Hello. Carl Nelson here from Bushel. I'm a technical product manager on our integrations team. And I have the wonderful opportunity to be interviewing John from Leverage today. John, can you introduce yourself? Hey, Carl. Good to be here. John Melland, CEO of Levridge. Looking forward to the conversation. Yeah. Levridge is one of the newest, if not the newest. I think you guys get that title, ERP to hit the ag market. What inspired you to get into the ag space? It's not every day we get a brand new ERP in this market. Yeah. You know, it's great because, you know, Levridge is, one of the newest ERPs out there, but we've been around since twenty eighteen. That kinda shows the the the legacy nature of some of the ERP solutions that are out there, you know, in agriculture. But, you know, we, you know, we are. We're we're we're one of the newer ones, that are available. You know, when we go back to twenty eighteen, at the time, we really kind of look we're looking at, you know, the software industry, the ERP industry in in agriculture and and realizing that there's a lot of legacy systems, that haven't changed a lot. And, you know, being in the upper Midwest with a lot of people that have farming backgrounds, understanding how vital, you know, agriculture is, you know, there's a there's a need out there for, for the ERP of the future. Right? What's what what's going to happen in the next ten, twenty years? You know, you need to be able to have a a software solution that's the framework of your entire business that's going to scale, that's gonna be ready for the future. And that's what got us into, into the ERP for agriculture, and commodity accounting and ag sales. So that's, you know, the focus on, you know, what's in the future for our space, is priority for us and being positioned to go, into the, you know, the next generation of ERP is what drives us forward and what we find value in. Certainly. And I think both speaking for both of us, Bushel and then also Levridge being Midwestern companies, I think we've all grown up with ag in our backgrounds or maybe somebody in our family working in agriculture. And it's been awesome being able to work in a technology space like this. Alright. So with leverage, you know, you referenced some of your competitive advantages while kind of introducing yourself. But what would you say more formally or informally are some of your competitive advantages as you're hitting the market? And what are some potential customers that you're looking like as you're launching Levridge? Yeah. Yeah. So, I mean, look, let's explain a little bit about what Levridge is. So Levridge is a commodity accounting package, and we're built on top of the Microsoft Dynamics three sixty five finance and supply chain. That's really the power of what we're providing to our customers is being built on, you know, a platform that that Microsoft is building on. I mean, we're able to leverage the billions of dollars that Microsoft is is pouring into development, into their platform. And so, you know, as the commodity accounting software solution built on top of that for the future, I mean, that's that's first and foremost what the power of the platform can provide. Now, you know, we we like to connect to our customers, you know, all the time and understand, like, hey. What is it about leverage that really excites you? And overwhelmingly, when we do, customer, you know, questionnaires and whatnot, the overwhelming solution that they say is that, hey. We really like the idea that you guys are built on top of Microsoft. You know? And, you know, couple years ago, Microsoft came out and said, hey. We're gonna invest two hundred fifty million dollars in, you know, d three sixty five. Well, when you look at the competing ERPs that are out out there, I, you know, I challenge anybody to say that they're gonna, you know, invest that much into their ERP platform. So that's why we're selected Microsoft to build on top of. We're building on top of that that's already investing so many billions of millions of dollars into the platform. You know, the, you know, the other the other theme that we hear from our customers is that they really like the fact that we are out there trying to build for the future and that we're not just going to stay static in terms of what our functionality is. You know, when you when you think about power platforms, that's available in the Microsoft plat you know, a Microsoft ecosystem, like, we're intentionally trying to build solutions for our customers that, that will propel them into the future. How can they make better decisions, be more efficient with their processes, you know. And and that's that's a unique and competitive advantage that we have that we're point that we're providing to our customers. You know, our customer profile, you you mentioned that who, you know, who are our target customers. Look. Across the ag space, there are many different, like, lines of business, and we we can hit them all. Like, we we've been very successful right now in the processing space when you think about mills, ethanol producers, soy, soy processors. You know, we've got a lot of traction in there as well as grain elevators, cooperatives. You know, we've, you know, we're able to provide the solution across all of those lines of businesses across the ag industry. And and, you know, that's we're excited about the future to to be able to provide, you know, the new way of the ERP solution to, to all of those, entities. Yeah. Extensibility is huge, you know, coming from Bushel perspective. We started off really seen as the Grain app. But now, you know, you've seen us grow and we're in much more areas. So being able to have extensibility like that in a modern solution, I think is a huge competitive advantage for sure. And we just both recently launched a mutual customer together. So the first one, for the both of us, within twenty twenty five here. Why do you feel it's important for your business to integrate with Bushel? You know, it's it's great. Yes. You're right. We just in, you know, our first customer jointly together that we've got that integration is is is live, and working between Leverage and Bushel. I mean, you know, aside from the fact that, you know, Bushel is so widely used across, you know, North America, and I