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2 episodes with cloud kitchens
2 episodes with cloud kitchens
2 episodes with cloud kitchens
2 episodes with cloud kitchens
Hunter Pond is the founder of Vandelay Hospitality Group, one of the most recognizable restaurant portfolios in Texas. From dropping out of law school mid-exam to launching East Hampton Sandwich Co. with no industry experience, Hunter shares how a love for restaurants kickstarted a hospitality empire. We dive into the creation and evolution of VHG. Hunter breaks down the art and science behind successful concepts, why restaurants fail, and how his team approaches everything from vendor relationships to tip pooling and fraud prevention. This episode covers: - The impulsive moment that launched his restaurant career - How a $20K investment and Craigslist chef shaped East Hampton's early days - The balance of creativity and discipline in full-service dining - Building menus for flavor, efficiency, and profitability - Lessons learned from private equity and selling his first concept - Why restaurant success is often more about square footage than food We'd appreciate you filling out our audience survey, so we can continuously work on providing relevant content to our listeners. https://www.thefortpod.com/survey Support our Sponsors: Vesto: https://www.vesto.com/fort BetterPitch: https://bit.ly/42d9L0I Links: Vandelay Hospitality Group - https://vandelayhospitality.com/ Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:03:20) - Dropping out of law school to pursue a career in the restaurant industry (00:10:31) - Lessons learned from working the back of the house (00:14:01) - Developing and opening East Hampton Sandwich Co. (00:23:47) - How to build a menu (00:29:44) - The importance of seat count (00:34:57) - How DoorDash killed the fast-casual restaurant (00:37:02) - Service vs. product in the success of a restaurant (00:42:21) - Blocking and tackling in the business (00:44:06) - Where people fail in the restaurant industry (00:49:56) - Selling East Hampton (00:52:56) - Cloud Kitchens (00:54:43) - Developing Hudson House (00:58:01) - Determining seat count ratios (01:01:03) - Lessons from working with PE (01:05:29) - Sources of turnover in restaurants (01:06:49) - Why certain concepts don't work in different cities (01:08:48) - The impact of real estate on restaurants (01:12:02) - Creating new concepts vs. acquisitions Chris on Social Media: The Fort Podcast on Twitter/X: https://x.com/theFORTpodcast Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thefortpodcast LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/45gIkFd Watch The Fort on YouTube: https://bit.ly/3oynxNX Visit our website: https://bit.ly/43SOvys Leave a review on Apple: https://bit.ly/45crFD0 Leave a review on Spotify: https://bit.ly/3Krl9jO The FORT is produced by Johnny Podcasts
In this episode of Masters of Moments, I sit down with Chris Hatch, Principal at Forza Commercial, to break down the high-stakes world of retail real estate development. Chris grew up in a real estate family, learning the business from the ground up, and those early lessons shaped how he approaches site selection, deal structuring, and scaling development projects today. We dive into: How to identify and secure top-tier retail sites The evolution of drive-thru concepts and why they're dominating retail How tenant demand shapes development strategy The challenges of managing multiple projects at once Why triple-net leases are often called ‘mailbox money' and how investors think about them Chris also shares behind-the-scenes stories from working with national tenants like Starbucks, Dutch Bros, and Raising Cane's, explaining what makes a high-performing retail site and how shifting consumer trends are influencing real estate decisions. If you're interested in commercial real estate, retail development, or the business of site selection, this episode is packed with insights from someone who's been in the trenches and built a highly successful development business. Connect & Invest with Jake: Follow Jake on X: https://x.com/JWurzak 1 on 1 coaching with Jake: https://www.jakewurzak.com/coaching Learn How to Invest with DoveHill: https://bit.ly/3yg8Pwo Links: Links: Chris on X - https://x.com/chriswhatch The Dirt Dog Podcast on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/0EyUYpLUMbJKqEzprNuLPM?si=e48d7ffc5ddb48a0 Topics: (00:00:00) - Intro (00:00:56) - Chris' Background and Career (00:05:36) - The Magic of Drive-Thrus (00:07:03) - Lessons from Early Real Estate Experiences (00:09:41) - Navigating the Real Estate Market (00:11:04) - The Evolution of Site Selection (00:13:35) - Building a Real Estate Portfolio (00:17:05) - Challenges and Strategies in Real Estate Development (00:32:44) - The Appeal of Triple Net Leases (00:40:53) - Retail Trends and Market Shifts (00:41:34) - Diversification in Retail Investments (00:43:38) - The Future of Gas Stations (00:45:07) - Impact of Cloud Kitchens (00:46:54) - Cap Rates and Popular Retail Tenants (00:50:36) - Challenges in Retail Development (00:58:38) - Managing Multiple Development Projects (01:15:50) - Favorite Hotels and Closing Thoughts
In this episode of the Tech On Toast podcast, Chris Fletcher sits down with Mo Fayed, founder of Grub Tech, to dive deep into the world of hospitality technology. They discuss the evolution of tech in the restaurant industry. Key Topics Covered: [00:05:30] Automating Restaurant Order Management Mo explains how Grub Tech's platform automates the entire order lifecycle, reducing the need for manual processes. This includes everything from managing menus and modifiers to integrating orders from multiple delivery platforms. Streamlining these processes improves efficiency and helps restaurants focus more on customer experience. [00:08:44] Cloud Kitchens and Virtual Brands With the rise of cloud kitchens and virtual brands, restaurants can now operate multiple brands from a single kitchen. Mo discusses how Grub Tech supports this trend by providing unified tech solutions that consolidate orders across various platforms, simplifying operations and enabling restaurants to tap into new revenue streams. [00:12:13] The Importance of Tech Integrations Grub Tech's solutions are built to integrate seamlessly with existing POS systems, helping restaurants avoid expensive overhauls. Mo highlights the critical role of integrations in improving efficiency without disrupting current operations. [00:13:06] Data Visualization for Restaurant Operators Effective data visualization is key to understanding business performance. Mo shares that Grub Tech's platform allows restaurant owners to quickly access vital metrics through intuitive dashboards, empowering them to make faster, informed decisions that improve operations. [00:17:06] Food Aggregator Disputes Explained One common issue for restaurants is managing disputes with food aggregators. Mo discusses how Grub Tech's platform helps track and resolve these disputes, ultimately improving the relationship between restaurants and third-party platforms. [00:22:52] Saudi Arabia's Digital Infrastructure Mo provides insights into the digital transformation occurring in Saudi Arabia, where Grub Tech has a strong presence. He talks about how the country's growing infrastructure is enabling rapid adoption of tech solutions in the hospitality sector. [00:24:00] AI Product Launch: G-Scout Mo introduces Grub Tech's newest AI-powered tool, G-Scout. This product consolidates third-party data, including competitor analysis, to help restaurant operators stay ahead of market trends and refine their business strategies. [00:26:44] Actionable Insights from AI Data The conversation shifts to how AI-generated insights can help restaurants optimise menus, streamline operations, and enhance customer satisfaction. Mo gives examples of how G-Scout offers real-time, actionable recommendations that can significantly impact a restaurant's bottom line. [00:30:10] AI's Role in Transforming the Hospitality Industry Mo closes by explaining how AI is transforming hospitality, from automating processes to helping businesses become more data-driven. He emphasizes that AI will play a critical role in shaping the future of restaurant operations, improving efficiency, and driving innovation across the sector. Learn more about how Grub Tech is revolutionising restaurant operations and stay ahead of the tech curve by visiting www.grubtech.com. Don't forget to subscribe to the Tech On Toast podcast for more insights on the latest in hospitality tech! The Tech on Toast Podcast is brought to you by Square. Square is trusted by over 4 million businesses globally. Get 20% off Square counter top hardware with promo code: SquareUK20 Visit Square.com to use the promo code or to request to speak to our sales team for a demo #TechOnToast #Podcast #HospitalityTech #CustomerExperience #AI #Memories #AccessHospitality #ChangeManagement
Join us in this insightful episode of The Digital Restaurant Podcast from the Food on Demand Conference at the Bellagio in Las Vegas. Dive into the discussions with industry experts like Andrew Custage from Medallia and Deena DePhillips from Red Robin, as they explore pivotal topics ranging from the impacts of delivery versus pickup pricing to the crucial decisions between building versus buying technology. Don't miss Travis Kalanick's rare appearance at a conference stage, sharing visionary thoughts on the future of meal delivery and automation. Tap into the complexities and strategies behind restaurant technology, third-party platforms, and more. Whether you're an industry veteran or a curious newcomer, this episode offers valuable perspectives on the evolving landscape of restaurant technology.Support the Show.
In this episode of the Schbang In It Podcast, we sit down with Arjun Melwani, founder of OG Samosa, to discuss the world of cloud kitchens and the evolving landscape of food delivery. Arjun shares his experiences and insights into what led him to pursue a delivery-only kitchen model and how it differs from traditional dining establishments. Join us as we explore how Arjun navigates the challenges of running a virtual kitchen, from ensuring food quality during delivery to optimising operations and managing costs. We'll also touch on the emerging trends he's noticed in the industry and how he's working to build brand awareness and loyalty without a physical storefront. Whether you're interested in the rise of cloud kitchens or considering starting your own food delivery brand, this conversation offers valuable perspectives on the future of the food industry. Don't miss this engaging discussion with Arjun Melwani of OG Samosa! Arjun Melwani's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/arjun-melwani-1216931b2/ Indraneel Gawde's LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/neel-gawde-a027a196/ #SchbangInIt is now streaming live on Spotify, YouTube & all other major platforms. --------------- Produced By : Mriganka Kumari Video Team: Ankit Sunil Philip Kannamkulam Equipment: SK Vision Design Team: Bhreehan About Us: Schbang, established in 2015, is a Creative, Technology and Media Transformation company with offices across Mumbai, Bangalore, Delhi-NCR, and London, UK. With a team of 1000+ members, it delivers growth-driven end-to-end solutions across creative development, strategic advisory, film production, web, design, content, data science, and media planning & buying verticals. It is also a valued Google Premier Partner, Adobe, Hubspot, MoEngage, Shopify, ONDC, and Zoho Premium Partner. It has featured as a LinkedIn Top 25 start-up in 2018 and 2021 and on Financial Times' 450 High Growth Companies in the Asia Pacific List. In the last few years. Schbang has created some exciting and award-winning digital work for brands like Jio, Fevicol, Ashok Leyland, Garnier, Cipla, Asian Paints, Finolex Pipes, Crompton, Philips, Kaya Skin Clinic, London Dairy, Mattel, Xiaomi India, ASUS and many more brands. Schbang is Founded by: Harshil Karia, Akshay Gurnani, Sohil Karia Visit our Website: https://www.schbang.com/ Visit SchbangQ's Website: https://www.schbang-q.com/ Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/schbang/?hl=en Apply to work with us at: https://careers.schbang.com/jobs/Careers Email us your briefs & ideas at bd@schbang.com #CreatingASchbang #SchbangInIt
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#1 - Speculaas is geen landbouwgif ETEN IS WETEN is een wekelijkse voedselpodcast waarin de zin en onzin van de voedselwereld aan de kaak wordt gesteld. Onze gastheren Joris, Hidde en Karsten fileren, samen met een selectie van deskundige en ondeskundige gasten, de voor de hand liggende en soms complexe voedselthema's van vandaag. In de geest van ‘horen, zien en zwijgen', geven zij ons een frisse kijk op duurzame voedselkwesties. Schuif aan en laat je geest voeden en je ziel drinken. Dit alles wordt op je bord gelegd dankzij Stop the Food Fight, een platform dat zich richt op een nieuw, duurzaam voedselverhaal. Samenvatting In de openingsaflevering van ETEN IS WETEN ontrafelen Joris, Karsten en Hidde drie intrigerende feiten uit de voedselwereld. Ze verkennen de potentie voor een onverwachte alliantie tussen Extinction Rebellion en de conventionele landbouw, die ondanks gedeelde belangen gehinderd wordt door het verhitte debat over glyfosaat. Daarnaast overwegen ze de voordelen van een antiek Pompeiaans eetpatroon als een creatieve strategie tegen voedselverspilling. Tot slot graven ze diep in het onderwerp van voedselprijsspeculatie en hoe deze paradox leidt tot honger in een wereld die eigenlijk overloopt van voedsel. Luister naar ETEN IS WETEN voor een smakelijke mix van feiten, diepgang en oplossingen
It's easier to set up an arms factory than to sell a sandwich or a drink. This reflects the hidden complexity the restaurant world possesses. As Indians we are culturally inclined to want options when it comes to our food, we go to multicuisine restaurants with our families, cafés with our work friends, fine dining for our dates, and pubs with our friends! We judge the AC temperature, the music, the food, the waiter, the cutlery, and everything in between. This involves not only recipe building but also mastering technology, marketing, interior design, and much more. With this episode, we will walk you through a checklist of crucial decisions to start and thrive in this space. We have with us Riyaaz Amlani, best known for his brands like SOCIAL, Smoke House Deli, & Boss Burgers; Zorawar Kalra, famous for his appearances on Masterchef and his brands like Farzi Cafe, Masala Library, & Pa Pa Ya; Pooja Dhingra, renowned for Le15, known for their macaroon; currently a judge in Masterchef India and an author. If you're below 22 & are working on building something in the F&B space, here's the chance to get the support you've been looking for ➡️Apply here: https://tally.so/r/mBp7LN #NikhilKamath: Co-founder of Zerodha, True Beacon and Gruhas Follow Nikhil here: Twitter https://x.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/nikhilkamathcio/ Linkedin https://in.linkedin.com/in/nikhilkamathcio Koo https://www.kooapp.com/profile/Nikhilkamath #ZorawarKalra: Founder & MD - Massive Restaurants; TV Show Host, and MasterChef India Judge Follow Zorawar here: Twitter https://twitter.com/ZorawarKalra Instagram https://www.instagram.com/zkalra/ Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/zorawar-kalra-2051375/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/zkalra/ #RiyaazAmlani: Founder & CEO - Impresario Entertainment and Hospitality Pvt. Ltd. Follow Riyaaz here: Twitter https://twitter.com/RiyaazAmlani Instagram https://www.instagram.com/riyaazamlani/ Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/riyaaz-amlani-52193b1/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/RiyaazAmlaniOfficial/ #PoojaDhingra: Founder & CEO of Le15 Patisserie, MasterChef India Judge, and Author Follow Pooja here: Twitter https://twitter.com/poojadhingraa/ Instagram https://www.instagram.com/poojadhingra/ Linkedin https://www.linkedin.com/in/poojadhingraa/ Facebook https://www.facebook.com/ChefPoojaDhingra/ Pooja's Youtube Channel https://www.youtube.com/@poojajdhingra/ Timestamps: (00:00) - Intro (01:39) - Pooja's Childhood (04:11) - Why Pooja Quit Law School (08:09) - Early Hustle to Macaroon Fame (15:47) - Pooja's World: Books, Masterchef & Podcasts (16:53) - How Covid Changed Pooja (17:58) - Reason for Scarcity of Female Chefs (22:36) - Zorawar's Passion for Food (24:05) - Jiggs Kalra's Legacy (36:58) - Zorawar's Personal Insights (38:09) - Riyaaz's Karate Days (39:50) - Regulations & Restaurants: Bottleneck (44:05) - Riyaaz's Personal Life and Parsi History (48:04) - Riyaaz & Music: DJ Days (49:35) - Story of Berry's & Riyaaz's Past (52:13) - Riyaaz Reveals Prithvi Cafe's History (56:32) - Innovative Monetisation: Restaurant Hacks (01:01:12) - Role of Restaurants: Bigger Picture (01:02:10) - Why Most Restaurants Fail (01:07:05) - India's Increasing Dine-Out Trend (01:10:30) - SOCIAL's Product-Market Fit (01:11:30) - Ease of Credit & Cloud Kitchens (01:13:10) - Rise of Western Cuisine: Economics (01:16:20) - F&B Data Utilization (01:28:48) - Evolution of Dessert Market: Trends (01:33:27) - Future of QSR (01:40:23) - Nikhil's Food Business Checklist (02:00:45) - Pitfalls of Celeb Restaurants (02:13:30) - Aggregators in F&B (02:27:50) - Perfecting Supply & Location (02:48:33) - Restaurant Design Essentials (02:56:50) - Importance of Recommendations (03:11:00) - HR & Seasonal Impacts in F&B (03:19:40) - Blind Taste Game: Test the Experts! Subscribe
Voice AI, Mobile pick up lanes and getting Phygital with the Tillster Report.All these headlines and more represent our thoughts and views on the world of restaurants, technology and off premise food in our round up of last week's hot news stories - subscribe today to The Digital Restaurant and register at www.deliveringthedigitalrestaurant.com for more bonus content.Articles mentioned in the video:1. Voice Ordering heating up2. Getting Phygital with KiosksTillster Phygital Index Report3. Cloud Kitchens closing locations4. How restaurants are using AI5. Chick Fil'a expanding nationwide rollout of mobile pick up lanesAccess the full transcript here.Support the show
Limited resources, support, and a lack of digital presence are a few things black-owned restaurants, in particular, struggle with. EatOkra - an community that directly connects consumers with Black-owned restaurants - is here to change that. Host Rob Grimes is joined by EatOkra Co-Founder Anthony Edwards Jr., and Head of Sales Andre Ferguson. They discuss the inception of EatOkra, including challenges Anthony witnessed his parents facing while operating an events and catering company. Combining an application development background, with a passion for foodservice, Anthony and his co-founder and wife Janique, brought together a team with a wealth of industry experience such as Andre's who previously worked with UberEATS and Cloud Kitchens. EatOkra uses technology to empower black food communities through exposure, celebration, and access to developmental resources. They recently celebrated over half a million users and over 9,500 listings.When it comes to observations about why black restaurants are slower in adopting technology into their restaurants, Anthony notes there is skepticism when it comes to corporate technology. “It's in the messenger. A lot of companies are sending people that don't look like them into their communities to sell a product to them.” If you want to learn more about EatOkra's mission, the rise of the black restaurant community, and partnership between EatOkra and IFBTA - listen to this episode of Accelerate.
