An irreverent, eye-opening business memoir.
Novice winemakers upend the industry’s pretensions while taking on the jungle of the retail beverage sector in this rollicking business saga.
Houlihan and Harvey recount their adventures as founders of Barefoot Wine, which began in 1986 as a shoestring venture and swelled to a 600,000–cases-per-year success before being bought by E. & J. Gallo Winery. The book is in part a story of innovative marketing around a new image of fermented grape juice: a tasty, cheap, reliable wine that ditched haughty connoisseurship in favor of a friendly, approachable brand image—“California in a bottle”—aimed at harried supermarket shoppers. In addition to the offbeat brand name, the authors came up with a label with an iconic footprint logo instead of curlicued pseudo-French designs. They also created goofy but effective sales aids, like footprint decals marching across liquor store floors straight to the Barefoot shelf, and pioneered a “Worthy Cause Marketing” strategy of donating wine to charitable events in order to build brand awareness and goodwill. (Priceless free advertising came, they recall, when the elite French vineyard Château Lafite Rothschild threatened to sue over Barefoot’s printing “Chateau La Feet” T-shirts; the ensuing media hoopla sent sales soaring.) But it’s also a revealing look at the demanding slog of the mass market beverage business. The authors spent years making sales calls at mom-and-pop stores and trying to force their way into supermarket aisles that are usually closed to unknown brands. Houlihan and Harvey, assisted by amanuensis Kushman, distill from their experiences perennial business lessons along with tips on everything from negotiations to employee compensation, all wrapped in an entertaining, anecdotal picaresque. (“After Michael read the card carefully, he looked up and gave a slight bow, then presented Mr. Matsumoto with his Barefoot card, the one with the foot and the title, ‘Head Stomper.’ ”) Houlihan and Harvey make the wine trade seem a little less glamorous but a lot more interesting.
An irreverent, eye-opening business memoir.Pub Date: May 21, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-9995042-0-8
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Footnote Press
Review Posted Online: June 4, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2020
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
PERSPECTIVES
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.
In this debut memoir, Bahamian millionaire Bastian offers insight into building a business.
The author was a millionaire by the time he was 19, an impressive feat considering he began his working life filling stockpots and rolling napkins in his father’s Nassau restaurant, a locals’ hole-in-the-wall far from the city’s tourist hotels. “In many ways, I started ten steps behind the starting line in a world where opportunities felt few and far between,” writes Bastian in his introduction. A poor student with a gambler’s risk tolerance and a salesman’s eye for an unserved market, the author dropped out of college to launch his own satellite installation business—the first of its kind in the Bahamas—eventually expanding into prepaid phones and other electronics. With this book, Bastian uses his personal experiences to illustrate the steps aspiring entrepreneurs should consider when building their own empires. “My goal isn’t just to tell my story,” he explains; “it’s to provide you with a starting point, a strategy, and the encouragement you need to take your first step toward something bigger.” The book alternates between memoiristic chapters describing the author’s youth and career and instructional chapters outlining the best practices to “become a lion” (his preferred metaphor for a brave, risk-taking captain of industry). From evaluating one’s skill set and choosing a suitable goal to the practicalities of regulation and taxes, Bastian walks the reader through the complicated processes of starting and maintaining a successful enterprise. While much of the advice is of the boilerplate variety, the author offers it with clarity and candor, devoting an entire chapter, for example, on how to fail productively. It is the biographical material that lends his advice unusual weight—Bastian’s stories of flying back and forth between the Bahamas and Miami to personally import satellite dishes are fascinating enough to stand on their own. Readers may be unable to replicate his success, but there is no denying that his tale is inspiring.
A rags-to-riches how-to as entertaining as it is wise.Pub Date: Sept. 9, 2025
ISBN: 9798891882485
Page Count: 216
Publisher: Advantage Media Group
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2025
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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