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The Crude Truth Ep. 122 Rachel Collins Live at the NAPE Expo 2025

Video Transcription edited for grammar. We disavow any errors unless they make us look better or smarter.

Rey Treviño [00:00:00] From the Nape floor. We got to figure out software and where we’re headed because guess what? It’s already 2025 and with is the future. Yesterday we talked to an expert on this episode of The Crude Truth.

Narrator [00:00:11] In 1901, at Spindletop Hill near Beaumont, the future of Texas changed dramatically as, like a fountain of fortune, thousands of barrels of oil burst from the earth towards the sky. Soon, Detroit would be cranking out Model TS by the millions, and America was on the move thanks to the black gold being produced in Texas. Now, more than a century later, the vehicles are different, but nothing else has truly changed. Sure, there may be many other alternative energy sources like wind and solar and electric, but let’s be honest, America depends on oil and entrepreneurs. And if the USA is truly going to be independent, it has to know the crude truth.

Narrator [00:00:54] This episode is brought to you by LFS Chemistry. We are committed to being good stewards of the environment. We are providing the tools so you can be to. Nape Expo, Where deals happen. Air Compressor Solutions, When everything is on the line. Air Compressor Solutions is the dependable choice to keep commercial business powered up. Sandstone Group. Exec Crue. Elevate your network. Elevate your knowledge. Texas Star Alliance. Pecos Country Operating, Fueling our future.

Rey Treviño [00:01:28] Oh my gosh, we are just here. Live at Nape. Just having a blessing of a time. What a show it’s been so far. And sitting next to me now is just another phenomenal trailblazing guest. Rachel Collins with W Energy. Rachel, how are you?

Rachel Collins [00:01:44] I’m doing great. Thank you so much for inviting me to join you today.

Rey Treviño [00:01:47] My gosh, it was like pulling teeth. But I said, I promise I’ll try and I’ll try to do a good job.

Rachel Collins [00:01:51] Stop it.

Rey Treviño [00:01:52] And I tell you what, thank you. And thank you for the time, because you have been blowing me going for the last few months. Y’all are really trying to get reintroduced if I’m correct, the up street side of things. Because y’all been doing midstream. Like not doing it. I’m sorry. Succeeding on the midstream side of things.

Rachel Collins [00:02:09] That’s where we started. So 15 years ago we started in midstream. We have plant accounting and we have natural gas transportation solutions. And then, you know, about six years ago we said let’s let’s serve upstream and very different industry, right? A very different segment. And so we have been working hard to adapt our all of our capabilities. But more importantly, when you have a solution that’s 14 years old, even though it was born in the cloud, there’s some modernization that needs to happen. So over the last two and a half years, we have invested tens of millions of dollars into our software to serve upstream, and we’re really excited that we’re showcasing it here at Nape. This year, I started as an engineer, and I told our team, let’s not do the hype marketing and announce it before it’s real, But we’ve spent the time integrating all of our core capabilities and we have it. So everyone says they have an integrated platform. I don’t know if that’s always the truth, but we do and we can show it now. So we’ve spent time integrating accounting, production, land and field services, and it’s a real thing now. And that’s called Stream Plus.

Rey Treviño [00:03:12] Wow stream plus.

Rachel Collins [00:03:13] Stream plus.

Rey Treviño [00:03:14] You know, you just knocked out every single part of the upstream side on the accounting firm. You know, I don’t know if you know this or not, but that’s technically how as a family, we got into oil and gas.

Rachel Collins [00:03:25] I did not know that.

Rey Treviño [00:03:26] Yes, ma’am. So my dad. And if you stand right here and people have heard me say this, he’s a computer nerd by trade. Software engineer.

Rachel Collins [00:03:32] So am I.

