Here we Grow...with Novus
0:00 Ladies and gentlemen, here we grow with Novus. Grow with Novus - Right - That's your email alias, right - Yes - Yeah - And needless to say, Chevy, Robert, Kevin, Kate, my Oklahoma quartet, my
0:18 peeps, things have grown for Novus. So you guys came on the Tripping Over the Barrel podcast with Tim, rest in peace, about two years ago, around the time I was launching funk futures and Novus
0:32 had been around for a little bit, but I think we were saying it was kind of like an infant and now it's like a sassy teenager, right? So I wanted to bring you guys back on, talk about all of the
0:44 crazy stuff that's gone on in your world, the explosive growth, the fact that you have a big office now in downtown Oklahoma City, that you guys are all sitting in separate offices today for some
0:53 reason. But things are going and OKC in down
0:58 with Novus. be kind of quick with the introductions and then jump right into some of the questions I have and some of the pains and wins and challenges and all fun things that we've seen with Novus
1:10 growing from a concept to now a full-blown kind of decent-sized consulting organization. So Kate, why don't we start with you and give us a tiny bit of background and then we'll move along to Robert,
1:24 Chevy and Mr. Decker - Sure So Kate Stevenson, I've been in the industry for 20
1:32 some odd years, started off at Accenture and then have been in and out of industry and boutique consulting since. Was one of the founding partners of Novus about two years ago. And really where my
1:46 sweet spot is is not only business development for Novus but also helping our clients with strategy. So I work with a number of clients today about three or four of them where I'm become kind of
1:58 their interim CIO and strategic advisor - Wow - Yeah - Cool. And is that mostly upstream or is it across the board right now - Upstream but with midstream assets too. So we're dealing with a lot of
2:12 gas plants, pipeline as well as our upstream, their upstream assets. Yeah - Cool, cool. We'll jump into more on the project front. It says Robert's video is loading, so we'll go to Chevy -
2:27 Okay - Yes, hi, Chevy Thomason, obviously - Wow - Been doing this like cave, little over 22 years or so, held mainly from the industry operator side of things, spending a little bit of time at
2:42 Devon, a large amount of time at JustBeak, and then jumping into the consulting world.
2:49 Find that to be fulfilling because we get to help so many different people. We are ultimately problem solvers at the end of the day. So we get to do a lot of problem solving, which is fantastic.
3:02 At this stage in the game, my primary function at Novus is outside of just the data, data management world is getting to approve expenditures for Robert, Kate, and Kevin. So approve or deny,
3:18 let's put it that way. So anyway, now to be serious, I mean, yeah, the data world is my nitty gritty sweet spot and the part that gets exciting, especially you hear people in the office talking
3:32 about stuff. And the next thing you know, you're in a conversation for some client, you may really not even know what's going on, but ultimately you're able to steer a conversation in a direction
3:41 that opens some doors and eyes for our team to be able to provide better recommendations for the client. Yeah, you know, it's always fascinating to me when I see somebody come from the operator
3:53 side and become a consultant because when you were working full time at Chesapeake, I'm sure you had a lot of problems and a lot of challenges and fires to put out, but it's ultimately one mission,
4:05 one company. Now when you shift from one thing to the next, it's literally shifting from a different culture, right? A company based in a different location, a different asset, right? A
4:15 different team altogether, which provides its own set of challenges. And I think, Kevin, you made this jump with peak consulting sorta out of your time at Chesapeake And then ultimately kind of
4:27 rolled in with the team over here. So why don't you give a little bit of your background excluding the fact that you're a Yankees fan?
6:22 Very cool. That doesn't surprise me. I mean, Chesapeake, if you go back to kind of the roots, at least when it hit my radar early to mid 2000s, was growing everywhere, right? So you probably
6:33 got exposed to various different basins, natural gas, oil companies, scaling up rigs, scaling down rigs, layoffs, adding headcount rapidly. So I think that put you in a nice position, Kevin,
6:45 to be able to transition into consulting. I think what I see, at least from my perspective, and you were probably seeing this too, is part of the benefit that you get from Novus is having
6:56 additional people around, right? It's really hard to scale a one or two man consulting shop, and you end up turning down projects that you actually wanted to take because it's all about creating
7:06 value, right? So I'm, yeah, go ahead. What's really nice is, so this morning, you know, Chevy and I are discussing issues and he comes out from a totally different perspective. And when you
7:16 have four different perspectives for different skill sets. It's really nice. And I think you put on, put that on top of the fact that we were at one point or another, we all spent some time at
7:28 Chesapeake in a really rapidly growing environment that at one point had 174 rigs. And then also, we were acquiring all the time. And so your job was to take chaos and turn it into structure. And
7:41 so having processes, I think, really helps us. We're pretty good at execution. And we're pretty good at putting a plan together very quickly that is adaptable So I think those are the things that
7:52 each of us do pretty well. And then we bring some maybe specific area of set, skill sets on top of that. So it's been a nice, really nice blend. And very quickly, we didn't have to take time to
8:03 get up to speed. We hit the ground running, I think, is what it felt like to me.
