Matt Wampler [00:00:00]:

ClearCOGS is an AI powered forecasting system for restaurants. What we do is we use AI to suck up all of the data that already exists and turn it into precise answers around what to prep, what to order and what your staff budget should look like so that you make better decisions and have a more profitable and efficient operation.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:34]:

Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're joined today with Matt Wampler, CEO and co founder of ClearCOGS. Matt, thanks for joining us.

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Matt Wampler [00:00:43]:

Angelo, thanks for having me.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:45]:

I'm excited. We're just kind of talking offline about how it's been crazy that we actually have never met face to face, but we're like very similar product and pain points. We're trying to solve a lot of friends in common. So it's great to meet you face to face.

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Matt Wampler [00:01:01]:

Well, I, I don't have nearly as good of a mustache as you do.

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Angelo Esposito [00:01:05]:

I appreciate that. So as always, I mean, I always like to start with people's why. So we're definitely going to get into ClearCOGS, what you do, how you help restaurants, all that good stuff. But I like to understand people's journey. So I want to understand what made you start ClearCOGS so maybe we can go back in time and, and, and, and start there.

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Matt Wampler [00:01:24]:

Yeah, I mean, it all originated out of the, the pain I felt as an operator. I got in the industry young. I mean, I was 21 and some guy had run a Jimmy John's into the ground and you know, I was willing to take a gamble and put everything on the line and go take over it. And so I turned it around, was fortunate enough to make it successful and open up a bunch of other units or, you know, a few other units. But, you know, it was later on in life I got into this whole technology and programming and I was just blown away by where technology is today and yet where the reality of restaurants are today and, you know, how we could bridge that gap. And so it really just started with, you know, that simple fundamental premise of I was running my business on Excel spreadsheets and guessing there's got to be a better way.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:20]:

I feel that, I feel that I resonate because yeah, it's, it's crazy. And people might not realize this, but to this day, even with all the tech advancements and AI and chat GPT and like crazy involvement, most of the industry is still primarily Excel. I mean, there's competitors, there's you guys, there's WISK, there's whatever, but unless you see differently. But from what I See, out there, a large majority of people are still on spreadsheets.

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Matt Wampler [00:02:45]:

Well, even if you've got a great inventory management system and I'm tracking all of this, a lot of times it's okay, well, let me take the information out of there and then I'll do the analysis on my own. Right. It's not that I don't have any infrastructure and it's all just Excel spreadsheets, but, you know, it's, it was things like for me, two hours prior to close, do I need to bake another cycle of bread? We literally would stick our head out the door and look around and feather and line at the bar.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:14]:

That's amazing. I love that. No, but you're right, you're right. One, Part one is, are you even getting the data? Part two is what the hell do I do with this data? So that's, that's a fair point. I love to hear. And we're going to get more, more to clear. Cause I'm just curious, like, if you remember any nuggets. I'm sure you do from back in your Jimmy John's day.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:32]:

What are some things you did just because this will actually be super practical to our listeners. What are some things you did to take a struggling, you know, franchise and turn it around because maybe there's some nuggets we can share here with our listeners?

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Matt Wampler [00:03:43]:

Well, first off, I give all of the credit to Jimmy John's corporate. I mean, they basically provided me a playbook. I, as a 21 year old, didn't know anything about running a restaurant. So my job was really just to walk in each day and follow the systems and procedures. And that's really, I mean, the core of it. But we did one thing in particular, and that was we stopped doing all marketing. We stopped doing all of our, you know, giving out free sandwiches. And all we did was focus on execution.

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Matt Wampler [00:04:13]:

Can we make fast, flawless sandwiches? I know we, I did a big push on delivery. I'm like, I think the best message we could ever give is delivering a sandwich in under five minutes. Like, that's memorable. So, you know, instead of spending money on marketing, we hired up extra delivery drivers and it really quickly started to gain and resonate with the customer because, you know, sure, they're thinking about delivery, should I get a pizza? And it was like, I could order Jimmy John's and they could be here in like six minutes.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:45]:

Awesome. That's smart. That's, that's, that's really good. So focus on the actual customer experience and let that be the Marketing, in a sense, that's your product.

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Matt Wampler [00:04:55]:

Don't ever forget it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:56]:

I love that. I love that. And so, you know, shifting gears a little so, you know, you, you know, building up the. The restaurants, then opening a few more. Obviously you hit some pain points and you spoke about it. So what really gave you the inspiration to shift from running restaurants to founding a tech company? Because obviously there's a shift there. So I'd love to hear, kind of. When did you say effort? I'm going into the tech space.

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Matt Wampler [00:05:20]:

Yeah. I mean, it was natural curiosity. So it was the pandemic. I started to take online coding classes.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:29]:

Oh, shit. Okay.

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Matt Wampler [00:05:30]:

Yeah, yeah. It consumed me. I just loved everything about it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:35]:

That's so cool.

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Matt Wampler [00:05:36]:

Yeah. Like any somewhat entrepreneurial person, I instantly thought, wow, there's all of these uses. I can do this. And then you find out pretty quickly. You really can't. Just because you can write a few lines of code doesn't mean that you can build enterprise software.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:51]:

Right. Right. Hello, world. Yeah. You're like, no, I feel you. I feel you. That's so funny. That's cool.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:57]:

I think that's something a lot of entrepreneurs have in common is. Is the idea. And you nailed it. That word curiosity, it's just like, when you're curious, you just dig deeper. You learn more. And like that. That. That energy kind of is.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:11]:

Is something I think I've seen in myself, in you, and in a lot of entrepreneurs. Is that natural? Like, I want to see if there's a better way. There must be a better way. Let me look. Oh, there's nothing. Why not? Let me speak to customer like that. Natural curiosity is such an important skill, I think, in entrepreneurs.

