From Payments to POS Software, the story of Tabski

This episode of the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast features Jon, a longtime friend of the host and CEO/co-founder of Tabski, a digital commerce platform for restaurants. Jon shares his journey from starting in B2B sales and entering the restaurant tech space, to launching and pivoting Tabski amidst challenges like COVID-19. Tabski aims to improve guest experience and operational efficiency through features like multi-vendor ordering and omni-channel integration, addressing the evolving needs of food halls and busy restaurants. Jon emphasizes the importance of consumer-first design in creating a connected commerce platform, highlighting the shift towards a digital-first approach in the restaurant industry.

00:00 Welcome & Guest Introduction
00:24 Jon's Journey: From Payment Side to Restaurant Tech Innovator
01:04 The Birth and Evolution of Tapski
09:13 Exploring the ISO Model and Its Impact on Restaurants
15:05 Introducing Tapski: A New Era of Restaurant Technology
25:36 The Future of Ordering: Flexibility and Consumer Control
29:05 Conclusion & How to Connect with Tapski

Transcript

0:01

This is the Restaurant Technology Guys podcast. Helping you run your restaurant better.

Jeremy Julian: 0:07

Welcome back to the restaurant technology guys podcast. I thank everyone out there for joining us. As I say, each and every time I know you guys have got lots of choices. And so thank you for spending time with us today. We are joined by a guest that I've known for, I don't know, it's got to be close to 10 years now, Jon. But Jon, why don't you introduce yourself to your audience? Tell a little bit. Everybody who you are, even quite frankly, how we got connected. And then we can talk about what you've been up to the last few years.

Jon Grayem: 0:31

Yeah. So I've been in this business for about 12 years. Currently, I serve as a CEO, co founder of TabSki. you and I were introduced through a guy named Jordan Thaller. I know a lot of the folks that probably listen to this are familiar with Jordan. many years ago, I think probably eight or nine years ago. so we've, like you mentioned earlier, we've kept in touch via LinkedIn and stuff like that. And I listened to the pod. So here we are today.

Jeremy Julian: 0:53

I'm going to say, what's that, the old radio thing, longtime listener, first time caller. So I'm grateful that we got a chance to, to get on the air and, and record an episode. So Jon, you've been in the, in the tech space, we got introduced because, you've been selling restaurant technologies into the restaurant space, But, you've got some, exciting announcements and some things that you guys have been working on. I'd love to understand how did Tapski come about, just in general. Talk to me a little bit about the origin story. Cause I think it's a cool story that I'd love to have our, our listeners hear about.

Jon Grayem: 1:21

Yeah, it's a lengthy one. I mentioned I started in the business 12 years ago, so right out of college, I had a professor say, go out and get B2B sales experience, took that advice and ran with it. I actually started in the industry on the payment side, believe it or not. So

Jeremy Julian: 1:34

Surprise, surprise.

Jon Grayem: 1:35

not to me, software guys start on the payment side. so I actually went to work at a local ice. It was my first job ever, out of college. and they were just starting out. The actual owner had just, sold off a previous ISO with a partner. He was restarting. as a sole owner and, he was hiring his first two hires, one for sales, one for support, I ended up being the sales rep and, I worked there for about three years and, back in those days, Jeremy, as it was like a lot of retail, sales, a lot of terminals, and the restaurant side of things, it was all legacy systems. So the micros, Aloha's, digital dining, et cetera. but really early on in my career, I was always gravitating towards restaurants. So I guess back in those days, it might've just been, the transactional volume that I was after. but pretty quickly into my career, I remember I, made a cold call out to a local brewery here in St. Louis. And, he set up a meeting to talk about payments and I got into that meeting and out of the gate, he was just like raving about his payment processor, which is not something that you come across very often. most

Jeremy Julian: 2:32

insurance or airlines. You don't ever rave about any of those things, including your processor. Sorry, I'll let you keep going.

