Latest / Ready To Drink Podcast / Founder & Sergeant Major Mike Waskewich (Ret.) on Flavor Matching, the Adult Beverage Ecosystem and Building What the Industry Was Missing

Transcript

Founder & Sergeant Major Mike Waskewich (Ret.) on Flavor Matching, the Adult Beverage Ecosystem and Building What the Industry Was Missing · Ready To Drink Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Mike Woskowicz.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the uh co-founder of the Bar Book, which is a flavor matching technology platform, and started a nonprofit called Craft, which is a coalition to represent American flavor and tradition.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: Awesome, man.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_04: So walk me through, let's start with Kraft, and then I want to go over to the bar book.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_04: So walk me through what your the overall mission is.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: And I love the fact that I did I don't do a ton of research intentionally because I want to learn organically in front of the camera.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_04: Because the number one thing is I want people to understand how to navigate in conversations with strangers and learn how to connect with strangers.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_04: So outside of all the industry stuff, that's why I do these no questions, no prep.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_04: We just go live and do whatever happens.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_04: Um so what I want to ask is you know, there's a lot of organizations and everything, and they're always niche.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_04: So right before we went on, uh we were just talking about the adult beverage category.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: And it really, when I hopped online to look at your LinkedIn real quick before we hopped on, I was like, that's the way it needs to be because you're not, I'm not crafted for beer.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not crafted for spirits.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_04: You're building it, you build a nonprofit, and I'm gonna assume it's for the adult beverage category.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so craft started out of uh a journey with the bar book.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: So you can't have one without the other because the journeys are kind of linked, right?
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: So uh as we were building out the bar book and kind of learning the adult beverage industry ourselves, focusing strictly on spirits and distilled spirits and kind of that category is kind of where our mindset went first.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: But as we were building this out, we met a ton of veterans in the space.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: I retired after 23 years of service, and you know, my wife is also a retired veteran.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: And so as we're meeting these people and connecting, you find that there's a lot of groups and a lot of interest in developing what's next, right?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: A, you know, let's work together, let's do something.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_01: The problem is they're all founders and they're all business owners and they're all running their own vested interest.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they have great intentions of actually working together, but they also have jobs and they have to pay their bills and they have to do things.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_01: So there was a lot of fall-off after the end of those conversations because everybody went back to the real world and the conference was over and life happens.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: So got together with a group of friends and we decided that we're gonna build craft in a way that represents all of those veteran brands in the entire adult ecosystem.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: And we use ecosystem instead of category uh intentionally because we talk about all the way from the farms that grow all the way to the bartender that serves and the person that enjoys, right?
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it is the entire category and then every intersection along the way, right?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: You have a legal field, you've got a marketing field, you've got a distribution, logistics platform, like all of those have different intersections.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so uh the adult beverage category, adult beverage ecosystem is unique in that uh the laws and rules vary from state to state.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_01: They vary sometimes from county to county, and the and the agreements that you make in one space don't work in the other space.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's a very challenging industry as a whole.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And there's a lot of knowledge that needs to be transferred.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_01: So that was kind of the baseline for what we wanted to do was build a way that everybody could work together, share some of this knowledge, and help grow a category that could compete with some of the big boys in this place by unifying instead of everybody charging it whatever distribution network to say, hope I got to get some shelf space.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: What if we just all work together and there's veteran shelf space versus XYZ brand shelf space?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: So that's like I said, that's kind of the thought process and where we started from.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_04: No, I I love it.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_04: And I love the the the fact and the fact of what you just said with ecosystem, because internally that's how we look at our business.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_04: Like what we do is we provide services of strategy and market development, but also we have partner brands that are vetted, people that you know are not like we met them at some networking event and we refer clients to them.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_04: It's like, no, like they're industry veterans that we've partnered with because we vetted them, we trust them, and they're part of our ecosystem as well.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_04: Whether it's a farmer, a distributor, an accountant, or an IT guy, we have all of them and we call it the pre-mind flow.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_04: And it's the ecosystem of how product flows.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_04: And a lot of times, like you just said, the other part is the negative side of founders, and I've been a founder for 17 years, but at the same time, as a founder of 17 years, I sometimes forget what it was like in the first couple years of being a founder.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_04: And sometimes it still happens because I don't, I have not made some massive amount of money where I'm comfortable.
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_04: So just like you said, every other year there's a pivot.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_04: I mentioned that I was in DC recently, we're fighting for hemp regulation.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things we were talking about is one of the things as well, is that I have friends that are veterans that want that have opiate.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm a I'm a uh uh in sobriety from alcohol and prescription drugs.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so the opiate crisis and alcoholism is a big thing for me.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_04: I connect with a lot of veterans in the sense that I've spent a lot of time in bars being an alcoholic with veterans and hearing their stories and knowing what's going on and knowing how hard that path is.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things we talk about on the hemp side is people don't realize that it's like, oh, well, you can, if you don't want to take opiates as a veteran because you're PTSD, well, just go ahead and just do sign up for a marijuana card.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_04: Well, if you sign up for a marijuana card and you're a veteran that also loves his gun rights and wants to keep his kids in the custody of his children, state by state, that's not actually possible.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_04: So, where is this man or woman going to get the relief that they need to be where they're not still stifled by a very un-American way of being able to give access to everybody that needs to happen to continue from a uh you know clean and responsible way.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_04: I don't want to use the word healthy at all, but I want to say the word the word responsible way and be able to choose their path of how they want to accommodate and be able to thrive in their world.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm excited now for this conversation specifically about that, but not just about him, about veterans in general and the alcohol industry and how it plays a role.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_04: Because in my 20 years, I've seen veterans come out to about it the way you do, which is a really positive way.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_04: You sound like you have a great platform of the full picture of advocacy and education, which is what's needed.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: So, you know, I didn't understand that when I joined, and I and I don't mean to say that, but what I will tell you is I so when we first started, I was maybe a bit naive in the understanding that if you started one of these kind of brands or programs that you yourself had some sort of connection, I just assumed that it came from a place of natural connection.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_01: That's not true.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: As I started meeting with other people uh and talking with, I literally had a founder of uh, it was actually in the hemp space, but there was a founder that got on the phone with me and he's like, So do you guys just say veteran or are you guys really veterans or whatever?
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, where does that come from?
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Like, my whole, you know, our whole board is veteran.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Like every single member has a service connection, and we did this for a reason.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: Like, but he was explaining to me as we got deeper in the conversation was there are people that just slap that on somewhere because it's a great buzzword and it creates a you know, it creates a line of cash somewhere.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I haven't seen that yet.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you know, we're we're working to do this the right way, and I just but apparently there are those things.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know who they are.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_04: That's not the majority, but I've there's popped up in the boardroom where I've asked questions and been like, so nobody here is actually a veteran.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_04: You guys are just supporting a veterans' group, which is great.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_04: I'm not trying to doubt that, but we got to make sure the messaging is transparent when that's being done because the consumer that's a manipulation point, and the consumer needs full context when they're choosing what they want to purchase and spend their hard dollars on.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so that was, like I said, a point of naivety for us in a moment where we were like, what?
