For this session of the StartWell Podcast we sat down with the co-founders of Syzl – Adrian Savin and Azrah Manji. This husband and wife team have brought their combined experiences working in digital marketing and shared spaces to help food professionals, entertainers and hobbyists find and use professional kitchens on demand.
In a rush? Here are some highlights from this conversation
- Starting a company with a spouse. (0:27)
- Starting a business during the pandemic. (2:40)
- Kitchen rental platforms and their use cases. (8:06)
- Launching a kitchen marketplace with 40-50 kitchens in the GTA and Montreal. (13:53)
- Digital marketing strategies for startups. (19:24)
- Using AI for video production and team growth. (22:24)
- Kitchen rental platform business model and launch plans. (28:11)
- Food marketing and partnerships. (33:06)
Spend time with this conversation - here's the full transcript
Qasim Virjee 0:27
Welcome back to this the 43rd episode of the start. Well, podcast as always, I'm Qasim Virjee. In the studio at start, we'll on King Street West. This time around, I'm joined by a Canadian startup called sizzle. We've got our two co founders here in studio with us who also are married. And this is going to be an interesting conversation because I have so many questions, so many questions about both of those things.
Adrian Savin 0:56
I hope they're all underhand classrooms. Nice easy ones, because, you know, we, there there are stigmas are already that we face. So, you know, we're ready, we're ready for some, some tough ones.
Qasim Virjee 1:08
And we're into it with that. I'll have you introduce yourselves, please. Azra, go for it.
Azrah Manji-Savin 1:14
All right. I'm Azra. I'm the co founder and CEO of sizzle, which is incredibly exciting and crazy, all at the same time. And super excited to be here.
Adrian Savin 1:24
And I'm Adrian, CTO, co founder product guy, you know, question or user experience designer?
Qasim Virjee 1:33
Nice. So guys, let's Okay, let's backtrack. Okay. You're a couple, you're married. Your family. When you guys got together as a couple, did you know that a few years later you would be running a company together? Was it something that you always wanted to do? Or is this like something that you kind of fell into?
Azrah Manji-Savin 1:57
We met in the same industry, not tech, but entertainment. And we met on the premise of working together, which is kind of funny. Yeah. And so I think it's always been in the back of our minds. But Adrian definitely is the one who pushed it forward and has been for many, many years that okay, let's do the business. Let's do a business together. So really, the magic of sizzle that that idea that falls on Adrian.
Adrian Savin 2:25
No, that's, I mean, yeah, I agree. I mean, I've I've definitely pushed for Azra to work with me for quite some time. She's incredibly talented, hard, working smart, you know, gifted all the things that you need in a CEO. And so when we first started exploring the concept for sizzle, it kinda, you know, I was looking at at
Qasim Virjee 2:48
and when was that, by the way? Like, like, how long has this company been in ideation mode before? You said or how long was it that you were kind of brainstorming it before? You said, we're gonna do this? This is a business we want to do.
Adrian Savin 3:01
Yeah, I mean, it evolved. It started with you really?
Azrah Manji-Savin 3:05
Yeah. This was in this spring, summer of 2020. When we really started exploring pandemic
Qasim Virjee 3:13
hits, pandemic hits. You guys are in Calgary. Yeah.
Azrah Manji-Savin 3:17
Okay. And we were doing real estate consulting, just on the side. Wait, what
Qasim Virjee 3:23
does that mean real estate consulting.
Adrian Savin 3:25
So, yeah, I mean, real estate consultant consulting is a catch all for anything that's business related. I don't know. It's, it was, here's a business problem presented by it was a private equity firm that had a holding of retail spaces, restaurants of have spaces that people were once visiting and patronizing and, and supporting. And now, you know, everybody's gone. People are having trouble paying their rent. Hey, as we're aging, you know, do some research for us. Figure out what's happening in the space. And so Azra wrote a white paper that kind of started the journey.
