861: Business INTELLIGENCE and how data is EVERYWHERE in your business w/ Nathan Westfall

0:00 Hey, what is up? Welcome to this episode of the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast. As always, I'm your host, brian Lofermento, and I'll tell you what. We always hear certain buzzwords in the world of business and in the world of entrepreneurship, and some of those are data and analytics, and that's why today, we are bringing on a brilliant guest to walk us through that ground and, more importantly, to share some light on us on how we can use data and analytics to actually make a positive impact in our businesses. So let me tell you about today's guest. His name is Nathan Westfall. He's an entrepreneur in the wine tech space that's a cool industry we're going to talk about the wine tech space, for sure and the founder of an analytics and strategy firm called Vine Valley Analytics and Strategy.

0:42 He didn't always work in and around the wine industry, though. In fact, he started his working career. This is such a cool story doing a job that's very similar to air traffic control for the United States Air Force for almost 10 years controlling some of the busiest airspace on the planet. Now, a side note, I'm going to geek out when we talk to Nathan here today, because I've heard that air traffic control is one of the most demanding jobs in the world when it comes to intelligence, and so this is someone who's able to piece together a lot of variables and literal moving parts to make sense of it all. Upon leaving the Air Force, he moved to Sonoma County and fell in love with the natural beauty there. He's always been a photographer, so he leveraged that skill into a small business creating marketing and promotional content for local wineries.

1:27 It was during that time that he was first shown the wealth of data each and every winery was sitting on, and as they all started to re-emerge from the pandemic, he pivoted into the world of data analytics and business intelligence. There's a lot of good stuff that I'm super excited to jump into, so I'm not going to say anything else. Let's dive straight into my interview with Nathan Westfall. All right, nathan, we've got so much we're going to dive into, but first things first, welcome to the show. Hey, thanks, brian. Happy to be here. Heck, yeah, super excited. Honestly, I'm excited on so many different levels. Obviously, I tooted your horn quite a bit in the intro here today, but take us beyond the bio. Who the heck is Nathan? How did you start doing all these very cool things that you're up to?

2:10 You know, it's always just been pursuing passions. I was just chasing the thing that I really enjoy doing at the moment and finding the end to it. So everything that I've done has always been, you know, just directed at what I'm passionate at. Yeah, I love that overview, especially because passion is the name of the game for so many of us in the world of entrepreneurship. But I'm going to give you extra credit here, Nathan, because you didn't just you weren't aware of your passions, you actually followed and pursued those passions. So give us the origin story going from the Air Force and an air traffic control similar type of position to now you're an entrepreneur Like. That's an incredible transition. I want to hear more about that. Yeah, absolutely. It's not what I expected. And then when I initially started my career as an air traffic controller in the Air Force but joined when I was quite young and fell into this amazing opportunity to do one of the most interesting and diverse jobs I've ever done in my life, you just kind of follow things from one to the next to the next and before you know it I end up controlling some of the busiest airspace on the planet.

3:10 Pivoting from that. You never think you can find anything that's going to be nearly as engaging or fun as something that's constantly changing 100% of the time. But moving back to California, trying to take things a little bit slower, and I fell into this world of data analytics and business intelligence and it's been equally interesting and engaging ever since. It's just a completely untapped resource in the industry that I'm in and it's been something that's really fun to leverage because you're kind of paving the way, you're making all the inroads, making the paths and meeting people and really causing a disruption in the wine tech space. Enough to where people are willing to listen and really excited to listen.

3:51 Yeah, really well said, nathan. Your passion does shine through even in the way that you talk about these things, so I'm really excited to get some of your brilliance and strategies here today. But I guess we've got to start. It's a big term that's thrown around so frequently of business intelligence, so we're going to start by. It's a big term that's thrown around so frequently of business intelligence, so we're going to start by going deeper there. What the heck is business intelligence, nathan? Oh, you know, it's just the program that people use. You know Microsoft, Microsoft Power BI, that's it right? No, it's a whole different subset of. I like to explain it to folks as kind of like it's directed strategy. It's taking your business and strategizing based on the data that you're collecting and the data that your business provides, on how you're going to move forward, how you're going to most effectively capitalize on what you're good at and how you can trim off what you're bad at, to be 100% functional all the time.