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Matt Wampler [00:06:29]:

I also think there's something with restaurateurs and, you know, I know I was on the franchise side, but, you know, you build the skill set of, if I gave you a new tool, what are the things you could do with it? You know, restaurants are really good at creatively utilizing whatever they have around them. And so. So I kind of walked into this tech world and was like, this is a new tool. I can think of eight different ways I would use this in a restaurant.

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Angelo Esposito [00:06:54]:

That's so cool. And it's funny. I always joke around, but I always say, like, a restaurant, you know, for me, at least, a restaurateur, I should say, is like an advanced entrepreneur. Because when you run a restaurant, like, an entrepreneur is just being hard. It's hard in general. Like, I won't underplay it, but I find, like, a restaurant, it's like you're doing like it's the master class because it's, it's, it's the marketing, it's the sales, it's the ops, it's the, it's everything legal and men especially in the early days when you're running the show. So it's like it's a great masterclass of being an entrepreneur because you have to wear so many hats.

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Matt Wampler [00:07:26]:

Well, and I'd be curious to get your take on this. But as a technology vendor now, you know, it's interesting because restaurants are so creative. They come up with all kinds of ways to work around problems.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:41]:

True.

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Matt Wampler [00:07:41]:

You know, I'm sure you guys go and bring in your back of house software and they're like, oh, we figured out how to, you know, build our systems and procedures so we just don't need this. Instead of bringing the right technology in in the first place.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:53]:

Right. It's, it's, it's something we, we've seen. They're resilient. Restaurants are resilient. They'll always figure out a way. But I will also say most of them, not all, some you get people that like, you know, they're hard headed, they're like, it's my way, it's the best way. But I find most restauranteurs are pretty open minded and reasonable. So like if you show them a better way, they're open to it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:16]:

I would say the caveat is it's got to be, you know, 5x10x better. It can be 1.2 times better because then it just like it's not, it's not worth the, you know, the pain of switching because you know, they're like most humans or they're habits of creatures of habit, I should say. So I would say like there definitely has to be enough of a gap where if your solution is that much better, they're listing and it's a little better. They're like, we're okay.

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Matt Wampler [00:08:42]:

There's nothing I love more than talking to people on the operations side of restaurants because literally they'll give you 30 seconds, hear what it is that you do and decide whether or not they want to even move forward with the conversation. If they like what they hear, they're going to have three really hard questions for you that are incredibly practical right away.

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Angelo Esposito [00:08:59]:

It's so true. It's so true. For us, one thing we look at, I'm curious to hear on your end. But for us, what we found is we love when restaurants we work with are doing something. Something can mean Excel. It can mean spreadsheets, but just something because for us, the ones that have always backfired or haven't gone well are the ones that have the intention, but they haven't done anything. So it could be a hospitality group. And they're like, look, We've been around 15 years, but we've never done inventory, which is crazy, but we want to start.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:27]:

What I realize is it never pays to be the first. So now we're like, hey, pick another company and we'll see in six months. Because being the guinea pig when someone hasn't yet done anything, it's a really hard battle because you, you're introducing work so like they went from nothing to something. Whereas if they're doing something, even pen and paper, it's very natural because like, oh, I see the benefits, I see how this is easier, faster, etc. So I wonder on your side, have you, how do you guys think about that when you come with your ClearCOGS solution? Do you, do you have that same kind of, I guess issue where like, if someone's doing nothing, it's uphill or are they pretty open? Like, I'm curious to get your perspective.

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Matt Wampler [00:10:05]:

You know, I've never really looked at it that way, but I really like your perspective. I think it makes total sense. You know, on our end, we're always looking for partners. You know, we're less of a vendor and more of a partner with them. And so if they're not trying to do something, you know, if they're, let's put it this way, if they are doing something, they're coming to you and saying, I'm trying to solve this. Can you help me? If they're not doing anything, it's typically, I want this to no longer be a problem. I want it off my plate. Can you deal with it? And you're.

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Matt Wampler [00:10:39]:

Technology in restaurants, again, tends to be more of a partnership. You're working together on these problems.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:46]:

Yes, big time. It's something we've noticed too. Like as much as we're a tech company, because you're in a hospitality space, the hospitality side of it, or customer support, the onboard, it's like, it's crucial. It's one of the biggest feedbacks we get is like I was using this other company and man, the onboarding wasn't great or it took too long or support takes too long to answer. And I think it's one of the tough things about being in the tech space in hospitality is like you need. The hospitality bar is high, but the tech needs to be good too. So it's like, it's the, the best of both worlds, but it's a lot of pressure on a company. I'm curious, you know, how do you guys deal with, with that, that side of the business?

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Matt Wampler [00:11:24]:

Well, you know, we're a little bit more of a bespoke product. We're really built around our customers. You know, the product at the end of the day is answers to the questions you, those could be questions around what to prep, what to order. You know, for me it would have been, you know, how much bread do I need to have up two hours prior to close. And we're really getting in and interviewing the brand and understanding what outcomes they're looking for from those before we build the product. So, you know, at that point it's kind of, they're bought in and we're making it easier to use the product than to not use the product so we have less of those issues.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:04]:

That makes sense. That makes sense. And for people listening now, I want to start diving deeper into ClearCOGS so people are getting a sense. And you, and you mentioned some of the questions you answer, but let's go a bit deeper. So for people listening, what does Clear Gogs do? Is it an app? Is it a web app? Is it a more like, what can they expect? So, like, let's go through. I know this is going to be an easy question for you is what you do on a daily basis. But let's just paint the picture for our restaurant listeners.

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Matt Wampler [00:12:29]:

Yeah. ClearCOGS is an AI powered forecasting system for restaurants. What we do is we use AI to suck up all of the data that already exists and turn it into precise answers around what to prep, what to order, and what your staff budget should look like so that you make better decisions and have a more profitable and efficient operation.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:53]:

Love that. And then is there a typical type of customer you work with or any restaurant just to kind of paint a picture there as well?

