WISK white logo-> All episodes <-

January 22, 2025

S2E66 - Reimagining Restaurant Order Pickup with Pickpad

Yaro Tsyhanenko discusses Pickpad's impact on restaurant operations, smart sensors, and improving pickup, delivery, and customer experience.

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WISK white logo-> All episodes <-

January 22, 2025

Reimagining Restaurant Order Pickup with Pickpad

Yaro Tsyhanenko discusses Pickpad's impact on restaurant operations, smart sensors, and improving pickup, delivery, and customer experience.

Apple Podcast player linkSpotify Podcast player linkGoogle Podcasts player link

Show notes

In this episode, Yaro Tsyhanenko, founder and CEO of Pickpad, shares his journey from Ukraine to Chicago and the inspiration behind creating Pickpad, a modular system designed to enhance restaurant operations through smart sensors and machine learning.

He discusses the challenges faced by restaurants in managing pickup and delivery orders and how Pickpad aims to streamline these processes, improve customer experience, and provide valuable data insights.

Finally, the conversation also touches on the technology behind Pickpad, its potential impact on the restaurant industry, and the importance of customer and employee satisfaction.

Takeaways

  • Yaro's journey from Ukraine to founding Pickpad in Chicago.
  • Pickpad
  • aims to enhance restaurant operations with smart technology.
  • The importance of customer experience in the restaurant industry.
  • Challenges faced by restaurants in managing orders efficiently.
  • Pickpad
  • 's use of sensors to improve order accuracy and efficiency.
  • The significance of data in optimizing restaurant operations.
  • Yaro's motivation to create solutions for real-world problems.
  • The potential for Pickpad to transform the quick-service restaurant experience.
  • Feedback from pilot programs will guide future improvements.
  • The CES Innovation Award recognition highlights Pickpad's potential.

Timestamps

00:00 Ukrainian Entrepreneur Revolutionizes Restaurant Tech

03:32 Ukrainian Food Delivery Success

06:45 Tech Frustrations in Restaurant Pickups

11:30 Labor Efficiency Challenges in Busy Stores

13:30 "Smart Pads Boost QSR Profits"

17:33 Launching Full-Scale Pilot in Chicago

20:12 Optimizing Order Predictions with Sensors

24:34 "Streamlining User Experience"

27:18 Unified Digital-Physical Customer Experience

32:12 Open Pilots for Real-World Testing

33:27 "Yaro's Pickpad AI Journey"

Resources

Follow Yaro on his LinkedIn account!

Learn more about Pickpad!

Transcript

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:00:00]:

Actually, we just started to deploy our first stations in several restaurants here in Chicago. And now we are specifically connected to their pickup experience. Online pickup experience. And we help actually restaurants to drive their first party ordering using this beautiful station. It's like fast tracking airport. Right? And your customers are your VIPs using your first party ordering.

Angelo Esposito [00:00:45]:

Welcome to another episode of WISKing It All. We're joined today by the founder and CEO of Pickpad, Yarrow Sihanenko. I don't know if I got that right. Did I get that close?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:00:57]:

Yeah, it was super close. Thanks a lot, Angelo. Happy to hear and yeah, looking forward to this game.

Angelo Esposito [00:01:03]:

Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. Obviously, I was checking out your solution. Really Pickpad. Really interesting solution. So let's give people a quick background for our listeners who don't know. They're like, what is this Pickpad AI thing? So let's give them a quick one and we'll get more into it. But let's just start with a quick. What is Pickpad?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:01:25]:

So Pickpad is a modular system of smart pet powered by sensors and machine learning to help busy restaurants manage their pickup and deliver orders in the most efficient way and take the customer experience to the next level.