"Girişimcilik bizde baba mesleği!" diyen Yiğit, farklı startup denemeleri ve başarılı bir kurumsal kariyerin ardından 4 ortağıyla birlikte bulut mutfak modeline yapay zeka unsurlarını entegre etmeyi amaçladıkları ve geçtiğimiz hafta tohum öncesi yatırımını açıklayan Zest'i kuruyor. Swipeline Podcast'in 169. bölümünde Zest Cloud Kitchens'ın kurucu ortağı Yiğit Doğan konuğumuz. 0:00:00 Swipeline Intro 0:00:31 Zest ve yapay zeka 0:04:20 Sen neler yapıyordun? 0:10:40 İş modelleri 0:14:00 Ekip yapısı 0:17:30 Yurt dışına açılma 0:20:00 Swipeline Outro Yiğit Doğan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yigit-dogan-a9740613/ Zest Cloud Kitchen: https://www.zestck.com _ Swipeline, ana iletişim mecrası Instagram olan; girişimcilik, startup ve teknoloji odaklı yeni medya kuruluşudur. Haber, video ve podcast içerikleri üretir. Bizi Instagram'da mutlaka takip edin! https://www.instagram.com/swipeline_tr
Varun & Suchita are back after a weekend in Maldives & at a wedding respectively; they discuss how there exists a 'Raita' playlist on music platforms, the Women's IPL auction, Air India's latest historic purchase of Boeing planes, the closure of Travis Kalanick's CloudKitchens in India, all the Elon Musk shenanigans, YouTube's new leadership, B2B investments in India and how they've raised record-breaking capital last year, Unilever exiting atta & salt business, Pathaan's 1000Cr earnings worldwide, and how Swifties lowered egg prices because she said so. They deep dove into the Indian Beauty Market highlighting Reliance's Tira Beauty & Nykaa, AirBnB's FY23 Q4 being profitable and a look at how that happened, and Meta & Twitter's Blue Tick Subscriptions. Varun Recommends the Netflix India show Cla$$Suchita Recommends a book: Textiles: The Art Of Mankind Varun & Suchita also answer a few listener questions on the show. Do share yours on the below-mentioned handles. You can follow Varun Duggirala on Twitter & Instagram You can follow Suchita Salwan on Twitter & Instagram Check out video episodes on the Think Fast YouTube Channel. Find the show across audio streaming apps:Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | JioSaavn | Gaana | Amazon Music Do follow IVM Podcasts on social media.We are @ivmpodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram. You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcasts App on Android or iOS. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Cloud kitchens boomed during the pandemic, with food delivery spiking high as all of us stayed dutifully at home. However, now that we're moving into endemicity, is that business model enough? Kenneth Lai, CEO and co-founder of Vacrea, talks about their three brands - Cauli & Rice, M Fried Chicken, and Aunty Sam Satay - as well as their plans to take their F&B goals to the next level. Image Credit: Shutterstock | elenabsl
Cloud kitchens boomed during the pandemic, with food delivery spiking high as all of us stayed dutifully at home. However, now that we're moving into endemicity, is that business model enough? Kenneth Lai, CEO and co-founder of Vacrea, talks about their three brands - Cauli & Rice, M Fried Chicken, and Aunty Sam Satay - as well as their plans to take their F&B goals to the next level. Image Credit: Shutterstock | elenabsl
This week, it's Varun & Amit as Suchita is on a much-deserved break in the US. Amit & Varun begin by talking about some significant happenings that include an ongoing wave of the great resignation, Twitter and its Edit button that's being tested, a nostalgic dive into the days of Campa Cola and the joy of Reliance having acquired it denoting the possibility of seeing it in the market soon, Starbucks' new Indian Origin CEO, and the absurdity of some LinkedIn posts. For the top stories, we have Jio Mart's collaboration with Whatsapp facilitating ordering groceries easily, Fake Cloud Kitchens and how one single FSSAI license has more than 200 restaurants operating under it, YouTube testing a podcasts tab on its home page, and a deep dive into Quiet Quitting & Quiet Firing. Amit Recommends a show 'The Brink' which is available on Disney+Hotstar & a book 'A Children's History of India'.Varun recommends the book 'Build' by Tony Fillips.Varun & Suchita also answer a few listener questions on the show. Do share yours on the below-mentioned handles.You can follow Varun Duggirala on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/varunduggi and on Instagram at https://instagram.com/varunduggiYou can follow Suchita Salwan on Twitter at https://twitter.com/suchitasalwan and on Instagram at https://instagram.com/suchitasalwanCheck out video episodes on the Think Fast YouTube Channel.Find the show across audio streaming apps:Spotify | Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | JioSaavn | Gaana | Amazon MusicDo follow IVM Podcasts on social media.We are @IVMPodcasts on Facebook, Twitter, & Instagram.You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the new and improved IVM Podcasts App on Android or iOS.
Concordium is a Layer 1, Proof-of-Stake blockchain with its own cryptocurrency. So far, so normal. But Concordium also has a fascinating twist: it incorporates digital identification functionality at the level of the protocol. If predictions of the eventual universality of digital identity are even half-fulfilled, this feature will give Concordium an edge over other Layer 1 blockchains as the digital economy makes use of more efficient, privacy-protecting methods of customer due diligence. The company has raised US$50 million from a small group of investors, whose number includes Lars Seier Christensen, co-founder and until 2016 co-CEO of Saxo Bank, who has identified blockchain as a forcing house for entirely new ways of doing business. Concordium also benefits from its relationships with Aarhus University in Denmark and ETH University in Zurich, where academic researchers are working not only technical issues but also on the governance issues which have plagued Proof of Stake blockchains. Dominic Hobson, co-founder of Future of Finance, spoke to Kåre Kjelstrøm, a veteran of Travis Kalanick start-ups Uber and Cloud Kitchens, who is now chief technology officer at Concordium. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
The following article of the entrepreneurs industry is: “What Is Killing Cloud Kitchens in Latam?” by Antonio Nacoud, COO of Pide Directo
Learn more about Tipped.Guest featured in this episode: Warren Satchell co-owns Harlem Biscuit Co in New York City, NY. He started Harlem Biscuit Company with his partner, Chef Melvin "Boots" Johnson.
Indonesia's food delivery sector is a crowded space - dominated by industry giants and an increasing number of startups all vying for a slice of the pie. It's also an industry that's rapidly growing, with more cloud kitchens opening across the country to cater to young, tech-savvy Indonesians looking for a variety of food options to be delivered right to their doorstep. Hangry, a fast-growing cloud kitchen startup that launched in 2019, is feeding this demand by offering international cuisines, along with local favourites, to appeal to an increasingly global-minded target market. On this episode of Moonshot, we speak with the co-founder and CEO of Hangry, Abraham Viktor, and Sequoia India and Southeast Asia's Aakash Kapoor to discover how the startup is taking on industry giants, riding the K-pop trend, and creating a winning recipe for cloud-kitchens (and hungry customers) in Indonesia. Show Notes:A tasty way to take on industry giants (2:07)Appeal to different palates with a wide variety of flavours (4:15)Taste and iterate: The Moon Chicken recipe for success (9:40)How the Hangry Academy sets outlet staff up for success (13:18)Count Your Chickens: Deciding on quantities with the help of technology (14:25)Be quick to respond to customer complaints (16:06)Entice your customers by nailing the basics and riding trends (18:25)Customer complaints for breakfast: Team Hangry's morning ritual (20:20)The key ingredients of building a brand (21:50)
Nesse episódio a gente recebe a Cris Sindicic – CMO da Olga Ri – Startup de saladas de São Paulo. Ela conta a história do negócio, a estrutura de Cloud Kitchen e os desafios e aprendizados na construção de uma marca com crescimento meteórico e sem nenhum ponto de atendimento físico.
Christopher Washington discusses what cloud kitchens are, why are they are important for the restaurant industry, and the latest cloud kitchen trends. Christopher also talks about his new project called Meal Outpost. It's a combination of a DAO, physical locations in major cities serving food, and brand incubator. If you have any comments or questions for Christopher, connect with him in the Discord (dapperanimal#6306). Additional resources: Join the community Learn about BurgerDAO Follow BurgerDAO on Twitter
Mukunda Foods is a kitchen robotics company providing automation solutions for Cloud Kitchens and QSR brands. Bangalore-based Mukunda Foods, co-founded by Eshwar K Vikas and Sudeep Sabaat in 2012, has been re-defining the culinary business using robotics solutions by manufacturing automated machinesto prepare various dishes with minimum human intervention. With the use of advanced technology such as Artificial Intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), Image Analytics, Assistive Cooking Technology, Centralised Cloud Computing and High Steam Microwave, the disruptive company has manufactured five machines that are able to cook global cuisines such as Indian, Chinese, South Indian, Pizza, Biryani and Snacks. The new-age automated machines manufactured in the Bangalore facility including Dosamatic(A fully automatic dosa-making machine); Wokie (Automatic Chinese food and Indian, Thai gravies); Rico (The Automatic Rice, Noodle & Pasta Maker); Eco-Fryer(For frying French Fries, Momos, Samosas, Burger Patties, etc. in less oil) have been installed in over 22 countries so far. In addition to this, over 2500 bot machines have been installed at some of the leading F&B brands across India such as ITC, Rebel Foods (Faasos), Chaayos, Ola Foods, Wow Momo and few other renowned brands in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Chennai, Kolkata. Maintaining its position as the industry leader, Mukunda Foods continues to make long strides and has recently designed a KAAS (Kitchen As A Service) model to make cloud kitchens a profitable venture. With the latest kitchen automation solutions, the cloud kitchens can spread their wings and increase their monetary value by multiple folds. The challenge of high capex and manpower cost can be taken care by fully managed and automated kitchens by Mukunda Foods. The brand endeavours to be the country's largest kitchen automation brand in the food retail industry. Team Mukunda aspires to grow by every passing day and thus the brand is focusing on developing a number of other products and projects that could help reduce dependability on labor, elevate consumer experience and help brands expand faster. The brand is passionate about working as an extended R&D arm for developing and manufacturing products. https://www.mukundafoods.com/
HelloFoods is a data-driven food company that focuses on providing choices for their customers. Through the use of data for development of brands and distribution of cloud kitchens, they aim to cater to a world with ever changing taste.
