Ep. 108/ Overcoming Financial Challenges and Redefining Self-Worth with Mom Juice’s Macie Mincey
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How do you actually find your passion? Macie Mincey talks about how hard it was to leave her retail banking job to get out of survival mode after 28 years and how she finally became an investor and co-founder of Mom Juice. We talk about how growing up in survival mode impacted her career decisions and once she stopped “chasing paper,” how she found her passion. Plus she shares her experience and advice on investing.
You will learn about:
Becoming an investor (7:25)
Handling major transitions in your life (9:27)
How growing up in survival mode impacted her career decisions (13:54)
Making your product or business stand out (31:27)
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Macie Mincey is a passionate Investor, Mother, and Head of Brand at KT Winery.
Macie had a seven year career with Wells Fargo where she held every position within retail banking, successfully coached the only private banking team in Nashville, TN during the Wachovia acquisition, and flipped underperforming teams to meet/exceed performance expectations prior to relocating to the Queen City.
She then spent three years partnering directly with over 40 Retail Banking Centers and 250 Business Bankers to help drive financial success to companies generating $250K to $10M in revenue.
In 2017, Macie expanded her consulting experience to technology companies and began thinking beyond her financial career. Since her technology exit, Macie has joined forces with KT Winery, taking on the Head of Brand position, focusing on the development of proprietary business practices that drive the raising of capital as well as the overhaul of business models in preparation to scale.
In Addition, Macie is a Golden Seeds Member within the New York City Chapter, a discerning group of investors, seeking and funding high-potential, women-led business to create a lasting impact. The host of the OnlyMoms Podcast, where she gets down and dirty, discussing topics that most moms are thinking, but never say. And a board member of the Keith YMCA, in greater Charlotte where she serves as Head of The Advancement Committee.
In this episode you will learn:
Becoming an investor (7:25)
Handling major transitions in your life (9:27)
How growing up in survival mode impacted her career decisions (13:54)
Making your product or business stand out (31:27)
Quotes from our guest:
“Where's my identity now that I don't have this company connected to me?”
“I hit a point where I was having a mental breakdown.”
“I'd say when you first get started in investing, go deal by deal.”
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MACIE’S LINKS:
Try Mom Juice: https://momjuicewine.com
Connect with Macie: www.instagram.com/maciemincey
Kim (00:02):
Get ready for a raw and lively chat with Macie Mincey. She shifted out of retail banking and she talks about how hard it was to leave to get out of survival mode. After 28 years,
Macie (00:13):
I was having a mental breakdown
Kim (00:15):
And how she finally became an investor and co-founder of Mom Juice. We talk about how growing up in survival mode impacted her career decisions once you stopped chasing paper. How do you actually find your passion and she shares her experience and advice on investing.
(00:32):
Welcome to the Exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Do you work for yourself and want to supercharge your business while still having fun? Well, this is your go-to podcast part MBA Part Cheer Squad. Every week I'll be joined by top business owners who share the secrets to their success. After I found myself working during childbirth true story, I quit my executive media job to bet on myself fighting the fear and imposter syndrome to eventually earn six awards, an in-demand speaking career and features in Fast Company and Business Insider. Now I'm here to celebrate all you rock stars betting on yourself, and I want to help you win. Tune in every Wednesday to hear from remarkable founders and don't miss our Solo Friday episodes, a treasure trove of video and podcasting mini masterclasses with me. Exit the grind, enter success on your own terms. Don't forget to subscribe today and grab my free video tips at my website, kimrittberg.com.
(01:34):
All right, listeners, we just got through a little bit of a technical difficulty, but I'm super excited to have Macie on. Macie Mincey had a seven year career with Wells Fargo where she held every position within retail banking. Successfully coached the only private banking team in Nashville, Tennessee during the Wacovia acquisition and flipped underperforming teams to exceed performance expectations prior to relocating to the Queen City. She then spent three years partnering directly with over 40 retail banking centers and 250 business bankers to help drive financial success to companies generating $250,000 to $10 million in revenue. And then in 2017, she expanded her consulting experienced to tech companies and began thinking beyond her financial career. And since her tech exit, Macie has joined forces with KT Winery taking on the head of brand position and focusing on the development of proprietary business practices that drive the raising of capital and the overhaul of business models in preparation to scale. In addition, Macie is a golden seeds member within the New York City chapter, a discerning group of investors seeking and funding high potential women-led business to create a lasting impact. The host of the Only moms podcast where she gets down and dirty discussing topics that most moms are thinking but don't say, and a board member of the Keith YMCA in Greater Charlotte, where she serves as head of the Advances Committee. So excited to have you here, Macie.
