Interview with Fishbowl CEO Adam Ochstein about the importance of email marketing, the introduction of Delightable, and how a hotel chain helped shape his idea of data personalization.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Welcome to Restaurant Influencers
00:07 presented by Entrepreneur.
00:09 I am your host, Sean Walchef.
00:10 This is a Cali BBQ Media production.
00:13 I wanna give a special shout out to Toast,
00:15 title sponsor for this show,
00:17 for believing in the power of storytelling,
00:19 believing in the power of hospitality.
00:21 In life, in the restaurant business,
00:24 and in the new creator economy,
00:26 we learn through lessons and stories.
00:28 Today, I have Adam Ochstein, who is the CEO of Fishbowl.
00:33 Fishbowl is an incredible company
00:36 that I have known about as a restaurateur.
00:39 I don't know when I first learned,
00:41 but we opened in 2008,
00:43 and I remember right when we first started
00:45 doing digital marketing,
00:47 the first company that we signed up for was Fishbowl,
00:50 and Fishbowl's doing all kinds of new, cool things,
00:53 and wanted to have Adam on the show.
00:55 Adam, welcome.
00:56 - Thanks for having me, Sean,
00:58 and like you, most of the restaurant industry
01:03 used Fishbowl at one time.
01:04 If you've been around a while, heard of Fishbowl,
01:06 and like you, a lot of them left
01:08 during some of the tough times,
01:10 but our goal is to get everyone back.
01:12 - I love it.
01:13 - Back into Fishbowl.
01:15 - Adam, let's start there.
01:16 Let's start, where in the world
01:18 is your favorite stadium, stage, or venue?
01:20 - My old, my favorite stadium doesn't exist anymore,
01:25 which would be Old Yankee Stadium,
01:27 but new one's nice, but Old Yankee Stadium's great.
01:31 You and I were just talking before we went on air
01:33 about SoFi, which is on my bucket list to see,
01:36 so hopefully one of these days,
01:37 I'll come out for a football game
01:39 and watch my Jets lose to either the Chargers or the Rams.
01:43 - Let's go back to Old Yankee Stadium.
01:47 We're gonna talk to Toast, we'll talk to Entrepreneur,
01:49 we'll talk to Fishbowl, we'll get a bunch
01:51 of restaurant technology, digital hospitality leaders
01:54 to sponsor an event.
01:56 We're gonna fill it with you, the listener,
01:58 people that we like to say are playing
02:00 the game within the game.
02:02 There's people that are curious
02:03 that might just listen to a show.
02:05 The people that we've interacted with
02:07 that have supported this show, they actually get involved.
02:09 So if we put on a kick-ass event, a TEDx-style event,
02:14 I know they'll come, but I wanna put you on pitcher's mound,
02:18 give you the mic, and say, Adam,
02:20 tell me your Fishbowl story.
02:22 How did you come to be the CEO of Fishbowl?
02:25 And what is Fishbowl building for the future?
02:28 - Yeah, so I spent a while in the restaurant tech space.
02:34 I was founder and CEO of an HR payroll SaaS company,
02:38 Stratix, which was acquired by Toast back in 2019.
02:42 And after that, I stayed on board for a while
02:45 and then did some advising, consulting work.
02:48 And when the opportunity to help lead
02:51 the next stage of Fishbowl came up,
02:53 back when I joined, they changed the name to Personica,
02:56 the opportunity to help be a part of the next chapter of,
03:02 as you said, an iconic OG email marketing company
03:07 and help build the next version of what Fishbowl is to be
03:12 was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
03:14 And we've been here for a little less than two years
03:17 and extremely excited to be a part of our growth
03:22 that we've been having since I've been here
03:24 and hopefully some continued success
03:27 and to get all those restaurants
03:29 that used to use Fishbowl back in the bowl.
03:32 - Bring me, so I have some statistics.
03:35 You have 50,000 restaurants, 9 billion emails, SMS offers,
03:40 154 unique guests in your database.
03:45 You've generated $10 billion. - 154 million.
03:48 - 154 million, thank you.
03:50 154 million guests in the database,
03:54 220 million personalized offers last year,
03:58 and 10 billion in total gross revenue
04:01 generated for your clients.
04:03 Those numbers are insane.
04:06 - They are insane.
04:07 I would like to take maybe 10% of the transactional revenue
04:12 and some of our revenue. - Right?
04:15 - I don't think we'd have the time we had
04:17 if we did that though, right?
04:19 - Yeah, no kidding.
04:21 Tell me, just give me a global scope
04:25 of what those numbers mean
04:26 and still the opportunity that's available.