H.H Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum has issued a new law in Dubai, aimed at ensuring the integration of people of determination into society and enabling them to fully participate in all shares of life. Nadia Swan from the ARN News Centre has all the details. We talk cloud kitchens with US company REEF, who are cooking up a storm in the Middle East with plans to expand across the region with local partner Americana. We hear from REEF boss Ramez Shehadi. Plus, oil is sitting strong above 80 a barrel despite - well, everything. Oil broker Matt Stanley tells us why, and what it means for the UAE. And we are still on Djoko-watch – tennis player Novak Djokovic has won the courtroom battle to stay in Australia, but will he win the war to appear on Centre Court next week? See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
A lot of our favorite stories from 2021 revolve around the fact that the continued public health crisis have pushed technology companies, consumers, and governments to innovate immensely. In Part 1 of our 2021 Tech Recap we walk through the big changes that took place in three fields - specifically Food & Restaurants, the Space Industry & the Cloud.With the food and beverage space, what interested us was how consumer preferences for ‘take out' has resulted in a burgeoning online ordering culture across the global. We deep dived into the trend of Ghost Kitchens or Cloud Kitchens earlier in the year, and data suggests that the demand for these online only virtual restaurants is only rising! Big brands such as Wendy's, Chipotle and even a social Media company Tik Tok is planning on moving into this space!Another favorite topic of ours, was Space! 2021 could very well go down as one of the biggest turning points in Human Space Flight as a record number of ordinary citizens left Earth, on spacecrafts built by private companies such as Blue Origin, SpaceX and Virgin Galactic.Although, this realm of space tourism is currently permitted only to the ultra ultra wealthy, 2021 was extremely promising for Space, as it reignited the collective global ambition of establishing Humans as a Space Faring Species. The possibility for an average person to roam the cosmos could very well happen in the, hopefully not so far, future!Finally, we could not finish part 1 of our 2021 Tech Review without ..... the Cloud. The ongoing pandemic and surge in digital activity is making cloud the absolute centerpiece of new digital experiences & the numbers are mind boggling! The Cloud Computing Market is projected to reach $474B in 2022, up 16% from 2021! But the increased competition could really set up an interesting next few years in the market with new players constantly chipping of the incumbents.Check out our deep dives in each of the three covered industries from earlier in the year:Restaurants Go Online - How Cloud Kitchens are Making Your FoodSpace Exploration is Sexy Again - A New Space Race Is Underway! How Did We Even Get Here?Cloud - Cloud Wars: How Cloud Computing Changed Business & Technology ForeverSupport the show (https://www.thc-pod.com/)
Unit 6 Why Restaurants Are Switching to Cloud Kitchens 近年來，有一些餐廳沒有用餐區也沒有自己的廚房，而是使用「雲端廚房」來準備你線上訂購的餐點。雲端廚房會不會變成以後的一種趨勢呢？一起來看看吧！
Conheça O modelo de cloud kitchens, hoje no café com valuation está o CEO da Olga Ri Desafio de Inovação do ministério do turismo divulga 10 startups finalistas Já temos startups candidatas ao posto de primeiro unicórnio do agronegócio nacional NVIDIA Inception abre novas oportunidades de financiamento de capital de risco para startups Essas são as manchetes de hoje, Quarta-feira dia 17.11 de 2021 E você está no RC NEWS. Escutando notícias e matérias para empreendedores E hoje está no programa o Bruno Sindicic , CEO da Oga Ri O RC NEWS é um programa é multiplataforma e estamos ao vivo no Youtube, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter e Twitch do ResumoCast. As edições ficam gravadas nas plataformas podendo ser acessadas a qualquer hora do dia. E você pode enviar mensagens pelas redes sociais e quando acompanha ao vivo de Segunda à Sexta às 7:13h da manhã. Curadoria atualizada sobre Startups, negócios inovadores e tendências de mercado. Youtube do ResumoCast : https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2wFLSmdA7Zcbre3E2f9AA8KankrxceMu Youtube do Resumo Radio Cast : https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvnH_YA25EKlEdfu8jVUpRA Facebook : https://www.facebook.com/resumocast/videos https://www.facebook.com/resumocastnews/videos https://www.facebook.com/groups/resumocast/ Linkedin : https://www.linkedin.com/company/resumocast/ Twitte : https://twitter.com/resumocast Twitch : https://www.twitch.tv/resumocast Spotify : https://open.spotify.com/show/3sEG6rOLvz6bLrMxEIcKRq Apple Podcasts : https://podcasts.apple.com/br/podcast/resumocast-news/id1505825539 Visite https://www.resumocast.com.br/news para ler as notícias e se inscrever na listra de transmissão do Telegram
The founders of online food startup MadEats explain how cloud kitchens are reshaping the restaurant business
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Tom Pickett, Chief Revenue Officer at DoorDash, to explore delivery and virtual cloud kitchens. Pickett is responsible for building out restaurant partnerships from big chains to mom and pops helping them become successful. Pickett says, “for the last year and a half we really have been working very closely with merchants to help them navigate the challenges of the pandemic.” He adds a stat saying that restaurants that have been on DoorDash are eight times more likely to still be around today than those not on DoorDash. In terms of what DoorDash is seeing, Pickett says, “a big acceleration in delivery, delivery has become a more prominent part of business and they find the most successful are treating it like a new line of business.” Another highlight is the operations experience of getting delivery in and out of your restaurants and Dashers love to go to the restaurants that are efficient and get them out of there quickly because they are able to make more money when operators are moving out deliveries.Pickett talks about Storefront, a DoorDash product that takes their online ordering capability and makes it available for restaurants for free to put on their own website. Underutilized kitchen capacity is a great opportunity for virtual brands and the cloud kitchen space. Pickett says that virtual brands and kitchens are a way to expand in a very cost effective way, using the power of delivery platforms. Delivery is at the center of these and DoorDash works very closely as a consultant for restaurants. To learn more about all of the new partnership programs, daily payouts for merchants, and DashPass, a subscription program for consumers, tune into this episode. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
In the latest episode of Hospitality Hangout podcast, Michael Schatzberg “The Restaurant Guy” and Jimmy Frischling “The Finance Guy” chat with Tom Pickett, Chief Revenue Officer at DoorDash, to explore delivery and virtual cloud kitchens. Pickett is responsible for building out restaurant partnerships from big chains to mom and pops helping them become successful. Pickett says, “for the last year and a half we really have been working very closely with merchants to help them navigate the challenges of the pandemic.” He adds a stat saying that restaurants that have been on DoorDash are eight times more likely to still be around today than those not on DoorDash. In terms of what DoorDash is seeing, Pickett says, “a big acceleration in delivery, delivery has become a more prominent part of business and they find the most successful are treating it like a new line of business.” Another highlight is the operations experience of getting delivery in and out of your restaurants and Dashers love to go to the restaurants that are efficient and get them out of there quickly because they are able to make more money when operators are moving out deliveries.Pickett talks about Storefront, a DoorDash product that takes their online ordering capability and makes it available for restaurants for free to put on their own website. Underutilized kitchen capacity is a great opportunity for virtual brands and the cloud kitchen space. Pickett says that virtual brands and kitchens are a way to expand in a very cost effective way, using the power of delivery platforms. Delivery is at the center of these and DoorDash works very closely as a consultant for restaurants. To learn more about all of the new partnership programs, daily payouts for merchants, and DashPass, a subscription program for consumers, tune into this episode. Click here for more recovery and relief information for restaurant, hospitality and food service operators. And keep listening, check out The Hospitality Hangout podcast on Spotify!This syndicated content is brought to you by Branded Strategic Hospitality.
09 September 2021: As we say goodbye to summer, Helen chats to Harry Murphy of Spinneys about all things barbecue - from the meats (and vegetables) to the marinades. She also finds out all about the Scoville Scale as she chats chilis with Ankiet Gulabani of Spinneys. Restaurant recommendations: Where do you get yours? Samantha Wood aka Foodiva shares a few of hers. Chef's Table: Get to know Ahmad Kasdi Mohd Dahari, the Executive Chef at the Hilton Ras Al Khaimah Resort and Spa. And is Sergio Lopez of The Pangolin against cloud kitchens? Helen finds out. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Are delivery kitchens the future money makers for the foodservice industry? In this episode of the Xtalks Food Podcast, Mira discusses Wendy's new partnership with REEF to introduce 700 new delivery kitchens in the US, Canada and the UK. Hear more from the editorial team as they discuss the opportunities that delivery kitchens can provide restaurants and customers.Also, in this episode, Mira discusses how Red Sea Farms, a Saudi Arabian AgTech startup, will help farmers maintain and grow crops using saltwater rather than freshwater in areas where the landscape mainly consists of sand and sea. The team debates whether this new sustainable way of farming will be more prevalent than freshwater agriculture in some areas because it reduces the food sector's carbon footprint and water usage.Read the full articles here: Does Your Wendy's Burger Need to Be Made in a Wendy's? The Fast-Food Chain Doesn't Think SoWill Saltwater Agriculture Technology Be the Future of Sustainable Farming?For more food and beverage industry content, visit the Xtalks Vitals homepage.Follow Us on Social Media Twitter: @XtalksFood Instagram: @Xtalks Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Xtalks.Webinars/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/xtalks-webconferences YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/XtalksWebinars/featured
In this week's StarTech episode we chat with the co-founder of Kitopi, Sam Darkan, to discuss the idea behind the revolutionary cloud kitchen platform. Its UAE's third unicorn with a $415 million funding round recently led by SoftBank. ‘Star Tech' delves into the world of startups stories.
Chad Sonkin is one of a kind. If you have the pleasure of knowing him, you know. If you don't, you're about to get a taste of why. Chad moved across the country to LA without having a job lined up to pursue his passion, and hasn't looked back. He was one of the first 100 employees at the electric scooter startup, Bird, which was the fastest company to reach a valuation of $1billion ever. Chad now leads a sales team at Cloud Kitchens, the newest venture of the former CEO and co-founder of Uber. To hear more about his backstory, check out Episode 9 on the podcast. On today's episode we chat about navigating your career, creating your identity, and believing in yourself You can find Chad on Instagram @sonkybomb Alright, buckle up, here's Chad Sonkin.
Episode 59: On the First Hour of the show, "How do Cyber Gangs recruit online talent and hackers?" We look to answer this question with Nick Espinosa from CIO of Security Fanatic. Then, why is California, Colorado, Hawaii, Oregon, Vermont, and Washington not allowed to purchase the newest Alienware from DELL? We also cover our first lawsuit about the same-day delivery of a movie to theaters and online streaming devices. Scarlett Johansson is suing Disney. Then we have a serious roundtable on "Gamer Time" as we talk about the lawsuit aimed at Activision. Finally, we have Jonathan's Just the FACTS - brought to us by StoriCoffee® along with our Whiskey Tastings.We have our "Letters" segment reading this week's email scams and funny phishing attempts on the Second Hour. Next, we have the [Ask the Expert] feature on a startup technology of "Cloud Kitchens". We will also look at the top companies providing cloud kitchens, including DoorDash, the delivery company. Finally, We have the list of the nominees for the 2021 LASE Awards coming up in August. “Welcome to TechTime Radio with Nathan Mumm, the show that makes you go "Hummmm" technology news of the week for July 31st - August 6th, 2021. The radio show for the everyday common person, that will impact your future with insightful segments, weeks ahead of the mainstream media.”--- Episode 59: --- [Loaded Question Of The Day]: Starts at 6:00 --- [Top Stories in 5 Minutes]: Starts at 7:08Dell is no longer shipping Alienware PC configurations to half a dozen US states because those product lines potentially fall out of bounds of newly adopted energy efficiency requirements. https://tinyurl.com/2pbjdkvsOlder Kindles may lose internet connection; Amazon warns https://tinyurl.com/nrrydkywDisney was sued by Black Widow star Scarlett Johansson over the movie's release as a same-day streaming service. https://tinyurl.com/52swtxyz --- [Pick of the Day - Whiskey Tasting Review]: Starts at 18:34 --- [Technology Insider]: Starts at 20:12In today's segment, we have Nick Espinosa talk about the updates to the Kaseya Ransomware Breach, and we ask him all about Cyber gangs "How do Cyber Gangs recruit online talent?" We look to answer this question and more with the CIO of Security Fanatic.--- [Gamer Time]: Starts at 40:11‘Cube Crawls' | "The Cosby Suite" | ‘Frat Bro' Culture: California's Huge Activision Blizzard Lawsuit Alleges Yet Another Toxic Workplace in the Video Game Industry we have a discussion on this during our round table chat. --- [Jonathan's Just the Facts brought to us by StoriCoffee®]: Starts at 52:51--- [Pick of the Day]: Starts at 54:37Smooth Ambler | 92 Proof | $35.00Nathan: Thumbs Up | Mike (Jonathan): Thumbs DownEpisode 59: Hour 2 - Starts at 1:01:25 --- [Love Shack Question]: Starts at 1:04:08--- [Letters]: Starts at 1:07:21Jonathan and Nathan read this week's emails scams sent to him in the mail and email.--- [Ask the Expert]: Starts at 1:20:59Cloud kitchens are centralized licensed commercial food production facilities where anywhere from one or two to dozens of restaurants rent space to prepare delivery-optimized menu items. We talk about a few of these new kitchens popping up around the nation and how technology makes this possible. --- [2021 LACE Awards Nominees Announcements]: Starts at 1:44:55With the Second Annual "Literature Award of Streaming Entertainment" Award show approaching we announced the nominees for the 2021 award show.
This week, Bill Cameron checks in on recent statehouse activity in Springfield with Illinois Senate President, Don Harmon. The Round-Table panel gathers to discuss the mass exodus of journalists from the Chicago Tribune. Lauren Cohn highlights Cloud Kitchens in Chicago and learns about the organization from Deidra Suber, the operations manager. Cloud Kitchens are donating hundreds of meals monthly to the Love Fridge, a community fridge and mutual aid network aimed at combating food insecurity in 18 neighborhoods across Chicago.
This week, host Brian Mac Mahon speaks with Madhav Kasturia, Founder of ZFW Hospitality. In this episode, Brian and Madhav talk about what's a cloud kitchen and how it helps food businesses, the challenges they faced and how they overcame it, and of course, their plan to increase revenue to $1M per month. About ZFW Hospitality: ZFW uses an innovative capital-light approach to help scale cloud kitchens & boost profitability. ZFW's portfolio consists of consumer brands catering to Asian & Regional cuisines like Biryani Street, Bowl Street, Beijing Street, & The Jackpot, etc. With a presence in 16 locations around Delhi NCR, our expertise enables us to set up a new kitchen in less than 30 hours while servicing a happy customer in 30 minutes. ZFW has served over 3,50,000 loyal customers through its offerings! For more info, please visit https://www.zfwhospitality.com/ If you have the next big idea, apply to the Expert Dojo Accelerator: www.expertdojo.com
On Call with Insignia Ventures with Yinglan Tan and Paulo Joquino
In this episode, we have Rishabh Singhi, the CEO and co-founder of Indonesian ghost-kitchen network Dishserve. In this episode, he shares how he and his co-founders came together in the midst of the pandemic to rethink F&B distribution, what makes Dishserve different from the traditional cloud kitchens, and how their asset-light model creates a win-win situation for Dishserve, home kitchens, and F&B brands. Transcript Timestamps 00:31 Introduction of Rishabh 01:19 How Rishabh met Yinglan and Insignia; 02:09 How Rishabh came to starting Dishserve in the midst of the pandemic; 05:59 How Rishabh gathered his co-founders; 09:59 Cloud kitchen space in Indonesia and where Dishserve fits into the picture; 14:09 Coming up with the Dishserve model; 15:01 How Dishserve recruits and onboards home kitchens to their ghost kitchen network; 16:23 Ensuring QA of Dishserve's home kitchens; 18:31 Creating a win-win scenario for F&B brands and home kitchens; 20:10 Scaling Dishserve model beyond Jakarta; 22:22 How Rishabh sees cloud kitchen and Dishserve models evolving moving forward; 24:11 Rapid Fire Round; About our guest Prior to co-founding and becoming CEO of Dishserve, Rishabh Singhi was previously COO and Head of Products at Reddoorz. And prior to that, he had already been working for the past five years in a couple of different technology-enabled and based companies, across India and APAC, and in various industries from education to financial services and career development. Music: Cool Upbeat Background Music For Videos by MorningLightMusic Tags: startup, Southeast Asia, founder, entrepreneurship, business, technology The content of this podcast is for informational purposes only, should not be taken as legal, tax, or business advice or be used to evaluate any investment or security, and is not directed at any investors or potential investors in any Insignia Ventures fund.
Many bigwigs, including an alderman and Lisa Madigan, are trying to prevent a shared kitchen from opening up on the north side. Deidra Suder of Cloud Kitchens who would like to open, joined Big John to talk about the situation.