Angelo Esposito [00:01:40]:

Very cool. So we'll get more into that for people listening in and who are not watching. If you go to, you know, Pickpad I, you'll see a demo. I watch a demo. Really cool. And, you know, I won't do it justice, but it's basically, you know, these really, I guess these smart sensors like, like Yarrow mentioned. Imagine picking up coffee at Starbucks and they're kind of on the counter, or you can put them on a shelf and knows when someone picks it up. It integrates with the pos.

Angelo Esposito [00:02:04]:

It's really neat. So we'll get into all of that. But I guess first things first, I want to get in. I always like to understand the founder story and then we'll get more into the actual company. So, Darrow, your journey is incredible. From, from Ukraine to Chicago. Now founding Pickpad. So what, what's the story there? Like, tell me a bit about, like, you know, what brought you to Chicago specifically and the story behind, you know, I guess your story.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:02:29]:

Yeah, sure. I'm entrepreneur and I've been building tech solutions for the restaurant space for the last 15 years. And I've built my previous products for the Ukrainian market because I'm Ukrainian and I have some experience in the space. So everything started from a small, tiny city guide. It was 15 years ago and it was Not a business, it was just for fun. Something about restaurants, reviews and interesting things in our city. And I started to talk to restaurants and I realized that this industry is so complex and so operationally, I mean, hard to operate to do. And I realized that technologies to can potentially save a lot of hours and money and providing credible customer experience by talking to people working in this industry.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:03:32]:

I started to dive into these challenges and problems and slowly started to solve this challenges and fix these problems. So I started for delivery marketplace. It's like Crop Hop, DoorDash, Uber Eats. But in Ukraine, we became top three Foodler marketplaces. Scaled in 15 Ukrainian cities, delivered millions of orders, then built our guest kitchen on top of this marketplace. It was kind of logical and obvious next step. And then we realized that, all right, so we have this incredible team of people working on this product. We've built everything in house.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:04:14]:

So what if we share everything with other restaurant groups and food delivery businesses and services and everything. So we launched one more company that is called DOTS Platform. It's like white label restaurant commerce modular system that includes ordering, marketing, loyalty delivery and everything. So we can provide it as a white label. Yeah. And then the world started. A lot of things happened. At the end of the day, everything is okay.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:04:50]:

And I brought all my kids and family and parents abroad. We were traveling in Europe. I also traveled to the United States just to figure out what to do next and how to build our future. And I quickly realized that I want to be in this country because it's the best place place to be and build new product for the future of this industry.

Angelo Esposito [00:05:19]:

Yes.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:05:19]:

And yeah, I moved to the States one year ago to Chicago. And yeah. Started to think about new things.

Angelo Esposito [00:05:29]:

Very cool. And what made you pick Chicago? Was there something that drew you to Chicago specifically?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:05:34]:

Yeah, actually I visited different cities before I came here with my family. Best coast, east coast, Midwest and so on. And I believe that Chicago is a great player city for start in terms of like your investment in this new story. It's one of the most affordable cities, especially living with families. And it's a foodies city, right?

Angelo Esposito [00:06:03]:

It is, yeah. That's where the city with a lot of restaurant association is and absolutely a lot of restaurants. So no. Okay.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:06:10]:

Yeah. And there's a great community around restaurants and technologies here in Chicago. So yeah, it was my pick. And I'm happy to hear.

Angelo Esposito [00:06:19]:

That's very cool. And so was there a specific moment when you thought I need to create something like pickpad? Like what was that aha moment where you know, you're working and I know the feeling you're working on one company and solving the next problem and another problem. And so you kind of a natural entrepreneur just solving problems and kind of, you know, creating companies, which is super cool. What was the moment that you create, you know, you thought I need to create something like Pickpad.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:06:45]:

I always often and heavily use different tech player tools, especially in the restaurant industry. Yeah. So using like a mobile pickup as a common, like a way to order something, you might go to coffee shop, salad shop and so on, deliveries and so on. So. And I always like being frustrated in terms of my experience in every store because you make your mobile order, you are busy, you just want to grab and go. You come to a store and you actually wait longer than people in, in a line. You actually don't like know exactly what your order status is. You're not sure if it's a time to like go to this crowd, like a crowd space with a lot of cups to take, like to start looking for yours.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:07:38]:

And it's kind of like, and then you will get see this like a coffee and just realize that it's not yours. It's like it was mistake. Right. It's a cop, it's your name, but it's kind of not your drink. Right. So it's always not great experience for me and for many, many people I talk with and I realized that I just to fix it.

