Bevz helps liquor stores manage inventory and sales.

In this episode of Thriving in the Digital Age, host Joe Crist speaks with Jason Vego, CEO and co-founder of Bevz, a platform designed to help convenience stores and liquor stores manage their inventory and boost sales through digital channels. They discuss the challenges faced by these stores, the low adoption of technology in the industry, and the importance of data management. Jason shares insights on the future of retail, emphasizing the need for personalized experiences and the integration of technology. He also offers valuable advice for business owners on embracing change and learning new tools.

Transcript

Joe Crist (00:32)
Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Thriving in the Digital Age. I'm your host, Joe Christ, and joining me today is Jason Vego. Jason, thank you so much for joining us today. Could you tell the audience a little bit about yourself and what you do?

Jason Vego (00:45)
Yeah, thanks for having me. So I'm Jason. I'm the CEO and co-founder of a company called Bevz and we help liquor stores and convenience stores manage their inventory and grow their business. A little bit about me is I spent my career more on the marketing and operations side. I used to work in big tech, a company called Citrix. It was about 10,000.

employees across 44 countries, did marketing operations. I went and got my MBA from UCLA Anderson and I was starting a different company at the time that was software for dog groomers. So I'll talk a lot more about what I'm working on at Bev's today. But my first stab at true entrepreneurship was software for dog groomers. That didn't pan out as I'd like, but I learned a lot from it. Took a lot of those learnings and then built Bev, which is

As I mentioned, software for convenience stores, really what we're doing today is helping them manage and track their inventory and then boost their sales across online channels. So think Yelp, Google, Facebook, DoorDash, Uber, GrubHub, their own website, things like that.

Joe Crist (01:48)
Wow, that's a pretty impressive background. So BEVS is a platform that is really to help convenience stores operate effectively. It's an interesting thing too. It's not something a lot of us think about, but it makes me think of how many convenience stores I actually see every day. Whether you live in a big city or a small town, they're almost around every single corner. That's a lot of inventory, that's a lot of information, that's a lot of challenges that's being dealt with.

And the US alone is nationwide, right? So what challenges are you seeing out there that convenience stores are really dealing with?

Jason Vego (02:25)
Yeah, so, so, so many challenges. So there are 150,000 convenience stores across the U.S. There are different regulatory needs and requirements in different states. That is for the buying and selling of alcohol, especially in tobacco.

but even separately the selling of delivery versus shipping and all of those pieces. So really we're focused on the independently operated and small chain convenience stores, which is dominate the market. of the 150,000, about 110,000 are independently operated or small chains. So it's a really, really disaggregated industry. So off bat, very challenging. There used to be opportunities to sort of like

buy in bulk as multi stores would sort of team up to compete against the big box chains that became illegal federally. So most stores can't do that either. And so to answer your question, like what's challenging so many things I think, but the ones that really stand out for me is it's a retailer who's been overlooked and sort of underrepresented. It's such a disaggregated industry. And we're all seeing this now, like AI tools are really hot.

Well, to even like be able to embrace AI in the first place, these stores really need to have a better grasp on what items do they have in stock, what comes in, what leaves. They need to be comfortable using technology, which they have historically not had to do, right? Like 10 years ago, a convenience store never sold online, right? E-commerce existed, but it was not legal or it was legal, but so challenging to sell online. And so I think the big challenge for our customer, like the independently owned

business owner is a typical store has five to 10,000 unique skews in a small mom and pop liquor convenience store. They now have customers that want all sorts of different specific items, right? And they need to go digital to stay alive, but they don't have the tools, the people, the learnings to do that. And that is why we built Bess really, which is to help an audience that doesn't have the tools or the

resources and take a really custom built tool and help them succeed.

Joe Crist (04:37)
You know, you brought up something that I've seen a lot across multiple industries, right? When it comes to adoption of tools, it's the knowledge to do it. I've met a lot of people, even people who are pretty digitally native that are still struggling to adopt newer and newer tools. Right. Cause there, there is a growing complexity of what's being asked of them, but it's also, it's very difficult to train. I mean, is that something you're seeing too with BEVs where it's, is there, like, I guess, what's the, what's the adoption?

like for a new user.