4:42 Yeah, I love the fact that you call out, because you probably get all of these things from people all the time of oh, is it just that one tool that I use that? But what's interesting to me and I love the fact that we're wrapping today's conversation around the wine industry is because a lot of people may think, you know, business intelligence must be large, fortune 500 level enterprises, whereas this really does apply to all of our different industries. So I guess I'm going to give you so many of the challenging parts of today's session here, nathan, but one talk to us within your industry how you've seen it apply and how you've seen it really complement the successes of these businesses in the wine industry, but even beyond that, on a irrespective of size level of industry. Talk to us about how business intelligence touches all the different businesses out there, especially for listeners who might be thinking well, does this apply to me?

5:29 We're talking wine here today, but extrapolate that. Oh, it applies to everybody. There is no industry out there that could not do with a little bit of business intelligence and data analytics in their life. I mean everything from. I've worked at very, very large wineries and worked for very, very large wineries that are internationally distributed, that have their wine all over the world and being able to leverage data and show them. Oh, you know, we have a serious off the shelf. So let's kind of change our inventory plan and shift our inventory more to the east so we can really supply those folks that are ordering online direct to consumer.

6:11 Or maybe you know our route is really here deep in Sonoma County, where I am, and we want to make sure we have a large amount of inventory here and that we're really investing in the local community to kind of bring up our local, how folks see us, our local perception. You know all the way down to I've worked for really small wineries and other small businesses. We have a pizza place right across the street from us. That is a perfect example. They're super small, very local, hyper local place, but seeing you know you can take all of their data. We're looking at all of their data combined. I'm like okay, your pepperoni slice. How often do you offer that on the menu. Okay, that's on the menu three times a week and it seems like those three days that the pepperoni slices on the menu, those are when you get the most business and everybody seems to be going for the pepperoni slice.

6:57 Maybe we put the pepperoni slice on the menu for four or five days to really leverage that. It's the one everybody loves and we can, you know, come up with a plan to draw more people in, give them a little bit more of a taste and a flavor. They come in for pepperoni, but maybe we offer them, you know, a little margarita pizza over here, because they're here. We already lured them in with pepperoni. So business intelligence is taking that data, all the data that we have, all the data that we're collecting, everything from our sales to our marketing engagement, everything and amalgamating it into one narrow scope strategy that shows us okay, this is where we're succeeding, this is where we may not be succeeding as much, and this is how we can leverage what we're doing to succeed even more.

7:39 Nathan, coming armed with real life examples. Listeners absolutely love this. I love those tangible examples of managing inventory, of looking at sales data. You even mentioned market perception. These are data points that we may not always think about, which is why I wanna segue naturally right into this next line of questioning, which is when we say that word data, way too many business owners, way too many entrepreneurs they may think to themselves, well, I don't have data and it may not be organized data. It probably is not organized data, but, Nathan, it seems to me, like you see data everywhere. What are some of those data points that people may not even realize? That one they have and two they can leverage? Oh, absolutely. I've got actually a fascinating story, which this is what led me into the world of data analytics and business intelligence.

8:24 I was, as you had mentioned previously, I was doing my content creation business. I was taking photos, I was doing videos, drone shots, what have you? And I was working with the winery and they had their point of sale and you know customer CRM system up and was looking in there with them. You know, kind of helping them. Okay, you know, these are our customers, this is what we're trying to leverage, this is who we're trying to attract. I was you guys realize you're sitting on an ocean of data, right, and, like, what are you talking about? This is just. You know this. This is the customers that we have. This is our sales. Yeah, every single one of those points is a data point. You know this customer. They've purchased three times in the last year. They purchased in December, they purchased in June, they purchased in February.

