November 10, 2025 • 42 mins
In this episode of the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast, Jeremy Julian discusses the transformative journey of digital signage with Eli Chmouni, CEO of Neon. Eli shares his unique path to founding Neon, a company that simplifies digital signage for restaurants and retail with a plug-and-play approach. From his stint working at a Burger King drive-through for research to creating a solution that increases sales by up to 17%, Eli's dedication to solving customer problems is evident. The episode dives into the integration of Neon's software with POS systems, the benefits of digital signage in both customer-facing and employee-facing environments, and how Neon's ease of use and customer support set it apart in the market. Tune in to learn how digital signage can enhance operations and boost sales across various industries.
00:00 Introduction to the Podcast
00:22 Meet Eli, CEO of Neon
00:36 The Birth of Neon
01:06 Neon's Impact on Digital Signage
01:28 Jeremy's Introduction and Disclaimer
02:07 Eli's Background and Early Ventures
02:59 Spotlight and the Digital Signage Problem
04:14 Creating Pixie and the Birth of Neon
05:05 Neon's Growth and Market Impact
10:43 The Importance of Convenience and Support
12:51 Eli's Burger King Experience
14:04 Neon's Drive-Through System
15:19 Challenges and Solutions in Digital Menu Boards
19:48 Flexibility and Efficiency of Digital Signage
21:02 Focusing on the Restaurant Space
21:26 Dynamic Menu Integration with POS Systems
22:24 Addressing Out-of-Stock Items
23:02 Maximizing Digital Signage Impact
23:54 Reliability of Digital Signage Systems
25:01 Handling Internet Outages
28:37 Drive-Through Innovations
33:19 Expanding Beyond Quick Service Restaurants
33:52 Innovations in Music and Loyalty Programs
37:28 Final Thoughts and Contact Information
39:02 Comprehensive Digital Solutions for Various Industries
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker (00:02):
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
Today's episode is one of thosefounding stories that's just too
good to miss.
I am joined by Eli, who is theCEO of Neon.
(00:26):
I would love to say his lastname, but I know I'm gonna screw
it up and he and I tease aboutthat all the time.
A company that's really.
Changing the way digital signagefor restaurants, retail and
beyond are delivered.
He didn't set out to build atech company, but uh, really he
was solving some problems in thead space and got frustrated with
the way that, uh, software wasdeployed and the way it was
supported, and he ended upcreating it.
(00:48):
Creating this softwareultimately to scratch his own
itch and to solve a problem thathe had.
He also worked in adrive-through at Burger King for
two weeks just to understand thecustomer experience better.
Like incredible, CEO just hastons of dedication to really
helping solve customer'sproblem.
We dive in in this episode onhow Neon is making digital
(01:09):
digital signage.
Plug and play and how it trulyincreases sales by up to 17%.
And why?
Great support, great softwareand speed to market is a huge
piece to solving today's digitalsignage challenges.
Stick around till the end andsubscribe to the episode.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy.
(01:30):
Julian.
I am the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS North Star.
We wrote the North Star point ofSale solution for multi-units.
Please check us out.
CBS northstar.com.
And now onto the episode.
And real quick, a disclaimer onthis episode.
I have a little bit of issuewith the initial recording.
The first 30 seconds or so are alittle bit wonky'cause we had to
(01:50):
cut some stuff together, hadsome challenges with the
uploads, so stick with usbecause it does get really juicy
towards the middle when Elitalks about his, uh, burger King
cat and how he still wears itaround the office proudly to,
uh, talk about, uh, all of thethings that he had to learn to
solve customer's problems.
Jeremy Julian (02:07):
I am joined by a founder that, these are some of
my favorite stories'cause it's afounder that scratch and itch
that he found in a totallydifferent business.
Totally different World.
World, and came back and said,you know what?
I can really make a differencehere.
And Eli, why don't you introduceyourself.
Give a little bit about yourbackground and then we'll get a
chance to, to dig into neon.
Eli Chmouni (02:25):
Yeah.
Hey Jeremy.
Thanks for having me on thepodcast.
a little bit about me.
I've started a couple companiesin the past, primarily in the
media tech space.
I've had two exits and, for thepast 15 years I've been also a
faculty member at Arizona StateUniversity, really teaching
students how to start companies,how to grow companies, and how
to really go from that idea to,to a fully executed company.
(02:46):
So a little background aboutNeon, it actually came
completely out of nowhere.
with a neon background.
I wasn't like intending to starta digital signage company.
I wasn't, planning to kindareally get into that space.
I've always loved the ad space.
I've always loved the billboardspace.
So I had a company calledSpotlight.
It was Spotlight.
Really what we did is wepartnered with Zu.
Aquariums and we gave them, freeTV scan all across the zoo.
(03:09):
And we used those screens foradvertising purposes where half
the screen was showingadvertising.
The other half of the screen wasshowing, promotions for the zoo.
So if you're familiar with whatClear channel or, Lamar, they do
in airports, we basicallydecided to do the same thing
with zoos and aquariums thathave, attendance of more than a
million guests.
So we partnered with the PhoenixZoo, we partnered with, Fort
Worth Zoo.
(03:29):
the problem though is I didn'twanna start a tech company.
I just finished from a techcompany.
I wanted just to focus on ad andrevenue making.
So I started searching like,what sort of software currently
exists in the market?
And, decided to kinda use what'sout.
what I found online.
So I think I tried opt ign.
I tried, engage or whateverSPECT now, and I've tried,
signage live.
I tried a couple differentproviders just to kinda see
(03:51):
really what works in terms ofadvertising and content
promotion.
And what happened is literallyevery two weeks for every one
week I would get a ticket fromthe zoo.
This is not showing, this is notworking.
and.
After like being front for sixmonths, I'm like, there has to
be like an easier way to dothis.
It's literally we're putting twoimages on a screen and I can
watch that.
Yeah.
It can't be that hard where Igo.
It can't be.
It said every entrepreneur ever.
(04:12):
It can't be that hard.
It can't be that hard.
So literally took like a, took amonth, ended up designing like
what I envisioned.
This would be like super easy touse.
And, got a couple of engineerstogether.
My background is engineering, soI got a couple of engineers
together, ended up building thefirst version.
It was called Pixie back then,by the way, neon was not a
thing.
So it was called Pixie and itwas supposed to be an internal
(04:33):
tool for Spotlight.
It was like for us to use, And Istill remember this, we had a
meeting with Discount Tire andthe whole idea was to pitch
Discount Tire, the same thingpeople are sitting in the lobby,
so might as well put a screenthere and show advertising and
monetize, that model.
And then he looked at me, he isforget about advertising.
What's that software that you'reusing?
I'm like, oh, this is just likean internal tool.
He is no, we'll pay you for thissoftware.
(04:54):
How much would you charge?
For us to use the software andat that time it was like$20 a
month and he is yeah, deal.
I was like, I should have saidhigher,
Jeremy Julian (05:02):
Yeah, exactly.
oh, that I certainly went toolow.
Eli Chmouni (05:04):
yeah.
Too low.
that was a quick deal, butliterally it kinda went from
there to.
Starting to kinda really talk tocustomers, understand the pain
points, reading the reviewsonline of really what's the
problem with digital signage andwhy is it a problem?
And really what we found out islike there's a lot of companies
that have been in the space forsuch a long time, like the
dinosaurs in this space and justhave not updated the tech stack.
They have not like innovated andthey focus on that recurring
(05:28):
revenue from SaaS aspect really.
hold some stage, to, to justusing their software and we
decided to kinda came in andruffle some feathers and disrupt
the space and just build a superpowerful tool that could be used
also by marketing team.
Does not require an IT team,does not require like onsite
servers or anything like that,so we made it super easy to use.
I just remember one night I wasmeeting with one of my friends
(05:49):
and he's what's your vision forthis?
And I'm like, I want it, likethe old like neon signs, like on
the door that says like open orlike they would show like the
sales or things like that.
I was like, I kinda want likethe TV screen.
It's kinda like the new neonsign.
I was like, hold on.
Neon, is that name available?
Like I searched it and that'show Neon was literally, it was
like me chatting with my friend.
Wow.
and we ended up switching thename, to Neon, spun it off into
(06:12):
its own company.
And, fast forward to today, wehave, over 20,000 screens that
we power with huge brands acrossthe world.
And, it's super exciting and Ithink it literally started from
me facing the problem, talkingto other customers,
understanding their pain point,and being where we're at today,
four, four years later.
Jeremy Julian (06:29):
Yeah.
No, and it's been amazing towatch your guys', your guys'
growth.
'cause quite honestly, obviouslyfive years ago you didn't, the
company didn't even exist.
And now I feel like I can't goanywhere without seeing both the
adoption of digital signs andthen really you guys being a
player that really did it alittle bit differently.
And so I guess when you look atthe market as a whole, how many,
(06:49):
offline brands, retail,'causeagain.
Part of the challenges, andwe'll dig into this a little bit
later, Elay, is that part of thechallenge is you've got a
disconnected network.
You're not always visible towhat's going on in the stores.
It's a critical piece of whatthey're doing.
the, but the cost has come down.
Internet connectivity is, hasgone up, from a li reliability
perspective.
So there's a lot of things thatyou guys have done to hit a
(07:09):
sweet spot in the timing.
But if you look at the market asa whole, how big is the market
to get to digital signage andreally digital menus versus
where we're at today?
Eli Chmouni (07:19):
Yeah, I, look, I agree with you.
I think, there's always like alittle bit of luck when you're
starting a company, but there'salso a lot of good timing, and I
believe we hit it on the timingpart, right?
Where a lot of the providers inthe space are older and slower
tech require, like very biginvestment upfront.
And then You are, you areentering this phase.
Now of post COVID restaurantera, where a lot of these
(07:41):
restaurants want tech, they wantto innovate, they wanna, provide
great experiences for theircustomers just because the
competition in the space isgreat, but they also don't want
to invest, tens of thousands ofdollars to really get there.
so that was like a, that was akey point.
When we started the company, wesaid, Hey, if you picked up a TV
from Best Buy on a Black Friday,we want Neon to be able to work
on it.
(08:01):
we don't care if it's a conveneor.
Stream a great screen.
You can sell Neon app on any ofthose screens.
And I think that's really thekey differentiator of what makes
us different.
we recently had a brand huge,over 200 locations and, and we
have a common friend, actually,Brittany, Mercer at Cowboy
Chicken.
So it's funny, she was usingign, we got on a call and she's
Hey, I'm not thinking aboutchanging.
(08:23):
I'm gimme a shot.
And literally while we're inthe.
First demo.
We didn't even show her thedashboard, wait, I'm starting,
I'm staring on the TV and it's asmart tv.
Can I just install the app rightthere?
And I'm like, yeah, let's goahead and try it.
By the time she installed theapp, I already had her menu all
up and running.
We did the, her entire store infive minutes.
And that's really whatrestaurateurs are looking for
right now and marketing managersare looking for is they want
(08:45):
something that's superconvenient for them to use.
They want something.
Something that's super easy todeploy, but they also want like
that relationship aspect ofdon't just sell me software and
circle back with me in threeyears when the contract is up
for a mule.
Like actually maintain thatrelationship and guide me
through the process of how do Itake advantage of those screens
and make them even better.
Jeremy Julian (09:05):
and you said it like.
The capital investment hasalways been a big piece of
getting to digital scienceoutside of the software side of
things.
