Angelo Esposito [00:00:02]:

Welcome to Wisking it all with your host, Angelo Esposito, Co founder of Wisk.AI, a food and beverage intelligence platform. We're going to be interviewing hospitality professionals around the world to really understand how they do what they do. Welcome to another episode of Wisking It All. We are here today with Jonah Bliss from Curbivore. Jonah, thank you for being here with us today.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:00:30]:

Pleasure to be here.

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Angelo Esposito [00:00:31]:

Yeah, I'm excited to learn about Curbivore. So, I mean, maybe a good place to start would be. Can you share the story just behind founding Curbivore and the significance of the name?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:00:41]:

Yeah, everyone asks about the name. So, you know, I'm a sucker for a good pun. It's my best skill, but kind of rolling back, you know, my background is originally in kind of like the transportation mobility side of things. Been a startup guy, you know, founded some. Some companies that sort of doing different things to get people out of single occupancy cars. Right. Whether it's car share or e bikes, whatever it is, just, you know, better than the status quo. And so, you know, from that kind of background, when the pandemic hit, sort of just saw this, like, huge inflection point around the curb.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:01:18]:

Right. And so that meant changes to how we move about, changes to how things moved about, whether that was food or e commerce or kind of quick delivery. It's also obviously sort of changes to patterns in the cities. People weren't downtown anymore, and so it's also created this sort of tremendous inflection point on the curb, whether it was outdoor dining, or someone picking up or dropping off your doordash order, or just someone getting off of a scooter, getting out of an Uber, whatever, it was just like a tremendous opportunity, but also a tremendous amount of confusion as it was all just kind of like a pandemic. Figure it out, see what happens. Businesses were struggling. Cities were struggling. And so, you know, had some friends that also kind of either knew restaurant tech or new delivery tech.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:02:00]:

Yeah, we all kind of just got together, did the first Curbivore purely as a online conference. You know, 2020, the dark days of the pandemic. But then, yeah, once. Once the world got back to a healthier place where we could actually meet in person, decided to kind of take the conference to the real world, so to speak. And so we did a in person Curbivore in 2022. That was a sort of lot of fun, good success, interesting speakers. Did it again this past March. Curvature, 2023.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:02:30]:

And, you know, as long as people keep coming and enjoying the conversation and sort of helping come up with solutions for this problem that everyone's collectively dealing with. We're going to keep doing it. So, you know, Curbivore 2024, next March.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:41]:

Next march.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:02:42]:

Okay.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:42]:

You heard it here. And for people who want to, you know, we'll probably do a shout out at the end, but since we're on topic, uh, where can they see details on the conference?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:02:49]:

Uh, curbivore co. Would be the address.

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Angelo Esposito [00:02:53]:

Okay. There you go. Curbivore Co. Okay. And then just to dive in. Right. I find with entrepreneurs, it's always, not always, but a big chunk of the times, it's, you know, things start from, you know, a problem they've identified, and then it turns into an opportunity. So I'd love to maybe dive a little deeper.

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Angelo Esposito [00:03:08]:

What was the problem kind of you were seeing? And was it during, was the pandemic time that kind of where you got that inspiration, or did you have this idea before? I'd love to hear, like, the original story of, like, what. What made it click.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:03:20]:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I've always, you know, I think both on a personal level and on a career level, I've always sort of cared about, you know, the movement of goods and people. Right. So, you know, you know, I think a lot of people on this listen to podcast are maybe coming at it from, like, the food side about the restaurant, you know, cuisine and culinary things. And, you know, I love a great meal. I'm a, you know, foodie, for lack of a less played out term. But to me, like, the logistics of it all are the part that kind of keep me up at night thinking about that.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:03:46]:

So, you know, I think I'd always been sort of pondering about different questions in that space. Right. But the pandemic just created such a tumultuous moment where every assumption was up for grabs again. And so that's what really spurred Curbivore in terms of, like, what if we get the city people and the restaurant people and the small business people and the grocers all in the same room and come up with a better way that works for everyone? Because if you just are all competing for the same little slice of asphalt, everybody loses.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:14]:

That's interesting. Yeah. We actually had the CEO of ritual on, and it was funny because he was talking about how, at least at the time, when they started ritual, it's, you know, it's for those who don't know, it's a. It's a pickup app, so. And he was saying, like, at that time, as long as far as he knows, they were, like, the first, I guess, pickup app that was kind of for the, you know, people kind of thing. Because before that, he. And he gave credit to Starbucks, which they were the only company really taking pickup seriously, where you can go on the app, order ahead of time, or I guess maybe order heads a better word, but order ahead, pick up that kind of thing. And it was a significant amount.

