Last Updated on January 18, 2022 by

James Keane is the Chief Product Officer at TAPPTEK, a cutting-edge beverage performance tracker. He is a startup advisor, entrepreneur, and is experienced in product innovation and mobile application design and development. He has assembled and led teams for Parenting Solutions, LLC, Anheuser-Busch InBev, MetLife, and Accenture. James has been a founding member of CMTx BioTech and Airfoil Corp. 

Jamie Robinson is the Founder and CEO of TAPPTEK. He has over 25 years of experience in the sports and entertainment industry. He is a Founding Board Member and Secretary at Tory Burch Foundation and Chair of Programming Philly Chapter at The Explorers Club since 2014. He was the architect behind The Fanatics Consumer Partnership and creator of national programs with Dunkin Donuts, McDonald’s, Dr. Pepper, and MillerCoors.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

• James Keane describes how TAPPTEK uses beverage performance data to scale brands
• Why typical beer tap technology is cumbersome — and how Jamie Robinson built the first-of-its-kind technology
• How TAPPTEK exceeds expectations on measurability for brewers, retailers, and distributors 
• Can you reduce waste and loss by examining data?
• Jamie discusses how they are connecting with consumers and investors 
• Jamie talks about what’s on the horizon: expanding their patent portfolio and licensing 
• James and Jamie offer recommendations for filling your stein 

In this episode with James Keane and Jamie Robinson

Are you pouring money down the drain based on inaccurate premise data from your brewery or distillery? Understanding consumer purchase behavior and its connection to on-tap beverages have been lost — until now. 

James Keane and Jamie Robinson saw a gap in the market and created TAPPTEK to fill the void. They recognized the need to forecast better production and dispensary habits. Through their tool, brands have instant access to data that will minimize loss and provide better service to consumers in the beverage industry. 

In the episode of Legends Behind the Craft, Drew Thomas Hendricks is joined by James Keane and Jamie Robinson of TAPPTEK to discuss bringing premise data technology to on-tap beverage dispensers. Together, they discuss the innovation behind their invention, how to collect and interpret data to help brands scale, and the importance of being a company for the customer. 

Resources Mentioned in this episode

• Barrels Ahead
• Drew Thomas Hendricks on LinkedIn  
• James Keane on LinkedIn  
• James Keane’s email: james@tapptek.com
• Jamie Robinson on LinkedIn  
• Jamie Robinson’s email: jamie@tapptek.com 
• TAPPTEK 
• Michael Houlihan on Legends Behind the Craft 
• The Barefoot Spirit Audiobook on Business Audio Theatre 
• Yards Brewing Co. 
• Montauk Brewing Company

Sponsor for this episode…

This episode is brought to you by Barrels Ahead.

Barrels Ahead is a wine and craft marketing agency that propels organic growth by using a powerful combination of content development, Search Engine Optimization, and paid search.

At Barrels Ahead, we know that your business is unique. That’s why we work with you to create a one-of-a-kind marketing strategy that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and makes your business stand out from your competitors.

Our team at Barrels Ahead helps you leverage your knowledge so you can enjoy the results and revenue your business deserves.

So, what are you waiting for? Unlock your results today!

To learn more, visit barrelsahead.com or email us at hello@barrelsahead.com to schedule a strategy call.

Episode Transcript

Intro  0:03  

Welcome to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast where we feature top leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry with your host Drew Thomas Hendricks. Now let’s get started with the show.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  0:19  

Drew Thomas Hendricks here. I’m the host of the Legends Behind the Craft podcast where I talk with leaders in the wine and craft beverage industry. Last week, I talked with Michael Houlihan, founder of Barefoot Wines. And I really want to thank Jeremy from Inspired Insider for connecting us and inviting us inviting me to co host that show. So Michael Houlihan, he recently launched a new venture Business Audio Theatre, where they bring founder stories and books to life through actors. And so actors act out the scenes and depict kind of the seminal events of the founders story. It’s kind of akin to a 1930s radio show. So you may have read the book Barefoot Spirit and really chronicles the 90s in the 2000s, where that wine brand grew, and listening to that, but just vividly, just, I was immediately transported back to my time as a wine buyer back in the early 90s. So if you if you haven’t checked out, if you’ve read the book, and you haven’t checked out the audio, you really got to do it. It’s um it’s reinventing storytelling in the business world. Now before I introduce today’s guest, James Keane and Jamie Robinson from TAPPTEK, a brief sponsor message. Today’s episode is sponsored by Barrels Ahead, At Barrels Ahead, we work with you to implement a one of a kind marketing strategy. When that highlights your authenticity, tells your story, and connects you with your ideal customers. In short, we help you we help wineries and craft beverage producers unlock their story to unleash their revenue, go to barrels, barrelsahead.com. today to learn more. I’m super excited to talk with James Keane and Jamie Robinson, a TAPPTEK of TAPPTEK. At its core, TAPPTEK is a retail analytics platform that connects brewers, retailers and consumers through the beer tap. Welcome to the show, James. Jamie.

