 Aloha and welcome to another episode of Hawaii Food and Farmer's Series, where we meet Hawaii's farmers, foodies, and those shaking up Hawaii's local food system. We are here every Thursday, every other Thursday. We get here when we can, four o'clock, and we can also have you join the conversation, which we always enjoy. You can actually call in on the hotline, which is 808-374-2014. And if you're more into tech savvy, which I'm really not, you can tweet in at atthinktechhi, and as always, you can watch the show over and over again on YouTube. So why don't we go ahead and get started. So as always, we have a great group of guests, and we actually have a special co-host today. We have Diane O'Neill with Oahu Fresh joining us. Thank you for having me today. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us. So excited to be here. Yeah. Truly, yeah. And so our guest today is Matt Chun. That is me. All right, who is with Eats, which really sounds delicious. We're ready. We don't tell anybody anything else. It just sounds... It rolls off. It's palatable. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So what I love about Eats and what we have Matt on the show today is you're really kind of combining technology with food. So why don't you go ahead and give us a little background. What is Eats? What is Eats? Yeah, that's a great question. Thank you for having us on the show. It's great. We're really excited to be here. So Eats, you can think of Eats as the best way to find and order healthy food around you, right? So we've built a mobile application that lets people easily find and order their favorite healthy foods wherever they are. Yeah. Cool. Wait, so this is kind of like Papa John's, where I can go on the app and order a pizza and then it shows up. Great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're not into delivery yet. We're not doing delivery. You actually have to go into the establishments or the restaurants. Some of the farmers that we're getting ready to bring on board, guys like Daniel Anthony, they have specific pickup locations where you can go and they'll, you know, drop the marker and you go there and you pick up their products. Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So why don't you talk, like, kind of take us through what, so if we were to go to the website right now and download the app. So I have the Eats app on my phone. Then what is the experience like? Where do I go from there? What is the experience like? So I'd say we've got a pretty good onboarding experience. You know, we kind of let you know what we're going to, you know, what kind of information we're going to need to kind of get you started. And then right now you'll actually go inside the application and you'll see right now we've mainly got restaurants on board. So see a list of all the premier restaurants in Oahu and you'll be able to type a few buttons and just go right into it and get your food. So we like to think of it as, you know, a part of what we do is we let people skip the lines at restaurants, right? And it's about making healthy food accessible and convenient to everyone, right? So when you think about it, McDonald's is very easy to get, right? They're all around the island, every corner, arguably for us to get healthy food, right? So we say, well, instead of, you know, going through a drive-thru, going into McDonald's where it's super convenient, how about you just tap a few buttons and we'll give you a healthy yasai bowl in the same or less amount of time. OK. Yeah. So has the response from restaurants been really positive? Like has it been easy to onboard people and get them connected to the idea and excited about it? It's actually a little more difficult than we thought. You know, we're still going to consider ourselves in sort of a private beta, if you will, just testing out with a few spots to make sure. That's a very high-tech idea. So we're making it a private beta, too. Yeah, we really want to make sure we nail it with our few restaurants that we have on board. So that's actually a really tough part, is getting the businesses on board. And of course, when you're dealing with something that's a marketplace, you don't get much lenience from the business owners and users or consumers, if you will, because you're transacting money. Right? So when the business is, when we're the platform that's dishing out payments, for example, you know, we're held to a little bit of a higher standard. But so far, it's been really good. We've been having some good success. Yeah? We just reached about 1,300 users. And we just hit about actually $14,000 in processing volume. So $14,000 worth of orders have gone through the EAT system so far. All right. Yeah. It's pretty good for a beta. Pretty good for a beta? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Private beta. Private beta. Yeah, so we still got some kinks to work out, but we're getting there. Right on. So talk about the clients. So right now, you're focused primarily with restaurants. Yes. So I have the app, and I can go on there and see what restaurants are available. Right. Why, as a consumer, why would I use the app versus just going directly to the restaurant? Right. So this is actually one of my favorite things to say is that we like to say it's, if you're going to use our platform, you know, we actually charge a user a fee, right? So we charge you an extra $2 to go in and have a seamless experience. You skip the line. You don't wait. You just walk in and your food's ready. You can always make $2 back, right? You know, it's relatively easy to make $2. But you can never get 20 minutes back. Oh, I like that. Right? So that 20 minutes, and you think about over a long period of time the amount that you end up waiting or going through the same process over and over again, especially if it's a spot you go to regularly, that's a lot of time. And you can't get time back. So we want to make sure, you know, I think in that aspect, we're empowering all of our users to kind of give that little bit of freedom back. Cool. So I go on to the app and find, and what's like one of the restaurants that I could order from? So I see our best example is actually Nalu Health Bar in Cairo. Nalu Health Bar, okay. Yeah, yeah, they do, they have some of the best Acaian Island arguably. And yeah, they do really well on the Eats platform. They've kind of nailed the experience. They were our first restaurants actually come on board. So they've had the most experience with it. And yeah, it's sort of becoming very flush. Okay. And actually getting ready to open their second location in Ward in the South Shore market. Oh, right on. Yeah, yeah. So it's coming to, so Eats is coming to town. Yeah, yeah, literally. So I can go on there and I can see the Nalu Juice Bar. I can kind of see their full menu and I can pick and choose what I want. I get that, the super Acai bowl that you mentioned. Check out and then I'm automatically debited for the cost. And then I can go to Nalu Juice Bar and instead of waiting in line, there'll be like- There's a special line for you. Oh, a special one. Yeah, yeah. I guess kind of like Starbucks does something similar. Exactly. And I'm always kind of mad at those people and I'm like, how do they get to go in front of me and I've always wanted to be part of that group but I just haven't figured it out yet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I can see that guy who skips the line at more healthy, nutritious. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I know the first time that you and I met and you introduced me to the concept, which was actually at Smallkind Mushroom Farm, shout out. Yeah, yeah. It's been on the show before. Yeah, there you go. I think it was our first, yeah, Yang in Terry Shintaku from Green Growers. Yeah, well our first guest on the show. Full circle. Yeah. Circle, yeah. That's good. Sorry to interrupt. I get excited. Thought stream here. But it's about that experience once you leave the digital platform and actually enter the real space, right? You were talking a lot about your concept and where the idea really came from, which is sort of transforming the actual locations. The actual experience that you have when you go to these restaurants. So, I mean, you're still in private, special beta. So I would imagine that that's sort of a bigger, maybe long-term dream. Right, right. Do you want to talk about that? Yeah, that's something that's pretty difficult to do actually. So it's one thing to innovate for everyone that uses the application, but it's much harder to do for the businesses. Because we're essentially saying, hey, you know, if at some point everyone orders through EATS, right, you wouldn't need a POS register or a line at all. So what do those spaces look like, right? What are the places that we go on EAT? It more so turns into a sort of experience that you have inside. So after you have this great digital experience, right, the app looks beautiful, works seamlessly, what happens when you get in the store, right? And that's where we kind of want to innovate as well. Because it's a whole different environment, right? You probably have more live music. There's probably more arts and crafts. I mean, if you're not standing there in line, what are you doing? Right, there's probably more community tables where even if you're just going in by yourself, you can just sit down in a chat with someone new, have a conversation. So when you think about it in that sense, it's a very different experience. Yeah, just what it could be. I mean imagine if you place your order or say you're on like a Valentine's Day date or something, and someone else places an order and then you show up and like a table is set up for you already, you know? Like you don't even have to sit and order. It's all there. It's all there. Or you combine your Tinder date with your EATS app and it's all food. And you're connected with somebody based on if you ordered similar things. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I like what you're doing there. We have lots of ideas. Yeah, I must say I have used it in that case. On a date, it's very impressive. It's like you know people. Yeah, you know the chef. And you're giving everyone a fist bump. You're like, yeah, you know what? It's much like, one of the ways I like to think about it is to say, look, 500 years ago, right? It was either... We're going way back. Yeah, we're going back. We're going back. It was either... I vaguely remember. When you paid for things with salt. I'm going to ask you to close your eyes. I think you just beat people in the club to get what you want. Look at old days. Yeah, good old days, right? It was either you had a chariot or you didn't, right? You'd wake up in the morning. Oh, a chariot. Yeah, okay, think about a chariot, right? You had a chariot and you're like, you wake up, Matt, get in his chariot. You're like, well, great, Matt. I got a nice chariot. Yeah, Matt, he's going to do the Think Check show. He's looking him on his way to do the Think Check show. Great, wow. Where's my chariot, right? So, yeah, now everyone can kind of download a free app, right? Everyone can download Lyft. And in seconds, everyone has a private driver. So you can't really tell where... Then the line between wealth, blurs. Oh, yeah. So you're introducing, like, private chef on that. That's what it could be, right? Yeah, it's a VIP experience, right? Everyone, when you sit in an establishment and you see the guy that walks in and he's high-fiving everyone, he's giving everyone a fist bump, you're like... I always hate that guy. Yeah, right? We're all like, who is this guy? It's because you want to be that guy. Everyone wants to be that person. It's total jealousy. It's total jealousy, right? And you're like, well, who's this guy? Why does he get to do that? So how do you offer that experience to everyone? And you can do it with an application, it turns out. Yep. And it's around food, right? I mean, what's more universal? What's more enjoyed than food? Than food. Almost everyone has to eat. Right? Almost. I guess there's a small percentage. Maybe Matt's part of that small group, but... Oh, no, no, no. I'm all about meeting. But that's also... So in the grand scheme of things, when you look at technology, everything is either white labeled. It's very... Everything kind of sort of looks the same. So we plan on doing something a little bit different. And that's what we're really excited to share. Yeah. I mean, that's what's interesting. You don't really see the intersection between tech and food. Sure. You know? That's awesome, guys. Well, unfortunately, we got to take a quick break and we're going to talk more about eats and the future of each. I also want to hear a little bit more about your background and how you got into this. So we'll take a quick one minute break and we'll be right back. Thank you. This is Think Tech Hawaii, raising public awareness. I just walked by and I said, what's happening, guys? They told me they were making music. Hi, I'm Pete McGinnis-Mark and every Monday at one o'clock, I present Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa, where we bring together researchers from across the campus to describe a whole series of scientifically interesting topics of interest both to Hawaii and around the world. So hopefully you can join me one o'clock Monday afternoon for Think Tech Hawaii's research in Manoa. I have some photos that are great. And we're back to Hawaii Food and Farmers Series. I'm your host today, Matt Johnson, where we talk to Hawaii's farmers, foodies, and people just doing really cool things with food. And we have our co-host here with me today. Diane, thank you so much for jumping in. Such a pleasure. And we have our host today, Mr. Matthew Chun with Eats. So we're talking all about the app that you can use to order really good, healthy food and have it waiting for you when you go to the restaurant. So let's jump right back into it. I want to talk a little bit about, one, how do the restaurants that you work with, how does that relationship happen? Like, can any restaurant get on there? Is there a certain criteria they need to meet? What does that look like? Yeah, so this is the most exciting part for us. So we do have a set of criteria. It's not quite set in stone yet, but we do want to make sure we're focusing on businesses that are locally sourcing, organically sourcing their ingredients. We really want to put, and that's why the platform is actually called Eats. When you think about Eats, it's actually, we're focused on the food. And this is something that we want to do differently. In a previous conversation, we were talking about how technology sort of always looks the same. It's really hard to differentiate yourself. So what's the thing that we're doing differently? There's a ton of applications where you can go on and order your food ahead of time. There's delivery services. There's a ton of them. What's different about them? When you look at it, not so much. And so that's where we want to shine. And so we're actually getting ready to show people where their food is coming from. So when you go on Eats and you explore a restaurant, you see their menu items, we're going to show you where all the ingredients came from. We're going to show you where the greens came from. If they came from a local farmer, it's going to have a local badge. If they're using organic produce, it's going to have an organic badge. And as they add more badges, they'll go higher up in the search. So we're incentivizing the businesses to transition into more locally sourced ingredients and organic ingredients. And giving people, I think that's what's going to