From Combat to CRM: How Perfect Venue is Revolutionizing Restaurant Events

 In this episode of Restaurant Leaders Unplugged, we’re joined by Luke Hutchison—Army veteran turned tech entrepreneur and the Founder & CEO of Perfect Venue. Luke shares his journey from the battlefield to the boardroom, and how his event management software is helping restaurants boost revenue, cut admin time, and simplify private event sales.

We explore the biggest mistakes operators make with private dining, how to generate more leads from the guests already in your dining room, and how to build a culture that scales—whether in a platoon or a fast-growing startup.

If you're a restaurant owner, operator, or GM who wants to unlock the full potential of your private events, this episode is a must.

🎯 Topics covered:

• Why private events are often your most profitable channel
• How restaurants lose sales without realizing it
• Leadership lessons from the military you can apply today
• How Perfect Venue automates event sales from inquiry to payment
• Low-cost strategies to generate more private event leads
  
  
  

Connect with our guest:
 🔗 https://www.linkedin.com/in/lukewhutchison/
🌐 perfectvenue.com

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Transcript

(0:00 - 1:58)

Today, I'm excited to welcome Luke Hutchinson, a military veteran turned entrepreneur shaking up the restaurant industry. He's the founder and CEO of Perfect Venue, a platform helping restaurants streamline private event bookings and boost revenue. After serving as an army infantry officer and deploying twice to Afghanistan, Luke transitioned into business, spotted a major gap in event management, and built a solution that's now helping restaurant owners optimize one of their most valuable assets, their space.

Today, we'll explore his journey and the hidden potential in private dining and how tech is transforming restaurant operations. Welcome to the Restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast, where real talks with restaurant leaders take center stage. Discover the challenges and victories that define success in the culinary world.

Dive into essential strategies from marketing to operations and gain insights that will transform your approach to your restaurant business. Don't just keep up, lead the way. Join me, your host, Sebastian Stahl, on this journey to excellence.

Luke, welcome to the Restaurant Leaders Unplugged podcast. Thank you for having me on. All right, my friend.

So let's start at the beginning because, I mean, you have such an interesting story. This is very unique, and I'd love to have you on the show, really, to learn more about so many things that you've gone through and you've done. So let's start there.

I know you've gone from being in the military and then going into being a software, you know, an entrepreneur and developing super cool software for restaurants. So can you share a little bit about your journey? Yeah, definitely somewhat of a non-traditional route, at least when you're like looking at the surface of the resume. But yeah, I graduated from West Point United States Military Academy in 2013, commissioned as an army infantry officer, two deployments to Afghanistan.

And in between those deployments to Afghanistan, we would have a social venture unit anywhere from like 20 to 200, all the way even up to 800 people at different restaurants and hotels and bars and things like that around Colorado Springs. And the army does not spend your hard-earned taxpayer dollars on event planners. So the nearest tenant to the commander was like, hey, go find a book of venue.

(1:58 - 8:45)

And I was like, oh yeah, that should be like pretty easy. And I was like, look at a couple of places we went last year, right? And no, they were either like full or like they weren't available or the price was too high or whatever. And I pretty quickly was like, wow, this is actually pretty hard to like find a book of venue, especially if it's like during the holidays and a more desirable date that has the right budget, the right availability, the right capacity, the right food, like right ambiance, right parking, you know, all these are factors.

And so just driving home one day had sort of one of those like classic, there's gotta be a better way moments, very cheesy, but it's kind of the way that it shook out and started PerfectVenue basically to help people find a book of venue. And then also learned that on the restaurant side, many of them were managing hundreds of thousands, if not over a million dollars a year, private events on spreadsheets, Word documents, duct tape, bubble gum, you know, basically doing a sales process without NRM, which yeah, leads to, you know, a lot of predictable issues. You know, it's hard to follow up.

It's easy to make mistakes. The group size changes 20 different times between the inquiry to the actual event and having to update that in a Google calendar and a spreadsheet and an email and a Word document gets tedious and then often gets forgotten, mistakes are made. So yeah, that was kind of the initial problem that I saw.

