From Eater to Blackbird: Ben Leventhal on Restaurants, Loyalty, and Rebuilding Payments

Transcript

Most restaurants just want to understand how are you going to lower my costs and how are you going to put butts and seats. The idea that we have in restaurants a trillion dollars of sales in 2025 flowing through payments rails across the country and restaurants don't control those rails at all. That's problematic. And so changing the notion of who owns the network and who benefits is a really important way that I think we're going to wind up using blockchain. Ben, so you've built a number of companies in the restaurant industry.

You've built Eater, you built Resi, and now you're working on Blackbird. Where did your love of restaurants begin? I I can't really pinpoint it for you. I mean, I think we all love restaurants. We all love going to a great local spot and having a delicious meal and being with friends and just that feeling of being there and feeling that you're in the right place with the right people at the right time. It's intoxicating for all of us. And so I think somehow I'm just lucky enough to have turned that into a career. I mean, it just really started with an obsession about where the next meal was going to be and um and who with and and somehow it's, you know, snowballed into this.

>> There was no like Profian moment of like having a Meline cookie and like all of a sudden you were like you had this epiphany. I have to I have to work in restaurants. >> My thing is to be clear, I've never worked in restaurants. I've never actually worked on a line in a kitchen or done a shift of service. And frankly, it's it's mostly because I've been no good at it. But no, I think there's no one moment other than in my whole life, all of my happy memories, I think, you know, 90% of them are in restaurants. They just are this happy place for me. And somehow I I've reverse engineered that into a career.

>> Have you watched The Bear? >> Of course. Although I haven't watched the most recent season, so >> Okay, enough spoilers then. I will say I was my wife was watching it and I was sort of working adjacent to her and they're like yelling on TV and I was like they work in a kitchen. How stressful could it be? But then like you know I try to cook dinner and it's a total mess. So I'm like okay actually you know what they eat my words. >> It's a a kitchen a professional kitchen is a zillion moving parts and you're on stage. That's the thing that people I think don't appreciate about a kitchen if you're not a chef. You're on stage. You know the plate of food is coming out. You may not be standing there next to the plate as somebody eats it.

Although sometimes you are if it's like a counter kind of place, but it's a performance like anything else. >> Yeah, there is an element of theater to it for sure. Let me ask you this. So the business you're building now, Blackbird, uses crypto. >> Mhm. >> Why? >> Well, we are using crypto because we believe in cutting edge technology. And we believe that in order to build a technology company in the modern day, you ought to be using cutting edge technology. We'll use crypto. We'll use AI where we can. We'll use things that we haven't even thought of yet or that haven't been invented yet to be cutting edge. But I think specifically the answer around crypto is I think it does a couple of things for us. Some of them are long-term, some of them are short-term. In the short term, it allows us to transfer the ownership of identity

to the consumer. The difference between Blackbird and a lot of more traditional or legacy software companies for restaurants is that the ownership of the consumer information sits traditionally with a big company with a POS company or a reservations company or an analytics company. With Blackbird, we're putting consumers data anonymized on chain and giving them control of where that data goes. So that's a really important immediate reason why why crypto in the long run there is a very compelling path to some notion of decentralization of this payments network that we're building. Now what exactly that looks like and on what timeline I think

frankly we're still trying to figure that out. But the idea that we have in restaurants a trillion dollars of sales in 2025 flowing through payments rails across the world across the country and restaurants don't really control those rails at all. To Blackbird that's problematic. And so the idea of changing the notion of who owns the network and who benefits from ownership of the network is a really important way that I think we're going to wind up using blockchain. It's early though and you know you don't want to decentralize before there's a reason to. So are the things that we're talking about useful at a thousand restaurants? Some of the economics concepts are, but in terms of a fully decentralized payments network,

I think we're not going to really see the benefits until we get to 100,000 restaurants. So some of this is sort of a question of order of operations and timing. >> How many do you have now in network? >> We're just at a thousand now. >> Okay. So a long ways to go. Yeah, we have a long way until it is very obvious that we need a fully decentralized network >> and blockchains are necessary to this vision. Is that right? Can you do it with existing tech like outside of >> I think I think in a very practical way the answer is we could. Visa is in many ways an early decentralized payments network.