Jon Grayem: 2:37

yeah. And so he was just like going on and on. He's showing me the software and ultimately he was using a company called Swipely, which you may be familiar with, for the other folks listening to the pod, they ultimately went to rebrand as upserve and then got acquired by light speed many years later. but I remember he was just telling me, Oh, this is like amazing software. I can see which servers are costing me money. I can, evaluate my menu better. So I, I went home that night and I like went on their website, filled out a channel partner inquiry. And then, within days I, went to my boss and said, I'm sorry, I quit. I was a W2 at the time and, I wanted to do my own thing. So I went off as a 1099. And that's really where I got like my introduction into like really like restaurant software sales. So went from, frankly being more of a, what I call a rateslinger too. More of a consultative, sales approach, really trying to solve problems for the restaurants. so with that, I learned a lot, just working with a high growth, tech startup in the restaurant space. they're talking about all these terms like BDRs, SDRs, channel sales managers, attrition, churn, all these things that you just didn't hear in the payment space. And, I quickly saw that they operated quite differently. but I ended up doing that and, I was really successful with it. I was at that point, I was like 24 years old and, Started to like build a name for myself in the local restaurant scene. I think I added like a hundred restaurants in that year of, just being a one man show. but ultimately that was like a segue into point of sale sales and I getting my feet wet as a POS rep. So Swipely had announced that they were acquiring breadcrumb point of sale, which, those unfamiliar with breadcrumb, that was one of the, first really restaurant solutions. And you could argue, revel and square were kind of neck and neck with them. but it was funny how it worked out because they just, basically made the announcement and said, Hey, guess what? You're now selling point of sale systems. So we were caught off guard and they basically were going to fly us out to their headquarters and train us on, PLS. And then, after going out there, spending a week with them, we were ready to sell POS system. So in true entrepreneur, entrepreneurial fashion, I, went back to one of my biggest clients was a Mexican restaurant doing 800, 000 a month on credit card and they needed 22 terminals. And that was my first ever deal. So as you can imagine, it didn't go so smooth. they had a it guy show up, set up the Meraki. Set up the APS. And then I had about a hundred staff members staring at me and it was my job to train them and launch with them. but that was really where I got my, exposure around that time. That was like 2015 or something like that. So going back, roughly eight or nine years. and I was pretty successful with that, but then ultimately they went on to get acquired by light speed. And that's when we saw the writing on the wall. A lot of things are about to change. They started changing our comp plans. so I went on to, sell a new product, which was actually Clover dining at the time. they were just rolling out. I had another channel partner that I was always in contact with. It was selling the swipely product and he told me he had picked up Clover. went to market with that. And then by this point I started building out like my own team, was hiring W2 sales reps, support people, had a little office going. and we were doing a lot of, just restaurant POS sales and. I hired a guy to actually be, do marketing for our business. And as it turned out, he ended up doing a lot of marketing for our restaurant clients. He was managing their social media. And, it was hands off for me and it was profitable. So we were doing that. And it occurred to us in the process of doing that, that like all of our clients have like a common problem that None of them could like actually track their marketing. So that's when like I made my first preneur into building my first, software product, which was a product called table crunch. And really the idea was the problem we were trying to solve is, if you're running ads on Facebook and Instagram, we want to be able to actually track the ROI for that. so we ultimately, went on this path to try and find engineers. And, that's actually when Jordan, our mutual buddy, I had a conversation with him and, he basically said, Hey, these are the guys to talk to you. These are the best engineers I know. And, the rest is kind of history. We went into business with these engineers and. Started building our first product, but, at the time I didn't really understand how important product market fit was. first, preneur into software and here I was thinking, I had product market fit because, nobody can track their marketing if they're running ads. So we built a product that did work, the, basically the way it works is, if you would collect an email or a phone number. Which is something that's unique that a consumer will use to sign up for Facebook or Instagram. as we get this payment data, so if you go in and you spend 25, you give us your email, we can automate that back to Facebook. And then Facebook will give us a thumbs up or thumbs down. Did they see the ad? Did they not? so that we can show it back to the merchant. But the problem with that model was like, here we are selling a product that's a hundred bucks a month, which in itself is a challenge to sell to a restaurant. but then in order to really see ROI, we found this threshold of 500 a month and monthly ad spend in order to really make the product make sense. So by the time all that had happened, it's right around 2019 and then suddenly, COVID hit and we're rushing to take all of our clients, businesses online. and then as we took all our clients, businesses online, we're like, Oh my God, this is like our blessing in disguise because now we're getting emails and phone numbers with every single online order. but we still have the problem that we really didn't have product market fit. restaurants don't want to spend 500 a month on software. so then we actually had pivoted to email marketing and that product did have product market fit, where you could send emails through our platform. If they'd open the email, we would track it. And then within a 24 hour attribution window, if they came in and swipe a credit card, we'd say, Hey, this campaign generated X amount of dollars. but by that point, we had spent a lot of money building this thing. We had integrated to a bunch of different POS systems, and frankly, we're just running dry on funds and it was time to scrap it. so that was my first preneur, as I mentioned in software, learned a great deal, ultimately we built a product that is very similar to what toast and square does today with their marketing. It's just, we had poor execution. so it was a failure, but through that relationship, I met my engineers and, it was shortly thereafter, after COVID that. one of the engineers I was working with on a daily basis, who is now my co founder Philip, he had approached me after COVID and said, Hey, we've been, floating this idea of starting a social network for restaurants. And when he approached me, he wanted to actually go into business together. And I just said, actually I've been thinking about a different idea, which is more of a digital commerce platform, for restaurants. And, that's how Tapsky was born. And then, we started building it. after COVID, which a lot of companies similar to us did, similar things and a lot of them have come and gone. so we're still left standing and, we're, still at it today.

