Show Notes
[00:00:01]
The Driving Eureka! Podcast
[00:00:32]
Theme of this Episode – Failing and Failure
[00:01:33]
You Don’t Start Out an Expert or With Skill
[00:04:42]
You Need to Break Down a Big Innovation
[00:05:54]
Stupid Ideas – the Key to Success
[00:08:21]
The Big Fail in Innovation – Looking at One Idea and Not Developing It
[00:11:13]
Do You Have a System to Innovate
[00:15:00]
Need Passion to Get You Through the Failures
[00:15:41]
Fear is There – Passion Can Overcome It
[00:18:25]
Neuroscience and Innovation
[00:22:27]
Brain Brew Whisk(e)y Academy
[00:22:58]
Brain Brew Whisk(e)y – A Bunch of Losers
[00:23:04]
The Art of Crappy Whisk(e)y
[00:26:03]
The Opening of Brain Brew
[00:27:47]
A New Line
[00:28:03]
The Experiment in Cincy
[00:29:12]
Craft Cocktail Recipe – Rattlesnake
[00:29:19]
History of Rattlesnake
[00:29:51]
Step 1
[00:29:59]
Step 2
[00:30:03]
Step 3
[00:30:05]
Step 4
[00:34:03]
Don’t Stop or Start with A Winner
[00:36:43]
Pushing the Variables
[00:38:51]
Sluggard – Doesn’t Push the Edges
Transcript
Tripp: [00:00:01] Welcome to the Driving Eureka! podcast where we share ideas and advice for helping you find filter and. Fast Track Big IDEAS. HI I’M battle advisor to global organizations on the Deming philosophy and host of the Deming Institute podcast.
Doug: [00:00:23] And I’m Doug Hall inventor speaker teacher and whiskey maker. I’m also the founder of the Eureka! Ranch and author of the driving Eureka book.
Tripp: [00:00:32] This is the Driving Eureka! podcast and today our theme is on failing and failure which is really dug I found this newsletter interesting from a standpoint of most of the time. It’s kind of the American mindset especially about kind of you know get losers and winners and you know if you’re a failure then you know that’s the end. As you start down this this you know your first statement basically is the joy of failing. How do we get joy out of failing.
Doug: [00:01:12] The joy of failing. I I have had an epiphany recently because I’m just tired of being surrounded by people who say I’m OK with failing you know failures. Ok well we’re a group where well we can’t really fail. I mean for Christ sakes get over it people you know.
Doug: [00:01:33] I mean if you think about it you know how do you learn to ride a bike. How do you learn to cook something. How do you learn to play tennis. Do you start out immediately and do it perfectly. Of course not. Of course not. You learn you make mistakes you learn. You try something new you try something new. Playing the guitar you okay maybe you’re not going to play like Springsteen you’re gonna play in a different way but you’re going to get your own style and you’re going to get your own thing. And and so there is a frame of reference that comes to you that if your self worth requires you to be perfect every time you’re going to have a crappy life I’m just telling you. And so we’ve got to get over this mindset. We’ve just got to get over it. And I think frankly those people who have a problem with failing have got internal psychological problems that they’re trying to make you feel bad. So they feel good. Mm hmm. Well I’m not going to wear your problems OK. I’ve got my life to do. And and recently you know I was just looking back over the week and it’s like I mean I just blew a whole bunch of stuff. I mean you know I’ve been cooking for a while and some folks over I cooked a meal. It was really pretty crappy to be perfectly honest. I served extra whiskey. You were not right. I blew some some math numbers. They weren’t right. And and then there were some others where I figured out I screwed up and the rest of the world didn’t even notice it.
Doug: [00:03:08] And those are even worse because you’re like Oh man I know I blew it now sometime ago these things would have infected me I would have played the woulda coulda shoulda game and I would’ve thought it over and over and I would have relived my failures like experiencing their pains again and again and again and today I just see it as just the journey of life. You know and it’s a frame of mind which we’re going to be talking about this for the next couple of weeks. It’s a mindset. You know the fundamental call it the scientific method call it The Deming cycle plan do study act (PDSA). That’s the way knowledge is built. That’s how we get smarter. And if you never have anything that goes wrong you never get smarter simple do do it. I mean it’s just that simple.
