Are Gen Z and High Wine Prices Killing the Industry? Paul Mabray and Andrew Levy Answer.

1
00:00:00,096 --> 00:00:03,837
AI Paul, in the end, it's another tool. The one thing

2
00:00:03,965 --> 00:00:07,402
that Paul and I, my Paul,

3
00:00:07,578 --> 00:00:11,191
recognizes, you know, talk to the customer, meeting with

4
00:00:11,255 --> 00:00:15,028
customers and sitting across the table face-to-face with them. And in this

5
00:00:15,028 --> 00:00:18,866
industry, that is part of the future. Sit back and

6
00:00:19,043 --> 00:00:22,864
grab a glass. It's Wine Talks with Paul Kaye.

7
00:00:25,642 --> 00:00:28,935
Hey, welcome to Wine Talks with Paul Kaye, and I am in studio today in

8
00:00:28,935 --> 00:00:32,436
beautiful Southern California, Monrovia, about to have a conversation with Andrew Levy

9
00:00:32,629 --> 00:00:36,292
and Paul Mabray about tech and wine and what's going on in the industry.

10
00:00:37,127 --> 00:00:40,757
Paul has been doing this for a long time. He's been part of the tech

11
00:00:40,757 --> 00:00:44,483
side of wine. He's one of the go-to newsmakers when it comes

12
00:00:44,516 --> 00:00:47,857
to digital marketing and digital wine, all things digital. Andrew Levy,

13
00:00:48,274 --> 00:00:51,021
just coming out of corporate BevAlc,

14
00:00:52,203 --> 00:00:55,916
Bev Alk. That's not even right. Adult Bev? Bev

15
00:00:55,916 --> 00:00:59,724
Adult? Hey, welcome to the show, you guys.

16
00:00:59,917 --> 00:01:03,409
Thanks for having us. Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. I was

17
00:01:03,683 --> 00:01:07,112
appreciative that you were available today. I

18
00:01:07,546 --> 00:01:11,238
had a blank day back in town. I'm out of town for a little bit

19
00:01:11,335 --> 00:01:15,004
and excited to have a conversation with you about your new product because I've been

20
00:01:15,004 --> 00:01:18,597
following it and it's called Pour Now. I've been following

21
00:01:18,629 --> 00:01:21,793
this a little bit to see what you guys are doing. Tell me

22
00:01:23,133 --> 00:01:26,830
what this impetus was. What was it you were trying to do when it came

23
00:01:26,830 --> 00:01:30,053
to what's on the street today and who this

24
00:01:30,248 --> 00:01:33,500
benefits? Well, look,

25
00:01:33,790 --> 00:01:36,302
Andrew and I, if we're going to do a startup, we want to do something

26
00:01:36,302 --> 00:01:39,909
that solves a big, big problem, not a small problem, something that touches the

27
00:01:39,909 --> 00:01:43,459
industry. And there's not a lot of big problems out there that really scale. And

28
00:01:44,727 --> 00:01:48,436
helping the shopper find and measurably buy the product

29
00:01:48,532 --> 00:01:52,177
is a very good problem. It's something that plagues every single wine,

30
00:01:52,225 --> 00:01:55,356
spirits, beer RTD that exists out there.

31
00:01:56,224 --> 00:01:59,884
You know, it's interesting when you said that earlier when we were talking and

32
00:02:01,040 --> 00:02:04,059
it just hit me when I was on, when the Wine Month Club was running

33
00:02:04,252 --> 00:02:08,073
and we, and Amazon had started allowing alcohol sales

34
00:02:08,667 --> 00:02:12,503
and they of course were were rumored to be going after the feds to try

35
00:02:12,503 --> 00:02:16,242
and break down those barriers. Uh, it didn't work. But at some point I

36
00:02:16,290 --> 00:02:19,789
had, I thought, oh, this is so cool. I'm going to put all this wine

37
00:02:19,821 --> 00:02:23,431
into Amazon and I'm going to get all these sales, which is

38
00:02:23,495 --> 00:02:26,368
always the entrepreneur's expectation.

39
00:02:27,347 --> 00:02:29,770
But what was interesting to me, and maybe this is what you're solving, one of

40
00:02:29,770 --> 00:02:33,380
the problems is that all they bought from me, if you can believe this, and

41
00:02:33,380 --> 00:02:37,007
I pumped everything, all my French Burgundies, Bordeaux, everything into the system.

42
00:02:37,538 --> 00:02:41,289
was Stella Rosa. And it seemed to me that

43
00:02:41,578 --> 00:02:45,120
that's because the Amazon shopper was the type of shopper that knew what they wanted

44
00:02:45,120 --> 00:02:48,499
to buy already and was just trying to find, trying to find it cheaper

45
00:02:48,499 --> 00:02:52,228
somewhere. And, and that was what ended up happening. How does this

46
00:02:52,678 --> 00:02:54,687
sort of supplement all that?

47
00:02:56,340 --> 00:02:59,558
Yeah, you know, what we've really seen is, is digital

48
00:02:59,947 --> 00:03:03,538
still remains the most cost-effective and efficient way

49
00:03:03,667 --> 00:03:07,383
for brands to be communicating with their consumers. But

50
00:03:07,383 --> 00:03:11,090
there's been this kind of final mile of shopping gap

51
00:03:11,475 --> 00:03:15,231
that results in the brand being able to engage and

52
00:03:15,311 --> 00:03:18,890
excite their consumer for, for the, for the brand, but then

53
00:03:18,938 --> 00:03:22,517
not being able to find a clean path to purchase to actually

54
00:03:22,710 --> 00:03:26,513
get it. And so that's really the opportunity that, that Paul and I

55
00:03:26,818 --> 00:03:30,429
saw, which is PourNow is not here to create that consumer

56
00:03:30,429 --> 00:03:33,654
demand. We're really here to be that final mile

57
00:03:33,943 --> 00:03:37,566
connector to the brand efforts and investments that they were

58
00:03:37,566 --> 00:03:41,382
already making to excite their consumer to actually close that gap

59
00:03:41,879 --> 00:03:45,293
and complete the purchase. And, and we think that's been,

60
00:03:45,790 --> 00:03:49,574
you know, the problem of dead-end brand marketing has only

61
00:03:49,638 --> 00:03:53,325
grown over the years since, since you've talked about it. It

62
00:03:53,325 --> 00:03:57,045
seems, it seems that, you know, my, my experience was 20 years

63
00:03:57,045 --> 00:04:00,652
ago, so much must have changed, will, did

64
00:04:00,700 --> 00:04:04,357
change. We all know this with consumer branding and

65
00:04:04,405 --> 00:04:08,180
direct-to-consumer marketing through the digital channels. And kind of evidenced

66
00:04:08,180 --> 00:04:10,687
by the fact that when I started on Facebook,

67
00:04:11,875 --> 00:04:15,442
you didn't leave Facebook to go buy something. It just didn't happen. You were there

68
00:04:15,554 --> 00:04:18,864
to socialize, and that's how Facebook was structured. And now it's almost

69
00:04:18,928 --> 00:04:22,270
entirely advertising and leaving

70
00:04:22,334 --> 00:04:25,403
Facebook to go buy something or buying it within the network itself.

71
00:04:26,817 --> 00:04:29,419
Paul, to go back to your point though, I mean, you're not wrong in the

72
00:04:29,532 --> 00:04:33,205
Amazon effort, with the wine that was bought there. But think about all

73
00:04:33,301 --> 00:04:35,930
the brands that you carried at your store, every single one of them that was

74
00:04:36,026 --> 00:04:39,329
doing some sort of marketing, and you were a needle in a

75
00:04:39,329 --> 00:04:43,016
haystack of a retailer that carried those products because no one could help you get

76
00:04:43,016 --> 00:04:46,847
there. That they did the marketing, the shopper got excited, and

77
00:04:46,927 --> 00:04:49,989
then they had to go searching for that needle in a haystack through a bunch

78
00:04:49,989 --> 00:04:52,891
of different tools that didn't get there. That's our job. We're the one that says,

79
00:04:52,939 --> 00:04:56,610
hey, look at the brand, did a message, a press release, anything. And

80
00:04:56,610 --> 00:05:00,210
hey, by the way, Wine of the Month Club holds that product. Let's help you

81
00:05:00,210 --> 00:05:03,420
get there. So I'm a consumer. I go to a restaurant.

82
00:05:04,650 --> 00:05:06,630
Well, let's see. I went to this wine bar that we're going to talk about

83
00:05:06,630 --> 00:05:10,430
a little bit in Hermosa Beach called Malandrina. And I

84
00:05:10,430 --> 00:05:13,930
tasted a sparkling Chambolle from

85
00:05:13,930 --> 00:05:16,830
Semeur. And I want to go buy that. What

86
00:05:16,830 --> 00:05:20,330
happens? Well, you usually go to the brand site first,

87
00:05:20,330 --> 00:05:23,270
right? You Google and go to the brand site. That's kind of the number one

88
00:05:23,270 --> 00:05:25,730
path that you do, or you Google it and try to find somewhere to buy

89
00:05:25,730 --> 00:05:29,348
it. But you Generally, you Google and go to the brand site or you'll see

90
00:05:29,348 --> 00:05:33,069
an advertisement from them that's a placement, and then that's where we take

91
00:05:33,069 --> 00:05:36,723
over. And what does that mean? So you're not iFraming

92
00:05:36,836 --> 00:05:40,665
into websites, but you are the website. Are you just

93
00:05:40,875 --> 00:05:44,691
handing off the information? So I come on one side and all the wineries and

94
00:05:44,691 --> 00:05:47,505
brands come on the other side and you are negotiating those relationships?

95
00:05:49,610 --> 00:05:53,316
No, we're iFraming into their website. We have landing pages,

96
00:05:53,413 --> 00:05:56,385
or there's lots of places that they can come into. They can embed other websites,

97
00:05:56,401 --> 00:05:59,598
they can embed your website and put a brand, and we can help that shopper

98
00:05:59,598 --> 00:06:03,229
find that. If you were doing an interview with a winemaker today, it doesn't

99
00:06:03,229 --> 00:06:06,443
matter where it goes. We're just that final mile that helps them find that product.