8:08 Yeah, I mean, if you can adapt to all of the acquisitions dealing with 174 rigs, then consulting should be a breeze. But yeah, there was 135 acquisitions during about us. seven or eight years
8:21 stretch there. So it was fine. So - Insane, insane.
8:29 Mr. Lolachi. Robert - Yes, sir, Robert Lovelace, a very similar background, I think, to Kate. I started my career with big four management consulting firms and then went to work mid-2000s at
8:44 Chesapeake. So really got a deep dive into EP then and Matt, Kate, Kevin, Chevy there And in between there, I just where I worked at another operator went through an acquisition and worked for
8:54 several other consultancies and just kind of been at that intersection of technology, data, process and people and working on projects around that. So it's, like Kate said, formed this company
9:06 almost two and a half years ago and it's been a wild and great and awesome rides - And that was a crazy time to start a business. Like we're in a different climate now altogether, but it's important
9:19 that we don't forget. what it was like in late 2020. There was this like resurgence of COVID and what are we supposed to do? Are we gonna go back into the office? I even remember going to opening
9:30 day in Denver 'cause I like to do that every year, go to the Rockies opening day. And this would have been April of 2021. And I think it was maybe 25 to 50 capacity at that time. And it was a big
9:45 deal that Dallas was actually opening it up their new ballpark to 100 capacity, right? So we're not that far removed from when things were crazy from this pandemic. And we've all just been working
9:57 so fast, pushing so hard, building up a company, companies in this case, and you kind of forget like where this all came from. So maybe some of this makes sense that business has exploded, but
10:10 Kate, I wanna kind of bring it to you because I know that you handle a lot of the business development and you're really pushing to kind of go off and start your own thing because you've done the
10:19 consulting thing for you. years. How have you guys gotten your business? Has it primarily been word of mouth? You get a couple projects that are successful, and then you sort of repackage or
10:31 repurpose those? Like, what would you say has been the main way that you get business? Relationships. I mean, we've over the years, we've just the four of us have built such strong relationships
10:46 with not only clients, but our partners. So the vendors that we implement, we have a lot of deep relationships with executive teams that work at Quorum at Peloton at Data Gration
11:01 and others that have helped us and recommended us at places because they know that we do a good job and it's just years and years of relationships. And that's how we started. Now that we've gotten
11:15 to 26 consultants we have. the bandwidth and we're hiring around business development and we're putting more money into marketing and branding and going out and doing more more sales to where we
11:30 don't have relationships. So really our business development strategy was all about who we knew and the relationships that we've built over a 20 plus year your career. And I would say that the
11:42 timing, you know, we mentioned COVID, you know, it was a tough time when we started and we didn't know Hey, what's this gonna be? What's this gonna? What's this gonna look like? But because of
11:53 COVID data issues started to arise and when people started getting seeing some semblance of normalcy again, they called us and they said, you have all these projects. We need to do these projects.