>> It started as an open exact sort of semi-permissioned uh open consortium. >> Precisely. So we have we have essentially a a decentralized network in in the mid50s, right? So we obviously don't need crypto to do it. We don't need blockchain to do it, but it sure might be a lot easier. What is the pitch like when you're trying to get restaurants on board? I imagine you go in and you don't say like, "Hey, I think you should, you know, use crypto tokens." And they're like, "Sounds great. Let's do it." You know, you probably don't lead with that unless you do. >> No, we when we talk to restaurants, we talk about loyalty and payments and the need for that platform to exist for restaurants. We don't really talk about the crypto at all. From time to time, you you you encounter a restaurant owner

who is savvy and is interested in the crypto and then we nerd out together. But most restaurants just want to understand how are you going to lower my costs and how are you going to put butts and seats and you want to you want to go to them with answers to those questions and not tell me about why you're on chain. >> Who are the savviest restaurant tours when it comes to tech? >> They tend to be younger. They tend to be, you know, um, I would say in in cities like New York and LA and San Francisco, as you might expect. They tend to be running concepts that are a little bit more avantgard or cutting edge, but every restaurant tour is a little bit different. Every restorator is sort of in their own spot on the adoption curve, if you will. And the

bleeding edge ones come to us. They're easy to spot because they're generally inbound inquiries. Most restorators are kind of waiting to see how things evolve and waiting to for some technology or some idea or some new company to feel stable and safe enough for them for it to be important part of their business. >> It's easy to say something is going to be better, but how do you actually get people to specifically understand what is going to be better? You know, what is the true value ad that you get? >> Yeah. I mean, look, I think if it's Blackbird or if it's any other company, I think it fundamentally has to do things that are solving problems seamlessly with low friction, ideally that feel magical for end users. We go in with the sort of fundamental observations. We say, look,

loyalty is something that you don't have in a good way today. You're competing against large-scale technology companies and also largecale restaurant companies. I mean, Papa John's is a top 20 app in the app store. Last time I checked, McDonald's Starbucks >> the mom and pop shop, though, >> as they would have you believe, but we go in and simply say, "Look, this you're compete. This is the group of companies that you're competing with for your customers. Do you feel like you have the tools to do it?" By and large, the answer is no. And so, that's sort of how we start the conversation. >> Do you have a local joint, a local hangout that you love? I mean, for me, I love all of our restaurants the same, but I mean, in our neighborhood, uh, Barbudo, we come back to all the time because we live a couple blocks away.

Via Kota, probably if you looked at my history, those are probably the top two. >> What lessons have you learned from building previous companies that you're applying now at Blackbird? >> I think as a founder, one thing you just have to keep in your head at all times is you got to keep going forward. You got to keep moving forward, getting the ball down the field. if it's an inch at a time or a yard at a time, there has to be forward motion on the business. And you have to believe that that is possible at all moments of the day. And so I think that's an important one. You know, just just the relentless pursuit of some progress day in and day out, even if it's two steps forward, one step back. And you know, those days are the good days when it's two steps forward,

one step back. But you just got to have in your mind that you have to keep going forward. I just realized we went to Barbudo for one of our last off sites. The A16Z team went there and I was talking to my colleague and he was like, I love it here. You got to get the um chicken Caesar salad. >> And I was like, >> what? Like that's the thing you're going to tell me to to get here. And then I had it and I was like, this is the greatest thing I've ever eaten. >> When you pay with Blackbird at Barbudo, there's an off off-men carbonara. >> Is there? >> Just so you know. >> Okay, I'm sold. I'll be going back. Are there any types of areas within the restaurant industry that you're targeting first like in your go to market strategy?

>> So we think about go to market as having to be across all meal periods. >> Mhm. >> Right. It's go to market for blackbird is across all meal periods breakfast, lunch and dinner >> and everything in between. >> And everything in between. And really the core of our strategy is about neighborhoods and you know in essence zip codes. And so we don't discriminate between a super high-end fine dining restaurant and a local coffee shop. If you're using Blackbird across all of those, we think that's the maximum amount of value we can provide to you. And so we really think about more where are our customers? What are they doing from the time they wake up to the time they go to bed in around restaurants and hospitality businesses? And uh we'd like to have a product that addresses all

those use cases. There are other companies out there that work on loyalty programs for places like this, coffee shops and such. You get stars and points back. What is your pitch for displacing those other options? Competition's good and um certainly in restaurant tech there's a ton of competition. Look, we say to restaurants, we're always going to be behind you. We're always going to be restaurant first. That's a fundamental part of this business. We're building this company in partnership with the restaurant industry. We know that for Blackbird to be successful, restaurants have to pick us. So we're talking about collaboration. We're talking about real engagement on the product development side. We're talking about delivering economics that work for them in the long run. Next to that, a magical consumer experience. So we say

to them, look, you we know you have options. We want to earn your business and here's how we think about the world and we're restaurants first and we hope that resonates. >> So you're focusing on the big networks, the urban centers first, you know, big cities, New York, LA, you recently launched in. When are you going to tackle the longtail? Specifically, when are you going to come out to my suburb on Long Island? I'm waiting for you to take over my local coffee shop. >> Well, I think the answer is we'll be there sooner than you think. >> Okay. >> But we do have to move from places of, you know, restaurant density one to the next. There's 20 or 30 very obvious cities. You want to do, you know, DC, Philly, Chicago, Miami, Dallas in that order, or if you want to do Dallas,