Macie (02:43):
Yes, thanks for having me.
Kim (02:45):
I want to jump right into what first made you pivot from corporate world to entrepreneurship. I always think that's a huge jump. So what made you shift from corporate to entrepreneurship?
Macie (02:55):
It's funny you asked me that because I feel like that's what the general public always is asking about that transition from corporate America into entrepreneurship. And to be honest, it's something that I had been thinking about for probably a year before I did so well before I made a big leap in change, and then Wells Fargo going through their lawsuit of the false accounts and things like that really put me in a weird position. I was living in San Francisco at the time. I would say about 30% of my income was base salary and the remaining percent was bonus, which I was living a great life. I had a great bonus structure, and overnight our everyone's bonuses got cut just frozen. They're like, we need to figure our shit out. We're not going to do any bonuses in the meantime. And I was like, wow. It's crazy that I wasn't actually passionate about the next step in my career here, and I had been thinking about all these entrepreneurship ideas and now I just can't simply afford to live in San Francisco
Kim (03:56):
On
Macie (03:57):
$30,000 a year. It didn't make sense. And so I knew that I couldn't just jump ship, especially with me needing to figure out a plan, not having a bonus structure living in one of the most expensive cities. So I went to the drawing board and first figured out all of the things that I would want to extract from Wells Fargo that I thought they did really well, and then how could I put myself into a position of changing my base salary and coasting until I was ready to go full-blown entrepreneurship. So what that looked like for me was moving from the business banking department back into retail where I went in and I just managed a store. I also moved from San Francisco back to Charlotte, North Carolina where I currently live now. It was a city that I had lived in prior to San Francisco. I was moving every two years for promotions, and the barrier to entry was just a lot cheaper. Cost of living was a lot cheaper, and I had a great network in Charlotte. So I knew if I was going to execute a market, I wanted it to be the one that I lived in and I needed it to be attainable for a very small team.
Kim (05:06):
I love the idea of it's not just like, oh, I jumped, but you needed a more steady job. So you went from a commission-based, highly volatile, financially, highly volatile job, consistent salary, and then, okay, what was the first thing that when you jumped into entrepreneurship, what was the company you built?
Macie (05:22):
So we actually built a technology platform that based on your geolocation would populate all of the hairstylists or nail technicians that you may want to travel to you, and then you could see them stack up with almost a Yelp effect, so you could see the star rating and portfolio of their work and book your appointments directly through the app. What's interesting about first time entrepreneurship as I thought I did enough research and didn't, it's actually a regulated industry. So once we launched, I'd say within six months we've created enough buzz that I received a cease and assist from the state.
Kim (05:56):
Wow. Then so then,
Macie (05:58):
Oh yeah. At that point, I had already quit my job and cashed out my 401k and done all of the extra risky things that entrepreneurs do to oh, hope for this life flip. Right. So I became a lobbyist. Yeah, which was the worst job I think I've ever had.
Kim (06:16):
To be fair, if you think you had the worst job, I actually think that I had one of the worst in terms of office jobs. My first job was booking people for tv, which sounds fine, but when you're booking them for news, they basically don't want to be on tv. They just went through something horrible and you have to be like, hi, I'm so sorry about this thing that happened. Would you like to do an interview? Oh, and also can you please make sure you do an interview with us and not any of these other places. It was skin crawling are horrible and you're paid really low, so it's like you're doing sales, but for very little money and it's like it was a really hard job and I did not enjoy it. But anyway, so it was my springboard into tv, so I was appreciative of it, but of course I had a stomach ache every single day for four months. I thought I was going to throw up every single morning. We
Macie (07:00):
Needed all these stepping stones. I think that's so important as entrepreneurs that we weave in and out of constant emotional highs and lows. I mean, even on a daily basis, the winds and the things we're going through we're really out here fighting for our lives, and so I am a firm believer that every step of my journey has been very intentional and so yeah, would I volunteer to be a lobbyist again? Absolutely not.
