John Mady - The Vision Behind Qlub: Scaling a Restaurant Tech Startup Across Markets

What does it take to become the #1 payment method in every restaurant? Qlub's Co-founder reveals the unconventional strategy that made them one of the fastest-growing fintech startups in the region.

From spending a year working out of Dubai Mall restaurants to keeping the entire team on the ground with clients, this is what customer proximity actually looks like in action.

Transcript

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Hey John, how are you? I'm good, thank you. Really excited to have you. Um, I want to tell you a little bit about uh the podcast and also tell our audience. So this podcast called Emerge, mainly covering uh emerging market founders, especially giving the spotlight for unique cases and unique businesses. And um the theme of this season is called Graduated, and it's really focusing on uh and I'm sorry I told you this before already, but for our audience, it's really focusing on um stages or transition between stages when you feel like you graduated, when you feel like you got ready for um a next stage, and I think there is a lot of exciting stuff to talk about your personal journey, to talk about the business journey, and very excited to talk about club and congrats on the recent fundraising as well. Thank you, which is very, very exciting. But let's start at least like walk me through the very early career life all the way to um the current uh state, what happened, what what what are the main milestones in in that journey? Career, you mean uh pre-club? Pre-club. Okay, what I've done before club, all the way till uh till club. What what led to club basically? So I'm originally an engineer actually. So I I uh studied mechanical engineering and then I worked in oil and gas, so nothing to do with what I'm doing at the moment. Nice. So I worked uh company called Shell, it was based in Scotland. So I worked on oil rigs in the North Sea for two years. Okay. Uh where I was taking a helicopter to work, uh working on drilling wells, spending two to three weeks on uh in the sea in some very rough weather conditions. Yeah, um, so I spent five years at Shell. A couple of them were uh on the rigs, two were doing different roles in project management and operations. Um, and then I wanted uh a change, so like everyone does, took a break, went in an MBA um in uh in Spain, and then I went into management consulting. Uh this is what brought me to um uh Dubai. So I moved to Dubai about 11 years ago. I I came to work in um in McKinsey for five years, where I worked on many projects with many clients across the region um for five years. And then again, I thought uh time to change from consulting, want to get more operational experience, want to get into more the tech um the tech space as well. Having started in a very non-tech industry like the oil and gas, uh and then um I joined Deliveru. Uh so that was my first entry into like uh the food tech space. Yeah. I joined Deliveru uh uh right after and spent three years with them in initially an operational role covering the region and then into commercial role, heading the commer commercial team for the UEE, um, which was great fun. Uh it was pre-post-COVID. COVID and food delivery was uh a lot of challenges. Uh went through through the the IPO of Deliveroo at the time. Wow. Um, so very great kind of growth uh spell of the company and the team at the time. So it was um uh really enjoyable time. Um and then I met the uh other co-founders uh who were launching club as well uh at the time uh and the idea sounded very exciting uh to to jump the ship. So uh we got together and we launched club at the end of uh 2021. So it's uh four years ago now. Nice. Um and yeah, the rest is uh is history. Amazing, amazing. So it's from from drilling to consulting to operations to restaurant tech, basically. Correct. You graduated a lot, yeah. So I knew very little about payments, which was I know the core thing now and uh a big part of the business, uh until until I got into until we started club. Like uh my payment knowledge was very little. I knew very well about the the how to find oil gas. But uh but uh now it's uh probably the other way around. So uh yeah. Now that you know a lot of uh payments, what's how much similarities to oil digging payments is? I mean the the yeah, I mean oil and gas is an exciting industry, but it's a very ancient industry that hasn't evolved too much in 70, 80, even 100 years, although it's a very high spent, high uh income industry. But and but things are much, much slower. It's like my first project, you know, just on paper, took three years just to you know get approval on paper. This is before execution. Yeah, yeah. Uh very different to how fast things move in uh startup world where you just make a decision and you move within a day to change project products or or do some changes. So the pace is completely different. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So tell us more about how how club happened, like what um what led to that decision of starting a business? When did you felt you're ready for it? What did you feel like you're you're you're graduated and ready for this particular step? Uh, and also I'm usually in favor of the founder representing his own company. So, like I know a lot about club, but I would prefer if you tell our audience whose club, what club is doing, and sure, and how it uh it's impacting the market now. Yeah, so club is uh um call it fintech, food tech uh um solution provider for the hospitality and food and beverage space. Uh, the whole focus is how do you make payments and ordering food an easy experience for customers. The whole idea started with how do you avoid the customer waiting for the check, uh, which can be you know you've had a nice meal, everything was good, but you just end up you know waiting five, ten minutes finding the waiter to pay the check or to spend ages splitting it between people and finding how much is left at the end and so on. So no one had tackled really kind of solving that pain point, especially in the region. Um so basically we we started really solving for that with a very simple setup where um you go to the restaurant, you order your food, and you want to pay. There's a simple QR on your table, you scan it, you see the bill, you can split it, you can leave a tip, you can divide it the way you want to. Um and you pay and you stand up and you go, and you're done in two seconds versus versus having to wait. That was our very first and the most easy kind of uh the simplest product. And it was very kind of it was very seamless. Um, that was the whole core part of it. Um there was a similar uh company that was starting something similar um in the US and uh and Europe at the time, and we kind of saw the opportunity to do this in very new markets, especially the Middle East, um, with this very strong adoption of mobile payments um across. So um, and a few factors really made the magic, let's say, happen. One, post-COVID contactless was important. Um, everyone shifted to having uh it was okay to have QR menus. Uh, and many restaurants that before never thought about it. Um, fun fact QRs were actually invented in the 90s in Japan for the automotive industry. Nothing to do with how we're using today for all different use cases. So uh what what what it's doing for the automated like it's a barcode replacement, it's a barcode technology. Nice. Uh that's actually the first question I asked my team member when they joined. Do you know what QR do you know what QR stands for? Do you know what QR stands for? No, I don't. Quick response. Quick response, nice. So quick QR is quick response. Um, so the uh yeah, I mean post-COVID having digital menu and cont you know going contactless was became you know a lot more um uh trendy and accepted. So all restaurants adopted uh were okay to adopt uh QRs. Apple Pay and wallet payment also were another big factor, which is really the one one-click payment. And these kind of combined were I would say key pillars to make the business a success. Because uh you literally you have you know it's okay to have a QR and all the restaurants you work with, and you see the bill, you click one pay with with um Apple Pay or Google Pay, and you're done in a second, and um uh and that's it. Um so yeah, we started out of UE first. We launched uh we scaled very fast to multiple markets. So I think in year one already we were in six markets between Saudi, Australia, um Singapore, uh Brazil. Um so we tried several markets. Um there's other markets we tried that didn't work out, and we deprioritized at the time. Um, and then um in our initial focus was the experience I mentioned, which is just paying the the bill purely at the end. And then over time we started adding uh different products, we started uh serving uh more diverse clients. So initially, let's say we were focused more on casual dining places uh where there's maybe higher traffic, things move fast, uh, and so on. Over time, we started working with much fine dined places and fine dining restaurants like Sushi Samba and Zuma and Riyadh and so on. And we make a very different experience. It's a much more elegant experience where the waiter brings you a very elegant contactless card at the end where you can pay the bill. Um we uh we start working hotels, um, then we introduce ordering. So we what you know most experienced people know of us is just purely paying. Now we introduce you can actually order and pay via club. So whether you're a quick service restaurant, beach club, room service in hotel, um, this was covered. Then we got into payment terminals, so we have softpost products. It was very big for us in in Asia when we started there as well, and we're bringing it to the market here, uh, where we bring the integration and the club experience also on the payment terminals. Um, and then recently we're getting into also rewards. So we're uh we now have a program called Club Plus where customers get offers. Uh it's all integrated within the whole club journey. Um, because we are very we're used by diners, like millions of diners every every month. So um yeah, that's maybe this uh the lengthy evolution of uh of club from uh over the last four years. Nice, nice. And like how did you take the decision of being a founder or starting the company like on a on a personal level? Like, why did you do this to yourself? Uh if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean, so it was relevant a bit to being in the food tech space. I know I was on the delivery side, so there's a bit of revel relevance. The the idea made sense, the team was uh got together was um very, very solid team uh the that came together to uh yeah to um to launch. Um I've always had the idea to to uh try to launch something. So uh when the idea came, the team came together. Um in a market like you know, especially UE, um where the food scene, the food tech scene is is is huge. It made uh sense to try it out and uh and it worked well. Worked very well. Yeah, nice, nice. And you feel like the so this the main catalyst of being ready was Deliveroo, basically, like this this start of building this relevance, building this understanding of the thing. I think not necessarily. I mean, again, I did the we are yes, there's a food component, but there's a payment component, there's a consumer end product component, there's a product side. So it's not just uh that obviously being delivered, spending a few years uh in that space was a great equipping. Um a big part of it to be honest. I know the cheesy side