What The Funk?

0:00 return of the Zack return of the Zack. That was one of my favorite songs going back to 1996, 1997 return of the Mac. You could picture me rolling in a 1992 Ford Taurus on the cold country roads of

0:20 New Hampshire blasting Mark Morrison return of the Mac. But today we got the return of the Zack not even a return. It's actually the first time you're on this. Finally, somebody who I've wanted to

0:32 have on this podcast for a long time. My man Zack Coplin calling in from Bozeman. How you doing Zack? Good. Thanks for having me. How are you? I'm doing well. I'm doing well. It's a Friday.

0:46 We got snow on the ground. The sun's out. You know, it's deceptive here kind of like it probably is for you in Bozeman. It looks perfect. It looks like it should be warm. I bet it's really cold

0:56 if I were to go outside. Yeah, that's not too bad here. It's not wind, you know, like compared to Oklahoma.

1:05 The wind is everything. And actually, now that you mentioned that, I want to take a second to just shout out all my people in Southern California right now. The wind for them has caused major,

1:15 major problems lately. Getting up to 90 miles an hour and obviously spreading fires all over the place. My best friend from high school actually lives in a town called Altadena. It's just outside

1:27 of Pasadena And he said on, I think, Monday or Tuesday when things started getting bad. He grabbed his grandfather's watch, his fiancee, and his Michael Jordan rookie card and left. And I still

1:40 need updates from him, but it sounds like you might not have an apartment now. Yikes. Oh, it's bad. It's really bad. And so I've been checking in with all my people out there, just a bummer,

1:52 seeing some of the stuff on X about the Pacific Coast Highway, You know, when I worked for seven lakes, I would go out there a lot. I probably made 40 or 50 trips over the four years that I was

2:04 there. Those were just awesome drives, you know, going along the PCH and then driving up through the canyon to go north. Those were like really, really awesome times, beautiful views. I'm like,

2:15 a lot of that stuff is just gone. It's gone. It's crazy to think about. Yeah, that's really sad. Hopefully they'll get it under control soon. I don't know. It doesn't seem like it's getting

2:26 better, but just a terrible combination of things. And of course, you know, Max on my team, he lives out there too. He was worried about, he's like, Hey, listen, I might not have power for

2:37 like three days. I'm like, You want to fly here? Like, You want to just get out? But it sounds like he's been spared for the most part. Yeah, yeah. So anyways, Zach Copeland, I'm going to

2:49 hit you with a question I hit everybody with. His podcast, Who are you, man? Who is that Copeland? That might be a hard first question. Who am I? I don't know, I'm a button smasher. What do I

3:03 title myself? I think I'm Meme Lord currently president and Meme Lord of forecast, I think, is my title.

3:14 You're an Oklahoma kid, right? You grew up, did you grew up in OKC and that was sort of where your roots were for a long time? I grew up in Claremore, Oklahoma, Northeast Side of the State spent

3:27 first half of my life there and then went to school at Oklahoma City University. So that's what took me to Oklahoma City. Played baseball, went to college, did the MBA, and then took a

3:40 job as a staff accountant, as my first job out of college. Wasn't the most exciting gig that I've worked, but I learned some good Excel skills, so I've got something out of that And then it was

3:54 brought back to Oklahoma City a friend of mine was and had an opportunity to work at a bank, bank seven in Oklahoma City, good bank, fun place to work, good people took that opportunity, worked

4:08 there for close to three years or so, and then took a different banking opportunity. And then after about four, some odd four plus years in banking, ended up starting a small mineral non-op type

4:24 of company in Oklahoma City and ran that chasing the OG around McLean County from 2017 to end of 2019.

4:35 And that led you right up into COVID when you decided to start another company, in this case a tech company, perfect timing on that, way to go, very good. Yeah, I didn't originally start out as

4:47 tech, at least

4:49 that wasn't the intention in the beginning was mostly just trying to stay in oil and gas and I love the industry and the people, and after firing myself from the first company, I helped start,

5:03 found myself looking for a job, was actually getting a divorce at the same time. So that was a turbulent, to say the least. And then I met my now lovely wife, Katie, within the same 30 days of

5:18 starting this company and getting a divorce So lost the company, first marriage, started a new company, and met my wife. So it was a time of transformation, to say the least. That's insane. I

5:36 mean, congratulations on writing the shit, but I do wonder, like, do you have moments where you go back to that period of time where you're just like, well, if I made it through that, and I

5:45 started this company and got divorced and found my now amazing new new wife.