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: That exists.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_01: So, anyways, when we put this together, the the premise was that we were going to use all veterans and then use advisors from the industry to kind of help us out as we, you know, were navigating the space and getting to know who we needed to know and how we needed to know these people and where everything connected.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's been a fantastic ride so far.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, we just uh we built a nonprofit in December and we were putting together a major event for September and a few smaller events along the way.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and it's fantastic.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting a ton of support.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_01: I think everybody understands that this will be um huge for the for the category as a whole as a way to connect with these with these brands.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: And we take on partners as kind of you alluded to, beyond just the beverage space.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the partners we have with us, and I don't mind saying their name on here, but is Whiskey Valor.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the things that uh Luis and the team over at Whiskey Valor do is they do a lot of stuff with responsible consumption.
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and so they are coming to our events to be a ride share partner and talking about, you know, hey, if you want to, you know, imbibe and you want to be a part of this event, if you've had too much, make sure you stop by the table here and we've got a ride share partner taking care of you and making sure you get home safe.
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because we don't ever want to put somebody in a situation to where they're you know overindulging and then unsafe.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_01: We don't ever want to put somebody in a situation where they're doing this for the wrong reasons.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: Uh veterans in this space connect because uh we found that there is a there's a similar work relationship in this industry, there's a similar connection, a similar family.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: Uh a lot of the same reasons we served exist in this industry as well.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: Um and that's I think that's more where we latch on to than maybe necessarily the product in the end state.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um it is a thing, right?
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody, you know, understands what the product is they're building, but I think the method for building really lends itself to be more collaborative and family, and and that's something great about this industry.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_04: That's exactly it.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_04: And it's one of those things where different sectors of the adult beverage ecosystem have kind of lost their way in that.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_04: Like uh like I worked uh extensively from like 2008 to 2018 in just craft beer.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_04: Um that's all I did was work with craft breweries and uh and like Miller Coors' offshoot uh with Blue Moon and Shock Top, all that stuff.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things in that part of the industry, it was from like 2010, let's say, to 2015, the amount of collaboration and where like the money and the sales were not important.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_04: The number one objective was to get this product educated and advocated and understood by the everyday consumer so we can have an industry five to ten years.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_04: It was like it was, I hate the phrase, but it was that short-term pain for long-term gain was the mentality.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: And I think what's happening in certain sectors, and I don't want to pick on everybody, but we're having these new founders in certain sectors that, like in let's say regulated sectors, like let's take hemp, for example, and they don't have access to bank loans.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_04: So craft beer back in 2010, they could go get a bank loan that I'm starting a brewery, blah, blah, blah, and you got money, and you could wait, you know, cut three, four, five years for that dollar because you had a bank loan that didn't start capping until three, five years and paying back.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_04: Now, with these hemp guys and like these functional beverage and all these guys that are in this like gray space, they have the opportunity to be exactly like craft beer came out like then with those collaborations and bringing that community, bring that to social aspect of things, bring people out of their house.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_04: Because that's the other thing as a whole, what we're missing is as a category, we're losing the fact that on-premise is down.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_04: Now, what does on-premise mean?
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_04: On-premises, bars and restaurants for anybody listening, are places where you consume on the premise of the sale.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_04: Now, why is that why does that matter more than just dollars and cents?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_04: Well, it matters more than just dollars and cents because the second, the time that this country was founded through the American Revolution, where was the Declaration of Independence written?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_04: Where were those conversations had?
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_04: The society as a whole was built in bars and restaurants.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm somebody who's three years sober and run a podcast called Ready to Drink because it's ironic and I make it as a play on words, but at the same time, I still spend time in dispensaries, in breweries, in distilleries all day long because that's where the magic happens.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't mean the magic of the beer of the getting drunk and whatever and dating and stuff like that.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_04: I mean the magic of socialization without parameters.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: And that's where the I want people to understand, like, and I'll reiterate this to you, Michael, and compliment you on this.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_04: This is why I have the podcast format the way I do.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: Because I want people to tune in while they're driving and feel like they're the third chair at the bar with you and I while we're having a conversation.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_03: And I want people to know that exactly.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I want people to know as we go into this conversation deeper, that's the intention.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_04: It's not to make millionaires, it's to actually bring socialization back to society.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_04: And I will speak against against something that's being promoted is you know, by our government right now.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_04: I watched a press conference where they're like, alcohol is the social lubrication, and we all need to like that's something that even in the industry working in it, we don't need like we don't need to be presenting alcohol as a crutch or a lubricant.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_04: Alcohol is is a piece of society, and it's not, it doesn't need to be an accelerator or anything like that, you know.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so the the it's one of the mottos that we use when we talk about the bar book.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Again, I'm switching industries for you a little bit.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_01: You're good, keep keep telling this.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're good.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: But but one of the things we use when we talk about the bar book is is the connection is the reason, right?
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's you know, we wanted to, you know, give the networking piece on the bar book is a not only, okay, cool, you can flavor match, you can you can find a place that has that kind of stuff, but the reason for consumption as a whole is exactly what you just said.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_01: It is the connection, it is the social piece, it is the aspect of it.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Nobody wants nobody wants what COVID left us with, right?
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And we still talk about that a little bit, but COVID left us with the idea that everybody hoards a bottle or hoards their next collection and puts it at their house, and then they never open it.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_01: They just they keep it there and they don't do anything with it.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Um, my wife has a great saying about this.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, she, when she was in the military, she was serving with another uh foreign service at the time, and one of the guys over there was talking about opening a fantastic bottle, and she had the uh probably uniquely American concept, which is no, you should hold on to that for a special occasion.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_01: And the guy was like, You're alive.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: Today's the occasion.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_01: You may not be tomorrow.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_01: Open the damn bottle.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_01: And I'm like, you know, and she said it to me because I had initially the same thought like you want to make sure it's on your shelf, but at the same time, what good's it on your shelf after you're gone?
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: It doesn't the memory of enjoying it with the right people and the right occasion, the idea of the bottle is secondary.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: Quite honestly, you can have a bad drink, a bad cocktail, a bad hemp product, whatever.
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a bad one of those, and you don't remember necessarily that.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_01: You remember the moment you enjoyed it.