100
00:06:07,792 --> 00:06:11,471
Do you think that this solves— I mean, it seems to me it solves

101
00:06:12,548 --> 00:06:16,259
part of the headwinds that the industry is

102
00:06:16,259 --> 00:06:20,086
suffering right now in that We just go

103
00:06:20,086 --> 00:06:23,930
back to the same old thing because it's easier and the supermarket

104
00:06:23,930 --> 00:06:26,874
has it and there's 1,000 shelf talkers at Ralph's today

105
00:06:28,032 --> 00:06:31,841
and this is an opportunity to navigate

106
00:06:31,841 --> 00:06:34,991
this world without so much intimidation.

107
00:06:36,832 --> 00:06:40,300
I think, Paul, what we've seen, you know, what the rule of thumb that's

108
00:06:40,300 --> 00:06:43,816
developed is, is, oh, there's a limit to how much consumers

109
00:06:43,929 --> 00:06:46,934
want to search, shop, and discover

110
00:06:47,576 --> 00:06:50,370
online for our industry. And

111
00:06:51,430 --> 00:06:54,897
I would argue, we would argue that that's not true. I, you know, we, we

112
00:06:54,897 --> 00:06:58,735
believe that the problem is, is that there's been a dead

113
00:06:58,735 --> 00:07:02,443
end offered to the consumer as they're looking to search, shop,

114
00:07:02,459 --> 00:07:05,863
and discover. And that if we provide a path

115
00:07:06,120 --> 00:07:09,524
to licensed retailers, to the consumer,

116
00:07:09,732 --> 00:07:13,152
that they're The sales are there, um,

117
00:07:13,605 --> 00:07:17,435
and, uh, that's been part of the problem with the industry.

118
00:07:17,564 --> 00:07:21,150
So in terms of like overcoming the headwinds, uh, more sales

119
00:07:21,586 --> 00:07:25,272
definitely help mitigate those headwinds. And there's been an

120
00:07:25,305 --> 00:07:29,007
either-or conversation. You said it earlier, is it DTC or 3-tier?

121
00:07:29,088 --> 00:07:31,808
Look, if you sell to the trade, you should be doing both of those things.

122
00:07:31,904 --> 00:07:34,924
You're supposed to be able to walk and chew bubble gum at the same time

123
00:07:35,599 --> 00:07:39,310
and support your retailers while still trying to sell DTC. It's omnichannel is the right

124
00:07:39,310 --> 00:07:43,131
answer. I think we all witnessed that during COVID

125
00:07:43,244 --> 00:07:46,294
where, you know, brands that were not

126
00:07:46,599 --> 00:07:50,389
DTC got clobbered, brands that were only distributors

127
00:07:50,405 --> 00:07:53,793
got clobbered. So it certainly is at least a 2-legged stool,

128
00:07:54,563 --> 00:07:58,080
but probably more like a 3-legged stool to do this. So

129
00:07:59,043 --> 00:08:02,046
there have been a lot of different formats like this where,

130
00:08:02,833 --> 00:08:06,521
you know, some started out as information sites,

131
00:08:06,554 --> 00:08:09,965
some start as price competitive sites, but not necessarily, you

132
00:08:09,965 --> 00:08:13,765
know, DTC or e-commerce sites. How did you,

133
00:08:14,881 --> 00:08:18,502
how did you fathom putting all these pieces into one place, into one

134
00:08:18,843 --> 00:08:22,660
central location to massage the data and, and make it work for the

135
00:08:22,660 --> 00:08:25,658
consumer? A lot of lumps.

136
00:08:28,188 --> 00:08:31,639
I guess that was a loaded question. I don't know. Yeah, I think that Andrew

137
00:08:31,656 --> 00:08:34,398
and I have done a good job experiencing a lot of the internet and digital

138
00:08:34,398 --> 00:08:38,248
in general, and finding the answer was important for us. That was something that

139
00:08:38,666 --> 00:08:41,346
brought value back to the market. I mean, you don't see us taking a slice

140
00:08:41,410 --> 00:08:45,085
of the transaction. You don't see us, you

141
00:08:45,085 --> 00:08:48,087
know, being predatory and taking over things. We're trying to

142
00:08:49,098 --> 00:08:52,933
re-inject value back into the supply chain and get paid

143
00:08:52,933 --> 00:08:56,689
for it. And it's proven to be pretty true. I mean, we're approaching 500 brands

144
00:08:57,283 --> 00:09:00,958
in just what, 7 months, 8 months on Stealth. So that's a

145
00:09:00,958 --> 00:09:04,532
lot of brands in the system. So, and a lot of

146
00:09:04,614 --> 00:09:07,697
transactions going through the system in a very short order of time because we do

147
00:09:07,697 --> 00:09:11,354
it better. Are you— and I think, Paul, like one of the

148
00:09:11,354 --> 00:09:14,382
things that you, you just touched on, which is coming outta COVID,

149
00:09:14,978 --> 00:09:18,570
is that, you know, we want to meet, we want to enable brands to meet

150
00:09:18,570 --> 00:09:21,829
that consumer where they are. Sometimes they're gonna want it shipped.

151
00:09:21,990 --> 00:09:25,669
Sometimes they're gonna want to pick it up. Sometimes they're gonna want it delivered locally.

152
00:09:27,112 --> 00:09:30,932
You know, like let's, let's enable the consumer to get access to

153
00:09:31,077 --> 00:09:34,890
the product for the occasion that they're shopping for.

154
00:09:35,843 --> 00:09:39,559
And that's the way that we've structured our solution as well, to

155
00:09:39,575 --> 00:09:43,120
really be able to close that gap

156
00:09:43,265 --> 00:09:46,742
is let's get them to the sale and let's get them there the way that

157
00:09:46,742 --> 00:09:50,267
they want to get there rather than trying to dictate to them or say, oh,

158
00:09:50,348 --> 00:09:53,579
you have to wait 6 months because I don't ship.

159
00:09:54,222 --> 00:09:58,000
Maybe I don't ship in the summertime because it's too hot. But I'm available

160
00:09:58,000 --> 00:10:01,509
down the street at the, at the at the wine store. So

161
00:10:02,646 --> 00:10:06,365
let's get that brand and that bottle in the hands of the consumer

162
00:10:06,544 --> 00:10:10,158
when and where they want it. You know, that just

163
00:10:10,158 --> 00:10:13,694
struck me how unique that is. And we were talking about this

164
00:10:13,999 --> 00:10:17,084
new wine bar that opened in Hermosa Beach called Malandria. They're also a little retail

165
00:10:17,084 --> 00:10:19,867
store and they have very unique wines because,

166
00:10:21,493 --> 00:10:25,099
you know, we were talking about the distribution side of these things and how it's

167
00:10:25,099 --> 00:10:28,895
consolidated and how Southern's become this giant book how there's small

168
00:10:28,895 --> 00:10:32,075
distributors going away, but then there's some activity on the other side where some

169
00:10:32,444 --> 00:10:36,201
small distributors are banding together. And I didn't recognize a whole lot

170
00:10:36,201 --> 00:10:39,830
on their list, but they do sell them retail. So you,

171
00:10:40,215 --> 00:10:43,892
you can support a brand, a store like that. And

172
00:10:43,972 --> 00:10:47,553
I don't have to go searching for a liquor store or wine

173
00:10:47,601 --> 00:10:51,118
shop looking for one wine and settle on something else because they don't have the

174
00:10:51,134 --> 00:10:54,810
one I want. We know going out, walking out the door where that wine

175
00:10:54,810 --> 00:10:58,450
might be. That's 100% correct. And I mean, we're not

176
00:10:58,450 --> 00:11:01,130
trying to put our finger on the scale. We're trying to give the shopper the

177
00:11:01,130 --> 00:11:03,830
decision what they want to do, if they want to buy from an independent or

178
00:11:03,830 --> 00:11:07,170
chain, a regional chain, if they want to be shipped or pick up.

179
00:11:07,530 --> 00:11:11,290
And we're not trying to create extra friction in the supply chain by trying

180
00:11:11,290 --> 00:11:14,610
to take a slice of the pie or any of those things. We're trying to

181
00:11:14,610 --> 00:11:17,120
unlock that velocity that should have been there anyways.

182
00:11:18,490 --> 00:11:22,270
I got to tell you a scenario which just blew my mind the other day.

183
00:11:22,270 --> 00:11:26,054
We're down here mostly where we hang out much of the time and Instacart becomes

184
00:11:26,086 --> 00:11:29,265
a major player in feeding my grandkids.

185
00:11:29,923 --> 00:11:33,648
And my wife was complaining the other day because everything that she

186
00:11:33,712 --> 00:11:37,373
put on the list, and I forgot what it was, Sprouts, was

187
00:11:37,470 --> 00:11:40,183
being re— what do they call it?

188
00:11:41,580 --> 00:11:45,241
Was out of stock and they needed to replace it with something else. Almost

189
00:11:45,337 --> 00:11:48,885
virtually everything in the cart. And the guy's excuse was that the

190
00:11:48,885 --> 00:11:52,303
Instacart inventory is not kept up to

191
00:11:52,335 --> 00:11:55,975
date with the store's inventory. And I

192
00:11:56,023 --> 00:11:59,535
thought, how absurd in today's day and age that,

193
00:11:59,936 --> 00:12:03,415
that, that's a problem. I mean, there's, I mean, it's not even the word

194
00:12:03,415 --> 00:12:06,622
API anymore. It's, there's so many ways to connect the data

195
00:12:07,023 --> 00:12:10,855
and you've solved this problem. Yeah, I think we've

196
00:12:10,855 --> 00:12:13,661
done a pretty good job at it. I mean, we look for the availability at

197
00:12:13,661 --> 00:12:17,205
the store. That's the job. And, you know, you get different degrees of that

198
00:12:17,205 --> 00:12:20,652
availability, but we don't show in any of

199
00:12:21,116 --> 00:12:24,883
the, the locations unless it has availability that we've gotten from the store. That's

200
00:12:24,883 --> 00:12:28,715
an important part of our value proposition. I mean, it seems— it just

201
00:12:28,715 --> 00:12:32,386
seemed natural to have

202
00:12:32,418 --> 00:12:36,169
some kind of relationship between the store database and the, and the

203
00:12:36,249 --> 00:12:40,048
online database. You know, I just thought of a thought that's kind of

204
00:12:40,048 --> 00:12:43,815
interesting because, Andrew, I came from the DTC

205
00:12:43,879 --> 00:12:47,181
world of wine. I came through a very tumultuous part of it where

206
00:12:47,726 --> 00:12:51,205
at some point, much like Trader Joe's, the deals were actually real.