On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Alistair Croll and Emily Ross, co-authors of the upcoming book Just Evil Enough. We talk about the changing role of marketing and how companies can subvert systems, undermine industry norms, and get platforms to behave in unexpected ways that tilt the scales to generate attention and demand. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring you the latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator.Interview Transcript with Alistair Croll and Emily Ross, Co-authors of Just Evil EnoughBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have some amazing guests. Today we have Alistair Croll and Emily Ross authors of the new book, Just Evil Enough, which is a book about getting noticed in this noisy environment and subversive go-to market strategies. Welcome to the show guys. Alistair Croll: Thanks for having us. Emily Ross: Thanks a million. Brian Ardinger: Well, I'm super excited to have you on this call to give our audience a little bit of a sneak preview of the upcoming book. But first let me give a little bit of background. So, Emily Ross, you are a founder of a tech marketing consultancy company called Ink Vine based in Ireland. So we appreciate you coming across the pond to give us some insights on what's going on. And Alistair and I go back a long time back in the days of Lean Startup. And he's the coauthor of Lean Analytics. We brought him back to Nebraska about six or seven years ago, I guess it was, when I was working with Nmotion to help with our startup teams in that. So thank you for both being on the show. The title of the book, Just Evil Enough. How'd you come up with that and what's it all about? Alistair Croll: So I'll tell you a quick story. We ran an accelerator in Montreal called Year One Labs. And one of the companies in Year One Labs was a company called Local Mind. And Local Mind was a platform for asking people questions, asking strangers questions about an area.It was later acquired by Airbnb and Lenny Rachitsky, the CEO ran supply-side growth there. And he's now the author of one of the most prominent newsletters for startup growth marketing, Lenny's Newsletter. And in the early days they were doing what every startup does, which is building lots of stuff. But because we were very Lean Startup focused, we have them ask what the biggest risk was.And it turns out the biggest risk was that whether people would answer questions from strangers. So they ran a very quick study, which we talk about in Lean Analytics. And they found that 94% of people on Twitter would answer a question from a stranger. But this happened because I had been asking Lenny, are you being evil enough?And they were like, we're not evil. And I said, yeah, but just a little evil, because it turns out that people answer questions, but people on the platform won't ask questions. The real risk is the supply of questions. And so they actually built a system that would ask fake questions of new users. So they get in the habit of asking questions. Now you can debate the means versus the end, but what we have found ever since that time is that almost every startup that's successful has some little dirty secret in their background, where they were able to take advantage of an emerging technology or subvert the way a platform is supposed to work and turn it to their advantage.And so the basic idea behind Just Evil Enough is that almost all the time, the problem isn't whether or not you can build something it's whether anyone will care. So your job should be creating attention you can turn into profitable demand. Emily Ross: I think the subversive word is really, really important because we want to clearly differentiate between nefarious, which is downright evil and subversive, which allows you to think a little bit differently.And it's very hard for people who've been conditioned to think a certain way, to try and think differently. So the book is about trying to teach people how to think subversively, and to show examples and frameworks in order to do that. And I remember working at a platform years ago and one of the engineers said, right, I'm going to put this button on the website to test if people will click it.And my instant reaction was, but it doesn't go anywhere. That's a terrible idea. They're going to have an awful experience and that's bad for them. And he's like, no, but I don't want to build something unless I know they're going to need it. So I'm just going to put that button there and yeah, I'm going to burn a few thousand clicks and they're gonna have a terrible experience. I don't care. I'll learn something. And he was prepared to be disagreeable in order to learn something different and to save an awful lot of time and money. And it was funny. It was like, okay. I need to think a little bit differently about how we're treating users sometimes. Alistair Croll: Yeah, we did a similar thing at Gradient. We had a reporting feature. Gradient was a startup that I launched in 2001. Eventually got acquired by BMC, their TrueSight product line. And we were about to launch reports in the product. And so we created our reports tab, and the reports tab went to a survey page. It says, we're going to do reports soon, what would you like to see?And people put in their email address and the report they'd like to see. And of course we were building a generic reporting tool. So what we did is we then generated like the top 20 requested reports. Made them defaults and then mailed those people saying we loved your feedback. Thank you so much. We've built the report you're looking for. Forget about the fact that 40 other people ask for the same report. Every one of them felt like they were a unique and special snowflake. And so we were exploiting the asymmetry between what we knew, which was 20 people asked for it and what they knew, which was, Hey, look at this, I'm special. You listened to me. And the customers loved it. Right? Is that evil? Well, it meant that we were able to build the default reports people wanted, which made the product better, but it's a little subversive. Brian Ardinger: Well, I think part of that learning is the fact that I think a lot of people think that they need to build the entire thing, because that's what shows the value. But, you know, again, you have to incrementally de-risk some of these new startup ideas. And so how do you do that with building just enough to get the learning that you need so that you can move it to the next level and build it out if you need to? Alistair Croll: Well, I would say that the problem's not minimum viable product, it's minimum viable attention.Emily Ross: Yeah. And actually, if you think about, and this is the one thing that the book, I suppose, hammers home, is that getting your go-to market strategy right, is as important, if not more important than getting your product right. Because if you can't capture attention and turn it into profitable demand, then no one's going to know about your product. And it's all about various different approaches that you can use to figure out how to do that. And asymmetry being just one of about 10, I think that we cover. Brian Ardinger: So, is it a form of customer discovery almost so rather than the traditional customer discovery interviews there, you're looking for different ways to engage with a marketplace, engage with a customer to get that understanding of what their demand is and where they want to go from there?Emily Ross: Well, it's really interesting. Some of the examples in the book are not business examples. There's a lot of historical stuff in there, right back from Machiavelli, all the way through to The Godfather. There's businesses, oh, tell the Genghis Khan story. I love that one. Alistair Croll: So I mean, the idea behind a lot of this is that if you know something to be true, that other people discount, you can take advantage of that. And there are many times where people knew they could do something better, but didn't Genghis Kahn, for example, knew that women could be very effective rulers. This was something that was not widely held. And so he would conquer a city, marry one of his many, many daughters off to the leader of that city. Send that leader off to war, he'd promptly get killed. Now you have a blood relative in charge of that city. Was that evil? Well, Genghis Khan did a lot of nasty things, but he did have a decent amount of respect for women's ability to run cities, which was something nobody else was factoring in. And this was an unfair advantage. Right. And I think, I mean, we're getting a little ahead of it. One of the things that Emily talks about a lot, is the idea that you need to know the norms of your system in order to subvert them. So do you want to talk a little about the water stuff? Emily? Emily Ross: Yeah so normative versus formative is like super interesting. So there's a story of by two fish and they're swimming along, and a much older fish is swimming the opposite direction. And this is from... Alistair Croll: it's a commencement address, right?Emily Ross: That's it, the older fish says, Oh how's the water? And the fish swim on a little bit and they turned to each other and go, what the hell is water? So, you have to be able to recognize the fact that you're swimming in the medium. And the best way to do that is to use external viewpoints to help recognize what you're swimming in or downing in.I also use a log jam metaphor, which works as well. And this is a one I use all the time for teaching for problem solving, but it's really, really applicable as well too, to recognizing the difference between normative and formative. So when these to say a logs down the river, to ship them to the log yard, And they would occasionally get tangled up and a team of river pigs used to have to surround the problem really quickly because it's obviously getting worse and worse all the time, and figure out which was the one key log that you could extract to unlock the whole problem.And the only way they could do it really, really well, was through diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective. By surrounding the problem, by sharing ideas, by looking at it from lots of different perspectives. And that's why diversity in your teams, that's why diversity of perspectives is so important so that you can actually recognize what you're swimming in, whether it's water or something, a little bit stinkier. And also getting the sense of looking at it from outside, what you're used to. So ideas from different verticals, from different walks of life. That's going to help you think subversively. Alistair Croll: And that's kind of the supervillain stuff. I mean, Brian, I'll give you an example, that's a concrete example from when I came to visit you .One of your startups was making a rotary sprinkler solution.So to recap, rotary sprinklers, when they're lateral to a strong wind, get blown over and this costs a lot of money to fix. And so they built a thing that could measure the weather and the incoming winds and rotate the sprinkler downwind kind of like a wind sock, so it wouldn't fall over. And they're having a hard time selling. And what the startup revealed to me at the time when we were meeting, was that there's this weird existing system between farmers, farm subsidies, insurance, salespeople, and the makers of those sprinklers.They don't really mind when it gets knocked over because everyone makes some money and then they use that money to go on a fishing trip. If you don't know that you're in that water, all your efforts to sell are going to fail. You've got to recognize that and then go, huh? Maybe this is something I can sell through the maker of the sprinklers, or like maybe I can, you can subvert that system.Maybe you have to create an awareness campaign that farm subsidies being wasted and they could be spent on something else. But if you don't know that strategy, you can't subvert it. And that word subvert just means find another version. By definition, the hardest problems we face are the ones for which we don't have an obvious solution, because the normal approaches don't work.Which means you've got to find an unusual approach and that's normally called hacking, right? Hacking is getting something to work in a way it wasn't intended. Whether you're using a Pringle can to focus wifi signals, or you're getting a computer system to throw an error, so you can own a system. The problem with hacking is that in startups, hacking has a horrible polar reputation. Growth hacking is a bag of cheap tricks.Brian Ardinger: Talk about some of the examples in the book that maybe some people have heard of or can get a visual around. I know you've mentioned in past talks and that I've seen around this is like things like Peloton or Burger King. Can you give examples from that? Emily Ross: I would quite like to talk about one of the ones that I had the hardest time with is about being disagreeable. And we talked about it slightly there in terms of doing things that you wouldn't necessarily think of as being quite right. But as a woman, I have been raised to be polite, to be agreeable. And actually, if you look at some of the most innovative, interesting entrepreneurs in history, quite a lot of them have been profoundly disagreeable.They've been prepared to be unliked or unloved. And this is something, a behavior that you can adopt or think about as a means to finding new ideas, or it means of finding new ways of doing things. One of the examples that we talked sports a little bit earlier, but Wilt Chamberlain was arguably one of the best basketball players of all time. He has on more than one occasion scored over a hundred points in a single game. But he had a problem. He couldn't shoot free throws to save his life. Back in college, he had a really high score, but over his career, it went down and down and down and he had a career low of like, I think 26% success rate.He was a star player. He got fouled a lot. So this was a really big problem for him. So he went to see Rick Barry. Rick Barry was the guy who could not miss. He actually had a career average of 89.3% and he got better and better as his career progressed in the last two years of his career, he had a 94% success rate from free throws. But he actually threw in a really interesting way. He threw underhand, which is actually kind of a cool word for the, Just Evil Enough book, because he shot underhand. But he was the best at shooting. But this was called the Granny Style. This is, you know, if you throw like a girl, you throw under hand. He didn't care. His father had drummed it into him from a very young age, how to shoot underhand, overhand, underhand, overhand, and he could just nail it every single time.So Chamberlain went to see Barry learned to shoot underhand and his performance doubled. He went from a career low, to a career high, in that same game where he scored a hundred points. So it turns out it's a much better approach. However, Chamberlain didn't have the guts to keep shooting underhand because he cared too much about what people thought. His career best was 61% from the line in 1961, he sank 28 of 32 free throws against the New York Knicks.So after a while, though, he reverted to shooting the way he knew, and his percentages plunged. And he admitted that he felt like a sissy. He worried too much about what other people thought. And unlike Barry who was rational, Chamberlain was being agreeable and wrong. Barry meanwhile said he could be as selfish as he wanted to without hurting his team. So being a little bit disagreeable or asking yourself what you're prepared to do is a really good first start. Alistair Croll: Just to chime in quickly, we've all heard of growth hacking right? Growth hacking is these little tricks that get people to click a button or move down a funnel or whatever. The problem with any of these known tricks is that they're known. Andrew Chen talks about the law of shitty click-through rates, which is simply the idea that as you find a vulnerability, if you will, a way to change the market, it becomes widely known immediately.So the first click-through ad on Hot Wired had an average of 44% click-through rate. Some people say it was as high as 70% for a banner ad. What's that at now? Emily? Brian Ardinger: Well, industry averages will tell you, or they'll tell you it's 0.1%. But in my opinion, it's closer to 0.02%, if you're lucky. Alistair Croll: So that's a huge decline. Same thing happened with email and so on. And so there are these known hacks that are the sort of marketing equivalent of a script kitty, who's running an attack on WordPress. And if you haven't patched your site, you'll be selling Viagra off your website. What you should be doing is trying to find the marketing equivalent of a zero day exploit.So in security a zero day, is an attack that nobody knows about yet. And they're incredibly valuable. Two of them were used to retard the Iranian nuclear program and damaged centrifuges. The marketing equivalent of a zero day exploit, we call this zero day marketing, is finding a new way to get a platform to behave in an unintended manner, with which you can create attention you can turn into profitable demand. And there's some amazing examples of like Farmville, for example. When Farmville's app would send you a message saying, Hey, Brian, Alistair's cows need some grain. And you'd click on it. Now you're a user. Well, they got to 30 million users before Facebook went, Whoa, we maybe don't want apps posting to people's friend feeds.There are so many examples of this, and we can tell you those examples. But the point is you can't use those examples because they've already been done. Right? What you have to do is devote much more of your time to inventing your own zero day marketing exploits. Brian Ardinger: So from that perspective, is it a series of experiments that you just have to run? You, you come up with some ideas and you run them like that, or is this, talk me through the process of how you get better at it? Emily Ross: One of the examples that I like to share, if you see it often enough, you begin to understand how you can apply the thinking. It's a model and you just try and apply it to your own environment. So if we take the information asymmetry, and example, the idea of subverting, one thing for another. Or a bait and switch. The idea of you're selling one thing, but actually getting another and Tupperware parties did this, you know, you think you're going for dinner and you end up getting guilt ridden into buying a load of plastic.But when I was working in a comparison platform, we subverted the PR channel for the generation of white hat backlinks. So PR is generally around building brand and brand awareness. But one of the side effects of PR was the generation of backlinks. So this is back in like maybe 2013. So what we did was we mined data. We attached big data trends to celebrities, pushed out, press releases to high value domains, and pretty much one in five hit would generate a backlink. When we started. We had about 1400 high quality backlinks. And we were generating about 60,000 non-brand organic visits to site per day. And after three years of pushing out two releases a month, month in, month out, we had over four and a half thousand unique domain backlinks and almost 200,000 non-brand organic visits per day.And this was a platform that turned traffic into money. I won't tell you how, but what we did for example, was we mined hair transplant trends and prices. And one example of the many, many crazy pushes we did was the Jude Law index of baldness. So here's a scale up from Colin Farrell all the way up to Dr. Evil, of how bald are you? And you find yourself on the index and you see, Oh, this is how much it would cost for me to have hair transplants. It was a price comparison website for private health clinics. And this was a fun, interesting way to attract attention and turn it into traffic to the sites. But actually it wasn't really about traffic. It was always about the backlinks. So one in five hits generate a backlink, but again, it was channel burnout. It was a zero day exploit because you know, over the course of the three years, the number of backlinks that were being generated, went from maybe one in five to one in 10, because the platforms themselves started to recognize the value that they were accidentally giving away.So naturally you get published in a paper. If