Mastering the Digital Dance - Michael Chachula, CIO of Fat Brands

The CIO of FAT Brands, Michael Chachula, brings the heat to our CTO Trailblazer series talking about all things technology, customer experience, marketing hacks, and how the restaurant world evolved from a show to a dance post pandemic.
Are you dancing with your customers? Or still operating a static show?

Hot Takes: 

• Training your guests on effectively using all the available order channels is critical to improving order accuracy and avoiding defection. 
• 5 Components of FAT Brands tech organization - Technology, Data, Security, Digital, and Tech Ops. 
• Best of Breed, Distilled. (hint: it's a mutt). Best of Breed is what's best for you.
• Biggest barriers facing CIO/CTOs - security, talent pool, supply chain
• Hottest trends - metaverse, bitcoin
• How FAT is building a technology toolbox that's flexible,  future-proof and built on a solid foundation. Bolt-on is now glue-on. It's a living organism. 
• The Vision (4 things) - Solid Foundation, Flexible Stack, Control of Data, Personalized Experiences.
• Don't give up your soul to pursue your dreams. Build a deep, rich network personally and professionally. Keep your people close, have fun at work, and include loved ones in your work travel!
• Michael's Advice - Listen and Love <3

Related Episodes:
Trailblazin’ CTO Completes Full Tech Refresh in Under 1 Year – Dawn Gillis, Freebirds

Burn it Down & Fail Forward Fast – Justin Keenen, Hart House

Here’s What Innovation Looks Like – Amir Hudda, CEO of Qu (Part 2 of 3)

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn

Learn more about FAT Brands

Check out Qu's Annual State of Digital for Enterprise QSR & Fast Casual Brands

Transcript

Qu - Restaurants Reinvented - Michael Chachula 

[00:00:00] Michael Chachula: Idea is, is that you have to communicate on the plane that the customer communicates. If they're a, a web communicator, if they're a mobile app communicator, then you go mobile web and mobile app, and you do SMS and MMS and these things because that's how that customer communicates. 

[00:00:45] Jen Kern: Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Restaurants Reinvented. This is Jen Kern, and I'm the hostess here of the show and today I am joined by a very exciting guest, and his name is Michael Chachula. Hello, Michael. Welcome to the show.

[00:00:59] Michael Chachula: Hi, Jen. Thanks for having me.

[00:01:01] Jen Kern: Oh, thanks so much for joining. I'm really thrilled about having you on. So, this is actually the third installment of what I'm calling our CTO-CIO Trailblazer series, and have been on the hunt for really forward-looking heads of technology and information and data in our space because I think we all need to be talking about these topics of how do we modernize our tech

[00:01:25] stack and where are we going from here, and what does the future look like? And it's, it's a group effort as we know. So, I've had the pleasure of meeting you and, but my audience maybe has not, so why don't you go ahead and, and give us a quick background of your bio and, and how you found your way over to FAT Brands this year?

[00:01:43] Michael Chachula: Sure, Sure. Well, I, I've been in technology or business or, or somewhat in the, you know, publicly-traded segment on both sides, right? Both business, both technology, which I think in my career has just helped me get a well-rounded perspective of, you know, not doing technology for technology's sake, but understanding, you know, although folks might look at ROI, look through the lens of value and, you know, try to understand, hey, some things we might not think personally are of value just because of our, you know, my own upbringing and how I was raised and, you know, computers came into play when I was still young, but not a child,

[00:02:20] not a baby,

[00:02:21] right? So, I wasn't used to them and in high school is when they really became, in college, they became, you know, kind of the forefront, so you, I look at it through the lens of the kids today, the next consumer and throughout my career, I've been in finance, I've been in manufacturing, I've been pharma, I've been, you know, just around, you know, and any place that I can make a difference is where I, is where I've been.

[00:02:42] So, I grew up in Chicago, so born and raised, you could probably hear the Chicago accent every once in a while when I start talking like, "Hey, how you doing?" "You know, you suddenly hear, I'm like, "The bears, you know, it comes out, you can't help it." But, raised in Chicago, went to DePaul, Northwestern, and then went to New Jersey for a while, working for Novartis and then ended up on the West coast working in technology, now with FAT Brands as the first FAT brand CIO over there. So, that's kind of my, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[00:03:13] Jen Kern: That's awesome. Well, you know it, it's always interesting when you're the first at something.

[00:03:19] Michael Chachula: Mm-hmm. 

[00:03:19] Jen Kern: So, what do you think the impetus was for FAT Brands being, you know, obviously a very growing, multi-franchisee brand, what was the impetus for hiring the first CIO ever?

[00:03:31] Michael Chachula: Yeah. Well, I, I think, you know, luckily, the senior leadership, you know, had had the foresight and the wherewithal to start to understand that as you start bringing together this technical dream code, if you will, of all these different brands with different vendors and technologies and platforms and customer bases and data and, and all those things as well,

[00:03:51] you know, when you get onto the stage of being a publicly-traded company and you start looking at market caps and things of this nature, as your company grows and expands, you start hitting certain tiers of regulation 

[00:04:02] as you go through that and regulation is not just on the financial side, it's also on the technology side.

[00:04:08] IT general controls, who has access to what, since it's publicly traded, there's a lot of data, there's security, investors need to be, you know, told exactly what's happening and all those things that you could imagine. So, they had the wherewithal to say, "Hey, listen, we're getting to the point now where, you know, we probably need to bring someone in who has experience in this space,"

[00:04:25] and myself coming from the finance world that's heavy regulated from a SOX and perspective and so many more areas, both technically and financially, but as well as coming from IHOP, Applebee's, Dine Brands, I've seen and experienced and lived through a lot of the things that they're just now stepping onto the diving board, right?

[00:04:42] Michael Chachula: And 

[00:04:43] about to go headlong into that pool, and the great news is we're making great strides and, and getting to where we need to be, and not only does FAT brands and the investors benefit from that, but so does the customer, right, at the end of the day,

[00:04:54] A lot of the things that we're doing is creating a, a strong foundation that allows us to build some really cool and neat forward-looking technologies.

[00:05:02] Jen Kern: Right. And so, where are you focused today? I mean, I can only imagine how overwhelming and big your world is with over 15, I, I think you have 17 total brands International, and you're owning both the systems side of things for the, the technology systems and upgrades as well as the data and security and information.

[00:05:23] Is that correct? Yeah.

[00:05:25] Michael Chachula: Yeah. So, if, yeah, if you think about, you know, the standard or I, I would say, not standard, but if you think, at least in my experience, the best practice is looking at it through the lens in restaurant anyway, 

[00:05:34] through the lens of a few different pillars. One is in restaurant technology, everything within the restaurant itself.