Qasim Virjee 4:06
And that was like focused on real
Azrah Manji-Savin 4:08
estate in Calgary or no, so this was actually for Montreal. Oh, interesting. Yeah. And looking at, especially restaurants, restaurant revival, what can people be doing at this time? Quebec had some of the stricter lockdown policies in this whole country? Yeah. So how does a foodie capital, keep that energy alive? And what can you do? And so that's what really started us down this path of what sizzle is now was looking at how these groups were struggling but also trying to get creative. What can they do to make ends meet? How do they still support the community? And how do we still have cooks and food entrepreneurs and chefs thrive in this very unique situation?
Adrian Savin 4:55
Absolutely. And just add on to that, you know, as was timing In background was kind of perfect Lee primed for what the industry needed. And you know, don't hold her hold it against her but she worked at we work. So she was really familiar with the co working glues
Qasim Virjee 5:11
that sorry. Well, you work I don't I don't know that we work. I don't know what that is. Well watch the watch the mini series. I don't have a television.
Adrian Savin 5:19
Well, you know, I
Qasim Virjee 5:20
like living in the past. Yeah, no, I'm well familiar with we work and that whole story. But yeah, absolutely. So that's what brought you guys to Calgary. Right, was that you were opening up we works footprint in Calgary, wasn't it?
Azrah Manji-Savin 5:34
Yeah, the first one employee number one in Alberta to launch it and COVID was a tough time and I chose to walk away. But
Qasim Virjee 5:43
like wasn't that around the time of its kind of Adam Newman implosion
Azrah Manji-Savin 5:50
that happened right before COVID. So I think it was just a combination of a lot of things. Yeah. And us really seeing Hey, what could we do COVID. And the lockdown kind of has reevaluate our priorities. What did we actually want to do? Who did we want to work with? What's the kind of thing that got us really excited. And you see that a lot. You see that with our current customers, people who reevaluated their life priorities, to say, hey, I want to work in something that actually makes me excited, and passionate. And that's what we chose to do. We chose to leave, chose to leave the corporate world. And let's break out on our own. So the
Qasim Virjee 6:33
it's kind of cool that like you were you kind of got to survey the landscape with a commission as a consultant. And then, you know, what was the turning point in that analysis that said, there's something for us here?
Adrian Savin 6:45
Honestly, I'll jump in here, because because that white paper didn't really yield anything new. It was more of a like you said it was a survey it was what's what's happening in the landscape. The new piece came in from just talking to chefs talking to the people who are making food, who were who decided to be startups and be entrepreneurial, and go out on their own. And asking them, What are your challenges? What do you what are your problems? What are you facing today? Because we knew that they were the ones that should be in the kitchens that were at sitting empty. And, and they told us it was finding space. And then they told us it was making sure it was clean. And then, you know, we learned quite a bit quite a bit more over the ensuing years. So basically, a year ago, we came across the concept of not even the concept, we came across the problem that needed to be solved. And then we spent, we spent the rest of the year coming up with partnerships, designing a product, building a team. So
Qasim Virjee 7:50
let's break it down sizzle as a software platform that connects kitchen spaces with the users in short term basis. Is that what it is like Airbnb for kitchens?
Azrah Manji-Savin 8:03
You got it? Yeah, that's exactly it.
Qasim Virjee 8:05
Okay. So the it's an interesting thing, because I guess what, what have you found in terms of how these spaces are being provided to your customers outside of your service that's about to get launched?
Azrah Manji-Savin 8:21
It is a Who do you know, industry? Okay, it is I have a friend or my dad's cousins, buddies, nephews, whomever, has a restaurant and they're looking for someone to come in so they can make extra cash. It is very much the people that you know, it is Craigslist and Facebook marketplace. Wow. It's it thriving black market of this, but there's no trust. You don't know who's coming in. You don't know how to find the right places.