Tripp: [00:04:06] Well I don’t. Yeah I mean I don’t see that as as that simple. I mean there’s a difference between burning near a simple amount Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. If you’re you have a huge product that’s coming out and it’s a and it’s a failure when it comes out that’s different than burning you’re burning your meal. Well I mean there’s there’s a scale of things associated with this.
Doug: [00:04:33] So what I’m not talking about you know like saying I got an idea let’s jump out of this plane without a parachute.
Doug: [00:04:42] I think it might work if I flap my wings. I mean that’s stupid. What I’m talking about and I’m not talking about taking these things you know having epic major failures that have a high cost to them. You know I break those I go to great lengths to break those big challenges into a bunch of smaller things where I can run fast and cheap experiments. So you know how do you eat an elephant a bite at a time. How do you take that big fear and break it down. You break it apart step by step and you drive down the overall risk is what what it takes to do it in. And so you know there’s a method to the madness. I mean it’s just you know you don’t you know turn around. I got an idea let’s build these pyramids. OK let’s just start building it. No no yet you have to start small manned. But the key is that you turn the crank you turn the learning cycle as fast as possible and so you you know you tear it apart into pieces. And if you’re driven by something that you want to have happen if you’re driven by something that you’re trying to create then it gets easy.
Doug: [00:05:54] And frankly trip I mean you know they’ve called me a genius inventor and all this kind of stuff for Eureka and branding and one of America’s top idea people in all of this kind of foolishness that they say you know the secret to my success successes I’m willing to say stupid ideas that can’t work and then another one and then another one. And then when people have got their arms crossed and their eyes rolling in the back of the head I say five more and eventually you get it.
Doug: [00:06:25] You know the top professors fact the professors that have written the most meaningful papers that have as evidenced by the number of academic citations the other papers people cited their papers are also the people that have written the most papers. In other words the people that write the most important scientific discoveries also write some of the dumbest papers But they do it. They do it. If you’re waiting for genius to strike you gotta wait a long time. You just got to do it and end it. And it’s a frame of mind. It is a frame of mind. And when you find joy in failing when you find joy. I mean my team just turned round and they’re working on a project and they they did. I don’t know a 12 something like that different products and they laid them out when they were all crap but they were crappy in different ways.
Doug: [00:07:25] I mean we had him on. We have that big table on a map. We put a big piece paper down and we kind of plotted them and and they were not very good but each bad in a different way. And in the process I’m excited this morning because this morning I’m about to taste the next generation that happened from the work that we did but without last week’s failure we couldn’t get to this week’s success. And I’m saying it’s simple because it is that simple.
Doug: [00:07:55] People are no no no. I can see the thought balloon people driving in the cars right now. Oh no you don’t understand my life now. Get over yourself. That is all within you. It is all within you. When you see failure as a step towards something that matters to you that’s when you get excited.
Tripp: [00:08:15] Ok. So. And a former executive or advisor to executives.
Tripp: [00:08:21] I see flaws in the process of decision making that are leading up to innovation and we’ve touched upon this a little bit in the past which is they go through this process and somebody comes up with an idea. Maybe they don’t look at five ideas. We already know that they kind of narrow their focus. You called it out as ego. We get those types of things but but then they they focus in on an idea and then they’re going to devote let’s say 10 million dollars to that particular idea and then a group of people go go out there their harness they get their project manager they’re their team together and they get this idea. And now the pressure is on them because it’s either gonna go or it’s going to fail. A lot of times just because you make the decision. Executives follow it up by making more stupid decisions.
Doug: [00:09:13] But you just said you just said the floor to the floor. OK. The floor was we’ve got the idea. Yeah. And it’s either going to succeed or fail. Well I can tell you right now your ideas crappy all ideas are crappy at the start because you don’t know enough to know. And so what I’m saying is they’ve got a direction I’m going to restate it. They’ve got a direction it can go. It can stop the 90 percent probability if there’s if they want to make it successful is it’s going to adjust adapt and pivot and change as they go forward. I mean they’re making a decision early in the process without a lot of information. I mean that’s like sitting in here in Cincinnati and saying I’m going to San Diego. I got it. I mean you don’t know what’s going to happen until you get going and you adjust and you adapt and you go. Pam there’s a mountain there. I don’t want to go over that Mom. Let’s go around it.