5:52 I can pretty much do anything, right? Like, I would have to think that hardened your resolve a little bit, but for being an entrepreneur in business and just like dealing with what life throws at

5:59 you. Yeah, it certainly was a challenging time. And I hope the beginning of the company,

6:09 you know, how software companies are in the beginning. Believe money for a while, for a long time, maybe the first few years. So it's pretty much stressful the entire time. There's a lot of

6:20 learning I didn't know what I was doing in the beginning. I think I kind of know what I'm doing now, least sometimes. Sometimes. Sometimes. I know how to run demos. So that's good. In the

6:33 beginning, I didn't even know how to run demos. Yeah, you do. And I've continued to see you evolve in that. And it's been fun to follow your journey, right? You come off, I think, initially,

6:43 for people that don't know you on a personal level, and they just know you for your social media stuff, like a bit aggressive, maybe a bit abrasive, kind of a challenger. But then when you

6:52 actually get to sit down and spend time with you, I think you've got a good heart. And really what you wanna do in terms of like the disruption around forecast and I'll pump the forecast

7:03 conversation 'cause I know we're gonna talk about that a little bit more, but like you fundamentally believe that the solutions and services that are offered today are overpriced, right? And you

7:12 can provide value at a more affordable price point that a lot of companies and individuals need Like you think about the individual mineral buyer or

7:23 somebody that's wanting to start up an operating company, there's a pretty big lift in terms of the data subscriptions as well as the forecasting solutions that exist. I wanna get into the name a

7:36 little bit. It's a great name. I'm surprised that you got it, that it wasn't taken. Did you have to like buy it from somebody else? Or did you just get like went to Google domains and got it?

7:47 How did this happen? Ah, see. We're sitting in the office and literally drawing on a whiteboard, just coming up with names. And that was the simplest, like Occam-Juraser. What does the software

8:02 do? It forecasts, okay. How do we turn that into a name? Well, that is the name. We'll use a four instead of F-O-R-E. Does that look good? I think that looks good. Okay, let's make a logo.

8:15 The company originally is Blue Bison Analytics and that's still the company that operates forecast. That's where the checks are written to, but otherwise all branding switch to forecast and probably

8:27 stay there for a while. Yeah, it's a good name. And I think that it'll be worth something too. I think forecasting in general, it's not like a new concept. And you own a pretty solid name. So

8:39 which kind of goes along with what you do as the meme lord and as a good marketer and Brandon Jeff Chambers over at Uh, mineral answers, you know, he came up to me last year to conference and he's

8:51 like, you're working with Zach. I said, yeah, he's great guys. Like, dude, he needs to get out of the software game. He needs to just teach people how to like create their own brands and do

8:59 marketing. I'm like, I just think it's like an eight for, for Zach. I don't think that it's like something you want to monetize as a business. I think you could. I just don't know how many hours

9:09 you're in the day with a, a wife, a kid and a startup. If somebody wants like my personality and my theme as their brand, then sure. That sounds great, but I don't know.

9:22 I'm not sure that applies to many other groups or, or companies, you know, it's, you just branding yourself essentially, putting yourself out there. It's a lot. Yeah. Aligning your personal

9:38 brand to your professional brand is become increasingly important. Like, I think that's one of the things that helped me to go back to the Ocams I had all these kind of ideas like the sales doctor

9:52 or the lead kings, lead gen kings or top of funnel gurus. Like I went through all that, I'm like, come on man. Like I was given this last name funk out of nowhere. And what goes with funk? I

10:06 don't know, funk ventures, well that was taken, right? So okay, and that would be super generic. Funk futures, yeah, because I wanna make the future brighter for my clients. So of course I

10:16 get the question from finance guys, like, oh see, trade futures, I'm like, absolutely not. I know nothing about that. I just wanna help my clients, you know, futures and build a path for on

10:26 the recruiting side for people to change their trajectory and improve their future as well. So that's what I got and I'm sticking with it and that, you know, the final answer, funk futures and

10:37 forecast. I wanna go back a little bit, sorry, go ahead. I was just gonna say funk futures kind of rolls off the tongue, sounds good. Yeah, thank you, thank you. Sounds good. Yeah, yeah,

10:48 well, let's not overcomplicate things. I got this last name, let's use it, right? Yeah. Like Copland Consulting or something like that. Yeah, Copland Cast wouldn't have been a good name.

11:00 I don't know if it would make a huge difference but forecast at least explains what you do. All right. So going back a little bit, right? So you were a baseball player. I think you were a pitcher,

11:09 right? Mm-hmm, yep, I was. Would you throw hard? Like, did you have an idea that maybe you'd be able to meet major leagues or minor leagues, or was this just like, this will get me to college

11:19 on a scholarship or something? No, I mean, I was a good pitcher at their sidearm. I didn't throw hard. It was a way to get scholarships and pay for school, basically. Yeah, yeah. And I like

11:30 baseball. It was fun. Yeah, I love baseball. I actually think that I think my wife likes the fact now that I can, like, time box a game. When I'm like, Hey, I'm going to the Rockies game.