Angelo Esposito [00:08:00]:

That's really cool. And so moving to a new country and starting, you know, small business, you know, I would say is not, not an easy feat. So how did you stay motivated? How did you stay motivated? Kind of, you know, you, you doing two, two really big things at once.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:08:15]:

I'm naturally motivated. If I am doing something that inspires me a lot. And what inspires me is to build new products for like a potentially millions of people. So there is something that lives in your head. Some like some ideas and at some moment you can just realize these ideas and make it happen. And then other people start using this. And if kind of your ideas can help many, many people to make their lives a little bit more convenient, more happier. And if these ideas can help businesses be more efficient, it's super excited.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:08:58]:

And I mean everyone has on mission right in this world. And I believe that my mission is to create some new products for people. And I'm really, really excited about that.

Angelo Esposito [00:09:12]:

That's cool. Yeah. Even myself as an entrepreneur, I always say it's one of them, at least for me. And I'm sure you're the same way one of the most motivating things is building something out of nothing. You know, like having an idea and then this idea is a tangible thing. And I don't know about you, but for me one of the best feelings was, you know, the first customer. Even though you're like losing so much money, but your first paying customer, you're like that validation of like someone's willing to pay for this thing. It's a really, really cool feeling.

Angelo Esposito [00:09:40]:

So switching gears, I want to go a bit deeper into as promised into pickpad. So we have a lot of restaurant listeners from you know, full service restaurants all the way down to, you know, fast casuals and quick service, which I know that pickup and curbside pick and all that stuff is really important. And so let's talk about pick that. So yeah, sure, let's go a bit more specific. So what exactly does it do? I touched on it, but I want to hear from you what exactly does it do? And tell me how this helps with, with restaurant operations.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:10:09]:

Yeah, sure. So we are building a solution for the future of the restaurant industry and I mean digital native future of every quick serve restaurant in the future. Right. So because I believe that all companies that are working in this quick serve restaurant space are moving towards this fully digital experience behind the counter and digital customer experience as well. And you can see that this trend that gets started before COVID from almost fully offline mode. Right. And it will be almost fully digital in 2028. So kind of one decade, a huge market changes and all of these changes are creating absolutely new problems and challenges and processes around and we are building this product for the future of quick serve restaurant industry.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:11:12]:

And we are about to seamlessly connect physical and digital worlds in one seamless journey for customers and for employees. And we are solving two groups of problems. First group of problem is like applicating behind the counter.

Angelo Esposito [00:11:29]:

Yes.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:11:30]:

And if you take a look at people working at busy stores with a lot of pickup and delivery orders, you can see that they spend from like four to six hours daily. And a general actual manager or supervisor, the most experienced person in our store, just plug a jungling multiple orders making every order is ready completed, double check this order, double check another one, interact with every customer and driver just to help them to find their order. And it's kind of like a fully manual experience. Yeah, they have a lot of software like pieces but at the end of the day they have to click in every like a screen. Right. Change every status and so on. So they spend like a hours a day just for this manual work. And it's like a labor efficiency problem.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:12:28]:

The second problem is a problem with accuracy. The average order accuracy in this space is around like 80, 90%. So it's so low it means one or two orders out of ten are like mistakes. It's kind of crazy, right?

