The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
The Restaurant Technology Guys Podcast brought to you by Custom Business Solutions
Revolutionizing Restaurant Tech: Yaro's Journey with PickPad
Revolutionizing Restaurant Tech: Yaro's Journey with PickPad
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, Jeremy Julian interviews Yaro, a multiple-time founder in the realm of restaurant technology. Yaro shares his background, detailing his migration from Ukraine to the United States and his 15-year journey in developing tech solutions for the restaurant industry. The discussion focuses on Yaro's latest innovative product, PickPad, a modular system aimed at optimizing the pickup experience in quick-service restaurants (QSR). The conversation sheds light on how PickPad uses sensors and machine learning to improve both customer and employee journeys, enhancing efficiency and experiences at the critical intersection of online and offline operations. Jeremy and Yaro discuss the future potential of digital transformation in the QSR sector, the importance of data points in improving operations, and the benefits of integrating such technology from both the staff and customer perspectives.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
01:18 Yaro's Journey in Restaurant Tech
03:46 The Birth of PickPad
06:07 How PickPad Enhances Customer Experience
10:28 The Role of Data in PickPad's Success
19:47 Future of Customer Experience with PickPad
26:49 Engaging with PickPad
30:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast, Jeremy Julian interviews Yaro, a multiple-time founder in the realm of restaurant technology. Yaro shares his background, detailing his migration from Ukraine to the United States and his 15-year journey in developing tech solutions for the restaurant industry. The discussion focuses on Yaro's latest innovative product, PickPad, a modular system aimed at optimizing the pickup experience in quick-service restaurants (QSR). The conversation sheds light on how PickPad uses sensors and machine learning to improve both customer and employee journeys, enhancing efficiency and experiences at the critical intersection of online and offline operations. Jeremy and Yaro discuss the future potential of digital transformation in the QSR sector, the importance of data points in improving operations, and the benefits of integrating such technology from both the staff and customer perspectives.
00:00 Introduction and Guest Background
01:18 Yaro's Journey in Restaurant Tech
03:46 The Birth of PickPad
06:07 How PickPad Enhances Customer Experience
10:28 The Role of Data in PickPad's Success
19:47 Future of Customer Experience with PickPad
26:49 Engaging with PickPad
30:28 Conclusion and Final Thoughts
This is the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Helping you run your restaurant better.
Jeremy:in today's episode, we are joined by a multiple time founder of restaurant tech. Yaro came over to the United States a couple of years ago when the war in Ukraine started. But as he and I started the conversation, he shared some of the different pieces of restaurant tech that he had already created. Prior to inventing pic pad, he and his co-founders are on a journey to solve the pickup area within restaurants to make both the staff's life better. As well as the customer's life, better, check them out at pick pad. Dot AI. If you don't know me, my name is Jeremy Julian. I am the chief revenue officer for CBS north star. We sell the north star on a cell solution for multi-units. Please check us www.Cbsnorthstar.com. Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. I think everyone out there for joining us, as I say each and every time, I know you guys have got lots of choices. So thanks for hanging out with us this week.
Jeremy Julian:Today I am joined by a multiple time founder and, I'm going to let Yaro tell you his story of where he came from and his little bit of a backstory, but as I, Say often when I get to meet multiple time founders, it's always fun to understand the backstory, where did it come from, but you're all, before we jump into kind of what your newest latest project is, why don't you give our listeners a little bit of a background where did, where did we even meet, where did we come from? And kind of, how has life been over the last couple of years before a pickpad came about?
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, sure. Hey, Jeremy, thanks a lot for having me here. I am a founder, of Peakpad, but before that, I spent like 15 years building products for restaurant space and I'm Ukrainian. So I've built my first products for Ukrainian market and, they were for delivery marketplace, something like Grubhub, but in Ukrainian market, we became Top three for delivery marketplaces in our country delivered millions of orders and then decided to Build a ghost kitchen chain on the top of this marketplace because it was obvious decision And then we realized that we have a great tech built in house. So we Started to share these technologies with other restaurant brands and for delivery services providing our restaurant commerce white label software as a service for ordering, delivery, marketing, and so on. So that was, yeah, that was the start.