And all of that was happening around the time I was sort of ending my time in the army or, you know, that sort of initial commitment and thinking about what I wanted to do when I grow up and kind of fumble upon risks. And yeah, it's been six, seven years now. So it's been a great journey.

We have thousands of restaurants all over the U S and Canada that use our software and just a blast to wake up every day and like help restaurants and small business owners compete and win and do an awesome job growing their business and allowing them to like really focus on feeding the neighborhood and doing what they got into the business, restaurant business to do and not doing all this admin tasks, which I think a lot of chef owners find themselves doing. Oh yeah. Yeah.

It's super interesting though. So how was that transition, Luke, going from the military into you doing, creating a software company? Cause I know that's not an easy task. You know what I mean? So how was that transition for you? Yeah.

It was definitely not recommended. It's like learning, going from the military to the civility world in general, I would say is challenging and then starting your own business and learning that about HR software and CRM software and all these different kinds of tools and processes and rules and regulations, definitely like a steep learning curve. But I mean, it's honestly though, it's not probably that much different than when founders start a company out of their dorm room and start a company out of college.

Like you've never actually worked for any other company and you just got to like, figure it out as you go. So definitely bumped you, but I was very fortunate. I mean, had great mentors, great investors, great advisors in Colorado Springs where I initially started the company.

Actually a lot of our early customers, because it's a very like veteran heavy town, there's the Air Force Academy, Fort Carson, which is the army base, base command, all of that. A lot of our early customers were veterans. And so that kind of helped.

I could go and pitch them. I think they were probably a little bit more willing to give me a little bit more time than just any person showing up. So they kind of helped me polish the rough points that were very candid with me about what was good and what was bad about the idea.

So there's definitely pros and cons like with anything. And I was also, yeah, I've been listening to your podcast and talking about Simon's Snack and a lot of the leadership things. And I think that's certainly a big asset is just having that experience of leading people in challenging situations.

Although it's very different in a startup and it's always hard to know like which experiences you take for the military and which experiences don't you take. But overall, the concepts of like playing to win, building a strong team, having a strong culture, really caring about the mission, doing what it takes, being creative with limited resources, I think translate a lot. Oh yeah, a hundred percent Luke.

So we're going to get into leadership in a second because I think you have a lot to share with us here about leadership, especially going through what you have gone through. So when you found a perfect venue, Luke, I mean, of course, private events is a huge revenue stream for restaurants and many times still underutilized. Yeah.

Why do you think is holding back operators from really maximizing this opportunity? Yeah, that's a wonderful question. So I think the biggest thing is, cause I think it's very different than what they normally do on a day-to-day basis. Like I think restaurants are incredible at making awesome food and they're incredible at in-person customer service.

And that's really what it like 20 years ago, 30 years ago, that's what running a restaurant was. Now running a restaurant is like five to 10% of that and 90% your social media account. You got to understand Google tag manager.

Now there's a new updates on UTM tracking. And then you got to like understand, you know, all this, like you're basically like a part-time digital guru of how all these softwares come together. And so I think it's just different than what they do on a normal basis.

Cause if you look at private events, it's really like a group project. So like, instead of, Hey, a customer comes in, they order, I give them the food and obviously make it. There's a lot that goes into that, but you have to do all this planning and all this coordination and negotiation and sales and, oh, what did they want and how quickly do they want it? And then also like you're competing, right? Like when somebody walks in your door to your restaurant, like they're probably not walking out unless you're hyper rude to them.

And whereas with sale event sales, they're typically reaching out to four or five restaurants. And so you're just one of many, it was kind of like going to a gun site with a knife. Like if you don't have software to quickly reply to that guest and immediately have response and have packages and proposals, then you're really kind of up a creek without a paddle because the restaurants down the street, or especially the large chains, they've already figured this out.

They already have very expensive software and full-time people doing this. Whereas a lot of independent restaurants may just be the GM or the owner that's doing this workflow. And so I think for those reasons, it's pretty different and it's pretty complicated.

And so one of the reasons I started PerfectVenue is like, let's make it pretty easy and pretty simple. And you'll have an intuitive tool that you don't need to be a sales guru and, you know, work in the air condition office to figure out. You have a native mobile app where you can pop it open and reply on the go.

