← Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
Restaurant Unstoppable with Eric Cacciatore
1265: Christian Wiens, Founder and CEO of Loman AI
01:46:16
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- [00:00]
A
A couple things before we get started today. First, thank you so much for showing up week after week making my vision for restaurants unstoppable come true. Your downloads are allowing me to do this show the way I've always wanted to do it. Boots on the ground, word of mouth, leaders, referring leaders, giving the industry an uncensored, no BS platform to share their perspectives and truth. That's on you. Thank you so much. And we're just getting started. So if you're enjoying what we're doing here and you want to help us do it even better, please subscribe to this podcast on your platform of choice. And if you do that, I promise to do everything in my power to continue to improve the show. I'll deliver the restaurant tours you want to hear from and we'll continue to make everything you love about this show better. Thank you. Welcome to restaurant unstoppable. For 10 years and over 1,000 episodes, I've been traveling the country chasing word of mouth leads and having in person only long form discussions with the industry's finest owners and operators. Our mission is to inspire, empower and transform the restaurant industry by bridging the gap between this generation's leaders and the next. Listen to today's guest and so many others and get one step closer to becoming unstoppable. This episode is made possible by US Foods Running a successful restaurant takes more than just great food. With US Foods, you can expect more high quality products, advanced tools and flexible deliveries to grow your business. Their industry leading moxy platform also does more than just place your US Foods order. It uses AI to help you take control, save time and increase profitability. Visit usfoods.com expect more to learn how to become a US Foods customer one more time, that is usfoods.com expect more this episode is made possible by Restaurant Systems Pro and beginning in January 2026, Restaurant Systems Pro is going to be doing a 30 day mastery program. This is valued at $4,000 and if you head over to go restaurantassistance pro.net profits you can for a limited time get this for only $97. But there is an even better deal if you sign up for a Restaurant Unstoppable network by heading to restaurantstoppable.com live, you can get this 30 day program for free when you join the community and you also get access to this in perpetuity because they're going to be popping it off every month. Go into 2026 with all the knowledge and resources and tools you need to be unstoppable in partnership with Restaurant Unstoppable and Restaurant Systems Pro. Again, Restaurant Unstoppable.com live. Join the community. Get access to this training. This episode is brought to you by Restaurant Technologies, the leader in automated cooking oil management. Their total oil management SOL is an end to end closed loop automated system that delivers, monitors, filters, collects and recycles your cooking oil, eliminating one of the dirtiest jobs in the kitchen. Restaurant technologies services over 45,000 customers nationwide. Automate your oil and elevate your kitchen by visiting RTI Inc.com or call 888-779-5314 to get started with excitement. Allow me to introduce to you today's guest, founder and CEO of Lohman AI Christian Wiens. My man. Christian, are you feeling unstoppable today?
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B
I am absolutely feeling unstoppable. Thanks for having me.
- [03:39]
A
Yeah, man, it's a pleasure to be here. And kind of a whim, you know, I think it was two days ago your. Your PR team reached out and I was in Dallas and you were down here in. In Austin. And I gotta be honest, man, I don't know what's going on in the world of AI. There seems to be this gold rush right now with AI and phone answering machines and like, I think I've gotten like six or seven in the past, like, month requests from. So, like, you're in this gold rush right now. It's an exciting time, the world of AI but what's separated you from some of the other folks that reached out to me? You're clearly established. You've been around for two whole years.
- [04:15]
B
That's so funny to say.
- [04:18]
A
And, you know, you've gotten nods from the US Chamber of Commerce. And I think that that is a testament. And you're, like I said, you're established, you have clients, and I've people who I know promoting your services. So I was like, okay, well, this is good enough for me to go down there and to get to know this guy. And I get really kind of hesitant about getting people on the show who are so early out of the gates. But this whole sector that you're in is also fresh. Everyone's right out the gates. It's what's going through your minds as I say that.
- [04:46]
B
I mean, that's 100% true, right? So it's hilarious to say that, like, I feel like we feel like elder statesmen in the world of voice AI for restaurants being two years old, right? Like, there's a, a couple companies that came a few years before us that were. It's Almost to say, like, they were almost too early for it. Right. Because the models have. And we'll talk a lot about this. Yeah. We'll get into it. But, like, the models have improved so much over the last, really, three years.
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A
They're too far in with the old model that they have to start from scratch.
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B
Exactly. It makes it.
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A
We.
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B
We kind of had to hit this Goldilocks zone of, like, it was perfect timing for us to come into voice AI. So I think that's what's mostly running through my head is, like, it's so funny saying we're established right. When we're just two years in here, but we truly feel like it. You know, we have almost a thousand customers. Right. Like, all of that stuff. And we have people that rely on us every single day to answer their phone and to make their life easier as restaurants. I mean, that's what really comes down to. For us. So it. There's a. The other thing is, like, that I. That comes up for me is it's. You're so spot on. It seems like there's so many new companies coming up, and I tell this to people all the time, but it's really simple for a company, like what we do to build, like a demo of something that's shiny and looks good. Right. That's about 2% of the way there. Yeah, 98% of it is for it to actually work in production in a restaurant, going to the pos, making sure you can handle something on a Friday night. So I think, you know, it is absolutely. You said gold rush. Like, maybe that's the right word. But there's so many companies coming to the table and doing this. Like, you see them come and die really quickly.
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A
I have a lot of thoughts because of how fast it's moving, but I want to save that. And I think the other thing that is really exciting, that kind of for me was like, okay, this seems like a good company to dive into the world of AI with. You guys just got a series of funding. 3.2 million. Did I see that?
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B
Or 2.3. I mean, God, that seems so long ago, too. It was like three and a half million back in August of 2024. Five people see what you're doing.
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A
You know, there's. There's people investing in what you're doing. So I feel like we're in good company. I. I'm confident we're in good company. Company. But before we dive into who you are and how you built Loman, let's get that motivational, inspirational ball Rolling with a success quote or mantra. What do you got for us?
- [07:05]
B
Yeah, I'm going to be really basic here, but this is. Runs through the whole company every single day. We talk about this in our meetings. We're always customer first. And it sounds so. I would say lame or. I don't know, it's just not something. This isn't like, an amazing quote. But being customer first in an industry like this is everything, right? I heard a couple of your podcast guests talking about this. Like, just really making the effort to make that customer happy runs through everything we do in the company. And the thing for Lohman is we have two types of customers. We have our customers who are the restaurants. Right. But the people that use our product, you can also call customers are the patrons, the diners, the people that are calling the restaurant. So we have these two sets of customers that we always need to treat with respect and truly treat like royalty to make sure that their life is easier. We want to make it that much easier on the restaurant to handle a busy service. And we want to make it so much easier for the customer, the diner. Right. To make that call on their way home from soccer practice with their kids, People are screaming to get the food that they need on their table.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Like, everything about this company runs through the customer.
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A
Yeah. And that customer support in the restaurant industry, if you start to slack, the restaurant owners will let you know. They will tear you apart. They are not shy about letting tech companies know when the customer support is. Is drifting. So keeping that your North Star is very wise. So you graduated in 2015. Correct. What'd you go to school for?
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B
I went to school for business. I actually initially went to school for computer science, but I switched over to business. I went to school at Berkeley, and I was surrounded by software startups. It was like the golden age of, like, sort of like Web 2.0, like Uber and Venmo and Twitter and, like, you know, Tinder. Like, all these companies are up and coming right then. And so it felt like this really amazing time in Silicon Valley and the Bay Area where I. And so I was exposed to all this stuff, and that's kind of how I got my start and what eventually led me here.
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A
Yeah. And what was your vision for yourself then? Did you know, did you want to be an entrepreneur? Was that the goal?
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B
I'd wanted to be an entrepreneur my whole life before college. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a fighter pilot for the U.S. navy. Like, I was like, Top Gun. This is, like, what I want to do. But I got into college pretty quickly. I have always started businesses. I've been starting businesses since I was, you know, I don't know, seven, eight years old. Like, I have pictures of me sitting out on the side of my house on the, on the, you know, on our driveway selling Pokemon cards. In high school, I got suspended for selling Costco muffins at like a forex profit for about a month. I was making tons of money, but people loved it. People wanted the stuff. Like, I've always been somebody that's like, if there's a service that needs to be provided, like, I think I can do it. And it also that, that lends itself to things that are good for, for everybody as well. Like I've started the biggest charity fundraiser at my high school for the last, I guess how many years I've been out of high school over a decade. They raise like $50,000 a year now. When we started it, I was just like, I have this idea for this thing we can do. This week long event. It's turned into like one of the main things that the students hold on to at the school at the end of the year. So it's not just entrepreneurial from a business perspective. Right. Efforts like, I love just building things that come to life and take on a life of their own and eventually become impactful for people. Like, that's what I really love doing.
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A
So when you graduated college, you have that business degree, but you got kind of deep into the world of marketing. It seems like that was your path for a while. And I think that marketing draws a lot of entrepreneurial people. There, there's like those two things go hand in hand. Entrepreneurism and marketing.
- [10:48]
B
Yeah. So it's funny, you might look at my like LinkedIn or something and be like, this guy just does marketing and sales. Right. Like, I think when I went into my first job at a software company, like I moved down to Santa Barbara after college, I started working in at an early stage software company that provided workflow automation software for auto repair shops. Like it was a startup. There's like 30 people. I just needed a job, right. I came out of college, I was like, I'm gonna. I knew a guy that referred me to the sales director at this company and I was like, hey, do you have anything for me? He's like, sure, you can be a sales assistant. And so I came in, I had skills that a lot of the, I guess like sales people like didn't have. Right. I could do graphic design. I knew web design at the Same time. Right. Like my mind worked a little bit differently than just closing deals, but I spent about two years just closing deals or setting appointments first and then closing deals. And eventually the marketing VP at that company noticed like that I was like helping with, I was doing side projects. Right. And I was helping him with things and so he moved me over to like a marketing role. But yeah, ever since then, I mean I've been early stage go to marketing growth. Like that's what I've done at software companies.
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A
Yeah, that's what I noticed. I mean 2015, you're talking about auto vitals and then 2000, so I was 15, 16 anchor. 2017 you started your own company.
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B
Yep.
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A
That was, I don't know if that was short run or if you're doing that on the side. Then I think the next thing I think was mixed mode, which was your first time really diving into the world of AI. And that was 2019. That was AI cybersecurity.
- [12:25]
B
Yeah, yeah. I mean that company. So my, I've started a bunch of things. I mean I started a web consulting business. I started an E commerce business that did like $5 million a year in revenue at its peak. Like those are all.
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A
Is that the direct to consumer supplement?
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B
Yeah, exactly. Back when there was like this was like in the heyday of like Amazon and you know, building brands on Amazon and getting influencers to. It was, you know, it was pretty fun. Like trying to. I built an Instagram to like 200,000 followers in like four months. Like it was a pretty fun time but like my career path specifically like in established companies. Yeah, I worked. I was the fourth and fifth employee at like two what would become like a lot bigger startups. So there was one company called Ankor, they did kind of like enterprise cybersecurity type stuff, but it wasn't so much AI. That was my first foray into being like the first true go to market person. Like I built the website for that company. Yeah. And it eventually became like a multi.
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A
I mean marketing is a huge. Go to market is a big part just how to, how do I bundle this thing, how do I appeal?
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B
Yeah.
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A
And that skill as a founder is like it's hard to put a price on that. You know, it's so important in today's age. So you have this real great makeup of, you know, marketing experience plus business plus entrepreneurial. It's a, it's a recipe for success.
- [13:49]
B
Yep. When I would. I agree. Absolutely. I think in today's day and age, especially with the tools, the AI Tools you can use to build software, like in seconds. Now, the two. You really need two people to start. You don't. You only need one person to start a company. You need somebody that can sell and grow it, and then you need somebody that can build it. Right. And sometimes that can be the same person. But in this case, me and my co founders, you know, I started with one co founder. Eventually we got another one. He was building it and I was selling and marketing it. Yeah, that's all you need.