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Matt Wampler [00:13:01]:

Yeah, we typically work with fast casual QSR restaurants. Once you've gotten over that hump of, you know, 5 to 10 units and you're at 15 units or so, you've got a written down playbook that, you know, a guy like me would be coming in to execute. And you just want to systemize, you know, the answers that they use each day, that's about the time that you want to start rolling out a system.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:27]:

Like, that's super helpful. And let me ask you. So let's go a bit deeper because I love, I love what you're, what you're Saying, right, it's, there's no shortage of data. It's, what do I do with this data? It's something I hear from restaurants all the time is like, just tell me what to do. You know, like, it's, that's what they want. They want to know the actual action. Not just, here's your beverage cost, it's like, now what? Here's your food cost, but now what? You know, like, tell me, should I order this? Should I not? Am I wasting this? Is this price appropriately? Like, help me make decisions. So, so I'd love to hear from, from, from your point of view, what are some of the kind of data inputs you look at? Right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:59]:

I imagine there's a ton that you're looking at, but what are some things you look at to help them forecast and make these decisions?

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Matt Wampler [00:14:06]:

We look at about 100 million data points every day just to get to the one data point that the restaurant needs.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:14]:

Okay.

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Matt Wampler [00:14:15]:

Typically the answer to something like, how many briskets do I smoke today? And so using, using that as an example, our system would go take all of the brisket sales that you've had for the past five, 10 years, however long you have data from it, and it would look at 15 minute increments and cross reference that with things like weather and events and the day of the week and the time of the day and how all these different variables affect your brisket sales. All to basically create a crystal ball of what brisket may do in the future. And then synthesize that down into whatever brisket related questions you have. How many briskets do I need to order on the US Food truck today? You know, how, how much do I need to smoke tonight? What should I have at shift change? Do I need to have extra to put into my barbecue Baked beans?

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:10]:

Wow, that's really cool. I'm like just imagining. Yeah, it's, it's huge. Like I'm thinking about it. It's like, you know, obviously weather I imagine has a massive impact. I remember we had a client, this is years ago, near a stadium and because near a stadium was very, very like, you know, flux fluctuating based on the events. Right? If there was a concert, certain crowd depending on the singer. So it was like not only like if there was a sports game or if there was a concert and who was the, you know, very different if it was Drake or, I don't know, Carol G or something like, it's just night and day.

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Angelo Esposito [00:15:46]:

So it's super interesting to see just, you know, by eye, like the type of stuff that would happen. But I'm curious, do you guys also look at like that type of data around? So not just weather, but maybe are there events, are there sports things, Are there, is there traffic? Like you know, 100 million data points? I imagine. Yes. But I'd love to kind of chat a bit more about it.

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Matt Wampler [00:16:06]:

We do. So there's a bunch of variables that are already baked in holidays, large events, weather. And then we can also bring in bespoke data sets related to your individual operation. I, I like to think about it as you know, our system is really just a great manager there. There are managers across the United States that have their finger on the pulse of their operation.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:32]:

Yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:16:33]:

And, and know what's going to matter. They're going to know that a football game is not just a football game. If it's negative 2 degrees outside, attendance is probably going to go down and deliveries are going to go up.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:44]:

Really?

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Matt Wampler [00:16:45]:

That's what we're replicating a great manager's decision making process and then just systemizing it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:51]:

It's so interesting. And sometimes there's patterns. We did very basic forecasting. We're more on the operational side. So like inventory ordering based on that and sales, whatever. But I remember when we did a bit of forecasting with this group, they were mind blown. I didn't even like pay attention. But there was a data point about when it snows they would sell more.

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Angelo Esposito [00:17:14]:

Stella, I believe it was, but whatever. And he was obsessed with that one statistic and he's like that's amazing. And it was just funny how sometimes a data point that you might not think is like super interesting but the operator is like mind blown with. So I'm curious from, you know, your years of experience and working with clients, are there any data points that stand out? I know it might be a hard question because it's like, it's like when people ask you to tell a funny story, it's hard to think of one. But is there any data points that are just really that stand out? Kind of like maybe that Stella story that you were just like amazed to see or a client was amazed to see.

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Matt Wampler [00:17:48]:

So it's actually the opposite. I'm amazed at how off people's expectations are things they think they know.

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Angelo Esposito [00:17:58]:

Interesting.

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Matt Wampler [00:17:59]:

I remember doing a big analysis on weather, on delivery patterns and everyone swore the deliveries just went through the roof when it would rain outside. And yeah, sure there were more deliveries, but not that many more deliveries. I don't know if it was the traffic or people didn't show up to the shift that made them feel like that much more of an acute problem. But whether it's weather or events, events are a little different. You get a big sports game, you know you're going to get hit. But you know how much these things are not individual variables, but the culmination of lots of variables. Yet you had a crazy busy delivery day because it was raining, but also because it was the end of the quarter and there's an accounting firm that you know is one of your primary customers. And interesting all these things work together.

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Matt Wampler [00:18:58]:

But going back to it, I'm actually interested in, you know, WISK and you know, coming about this from a, you know, back of house system of record standpoint because, you know, when I look at Clearclock's like I don't want to do what you guys do, like hafting the. You're, you're, you're like keeping the books on everything and you do rely on manually inputted data. So.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:20]:

Yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:19:21]:

How do you think about the difference between, let's call it inventory management software.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:27]:

Yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:19:27]:

And almost just inventory tracking software.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:31]:

Yeah. It's a really good question. It's. Well, when we started, it's funny, when we started it was really niche on actually the bar side of things. So I'll joke around because it's been 10 years now. But when I started I was like, I just wanted to solve a problem. Curiosity. Right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:45]:

