Cynics might summarize the message as: What doesn't kill you makes your appeal to Americans stronger. Cuffe is not a cynic.
No, Cuffe is an idealist, one of a number of idealist entrepreneurs begot by the proliferation of those high-minded consumers. Such founders--who include people like Seth Goldman of Honest Tea and Dean Cycon of Dean's Beans--think globally and act globally, scouring the world for unfamiliar products to sell and deserving people to support. Their mission statements are positively missionary: to promote cross-cultural understanding and economic opportunity for disadvantaged populations.
Admirable, yes. Easy, no. Because a socially responsible business is still a business. Even consumers motivated by tales of deprivation and repression want quality products, and wholesalers and retailers want those products delivered on time and in compliance with the thicket of regulations governing international trade. To avoid strangulation by their own supply chains, companies relying on unsophisticated foreign producers must go the extra 10,000 miles and devote significant time to working with their vendors, face to face when possible. They have to train, explain, motivate, cajole, hand-hold, and sometimes referee.
The people gathered in this room belong to SABVA--the South African Black Vintners Alliance, for which Heritage Link is importer of record. Not all are ready to export, and Cuffe expects some may never be. But she and her husband and co-founder, Khary Cuffe, mean to help them try. They have committed to making two trips a year to South Africa--the most they can currently manage, with a toddler at home--and providing constant assistance through calls and e-mail. They also bring to their venture extraordinary resources of education, corporate experience, and connections, and an affinity for the companies they want to help. Perhaps most important, they have built into their business model a syllogism. Heritage Link succeeds only if its suppliers succeed. There is no way Heritage Link will not succeed. Ergo, these new, struggling black-owned enterprises are going to make it.
As we roam the outskirts of Cape Town beneath the eternal, indifferent scrutiny of Table Mountain, I have to keep reminding myself that Selena Cuffe is new to the game. Like more seasoned entrepreneurs, she manages to work like hell without apparently trying too hard and demonstrates effortless command of an industry in which she is a neophyte. Her friendliness and ease play well with her South African partners, several of whom refer to her fondly as "our girl." Meanwhile, her ego quietly feeds her confidence without requiring display. One Sunday morning we visit a church tucked away in a strip mall, where the guest preacher--the bishop of Cameroon, no less--expounds on how people of vision, initiative, and creativity can change the world. Hours later, I am still waiting for Cuffe to observe how the sermon pertains to her. She never does.
I first interviewed Selena and Khary Cuffe in March at the Harvard Business School. That is also where they met. In 2002 Selena was a second-year student there, Khary a prospective student with a similarly starry resumé (Wesleyan, Prudential, the Kennedy School of Government). In 2003, the couple took their first trip to Africa, and when they landed they felt as if they had come home. Two years later they married on Mount Sinai, in Egypt. Back in the United States, a class on entrepreneurial marketing inspired them to start a company. Selena wanted to go the social responsibility route, partly to salve her conscience after helping Procter & Gamble market Pringles to children in Latin America.
In 2005, with her husband still in school, Cuffe traveled to South Africa on behalf of her then employer, an international student exchange program. One day, she saw a notice in the paper for the first annual Soweto Wine Festival. "The words Soweto and wine didn't click," Cuffe says. "All my knowledge of Soweto was about Nelson and Winnie Mandela and Desmond Tutu." Curious, Cuffe drove to the festival, a crowded, celebratory affair. She was particularly impressed by wares from SABVA. The vintners she met in Soweto proffered delicious varietals and compelling stories. What they lacked was distribution in the United States.
"I went back to the hotel, called Khary, and said, 'Sweetie, I think I've found our idea," says Cuffe.
The Cuffes founded Heritage Link in October 2005. Selena became CEO, a decision she only briefly reconsidered after discovering she was pregnant one month after launch. The couple financed the company with savings from their corporate lives and credit card debt; Khary became CFO. "We've had a dozen people ask about becoming investors, but we want to bootstrap as long as we can," he says. Heritage Link projects first-year revenue of $750,000 to $1.2 million. To bring in more, Khary accepted a management position at Procter & Gamble after graduating in June, and the family moved to Cincinnati. (The new job kept him from the September trip, but he plans to be part of future visits.)
For two years the Cuffes have been busy in the States, opening small offices in Massachusetts and California, building a sales force of eight commission-based "brand ambassadors," and negotiating state by state the complex regulations that govern wine importing and distribution. They've established a website for direct sales and still personally approach retailers and restaurants; they've closed such national accounts as Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and the franchiser WineStyles. They also host tastings around the country and provide wine for social events.
But you can't sell what you don't have. While U.S. prospects were lapping up SABVA's story and the often-inspiring tales of its members, the Cuffes were discovering the limitations of their supply chain. At a training session last December in Cape Town they introduced the vintners to GE-style critical path schedules and explained how to assign owners to tasks and identify which stakeholders to involve in key decisions. (Cuffe tries to scrub corporate jargon from her speech when working with the vintners, but the occasional M.B.A.-ism will out.) They stressed deadlines above all.