Qasim Virjee 8:56
I would think given insurance liability issues are a big concern for landlords. So correct me if I'm wrong, but I know here in Toronto, I've seen I've talked to a few people about this too. But like, as retail kind of became ghost town in 2020 and 2021 spring a lot of those spaces landlords were still looking for long term let's even though they could have done short term deals with you know, probably the people that are your customers. And to the point where a lot of you know restaurants had to fold unfortunately went into bankruptcy, whatever it was, oh, the landlord money, walked away from turnkey setups. And I was thinking wow, prime time for people to just start ghost kitchen in the hell out of this landlords to become operators. But of course they don't want to does the operational piece of they don't want to touch and they're like question of is that you know, oven greasy or not? Is it working are all burners, you know, functional. Then there's also that idea of like, the marketing of it. And the question, I mean, this is my business right now. question of how you operate micro leases.
Azrah Manji-Savin 10:06
You use the word micro lease, and I think that's where we're stepping away is that this is not your business address. This is not a rental, this is a booking for a very short period of time, we're not in the business of even monthly spaces. This is, let's lower the cost for experimentation. Let you decide if this is actually the route you want to go down. Let's get you out of you know, the the super tiny condo kitchen. And let's put you in a space where you can genuinely try this out.
Qasim Virjee 10:42
So let's break down your customer profile.
Adrian Savin 10:44
Say Yeah, that's one customer. That's one that's definitely more than than that. Sorry.
Qasim Virjee 10:50
Yeah. So who are they like to go to the second? Who are the people that would be using sizzle? And what was it? What are the use cases?
Adrian Savin 10:55
Oh, man, honestly, if you're if you're making food, and it needs to be for more than you and your family, then you should probably use a sizzle listed kitchen. Honestly, the use case is what is the kitchen use for like, you know, so So our, and we we may not stop at kitchens, it's food production. It's it's, you know, how does food get onto your table? There are people who, who really care about their craft, that word has come up a lot lately. I don't know why. Craft. Yeah, I like it. But there are people who really care about the craft and their vertical lysing your food, they're going and growing the food, they're harvesting it, they're collecting it and they tell a story around that. And this ties back into that total experience thing I was talking about or talking about earlier, which is, you know, we really care about as a society, I feel like we're moving towards really caring about experience, like everything is, you know, food is a commodity. But when you when you build a story around it, when you build a narrative and something that can connect people, it becomes more than a commodity. I mean, that's where the value actually lies. It's right in the stuff. Yeah.
Qasim Virjee 12:13
Oh, totally. No, and it's interesting, because I think this is a this is an opportune moment to kind of like, shall we say jump on the zeitgeist of you know, valuing authentic experiences and community and commercializing that we're making the commercialization of that accessible. And that's kind of what you guys are doing for kitchens, it for cooks and for YouTube, instructional lists. Right, and all these people. So I'm really interested in being in the space business, I'm fascinated by that kind of like space provision side of things. So I have a kitchen, I listed on your service, you know, are their standard? I guess, how do you work with the space owners to ensure that what is being provided is standardized, and serviced in a way that's kind of reliable. So this is
Azrah Manji-Savin 13:12
where Adrian and the product team have done a phenomenal job of really going into the details of the individual spaces on the app to make that standardized experience. So we focus on equipment, and it's across the board, you know, so
Qasim Virjee 13:29
does that mean that the spaces that are listed on the thing kind of rent from the same equipment, you know, verified equipment manufacturers or rental companies? Or is it that you get the information about what's there in a way that's, you know, accurate?
Adrian Savin 13:43
Yeah, that's a good question. And, and maybe it harkens to like, what is our function? In general, what is our business function? What is the marketplace? Like? What is the purpose of a marketplace?
Qasim Virjee 13:53
Right? Yeah, let's go. Let's go there.
Adrian Savin 13:55
I mean, our job is to make it really frictionless for people to transact. It's to make it really easy to get in and know that something's gonna be working. And again, this comes back to having interviewed chefs, what do they care about? And then serving them what they care about? Yeah, in order to establish that trust and those transactions. So I mean, on the equipment side, we've we've started building partnerships with people who know equipment for it with equipment repair companies, with manufacturers, who can, who a want would love to get chefs using their equipment. But then be who, who have the knowledge. Like we know there is an ecosystem, we're operating within an ecosystem, but there are other people serving chefs and food makers in amazing ways, and we want to work with them.