there's an online version of it, they print it online and they put a backlink out. It was a side effect of the real, a pure PR. And channel burn happened, those backlinks are no longer as readily available as they were. But it worked for about three years, four years. It was a fun time. Brian Ardinger: You have to have a continuous funnel yourself of new things that you need to explore it. Emily Ross: Exactly. Exactly. So that was a, we had a good run, but it's about thinking about, well, what is the channel? What is the platform? So PR was the channel and we used it in a way. It wasn't intended to be used for our benefits. And so what are your channels? How can you use them differently? And that's a really great question to ask of yourself, no matter what you're doing. Alistair Croll: One of the things we often do is. What has changed in a technology platform. So for example, Travis Kalanick has this new startup Cloud Kitchens. What has changed in restaurants? Well, first of all, there's a huge abundance of restaurants that I could order from. Far more than I would know about. So I'm already overwhelmed with selection when I go to order food, because we're all at home, in a pandemic, ordering food. And second of all, The fact that the storefront is virtual, it means one kitchen can have many restaurant front ends. And so Cloud Kitchens will set you up with brands and their brands have games like Fucking Good Pizza, My Pasta, Dirty Little Vegan Bitch, Don't Grill My Cheese. None of these tell you about food, but when you're overwhelmed, and you have that sort of paradox of choice, you go, no, I'll just order it from that one. That sounds fine. Right? That's only possible because that brand is part of an experiment. You're ordering from an experiment. And they're constantly testing, which ones get more attention and then the restaurant can deliver all of those things that might be the same kitchen. And so Cloud Kitchens has taken advantage of an exploit within the traditional model of food ordering. So it's looking at, you know, what technology changes or combinations of technology, makes something possible that wasn't possible before that you can then subvert to your ends. Brian Ardinger: How do you go from not just creating a gimmick or how do you, I guess also approach being wrong, like trying these things and, and being wrong?Emily Ross: Growth hacking is gimmicks. Growth Hacking is doing something that maybe it's a publicity stunt or, I mean, one of the examples that we use in the book is pairing two things unexpectedly together. That's a great way to draw attention and Heineken did this really well in the UK just last week, where they put out a mobile hairdressing units and bar, so you could get a free haircut and a pint together.So this generated publicity and it's nice, but it's gimmicky, right? Is that really going to move their needle? You know, for the year? Possibly not. It's a nice story. So, but if you look at governments have been doing this for years and they've done it so well, there's a really good example in the book, which I won't go into now about how the government shamed people into stopping spitting in the twenties, as they tried to fight TB. Instead of just saying it's bad to spit, they actually made people feel bad, and socially, and vulgar by spitting because before that it was perfectly normal.And if you look at the Chinese government, they use Fapiao. Fapiao are receipts. And they use Fapiao as a lottery to fight corruption. So this is really interesting. In China, corruption can be rampant. Merchants will give their customers a discount, if the customer doesn't ask for a receipt.So the merchant doesn't have to report the income and like just pockets to the savings. The government used an incentive to combat this called Fapiao, which is a receipt from the merchant. And there's a couple of hacks in here that are super clever. So the merchants have to buy the receipts beforehand and then hand them out to customers in return for payment.So the first one is the merchant has to pay tax before the transaction. That's really smart. And then customers demand their Fapiao, because there's a scratch and win lottery element. And then the government runs the lottery and customers can scratch off the panel to see if they've won anything. And so the second hack there is create demand for a receipt by making it a game.And then of course the government can also adjust the prize amount of each lottery to create just the right amount of incentive. So they're literally able to alter the rewards of the game to like tilt the Nash equilibrium, which is just like super smart. So you can do this at a macro level and absolutely get away with it.Alistair Croll: I want to just make sure we address your question about gimmicks. One of the big differences between a Zero Day Exploit and traditional Growth Hacking is that it's not known. But another is that it is intrinsic to your business model. The haircuts aren't intrinsic to Heineken's beer, but when Dropbox launched, they were the first to pioneer this, both of us get something. I invite you, we both get storage. That's built into the product, right. That's intrinsic to the system itself. And I think what it means is that you're factoring in Zero Day Exploits, marketing exploits, to your business model and your product roadmap. Not just to your marketing campaigns. I mean, Genghis Khan's a good example, right?It wasn't just a tactic. It was a fundamental change in how he thought that societies could be ruled. So the real lesson here is, I'll give you one more example. There's a company that makes software called Energage and they make workplace surveys. So they would sell to an enterprise and the enterprise would survey their employees and do 360 stuff. And so on. But the way they go to market is they launched this thing called the top workplaces project in concert with the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the Dallas Morning News and so on. And they run this survey and they say to these newspapers, Hey everybody, here's the survey. We'll take care of it.So now you go do it. And like, Whoa, isn't this great. My company is one of the best workplaces. I'll buy an ad in the newspaper. Everything's wonderful. And then Energage can go back and go, Hey, congratulations on being the third best workplace in Nebraska. Too bad about the other results. And you go what other results? Well, you know, we got more data than that, would you like to see it? Okay. And now you have a new customer, right? It's intrinsic to the business model, right. Rather than just being a little trick or hack. Brian Ardinger: That's an interesting point. And it also goes to the point where you see a lot of these examples in startups, because you can build it early on into the business model and that. How does this play out for a large existing company that wants to try to use some of these tactics?Emily Ross: So big companies really need to think about reframing and they also need to give themselves permission to think in ways they're not used to. One of the exercises I like to recommend is called a pre-mortem. And you basically give them permission to imagine the worst possible outcome. You invite them to invent the worst, worst, worst thing that could possibly happen and then work backwards from there.And it's amazing what happens in an environment like that, because that group think is real. That tribal behaviors of wanting to be agreeable and wanting everyone to pull together is very much a systematic thing that you see in large organizations. So giving them permission to think disagreeably. Giving them methods to reframe where they are, what they do. These are all great frameworks for them to try and think subversively. Alistair Croll: First of all, I think that it's really important. I mean, I would consider a marketing department, have a Red Team. Have a second group, hmm, that has the same product and resources, but their job is to put the first group out of business. What do you do? Right. That's just hypothetical. You're going to think better. We Red Team on security. We Red Team on PR. Why don't we read team on go-to-market strategies. And the second thing is, if you look at great brands that changed how people discussed a product or a service, they found a frame of reference that favored them. For decades we used to talk about electric cars. We would talk about sustainability and range. Pretty boring stuff, right? Lots of hippies sitting around going let's save the planet and look at my Prius. Elon Musk put one of them on a race track against supercar and beat it. And all of a sudden the conversation on electric cars was performance. He'd reframed the discussion about electric vehicles to performance, right?When Gmail first launched, your inbox on Hotmail or Yahoo mail had 10 mgs. That's like one photo, right? We don't remember that. My daughter doesn't believe this. When Gmail came along, Google knew that they did not have strength in folders and archiving and hierarchy and export, but they were good at with search and storage.So they said, Hey, email's not about your ability to manage your folders and your inbox and organization and management. It's about abundance storage. And they reinforced that so much that they actually had a counter showing you how much storage you get. Salesforce, when it first launched, was a web based CRM, but web-based CRMs had very few features compared to Siebel and Vantive and Clarify, companies that you don't see anymore.So they said no CRM is about not needing IT. In fact, their logo was no software. They had us the word software with a slash through it, despite the fact that they own their own programming language called Apex. Right? And so each of these companies found a way to reframe things, even like Listerine. Listerine was this clinical health thing. And then along comes scope and says, Hey, you know what? Mouthwash is actually about being attractive and sexy, not about clinical health. One action that a lot of big brands should take is to step back and say, what is a new frame that favors us and disadvantages our competition. And then what is it about that frame of reference that we can do to prove it that will then allow the customer to find a different way of valuing the product?Emily Ross: I would also chime in there and talk about generally large marketing teams will have, they'll have done their marketing degrees and their MBAs or masters on they'll turn out the four P's from, you know, the 1960s or the seven P's of service. And like there's too much P. Just stop peeing. Guys just stopped doing it.Right. Chuck, all of that in the bin and start thinking about creating attention. And it's as simple and as complicated as that. We talk about human motivation and Alistair I think coined laid, made, paid, afraid. I tidy that up a bit to the piratey AARG. Which is appeal, authority, risk, and greed. So think about your customers. Think about your competitors. Think about the marketplace through the lens of human behavior and whether you're selling radiator bits or cars or Cola, people have all those very basic triggers. They want to be liked that's appeal. They want power that's authority. They want to feel safe. That's the risk lens.And then greed, you know, people want the things that they want. So. We're just human meat bags, right? We're just walking bags of meat with emotions. We have very simple motivations at the end of the day. And in a B2B setting for a big organization, the AARG framework is a really useful function. Like, so throw out the P. Think about AARG.And if you're trying to convince people to act, you need to appeal to base emotions more than you do plain reason, because most people really aren't very rational. There's also really a good examples of the seven deadly sins. If you look at the big, big enterprises, I think Chris Pack said this on Twitter.I thought it was really, really good. Uber and Amazon are slough. Instagram and Tik Tok are pride. Door Dash is gluttony. Tinder is lust. Pinterest is envy. Twitter is rath. And Bitcoin is greed. So think about the fundamentals. Just think about the basics. We haven't changed all that much. Alistair Croll: But I think the biggest thing here is that big brands haven't realized that the biggest risk they face is that someone else will subvert attention that they could otherwise be getting and turned into their profitable demand. And so if you don't do that, you're going to get eaten alive. If we can get the world to realize that the biggest risk is not whether you will build something, but whether anyone will care, we've already given people a huge headstart.Brian Ardinger: Well, and the fact that the world is changing so fast on the fact that you can go from company like Airbnb in 12 years to being, you know, one of the most recognizable brands, you know, overnight effectively from what used to be to build a business. New technologies, new marketplaces, new access to talent. All of that is just accelerating the opportunities to be disrupted. Alistair Croll: We used to have a new platform come along. You know, we had writing that took a few thousand years. Then we got to radio. It took a few hundred years. And then we got to television that took a decade, the rate of introduction of new platforms. And therefore, if you're thinking like a hacker new attack surfaces, Is incredible, right? The Cloud Kitchens example happened because of the pandemic and the rise of Uber Eats and Door Dash, and so on. The pace at which new exploit opportunities appear is very, very fast. And as a result, there are far more opportunities to subvert the status quo or the norms of your industry with one of these new platforms.So we're trying to get people to be much more opportunistic. And part of what we do, like I said I can't tell you do this thing, because if I tell you, then it's already been done. What we can do is we can say, here are some ways to think about it. You know, is there an innovation that happens? Can you reframe things? Can you do a substitution where people think they're getting one thing and they're actually getting another. Can you appeal to the foibles of human psychology? Emily Ross: Don't be afraid to be disagreeable. Alistair Croll: It's weird because in the past I've written books that are very technical. There is a right answer. And Emily's written lots of articles on like how to do stuff. This is a more subjective thing and candidly more uncomfortable for us as writers, because we want to make sure that there are applicable lessons, but it's almost like, you know, teaching someone Zen. I can tell you what it is, but you're going to have to go sit on a rock and figure it out for yourself.But once you start thinking this way, everything becomes a subversive opportunity. And once you have that subversive lens, you're not being evil, you're just being just evil enough. Opportunities are everywhere. Emily Ross: And actually, if you think about it, just coming back to your very first question, which is a nice cyclicity. The title of the book is exactly what we set out to do, which is we got your attention and we're turning it into demand. So the book title is a really, really simple and effective way to showcase the thinking. And I think if you take one thing away from it, it's change what you spend your time on. So building a subversive go-to market strategy is just as important as thinking about your product. And if you get the balance, right, you're going to be unstoppable. Brian Ardinger: Well, and you've also from the book perspective, the book's not out yet, but you're doing things to grab attention differently than a lot of, I mean, I get pitched every other day by a book author trying to get their book noticed and that. But I know that you've been doing some things as far as live online course that's leading up to the book. And you have a interesting little survey. I don't, if we got to talking about any of the things that you're doing from a attention perspective to, about the book. Emily Ross: Well one of the things I love, this was so much fun, is that you can't just order the book. You can't just pre-order it. You have to take a quiz so that we can decide if you're evil enough. So you take the quiz and if you're not evil enough, we think, you know, you're not going to be able to handle the book. And if you're too evil, then this book could just perhaps be too powerful. So we have gamified the experience of the pre-order function, which was a lot of fun. And we've done a ton of tons of things, just mostly because we'd like to mess around, but that's just one of the things we've done so far. Alistair Croll: It's also great that Emily has like a whole team of web developers that stand up. Emily's business is actually, she's like the SWAT team or the MI6 for some very advanced tech brands, who can't really explain what they do well. And Emily figures out how to do that. So she has a team of people to build stuff. So a good example of that is we wanted to do a survey to see whether people would take our cohort based course, which we're going to be running with Maven, the founders of Alt MBA and UDemy, set up this new, online cohort based course program. But we wanted to get people to take the survey. So we told them one lucky winner will get a free workshop or talk from us for their organization, which is usually something we charged a lot of money for. But we also wanted to make sure they shared the survey, which is a paradox because I want the greatest odds of winning. So I'm not going to tell my friends, right?So we made two surveys. One was Team Orange, one was Team Black. And we say, we'll choose the winner from the survey that has the most responses. That's a bit subversive. Right. And we found some funny things about people getting kind of tribal and like I'm Team Black and so on. We even did things to tweak the survey questions a little bit between the two.So we ran like six or seven social experiments in the survey. But would you buy a book from people who weren't thinking subversively? I mean, I wouldn't buy a book on subversiveness for someone who went through normal tactics. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you both coming on Inside Outside Innovation to share some of this subversiveness and hopefully get more folks to be Just Evil Enough. People want to find out more about yourself or the book itself, what's the best way to do that. Emily Ross: Just Evil Enough.com and I'll actually, I landed Alistair in it on a talk we did last week because we were live Tweeting. They wouldn't let us take live questions. So we just got everyone to jump on Twitter and ask us questions there.And I promised everyone lives that if they hashtag Just Evil Enough that Alistair would read out whatever they wrote. And they all said smart, intelligent things. And I was like, I can't believe none of you are like trying to flog a course or a book or promote something. Like he will have to say anything you like. So people should...Alistair Croll: I think one guy had me mention his podcast, but there's a good example where like, Oh, you think you're getting free promotion in this thing we're recording, but you're actually following the Just Evil Enough account. Emily Ross: But yes, Just Evil Enough.com is where you can take the quiz. You can hear about the cohort class. You can, pre-order the book and there's an Evil Enough Twitter account too. You can check that out. Brian Ardinger: Well Emily, it was great to meet you for the first time here and Alistair. Always good to catch up with what's going on in your world. So appreciate you both for being on here and looking forward to the conversation in the future.Alistair Croll: Thanks so much for having us. Emily Ross: Thanks Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. 