is yeah, the tea the team, the team that came together to do it because there's a lot of came together to do it because there's a lot of work on so roll out uh you know the hands to get things uh things going. And there was a lot of learnings, uh new learnings on on the go on the different fronts. Um but yeah, I would say the the part of that, the team, the uh the the idea itself uh that we saw for and the execution I think was was well uh well undertaken. Very cool, very cool. I think what I really appreciate about that is like its kind of ingredients or components coming together, kind of related to food as well. That's so it's that's very poetic. But um one of the fascinating things about club is like how fast um multi-country expansion happened in a short period of time, which in the startup world that's very uncommon, right? And uh giving the theme of graduated, I want to kind of talk to you about like when as a team you felt you guys are ready to do kind of like the the multi-country expansion idea and like start taking things to scale, which is usually a a phase you need to to take a lot of thought in it, of course, and it's like much complicated. Plus, it's usually like a taboo thing, like don't do it before you like figure this out or figure that out. So, like how how this decision happened, and like when did you guys feel ready for it? Yeah, so we were fortunate to uh started with a very uh um solid funding from the very beginning. So we had raised 17 million at the very beginning, so that helped us kind of let's say go bigger or go aggressive from the from the get-go. Um and uh two, we had you know, as I mentioned, solid founding team and leadership team to actually in each market have someone lead it and and uh and try things out. Um three, I think the region, especially in the Middle East, things helped well because we, for example, between here, between Saudi, and then later on we launched Qatar and so on. There's a lot of clients and brands we work with that serve different countries, so we were able to kind of expand in these countries, leveraging the same client base that we had. That uh that also helped uh quite uh quite a bit. It is indeed unusual to to maybe um go that aggressive, but it was also a lot of learnings. And as I mentioned, you know, certain markets we tried uh you know were not as success successful, and we learned why to maybe prioritize more at um um at the time where we were seeing bigger traction, bigger, bigger focus as well. Nice, very cool, very cool. And uh it's very also unusual to raise that much money early. And congrats on the raising fund again. Thank you. Like, how was the funding journey for you as a founder? Like uh the learning curve that was necessary for that uh interactions with a different investor. How do you see the whole journey so far? I mean it was been great, but uh from your perspective. Yeah, I mean the funding team, as I mentioned, also the my my co-founders uh who had also done other startups before they had the network, um uh strong network with investors that track records, so that also helped uh um a lot at the beginning, and many were were supportive of our growth journey. Um then as you mentioned, yeah, recently we this summer we also closed our recent funding round um backed by uh Mubadla, by um IAND, which is a salat, um also MasterCard uh as an uh came as an investor. So I think the growth, the attraction we got gave us a bigger kind of stamp of approval to onboard um uh more and more uh international global uh investors and institutions as well to back us. Yeah, yeah, amazing, amazing. So what's next? What's uh the what's the new stage you guys trying to graduate from? What's happening now, what's coming up? Yeah, so I mean the the vision has been to basically have club in almost every restaurant, you know. So when you think of you want to pay your bill in a restaurant, you want club to be the number one payment method or way to order and pay in in a in a restaurant. Kind of that's how we uh we've been um tackling that. So um in many of the markets we're in, yes, we we grew well, we have strong penetration, but there's still a lot of room to even uh do more. Um Dubai, for example, is second uh highest place in terms of restaurants per capita in the world. So there's still a lot of places we you know we we're going to to work with. Um so there's maybe let's say um horizontal uh growth in terms of adding more clients. So how do we widen our client base? So, as I mentioned, we've been focusing a lot more in newer verticals in F and B and hospitality. So hotels is a big space now. We're trying to expand into the fine dying space is um is another one. Um so these have been uh have been key, and within each, there's still uh you know big room to to grow. Um countries we as I yeah, we've I mentioned the countries we're in, but some of them are still in earlier phases like Qatar, Kuwait, uh Bahrain, which we just also launched this year, Tenshi will do Oman. Thinking of other parts in the Middle East like Jordan, Egypt. Um so um geographically there's still a lot of opportunities. I think we learned a lot in terms of um the right uh formula to go take to a market to try to launch, although every market has been very different, so we've operated sometimes very differently in each market. Um and then thirdly is from a product point of view. So as I mentioned, we uh new things we're adding is um you know uh reward program now. Um we're now providing data analytics to our end customers. So if they want to learn more about trends of their customers or how they're doing in the market versus others, um a third one is uh providing them with marketing tools, uh, because again, we have a lot of access to customers and and and data. How do we help them run certain campaigns? Um, so there's there's a lot of tools that we're now adding to uh um benefit um our merchants, which is restaurants and hotels, so from um tools they can use to attract more customers, learn more about them, and so on. But also we're doing things for the uh end consumer, so uh which is uh in the form of the the rewards program I mentioned. So these on their own are very big verticals to uh where we're putting a lot of effort uh into it now. Nice. Um, so yeah, multiple parallels. I'm sure you can relate into this uh yourself. 