. In an industry with a lot of history and regulations, it can be really hard for a small business to succeed. We’re determined to help wineries thrive and help consumers to be able to support and discover their next favorite winery, and it’s very rewarding to see that magic happen.
If there is one takeaway I could share with readers, it would be that when you buy wine directly from a winery, you are contributing towards a better future for the winery and the whole industry. More of your dollars go back to the winery, you can learn more about the winery’s story and what makes their wines so special directly from the winemaker themselves, and you are able to support diverse businesses that align with your values. With Vinebase, when you buy off of the platform, you’re purchasing directly from a winery.
What would you say have been one of the most important lessons you’ve learned?
Stay hungry, curious, and inspired by the people surrounding you.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://vinebase.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/vinebase_official
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VinebaseOfficial
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/vinebaseinc