12:08 Oil and gas prices started coming up and it was like, oh my gosh, we have to do these things. So timing was actually pretty spot on. with how we got started and it's probably contributed a lot to
12:20 our success was when we started going out to the market officially and started having those meetings again was right when people were starting to come back to the office -
12:32 Yeah, that's, you know, you started it off by saying relationships and that is so core to everything in business, right? Which is really, you guys were able to hit the ground running despite it
12:45 being a weird time to start a business because, you know, people, you've already proven yourselves out at various different organizations. We're looking at probably over 100 years of experience in
12:54 the room and what's made you guys successful at each of your stays has been those relationships that you've cultivated. And I think for me, one of the hurdles I had to get over was to change the ask
13:09 with people that I have relationships with because then if you're on your own, you need to monetize those relationships, right? You can't just be friends. right? You're crossing a threshold to
13:19 kind of getting into the business side of things. And I think for UK and Robert to an extent, that was a little bit more natural because you guys were doing that at Stonebridge and other places
13:29 prior to this. But I'm curious for kind of Kevin and Chevy, right? Coming from the operator side of things, how have you navigated saying, okay, I'm going to be bringing immense amount
13:45 of value to your production operations to your asset teams? How do you cross that bridge to then asking for them to pay you money? Well, let me start on that one, Kevin. If you would, is
13:54 ultimately, honestly, just had a conversation directly with somebody I spent 15 plus years working with, obviously, at an operator that's now at someplace else that we have a very good
14:08 relationship with both from a company perspective and then just personal. A lot of that comes to me. based on the work that I did at my operator stock, honestly, because luckily, I mean, from
14:24 Kevin and I's perspective both, we were solving, I mean, we talk about this so many times, by no means did we do everything at that operator perfectly, or the way we would do it now if we had it
14:35 to do over again. However, we were adept at solving problems. We all communicated extremely well across the enterprise with each other, because we knew we had an end goal of this, and it was
14:48 ultimately for the company. We were proud to wear a logo on our chest, all those things, and we were all in it together to make everybody successful and not just an individual silo perspective. So
15:00 as a lot of us have left that operator and have now found themselves in other oil and gas companies or other industries even. It's easy for them to call because they know the work that we did at that
15:16 operator and they trust us immensely to be able to come in and help solve those same types of issues or other issues because we weren't just solvent people. We didn't always know the answer at the
15:28 end of the day whenever we were together, but the one thing we were very good at was problem solving, figuring a way to make it successful for everybody. So ultimately it still goes back to the
15:39 relationships that we had historically speaking and the jobs we did.
15:44 That's a really important point that you made and I think it's something that is valuable for people listening to that RW2, employees, places that whether you realize it or not, you're building
15:55 your brand all the time. You're setting yourself up for what comes next and what comes down the road every single day at work in an every new relationship and hand that you shake. And I think that
16:07 gets lost sometimes when you're part of a corporate entity, like you're part of a big machine like Chesapeake. you feel like maybe you can just fit in. Maybe you can hide a bit, right? You can
16:17 blend in, but what you said is a really good point. You weren't a consultant for that long, right? But truth be told, you were putting in solutions that were creating value and people saw that,
16:30 right? And now you go off and take what's perceived as a pretty massive risk, but if you had confidence in the solutions you were delivering and the value that you were creating and your full-time
16:39 work, you were building your brand And I think that's a really important lesson for anybody listening that's thinking, man, what's it like if I'm gonna go out on my own and take this risk and make
16:49 the leap into entrepreneurship? It becomes a lot easier if you start that cycle organically while you are working somewhere W2. In some ways, it's advantageous because think about all the people
17:01 that you guys met working with at Chesapeake. And how many of those people are now at Diamondback or Devon or Sand Ridge or Con Nennel. right, a naval midstream that you can keep naming it. Most
17:15 of the people that you work with, I'm guessing, aren't still at Chesapeake, right? So now you've got all these doors that are potentially open for you. And Kevin, I think when you got in
17:25 initially with one of the Denver-based operators that was operating in the Permian, I was, you know, you and I were talking, you know, how am I gonna get this business going, right? I just made
17:34 the leap that, you know, I'm putting faith in my own stock and in my own business And I think I said, you know, I'm talking to this Denver-based operator who has Permian assets and they're
17:45 struggling on the production optimization side, I sent you the company and you're like CEO the with friends I'm,, oh,
17:51 right - That's it, yeah - And then that led to you making, you know, field trips and helping put in SCADA systems and doing all that fun stuff - Yeah, I think even bigger than just the
18:01 relationships is that the relationships is a big part of it. But these people that you have relationships with know you solved their problems before. They know they threw many things that you
18:12 weren't prepared for and you figured it out. And I think that's the biggest part is so there's a relationship perspective but there's also experience and problem solving together. And there's
18:23 thousands of those people across the country and across different fields that we've worked with. And what I found, I mean you asked the original question, how was that transition? To be honest,
18:36 for me it was fear, the going to consulting and not having done the business development, the sales and those kind of things. At least I hadn't thought I had. There was fear, there was a college
18:49 football coach that once said before every game he crawls under his desk and vomits. That's just what he does. That's how he prepares for every game. And I felt a little bit like that at first. It
18:58 was like, oh my gosh, I gotta go out and I gotta sail And then what I realized pretty quickly is that you don't have to do that. You just keep doing what you did and what made you successful on the
19:08 operator level. and build those relationships and solving those problems. And then those people start to talk to other customers and other people and it just works itself out. And so it wasn't as
19:18 different as I thought it was gonna be, but there was a lot of fear early on that it was gonna be significantly different. And it took me a little while to figure that out and to be honest, I still
19:29 have a little bit of that from time to time. When we talk about sales targets and talking to people, all that kind of stuff, I was like, Ah, I'm not, you know, that's not my experience. But it
19:37 really is I have a lot more experience than that that I really realized - And just to add to that, I think the reason our equation works so well is actually none of us are salespeople. Yeah, we
19:49 have business development in here, but the relationships that we've built is because we've been trusted advisors for people. And so people have been coming to us and asking us for how do we do this
20:03 because they feel like they have these big challenges ahead of them. So we actually, I mean, we're looking to bring on sales, but the success that we've had so far has really just been because of
20:17 that trust that we've built, like Kevin and Chevy have talked about. And it comes in two ways, the relationships and the great work that we do. And having both of those things together, equates
20:31 to a trust level that they have in us. So - Yeah, you know, a phrase that I've used before on podcasts and just in business in general is that people buy from people that they like in trust.
