If there is one thing that is certain it is that, as you grow your roastery, you become pulled in a thousand different directions. The need to maintain the operation, drive sales, maintain relationships, improve  quality, etc becomes overwhelming to the point where you are not sure if growing is a blessing or a curse. Luckily for use, as the industry of roasting continues to expand too too do the resources we have at our disposal to help us beat overwhelm and recapture time and energy. In this category RoastTools is leading the charge to help you streamline, optimize, prioritize and focus on the right things for your roastery to truly thrive,  Today we are going to be talking with the founder of Roaster tools Jon Ewald.  As the founder of the award-winning sales and operations software platform for coffee roasters, RoasterTools, Jon Ewalt spends his days strategizing, coding and talking with coffee roasters on how they can get more coffee out the door. Jon isn’t just another developer who got the coffee bug; he spent eight years building a successful roastery with his wife in the tiny community of Bayfield, Wisconsin, where he developed systems that helped his small team roast, package and deliver thousands of pounds of coffee per week.  They sold that business to focus on building (software) tools that help the roasting community achieve that same level of success.  Jon is passionate about helping others avoid the mistakes he made, and freeing up founders to spend more time with the things that drive real change in their businesses: their team, their customers and the coffee itself. In today's conversation we will be covering: Entrepreneurship and Improving operations Developing systems and inventing RoasterTools Solution to burn out Scaling through automation and delegation Clarifying your identity and focus Current shifts in the industry How Roaster Tools helps roasters Managing Sales channels  Curse of over optimization Episodes to listen to next: 217 : Should you roast your own Coffee w/ Joe Marrocco of List & Beisler 270 : A Conversation w/ Mark Michaelson of Michaelson Consulting! 152 : Essential Advice for Starting a Roastery w/ Jen Apodaca RoR #1: A Conversation w/ Anne Cooper of Equilibrium Master Roasters   Visit our sponsors! www.prima-coffee.com/keys www.pacficfoodservice.com www.coffeefest.com