Kim (07:25):
How did you get into, so we don't like lobbying. We had left our job, and then how did you get into investing and other entrepreneurship? How did you become, I understand you're a massive investor in companies that are run by women or run by people of color. Talk to me about how did you become an investor or an entrepreneur from that period?
Macie (07:44):
Oh, well, I had to sell a company. I had to figure out my life a little bit, and that's where my sales background really came in and my first exit of the company we just spoke about wasn't. So
Kim (07:54):
Even though you got a cease and desist from the state, it was still doing well enough that you could sell it.
Macie (07:58):
So I actually sold off the technology and make enough money to start making investments, and when I say that it was collectively my whole team's pot of money that I went to them and convinced them, listen, I have three investment opportunities on the table right now. You guys can help me do due diligence on them, but I can't just take my money because it's not enough. I need all of you guys' money to do this. We actually did that three times with three different deals and then we parted ways. We all took our cuts. We did have one of those investments that actually paid late six months late, so that was very stressful. Now I'm like, great, now I lost all of their money, but then it ended up working out. So after that I was able then to come in and use my network to do some co-investing with now my own money and other investors.
Kim (08:56):
You are not afraid of risk. I sense that's the sense I get the thread. I'm like, okay, Macie is not afraid of taking risks.
Macie (09:02):
I take a lot of risks. I'm also just very passionate. I put my heart into everything. And so I think that my team at that point knew. They were like, well, at one point her car was about to be repoed and she had nowhere to live and she still got on these calls with us and somehow we figured it out. So she's going to give it her all, and it worked out. So that's how I then built this foundation for myself to be able to become an investor.
Kim (09:27):
I know that you became a stepmom and you sold your first company at the same time. That's a lot of transition and transformation at the same time. What lessons do you take away from these huge transformational moments happening together?
Macie (09:42):
Yeah, I mean I think the lessons I'm still working on now in therapy, to be completely honest with you, so my problem is, is I move so quickly with everything in life. I'm really good at everyone being in the moment thinking I'm in the moment. If you're my people, they feel nourished, but in my mind, I am still moving, and so I don't process a lot, which is great for entrepreneurship when it's really hard and you're being very scrappy and you're just constantly a solutionist and keeping it pushing. But I'm really bad at processing winds or big life milestones. I had one of my best friends died of cancer while I was pregnant. Sometimes I still think I'm working through that. Have I processed that all the way? So with that said, I hit a point where I was having a mental breakdown and I was like, I don't know what's going on.
(10:36):
And my best friend was like, well, you did a ton of giant big milestones, life milestones, all at the same time. It was within a year. I met my husband, he was amazing. I sold my company within 30 days of meeting him. Then I meet his kids, I go in and I become a stepmom, but I'm also having this weird feeling of what's my purpose in life because I just sold this company and now I don't know what to do with myself and I don't want to tell him that I'm so stressed out about these investments to try to pay my team out. And then holy shit, they worked. All the things in the back were just really, really fucked up and not working out. So my best friend's like You need to go to therapy. I think now's the time. The one thing you can afford now is therapy. Therapy. They
Kim (11:29):
Also have sliding scale therapists. There's also a sliding skill
Macie (11:32):
Therapist. Yes, I know. So I say with all of these things happening, if you're like me or a lot of entrepreneurs that you just have to keep beating through life and it feels like you're getting the shit beat out of you all the time, probably as soon as you can afford a therapist. I would go,
Kim (11:50):
Yeah,
Macie (11:51):
Just help sort yourself out.