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's multiplied a hundred times over if you're enjoying it with the right friends, um, in the right place in the right time.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: And that will be your favorite beverage, maybe because you think it's tied to the flavor, but it's more importantly tied to the moment.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and I think that's huge.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're right, 100% spot on, that that is the piece that is missing.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: You give me a coke in your glass.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_01: Quite honestly, nobody cares.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it's it's how you connected, sitting at a bar or at a picnic table or wherever, just talking to somebody.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_04: And I think for me, I I have to own and be accountable that like when I was when I was a raging alcoholic, that it was it was imperative that a beer was in my hand or an alcoholic beverage was in my hand for me to be able to communicate.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: And in the past three years of being at these places and maintaining not my, I don't close bars every week like I used to, but being able to go into a bar comfortably, order a Coke, order whatever it is non-alcoholic, but they have an enjoy the same experience with those people.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_04: I'll think of like two years ago I went out for my buddy's 40th, and I was like crutching non-alcoholic beers the whole night, not because I was nervous or I was gonna slide it out of sobriety, but just because I was having fun and like they were drinking a bunch, and I was like, all right, I'll go beer for beer with it.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's empty calories, but it was the experience.
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's in that moment I woke up the next morning and I realized, shit, I can have just as much fun without alcohol as I can I did with.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_04: And that was my wake up, and it was a midway of the three-year period, uh, the past three years.
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_04: It was right in the middle.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_04: And man, that gave me so much acceleration to keep continuing going on because that's that point in sobriety when you start when you're in that first year, you start leaving the house, you start maybe re-acclimating society, and then there's that danger period.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_04: And um, for me, it's like I'm a test, I'm a living testament.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_04: And and through moments of suicidal uh thoughts and and an attempt at realizing getting out of it, that it doesn't matter what's in the glass.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_04: And it's like it's whatever it is for you, it's the everything else around it.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_04: So let's go back to the ecosystem.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, talk a little bit about like the organization piece and bar and the book as well, the bar book, and kind of like let's say on an everyday basis, what are some of the top objectives that you guys are providing?
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_04: And how do you call you call them partners or are they sponsors, or how do they kind of how do you kind of delegate them?
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: So for craft, uh we focus at it as as partners, I guess is the best way to say it.
• 16:03
  SPEAKER_01: Or, you know, brands as part of the ecosystem, whatever.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_01: And so right now, what we're doing is we're building out our events.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: So a typical day as we're looking at craft is we're coordinating events.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_01: We want to take some of the burden off of these owners by building situations where they can generate new business opportunities so they can focus more on the creativity and the moments and capturing all that together.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_01: But we want to build opportunity for them to reach new customers and new businesses, new partnerships, new relationships, whatever.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I'll use Tampa as an example because what we're building down there.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Tampa, there's a large conference happening in September called Military Influencer Conference.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: Um it's huge, going on for 10 years.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_01: And we agreed to be there uh a connection with them as a partnership to do a large sample tasting at this event.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_01: So one evening you'll be able to come in, buy a ticket, and and sample 25 different beverage brands uh from veteran-owned companies.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_01: And and we have everything there.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_01: We have even one THC brand in the room.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_01: We have uh I think it's 22 uh Spirits brands, and then I've got some uh sports drink, non-alcoholic uh soda, other things that are all part of this.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_01: And as we're locking down these, the point of that is that they bring the influencers, they bring the content creators, and we open up these brands to new audiences.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_01: So they get to sample pour for all these different people, grow their platform a little further.
• 17:29
  SPEAKER_01: And then after that's over, we take them off to the side and we introduce them to the local business ecosystem in Tampa.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_01: And we say, All right, if you're looking to get your product sold in Florida, here's a veteran distributor, here's a veteran retailer, and here's a few other restaurants and bars, and maybe some podcasters and so on that you can talk to and we'll help boost your brand right here where we're sitting.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so that's what we want to replicate over and over with craft is not only giving them a chance to pour and sample and grow their followers, but we want to create business opportunities for them as well, something they can grow.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Just imagine how cool it would be if you had a veteran-owned uh brewery, veteran-owned bar, whatever, that has their full service back, and their NA options were veteran-owned NA options, their their regular soft drinks were veteran-owned soft drinks, their, you know, everything they had was a veteran-owned product in that place.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_01: Why not?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I mean the simple answer is is because the big guys come in and they they push all these other brands.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, you got to make sure you have, you know, Pepsi versus Coke, or you gotta make sure you have, you know, Budweiser versus Miller, right?
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_01: Like they push those things, but at the end of the day, you can get just the same or if not better products by being in this network.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: You just don't know how to access them the same way.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_01: And that's what we want to create opportunities for them.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_04: So I love, I love what you're doing here.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_04: And it's um, I wanna I'm gonna tell you that I'm gonna probably try, I'll reach out to you to book a separate meeting offline to talk about some actual like I think there's some collaborations that we can definitely do.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_04: Um, and especially especially like some of the we have a whole nother arm that's just education and advocacy.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_04: And I think there's a huge opportunity to collaborate on that, um, as well as the directory basis of the market research we've done to be able to help you out with connecting dots on that as well.
• 19:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um, from a mid-Atlantic region, Pennsylvania.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_04: Where are you geo geographically located?
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_01: Just south of DC in northern Virginia here, uh well.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, well, actually, I'm gonna suggest we meet up in person then.
• 19:27
  SPEAKER_04: Uh so I'm I'm I'm about an hour and a half west of you in the eastern panhandle, uh the border of Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia.
• 19:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm right uh right below Hagersdown, Maryland in Berkeley Springs, West Virginia.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I know, yeah, I know the area well.
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: I used to live in Frederick, uh, Frederick, Maryland.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_01: Um, been around this area quite a bit.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_04: My uh my mom taught in uh Washington County uh in Maryland in the school district there.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_04: She taught the Gifty program for them for many years and retired, yeah.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_04: So actually, I was just in DC uh this week, uh meeting, uh, like I said, with Congress and senators over uh this hemp regulation and trying to get these protections in place and uh whether Medicare, Medicaid, whatever it is we need to do to lock this in and get this as a provided aspect.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_04: So um I'm out there frequently and I'll I'll definitely let's connect.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um I want to also introduce you to another guy.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_04: Actually, maybe here we go.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna do it when we meet.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna bring another guy who's been on the show before.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_04: Um he's a uh military intelligence officer currently active, um, Kevin Alcoin, and it's called Alcoin Analytics, A-U-C-O-I-N.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_04: Check him out online.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_04: He does like daily briefings and all kinds of stuff.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_04: He uh I want him, I'm gonna have all three of us sit down and uh in person because he's outside of DC as well.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_04: And um, because I think that one thing is this has been dancing around, is I have so much military in my life and and in my family and things like that, that really trying to help you guys and anything I can do to accelerate what you're trying to do, I want to be of service to that.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_04: And also I have a future stepson in the house that's a uh junior in college, that's a ROTC Navy, uh ROTC kid and going into commission.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: So, so uh, you know, it's it's uh it's a near and dear to my heart.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: And another one, another boy in the on the rear that's uh considering it as well.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a past part of my family and it's a present, present part of our family as well.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the things, so I just kind of in the middle there, one of the things Kraft is doing um also is we're building out, I'm actually developing it right now as we kind of work on some things, but we're building out what we're calling the Veterans History Project.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_01: And it's again, it's unique to this ecosystem because one of the things that I want to make sure the story is told is service is not where we stopped and services and all we have done, period.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I mean, you can go all the way back to George Washington and you can go into the Whiskey Rebellion, you can go into his grist mill and his distillery, you can tell that whole story there, and that's well documented and well known.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: But what about the other brands?