04:29 - Yeah, it means that email and email marketing
04:34 is still really relevant for restaurants, right?
04:37 Until old gray haired guys like me die off,
04:41 we're still gonna pick up our phone, check an email.
04:44 I might view a text here and there,
04:46 but I'm still gonna look at my email all the time.
04:50 And if you are getting emails from a restaurant
04:54 and it's well crafted and pithy or has a relevant offer,
04:59 it works, it works better than the junk mail I get,
05:03 paper form from the postal service on a daily basis.
05:06 There's something special
05:08 about still receiving an email to me.
05:09 Maybe it's because I'm in the email SMS marketing space,
05:14 but to me, it's still a powerful marketing tool.
05:18 And even if someone doesn't act on it,
05:20 keeping that your restaurant brand on top of mind
05:24 is always important.
05:26 - Let's talk about email
05:29 and specifically let's talk about birthday emails
05:32 because in the digital hospitality space,
05:34 digital marketing space, storytelling,
05:36 there's so many different places
05:38 that restaurateurs are asked to be available
05:42 to market their businesses.
05:44 But from a simple premise of a guest comes in,
05:47 they like the barbecue at our restaurant
05:50 and we offer them the one thing
05:51 when we were fishbowl clients back in the day,
05:54 which was, would you like a free peach cobbler
05:57 on your birthday?
05:59 Simple.
06:00 - Yeah.
06:01 - Literally just give us your email address.
06:03 We will put it into our database
06:05 and automatically the week of your birthday,
06:07 we are gonna send you a free peach cobbler
06:09 for your birthday.
06:11 - I had the privilege,
06:12 we had our company-wide kickoff two weeks ago
06:15 and I brought back, it was fun to see him speak,
06:19 but we had Scott Shaw speak at our kickoff
06:24 and I got to hear, or the whole company got to hear,
06:26 Scott was the founder and CEO of Fishbowl.
06:29 So I got to hear from his point of view
06:31 how the company took off
06:32 and he talked about the power of the birthday email
06:36 and he said when they grew the company
06:39 from a concept to, it's really it's apex back in 2015, 2016,
06:44 that simple thing of birthday email,
06:50 last time visit, and a follow-up email,
06:56 along with an anniversary of you becoming an E-Club member,
06:59 those three, if he said, if we can execute on those three,
07:04 everything else is gravy.
07:05 - Yep.
07:06 - And obviously it's gotten a lot more sophisticated
07:09 since then, but the birthday email
07:11 is still extremely powerful.
07:13 I mean, who doesn't want to get an email on their birthday
07:15 with a free offer?
07:16 - It's unbelievable and I'm so happy
07:20 that we get to talk about it because it's so easy.
07:23 You know, anybody that's, anyone that's listening to this,
07:25 if you own a restaurant, if you're in the restaurant space,
07:28 and like that, that's a reminder to me too
07:30 because we've have so many different digital channels now.
07:33 We have Uber Eats, we have DoorDash,
07:35 we have Toast, Online Ordering,
07:36 we have all of these different places,
07:39 social media, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok,
07:42 YouTube, podcasts, like there's so many different ways
07:45 for brands, for us to interact with our customers.
07:49 The simplest thing is just showing them that you care,
07:52 like that's true loyalty, right?
07:54 Is I care enough, I care enough about you
07:56 as a brand, as a restaurant, that I'm going to tell you
07:59 that not the year that I was born, but the day,
08:01 the month and the date of when I was born.
08:04 And you don't even have to do anything,
08:06 you just need to put it in
08:07 and then automatically it will generate a gift.
08:11 And when you get that gift, I get it or my wife gets it,
08:14 it reminds us of our favorite restaurant.
08:16 Like, I don't need to come in on the day,
08:18 I can come in anytime that week and redeem my offer,
08:21 and I'm going to go tell all my friends,
08:23 like we're going to go to my favorite restaurant.
08:25 - Yeah, it is such a low hanging fruit, no brainer,
08:29 that, you know, we, and we still get-
08:32 It seems ridiculous to talk about.
08:34 - It does.
08:35 - But it's so effective.
08:38 - And it's different, you know, we do a lot of SMS as well,
08:41 so I'm not discounting SMS, right?
08:44 But there's something about, you know, an SMS,
08:47 like it's thought, you know, it's transactional,
08:50 it's quick, it's that moment in time,
08:53 which is great if you want to like, hey, come in today,
08:55 we have an offer today, but the birthday email,
09:00 it sits in your inbox, maybe you put it in a folder,
09:03 you know, store it away, and then you come back to it,
09:06 no one's going to scroll through their texts
09:08 and look for, when did Kelly Barbecue send that birthday?
