While he won't say who they in casual conversation, his customers include CEOs, venture capitalists and entertainers. And
Forbes writes that his product is "the world's best," thereby adding to its cache.
It's a level of success, Jim Cash says, that's he didn't expect right off for his start-up business. But it's one he's been able to build thanks to the skills, craftsmanship and innovation he finds right here in Michigan, including support from the East Lansing Technology and Innovation Center.
In April, Cash moved
Revel Custom Wine Cellars from the TIC to 435 E. Grand River Ave., signaling a new home for the company that creates wine cellar cabinetry for the discerning wine collector. It's cabinetry, he says, that provides a revolutionary way to showcase and protect prized wine collections, while bringing ease of access to wine cellar storage.
"Traditional wine racks are a matrix with individual cubicles where a single bottle goes," says the retired COO of Lansing's Christman Company. "I had a rack like that and had all kinds of problems from bottles not fitting to not finding the bottles I was looking for."
Cash drew on his love of wine and his nearly three decades of professional building experience to create cabinetry that involves sliding drawers, "lazy Susans" and dowels that leverage space and hold both bottles and cases. Customers can enhance the patented design with LED lighting, cellar doors, labels, and additional components for a system that combines form and function.
Cash coordinates sales and marketing from his new 700-square foot office, while the cabinets are built and constructed in western Michigan. His sales and management team includes two representatives based in San Francisco and Florida, and an operations manager in New York. His goal for 2014 is to build about 20 cellars at a cost of about $40,000 each. Long-term, he hopes to build and sell at least 50 a year.
"We're doing something that hasn't been done before," says Cash, who is a long-time wine collector himself. "There really hasn't been a design evolution in the way cellars are built. Essentially they've been built the same way for hundreds of years."
Source: Jim Cash, Owner, Revel Custom Wine Cellars
Writer: Ann Kammerer, Development News Editor
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