Jason Vego (05:07)
Yeah, it's, it's rough, right? So in the early days of Bevs, we launched in, in 2020, we were a little bit different of a company at the time, but for purposes of this conversation, I won't, I won't go in depth, but to get these stores to embrace technology at all, we literally went door to door. That was it, right? Like they would not buy software technology on the internet. They would not buy it over the phone. Now they do a little bit more, but we would go door to door and have to physically in person, convince them.

to even embrace software. And at the time we were giving Bevs away for free. It was only a revenue share program. So it's like, we're giving you a free iPad, free software, and all that will happen is if you make money, we're gonna take a percentage of it, right? And even back then, that was a hard push for this audience because at the time, even today, like 90 % plus of what these stores sell is still in person. It's going in that direction. But when you're, five years ago, 97 % of your sales are in person, you're going, I don't need to embrace.

digital, right? So the adoption is low. What's interesting for our business as its opportunities and challenges is we don't see a ton of competition. So it's not like they're a ton of software for liquor stores and convenience stores. I always get this question from like investors or other founders or CEOs and it's usually that's the case. Like you got to beat out the competition. Our competition is typically the store not doing anything digital at all. So I'd say in our market,

Adoption of technology is insanely low. We're lucky if a store just has a point of sale system instead of a cash box, right? So we're really sort of far behind. Once we get a store using best, so once they have the software, it's pretty consistent because most of these stores are getting some form of e-commerce or delivery order on a daily basis. So that was really the spark that sort of got this rolling was you're a retailer, you've never had to use tech. We get you set up. Once you start seeing money come in.

that you didn't get before, you start to go, okay, that's interesting. And that's when we started to really see sort of past the chasm was like, they were getting e-commerce orders they were not getting before that triggered them to start maybe tracking their inventory a little better, thinking more thoughtfully about pricing and all of that. But I would say like as an industry, the whole broader alcohol and snack industry all the way down to the retailer is still insanely low adoption and

That's sort of what we're most excited about, though it's been a challenge, is to be the trigger to get this industry to embrace digital.

Joe Crist (07:37)
Yeah, you know, it's interesting to, you know, obviously once companies do like whether, whether you're, you know, selling snacks and alcohol or you're, selling, brews, right. There, there's always this hesitation of like, this may be a scam or this may not work or Hey, it's, it's not for me, but a lot of the challenge I see it's because there's people can't imagine what their future would look like.

Right. And it's, really hard to, you know, get someone to embrace something when they can't see is like, Hey, or they can't see the possibility of what could be. Right. So really digitization brought to us. It's just like, Hey, we can make a digital version of your business and we can reach a lot more people a lot faster.

Jason Vego (08:14)
Yeah,

is really hard for us. So in our industry, especially, they've been screwed over with stuff all the time.

crypto ATMs or so often even today you get these big alcohol distributors going like if you want to buy these types of liquor, let's say like a Tito's that you got to have in your store. You also need to buy these like this new brand that's so hot and it's selling so well. Like if you remember when hard seltzers launched, like there was a point where stores were pressured to have like fridges full of hard sell. Think like they may only have 10 fridge doors you're going to make

Joe Crist (08:34)
Alright.

yeah.

Jason Vego (09:00)
three of them hard sellers. And so they've been screwed over so often. So when we came to them, even though it's like we were co-founded by liquor and convenience store owners, it was like, how do we trust you? Everyone has always told me this thing will sell or this will be great. So like that was a barrier and still is even today. But then even like to your point of like, how do they even envision what is possible? It's one of the biggest challenges we have today from like a product standpoint. In a perfect world, I asked my customer, what do they want and need?

What are their biggest challenges? Similar questions to you're asking me. And then they tell me, and we build product features to help. They are struggling to articulate anything beyond make more money online, right? Of course they want to make more sales online, but all we hear from them is give me more delivery apps and I want to sell more on those delivery apps. And we're like, we will do that. That is part of our business model, but outside of just making more money, like what does your business really need? It's hard cause they can't.

totally visualize what that even looks like. And so we're trying to make some guesses, which we do, still interview our customers. And we've thrown a few things out there over the years that did not stick. But I think that's just kind of the name of the game to try and land the right piece.

Joe Crist (10:14)
Yeah, you know, it's...

a really big challenge when it comes to adoption of technologies, is really getting on the same page. And it sounds like you've been working a lot of different vendors out there to really help them understand you're not just stuck to these little things. It's scary to be first, but nobody wants to be last. So what solutions are out there? Obviously, what you guys are doing with Bevs, they actually really help these stores.

move faster and really enter the digital age.

Jason Vego (10:42)
Yeah. So I think obviously for my industry specifically, I am going to say you should get tools like Bev's. Additionally, if you're in retail, I think it's worth the investment in a good point of sale system. So today, for example, in our realm, we integrate with a few really good point of sale systems. If you compare very good hardware with very good software, like it's more, it's more often available than retailers think. And me being what we call vertical software, we're like very specific.