207
00:12:51,734 --> 00:12:55,373
You actually found interesting wines at a discounted price because of the millions of

208
00:12:55,421 --> 00:12:58,979
reasons why they weren't marketed properly. And that changed, that

209
00:12:59,092 --> 00:13:01,897
shifted gears, uh, in the, in the

210
00:13:02,297 --> 00:13:05,648
2012 to '15 sort of space where they started bringing in

211
00:13:06,385 --> 00:13:10,072
this 50-cent-a-liter, you know, Valencia wine stuff, and it was bottled

212
00:13:10,072 --> 00:13:13,582
under a bunch of brands and sold as legit wine,

213
00:13:14,175 --> 00:13:17,349
you know, a case of wine for $89, free shipping.

214
00:13:18,028 --> 00:13:21,596
And I think that did a lot of damage to the consumer's

215
00:13:21,596 --> 00:13:25,391
confidence in that kind of thing. And it seems to me that this

216
00:13:25,391 --> 00:13:29,056
product might start turning the tide like that, because I'm going to start

217
00:13:29,105 --> 00:13:32,711
looking for things I know I like or start looking for things I have

218
00:13:32,744 --> 00:13:36,386
had in the past at a restaurant. And I know I have access to them

219
00:13:36,386 --> 00:13:38,697
because I can get on PourNow and find them.

220
00:13:40,310 --> 00:13:44,101
Yeah, I really, you know, what Paul and I really saw was

221
00:13:44,214 --> 00:13:47,990
that, again, that opportunity to enable that consumer to

222
00:13:48,006 --> 00:13:51,819
search, shop, and discover for what products are around them or what

223
00:13:51,851 --> 00:13:55,696
product they want and how they can get it. One of the,

224
00:13:55,777 --> 00:13:59,446
one of the things that we've seen, for example, is

225
00:14:00,423 --> 00:14:02,810
brands doing tastings

226
00:14:03,563 --> 00:14:07,248
and really getting liquid to lips, which continues to be

227
00:14:07,248 --> 00:14:10,950
important, which, you know, do you want to, do you want to offer a

228
00:14:11,014 --> 00:14:14,683
cheap wine or a nicer, a nicer wine and be able to

229
00:14:14,683 --> 00:14:18,259
have the consumer experience that? Well, then give them a QR

230
00:14:18,307 --> 00:14:22,032
code that takes them to your brand's listing on PourNow

231
00:14:22,257 --> 00:14:25,613
where they can actually buy it by the bottle in the case. So,

232
00:14:26,400 --> 00:14:29,836
you know, the idea of really being able to engage

233
00:14:30,189 --> 00:14:34,011
that consumer when and where they are is something that

234
00:14:34,123 --> 00:14:37,896
I think the industry does talk about, but it hasn't

235
00:14:37,896 --> 00:14:40,176
quite closed the loop until, until now.

236
00:14:42,200 --> 00:14:44,225
That's a really interesting thought because

237
00:14:46,510 --> 00:14:50,092
I was part of a Bordeaux tasting at a private

238
00:14:50,092 --> 00:14:52,796
residence, Château Haut-Bailly. Good friends.

239
00:14:54,197 --> 00:14:57,980
The woman that put this on, a young girl, she's a Cornell enology student

240
00:14:58,367 --> 00:15:01,901
who got to work at Haut-Bailly thanks to Wine of the Month Club

241
00:15:02,402 --> 00:15:06,152
one summer. And what was kind of interesting to

242
00:15:06,201 --> 00:15:09,571
me was that Haut-Bailly, here's this

243
00:15:09,860 --> 00:15:13,323
Bordeaux house, you know, a classified growth of its own right from the

244
00:15:13,323 --> 00:15:16,947
Graves, that reached out to a young girl in

245
00:15:16,947 --> 00:15:19,657
America and said, would you mind hosting a dinner?

246
00:15:20,779 --> 00:15:23,874
You pay for the food, we'll pay for the wine. We want to expose

247
00:15:24,932 --> 00:15:28,123
some higher wealth clients to, to the brand.

248
00:15:29,277 --> 00:15:32,853
No sales talk, no Tupperware party, no nothing. Just expose the brand.

249
00:15:33,366 --> 00:15:36,993
And here it seems like a classic place to say, Here's a QR

250
00:15:37,058 --> 00:15:38,976
code for finding the wine.

251
00:15:41,602 --> 00:15:45,363
Yep. That, that's, it's exactly right. I mean, the purpose, the purpose

252
00:15:45,476 --> 00:15:49,301
of tastings, look, I've been in the industry for 20-plus years. I love going

253
00:15:49,334 --> 00:15:52,950
to a great wine tasting. I love experiencing the, the

254
00:15:52,950 --> 00:15:56,712
feel and the experience and the romance of the liquid. But in the

255
00:15:56,792 --> 00:16:00,357
end, if I'm that brand, I'm doing it to actually sell

256
00:16:00,357 --> 00:16:03,957
something. That's right. Right? I, I, I, I want, I want to build the equity.

257
00:16:04,038 --> 00:16:07,599
Yeah. But I actually wanna also sell. And,

258
00:16:07,888 --> 00:16:11,696
and, and again, like digital, the digital path continues to

259
00:16:11,696 --> 00:16:15,408
be the most efficient path for brands to engage with their

260
00:16:15,537 --> 00:16:19,232
consumers. And so why not take advantage of that? Convert that

261
00:16:19,232 --> 00:16:22,333
sampling, convert that tasting from a fantastic equity

262
00:16:22,429 --> 00:16:26,270
experience to an actual sale of a bottle or case at your,

263
00:16:26,607 --> 00:16:30,367
at your consumer's favorite local retailer that

264
00:16:30,383 --> 00:16:34,205
has it available. I think the point also

265
00:16:34,253 --> 00:16:38,091
of this event was that wine is, I think, and Paul and I have

266
00:16:38,091 --> 00:16:41,848
had this conversation before, headed back to the experiential side of

267
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:45,718
things. Groups that were around in the '70s, like in this picture here,

268
00:16:45,798 --> 00:16:48,881
my father and I in 1975, you know, hosting events

269
00:16:49,652 --> 00:16:52,671
in Marineland, which is now Terrenea, for

270
00:16:53,265 --> 00:16:57,103
groups. Mondavi would speak. And I think, I think for this industry, and

271
00:16:57,119 --> 00:17:00,186
I don't— I'm not a doom and gloomer like everybody reads on LinkedIn. Oh my

272
00:17:00,186 --> 00:17:03,767
God, the industry's— it's only been around about what, 6,000 to 10,000 years? So I

273
00:17:03,799 --> 00:17:07,476
doubt it's going anywhere. But certainly, uh, there's pressures on it

274
00:17:07,492 --> 00:17:11,233
marketing-wise. And, and certainly, I think, as Oddity

275
00:17:11,265 --> 00:17:14,846
Global, uh, Group says in the Rhône, that, you know, wine is

276
00:17:14,958 --> 00:17:18,298
consumer-driven. That's what it is. That's— we expect to have consumers.

277
00:17:18,956 --> 00:17:22,553
But I don't see it as, as going away. It's

278
00:17:22,601 --> 00:17:26,406
almost ridiculous to even contemplate that. What are the— what do you think the pressures

279
00:17:26,583 --> 00:17:29,747
are The number one pressure, do you think it's

280
00:17:30,907 --> 00:17:33,758
the Gen Zers, which is— I'm not sure I agree with, but

281
00:17:34,547 --> 00:17:37,660
not that it's the Gen Zers, but it's how they buy, it's how those

282
00:17:38,015 --> 00:17:41,362
generations are coming to the table versus actual

283
00:17:41,410 --> 00:17:45,187
pressure on the brands. It's buzz for

284
00:17:45,187 --> 00:17:48,333
buck. I mean, that's the answer. I mean, if you're a Gen Zer or a

285
00:17:48,397 --> 00:17:52,075
younger person, where's your disposable income going to spend? How much money you

286
00:17:52,124 --> 00:17:55,818
have and the pressures on those generations has been exceptional

287
00:17:56,669 --> 00:18:00,087
from economics. I mean, and if you look, wine is premiumized

288
00:18:00,505 --> 00:18:04,341
pretty severely over the last 20 years at a price point that's pretty

289
00:18:04,341 --> 00:18:07,487
high. That's true.

290
00:18:08,209 --> 00:18:12,046
So, and I guess your software works with

291
00:18:12,078 --> 00:18:15,866
non-alc virtually. I guess it doesn't really matter what the product is. You can

292
00:18:15,866 --> 00:18:19,188
pretty much put anything you want in there. But

293
00:18:19,847 --> 00:18:23,591
do you think the non-alc movement has put pressure on this industry?

294
00:18:23,769 --> 00:18:27,414
And is PourNow just helping

295
00:18:27,414 --> 00:18:30,478
shortcut the decision-making process to make it easier

296
00:18:31,203 --> 00:18:33,158
and maybe give a boost in sales? Is that—

297
00:18:36,037 --> 00:18:38,529
I think that there's a lot of pressures, but I think that if you're talking

298
00:18:38,545 --> 00:18:42,249
wine, it's mostly price, right? And, but there's a lot of macroeconomic things

299
00:18:42,281 --> 00:18:45,191
happening, whether it's the implosion of R&D, tariffs,

300
00:18:45,207 --> 00:18:48,876
socioeconomic stuff. It's a mess out there, right? So there's a lot going

301
00:18:48,973 --> 00:18:52,214
on. Wine obviously has a more precipitous decline than all

302
00:18:52,456 --> 00:18:56,303
Alcove. But I think our job is to help everybody out.