Jamie Robinson  2:01  

Great, great to be on and great to meet you Drew.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  2:03  

Yeah. Nice to meet you guys, too. So tell tell me a little bit about TAPPTEK, for someone that doesn’t know anything about it.

Jamie Robinson  2:11  

Sure, James, go ahead. Yeah,

James Keane  2:13  

sure. So TAPPTEK is trying to solve an age old problem, which is to understand consumer behavior and draft beverage consumption at the point of consumption in the on premise, where draught beer is sold. And we do it in a very unique way. And a very, very inexpensive and what we believe the only scalable way.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  2:32  

Now how does that work? So it works with the beer tap.

James Keane  2:36  

It does. So what we’ve developed over the last year, with a global technology partner, is an IoT data miner, such as an airport manager holding in my hand right now, custom chips that can be inserted into a tap handle at the point of manufacture. And it’s small enough that it can be inserted nearly any tap handle. Or it can be used installed below an existing tap handle using a unique enclosure that we’ve developed. If we’re installing it after the fact, the installation process takes no tools, no training and about 15 seconds, if you can unscrew a beer tap handle, you can screw our device on and screw beer tap on that tap and go back on. And our custom algorithms very precisely remember, the cord when attacking was installed, when it’s removed, when a poor begins, and how long that poor lasts down to a very, very fine resolution. And they can transmit that data using our proprietary accounting connection technique. It doesn’t require any interface with the bars Wi Fi or anything of that sort. So it’s a very unique way of capturing draft beverage performance, relative draft beverage performance at scale, really unheard of.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  3:54  

Well, it’s amazing. Now work. Tell me how did that idea come about? I mean, that’s an elegant solution to a problem that’s been around forever.

Jamie Robinson  4:03  

So my background Drew is sports marketing. I’ve spent about 25 years in sports and entertainment marketing, working with many of the best brands in the world. And my first exposure to the on premise problems was in the mid 2000s. When my agency I used to have a marketing agency, which I sold to start TAPPTEK. And I was exposed to it through by virtue of the fact that we were hired by Pilsner well to be the first ever marketing agency. And I realized back in the mid 2000s 2004 to seven that there’s there’s really it’s very difficult to stand out in the crowded on premise environment. And there’s a lot of quote I pollution that goes goes on in a bar and a lot of consumers really don’t even have a clue what they want to drink when they come into a bar. And of course the technology did not exist back then. So it just stuck in the back of my mind. Fast forward into the mid 2000 teens and I was hired by a company called fanatics.com, which was now known as fanatics. But back when I was working for them, they were not a consumer brand at all. And fanatics now is, in my opinion, the most powerful company in sports about an 18 or $20 billion valuation and fanatics hired me to go out and put marketing partnerships together with other brands to build their brand and drive revenue. And it was very successful in putting together national partnerships with Dunkin Donuts, Dr. Pepper, and then I closed the deal to be the partner for McDonald’s in their 2016 World Cup program. And, you know, we wound up generating over a billion in pressure during the time that we worked with them over a billion impressions and many 10s of millions of dollars in revenue. And it was when I close the deal with Miller Coors to visit and Miller Coors as the official bureau of sports fans that I was celebrating drinking against in an Irish Pub in my neighborhood. And I had an epiphany as I stared at the CU taps that were there, that there’s been no technology innovation in the beer taps since prohibition, and all beer taps look differently, but they all function the same. So I embarked on a journey to change that. And fortunately, I met and partnered with James Keane at the end of 2018 and into 2019. And we radically shifted the business into where we are today.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  6:33  

That’s amazing. Now, when you were inventing this kind of this, this interface, it’s Internet of Things interface there. How does it actually work?

Jamie Robinson  6:42  

I’ll let James take that. Maybe we lost him?

