RLC Talks - Revolutionizing Frontline Work: An Interview with Krish, CEO of Know

In this episode, Krish, the founder and CEO of Know, discusses the transformative mission of his company to make every frontline worker a 'superhero.' Krish explains how the Know app helps streamline day-to-day operations, reduce chaos, and improve worker satisfaction and retention in industries with high turnover, like restaurants. The app functions as a comprehensive digital assistant, offering training, task management, and direct communication from management. Krish also explores the importance of micro-learning and the app's multilingual capabilities, emphasizing the need to meet workers where they are, both geographically and technologically.

00:00 Introduction to Krish and His Mission

00:27 Streamlining Day-to-Day Operations

01:28 Addressing Employee Turnover

03:47 The Role of Technology in Training

04:44 Customizing and Documenting Processes

07:36 Micro Learning and On-Demand Information

09:52 International Reach and Multi-Language Support

11:07 Conclusion and Contact Information

Transcript

Jeremy Julian: 0:00

well, Krish, why don't you introduce our yourself to our listeners. You can look my way or look that way, but who's Krish?

Krish Sridhar: 0:06

well thanks for having me. Yeah. I'm Krish, I'm the founder and CEO of Know, we are on a mission to make every frontline worker a superhero.

Jeremy Julian: 0:14

So what does that exactly mean? Because I, I get the privilege of hanging out with you at different trade shows, so I know where you're at and where you're going. But I'd love for our audience to hear a little bit more about that.'cause that's a huge, bold vision that I think is amazing, and I think it's great that, that you're on that path. No, absolutely. So I

Krish Sridhar: 0:28

think, two things. First of all. on a day to day, whether you worker working a, in a restaurant or a manager, you should just get inundated with, obviously your day to day job. But then you have data, you have, all of the things which are just day-to-day chaos. We wanna streamline all of that where you can almost run the things that you need to do. Like a playbook, right? So somebody joins the organization, they get our app, the no app. And then no, essentially becomes like a sidekick that drives your day to day. So you don't have to sit there wondering, what do I have to do today? Or if I have a question, the app will answer it. Yeah. So it can train you, it can give you all the information you need. It has a task management feature as well, and it's on task management, on steroids. So it's not just a, you don't need another checklist app. There's, there's 50 of them out there. what you want is all of these things to sing and dance with each other. So the worker, just the day-to-day for the, either the worker or the manager is just super simple. the app drives everything and frees up time and reduces all the chaos so that they can then focus on the guest.

Jeremy Julian: 1:28

and in our industry, we know that the turnover is typically a pretty challenging part of the space that we're in. Yeah. even pre pandemic, but post pandemic, it's even worse if people don't want to come into work, and then when they do, they're not staying for super long periods of time. So something like that. Help me understand how does it actually work? Because I, I hear a lot of people say, oh, we're gonna make their lives easier. Yeah. And at the end of the day, they don't think through those things. Yeah. So how does it work with these new employees or these employees that might be taken on a new role or having to do something different? No, it's a great

Krish Sridhar: 1:55

question. So why, people churn for various reasons, but some of the big ones are, one, they're just frustrated with their job. they don't know what they have to do. there's research which shows that, the average restaurant employee doesn't stay for more than two or three months, right? And a huge factor of that is just frustration with the job, not knowing what their job entails. Maybe they took on the job and didn't realize what it was about.

Jeremy Julian: 2:17

Yeah.

Krish Sridhar: 2:17

They're getting yelled at by guests because they don't know what they're doing'cause they don't have tools like what you have. And the manager's busy. Maybe we don't have the time to coach them, guide them, do all of the kind of things that they do. And finally, the other reason they leave is because they don't feel like they're part of something, right? we all talk about culture all day long. The building culture is challenging. Yep. And how do you connect the top floor of the organization? With the shop floor, right? Yep.

Jeremy Julian: 2:40

With the people that are actually interacting with your guests.

Krish Sridhar: 2:42

Yep. And those are reasons why people churn and. With No. What happens is management has a direct line to every last person in the store, right? So we have this beautiful feature, which is almost like a TikTok, but for your organization, which allows you to share company news, right? Share, celebrate wins that you're having, not just wins, Hey, you did a great job, but maybe make them feel like they're part of the organization. we were, I was just listening to the Brinker CEO talk about how he sets the vision and then, at the end it drives 31% sales growth, right? Yep. But that. Growth was driven by every last worker and every last manager. Now, if you make them feel like they're part of that 31% growth story and why. Chilies has had such a massive turnaround, they would feel like they're actually part of something. Absolutely.

