The Cereal Entrepreneur
Andrew gets into the growth of Epos Hybrid and how they have expanded their business since he joined the team last year. Epos Hybrid is a range of products that supports businesses in the hospitality sector and provides software tools for POS, staff management, kitchen management, kiosks & customised full solutions.
Currently supporting their customers by transitioning into delivery systems, Epos Hybrid is working to feed the nation in lockdown & prepare restaurants for when we are eventually allowed to revisit our favourite establishments.
Anna Flockett0:01
Cereal entrepreneur.
Hello, and welcome to the serial entrepreneur podcast brought to you by startups magazine. My name is Anna Flockett. And I'm the editor and I will also be your host. And today I am super excited to be talking to Andrew Gibbon, head of growth at Epos hybrid, a food tech startup who are doing a lot in the current crisis to help businesses within the hospitality sector. Andrew, thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Speaker 1 0:29
Yeah, good. Thank you so much for having me. You know, I'm really excited to have have a chat with you.
Anna Flockett0:32
Brilliant. Thank you. Well, first of all, before we start talking about the effects of Coronavirus and what you guys are doing to help, Could you just tell us a little bit about what Epos hybrid does in general and how the company works?
Speaker 10:44
Yeah, so it was hybrid or a hospitality technology startup predominantly focused in the sort of hospitality sector delivering people's technology. So point of sale, kitchen management, delivery management, any sort of operational area within a business we've kind of developed a product which can manage control all these Different areas, it came out of the real difficulties that these sort of busy hospitality environments have. So especially when Bas our CEO and founder, he worked in his cousin's pub for a couple months, and he noticed just how everything was really manual. Everything was labour intensive. And it was paper based, which really creates an environment, which promotes mistakes and your errors from staff. So bars being a sort of tech grad and experienced entrepreneur, he kind of looked at how he could elevate the business and how we could automate it control everything using technology, there was no real sort of options or solutions on the marketplace when he was looking, there are lots of solutions that solve one specific area. So there is a solution which did sales, a solution which looked at kitchens as a solution, which looked at sort of customer management or staff coordination, but there wasn't one platform, which could control and manage everything in one central hub. So Bas took upon himself to start developing this project and Yeah, you've got Epos Hybrid born from there.
Anna Flockett1:58
Amazing. So how does it Is it like an online platform? Or is it a port? Talk me through how it would work.
Speaker 12:05
So yeah, absolutely. So we we call an ecosystem so we offer a wide range of products. They're all modular products, both hardware and software and the customer will come to us with their requirements and we can help build them a bespoke solution for their specific business. So it all centres around your core Epos terminals. So these are your touchscreen hardware devices, which they can run their point of sale through, they can process sales, they can look at transactions, they can do anything they want your from a typical point of sale unit off the back of that they can then add modules. And these are other hardware software modules so they could add staff management they can add kitchen management, they can even add we've got kitchen displays or customers interactive customer self kiosks. So for example, if McDonald's style business came along, you know we can offer them the full solution we can offer them the point of sale devices, the customer self checkout, the kitchen management, the collection displays, yeah, so it's it's a range of hardware and software products which all sort of integrate depending on the customer's requirements.
Anna Flockett3:00
Amazing. And so do you work with pubs and bars? And then restaurants and fast food chains bit of everything in within the hospitality kind of area?
Speaker 13:09
Yeah, absolutely. So it's a real diverse customer base we've got so it's, you know, everyone from bars, bars and clubs through to sort of casual dining and pop up through to fine dining and some large, you know, fast food chains as well.
Anna Flockett3:19
Amazing. And when did you join the company? And what was your background? Tell me a little bit about your journey.
Speaker 13:25
Yeah. So I joined the company just over a year ago. It was my one year anniversary last week. So I joined the company right at the stage where they finished product development and they had a product ready to go to market. So I came to look at that go to market strategy. How can we start onboarding customers, and how can we start scaling as a company? My experience, I've got about 10 years in startups. I've run a few of my own startups, my own companies, which I've drawn and exited with, and I'm really from Aberdeen and I wanted to divert my attention into technology and why to to get into tech. So I moved moved to Edinburgh. I started working for a tech company down here, worked with them for about a year or so and then moved through to look at Epos hybrid and kind of venture into the Epos space.