Drew Thomas Hendricks  6:49  

Yeah, no audio there, James.

James Keane  6:51  

Yeah, sure. So sorry about that. Huge action happening here. I guess maybe take me take a step back. Yeah. And say how do we come to this solution? Yeah. In the first place. Having having created ABN Bev, global brewers Technology Innovation Program, starting in 2009, onward, and also working in digital marketing support roles, working with our analytics teams, and actually I was a founding one of the five or six founding partners of EBMs venture capital fund, called GX ventures really helped get it off the ground. In terms of an early stage technology investment perspective, what I learned is that every solution that attempted to solve this problem relied on expensive, difficult to install, difficult to maintain hardware, that frankly, disruptive business, we’re talking drilling holes through coolers and keg rooms, and cutting beer lines to install flow meters, etc. And, frankly, I’ve been behind pitch decks or seen pitches from a wide variety of companies trying to solve this problem. I’ve piloted that myself in those various roles that as Busch InBev. And or, you know, personally or through other mechanisms, wasn’t invested in some of these technologies, and frankly, just saw all the ways that can possibly go wrong in scaling. And when they

Drew Thomas Hendricks  8:17  

were some of those issues, what were the mistakes they were making? Sure,

James Keane  8:20  

you know, I think it’s typical of any IoT type initiative. They were costly. They were disruptive to the business difficult and or expensive to maintain. They require lots of changes to user behavior. We’re talking bartenders, bar managers, bar owners, or consumer behavior, God forbid, or maybe you have a quiet point of sale integrations and myself, have gotten very, very complex over the years, because there’s been enormous fragmentation in that market. And by the way, it’s human entered data and suspect in terms of brand sites. So there are lots of reasons I’m just naming, naming the, you know, a few of them. And one of the principal ones was just connectivity. How do you get data out of this device, that alone created tremendous difficulties for most of the solutions that I piloted and we’re talking in 102, indoor tried to scale in, you know, many, many countries and many, many, many markets. And when Jamie came to me with an invention, you know, what I saw was really unique intellectual property, which broadly covers the concept of measuring draught beverage performance at the tap handle and connecting with consumers and tap handle digitally. But my, basically expertise and what worked and what didn’t work any on premise. And so the insight that we came to was, well, instead of trying to measure every last ounce poured, or 10th of an ounce with the precision of a flow meter, if we can get broad relative data, even at a very slightly less precision level, we can do it at a small fraction of the cost. We can do it in a much wider You know, jog a geographic footprint. And we can do it in a way that requires no user behavior changes, no disruptions in business whatsoever. And so you know that that that inspiration is what led to all of the core intellectual property that sits inside the device I’m holding right now. And essentially, what we’ve done is developed a tiny chipset, custom chipset, that can very reliably measure the things I described earlier, using a proprietary set of algorithms that do two things. They know a measure, all the things are described very, very reliably, and actually much better than we ever anticipated. I mean, much more precise than we ever anticipated. But they do it in a way that allows this device to last three to five years and act a tap handle with zero interactions, no battery changes, no configuration whatsoever. And to get maybe slightly more mechanical about it, you know, going into the, into the project, I was thinking, well, we just measure if it’s on or off. That’s simple enough, right? I mean, you got a mechanical engineer by background, how difficult could it be. But as it turns out, tap handles and valves, they sit on top have tremendous amounts of mechanical wear and freedom of motion in in ways you would not expect. And they actually, you know, acted differently based on who’s born and how fast upon and how hard they’re born them, etc. So we’ve had to work all that out over the last 18 months or so. And we’re happy to report that, you know, with more than 80,000 test pores, we can measure relative volume to a precision of about 99.7% In most normal scenarios. So it’s way more precise than we ever anticipated. That’s amazing. And our our cost of goods sold because of the way we’ve done it is so low. It’s it’s you have to think about this way, would you buy a tablet for 30 bucks today, would you buy a 30 bucks tomorrow with our technology in it? We can we can actually do that with what we’ve developed. And so yeah, so that’s, that’s some of the mechanics on how we’re actually accomplishing a task.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  12:06  

I love that you say just look at the forest instead of concentrating on those couple trees that are so expensive. Because I do know a little bit about the flow meters and the amount of time it takes to to measure that last drop, it just isn’t important. And then your solution actually accomplished the goal, even though you weren’t even searching for it.

