Jeremy Julian
Jeremy Julian
restaurant, people, processes, operators, shifts, duolingo, talk, learning, tool, austria, game, restaurant industry, product, business, problem, europe, employees, solution, point, kitchen
Daniil (73%), Jeremy (26%), Intro (1%)
I
Intro
0:02
This is the restaurant technology guys podcast, helping you run your restaurant better.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
0:13
Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. We appreciate you guys joining. As I say at the onset of each of these, I know you guys have lots of choices as to where to spend your time and where to spend your energy. So we appreciate you guys coming in hanging out with us. Each and every week when we post one of these podcasts. It’s been fun to get to talk to different restaurant tours, as well as different restaurant technologists. And today, we are talking restaurant tech, with founder and CEO of spoon dot tech to Neil Neil, why don’t you introduce yourself to the audience. And then we’ll talk a little bit about what you guys are doing to help restaurants on on the technology side.
DK
Daniil Klubov
0:49
Sure. Hi. Hi, Jeremy. Thanks for having me. Hi, everyone. So I’m Neil. I’m based in Vienna, Austria. And I plunged into the restaurant business around three years ago, when, after leaving McKinsey, so I was at McKinsey and Company working as a strategy consultant there. After leaving McKinsey, I decided to pursue my passion and try try hospitality. And me and my, my co founder, we launched we started this, this restaurant concept called Tolstoi, which is, which we call the tech driven restaurant franchise, right. So basically, we decided to build a restaurant, which is digitized through and through. And basically, in that way, being a fully transparent for us a minute as manager, so because it’s, it’s mainly from the audience probably know, a lot of things. A lot of problems in the restaurant industry come from the fact that oftentimes, you don’t see things as they happening in real time, right. And so and so. So our idea was, Okay, we’re gonna create a restaurant concept and create the restaurant and a franchise, where every step of the value creation, every step of the of the value chain is kind of visually recorded from, you know, talking about from, you know, self service kiosk to what to go into the kitchen to inventory management, and so on. And that’s how we started. And we opened our first restaurant in Vienna city center two and a half years ago. And we have been very successful with it. Right. So so it’s a small, it’s a small place, it’s around 25 seats, and we managed to generate 710,000 euros last year. In revenue. Yeah. So it’s doing very well. But yes, we’ve been, you know, sort of working through it and managing the restaurant, we discovered more and more about both how it operates, right. And we basically recognized and found out for ourselves that the main problem in running a restaurant, at least for us, and this was confirmed by other restaurant operators with octo. The main problem was people write, how do you manage people? How do you make sure people know what they’re doing? How do you make sure that people want to do what you want them to do? And how do you make sure you retain people? Right? How do you make sure people don’t leave you? So so that was a big revelation for us coming sort of from outside into the restaurant industry, me coming from consulting and my friend coming from software development, and that’s how we came to what we do now.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
3:51
Wonderful, I’m gonna I’m gonna make a statement that I think everybody that listens knows, when you’re outside the restaurant, and all you are is a consumer, it seems so simple, oh, they just made some, they make some food and they, they serve it to people. But at the end of the day, you’ve learned over the last two and a half years. And so I’m gonna dig in just a bit on your passion before I jump into the tech side of things and kind of what you guys are doing untold story. But have you always been one of those people that that wanted to open up a restaurant? You know, talk to me, you said you said you were following your passion after you left McKinsey. Yeah. And I think I’d love to, I’d love to dig in a little bit to that so that our audience can get to know a little bit more about you. So yeah,
DK
Daniil Klubov
4:30
it’s very it’s very untraditional story in non traditional trajectory, I would say. So, the essence of the matter was that you know, how it is not like the restaurant industry is not considered as a as a as something you know, for an employee, something to strive for. Like I work in the restaurant industry. It’s not in many families. It’s not considered recent, like respectable Yeah, you go, you go Low oil, you become a doctor, but you don’t go work in the restaurant. Yeah. I mean, it’s
JJ
Jeremy Julian
5:04
where you end up for a lot of people, unless it’s a family business, some where you end up, you can’t get a job as a doctor, you can’t get a job as a lawyer, you can’t finish school engineering or whatever, until you go to the restaurant. So you
DK
Daniil Klubov
5:15
