Meet Conner Taylor, Jessica Bush and Andrew McKee of Sommify

Today we’d like to introduce you to Conner Taylor, Jessica Bush and Andrew McKee.

So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
In 2019, I decided to level up my wine knowledge, having been in the industry for 10+ years. I started studying for the Certified Sommelier exam as well as the WSET III, both extremely challenging wine tests with blind tasting portions. The most common way to study for the blind tasting segments is training in blind tasting groups, usually weekly. I started going to a few and felt weirdly intimidated. I love blind tasting but was not a fan of the format.

Blind tasting is a really fun process but I wanted a way to make it more approachable. My wife Jessica and I decided we could try and turn blind tasting into a card game or board game. The next 18 months were filled with prototyping a board game on the Beltline! We finally got the format right: Blind tasting meets game night. I luckily imbibed enough last year to pass both the Somm and WSET III exams!

Jessica’s brother-in-law, Andrew McKee, agreed to help us out with game design. You can see the original board game designs on our Kickstarter that I came up with…we needed some serious help. Andrew is incredibly talented, and he created our logo and the board game design. His influence has really made this project come to reality for us!

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
The biggest struggle was figuring out how to game-ify something very subjective, like wine. We still have to preface our game with the fact that there are no hard rules for styles of wine. They are more like generalizations. Incorporating them into the game was especially tough at first, and figuring out which grape characteristics to highlight as game mechanics. Another challenge is that the moment you change one small mechanic in a board game, you’ve got to test, test, test it to ensure there aren’t any problems! Luckily, the whole process was lubricated with really good wine.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Sommify story. Tell us more about the business.
We just launched our blind wine tasting board game, Sommify, two weeks ago on Kickstarter! We funded our goal in 13 hours, which was incredibly exciting. We are so thankful to all of the backers, and especially the Atlanta faction. We’ve never seen a blind wine tasting game like ours, which is why we created it. There are 2-3 games that have blind tasting elements, but the tasting methods are incredibly archaic. We get excited when a total amateur wins the night (which happens all the time!). We’re proud to have Jessica’s brother-in-law, Andrew, help us with design. Jessica’s sister, Kate, has also been a huge help with editing content for us (who knew writing a rule book would need so many eyes?)

Has luck played a meaningful role in your life and business?
We’ve been lucky to have so many friends and family who have supported us from the beginning. So many people put up with us as we tried to figure out the best game format, and changed, then changed again, the board layout and the rules. People sat out with us on the Beltline in the middle of the Georgia heat last year to help us figure it all out. We’ve also been lucky to have so many people offer up advice and guidance throughout the process.

Pricing:

• $49.00 Board Game Price on Kickstarter
• $199 + other reward levels on Kickstarter (e.g. a Zoom game night with creators)

Contact Info:

• Website: sommify.com
• Phone: (706) 313-0842
• Email: info@sommify.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sommify
• Facebook: www.facebook.com/sommify

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