James Keane  12:25  

Yeah, that’s it. That’s exactly right. And I have to say, you know, we’re pleasantly surprised, we focused intently on doing one or two things really, really well. And were pleasantly surprised with the results, we were hoping to get about 90 90% precision with measuring pores and pore duration. And we’ve exceeded that tremendously to the point where in the running pilots that we have right now, with some some large, you know, potential scalable partners, we can actually sense reliably can’t changes, brand changes, foaming, we can actually predict when a keg is about to kick before taking very, very reliably. So we’re pleasantly surprised, even with the additional insights we didn’t expect to get out of the device.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  13:12  

That’s amazing. So, you know, talking about a use case for typical, one of your typical customers first, tell me about who is your ideal customer for using this? And then what would what would be their first use case they they would start reaching a benefit for

James Keane  13:28  

now. Thank you for the question. So I guess maybe I should take just a step back. And I think our data can be valuable will be valuable to both retailers, distributors, as well as viewers are manufacturers of the products and beyond

Drew Thomas Hendricks  13:40  

share aggregate data with your customers.

James Keane  13:44  

That’s a great plan absolutely is, which is very normal in this industry to share competitive insights. But we will have to apply some logic to that meaning I’m not going to be sharing one brands data with another’s it will be aggregated insights just like some of the large data aggregators today provide except that we’ll be able to do it at scale that that we don’t believe they’ll ever get to even you know, companies like Nielsen, CGA, and other companies that measure the on premise, when you look at their datasets, from what we can tell them your marketing materials, they maybe cover a very, very small portion of the market. And they extrapolate that, you know, algorithmically, we think we can do that in every tap handle. So much of how the data can be used. The customers that we’re talking to today, brewers, distributors, and retailers all have different reasons for wanting to data, but all universally acknowledged. It’ll be very valuable to them. For example, one of the retail pilots that we recently finished during the period that we were doing the pilot, TAPPTEK recorded 115 pours reliably, but yet the point of sale only showed 21 meaning that what was pouring was vastly different than what was actually being run into point of sale. So you can tell Okay, either this is a reporting problem, or the data is being mis categorized brand wise, or the pores are just not getting into the point of sale. Either way, they were making bad decisions because of that lack of insight. Additionally, there were four brands on tap in this location, and to the brands delivered, perhaps 5% of the total volume during our very, very busy trial period, which was a reopening weekend, a month or two ago. So so we know immediately for the for the first retailer, where in their first venue, we can deliver very valuable insights. And at a cost, it’s a fraction of the value those insights will bring them either from a bottom line perspective, or from a potential top line perspective in terms of optimizing next. But fast forward to when we’re in multiple locations, across the chain or compatible locations, we can then beginning to bring competitive insights into what is performing when and where when should the seasonal be on tap, what should be off tap? When is the innovation in the brand performing or not? distributors are interested in all those same insights except Except the waste necessarily isn’t a good thing. But it’s a good thing for them, meaning they sell more beer, we hope to make them more efficient in their supply chain preventing things like hotshots, helping them predict when a cable went out of stock before it does, so they can find out more efficiently in their delivery lifecycle. And in for the brands, we have all the above. Brands are interested in all those same insights I prefer I described. Except there’s one other thing which is you know, we know based on the data, the very small number of pilots that we’ve run, because we’re very recently post products, we can see very clearly that brands don’t compete with each other in a venue by venue location, they compete with each other in a venue by venue, deep time part by part or or occasion by occasion basis, meaning that the draft performance in one venue dread dramatically differs from a lunchtime to a dare time to a late night, we can see all that very clearly in our insights. And we can very also very clearly see that brands are promoting in suboptimal ways or in suboptimal locations. So we know we can bring these insights to the brands very clearly at a massive scale. Imagine a tomorrow, a large global Brewer decides to outfit their device their tap next round tapping the next round of 45,000 tap handles with the TAPPTEK technology at no upfront cost to them, which is something that we can do yet be able to get insights when you tap handles theoretically, we can give them insights into how their brains are performing and why they’re gaining or losing sharing specific retailer. That’s something that no one can do today, particularly the price point that we can accomplish that. And there’s one more thing, which is at its core, our connectivity platform is a Bluetooth platform, not the type of Bluetooth that you and I use for air pods or headsets, but but it does have bluetooth that allows us to connect to devices that have never been paired before. lets us do this in a very seamless way. That also gives us the possibility to connect with consumers, Visa V. They’re smart smartphones, we can locate consumers, theoretically we have not built this project. But it’s possible to harbor rebuilt within 30 feet of a tap handle with with information on how that brand is performing in that particular location that time of day. So it’s a very powerful direct to consumer marketing opportunity in the future once we have some scale with our data and insights products. So probably a long answer to your short question. But that’s how we think about how we add value to each of the ecosystem partners. And there’s more every time we talk to a potential customer, they get to us and tell us Wayman, have you thought about XYZ or if I combine it with the data I have here. I can do this that the other thing, so we’re very excited about the value can bring industry wide.

