Vertically Integrated. Good or Bad?

<p>Mike hit the ground running from a young age, steadily working jobs from the first chance he got at 14 years old and making his way through high school with a focus on business and fine art. He then made the move to New York to attend the School of Visual Arts, spending those years freelancing and developing the knowledge and skills that would lead to a Bachelor of Fine Arts in computer art. </p><p>Countless projects later, the desire came to move away from creating commercial content for others and channel his energy, enthusiasm, and expertise into something more tangible, to build something from the ground up that inspires and empowers people and makes their nights at home special and memorable. Intrigued by the format of wildly popular meal subscription services, Mike—something of a craft cocktail hobbyist himself—drew up the plan that would lead to the founding of Shaker & Spoon. </p><p>From this moment of conception, all the way through to today, Mike’s long-fostered skills in design, video editing, packaging, branding, networking, and management have found their rightful home at S&S. And after just a few short years, this company—scaled 100% via bootstrapping and having taken on no debt before 2021—had already garnered many corporate partnerships, countless all-star collaborations, an ever-growing subscriber base, and a fiercely dedicated social media community, even before the cocktails-at-home craze of 2020.</p><p>Having overcome a tumultuous childhood amid unrest in the former Soviet Union, Anna Gorovoy’s drive for achievement and self-starting nature emerged quickly upon her family’s move to the US. Her high school’s valedictorian and a graduate of Yale University, she immediately applied her skills in detail-driven design and her love of the written word throughout a series of internships, including at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, before an impressive stint designing best-selling books at Macmillan Publishers. </p><p>Lured away from office life by an excit