303
00:18:56,561 --> 00:18:59,153
Our job is to really help the shopper buy the product they want to buy

304
00:18:59,282 --> 00:19:01,982
and not go to the out-of-stock Instacart solution or

305
00:19:03,007 --> 00:19:06,841
get an ad and not be able to find it. Right. I wonder

306
00:19:06,841 --> 00:19:10,634
if this is like 20, 20-plus years, Andrew, have you seen— I'm

307
00:19:10,731 --> 00:19:13,927
not gonna say turmoil, but as much

308
00:19:15,503 --> 00:19:19,310
much pressure from variety of outside sources on the wine

309
00:19:19,359 --> 00:19:22,958
trade only. And like in this picture of my father, we had Boone's Farm and

310
00:19:22,958 --> 00:19:26,749
Matus and Lancer's, and we had Cold Duck. Hey, Cold Duck, who

311
00:19:26,749 --> 00:19:30,509
remembers that? So, um, but have you seen

312
00:19:30,509 --> 00:19:33,610
a period where there's this many influences changing the way

313
00:19:34,445 --> 00:19:38,189
consumers buy? Paul, you haven't aged a day since that photo, by the way.

314
00:19:38,623 --> 00:19:41,322
Um, thank you. Appreciate that.

315
00:19:42,333 --> 00:19:45,826
Look, I think that there's always dynamic pressures across the industry.

316
00:19:46,274 --> 00:19:50,104
Sometimes it's on spirits. You know, spirits did a good job of lobbying to

317
00:19:50,104 --> 00:19:53,902
get more marketing access. You know, they got back on TV, they

318
00:19:53,934 --> 00:19:57,459
were able to get back and talk to the

319
00:19:57,459 --> 00:20:01,177
consumer in ways that they hadn't before. And that caused challenges

320
00:20:01,177 --> 00:20:04,286
across the industry. We now have kind of unprecedented

321
00:20:04,286 --> 00:20:07,939
distributor-tier disruption. There's always

322
00:20:08,180 --> 00:20:11,721
competition for the share of stomach or share of throat, however you want to frame

323
00:20:11,881 --> 00:20:14,877
it in terms of what people are drinking or the buzz that

324
00:20:15,646 --> 00:20:19,155
they're looking for. So I don't know if we're necessarily

325
00:20:19,892 --> 00:20:23,594
in a fundamentally different era other

326
00:20:23,594 --> 00:20:26,718
than we're just in another cycle of it.

327
00:20:27,103 --> 00:20:30,291
And the reality is, and I'll pick up a little bit on

328
00:20:31,124 --> 00:20:34,729
what Paul was saying in terms of we

329
00:20:34,874 --> 00:20:38,550
are in a shift, towards digital. The younger drinker

330
00:20:39,327 --> 00:20:42,126
is digitally native. They are looking to buy

331
00:20:42,142 --> 00:20:45,429
online. They are looking to search, shop, and

332
00:20:45,429 --> 00:20:49,181
discover online. They are looking for

333
00:20:49,181 --> 00:20:52,254
experiences with a brand.

334
00:20:52,788 --> 00:20:55,975
And so brands that win are gonna be able to

335
00:20:56,752 --> 00:21:00,118
offer an experience and translate that into a digital

336
00:21:00,425 --> 00:21:04,147
environment. where that consumer

337
00:21:04,147 --> 00:21:07,855
can continue to engage with the brand and get them to

338
00:21:08,160 --> 00:21:11,499
purchase. That's gonna be the, you know, kind of winning combination,

339
00:21:12,077 --> 00:21:15,175
whether you're talking about wine, beer,

340
00:21:15,641 --> 00:21:19,414
spirits, RTD, whatever it is. And I even expand

341
00:21:19,414 --> 00:21:23,250
on that. Yeah, I'd even expand. Andrew's saying the younger generation's there, but,

342
00:21:23,636 --> 00:21:27,408
you know, in any first world nation, it's the older generation too. We're all there,

343
00:21:27,424 --> 00:21:30,619
we're all digitally here. So it's, we all have smartphones, we all know how to

344
00:21:30,619 --> 00:21:34,357
use Google and Amazon and everything. I mean, We obviously have different levels of use,

345
00:21:34,486 --> 00:21:38,174
but like you said, your wife is using Instacart. I

346
00:21:38,190 --> 00:21:42,007
mean, it's pretty endemic, the digital tools. We have to

347
00:21:42,007 --> 00:21:44,750
meet the shopper where the shopper is, and if we're not meeting them there, we're

348
00:21:44,766 --> 00:21:48,406
going to miss them. It's that simple. And so this is

349
00:21:49,625 --> 00:21:52,688
extraordinarily attractive then to— let's go back to

350
00:21:53,169 --> 00:21:56,954
pre-COVID. I think we've had this discussion before, Paul, but I was on my way,

351
00:21:57,259 --> 00:22:00,838
I stopped to talk to Sarah Clearman from the, uh, Napa Valley

352
00:22:00,870 --> 00:22:03,599
Register. I thought this was gonna be a glowing article about the Wine of the

353
00:22:03,599 --> 00:22:07,243
Month Club, what a great guy I was. And it was more, it was more

354
00:22:07,291 --> 00:22:11,032
of her probing me on what are these wineries gonna do. They don't even

355
00:22:11,048 --> 00:22:14,724
have, uh, they barely have a website. They have, some don't have

356
00:22:14,756 --> 00:22:18,208
DTC at all, but let's say the ones that have a, a skeleton of a

357
00:22:18,288 --> 00:22:22,109
DTC program, they certainly don't have a customer service rep sitting

358
00:22:22,125 --> 00:22:25,223
at, at a monitor looking, uh, for the chat bell to go off.

359
00:22:26,026 --> 00:22:29,599
And I thought, okay, that's kind of interesting. These people were caught with their pants

360
00:22:29,599 --> 00:22:32,865
down. Does this, does this product then

361
00:22:33,625 --> 00:22:37,411
support brands like that that are, you know, let's

362
00:22:37,411 --> 00:22:40,566
face it, there's a lot of small places out there that really don't understand any

363
00:22:40,566 --> 00:22:44,093
of this still. It's hard to believe everybody talks about how slow the

364
00:22:44,093 --> 00:22:47,693
industry is. Well, it's once a year, but does this help those people?

365
00:22:49,620 --> 00:22:52,541
Yeah, we help anyone that's in distribution for sure. Just that

366
00:22:52,541 --> 00:22:56,373
simple. You know, we have different degrees of helping them. We made it simple

367
00:22:56,373 --> 00:23:00,221
for them to the degree that we help is, you know, how much

368
00:23:00,494 --> 00:23:03,917
traffic or how much, you know, distribution they have and how much they're advertising or

369
00:23:03,949 --> 00:23:07,604
marketing their product or promoting it. That simple. And does it

370
00:23:07,604 --> 00:23:11,080
matter whether they use 3-tier direct-to-consumer or, you know,

371
00:23:11,210 --> 00:23:14,444
tasting room traffic? Well,

372
00:23:14,834 --> 00:23:18,453
we supplement DTC. I mean, it's part of omnichannel, but really

373
00:23:18,470 --> 00:23:21,930
our focus is their distributed products. Right? We let them

374
00:23:22,684 --> 00:23:26,449
obviously offer DTC to be omnichannel, but our big

375
00:23:26,449 --> 00:23:29,798
help is the little brands that have distribution and aren't able to manage a market.

376
00:23:29,959 --> 00:23:33,500
And Andrew and I know we've gotten on planes before, we've flown to different states

377
00:23:33,500 --> 00:23:36,865
and rode along with a wholesaler, got a placement, went back home,

378
00:23:37,490 --> 00:23:41,208
and that next day there's another rep in this, the

379
00:23:41,208 --> 00:23:44,188
same car trying to bump us out of the thing. So this allows that little

380
00:23:44,236 --> 00:23:47,991
brand to still help keep that velocity from far away. Right? They're

381
00:23:47,991 --> 00:23:51,091
able to say, hey, we're in this state, we're in this area, we're in this

382
00:23:51,091 --> 00:23:53,022
city, and those sales can happen.

383
00:23:54,882 --> 00:23:58,051
You're offering them more eyes on the product, uh,

384
00:23:58,828 --> 00:24:02,369
simpler location, simpler ability to

385
00:24:02,385 --> 00:24:06,036
find it, which, you know, you mentioned earlier in the show that, you know,

386
00:24:06,052 --> 00:24:09,554
if you're going to Google a brand, who knows where that takes you when you—

387
00:24:09,748 --> 00:24:12,959
by the time you get past all the sponsored, you know,

388
00:24:13,803 --> 00:24:17,602
uh, auctioned-off locations or, you know, placements in the webpage, and then

389
00:24:17,618 --> 00:24:21,369
you, then you're the competitor of that person is buying the keywords

390
00:24:21,401 --> 00:24:24,335
for that search term, and you don't, you're not even sure what you're clicking on.

391
00:24:24,848 --> 00:24:28,647
So this is supporting the, the consumer as well as

392
00:24:29,000 --> 00:24:32,799
the brand. But if I, going back to this event thing, if I'm, if

393
00:24:32,799 --> 00:24:36,165
I'm holding an event, if, if wine really goes back,

394
00:24:36,614 --> 00:24:40,205
which I believe it is headed back to this experiential idea, then

395
00:24:41,583 --> 00:24:45,254
is it in the works now with PourNow to support some of those

396
00:24:45,350 --> 00:24:48,688
efforts, or is this on the chalkboard for the next release? I mean, we

397
00:24:48,881 --> 00:24:52,410
just— it was launched, right? So we have all these

398
00:24:52,523 --> 00:24:56,294
plans to, you know, develop more versions of the software.

399
00:24:57,160 --> 00:25:00,824
But what— how do we support the retailers that are doing these kinds of things?

400
00:25:03,756 --> 00:25:07,564
Andrew? Yeah, we're doing it now, right? And it really comes back to the

401
00:25:07,613 --> 00:25:11,397
brands, Paul. We enable a brand to be able to

402
00:25:11,397 --> 00:25:14,527
go in and do a tasting or an experience.

403
00:25:15,302 --> 00:25:18,509
And to be able to then provide a

404
00:25:18,974 --> 00:25:22,678
QR code or a link to that consumer

405
00:25:22,678 --> 00:25:26,286
who's participating and is now engaged with the brand to actually be

406
00:25:26,286 --> 00:25:29,606
able to find where they can go actually

407
00:25:30,055 --> 00:25:33,839
buy it. And so, you know, if I,

408
00:25:34,128 --> 00:25:36,485
if I am a brand, a distributed brand

409
00:25:37,736 --> 00:25:41,488
at retail, the way that I'm gonna stay on the

410
00:25:41,504 --> 00:25:45,096
shelf is by investing in

411
00:25:45,513 --> 00:25:49,363
activities that are gonna drive velocity. And some of that

412
00:25:49,363 --> 00:25:53,035
is gonna be the experiential. But the experiential has to

413
00:25:53,051 --> 00:25:56,836
convert to sales. You gotta convert to velocity.

