Stock Smart: Forecasting Without a Data Scientist

Inventory problems quietly erode revenue and stamina: missed sales, tied-up cash, and burned-out teams. In this 30-minute episode we deliver a compact, actionable system—‘Stock Smart’—that combines minimal privacy-safe signals (sales cadence, supplier lead times, simple customer opt-ins, local behavioral proxies) with conservative AI heuristics and explicit human guardrails. The panel presents a step-by-step no-code path (spreadsheets + smartphone signals + Zapier-style automations) plus a lightweight-code option for curious builders. Producers get a micro case study: an independent shop pilot that trimmed stockouts by ~40% and reduced inventory days by ~12% in 30 days. Guests include an indie-founder, an ops lead, and a spreadsheet hacker; segments cover community restock co-ops and non-sales demand proxies (events, weather, loyalty nudges). Listeners leave with a 30-day pilot checklist, resource hub templates, and privacy-first rules to start this week.