20:48 People do business with people that they like in trust, but there's a third element to that too. People do business with people that they like, that they trust and that create value for them. And
20:60 if you're consistently creating some level of value and putting the customers' needs over yours, business is going to keep coming. I do want to push back a little bit on you, Kate, because I know
21:10 that you're actually an excellent salesperson - Oh, I don't know, I wouldn't say that -
21:16 That's all part of it - Well - You had to sell these guys on coming with you and Novus, right - I know I did, I did. They were easy though.
21:25 They're suckers, I was able to do it - So it's not all rainbows and unicorns over there, though. There's obviously challenges with growth Talk to me a little bit about some of the craziness, some
21:39 of the hectic times that you guys have dealt with in, oh my God, we just took on another customer, we need somebody to service it. Like, does anything stand out if you think about the last two
21:50 and a half years of something that maybe made you a little bit scared? Something that was like, I'm now officially outside of my comfort zone. Anything stand out to you guys?
22:01 I mean, this week.
22:04 That sounds like the encapsulation of our whole week. You're just going to answer that first. Yeah, but Robert, take it. Well, first of all, Jeremy, there's so many of them. It's hard to
22:14 pinpoint one. I think the ones this week have been good ones, right? It's it's let's go higher, additional two or three resources to fill this need that we got. And and a lot of opportunities
22:25 that are kind of popping up that were somewhat unplanned, right? There were conversations that we started nine, 12, 15 months ago. So it's it's good to see that bear fruit. It doesn't always
22:35 kind of stack up with the timing of the timeline that that you want. And so I think that's the challenge of kind of navigating through there. But I think when you get some experience under your belt,
22:46 you learn to deal with the unexpected. You learn to kind of work a process through it and know that you'll get on the other side of it and solve it. I think for me, the biggest one was probably
22:55 early on it was our what probably months four through six. in the second quarter we were in business. And we started strong with a project. It didn't quite go where we thought it would go and not
23:08 because we didn't do a great job. It just, some key people brought us in were no longer with the organization and that happens sometimes too. But we really had to kind of turn around and go, Okay,
23:17 now we gotta organically just sell. Who can we go talk to? And so it's like, it's a shift in a different type of work at that point. And heavily on sales, what you guys have been talking about.
23:26 So we did that, we recalibrated, I think my April things picked up. So it was good that it was fairly quick. If it had gone another quarter or two, I probably would have had a heart attack. I
23:36 don't
23:39 know - Yeah, it's reassuring to hear that, right? Like the path to success is never linear. And I think that, like you said, Robert, that was probably the best thing that could have happened.