drop out of university, whatever. And so I come from, I come from a family who is very driven and who is very ambitious and, and, you know, in my family was always, oh, you know, you need to be in the best university, you need to do the best internships and you need to do all of this kind of things, which are considered respectable. And that’s, that’s sort of what I was doing for the longest time. And, and that’s how I ended up in McKinsey, essentially, in the end, they spent their four years and I love the door. So it was, it was really good experience. But, but at some point, I said, Look, I really, I was always since I was a child, I was always fascinated by the by hospitality, I was always fascinated by restaurant industry, I really want to try it, I really want to because if If not now, then then when you know, it’s the opportunity cost at some point become too big. And you just don’t want to, you know, leave everything and just go to the somewhere to start something. So, so and I decided, Okay, I’m going to do it. And first thing I’ve done, actually, I went to work, I went to work in the restaurant. So I went to work in a high end restaurant, as a as like a kitchen help first for several months. And, you know, I was peeling potatoes and washing the dishes and all that and eventually started to make more complex things, like prep. And then and then after that, so I’ve spent several months and in my, my desire to go into restaurant business got confirmed by that experience, because I honestly loved it, I loved manual work, I liked the whole team spirit, you know, it was very different from what I experienced before. In my normal office job or consulting job, right. And then after that experience, I went to work for them for fast food place also in the kitchen, it’s called dollar pizza is is actually is actually is a very innovative franchising company, which is based on, on this whole idea of digital, you know, digital business. And that’s where I sort of, that’s where the whole idea of my business crystallized. And then I launched Tolstoy
JJ
Jeremy Julian
7:25
love it, I love it, thank you for that backstory, it’s, it’s great. I, I always enjoy it. And there’s a neighbor, friend of mine who works for a big bank here in the US. But he used to be in the restaurants and I, he and I talked about her, I’m gonna send our kids to go work in restaurants, because even if they don’t end up in restaurants, there’s a level of of grit and determination and hard work that that you have to go through. When you’re having to serve the public and you’re having to make food to your point work with your hands that I think, I don’t know, at least in the US. There’s there’s children don’t get that. And I personally grew up working in restaurants from, you know, the age of 15, through college, and then and then ultimately started in restaurant technology. So So you talk about kind of the backstory, where did you come from talk to me a little bit about, you know, what you guys are doing with with your product, you know, that you want to get the word out? And you know, it sounds like you had a real good reason for that. But But talk to me a little bit about what are you trying to do? What are you trying to solve for, you know, you talked about needing employees, employees being, you know, part of the solution to running the restaurant, but you guys have come up with some different ideas because of that digital first mentality and the fact that your co founder is such a techie. Yeah.
DK
Daniil Klubov
8:36
Yeah, essentially, you know, going back to the basics, sort of, when we realized, okay, you can, you can create as many tools as you want in the restaurant, and it makes money digital tools, and as many buttons as you want. And, and, you know, I think about optimization and automation and all of that, but, but essentially, if your employees do not understand why they need to do something, or they do not want to do something, then nothing’s gonna work, ya know, like, you know, when we, when we started into, into this business, I’ve created all this, all this, you know, fancy processes, and you know, very McKinsey mindset, like optimization and numbers. And, and after we opened, I quickly realized, okay, the most important thing is people, the most important thing is, and that’s and that’s when, and that’s when this whole idea started to crystallize slowly over time, where, you know, in the restaurant industry, especially during COVID, we opened in fall 2020. In Europe, it was, you know, second lockdown sitting is prohibited. And and what happened is that a lot of people who’ve been working in the restaurants they decided to change profession. Yeah, because it was, was very hard. It was you know, you had to wear a mask in In the kitchen, you had to test every day. And so it was horrible. Yeah, it was absolutely horrible. And so a lot of people, change professions. And we got a real problem, we got a real staffing problem because people were leaving. I mean, volatility is always a problem in the hospitality. But with COVID, it became even bigger people were living in new people who were coming. They were didn’t have any experience. You know, usually because we didn’t couldn’t have any other people. And, and obviously, because of that, the, you know, the quality went down, the cost went up. The frustration went up in the team, because how, you know, can you teach these people? Yeah. And that’s, and that’s, that’s when that’s when we said, aha, you know, then when they had this aha moment, okay, you know, we are struggling with this, everyone is struggling with this. So maybe we can do something about it. It is a ha moment came from the realization that okay, we, you know, we wrote down all this, this processes, you know, we will have this Word documents, endless protocols and rules, and hygiene rules and many rules and closing and opening. And, of course, we have all these documents, and, and of course, no one reads them. Yeah. It’s a dormant knowledge. Yeah, we will know it. We’ve compiled it, but it’s dormant, it’s just there. filed away. And then, and then we talked to too many people around us too many restaurant operators around us, and that they had exactly the same problem. And to add to this as a problem, okay, so you have all these things, right? And what happens when you change things? Yeah. How do you, you know,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
11:43
how do you keep people informed? Yep, exactly.
