Recording notes from 11/24/24 to 11/28/24. Lots of things happening.

Recording notes from 11/22/24 to 11/23/24. Also, adding some client logs into the adilas system.

Back on new settings and defaults. Left off there last night. Working towards checking default customer fields and defaults. Phone call with Bryan to go over leads. Spent a bunch of time going over the redo add corp method (adding new worlds). Finished up a small round of settings and pushed up files. Light testing.

Meeting over Google meet with some of the guys from SimLiv (https://symliv.com/). SimLiv is short for Simultaneous Living. They cater to gated communities, HOA's (homeowner associations), and other important security access venues.

My friend, Gene Spaulding, former banker and private equity investor, help to setup the meeting. The goal was to see if there were any common ground between what adilas does and what SimLiv does. Great meeting. There were four of us on the virtual meeting. We all live in the same area, in Northern Utah, and will most likely get together in person in the next couple of weeks. Here are some of my notes.

- Those where there: Taylor James from SimLiv, Tim Greenfield from SimLiv, Gene Spaulding, and myself.

- We talked about startups and accruing technical debt (old or unorganized code - anything like that).

- We went over what SimLiv does and where they are heading. See link above to view their website. They are very focused on a specific vertical and have big plans and more phases to do in the future. They were giving me some good advice as well.

- They had questions about adilas and what we do and where we came from. I gave them a small history overview and we chatted about all kinds of things. That was really fun for me. (history and investment options for adilas - small summary - see different sections on this page)

- We talked about SaaS (software as a service) and how that reoccurring revenue model is going and working. They highly recommended that we look into the transactional reoccurring revenue model as well. Something along the lines of payments, processing, small percentages of sales, per transaction fees, etc. This is what Tim said - "We are seeing that the transactional model is potentially bigger than the actual SaaS model." They were talking about multiples (raw numbers times a multiplier). I thought that was pretty cool.

- They were recommending that we either focus on making adilas a lifestyle business or change the focus and put an exit strategy in place. Basically, if we keep going, the way we are, we will have to keep working for years and years to come. That becomes a lifestyle, even if we don't have to do as much work. We basically maintain control and just grow things slowly over time (natural or organic growth). If the focus is more on exiting or getting bought out, then you play the game differently. Just some talks back and forth.

- All of the guys chimed in and asked questions and good dialog. I really enjoyed some of Tim's questions. They were deep and he wanted to know about certain aspects of things both technically and logistically. I thought that it was fun.

- Gene asked Tim, "What are your thoughts?" - I won't quote him, but Tim was basically like - If someone came to me, with a big dream, a plan and was saying the things that I was saying (just about adilas and what we are doing), he's not sure if he would believe it. Mixing operations and accounting and doing all of the things that we do is lot. That is super complex and may sound good on paper, but he just wasn't sure if he would believe it. He then said, if you were on the other side of that huge divide (meaning having done and/or doing everything that you had pitched or proposed) then that would change everything.

- We've put in the hours... We started back in 2001 and put in time, money (millions and millions), and have built it out. We have a working proof of concept, a working prototype, and have proved the model. Not only have we proved the model, but we've also made millions of dollars along the way. Way more than just a dream or vaporware. That's pretty cool!

- They recommended that we find a niche and follow that all the way. I told them that we are a general business package or generic on purpose and that our future goals include both white labeling options and industry specific skins (on top of the main adilas core). We would do that directly and/or allow for API socket usage and adaptation. Tons of options.

- How to make our customers "sticky"? I mentioned that we use the same term and sometimes do custom code to help those customers become more sticky (wanting to stay with us or stay around, while using our products and features). We played with some fun ideas, back and forth.

- Lots of talk about custom code and how to manage some of that. We ended up talking a lot about permissions and settings (some of the foundation pieces).

- They wanted to know the ratio between SaaS reoccurring revenue and other professional services (data entry, setup, training, marketing, custom code, design, consulting, etc.). I told them that currently, we are 70% SaaS model and the other 30% is other professional services. This brought on more conversations about multipliers and either focusing on SaaS multipliers or transactional multipliers.