Angelo Esposito [00:12:43]:

That is crazy.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:12:44]:

There's one more problem with data accuracy. So because of no one clicks every second, every button, they just don't have an access to actually data points they need in terms of when the actual order was ready, when the order was completed. So they probably it's hard to understand their average prep time, average waiting time. So if you cannot measure it, yeah, you can't improve that. Right. So we probably are doing something that risk does for back of a house for like a front of house. So we are measuring, providing data and helping them to be more efficient. And the second group of the problem is a customer experience problem, right? Yes.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:13:30]:

There's a report, a lot of reports that tell us that play a bigger, play a better customer experience satisfaction rate, like a better bottom line. If you can improve your retention rate by only 5%, it can influences 25% to 95% your bottom line. So it's crazy, but there is a huge correlation between customer satisfaction and actually your bottom line. So we are solving all of these problems. Coming to peak pad. Right? So we are solving all these problems by leveraging smart pads equipped with sensors. So we are focusing on optimiz zone in every qsr. And this is a modular system of smart pads.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:14:19]:

And instead of doing all of this like seven different steps for every order manually staff member just can put specific order to the specific path and that's it. So pad automatically double checks every order accuracy by matching parameters, live parameters from sensors and data from pos system.

Angelo Esposito [00:14:41]:

Okay.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:14:42]:

Highlighting the problem. If it exists, then it can change the order status automatically. So you don't need to push all of these buttons. And you have clear data points about when actually order was ready in every system. Your POS system, ordering system and so on. Then it highlights customer name. So you are a customer. You come to a store, you see this beautiful station.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:15:07]:

Everything is personalized. Your name, you see your name on the shelf and you take this order. And again this pad automatically changes order status to picked up. So we have clear data points. We automate a lot of processes behind the counter. We save from four to six hours for general manager per day. And we are doing so not to replace this person from behind the counter, but to allow this person to do a human Work to talk to people, to show the hospitality. Right?

Angelo Esposito [00:15:47]:

Yes.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:15:47]:

To make this human touch. Because that. What about the restaurant industry? Right?

Angelo Esposito [00:15:54]:

Yes, that makes sense. That's super interesting. And so just to paint the picture, is this only for pickup orders from the restaurant or also for third party? Meaning if I order through Uber or doordash and I'm the Uber driver, are you also leveraging pickpad for that? So I would see like the. The customer's name and pick it up or is it for now mainly the end customer?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:16:17]:

So actually we just started to deploy our first stations in several restaurants here in Chicago. And now we are specifically connected to their pickup experience. Online pickup experience. Okay. And we help actually restaurants to drive their first party ordering using this beautiful station. It's like fast tracking airport. Right. And your customers are your VIPs using your first party ordering.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:16:51]:

That's cool. And in the future, of course we plan to simplify all the processes for third party delivery services. And it can be one station serving both like a cases pick up on delivery, or it can be a separate station for delivery drivers. And this like a two kind of experiences, pickup experience and driver experience are not intersected depending on like a design of the process in specific restaurant.

Angelo Esposito [00:17:23]:

Right.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:17:23]:

But yeah, we will be doing both.

Angelo Esposito [00:17:25]:

That's cool. And so what's been the reaction from restaurant owners and customers so far? Because I know you said, you know, you launched in a handful of restaurants, so what's been the reaction?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:17:33]:

Yeah, so we are about launching our first full scale pilot. So we haven't have a lot of information. We tested the station a few days in several restaurants just to be sure that everything is okay, it works, it perfectly set up and everything is good. It was like our first phase, but we were not able to collect as much feedback as we want. So we are about launching first pilots here in Chicago. Like a full scale on a long term just to measure all the numbers. How actual many hours can we save? How many like mistakes? Right. So can we detect accuracy? What is the average accuracy rate improvement? What is the customer retention? Because we can actually compare customer cohort using Pickpad with this same cohort before.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:18:32]:

Right. And compare their like a frequency and how can we influence. So yeah, we are about launching this like a pilots working on them and we'll be happy to share our numbers.