23:52 You guys thought there was stability, you thought there was security, you thought there was payroll coming in every month. And then what you anticipated being a 12 month engagement ended at three
24:00 months because you lost some key people. This is not unique to you guys, right? This happens in business all the time. But then it's what do you do, right? OK, we want this to work. We're all
24:12 in on this, right? We've put our own capital into this. We've invested time. We've spent time away from our families. Now what? And I think that's where probably you guys were able to dig deep,
24:23 grab some of that fortitude that you developed from working in some lean eras, right? You guys have seen negative oil prices. You guys have seen natural gas in the twos and the ones before and had
24:36 to find ways to navigate that and prove value. So I think that that's really important to hear. But on the positive side of things, Kevin, you were so excited about this when you told me, you're
24:48 like, next time you come to Oklahoma, you've got to see our office. So tell me about what kind of prompted you guys to a get an office and what's it like now? when you've got an office that you go
24:58 into and it's your office -
25:01 Kate, you wanna take that - Sure, so it's funny we had a town hall yesterday and we were laughing because we have two office spaces last year. We had one that we thought, okay, well, people are
25:16 needing to collaborate, they're needing to use conference rooms. So we got like a co-working space and within one month we outgrew it. Everyone just started to come in and we had one office and
25:30 then we had tens of conference rooms that we could use and we outgrew it within a month and we were actually terrified to sign a year long lease there when we were like, well, we don't know what
25:43 we're gonna be like, we don't know what we're gonna do. And so we did and then we outgrew it. And so then we decided, well, can we stay within the same property management group so that we don't
25:54 lose the lease that we just signed. and get a bigger space. And that's what we were able to find. And we found a company that was needing to sublet within the same management group. And so we just
26:08 took over their space, got all our furniture, got all their AV equipment. It was really easy. We moved in in one what And. weekend
26:18 we were worried that no one would come in, because everyone likes working from home, but we were real adamant to say, hey, we want a good work-life balance, and we want you guys to have the
26:28 ability to choose whether or not you come in. We're not forcing anyone. We're not creating a policy. But because we're all fun, happy people to work with, everyone was coming in. And now every
26:41 single office is filled, and we're looking at how do we even build more offices? Because now there's people just coming in and not having a place to sit. So it's been a lot of fun And it's just fun,
26:53 you know, having people together. and sitting over the coffee machine again. I mean, it's been two, three years since we've had that. And it's just brought us all together with a fun cultural
27:04 vibe, so - And I know a lot of people are talking, the difference type of space, whether you work from home or work from the office, what's been really cool here is that it's given us the
27:15 opportunity to do both. Everybody's fairly flexible, and we've enjoyed being able to do that. Have a place that Chevy can come next door, or Kate can come next door or whatever, and we can solve
27:28 problems real quickly. We needed that, but we also have the opportunity to work from home or if we're traveling, and we do all those things too. And the one thing Kate didn't tell you is the
27:36 reason we could move in on a weekend, is 'cause everything fit into a small pickup truck that we had before, I mean we didn't have very much. But it was a quick move, and it's been really, really
27:46 good move for us - Yeah -
27:50 Yeah, I think that it's very hard to establish company culture remotely.
27:57 For certain organizations, it can probably be done. If you're heavy on development staff, right, where it's people that are putting in their air pods and listening to music and cranking out code,
28:08 maybe being in the same place isn't as important. But I think in more creative and entrepreneurial environments, like digital wildcatters, for example, I was down there last week during NAEP. And
28:19 there's just an energy about it. You go into the office and people are stopping by and someone records a podcast and then leaves, and then somebody else comes into the studio and the other person's
28:29 on the way out and they're talking about their Bitcoin mining adventure. And then you've got a tech entrepreneur, right? And there's energy drinks in the fridge, beers. And there's just a vibe to
28:40 it, right? And I noticed I found myself being more productive, working in that office despite there being more distractions. And I think, you know, Colin McClellan at Wildcatters has been pretty
28:51 vocal about people need to be in the office. And he and I talked about that. I agree and I disagree. I think for creative and entrepreneurial venues and certainly for like a media company, you
29:02 need to have that. But I also think there's a place for the remote work if people don't like being in the office, if they feel like it's distracting, if they're not getting as much work done, if
29:10 they can't hit their billable hours. But I think it's interesting 'cause everybody wants to take like a firm stand on what it should be. It sounds like you guys have found a little bit of a balance,
29:20 right? Like we got the office, you can come in if you need it - Yeah, and what we're finding is you nailed it. That we have our data engineers and our data analysts and more of the development
29:30 types that still work from home. And they come in when we have a meeting. But all of our project managers or business analysts, the kind of extroverts that are always needing that kind of social
29:43 environment, they're all coming in. So it's by providing a way for everyone to do what's best for them We've really made a lot of people happy that way. Yeah, that's cool. And you have what you
29:58 said 26 consultants over there, Robert, I think you said you had 30 some odd people working at the company now. Is everybody based in Oklahoma? Do you have people up here in Denver? Do you have
30:07 people in Texas overseas? Like where's everybody at?
30:12 We do. I think what like the I think the bulk of the folks are Oklahoma City, we have several in Tulsa, Houston, Denver. So all those, you know, kind of main oil and gas hubs, if you will.
30:26 But gosh, I mean, I want to say we've worked with people kind of all over the place if you count contractors in there too. So given that remote nature and some roles like we've been talking about
30:36 require kind of more on site work, some less. And so we're we're pretty agnostic as to where people are, I think on occasion, there's a project where they need to be fairly close to the company
30:46 we're doing business with. But that's that's uh, we're not I'm not seeing a whole lot of that, honestly.
