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August 13, 2025 28 mins

What if restaurants could predict exactly who would walk through their doors tomorrow? Matt Wampler, CEO and co-founder of ClearCOGS, has made this vision a reality by leveraging AI to solve the restaurant industry's biggest challenges. In this episode, Matt shares his journey from a struggling Jimmy John’s franchisee to an entrepreneur transforming the restaurant landscape.


Key Takeaways:

  • Struggles and Turning Point: Matt took over a failing Jimmy John’s franchise in DC, transforming it through hard work and dedication.
  • From Franchisee to Tech Founder: After selling his restaurants, Matt taught himself programming and data science, realizing AI’s potential in forecasting demand.
  • ClearCOGS and AI Innovation: Matt co-founded ClearCOGS, using AI to help restaurants predict demand, optimize staffing, and improve operations.
  • Transforming the Industry: ClearCOGS now serves 100+ brands globally, providing predictive analytics that benefits restaurants of all sizes.
  • The Future Vision: Matt aims to create a "restaurant co-pilot" that equips operators with the insights they need for success.

Matt's innovative approach to AI in restaurants is reshaping the industry by giving operators tools that were once only available to the largest players. Discover how AI is revolutionizing the restaurant business and learn why Matt believes that predicting demand is not just a wishful thought—it’s a practical solution that technology can deliver.


About Matt Wampler:

Matt is an ex-operator turned tech-founder.  He spent close to a decade as a Jimmy Johns franchisee winning awards for Highest COMP and Highest Sales Increase in the chain.  Matt is currently the CEO of ClearCOGS with the mission to empower restaurants with the information they need to run more smoothly and profitably.  He's deeply passionate about the industry and is hyper-focused on bridging the gap between the potential of AI and the everyday realities of running a restaurant.

In addition to work, I'm a proud father of two daughters, a woodworker, make my own maple syrup, and bake a hell of a sourdough loaf of bread.


Connect:

Website www.clearcogs.com
LinkedIn linkedin.com/in/matthewjwampler/
Twitter @w_a_m_p_l_e_r
Threads @matthew.wampler
Instagram @matthew.wampler
TikTok @matt.wampler


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Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Announcer (00:00):
The following programming is sponsored by Marc
J Bernstein.
The views expressed do notnecessarily reflect the views of
this station, its management orBeasley Media Group.
Entrepreneur, founder, authorand financial advisor, Marc
Bernstein helps high-performingbusiness owners turn their
visions into reality.
Through his innovative work andthe Forward Focus Forums, Marc

(00:21):
connects entrepreneurs toresources that fuel their
success.
Founders Forum is a radio showand podcast where entrepreneurs
share their journeys, revealingthe lessons they've learned and
the stories behind their success.
Join Marc and his guests for amix of inspiration, valuable
insights and a little fun.
Now let's dive in.

Marc Bernstein (00:40):
Good morning America.
America, how are you?
Depends who you ask, I guess,and whatever you're thinking
about everything that's going on.
But good morning, it's a hotand sunny day.
In Philadelphia, it's alwayssunny and it's almost always hot
these days in the summer and wehave in our studio Matt I'll

(01:03):
introduce Matt formally in asecond and, Matt, we always have
a topic of the day and I didn'tlay it on you in advance, so
I'm coming completely out of thewoods on this, but we talk a
lot about AI and you're in theAI business.
Give us your latest outlook onAI and where it is and where
it's going.

Matt Wampler (01:21):
Look, I mean, the growth in AI has been
exponential over the last coupleof years.
I think you look at Chat GPT,Perplexity, Claude, all of these
different models.
They have really grown, but thebase technology, those
transformer models, that'sstarting to stagnate.

(01:43):
They're not necessarily gettingany more powerful.
What's happening right now?
The real innovation in AI, isthat application layer that's
sitting on top of these models.
It's like we discovered fire,found gasoline.
What can we do with it?