Anna Flockett4:04
Cool, and obviously, it was a little bit before your time, but like, how was the product development with the whole technology that they've used within Epos Hybrid? How did that work with all the technology involved?
Speaker 14:15
Yeah, so there was about a four year development plan prior to joining. Obviously, with a normal company, you've got kind of one core product, and you'll develop that product and take it to market with our CEO, our whole USP was a single product with multiple parts, which could control or manage all these different areas of the business. So, you know, that resulted in a vast number of software products, a vast number of hardware products and having to ensure they all integrate and communicate. So that in itself was that was a massive challenge. And that was just shy of a four year undertaking to get your arranger product and a range of software ready to go to market.
Anna Flockett4:51
Wow. Sounds like a long but worthwhile process. Yeah, definitely. And I guess this is probably one of the challenges but what sort of challenges has Epos Hybrid faced along the way of their journey so far.
Speaker 15:02
Yeah, definitely the product development is certainly getting the product to a stage where we have a product that can compete in the marketplace, I think was one, you would have this comprehensive offering, which seamlessly syncs and shows data and offers true efficiency for our customers. And that that was a big hurdle that is an ongoing hurdle, you're continuing to elevating the products, we'll continue looking at new features and new functionality we can do to help elevate our customers, businesses kind of outside that, you know, growth is it's been difficult for us, you know, we've scaled really quickly but the problem lay in procedures are being started. We didn't have procedures and processes for everything. And as we were scaling and growing at a fairly rapid pace, we didn't necessarily have the procedures in place to help us maintain and sustain that growth. So we had to learn on the job. We had to implement procedures quickly. We had to look at, you know, this customer growth, you know, how can we make this sustainable moving forward? So yeah, there was a lot of looking at procedures and processes and there's two main areas That we're kind of effect looking at operations. So how can we elevate our operations to the stage where it can keep up with our growth. And again, with customer service, we offer a fairly complicated product. But in a really simple plug and play format for the customers, there's still there's still a level of customer training, customer onboarding that needs to be done. And it's about how we can you elevate our sales team, elevate our marketing team and elevate our customer service team to ensure we can keep up with the demand. So that was initial challenge. And within the kind of first six months of launching the product and now kind of moving forwards, we were growing really efficiently. We've got really effective strategies and really sustainable strategies in place and now it's just bringing the right talent. So we need to do in a startup environment. People are everything each bringing the right people, everyone is accountable. You know, everyone needs to execute the jobs quickly and efficiently. And these guys you know, all of our team needs to share the same passion for the product as we do the same problems and the most of these most startups will faces you'll bring in the right talent at the right time. And so that that is an ongoing problem. I see well will be a problem as we continue to grow as well,
Anna Flockett7:01
Of course, and for a lot of startups funding can often be a big challenge. But I want to talk about funding in a second with you as I know you guys have recently smashed a crowdfunding campaign, which is completely amazing for any startup at any time, especially seeing as you were going through it as Coronavirus, broke out, tell me more about your crowdfunding campaign, how it went and what's your secret. How did you guys do it?