11:41 She's like, Cool, when are you coming home? I'm like, Yeah, I don't know Like, I might be home at eight. I might be home tomorrow if it's the longest game in baseball history and goes like 30

11:50 innings like which could happen So I don't have an answer now. It's like well. There's a pitch clock And it's like it was one of the sports that I loved so much for not having that I think they're

12:00 losing this like super hyper 80d Twitter 140 character audience that exists today But for me, it's like what I liked about it And I'll obviously still like baseball But was the fact that you can't

12:14 put a clock on it You know, and now you definitely can, you know Yeah, I go back and forth on that speeding up the game is I guess better for the average viewer They were losing a lot of Lot of

12:32 potential clients, especially in the younger generation. I'd say like you said they want 130 character instant gratification type of entertainment

12:43 As a picture do I want you to Feed me up and put me on clock. No, I'm gonna walk around the back of the mountain, look at my guys, you know, wipe sweat off, play with the rosin bag. It's not,

12:54 I don't particularly care for the pitch clock. Toss the ball, ask for a new ball, catch your breath, adjust your hat, right? I mean, yeah. Toss the pine tar. Yeah, whatever you got. Like,

13:07 I think that it's entirely that. The hardcore fans, the people that have been big baseball fans, both of us have baseball stuff behind us, right? That's obviously us, and we're older than the

13:17 generation demographic they're going after now. Like, we're gonna love baseball no matter what, and they're not gonna lose us because of the pitch clock, but they're just not gonna get any of the

13:26 new fans if it's like, I don't wanna watch this for four and a half hours. Like, a lot of people take to games like the fact there's a clock, and those people are 26 years old. So, I can only

13:36 imagine my daughters who are 14 and 12 probably think it's the most boring sport ever, but they could definitely sit. through and watch a football game 'cause they can watch the clock if they're

13:46 bored or know when they can look up and not look up where it's just not the case for baseball. So you, Oklahoma guy, right, Claremore. I'm not totally sure where that is. Is that a small town?

13:59 Is that like a city? Yeah, it's small, it's probably 20, 000-ish population now. Yeah, so that's, I mean, in Texas, that's like a town. I grew up in a town in New Hampshire that has about 1,

14:10 500 people, so like real small town. Cities to us were like, Plymouth is the metropolis nearby, it's like 5, 000 people, you know? Yeah. They have a Walmart. We're like five A-size, so not

14:24 the biggest class in Oklahoma, but graduated with 240 people, I think. Yeah, okay, okay, that's a little bit bigger than mine. We had a regional high school, so like geographically, that were

14:37 45 minutes from my house, we all went to the same high school. It was just super spread out, but otherwise you have like a really small high school, 15 kids in a class type of thing. So yeah, I

14:48 wanna go back a little bit too. So you get divorced, I appreciate you sharing all that. And you leave the company or get pushed out of the company, I don't know all of the ins and outs of that.

14:60 And you decide, I'm gonna start this new company, which coincided with sort of this like whole refresh in your life where you also met the woman that became your new wife, your wife, I shouldn't

15:10 say new wife, your wife.

15:13 And

15:16 you decide to launch forecast and not too long after that, you decide to move. So what was the impetus for you? So to me, it's like, all right, he's the classic Oklahoma guys, got the oil and

15:28 gas background, he's got the mineral stuff, he went to Oklahoma City University, played sports super, Common right cookie cutter, Oklahoma guy and then boom Gone he moved to Bozeman, Montana.

15:40 When did you decide to move up there and why? Well, that's

15:47 An easy answer I guess I moved up here for my kids about two kids they're about young youngish about to be 10 and 8 and my ex-wife ended up moving here with the kids which was unexpected and I Prefer

16:04 to be their dad and liked them a lot and want to be involved in their lives as much as as as possible. So Yeah 30 days after They ended up moving here Katie and I had packed all our stuff broke our

16:21 lease found a new one and you're here 30 days later I might never been to Montana until the day that I drove here and you all I love it. I love it. I mean, so you've looked at some pictures on

16:31 Google and you're like, looks nice. I mean, it's colder, sure, but it sounds good. It sounds cool. Jay, he doesn't like cold. And I don't really like cold either. That's a pretty expensive

16:41 town. Which people, that perception can be misleading. Zach lives in Bozeman. Must be rich forecast. Must have just made him millions of dollars. Now, I went on Zillow and found the cheapest

16:55 apartment that I could afford, which was triple my rent in Oklahoma City. Picked it that day, side unseen. Back to you all. Amazing. Yeah, you know, I moved to Boulder, also an expensive town.

