Zach Pelka is a co-founder of Une Femme Wines, together with his sister, Jane. The company is a group of wine brands that is focused on sustainability and privately financed, and which also continues to develop. They work together with “top producers, distributors, and retailers” in Champagne, France, and Napa, California, to produce top-shelf wines.
Aside from Une Femme Wines, Zach Pelka has also been receiving press features for his “innovative product launches, alternative financial structures, and developing start-ups.” Several publications have featured him, which include The New York Times, Forbes, Fortune, Vogue, Eater, Yahoo Finance, Business Insider, SeekingAlpha, CBS, NPR, Morning Star, among others.
Prior to Une Femme Wines, Zach Pelka has also worked as the CFO for the Old Friend’s Hospitality Group, which include The Riddler San Francisco and The Riddler New York, Magnum PR, and other clients in the field. He also served as the Head of Capital Markets & Investor Relations at Lumni, as well as co-founded two companies, which are Paytronage and Trage Group.
At Une Femme Wines, Zach Pelka and his sister Jane wanted to create a wine brand that “extended out to focus on women empowerment, women winemakers.” The company also gives back to Dress for Success, as part of their “charitable component that was focusing on women empowerment.”
Check out more interviews with connoisseur executives here.
I’d say the biggest takeaway is that no matter what industry or job you’re in, things will feel intimidating at first, but once you get fully entrenched in it, you realize everyone is incredibly kind and started as a rookie at some point too. Zach Pelka, Une Femme Wines
Jerome Knyszewski: Thank you so much for doing this with us! What is your “backstory”?
Zach Pelka: Thank you very much for having me! So much like a lot of others entrepreneurs, I grew up in an incredibly entrepreneurial family. My parents had several internet businesses while I grew up, which gave my sister and myself an itch. My sister and now business partner, Jen, is 12 years older than me and began running companies when I was in high school. With my parents and my sister constantly preaching the value of running your own business, I began in a similar vein. I started small with a golf ball business and sports card business, which ultimately led me to attend The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.
At Penn, I was around some of the smartest humans alive which constantly drove me to think bigger and grander, especially when it came to different start up opportunities. After a few summer internships working for investment banks and VC firms, I realized that my skill set lay in the heavy quant-finance world, but my heart was all in on being an entrepreneur.
My Senior year at Penn, I had this crazy idea that instead of investing in an individual start up, what if you could invest in the entrepreneur. This would allow early stage investors to bet on the person, rather than one specific idea, since so many starts up fail, but in the long term the founder succeeds. Conversely, you could think of someone wanting to own equity in Elon Musk, to get access to Tesla, SpaceX, Solar City, etc. rather than just one. This idea led to the creation of Paytronage, which effectively created an alternative equity-based product to traditional student debt. I launched this with my best friend from Penn and we quickly raised funding, hired several PhD engineers as well as a General Counsel, launched a pilot, and were rapidly acquired by the largest player in the space.
This rapid foray into the start up world further solidified my interest and passion for running and starting new businesses. After Paytronage, my team had a foray into crypto at the wrong time, which then led me to truly re-evaluate what I wanted to do and what I was interested in from a deeper intrinsic perspective. At the same time, my sister, Jen, was running Magnum PR and The Riddler in San Francisco. I’ve always looked up to Jen and thought that she had the most interesting / enjoyable life of any entrepreneurs around me. When she asked if I had any interest in starting a Champagne brand with her, I responded ‘this is what I would want to do when I’m retired. Of course I’m in.” The opportunity to launch a Champagne and Rosé brand from scratch with Jen, who is such an expert in the space, was an absolute no brainer. And from that, Une Femme Wines, the first of several larger brands we’re launching, was born.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your company? What lessons or takeaways idd you take out of that story?
Zach Pelka: I’ve worked for Wall Street Banks. I’ve pitched some of the most high profile investors in the country. But I have NEVER been more intimidated than in my first industry wine tasting. For many novices in the food and wine world, sommeliers and wine experts can seem incredibly intelligent, and it’s very easy to say something or do something embarrassing. In my first industry event, before I even knew anything about the space, I went to two separate tasting booths. The first booth, I was trying to figure out what questions to ask, so I name-dropped one of the only things I had a sense of in the space: ‘Who is your distributor’. It turned out, the entire tasting event was put on by a distributor (which I didn’t know) and everyone within it was their portfolio companies. Needless to say, I left that booth red in the face. At that point, I walked over to the next booth, asked to taste one of their cabs. I hadn’t perfected the classic wine swirl at this point, and tried to swirl my glass and ended up throwing the entire glass of red wine straight onto my white button down. This all happened within 5 minutes of walking into the event.