Speaker C [00:18:42]:

Very cool. Yeah, once you guys launch and are up for a couple months, we'll definitely have to reconnect. I would love to kind of, you know, share that info because it's super exciting. It looks like A really interesting piece of tech. So it'd be really cool to hear the customer feedback. I know you quickly touch on like you know, a bit of the tech, but I'm curious to just dive a little deeper into it. You know, not so deep because I'm not that technical. But I'm curious what type of data does the pads get? Is it because you know, you mentioned for example, it knows what's on there.

Angelo Esposito [00:19:13]:

Is it looking at weight? Is it looking at like what. What type of data or I guess is are the pads tracking?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:19:21]:

Yeah. So actually Pickpad is our first product in a line of products within the broader concept bringing more data from physical world by sourcing like this data using different kind of sensors. Because as we already discussed, restaurant industry is highly play offline complicated business with a lot of things that are happening offline. Non in digital. Yes things. So we, I strongly believe that restaurants have to have an access to different data points from physical world. And Pickpad is our first iteration generation on a product to source these data points. And for specifically this model of bad.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:20:09]:

Our first model we are using weight sensors.

Angelo Esposito [00:20:11]:

Okay.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:20:12]:

So we are using inexpensive weight sensors to collect data about the order. Compare this data with our information from POS system process this data using machine learning and previous order history to make this prediction more clear. And also we can bring like a several additional data points. Restaurants haven't had Nexus before the actual timestamp of when the order was ready for pickup, when it was put on pickup station that don't just have this timestamp. And one more I believe the most important one when this order was taken.

Angelo Esposito [00:20:58]:

Right.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:20:59]:

To be able to measure this customer waiting time and to be able to improve this. So we are sourcing all this data points, timestamps, information about order accuracy using just only weight sensors. And this is just like a start.

Angelo Esposito [00:21:16]:

Very cool. It's super interesting. Yeah. Because I imagine all the efficiencies can improve. Right. It's. And to paint the picture to maybe let's say the restaurateur is listening in. I know it's still kind of, you know, entering the pilot phase, but if you know, I, if they walked into a restaurant actually that was using Pickpad, what would the experience look like? I know you touched on it, but maybe walk, walk, walk me through let's say a a consumer's experience.

Angelo Esposito [00:21:44]:

So I walk into my favorite coffee shop. What is, what does the. The process look like?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:21:49]:

We don't change any processes for restaurants and for custom will be super predictable. So you make your mobile Order on restaurant app or website. You come to a store and you go to pickup zone. Right.

Angelo Esposito [00:22:04]:

Okay.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:22:04]:

And.

Angelo Esposito [00:22:05]:

But now you'll see your name. So you'll be like, what is this?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:22:07]:

Yeah. Yeah. You see this beautiful station. Everything is structured and organized. You see your name.

Angelo Esposito [00:22:13]:

Interesting.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:22:13]:

Yeah. And you just take your order. I like that. But there is one invisible thing. Sure. By leveraging this data.

Angelo Esposito [00:22:20]:

Yeah.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:22:21]:

Restaurants can meet customer expectations in terms of waiting time. Imagine you made your order and a restaurant knows your location, knows the average prep time for this items, and it starts to prepare your order at some like a point of time because of this calculation.

Angelo Esposito [00:22:46]:

Right. So the optimal time. Right.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:22:48]:

Yeah. You come to this place more fresh. Absolutely. And you are not waiting. So you come to a place and your order. Freshly cut salad was put on this shelf like a 30 seconds ago.

Angelo Esposito [00:23:00]:

That's cool. That'd be a really, really cool little.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:23:03]:

Yeah. So there are a lot of invisible things, like, around data there to improve customer experience. So that's really. That's what we are building. Not just like a fancy shelf with, like, names.