Jeremy:And where did restaurants come from? You're like, were you, did you grow up in the restaurants, family in the restaurants, or you just saw this as a market that you said, cause every time I talk to a founder and I say, Oh, you decided to get into restaurants. They're like, yeah, sometimes I wish I had gotten into biotech or something along those lines. But, but there's also often a backstory of where restaurants came from. So share that with our listeners.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, actually, I, don't have anyone in my family connected to restaurant space, and it was new experience for me. And, everything started from, my first, Project, it was not even a business. It was like just project for fun. It was City Guide. It was like 15 years ago, I built City Guide, something like Yelp with reviews and, different entertainment announcers and everything just for myself or people living in this small like a town. and then I started to communicate with restaurants and I realized that there are a lot of opportunities here, here, because it's such an offline like business with the complicated operations. And, yeah, just started to build something to solve their real problems. yeah.
Jeremy:That's awesome. And, I was just talking to a founder, last week doing a recording and he was talking about the same thing, how the restaurants are so far behind some of the other e commerce businesses that we all interact with every day. And so the amount of investment that you can do to really help them, help them accelerate their profitability and accelerate the ways that they go about going to market is huge. Why don't you go through what is PickPad first and then we'll talk about why you felt like it was such a great use of time and energy to invest in building it. Cause I'm blown away. I know I was saying this to you pre show and I've not seen anything like what you're building. So I'm excited to let you dig into kind of where did it come from, but give us an overview. What is PickPad?
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah. So we are building a product for the digital native future of QSR. Restaurants because I strongly believe that this QSR segment of restaurant industry is moving super fast towards fully digital experience for customers and for businesses. And, we are just building new product for this new future, solving new problems. so this market is moving from almost fully offline mode in 2018 to almost fully digital in 2028. So it's like a dramatic change within just one decade is creating absolutely new products. problems and challenges and processes. And, that's why I believe that, we are building something for this new reality, digital future of the restaurant space. And it is called Pigpad. So Pigpad is, our way to. Redefine the customer experience in every quick serve restaurant and redefine the employee journey as well, because we believe that all the challenges and all the problems are happening at the intersection of physical and digital worlds. And, yeah, I believe that there is one, like a place in every QSR. That is becoming super important and this place is pick up zone because this zone will be processing the majority of all orders in the future whether a kiosk order or bubble pickup or Delivery order or voice AI order, right? So everything will be processing Through this pickup zone, so we are building solution for Optimizing this space for restaurants and for businesses.
Jeremy:Yeah, and we've talked with other guests and quite frankly, I've had my own personal experiences I'm sure you have as well where you go in to order You've ordered digitally from a brand and they don't walk you through the customer journey the same way that you might When you walk in through the line and I think you know Most Americans for sure have been trained when I go to a fast food place when I go to a fast casual place I go stand in the queue. I go to the cashier. I order my food. The food gets either called out by a number or they bring it to my table And that customer journey while not perfect There's an opportunity and everybody knows what that journey looks like as you talk about the digital transformation and the fact that even You know looking at statistics. I was talking with an editor of, one of the restaurant publications recently and so many, some of these brands were used to be 15, 20%. Now, some of them are at 75 percent of their orders are digital. And I know they continue to go down that route as they're doing that. Talk us through why do you think that convergence of, and you have a word on your website that I thought was funny. this digital physical kind of combination of a word. But why do you think that we have these challenges? Is it really just educating the consumer? Is it because the tech hasn't caught up? Is it. talk us through where really you're seeing the benefit and trying to invest your time, energy, and money, and technology. what portion of that journey are you solving? Is it the ordering? Is it the pickup? Is it the guest communication? Talk me through that a little bit, Yaro.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, sure, Jeremy. so as you mentioned, I believe in physical, experience, because, there are no more separate, physical and digital experiences, there is one journey, similar journey between all these two worlds. And, this experience is called digital, right? And, why it's so important because I believe that great companies, in the future will provide This incredible level of hospitality and experience for a customer. And it will lead to better customer retention and, for a happier customers and for a better bottom line for businesses. And, it's not just my, like a feelings. There are like a lot of, like a tons of reports that, tell us that better Customer satisfaction rate, better customer experience generates more sales because of, more frequent orders. And, it dramatically improves, bottom line. so actually I believe in, Improving customer journey. And we are building solution to solve the problem of customer experience and as well solve the problem behind the counter. So we are actually focusing to, main things. And I, I believe this, like two terms are super important for us. And I don't know why I think that these two terms are under, rated right now in the industry, and these are, customer journey and employee journey. So we, are focusing on these two terms, these two like journeys and talking about customer experience. So we want to provide customer the seamless way to grab and go their So PigPad is a modular system of smart pads, equipped with sensors and powered by machine learning. So it looks like a piece of wood. I can show you this, for example, piece of wood, right? And it can be customizable, so it can fit perfectly every store design. And, It doesn't have any controls and buttons and anything. It's seamlessly integrated with POS system that it's used, in a restaurant. And, it works like magic. So customer comes to a store and this is this beautiful station and every pad is personalized. A customer can see their names, take their order. So that's so simple for customers. No messy counter, no player guess if my order player is ready or not. Customer player exactly knows that order is ready. Comes to a store, grabs the order and go. That's so simple for customers.
