PairAnything is an early stage startup boosting retail sales for small wineries by providing unique wine and food pairings to grocery shoppers. This project occurs midway through our time at Techstars Oakland '24, a three month long startup accelerator program powered by J.P. Morgan.
Duration
1 month
Role
Product Lead and Designer
Team
CEO, Developer, Researchers, Mentor
Platform
Web, tablet, mobile
Tools
Figma, Notion, Google Sheets
The problem
Navigating uncertainty
Entering 2024, PairAnything aimed to secure another large retail partnership after several pilots with Target. However, limited data caused by technical and relational constraints from these pilots left us ill-equipped to secure our next retail customer.
With the Techstars Demo Day deadline looming and less than a month to prove our business, we felt lost and rejected. Internally, we questioned if a pivot was needed. Our business and product seemed to change each day based on hunches.
The challenge
Prove that pairings make a difference - and that we have a business in grocery retail.
I realized our entire product and business hinged on an untested assumption: that wine and food pairings boost sales of wine and food. The lack of concrete data proving this assumption caused skepticism among investors, internal confusion about what we do, and in what context (retail, e-commerce, etc.). My high level goals were to:
1
In the simplest and fastest way possible, test if wine and food pairings increase wine sales in a grocery retail context.
2
Determine if grocery retail is a viable path for us, or if we need to pivot.
3
Establish data-backed decisions as a foundation for our business and product roadmap.
My role
I led, planned, and executed the 18-day pilot from concept to completion. I collaborated closely with the CEO, developer, copywriter, and mentor to align objectives. Additionally, I managed two researchers.
Introducing the
PairAnything Kiosk
In an age where small wineries get less than 5% of the aisle space at a grocery store, PairAnything makes small wineries stand out among hundreds of other wines. PairAnything connects small wineries’ unique wines with shoppers by providing diverse wine and food pairings, helping shoppers buy wine with confidence.
Left: landing page of the kiosk, where users tap on a wine to view 3 unqiue food pairings (pictured right).
We partnered with a small winery, Domaine Dardagny, to feature their wines on our kiosk: 3 out of 5 wines displayed pairings immediately, while 2 out of 5 wines prompted shoppers to input their phone numbers to receive pairings within 24 hours. By doing so, we are able to compare the purchase rate of wines with pairings on the kiosk vs. wines without pairings on the kiosk, separating the kiosk and pairing effect. Additionally, shoppers can share a copy of the pairing, and sign up for more pairings via phone number for each wine. We collected baseline data over 9 days, then deployed our kiosk in-store, and measured for another 9 days to compare the purchase rate of Domaine Dardagny wines with and without the kiosk.
Full walkthrough of the kiosk: 3/5 wines display pairings immediately, while 2/5 wines prompt shoppers to input their phone number. Shoppers can sign up for more pairings via phone number.
Shoppers can scan a QR code and open the kiosk link on their mobile phone (instead of inputting their phone number on the kiosk directly), taking them to this mobile design.
Increased wine sales by
20x
Wines with pairings were sold
4x more
As a result, we increased Domaine Dardagny's wine sales by 20 times. Wines with pairings on the kiosk sold 4 times more than wines without pairings on the kiosk, proving that pairings increase wine sales. 30% of shoppers shared their phone numbers to receive more pairings. Domaine Dardagny found the data we gathered empowering and helpful for landing their next retail account:
“We don’t get any data (from the retailer). We have no idea who buys what, or the flow times (prior to the kiosk). I can totally pitch the kiosk with our wines when talking to retailers; I’ll finally be able to hit them (retailers) with the data: we’ll sell out of this wine in X time, there’s X bottle depletion, etc…” - Domaine Dardagny