Kim (11:53):
Well, one thing that struck me that you were just saying before is, and I'm more conscious of it, I feel like hearing your story, I'm similar to you in that I'm like, there's a thing I need to make it happen. I shall make it happen. What doesn't always happen in that moment is taking everything into account of my own feelings or other people's feelings or whatever. Not that I'm always a bull in a China shop, but I can be. But I think the other part is that I worked at Netflix and they have a lot of encourage you to be self-aware. I'd already been through therapies, but whatever. I had already been through therapy, so I was self-aware. But I think Netflix pushes you in the corporate idea of the corporate world or in the working world, the idea that your best skill can also, it's a double-edged sword, something that makes you special and makes you amazing when not analyzed or put through a different filter can hurt you.
(12:40):
And I think that that's normal to say, oh my God, I'm a doer. I can make something happen. I can build a business, but maybe what I'm not also doing is thinking about my mental health or thinking about two huge moments at the same time. Let me take a minute and process it and whatever the output is, but just even pausing. And I think that it's important to know that we're also asking our bodies to do something complicated. If you think about it, it's like I think about this when I teach people to be confident on camera and how to make videos. It's like this very weird combination. I'm like, okay, don't care about what anyone thinks. No one is judging you. It's totally fine. Don't worry about it, which is true. And then you start doing it and then you start doing it. And the point is, your vibe attracts your tribes, so you end up really finding the people who want to find you.
(13:25):
And then there are sometimes other people who are not your people, and that's okay. So it's the same thing that you need to say, don't worry about it, don't think about anybody else. It's just about you and your people. At some point you end up pushing away the people who aren't your people, which is good, but it's like you're basically trying to do several things at the same time. And I think it's okay to say it's not always easy to do. That is basically what I'm saying. It's not always easy to say, I need to be doing these two things at the same time with this person that I am. And it's okay that it's not easy.
Macie (13:54):
I also grew up in survival mode and I think that a lot of the issues that I have with myself now that I'm looking at myself and attempting to just be a better person for me are things that I had to work through as well. That big financial shift in my life, I had never known all of my goals, had a financial number attached to them since it was very little because we couldn't pay the bills, we couldn't, everything that I was going to do was to be able to not live the kind of life my mom was providing for us. And I had a great mom, and our childhood was actually in my eyes, not bad. I didn't know I was poor. I thought the garage sales were normal. I still had the name brand clothes because we went to every nice garage sale in our town.
(14:41):
And so I think that I was going through so many transitions of like, okay, where's my identity now that I don't have this company connected to me? Okay, what am I even passionate about And do I even have hobbies? Everything has been for financial gain at this point, and then how am I projecting that on now this man's children who are now my children full time and we have a daughter, I want her to be better than me and not have some of these female insecurities that just come naturally with the pressure of today's society. So yeah, I really had to start working on me.
Kim (15:18):
First of all, I think that's what you were saying about identity is such a normal thing. When I left the corporate world, it took me a while to actually be real with myself and say, what am I afraid of? Not getting clients of not making money. Those are normal fears. The other things that you don't say out loud is I was like, oh, but actually sometimes people think I'm cool. I work in media and I worked at Netflix and I was a producer at whatever TV show, and I think I started having to say, oh, okay, well if someone really isn't going to respond to my email because I don't have that email address anymore, so who cares? That person's not either a really strong professional colleague or definitely not a friend if they stop responding. And then I think I just started saying, okay, these sort of superficial external markers, they can be bullets on my resume, but they don't define who I am.
Macie (16:07):
That is a topic. That's actually what I'm currently working on right now with myself is that I had a big loss this year with an investment over $600,000 and in January, so fresh way to ring in the new year, and I was carrying so much shame with me about this financial loss, and I realized that, oh, I define myself as my successes. It's so much identity in that and it's like you're a human, you're allowed to fail, and if people don't like you because of that failure, then they really were not supposed to be here.
Kim (16:46):
And also I think there's this new conversation around failure being not just acceptable but important that actually you can't have the highs without the lows. I certainly had some lows. I mean, I had some jobs even after I launched the video unit for US Weekly. It sold for a hundred million dollars. I was a big part of that. I'm like, I'm so amazing. I had two really hard jobs after that that made me think I'm garbage at this. I'm actually, maybe I'm not good. Maybe all of the things that I've been doing for 15 years, even though I've been getting promoted and doing really well and my bosses like me, I'm just not good at this, which is like, wow, how could I let one job override 15 years of things that I've done with proof? Like wow, I got to work on that and I know that and I'm sort of more real about myself. It's like I can get 10 amazing reviews or compliments and one review is positive but not fully positive. I'm like, I'll think only about that.