Jeremy Julian: 9:07

I appreciate the backstory and I knew a lot of that, but it's cool for our listeners to get to hear how you got through that journey. talk to me. Actually, I'm going to ask you to define something Jon real quick, just because I think people throw this word around and yours in my world. But what would you say is that? What does an ISO even mean? Because I think that some, again, as restaurant Listeners that are on this phone call. A lot of times they get approached by ISOs all day, every day. And so I'd love for you to define that for our listeners, because I think it'd be helpful for them to understand. And I want to talk a little bit about their value proposition versus why some of the other stuff that you and I've been doing is probably something our listeners need to consider. can you define ISO for me and what does that mean? Cause that's insight speak.

Jon Grayem: 9:45

yeah, it's basically it stands for independent sales organizations. So really at their core of their sales organizations that are basically reselling merchant accounts through, acquiring processors. so yeah, the best way to define it is it's, companies that are sales organizations selling, payment processing. Yeah.

Jeremy Julian: 10:02

you. and. Primarily when we talk about ISOs, we're talking about them in the payments world, not necessarily independent sales organizations. there's probably ISOs in insurance and ISOs and other industries, but primarily, and talk to me a little bit about what that sales cycle looks like for an ISO versus for a full service provider, because I think they're very different. You cut your teeth and that ISO world. And I don't say quickly learned, but as you started doing the value prop stuff and you teased about the fact that, most payments people don't get into the software world. Sometimes it goes the other way. So talk to me a little bit about what the ISO model looks like for them selling into restaurants.

Jon Grayem: 10:37

Yeah. And it's a little more challenging these days because back in the day, most restaurants, you'd have your POS company and then you'd have your payment company and they were usually two separate things. and with the ISO model, a lot of times they're trying to integrate into other technologies. So they're trying to integrate into the POS system. And I think really you're starting to see a trend of, the standard today is really you have one provider for both. but really to look at the sales cycle of an ISO, it's a little different in the sense that they typically don't have like instant onboarding. so they lack the convenience that like some of the modern platforms, like a square of the world where you can just go online and fill out a form. It's how tabs key works. We're a payment facilitator where you fill out a form, you get an instant approval and you can accept credit cards. Whereas with the ISO model, you're usually filling out maybe like a paper application or you might do it digitally, but then there might be a small window where you have to wait for an approval. And then, there might be like bar sheets going back and forth, which are essentially just, ways to, code things and take it live. so it's just a little less automated, and there's pros and cons to both, like with the, ISO model, there's a lot less risks that your merchant account will get shut down because they're doing underwriting upfront. Whereas facilitation, they give you this instant approval and then almost do underwriting as you go. So you run the risk down the road if you're, doing hopefully not nefarious things, but there could be different reasons that you could get your merchant account shut down. So they're just different models overall.

Jeremy Julian: 11:57

and I would love to, because we've never had a payback on the call. it's been something that maybe the last 10 years has been a much more prevalent thing in our world. you, you and I grew up and I'm significantly older than you. So from that perspective, I remember back before it was even, everybody was nice. So that was selling credit cards and they didn't, none of them had software. A lot of ISOs now are common representing software. They may own it. They may not own it. Yeah. Clover is a good example of that. And then, I guess there's this idea that came out this pay faq to find what a pay faq is for our listeners. If you wouldn't mind, cause I think it's a payment facilitator is what it stands for, but it looks a lot different to both the end user. and then we can talk about some examples of what the pay faq does as we start to talk a little bit more about why tabs key is such a unique offering in, in the space you guys are trying to try to hit.

