The Leadership Table
The Leadership Table brings together hospitality leaders and changemakers to share real-world strategies for growth, leadership, and communication. Hosted by Jason E. Brooks, each episode delivers insights you can use right away.
The Leadership Table
Time Back, Passion Forward: Rethinking Inventory with Angelo Esposito of WISK.ai
In Episode 2 of The Leadership Table, Jason E. Brooks sits down with Angelo Esposito, Co-Founder & CEO of WISK.ai, to uncover how better inventory management can completely transform hospitality operations.
From reducing food waste and overpouring to mastering cost of goods sold and building team trust, Angelo shares hard-earned lessons from the frontlines. Learn why communication—not control—is the secret to better systems, how WISK integrates with 60+ POS platforms, and why “time back, passion forward” is more than a slogan. If you're trying to run a tighter, more profitable operation without losing your soul, this episode is for you.
🔗 Learn more at wisk.ai
🎙️ Connect with Angelo:
• LinkedIn
• Instagram
• Wisking It All Podcast on Spotify
🔥 Key Takeaways:
- Proper inventory control directly impacts profitability.
- Communication builds team buy-in and reduces resistance.
- Avoid top mistakes: poor organization, not involving team in tech, and choosing software too quickly.
- Automation in back-of-house is the next big leap for hospitality.
- “Every athlete in the world has a coach”—and so should operators.
Jason E. Brooks (00:02.288)
And welcome to The Leadership Table where conversations inspire, lead and elevate. I'm your host, Jason E. Brooks, bringing you insights from top leaders shaping industries through leadership, culture and success. For today, we are diving into the critical role of inventory management in hospitality and how it impacts efficiency, profitability and overall business success. Joining us.
is our distinguished guest, Angelo Esposito. Now, Angelo is the co-founder and CEO of Wisk.ai, that's W-I-S-K dot A-I, an innovative inventory management platform designed specifically for the hospitality sector. With over a decade of experience in the industry, Angelo understands firsthand the challenges faced by bar and restaurant owners. His vision
with wisk.ai is to streamline operations, improve margins, and minimize waste, helping businesses run smoother and more efficiently. Before we dive in, be sure to subscribe and share this episode with a fellow leader who could benefit from today's conversation. Now, Angelo, welcome to the leadership table. Let's start with your journey. What inspired you to create wisk.ai?
Angelo (01:26.701)
Yes.
Jason E. Brooks (01:30.354)
and what challenges in hospitality were you aiming to solve?
Angelo (01:35.502)
Great questions. First of all, thank you for having me on the show, Jason. It's fun to be here. It's nice to be on the receiving end, so it's really cool. Funny enough, it's not some grand crazy story. It really was just a problem, being an entrepreneur, just a problem that I wanted to solve. So when it happened, this was just over 10 years ago, I was actually working on another project at the time, and I noticed somebody in a nightclub.
counting the bar inventory specifically. And so got intrigued and I was like, oh, what are you doing? I'm doing inventory. And he was looking at every bottle. He was kind of estimating. So he was like, oh, this is a 0.8. Yeah. 0.7. And I'm like, how do you know it's a 0.7? Ah, you get used to Okay, interesting. Putting out his clipboard and paper, writing it all down. And so I like, okay, maybe.
How often do do this? Now they were a nightclub so they were doing it like nightly. I soon realized most places do it weekly, if it's food maybe monthly, but anyways, but the point was I saw them doing it so I'm like, if they're doing it nightly it's got to be important, but maybe they're like the exception, they're a nightclub. Let me go speak to some friends in the industry. And so I went to hotels, I went to high-end restaurants, I went to casual dining. I wanted to get a sense and what I found was almost everyone was basically using pen and paper or some form of a spreadsheet, whether it was Excel or something.
else. And so I thought to myself and I asked them like why aren't you using software and the lesson was the few software solutions at that time there wasn't many but maybe the tech wasn't ready back then but they were so
that even the few restaurants that tried them ended up saying, F it, let me just go back to my old school way of doing it. And so I found this interesting niche where I said, I wonder if I can create something simple enough that someone would actually stick to the software. So when we started, I'll joke around, because it was like fast forward 10 years and now it's a company, but when I started it was just like a project. I'm like, I wonder if I can help my friends in the industry.
Angelo (03:35.864)
have an inventory or at that time bar inventory solution that's easy enough that they would stick to it and not go back to pen and paper. And that's where it started. It obviously has evolved like crazy since there, but that was the origin story.
Jason E. Brooks (03:50.376)
You know, there's several, several, several stories, several years, several brands that I've worked for and with that bar inventory is just some kind of gray area and it shouldn't. We use scales to weigh meat all day long. All day long, we put items on scales in order to get the right measurements for inventory.