Macie (17:37):
Right. I know that's
Kim (17:39):
So messed up. And I don't know, I don't have the solution for it, but at least I'm aware of it.
Macie (17:45):
We're very aware of our issues, how them, it's another story
Kim (17:51):
Audience. Here's a conversation about how we're messed up, but we don't have any solutions.
Macie (17:57):
We're so toxic and in aware,
Kim (18:00):
But we're helping you ask the right questions. It's funny, I just had a coach that I coach that I'm wearing with for my video bootcamp, and she was recommending for people how to break through procrastination and the questions to ask. I'm like, give people the questions, but also give them your answer. What do you think we should do coach
Macie (18:17):
Us? Yeah, I mean it's challenging. You have got to figure out how to work through it with yourself. I think that we don't have the answer. There's not one, everyone's so different. I can have the same issue as someone else and they're going to fix it within themselves in a different way than I am. And I think just the evolution of where you want to be in life, are you working on yourself to get there? Because then the bigger, better, or wherever your end goal is, is not your life isn't even going to look the same as it looks right now and what does that look like? What does that feel like? And it shouldn't feel the same inside as it's always felt. And I'm a firm believer in that.
Kim (18:54):
Totally. Okay, so now I want to know nitty gritty. I don't know a lot bit of investing. We haven't really covered investing on the podcast. Oh
Macie (19:01):
Wow.
Kim (19:01):
You went from basically, okay, you left a job, you took a steady job, you started taking risks, you built a business, you sold that business, you started investing. You were not financially sound, you're not a person coming into this being having millions and millions of dollars to invest in companies. How did you go from saying, okay, I'm going to start investing a little bit in these companies and now not so many years later, you're a full-time investor, enough money to live off of. I assume you're making money off of it. How did it go from a little money invested into a company to I am now an investor? I invest a lot of money. How did you go from being a part-time investor, trying it out to now being an investor is like a huge part of your day to day
Macie (19:41):
In these conversations. We always put so much emphasis on the things that I'm doing and I am doing it really well. But I do want to say the balance that I have with my husband, he has a steady income, he has health insurance, he has all of the things that I don't have as an entrepreneur. And I think the balance in our household is really something that creates a space for me to continue to be a risk taker. And it definitely not everyone has that. So I want to put that at the forefront of this conversation. That is a huge lever that I'm able to pull. I couldn't make deals the size that I'm making without knowing that I have a partner that can back up our family. Either of us could lose our job and the other one can figure some shit out for us for quite a while. And so that's a great place to be in. But I'd say when you first get started, as I mentioned, I was going deal by deal and you are in a weird space of education and then doing a deal and you have to wait for it to flip. So that's a lot of anxiety too.
Kim (20:49):
So you're not holding onto it for a long time. You're investing and you're getting your money back within six months, a year, two years. A lot of times people invest in a company have to wait years.
Macie (20:58):
So it depends on the type of investing. And so the first type of investing that I did was more of a, you're acting as a bank, two companies that may need initial capital to fill a po, right? So some companies that this might be construction companies, they will get a job from the city or some big contract. They get paid in increments as the
Kim (21:28):
Work gets done, milestones, right? Milestone payment back.
Macie (21:30):
So they have to fund the staff, they have to rent the equipment, they have to do all of those things that they need the capital upfront for. If they have multiple projects going on, of course they're going in their bidding for more projects. They want to keep winning in the market, but then they hit a point where maybe they don't have the capital to sustain the new project. So that's one of 'em. CPG companies also a really good one to go and seek out. If you're looking for this type of investment, you can do short term loans for a high amount of interest. If you don't need money, you may also, what you're going to fall back on if they don't pay you back is now you own some of their company. You can even take a big chunk of interest, lower that a little bit and still own some of their company.
Kim (22:14):
So were you basically just making back the interest then if you're doing kind of loan based investors? So at first you were doing projects where you were basically lending money and getting a high interest rate back and that was really, that's it. This is not right. This is not Angel investing in Start us over here. That was not, you put in some money and then you get back so many times the money, but it's many years later.
