BBC #8: 11/26/12

For the 8^th meeting of the Baltimore Business Club, we changed the format.  Typically, we have 8-14 members for the meeting and have an introductory period for any new faces to meet the members.  During the introductions, those with new ideas, concepts or technologies they would like to present to the group are now welcome in an open forum before the presentations begin.

At our first open forum, Leap Motion was presented.  Leap Motion is an emerging technology similar to Xbox Kinect that could go main stream in 2013.  The technology uses hand motion to direct a computer screen similar to a mouse, only with your hands.  It has been in development over the last four years, but recently went into program development, and should go live next year.  We viewed the intro video and had a brief discussion.  Check out the video at https://leapmotion.com/.

Presentation and Presenter: Starting an Online Art Business, Chris Diller

Chris has presented the idea of utilizing his graphic and artistic skills to the BBC in the past.  Over the last several weeks, the idea has come full circle and is moving toward a launch.  Chris is a talented painter, and has decided to test the market with his work.  His business idea is to create original pieces of art based on sports, but adding his own unique twist on them or explore an idea that has been developed, but not put on a painter’s canvas.

In the short term, it will be an online business, utilizing shopify, and other online sale sites to sell original pieces of art, oil painting replicas, and posters.  This will give 3 separate price points for each piece he completes; an undecided amount for his original, a $200-$500 for oil paint replicas, and a $20-$30 range for poster prints.

He currently has one final piece that is shown below.  There are 8 oil painting canvas replicas being produced in a test run, and 1 of those replicas has sold on Ebay.  More drawings, a blog, and hopefully more sales are on the way.  Below is his current painting, at 3 feet X 4 feet.

His inspiration for the painting is here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hmq2dKAP6ZA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYBz2befSfY

Presentation and Presenter: A & M Imports, Perry and Peter Menzies

Perry and Pete Menzies have been heavily involved in their family’s shipping and warehousing business over the last several years, The Terminal Corporation.  With operations in Canton and Jessup, the family has been involved in the business since the late 1800s.  However, the economic downturn over the last several years led Perry and Pete to help develop new ventures.  With a business history in Brazil through Terminal, an opportunity to import Brazilian wine sprang up 2 years ago and A & M Imports (Alberti & Menzies) was born.

Perry and Pete went through a brief history of Terminal, how it led to the formation of A & M, the challenges they’ve faced in starting a wine importation business from scratch, and the recent successes the new company has seen.  A & M faced many difficulties when it first started and it took nearly a year to navigate through the red tape and bureaucracy involved in importing a new wine brand.  Fortunately, they signed a 5 year contract with the Vinicola Salton Winery in Brazil and received their first container in February 2012.  Vinicola Salton is the largest winery in Brazil by volume, and recently made $12 million dollars in renovations, allowing them to produce 200,000 bottles of wine per day.

It proved incredibly difficult to obtain their importer/wholesaler permit and get the labels approved on the bottles.  These two challenges sucked up months of time before a single bottle of wine could be imported, let alone sold.

Once everything was approved, they still faced difficulties convincing very territorial distributors to take on the new brand.  However, after months of knocking on doors, A & M was able to make headway into local stores and even Fogo de Choa, a nationwide Brazilian restaurant with 20 locations across the country.

These early successes helped them land deals with a few distributors, including Republic National (2^nd largest US distributor) to help distribute the wine on a much larger scale than possible with “feet on the street” sales.  The company still has much work to do, but they are poised for success after two long years and should see national distribution in the future.  With the emergence of Brazil in the global economy and the 2014 World Cup placing an enormous spotlight on Brazil, A & M should be a great story and company to follow.   Below are a few pictures from the winery in Brazil and here is the website for A & M Imports (designed by Chris Diller).  http://www.am-imports.com/