be most empowering about what we're doing. Sure, we've got the convenience. It turns out it's real easy to do convenience with technology. But giving people information that really empowers them, right? We used to live in a world where we knew who was growing our food. And we knew where it was coming from. And we knew it was Pono. Like that 500 years ago when we were when we were still riding in our chariot. When we were still mad at you for riding in your chariot. It goes mad again on this chariot. Every morning. Flipping everyone the bird. Just want to be him. Just envy that guy. And so, yeah, empowering people with that information about being connected to their food is extremely important. And that's something that we want to bring back and show people, hey, this farmer, this person is putting a lot of time and effort into making sure that you're getting the most nutritious food possible. And it turns out that arguably the most nutritious food is the food that's right around you. You know, it doesn't have to travel as far. You know, the emissions that are accounted for. The true cost of the food is actually a little bit lower as far as emissions go and how it gets to you. Yeah, definitely. I would think it could be really encouraging for local restaurants to invest more in local food too and maybe even non-local restaurants to invest in local food because with that level of transparency and the fact that the consumer is able to see where their food is coming from, especially if your algorithm or the way it's set up is going to push them higher on the viewability piece of it. It seems like it would encourage the desire to have more locally-oriented food and that as a tool combined with all the other efforts that are leading towards the food sustainability here, it just seems like it's, I don't know, just a really good way to bring that conversation forward. Absolutely. You know? Absolutely. Yeah, it's the, you know, that's our incentive is saying, hey, you know what, the more you locally source, the more organically you source your ingredients, the more business we're going to bring you, right? Yeah. And so that's very empowering. You know, then they start weighing it out, well, whoa, if I put this local badge on my ingredients and we can verify it and we can show that it's going to bring me more business. And so providing the incentives behind that I think is what the local food movement is kind of missing. There's no really true incentives. I mean, you're going to pay a higher premium for the food other than you just get to showcase, hey, we source locally, right? There's no incentives that back that, so we want to beat that. And it empowers the consumer to make more wise decisions about where they're putting their money. You know, because I think that all of us, whether it be food or clothing or any sort of goods, you know, we want to spend our money, for the most part, on things that we believe in and things that are ethically sourced and locally supportive. So it's giving people the power to be able to do that in a more convenient, easy and simple way. Absolutely. It's still like pimping out your food experience. Almost like pimping out your chariot. Which she definitely did. She definitely did. So Matt, let's talk a little bit about you. Okay. How did, we heard a lot about the eats, but how did you get into this? What's your background? Yeah, how did I get into this? Who are you? Yeah, who am I? Oh man, that's a great question. Well, I grew up in Las Vegas, Nevada, or I grew up in Nevada. Flashy. Flashy, yeah, flashing lights, right? Definitely doesn't sleep. And it's kind of a food desert out there as well. There's not as much access to great food. And actually, after I graduated from high school, I decided to move out here. And from here, I was... Congratulations. Good decision. Yeah, yeah. Well, I used to come here every summer growing up. So I am Hawaiian. I'm Hawaiian Chinese. So I used to spend every summer here growing up as a kid. And then after I graduated from high school, I said, let me take the jump and see what we can do. And I sort of had the inspiration already for building technology, right? I saw, I still see it as the best way to empower individuals, empower organizations as a whole. And I was spending a lot of time, actually, with my stepdad, who was one of the biggest advocates for organic food and knowing where your food comes from. So I got to spend a lot of time with him. And we would go to Whole Foods, Cocua Market, and Peace Cafe, actually. Those are our daily route. And so I was helping him with his business, with his... I was managing his web presence. And he's the one that kind of sparked the inspiration for food. And that's where I got the idea. And when I came with the idea, I actually moved to Palo Alto. I moved to San Francisco. Because I figured I had to be in Silicon Valley. This is where technology's happening. And I moved out there, and I was actually sleeping at the airport for about two months. Dang! Two months sleeping at the airport? Two months sleeping at SFO, baggage claim, so my mother's actually flight attendant. Yeah, it's funny. I've actually spent just one night at the baggage claim at SFO. Okay. So I can kind of