But with the profit margins on liquor being so high, my 0.7 is not your 0.7. My 0.3 is not the next person who works after me 0.3. The variations that can happen within a seven day period and or 30 day period are so drastic that it cannot be left to
Angelo (04:25.816)
Yes.
Exactly.
Angelo (04:32.301)
Take a sec.
Jason E. Brooks (04:46.558)
How good do you feel your point three is versus my point three? That's not a good thing. So no, you hit it spot on. Now, it is very important, but why would you say is proper inventory management such a game changer for restaurants and bars?
Angelo (04:49.559)
Exactly.
Angelo (05:08.076)
Yeah, I mean, so I'm gonna answer that. I also wanna say it's not only the 0.3 is your point, which absolutely, just human error, my 0.7 is your 0.8, and then there's fake variances. But I always tell people there's a lot of products that are opaque. I'm like, you know, that class Azul bottle that you can't see through, and that bottle of Hendrix gin, and that Malibu rum that is white, you can't see through.
Jason E. Brooks (05:28.766)
thought you'd just shake it and then you listen to it and then you can get the verbal point system.
Angelo (05:33.71)
That's basically what happens. I remember the first time I saw someone do that, I was laughing. I'll never forget it. I have this vivid memory. Took one Hendrix that was full, took the open one in the other hand, and he went like this. It's about a .4. And I just started laughing. I was like, he was so confident too. And I was like, this is crazy. Like, you can't be doing this thing. But to answer your question, because it's good question, it's, the reason it's such a...
a big issue because if you think about it logically, when you have a restaurant or a bar, your biggest expense, hence the name, is your prime cost. And your prime costs are really made of two things, your labor costs and your cost of goods sold. Labor costs, as you know, is your staff, basically, give or take, your employees, your team, everything related to running the operation. And your cost of goods, as you can imagine,
is all the stuff you buy to sell, AKA the food, the beverage to make the final ingredient or, sorry, final menu item or cocktail or whatever it is and sell. And that typically can account for about 60%, right? So what that means is like, just to keep the math simple, if you're doing a million dollars in revenue, it's very realistic to say about 600,000, can it be 500? Sure, can it be 550? So 50 to 60%.
but we'll go to labor and cost of goods sold. So cost of goods sold on its own could easily be like 30%, right? And then the other 30's labor, someone might be listening and say, no, no, my labor's 25. There's a range, but on average, I'd say 20 to 30 % give or take. So when your cost of goods sold is such a big chunk of your business, A business is doing a million in revenue, there's a good chance about $300,000 is cost of goods sold. If you're not managing that, what are you managing? So I always joke around, but I tell people,
Jason E. Brooks (06:56.18)
Correct.
Angelo (07:21.144)
There's a lot to do in a restaurant, don't get me wrong, but if I were to focus on a few areas and leadership's important as you know, and there's a lot of areas and training your staff and spark, but in terms of the operational side, a big piece of that pie is managing your cost of goods sold and a big part of that is having accurate inventory. So that's why I think the inventory aspect is so important.
and people sometimes dismiss it, but once you just look at it from a numerical standpoint or from like a P&L standpoint, I think you start to realize, wait, I probably shouldn't ignore this inventory thing, because it's 30 % of my business, give or take.
Jason E. Brooks (07:56.456)
You are spot on. I always say everyone's role within our industry and any industry, whenever they say my title is XYZ, whenever they then give that job description of what that title is, it is get results and pour great drinks, get results and make great saute dishes, get results and prep to the par that is given to me.
Angelo (08:13.166)
this.
Jason E. Brooks (08:22.558)
to make sure I don't over prep or under prep or get results and lead this business to the next level. But the first thing our role is, is get results. So proper weights, proper inventory and understanding that whether it's 20 % or 30%, whatever your cost of goods are, getting results is the very first thing. Why? Because we have to pay the bills.
Angelo (08:29.357)
next.
Angelo (08:33.101)
Yes.
Jason E. Brooks (08:49.49)
We don't do this as a nonprofit. Even nonprofits have to put the business end first to make sure they can still turn on the lights the next day to help out whomever that they are helping. But it's get results and manage your business first in order to provide opportunity for others tomorrow. it's spot on. Now, even though we are getting results, the true communication
Angelo (08:49.613)
Exactly.
Angelo (08:58.294)
Right. Right.
Angelo (09:03.584)
Exactly.
Jason E. Brooks (09:19.102)
aspect in the hospitality industry, whether hotels, bars, or restaurants. How we communicate is something that helps us to be more successful or have more struggles. How does strong communication between teams impact inventory control and reduce waste?