And I want to dig into why youguys make it so easy and'cause I
do think that's a hugedifferentiator between Neon and
some of the others, is how easyyou make it for everybody that
has any form of graphical.
Abilities to do it.
But really, Eli, I the, anotherpiece of the secret sauce is the
(09:27):
fact that you guys made itaccessible without having to
have a player.
I remember the first digitalsignage customer that we had,
you had to get a specific kindof tv.
You had to get the stupid assplayer that sometimes worked,
sometimes didn't.
It would overheat and when itwould overheat, it would stop
working.
it was a bad experience acrossthe board.
And that's not to mention.
Digital menu boards that are outat the drive-through and the
phoenix heat where you happen toreside.
(09:49):
that's even a worse situation inthe cold and, in, in the north
of the country.
All of those kind of things.
But why did you guys get it tothis accessible place that is
because again, a.
Brittany, we talked to youalluded to, I happen to have
lunch with her the day that youinstalled.
Ironically, she was thereinstalling the day that I had
lunch with her, and I'm like,she's oh yeah, Eli just did
this.
I'm like, yeah, they, that guy'sawesome.
(10:11):
but why did you guys go?
I guess because it is a dilemma.
Even, the phone that I havewhere, I happen to be an Apple,
apple ecosystem guy, we're in aplace where not all phones are
gonna get.
iOS 26, not all watches aregonna get, apple os.
So it creates a give and takewhere you want to get it so
accessible to be able to scale,but also sometimes there's
(10:31):
limiting factors with the tech.
So I'd love to get behind yourthoughts in your brain Yep.
As to why did you get to thatplace where the accessibility
and the capital investment youknew was going to be a big
piece.
Eli Chmouni (10:43):
look, I think everyone wants convenience,
right?
I put myself in, into, I grewup, my parents had a bakery, a
been in the restaurant spacelike as a family member.
My sister had a restaurant.
And the amount of things thatcan go wrong for a restaurant on
a day to day basis, it's justshocking, right?
people are gonna call off your,your fries vendor is not gonna
show up on time.
(11:04):
That chair that you just, paidmoney for.
Let's get a break.
the hood's not gonna work.
Internet's gonna, There's like amillion things that can go
wrong.
I literally, from day one, I didnot want digital science to be
one of them on their list.
I want it to be super easy,super convenient, and in case
something does go wrong.
they can call us and, we'reavailable by phone support, by
tech support, so we can resolveit from that aspect.
(11:25):
But specifically to yourquestion of like why the ease of
use was a big deal, was honestlybecause technology has improved
so much and from day one.
Our focus was, we're a productled company, so our team is 70%
engineers.
We have two salespeople on theteam versus like we have
everyone that's engineering andin support tend to grow really
(11:46):
from customers telling eachother about how Cool Neon is and
how easy it was.
Just like Brittany told you,right?
You guys didn't know that youboth knew.
I think that kind of drives alot further.
Where I don't have a, a salesdeal that's gonna take a year to
close is because guess what?
That person was referred to byanother trusted, trusted friend
in the industry.
So I think from day one, we'vealways been product led.
(12:08):
I wanted the amount of hoursthat I spent on like designing
the UI to be one click away andthe simplicity of it to be like,
Hey, whether you're afranchisee, that's a, that's an
older franchisee's.
Not familiar with tech orwhether you're a 16-year-old
that just doesn't care aboutbeing there and just wants
something to just like work.
Like we thought about it fromthat range.
(12:28):
there's a funny story that,that, that my, my investors love
and it's kinda a bit crazy, but.
Initially when we started, wewere building our digital
signage for indoor, and then wewere trying to figure out, okay,
how do we do our drive throughsystem to also be better and to,
to operate faster and to runsystem on chip and to really
speed up, the transaction time.
(12:51):
and we couldn't like nail itspecifically because none of us
on the team have actually beenin a drive through.
So the funny story.
Is I actually applied and Iworked at Burger King for two
weeks, and this is two and ahalf years ago.
this is not like at thebeginning of the company.
This is like pretty recent, Iwould say.
so when I was waiting in thedrive through at Burger King,
that order took six minutes to,for, I'm like, why is this
(13:13):
taking so long?
Like, how do we even make this?
There was a QR code that sayswe're high.
I scanned it while waiting formy order.
I submitted the application.
I said, I'm a college student.
just trying to do like a nightshift.
So I would literally finish myentire shift here at Neon to
five, 6:00 PM I would drive tothis Burger King and I would
work the window from 6:00 PM to11:00 PM because I needed to
(13:33):
know like how the POS systemworked.
what was.
Holding them back.
What was the issue with theheadset?
Why did this order take longer?
and it was like the best twoweeks of my life because at the
end of it, I did qualify forassistant management training,
by the way.
just in case it's my Plan B,life goals, In case, yeah.
In case if Neon doesn't workout, you got the assistant
manager job, burger King, forsure.
that's what I'm saying.
I came back to the board.
(13:54):
I asked for a raise, I said,look what I can do.
but I learned so much from thatexperience in terms of What is
the end user experiencing?
And we came back and we builtone of the best drive through
systems.
And that's why now we get pickedup by Houston Hot Chicken, by
super shakes, by all these newbrands.
Angie's, like all these brandsthat wanna drive through system.
They're picking us and we'rebuilt, we're creating this
(14:14):
entire system that we can sourcethe hardware, ship it to their
locations, install it, and havethe software running on them all
from one vendor that they don'thave to deal with seven vendors
to juggle it all.
Just, they just work with neon.
We handle the whole thing andtypically we're like.
10% cheaper, but that's likecherry on top.
Jeremy Julian (14:32):
But even if it's not, one of the things that,
that, I find remarkable is justeven how you guys understand the
voice of the customer and howmaking it easy is so critical.
Not only the capital investmentside of things that we just
talked about.
I love that you're so passionateabout making it simple.
I still, I'm still waiting formy picture of you in the, in the
apron, the Burger King shirtwith the, I
Eli Chmouni (14:52):
was gonna wear, I was gonna wear.
Today.
'cause I found the burger hat inmy car.
I was gonna wear it today.
I'm gonna grab, I'm gonna grabit here in the second.
Jeremy Julian (15:00):
I love it.
I love it.
I know.
when you and I were talkingabout it and you told me that
story, I was like, dude, I needa picture of you to, I should go
find some chat GPT things toI'm.
Eli Chmouni (15:07):
Yeah, I'll, I'll send you for the edits, my shift
schedule.
my, I was on the paper on thebulletin board there.
Jeremy Julian (15:13):
I love it.
at least if ne doesn't work out,you have a, drive through fast
food assistant manager job in,in those, those capabilities.
Eli talk, let's flip around realquick because historically
digital menu board companies,you talk about some of your
competition, and I'm not lookingto name names, but it is one of
those things where you do needto understand the application.
You've gotta be pretty deep inunderstanding.
(15:33):
Color schemes and formats andvideos and there's so many
different kind of nuances topieces of software.
And I know you guys took atotally different approach, but
why don't you talk our listenersthrough that might be on just
static menu boards have neverreally looked and they go out
and start looking, what are youtraditionally gonna find?
And then how does Neon differfrom a ease of use perspective
(15:54):
for getting menu updates,whether it be on the digital
menu board in the drive throughor in the store.
And then let's talk a little bitabout where you see the rest of
things going.
Eli Chmouni (16:02):
Yeah, in terms of, in terms of the guidance that
they need.
Look, I think when people, whenpeople are still having, when
people still have static menuboards till today, there's two
reasons for that.
Number one is.
They have been pitched beforethat the cost of switching to
digital is astronomical.
So they're already scared, Hey,this is gonna cost me a lot.
(16:23):
This is probably not the bestuse of money.
I'm not gonna spend$10,000 rightnow when I have other expenses
that, that I need.
the second reason for it is theybelieve that the.
Aesthetic is very important,like a coffee shop or if you've
been to, for example, to SweetParis, the aesthetic really
matters.
Like they want the chalkboard,they want it to match with the
brand, and they really think theTV screen is gonna be like, too
(16:45):
bright, too annoying, it's notreally gonna fit within.
Within that atmosphere.
So typically what we do is forthe first kind of persona, we
literally have a table that weshow them TV screens that they
can buy from Best Buy or fromCostco.
They're like 200 bucks a screen.
and they're like, really?
that's it.
I'm like, yep.
I'm gonna give you the link.
There's not an upcharge.
You can just go on, you can goon, co use your Costco points or
(17:08):
whatever it is.
and then they, we just give themthe links.
We give them the table, we showthem all the different brands,
all the different sizes, andwe're just very transparent in
that.
And we actually recommendcertain screens to them that
although they're consumer grade,that might last a bit longer,
right?
Like we want to Sway them awayfrom some of the brands that we
know are gonna have issues orbecome, turn pink in six months.
so that's kinda like optionnumber one is the transparency
(17:29):
of showing them like, Hey, thisis doable for you.
You can actually, if you have alocation that has three menu
boards, you can convert them todigital for like less than$800
that they never thought that wasactually possible.
So I think that's step numberone.
Step number two is what we dowith them is we actually take
their static boards.
And we digitize it for thembased on our knowledge and our
(17:50):
industry experience of whatlooks best on the boards.
We recently worked with a brandcalled, imagine Movie Theaters.
They're a big movie theater, upnorth.
And the cool part about that isthey showed us their menus and.
And they already had a digitalversion of the menus, but we
still told them like, Hey, basedon our experience, we have a
couple of ideas for you.
are you guys open to that?
We ended up redesigning theirmenus, taking advantage of the
(18:12):
sidebar to show different LTOsdepending on the time of the day
or maybe depending on the day ofthe week.
So just sometimes giving themthose ideas and showing them how
easy it is to implement some ofthese things and creating those
templates inside of Neon showsthem that we're not just a
software company, we're reallylike a marketing extension.
We're an extension of theirmarketing team.
To really help them optimizewhat their screens look like.
(18:32):
And then if you go to persona Bwhere they're like, screens are
too, we actually start showingthe means or have the mat finish
or how they can make screens,Matt finish or how maybe they
can put a frame.
Stream around the TV to make itlook more like a poster rather
than a screen.
so with Sweet Paris, initiallythey were like completely
against digital and then endedup creating this package for
them.
That takes advantage of theframe, that takes advantage of,
(18:54):
of some of the matte finishedscreens.
And it looks super beautiful.
Now when someone comes up, itstill looks bored.
It's still because we designed.
The background to look likechalk.
We chose the font to look like,but guess what?
Every 30 seconds, there is alittle video that kind of plays
to show the crepe for the monthor the crepe for the week in
order to cause an upsell of thatspecific product.
Jeremy Julian (19:13):
and I love that idea that you guys know that
this is the objection thatyou're gonna get is I need it to
fit my brand aesthetic.
And then they go, oh, it canlook just like what I have now.
but give me the flexibility toenhance, to add exactly.
To move to change.
'cause.
In a physical menu boardperspective, you typically are
sitting out at one, two months.
(19:35):
I gotta get the menu boardordered, I gotta get it shipped,
I gotta get it.
I've been to stores in the pastwhere they're physically
changing the menu boards andeven Corner bakery.
And again, I'm not picking onQuarter Bakery or Panera.
They've got some physical boardsthat they have to change even
during meal periods.
