Hospitable

Tune in to hear more event insights from some of the Omniboost team while they were in Chicago for the National Restaurant Association Show 2023 earlier this year in May. 

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Show Produced by: Niranjan Deshpande (Nick), Broken Frames Studio, www.brokenframesstudio.com

Filmed at CitizenM Chicago

Creators & Guests

Host
Rob Napoli
Rob is the Global Head of Brand at Omniboost and US Commercial Lead. He is passionate about sports, travel, and where to find the best whiskey bar in Manhattan.

What is Hospitable?

Hospitable is a podcast that discusses how to make hospitality MORE human through technology.

Hospitable focuses on discussing the leading challenges facing the hospitality industry and to explore the latest trends, technologies, and best practices that are shaping the industry. Each episode features interviews with hoteliers, restaurateurs, chefs, industry analysts, and other experts who share their insights and experiences on topics such as customer experience, sustainability, innovation, staffing, and more.

Hosted by Rob Napoli

00:00:00:03 - 00:00:16:00
Kees Zorge
What we like to do is have fun and we want to have fun together with our partners. And events such as these are terrific opportunity for that.

00:00:16:01 - 00:00:29:11
Rob Napoli
Rob Napoli, head of marketing at OmniBoost. And I'm with our founder, our fearless leader. Kees Zorge, I know I always say that wrong but go with me. Zorge, Zorge sorry.

00:00:29:13 - 00:00:31:10
Kees Zorge
It's the G.

00:00:31:12 - 00:00:41:19
Rob Napoli
I always mess that up. So Kees as the founder and CEO of the company. Why is it important for you to be here at these events?

00:00:41:21 - 00:01:03:20
Kees Zorge
I'd like to be there here together with my team. So we understand what's driving our partners, Meeting new partners. Get the vibe. What's out there? So What's engaging for people. what are they struggling with, doing this together with my team and actually being a founder from day one. So actually being used to be all over the place.

00:01:03:22 - 00:01:36:15
Kees Zorge
Now being here together with my team leads my commercial stuff, making sure that they are driving the conversations. But I most definitely still want to understand what's driving our partnerships. And obviously it's always a good moments to sync up with your current partners and new partners. Have a dinner, share a beer, and also what we said, what we like to do is have fun and we want to have fun together with our partners and events such as these are terrific opportunity for that.

00:01:36:17 - 00:01:58:11
Rob Napoli
Absolutely. And I think it's really easy for, the founders CEO at times to send the team and be off doing 100 other things. And it's easy to kind of get lost in this a little bit and to be there and hear and talk with the partners. Definitely it makes a difference. when you go to an event like this and you're around the team on the stuff.

00:01:58:13 - 00:02:04:18
Rob Napoli
What is your key takeaways? What excites you about it and how do you feel when you go back home?

00:02:04:20 - 00:02:41:22
Kees Zorge
I always head back home with a sorry for the language, a shitload of energy because I want to learn and learn and learn and innovate. So events such as these they, your partners, your potential customers, they provide you with so many new and pressing insights that it's always. It's like a trigger for for product developments. So when I step on the plane heading back, our mind is all over the place and actually sometimes need to thread back a bit when I get back at HQ that the teams are like, Yeah, okay, so hold your horses but go, go inside.

00:02:41:23 - 00:02:44:01
Kees Zorge
But it gives a lot of energy.

00:02:44:03 - 00:02:55:01
Rob Napoli
I love that. And as we're sitting here at the National Restaurant Association show, it's, about halfway through the year, what excites you most about the second half of 2023 and growing the business?

00:02:55:03 - 00:03:21:04
Kees Zorge
Like we said earlier, we invested a whole bunch of things in our stack and we're ready for execution right now. So we grew quite conservatively over the last year. We expanded to multiple countries doing the expansion in the U.S., which yeah, I'm very, very, very enthusiastic about. But what I see happening right now is we're going for the stratosphere.

00:03:21:06 - 00:03:27:06
Kees Zorge
So the fuels and the rocket is ready. We're going to launch, baby. Definitely.

00:03:27:08 - 00:03:54:13
Rob Napoli
I love that. And it's really exciting. And I think that's really fun and kind of fun story to share with everyone out there. And Michael will attest this. The blue hoodies, The Smurfs. Whose idea was that? Mine is. So, when I came and they said, We're going to wear blue hoodies at the event. My colleague Michael Fernando had this same fear a year ago.

00:03:54:15 - 00:04:22:22
Rob Napoli
That shit fucking works. It's iconic. People love it. People look at it and I think it also it really kind of represents you as a founder, always, always thinking to do things differently, always finding solutions. And sometimes that's even just wearing an iconic blue, bright hoodie to capture a bit of attention. So I absolutely love it. I'm really excited for what we have in store for 2023, and it's always fun to hear that the rockets loaded and we're on ramp at pressure, taking some time.