Jon Grayem: 12:43

it's just a much more, complicated model, to set up and we're more of like a pay fact as a service. So like we haven't taken all of this in house yet. So I do want to be transparent about that. but when you go to set up like a payment facilitation model, you're doing things where you have like a risk department, you're having like there's a lot more cost to incur than just like the traditional ISO model, where you basically get an ISO agreement with a schedule a, and then you build out a sales organization. Whereas when you go to the payfac model, oftentimes you could be writing like directly to the card brands. so that kind of cuts out like a middleman layer, if you will. so there's just a lot more, like costs and stuff you're going to incur to set it up, but it's ultimately going to give you a lot more flexibility. Like one of the key reasons that we really felt like we had to go the pay fact route was we were falling short on a lot of things that were compromising our product. If we didn't go this route and just to speak to those specifically, Things like, like omni channel tokenization, like a big part of our platform is once you use the platform, we want to operate seamlessly, like Uber, where you have this wallet. So when you come back to a restaurant, after using the actual platform, we're just going to store your card on file. If you want to change it, you can, but just things like that. And then when you get into platform fees, which I think is something that's really becoming a bigger trend in the industry. Where it's this idea that maybe you have a restaurant that doesn't want to pay 200 a month to have digital ordering, but they're fine with charging a convenience fee to the customer or the consumer. when they open a tab, maybe they stay and drink for a couple hours at a brewery. And then when they go to close the tab, We're charging 99 cents that we're actually splitting off, from the batch the same day, and that money's going directly to us. So from a, taxation and revenue standpoint, your standpoint, that's our revenue. and there's just so many things like that, that we were doing, multi vendor ordering, like I already mentioned, where, you have these scenarios where. if I scan a QR code and I want to order from, three different restaurants using one payment transaction, a lot of that stuff's just not available

Jeremy Julian: 14:36

It's not available on the ISO model.

Jon Grayem: 14:38

so that's really our motivation. It wasn't, necessarily just onboarding for us. It was like a feature requirements that we had that we just had to have that to check the boxes.

Jeremy Julian: 14:48

Yeah. and again, as we talked about, it's been, last maybe 10 ish years that payfax have gotten there. I think, really, you talked about Clover, you talked about square earlier toast is, toast didn't maybe start there, but was, we quickly got there. And, as people have gone down that route, it does give you some leverage for the convenience side, obviously it comes at a cost both to the consumer and to the merchant as they're going through it. I guess Jon flip, let's flip around. Talk to me a little bit about what tabs key is. Cause you know, you went through your journey. I love hearing about all the puts and takes, and I'm sure at some point over a beer at a trade show, you can tell me all of the scars that you have from, from the fun there. you guys are trying to solve some unique problems. You talked about ideal customer profile or what I call ideal customer profile. I think you called it customer market fit. Talk to me a little bit about what problem are you trying to solve? There's 700 point of sale companies out in the world. Why is tabs key different and why, what are they trying to go after and what unique problem are they trying to solve that I can't get from toast? I can't get from square. I can't get from Clover or any of those other systems.