Macie (22:34):
Yes, exactly. So this is a different form of investing and it actually is become a little more popular. There are some platforms now that you could use, but they really set the terms there. If you want to be a high risk, and this is not your money, it wasn't mine in the beginning. I needed to get this back quickly and I needed it to be more than what I would, I'm not going to pay someone else a fee. They didn't have those platforms back then.
Kim (22:58):
Okay, so you, okay, so you started with investing where you're mostly just getting interest back, and then you shifted into the angel investing, which we hear more about
Macie (23:06):
Actually then I shifted into real estate investing because the market was so hot. A lot of developers had either land or projects that they were sitting on and they needed one of two things, either capital to finish the project or someone to come in and help them get the construction loan because they didn't have the income. So that is another risk, right? But you should be able to negotiate that in your return. And then what would happen is you would go and hang your income and your credit at the bank with them for a loan, a construction loan. As soon as they start the construction and they push out these plans, the market was so it would sell, right? And so you do have to wait for the project to be finished. And if you get a fast GC and their skillset and they're really good, once it's finished, you guys pay out that loan, everyone gets paid out.
(23:58):
And so I did a few of those and then I was able to move into Angel investing. So it did take a second, but yeah, angel investing is not, I have three different categories in my investment portfolios. So real estate, franchise investing, and then Angel investing and Angel investing is going to be your long game. These are companies where you're looking to find a unicorn, you're looking to find your Ubers, you're looking to find your Bumbles. The amount of money these early stage investors made on their IPO is insane. So that's what you're looking for. I always tell people, which is crazy when I just told my story, but I always tell everyone, only invest as much money as you're willing to lose, especially if you're only investing in Angel investments. Because the goal with those is to have a larger portfolio, writing smaller checks and having a larger portfolio of companies because probably 75% of them are going to fail. You're looking, it's like if you make 10 investments, one of those should be your unicorn and make up for all the money you lost in the other nine.
Kim (25:08):
So if 75% of investments are going to fail, why invest?
Macie (25:12):
It's a gamble. There's no guarantee in any of it. I would say that at least with real estate and with what I was doing with new development, you were running into some things, but it wasn't as much as like, oh, I went and bought a house at auction. Now I'm finally in the house and I'm flipping it and I see all of this crazy shit is going on and now it's an extra 200,000, 300,000 for a roof. The plumbing, who knows? Siding, I would say you really need to know what type of investing you're ready for franchising. That's where I create cashflow, right? If you pick a franchise that has potential to break even within X amount of time, but you also have to know you have to build and have a team to run it in a way that it will break even in that amount of time. Then now you have units creating cashflow for you inside of your portfolio. So I've got the cashflow portion and then the real estate portion, which flips, I'd say it's like a medium flip. You still do have some weight there, but it's not as long as a startup.
Kim (26:14):
Yeah, I love that. Alright, I want to talk to you about Mom Juice, which is an amazing name. I mean, I saw the name Mom Juice. I was like, I need to know about Mom Juice. I like Mom Juice. I think I like Mom Juice. Talk to me about Mom Juice. What made you decide to be a co-founder of this wine brand? What makes it different? Tell us a little bit about it.
Macie (26:33):
Oh my gosh. First, have you tried our wine?
Kim (26:36):
No. Feel free to send me a little sample. Yeah,
Macie (26:38):
We need to get you some wine. Do you like white red Rose? What's your thing?
Kim (26:42):
I drink everything. I'm more rose. I'm more rose. Well,
Macie (26:46):
It's summertime. Let's be Rose Girling. Yeah, we can get you rose. No need to go further there, girl. Our rose kills it. Honestly, we launched our rose outside of Rose season because it was just taking so long and somehow we still have to keep rebooting rose. It's that good. I was not even a rose girl. And now I'm like, where is that Rose? Well,
Kim (27:05):
I love red wine, but I really red it's winter or if you're eating steak and I'm probably out and about more in the summer, spring, fall. So then I would be having a rose or a white. But yes, we had also on the show, oh my gosh, I'm forgetting her name, but they have a Fisher's Island Lemonade. And they sent me and I was like, this is delicious. And I also know the founders I've worked with, and they're going to be on the show. Actually, I've worked with the founders of Owl's Brew. So Delicious.