[00:05:40] The other is data, so anything that has to do with data, whether it's in 

[00:05:42] corporate or whether it's in the customer side. 

[00:05:45] Then you have security, of course, which is on everyone's front of mind just due to many of the things that have happened today being election day, right, 

[00:05:53] and you heard the, the Russian oligarchy come out and say, "Oh, I'm gonna medal in this one as well."

[00:05:57] I mean, you know, just 

[00:05:58] security becomes a, a big deal. 

[00:06:00] So, in restaurant, data security, then you have digital, which stands on its own, that in itself is, is a very large area that really where the customer tends to interact quite a bit, 

[00:06:11] even when they go in restaurants, sometimes they 

[00:06:12] start on Google where they locate it,

[00:06:14] they might not order through the app, but they have that experience of, "They have good reviews, do they have, you know, location near me? Is that location still open? Is it north, south? Or, you know, on the directions," you know, all 

[00:06:24] that type of stuff. So, there's digital, and then lastly is more of the tech ops, which is more internal controls 

[00:06:30] that have to do with, you know, running the, the organization

[00:06:32] and that's a pretty standard IT setup across the board in most companies that you'll see, but the reality is getting that balance of what goes where, you know, 

[00:06:41] especially when you have 17 brands is kind of the trick. That's the, the 

[00:06:45] magic sauce behind the, the curtain of Oz, right,

[00:06:48] is getting that balance right of, you know, if you had another dollar to spend, where would you put it in that framework,

[00:06:54] you know, to make things happen?

[00:06:56] Jen Kern: And so, can you share with us where are you focused, where are you putting that investment in? 

[00:07:00] Michael Chachula: Yeah, yeah. Sure. 

[00:07:02] Jen Kern: Hmm. 

[00:07:03] Michael Chachula: I, I, I think, you know, first of all, if you look at COVID, I think COVID has really caused a significant change in the way that people consume, you know, so I talk a lot, if I go out and, and speak with folks or I'm talking to franchisees, or I'm talking to internal folks, I have the conversation around, you know, if you, even the people in the, my circle that I talk to, 60%, let's call it, will say, "I'm not going back to pre-COVID purchasing habits.

[00:07:29] I just don't trust even stores have the capability, not just restaurants, but even grocery stores, even, you know, computer stores, whatever store you, you name could go into is gonna have the capability of keeping me, me safe and keeping me clean." Now, we do a very great job of keeping our restaurants very, very clean, you know, so that's not an issue for us,

[00:07:47] but at the same time, in the mind of the consumer, there's always now that chance of something happening. So, you're seeing a shift that happened during COVID where we went all online. Almost every restaurant had to go online. So, you definitely see significant growth in online. Well, when you see that growth online, you have the opportunity to glean a significant amount of data from the customer, and the customer now is willing to give that data whereas in the past, our generation and our parents' generation were more around, "Oh, you're not getting my info. We're not giving that info up," whereas today, and especially into the millennial and beyond, they're more around, "I want instant satisfaction.

[00:08:22] I want service. Here's my information. Get it to me. You should know who I am already. If you don't know who I am, then that's your problem," right, and they move on. So, really focusing on that customer experience, customer data, the iter of sanctity of their purchasing habits. Again, for example, "You should know I'm a vegan or a vegetarian.

[00:08:39] I've never ordered meat before. Why are you sending me, you know, hamburger ads?" You know, they, tend to, to be put off by that, whereas we should be sending them plant-based ads and salad ads and all those things, you know, because, again, the playing field because of COVID, has gotten leveled. So, what I mean by that is, is that restaurants are seeing much more folks leaving their business because the differentiation is more around, "Hey, listen, I want an experience change. It's not always just around, you know, "I want that flavor" anymore. It's more around who's giving me the best experience.

[00:09:13] And yes, flavor plays a role, and the food plays a role in that value proposition, but now folks are seriously looking at how they get the food, is it easy? Is it simple? Is it fast even, you know, around lunchtime, I only get 30 minutes, let's say for lunch. Are they getting it prepared quickly for me to actually get it, pick it up, or have it dropped off so I could actually enjoy it, not have to chow down?

[00:09:32] So, defection is another area. So, defection defense, digital data, and, of course, in restaurant experience as well, because we all, especially in the restaurant industry, if you're not brand new, have brick and mortar and franchisees that we need to support.

[00:09:46] So, you know, learning and understanding that as you start looking at restaurants, and it's no new news, that as new restaurants are getting billed, you're starting to see mobile pickup.

[00:09:56] You're starting to see a separate, you know, pickup area sometimes in a restaurant. So, you know, we're looking at all those things across the board of, you know, what makes the most sense and the customer really is driving that demand, and I would say, it's, a lot of it is post-COVID, but I would argue even before COVID, we were seeing the hints of it, with digital, picking up voice ordering, in-car ordering came out probably two years before COVID, lot of people order from their cars, don't do it, it's not good, especially on your phone, but they have it in the dashboard where it has safe drive and you can actually order it and pick it up on your way home and it actually will navigate you to the store. I mean, it's, it's pretty cool stuff, but, you know, we focus on those things, experiential, digital, you know, those are things where, I think, we are focused and I would say most of the industry's focus at this point.

[00:10:37] Jen Kern: Well, it's huge. I mean, it, it, it's hard to stay focused on it though, I guess I would say, because customer experience today, as you're talking about, it's changed exponentially from pre-COVID days, and in order to keep up with the customer expectations and honestly stay a little bit in front, like, if you're gonna really, truly surprise and delight,

[00:10:58] how do you stay in front of those expectations? It's kind of unchartered waters, I feel like, right now, and, and we were in a meeting recently where you said something that actually sparked a little bit of a contentious debate, let's just say, or, or differing of opinions, which was, we need to train the customer today.

[00:11:15] We need to, like, retrain the customer, and you, yeah, you know what I'm talking about, and I'm putting you 

[00:11:21] on the spot too much and it, it became really an interesting conversation. Some people are like, "No, no, no, no. We're not training them. They're telling us what they want." Which one is it?

[00:11:33] Michael Chachula: Well, I think the problem is, the reason I made the comment is, is that, you know, I think we're looking at 50% of the equation. 

[00:11:39] I think, anytime you have an interaction with a customer, it is a short-term relationship that, that you have to build, and that customer has to have the trust in you that they're gonna come back.

[00:11:48] So, The reality is, is that, because of COVID, because of restrictions, because of new mobile apps, some folks never even had mobile apps before, now they're having to go into mobile apps, into websites, and I say that and folks might be surprised to hear that, but it's the truth, or if they did have a mobile app, it didn't necessarily do

[00:12:04] delivery was pickup-only. 

[00:12:05] So, you know, the, the reality is, is that everyone thinks, "Oh, if I inform them, they will come."