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A
It's rocket fuel, baby.
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B
Yeah, exactly.
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A
Are you familiar with that term?
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B
Oh, yeah, yeah.
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A
EOS action. It's that visionary COO integrator relationship you need. It's like it's the yin and yang. It's the vision, it's the. It's the passion, it's the why with the how.
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B
Okay, where have I heard that, though? I don't know. Maybe it must have been that.
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A
Yeah, Gino Wickman coined it or I don't know if actually he didn't coin it.
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B
It was maybe heard that from somewhere else. That's why Mark Winters, I think. Okay, that sounds.
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A
But he's in the world of eos. So at what point do you start thinking to yourself, hey, there's an opportunity here. Like, when do you start getting the vision for what is Lumen Today?
- [14:56]
B
Yeah, sure. I mean, I can give you a little background. Like, I moved to Austin. I was living in Santa Barbara, California. Covid hit right. Moved to my wife. I met my wife in Santa Barbara. She's a travel nurse and she was. She's from Texas. I had some friends living in Austin and I was like, hey, we should move to Austin. Right? Like after we started dating for, you know, we'd been dating for a few years, and she was like, absolutely, let's do it. We picked up, moved to Austin. I was still working for one of the companies, right. But it was Covid. Everybody was working on remote.
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A
Yeah, I moved to Austin and Covid
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B
during, like, everyone moved to Austin.
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A
My money dried up because restaurant sponsors were like, we don't know we're going to get paid again. So I was like, it looks like I'm moving back to New Hampshire.
- [15:36]
B
It sounds like some of the war stories I hear from our customers on Covid are crazy. But we can get into that later if you want. But yeah, I met. Actually, I met my co founders because we like rock climbing. We just like, I was looking for people to do outdoor activities with. I'm a big backpacker, rock climber, surfer. Like, that's what I like doing. And I met my co founders because through friends, we're like, hey, he goes rock climbing. And so we didn't really talk about doing building anything for a couple of years. But in 2024, or actually it was the summer or like the winter of 2023, Jansen and I went out, I think we got a beer, and we're like, hey, like, we should build something together. I was taking the world by storm. It still feels somehow like it's doing it more right. We didn't know what we wanted to build. We went to the drawing board. We did. You don't want to start a business just to start a business, right? You need to have a true, like, something there, right? There has to be a there there, right? And then so we sat on our laurels a little bit, just like, you know, looked at what was going on in the industry, looked at different opportunities. And in early 2024, like, January, February, a voice AI demo came out and immediately in my head sparked. Like, this is going to take over. Like, I'm a humongous voice proponent. Like, I'm the guy that sends one voice messages or just does voice to text on my phone at all times. I think it's a much better modality for interacting.
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A
I'm dyslexic. I'm right there with you.
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B
Perfect.
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A
Like, don't make me use my thumbs to communicate. And, like, I don't want to read something when I could listen to something.
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B
It's faster, it's more expressive, it's more emotive, it's. It's more convenient.
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A
Texting gets me in trouble because I speak in sarcasm and it does not translate well.
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B
People think you're pissed or whatever, right? Like, it's so funny. But yeah. So immediately. Right? And then we can take a step back here because when I moved to California, I was born in Hawaii. We moved to California when I was like, 8. I. In high school, I started working at a restaurant. My sister worked at this fast, casual barbecue restaurant in Pismo Beach, California, called Moe's Barbecue. Super high volume. Like, there would be like 700 people that came through there every single day. Because it's in this, like, main drag beach town, like, super touristy, right? And so I was like, I want
- [17:56]
A
to get the camper on a barge so bad. It's Hawaii. And just do the thing out there, dude.
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B
Yeah, Hawaii. Me and my wife are actually going this summer. I can't wait. But in. Yeah, in California, right? Like, this, this town, like, this restaurant just had so many people. And I was in literally sixth grade, moving into seventh grade. And I was like, I need some money, like, for a surfboard. My parents, like, go work, you know, And I was like, I can't work. I can get a job. My sister at the time was like, four years older than me, was working at this restaurant, and she was like, maybe will, like, who is the manager will let you, like, bus wash dishes, bus tables, like, whatever. And so he did, and so started my foray into restaurants. So I started working there. And then eventually, like, I got, like, a legitimate, real, you know, role there. I was busing tables, I was washing dishes, I was running food, right? Like, there was three front of house people at all times. There was. And that was like, a perfect start into the restaurant business because it was like. It was like the Olympics. Like, there were so many people coming in there all day long. The phone calls they get, like, it's probably in the hundreds every single day. We would pull the phone off of the wall on a consistent basis. Like, we just unplug it. Like, I think people do that a lot third party.
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A
They just shut it off.
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B
Exactly. Well, I mean, there are services like these, like, VOIP services. Like, that's essentially shutting your phone off. If you do, press one. For this, press two. That's like, basically shutting your phone off. So anyway, I worked there. I also worked in, like, a luxury dining restaurant, Bentonic Grill down there, where I, like, had to wear, like, a suit and tie. And, like, I've done all of it and I worked. So, like, all through every single summer, in winter break, I work in that restaurant or another restaurant all the way till about sophomore year in high school when I started doing some other, like, internships, I stuff. So I've seen it firsthand and coming back to what we were talking about. Finally, immediately in my head, I was like, we need to use this technology to answer phones. Like, it's a massive problem. But not just for restaurants, for a lot of things. And so here's what we did. We initially, like, went out and I talked to a bunch of business owners. I Talked to, like, 10 restaurant owners in here in Austin. I Talked to, like, five to 10 people that owned, like, moving companies, H vac companies, like home service businesses. And everybody said it would be helpful, right? And so Jansen and I, like, started kind of like, going to the drawing board and, like, trying to figure out, like, can we just build something that answers phones? Right?
- [20:19]
A
This episode is made possible by US Foods. It takes more than great food to run a kitchen these days with US Foods More means consistently high quality products, industry leading tools, inflexible deliveries that let you grow your business on your schedule. Whatever your goals, US Foods helps you turn turn them into reality. As a US Foods customer, you'll gain access to their industry leading moxi platform which doesn't just make it easy to place your US Foods order, but it uses AI powered technology to help you take more control of your business and increase profitability. You can also explore the latest issues of Food Fanatics magazine from US Foods. In each issue you'll find real world success stories, bold culinary inspiration and practical profit boosting ideas you can put to work immediately. Visit usfoods.com expect more to learn how to become a US Foods customer again, that's usfoods.com expect more if my memory serves me correctly, the year is 2023. Going into 2024, this is around the time I'm starting to become aware of AI answering services. I know Pop Menu had a version that they were, they were spinning slang. AI was out around this time too. Sure, that just came out and I think Soundhound was the other one. Those are the ones I was aware of. And this is like. But so did you know of those when you, when you first started trying to figure this out?
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B
Not until we started looking.
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A
Right. When did you start looking?
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B
Around February of 2024. Like that's when we started like really doing research on this. And, and we were like, okay, this is like a really like four or
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A
five months in from the conception.
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B
Or yeah, it would mean four or five months in from like the sitting down, having a beer, being like, we want to start a business. Like we should. Like we have really compatible skill sets. Like we should do something. But again, I said like we don't. You don't just want to start a business to start a business. Like imagine if you started a restaurant just because you're like I should start a restaurant.
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A
You know, a lot of them start.
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B
I know, but you know, maybe those
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A
aren't the most successful or sometimes they are. You know, ignorance can be bliss sometimes because if you knew what you were signing up for, you might not not do it.
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B
That's a fair, very fair point to be honest. But yeah, we went into it like looking around thinking, okay, restaurants was like an obvious one to us that we were like, this makes a lot of sense for them. We did some research, like found out. I mean the first realization we came through to is restaurants is the best place to do this and we need to do it for one vertical only. We cannot do it for 5, 6, 7, 8. Because every single type of call. And restaurants are a very great example of this. Have a unique workflow, a unique set of objectives. Yeah. Objectives that you need to get through to get challenges. You're exactly. You're picking up on it. Exactly. Every single. And that's one half of it. The other half of it is they have to. The information on that call needs to get into a mission critical system that the business uses, which in restaurants, cases is pos. Reservation management. Right.
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A
Integrations are. Yeah.
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B
Those are paramount.
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A
And then from a marketing standpoint, what's your. Do one thing better than everybody else. Communicate one thing. No, there's no confusion about what we do. And you know, Blue ocean effect. The riches are in the niches.
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B
Yeah.
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A
All these things. Like restaurant owners are starting to realize this too.
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B
Right.
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A
Look at chick Fil A Look at raising canes. Look at like all the hot chicken concepts. Pizza. Do one thing. It's. There's definitely something to that.
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B
I mean taking it to restaurants, like the customer. We have tons of customers. We've seen some come, some go. Right. Like the ones that like we've seen people, you know, if you work in small business, like restaurants, like you're gonna see some of your customers churn because they go out of business. The customers I see that are the most successful and I see the revenue, like I see everything. It's always the ones that have a very specific brand with a very specific objective. That's simple. Right. Like I told you about that, that customer, I'll tell you later, that's like a fried chicken place in New York that they have like maybe 10 items on their menu, but they are crushing it more than anybody I know probably. And that the pizza place in Ohio I was talking about, if you keep it very simple, like one, one kind of like tar pit I see restaurant owners falling into. And look, I could be wrong. This is just for our use case. Right. Before you say I. The menu is gigantic.
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A
Right.
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B
That's all. Always a telltale sign to me that something's wrong.
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A
Right. Well, it just overcomplicates things. Your cost of goods going to give money sitting on the shelves. You have labor, training expenses that aren't necessary. More mistakes because there's more to remember. Like there's just so many benefits to doing one thing really well or a few things really well.
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B
Absolutely.
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A
It's the future.
- [24:57]
B
Yep.
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A
Yep.
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B
So I mean going back to what we're talking about, like we pretty quickly realized like, restaurants was the right move. I had experience. My. My co. The other thing was my co founder, Jansen, had previously built a startup, an AI computer vision startup for bars and restaurants.
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A
An AI vision. What?
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B
AI Computer vision.
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A
Computer vision. So is that just looking at data and trying to, like, give you, like, trends?
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B
It was a very specific tool that basically, like, would sort of, like, work on the. Basically hijack the TV in the bars and restaurants and, like, hijack the commercials. And it was. Would, like, overplay different commercials that the bar and restaurant wanted. There's a company out there that does it now. Exactly. Basically, like. And. But he started it, like, right before COVID and then Covid happened. It was just this whole thing.
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A
They're based in Austin, aren't they?
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B
Yeah, I think they have an office here. I don't know if they're based here.
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A
I should probably try to connect with them. I'm here. It's too hard for me to keep track of everybody.
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B
Oh, man. At the end of this, we're going to talk about, like, 10 people I think you need to talk to.
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A
Yeah, please.
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B
Yeah. It's just there's probably so many people you need to talk to. But we started. So here's what happened. I went out, I put up a Janssen, spun up a demo in like, a day, or it was like, maybe two days. And of like, hey, we built this voice AI. I can, like, answer phones for you for your restaurant and take an order, right? And we'll get into why, like, spinning up a demo is not the product. Like, the demo is just the flashy thing that anybody can do. And I put it up on Facebook and it just literally, like a small business Facebook group. And I said, is anybody interested in using this?
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A
Was this a video or a post?