Macie (27:29):
Ooh, I need a
Kim (27:29):
Try. It's like spiked iced tea, but actually made of real ingredients. It's not those fake fillers and all that. It's so delicious. Wonderful. But when people send me stuff, I'm like, yeah, I'll drink that.
Macie (27:41):
We should be sending you product. Yeah. So
Kim (27:44):
Talk to me about Mom Juice. What makes it different? What makes it special? What made you want to get involved? My
Macie (27:48):
Gosh, I'm obsessed with Mom Juice. It is truly my, it has overcome everything in my life as far as investing has now taken kind of this back seat role. So any investments have to have a solid team behind them because I do not want to sit there and manage them. I really want to manage and propel mom juice into the universe. So long short, me and my business partner, we met when I was in my first company, she was in marketing and doing all kinds of cool shit. People were like, you guys should probably meet. And we met at a blind business lunch. Ooh, love that. We had no reason to work together at the time, but I was like, you are pretty and cool and I'm pretty and cool. Let's follow each other on social media. And yeah, that's what we did. We just watched each other from afar, double tapping and supporting.
(28:37):
But I sell my company and I started just again in the space of waking up thinking I'm a loser. I have no identity. What am I going to do? And all of these entrepreneurs were reaching out to me like, holy shit, you just sold the company. Can you please consult me? Can you advise me? What can I get? And so I was like, okay, let me start doing some consulting calls. And Kristen, my business partner, was one of the people that reached out and she's like, listen, I've built this and this and this and these are all other people's companies and I'm ready to do my own thing. And I was like, alright, let's go. And me the risky, risky one. She's like, so I want to start a winery. And I'm like, yeah. So winery really hyping it up ready. And she's like, okay, so I'm a little bit gun shy about these things.
(29:24):
And I'm like, no, here's the list. Let's get it done. Knock it out. I really enjoyed working with her for some reason. And we're very different wine consumers. So it's really hilarious because there is a meme that goes around that. It's like one woman sipping her wine. She's like, I'm getting notes of Oak Cherry. And then there's one in the background that's like, I'm getting drunk and I'm the getting drunk one. And so she did a few consulting calls and she finally was in a place where she needed a business partner. And so I threw my name in the hat. At the time we were Mom Juice was one of the very creative cheeky names that we had thought about, but it was just because of our mom friends. It was so casually always like, oh no, that's mommy's juice, that's juice, whatever. And as we started making wine, our first wine was a Pinot Grigio. And as we started surveying moms, we had different names on the table. Okay, now we need to test the market, see what they actually like. This Pinot Grigio was like, I want to be Mom Juice. We surveyed over 3,500 moms in the beginning, and what was important to them was a pretty label and high alcohol content. She was so beautiful. We made this beautiful green floral label and then the alcohol content was like 15% and we're like, oh, this is mom juice.
Kim (30:48):
Oh my God, that
Macie (30:49):
So exactly what they asked us for. And so yeah, we own the name and we put mom juice on it and the mom groups got ahold of it and they're like, no, we need more. I love
Kim (31:00):
That.
Macie (31:01):
We started scaling and we started creating more, and now we have a Core four. We launched into Target two months ago in two markets. We launched into Total Wine and Safeway in Colorado last week. We have a very aggressive scaling plan. We are fundraising in the time where fundraising is killing me.
Kim (31:24):
You need some mom juice while you're preparing your decks.
Macie (31:27):
Yes,
Kim (31:27):
Yes. So what would you say is, you kind of said this, what would you say is the differentiating thing? Obviously wine is a very crowded market to break into, but you're doing really great. I mean, you're in Target and you're in these huge stores. What do you think is a differentiating thing? Obviously it's good, but what helped break through the noise?