00:04:22:22 - 00:04:28:09
Rob Napoli
I know we got to get back out to the floor, but thank you so much for being here, sharing this and leading from the front.

00:04:28:11 - 00:04:29:24
Kees Zorge
Pleasure of.

00:04:30:01 - 00:04:47:12
Rob Napoli
All right. Rob Napoli, head of brand and marketing for OmniBoost back again. And this time we have usually the man behind the camera, Anthonie de Jong, Anthonie, tell me a little about your role or roles at OmniBoost

00:04:47:14 - 00:05:15:12
Antonie De Jong
Yeah, so what I'm mostly working outside our OmniBoost is onboarding new customers, helping them with supports. And while I'm also doing these kinds of things, I try to develop myself into a newer role. So currently I'm looking a little bit up marketing, but I'm also looking at actually the other parts of the companies having to figure out most likely

00:05:15:17 - 00:05:24:13
Antonie De Jong
I want to have more commercial directions. And yeah, the thing myself as a person inside the company has been a blast for over the last year.

00:05:24:15 - 00:05:48:10
Rob Napoli
I love it, we're going to teach you how to use the microphone first and foremost because we want to capture your voice as great as possible. But I love that you have this commercial mindset and want to continue to grow it as the thing that we're kind of working on. But from a standpoint of support, when we think about what we do it OmniBoost, we have all these integrations, we have amazing partners.

00:05:48:10 - 00:05:56:17
Rob Napoli
We've got 3000 plus integrations across 70 countries. From a support perspective, what does it mean to be hospitable in your mind?

00:05:56:19 - 00:06:21:03
Antonie De Jong
You need to think with the customer. I myself, I've worked in restaurants, cafeterias before, so I actually know what's goes on in the store. And that's what really helps in my job. When I'm in a call with somebody, they actually see someone that knows the difficulties of their job and how we can actually help them make it better for them, make their life easier.

00:06:21:05 - 00:06:43:11
Rob Napoli
I love that. And I think that that makes a big difference when we can work with our customers and have, some it's Michelle Johnson was talking about, slinging pizzas back in the day and working in the POS space when we as a company can put ourselves in their shoes and understand that the hospitality industry, the actually in the customer has a lot going on and their whole job is to delight who they serve.

00:06:43:13 - 00:07:00:15
Rob Napoli
It makes a big difference when we take that same approach from a support team. You got you got quite a few. And when I met you, they call you Allen Anthonie. You have so many nicknames, but where does that all come from.

00:07:00:17 - 00:07:38:04
Antonie De Jong
First nickname was actually Dower when I came. Yeah, there are a lot of nicknames, but that's one game out of my beard. I came into the office and at first thing Kees said, That's a Dower, And that's actually why the first nickname started. And then at the beginning, I one day I didn't do my hair and I kind of looked like Allen from iconic movie Hangover with it's beard and then, yeah, you can fill in the rest.

00:07:38:06 - 00:08:02:15
Rob Napoli
So it's stuck. And I've never met somebody with so many nicknames in my life until I met you. And sometimes I still don't know if they're talking about you or somebody outside. I absolutely. I absolutely love it. When we look at 2023 and the growth you talked about, you want to be more commercial, you want to grow your, obviously leading the front end, the support area.

00:08:02:17 - 00:08:14:21
Rob Napoli
You work on the side, man behind the camera doing some marketing and whatnot. What excites you most about the second half of the year? What do you hope to do or hope to accomplish in your role at this company this year?

00:08:14:23 - 00:08:39:11
Antonie De Jong
I really hope to, as a steady spots within the company only working on one thing and that's all small things all around. We got my focus and is on something that I'm good at and that I want to develop myself in and with conversations that are driven here at trade shows, with colleagues, with partners. I think there is a very bright future for me here at OmniBoost

00:08:39:13 - 00:08:54:07
Rob Napoli
I love that. And, coming from a small town in the Netherlands and getting to come to the U.S. and around the world, these trade shows, what does it mean for you? What do you learn? What do you like? What do you take away from an event like this show?

00:08:54:09 - 00:09:18:08
Antonie De Jong
Yeah, meeting our partners and actually experiencing most local culture all around the world. And like you said, I'm from a real small town, with only 200 people. And if you would have told me five years ago, Yeah, you're going to work at a company, they're going to fly you out to the States, back forwards to Germany, Spain, Belgium, the UK.

00:09:18:08 - 00:09:31:09
Antonie De Jong
I've been everywhere in the last year. It's so amazing. Sometimes I still don't even believe it myself that I have grown so much within the year because of the opportunities Omnibus has given me.