think it's, you know, three thousand some, facilities that Bushel is is in across United States and Canada. You know, aside from the fact that you guys are are out there and you've got a a very, you know, very strong market presence, I think for me, it's the it's the how tightly we are aligned with with ag tech, and what it means for the future of ag. Right? I mean, Bushel has done a really great job over the last, you know, eight or so years, however many years you guys have been around, you know, bringing grower facing, you know, initially, grower facing, app, that will allow, you know, customers your customers to to interface with their growers. But you guys, like you said, you've you've expanded. And you're thinking about what that means for the future. You know, I, you know, I was just listening to to Jake at NGFA give a give a discussion on the future and what AI is going to, bring to the future of a. And it's interesting because we've been talking about digital transformation, ourselves at various conferences. We have speaking engagements and trying to talk about you need to set yourself up for the digital transformation that's going to occur over the next ten or twenty years. And there's a lot of investment that's going on, in the tools that people are using outside of the ERP, and, you know, Bushel one of them. Like, there's there's a lot of investment that you guys have made, in your functionality. And it's, you know, it's something that if that's that's really powerful to be able to use those tools. But if you're not thinking about the systems that those tools are integrated into, the first and foremost being the the backbone of your business, which is the ERP system. Like, it you need to be thinking about that because, you know, in my previous life, I was the CFO of a grain elevator company, you know, fairly large regional grain elevator company. And we were looking at ERPs five, six, seven years ago and not feeling very good about, you know, all of our investments that we were making into these tools being connected to something that was a legacy system that was twenty plus years old that really hadn't been changing much. And so what does that mean for cybersecurity? What does that mean for our ability to get information, out cleanly and fast, so that we can make, you know, decisions in our business? And so we, you know, we, you know, we were looking at that and trying to to figure out what does that mean. Well, you know, that's that's where leverage comes in. Leverage comes in by being that, that solution that's positioned for the future. You know, Jake's in Jake's discussion, he he spent a lot of time, hitting a lot of the same theme themes that we had in terms of, hey, digital transformation has been happening. Think about the speed at which things have changed. You know, the last century, it was a lot slower. The last twenty years, it's a lot faster. What's the next ten years bring? You know, how does how fast do things change? And if you're not thinking about the core of your business, which is the ERP, you're going to not only miss out, but you're gonna leave yourself vulnerable. You know, I mentioned, you know, our we're on the Microsoft platform. Microsoft, a couple years ago, announced that they're gonna spend twenty billion dollars investing in cybersecurity. You know, that doesn't tell you where you should be concerned about. You know, nothing nothing Mhmm. Would you know, because that is, you know, cybersecurity, we're all aware of of all of the threats that are out there. You know. And if you do one data breach can cripple your your company, much less take it down entirely, you know. So, you know, you have to have a thought towards the future and what your your core system is going to, be able to provide in terms of, business process, business flow information, but also cybersecurity. And, and that's why I think, you know, all of those those themes are very similar to how we think about the future, and as well as what Bushel thinks about the future. And that's why we're so tightly aligned, I think, and that's why I think this partnership is so great is because we have very similar views on on what the future, you know, brings. Now, you know, we talk about AI. You know, we, you know, we don't necessarily lead with AI because AI is there's still a lot that needs to be figured out with AI. Buzzwords with AI. But there yeah. Exactly. You know, it's it's it's out there. You go to any of these conventions, there's always something that's talking about AI, whether it's AI operationally, AI, you know, in your, you know, in your systems. AI is the big buzzword right now. And, you know, on the you know, Microsoft has also made a big bet towards Copilot. Right? And and their position is that, hey. Look. We shouldn't we shouldn't be, you know, thinking about AI as something that's bad. We should be thinking about it as being a a helper in what we do, which is why they called it copilot. Right? It's not the pilot. It's helping you do your job better. And so it's exciting to think about how we can utilize that in our, you know, Levridge ERP in the in the future. And so, you know, we don't have anything right now necessarily that, that has Copilot, but but we're, you know, we're testing it. We're we're thinking about how we can use that. And that's similar to what everybody's thinking is how how do we use AI in the future. So, so I I really love the, you know, the the fact that that Bushel and Leverage are connected in this way, and, and we're very similar in how we think about what the future means. Yeah. I love how you're mentioning that AI and and other future advances. I think sometimes people can have a perception that agriculture is in the past or old technology. And as we've covered, there's certainly aspects of our industry that is. There's also aspects like, what farmers and growers use within the fields or other areas that have been clearly very advanced. And, they're using that every day. And so there's a lot of room where we can improve things. Ultimately, we want things to work. And I also love what you mentioned about cybersecurity. You know, that is it sometimes for us technology comp companies, that's something that just gets maybe a checkbox next to something. Oh, are they secure or are they under