Podcast: Suppliers who fuel innovation and drive the industry forward

Bob Tullio: I had a great interview with Elyssa Steiner from Cantaloupe looking ahead. So basically your technology, even with the smart cafe, can be put on anybody's cooler.

Elyssa Steiner: “That's kind of the vision is like, ‘Hey, you can buy the whole thing from us. We can be your one-stop shop,’ especially in the core verticals that we serve today. But one of the things we also recognize is that some of our channel partners or cooler OEMs, they serve verticals that maybe, no, we don't directly serve today. And so, there's a ton of opportunity for us to essentially enable them — by integrating our technology onto their coolers — basically taking a standard cooler and making it smart.”

Bob Tullio: Here is Robert Liva from Graphics That Pop with a great story of his early days on the street. What's your overall philosophy on advertising? Can it be a sporadic approach, or is it something that has to be ongoing in your opinion?

Joe Webster: “To make sure that they maintain their equipment and their products and locations. It sounds like it's... Okay, well the delivery guy, he can wipe the machine down and drop the product off.

“But, he's late getting there because of a traffic jam, and the only thing he can do ultimately is drop the product off and leave. You know, the industry was built upon service. If you can provide service, you'll never lose your customer.”

Bob Tullio: And what would you say is the secret sauce at your company?

Joe Webster: “I think the secret sauce is allowing people to grow, and encourage them grow, and encourage them if you make a decision, even if you make a mistake, you're going to learn from it and you won't make it again. We're more of an open platform where we're asking people to step out of their comfort zone and make a decision. That's really what makes great employees long term is — reaching their potential.”

Bob Tullio: I had a great interview with Mark Kronenberg, ProWatch Solutions. Kronenberg has a long familial and personal relationship with the convenience services industry. In the 80s, he developed software. He and his father started CompuVend Systems and had it for 32 years before they sold it to Cantaloupe. As an industry consultant, he began to recognize that operators were struggling with micro market theft.

Mark Kronenberg: “In a nutshell, we’re using surveillance video and applying AI [artificial intelligence] and other analytics to it to identify theft and other lost sales opportunities, and providing that to the operator and the users in an easy-to-use actionable format, that then they can take and have good conversations with their customers.

“Our vision is to have controls for theft but as well as lost sales opportunities. We want to put the attendant in unattended. So, if I could be a fly on the wall, and look and see what's going on in my market, and identify certain events or actions that could help me improve the market, we want to use technology and artificial intelligence to identify those to help the market operate.”

Bob Tullio: A key part of Kronenberg's team is Bryan Hebert, who has years of experience with key positions at USA Technologies and Nayax. I asked Hebert how things were going on the sales side.

Bryan Hebert: “We had a flooded booth within minutes after the gates opened at NAMA, and it really didn't stop. You know, we learned a lot from a lot of operators, a lot of the contacts that Mark and I had in the industry came to see us. As micro market theft, as you well know, is top of mind on a lot of operators. I think it was really clear that we had a solution and that has gained a lot of interest for us in the marketplace right now.”

Bob Tullio: I spoke to Butch and Lynn Winkler and Barbara Russell from Holiday House.

Butch Winkler: “We had always looked for things that the operator needed. The original goal was to make life easier for the operator. The initial group of plumbing, water filters, cleaners.”

Lynn Winkler: “Holiday House was built on suggestions. The trick in making this work was getting the operators involved. What do you need? What can't you find? What can we do for you? What can we do to make your life easier? You're buying from 10 different vendors. Let us do this for you. And from that basic concept, Barbara and Butch have taken it to a corporate level and have organized it and have contained the pricing. Unification as far as installs go. It's a very simple concept, except we've gotten the operators so that they think — and they actually are — part of our development, and we actually listen to them. And we listen to them because we've actually been out in the field and installed machines.”

Bob Tullio: One of the reasons why Butch and Lynn can comfortably step away from time to time is Barbara Russell. 

Bob Tullio: You started out as their babysitter.

Barbara Russell: “I did.”

Bob Tullio: You must have been a good babysitter because that's transitioned into what position now?

Barbara Russell: “Vice president of sales and marketing.”

Bob Tullio: That's an interesting job progression. You've been part of this organization for how long now?

Barbara Russell: “1985. I would come in with the big old blue cold catalog book and make phone calls to telemarketing. And then I went into accounting and then went to college and kept staying, you know, just stayed customer service. Then I was in sales. Then I was in New York City with Butch at the Toy Fair every year, getting new accounts, like just whatever they needed to be done is what I did.

“Every once in a while, we pull out this tiny little catalog, that's like, eight pages of like hot chocolate with marshmallows and sugar packets, right? And then, I look at what's 380 pages today. And it's just amazing, you know, how it's grown. Pretty cool to say that I've been able to just hang on.”

Bob Tullio: What's the secret sauce at Holiday House?

Butch Winkler: “To me, it is our employees. We could not do this without them. And we don't have to be reminded every day that without them, we've got nothing. And it's the truth.”

Barbara Russell: “We've always put the customer first. That's always our first priority is the customer. It's orders in, orders out what the customers need, we're going to find it and we're going to get it. But to me, the secret sauce is the Winklers. It's knowing that Butch and Lynn have done every single job here themselves. It's just knowing that the owners of the company care so much about the people, and it just flows through to the customers and to everything that we do.”

Bob Tullio: Here is Evan Jarecki from Gimme, a technology leader.

Evan Jarecki: “The journey of Gimme, it's — you could almost look at it like pivots along the way — but really, it would be more like product expansions from where we started. So, our roots of our products, as I mentioned, were a mobile app and a wireless DEX device focused on the route driver experience. And we integrated with existing VMS systems for the first five-ish years of Gimme. And along that journey of building and focusing on that experience, the operators we worked with decided, ‘Hey, you've done such a great job with our drivers and they love that experience. Can we get that for the rest of our company?’ And in the warehouse, in the management, in financials, pitching for Gimme to build a VMS. And that's what we did around 2018, and we started that journey. And so we went from just the driver experience to expanding to the entire operation business suite of software tools.

“Along the way, one of the other things that evolved right around the same time or just after was our hardware. The Gimme Key, it launched in vending in 2014, that was the device we built, but around 2019 to 2020, we upgraded it to be the Gimme Key Pro. This is one of the big milestones I'm very proud of, certainly, but the hardware evolved around that time, and so did the software, expanding from just a route driver tool to be the entire business suite.

Bob Tullio: Evan, what's the secret sauce at Gimme?

Evan Jarecki: “So, this is such a great question, of what makes us unique and what is our secret sauce. And I do think it's our focus on meeting the needs of operators and not being distracted by the needs of consumers. We are motivated and the technology is aligned with operators and helping them achieve operational excellence. And that's what we're set out to do. That's our mission and be able to do this with, with and for as many independent operators in the United States.”