DK
Daniil Klubov
11:46
Yeah. So you usually do what you send a message of a messenger, right? And like, have people read it have people don’t read it? You’re not right anymore. You don’t write an email, and you call but if you have five restaurants and 100 people working for you, who do you call, right? CO managers, but they’re not always on the same shifts with everybody. So it’s very, it’s very difficult. And, and these things, I mean, it’s, it’s silly, but I’m sure every restaurant operator will know. I mean, I’ll give you an example. In our restaurant and toaster, we had, we have this winter specials, right? So it’s just a winter drinks was like turmeric, a lot like fancy hipster drinks for the season. And then, and then say, six, it’s six of them. And we introduced them in October, November last year. And then just a couple of weeks ago. I’m reading in our messenger, that, hey, you know, are we you know, are we supposed to add coffee into turmeric latte or no? And then there’s a whole discussion. Oh, no, you’re not supposed to add you’re supposed to edit. And then even though all the processes are, you know, written there on the wall and dissected, but someone thought these are all processes, someone saw this whole new process that was a complete confusion, even though it’s a process, which relatively established, so yeah, so. So it’s just just an example, which I think a lot of people will recognize in terms of how difficult it is to establish processes, define process define rules. And then to make sure everyone knows them. Everyone knows what they’re doing. At all times. Yeah. Because essentially, oftentimes, it’s also it’s like a game of Chinese whispers or a game of telephone, you thing. And then on the end of the line is another thing. So yeah, so this is a big problem. It’s a big overarching problem, which we are, which we’re trying to solve.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
13:44
Yeah, no. And so, I mean, there’s so many different applications. It reminds me actually of the application that we wrote, as a business and many of our longtime listeners know, we wrote a product called recipe viewer, and it’s really a digital recipe book, because not a whole lot different than then your same story there. We put it in the kitchen, that you said they used to train rememorize the the recipe when it was on a paper book, because it was too hard. And I love the idea. You know, when again, when we were talking pre show about kind of the gamification, the other application that I know is a big deal is food safety. You know, if you don’t do the proper procedures, and you’ve got some issue, whether it’s co contamination of you know, beef and chicken or, or you’ve got just, you know, if you don’t follow the process, you can actually hurt somebody. And so, talk to me a little bit about how you guys delivered on that, you know, I love the story and I fully am embracing it and I know following the process and getting everybody on board is a very challenging task. And you guys are you know, are embarking on a journey to try and solve that.