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I remember the whole ecosystem that intersects, where do they tie?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: Where did that brewery that was veteran owned decide to be founded, and who were the founders of that and what's their veteran stories that connected to that?
• 21:54
  SPEAKER_01: And then where, you know, maybe they worked at it for 10 years and then they branched off and they opened something else.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's the marketing agency that came along through it, whatever.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_01: So we're using that, and I want to use the podcast stories that people have done as links into this history project as a way to connect us.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_01: So eventually, long-term goal, probably two or three years down the road, is to be able to look up a veteran, click on their thing, and follow their timeline personally or business-wise, follow the business timeline and see the veterans that intersect with that.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: And again, it's about what contribution did they make and to this whole industry.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_01: And where and then maybe you find some people in there that you want to connect with or learn more about.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: So that's something we're working on building out as part of this as well.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think it's a big story that needs to be told.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_04: No, it is.
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I'll reinforce that as well is that a lot of people with this podcast will be like, you do so many episodes.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_04: We've done 300 episodes in the past couple of years, and people are like, Why so many episodes?
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_04: And that's exactly why.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_04: Because I have a there's a library that's getting built.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_04: And the library would then you can hop into topics and everything like that and be able to search a topic, and then it'll pull up all the clips and all the videos.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_04: So it's uh it's a bigger picture that I'm playing for, where it seems like I'm being crazy going through interviewing so many people.
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_04: But you you know as well as I do, when there's a as a searchable, a query-focused library, the value that can bring to an industry and to a person is is is crucial.
• 23:18
  SPEAKER_04: And that's that is mine long term as well.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_04: I I originally had a documentary in mind, but I was like, no, a searchable website that uh is a living, breathing documentary where you can choose your own adventure and how you want it.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_04: Like that's kind of the next level of where I took it in the past year.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's that's fantastic.
• 23:33
  SPEAKER_01: And we again we can talk about how to put some of those pieces together and make that work because I agree with you.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_01: The the the generation of kids, they don't want to watch uh, you know, a two-hour World War II documentary.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_01: What they want to do is when they start watching that film and they see Private Snuffy, they want to click on him and learn about his family, and then they want to click where did he connect to and where why was he over here?
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_01: And then like their minds run in whole different directions because the access to information they have.
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_01: And I think you're right.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_01: I think that's the future of the way history is told.
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_04: That's exactly it.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_04: History is gonna be told in a mind map.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, it's gonna be a it's gonna be a giant flow chart and it's gonna be an infographic, and that's that's where we have to adapt it.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_04: And it's not, and the caution is the reason I want to control my platform in this way and create one beforehand is that I feel like it'll get then get bastardized and it'll get dehumanized.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_04: These infographics will get so shortened that our history would be manipulated.
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_04: So that's why I'm glad to be able to have talk to you as far as that goes, too, as well, because the real stories are going to be the most important part.
• 24:31
  SPEAKER_04: Because just while the corporations might stop us from getting on the shelf, the corporations also don't want us to tell the true story in certain ways.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't mean that in a pinfoil hat way.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_04: I mean that that if somebody's true authentic story is the opposite of what their mission is, they will actively, if it does gain traction and gain attention, they will actively suppress it.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_04: And that's just the nature of an ego and the hubris that we have in as a society.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_01: A hundred percent agree with that.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that that's part of it is if you as long as you play in the ecosystem and you keep kicking your dollars up to the to the bosses that control, I mean, let's be honest, alcoholic beverage using that term, uh, is controlled by pretty much five major family brands, right?
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_01: They're pretty much the big five that control everything.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_01: And then you can, you know, get to maybe 10 when you get to a little smaller, but the person that just started a brewery doesn't stand a chance unless they build something good enough that the big guys buy.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's kind of the model and the mindset, but why?
• 25:28
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that's where this, like you said, what we want to be able to do with craft is we don't want to own you because there's no reason for us to.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_01: But if we collectively work together under this umbrella of a nonprofit and and can do things that, you know, give us the same access, the same reach, the same pool.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_01: You know, if you sell to a bigger company, that's great.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_01: You can do all that, but you don't need to because you also have this.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_04: Talk to me about your your background and your history.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_04: You know, you and your wife were veterans.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_04: What branch were you guys?
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_04: And kind of and kind of get paint that story for me.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_01: So uh story goes that I I joined when I was uh straight out of high school, 17.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: Uh my mom had to sign my permission slip.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: I still give her a hard time about it.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_04: What year, what year is this?
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: 2000, pre-9-11.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_04: All right, there we go.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_04: We're about the same age, man.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_04: I graduated 03 from high school, yeah.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh yeah, so I I got in a little bit of trouble, single mom, household, you know, kind of stuff.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_01: I got in a little trouble.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: I was going the wrong direction.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_01: I ended up in ended up in front of a probation officer that basically was gonna be like, hey, this is what's gonna happen.
• 26:32
  SPEAKER_01: Because it was a small town.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_01: My mom was able to convince them to put that aside and let me go into the military.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: So joined the military, left.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_01: Worked out well for me.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_01: I stayed, I got back home uh in 2001 and you know, thought I was gonna do the reserve thing for a while.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: Then 9-11 happened, and I got called up, deployed, and uh I went in 04 and then spent my time with there, went active duty right after that.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_01: Um 23 years down the road, I decided that I'm hanging it up.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_01: I retired as a uh sergeant major, and um the whole reason for the alcohol industry was I was army by the way.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_01: The whole reason for the alcohol industry is as you're you know retiring, you're meeting all these people, you go to those kind of social occasions, right?
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_01: Where you have a bourbon, you have a beer, you have all these things.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_01: I could afford at that point in my career to have a decent bottle of bourbon or you know, something with somebody, but still$200 for a you know collector's bottle was kind of I didn't want to do that.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_01: So I was looking for a way to help me find another product that I might like before spending the$200.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I did all these Google searches at web store searches, and I found lots of rate and review platforms.
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_01: Really, there's YouTube, there's TikTok, there's all these people that'll say, hey, this is the best because I love this one because the problem is they didn't take into account anything I thought.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_01: And you could look at any one bottle and you'll get 15 people saying they love it, 15 people saying it's overrated and they hate it.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, it's unique to them.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_01: So when I couldn't find it, I went back to a group of friends and I was like, hey, this thing doesn't exist.
• 28:14
  SPEAKER_01: How you know why do you know of anything?