30:53 Like do you think that you guys will have a Houston office at some point? A Dallas office is that Denver office? Is that kind of stuff in the cards? Yes. It's on our, it's on our plan. I'm
31:04 voting for Denver and Houston this year. Just kind of. Yeah. Let me know when you get Denver. So I have an office. When you have an office to crash in Denver, I'm happy to vet it out for you.
31:14 Stop by just, you know, let me know. You guys can pay for everything. I'll just stop by every once in a while. No big deal Um, you guys talked a little bit. You hinted at the future somewhat
31:26 and I guess to backtrack, I saw you guys in Vegas last year at the Quorum Connections conference and I was sort of like, oh my God, you guys are like a real company. Your sponsoring is happy hour.
31:38 Right? You've got your own shirts. Like this is a real thing. Okay. You're like the other big consulting firms that are here. And now here we are a year later and things have only continued to
31:48 grow Do you even have the opportunity to think like What does this company look like in three years in five years? And if so, that's spilling all the beans. Like, I'm curious, what does Novus
32:01 look like in three to five years -
32:06 We actually are pretty good at setting goals. And Kevin would say we're bad because we keep setting him too low. And he keeps pushing me saying, go higher Kate, go higher. Because even last year
32:24 we set
32:27 a goal and without saying what it is, we almost doubled it by the end of the year. And this year our goal is 30 more than what we did last year. But Kevin's like, no, we need to go even higher.
32:40 So he's pushing us to continue to get that going. And I think in three years, we had a three year plan and a five year plan when we first started three year plan. we've surpassed it. And we've
32:54 started some other initiatives that we knew we wanted to do to sustain long-term versus just worrying about the market. So we're starting to reinvest into the company to grow different lines of
33:10 business so that in five years, we can be even more stable than we are right now and only dependent on one type of line of business So we have been able to take some of our free cash flow and
33:24 reinvest it into the company and reinvest it in our people. And that's something that we're very adamant about doing every year. So we're kind of going into our third year and at the end of this
33:36 year, we're wanting to be 30 to 40 bigger than we were last year. And by the end of five years, we're looking at being about three or four X, what we were last year So that's kind of our goal that
33:48 we have right now. going into different lines of business, different markets as well, just to make sure we have some stability in case we see some crashes again - Yeah. And Jeremy, they've all
34:02 these folks have kindly agreed at the end of year five, I'm gonna be retired and concerned with
34:12 some of the government tours - Yeah - They need something. I'll winter in the mountains with you - Let's go, baby - We're trying to figure out how we can do a big company retreat in Mexico - So -
34:22 Oh, I hear you - Jeremy, I'd say too, that there's an overarching goal for five years from now and I hope we see it then. We're already seeing it now. And that is to change the industry. I think
34:35 what we see ourselves is really different than a lot of other consulting companies out there based on our experience, but also based on really what we wanna do. We walk in a lot of times and people
34:46 say, Yeah, consultants, we know what you're here for. It's billable hours, all that kind of stuff. And so getting past that where people say, you're here to help us, you're a problem solver.
34:57 You're not here for billable hours. You're not always here just to try to see how much you can get from us in and leave. It's more about let us, whether it's a big job, small job, whatever,
35:07 let's solve it, let's get it resolved. And next time you need somebody, then we're here. And I think that to me, we've all talked about this, that change would be huge And that's really where
35:18 certainly we want to be in five years if not in the next year or two, where people start looking at us as a little bit different type of consultant.