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On this week's episode of Inside Outside Innovation, we sit down with Alistair Croll and Emily Ross, co-authors of the upcoming book Just Evil Enough. We talk about the changing role of marketing and how companies can subvert systems, undermine industry norms, and get platforms to behave in unexpected ways that tilt the scales to generate attention and demand. Let's get started.Inside Outside Innovation is the podcast to help you rethink, reset, and remix yourself and your organization. Each week, we'll bring you the latest innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneering businesses, as well as the tools, tactics, and trends you'll need to thrive as a new innovator.Interview Transcript with Alistair Croll and Emily Ross, Co-authors of Just Evil EnoughBrian Ardinger: Welcome to another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. I'm your host, Brian Ardinger, and as always, we have some amazing guests. Today we have Alistair Croll and Emily Ross authors of the new book, Just Evil Enough, which is a book about getting noticed in this noisy environment and subversive go-to market strategies. Welcome to the show guys. Alistair Croll: Thanks for having us. Emily Ross: Thanks a million. Brian Ardinger: Well, I'm super excited to have you on this call to give our audience a little bit of a sneak preview of the upcoming book. But first let me give a little bit of background. So, Emily Ross, you are a founder of a tech marketing consultancy company called Ink Vine based in Ireland. So we appreciate you coming across the pond to give us some insights on what's going on. And Alistair and I go back a long time back in the days of Lean Startup. And he's the coauthor of Lean Analytics. We brought him back to Nebraska about six or seven years ago, I guess it was, when I was working with Nmotion to help with our startup teams in that. So thank you for both being on the show. The title of the book, Just Evil Enough. How'd you come up with that and what's it all about? Alistair Croll: So I'll tell you a quick story. We ran an accelerator in Montreal called Year One Labs. And one of the companies in Year One Labs was a company called Local Mind. And Local Mind was a platform for asking people questions, asking strangers questions about an area.It was later acquired by Airbnb and Lenny Rachitsky, the CEO ran supply-side growth there. And he's now the author of one of the most prominent newsletters for startup growth marketing, Lenny's Newsletter. And in the early days they were doing what every startup does, which is building lots of stuff. But because we were very Lean Startup focused, we have them ask what the biggest risk was.And it turns out the biggest risk was that whether people would answer questions from strangers. So they ran a very quick study, which we talk about in Lean Analytics. And they found that 94% of people on Twitter would answer a question from a stranger. But this happened because I had been asking Lenny, are you being evil enough?And they were like, we're not evil. And I said, yeah, but just a little evil, because it turns out that people answer questions, but people on the platform won't ask questions. The real risk is the supply of questions. And so they actually built a system that would ask fake questions of new users. So they get in the habit of asking questions. Now you can debate the means versus the end, but what we have found ever since that time is that almost every startup that's successful has some little dirty secret in their background, where they were able to take advantage of an emerging technology or subvert the way a platform is supposed to work and turn it to their advantage.And so the basic idea behind Just Evil Enough is that almost all the time, the problem isn't whether or not you can build something it's whether anyone will care. So your job should be creating attention you can turn into profitable demand. Emily Ross: I think the subversive word is really, really important because we want to clearly differentiate between nefarious, which is downright evil and subversive, which allows you to think a little bit differently.And it's very hard for people who've been conditioned to think a certain way, to try and think differently. So the book is about trying to teach people how to think subversively, and to show examples and frameworks in order to do that. And I remember working at a platform years ago and one of the engineers said, right, I'm going to put this button on the website to test if people will click it.And my instant reaction was, but it doesn't go anywhere. That's a terrible idea. They're going to have an awful experience and that's bad for them. And he's like, no, but I don't want to build something unless I know they're going to need it. So I'm just going to put that button there and yeah, I'm going to burn a few thousand clicks and they're gonna have a terrible experience. I don't care. I'll learn something. And he was prepared to be disagreeable in order to learn something different and to save an awful lot of time and money. And it was funny. It was like, okay. I need to think a little bit differently about how we're treating users sometimes. Alistair Croll: Yeah, we did a similar thing at Gradient. We had a reporting feature. Gradient was a startup that I launched in 2001. Eventually got acquired by BMC, their TrueSight product line. And we were about to launch reports in the product. And so we created our reports tab, and the reports tab went to a survey page. It says, we're going to do reports soon, what would you like to see?And people put in their email address and the report they'd like to see. And of course we were building a generic reporting tool. So what we did is we then generated like the top 20 requested reports. Made them defaults and then mailed those people saying we loved your feedback. Thank you so much. We've built the report you're looking for. Forget about the fact that 40 other people ask for the same report. Every one of them felt like they were a unique and special snowflake. And so we were exploiting the asymmetry between what we knew, which was 20 people asked for it and what they knew, which was, Hey, look at this, I'm special. You listened to me. And the customers loved it. Right? Is that evil? Well, it meant that we were able to build the default reports people wanted, which made the product better, but it's a little subversive. Brian Ardinger: Well, I think part of that learning is the fact that I think a lot of people think that they need to build the entire thing, because that's what shows the value. But, you know, again, you have to incrementally de-risk some of these new startup ideas. And so how do you do that with building just enough to get the learning that you need so that you can move it to the next level and build it out if you need to? Alistair Croll: Well, I would say that the problem's not minimum viable product, it's minimum viable attention.Emily Ross: Yeah. And actually, if you think about, and this is the one thing that the book, I suppose, hammers home, is that getting your go-to market strategy right, is as important, if not more important than getting your product right. Because if you can't capture attention and turn it into profitable demand, then no one's going to know about your product. And it's all about various different approaches that you can use to figure out how to do that. And asymmetry being just one of about 10, I think that we cover. Brian Ardinger: So, is it a form of customer discovery almost so rather than the traditional customer discovery interviews there, you're looking for different ways to engage with a marketplace, engage with a customer to get that understanding of what their demand is and where they want to go from there?Emily Ross: Well, it's really interesting. Some of the examples in the book are not business examples. There's a lot of historical stuff in there, right back from Machiavelli, all the way through to The Godfather. There's businesses, oh, tell the Genghis Khan story. I love that one. Alistair Croll: So I mean, the idea behind a lot of this is that if you know something to be true, that other people discount, you can take advantage of that. And there are many times where people knew they could do something better, but didn't Genghis Kahn, for example, knew that women could be very effective rulers. This was something that was not widely held. And so he would conquer a city, marry one of his many, many daughters off to the leader of that city. Send that leader off to war, he'd promptly get killed. Now you have a blood relative in charge of that city. Was that evil? Well, Genghis Khan did a lot of nasty things, but he did have a decent amount of respect for women's ability to run cities, which was something nobody else was factoring in. And this was an unfair advantage. Right. And I think, I mean, we're getting a little ahead of it. One of the things that Emily talks about a lot, is the idea that you need to know the norms of your system in order to subvert them. So do you want to talk a little about the water stuff? Emily? Emily Ross: Yeah so normative versus formative is like super interesting. So there's a story of by two fish and they're swimming along, and a much older fish is swimming the opposite direction. And this is from... Alistair Croll: it's a commencement address, right?Emily Ross: That's it, the older fish says, Oh how's the water? And the fish swim on a little bit and they turned to each other and go, what the hell is water? So, you have to be able to recognize the fact that you're swimming in the medium. And the best way to do that is to use external viewpoints to help recognize what you're swimming in or downing in.I also use a log jam metaphor, which works as well. And this is a one I use all the time for teaching for problem solving, but it's really, really applicable as well too, to recognizing the difference between normative and formative. So when these to say a logs down the river, to ship them to the log yard, And they would occasionally get tangled up and a team of river pigs used to have to surround the problem really quickly because it's obviously getting worse and worse all the time, and figure out which was the one key log that you could extract to unlock the whole problem.And the only way they could do it really, really well, was through diversity of thought, opinion, and perspective. By surrounding the problem, by sharing ideas, by looking at it from lots of different perspectives. And that's why diversity in your teams, that's why diversity of perspectives is so important so that you can actually recognize what you're swimming in, whether it's water or something, a little bit stinkier. And also getting the sense of looking at it from outside, what you're used to. So ideas from different verticals, from different walks of life. That's going to help you think subversively. Alistair Croll: And that's kind of the supervillain stuff. I mean, Brian, I'll give you an example, that's a concrete example from when I came to visit you .One of your startups was making a rotary sprinkler solution.So to recap, rotary sprinklers, when they're lateral to a strong wind, get blown over and this costs a lot of money to fix. And so they built a thing that could measure the weather and the incoming winds and rotate the sprinkler downwind kind of like a wind sock, so it wouldn't fall over. And they're having a hard time selling. And what the startup revealed to me at the time when we were meeting, was that there's this weird existing system between farmers, farm subsidies, insurance, salespeople, and the makers of those sprinklers.They don't really mind when it gets knocked over because everyone makes some money and then they use that money to go on a fishing trip. If you don't know that you're in that water, all your efforts to sell are going to fail. You've got to recognize that and then go, huh? Maybe this is something I can sell through the maker of the sprinklers, or like maybe I can, you can subvert that system.Maybe you have to create an awareness campaign that farm subsidies being wasted and they could be spent on something else. But if you don't know that strategy, you can't subvert it. And that word subvert just means find another version. By definition, the hardest problems we face are the ones for which we don't have an obvious solution, because the normal approaches don't work.Which means you've got to find an unusual approach and that's normally called hacking, right? Hacking is getting something to work in a way it wasn't intended. Whether you're using a Pringle can to focus wifi signals, or you're getting a computer system to throw an error, so you can own a system. The problem with hacking is that in startups, hacking has a horrible polar reputation. Growth hacking is a bag of cheap tricks.Brian Ardinger: Talk about some of the examples in the book that maybe some people have heard of or can get a visual around. I know you've mentioned in past talks and that I've seen around this is like things like Peloton or Burger King. Can you give examples from that? Emily Ross: I would quite like to talk about one of the ones that I had the hardest time with is about being disagreeable. And we talked about it slightly there in terms of doing things that you wouldn't necessarily think of as being quite right. But as a woman, I have been raised to be polite, to be agreeable. And actually, if you look at some of the most innovative, interesting entrepreneurs in history, quite a lot of them have been profoundly disagreeable.They've been prepared to be unliked or unloved. And this is something, a behavior that you can adopt or think about as a means to finding new ideas, or it means of finding new ways of doing things. One of the examples that we talked sports a little bit earlier, but Wilt Chamberlain was arguably one of the best basketball players of all time. He has on more than one occasion scored over a hundred points in a single game. But he had a problem. He couldn't shoot free throws to save his life. Back in college, he had a really high score, but over his career, it went down and down and down and he had a career low of like, I think 26% success rate.He was a star player. He got fouled a lot. So this was a really big problem for him. So he went to see Rick Barry. Rick Barry was the guy who could not miss. He actually had a career average of 89.3% and he got better and better as his career progressed in the last two years of his career, he had a 94% success rate from free throws. But he actually threw in a really interesting way. He threw underhand, which is actually kind of a cool word for the, Just Evil Enough book, because he shot underhand. But he was the best at shooting. But this was called the Granny Style. This is, you know, if you throw like a girl, you throw under hand. He didn't care. His father had drummed it into him from a very young age, how to shoot underhand, overhand, underhand, overhand, and he could just nail it every single time.So Chamberlain went to see Barry learned to shoot underhand and his performance doubled. He went from a career low, to a career high, in that same game where he scored a hundred points. So it turns out it's a much better approach. However, Chamberlain didn't have the guts to keep shooting underhand because he cared too much about what people thought. His career best was 61% from the line in 1961, he sank 28 of 32 free throws against the New York Knicks.So after a while, though, he reverted to shooting the way he knew, and his percentages plunged. And he admitted that he felt like a sissy. He worried too much about what other people thought. And unlike Barry who was rational, Chamberlain was being agreeable and wrong. Barry meanwhile said he could be as selfish as he wanted to without hurting his team. So being a little bit disagreeable or asking yourself what you're prepared to do is a really good first start. Alistair Croll: Just to chime in quickly, we've all heard of growth hacking right? Growth hacking is these little tricks that get people to click a button or move down a funnel or whatever. The problem with any of these known tricks is that they're known. Andrew Chen talks about the law of shitty click-through rates, which is simply the idea that as you find a vulnerability, if you will, a way to change the market, it becomes widely known immediately.So the first click-through ad on Hot Wired had an average of 44% click-through rate. Some people say it was as high as 70% for a banner ad. What's that at now? Emily? Brian Ardinger: Well, industry averages will tell you, or they'll tell you it's 0.1%. But in my opinion, it's closer to 0.02%, if you're lucky. Alistair Croll: So that's a huge decline. Same thing happened with email and so on. And so there are these known hacks that are the sort of marketing equivalent of a script kitty, who's running an attack on WordPress. And if you haven't patched your site, you'll be selling Viagra off your website. What you should be doing is trying to find the marketing equivalent of a zero day exploit.So in security a zero day, is an attack that nobody knows about yet. And they're incredibly valuable. Two of them were used to retard the Iranian nuclear program and damaged centrifuges. The marketing equivalent of a zero day exploit, we call this zero day marketing, is finding a new way to get a platform to behave in an unintended manner, with which you can create attention you can turn into profitable demand. And there's some amazing examples of like Farmville, for example. When Farmville's app would send you a message saying, Hey, Brian, Alistair's cows need some grain. And you'd click on it. Now you're a user. Well, they got to 30 million users before Facebook went, Whoa, we maybe don't want apps posting to people's friend feeds.There are so many examples of this, and we can tell you those examples. But the point is you can't use those examples because they've already been done. Right? What you have to do is devote much more of your time to inventing your own zero day marketing exploits. Brian Ardinger: So from that perspective, is it a series of experiments that you just have to run? You, you come up with some ideas and you run them like that, or is this, talk me through the process of how you get better at it? Emily Ross: One of the examples that I like to share, if you see it often enough, you begin to understand how you can apply the thinking. It's a model and you just try and apply it to your own environment. So if we take the information asymmetry, and example, the idea of subverting, one thing for another. Or a bait and switch. The idea of you're selling one thing, but actually getting another and Tupperware parties did this, you know, you think you're going for dinner and you end up getting guilt ridden into buying a load of plastic.But when I was working in a comparison platform, we subverted the PR channel for the generation of white hat backlinks. So PR is generally around building brand and brand awareness. But one of the side effects of PR was the generation of backlinks. So this is back in like maybe 2013. So what we did was we mined data. We attached big data trends to celebrities, pushed out, press releases to high value domains, and pretty much one in five hit would generate a backlink. When we started. We had about 1400 high quality backlinks. And we were generating about 60,000 non-brand organic visits to site per day. And after three years of pushing out two releases a month, month in, month out, we had over four and a half thousand unique domain backlinks and almost 200,000 non-brand organic visits per day.And this was a platform that turned traffic into money. I won't tell you how, but what we did for example, was we mined hair transplant trends and prices. And one example of the many, many crazy pushes we did was the Jude Law index of baldness. So here's a scale up from Colin Farrell all the way up to Dr. Evil, of how bald are you? And you find yourself on the index and you see, Oh, this is how much it would cost for me to have hair transplants. It was a price comparison website for private health clinics. And this was a fun, interesting way to attract attention and turn it into traffic to the sites. But actually it wasn't really about traffic. It was always about the backlinks. So one in five hits generate a backlink, but again, it was channel burnout. It was a zero day exploit because you know, over the course of the three years, the number of backlinks that were being generated, went from maybe one in five to one in 10, because the platforms themselves started to recognize the value that they were accidentally giving away.So naturally you get published in a paper. If there's an online version of it, they print it online and they put a backlink out. It was a side effect of the real, a pure PR. And channel burn happened, those backlinks are no longer as readily available as they were. But it worked for about three years, four