Jeremy:So can I ask a question Yaro about, so you talk about machine learning, you talk about even the digital aspect of that. How is pick pad different from the customer's perspective then? Me writing your name on the outside of the bag and putting it in a pickup area, because I think that's critical to understand from a customer's perspective. And then we'll talk about how it enhances the staff experience. But I think it's what you guys are doing. And as I've done research, like I said to you prior to hitting the record button, I'm blown away with this even idea. And I've been doing restaurant thing for 30 years, and I'm like, I'm always blown away with new things that innovate. And change the way that you guys are going about that. So help me understand why do you need machine learning and why does it need a digital component to this? Because it, it seems so obvious after the fact, but prior to, I would have never thought of that.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, thanks for asking, because it looks super simple for customers. I tried not to over plug your engineer everything. So it looks super simple. It shows your name, you like a grab and go, but it's more complicated if it comes to processes behind the counter, right? So we are solving real problems for, staff members who are working behind the counter. I visited, 100 plus stores in downtown Chicago and then 100 stores in New York City. Just to understand how these businesses work and, how does, the process of managing pickup orders look like. And I
Jeremy:just going to tell you, it's bad. It's bad for the staff and it's bad for the delivery driver. It's bad for the customer. Sorry, I'll let you keep going, but it's a huge problem. And as, as you've said, as everybody's going to more digital, it's a big challenge that we have to solve. So I'll let you keep going.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:yeah, for sure. And I realized that the most experienced person in every store general manager or supervisor spend like from four to six hours daily managing pickup and delivery orders. So the average, flow of managing pickup and delivery orders includes like a seven, eight different steps. for example, they have tablet on the cup zone, so they. take this ready for a pickup order. Then look for this order in their, like a tablet among a tens of different orders. Then they have to put this order to a counter and then help every driver and every customer, because there are a lot of cups and packages and everyone, like I cannot find their orders, so they need help. in managing everything, then they have to, before actually they put this order to a counter, they have to double check every order accuracy because accuracy is one more like a challenging problem in this space. And after all of this, they have to come back to the system and this tablet and manually mark this order is completed. So a lot of Like a manual work for only one order. But imagine there are hundreds of orders and it takes a lot of time. a lot of mistakes and errors and problems with labor efficiency and order accuracy and actually data accuracy because no one changes every order status every second, even every minute. and it means that businesses just don't have an access to data points about when the order actually was ready. When the order was completed or picked up, so they have no ideas. What is their average, or their preparation time? What is the average waiting time? So they have a problem with, customer waiting time, but not measuring, this average waiting time for every store for every, like a time slot. It's impossible to improve. So there are a lot of, problems behind the counter. We're trying to solve using just, this, piece of wood, or plastic or something because we can do a plastic or, concrete or stone. So how does it work and how, how does it use machine learning? So big pad, instead of doing all this, like a seven different steps allows us just to put. an order to this specific path. And this path using sensors and using machine learning is double checking every order accuracy, changing every order status in their systems like POS system, ordering system, and so on. So customers can be notified instantly about their order status. highlighting customer names. And then again, if order is taken, Path is changing order status to picked up in their systems providing incredible level of automation so they don't need to like a double like a check every order why because can actually double check this order for you, right? So they don't have to operate in different systems, manually checking every buttons for every order already completed, picked up and sound. And, this creates a lot of additional time for human interaction. And this is my, the most favorite part, because I'm not about. Like you're replacing people with technologies. I'm about redeploying this human capital and using this human capital in a proper way instead of doing manual work like a four six hours per day General manager can be focused on what is truly matters.