35:26 Yeah, just to add on to that, our goals aren't just about Novos. It's also about the industry, like Kevin said. We had a call this morning, and it was so fun because this particular operator is
35:41 looking to really turn its business upside down and be the first of the type of operator to do it. And Kevin and I were just giddy because we're able to help them with that. And we were able to say,
35:56 This is how you can truly change the field. This is how you can use technology, how you can use people and how you can think differently. And Kevin even mentioned, Hey, a lot of people are still
36:07 in the 80s, right? I mean, this is the old way of doing things. Well, here we are in 2023, and this is the way that people are going And that's something that's really exciting for us, is that
36:20 we're really are changing the way people are doing things in the field in operations, not just back office, but in the field and changing their day-to-day jobs - And that's where it's nice to have
36:32 Chevy and Kevin, right? 'Cause I know Robert, I've always sort of thought of you as like the CFO, CAO, controllers, like right-hand man, right? You wanna do an ERP selection, you don't wanna
36:44 spend 3 million getting
36:47 You want to make sure you negotiate appropriately with the vendor. I mean, I remember going back shit to my solo days when you were doing GMX, the vendor selection at GMX resources, right? Talk
36:58 about a blast from the past. And I remember thinking, Robert has control of this decision and they've placed full faith and trust from the operator side into Robert. But that only takes you so far,
37:12 right? There's only going to be so many companies that are switching out their ERP or their accounting system every year. The field, though, where Kevin and Chevy have really lived for many years
37:23 has taken an absolute bath with losing resources and not replacing it with technology, right? So then you guys can go out there and really take them through a process of digitization, technology,
37:37 route prioritization, safety. And I think that what we're going to see, and I'm curious to hear you maybe Chevy chime in on this one a little bit. Something that we talk about a lot on this
37:47 podcast is the change from the traditional producer to also becoming a carbon capture company to focus more on on gas lift and reducing any sort of emissions related footprint. Are you guys seeing
38:01 projects that now move a little bit more into the sustainability avenue versus just the production optimization side of things? This definitely continues to come up. I think there's still an
38:14 overarching aspect of it that it's all about the data, baby. I mean, a lot of this stuff is there or they're implementing new hardware, if you will, to be able to capture and deal with it. But
38:28 it still all comes back to getting that data in a fashion in which it can be easily found and reported on. And I think that's the big thing. The big company still continue to try and crack
38:42 because ultimately you know, from a field perspective, one of the things I enjoy the most is a lot of times, I love going into a company and taking that field person or that field discipline, and
38:55 I shouldn't say person, and going the data that they're generating or needing is something that also a lot of times that reservoir or that geo world or some other, you know, department in the
39:06 company's needing and vice versa and connecting those dots for them. I mean, that's what's so fun about a lot of this is, some of these dots are not as hard to connect as people think if we get
39:18 into that world of communication and understanding that I can help you, I can scratch your back if you'll scratch mine and we can solve these problems, you know, together, especially as you see
39:29 new technologies and so forth to be able to come into play. So when we get in and do process optimization, it's not always just a business process of, hey, I'm on a conveyor belt and I put this
39:40 bolt on the conveyor and this person puts the nut on and this person. then tightens the nut and none of them know why they're actually doing it from end to end. The goal is to try and get them to
39:50 understand, oh, at the end of the day, I'm trying to build a car. And each one of them has a role and needs each other. Yeah. Yeah. We're also finding a couple of our clients are putting ESG
40:02 and revamping their EHS departments on their goals for this year. Some of them had it on last year, but this year they got deans if they didn't. Exactly Now, now they're writing it into their
40:16 company goals and writing it into people's performance. And if they have any kind of deans on their reports, then the whole company performance goes down. So people are, companies are really
40:32 starting to take it more seriously. And we actually have a project coming up where we are completely like Chevy said. putting some data management practices in around their environmental data and
40:44 health and safety and getting it into database. Whereas right now it's all over the place, right? It's in Excel spreadsheets, it's over, they spend, you know, days just trying to put these
40:54 reports together and then putting dashboards on top of it. And, you know, it's definitely
41:02 a focus in the operations and production departments right now just trying to get that under control Well, and Jeremy also I think it's important to make sure people understand because I think a lot
41:11 of times people think of consultants helping and that it's about coming in and implementation, most of what we do be implementation. And that's not necessarily the case anymore. And the earlier you
41:22 can get us in, even if we're not part of the first project or two, the earlier that you can get us in and we can look at what technology do you already have that you're not using? I mean, that's a
41:33 big thing, especially with the fear love putting skate out or used to back when things were a little bit better, people would And yet they're not using, they're not optimizing that. They're not,
41:44 you know, they're autocorrect or autofit and all those different things that you can do with your skater to make sure that it's changing. Those kind of things we wanna talk about with you because
41:54 sometimes it's not a new piece of software that you need to be implementing the technology already have. And then sometimes it is, it's finding something that fills the gap across what you need,
42:04 whether that's in the field or across your whole data, you know, the data flow throughout your organization. That's what I think people need to understand. It's not just implementation and we have
42:15 to know your process and people knowing your process as a company is incredibly powerful and may actually even lead to you not necessarily needing new software or utilizing the software you already
42:26 have. Because again, most of the solutions we have, it's around understanding process before it is just put it, you know, slapping a new piece of technology So I think that's important and it's
42:37 important to feel, but it's also important across the whole organization.
42:41 Yeah, man. First of all, I can't believe you guys turned Kevin Decker into a full blown consultant. That answer right there. You can't just say yes or no anymore. There's always a well, right?
42:53 It took a lot of training.