Angelo Esposito [00:23:14]:

Right. All right. That's super neat. And I mean, obviously we know there's. There's real tech. I mean, congrats. I notice you guys won CES Innovation Award, so I'd love to maybe touch on that. Like, how did that happen and what was that experience like?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:23:30]:

Thanks a lot. I really excited about this investment award. I applied for this award. I plug in you. It's one of the most competitive awards for electronics. And it was funny because they have a strange list of categories we can apply. For example, I couldn't apply for smart TVs or for smartphones or. Or something like that.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:23:54]:

So the only applicable category for us was AI. We are doing AI, but they were not like a restaurant tech or something like that. Everyone does AI Right. Right now. So it's like we applied for the most competitive category, right? Yeah. Because I wasn't able to choose something more relevant. And I was really surprised when I got this email from CS that we were selected for this. Aw.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:24:24]:

It means a lot for us. And I will be happy to present this station at CES in January 2025. So. Yeah, it's cool.

Angelo Esposito [00:24:34]:

That's awesome. Now I know that pickpad, you know, it seems to be all about making life easier. So how do you think about, you know, the. The ease of use from, I guess, the three key people, Unless I'm missing some. But I'm thinking of the customer, the staff, which you touched on. But eventually. Also eventually, the Delivery driver, love to just tie it all in like. So how, how do you streamline kind of all three of those points?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:25:08]:

Yeah, sure. Thanks a lot for this great question because I mean we are thinking about two super important terms for us that are unfortunately underestimated in the industry. And these two terms are customer journey and employee journey. So we are about helping customers and employees be happier and more efficient and at the same time not changing any processes at all. Right, that's the challenging part.

Angelo Esposito [00:25:37]:

Yes, because that's interesting.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:25:38]:

Yeah. It's hard to change something in consumption behavior, consumption patterns and in some like a pre trained algorithms for staff members and processes and so on. Right. So you can create absolutely incredible things, but if they completely change the environment, processes and everything, it will not be adapted.

Angelo Esposito [00:26:05]:

Yeah, adoption will be very, very hard.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:26:07]:

Yeah. So we are thinking about customer experience and employee experience with an option not changing the processes and talking about customers and drivers. It's super simple. You come to a store as a driver or as a customer. You see if you are a customer, see your name, everything is personalized and here you go, you take your cup of coffee. But imagine there are like a 100 orders at the same time.

Angelo Esposito [00:26:34]:

Right.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:26:34]:

And I believe it's a future of like two, three years from now. You come to a store, you see this like a massive shelling system and hundreds of orders. Right, Interesting. So let's think about this experience. So how does this experience look like? And at this like a point we will be checking you in by using your geolocation and then highlight your name on this shelf. Not everyone's name. So you will be able to see this blinking pad and your name and it's super easy to find your order. That's the idea of customer seamless customer experience and seamless customer journey.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:27:18]:

And I actually believe in this digital experience because there are no more separate digital and physical experiences. Right. It's one journey that unites both worlds in one incredible experience for customers and foreign place. So we are building this digital experience on a scale as well because we are thinking about future driver, talking about driver. So probably these two stations will be like separated because these are two absolutely different patterns. So I believe companies with a lot of digital orders will have separate place for drivers and like a station for drivers. So we will be able to highlight the name of delivery, third party delivery service and technical information whether it driver name or customer name or order number. So yeah, depending on what they want to see.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:28:13]:

And it's kind of like a big challenge right now because a lot of drivers down like a speak language and it's hard to interact with staff members. And it's kind of like one more manual process to interact with every driver and give any ideas about other status and everything. So we actually can dramatically simplify the process of interaction drivers and your customers in most efficient way. That's my vision for driver experience.

