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 that you guys have got lots of choices, so we appreciate you guys spending time with us each and every week. Today, I've got a pretty cool, story that we're gonna talk through. and, I'm, I guess I'm excited for Carl to tell, tell me a little bit about his story.
in that, I've had quite a few guests on recently that talk about AI and, you have to be living under a rock to not talk about AI, but so much of the AI doesn't really have a business value. And I'm excited to have Carl talk through the business value and how this is going to really serve your restaurant. But before we jump into that, Carl, why don't you tell everyone a little bit about your background?
I know you've been around this space for going on five years now, So why don't you give everybody a little bit of a background of where Carl came from, and then we can talk a little bit about what, what SwipeBy is doing.
Yeah. Awesome. Would love to. And Jeremy, thanks so much for having me. yeah, a little bit. I'm Carl. I'm originally, I'm the CEO and founder of swipe. I'm originally from Germany. So I'm born, grew up in Germany, went to high school there, came to the U S to study in North Carolina. and that's actually where my entrepreneurial journey with swipe. I started. And, while I have worked, doing high school and restaurants, I'm not classic, coming really out of the community.
but my, journey in the space started by an observation, as an outsider. and that observation originally was in North Carolina. I like to eat at local restaurants, but I have to drive everywhere. And it was, the massive amount of drive thrus. like you have Chick fil A, We have, Cookout there. Amazing for your 2 a. m. cookout run. and obviously the McDonald's, the Burger Kings of the world, right? Good old America. They're everywhere.
And so what my, sparked my journey of building tech for restaurants was really figuring out, how can the local restaurant compete with the drive through? How can that local restaurant in suburban America where I was located, give me as a consumer the same convenience without putting a wall in their window or a window in their wall and building a street around them and making a burger instead in 10 minutes in one minute.
And so what I originally launched in 2019 Was actually think an Uber or DoorDash, but for curbside pickup, a marketplace where we use geolocation to track customers. and that was really my entry point into this world, right? And learning with customers like started with a handful, three customers, Winston Salem, North Carolina. and then, grew that kind of really organically by COVID hit.
And overnight, I didn't have to explain anymore what's curbside, but people came to us asking for curbside, right? as and, listeners, you're probably, but everyone also signed up with 2000 other solutions, technology rise, digitalization, digital adoption of restaurants rose tremendously. And we made the decision number one as a marketplace at the time we took our 15%, it was never the 30, but we felt that felt unethical, ethical, we are doing 100 percent sales for customer.
Why are we taking 50 percent if we didn't lift a finger to really get the customers because they're just want order from that account. And we pivoted to become, a 360 online ordering platform. there is a lot of them was a really strong focus then on curbside and geolocation. And then what I think, our next evolution was, and this happened over the last year and a half here was. We were always thinking about, online ordering has been commoditized, right? There's more and more players.
There is a lot of different solutions. It's all about integration. That's important. But where is really the value of an online order outside of creating a little bit of revenue, right? Carl places an order and that creates 30 in revenue. Where's added value beyond that? And that is now where we are using AI to turn that Carl ordered a burger for 20 at a restaurant and turning that into five other things. That this transaction can turn into value with AI.
But that's my sweet and short story of how I got into this.
from outside of the industry that, that see a need and then go jump right in. And so I appreciate the fact that you shared a little bit of that. and I know it's probably hard for a lot of our listeners to think back to 2018 or 2019, because it is like really a world away, even though it was only a couple of years because the world changed so much. the other thing I'd like to double click on, to use a technical term is the whole idea of overnight. Everybody knew what curbside was.
and talk a little bit about the value proposition, Carl, because I think it's important for people to understand that you were really trying to solve the idea that a restaurant that doesn't have a drive through now is capable of competing with a restaurant that has a drive through. You were trying to solve that, I call it four wall economics of serving the customers where they may need to be well before COVID hit.