Azrah Manji-Savin 14:48
So back to what you had said also about, you know, as a kitchen owner, what do you do? It's exactly what Adrian said, it's we're allowing you to operate within this ecosystem in a way that you wouldn't have previously. And we make it easy. Because we're able to help you narrow down the type of equipment you have to put on the platform. We have incredible, very detailed health and safety checklists, we make sure that you know, the pictures are up to par, we make sure that you're gonna get paid properly. And we make sure that the use case that works for you, is the one that's discussed the most. So let's talk about your kitchen, you know, maybe not the best space for a massive wedding catering operation, but could be a really cool space for some of our chefs to come in and host a YouTube demo, or to do a pop up dinner, and making sure that we have those distinctions very clear and available. So we can serve all sides of the market. No,
Qasim Virjee 15:52
I mean, I definitely see the kind of like diversity in the customer demand and you acting as more than your kind of acting not just as a open marketplace was as a kind of curator of these spaces, and communities like double sided marketplace thing. So Are you launching multi territory or in just like, where when you guys go live, which is also happening when what territories are you focusing on?
Adrian Savin 16:20
So go live is June 1? We have that's in
Qasim Virjee 16:25
a couple of days for our audience who may not know when this was published, we're just about around the corner from there. Yeah.
Adrian Savin 16:31
This is this is happening fast. We've been onboarding kitchens for the past two weeks, we're will launch with probably 40. Our goal was 50. So but you know, there's
Azrah Manji-Savin 16:44
a chance, there's a high chance that and
Adrian Savin 16:46
this is this is this is maybe something else, that people who are listening to this or maybe thinking of starting up a business, marching into the unknown is everything, you have to approach it with that mentality. I know that there's the salesy aspect where you need to march ahead confident, like, you know, the world is just gonna bow to your feet. Right, right. On the other side, there's a real risk, every, you know, 60% of startups fail in the first year 30%. After that, I keep an eye keeps going up. Yeah. To make it you have to grind, you have to work hard, and there are risks involved. And sometimes you're gonna, you know, but you have to aim for first you have to aim high, you have to also have your target set. So it's, it's weird to have this duality, this duplicity in your mind. But yeah,
Qasim Virjee 17:34
what you want and then at the same time, what's good enough? What? So let's say you launch with 40, or 50? Doesn't matter. The number because it's so good. It sounds like you have stock. Again, what territories are launching it says
Azrah Manji-Savin 17:48
we're starting in the GTA. Oh, that really Golden Horseshoe? If we think about it, because what
Qasim Virjee 17:54
is the Golden Horseshoe? I'm so ignorant. Yeah, that's okay. That's, you
Azrah Manji-Savin 17:57
know, we have Niagara and St. Catharines, all the way up to Barry.
Qasim Virjee 18:01
Oh, all around the lake is what we're saying exactly what the Golden Horn is.
Azrah Manji-Savin 18:05
My publicist told me the term so I've been using it constantly have a publicist.
Qasim Virjee 18:10
That's amazing. And I just have a screwdriver.
Azrah Manji-Savin 18:15
And then launching in in Montreal before the end of the summer. So those are the two major markets that we're hoping for now. And then, you know, across Canada? Yeah, let's roll it out. Let's continue to bring this in the major regions that need it.
Qasim Virjee 18:29
How are you approaching your market in terms of getting the people who are looking for bookings? What's the what's the access to market there that you're going for? Is it ads? Or are you doing something else?