00:09:31:11 - 00:09:51:06
Rob Napoli
I love that. Well, I definitely see Brighter futures ahead and we have a rocket ship that is going to the moon, so I'm excited to see where that takes you. I appreciate taking time. Especially nice to be able to have you on the camera instead of behind the camera all the time, but we're all excited to see where you continue to grow and take your own role and development within the company in 2023.

00:09:51:06 - 00:09:52:20
Rob Napoli
So thank you, my man.

00:09:52:22 - 00:09:54:23
Antonie De Jong
Thanks very much.

00:09:55:00 - 00:10:04:20
Rob Napoli
All right. Rob Napoli, head of Brand at OmniBoost. And I'm here with Michel Janssen. Michel. why don't you give a quick intro on your role at OmniBoost?

00:10:04:22 - 00:10:16:03
Michel Janssen
I'm Michel. I'm responsible for partnerships and the commercial parts of the OmniBoost POS connector.

00:10:16:05 - 00:10:25:05
Rob Napoli
And when we talk about head of partnerships in commercial what does that mean? What does that entail? What do you do on a day to day and what do you love to do about your role?

00:10:25:05 - 00:10:38:03
Michel Janssen
Exploring with partners Switch integrations the needs to move forward and enable sales opportunities for them so we can both grow.

00:10:38:05 - 00:10:48:18
Rob Napoli
There's a rumor going around what I joined to ask you a question, and it's because you're called the POS father. So how did you get that nickname? Tell me about that.

00:10:48:21 - 00:11:15:17
Michel Janssen
That's a good one. I think goes a long time. Back when I was 16, years ago, I went on holidays to, uh, to Majorca. I'm at a friend's from Ireland and went over to, uh, to Dublin to celebrate Halloween, and they owned a pizza store and then that's where I was introduced with hospitality technology. I went back there every year, did my work experience there.

00:11:15:22 - 00:11:43:12
Michel Janssen
And, and later I worked in several hospitality roles and I never left that technology parts. And later we brought a American solution back to the Netherlands or Europe, and we needed to integrate with multiple POS. So I used that experience to grow, to grow. And with my last rollout works where the big partner of us now POS vendor and so a lot of history there with POS.

00:11:43:14 - 00:11:56:04
Rob Napoli
I love that from parting on a beach in Majorca to Dublin on Halloween. But I know that the second part of that name comes from the story of the actual name of the pizza restaurant. So tell me about that.

00:11:56:08 - 00:12:16:16
Michel Janssen
Oh yeah, it's a brilliant name and I love the ads, the company was called Godfather's Pizza, and they had a slogan that was based on the competitors like Domino's and Four Star Pizza and of course, the supermarket pizza. So as Godfather's Pizza, no star, no games, keep it fresh. Give it Godfather's. I love its and the pizzas were greats.

00:12:16:18 - 00:12:39:22
Rob Napoli
Well I'm sure they were if you're slinging them and hence the nickname the POS father and I love that it's such a fun story and it's so cool to talk about that because you do see is this we've been walking around meeting our partners. Everyone in the space is that you are the guy for POS and that comes from kind of your ability to come to OmniBoost. And tell me a little about what drew you to OmniBoost.

00:12:39:22 - 00:12:43:16
Rob Napoli
How did you get here from working in the POS space?

00:12:43:18 - 00:13:15:12
Michel Janssen
yeah, when we're working on the POS, I encountered some issues that I couldn't grow because we were limited with integrations, so we were searching for a party that could help us enable those sales opportunities. So that's when I got in touch with OmniBoost and we built a few integrations. We enabled a few sales opportunities, and then after two years working together, I was seduced to make the step over to OmniBoost and put myself in my strengths to seek those opportunities only from a different angle.

00:13:15:14 - 00:13:39:05
Rob Napoli
I love that. So bringing that kind of solutions minded energy over to the company and that's what OmniBoost is all about, right? So it's really exciting to see where that kind of comes from, from the top down level. What are you most excited for in 2023 with OmniBoost? What are you excited to do or build or create this year?

00:13:39:07 - 00:14:07:09
Michel Janssen
there's a really nice foundation already and I think there's a lot to explore with the current stack of partners to grow together. So I'm really looking forward to work with the Pos founders we have at the moment and grow the verticals, grow the integrations and cross integration as well. So we have loads of integrations just more and better.

00:14:07:11 - 00:14:16:09
Rob Napoli
I love that more and better. Absolutely. Well Michel, Thank you so much for taking the time. I know we got to get back to the floor and go meet with some more people while we're here, but appreciate you taking the time, my friend.

00:14:16:10 - 00:14:16:23
Michel Janssen
Anytime.

00:14:16:23 - 00:14:17:11
Rob Napoli
Thanks. Awesome.