09:12 Oh yeah, it was right around my birthday,
09:14 let me look for that text.
09:16 Email's powerful.
09:17 - Very powerful.
09:19 Can you tell me what is Delightable?
09:22 - So what we've done, Sean, is we've taken
09:26 all the historical knowledge that we have
09:29 and realized, as you referenced,
09:30 so you started listing off DoorDash, Uber, Toast,
09:33 you know, Toast Online, you know, loyalty, SMS, email,
09:38 there's all these different databases or systems
09:42 that have guest data.
09:44 So Sean probably sits in, in any given restaurant,
09:47 you know, between guest Wi-Fi, online ordering,
09:51 POS, reservation data, et cetera, et cetera,
09:55 your information sits in probably seven or eight
09:57 different systems, so if I'm a marketer,
10:00 and I want to have this, you know,
10:02 single version of the truth for all my guest data,
10:05 what we've done is taken all of our historical knowledge
10:08 and tried to elevate it a bit by saying,
10:10 we don't care who you use for all those other systems,
10:13 we might use us for a lot of them,
10:15 but we understand that from your Martech stack,
10:17 there's going to be a bunch of different things
10:20 or systems that interact with guests,
10:22 let us be the CRM or system of record
10:25 for all that guest data, so that when it comes time
10:29 to market, you have really good understanding of,
10:34 you know, day part, whether it's off-prem or on-prem,
10:39 what you actually ordered that was on the ticket,
10:42 you know, last time visited, birthday,
10:45 and all those other things,
10:46 so I might not send you a peach cobbler,
10:49 you know, the next version of Delightable,
10:51 I might not send you a peach cobbler,
10:54 get a free peach cobbler, if I know every single time
10:56 you come in, you get the pecan pie,
10:58 I might send you a pecan pie offer
11:01 as opposed to the peach cobbler, right?
11:03 Or maybe, you know, I don't like fruit, you know,
11:07 so whatever the situation might be,
11:10 you might be able to mix up your offer a bit
11:12 by getting your arms around all that data,
11:14 so rather than a spray and pray,
11:16 we're looking to personalize that
11:19 by getting your arms around more data,
11:22 but that's really what Delightable tries to do.
11:24 - Can you explain the decision for using Delightable
11:30 as a forward-facing, that's, from a social standpoint,
11:35 like, Delightable's the Instagram account
11:37 versus Fishbowl being the Instagram account?
11:41 - Yeah, and those who know me or are listening,
11:44 or you get a chance to know me,
11:45 I, you know, I am blunt and honest and truthful.
11:49 I inherited the name Personica.
11:51 I didn't know what Personica was.
11:53 I knew who Fishbowl was,
11:55 so rather than name our new product with the Personica name,
12:00 we came up with the name Delightable,
12:03 which is delighting the table.
12:04 We figured it's a product name,
12:06 and, you know, we went about,
12:09 and three months after we launched Delightable,
12:12 we launched it on Valentine's Day last year, you know,
12:15 our love affair with restaurants, let's give our love back.
12:18 That's why we launched Delightable on Valentine's Day.
12:21 I think in late April, early May of last year,
12:24 we changed the name back from Personica to Fishbowl,
12:27 so we have some branding cleanup to do,
12:30 which we're going through the process of right now.
12:32 Delightable will still be our flagship product,
12:35 but it'll be powered by Fishbowl,
12:37 that we're gonna start to introduce, you know,
12:39 because people know,
12:41 if you've been in the restaurant industry a while,
12:43 you know the name Fishbowl.
12:44 - For sure.
12:46 - So people don't know what Delightable is.
12:47 It's a product name.
12:49 So in terms of our, you know, Instagram, social media,
12:52 it'll probably be, you know, transition to Fishbowl.
12:56 - Yep.
12:57 - Delightable Fishbowl product.
12:58 - That makes sense.
12:59 - To make sure that we're capturing some of that,
13:01 you know, that brand, you know,
13:05 that brand equity we've built up over 20 some years.
13:09 - I would love for you to talk more about brand.
13:11 I was fortunate just last week,
13:12 I was at the Toast sales kickoff,
13:14 and I was able to interview Amon Narang,
13:17 the co-founder of Toast,
13:18 and now the new CEO,
13:20 and just talking to him about brand,
13:22 and him, you know, honestly sharing that
13:25 that wasn't something that he thought about.
13:26 He thought it was, we're in the B2B space.
13:29 No one cares.
13:30 Let's just build the best product possible.