17:08 There's definitely some synergies and parallels between Boulder and Bozeman. I'd say Bozeman's a little bit more off the beaten path, right? Because we have the big city of Denver and like an

17:18 international airport here. And it's just more central, you know, physically in the country. But I've never been out here either and loaded up. my vehicle and my buddy loaded up his truck and

17:30 there were three of us. One didn't have a vehicle, everything that we owned in two rides and drove out here side on scene to Boulder. We got here on Halloween of 2003 and there's like a thing here

17:45 in Colorado where for whatever reason on Halloween it always snows. I'd say like 60, 70 percent of Halloween, it's like icy, it's cold, it's snowy. And I got here, I'm like, the fuck did we

17:58 just do? Like we left the northeast because of the harsh winters in part, right? And now we got here and it's going to snow eight inches on Halloween. Like this sucks. Like why don't we keep

18:08 going, dude? Let's go to like San Diego or something. It's

18:13 good weather. Yeah. Yeah, it's nice. I mean, but it was more expensive too. We're like, all right, well, whatever, let's just like start looking for an apartment and see if we like it. And

18:23 then four days later, for the first time, the sun comes out. the snow starts melting and we can see the flat irons. We can see the foothills. We can see the Rockies. We're like, okay, no, I

18:32 get it. I get it now, right? And then you have that first like 60 degree day in January. And I'm like, all right, this is it. Like I love it here. You know, you can do a lot of the same

18:43 things that you do elsewhere in terms of like the seasonality and outdoor stuff. And if you like to do sports and skiing and all that, go do it. Do you ski or snowboard or anything? And had you

18:54 done that before moving to Bozeman? Yep, I ski never tried snowboarding. Hadn't had a lot of opportunity to ski growing up in Oklahoma, but I've been on four or five trips over the course of my

19:08 life. So enough to be proficient. And now, I live 16 miles from Bridger Bowl. We've been getting a lot of snow. I bought my first pair of custom boots and skis. It's game on. Yeah, now

19:22 you're a Montana guy I'm like local. This is my trimmed. trimmed as of yesterday. And you know what, you still got your cowboy boots probably from your Oklahoma days. So you can just wear those

19:34 out too when you go to the traditional older school bars. I love Bozeman, I like that airport too. It's super easy. There's actually some decent food options there. And then, to get to

19:47 Yellowstone, have you taken your family out there yet? Yeah, we drove through Yellowstone when we were moving here on the west side So we drove through Tetons, drove through Yellowstone, exactly

19:58 when the leaves were changing. So it was like perfect timing to actually see it for the first moment. And been to North entrance, the North entrance is like an hour and a half or so from where we

20:10 live. Yep. So I haven't spent a lot of time in Yellowstone. Spent more time in Glacier this summer, which. Nice. Whoa, if I could live in Glacier, I would. See, I've never been up there. We

20:24 did the whole Yellowstone thing for my mother-in-law's 70th. She's really into, let's do a national park for like all the big birthdays. So we're actually, we're gonna do Rocky Mountain National

20:34 Park for her 75th, which is this year. One of my favorite things about the that time we spent in Yellowstone was that, oh, no cell reception, that's too bad. Guess I'm just gonna have to

20:49 disconnect And now I'm forced to look at nature and see some buffaloes cross the road and pay attention to my kids. And there were just some things that I loved. I thought Yellowstone was just

21:00 spectacular. Yeah, we had a buffalo almost run into the U-Haul actually driving through there.

21:06 You're like, Okay, we're out in Kansas. We're out at Oklahoma, Eddie, Florida. This is the wilderness, apparently. Yeah, well, I'm glad that you liked it. I'm glad you're settled in. And I

21:16 think that timing-wise, It's probably - better now than it used to be like oil and gas is still old school. People still want to see your face. They want to see you in person, but there's just

21:27 more tolerance now and acceptance for remote work. So you being in Montana, like John Farrell, you know, up and moving similar stories, like, why am I? I run this company. I'm not like

21:40 committed to being in Houston. I've been here. I'm moving to Montana. It's like, cool. It's hard to leave that. Like, I think it's hard to go in reverse. You know, it's hard for me to leave

21:51 Bozeman. Yeah. I mean, it's been to a few different cities in Montana now and several in Colorado. I love just the skyline of Bozeman. There's something about, I don't know, it's just prettier