Doug: [00:10:15] We change and that’s the element is that it needs to be more dynamic and the cycle of learning of plan Do study act that cycle of learning is what we’re talking about where we’re driven by a mission not by an idea. The idea is a way to accomplish the mission whether it’s to get new customers whether it’s to save the piping pullover whatever it is whatever the cause or get students educated. I don’t care but it is a dynamic process and this rigidity this waterfall approach that we have the answer or we’re gonna do this thing this crazy thing at the front end to make it perfect before we put it into development.
Doug: [00:10:55] When you get into development is when the ideas change the most because you find this thing she just can’t do the math just doesn’t work and you have to adjust and adapt. That’s why it’s so much fun to do because it’s a it’s a giant adventure with an unknown outcome.
Tripp: [00:11:13] Yeah. And I think I think this is it is such a huge point because when you look at the way executive teams companies are making decisions about new products they have this mindset of kind of go no go on a particular idea and you bringing this up and I know you’ve brought it up before that. You know I don’t know I probably get the percentage wrong. But like 90 percent of of the innovation comes from the development process. And most people don’t have a system or a process or a method to go through. And to me that’s the value add associated with with the innovation engineering pieces it gives them a method. It takes their mindset out of that.
Doug: [00:12:00] Yeah yeah they’ve got a method for command to control tick the box. You know here’s a list of tasks project management conformance to requirements. The problem is is innovation isn’t that certain it has uncertainty what we’ve brought to the art is the ability to deal with the dynamic nature as you’re going along. So if it’s the seventy fifth time you’ve done something you can make a checklist and just do it. But when it isn’t an innovation things are gonna happen that don’t work and that means you’re going to have to pivot and adjust and you’re gonna have to adapt things. I mean that generally a lot of these project management systems have been put together by somebody who’s never shipped in innovation yet. And so they think that the way to do it is to have certainty. That means you have to have certainty before you start going. I remember I had I had a guy who was an expert on lean product development. He came to see me and he said well so to make the product development process very lean low cost. He says you’ve got to have absolute certainty before you start. I said Sir if I had that I wouldn’t need you. That’s not the way it is. Well the more it meaningfully unique it is the less uncertain it is. And I and I it’s called you figure it out.
Doug: [00:13:18] You know you adapt you adjust you make sure the math works you make sure regulatory works progress supply works the customer works you know you you know all the ethical issues are are resolved.
Tripp: [00:13:28] Well you’re left with a choice. I mean you well. I think there’s there winds up being three choices on the table one is you take this go-no go mindset associated with you know an innovative idea and you take that attitude. To me that’s that’s a that’s just as you would say stupid.
Tripp: [00:13:47] Then there’s a second which is you could develop your own system for going through in the development process will probably take you a few years to do or you come up or you have methods out there including innovation engineering that already you have done this and they give you a system to be able to take a product or an idea or a service through a kind of step by step or a system so that they can have it logically broken out into the pieces that you talked about earlier that takes them through logically to be able to get there not only faster but but more cheaply.
Doug: [00:14:27] Yeah. Yeah. I mean it’s firm but flexible. You know it’s a process that that demands thinking curiosity and that’s just plain fun. Because you’re actually making something
Tripp: [00:14:50] It’s time now for the Driving Eureka! segment with author and inventor Doug Hall.
Tripp: [00:15:00] Well that’s actually a good segue to the second segment which is well if you’re going to have failure you better have passion because there’s gonna be a lot of failure associated with it and then there’s gotta be something that kind of keeps you going on a particular idea.
Doug: [00:15:16] Yeah it really does. So in the Driving Eurek! Book excerpt I pulled the section on passion we have something called yellow cards it’s our system for persuasively communicating it gets everybody talking into the same language and then a key part of this is passion which is really the higher order purpose. Why do you care about this idea.