Marc Bernstein (01:58):
And I think that's where we're at.
I like that, yeah, trying tofigure it out, and everyone's
scrambling to figure that out, Ithink in a way right, I think
it's a gold rush.

Matt Wampler (02:05):
I mean the sky's the limit.

Marc Bernstein (02:07):
Crazy.
So I'm a financial advisor.
Invest in AI.
Your opinion, yes.

Matt Wampler (02:14):
I think this is one of those transformational
technologies, like the internet,that is here to stay.

Marc Bernstein (02:21):
They say it's bigger than the industrial
revolution, and it may well be.
Yeah, so interesting.
So let me introduce Matt.
Matt is CEO and co-founder ofClearCOGS and host of the
Restaurant AI podcast.
We might get into that a littlebit.
Like and subscribe yeah, likeand subscribe Restaurant AI
podcast.
In fact, look up Restaurant AIand you should see it.

(02:44):
Matt is an ex-operator turnedtech founder, and we'll talk
about him as an operator alittle bit.
So he spent close to a decadeas a Jimmy Johns franchisee
which was quite a phenomenonwhen it came out, jimmy Johns,
by the way and he's currentlythe CEO of ClearCOGS, with a
mission to empower restaurantswith the information they need

(03:04):
to run more smoothly andprofitably.
Matt, welcome, glad to have youhere.
It's an honor to be here.
It's great, and we started with.
As often happens, we startedtalking quite a while back and
we're here today.
It's always great to meetpeople.

Matt Wampler (03:17):
I think this has been a year in the making.

Marc Bernstein (03:19):
I think you're right.
It's a year in the making, sothis is going to be a really
good show.
That's what happens, you knowit.
So, Matt, let's talk about yourbeginnings, which I believe you
were from Illinois originallyand then you found yourself in
DC.
So let's talk about how thathappened, and then how Jimmy
John's happened, and then howyou got to where you are today.

Matt Wampler (03:40):
Yeah, I'm a good old Midwestern boy born in
Southern Illinois.
Yeah, the long and short of itwas this I went out and did
investment banking as aninternship and sat in a cubicle
and crunched numbers andrealized that's not for me.
I'm ADD, dyslexic, I like doingthings, and so Champaign,

(04:01):
illinois, where I was born, isthe headquarters of Jimmy John's
.
It's kind of it was kind oflike religion in the town, you
know, everybody was somehowassociated with Jimmy John's or
tied to it, and so it kind ofgot the way, champaign is food
related town name even in yourblood and a good, a good food in
a good way it's a very goodfood, yeah.
But yeah, no, I mean.
So I found this opportunitywhere some guy had run his Jimmy

(04:25):
John's franchise into theground and basically needed to
get out of the personalguarantees and none of the
franchisees who are far smarterthan I was would buy the thing.
Should have been a red flag.
I saw it as this opportunity,like, hey, I think I could go
own a business, like let me goroll the dice.
And you know, just like, haveyou ever seen the Bear, the FX?

Marc Bernstein (04:46):
show.
I started watching it.
It's on my list.
I got to finish that.
I love the concept.

Matt Wampler (04:51):
So I started watching it three times,
literally.
I turned it off the first twotimes.
Finally, the third time I gotthrough it because it was like
PTSD, like that was except Iwasn't the Michelin star trained
chef, I was the semi-delinquentcollege student, right, right,
but like you know Making hoagies.
We don't call them hoagies.
I mean, I walked into thisplace and literally it's the

(05:11):
middle of summer in DC.
The air condition's out Likethe moment you walk in.
All you smell is the greasetrap because they haven't
cleaned it for forever.
Like the cold tables wereoverheating so they had ice
buckets on top of thecompressors to keep the
equipment from failing.
You bought an existing gym job.
Yeah, it's a total turnaround,just like the bear, and you
quickly find yourself in asituation where you don't have
any choice.

(05:31):
You've got to make this work oryou're going bankrupt.
So you find a way to make itwork, which was how, how, did
you do that.
You know what they always say inthe restaurant industry you can
work harder, you can worksmarter.
When you're in your early 20s,all you know is work harder.
You only know work harder.

