Restaurant Leadership Podcast: Overcome Burnout, Embrace Freedom, and Drive Growth

68: How to Cut Your COGS by 2-5%

• Christin Marvin

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This episode will tell you how you can cut COGS and save hours of labor per week at the same time.

Unlock the secrets to revolutionizing your restaurant operations with Angelo Esposito, the trailblazing co-founder and CEO of Wisk AI. Discover how Angelo's passion for hospitality and technology led to the creation of a game-changing inventory management platform that is turning heads in the hospitality industry. Learn how Wisk AI empowers restaurant operators to streamline processes, slash costs, and boost profits, all while providing smart, actionable insights. Angelo shares an inspiring entrepreneurial journey that began with a simple yet powerful idea: transforming traditional inventory methods into a seamless, user-friendly system.

Chapters:
00:00:08 - Entrepreneurship and Wisk AI Interview

00:12:47 - Revolutionizing Inventory Management in Hospitality

00:18:05 - Building and Adapting Tech Products

00:24:45 - Optimizing Restaurant Cost Management

00:29:43- Streamlining Beverage and Food Inventory Management

00:40:42 - Enhancing Hospitality Operations With WISK


Explore the fascinating birth of Wisk and its evolution from tackling the inefficiencies of liquor inventory to mastering comprehensive food management. Angelo sheds light on the critical role of customer feedback in product development and the importance of resilience and adaptability in the competitive restaurant technology space. From the initial groundwork of building a database of bottle weights to integrating cutting-edge technology with existing systems, Wisk AI has continually adapted to meet the dynamic needs of the industry. Angelo's insights into minimizing labor and cost of goods highlight how Wisk is optimizing restaurant cost management and enhancing operational efficiency.

Join us as we walk through Wisk's robust setup process, tailored to reduce losses and improve user experiences in both bar and restaurant settings. From seamless inventory scanning to advanced recipe management, Angelo explains how Wisk's customer-centric approach is redefining hospitality operations. With a steadfast commitment to exceptional customer support and a vision to automate processes for even greater value, Wisk AI is poised to become the virtual assistant every restaurateur needs. Whether you're a hospitality professional or a tech enthusiast, this episode is packed with valuable insights and strategies to elevate your business to new heights.

Resources:
WISK 

More from Christin:

Grab your free copy of my audiobook, The Hospitality Leader's Roadmap: Move from Ordinary to Extraordinary at christinmarvin.com/audio

Curious about one-on-one coaching or leadership workshops? Click this link to schedule a 15 minute strategy session.

Podcast Production: https://www.lconnorvoice.com/

Christin Marvin:

I'm super excited today to share an episode with you, with Angelo Esposito, who is the co-founder and CEO of Wisk AI. We are going to talk today about Wisk's beverage and food inventory management software. We're going to talk a little bit about Angelo's background and passion for hospitality. They're not your normal tech company. Angelo's really committed to solving problems in the industry and is very passionate about hospitality, which is incredible. It's been around for 10 years, and we also talk about his journey as an entrepreneur and what it really took to build where he's at today. In addition, to kind of walk you through the life cycle for a restaurant operator owner what it looks like to work with Wisk from setup, which is very, very easy, how AI is incorporated in this process, and what the ongoing support looks like from Wisk AI, which I'm really, really excited about, because this is not something that a lot of tech companies offer. So they really help you understand how to implement the information that they are getting from the system, which is fantastic. So a little bit more about Angelo. Like I said, co-founder and CEO of Whisk AI, dedicated to simplifying inventory management for restaurants and bars, with a passion for tech and a deep love for the hospitality industry. He empowers restaurant owners to save time and boost profits through smart, actionable items. He's got some wonderful resources too Whisking it All podcast, a great newsletter, some awesome YouTube videos so a lot of value in this episode. Hope you check it out.

Christin Marvin:

Welcome to the no Hesitations podcast, the show where restaurant leaders learn tools, tactics and habits from the world's greatest operators. I'm your host, Christin Marvin, with Solutions by Christin. I've spent the last two decades in the restaurant industry and now partner with restaurant owners to develop their leaders and scale their businesses without wasting time and energy, so they can achieve work-life balance and make more money. Achieve work-life balance and make more money. You can now engage with me on the show and share topics you'd like to hear about, leadership, lessons you want to learn and any feedback that you have. Simply click the link at the top of the show notes and I'll give you a shout out on a future episode. Thanks so much for listening and I look forward to connecting Angelo. Thank you so much for being on the show today. You and I just had a really awesome conversation on your show, whisking it All. So excited to hear when that comes out and send it out to the network. But thank you so much for being here today.

Angelo Esposito:

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Christin Marvin:

You got to tell me where the name Wisk came from.

Angelo Esposito:

That's a good one. So Wisk Wisk actually and I can't take full credit actually came from my business partner, who's more of a silent partner now, but in the early, early days days we were together. We're brainstorming ideas. Uh, I'll admit, I had some really bad names looking back. So that's why it's always good to talk to people and not just build your name in a silo. Um, but long story short, tommy, if you listen to this tommy or thomas, but I call him tommy um, we're going back and forth and he's like okay, let's think about it logically, what is it? And at the time it was really all about the bluetooth scale. I was going to pull it up. But we have a bluetooth scale and really around the liquor side, so doing liquor inventory.

Angelo Esposito:

When we started, that was like the focus and so, well, okay, what is it? I mean it's inventory, it's a weighted inventory system. And they're like a weighted inventory system, wisp and I like sounded weird, wits is like wuss that sounds. And we kept playing with those words. Okay, what about whiskey, whisk, whiskey, weighted inventory. So we're playing with the words like whiskey is alcohol and it's strong, like feels strong and weighted inventory system. And then we're like maybe sk could be like skews, like you're counting skews of items.