Doug: [00:15:41] Care about it so much that you’re going to do the problem solving the patent work the addressing the death threats you know accepting fear because the journey is worth the pain that you might feel along the way. And this allows you to embrace this uncertainty and and really the secret to reducing fear is not taking fear down or let me say that let me say that again I’m going to say that in a totally different way. The secret to confronting fear is not reducing it because it’s going to be there because you’re human. And saying it’s don’t be scared is stupid but it’s increasing the passion side so that it’s worth the effort. In other words it’s it’s worth going for. What’s a problem is when we’ve got a fear and even if we’re successful it’s not worth the effort I was talking with the president of a company this past week and they’ve got a project where they’ve got a whole lifetime like six months they’re investing in R and D and something for an idea that at its best might make them a half million dollars. And I said that math doesn’t work. And he agreed. Now if it was worth 50 million dollars yes I get it maybe even 10 million dollars but it’s balancing out the passion. Why are we excited about it what is the thing that drives us. What’s the thing that we love. What’s the destination. How are we going to. What are we going. Different we’re going to make for students our customers are our company and what’s the cost. What’s it’s like a balance sheet passion. What’s proactively driving us versus fear what’s the thing that’s preventing us. You know it’s like gas pedal and brake. You know we’ve got to have more gas and we can’t break.
Doug: [00:17:36] And in the excerpt I quote Francis Mallman who is the crazed Argentinian chef who I am quite a fan of. And from the Netflix series he said My life has been a path at the edge of uncertainty. Today I think we educate kids to be settled in a comfortable chair. You have your job you have your little car. You have a place to sleep and the dreams are dead. You don’t grow on a secure path. All of us should conquer something in life and it needs a lot of work in order to grow and to improve. You have to be there at the edge of uncertainty you know it’s you’ve got to have something that’s cranking it up.
Tripp: [00:18:25] You know it’s it’s interesting to me and you know I let me just kind of sit back and absorb this a little bit and especially knowing you I interviewed a guy by the name of Dr. Paul Zak for the other podcast that I’m I’m doing another one I’m going to launch next month. But is he talking about kind of the neuroscience of things and he talks in his book about jumping out of an airplane and he he tests what types of chemicals are going on you know in your in your system when you jump out of a plane and the cortisol the stress chemical really is high.
Tripp: [00:19:10] And the first time you’re jumping out of a plane but also there is a degree of oxytocin that’s coming out which is kind of the trust enjoyment you know type of chemical associated with it. And when he first does it obviously cortisol is just off the charts as far as the stress that that he feels. But then in subsequent jumps the cortisol starts to go down in your body because you’ve done it over and over again and you know it’s funny I kind of when I was when I was listening to him talk about that or when I was reading about it I thought of you because I sit there and I said okay here’s Doug you you know you went to the to Anartica. You know you did that. You’ve done innovation for a long time taking people kind of out of their comfort zones already you’re quarters old level isn’t as high as some of the people that are going to be beginning this.
Doug: [00:20:06] You know what I mean. I mean it’s true. I mean it could be I mean you could just get you know it I mean there could be a biochemical dimension to it. I mean I just think of it as up as a way I look at life you know I live it forward not backwards Yeah. But it’s in the AP that that got embedded at a young age. In at age twelve about 600 balls and 600 rings wanting to learn to juggle kid business. You don’t know enough to not do it. And and so yeah it could very well be because I don’t even think about it. I don’t. It doesn’t even enter my head you know. Yeah. Whether it’s mindset or biochemical it means you can train yourself to be that.
Tripp: [00:20:53] Yes. And I think that’s the point that you have to overcome that initial stress the cortisol in your body in order to kind of get by that they have the fun associated with whether it’s jumping out of an airplane or going to frozen regions which I have no desire to do. So the passion there but but the same thing for innovation you know that you have to it’s scary for people especially in organizations don’t have that build up and in their culture and the things that they do yeah.
Doug: [00:21:24] So the simple answer to that is step by step. You know it’s just like you decide you want to run a marathon. You know you don’t go out and run the 26 miles. You start out by taking one step and then another step and you document it and you start to push yourself a little bit further a little bit further a little bit further in time and time again. I mean you get there and I mean life’s meant to be lived.
Tripp: [00:21:50] Agreed I did. But people need a method to be able to do that I think. Otherwise it’s just gonna be more hit or miss and if you happen to hit the homerun that’s great. But every thing else is gonna be a strike out and the strikeout levels too high especially around around innovation unless you have a method to do it.
Doug: [00:22:10] Yeah but I always just remember the good ones.
Tripp: [00:22:14] Well but you get there right. Because you said it’s in the development of it. It’s just not hit or miss.
Doug: [00:22:19] It’s statistics. It’s just odds. Eventually you’re going to get it. You just have to roll the dice faster.