- [26:27]
B
It was a video. Like a video. I have to go find the post. Like, it's somewhere. And I kid you not. Within a day, like, literally within. I know. Within an hour, I had two responses from restaurant owners. And within a day, there was, like, 10 people reaching out to me. One of those customers. Restaurants became our first customer. He's like, our first. He. This is now fast forwarding all the way to April of 2024. Became our first customer. Pizza place out in Philadelphia. He expanded to all three of his restaurants. He's been with us for two years now. He's like a friend of mine. I've seen his kids. I've met his wife. So, yeah, that's how all this started. And from there, he was basically like a design customer for us. Like, somebody that was like, hey, it needs to work this way. My POS has the menu items.
- [27:15]
A
What POS was using.
- [27:16]
B
He was using stuff. Well, he uses Toast.
- [27:18]
A
Yeah.
- [27:19]
B
Right. But at the time, we didn't integrate with Toast. Right. You have to be a little more established to do that. Like we are now, obviously.
- [27:26]
A
Well, that is. I think they're lowering the bar on an integration. API integration. Because now I just interviewed somebody who owns Beto's Mexican restaurant. Okay. He's a restaurateur who's creating his own waitlist app. Labor app. And what else did he do? Weightless labor. And I can't remember.
- [27:47]
B
That's cool. So as far as I know, all
- [27:48]
A
through vibe coding, it's wild. I mean, it's the wild, wild west coding. We'll get into that, I think. But so. So you're talking to this guy, your first client, April. He. He scales it to three locations. Pizza places. That's where you were at.
- [28:02]
B
Well, he owned, I think, five at the time. We just started with one. Right. And.
- [28:06]
A
Oh, you're talking about pos. That's where you're at.
- [28:08]
B
Yeah, we're talking about positive. We're talking about Square. He had a toast system, but we just didn't work with Toast at the time. Square is an open API, so you can go and work with them right away. And that was like. Just like, okay, let's see if this works. Right?
- [28:19]
A
Yeah.
- [28:20]
B
And we just were like, can we make this work? It wasn't about building the thing that answered the phone and took the orders. Right. This. This is what I was telling you before. There's a lot of voice AI companies coming out now for restaurants. Right. And a lot. I'm sure your restaurant owners that are listening to this are getting hit up by people. People. Oh, yeah, With.
- [28:36]
A
I'm getting hit up. I'm like, do your research. Like, at first, I think they're asking me to, like, be a guest in the show, and then they're like, you're. This would be great for your restaurant. Like, this is just lazy sales. And that's another thing. Don't get me going. AI has made salespeople so lazy.
- [28:52]
B
Oh, my gosh.
- [28:52]
A
I digress.
- [28:53]
B
No, I could talk about that for hours, too. My. My email inbox with thousands of emails every day talks about or can be testament to it. But what I was saying was these demo. Like, it's really easy to make a demo of something in this space. A voice AI demo for restaurants. That sounds really good. Like, it will take an order. It can know your menu like it can. But think about. Think about it like this. Those demos, it's really easy to make something that just agrees to everything you say. Right. So it sounds like, oh, my gosh, it's like taking my order. It, like, knows, like, you know a few things and knows where my restaurant is. That's about 2% of what this product is. And we realize that after.
- [29:34]
A
When you say this product, you're talking general voice AI services. That's 2% of what it does.
- [29:40]
B
Yep. I would say that's 2% of the value because. Or how the product. You know what the product is. And what I mean by that is the voice AI for restaurants. Let's just take that for example. An AI that can answer the phone and take an order and be agreeable. There's 98% on the back end of that that needs to happen, which is it needs to integrate with the pos. It needs to structure the order correctly. It needs to take the unstructured data, which is the person's voice, and turn that into structured data, which is an order. It needs to push it to the POS correctly. It needs to be able to take a payment, maybe if it's a delivery. It needs to be able to take a delivery address. All of that stuff that I'm talking about is not on a demo.
- [30:20]
A
That's the 98%.
- [30:21]
B
Yeah. That's the hard part. Do you integrate with the top 30, 40 pos like we do? Do you? Okay, now that you do, can you actually take an order correctly and send it to the pos? Can you take a payment? Can you take it securely? Can you take it over the phone? Like, all of this extra stuff is what makes Lomen work and why it's kind of just so important for a restaurant. Just dig deeper. If you're looking into voice AI services, I know a lot of people are able to vibe code things really quickly. You got to do your research. Nowadays, it's not just for. It's not just this. It's. It's everything.
- [30:52]
A
Right. To your point, there's a lot of solutions out there. I know, because they're all trying to, you know, reach out. So anyway, how do you discern between the. The two that are just great demos or the 2%, whatever you said 2%? Or the 2%, whatever percentage of these companies that exist today that are just really good demos versus what you can do? Like, what are the questions we should ask?
- [31:17]
B
Oh, yeah, right away you need to find out if the integrations actually exist. Do you actually have an integration with toast. Like, you know, that's, you know, one of the biggest POS in the market right now. Can you actually take a reservation and send it to OpenTable? Right. Like, find out. That's the easiest way to pick somebody out. Right? Like, do they actually integrate with your pos because if they don't, they're just making more work for you maybe. Right? Like, they're taking a call and sending it to some printer that's on the side that you then have to go and put into your pos. Right? Imagine this. There's some voice AI solutions out there that take an order, right? And then they pop it out in a printer to the kitchen, which is great because you get the food, but then they pop out another ticket in the front so that that person then has to put that order into the pos. Right? You have to have somebody there waiting to see if a ticket comes out. No, what Lohman does is it takes the order and knows the menu from the POS and knows that items are 86. Right. It knows what pricing has changed. It sends the order directly to the pos just like it.
- [32:17]
A
Just like a human would at the terminal.
- [32:20]
B
That is what we're trying to do here is make the superhuman worker.
- [32:23]
A
Right.
- [32:24]
B
That you don't ever have to see. Yeah. Right.
- [32:26]
A
So back to the question about how do I. So you're asking, can it. Like, if you're on the phone with somebody who's a sales rep, they're trying to sell you this. You're asking these questions. Show me, can you integrate these things?
- [32:37]
B
Yep.
- [32:40]
A
I mean, what else should we know relative to the differentiators that, I mean, in terms of, like, the actual user experience? I've heard that you guys, like, people don't even know that this is an AI. It's getting that good where, like, you. You get a lot of voice. You know, I. I can tell when it's AI most of the time when I'm talking to people because it's just the inflections are getting really good, but it's just socially awkward. Sometimes you're like, why? Like, yeah, but like, where are you guys with that? Like, I guess, fooling the consumer that this is not. Like, you think this is a human.
- [33:12]
B
Yeah. Yeah. That's an interesting way to phrase it. Like, it. Because it is something that we think about. It's like, do you want to fool the consumer or do you just want to make the experience so good that they don't know? Is that the same thing? So for us, this Is the same thing. It is the same thing. Yeah. Fair. Fair. Fair enough. I would say this, I would say the reason Lohman separates itself is one. I mean, there's a lot of reasons that we can go through, but one of them very specifically is kind of what we call like conversational intelligence or like our restaurant conversational intelligence models. Lohman, just by nature of being around for two years and gathering million tens of millions of calls from people that are placing orders, asking questions, doing reservations. Right. Like, we have built models internally, data models that can help us understand how to take the best order at a pizza place in Philadelphia or a chicken place in Houston, Texas, or a Mexican place near the border in El Paso or whatever. Right. We've built these data models that allow us to create a user experience that truly feels like it's real.
- [34:27]
A
How do you know it's the best user experience? Are you getting ratings afterwards or something? Or rank this call? Like, how do you know about one call is better than the other?
- [34:34]
B
It's more about like execution of what the customer is looking for. Right. Like, did they try to start by making an order and did they get to completion and did they pick up the order or was it paid for? Right. 98.6% of the time with loans.
- [34:49]
A
So you're looking for like complete throughput.
- [34:51]
B
Exactly.
- [34:51]
A
Is a success. So you're looking at what are the variables between the calls that didn't have complete throughput versus the ones that did. Let's double down on the successes.
- [35:00]
B
Yeah, exactly. And, and there's. It's not just that. Right. It's. It's people. Did people get the answer they were asking for? Because 30ish, it depends on the type of restaurant, but around 30ish percent of the time, people aren't just calling to order, they're calling for questions. And by the way, if you're not using voice AI, you're having. Exactly, you're having, you know, one of your front of house. People take their time to pick up that phone and say, are you open? When the person could have, you know, that that could have been answered by an AI.
- [35:26]
A
How far away are you guys from like calling, you know, but hey, like, are you open? Yeah. These are hours, like follow up AI ask, would you like me to text you the address?
- [35:38]
B
Like, oh, we can do that right now.
- [35:39]
A
That's pretty cool.
- [35:40]
B
Yeah, we can do that right now. Yeah.
- [35:42]
A
Now it's like not just answering the call. It's like a, like a, like a virtual assistant, like beyond just taking your order. It's being proactive and saying these are things, you know, you might like. Oh, just so you know, Parking.
- [35:55]
B
Yeah.
- [35:55]
A
Like here's a piece of information.
- [35:57]
B
Oh, we do that already. So. So beyond just taking orders like this is supposed to be, this is the way I like to explain it. We want to provide a Michelin level experience at your like local pizza shop. A concierge level experience at your local pizza. A shop. Right? What? What? Sometimes look, I was one of those people. It's really hard when it's Friday night at 6 o', clock, the phone is ringing off the hook and you finally have a chance to, to answer it. For some reason you need to get through that order as a front of house worker quickly. Right. So the person on the other end of the phone, you know what they hear? They hear you rushing them through their order. Right. They hear you being short with them. They might have made a mistake on your order. Right. We. What's beautiful about Lohman is it can answer as many calls as you want at the same time. So you're never put on hold. It's never short with you. It will answer any questions you want, you know, and it can. That's another thing. We learn a very specific. We learn a ton of information about the restaurant. We know the menu at the most deep level. It never forgets anything. That's another really important thing. Right. So when somebody is calling in to ask a question, we don't want your staff answering that phone. Like we're going to answer that question. We're going to, we might even be able to answer it better than you can in some cases. And the beautiful thing about so what we want to do for the restaurant's customers, the diners, is turn what might be one of the worst experiences of your day, calling into our restaurant that's busy that like is trying to rush you off the phone, like that happens. We want to turn that into one of the easiest ways for you to order. It's faster to order over the phone than it is online. I know. It's more convenient sometimes for a restaurant owner.
- [37:33]
A
It's also, I mean a lot of people will be driving home, you know, so like it's on the go.
- [37:37]
B
There's a lot of reasons to order on the phone, but it's fast. Like if you can pick up a phone and, and dial a number and say, hey, I want two large pepperoni pizzas, one half mushroom order, a garlic knots and two sodas. And it knows your name already, it knows your card number already and says, sure, I'VE got your order. Here's what it is here. Here's how much it's going to cost. Oh, by the way, you have this coupon. You want me to add it? Yes. Okay. I've charged your card on file. It'll be ready in 25 minutes.
- [38:02]
A
Yeah.
- [38:02]
B
That is faster than me going onto my phone, going to their website. Right. Or whatever. Pushing. Yeah. It's just so much faster. We've timed it. We know it's about twice or to three times as fast to do it on the phone.
- [38:16]
A
One thing I'm curious about, and we were talking about this before we hit record, you aren't first to market.
- [38:22]
B
Sure.
- [38:22]
A
Like we mentioned there were some like, early players. I mentioned pop menu. I know. I was doing voice answering. Soundhound was another one I was aware of. And Slang AI was another one. But you made the point that you're like, those companies almost started too soon.
- [38:36]
B
Sure.
- [38:37]
A
Because the technology has changed so much that they started with, they built their platform like 1.0, but it wasn't long after that 2.0 or 3.0 came out and that's where you started. So what are the differences between what that first wave of AI answering was, where they were at, versus why it was a benefit for you to almost start a few months or a year later?