Angelo (09:40.45)
Great question. It's funny because communication is a big part of it. And I'll give you a perfect example. A leader who comes in and is like, I don't trust my staff, so I want to implement an inventory system and catch losses. You're going to get resistance, right? It's not the best look. And it's also like, there's going to be resistance from the team. And they're like, they don't trust me. Not motivated, right?
Jason E. Brooks (10:05.992)
That's not motivating. Yes, that's not motivating. No.
Angelo (10:09.792)
If you communicate to your team, guys, and I'll give you a beverage and food example. The beverage example is, guys, listen, there's about 20 % losses from overpouring spillage theft. I wanna try to reduce that because if we can run a more successful business, we can do more creative things, we can try some specialty cocktails, we can have some theme nights, whatever it is, but you kind of inspire them to say, I want the business to run so you guys can do things you wanna do, get tools you wanna get.
get bonuses, but it's like, this is to help you. Because if this is not working, the business is not working, we're all out of a job. So it's like framing it in a sense of like, this is to help you. And on the food side, sometimes chefs might push back, whatever, but the idea there is like...
I get it, you want to make these beautiful dishes and it's a bit of an art and that's great. But the flip side of that is like, hey, there's about 30 % food waste, right? So on the food side, because it's perishable items, the typical, the industry average, at least in North America, is 30 % goes to waste. And the big culprit of that is just over ordering, not prepping the right amounts. And so that...
Jason E. Brooks (10:51.572)
Mm.
Angelo (11:10.702)
That's a lot of waste, right? One third of your food is going in the garbage. And so if you can communicate that to your team, like guys, I'm not here to nickel and dime you, right? And that's how I coach my guys. I'm like, the point of whisk isn't Jason overpoured half an ounce of tequila.
It's good. It's part of the industry. You're a regular. I give you little something extra. It's part of the magic. We're not here. We're not a control system with spouts that you got to track every half an hour. It's not that. But at the end of the day, if you don't know if you're making money, that's not good. And I find that restaurants sometimes are only focused on the revenue number. But if they don't know their cost of goods, they don't really know their profit. So they're like, any restaurant is good at telling you their sales. Like I'll sit down with someone. Yeah, we sold about 20,000 last week. Yeah, we did about 10 grand in cocktails yesterday.
grand in food they'll tell you right away if I say okay but how much of that did he make yeah I'm not sure how much was the beef and the buns and the tomatoes and lettuce in that burger how much was that's where it's like it falls apart so all this to say a big part of the communicating with the team is putting them on the same page and telling them it's not about
nickling and diming, it's about just running a profitable business so you can grow as a team. And the analogy sometimes I give is like, obviously the leader or the owner or whoever's there trusts you because there's probably staff members that have keys to the place. There's probably staff members who know the alarm code and open it and close it and count the register. So it's not about nickling and diming because if not, and it's not about trust, if not they wouldn't trust you with the keys. So it's really about how do we run a more profitable business so everybody wins.
Jason E. Brooks (12:42.836)
I you are absolutely right. One of the five keys that I teach, the very first key of my model, which is an acronym, because you know how in our industry, we all love acronyms, but master your KPIs. You have to know your numbers inside and out, not as in a accountant, but you have to know your numbers and what is the human element that makes that number move left.
Angelo (12:56.238)
Yes,
Jason E. Brooks (13:12.516)
or it moves right, but you have to master your KPIs. Not just know sales, but know the actual profit margins, what's going on, what caused that, things like that. now even in what I do, I do coaching, I do consulting, I do professional speaking, I'm an author, and we can probably at any conference throw a stick and hit 10 of us within a 10 foot radius. But what makes WISK
Angelo (13:18.422)
Yes.
Jason E. Brooks (13:42.096)
AI different from traditional inventory tracking and how does it integrate into restaurant operations?
Angelo (13:43.139)
Yes.
Angelo (13:50.082)
Good question, very good question. It's such a great question because one of the things that like...
it's hard to communicate until you see it. And the reason I say that, and then I'm gonna communicate it now, the reason I say that is because on paper, a lot of WISK competitors sound the same. Because we need the same things to calculate. Meaning like, it's not magic. I need an inventory, I need your invoices, I need your recipes, I need your sales. Whether it's me or 10 other competitors, there are certain things you need. It's like to calculate usage, I need that. To calculate the sales, I need the recipe. There's kind of the baseline. So the question becomes,
How does WISK get those things versus someone else? I think that's where we do well. A good data point for us is our demo to close rate is like really high. So when people see it, they're like, wow, this is great and we close a lot. Our biggest challenge is getting people into the demo because to your point, there's 20 other people that do this. So I always encourage people, try to figure out what are your main pain points and book a few different demos because
That's the, unfortunately, that's the biggest difference right now. So when I was looking at Wisk or someone else, it would be in the details. So let me give some examples. I'll do beverage, I'll do food. On the beverage side, someone might say, oh no, my POS does inventory, or I found this other system that does inventory. And then we'll sit down, and we'll say, okay, but you have a beverage program, and you have a good amount of liquor and wine, so how are you counting that? Oh, I just input it into my POS, or I'm using this basic system, which is like a glorified spreadsheet. And then we start explaining them, okay, did you know Wisk has a mobile app?