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_01: And they're like, no, I can't believe nobody's ever thought of this before.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so my wife was my girlfriend at the time, we got talking and she's like, why don't we build it?
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_01: We thought that would be easy.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: It is not.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_01: It is a very difficult building a mobile app uh it was very difficult.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_01: Now it's a little easier, right?
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_01: AI is all these platforms to build stuff, but back then it was very difficult.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_01: So we uh we built it, we went through a couple different developers, went through all these different processes, learned everything, and got all the way ready to and we put it on the app stores and it's done.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's ready to go.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_01: We're 100%.
• 28:51
  SPEAKER_01: And then the laws changed a little bit recently for direct to consumer.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_01: And now direct to consumer started opening up ways that this could be a little easier to be able to ship stuff to people's homes.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: So we're like, all right, before we market this thing, let's finish building the direct to consumer.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_01: So that's where we're at right now.
• 29:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's almost done.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_01: We've got a partner that's doing direct-to-consumer pieces with us.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: So you can use the app, it's there.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_01: We just have never marketed it because the last piece we're waiting on is a buy button.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that'll be how it makes money.
• 29:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's free to get listed.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: We'll share any brand that wants to be on there, we'll build out their flavor profiles, we'll do all kinds of stuff with them.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: The only catch is that when they sell it through our platform, you know, we get a little piece of that.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that's a great model.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's an eat what you kill model, and that's the way I live most of everything that I do.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_04: So it's like unless there's something that has some groundwork that needs an operational budget, everything I do is entrepreneurial.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_04: So I respect that a lot.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_04: And uh a lot of these startup brands should should respect that as well.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_04: What um when you guys uh when you guys launch this stuff and go through there, is there is it going to be like a reviews and community type thing, or how how kind of like the mechanics of explaining to people if they go to download it, what are some of the features and benefits that you can kind of see in there?
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so at its at its foundational extra foundation in the bar book is it is a flavor matching tool.
• 30:10
  SPEAKER_01: So I tell people all the time, imagine what Spotify does for you in your music library, right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_01: If you go and you listen to something in Spotify, the next thing you know it's suggesting another song, right?
• 30:20
  SPEAKER_01: You play a playlist, here's three more songs that show up, and you're like, oh, that's kind of cool.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_01: Some of them that you get, you're like, no, not my thing, and you kick it out of the way.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing the exact same thing.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_01: As it starts to learn what you have rated and what you have liked, it will collect your top flavors, right?
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_01: Ura vanilla, caramel, you know, whatever.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: And then it will start to suggest things that have those same top flavors.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_01: And it will suggest across mixers, non-alcoholics, sodas, uh, you know, basically anything but wine.
• 30:49
  SPEAKER_01: We stayed away from wine, we didn't get into that.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: But beer, spirits, cocktails, non-alk, low alk, really doesn't matter, even THC, because flavor is flavor.
• 31:00
  SPEAKER_01: It's it just works the same way.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, eventually we'll you know build out further and have it an interactive where you can add flavors to it and it'll start to alter some of the flavor profile stuff.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: But for right now, we're keeping it very locked.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_01: But the point is, is it starts to suggest and match to you.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_01: Now there is a rate and review like anything else because you want that data for yourself.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_01: I tried this on this date, didn't really like it.
• 31:22
  SPEAKER_01: Tried this on this date, didn't really like it.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_01: Or tried this on this date and loved it.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: You can share pictures to tie back to the moment, right?
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_01: We were hanging out on the patio, had this one beer, this thing was fantastic.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe six months from now, you go to grab that same beer and you're like, I don't know what I was thinking.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_01: But we keep the pro the ratings tied to you and tied to your moment so that it's always there, but you can change it.
• 31:48
  SPEAKER_01: You can go back and adjust.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_01: So you gave it five stars today, you give it three stars tomorrow, and then you know, vice versa, and it can go different ways.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_01: So it is rating, but what I tell people about the ratings is the rating is the aggregate.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_01: What matters is how it matches to you.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_01: And so if you look at any product on there, you'll see a little fingerprint icon and it'll have a um a color code on it.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: And if it's bright red, probably not a match.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_01: Bright green, probably a match.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_01: And it's just a little bit more education to help you when you're walking to a store and you're like, I'm not sure if I like that or not.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_04: I I'm gonna be honest, man.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_04: I've I've meet with a lot of these app companies with different things.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_04: This is the coolest idea.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_04: I'm just being serious, like that the the algorithmic, because it's it's something that I preach a lot and I connect with you on it, is the neurogastronomy of uh flavor experiences and to take an algorithm and make the algorithm basically what we're used to now because I mean we're in out interest-based algorithms all day long.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_04: Like we used on Facebook, Instagram, we used to be following our friends and all this stuff, but the algorithm no, it's it's doing that, it's grabbing what you're interested in, whatever the microphone catches, whatever you leave it on, you know, yeah, all that stuff.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_04: So that that this is this makes more sense because just like we talked about before, this matches and aligns with how we are consuming information as a society right now.
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_04: So it universally is uh is complementary normalized.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_01: And and so we we care about the whole data aspect, right?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm not integrated with the the meta or the the other platforms the same way, right?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't care what your real name is.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um now, your credit card company, because that's a third party for me, I mean they're gonna care what your real name is when you buy in that, but that's a third party piece for me.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_01: But as far as what we collect or what we use, your essentially name is some sort of random numbers series in there tied to whatever email address you use, and that's it, right?
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, uh we verify that that number has this flavor profile.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_01: Now, is there a chance in the future that somebody could buy this out and use it in other ways where they use that same technology and stuff?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_01: But it at the point of what it is right now, there's I don't really care what Mike Waskowicz thinks uh of a certain beverage because I'm not allowing them to market to your flavor.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_01: I'm allowing you just to see because I think it levels the playing field.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_01: If Budweiser could come in or whatever other big brand you could think it think of, would come in and be like, hey, they love this flavor profile, so we're gonna send them every Budweiser product of that flavor profile.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_01: Well, then it it kind of loses its integrity.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_01: And so right now we're keeping this as a, and that that's my plan as long as we are in control of it, is keep this as everybody's equal as far as you know, flavor matching.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_01: It is truly a flavor matching system.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um we'll you know, we'll see how things evolve and and technology grows, but that's where we want to be.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_04: I like how uh I'd be interested to see so in with the flavor matching, so it all like let's say I'm drinking uh I'm drinking a Pilsner, you know what I mean?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_04: Like I'm drinking a Miller light, and then all of a sudden I'm like, I like something light, I like something whatever.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_04: It also from a flavor standpoint, will it go outside of that category or is it gonna send that category?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_04: Oh, that that is a whole nother ball game.
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 35:07
  SPEAKER_01: So it will it will send you into the category first, right?
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_01: So we we use a uh a system of categories and subcategories um to start, right?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Is like that's your baseline.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_01: If you've never matched anything, you look at a Blanco tequila, you'll match to Blanco Tequila, right?