- [39:01]
B
Yeah. And I want to caveat this by saying, like, I'm not talking about any specific competitor very specifically, but there were obviously a few.
- [39:07]
A
I mentioned those.
- [39:08]
B
Yeah. They came before us.
- [39:09]
A
Blame me.
- [39:11]
B
Look, we, I mean, just by nature of when we got into the. The game. I mean, we got into the game because of. So it's causal, not correlative. But like, we got into the game because the models got good enough. If you were trying to build. There's some companies out there that were trying to build their own models. I heard one of our investors tell me that somebody spent 500 grand building a model for a specific customer. And it was a big customer before, before these LLMs were available. It was a voice AI for restaurants company that literally had to spend 500 grand on building a model for a company customer. Wow. Because these don't. These didn't exist.
- [39:48]
A
Yeah.
- [39:49]
B
When we started, there was an API for OpenAI that we could pull GPT4 or whatever it was. Right. And start using it on the phone. So the difference, what you're asking for is, is what I like to call like humanism. Right. Those models, it's really simple to tell, like back, I'm not. Again, I'm not going to Say the name specifically. But there was one company that we tried. It comes through when you just call our agent versus theirs. Like theirs sounds like when you're calling the capital one, like customer service line, it says, you know, tell us what you're calling about. And then it ha. Like you, you tell it and then it gives you like four wrong answers and the latency is really low. Meaning it takes like five seconds for it to respond. Right. It doesn't give you the right answer.
- [40:35]
A
Computing.
- [40:36]
B
Exactly. That, that experience takes a, a, a lot longer than an online order.
- [40:40]
A
Right.
- [40:40]
B
When you're talking to an AI that is smart and it can, it knows what you mean. Even if we call a sandwich a sub, for example, like, that's like intelligence. That, that kind of stuff is where
- [40:50]
A
we, the later models.
- [40:52]
B
Exactly.
- [40:52]
A
You built this on OpenAI.
- [40:54]
B
We use all. Yeah, I mean, we've used OpenAI models. We use all of the different foundation models in different. Yeah. So squad, we use anthropics models, we use Grox models, we use OpenAI's models. Of course we use open source models.
- [41:08]
A
This is kind of where, like, I'm looking for an education.
- [41:11]
B
Sure.
- [41:11]
A
Like, I am not an expert in LLMs, but I've learned a little bit. So I guess you're saying you're, you're building loan or Lowman on all of those. So is it like a shell that you just kind of say, well, we're going to optimize this for chat GPT. We're going to optimize it for Gronk, like, or is it existing all at once across all those platforms? Like, help me understand.
- [41:36]
B
No, yeah, it's us. No, no, no. So what, what? Sorry, I'll be a little more clear.
- [41:39]
A
I'm an idiot. But I'm hoping not. I'm not like, I, I, I want to understand your business.
- [41:47]
B
Yeah.
- [41:47]
A
But I also want to understand.
- [41:48]
B
Sure.
- [41:49]
A
The world that you're in. Because I feel like helping restaurant, like restaurant owners understand like, what is, how are these things even, like, existing? Like, how does this magic happen?
- [41:58]
B
We can talk for, I mean, I'll explain the, like different foundation models and stuff like that and how that works. But you're only using one model at a time usually. Right. So when you say model, you're talking, I'm talking about like open AI.
- [42:09]
A
Okay.
- [42:10]
B
And, or Gronk or Claude.
- [42:12]
A
Those are all models. Yeah.
- [42:14]
B
And they have different large versions.
- [42:15]
A
Large language.
- [42:16]
B
These are large language models. LLMs. Right. You, you've probably gone on your phone and typed something to them that ChatGPT is using an LLM to respond to you. Right. And give you answers. There's different companies that make LLMs, right? Like research companies like I Anthropic and you know, Elon's Grok. And again, OpenAI, there's a bunch of open source models and open source means
- [42:37]
A
like Perplexity is another one.
- [42:38]
B
That's Perplexity. Perplexity is actually. They use their, they use other models more for research.
- [42:43]
A
Right.
- [42:44]
B
Well, I mean Perplexity is like a, they aggregate all the models and like they've, they're like an application company. So like they made an application that you could.
- [42:51]
A
Then it's like communicates with all the different models.
- [42:54]
B
Yeah. So it's actually a good example. So they use the right model in the right scenario. So let's say I'm in. Let's talk about for restaurants, if I'm taking a reservation, maybe I just need to use this model from Grok because it works better to understand when somebody has a specific request about a reservation. If I'm taking an order and I need structured output and I need to be able to pull all these different modifiers. It needs to be, it needs to understand at a deeper level the menu. Maybe I need to use a more advanced model from Anthropic or OpenAI.
- [43:25]
A
So I want to make sure I understand. So when you say model, you're talking about the different AI LLMs that are out there. Would you call Lohman an agent?
- [43:34]
B
Yes.
- [43:35]
A
So Lohman is an agent that is fluent or knows all the different models. It's an agent that is, I guess, an independent agent that isn't loyal to any one model. It works for all the different models and it is basically taking the information that you're giving it and then in that moment deciding which of these models is optimal for what you need. We're going to use the best option for you.
- [44:01]
B
That's a way to think about it. I mean, you know, sometimes we're just using one model. Sometimes you know, the agent is pulling in. So here's a little bit more of like a top level explanation. Right. Lohman is the company that builds the, the agent. Right. The agent uses the LLM to do specific tasks. Right. To format, formulate sentences back to the customer, to read the menu that we give it. Right. But there's also a bunch of other things that are happening under the hood. Like you know that Lohman itself, the company is doing with the agent. Right. We're feeding it like specific.
- [44:43]
A
You're training it.
- [44:44]
B
Exactly. We've done that with the data that we've gathered from all these different, you know, the conversational intelligence that I was talking about. So the model is just one part of the agent itself. There's also the physical dashboard. Physical, but the dashboard that the restaurant owner looks at to see how, you know, their calls and how many calls they're getting and all of that stuff. So that's kind of how that works, is we just use the different LLM models, depending on the situation, when a customer is talking to the Loman agent.
- [45:14]
A
Okay. So when it comes to playing with Toast Square opentable, I don't know if you work with Resi too.
- [45:22]
B
No, no, not right now.
- [45:25]
A
I'm trying to think of all the. I know you're also with Spoton and Clover, I think was another one.
- [45:29]
B
Yeah. Ncr Sky Tab.
- [45:31]
A
So where in this world of the language you've shared with us so much, you have the agent, which is Lohman, that's communicating with the models, which are all the different LLMs that are out there. Where does the communication with the API and the software come in? Like, where is that? Like, what language in this ecosystem? How does that information flow?
- [45:55]
B
Think about the POS as. There's two ways that we.
- [46:01]
A
Touchpoint.
- [46:02]
B
Yeah. That's one side of it where we're pulling and reading information from the POs. Right? So we're reading what's on the menu from the pos, we're reading what's out of stock from the pos. We're reading the pricing from the pos, we're reading the prep time.
- [46:15]
A
So we know from. To Lohman.
- [46:18]
B
And then we're taking an order or taking a reservation. Right. Using the information we got from the pos, using the LLM to make sure we're structuring the sentences, Right. And we know the interval, you know, all that stuff. And then we're pushing an output, which is an order reservation from Loman, from lohman to the POS or to the
- [46:38]
A
reservation management that's happening within APIs. Like.
- [46:41]
B
Yeah, I mean. Yeah, you could. Yes, yes. I mean, not all of it, but. Yes.
- [46:45]
A
Like a third party would push to. Well, you technically would be a third party. Yeah, Like a doordash. Like a.
- [46:54]
B
If you just. Online ordering company. Right, right.
- [46:56]
A
The same way. So your AI is putting in that data that is pushing to the POS company.
- [47:02]
B
Yep, exactly. That's exactly. The best way to think about it is the POS is where we get a lot of the information, not all of it. Right. We also get information from the customer's website, they can write in specific information about their website to teach the AI Right. So there's one part of our product where a customer can list as many, what we call faq, like frequently asked questions, like, do you have a high chairs? Do you allow dogs? Do you have a patio? Do you show the NFL games on Sunday, whatever. Right. That the restaurant owner can actually go into our platform. Teach the AI that. And now the AI knows that information. And so if a diner, a customer calls the restaurant and says something, anything related to those, now the AI has that Lohman has the information to answer that question. Right. What if somebody comes in, calls in and says, hey, I'm trying to, I just, you know, I need a tie chair for Saturday. Right. The AI now needs to know, does the company have high chairs? And that's kind of a weird example, but I'm coming in with my kid on Saturday. I need a high chair. They need to know if it, when they're open. It needs to know if they allow, you know, they have high chairs. Right. For the kids. It might need to even want to know if they have a kids menu. Right, Right.
- [48:20]
A
Can it prompt the, the guests to say, oh, like, you know, if they mention they're coming with their kid, will it be like, well, no, like, hey, are you going to need a high chair? And then it can give that data. Make sure you have at least four ideas.
- [48:32]
B
Exactly. Yeah. Well, if the customer's making a, A like reservation, for example. Yes, absolutely. Or an order. Right. We can put a note on there or leave some information. So the whole thing here is like, what's beautiful about AI is that it's getting so good, as you said with the models, that it's getting indistinguishable. Around 40% of our calls, people don't know they're speaking to an AI. I mean, and that's really hard to track. So it's probably higher than that. But it's getting so good that it's indistinguishable from a human. It's never tired. It never, I don't know, breaks up with her boyfriend. So it doesn't have a bad day. Right? Right. It knows everything about your menu and never forgets from day one. Right. You don't have to train it. You definitely don't have to pay it as much as a regular employee. It never gets sick. It can take multiple calls at once.
- [49:27]
A
It's constantly getting better.
- [49:28]
B
And it's, that's the main thing. It's constantly getting better, which your employees should be Right. But maybe not always.
- [49:35]
A
Right.
- [49:36]
B
And it can take the other thing. The beautiful thing is really, I think this is probably the most important. It can take multiple calls at once. Right. I've got into customers before they started using Lomen. I walked into a guy that had a room in the back. It was this place in New York. They had a room in the back with five stations with POS systems. I think there were toast POS systems and phones. And it was a Thursday at like it was about to be dinner time. And there's four people sitting there taking calls and putting orders in. You know how expensive that is?
- [50:09]
A
I mean, depending on where they are,
- [50:10]
B
they're in New York.
- [50:11]
A
Yeah.
- [50:11]
B
That's 20 bucks or whatever an hour. That's $80 an hour just to answer those calls. When you can use Lohman for 1/50 or 10th of the price.
- [50:22]
A
How much is it to use Lohman for one unit?
- [50:24]
B
Yeah, it's around 3.99amonth. So we have tiers depending on how many cool calls you're getting. But it's around 390. Like the average is about 300 per location. Per location. Got it.
- [50:34]
A
So the labor model, we're kind of getting into that right now.
- [50:38]
B
Yeah.
- [50:38]
A
What's the argument for that? This actually helps with retention and doesn't is not eliminating jobs.
- [50:43]
B
Yeah, this is. I get this all the time. So there's two kind of ways that this can work. And I think a lot of people initially think, oh, I'm going to fire all my front of house people. But that is not what we tell people to do. We tell you keep your front of house workers. I mean, sure, if you want to reduce your labor budget, that's fine. Especially if you have four people sitting in the back doing. If you have a call specific function, you can eliminate that job. Yes. But if you're having your front of house people answer the phone like most restaurants do, don't eliminate those people. We're going to make you more money because we're going to answer every single call now. So you're going to be able to pay more workers to come in to provide better hospitality. What we're trying to do is enable the people that you have in the restaurant to do a better job and be more efficient. That's one thing. Right. Because now they don't have to answer the phone. So they can actually. They never have to give the person the Heisman when they're, you know, somebody with you. This happens all the time. Right. I just, I literally last Night I was going, I went to this Italian restaurant to pick up food. I stood there for 10 minutes while the guy was on the phone.