Angelo Esposito:

So, long story short, it was basically like a mix of all that, but the inspiration was really around the weighted inventory system, because we had a Bluetooth scale that connected to the mobile app that told you exactly how many ounces are left in a bottle. And then that's where it came from. And then it evolved to okay, wisk sounds good, it's punchy, it's short and fast forward. It's now evolved to a really cool name because now that we do also the food side and you know, 10 years later we also do food inventory we can kind of do the play on words of like whisk on the on the food side. So it ended up working out. But that was the inception of the name. It was, uh, it was because of that.

Christin Marvin:

I love it. What were some of the other names that you came up with?

Angelo Esposito:

Well, I don't even want to say them. I mean to be honest, like there were so many bad ones, but one I remember because it was like I think it was maybe either way, even if I butcher it, it's it's, it's still just as bad. But I remember one of them I think was, uh was like something with the bottle, so so basically, like it was like bottle but like trying to make it sound nice, I think it was like butillo or like bottle, or like bottle dot I, or like it was so bad and that was probably not even the worst one, that's the best part. So I probably had even worse than that, but that's the one that I remember. That was really bad. But there was probably others. But all this is a thank you, tommy, if you're listening, for pushing us in the direction of whisk and not bottle or love it.

Christin Marvin:

I've heard from people that they've had to go back and change their company name and it sounds like that is just a mountain of work and expense.

Speaker 3:

So you got it right. That's amazing.

Christin Marvin:

Would you tell us a little bit? You know I'm excited to share what you do with the audience today, but really want to dive into you know you as the entrepreneur and how and what that journey has kind of looked like for you, and then dive into how you've built the company and some of your successes and struggles there. And then we're really going to get into the logistics from an operational perspective of what WISK looks like behind the barn and the kitchen. So let's talk about your journey as an entrepreneur. How'd you get here?

Angelo Esposito:

A lot of ups and downs, more downs than ups. But no, the truth is it's for me, I love building things out of nothing. That's what gets me excited. So the truth is, even with a whisk and we'll get into the details but like I love the concept of having an idea and then like making that idea into reality, and then that reality is like physical and it's it's people are using it. So one of the best feelings at least I had I think maybe most entrepreneurs go through is the first time like a client uses your product. Um and I'm talking tech, but this could be maybe for a restaurant, the first time someone eats your sandwich or whatever it is. But for me, the first time I had a client pay for Wisk and use it, it was like so gratifying.

Angelo Esposito:

So I think for me I've always been an entrepreneur Like I just genuinely love it. You know, like the idea of, like the game. I love the game. If it's not Wisk, or if one day Wisk gets acquired, like I'm going to do something else. I'm going to do something else, and before Wisk I did something else. I did something else.

Angelo Esposito:

So I've always worked for myself and building things and I think I just love that. It's just in my DNA and a big part of that. I think I got to give credit to my dad for my DNA because he was an entrepreneur and it still is to this day and that's all my dad ever did, from literally 11 years old till today he's 73. He operates and runs a couple of grocery stores and he has a bit of real estate too, but mainly grocery stores, and for me that's. I grew up seeing that and and I loved it. Love the idea of being your own boss and and and building things and whatnot. Obviously it comes with challenges, but for me it was like the only way to do things like. This makes sense.

Christin Marvin:

Did he want you to go into the grocery space?

Angelo Esposito:

Um, not really, but that was. I gotta say he was pretty cool about it. Like we worked there when we were younger, like part-time jobs and whatnot. Um, if he's listening, he'll probably laugh at me. Like I worked there, like, please, barely did any work, you know, but but uh, but no, we, we did work there and two of my brothers and my sister were five kids. So, um, all really close, five kids in seven years from youngest eldest. But uh, two of my brothers and my sister uh operate and run, run those stores. Um, neither brothers and politics. And then I'm, I'm on my own.

Angelo Esposito:

But to answer the question, my dad didn't really push us. He always gave us the opportunity, like, hey, if you want to come in and learn and take it over one day, like the opportunity is there. So three of my siblings took it for me. I I didn't love it like I, obviously I appreciate it. I respected the hell out of my dad for what he did supporting five kids and building something out of nothing. But I realized that I joke around but, like, apart from maybe restaurants, like grocery is probably the the only space that's harder and I always joke, but it's because and I used to tell this to my dad. I used to be like I got an opportunity for you.

Angelo Esposito:

Do you want to work 363 days a year, 12 hours a day? Well, I have the thing for you. And it's true because, when you think about it, grocery stores are pretty much closed depending where you live, but, like you know, Christmas day, new, new year's day and maybe like one holiday, they're open 12 hours a day, right, like 9 am, 9 pm. Um, you have so many departments, so it's not just like, oh, I need staff, it's not, I need my cashiers. Versus the deli, versus the butcher, versus this versus that, you have a lot of skews, right. So, like even a small store, you have tens of thousands of skews. Like, obviously, if you're a big box store, even more. But like, if so many SKUs, which then translates into so many suppliers and suppliers means logistics and dealing with you, so it's a very complicated business.

Angelo Esposito:

I think that's the reason today you don't see so many small operators, like I would say. My dad is one of the few small operators, especially in in big cities and a lot of big cities. You just got the bigger chains now because they either bought out the small guys or the small guys are, you know, didn't survive. And so on one hand I love it because it's like my dad built something pretty protected, because like it's very hard to like get into the space. It requires a lot of capital to open a grocery store, like just inventory you gotta buy, uh, but very hard business. So all this to say that was a really long way to say, but for me it just I wasn't passionate about it, like I wasn't passionate about the space, and so I just kind of, and I knew I wanted to do my own thing. So, yeah, I veered off and now that's where I'm at today.

Christin Marvin:

Unlock the skills to transform your leadership with the Hospitality Leaders Roadmap Move from ordinary to extraordinary, packed with practical strategies to lead with confidence and create lasting impact in your restaurant. Visit christinmarvin. com/ audio to download your free audio book today.

Speaker 3:

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Christin Marvin:

That's so awesome. Yeah, it's interesting. You don't see a lot of independent grocery stores anymore. We have we live in Tucson and we've got a lot of carnicerias here, but other than that, it's big box for sure. Where did your passion for hospitality come from?

