Interviewee
Co-founder and CEO at Pubinno, the company building the Internet of Beer powered by patented AI and robotics technologies. They have been served 50+ million pints of perfect beer and saved more than 500 million liters of water via Pubinno's smart technologies in 60+ cities, in 3 continents.
Transcript
Can Algul: Yes, for sure. I'm Can, Co-Founder and CEO of Pubinno. Actually, my story starts in my college times when I was in college in New York. I was a bartender, so I fought, and I faced some problems in the industry. Then I decided to drop out of college and start my startup and my first story started 10 years ago. My first startup failed. Then we built Pubinno in 2016 with my co-founder in Silicon Valley.. We were building an internal pier to create a visible and sustain sustainable drafter ecosystem by connecting each stakeholder in the draft pier operation site.
You know, beer is the topmost beverage in the world and beer history is as equal as civilization history, the, the, even the, the word pop stands for the public home, public house. Many critical decisions were made in the pubs in history. So we are bringing technology to a very traditional industry, but especially after the Covid, the traditional industry, opened ears to digitalization. That's why it brings us five x growth even in Covid period.
Elisa Muñoz: Wow. Thank you so much for sharing such an interesting story. Especially since it started like 10 years ago. I think it's, it's been a long time. A great path I would say.
Can Algul: For sure, for sure. The best form of beer is draft because it's the freshest one. But the problem is that in the last two decades, Elisa's draft beer consumption all around the world, decrease 50%. Two main reasons behind it. First on the consumer side, as a consumer you cannot drink the same draft beer in two different bars. What I mean, sometimes you get a metallic taste, sometimes you get a flat beer, sometimes you get a warm beer, you know, qu is not consistent. But, but for the bottle, it's the same for the grocery shop or supermarket or restaurant bottles. On the other hand, according to the American Restaurant Association, average loss per cake is 23%. Now you mentioned a quarter and if you remember we need 120 liter water to make just one liter beer. How much water is wasted and the last operation is not visible. I mean there is no small data. The brewers only know how many cakes they send to the bar, but they don't know when it's consumed, which glass, which plant is increasing, which plant is decreasing. So within our peers we are solving all these issues. We have value propositions, different value propositions for bartenders, borrowers and consumers.
We are doing this with three different products. Our first product was the Smart Tab, it's the workforce power peer tab. From the bartender behavior and beer type and smart app are data platforms where you can track the footprint of nightlife. And the last product is smart, clean. It's basically a wash dish for the beer lines because beer is a y string. The beer lines should be cleaned once a week, normally, this operation is covered by third parties, guys with the truck come to guard, making money, cleaning, you know, can you imagine normal track, normal guys, no more carbon print for the world. That's it. And these old products talk in the close ecosystem and ecosystem name.
You will get the most hygienic and the perfect beer.. Breweries will have three size operations. We'll have a chance to improve business management with instant data and save water. So it’s a win-win.
Elisa Muñoz: Okay. And I mean you started in San Francisco, right? Then New York. So how is it that you guys took over Spain? That is great!
Can Algul: Thanks, thanks for this question to express my life, my daily life, nowadays my life based on the 17 hours time difference from San Francisco to Tokyo. Right now I'm in SF. Pubbino is operating in 60 cities in three continents. We have offices in Tokyo, Madrid and SF and day by day we are increasing in the Asia market.
Elisa Muñoz: I wanted to ask you, Why would you say Pubinno is making a difference in the industry?
Can Algul: It's very simple. You will get the most hygienic and the perfect beer. Bus will make much more money. Breweries will have three size operations. We'll have a chance to improve business management with instant data and save water. So win, win, win, win.
Elisa Muñoz: Okay, amazing. Thank you. So, at the podcast we speak with different CEOs and founders in the industry, and I mean since you have been on it for more than 10 years, you survived the pandemic. So how was it for you? And what challenges did you face?
Can Algul: Well, we started to work on Smart tab two (Launched it November, 2019 ). In that time we were in five countries and just three months after the launch, covid came. But even in Covid time we grew five x, the main reason behind it, as I told you, our biggest competitor is tradition and now there is a storm which is opening ears to digitalization in the tradition industry. So it was tough. The biggest challenge was, you know, the main resources for startups, not it or not the money, the main resources are the people, the team.
So it's not easy to motivate your team in a non organization. You know, growth is a heroine for the motivation of the team, the, the, the most difficult thing was that.
Elisa Muñoz: How close are you with the engineering team or with the engineering process?
Can Algul: In our organization there is no engineering team. Okay. One the people, one the people here, this their show. Yes, there is no engineering team because we are a very, very unique culture based company. For example, if you start in Pubbino, in your first week, you will be in a bar and you will find yourself bartending both in manual tips and smart tabs.
We named product teams. All engineers work under the product teams because we believe that if you don't know the domain, if you don't know the user persons, all the user persons are different. Even though you are the biggest tanker in the world, it doesn't make sense. So domain first, culture next that why there is no engineering team, there is a product team. As a CEO, I believe that product is a living thing. What I mean is the product is not a thing that I made, hey, just sell it every day. You should put more on the product, how you put more, you should listen from the field, understanding, prioritizing, and adding to new features.
So I can say that I'm very involved in our product strategy because, because we are operating in a 17 hour time zone from San Francisco to Tokyo, all the personas differ sometimes. And I'm a guy on the field, I'm, I'm giving much more importance to being on the field to listening from the users and I'm always sharing this with the product teams very closely.
Elisa Muñoz: And one of the last questions; Talking about the next steps for the company, are you guys planning on expanding anytime soon?
Can Algul: Nowadays we are expanding in Asia and the US. Our focus is Tokyo and New York City.
Elisa Muñoz: Well Can, thank you so much for being here, for taking the time. We really enjoyed having you.
Can Algul: Thank you. Thanks for having me!