And really even what the challenges were with some of those things, because I'm sure you had to overcome both the perception from the guests and then the perception from the restaurant. And then there's the operational problems that go along with that. I'd love for you to talk a little bit about what that journey looked like.
Yeah. Sure. yeah, there were a lot of things, the simplest one, what do you call it? that like a simple one. Is it curbside? Is it carside? Is it click and collect? Is it we deliver to your car? do you mean you deliver to my car when I'm at the stadium? When I'm at a park? When I watch my kids play soccer, right? I think one of the, Biggest initial challenge before covid hit right before curbside become the term that we knew was What do we call this right?
And even more background on this today was right you have the mcdonald's drive thru you have sonic drive in and then you know there could be the drive by but That has a wrong connotation in the U S at least, right? I learned that the, because I was like, Hey, I found a solution. We call it drive by. People were like, eh, probably not. and that's actually why swipe by is called swipe by, right?
So out of the original idea was like, you swipe, you swing, you go, but so I think, yeah, one of the original, big challenges one sometimes overlooks now was how do you actually call that value proposition of a pickup where someone remains in their car, doesn't have to get up, pulls up front, right? I think that was one challenge.
the other challenge in a pre COVID world, and it came a little bit back in a post COVID world, is really make understand that the concept of curbside in general is something which sounds to the merchant, to the operator, to a lot of work, right? Because you associate it with someone is outside, someone is calling, I need to fetch an order, I need to find it, I need to find customer outside.
For us to really explain that if you use geolocation and you use it well applied, that can take out a lot of the stress. In the end, there's still a person walking out, that will not go away. That, I think, was also a thing that, that we had to overcome. and then I think lastly, so on the user adoption, I think it was really about finding the super users, right? And we really quickly found this with parents with kids in their car. it was an instant no brainer. They got it, they referred.
we had, it's a smaller subset, but people with a disability or people with a tough time getting around, like also became really quickly super fence, and that allowed us, I think, to validate the core concept and the court functionality quickly, because that is actually a big audience, right? Especially the parents with kids. But, I would say pre COVID these were really, some of our challenges. And then I think sometimes explaining the need, right?
Any, Any business that was next to a drive thru welcomed us with open arms, was I see the line out there, if I can capture it, sign me up. But the people who didn't, sometimes it was a little bit more explaining, and then I think the last thing was actually a perception of, is drive thru actually good, or is it cheap, or bad, right? if you were not even high end, you could be fast casual, but you were doing balls, you were doing salad, right?
if I offer a drive thru now, do people think I make stuff in a minute and I'm quality? And so I think these were some of the things that come to mind that we had to overcome at the time.
thank you for sharing. thank you for sharing that. Cause that again, I think it's interesting because COVID obviously accelerated and then you talked about the fact that you became an online ordering provider, but the thing I like about your guys organization is a lot of people were satisfied because, pre COVID, I was talking with a client the other day and they said, pre COVID we were less than 10 percent online orders.
Now we're 22 percent online orders or whatever the number is in, in a casual dining environment. Awesome. Good for him. That's great. Now the question is what's next? And you talked about how you guys have continued to enhance and pivot. I gave everybody at the onset kind of the idea that it's useful. AI talk about the data elements that you guys capture and why you thought it was so critical to be able to help restaurants.
And again, even you can hear it in your heart and you can hear it in your mind that you said, why am I taking all this money from these people when all I did was just. Create an opportunity for them to do an order. I can see that's really your value proposition as the CEO and founder. And really, I'm sure it goes down to the rest of your team that says, how do we add more value to these food service operators to grow their sales in a meaningful way?
So talk to me about the data elements that you guys had access to that most people don't consider, in an online ordering world, I
Yeah. Yeah, and I think, the easiest way to potentially talk about it without just, Throwing some words like, I don't know, inventory or opening times or loyalty data or credit card data is if you think about if a business wants to grow, what are some of the actions they are doing and what, are they taking? So I want to do a promotion. I need a copy somewhere, email, customer data, copy it into a milkshakes or something to send emails. That is a data point. I want to understand my demographics.