100%, 100%. And I didn't hear AI, I'm that's uh surprised. How dare you don't should have asked the typical question where does AI sitting uh but I'm actually curious, are you guys interested or planning something related to it? I think everyone is, depending on how you use the you know the uh the application, how do you how do you you know you apply uh kind of different AI applications? I think there's always been a few ideas. One was as we you know get more customer behavior and preferences. For example, we see you know Nader uh when he goes around, he orders always these kinds of uh uh of food, or maybe this is how his spending pattern and so on. So based on that, when you scan the next menu at at Club uh in a place that uses club, can we, for example, show you the the uh the items from the menu that most suit your preference based on your history? That's um one one thought two is we help customers, we help restaurants collect more um uh reviews from uh from their their guests about the experience and so on. So much rich data there. We've done some tests where we can use you know um some AI tools to distill the best outcomes from uh or in or or conclusions from a lot of these reviews to s to make it actionable. So based on thousands of reviews, you need to uh improve these two dishes, or you need to uh you know get more waiters because you have issues with the staffing and so on. Yeah, so these are very two, let's say, tangible applications that we um um we've we've always thought about. Um but I'm sure there's many, many, many more uh to do that. Nice, nice, very cool. Um one one thing I wanted to dive a little bit deeper on is like throughout the journey, was there something completely surprising? I mean, like as a founder, I know like the entire stage is surprising in in many ways, but was there something that's completely out of out of ordinary for you that like took a lot of uh mindset shift to to get used to? Um not out of ordinary, but I think being very close to end custom, like the our clients at the very beginning and understanding everything in terms of what they care about and how our setup impacts them was very key. So I think I spent the first year, probably half of it in Dubai mall in restaurants, just sitting and working out of restaurants where our clients were. Um and our product evolved a lot more because we heard a lot from the clients, uh, and they told us this is what you need to improve, you need to change, and so on. So the proximity to to clients was extremely important. Uh, and a lot of you know the team were uh primarily let's say not in the office, so out on the ground with clients, um, because our setup is very different from maybe other companies or even food delivery where I come from, is we impact the guest experience uh on the ground. So um that was very, very key. And I think the the time till now I we spend, you know, a lot of try to be very close to our end customers because that's the only way we uh can improve. Um, but there's a lot of time we had to kind of to um understand what they really care about, what finance cares about, what operations care about, what IT cares about, and so on. Yeah, um that was definitely one key thing, and then payments obviously you're a payment expert. We've um we learned a lot uh along the way of how to optimize things and how to make it easier, faster, uh um, and so on. Um we have a lot of tourists that come in some of the markets within like UAE, so how do you make sure everyone can pay in different methods and so on? Yeah, yeah. And I mean one uh one thought I had is maybe related to these stages being very different from each other. Do you kind of miss the early stage a little bit when you had the time and the luxury to be that close to the customer yourself as a founder versus now the amount of distance that you you get from it? Now the team doing it, you have so much to to look at. Do you miss kind of the early stage or or that's not? I think each stage had a uh a flavor, but also a little different level of maybe of uh of intensity, right? At the beginning, things are smaller, and maybe we're we're new, and customers don't know what club is, so they go to restaurants and people say, Hey, pay with the with this QR. And early customers, like, what is this thing? You know, I've I've I've been using with uh paying with the card machine uh all my life. Uh why you asked me to do this new thing. So there was a lot of raising away. Awareness initially that we worked a lot on to make sure you know how it explained, how the setup is, how seamless it it um it is. That was a big kind of flavor in the early days. So it's nice now that people know the product, they're familiar with it, they're aware of it. So from a face point of view. Uh I personally not too distant from clients. I meet clients every single week. Uh till now, many of ones from the early days were still in touch with issues with this new stuff. I tried to meet them, um, get their input on what the new stuff we're building. Uh and to be honest, it's the best way to validate. Like go show the show examples and say, you know, would you use it this way, would you change it, uh, and so on. So yeah, I think each um each phase has a has a flavor. Um I think what's exciting now is to