And I didn't think it'd be this big journey. I'm like, I wonder if I could solve this problem for some friends in the industry. And it was really like around just like how much is left in this model? And that's where it started. And then fast forward once we started getting that going and getting building the model database and a Bluetooth scale and all that fun stuff, all the bar operators are like, this is great, but I need you to integrate my POS to compare it and I need my invoice places. So it quickly evolved to full beverage and then fast forward. We eventually added food. But to kind of answer your question, our whole philosophy was always like, if we could start at the inventory level, we can ideally build a strong foundation. Because what we found, at least at the time, I know things have been evolving now, but at that time there was a lot of inventory management systems but that didn't focus on the inventory part, they focused more on the other parts.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:31]:

And so what would end up happening is they were very good at selling like, let's say the reporting. And so management would like it because they'd Be like, oh, look. And you'd have your food costs and beverage costs and blah, blah, blah. And like, great, this sounds good. And then when it came time to implementing the system, the people that were using it were like, this sucks. Like, it was easier to do this on Excel. And so it was kind of the challenge at the beginning, at least our thought process was like, can we create a system that's at the very least not fun? Because I'm not going to lie and say inventory is fun, but just a lot less crappy. So like, if it took five hours, can we make it take an hour and a half? If it was a pain, can we just make it less painful? So that was really the mission.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:07]:

So I think for us it was like boots on the ground, but like doing physical inventory, mobile app, you know, doesn't work. We're in a wine cellar, doesn't work. Okay, we need an offline mode. Multiple people want to count. Okay, how can we split up the work? So really, really, for the first two, three years, it was just inventory. So I would say that was like wisk's biggest differentiator is like, we really focused on that. So by the time we caught up to the other stuff of like invoice scanning or whatever, when people saw our inventory, like, okay, I could see my staff using this. But to your point, we kind of stopped there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:39]:

But I think where you guys come in and like, I love what you guys do because that's a whole other realm is the data processing is the. All the inputs, is the predictive stuff, all that. We do it to a certain extent, but very like traditional sense, meaning like account of my inventory. I have my sales data, how my recipes, we can do that basic prediction, but nowhere near, let's say, like, you know, we're not looking at weather, we're not looking at that, we're looking just at historical data they have in their account. So, you know, I mean, off the record we should probably talk because maybe there's. Maybe there's a plug where WISK and then, you know, you can feed some of WISK data into ClearCOGS and, and even help the restaurants or more, you know.

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Matt Wampler [00:22:21]:

Well, you know, it's funny. So I often think about, you know, back of house software is a system of record. You know, it's like my accountant. Its job is to be reliable, its job to be accurate. I need to know that I'm going to get the right thing every time. When you come to this whole AI predictive analytics, it's. It's a very different skill set, let's say, than your accountant. And you almost don't want my accountant being too creative, but, you know, I sure want my Predictive Analytics Analytics AI vendor to be, you know, tapping into DeepMind's latest, you know, weather models to try and, you know, improve accuracy by another 2%.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:02]:

Yeah, yeah, it's so, it's so true. It's. And it's. I think for us, it's like when we look at the problem, we think about, like how most restaurants, it's changed over the last few years and you've probably seen it too. Like they become a lot more open to tech. And I feel like now, you know, much, much more open. But historically, I feel like restaurants were always the kind of like last to adopt tech in a sense. Like, you would look at other industries and things that were normal were like just starting to come to the tech world.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:31]:

And the analogy I always give or the story I always give is kind of like the coolest thing to happen, you know, I mean, at this point, it's already been 20 years, but was, let's say like online reservations, right? I was like, wow, you could do that. And then the biggest thing after that was like, point, cloud, point of sales, right? It's like. So there were these like massive gaps. Now it's been like a rush and there's been a lot of tech, but. But I think people are becoming more open to it. But I think that was one of the challenging slash interesting things about restaurants is that they were always the kind of last to adopt in terms of like, industries adopting tech. Like, restaurants would be like, oh, let me adopt this thing that every other industry has been doing for the last three years.

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Matt Wampler [00:24:09]:

You know, so it was interesting. My co founder comes from the tech side of the world. His world is putting computer chips in people's brains. Restaurants. And so it was funny, after about three months of, you know, really early on and ClearCOGS, we're talking to a bunch of restaurants. He pulled me aside. He's like, matt, these people are in the people business. It's people managing people serving people.

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Matt Wampler [00:24:36]:

And in that very people centric world, they're just throwing more people.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:40]:

Yes, problem. It's true.

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Matt Wampler [00:24:44]:

We have a problem with, you know, I don't know, bottles of WISKey going missing. We're gonna have people count them more. Yeah, we're gonna have somebody, a person check off on a list every day that the right number of bottles.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:56]:

Yeah, yeah, it's true, it's true. It is a very people centric you're right. You're absolutely right. That's so funny. I love to hear, like, what does. Just to paint the picture, like, what does the process look like, let's say, for the average restauranter? Because we got a lot of listeners, they're listening in. Okay, I'm interested. This ClearCOGS thing sounds really cool.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:18]:

Piqued my curiosity. I got 15 or so plus, you know, locations. What does the. The typical process look like? Do they, you know, walk me? Just walk us through the typical journey an average, I guess, restaurants or might go through.

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Matt Wampler [00:25:33]:

Yeah. So first off, there's the tech side of things. We're integrated with most of the major POS systems and back of house systems. So, you know, there's a quick setup there. You click a button and we get access to your data. Our algorithms start to run. First thing they do is they start to pick up on all the anomalies that you have and figure out, you know, when it looks like you might have stocked out of product and we backfill that data and when it looks like the POS is off and all of that kind of stuff. And, you know, much like your system, I'm sure, you know, we're.

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Matt Wampler [00:26:02]:

We're taking menu mappings that have already been done so that we can figure out ingredient level stuff.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:07]:

Right.

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Matt Wampler [00:26:08]:

But then the magic starts to happen. Then we get to go sit down with the operator and basically have a therapy session. Sit down for an hour. What are your problems? You know, you're that barbecue place. Great. Tell me about brisket. Oh, we do our brisket the night before. Great.