Miami, DC, Chicago, you got to get to all of them. Which city has the best food? >> Well, I'm from New York. >> Okay. So, >> I might have to say New York, but every market I mean, this is a bit of a tangent, but since you asked, I think one of the reasons why restaurants are so magical and feel so important in the United States and feel like with every year that passes, they grow in terms of standing is because we are living in the golden age of restaurants. I mean, in any city, there's great food. Not good food, great food. In every city, you can have a burger that is a world-class burger. You can have a roast chicken that's

perfectly cooked. You know, you can have a a fourst star, five, you know, super high-end tasting menu experience that's incredible, that sends you to a different place. Sushi, whatever it go down the list. We're living in the golden age of restaurants. So, in some ways, it doesn't matter where we go next in terms of the cities cuz there's great restaurants in all of them. I mean, we have to think about which ones are the most table stakes. And so, I do think there's some obvious ones. So, LA, San Francisco, New York, the globally recognized, you know, restaurant markets in the United States. So, we certainly have to have those. And then we want to look at where we have adjacencies, where we think we have a competitive leg up, where we have relationships. Um, you know, which cities when we sort of get

into the micro details of it, you know, the sort of specific demographics, whether there's college age kids there, whether it's an older market, where people live in the city in suburbs. We get into some of that stuff, but um, we'll be everywhere before you know it. >> Do you have to be a foodie to work at Blackbird? >> You have to love restaurants. You don't have to be a food. I'm not I don't consider myself a foodie. I love restaurants. I love sitting in a restaurant having a great meal. I don't geek out over ingredients to be honest with you. I don't geek out over whether something was sousied or sauteed or or or anything else. But you really do have to love restaurants and you you have to have passion for what we're trying to do.

>> How do you sus out the people who truly are >> I in an interview I often start with tell me about your favorite restaurant. You can tell how somebody talks about it whether or not they love it. >> You have time for a lightning round? >> Sure. What is the worst piece of advice you've ever gotten as a founder? >> Slow down. >> Slow down. People have told you to slow down. >> Yeah, people have told me to slow down. You know, get your bearings. You know, build for scale. Those things are important, but you got to move fast. As a startup, one of the reasons why you might win is cuz you're a a speedboat when everyone else is a cruise ship. So people who say slow down, we got to take a beat on this. Sometimes it drives my team crazy, but I do feel the need for

speed. >> All right. What is your biggest productivity hack? >> I have a um custom to-do list template that I print out every morning and fill out. So, I I start my day with a fresh piece of paper and it's got um it's got a couple different uh sections on it depending on how long something's going to take and the importance of it and >> it's like the Eisenhower matrix. >> I don't know what the Eisenhower matrix is. >> Quadrant of like, you know, how how quickly it'll take to get done, how important it is, and >> no, I just sort of try to reset every day with and figure out what's most important on that day. And I keep every to-do list in a binder. So, it's sort of a record of activity and it's got a couple like key phrases that I think are

important for me to bring to the job every day. Some days it works better than others, but there you go. >> What book would you recommend people read? >> I think The Originals by Adam Grant is a great read for anyone who's trying to build anything and understand creativity. And I think it's a it's like a quick easy one, but also um Shoe Dog Nike. >> So good. You know, people recommended that book to me for so many years as a business journalist and I was like, if everybody's recommending it, it can't be good. You know, and then I read it and I was like, "Holy crap, this is incredible." >> Well, I mean, it's Nike. Like, getting to read about how the logo was created, you know? It's just fun.

>> Really good book. Okay. And finally, what is the smallest hill that you will die on? >> The smallest hill that I will die on is I am vehemently opposed to shoestring French fries. >> Shoring French fries. I don't >> The chunkier the better. >> Well, these silly little crispy things that are hard to eat and they're neither potato chips nor French fries are a um hard note for me. >> Wow. Okay. If you're >> You said small hill. That's >> That is a small If you're vending shoestring French fries, you can not expect to be on the road network.

>> Not for me. >> Thanks so much for your time, Ben. >> Anytime.