Fintech South 2024: Christine de Wendel with sunday

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studio in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for Atlanta Business Radio, brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. And now, here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here, broadcasting live from Fintech South 2024 at the Woodruff Arts Center. So excited to be talking to our next guest, Christine de Wendel with sunday. Welcome.

Christine de Wendel: Thank you.

Lee Kantor: So before we get too far into things, tell us about sunday. How are you serving folks?

Christine de Wendel: Well, first of all, thank you for having me. I’m very excited to talk about sunday. So sunday is an Atlanta based fintech. We’re based just out of Colony Square, down the street, and we do payments in restaurants. So we are a digital checkout solution for restaurants. Founded three and a half years ago here in Atlanta, and we operate in three markets the US, the UK and France. And today we’re working with about 2000 restaurant groups and we serve about 50 million customers.

Lee Kantor: So what was the genesis of the idea? How did this come about?

Christine de Wendel: Well, the idea was really simple. When we started the company, my co-founders and I were thinking about a real problem that needed solving. And both my co-founders are restaurant operators, and they said, frankly, no one likes to pay in restaurants. No one likes to raise their hands, make eye contact with the server, wait for the check to come get a sticky check presenter, send back your card to the back of the restaurant. And so we said, how can we innovate? How can we do something that basically every other industry has done except the hospitality space, which is find a way to make payments much smoother, seamless, easy in the restaurant space. So we did something very simple. We put small QR codes on tables, link them to the point of sale systems, and allow guests to pay in literally 10s. So the idea was you scan, you could split the check, you leave a tip, you pay 10s and then you can leave a review. And since then we’ve had tremendous growth. We are growing across the country, across Europe, and we’ve developed a full suite of products. So what started with just paid table. Now we have handheld payment terminals. We do full staff performance. We do reviews management, customer insights. So now we really have a comprehensive 360 checkout solution that started with those QR codes on tables.

Lee Kantor: Now does this, um, create kind of a loyalty program for the restaurants as well?

Christine de Wendel: So what we do is if a restaurant has an existing loyalty program, we’ll integrate into it. And it usually takes usage of the loyalty program up dramatically, because it’s very easy to use to collect points, to burn points. And for those who don’t have a loyalty program, we have a solution available for them.

Lee Kantor: So what are some of the challenges when you’re dealing with the restaurant owners? Are they are they eager for this type of a solution, or is this something like how do they view this.

Christine de Wendel: So there’s a there’s a growing desire to have this type of technology, but it’s still something that’s fairly new. So I like to say we have two audiences. One is the end consumer. So you and me, when we go out to dinner on a Saturday night, more and more, we want simplicity and we want control.

Lee Kantor: So I would think we want this a lot.

Speaker4: You you.

Christine de Wendel: Absolutely want it if you’re going out for a business lunch, if you have if you’ve.

Lee Kantor: Ever waited on someone to bring you the bill, you want this technology.

Speaker4: 100%.

Christine de Wendel: So what? You’ll find is more and more people are asking for it because today time is money. People want to be in control when even if they’ve had a delightful, upscale dinner, they still, when they’ve decided they want to leave, want to get out quickly. So consumers are asking for it more and more. And restaurant operators who were hesitant initially to put a lot of technology into their restaurants, are finding that it helps them turn tables faster. It helps their servers spend more time having giving a great guest experience during the moments of the experience that matter. So when you’re asking for specials, when you’re trying to get more cocktails, and so you’re taking away time from, frankly, the end of the dining experience where everyone wants to go and you’re putting it back into upsell chatting, creating rapport with the between the server and the diner. So that’s been that’s been very positive. And what we’ve seen is a lot of Atlanta’s, you know, top restaurants, most popular restaurants are now using our product because they’ve seen the value.

Lee Kantor: Now what percentage of your clients use the technology for those kind of loyalty programs?

Christine de Wendel: So I would say today it’s it’s less than 20% are using loyalty programs. That’s also because not that many restaurant groups are using loyalty programs.

Speaker4: Is that.

Lee Kantor: Surprising? I would think that’s a huge opportunity for restaurants.

Christine de Wendel: So it’s a huge opportunity for restaurants that have multi locations. But the vast majority of restaurant groups are still especially for full service. Restaurants are still independents, and they generally don’t have enough locations to justify a loyalty program.

Lee Kantor: Well, even one location that wouldn’t be enough.

Christine de Wendel: You’ll you’ll find that people don’t have enough repeat users. So your your small local mom and pop, you know, restaurant on the corner does have repeat users, but those are not typically the type of restaurants that are looking at technology or innovation to keep people coming back.

Lee Kantor: But that’s where the opportunity there’s an opportunity there, right?