Angelo Esposito:

It's a good question because, yeah, I don't have the traditional, traditional backend of saying like, oh yeah, I worked 20 years in a restaurant, like, not really Like. I worked in the grocery store, which again there are similarities, especially maybe for your client facing and you're doing like the deli and this and that whatever. So sure, there's some some similarities there. Um, I did work in a restaurant for a bit, so like, I do have some restaurateur experience, like boots on the ground, but the majority of my experience, honestly, when it comes to hospitality, was my first startup, which was like dealing with nightclubs specifically at that time, and that's where I got a lot of it. Then it led to my second startup, which is also nightlife related, but you know, and then fast forward to Wisk and I think my biggest passion was always just solving problems. But what ended up happening was that because a lot of my immediate circle were hospitality professionals and friends and friends of friends, so like I would be exposed to their problems and I think, in a way, it was an advantage that I was like close enough and I worked in the hospitality space. Don't get me wrong, I actually did work in different restaurants, different nightclubs, but I wasn't the guy to tell you, oh yeah, I started off as a bus boy and then I did this and then I was a manager. That wasn't really me, but what I did learn was in working in the space I I saw how passionate these people were about their craft. But I also was like, not so deep that it's like, oh, this is the way it is. So I almost questioned everything. So I'm thankful for, like, the way it worked out. It was like I was close enough that, like I saw I wanted to help and I became passionate because of the people in it and their love for it and some of my best memories were in restaurants and bars. So, like cool. But on the flip side, I wasn't so deep.

Angelo Esposito:

So I questioned things and one of the first things that question was seeing a friend, a staff member, basically count inventory and I'm like, oh, what's he doing? Oh, he's doing inventory with the scale. What's he doing there? No, no, he just he's just taking the bottle and you know he'd have like a bottle and say like this or here, and he'd kind of look at it and so this looks like 0.5. I'm like, wait, how do you know that's 0.5? Oh, it's about half. I'm like, oh, interesting, and he was writing it down. So actually I said scale, but sorry, this first time there was no scale, it was literally just eyeballing and writing it on a piece of paper. And that's where my curiosity kind of said oh, you do this often. And he's like, yeah, I do it every night.

Angelo Esposito:

And I was like, interesting, how, because they're a nightclub, let me talk to other friends in the industry. And I went to other places hotels, high-end restaurants. I'm like, for sure, they must do it differently, they must pay for it, whatever. And it turned out very similar, like take the bottle, look at it, oh, it's about this, write it down. The more advanced people would type it into an Excel sheet. But like we're still talking super old school.

Angelo Esposito:

And that's where, like, my brain started turning. I said, okay, there's got to be a better way. And the truth is there were a few solutions at the time. This is, you know, 10 plus years ago. But I think and for people listening, this is the thing I would say is sometimes it's okay if there's solutions, like there's probably solutions to every problem to a certain extent, so don't let that stop you. It's just are the solutions good enough? And what I learned at that time was the few solutions that were out there. They had the right intentions, but they were so hard to use that most people ended up saying F this and they went back to pen and paper and Excel, and so my challenge was can I create something that's easier than pen and paper and Excel and easier than these other systems, so people would actually stick with it? And then that's where it all kind of began.

Christin Marvin:

So stick with it, and then that's that's where it all kind of began. So how did you like? What did Wisk look like?

Angelo Esposito:

in the very, very early days as a product. Yeah, so early, early early days, wisk was really just about scanning models. So we started building up this database and at the time what I do is I, you know, like I told you, I was in the industry, I worked in the industry, so I would go to different restaurants and nightclubs and weigh empty bottles to start building the database up. So I got there at night and at the time Tommy actually the guy I mentioned earlier now, a good friend of mine as well used to come with me when he could and we used to kind of weigh them together. And so the idea there was simple We'd go, weigh the bottles, scan the barcode, take a picture. And I kind of started building this database and we knew like, okay, let's at least try to get the common items. You know, your vodkas, your whiskeys, whatever. We knew we wouldn't get everything, but at least that way when a customer starts using it, they have the common items.

Angelo Esposito:

And so, long story short, when we started it was really about being able to scan an item with your phone, place it on a Bluetooth scale and, because we had the different weights, it would tell you how many ounces are left. And that was it. It was. Scan and tell me what's left in this bottle, cause this one's kind of easy because it's just a nice shape, but there's so many different shaped bottles. There's bottles you can't see through, like the Hendrix gin, for instance, or a Malibu rum, or a Class A Azul, like you can't see through it. So that's the idea behind the scale, and so that's where it started and all it did was that, to the point where it's going to sound funny now. But we didn't even have dollar values, meaning when someone counted their inventory, we'd say how much you have this in terms of quantity and ounces, but at the time we didn't even have an input to put, like what's the cost of this model? So like what's the dollar? You know what I mean.

Christin Marvin:

So have an input to put like what's the?

Angelo Esposito:

cost of this bottle. So like, what's the dollar? You know what I mean.

Christin Marvin:

So then, yeah it was. They could look at it to know what to order, but they had no idea if they were losing value Exactly. It's amazing to me that you went in and and found empty bottles. I mean, I'm just thinking about like a Galliano or Louis Trey or something that never moves Like how are you going to wait the weight of that?

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, so it's a good question. So what we did is for the most common bottles that was easy to get them empty right. Maybe, I don't know, jameson, jack Daniels, the typical vodkas, tito's Gregoose, belvedere, whatever, like all that stuff was easy. But to your point, yeah, there's bottles that we didn't. So the ones that were harder, what we ended stores and bars as well, but sorry, weighing the full ones to build the database there, and then we would use the density to backtrack and figure out the empty weight. So WISK was smart enough to say okay, best case scenario is we have the empty weight, we'll tell you what's left. If we don't have the empty weight, it would pull the full weight, multiply it by the density and then, anyways, do some backwards math to figure out what should be left in the model.