414
00:25:57,333 --> 00:26:00,252
Some of it's gonna be brand marketing, right? Some of it, I'm gonna run an

415
00:26:00,349 --> 00:26:03,893
ad on Facebook or Instagram, or I'm

416
00:26:03,893 --> 00:26:06,940
gonna— now TikTok is the hot, is the hot thing, right?

417
00:26:08,143 --> 00:26:11,623
But in the end, what your distributor and retailer are looking for

418
00:26:13,118 --> 00:26:16,749
And if you're a brand, is do you have velocity to stay on the

419
00:26:16,749 --> 00:26:20,588
shelf? And so you've gotta be able to show that the investments

420
00:26:20,588 --> 00:26:24,412
that you're making within whatever your current budget is, is actually

421
00:26:24,846 --> 00:26:28,525
meeting those velocity hurdles. And we, we help with that.

422
00:26:28,622 --> 00:26:32,269
We're not the only solution, but we do help with that. So if I'm a

423
00:26:32,397 --> 00:26:36,205
brand, brand and/or retailer on the back end, I log into

424
00:26:36,398 --> 00:26:40,045
PourNow and I wanna start looking at the activity? What kind of

425
00:26:40,045 --> 00:26:43,779
metrics are you sending me that I can use to refine what I'm

426
00:26:43,795 --> 00:26:47,609
doing, my CRM or my SEO or anything? What's, what's, what do I see?

427
00:26:49,262 --> 00:26:52,804
Some very cool metrics. I mean, we measure attribution of every

428
00:26:52,804 --> 00:26:56,652
activity that you're doing marketing-wise, whether it's organic or paid, whether it's

429
00:26:56,652 --> 00:27:00,397
your website's where to buy function or a press

430
00:27:00,397 --> 00:27:04,147
release that you put a link. And we measure the

431
00:27:04,260 --> 00:27:07,316
price-to-consumer click-based attribution,

432
00:27:08,141 --> 00:27:11,796
um, and we measure that in the dollars, right? And so that's a, that's a

433
00:27:11,796 --> 00:27:14,966
universal metric. Is my social media or my

434
00:27:15,338 --> 00:27:19,076
influencer driving real dollars to the retail market? It's the best metric

435
00:27:19,076 --> 00:27:22,656
of all. It seems like, you know, we

436
00:27:22,656 --> 00:27:26,143
struggle with this a lot because the, uh, the, the processes

437
00:27:26,320 --> 00:27:29,954
weren't as defined as they would be today, um, and particularly with

438
00:27:29,954 --> 00:27:33,447
AI participating in some of this this analysis, but let's just say

439
00:27:34,040 --> 00:27:37,168
I belong to, I don't even know if Commission Junction's around or what's the other

440
00:27:37,168 --> 00:27:40,311
one, the affiliate marketing sites.

441
00:27:41,032 --> 00:27:44,705
And one of the things that was very profitable for us, thanks to my

442
00:27:44,705 --> 00:27:48,490
wife, was that she was able to determine the source of a

443
00:27:48,490 --> 00:27:51,745
lead that we were supposed to pay commission on.

444
00:27:52,499 --> 00:27:56,027
But we found that the people that come to our site first liked the

445
00:27:56,027 --> 00:27:59,239
product and then they went out and found a coupon. and came back and redeemed

446
00:27:59,239 --> 00:28:02,749
it, and we wouldn't pay commission on that since we stimulated the sale. Can we

447
00:28:02,749 --> 00:28:03,468
get that kind of information?

448
00:28:06,673 --> 00:28:10,127
I think that we're working on some of those. I mean, generally there's so many

449
00:28:10,127 --> 00:28:13,822
variations of the internet. Obviously you have codes that tell you where they came

450
00:28:13,822 --> 00:28:17,185
from, the UTM codes where the advertisements. So yeah, obviously all the key

451
00:28:17,201 --> 00:28:20,993
measurements on that. I think that what makes

452
00:28:20,993 --> 00:28:24,269
us special is most of the stuff that we have is not on the drawing

453
00:28:24,381 --> 00:28:27,046
board, or, you know, you said like, That will come in the future. Most of

454
00:28:27,046 --> 00:28:30,065
it's already built and running today across big brands. I mean, that was one of

455
00:28:30,081 --> 00:28:33,325
the reasons we've been so quiet and just started to talk about the product, 'cause

456
00:28:33,710 --> 00:28:37,387
it works across 500 brands and, you know, so

457
00:28:37,387 --> 00:28:41,080
many sales are going through our system to

458
00:28:41,160 --> 00:28:44,853
retailers, right? Just to the— and we're measuring that every day and we're

459
00:28:44,853 --> 00:28:48,627
improving that every single minute. So I guess my question is more

460
00:28:48,627 --> 00:28:52,456
about like, what has changed And you've been doing

461
00:28:52,488 --> 00:28:55,148
this for a long time and you've been involved with the digital side for a

462
00:28:55,148 --> 00:28:58,985
long time. It seems the veil has come off in

463
00:28:59,420 --> 00:29:02,965
much of the data that's available to be mined, and particularly in the last

464
00:29:03,245 --> 00:29:07,025
few years. How much has changed on what

465
00:29:07,025 --> 00:29:09,405
you're able to mine from all this?

466
00:29:12,235 --> 00:29:15,502
It's endless. I mean, we're trying to find all the answers. I think the difference

467
00:29:15,615 --> 00:29:18,963
is the approach, right? I think that's where we really kind of differentiate

468
00:29:18,996 --> 00:29:22,760
ourselves as opposed to trying to be the sole

469
00:29:22,889 --> 00:29:26,694
arbiter of where the traffic is driven. We are merely a

470
00:29:26,726 --> 00:29:30,515
conduit to help that shopper get to that product wherever they are.

471
00:29:31,077 --> 00:29:34,368
It's a very different approach than every other brand has ever done in the

472
00:29:34,368 --> 00:29:38,125
category. You know, every other digital platform, we're like,

473
00:29:38,206 --> 00:29:41,947
hey, we just are here to help that shopper find the right choices for

474
00:29:42,075 --> 00:29:45,848
them. That's very different than the usual search engines that have

475
00:29:45,848 --> 00:29:48,513
been out there. It's different than the retailers who are driving to a certain thing.

476
00:29:48,578 --> 00:29:51,709
We're like, our job is only to help that shopper find that product the way

477
00:29:51,709 --> 00:29:55,256
they want to buy it. It's a great job. It's

478
00:29:55,256 --> 00:29:58,081
interesting because all this, you know, we know all the products and I won't mention

479
00:29:58,081 --> 00:30:01,682
names. I'm not going to throw anybody under the bus, but for the most part,

480
00:30:02,684 --> 00:30:06,240
most of these consumer aids have bolted

481
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:10,087
on something to their original core engine. And so,

482
00:30:10,200 --> 00:30:13,662
and it seems fairly obvious when you're trying to navigate some of these softwares

483
00:30:14,102 --> 00:30:17,736
and some of these websites to find wine or to find anything really,

484
00:30:18,507 --> 00:30:22,007
that it started as this functionality, but we're going to bolt this on or we're

485
00:30:22,007 --> 00:30:24,464
going to put this on. And then that doesn't seem to talk all the way

486
00:30:24,464 --> 00:30:27,467
around the circle. So obviously you end up with this, this

487
00:30:27,900 --> 00:30:31,577
unusual experience trying to find something. And it seems to me that this is

488
00:30:31,625 --> 00:30:35,093
native ground up, looking at the marketplace

489
00:30:35,864 --> 00:30:39,348
and helping understand, you know, putting the pieces together under one

490
00:30:39,397 --> 00:30:41,982
umbrella that are clearly integrated.

491
00:30:45,078 --> 00:30:48,765
Yeah. I mean, is that accurate? I think that's right, my sir. I mean, look,

492
00:30:48,781 --> 00:30:52,500
this was built by industry vets that are tech vets, Andrew and myself.

493
00:30:52,628 --> 00:30:56,363
This is built by our brands being side by side with us for

494
00:30:56,395 --> 00:30:59,504
6 months, big brands working and helping us build the product the way it should

495
00:30:59,520 --> 00:31:03,287
be built and with a perspective on what solves a

496
00:31:03,287 --> 00:31:06,990
problem versus, you know, what we think the problem is. So

497
00:31:07,054 --> 00:31:10,244
that's a lot of guidance that a lot of these other platforms haven't come. They've

498
00:31:10,244 --> 00:31:13,935
come with their own natural bias of what they want the market to do,

499
00:31:14,192 --> 00:31:16,938
not what the market needs. And I think that that's where Andrew and I really

500
00:31:16,938 --> 00:31:20,679
stepped out of the curve and said, look, brands are asking for

501
00:31:20,679 --> 00:31:24,452
this. This is their problem. Let's solve their problem. And this is the

502
00:31:24,452 --> 00:31:28,081
shopper's problem first. They have this problem, then meeting those together in a way

503
00:31:28,081 --> 00:31:31,919
that creates good economics. And that's also why we're not going to have to pivot

504
00:31:31,919 --> 00:31:35,226
as much because those other brands pivoted because they weren't making money on, we think

505
00:31:35,226 --> 00:31:37,648
the market needs this. And it's this big.

506
00:31:39,740 --> 00:31:43,184
Well, and it just seems like the native, the native

507
00:31:43,184 --> 00:31:46,693
ability in code today, uh, would make this product

508
00:31:47,194 --> 00:31:50,607
much more, um, much easier to,

509
00:31:50,931 --> 00:31:54,700
to modify. In other words, you know that it's not going to be the same.

510
00:31:55,040 --> 00:31:57,975
What did Kevin O'Leary tell me on the show once? He goes, what's working today

511
00:31:57,975 --> 00:32:00,592
is not going to work tomorrow. What's worked yesterday is not going to work today.

512
00:32:01,064 --> 00:32:04,177
And he's talking about digital marketing at that point. And you're— and

513
00:32:05,338 --> 00:32:08,821
you have all this to offer, and how are you keeping your ear to the

514
00:32:08,821 --> 00:32:12,287
ground to, to maybe even

515
00:32:12,320 --> 00:32:15,815
predict what the brands are going to need

516
00:32:16,319 --> 00:32:17,993
or want today?