DK
Daniil Klubov
14:50
Exactly. So So, there are several elements to this. So we you know, we tested different hypothesis and we said okay, so what, how do you So how do you make sure everyone knows what they’re doing? And you transform all this dormant knowledge to something active that people’s peoples have all the time? And essentially, there are two, there are two pieces to this to this solution. One is that we think that the knowledge needs to be needs to be continuous. So learning needs to be continuous. And then the second one is that the learning needs to be gamified. Yeah, there’s sort of two things. Yeah. And then you have, you have, essentially, you have essentially two questions. Okay. So what, you know, if the, if the learning is continuous and gamified? How do you? How do you do that? Yeah. So So essentially, how do you? How do you achieve that? And if you think about this, what we’re trying to do, and what we’re now rolling out, we basically, we basically now, in Austria, we’re rolling out our solution at the pilot clients, what we’re trying to do if if I can consent, say shortly, it’s sort of a Duolingo. For your business. Yeah. So it’s so it’s essentially, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a tool, where on the one hand, you can you can sort of be Duolingo creator. So you can define the things define the processes in your restaurant in a very visual way. So going away from the text, but but using some of the some of the things which we which we are offering, which are like, sequential visual processes or infographics, or, or short videos, right. On the one hand, which we call explainers. Yeah. And then on the other hand, this is being automatically gamified. And as an output, you have a mobile app, which works sort of like Duolingo. So which is a very simple, which is very simple way competitive way to learn things. Yeah,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
17:05
yeah. So for those that don’t, or haven’t played around with Duolingo, it’s really just this, it’s a language learning tool, but but to deal to Neil’s point, it’s the idea of, you’re gonna get better, you’re gonna continually grow within the game. And then he talks about the gamification and everybody that’s ever run a restaurant knows that the server’s want to compete with each other, whether it’s sell the most desserts, or to sell the most, sell the most this or sell to sell the most of that, you know, within a shift or within a week, or within a month. And, and so, So you talked a little bit about the tech, talk to me about how you guys are delivering it as an all on mobile? How do you get around the whole idea of of, you know, when, again, I’ve heard this story, do you? Do you force the issue of them learning at home? Are they on shift? Do you have issues with staff members, you know, learning while they’re on shift, and guests are seeing it, talk to me a little bit about how you guys are delivering this tech to your staff members? Not only to keep growing them, but also what is the impact been, you know, as as you guys have continued to push this thing out?
DK
Daniil Klubov
18:10
Yeah. So essentially, the solution is delivered in two parts. One is a web app. So you just log in, on web, as a manager, yeah, so as a manager, or as a restaurant operator, where you can define all of your processes, or as I say, you know, transform this dormant knowledge into the active knowledge. And this can be because you already have a lot of materials. So what we do, we have an API layer where you, you know, upload all your text. And solution essentially tells you okay, this could be, you know, sort of multiple choice games, this could be your sequence games out of this, you could make a video right so it kind of pre structures it for you, when you upload it Yeah, and kind of helps you with a simple tutorial with helps you to find your way around the solution. And
JJ
Jeremy Julian
19:04
so you take the existing manuals that these existing process manuals that you’re talking about, and you put them into the tool and it gives you based on this information, this is the best way to deliver it to your staff members.
DK
Daniil Klubov
19:14
Yes, it gives you it gives you options, a suggestion, yeah, it gives you a suggestion and some things that already prefilled like for example, if if if some of the things for example, hygiene hygiene rules, right where there is no really a V sometimes there’s no visual way to show it and you know micro organisms you know die at this temperature or you know, temperature so just text so it will just prefilled for you the what we call guidance right so the text blocks of the game and then it will produce multiple questions for you multiple choice questions for you. If there’s something which is which is more is is you Oh, this solution will think that okay, we can visualize that. So it will give you a recommendation, get that work, this part of your knowledge, you can do that. And this and for this part of you know what you can do video for this part of you know what you can do, let’s get some kind of sequential games and so on. So yeah, so the solution will give you a little bit of help in setting it up. Because obviously, a big problem of every restaurant owner or operator is a lack of time. Yes. And we know that we know, in our own, based on our own experience, how busy you are, when you’re operating a restaurant, and how busy you are with 1000 topics all of the time. So we don’t want to add up to this. But obviously, you will still need to spend some time on setting this up, I was trying to make it as simple as possible. And then exactly, so and then. And then that’s on the manager side. And then all of the things which you’re putting in, they’re being automatically gamified. And you can just adjust the games in the tool and to see, okay, you know, maybe there’s some light adjustments, which you think would work better for employees. And then on the on an employee side, you just haven’t, you just have an app on your phone. So it’s an Android and iOS, the the, in terms of the delivery in the restaurant, it works the following way. So we just actually, we just started at several restaurants, and also in our own restaurant just just also a couple of weeks ago, and essentially what we what we’ve been doing, we said, okay, you know, all the people who are coming new, you know, who were importing, as new hires. They, they need to, you know, they get assigned the squeezes right, and they need to complete them before they actually starting on their ship. Yeah, so it’s like it’s homework, because people are also, you know, in the beginning, as I think every operator also knows, people are very motivated to show that they want to learn that they want to move new things. So they were very eager to do this before
JJ
Jeremy Julian
22:11
when they start, yep, no, for sure. So
DK
Daniil Klubov
22:13
and this, and this also, of course, saves a lot of headache. And, and, you know, in terms of the time and the the onboarding, onboarding cost, I cannot unfortunately yet say I don’t have estimations or empirical data to confirm it. But that’s our hypothesis that it will save, it will shorten the cycle, essentially,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
22:33
well, it also creates some retention, you talked about it earlier that, you know, everybody wants to grow, everybody wants to learn, everybody wants to do better. Yeah, just as human beings, that’s just a human factor that that happens. And, and so with that, the more you can allow them to continue to get better, whether it’s skills for that brand, or skills, you know, future in another brand, it’s going to help them because they realize that they’re that the brand is investing in them and teaching them.
