Cellartracker on CNBC

CNBC: An app beloved by wine geeks grew during the pandemic. The founder explains what’s next.

Interesting read. “Even Rohrbaugh has concerns about scores from critics. They might try five wines in one sitting, he said, but that’s not how most people drink wine.” I am guessing critics are reviewing more than 5 wines at a sitting.

CellarTracker got on a whole new track in November 2020 when it took on an unspecified amount of money from angel investors.

I actually missed this information earlier, but I checked and it was also in the xchateau podcast interview with Eric. It will be interesting to see how the product and business develops with the investment (and all the associated baggage that tends to come along with that). I’ve always had the belief that CellarTracker is somewhat underutilized relative to its full potential, so we’ll see where all this goes.

Thanks for sharing!

Really happy for Eric. CT has thrived because he has been at the helm protecting its integrity. It would have been easy to sell user data – to take the money and run. As long as he runs things I have complete confidence that will continue

CellarTracker is one of my absolute favorite Websites…I probably use it every single day, or at least 6 out of 7 days a week. Most days multiple times. Anytime I read about a wine, like here on Berserkers, or some other Website, or a friend tells me about a wine that they had at dinner, or I am in a restaurant and I am trying to pick a wine off of the winelist, I immediately go to CellarTracker to see what the community is saying about that wine. I like it the way it is now, but whatever happens going forward, I hope Eric make a ton of $$, he deserves it!..

This is cool. Congrats Eric. There is an insane amount of data in CT and endless things it can be used for - it’s like Tesla’s millions and millions of miles of driving data. Looking forward to seeing what comes next. (Still sticking to the classic interface for some purposes though…)

I also use the classic interface as well

Excited to see what’s next for CellarTracker. It’s been an invaluable tool and community over the years. Hope this mini ‘press tour’ Eric is going on means that we will be seeing those new changes soon.

CellarTracker SPAC deal coming soon…

There is no proactive “press tour.” Jordan as well as the XChateau guys just reached out after we sent our July newsletter, so of course I was happy to talk to them about what we are trying to do.

My focus over the past year has been on hiring and scaling up a great team, and we really hope to deliver on a lot of things in 2022 in terms of new and updated apps and features. It is a lot of work to bring new people into a mature and complex codebase and business after 18 years, but we are starting to hit our stride. Of course, the proof will be in the pudding once you get to actually see and use what we are working on. (And in the grand scheme, 13 is still a pretty small team.)

Sorry, no chance. Maybe someday in the long sweep of time, but there is absolutely nothing of the sort coming “soon” of that nature. That would actually be pretty ludicrous given the current scale of the organization and business.

Crawl. Walk. Run. There are no shortcuts or golden tickets in life.

Indeed, the driver for change has been my concern that the focus and conservatism that served me well for 15 years is now holding back the considerable, unrealized potential of the site and the community. So we are trying to shift gears and be more ambitious but without sacrificing our core values or forgetting how we got here. It is a delicate balance, and if anything I am likely still too protective and conservative. However, as long as I am in control (and I remain the vast majority shareholder of CT), there is a core integrity and set of values that are inviolate.

Thank you Neal.

yes, the TWA crew used to sound rather proud of tasting 100+ at a sitting

Still classic here too. Eric always ribs me for it. Congratulations Eric. Much deserved. If there is anyone who can take on investors and not sway from the core purpose of the company, it is you.

Very cool, congrats Eric! I remember your humble beginnings well, but never did get my inventory all set up until a year ago, really enjoying the full functionality and looking forward to what comes next!

great read, congrats Eric

I figured it wasn’t an intention media press tour. More that some press attention has coincided with CellarTracker’s new growth plans. Why I put ‘press tour’ in quotes.

I look forward to seeing the new features and apps and to seeing CT grow. Best of luck to you and the rest of the CT team.

Thanks, Eric. I’m super glad to hear that there will be a renewed focus on growth and development for the product and the community as a whole, without sacrificing any of what makes CT so special.

However, I am curious to know (and you don’t need to give a concrete answer if you aren’t ready to discuss this yet) if given the outside investment there will also be a focus on increasing premium features available to paid (subscription?) users. If I think of a few examples of “best in class” consumer SaaS products I’m familiar with, they almost always exist as a freemium model and emphasize building strongly differentiated premium features.