So I look at what's my mix of Amex cards and, Amex Platinum cards versus Visa regulated debit. For example, that would be my credit card data, right? And it gives me an understanding of potentially audiences or at least how much they're spending on a credit card, right? Some of these things. when I'm thinking about, I want to set up a billboard. Like I'm generally would think, where are my customers mostly coming from?
And I might survey them or I try to figure out, but delivery data, where your driver went through curbside data, you might even know where the drivers came from. that is, I think, when you look at an online ordering platform and you would look at our platform is these are some of the data points, and payment processing data, obviously customer data, which is primarily to reach them. So that's an email, that's a name, right? To be personalized. An address right for delivery.
curbside pickup data has location data, order history data, but then also simple things like open or closing data, right? If you think about it, you have a social media team to do a post, but it's a snow day, and they, have that post scheduled for today at 3:00 PM to highlight this amazing hot soup, but the snow day staff couldn't come. You close the store. You likely turned your online ordering off. You better, right?
Some people might forgot, but you better did so when we have a data point You are unexpectedly closed that potentially actually mark and we you know get to this. Why is that relevant? But that's a data point, that can be really relevant in your communication strategy. Are you open? Are you close? Do you have special is something 86, right? imagine you again you do a social media post about I'm using that or you do a marketing email about That amazing, rack of lamb or something like that.
But then you're running out. no reason to do a post right now, right? And you might get it back. You might not get it back, but you might really want to hit it when you have it back. And so again, data points from inventory, are you open? Are you closed? Who are your customers? How are they purchasing? What are they purchasing? And now even more relevant, what's with outside data? What are other people doing? How's the weather? All of the things that generally decide how you run your business.
That is data that we are considering.
Yeah. No. And I love that you talk through it because a lot of this stuff historically in restaurants has happened through people and nothing wrong with people and people are amazing. And people are also hard. People are hard because they only can consume so many data points at any one time and they can only act on any one time. And restaurant tours inevitably are going to be busier than they know what they to do with. And so why? Yeah. Why is this such a new thing?
Carl, because this we've had these data points for a long time, but we haven't necessarily had the actionable, things to do with the data. And that's the part that I think makes your guys is, spec by solution. So different is we've known what spend was. We've known how many people ordered that rack of lamb. We've known sometimes even who that consumer is, but we haven't been able to do.
Tie that into the other systems to create either, whether it be suggestive items or quite frankly, even automated items, whether that be a marketing campaign, a pricing change or such. So why is that? is it the power of AI now? Talk to me a little bit about why we've always had this data. 10 years ago, we had this data when, Online ordering started to go crazy or drive through started going crazy, but people weren't able to consume it or they just chose not to.
So talk to me a little bit about why now and, why do you think it's such a ideal time for you guys to be able to hit the market and help people?
Yeah. Yeah. I think for two things, the one big thing is obviously AI, right? And the cost of AI primarily, it's not, if you think about whenever you used auto correct. On your phone, which probably you had, that was OA ai, right? autocorrect is ai, Google translators. So AI's been around, but that is accessible for us. And again, we are not a deep research company with, $800,000, a year employees like OpenAI that built US models, right? We are working with open ai, IBM, Google and so on, right?
and use some of their technologies embedded into our, but, so one of the big things is ai, right? The capability to crunch. Information quicker, analyze information quicker, but also really importantly create an output quicker, right? Because analyzing inventory data, analyzing this data, we can run with custom algorithms, right? We don't even need necessarily AI, but AI can then turn this into outputs that are actually human, that are actually personalized, right?
And that is a very big part, I think, where the timing is right. And another timing, why it's right, at least I think, how we think about it is, One of the big challenges, I think, in the industry is the mass fragmentation, there's so many different systems, and what we have built today is we, again, have some integrations with some very large POS companies, but We have taken a little bit the route. We integrate with mega things outside. We integrate with Google. We integrate with Facebook.