Azrah Manji-Savin 18:42
So we are doing marketing, but it is mind blowing. And also humbling to see how many people are seeking us out? Wow, people who have heard from someone or seen something, heard from word of mouth and are reaching out. It's like the call I had yesterday. Lovely, lovely woman who makes Jamaican Rum Cakes. And she's in her 70s. And she heard about us from a friend of a friend and gave me a call. And he's like, When can I book When can I start? This is not somebody who's going to be on, you know, Instagram or checking out on Google? Yeah, they just heard about it found my number. And there you go. And that seems to be more and more how people are even coming to us is the demand is there,
Adrian Savin 19:30
right? But on the other side, we're also a marketplace, we need to attract people. The only way marketplace survives if it has a bunch of buyers and a bunch of sellers. And so you know, we're also running a digital ad agency, marketing agency, and all the experience that we have from that site, that business we're bringing to sizzle. So a lot of digital channels, right. And you know, making sure that you have the ability to track which digital channels are good and which ones are not worth spending money on? We've seen businesses go down that route of Oh,
Qasim Virjee 20:05
man last couple of years, especially like, pay per click is messed up right now. It's crazy. Like, I don't know, at least in our segment, which is like five different things, right? We're in like office based co working studios, within studios as audio studio photo film, like so many different things. But what I've seen as you brought up, we work okay, let's take a great example of we were, we work being this massively overfunded, you know, under planned venture that has no really approach to sustainability and its business model. But somehow access to oodles of oil money, that it can just plow in ads to try and you know, satisfy this kind of like a churn, balancing on their whatever reporting by saying, Hey, we're signing people up. So the paying so much money to acquire these people. And the willingness to spend just to acquire a customer, even if the customer turns out is so high, that it tweaks the market for ads. And again, with them with Regis or IWC that owns me and other people in MySpace, we're finding that like a cost per click on an ad, let's say that was $2, in 2019, is now about 15 $16. To the point where if you do the math on it, it doesn't even like make any sense. Like, even if you kept that customer, you'd be indentured to keeping them for years,
Adrian Savin 21:32
right. And you have to do that modeling before you start spending money on ads. Make sure that you're covering your cost of acquisition with the lifetime value of the customer. And, and you don't need to know every number, but have a target so that you know your target is your target leads to a feasible company, a sustainable company. And then if you fall short of that target, you adjust, you figure out, you know, okay, do we need to try to find ways to extend the lifetime value of our customer, we're anticipating Dazzlers point because we're working with people who are experimenting, who are startups themselves, who are trying trying this out, we're expecting a pretty high churn, you know, people who come on to the platform, and don't come back after the second day after the first month. And we're okay with that. Like that means to me that we're okay with that. Because it means people are trying something. Have
Qasim Virjee 22:26
you guys been considering the applicability of your platform for shooting space for like, you know, professional media production in diverse settings, this kind of on location, vibe?
Azrah Manji-Savin 22:40
Absolutely. It's something that has come up through user questions, people asking us and saying, Hey, this is really cool. But I'm a photographer, or I'm a videographer. I'm a content creator, can I use this space? Do I have to be cooking in it? And the answer is no. Right? We want to be able to provide those kinds of spaces to the people who need it. And if you need it for commercial purposes, if you need it to cook for your community, if you need it for your job in content, to do demos to do recipe r&d. We want to be able to make that kitchen as useful to you and your use case as possible. Yeah,
Qasim Virjee 23:26
there's definitely a need that, you know, comes to us as well. Like, there's a lot of demand that comes to us. So we only have like two shooting spaces for bar kitchen kind of. And normally, it's about what's happening around the action rather than the action itself. We've shot some cooking stuff. I think I sent you some links, right? You said, so we shot some stuff,
Adrian Savin 23:44
you have to bring equipment and like, Yeah, well, like
Qasim Virjee 23:47
luckily, one of the sets is is at our studio building on Niagara. So all that equipment, is there the lighting? Yeah. But the point is that, yeah, there's a whole different approach to kind of shooting this type of content on location, and a certain type of production crew that's agile, you know, like, that's good at it. Like shooting wide, and getting those shots with as little space around that kitchen as possible and still squeezing in lighting somehow. It's like it's its own world and and it's kind of a pain in the ass for people that don't want to do it, you know? So I'm sure that people do. Their biggest pain point is finding location. So you're gonna come in and save the David. That's
Azrah Manji-Savin 24:31
what we're hoping for
Qasim Virjee 24:32
nice. So what's the paint the picture of the company and what you guys set up in terms of your like organizational, you know, structure outside of just the two of you. What does the team look like and how's it possibly going to grow through the rest of the year?