517
00:32:21,303 --> 00:32:24,532
Do you want to try that one, or you want me? Yeah, I mean, look,

518
00:32:24,548 --> 00:32:27,793
we work hand in hand. So 2 things: we are a

519
00:32:27,793 --> 00:32:31,604
customer-driven product team, right? We, the sales

520
00:32:31,636 --> 00:32:35,049
team, the customer success team, we meet with our brands and ask them the questions.

521
00:32:35,161 --> 00:32:38,494
We're working very tight with them always. It's important to us. Also,

522
00:32:39,071 --> 00:32:42,420
we work very close with the tech valley. I mean, we're not that far from

523
00:32:42,677 --> 00:32:46,186
Silicon Valley. You know, I think that we are pretty dialed in with some pretty

524
00:32:46,218 --> 00:32:49,952
smart tech people and we use that as an absorption principle to see what's coming

525
00:32:49,968 --> 00:32:53,718
around the corner. And we really believe in agility. We wanted an

526
00:32:53,894 --> 00:32:57,742
AI-centric organization that was AI at a scale,

527
00:32:57,872 --> 00:33:01,415
but not AI to take over what we generate. And so that's also

528
00:33:02,224 --> 00:33:06,038
how do we keep getting faster and agile? And AI and digital transformation

529
00:33:06,038 --> 00:33:09,722
are just part of that agility, I think. And

530
00:33:09,899 --> 00:33:12,228
AI, Paul, in the end, it's another tool.

531
00:33:14,044 --> 00:33:17,886
But the one thing that Paul and I,

532
00:33:18,342 --> 00:33:22,074
my Paul recognizes, you know,

533
00:33:22,667 --> 00:33:25,928
Talk to the customer. Like, you know, we went out and we did, I

534
00:33:26,056 --> 00:33:29,348
don't know, like 6 customer meetings last week.

535
00:33:29,830 --> 00:33:33,444
We drove, you know, all over Napa and

536
00:33:33,460 --> 00:33:36,896
meeting with customers and sitting across the table face to face with them.

537
00:33:37,523 --> 00:33:41,313
And in this industry, no, like that is part of the

538
00:33:41,313 --> 00:33:44,975
future. AI is a tool to

539
00:33:44,991 --> 00:33:48,443
help us be more efficient, but the relationships, the knowledge,

540
00:33:48,604 --> 00:33:52,194
the The understanding of how this industry

541
00:33:52,451 --> 00:33:56,200
works is built upon those, those,

542
00:33:56,537 --> 00:34:00,158
you know, personal relationships. And, you know,

543
00:34:00,558 --> 00:34:04,308
that's, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon. We

544
00:34:04,388 --> 00:34:08,074
actually say usage is our oxygen, Paul, and that's the truth, right? The

545
00:34:08,074 --> 00:34:11,823
more we get used, the better we get on that. It's interesting that you

546
00:34:11,855 --> 00:34:15,156
guys put it that way because I had a podcast the other day with a

547
00:34:15,156 --> 00:34:18,929
new in-store brand, you know, the people that

548
00:34:18,993 --> 00:34:22,802
pour off samples or, and I, I was telling the story about

549
00:34:23,171 --> 00:34:26,819
being in Columbus Circle in New York and this young woman was

550
00:34:26,867 --> 00:34:30,627
trying to, I guess she was selling almond butter. I couldn't tell because she

551
00:34:30,627 --> 00:34:34,339
had no clue what she was doing. And she asked me to help her find

552
00:34:34,339 --> 00:34:37,553
a knife so she could cut the apples that she can dip into the almond

553
00:34:37,553 --> 00:34:41,184
butter that she was sent over to sell. And, but the point of

554
00:34:41,184 --> 00:34:44,505
that is that I used to stand at a booth,

555
00:34:45,564 --> 00:34:49,381
uh, for hours on end, uh, you know, most of the summer

556
00:34:50,135 --> 00:34:53,807
to sell memberships. And that, that handshake was so important and that

557
00:34:53,935 --> 00:34:57,784
ability to, to talk about wine and to, to understand the concept

558
00:34:57,784 --> 00:35:00,735
of the subscription model at that point, because subscription models were like,

559
00:35:01,682 --> 00:35:05,418
had a bad rap. But the point I'm making is it seems like that

560
00:35:05,547 --> 00:35:09,364
is where your data comes from. And it One of the points this woman was

561
00:35:09,396 --> 00:35:12,877
making on the podcast was, you know, we talk to a million people a year

562
00:35:13,503 --> 00:35:17,064
through 30,000, you know, in-store pourings.

563
00:35:17,738 --> 00:35:20,963
And I thought, wow, what are the— you want grassroots

564
00:35:22,069 --> 00:35:25,791
data to work from on what is needed, there

565
00:35:25,904 --> 00:35:29,738
you have it. And it seems like you're getting it now digitally, having

566
00:35:29,770 --> 00:35:33,443
a conversation with your brand, having a conversation with the people that are using your

567
00:35:33,443 --> 00:35:36,862
services. To preempt or hopefully

568
00:35:37,377 --> 00:35:40,995
satisfy. Is it too late if an

569
00:35:41,059 --> 00:35:44,710
article hits? First of all, frankly, I don't even

570
00:35:44,774 --> 00:35:48,379
trust most of the articles that come out in the journals these days. They seem

571
00:35:48,395 --> 00:35:51,727
so unresearched and just off the cuff,

572
00:35:52,623 --> 00:35:55,532
but let's just say some of them are legit. Is it too late,

573
00:35:56,243 --> 00:36:00,041
whatever that article might be presenting to the public or the, or the

574
00:36:00,041 --> 00:36:03,718
industry? That information is almost too late to react to because it's

575
00:36:03,831 --> 00:36:07,630
already hit the, hit the rags, or we can, we react to

576
00:36:07,630 --> 00:36:11,413
some of that stuff? Yeah, we can react to it.

577
00:36:11,461 --> 00:36:14,587
It's, it's the availability of the product in the market. And I also think that

578
00:36:14,587 --> 00:36:17,809
we don't leverage that media enough. We think it's a one-time

579
00:36:18,354 --> 00:36:22,106
piece of information. You can reuse that content from that media 6 times in a

580
00:36:22,106 --> 00:36:25,745
year and, you know, send it in an email, do it in a

581
00:36:25,745 --> 00:36:29,586
Facebook post, do it in a paid advertisement to drive more

582
00:36:29,586 --> 00:36:32,650
velocity. You know, the assumption that people are reading everything is

583
00:36:33,185 --> 00:36:36,502
absurd in a very noisy world. It's

584
00:36:36,680 --> 00:36:40,225
absolutely noisy. And so catching somebody

585
00:36:40,564 --> 00:36:43,251
in that moment of time, in that buying window,

586
00:36:44,557 --> 00:36:47,038
requires a lot more outreach than it did ever before.

587
00:36:48,820 --> 00:36:52,602
Well, that was, you know, I got the, like, whenever I

588
00:36:52,602 --> 00:36:56,268
say this term, because my last Full year in 2022, we sent

589
00:36:56,332 --> 00:36:59,690
33 million emails and people thought, weren't you annoying people? I said,

590
00:37:00,445 --> 00:37:03,948
I don't think that's the case anymore. It's catching that person at that moment

591
00:37:04,381 --> 00:37:08,157
that if you didn't send it that day and they had thought about

592
00:37:08,157 --> 00:37:11,884
buying something that you were offering and you missed that window,

593
00:37:12,800 --> 00:37:16,318
you lost the sale. And so really it's about as much communication as

594
00:37:16,415 --> 00:37:20,013
possible and the noise is just accepted, it

595
00:37:20,045 --> 00:37:23,479
seems like in this industry. Are you helping the, your

596
00:37:23,479 --> 00:37:25,387
brands understand that piece of it?

597
00:37:27,664 --> 00:37:30,967
Yeah, we, we spend a lot of time talking, talking to the brands about their

598
00:37:30,967 --> 00:37:34,205
marketing strategies because, because again, in the end,

599
00:37:34,782 --> 00:37:38,213
you know, the, the mission of, of Pournow is

600
00:37:38,630 --> 00:37:42,205
not to create the brand excitement or the brand

601
00:37:42,254 --> 00:37:46,037
engagement. It's to actually monetize the brand

602
00:37:46,037 --> 00:37:49,516
engagement that, that supplier has, has already done

603
00:37:49,709 --> 00:37:53,411
based on their research. And their tastings and

604
00:37:54,960 --> 00:37:58,736
etc. And, and, and so, you know, we do

605
00:37:58,736 --> 00:38:01,849
see, to be honest, some pretty uneven

606
00:38:02,648 --> 00:38:06,206
knowledge about how to effectively market.

607
00:38:07,880 --> 00:38:10,200
But I, but I, you know, to go back to something you were just talking

608
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:13,808
about in terms of the 33 million emails, it goes back to the

609
00:38:13,937 --> 00:38:17,625
consumer, the shopper, and the occasion. Right. Like they could be

610
00:38:17,625 --> 00:38:21,432
sitting at their computer and thinking, oh, I need to send my mother

611
00:38:21,705 --> 00:38:25,415
next week a bottle because she's across the country for her

612
00:38:25,415 --> 00:38:29,109
birthday. Okay, that's an occasion. You got to catch, capture that

613
00:38:29,109 --> 00:38:32,916
occasion. The other side of it could be, geez, I'm on the way to

614
00:38:32,964 --> 00:38:36,385
Paul's house and I forgot that I'm supposed to bring a bottle with me. I

615
00:38:36,482 --> 00:38:39,308
want to get online, I want to order it so I can just, I can

616
00:38:39,308 --> 00:38:42,601
just pick it up on my way there. And so

617
00:38:42,922 --> 00:38:46,182
really understanding who your consumer is, And the

618
00:38:46,182 --> 00:38:49,785
occasions that they're shopping for really do

619
00:38:49,785 --> 00:38:53,436
become important because there is a lot of noise and you want to

620
00:38:53,484 --> 00:38:57,191
provide some of that signal through all that. Yeah. To me,

621
00:38:57,982 --> 00:39:01,774
medium at the occasion is the right purpose, right? And then maybe

622
00:39:01,774 --> 00:39:04,710
those multiple emails, you, they have different occasions at different times. I mean, look,

623
00:39:05,821 --> 00:39:09,523
we live in a world where the products are infinitely substitutable for the most

624
00:39:09,523 --> 00:39:13,194
part, right? And the stores that we buy them from are almost infinitely substitutable.