We integrate with Yelp. We integrate, with these big entities that control direct access to customers. But then, otherwise, we take this first hand data to really help the SMB and mid market. And we actually get to your point where you said about people, right? Like to that in a second. Because we have a holistic 360 platform where we can bring these things quickly together. We, can control the website. We can control the checkout.
So we can do some upsell there with AI without needing a integration, for example, into DoorDash and do an upsell on the DoorDash storefront. that would never work, right? They will never us access to that. And so I think these things are coming together while the time is right. And then the other reason I think it is, we have seen with COVID, especially in enterprise, right? Like the McDonald's of the world, the Yum brands.
They are investing so much in this, in data analytics, in marketing automation. But the GM of the one, two, frankly said, 35 location account, right? They are so overstretched. not like that we are really eliminating a person anywhere. The persons that we are trying to bring, the artificial teams, as we call it, that we're trying to bring to the restaurants, they don't exist with the customers, right? And so we're seeing it more that this together can democratize.
More than it hurts really, or eliminates shop anywhere because it just democratizes the access to mass talent and high skilled labor that the McDonald's has had, which probably will not change anytime soon, but giving a glimpse of that right to the smaller SMB guy.
pretty amazing because you have the capability to do things that were that are tied to data in ways that can make customized decisions per user. Talk to me a little bit about what that looks like. Because historically, Yeah. You would go into MailChimp and you would have the soup special because soup, it was coming into the fall season. You wanted to do your, your pumpkin soup or whatever it was, and you would send out an email blast about the pumpkin soup.
Quite frankly, you didn't have the data point that says Carl's allergic to pumpkin soup. or that, you didn't have the data point that says the last three times he's done a bad Yelp review about that. And The customization of capabilities that you have through the data that you already, that already exists.
And then the advent of A. I. Talk to me a little bit about how that's gonna, revolutionize and customize everybody wants, again, I don't know how far cheers went to, to Germany and Yeah, I'm sure you've seen the show cheers, but everybody wants that cheers factor. They want the customization. They want their drink sitting there for them when they come into to dine. We've never been able to do that in offline, offline transactions. So talk to me a little bit about where you see that going.
Yeah. Yeah. exactly. Personalization, customization, localization is actually another big word, buzzword we can throw in here. and that is exactly right. So the thing that AI allows us to do is just way faster processing power, computing power, understanding power of large data sets without that they're really actually organized, right? in a way, super high level speaking. And so if we look at these interactions exactly, right?
So instead of what was our system, for example, what we call our AI remarketing, right? Instead of having these marketing campaigns, you could do the schedule, right? Someone has an audit in 28 days. Send them the email that is the template high first name high last order or as you said you have a new special of The pumpkin soup.
if you have a new special of the pumpkin soup before you send it out You probably already added it to your POS to your online ordering the system knows the system can write it, right? but let's say you know, it's the weather is unpredictable It's the new pumpkin suit. You want to do the campaign on a cold day? you scheduled it to send it on Thursday, right? You do idea on Thursday I go into mention to set it up Thursday turns out to be a really hot day.
Maybe, actually, you still have the Shilled Cucumber Soup on your menu. Maybe marketing hook right now would be way more effective to say, Hot day in November, December, try our Shilled Cucumber Soup. And then, on Friday, it's freezing again, now you market it. And again, because AI is just, in real time, taking these points, can make decisions based on how we train it, how we, set it up, how we prompt it, right? it can just be so much more agile.
So much more in real time and that's where it takes back to the point of data, right? It's really only as good as the data you have if you use ShedGDP great program, right?
But ShedGDP doesn't know that you add a new item to your menu It doesn't also know necessarily how to weather it until you actually ask for it And so what makes us unique I think and I think we will see though this will happen with POS this will happen with other companies like there will be more competition to what we are doing is taking that real time data So that AI is actually working around the clock, right?
