Meet Brian Hickey, co-founder and CEO of VROMO
Brian Hickey is Chief Executive Officer and Co-founder at VROMO. He was a board member when VROMO rebranded from WeBringg in 2019. With extensive global experience in the food and beverage markets, Brian became CEO of VROMO in November 2021 and has been overseeing the company's growth in the North American market ever since.
Tell us a little about yourself, Brian.
Originally, I worked in the consumer packaged goods (CPG) space with some great companies such as P&G, Danone, and Innocent. I wanted to learn more about technology, so I went to work with JustEatTakeaway.com, initially launching their business in Ireland and then running several of their international markets as we grew from an early-stage business to a big public company. This is where my interest in restaurant technology, food delivery, and early-stage business came from.
Recognising the growth potential in food delivery, I invested in VROMO back when it was a last-mile delivery company. Soon after, we pivoted to a SaaS model because we saw that restaurant brands were struggling to make delivery profitable and we had a phenomenal solution to address that. In 2021 we completed our Series A raise and shortly after, I came on board in a full-time capacity.
What is your day-to-day role with the company?
I am the CEO, which means no 2 days are the same. If I were to try to summarise, I would say that it’s my role to make sure we have the right strategy in place, the right resources to make it happen and that the team has all the support they need to execute well and take care of our customers.
How do you prepare for all the unknown obstacles when running your business?
We invest a lot of time in building relationships with partners and contacts within the industry, which means we usually stay marginally ahead of the curve in terms of industry developments. Aside from that, we conduct regular risk analysis and mitigation planning in the hope that we rarely become overexposed to any one threat or change. Lastly, we try to build some flexibility into our plan so that if goalposts do move, we can adapt quickly.
What are your thoughts on failure?
It’s an inevitable part of success. We work in an early-stage environment and a highly competitive sector so we need to move quickly, take some risks and make decisions that are not always the right ones. What’s important is that the risks we take are calculated risks and when we get it wrong, we own it and learn from it. Once that’s embedded in the company culture, the team feels empowered to be more ambitious.
What’s the most common problem your customers approach you with?
The most common problem is that restaurant brands cannot find a way to make their delivery business profitable and as that channel is seeing double-digit growth, the impact on the restaurant's bottom line becomes more pronounced. Usually, they are already operating a delivery solution but are simply passing all deliveries to the marketplace delivery platforms which are charging severe fees. Alternatively, restaurant brands use in-house drivers but then they can’t find enough drivers and often run into major service level and fulfillment issues. VROMO solves these problems by providing a software solution that integrates with their POS, automates their dispatch process, and allows them to use a range of our third-party delivery fleet partners who charge significantly reduced delivery fees through VROMO. The impact is that we can help to reduce a restaurant brand's delivery cost base by up to 24 percent while increasing order fulfillment by 15 percent.
What plans do you have for VROMO over the next two years?
We will focus exclusively on the restaurant sector, and primarily the US and UK markets where the growth opportunity is immense and arguably boosted by recessionary conditions as consumers switch more from restaurant dine-in to take-out occasions. We will continue to leverage our valued partners including Square, Toast, Stuart, Flipdish, DoorDash, Relay, Olo, and many more to make our delivery software available to as many brands as possible. From a product perspective, we have recently launched a fleet-sharing tool that allows restaurant brands with multiple locations to share drivers across different locations which is hugely efficient. In 2023, we will also launch Fleet Management as a Service which means restaurant brands can access multiple third-party fleets, but VROMO will take care of all monitoring, invoicing, and payments.
What’s the most important question entrepreneurs should be asking themselves?
How will my industry evolve in the next 5 years and are we a catalyst for that change in a way that adds real customer value? Strategy evolves in any business and starts with this question but it’s important that entrepreneurial teams ask it regularly.
How do you believe the evolution of tech will impact your industry over the next 10 years?
Tech has and will continue to have an enormous impact on the restaurant industry. There are so many innovative solutions emerging such as robotics for food prep, drone delivery, QR payments, VR, marketing automation to track campaigns, KDS, automated dispatch, and voice-assisted tech. I believe there will be considerable consolidation between the restaurant and retail sectors as key players compete to own last-mile delivery and use consolidated data to understand consumer behavior better so those purchase decisions can be influenced even more.
The general impact will be a considerably reduced dependence on labor as well as a far greater ability to satisfy consumers' appetite for convenience. In addition, we could potentially see a detrimental effect on the small independent restaurant operators who may struggle to compete in an environment dominated by the scale of marketplace platforms and enterprise restaurant brands.
Why do you think now is the right time for the world to begin exploring and adopting technology that aids sustainability?
Our industry, like many, is experiencing an enormous amount of change, particularly with regard to labor shortages, increasing cost base (people, food, fuel, energy, insurance, etc), and the emergence of monopolistic practices, to the detriment of ‘the little guy’. With regard to the sustainability of the sector, now is the time to empower the smaller restaurant brands with technology that supports their longer-term profitability and independence. If restaurant brands fail to embrace technology then the scalability hill may become too big to climb.
Sustainability from an environmental perspective is also prevalent within the restaurant technology space. Major innovation in terms of plant-based foods, robotics, automation, sustainable packaging, and reduced fuel consumption (electric vehicles, drone delivery) is gaining traction and will have a very positive effect before too long. In order for these technologies to have a meaningful impact, they need to become mainstream and for that to happen, they must also add a net benefit to the restaurant's bottom line as margins are tight in this highly competitive space.
