Definitely Count Me In (maybe you too?)

Regular readers of this blog know SmartsCo received a Make Mine a $Million award from Count Me In, OPEN by American Express and the Women's Leadership Exchange in August. Since then, it's been a whirlwind of activity which has been pretty exciting. Thus far, we've benefited from increased financing opportunities, marketing exposure, and business coaching -- all things that are helping our business grow - details on that below, but first:

If you're a woman-owned business you can win, too - How to Apply
We're thrilled that we have this opportunity and know there will be lots of amazing things going on over the next few months that will help get us to the $Million mark (and well beyond). What's even better is this opportunity is still available to other women-owned businesses. I highly encourage East Coast women-owned businesses to apply for this great award by November 18th - winners will be announced in NY on December 2nd, and Jen and I will be there to cheer other applicants on. It's a very easy application (and the folks at Count Me In will help you if you need it) and well worth your time. If you know of any woman-owned business looking for more tools and resources to help them grow, do tell them about it.

Here's how we've benefited from winning the Make Mine a $Million award..Yippee!

1. New Financing Opportunities
As soon as we won the award, the folks at OPEN by American Express and Count Me In helped open financial opportunities for us through new loans and lines of credit. We've always been big users of our OPEN card when we're in a cash crunch as it has low rates and doesn't have penalties for using the 'checks' they send you. Now we have a line of credit from OPEN which will also come in handy when the bank account gets a bit low (doesn't every small business go through that from time to time?).

These new financial opportunities have already played a key role in helping us increase our growth rate as it afforded us the ability to bring on new people to our team to help us sell and market our exciting products Moreover, now that we know we have access to capital and lines of credit, we're able to expand our product development plan for next year so we can create lots more ways to learn about life's greatest pleasures th(hint: think Paris, French wine and bubbly for the near future and lots more fun stuff later in the year).

2. Increased Marketing Exposure
The folks at OPEN have also been really great at generating publicity for us such as featuring Jen on a panel moderated by OPEN's president at the New York Times Small Business Summit last month. This was a great panel, and we were able to connect with other cool businesses such as ZipCar, a very cool urban car share company that we are collaboring with on fun marketing programs.

3. Coaching
Last, but certainly not least, this award comes with excellent business coaching, which is proving very valuable and inspirational to us. We've also been getting great advice from TV producer and entrepreneur Nely Galan, of "The Swan" and other shows and from Dresdene Flynn-White of Action International. It's great to have successful and intelligent women provide us with ideas, opportunities and help us think strategically about continuing to help SmartsCo grow.

Pretty exciting stuff for sure. So if you're a woman-owned business, be sure to apply. If you're just looking to learn more about life's greatest pleasures, get excited for lots more more great new products to come out of SmartsCo.

Wine Party On

So we hosted our first official WineParty sipping on great Pinots and Sparklers at J Vineyards & Winery this weekend. It was a blast. About 50 super fun and friendly folks joined us for a tasting filled with all sorts of fun and games on a gorgeous afternoon in Sonoma. When they arrived, everyone received a copy of our new WinePassport: California and then we quizzed them with questions from WineSmarts and then had them guess about the wines they were tasting which we blinded with the WineWrappers from WineParty.

This type of event was exactly what we designed WineParty for, and I think everyone learned something about what they were tasting because they had to take a step back and think about it. It was great to have our "official" launch at J as we've been fans of J for years. I think their bubbly is my all-time favorite, and it's always such a nice place to visit - friendly staff, nice patrons, delicious food (check out their recipes), and awesome stylish merchandise (and I'm not just talking about our stuff).

We had 3 stations set up outside of J's gorgeous tasting room and our guests tasted two wines at each station.

Station One was manned by our friend Stefani, the creative genius behind J's merchandising program and a super fun gal to boot, who poured their Chardonnay and Viognier. While I'm typically an ABC girl ("Anything But Chardonnay") I really enjoy J's version of it as rather than an oaky and buttery style, it made in a nice and crisp, almost in a Burgundian style. The Viognier, which is currently one of my favorite whites these days, on the other hand had just enough oak to mellow out some of the citrus characteristics of the varietal.

I covered Station Two which featured two Pinot Noirs: 1998 Nicole's Vineyard and their 2003 Russian River. I had a blast getting our guests to identify which was which. At first they were stumped, but after I explained that with age, the flavors in a wine are going to blend together and it will become smoother and mellower, almost everyone got it (and they went home really understanding how age impacts a wine). I really would love to do a tasting with the same wine from various years and see how well people do. (The first photo is me manning my station with some yummy Crimini mushrooms on creamy polenta).

Finally, Jen poured a yummy Zinfandel and of all things a Pinotage at Station Three. The only Pinotages I've ever had have been cheap ones from South Africa, and I found them to be thin yet jammy and they didn't really impress. But J (which, by the way, is one of just three wineries that make the stuff in California and I believe there are only 15 acres of it under vine in the state) has done something really nice with it. In fact, it was so yummy that I was duped and mistook it for the Zin - Oops. Oh well, I've never claimed to be a wine expert, just passionate about it and love to continue my education too. (Second photo is Jen pouring wine for some of our guests).

BTW - Jen and I would love to hear about your wine tastings and fun themes or comparisons you're doing so we can provide suggestions on PartyCentral of our website. If you have some good stories, please send them our way