22:08 to me than most places that I go. It's hard to leave. Absolutely Oh, it's a beautiful place, but you will be traveling to Houston. pretty soon for the NAIP conference. And I think last year was

22:20 your first year actually getting a booth, which is a big step. It's not cheap, right? I don't know, I don't know what you paid for it. And even if you sign up early, it's like, I don't know,

22:29 they started like eight grand or something. And then if you want like a big booth and you're paying double that, then you gotta like get all your marketing stuff in order and you gotta get hotels

22:39 and you gotta get your people down there. So this is your second year, was NAIP a success for you last year and it must be a success enough for you to go back. That was great. Nice. They do a

22:50 good job. I mean, I've been to NAIP almost

22:55 seven years in a row. I guess we started going in 2018, haven't missed one yet. So this is the first experiences of vendor with the booth and I'll tell you a quick, funny story. So we get there,

23:08 Andrew and I are going to go set up the booth When we get to the booth and there's just a padding down, there's no carpet.

23:18 I wonder, and everybody else has their carpet. It's installed. There's like literally 45 minutes left of the people who work there installing carpet. And we don't have carpet. We don't have

23:29 anything besides a carpet pad. Like, I wonder when we're gonna get our carpet. So you go talk to the people. Like, hey, do you know when they're gonna install our carpet? Like, you didn't

23:40 order carpet.

23:44 Oh man, we meant to order carpet. Can we get carpet? Like, sure, you want carpet? Yes, we'd very much like carpet over this carpet pad. It's just a better look, you

23:56 know? So Andrew likes to remind me of that. So like, don't worry. We'll charge you later for this. You're not getting this carpet for free. I still need to buy carpet for our booth this year.

24:06 Yeah, I've seen some people really, I love the super soft ones, right? 'Cause your feet hurt. You're basically just walking on concrete like all over this place. And I've learned I definitely do

24:14 not wear like my nicest, you know. sleds as you like to call them walking around Nate. But then you find like, what is it like the pioneer or the EOG? And you just set foot on that like triple

24:25 length, like inch thick carpet and you're like, I'm just going to stay here for a little bit. So it's like, Hey, can I help you? I'm like, yeah, you can leave me alone because I just want to

24:34 stand here for a second and enjoy this carpet. Thank you very much. So it's good confirmation because we do spring for the extra triple padded carpet just because of what you said, people want to

24:44 stand on it. So yeah, they might stick around for a little bit a little bit longer. Let's talk about Andrew a little bit. You've mentioned him a few times. Andrew Munoz, he's your partner

24:54 basically in forecast. So how did you meet this dude and what's your like delegation of responsibilities over there? Those are good questions. With good answers, I hope. I met him through his

25:07 burner account on Twitter. No way. Way. Yeah, can't docs that account? It doesn't even exist anymore, I don't think. He spends too much time writing code now. Right. Split off on Twitter

25:21 rants. I do enough of that for both of us, but I met him on his Twitter bar and he was gainfully employed at a private equity-backed operator at the time, went down to Houston, had lunch with him,

25:35 I think we ate Mexican food. I was originally planning the demo forecast for him and then I started talking to him He was like, this guy has already built every single thing we've ever built over

25:47 his career, plus all the things on our roadmap. He doesn't need to see this, let's just have lunch. So I actually didn't show Andrew Forkast the first time we met though had the laptop ready to go.

25:59 And we hit it off and it was love at first sight maybe, as far as business relationships go. We vibe really well together and I don't know, decision-making together is pretty seamless for

26:15 consistently on the same page, rarely not. And he provides a skillset, are unique to mine and complimentary, and just works really well. Background is a geophysicist, worked at multiple

26:32 successful operators, had successful exits, and opportunity came, and I've wooed him into this deal, and I don't think he regrets it yet

26:45 So, okay, so he does like coding, and he's an engineer by training, and he worked for, I think, Newfield, and probably a few others, which Newfield is a company that I have a ton of respect

26:55 for. I used to sit down, I mean, I've been in hundreds of boardrooms, right, and done tons of different demos over my 17-year oil and gas tech career, and was always impressed with Newfield.

27:06 The challenge I would have is kind of like what you said, I'd be showing them something, they're like,

27:14 or anything like that, sure, you have. And they're like, No, here, take a look. Like, damn it. Why are you guys building so much? So why are you guys so smart enough, right? So it didn't

27:21 surprise me that they had a great exit and that you found a really good resource who had that new field background. Definitely an impressive group. Kind of missed those guys, both in their Tulsa

27:31 offices as well as Denver, where they were out for a while. I still have some friends that I met there like over 10 years ago. And then of course in the woodlands. So he does coding, right? He's

27:41 an engineer. Geophysicist. Geophys, sorry, sorry. I know that's an important question. He titled himself the Swiss Army knife of oil and gas. What an ego. What an ego. Yeah, no, he's got a

27:57 great ego. Yeah,

28:00 he's like, I think he knows. He knows when to dumb it down and be humble, especially for someone who's a geophysicist. So he does all the work, what the hell do you do? I don't know

28:10 Make memes.

