meta_pixel
Tapesearch Logo
Log in
The Playbook With David Meltzer

How Two Founders Scaled a Side Hustle

The Playbook With David Meltzer

David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com

Entrepreneurship, Business, Careers

4.61.9K Ratings

🗓️ 29 November 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In today’s episode, I sit down with Embarc Wines co-founders Adam Lovingood and Richard Garcia to unpack how they built a self-serve wine experience that feels both innovative and familiar. We get into the early days of their partnership, the years of planning that shaped their model, and the moment they realized this concept could scale far beyond a single location. They walk me through the balance of full-time careers and late-night building, the relationships that fuel their wine program, and why creating a warm social environment matters as much as the technology behind it. Their vision for expansion shows just how far this idea can go.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to Entrepreneurs the Playbook. I'm David Meltzer, and we are going to have a really good time.

0:06.9

A lot of love here with my two new friends with an extraordinary business.

0:11.5

They're incredible entrepreneurs, Adam Lovinggood and Richard Garcia, the co-founders at Embark Wines.

0:20.5

Welcome to Entrepreneurs the Playbook.

0:23.3

Thank you, David.

0:24.0

Thanks for having us.

0:25.4

You know, you guys have this incredible business model that is well thought out.

0:30.3

And when I was watching this business model that allows people to customize their wine experience, an ounce, three ounces,

0:41.1

five ounces, your own personalized customizable samples, an incredible layout for social

0:47.8

interaction, an energy, a frequency that was captured by your business as well.

0:55.3

I kept thinking to myself, things happened very slowly than all of a sudden.

1:00.4

And there's many layers of feedback or what other people call failure

1:05.2

that I'm sure went into figuring out this extraordinary business that you have today.

1:10.3

And it really is. It is a scalable,

1:13.4

extraordinary experience, personal and professional development, and even content. It is a perfect

1:20.5

place to amplify this energy or frequency. I was wondering, you know, being partners, how you kept the faith

1:30.2

and where that started and how long it actually took to figure out this business model.

1:36.5

Oh, wow. Definitely. Yeah, a couple of years. So to your point, partners. So when I am like bogged down with something or just racking my brain,

1:48.1

I can look to Adam and then we come up with things together. So it's been very supportive. So when we say

1:54.3

it's been years in the making, it has been, but it's kind of hard to quantify, honestly, because

1:58.6

every time it's like, oh, we're thinking about this,

2:01.1

or we need to make financial productions. And it was, oh, well, I'm already thinking about that.

...

Transcript will be available on the free plan in 12 days. Upgrade to see the full transcript now.

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of David Meltzer, Entrepreneur.com and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.

Copyright © Tapesearch 2025.