years. It was a fun time. Brian Ardinger: You have to have a continuous funnel yourself of new things that you need to explore it. Emily Ross: Exactly. Exactly. So that was a, we had a good run, but it's about thinking about, well, what is the channel? What is the platform? So PR was the channel and we used it in a way. It wasn't intended to be used for our benefits. And so what are your channels? How can you use them differently? And that's a really great question to ask of yourself, no matter what you're doing. Alistair Croll: One of the things we often do is. What has changed in a technology platform. So for example, Travis Kalanick has this new startup Cloud Kitchens. What has changed in restaurants? Well, first of all, there's a huge abundance of restaurants that I could order from. Far more than I would know about. So I'm already overwhelmed with selection when I go to order food, because we're all at home, in a pandemic, ordering food. And second of all, The fact that the storefront is virtual, it means one kitchen can have many restaurant front ends. And so Cloud Kitchens will set you up with brands and their brands have games like Fucking Good Pizza, My Pasta, Dirty Little Vegan Bitch, Don't Grill My Cheese. None of these tell you about food, but when you're overwhelmed, and you have that sort of paradox of choice, you go, no, I'll just order it from that one. That sounds fine. Right? That's only possible because that brand is part of an experiment. You're ordering from an experiment. And they're constantly testing, which ones get more attention and then the restaurant can deliver all of those things that might be the same kitchen. And so Cloud Kitchens has taken advantage of an exploit within the traditional model of food ordering. So it's looking at, you know, what technology changes or combinations of technology, makes something possible that wasn't possible before that you can then subvert to your ends. Brian Ardinger: How do you go from not just creating a gimmick or how do you, I guess also approach being wrong, like trying these things and, and being wrong?Emily Ross: Growth hacking is gimmicks. Growth Hacking is doing something that maybe it's a publicity stunt or, I mean, one of the examples that we use in the book is pairing two things unexpectedly together. That's a great way to draw attention and Heineken did this really well in the UK just last week, where they put out a mobile hairdressing units and bar, so you could get a free haircut and a pint together.So this generated publicity and it's nice, but it's gimmicky, right? Is that really going to move their needle? You know, for the year? Possibly not. It's a nice story. So, but if you look at governments have been doing this for years and they've done it so well, there's a really good example in the book, which I won't go into now about how the government shamed people into stopping spitting in the twenties, as they tried to fight TB. Instead of just saying it's bad to spit, they actually made people feel bad, and socially, and vulgar by spitting because before that it was perfectly normal.And if you look at the Chinese government, they use Fapiao. Fapiao are receipts. And they use Fapiao as a lottery to fight corruption. So this is really interesting. In China, corruption can be rampant. Merchants will give their customers a discount, if the customer doesn't ask for a receipt.So the merchant doesn't have to report the income and like just pockets to the savings. The government used an incentive to combat this called Fapiao, which is a receipt from the merchant. And there's a couple of hacks in here that are super clever. So the merchants have to buy the receipts beforehand and then hand them out to customers in return for payment.So the first one is the merchant has to pay tax before the transaction. That's really smart. And then customers demand their Fapiao, because there's a scratch and win lottery element. And then the government runs the lottery and customers can scratch off the panel to see if they've won anything. And so the second hack there is create demand for a receipt by making it a game.And then of course the government can also adjust the prize amount of each lottery to create just the right amount of incentive. So they're literally able to alter the rewards of the game to like tilt the Nash equilibrium, which is just like super smart. So you can do this at a macro level and absolutely get away with it.Alistair Croll: I want to just make sure we address your question about gimmicks. One of the big differences between a Zero Day Exploit and traditional Growth Hacking is that it's not known. But another is that it is intrinsic to your business model. The haircuts aren't intrinsic to Heineken's beer, but when Dropbox launched, they were the first to pioneer this, both of us get something. I invite you, we both get storage. That's built into the product, right. That's intrinsic to the system itself. And I think what it means is that you're factoring in Zero Day Exploits, marketing exploits, to your business model and your product roadmap. Not just to your marketing campaigns. I mean, Genghis Khan's a good example, right?It wasn't just a tactic. It was a fundamental change in how he thought that societies could be ruled. So the real lesson here is, I'll give you one more example. There's a company that makes software called Energage and they make workplace surveys. So they would sell to an enterprise and the enterprise would survey their employees and do 360 stuff. And so on. But the way they go to market is they launched this thing called the top workplaces project in concert with the Washington Post, the Denver Post, the Dallas Morning News and so on. And they run this survey and they say to these newspapers, Hey everybody, here's the survey. We'll take care of it.So now you go do it. And like, Whoa, isn't this great. My company is one of the best workplaces. I'll buy an ad in the newspaper. Everything's wonderful. And then Energage can go back and go, Hey, congratulations on being the third best workplace in Nebraska. Too bad about the other results. And you go what other results? Well, you know, we got more data than that, would you like to see it? Okay. And now you have a new customer, right? It's intrinsic to the business model, right. Rather than just being a little trick or hack. Brian Ardinger: That's an interesting point. And it also goes to the point where you see a lot of these examples in startups, because you can build it early on into the business model and that. How does this play out for a large existing company that wants to try to use some of these tactics?Emily Ross: So big companies really need to think about reframing and they also need to give themselves permission to think in ways they're not used to. One of the exercises I like to recommend is called a pre-mortem. And you basically give them permission to imagine the worst possible outcome. You invite them to invent the worst, worst, worst thing that could possibly happen and then work backwards from there.And it's amazing what happens in an environment like that, because that group think is real. That tribal behaviors of wanting to be agreeable and wanting everyone to pull together is very much a systematic thing that you see in large organizations. So giving them permission to think disagreeably. Giving them methods to reframe where they are, what they do. These are all great frameworks for them to try and think subversively. Alistair Croll: First of all, I think that it's really important. I mean, I would consider a marketing department, have a Red Team. Have a second group, hmm, that has the same product and resources, but their job is to put the first group out of business. What do you do? Right. That's just hypothetical. You're going to think better. We Red Team on security. We Red Team on PR. Why don't we read team on go-to-market strategies. And the second thing is, if you look at great brands that changed how people discussed a product or a service, they found a frame of reference that favored them. For decades we used to talk about electric cars. We would talk about sustainability and range. Pretty boring stuff, right? Lots of hippies sitting around going let's save the planet and look at my Prius. Elon Musk put one of them on a race track against supercar and beat it. And all of a sudden the conversation on electric cars was performance. He'd reframed the discussion about electric vehicles to performance, right?When Gmail first launched, your inbox on Hotmail or Yahoo mail had 10 mgs. That's like one photo, right? We don't remember that. My daughter doesn't believe this. When Gmail came along, Google knew that they did not have strength in folders and archiving and hierarchy and export, but they were good at with search and storage.So they said, Hey, email's not about your ability to manage your folders and your inbox and organization and management. It's about abundance storage. And they reinforced that so much that they actually had a counter showing you how much storage you get. Salesforce, when it first launched, was a web based CRM, but web-based CRMs had very few features compared to Siebel and Vantive and Clarify, companies that you don't see anymore.So they said no CRM is about not needing IT. In fact, their logo was no software. They had us the word software with a slash through it, despite the fact that they own their own programming language called Apex. Right? And so each of these companies found a way to reframe things, even like Listerine. Listerine was this clinical health thing. And then along comes scope and says, Hey, you know what? Mouthwash is actually about being attractive and sexy, not about clinical health. One action that a lot of big brands should take is to step back and say, what is a new frame that favors us and disadvantages our competition. And then what is it about that frame of reference that we can do to prove it that will then allow the customer to find a different way of valuing the product?Emily Ross: I would also chime in there and talk about generally large marketing teams will have, they'll have done their marketing degrees and their MBAs or masters on they'll turn out the four P's from, you know, the 1960s or the seven P's of service. And like there's too much P. Just stop peeing. Guys just stopped doing it.Right. Chuck, all of that in the bin and start thinking about creating attention. And it's as simple and as complicated as that. We talk about human motivation and Alistair I think coined laid, made, paid, afraid. I tidy that up a bit to the piratey AARG. Which is appeal, authority, risk, and greed. So think about your customers. Think about your competitors. Think about the marketplace through the lens of human behavior and whether you're selling radiator bits or cars or Cola, people have all those very basic triggers. They want to be liked that's appeal. They want power that's authority. They want to feel safe. That's the risk lens.And then greed, you know, people want the things that they want. So. We're just human meat bags, right? We're just walking bags of meat with emotions. We have very simple motivations at the end of the day. And in a B2B setting for a big organization, the AARG framework is a really useful function. Like, so throw out the P. Think about AARG.And if you're trying to convince people to act, you need to appeal to base emotions more than you do plain reason, because most people really aren't very rational. There's also really a good examples of the seven deadly sins. If you look at the big, big enterprises, I think Chris Pack said this on Twitter.I thought it was really, really good. Uber and Amazon are slough. Instagram and Tik Tok are pride. Door Dash is gluttony. Tinder is lust. Pinterest is envy. Twitter is rath. And Bitcoin is greed. So think about the fundamentals. Just think about the basics. We haven't changed all that much. Alistair Croll: But I think the biggest thing here is that big brands haven't realized that the biggest risk they face is that someone else will subvert attention that they could otherwise be getting and turned into their profitable demand. And so if you don't do that, you're going to get eaten alive. If we can get the world to realize that the biggest risk is not whether you will build something, but whether anyone will care, we've already given people a huge headstart.Brian Ardinger: Well, and the fact that the world is changing so fast on the fact that you can go from company like Airbnb in 12 years to being, you know, one of the most recognizable brands, you know, overnight effectively from what used to be to build a business. New technologies, new marketplaces, new access to talent. All of that is just accelerating the opportunities to be disrupted. Alistair Croll: We used to have a new platform come along. You know, we had writing that took a few thousand years. Then we got to radio. It took a few hundred years. And then we got to television that took a decade, the rate of introduction of new platforms. And therefore, if you're thinking like a hacker new attack surfaces, Is incredible, right? The Cloud Kitchens example happened because of the pandemic and the rise of Uber Eats and Door Dash, and so on. The pace at which new exploit opportunities appear is very, very fast. And as a result, there are far more opportunities to subvert the status quo or the norms of your industry with one of these new platforms.So we're trying to get people to be much more opportunistic. And part of what we do, like I said I can't tell you do this thing, because if I tell you, then it's already been done. What we can do is we can say, here are some ways to think about it. You know, is there an innovation that happens? Can you reframe things? Can you do a substitution where people think they're getting one thing and they're actually getting another. Can you appeal to the foibles of human psychology? Emily Ross: Don't be afraid to be disagreeable. Alistair Croll: It's weird because in the past I've written books that are very technical. There is a right answer. And Emily's written lots of articles on like how to do stuff. This is a more subjective thing and candidly more uncomfortable for us as writers, because we want to make sure that there are applicable lessons, but it's almost like, you know, teaching someone Zen. I can tell you what it is, but you're going to have to go sit on a rock and figure it out for yourself.But once you start thinking this way, everything becomes a subversive opportunity. And once you have that subversive lens, you're not being evil, you're just being just evil enough. Opportunities are everywhere. Emily Ross: And actually, if you think about it, just coming back to your very first question, which is a nice cyclicity. The title of the book is exactly what we set out to do, which is we got your attention and we're turning it into demand. So the book title is a really, really simple and effective way to showcase the thinking. And I think if you take one thing away from it, it's change what you spend your time on. So building a subversive go-to market strategy is just as important as thinking about your product. And if you get the balance, right, you're going to be unstoppable. Brian Ardinger: Well, and you've also from the book perspective, the book's not out yet, but you're doing things to grab attention differently than a lot of, I mean, I get pitched every other day by a book author trying to get their book noticed and that. But I know that you've been doing some things as far as live online course that's leading up to the book. And you have a interesting little survey. I don't, if we got to talking about any of the things that you're doing from a attention perspective to, about the book. Emily Ross: Well one of the things I love, this was so much fun, is that you can't just order the book. You can't just pre-order it. You have to take a quiz so that we can decide if you're evil enough. So you take the quiz and if you're not evil enough, we think, you know, you're not going to be able to handle the book. And if you're too evil, then this book could just perhaps be too powerful. So we have gamified the experience of the pre-order function, which was a lot of fun. And we've done a ton of tons of things, just mostly because we'd like to mess around, but that's just one of the things we've done so far. Alistair Croll: It's also great that Emily has like a whole team of web developers that stand up. Emily's business is actually, she's like the SWAT team or the MI6 for some very advanced tech brands, who can't really explain what they do well. And Emily figures out how to do that. So she has a team of people to build stuff. So a good example of that is we wanted to do a survey to see whether people would take our cohort based course, which we're going to be running with Maven, the founders of Alt MBA and UDemy, set up this new, online cohort based course program. But we wanted to get people to take the survey. So we told them one lucky winner will get a free workshop or talk from us for their organization, which is usually something we charged a lot of money for. But we also wanted to make sure they shared the survey, which is a paradox because I want the greatest odds of winning. So I'm not going to tell my friends, right?So we made two surveys. One was Team Orange, one was Team Black. And we say, we'll choose the winner from the survey that has the most responses. That's a bit subversive. Right. And we found some funny things about people getting kind of tribal and like I'm Team Black and so on. We even did things to tweak the survey questions a little bit between the two.So we ran like six or seven social experiments in the survey. But would you buy a book from people who weren't thinking subversively? I mean, I wouldn't buy a book on subversiveness for someone who went through normal tactics. For More InformationBrian Ardinger: Absolutely. Well, I appreciate you both coming on Inside Outside Innovation to share some of this subversiveness and hopefully get more folks to be Just Evil Enough. People want to find out more about yourself or the book itself, what's the best way to do that. Emily Ross: Just Evil Enough.com and I'll actually, I landed Alistair in it on a talk we did last week because we were live Tweeting. They wouldn't let us take live questions. So we just got everyone to jump on Twitter and ask us questions there.And I promised everyone lives that if they hashtag Just Evil Enough that Alistair would read out whatever they wrote. And they all said smart, intelligent things. And I was like, I can't believe none of you are like trying to flog a course or a book or promote something. Like he will have to say anything you like. So people should...Alistair Croll: I think one guy had me mention his podcast, but there's a good example where like, Oh, you think you're getting free promotion in this thing we're recording, but you're actually following the Just Evil Enough account. Emily Ross: But yes, Just Evil Enough.com is where you can take the quiz. You can hear about the cohort class. You can, pre-order the book and there's an Evil Enough Twitter account too. You can check that out. Brian Ardinger: Well Emily, it was great to meet you for the first time here and Alistair. Always good to catch up with what's going on in your world. So appreciate you both for being on here and looking forward to the conversation in the future.Alistair Croll: Thanks so much for having us. Emily Ross: Thanks Brian.Brian Ardinger: That's it for another episode of Inside Outside Innovation. If you want to learn more about our team, our content, our services, check out InsideOutside.io or follow us on Twitter @theIOpodcast or @Ardinger. Until next time, go out and innovate.FREE INNOVATION NEWSLETTER & TOOLSGet the latest episodes of the Inside Outside Innovation podcast, in addition to thought leadership in the form of blogs, innovation resources, videos, and invitations to exclusive events. SUBSCRIBE HEREYou can also search every Inside Outside Innovation Podcast by Topic and Company. For more innovations resources, check out IO's Innovation Article Database, Innovation Tools Database, Innovation Book Database, and Innovation Video Database.
Cloud kitchens are already meant to reduce the burden of infrastructure on food and beverage brands by providing them with centralized facilities to prepare meals for delivery.