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Matt Wampler [00:26:25]:

What do you want to have happen with your brisket? Do you want to run out every day? Do you want to have extra every day? You know, where is it? Do you want to hit yes. And like, what's the goal you're trying to achieve?

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:37]:

Yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:26:38]:

And then we basically translate that into a machine learning model that's optimized to hit your individual goal. And while all that's going on in the background, the reality is from a customer's perspective. I just tell you I want to know brisket today for tomorrow, and I want to run out every day. But, you know, I prefer to get that extra brisket in if I can. If it's not going to cause any waste, then the output is, here's your daily morning briefing with how many briskets you should smoke tonight for tomorrow. Typically, they're up and running in a matter of weeks. And then every additional unit literally is the click of a button and it is up and running the next day.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:18]:

That's really cool. Okay, so for people listening in, I guess they can go, is the website.

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Matt Wampler [00:27:24]:

Clearcogs.Com clearcogs.com but they also need to have a good back of our software, like a WISK or a Cogswell or one of those, because, you know, without a POS in the back of house, like you said, it's going to be hard to meet them where they're at.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:40]:

Yeah. Well, listen, off the podcast, we should definitely chat because I think there's some, so, you know, ways if we can get you the data. Love to. Love to chat more. I mean, it sounds like ClearCOGS could definitely help even some of our existing clients, which is super cool. So we'll definitely chat more about that.

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Matt Wampler [00:27:57]:

I love it, man. You heard it here first. This is the. Of a 2025 partnership.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:03]:

Yeah, absolutely. No, no, I love it. I love what you guys are doing.

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Matt Wampler [00:28:06]:

I. I did have one quick question for you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:08]:

Yeah, Please, please, please, bar.

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Matt Wampler [00:28:09]:

So one of the most common questions that we get.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:12]:

Yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:28:13]:

Is on alcohol management.

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:15]:

Okay. So we do well because we started there. Yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:28:18]:

It scares the hell out of me. Like, you know, I guess in Canada, you guys do measure it out, right? Am I. Am I right on that?

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:25]:

Yeah. Yeah. Like, most of our clients these days are us, but US And Canada, most people, historically, it's changing, but most people will eyeball it. So they'll look at this. They'll be, it's about five.

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Matt Wampler [00:28:35]:

So I. I've always been scared to death because I sat there in bars in college and watched where the alcohol went. And it was certainly not what was rung in. How do you guys deal with that?

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Angelo Esposito [00:28:46]:

Yeah, it's a good question. And it's why we started WISK originally. Like, it's evolved. But the reason is exactly that is on average, basically, one out of five shots goes missing, on average. So it's a crazy stat because it's like it just kind of became accepted in the industry. But when I explain to people, like, imagine you were selling, I don't know, computers, and I told you one out of five computers were missing, you wouldn't be like, ah, it's just the way the industry is. You'd be like, holy crap. So we usually start there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:12]:

But the idea is, because what makes alcohol hard is you might have a bottle of tequila as an example, or typically many brands Tequila, but on one single brand, it's using many different drinks. It could be a shot, a single, a double, whatever. But then margarita different. Right. So it's hard to track because, yeah, even at the end of the night, if you physically look at it and it looks like some was used, there's no quick way to like look at the sales and be like, oh yeah, it makes sense. It's easy when things are by the unit. So like, you know, you're selling bottled beer and you look at. You could do some quick math, but it's hard when it's things like this.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:44]:

So with wisk, the first thing we did that was really hard and it took a while but was build the database and we, and we would crowdsource it. So every time we got a new client, they would add to our database of bottles. And today we have a database of 200,000 bottles with the barcodes, the images, the weights, empty and full and all that. So that's what happens with the Bluetooth scale. Here's one as an example. They just put it on the scale and it tells them exactly what's in the bottle if it's open. If it's not open, they can just count it by units or cases. And the idea is every time they do inventory, because it's precise, we then compare that with what was sold using obviously the recipe mapping.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:20]:

And we compare those two and let them know where they're losing money and how much money. And then the cool thing that we do a little differently than other people is you can do what we call partial audits. So if you're always losing money on, I don't know, Casamigos, tequila, you can say, you know what, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, I'm gonna go in and just count my casamigos. So it's like a five minute job. But because we're integrated with the POS in real time, we'll give them what we call the variance on just the casamigos. So they can kind of like zoom into like an item. So but you're right, it is a, it is a big problem. And it's, it's, yeah, the, the main one we've been tackling for years.

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Matt Wampler [00:30:55]:

So logistically, am I just weighing every bottle at the end of every night or once a week, or do I have a ton of stuff?

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:00]:

Good question. So logistically, most people do it on a weekly basis, but then they'll do the partial audits as often as they want. So something some people might say, hey, my top sellers, I want to do three times a week or this week, I'm having a problem with this bottle. I want to do it daily. But generally the full inventory, they'll do it weekly because that's usually the cadence that they'll also place their order. So the kind of typical. I would just give a blanket kind of 80% of our customers. It's like, let's say Sunday comes along.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:27]:

It could be any day of the week, but let's say Sunday they do their inventory, split up the work, everybody counts a different location. Cool. It's pretty fast. They're happy, done, inventory is done. From there, someone places their orders. We recommend based on, you know, sales data, this, that this is what you should order. And then during the week as those orders come in, they just verify what they ordered and they just. That's kind of the operational loop.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:47]:

Then on the data side it's giving them those variant supports, the beverage cost, the you know, overstock, dead stock, that kind of stuff. But that's that.

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Matt Wampler [00:31:56]:

Yeah, it reminds me of, you know, I see more and more of the whole. I'm going to use a camera and computer vision to track the inventory. Have you guys looked at it? What are your thoughts?

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:08]:

The great question. I love it. I love how you're asking good questions. The, the camera side is super interesting. Our philosophy is this. So our philosophy is we know, I mean there's no secret tech is always going to evolve. It's not like it's easy to see. Look at computers, look at AI, just look at chat GBD in the last year, how, how much that's evolved.