[00:12:10] It's not like that, right? 'Cause some folks, it's, okay, I inform them, but now you have an arduous experience for someone to get through, that you need to train them on how to do it, right? 

[00:12:21] And, and what I mean by that is, is, as I mentioned before, when COVID hit, you had a whole swath of customers who normally didn't do delivery, right?

[00:12:31] They enjoyed the fact that, "Hey, I come home," let's say it's a, a traditional family and you, you have little kids, and both parents come home from work, and the nanny goes home, or they pick 'em up from daycare, they come home, and they say, "Hey, you know what? Let's treat the kids, and let's take them out."

[00:12:46] Michael Chachula: So, they go out, and all of a sudden that completely shifted. It shifted to a model where, "Okay, I'm gonna be working from home. I either order Instacart, run us through, I don't have what I need. Kids are starving. I'm gonna order something," right? Well, during that time, people had roughly about three months to stand up a mobile app or improve their website in 30 days, basically. 

[00:13:09] So, it probably isn't the best experience. Well, your most loyal customers who now have to go online, right, who never ordered online before, have to understand that I need to be extremely diligent in my order because if I'm not diligent in my ordering, you're gonna order a build because that's what it is.

[00:13:31] When you sit down, and you go, "Oh, blah blah, I know what I'm gonna order, blah blah, no onions, blah blah, no tomato," right? Well, when you're looking at it, and you're ordering it, in your brain, you think, you've said all these things. You haven't, right? You need to say, "No onions, no tomatoes," right? You need to start activating your order the way that you want it

[00:13:49] 'cause what ends up happening is then the customer places the order, it shows up, and the order is wrong.

[00:13:55] It's not that the order's wrong, it's the order didn't come as the customer expected it to because they didn't understand there was more steps in the ordering process that didn't exist before, and this was the whole comment I made about training the customer.

[00:14:08] It needs to be, "Hey, Mr., I'm going into this web app. When I go in, and I click on that build, why don't you pop something that says, 'Hey, it comes with all these ingredients? Do you want all those ingredients?'" That's training the customer. I'm not talking about getting the customer on a conference call and sitting with them and saying, "Okay, we're gonna place an order today."

[00:14:26] Yay, everybody. Woo. That's not what I'm talking about. What I'm talking about is using the mobile app to say, "Did you really mean to do that? Did you really mean to place that order?

[00:14:34] Did you really mean to do this? If not, here's your out. Click on this. Here it is. Here's the list of ingredients. Yes, yes. No. Yes. No. Yes. Perfect. Here's your order." I just trained you. I've just given you a training through the experience to now not have that order come back as a complaint, come back as a missed order because I'm telling you that holy-goodness data we're talking about, and especially in that conversation, it started around the data.

[00:14:58] "Well, oh my God, we're having all this, all these bad orders and all these bad orders," and I asked the question, "Okay, well are you doing the research around why was the order bad? What was wrong with it?" "Oh, well, you know, it was, item was missing or, you know, it wasn't built correctly." 

[00:15:13] "Well, what did the customer expect to receive?" Right? That question wasn't being asked. So, the customer's just saying that it's wrong. Okay? They're right. It's wrong to their expectation, but it doesn't mean that it wasn't ordered, right? What it means is the customer didn't realize, potentially, there were a few more steps they had to do to get exactly what they wanted, and I guarantee you no customer that has children, I would even just say, no customer in general, wants to place an order, they're waiting for it, greedily waiting at the door for their order to show up, they've been feeding for that burger or those fries or whatever and it shows up, and they want it to be wrong, right? 

[00:15:48] I mean, I mean, if you're in that camp then, you know, you got, you got other problems besides a burger showing up.

[00:15:52] Right? 

[00:15:53] So, so, you know, I, I think what we need to do is stop thinking that, you know, this isn't a relationship with the customer. It 

[00:16:00] is a relationship with the customer. We're happy to have every customer that comes with us, we're more than happy to service them. We're 

[00:16:05] glad that they came to us, but, but I wanna make sure that there's the expectation of, "Hey, we're gonna service you, but, you know, you have to work with us too.

[00:16:11] You can't 

[00:16:12] place a wrong order and then, you know, expect it magically somehow when it gets there to be correct, and we'll correct whatever order we need to, but at the same time, this is the training I was talking about back to the original,"

[00:16:23] and it did 'cause quite a bit, "Oh, oh." People were like, "Oh my God.

[00:16:26] Oh, you know," and they were falling off their chairs, like, they couldn't believe it, right? 

[00:16:30] But I was like, "Guys, you know, this is now a dance. 

[00:16:33] Before, it was a show, right? You bought your ticket, you sat down, and the show went on, 

[00:16:39] COVID happened, and it became a dance and 

[00:16:41] the dance was, "You gotta tell me what you want so I could get you what you want."

[00:16:44] That's the difference that I think happened with COVID and really increased digital sales, and I don't think a lot of folks were ready for that dance to happen, so.

[00:16:52] Jen Kern: Yeah. And so, where are you in the process at FAT Brands of scripting that train-the-customer process and ensuring that orders are accurate?

[00:17:03] Michael Chachula: Yeah, we're working on it. I mean, that's, just like everyone else, you know, there's no perfect, there's no perfect solution to this equation, and I think, you know, folks realize that technology is great and automation and AI is great, but when you have humans involved, there's gonna be errors, right?

[00:17:18] And you just need to work together with the customer and ensure they get what they need and they want, fulfill their expectations and, and you're gonna be golden, but you, you're always gonna have that situation where, hey, an order got mixed up. It might have been ordered wrong,

[00:17:31] expectation is off, but me, I'd rather know that has happened so I could say, "Okay, well, let's take a look at it." I have 10 steps in my order journey, including payment and clicking on the app or the on the web. So, now I have 8 steps, pop the, what they want, this, that, this, that, this, that, this, that, this.

[00:17:47] Where in that process is this happening? 

[00:17:50] Where do I need the pop? Hey, review your order. It comes with bacon and blah, blah, blah, and all this 

[00:17:54] mayonnaise and whatever. Is that really what you wanted? Please verify when they click, yes, that's exactly what I wanted. You've placed another verification that that's what they wanted and, and that's gonna help in the long run.

[00:18:04] Now, I went back and said that a lot of people are ordering from the car or ordering, you know, when they're really busy and they're probably not checking everything, you know, that they're just hitting next, next, next, next step. Right? But, you know, the idea is that's 

[00:18:16] kind of the training I was talking about in that conversation.

[00:18:19] Now I'm not saying all customers, 'cause we do know that a lot of customers do it very easily, seamlessly, and the orders go out great. This 

[00:18:26] is for the smaller number that, you know, us, as restaurateurs, tend to focus on, which is the complaints. 

