(Forbes) - I was recently speaking with Michael Houlihan, co-founder of Barefoot Wines. This is the story of how two people overcame remarkable odds and built a beloved brand that transformed the wine industry. It is hard to believe that such an iconic brand as Barefoot Wines began in a laundry room of a rented farmhouse in the Sonoma County hills. Even more surprising is that the people who started it were just an average business couple, Michael Houlihan and Bonnie Harvey. From the start, with virtually no money and no wine industry experience, they employed innovative ideas to overcome obstacles, create new markets and strategic alliances, while pioneering Worthy Cause Marketing and performance-based compensation. They successfully sold the brand to E&J Gallo in 2005 and Barefoot is now the largest wine brand in the world. (ref The Drinks Business June 2014 London)

What were the challenges to starting a new company?
Everything! For example, we had no experience in the wine industry, and no capital. These challenges became opportunities. Lack of capital forced us to be resourceful. Our laundry room became our office. An old door became our desk! Because we lacked experience, we questioned everyone who touched our product, from clerks to buyers and from distributors to forklift drivers. We got real practical answers, not always available from the C-Suite. From buyers and clerks we learned what wine package was needed in the market, rather than what we wanted to produce. From bottling line managers we learned what labels work and which ones don’t and why. From a fork lift operator we got color specific cartons to reduce miss-deliveries. The list goes on and on, and we built Barefoot on the backs of these challenges, so they were actually gifts in disguise.

Our lack of capital also helped us stumble on a marketing method we called Worthy Cause Marketing. We didn’t have money for advertising so we partnered with small local nonprofits and worthy causes. Instead of money, we donated wine to their fundraisers, our time to their events, and our ability to take their cause to the marketplace. When we started to see our numbers climb in local territories, we continued to support non-profits in market after market to grow the brand nationally. It worked so well that even when we had the money for conventional advertising we continued with worthy cause marketing. It felt great to help causes we held dear like conservation, human rights, clean oceans and beaches. The members of the nonprofits now had a social reason to buy and spread the word about our brand.