DK
Daniil Klubov
22:58
Exactly. And this is, this is a very good thought, by the way. Yes, I forgot to mention that is is one of the you know, at least all the operators we talk to, we asked them Okay, so what is the reason people are leaving most of the time and they say, you know, it’s it’s a, it’s frustration, it’s sort of a sort of depression onset of depression, because you you feel you’re getting stuck, you’re not developing anymore. Because why? Because you think you’ve learned everything. And this is interesting enough, it’s not always the case. Or it’s even often not the case, but they have an impression. They know everything. But the restaurant has much more to offer them to learn, but it’s just Oh intransparent that they don’t know that they can be developing further in their role, right?
JJ
Jeremy Julian
23:46
Well, I’m back to your manager, your owner, they don’t have enough time to invest in them. So investing in a tool like, like, what you guys have put together is a mechanism for them to invest in the staff members without having to take the 40 staff members that they have and invest in them individually.
DK
Daniil Klubov
24:01
Correct? Yeah, correct. And this is, again, this is really good point. Because this, this reminds me I didn’t talk about about this, this. But essentially, in the web, you that’s what you do, you know, you define the learning cycle, you define the growth cycle. So you define all of your processes, then you define all of your roles, and you sort of can sort them as a sort of a ladder, right? So you go from from one to three, it’s like levels in the computer game, essentially. And then you you assign all of this processes to this roles. And then And then basically you assign people to roles, right, and then the employee automatically when they’re starting. They know which which which role they are and sort of on what level they are and where do they need to go to grow? And again, talking about the competitiveness, yeah, if we talk about the delivery for employees, there is obviously also a ranking right. So you see in your restaurant, you know, how do you perform You know, if you know everything and you don’t know, you don’t know everything, you know, you haven’t been you’ve been performing worse or better. And then also, the very important thing is the communication once as an operator, you change something, you can change it directly in the in the tool, and then you know, your employees get notified, and they and they will get notified, and they will be prompted to, you know, to play a game. So they say, Oh, the, the process for assembling this pizza has changed. And you know, you need to we need to go and you know, we do we use different measurement cups, so, yeah, and then they need to play the game through to learn it right away. And, and with so our hypothesis is that s today, a lot of operators use great tools for, for for scheduling the shifts, like seven shifts, for example, right American company, which is, which is great in great technology. And everyone is used to it now and you know, checking their notifications on the phone, and it’s completely normal. Even though just five years ago, it was Excel everywhere. At least in Europe, it was Excel all over the place. Yeah,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
26:15
yep. Oh, it still is here. I mean, it still is here, even with tools like hotschedules and seven.