And the, we talked about this before too, the analogy I like to use is Right now we have seen a lot of AI being used to create my website. AI creates my website. Beautiful. Website done. Nice. AI creates some pictures. Beautiful. Done. But once done, what is it doing for you now, right?
But if AI looks at every data point, 24, it's as if you would have a person Just staring at the computer, what is the customer doing, what is the customer doing, and sending emails based on that for that example, right? But it can be answering reviews, answering the phone, planning marketing, figuring out what does the competition do, adjust pricing, and so on.
we on our own side, at North Star did something similar where you have a lot of these, what if analysis of what if I added this item to the screen? What if I, what are my best selling items for on Tuesdays? and some of that, what if analysis is also really hard to come by and would take a data analyst da days to sit and call through, especially when you've got multiple stores. talk to me a little bit about where you see the.
The most recent use cases and where are those things working really well for your client base, Carl, like how are people truly implementing this to make a difference for the consumer as well as for the restaurant brand?
Yep. Yeah, we are implementing it left and right, right? But I think they're, and I think this goes back a little bit though, even to the very first point when we talked about curbside, right? I think one thing which is important to understand about the, I think there is one thing, where does it add value? Where does it add perceived value? And where does it get people really excited? And all these things are not necessarily the same, right? Because just how the industry ticks.
And I think one of the things where it actually adds really strong value is remarketing, right? What we just talked about. Automatically retargeting, always being on time with it, being significantly more personalized, taking real time data, and sending, creating coupon codes, directly creating a coupon code in our system, then distributing that coupon code, having it expire again, and so on. All of these things, that adds truly value and we can track it, because of conversion to orders.
I think another thing, what we have released, which is more on the it's, it's not as tangible because it's not instantly creates orders and you can track converting like coupon to conversion is, what we call is our review consultant. And so what that is, as when you get a new review on Google, for example, we read it out, And instead of doing the standard response, like I recently left a review with Chipotle and it was like, thank you so much for your review. And it wasn't a good review.
please contact us at hello, Chipotle contact, whatever, right? But it was a standardized and I've seen the same answer three reviews below at someone who bad review. So great. They have something going, but it's fully, generic. What we do is, we read the review. We, again, have the real time data. So if it's just the review, everything was amazing, great, then the answer might be just thank you so much, John, for your great review. we appreciate it.
But if it's like something like, we love the tacos. It might say, if you love our tacos, thank you so much that you love it. Try the margarita next time too. we have specials on Thursday because we have that real time data. And so I think, that is a tool where replying to reviews helps your business. It ranks you higher on Google. It makes people feel like I have a five star review. I get replied by the owner. I feel excited, right? But to be real. It needs to be in your tone.
It needs to be in real time. It needs to be quick, right? It cannot be a week later. And how we built this, it's actually all minutes via text message. So the owner, the GM, gets a text message of new reviews. They can obviously also automate it, say five star reviews. I don't even want to know, just answer it. AI writes the review based on the data via text message. They approve it or edit it, and it goes out. And now every review is answered, right?
So that is, I think, one where The value is a little less intangible because, it's a time consuming thing that you rank higher, that you will see that reflected, and it might add 2 percent of orders right to your store people are coming more often. But it's an instant gratification point with our owners, with our GMs, because they're seeing something, that before they didn't have the time. Now it's being done and it's being done reliably, quick and effectively, right?
So these, I think, would be some points right now that I would point out. which are in market and we see effect, but then there's really cool stuff coming.
Yeah. No, and I'm excited towards the latter part of our conversation to talk about where things are going a lot of times with AI. The challenge ends up coming building the model, Carl. So talk to me about how you guys have built this model to know what to do, because the more data you give it, the better off it is. And if you don't have enough data because you can't get access to it or because yeah, just because you can't get access to it or it's unavailable, that's a challenge.