9:04 What does that tell you? Like, okay, how do we put those things together? What happens in February, valentine's Day? They probably purchased a bottle for Valentine's Day. What was their purchase date? The 14th? Oh, beautiful, we know, yep, they purchased on Valentine's Day and then, oh, they purchased in June. That has to be for the summer. What kind of wine are they purchasing? Probably rosé. It's hot out, people want to drink rosé, so it's tying things together. Everything is a data point. Everything, if you look at it in the right light, is going to be a data point, and if you're able to tie those things together into a cohesive strategy, then you're just ready to go. You are light years ahead of everybody else. Yeah, I love that you call it out as you're going to be light years ahead of everybody else, because we see it as consumers, nathan, like none of this stuff is rocket science, because we all shop on Amazon.

9:50 We all know that when we check out from Amazon, it says, hey, you may be interested in these other things. That's not magic. That is obviously data driven recommendations from an enterprise company yes, like Amazon. But what you're alluding to and what you're really talking about here today is data that we can all get our hands on. I mean, I'm even just having this conversation with you today. I'm thinking where can I export data from? Obviously, my payment processor is one looking at seasonal trends, looking at customer by customer trends, volume trends, all of those, as well as my different services and offerings, which ones are selling, taking an intentional look at that. So obviously, that's one example from my own businesses that we can leverage data on. Where can we find these sources of data?

10:30 So if payment processors is one place for a potential data collection that we don't realize, what are some of those other real life practical data sources that you've seen? Payment processors is always where I start people. If you can see what you're selling, then you can see how well you're doing. You can see what works and what doesn't work. That's the easy, that's the low-hanging fruit, because it's always there. It's easily exportable. You can throw it into a spreadsheet and tease out exactly what you want. But when you want to get a little bit more advanced, just beyond the payment processor, I'm a huge fan of just even surveys talking to your customers, talk to people as they walk through the door hey, how are you doing? What brought you in? Today? If you have a patent, you know a pen and you can sit there and write down.

11:10 You know what brought you in. How did we attract our folks? How did people come in? You can be your own data collection machine right there. You can just collect things, write them all down and then map your trends. If you know, 10 people came in because they had seen an ad that you put out in the local paper. Then boom, there's a trend. Yes, those ads in the paper are working. We can tie those two things together so you can get data. You can harvest data from yourself. You can harvest data from payment processors. From your online. You can harvest data from your inventory. You know where is my inventory moving. Where you can harvest data from your inventory. You know where is my inventory moving, where you know. Am I putting out more of this or more of that? Everywhere is a data source. There are no holds barred. You can collect data from any different source, as long as you find value in it.

11:52 That's all that matters. Yes, nathan Gosh, you rattle those questions off effortlessly, obviously because you live in this space, but you brought up an important point. Is that a lot of times, when we tune into these types of conversations about data, we talk so frequently about quantitative data, but you just introduce us to the wonderful world of qualitative data. But I would argue that the reason why you can rattle those questions off so succinctly is because you have the end in mind. You already know what data is actionable, because you've done this for a living. So talk to us about how to make that qualitative data collection actually have a purpose, because, as a consumer, I'll bring it back to that. I've been on email lists where companies send out like how likely are you to recommend us to a friend?

12:34 And I'm just like you don't even know why, though, like you don't know the things of your business that I really appreciate. So how can we be more intentional and strategic with that qualitative data? I think it's taking every single piece of data you get, piece by piece, and being able to not only map it into a trend but also take it at face value. You know, take it, see who gave you that piece of data, kind of associate the two and, you know, really move forward and like, okay, this, this is this person's specific perspective. And once we can start putting things in little boxes, that's when we can start taking qualitative data and turning it into something a little bit more quantitative.