28:12 energy net videos

28:16 Everything that isn't writing code since yes, yeah couple demos here and there it seems like there's actually a lot of interest and in your product Right, and then of course you got to translate

28:26 that into actually, you know people buying stuff What would you say your competitive differentiator is it's a crowded space? No question about it, and I think like you know, we you probably both

28:37 of us at least I Externally would view combo curve as a competitor and somebody who really took the market by storm with like trying to be like the Robin Hood of oil and gas forecasting and reserves

28:51 and Then you kind of came along like shortly after I guess you know around the same time that that they did What would you say your differentiators over some of the traditional players and then how do

29:01 you sit alongside the tools That everybody uses like the aries and the PhD wins and I guess I throw combo curve in there too Why do people work with you? Well.

29:13 Our goal from the beginning and still today was not to displace what I'd call reserve systems, at least from my understanding. Como curve, Aries, PhD. when are considered true, you know,

29:28 reserve auditing types of systems. And those go further into the weeds of, you know, engineering granularity than what forecasts has intended to do. Forecast since inception has been intended as a

29:44 program that gets you through an oil and gas evaluation as quickly and accurately as possible. It's probably never going to move towards becoming a full-blown reserve system. That's not really the

29:59 goal. One of the things that we did early on speaking of Jeff, thanks, Jeff. We partner with data companies and ingest data from public data providers so that when you open forecasts, you have

30:16 data sitting there ready to go. And then we automate auto forecasting all the wells and the data set, six million some odd wells. Rex tag is our public data partner. And we've been talking to new

30:32 tech lately and working with them on collaborative refining a public data type of thing And that's one of

30:41 the value added benefits, I guess, besides forecasting as a tool, is that we're consistently working with the data vendors to help improve the data so that it's as high quality as it can be for the

30:57 clients. Yeah, so easy to use, right, affordable. And I think that at least traditionally, like certainly as you evolve in your products, we get better and all that, you're gonna be getting

31:10 into more and more. operators, larger operators, some of which are already working with you, but kind of organically moving up that food chain, but a lot of minerals buyers. So the individual

31:22 that goes out and buys stuff. Like, I feel like you're always gonna have that market, right, because they're just gonna be like, I just need something to do something quick and dirty, and I'm

31:31 not maybe technical enough to use the other systems. You know, the areas in the, you know, mosaic or the value navigator, some of these other things that exist, so I need something like quick

31:43 and easy, and I don't wanna go buy a spot fire license for myself, and I can't really do this in Power BI, and I don't wanna just do this in a spreadsheet, I wanna look at

31:52 it, and then they find you, right? And they're like, oh, cool, like this is kind of what I need. So I think you're always gonna have that market and be friendly to those guys, plus you're like

32:01 one of them, right? Right. And you random minerals buying shop, and you post stuff, I noticed you post stuff on this, It seems like you're very pro investing in minerals. And you know, Stephen

32:13 Hatcher has become a very good friend of mine. He's of course the minerals guy, like, man, if I can just have a little bit more money. I want to buy some minerals. I don't know how to do it,

32:23 but you do. So I'm going to go to Hatcher, man. I'm telling you, when I get some sort of inheritance or something happens in my life, I sell a car or something like that, I'm going to go out and

32:33 buy some minerals. Where should I go and buy minerals? And I probably then need to use forecasts to find that out, right? You can go buy them on energy net, shout out. I mean, that's a good

32:44 option for people who are not necessarily on the ground floor. I would say there are various tiers of various ways of

32:57 going about finding deals. You have people that have landmen blowing up the

33:03 phones and sending out letter campaigns and contacting mineral owners. directly. And then brokers and middlemen in between that. And then you have public auction sites like EnergyNet. So I mean,

33:18 easiest, fastest route to go buying some minerals, hop on EnergyNet right now. I feel that I ran yesterday. I thought it was pretty good. And that didn't apparently reach the reserve. So

33:30 I mean, that's the simplest, quickest way to know a buddy who favors you and he's got a bunch of minerals and he'll just let you buy some for a good price. That's the best route probably. But I

33:42 don't know how often that happens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, well, Steven would probably be my go-to for that because he's told me about some of the return on, especially if you get into some acreage