Speaker 17:25
Yeah, so it was a long time in the making something we started thinking about this time last year. So we knew you'd have to do our very first funding round to help us kind of increase and hit that next level of growth. And we were aiming for a quarter million pounds because that would help us continue the growth trajectory that we're on and help elevate and scale our customer onboarding. It was about eight months of work behind the scenes, you're reaching out and speaking with investors. And one of the positive things that we were bringing to the table was was we did grow really rapidly. We went from zero to about 250 customers In the space of about six, seven months, we on boarded our very first large, large enterprise and our company as well. So we, we had a really good market fit with a really good product. And we proved to investors that, you know, we had a really strong stable product, which was competitive in the market. So that that really helped. And yes, we launched our campaign it was we used a crowdfunding platform, we used querque, the vast majority of our raise was through networks and through your investors. And then yeah, we had a large support from public as well, which is fantastic. And your target was quarter million, we had just shy of 400,000 pounds, which was amazing. Well, one of the things is that we did expand, as you mentioned, as we progress towards the end of our crowdfund, and at the end of our investment round, certainly from some of our lead investors, we did have concerns and queries around lockdown and all around what effect COVID is going to have on our customer base, and obviously it's had a massive effect across the hospitality industry, but we were lucky in that we do have a range of products. So where original focus was on point of sale terminals, you know, we had, we could reassure investors by saying, Well, you know what, we have the technology to help our customers adapt. And we can pivot through to offering our online technology. So helping restaurant businesses, for example, transform into takeaway businesses as well. Now, we've continued to onboard customers through the sort of helping them pivot helping them elevate and adapt to the changing marketplace as well. So that brought a lot of reassurance to our investors and investment base as well,
Anna Flockett9:28
Of course, and I am going to move on to ask you about the COVID crisis and the work you guys are doing. But just while we're still on the funding, the investors seem to obviously love you guys, which is obviously amazing. You are an amazing product. There's no doubt about it. But is there many other startups and businesses in the same space that do similar things to you? I mean, maybe it's just me and I haven't necessarily come across them. But you guys seem a bit different to anything I've ever come across before. Do you have direct competitors or people doing similar things?
Speaker 110:01
Yeah, we do. And the presale market is actually quite competitive. And there's a large amount of operators and suppliers in the marketplace. But we do kind of three key things to make us different and make us stand out in what is a fairly crowded market. So we are the only business that can offer this point of sale ecosystem. So most points, providers will just do one or two areas of your business. So they will help you with sales. And they'll help you with accounts, or they'll help you with sales, and they'll do your kitchen management. We're the only company that can offer you that and we are we're also highly price driven as well. So we offer you a highly competitive pricing to help us facilitate that growth and customer onboarding.
Anna Flockett10:39
And obviously, you guys have had massive success with crowdfunding crowd cube and you said you used Have you guys done any other funding? And if not, would you in the next instance, would you look at other avenues or do you think crowdfunding just really works for you guys? What do you think the benefits of crowdfunding are?
Speaker 110:56
Yeah, so that was our first funding round. I certainly think the fundraising platforms are fantastic to help with your PR and your brand awareness, it really helped us reach a wide variety of investors that we wouldn't be able to speak with or we built connect with previously. So it's fantastic for that we are looking to do another round at some point in the future, you know, this round to help us continue scaling within the UK. But what we do want to do is by this time next year, depending on the COVID situation, we do want to start looking at international expansion. And we do want to start looking at your our next funding round. If we refuse to use crowdfunding platform again, I'm not sure it's extremely time consuming, far more time consuming, then you're managing the investors yourself. And the vast majority of money that we did raise your was raised through network and was raised through investor meetings and things done personally. But yeah, as I said, the crowdfunding platforms, they do bring an element of exposure, and they do bring actual investment that you wouldn't have been able to secure because you're reaching thousands or 10s of thousands of people on the platform, which is fantastic,
Anna Flockett11:55
Of course. Yeah. And it's just amazing to see in the current climate And, you know, there's a lot of people that are struggling or a lot of people that have kind of decided not to try and fund at the moment because it's so hard. So it's really refreshing and nice to see such a positive success story, which obviously you guys deserve. And I'm sure you would have, you'd have smashed either way, but talking about the whole COVID-19 crisis and everything that's going on. How's it been for startups? I mean, how's it been for yourself? And I'm guessing you're in the industry, you know, other people in within startups. So how's it been for everyone?