Angelo Esposito [00:28:41]:

That's cool. And how do you guys think? And this won't be repeated pad problem because it's a general problem. But how do you think about like theft? You know, like someone just coming in and just picking up. You know, I go in, I pick up Yara's order, which again, it's not a you problem because it's a problem now without anything digital. But I'm curious, like, is there any benefit of pickpad versus traditional when it comes to theft?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:29:05]:

Of course, it's a great question. And again, we are not changing anything in their processes. I visited 100 stores in downtown Chicago and more than 100 stores in New York City and Manhattan just to understand how they work, what the. What do their processes look like. And I was sitting in every store with my stopwatch making notes just to understand their processes. Everything. Everything. Yeah.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:29:33]:

I. From my experience, I can say that the majority of all restaurants have like this shelling system for pickup publicly available. And some of them keep orders behind the counter.

Angelo Esposito [00:29:48]:

Right.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:29:48]:

And there are several reasons why they are keeping that behind the counter. And theft reasons is one of them. Right. But at the end of the day, if they have public available shelling system, they probably have some cases like a stolen orders. But it costs less I believe.

Angelo Esposito [00:30:09]:

Right.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:30:10]:

To have a big theft one or two orders per day, then have one more like educated person for managing all these situations.

Angelo Esposito [00:30:19]:

Right?

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:30:20]:

Yeah. So I believe it's not a huge problem, but we have solution for that. So we are working on a solution that is called invisible luck. So it's all about. It's how car alarm works. So if you were not checked in and take like a random order. So someone like a. From like a.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:30:45]:

From team restaurant team will hear play up.

Angelo Esposito [00:30:50]:

Right. Simple sound or whatever.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:30:51]:

Yeah, yeah, that's it. That's so interesting. And if they. Because all this like a Stalin like others are like a repetitive orders because of like a people who understood that like it works in this place.

Angelo Esposito [00:31:05]:

Yes.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:31:05]:

So you just have to stop these people several times and that's it.

Angelo Esposito [00:31:08]:

Yes, that makes sense. As. As we kind of wrap up, I want to know. I always like to plug, you know, people's companies. So for people listening we're going to put the links in the podcast episode. But for people listening, where could they find you? Where could they found Pickpad? This is a chance for you to kind of share.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:31:26]:

Yeah, of course. So we have a website for Bigpad. It is Pickpad AI and I'm on LinkedIn so please find me Yara at Sehonenko and I'm sharing my journey and sharing my updates and yeah, happy to stay connected there.

Angelo Esposito [00:31:42]:

That's, that's awesome. So for those listening in and you want to see it because these are one of those things it's going to, you know, if you're listening to this, you might be like, I kind of get it. But once you see it, it makes a ton more sense. So if you are listening in, make sure to check out Pickpad. That's P I C K padpad AI. I was on the site earlier today. There's a nice demo, so really, really neat. And then to wrap things up, what's next for you and Pickpad? It sounds like obviously the pilot's a big one, but I'd love to know what's next for you and Pickpad.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:32:12]:

Yeah, for sure. We are working on different things to improve customer experience and employee experience. So we are starting piloting this solution and we are open for free pilots for great companies, okay. Who want to test this station in real environment to measure their numbers and to understand how can it improve their operations, their efficiency and customer retention. So we are open for that and we are a small startup and we are doing our super fast iterations based on real live data. We're not like closed in our room Scotting something. We are really, really, really practical guys. I prefer to get one more piece of feedback and then get one more improvement.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:33:09]:

So our next steps will be related to improvements based on our pilots. And then when we are ready, we plan to start mass production of these pads and provide all these pads for all restaurants in.

Angelo Esposito [00:33:27]:

I love that. Well, you heard it here guys, with Yarrow, I don't know if I said right, straight from Ukraine, the founder and CEO of Pickpad AI. We'll definitely have to do an update episode once you guys are, are, you know, through this pilot phase. I'd love to reconnect and maybe even do a short episode on updates. How the pilot went, results you got. So once again, Yarrow, thanks for joining us on the WISKing it all podcast.

Yaro Tsyhanenko [00:33:56]:

Yeah, thanks for hosting and yeah, happy to tell you more in the future.