The hospitality industry was badly hit by the pandemic. With most of the staff leaving for their respective hometowns owing to the lockdown, and a responsibility to those staying back, combined with low business; restauranteurs like our host Gauri, and our guests- Yash & Sameer had a big challenge in front of them. From opening up deliveries to setting up cloud kitchens, and at the same time being accountable to both staff & consumers- they have lived through it to tell the tale. This round, Gauri is joined by Yash Bhanage & Sameer Seth, cofounders of Hunger.Inc- the company behind 'The Bombay Canteen', 'The Bombay Sweet Shop', & 'O Pedro'. They talk about managing the business in the pandemic, experimenting with different cuisines, the future of the industry post unlock, bulletproofing against other such incidents, coping with the loss of friends and family, the flip side of aggregator apps, and Veganism. If you are a budding/established restauranteur, this one's surely a masterclass on building an organization that can sustain most challenges. Visit the Hunger.Inc website: https://www.hungerinc.in/Follow The Bombay Canteen on Instagram: (https://www.instagram.com/thebombaycanteen/?hl=en)O Pedro: (https://www.instagram.com/opedromumbai/?hl=en)The Bombay Sweet Shop: (https://www.instagram.com/bombaysweetshop/?hl=en)Yash Bhanage can be found as @yashwecan on Twitter & InstagramSameer Seth is @canteensam in Instagram.You can follow Gauri on Instagram: @gauridevidayalhttps://instagram.com/gauridevidayalTwitter: @gauridetailswww.twitter.com/@gauridetails/You can listen to this show and other awesome shows on the IVM Podcasts app on Android: IVM Podcasts - Apps on Google Play or iOS: IVM Podcasts, or any other podcast app.You can check out our website at http://www.ivmpodcasts.com/
How do you know where your UberEats, DoorDash or Caviar orders REALLY come from?The COVID Delivery BoomThe pandemic has pushed delivery applications to the lime light. The 4 largest food delivery platforms saw their revenues rise $3B collectively in the 2nd and 3rd quarters of 2020. Doordash, who currently operates about 50% of the market, saw 543 million total orders in the first 9 months of the year (compared to about 181 million orders in the same period last year).Painfully Swallowing the Delivery-app PremiumWhen the lockdowns happened all over the world, restaurants had to find ways to make money without having "Dine-in" options. Well, they turn to delivery. Restaurant-owners, who dreaded giving away 15-30% of the revenue to the delivery-apps for every order, had to turn to the UberEats and Doordash's of the world.How do you make money during a Pandemic?If your only type of sale is delivery, and you're giving away a large part of your revenue to the delivery apps, how exactly do you make a profit? Well, you optimize your costs. Try to make everything cheaper for your operations and expansion. One of the largest costs for any restaurant is the rent! This is where a new industry can help rental costs relatively cheaper: Ghost KitchensKitchens on The CloudA Cloud Kitchen or Ghost Kitchen is a large space that can house different types of companies that want to produce products specifically for "take-out". Picture a large warehouse with numerous stations of stainless steel prep tables, hood vents, stoves, ovens, and sinks, each with its own orders coming in direct from customers. Benefits of a Cloud Kitchen vs Traditional Restaurant Model:Low OverheadLow Start-up CostsData-Driven Decision MakingEfficiencySupport the show (https://thingshavechanged.substack.com/)
Carlos Muñoz, Ricardo Moreno, Hugo Herrera y Checo Gutierrez abren debate sobre la industria alimenticia: 00:00 Introducción 2:20 Negocio escalable si o no? 4:00 Dark Kitchen --1 trillón de dólares, valor del mercado de Dark kitchen para 2030 --Grocery 3er categoría más exitosa del 2020 19:10 Green on box --Sistema de suscripción Mail list --E-commerce en la industria de alimentos 24:00 Cambios de hábitos de consumo --¿Uber quiebra? --IPO más grande del 2020 29:39 Cloud Kitchens --15 millones de dólares de ingreso en 48 horas --¿Cómo garantizar la calidad? 41:30 Mundo vegano --1000 millones de dólares en fondeo de startups --Beyond meat con un market cap de 7.9 billones de dólares --Carne sustituida 52:00 Franquicias americanas más caras --¿Las franquicias son oportunidades de negocio? 59:00 Magia del Pollo Loco --3 cosas fundamentales en tu negocio Recuerda seguirnos también en nuestras redes sociales
Check us out on TechCrunch Please Support our Partners as they support us! Thank you First Republic Bank, "Banking for Innovators" and Robert Hughes Thank you E2Generations, "We Solve Problems that Live on Excel" and Kyle Eddins Thank you Thomas Dale and BREX, their corporate credit cards come without a personal guarantee, higher credit limits, and the best rewards program available. Brex also provides a free, easy-to-use cash management account to replace your bank account. PrimeTime VC and Pitch Madness startups get $5K in AWS credits, 3% back on Apple, and priority onboarding. Make a free account in less than 5 minutes Here Thank you, Corey Ladow and TriNet “TriNet. Expertly human HR solutions” For partner and sponsorship opportunities: Click HERE Our VC Competitors: Elliott Robinson @Bessemer Venture Capital Hadley Harris @ENIAC Ventures Kate Brodock @W Fund Chris Douvos @AHOY Capital Host: Charlie Stephens, Leaders Live First In: 1. AI startups received over $1B just this week, propelled by 4 mega-rounds. Last quarter, the number of mega-rounds to AI startups was up from Q1 to 15. What AI companies do you think will make the biggest impact in the near future? 2. We've witnessed a drastic pivot in the VC industry toward a more conservative result-based mindset. COVID-19 has made this even more apparent. With VC's getting back to the basics to make sure founders have sound unit economics, what are the important questions you ask founders when considering an investment? 3. Limited Partners, historically the Money behind the Money, have always invested money in the VC's who then invest money in the startups. But the lines continue to blur as more and more LPs and VCs assume similar roles. What do you think the VC's of the future will look like? Buy or Sell: 1. With AngelList helping Rolling Funds become the new craze, Buy or Sell it Rolling Funds disrupt venture capital? 2. With startups and tech playing such a major role in our lives, Do you think VC's now have the responsibility to weigh in on political and social issues? 3. Founder of the 20minute VC podcast Harry Stebbings tweeted "The best CMO you will ever have is your CEO. Welcome to the generation of personal brands". Buy or Sell Founders needing to build a personal brand presence to help their startup grow? Money Round: 1. Chamath Palihapitiya tweeted - Investing 101: if you want an easy test to figure out which public companies you may want to invest in, do the following: in your phone, check Settings — Screen Time — See All Activity -- Week. When considering investing in a company, how important is it that you'd be personally would be an avid user of the product or service? 2. Ghost kitchen wars - between Virtual Kitchen and Cloud Kitchens, Which company do you think has the better outcome? 3. What's the wildest startup name you've funded and secondly, how important is a good name? --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/primetimevc/message
On this week's podcast, we discuss the emerging business model of a cloud kitchen and how you may not even know they are growing but still use them, Disney's recent layoffs and how they can reach their old potential as the media giant they once were while briefly mentioning the state of cable sports, and lastly we discuss LinkedIn and its fascinating ability to spread content with little to no restrictions.
In this episode, we talk to Rohit & Ratish about culinary studies, exploring multiple cuisines and fusions and their experience running an online cloud kitchen during since the lockdown.
Welcome to East West Hurricane! 🌪We update you on the most essential news from Asia in tech, media, and business—the things you need to know that you probably haven’t heard in Western media.Follow us on Twitter and Instagram! ⚡️President Trump Escalates Chinese Bans 👀President Trump made a new announcement yesterday affecting the use of TikTok and WeChat within the US. Trump issued an executive order giving a 45-day deadline for TikTok to be acquired by Microsoft. If a deal is not confirmed, TikTok will be banned from the US. Trump also issued a similar order for (Tencent-owned) WeChat, China’s largest messaging app that he accuses of threatening US national security. The implication is that WeChat will also need to be sold within 45 days. Tencent shares went down 5% in the aftermath of the announcement.The TikTok news is nothing new, just another layer of official government emphasis on top of an already ongoing acquisition process. The announcement regarding WeChat comes more as a surprise. While WeChat is one of the most consequential and influential Chinese mobile apps, they have managed to hide from most US controversy and don’t even have a large number of US users. Most analysts predict that Chinese government will soon issue some kind of retaliation and the political theatre on both sides will continue.China’s Largest Gaming Conference Resumes 🕹ChinaJoy is China’s biggest annual gaming and digital entertainment conference, which usually features headlining companies such as Tencent, Microsoft, and Blizzard. Amidst concerns around the coronavirus, the conference organisers still decided to go ahead and physically hosted the event in Shanghai last week. Gaming and entertainment are two industries that have excelled over the last few months, so companies were still able to celebrate their recent successes at ChinaJoy. Chinese video game revenue from January to July increased 23% year-on-year.To enter the conference, attendees needed to scan their face, national ID card, and digital health codes. Guests had to have their Alipay mobile app checked to ensure they had the “green” health codes that indicated the person had not traveled to high-risk parts of the country. Last year, 365,000 people attended ChinaJoy in person and this year, people could also attend virtually through online livestreams that ended up reaching 600 million viewers over the four-day event. ChinaJoy is an example of a huge annual conference that has been able to adapt in the world of Covid and might be a peek into the future of conferences more broadly.Cloud Kitchens from Singapore 👩🍳In 2019, Singaporean billionaire R. K. Kishin launched Tiffin Labs, a virtual food & beverage brand. They recently announced major plans to expand to 1,000 cloud kitchens worldwide amidst the coronavirus opportunity. Cloud kitchens are a concept where a restaurant brand has an online presence, but no physical restaurant location. Customers usually order from a virtual restaurant online and the actual food is made in a commercial kitchen. Cloud kitchen companies usually operate several restaurant brands simultaneously from the same commercial kitchen location. Each Tiffin Labs kitchen can serve eight virtual restaurants from a 16 square metre kitchen area. The company uses data to analyse customer demand and then a delivery partner like Grab, Foodpanda, or Deliveroo to bring the food to the customer. Cloud kitchens are a trend that has accelerated because of the coronavirus. Research firm Euromonitor predicts that the global cloud kitchen market will reach $1 Trillion by 2030. Market research firm DataSpring reported that the online food delivery market in Asia has accelerated by 10 years because of the coronavirus. Many cloud kitchen companies around the world have raised huge multi-million dollar funding rounds over the last few months and former Uber CEO Travis Kalanick’s latest venture is a cloud kitchen. Restaurant is one of the world’s most disrupted industries right now. Cloud kitchens provides a new, potentially more efficient structure that cuts out many traditional costs to bring you a delivery-only model. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit eastwesthurricane.substack.com
Alexandre Romero, diretor Comercial, de Marketing e Novos Negócios da Engefood, e de Rodrigo Ciuffo, líder e porta-voz do grupo de franqueados das Redes do Grupo Trigo, conversam sobre tecnologia para restaurantes com o jornalista Renato Cruz.
On Episode 110 of The Freddie & Alyssa Show, we sit down and explore why millennials are a unique generation, thoughts on the future of commercial real estate, the rise of cloud kitchens and working from home.
Follow Chef Rich and Justin on Twitter! @ChefRrupp @JupehrFollow Joe and Food Space @My_FoodSpace 1:02 – Joe Schumaker introduction2:06 – Ghost kitchens6:22 – Food delivery10:06 – 3rd party delivery12:02 – Ghost kitchens vs expansions15:46 – Joe joins the show19:10 – Focus on the food & kitchen design21:52 – ghost Kitchens & cloud kitchens25:21 – How Covid-19 is changing restaurant concepts29:30 – Delivery technology & increasing food quality30:44 – Joe's perspective on 3rd party delivery & what's to come41:29 – Ghost kitchen's flexibility to rebrand47:45 – Joe's inspirational quote
Dive into Harminder Sahni's mind to unravel the future of retail, e-commerce, new age brands, cloud kitchens, sustainability, opportunities in FMCG and a lot more. In this episode, Harminder Sahni - the guru of retail in India, talks about the evolution of e-commerce in India, entry of JioMart in the online grocery segment, challenges for multi-brand retail and the transformation of offline in future. He throws light on some immediate opportunities in new age brands, DTC companies and FMCG sector right now. He also talks about his passion for angel investing with some very valuable pointers for budding entrepreneurs. Harminder Sahni has decades of experience in consulting some of the worlds most innovative companies on their India strategy. He is the former Managing Director of Technopak Advisors and his own consulting company - Wazir Advisors recently completed 10 years in business This episode is relevant for all those budding entrepreneurs, founders, startup employees and young college graduates out there. *** I am Bharat Sethi and I have embarked on a journey to bring my conversations and business mentoring sessions, with people I admire, to you all through this podcast. I am a serial entrepreneur having built 2 successful businesses in the past - PosterGully (exited in Aug 2016) & iDecorama (exited in Feb 2018). I started my first online business when I was 16, back in 2016. In 2018, I started my most recent venture - Rage Coffee - that focuses on creating digitally native vertical brands in large untapped markets in the FMCG sector with a vision to create a INR 500 Cr ARR company by 2025. The company closed its last round of funding led by Refex Capital, an early stage VC firm, in Jan 2020, with participation from Keiretsu Forum Angels, and a clutch of other prominent investors. I have been published in Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, TNW, Quartz, Business Insider including many other business magazines. You can reach out to me at bharat@ragecoffee.com or connect with me on LinkedIn: https://in.linkedin.com/in/sethibharat
Congratulations to our Super Bowl 54 Champions, The Kansas City Chiefs, and the supporters of Brexit! Are you a HENRY? Big problems and big success run in the same circle. Today, Jason Hartman speaks on Commandment No. 3 of the 21 Commandments of Successful Investing, “Thou shalt maintain control.” As well, he shares some interesting business concepts developing with Cloud Kitchens. And, Is there any legitimacy to the Super Bowl Indicator? Key Takeaways: [2:44] Welcome to HENRY: High Earner, Not Rich Yet! [9:26] If you have bigger problems, it's probably because you have more success [10:42] “It's not what we get by reaching our goals that matters, it's who we become just by trying” -Zig Ziglar [12:12] Commandment No. 3 of 21 Commandments of Successful Investing: Thou shalt maintain control [24:35] When you own the real estate, you own something real [25:00] Have you heard of Ghost Kitchens? [28:00] The Super bowl Indicator: Does Kansas City's win actually give us a good indicator of what will happen this year with the S&P 500? Website: www.JasonHartman.com
This week we talk about chuckwagons, food delivery, and ghost kitchens.We also discuss proprietary eponyms, food trucks, and real estate optimization. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit letsknowthings.substack.com/subscribe
The restaurant industry is about to get Uberized. Travis Kalanick is launching Cloud Kitchens, a worldwide network of food delivery kitchens. We'll discuss the impacts to the traditional business model. Also, New York City is becoming a labor organizers dream. Now they are proposing legislation making it harder to fire employees. And lastly, this was a tough week for retail. The worst sales in 9 years, labor unrest at ToysRUs, Walmart loses a big court case and Amazon bails out of Queens. What is going on over in retail? We'll talk about those stories and wrap it up with the legislative scorecard.
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