(05:52):
So I ended up working 120 hoursa week and sleeping on the back
of the store floor betweenshifts.
I mean, I look back on it.

Marc Bernstein (05:55):
We were married at this point too right.

Matt Wampler (05:58):
So it's kind of crazy my wife and I literally
got married 18 months aftermeeting and it was in college,
so we'd lived together for likethree months and I proposed and
yeah, the rest is history, itworked out, it worked out and
still married.
Today I have two wonderfulchildren.

Marc Bernstein (06:17):
Wonderful.
That's unusual.
You hear that when people rushinto it like that.
But you knew, or you knewsomething you know.
I think a lot of it is yourmentality when people rush into
it like that.

Matt Wampler (06:24):
But you knew, or you knew something.
You know, I think a lot of itis your mentality.
You know we weren't dating forfun.
You know I'm literally sleepingin the back of the store floor.
It's utter chaos.

Marc Bernstein (06:36):
Pretty serious guy at this point yeah.

Matt Wampler (06:37):
Yeah, you know it's like, hey, if we're going
to have this relationship, it'snot because we like going on
dates on Friday nights.

Announcer (06:49):
We're investing in each other.

Matt Wampler (06:50):
Yeah, and you know so she was all in, I think.
So I got her to say yes, I'dlove to hear her answer on that.
But yes, she decided to go allin.

Marc Bernstein (06:55):
Next time we do this, let's bring her on.

Matt Wampler (06:57):
Yes, the other perspective.

Marc Bernstein (06:59):
Anyway, so you're married, you're happily
married.
You've been through a lot, I'msure, and so let's continue on
the Jimmy Jones saga.

Matt Wampler (07:10):
Yeah, you know I think I give a lot of my success
to Jimmy Jones as a brand.
You know I didn't know anythingabout running restaurants, but
you know, beautiful thing abouta franchise system is they give
you a playbook.
This is what you need to doevery day.
Your job is to go in andexecute, and so that's what I
did.
You know, I showed up and weexecuted every day fast,

(07:32):
flawless food, customer serviceand, sure enough, over the next
18 months we took it from doinglike 400,000 to 1.2 million and
we were off the races.
Wow.

Marc Bernstein (07:37):
That's amazing.
And and how?
Did you own just one or did youown multiple?

Matt Wampler (07:42):
Yeah, you rolled the profits up and opened up
four more, four more.

Marc Bernstein (07:45):
You had five, and they all became successful.
No, no, it's restaurants.
It's like Russian roulette.

Matt Wampler (07:51):
You open one, it's like shoot.
This is going to be a painfulprocess to grow sales Right.

Marc Bernstein (08:00):
By the way, I know, you went to University of
Iowa for college right GoHawkeyes.
And, by the way I know, youwent to University of Iowa for
college right Go Hawkeyes.
And then Duke for your MBA.
Yeah, still don't know how Imanaged to pull that one off.
I was going to say dyslexic.
You're not a student, you toldme, but you got a master's
degree.

Matt Wampler (08:13):
Somehow you know what's crazy my marketing degree
at Iowa I think I had a lowerGPA than my MBA.
I thought about that.

Marc Bernstein (08:20):
So somehow you did that.
So somehow you did that.
That's, that's pretty amazing.
I'm sure that's helped you too.
I'm sure you learned somethings there.

Matt Wampler (08:25):
I learned a ton.
I think the one thing it gaveme was perspective.
You know I I walked into theroom and you'd listen to these
incredibly talented, successfulpeople and you know like I
remember just having therealization you know I was
running a multimillion dollarbusiness.
You know, we had hundreds ofemployees Like we ran the whole
thing on Excel spreadsheets andguessing.