13:32 And when you're starting in the beginning,
13:37 you don't believe,
13:39 or you're not thinking that that even matters
13:41 until you get to a size of a Fishbowl or a Toast,
13:45 where all of a sudden that's how people know you,
13:48 and that's how people talk about you.
13:50 Can you bring me back to your early days,
13:53 back when you were early startup founder,
13:57 of how you thought about brand,
13:59 and what you've come to learn now that you sit where you sit?
14:02 - I had the privilege of working close with Amon
14:06 when I was at Toast.
14:08 And I echo what he said.
14:10 Like when I first started,
14:11 I was a brand new entrepreneur,
14:15 just running on blood, sweat, and tears.
14:19 I didn't care about brand.
14:20 I cared about getting new customers
14:23 and growing the business.
14:24 I didn't care what you call it.
14:25 It's just sign up with my software and be a happy customer.
14:28 - Yeah.
14:29 - But then, you start to grow a little bit
14:32 and you start to see your name listed
14:35 on either a tech landscape for the restaurant space
14:39 by an investment baker,
14:41 or you start to see a list where like,
14:44 do you want a competitor list of Stratix?
14:47 You start to realize that brand does matter
14:52 and people have an opinion of you when they see that brand.
14:57 And there's a favorability there.
15:00 I think at Stratix, we changed our logo,
15:03 I wanna say four or five times,
15:07 logo and color in our first eight years,
15:11 not thinking it really mattered.
15:12 And then, so finally had a brand expert come in and say,
15:17 guys, you gotta stop it.
15:19 Stop it.
15:19 - Stop it.
15:20 - And so that's why it was thoughtful of,
15:25 when we changed it back, the name for Fishbowl,
15:28 back from Fishbowl to Personica to Fishbowl,
15:31 we just didn't do it in a cavalier way.
15:36 I wanted to make sure that Personica didn't have
15:41 built up brand equity.
15:42 And I did a straw poll of our customers,
15:45 but it was more also a little bit of gut chug.
15:48 Like every time I spoke to any customer,
15:50 they're like, I know you changed the name to Personica,
15:53 but you're always gonna be Fishbowl to us.
15:56 And when I was interviewing,
15:59 when the private equity firm called me and they're like,
16:01 we have this opportunist company called Personica.
16:03 I'm like, I've never heard of them.
16:04 And they're like, oh, it used to be Fishbowl.
16:06 I'm like, oh yeah, Fishbowl.
16:07 I was wondering what happened with Fishbowl.
16:09 So brand does matter.
16:11 It matters a lot.
16:12 And granted the company fell on some hard times.
16:15 So I understand the reason to potentially
16:18 wanna change the name.
16:19 Look over here, it's a new company, but we're Americans.
16:25 We love the rebound.
16:27 We love like the Rocky stories where like,
16:30 guys fall on the mat and they get up.
16:32 We're getting up right now.
16:33 And people are gonna root for us
16:35 because we're special in the industry
16:39 and the industry is better with Fishbowl in it.
16:42 And I'm saying that as the custodian of this brand
16:46 that I didn't start,
16:47 but I have the privilege of helping to lead and run.
16:50 And I owe it to Scott Shaw.
16:52 I owe it to the guys who helped found it
16:55 and built the company up what it is
16:57 to get it back in good standing.
16:59 And that's really what I feel on what my job here is, right?
17:04 - I would love for you to share a little bit more
17:06 about what Scott said to the team
17:09 about what you guys are building,
17:10 being the stewards of the brand and Fishbowl.
17:13 I think that's, it's the founder's story.
17:17 I find the bigger the brand gets, the harder it gets lost
17:21 because people think I've already said it.
17:23 I've already told you the story.
17:24 Like we're already here.
17:25 Let's talk about what we're doing here.
17:27 But then you don't realize how many new people,
17:30 it doesn't matter how big the company is,
17:31 how many new people come to find,
17:33 my favorite example is the Michael Jordan quote
17:36 or the Kobe Bryant quote, where they would ask,
17:38 they've asked both of them,
17:40 well, why do you play so hard in the regular season?
17:43 Like, why do you act like this is the NBA finals?
17:47 And both of them separately said,
17:48 I do it for the child that's never seen me play in real life.
17:52 You never know.
17:53 You know, and it goes back to a comedian
17:56 that by the time they tell their Netflix joke at a stadium,
18:00 they've told that joke tens of thousands of times.
18:02 But we have a problem as entrepreneurs
18:05 of telling the same story over and over.
18:07 Can you bring us into the Fishbowl story
18:10 and let our audience know what you have to be a steward of
18:14 and what you need to continue to tell?
