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I get asked all the time "how much honey do you get from your hives?" The harvest number (quarts / gallons / pounds) is the easy one for me to brag about. But the number that actually matters is what I need to leave in the box. Winter is a known cost and the honey stores are either there or they aren’t. Startups and growth businesses aren't much different: everyone talks about topline sales. good sales can cover up a ton of other issues in the business. Almost every startup business owner can recite with precision their sales numbers for the month / quarter / year. But asking them about runway? when are they out of money? Usually a totally different story and they don't know what the next slow season costs. they often think they need a 13-week or even a weekly cash flow forecast. but neither is magic. The magic is seeing what’s in the hive vs what winter costs before you’re in it. That’s what a finance operating system is for: A real time look inside while you can still act. #accounting

Checked my bee hives this week.   One hive had excess honey to harvest. The other didn’t have any to spare.  That’s the late-August job for a beekeeper: how much honey is actually stored up in the hive compared to what you hoped for...compared to how much the bees will need to consume to get through winter. If you want your hives to survive, you don’t guess. You look, you measure, you assess the strength of your hive, and then you plan your next several weeks of winter-prep around that calculus for that specific hive.  // A growing business is the same problem, just with different labels: How much did you make this week? How much cash is in the account right now? How much will you burn next week? Next month? What this ‘winter’ will cost...or instead what you <hope> it will cost? The point is about real-time visibility to your 'stores' vs consumption, and arming yourself with the right info while you can still do something before ‘winter’ sets in. Finance operating systems are what turns guess work into actionable data for someone who just wants to build a great business instead of worrying about the books.  🐝

US–Canada trades talks collapsed (again). Carney says talks can resume when the "memes stop” (seriously). LCBO had already staged American spirits toward stores. This week that product is heading back to the warehouse. Chris Swonger of Distilled Spirits Council of the United States: distillers are devastated. Canada was a ~$200M spirits market. Now It’s ~$60M. The thing about whiskey is that it takes years to age properly so production is forecast years out. Whiskey is already in the barrel because it was laid down years ago. You cannot stop a barrel from aging (or speed it up) because aluminum, dairy, and autos are the chips on the international trade table. A bar, restaurant, or liquor store feels it as product on the shelf. A distiller feels it as cash already spent and no order coming to bring it back. If the export door stays shut, that inventory does not disappear. It sits unless you can price it move in one of your other sales channels. If you’re a growth-stage brand, this is not a brand problem. It’s a sales velocity and cash problem. You need to look at your situation in real-time, before your accounting books close on the 25th: - Cash in the bank - Days of inventory by SKU - Which channels are moving the most volume already - Copacker / bottler commitments you already funded for the next run - What your distributors will actually order in Q4 if Canada stays dark The brands that wait for #accounting to close the month will find out how bad it is after they could have done something.

Colorado business owners: the state just put sales tax on the software stack most of us actually run the company on. It was easy to miss. The bill is titled “Modifying Certain Tax Expenditures.” HB 26-1223 hits on January 1, 2027. State tax rate is 2.9%. Combined Front Range rates often land in the 8–9% range depending on city, county, and district. Denver and Boulder have already been taxing this locally. The state layer stacks additional tax, it doesn’t replace them. What is taxable? Downloaded software, mobile apps, and remotely accessed software, including SaaS on standard terms. Click-through, browse-wrap, or the MSA you email to every customer counts as standard. The statute says that clearly. If it looks like Microsoft 365, Google Workspace, QuickBooks Online, Slack, or self-serve HubSpot, or similar tools, budget it as taxable. This is not just a finance tax. It is a GTM (go-to-market) tax, too: Self-serve and product-led motions sit in the taxable bucket by design. A license that is actually negotiated: e.g. individually bargained, signed by authorized people on both sides, before or when access starts, has a path to stay out of the taxable bucket.  Custom software built for one customer does too. If you sell SaaS into Colorado and you clear the $100k sales nexus line, you collect. If you buy and the vendor does not collect, you accrue use tax. You have one quarter to figure this out for your business. If you are spending $15k a year or more on software (which is not hard to do these days) inventory your tech stack and put the 2027 hit in your budget now. Talk to your CFO, accountant, or CPA. If you don’t already have someone you trust, I know some guys and gals who do this all day every day, so hit me up. Colorado House Bill in the comments

Whiskey tariffs buzz-killing your business this week? If you own a bar, restaurant or liquor store, or building your own brand, those tariffs are going to make the cost of business higher, right?  Maybe. Maybe not.  Fortunately, some finance pros and researchers have spent some time on this specific question with real data:  In 2018, the EU, China, and Mexico put a 25% tariff on U.S. whiskey. Canada levied 10%. US whiskey exports went from $1.19 billion to $846 million by 2020, and US distillers called it collateral damage in a fight that had less to do with whiskey and more to do with politics; the tariffs created a huge cash shock for US distilleries of all sizes. What happened after the tariffs went into effect?  Whiskey prices at the shelf actually went down on average anywhere from 22 - 40 cents per bottle. And sales velocity and volume *increased*. The moral of the story? If you’re a big company, this hurts but you weather that storm because you have experienced finance pros and business leaders examining price elasticity with real-time data so you can adjust pricing in order to sell your excess inventory through your established channels for as much as you can get while not letting it pile-up in the warehouse. If you’re a growth stage business it’s a different story: You need to have visibility to pricing at the shelf and to understand the cash hit while you can still do something about it - not waiting around for your accounting team to close the books on the 25th of the month to see how bad it really might be. To survive you need the right retail execution and access to a smart finance operating system that will help guide you to safer waters. Choose accordingly. 🥃 (Source study in the comments)

Hey all! This summer I am stepping back a little from tech to pursue something new and exciting and running for US Congress as an Independent. Like many of you, I have grown too frustrated with the partisanship in Washington and can no longer simply wait for the change we all desire. I want to use my tech experience and common-sense engineering mindset to catch our government up with the rapidly evolving world. Starting this week, I am focusing on signature gathering to get my name on the ballot so that I can hopefully change the conversation this election. I have the passion and the work ethic, but unfortunately, I don't have the time and money to do it alone. If you are able to help in any way, please check out my website to get involved at joeforco.com , any support is greatly appreciated!

Major Rick Gannon was a man among men, a great leader and a warrior. I count myself lucky, among many, who had the opportunity to be mentored by him during my time at USNA. Thank you Ted Powers for keeping his flame lit by sharing his story. 🇺🇲

Excited to be heading to NACDS this weekend and looking forward to many productive conversations! Message me if you will be there and would like connect!

Yes! Jeff Wrona is one of the best + brightest minds in the world of computer vision & image recognition. This is gonna be a great conversation!