And so just little things like that, I think can really help restaurants like get to the next level. But yeah, it's a very interesting revenue stream because it's about for full service restaurants. And it really varies based off square footage, obviously, but you know, around 30% of revenue is what we hear.

But then often it can be 40, 50, 60% of profits because private events are so much more profitable. And then obviously people come in, they have a good time. They come back as walk-in traffic or delivery traffic later on.

(8:45 - 9:06)

So it's really great marketing for your business, but it's definitely like, it's a tough nut to crack if you don't have the right tools. 100%. And that's something that we see as well.

It's such a different mindset. You just mentioned that when we're talking about event managers, and this is something that we see, and I want to hear your take on this. They're hospitality people, right? They showcase their rooms, they showcase the menu, they talk to people and all that stuff.

(9:06 - 13:00)

But the sales process is a very different thing because it's like, you're saying they're shopping around. They're not just looking at your restaurant. They're looking at five, 10, whatever, how many restaurants.

And so I think because we've measured conversion rates from just King Kong, at least from websites or whatever, it's usually very low. So I think that mind shift of training for sales for this particular industry, but from your experience, Luke, what are some of the most common mistakes that you see where you work with a lot of restaurant owners when it comes to managing private events? Yeah, absolutely. So I would say some of the biggest mistakes that we see, and obviously we're a little bit biased, but like having a good tool in place, having a good system in place.

I mean, if you were doing sales at any tech company and you didn't have a CRM, you'd probably be, you wouldn't last long. And that's what a lot of restaurants we see doing and why we started the company. And in restaurants defense, a lot of the existing other players on the market, they may be more complicated or more expensive than what their needs were.

So they're kind of stuck between rock and a hard place. So I think having the right tool is number one. Number two, speed to lead.

I think a big factor, something that we were just talking with the restaurant down the street about is just consumer expectations have really shifted. And you can pop open your phone, you can order DoorDash and be in your house in 20 minutes. You can go on Airbnb, you can immediately book a place and gone are the days of being able to respond the next business day.

People want immediate response. And then they also, they want a substantive response within minutes or maybe an hour. And probably the third one, you know, it depends on the business, but I think in general, when you can package out your menu for private events, I think that's really, really beneficial.

So unlike an a la carte menu where you have all the cart or, you know, maybe a tasting menu, I think just having a good, better, best, right? A lot of times it's an EA or someone like that, that's booking the event. They just want a good event within a certain budget and they want to trust you. It's your restaurant, right? So they want you to tell them, Hey, these are the top appetizers.

These are the top entrees. Like just make it easy. Right? And I think that strategy can work well, or we've seen that work well, both in terms of increasing the conversion rate, but also just decreasing the amount of tinkering with the proposal and, and, you know, adding all the constant changes, which can really add up.

Obviously for certain businesses, that's not going to work, but I think when that can work, um, that's a pretty effective strategy. Yeah, that's great advice too. And I couldn't agree more.

So when customers are searching for event venues, right? Or for restaurants, I mean, you have access to a lot of data, you're going to speak to a lot of restaurant owners. What factors are customers prioritizing in terms of when they're looking at spaces, when they're looking at venues and what are some simple ways that restaurants can make this space more appealing or just their, their restaurant more appealing for this? Yeah, no, absolutely. I think having as much information as possible on your website and available is great.

You know, it's often you'll go to a, it'll have a private events tab and they'll have like a little paragraph about the private events and like no pictures of the space or like one picture of the space or a picture of a space than no capacity, or it'll say the capacity, but it just, it doesn't specify whether they're seated or standing. So I think the more information you can have on your website, the better that also helps for SEO, descriptions, pictures, capacities, your link to your private event menu. So people can kind of see what the actual options are because often that differs from the normal menu.

And then like a clear call to action that links to a contact form that says, book your event, plan your party, you know, whatever. Oftentimes people just have an email address. Like, Hey, just contact this email.

And that's really bad for a few reasons. Like one, it makes it easy for spammers and things like that to like just see the email and then just send you messages. But also it's not a clear call to action.