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Angelo Esposito [00:04:51]:

They were reporting on it, on their kind of financials. And so it's interesting to see how that, like, that has evolved. And then what I've personally seen, and you've probably seen this, too, is, you know, when COVID happened, obviously everyone started doing a ton of online ordering. And that's right to your point, I saw a lot of, you know, competing for that same slice because the pos companies were like, hey, we now do this. You can use it. And then there was, like, e commerce type companies offering online ordering, and there was online ordering standalones that were offering it. So you kind of had this, you know, just pool of different services, and it probably did get a bit confusing. So I love to hear from you, like, who are the types of people that, you know, should attend curb abort? So is it, you know, in my brain, it's going like, you know, order ahead apps, delivery apps, maybe, you know, curbside pickup.

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Angelo Esposito [00:05:35]:

But, yeah, what, you know, maybe robotics. But I'd love to hear, like, who are some key types of, you know, people that should or would attend?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:05:43]:

I think part of what makes the event so special is the breadth of the people there, right? You go to some conferences and it's fun. You see all your friends, but it's like, okay, I saw the last six trade shows, right? And so I think in that sense, you know, you hit on who comes, but it's pretty broad. So, yeah, we definitely have people from the third party delivery marketplaces, the Ubers, the doordashes, the grubhubs of the world. We have the instacarts, but we also have, like, the suppliers, whether that's a small mom and pop restaurant or a thousand chain grocer. We have people from the serves, the cocos, the starships, the delivery bots of the world. But then to me, I think a missing part of the conversation often is, like, the policymakers, right? Like, people are actually crafting the rules about whether it's a fee cap on delivery or what you can do with the space out front of your restaurant. So we really pride ourselves on dots. Public health, one year with the mayor of LA as a speaker.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:06:36]:

So really sort of getting, I think, the people that make the rules and can, with the kind of signature of a pen, either make or break your business in the conversations they can actually see. Oh, like, now that you've showed me what a good outdoor dining setup looks like, I can understand this is actually good for the neighborhood or, you know, getting folks from the three PD's and, you know, they're, they're both love and hate relationship with restaurants in the same room and letting them kind of hash things out. So I think, I think by kind of broadening the pie, it just makes for a more fruitful conversation.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:06]:

It makes sense. And, you know, when you mention it, like a thought that came up. I actually grew up in Montreal, and in Montreal we had, you know, I always say it's an awesome city in the summer, outside summer, it's kind of hard, but in the summer, it's a really cool city. Very student heavy, university heavy, and it's like european influence. Go to restaurant scene, bar scene. So there's like a lot to do. You know, we have f one jazz fest, you name it. So cool.

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Angelo Esposito [00:07:29]:

But one of the things that a lot of restaurants pride themselves or not pride themselves, but, you know, really make their year because the summer months are busy with tourism is outdoor patios, or terraces, as they say there, but outdoor patios, to your point, it made me think of it. It makes a ton of sense. You don't think of it, but these policymakers can make or break your business when you can't get that license or for whatever reason you're renewing it and they're not letting you. There's a lot of people because especially in a place like Montreal where summer short or take any city where, you know, they have harsh winters and, you know, hot summers, that patio season is a key, key part. So I'd love to maybe touch on that a little more. So, like, what do you see? Like across, I guess across North America, I would see mainly in the, in the states. Like, what do you guys see when it comes to policymakers? Like how deep does it go and how hard is it to navigate the. These kind of, you know, I guess regulations?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:08:18]:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, so each, each subsets its own little world, right? So if we're talking about outdoor dining, yeah, that was, I think, where the most kind of change happened, right? Like most cities, sadly, were super strict, pre pandemic, just sort of, you know, couldn't imagine, like how could you use this parking lot or the sidewalk for anything besides just movement, but so then you know, kind of born out of the emergency. Right. There's all of a sudden this really liberalization of rules where it's just sort of like, all right, like, you know, it's your space, figure it out, do what you want with it. And so, yeah, that kept a lot of great businesses running. They wouldn't have made it otherwise. And then, yeah, sort of naturally, as the emergency kind of drew down, different cities either tried to regulate the new order or go back to the old order.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:09:06]:

And there's really this sort of bifurcation in terms of like, yeah, which of the worlds are we sticking with? Right. And so, you know, some cities, if you go walk around now, is basically no more outdoor dining, which is a tragedy. I know. In, like, Dallas, I think there's, like, some shocking statistics. There's only like ten restaurants that use it at this point.