And so you obviously don't want, you need to make those business rules that says, don't reply to the five star reviews, the three star reviews, make sure that I've got. A blaring siren going off or anything less than three stars, make sure that the kitchen knows about it. talk to me a little bit about the training of the AI, because that oftentimes is where people struggle with it is, I was talking recently with a, with a brand that's trying to do a computer vision.
Related to that Chipotle order to make sure that your beans didn't show up in your burrito bowl because they didn't want beans, but beans showed up and the person didn't read the ticket properly or they didn't read the KDS properly. So they were talking about that and I said, how many orders do you really need to know when you look at that make line and they're like, 10 million or whatever it is to get there.
computer vision to, to know that the black beans are here and the Pinto beans are there. So talk to me a little bit about the acquisition of the data and how you guys have gone about doing that to truly create actionable pieces. Because every restaurant's different. You guys are dealing with different, different use cases, different, the taco might be called a taco here. It may be called a hard taco. It may be called a soft taco. It may be called something else in different places.
So talk to me a little bit about how you guys help your consumers. Train those AIs, using the data that you've got there. Cause that seems to be the limiting factor oftentimes in these circumstances as you're rolling them out.
Yeah, definitely. So a couple of things, right? I think the first thing is, I think what we were really trying to do is apply AI also only where it is needed. So for example, on your, I think that's the first step is like really like number one being like, you don't want to, I would say overuse it because again, you risk for hallucinations and for, that's another thing, right? especially in consumer and consumer communication, you don't want to be like telling things left and right.
But the one thing is where do we have normal algorithms? Where do we have our normal, algorithm algorithms, our own product, and so on make decisions. Analyze things, do simple, if else, frankly right? like standard computer stuff going on, right? That's the one thing. Then the other thing, what we have done is, as I said before, we have not built an open AI competitor, right? We probably, if we would have, we would not be in this industry. We would be trying to compete with open AI.
So we use models that are readily available for us. And we, fine tune them. We, there's something which is called embedding, right? So embedding data in these volumes, which you can, in these models, which you can do on, for example, account specific basis, or we can do it as a platform specific basis, depending where it's relevant. And there's prompt engineering, right?
Is what you are passing into the prompt when Tell AI in each little fragment and each thing what you wanted to do, tell me how the weather is How would that and so what we I think made unique is in parts figure out how we split up some of these things that? We want to achieve in Sizable chunks, and I think this is how you know is we are also not, you know We're not trying to reinvent the world here with a camera what you said that's a really cool case, right?
Recognition of other thing what we're trying not to really reinvent the world. We're trying to do things that have been done There has been a lot of data how it's done best. We're just automating it, scaling it, and making it better because it's with real time data, instead of ad hoc, right? One at a time. And that adds quite a lot of value.
And then, again, this picture recognition thing has probably cost, billions to develop, millions to develop, and will be costing thousands and thousands a month. All our stuff is like 50 bucks a month, 100 bucks a month, right? I think we need to put that in perspective. I would say in parts what our secret sauce is again, really looking at the problems we are trying to solve. So talking with the customer, understanding what problems we are really trying to solve that really would add value.
Shopping up that problem in as many small steps as possible. Have AI handle these small steps and then maybe jump on a conclusion out of these small steps, right? But actually not have the model trying to go from here to here, right? Have this in between, but have the model solve the problems in between, create the output, giving it to the model back to, like this, the kind of the agent concept, right? Where you split it up and task into one task after the other, one stuff after the other.
That's what we have built and I think makes what we have built so far successful and workable. Always room for improvement get better. but I would say that's, what we have found. And so it's splitting it up, but also, just to, we don't need a kid ourselves. We are not trying to reinvent to understand if a Chipotle burrito is an inch too short, right? to on the macro things we are doing marketing, answering reviews, answering phone, helping with understanding What do your competitors do?