We've studied a lot of other verticals. If you're a clothing retail, your food, your beverage, look for tools that are specific to you. 99 % of the time we see a retailer, whether it's in my industry or not, and they're using something generic, right? Not to talk negatively on like Square, which I actually think is a great solution, but everyone defaults to the one they've heard of. It just gets Square. Everyone uses it. If I'm a coffee shop, there are coffee shop specific software and hardware to use. So my first recommendation would be like anyone.

owning a business or selling to a business. Like I'm a huge believer in vertical, which is like get very specific. And there are so many very specific tools like built for you and your industry that will be a million times easier. so that would be sort of one. I think the second is I'm further behind in AI than I would like personally, but we're starting to look into it for our own customers. There's so much automation that exists out there.

It's crazy, right? And so it all, it all depends differently, right? Like, so our customer, for example, does not need an AI sales agent, right? 95 % of the traffic goes into the store, but there are other businesses, maybe accounting firms or other small businesses that you can use these AI agents that will, and you polish it, right? You will polish the language, the usage, et cetera, but like they can literally scour the internet, send messages, identify customers, set up meetings for you.

And so I challenge people in their industry to combine those two, look for vertical specific technology to help with automation. The third thing I'd say would be a huge believer for me is around the data and the infrastructure you do without any technology, right? So even at Bev's today, right? Like we didn't use a CRM many years ago. We didn't have a tool like HubSpot or Salesforce or anything like that. I thought we could get away with sort of running it through Google Sheets.

And then we fast forward to today. HubSpot would probably be the last thing I get rid of. think it would be the literal, if Bebs was going to go out of business, HubSpot would be the very last thing I would have to get rid of because it's so critical. And I just think, we talked about this earlier, right? Like capturing the data and having it well organized is what goes into any software or hardware you use. Cause if you're all over the map, like get the best point of sale system ever in existence.

give it to a convenience store or liquor store. If they're not tracking their inventory, it doesn't matter. They just have a really shiny piece of hardware. And so I'd say those are my three. And if we talk about the same topic in a year from now, I think it's going to be dramatically different, which is fascinating and scary.

Joe Crist (13:50)
Yeah, you brought up something interesting too when comes to adoption technology and verticals, right?

I've seen it too across all different industries where everybody picks what they know. They pick what they're comfortable with, pick what they've used. So here's, it's...

I think a lot of the challenge that comes from that, I mean, if you have something different, I'd love to hear it.

A lot of companies don't really advertise the very specific ones like, we do this and this is all we do for this exact industry in this type of business. They don't advertise nearly as well as the general ones. Like, right. You brought up Google sheets, right? Like even Microsoft Excel, for example, everybody's got Excel, right? I can, can put numbers on there. I've used Excel as a CRM myself for upgraded, you know, because it also was free.

Jason Vego (14:41)
I still use Excel a lot.

A lot a lot.

Joe Crist (14:44)
And I think that's a challenge too.

I imagine, or at least I imagine this, right? Where it's a lot of companies that I think they would love to have this like hyper specific, this is for what we do. You know, feel like a lot of companies feel like they don't even need it though, right? I think they do personally. It's like, hey, this is going to help you optimize as it is tailored to your work. is the not best tool for the job, the right tool for the job, right? Compared to what they're doing now, but it's, I see them just thinking it's like, no, we don't need that.

We don't need that. We have this, right? And it's trying to like get them a little more fine tuned to like, Hey, this is, this never the goal. The goal should never be find the best tool for the job is find the right tool for the job.

Jason Vego (15:30)
100%. I think the keyword there that you said is need. And I agree, like even Bev software today, a convenience store does not need Bev's today. But I would argue exactly what you said is you should be looking at what

will make you great, not what you need. And secondly, those are the exact things you will need in five to 10 years. I'm positive, or I believe positively, that in five to 10 years, if these convenience stores and liquor stores don't automate or digitize anything, they will do just as well basically for like a few more years. And 10 years from now, those will all go out of business or get bought out and they will not exist anymore. And so it's such a tricky thing because

Like even in we're a venture backed startup, right? And we're selling this giant problem with incredible solution, right? Like that's the vision. But a lot of these stores are just going like, I don't need that. And I agree, you don't need it right now, but you better change that mindset and get ahead of what you will need. Otherwise you want to have a store and it happens so fast. Like they will blink their eyes and not be able to sort of adapt. And I'll give you actually a really interesting example. It's happening in LA right now.