Jeremy:Yeah. His employees and his guests,
Yaro Tsyhanenko:yeah
Jeremy:the, like the third guest that I've had on in the last month. That's creating technology, not necessarily to get the people out of the store, but to take the mundane things that they do. You talked about this order process, taking seven steps in a lot of areas, that seven steps, if we could get it down to one or two, now you've got the cap capacity. And the naysayer might say, Oh, we're just going to go have them do more with that same amount of time. But in my opinion, what I continue to see is when you make the staff happier, when you automate some of those mundane tasks that they don't want to do anyway, ultimately, at the end of the day, they're a happier staff member. They can serve your guests better and do more. For your business. and you'll stop having to hire people that, just because they've got a heartbeat, but that there, there really are in the hospitality industry looking to solve problems and they're not looking, they're not looking at these mundane tasks that they have to do every day, all day. which I love that. So from a staff perspective and even from. A data perspective talk. Let's just dig a little bit deeper into the data aspect of it because you talked about it early in your explanation from a brand perspective. And I know we'll get to the customer here in just a few minutes, but from a brand perspective, knowing those data points as to when the food was finished out of the kitchen, when it got bagged and put onto the takeout area. When it got picked up by the guest are a pretty critical piece to understand. How do you make it more efficient? Talk me through those different data points that you guys are tracking and what kind of efficiencies you've seen for brands that, that are in pilot and playing with this, the software and hardware. Yeah.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:the broader vision of PickPad is to source data points from physical world, to many systems that are used in the restaurant space because no one wants to do hardware. No one wants to do physical things, but restaurant industry is highly operational offline business. And there are a lot of offline processes. And. If we don't have an access to this processes and to this physical data points, it's hard to improve something, right? So there are like hundreds of different software as a services for the restaurant space. But the challenge is if all of this services are using the same data points, even with machine learning and AI and everything, So they cannot generate something like a new by using the same data points. So I believe that we can source, additional data points from physical world and help not only restaurants, but hundreds of software providers to leverage this data. and provide like a next level of efficiency of their products for our common customers. That's the concept and talking about the peak path. So we are sourcing, several data points, right now. The first data point is when the order was, ready using sensors, right? So we can like, record every timestamp. We're just connected to this order. So order is, ready instantly recorded in our system and different systems using our API. And the, one more data point order is taken by a customer. And also we can track order accuracy data point. So once the order was put to the pad, we can compare data from life sensors with data from their POS system. match this data and generate prediction, whether this other accurate or not. And we also are collecting all this data and using this data and training our model, we can generate better and better prediction in the future. So that's the idea.
Jeremy:And I think in general, I'd love to now pivot to the guest experience because at the end of the day, guests, guest demands only continue to go up. you talked about from 2018 to now we're recording this at the very end of 2024 show will probably go live in early 2025. but it's only going to get more. It's only going to get better for the guests and their expectations are only going to continue to come up. so talk me through, what is the guest experience in using pick pad and why would I want to go back to a brand? you said part of the reason why you guys are doing this is you find the brands that communicate with their guests better and create a better guest experience. Ultimately, they get more, people coming back there. They're more regulars and all of that. Why is it better for me as a guest to understand or to use a brand that might have big bad involved in already, already communicating these things, other than the fact that the brain has been more efficient because of the data points we just finished up with.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, sure. it's a great question. And I'd like to answer this question in play app. Slide another way. Let's talk not about a pig pad separately, because I believe that pig pad is just like a small piece of a customer, like a broader journey. So let's talk about like customer journey, like a five years from now. And then we'll see, where the place for a pig pad and other technologies, right? Because it's all about customer experience, not our product. And I believe that a five years from now, you probably you are not driving your car or like you're walking down the street and say, Hey Siri, or Hey, chat GPT, or Hey, Jamie and I, order my salad, please. And you just you don't touch your phone, They're just like a communicate using your voice. and, this AI assistant understands. You perfectly, it knows your dietary preferences and, your favorite salads. And what actually did you mean by player asking about salad, what kind of salad based on your application and, other data and information. so you just simply, say, Hey, order my salad, please. And it tells you, all right, so like it. 50 meters from this place, five minutes, grab and go. You come to a store, and you, your customer experience is super seamless. You see your name, you take your salad and you go, right? So no waiting time, no crowds, incredible customer experience. take your order and go. That's how, yeah. The customer experience looks like for me, ideally, like in, in the near future. And, I believe that, PickPad can play a huge role in this customer experience because understanding data, perfectly businesses can, meet customer expectations in terms of waiting time and so on, because, Understanding customer location and, your, average preparation time for this time slot of the day, you can match this parameters and you can start preparing this order actually to deliver this order at the same second when customer comes, right? Providing this play up this super Like a super fresh food, just like a prepared for customer who just like it came to the store and, leveraging this data, they source from like a physical world, right? they can just provide this incredible level of personalization and incredible level of timing, right? Because it's food. It's all about timing, right?