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_01: Or if you just look at tequila, you'll match to all tequilas, right?
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if you you start from a basic of I've never done anything to it.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, what this will also do is if you're a bourbon person, I use this example a lot because there's a real correlation between the two.
• 35:35
  SPEAKER_01: But if you're a bourbon person and you like to enjoy a good bourbon, you may also get recommended some Aneho tequilos because they have a very similar flavor profile.
• 35:44
  SPEAKER_01: Or this also works, right?
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_01: NA beer is a is a category.
• 35:48
  SPEAKER_01: But if I'm a I've always been a hoppy IPA person.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, here's a hoppy IPA that's an NA, right?
• 35:56
  SPEAKER_01: That meets the same stuff.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's in your category.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um the point is, is we're trying to link flavors and get you out of your comfort zone a little bit to expand what you could enjoy.
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_04: Um that's what that's what clicked for me right now.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_04: I saw this as a huge educational experience.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_01: And and so the, you know, I mean, the thought process is if you stay in your comfort zone, you'll never change it.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: Most people, when they go to buy a beverage, they shop a category, they don't shop brands, they they they shop a category, right?
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_01: If I'm going to the the adult beverage store, alcohol, whatever, I'm going for a THC beverage, I go for a THC beverage.
• 36:33
  SPEAKER_01: And then the next decision point for me at that point of sale is the flavor that I want, right?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_01: Whether it's current or it's raspberry or whatever.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_01: And that's my those are my two decision points.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_01: What the brand name is on the bottle is way below the category, the flavor, and then the price tag.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_01: The who makes it becomes less.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_01: Now, I I may remember that X brand tastes horrible.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_01: And I don't like that, you know.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: For me, I don't like that.
• 37:01
  SPEAKER_01: But for the most part, that's how I shop.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: And most people shop the same way.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_01: Same with bourbon.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: They'll go to a bourbon category and go, okay, bourbon is pretty much the same.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: If I want a straight line bourbon, people will argue that I just said the worst.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I was just, holy cow, I just broke all kinds of rules.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: But at the end of the day, they they're shopping for bourbon.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now they'll find the bottle, you know, if they want to be, I need a Buffalo Trace.
• 37:25
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, they go to Buffalo Trace, they find it, and then maybe they look left and right just a little bit to see if there's something that's you know cool or new or whatever.
• 37:33
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, they're shopping a category.
• 37:35
  SPEAKER_01: Price, price is king, and that's what they're looking for as a category.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: I'm never gonna go into a liquor store saying I'm looking for bourbon and end up in the tequila aisle.
• 37:44
  SPEAKER_01: You just you don't do that unless you decide maybe I need some tequila as well.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_01: You stay where you're at.
• 37:50
  SPEAKER_01: It's the same with beer.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_04: Exactly.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_04: It's funny you say you brought up the thing because a lot of people overlook pricing, and a lot of times the newer founders in this industry are worried so much about when they're gonna make their money back that they don't realize how important pricing is.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_04: And one of the things that when I was in the brand management spot in craft beer, when new brands would come into the board or into pitch, one was it wasn't a brand, it didn't matter.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_04: Like they could tell me all the stories under the sun about this cool hue and this new brand guide and all this stuff, and it didn't matter because I would always say, All right, customer has 21 or$20 in their pocket now.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_04: They filled up the gas tank, they got paid on Thursday, they're going to the beer store on Friday, and it's 20 bucks.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: Why are they choosing you?
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_04: And that question, you wouldn't believe how many people had jarred.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_04: Because they would be like, they would tell you all the reasons, but all the and then I would say, okay, all those reasons you just gave me, does that explain it on the can?
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_04: And they'd be like, No.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, okay, so let's pick a realistic scenario.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_04: I'm walking in the store, I got 20 bucks.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_04: Your one opportunity is the what that can looks like, how it describes itself, and everything like that.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_04: So that's why I love this product of what you're talking about in this platform, because it bridges that opportunity because it's in can it's impossible.
• 38:59
  SPEAKER_04: Now, not let me not say impossible.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_04: It's hard for a lot of brands to tell that story on their can.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna give credit for that.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_04: But there's creative ways that brands are not activating because in their head they know their story, but they don't realize that not it's that you're getting out your ego.
• 39:14
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm not saying they're selfish and narcissist or anything like that, but realizing that pretending nobody knows anything about you and go back to the format of the show.
• 39:21
  SPEAKER_04: That's why I do the show the way I do it.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_04: Because it forces people to explain themselves.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_04: And then also while you explain yourself, sometimes in that realization, people are like, Oh, I'm not even I'm I got a great story.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm and that's what it comes down to with these brands a lot of times, is it's a compliment because I'm like, you have a great story and you're not telling it because nobody knows unless they go to your social media, but in order to get to the social media, they need to know who you are.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_04: So there's all this like core issue and part before the horse type of stuff.
• 39:48
  SPEAKER_04: So education, again, at the end of the day, people need to understand 90% of sales are done through education, they're not actually done through sales.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_04: Like you have to educate the consumer, and ultimately the consumer is going to choose what they want.
• 39:58
  SPEAKER_04: You actually can't like in and beverage, you don't sell anything.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_01: And it's expensive to educate, which is another reason to that is why when I say bar book and craft are so integral in the way they're connected, is because that's one of the things that craft is looking to solve for these people.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: It's expensive.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_01: You as a singular beverage brand can't host, market and and publish and put all this together to host your own thousand-person event and sell tickets for it and do all that at a reasonable cost to where it makes any sense for you as a business owner.
• 40:32
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, um, you you just can't.
• 40:34
  SPEAKER_01: You have to partner with somebody else in order to make that, or you just don't mind throwing money away, right?
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_01: So it doesn't make sense.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_01: Well, if we solve that problem for you in the charity aspect to where people are giving us money that we can now replicate this over again, and we do it over and over and over for all these different businesses across the country.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_01: We now give you a platform, we give you access to all those people because the collective draws it much more than the singular.
• 41:00
  SPEAKER_01: Um and so we give that now you have an opportunity to focus on selling through samples.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_01: You sell in that moment when you're talking to them, and not in a I'm standing in a liquor store trying to catch the five minutes that somebody's got when they go in for a bottle and try to get back out.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: You've got a meaningful connection piece.
• 41:18
  SPEAKER_01: One, two, they have the it's Instagrammable, is if that's a word, right?
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: It is the moment where they're standing there with their phone, they're not only taking pictures of your product, but they can do the selfie with you and they can tell this story.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_01: It's you all of that becomes their friends are now connected to your brand somehow, or at least curious.
• 41:37
  SPEAKER_01: They're connected to it, and then that exponentially goes bigger with the marketing of the larger, you know, charitable organization as it replicates event two, event 10, event one thousand, right?