13:15 We can see, you know, okay, what are the demographics of this person that told me this specific thing? This is a, you know, older person coming into my shop that is looking for this specific item. Let's talk to some more folks. Oh, it seems like there's a trend. We see people on the older end of the spectrum that are all kind of shopping for this specific item or this specific subset of items. Okay, now we have a trend, now we can start mapping that, now we can start really targeting the questions that we ask these folks as they come in the door. So instead of hey, what brought you in today? Be like hi, nice to see you, nice to meet you, are you perhaps interested in this particular item boom. Right there. You've already gauged their interest.

13:55 You know, based on your match trends, that this is kind of what this subset of person is possibly looking for, and it makes them feel like they're very well heard and that they know that you know what they're looking for. So it really it ups your game that way. Yeah, nathan, I guess we're about to get into the geeky part of today's conversation because, as a former econometrics geek it was in college, I majored in economics and finance I quickly learned the value of understanding causation versus correlation, and I remember that one of my econometrics professors had us do the correlation between the number of sheep in Scotland and the number of ice cream cones sold in New York in a given summer. And so, with those things in mind, obviously there is a dangerous side to not understanding how to use the data.

14:41 I'm thinking of confirmation bias and all the other natural human biases that come into it. Without geeking out too much but still bringing it to practical terms for our listeners. What are some of those dangers? Because obviously you're an expert in this, but your everyday entrepreneur or business owner may not understand what to do with it all when they collect it. What are some of those things to watch out for? No, you really hit on it. Correlation does not mean causation and I feel like that is the biggest sinkhole that everybody falls into. They see two or three things that correlate and they don't wait long enough to really vet what they're doing and vet what the data it is that they're collecting and how we can be actionable with it. So, by not leaving that extra amount of time to collect enough data to really take it from just a correlated thing to a this is an actual, you know, actionable thing that we can execute on, not taking that time can lead to some, you know, snap decisions that really don't benefit you in the long run.

15:39 You know who knows they might, but then how does that work for your data collection and for moving forward after that? It's not great. I mean, you made a snap decision and, yes, it worked out, but why did it work out? You don't know, you can't map it, you can't come back, you can't rely on it. So, allowing time for things to play out, realizing that none of this is instant, that you can't get, there's no cure. All with data, it doesn't automatically solve anything for you, it takes time, it takes patience and I think really what folks should be focusing on is broad collection of data, patience in collecting their data and then taking the time after to really sift through it and create actionable trends, as opposed to just knee-jerk reactions.

16:23 Yeah, I love the way you give us that overview, nathan. It is. I think it's an essential part of what we have to talk about within the world of data, and you really brought it to where I knew we'd end up here today, which is that key word that you said a few times there decisions. Obviously, all of this data and business intelligence and analytical work is so that we can make better decisions as business owners Cross that bridge for us, because I think it's such a cool part of what your business does is that you don't just do the data side of it. You sit down with your clients and say, hey, here's how we can make it actionable, here's how we can make strategic and intentional business decisions. What does that look like, especially considering, I would imagine, especially, I mean, in the wine industry? Not everyone is a data geek.

17:04 Not everyone understands causation versus correlation. What does it look like bringing it to business decisions? Honestly, it's quite the opposite for everybody in the wine industry. The wine industry is traditionally quite tech averse. They're very much rooted in tradition. I've been doing the same thing for however many years at this point and it's worked so far. Why should we bring on a whole new strategy? Why should we bring data into the equation, so trying to shift that perception and get into the room with people where you could walk into the room thinking that you're the smartest person in the room? But it's never going to pay off in an industry like wine, because everybody has so much more time in the industry and kind of realizes and maps those trends in their own head that they're not going to trust you right off the bat.

17:53 So it's a trust building exercise sitting in the room, turning it from you know, actual collected data to actionable trends. But I think there's that, that concept of you know relating to people meeting them where they are. You can sit down in the room. Don't try to talk over them. Don't try to you know. Hit them with a bunch of fancy terms, hit them with a bunch of you know lingo that they don't understand. Hit them exactly where they understand things, where they know things are working. Take it back to like oh, it looks like back in 1996, we can see that you had a really fantastic year. What made that year so fantastic for you? Well, you know that was the year we were selling our 94 vintage. The 94 vintage was amazing.