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Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, sure. Leveraging this data. We can, design different kind of customer experience. For example, let's say customer comes and sees this beautiful station of pads and they're all like a 10 orders and 10 pads. It's not so hard to plug up, find your order, because everything is personalized, but imagine there are like a hundreds of orders and we are moving to this future player super fast. So it's like a challenging, right? Yeah. To find your own order. the idea for a larger stores, busier stores is to check in customers automatically using their due position and highlight their name once they come.
Jeremy:Oh, wow.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah.
Jeremy:So you create a very personalized experience all digitally without, without having to have a staff member sit there and call out numbers or call out orders or whatever else. But you're, you know when the guest has gotten there based on their digital check in from some form of, Some form of way that they've now checked into the store.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:absolutely. We designed like a, we can design like a different kind, the kind of experiences, but what we, What I do is is I would just don't want to automate everything behind the counter, especially things that are connected to hospitality and human connections. So the idea is to automate everything, like data points, track, like locations, check in automatically, everything, highlight customer name, but I strongly believe that it should be last human touch there. So once you take this order from this shelf, someone like, just greet you and say, Hey, Jeremy, have a great day with your Harvard salad. Sound like that. And we will help businesses with all of this information just to provide this personalized touch. that's the idea.
Jeremy:Love that. So I'm now a restaurateur. I'm sitting here, you're listening. I'm like, I need this. I'm going more digital. I'm at 50 percent digital and I know it's going to 80 percent digital. How do they engage? What does an engagement with your team look like? What kind of order volume that they need to be doing to make this make sense? Cause it's in its early stages. And I strongly believe that something like what you guys are building is going to be in every restaurant 20 years from now. And we're going to not realize the data points and the ways that we did it before. We're going to look back and go really like when I go into a restaurant and they're still hanging tickets on a spinning wheel in the kitchen. I'm like, really still in this day, people are still handwriting tickets and putting them up in the window. and I think for what you guys are building with PICPAT, it's going to be very similar. What does an engagement look like? What, I'm now a restaurant and I want to learn more. I want to figure out how do I get, how do we get connected and get to a place where I can automate some of these things.
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, sure. So I believe that BigPet can bring, the maximum value, with 100 plus digital orders per day for any QSR restaurant. so if Any restaurants or group are expecting or have 100 plus digital orders per day. We're here to help. And, we are open to start free piloting our product with any great organization. So just let us know, and you can go to our website, big pad dot AI and learn more about how it works, but we are open to piloting this solution and to show how. can dramatically change operational issues and customer experience. And, for those businesses, with, with less like orders, we are building one more product and it's not a hardware enabled product. It's software only, and it will be helping. automating processes and, improving customer experience in a different way. So please check our website where Kogi and something interesting and incredible for, different market segments and for restaurants with different level of digital adoption, but we strongly believe that we together should improve customer experience and of course employee journey.
Jeremy:I love that. And, I'm gonna, implore our audience, even if you're not quite at that hundred, Your problem may end up being, you're in the eighties, your problem may be that you have not automated enough of it and your staff just can't handle it. And thus you're not getting the same increases in retention and customers coming back. And I would even at that point, I would start to explore it and talk with your own as team, just to figure out, will this make sense? Can we get up to, can we reduce that gap from 80 to 100, 120, 140, because. Again, nowadays it is the way that everybody's going. All consumers are going there. And so you've got to be on the forefront of it or else you're not going to be able to compete with those that are doing that. you're, how can people stay connected? Is it just on the website? Do you have other means that, other means that they can connect with you, just to make sure that they can follow your journey if they choose not to do it today, but they know that they're going to need it when they open up a new brand, how else can they stay connected?
Yaro Tsyhanenko:Yeah, sure. BigPet. ai, our website and our main source of, our updates and information and so on. And also I am active on LinkedIn. So please, play a follow. And, I share like a lot of things connected to BigPet and our journey. So yeah, we'll be happy to stay in touch there.
Jeremy:you're excited to see how you guys continue to change the industry. I do strongly believe we talk about it often on the show. Guest experiences, paramount, making sure that you create a fantastic guest experience is huge. The fact that you guys are not only solving the guest experience, but also the employee staff journey. It's huge. Is awesome. so thank you for creating this. Thank you for you and your team that has built this. I'm excited to see the growth to our listeners, guys. We know that you guys have lots of choices, like I said. So thank you guys for being with us this week. If you haven't already subscribed, please do so on your favorite podcast player, or check out the new YouTube channel, you're all thank you so much. And to our listeners, make it a great day.
Thanks for listening to the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Visit www. RestaurantTechnologyGuys. com for tips, industry insights, and more to help you run your restaurant better.