(13:01 - 16:27)

So you can't just click on it. You have to copy it, put it in your email, type out an email, and then also it could create back and forth, right? Where it's like, they're just going to say, I want to book my party on this date. And then you have to be like, okay, well, how many people? And then what's your budget? And then back and forth and back and forth, where did you have contact for me? Get all that information upfront and then you go.

So. Yeah. So walk us through Luke, how PerfectVenue, in this case, I mean, the software that you guys built helps in streamlining this whole process.

Cause I think we see this all the time as well. I mean, they just have an email there or a very simple format and it just goes to an email and that's about it. So can you walk us through a little bit of how PerfectVenue solves a lot of these issues? Yeah, absolutely.

So number one, in terms of discovery in San Francisco, we actually just launched a marketplace to help people find a book of venue, kind of add like a similar vibe to like other marketplaces out there. So it's familiar to customers, right? And hopefully in reinventing the wheel, that's step one. So you can get discovered or you can just link to the contact form from your website.

So for your existing customers, we also have like a QR code generator, which I know is a very polarizing topic, but if you want to have a QR codes, you can have that link to our contact form. We also integrate with other major reservation players. So all of those different channels, right? Whether it's marketplace, your website, QR codes come into PerfectVenue.

And then within PerfectVenue, we make it very easy to message the guests, have all of your emails go back and forth, have templates. We also have like AI replies so that it will help draft emails for you. You still edit them and approve them, but it helps save time there.

We can then send proposals and then get paid. So you can do that whole RFP process from the communication, the quoting, to the payments all in one place. You can charge their card on file afterwards.

And that's really the core workflow. There's a million bells and whistles in addition to that. And, you know, we obviously have like a calendar and task management and team messages and BEO and automated document generation.

So Kitchen knows exactly what they need to make. And so there's a lot of other things that'll help the business. Also automated reminder emails are really big.

So going out like a week before the event, that's like, Hey, you haven't confirmed your guest count or has your guest count changed? So just trying to take those tedious tasks off the bench. So that's really what it does at a high level. And then the net result is restaurants report saving about eight hours of admin time per week, and then seeing a 20 to 40% increase in sales on average, once they make the switch to PerfectVenue.

And that's without the marketplace. So marketplace, we're still collecting data on that. I think a lot of business centers, they think they just need more leads to increase their sales.

But often it's really the conversion rate is an area where you can increase sales without spending any more on marketing. And then once you get that dialed in, then yeah, spend a lot on marketing and get the word out there. But if you're spending a lot of marketing and you don't have a good way to track that marketing spend, yeah, you're going to be in a bad place.

So. Yeah, no, a hundred percent. I think it's a great tool.

And I think everybody that's serious about doing private events at their restaurants should have a tool like yours, honestly. And this is not doing a pitch here, but it really is a great tool. But anyways, so look, I know that through the situation, I guess the current scenario in the restaurant industry right now, as you know, labor costs, high food costs, all that stuff, private events has become something even of more appeal to restaurant owners.

(16:27 - 18:03)

Yeah. You know, what are you guys seeing on your end through like this whole thing that's happening in terms of private events? Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, I think a big trend, I think this is if you were to look at restaurant headcounts, but I think it was happening at companies more generally too, is just companies being leaner.

Right. And whereas before Hostile Group may have had a full-time event sales manager at every single location. Now they maybe have one that manages two to three locations or things like that.

So yeah, I think we're just seeing businesses, they're trying to do more with less. And I know it's very cliche, but we see it all the time in the restaurant world of restaurants that we talk to where things are previous full-time roles are now part-time roles or they're consolidating functions more across locations. And so yeah, I think at the end of the day, it's really like, what do we need to do to help these small businesses and these restaurants that are really like the backbone of our economy and not just the economy, but they make cities fun to live in and they give character and it's where we go on dates and hang out with friends and celebrate life's moments.

Like they're such an important part of our lives. We just wake up every day, try to think how can we keep those businesses in business and not have them just survive, but thrive and be profitable so that there's not this, the restaurant industry is notorious for 99.9% of restaurants close in the first two months or whatever the crazy status and just trying to give restaurants the tools so that yeah, the chef that wants to open their first restaurant and feed the neighborhood can do that. They can focus on that and they don't need to learn all these other things that are completely unrelated from running a restaurant, but now have been pulled into it over the years.