Jamie Robinson  18:42  

Yeah, I just, if I could add a couple of soundbites to that Drew, we had a conversation with a franchisee of one of America’s leading chains, and they own 131 locations. And they account for 800,000 Lost pints a year at 475. Retail. So it’s almost a $4 million problem at retail. And if you amortize that out over the whole footprint have closely close to 2000 locations, it becomes close to a $50 million retail problem. And our costs for that are getting smarter about a $50 million problem. Our costs are less than 1% of that number to get smarter about loss. And we can tell when after our pores are happening. We can tell when too many pores are happening and certainly the pilot that James cited a few minutes ago, there’s a real real problem if the POS system is only capturing capturing, you know, a quarter or a fifth of the pores are actually happening. And we’re not suggesting that that’s all theft or shrink or waste or loss but it is waste or it’s mislabeled or it’s mis entered. And those are things that You’ll add up in importance over top.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  20:03  

Oh, completely Yeah, your first your first guest goes towards like just waste or, or loss or theft. But it could just be that the person’s bringing up the wrong category of beer for your so the the bars, that’s to double up on this product a when really product B is the one that’s being sold.

Jamie Robinson  20:21  

Yep. And then to further James’s sentiments on the consumer connectivity, really the inspiration, one of the major inspirations of the invention was my experience in sports marketing. And if you think about the NFL, and Bud Light, Bud Light spends close to a billion dollars a year on the NFL, both on the exam, you know, official sponsorship, and then regional and local team deals and then activation. It’s a very big number. And they don’t know what people are football fans are drinking on game day. And so to take that one step further, in Philadelphia, which is where I live, if you look at the Philadelphia Eagles, for instance, they have official partnerships with both Bud Light and Miller Lite. And both those companies pay them about pay the Eagles about $2 million a year. And for that, they get pouring rights, and they get signage rights in the stadium. And then they get co branded rights on packaging in the off premise market. But they don’t really have an effective way to activate that with the consumer in the on premise market, which is the most important place to activate. And so we actually could integrate into the Philadelphia Eagles app and begin to send messaging to people who have Eagles apps on their phone, about Bud Light, or Miller Lite being the official beer of the Eagles as they’re about to make a purchase decision. And we think if we think that absolutely is a tremendous game changer in the, you know, multi billion dollar world of beer marketing.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  21:48  

Yeah, I was wondering how the your direct to consumer kind of marketing vision workout that makes total sense where you would kind of work with the local app or work with whatever app is already being used within that environment and then push we don’t we didn’t,

Jamie Robinson  22:01  

we don’t intend to create our own consumer facing app we intend to integrate in other people’s apps.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  22:06  

Smart. That’s a smart way to go on that. Thank you, right now. So how are you growing this brand right now?

Jamie Robinson  22:16  

We’re thoughtfully picking and evaluating multiple disciplined launch partners. So we’re in discussions with leading retailers were in discussions with distributors, we’re in discussions with brands, and we’re really just trying to focus on the right, the right launch partners, and we’re having very productive conversations. We’re also raising capital right now. So there’s a potential for one of these partners to also become an investor and and really add a tremendous amount of value to the company while generating value for themselves as well. Yeah,

Drew Thomas Hendricks  22:53  

you’d mentioned in the pre show, we’re talking about kind of trying to find different investors, where can people find out more about the your investment, or if they want to pursue an investment in you?

Jamie Robinson  23:03  

You know, they could reach James or me on LinkedIn. Or, you know, my email is Jamie@tapptek.com And James is James@tapptek.com. We’re looking to hire somebody named Jim to make really confusing people, but we haven’t found the right candidate.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  23:19  

Only only hiring gyms and James.