18:34 That, you know, had wonderful, you know, beautiful late, wet spring, and you know we made really really good wine from all of our great crops. So, yeah, when we released the 94s and 96, things went really well. And what was the weather like in 96? Oh, you know, it was beautiful. That 96 too. We had a great, great summer. It was warm but not too hot. People were coming out in force. It was amazing. We. That was the best year we ever had. Like, okay, well, if we look at today, it's 2024. Now, how are your 2022 vintages like, oh well, 22 was pretty good. You know we had that same trend that we had in, you know, 94. So we're going to see some really good wine coming out. I'm like, okay, well, let's look at the weather coming up. Is the weather going to be good for the summer? Do you think? Are we looking at maybe another, a good, warm summer?

19:16 Oh, yeah, I think. I think that's it. I think we are looking at a good summer, okay. Well then, maybe let's plan for an uptick, let's plan for a trend. Does that sound like something that you know that meets your expectations? That you're going to see, because I can see from your data here. Let's go back and look at the data points. You can see the uptick as things go up here. Yet you're starting to release these wines from two years ago. They're getting great reviews. You see, here's a. You know a 96, here's a 97 in the major publications, for you know this bottle on that label. I think I'm seeing the same trend here that we saw back in 96. This looks like a repeat of that trend. So let's try and follow what we did at that point and marry the two. You know we can still use some of our more modern tactics or more modern marketing tactics to bring folks in, but realize that we're sitting on the same.

20:02 You know, really positive wine scores and positive wine coming back. So we can correlate the two and move forward and really make a difference. Yeah, nathan, it's funny, I didn't even think about this before we got together here today, but your industry one peculiarity there, which works to your advantage and the business owner's advantage, is that it is literally an aging industry. You have so much historic data because wine needs to age. These businesses have to all age as well, as they mature and as they grow, and that obviously leaves you with a wealth of data, which I mean you said it right at the top of this episode it's one of the reasons why you love working in the industry that you work in. With that question in mind, though, and obviously knowing our audience is entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs all over the world at various different stages, we have entrepreneurs that are eight figure entrepreneurs that I know tune into this show.

20:49 Thank you all for tuning in. With that in mind, what's your advice for maybe the business owners that are less mature in their growth cycle, that are out of the gates and saying Nathan, I don't have years of historical data to lean on? How do you handle those data, data lacking, situations and scenarios? Well, again, surprisingly, with wine, it's very much the same, because they haven't been collecting data for very long that they know of. So it's all about finding the data. That's there. They. If you're a new business and you may not have that really deep historical data, what you do have is a lot of right now data that you're just not even utilizing and you may not even know is there.

21:30 Everything is happening currently and everything is a data point, like I said before. So anything that you can collect, it's like okay, let's just set a start date. We're going to go all in on data. We're going to make sure that data is one of our priorities as we're moving forward with our business. Let's start recording things as they happen and let's follow and map those trends. So that's you know. Even if you may not have a deep you know, recessive data behind you, what you do have is an ability to put a focus on data and make data a real priority in your business and start collecting those data points and just watch your treasure trove of data grow. Yeah, which is great news for listeners, because, no matter where you are in your business's journey, this real-time collection, this is where it starts.

22:14 It doesn't start a year from now or three years from now. Nathan is bringing this episode to us today because you can start today. So I love that, nathan. It just sounds to me like everything that you do business-wise comes with a level of intentionality, with a level of such deep strategy and, along those lines, something that I don't know how to articulate this, so I trust that you're going to do a way better job than I ever could is leading and lagging indicators. The older I get, the more mature I get as an entrepreneur and as a business owner. I realized that there are certain things like you use the weather, for example, the weather of this summer is going to impact, maybe, sales two years from now. That's a leading indicator. Talk to us about how your brain sorts out these leading and lagging indicators and, I guess, really backing up, what the heck does leading and lagging indicators mean and how can we make sense of it all?