Speaker 112:29
Yeah, I think it's difficult for everyone. I think, especially for us, you know, we've just closed this funding round or 400,000 pounds, and we were all preparing already to start smashing growth here. We were really focusing on driving our customer onboarding. You're hitting really optimistic onboarding figures and and revenue figures. And you were really excited for the next stage of our customer journey or sorry, next of our of our growth journey, but that hasn't happened and we've kind of had to put the brakes on a little bit. You know, we can't score and start investing. into the company investing into our growth when the markets not where it needs to be. So in that aspect, it's really difficult for us, it's given us opportunity to reposition the business. So we've had to adapt in and respond pretty quickly. Obviously, the hospitality market is one of the industries to be hit hardest in this, especially when we're looking at sort of restaurants and things you would have been forced to shut. So we had to adapt fairly quickly to that, you know, we are a point of sale provider providing technology to the hospitality industry within the hospitality market closes. You know, we had to kind of adapt and kind of think really quickly about how ourselves as a startup company can still get some money and can still continue to grow and onboard customers, maybe not the rate we could have with our investment. But certainly, we still had to grow in some manner. we adapted and kind of pivoted the business we focused our attention away from Epos terminals and sort of face to face customer interactions, and we divert our attention through to our online products. We have a suite of online products which can help people customer base, adapt and change to the market. So there's been a surge in the home delivery marketplace. And we want to empower our customers to take advantage of this trend, more and more customers are looking at how they can transform themselves from a restaurant to a delivery business or to a home takeaway business. And we can help them do that we can help facilitate that pivot, we can help facilitate that sort of change in business model using our online ordering products, delivery management products. And that's one thing is really we've seen a really big increase in demand from you is, if we didn't pivot if we didn't change our focus from your face to face terminals through to the online product, I don't know if we'd be in the same position. But we're still managing to grow a smaller percentage growth rate than what we were used to three months ago. But that certainly helped. But yeah, I think at most startups across all industries are struggling. I think it depends on who you speak with. I think quite a lot of startups are just hunkering down doing what they can try to meet with sales that can both be cutting costs and reducing overhead and just hunkering down for as long as They can, and until the market does come back under the kind of the biggest worry among the industry is your when that consumer confidence is going to come back as well when our consumers good, especially for us, or when our consumer is going to have the confidence to go back to restaurants, when are we going to be happy to start going back into bars? And obviously until that happens, you know, we don't have time skills, we don't know when that's gonna happen. We don't know how that's going to happen to there's there's a level of uncertainty for us as well. And when we really can kickstart our growth again. So yeah, I think it's the law of uncertainty, no unknown at this point in time,
Anna Flockett15:28
Of course, and by you saying talking about the hospitality sector. It must be really bad for the industry. And obviously, a lot of industries have been here, but a lot can adapt. And like you said, you've been able to adapt and pivot and that's amazing. And other people will be able to, but it's like you hear all these rumours going around which obviously hence the word rumour are just not fact but we don't know when locked down will be finished but we certainly don't know when bars and restaurants and pubs will be open. And like I said the rumour is that they will be last to open because It's such confined spaces with a lot of people. And you know that so many people will be there when they're fully allowed to. And when they get their confidence back, Surely there's no worry that people aren't going to stop going to pubs and bars and restaurants. But how's the I know you said the uncertainty But how's the industry feeling in general? Like,
Speaker 116:17
Yeah, I think it's one of these things where you know, is gonna happen, your consumers are going to start going out to these venues to socialise again, at some point in the future, I think at the moment, especially to communicate with our customer base. It's all about what we can do now. And there's no point in worrying about as and when we can reopen. It's kind of like, well, what can we do now? You know, if we're a restaurant business, can we focus on supplying the surge the home delivery market, and you're with very quick and easy changes? You know, we can help facilitate that, that pivot for our customers. It's also looking at, you know, what business improvements can we make you as Epos Hybrid? We're making you we are, we're not growing as a piece we were a couple months ago and therefore, you know, we do have some staff free to look at other projects. So internally, we've got a range of exciting projects, looking at our position within the business, looking at product development, looking at all these things we could still be looking at, we could still be working on. So when the market does come back, we're bigger and stronger, and we're ready to grow rapidly. And we're trying to communicate that through to our customer base as well. It's okay, well, what what can we do at the moment to facilitate some sort of sales and to your customers, but it's also how can you prepare your business for when that market does come back? You know, how can you engage your customers keep your customer engaged during this quiet time? How can you elevate your business? Is it looking at introducing new technology? Is it looking at employing new staff? Is it looking at, you know, decorating your venue? Is it looking at upgrading certain things, there's a range of different things these companies can be doing in preparation for when the market gains confidence again, or when lockdown ends and to ensure they're in the best position possible to make the most of the remaining months of the year.
