SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
CMO at 106 year old Wine Brand Launches QR Code, Tipsy on ARPU!
22 Jan 2023
Chapter 1: What valuation tools are available for startups?
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He runs marketing at 106 year old wine brand and said, you know what? We've got to have a better version of QR codes to track attribution. He launched joy QR on the side, spent 113,000 bucks building the MVP. Now over the last 30 days or over the last quarter, 16,589 scans across 58 QR codes distributed across TV, billboards, transit, print media, and packaging. It's helping him grow the brand.
He opened it up to everyone else to purchase. Now they can pay five bucks a month to get access. They're doing 140 bucks a month right now in revenue. But again, a side project, eating his own dog food. We'll see what happens next. Hey folks, my guest today is Dante Colombati.
He's a techie, digital marketing pioneer, and marketing and design director at Rubioli Family Wines of San Antonio Winery. As the fourth generation of 160-year-old San Antonio Winery, LA's largest and longest producing winery, he not only understands the importance of tradition, but has carried on the family legacy to help catapult the iconic winery to the national stage. Now on the side...
He's building a QR code and bio link builder. That's a shocker there, right? Called joyqr.com. We're going to dive into both of them today. Dante, you ready to take us to the top? Let's do it. Nathan, the SaaS legend himself. Let's take it to the top. What's the connective tissue between the winery and the QR business? Oh my gosh. So funny story.
I run all the marketing for one of our brands that my family owns is called Stella Rosa Wines. And we do ton of out of home media, traditional, all types, holistically, a 360 approach. And I was trying to find a QR code that I can customize to that could also be directed to a custom link and bio page. And that was where it all kind of started. I got aggravated by talking.
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Chapter 2: How did the guest launch a QR code tool for marketing?
And regular print. It could be flyers or whatnot. And also packaging. So we do a lot of interesting packaging for different Stella Rose stuff. I'm just using Stella Rose as the example here. Different packaging, right? So seasonal packaging at Costco or whatnot. And we can actually engage our audience and drive them to contests or whatnot by QR to a BioLink page.
Of the 16,589 scans, can you track how many of them led to a sale? You know what? We use a third party for that. So, uh, we, we do use a third party for that, but it is, you know, QR codes have been around forever. Right. And it's, it's nothing like it's nothing crazy shockingly, uh, sophisticated really about them until, you know, obviously in the last few years, you know, iOS and Android.
decided to make it more, the QR code scanner be accessible on your phone, on through your camera, right? And back in the day, you're like downloading all these apps to try to figure out, okay, what app is going to work with what QR company?
But yeah, no, now the trackability, it's pretty, you know, you get your, how many scans, where they're coming from, the city, the state, you can get pretty regional, you get pretty like granule on where they're coming from. time breaks, type of system breakdowns, the typical stuff. You've got a lot of creatives.
It's Stella Time billboards in Colorado, Taste Magic billboards, Celebrate Your Party during election season. It's celebration with beautiful women. You've got them all. We're going to have at the next SaaS conference, we're promoting it. We just came out with a new brandy with the artist Brandy. We're going to... I got to hook you up. I would love that, man.
As long as you have a QR code in the back of the stage, okay? Done. Done. This is interesting.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of QR codes in the wine industry?
So just to be clear, is the Joy QR, are you the only customer or have you opened up for other people to pay for it? Yeah. So I have... So our first... Definitely our first line of code was in May of 2021. And then we created this kind of beta MVP thing in April of 22. And I had been using it during that time for our brands. And then I opened it up.
and put some silly financial model behind it, totally underpriced the thing. How much? What were you charging? $1.99 a month and $3.99 a month for the pro version. So there's a freemium. It's a freemium version. Then there's the plus for $1.99. And then there was the pro for $3.99. I mean, Dante, Jesus. I mean, you might as well just be free, right? You know, at that time, MVP, buddy.
Just trying to get it out there, see what happens, man. But yeah, we had a few people just randomly be able to find it through probably my brands and signed up. And now as of August, which is about five months or so ago, we've actually put out new features and now it's officially launched five months ago. And you've got $5 a month now, $13 a month. Is that the most expensive plan, $13 a month?
Yeah, that's the most we do have a between us. We have an enterprise version for hopefully agencies in the future, which we don't really have a financial. It's more kind of broken down depending on what they're kind of looking for. But we hope to get to that that point, because I think there's a really great tool because of the analytics and and how you can organize and manage your campaigns.
Most importantly, like, as you know, Stellaris has we have 20 campaigns just for that one brand. and be able to organize your QR codes, organize your bio pages, cross-reference which AB, which advertisement worked, right? Which one worked the most, was sticky enough. And you can compare that through our dashboard. So it's super easy to do. That makes tons of sense.
How much money did you spend building it? Yeah, I spent today, I spent about $113,000. And what's that broken down as? Where'd it go?
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Chapter 4: How does the guest's experience with Stella Rosa influence his projects?
