#4: From London Pubs to Dubai's Top Restaurants: The Tech Revolutionizing How We Book

Daniel Tsentsiper (00:00.217) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a little countdown. let's start this off. Aaron, how's it going, man? Welcome. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (00:03.448) Thanks. Good thanks. Thank you. All good, Manu. Daniel Tsentsiper (00:09.559) I can see for me it's nighttime. It looks like it's daytime for you. Where are you calling from? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (00:13.898) I'm in Dubai at the moment. it's not too early, it's half-time. But yeah, for you it's big difference. Time difference is what I'll be wearing with us. Daniel Tsentsiper (00:18.253) Nice, nice. It's getting, it's getting late. It's getting late, but I wanted to make this happen at all costs. I, I came across, I came across Ambl. came across you through a friend and I started playing around with the app and went back in time to see kind of the iterations that you guys took to get to where you're at. And it's been, it seems like an amazing journey. I wanted to kind of pick your brain, learn more about how you guys started and where you guys are now. So typically ask all my guests to kind of give a Aaron Solomon - AMBL (00:36.984) Please. Daniel Tsentsiper (00:48.803) brief introduction about themselves, who you are, what you're working on, just to give us a bit of insight into you. And then we can kind of jump in and I have a ton of questions to ask you. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (00:59.441) Well, look, obviously, thanks for having on and reaching out. So I left school at 18 and just went straight into finance. Like I had maybe, you know, everyone went on a kind of summer holiday or uni or traveling or whatever. After that, I had like four or five days. And in those four or five days, I was handing out CVs in London and just like, I just wanted to get a job. That's all I cared about. And I stayed in finance for, till I was 27. So nine years. and then had the idea of Ambl and then you can just quit and throw everything into it and now you know nearly three years later I'm in Dubai, we're in London and it's been a hell of a journey. Hell of a journey. It's not my first business but it's the first one that's actually started working. Daniel Tsentsiper (01:47.961) Well, why did you want to go work right out of college? mean, right out of I think you guys are based in the UK. So that was right out of primary school or high school. What was the motivation behind that? Like, why did you not want to go to college? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (01:59.628) Mm-hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (02:07.802) There was nothing that interested me other than earning a living, but at all. There was nothing that I wanted to study. I mean, I was good in school. I was good academically, I was, but I just couldn't see anything that I genuinely wanted to do other than just go and earn money. And maybe that was due to upbringing, I don't know. But it was just like this sense of I needed security. I needed, which is obviously mad because I'm doing a startup now, so it's the opposite of security. Daniel Tsentsiper (02:36.152) Yeah, it's the opposite, Aaron Solomon - AMBL (02:38.058) I wanted to go out there and just start getting ahead of the game. That was really it. So I started a finance company. I actually managed to get the job because someone dropped out of the interview process and the recruiter said to me, you can get an area in London called Knightsbridge in the next two and a half hours, you can have an interview. Well, I live two and a half hours away. So I put on like my £28 too. Daniel Tsentsiper (02:43.16) Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (02:53.559) Nice. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (03:05.506) like got on this train, ran to this office, you know, phones were okay with Google Maps like then. And I got there and I think they started me on like 12,000 pounds in the basic. There was like, yeah, you got three months. It actually cost me more money to get to work because of the train cost at the time. Yeah. But then I was there for like three years and then started to move up in the ranks. then before I quit, I was really at kind of at the top where I was. Daniel Tsentsiper (03:20.386) Wow. Yeah, I'm sure. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (03:34.572) earning a fantastic amount of money for my age. mean, really like, you know, when my wife didn't even have to work, taking out clients, you know, really got to the top of that. And it was like, I dreamt about, God, what it's going to be like when I earn this, when I earn this, when I that. And then I did it. And I was like, shit, this can't be it. Like, it can't be here, you know? And then that's kind of where I decided to move into, well, decided to move into, so I had this idea and just ran with it again. Daniel Tsentsiper (03:53.248) Mm-hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (04:03.775) And what was this idea? How did it come up? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (04:07.118) Well, you know, going back to what I was saying about taking clients out for dinner, then obviously COVID happened, everyone's working at home for two years. We come back to the office after COVID, people start going out again. And my boss said to me, he's like, right, we've got big clients coming into town, you need to find a table for six people. I was always the one that was doing the bookings, I was always the one that was finding places, I was always the one there in the restaurant. And then I went on a couple of apps. And it was like the same restaurants sort of paying to be at the top. And I was like, I don't want this, don't want that annoying, a archaic to use. You're familiar. Then you go on Google, Google and I type restaurants near me, four or five restaurants pop up in the area. One website didn't work. One had terrible pictures. Call one, didn't answer, called another, press one for this, two for that. And I was like, why can't I just say six people need a table and it can ping out. Daniel Tsentsiper (04:43.958) I'm sure, I'm sure, yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (05:02.732) like how an Uber driver takes a job where the restaurant goes, yeah, we've got space. And it was that instant thought where I thought, well, not just from COVID, but the sort of generation, everyone wants to basically click a button when it arrives, be it food, be it travel, be it retail, same day delivery, click 20 minutes, groceries. It's crazy, right? And then I didn't see that for hospitality. And then I just had that bucket of cold water. was like, Daniel Tsentsiper (05:18.303) Exactly. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (05:32.142) someone's got to have done this. And I just had this instant vision for the app and what it would do. Right? Say what you want and it pings out to restaurants and all these responses are great restaurants. Solving, taking back all the time that I've just wasted. That's really what I want to do is save time. I can't see a world where people want it to take longer to do anything. Right? Especially booking a restaurant. So I then walked around London for like three months, I think. after work and bearing in mind I live two hours out of London. I'd stay in like an awful hotel overnight or I'd get the last train home and back up again at 6am so I'd have like three, four hours sleep. I started walking around London, pitching restaurants this idea that if I could show you people in the area that actually wanted a table in the moment, you know, what would you do with all these empty tables or cancellations that you have and actually found that it was a much bigger problem. It wasn't just a consumer problem, it was actually a massive problem in hospitality as well. Daniel Tsentsiper (06:30.238) And so, got it. So you kind of started off first thinking about what was the pain point that I was feeling, right? As a consumer, what sort of experience do I want to have in order to find the right restaurant, venue, whatever that is? So you started with your own pain and then you went and you sort of surveyed the market. What were those like initial early conversations like? Who did you talk to? What were they telling you? What was that feedback that allowed you to kind of see the pain that they were feeling? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (06:46.958) Mm-hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (07:02.38) Well, you can't go out to a restaurant during a busy period because obviously I'm working till six o'clock in the evening and I'm going out and pitching them, Daniel Tsentsiper (07:11.189) 100%. I know how that feels. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (07:14.102) And to get any time with a restaurant, sometimes I'd be like, can I buy a drink for you and the manager just to get some insight? So like I'd be drinking all the time as well. But for me, was understanding like they all wanted the same thing. They all wanted visibility. They all wanted covers. Everyone struggled with no shows and cancellations, even the higher ones. And that's why there's so much like card guarantee stuff now. And it was a bad behavior from customers that was kind of causing that to happen. Daniel Tsentsiper (07:37.586) Yes. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (07:43.074) And then the other thing is that actually how fragmented the hospitality market is because you you take a busy street in New York, London, Dubai, and put five restaurants on that street. One is using one reservation system, one's using another, one's using another, one's using another. So there's nothing unified, there's nothing aggregated and a customer has no place to find availability of those restaurants in one place. They might have one app that shows one and then what about the other four? So it's all fragmented. Daniel Tsentsiper (08:14.346) I see. Yeah, so recently I'm booking a table for five for this Friday for my team. And I went online. My typical process is I go through and I write the name of the restaurant on Google, query that, and then I write reservations. So I see sometimes the restaurant has their own kind of internal, they have their own website and then they plug in toast as an example. And then some of them use like Rezzy for some of the higher end. Yeah, some of the higher end restaurants and venues. And it sort of is a little bit fragmented. And actually, as I was preparing for this conversation and making that reservation, I noticed that some of them do ask for a credit card and some of them don't. And I started to think, okay, if I was in the business, if I was in a business owner's shoes, what is the trade off that I make if I ask for a credit card guarantee versus just taking a reservation without that? So. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (09:03.064) Hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (09:07.73) I guess what are the sort of trade-offs that businesses face when they have to think about putting their restaurant up on one of these reservation management platforms? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (09:19.15) Well, I mean, you this is something that I care quite a lot about and I've, we can talk about it later, but I've put some procedures in the app to try and encourage a better behavior because for example, well, I can go through those now on Ambl. You can't block book. So if you're booked somewhere for seven, you can't book somewhere else. And right now you can do that because everything's fragmented. Yeah. So there are people who make five or six bookings for a certain time and then they pick where they want to go, which is very unfair. Daniel Tsentsiper (09:39.502) I see. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (09:47.766) Also, if you know show or council several times consecutively without reasons, we will suspend the account and ask the customer why. And then what the other thing we do is let's say you're a top customer at restaurant X and one day you go to restaurant Y and you're a good customer. That venue does not know that you're a good customer. So obviously we know that how much you're going out, what you're doing. So we can almost share that information being like this, Daniel is a fantastic customer. Look after them. So they're the kind of things we do because it's obviously unified. Daniel Tsentsiper (09:56.052) You Aaron Solomon - AMBL (10:18.382) So there things I started to do very early on to try and encourage a better behavior because quite frankly, it's the behavior of the industry of people that has affected the credit card details and things like that. Because, you know, if everyone was 100 % going to show up on time to their booking, there would be no need for credit card details. Daniel Tsentsiper (10:37.108) 100%. Yeah, that's right. How did you guys make the early MVP of the product? I looked at your background. You said you were in finance. What about your co-founder? Were you guys technical? How did you guys build the early AMBL? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (10:55.136) I mean, he was a tech recruiter, so he had a hundred times more experience in tech than I did. We're not tech people at all. And you you read lot of these startups where it's like, you know, the tech founder that built it and things like that. Obviously we didn't have that luxury. So it was like, how can we make an MVP with someone that we trust that not like waste money and things like that. So it was difficult. It was really difficult. But I think it was more building something that allowed us to properly convey the vision of what we wanted to do. And as we started to get the validation, then you can start to fund it properly. Daniel Tsentsiper (11:32.123) I see. Yeah. what did you do? Did you guys just like make a prototype, a clickable prototype for an app or for a web app? What would you guys do? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (11:38.156) Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, we invested in the prototype. We invested in the prototype. You know, wasn't a lot of money to build the prototype and just build the screens of how we wanted it to work. And then it was just good old fashioned door to door sales. And we signed up about 200 restaurants in three months, going door to door sales in London. And then after the validation and sort of feedback, we then raised a hundred thousand pounds in friends and family to like start the business. And at that point, actually three years ago in February, where we both quit our full-time jobs. Daniel Tsentsiper (12:12.06) What was that like for you getting a cushy salary and then going all in on this venture? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (12:19.406) Honestly, a lot of people asked me that because it was a very good salary. It was a fantastic salary. To the point my parents are like, you're mental. You're mental. I didn't care. I just had this thing to do and I didn't want anything getting in the way because for me, said, parent working what I was doing, yes, okay, great, good money, have a nice house. Daniel Tsentsiper (12:29.977) Yeah, you're crazy. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (12:48.142) have a mortgage, go on holiday three times a year, da da. It wasn't about the money, I had already, when I realized it wasn't about money, because I already was earning money that I wanted, and I realized it was just about. doing something big, like doing something that I'd put my mind to and all of my energy to then unfold. And to be honest with you, mate, like, you know, the best times in my life, other than getting married, obviously, were like, you know, I'll be on the tube in London and someone would be talking about Ambal to their friend, right? Or I wake up in the night and there'd be like 50, 60 bookings in the early days. And I'm like, my God, people are using my idea. That is far more fulfilling than earning good cash. And I just want that to get bigger and bigger. Daniel Tsentsiper (13:39.268) I agree. I agree. What were your first customers? Who'd you sell to? Who's the first person who believed in you? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (13:51.298) Well, we started, we started doing last minute bookings because we were like, we didn't have integrations. that was another pain point is restaurants were using different systems. Yeah. Yeah. No, no, for sure. but obviously we didn't have that. We literally, was like, what's the easiest way for a restaurant because they're busy. Right. So if you start having loads of bookings for different times, it would be a car crash because they're all used to using one system. Daniel Tsentsiper (14:03.272) We should definitely talk about integrations. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (14:21.166) 40, 50, 60, a hundred people in a restaurant. Like a hundred people need to know what Amber is or as a customer experiences floor. And to be honest with this was a big, big headache in the early days. Cause you'd have a manager be like, yes, I want this, but then start flea, you start turnover. So it's just this constant. And then when you're trying to build up the marketplace and still keep that front of mind, it's a very hard balancing act. So what we did is we started with last minute booking. like same day bookings, which was kind of like a bit of a Daniel Tsentsiper (14:33.649) Mm-hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (14:51.118) can't get everyone, let's just start with like the spontaneous last minute. Just start with that. Just try and make this side of the market work before we start going to an app for everything. We just couldn't do it. But that was still difficult. That was still really difficult. You know, we started with about, we had 200 obviously restaurants sign up, but I didn't want to go with 200 straight away because it's an MVP, like you don't know what the hell's going to happen. And yeah, we launched with about 30 restaurants. Daniel Tsentsiper (14:53.752) It's a of a wedge. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (15:20.408) But even on launch days, like that was probably the worst day of my life. You know, you think it's gonna be the best, it's not. Well, the whole Uber idea of pinging out to restaurants, yeah, people started doing it and the restaurants were like, how do I stop the pings? I'm like, that's how the product works. So that's day one, right? So you're like, my God, like everyone's like, yes, this is amazing. Of course I wanna be notified when someone wants a table. And then day one they don't. Daniel Tsentsiper (15:25.027) What happened? Daniel Tsentsiper (15:37.839) Big. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (15:49.698) So it was like, okay, well, we need to fix this quick. it was just this constant, like, you know, the thing is, is there's a big misconception, like the fun stuff is all right, raising money and building a product and getting people to say, yeah, this is great. It's all like bullshit. When you go live, that's where it all starts. That's where you're like swimming, swimming, swimming, swimming, keeping momentum until you get it right. It's like surviving in something you do. And that's where you really start learning. You know, so, yeah, the early days were. Daniel Tsentsiper (16:15.898) Mm-hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (16:19.186) really tough. We did try to do a lot with customers, like customer feedback, but to be honest with you, when I look at the product now compared to what it was and what you think it's already with, like it's crazy. But then there was a guy that I spoke to really, really high up in Morgan who did give us some good advice because it's always like, it's not ready. It's not perfect. Like if you, if you're launching when it's perfect, you're launching too late, just get it out. And that's when you just go. Daniel Tsentsiper (16:45.113) Yeah, well, well, I mean, to that point, it does sound like you you kind of waited until you built up a bit of a critical mass with with restaurants, right? You didn't start with just one restaurant on the platform. You went with with 30. So in a way, you did kind of take a bit of a gamble by putting up all these different restaurants and then just going live. Typically, typically what I what I hear is like you start start very small. So like Aaron Solomon - AMBL (16:58.004) No. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (17:07.991) Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (17:13.156) curious, like why don't you just start with like one restaurant or one venue? Why did you decide to like Aaron Solomon - AMBL (17:16.398) I mean, kind of, kind of, you think that's, you think that is big. But when you're in a city with 17,000 restaurants and you're, and you're serving a one mile radius, very limited people can actually use your app. And do you have the restaurants that they want? Right. That's the other thing. So you think, you think that, and you know, like, generally what you want to do is launch on a straight and get people to book a, and we did the testing with that. Daniel Tsentsiper (17:26.296) That's true, yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (17:34.702) That's true. That's true. That's true. Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (17:46.274) That's how we tested it. You know, I'd stand in restaurants with them. So they got a booking and do that. I'd be every hour of every day in a different restaurant doing it, right. And standing on the street, getting people to download the app and book it. Yeah. And that's how you started. But, know, again, that's the testing phase, but you've got to solve a problem. Having 30 restaurants that you can book that day in a little part of London isn't solving the problem. Having every single restaurant. fantastic restaurant that you can click and see real-time availability and save all your time is. But it's obviously getting to that stage and you can't do that from day one. Daniel Tsentsiper (18:22.562) That's true. And I think that's a good segue. So how do you guys get that visibility? What type of integrations do you guys have? And curious how you thought through the strategy, right? Early on, you can't have it all. You start small. To the point where you are now, three years later, I'm sure you have much more robust solutions. So how did you guys get those early integrations? And yeah, what was that Aaron Solomon - AMBL (18:36.355) Nice. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (18:45.294) Well, I think it goes back to the point I said about like when you're live, it's then the survival mode kicks in and listening. And I think, you know, the, the vision I had for Ambl hasn't changed being an app that is in every city with all the top restaurants and solving that quick availability. You click a button and what you want to rise, you know? So the vision hasn't changed, but how we're getting there, of course, is changing every day. Right. And, you know, it was just sticking to that. true to what I wanted to happen, which wasn't like, want everyone to move and get off what they're doing and come to Ambl. I wanted to build something amazing for customers that seamlessly worked with venues. And I think as I just kept doing that and tried to make everything better for restaurants, not harder, not make them change, not make them subscribe, not make them pace or do anything that is more of a stress. It started to like resonate and then, you know, I then thought, right, we need to really work on the backend. to make this robust so that we can scale because at end of the day, you need the product, but you need the distributor. It doesn't matter if I've got the most amazing tech, but I need the distributor quick. So that's where we've been focusing. And because of that focus, it started to get attention of like quite major players in the market that didn't necessarily have a marketplace. So it's kind of putting that together where we actually got quite, you know, I started with a few sort of pubs and bars in London. cocktail clubs and things like that. Then we started to get some quite good brands on, then some global brands on. And then we got the global brands on that might have given us one site to test. It was that kind of validation in the market where the systems that they use went, well, if they want it, we'll do it. So was kind of them putting an end goal with them. So now actually seamlessly it fits with what they're doing. you know, given that as an example, Daniel Tsentsiper (20:33.006) It's true. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (20:42.456) Two years ago, it was walking around London, standing in restaurants, helping them with a couple of pubs and bars, places you wouldn't know, know, back alley stuff, just trying to get, test it. And then two years later, we're working with Hilton, Marriott, Jamiro, Atlantis, mean, Goucho, Hawksmoor, massive brands. Because I listened to what, I didn't want to just do it my way. was whatever way the market needed, you know? Daniel Tsentsiper (21:10.374) Exactly. Exactly. And we have a very similar strategy. It's like if a big customer comes to us and says, hey, we want to use your solution and they're using this POS system, they're using this communication system, we'll build out those integrations. But what is the point of spending all our resources to kind of build it up preemptively for a chance to not even close the deal? So I think it's important in the early days, you got to be lean. You got to build for what those early customers have. And in our case, the early restaurants had toast. And so we built out those integrations. But I know that as soon as we get the validation from the market that they want our solution, they're willing to pay for it. And there's a contract signed. Absolutely, we'll build out those integrations. But it is a bit of a chicken or the egg problem because types of questions I get asked is like, how many integrations do you have? How many restaurants are you working with? And we're like, hey, we're still, you we're still in the early stage. We don't have a lot. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (21:43.799) Mmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (21:59.182) Always. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (22:07.81) I mean that's what we get now like it is you gotta be transparent especially when I came to DeVire you know six months ago no customers no venues every single restaurant is like well how many bookings do you get how many users do you have how many venues do have none none none okay but this is my plan and this is what we're doing Daniel Tsentsiper (22:10.734) Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (22:32.748) like you know you've got to just be transparent you can't have it all straight away people need to just understand the journey and understand the vision and that's what you should be talking about not being like we can do this we're gonna do that like this is what we've got right now and this is what we're gonna do people under people if people are human and that sounds really stupid so they will understand Daniel Tsentsiper (22:48.674) Yeah, yeah, like we talked about. Daniel Tsentsiper (22:56.653) That's right. That's right. And like we talked about last week, you told me is like, got to sell them on you. You got to sell them on the vision. And the early adopters are going to be buying the vision. They're going to be buying the team. And the rest of the adopters will come if you build an amazing product and you've kind of refined it and de-risked it for them. So I guess to that point, I did want to ask you about Aaron Solomon - AMBL (22:56.748) We'll understand. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (23:05.987) Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (23:25.516) your go-to-market strategy, right? Did you come up with any growth hacks, anything that kind of helped you win those early deals? Maybe some strategies that you kind of found along the way. I'm curious, as someone that is also selling to restaurants, like what sorts of growth hacks did you kind of come across along the way? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (23:45.686) integration. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (23:50.658) If it works with what they currently got and it makes their life easier and there's a genuine straight away no brainer added value. That's why I spent so long building out this product because you know, there is no reason not a venue not to have Ambl now. Like I'm not just saying that as a founder. You're either going to get seen by people or a booking. That is it. They're the two outcomes. You're either going to get seen by loads of people and all the content that we do for you and push it out so your brand's being noticed or you're to get a booking. and it's going to go straight into your current system with all your other bookings, nothing else needed. So what's the downside? It's making it. No, there isn't. So when they're like, oh, but actually you're going to have to change the setting, but you're going to have to pay us this and we're going to do this. It's like, Daniel Tsentsiper (24:23.82) Right. Daniel Tsentsiper (24:28.04) Yeah, there is none if you sell it that way. Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (24:39.21) Yeah, yeah, that's a good point. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (24:40.094) You make it as seamless as possible. Make it as seamless as possible. This is what other people wanted. We've done it. Daniel Tsentsiper (24:47.532) So if a restaurant wants to work with you, what is... Aaron Solomon - AMBL (24:47.626) That's how you do it. And just good old fashioned back in sales mate. Get out on the road. Daniel Tsentsiper (24:55.852) Let's talk about sales. Seems like you were a hustler. Seems like you're a hustler on my team. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (25:03.5) I'm doing it now, I'm doing it now, I'm door to door sales, still three years later. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (25:12.908) You know, it's the way to do it. Daniel Tsentsiper (25:13.504) What is the, what is, how, how is the piss? How has the pitch changed over the years for you? How has the strategy changed? Has it? Has it kind of stayed the same? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (25:24.91) Not the strategy, which is just getting in front of as many people as possible, but the pitch. I was doing the same pitch for three years and also building it at the same time. there's not anything I don't know about it. Daniel Tsentsiper (25:37.152) Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (25:44.71) And that's what's won the business. And to be honest with you, you kept venues with us despite in the early days while we're still trying to get it right. know, it's a going back to a point of chicken and egg. It's like you have no users, but you're not going to get users if you don't have an amazing product and amazing venues. But then you're not going to get venues if you don't have users. So you've got to like get one right. Daniel Tsentsiper (26:10.175) Exactly. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (26:13.58) You know, so it's a hustle man, it's hard. Daniel Tsentsiper (26:17.772) Was it more difficult for you to get the users or was it more difficult for you to get the venues onto Anbel? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (26:25.742) It's not difficult to get users. It's difficult to retain users if you've missed things. Venues will be on and if there's a problem, you can fix it or you can talk to them and be like, oh yeah, we can update this, problem. A customer comes on, searches in a part of London where we don't have a restaurant, whatever. So it's easier to get customers, much harder to keep them, retain them. It's harder to get a venue, but it's much easier to keep them on because obviously you've got that dialogue. Daniel Tsentsiper (26:30.719) Hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (26:55.726) So you've got to manage both. Daniel Tsentsiper (26:58.156) Yeah, and for someone that didn't come from a hospitality background, I'm sure you were, I remember seeing some of your posts, you were an avid club goer and you love eating at nice restaurants. I can just tell by your swagger. You seem like the type of guy that has good class and good taste. So I'm sure you probably have been to a lot of venues, you've never actually, yeah, hundreds, I'm sure, but you've never actually been in the business owner's shoes. What was that like for you to kind of sell to? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (27:02.892) Yay. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (27:18.87) I did. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (27:24.899) Mm-mm. Daniel Tsentsiper (27:27.732) an industry that you weren't really familiar with. And this is coming from someone that has never worked at a restaurant. I mean, I've worked a couple jobs where I was working with food, but I've, you know. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (27:36.716) No, know. My first job was in a pub. It wasn't owning a restaurant. wasn't anything like being in hospitality. Daniel Tsentsiper (27:42.599) Exactly. Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (27:47.916) I think all I've done is try and learn as much about it as possible. I've had so much exposure to it from all types of businesses. So it's not like I would work with one restaurant and only know about that. you know, it's hundreds of restaurants that I speak to and hundreds of restaurants we speak to and hundreds of people that I speak to about it to get it right, you know, from the restaurants all the way through to the tech businesses that serving that space. So I've got a good understanding of the space now. And it was just like, trying to push something in that's not going to work. It's just trying to find something that would work with them, that resonated with people. That's really the key. Because you want to be ignorant and go into that, being like, don't know better. From a startup space and a hospitality space, I don't know better. know a lot now. A lot more people know a lot more than me. But then obviously, we've got quite a few people in hospitality that have invested in Ambal, which has also very much helped the landscape. Daniel Tsentsiper (28:28.252) I see. I see. Daniel Tsentsiper (28:39.562) Bye. Daniel Tsentsiper (28:52.702) I'm sure. Yeah, I'm sure. giving you a sense of credibility, right? As you first, it kind of opens doors, but also as you're talking to venues, can kind of bring up the fact that you have a team of advisors behind you that's kind of shaping the direction of Ambl. Yeah. Yeah. And how did you get those early advisors? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (29:03.575) Amen. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (29:08.142) I have a fantastic team of advisors and a very good team to be honest. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (29:19.758) networking. you know, there has been a few advisors that said they can do things for me and just not, you know, and you kind of, I did in the early days sort of like, spend a lot of time thinking someone's going to really help me get going and really help me find the next investor. It's all bullshit. However, out of like a few people, there's been like a people I can count on my hand out of the tens of people I've met that I'm like, okay, this person genuinely Daniel Tsentsiper (29:45.448) Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (29:49.698) believes in me and what I'm doing and is helping me get there. But my radar was trying to figure that out, you know? Daniel Tsentsiper (29:52.212) That's key. Bingo. I used to take a... Daniel Tsentsiper (29:59.26) No, and I guess, I mean, I'm facing a similar dilemma. It's like I, I'm a bit naive. Maybe this is just, I guess, my age or lack of experience, but I see someone giving me validation. Sometimes it's just like smoke up my ass, but I... Aaron Solomon - AMBL (30:06.829) You Aaron Solomon - AMBL (30:14.295) image. Daniel Tsentsiper (30:20.882) I always get people that really like me and make all these promises and then it doesn't come true. And early on I would get offended by that, but go ahead. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (30:28.238) Yeah, I mean. Yeah, no, just a lot of that, you know, there is a lot of that out there. think what I learned is the more I've just done myself that I thought I couldn't do, you attract the right people. Daniel Tsentsiper (30:42.951) Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yeah. And, and putting yourself out there, I saw that you've, mean, it seems like early on you kind of went to all the major conferences and shows and was that helpful in any way for you to kind of put yourself out there to meet the right people? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (30:46.69) And that's really it. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (31:02.35) 100%. 100%. Like, the people you meet, the people you talk to, it takes long conversation. You know, and some of our best business partnerships have me, me kind of being a stalker, like knowing someone's going to be at somewhere and waiting for that opportunity to speak to them. Daniel Tsentsiper (31:18.099) Man, I feel like you're, maybe I'm just like you, but in a younger form, man, because I went to a conference and I am 25. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (31:26.286) How old are you? Daniel Tsentsiper (31:36.009) Yeah, man. I went to my second conference. was the restaurant finance development conference. And I knew who was going to be there because they give you an app and you can see all the signups. And I have my Excel sheet, my CRM, and I know every person that I need to talk to. And I've studied their face. I've looked at their background, almost in a way kind of stalked them a little bit. But then as soon as I saw them at the conference, I just... Aaron Solomon - AMBL (31:43.224) Mm-hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (32:03.078) I just went up to them and that was scary at first, like putting myself out there. It's like, who is this guy coming up to me? But that really helped me and also helped me to realize that they're just people, right? They might have this like extravagant background, you know, presence online, but they're just people that are running a business that have the problems that you're trying to solve. So why not ask them to, you know, Aaron Solomon - AMBL (32:05.998) Yeah, of course. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (32:26.222) Well, this is the thing is you fear negativity and you fear rejection. I forget it. Like again, going back to my job in finance wasn't glamorous. It was cold calling selling financial products. Difference is, there's a hundred businesses in London selling the same products for the same people. So you get rejected 99 times out of a hundred. So you just build up that resilience. And that's what you're doing there is like, Daniel Tsentsiper (32:51.944) Mm-hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (32:55.148) you've got to build up resilience. don't fear it. If people say no, or they don't want to invest or whatever, whatever, you know, and you just get better and better at it, you know. Daniel Tsentsiper (33:05.138) Mm-hmm. I hear you. I hear you. What are you guys doing to to stand out? What are you guys doing to, you know, differentiate Ambl from from the rest of the competitors? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (33:20.044) I mean, look, there's a couple in terms of the product itself. mean, there's a couple of things that, you know, I've looked at and, you know, the trends of the market, people that want content, people want to know everything. felt like Ben used some of the vibes, the reviews, everything, and it all needs to be in one place. you watch people do it. We've, we've spoke to hundreds and hundreds of customers and it's the same Google, then the pictures, then the reviews, then to Instagram, then to TikTok. And you're like, what? Stuff to put it all in one place. And we try and make the content as good as possible. And then. Daniel Tsentsiper (33:44.444) Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (33:49.486) You know, it's also the actual availability that you get online because actually a lot of restaurants won't put all their availability online. They might put 50, 60, 70 % of their tables online and hold the rest for walk-ins or phoning. Yeah. So when you see something online and it's fully booked, probably isn't because when you call, you might get tables. Obviously working with the systems, we're starting to get more and more availability because actually they want to be seen more because when people search on the app, more availability, you've got them where you come up. So it's kind of solving that problem as well. actually. Daniel Tsentsiper (33:59.406) Wow. Right, that's right, that's right, that's right, yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (34:15.496) you Aaron Solomon - AMBL (34:19.49) We tend to have more availability than others. Daniel Tsentsiper (34:21.64) And do you guys charge per booking? You guys take a percentage of the booking or is it just a platform fee? How do you guys monetize Anvil? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (34:28.224) No. Yeah, mean, look, we, we, we, we, charge a very modest subscription for venues and then we have a couple of other marketing and other things that we do and data that we can obviously extract for them as well. I don't, I don't necessarily like the model of paper booking because I think that, you know, what I saw in the early days as an example is like, you know, people want to go out between seven and nine o'clock. they buy on a Friday or Saturday or Thursday night. And if the restaurant knows they're going to get bookings at that time, they will stop taking bookings at that time if they're having to pay for those bookings at that time because they're getting them anyway. So you actually don't do any difference to the customers. Obviously, if you're just paying subscription, the more you get, the cheaper it is. So that's kind of why we shifted to that model. Daniel Tsentsiper (35:13.575) Exactly. Daniel Tsentsiper (35:25.595) And it would make sense for those, you called it like last minute reservations. If you're able to fill a seat, I think you should, and you're doing the work to fill those seats, I think you should get a percentage of that. I mean, in the grand scheme of things, it makes more sense to create a platform that differentiates itself based on the customers and the data you provide to the end users. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (35:46.188) No, no, totally. Yeah, I don't want to limit it right now. I want to say again, it goes back to Watson, easy sales and venues. So I'm going to get all of this and I pay this. Yeah. Anything else? No more fantastic. Right. And I'm more obsessed about scaling this now in the growth side of things, because there's a lot of other revenue features that we're building and doing. And this is just like the start one, you know, there's so many other features and ways we can do stuff. Like we've got a lot planned for that. Daniel Tsentsiper (36:17.318) I think this is a good segue. What the heck are you doing in Dubai, Aaron Solomon - AMBL (36:22.732) Well, And we had a good partner in London that we started working with, growing our restaurants and building. And we started to get interest from Dubai because of it. And I think like after I kind of got the green light to go to Dubai, I flew out two days later, just sent to my wife. I'm going to Dubai. She wasn't even surprised because it's kind of the thing that I would just do. And I landed here without knowing, I'd never been so like landed here and it's the middle of desert, right? landed with a laptop, like, right, okay, cool. So I was here for five days and I just started like cold call in. I booked meetings before I came, like cold call, just started hitting it. And I came out in the middle of summer, so July last, June last year, it's 45 degrees. I was, I was, and you know, going to restaurants and traveling around in that heat, nonstop, like 10 meters, 20 meters over that, like 10 meters a day, sometimes, right? Daniel Tsentsiper (37:07.018) that's horrible. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (37:25.4) I nearly got very ill from it, but it was the time to do it because no one was really here, it was quiet, it the time to speak to people and I was like, if I don't do this now, then I'm gonna miss this shot. So I just got on with it and then I was back and forward from the UK to here. My UK team is obviously going well and strong, my co-founder's there. So luckily I had that support to go and just hit the ground here and start building a team and establish it. yeah, we went live last few weeks ago now, so mid-Jan. Daniel Tsentsiper (37:54.694) Congrats. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (37:55.374) And yeah, thank you. yeah, started with like, she just my laptop and where the hell am I? So now we've got about 220 of the restaurants on, but the best restaurants in the city are the best ones. Daniel Tsentsiper (38:07.366) Yeah, and the best clubs. I took a look. It's amazing. How is it different to do business in the UK and Dubai? What are the norms? How is it different? What has surprised you? Super curious about that. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (38:13.038) That's fantastic. Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (38:20.408) Really good question. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (38:31.182) There's, okay, so like what I've found, everyone's here for a reason in Dubai. Right, everyone is here for work and to build something. So you're in a place where everyone wants everyone to do well. You know, and no one's, I mean, people have lived here for a long time and it's home to people, but it's not, it's a new place, right? It's a completely new place. So like, you I grew up in a small town in... Essex and England, commuting to London. The opportunities are in London. Here, it's everywhere. And business happens quick. Although on the flip side, I came with a product that I tried and tested in a major city. Now, could I have done that here? Probably not. Because in London, you can test in a small part of London and then another part of London and then grow, grow, grow. Here is one case. Daniel Tsentsiper (39:22.661) Mm-hmm. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (39:29.326) You've got to get it right first. I would say from a velocity of business is I've never seen anything like it, to be honest, at all. It's welcoming to business. Daniel Tsentsiper (39:36.279) Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. I'm sure, I'm sure. like you said, everyone there is, you know, is open for business and business moves extremely quickly. Do you see yourself? So Dubai, so you guys did the UK, Dubai. Is there any other markets that you're kind of thinking about next? After spending some time in a new place and proving to yourself that you could do it. What's next for you guys? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (40:08.926) It'd be looking to do it again in other major cities where we can get like a real critical mass and do it quicker and easier and kind of cheaper and prove that out. So really what London and Dubai is like creating these blueprints of being able to do it. Like, I want to open up in the next city, but not have a team there and see if we can do that just for integrations and partners. That's kind of what I'm looking to do. Prove that out and then at least Daniel Tsentsiper (40:29.433) Hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (40:33.24) in. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (40:36.322) you know, we don't need to keep writing the team. Daniel Tsentsiper (40:39.077) I see. I see what you're saying. So like if you have like one hospitality group, right, and they probably have multiple brands in different countries, then you can kind of like kind of leapfrog your way to all these different locations and kind of try out new markets. I guess like when I think of Dubai, I think of technology. I feel like it's very, it's an innovative place and people do use, you know, platforms like Ambl to find their venues to book. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (40:50.722) Yeah. Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (41:08.676) If you're thinking about moving into other geographies, are you in any way kind of concerned about, you know, maybe the technology adoption being a tougher sell in other parts of the world? And if so, like, how do you think you're going to kind of change the experience with Ambl in order to attract, you know, new customers in different parts of the world? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (41:35.286) Look, the biggest thing and the biggest thing that takes time is behavioral change. And that's kind of what we're doing with Anbel. So it's not like people use it and then to be fair, have great, when people use it, they do use it again and again, but you are trying to change your behavior and it's different everywhere. like, for example, in London, I would never order Deliveroo or Just Eat or get an Uber. Here, I Uber. six times a day, I order from Deliveroo three times a day, because it's cheaper, it's quicker. No, no, no, no. So here's a different kind of, yeah. You go somewhere like Europe, you go somewhere like Europe, things are slower than here. Some parts of London, some parts of the UK, right? So you kind of got to adapt again, but it just comes down to how the tech works with already what they're using, you know? And then going back to the point I said at the start of the call is like, okay, so Daniel Tsentsiper (42:09.059) Hmm. Daniel Tsentsiper (42:12.726) I see, I see, yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (42:27.331) Exactly. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (42:32.718) in Dubai this kind of solved the problem for a lot of people because everyone's got disposable income, everyone eats out, this is the best restaurants in the world and they're all growing, growing, and there is nowhere that shows you the best restaurants in one place because there's so many opening all the time and there's nothing. It's a great bang. In London, it's competing with stuff that's already there but not as big stuff but they're not moving fast so that there's a different kind of market and there's a different kind of sale, you know? So that's how you kind of got to adapt to it. It's like who you're going to sell the product to. Who's your audience when you get there? You know, not going to be everyone. Daniel Tsentsiper (43:02.691) That's true. That's a good point. That's a really good point. Listen, one of my favorite aspects of using the app and using the... I played around both the app and also on the browser. One thing that I haven't seen anywhere else is the videos, the photos that you have. I thought it's like excellent. These videos look like they're professionally done. for me... Aaron Solomon - AMBL (43:18.915) Yeah. Daniel Tsentsiper (43:32.725) If I was using Ambl, unfortunately I'm in San Francisco. You guys aren't here yet. Hopefully you come one day. You know, if I was actually, if I was looking for a place to book, I don't go to the Google reviews cause like it's, it's dodge. It's really bad. if I'm able to see like the ambience, if I'm able to see the vibe of the restaurant or the venue, I think it would definitely convert in me booking it. So how do you guys make, make all this content? And then also your TikToks are Aaron Solomon - AMBL (43:37.09) Not yet. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (43:56.194) You Daniel Tsentsiper (44:01.107) hilarious. Like you guys have some of the best marketing I've ever seen. It's like it's one of its kind. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (44:04.163) Yeah. The team will be happy, I'll let them know that. We'll save that clip, they'll be happy with that. Daniel Tsentsiper (44:09.815) Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Yeah. Give them a promotion. Yeah. What do you guys do for your for your marketing strategy? How has it evolved? And, know, is that a way that you guys kind of stand out from from the competition? Aaron Solomon - AMBL (44:22.774) Yeah, so like, you know, with the app side of things, you know, I think for me was like when I was going around London, I'd go, I'd find so many restaurants that I'd never heard of and never heard anyone speak about. Yeah, because when you like, if I say name five restaurants in San Francisco or New York, I guarantee everyone else would kind of probably say the same ones in the same way they do with London and here, the just stuff, right? And I don't think outside of that. And that was the thing that bugged me about all the other booking platforms where the restaurants with money and the big brands paid to be at the top of it. So all these other brands wouldn't be seen. So like I'd go into a steak restaurant in London, family run, and it would be the most beautiful, style, gorgeous restaurant. But they have the money to do like photography or pictures. So it's completely wasted. can't even, the website's not even like an old Daniel Tsentsiper (45:00.598) Right. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (45:21.55) 15 year old websites that it's like, no one knows how good this place is. No, no one knows how gorgeous this place is. No one knows how fantastic it is. So I was like, I need the content in the app to be like everything we can to help the restaurants be like, show people what you've got from the food to the ambiance, to the vibes, everything so that people can really see what you're trying to offer. And the more content venues do the better. So we invest heavily in that and we do a lot of content for the venues as well. Cause again, like that builds relationships. Daniel Tsentsiper (45:22.134) Yeah, or they don't even have it up. They don't even have it up. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (45:49.71) That's where the team are good. Like we can do that. It's mixing the non-scalable stuff. We're building tech to help do it better, but you got to do the non-scalable stuff right now. You know, we've had it, we've even done videos for venues and they're like, please, can we use this for our ads? Like how much would that cost? And I was like, no, go do what you think. You know, maybe missing a trillion more money, but no, do what you think. But then on the marketing side, like with the team, mean, Daniel Tsentsiper (45:54.978) Right, Exactly. Daniel Tsentsiper (46:09.847) Yeah. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (46:14.678) that we've got rare opportunity as a startup. And I feel like people really want to know who are behind stuff these days. And, you know, like, okay, we can sell the product. Of course, we need to do that and talk about the videos that we've got 100%. But like, people buying to people. And, you know, by having a great team and working hard and showing that hustle and showing how we're trying to do stuff, it's content that's kind of people like, you know, because very rarely, there's always big companies out there that have been around for 25 years. No one knows what's behind it. Like no one's, it's, you know, to hopefully witness the start of something that people are like, oh yeah, I there when they started, da da da. It's nice, you know, so we're big on that content, but it's taken the team, like it's taken us a long time to do that. But to be honest with you, they're so creative. Like I'm messing with the creative side. Like my co-founder Jed is very pragmatic, like data and the numbers and making sure everything runs smooth, whereas I'm just just want to sell, create, do stuff. I need him. I need him. Yeah, yeah, need him. Daniel Tsentsiper (47:17.835) Yeah, you guys make a good team. Well, Aaron, you guys built an amazing platform. Amazing story. feel like just for me, like after walking away from this conversation, I'm probably going to get on the phone tomorrow morning and just hit those cold calls. That's the only way to do it. I really appreciate you spending the time here. And I think for my audience, it's very rare to see someone that Aaron Solomon - AMBL (47:37.195) the sun. Daniel Tsentsiper (47:46.869) doesn't come from A, a tech background, B, a hospitality background, build an amazing platform that's selling to restaurants, venues, and now scaling it across the world. So hats off to you, man. Thanks so much. Thanks so much for joining me. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (47:59.662) Thanks, bye. No, it's been a pleasure and we'll keep in touch, all right? Daniel Tsentsiper (48:05.31) Absolutely. You take care. Aaron Solomon - AMBL (48:07.148) You too. Take care.