(08:47):
It's like that just doesn't makesense.
You know I sat there andthought like you know I loved.
I always thought I'd go backinto Jimmy John's.
I didn't be an operator, justget a different market.
But you know, going throughthat process I kind of realized
the thing I loved about theindustry was the 5% of Right and

(09:09):
when you're a franchisee yourjob is just to follow the
playbook, the stuff you had tofigure out.
Yeah, if I could spend half mytime getting to do the 5% that's
not in there, that reallyexcited me.

Marc Bernstein (09:21):
So that became your kind of aha at some point
that there's something missingin terms of the way restaurant
operations are run.
I believe and I believe itprobably had something to do
with systems and technology andAI obviously you know the AI had
nothing to do with it.

Matt Wampler (09:38):
Um, I think it was an inkling I had then, right
that's what I meant.

Marc Bernstein (09:42):
You saw, you saw , you saw a light there, so it's
a feeling, right yeah, and, andsure enough it was.

Matt Wampler (09:48):
I don't know, 18 months later I I got into
programming, data science, andthat was the light bulb.
It was like, oh my gosh, thisexists.
Like technology has gotten sogreat.

Marc Bernstein (10:00):
And you didn't have any background in that
right.

Matt Wampler (10:02):
None none whatsoever.
So for me it was likediscovering fires, like what is
this magic?
And why did I not have it whenI was running my restaurants?
And so that's when I called upmy now co-founder, osa, and like
we went and just talked to abunch of restaurants, I said I
think there's something here.

Marc Bernstein (10:16):
But, by the way, so at this point you're now out
of Jimmy John's.
So how did that happen?

Matt Wampler (10:20):
I'm out of.
Jimmy John's sold them as partof that transition.
I actually I-.

Marc Bernstein (10:26):
Because you saw something else you wanted to do.
Is that right?

Matt Wampler (10:29):
No, no, it wasn't that.
It was a season of my life.
I had just started havingchildren.

Marc Bernstein (10:36):
Restaurants are tough man, it's a tough job.
Tough job to have while you'reraising children.

Matt Wampler (10:41):
Yeah, it's the late night calls You're
constantly.
I mean, the phone is the devilbecause it's always going to
ring with another problem and itwas like I think I'll get back
into this, but now would be agood time in my life to maybe
focus on the family.
You know, take a pause.

Marc Bernstein (10:57):
So this was.
How long ago was this?

Matt Wampler (10:59):
Gosh 2016, 17.

Marc Bernstein (11:02):
Okay, so seven, eight years ago yeah.

Matt Wampler (11:05):
So I came up to Philly, actually, for I ran an
innovation for a medical devicecompany, it was my one stint
into the corporate world.

Marc Bernstein (11:12):
Okay.

Matt Wampler (11:12):
So you got a job.

Marc Bernstein (11:13):
You sold the restaurants.
Got a job.
Got a job.

Matt Wampler (11:16):
My wife loved it, by the way.
She's like.
You mean to tell me you couldwork 40 hours a week, get paid
good money and just make dinnerfor the family and be around,
right?

Marc Bernstein (11:26):
But of course that eventually wasn't enough.

Matt Wampler (11:30):
Yeah, I would say I literally just can't help
myself, right right?

Marc Bernstein (11:33):
Well, entrepreneur through and through
.
Right, I mean.
You know you have to work foryourself.
You got to create somethingright?
Aren't those some of the traitsof being an entrepreneur?
I would say so, yeah, and whatwas driving you at the point?
So you had the job?
What drove you to want to dothis?
I got fired.

Matt Wampler (11:54):
Ah, there you go COVID hit, that'll do it.
Company restructures and youfind yourself with a one and
three-year-old and no job, andyou got to go figure out what
your life's going to be.

Marc Bernstein (12:03):
So we're at 2020 now, yeah, Okay, so you're home
, like I was home, recreatingmyself.
And what did you?
What did what?
What?
What happened then?

Matt Wampler (12:13):
So this is when I got into the programming data
science it was something.
I love numbers I loved Excel.
You know I built all kinds ofstuff in Excel and it was like I
should go learn programming.