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Angelo Esposito [00:09:24]:

Really.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:09:25]:

Other cities, you know, they've sort of tried to tighten the rules up a little bit and there was sort of a pushback from the community. So here in LA, for example, they tried to kind of not go back as far as it was in 2019, but definitely tighten the rules a little bit. And the community sort of pushed back and the city listened. And so then they kind of re crafted the rules in a way that was, I think, a healthier balance. We definitely see a struggle in cold weather cities. So I know New York has sort of crafted some rules that are meant to be pretty open in the summer, but requires people to break them all down every winter. And so it's gonna be a problem if you have to, like, set up a nice thing every year. Toronto, I think a little, just this week kind of ruled out, rolled out new rules that were kind of keeping things pretty open for business.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:10:13]:

So it's really covered the spectrum. Right. And it's, you know, I certainly like dining outdoors, so it's hard to imagine what the complaint is, but.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:21]:

Right, right.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:10:22]:

It's always a critic somewhere.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:24]:

Yeah, yeah. There's always someone that, there's always a negative person, for sure. And I'd love to hear kind of your story of, you know, the first event. Right. So I'm always fascinated, talking to entrepreneurs, founders, understanding, like, you know, taking that risk, that leap of faith, trying to build something out of nothing. So the first event you had. Right. Like, obviously now you're gaining momentum second year, third year, you know, going on to fourth year.

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Angelo Esposito [00:10:48]:

Right. So there's that network effect. But how do you kind of go about organizing this year? One year? One, I'd love to hear, like, yeah, how do you go about, like, hey, we're gonna launch the event. How are we gonna invite people? How are we gonna convince them to come? You know, like, I love to just hear a bit about that.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:11:02]:

Yeah, yeah. I mean, this sounds macabre, but in a way, the pandemic was helpful, right? So the first event was fully virtual, two day online event. Okay. And so, you know, I had some experience as a marketer sort of putting on other events, and, you know, we all became Zoom experts for that year. Right. And so I think, you know, between, you know, kind of knowing enough of the nuts and bolts and having some experience and knowing other people kind of within the world of dining and delivery and gig work that I kind of, like, just convinced them of my crazy idea that they would sort of help out and, you know, also invite their networks. So we did the first one purely as, like, an act of, you know, kind of passion. We didn't charge anyone for anything.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:11:46]:

And then it also just helped that, like, everyone was at home bored, too. Right? You could, like, invite the prime minister of Japan, and he'd be like, oh, like, I'm not doing anything that day. I'll show you. Yeah. So I think that really just sort of legitimate us legitimized us and let us grow a lot faster than we could have otherwise. Right? And, you know, even though we didn't make any money, we also didn't spend very much money. You know, paid for some webinar licenses, did some branding, yada, yada, yada. But it made us, allowed us to create a brand that once it was said and done, I would talk to people and like, oh, you know, I was really sorry that I missed curbivore, you know, last month, but, you know, I won a couple years ago, and it was great.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:12:22]:

And it's like, I love that you can create a brand that people feel like has been around for decades just by, you know, the power of good branding and picking the right topic and, you know, knowing just enough to sound smart.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:35]:

Right. It's funny when you're talking about, like, people being bored at home. I just had a flashback. I'm blanking out right now. What's. What was that? Mobile. I mean, it's still popular now, but it really popped off. Audio only.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:12:45]:

Clubhouse.

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Angelo Esposito [00:12:46]:

Clubhouse, yeah. I remember, like, at one point, it just, like, exploded because it was just like, yep, I got out of it and it was, it was a really cool cause. And it's interesting where it's at now, but it just made me think of that. It's true. It was an interesting time where people, I think, were really bored on one hand. I mean, really tough, but really bored. But it's. How do you find.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:04]:

It's kind of switching now. Do you find people, like, now still appreciate, I mean, virtual events, or do you see the shift? Like, people are ready, they're excited to be in person. Like, how do you think about that?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:13:16]:

Yeah, I would say, you know, 95% of us are happy to be in person. I suppose 5% people are still playing. What was that game where you're like the little spaceman navigating the.