Rey Treviño [00:03:32] And you know his real quick. He very gung ho guy. And 1969 trying to go overseas and go do that whole Vietnam thing. And his mom and dad were like, nope, we’re going to give shove you off to college. And it was number one on an aptitude test that he took in high school. It was like computer programing. They shipped them to school, but I don’t know what happened. Next thing I knew, I was in at Kansas and I was in school for the next several years, and he came back home. And so he started writing different kinds of software. And then in the mid 80s, he started writing custom accounting software for several of the oil and gas employees before. Okay. And so that’s how he got his whole idea of it. And now the tax benefits of it. So when I mentioned earlier about you get another call with Casey, I really need one with those two together because he knows all the right questions to ask. And we’re used to like, oh, there’s a problem with that. Let’s get in the back code to get it fixed and be able to, you know, do everything because it’s like we’re able to count from how many barrels of oil to cutting out revenue checks and royalty checks and jibs and all of that stuff. So I’m very excited. And that’s kind of how we got into the industry. So yeah.

Rachel Collins [00:04:37] Well, I love to hear that. I also, like your father went to school and had a computer science background, came to Houston right out of college, worked at Tenneco Energy, which is now Kinder Morgan.

Rey Treviño [00:04:49] Yes.

Rachel Collins [00:04:49] And started in midstream, but building technology ever since I had since 1996, and I’ve been at it for a long time. And it’s fun. And there’s there are always problems to solve. There are always things that we can do better, be more efficient. And so that’s what we’ve been focusing on. Pretty cool. And then, of course, your good friend here, Michael Tanner. Yes. I’ve been very involved in all of our data solutions. So one of the challenges that upstream has is siloed data. Yeah. You know, Field Services doesn’t know what’s going on with land management. And now it can because we’ve integrated all of those capabilities. And we have a single source of truth now. Yeah. And so I know he’s a big advocate because it’s real. Yeah. And we’re creating a lot of dashboards and reports and giving access to the C suite to see, you know, to have purview across their entire business. Right. And I think that’s really important.

Rey Treviño [00:05:37] You know, I love the fact that you’re like, hey, you’ve been doing this, you know, and you know, what’s going on. And I was just talking to I did another interview with the two wonderful ladies at Flipping the Barrel, and they’re focusing this year in 2025 on technology and things like that. And it’s like oil and gas has always been at the forefront of of technology. You know, I mentioned how these oil and gas family offices brought their technology into the PC was created in 78 somewhere in there. And all of a sudden, you know, the oil and gas companies had these personal computers, right? Single person in the office, which changed the game. And we’re always trying to find the best stuff out there. And that’s what you all are doing and, you know, doing the R&D to do it.

Rachel Collins [00:06:14] We are and you know, we we don’t see everyone doing that. I mean, just like in upstream, you’ve had a lot of the consolidation. We’re seeing that with some of our solutions and services providers. And what that can do is take your eye off why you exist, which is your customer. Right. And so we’ve been very deliberate to ensure that you always keep the customer front and center. And, you know, we’ve actually deemed this year the year of the customer okay. So we have a rally cry every year. And that’s ours this year. And just focusing on solving those challenges and not getting distracted by other, you know, things going on around us. And so I think I’m most proud of the team investing in the technology to futureproof our, our customers. It’s, you know, I mean, you always have software that’s getting old and you have to keep it up, you know, just like your home, right? You have to keep going. And we see a lot of people that don’t do that because they’re focused on other things. And we think that we’re we’re still focused on our core. And the most important thing, which is customers.

Rey Treviño [00:07:09] Well, I like how you’re calling it the you’re the customers. In fact, this week I think I’ve been doing I’m going to use the word sales blitz. But your sales training, you’ve been focusing a lot on your sales team this year or this this week and and throughout the year. And you’ll had a good friend of mine come in and do some rebuilding JP Morgan. Right.

Rachel Collins [00:07:26] That’s right. Yeah.

Rey Treviño [00:07:27] Oh my gosh. You know, what is it about which all we’re doing this week that really kind of go out and I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to catch you.

Rachel Collins [00:07:32] Well no no no, he he did a great job in just getting our team in the right mindset to get back out there and and sell like crazy and really to think about how we position our software, how we talk about it in terms of customer benefits and how we solve those problems. And he also just got them hyped around getting in the right mindset and the Superman pose. And there were just a lot of fun things that I got great feedback from the team. They said it was so much fun. And so we did a lot this week. You’re right, we brought people in from India just to experience Nate. We had all of our sales team calm. We have our marketing teams and now we have Nape. So I think we’re going to be sleeping well this weekend. But it’s been fun.