relate. Sure. Yeah, it's tough. Yeah? Yeah, at baggage claim, they have these couches that are operated. They're plus operands. And you just piece them together, and you lay down. There's Starbucks right upstairs. You get hot water, make some tea. And then I would take the bus down at 5 a.m. in the morning to Palo Alto, from SFO. A month? Yep. How about you, roughly? I had one night in an airport myself, and I cannot say that I liked it. The silver blankets, the survival blankets. Oh, yeah. Yeah, the warm- Yeah, the- Yeah, I mean, who did this to you? It's a very, like, Steve Jobs story to it. Yeah. Like, I started in a garage, and I slept at the airport, and- This is going to be in a book one day, probably. Humble beginning news. Could be. Humble beginning, sure. Sure, sure, sure. That's what it takes, though. You've got to have a story. And, yeah, I would take my- I would go and I bought a gym membership, had a duffel bag and a backpack, and I put all my stuff in there, my apples, my bananas, protein bars, and I would work out, shower, and, actually, I would sneak into classes at Stanford. Nice. I was thinking into programming classes, because I didn't have the skills to- You're just auditing it. Yeah, I was just dropping in. Auditing classes, right? You know, the schedules are all online. You can see them. I was like, oh, this looks nice. And just talking to anyone I could about who could maybe help build the application, who could point me in the right direction, and after some exploring there, I actually bought a car, and then I was sitting in my car. Okay. And then, eventually, the car broke down, and I figured that was my time to go. I was like, okay, you know what? I learned my lesson, and then after that, I just decided, well, I didn't find anyone. So let's go ahead and build it ourselves, and tell myself how to do all the engineering and build the first version of the application. And here we are. And here we are. That's a cool story. Go ahead and applaud. That's good. That's awesome. So that was kind of the beginning of EATS, and then brought it out here and kind of take the Facebook approach. You know, they started at Harvard, and then went to only Ivy League schools, and then they gave the software to the world. We're doing the same thing here. We're bringing it. We're testing it out here. And, you know, to me personally, Hawaii lacks on innovation side. I think we need more entrepreneurs here. We need more systems that kind of culture entrepreneurs, and really, especially for the local community, how do we bring them up as a whole? To kind of, yeah, to bring the idea here, to innovate here first, and then once we got everything working, we can take it to the world. So this is our little test bed, and so we get to bring innovation to, I think, the people that need it most. And so you guys, are you already testing in other markets? Are you just focused here in Hawaii right now? So we did do a little testing in LA. LA is going to be big for us. The health craze is real. Everyone wants to be healthy. It's kind of a badge of honor, and people are always on the go. So the big cities, of course, they're going to be huge for us, and we're actually, yeah, we have plans to be worldwide. We think Europe's going to be very, very big. So, yeah, we've got a spot in LA. It does pretty well, yeah. So it's exciting. It's exciting, but it's a whole different beast. It's the mainland, Los Angeles, San Francisco, very, very different. So what's your kind of next steps here? Where do you want each to go, or where do you think it's going to be when we have you back on the show a year from now? A year from now. That's a great question. But what would you want to be updating us on? What would I want to be updating us on for a year from now? Milestones that we've hit. There's a million people on Island. We aim to probably hit mostly everyone here and give them technology, and kind of show you guys what we're doing in the mainland now. And arguably six months will probably be in the mainland. And we hope to have the whole island cheering for us while we're out there venturing out and trying to make sure we'll be telling the Hawaiian flag. So this is our home base. This is where we're headquartered. And yeah, so we hope that the islands just cheering us on as we venture out. Cool, right on. Just aim to hit those milestones. So what is your plan then to, do you have a large team of people that are helping you? Or is this just you just coding away like crazy all night? It was me for a long time. But I've had a lot of help along the way. I think that's something, when you hear about entrepreneurs, oh, they did it all themselves. You get a lot of help along the way. And now we've sort of built a very solid team of about four of us. And we plan to do a lot with us more. Well, unfortunately, I think that's all the time that we have for today. Matthew, thank you so much for joining us and inspiring us with your EATS application. I look forward to having you back here next year to hear about all those milestones. And Diane, thank you so much for being an awesome co-host. You'll definitely be back on the show again. It's an honor. So thank you once again. And we'll be back next Thursday at 4 o'clock. Aloha.