And so from that perspective,and then the other piece, Eli,
talk a little bit about theflexibility once you go digital,
because.
(19:55):
In today's day and age, we just,went through when we're
recording this, in August of2025, but we had that huge egg
thing where you, everybody hadto deal with the egg crisis and
the egg pricing changes in aphysical menu board area.
You get this ugly aesthetic.
you talk about the chalkboard.
people just scratching out thephysical menu board and writing
the new price or taking asticker and sticking it over top
(20:17):
of it.
Whereas once you go digital.
It's almost instantaneous.
You can make a change if youneed to be able to be in, in the
world.
I guess just be able to makethose changes, whereas before it
take months and months ofplanning, preparation, shipment,
and then you have no way to evenknow did the store do what they
were supposed to do, not do whatthey were supposed to do.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough the flexibility and how
that looks.
Eli Chmouni (20:39):
Yeah, going back to the first example I gave you
with Discount Tire, one of thebiggest problems that they were
facing was, that 68% of theirstores would put up those
promotions in time because theywere static.
wow.
So think about it, you'reprinting all these posters,
right?
You are spending the money onshipping them, and then you're
sending them to all theselocations and that, and just a
little bit over half.
actually getting them up intime.
(20:59):
and sometimes maybe not even atall.
So there's a couple things thatwas critical to us from day one,
especially with our focus on therestaurant space.
So initially when I started thecompany where we're serving a
wide range of verticals andmarkets, now about 90% of our
customer base is in thatrestaurant space, right?
So we really start to understandthat restaurant persona.
And one of the biggest thingswas integration with the POS
(21:21):
system.
So we integrate with indifferent POS systems and.
Because of those integrations,it really allowed that dynamic
aspect of the menu that if afranchisee decides to change the
price of an acai bowl from 10 99to, 1149, they can do it
directly on, in their POSwithout having to reach back to
marketing to redesign the menu,to send them a new jpeg to
(21:43):
update it that way, or to put asticky note over the screen or
any of those things.
So the ability to changesomething in the POS and
immediately showing on the.
Screen that gives you afranchisee so much more
perceived power in terms of whatthey can do in terms of
controlling the environment thatthey're in.
So that was kinda one of our,one of our key focuses, one of
the only platforms in marketsthat have all these different
(22:05):
POS integrations that werecertified on all of them because
we really invested in thoseintegrations that we really
cared about the importance ofhaving all of those, the second.
That I really have with signage,especially with drive-throughs,
is when you see like a big,eight and a half by 11, it says
out of stock or like no longeravailable.
or things like that.
and with our system, we'reactually able to immediately
(22:26):
track any 86 items in your menuand also update your menu to
reflect that by showing out ofstock or removing it directly
from your menu screen.
So not only it's about priceupdates, not only it's about,
the, it's really about.
Having your menus reflect thetrue state of operating your
restaurants, whether it's price,whether it's inventory, and then
honestly, I think the cherry ontop is the ability to like
(22:49):
dynamically show differentproducts that you have.
Because I think the worst thingthat you can do is put a screen
up, use digital signage, butjust have one image, one jpeg
Right there.
That's not.
Really the best use of digitalside.
We would advise our clients,hey, how maybe the first two
are, typically like a jpegconnected to your, POS system.
But maybe the third one shouldhave an LTO that changes every
(23:11):
day.
Maybe you have the flavor of theweek or the dish of the day or
things like that.
Just so when a customer kind ofcomes back, they see that
there's something more exciting.
And then we've had data overdata, that shows if you are
featuring an LTO on an LTOboard.
That product will have anincrease of about 17% of being
purchased compared to somethingelse.
And I think that's really howyou start using digital signage
(23:33):
to impact your, simplifying youroperations, but also impact your
revenue, your revenue growth aswell.
Jeremy Julian (23:40):
yeah, I love that.
And I love the story of the 17%.
'cause that's huge.
from a sales increaseperspective, you pay for those
screens.
Almost immediately with justthat sales increase, a hundred
percent for those naysayers thatsay, it's too hard to manage
these things, what happens whenthe internet goes down?
What do I have to do whenthey're offline?
happened to have had a sandwicha few months ago at a local
store that had digital signagethat was down the store's.
(24:01):
Internet was down.
The digital sign stoppedworking.
I had to get a physical papermenu at a counter service, a
place that was sellingsandwiches, and I was like, I
don't, and it wasn't a placethat I frequented.
I just happened to be on thatside of town.
I stopped, oh, I haven't had oneof these sandwiches in a really
long time.
I go, and the menu boardexperience is awful.
I have to go to this paper menu.
Then they have, problems withtheir POS, not RPOS, not your
(24:23):
digital science, but I'd lovefor you to share with our
listeners that are like, it'sgonna take too much to manage
too much internet bandwidth.
What happens when the store goesdown?
All of these kind of things.
Talk us through the reliabilityand why.
You guys design it in such away,'cause I know from inside,
conversations you and I have hadthat you took that in mind when
you guys built your solution.
Eli Chmouni (24:44):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
and I think this kinda goes backto like us experiencing these
products.
we even have nicknames for thosetwo providers.
We call'em Crappy Yo and Fattbecause their screens never work
and the screens are always fadedand are.
Off.
so yeah, look, we had a clientthat currently at about 50
stores with us.
And, they had an internet issuepop up.
(25:04):
It was a corporate that affectedall their stores, and all of a
sudden, the next day all theirmenus were showing on top of it.
and working with that brand,they're like, we wanna make sure
like you guys' system doesn't dothat.
And then from day one, we'veactually experienced it.
Because guess what?
Working at Zoos and Aquariums,they don't have the best wifi.
you're, yes.
(25:24):
These are very big, open areas.
There's not like access pointseverywhere.
So from day one, we actuallydeveloped our system.
To create a local backup of allthe content that you push over
to the screen.
So any content that's video orimage, we create a local backup
of it, not cached.
We actually create a backup ofit and on that TV storage or on
that device that we use.
and then that continues to playfrom that local storage.
(25:46):
So we're not always streaming onyour wifi, we're not dependent
on your wifi.
You can literally unplug ourdevice.
Plug it back in a year later andit'll still show your content,
or have no internet for a wholeyear.
And it'll still kinda show thecontent.
So it will still show yourcontent rather than having that
blank screen.
And the really cool part isbecause it's powered directly
from the tv, every time you turnon and turn it off the tv, it
automatically refreshes, itautomatically restarts, directly
(26:09):
from there.
So I think those are like keycomponents in terms of creating
that backup to make sure thatyour screens are always,
Working.
We all kinda it's funny.
One of our, one of our, salesstrategy, it was one of our like
lead gen strategies is us goingthrough like Google files.
Photos and then seeing whichmenu boards are showing us off.
like we recently signed apartnership with, and literally
(26:30):
if you search the great Greek,they always had one, the fifth
screen that was not showing, anycontent.
And they're like, and they'relike, oh yeah, we have so many
issues with our currentprovider.
So they tested us for a wholemonth and one of the pilots and
then they ended up picking usbecause we didn't have any of
these issues.
So I think.
I think we've built everyfeature on the platform.
The pain point of a customer orcustomer asked for it.
I remember our first BOSintegration was actually with
(26:51):
Par.
and, one of our clients was,with Super Chicks and I had a
meeting with him and he's look,we're using app to signs.
We're not gonna switch.
we're good.
And I'm like, can you just showme like how you do things?
so he pulled up his dashboardand he had over 150 JPEGs, and
then he had 30 Google sheetsthat was showing the prices.
At every single one of thelocations.
(27:13):
I'm like, wait, so every timeyou have to do something, this
is what you have to go through.
I'm like, wait, but your pricesare already in your POS system,
so why doesn't it pull?
And he is oh, it doesn't have,it doesn't pull from me.
The POS system, if I can buildthis for you, if I can solve
this problem for you, will youpick us?
And he is sure.
So literally we ended up takingthree weeks, built this entire
integration, came back now wetook his entire content from 150
(27:34):
JPEGs down to five.
And our system now dynamicallypulls content from his POS
updates, things dynamically, andjust does it all on its own.
And we went from working withthem on 20 locations, now we're
close to 40, 40.
Five locations with them.
we just did their first drivethrough and they're like one of
our biggest ambassadors outthere.
They're like, every time welike, refer a customer to them,
(27:54):
they're like, just stop lookingaround.
Just use Neon.
like Skyler is the best with allthat kind of stuff.
So it's that kind ofrelationship that we built with
them where you just ask so youknow, what is the problem that
you're facing?
And then we go ahead and fix itfor them.
And they're like, yeah, that'sexactly what I need.
So just, listening goes a longway.
I feel like that's, every,couple's therapy, advice 1 0 1.
Jeremy Julian (28:13):
I love it.
I love it.
and at the end of the day, theother thing that you guys do is
you guys are able to reactbecause I think all too often, I
think some of your competitorsmight know that these are
problems, but aren't able tomodify their business model
because they've.
either legacy code that theycan't deal with or whatever
their reason is, they might knowit's a problem, but they don't
have the means or the willpowerto dig through it.
(28:34):
And Eli, just'cause I've got twolittle threads that I'd love to
talk through.
Talk me through, drive-throughreal quick, because everybody's
talking about drive-through CODreally increased drive-through
throughput and where things areat.
You've got your traditionalsquawk box where it's got a
speaker and it's just got adigital screen that kind of goes
through things.
And then you've got typically astatic menu board.
Ironically, one of my breakfasthaunts on my way to work is a
(28:55):
Burger King, and they just movedto digital, at the store here
way.
But
Eli Chmouni (29:00):
should I do that?
Jeremy Julian (29:01):
Oh, you got the hat.
I like it.
I got,
Eli Chmouni (29:04):
I like it.
this is the OG hat you stillhave dust on.
Jeremy Julian (29:08):
That's funny.
but in general, like probably50% of the time when I drive
through, fortunately I know whatI'm getting because I go there
on a regular basis.
But, at the end of the day,drive through is another
critical component.
And all too often, whether it'san LTO, whether it's just even
knowing where you're at in thequeue, that, you've got the
static boards and then thedigital ones.
(29:29):
And sometimes they're the same.
Sometimes they aren't, thesepeople will come out with these
LTOs and then they, then you goto the menu board and you're all
excited to order something andthen they don't have it.
So there's so many differentways in the digital.
Menu board space as it relatesto drive through that you guys
have helped automate.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough what's different from
that and the three menu boardsthat you have in the store that,
that you were talking aboutearlier.
Eli Chmouni (29:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think there's twocomponents for that, is we
simplified how easy it's tolaunch a drive through.
and by being a one vendorsolution, we recently, as I
mentioned to you, we wereworking with Houston Hot
Chicken.
They had four different vendorsthat they were dealing with.
One for the speaker mic system,one for the canopy, one for
this.
We kinda came in as one vendorsolution and we were able just
(30:10):
to take all that projectmanagement off their hands and
we were able to do it.
Again, we're not manufacturingthis hardware.
It's a matter of creating thebest kit for the client and
being able to source it, deployit, install it without the
client having to like, juggle amillion different things.
So I think simplifying thedeployment of digital
drive-throughs, we've done.
a terrific job at that, and Ithink that's kinda what's been
(30:31):
really pushing us forward.
I think the second part of it isunderstanding what to do with
the drive-through, right?
it's not a matter of just havingthe three screens or the preview
board or things like that.