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Angelo Esposito [00:32:26]:

So there's no, you know, tech is getting exponentially crazier or better I should say. And in that we know we always knew the input would change. So we were never like married to the idea of Bluetooth scales. Meaning when we started we actually looked at like other ways and rulers and what about this and pictures and all kinds of different ways. But the conclusion was at that time and still to this day generally it was the fastest for beverage. So. But having said that, we always knew that the core of WISK was all the, the back of house stuff. So the invoice processing, the, the way we count the inventory, the ability to edit, the way we handle variations.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:06]:

So if you use, you know, a 1 liter bottle and a bigger bottle, but it's the same so all these like kind of details. So that's our magic. It's like the brain of WISK. It just so happens that today the input of the counting is with a Bluetooth scale. But we're ready that if one day cameras are so good that everyone's using it for us, it's just like an input change. It's like, okay, instead of using a Bluetooth scale, let's start leveraging these cameras. From what I've seen, the camera tech is really cool.

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Matt Wampler [00:33:31]:

I.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:31]:

From what I've seen, it's not really there yet at the bottle level. I see it being successful more like warehouse style things and maybe things like that. It hasn't been super great yet for the restaurant where things are, you know how it is, messy stock rooms and. And so I haven't seen it being super, super efficient there. I've seen it being, I've seen people using the camera stuff. I had a company I met with, super cool. I wish I could plug them right now, but the name's slipping me. But they were focused on the beverage on airplanes, so it was a bit easier because they would open the drawer and with the cameras.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:06]:

So that, that stuff. I see the application, I think for a full on restaurant where you got tomatoes and proteins, it's. People are trying but I think the accuracy is not there yet. But I'm excited for it to get there.

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Matt Wampler [00:34:18]:

No, we see the same thing on the food side. So you know, I, there are companies out there that are trying to do, you know, order accuracy and quantify how many orders and what was used, you know, based on the cameras. And you know, I always sit there and think as ex franchisee a, I had a 300 pound meat slicer and we would break that and drop that on the floor. It wasn't easy to move. You put a camera in there, like my guys will find a way to break that. And, and secondly, I'm not sure that I would want everything that was going on in the restaurants recorded, especially not recorded and classified by an AI.

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Angelo Esposito [00:34:55]:

That's fair. It's funny. And on the camera side, like, look, the tech's been getting better. But I always tell people, if you really think about it, casinos, I think about, I don't know, Caesar's palace or whatever, they've had that camera tech for a while of like if someone's punching in something in the POS and they, they're pouring a Johnnie Walker blue label, like they've had that. So that's been around for like over a decade. So I think it's getting more interesting of like the camera detecting what, what is there. So not necessarily just with the pos. And I've seen it in grocery stores too, like as a cashier's punching stuff.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:24]:

The camera's there so you can kind of spot anomalies and stuff of like she didn't Punch that. But there's that stuff like that. I think it'll get better and better. I think it'll get to the point where like, yeah, for sure, for sure. The cameras will get pretty interesting, but I think it'll be a while, especially on the. The details of like what's in a bottle, like, that's where it gets a bit more trickier. It's not just a general stockroom or wine cellar. So the, The.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:48]:

The pitch I give people, when at least is my point of view is like, even if tomorrow someone comes out with the craziest tech on. On cameras. The unfortunate part is that's only 10% of the solution. It's like, okay, cool, you made my counting better. Instead of you stick. Five hours now is using WISK and it takes two hours now with you. I've cut it down, but there's still going to be the element of the POS integration, the recipes. So there's still a lot of the invoice processing, the ordering.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:15]:

So I find there's still a big piece of that. And that's where I think we have a bit of defensibility. You know what I mean? But we're open. Like, if there's people out there that create super cool tech, like, cool.

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Matt Wampler [00:36:26]:

I mean, if there's a better way to collect the data and get it into my back of house, that's fantastic.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:33]:

Right, Right, exactly. Which is something. Yeah, you guys obviously are more than open to because you guys are processing all this crazy data. If someone get you data faster or better, why not, right?

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Matt Wampler [00:36:43]:

Yeah. I always view it as there's. There's. I feel like utilities is the wrong word, but, you know, you get a pos. It's great at capturing information and processing transactions. You get that heart. My back of house system. It's keeping tabs on, you know, my invoices and inventory and orders and all of that.

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Matt Wampler [00:37:05]:

You've probably got loyalty attached with something else. But, you know, how do you take all of this data and actually have something that can process it into your operations answers? I think that was always something we felt was missing in the tech stack.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:19]:

No, I think you're right.

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Matt Wampler [00:37:20]:

Didn't have a natural place.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:22]:

Yeah, Yeah. I love what you. You guys do because it's such an important part. And one thing I, you know, I know it's gonna be hard to like, summarize a ton of things, but one thing that comes to mind is for people listening. I know it depends on the type. Like you said barbecue restaurant versus, you know, restaurant xyz. But are there certain questions that you see come up often enough that we can maybe share some with our audience of like, hey, listen, if you're an operator, these are probably things that you should think about. Example, what should I prep to more? Like, are there certain things we can highlight to our listeners?

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Matt Wampler [00:37:59]:

Well, first off, I'll give some general advice. Having gone and onboarded, you know, hundreds of different brands, typically their management teams live in fear of under producing a product. And I remember having, whether you're using a ClearCOGS or not, I just remember having this conversation where, you know, somebody raised their hand and said, well, what if a bus shows up? And. And I said, look, if a bus shows up, you're probably going to run out either way. But you probably only have a couple bus show up a year. Do you really want to throw out food every day just on the premise that a bus may show up?

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:38]:

Yeah, yeah.

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Matt Wampler [00:38:39]:

And the world is like, no. And whether or not you used ClearCOGS or not, just solving that, you know, getting that alignment with the management team that, you know, don't live in fear of a bus showing up, you can see a drastic re, you know, decrease in waste, you know, right off.