(18:03 - 18:12)

A hundred percent. And again, it's just the, it's a controlled cost, right? For private events. It is a lot more profitable than doing just regular table service and it's a big ticket.

(18:12 - 21:03)

So that's why we see it's so attractive. So just when it comes to lead generation, right? Because we're having this issue of conversion rate, but a lot of restaurants also struggle with generating more private event leads. And like you said at the beginning, there's just a lot more competition and it's a whole sales process.

Any tips from your end, cause you deal with this all day of for restaurant owners on how to generate more leads for private events? Yeah. So, um, on the lead gen front, I think one of the best places to start is with your existing customers, right? So obviously if you're just starting restaurant, then this may not be applicable, but most of our new customers are existing restaurants and we'll go in and there's nothing on the menu about private events. There's nothing, you don't even know they do private events.

The only reason I know they do private events is because I've like called them and asked in a meeting with the event sales manager and then I'm getting taken up some stairway to some back room that is like awesome back room, but like no one knows about it. So that's a great place to start is like on your menus, just putting, Hey, plan your next event here and then have a link to your QR code that links to your contact form. Having a stack of business cards at the hostess stand or behind the bar that says, Hey, private events information go here.

And it has, you know, maybe some basic information, maybe the point of contacts, name, QR code that goes to the contact form. So you're just having different touch points within the business, right? Cause I think too, the other thing with your existing customers is they're just going to be more loyal and they're typically when they do reach out to three to four places, if you get back to them quickly with a good proposal, you have a home field advantage, right? So that's a big one. Table tents, things in the bathrooms, just signage.

And it doesn't need to be, obviously have to be on brand with your concept. Like it doesn't need to be flashy or gaudy, but just having some basic awareness to go a long ways, putting, you know, put a little thing in the check, you know, carriers well. So those would be some physical things.

And then on the digital front, you have like, if you're using a CRM, like perfect venue to manage your private events, having those contacts go into your email newsletter system, whether that's MailChimp or whenever you're using constant contact and then running specials, letting people know and being strategic about it. For example, with holiday parties, often people start actually thinking about those and because they know to get to those good places, they need to be nine months in advance. So just sending an email to everyone that booked an event in March, sending an email to everyone that booked an event with you in November, December, it says, Hey, book your holiday party with us again.

Maybe we'll give you a free bottle of champagne to the event sales manager or whatever. There'll be some special and having like all that data organized so that you can effectively send out an email campaign. So those are a couple of things that I like both on the physical and the digital side.

(21:03 - 24:25)

There's a million different things that you can do going to different networking groups. There's every city almost has like some sort of venue networking groups. So if they get a lead, they can't fill, they'll send it to you.

And just knowing other restaurants in your area. Obviously there's going to be some competition, but in general with private events, like they tend to be like, people are looking for these eight different variables. And so it often ends up being that, Oh, the room sizes are different.

You know, like even though if you're across the street and one place is a much bigger room, you have a smaller room, like probably not going to be too much overlap there. So yeah, those are a few different things that I think can be a great way without any, obviously working with you guys or a marketing agency, you can do tons of stuff with social media and look like audiences and all that. But those are things that are basically free that you can do, get started.

I think are pretty effective. A hundred percent. Look, I mean, you got to start at the basics, right? But like the stuff we already have in your four walls experience, and that's great advice for sure.

That's where we always advise people to start as well, do the free stuff and then it will do the paid ads and whatever it is, or the other stuff that we can do. And back to our discussion earlier, like have a private event. If you do private events, have a private events tab on your website, have a forum.

You know, there's definitely places where we'll go and they do private events and they do a lot of private events, but there's not even, you know, anything on their website about it. And it's like, well, Hey, I'm glad that it's working for you. But if you have this on your website, you'd probably immediately see like 20% plus increase in sales and it costs you five minutes, you know, to go landing page and Squarespace.

So. A hundred percent. Look, we just implemented a new site for one of our clients and it was just that.

It was adding a nice private event space, showcasing their spaces, showing you their menus, all that stuff. They're like, Oh, we're getting a lot more leads. Like something very simple that you can build.