Jon Grayem: 15:44

yeah, great question. So I think a lot of it like starts with the foundation. a lot of these POS systems, or if you just take a step back, let's think about the, the market you mentioned there's 700 POS companies, over the last 25 years, if you really think about it, P. O. S. Hasn't really changed that much. And some people might argue, Oh, yeah, the cloud came about and that changed everything. It's did it really, though? Because for the most part, we were building computer systems with the operators and the restaurant staff in mind. And really, I think our key differentiator is, We've built, our house and our foundation with like almost the consumer in mind, just as much as like the restaurant, operators and staff. we think about this digital first approach where, you know, where do we differ in differentiate from like the toast of the world? one key factor would be like I mentioned, multi vendor ordering. we're solving like real problems for food halls, which is a really fast growing segment of the market where, I'll give you an example. I went to a food hall here in ST Louis who I'm actually in talks with right now. with my wife and my two children and, I have a four year old and then a baby, an infant. So we don't travel light as you can imagine. And we go there on a Saturday, it's peak hours. And, we walked around for 10 minutes, just trying to find a table, just to settle our crap down and figure out a game plan. And, right out of the gate, my wife's I think I'm gonna get tacos. I'm eyeing a chicken sandwich. And then. My four year old wants ice cream. so I'm like, okay, how's this going to work? we're going to wait in three different lines. We're going to maybe split up. She'll take one kid. I'll take the next. But then we quickly realized, are we going to leave our stuff, on the table where downtown St. Louis, I don't know if I feel comfortable leaving myself on the table. So ultimately we didn't, and we went and split up and, waited in different lines. like that's a problem that we're solving that, you're not going to find with like square toast where, QR code. You can bring up all 17 restaurants in a food hall or however many they have. And then using one payment transaction, whether it be Apple pay, you can order from three different restaurants and then you're going to be shown a real time order tracker for each restaurant. So it's this idea. I like to always use the analogy of Uber where, why did Uber went out, versus the cabs. It's really because of convenience, and we don't, you don't download an app with us. So that is one thing that's very different from Uber, but it all comes down to convenience. When you're ordering in that food hall, you, you don't have any anxiety of like, how long is my order going to take or what's going on in the kitchen anymore? Because like with Uber, you can look on the app and see where the car's at. Tabsky, you can see with each different restaurant, what's going on with your order. Has it been accepted? Are they actually preparing it? And then when it's ready, how do they want to fulfill the order? Do they want to bring it to you? Do they want to send you a text and have you go get it? So those are the, really the problems that we're working, with these food halls to solve is Just providing a better guest experience, but then, taking that, across the whole omni channel, suite, not just QR code ordering, but if I'm ordering in an office building, online, maybe I'm the boss and I'm paying for everybody, being able to set up a group order where everyone in the office can order and they can all order from multiple vendors and then we can batch the orders accordingly, or maybe when you're walking into the food hall. something that we're rolling out towards the end of this year is a multi-vendor ordering kiosk, which I really don't know of any other companies in norther in North America doing that. I'm sure there are some, I just don't know of them. but, it's all designed just to make it a better guest experience. to answer your original question, what makes us different is we've really taken this approach like almost consumer first, because if the consumers want to use it, inevitably, the actual restaurant's gonna wanna adopt it as well.

Jeremy Julian: 19:03

and I, and one of the threads, Jon, that I've heard you say through both your story and knowing you online is while payments is a part of the equation, it's not the main part of the equation. Clover square and toast real end game shift for that matter, their end game is to get the payments and to get the payments revenue. Their end game is whatever means necessary to get the payments and get the payments revenue. What I've heard you say in a lot of this is we really want to help the consumer, help the restaurant to operate better, whether that goes back to your marketing automation pieces that you did, or you're talking about tabski and what you guys are doing now. Talk to me about how you guys consider that. And when you talk to your co founder, do Walk me through why, because there's, again, Toast has done just fine for themselves. They've, they raised a lot of money, they've grown a lot and they're doing it through the payment side. and at the same time I'm of the same ilk. And I think part of why you and I get along as well as we do is value is created by solving problems, not necessarily just facilitating a payment transaction. So tell me a little bit about how you guys consider that when you guys are thinking about product market fit, as well as just product enhancements and things that you guys do.

Jon Grayem: 20:09

Yeah. a lot of it comes down to just what we see being on the ground, level at these restaurants, like. a great example. I think everybody listening could resonate with is we've all been in a situation where we would go out to eat, the server takes everyone's order. And then 10 minutes later, Hey, Jeremy, really? Sorry. We actually sold our last chop. We're out of the special. Can I get you something else? Now your food's coming out after everybody else's. And then, naturally your experiences may be ruined. so when we see things like that's when we have those light bulb moments. I have the conversations like, how do we use technology to solve that problem? And one of the ways that we've solved that problem is like through our order display systems. And I call them order display systems, not kitchen display systems, because they get used at the bar, hotel desk, wherever you want to use them. like you can actually reject an order in real time because, where are we running out of the chop? It actually happens in the kitchen. Yet historically, the most POS systems, there's no way to 86 something from the kitchen. It happens in the front of house on the computer systems. So we want to build this connected commerce platform where, Hey, if the chef says, Hey, we're out of that, I'm just going to reject it. It's going to text the consumer and send an alert to the server in real time that we're out of that. It's going to, refund their money. to where, 10 minutes doesn't have to pass to remedy the situation, have them order something else. so really a lot of it is just born out of like years of working with restaurants and just, seeing what and just, try to flip the script, how do we do things different? Not necessarily just. build another POS. Like, how can we use this digital first approach to really make things more efficient and solve problems? Yeah,