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Angelo Esposito [00:13:29]:

Yeah, yeah.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:13:31]:

But no, I mean, so we still do some occasional webinars and online events. Right. And so those, it's definitely tougher to pack a house these days than it was, you know, even a year ago. You have to really have a good topic and good people. And even then, it's, you know, it's tough to engage with someone when they could just be outside in the sun. But, yeah, we've also moved to, you know, we have a bunch of newsletters come out. People still love reading the newsletters, so you just have to meet the audience where they are. And then I think that's what's so fun about putting on a physical event is, especially in an age of remote work, right? Like, people might be, you know, not stuck at home, but they're not doing the same things they were doing in 2019.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:14:10]:

So if you put on an interesting event, they get to meet people that they want to see. Some companies even sort of treat these as kind of retreats, right, where you call people out from every office, every work from home situation, say, hey, we're all going to event x next quarter. Not only will you get to do a cool conference, we get to meet your coworkers, do a little retreat, maybe we'll book a conference room and figure out some goals for the next year. You know, it's a different world, and if you kind of lean into it, I think you can get a lot out of it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:14:41]:

That's interesting, and I'd love to hear how did you go from, you know, so we just touched on, let's say that first year virtual event. But what are maybe some challenges that you faced when you went from virtual to in person that, that kind of first year transition?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:14:56]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. The stakes are a lot higher, right. You know, if a virtual event is bad, you just sort of tune out. Physical event is bad. You know, you don't want to have a fire fest on your hands. And, you know, it helped that we weren't doing this in a remote island. Right, right. But, you know, it's.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:15:16]:

I'd say events are very much one of those examples where you're kind of building the airplane as you fly it. Right. Because you're sort of, you know, you don't exactly know, especially when it's new, how many people are going to attend, how many sponsors you're going to have, how many. So then it's like, how much food do I need? How many bathrooms do I need? How many stages do I need? How many chairs do I need? So you're just kind of always, you know, moving these things in sync, and, you know, one goes up a little bit, the other ones have to go up in kind. And so, you know, the final month is just a lot of sleepless nights as you're just kind of pushing the ball up the hill. But, you know, it's. It's like anything else, right? Like, the person putting on has, like, the kind of darkest view of it, right. You see everything that's going wrong, but the person in the audience is like, this is great.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:15:58]:

Like, wow. Yeah. So you just have to keep that kind of perspective that, like, okay, no one else notices that, like, the banner is crooked and just, you know, get on.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:05]:

Right, right. You're usually your hardest critic, I think, is a lesson there. And it's funny you mentioned that analogy about the plane because, like, that's. I think that's something that all founders in some way or form talk about, like, jumping off the mountain while you're figuring out how to open your parachute, you know, type of thing. So it's just. It's. It's taking the risk, and the only way you're gonna learn, you know, there's only so much theory you can learn. Of course, preparing makes sense, but, like, once you hit the ground, then you're like, oh, shit.

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Angelo Esposito [00:16:32]:

And so I'm sure you learned a lot of stuff that first year that you were then able to kind of adapt. And maybe for people who are thinking about, you know, interested in how to build, you know, community or events, like, what are some things you can share, like, from a perspective, especially that first year or I guess, second year because it was in person? Like, you know, there's kind of, like, that marketplace aspect of, like, I need sponsors, but I need people. But I, you know, people will come if they're speakers, but speakers are interested if there's more people. And, you know, like, how do you go about, like, yeah, chicken egg. How do you go about, like, balancing that and just I'd love to hear your thoughts on it because you're obviously doing a good job at it and it's not easy.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:17:07]:

Yeah, yeah. I wish there was, like, a silver bullet that I had cracked the code on. Right. I think the truth is, like, you have to pick a topic that you're really genuinely passionate about and you know a lot about and, you know, people in the space, and so you can kind of call upon your own local network as the kind of, like, base layer, right. And then you can build from there. So if I was to just sort of pick a topic that I didn't know anything about, you, not only would it'd be tough to actually make an interesting program, but, you know, I would be struggling to get person one in the door. And so then, you know, you're starting such a lower baseline, right. And the truth is, like, no one's gonna care as much as you do, right? So, like, even if you hire someone that's an expert to them, it's just a job.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:17:46]:

So I think especially in the first couple years, it really just comes down to kind of gritting your teeth, you know, I'm not trying to make this, like a hustle and grind kind of.

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Angelo Esposito [00:17:55]:

Like, no, but you're right, you know.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:17:57]:

Motif, but, yeah, like, you gotta be willing to work harder than the other people because it's. It's your baby and, you know, you gotta call in favors and, you know, just bang all the drums and pots and pans and make as much noise as you can. You know, I think really leaning into content is a way to not only sort of show domain expertise, but build an audience that you can then call on to say, oh, I really liked, you know, hearing you write about so and so. Maybe I'll come see you speak, or maybe I'll see who you've invited to speak. That's awesome. So, yeah, it's. It's like you build your own little universe and you slowly expand it.