But that's where we start with a no hanging fruit. So look, let's switch gears here and let's talk a little bit about leadership, right? Again, from your background in the military and then building a software company to the level that it is now, it can't be easy. So can you share with us a little bit of your leadership style, what you have learned from a military and you have, what do you have brought in into business? Yeah, no, absolutely.

I think the biggest thing with going from the military to startup, there's a lot of things that translate and a lot of things that don't translate. And the hardest job is often figuring that out and yeah, running a startup, especially between I raised my first round of funding right before COVID, which is not an ideal time to be starting a restaurant tech business. We're focused on private events.

Maybe if I was doing QR codes, it would have been different. And then the Silicon Valley bank stuff, COVID, zero interest and all this stuff. So lots of ups and downs.

I made a ton of mistakes along the way, learned a lot along the way. But I think some of the biggest things that are similarities would be like having that mission first mentality, right? Every day we wake up at perfect venue, think about how to make event planning effortless for venues and people looking to find and book a venue. And I think that's something that comes from the military is like everything you do in the military, there's a mission statement, there's a task, there's a purpose.

I think that's a great thing. I think like a team building standpoint of just getting, recognizing the value of getting people together and hanging out and building that culture is really important. Having a shared set of values is really important.

And so doing things like that, I would say on like the areas where I've really had to learn and grow is like a hiring is definitely a must. And the military is like, Hey, here's your platoon and go and figure it out. And you work with what you've got.

(24:25 - 24:55)

Whereas in the private sector, it's much different in that you get to build your team and there's a wide range of experiences that can be remote and can be hybrid. You can be fully in office, you can be in San Francisco, you can be, there's so many different options. And so I think that presents a lot of challenges and then learning how to hire people from very different backgrounds in the military is we've largely all gone through, if you're an infantry platoon, everyone in that platoon has gone through a base level of infantry training.

(24:55 - 29:51)

You're all kind of doing something similar, but at like different levels of leadership. Whereas in a startup, you have an engineering team, a marketing team, a sales team, support team, and all very different backgrounds, very different personalities, which often can present a challenge when there's something doesn't go right, or as we hoped, it is definitely different. So yeah, it's been a lot of fun though.

And yeah, I think a great honor to be able to lead soldiers, bring them home, achieve our mission, and then also start a company and employ a decent amount of folks and provide great jobs where they're able to do their best work and also help small businesses every day. No, a hundred percent, Luke, that's great. So you just talked about culture.

And I think that something that as a leader, we're responsible for, right? How do you, so how do you guys go about implementing a culture that trickles down from the top to the bottom? Cause like when you're in a meeting room with the executive team or whatever, and these conversations are great when we're talking about culture and leadership, all these things, but then having it trickle down to a lower level, sometimes it's really tough for sure in your business and in restaurants, sometimes it's even more difficult as you scale because you stop being inside the restaurants all the time. You start being outside the restaurants, you know what I mean? So are there any, any strategies, anything that you've learned on the, how to make this real at a company level? Yeah, no, absolutely. We'll still have a lot to learn for sure.

Definitely, definitely a lot of bumps in the road, but I think some of the things that we've really been focusing on lately is like number one, hiring. If you have the right people with the right personalities, the right backgrounds and they're strong alignment, it makes everything a lot easier. If you aren't able to hire the right people, then it makes everything so much harder, even if you do have really clear values and things in place.

So that I think is really a big one. And in terms of hiring, we really look to get as many candidates as possible. So you have a wide talent pool.

We've invested heavily in like recruiting and we have a head of talent starting soon as well that will help bring that in full-time. And I think as well on that front, a really difficult lesson that I've learned multiple times now is that it's much better to have no person in the role than the wrong person in the role. And like as a business owner or founder, just doing that task longer, which is often painful.

You're doing that extra five to 10 hours a week of whatever tasks that someone else should be doing. But I just found like over and over and really being picky, even when it's painful, I think is super important. And then in terms of like the culture itself and the things that we do, we have like a kind of clearly defined set of like company values.

So for example, like we play to win is one of our company values. Customer obsession is another company value. Thinking like a scientist is another company value.