It's a matter of understanding,like, how do you dynamically
show the content?
Like we all hate Yeah.
When we're looking at the menuand then it switches, I'm like,
I'm still reading.
And then now I have to wait andthen, my, my, my time in the
(30:51):
drive through has been extended'cause I'm waiting for the other
kind of image to pop back up andit's just like that annoying
experience that's, it's not agood thing to put a slideshow
on.
so one of the main things thatwe did as part of our software
is you're actually able to zonethe menus into different
components where you have likeyour standard menu.
This is kinda like your corecomponents.
You can also have pieces whereyou're not changing your entire
(31:13):
menu, but maybe you need 10% or20% of the menu.
as an extension to that, we'vedone a great job advising
clients in terms of how todesign the menu to match the
drive-through, becausesometimes, having a black
background with white textindoor might be good, where you
don't have a lot of glare, havea lot of sun and you, and the
thoughts might be different.
And then be giving that adviceto the client where.
(31:33):
Hey, in the drive-through awhite background with black text
is actually a better approach.
not having dollar signs next toyour prices is actually a better
approach.
And here's why.
What we show them studies ofHey, this cause an increase in,
in, in sales.
That's how we do it.
the ability to integrate orderconfirmation in order to reduce
the errors in the orders to makesure that whatever people are
(31:54):
hearing.
is like even simple things likepositioning the speaker post,
near the car so that yourworkers are able to hear it
better, and not hear like thecar nearby or things like that.
So I think all those differentcomponents come into play to
really deliver that greatdrive-through experience.
Drive-throughs are not goinganywhere.
They're gonna continue to grow.
I think people want thatconvenience to be able to.
Pull it in the car, can I dosome and place that order?
(32:16):
And I think it's up to therestaurant now to figure out,
okay, how do we digitize thatexperience?
But how do we also personalizeit with some additional aspects
where a loyalty number can pullup a custom menu based on your
last orders.
And those are some of the coolthings that we're working on
here at Neon to really go from.
Three JPEGs.
and then, no one likes threemenu boards and then a bunch of
static stuff all around it.
(32:36):
'cause then it still createsthat bad experience.
Says How do you keep it clean?
How do you keep it fresh?
I'll show you some photos ofsome of the projects that we've
done.
And they just allow you to focusmore on picking the product and
moving through the line so youcan have another car pull up and
just that will just kinda speedup your order process and
increase your overall revenuefrom drive-throughs.
Jeremy Julian (32:54):
Yeah.
No, and I love that you guys,not only, you showed the Burger
King hat for those that arewatching this on YouTube, but
just the fact that you dug in sodeep to understand what does it
look like and how do you make itbetter?
And again, as somebody thatpartners with me on the one
thing that has held consistentlytrue is everybody on their team
truly wants to hear the voice ofthe customer and how can they
(33:15):
make their lives better?
And so I love that.
Last question, Eli.
You guys do a lot.
You guys have done a lot.
You've already shared over thelast 30 minutes, you guys do a
ton in the way of digital menuboards.
You talked a little bit aboutkind of your quadrants.
I know you guys are doing someother unique things.
I'd love for you to share astory or two of some different
things that you've had somecustomers do that really enhance
(33:36):
their business practice.
They've already got theinvestment of the tech.
They've already got your guys'solution, but now they're able
to do some other things, in, inregards to digitizing other
places that they might have beenin utilizing your guys'
platforms.
So I'd love for you to share alittle bit about that before we
sign off.
Eli Chmouni (33:52):
yeah, a hundred percent.
I think from the visual menuboard perspective, we actually
allow brands to, publish theirmenus on.
Online.
So for example, you can actuallytake in young and put it on your
Google profile.
So whatever's actually showingin the store will show to
customers as they look at theirprofiles, you're gonna kinda
keep that consistency.
And then about seven months ago,actually more now, probably
(34:13):
about 10 months ago, one of our.
One of our clients came to usand they said, we, we love neon.
You guys have helped us so much,but we really hate our music
provider.
And it's so old.
It's expensive.
you guys should fix music too.
I'm like, challenge accepted.
Yeah, exactly.
How hard can it be, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
It's like the dumbnesssometimes.
(34:35):
Yeah.
The ignorance.
The ignorance is bliss.
You just go run after theproblem.
It's we can fix that.
it's music.
How hard could it be?
But literally we spent fivemonths working with, lawyers,
entertainment lawyers, and weended up getting, licensing
rights from the different prosin the us, and Canada to allow
us to resell and to licensemusic.
And we ended up building anentire music product that allows
(34:55):
you to also control the music inthe store.
So just like now you can show,if you have a menu that's
showing now, you can also showdifferent types of music.
You can play different types ofmusic.
depending on the time of theday, you can also create
announcements.
you can use our AI engine toactually type an announcement
and it will create anannouncement over the air.
for example, Jeremy, if you'reat Peter Piper Pizza and there's
a, it's your birthday, and themanager there wants to say Happy
(35:18):
Birthday, Jeremy, he can justtype it up, in the system and
it'll create an announcementover the air, directly there
using the voice of the brand.
So some of these like coolthings where we.
Then I just wanna wanna playmusic.
It's like how do you make musicactually synchronize with the
screens?
How do you make the music now?
Maybe talk about the LTOs thatyou're also showing on the
screen, where maybe someone, ifthey missed an LTO, now they get
(35:38):
to hear about it.
Or maybe they missed a amessaging that says, download
our loyalty to hear about itwhile they're sitting there also
enjoying it.
So I think some of these likecool things, allowed us to take
everything we learned and thenliterally we launched.
We launched music about sevenmonths.
And out of the brands that wecurrently have, we had 2000
stores sign up.
so immediately within sevenmonths, we ramped up to about
(36:00):
2000 stores using, neon musicproduct and we continue to kinda
expand more and more, thatproduct as its own category.
and then people came back to usand said, we also wanna do
better loyalty, like, how canyou integrate, like, how can we
collect better information?
So we ended up launching the onwifi as the captive portal.
and using the captive portalalso, you can take the LTOs that
you're showing on the screensand.
(36:21):
Now you can show them on yourphone or on the laptop, kinda
just creating that ecosystem.
So my vision for this is really,I think over the next three to
five years is I'll be able tobuild an ecosystem of products,
that, that allows marketing andoperations teams to really work
together from a single dashboardwhere you don't have to log into
12 different dashboards.
Franchisees don't have toremember 12 different vendors.
(36:41):
They don't have to call 12different numbers of support.
They can just call neon and wegot it handled.
this is where the whole idea isrestaurants are creating amazing
experiences and we wanna createthat amazing experience to them.
And it all begins withsimplicity.
so the ability to combineeverything under one roof, keep
it simple, keep it pricely,conveniently priced for, any of
these brands, whether they'resmall or enterprise.
(37:03):
and then just really focusing onthat support.
Aspect is really what allowed usover the last four years, we've
had zero installation, zerochurn, continuous growth, and we
continue to build more and moreproducts to really simplify, the
life of a restaurateur.
Jeremy Julian (37:17):
That's amazing.
and again, I think, I say thisoften in the long time,
listeners all have heard it.
Tech for tech's sake is dead.
But tech that really is solvingbusiness problems is really what
you guys are solving.
And so I love that you do that.
So Eli, you've only got a couplesales guys on the team.
How do people get in touch?
how do people learn?
hopefully they don't get anengineer that starts talking to
'em about bits and bites of howthings work when they call in.
But how would you, ask ourlisteners to engage if they
(37:39):
wanted to learn more about whatNeon can do for their business?
Eli Chmouni (37:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to, connect with'emon LinkedIn.
Feel free to add me on LinkedIn.
Eli Chmouni, C-H-M-O-U-N-I.
my email is eli@neonscreens.comand I am very friendly in giving
my phone number away.
(480) 707-1444.
We recently expanded our salesteam, so you guys would keep
them busy if you call me andI'll get to kinda connect you
(38:05):
with'em.
And, we'll get to learn a bitmore about your business, try to
understand really your needs,and, figure out if we're the
right fit for you and if we are,we'll definitely create some
amazing experiences for you.
Jeremy Julian (38:16):
Awesome.
One last question, Eli and Ipromise this is last.
It, and then we'll wrap up.
It's not just for quick serve.
I want you to share this withpeople.
It's for anywhere that you'reserving food.
It's casual dining, it's digitalsigns in your takeout area.
It's so much more than justwalking into a fast food place
and having the three screensthere.
I guess I'd love for you toelaborate a little bit on that.
(38:37):
You and I were talking.
Via email the other day about acasual dining brand that's got
some digital signs that they'restarting to roll out and it's
casual dining, a couple hundredstores.
But it's like there'sopportunities there to upsell,
there's opportunities there toengage your guests.
There's opportunities there toengage your team members.
I'd love for you to justencourage our listeners, it's
not just the fast food listenersand the fast casual listeners.
It's those that are fine dining.
(38:59):
It's all of it.
I'd love for you to share alittle bit of that before we.
Before we sign off,
Eli Chmouni (39:02):
yeah, we work with anything from C stores and
grocery stores.
So if you've been to Sprouts, ifyou've been to Crispy, crunchy
Chicken, any of those placeswhere, again, it's not a typical
QSR setup.
we are the screens that you seeover the deli area.
We are the screens that you seeover the bread area or.
or over the smoothie station oranything like that.
Then we go into the QSR, thefast casual category where you
(39:24):
are showing up to aboard, youare ordering from a board and
directly kinda looking at themenu author through a drive
through.
We also do a lot of full servicerestaurants where, for example,
PF Chang's, where maybe thescreen that you see behind the
hostess that's promoting theirloyalty app.
and it's actually sharing somepromotions right before you even
enter.
The restaurant, we're even in,in like Hooters, where you're
(39:45):
basically sitting down and thenthey split the screen where a
sidebar of the screen isactually showing promotions.
As you're watching the game,you're able to actually engage
with that.
all the way to recently we havea huge expansion into the hotel
category and the hotel diningcategory where there are screens
that you basically see next tothe elevator or in the lobby.
Promoting their restaurants orpromoting their onsite
amenities, as well, as well asany of the services that they
(40:08):
offer.
So really any screen that youhave, Ian can really work on it.
as I mentioned, we work with alot of brands like automotive.
We work with healthcare like.
honor health, where we do a lotof the screens and the infusion
rooms.
We work with a lot of schoolsthrough Aramark.
So if you've been in a, Kthrough 12 school or
universities, we work throughthose.
We're in University of Georgia.
so a lot of these brands that itdoesn't matter really.
(40:30):
The type of service, reallythink about it from
communication.
there's a big expansion that'sbeen happening, just Jeremy to
extend on that a bit over thelast six months in terms of
employee communication.
Yes.
Especially back of the houseemployee communication.
to put a$200 TV in the back ofthe house and to use that in
terms of training, messaging,announcement, especially for the
we announcement.
Exactly like any of that,scheduling, any of that stuff
(40:53):
that could now be showndigitally on a screen rather
than having a manager.
you have only one point ofcontact with a manager.
The manager has to printeverything and put it on the
board.
Now you can fully digitize thatexperience.
you can.
Send alerts to it.
You can send updates to it.
You can even, we work with abrand called The Joint where
they actually have announcementsbefore they open and after they
close out a checklist that thestaff has to complete over the
(41:15):
air, right?
Over music.