Tripp: [00:22:27] All right. Brain brew whiskey Academy. This is the brain brew whiskey Academy podcasts where we will take you behind the scenes so you can see what it takes to build a whiskey distillery business. Eureka ranch team led by Doug Hall are creating a craft whiskey company With patented technologies like has never been done before. So twelve failures in.
Tripp: [00:22:58] So what you’re telling me is the brain grew whiskey Academy is is a loser group that’s a loser.
Doug: [00:23:04] We lose faster than anybody. We have made. We have made more crappy whiskey than anybody on earth. You know we do 72 whiskeys in seven days. You know nobody else can do it. And so we’re pushing the edges of the envelope and taking it to new places and I’d mentioned this earlier. You know we have a statistical team at the ranch that’s just ridiculously good. And they put together this testing matrix for this project that we’ve defined. And there were like 250 seven tests that would need to be done to to look at all the variables that we were playing with. And so they decided to map the edges and they found the twelve that could determine it and hasn’t said they all failed but they each failed differently so it’s a different failure.
Doug: [00:23:57] Mm hmm. And so from those failures we learned a bunch and now this week we will do the next round of twelve failures and then the next round and and then eventually we will have a two to one winner versus two of the most popular whiskies in America. And that’s what we’re gonna do. And you know I call it a fail fearlessly you know because we’re excited. I mean I was at dinner last night. I was in a bar and I ordered a cocktail and they use this whiskey which I’m not going to give them advertising by mentioning their name.
Doug: [00:24:39] They use this whiskey in it. And as I was drinking it I said I can’t wait to do a better version of this happened in this bar because I could just I could taste it in my mind. I know where we’re going and it’s just gonna kick butt. I had sold by a big conglomerate. You know it’s just it’s not a craft thing it’s a faceless corporate you know an international conglomerate that makes the product and then not even American owned.
Doug: [00:25:11] And so it’ll be fun it’ll be fun to poke them. It’ll be fun to poke them. And so every time we fail we just we just like we got a bull’s eye on him and that’s what this craft guys do is is that you know what the big companies have to worry about is there’s some nut case like us who says I think I can take them out and I may have been around for a long time but yeah we can do something better so now we see the disruption.
Tripp: [00:25:36] It’s kind of the Amazon mindset with regards to the retail. It’s because they found it found a way in order to beat it but help me with one thing Doug.
Tripp: [00:25:46] When you’re talking about these 12 whiskeys and just because we talked about different things before I know you’re trying to set up a system where people are tasting different grains and those types of things in order to come up with their own whiskey. Is this part of that or is this something else now.
Doug: [00:26:03] These are this is just a couple of brands that we’re gonna do and we’re gonna run them as a test here in Cincinnati to see how it is. So we’re open now for partners so we’ve got all of our federal and state approvals in fact we’re working with some some distillers around the world to make their own whiskey. In fact I had one last week to look tasted my our craft products and he said Well I’d like that I said Well I’m not gonna sell you that.
Doug: [00:26:30] I said I I’ll make your own whiskey though but you’re not gonna sell my whiskey that’s my whiskey. You make your own whiskey. And so we have deconstructed. We’ve got a bourbon thing where you can taste bourbon with different types of woods. We’ve got a whiskey one where you can turn around and bring together rye and barley and different things in different ways and you can make your own product.
Doug: [00:26:48] And so we work with the distillers to help them craft their own custom whiskey. And then we’ll make it to their specifications just for them and then they bottle it and the result is as much more profitability than they can make significantly more profitable. And the best thing is is they can have it like within 48 hours. We can make it you know and then they can have it. And so and we’ve got unlimited supply so. So it’s just a change of the game and it’s not a replacement for the stuff that they’re distilling themselves. It’s not a replacement. It’s an end not an oar but it’s opening up the doors to new tastes new flavors and new ways because you know it’s all wood. It’s all about wood and and that’s what we’re doing.
Tripp: [00:27:37] So this is adding then to your line of tall stacks and Keel Boat those types of thing is that that when it’s actually going to be it’s actually gonna be a separate line and it’s really.
Doug: [00:27:47] And it’s really just an experiment. It’s a business model experiment that we’re going to do to see if there’s a couple of products that are that do a disproportionate amount of volume out there in the marketplace and the question is is can we can we compete.