Jeremy Julian: 3:26

And you talk about even churn, oftentimes it's'cause they don't have a path forward. They don't know how to get there. That's right. That's right. And unfortunately, the manager, to your point, has too many things to do. So that one-on-one coaching, that apprenticeship that we might have had 20 or 30 years ago, doesn't exist. And number one, and number two, they don't have the time. They don't have the energy. And number two, oftentimes this generation doesn't learn that way. Yeah. They're learning through a digital means. So talk to me about how you philosophically think through that.

Krish Sridhar: 3:50

Yeah, no, a hundred percent. So the nobody has the time to sit through any long training content, even if they had the time. Nobody has the attention span. in fact, I guarantee you any listener listening to this podcast has probably looked at their phone six times between while they're listening, while they're listening to this. So that's how we all live it. And if you're a Gen Z, millennial, anything like that, then that's, what you've grown up with. Right? And that convenience, that quick access to information, that being able to do all of these things quickly is the way today's workforce wants to. Work and we have basically built that platform that bite sizes everything, right? And creates a playbook where if it's eight o'clock in the morning, people don't have to think what they have to do because the app essentially prompts you saying, Hey, it's eight o'clock time for you to go do this walkthrough of something, right? So then there's no frustration. There's very CLA in it, absolutely clear on what they need to do. And you also don't have to get yelled at later on because maybe you forgot something or didn't do something right, which adds more to the frustration and so on.

Jeremy Julian: 4:44

So for those brands that maybe don't have it documented, I know for me, and it's been a long time, lots of gray hairs here. So it's been a long time since I worked in the core restaurant, but for me it was follow these guys around for three days to figure out what you're supposed to do. And maybe they did it right, maybe they did it wrong, but that was part of the training when you were server on the floor. For those that maybe haven't documented are still in that place. How do you help restaurants get to a place where they are documenting those things? Yeah. Where they are putting those systems in place? Because that is a critical component of it, is just to define who you are and where you're going. Yeah. Prior to recording the tools that, that are gonna allow them there.

Krish Sridhar: 5:19

And by the way, I don't think it's completely replaceable. So there's a, I mean we are in the restaurant business after all. Yeah. So that in-person thing will continue to remain, but. Two, two things to your thing. So number one is, we have a collection of templates, libraries, content partners and things like that. So we can, if you don't have something, we can give that to you as well. So that's the easy, that's one. But secondly, I think, we can, we have complete, I don't want this to be a sales conversation kind of thing, but we have. Complete white glove service. So if you don't have something, we can help you shoot it, we can edit it, we can do all of that for you as well as part of the no platform. That's great. but more importantly, I think we work with you as partners. we have this big saying at no, we say not vendors, partners. Yep. We hate it when somebody vice versa. We hate it when people treat us like vendors as well. So because we say this is a long term partnership, if you have a problem, we are here to help you solve it. If it's not in our world, we point you to somebody else. But the codifying thing, we have so many best practices from so many places as well. So templates, we help you think through these things. We have partnerships. Lots of things made to solve that.

Jeremy Julian: 6:21

Yeah, no, and I think that's incredible and the fact that you guys have been there, done, that is also a piece that I think underestimate. there's certain things that make people's secret sauce. Yeah, I was just at Texas Roadhouse this week and they have a different service model than even a Chili's. Yeah. And so there's certain things that culturally are part of that. Yeah. but then there's also things that are core to what you need to do. You need to check the salt shakers to make sure there's salt in there and you need to fill them properly. You need to make sure that you're doing those things on a daily

Krish Sridhar: 6:43

basis. Yeah. But it goes more strategic as well. It's not just the tactical because. you are a brand, you wanna ensure your brand standards flow all the way down to everybody, right? And it may be literally from how do you greet somebody when they come in? we have a Mexican restaurant chain, which has an entire playbook on how they, you would come in, they say"Hola" and they welcome you for something, right? Or when they serve you something, what they have to say. So it's not just the tactical stuff, but it's also, strategically how you position your brand and make your brand standards and everything like that flow all the way down to the last person. That person leaves in a couple of months. You're not now again, oh crap, like I have bad service until the next person picks up. You almost plug and play.