see that you know we have a the scale we're at where um every you know people reach out a lot when they have uh a problem because they use it a lot. So you know uh uh it's good to always meet customers who are like I've paid with it with Club, I it is you know it's it's great, it saved me time, but you should do X, Y, and Z. So it's it's always good to interact with people who um uh recognize the product now, but also give input, give feedback, or or uh or share uh share experience. Yeah, fair, fair, fair, fair. And um let's maybe shift a little bit to the ecosystem piece. And I feel like the unique case of um this team and this particular idea and the timing and everything was like really fantastic. Do you feel like what are the ingredients for other founders to for us to see more like club? Is there something you feel is like missing on the funding file, on the mentorship file, on like whatever it goes into making founders succeed in in this market, basically? Yeah. I think I mean I've been in Dubai for 11 years. I think there's a very good ecosystem that has grown over time here. Um I interact with many other founders and part of a couple of networks related. Um I've seen yeah, a lot of people coming, moving in here. I think that the ecosystem has been more and more supportive. Umtechs that are um that were born out of uh the region, not just in Dubai, but uh and growing. So I feel it's been uh um going in the right direction from ecosystem from support. There's a lot of networks programs to provide the um the um the right support. Um so yeah, I think I feel it's been in the in the right direction for sure. The market is uh helps a lot because we have um a growing customer base of tax savvy population uh that is willing to try new things that is actually um uh yeah, I think the tax savage has been very is very key. I mean on for us on on uh as a digital uh and you know the company in the payment space, the adoption of mobile payment here is has been has been uh phenomenal. It's part of kind of our success of of the region here versus maybe other markets where there's your cash economy or the acceptance of or the demographics of the of the of the country maybe could have been a bit more challenging. Um so yeah, I feel I feel the ecosystem has definitely been uh been supportive. Um and I think the we as I mentioned play in multiple kind of areas between payment providers, between um restaurant space, between various partners we uh integrate with uh in the space and so on. And I think um yeah, it's it's uh you need to find ways to work with all these different players to bring it all together. Um and it's great to hear that everyone most you know of the big institutions and players have have presence as well and local presence that's also been very supportive. Yeah. And I I had a question, but I feel like you already uh or I can guess the answer from it. I was gonna ask what is your most enjoyable piece of the work in all of that, but I'm assuming it's hearing the customer input. So aside from hearing the customer input, what would be what would be your most enjoyable uh task or or part of the journey so far? Yeah, I think definitely one exciting part is meeting people who say, I have uh you're you know you're part of club. We uh I love club, you make my life easier, use it. It's it's uh it's great. Or so some who say, ah, you need to, you know, I had an issue with SDP Zelda, but I think the recognition has been great to see um over time. Um I love going out uh and eating out, and I think it's always good to go out and see, okay, this is you know more and more of our clients using the the setup. Um and even the input not just from end customers but from restaurants itself where who comment and us I'm I stay close, I see comments, inputs that came, the good and the bad, and it's you know always um good to see how also our end customers are appreciative from uh staff to managers to waiters to to uh to these. I think these are all small components. Yeah. I think second is yeah, seeing how the team has grown, evolved, grew to kind of drive, drive, uh, drive where we are today. And I think um, yeah, third is seeing that the you know our our numbers grow, you know about how many users are using us um every day, uh every month here and then all other countries we're we're in. So these I would say are the exciting components. Um and then fourth is when I like uh when I find that you know there's a a new find in town that is a nice restaurant I should try because they're on on club and they're doing very uh you know uh greatly with us. And I'm like, okay, I uh I uh I take my wife and we go try the new stuff in town. Nice, yes, nice. That's very cool that your like your your nightlife or like your restaurant life is connected to the business a little bit. If you want some recommendations on where to go, let me know. Uh nice so for audience and John Message. He can have the best. Potential career shift is to go into influencer as uh food. Yeah, now we can get into the reviews and stuff, big space as well. Yes, very cool. And and about the hiring particularly, I think uh build like in my point of view, like one of the key ingredients is finding the right people for the startup and like building it. How was your your journey in like finding talent and like expanding talent? Um yeah, I think it's never uh an easy formula to be honest. I think the um the key it's not necessarily about just technical or content knowledge, to be honest. There's a lot of stuff that people can learn on the job if they have the right um attitude, the the hustling, the hard working, um putting their heart into it. I think people who've been with us from the beginning who really kind of uh put their heart into it, um put everything to look after clients, make sure we