David Page·January 17, 2023

How I Achieved 5x Growth on a Wine Business | David Page Interview

David Page is a British-born software sales executive who moved to the Bay Area and, after a year-long search, acquired Post and Trellis — a combined winery and residential vineyard management business in Silicon Valley — in 2011 for an upper-six-figure all-cash price (no SBA loan), with the seller retaining a small equity stake. What drew David was not the winery itself but the vineyard management side: a recurring-revenue business serving wealthy Silicon Valley estate owners who wanted private vineyards managed on their properties, a niche he likened to a software company for its predictable cash flows. He came in with no wine or agriculture background and spent the first year wearing every hat — delivery driver, harvest intern, and operations — before hiring an events director as his first key employee, scaling events from 20 to 100+ per year and growing the business to roughly 5x its original revenue and profit over a decade. By the time of the interview (2023) the business generates 60% recurring revenue from vineyard management contracts, 20% repeat revenue from wine customers, and 20% from events. David credits disciplined focus across five business lines, culture and transparent compensation, and a steady cadence of hiring to replace himself in each function as the keys to growth — and is now searching for a second acquisition, ideally a field-service or maintenance business as a bolt-on.

Deal facts

purchase price: upper six figures
revenue: approximately $1m at acquisition; approximately $5m at time of interview (5x growth)
financing structure: all-cash (no SBA loan); seller retained small equity percentage
notes: Acquired in 2011. Seller retained a small ownership stake as incentive for cooperation. No debt taken on. Business had two main lines: winery (~60% revenue) and vineyard management (~40% revenue). At time of interview (2023), 60% of revenue is recurring (vineyard management contracts), 20% repeat (wine sales), 20% events.

Why this business

David saw a vineyard management company hidden inside a winery — a business with heavily recurring revenues, a growing market of wealthy Silicon Valley estate owners wanting private vineyards, and a relatively untapped opportunity. He was attracted to the recurring-revenue model similar to software, a large addressable market in the hills above Silicon Valley, and the personal interest angle (his father had worked representing wine companies). His three watchwords were income, interest, and independence.

What's working

Recurring revenue from residential vineyard management contracts (60% of revenue at interview time) provides financial stability and predictability
Growing addressable market: wealthy Silicon Valley estate owners with spare acreage wanting private vineyards, a niche that works specifically because of the depth of wealth in the region
Events business scaled from ~20 events per year under prior owner to 100+ events per year after hiring a dedicated events director
Culture and team-building: paying employees well relative to industry, communicating a clear path to higher pay via more responsibility, and keeping the workplace fun and human
Focus discipline: resisting temptation to expand into tasting rooms in touristic areas or other distractions that could dilute capital and attention
Making himself progressively redundant by hiring into each functional area (events director first, then vineyard manager, then operations), growing the team to ~15-20 people over 10 years

What's hard

Day one surprises: due diligence did not uncover all issues; the seller's version of the business differed from reality in significant ways
First six months were not profitable — bought mid-year, faced steep learning curve with no winery or viticulture background, and had to invest more capital than planned patching problems
Wore all hats initially: delivery driver, harvest intern, office manager — only himself, a winemaker, a vineyard person, and an office manager at acquisition
Keeping the business focused across five distinct business lines (events, direct-to-consumer wine, wholesale wine, vineyard construction, vineyard management) while well-meaning advisors pushed for expansion into tasting rooms and tourist areas
Could not pay employees what they are inherently worth to the business, only enough to retain them — a tension he acknowledged openly
Winery multiples are hard to benchmark because most transactions include real estate; David owns no real estate, leasing instead, making valuation comparisons difficult

Notable quotes

I was really looking for income interest and Independence those are my kind of three watch words.

I saw this Vineyard management business — as a again as a essentially as a software company that has a company with very heavily recurring revenues where I can predict this amount of Revenue I can predict this amount of business and also I think this is a growing market.

I wasn't taking on any debt so yeah I was throwing down up a lot of money but a lot of folks are kind of cautioned against buying a job — don't buy exactly less than 500k exactly you're just buying yourself a job like well of course you're buying yourself a job you're buying yourself a job at any scale.

One good principal in general is try and almost make yourself redundant — trying to stop doing the kind of the day-to-day stuff and find some other way for that day-to-day stuff to get done. The adage of you know work on the business not in the business is really true for us all.