Did you know we have 200,000 bottles in our database with the barcodes, the images, and the weights? Did you know you could split up the work? So if you're 10 people counting, everything's syncing in real time. Did you know that we have a Bluetooth scale integration? So when you place that open bottle of Jack Dangles on the scale, it tells you exactly how many ounces.
Angelo (15:40.792)
Did you know that our app works offline? So when you're in that wine cellar or basement and there's no wifi, you can continue counting. And then they're like, their eyes are like, wow. And then they're like, so now it's hard to get, but on paper it's like, WISK counts and competitor X counts. So they both do inventory. So again, the secret is the how. So what we like to think about is WISK for all of those hows, at least today, tech is always evolving, but I think we do them.
Jason E. Brooks (15:51.966)
Yeah.
Angelo (16:05.618)
really well, one of the best if not the best. So on the inventory side, 200,000 bottles, works offline, real-time sync, etc. etc. Bluetooth scale. On the invoicing side,
snapping a picture, we use a combination of AI and then real WISK human review. So really they could snap a picture, they can upload it, they can forward it via email, we ingest it. There are systems, some systems do that, some systems you have to enter manually, et cetera. But again, you start going through the granular of how WISK is different, I'll be sitting with a client, and I'll just give you one quick one. Let's talk food. They'll be like, yeah, my food system's okay, but I got 10 versions of tomatoes now.
because sometimes I buy from supplier A or supplier B and then my software just adds it as a new one. Wisk can do that, but we also have the concept of an item variation. So if you receive tomatoes in different formats or from different suppliers with different costs, at the recipe level in your hamburger, it's still a master tomato and there's tomato variations. And so you don't have to update your recipe all the time. That's just one tiny example, but all these things start adding up because now they're looking at Wisk and they're like, okay, wait, inventory is a mobile app.
Jason E. Brooks (17:05.811)
Hmm.
Angelo (17:12.01)
scanning, wait, they got a database. The food site is just snapping in voice, wait, item variations, that's good, my older system, I used to have 20 duplicate. So as all these points add up, that's what makes WISK different. And so the answer here, I know it's a long answer, but the answer is it's a sum of all these things that add up in terms of the likelihood that they're gonna keep, the team will keep doing what they need to do, because sometimes they lose confidence or they lose faith, and that they're gonna get the numbers that they want to get out of a system.
So our philosophy is like, listen, we know these are the KPIs you want. To get those KPIs, whether you use Whiskey or anyone else, you need these inputs. So our philosophy is for all these inputs, we try to make it as easy as possible. And on the integration side, we integrate with 60 point of sales. Think host, clover, light speed.
Square, GoTab, SmartTab, you name it, like Cluster. So we integrate with a ton of POS systems. All this is on our website. We have EDI integrations with some suppliers. Think Cisco, GFS, US Foods. But even if we don't, you just snap a picture. And then we integrate with some accounting systems like QuickBooks. So the idea is we want to fit into their ecosystem. So if someone's using Toast POS as an example,
Jason E. Brooks (18:09.097)
Mm.
Jason E. Brooks (18:16.052)
Hmm.
Angelo (18:28.564)
they might not be getting enough out of their inventory system, which is normal. It's not a knock on toast or any POS. A POS has a lot to do. It's hard for them to do what an inventory system does. And there's a reason WISK and our competitors integrate with these POS systems. The POSs wouldn't let us integrate if they're like, we do this perfectly. Generally, they have very basic inventory. The minute a restaurant or bar needs something more robust than invoices and recipes, they look for something like us. So that's generally how we kind of fit into their ecosystem.
We like to think of it like this, they start off with their POS, you open your restaurant POS, and usually a couple months in they're like, alright, the most important thing is the team and just serving guests and collecting money, and usually a couple months in they're like, am I even making money? And that's where they start looking at the system like this.
Jason E. Brooks (19:14.129)
Yes. Yep.
I you what, I must have been around the block a lot. I think I've worked with every single one of those POS systems, with every single one of those distribution companies, almost every single one you said I've had experience with. that's telling how much I've been around the block. there are a few things that stuck out to me. I remember so vividly.
Angelo (19:26.987)
Yeah.
Angelo (19:30.702)
you
Angelo (19:37.742)
Awesome.