- [51:51]
A
That's annoying.
- [51:51]
B
It's just annoying. Right? Nobody wants that experience. So what we always tell people is, we know your job is, you know, you gotta make money, but provide better hospitality. Keep those people that are working in the front of house on the schedule for exactly the same amount of time. We're gonna answer more calls, we're gonna upsell every single time. So your AOV is gonna go up by at least 18% for over the phone orders. We're gonna increase your phone order revenue by over 23%. I mean, these are like just like metrics we have. So you can pay more people right now. You don't have to pay less.
- [52:23]
A
I mean, the reality of it is there's just not a lot of people coming to the restaurant industry to work. So like you, we almost need the AI to replace the people or to show up for the people who are not. Right. Like, I mean, why pay just as many people when you don't need them? I get it's not like some, like people are coming to the restaurant industry and droves right out of work.
- [52:47]
B
I've saying, I've heard this from. It's probably 8 out of 10 restaurant owners I talk to. I can't find good people to work anymore.
- [52:55]
A
I mean, there's good people out there. I just feel like for, you know,
- [52:58]
B
the price you can pay.
- [52:59]
A
Right. It's just like it's harder and harder for restaurant owners to pay people what they're worth.
- [53:03]
B
Yep.
- [53:04]
A
And can you blame them for not wanting to come to the restaurant? So not only are we paying you, we're not going to give you health care, we're not going to give you benefits, time off. Like it's, we, the industry has to get better. Where are we putting this money? Don't go buy or hire. You can't buy people. Don't go hire more people. But take that additional revenue that you're saving on labor and the money that you're getting from increased throughput to take care of the people that you need. Yep.
- [53:31]
B
You know, pay them more.
- [53:32]
A
Right.
- [53:32]
B
I, this is the best thing about Lohman. I on at least 25, 30 occasions have talked to owners who say they pay their restaurant owner. The, the, the people that the working, the front of house workers and back of house people more now than before they had Lowman. Yeah. They're able to keep and retain their best employees because they can pay them More or they can offer them health insurance or whatever it is, because now they're making more money. One job is done and it costs a fraction of what it would cost to hire somebody new. You're not, you know, turnover is crazy. So you don't have to have a manager always training. Right. There's just so many options, obvious benefits here. It's save money on labor if you want. Don't save money on labor. Make hospitality better and increase your revenue enough to where you can provide a better experience for the customers coming in to the restaurant, ordering online and ordering over the phone. At the end of the day, you're providing a better experience. If the only true, like, bad, I would say experience is when somebody immediately. And this is a hole that we have to climb out of as a voice. AI industry robots on the phone have this horrible reputation because they were horrible. Imagine you call. I still call cvs, for example, my pharmacy. It's a horrible experience. I can't get to a person. It's press one, press two, press three. It takes me 10 minutes to get to what I want to do.
- [54:58]
A
Yeah. When are you guys going to cover the pharmacy for. Yeah.
- [55:01]
B
Not.
- [55:02]
A
We are not.
- [55:03]
B
We are focused a hundred percent on restaurants.
- [55:07]
A
Right. I'm going to get an idea to do something for the pharmacy angle because I can't stand getting prescriptions. It's just like, oh, my God. This is. You're supposed to be like the smart industry. It's so bad, but it's bad. One thing I'm curious about, like, how does it increase tips? Is it just upselling or like, there
- [55:23]
B
you go, you've said so. A lot of people worry. Like, one of the questions we get often is like, hey, my. My staff is worried that this is going to take away their tips. And I don't know how you handle phone orders right now at the most, but most of our customers, it's like a tip pool for phone orders or whatever. Because that's somebody's answering. Different person. We are. Loman keeps zero tips. And it gets about the same amount. Just slightly under. We've done the math. Very slightly. Like less than 5% under what. What you would get normally with your human answering. It gets those tips. It doesn't take them and you just pull them to your staff. So it's not. It's. It's. It's not that it's getting less tips.
- [56:09]
A
The pool is smaller, but the people drawing from the pool is fewer. So you actually get more.
- [56:14]
B
And. And the AOV is going up and the amount of orders are going up, so that actually the actual pool of total money you're going to get in tips is bigger.
- [56:24]
A
So the per transaction. Tip per transaction goes down, but the throughput is higher and the amount of people pulling from the pool is lower.
- [56:33]
B
You've got it. That's exactly what I was trying to say.
- [56:36]
A
Yeah. Yeah. By how much would on average, do you have data that supports how much more each individual is getting? Like, percentage?
- [56:42]
B
I don't have the data. The data in front of me. But anecdotally, I've done this with 10 different. At least 10 different restaurants that were like, my girl. You know, my staff really worried that they're not getting their tips. Yeah. And what we did was we just went into the pos, we looked at how much their tips were getting. We were like, oh, wait, it's actually more that they're getting now. The only instance in which, like, maybe it would be a problem is if, like, there was one person that answers the phone and they get all the tips. You know, how does that work?
- [57:13]
A
Audibly? Because typically when you're taking an order.
- [57:18]
B
Yep.
- [57:18]
A
Like, you're not tipping somebody through the phone. You're leaving the tip. When you go pick up the phone. Food, you're putting it in the jar, or like, you're paying for it and doing it.
- [57:25]
B
Yeah. So obviously, cash is different. Like, you're just putting in a jar, but with the modern pos, you punch the number in.
- [57:32]
A
So how are you doing that? Audibly.
- [57:34]
B
But we're not doing it. So think about it like this. For delivery orders, we are. We're asking if you want to leave a tip for the driver or whatever. For pickup orders, if the customer is paying over the phone, which we do take payment over the phone. For some pickup orders, we're asking if they want to leave a tip. But most pickup orders are sent in as unpaid, so the customer wants to pay when they get there. Okay. So that's when they leave.
- [57:55]
A
So the AI is like, hey, Christian, I recognize the phone number. Do you want me just to put this charges to the card ending 8251?
- [58:03]
B
Yeah, exactly. Like, that was one of the big breakthroughs that we had was like, being able to do a secure PCI compliant payment method over the phone. Like, we can do, like, the text to pay thing to, like, basically, like, imagine you took an order and then the AI sends you a text to pay. Yeah. A lot of people think that's actually, like, the best way to do it. We tested that and, like, 20% of people forget to pay hoops. It's just crazy. Like. And so we figured out a way. So like, customer, our restaurants were calling me, like, what this customer told me that they took an order and it never came through. And I'd be like, well, they didn't pay. Like. And so now we've built it in where it's over the voice and it just works 100 times better.
- [58:44]
A
I'm just looking at some of my notes here. I want to make sure we're hitting all the things, Anything about what Lohman is today that hasn't come out of the conversation in terms of what you built and the features that people should be aware of.
- [58:59]
B
This might take the conversation in a different direction, but I think AI, there's just so, like, where we're going. You know, we want to build the best, most accurate voice AI for restaurants in the industry right now we think we've done it, but now we want to scale it to have as many customers on. On the AI as possible, right?
- [59:21]
A
We say customers.
- [59:21]
B
You're talking about restaurants and restaurants and people. But primarily I'm talking about restaurants. Restaurants using Lohman, right? The goal is like, how do we get as many restaurants to benefit from this as possible to make. Because you look at the customers that we have, five, nine times out of ten, there's somebody like, starting a new location and adding, you know, 25% of our customers come from referrals. Yeah, right.
- [59:47]
A
I mean, that's a testament.
- [59:49]
B
Exactly. Like, that was something. Just. Just seeing that this is working, like, it's hard to tell. Like, it's. See, you can see like, okay, orders are being taken at a perfectly, you know, a great rate. And like, we can see customers are happy with us. But when you see restaurants opening new locations after using you for a year, it's not just because of Loman, obviously, but it's like that seems to be working. Number two, when 25% of your customers come from referrals, that is a massive testament. And number three, I mean, I think the story. There's one story I want to tell you. Like, this is the moment where I was like, truly, like, oh my God, we're making a difference. And like, this product actually really works. A restaurant in Boston, the owner, he called me. It's a family run place. They have like five or they have six locations. He called me the day after Halloween. We've become friends now. Like, I go, I went to a barbecue at his house, right? He called me and he goes, Christian, I. I just gotta call you. I Just had to call you to thank you. And I was like, what's up man? Like what's going on? And he was like, last night, which was Halloween, was the first night I have ever been able to leave my restaurant and take my kids trick or treating because the phones were handled and I was able to leave the staff I have there. And he has two kids that are like in their nine or 10 in school. That was a powerful moment for me. I was like, we are truly. It's not just helping them make more money or helping them. It's truly like making a difference in these owners lives.
- [61:21]
A
Streamlining process that is just a big headache for the restaurant industry is the phones and training people and making sure people know it's. Yeah, it's a no brainer. I am curious about the future.
- [61:33]
B
Sure.
- [61:34]
A
Like the trajectory if you like as somebody who is, you know, deep in the world of AI solutions for restaurants. Um, and I know your lane is answering phones for right now. Yeah, right now. But relative to the world of AI and restaurants, maybe other verticals within that space. Like what excites you? What are you looking to the future? Like we're like, like it's. There's so much unknown about the future because anything's possible.
- [62:06]
B
Yeah.
- [62:07]
A
Like yeah, you have all these technologies, you have AI combining with robots, robotics combining with machine learning, combining with like it's just like these slingshot moments after one after another and it's like who knows what the future looks like.
- [62:22]
B
Yeah.
- [62:23]
A
Like so like as somebody who's close to this, like what are your predictions? Like short term, like with. In just like what's going to be the next trend with AI and restaurants.
- [62:30]
B
But like big picture. Yeah.
- [62:32]
A
Starts short term.
- [62:33]
B
I think. Okay, the one thing I want to say about this is I think if you're not in it, it's really easy to underestimate how paradigm of a shift this is going to be in the world. Like I, if I could just shout from the mountaintops like everything is changing. Like it's about to change. Like if you're not using like working in AI, I know coming from me, building a voice AI company, like it's hard for me to convince the Joe Schmo on the street that like AI is going to change everything. But over the last, and I would say over the last year, really maybe even the last six months, these models have gotten so good, exponentially better that I am able to do things with just a few prompts and words that would have taken tens of thousands of dollars and multiple People working on something like a developer in how many hours? In hundreds of hours. Like I am literally able to just put some words literally into my phone and make a fully functioning app. Right. So that's just one example. But what I want to, I want to highlight here is I think a lot of people like, if they're not like big. And my wife is a perfect example. Like she loves AI like we asked. We just had a baby, 11 weeks, she's 11 weeks old. We leaned on it so much, just ask questions. Right. And like that's her extent. Right. Of AI. Right. But I don't think people that are like that truly realize how big of a cultural economical shift that these, that, that AI in general as a, as a technology is going to have on the world. Like it's going to, it's going to completely transform the economy, I think, I think so.
- [64:25]
A
I want to get into like that big picture. But relative to restaurants.
- [64:28]
B
Okay, we'll start with restaurants.
- [64:29]
A
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- [67:14]
B
Yeah.
- [67:14]
A
That does this using AI and that's almost as like impactful as the phone call thing. Like, what is that?
- [67:21]
B
Okay, so for restaurants, like what's coming next? And Loman, my build one day too. Right. Like think about how many of your day to day activities digitally right now at least, are done by a person that are repeatable and automatable. So like review management. Right. Reviews are coming in all the time. Right. And there's tools out there that do this. Right. Like I have a buddy, Marquee Marquis Avi. Right. Like he pass guest on the show. Oh, really? That's awesome. Yeah. Okay, great. Yeah, Avi's like a good. Their investors are our investors. It's like a great. He's an awesome dude. We're sharing a booth at Pizza Expo, by the way. Would love to see you there if you're gonna be there.