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Angelo Esposito [00:18:33]:

That makes sense. And, like, I'd love to touch quickly on content just because it's a theme that's come up a few times. We had Shawn Walchef on the show. He was a super cool guy, talking about content and at risk. We've been kind of going a bit harder on content and doing this podcast and amongst other social media stuff. And, you know, I think people will hopefully are getting more inspired and trying to, you know, I love the quote. I think he says something like, don't be the commercial, be the show, which I love that concept. And most people are trying to figure out how to make this beautiful app, but it's like just this is the content.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:02]:

Like film what you're doing and share it and tell your story. So I'd love to just hear about you on your end. Like how do you think about content and what are some kind of things you've done to build up content on your side?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:19:15]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's, I mean, without getting too tangential, I've always had a funny relationship with, with content, for lack of a better word. Earlier on in my career I was sort of worked for like a news site. I wouldn't quite call myself a journalist, but maybe a blogger when that was still a term.

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Angelo Esposito [00:19:30]:

A writer. Yeah.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:19:32]:

I also ran the marketing for a content marketing platform, which was very meta job, but so I know my way around content. Got it. But yeah, I mean, you know, it felt like content marketing was like a hot word, you know, eight years ago or something and kind of just got lost among everything else and it just sort of became marketing again. Right. In a way it wasn't anything new. It's just like people have been producing stuff forever and it just, whether or not it feels organic or whether you have to shove it down the consumer's throat. And so, yeah, there's so much bad content out there, right? Just dull, boring, uninteresting, derivative. And that's true of, you know, ads, it's true of content marketing, it's true of actual pure ratings.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:20:17]:

So like, I don't want anyone out there to just like start a sub stack because everyone else has a stub stack, right? Like you'll, you'll drive yourself and say, and you'll have ten readers and they'll hate it too. So like only do it if it's, if it's pure and like you have something different to say and you feel like you need to say it because there are millions of other channels you can do and at this point, you know, you're competing with a chat bot that can also churn out bad content.

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Angelo Esposito [00:20:43]:

That's very true. No, it's, you're absolutely right. Like you need, you need to be passionate or at least, you know, have a pretty big interest in what you're doing because if not, it gets, number one, it's hard, but number two, it's like you're not going to be inspired to just spit out random content, right? Like there's, you know, you'll see trends of like ah, faceless. Build a YouTube faceless channel and make, you know, 100,000 a month. Like you know, there'll be a lot of that type of stuff, but it's just, like, so easy. Yeah, exactly. So easy. So, really, I think the lesson's like, you gotta speak about a topic, either that you're super interested in, kind of show what you're learning as you're going, or a topic that you're potentially an expert or somewhat of a veteran in, and, you know, kind of sharing.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:21]:

So for us, at risk, it was like, okay, we're obviously pretty good on the restaurant side, specifically on, you know, the cost of goods sold. Like, that's our expertise. But outside of that, we're like, hey, we have a big restaurant audience. Like, let's bring people in the realm, whether it's restaurant tech, restaurant operations, just restaurant marketing. And so it's kind of, like, expanded. And I guess, speaking of tech, like, one. One thing I'd love to know from you is, can you share? Because I. We had a guy from a.

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Angelo Esposito [00:21:50]:

Well, guy, the CEO of Tiny Mile, super cool robotics company, and it was cool because I live in Miami now, and I saw them downtown or in Brickell, and I was like, oh, these are neat. And then, anyways, we got introduced. Long story short, had him on the show. Super interesting concept, and I'm sure there's other people doing it, but all this to say that was a very long way of just saying, I'd love to hear what is some interesting tech you've seen specifically, maybe people kind of attending, you know, your. Your event. Like, can you share any interesting tech that just kind of. Yeah. Stands.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:22:19]:

Yeah. But also, yeah, shout out, I love tiny mile. I love. I feel like of all the founders, he's got, like, an amazing humility. Right.

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Angelo Esposito [00:22:26]:

A sort of found about.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:22:28]:

About Uber etgs. A reminder that there's real world consequences. So, yeah, I mean, I think we were kind of early on the PDD, the self driving robot trend. And so the first year, we had some virtually. And then every year since, we've had this cute little armada of different color robots kind of running around the grounds, which is fun, and they kind of interact with each other all. It's all friendly. You know, the whole industry kind of is in a grow the pie phase right now, so it's not like we're having a serve robot and coco. Robot bashing.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:03]:

Right, right.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:23:04]:

That would be good content, guys.