[00:28:03] Can we can we take 20 percent of the buyers in Cincinnati. Can we get them to flip to us if we have a better. I mean we don’t have anywhere near the money these guys have. But will the bartenders when we give them a better product at reasonably the same price. I mean we’ll be a little bit higher. Will they switch to us or will you know the money that these guys give the promotional money even though you’re not supposed to give money for bars. I’m not saying that these guys are but it does appear that there’s a lot of benefits that bartenders get from various brands will we be able to to compete or not. Or will they just their giant size you know squish us you know kind of thing I don’t know.
Doug: [00:28:52] I don’t know but let’s see making some you know making three or four hundred cases taking them around to the bars in Cincinnati and seeing what happens. I mean it’s not a you know I mean don’t lose money on it. And and if it really works then then we would work with distilleries around the country to do the same thing.
Tripp: [00:29:12] Ok. All right. Well tell us about our craft cocktail recipe this week. The Rattlesnake.
Doug: [00:29:19] Yeah. So the Savoy Hotel and bar in London is the famous American Bar at the Savoy. There’s a famous book called The Savoy cocktail book which is how ironic that it would be in London because they’ve not been as big with cocktails they’re getting much better now much much better now but historically it’s not been. And so if you took a Sazerac and a gold rush and you cross pollinated them this is what you’d get. And so it’s in the show notes but basically.
Doug: [00:29:51] It’s an ounce and a half to two ounces of bourbon. In our case we use our Paddle Wheel are which has the 200 year wood in it.
Doug: [00:29:59] A teaspoon of absinthe which is a nod to the Sazerac.
Doug: [00:30:03] A half ounce of simple syrup.
Doug: [00:30:05] And a half ounce of lemon juice which is a nod to the Gold Rush type of product.
Doug: [00:30:12] And I just think it has a really nice complexity to it. It’s it’s definitely cousins of those. Last night I had that cocktail I was mentioning it was a Sazerac made with honey water instead of simple syrup which again is kind of going towards gold rush. So so in that vein this three or four different types of cocktails that you can make and if you’re if all you’ve drank is old fashions is which what you’ve had which generally will have orange sometimes Cherry sometimes not. Not if we’ve only had Old Fashioned which is the number one cocktail in the world. These are great ones for you to start to experiment with and start to play with so that you can get you know something a little bit different for you.
Tripp: [00:30:59] Very good. A good idea. The Bourbon and the absinthe. So as opposed simple syrup you’re not using that honey water that’s in the gold rush then you go simple circle. But that’s what’s in the Sazerac.
Doug: [00:31:15] So yeah. Yeah. And that’s what’s in the Sazerac because I want to make the absinthe come up although the one I had there and the lemon I want those to be intention more so.
Doug: [00:31:25] I mean here we’ve got the lemon in the absence working with each other. There’s just some sweetness when you start to do the honey and the lemon those two become the drama to it. So you know there’s only so many tastings and then of course in our case the powder we bourbon because remember we’re taking wood from an old barn that’s air dried at least it would be 100 years when they built the barn. Another hundred years air dried so 200 year old wood which is technically actually cleaner than the trees today because it was less pollutants and we take that wouldn’t cut it up and then we put it into the whisky and we finish it replicating seasons of barrel aging and it just there’s just a richness in the back of that bourbon that just you know grounds it. You know sometimes bourbons can be very simple I guess is a word corny you know very one dimensional without a lot of complexity to it. This puts this takes the bourbon in and takes it to a much richer much deeper complexity than than any other bourbon that you’re going to have.
Tripp: [00:32:31] Ok. All right. Any other suggestions or comments with regards to especially in the whiskey business around failure.
Doug: [00:32:42] You just have to you’ve got to change your mind. You’ve got to change your mind. You’ve got to open up your mind to this as a step. In fact if you if you’re compulsive about planning planned 20 failures just put it down. OK so we’re going to fail 20 times over the next three months we’re gonna fail 20 times and then just build it in it start from the fact that you’re going to fail because you’re going to. OK. Having been doing this now for 40 years I can tell you you’re going to fail. So just get over yourself. You know that false sense of perfection is not how you get to making great stuff. Now that said we want to do it fast and cheap. So you got to find ways to do it fast and cheap. And I’m not talking about one shot on my take a two shot I’m talking about literally dozens of shots. And that’s how you know so it’s like before work with a distillery. I mean I’ll encourage them to make 20 or 30 different whiskies using our technology. And so that they get something. Somebody. OK. That’s it. I got no cameraman. All right. But let’s really push the edges of this thing. Let’s do something let’s do something it’s really cool and and and so if you change your frame work on this there is truly joy in failure.