DK
Daniil Klubov
26:21
I didn’t know about in in Europe, in Europe or so. Yeah, that’s why I didn’t say but in Europe, a lot of people still use Excel. Yeah, absolutely. And you have the tools. But those those operators who used the tools like this, like seven shifts, they never go going back? Yeah.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
26:36
Oh, absolutely. That the staff members would revolt, they would be like, I can’t go back to calling in and checking my schedule the week before they would go crazy. To actually when when I did my interview with with the CEO of seven shifts, he says it’s a selling point for restaurants to hire staff back to your point of figuring out the it’s going to make the communication of picking up shifts and trading shifts and things like that. So much easier for the staff member and it creates a higher level of retention and a higher level of satisfaction for them. Yeah, because
DK
Daniil Klubov
27:05
it’s much as stress, it’s just much closer. And it’s the same. It’s the same principle here where we said, you know, what seven should said, okay, you know, you have this, this, you have the spreadsheets, which are horrible. You know, how do we how do we go away from that and do something different? And and that’s the same question we ask, we said, you know, we have this Word documents, which are horrible, you know, and we have this messengers, which are horrible. How do we move away from that, and we create something great a tool, which is easy to use, and everyone loves it, essentially. And that’s, that’s, that’s what we’re trying to do. Essentially, everyone, you know, employees will have that will have that app and old notification. So there’s something is changed. And it’s already there. Everyone knows it. So you have then consistency all over your operation? Yeah.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
27:59
So I’m gonna go back to something you mentioned earlier, and I want to talk through it with our audiences. You got McKenzie trained, you know how processes work, you can write processes in your sleep. But many operators don’t understand how to do that. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys are solving the process issue, I guess, because creating a process is not always easy. It takes time it takes energy, it takes some knowledge of how to do that. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys are helping people to ensure the processes not only are there before you gamify them and then put them in front of the staff.
DK
Daniil Klubov
28:35
Yeah. I think you’re absolutely right. I think that there are two cases. Yeah, there are two cases there are. So case, one is one, which I mentioned, is where there’s been an effort in an operation to codify the processes, right? So there’s been something written down and so on. And usually, usually this this operations where you have, you have ambitions to grow ambitious to scale. Oftentimes, and that’s why already, you know, because already when you want to open second restaurant, you need to write something down. Yes, there’s no, there’s no way around it. And then, and then obviously, there is also a big chunk of operators, where a lot of things happening as just a lot of things happening by I wouldn’t say gasoline, but but by experience, right. So because a lot of things just been there, people have been working there for a long time. And so and so, you know, you have the Joe and Joe has been working here for nine years. He knows how to you know how to do it. So Joe will do it. And but the sad reality of things is I think that especially after COVID The being in the second category became increasingly difficult because I guess people are leaving you people are leaving you and so since people are leaving you you need to do something you need to do something to codify things. Yeah. And what what, what our tool essentially offers you is that when you when you log in, you know, in the manager view it gives you there’s a simple tutorial over over a different restaurant operation, which shows you, which shows you okay, how another restaurant solved all of their process? Because essentially, okay, the restaurants are different. Every restaurant is a bit different, but also everyday restaurants would be the same. Yeah, you have, where you have the same problems, you have the same paints you have, you have the same things you kind of working through,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
30:40
you got to take raw products you got you got to prep them, you got to make them you got to serve them to customers in some way, whether it’s through a drive thru, or it’s in a dining room, or it’s through takeout. Yeah, no, absolutely.
DK
Daniil Klubov
30:50
Correct. So what can we try? We’re trying to solve it with just showing the examples inside of our tool where you say, okay, look, so there’s a, there’s a pizza restaurant, operate, and there is a burger restaurant operator. And, you know, there’s, there’s this sort of a full non fast food, non quick service operator. And that’s how they, you know, service looks like, in our two, you know, service processes. Yeah. And it’s like, sort of, these are the sequences for the service processes. And these are the videos for the service processes. And this, you know, and so on. So we’re just trying to take people by example, and I think it’s then easier of course, if you see those examples to come up with something of your own. Yeah,
JJ
Jeremy Julian
31:40
Yep, absolutely. Or you get 80% of it, 90% of it, and then tweak it for your own, you know, specific restaurant and how you guys might might run those things. So I love it. What have you seen, you know, you guys created this tech? I assume you still own the restaurant? You and your co founder still on the restaurant? What have you seen even in your own staff? You guys, I’m you. I’m guessing that they were the the the test cases, you guys were continuing to use your own staff members to test out this technology? What what has been, you know, the the biggest positive that you’ve seen at your staff members, beyond they get to work with you and how awesome you are? And how awesome your co founder is? Ya
DK
Daniil Klubov
32:18
know, the the it’s a good question, the best thing we we have seen is the appreciation by people that they don’t need to repeat things to the newbies. Yeah, so what happened before historically, now restaurants that we had one guy, who was just, you know, he had it in him to teach people, he’s the teacher, right. And he had it in him to teach people. So he got a process Instructor role, and he was teaching and teaching. But then what happened every time when he was not on the shift. And then when you get on the shift, then it was a mess, because we didn’t have anyone else who liked it. Yeah. And then people were frustrated that they had to, you know, explain things and repeat things, and so on. So, so the biggest, so it just, we’re just talking about the weeks now, because we rolled out the solution also just a few weeks ago, but it corresponded with the with the change in staff, we had three new staff members coming. And what happened is that the, the employee, gave us feedback that, hey, it was amazing, that people came and they already knew this basics, and they were already what we were talking about. So it was not completely, you know, there was, there was this frustration factor and the stress factor was out that you are on the shift, and it’s a busy Sunday, for example. And then you have this newbie, who is just doesn’t know anything and you know, doesn’t know where to stand and where to look, and so on. So that was that was the biggest feedback so far from our own, from our own stuff.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
34:06
And I’m guessing that it also allows you and your co owner to not be in the restaurant nearly as often because, you know, the staff is, is understanding the processes. I don’t know that you’re quite there yet, because you guys just rolled it out. But you know, a lot of times people will open up a business for freedom, but then they lock themselves into the business that they’re there because they can’t get out of their own way.