33:54 that's going to be drilled, right? Like that's probably a great time to get in. Other times, you know, you're stuck buying the tail and then your investment return is in the 10 to 12 range and -

34:04 which point like someone like me will probably just put that in stock market because I understand it fundamentally a little bit more. But it's fascinating. And I think that this whole landman TV

34:15 show is going to drive more people to wanting to have a piece of oil and gas, right? I think it's going to be fascinating to see what happens over the next year or so as this kind of rolls out We're

34:27 definitely seeing more what I call retail investors attempting to get into the space at least. I mean, as you know, oil and gas is pretty tight. I would not perceive it to be the easiest industry

34:40 to get into and finding good mineral deals or good non-op deals. That's the hardest part, finding good deals. There are plenty of assets available for sale, but getting a good deal at a good price

34:56 is probably the biggest challenge.

35:01 Yeah, interesting, right? Like where in the life cycle is it because decline curves matter, right? And that's sort of what your product shows to people.

35:11 Yeah, if we had a crystal ball, we'd all be rich and you and I wouldn't be podcasting when we have to work. You'd be skiing up at Copper Beaver Creek or something and you'd be over in Big Sky or

35:21 wherever. Or Yellowstone Club. Yeah, the Yellowstone Club with John Mayer. Britney Spears. Could be worse. You think Britney Spears is allowed to go there? No, I don't think she actually has a

35:32 house there. Pretty sure Mayer does, though. Wow, he's the man. I want to ask you a couple other questions. You know, kind of shift this a little bit in our last few minutes. Like, what does

35:42 forecast look like in three years, five years? Have you given that thought? I know it's really hard to do and of course you have to forecast, pardon the pun, what your business looks like, but I

35:52 know as a small business owner, like, your forecast is really only good as what happens today. And over the next week and then the next month and then the next quarter and and you're now it your

36:02 survival mode I think to a point when you can actually start to think Longer term, but I think you're now kind of hitting that maturation curve like what does your company look like in three years

36:12 five years? Give them that any thought? Yeah, definitely It's something you have to think about right? First I want to be alive in five years. That's always my that'd be cool for a little girl so

36:23 and we were we did have a couple clients that requested five-year licenses. Wow, nice dude, amazing So we provided that I think to two people when I was like do we really want to sell five-year

36:37 commitments? Even if people want them like that's a long time. Where am I going to be in five years? I don't know. I don't know where I'm going to be in three years but the software evolution It

36:53 will continue along the path of. Simplicity, making it easier than it is in the platform. Now, user-friendliness, speed, data quality, I've created a meme that kind of summarizes what I want it

37:13 to be. And it's somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but I do mean it. I want it to be one platform to roll them all. I want you to be able to log in, get what you need, do a deal, move on to the next one.

37:31 You know, there are core pieces of lots of different types of systems that are needed to do a deal, look at a deal, find a deal. But we tend to believe that the forecasting piece is the core of

37:47 what is critically important. And then we're adding features and building around the core capability of the valuation piece.

37:57 Yeah. So really it's just organic growth, right? Continue to improve and evolve in the technology, maybe get a bigger booth at NAIP as you guys get more and more revenue, do longer term contracts,

38:08 right? And then I think that everything will sort itself out. Like I think that that's, it's a good mindset to have. I think building a business to sell is a terrible way to go about it. You

38:17 rarely see those companies succeed, like building something where it can be sustainable and add value is what everybody needs. And I think, from my view, point the best way to run a business. On

38:28 a personal note, like

38:31 looking back, right, at the younger version of yourself, right, whippersnappers at Copland, Oklahoma City, University, Pitcher, you know, staff account, what advice would you give to your

38:43 younger self? If you could look that and go back, whatever, 15 years, 18 years, and look yourself in the eye, what would

38:55 you tell them? Um, I would tell them to be himself not,

39:00 not hesitate to do that. I think there were times in my professional career not necessarily all oil and gas, but when I had kind of muted myself, right? Like to blend in, be part of the crowd,

39:17 fit in, not necessarily stand out, which that's not an option currently with what I'm doing. We're taking the opposite approach obviously and making memes all day, trying to get people's attention

39:30 with clickbait, but

39:33 I mean, putting yourself out there like, you know, when you're really doing this and you're creating content and branding a company that does somewhat reflect you as the person, you're pretty

39:47 vulnerable, you're out there. It's like, I run into people at NAIP or some conference, And they know what's been going on with me because I'm telling them on social media all the time, which is

39:58 pretty weird. I mean, you meet a stranger and they're like, Oh yeah, I saw you went skiing last week. You're like, You know who I am? I posted that. Yeah, I posted that. Of course I posted

40:09 that, I posted everything.