[00:18:31] Right. The good news is we have a lot of non-complaining orders that go out 

[00:18:35] or non-compliant orders or, or orders that were created wrong

[00:18:38] that the customer is happy, delighted, and, and returning and, you know, we're more than happy to, to see them come back every time.

[00:18:44] Jen Kern: Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Well, I think that makes total sense and, you know, there's different categories customers like you're talking about. There's some that, you know, obviously the Gen Z's and some of the millennials, they're more astute at performing the ordering functions, and it's not always a generational divide,

[00:19:00] but speaking of the customer experience, I know something else that you're really passionate about is the marketing side of things and getting that data so that you can personalize the experience, whether you're ordering, you know, in the car, on-premise, off-premise, whatever it happens to be. What are some ways that operators can think about collecting the marketing data and getting faster out of the shoot in terms of personalizing the experience without having to go out and build all new tech stacks and things like that?

[00:19:26] Jen Kern: Have you come up with some hacks for marketing and, and personalization?

[00:19:30] Michael Chachula: Yeah. Well, I, I mean, you know, I always tell folks, when it comes to the holy goodness of data, 

[00:19:35] you know, some of the things you, you have to look for is IRAs synchronizes in the data, which is around, you know, there's still a lot of email that happens, you know, in these days, but the interesting thing is, is that email's great when someone comes into the restaurant, but if they're ordering through their mobile, chance of them looking at the email are pretty close to zero

[00:19:51] or not deleting it altogether. Right? Because I guarantee you, you know, knowing folks that that, at least the, the circles, even my children, right, they order 

[00:19:59] Michael Chachula: from numerous places, right? They'll go to numerous places, and sometimes you're in an area where they don't have, let's say, the restaurants that we have, in our suite that, that they order from

[00:20:07] and if every one of them is emailing them, they'll just delete, delete, delete. So, 

[00:20:10] the idea is, is, that you have to communicate on the plane that the customer communicates. If they're a, a web communicator, if they're a mobile app communicator, then you go mobile web and mobile app, and you do SMS and MMS and these things because that's how that customer communicates.

[00:20:25] So, the age of shotgun, you know, email blast, I, I think is great for a certain customer base, but I think what you're finding is, you know, most folks, you know, that are of age, I would argue, is leaning more towards the mobile side. So, you know, the idea is if that's how your customer communicates, then you need to be laser-focused on how they want to interact with your brand, and it's not that email doesn't work, I, I just think email, we get inundated with so many emails over the course of time, and we're more of an immediate society, whereas email takes time to scroll, whereas something pops up, you have to eliminate it on your phone. It stays there. Right? 

[00:20:59] Or, Or, if you have, you know, where your banners come up, and they are temporary, yes, it'll go away, but it stay, it still stays in your, your center, right, your 

[00:21:06] notification center, unless you get rid of it. So it's just, "Hey, that's how I want to communicate. I want to communicate through mobile or through web. I'm gonna order, through mobile web. I'm a, let's say a DoorDash, or I'm a pickup customer, or whatever it is I'm doing, I tend to want to receive information that way and that's everything from receipt to add, to survey, to whatever, whatever you get, right, or receipt and survey combined." 

[00:21:30] And it's also, you know, the thing to think about is customers have very short attention spans, right, when it comes to receiving something. 

[00:21:38] So, the idea is, it has to be almost instant that, "Here's your receipt, and here's a survey," and the survey needs to be meaningful and ridiculously short.

[00:21:48] Jen Kern: Mm.

[00:21:49] Michael Chachula: It needs to gather what you wanna know, and the only time you go down a rabbit hole is if there was an issue where it's, "Did it fulfill, you know, your expectations?" "No." "Okay, then, what was wrong? Was the order wrong, wrong items, missing item," right?

[00:22:05] You, you then go down that list and at least be able to gather it at a high level, and then you ask, "Are you, would you be willing to add some more information?" And then, you know, you ask them, but I would argue that if you want to gather the delightful stuff, it has to be, "Was it good?" "Yes." Boom. "Yep, that's it."

[00:22:19] Move on. You know? Whereas, man, sometimes you get these surveys, "Hey, how was your experience?" "Oh, it was good." Now of a sudden, you're like, "Okay," you just, apparently, I just opened the midterm for the survey, and I'm about to, I'm about to answer, you know, who was the first president? You're like, "What? I mean, do you really need to know that

[00:22:36] when I ordered fries?" I just don't get it, you know?

[00:22:40] Jen Kern: Short and sweet, for sure. We are definitely

[00:22:42] Michael Chachula: Yeah. Short and sweet. 

[00:22:44] Jen Kern: competing for a lot of attention. So, here you are, you're about, six, seven months in as CIO, what has surprised you that you didn't expect?

[00:22:53] Well, I, I don't think anything really surprised me that I didn't expect. I, I think the, what actually, what surprised me that I didn't, didn't expect is, you know, senior leadership really understanding what that they needed technology to, to really bring up the experience of the customer.

[00:23:09] Michael Chachula: They really knew that that was something that we had to look at, whether it was websites or mobile apps and, and the regulatory side. So, you know, a lot of times, you get into organizations, you know, technology is, something that people just kind of put up with, 

[00:23:22] you know, but, man, when the phone goes down, or the computer doesn't work for some reason, it, that's a bad thing, you know?

[00:23:27] But to have the foresight to say, "Hey, we need help in technology because we wanna build this into something that's amazing, and we know we need the help," so I, I was really surprised to the level of support that we're getting, you know, from a technology perspective and the investments that we're being able to make. 

[00:23:43] Jen Kern: That's fantastic. Well, I'm happy to hear that.

[00:23:45] Michael Chachula: It's good. 

[00:23:46] Jen Kern: Of course. What would you say are the biggest barriers facing CIOs and CTOs today?

[00:23:53] I, I think, first of all, I would say that the biggest barrier facing every person on the planet is security right now. That really is the biggest problem because as our security tools are learning, so are the hackers. You are playing this constant dance again, another dance, just different tune, another dance that you're dancing to where just as fast as you are learning and you're rolling out new tools, the hackers are learning and rolling out new strategies,

[00:24:19] Michael Chachula: right, And, you know, staying ahead of those folks, you know, I think is really kind of the biggest challenge for all CIOs and CTOs because it's, not whether or not you're gonna be attacked, it's when you're gonna be attacked and now you're ready for it. Right? So, that's, that's really, I would say, the biggest challenge.

