Meet Alec Bantel of Detroit

Today we’d like to introduce you to Alec Bantel.

Hi Alec, please kick things off for us with an introduction to yourself and your story.
I didn’t start out trying to build brands or products. Like a lot of people, I was just curious about things and enjoyed figuring them out.

Wine was one of those things. I always liked it, but I noticed that a lot of people felt intimidated by wine culture. It often felt overly serious or exclusive, when in reality wine is supposed to be fun and social. I started sharing what I was learning in a more relaxed way, and that eventually turned into an Instagram page called Cork Connoisseur. The goal was simple: make wine feel approachable, relatable and something people could enjoy without feeling like they needed a certification to talk about it.

What surprised me was how quickly people connected with that idea. The page grew, brands started reaching out, and I realized there was a real appetite for content that made wine less intimidating and more human.

At the same time, my professional background has always been in product and technology, so I’ve always had a builder’s mindset. I enjoy looking at everyday problems and asking whether there’s a better way to solve them.

That’s part of what led me to start working on ACTIQO. As a parent, I noticed how easy it is for family life to become a constant cycle of activities, practices and commitments. Everyone means well, but sometimes you step back and wonder whether all of it is actually energizing your kids or just exhausting everyone. ACTIQO grew out of that observation. The idea is to give families a simple way to reflect on how activities are actually affecting their kids over time, instead of just running on autopilot.

Looking back, the common thread between everything I’ve done is curiosity and building things that make everyday life a little simpler or more enjoyable. Cork Connoisseur started as a way to make wine culture more approachable, and ACTIQO is an attempt to bring more clarity to family life. In different ways, they both come from the same place: noticing something in the real world that feels unnecessarily complicated and trying to make it easier for people.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
It definitely hasn’t been a completely smooth road. Most things that grow organically rarely are.

When I first started Cork Connoisseur, it was really just an idea I was experimenting with. I didn’t have a playbook for building an audience or working with brands, and there were plenty of moments where I questioned whether anyone would actually care about what I was sharing. Social media can be unpredictable, and you quickly learn that consistency matters a lot more than perfection.

Another challenge has simply been time. Like many people building something on the side, I’ve had to balance it with a full-time career, family life and everything else that comes with being an adult. That forces you to be disciplined about where you put your energy and to stay focused on the things that actually move the needle.

With ACTIQO, the challenge has been a different kind of learning curve. Building a product that helps families reflect on their lives is a lot more complex than it sounds at first. You want it to be genuinely helpful without feeling intrusive or overwhelming. That requires a lot of thinking, testing ideas, and being willing to adjust when something doesn’t quite work the way you expected.

But in some ways those challenges are the most valuable part of the process. They force you to listen, adapt and stay curious. None of this has been a straight line, but that’s also what makes it interesting.

Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
Most of what I do revolves around building things that make everyday experiences feel more approachable.

With Cork Connoisseur, that means taking something that can sometimes feel intimidating—wine culture—and making it more relaxed, relatable, and enjoyable for everyday people. I try to approach wine the way most people actually experience it: sharing a bottle with friends, pairing it with a good meal, or discovering something new while traveling. The response from people who say they feel more confident exploring wine because of the content has been one of the most rewarding parts of building that community.

At the same time, my professional background is in product and technology, so I’m naturally drawn to solving problems and building tools. That mindset is what led me to start working on ACTIQO. The idea came from something a lot of parents experience—family schedules filling up with activities without really stepping back to ask whether those activities are actually energizing kids or just adding more pressure. ACTIQO is designed to help families reflect on that over time so they can make better decisions about where they invest their time and energy.

What I’m most proud of isn’t necessarily the size of an audience or the number of projects—it’s the fact that everything has grown organically out of curiosity and real-life experiences. Cork Connoisseur started as a small idea that resonated with people, and ACTIQO came from observing something in everyday family life that felt worth exploring.

If there’s something that sets me apart, it’s probably that combination of creativity and product thinking. I enjoy building communities and storytelling, but I also think deeply about systems and how technology can help people make clearer decisions. That blend has shaped everything I’ve worked on so far.

Is there something surprising that you feel even people who know you might not know about?
Something that might surprise people is that I tend to be a lot more analytical than they might expect based on the content I create. Cork Connoisseur is intentionally fun and relaxed on the surface, but behind the scenes I spend a lot of time thinking about systems, patterns, and how people make decisions.

That mindset comes from my background in product and technology. I’ve always been fascinated by how small signals—things people say, how they behave, what they respond to—can reveal deeper patterns. Whether it’s understanding what makes wine feel approachable to someone or thinking about how families decide which activities are actually worth their time, I’m naturally drawn to those questions.

So while people might see the wine content or the storytelling side, a big part of how I think is actually about building frameworks and tools that help people make clearer choices. In a lot of ways, the creative side and the analytical side feed each other. The creativity helps me connect with people, and the analytical side helps me figure out what problems are worth solving.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://thecorkconnoisseur.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cork_connoisseur/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thecorkconnoisseur/