18:17 - Yeah, you know, and I'll give a little bit of backdrop.
18:21 You know, Scott founded the company
18:23 and he was murky on the start date
18:26 because there was a couple, you know,
18:27 a day when he came up with the idea of Fishbowl
18:30 and started using it for his restaurants
18:32 that he owned.
18:34 And then the day where he actually started
18:36 to do this for other restaurants.
18:38 And, you know, let's say it's 25 years ago, '99, 2000,
18:42 Scott ran the company as founder and CEO
18:46 up until about, I think, 2015, 2016.
18:50 And they sold to private equity and, you know,
18:52 he transitioned out.
18:55 And when I joined, Scott was not a customer
18:58 and he has 14 restaurants
19:00 under Alexander Restaurant Partners now
19:02 in the DMV in Orlando,
19:05 a very successful restaurateur.
19:08 And he wasn't a customer of Fishbowl.
19:10 And I reached out to him and I said, you know,
19:14 I just, there's something wrong in the world.
19:17 If you're not a customer of the brand you started,
19:23 what do I need to do to get you to become a customer again?
19:26 And I'm not saying like, you know, I'm begging.
19:28 I'm just saying, what do we need to do as an organization
19:30 to earn your business back?
19:32 - That's, I mean, compliments to you for doing that
19:35 because that, I mean, that takes a lot of chutzpah
19:39 to go, hey, something's wrong here,
19:41 but I need to go to the source.
19:43 Like there's, what better source?
19:45 - And he said, well, you know, here's what I'm looking for.
19:51 And, you know, he basically described Delightable,
19:53 what we're building.
19:55 And we were at a stage where it was still like a prototype.
19:58 And I said, are you in front of your,
20:00 you're in front of your Zoom, but are you on your phone?
20:02 Or can I share a screen with you?
20:04 He was like, yeah.
20:05 I said, just want to show you,
20:07 is this what you're talking about?
20:09 And I took him into a, like an early prototype
20:11 of Delightable that we're, you know,
20:13 still building out as an MVP.
20:15 And he's like, this is exactly what I'm talking about.
20:19 He's like, if I was still at Fishbowl,
20:21 I wanted to build this like six, seven years ago
20:24 because I knew that restaurants weren't only using us.
20:27 They were using, you know, there's other sources of data.
20:30 And he's like, the challenge that I had
20:33 entering a greenfield opportunity
20:35 back when I started the company in the early 2000s
20:38 of doing a lot of education and explaining why,
20:43 if you're a restaurateur,
20:44 why you even need to send an email out.
20:48 He said, I came up with the birthday thing
20:50 as a way of, if I can show ROI around the birthday thing
20:53 and some other quick things,
20:55 I can show them the power of email.
20:58 He's like, you're entering the same type
21:00 of greenfield opportunity,
21:03 which you need to explain to restaurant or entrepreneurs
21:07 why they need a CRM for restaurants.
21:10 If they have a way of already marking to their guests,
21:14 you're running through the same type of challenge.
21:15 So what I dealt with 20 years ago,
21:19 you're dealing with now sitting in my chair
21:23 as an organization, educating the marketplace
21:26 and getting them to understand
21:28 there's a better, more efficient way to get,
21:31 you know, using your guys' terminals,
21:34 get asses in seats, right?
21:35 Whether it's a virtual ass with online ordering
21:40 or it's- - Of course.
21:41 Absolutely.
21:43 What gives you energy on a daily basis
21:48 to focus on the things that you guys are building?
21:51 - Speaking of customers, customers and prospects,
21:54 I mean, they're to me, all, I love any entrepreneur,
21:59 but there's something about a restaurant entrepreneur
22:01 that just pulls on every single heartstring that I have.
22:05 It is the absolute hardest industry out there.
22:09 And the passion that every single restaurateur
22:13 brings to their game on a daily basis,
22:16 how do you not want to deliver for a restaurant tour?
22:19 It's the stuff you guys,
22:21 the challenges you go through as an industry.
22:24 You know, I think I made the analogy to our team
22:28 that there's only two things
22:31 that are gonna survive a nuclear holocaust.
22:33 You used to, all that would just be cockroaches
22:36 are the only thing that's gonna survive
22:37 a nuclear holocaust.
22:38 And I'm gonna, I said, I'm gonna den that statement
22:40 and say a restaurant tour
22:41 because you can throw a pandemic at you guys,
22:45 you know, FICA tip credit elimination, great recession,
22:50 you know, inflationary costs, it doesn't matter.
22:53 You guys find a way to continue to succeed.
