Angus Hughson – Winepilot
Entrepreneurial journey told by six students
Story written by Julian Gretemeier
I was relieved and excited. 2 weeks ago; I quit my stable job as Head of Marketing in a planning meeting for next year’s budgets. I’ve had enough. I did not have the cognitive capability to figure out the last part of my business idea. The 9 to 5 just sucked all the energy out of me. It took me 1 ½ years to develop half of my business plan. Every day on the train traveling home from work, I would work on my idea. Every weekend I would talk to target customers and talk to industry people. But I just couldn’t figure it out.
Let me tell you a bit about myself leading up to this point. My name is Angus, and by heart, I’m a wine communicator. I grew up in a family surrounded by winemakers and wine writers. The path of going into the wine industry was already carved out for me from a young age. After finishing my Ph.D. at USYD, I took numerous jobs in the industry, ranging from startups to corporate environments. Even though I changed jobs quite frequently, I kept doing what I loved, writing wine reviews for newspapers.
After I left my job as CMO at Cracka Wines, I started my business plan for my new venture. There were many wine writers out there, but most of them needed improvement. They had become lazy, and there was no newness or creativity. Newspapers were dying like fruit flies. Wine consumption had also stagnated because of older people dying and young adults’ reluctance to prefer wine over other alcoholic beverages. I needed to do something with this pressing issue. Where others saw negativity, I saw an opportunity to start my new path of becoming an entrepreneur and creating a platform for writers to communicate with a new demographic. I would call it; WinePilot.
I had gathered so much knowledge and networks along my journey as an employee, and I could utilize that to meet the untapped potential. But I was stuck at this job at The Wine Collective. I needed a breakthrough. I wanted to make a difference. I wanted to make my little dent in the world.
So, I quit my job. And now ideas are flowing like never before. The platform is ready to launch in 1 month!
Story written by Silas Hundhausen
From the moment I first tasted wine, I knew I was predetermined for a life-long love affair with the world of wine and grapes. Growing up in a family of wine enthusiasts in Australia, I was surrounded by the beauty and complexity of wine from a young age. I decided to make my passion my profession and embarked on an educational journey, completing a Bachelor of Science degree with Honours in Psychology, a Ph.D. in Psychology, a Wine & Spirit Education Trust Diploma in Wine and Spirits, and finally the prestigious Master of Wine program. Along the way, I gained invaluable experience working with renowned wine retailers, publishers, and magazines.
Throughout my career, I have always been driven by a relentless curiosity and desire to share my passion for wine with others. This led me to found Winepilot, where I serve as Editor-in-Chief, and The Vintage Journal, where I am the Founder and Editor. These platforms allow me to connect with wine enthusiasts worldwide, providing them with insightful reviews, recommendations, and a deeper understanding of the art of winemaking.
When examining my personality through the lens of the Big Five Traits, I can say that I demonstrate high levels of conscientiousness, openness to experience, and extraversion, with moderate agreeableness and low neuroticism. These traits have been influential in my success as an entrepreneur, as they strengthen my dedication to achieving goals, intellectual curiosity, and enthusiasm for collaboration.
My entrepreneurial journey is defined by my ability to pursue opportunities beyond the resources I control. I have applied design thinking and the six stages of the entrepreneurial process to identify gaps in the wine industry, develop innovative business concepts, and acquire the necessary resources to bring my vision to life. Through my ventures, I have managed to create accessible, informative, and engaging content for wine lovers around the globe, fostering a greater appreciation for the art of winemaking and transforming the industry landscape.
In conclusion, my journey as an entrepreneur in the wine industry is a testament to the power of passion, expertise, and strategic thinking. Through my roles at Winepilot and The Vintage Journal, I have been able to create a great impact on the wine community, sharing my passion for wine with others and inspiring future generations of wine enthusiasts.
Story written by Lorenzo Rosati
I am Angus Hughson, and I have always had a passion for wine. I grew up in a family of wine enthusiasts and I was exposed to the world of wine since childhood. After a Bachelor in Psychology, I started a PhD in Wine where I completed ten empirical studies assessing the nature of wine expertise. As soon after the PhD, in 2003, I undertook a diploma in Wine & Spirit. I was continuing studying to become a wine expert while writing and publishing for several wine magazines. In 2015, I got the Master of Wine (MW) qualification issued by The Institute of Masters of Wine in the United Kingdom, which in the wine industry is one of the highest standards of professional knowledge.