all over the US, but especially like in an area like Santa Monica, which is pretty high end neighborhood in Los Angeles, right? It's even happening there, which is a lot of the big distributors, say like Anheuser-Busch, Miller Coors, like big beer distributors would go every single week to the store. They'd go every week. They would count the inventory for them, say, hey, you're low on this. You have a lot of this. You should buy more of this. And maybe like, here's one new product we just launched. Well, the stores love that, obviously. Well, in pretty much a snap of a fingers,

In Santa Monica, a bunch of locations, these big beer companies just said, there just not worth visiting every week anymore? Stop visiting them. And then the store owners are going, well, I don't have a system to track my inventory. And they, and then the brands are going, order online. We now have online ordering tool. They're not equipped. They don't know what they have in stock. They don't know what to buy. And like in a snap of a finger is all it takes is one of these like bigger players in the broader industry.

They're going digital, right? You think like Anheuser-Busch isn't spending money on going more digital. Of course they are. And so I just think not only just like the general trajectory of digital and tech, it's like in a snap of a fingers, one sort of adaptation and you're, you're sort of not positioned to exist at all. And I think that's going to happen in a lot of other sectors too, that the big players just change their mind on how they want to do stuff. And it affects the small people the most.

Joe Crist (18:05)
Yeah,

absolutely. it's, it's one of those things that just because it hasn't happened yet doesn't mean it's not going to happen. Right. Cause these companies are trying to advance move faster too. Right. Because every, every company is trying to control costs. doesn't matter how big you are. Right. And it's, and you also brought up the other interesting point about like, you know, having like better, better managed data. And that's the thing too. If you can't manage your data, if you don't know your inventory, when things go wrong,

because you don't have that visibility, they're going to go very wrong. Right. And it's going to be a lot harder because you're going to have essentially all this technical debt for lack of a better word of we don't know we have, we don't have our inventory. You're going to do what some bars do where they order too much and they're in there. have way too many things in the bag. They don't have storage or they got to sell it off or things, you know, it's don't work out or they don't have enough. Right. And they cap out of inventory. And it's just like, people

Jason Vego (18:36)
yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

Joe Crist (19:02)
can't get what they want, right? nothing's, there are a few things worse than having an unhappy customer in a business, right? Yeah, and really creating that visibility, right? Having that good data, having that good system in place. And when I say system, I don't just mean, you know, technology, it's a combination of people processing technology. you know, when you have that in place, it really does help you like.

Jason Vego (19:10)
yeah, and that's the heart of it. 100%.

Yeah, now 100%.

Joe Crist (19:29)
not just have control, but have safety. It's like, hey, you're aware how much we have. We know how much we're selling. We're able to predict now. using predictive analytics to say, on the seasonality of these drinks, we need to start ordering more or we need to start pulling back. And it's going to help control costs. It's going to help manage risk. It's going to help keep customers happy. It's a guaranteed win. But the challenge though, it's adoption. A lot of companies say, hey, you don't

Jason Vego (19:44)
Yeah

Yeah.

Yeah.

Joe Crist (19:56)
We don't need this yet. But you're going to, and you do not want to be less.

Jason Vego (20:00)
Yeah. And I think what's, what's really cool is we're at this like really big turning point. feel like where almost anything's possible. It's still just quite expensive, especially in our, in our space, right? Like today, if I wanted to, I could put cameras in the store and I could track live inventory via image technology, right? For sure.

I've met some great companies doing it. Each camera costs more than the entire software platform that I charged to the retailer, right? So it's not possible, right? We are, that is getting cheaper. Another thing we're really looking to do is like tapping into the POS, whether that be full integration, whether that be eventually having our own point of sale, or we have this UPC tracking technology, which is like, can we plug in and just start to do basic math? What comes in, what leaves, but unsurprisingly tracking.

hundreds of thousands of UPC codes and SKUs and matching them and the way different distributors and suppliers label them. Like we're getting to a place where that will become cheap enough where any retailer could get a technology like that. Again, our longer-term vision is really nail this vertical. And if we could do it in alcohol, tobacco, like in spaces that are highly regulated, we know we could go to clothing or easier things and it does it for you, right? It goes, hey, we looked at your neighborhood.