23:01 You know, brian, when I think of leading indicators again being in wine, the weather is going to be a huge telltale for all of us because we're so based in agriculture, like we're rooted in agriculture, so when the weather is not agreeing, when it's not good for growth, we're not good for grape growth and we're not getting that good of a harvest, then we can plan for that moving forward. The wine maybe won't be as good, and when we have really great weather, we can plan looking forward. So those leading indicators are, for me, anything that I can see that is going to affect us moving further out than, let's say, a few weeks to a month, anything that we can plan for in the future, that we have a good idea of what's going to happen.

23:44 You know we have a good idea of where we can predict things are going to go. That's going to be a leading indicator for me. A lagging indicator is going to be something that I can't predict, plan for something that's going to. You know, maybe come up that someone's going to get a little bit hyper, fixated on and like that's not helping us plan forward. We're looking behind us. We're looking at things that have already happened and things that we have no control over that would be. For me, that's what I would consider a lagging indicator. Yeah, and I think it's really important to shout these things out because, especially within the world of entrepreneurship, a lot of people become obsessed with sales and they're just like, oh my gosh, I want these sales. And I remember when I was in my early twenties and I would see an entrepreneur, you know had a $40,000 revenue month and in my head I was just like, what did they do to get there?

24:27 And the reality is they probably had a lot of conversations six months before. They generated a lot of leads before. So that's listeners for you all, with a real life example from my businesses. That's a leading indicator. As I say, how many conversations am I having? It doesn't mean they're going to show up in my income statement tomorrow. As Nathan said. It may not even take shape in weeks. However, it will take care of itself with enough timeframe. So I always love that concept of zooming in and zooming out of data because it gives you that different perspective which I feel like. You and I can't be here together today, nathan, and not talk about technology. We both obviously love technology. There's so much tech at our disposal these days. Ai has become the elephant in the room in any type of business conversation.

25:08 Talk to us about tech, how more accessible data analysis is for all of us and, really, what are some of your favorite tools that you see out there? analysis is for all of us. And really, what are some of your favorite tools that you see out there? Tech I mean, I could go on forever about tech. I love leveraging technology to really give you a foot up in the business world, and I think that it's such a pervasive resource that people are not really, you know, diving in on nearly as much as they should, because it's such a force multiplier once you have it. The technologies that I think I mean specifically in the wine industry right now, there's a lot of folks that are building data aggregators that are, you know, with dashboards and immediate displays, you can see how things are working in your winery right now, which is, you know, it's a very good thing to have, it's an awesome thing to have and it definitely shows you, a point in time, how you're doing.

25:55 But some of the real tools that I really love are some of the things that you can use looking forward for planning and that are able to extrapolate out. Okay, this is how you're doing now, but this is how you could be doing in the next six to 10 months if things stay on the same track. So I'm trying to think of the specific tools that I really enjoy. You know I use so many separate tools. A lot of it, a lot of it's very classic and a lot of the tools I use. I mean it's going to sound pretty nerdy here, but I love a good Excel spreadsheet. I think Excel is something that is pretty pervasively leveraged across the board for most business owners and just know it's very approachable, it's easy, you can jump right into it and it's going to be able to leverage your data immediately.

26:41 There's definitely the fancier tools out there. You can use data tools with AI built in. You can use things that are going to machine learning, tools that are going to learn from your data, previous data and predict out forward for you those are great. Those are very, very helpful. Previous data and project out forward for you those are great. Those are very, very helpful. But I think learning the basics getting out an Excel spreadsheet, pulling your data, combing through it, making your formulas that are going to sum together all things from one trend and being able to map your trends individually is an awesome place to start. And again, coming from a wine perspective, where technology isn't exactly the first thing people lean on, I'm always trying to convince people OK, like, let's start at the beginning.