Angelo Esposito [00:34:00]:

If you want to learn more about wisk, head to Wisk.AI and book a demo.

Meet Your Host & Guest

Yaro Tsyhanenko, Founder & CEO of Pickpad

Yaro Tsyhanenko, a Ukrainian food tech entrepreneur with over 15 years of experience, founded Pickpad to address inefficiencies in restaurant order pickups. After relocating to Chicago due to the conflict in Ukraine, he identified challenges in the pickup process, such as customers and delivery drivers struggling to locate their orders, leading to delays and errors. To tackle these issues, Tsyhanenko developed Pickpad, a modular system of smart pads equipped with sensors and machine learning capabilities. These pads integrate with existing point-of-sale systems to automate processes like verifying order accuracy and updating order statuses. When an order is ready, the corresponding pad illuminates with the customer's name, streamlining the pickup experience and reducing staff workload. Pickpad's innovative approach has garnered significant recognition, including winning the CES 2025 Innovation Award in the "Artificial Intelligence" category. This accolade highlights its potential to revolutionize restaurant operations and enhance customer satisfaction. For restaurant owners and managers seeking to improve operational efficiency and customer experience, exploring technologies like Pickpad could be highly beneficial. Implementing such solutions can lead to smoother operations and increased customer satisfaction. To learn more about Pickpad and its offerings, visit their official website.

ANGELO ESPOSITO, CO-FOUNDER AND CEO OF WISK.AI

Meet Angelo Esposito, the Co-Founder and CEO of WISK.ai, Angelo's vision is to revolutionize the hospitality industry by creating an inventory software that allows bar and restaurant owners to streamline their operations, improve their margins and sales, and minimize waste. With over a decade of experience in the hospitality industry, Angelo deeply understands the challenges faced by bar and restaurant owners. From managing inventory to tracking sales to forecasting demand, Angelo has seen it all firsthand. This gave him the insight he needed to create WISK.ai.

Recent Episodes

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S2E66 - Reimagining Restaurant Order Pickup with Pickpad

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Show notes

In this episode, Yaro Tsyhanenko, founder and CEO of Pickpad, shares his journey from Ukraine to Chicago and the inspiration behind creating Pickpad, a modular system designed to enhance restaurant operations through smart sensors and machine learning.

He discusses the challenges faced by restaurants in managing pickup and delivery orders and how Pickpad aims to streamline these processes, improve customer experience, and provide valuable data insights.

Finally, the conversation also touches on the technology behind Pickpad, its potential impact on the restaurant industry, and the importance of customer and employee satisfaction.

Takeaways

  • Yaro's journey from Ukraine to founding Pickpad in Chicago.
  • Pickpad
  • aims to enhance restaurant operations with smart technology.
  • The importance of customer experience in the restaurant industry.
  • Challenges faced by restaurants in managing orders efficiently.
  • Pickpad
  • 's use of sensors to improve order accuracy and efficiency.
  • The significance of data in optimizing restaurant operations.
  • Yaro's motivation to create solutions for real-world problems.
  • The potential for Pickpad to transform the quick-service restaurant experience.
  • Feedback from pilot programs will guide future improvements.
  • The CES Innovation Award recognition highlights Pickpad's potential.

Timestamps

00:00 Ukrainian Entrepreneur Revolutionizes Restaurant Tech

03:32 Ukrainian Food Delivery Success

06:45 Tech Frustrations in Restaurant Pickups

11:30 Labor Efficiency Challenges in Busy Stores

13:30 "Smart Pads Boost QSR Profits"

17:33 Launching Full-Scale Pilot in Chicago

20:12 Optimizing Order Predictions with Sensors

24:34 "Streamlining User Experience"

27:18 Unified Digital-Physical Customer Experience

32:12 Open Pilots for Real-World Testing

33:27 "Yaro's Pickpad AI Journey"

Resources

Follow Yaro on his LinkedIn account!

Learn more about Pickpad!

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