DK
Daniil Klubov
34:27
know for sure it was, you know, for us it was from the beginning the the goal to build the business in a way that that that you will not support that you are not there because otherwise it’s not the business. It’s you know, it’s it’s work, or it’s a job Yeah, exactly. And so be patient. So so so for sure the whole the whole idea of of because essentially what are we doing we’re trying to make out of out of this we’re trying to make a well well oiled machinery you trying to make maximum extent possible. Simplify this operations, simplify them for people. So that there is no there’s, there’s always a human factor. Yeah, but there’s, there’s a reduced amount of human error, sort of.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
35:15
Yeah, no, I love it. So how do people get in touch with you? You know, which talk to me about your guys’s kind of plans rollout? I know when you and I talk pre show, you know the majority of the audience’s is in North America. But what we have been growing I know I sent you I think I sent you the, the it’s been fun to get some European influence in some European listeners as well as some some Asian listeners. You know, I mean, we have had all continents except for Antarctica, I think listen at some point but but still the regular viewership and listenership is North America. Talk to me a little bit about where you guys are going? How do people get in touch? How do people learn a little bit more is just going to translate to the US, Canada and Mexico? Is that where you kind of want to go talk to me a little bit about about where this is where this is, is taken?
DK
Daniil Klubov
36:03
Absolutely. So actually, us is our target market. That’s, that’s, that’s where we’re going. That’s, that’s our ambition to get established in the US. Why? Very simple reason. In the US, you have much more restaurants, which have growth plans, and which are not satisfied with just one join, but but want to do more than one joint. And that’s where we come in, because they say, you know, we talked before the moment when you want to open more than one restaurant, you need to codify things. Yeah. And that’s, you know, that’s, that’s, that’s a big difference with Europe, because in Europe, there’s still a lot of single, you know, single shops. And the oftentimes, it’s, it’s a lifestyle, I mean, I’m sure in the America is also also the case for many operators, but But here in Europe, specifically, you know, the QSR concept are not as strong as in the States. So, yes, we want to, we want to go to states, now we are in our pilot phase, right, so we just launched the product, we’re in the pilot phase, here in local in Europe, in Austria, we have several big clients. The names, we will tell audiences anything, but we have several big clients with with dozens of restaurants, basically, where we’re just rolling out the product right now and kind of testing and iteratively improving it. Yeah. And the to, to and we also Yeah, we also at this point, we’re taking people into our Early Bird program, yeah. So sort of pilot program, where we, you know, talk to operators, we help them to set it up, and we get, you know, we listen to feedback and we try and to improve the product as we go. So, this this phase now is is also free for three months, right? So we offer three months free product trial, right, which is which are very extended period, how you can find us, it’s very simple, you can go to spoon dot tech, right, so WWW dot sprint attack, and there, there is a contact form. So you try for free, you can just enter your information there. And we will get in touch with you. And we will be you know, we will be delighted to work with American operators and we will, for sure work very hard to, to make to make sure that that if we set up you know, we start working together that it’s a success, because we obviously you’re in the process of of improving the product building the product through iteration and would love to have American clients.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
38:47
I love it. I love it just something while you were talking about it that I guess I’m I’m intrigued about and I always half the time these questions really are just my own curiosity. have you guys gotten to a place where you guys support multiple languages? Because I’m assuming in Austria, you’ve got to you’ve got to do trainings and you know, potentially in English and potentially in you know, just different languages. And in Europe yet, you know, there’s so many different languages spoken in the United States, but we do have a lot of people, you know, in our recipe viewer product, we now support, you know, six or eight languages because you’ve got cooks that you know, cooks in the kitchen that might only speak Spanish and or they’re gonna learn better in Spanish they might speak English but they might might read better in Spanish and and the like, have you guys gotten to that? That hurdle yet to be able to support multiple languages?