So certain things that we help orient folks around and to provide like a common direction. And then trying to be pretty, I refer to it as the four Cs, but folks that are competent. So they're world-class what they do.

If we were to make a list of the top 100 people in the world to do that role, would their name be on that list? And obviously it's somewhat hyperbolic, but I think by doing that exercise, it's really good. Commitment is the second C. So are they committed to our mission? Are they committed to our vision? Are they obsessed with helping small businesses and restaurants? Do they have what it takes to work at an early stage startup, which is kind of like the business Olympics, which is not for most people. It's a ton of work.

A lot of late nights, early mornings, time on weekends, communication, that's the third C. So how well do they communicate with the team? How well do they express themselves? How well do they solve conflict? And the driving conflict, and then the fourth is culture. So how well do they fit your overall company values and the alignment there? And so that's kind of the screening mechanism that we use for hiring, promotions, really anything personnel related. And I try to always be a team towards those four Cs because when we see that progression, then we're good.

And I would, one thing to call out with this, I think the most obvious challenge with this model is the person that's really competent, but not committed or the right culture fit. And those are always the hardest ones. I think in any organization, right.

The high performer that isn't necessarily on the same page, but I find it to be a helpful reference and good framework for discussions. And, you know, sometimes you have to have those conversations where it's like, Hey, you're really good at doing X tasks, but like you're a part of a team, right? Just like Ford's team or whatever, if you can't get function, people that work well together and don't have the same values and things like that. And that isn't to say that I think debate and discussion are highly valued, but having like debate and discussion where we have a shared ground floor, as far as what our values are, and then debating within those very vigorously is instructive.

(29:51 - 29:59)

A hundred percent. Look, that's great stuff, man. Because I think that like you said, first you need clarity in any size business.

(30:08 - 30:29)

And if a restaurant for your business is like what you're about and define your values, and sometimes that seems so vague, right? And it happened to us as well in different stages of business. But going back to that and sticking to that, I think is key, even if it seems a little kind of abstract in the business, what it really isn't. So thank you for those examples and in clarifying that, Luke.

(30:29 - 30:52)

So Luke, what's next for Perfect Venue and what are you guys working on? That's exciting. Great question. I mean, I think any company where you are investing heavily in AI and in particular with event sales and sales in general, it's a lot of like sending very similar messages over and over where they're just slightly different and there's important information that needs to change like availability and pricing and things like that.

(30:53 - 31:08)

And so that's an area we launched a feature over a year ago, actually, or basically it just suggests a reply and then the venue can copy it. It doesn't send or anything like that, but the venue can then copy and paste that text. The harder part about writing is getting started.

(31:08 - 31:25)

So just having a good baseline, right? We internally using AI for things like this, where we can just help, yeah, after a demo, right? Like let's quickly draft up an email. It's a lot easier to edit than to start from scratch. So that's like a big area for us and we've had it out for over a year, but the technology is getting exponentially better.

(31:25 - 31:33)

And so we're putting more and more time into it to be able to help restaurants there. Marketplace is a big focus. And then just in general, you know, always improving the CRM.

(31:33 - 32:10)

Like I never get tired of just listening to customer feedback and thinking about how can we make this little email sending widget better. And I love to be in the details of the business, very hands-on, like we were talking about with just over at a demo with the prospects earlier today in product meetings, multiple times a week, just constantly in support meetings. I like to really be in the weeds and constantly kind of looking for like, Hey, what insight, what are our customers teaching us about this problem? And how can we make it a little bit better? So all that to say is that there's a certain percentage of our roadmap where there's no grand plan.

(32:10 - 32:32)

There is no vision. There's no strategy other than simply listening to our customers and make little things better every day, which maybe isn't like the best MBA business school answer out there, but that's how we operate and it's worked really well for us and do that. Look, I mean, sometimes the simple things are the most important, right? That you're listening to customer feedback and that applies again for you.

(32:32 - 32:47)

And I think that really applies to restaurant owners, right? Because sometimes we can forget about that and we get into our heads like, ah, do this, do that, and we forget to listen. Like even reviews that are coming in, do we read them? Right. Do you look at them? Do you see what they're telling you? So instead of taking it personally, it's like, ah, screw this.