27:22 We don't have to jump into crazy advanced tools. I don't have to show you all the wild and fantastic things that I have at my disposal. We can start with something really simple but moving forward. I mean, that's another thing that Vine Valley has done and is continuing to do. Now we've realized that there's not enough tooling in the wine industry as far as tech goes. So we're starting to build our own tools that are really helpful in leveraging or utilizing data to help people leverage decision making. We released our first software product about a month ago. It's called TaskRabbit. It definitely works with the prevailing CRM system in the wine space.

28:05 It's called Commerce 7, and it's a smart notification system. So if somebody has an order that doesn't meet the quarantine standards, the system the CRM system system will give you a little flag, say hey, you know, this order is quarantined, it's it's not able to go out yet. You have to do a little bit more in your prep work before it's able to ship. But classically that always had just you know it marked as quarantine, but it didn't give you a notification, it never let you know. So that order could sit there for a week, two weeks, even a month without going out and you never realized it didn't go out. We saw that problem, we solved it. We figured out that if we made a smart notification system that sent you an email when that happened, hey, people are going to act on that a little faster.

28:46 Here's your data. Here, it is right in your pocket. So, boom there, we solved a problem with technology and people are loving it. People are using it. We're getting nothing but positive reviews back. We're looking at releasing our second product here in the next month or so and it's going to be a game changer as well for the industry. It's something the industry hasn't seen before. So everything you know, while there may be a lot of base technology that people should or, excuse me, well, maybe a lot of fancy technology people out there could be using and should be using start at the basis, start at the very bottom. Everything's really accessible. You can make it work for you and, once you feel comfortable with something like a spreadsheet, move into something that's going to be specific to leverage what you need to leverage, moving forward using your data.

29:29 Yeah gosh, nathan, as a fellow tech geek, I so love your insights that you just shared with us there. One of the questions that I really wanted to ask you here today is I obviously know, in doing my research ahead of today's conversation, about your software development that you've brought in-house and that you now offer to others, and so my question was going to be is there anything you can publicly talk about? And the fact that you gave us those real life insights is incredible. So, even on the basic level of Excel and this is something that I learned really on in my career once I found the wonderful world of VBA programming is, I was just like Excel can literally be as complicated or as simple as you need it to be. So there's so many powers in a lot of YouTube videos for you entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs out there who don't want to become like Nathan and I programming in VBA or other programming languages.

30:14 You don't have to. There's so many tools available to you and AI is only making it more accessible. So I love that. Nathan, because you brought up your software projects, I want to tap into your entrepreneurial mind, not just your subject matter expert mind, but also the mind of a fellow entrepreneur is that obviously you see gaps in the way the wine industry operates and you're plugging those gaps with Vine Valley. What are some of your growth plans from here? Because you are so strategic in the way you think, I'd love for you to tell us what the future of Vine Valley looks like as well. Oh, absolutely. I mean, right now, taskrabbit is doing fantastic. We're really loving the performance we're seeing there. We're loving the reviews we're getting back. We're really enjoying the people that we're working with to put it out there.

31:02 The upcoming project I'm still a little bit tight-lipped on it. I don't want to give it away quite yet, but I do want to tell people that our whole goal is to unify things and make everything easier for folks to understand and deal with. Right now in the wine industry, everything is very separate. You have maybe five or six separate systems to check five or six separate things. We're unifying all of it so you have it all right in front of you and you can utilize the data and analytics from what's happening in this segment of your business to really leverage that moving forward After the release of this next product. Realistically, what I see for Vine Valley, we still have individual clients that we're really enjoying working with, that we love, but I foresee our next long term project. I want to go into something in the production space for wine.