- The more we talked, the more my head was going towards API sockets, API integrations, white labels, and other possible industry specific levels. That would help with marketing, development, training, etc. I love it!

- One thing that caught my ear was that they, SimLiv, are hardware agnostic (not tied to specific hardware). They also tout that they can interface with any other existing hardware, used in their industry, based on their current model. I would love to see what they have and/or are doing. We, at adilas, could really use that. We just barely got done with a very painful attempt to use some super old proprietary hardware for a company doing POS (point of sale) stuff. It would be super cool if we had a middleware type thing (some sort of software) that we could put on an older device and then be able to make a web, middleware, hardware bridge of sorts. We would really love that.

After the meeting, Gene gave me a call and we chatted for a bit. I recorded some notes and sent out some texts. I really enjoyed the meeting. It was fun.

Email reply to the Yogen Fruz team. Printed things out, sat down, and planned out the reply. Reading, planning, and writing up the email. This may sound pretty simple, but it took some major time. Imagine combing over about 10 pages of printed emails, responses, requests, solutions, comparisons, training, ideas, and custom code requests. It took some work.

I did end up putting all of the data together into smaller documents and uploaded it into the adilas customer logs for the Yogen Fruz client inside of adilas.

Working on the add new corp method. Started working on a redo method (addCorpHelperReDo). This can be run over and over again. The old add corporation method (add new world) code just did a single path. I was having problems with my local box. I need a new corporation for some testing but, it gets part way through and then fails. Trying to do things step by step to figure out what is going on. Got it working. Had to add an auto increment attribute to a database table. That's what was missing.

My plan was to send an email back to Harsha and Moran, answering questions that they had. As I was heading that way, I got an email from josh with a comparison between adilas and another point of sale system. He also offered a number of solutions for them to look at. I also got an email from Sean showing them some of the promo stuff. Sean is using the demo site to help show them ideas and flow. Great idea.

I think that I will just keep building new tools and then do the email once some of the stuff is done. Working on some new settings and changing the defaults a bit for the mini scan cart. Started making a few changes. Tried to add a new corporation to my local and ran into some errors and/or bugs. Got pulled off in that direction.

Meeting with Bryan. Going over some leads and checking out white label stuff for Herbo. Making some small changes. Trying to figure out which customers we can help and how quickly. There is huge demand.

Emails and tech support. Grabbing API socket and 3rd party solution criteria for a client. Setting up another new corporation for a buddy to play around with.

Note for me - Harness the motivations of others (in a good way)... They can help lead you where to go next (putting out fires and making people more happy). They are motivated and want something that has a value to them. Follow that lead and desire and try to fill that need. It does take time, but what knowledge you can gain... Good stuff!

Spent an hour writing up an email to the team about some of the updates and happenings between adilas and the Yogen Fruz pilot (3 month trial). Sent email around.

Phone call with Sean to touch base and talk about plans, direction, and speed (pace). Good call. We are moving forward, just not sprinting at this point.

Phone call with Josh and Phillip from Yogen Fruz. Good call. See email review that I wrote on Monday morning. Decided that it would be best to pause the adilas pilot with one of the Yogen Fruz locations. We are coming right into the biggest and heaviest gift card and loyalty points part of the season. Adilas can handle that, no problem. The main problem was that Phillip and the Yogen Fruz folks only have one location on adilas and all the rest are on a different platform. Without crisscross communications between the systems, it almost puts that one location that was doing a trial version or pilot of the software on a virtual island. We have manual work arounds to help with the process (gift card entries), but we are almost too late for implementing that right this minute. This was the best decision.

The adilas team will continue working on things in the background while things are paused. Steve is working on new hardware bundle, I'm working on some custom requests and reporting, Alan is working on some enterprise stuff. All is well. I'm in full support of the decision. We will keep rolling down the road.