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Angelo Esposito [00:38:55]:

Yeah, that's a good piece of advice.

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Matt Wampler [00:38:56]:

But I, I'd say it's, it's all the things that you would normally expect. What do I need to do for prep in the morning? How much product do I need to have shift change so that I'm not running around in the dinner rush trying to find more tomatoes that are sliced? I think one of the things that technology has really empowered is being able to make more granular decisions. Like, yes, you know, do I need to, you know, bake more bread a couple hours prior to close? So I, I think that's, you know, that's where we started was on that food prep and production side. Obviously, if you can do that, it's very easy to do ordering, it's very easy to do staff budgeting. But yeah, I think that's, that's where I'd start.

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Angelo Esposito [00:39:37]:

That's really cool. And I wanted to ask you, on the, you know, predictive side and the stuff you recommend, is it mainly related to the cogs, which I assume, but are you also helping a bit with the labor cogs? Like, are you helping with staff scheduling? Hey, you don't need two people today. This person come in later, or is that maybe outside of the realm?

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Matt Wampler [00:40:00]:

No, we absolutely do. We do step budgeting. I would say we are not a UI tool for you to Go schedule all your different employees. But if you want to know how much, how many tickets you're going to sell every 15 minutes, if you want to know what revenues are going to be every 15 minutes or you know, I always take everything back to Jimmy John's because that was my life. But I would want to base it on sandwiches sold because, you know, I don't need labor for drinks and I don't need labor for chips, but I do need labor to make the sandwiches and how many deliveries I'm going to take every 15 minutes. Those are the kind of things that we can pre process that provide all of that information and then, you know, you can schedule as you see fit.

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Angelo Esposito [00:40:42]:

That's huge. I love that. And, and one question that always comes to mind is I think when restaurants use tech solutions, they always think about like, you know, number one, how easy is it to use, etc. But the big thing is like, am I getting value? Am I getting a return on my investment? For me, it's a no brainer. I hear these things. Helping them prep, helping them schedule. How do you go about showing them how you're helping them? Like, how do you think about like the, the result of the action? So it's like, hey, I didn't, I prepped that extra brisket. Thank you.

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Angelo Esposito [00:41:13]:

But like how do you, you know, take credit or show them that, like, hey, don't forget, that was us, you.

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Matt Wampler [00:41:18]:

Know, so we asked this exact same question to one of the first brands we started working with because we wanted to know on their end, how are they going to quantify this and you know, justify. Luckily these were a bunch of ex Cheesecake Factory executives. They knew exactly what they were going to do. So they set up a pre and post implementation study. What they basically did was, did a control period and then they did eight weeks where they, you know, tracked what their waste was and where it came from. And then they put us in place it, you know, certain locations on certain items to see what the net decrease in waste was. And I kid you not, Angela, like the first week they stopped the operation, called everybody in the back of the store and said what the hell happened? Because they'd done inventory and realized that they had sold more product, but they had ordered less product and that their food cost had gone down by a few percentage points.

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Angelo Esposito [00:42:14]:

Wow.

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Matt Wampler [00:42:15]:

At the end of the month, pre, post implementation, they had saved $6,800 in the first location in the first month, month and drop percentage points off the bottom line. So like amazing. Yeah. We look at what you were doing prior. And then we make sure it doesn't happen in the future. And usually it's percentage points.

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Angelo Esposito [00:42:34]:

Yeah, I love that. I love that. Okay, that's. That, that makes sense now that you said. I'm like, yeah, that makes a ton of sense. And, you know, tour restaurant listeners, one thing I always like to emphasize to them is, you know, a lot of them realize this, but some don't. It's always sexier to think of top line than bottom line. But I'm always just like, guys, like, if you're doing, I don't know, 3 mil a year, and when you shave off 3%, like once you do the math and they're like, oh, that's, I don't know, 60 grand or whatever the math is.

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Angelo Esposito [00:42:59]:

And that 60 grand, bottom line, that's not 60 grand of sandwiches sold, then you got to deduct labor. That's exactly bottom line. That's when their eyes start opening up. I'm like, take that number, multiply it by, you know, I don't know, depends. A three or four or five, depending on your percentages. But that's. That would be the equivalent of top line. So when you're saving 50,000 because of your, your percentages on the cogs, let's say food cog example, that might be $200,000 worth of sales revenue.

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Angelo Esposito [00:43:26]:

You know what I mean? So, so when people start thinking like that, then they're like, oh, I, I get this now because 2, 3% doesn't sound sexy. But, you know, it's hard to talk in percentages, but I think once people see the impact of what 2, 3, 4, 5% means, then their eyes light up.

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Matt Wampler [00:43:43]:

Well, let's talk about it in real numbers. I'm a restaurant. I do a million dollars a year. I've got a 10% profit margin, and I say I would like so, you know, that's what a hundred thousand dollars I'm making. I'd like to make another $10,000 this year. Well, you know, for me to get there, I basically have to generate another, what, hundred thousand dollars in sales? You know, that's not easy to do. I gotta comp 10% just to get that extra 10 grand. I sure hope my math is correct on this.

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Angelo Esposito [00:44:14]:

That's good. It's good so far. I'm following you so far.

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Matt Wampler [00:44:17]:

So if you wanted to make that extra ten grand and do it on the bottom line, right, Go look at your food costs, go look at your actuals and your theoreticals. My guess is you have a couple Percentage points of a gap there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:44:30]:

Yes.

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Matt Wampler [00:44:30]:

You know, close that gap a little bit just by making a few smarter decisions, like how many briskets do I smoke or what do I need to order correctly? And all of a sudden I've changed nothing and I've made an extra $10,000 and I didn't have to hire more staff to do the extra hundred thousand dollars in sales. I didn't have to execute for the other hundred thousand dollars in sales. Didn't have to deal with the complaints from customers of those extra $100,000 sales I sold.