Rey Treviño [00:08:11] But you know but you guys are here with a technology and it’s really you know I’ve had a chance to look at it. And I guess the term is play with a little bit. And it’s really the dashboard is great and everything about it because, you know here we were talking about just real brief about sales, but it’s really about the quality and about the work behind it. Is it. And that’s that’s why I’m so glad you’re on because, you know, that’s what this is about. It’s like, let’s talk about all the work and what all these great benefits are and why it is that you all spent so much time keeping it in the background, just waiting to literally launch it today because y’all have one heck of a booth and you know you’ve got demos going on it. Just awesome with.

Rachel Collins [00:08:48] This morning we had already 40 demos that had happened. So it’s pretty remarkable. I mean, that says something. You don’t need to talk about it beyond that. I mean, it shows well because it’s good. It’s high quality and it’s modern. And I think the key that we hear too, is that people are short staffed and so they don’t have the time to have clunky workflow. It needs to be intuitive and easy, and we need to free up their time. And so we’ve been really focused on making sure that we’re doing that.

Rey Treviño [00:09:14] You know, that is so true. And I like that word clunky workflow. And being an operator, that’s a good way to describe, I think a way a lot of the independents may still work. You know, I don’t mean that badly. And because of the independent oil and gas operator, you know, we produce 50% of the oil there is. So we’re very important. And every single one of them out there is. But I liked what you just said. So because I do know with, you know, with software, it doesn’t always go as smooth as possible. And if we can have ways of where to be more efficient, like the way y’all created it, it saves time.

Rachel Collins [00:09:45] Well, and it’s affordable. I think that’s also something that we’ve focused on is that we started in middle market. We went up market. And you know, it was our price point was a little bit high as you go down market. But those are the those are the people we want to serve. And so we’ve been really focused on how do we make this more economical so that we can gain market share. And that’s been a big push for us as well. And it’s one of the reasons we announced that we are our new standard is private Cloud. So you know everybody talks about public cloud and the big players there. But it’s gotten just extremely expensive. It doesn’t deliver on the promises that it was meant to. And so we have gone full blown private cloud, which takes our costs down by 70% so that we can actually provide to smaller operators.

Rey Treviño [00:10:29] Wow. You know, let’s talk about the cloud for a second, because you mentioned Michael Tanner and getting to work with him. He showed me a little bit more on what the cloud is as a network. And you know, is it really safe and and how is it that you guys are creating a way to where even the baby boomers and the, you know, not Gen Z, but Gen Z, we can really understand because the cloud is up there and it’s like, you know, right. But you guys are making it safe, secure and efficient. You know, what do y’all see when y’all do that?

Rachel Collins [00:10:58] Well, I mean, you’re spot on. And I don’t think that people you shouldn’t have to think about the cloud. It’s just infrastructure. Right. That’s what it is. It’s bare metal infrastructure. And so but we need to make sure there is a confidence that people have. When you say the big names like the Microsofts of the world and the AWS. And so that gives a sense of comfort that they’re more secure. But that’s not necessarily true. And so we have private partners, private cloud where we have more control, it’s more economical and it’s more secure. And we go through a very rigid process every year. An audit that’s called Soc2 type two. And that just proves that I mean, it’s essentially proving that we’re secure. And so we have all of that available for customers that might be hesitant about the cloud. And we can share that and gain the confidence there.

Rey Treviño [00:11:44] Wow. Yeah. Because like the cloud I’ve always you think it’s it’s just up there. Yeah. And it’s like how do you do that.

Rachel Collins [00:11:49] It’s just it’s just a bunch of servers and you shouldn’t have to think about that.

Rey Treviño [00:11:52] Yeah.

Rachel Collins [00:11:53] You know.

Rey Treviño [00:11:53] Because again, you know, I know when you talk about the independence of things, you know, they had a server, you know, it was like physically and somewhere, and it was like, that’s where everything went. And if that thing went down, you are Sol.

Rachel Collins [00:12:04] It’s not that different. I mean, it’s just a larger scale, Right. Right. And so and it’s just something that’s become such a commodity that it should just work. Yeah. And, you know, whether it’s in the cloud or not, but we we were born in the cloud, meaning that a lot of solutions. When I started my career in 1996, they were client server. It was on prem. When you try to take something like that, that’s designed for being on premise with the customer and put it in the cloud, it doesn’t operate the same way that if you build it to be optimized in the cloud. And so that is one benefit that we built our solution so that we take advantage of all the things that cloud has to offer. And we’re optimized in the cloud.