Jason E. Brooks (19:46.192)
And I'm sure everyone listening and or watching does too. The early mornings and the late nights of doing inventory every single week as a restaurant or as a high volume bar every single night. It is time consuming. And what sucks about that time consumption is as a hospitality industry restaurant.
Angelo (19:59.522)
Yes.
Angelo (20:03.884)
Yes.
Angelo (20:08.236)
Yes.
Jason E. Brooks (20:14.622)
food and bed industry, will continue to get more things that we have to do as more data comes in, as more things come in. There are more things for us to do with social media, with marketing, not to knock marketing, with operations, with all of that. It's just a increase. So can you share how WISK AI helps hospitality businesses save time and increase their bottom line at the same time?
Angelo (20:30.946)
Yeah. Yes.
Angelo (20:41.005)
Yeah.
Yeah, honestly our slogan funny enough is literally time back, passion forward. And so at a high high level internally at WISK we always think about it's not about the feature. We think about is this going to save them time? Is this going to make their lives easier? Because we know most if not all hospitality professionals
go to the industry for different reasons, but it's generally for their love of hospitality. That can mean love of guests, love of interaction, their love of food and beverage, love of architecture and design, but it's usually kind of that artistic side. And then they kind of get stuck being like, holy crap, I don't know why I gotta make these recipe cards, and oh my God, my supplier invoices are a mess, and my bookkeeping, and my inventory. And it's all these super tedious, but super important things.
And so our thing is, can we help alleviate that? So on the time side, we take all the things that they have to do anyways, or they should be doing, if they're not doing it, they've got a bigger problem, that most restaurants today are doing, and we just say, can we make it faster? So we even joke around internally. We're like, look, inventory's never gonna be fun. We just make it suck less and faster. numbers, on the inventory side,
On the low end, we usually can cut it in half, but sometimes even 80%. So our recent client, as an example, was doing weekly inventory six hours every single Sunday. Now it takes him an hour and a half every single Sunday. So it's like four and a half hours saved, yes, to one and a half. Yes, yeah, yeah, and this is like from his mouth, I was like.
Jason E. Brooks (22:08.679)
Wow, from six hours to an hour and a man.
Angelo (22:17.89)
I need a case study because I want you to say it. People won't believe me. So we even put a case study with him as one example. But generally at least half. a six hour inventory at least cut to three. But the other thing is I also tell people even if the time savings on just the counting wasn't amazing, let's say it's like, it only saved me an hour or two hours. Usually it's more. But even the worst case, it connects to everything else. So it's not just that piece, but it's like that now helps with everything, every other part of the process. So inventory wise, 50 percent or more.
invoice data entry it's like 80 % time savings so you just have to snap a picture we do the rest or upload it the recipe costing we actually do it for you as part of the onboarding I think we're one of the few that do it again because our philosophy is time back
So part of our onboarding, we tell you, hey Jason, send me, if you were the chef, send me your food recipes. If you're the bar manager, send me your cocktails. We're gonna answer it for you just the first time they get it off your plate. We'll probably get like 80 % of the way. And then we're gonna train you and it's very easy and intuitive so you can update it. We don't wanna be the bottleneck and tomorrow you wanna change a recipe, you gotta contact us. No, you can do it easily, but let us do that first bulk kind of onboarding. So everything we do is the same time. So inventory, the data entry on the invoicing side.
Jason E. Brooks (23:22.356)
Mm-hmm.
Angelo (23:31.648)
We sync the GL codes to QuickBooks, so that's the bookkeeping side. The recipe costing. And then ultimately, the reporting is a big one, because sometimes people say, yeah, they downplay it. I'll give you a quick example. Client might say, yeah, it's not bad. My inventory only takes two hours. And this will be my next question. How many people? we're three. Okay, so six hours. And then I say, okay, but six hours, but.
Jason E. Brooks (23:52.636)
Six hours.
Angelo (23:56.088)
But then what do you do? Everybody counts, what do you do? well then I gotta put it into like an Excel sheet. What does that take? That's not bad, only an hour. So it went from two hours, now I realize, wait, it's six, because there three people, an extra hour to enter it, we're at seven, and that's not counting double checking any mistakes, because now you're like, wait, this doesn't make sense. doesn't make sense. Exactly.
Jason E. Brooks (24:14.064)
Yes, like go finding lost chicken. Go find me two cases of chicken. Go find me 12 bottles of Heineken.
Angelo (24:22.818)
You nailed it, you nailed it. it quickly gets out of control. So sometimes I laugh when people downplay it. It's like, it only takes me two hours. And then quickly you find, no, it's really six and then they get entry. And then to your point, and you could tell you've done this before, because that's exactly what happens. It's, wait.