Jeremy Julian: 21:40

on the show is the Amazon effect, a lot of people, even dominoes, they've spent billions of dollars on these order applications. And so few of them allow the guests to control their experience. talk to me a little bit about that philosophy. Why is it so important to control the guests? Because some restaurateurs, and again, you've been in the space for a long time. Some restaurateurs are like, no, I don't want the guests to know anything. I want to control the experience and others are like, you know As you talk about these food halls or some of these other ways, the consumer wants control. They can order. why do I order from Domino's versus Papa Jon's? And again, I don't order online from either of those places. My wife typically does it when I'm, when we're feeding the kids, those kind of, those kinds of things, but they've got this order tracker. Why do I order? Why do we do Uber versus calling a taxi on the phone and not knowing when they're going to be there? Because I can, as a consumer, I can control it. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys think about that and why you think it's so critical for all restaurants, quite frankly, to think about it that way, because I think it's important because the consumers are expecting

Jon Grayem: 22:36

I think, a lot of restaurants are just, they're old school, they're stuck in their ways. And, they're just not thinking about these things from the way that we think about it in the sense of technology. But, I think it all really just ties back to, my own experiences as a consumer, especially in a post COVID world when you have this labor shortages, and even if you don't want to order through your phone. like in a fine dining setting, I wouldn't recommend our solution. people are going out, spend 100 on a steak. They probably want to, have the server tell them the specials. They want to ask them questions about the wine. But at the end of that visit, if the servers MIA, if they had a really great visit, they might want to just be able to pay. So like we look at it from the perspective of what business are we catering to? What makes sense for that business? To where it's almost like a modular like approach to where, you might have a fine dining that just wants like the menus, they don't want to be able to order, but they still want to be able to show them the pictures and descriptions, and maybe they still want to be able to pay. So we're starting to think about like, how do we build this flexible platform that makes sense for everybody. but at the end of the day, I think the guests do prefer to, actually control the experience. And again, like it really comes down to the venue that you're in. if I'm in a brewery and my option or a food hall is to go wait in line, or I can just open a tab and order a beer. And literally have it in some cases show up in one minute. Like I'm going to want to do that over, go wait in line. And, don't take it from me, ask the consumers. And we see it online with Google reviews or like a lot of our breweries where they're like, I actually frequent this place often because I love their ordering system. I can get a beer and get food and get in and out quickly. And I prefer that. So you'll get a lot of resistance, as working with like restaurants where they're like, no, that's not hospitality. But when you really start to peel back the layers of the onions, It's like, what is hospitality? It's what are your servers doing when, they're physically taking orders is they're spending a lot of time taking orders. But then when you have an ATOP and they have to go split, eight different credit cards, like how much time does that take? that's time that we're saving that can be spent actually with other tables or with, new people coming in to be seated. when you really start to look at this digital first approach, you realize it is more efficient. and it actually frees up your cashiers and your servers alike to be spending more time with your guests. So it's just a win.

Jeremy Julian: 24:44

and the last thread, Jon, that I want to talk through is you guys are solving the method by which you're communicating what you want to the kitchen, whether it's the group or that you talked about, or it's the ability to QR code. I'm assuming you guys can do traditional POS in the traditional sense. I can give it to a server. they can go ring it up, but I can now interact in the ways that, that they want, that the guests want to interact. I have a big philosophy that not everybody dines out the same way. When my kids were young, like yours were, my dining out experiences were chosen based on, I have a 45 minute window. Cause I know my kids can only last 45 minutes now that my kids are teenagers. And, my youngest is eight. Very different. My, my experience is very different. I go out and we can go out to longer meals because you know what, it's less about that, more about what's the entertainment around them. and I, and when my wife and I are going out on a date night, we choose places based on what we need to do. And if we're going date night to a movie, we're looking for that 45 minute meal. If we're going to date night to spend two hours just talking and hanging out and have a class a wine. Totally different experience. And the different ordering modalities I think is somewhat expected. Talk to me a little bit about how you guys are considering what those might be. Voice ordering, text ordering, chatting with a human kiosk. You talked about all of these different things. Kind of walk me through where you guys are at today. What are the different order modalities you guys have? And even really, where do you think the roadmap's going?

