Startup taps software to boost restaurants

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A keg stand, if you will. San Francisco-based TapDynamics offers restaurants a way to track and limity how muchbeer it’s losing through malfunctioning bad pouring and bartender giveaways. “It’s draftr beer meets technology,” said CEO Michael Cann. TapDynamics said in addition to decreasing installing its TapAdvisor software can help restaurants grow drafgtbeer sales, increase profitability and improv the overall quality of the draft beer they TapDynamics recently landed a deal to put the TapAdvisor Servicer Platform in 398 Applebee’s restaurants.
The company is targetingg large chainslike Applebee’s where they can implemenf TapAdvisor across every location. Cann, a formet investment banker, founded the company in 2007 withMurray who’s Australian and now the chief operatingf officer. The two met on their respectivew honeymoonsin Tahiti, and though neither had connectiond in the restaurant business, they both liked In researching the they discovered 20 to 30 percen of all draft beer poured at a restaurant is never paid for. Of 75 percent is given away by while 25 percent is lost tomalfunctioningy equipment. “A restaurant that goes through 40 kegs a is empirically losing 15 to 30 percent oftheidr beer.
That’s eight kegs,” said TapDynamics can show with evert pour why beer isbeing lost. If it’s an equipmen t problem, like the temperature in the cooled istoo hot, the TapDynamics team can quicklty analyze the data and send a message to a restauranty to fix the problem. If it’sw an over-pouring problem, managers can see that data in a repor t emailed nightly and then retrain staftf to pourbeer properly. Beer is typicallg the highest margin product sold ata restaurant. So capturinhg loss gets restaurant owners’ and attention, Cann said.
TapDynamics doesn’t require restaurants to pay for any TapDynamics partnerswith Micromatic, which installw and manages the draft beer flow meters and systems from which TapDynamics draws its data. TapDynamica charges the restaurant a monthly fee for its Cann said the money saved in recapturee revenue by the restaurant is more than the monthly feeTapDynamicz charges, which is about $400 per Cann said the purpose isn’t necessaril to bust bartenders who sometimese give away beer to keep customers cominh back. He said he trains managers to ask bartenders, how givintg away free beer drives sales.
Cann said the next phase for TapDynamics will begrowing TapAnalytics, whichb will take the research it compilexs in monitoring beer sales and sell it to beer companiews and distributors. The research provides insight into whichtyped of consumers drinkwhich brands. And the data will alloew beer makers to compare their salees toother brands. That should help beer companiee better define their target markets and develop strategies to competefor