certain compliance? But there is a lot of investment that goes into making sure that we can have that check mark next to our name. And being a part of these cloud providers, you're part of Microsoft. Bushel a part of the Google Cloud. But all that, speaking of is really making sure that, hey, are we keeping up with the latest, cybersecurity and other elements? And that's a big investment from technology companies and something that I think all of our customers should really find, very comforting knowing that we take that so seriously. Yeah. Definitely. And, I mean, it's becoming more and more prevalent in in anything. You know? You go through as a former CFO, you go through, financial statement audits now. And a lot of times right now, what what what these, CPA firms are going to be doing is is an entire, like, checklist and, you know, really digging into what is your cybersecurity in your company because they they're thinking about that from from a financial risk. And so, like, you have to be CRM mean, it's everywhere. And, you know, you have to be ready to, to be able to have the the, you know, the solutions in place that provide you, you know, a a secure system. Yeah. Exactly. And we've talked about that. We have our Bushel Buddy Seat Conference each year and I believe every year we've had a topic or a session based just around security and cybersecurity. It it is a big topic. Sometimes, you know, that's not maybe the flashy stuff but it is very important. And I think you mentioned some of this already, but maybe there's some other parts that you wanna highlight. What are you thinking about the future? What does the future for Leverage look like in the next number of years or even beyond? Yeah. I mean, we're I mean, we're looking towards growth. Right? I mean, you're right off the top of the bat. We talked about how, you know, we're the brand new ERP. I mean, we're we're out there right now at the conferences. We're we're speaking about, you know, our solution and how, how we're positioned to be the solution for the future for, for the ag industry. Right? And, and so it's exciting for us because we've got a lot of we've got a lot of excitement that we're generating. A lot of, a lot of client prospects that are out there. Our our sales pipeline is strong. But what what also is interesting and and exciting is that, we've also got a lot of interest in in the other, you know, partners like Bushel, you know, that, you know, that and not necessarily competitors Bushel, but, like, partners that would are looking to integrate into, you know, into leverage, you know, as a as a way that they they understand that there's a unique opportunity here, for the future of AG ERP that there's a lot of interest, in in, you know, seeing how we can partner together. So that's exciting, for us because we know that, there's a lot of there's a lot of opportunity, in this space. It's ripe for disruption. And so we're we're looking to capitalize on that. And we, you know, we're excited about this partnership with Bushel because, you know, we're looking at how do we go to market together in terms of of, you know, highlighting the, you know, that, you know, that integration to both of our, you know, shared customers. Yeah. A lot of synergies between each other and what we're able to bring both to our mutual customers. And as a, you know, if you consider us a third party, obviously, you integrate with third parties, having that be top of mind. I cannot speak about how highly we appreciate that, in the market. You know, not every maybe not every company has thought about third parties, especially when they were maybe developed, a number of years ago. Look. I mean, when you share their commonality in terms of what your what what your focus is on the future, you end up working well together. And I can say, like, sitting through, these integration meetings between our development team and your development team, how well that that came together and how much, you know, we were able to accomplish. And and look, when you're developing integrations, you know, there's there's there's, you know, things that you, you know, there's iterations that you have to go through. But, like, I just really appreciate, the time that the Bushel team, you know, and the Levridge team spent together. And you can just tell that there is, there's a a unique and, and like mindset between the two teams in terms of what we're trying to accomplish. You know, what I really love about, about Bushel too beyond all that we've talked about is, you know, I think you guys have a mission statement or you've you've mentioned how you're trying to digitize the supply chain. Right? You're trying to get rid of paper everywhere. And that is that is something that rings true to me. It's ring true to me from the beginning of Bushel, and still does now in terms of how do you how do we take the supply chain management across, you know, you know, the entire ag industry and and get rid of paper. Right? You're doing that with scale tickets when you started right away, when you started being able to see scale tickets on your on your mobile app as a grower. And now you've you've extended that even into the payments stream with Wallet. And so those types of integrations where we try and make things a lot easier and more efficient for our shared customers, and and be able to have them provide a unique and and valuable variance for their customers, like their growers. That's something that, that I I really love and I'm excited about the future for Levridge and Bushel. Exactly. We we love to say we're trying to give you more time to do the things that bring value to your business and to your customers. And printing off a receipt or doing things like that isn't exactly the value add that we want people to be spending time doing. We want people to be able to be out there, build relationships. At the end of the day, this isn't a relationship based business and we want you to be able to spend time doing those things, not transactional record keeping. Alright. That's all I have for questions today. John, thank you so much for joining us. This was a great conversation and I'm very excited for the other mutual customers that we can start bringing our integrations to. Thanks for having me. This is great. Appreciate it.