[00:24:37] The second challenge I, I would argue, behind that is, right now the talent pool that's out there is just being gobbled up across the globe, even, you know, the issues in Ukraine, Ukraine is a massive technology hub for the world. You know, it has some really great technology offshore companies,

[00:24:55] so I'm sure a lot of folks are gonna, now, we weren't using them, but I know a lot of my friends, you know, that, were working out there have been impacted, now they've moved to other countries, and they're still working, but, you know, the world economy is really starting to impact CTOs as well, both on the talent side as well as the availability of vendors to deliver such a supply chain on hardware and, excuse me, and I would even argue on some of the peripheral things where, you know, some of the screens that you're trying to order, hardware for locations and stores, it's hard to get your hands on the actual screens, but, some of that, it's starting to, starting to settle down, you know, somewhat so we'll, we'll have to see where that goes. But I would say security is one, talent is two, you know, the good news is we got some talented people, which is great, but, you know, I think those are gonna be our biggest challenges now, and I would argue in the foreseeable future until things settle down.

[00:25:43] Jen Kern: Yeah. I would love to know what your vision is at FAT brands there for the tech stack. I mean, let's shift a little bit into talking about the modernization effort that's going on at almost all multi-unit restaurants like yours, which is, there's a lot of disjointed technologies out there.

[00:26:00] You're obviously trying to collect the data, like we've talked about, and being conscious of the security, you know, all the while

[00:26:07] and I think what we saw a lot in COVID was people going out and sort of, you know, I think of it almost a leaning tower of Pisa, you know, a lot of different things bolted on the side and around the stack

[00:26:16] and we know that some brands are, you know, have over a hundred different text systems that they're using, and that becomes very unwieldy, I would imagine, at a certain point. So, from an enterprise technology and a system standpoint, what is your vision and your goal?

[00:26:33] Michael Chachula: Yeah. Well, you know, it's funny you say that because I, I coined a term that, you know, Bolton went to glue on, right? That's, you know, used to have Boltons, but now it's glue-on or paperclip together. I mean, you're 

[00:26:44] absolutely right, foolish is the man builds the house upon the sand, right? So, you know, I think, from a technical stack perspective, I think you nailed it in the comment you made is, the first thing you have to really think about is a solid foundation.

[00:26:57] It's getting the foundation right and making this foundation something that is a living organism that allows you to nurture, grow, you know, replace pieces and, and not have to bring down the entire system, so it's really putting together a future-proof foundation.

[00:27:13] If you are able to do that, then all the other technologies that you come up with be digital, be data-related or this, that, and this, truly become Boltons

[00:27:20] and if you need to switch out a vendor, you need to switch out, you know, either it's non-performing vendor or as we've seen in, in history of technology, you know, certain areas of technology such as POS and, and, the marketing or CRM space just folding on itself to where, you know, you used to have a field of POS systems that was endless and now you're starting to see 'em get bought up and bought up and bought up.

[00:27:41] You know, Oracle and NCR and these folks are buying up a lot of small players, but if you need to and you need to, to boat something else in, you need to have that ability to quickly pivot, you know, as a brand, should something happen, should someone get bought and all of a sudden it's no longer the roadmap that you thought you were going to be on, and it's something completely different that you no longer could work with.

[00:28:01] You could easily take it out. So, you know, it, it's really having that foundation that is solid, but flexible, so that makes it future-proof. And then this way also having digital assets that, you know, you're able to get the data you require and you have some level of control over because the most important thing in the digital aspect is the experience, customer experience

[00:28:21] and you have to be able to control that when you need to pivot based on business problems. So, for example, if we ever shut down again, God forbid, knock on wood, and, you know, whatever you need to do to make that not happen, you know, the idea is, is you need to be able to quickly pivot and flick a switch and say, "We're now doing curbside."

[00:28:36] It shouldn't be, "I now need to code and do all these things be able to stand up curbside." It should just be, "I'm gonna take that traffic and I'm gonna now move it over to a trained customer."

[00:28:47] You know, a trained customer who now knows that I could pick up curbside, and it just becomes a natural migration for that customer.

[00:28:54] So, it's having all those things within your toolbox to be able to shift. Now, all along, as you're doing all that shifting, you're capturing all the data behind the scenes, and it's data that you need to own

[00:29:06] on your own platform. So, that's kind of my vision is having that future-proof platform.

[00:29:11] And this is, I'm not speaking anything that no technologist knows, but being able to do it in companies that are technical or dream-code type companies or very, very large companies, and especially companies that have grown up prior to the computer age, replacing some of this stuff is million,

[00:29:32] millions are ridiculous. It's not, "Oh, we're just gonna replace, you know, our," let's say, in the financial world, "We're just gonna replace our mortgaging servicing platform." Now, that's probably a 300 million project, right? And it'll probably take five years. So, the reality is, is that by the time you roll it out, you have an obsolete platform,

[00:29:49] you know, so it's almost like, you know, how do we continue to limp along, you know, on these platforms until we can get to a solid foundation? So, solid foundation, having a, a, flexible stack, flexible digital control over your own data as well as, you know, personalized experiences, that's the vision, right?

[00:30:07] At the end of the day, we all preach it, but being able to do it is another thing, and we're well on our way to, to making that happen.

[00:30:14] Jen Kern: Fantastic. Wow. It's no small undertaking, that's for sure. 

[00:30:17] Michael Chachula: No, it's not. No, it's not. I had hair when I started this job like yours, so you could imagine, that's seven months.

[00:30:22] Jen Kern: No way.

[00:30:23] Michael Chachula: So, you, so you budding CIOs, you have hair like that, like this here, see this hair here?

[00:30:29] Like that. And then this, so, you know, that's seven months.

[00:30:34] Jen Kern: Oh gosh. Well, I love the way you're talking about the flexible foundation and, and having that architecture and, and, and I think there's the age-old discussion of, like, best-of-breed, which has come up a lot with Justin Keenan when we talked a couple weeks ago and came up also with Don Gillis when we talked a few weeks ago.

[00:30:51] The best-of-breed versus the all-in-one. 

[00:30:54] And are you also of the belief that this all-in-one, it's done, it's never gonna be, be a working solution? Yeah.

[00:31:04] Michael Chachula: Yeah, the all-in-one is, is very, very difficult and complicated, 

[00:31:08] because whenever you have again, on the side, yeah, you can't adapt that fast when it's all-in-one, unfortunately. So, you have to be able to plug and play and move and adapt, and also, the problem is, is that cost becomes an issue 

[00:31:19] because when you build this behemoth, the cost to maintain it becomes absolutely ridiculous.

[00:31:25] So, you know, the idea of having fast, nimble platforms that don't take, you know, an entire village to run, you know, is something that, that you definitely, you know, have to look at. So, I, I agree. I agree. Best-in-breed is probably, you know, the way to go as opposed to all-in-one,

[00:31:41] but the question is, do you go for best-in-breed when you're looking at a pure brand, or are you looking at a mix? 