Jon Grayem: 26:01

Yeah, definitely. So like product ecosystem today is like our consumer app, which is, you can call it digital ordering, QR code ordering. It's just web based. so that's like kind of our, flagship, I would say. And then we have online ordering with, scheduled orders, group ordering, third party delivery, all that fun stuff. and then we have our order display technology. That's how we keep everything connected. and then depending on when this podcast comes out, we may or may not have our point of sale to market. so that's been like the big, thing that we're working on right now is, we have to have the point of sale, to, get all of the revenue from the restaurant and really be that, go to provider. we learned that very quickly as we started with API integrations, that's a messy business and I don't recommend it. that's, we're trying to complete the stack, but our roadmap for, this year with it being February is get the POS to market. Okay. as I mentioned, we're just rolling out the multi vendor ordering. We're buttoning that up right now. and then our kiosk, is, something that we can get out there rather quickly. We do have to build an app for it, but it's really reusing all of the, like the same code, right? If you think about if I'm ordering on my phone, it's just tweaking a little, front end UI things. so we're thinking about all these different things and then we've started on server handhelds as well. and that's a critical piece that I do want to touch on is, you asked, How do you think about all these different, ways to order? and the reality is if you want to cater to a broad group of customers, you have to be really flexible because not everybody's going to use a kiosk. Not everybody's going to use a QR code. a lot of my grandpa is going to always order through the server. so like, how do we like close the gap to make everything speak to each other? And an example of that would be you have these scenarios where someone might order through a QR code. but then the server's coming around to, drop off, beers for your pal and you just say, Hey, let me get another beer. but you already opened a tab on your phone. if you don't have the POS or you don't have a handheld where you have an omni channel token, where they can add to your order, it's this awkward inflection point where the server's you ordered through your phone, so you have to order through your phone. So that's really the problem that we're looking to solve with our POS is if you start on the kiosk and then you go order through the POS, you're it's all connected. And like an example of that would be for like, busy bars. when I go to a busy bar and I have to stand there, four deep at a bar trying to get the bartenders, I hate that. everybody hates that. So it's

Jeremy Julian: 28:10

Who are you kidding? You have a four year old and a one year old. You're not going to any bars anytime soon, but that's a different conversation.

Jon Grayem: 28:15

Yeah. like, how do we like solve those problems with like technology and so one of the things without giving away some of our secret sauce, I know there's other people working on similar things is when we go to start the tab with the bartender now, when we preauthorize their card, we can just ask them, Hey, if you give me your phone number, I'm going to text you a link to your tab. and it converts them to digital. Or if you're in a food hall and you order through, a restaurant at the POS, once we text them, then they pull it up on their phone. They realize, oh, wow, I can order from all the vendors or, oh, wow, I can just order my beer from wherever I'm at and they're going to text me when it's ready. it's all about just having this connected commerce platform because it's not one size fits all. Everyone's different and you got to be able to cater to everyone. as we roll out these different products, we want them all to speak to one another and help solve those problems.

Jeremy Julian: 29:01

Well, Jon, I can tell you that, 10 years ago when we met nine years ago, however long ago that was, I can promise you this wasn't what I expected, our conversation to be 10 years later.

Jon Grayem: 29:09

I didn't either.

Jeremy Julian: 29:09

to, happy to hear that you guys have made such progress. How would people learn more about Tapski? get connected, see if the. Product fits where they're at. how do they engage with you? And what would that experience look like for one of our potential listeners that, that's dude, I want that tomorrow.

Jon Grayem: 29:23

Yeah, just tabski. com T A B S K I. com. you fill out a form on our website. We'll get back to you the same day. And, we usually start with a product demo and, really just try and learn about your business first and then, show you what we got.

Jeremy Julian: 29:35

Okay. If, is there anything else that we missed, miss sharing with our audience, Jon, that you've got up your sleeve that you want to share, that you want to share, or, do we let, did we hit each of the high points that we needed to for today?

Jon Grayem: 29:44

Yeah, I think we hit all the high points. I think it was, good interview, so I appreciate you having me on.

Jeremy Julian: 29:49

Awesome. to our listeners, guys, we know that you guys have got lots of choices, as I said, so thank you guys for spending time with us, Jon, thank you so much. And to our listeners, make it a great day.

29:59

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.