(32:48 - 32:53)

I was like, because it happens quite a bit. Restaurants will take things personal. Cause I've been there as well.

(32:53 - 32:58)

Well, yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I think with every, every business has challenging customers, right.

(32:59 - 33:04)

And it's sometimes easy to dismiss them, but yeah, always trying to find one. There's always truth in everything. Right.

(33:04 - 33:31)

And trying to find that tidbit, that nugget where it's like, Hey, maybe we did do a really good job here. And maybe this customer is like a little crazy, but there's probably something to what they're saying. And like, we're not blaming anyone here, but we're saying let's understand how we contributed to this problem a little bit and then let's see if we can make a little change and make it a little bit better than that guy, but it's challenging business, but it's a ton of fun, whether it's creating a restaurant or creating a software company or an agency.

(33:31 - 33:45)

Um, it's a lot of fun to live in the area that we are, where you can create new businesses and have all these amazing resources, sometimes overwhelms. Oh yeah. To say the least overwhelming, but it's great, man.

(33:45 - 33:57)

All right, Luke. So final question. If you could look back 10 to 20 years from now, what impact do you hope that perfect venue will have on the hospitality industry? Ooh, that's a great question.

(33:57 - 34:23)

I would say, I think probably the biggest thing is in the same way that OpenTable and Talk and Resy really improved table reservations. And in the way that, you know, I know, uh, certain delivery companies are controversial in some of their practices, but there's no denying that they really changed the user experience. I mean, I used to order delivery maybe once a month before DoorDash and Uber Eats.

(34:24 - 34:44)

Now I order it once a day and I think many people are like that. And I think with private events, it's sort of this technology black hole. And I think where table reservations or delivery was, you know, 10 to 20 years ago, and I think there's really an opportunity to build a household name company in the space that helps people find and book a venue where it's like.

(34:44 - 35:00)

In the same way when our office is like, Hey, we want to order lunch, you know, we all go to DoorDash or Uber Eats or whatever, Hey, I need to book a private event, just go to perfect venue. And I think would be one thing. And then I think with that as well, you know, just making restaurants more profitable, more resilient.

(35:01 - 35:27)

Right? Like I think I'm kind of like a efficiency nerd and you know, I think sometimes it drives the team a little crazy because I'm kind of constantly like, okay, well, how can we do this a little bit better, but really helping restaurants like run their business better. Right. And be more efficient, I think is a great impact and, and have those restaurants be around longer and, and be able to take my kids someday to the restaurants that I went to, as opposed to like just a bunch of chains because the local restaurants weren't able to keep up.

(35:28 - 35:51)

So yeah, I would say those would be a couple of things. Maybe another thing would be the team as well. Like I really love working with other people and watching them grow and working with them and growing myself and having them go on to start a great companies of their own and tribute as well to, I don't want to say make them a better place because that's too cheesy, but building other great products that we all need that we don't have yet.

(35:52 - 36:03)

Yeah. Yeah. Luke, well, I think that you're already creating part of that impact, Luke, with what you're doing, with how you're doing it, especially your attitude.

(36:03 - 36:18)

We can tell that you're absolutely passionate about what you do and it will take you a long way and make this impact that we're talking about here. So again, Luke, thank you so much for being on the show. It was very insightful and great for people, of course, that want to learn more about PerfectVenue.

(36:19 - 36:29)

Just go into your website, right? PerfectVenue.com. Yeah. Go to our website, PerfectVenue.com. You can start a free trial, no credit card required. And we have plans at start.

(36:29 - 36:52)

We have a, actually a plan where there's no subscription, just a slightly higher processing fee. And then we have paid plans that start at under a hundred dollars a month, and then all the way up to plans that are two to $300 a month that are used by, you know, large hospitality groups all over the country. So yeah, you can start a free trial on our website or feel free to reach out to me directly at Luke at PerfectVenue.com. Awesome.

(36:52 - 36:56)

Well, thank you, Luke. I appreciate your time and I appreciate you being here. Awesome.

(36:57 - 36:59)

Thanks the best. All right. All right, Luke, take care.

(36:59 - 36:59)

Bye-bye.