This is, it's frankly said not that complex also, would,
but in the time starved world of restaurant operators, the fact that you guys are giving actionable data to help make their business better is critical. And so I appreciate that. I promised our listeners that we would talk about where things are going. Talk to me about the future, Carl. where do you think, where do you think this, swipe by is going and how, are we going to get to a world where, all of our digital stuff, nobody's actually interacting with it? do you truly think that's the case?
we're in the hospitality industry. People want to be hospitable. And especially if you're dealing with people that aren't drive thrus that are, consuming food from these brands for an experience, even if it's at home or in their car, they're going to want more. So talk to me a little bit about where you see AI continuing to enhance the guest experience on the restaurant tours. experience.
Yeah. I think there is, right? There's two things. There is the, there's the digital world and then there is the in store world. Like we at least right now have nothing to do with the in store world, right? And I personally agree, like I go to a restaurant because of the experience, right? Like, how did I felt about QR menus? I guess I liked it because often they had pictures, right? Versus the thing. But I also, I like my printed menu. Like when printed menus came back, I really enjoyed it.
I'm potentially the wrong person of the discussion on the in store side of world, right? But I'm, if the moment you combine AI with robots more and more, it will be able to do a lot of things in restaurants. The question is, outside of, my sweet cream, which is now a footprint of this big, and, it's just for my quick takeout. I don't care about the hospitality experience. I care about my salad. I think AI and automation will do a lot in that world. The normal dining.
I think, we'll have it maybe in the kitchen somewhere here and there, but I think the goal is right to have the one on one interaction and that is actually where we come in. So the target, the market that we're tackling, right? One to 25, 30 location type of businesses. Why are we tackling this market? Why are we in section? Because it is an owner that is out there serving the customers, right? It is a GM that is doing or director of operation that has 20 hats because.
They are in the day to day serving the customers and our really goal is that there's two hours that this GM needs to do something which has nothing to do with serving their inside customers. I think that way I can comes in, right? And so where are we seeing this? I think the way it will really do it will level the playing field. It will democratize when it comes to, white collar labor, which is.
and, that is what's this entire, if you need Forbes, New York Times and so on, it's what is it like AI is not so AI is the threat to, the people who are educated, people who are writing content. And so I, I don't want to tap in wrong free to, but if we look at restaurants, it's the reality is that when it comes to the business development side, when it comes to the, my, I like to do the example, we have customers that do 10 million. These are big customers, right?
Majority is as a restaurant, 3 million, 4 million. If you're a tech startup that has reached 3 to 4 million in ARR, in yearly recurring revenue, the amount of top talent you have, the funding you got, the tools you use, is galaxies away from what the restaurant has, right? Even though on a top line, obviously potential is very different, but on a top line, we are smaller than a lot of our restaurants in revenue actually, right? We're still an early stage company.
Though we have probably more tech tools, higher graduate on paper people, right? Doesn't mean they're better or anything, but they know how to use Excel really well, which in restaurants not necessarily, right? So that, that is, I think the difference and where AI I think will really come in is giving what we have in business development, what we have in marketing as a tech startup, for example, to restaurants, right? And so it will move in full social media automation.
That's we are building, launching here in the next couple of weeks. it will move into full marketing automation, full business development analytics, menu analytics, right? So the entire thing where the owner needs to sit down and needs to take four hours apart to think critically about where do they want to take the business and not serving the customers. That's where I can come in. Where McDonald's has hired an army of, 20 McKinsey BCG people, management consulting people.
At a smaller scale, probably not as good as all of these people, right? Probably for a very long time, never as good as all these people. But definitely better as nothing. That is what we will bring and what I will bring to SMB, mid market, restaurants, brick and mortars, and businesses across the world.
and I, the other piece I would say, Carl, that I, you didn't hit on is, you've got the time starved GM, you've got the time starved owner, but you also have the consumer experience. And I've talked about it multiple times on the show. I don't happen to drink. My wife does. We're part of the same loyalty program. And I get the beer of the month and I get the wine of the month and they've never seen a wine or a beer on my loyalty ticket ever, or at least in the last 15 years.