Jamie Robinson  23:24  

Of course, that’s a joke.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  23:27  

That’s funny. So as far as the distributors when when a distributor signs up, they want to do the taps do they have to, then they then place those taps within the retail establishments? This is the data shared with the retail establishments. I don’t understand how that works. We intend

Jamie Robinson  23:42  

to share the data with retailers in the retail, we

Drew Thomas Hendricks  23:45  

know that they’re getting these fancy taps.

Jamie Robinson  23:49  

You know, if we’re under the beer tap, they will certainly know where inside the beer tap, they will notice no difference in the physical appearance of a beer tap. Unless, you know unless there’s a cause to you know, we’ve tinkered with the idea of putting Bluetooth bt bluetooth logos on the beer taps themselves, which unto itself, is kind of a big story. Because you know, here you have this beautiful piece of very, very valuable real estate, it’s the most valuable piece of real estate in the bar. And the idea of adding a Bluetooth beacon logo, to the beer taps will, ultimately, people to take notice and wonder what the hell’s going on. And that’s what we want.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  24:33  

That’s great. How, um, so maybe talk a little bit more about the data that you are gathering and how much data I mean, how long has this been out in the wildlife?

James Keane  24:43  

Yeah, so that were we’re just post product. So we’re only in some partnerships with strategic partners, pilots, which GG partners right now. So, I mean, if you search hard enough, you’ll find our devices, but we’re not going You know, tell you tell you where. And I think you’re asking, you know, how much how much data are we gathering today? Or was there another question you were asking? Just to make sure I answer? Yeah.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  25:11  

It was more just how long has this product been out? In how much data we started to get gather and kind of your vision for that data?

James Keane  25:19  

We finished the the hardware development over the course of about 18 months. Earlier this summer. We finished our software development kits actually around the same time. And actually, we’re just now developing, you know, our front end analytics for the customers. So there isn’t a you know, I mentioned you have lots and lots of test data, we also have a good number of pilot data in a variety of venues running as well. But we’re not we’re not a mass scale. Yet. If that’s, that’s your ask.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  25:54  

Now, that makes sense. No, I’m just kind of getting getting, getting curious whether you’re starting regionally or whether you’re already kind of available nationally or

James Keane  26:02  

great question. I’d say most of the customers are talking to our national potential partnerships. We have we’re doing that strategically, because our data is more valuable. The more brands are a variety of brands when and the more geographies we’re in. And frankly, those those types of customers are the ones that understand how data can dramatically improve their business already are our best potential partners anyway.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  26:25  

That’s pretty good.

Jamie Robinson  26:26  

Yeah. We have a couple conversations going on right now. And the hope is that our rollout, we’re looking at mid to end of next year for scaled rollouts. And we think that if we find the right partners, we can hit scale very, very quickly. And begin to, you know, build significant value in a very quick fashion, just based on a couple of partners, makes us the largest wrap your analytics solution, or platform in the world, I should speak to the fact that we also have a bunch of patents, we have an international patent that has issued in Mexico and Brazil, Canada, Australia, Russia and South Africa. And we’re continuing to win prosecute patents in other markets. We have a bunch of other IP that we’ve developed, and part of the use of capital is to expand our patent portfolio. The other interesting thing is that our IP transcends beer and into any any liquid. So you know, we’re certainly not tasting coffee or soft drinks right now. But you know, down the road, once we have a mature beer business, that’s certainly a possibility. And we have talked about licensing our IP, just player in the, in the soft drink and coffee space.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  27:54  

I was gonna ask you about how you’re protecting this, this innovative technology, good to hear about patents, what advice would you give someone else that’s as you’re right now in the trenches launching this new technology, you’ve got the patent, you’ve invested in that weather advice? Would you give it a tech company in the supply side of the craft industry? Is there kind of build that out?

Jamie Robinson  28:16  

You know, me, you know, similar technology technology to what we’re doing, or any testing

Drew Thomas Hendricks  28:20  

or just any sort of technology as you’re trying to break into a market with something that’s innovative.

Jamie Robinson  28:26  

It’s, it’s, it’s a real challenge. It’s been a challenge, because we’re actually inventing a new form of data. So we’re actually creating a new market while we’re trying to build a product. And that’s good and bad. It’s certainly exciting. But it’s also, you know, having it’s also much more friction filled, because people, there’s nobody out there that has any scaled on premise data. Yeah, that’s so it’s, it’s a challenge. It’s, it’s not been easy. And, you know, thankfully, James is very strong in the tech technology, and also in the industry space, having spent, you know, almost 10 years of API.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  29:02  

It’s one of those things where it’s the vendors not or if the person’s not problem aware, they don’t even know they have this problem. They don’t know this nation, and you’ve got a solution. How are you going about spreading the word of just kind of really showing them that there is this problem that needs to be solved?