Christin Marvin:

So you created this first initial system where obviously you're saving people time. It's, it's a you know, going with your mission of saving operators time and energy Right. And then how, how long did it take you to build that and how many clients did you have like in that first year of business?

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, just offering that.

Angelo Esposito:

Good question. So definitely like version one was like scrapped together. The truth is like it was myself kind of started it. Then Tommy was like saw some potential. So he's like, okay, look, I'll help you out with this I don't have a ton of time, but I'll help kind of financially and so we outsource it to a third party company to build the app. The app was like pretty scrappy, but it was version one. Version one was super scrappy.

Angelo Esposito:

What then ended up happening is Chip, my now co-founder and CTO, came in and he was cool and I think there's a lesson here and I think the lesson is like build that MVP, that minimal viable product or, like I like to say, minimal sellable product, because it solves so many problems. Once you're able to show that, like I built something, even if it's scrappy, and people want to pay for it, every other conversation becomes easier. Whether it's raising money, whether it's finding someone like chip like you know are now partner and cto whether it's, you know, finally hiring new people, whatever it is, whatever it's selling into new venues, a lot of problems go away when you have people paying and using your product. So definitely like building that MVP, even though it wasn't perfect, was key because it helped to do many things. One of the things was Chip kind of approached us, or I forget how we got connected in the first place, I think it was through like Facebook, whatever.

Angelo Esposito:

But long story short, when I met Chip, what was cool was he was looking for his next gig. He worked at big companies that raised $50 million and doing crazy tech stuff, but he wanted to do something more hands-on, and so what was cool was he was like look, I'll put money in, I want to be a co-founder. Cool, this is awesome and I think I could take this to the next level. So it was really really neat because he saw that restaurants were paying for what we have. He saw what we have was like, you know, scrappy, and he had a clear path of how to make it not scrappy but an actual product. So that's when the team started forming. Chip came in and then now we went from you know I mean didn't happen overnight, but we went from a scrap yet you know app to having an actual CTO on on board. Um, and that's when, like, things started progressing more, we started getting more polished, we started, you know, building an actual product, etc. Etc.

Christin Marvin:

So, as far as that next level went, when you were building this and obviously chips, you know, expertise kind of came into play here. Were you going to your clients and saying like what else do you want here? Or were they coming to you going do you have X Help me with? Just beyond the ordering, how do I manage my inventory here?

Angelo Esposito:

How do I?

Christin Marvin:

identify problems. How did that all kind of come?

Angelo Esposito:

into play.

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, it's a good question, because the truth is, the better you can listen to your customers, the better product you'll build. It's just sometimes so it's kind of a catch-one too, because you do want to talk to your customers and you do want to ask them, but sometimes, if you just ask them blatantly, they might not tell you the truth and they might not say but not in, not in a way that they're trying to be, you know, liars. It's just something like the the whole. You know, Was it Henry Ford quote of like if I ask people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. You know what I mean.

Angelo Esposito:

So it's like people's limitations and their brain could be like what do you want? I just want this Excel sheet to be better organized. That I might have been there, you know. So it's it's you want to get that feedback, but it's it's it's you want to get that feedback, but it's it's not so much getting their recommendation of like oh, I'd love if you built this, it's more pushing and understanding their pains, because sometimes they don't even know what's capable, what's possible. So I think there's like a balance there. It's like you want to listen and they might have suggestions and that's great.

Angelo Esposito:

But really what you want to do if you're really good at like, understanding product, is like, get into their brains and understand like, what are they really suffering with? Like, and it's like pushing that pain and say, okay, inventory is taking you long, but why do you do inventory? Well, I need to know what I saw. I need to know what I consume, why? Well, because I need to know what why. And then it's like oh, because I need to know why I lost, why? Well, because that's if I'm losing this, it could represent a couple thousand dollars a month. Got it? So you need to catch your losses, okay, cool. And then you kind of go deeper and deeper because they might not tell you oh, I want you to integrate with a pos and I want you to be able to do this, and I want you to be able to do that. They might just tell you their pain.

Angelo Esposito:

So once you figure out their pain, then it's a matter of kind of, you know, truncating and figuring things out, because, look, at the end of the day, you're never and I'll emphasize this to people who want to build their own tech startup or just product in general it's never ending Like do you see Google stopping to develop? Do you see Apple? That's like, oh, we're good, we're not done. We're done Like, no matter what, you're always going to be improving, maintaining, you know, disrupting your own product, and it will never stop. There's not an end date. It's not like, oh, whisk, I'm happy, it's good, let's put that on the shelf. Right. And the proof is look at any product you use today. There's, there's a team, there are people working on it.

Angelo Esposito:

So you have to just realize that launch earlier than you think you need to launch. The faster you can get feedback from customers, the better it'll be. So, like, if you're not embarrassed of your product when you launch there's an old saying it means you waited too long. So you should be embarrassed when you launch. And then, the quicker the feedback loop.

Angelo Esposito:

That's one of the things I like to always stress to kind of new entrepreneurs, because it's one of the few competitive advantages you have as a small, individual company is being able to just be scrappy and get quick feedback, because big companies take time, they release things. They're releasing things in six months. Right, it's very structured and they have to do it like that, but as a small company you can be scrappy. So I'd say, probably those three things kind of come to mind is like when you're launching. But ultimately, yes, the better you can take client feedback generally and process that and prioritize it and read what's important versus what are people just saying they want but might not really want, the better your product will be for sure.

Christin Marvin:

The tech. I've really understood this over the last couple of years of being in this business and building a community on LinkedIn and becoming aware of all the resources. There's always been a lot of tech, but it is like alarmingly I don't even know the word to describe it there's so much tech out there. It's exhausting. Yeah, yeah.

Angelo Esposito:

I agree so much. It's just there's so much tech out there, it's exhausting. Yeah, yeah, I agree.