We're missing a case of this. Where is that? Let's double check. And then there's a couple more hours. So the big thing I always tell people is if you can't rely on the data, like yes, it's good if you're doing something. It's better than doing nothing. But if you can't rely on the data, it kind of defeats the purpose, because then you're going to get your report. You're going to get your variance. You're to get your actual versus theoretical. And then you're like, is this right or is it just like a miscount? So that's why it's really important you find a system that you can at least trust. If not, you're always going to be doubting the numbers.
Jason E. Brooks (25:01.94)
Mm-hmm.
Jason E. Brooks (25:09.906)
Now, you know, I wanted to go into, you know, tech stack and the who you integrate with, but I know that anyone listening or watching, they can go to your website and get a pretty general view of how you integrate with certain platforms. So I actually want to move forward with something that they can't find online that's on your website. What are the biggest mistakes?
Angelo (25:25.613)
Yeah.
Angelo (25:35.566)
Sure. Sure.
Jason E. Brooks (25:40.11)
you see restaurants making with inventory and how can they fix them?
Angelo (25:46.062)
That's a good one. Okay, let me spitball you. Okay, one.
Okay, I'm laughing because I'm like so many mistakes, but there's a few that come to mind. one mistake I see and it actually goes back to communication, but it's sometimes if the restaurant's a little bigger, the small restaurant usually the owner is the one that works there and so it's fine. But the minute it's a multi-location or it's just a bigger org, I see a discrepancy between the people that are choosing the inventory software and the people that are using it. And so the mistake I see is not involving the people using it. Now look, I'm not saying the people
Jason E. Brooks (26:15.54)
you
Angelo (26:20.176)
using it have to 100 % green light it and if they don't we won't move forward. Look, you're the decision maker, you do what you gotta do but at least get them to somewhat vetted. So what I've seen the places that do it better do is that they will audit it and do a demo with Wisk and ask us questions. Okay, do you integrate with their POS and show me how this works and can I do yields if I buy my fish and I could, cool. Do your due diligence, ask all the million and one questions. But then,
They'll say, okay, I'd to have my kitchen manager come on or I'd like to have my bar manager come on so they can ask questions. And when they come on and they see it, number one, now they're bought in. And number two, the chances of that working is so much greater. Because the biggest mistake I see is ownership kind of just chooses a system because they get sold on the reports and they're like, yes, these are great reports. So they're not as worried about the input because they're not doing the input. And the people using it are doing the input and they're using a laptop and it's basically a spreadsheet and they're typing things in.
and it's hard to do and it's tedious. So it's like, they're not really happy, right? So because those two people care about different things, I think it's important to involve. So that would be one of the biggest is like, actually get your team involved. The second one is take on a few demos. Don't just go with the first one you see. So I even encourage people, I say, listen, if you've only seen Wisk and you haven't seen someone else, I know it sounds contradictory a bit, but I'll tell them, book one or two demos, do a bit of research, Google it. I know you like what you see.
Jason E. Brooks (27:30.462)
Mm-hmm.
Angelo (27:42.574)
But we find if people have other benchmarks, they'll actually appreciate WISK more. So we encourage people to see what's out there so they have a benchmark. And then maybe a third one I would say that people do, that I see happen often, is they don't keep their areas organized. And if your areas are not organized, it doesn't have to be perfect, but clean and organized, it just makes the counting worse. And I'll give you one quick anecdote. We had a client, this one comes to mind because it was a big case, but their sock room was a mess.
and what would happen is, it was mainly with the alcohol side, but they'd get a shipment of cases of wine, this, whatever, and instead of putting it on the shelf, they'd open it up and take one out, and they'd stack boxes on top of each other, and so when it came down to counting, it was a pain in the ass. Why? Because it's like, you'd have cases stacked.
but you have a doubt and you'd be like, wait, maybe some of these are open. So you're taking them all down and yeah, this one's open and there's two bottles missing in here. So just by changing their mentality and saying, guys, let's make a rule. If you open a case, you put it on the shelf. If not, we know the case is full. All of a sudden we got rid of so much like half cases, whatever. The shelves were super organized and the counting time got cut in like half. So.
Jason E. Brooks (28:44.436)
Mm-mm.
Angelo (28:57.666)
keeping things organized really will help the counting, which will also directly impact the accuracy, because you're gonna make less mistakes. So it's another one that I think is just, I don't know sound off is, but like keeping things organized will make your life easier. that's why sometimes once your staff starts counting, they end up having a more organized place. Because what I've noticed, there's a place for third parties, I'm not knocking them.
But sometimes when people use third party inventory counters, you'll notice that their areas are not as neat or organized because someone else, they don't care. Someone else is counting, they don't care. When they start counting, you start seeing that things are neat, things are clean, the bottles are, you there's no fruit fly. Like things are just tighter because they're counting. So it's a nice little like bonus. But those are probably the top three things I see.