Macie (31:42):
So the first thing being that we are as women, one that we're both very healthy and conscious about what we're putting in our bodies. I had to go like no soy, no dairy while I was breastfeeding all of these things. We are one of eight wineries that actually put the ingredients on the back of our labels. We do low sugar, vegetarian, gluten-free wine. So it's telling you eight ingredients in our wine, which include grapes and yeast. And a lot of people laugh and they're like, isn't all wine vegetarian? And it's not. A lot of people are putting fish bladder in their wine. They're putting things that I know, right? It's crazy. I
Kim (32:20):
Did not know that
Macie (32:21):
We are truly a better for you wine. And we're the only ones that talk to moms all year round outside of Mother's Day. So what's interesting is when people say We have a crowded space, I'm like, yeah, but have you read up on the wine industry? They actually have an old people people problem. The crowded space is hilarious because they're not converting any new drinkers, right? The Gen Z, the newer millennials, it's too intimidating. They don't see themselves in the branding. They're not an old white guy swirling in Napa. They want different experiences and they want more of a social wine, a cost-effective wine. They want a brand that's like, I don't care if you can't pronounce this shit. It's good. And guess what we build for our community? And that's what you don't see happening right
Kim (33:12):
Now in these investing meetings. Do you have any people pushing back saying, well, if you call it mom juice, then no man is going to drink it.
Macie (33:19):
Oh yeah. And it is interesting. They always say, well, moms is a niche market. Like, okay, you have a mother also too, the people that aren't moms are our gift buying people, which is also a category of our purchaser. And they make over 85% of all household purchases. That's wild to us. So no, when they say things like that, it also too is like moms deserve their own thing. We get all the time, well, when are you going to make Dad Juice?
Kim (33:55):
That's a beer aisle. That's the beer aisle.
Macie (33:59):
It's a beer aisle. And just be okay with that.
Kim (34:00):
And also there's like 40 different types of beers. Yes, even in Target. But anyway, yes, also, but it's a good point though, what you were saying about niche. It's like, well, if moms make 85% of purchasing decisions, and that's a pretty big niche when we think of the word niche. Niche means small. It's actually not a niche. It's a market.
Macie (34:15):
It's a whole market. And they don't get talked to. They don't get, if you read the back of our bottles, which I'm going to send you some so you can have the full experience, but we are speaking to the mom, we are funny, we are a little hinge, but we're celebrating the chaos of motherhood. So we're never supporting something that is lonely. We support responsible drinking, things like that. But it's like motherhood is hard, but it's one of the greatest pleasures that you may ever experience. And it's okay to band together and say, great, it's fucking crazy in here. But you say, let's go. Let's
Kim (34:55):
Have some Mom Juice. Right. Well Macie, if Mom Juice is any bit as fun and enjoyable as you and this conversation was, I'm sure it is a big hit and I can't wait to drink it. Before we wrap up, I would love to know where can people find you and connect with you? Buy Mom Juice, all of the things.
Macie (35:09):
Yeah, yeah, of course. So all of my socials, that's going to be Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, TikTok, Macie Mincy at M-A-C-I-E-M-I-N-C-E-Y, Mom Juice is momjuicewine.com. You can go online and type in your address for a store locator. We are in over 500 plus stores, so we would love to have you walk in and be able to actually experience us on the shelves. But we do do direct to consumer as well. So if we're not in a state that is close to a location for you, then you can get some shipped to your home, direct to your door. And then we do have our only moms podcast season two coming out at the end of the summer. We are filming currently where we talk about all the things that moms feel like they can't open their mouths and talk about all the dirty nitty gritty, funny, crazy shit. So come check us out. Love it.
Kim (36:05):
Makes it. This is so fun. Thank you so much.
Macie (36:07):
Yes, thanks for having me.
Kim (36:13):
Thank you for joining us. Don't forget to exit the grind and enter success on your own terms. This is the exit interview with Kim Rittberg. Don't forget to grab my free download, how to Grow Your Business with Amazing video at kimrittberg.com and linked out in the show notes. I love to hear your feedback. Make sure to submit to me what you learned from the show and how you are crushing it on your own terms. Connect with me on Instagram or LinkedIn at Kim Rittberg, R-I-T-T-B-E-R-G. And this show is edited by Jillian Grover and produced by Henry Street Media. I'm your host and executive producer Kim Rittberg.