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More Fun and Less Friction with Tim McLaughlin, Cofounder and CEO of GoTab

Distinguished | Hospitality Leadership Podcast with Dean Upneja

Chapters
0:05
Welcome & Guest Introduction: Tim McLaughlin and GoTab
1:16
From Software to Beer: Why Tim Made the Leap Into Hospitality
2:03
The Pain Point That Inspired GoTab: Lines and Paying Are Not Fun
4:14
Early Challenges: The Initial QR Payment Concept Flopped
4:23
Product-Market Fit: When QR Ordering at the Brewery Changed Everything
5:46
The Industry Said No: Knocking on Doors Before COVID
6:20
COVID as a Catalyst: Three to Five Years of Tech Adoption Accelerated
7:15
QR Codes Beyond Ordering and Paying: Positioning, Tab Sharing, and More
8:19
The ROI Question: How GoTab Justifies the Cost for Operators
8:37
From QR-Only to Full-Service POS: How GoTab Evolved Post-COVID
11:50
Why Europe Settled Checks at the Table Before the U.S.
12:20
Why U.S. Restaurants Are Stuck on Legacy POS Systems
14:19
Credit Card Security Standards: The U.S. vs. Europe Gap
16:56
Table Turnover and the Time Saved by Paying at the Table
17:25
The Check Presenter POS: Letting Guests Split Their Own Bills
18:52
The Bar Problem: Closing Tabs to Move to a Table Creates Friction
19:07
How GoTab Attributes Tips to the Right Staff Member
20:30
Has the Tipping Culture Gone Too Far?
22:10
How GoTab Handles Tip Pooling and Distribution
23:48
How Shared Tipping Models Naturally Push Out Non-Performers
25:23
What's Next for GoTab: Behavioral Data and Menu Analytics
28:50
Fun Questions: What Is Tim Still Analog On?
29:52
Last Vacation: Greece and Watching Servers Use Personal Phones as POS
30:25
Running GoTab on Personal Devices and Apple Watch Notifications
31:32
Recent TV Recommendation: Only Murders in the Building
32:05
Favorite Leisure Activity: Hiking, Skiing, and the Outdoors
32:16
Closing Remarks & Credits
Distinguished | Hospitality Leadership Podcast with Dean Upneja
More Fun and Less Friction with Tim McLaughlin, Cofounder and CEO of GoTab
Nov 27, 2023 Episode 13
Tim McLaughlin, GoTab

Waiting to be served drinks and food and settling the tab rank most certainly as the pain points of the dining experience. As the famous song goes, "You got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative." In that spirit, to relieve the friction and induce more seamless service, Tim McLaughlin combined his skills as a technologist with his experience as a brewery restaurant owner to cofound GoTab, a restaurant commerce platform. GoTab increases the volume of hospitality and profitability – a tune we can all groove to!

Read the interview with Tim McLaughlin, "Using Technology to Foster Hospitality" in Boston Hospitality Review.


Email us at shadean@bu.edu

The “Distinguished” podcast is produced by Boston University School of Hospitality Administration. 

Host: Arun Upneja, Dean
Producer: Mara Littman, Executive Director of Strategic Operations and Corporate Relations
Research and Content Creation: Lan Lu
Marketing: Anne Dawson
Editing: Isabella Laikin and James Leon
Sound Engineer: Andrew Hallock

Music: “Airport Lounge" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)
Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0