[00:31:49] That's the question. So, what I mean by that is, is that, are you gonna go down a path of only rolling out certain types of technologies, let's say, you know, whether it be a certain language or a certain platform that only runs, let's say, in AWS versus, you know, Azure, you know, 

[00:32:05] I don't know, or do you have a mix? Do you go a multi-cloud? Right? Don't know. So, I even think it's all-in-one, best-in-breed, and then I think what it is, is it's, you know what, we're gonna mutt this thing, right? Because, at the end of the day, if I mute this thing, it gives me the flexibility of a multi-cloud environment, or it gives me the idea to have the ability to attract talent, right, in certain areas where if everyone goes best-in-breed and, and the best-in-breed is what everyone's trying to hire for, you know, how do you hire people? So, you know, I think we're, we have to think about this a little bit broader than just the best-in-breed. I think you need to have right fit, outside of best-in-breed, I think the best, yes, but the best for you as opposed to the best in the industry because that might not work for you, right? Best in the industry might not be the path that you're on, you know, so that's why I kind of think of it's more of a, breed is a mutt, but, you know, you go for the best mutt you could get, so.

[00:32:58] Jen Kern: Yes. Yes. I have a mutt. I have a Shepherd Beagle.

[00:33:04] Michael Chachula: Yeah, 

[00:33:04] Shepard Beagle, see, so you're, you're multi-cloud, you're a multi-cloud customer already.

[00:33:10] Jen Kern: That works fine. 

[00:33:12] Michael Chachula: Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right.

[00:33:14] I'm sorry I'm so serious. You know, those talks are supposed to be very serious, so.

[00:33:18] Jen Kern: Yeah, yeah. 

[00:33:19] Michael Chachula: By nature, I just can't help myself, you know?

[00:33:23] Jen Kern: No. You're, you're, you're incredibly personable. I mean, I, like I said, I've, I've had the pleasure of meeting you several times and, you know, you said something at a, at a conference to me where we were walking down the hallway

[00:33:34] and it really struck me because you, you bring your, your partner, your fiancé to all of your conference events, mostly your travel, and you said, you know, "Years ago when we went on these boondoggles, it was always we'd bring our partners with us, and today we don't. And why is that?" You know?

[00:33:50] Jen Kern: And, and we had a really interesting conversation around that and and I super digress. But no, it's, you know, I think it's very common nowadays, like, work and personal is not separate. Like, it's just not.

[00:34:01] Michael Chachula: Mm-hmm.

[00:34:02] Yeah. Well, I mean it, it's, it goes back to this thing where we always talk about, geez, when someone gets sick or, you know, and I'm more than happy to relate my, my ills, you know, I had COVID, you know, so I had, but I had the real COVID, I had the real deal, I had ICU-level renal failure, respiratory-failure COVID, right?

[00:34:22] And I also am a cancer survivor, and everyone talks about having a support network. Why should you only have it when you're sick? I just don't get it, right?

[00:34:31] Michael Chachula: If you wanna be successful, you need to have a deep, rich support network professionally and personally, and I really feel that, you know, when you spend so 

[00:34:41] much time away from your significant other, one day you come home, and it's a different person, right? It's no longer the person you, you met and you fell in love with, or, you know, not to get on, on, "Welcome to the Love Connection," work, you know, but you kind of, you kind of understand, you know, the idea, but, but you understand the idea of, you're in these high-pressure jobs, there's a lot going on, you're doing a lot of travel

[00:35:03] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm. 

[00:35:04] Michael Chachula: and everyone, thankfully my, my fiancé's able to be remote, so she just works from the hotel. She doesn't interfere. I go to the dinners, I, I do whatever, when I come back, you know, we'll sit down, we'll, we'll have a drink together at the bar before we go to bed and just watch TV and, and the next day we just do it all over again.

[00:35:20] You know?

[00:35:21] Because it's those moments that we have these conversations of, "How was your day? Right? What was your day like?" and you could go, "Oh, you know," and just lean into somebody and fall apart if the day sucked. Right? 

[00:35:32] So, I'm a true, firm believer that, don't give up your, I, I would say, you know, you can't give up your soul to achieve a dream, that's the reality and 

[00:35:43] Michael Chachula: I think that is what we've done to ourselves here in America sometimes where and I just came back from Greece and I came, came back from Dubai, and it's very interesting, and last year, we went to Egypt, the year before we went to Central Europe and when you see the difference in the work-life balance, it's just insane.

[00:35:59] It's just, I mean, we really need to do a better job of our own personal health. The health of our teams, the health of, even our, our spouses and partners and fiancés and significant others. 

[00:36:11] It's tough. It's a tough

[00:36:12] job. You're on 24/7 in technology, so, you know, remember that, folks, if you're listening to this, it's a tough job in technology, but at the same time, love is even tougher sometimes.

[00:36:23] So, you know, and harder to find these days. 

[00:36:26] Keep it close.

[00:36:27] Jen Kern: Give yourself breaks. I have to, you know, I'm, I'm not Type A you described, and I have to really force myself to take breaks, and I think COVID gave us all a big break. I mean, not for you, about, you know, your health issues, but, you know, it gave us a lot of us a big, like, pause and step back and space and a lot of reevaluation and reflection, and I'm trying to carry that into my, my daily life as well.

[00:36:53] I had a woman on, by the name of Milena Regos, and she started this movement called Unhustle, which is catching on like wildfire. It's now, there's now communities around the globe, Unhustle, what does that mean? Unhustle, you know, and, and she talks about integrating life, work, play, and design and so, it's not like forth balance anymore,

[00:37:14] it's like, you know, how are you doing life and work and designing play into your schedule? And that was, like, a kind of a mind blow for me because I was always like, you know, work, life.

[00:37:28] Michael Chachula: Yeah. 

[00:37:29] Jen Kern: Play what I can but not every day.

[00:37:34] Michael Chachula: You become a fractional person.

[00:37:36] You become a fractional person. And the reason you do that is, is because you, when you play, you play, when you work, you work, when you rest, you rest, but you do that in silos. What you don't do is, you're not restful at work, you're stressed.

[00:37:51] Why? Why be stressed at work? If you're doing your job, and you're doing a great job, and you're doing all the things you need to do, and, you know, there's nothing that says that you can't have fun, right, that you can't enjoy the job, that'll be foolish and get yourself, you know, "Hi, HR, you know, don't do that."

[00:38:05] But, but what you want to do is, is that you should have fun and you should make work fun. It's all of our responsibility to make work fun. I mean, I can't tell you how many times, you know, that I just wrote a hand, hand note to someone, not that they could read it because it's like Sanskrit when I write, but you know, here you go, the note kind of was like, you know, like the Charlie Brown, but they saw my signature. Hey, that's great, right?