Adrian Savin 24:47
Amazing team. Just we're very lucky. I think we were also strategic. I want to pat ourselves on the back a little bit. Moving to Calgary. In all honesty we anticipated I'm We didn't anticipate we just saw that Calgary was was really advertising their, their investment into technology. And so we said, well, we want to be there at the beginning, when when the industry is kind of budding and starting to really flourish. And I think it's at a tipping point right now for sure.
Qasim Virjee 25:16
Really, it's been growing, it's been Grindel. There's been like money, there's money available for people to and so that's because people are moving there or because people are like, trained to be good. No, listen,
Adrian Savin 25:26
this is the secret. It's the second thing you're talking about. Being trained to be good. You have a bunch of engineers who have gone through the boom bust, who are sick of the instability that that brings. Maybe they left the workforce for a little bit for one reason or another, but they're smart. And they they know what hard work is and they know how to apply their minds to problems. And, and the city has decided to make an investment in retraining that group of people and so so there's
Qasim Virjee 25:57
people from the oil patch style, like people from from energy sector transitioning in the software. Yeah,
Adrian Savin 26:02
different energy sector. Yeah, different engineering sectors, but primarily energy there. And yeah, and transitioning doing during the change to another career that really needs them right now. Amazon's opening up but a building with 3000 employees, and it's like a server farm. I don't know if something. Oh,
Qasim Virjee 26:21
it's for web stuff. It's not for distribution of product.
Adrian Savin 26:25
Yeah, no, it's for what service? Wow.
Qasim Virjee 26:27
Wow. I used to be in business, Calgary,
Adrian Savin 26:31
Calgary could be you know, a pretty good place to be in the next 510 years. So anyways, so we we positioned ourselves to be there and we've leveraged some of that financing to help pay for our staff, to which we were able to train up further learn new technologies there now contributing to the product. We have a senior engineer, we have a three three juniors now myself, and then Azra is heading it up on the go to market side. Yeah,
Azrah Manji-Savin 27:02
we have two currently in you know, sales BD customer success and bringing on two more, were just growing constantly. And
Qasim Virjee 27:12
so is the idea that the whole team stays in for the or are you guys use it one foot in Calgary, one foot in? You're kind of target market? Like, you know, the East Coast? Are we in the east are in the West, we're in the east. For all our listeners unfamiliar with Canadian geography. Yeah, like Quebec and Ontario, we have people boots on the ground here. So
Azrah Manji-Savin 27:33
we are fully remote and we want to keep it that way. But it is an asset when we have sales people aware of their territory. So we are being strategic with that specific hire, but everyone else you can work from anywhere we really want to. And we are embracing that work from anywhere, ethos. And so we think that's the way the world is heading if you don't need to be in X city or why city? Why? Why bother? It's more if it's actual job requirement, which for sales or onboarding and things like that it is.
Qasim Virjee 28:11
So that's cool. The question we haven't really kind of talked about is the business model, I'm really interested from both sides of the table. So for the space operator, you know, what the incentive for listing on your platform is the expectation of kind of what's what's a standard, you know, rent that they can charge. I know, that's not the word, but a fee that they can charge for a booking. And then on the other the flip side, you know, what are people paying? Well, what's a willingness to pay?
Adrian Savin 28:40
So we've heard numbers, hourly rates, anywhere from what like $12 an hour up to 300 plus dollars an hour, it really depends on the space, you know, places that that might just be renting out a small prep area in their kitchen might charge 10 bucks an hour while the rest of the kitchen is operational, and they can still be you know, working. Other places where you're renting out the whole space, you might be paying more.