I’d say the biggest takeaway is that no matter what industry or job you’re in, things will feel intimidating at first, but once you get fully entrenched in it, you realize everyone is incredibly kind and started as a rookie at some point too. The hospitality industry stands out to me as one where the people go above and beyond to really try to help you, which is why I truly love working in it.
It’s a hard, hard business to be in and many times you’re going to feel ready to quit. Being humble about those failures and using them as motivators and learning experiences is truly key to making the next one the success.
Jerome Knyszewski: Can you share 5 of the most difficult and most rewarding parts of being a “TwentySomething founder”. Please share an example or story for each
Zach Pelka:
Most Difficult:
- Your peers, friends, and sometimes family will make you second guess your decision to go the non-traditional path. Everyone is a critic, and being a start-up founder leaves you wide open for very public failure. I’ve had co-workers and bosses scoff at concepts being impossible or statements around there’s no way you could achieve this at such a young age. This is just people talking — the most important thing to do is believe in your own ideas and ability to execute on it. No one else’s opinion matters.
- It can get really lonely at times. Large corporate organizations have big teams, HR departments, offsites, and well established communities. Odds are if you’re starting a company, it’s going to be you and one to two others. Very quickly, you’d do anything to find other co-workers to spend time with. While your friends are going to company holiday parties, you’re going to be grinding away trying to solve problems only you understand. This is all part of the process that will make the success even more rewarding.
- Financially, you’re going to have to be ok with taking a short term hit. There’s no secret that the most wealthy individuals in the world are entrepreneurs. But, the thing that people often ignore is the years of struggling through constant rounds of fundraising, taking pay cuts, and taking under-market pay for the hopes of a long term payout. I learned very quickly how to live on a small salary out of college, which has helped to ground everything else financially afterwards which I greatly appreciate.
- You’re going to lack experience and oftentimes not know what you’re doing. People learn through experience. You get experience with time. As a young founder, there are going to be many, many mistakes that you make because it’s the first time you’ve done it. Instead of viewing these ‘rookie mistakes’ as bad, be thankful that you’re making them at such a young age. I’m now on my fourth financed company, and I can unequivocally say that I’ve learned so much just by making these inexperienced mistakes — but that’s how you become a better and smarter leader.
- You’re going to experience failure in some way or another. Statistically, 90% of new ventures fail. Meaning, on average, you’re going to have to start 10 companies before having one truly succeed. It’s a hard, hard business to be in and many times you’re going to feel ready to quit. Being humble about those failures and using them as motivators and learning experiences is truly key to making the next one the success.
Rewarding:
- You’re going to learn so many skills. Anyone who has started a company will attest, the number of things you have to do to launch anything is overwhelming. Legal, financial, PR, marketing, web development, etc. As a founder, you must have your hands in every element of the business, which will quickly help you develop a baseline understanding of many different elements. Because of this, your professional development will be quickly accelerated and you’ll understand where you truly thrive as a company grows.
- You’ll get to meet so many interesting people. The different people that I’ve been able to work directly with, hire, or pitch is truly astounding. If you have an interesting product or company, nearly anyone will be excited to talk with you about it. I’ve learned that if you’re just honest, direct, and kind, many seemingly unattainable individuals will be happy to talk to you, and potentially even become close investors or mentors.
- The financial upside is high if executed well — it is truly a meritocratic industry. There is no ceiling in start ups. If you execute and perform well, you can be rewarded tremendously.
- You get to control your own schedule, living location, etc. The flexibility of running your own business is truly amazing. I’m doing this interview currently from Alaska, where I’m going to be for the next month. In today’s age, the ability to work from anywhere has really empowered entrepreneurs to experience some amazing things in life, all while building incredible businesses.
- You get to set the direction of the company and values. As aforementioned, it was so important for Jen and I to start Une Femme with a charitable component. As the founders, we simply baked it into our financial models and did it. As a founder, you set the direction. You set what’s important. Being deeply connected to your product and intrinsic mission is so important and will drive you through those challenging times.
Jerome Knyszewski: We are very blessed that some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might see this. 🙂
Zach Pelka: Elon Musk. As a fellow Wharton Grad, I’ve always been fascinated by his ability to run several businesses at the same time and continue to innovate and seemingly defy gravity in all of his ventures. We’ve been simultaneously managing Une Femme, The Riddler SF and NYC, and Magnum PR, and I feel like there’s never enough time in the day. I’d love to learn how he’s been able to manage several public companies at the same time.
Jerome Knyszewski; What is the best way our readers can follow you on social media?
Zach Pelka: Follow me and Une Femme Wines @zachpelka and @unefemmewines.
Jerome Knyszewski: This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!
Zach Pelka: Thank you for having me!
