Back in mid-2024, Episode #25, Carol interviewed Megan Bell, owner of Margins Winery in Santa Cruz, California. Megan had been profiled in the SF Chronicle about the increasing challenges in the wine business. Two years later she was profiled again for having ended her wine company, and host Carol Collison asked her back to talk through her process of deciding to wind down the business, and the sacrifices she made to make sure she paid all her growers and her bankers. Carol and Megan discuss various issues and tendencies that make it difficult for entrepreneurs to make decisions like this: the tendency to ignore information that contradicts your decision, the “sunk cost fallacy”, as well as the role of investments - such as a tasting room lease and tenant improvements - that have the effect of increasing a company’s break-even point and reducing financial flexibility. Carol emphasizes that the discipline and integrity that Megan demonstrated in her wind down of Margins winery reflects the best of American business ethics, and calls to all business managers to remember to “do what you say you’re going to do.” An ethos that has made American entrepreneurship the envy of the world.

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Questions? Comments? smallfortunepodcast@gmail.com

Sponsor: Global Wine Partners https://www.globalwinebank.com/

Editor: John Kiernan, The PodHouse Productions

www.thepodhouseproductions.com

Music: Nate Collison

Logo Photography: John Corcoran