625
00:39:13,242 --> 00:39:16,720
So how do we, match that in, in their buying state.

626
00:39:18,474 --> 00:39:22,307
That's an interesting thought because, uh, just about this Haut-Bailly dinner,

627
00:39:23,649 --> 00:39:26,878
I'm waiting to hear what I hear from them because

628
00:39:27,738 --> 00:39:30,398
somebody might be saying, gee, I went to this dinner the other night and it

629
00:39:30,398 --> 00:39:34,033
was fabulous. And I remember the '22, you know,

630
00:39:34,807 --> 00:39:37,242
Grand Vin of that brand. I,

631
00:39:38,919 --> 00:39:41,668
I don't know where to get it. I wasn't told where to get it.

632
00:39:42,793 --> 00:39:45,925
I kind of remember the vintage. Then all of a sudden I get an email

633
00:39:45,925 --> 00:39:49,603
or a text. Hey, we enjoyed having you over for

634
00:39:49,619 --> 00:39:53,072
dinner, whatever the story is. And I would, oh,

635
00:39:53,779 --> 00:39:56,975
I remember now, right? That whole, that whole concept. Um,

636
00:39:57,585 --> 00:40:00,203
so we're not trying to make them wait 2 weeks to buy it sometimes. We're

637
00:40:00,203 --> 00:40:02,870
always trying to force them through a funnel saying, instead of saying, hey, you can

638
00:40:02,870 --> 00:40:05,970
buy it the way you want to buy it today. I think that's the differentiation.

639
00:40:07,554 --> 00:40:10,606
Right. There's a lot of movement. Let me ask you this question about some of

640
00:40:10,622 --> 00:40:14,105
this stuff, because I wasn't sure I bought off on the,

641
00:40:14,411 --> 00:40:18,217
on the need, this movement to, to

642
00:40:18,217 --> 00:40:21,695
have a buying experience. Well, let's say this particular—

643
00:40:22,323 --> 00:40:26,121
let me back up. At this thing, I expected them to say, hey, you know,

644
00:40:26,410 --> 00:40:29,688
we got it for sale and it's $135 a bottle. And, and then somebody orders

645
00:40:29,720 --> 00:40:33,415
2 bottles and then he goes, hey, what they used to do is upsell you

646
00:40:33,415 --> 00:40:35,478
to a case. Well, I can't sell less than a case, so you guys can

647
00:40:35,478 --> 00:40:39,162
split the case. And then, you know, that way I can

648
00:40:39,210 --> 00:40:41,776
order the whole case and you guys can do what you want with it. And

649
00:40:41,792 --> 00:40:45,480
that's, that was one of the sales techniques of these home tasting things. Didn't

650
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:48,366
happen here because nobody's too respectful of a château.

651
00:40:49,168 --> 00:40:52,952
But there is a digital version of that going around, a couple of them where

652
00:40:53,401 --> 00:40:57,041
you can hand off a shopping cart to a friend and

653
00:40:57,586 --> 00:41:01,066
supplement the case. So you get your full case or get your economies of scale

654
00:41:01,114 --> 00:41:04,385
depending on what you're buying and split it. Is that part of this as well?

655
00:41:05,910 --> 00:41:09,555
Yeah. Do you think that's a need? Because I didn't.

656
00:41:10,226 --> 00:41:13,923
I think it's a rare, rare need. It's an edge case. I just, I

657
00:41:13,955 --> 00:41:17,792
haven't heard much from the 2 platforms that I talked

658
00:41:17,792 --> 00:41:21,582
to, but I just tried to, I was trying to think of like,

659
00:41:22,208 --> 00:41:25,708
like my average order at Wine of the Month Club reorder was 10 bottles, 10.8

660
00:41:25,821 --> 00:41:28,936
bottles or something. Okay. So they bought 10.8 bottles.

661
00:41:30,060 --> 00:41:33,020
Why is that a problem? You know, it's not a problem.

662
00:41:33,980 --> 00:41:37,320
It's in the warehouse anyway. We're just going to hack it up. But I thought

663
00:41:37,320 --> 00:41:40,900
that, I thought that was interesting. Maybe that's what's not happening. Maybe it's, it didn't,

664
00:41:40,900 --> 00:41:44,500
it hasn't occurred. So if I'm a consumer, something I

665
00:41:44,500 --> 00:41:47,960
download onto my phone? No,

666
00:41:47,960 --> 00:41:51,520
no, no. The ad will meet you. We'll meet you where the, the brand will

667
00:41:51,520 --> 00:41:54,900
use us to meet you where you're at, right? So whether it's a Facebook ad

668
00:41:54,900 --> 00:41:57,940
that the brand did, or if you showed up on the brand's website, or

669
00:41:58,600 --> 00:42:02,311
Lots of places where the brand is helping to try to communicate with

670
00:42:02,343 --> 00:42:05,892
the, do a touchpoint with the shopper. And then they, at that point, that's when

671
00:42:05,909 --> 00:42:09,125
they hand it off to us. And so if it's

672
00:42:09,125 --> 00:42:12,440
DTC fulfillment from the winery just before, or there's a—

673
00:42:14,041 --> 00:42:17,437
Yeah, DTC comes from the wine. If they choose the DTC choice, maybe I'm looking

674
00:42:17,437 --> 00:42:21,172
at options and there's a pickup and a buy and a ship and DTC, and

675
00:42:21,172 --> 00:42:24,907
they choose DTC, it'll come from the brand, right? Directly from their DTC

676
00:42:24,923 --> 00:42:27,905
operations, wherever that is. Wow.

677
00:42:29,171 --> 00:42:32,425
It's almost, it's, it's almost hard to get your, your head around this thing

678
00:42:33,579 --> 00:42:36,561
because it seems so flexible and so, um, uh,

679
00:42:38,051 --> 00:42:41,257
not, you know, flexible is the word, that it can, seems to handle

680
00:42:42,395 --> 00:42:45,826
the needs of the brands and whoever else. And then the

681
00:42:45,826 --> 00:42:49,544
consumer, it's almost seamless then. Yeah, it starts with the need of the

682
00:42:49,609 --> 00:42:53,043
consumer, the shopper first. And then it makes it easy for the brand to meet

683
00:42:53,043 --> 00:42:56,016
them there. That's what we've done. We've made it easy for the shopper first, and

684
00:42:56,032 --> 00:42:58,747
then the brand can use us to meet them there. That, that's the magic of

685
00:42:58,747 --> 00:43:02,151
what we've done is start with where does the shopper need help

686
00:43:02,784 --> 00:43:06,564
and how do we help the brand facilitate that? And when

687
00:43:06,564 --> 00:43:10,357
did it launch? January. Yeah, that is

688
00:43:10,470 --> 00:43:13,935
barely out of stealth in January. So the, you know, the first

689
00:43:13,952 --> 00:43:17,384
version, the beta was last June, but January is when it came out of

690
00:43:19,229 --> 00:43:23,017
You know, the, for early out of stealth slowly. And

691
00:43:23,017 --> 00:43:25,527
then we just really, this week was when we really came outta stealth in a

692
00:43:25,527 --> 00:43:29,152
full, full form. Wouldn't you say, Andrew? This is kind of our first like unveiling,

693
00:43:29,184 --> 00:43:32,776
unveiling. So we had a soft outta stealth and now

694
00:43:32,889 --> 00:43:36,525
we're really, you'll see a lot more of us every week. Yep.

695
00:43:36,688 --> 00:43:39,111
And if I'm a brand, how do I find you?

696
00:43:41,117 --> 00:43:44,724
Well, we recommend you go to launch.four.now and that will tell a

697
00:43:44,724 --> 00:43:48,294
brand exactly what the experience is. And how we work with them.

698
00:43:50,192 --> 00:43:53,125
And what, what does a typical brand, when they come there,

699
00:43:54,526 --> 00:43:57,943
they say, wow, you guys, this is

700
00:43:57,943 --> 00:44:01,665
incredible. I've been trying to find a solution for this.

701
00:44:01,810 --> 00:44:05,485
What, what are the, what's the number one need they seem to be

702
00:44:05,711 --> 00:44:09,093
excited about that they've saw you've solved? Really,

703
00:44:09,741 --> 00:44:13,127
it's a measurable path to purchase is that I can actually show

704
00:44:13,597 --> 00:44:16,660
the impact that my digital marketing or my sampling is having

705
00:44:18,289 --> 00:44:22,091
In the market, I mean, look, there's never been more

706
00:44:22,220 --> 00:44:26,021
pressure again on brands to be able to justify room

707
00:44:26,070 --> 00:44:28,663
on the truck and space on the shelf.

708
00:44:29,453 --> 00:44:33,126
And the way to justify that is investments

709
00:44:33,174 --> 00:44:36,885
driving velocity. So if you can, you can take and

710
00:44:36,967 --> 00:44:40,397
show a measurable path to purchase from the investments that you're making,

711
00:44:41,858 --> 00:44:44,014
you're going to win that argument. You're going to be able to go into your

712
00:44:44,062 --> 00:44:47,726
distributor and say, "Look, I ran advertise. I ran digital marketing in your market."

713
00:44:48,289 --> 00:44:51,741
It drove sales for, for our portfolio, for you,

714
00:44:52,431 --> 00:44:56,188
and it drove it to these local retailers who are your paying customers and probably

715
00:44:56,220 --> 00:44:59,159
were your dad's paying customers and your granddad's paying customers.

716
00:44:59,897 --> 00:45:03,687
And, you know, that's why you should give us

717
00:45:03,687 --> 00:45:06,641
another bottle on the shelf. That's why you should give us more cases on your

718
00:45:06,641 --> 00:45:09,933
truck and make sure that when that consumer wants to buy us, that we're,

719
00:45:10,350 --> 00:45:12,727
we're always available to be bought.