22:56 So how do you not want to deliver a restaurant tour?
22:59 That to me, that's what gets me excited
23:01 and juiced on a daily basis.
23:04 - How do you get the fishbowl message,
23:07 the delightable message to more restaurateurs?
23:10 What's your strategy for events, for non-events,
23:15 for marketing, for media, for storytelling?
23:17 - Well, I wish that capital was as cheap
23:21 as when Toast started back in 2013,
23:25 when they can hire 500 sales reps
23:28 and just flood the market with Toast reps.
23:31 We don't have the luxury of that anymore.
23:34 So, you know, and we have a limited sales team
23:36 and, you know, I've said before, like, you know,
23:40 I'm old school where to me,
23:43 it's like getting in front of customers
23:45 is picking up a phone or stopping in the restaurant.
23:48 But, you know, top of funnel marketing, you know,
23:52 decisions are being made before a sales rep
23:55 even speaks to a prospect anymore.
23:57 So it's, you know, we have upped our game
24:00 or I've upped my game as CEO
24:03 of understanding the importance of digital content,
24:08 dark social, you know, podcasts like this,
24:13 you know, we're working with the branded guys a bit,
24:17 some, you know, branded hospitality guys a bit on,
24:20 you know, on some content.
24:23 You know, last year, I think we just attended
24:27 National Restaurant Association.
24:29 I'm like, we have nothing to exhibit.
24:31 This is what I inherited.
24:33 This year, I think we're attending eight or nine
24:35 different conference events throughout the country.
24:37 And we're gonna do restaurants.
24:38 - Attending or exhibiting?
24:40 Attending or exhibiting?
24:41 Both, got it. - Both.
24:42 And we're gonna do the Restaurant 365
24:45 Restaurant Transformation Tour.
24:47 Again, this year, we did that last year.
24:49 So, you know, those guys have always been
24:51 great partners of mine.
24:52 I love the guys at Restaurant 365.
24:55 And, you know, to me, it's a potentially
24:58 really good partnership for us.
25:00 So, you know, just get in front of people.
25:04 Like when we were at NRA last year,
25:06 people came by the booth, you know,
25:07 talking about Power of Brand and said,
25:09 oh my God, you guys are still around?
25:11 Like, I didn't realize Fishbowl was still in business.
25:14 - I appreciate the candor, yes.
25:17 That is what I thought as well.
25:18 (laughing)
25:20 - So, you know, that's a fun story to tell, right?
25:24 We're still here, we're still relevant,
25:26 and this is what we're doing now.
25:28 - For sure.
25:29 No, I think it's fundamentally,
25:32 back to Americans love a good comeback story,
25:35 it's hard to do.
25:39 - It is.
25:39 - It's hard to do, but the challenge
25:41 is what gets me excited for, you know,
25:44 someone like you to come in and say,
25:47 I'm up for the challenge.
25:48 This is what we've built, this is the legacy that we have.
25:51 How do we not only win back the customers
25:53 that we had before, but also how do we get new customers?
25:56 - Yeah.
25:58 You know, I've done a couple startups now.
26:01 I have the privilege of being successful
26:03 and, you know, two of the ones I helped build.
26:07 And I was, you know, I was in sales at some other startups,
26:10 like in sales leadership, but you know,
26:12 where I'm sitting in my seat, you know,
26:15 this is my first turnaround.
26:18 And to me, they're extremely, extremely similar,
26:22 but for you have, I have revenue now, right?
26:27 Why didn't you start if you don't have revenue?
26:30 - That's nice.
26:30 - But with that, you also have some, you know,
26:33 some debt, like some psychological debt,
26:35 some technical debt, right?
26:38 We're building, you know, that's part of the reason
26:40 we built Delightable was taking a core product
26:43 that was built in the early 2000s.
26:46 And rather than put lipstick on the pig,
26:49 and, you know, I figured you can appreciate that
26:51 with the barbecue.
26:52 - Always.
26:54 - Put lipstick on the pig, let's find some ways,
26:57 you know, let's just rebuild the entire tech stack
27:00 in a modern way that we can scale.
27:03 And, you know, that was challenging too,
27:05 'cause now we have customers on two platforms.
27:08 And how do I give the carrot and not the stick
27:10 to our existing customers to migrate over
27:13 and move their cheese?
27:14 Well, this is how you do things in legacy fishbowl product.
27:18 And this is why you should want to use Delightable.
27:21 And that's our big goal this year,
27:24 is to get the lion's share of our legacy customers
27:28 moved over to Delightable.