DK
Daniil Klubov
39:32
Yeah, because we you know, we we come from Europe
JJ
Jeremy Julian
39:36
speaks multiple languages. It’s not like a silly Americans.
DK
Daniil Klubov
39:40
But it’s our I’d say in Europe, it’s in our DNA to do multilingual whatever you roll out, it has to be multilingual. So yeah, at this point we have you know, we have German in English but we planning to build it out. And so it’s for sure you know, our company also. We sit here in Austria, but we are from all over the world. It is a very, very, very international crowd. So yeah, multilingual is definitely
JJ
Jeremy Julian
40:06
Wonderful. Well, I love the story. It’s always fun to to see founders that, that created a product to scratch their own itch and something that they’re, they’re looking at. Because again, I’m still intrigued and I wrote down notes where we talked to me a little bit about your guys’s some Toy Story. And, you know, are you guys growing as well along with? With this, this learning product? Are you guys kind of settling in and just running the restaurant for now until you get this off the ground? And then and then you’re looking to grow the the restaurant brand as well?
DK
Daniil Klubov
40:39
Yeah, we we, we are currently focusing on the tech projects on zones punetech. Because we’re just, I have had, you know, once you once you do business, and I think a lot of the restaurant operators will relate once you start doing business and then suddenly, you have a feeling you’re onto something or you discovered something, you discovered something, which is like a big problem. And, you know, you think you found the solution, you get the sense of urgency about it, then you want to you want to solve it immediately.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
41:19
I love it. No, it’s great. It’s great. You know, and again, it wasn’t a slight it’s more just you know what, I love these kinds of stories and the fact that you guys were able to launch the the middle of COVID and that you guys are doing fantastic at the restaurant. Now you guys are building tech to help restaurants is awesome.
DK
Daniil Klubov
41:35
Yeah, exactly. No, but it’s, it’s, that’s why that’s why we focus our all energy on contact right now. And the you know, toaster is a concept it’s, you know, successful here in Vienna and where we will be I mean, we’re planning to let’s see, we’re in the in the final stages of negotiations now to launch our products also in the in the supermarket. So some of the some of the things like the salad dressings, and the ready meals like chilies and carne. And, you know, Olivia salad. It’s the is the Eastern European, Eastern European potato salad. Right? So it’s really loved here in Austria. So, yeah, we sort of just doing doing this things to build out the brand. And then we will see, I guess, I guess the you know, we will see how the, this Pantech is taking by the market so far we have had tremendous feedback and the pilot customers love it. And, and yeah, then we will see how it goes.
JJ
Jeremy Julian
42:40
I love it. I love it now, and again, like I said earlier, the fact that you guys are scratching your own itch and, and solving a problem for people. And I think that you’re gonna find a lot of people don’t have solutions both to the process mapping, as well as to the gamification is, is fantastic. So we’ll do thank you for taking your taking your time to share a little bit about what you guys you know, the journey that you guys have been on over the last three years. It’s so much fun to to hear those things and to our listeners, guys, as I said on the onset, I know that you guys have lots of choices of who to go listen to so the fact that you guys spent 45 minutes or so with us today is fantastic. If you haven’t already gone out and subscribe to the newsletter, please do so. Please also go give us a rating on your favorite podcast player because it helps others to find you. While you’re online. Go check out spooned up tech and figure out what the Neil and his co founder are doing to help restaurants to our listeners. Make it a great day.
I
Intro
43:36
Thanks for listening to the restaurant technology guys podcast. Visit restaurant technology guys.com For tips, Industry Insights and more to help you run your restaurant better