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_01: It now goes over and over showing your brands and your stuff and and how you can do this over and over.
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_01: And the cost to an individual brand to be a part of this is uh is kind of where I think where our sweet music is.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_01: Because if you want to show up, this is what we tell brands every time.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_01: If I have limited opportunities, so they have to take advantage of, but if you want to show up and pour and tell your story, it's free.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_01: 100% zero, doesn't cost you a dime, it costs you the uh product cost of pouring.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: Period.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um I give you two table or two chairs and a table, and you can pour.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Now, we uh you know where we get to do this is we make money off ticket sales, we make money off sponsorship opportunities and people to get branding and get bigger.
• 42:32
  SPEAKER_01: But if you have two chairs and a table, you're a small brand, you can't afford much, you're in the same room with somebody that can.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_04: What um when do uh when you do those types of events, like so you have the sponsor, that's how you guys make money then.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_04: So the sponsorship, because that I mean, I know you're a nonprofit, but you still have to have operating capital.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, so when you're doing when you're doing that, so a sponsor might be a lead sponsor that's going to manage the event, and then the sub-brands can come in through out it and pretend.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_04: That's a really I like that a lot.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_04: So you guys um and do you guys do these events?
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_01: So if somebody if a brand's listening, which a lot of these brands are listening to this to the show, is um, you know, what so right now we we've got the large event that is on the books scheduled and building out in Florida in September.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_01: Um, that is probably 99% filled, but we've got small opportunities.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_01: So if people are interested, you know, let us know.
• 43:28
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that one is going to be a three-day event for us.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_01: The conference that it's attached to is also a three-day event, but not necessarily aligned in the same package.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_01: We do a media industry day, like I talked about, where we're going to promote them to the local environment.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're inviting city councilmen and the mayor and a few other people to be like, here are brands that could be a part of your community.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_01: There's an opportunity for you brands to sell yourself to the community.
• 43:55
  SPEAKER_01: Then we've got you know, distribution, we've got some podcast people, we've got some content creators.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: All be there in that same space to help promote them small.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_01: The next day we take them into the larger event that we're a part of and we walk them on the floor and show them around to basically everything that's there.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_01: Then the third day they siphon pour.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_01: They sample with all these people and they do their event.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: And that's it.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_01: So that's a three-day large event that we're doing in Tampa.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now we're replicating this in multiple uh places.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh we're working on a plan for DC, we're working on a plan for Nashville and Jacksonville for next year, Arlington, Texas for next year, Pittsburgh for next year.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_01: So we've got a much bigger plan just spreading across the country uh with other events.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_01: The way we sell this is, and I say sell because that's kind of the way we put this together, is we sell this as an opportunity for your large conference.
• 44:53
  SPEAKER_01: So they always do a happy hour.
• 44:55
  SPEAKER_01: Why not let us be your happy hour?
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_01: Why not let us do this as part of your, you know, your conference?
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_01: And now our brands get to connect not only to your conference attendees, but your conference attendees get the bonus of a low-cost happy hour and maybe new business connections, like uh we're exploring ones with restaurants or is we're exploring one with the stilling spaces or brewery spaces so that those large industry conferences can have this.
• 45:21
  SPEAKER_01: And again, we're looking at generating business relationships.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's the point.
• 45:25
  SPEAKER_04: The um what you what you're doing is uh we we align on that as well.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_04: It's um when I was in the craft beer space for a while, it was uh it was hard to get these buyers together, and it was hard to get buyers in the same room together.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:36
  SPEAKER_04: So what we would do is we would do two to three brands at a time, and then we would have we would bring them all to some sort of a location, and we would we would bring like 50 different retailers together in the same room, and then we would do the presentations and the one-on-ones and the tastings and the food pairings and all this stuff, because it's not only inefficient from a sales standpoint, but it's also just it's just trying to track people down is absolutely insane.
• 45:58
  SPEAKER_04: So we'd be going door to door pitching the same story, telling people to do the same things.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_04: But it turned out just like go back to the beginning of our conversation, bringing them all in the same room.
• 46:07
  SPEAKER_04: And then what happened was our sales accelerated and our points of distribution accelerated because they then looked at each other and they're looked at each other's visceral reactions, and it wasn't somebody pitching them.
• 46:16
  SPEAKER_04: Nobody pitched anything.
• 46:18
  SPEAKER_04: People just showed what they were doing.
• 46:21
  SPEAKER_04: And then the community aspect and the energy that was felt off the rune accelerated sales and accelerated points of distribution because they saw common friends just like the app.
• 46:29
  SPEAKER_04: You see friends that like this product, well, I like that product too, or I might not like that product, or I will.
• 46:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I think I used to use the phrase shooting fish in the barrel at times what it felt like as a sales guy to business development guy.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: But it wasn't necessarily that in a negative way, as much as it was just efficient for everybody.
• 46:45
  SPEAKER_04: Because I the buyers at the end of the day, when we send the survey, they all were like, this was easier than fielding 15 conversations from 15 kids that just graduated college and don't know shit about my business, and they're just reading a script to me to be able to sit there and talk to you guys for two hours.
• 47:00
  SPEAKER_04: That's all it was was two hours.
• 47:02
  SPEAKER_04: And they came in for two hours.
• 47:03
  SPEAKER_04: It was four, it was a 50 uh 50 buyer cap, and it was a 51-on-one.
• 47:07
  SPEAKER_04: And then we did multiple ones throughout our territory, and we're actually gonna be doing that again uh with our our I Want My THC campaign.
• 47:13
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so we have a campaign for a hemp beverage bill in Pennsylvania that just went public on Friday, and we're doing a statewide campaign for signatures, and then we're building a resource guide, which you're gonna love, which is um all the everything you need to know educationally about dosage, proper usage as a retailer selling the product, therefore, all the education is there in the in the book.
• 47:32
  SPEAKER_04: And then also as a bartender, it's an education as far as how to serve because when the bill passes, we'll actually have hemp beverages in bars.
• 47:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 47:39
  SPEAKER_04: And then also as a distributor for storage for all these different things.
• 47:42
  SPEAKER_04: And then in between in the book is real stories of real founders, and that's also coming from the transcriptions of these episodes.
• 47:49
  SPEAKER_04: So that's gonna, and it's gonna be an ongoing magazine that'll be for free, that'll be inside of every retailer across Pennsylvania called I Want My THC.
• 47:57
  SPEAKER_04: And it's gonna be all and it's gonna educate the public on the real people behind it and also educate them on how to properly, you know, manage your life with these products and use them effectively and responsibly with moderation, you know.
• 48:08
  SPEAKER_01: I I think that's fantastic because I I agree with you 100%.
• 48:12
  SPEAKER_01: The education is the is the key to all of this.
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: I it's good to talk to somebody who also sees it kind of the same way when I'm talking about because when we designed this media day out, you know, many of these places have been to what we call, you know, do we term of endearment them as bottle shares, right?