Marc Bernstein (12:24):
Gotcha Um interesting.
So you started learningprogramming.
Were you applying it to therestaurant business at this
point?

Matt Wampler (12:31):
No, I mean, I was just looking at COVID statistics
.

Marc Bernstein (12:34):
Right Just random things.
So you were just educatingyourself, period, for no
apparent reason at that point.

Matt Wampler (12:40):
I was honestly exploring the capabilities of
technology, just understandingwhat it could do.
I love that.

Marc Bernstein (12:47):
I love that.
So how long did you go on likethat before you had a business
idea?

Matt Wampler (12:53):
Not long, it didn't take too long.

Marc Bernstein (12:56):
How long?
Six months, okay, so six months.
So what did you do then?

Matt Wampler (13:01):
So that's when I called my Found, your partner,
Co-founder Rosa, and said look,I think there's something in
restaurants, I think this is aninteresting space.
And we went out and talked toevery restaurant we could find.
I think we talked to like 50different brands.
And you know, I give Oss a lotof credit.
He's a product guy, He'd do areally good job of interviewing
and, you know, say what is itthat you want?
And they'd be like well, I wanta graph.
It's like why do you want thisgraph?

(13:26):
I want it for A, B and C reason.
And he'd keep asking why do youwant that?
And the funny thing happened italways came back to the same
answer.
If you asked why, enough, Idon't know who's going to walk
in the door tomorrow.
Because I don't know who'sgoing to walk in the door
tomorrow, I make incorrect,inefficient decisions around
what I prep, what I order, who Istaff.
And we said that is interestingand that is something we can

(13:48):
solve.

Marc Bernstein (13:50):
Very interesting .
So what was his background?
By the way?

Matt Wampler (13:53):
He's a genius programmer guy.
They threw him in a think tankout in Silicon Valley at a
college.
You know he's one of those guys.
And where did you meet him?
I met him online.
Talk about rediscoveringyourself.
During COVID, really, he waslaunching his first startup.
He was looking for advisors.
I'm at home with my two kids,my wife's in healthcare, so it's

(14:14):
like I'm raising the two kids.
I need some adult entertainment, somebody to converse with, so
we ended up working together.

Marc Bernstein (14:23):
Cool.
Well, that is a very goodjumping off point for us to take
a quick commercial break andwe'll be right back on Founders
Forum with Matt Wampler.
Stay tuned.

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Marc Bernstein (15:10):
We're back on Founders Forum with our guest
today, Matt Wampler, andfascinating story.
Matt, so you met Osa, yourpartner, who I understand is
based out of Chicago, and so isyour company, correct?
Yes, sir, and you started thebusiness.
And what did you do?
How did you start it?
You started calling on somerestaurant companies.

Matt Wampler (15:30):
You do what everybody does.
You call up a family memberwho's got a restaurant and say
hey, can I experiment on yourrestaurant, right, you know that
was your family member or his.

Marc Bernstein (15:39):
Yeah, it was my family member.
Yeah.

Matt Wampler (15:42):
And you kind of realize, like you know, we were
looking for reasons not to dothis.
So we set out and said, okay,there should be a solution here.
There's not why.
That's a big red flag.
We kind of figured out why.
Then we went and said is iteven possible to do so?
We went out and worked with mycousin for a few months this is
kind of just playing around.
Turned out we cut his breadwaste in half.

(16:04):
We're like, okay, this mightactually work.
So that's when we decided let'sgo start a company.

Marc Bernstein (16:10):
That's very smart.
I was talking to anentrepreneur yesterday who's
starting a company A relative ofmine is working for this new.
It's an innovative furniturecompany done internationally,
and real smart guy, realdata-driven kind of guy, and I
asked him to demonstrate acouple of things to me.

(16:30):
He says not yet, we're notready yet, we're testing.
He says October.
Talk to me again in October.
Not yet, we're not ready yet,we're testing.
He said October.
Talk to me again in October.
So it's very smart to do that.
So you started the business.
I assume you started collectingsome clients and after that it
was a smooth ride.
I'm kidding, of course.