Christin Marvin:

So much. I mean how? Oh, it's just, it's too much. Yeah, how do you and there's a lot of turnover in the industry, right, and a lot of I don't know what the percentage of tech startups in the hospitality space are that fail?

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, I don't know either, but it's definitely a lot. I, I don't know either, but it's definitely a lot. I mean just on an anecdotal level, like we've seen competitors when we started and we're at the same place and they're gone. And then we see the new people come in and they're gone. So that's the other tip I'll give people. Half the battle is being resilient. You know, if you're like a true entrepreneur, just being resilient, you'll outdo the majority of entrepreneurs, honestly.

Christin Marvin:

So you've been in this space for 10 years. You've made it through COVID, you've clearly been resilient? How are you staying adaptive and competitive and nimble in this really, really crazy space?

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, it's a good question. I think there's a couple of facets. One is, I think the bigger the problem you're solving, the better you're setting yourself up. So what do I mean by that? If I think about the restaurant space, of course there's a million and one things that could be optimized, and I'm sure you know this too, and it could be loyalty, it could be I don't know optimizing a menu. There could be a million and one things. And don't get me wrong, depending on the problem you're facing, you'll look for that solution. But at the end of the day, I think we position ourselves to solve a pretty big problem in that space.

Angelo Esposito:

So if you think about restaurants, one of the biggest or the main costs, I should say, is your prime costs, and your prime cost is made up of labor and cost of goods. So by focusing on the prime costs and we focus on cost of goods it already puts us in a good position, because it's like, listen, you're doing a million dollars a year. Just to put a round number, chances are about 300,000, give or take depending on the restaurant type, et cetera, et cetera. But give or take, 300,000 is going to be your cost of goods, whether it's food or beverage. So if we're helping you manage 30% of your business, basically it's a pretty important piece of tech that you need. Now the question is, okay, why WISK, why not someone else? So we can get into that, but I think we position ourselves to be pretty relevant. The same could be true for maybe, like you know, staffing and scheduling or something related to labor, because that's all labor costs. So and then the same could be for the POS.

Angelo Esposito:

So I think the way I like to think about is there things that you need immediately, like a POS, maybe staffing, maybe something like a WISK, and there's things that come later, when you're getting fancy and trying to optimize, that are still important, but it could be marketing automation, it could be loyalty all super important, but probably maybe secondary or tertiary. So I would say number one is that the bigger the problem you solve, the more likely you are to, you know, not not be kind of overlooked, um. And then number two, it's maybe thinking about like, how do you, um, how do you position yourself to kind of just help the restaurant, because a lot of these companies sometimes come into it and we bombard these restaurateurs with solutions and, to your point, it's overwhelming. It's like what do I need to do? So the way we like to do it is just kind of say listen, all we're doing is something you're already doing today. We're just going to make it easier.

Angelo Esposito:

So one of our pitches and the way I think the reason I think we do pretty well is most places we work with are counting inventory manually, are entering their purchases somewhere, they have recipes. Maybe they don't update it often, maybe it's seasonally, maybe once a year, but they have their cost cards somewhere. So they're doing those things anyway. So for us it's kind of an easier pitch because we're like you're doing inventory. How long does it take you? Oh, it takes me six hours every week. Great. What if it could take you two? Your bookkeeper is entering all your invoices and you pay them per hour. What if you just had to snap a picture? You're comparing with your P mix and your sales and looking at your inventory and trying to make sense. What if we could just integrate with your POS and pull the sales? So what's nice is we're not creating new behavior. We're like, hey, you're already doing these things. What if, for each of these things, it could just be easier?

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, totally. A lot of my business is built on tech and I've seen a little bit of hospitality in tech. I'm constantly shaking my fist when I'm implementing something or canceling something going. I wish there was more hospitality in this, in the feel, in the transition, in the number of clicks. Let's talk about, obviously, your clients, your passion for hospitality, but let's go through the life cycle of what it looks like to work with you, um, from you know, and we can take maybe a case study of of one liquor or or whatever, but talk us, talk me through and talk to talk to the audience through that life cycle, um, from start to finish.

Angelo Esposito:

So look, generally when you sign up with a WISK, there's two paths. One path is you're going full on on the beverage side, so liquor, wine, beer. The other path is food, and a lot of times if you're a full service, it might be both, but the point is we have slightly different onboardings if it's food or beverage. So the reason I like to highlight that is because WISK has a bar management system and it has what we call a restaurant management system. And I highlight that because sometimes there's there's players in the space that basically are restaurant management but the lump everything in there. So if you're like, oh, can I count wine, they'll be like, yeah, you can get your wine, but it, but they treat wine the same way you would count, let's say, olive oil, it's just a thing, Whereas whisk is super highly optimized. Olive oil, it's just a thing, whereas whisk is super highly optimized. And so, to get to your question, it's so optimized that we literally have different onboardings. Because if you're doing alcohol with whisk, step one, you'll have a kickoff call with your csm, your customer success rep, and that's the first thing I'll teach you. Sure, add users, connect your pos, whatever. But the first real step is doing an inventory and there's no setup required. People are always like okay, but you have to send you an excel sheet. No, we have 200, have 200,000 balls in our database. Take out your phone. You can add users. Add different areas main bar, stock room, wine cellar Everyone goes to an area. Scan what you see. No barcodes. Search what you see, want to weigh it, put on a scale. You want to use a visual mode? We got you Whatever you want. Count what you see in the order, you see it. You don't have to do shelf to sheet, just count what you see in the order, you see it. You're left to right, right to left, whatever. Once everyone's counted, you submit. So that's step one. Step two you now start scanning your invoices. Great, I got all my inventory in, but I want to now start getting my costs in Plus. I got to get these purchases in before my next inventory so I can get real consumption data. So super simple. We train them, snap a picture or upload it on the web or forward it via email, but we do all the work. There's a bit of AI involved and then there's a human review. We get all your invoices Cool. Step three is like well, now that we have usage data right Inventory plus purchases, minus inventory. We now need to compare it to sales. So, because we have that POS connection automatically, the last piece missing is hey, send us your recipes, let us enter it for you to save you time, and then we'll show you how to maintain them so you don't have to wait for us. If you want to change recipes, add recipes, you're in full control and then that's basically the full cycle and then from there we'll help them with more advanced things. So that's the setup Now. You can see your variances, you can see your losses, you have your inventory, all that. But then it'll be like little things, like, hey, let's set up some cost alerts, let's set up par levels to help you reorder, let's set up different things, let's look at your overstock, your dead stock, whatever it may be Cool.