- [68:02]
A
That is in Las Vegas.
- [68:03]
B
Yeah. Vegas in March. Won't be there, but anyways. Yeah. Automatically reading and responding to reviews or at least providing a response. Right. Damage control. When somebody leaves you a review and you need to automatically, automatically issue them a coupon right away. Make them feel like they're heard by the owner or by, by the staff and turn their opinion around. That's one thing. Right. We can get into robotics if you want. Right, right.
- [68:33]
A
Imagine that's the, the when you know. And I think it's already done. It just hasn't been scaled yet. Like the technology's there. Oh yeah, robotics. The, the hardware has been there for like decades. Yeah.
- [68:46]
B
Yeah.
- [68:47]
A
What they were missing was the brain, the models.
- [68:49]
B
Yeah.
- [68:49]
A
Yeah. So, you know, I mean, Elon's predicting, like, everybody's going to have at least two robots, right?
- [68:55]
B
Crazy.
- [68:55]
A
You know, like we're, you know, like you're going to hire employees and they're going to be walking around and having their robot do the actual work. You know, it's crazy. So how far out do you think that is where we have Andrew, or I guess, what's the word that they use for like a humanoid? Like robot.
- [69:13]
B
Yeah, humanoid robot. Autonomous robot. Like a humanoid is a good way to talk about it. Yeah.
- [69:17]
A
Like the. Again, the hardware is there. The a, the, the, the brain is there now.
- [69:22]
B
It is.
- [69:22]
A
What's stopping that from like, you know, and the other cool thing about that is the machine learning push across the entire network of robots. Right. So you, any job in the restaurant industry, as long as you train one AI robotic machine, the thing.
- [69:40]
B
Yeah.
- [69:41]
A
Then any robot on that network now also knows how to do it. You train one person, you train the
- [69:47]
B
entire workforce, and it gets smarter every single time and it gets better at it every time. So I mean, right now, what that looks like is robots for bowl businesses. Right. What I mean by that is like Chipotle. Yeah, exactly.
- [70:01]
A
Spice was the first one to do the Sweet Green purchase.
- [70:03]
B
Sweet Greens. Yeah, exactly.
- [70:05]
A
And now we see what Sweet Green is doing with Function Health.
- [70:10]
B
Oh, yeah, I saw that. That's crazy.
- [70:12]
A
Which is crazy. Do you know a lot about that?
- [70:14]
B
No, I, I saw that. I saw one tweet about that. But they're doing. Is it.
- [70:17]
A
Aren't they?
- [70:18]
B
Like, they.
- [70:20]
A
I'll share what I know for the list.
- [70:22]
B
Go ahead.
- [70:22]
A
So you can tell me if you know anything else. So basically Spice was a company out of Harvard or mit, I think.
- [70:27]
B
Mit.
- [70:27]
A
And they basically figured out how to use induction burners that spin to do like a, like a bowl concept, right?
- [70:34]
B
Yeah.
- [70:35]
A
Similar to Sweet Greens model. Sweetgreen purchased Spiced. And now they're using that technology. They, they own that technology to, for like automating cooking. But the latest thing they just did was they purchase or they didn't purchase, but they, they're in collaboration with Function Health, which is a wellness service that basically you get your blood taken and then they tell you exactly, like the diet you should eat based off of your snapshot health picture Genetics, like then
- [71:05]
B
can build a bowl based on that.
- [71:07]
A
Right. And then you can now reverse engineer and have like, specific food cooked for you in your biometric situation. So like in like every couple months, you Just go get your blood taken and you get updates. Updates. And you can literally, like, that is so cool.
- [71:24]
B
It's custom. That's where we get to, I think, like, custom for you. So. So this is a really good example. And it gives you exactly where I think this world is going. It's hyper personalization from everything.
- [71:38]
A
We're going into the transformation economy.
- [71:40]
B
Right.
- [71:40]
A
Joe Pine.
- [71:42]
B
I don't know what that is, but
- [71:43]
A
it's this idea that it's. It's now about literally, like, making people like, we're in this. We're going into like, this collective conscious state where everyone is just trying to elevate. They're trying to ascend. We're trying to be better versions of ourselves today than yesterday. And the companies that help people along that journey to help transform their guests, like, those are the people. And that's exactly what sweetgreen is doing. Yeah, right.
- [72:06]
B
Yeah, sure.
- [72:07]
A
They're like, they're getting the tools to. Because their target market are people who are willing to pay a premium for, like, good ingredients. Now you can reverse engineer those ingredients specifically for you and your biometrics. Like, that is. That is transformation economy. Yeah. Okay.
- [72:22]
B
That's wild, man. I mean, I think what. What gets me really excited, at least in the near term, is hyper personalization. So what? That's one example. Like I said, that's an extreme example.
- [72:31]
A
I think that's going to be like, the technology is there tomorrow. It will be universal because that will be the customer. And the thing is, like, just because Sweet Cream has the. The intellectual property or the rights to that software or whatever is going to be replicated, topical.
- [72:46]
B
Oh, yeah.
- [72:47]
A
China is already over there recreating, like, everything. Like, there's no, like, you know.
- [72:52]
B
Yeah.
- [72:53]
A
Over there.
- [72:53]
B
Like, I mean, to me, okay, to me, that's like a awesome, extreme, like, super extreme example, because it's like robots and like biomarker. Like your average guy that's ordering a pizza. Here's where your average guy that's ordering a pizza, though, is going to benefit from this. Imagine every Tuesday for summer, you take your kid to soccer practice and it's like Tuesdays and Thursdays or whatever. And on Tuesdays, you always call your favorite pizza place. Every week, Tuesday's pizza night, right? You call the. You know, you pick up your kid, or you're in the parking lot waiting for your kid to get in from soccer practice. You pick up the phone, you call Joe's Pizza. Joe's picks up and you place your order. Right. And you pick it up on the way home. Right. The only person that knows that is if Joe's pizza guy is working there or there's somebody that's been working there for 10 years or 5 years or whatever it is. Right. An AI now can know that you order from Joe's Pizza every Tuesday. It knows what you order. It knows what type of food you like and knows what your credit card number is, obviously. It knows what your family makeup is, knows you have a kid you're picking up from soccer practice. Your wife, she likes these items, right. It can prompt you before you even. Right. Call. Pick the, Pick up the phone. Hey, Eric, noticed it's Tuesday. You're about to pick up Jimmy from soccer practice. Do you want the regular? By the way, we've got a new lava cake that we're selling. Like, want to try that?
- [74:26]
A
That's. We know you love chicken.
- [74:27]
B
Exactly.
- [74:28]
A
This lto has chicken on it.
- [74:30]
B
One click, boom. Order done. Yeah, right. That hyper. And it's not just that, it's allergies. That's kind of a sketchy one because it starts getting into like, you know, liability, really liable liability stuff. But think about if we know that you have an allergy. It's more like, okay, we need to make sure that somebody check, double checks his order or that he doesn't order anything that has XYZ in it. Right. But like hyper personalization at the marketing level is so like, so is that
- [74:58]
A
what you're, as the CEO of Lohman? Is that what you're looking at to make Lohman better is how do you take the agent and personalize it towards the customer? I think that the end user, or I guess to your point to customers, restaurant guest.
- [75:13]
B
I think I'll just tell you that I think a personalized interaction with anything like is better than a non personalized one. If I call my local taco shop and, and the lady that I know has been working there for 20 years picks up and says, oh, hey honey, like, how's it going? And like takes my order and knows exactly what I like to eat and I forget to tell her that I don't want tomatoes this time, but she just leaves it off anyway. That's a hundred times better than somebody that I just, that I call and I pick up and they don't know my past order. It takes me longer to tell them that I don't like tomatoes and I have to, to tell them my credit card number again. Right. So hyper personalized marketing and hyper personalized interactions at the restaurant level I think are going to become Table stakes. But it's also going to make them much more efficient in getting people in and out the door. Also like increasing revenue. Right. Like if I can send you right now, there's a lot of marketing tools. This is what, this is how I'm thinking as a CEO. Right. Of what we need to build eventually. Right. Very focused on making the voice experience the best right now. And hyper personalized. Right. But in the future, imagine if right now marketing from the POS companies like they give you some tools, right. Sometimes. Or you use a tool. A lot of it is send a blast out for like a $10 off coupon. Right. Which is great. People will use that. But what if you're lactose intolerant and I'm sending out a coupon for a ten dollar milkshake shake or a cheese pizza or whatever that doesn't fit you. I need to send out 10,000. I have 10,000 customers. Every single one of those should be getting a different coupon. Yeah, right. That's hyper personalized to just them.
- [76:56]
A
It's one to one marketing or one.
- [76:58]
B
That's where I think the world's going soon. Right. Where it's going long term is.
- [77:03]
A
Yeah.
- [77:04]
B
I mean like voice is the current frontier. Eventually we're gonna be able to just like. Yeah, you're thinking.
- [77:09]
A
Yeah. Neural link, right?
- [77:10]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [77:12]
A
So one of the things like the other thing I'm trying to be better about with this podcast is to get ahead of, you know, there's always the downside to everything we do try to make a better world. And there's that thing we didn't think about that one thing like oh, we didn't think that how that like as we look to the future and we're trying, we're trying to like, you know, it's like giving like humanity like a, like a, like it's like kind of giving like a monkey, like a, like an atom bomb. Right. And say good luck. Like we have this thing that, this, that has tremendous, tremendous power and we're handing it to people we don't even really know what we're capable of yet. And like how do we, like what are the things we need to be careful of?
- [77:52]
B
I mean I'm just a guy building voice act for restaurants. But like it. There's a serious potential question of ethics.
- [78:01]
A
Yeah, this, that we just don't even know what we don't know.
- [78:04]
B
There are serious potential risks. I mean Elon brings them up all the time like for like this to go bad. Like there's like a serious Substantial chance. I don't know what it is. 10, 15%, but that's a humongous amount. Well, that this all goes really wrong. I'm not talking about voice AI for restaurants. I'm just talking about LLMs and like these models and they figure out how to hack. I mean, I don't know if you saw the open cloth stuff, right? Like that. You're giving people stuff. Open Claw, Clawbot, Cloud bot. Did you see any of this stuff on Twitter? Basically, like this guy came out with a tool that it's in your phone on Telegram or whatever. And you can. It's an AI agent that you can just tell it to do stuff, right. Connect to my Google, connect to my HubSpot, connect to my Open Table account. What? I don't know if you can do
- [78:54]
A
that, but like connect accounts, basically, if
- [78:56]
B
you tell it well, yeah, no, you give it access to your file system on your computer and you're just like, hey, go do stuff for me. And it does, right? Giving that kind of power to an AI agent and, you know, they made their own social network and they were talking about how humans were treating them and stuff like that. That kind of stuff is where it gets scary, where, like, I think this technology has the true potential to transform humanity and civilization, but there's this small chance that, like, it could go really bad.
- [79:26]
A
The question is, I think that we need to start asking ourselves as consumers, as business owners, is what future do we want?
- [79:33]
B
Yeah.
- [79:33]
A
And how do we engineer that future? Because up until recently, the tail's been wagging the dog, as this expression I've been using a lot where, you know, at the end of the day, the restaurant owner is getting harder and harder for the restaurant owner. The restaurant owner today, I would argue, is not the beneficiary of, of their restaurant. This. It's like there's so many other ancillary adjacent industry that literally needs the restaurant to exist.
- [79:56]
B
Yes.
- [79:56]
A
I think Loman is an example. Like, where would your business model be without restaurants?
- [80:00]
B
Right.
