Cell Art Founder Jonathan Primeau’s Top Tips for Making Your New Business Stand Apart in a Saturated Industry
By: Reyne Hirsch
Tags: Creativity, Entrepreneurship, Wine, Wine Industry, Art

I’d love a brief backstory — have you always been an entrepreneur, or how did this endeavor come to light?

I was driving back from our first kite surf trip in Cape Hatteras. You know these moments where you feel complete joy, peace and love where everything is possible? That was the first trip with my wife who became the mother of my three children. I was having a successful corporate career traveling between NYC and San Francisco with 15 years’ experience as I started very early climbing the elusive career ladder up to an executive position. Something huge was missing, I was 35, had been working 80 hour weeks for more than a decade, and I decided to jump. I pulled all my assets and became my own boss with a true professional goal with a legacy.

Where did you get the inspiration for your business, CellArt?

Art and wine bleed into my primary passions, helping me to push the aesthetic and technical boundaries of every project. The connection between creating beauty and manufacturing sophisticated and unique masterpieces became more and more obvious over time. One of the unique aspects of CellArt is not only being at the cutting edge of technology in a very traditional industry, but also to have its own Artistic Director, Thierry Forbois, who’s an inventor, a creator, an artist with unprecedented vision, so each piece become a statement in itself.

Each wine space is a piece of art that literally transfigures the wine cellar, tasting room, or any room in quest of character and beauty. Our exclusive and mesmeric pieces embrace the apparent opposition between pure art and utility to house the most iconic bottles.

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Have you found your business has grown during the pandemic?

The worldwide pandemic opened our eyes on the growing demand for trusted and curated services and experiences for collectors, investors and aficionados all over the world. With international and national restrictions, people spent more time home, stepping-back from high paced lives, connecting back to their passions and to the essentials, taking the time to address long held dreams or simply wanting to upgrade their interior in a more personal way. The pandemic redefined the art de vivre in every aspect of life.

What lessons have you learned along the way when building your business?

It takes time and a lot of money to build a luxury brand. You see and live money in a very different way; away from stability, seeing your team making sacrifices, and relying only on yourself. Handshake partnerships are always the most powerful. The vision is clear but always dynamic and evolving to new dimensions, you need to keep your boundaries clear, and your team empowered.

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What are the top 3 tips you can offer creatives who are giving new life to a traditional industry?

1. Status-quo is the enemy: with stability comes stagnation and more than one entrepreneur has felt trapped by what they once viewed as success. Failures have nothing to do with aiming too high — do the opposite, create your niche market, constantly challenge yourself and the industry especially if it’s a traditional one: your opportunities to innovate are then even bigger and even more impactful!

2. Never stop innovating. The easiest step is to reach the top, the real challenge is to stay on top, with your entire team. Constantly focusing on R&D, new tools, ways to do differently, to do better, game changing disruptions doesn’t mean not respecting the past and the savoir-faire: luxury companies that last combine them both. In a traditional industry especially, some may think it’s a comfy position where nothing moves. Big mistake. The biggest opportunities and largest playground are where competition will very fastly be put on the bench by being immutable, tiresome, outdated vs. the fast pace of evolution of modern life and needs that emerges from it.

3. Enjoy what you do, so your teams and customers can enjoy what they get. I strongly believe that passion is contagious. Beyond the product or service you may offer, the way you describe it and talk about it says it all. As well as the way you consider your partners, teams, or even suppliers. Emotion is everything and being yourself is the cornerstone of creating a strong and genuine brand. And we know that people nowadays are more than ever craving authenticity and personally-fueled propositions!

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This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!