QNSY, LLC
Tara Merdjanoff
www.drinkqnsy.com
Owner Tara Merdjanoff has been an actress for 20 years. She’s done it all – commercials, theater, off-broadway, her own cabaret show, all while working the many jobs in the fine dining sector.
Filled with creativity, both Tara and her husband were intrigued by the idea of having cocktails in cans to purchase and started to investigate the idea’s merit. As they spoke with their people in their network and the food industry, they were led to speak with the Queens Economic Development Corporation’s (QEDC) Entrepreneurship Assistance Center (EAC), where they worked with a business counselor to work on their business model and submit their business plan to QEDC’s annual StartUP! Competition in Spring 2021. They emerged as a finalist that round, and although they did not win the cash prize of $10,000, they were able to apply for loans and other funding sources using the business plan they put together for the competition. In the meantime, they decided to start executing their business plan. In September 2021, the brand named QNSY was brought to life. Since then, Tara and her husband have been doing about 4-5 tastings a week at different events and retailers and have been applying for loans with the help of QEDC business counselors. In Spring 2022, Dime Community Bank approved QNSY’s loan of $25,000 and as of July 2022, QNSY retails in about 300 stores across New York City and New Jersey. Tara is very excited about QNSY’s prospects. “QEDC is there to help those who have not done this before,” she states. In the next five years, Tara would like to distribute QNSY, all throughout the East Coast, Connecticut, and Louisiana. She would also like to create strategic partnerships to further reduce her production costs and increase her marketing efforts and visibility.