and what you bought last year and what you sold this year and what you're selling right this second. like, don't buy more hard seltzer. Like cut that down by 20 % and invest in like non-alcoholic beers, for example, which are growing really fast. it's a, even though our customer today at Bev's is the retailer, I see like the big play or what like gets me like extremely excited at Bev's is it's a customer that's full of localized

like hyper local data on what people are buying and selling. And that's been this huge gap, which is it shouldn't be that crazy to go, I want an item, any item, snack, drink, chips, healthy, unhealthy, whatever you're the boss of your own life and be able to find where it is and then either go pick it up or get it delivered. It's not that crazy. And so to me, like the data is going to be fascinating that we believe by going bottoms up, hitting the independence and really hitting like local markets, like

We hope one day is to give the software away for free to the retailer where the business doesn't have to pay anything. And the big brands are the ones who sort of tap into the data to again, still make a better experience, right? Like the brands don't want to sell items that the stores don't sell either. Nobody wins if you're Anheuser-Busch and you sell beers that nobody wants to a retailer that they don't sell it to. So we're excited about the data for sure.

Joe Crist (22:42)
Yeah, know, that kind of segues to the next question, right? Because obviously, I can see that there's mass potential behind this, right? Where it could really change the way this industry works. An industry that desperately needs help. So what does the future look like, right? Like say like a future with BEVs and a future without it. Like where would it really differ?

Jason Vego (23:04)
Yeah, I see a few things and I'll keep it more general, not just to bev's but to like where I see retail going, I think. Right. So one is I think other people are building tools similar to Bev. So whatever retail you're in, think customization and specification is going to keep going in the same direction. Again, meaning maybe 40 years ago, someone wanted beer or wanted wine or, you know, wine is obviously a bigger sector, but like let's take a beer.

Then now it's light beer, dark beers. Now it's IPAs and there's hundreds and thousands of different IPAs. Now it's hazy IPAs. And so people want very specific items, meaning I think retailers are going to have to be responsible for and have a mechanism to get a lot of different types of items. Like I love the in and outs of the world that sort of nailed this. do a few things really, really well, but I think generally speaking,

the world is going in a direction where they want more specifics, Amazon, things like that. So think part one is that. in my world, means convenience stores and liquor stores need to be prepared to not just have 5,000 skews, but 7,000, 8,000, 10,000, which means you're going to have very few of them. I think two, tracking technology is getting really, really good. So like what we're trying to build is we're not building rockets. We're literally sending as a world sending rockets into space. We are getting very close.

which should have happened a long time ago, to having very specific, easy to use systems where a retailer, whatever they are buying and selling, any form of good, service is obviously a little easier to track, but any form of physical good should be able to automatically track what comes in, what leaves, automate the sort of replenishment. I think the third, especially like the TikTok generation, whether TikTok stays how it is or ends up getting banned, but I think the essence of it is what's really key, which is

I think live online shopping and personalized experiences is going to get huge. And so where I see things happening is whether you have physical or digital retail, I see a lot of these companies having the stuff they're spending all their time on buying inventory, tracking it, seeing what they have in stock, replenishing shelves, like that's going to be all automated, maybe with some robotics, maybe with not, at least with the data automating it. Right. And then they can spend their time.

on the experience with the customers. And I don't think it's going to be well-polished advertising and things like that, especially for a small business who you mentioned earlier, like don't have the budgets to advertise that way. And it's going to be building communities, selling things directly and connecting in a more personal way, digitally and physically. And that's really where I see it. Like I'll finish off with sort of like the picture of one of our stores, a mom and pop store in the middle of Texas. I see never having to really

order inventory, they put 90 % of it automatic. The moment it hits 10 % threshold, it auto reorders, shows up at their store, ready to go and sell, right? Then they're spending their time talking to customers in the store, doing live videos, saying they got a specialty whiskey bottle, first come first serve, whoever sort of gets it. And so I do see that coming. And we're still very behind in our sector, but

I see a really cool future of more personalized, engaged experiences with retailers once they can get the operations automated.

Joe Crist (26:28)
You you brought up something really interesting too that I was thinking about. So a lot of people think digital age, right? It's the invasive software, you know, digital products, digital, whatever, like easy to access, right? But we still exist in the physical world. There's the whole concept of a cyber physical world, right? Where it's, there's overlap. And this is what this is too, right? Where it's, you have these companies or they think these small mom and pop stores that

don't really have much experience or knowledge into supply chain management, right? Where their supply is their lifeline to their customer, right? That's really how they help their customers, how they drive value. And when you can actually have that visibility and do it, and you can start to personalize what people really want, it's a huge win for everybody, right? It's a huge win for the company. It's a huge...

Jason Vego (27:20)
Mm-hmm.