Anna Flockett17:55
Of course, and two questions to that first one would be how easy it is. For businesses to pivar, and with the help of you guys transforming from restaurant to the delivery service. So you said because of there restrictions, health wise? And the second one would be, is there also the slight worry that when businesses do open back up and people are confident to go back out, they might be inundated and be like, over busy, which obviously is a good worry to have. But yeah, is that a consensus of worry or fault in the industry?
Speaker 118:28
Yeah. So in terms of making that switch, or if you're a current customer with Epos Hybrid, and you are a certain restaurant, for example, we can switch you through to or give you the technology and products that you need to do home deliveries in about five minutes. It's a really quick, legit switch of a button, and we can create that online presence for you. And they are that includes an online ordering website and online, mobile app for customers and your food delivery management system, and live driver tracking so we can manage when an order comes in. We can then manage it Food order from order placed all the way through to order delivered can be managed on our products and that is to have a five minute switch for our current customer base. And we've had a surge in new customers who you know, aren't using Epos technology or aren't using equals hybrid products at this point in time, they can run our platform from a single tablet to any sort of Android tablet, they can offer this online ordering and delivery management options or service to their customers and that would take a couple of hours for us to get them up and running. So it is a really low cost efficient way of adapting to to the market and in terms of your when the customer or when when the market called candidates come back and consumers start socialising again, I think yes, I think especially the day lockdown ends, I think the bars are going to have a surge of people running through the doors, waiting for that first pint. I think at the moment we are just making sure businesses are ready for that because that will happen. Everyone's very eager to get out and start socialising again. So you'll this surge in demand will happen against We need to make sure our customer base prepared for that. So that's looking at, you know, how do they operate before? And can we use technology to help make elevate their service and help make their operations more efficient? So if they are using, you know, handwritten order pads, if they are doing everything manually Can we look at you know, given them a couple different products to help you alleviate that sort of laborious manual tasks to make it automated me Kevin trackable and just elevate their customer service so they can cope with bigger demand.
Anna Flockett20:28
Of course, you don't want to get to the pub on the first day out, locked down and they've run out of beer.
Speaker 1 20:33
No, that's exactly that would be a disaster.
Anna Flockett20:36
And you've kind of touched on this a little bit. But how's the pandemic affected? You guys, you know, in terms of remote working, did you all kind of work remotely before? Or have you all had to adjust to this like isolation and homework him?
Speaker 120:48
Yeah, so we've had to adjust quite a bit to it. I think. We were already using cloud technology in the business. So everybody, everything's worked on the cloud. All of our documents are stored in the cloud. All of our emails are so You know, for us to work anywhere or work remotely, all those systems were already in place. So it was easy enough for us to do kind of being a startup as part of our culture. We wanted people to work where they were comfortable. So we already had all that sort of solutions in place. And the biggest thing we've kind of experienced with isolation with having homeworking is communication, and just making sure everyone's communicating making sure everyone's on the same page, especially with some of the bigger projects that we're running at the moment, kind of making sure everyone's collaborating effectively. It's also a lot more difficult when you're, you're sitting next to person you can quickly jump in, you can brainstorm together, but when you're working, you know, in different different cities, and we have some of our staff aren't even that in Edinburgh. So it's, it's, yeah, it's a little more difficult and making sure everyone's working effectively they can and also motivation is the biggest thing as well. I think now especially lockdown extended. I think some people are starting to get fed up. So it's about you know, how can we keep staff motivated, how can we still keep staff focused on on doing the job to really high standard and you'll Continuing to, you know, continue to elevate the company and continue to deliver a fantastic service to our customers. So kind of losing focus at the angle.
Anna Flockett22:07
Yeah, of course. And what have you guys got planned for the future? You know, obviously, we've touched on this slightly Corona short term wise, but long term wise, did you have a five year plan that was kind of massively interrupted with the COVID-19 crisis? Or has it like changed your direction? Or is it five year plans still in place? And I'm guessing you guys are based in Scotland, Edinburgh. Do you guys operate throughout the whole of the UK or just in Scotland? And is there no plans to move further afield?