Matt Wampler (16:46):
Yeah, not even close.
We'll call it an iterativeprocess.

Marc Bernstein (16:49):
Right, okay, so there were challenges.
Tell me about the challengesstarting up.

Matt Wampler (16:53):
Well, look, I think the hardest thing is this
You're starting a new companythat nobody's heard of, offering
a new product that nobody'sheard of in a whole new
technology category and thenmixing the fact that we ended up
using AI to do all of this.
Nobody understands that.
So really it was solutionawareness.
Everybody knew the problem.

(17:15):
They knew the pain of running arestaurant, they know it's a
low margin business.
They know their 18-year-old kidrunning the night shift is not
making the best decisions.
But when you come in and saywe're going to use AI to do
predictive analytics and answerthese questions proactively,
they're like that sounds likevoodoo, like yeah, I'm not
buying it.

Marc Bernstein (17:35):
Right, right.
So selling them on your valueproposition was the challenge.

Matt Wampler (17:40):
Yeah, I mean, I would say this they say
first-time founders focus onproduct and, like I don't know
if it's second or third time,founders focus on distribution.
But there's a lot of wisdomthere.
You know, sales is the hardestthing to do, and not only just
because sales is tough, butsales also informs everything

(18:01):
you build Right.

Marc Bernstein (18:03):
Right, I understand that.
I understand that we're goingthrough kind of a rebranding and
reclarification of our valueproposition in our business and
there's a lot of work involvedin that and it all comes down to
the sales process and whoyou're speaking to, how you're
speaking to them.

Matt Wampler (18:20):
It's the customer.
The more you can speak with thecustomer, learn what their pain
is right, how they want tointeract with your product I
mean, that's where magic happens, right.
So you did that.

Marc Bernstein (18:31):
You got a few customers, I assume, to start.
So you did that.
You got a few customers, Iassume, to start.
We did Yep, and how did that go?
Horribly.

Matt Wampler (18:40):
Yeah, it's okay.
I mean welcome to the earlystages of startups.
Right right, we got some greatshots on goal.
It's two guys in a garage justtrying to figure out what we do
and we screwed up.

Marc Bernstein (18:50):
So at what point and how did you get there where
things started growing?

Matt Wampler (18:55):
Look in my world everything is red, yellow or
green, right, and there isalways one or two items that are
in the red and that's where wefocus our time and energy.
So you know, you start out,everything's red, you get one
thing green great.
I mean, it's just a constantbattle of failing, learning and

(19:16):
iterating.

Marc Bernstein (19:17):
Well, I'll ask you another way when are you
today in terms of how manycustomers?
I know you did kind of a bigdeal with Toast, if I recall.
Yeah, we're on the.

Matt Wampler (19:25):
Toast marketplace.
That's a big one.
Today, I think if you walk intoa restaurant, there's a 70%
chance we're integrated directlyinto their point of sales
system.
We're in a hundred brandsacross four countries, ranging
from kind of your regionalchains to multi-billion dollar
publicly traded companies.

Marc Bernstein (19:41):
So what's your distribution system?
Look like today, your sales andbusiness, because obviously
it's beyond you going out andknocking on doors at this point.

Matt Wampler (19:49):
It is, it is.
So we've been knocking on doorsfor a long time.
We've wanted to work directlywith the customer and, frankly,
we were a poor startup.
We didn't have any resources.
We had to be very careful withwhere we put our development
resources and where we builtbecause we didn't have that much
bandwidth.
We finally closed our seedround.
We've got some great investorsthat have come in and now we

(20:11):
have some more resources, sowe're really focused on
partnerships.
How can we take your currentsystems in your restaurant and
turn them into smart systems?
How do I make your labormanagement system automatically
schedule the right people at theright time?
How do I make your orderingsystem, for when I order from
Cisco or US Foods right,automatically order the right

(20:32):
food?
How would my prep cook know howmany chicken tenders to drop in
at this time?