[00:38:28] But at least they understood that, you know, hey, this person actually appreciated what I did and, and folks would come in and say, "Hey, you know, just really appreciate that you saw me and you saw that I was doing something, that I did something and I said, "I see you all the time, but the question is, do you, I see you, do you see what you're doing? You're always worried. You're always stressed. You're always worried about what you're gonna do." And I 

[00:38:50] think, us, as technology folks, and me as a CIO, it's my job to take my crew and say, "Hey, listen. Okay, guys, pause for a minute. Pause. Right? You need to have this work balance. You need to have this life-work balance, and we need to figure that out. We really do. And, you know, things are gonna come, and they're gonna cause us to have to work longer hours and more time, but at the same time, that should also mean that you should be able to spend time with your family, your significant others.

[00:39:13] You should be able to leave and go on vacation and not have to worry about your phone ringing." 

[00:39:17] We don't do that today. We all have our phones with us. We're answering emails on our vacations, you know, it's, it's something, as a CIO, that's something I'm, I'm really trying to work on with our crew and saying, "Guys, when you go out, I call it "the page of seconds," everyone should have on this page, a second in command, right? So, this way, when you go out, that person should know everything that's happening in, in your side of the organization. So, when you leave, I know who to call, and they know exactly what's going on." 

[00:39:42] And that should also, from a, when you think about it and you start doing succession planning, that should be the person who would take your role if you got promoted or you decided to leave.

[00:39:50] That should be the person who could easily step into the role and do the job, but they might not be ready from other reasons. Maybe they're just not, you know, personally ready. Maybe they need, you know, they got sharp edges, hard elbows, you know, some of those things. They need some of the more personal soft skills, or maybe they need hard skills or more, maybe they just need senior leadership training in general.

[00:40:09] Get 'em those skills. 

[00:40:11] Start crafting, start training, start teaching, you know and start mentoring. 

[00:40:15] I think that's what we need to do at our levels.

[00:40:17] Jen Kern: Yeah. Well, tell me some of the ways you make work fun besides, I mean, writing the notes and things like that. What do you do with your team to keep it light and, and model that, taking that pause and, and making work fun? I think that's hard.

[00:40:30] Michael Chachula: Mm-hmm. Yeah. It is hard. It, it's not the easiest thing because, you know, everyone's trying to say, "We should have 30-minute meetings," you know, and all of a sudden, how do you make things fun when everyone's going, "Hey, number two," you know, you sound like auctioneers, you know, but, but, you know, I, I think the, the way that I work on making things fun, especially, and, and we're actually rolling this out right now, is, you know, putting together a recognition plan that's more than just, "Hey, great job,"

[00:40:53] you know, it's more around, you know, long ago, when I was in my financial services years, we used to give away movie tickets. We used to have a quarterly award that somebody won, and people would fight for that award and they work really hard to get that, you know, that crystal thing on their desk, right? So, they could be the CIO of the, of the, CIO winner for the quarter, right? 

[00:41:14] But, it's also doing recognition that is meaningful for folks, and that's recognition across the organization where Billy wants to, you know, recognize Jane or whatever in a meaningful way 

[00:41:27] and looking at it and saying, "Hey, you know, I wanna give a shoutout to this person," and if that person gets a meaningful shoutout and we vet them, of course, or else everyone's gonna be giving shoutouts and if you give out a gift card or whatever, now all of a sudden you're giving away, you know, a hundred thousand dollars in gift cards, but, but the idea is, is to really have a meaningful shoutout to say, "Hey, this person worked 15 hours.

[00:41:44] They didn't have to do it, but I was in a bind, I was stuck, and this person went, you know, up and beyond," and we'll give them, you know, we're looking to give that person a gift card or a thank-you note, or maybe, "Here's a coupon for dinner for two in a movie," you know, whatever it is, just to kind of give back a little bit, you know, for that person, for taking the time in a meaningful way, not just the pat on the back and just the note.

[00:42:04] Right? 

[00:42:04] Now, of course, you know, I'm working on that, like all things, because it also has to be fair and that

[00:42:11] Jen Kern: Right.

[00:42:11] Michael Chachula: becomes kind of the hardest part of, of doing these programs, is just has to be fair across the board, and that becomes somewhat of a challenge sometimes.

[00:42:17] Jen Kern: Right, right. Well, good for you for working on it and, at least getting started and, I had the pleasure being at your franchisee conference, which I just thought did a fabulous job of highlighting people, the people in your organization and top franchisees, and it was just a very lovely event, and I don't say that about many of the conferences I go to.

[00:42:39] They tend to be kind of stressful, you know? 

[00:42:40] So, so I could tell, from an organizational standpoint, that your entire company is prioritizing people and, and recognition, and that makes a difference, makes a difference to everyone who sees it, 

[00:42:51] you know, and it reminds us that people are first.

[00:42:56] Michael Chachula: Yeah, absolutely. People are first. Absolutely, and when you're a CIO, you learn that right away when you walk in a room full of computers and there's no people.

[00:43:04] Right.

[00:43:05] First thing you see is a bunch of computers, no work's getting done, right? No one's working on 'em and, and sometimes you look at it, and you go, "Wow, you know, it's great that we have these computers and these technologies, but without folks in those seats, it's meaningless," right?

[00:43:18] So, I think, as a CIO, you see that even more so than most folks because we work in this very static, artificial world that someone has to control, right? 

[00:43:28] Someone has to pick it up and actually control it, you know. That, it's just very, it's very unique, right? It's very unique.

[00:43:34] It's much more personable than people think.

[00:43:36] They think it's just bits and bites, but it's not. It's, you know, you take it to heart when technology goes wrong, it doesn't serve people correctly, you really take it to heart, you know, you start thinking, "Hmm, how could we have done that better? What could we have done wrong? 

[00:43:46] You know, why do these people leave or quit?

[00:43:48] Or why can't we attract these people? You know, what is it that we're doing that we could be doing better?" So, I would recommend that anyone who gets in into this-level role, you know, do some significant reflecting on a daily basis of what went good that day and what went bad and, you know, I would argue that, when I hit my seventh month, I told myself that that's the month I would start journaling and start every day just running down and saying, "Hey, here's what went well and here's what didn't," because my ability to make decisions gets shorter and shorter the higher I got in a company.

[00:44:16] So, now, all of a sudden, the power that you have is like a triangle like this, and, you know, your, your influence is up here, but the time you have to do it is this way, and it's this much time, right? You have this little sliver and this much influence, and all of a sudden, I'm making decisions with very little information, right?

[00:44:32] So, I have to rely on a lot of folks. So, it's making sure that I nurture folks, make them understand what I wanna see, and, and getting better and better at that because, man, you know, you do sometimes have some, "Oh man, Mulligan, you know, you know, on that one, yeah, Mulligan kicked the ball out of the, you know, out of the weeds a little bit.