Hmm. It went all into pretty much the beginning. Went through like a couple UX designers. One that didn't work out. Just kind of trial and error. And then kind of finally found the right crew, the right team. And it went into UX UI and into development. Yep. How did you find the development firm that you used? So a funny story for my personal brand is
I used a company called TopTel to just do our company's websites. And from there, I kind of built a bond and a friendship after these projects were done, kept in contact with our developer, Daniel, and he lives in Slovakia. And we kind of kept this relationship going. I was in the shower one day after getting mad about this company not being able to do this
this creative qr connected with a bio page which you think this company the leader in this space would be able would have this thing uh and they gave me a little attitude taking a shower listening to your podcast like fucks what would nathan do you would just say go get go create the same sass you did not you didn't you thought what would nathan do i kid you not i have okay this is i've been look buddy i've been listening since 2015 and i'm not a tech i'm
I'm not, I'm an OG. I'm not a tech guy, right? I'm like a, I'm like a CPG beverage advertising marketing guy. And so I was like, man, this is a really neat one day. I'd love to try this out. And I'm hearing all these awesome entrepreneurs you have on your, on your, on your show. And I was like, what can I do on that?
And after getting this, these email chains from this one large company about how like, Oh no, it's not going to happen. We're not like, thank you. And just keep checking in. Like I'm going to refresh every day, this company's page to see if they have this feature and, I said, you know what? In my shower, I was like, let's just do this. Called Daniel in Slovakia, said, hey, man, crazy idea.
Let's go for it. Put the baby in the deep end of the water and just went for it. I mean, what I find myself wanting when I look at your website... So what I love about your story is you built a tool for yourself. That is obviously the most successful founders. This is always how it starts. The flip side to this is... The largest QR code companies in the world, their number one moat is SEO.
They're a free QR code builder. They just freaking dominate. It's going to be very hard for you to displace them. But where you can win... But see, you don't have this on your website. Where you could win is, say, streamline your digital marketing with JoyQR specifically for wine brands. And then feature your face and Stella. And then basically every wine brand uses you.
But see, you might not want that because then they compete with you. So it's like this weird balancing act. You know what? I just took some notes, so keep talking. But honestly, I think that's a great idea. Yeah, SEO and SEM, these guys are, I mean, one of the bigger competitors out there. I mean, he's like ex-CEO of AOL, right?
I mean, the amount of money that they got looking at SEM Russian, not that it's completely correct, but they are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a month on There's all these. There's QR code generator, my QR code. I mean, you've heard of all these folks, but they're not as beautiful as yours. They're nothing like that.
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Chapter 5: What challenges did the guest face when building joyqr.com?
You're using it yourself. You're eating your own dog food. It's building the value of Stella. It's also now its own side project, which is great. How many folks are full-time on it right now? Or is it none? Just you and your engineers on TopTowel? Yeah, no. So there's no top-tile engineer anymore. Daniel is just a buddy of mine that we kept after that contract.
And so he's kind of my right-hand CTO. But we only do this on the side. So I only do this on weekends and he puts in a couple hours a week. We have one full-time engineer, also from Slovakia. And he is our boy and he just rocks this thing out full-time. And I think, you know, I got the SaaS bug. So This project's kind of almost at its completion.
I think we will add a new feature for animated QRs, which I'm pretty excited about. I think we'll be one of the first to do an animated QR that actually you can still scan and it has animation to it on a digital TV or whatnot. So we have that feature and then we'll probably move into another fun project in SaaS and keep the team rolling. Very cool, man. I love this.
All right, let's wrap up here with the famous five. Number one, favorite book. Uh, it would be zero to one, uh, Blake Matson and, uh, Peter Thiel. Number two, is there a CEO you're following or studying? Uh, yeah, gosh, everyone's a CEO now. Um, I, no, not really. I think just a little bit from everybody before, but besides joy, what's your favorite online tool for building a brand?
It kind of sounds funny, but Skype, Figma. Yep. Number four, how many hours of sleep do you get every night? I get six to seven. That's good. In situation, married, single, kids? Man, I'm single, man. I heard from your last podcast, I need to get some cheese platters and go hunt up some gathering. I'm also not married. It doesn't feel terrible, honestly. All right. And how old are you, Dante?
We're doing okay. I'm 37. 37. Last question. Something you wish you knew when you were 20. 20. I would say just... go with your gut. I think a lot of people overthink things with their mind and over-emotionalize with their heart. Sometimes you just got to have that little pit in your stomach and then Just go all the way and don't stop.
Guys, he runs marketing at 106-year-old wine brand and said, you know what? We've got to have a better version of QR codes to track attribution. He launched Joy QR on the side, spent $113,000 building the MVP. Now over the last 30 days or over the last quarter, 16,589 scans across 58 QR codes distributed across TV, billboards, transit, print media, and packaging. It's helping him grow the brand.
He opened it up to everyone else to purchase now that can pay $5 a month to get access. They're doing $140 a month right now in revenue. But again, side project, eating his own dog food. We'll see what happens next. Dante, thanks for taking us to the top. Thanks, man. Have a good one.
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