Combining Commerce with Cause

Jake Kloberdanz

with Jake Kloberdanz

CEO and Founder at ONEHOPE

Combining Commerce with Cause

Combining Commerce with Cause 1024 1024 33Voices

Moe and Jake Kloberdanz discuss the transition from founder to leader, assembling your team, building partnerships, creating brand awareness and scaling with purpose.

Commerce + Cause = OneHope

It’s hard to argue anymore that entrepreneurship is a skill; and like any skill, the fundamentals can be taught and mastered.  In the same vein, it’s just as hard to dismiss that there are certain individuals who are just born with a knack to tinker, and in the process, create stuff that others in the world find useful and valuable.  One such individual is ONEHOPE Wine co-founder Jake Kloberdanz, who as a sales rep for a large wine distributor, dreamed of an idea to help a good friend was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma at the age of 23.  

It was around the time that Blake Mycoskie was pioneering Toms shoes’ One-For-One campaign when Kloberdanz set out to convince seven other co-founders that selling a quality wine could be a gateway towards supporting worthy causes all year around.  His pitch worked, and just seven years later, they have since launched ONEHOPE Wine, ONEHOPE Coffee & Tea, ViaONEHOPE, and ONEHOPE Weddings, and collectively have donated over $1.4 million to fight Breast Cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, help children with Autism, end childhood hunger, educate our girls, amongst other causes.  

Oscar Wilde said that “an idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all,” and as you’ll discover in this conversation with Kloberdanz, his journey has been anything but smooth.  

Here’s what we explore:  

  • Knowing when you’ve found your purpose

  • Assembling and convincing the founding team

  • The keys to building an effective strategic partnership

  • Creating awareness and building distribution for a new brand

  • The transition from founder to leader

  • The non-obvious challenges that a startup is likely to face

  • Scaling with purpose