Angelo Esposito:

Food side is a little different. Why, even though we have 1.5 million items in our food database, there's just so much food variety that's impossible to be like that helpful. So with food we don't start with inventory. With food we start with invoices. So with the food side we say, hey, step one, sure, add users, connect your POS, whatever. But the real step one is like hey, start scanning your invoices so we can build your database Avocados, chicken, chicken thighs by the pound, by the kilo, whatever, enter it. Step two send us your recipes and sub-recipes and whatever, and we'll enter those in yields and all that complicated stuff. Okay, sandwiches or this, or dishes? Cool, now you have costs of everything in the house. And then step three is like now you can start counting, count inventory, you're good to go. So I like to highlight that because it's kind of two separate onboardings, but at the end of the day it's similar in the sense of you have your kickoff call, you're going to have a dedicated CSM, we have an in-app chat if you have quick questions.

Christin Marvin:

And then we also have a help test to make sure you can answer any question that comes to mind. So let's go through one single beverage item. Sure, what's?

Angelo Esposito:

the impact.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah.

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, so I'll give you an example. So, and actually we did this. I think we have a video on YouTube and on the video we actually took Hendrix gin. But I'll give you an example on average on the uh liquor, wine, beer sites on the beverage side, there's about 20 percent uh losses from overpouring, spillage and theft, which is crazy because if I you know, you're selling I don't know uh iphones and one out of five iphones went missing.

Angelo Esposito:

You'd be like we got to start doing inventory because something's happening With beverage. It feels. I feel like now people are more understanding to it. But for the longest time it felt like it's okay, it's part of the industry, it's normal, because it's like liquid and it's hard to track and you got many bottles and many brands and one single vodka could be used in 20 different cocktails. So it's like a very hard thing. It's not just I'm selling an iPhone. I check in the back. Do I have one less of that iPhone? Yes, okay, it matches. It's not a one to one, it's not retail, it's not a t shirt. It's one single vodka, shots of vodka, singles, vodka soda, vodka martini and you know that vodka martini can have three different vodkas that you decide to use, right, so super complicated.

Angelo Esposito:

So the idea with Wisk is we took a video and we went into a venue and we have the concept of a partial inventory and it's exactly what you kind of alluded to. But if you don't want to be overwhelmed and you want to say, does Wisk really work, you can literally pick one item that you want. Let's say, in this case we picked Hendrix gin. You scan it across the venue. So maybe you have some open ones at the bar, maybe open your fridge, you have a few, maybe you have a few in the stock room. Whatever Count it, submit it Because we're pulling the sales. Life's good.

Angelo Esposito:

End of the shift. You count your Hendrix gin again and you will get an automatic variance of how much Hendrix gin you're short. So what's amazing is off, one single bottle off one night. Sometimes it'll be something like I don't know a hundred bucks, $120, 150, obviously depending on the volume of the place, but something pretty substantial like 10 ounces short, right. And what you quickly realize wait, that was one product one night. Imagine that product over a week, a month, and then, more than that, imagine all my products. And so you start realizing and the math I tell people to do is look at your monthly sales, let's say in beverage, and just do the math and figure about 20% losses. If, which can help you capture 80, 90% of that, is it worth it? Right, and most of the time it's like really worth it because you're spending a couple hundred bucks a month to save a couple thousand a month.

Christin Marvin:

I love that you're getting real-time, end-of-night reporting. If I was a manager, I would love to take that information right to the bartender and go hey, here are our opportunities. Tonight let's track Hendrix and let's come back to this tomorrow night, assuming it's the same person or whatever, right.

Angelo Esposito:

Exactly.

Christin Marvin:

And empower the team to see that, because I think sometimes what happens, what I've seen in the independence phase is when you come in and you want to start putting systems in place like you've said, a lot of people that you work with are already taking inventory but then when you actually start looking at the numbers and then you go back and ask the bartenders to either use a jigger or to be mindful of their pouring. All of a sudden it feels real, corporate and it's weird.

Angelo Esposito:

All of a sudden it feels real corporate.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, it's weird. So I think there's a way to go about this, to empower the team to say let's offer a consistent product. Yeah, let's make sure we're giving the customers value consistently, every single time, exactly. And then, if they want to give something away, obviously come up with a comp tab system or something like that, exactly comp tab system or something like that.

Christin Marvin:

So if okay, so they've. You've got everything set up. Maybe it sounds like it takes. It takes no time to set up one shift, two shift, or it depends on how quickly the operators get you all the information Exactly.

Angelo Esposito:

That's really the biggest thing is is how. So we say on average, just to be safe, we all say, okay, four weeks set up. Or we say four to six weeks set up. But the is if someone's super organized like you can be set up in a couple days. Why? Because you do your first inventory, you start scanning invoices. You do second inventory, send us your recipes. We spend a day, two days mapping. That it's like all right, in one week you're fully set up.

Angelo Esposito:

Um, but even at that, what I explain to people is, even if it takes a week to get you fully set up, it's not like you're not getting value. You're still doing your inventory, you're still scanning invoices so you didn't have to process it at every point. You're still offloading things. But then once you kind of go through that full cycle, I like to say three inventories is a good number, because the first one is like your first one, maybe you saved a bit of time, whatever. Your second one you'll see like a time saving. Your third one, now it's like okay, now I'm really loving it.