Qasim Virjee 29:08
And is Do you think this is something landlords are flirting with to test, you know, what the reliability is a revenue stream is for those spaces that are exclusively available to single use case? I
Adrian Savin 29:22
don't think so. I think I think right now it's it's basically it's, we have extra spaces is an extra source of revenue for the kitchen. It's
Qasim Virjee 29:34
it's a bonus it's an always making it into their primary revenue stream,
Adrian Savin 29:37
not today. No. And we don't really want that to be the case because we can't we we can't we'll do our best to create volume, but we can't guarantee that we want to provide opportunities, solve problems for kitchens, we want to find the win win. But wait till the model has been around a little bit longer and they come back to us I'm sure people will I mean Airbnb there are people who have I have built businesses just managing and running Airbnb. So
Azrah Manji-Savin 30:03
yeah, it's definitely a possibility. But think about the seasonality of something like an Airbnb, right, you're gonna have a lot more people wanting to come in and book an Airbnb on the weekend, you're gonna want it around festival times or conference is, same thing happens in the kitchen space, right times that are really slow. Maybe it's not going to be as high in demand things around Christmas parties and holiday parties and New Year's, Friday nights. And really, really early Saturday mornings. That's going to be primetime for people who want to do ghost kitchens. But summers, that's catering sweetspot, right. So being able to book out for weddings and being able to do that, farmers markets, that's, you know, springtime and summertime, it depends on their business. And that's why we can't tell the kitchen space, because you don't know who your customer is going to be. And your customer can be all over the place.
Adrian Savin 31:01
And so we're, you know, part of what we did on the platform side to make to accommodate for that is we just make it really flexible for the kitchen house, they can change the rate per hour. So peak times they can set higher rates, because they're sacrificing a potentially lucrative time if they're in the restaurant industry themselves, right? If they're serving food themselves, and they can charge lower rates for those hours when the kitchen is otherwise sitting empty, and it becomes passive revenue for them. Nice.
Qasim Virjee 31:31
And are you handling payments? Or you get a referral check from the landlord? Or how does it work?
Adrian Savin 31:38
No, these are hourly rentals. So everything's really early bookings, everything is like credit cards, we're handling handling payments, and
Qasim Virjee 31:49
then you cut the payment back to the mechanic Lister.
Adrian Savin 31:53
They connect their bank account nice, it's
Qasim Virjee 31:54
all like Stripe connected to do Nice. That's awesome, man. So what's a gesi? You know, what's involved in launching this? What's happening in the next few weeks?
Adrian Savin 32:05
The next few weeks is finishing onboarding kitchens. We're sending out photographers to make sure that the I mean, it's our That's good, right? It's we're setting the standard for what the next round of you know, kind of self serve kitchens actually does. And we're making an investment in our early adopters, people who said, I'm going to take a risk, I'll put my space up on your platform. Okay, well, we'll we'll take a risk too. We'll put some money into your, into your space, and they'll get nice photos of their of their spot. They're really happy with the arrangement. So that's cool.
Qasim Virjee 32:39
Yeah, no, I like that. Because you want it to look good. You want to be compelling. And you also need to show it in an equal light, right? Each space. Yeah. Okay, so
Azrah Manji-Savin 32:47
that's on the kitchen onboarding side. And then we're, you know, working with our partners working with some incredible chefs who are excited to welcome us into the marketplace, people who could use it now, or, honestly, people who could have used it 10 years ago and see the value. And we're just going out marketing talking to people. I don't know when this is coming out. But if any of your listeners are going to be in Chicago for the National restaurants show hit me up.
Qasim Virjee 33:18
You guys on that note, though, you were at the Canadian show last this past week, right? Yes, we were and how did that go? What was the experience, like for the first time, I'm guessing going to a show like that, and presenting something. It was
Azrah Manji-Savin 33:31
incredible. It really was. The energy was also really high. This was the first trade show in two and a half years. Oh, at the Metro Convention Center. Yeah, restaurants, Canada hasn't been able to do it. And so we were hearing from a lot of people that there was a lot more people a lot more high energy people hanging around more, because they wanted to get back into it and feel like you know what things are moving forward. The theme for the show this year was revival and recovery. It's how do we now go onwards and upwards. So for us to be there to show those opportunities for revival not just for restaurants, but for cooks and chefs and entrepreneurs. It was a really valuable and incredible experience for the company.