40:11 So yeah, I mean, that buys to my younger self was just to be yourself. Be authentic. Unless yourself stops, then don't be

40:23 yourself, right? I mean, if yourself is a douche, don't be a douche.

40:29 Yeah, I mean, that's probably similar advice I give to myself. Be authentic, be vulnerable. And I think the third one is just like be patient. You know, I think that's something I still have to

40:38 learn consistently now is it just takes time, right? And I have the value now and the benefit of experience, which is a great, obviously the greatest teacher. You don't have that when you're

40:51 younger. You don't have money, you have tons of time. And then all of a sudden these equations start to shift, right? But you're right. Like I think the vulnerability piece is important. And I

41:02 think for me, starting a podcast was sort of around the time that I was ideating on starting my own business. So things like we're kind of coming together. But the only way to do it is to be

41:12 authentic. I don't necessarily know if I was earlier out of my career because there was this sort of fear of disruption Like you don't want people to view you and put you in a certain box. You just

41:24 don't want to go outside of your lane. And in certain ways, I think I do still stay within a somewhat of a conservative lane, but then it's not really reflective of your true personality. So it's

41:36 the best when somebody comes up to you at a conference or a networking event. It's like, I really like what you're doing. It's encouraged me to be a little bit more vulnerable and honest and

41:45 authentic Because if I can do it and it's worked for me and you can do it and it's created value for both your personal brand as well as yours. your business, you can do that for other people too.

41:57 I think we get kind of messed up in thinking too much about what somebody else thinks about us. That's right. Yeah. And Dion Sanders, coach Prime out here in Boulder, he had a great interview and

42:11 I've shared this clip with a bunch of people and the interview is asking him a question and he just looked him in the eye and he goes, What about me makes you think that I care about your opinion of

42:21 me?

42:23 As long as I care about my opinion of myself, that's really all that matters. I can't control how you feel about me. If I did that, then I'd just be in a crazy place. So what about me makes you

42:36 care? Yeah. Yeah. I care a lot about what people thought. I probably still do some extent, but

42:44 just being myself, attempting to help people That's one thing that I've learned more recently is. I offer a lot of unsolicited advice and that doesn't seem to go well. So I kind of backed off of

42:60 that. It's like, hey, I want some advice on how to not fail in software startups. Here's a really fast introduction that's very blunt and to the point and is probably not gonna be palatable.

43:16 People don't seem to like that. So I've stopped doing that. Yeah, but I don't know. I think you become more palatable once people meet you, because I think that your digital person is different

43:26 than who you are as a human, but it's also reflective of your kind of honest, authentic, vulnerable nature. Final question, where can people find you? 'Cause obviously you are kind of a big

43:40 social media guy. So where can people find your company? Where can they find you? And then where can they find you at nape?

43:48 From finding me, let's see. Well, I'm on LinkedIn all the time, so you can easily search and find me on LinkedIn. Twitter account iszaccuratee. It

44:01 will look like I'm a blue whale, which is my alter ego for posting energy net deals now. It's kind of a spinoff of Roaring Kitty's personal - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that, I got that So

44:18 I'm ripping whale, aka Zach on Twitter. You'll probably find it, it's not that hard to find. Our company website is forecastio for C-A-S-T dot I-O. Pretty much all the buttons go to book a demo.

44:34 So there's background and profiles for myself, and Andrew, and Jolene, and I hope Alex, if not me, to put Alex on there too. No, for sure The company has counts on pretty much all social media.

44:49 LinkedIn is the one that is. most used, I would say. Nice, and what's your booth number at Nape? 2927, I actually have a map. You go to the big One World Petroleum booth. Oh yeah, easy to

45:05 find that. It's just right down the row, and then down the vendor aisle, I'll post the map again. It's pretty easy to find. Just the sound of the number 2927 feels like that's a really good

45:21 location So good for you to get there, right? You're gonna get a ton of foot traffic. So I hope it goes well for you. I hope you win whatever giveaway One World Petroleum is giving out too,

45:29 'cause that'll be exciting. Yeah,

45:32 nearly watches. Oh man, that was crazy. That was crazy. Well, Zach, I appreciate you coming on. I look forward to hanging out a little bit at Nate, dropping by your booth, driving some

45:42 traffic to your booth, and just appreciate you coming on finally. And for being you, I think you can sort of represent this new wave of the authentic. entrepreneur in oil and gas tech. So keep

45:54 leaning into that, man. I appreciate you for that. I appreciate you. Thank you for having me.