May 2019

“I M HUNGRY” – of course you are!

We continue to make progress on multiple fronts, executing our grand vision to own the voice layer for the foodservice industry. It’s grand for sure, because, well, the industry is massive and global, accounting for a big chunk of GDP, employing tens of millions and oh, feeding us, and we want to be the leader in voice search and commerce. So, why not. Someone will and we believe we know how to execute this grand vision. 

Orderscape is structured as a voice technology R&D company with deep restaurant industry expertise and some core IP that enables us to ingest massive amounts of data, enable it for voice search, discovery and commerce, utilizing existing infrastructure on friendly terms, at scale. There is clearly more to share and absorb from this long sentence. Suffice it to say, we’ve been at this for some time now and have learned quite a bit since our founding in early 2017. Now, we enter Phase II for Orderscape. Yay!

Next up for us is really exciting. Now that we have about 50,000 restaurants with over 6 million menu items listed and voice-enabled on our platform, it’s time to gear up for launching the first and largest voice-enabled restaurant marketplace. Today it can be accessed on the Google Assistant App by pressing the microphone and invoking “Talk to Orderscape”. However, when we launch the voice portal and restaurant marketplace later this year, it will be renamed “IM Hungry”. Which seems appropriate, particularly for a voice portal. The invocation “I M Hungry” is how  consumers will access our portal/marketplace and then our voicebot will respond with, “Hi, what are you hungry for?”…and the order/dialog flow begins. Cool, eh?

Check out IMHUNGRY.ai. Get on the list to be notified when IM HUNGRY is officially launched. If you are a restaurant, connect with me at Orderscape and we will provide the information required to be listed for FREE, on the IM HUNGRY restaurant marketplace.

The online food ordering industry is being disrupted by voice. We’re happy to help.

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Michael L. Atkinson“I M HUNGRY” – of course you are!
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Resistance is Futile for the Visionary Entrepreneur

Way, way back in late 2016, when I first had the idea that voice was going to be significant, I had no idea that 39 months later, voice would just  begin to be a Thing. To call this early is an understatement. But then, I have a tendency to be early. But this, well, this was E A R L Y!

Yep, years ago I remember pitching a VC with another startup. He told me that startups fall into two classes: (1) EARLY or (2) LATE and investors hate to be early and really hate to be late. So, timing is just called luck. And, you won’t know it’s well-timed until years later, and then they call it lucky timing. One VC even said that “being early is the same as being wrong.” What an A-hole. No. Being early just means you are early – being visionary and vision is critical to any successful enterprise. But first, let’s define what is considered early. I think it’s early if you don’t have a customer willing to buy what you are selling. Then, there is an argument for product/market fit. 

Being early without a product is called R&D and R&D isn’t financeable, not since the mid 1990’s. Being really early is usually a disaster financially, because there is no market and no customers to buy what you are selling, so even having a product doesn’t matter. 

In bricks and mortar, this is called the “rule of three”. When the first visionary fails because they were too early or ill-equipped to succeed and sells at a discount to the next fool. Then, they think by just adding a sign that says “Under new Management” will change anything. That’s like posting your business mission statement on a commercial website. No on gives a shit what your mission is. Investors may, but consumers, not so much. Then, Low & Behold, the lawyers for #3, scoop up the heavily discounted, now probably bankrupt #2 for such a low price, all they need to do is execute marginally to succeed.

In the technology sector, one must have balls of steel to be visionary and deep passion with an unfailing believe that you are right; not delusional like your Mother-in-law probably thinks you are. But one also must know that the delta between viability and sustainability is capital. Without a product, that’s hard to secure. And, no one can ever know how long being early will be. So, usually, the well capitalized entrepreneur wins. And, the early-bird visionary loses or won’t realize the fully potential. But then, there’s another idea…but it’s probably too early for that one too…and so the cycle goes.

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Michael L. AtkinsonResistance is Futile for the Visionary Entrepreneur
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