Angelo Esposito:

And then it usually gets flat by the fourth one. So a good example might be like let's say it takes you six hours to do inventory your first time with Wiz, maybe it takes you five and you're like, oh, I thought this was going to be so much shorter, don't panic, we teach our clients don't panic, it's normal First time using an app, that's when you hit that all-time low. Let's call it two hours and then it stays consistent and you're like, wow, I went from a six-hour process and now, consistently, it takes me two hours, which is a very real number. The reason that I'm using a six and a two is a recent case study of a client was six hours every Sunday and now it takes them two hours every Sunday.

Christin Marvin:

Wow, so where does AI come into play here?

Angelo Esposito:

Good question. So one of the main places we're really leveraging AI is on the invoicing side. So what happens is you're dealing with supplier invoices, beverage and food side. Food side is even more complicated because you have so many products and so many formats. Beverage, yes, you have so many products, but it's usually 750 ml, one liter, like a case of six, case of 12, maybe 24. Like it's pretty standardized. Generally, food is just like a free for all. You know, you're buying things by the case, by the pound, by the kilo, and sometimes the same product can come in a bag into this and that like there's so many variables.

Angelo Esposito:

So the way, the way that we leverage it is, we're using like large language models to identify certain suppliers and patterns we see. And so historically we used to just use basic OCR, which is still cool object character recognition, so like it would pull the letters on the page. But now we've evolved over the last few years and because we're using these large language models, we can actually detect patterns but also things that are maybe unique to that invoice. So, for example and you've probably done this when you work in restaurants, but you receive something and you scratch it out because it didn't actually come in or you change the number because they said they sent you five but you really got four. Well, it'll pick all that stuff up so say, okay, cool, it's not just going to try to pick up that five, it's going to see it was scratched out or it was going to see it was X or whatever.

Angelo Esposito:

So that's where it comes in, and because it gets better and better, it reads as much of it as possible in a fast and accurate way. But then we have real whisk humans review it, the reason being, if one thing's off when it comes to inventory, then everything's off. If I entered the price per pound, but it was really per case like, then my recipe's off, and then this is like every. It's a trickle effect. So that's why we really take it seriously. So, as much as the AI makes it like pretty instant, we have a whisk human review it and then they approve it.

Christin Marvin:

I love that. I was going to ask you about that because the example I gave earlier is assuming that the bartender was overpouring right, but it could be an error in the system right.

Speaker 3:

Exactly.

Christin Marvin:

So, once everything's set up, the operators are getting really comfortable with the system. Are you providing support and helping them figure out and understand what to actually do with all this information?

Angelo Esposito:

I would say it's like guys, we're in the hospitality space, we have to think like a hospitality company, right, like think about a restaurant you go to, where you get treated well, they remember you, they care about you, they preferences, et cetera, et cetera. And so we do act very much like that and we're very, very big on that. One of our fundamental things is always like we're here to give restaurateurs their time back to focus on the things they love. So we always keep that in mind. So sometimes, if we get lost in the weeds, we're like wait is, is that achieving our mission of like giving people their time back? So it's a lot of decisions we make revolve around that. That's why we're one of the few companies, for example, that does um the recipes for them. It's not because we want to, it's just we're like hey, if, hey, if we really believe in that philosophy, let's be honest, let's take this off their plate. So we said, okay, part of the onboarding, send us your recipes, 100 for you, then we'll show you how to maintain it. So everything we do goes along that.

Angelo Esposito:

When it comes to support, we have an average response time of three minutes, so super proud about that, and then our average score is a nine on 10. And the reason is we have direct chat. So of course we have a phone, of course we have a help desk. That's like actually up to date, cause I know some people have a help desk and it's like you know, last update was 18 months ago, like we had like it's literally updated weekly. So you search I don't know the name of POS, they'll tell you how to integrate it. You search QuickBooks, they'll show you how to integrate it, wisc. But the worst thing that happens is your staff is like hey boss, I can't scan this bottle. Hey boss, how do I scan the invoice again? Right, and now it's like they got a new job. It's like, man, I hired WISC to save me time, but now all of a sudden I'm the WISC ambassador.

Angelo Esposito:

So we make it clear clear to be like talk to your boss about what you want, but anything was related. Unless you know. You want to complain about us and go to your boss, fine, but anything was related. Go through the chat, we're right there. We answer within three minutes. Just go to the chat, because most of the time those simple questions will just tell you oh hey, I have two, I have a duplicate. What do I do? No problem, this is how you can emerge an item. Hey, I got this modifier. This is what you could do. Oh, when I buy my fish, you know we lose about 20% because we clean it. No problem, we have yields. This is how it works. We have.

Angelo Esposito:

We're in a good spot now that, like Wisk, has an answer to almost any product question, or I would say, most product questions, because it's been 10 years and we haven't stopped improving the product. So it's just a learning curve. And the idea with the support is like we don't want the manager to have to take on one more thing. The idea is like once they implement WISC, they have a dedicated CSM, they have the kickoff call, they have a few calls after that and then we do a monthly check-in and to get to your main question, which is to help them understand the data. So it's like this is where you're losing money, this is how much money you're losing, and to give them actions.

Angelo Esposito:

For example, hey, yes, you lost, I don't know, $2,200 a month, but a big chunk of this is from Jameson. So this is what I recommend. We have a partial inventory feature. I recommend this Friday Count Jameson. Hey, someone's over-ordering these two products. What I recommend is blah blah, blah blah. This has been dead stock for X amount of time. Why don't you make this a special during your happy hour? Because it's been sitting on your shelf for seven weeks and it's just money sitting on your shelf, you know.

Christin Marvin:

So things like that, where it's like, okay, how can we turn the data into like practical and actionable advice? Basically, I love that. Um, we're kind of wrapping up on time here. Yeah, we're on time. Um, what, what's next for you guys?

Angelo Esposito:

great question. It's, uh, whiskey of health quite a bit. So the truth is, when we started, bar inventory, super focused, super, you know, laser focused on that. It then evolved to full beverage management, which was like, okay, people were happy at inventory, but they're like, what about my orders, my invoices and the pos integration, the recipes? So involved in all that then.