Speaker 122:40
Yeah, so we've kind of got that typical startup five year plan and ambition aware of where we want to be. We'd also just closed our funding round and your plan was as soon as you close that funding round, you're we pedal to the metal and just scale and grow as quickly as we can. And obviously that's been delayed we, that sort of aggressive growth stage and has been pushed back. And that, you know, we will execute that those growth plans as when the hospitality Mark comes back. But you know, the COVID situation has given us an opportunity to elevate the business. And you'll do quite work internally, as I mentioned. So we're looking at repositioning the business, we're doing a lot product development. So we're doing a lot of things now, which we probably weren't going to do until potentially next year. And just because we've got the resources and staff to do it. So that's kind of one benefit that has has come out of the situation is that you as a company, we're going to be a far better position to rapidly scale when the pandemic finishes up. Yeah, in terms of the plan. So we are looking and we're about 400 users, our customers at the moment, and we're looking to scale to about 1200 in March to hit March next year. And then we are looking to begin international expansion. So at the moment, we've got customers throughout the UK, we've got we've also got some customers International, we've got some customers in India, some customers in Australia as well. And we are kind of looking to expand internationally. So we're looking at expanding into America being one of our target markets. And we're also currently researching, you know, the UAE, Australia and India and other potential target markets for our software as well. Our products are already multi currency, multi language as well. And we're just kind of looking at what would be the most effective way to grow within these markets and start begin scaling within the UK. Also further afield as well.
Anna Flockett24:20
Amazing. That's so exciting. Finally then to wrap up today. Do you have any advice, terms of the Coronavirus or just in terms of in startup life in general, but do you have any advice for any other startups out there listening?
Speaker 124:34
Yeah, I definitely think in regards to the pandemic in COVID and Coronavirus. I think the biggest thing is you're doing what you can and you're if you're not making the same amount sales where you were let's look at projects internally. Let's look at how you can elevate and grow the business you're whether it's operations, whether it's your customer support, what can you do to elevate your business to sell when the market does come back to you're stronger and you can deliver a stronger better service to your customers. I'd say that I think you're just in general startup terms. I think the biggest thing is, you're making sure you have a fantastic product market fit. I think it's the biggest thing is making sure your product is or services is totally unique and you have a really strong product market fit, you'll bring investment and that will help you scale as well I touched on early is one of our difficulties or one of the bugs we're trying to overcome is you bring in the right people, you're in a start up, talent is so so important. And if you bring in the right people, they can help transform your business and help you get to that next level. And somebody stalking me when I when I was young I was 18 tries out my first company I was told to hire slow fire fast so you'll really take your time and make sure you're employing the right people. But if somebody comes into the business isn't a good is a good fit isn't a good culture fit or isn't able to keep up with the speed and agility of the other startup environment. You need to fire them fast enough to carry them move on and you'll cut ties and Gio obviously didn't work out but as a start up, you can't carry people you need to bring in you've got the right talent to make sure every Delivering and that's something can weave through our whole sort of recruitment ethos is your hire slow fire fast, and they seem to be working for us at the moment. And we've got fantastic team and who do bring a lot, a lot to the table. And we certainly wouldn't be in the position we are, we certainly would have grown as quickly as we have, if it wasn't for the team that we have
Anna Flockett26:17
Definitely for like, team is one of the most important things has come up quite a lot. So that was really great. Thank you.
Speaker 126:23
No problem.
Anna Flockett26:24
But it's been an absolute pleasure. Then in a little bit more about the hospitality industry and Epos Hybrid. And obviously, I'm excited to see all the work that you do, kind of helping businesses throughout the corona pandemic. And then obviously, you'll have your work out few even more when its over.
Unknown Speaker26:41
Yeah, absolutely. And we're really excited to kind of get going again, I think more startups will be, you know, it's kind of the stage where you're kind of hunkering down and waiting for those markets come back and then we can we can all start growing because in the stock environment, that's all you want to do. You want to grow and scale as quick as you can see how we're excited for the journey that lies ahead.
Anna Flockett26:58
Oh, amazing. Thank you, Andrea. And we'll make sure to follow up with you.
Speaker 127:01
Perfect. Thank you so much for having me. It's great chatting. Thank
Unknown Speaker27:03
you. Thanks Andrew
Anna Flockett27:06
Cereal entrepreneur.