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Angelo Esposito [00:23:06]:

Yeah. Well, there was that show. What was that show? Robot wars or something? Do you remember that battle bounce? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:23:11]:

Let's just tape a buzz saw to the starship. I mean, yeah, there's always really fun technology, right? Like, so this last march, we had, there was a robotic pizza truck where it's sort of all, you know, made automatically inside the truck. Oh, wow, that was fun. We have kind of self driving cars, both from the passenger, but also some of them are thinking about delivery. We just had this guy sort of, I remember him. I think he just bought a regular ticket, but he's just like, he had this kind of cool robotic arm that he had built that he was just carrying around. So, you know, we attract the most lovable nerds. But I think, you know, there's always this question about, you know, who does technology serve, right? And I think it's true in any industry, but especially in food, we've seen a lot of startups come and go where they have a great idea, and it's like, wow, fascinating that you can do that, but do you need to? Does anyone want that? And so whether it's the zooms of the world, zoom with the U, not with the two O's, but we've seen a lot of money get kind of poured down the drain, and then, okay, you made a worse product.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:24:23]:

And it's technically interesting, but, yeah, you know, I think we're also, at this point, seeing a lot of the big corporates get into it. Right. So whether it's sweet green or Chipotle, really investing in automated make lines, you know, I can kind of understand that. The business case there, right. There's a tight labor market.

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Angelo Esposito [00:24:40]:

Yeah.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:24:40]:

If you're doing a delivery order, you don't need to see the person mixing the grain and the lettuce together. So I think we'll see it become kind of more complimentary. Right? Where it's sort of humans working aside a machine that kind of makes things faster. But beyond, like, the novelty factor, it's hard for me to imagine that we just need, like, a hundred percent robotic restaurant now where it's, you know, dozens of six axis arms moving around. Like, that's fun to get people in the door. Cause they say, oh, it's like the Jetsons. But if the robot doesn't make the food, you know, better or way cheaper, you're not getting a repeat visit.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:16]:

Right. That makes sense. And it's funny because you see, you see, like, I think a parallel, I think right now happening in just the, you know, call it non restaurant world, where, like, everyone's like, is I gonna take jobs or not take jobs? But it's like, at least right now, we'll see what happens in the future. But it's I think the best people are using it super complimentary. They're like, okay, how can. I could still write, but how can I write better? They're not just making it write everything, they're using it to their advantage. It's like trying to just leverage things you're doing, but just either be more productive or unlock some creativity. And I think seeing the same thing in the restaurant space where it's like, okay, there's a labor shortage, how can we use it complimentary? Not just like, you know, wipe.

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Angelo Esposito [00:25:57]:

Wipe out, you know, any human aspect of it. Right?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:25:59]:

Yeah.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:00]:

Which is cool.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:26:01]:

I like, I mean, one, I like that.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:02]:

Yeah.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:26:02]:

The world is. There's two worlds, right? There's the restaurant world and the non restaurant world is the two domains. But no, I think, you know, people need to step back. And restaurants, they're a hospitality industry, right? Like, people are going there to interact with people, to have conversation, to sort of feel comfortable. And so that isn't to say that there's different degrees, right? Like, a fine dining restaurant is different than a McDonald's. But at the same time, if we look at other domains, right, like, you know, look at supermarkets and how Amazon struggled to even make their kind of just walk out thing work at a large scale. So if Bezos and company are struggling, you know, it's not necessarily the easiest thing. It's not just plug it in and.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:39]:

Go, yeah, yeah, it's funny. Grocery self checkouts. Do you know Sebastian Maniscalco, the comedian? Italian to me. No. He has a good skit on that. But just about like, how they make you work. You know, I'm going there to buy a product, and I'm also working. I'm checking myself out.

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Angelo Esposito [00:26:54]:

Yeah. Which is like a funny, funny.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:26:55]:

I mean, that's. That's the, you know, so much of technology is labor arbitrage, right? We're moving things that used to be done on one side of the transaction to the other side. Think like, oh, well, it's magical. Now. Now I'm scanning it myself, but it's like, you know, your time's worth some.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:12]:

Yeah, that's true. It's true. I never thought of it like that. When you paint that picture, it actually makes it more obvious. That's awesome. I guess next question for you is really just what can people expect, you know? So we have a pretty big restaurant audience, and we'll share this in our newsletter, too. So for people that are hearing this, Curbivore sounds quite interesting. The event sounds like it's growing some interesting tech some interesting policymakers, a bit of everything.