you know we we succeed. Uh, to be honest, have been the uh you know, and they've been with us from you know from the early days has been the biggest impact um and the biggest core. And these were not necessarily not all, I mean, some obviously came with some content knowledge, some that were not, but um it's the attitude of going the extra mile, being very proactive in saying when when things you know don't look right, uh when clients are not happy, uh going at whatever time of the day, uh day of the week to uh to look after them. I think it's uh yeah, it's it's that attitude I would say that was um sometimes it's not that easy to find when you're in an interview, uh, but these are definitely kind of some of the things that to that um we're looking for. Um but yeah, that's it's uh hiring is in a in a startup is always the you know number one of the number one priorities, how do you find the right uh DNA as well, obviously, because you shape the the team and so on. So um, and it's it's never, as I mentioned, like an easy uh black and white formula of like okay, here is the criteria to find the right person, go for it. There's always people who even surprise you uh in both ways. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Totally. And I mean, let's uh get a little bit into like the controversial side or like the hot takes kind of thing. There's something frustrates you, whether it's about how business works or like ecosystems that you feel like you have a strong opinion about, and I'm sure there is many, but whatever you're comfortable to share, of course. Depending who's gonna hear this, exactly. Um no, I think one key thing I've seen over time, and it's actually related to the payment space, yeah, uh, is unfortunately, so I've gotten to learn a lot about the payment space over the the the few years with club, but it also made me realize there's so many people out there who have very little knowledge of how the world of payments work, uh how the different players uh interact, work, um charge um fees, and so on. So there's a lot of uh everyone knows, you know, yes, there's a card machine, everyone knows like there's an Apple Pay where you, you know, you just uh do your face ID and you're done. But um there's so much other, I would say, core elements of the payment uh space that um people who interact and use uh and come across payment every day, even just day-to-day customers, um, are not familiar with. And I felt I feel there's a very big kind of educational role that is needed by the different players in the ecosystem. Just educate the merchants, educate the end customers. Merchants I would say is most important about how the different um blocks come together, function. Um so there's yeah, I think that this is one thing I definitely kind of clearly saw over time. It's not uh necessarily a frustration and so on, but it's definitely an opportunity where I see that. Um and I feel if you know um there was a lot more of this awareness, different discussions will go differently in terms of when you're explaining how things work to clients or how when things are explained to, for example, ourselves as a client to payment partners we work with and so on. So that awareness from uh across I feel is um is needed. It's probably not just uh in the region here, it's probably in in many other markets as well. Um but it's definitely one one key area top of mind that uh that comes when when you mention that. How how do you think we can build this uh this awareness? Um transparency, um uh but also I think um yeah, I think I don't know, I mean educating more the key, I mean if a product is being sold whoever is or is being used from uh whoever is you know um using it, understanding the basic uh functionalities of how things uh of how things work, how things come together. Um again, I mean there's a lot of um tools to educate. Um but uh a lot of the players, I don't know, I think it's maybe very B2B focused, but without necessarily thinking of okay, how do I educate the end customer of a lot of these things? So um there must be a way to do to do it to uh to learn more about uh the ins and outs of this, and not necessarily the technicalities about it, but just uh the basic simple ideas of of how of how things work. Awesome, awesome. I mean, I have one last question for you, and it's very restaurant driven. Sure. Your favorite cuisine? Um it's a tough question, actually. Yeah, I mean I I I try a lot of stuff, and uh depends uh uh on the occasion, the the mood, uh, and so on. Cuisine would be tough. Um especially living in Dubai. I mean, there's almost every single cuisine that is here. True. Um I lived in Spain for a year, I love the Spanish cuisine. Uh I'm from Egypt. Yes, I love Egyptian cuisine, but it's not something for every day, given how heavy the meal is. Uh how heavy it is, yeah. I'll probably eat a lot more Lebanese than than Egyptian because it's a lot lighter, healthier, um and so on. Uh I have my days where you know I would have uh Indian, I'd have my days where I have a burger or have my pizza. Okay, I can go on, but uh I'm always up to try new stuff, uh but I don't cook much. So um yes. Well, fair, fair. You're gonna consume more. Exactly. That makes a lot of sense. Well, that that was great. I really appreciate the time you spent with us, and um, hopefully that adds a lot of value to other founders. And is there anything um you would like to cover, or we're uh we're good? Um no, I think a good I really appreciate you having me uh uh here. Really enjoyed the discussion. I think you covered some ideas that got me thinking from uh nice you know the earlier days of my drilling days, even. Uh but no, thank you, Nedir. Enjoy the discussion. Awesome, awesome. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Thank you. Take care.