720
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:17,250
That just stimulated 2 more thoughts. So I don't know if we're, 'cause I was

721
00:45:17,250 --> 00:45:20,890
thinking we're running outta time, but I gotta get the answers to this. Mm-hmm. One

722
00:45:20,890 --> 00:45:24,570
of 'em is, uh, certainly the earlier days of, of

723
00:45:24,570 --> 00:45:27,890
digital marketing and even up until I stopped doing

724
00:45:27,890 --> 00:45:31,290
it, you know, regularly, was this, the idea of these

725
00:45:31,290 --> 00:45:35,050
consultants and everyone's a consultant. I mean, just go to Facebook and Instagram and

726
00:45:35,050 --> 00:45:38,660
find how many consultants they are. Most of 'em don't know crap from Shinola.

727
00:45:39,172 --> 00:45:42,900
And most of them don't understand the trade, right? And I

728
00:45:42,932 --> 00:45:46,531
can't tell you how many people I've suggested to that you cannot bring

729
00:45:47,109 --> 00:45:50,307
the technologies of shoe sales

730
00:45:51,062 --> 00:45:54,806
and expect them to work in alcohol. They just don't. They never have. And you

731
00:45:55,063 --> 00:45:57,505
have to understand alcohol. And I won't bore you with all the details and all

732
00:45:57,505 --> 00:46:00,718
the stories, but for one thing for sure, I burned through

733
00:46:00,767 --> 00:46:04,253
consultants. And I needed the consultants not to tell me what to do, but help

734
00:46:04,302 --> 00:46:07,847
me do it because I can't do it all internally, right? And

735
00:46:08,087 --> 00:46:11,790
I finally landed on a couple where they took the blame if

736
00:46:11,854 --> 00:46:15,542
they didn't work out. They understood the— they took time to understand the

737
00:46:15,542 --> 00:46:19,021
marketplace and I stuck with 'em for a few years. So it seems like one,

738
00:46:19,469 --> 00:46:23,141
this thing can help a brand validate the people

739
00:46:23,397 --> 00:46:26,828
in their periphery trying to help them market and do things because you can just

740
00:46:27,004 --> 00:46:29,441
bear it out in the numbers and say you're wrong. 'Cause they

741
00:46:29,489 --> 00:46:33,240
said the biggest problem with most consultants is they put

742
00:46:33,257 --> 00:46:35,357
you in the mill and you just go right through the process and you get

743
00:46:35,357 --> 00:46:39,028
some, You know, 30-something telling you this, and then they pass off to the next

744
00:46:39,028 --> 00:46:42,699
guy and the next guy and the next person and get nothing. The

745
00:46:42,715 --> 00:46:45,905
other, the other thing I think is really interesting, because I have a really, really

746
00:46:45,985 --> 00:46:49,688
good friend right now that's got an RTD that's really, really good. Oh.

747
00:46:50,153 --> 00:46:53,599
And, and they're a little, not much younger than me, but they're out

748
00:46:53,599 --> 00:46:57,110
standing at Costco and, and Whole Foods and all those

749
00:46:57,142 --> 00:47:00,989
places pouring off, you know, 3 quarters of an ounce. Is

750
00:47:00,989 --> 00:47:03,044
it maybe it's a quarter of an ounce? of alcohol.

751
00:47:04,908 --> 00:47:08,669
And that's the number one deal, right? You cannot get a distributor today at all

752
00:47:09,746 --> 00:47:13,458
to taste anything unless you show them this track record,

753
00:47:13,474 --> 00:47:17,305
unless you show them that you've got 100 placements or whatever the number is

754
00:47:17,499 --> 00:47:21,234
that they expect. But they are closed doors to any new

755
00:47:21,364 --> 00:47:24,940
brands. And who wouldn't be, right? You know, you— there's no

756
00:47:25,021 --> 00:47:28,824
brand builders anymore in this business. You, you just— the logistics people,

757
00:47:28,888 --> 00:47:32,722
that's all they are. With sales— with salesmen in tow. So

758
00:47:32,722 --> 00:47:35,579
it seems like this, this would be a huge benefit for somebody

759
00:47:36,494 --> 00:47:39,993
who can start showing the distributors this, these metrics and these

760
00:47:40,025 --> 00:47:42,353
numbers of what's going on out there.

761
00:47:42,915 --> 00:47:46,398
100%. I can't say anything better than that.

762
00:47:46,687 --> 00:47:50,379
100%. Hey, I got it right. That

763
00:47:50,379 --> 00:47:54,151
was good. You got it right. It

764
00:47:54,151 --> 00:47:57,992
took a little while to figure it out, but I get it. And it's

765
00:47:57,992 --> 00:48:01,709
the same thing you can do with your chain friends showing that you're

766
00:48:01,709 --> 00:48:05,102
driving velocity to the market and the marketing dollars are landing in their pocket instead

767
00:48:05,102 --> 00:48:08,827
of some ad that affects Alaska and you're an

768
00:48:08,827 --> 00:48:12,294
Arizona retailer, right? So everything

769
00:48:12,828 --> 00:48:16,574
is about attribution. Does this not have

770
00:48:16,832 --> 00:48:20,639
teeth? I have a niece who started a salad dressing line. It's called

771
00:48:20,703 --> 00:48:23,284
the Law of LAV, and it's a

772
00:48:24,388 --> 00:48:27,665
Higher, higher-end single-serve dressing.

773
00:48:28,564 --> 00:48:32,371
And so seems to me that this would work with all the entrepreneurs,

774
00:48:32,499 --> 00:48:35,937
the self-made entrepreneurs online. They become

775
00:48:36,354 --> 00:48:39,840
influencers on Instagram and then they launch a product

776
00:48:40,290 --> 00:48:43,839
and some actually really explode and some, you know, fail like,

777
00:48:44,064 --> 00:48:47,903
like the old days. But can't this do the same thing

778
00:48:47,999 --> 00:48:51,826
for just about any kind of product? It can, but it

779
00:48:51,891 --> 00:48:55,435
won't. We are dedicated

780
00:48:56,341 --> 00:48:59,643
to the beverage alcohol market in

781
00:48:59,739 --> 00:49:03,393
particular, you know, the omnichannel and distributed

782
00:49:04,472 --> 00:49:07,835
brands. So, you know, that's another place that we really differentiate

783
00:49:07,835 --> 00:49:09,426
ourselves from others

784
00:49:11,708 --> 00:49:14,953
that may talk about the path to purchase.

785
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:19,040
Uh, we're built specifically for beverage alcohol

786
00:49:19,040 --> 00:49:22,800
and we're focused on beverage alcohol.

787
00:49:22,800 --> 00:49:26,140
And we're just— well, that's good news. Yeah, we're disciplined. I mean, that's the thing.

788
00:49:26,140 --> 00:49:28,920
You build something and you want to build it good and you spread wide and

789
00:49:28,920 --> 00:49:32,680
you're jack of all trades, master of none. We have one job is to help

790
00:49:32,680 --> 00:49:35,880
the, the, the alcohol industry, um, wine, spirits, and beer

791
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:39,680
RTDs achieve success. But I'm always looking

792
00:49:39,680 --> 00:49:42,760
for good salad dressing. If you want to send me a link, I'd definitely love

793
00:49:42,760 --> 00:49:45,280
that. She's great. I would follow the whole, the whole

794
00:49:46,976 --> 00:49:50,822
It's very fun. She's done a great job, but she used to be an

795
00:49:50,822 --> 00:49:53,530
intern at Wine of the Month Club, and I'd got a whiteboard out. I said,

796
00:49:53,546 --> 00:49:55,773
okay, let's go over your product. And

797
00:49:57,087 --> 00:50:00,148
at the end of the first analysis of

798
00:50:01,253 --> 00:50:05,019
selling price, distributor fees, and all the rest of it, there was $3

799
00:50:05,564 --> 00:50:09,281
left to buy a new customer. And I told her,

800
00:50:09,313 --> 00:50:12,326
that's just not enough. It's just not going to make it.

801
00:50:13,352 --> 00:50:17,078
But more importantly, on the other side of this wall here

802
00:50:17,672 --> 00:50:21,109
is a new store. It's called Ten Over, which is,

803
00:50:21,543 --> 00:50:25,221
as soon as I got my, the, the Type 21 transferred, I'm going to be

804
00:50:25,237 --> 00:50:27,887
open. I'm not sure how many hours a day or a week I'm going to

805
00:50:27,887 --> 00:50:30,554
do it. I got to sit with my wife and we're going to only sell

806
00:50:31,485 --> 00:50:35,163
the high-end stuff, you know, the unique bourbons, the unique scotches, unique vodkas,

807
00:50:35,822 --> 00:50:39,355
and, uh, classified growth burgundies, high-end Nappas, stuff like that.

808
00:50:39,853 --> 00:50:43,466
And just so to have the license and keep running, it

809
00:50:43,466 --> 00:50:47,223
seems like this would where I need to land first. We'll help you

810
00:50:47,223 --> 00:50:50,899
easily. We'll send sales to you for sure. And you'll

811
00:50:50,915 --> 00:50:53,388
have to say thank you when Andrew and I come down and pop a few

812
00:50:53,420 --> 00:50:56,936
bottles. Obviously. We'll do that. Yes. All I want is stanchions

813
00:50:56,936 --> 00:50:59,296
outside saying you got to stand in line to get in here.

814
00:50:59,987 --> 00:51:03,824
Okay. What a great conversation, an interesting

815
00:51:03,920 --> 00:51:07,710
story to tell, and listening to you two guys with such

816
00:51:07,710 --> 00:51:11,547
a key thumb on the metrics, the pulse of the

817
00:51:11,547 --> 00:51:15,096
industry. And we need this. We need these

818
00:51:15,160 --> 00:51:18,435
avenues that are tech-related, that circumvent all these

819
00:51:18,692 --> 00:51:22,016
old-school methodologies that just can't work

820
00:51:22,241 --> 00:51:26,078
anymore. And you're bridging the gap. And so bravo

821
00:51:26,078 --> 00:51:29,530
to that. Thanks. Thanks for having us, Paul. Yeah.

822
00:51:30,173 --> 00:51:33,645
Pleasure. Talk to you soon, and I will take you up on you coming down

823
00:51:33,645 --> 00:51:36,684
and us opening something. Yeah,

824
00:51:36,845 --> 00:51:40,157
overdue. Cheers. Thank you.

825
00:51:40,800 --> 00:51:41,009
Thanks.