Joe Crist (27:24)
know, when for the distributors, it's a huge win for the customer because everybody is now getting what they want and we can be even more fine tuned and create that experience that people want. But it's yeah, it's just one of those things that you don't typically think about, but it's a very, very real need.

Jason Vego (27:39)
Yeah.

And especially like post pandemic, you think we sort of went hyper digital and now we're like going into a new realm where everyone's craving in person. And now it's how do we blend these like digitally backed and supported physical opportunities? What I love about my world is like

I don't care how digital you want to be. If you want to drink a beer, you have to physically have that beer. And will it maybe one day get drone to your house? Like possibly, but even with a, most advanced automated drone that could fly into a liquor store and grab your beer, it needs to know what's there. And so the stores are going to get there. And I just think like, I'll give one example. When you were talking about sort of what you just said, which is there's a store in LA called Valley Beverage Co.

Joe Crist (28:04)
Yeah.

Jason Vego (28:27)
And like everyone knows they have this crazy craft beer selection and tequila selection, but the craft beer, especially it's these two long fridges where 16 ounce cans, they're all different. mean, like hundreds of different 16 ounce from all over the U S in the world that you can't get anywhere. Right. And so even today, that was a hard store for us to try and help because that's a level of skews and just one fridge. That's insane. But that store does so well in LA.

and everyone knows that they're the place to get these types of things. And I just see that happening across all retail and being able to really physically experience it. Like, if I could get that guy over there to just FaceTime his fridge for me, that'd be really cool. But we're not that far off where we can get to a place where you can sort of almost like virtually walk through places, experience them, but it's such a funky balance with everyone wanting human interaction.

Anyways, a little bit of a tangent, but I'm excited yet nervous yet curious on what retail really looks like, but things are getting cheaper and easier. hopefully, hopefully in the right direction.

Joe Crist (29:32)
Yeah.

Yeah. And I can definitely see this, this movement now, like the digitization of like this industry, right? You know, when you're dealing with beverages and you're dealing with just convenience stores, it's you're streamlining things. People care about time. That's, you know, that's the one thing I always like to tell people. It's, it's, it's, can always make money. You can always make something more valuable, but you can never make more time. Right. And this right here, the amount of time you save, we can really focus on the things that matter to you.

is amazing, right? It's an incredibly disruptive idea where you're streamlining the experience to go have experiences. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But Jason, I got one more question for you, man. This has been super interesting. So I know you've been around the block. You've got a lot of different experiences. If you can give the audience any piece of advice, what would it be?

Jason Vego (30:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, very meta.

Yeah. A lot of thoughts, I think, and I mentioned a few of them today, right? Especially for the business owners. So I'll provide, think, something a little different, which I think has been said, but I want to double down on it, which is there's a lot of free learning and training out there across a lot of spectrum. So you're talking about AI tools or software that's out there. You can learn what is out there. You can learn how to use that stuff. You can learn

answers kind of to the questions you're asking today, like where things are going. I remember a few years ago, I read a book that was like the future of just technology and it painted these really interesting pictures of people owning less things and more rentals. And like we're seeing a lot of that happen. And so there's a sort of trifecta of with sites like Coursera, like you can learn really fast for very cheap. I went to get my MBA from UCLA.

Right? Like that's expensive. You don't have to do that to, to really embrace the technology. whether you're a business owner, a consumer, you work in big tech, like these tools are going to be incorporated. And I'm a huge believer in AI and the tools are not going to take your job. It is the people who know how to use them are going to take your job. And so I think my one biggest piece of advice and I'm, I need to practice what I preach, right? I am literally right now taking an AI course because I'm going.

I'm not fast enough. I'm not keeping up with the times. So I think my one piece of advice would be learn the skills and the tools that are out there. Learning how to use tools takes no background in tech, right? Like I remember years ago, I use, I wanted to do some graphic design. learned how to use like Adobe Photoshop. It's like that didn't take any skill. I mean, my art sucked that I created in Photoshop, but like learning the tool itself is a really important skillset. So I'd go there and then just embrace technology.

not when you need it, but when you think you will need it in the future is I think the biggest theme for me now and hopefully my retailers or prospective retailers hear that and take that to heart.

Joe Crist (32:35)
Absolutely, no, I love that. right, everybody, that was Jason Vigo. Jason, thank you so much for joining us today. I definitely learned a lot. I'm sure the audience did as well. I'm sure they're very thankful too. But everyone, thank you so much for joining us today on Thrive in the Digital Age, and I hope to see you all next week.