- [80:01]
A
You know, and I'm not like, I'm not attacking, I don't want you to take that. But I'm saying it's just like this nature of restaurant owners. Their, their head is in a silo, they're in their four walls, and they're just trying to run a restaurant. Meanwhile, the world around them is, is evolving so fast and that there's these industries that are, or companies or, you know, business models that are evolving, that needs the restaurant. And the restaurant just kind of like goes, okay, I Guess I need you. And then like this, that's one more bill I have to pay this month, right? So as we look to the future, the other thing that scares me too is like if they're by nature, humans tend to go with number one. What is the number one?
- [80:42]
B
This.
- [80:42]
A
What is number one? Positive, number one supplier. What is the number one? We through word of mouth tend to go to number one. There's always an uneven distribution of resources to number one. Like usually number one does twice as much business as number two. Three times as much business as number three. And as these AI companies are, are growing, do we want to create another Google, do we want to create another meta that is so powerful and to your point with marketing, the power with marketing, like the power of marketing and AI, like to the point where it's like, are we even gonna know what's real anymore?
- [81:16]
B
That's, you know like that movie Mountainhead.
- [81:19]
A
No.
- [81:20]
B
Oh my gosh. This is one you gotta watch. Okay, so it's great. It's like it's kind of satirically talking about this one group of guys on the all in podcast, sort of. At least that's what I thought it was about. But basically like, it's like these four bands, billionaires, they go up to this mountain side cottage. Basically it's a manta, it's a mansion, right? One of their, one of them owns this mansion. One of them owns like the equivalent of Facebook. One of them owns. One of them's like an elder statesman who's like a VC now that like one of them built this AI model that can identify when something's a deep fake. So the one that owns Facebook is like the richest, whatever. And AI has gotten so out of hand that people are essentially able to put out videos of things that are fake. So it's like the Pope's getting assassinated or like somebody is like military is coming into my town. I see a tick tock video of that.
- [82:11]
A
You're not gonna be able to discern what's real and what's fake.
- [82:13]
B
And so like the whole world is just blowing up around them while they're up in this like mansion thing. And it like talks a lot about, like, it just touches on a lot of points about what we're talking about right now where it's like, is this ethical? Like, where could it go, right?
- [82:27]
A
Like, my dirty little hope is that it pushes people off social media, off the Internet, because it will be so hard to discern reality. The only thing that you'll be able to discern as Real is something that you can physically touch. It's a big reason why I do this podcast the way I do.
- [82:50]
B
In person. Yeah.
- [82:51]
A
In person. And I'm gonna listen to who you think I should talk to. I'm gonna go to a market. I'm gonna talk to leaders in that market. I'm gonna say, who do you think I should talk?
- [83:00]
B
Yeah.
- [83:00]
A
Because any media or, like, I don't know, like, media in general has gotten so lazy. Journalism has gotten so lazy. Everything is about marketing. It's not about really getting to the truth.
- [83:12]
B
Quick clicks.
- [83:13]
A
It's about what agenda are we spinning today. Who's paying the most to get their version of the truth out to there.
- [83:19]
B
Sure.
- [83:20]
A
And I don't want anything to do with that. Like, I just want to go talk to people, you know, so it's just in that world is like, you're throwing fuel on that fire right now. It's so interesting.
- [83:29]
B
Yeah. I think to me there, I'll take a step back and say, the reason why we really started this business and, like, why it's such an amazing. Like, I have. I. I come to work every day with the biggest smile on my face is because to me, restaurants are this, like, fundamental, really special place in the world. And what I mean by that is we humans, since the dawn of civilization, have been gathering around food. That is how we come together. Right. We get some food. We come together as a family, as a soccer team, as a group of friends, as a boyfriend, girlfriend that are eventually going to be a husband, whatever. We come together around food. And many. Nine times out of 10. I mean, maybe not nine times out of 10, but a lot of times that's a restaurant. That's at a restaurant, and there's a person behind that curtain. It's a restaurant owner, a manager, whatever, that's running that place that's been doing it for 50 years with his family that allows those special moments to happen.
- [84:31]
A
Yeah. The.
- [84:32]
B
After my soccer practice, we go to pizza or winning a soccer game. We go to pizza every day after. You know, I got engaged at this. Or I didn't get. But, like, you get engaged at this restaurant. Right. Like. Or you broke up with this girl
- [84:44]
A
at this restaurant at every of the major points in life.
- [84:47]
B
Exactly. Restaurants are at the heart of those things. And I think people forget about that and they just treat. Restaurants are so ingrained into the fabric of society that people just think, like, oh, yeah, this is like a place I go. But there's a person that in a. Or a family that maybe you Know, an immigrant family that can came over and started that business, has been running it for 50 years. I care about helping that family or that group. Doesn't matter how big they are. I don't care if they have a hundred locations or they have one. You know, make a bet. Make those moments happen for the people that are coming to the restaurant and just make it easier. Right, right.
- [85:21]
A
And you know, I think the other big part of this is that is a huge subset of group group that you just identified as restaurant owners. Second largest industry in the world behind the government, just outbeat healthcare. The other thing is like, we have influence.
- [85:36]
B
Yeah.
- [85:37]
A
How we choose to spend our money and how we choose to do business and how we choose to influence the next generation of workers that come to our restaurant for their first time ever will change the future. So, and, and that's my hope with this podcast, is that we're sharing perspective, we're getting ideas out there and we are taking control or being proactive and not reactive to the world around us. Around us. Which I believe we've been guilty of.
- [86:02]
B
Yep.
- [86:03]
A
The past, you know, couple decades of. Just out of survival.
- [86:06]
B
Yeah.
- [86:06]
A
You know, so I mean, I, I'm really curious to see where this ends up. I do have a, A theory.
- [86:15]
B
Sure.
- [86:16]
A
And you kind of supported it a little bit today. You said something, you know, it's changing so fast. I think in the last six months the way what you, what would have taken you six months would have been $10,000 and countless man hours and all these resources you can do in seconds today with the new version of the software that's out there. Well, where are we going to be in another six months? Right. And I, I just again, spoke to somebody yesterday who is. Happens to be a restaurant owner but was always into technology and, and now they're building their own solutions custom to their restaurant. And Toast has their open API where now if you, you can like, you can submit something to Toast. And now you have all these integrations and he vibe coded that.
- [87:01]
B
Yeah.
- [87:02]
A
You know, as a restaurant tour, like, are we getting to the point where, you know, we're gonna like it? Is it gonna be possible where restaurant owners can literally just create like their own solutions?
- [87:13]
B
Well, yeah. I think bad news for you. No, no, no, no.
- [87:17]
A
I mean, look, I'm like, I'm trying to be sensitive about this too. I'm like, I don't know if I should bring this up.
- [87:21]
B
Bring this up. Because it's not just restaurant owners. I think we're going to come to a point in the world. Like this is the bigger picture AI stuff where it's like self built software for everything that you want. Right? Right. So like examples of that are like, hey, I'm trying to lose weight. I need a calorie tracker app. Like you go to something, I don't know what it is, and say, hey, I need a calorie tracker. This is how much I weigh. You know everything or you know everything about me.
- [87:43]
A
Right?
- [87:43]
B
Right. Build me one and it make sure it tells me everything I need to eat every day. It spins it up. You get an app on your phone and it's Christian's calorie tracker.
- [87:52]
A
Yeah. Like that link with Amazon. The ingredients are being shipped to your house. You're throwing the ingredients in a robot that's going to chop it up. It's going to spit out a meal that's dialed exactly into your biome and your goals. It's crazy.
- [88:03]
B
Every, like that will get here. Yeah, for sure. Like don't get me wrong, but I think it's what you need to spend your time. Like what do you really need to spend your time like that, that, that, that existence is coming right where I can, I don't know, make my own TV shows. Right. Where Netflix is like you like these seven things from your library. We just. I created this TV show for you.
- [88:27]
A
You would you enjoy that?
- [88:29]
B
I listen, here's one. One that I think would be really interesting and this is totally off topic but like, and look at all the shows that you've watched where you wish there were more seasons.
- [88:39]
A
Here's the thing. I don't think once people know how per. Influence, like how persuasive that can be, are you really gonna want to watch a show that was engineered for you? And if there is a motive behind the entity that created that show for you to take action, to move in a direction. Well, that's. Now it's a whole show that's a marketing tools specifically engineered for you to make a decision. Like, and that's where we're going with like when marketing gets involved in this stuff.
- [89:08]
B
Sure.
- [89:09]
A
That's where it gets scary because now it's not marketing, it's literal, just complete manipulation and like an orchestration.
- [89:17]
B
Yeah. Of like you took it, you took it one step further than I, I've even thought of where I was like, damn, I wish we someone would just create like shows that I would like rather than like trying to have an ulterior motive with the show.
- [89:27]
A
Well, think about all the major platforms that are out there right now. Like Google and Meta. Like, you don't think that they have ulterior motives with the, the, you know, like they're using the data they have to influence society.
- [89:38]
B
Yeah. Oh yeah.
- [89:39]
A
Like they're, they're swaying elections right now.
- [89:41]
B
Yeah, sure.
- [89:41]
A
And like that's the stuff we have to, like, I just think we got to keep marketing out of it, you
- [89:46]
B
know, like, that's impossible though. I know how you pay. The companies have to exist. Right.
- [89:50]
A
Like, well, the, the consumer, like the, that's the thing. The data becomes the product.
- [89:54]
B
Yeah.
- [89:54]
A
Right. So like, these are the, these are the things, These are the conversations we have to start having.
- [89:59]
B
Yeah.
- [89:59]
A
And as the second largest industry in the world, and no offense to restaurant owners listening to us many. And I don't think the word ignorant is a negative word. It just means we don't know. But there's a lot of ignorance in the restaurant industry that are. And we're getting involved with these like literal, like paradigm shifting moments where we in our choices can really influence the future.
- [90:25]
B
Yeah. Like use it like that kind of thing is what you're saying. Yeah, right. Like use the influence that you have. I mean, look, I, I could sit across from you and tell you I know where AI is going. I don't. Right. Like, even Sam Altman sitting in his San Francisco, like, he doesn't know exactly where it's. Like, he specifically says that he doesn't know where it's going.
- [90:44]
A
No one knows where.
- [90:45]
B
That is the scary thing to me. But what I will say now, I'm going to sit here in my office in Austin and build tools that help restaurant owners provide those moments that, those special moments that we talked about.
- [91:00]
A
We're sitting at this, this ultimate manifest destiny moment right now. To your point, nobody knows what's going on. The future is a big question mark. But the cool thing I believe is this, the cool thing about life is that life has the ability to influence probability.
- [91:17]
B
Yeah.
- [91:17]
A
And I think that's what life is. This thing that can literally will, like you can will into existence. That's something.
- [91:26]
B
Yeah.
- [91:27]
A
And.
- [91:27]
B
Absolutely.
- [91:28]
A
And we are so connected right now as a, as a, as a global connection with thought and idea that we're at this point where we're going to go left or we're gonna go right.
- [91:37]
B
Yeah.
- [91:38]
A
But if we start talking, we start communicating, we can say, well, what's best for all of us?
- [91:42]
B
Yep.
- [91:43]
A
You know, let's go in that direction and let's start letting our consumer behavior influence that direction. But it requires like, collective consciousness.
- [91:52]
B
It Does. And it requires conversations. That's the.
- [91:56]
A
I don't have answers, but this is fun.