27:30 In addition, obviously getting a lot of new logos on it,
27:33 you know, 'cause to me that'll be the best feedback
27:37 for product innovation is speaking to current customers on,
27:41 you know, you tell us what we need to build
27:42 and we'll build it.
27:43 - For someone like you that lives in the loyalty space,
27:49 who do you see outside of the restaurant industry
27:53 that does a great job with loyalty, brand wise?
27:56 - Outside of the restaurant space?
27:59 - Yeah.
28:00 - Bonvoy, you know, Bonvoy always comes back to me
28:06 as a doing a really good job.
28:07 Like I'll go out of my way to stay at a Bonvoy hotel.
28:12 You know, even to the point where I think last time,
28:16 one of the last times I traveled,
28:17 I went to University of Maryland,
28:19 a little plug for the Terps.
28:21 So I went back for a football game in the fall
28:25 and I was staying at a Marriott property
28:27 and all my other friends were checked in the room
28:30 and I'm sitting at the bar, you know,
28:33 waiting to get my room.
28:34 It's now 4.30, five o'clock and I go back to the front desk
28:37 and I'm like, check in the three,
28:40 we're like, my room's still not ready.
28:41 I'm like, Mr. Oxtein, we don't have anything
28:44 on a higher floor away from an elevator
28:47 with the type of setup that you like.
28:49 So that's why there's a delay.
28:53 - That's amazing.
28:54 - And to me, that is what I want to bring with Delightable
28:58 is that personalization, you know, the whole norm,
29:02 normatures for, you know, you're a restaurateur,
29:06 if you have one or two units,
29:08 a really good general manager is going to know
29:11 that personalized information, but the bigger you get,
29:15 you're relying on people to know things about your guests.
29:18 So I want to give data to do that.
29:20 And I think guests are willing to share data
29:24 as long as they're going to derive some value and benefit
29:28 for sharing that information.
29:29 If you know that I don't like to sit near the bar,
29:33 that I like a booth in a quieter area,
29:37 and I'm a regular, you're going to do your best
29:39 to seat me in that area, right?
29:42 And know that like, because that matters.
29:44 But if I'm sharing that data with you,
29:47 you're going to only enhance my experience on a daily basis.
29:51 So Bonvoy does a great job.
29:53 I hate all airlines because I fly enough to hate them all,
29:55 but American, I think, I fly American all the time
29:59 because I'm in Chicago, but everyone says
30:01 Delta's got a great loyalty program too,
30:04 but I wouldn't know from experience.
30:06 - Well, I appreciate the candor.
30:08 And anybody that's listening to this,
30:10 you matter, your story matters.
30:13 We want you to join us on LinkedIn.
30:15 You can connect with me @SeanPWalcheff,
30:18 S-H-A-W-N-P-W-A-L-C-H-E-F.
30:22 Every Wednesday, every Friday, we do a LinkedIn audio room
30:24 so you can come on stage, tell us about your restaurant.
30:27 If you're in sales, if you're in marketing,
30:29 if you're in tech, this is a place for you
30:32 to come and get involved.
30:34 We also do a social shout out.
30:35 This week's social shout out goes to Marina Borges.
30:40 She is sales for Fishbowl.
30:43 She is active on LinkedIn.
30:45 She connected with me.
30:46 She introduced me to Adam.
30:47 I'm always looking for the best storytellers on earth,
30:51 the best ones on hospitality,
30:53 the best ones in technology.
30:54 And Adam, I'm so grateful that Marina did her due diligence,
30:59 got us introduced, and now I'm really excited
31:01 for what you guys are building.
31:03 Can't wait to see you guys out at all the shows.
31:06 What's the best place for people
31:07 to learn more about Fishbowl?
31:10 - Fishbowl.com, on the World Wide Web or on LinkedIn.
31:16 Make sure you find a Fishbowl restaurant marketing
31:19 not to Fishbowl, e-com.
31:21 It does.
31:22 (laughing)
31:23 E-com.
31:24 Story for another day about how I get blown up
31:27 every now and then with Hateful Now about that company.
31:30 Email, LinkedIn, that's hilarious.
31:32 Yeah.
31:33 - And real quick, before I let you go,
31:34 I want to learn a little bit
31:35 about your smartphone storytelling tactics.
31:38 Are you an iPhone or an Android user?
31:40 - I'm an iPhone user.
31:44 - iPhone, what version?
31:45 - I have, I used to get every single new version,
31:49 but last year I took off, but I do have the 15.
31:52 - Yeah, the 15. - Max Pro, whatever.
31:54 Max Pro. - And how,
31:55 do you prefer emails or text messages?
31:57 - It depends on who it is.