Rey Treviño [00:12:42] You know another thing you know y’all y’all got y’all started on the midstream side. And now y’all are upstream. You know, can you tell me the differences that you’ve seen. Like where are there any surprises when trying to go in from the midstream to the upstream side.

Rachel Collins [00:12:53] Huge huge difference. I mean, you know, I thought I actually spent a lot of my career in midstream and downstream. I came from retail petroleum and I thought, oh, this’ll this won’t be too much different. It’s completely different. And I would say it’s it’s very complex. For instance, depending on where you operate, I mean, you know, you you could be on an Indian reservation and have thousands and thousands of small fractional owners at a well versus if you’re in Permian regulatory, you know, compliance is completely different. The reporting that you need is completely different. So I think what we’ve discovered is in midstream it was more regulated in upstream. It’s a little bit of the Wild West. Yeah. And so there’s some complexity that we had to understand. But we’ve been we’ve been at it for 6 or 7 years in upstream. And I think we get it. Yeah. We have our arms around it. And now it’s taking that complexity and making it not complex. Meaning if you operate in Permian, you shouldn’t have to see all the things if it’s an operator was an Appalachian basin. Right, right, right. We used to have all of that available to everyone. We’ve been making features toggle like you can toggle things on and off or I don’t want to see that screen because I don’t use it because I don’t operate there. Yeah. So just simplifying so that even though you’re dealing with a ton of complexity, it doesn’t feel that way.

Rey Treviño [00:14:07] Wow. Wow. I’m so glad to hear you. You know, talk about the regulations and like, you talk about these Indian reservations, I mean, and how many people get paid, like, first of all, so many people benefit from oil and gas, but then the amount of regulations and really rules that you followed it to keep everything right, especially as an operator or an MP company, is so important. And that’s why software like yours is literally so important because it comes down to the pennies and cents.

Rachel Collins [00:14:35] It does. And we know that there are strict deadlines that your owners need their checks cut. I mean, we are a financial accounting solution. Yeah. Our users use our software to close their financial books every month. And so we have to help these accountants get things done and in a timely fashion. Or there are penalties. Yep. And so we deal with that. We know how critically important it is. And we know that speed and urgency is extremely important and our team knows it.

Rey Treviño [00:15:01] I mean, it’s just that you’re you’re you’re preaching. It’s like, you know, and because it is so important, the turnaround time, the speed is always important in what we’re doing. Oh my gosh.

Rachel Collins [00:15:11] Yeah. I mean there’s always a sense of urgency. And you know, some of our team I think what I am very proud of at you and privileged to work with these people is that they’ve been in the industry their entire career. I mean, you know, that we have people who started as land men and women, but so that’s exciting that we know the industry and we have that expertise. And so we can really build software that makes sense, that matters. Not only that, we have people that have been with the business for 15 years. Some of our team has never had a job outside of. And that’s important because you’ve got that continuity of knowledge and that domain knowledge. And I think to just we have good people. They care. They care about our customers.

Rey Treviño [00:15:47] You have an excellent team. And y’all do have a new office, which is excellent, by the way.

Rachel Collins [00:15:52] Nice.

Rey Treviño [00:15:52] It’s very nice.

Rachel Collins [00:15:53] Yeah, we’re proud of that because, you know, this is where our customers are. 70% of our customers are based in Texas. And so although we were founded in Tulsa, it just made sense for us to have our HQ here in the Houston area. And so we waited to be in the in vogue area of City Center. We wanted it there. And so the good news is we’re open and ready for business.

Rey Treviño [00:16:13] Are you going to try to get your whole team out this way, or are key people moving or remote and things like that?