So I think that creating thatecosystem, think about it really
from a high level as messagingand communication that is both
employee facing and customerfacing.
So wherever that you, you feelthere's a need for that in your
business, then this is whereNeon can step in and can create
that experience for you.
Jeremy Julian (41:33):
Yeah.
And again, as we talked aboutthe story with Brittany, it's,
you guys do it so quickly and soeasily.
it's amazing.
Eli, I can't thank you enoughfor truly solving so many
problems within the space.
So thank you for that.
Thank you for showing up andsharing the story.
cheering you guys on.
I know we partner and, love tosee you guys continue your
growth.
To our listeners, guys, if youguys haven't already subscribed,
please do Check out Neon,connect with Eli online and make
(41:54):
it a great day.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology
Guys podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
This is the Restaurant Technology Guides podcast,
helping you run your restaurantbetter.
Hi everyone.
Welcome back to the RestaurantTechnology Guys podcast.
Today's episode is one of thosefounding stories that's just too
good to miss.
I am joined by Eli, who is theCEO of Neon.
(00:26):
I would love to say his lastname, but I know I'm gonna screw
it up and he and I tease aboutthat all the time.
A company that's really.
Changing the way digital signagefor restaurants, retail and
beyond are delivered.
He didn't set out to build atech company, but uh, really he
was solving some problems in thead space and got frustrated with
the way that, uh, software wasdeployed and the way it was
supported, and he ended upcreating it.
(00:48):
Creating this softwareultimately to scratch his own
itch and to solve a problem thathe had.
He also worked in adrive-through at Burger King for
two weeks just to understand thecustomer experience better.
Like incredible, CEO just hastons of dedication to really
helping solve customer'sproblem.
We dive in in this episode onhow Neon is making digital
(01:09):
digital signage.
Plug and play and how it trulyincreases sales by up to 17%.
And why?
Great support, great softwareand speed to market is a huge
piece to solving today's digitalsignage challenges.
Stick around till the end andsubscribe to the episode.
If you don't know me, my name isJeremy.
(01:30):
Julian.
I am the Chief Revenue Officerfor CBS North Star.
We wrote the North Star point ofSale solution for multi-units.
Please check us out.
CBS northstar.com.
And now onto the episode.
And real quick, a disclaimer onthis episode.
I have a little bit of issuewith the initial recording.
The first 30 seconds or so are alittle bit wonky'cause we had to
(01:50):
cut some stuff together, hadsome challenges with the
uploads, so stick with usbecause it does get really juicy
towards the middle when Elitalks about his, uh, burger King
cat and how he still wears itaround the office proudly to,
uh, talk about, uh, all of thethings that he had to learn to
solve customer's problems.
Jeremy Julian (02:07):
I am joined by a founder that, these are some of
my favorite stories'cause it's afounder that scratch and itch
that he found in a totallydifferent business.
Totally different World.
World, and came back and said,you know what?
I can really make a differencehere.
And Eli, why don't you introduceyourself.
Give a little bit about yourbackground and then we'll get a
chance to, to dig into neon.
Eli Chmouni (02:25):
Yeah.
Hey Jeremy.
Thanks for having me on thepodcast.
a little bit about me.
I've started a couple companiesin the past, primarily in the
media tech space.
I've had two exits and, for thepast 15 years I've been also a
faculty member at Arizona StateUniversity, really teaching
students how to start companies,how to grow companies, and how
to really go from that idea to,to a fully executed company.
(02:46):
So a little background aboutNeon, it actually came
completely out of nowhere.
with a neon background.
I wasn't like intending to starta digital signage company.
I wasn't, planning to kindareally get into that space.
I've always loved the ad space.
I've always loved the billboardspace.
So I had a company calledSpotlight.
It was Spotlight.
Really what we did is wepartnered with Zu.
Aquariums and we gave them, freeTV scan all across the zoo.
(03:09):
And we used those screens foradvertising purposes where half
the screen was showingadvertising.
The other half of the screen wasshowing, promotions for the zoo.
So if you're familiar with whatClear channel or, Lamar, they do
in airports, we basicallydecided to do the same thing
with zoos and aquariums thathave, attendance of more than a
million guests.
So we partnered with the PhoenixZoo, we partnered with, Fort
Worth Zoo.
(03:29):
the problem though is I didn'twanna start a tech company.
I just finished from a techcompany.
I wanted just to focus on ad andrevenue making.
So I started searching like,what sort of software currently
exists in the market?
And, decided to kinda use what'sout.
what I found online.
So I think I tried opt ign.
I tried, engage or whateverSPECT now, and I've tried,
signage live.
I tried a couple differentproviders just to kinda see
(03:51):
really what works in terms ofadvertising and content
promotion.
And what happened is literallyevery two weeks for every one
week I would get a ticket fromthe zoo.
This is not showing, this is notworking.
and.
After like being front for sixmonths, I'm like, there has to
be like an easier way to dothis.
It's literally we're putting twoimages on a screen and I can
watch that.
Yeah.
It can't be that hard where Igo.
It can't be.
It said every entrepreneur ever.
(04:12):
It can't be that hard.
It can't be that hard.
So literally took like a, took amonth, ended up designing like
what I envisioned.
This would be like super easy touse.
And, got a couple of engineerstogether.
My background is engineering, soI got a couple of engineers
together, ended up building thefirst version.
It was called Pixie back then,by the way, neon was not a
thing.
So it was called Pixie and itwas supposed to be an internal
(04:33):
tool for Spotlight.
It was like for us to use, And Istill remember this, we had a
meeting with Discount Tire andthe whole idea was to pitch
Discount Tire, the same thingpeople are sitting in the lobby,
so might as well put a screenthere and show advertising and
monetize, that model.
And then he looked at me, he isforget about advertising.
What's that software that you'reusing?
I'm like, oh, this is just likean internal tool.
He is no, we'll pay you for thissoftware.
(04:54):
How much would you charge?
For us to use the software andat that time it was like$20 a
month and he is yeah, deal.
I was like, I should have saidhigher,
Jeremy Julian (05:02):
Yeah, exactly.
oh, that I certainly went toolow.
Eli Chmouni (05:04):
yeah.
Too low.
that was a quick deal, butliterally it kinda went from
there to.
Starting to kinda really talk tocustomers, understand the pain
points, reading the reviewsonline of really what's the
problem with digital signage andwhy is it a problem?
And really what we found out islike there's a lot of companies
that have been in the space forsuch a long time, like the
dinosaurs in this space and justhave not updated the tech stack.
They have not like innovated andthey focus on that recurring
(05:28):
revenue from SaaS aspect really.
hold some stage, to, to justusing their software and we
decided to kinda came in andruffle some feathers and disrupt
the space and just build a superpowerful tool that could be used
also by marketing team.
Does not require an IT team,does not require like onsite
servers or anything like that,so we made it super easy to use.
I just remember one night I wasmeeting with one of my friends
(05:49):
and he's what's your vision forthis?
And I'm like, I want it, likethe old like neon signs, like on
the door that says like open orlike they would show like the
sales or things like that.
I was like, I kinda want likethe TV screen.
It's kinda like the new neonsign.
I was like, hold on.
Neon, is that name available?
Like I searched it and that'show Neon was literally, it was
like me chatting with my friend.
Wow.
and we ended up switching thename, to Neon, spun it off into
(06:12):
its own company.
And, fast forward to today, wehave, over 20,000 screens that
we power with huge brands acrossthe world.
And, it's super exciting and Ithink it literally started from
me facing the problem, talkingto other customers,
understanding their pain point,and being where we're at today,
four, four years later.
Jeremy Julian (06:29):
Yeah.
No, and it's been amazing towatch your guys', your guys'
growth.
'cause quite honestly, obviouslyfive years ago you didn't, the
company didn't even exist.
And now I feel like I can't goanywhere without seeing both the
adoption of digital signs andthen really you guys being a
player that really did it alittle bit differently.
And so I guess when you look atthe market as a whole, how many,
(06:49):
offline brands, retail,'causeagain.
Part of the challenges, andwe'll dig into this a little bit
later, Elay, is that part of thechallenge is you've got a
disconnected network.
You're not always visible towhat's going on in the stores.
It's a critical piece of whatthey're doing.
the, but the cost has come down.
Internet connectivity is, hasgone up, from a li reliability
perspective.
So there's a lot of things thatyou guys have done to hit a
(07:09):
sweet spot in the timing.
But if you look at the market asa whole, how big is the market
to get to digital signage andreally digital menus versus
where we're at today?
Eli Chmouni (07:19):
Yeah, I, look, I agree with you.
I think, there's always like alittle bit of luck when you're
starting a company, but there'salso a lot of good timing, and I
believe we hit it on the timingpart, right?
Where a lot of the providers inthe space are older and slower
tech require, like very biginvestment upfront.
And then You are, you areentering this phase.
Now of post COVID restaurantera, where a lot of these
(07:41):
restaurants want tech, they wantto innovate, they wanna, provide
great experiences for theircustomers just because the
competition in the space isgreat, but they also don't want
to invest, tens of thousands ofdollars to really get there.
so that was like a, that was akey point.
When we started the company, wesaid, Hey, if you picked up a TV
from Best Buy on a Black Friday,we want Neon to be able to work
on it.
(08:01):
we don't care if it's a conveneor.
Stream a great screen.
You can sell Neon app on any ofthose screens.
And I think that's really thekey differentiator of what makes
us different.
we recently had a brand huge,over 200 locations and, and we
have a common friend, actually,Brittany, Mercer at Cowboy
Chicken.
So it's funny, she was usingign, we got on a call and she's
Hey, I'm not thinking aboutchanging.
(08:23):
I'm gimme a shot.
And literally while we're inthe.
First demo.
We didn't even show her thedashboard, wait, I'm starting,
I'm staring on the TV and it's asmart tv.
Can I just install the app rightthere?
And I'm like, yeah, let's goahead and try it.
By the time she installed theapp, I already had her menu all
up and running.
We did the, her entire store infive minutes.
And that's really whatrestaurateurs are looking for
right now and marketing managersare looking for is they want
(08:45):
something that's superconvenient for them to use.
They want something.
Something that's super easy todeploy, but they also want like
that relationship aspect ofdon't just sell me software and
circle back with me in threeyears when the contract is up
for a mule.
Like actually maintain thatrelationship and guide me
through the process of how do Itake advantage of those screens
and make them even better.
Jeremy Julian (09:05):
and you said it like.
The capital investment hasalways been a big piece of
getting to digital scienceoutside of the software side of
things.
And I want to dig into why youguys make it so easy and'cause I
do think that's a hugedifferentiator between Neon and
some of the others, is how easyyou make it for everybody that
has any form of graphical.
Abilities to do it.
But really, Eli, I the, anotherpiece of the secret sauce is the
(09:27):
fact that you guys made itaccessible without having to
have a player.
I remember the first digitalsignage customer that we had,
you had to get a specific kindof tv.
You had to get the stupid assplayer that sometimes worked,
sometimes didn't.
It would overheat and when itwould overheat, it would stop
working.
it was a bad experience acrossthe board.
And that's not to mention.
Digital menu boards that are outat the drive-through and the
phoenix heat where you happen toreside.
(09:49):
that's even a worse situation inthe cold and, in, in the north
of the country.
All of those kind of things.
But why did you guys get it tothis accessible place that is
because again, a.
Brittany, we talked to youalluded to, I happen to have
lunch with her the day that youinstalled.