Angelo Esposito:

And I'll be honest, we knew one day we want to add food. But the truth is covid was kind of the catalyst to that, because during covid most bars and full service restaurants were closed but quick service and fast, casual or takeout was open. So we're like, okay, let's pivot, let's add food. It was a blessing in disguise, because now we have full food and beverage management, food inventory, food ordering, food invoice management, recipes, yields, sub recipes, like all the complicated stuff that people need on the food side. So right now we're at a point where, like, we can confidently handle everything else, everything on the cost of good side.

Angelo Esposito:

I think what's what's next for us is like just getting better at what we're doing kind of manually now, which is that monthly check-in and helping them, like guiding them, cause we have nice reports and dashboards, but where it's kind of a manual like hey, helping them and like showing them what they can do.

Angelo Esposito:

If we get to the point where that's a bit more automated and they get a push notification or they get an alerts or something like that. That's one area you want to go. But ultimately the the vision of WISC is to become almost that Siri for your operational side of anything cost of goods related. So like, hey, wisk, what should I order today? Hey, wisk, am I running out of anything? Hey Wisk, question for you I'm going to meet with Cisco today. Can you tell me how much chicken I bought in the last quarter? Break it down by. You know what I mean. It's like getting that information delivered to you. I think will be like the next evolution of WISC, but for now we're really just hyper focused on giving people value in terms of cutting down their costs and really just getting them more money to their bottom line. So how do we lower that cost of goods percentage so really they can take more money at the end of the year?

Christin Marvin:

percentage so really they can take more money at the end of the year. Yeah, I mean, I think you know, as you were just saying that, what kind of came to mind for me was a weekly automated report from AI to say, okay, here's all the information from the inventory and what we did to operate last week. I, you know, here are the recommendations. I take that. I look at that obviously always. You know, add the human element to it and then I immediately take that. I look at that obviously always, add the human element to it, and then I immediately take that into my operations team and go, okay, let's talk about what we did last week, where are the hotspots? Let's measure it and then have AI continue to be like, okay, here's what you focused on last week, here's where you moved the needle or here's where you didn't move the needle. So it's proactive and reactive at the same time. You offer so much value and so many resources with the company. Would you talk a little bit about the show and your newsletter?

Angelo Esposito:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that. So, yeah, quick plug, like we're super passionate about just helping hospitality in general. So I always tell people like the someone taught me this and it stuck with me. But the idea is like if one day the dream for whisk is to have, you know, a hundred thousand paying restaurants, then it's like how can we help a million restaurants for free? So it's like, whatever the pool is of people and community, we help for free pool. Maybe 10% of them are paying for our software, but everyone else is just enjoying free stuff. So, having said that, as we kind of went with that approach, we launched a podcast over a couple of years back and it's called the whisking at all podcast and it's really we get anyone and everyone from the industry, whether it's other tech companies, people like yourselves who are experts on leadership, marketing, experts in the hospitality space, whatever it may be, even just operators. So people were like hey, I own 22 restaurants. Like let's, let's pick their brain, cool, um, just to give back. So the idea is like that's totally free, it's called whisking it all. If you just go to whiskai and click on podcasts, all the episodes are there. I don't have all the links, so if you want to listen to it on Spotify, if you want to watch it on YouTube, apple, whatever you want to do, all the links are there. So that's one whisking it all, a ton of good content we have. We have an episode with Kristen, so for those who want to hear more on leadership, check that out.

Angelo Esposito:

We have a newsletter. We have actually two newsletters. One is on LinkedIn called the restaurants restauranteurs digest super simple, every Monday, started this year. So you know, I don't know whatever, whatever, whatever many weeks we're into, that's how many newsletters are basically out. But, uh, super simple, kind of just quick learning from anything and everything related to just hospitality space. So that's a nice one where it takes three, four minute read and it's super helpful anything from staffing labor, uh, kiosks versus mobile ordering, this that just hot takes and just like interesting stuff on restaurant operations. And then we have our website newsletter, I guess our general WIS newsletter, with 25,000 subscribers and growing, and that one has a ton, ton of content. But one of the things that we really do is help take away some of the best learnings and takeaways from our podcast guests and put it into a nice short, concise email with clear bullet points. So that was a pretty powerful one.

Angelo Esposito:

And then, so, yeah, newsletter, podcast. And then last is probably YouTube. Just, we got a YouTube channel. We're always uploading videos there, product videos, case studies, you know, just regular educational stuff. So, again, the easiest place just so I give you one central place is just whiskai, because we have the podcast links, the resources there, the white papers, lead magnets, whatever you need we got, we got, we got it all. So, yeah, hopefully people could check that out. And then, for anyone who wants to connect on a personal level, uh, I'm pretty active on linkedin. So, angelo esposito, on LinkedIn, you want to chat? You want to pick my brain? I'm totally open to it. And then, if you have a restaurant and you're curious about inventory and you've maybe tried systems and are not happy with them, I always tell people it's worth at least a conversation. I'm very much a no pressure guy, so, like, the very worst case is you walk away with at least an idea of what's possible, even if you don't end up using Wisk.

Christin Marvin:

Yeah, I always tell I love to tell clients that too Just go have a conversation, go through the demo. Even if you don't work with them, you can take something back to your business and implement something, so there's value everywhere. Angelo, thank you so much for your time. I know we've spent a couple hours together today. I'm inspired by your passion for hospitality and your success as an entrepreneur, and thank you for working so hard on on solving problems and thinking like an operator. I think some platforms are built for the CFO and some are built for the operator.

Angelo Esposito:

And you guys definitely are awesome.

Christin Marvin:

All right, everybody that's going to do it for us. Please go check out Wisk AI we're going to have all the links in the show notes for you and connect with Angelo on LinkedIn, and please share this episode with anyone that you know in the industry that could benefit. We will talk to you next week. Thanks so much. Thank you.

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