42:60 I love it. I love it. And I think, you know, an example that I want to use is from Whiting. So, you know, whiting oil and gas, which merged with Oasis and now it's cord energy. They went
43:15 through a phase where they acquired a bunch of assets, a bunch of different companies that grew very fast. And when shale really became a thing, especially in the Bakken, and all of a sudden,
43:27 they got a little bit out of control with all of their tech purchases. So then they go bankrupt, a new team comes in, the new CFO came in and I was talking to him about some of his software goals
43:36 and goes, Look, I've got like three AFE workflow. systems. I've got five field data capture solutions. I'm not spending any money on technology. I want to figure out what we've already paid for,
43:50 what the contracts look like, and then figure out like make a selection of what we've already selected to see what can work. And I think this is common in oil and gas where you have particularly a
44:01 younger energy coming into a company and they see a piece of tech and they have budget and they buy it and implement it. And then it's like, wait a second, this other group already bought this.
44:09 And it already kind of does some of that. But it's like, well, there's sunk cost, right? Well, there's sunk cost here. So then, you know, how do you reconcile all that? And then I think you
44:17 end up saying, you turn to a consultant to say, Oh my God, you guys actually do have a bunch of things that do similar things, which aren't easy conversations to have because you're telling them
44:28 like, you kind of overbought, right? So then the vendors pissed at you. Somebody's pissed at whoever made the, you know, the supply chain decision, they're pissed internally, Right? And the
44:39 easiest person to blame is like somebody external to the organization, which is you, right? Or which is the vendor themselves. All right, we got a couple more minutes here and I want to throw
44:51 some things at you. We're gonna do rapid fire. I'm gonna throw a person's name out there and you guys all have to say the first thing that comes to mind. One word, okay? Ready?
45:06 Adam Hutchinson
45:10 Who can I use too? Yeah, of course. Mad genius - Very good - Mad genius.
45:17 That's a good one. Drinking partner. Ah, okay, we're going two words. Party machine, there you go, two words.
45:25 Kevin - Friend - Nice - I went to. Let's go with Aubrey McClendon.
45:35 Genius him. Miss him.
45:39 Visionaries kind of where I was going to yeah Nice nice Tom Ward
45:47 Disappointed
45:52 I mean, I didn't know Tom Wilbur, but I'd say diligent.
45:57 Is it dedicated? That's a good one.
46:03 I'd say I'm going to go with Kevin's because I don't know one.
46:07 Well, at least somebody on this call has some balls.
46:12 And the final one, Kevin Durant.
46:16 Love him.
46:19 What'd you say, Shelby? Okay, that's what everybody called him when he left. Cupcake. Oh, cover. And hair.
46:26 My basketball player. All right. All right. I'll take you guys off the hot seat, but I had to throw it. I thought you were going to say Trump or Biden or something. Try to get nervous. I wanted
46:37 to keep it OKC Oklahoma century. Oh, there you go. I never met Aubrey McClendon, but I heard him present once in the Marcellus in Pittsburgh in 2009 and found him to be an amazing at compelling
46:52 speaker. I didn't have any money, nor did I really understand oil and gas, but I was ready to buy some minerals or invest in some company stock that were based up there. And I just thought his
47:04 delivery was absolutely incredible. So despite the fact that only walking past him in the hallway of the Pittsburgh Convention Center there, I felt like there was some sort of kinship. And then
47:15 when I heard the news that he died, I was actually on a plane to Midland, Texas, which I felt like was sort of reflective of the whole thing, because he was in some ways responsible for shale
47:25 plays taking off. And here's a guy who didn't know anything about oil and gas, six years after I heard him speak on a plane from Denver to Midland. So his impact went far beyond just Oklahoma City,
47:35 but I think certainly what he was able to do there, pretty powerful and cool stuff. I don't know, Tom Ward, I just know one year, he made like 90 million bucks, and that sounds pretty cool. So
47:46 good for him on that. I look forward to seeing you guys in Vegas. I'm sure you're going to be there for Quorums Connections conference. Where can people find Novus online -
47:60 Go to growwithnovuscom - Growwithnovuscom and
48:05 they continue to grow. Wanted to thank Robert, Kevin, Chevy, Kate for coming on. I think we'll do this again in a couple of years when you've got a hundred people - That's right - And I'm
48:15 chilling out in your Denver office - That's right - And drinking and eating everything that's in your fridge - Sounds great - Congrats on the success. And I always have appreciated your kinship and
48:25 friendship and support. And it's great to see the way things are going.
48:32 It's not a surprise and I look forward to checking in again in a couple of years - Thank you, Jeremy - Thanks for having us - Thanks for having us. We've enjoyed seeing your growth as well. So it's
48:41 nice to be on that similar path - Hey, man, every once in a while, the good guys win, right - That's right.