So why continue to market that to me? Cause what it ultimately does is turns off my desire to engage with them. Whereas. Sweet greens, if I know that they've come out with something that's, that looks like something I want or that I've had in the past, it's relevant.
And again, e commerce has been doing that for a really long time because they've had the data, they've had AI models that have been built into their Marketo's and their, MailChimp and whatever those kinds of things are, but unfortunately, brick and mortar hasn't necessarily done that in restaurants. They're getting to that capability because it was so hard to do now. Because of tools like yours, they have the ability to customize that offer to me because you know what?
I have four kids, a lot of longtime listeners. No, I have four kids. My experience going out after, baseball practice or softball practice or cheer is different than when I'm going out on a Friday night. When my reservation's for two, I want something different than when my reservation's for six at the restaurant. And the experience should be different. No different than it's different when I log in on my wife's Facebook, or I log in on my wife's Google, or I log in on my wife's Amazon.
They look extremely different than they do mine. and unfortunately for the consumers, it's been a one size fits all. And to your point, they've been doing something so that's better than nothing, but how do we get it to a place where the consumer experience can be that much better because of technology? And I think that's where we really need to go.
Definitely. It's personalization, right? what AI definitely does. And that's why, we talked about a lot, the remarketing, upselling, cross selling, Is a big one, obviously. Like loyalty and rewards is, yeah, it allows to turn personalization to a crazy thing, but I would say also localization, right? if you think about, let's not take the single mom and pop, the 10 location across 20 states. You might have a team in your city that you want a promoter or like to hear about, right?
And you might have weather in your city that's different than others. So the power of personalized localization that AI will be able to do at scale is crazy. And we've seen it already with some of the bigger companies, but even there, I think a lot will come. And yeah, that's definitely a huge part of the future. Agree.
well, and selfishly, I would love to know when I call my favorite restaurant, whether they can have a table for six for me and my four kids and my wife or not. And you know what, if I didn't have to wait on hold for 10 minutes to figure out if the table was going to be ready for me when I got there, that would also be really huge.
And I keep telling people that all the time, how do people learn Carl more about you more about swipe by, how do they get engaged with your platform and kind of understand, keep up with what you guys are doing. If they're interested in, in jumping on and looking at the product, how would they get engaged with you?
Most important question, Great. it's, yeah, it's, we're, you can find us if you Google us. I guess swipe by restaurant, swipe by AI, I think we should pull up there, so that's maybe always the easiest. Swipe by, B Y. otherwise, our URL is www. swipe. by. There's no com or anything, it's just swipe. by. I'm on LinkedIn, I'm always, to hear about partnerships, learn, share thoughts, right?
like just, again, I think it's such a big market that's such a backbone of everything that we do and the economy actually, right? that if we can share thoughts and can help to improve that market, it just helps everyone. But yeah, swipe by AI on Google. You should find us, otherwise the URL is swipe. by. I am Carl Turner. I'm on LinkedIn. You can find me too with Carl Turner SwipeI. and love to talk with everyone about pretty much anything, right?
And if it's about AI in restaurants, even better.
I love it. And I'll, I'll put the, the link to the website and the link to, to some of these, this content in the, in the show notes, Carl, thank you so much for, for giving us the insight. And again, the part that I promised everybody at the start of the show is unfortunately a lot of AI. it's been around for a really long time, but the fact that you guys are getting it to a place where it's actionable so that it can save people time.
Save people, many, but help make better business decisions that are ultimately going to make the consumer experience better is awesome. And so thank you for sharing that insight to our listeners, guys. Like I said, I know you guys have got lots of choices, so thank you for hanging out with us. If you haven't already done so subscribe to the show, subscribe to the newsletters, subscribe to the YouTube channel.
and if you guys have got guests that you guys want to have on, send them my way, I'd love to talk to founders like Carl and to our listeners out there. Make it a great day.