Tripp: [00:34:03] Mm hmm. So so one last question and just kind of because I’m not into the whiskey business per say. What is the. Yeah I see these experiments. I mean have you ever gone out and you started an experiment and the first one was a winner. I’ve been or or decode with the mindset that I’m going to start with 20 and I’m going to try all 20 and then you’ve maybe the first one was the winner or you hit it or whatever.
Doug: [00:34:35] Yeah. Yes. And and and it drove me crazy because what happened is is in the beginning it took like 72 cycles to get to anything that was even drinkable. And as time got on we got smarter and smarter. So we knew areas to not go and then we had about a six month run where I looked back and I realized we hadn’t gotten smarter.
Doug: [00:34:57] I mean we were just we were setting the pressure we were setting the wood we were cutting it we were twenty four variables and we were literally playing in the safe zone. And so I got furious because if you’re hitting it too soon that means you’re not stretching the edges which is why on this project we’re we’re going way out on the edges. And and they you know because if you’re hitting it all the time that means you’re not taking chances. I mean you’re not as Frances mom and says you’re not at the edge of uncertainty. And so it is a bad sign if you’re getting it right away because that means you actually haven’t hit the best you’ve just been lazy and so failure is not optional. When it comes to what I do at the brain brew in the éric ranch otherwise we’re never gonna do anything great.
Tripp: [00:35:49] So is that the same for as you’re testing these whiskeys that you have. I don’t know if you’ve got your 20. And you said something in there that that caught me which was we knew not to go there I what you’re saying now is yeah we need to go there even though that’s kind of an area that I would have said no we won’t go down that path that you’re going to test it even though you believe that’s not the right path.
Doug: [00:36:24] Yeah. So so 24 variables right. We know that variable by itself doesn’t do it but if I change five other things. So this new product that we’re doing we’ve changed our whole you know the guys ran a whole different framework on stuff and so we’re finding things that we didn’t realize before.
Doug: [00:36:43] I mean with 24 variables 24 factorial there’s a lot of permutations we got here. And so but you signed certain recipes and that’s what sadly companies that don’t do well they find a recipe they love and then they optimize that recipe as opposed to experimenting. If I have to give one thing to the beer people you know you go to a craft brewery and they’ll have those weird kegs of bill of made. Now some of these things are beyond hideous but at least they’re trying things. They’re pushing the edges and that’s what we need more in the spirits business is people pushing the edges. I’m going to go to a place tonight where a guy is pushing the edges and I’ve already heard from some people that he’s that they’re terrible. But I want to taste them for myself. But I give him a lot of credit for pushing the edges on tastes and flavors versus what one would normally do. I think that’s I mean that’s what that’s how we’re going to discover new stuff.
Tripp: [00:37:41] So this is the same on the mindset you said there’s 24 variable variables. Is there ways to add to those 24 variables or.
Doug: [00:37:49] I’m sure there is. Right now we’ve we’ve defined 24 that are meaningful. I mean there are many variables so we can add. I’m trying to put to the ones that have a lot of umph to them in other words if I move it up 30 percent it has a tangible impact on the product. These these are the ones that are the the bigger ones.
Doug: [00:38:09] Now that said there could be others that we don’t know. And when we get into it you know there will I’m sure there are. I’m sure there are. But right now we’ve got a set of 24 that we have that we play with. Okay. So I can make the same product probably 10 different ways by playing off you know different ways to approach it and depending upon the wood and spirit and what we’re trying to do for a taste that that’s the art that goes with this science.
Tripp: [00:38:36] All right. So what I learned from this is embrace failure push the edges and if you’re winning too soon you’re not pushing the edges far enough. You’ve got it that you have to go through there guy.
Doug: [00:38:51] A sign that you’ve become a slugged is when you are just getting it right right away. So plan for failure and enjoy the ride
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