We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Brian Aderer a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Brian, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
For me, it was testing myself, failing a lot, and persisting. I spent a good chunk of my early life learning how to “do” various things, but when I started coding I realized that I was “learning how to learn”. In other words, I was developing a high level, iterative process by which to acquire and hone a skill set. No matter whether it was a sport, a language, or art, I started to recognize the similarities in the learning process. As I grew in different disciplines, I was able to recognize patterns based on past experiences that made new challenges more attainable, even when the various areas have little in common.
Coding in particular took a lot of patience and determination. My process was to choose something, usually a website or feature I wanted to build, and to keep at it until I mastered it. I decided early on that there were two possible outcomes to any problem – either it would beat me or I would beat it. And I knew that it could only beat me if I backed down. The process became recursively affirmational, and helped me to develop a well of confidence and self-reliance that I still draw on today when I’m challenged. Sometimes when I’m overwhelmed I go back to that place of “is it going to beat me, or am I going to beat it?” And then I remember all the times I’ve beat it, and I reaffirm that one way or another I’m going to do it again this time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?
I’ve been working on BevNote for about a decade and I’m very proud of it! We believe that we will significantly enhance day to day efficiency and productivity for beverage industry professionals.
What is now BevNote has evolved over the years—its first iteration, “SommBook,” was conceptualized circa 2013 after working as a newbie sommelier in New York and realizing the “Digital Services for Beverage Professionals” space was completely unoccupied. I connected with an entrepreneur interested in entering the wine space, developed a deck and a business plan, and raised some VC interest…but sadly, the project died on the vine (so to speak!). We needed a Proof of Concept to get funded, and we needed funding to make a Proof of Concept.
At the time, building the interactive data stack needed to support an app like that was out of my reach. But, as I researched the kinds of tools I would need to build this product, I grew more and more interested in coding. Fast forward to 2023, I had career-transitioned to being a full-time full-stack web developer with the tools needed to resurrect the app.
I partnered with my long-time friend and fellow sommelier Josh Kelly, whose ideas opened up the way I was thinking about the project. Since working together, the idea has become a product that’s the first of its kind—one of those tools that you never realized how much you needed til you found it. One of Josh’s first contributions was to rebrand the app BevNote and we were off and running.
The app’s goal is to be the go-to digital hub for beverage professionals, helping them manage information and communication to make their everyday tasks easier and their days more productive. At one point we realized that the product really had to be native mobile based, so for the past 14 months I’ve been working on iOS and Android apps and the server necessary to support them. We expect to have a full launch in Q3 2025.
Since our core deliverable to our clients is really task streamlining, we realized that our whole project could sink or swim on User Experience and Design. We needed a polished, smooth, intuitive experience end to end so that people can pick up our product and think ‘wow, it just feels natural’. To that end, we recently brought on exceptional Design and UX expert Andrew DeRosa. We’re all truly excited both about the product which we have now and its planned growth trajectory. We look forward to sharing it with our beverage industry peers soon!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
- Don’t give up
- Don’t give up
- Definitely, definitely, definitely don’t give up
In all seriousness, that’s what I tell people who say “wow, I think coding is really hard, I could never do that”.. Not everyone is meant to be a coder, but everyone is meant to be something. So find that thing that you are meant for, and just don’t give up on it. I tried a whole bunch of things before I got here, and I think the key was don’t stop trying. Not everything you try is going to work, most things in fact probably won’t, and you may wind up switching entire careers, more than once, like I did. Particularly with those early ventures the learning is more important than the product. Nowadays when I select a project I look for things for which I know that even if the venture falls flat on its face I will be happy for what I accomplished in the doing of it, and I will learn skills that I will be able to carry into the next project. Take what worked and build upon it, and take what didn’t work and learn from it.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
Growing up I had pretty severe ADD. But the more people explained to me what it was, the more I couldn’t figure out why it was a problem. It sounded to me like my brain just worked faster than most peoples’ – and while that definitely presents challenges in some situations, it also presents a lot of advantages. I hated the way I felt on the meds I was prescribed, so my junior year in high school I stopped taking them for good. I decided that for better or for worse I was going to play to my strengths and progressively mitigate my weaknesses.
One of the defining characteristics of ADD is what does or doesn’t hold your attention. If something doesn’t interest me it’s nearly impossible for me to give it mental energy – but conversely, with things I’m interested in there’s an ADD characteristic called hyperfocus in which you get into the zone for long periods of time and you can be extraordinarily productive. For me, coding trips that hyperfocus gear pretty frequently, so it’s a good fit for me.
So, ultimately, I think the key to improving and developing into a successful, strong person is working with both strengths and weaknesses. The first key would be possessing the self-awareness to know at any given time, in any given situation, what your strengths and weaknesses are. In the short term, of course you want to play to your strengths and downplay your weaknesses. But I think in the longer term, having identified your weaknesses, I think it’s really important to challenge yourself to turn them into strengths.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://brianaderer.com
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/profile/in/brian-aderer-06635b135
so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