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Angelo Esposito [00:27:36]:

Good, good speakers. What do you say to the people of what they can expect for the upcoming curb abort 2024?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:27:45]:

Yeah, yeah. I appreciate the shout out. And I'll make sure we get, like a special promo code we can include with the video so people can sign up for a special place. But, yeah, I mean, so I would say we build, like a little curb city within the city. Right. So it's in LA, it's in late March, and so it's very indoor outdoor. So I want to feel like the best possible conversion of a parking lot you've seen. Right.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:28:07]:

So you're kind of, you get to see what that looks like. But then you're also meeting fascinating people, whether it's execs from Uber and Doordash or you're meeting the people that are running the delivery robot companies who can actually ask them questions about how it integrates into your processes. We have folks from the POS world. We have folks from every little segment of technology, right. And then, yeah, there's very cool kind of restaurant brands involved. We had sweet fin last year. We had wonder. So I think it's a chance to kind of learn from some of your peers that are doing cool things and talk to them and adapt their trends for your own business and market.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:28:46]:

And then again, it's part of this larger conversation around the curb. So you can talk to the city official that you've always been trying to figure out, hey, what does this rule mean? Or you can talk to someone that's been putting scooters on your street and say, oh, actually, I get it now. That's foot traffic. That's actually a shopper that's hungry, too. It's not. Just because it removed a parking spot doesn't mean that I'm losing business. So it's like part of a broad conversation that I think if you're ready to kind of expand your worldview, it's really useful. If you just want to go to ten seminars about how to increase sales 3%, this is not the event for that.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:29:20]:

But if you want to kind of have a broader taste of the future, come to curbivore, that's awesome.

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Angelo Esposito [00:29:27]:

And then I love that idea. So we'll definitely, for people listening, by the time we release the episode, we'll have some type of code and figure out how to share with you guys. So for people that. That want to attend, at least they'll be a little incentive or a little extra incentive. And then I'd love to hear, can you share any success stories that you've just seen or key takeaways from any of the previous events. Right. So whether it's 2023 or even before, like, any, I'm sure there's a ton of, you know, micro success stories, but anything that stands out to you of, like, something you want to share?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:29:56]:

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would say, like, you know, probably the best successes are the ones that I don't even hear about. Right. Because it's like, you know, a conference that you meet someone that you never would have bumped in. Before you start chatting, you're like, oh, you do x, I do y. Like, you know, let's talk about it at drinks after the event. And so as much as I wish all those people, like, would email me and say, hey, you will never believe what.

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Angelo Esposito [00:30:14]:

Thank you.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:30:14]:

Yeah, yeah. So, yeah, there's all the silent success stories, but then in terms of things that get press right, you know, we always have a good media presence. So in Curb War 2022, we saw there was a kind of delivery robot company called Tortoise that they did a really interesting pivot to kind of mobile smart stores where the stores became, or the robots became almost vending machines on wheels, and they would service, like, a line. So if you had a really popular restaurant and people were just waiting 20 people deep, you could roll this thing out and they could buy drinks or pastries. So that was a fun launch. The machine kind of rolled down the aisle. And then this past march, you know, we had execs from Uber on stage, and they made some big kind of product announcements. And so, you know, in a sense, like, if you're Uber, you can.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:31:00]:

You can put the announcement out and it's going to get traction anywhere. But I think the fact that they decided to do it from our stage shows, you know, for lack of a better world, that there's interesting people in the mix, there's interesting press in the mix, there's deals to be done. And so anyone else out there, if you got something cool that you're planning to launch in Q one, do it at Curbivore.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:20]:

There you go. And if people want to reach out to you, because I'm sure they. Maybe they want to learn more about you. What's the best way? You know, interested in attending or maybe sponsoring, maybe speaking? If they want to reach you, do they just go to the website and contact form or what's the best way to kind of get.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:31:35]:

Yeah, either go to the website, curb a voir co. You can read. Read the weekly substack they put out about tech trends, which is the Curbivore.com, or email me directly, you know, j o n a h B. Jonah B. At Curbivore Co. You know, follow me on Twitter before Elon shuts it down. So there's lots of ways to find me. If you have something to say.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:31:55]:

I will listen. So.