Marc Bernstein (20:36):
Sounds like a dream system for restaurants.
I mean, if you could do allthat sounds like a pretty easy
value proposition to sell atsome point.
It is yeah, so do you docountry clubs, by the way.

Matt Wampler (20:49):
You know, we haven't my mom brought that up.
Mom, if you're listening,credit to you.
Marc on your side.
I am.

Marc Bernstein (20:56):
You know why?
Because I was having thisconversation yesterday.
The country club the golf club,I'll call it that I belong to
is run by guys who are in therestaurant business and they run
the restaurants great, but theydon't know how to apply it, in
my mind, to the country clubbusiness.
It's a lot different.
You don't know who's going towalk in, you don't know how much

(21:17):
food you should have preparedand stored and ordered, et
cetera.
So if it could be applied and Iknow a lot of people in that
business, managers and generalmanagers- they need something.

Matt Wampler (21:30):
Well, let me take a side tangent for a second.
So you know, back in 2020,openai hadn't released ChatGPT.
Ai was not a buzzword.
And we all of this and said,like we want you to do this old
school regression Don't give methis black box machine learning.

(22:02):
And on the side, me and one ofthe data guys started playing
around with machine learning.
It was like, oh my gosh, itjust crushed you know 18 super
smart kids and what AI is reallygood at, whether it's chat, gpt
.
Chat GPT is literally justpredicting the next word in a
sentence.
It's good at pattern matching.

(22:22):
So whether it's predicting howmuch prep to do today or how
many golfers are going to showup, it's just going to pattern
match.
When it rains, golfers don'tshow up.
It's amazing what thistechnology could do.

Marc Bernstein (22:39):
Very interesting and I was going to ask you that
how did you get to that step?
That's how you got to that step.

Matt Wampler (22:43):
Yeah, that was kind of the aha moment.
We went all in on it.
It was one of the bestdecisions we made.

Marc Bernstein (22:49):
So, looking out, today, you've got your seed
money, you're on an expansionmode, I imagine.
Ultimately, a next strategymight look like being acquired
or something down the road.

Matt Wampler (23:02):
Look, I don't spend a lot of time thinking
about that.
My fundamental belief is thisRestaurants is the hardest job
out there.
It's often a thankless jobwhere you put the key in the
door in the morning and thenjust wait for things to go wrong
.
We believe that hindsight is20-20.

(23:24):
I mean, I could tell you theamount of times I could look
back and say, man, if I knew itwas going to rain, I would have
brought more drivers.
If I knew there was thisbasketball game I forgot about,
I would have staffed up.
If we were to give thatinformation ahead of time to
restaurants, it not only wouldmake their lives easier, but it
would make it a much moreprofitable, sustainable industry

(23:44):
.
And if we can just continue tomake that vision come to reality
and change the lives of all ofthese restaurants, ultimately
the exit takes care of itself,but I'm loving the journey as it
is today.

Marc Bernstein (23:59):
So, along the journey, what's your vision for
the future?
Let me ask you this If you andI are three years from now we're
talking, what would have tohappen for you to feel that that
was a successful three-yearperiod?

Matt Wampler (24:08):
Yeah, look, nobody gets into restaurants because
they love inventory or reviewingP&Ls or, you know, looking at
variance reports.
This is the people business.
They get into it for thehospitality.
And you know, fundamentally,the restaurants that are
successful are the ones thatmaster the cold analytics.
It's the McDonald's of theworld.

(24:30):
Right, it may not be the bestburger in town, but, like they
figured out the business ofrunning restaurants, it may not
be the best burger in town, butlike they figured out the
business of running restaurants.
You know, the future we see isyour fractional CFO COO that
sits on top of your data, yourrestaurant co-pilot that, when
you wake up in the morning yousay what do I need to know?
It gives you a synopsis of whathappened yesterday.