- [91:57]
B
Yeah. I mean, I can talk about this stuff forever. I don't know how many restaurant owners find it interesting, but I think they have to be aware. We think they have to be aware. I think they have to be aware of, like, that these things are to their benefit a lot of times. Yeah, sure. Sometimes it's going to be to their detriment. Just like me as a CEO of a tech company. Like, there's going to be. There's tons. I get text messages all the time from an AI that says, like, hey, you know, this is your employee. I'm, like, stuck somewhere. I need a gift card. Like just some spam thing. Right, right. Like, I'm getting targeted too. There's gonna be malicious stuff that happens. But if you choose to own it and embrace AI as a technology rather than turn away from it, because I've heard that too. I don't want AI. I need to keep every. This is what I hear all the time. I need to keep the hometown feel. I need to keep the personable feel. And I sit there and I go, okay, I get it. I understand your sentiment, but I don't. What I don't understand is what I. What I would say to you if. If this was a restaurant owner saying that to me is okay, but you will get left behind. Like, I am a firm believer that every single restaurant in the next 10 years. I don't know, maybe not every. Single. Let's say 80% of restaurants will be using voice AI to answer their phone. Think about online ordering. I mean, restaurants kind of just. It's almost like they just like, kind of lag a little bit behind, like, other industries and like, how tech infiltrates them. People don't want to build for it because, you know, like, there's like, fall off at 70% of restaurants. Only 70% survive the first year. It's like, so, like, you know, there's not as much VC money going into it, but with AI, I think restaurant owners have this amazing opportunity to grab onto these tools now. And I'm not like, trying to look, sounds like I'm talking my book. But, like, before you get left behind and turn into that stone, like, you don't want to be the company that pushed off online ordering for 10 years and lost half your customers. Right, Right.
- [94:05]
A
Yeah.
- [94:05]
B
This is the same thing. You don't want to be the company that pushed off voice AI or AI in general. You don't want to be the Restaurant that pushes it off for 5 years and everybody else has 5x their revenue and increased their efficiency so much. Right. That and now you're just trying to get caught up, which is you're gonna, it's gonna be the exact same thing. I see this as online order, the online ordering moment for restaurants 20 times bigger.
- [94:34]
A
Yeah, it's interesting. It's a really cool time. I've really enjoyed today's conversation. I got a couple of questions. I asked them. I guess we'll try to tailor this for a tech startup. What is one thing about your business? A value, a process, a system that's truly uncommon and makes you unstoppable?
- [94:50]
B
Yeah. I would say there's a quote by a little tailor list to the tech startup. There's a quote by a guy, Paul Graham, who runs Y Combinator. Just like a big, you know, startup. I mean anybody in startups would know what this is. But do things that don't scale. Right. Like at. In tech companies, right. When you're early on, right. That is what you need to do to, to make it work. Right. To make, to build a company. You do these things that don't scale. And a good example of this would be when we were starting this business, I was literally, I would literally go. Every single restaurant owner would have my phone number and be able to text me, call me at any time of day of night or day of night. Anything that they asked for, we would do. Right. So we've kept that. I think restaurant owners in general, even the small, I don't care if you're one restaurant or you're 10. We truly want to connect with you as a person and a company. Right. And understand your brand and business. We're not the multi billion dollar conglomerate that is just trying to sell you something and then hope you fit into our hole. We want to tailor our solution. So because we know how important your brand is as a restaurant, we want to tailor our solution for you and tailor our. The way that we do business to you. Right. I still. Right. We have a thousand customers. I still talk to our rest. Like some of our customers, I close. I still just handle support requests for them through my phone all the time. I don't think that's ever going to go away.
- [96:31]
A
So you do that. You do the things that are human that don't scale. And that is what gets you to the point where you.
- [96:35]
B
Exactly. That's exactly right.
- [96:38]
A
The mission statement is to change the world through inspiring, empowering and transforming the restaurant industry. And you've definitely inspired Just your story as an entrepreneur your come up, your passion. And we're way more aware of how this game works now. You've empowered us. But I think we're going to change the world by, you know, helping change one restaurant, transform one restaurant owner at a time. Yes. So how have you personally transformed. How are you a better man today than the man you were two years ago when you started this thing?
- [97:07]
B
Well, I mean, I just had a daughter. Right. Like, that was. It really puts things in perspective, man. Like, you hear a lot. Like, I'm sure every, anybody that has a kid that's listening to this can, can relate. But you hear all the time, like, oh, your life is going to change. Like, you'll never know what that actually feels like until you actually have your kid. I always thought like, ah, yeah, that's. I get that. Okay. You know, I have, I have dogs. Like, I know, like, I would do anything for them. When you have a baby, like, it completely transforms the way that you think. Like, I've never loved something so much. Right. And that gave me even further perspective on how. And running this business has given me further perspective on how restaurant owners think about their business. And when we make one mistake with an AI agent that says one wrong thing, for example. Right. And a restaurant owner calls me and starts cussing me out, I understand that now. Right. I understand that's their baby. That's how they represent themselves. If we are representing themselves wrong. Because they have given us the keys to have that touch point with the customer, the trust. Right. I understand that 100 times out of 100. And I want to make it right. And that's what. What we're building to not happen.
- [98:28]
A
Yep. Yep. So this is the last question before I get some referrals from you.
- [98:31]
B
Sure.
- [98:32]
A
It's a doozy. If you got the news, you'd be leaving this world tomorrow. All the members of you, your work and your businesses would be lost with your departure. With the exception of three pieces of wisdom that you could leave behind for the good of humanity and your legacy. What would those three pieces of wisdom be?
- [98:44]
B
Oh, my gosh. That is a absolute doozy. I mean, Look, I'm only 34. I don't. I don't know, maybe that I feel old. Right? But I'm not. Sometimes people are like, you're only 34. Like, you're not old. Right. I would say already I'm seeing my parents get. You know, this has nothing to do with my job, like, anything. Right. This is just me. I'm seeing my Parents get old, you know, and they live in California. I live here. Right. So when you're a kid, even when you're in your early 20s or mid-20s, you don't want to spend time with your parents. You want to be out partying, you want to be out going to restaurants, doing concerts, back. Whatever you do.
- [99:29]
A
Yeah. So one, spend time with your parents.
- [99:31]
B
You're gonna forget to spend time with your parents and loved ones. Yeah, that's for damn sure.
- [99:36]
A
What's two?
- [99:37]
B
Number two, I think, is this is something that, like, every. We talked about, this transformation economy. Like, live, like, protect your body and, like, take care of it. Like, that is something I've seen people around me now like, that are my age have kidney failure, diabolical alcoholism. Like, it's. There's so many tools now to do this, like, take care of your body. You have this opportunity to be a human on planet Earth.
- [100:07]
A
Yeah.
- [100:08]
B
Nobody gets this. I know. There's whatever 7 billion people here. In the grand scheme of things, that's nothing.
- [100:14]
A
One time with loved ones to take care of yourself. What's three?
- [100:19]
B
I mean, and then three is if you're doing those things right, just enjoy. Right. I think a lot of people, like, enjoy the moment, enjoy. Because, like, I think a lot of people, and I'm certainly guilty of this, spend way too much time stressing about taxes or what, changing the world. Yeah, sure. Exactly. Right. Like, what's going to happen with my company? What's going to happen with, like, I got people that love me. I got people. I got a daughter that I need to take care of. Right. Like, just live, like. And enjoy the moment. Like, you cannot.
- [100:55]
A
If you.
- [100:55]
B
If you're stressed all the time, your cortisol levels are up, all that stuff, you're never gonna have a good time. If you can learn to live in the moment and enjoy yourself, like, do that, your life is going to be so much better.
- [101:08]
A
Christian, thank you so much, man. Sure been a lot of fun. Who do you think I should talk to? Who inspires you? Who's out there doing the damn thing and doing it well, making an impact and making money while they do it.
- [101:21]
B
Yeah. I'm going to talk my book restaurant owners, because these are my customers, these are my friends. You've got to talk to a guy out in Ohio, a couple guys. They're friends now. I guess they've always been friends since they were kids. They run a place called the Checo's Pizzeria.
- [101:40]
A
How do you spell that?
- [101:40]
B
D, E, C, H, H, E, C, O. S family run business for 40 years or something like that. Son took it over and from his parents it was, you know, I was doing like 500k a year. One location.
- [101:57]
A
Who's the person to talk to?
- [101:58]
B
Nathan and Corey. Nathan's the owner. Nathan Deco. Corey's like the coo. Talk to them. Best operators. Some of the best operators I know. Number two, Atlantic City or just like New Jersey area. Mike Hauk from Tony Baloney's. That guy is an absolute genius.
- [102:18]
A
How do you spell Helk?
- [102:19]
B
H O U H A U K E. Sorry, it's like Hawk I think. Yeah, yeah. He runs a restaurant group like a and he has like a dark consumer mozzarella stick business. We just on Shark Tank.
- [102:34]
A
Nice.
- [102:35]
B
That guy is an operator.
- [102:37]
A
Stickies is it or.
- [102:38]
B
No, it's called Mad Mutts.
- [102:39]
A
Okay. Mike Hawk, Nathan and Corey from DA Checkos and Anybody else?
- [102:49]
B
Yeah, there's a group out in New York I would say to talk to. They're gonna be humongous. It's a company called Fluffies. The owner's name Saad S A D. Those guys were never restaurant owners before. They had never built a. Never started a business. Went from zero to three stores doing. I'm not going to talk about their revenue because I don't want. They don't want me to but like don't.
- [103:19]
A
I try to get you to.
- [103:20]
B
You can try to. You can try to get them too. But it's probably the most impressive I've seen.
- [103:25]
A
What are they doing?
- [103:26]
B
Chicken. It's like a little play on like, like chicken sandwiches like Mac and cheese with french fries and chicken. Like it's just like pure amazing comfort food type stuff. But it's like 10 food, 10 items on the menu. Fast casual, super quick counter service type stuff. And they are doing like everybody would be very, very, very happy if they were doing as well as them.
- [103:51]
A
Sod. Mike, Nathan, Corey. Look, I'm coming after you guys get you on the show and how can we connect with you if we are interested in learning more about Lohman?
- [103:59]
B
Yeah.
- [104:00]
A
What's the best way to connect?
- [104:01]
B
Yeah, just you could shoot me an email@christianloman.AI happy to talk to. I would love to talk to like I talk to restaurant owners all day. That's what I do. That's still around half of my day is just talking to customers, restaurant owners. But if you want to just quickly figure out like what, what is Loman? Like how does it work? Go to our website and there's a thing at the top that lets you, like, just put in your, like, search for your restaurant on Google and we'll build you an AI agent in two minutes that you can talk to.
- [104:29]
A
Awesome.
- [104:30]
B
It's not the perfect version or whatever, but it will work like Lomen. And you can talk to it, check it out, and then shoot us a note and schedule a demo with our team. And we can. We can help you get you up and running in 24 hours, pretty much.
- [104:42]
A
Christian, thank you so much, man. Literally started Talking to you 48 hours hours ago. We made this work. It was really fun diving into your brain, the world of AI, the future of AI potentially. This was fun, dude. And I cannot do what I do without leaders like you making time to dive deep. So there is no questioning, my man. You are unstoppable.
- [105:01]
B
Thank you. Thank you so much.
- [105:03]
A
Thank you. Bye. Bye. There's another episode wrapped up here at Restaurant Unstoppable. Special thanks to our guest today. Christian, founder and CEO of Lumen AI coming on in a opening our eyes to how fast this world of AI is moving. I thought it was really interesting, and I hope you did, too. And if you want to meet Christian and ask him all of your AI questions, he will be live in the network for coffee with Eric on May 4th at 11am Eastern. We go live every week, and that's really my goal going forward with Restaurant Unstoppable Network. It's to help good people connect with good people. My goal is get every one of my guests that we have on the show in the network to engage you, to answer your questions. Because I believe that if we're going to lift up the independent restaurant industry, we have to do it together. We have to share knowledge. And that's what we're doing at Restaurant Unstoppable Network. We're creating the space for leaders like Christian and all these badass restaurateurs to stand a platform to stand, to share knowledge, to share perspective, and to lift each other up. We'd love to have you be a part of it. We're having a blast. If you want to be a part of this conversation and all future conversations, head over to restaurantunstoppable.com live and we'll see you there.