Jeremy Julian: 7:18

Yeah, no, and I think that's incredible and I think we all, it resonates with us when we go to a Chick-fil-A, they, it's very consistent. Exactly. and part of why they continue to be successful. I think Chili's is as you talked about with the CEO, they figured out that way that, that creates that Chili's experience and. We also have been in those brands that don't have that. Yeah. And they struggle. Yeah. last piece is the micro learning aspect. Help me understand why micro learning is so critical and really even the micro learning when I need it, where I need it. Yeah. Because that's the piece that I think a lot of people, just, you learned it six weeks ago when you went through training, don't you remember? Whereas having it in an app, that ability to get to that data, because that's where we live every day. Yeah. I have a problem. Plumbing problem. I first search YouTube. Real silly story. I just bought a nail gun. Nail gun. I'm having a struggle with. Yeah. Did I go back to Home Depot to have them? Did I go to the website? No. I went on YouTube and said Ryobi Nail gun. Yeah. Nails bending. Yep. And amazing. this video shows up that says, oh, this is what your problem is. I fix it. Problem goes away. Yep. So in this world today, I think too many, everybody is in that on demand. Yeah. So the fact that you guys are able to fulfill that. Where they're at. Is that really part of

Krish Sridhar: 8:25

the secret sauce? It is, and it's on demand, but it's also with all the AI stuff. Now we can literally suck in. Imagine in the, we can suck in that manual from abi, and in literally three seconds, the staff can now ask questions against that manual and get answers, right? So we can take your recipes, we can take your menus, we can take all of that, digitize that inside, know in seconds, and then you can start getting answers anytime you want. You don't have to flick through page four of my menu to find something. So if you're. You have a customer comes in with vegan, you can basically, and you can just ask a question and it'll give you the answer.

Jeremy Julian: 8:55

That was exactly where my head was going is I've got somebody that doesn't like shellfish and or has a peanut allergy and yep. What are the items that they need to avoid? is that kind of a common percent for you guys? Yeah, it is. Absolutely.

Krish Sridhar: 9:05

And if it, and to build on that, we also have this concept where you can place QR codes and things like that throughout your restaurant. You scan a QR code, it will take you directly to the training as well. So imagine that, you have a coffee machine that you have to clean every day at the end of the day. You just scan the qr, it'll take you to step-by-step instructions on how to clean that coffee machine.

Jeremy Julian: 9:22

Alright, so when are you selling McDonald's? So that my, I can get my McFlurry, because that's one of biggest challenges. happy to take that call whenever that comes in. I love it. I love it. Krish, how do people learn more? How do people get, engaged with the brand and learn more and talk with you and your team?

Krish Sridhar: 9:35

And again, white glove. So happy to talk to people directly. I'm Krish@getknowapp.com. but if you just search for us, Know the app, we have 1.8 million people use our app each month. you can find us quite easily, but, I'll be personally delighted to help anybody.

Jeremy Julian: 9:50

Love that. Last thing real quick. multi-language. Yes. So talk to me a little bit about multi-language.'cause I know you guys are also an international Yeah, international. 26 countries. So 26 countries. So the fact that oftentimes a lot of these products that are similar to yours. We started in the US and that's the only place that they've done it. And then you've got, native language speakers that are speaking Korean or Chinese or, Spanish. So I guess help, help our listeners understand how that also translates, because I think it's a critical piece that as our workforce continues to get more diverse, you have to meet them where they are. Yeah. The thing that I keep hearing you say is we're meeting them where they are and what they're

Krish Sridhar: 10:23

looking for. Yeah. No, the app works in practically any language you want. we have now with the AI stuff, we have things that convert the training as well into different languages. we have many new functionality coming, which will help you. Like today we have a way you can, from a prompt create training in different languages, right? That's incredible. and so all of these sorts of functionality, it's not perfect today. AI is evolving every month. you talked to me in three months, this thing will be on a completely different planet. Yeah. So I think one of the things also is we try to be super nimble because the technology world is evolving faster than any time before. but at the same time, Yeah. Language and stuff is almost become right now table stakes. Yep. Absolutely. so that's, we have plenty of functionality like that. You can create a training, you can see, learn it in different languages, it'll give you stats across everything for the managers. all of that's possible.

Jeremy Julian: 11:07

Love it. Krish, thank you very much for stopping by. Thank you for what you guys do to ultimately make the restaurant a better place. And, have a great rest of the conference. Pleasure, pleasure having you. Thank you so much for having me here. Awesome. Yep.