Qasim Virjee 34:17
Nice. That's exciting, man, I can hear I can hear the energy and in your response. And so we're gonna build on that and take that to Chicago. Yeah,
Azrah Manji-Savin 34:26
I'm gonna be in Chicago, again, talking to people really understanding the US market as well, because that's part of our roadmap sooner rather than later, right? And we have some incredible individuals out there that we're looking to partner with. So it'll be a really amazing world when time and keep on going. We're going to be at collision and a couple of weeks after that, so you'll see us constantly.
Qasim Virjee 34:52
So on that note, though, like, you know, it's funny, maybe I'll go this year, I've never been a collision because it's kind of there's it's like too big It's like, yeah, you know, I don't have a TV shuffle well as the as the drama of, of large crowds being excited about, you know, start starting up, I'm just busy running my business, you know, so I don't have I feel like I don't have time to like go and you know, okay, I'm
Adrian Savin 35:16
gonna pitch you on going there. It's it's the same energy that you just picked up on from as read this other show. It fires you up, it motivates you, you're like, okay, there are other people who care about what we're doing. And that feeling is I mean, it's definitely contagious. Like it trickles down to our team, we share it with, you know, the people we work with, and they're fired up. So I don't know, there's benefits that are maybe not as tangible or immediate, but definitely worth based high energy, people.
Qasim Virjee 35:46
Marketing other than ads, are you guys doing any cool? Like, you know, cooking show pop ups see content series? What's in?
Azrah Manji-Savin 35:56
Nothing's off the table. Let's say that nothing's off the table. You want to launch you want to get out there. But there's a lot of really cool ideas swirling around. And we're excited for what this could be. Yeah,
Adrian Savin 36:08
I mean, I don't know if you've noticed, but like Chef celebrities becoming a thing, or it's already become a thing, rather. And so we we definitely see opportunities on that side as well. We're working with, you know, some great agencies and some great people and, and finalizing some partnerships, that, that, that will really, you know, it'll do two things, it'll bring in a caliber of chef that we'd really like to provide a kitchen to, but then it'll also kind of creates that aspirational. I could be that person for the if that
Qasim Virjee 36:43
guy can use this kitchen. I can use it. For sure. Yeah, well, I'll definitely make some connections because we, through the studio side of the business, definitely have some interesting food marketing companies in Toronto that we work with, have worked with. And I'd love to extend, you know, our couple of spaces to the platform. We'll talk about that offline. And look at hosts and other dairies getting you towards your 50. Yes, yes. And we might for our viewers who like to start with content that finds its way onto the struggle magazine online. In our YouTube channel, you might enjoy watching some food content that we can put together as well on campus through sizzle. Oh, yeah, absolutely. All right, guys. Any other shout outs before we head off into the sunset?
Adrian Savin 37:31
Shout outs,
Qasim Virjee 37:32
what are you guys looking for if any of the listeners can connect you with some value in any way?
Azrah Manji-Savin 37:39
Everyone knows someone who makes excellent food. Get them to share the love. Go on sizzle, get them excited. Get people to be able to share those talents. That's honestly what it is. Because we all know that person that we've said. That was amazing. You should sell this you should do this. And now we're making it easy for them. So let them know. I
Qasim Virjee 38:00
like it. And
Adrian Savin 38:02
if they're I mean, if there's some way to work with us. We are you know, we don't want to own everything. So we're friendly to anybody in the same space. We want to connect we want to talk, figure out how to share resources, share people share ideas.
Qasim Virjee 38:19
Nice. What was a pleasure having you on the mic in the studio and for the struggle podcast. And I look forward to the launch and seeing what happens and also doing some stuff together partnering.
Azrah Manji-Savin 38:32
We love it. Thanks for having us. Look, it
Qasim Virjee 38:34
was a pleasure, guys.