Ironically, she was thereinstalling the day that I had
lunch with her, and I'm like,she's oh yeah, Eli just did
this.
I'm like, yeah, they, that guy'sawesome.
(10:11):
but why did you guys go?
I guess because it is a dilemma.
Even, the phone that I havewhere, I happen to be an Apple,
apple ecosystem guy, we're in aplace where not all phones are
gonna get.
iOS 26, not all watches aregonna get, apple os.
So it creates a give and takewhere you want to get it so
accessible to be able to scale,but also sometimes there's
(10:31):
limiting factors with the tech.
So I'd love to get behind yourthoughts in your brain Yep.
As to why did you get to thatplace where the accessibility
and the capital investment youknew was going to be a big
piece.
Eli Chmouni (10:43):
look, I think everyone wants convenience,
right?
I put myself in, into, I grewup, my parents had a bakery, a
been in the restaurant spacelike as a family member.
My sister had a restaurant.
And the amount of things thatcan go wrong for a restaurant on
a day to day basis, it's justshocking, right?
people are gonna call off your,your fries vendor is not gonna
show up on time.
(11:04):
That chair that you just, paidmoney for.
Let's get a break.
the hood's not gonna work.
Internet's gonna, There's like amillion things that can go
wrong.
I literally, from day one, I didnot want digital science to be
one of them on their list.
I want it to be super easy,super convenient, and in case
something does go wrong.
they can call us and, we'reavailable by phone support, by
tech support, so we can resolveit from that aspect.
(11:25):
But specifically to yourquestion of like why the ease of
use was a big deal, was honestlybecause technology has improved
so much and from day one.
Our focus was, we're a productled company, so our team is 70%
engineers.
We have two salespeople on theteam versus like we have
everyone that's engineering andin support tend to grow really
(11:46):
from customers telling eachother about how Cool Neon is and
how easy it was.
Just like Brittany told you,right?
You guys didn't know that youboth knew.
I think that kind of drives alot further.
Where I don't have a, a salesdeal that's gonna take a year to
close is because guess what?
That person was referred to byanother trusted, trusted friend
in the industry.
So I think from day one, we'vealways been product led.
(12:08):
I wanted the amount of hoursthat I spent on like designing
the UI to be one click away andthe simplicity of it to be like,
Hey, whether you're afranchisee, that's a, that's an
older franchisee's.
Not familiar with tech orwhether you're a 16-year-old
that just doesn't care aboutbeing there and just wants
something to just like work.
Like we thought about it fromthat range.
(12:28):
there's a funny story that,that, that my, my investors love
and it's kinda a bit crazy, but.
Initially when we started, wewere building our digital
signage for indoor, and then wewere trying to figure out, okay,
how do we do our drive throughsystem to also be better and to,
to operate faster and to runsystem on chip and to really
speed up, the transaction time.
(12:51):
and we couldn't like nail itspecifically because none of us
on the team have actually beenin a drive through.
So the funny story.
Is I actually applied and Iworked at Burger King for two
weeks, and this is two and ahalf years ago.
this is not like at thebeginning of the company.
This is like pretty recent, Iwould say.
so when I was waiting in thedrive through at Burger King,
that order took six minutes to,for, I'm like, why is this
(13:13):
taking so long?
Like, how do we even make this?
There was a QR code that sayswe're high.
I scanned it while waiting formy order.
I submitted the application.
I said, I'm a college student.
just trying to do like a nightshift.
So I would literally finish myentire shift here at Neon to
five, 6:00 PM I would drive tothis Burger King and I would
work the window from 6:00 PM to11:00 PM because I needed to
(13:33):
know like how the POS systemworked.
what was.
Holding them back.
What was the issue with theheadset?
Why did this order take longer?
and it was like the best twoweeks of my life because at the
end of it, I did qualify forassistant management training,
by the way.
just in case it's my Plan B,life goals, In case, yeah.
In case if Neon doesn't workout, you got the assistant
manager job, burger King, forsure.
that's what I'm saying.
I came back to the board.
(13:54):
I asked for a raise, I said,look what I can do.
but I learned so much from thatexperience in terms of What is
the end user experiencing?
And we came back and we builtone of the best drive through
systems.
And that's why now we get pickedup by Houston Hot Chicken, by
super shakes, by all these newbrands.
Angie's, like all these brandsthat wanna drive through system.
They're picking us and we'rebuilt, we're creating this
(14:14):
entire system that we can sourcethe hardware, ship it to their
locations, install it, and havethe software running on them all
from one vendor that they don'thave to deal with seven vendors
to juggle it all.
Just, they just work with neon.
We handle the whole thing andtypically we're like.
10% cheaper, but that's likecherry on top.
Jeremy Julian (14:32):
But even if it's not, one of the things that,
that, I find remarkable is justeven how you guys understand the
voice of the customer and howmaking it easy is so critical.
Not only the capital investmentside of things that we just
talked about.
I love that you're so passionateabout making it simple.
I still, I'm still waiting formy picture of you in the, in the
apron, the Burger King shirtwith the, I
Eli Chmouni (14:52):
was gonna wear, I was gonna wear.
Today.
'cause I found the burger hat inmy car.
I was gonna wear it today.
I'm gonna grab, I'm gonna grabit here in the second.
Jeremy Julian (15:00):
I love it.
I love it.
I know.
when you and I were talkingabout it and you told me that
story, I was like, dude, I needa picture of you to, I should go
find some chat GPT things toI'm.
Eli Chmouni (15:07):
Yeah, I'll, I'll send you for the edits, my shift
schedule.
my, I was on the paper on thebulletin board there.
Jeremy Julian (15:13):
I love it.
at least if ne doesn't work out,you have a, drive through fast
food assistant manager job in,in those, those capabilities.
Eli talk, let's flip around realquick because historically
digital menu board companies,you talk about some of your
competition, and I'm not lookingto name names, but it is one of
those things where you do needto understand the application.
You've gotta be pretty deep inunderstanding.
(15:33):
Color schemes and formats andvideos and there's so many
different kind of nuances topieces of software.
And I know you guys took atotally different approach, but
why don't you talk our listenersthrough that might be on just
static menu boards have neverreally looked and they go out
and start looking, what are youtraditionally gonna find?
And then how does Neon differfrom a ease of use perspective
(15:54):
for getting menu updates,whether it be on the digital
menu board in the drive throughor in the store.
And then let's talk a little bitabout where you see the rest of
things going.
Eli Chmouni (16:02):
Yeah, in terms of, in terms of the guidance that
they need.
Look, I think when people, whenpeople are still having, when
people still have static menuboards till today, there's two
reasons for that.
Number one is.
They have been pitched beforethat the cost of switching to
digital is astronomical.
So they're already scared, Hey,this is gonna cost me a lot.
(16:23):
This is probably not the bestuse of money.
I'm not gonna spend$10,000 rightnow when I have other expenses
that, that I need.
the second reason for it is theybelieve that the.
Aesthetic is very important,like a coffee shop or if you've
been to, for example, to SweetParis, the aesthetic really
matters.
Like they want the chalkboard,they want it to match with the
brand, and they really think theTV screen is gonna be like, too
(16:45):
bright, too annoying, it's notreally gonna fit within.
Within that atmosphere.
So typically what we do is forthe first kind of persona, we
literally have a table that weshow them TV screens that they
can buy from Best Buy or fromCostco.
They're like 200 bucks a screen.
and they're like, really?
that's it.
I'm like, yep.
I'm gonna give you the link.
There's not an upcharge.
You can just go on, you can goon, co use your Costco points or
(17:08):
whatever it is.
and then they, we just give themthe links.
We give them the table, we showthem all the different brands,
all the different sizes, andwe're just very transparent in
that.
And we actually recommendcertain screens to them that
although they're consumer grade,that might last a bit longer,
right?
Like we want to Sway them awayfrom some of the brands that we
know are gonna have issues orbecome, turn pink in six months.
so that's kinda like optionnumber one is the transparency
(17:29):
of showing them like, Hey, thisis doable for you.
You can actually, if you have alocation that has three menu
boards, you can convert them todigital for like less than$800
that they never thought that wasactually possible.
So I think that's step numberone.
Step number two is what we dowith them is we actually take
their static boards.
And we digitize it for thembased on our knowledge and our
(17:50):
industry experience of whatlooks best on the boards.
We recently worked with a brandcalled, imagine Movie Theaters.
They're a big movie theater, upnorth.
And the cool part about that isthey showed us their menus and.
And they already had a digitalversion of the menus, but we
still told them like, Hey, basedon our experience, we have a
couple of ideas for you.
are you guys open to that?
We ended up redesigning theirmenus, taking advantage of the
(18:12):
sidebar to show different LTOsdepending on the time of the day
or maybe depending on the day ofthe week.
So just sometimes giving themthose ideas and showing them how
easy it is to implement some ofthese things and creating those
templates inside of Neon showsthem that we're not just a
software company, we're reallylike a marketing extension.
We're an extension of theirmarketing team.
To really help them optimizewhat their screens look like.
(18:32):
And then if you go to persona Bwhere they're like, screens are
too, we actually start showingthe means or have the mat finish
or how they can make screens,Matt finish or how maybe they
can put a frame.
Stream around the TV to make itlook more like a poster rather
than a screen.
so with Sweet Paris, initiallythey were like completely
against digital and then endedup creating this package for
them.
That takes advantage of theframe, that takes advantage of,
(18:54):
of some of the matte finishedscreens.
And it looks super beautiful.
Now when someone comes up, itstill looks bored.
It's still because we designed.
The background to look likechalk.
We chose the font to look like,but guess what?
Every 30 seconds, there is alittle video that kind of plays
to show the crepe for the monthor the crepe for the week in
order to cause an upsell of thatspecific product.
Jeremy Julian (19:13):
and I love that idea that you guys know that
this is the objection thatyou're gonna get is I need it to
fit my brand aesthetic.
And then they go, oh, it canlook just like what I have now.
but give me the flexibility toenhance, to add exactly.
To move to change.
'cause.
In a physical menu boardperspective, you typically are
sitting out at one, two months.
(19:35):
I gotta get the menu boardordered, I gotta get it shipped,
I gotta get it.
I've been to stores in the pastwhere they're physically
changing the menu boards andeven Corner bakery.
And again, I'm not picking onQuarter Bakery or Panera.
They've got some physical boardsthat they have to change even
during meal periods.
And so from that perspective,and then the other piece, Eli,
talk a little bit about theflexibility once you go digital,
because.
(19:55):
In today's day and age, we just,went through when we're
recording this, in August of2025, but we had that huge egg
thing where you, everybody hadto deal with the egg crisis and
the egg pricing changes in aphysical menu board area.
You get this ugly aesthetic.
you talk about the chalkboard.
people just scratching out thephysical menu board and writing
the new price or taking asticker and sticking it over top
(20:17):
of it.
Whereas once you go digital.
It's almost instantaneous.
You can make a change if youneed to be able to be in, in the
world.
I guess just be able to makethose changes, whereas before it
take months and months ofplanning, preparation, shipment,
and then you have no way to evenknow did the store do what they
were supposed to do, not do whatthey were supposed to do.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough the flexibility and how
that looks.
Eli Chmouni (20:39):
Yeah, going back to the first example I gave you
with Discount Tire, one of thebiggest problems that they were
facing was, that 68% of theirstores would put up those
promotions in time because theywere static.
wow.