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Angelo Esposito [00:31:57]:

I love it. I love it. Okay. Awesome, man. And then. And any, just to maybe end off, any advice you'd give to, you know, businesses right now when it comes to adapting to the changing landscape, I guess, of even just urban commerce, I guess.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:32:14]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, I think small businesses in particular are inherently conservative. And I mean that in, like, a lowercase, the non political sense. But just like, you know, your margins are thin, your savings are low. This is like your passion project, make or break. And so, you know, when you see that the city is like putting in a bike lane on the street, you're naturally, like, you're reactive, right? Like, oh, no, like this change. Like, maybe things are better, but if they're worse, I'm finished. Right? And so that's the same about any other change, whether it's moving to delivery or using delivery robot or, you know, changing your parking lot to outdoor dining.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:32:53]:

And so I totally understand that defensiveness. Right? It's scary. It's change. It's. It could be dangerous, but.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:00]:

Right.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:33:00]:

This has been happening for years, decades now. And the data all points to these being broadly positive changes. And so if you're willing to just kind of, like, get over that hump, right? Like, you know, maybe if you look at work where you adapt something to this new audience, but it's going to make your life better. It's going to make your neighborhood better. It's going to make your business better. And so don't. Don't fight the change. Embrace the change.

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:21]:

Awesome. And then where would you say, you see, and I got to ask you this because you're, you have a unique perspective, because being the founder of Curbivores and having access to all these different companies and speakers and et cetera, et cetera, where do you see the future of, I guess, the restaurant slash curb scene? Where do you see that going in the next three, five years?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:33:45]:

Yeah. How much time do we have?

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Angelo Esposito [00:33:49]:

We got some time. I'd love to hear if you're right. It'll make a good short in a few years.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:33:54]:

Yeah. Let's put some money on this and revisit in 2028. No, I mean, gosh, I think we're living in a very bifurcated world, and it's only getting more so. And that's true about all sorts of things. Right. But I think in terms of restaurants, right. If you're running a downtown lunch oriented business, I don't know if that business is ever coming back the way it was, pre pandemic, just because the foot traffic isn't there and it's not as consistent. And even if it is, their own patterns have changed.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:34:29]:

Maybe they've like, a new restaurant now or they realize they can get delivery from somewhere, not downtown. So I think those kind of businesses and those sort of real estate owners and those sort of neighborhood councils and cities really need to think big about what you're doing with that space. And we need to repurpose that. You know, can we make more kind of outdoor gardens and patios and just like, make it. Make downtowns a place you want to be for all sorts of reasons, not just hope that, like, the nine to five lunch crowd comes back if you force them to. And then. Yeah, I think also, you know, we saw sort of continued suburbanization in the country, and so a lot of people moved to the boonies. And so, you know, we don't need to repeat the last 60 years of development patterns where it's just, you know, sort of wide highways and no sidewalks and chains doors.

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Jonah Bliss  [00:35:19]:

Right. I think there's an opportunity to really create a sense of place in a lot of these areas. And so that's, again, like a conversation between city planners and small businesses about, like, how do we make new neighborhoods worth going to and worth walking around? And, yes, even if it doesn't mean everything is going to have, you know, transit and, you know, perfect bike lanes everywhere. We can at least make them like, places you want to be and not just, you know, copy and paste a McDonald's and a Burger king, you know, from here to the highway.

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Angelo Esposito [00:35:48]:

Right. Makes a ton of sense. And I guess to wrap up, what's one message maybe you'd want to share with, you know, future or even past attendees of Curbivore? What's something that you'd want to share, a message you want to share with them, you know, regarding, just, I guess, your mission?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:36:05]:

Yeah, great question. Yeah, I think the world keeps changing, right. So if you've been in the past, I think there's gonna be something new for you this year. And obviously, I'm biased in saying that, but even just in terms of the technology that was booming, I think curb for 2022, we had a super fast delivery company give one of the keynotes, Joker not to single it out, but they raised billions of dollars, and the whole world was going gaga for 15 minutes delivery of everything, right? And then that world just basically crashed. It barely exists in the US. It's still kind of around in Europe, kind of around in Latin America.

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Angelo Esposito [00:36:46]:

Right?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:36:47]:

But, you know, what was seemingly inevitable one day can be yesterday's news in the blink of an eye. And so I just think, especially in a space like this, there's always something more to learn, someone new to meet. So, you know, come and bring something cool for us. And I think, you know, that's what the world needs.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:06]:

That's awesome. Well, Jonah, thank you for being here. Once again, everyone. We have Jonah Bliss from Curbivore.co. The Curbivore event happens every year, I believe, in March this year. It's coming up. March 2024 in LA, right?

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Jonah Bliss  [00:37:20]:

Yes, Los Angeles, March 20 29th. See you there.

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Angelo Esposito [00:37:24]:

Amazing. Thanks for being here on the Wisking It all podcast. It's been a pleasure to have you on. Feel free to check out WISK.AI for more resources and schedule a demo with one of our product specialists to see.

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