Let's Get Aquainted With Some Technology
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Hey there,
Technology can do some wonderful things. There’s so much potential to improve processes within the food and drinks industry and a lot of new apps have been released lately to make lives within the sector easier.
An awesome app I’ve come across lately that does exactly that is Aquaint. (And it comes from my home city of Manchester so you know I’ve got to rep it).
Founded by Jayden Patel, Aquaint has a lot to offer the world and it was fun to interview Jayden to see what the company has in store.
I’ll let him tell you in his own words.
Let's start with your personal story and how you arrived at what you do today.
I've always wanted to start a tech company and before that, I did a range of things. I did accounting and business at uni and part qualified as a chartered accountant. I realised while I was doing accountancy, that I didn't really want to be an accountant because it didn’t fit into my vision of wanting to start a business.
Then I did investment banking but the premise of making a bunch of rich clients richer didn’t give me any personal value and from there I went to work for Hewlett Packard Enterprise doing account management.
In that role, I learned valuable skills that would suit me for when I founded my company. From that point, I worked for a healthcare tech startup and I thought that would teach me more important skills, but it was more about what not to do as the leader of a startup which was probably more valuable.
I’ve also worked in hospitality and analysed the problems of operation management and wanted to test to see if those problems were still there by speaking to as many people as I could by doing surveys, collecting feedback from people in the industry etc.
I had a lot of conversations with the person who is now our chief technology officer. He created a successful platform for pharmacies called Pharmsmart. That platform is now the market leader in the industry and it addresses some of the same problems in hospitality.
So, we combined those ideas into what has become Aquaint.
What’s the story behind Aquaint and where would you like to see it go?
Ultimately, Aquaint is a communications company and right now we’re focused on hospitality operations and we want to make people’s lives easier.
People in the hospitality industry have it hard and there is a staffing crisis currently. We wanted to build systems and products that alleviate pressure on staff and give them more time to spend with their customers and improve the customer experience.
Operations management is everything that’s internal within a hospitality venue. Let’s look at checklists and documents as an example. With checklists, there are open and close procedures, temperature checks and food, toilet checks and anywhere you see sheets.
Aquaint improves accountability of these types of tasks and auditing. The documents part of the app covers everything from policies, contracts, training packs with quizzes and e-signatures. You’ve also got the maintenance ticketing, accident & incident logging and general health and safety.
We’ve created an all-in-one operations management system and then beyond that we may move towards other elements of hospitality in future.
Manchester has a great reputation for technology businesses. What are your thoughts on the tech scene in the city?
According to Reuters, Manchester is the fastest growing tech city in Europe in terms of capital invested and there are lots of great things going on.
For example, The Start-Up Factory are good at supporting young founders with advice and workshops if you don’t have access to those types of resources.
There’s also Tech Nation and Startup Grind have launched their Manchester chapter, which is the biggest startup community in the world. I do feel there’s still room for improvement, with new tech communities in the city following a similar model of local marketing communities where people get to know each other on a deeper level.
What would you change about this if you could?
I’d focus more on the community aspect that is seen in the marketing community. I think that people in that industry are connected through platforms like LinkedIn and they are good at doing that because it’s their job.
Traditional tech people like coders might not be naturally good at that from an early stage. I’m not a coder. I’m a tech nerd however but I focus on the application side and bringing that kind of expertise into a room with the traditional side of tech would be a good fit for a Manchester community.
What other hospitality tech apps are there that are making a positive change in the industry?
A couple come to mind. The first is BeerSave, which uses technology to prevent wastage of beer, monitor it etc. Who likes wasted beer, right. The other is Pudu, which uses robot waiters and they’ve partnered with Bella Italia.
This could be one way of solving the staffing crisis with a robotic supplement. The human staff will then have more time to interact with customers rather than doing mundane tasks.
I think robotics in general is something we’re going to see a lot more of in the future.
You’ve touched on robotics as a trend. What other trends do you see in the hospitality and tech industries?
AI and machine learning will always be important. If you’re not thinking about them and you own a tech business, what are you doing? You need to build that thought into the business early on.
To have good AI and machine learning algorithms working on top of what you do to provide value, you need to have a lot of data. You need a bank of data to analyse and an example that applies to us is names and staff rotas.
If a name was put into the Aquaint system every week then the system could go off that data and make suggestions of that person being in on the day.
I’ve also seen sustainability as a big trend in tech. What are your thoughts on this and how does sustainability come into Aquaint?
Sustainability is massive for me. We recently finished the Net Zero Programme with The Growth Company and want to be net zero as soon as possible. If you’re starting a business in this day and age and sustainability isn’t the heart of it then it seems ridiculous to me.
I think sustainability is an absolute responsibility that every company should take on when they incorporate. What we’ve seen in the market is that people will offset emissions but not necessarily mitigate the problem.
The calculations you make when you offset assume a tree grows to 100 years old and takes up the carbon. But how often is that tree going to reach 100 years old? So, we want to go further than that.
Hosting in general takes up a lot of energy and we’re looking to hold our providers accountable too.
You mentioned that you’ve worked at a startup that taught you how not to lead. What lessons did you learn?
While I was there I was evaluating the way everything was run and the people management style. One of the things that stood out to me was that I and a few other staff were hired based on the fact they thought we were talented people and not based on specifics.
There were a load of things to do on our job descriptions that didn’t mean anything and there was a lot of going back on their word. The business didn’t practice what it preached and people didn’t have a say.
I think everyone should have a say and no one should be shut down for asking questions.
What strengths does your chief technology officer bring to the team?
The strength he brings is that he's been there and done it. He's built a tech product from the ground up and he’s the CEO of Pharmsmart. He’s got a development team that does the coding, but from the management and customer service side, he does the rest.
The experience he brings to Aquaint is that we may go through a few different iterations and he’s able to look at what’s already been done and what could be improved. Through this method, we’ve saved a lot of money and time.
What’s your best advice for anyone who wants to start their own app or tech company?
Start by doing your research. Understand the problem you’re trying to solve, speak to the people who would be potential customers and look at how they’re addressing the problem if at all.
Also, remember that it’s a risk and that it takes courage to set something up so get involved with as many networks and events as you can. Personally, I’ve learned and self-developed a lot more by doing this than by working for another company and the growth happens by getting out there and doing it.
Bear in mind your time management too and it brings to mind the buzzphrase of working more on the business than in the business. If you’ve got the capital and backing to spend money on it then strike a balance so you’re working more on the business than in the business.
Ultimately, that’s your role as the founder.
Transmutations is available now
Last week, my debut short story Transmutations came into the world and it follows characters that need to go through some kind of change, a turning point, accepting what has happened and moving forward.
There are plenty of drink stories, featuring whisky, rum, sake, beer, wine, women and song.
Available now in eBook with physical copies to follow soon!
Best,
Jamie