So think about it, you'reprinting all these posters,
right?
You are spending the money onshipping them, and then you're
sending them to all theselocations and that, and just a
little bit over half.
actually getting them up intime.
(20:59):
and sometimes maybe not even atall.
So there's a couple things thatwas critical to us from day one,
especially with our focus on therestaurant space.
So initially when I started thecompany where we're serving a
wide range of verticals andmarkets, now about 90% of our
customer base is in thatrestaurant space, right?
So we really start to understandthat restaurant persona.
And one of the biggest thingswas integration with the POS
(21:21):
system.
So we integrate with indifferent POS systems and.
Because of those integrations,it really allowed that dynamic
aspect of the menu that if afranchisee decides to change the
price of an acai bowl from 10 99to, 1149, they can do it
directly on, in their POSwithout having to reach back to
marketing to redesign the menu,to send them a new jpeg to
(21:43):
update it that way, or to put asticky note over the screen or
any of those things.
So the ability to changesomething in the POS and
immediately showing on the.
Screen that gives you afranchisee so much more
perceived power in terms of whatthey can do in terms of
controlling the environment thatthey're in.
So that was kinda one of our,one of our key focuses, one of
the only platforms in marketsthat have all these different
(22:05):
POS integrations that werecertified on all of them because
we really invested in thoseintegrations that we really
cared about the importance ofhaving all of those, the second.
That I really have with signage,especially with drive-throughs,
is when you see like a big,eight and a half by 11, it says
out of stock or like no longeravailable.
or things like that.
and with our system, we'reactually able to immediately
(22:26):
track any 86 items in your menuand also update your menu to
reflect that by showing out ofstock or removing it directly
from your menu screen.
So not only it's about priceupdates, not only it's about,
the, it's really about.
Having your menus reflect thetrue state of operating your
restaurants, whether it's price,whether it's inventory, and then
honestly, I think the cherry ontop is the ability to like
(22:49):
dynamically show differentproducts that you have.
Because I think the worst thingthat you can do is put a screen
up, use digital signage, butjust have one image, one jpeg
Right there.
That's not.
Really the best use of digitalside.
We would advise our clients,hey, how maybe the first two
are, typically like a jpegconnected to your, POS system.
But maybe the third one shouldhave an LTO that changes every
(23:11):
day.
Maybe you have the flavor of theweek or the dish of the day or
things like that.
Just so when a customer kind ofcomes back, they see that
there's something more exciting.
And then we've had data overdata, that shows if you are
featuring an LTO on an LTOboard.
That product will have anincrease of about 17% of being
purchased compared to somethingelse.
And I think that's really howyou start using digital signage
(23:33):
to impact your, simplifying youroperations, but also impact your
revenue, your revenue growth aswell.
Jeremy Julian (23:40):
yeah, I love that.
And I love the story of the 17%.
'cause that's huge.
from a sales increaseperspective, you pay for those
screens.
Almost immediately with justthat sales increase, a hundred
percent for those naysayers thatsay, it's too hard to manage
these things, what happens whenthe internet goes down?
What do I have to do whenthey're offline?
happened to have had a sandwicha few months ago at a local
store that had digital signagethat was down the store's.
(24:01):
Internet was down.
The digital sign stoppedworking.
I had to get a physical papermenu at a counter service, a
place that was sellingsandwiches, and I was like, I
don't, and it wasn't a placethat I frequented.
I just happened to be on thatside of town.
I stopped, oh, I haven't had oneof these sandwiches in a really
long time.
I go, and the menu boardexperience is awful.
I have to go to this paper menu.
Then they have, problems withtheir POS, not RPOS, not your
(24:23):
digital science, but I'd lovefor you to share with our
listeners that are like, it'sgonna take too much to manage
too much internet bandwidth.
What happens when the store goesdown?
All of these kind of things.
Talk us through the reliabilityand why.
You guys design it in such away,'cause I know from inside,
conversations you and I have hadthat you took that in mind when
you guys built your solution.
Eli Chmouni (24:44):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
and I think this kinda goes backto like us experiencing these
products.
we even have nicknames for thosetwo providers.
We call'em Crappy Yo and Fattbecause their screens never work
and the screens are always fadedand are.
Off.
so yeah, look, we had a clientthat currently at about 50
stores with us.
And, they had an internet issuepop up.
(25:04):
It was a corporate that affectedall their stores, and all of a
sudden, the next day all theirmenus were showing on top of it.
and working with that brand,they're like, we wanna make sure
like you guys' system doesn't dothat.
And then from day one, we'veactually experienced it.
Because guess what?
Working at Zoos and Aquariums,they don't have the best wifi.
you're, yes.
(25:24):
These are very big, open areas.
There's not like access pointseverywhere.
So from day one, we actuallydeveloped our system.
To create a local backup of allthe content that you push over
to the screen.
So any content that's video orimage, we create a local backup
of it, not cached.
We actually create a backup ofit and on that TV storage or on
that device that we use.
and then that continues to playfrom that local storage.
(25:46):
So we're not always streaming onyour wifi, we're not dependent
on your wifi.
You can literally unplug ourdevice.
Plug it back in a year later andit'll still show your content,
or have no internet for a wholeyear.
And it'll still kinda show thecontent.
So it will still show yourcontent rather than having that
blank screen.
And the really cool part isbecause it's powered directly
from the tv, every time you turnon and turn it off the tv, it
automatically refreshes, itautomatically restarts, directly
(26:09):
from there.
So I think those are like keycomponents in terms of creating
that backup to make sure thatyour screens are always,
Working.
We all kinda it's funny.
One of our, one of our, salesstrategy, it was one of our like
lead gen strategies is us goingthrough like Google files.
Photos and then seeing whichmenu boards are showing us off.
like we recently signed apartnership with, and literally
(26:30):
if you search the great Greek,they always had one, the fifth
screen that was not showing, anycontent.
And they're like, and they'relike, oh yeah, we have so many
issues with our currentprovider.
So they tested us for a wholemonth and one of the pilots and
then they ended up picking usbecause we didn't have any of
these issues.
So I think.
I think we've built everyfeature on the platform.
The pain point of a customer orcustomer asked for it.
I remember our first BOSintegration was actually with
(26:51):
Par.
and, one of our clients was,with Super Chicks and I had a
meeting with him and he's look,we're using app to signs.
We're not gonna switch.
we're good.
And I'm like, can you just showme like how you do things?
so he pulled up his dashboardand he had over 150 JPEGs, and
then he had 30 Google sheetsthat was showing the prices.
At every single one of thelocations.
(27:13):
I'm like, wait, so every timeyou have to do something, this
is what you have to go through.
I'm like, wait, but your pricesare already in your POS system,
so why doesn't it pull?
And he is oh, it doesn't have,it doesn't pull from me.
The POS system, if I can buildthis for you, if I can solve
this problem for you, will youpick us?
And he is sure.
So literally we ended up takingthree weeks, built this entire
integration, came back now wetook his entire content from 150
(27:34):
JPEGs down to five.
And our system now dynamicallypulls content from his POS
updates, things dynamically, andjust does it all on its own.
And we went from working withthem on 20 locations, now we're
close to 40, 40.
Five locations with them.
we just did their first drivethrough and they're like one of
our biggest ambassadors outthere.
They're like, every time welike, refer a customer to them,
(27:54):
they're like, just stop lookingaround.
Just use Neon.
like Skyler is the best with allthat kind of stuff.
So it's that kind ofrelationship that we built with
them where you just ask so youknow, what is the problem that
you're facing?
And then we go ahead and fix itfor them.
And they're like, yeah, that'sexactly what I need.
So just, listening goes a longway.
I feel like that's, every,couple's therapy, advice 1 0 1.
Jeremy Julian (28:13):
I love it.
I love it.
and at the end of the day, theother thing that you guys do is
you guys are able to reactbecause I think all too often, I
think some of your competitorsmight know that these are
problems, but aren't able tomodify their business model
because they've.
either legacy code that theycan't deal with or whatever
their reason is, they might knowit's a problem, but they don't
have the means or the willpowerto dig through it.
(28:34):
And Eli, just'cause I've got twolittle threads that I'd love to
talk through.
Talk me through, drive-throughreal quick, because everybody's
talking about drive-through CODreally increased drive-through
throughput and where things areat.
You've got your traditionalsquawk box where it's got a
speaker and it's just got adigital screen that kind of goes
through things.
And then you've got typically astatic menu board.
Ironically, one of my breakfasthaunts on my way to work is a
(28:55):
Burger King, and they just movedto digital, at the store here
way.
But
Eli Chmouni (29:00):
should I do that?
Jeremy Julian (29:01):
Oh, you got the hat.
I like it.
I got,
Eli Chmouni (29:04):
I like it.
this is the OG hat you stillhave dust on.
Jeremy Julian (29:08):
That's funny.
but in general, like probably50% of the time when I drive
through, fortunately I know whatI'm getting because I go there
on a regular basis.
But, at the end of the day,drive through is another
critical component.
And all too often, whether it'san LTO, whether it's just even
knowing where you're at in thequeue, that, you've got the
static boards and then thedigital ones.
(29:29):
And sometimes they're the same.
Sometimes they aren't, thesepeople will come out with these
LTOs and then they, then you goto the menu board and you're all
excited to order something andthen they don't have it.
So there's so many differentways in the digital.
Menu board space as it relatesto drive through that you guys
have helped automate.
So I'd love for you to talkthrough what's different from
that and the three menu boardsthat you have in the store that,
that you were talking aboutearlier.
Eli Chmouni (29:50):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think there's twocomponents for that, is we
simplified how easy it's tolaunch a drive through.
and by being a one vendorsolution, we recently, as I
mentioned to you, we wereworking with Houston Hot
Chicken.
They had four different vendorsthat they were dealing with.
One for the speaker mic system,one for the canopy, one for
this.
We kinda came in as one vendorsolution and we were able just
(30:10):
to take all that projectmanagement off their hands and
we were able to do it.
Again, we're not manufacturingthis hardware.
It's a matter of creating thebest kit for the client and
being able to source it, deployit, install it without the
client having to like, juggle amillion different things.
So I think simplifying thedeployment of digital
drive-throughs, we've done.
a terrific job at that, and Ithink that's kinda what's been
(30:31):
really pushing us forward.
I think the second part of it isunderstanding what to do with
the drive-through, right?
it's not a matter of just havingthe three screens or the preview
board or things like that.
It's a matter of understanding,like, how do you dynamically
show the content?
Like we all hate Yeah.
When we're looking at the menuand then it switches, I'm like,
I'm still reading.
And then now I have to wait andthen, my, my, my time in the
(30:51):
drive through has been extended'cause I'm waiting for the other
kind of image to pop back up andit's just like that annoying
experience that's, it's not agood thing to put a slideshow
on.
so one of the main things thatwe did as part of our software
is you're actually able to zonethe menus into different
components where you have likeyour standard menu.
This is kinda like your corecomponents.
You can also have pieces whereyou're not changing your entire
(31:13):
menu, but maybe you need 10% or20% of the menu.
as an extension to that, we'vedone a great job advising
clients in terms of how todesign the menu to match the
drive-through, becausesometimes, having a black
background with white textindoor might be good, where you
don't have a lot of glare, havea lot of sun and you, and the
thoughts might be different.
And then be giving that adviceto the client where.