Jason E. Brooks (29:33.62)
Cause they don't own it.
Yep. Yep.
Jason E. Brooks (29:50.324)
fruit flies you have definitely been in quite a few bars and yes absolutely your stock room should look like a Wegmans a Kroger whatever I mean it should be labels out out the box in a line lined up and everything that's in the back has not been opened yet behind the actual open bottles that are up front absolutely can't agree more so you are
Angelo (30:12.68)
Exactly.
Jason E. Brooks (30:20.264)
deeply rooted into innovation. are deeply rooted into technology. You are finding ways not only to be better than your competition, but also to just keep giving improvements to the business owner and the user. What innovations or trends do you see shaping the future of inventory management in hospitality?
Angelo (30:34.572)
Yes.
Angelo (30:37.89)
Yes.
Angelo (30:45.838)
Great question. So the way we see it is we're always trying to improve each of these processes, but really the brain of WISK is like the whole back end of just calculating.
you know, your inventory, your usage, your recipes, the point of sale integrations, the complications of recipes within recipes, within recipes and yields and like all that complex stuff is the core. Because sometimes people are like, yeah, aren't you worried someone's going to come out with a AI camera that can just count inventory? And we're like, no, no, we're not worried. We love that. Because for us, that's just the input. And right now for us, on the food side, it's a scale. On the beverage side, it's a Bluetooth scale. We have a visual mode too. But we know that'll evolve. But that's just one piece of the pie.
So even if tomorrow someone came up with this awesome camera and you just point it and it knows through whatever and it knows the level of alcohol or how much food you have and there's been some stuff like that coming out. It's cool, but then the next question will be like, great, that helped me count, but I still need to connect to my POS. I still need my recipe. So that will never leave. I think it'll get more more automated, but that'll never leave. So we've been seeing some evolution on.
that side so like the camera stuff and trying to detect things automatically so just pointing it and it's like detects the truth is it's better for stock location so i've seen it i've met with a company the name says that they were doing some pretty cool stuff with airlines a little easier because you know you pull out all those mini bottles of i don't know gray goose or jack dangles or whatever and just the camera can easily count it because they know the shape of the bottle and
Obviously those are open, it's binary, it's open or not, it's not half bottle. So I see use cases like that that are pretty interesting and the camera detects what was used and consumed. So I think that's interesting and I'll keep evolving. I think to go to a full on bar where things are mixed and whatever, it's gonna be hard because there's different levels, hard to see through. Stock rooms are not always the most organized. Same thing with the food. So.
Angelo (32:38.99)
But I do see more more automation happening around the backside, meaning like the recipes and helping figure out what to prep and highlighting should I order from supplier A or supplier B. So I do see more and more innovation happening on the back of the house in general, which I think is good, because it's the side that most restaurateurs hate. So the more that could be automated and help them, I think the better.
then they can focus on the part of the business they actually like, which is more of the front of house generally, generally, it depends on the person, but generally. So I do see more and more happening maybe on the back of house when it comes to the potential accounting side, the forecasting side, there's some cool tools out there that are helping with like predictive stuff. So based on sales data, based on weather, based on different trends, what should I prep, what should I order, how many guests should I expect? So I think that that side of the business is pretty interesting and it's gonna keep getting better. I don't think it's there yet, but I think it's getting
better and better and it's just a matter of time but it'll be it'll get there.
Jason E. Brooks (33:39.804)
Well, I'm I'm waiting on the camera one where instead of, you know, looking at my scale in my bathroom and like not wanting to get on there because I'm like, damn it, I know I didn't lose any pounds. I can just walk in front the mirror and it like looks at the shape of my bottle and says 200 pounds and I'll go, damn it. And then being a bit more predictive.
Angelo (33:52.878)
Thank
Angelo (34:00.224)
Right. Right.
you
Jason E. Brooks (34:07.412)
It then says, Jason, and if you eat that cheeseburger for dinner, it's going to be 202. And I'm like, okay, all right. Well, at least now I know, let me switch up what I'm going to eat because I've already walked the camera, got me and said, 20, 200. So, so, so yeah, that'll be great. That would be awesome. All right. So final question, you know, whenever we are, we are in our business.
But whenever we are in our business, we are getting in it into leadership. And we definitely want to we definitely want to take that next role. And and taking the next role means I want to sit at the table with leadership. I want to be invited to sit at the table with the cool kids. know, so at the leadership table, we believe
Angelo (34:52.664)
Yes.
Jason E. Brooks (35:03.13)
in conversations that inspire, lead, and elevate. And whenever we do sit at those tables, we tend to have these conversations that help shift our mindset into being that next person, that next phase, that next chapter of who we are. What's one conversation in your career that profoundly shaped who you are as a leader?
