Justin Abrams is a classically trained cellist, had a decade-long career in Marketing at Red Bull North America, and is the founder of Flagship, a software company that provides retail brands with a data science platform, helping them unlock millions of dollars of revenue by enriching their first-party data with machine learning algorithms.

In this conversation we talk about growing up in New York City as a musician, Justin’s studies at McGill University as a Music Major, finding his way to RedBull, interning on Wall Street, Parallels between music and business, starting a company right before the world shut down, inventory as a problem to solve in retail, and how he discovered a solution in AI.

00:00 Introduction and Early Musical Influences

01:18 Family and Musical Upbringing

02:48 Meadowmount and Musical Competitions

09:03 Deciding Between Music and Business

23:54 Red Bull and Transition to Business

29:15 Skills from Music Applied to Business

38:21 Starting a New Venture

41:17 Making Decisions Right

42:05 Bringing AI to Market

42:38 Challenges in Inventory Planning

45:54 The Role of Machine Learning49:45 Building a Successful AI Engine

53:09 Finding Product-Market Fit

01:04:35 The Importance of Networking

01:19:52 Balancing Music and Business

01:23:00 Final Thoughts and Advice