(31:33):
Hey, in the drive-through awhite background with black text
is actually a better approach.
not having dollar signs next toyour prices is actually a better
approach.
And here's why.
What we show them studies ofHey, this cause an increase in,
in, in sales.
That's how we do it.
the ability to integrate orderconfirmation in order to reduce
the errors in the orders to makesure that whatever people are
(31:54):
hearing.
is like even simple things likepositioning the speaker post,
near the car so that yourworkers are able to hear it
better, and not hear like thecar nearby or things like that.
So I think all those differentcomponents come into play to
really deliver that greatdrive-through experience.
Drive-throughs are not goinganywhere.
They're gonna continue to grow.
I think people want thatconvenience to be able to.
Pull it in the car, can I dosome and place that order?
(32:16):
And I think it's up to therestaurant now to figure out,
okay, how do we digitize thatexperience?
But how do we also personalizeit with some additional aspects
where a loyalty number can pullup a custom menu based on your
last orders.
And those are some of the coolthings that we're working on
here at Neon to really go from.
Three JPEGs.
and then, no one likes threemenu boards and then a bunch of
static stuff all around it.
(32:36):
'cause then it still createsthat bad experience.
Says How do you keep it clean?
How do you keep it fresh?
I'll show you some photos ofsome of the projects that we've
done.
And they just allow you to focusmore on picking the product and
moving through the line so youcan have another car pull up and
just that will just kinda speedup your order process and
increase your overall revenuefrom drive-throughs.
Jeremy Julian (32:54):
Yeah.
No, and I love that you guys,not only, you showed the Burger
King hat for those that arewatching this on YouTube, but
just the fact that you dug in sodeep to understand what does it
look like and how do you make itbetter?
And again, as somebody thatpartners with me on the one
thing that has held consistentlytrue is everybody on their team
truly wants to hear the voice ofthe customer and how can they
(33:15):
make their lives better?
And so I love that.
Last question, Eli.
You guys do a lot.
You guys have done a lot.
You've already shared over thelast 30 minutes, you guys do a
ton in the way of digital menuboards.
You talked a little bit aboutkind of your quadrants.
I know you guys are doing someother unique things.
I'd love for you to share astory or two of some different
things that you've had somecustomers do that really enhance
(33:36):
their business practice.
They've already got theinvestment of the tech.
They've already got your guys'solution, but now they're able
to do some other things, in, inregards to digitizing other
places that they might have beenin utilizing your guys'
platforms.
So I'd love for you to share alittle bit about that before we
sign off.
Eli Chmouni (33:52):
yeah, a hundred percent.
I think from the visual menuboard perspective, we actually
allow brands to, publish theirmenus on.
Online.
So for example, you can actuallytake in young and put it on your
Google profile.
So whatever's actually showingin the store will show to
customers as they look at theirprofiles, you're gonna kinda
keep that consistency.
And then about seven months ago,actually more now, probably
(34:13):
about 10 months ago, one of our.
One of our clients came to usand they said, we, we love neon.
You guys have helped us so much,but we really hate our music
provider.
And it's so old.
It's expensive.
you guys should fix music too.
I'm like, challenge accepted.
Yeah, exactly.
How hard can it be, right?
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
It's like the dumbnesssometimes.
(34:35):
Yeah.
The ignorance.
The ignorance is bliss.
You just go run after theproblem.
It's we can fix that.
it's music.
How hard could it be?
But literally we spent fivemonths working with, lawyers,
entertainment lawyers, and weended up getting, licensing
rights from the different prosin the us, and Canada to allow
us to resell and to licensemusic.
And we ended up building anentire music product that allows
(34:55):
you to also control the music inthe store.
So just like now you can show,if you have a menu that's
showing now, you can also showdifferent types of music.
You can play different types ofmusic.
depending on the time of theday, you can also create
announcements.
you can use our AI engine toactually type an announcement
and it will create anannouncement over the air.
for example, Jeremy, if you'reat Peter Piper Pizza and there's
a, it's your birthday, and themanager there wants to say Happy
(35:18):
Birthday, Jeremy, he can justtype it up, in the system and
it'll create an announcementover the air, directly there
using the voice of the brand.
So some of these like coolthings where we.
Then I just wanna wanna playmusic.
It's like how do you make musicactually synchronize with the
screens?
How do you make the music now?
Maybe talk about the LTOs thatyou're also showing on the
screen, where maybe someone, ifthey missed an LTO, now they get
(35:38):
to hear about it.
Or maybe they missed a amessaging that says, download
our loyalty to hear about itwhile they're sitting there also
enjoying it.
So I think some of these likecool things, allowed us to take
everything we learned and thenliterally we launched.
We launched music about sevenmonths.
And out of the brands that wecurrently have, we had 2000
stores sign up.
so immediately within sevenmonths, we ramped up to about
(36:00):
2000 stores using, neon musicproduct and we continue to kinda
expand more and more, thatproduct as its own category.
and then people came back to usand said, we also wanna do
better loyalty, like, how canyou integrate, like, how can we
collect better information?
So we ended up launching the onwifi as the captive portal.
and using the captive portalalso, you can take the LTOs that
you're showing on the screensand.
(36:21):
Now you can show them on yourphone or on the laptop, kinda
just creating that ecosystem.
So my vision for this is really,I think over the next three to
five years is I'll be able tobuild an ecosystem of products,
that, that allows marketing andoperations teams to really work
together from a single dashboardwhere you don't have to log into
12 different dashboards.
Franchisees don't have toremember 12 different vendors.
(36:41):
They don't have to call 12different numbers of support.
They can just call neon and wegot it handled.
this is where the whole idea isrestaurants are creating amazing
experiences and we wanna createthat amazing experience to them.
And it all begins withsimplicity.
so the ability to combineeverything under one roof, keep
it simple, keep it pricely,conveniently priced for, any of
these brands, whether they'resmall or enterprise.
(37:03):
and then just really focusing onthat support.
Aspect is really what allowed usover the last four years, we've
had zero installation, zerochurn, continuous growth, and we
continue to build more and moreproducts to really simplify, the
life of a restaurateur.
Jeremy Julian (37:17):
That's amazing.
and again, I think, I say thisoften in the long time,
listeners all have heard it.
Tech for tech's sake is dead.
But tech that really is solvingbusiness problems is really what
you guys are solving.
And so I love that you do that.
So Eli, you've only got a couplesales guys on the team.
How do people get in touch?
how do people learn?
hopefully they don't get anengineer that starts talking to
'em about bits and bites of howthings work when they call in.
But how would you, ask ourlisteners to engage if they
(37:39):
wanted to learn more about whatNeon can do for their business?
Eli Chmouni (37:42):
Yeah, absolutely.
I would love to, connect with'emon LinkedIn.
Feel free to add me on LinkedIn.
Eli Chmouni, C-H-M-O-U-N-I.
my email is eli@neonscreens.comand I am very friendly in giving
my phone number away.
(480) 707-1444.
We recently expanded our salesteam, so you guys would keep
them busy if you call me andI'll get to kinda connect you
(38:05):
with'em.
And, we'll get to learn a bitmore about your business, try to
understand really your needs,and, figure out if we're the
right fit for you and if we are,we'll definitely create some
amazing experiences for you.
Jeremy Julian (38:16):
Awesome.
One last question, Eli and Ipromise this is last.
It, and then we'll wrap up.
It's not just for quick serve.
I want you to share this withpeople.
It's for anywhere that you'reserving food.
It's casual dining, it's digitalsigns in your takeout area.
It's so much more than justwalking into a fast food place
and having the three screensthere.
I guess I'd love for you toelaborate a little bit on that.
(38:37):
You and I were talking.
Via email the other day about acasual dining brand that's got
some digital signs that they'restarting to roll out and it's
casual dining, a couple hundredstores.
But it's like there'sopportunities there to upsell,
there's opportunities there toengage your guests.
There's opportunities there toengage your team members.
I'd love for you to justencourage our listeners, it's
not just the fast food listenersand the fast casual listeners.
It's those that are fine dining.
(38:59):
It's all of it.
I'd love for you to share alittle bit of that before we.
Before we sign off,
Eli Chmouni (39:02):
yeah, we work with anything from C stores and
grocery stores.
So if you've been to Sprouts, ifyou've been to Crispy, crunchy
Chicken, any of those placeswhere, again, it's not a typical
QSR setup.
we are the screens that you seeover the deli area.
We are the screens that you seeover the bread area or.
or over the smoothie station oranything like that.
Then we go into the QSR, thefast casual category where you
(39:24):
are showing up to aboard, youare ordering from a board and
directly kinda looking at themenu author through a drive
through.
We also do a lot of full servicerestaurants where, for example,
PF Chang's, where maybe thescreen that you see behind the
hostess that's promoting theirloyalty app.
and it's actually sharing somepromotions right before you even
enter.
The restaurant, we're even in,in like Hooters, where you're
(39:45):
basically sitting down and thenthey split the screen where a
sidebar of the screen isactually showing promotions.
As you're watching the game,you're able to actually engage
with that.
all the way to recently we havea huge expansion into the hotel
category and the hotel diningcategory where there are screens
that you basically see next tothe elevator or in the lobby.
Promoting their restaurants orpromoting their onsite
amenities, as well, as well asany of the services that they
(40:08):
offer.
So really any screen that youhave, Ian can really work on it.
as I mentioned, we work with alot of brands like automotive.
We work with healthcare like.
honor health, where we do a lotof the screens and the infusion
rooms.
We work with a lot of schoolsthrough Aramark.
So if you've been in a, Kthrough 12 school or
universities, we work throughthose.
We're in University of Georgia.
so a lot of these brands that itdoesn't matter really.
(40:30):
The type of service, reallythink about it from
communication.
there's a big expansion that'sbeen happening, just Jeremy to
extend on that a bit over thelast six months in terms of
employee communication.
Yes.
Especially back of the houseemployee communication.
to put a$200 TV in the back ofthe house and to use that in
terms of training, messaging,announcement, especially for the
we announcement.
Exactly like any of that,scheduling, any of that stuff
(40:53):
that could now be showndigitally on a screen rather
than having a manager.
you have only one point ofcontact with a manager.
The manager has to printeverything and put it on the
board.
Now you can fully digitize thatexperience.
you can.
Send alerts to it.
You can send updates to it.
You can even, we work with abrand called The Joint where
they actually have announcementsbefore they open and after they
close out a checklist that thestaff has to complete over the
(41:15):
air, right?
Over music.
So I think that creating thatecosystem, think about it really
from a high level as messagingand communication that is both
employee facing and customerfacing.
So wherever that you, you feelthere's a need for that in your
business, then this is whereNeon can step in and can create
that experience for you.
Jeremy Julian (41:33):
Yeah.
And again, as we talked aboutthe story with Brittany, it's,
you guys do it so quickly and soeasily.
it's amazing.
Eli, I can't thank you enoughfor truly solving so many
problems within the space.
So thank you for that.
Thank you for showing up andsharing the story.
cheering you guys on.
I know we partner and, love tosee you guys continue your
growth.
To our listeners, guys, if youguys haven't already subscribed,
please do Check out Neon,connect with Eli online and make
(41:54):
it a great day.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
Thanks for listening to The Restaurant Technology
Guys podcast.
Visit restaurant technologyguys.com for tips, industry
insights, and more to help yourun your restaurant better.
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