Angelo (35:16.557)
Yeah.
Angelo (35:22.892)
Yes.
Angelo (35:31.982)
Mmm.
One that comes to mind, like there's definitely a few over last 10 years, one that comes to mind, funny enough, was actually from our first investment. was a VC firm called Mantella. His name's Robin, and to this day, he's actually involved and I chat with him, and he's been basically a mentor, which has been nice, but I remember when he first invested, I kinda told him, like, why'd you take the chance? I don't know much about, I know about the business and what I wanna build, but like.
I'm not really a CEO, I just started kind of thing. And he says, the hardest challenge you're gonna have, or where most founders have.
you know, struggle is as a startup, you're gonna grow fast and you might grow two times a year, three times a year, whatever it is, right? And the business is gonna, sorry, the business is gonna grow two times a year, three times a year, et cetera. Because the hard part is that means you gotta grow two times a year, you gotta grow three times a year. So he said that's where you'll see the TMO evolve. The people you hired today and yourself included, but the people you hired today to go from, you know, zero dollars to your first 500,000 is not the same people you hired to go to 500,000 to 5,000.
and then five mil to 20 mil, whatever it is. But the analogy always stuck with me that it's like, man, I gotta invest in myself and get mentorship and grow because yes, Wisk is gonna grow, but it means I need to grow as a person. I gotta get better at hiring. I gotta get better at public speaking. I gotta get better at product, whatever it is, or better at sales. So that always stuck with me, that idea that like, shit, you gotta invest in yourself or else you might be that limiting factor in the growth of the company. Because how could the company keep growing if you're leading it and you stop growing?
Angelo (37:12.176)
technology always stuck with me and for people listening I think it's something really important. We always are thinking about how to invest in other people which is important investing in my team and all that a hundred percent important but don't forget to invest in yourself too right like there's a reason every athlete in the world yeah has a coach.
Jason E. Brooks (37:25.492)
as wise words.
Jason E. Brooks (37:29.684)
I mean, it's so spot on that, you know, we think about the growth of our business and the growth of the net income year one versus year two and year over year. But when we think about just ourselves, what does that mean for us as well? And we all know it isn't looking at our own weakness and then saying, how can I make
my weakness stronger. Yes, you have to get better. But like you said, we have to surround ourselves with the team to help us get from this next point to this next point, because these previous points and what we did back then isn't the same application for the next set of targets that we have to hit. That is spot on. Now, Anzal, before we wrap up, this has been amazing. Where can listeners, where can they connect with you and
Angelo (38:05.987)
Yes.
Angelo (38:18.082)
Exactly.
Jason E. Brooks (38:28.218)
and find out more about you and WSCAI.
Angelo (38:31.49)
Yeah, super easy. So for people listening, our website pretty much has everything. So wisk.ai, whisk is W-I-S-K dot A-I. There'll be the link to the podcast and the podcasts. We have our own podcast as well called whisking it all. So there's that, there's our blog. We try to write one or two blogs a week. We got case studies, we got video. like just pretty much everything's on the website.
If you want to follow me a little more personally, I'm on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active, I would say. So just Angelo Esposito on LinkedIn. And then on the side, it's been about a year now. I've been kind of writing a weekly blog every Sunday. So not a lot of people know it. It's super low key, but it's a newsletter and it's on a website as well. Just my full name, angeloesposito.com. And I just write things I've been learning as I've been growing WISK. So it's a bit more on the business side. It's not necessarily just hospitality, but it's like my learnings as a CEO of how to hire.
better, mistakes I've made, the definition I've done, how to delegate, how to buy back your time, tricks to manage your email that save me 10 hours a week. just as I've been learning over the years, just things, just real failures, real learnings, I post that. So for business leaders that just want to learn or learn from my mistakes, angeloesposito.com. But for everything else, Angelo Esposito on LinkedIn, and then just wisk.ai, you'll pretty much find all our links.
Jason E. Brooks (39:50.366)
we can use all of those topics, all those tips, and even on Sundays right before we get back into wonderful Monday. So for today, we explored how effective inventory management can transform hospitality businesses, save time, and improve profitability. Angelo, thank you for sharing your insights with us at the leadership table and to our listeners.
Angelo (39:59.061)
Exactly.
Jason E. Brooks (40:18.694)
If you found value in today's conversation, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with a fellow leader. You can always visit jasonebrooks.com for more leadership insights and resources. Until next time, keep leading with impact. And remember, manage, lead, coach, repeat. We'll see you soon.
Angelo (40:46.19)
Thanks for having me, Jason.
Jason E. Brooks (40:47.678)
Thank you.
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