31:43 We're seeing some really, really cool developments right now with AI utilization in the vineyard and how they're using AI and drone footage and camera footage right now on the front of four wheelers driving up and down the vineyards, to find disease markers in the vineyards and to find exactly where we need to be watering. Is there a drier patch over here and a patch that stays a little bit more wet over here? We need to shift our watering to be a little bit better. So my goal is to do something in the production and vineyard space. Next, I really would love to partner with somebody that is already currently in that space and leverage our software development prowess that we've gone to show folks that actually works and is really helpful to kind of unify what they're doing and make it presentable for folks in the wine space to use.

32:31 Yes, I so love that answer from you, nathan, because I feel like it really is the culmination of practicing what you preach. Listeners here today, we heard the way that Nathan thinks, not only as a subject matter expert, but as a fellow entrepreneur and business owner and visionary, in that these things, when his next tool launches, it's not going to be by mistake and it's not going to be because of that day he woke up and decided to do it. He's intentionally working towards these things. Coming back to those leading indicators, so, nathan, I love seeing your growth plans take shape right here in real time in front of us as a culmination of all this stuff that you've been doing. So, with that in mind, I just feel like you've challenged us in so many ways here during today's episode, when it comes to data analytics, when it comes to business intelligence, when it comes to making more informed and intentional decisions, but also as a fellow entrepreneur.

33:19 So I don't know how you're going to answer this last question that I love to ask our guests. But what's the takeaway? What's that one action that you hope every listener, no matter where they are in their business, they say you know what? Nathan's the one who pushed me to do this. What's that takeaway? Collect data everywhere. Data points are all over the place and there is nothing that can't be a data point if you don't want it to be. That would be my biggest push for folks. Just make data a priority in your business and start collecting it, because as soon as you start collecting it, you start to notice the trends and you can start acting on those trends. When you have enough to prove that the trend is correct, you can start acting on them. Trends, when you have enough to prove that the trend is correct, you can start acting on them, and I mean just as a takeaway.

34:01 Another takeaway that I'd like to throw out there for folks that I always pass, if I ever talk to any other folks in the entrepreneurial space is flexibility is the key to entrepreneurship, and I'm very rigid about that yes, amen, I love that advice. I love the direction you took that question n, nathan. With all of that in mind, I know that listeners will be eager to check out Vine Valley, all the cool things that you're up to and all the cool things that are to come. So drop those links on us. Where can listeners go to find out more about all the great stuff that you're up to? Oh, a hundred percent. You can find us on LinkedIn. We have a LinkedIn page for Vine Valley. I have my personal LinkedIn page that I put out stuff for. I have a small blog that I write for, and then our website, wwwvinevalleymanagementcom.

34:43 Listeners, you already know the drill. We are making it as easy as possible for you to find all those links, including the link to Nathan's business website at vinevalleymanagementcom, as well as his LinkedIn profiles for his business and also his personal LinkedIn, because that's actually how we came across Nathan's work and we decided we have to reach out. We have to have this guy on to share so much of his brilliance. So definitely check those show notes wherever it is that you're tuning into today's episode. Otherwise, nathan, on behalf of myself and all the listeners around the world, thanks so much for coming on the show today.

35:30 Yeah, thank you too, brian. I really appreciate it. Shout out to our amazing guests. There's a reason why we are ad free and have produced so many incredible episodes five days a week for you, and it's because our guests step up to the plate. These are not sponsored episodes. These are not infomercials. Our guests help us cover the costs of our productions. They so deeply believe in the power of getting their message out in front of you, awesome entrepreneurs and entrepreneurs, that they contribute to help us make these productions possible. So thank you to not only today's guests, but all of our guests in general, and I just want to invite you check out our website because you can send us a voicemail there. We also have live chat.

36:10 If you want to interact directly with me, go to thewantrepreneurshowcom initiate a live chat with me. Go to thewantrepreneurshowcom initiate a live chat. It's for real, me and I'm excited because I'll see you, as always every Monday, wednesday, friday, saturday and Sunday here on the Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur podcast.