31:59 If my buddy Sean is reaching out to me, I prefer a text.
32:04 If it's a cold outreach, I prefer an email.
32:07 - And do you prefer phone calls or text messages?
32:11 - Depends.
32:15 It really depends.
32:18 I never mind a phone call, but a text is something,
32:21 depending on the purpose of it, text serve as purpose,
32:25 but sometimes the written word doesn't,
32:28 doesn't replace the verbal word, right?
32:32 - Do you leave voicemails?
32:35 - I feel like that old guy in the progressive,
32:39 don't become your parent.
32:40 I still leave voicemails.
32:43 - That's fantastic.
32:45 Which app do you use for maps?
32:49 - I'm Apple fan boy, so I use the Apple Maps
32:53 'cause it's native and it works with my CarPlay.
32:56 - What is your favorite app on your phone
32:59 that you use it the most?
33:00 - Slack probably, Slack for internal communication,
33:10 but I'm on LinkedIn a lot.
33:11 That's the social media app that I'm on a lot.
33:14 - Are you posting on LinkedIn?
33:17 - I do post on LinkedIn, but a lot of times I just sit there
33:19 and just kind of scroll around and like, you know.
33:23 - See what's going on?
33:24 - I see what's going on.
33:25 It's weird, isn't it?
33:27 Are you on LinkedIn doing that?
33:28 - Very active on LinkedIn, yeah.
33:30 We believe that there's no greater,
33:36 at least from a B2B standpoint, digital playground
33:39 than LinkedIn right now in 2024.
33:42 People are on there looking for educational content,
33:46 like real truth, like tell us what you're building,
33:49 like building in public.
33:51 And the people that are building in public
33:52 are building these incredible opportunities,
33:55 networking that, I mean, I am shocked every single day
34:00 of how many people that I don't even know
34:02 that are following me on LinkedIn,
34:04 but when I go to an event, you know,
34:05 I was just, like I said, a toast sales kickoff,
34:08 the amount of sales reps that I had no idea
34:10 I was even connected to them.
34:11 They're like, "Sean, it's great to see you.
34:13 I love your videos.
34:15 I love your content.
34:16 Keep putting more out there."
34:18 Okay.
34:19 - You know, talk about like brand renaissance.
34:24 Like look at Microsoft, right?
34:25 I mean, Microsoft's a great store
34:27 and everyone thought they were out for dead.
34:29 Now it's like one of those valued stocks out there
34:31 and they own LinkedIn, right?
34:32 Like some of the assets they bought and built
34:34 over the last 10 years,
34:37 great example of renaissance, right?
34:40 Yeah. - Correct.
34:41 Well, yeah, I mean, LinkedIn is like,
34:43 it's just, it's a huge opportunity.
34:44 I encourage you to continue to post
34:46 and your team to continue to post on the company page,
34:49 but also individual, you know, humans connect to humans.
34:52 Humans are the heart of technology
34:54 and that's how any of these great organizations are built
34:58 is that we, you know, we know who our guy is
35:00 or who our girl is.
35:01 Like that's who we work with
35:02 and no matter where they go in the company,
35:05 that's the brand storytelling, right?
35:07 - 100%, no doubt.
35:10 - Where, do you have a favorite quote?
35:15 - Yeah, it's a longer one,
35:17 so I'll just give a brief one to George Bernard Shaw.
35:21 I wanna be thoroughly used up when I die
35:22 for the harder I work, the more I live.
35:25 Life is no brief candle to me,
35:27 it is short of a splendid torch,
35:28 which I have hold it for a short period of time
35:31 and I want it to burn as brightly as possible
35:34 before handing it off to future generations.
35:37 - Wow, that was off the cuff, that was beautiful.
35:40 - Being thoroughly used up
35:42 about like taking advantage of every single day
35:46 and giving back, right?
35:47 'Cause it's also about, you know,
35:49 giving back to the community and being, you know,
35:52 burning your candle up, right, fully.
35:56 - That's amazing.
35:58 It's Adam Ockstein, thank you so much, CEO of Fishbowl.
36:02 Please connect with Fishbowl,
36:03 we'll put links into the show notes.
36:05 Connect with me, I'm weirdly available.
36:08 I love to hear your story.
36:09 - Thank you.
36:10 - I love to hear your story.
36:11 No matter where you find me on the digital playground
36:13 or in real life, as always, stay curious, get involved,
36:17 and don't be afraid to ask for help.
36:18 Adam, thank you so much for your time.
36:21 - Thank you, Sean, it was a pleasure.
36:22 (upbeat music)
36:25 (upbeat music)
36:28 you