H.D.D. LLC, one of California's newest and fastest growing wine companies, has announced that Daniel A. Carroll, Managing Partner at TPG Newbridge Capital in San Francisco, CA, is investing $2.5 million in the Sonoma County, CA-based business. An international venture capitalist, Mr. Carroll was attracted to the Disruptive Wine Business model employed by H.D.D. partners Paul and Heath Dolan, Phil Hurst and Bill Hambrecht. Using modern innovative sales and marketing strategies, H.D.D. has realized meteoric growth, going from first-year sales of $500k in 2008 (2,500 cases), to almost $20 million in 2012 (250,000 cs).
A Disruptive Business Model focuses on improving products and services in ways that the industry does not expect while designing for an evolving set of consumers in a new market environment. From its inception, H.D.D. has shaken up the traditional sales paradigm to take their wine brands directly to the market. Rather than limiting commerce to sales through the traditional three-tier distributor network, H.D.D.'s brands are sold direct to consumers from the wineries themselves, as well as direct to on-premise (restaurants) and off-premise (retailers) accounts. The company's brands include wines from Napa and Sonoma wine countries: VML Winery, Truett Hurst Winery, Bradford Mountain, Healdsburg Ranches andStonegate.
By aggressively tackling the market in nontraditional ways — direct to the trade and consumer, rather than through layers of sales entities and employees — H.D.D. can respond quickly to consumer, retailer and restaurateur needs and desires, while anticipating and even establishing new trends. With the company's significant network of partner owned vineyards, wineries and wine sources, and cutting-edge creative team, H.D.D. is positioned to develop products that shatter the staid wine packaging paradigms as well as creating products the likes of which have never been attempted in wine before.
An innovator himself who has spent over 25 years developing Asian investment opportunities, Mr. Carroll was impressed by H.D.D.'s dynamic wine-business strategies, "From the minute I met the team behind the wines, the brands and the marketing and sales I knew these guys had developed a truly disruptive wine business model. Carroll adds, "Gone are the days when cutting edge products require years to develop only then to be painstakingly brought to market. Consumers want the highest quality, most unique, exciting and innovative premium wines now and they are prepared to buy them via a number of modern channels of distribution. This team is only just getting started."
The H.D.D. partners have decades of wine experience, and know firsthand that consumers no longer only purchase wine out of brand loyalty. Rather, they are seeking more visceral responses, and aesthetics is key. Decisions are made at point of purchase based on mood or occasion. H.D.D.'s Disruptive Wine Business model embraces this changing consumer motivation. "Our model is high-touch, innovative and ultimately quickness to market," explains H.D.D. Chairman of the Board,Phil Hurst. "We've seen explosive growth by exercising more flexibility and ingenuity now embraced and expected by the wine trade."
Mr. Carroll will bring resources to provide momentum as H.D.D. prepares to release some of the most innovative packaging concepts ever designed in the next few months, and adds e-commerce to its sales engine.
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