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Angelo Esposito [00:44:57]:

I love that. I'm clipping that clip. That's, that's a clip right there. Because that's, that's, it's well said and it's a great summary that I think more and more restaurant owners have to understand. Obviously, the more sophisticated ones get it right away, but for those others, it's like, man, once they see it, you see their eyes light up. It's like, oh, wait, you said it beautifully. Actual theoretical. Close the gap a bit.

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Angelo Esposito [00:45:17]:

And it's a lot more realistic than adding a ton on your top line. So I love that.

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Matt Wampler [00:45:23]:

True story. So I was probably 23 at the time. I just turned around my first restaurant, I take it from doing like 400,000 to 1.2 million. As a cocky 23 year old, I felt like I was king and figured.

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Angelo Esposito [00:45:38]:

This whole thing, I mean, I would too. That's a pretty, that's a pretty, that's a pretty impressive change.

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Matt Wampler [00:45:43]:

And so I'm talking to this great operator, one of the guys that, you know, I think he had like 60 restaurants at that time. And I told him about it and his response to me was, what did it cost you to grow sales that much? And it was like, well, I, I lost a lot of money and no, my food costs were not very good and we had really high labor costs and we had some bad habits as a result. And it was, it was just one of those eye opening moments of, yeah, you can grow top line, but it may cost you a lot to do it and it may not be the right way to profitability.

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Angelo Esposito [00:46:21]:

That's fair. Really well said. Wise words, Wise words. And especially for the first few stores, right? Because if you want to scale, you want to scale something that's, that's repeatable, profitable and not scale a bad, bad playbook. So I love that I, as we wrap up, I always love to know kind of what's next, right? So we're gonna plug you guys. We'll figure definitely talk more partnership Stuff. But we'll plug you guys the website people could find you clearcogs.com what's next for you guys? Right, like what any, anything interesting for 2025 you want to share? I mean you don't have to share anything, but if there's anything, I just want to give you the opportunity to share anything that, that's exciting or that you find exciting coming up.

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Matt Wampler [00:46:58]:

Well, you know, we're a startup. We've always got a million things going on that are exciting. No, but I would say this. What excites me most is as I look at the hospitality industry right now, we ask more of our managers than ever before. Not only do you have to be the HR person, but you've got to be the customer service person. You have to run the operation, hire the staff, train the staff, motivate the staff. And then at the end of the day, you know, we ask restaurant managers to go to the back of the store and log inventory and manage the analytics and all of the cold supply manufacturing side of the business. And I sit here today and I don't think that we're ever going to get rid of the hospitality customer service side.

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Matt Wampler [00:47:51]:

You know, the business of making memories. But I do think that AI does have the ability to take over the cold analytical part of the business. That is necessary, but something that nobody really signed up for.

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Angelo Esposito [00:48:07]:

Agreed.

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Matt Wampler [00:48:08]:

And I think that's probably one of the most game changing things going on and that's really where we're focusing.

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Angelo Esposito [00:48:17]:

I love that. I love that. Beautifully said. I always say I do. It's like a necessary evil. It's like you gotta do these things. But, but I agree with you. I think that's one of the best places AI in general can help is the stuff that everyone knows they need to do because you need to do it to run your restaurant.

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Angelo Esposito [00:48:35]:

But if we can shave off time or automate it or whatever, no one will miss counting inventory, no one will miss processing invoices, whatever it is, all the manual, tedious placing orders, figuring out what to order. I agree with you. So I'm with you there. And I love that, that, that you guys have that mission. So I want to plug you guys too. So just for people either looking for, for you, for ClearCOGS for anything, feel free to plug away. So I know website is ClearCOGS.com if people want to find you, feel free go ahead to share any links or places people can find you or anything else ClearCOGS related.

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Matt Wampler [00:49:11]:

If you type in Matt Wampler on Google, I am sure that I will pop up, but feel free to reach out. Connect with me on LinkedIn. We always love talking with restaurants. Even if you're not a fit, you know, it's always a great conversation to see how we can help you in the future. If you're a restaurant that's on toast we're actually working on right now, how do we take, you know, all of this technology we've built for larger brands and streamline it into a single click, deployable solution for the independent restaurant out there so you can, you know, if you're on toast, you can literally sign up for ClearCOGS for free and start receiving some of our preliminary reports. We'd love to have you on this journey with us and that's really cool. Yeah, I'd love to allow you to see some of the usefulness of AI in today's restaurant.

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Angelo Esposito [00:50:00]:

That's really cool. I love that. I love that. So we'll definitely put a link. So for people out there, cool to know that if they're using Toaster, there is that option. So that's really, really neat. And for everyone else, we'll put the links. They could sign up.

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Angelo Esposito [00:50:12]:

I'm sure see it down, won't get to talk to you and hopefully things go so well they get to get to that therapy session because that sounds like the fun part where they could just you offload and you come in and solve most of their problems, which is awesome.

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Matt Wampler [00:50:27]:

And for all the WISK customers out there, you should get on. I think we have a form fill. Fill in the form that you want. ClearCOGS on WISK so that my developers all know that they need to make this a priority.

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Angelo Esposito [00:50:39]:

That's awesome. Yeah. If there's a demand, I'm with you. When it comes to customers, it's a lot easier to prioritize. So that's a good call out.

‍

Matt Wampler [00:50:46]:

Same deal on Wistom that Swiss AI and harass Angelo's people. So we make this happen.

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Angelo Esposito [00:50:53]:

This is awesome. I love having you on, man. I'm sure this won't be the last call. We'll definitely talk more about partnership plans. 2025. So once again, Matt Wampler from ClearCOGS.com the CEO and co founder, Matt, this is so fun. Thanks for joining us.

‍

Matt Wampler [00:51:08]:

Pleasure.

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Angelo Esposito [00:51:10]:

If you want to learn more about WISK, head to WISK AI and book a desk.

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