Rachel Collins [00:16:19] We let Them. We let them stay remote. We’ve got about 25% of our team here in Houston, but 50% of the teams in India. So, you know, we’ll relocate people if they want to, but we’re pretty flexible. I would say our office is a collaboration center. I don’t require that people come in during these hours, but I will say there’s nothing like, you know, personal interaction,

Rey Treviño [00:16:37] Right. And if I may, y’all have a wall there at y’all’s office, and if I can try to get a picture of it, I will. But it’s like you all like, can’t do all and it’s got all these positive sayings on it. And. Yeah. And that’s awesome.

Rachel Collins [00:16:49] Well, we actually we talked about our culture and how important it is. Everybody says it’s important, but we really believe that it’s it’s extremely important. And so we there’s a book called begin With we and it talks about just ten basic principles. And the number one is we do the right thing always. Yeah, we pay attention to details because details matter. We lift each other up, we acknowledge our mistakes. So there are a lot of things that we’ve built our culture around. And we have a wall that all of those ways are highlighted. Yes. Center for us. Remember, Anderson? Bright and orange.

Rey Treviño [00:17:20] Yeah. It is. Yeah. No, it’s it’s great. You know Rachel, for those out there that are looking for that updated software that that need to get that personal software, you know, how can they reach out to W energy?

Rachel Collins [00:17:32] Take a look at our website. It’s w energy software.com. And we have someone monitoring live chat so you can ask questions get a demo set up. We have all of our leadership team on the website. You can reach out to any of us directly. We’re still a small team. Small company. Talk to our customers, all of us. Which is nice. And so yeah, we’re all available. Oh, I got to share more about that. That’s our favorite topic.

Rey Treviño [00:17:54] To talk about. Yeah, I can’t imagine I love it, but you know, I, I will say this, I think what you all have going, I think it’s going to be very cool to watch it over the next couple of years, I think. I think it’s going to get a little bigger.

Rachel Collins [00:18:05] I think you’re spot on.

Rey Treviño [00:18:06] I think it’s going, but that’s, you know, that’s and that, that, that, you know, that that’s an off topic off air. But I really do think so.

Rachel Collins [00:18:12] Yeah I agree. And we’ve got some big plans that some really supportive investors.

Rey Treviño [00:18:17] Anything you want to drop.

Rachel Collins [00:18:18] Not yet.

Rey Treviño [00:18:19] Okay. Sure.

Rachel Collins [00:18:19] Maybe not this week, but.

Rey Treviño [00:18:21] So you’re not running for office yet?

Rachel Collins [00:18:22] Not yet.

Rey Treviño [00:18:23] Okay.

Rachel Collins [00:18:23] But maybe in a couple months we’ll have some big things to share. I will tell you, I’m announcing some new partnerships and we have a new midstream partner. We’re taking on measurement. Oh, so one player and measurement.

Rey Treviño [00:18:36] Oh my God.

Rachel Collins [00:18:37] So we’ve got some solutions there and more to come.

Rey Treviño [00:18:40] Okay. And also I want to get you out to the field at some point. You come out of the office. We’ll get it done. We’ll get it done.

Rachel Collins [00:18:46] I’m going to. Hold you to that.

Rey Treviño [00:18:47] Yes, ma’am. Especially with y’all all here in the Houston area. We’ll find it.

Rachel Collins [00:18:49] Oh, yeah.

Rey Treviño [00:18:50] We’ll make the time. Well, Miss Collins, I cannot thank you enough just what you’re doing. We could talk about so many other things. You are the CEO of a heck of a company and a man down. Oh. That’s right. Keep it up. You’re the best. And I’m good. We’re gonna have to have you back. I want to have you actually at my studios in Dallas. I think that’s what we need to do. Studios in Dallas, and we’ll go out to the field.

Rachel Collins [00:19:10] I’d love to. And anytime you’re here in Houston, just consider the W office your home.

Rey Treviño [00:19:14] Deal.

Rachel Collins [00:19:15] Okay.

Rey Treviño [00:19:15] All right. Well, again, need up to date accounting software. Technology. You. The cloud is a friendly place. Rachel Collins and energy got you covered. I thank you as always, and we’ll talk to you again on the crude truth.

Narrator [00:19:28] Again. The crude truth. Would like to thank today’s sponsors, LFS Chemistry, Nape Expo, Air Compressor Solutions, Sandstone Group, Exec Crue, Texas Star Alliance, Pecos Country Operating and Real News Communication Network.

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