2016 represents the turning point of my career. I was working as an e-commerce manager for Aldi liquor, and I was enjoying it, but I was sick of just selling wine. I started asking myself: “Angus, what do you really want to do? What do you like?”. I soon realized that I did not want to work in mainstream retail for the rest of my life. Anyone was able to sell wine, whereas I wanted to play a small role in the wine industry. My entrepreneurial spirit was emerging. Furthermore, I was not satisfied with the content that wine magazines offered to their customers, reporting things that were said 20 years ago. I was basically concerned about the products that wine enthusiasts like me received. From this concern, I start working to create a platform where wine lovers like me could come together to learn, explore, and share their passion for wine. After two years of hard work, in 2019, I founded Winepilot, an online platform that provides unbiased and expert reviews of wines from Australia and around the world. The response was overwhelming, and Winepilot quickly became a trusted source of information for wine lovers which today has more than 20.000 views per month. However, I did not stop there. In 2020, with Andrew Caillard, I launched The Vintaje Journal, a posh digital magazine dedicated to exploring the world of wine, from wine-making techniques and trends to interviews with top winemakers and sommeliers. I am proud of what I have achieved so far but I am already looking to my next stage. I am currently working to lunch my retail wine e-commerce…
Story written by Parv Mittal
“Operating a luxurious spirit store at one of the high-end markets in London with the richest of clients buying up their drinks for the night on a recommendation of mine and coming in the next time with full of gratitude and satisfaction-as to how much they loved it and couldn’t wait to thank me brought immense happiness and satisfaction to me. This cycle kept on repeating and repeating, It brought me to a point where I got down and thought by myself, as to how wonderful it is, that I can bring joy to a person’s life. But, it also got me thinking that why aren’t there pieces of information where people can look up a particular type of spirit, know what it could be best paired up with and when and how to drink it. I thought why not build a platform where I can not only operate on my passion but also add meaning to every drink a person has and add value to it. This was the time Wine Pilot was born.
I also saw many of the wine magazines were dying, with many of the wine-tasters not earning enough money and also many of the good wines not being able to earn the respect they deserve. So at Wine-pilot we add meaning and value to every part of the eco-system and bring dignity and joy to all, at this venture we aim to empower everyone.
We do not have a time limit as to when the work should be done, but instead, have that the work we do be of high quality. We here have learnt that we cannot force artistic work and wine-experiencing and tasting is one.
Dealing with wine and studying the different techniques of how it grew, the different types of natural resources that were used and how such a large amount of research and hard work went into perfecting just a single-little bottle that sits calmly on the dining table fascinated me.
People waking up all night in the middle of winter, just to assure that their crops are all right and perfect to use for wine-making and human consumption, shows the hard work put into a particular bottle. So, why waste that when I could multiply the joy it brings by providing it with a much farther reach and dignity.
Story written by Nan Yang
People call me an entrepreneur, but I don’t think of it that way. I’m just a guy who works for my hobby. I have always been passionate about wine and writing and have worked on it for over 15 years. I have held many positions in the wine industry, and while I take each job seriously, I can still get bored doing the same thing every day. Only wine and writing keep me motivated. I’m tired of living like this, and even working for people who don’t like it upsets me. I started thinking about what I could do and how to find my place in the conservative industry of wine. One day in 2019, I decided to work on what I love. I want more people to understand alcohol more efficiently. This one of the cultures that are very important to all Australians is being dimmed as the old people leave. I am concerned about this. I want to narrate the greatness of each bottle, from fermentation to reaching our mouths, in the way I am good at. The production of wine is an exciting and complicated process, and people should be curious about it. Different brewing methods will bring different taste experiences.
Not only to introduce each wine but also to establish a connection with the audience. I like to explain complex wine concepts in an easy-to-understand way because I want to attract more people to wine. Help novices understand wine culture from shallow to profound. Building a company that works for me is challenging, but I’m not one to give up, and I have a great partner, Andrew. He is a complete artist. His words are beautiful and can bring anyone into the world of wine he created. This is precisely what I want. His work is impressive, and I have a lot of trust in Andrew. He can write anything I want, so I boldly talk to clients to seek more funding to expand our business map. I’m not one to rest on my laurels. I want to be more involved in the wine industry. I have always worked hard on this and put all my enthusiasm into it. I guarantee that there will be more surprise content releases soon. Please look forward to it.
Story written by Wenjie Zhang
I called myself a passionate wine enthusiast. I earned a PH.D in wine and have published some papers and studies oon this subject. I’ve spent a lot of time in all things related to wine.
Befor becoming an entrepreneur (although i dont consider myself a typical entrepreneur), i didn’t have a clear Entrepreneurial plan or idea. I’ve been work in sales and brand strategy for several wine companies, and also did market analysis for Aldi. These experiences gave me a lot of market information related to wine. Also, these jobs experiences made me realize that i would rather work for myself and do something that i think the industry needs and no one is doing, rather than to work for people whose goals are driven by oney and status.
My wife has been super supportive of my entrepreneurial dreams, which is awsome. My friend andrew, who is practically the “MR. Wine” of australia, has also provided me with many iedas and assistance. I spent over 2 years putting together a 150-page business plan, and spent another two years fixing the issues i found. After checking out th ewine market, i realized that nobody was selling knowledge. You know, wine is more beautiful when you know more about wine. But the wine industry is not doing well in this. So how can i play a very small role in putting good wine in front of people?
The first thing that came to mind is to publish some wine-related books. Andrew and i published some books about wine and we handed them out to some friends at wine conferences to get their feedback. After receiving the feddback, we realized that it wasn’t a good idea – not everyone wants to read a professional book. When people need our knowledge, they already know what they want to buy, and want to know more about it. We turned to an online platform, which is winepilot. At first, I just utilized Andrew and my wine knowledge. And we found that customers had diverse demands for wine knowledge. For example, female customers might prefer wine information and reviews from a female perspective. So I hired a diverse group of pilots from different backgrounds to provide targeted services to customers.
After that, some wineries were seeking our services, asking us to visit their vineyards and evaluate their products. Our business model shifted from purely B2C to a combination of B2B and B2C. This is what Winepilot looks like today.