Jamie Robinson  29:17  

Or just hunting and gathering right now? You know, we’re, we’re hustling and, you know, from a capital standpoint, the traditional VC route is not as interesting as a strategic route. So we’re being really picky. You know, we can afford to operate the business until we have the right partners. There’s no fire sale needs of raising capital, we’re really doing it methodically and thoughtfully. You know, and in my career, I’ve created multiple, multiple corporate partnerships between multiple huge companies. And that’s sort of the way we’re approaching this. Now. We’re in discussions with different syndicated data companies about partnering we’re in discussions with Some distributors about partnering, we’re in discussions with retailers, I mean, we’re really looking at the entire three tier system, and trying to figure out the best point of entry. And once we feel we feel at once we hit the right point of entry, we feel like there’ll be a tipping point, one of one of the industry’s leading marketing agencies, has branded us the new standard in beer taps. And we sort of love that.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  30:25  

Well, yeah, that’s quite, I would love to be, that’s a great way to be branded. And I like the fact that you’re getting getting out in the market, and you’re trying to figure out exactly where the where the sweet spot is. And then you’re pivoting in response to the data that you’re getting in. I think that’s that that nimble, nimble aspect is

Jamie Robinson  30:45  

I think that you answered, you answered your own question in terms of what advice you would give to other tech companies, it’s certainly being nimble is certainly a prerequisite for any kind of success.

James Keane  30:58  

Advice I would give to any new tech companies is try not to be a tech company, try to be try to be a customer company. Try to really understand what your customers need, and why and how it’s going to add value to their business in a way that’s meaningful to them. And adapt your products and adapt all of your activities to focus on that and that alone, and the rest, the rest will become a lot easier.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  31:29  

That’s great. That’s great advice. So guys, as we’re really approaching the end of this, I gotta I always kind of ask kind of, what do you guys drinking lately?

Jamie Robinson  31:41  

That’s a good question. Um, you know, I’m a dark, dark beer drinker. So any any stouts and, you know, Guinness, I love stat. stouts. I love you know, I I’m a big fan of founders Porter. Yeah, so I mean, I’m a dark dark guy.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  32:02  

Yeah, I had a great bourbon age or is a bourbon barrel aged stout on Nitro last night, one of our local breweries. So what what brands, pure project, their local San Diego brewery?

Jamie Robinson  32:16  

Awesome. James.

James Keane  32:18  

I am a pumpkin ale Fan Fan, particularly this time this time of the year. And, you know, I was just telling my wife last night that my my beer consumption has gone up dramatically in October. So like, what’s your night, which is more than usual for me. And I always drink brands from small craft brewers. Because I think just like to support the little guys. I think they have a better sense for what consumer taste profiles are locally and see the quality sometimes it’s really, really good.

Jamie Robinson  32:53  

What’s one of your favorite I neglected to? Yeah, I know, you’re, I’m a big fan of

Drew Thomas Hendricks  33:02  

puking out. Oh, yeah. Gonna search that out. I don’t think we get it on the west coast. But remember, back East.

Jamie Robinson  33:10  

Yeah. And I highly recommend you tried to yard suite of products too.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  33:14  

Oh, well, I will. I get back and back east every so often here. Awesome. Well, guys, where can people find out more about you?

Jamie Robinson  33:22  

Yeah, our website is TAPPTEK.com it’s TAPPTEK. com. It’s on. It’s intentionally misleading, just to keep a little cloak of secrecy behind what we’re doing. And, you know, my email address is Jamie@tapptek.com And James is James@tapptek.com. We’d love to

Drew Thomas Hendricks  33:44  

hear from people. Yeah, fantastic. So if you guys, anybody listening, local breweries, retailers are looking to get control of your product and flow and figure out what’s actually going where checkout TAPPTEK. Thank you, Drew. Thank you so much.

Jamie Robinson  34:00  

It was great. Thank you. It’s fun.

Drew Thomas Hendricks  34:02  

Thank you guys later.

James Keane  34:03  

Awesome. Have a great day.

Outro  34:12  

Thanks for listening to the Legends Behind the Craft podcast. We’ll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.