Christine de Wendel: There’s absolutely an opportunity. But it just those are typically the slower. Technology adopters. And then you have the the mid-market groups who are great. Customers for for our product for loyalty programs who are starting to. Adopt. And then you have the huge quick service groups that have fantastic. Loyalty programs. But generally they don’t have a dining experience. And so those are very transactional, uh, loyalty programs. And it’s less our focus because we’re doing full service restaurants.

Lee Kantor: Now with your technology, are you kind of just using your service to solve that technology problem, or are you kind of doing some consulting as well to give them, uh, options so that, hey, these are opportunities where for growth? Because I’m learning a lot from being an app for lots of different restaurants.

Christine de Wendel: Absolutely. So one of our differentiators in the market is my two co-founders are restaurant operators. They’re coming from the restaurant space. And so a lot of restaurants like to work with us because we come with a very restaurant first, more than technology first perspective. And we consider ourselves, you know, friendly players in the ecosystem where we can actually share data from our own restaurants. Now we have enough restaurants in our portfolio that we have fantastic data across different markets, different cities in the US, different countries, different consumer types. And so we absolutely, while we’re presenting our product and and offering our different solutions, are giving a consultative approach.

Lee Kantor: Now, I would think that having your app is something that you can show them with math that, hey, this is better for you. Is there kind of some some math that you can share that would encourage someone to maybe explore this as an option for themselves?

Christine de Wendel: Absolutely. We have a couple key data points which usually convince people that they should go ahead. At least pilot our product. And then when people do pilot, they they generally get very excited and and roll it out. So the first one is we’re turning tables roughly 12 minutes faster than if you did not have a QR code on the table. So imagine it’s Saturday busy brunch. If, as a restaurateur, you can get 2 or 3 more tables in, that’s huge for your top line. The second statistic we like to share is on average, we’re seeing 10% higher tips. And it’s just because the tip experience is so much more easy to use. And the restaurant can choose the pre-selected tips. And because the consumer is nudged towards a 20% tip or a 22% tip, servers love the product because they find it’s easier to process, get tips, but also that they’re slightly higher. So that’s that’s another benefit. And then because the experience is so seamless, we find that about 70% of our customers are leaving a review at the end of the payment experience. And it’s very similar to what you’ll see at Uber or at, you know, when you’re using DoorDash, you get a pop up when you’re finished it asks you to rate how many stars, and immediately that gets pushed out to Google reviews. So that has a tremendous impact on restaurants, Google reviews. And so if you take a if you compound the faster table turn times, the higher tips and the impact on reviews, restaurants are generally delighted about the product and see the massive value.

Lee Kantor: And do you have like a stat that says, you know, before this you had four reviews and now after this you have 100 reviews, like is there any. So I would imagine that just that would be worth it just for that.

Christine de Wendel: So depending on how many reviews you had before, you’re getting between five x and ten x reviews. So a classic Atlanta restaurant. So I’ll, you know, cite, you know, South City Kitchen Midtown just down the street. Fantastic restaurant. They’re getting about seven times more reviews thanks to Sunday.

Lee Kantor: So, um, do you have I know you’re you’re looking for more restaurant context, but is there other types of partners that are important to you as well in this ecosystem?

Christine de Wendel: So in order for our model to work successfully, we first need to integrate with the best point of sale partners out there. So we work with all the top players in the US. We work with NCR, our strategic partner. We work with toast. We work with micros. So those are the first partners in the ecosystem we need to work with. And then it’s the restaurants themselves. And so that’ll be either the smaller mom and pop restaurants. And then it can also be the medium sized or large enterprise groups.

Lee Kantor: And then you’re all over. You mentioned you’re all over the world right?

Christine de Wendel: So right now focus on actually four countries, the US, of course, our biggest markets in the US are Atlanta, Chicago, New York. But we’re expanding and our product is available across the US. But we have offices in Atlanta, Chicago, New York and then in Europe. We are very strongly implanted in France and the UK and now growing quite quickly into Germany.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wants to learn more, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Christine de Wendel: So Sunday App.com. Or you can look me up on LinkedIn. Christine de Wendel. I love talking to MBA students, so shout out for all those Kennesaw MBA students. Very happy to chat, share my startup experience, my scale-up experiences and give you some more knowledge on Sunday.

Lee Kantor: And why is Fintech South important to you and your company?

Christine de Wendel: So Fintech South as an Atlanta based fintech, it’s fantastic to be part of this ecosystem and just being part of this fintech community. So as an Atlanta native also, I’m delighted to be here at the Woodruff Center. But it’s great for networking and especially meeting other partners in the fintech space.

Lee Kantor: Well, thank you so much for sharing your story today. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Christine de Wendel: Thank you.

Speaker4: Have a great day.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor back in a few. At Fintech South 2024.