• 48:28
  SPEAKER_01: We're all right and they they all bring a bottle of their product, right?
• 48:33
  SPEAKER_01: So we took that from instead of just bringing a bottle for us to share internally with each other that does nothing but just show off your stuff, let's do that same bottle share.
• 48:43
  SPEAKER_01: We're gonna do it.
• 48:45
  SPEAKER_01: You're gonna have a bar with all your bottles sitting on top of them.
• 48:47
  SPEAKER_01: People can go up and then get their own little samples and try it out, whatever.
• 48:50
  SPEAKER_01: But we're also gonna have three dedicated podcast tables where they're doing live episodes with the whole port form.
• 48:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then we're gonna have of limited to eight, eight content creators in the space.
• 49:02
  SPEAKER_01: So now when you've got buyers, you've got distribution, you've got logistics, and you've got 20-something brands walking around all having these conversations.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: You're right.
• 49:10
  SPEAKER_01: The buyers actually don't have to do anything but watch.
• 49:14
  SPEAKER_01: If the content content creators are picking up this can, they're like, Oh, that's amazing.
• 49:18
  SPEAKER_01: They're taking lots of pictures with it, you're already thinking that's gonna look great on my shelf.
• 49:23
  SPEAKER_01: If these people are taking pictures with it, that means it's gonna go well.
• 49:25
  SPEAKER_01: Look, it's already over here doing something.
• 49:27
  SPEAKER_01: I I've got a connection.
• 49:28
  SPEAKER_01: The same way if if on the podcast they're talking about the story behind it, and you're like, I can sell that story.
• 49:34
  SPEAKER_01: I can hear that, and they can all watch it at the same time, and then they can link to the episode and share it how they want.
• 49:39
  SPEAKER_01: So all of this happens in the matter of a few hours in this small space, and then we've built some time the next day for follow-ups, right?
• 49:46
  SPEAKER_01: They because it's a mat, it's generally going to generate conversations where somebody goes, I need to talk more to those people that own that one brand.
• 49:53
  SPEAKER_01: That's gonna fit well in our space.
• 49:56
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whatever.
• 49:57
  SPEAKER_01: But that's that is what we're trying to build out in this ecosystem here, and then rep, like I said, replicate it again at smaller instances at different places.
• 50:07
  SPEAKER_04: Well, I'm looking, I'm looking forward to I'm definitely uh later today.
• 50:10
  SPEAKER_04: You'll get an email from me and let's have it, we'll have an offline conversation uh in the next three to four months.
• 50:15
  SPEAKER_04: There's a couple things that I think uh we could either collaborate on or just to keep you interested in knowing what's going on and stuff like that, especially with your proximity geographically.
• 50:23
  SPEAKER_04: So we will be physically sitting together in the next 30 to 45 days.
• 50:26
  SPEAKER_04: I'm gonna I'm gonna put that commitment on the record and in the episode.
• 50:30
  SPEAKER_03: I will definitely do it.
• 50:31
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 50:32
  SPEAKER_04: In closing on on this one today, um, let's kind of close out with uh um with anywhere people can reach you and can connect with you, like LinkedIn, and then uh give the websites for each and any social handles and things like that.
• 50:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so uh if anybody's curious, wants to learn more about the bar book or craft or anything that we're doing, or contact me directly.
• 50:51
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I'm always available through my LinkedIn, Mike Waskowitz on LinkedIn.
• 50:55
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, you can also search craft on LinkedIn, the bar book on LinkedIn.
• 50:59
  SPEAKER_01: The bar book is the barbook.app, or it's in all the app stores.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: You can go and download it, the bar book.
• 51:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh craft is online at supportcraft.org.
• 51:09
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then you can email.
• 51:11
  SPEAKER_01: There's links in the in the site to be able to email directly to us.
• 51:14
  SPEAKER_01: But take a look, see what's going on there.
• 51:16
  SPEAKER_01: And we'd love to add any veteran brand, any veteran allied brand, or anybody that just wants to be part of this ecosystem to help shoot us a message and let's get you involved too.
• 51:25
  SPEAKER_04: Perfect, man.
• 51:26
  SPEAKER_04: Well, hey, uh, I appreciate you taking the time today.
• 51:28
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't say that lightly because it's something about this format that there's no questions, there's no prep, and it makes some people nervous.
• 51:34
  SPEAKER_04: And I want to congrat, I want to congratulate you for surviving, you know what I mean?
• 51:38
  SPEAKER_04: But at the same time, I want to say, I want to say thank you for your courage.
• 51:41
  SPEAKER_04: And I will I knew when I booked you, I didn't know a lot about you intentionally, but I did know with the veteran aspect of things that I have yet to ever meet a veteran that wasn't ready for a good challenge.
• 51:49
  SPEAKER_04: It can always it can always brace itself through a 60-minute uh Zoom meeting or whatever on Google Meet.
• 51:55
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a pleasure meeting you.
• 51:56
  SPEAKER_01: And yes, we are getting together.
• 51:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um, whether we go out to Leesburg and meet or wherever your your other guy's at, somewhere that we can meet kind of in the middle and and hang out.
• 52:05
  SPEAKER_01: And uh yeah, I'm interested.
• 52:07
  SPEAKER_04: So I want to I'll close out to everybody, remind everybody that this is more than just a show about drinks.
• 52:12
  SPEAKER_04: This is more about a show about entrepreneurship.
• 52:14
  SPEAKER_04: This is just a show about being a good human being.
• 52:16
  SPEAKER_04: And when you're out on the road walking in the street, look a stranger in the eye, put your phone down and put it in your pocket, smile at people, hold the door for a stranger, whether it's male, female, German shepherd, it doesn't matter.
• 52:26
  SPEAKER_04: And when you're at the gas station, filling up your cup of coffee, look to the guy next to you or girl next to you, ask them how they're doing, and actually shut your mouth and listen for them to answer and actually give a shit about what they say, because this world is a beautifully destructive place, and we are all in this together.
• 52:39
  SPEAKER_04: And the more people realize that there's a lot going on in everybody's life, and it's really inexpensive to just be a not a piece of shit human being in this world and to be a good human.
• 52:48
  SPEAKER_04: So, Michael, thank you for being a good human.
• 52:50
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you for having the balls to come on the episode.
• 52:52
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm looking forward to the fact that you taking the risk is probably going to lead to something really fun for us in the next few months.
• 52:57
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm looking forward to meeting you in person, man, and thank you for taking the jump.
• 53:00
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no worries, Dane.
• 53:02
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, it's been a pleasure.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_04: Absolutely.
• 53:03
  SPEAKER_04: You have a great rest of your day, brother.
• 53:05
  SPEAKER_01: All right, you too, man.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Take care.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_04: Okay.
• 53:06
  SPEAKER_01: Bye.