Gallo

In the beginning of the year, the first machine came out, it was in Dallas, Texas, and then in March 2020, the world shut down.

We had a alcohol company called E&J Gallo Winery that signed a contract, paid us.

We built a machine to start selling alcohol in vending machines in movie theaters.

Well, movie theaters shut down.

And then we have sort of this emerging food and beverage sector.

One of our major announcements from just a few years ago was E&J Gallo Winery setting up their East Coast operation.

They are bottling their High Noons, their Lucky One, Hard Lemonades.

They're bottling their E&J Gallo Randy.

and as well as their new Amsterdam vodka.

That was also 500 million, closer to 500 jobs associated with that project.

But they got lots of rooms.

Their initial project's about 1.5 million square feet, but they acquired enough land for they could grow to 8 million square feet in the decades to come.

So Barefoot, great wine company, kinda average price point, sold through Trader Joe's and lots of other places around the country.

Anyways, Houlihan decides he wants to sell Barefoot, and he realizes that E&J Gallo is the largest wine maker in the United States, and he figures he's got one shot at selling to the granddaddy of the, of the industry.

And so what most entrepreneurs would do is they'd kinda put together a, like, back of a napkin teaser and sorta take it to them and, and kinda ham-fisted their way through a negotiation.

And E&J Gallo was a really sophisticated buyer, and Houlihan knew that, so what he did is the opposite.

He went out and put together all of his pre-diligence, like binders and binders of binders of all the questions he is likely to get an- asked.

And I said, "Why did you do that? First of all, you're an entrepreneur.

... to do all that work, right?" And he said, "Yeah, but here's the thing.

Number one, it helped me get through due diligence, but number two, here's the surprising thing.