[00:44:47] Woo.

[00:44:48] Jen Kern: Yeah.

[00:44:49] Michael Chachula: See that one? You know, but, you know, you tend to, you tend to do that. But, you know, luckily I've, I've been, thankfully I've been, you know, doing, doing all right.

[00:44:58] Jen Kern: Oh yeah. Awesome. I'm sure you're done a little bit better than right. Let me ask you as we start to wrap here, like, some, we'll do just a couple quick rounds of questions, little, little quick round of fire. What, what do you think are the biggest blind spots in the industry today that, that we're missing?

[00:45:12] Michael Chachula: Well, I think, I, I think I said it earlier that security is definitely an, an area that, you know, we need to get much better at, at executing. 

[00:45:20] You know, I, I think the other side is, personalization can go too far.

[00:45:25] Jen Kern: Mm-hmm.

[00:45:26] Michael Chachula: I think that's another blind spot to where we make technology so complicated 'cause we're trying to please everybody,

[00:45:31] you know, I think what we need to do is, is we need to start understanding that there probably is a, a diminishing return when it comes to technology, from a value perspective, and that's key. Value. It's not just cost, it's value. What's the value it brings to the organization? It's not just, "Oh, this is gonna be a million dollars."

[00:45:47] Michael Chachula: Well, at the end of the day, if it's a million dollars and the value it brings, you know, allows you to attract more customers or attract better employees or, or do this, that and this, then, you know, there's significant value there. So, I would say, in the industry, it's around value, attraction, stemming, affection.     

[00:46:01] Again, as I mentioned, the playing field has been leveled. Playing field is getting leveled across the board, and what I mean by that is the loyalty that you still have a lot of loyal, loyal customers, but the ones that aren't as loyal, that are on the fringe defect very quickly and for you to be able to ground them into your base, you have to truly surprise, delight, do it in a manner that is consistent, and that is sometimes the challenge, is consistency, consistency of your offering, consistency of the experience, and consistency of the product because any of those are off, they defect because they're like, 

[00:46:38] "Hey, you know what? I can get a burger down there, or I could get a, I can get hot wings down there. I don't have to come here.

[00:46:42] You know?" And you don't want that. You want them to come to you every single time. So, I think that's what we're missing, is getting that linear, you know, it's not just technology. There's things on both sides of technology, attracting them, keeping them in the middle is technology.

[00:46:55] Jen Kern: Yep. The hottest trend in restaurant technology today is?

[00:46:59] Michael Chachula: Oh, Metaverse, that's probably the hottest trend right now, is the Metaverse, folks are looking for metaverse gameplay, ability to order within games, Metaverse Bitcoin, even though Bitcoin and, and, you know, you have, Crypto is, is kind of taking a beating right now, but folks are still really interested in being able to use different methods and wallets and, and things.

[00:47:19] So, I think, really, you know, allowing a customer to be who they are is becoming the most important thing out there, and that includes how they pay and even how they order. I don't wanna take off my VR machine to order, I wanna be able to walk into something, you know, in a space suit with a purple mohawk, and I wanna order my burger and fries, right?

[00:47:38] And then wanna walk up to a kiosk the same way that you control all your guns and ammo and sip through and get that burger fries and that drink and it shows up at your place. You know? So, you know, I think that's what you see coming with Metaverse and in-game ordering and things of that nature, something that we're just not gonna get away from

[00:47:53] and, again, it's not necessarily for our generation, that's for millennials and folks coming up into the consumerism now.

[00:48:00] I'd say that's, that's the big one. Cyber and Metaverse, that's where. 

[00:48:03] Jen Kern: Yeah. Metaverse. Okay. What, what's your moonshot?

[00:48:07] Michael Chachula: Oh, gosh. Crypto and Metaverse, I think forever. Everybody is having the foundation to be able to do it, right,

[00:48:13] I mean, that's really the key. It's not, it sounds really easy and simple, but, but it's not, and it's also on, on an environment that, Elbite is quite secure because blockchain is one of the most secure things on the planet when it comes to being able to corrupt it, you know, but the reality is, is it's still not the easiest thing and adoption of it, because most folks that are making the decisions right now in, in most families are us, right, and folks just behind us in the generation, whereas a lot of folks using this are the younger ones. So, that's what I think the moonshot 

[00:48:41] Jen Kern: Right. 

[00:48:41] Michael Chachula: is.

[00:48:42] Jen Kern: Last question. What advice do you have for other CIOs and CTOs in the restaurant industry?

[00:48:49] Michael Chachula: Oh, I, yeah, I mean, it's the advice everyone probably gives, but it's, listen, right? You, you almost have to have your ear to the ground, your ear to the door, your ear to the wall, your ear on the phone. You know, you really have to listen to the heartbeat of your stack and the heartbeat of your stack is coming out in the voices of customers and the voices of your company and the voices of your employees, and the voices of your vendors, and the voices of hackers, right?

[00:49:11] Those are all heartbeats that are going on, right? And the way you turn it into one heartbeat is a modernized stack that is flexible, that allows you to react, that allows you to not just, actually react is not the word, it's proactive, really, allows you to anticipate not only where the customer's going or were the hacker's going, but, you know, where can we take this now to make this just the best place to work in the universe for technology folks?

[00:49:33] Michael Chachula: That's what you really need to be looking at. And, like I said before, don't give up on love. Right? That's, you can't do that. You can't give up your soul to chase the dream, right? You, you need to, to keep the people close to you very close. You know, as I mentioned before, I'm lucky to have a, a great fiancé that supports me and comes with me and, you know, really is, and you met her,

[00:49:54] she's great, great person, and, you know, that, that's helpful. You know, keep those people really close. They come, you know, they, they really help you through some of the harder times.

[00:50:02] Jen Kern: Well, that's such a lovely way to end, listen and love. 

[00:50:06] Listen and love.

[00:50:08] Michael Chachula: Yeah, this will be available. 

[00:50:11] Jen Kern: Yeah, hopefully, we'll get a lot of people to listen in here. I really appreciate all your time today, Michael, and, and sharing your insights and just where you are over there at FAT Brands, on the other coast, as I'm

[00:50:22] signing in from, I assume, you're in LA today. 

[00:50:24] Jen Kern: I'm in LA today. 

[00:50:25] Michael Chachula: Yes. Yep. Well, it's a pleasure, Jen, as, as always, so I appreciate it. Hope to see you soon.

[00:50:31] Jen Kern: Yeah. Well, thank you for being such a great restaurant trailblazer and reinventing restaurants for the best, and you're lifting us all up. So, thank you so much for everything and, and we'll see you around.

[00:50:41] Michael Chachula: Thanks. See you later. 

[00:50:42] Jen Kern: Have a great day.