(24:50):
You know the key areas ofconcerns, what's coming today.
You've got this catering order.
You need to prep this much more.
How do we make better decisions?
And it's something thattechnology today, thankfully to
these large language models, isa reality and will be a reality
in the next three years.

Marc Bernstein (25:08):
So it's sort of bringing that kind of analytics
model that I'm sure McDonald'salready has to the family-owned
business or the small chains orthe you know, there's this weird
world in franchising wherefranchisors make their money on
top-line revenues.

Matt Wampler (25:22):
You pay royalty to them.
The tax man Better believe thatthey invest heavily in anything
that increases revenues, butthey don't necessarily care as
much about the bottom line.
It's not as high of a priorityand so most chains don't have
this.
And the technology is new andit wasn't possible five or ten
years ago.

(25:43):
So it's kind of a green fieldtoday.

Marc Bernstein (25:46):
Can you get into like McDonald's owners, or the
franchise agreements allow it?

Matt Wampler (25:51):
I could probably count on one hand the brands
that do do this internally.
Mcdonald's is one of them Right, right.
I think they employ like halfthe data scientists in the
industry.

Marc Bernstein (26:00):
But all the other chains are open.

Matt Wampler (26:02):
Yeah, most of the other chains.

Marc Bernstein (26:04):
Yeah, so let me ask you a quick question.
If you could speak to youryounger self we've covered a lot
of ground today what advicewould you give yourself, matt?

Matt Wampler (26:13):
It all comes down to relationships.
I would have gotten on socialmedia earlier.
I would have asked for advicefrom powerful business leaders
that are smart.
I would have done that wayearlier because when I was in
restaurants, I lived within myfour walls.
My whole world was that 1,600square feet and I did not open
the aperture to broaden mynetwork.

Marc Bernstein (26:35):
Interesting.
I'm going to throw a coupleother fun questions because we
have about a minute left.
What music do you listen to?

Matt Wampler (26:41):
Whatever's on the radio right now Alternative rock
, classic rock.
Right now, a lot of TaylorSwift, because I got two girls,
six and eight, there you go.

Marc Bernstein (26:49):
You're fortunate .
When my daughter was that age,I had to listen to Britney
Spears and you got Taylor Swift,we've got Britney Spears and
the Spice Girls.

Matt Wampler (26:58):
It's still playing .

Marc Bernstein (27:05):
It's still playing.
Yeah, gotcha.

Matt Wampler (27:06):
Okay, so we have a little more time.
How about books?
Are you a reader?
You know I do audio books.
I love podcasts.

Marc Bernstein (27:09):
Yep and what's your favorite podcast?

Matt Wampler (27:11):
The Restaurant AI Podcast.

Marc Bernstein (27:14):
And then Founders Forum, and then after
that.

Matt Wampler (27:17):
I love Lex Friedman.
He's great.
They're long.
It's like a book on tape insome ways, but just talk about
interesting conversations.
One of the most intellectualpodcasts.

Marc Bernstein (27:27):
Yeah, it really makes you think a lot.
Anyone else have any others youlike?

Matt Wampler (27:34):
You know what, maybe controversial?
I like the Joe Rogan podcastquite a bit.
I do too.
I enjoy the curiosity and thevariety of subjects.

Marc Bernstein (27:44):
Yeah, he covers a lot of ground, that's for sure
.
Ever listen to Marc Maron WTO?
No, oh, check that one out.
I think he's retiring from it.
He's now an actor.
He's a comedian.
He's a great interviewer fromit.
He's now an actor.
He's a comedian, he's a greatinterviewer.

Announcer (27:59):
He used to do it out of his garage.

Marc Bernstein (28:00):
He had Obama come to his garage in California
to interview him.
Mark Maron, wtf.
Anyway, that's all the time wehave on Founders Forum today.
Matt's been great.
We could do a part two, I'msure, at some time.
If we want, let's make ithappen, we'll bring the wife and
thank you all for listeningtoday.
We'll see you next week onFound.
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