Meet Brandon Lozano

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brandon Lozano.

Brandon, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My father has been a serial entrepreneur all his life. Ever since I could remember, he was coming up with ideas and finding a way to get them funded and ready to operate. This is not to say it was easy to grow up with a father like this. Depending on an entrepreneur means a lack of stability, but it also means learning how to think dynamically. Understanding that not everything goes as planned. Understanding that being able to adjust on the fly may just be the single most important attribute someone can possess. Although it wasn’t easy, it taught me more than I could have ever imagined. It made me a resilient and determined man. When I was 18, I left for Los Angeles to pursue a business degree at the University of Southern California. When I came back over Winter Break this year, he cornered me. I immediately knew he had an idea and I was eager to learn about it. Once he was done explaining, I was sold and immediately asked how I could help. It’s a brilliant idea in an untapped market. It’s as if the pickup has become forgotten about, despite the fact that it still accounts for a sizable amount of restaurant orders. We believe that there is a huge market for this particularly in this new era of urban mobility (bikes, scooters, etc…) and are so excited to get the word out.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Of course, it hasn’t been a smooth road! Being a part of a startup is the most stressful thing a person can partake in. Despite that, the reward of creating something from scratch is an unexplainable feeling. Developing online and mobile platforms is always a difficult process. There are constant issues and changes that you need to iterate on. Overall, it’s just a process that requires patience and an ability to act dynamically. You must always be willing to pivot and change your outlook while also remaining steadfast in your belief that this is a product that people both need and want.

The development process is a huge task of work from many collaborators, having an established development team makes a huge difference. We have worked together with our development team for over 10 years putting out great websites and apps.

Once you complete development and test for months and release your product, you now encounter the distribution process and marketing efforts, this again is another huge challenge. With many years of marketing experience behind us, we now know which buttons to push and what revenue models to implement. Our focus has always been to create mutually beneficial platforms.

Please tell us about 20 Eats LLC.
For over 25 years, my father Rick Lozano has been active in the technology sector. He launched his first company in 1994 when he filed and received a patent for the first digital coupon redemption system. From that point on, there was no looking back, my dad was hooked on technology and since continues to work in the tech sector as a consultant for startups.

Our current project 20eats is an exciting project, we saw an opening in the food sector and that was that the food delivery sector was making a big splash and it had caught on, but while everyone was focusing on the delivery aspect of the business they did not pay any attention to the food pick-up service which we feel is just as big as delivery.

Having a great team of proven programmers and having a team of great marketing mids makes the job much easier. We have launched many ventures and we have gained much knowledge and great development partners. As startup consultants, we save people a great deal of money and time, we have a full service consulting business that many companies made up of seasoned proven individuals. Our development partners and coders number over 25 and each holds the expertise that we implement accordingly.

Our fun begins when we deliver the visions, whether it is a WordPress website or custom code solution or the latest app, we put the same amount of expertise behind all.

Any predictions for the industry over the next few years?
The restaurant industry has easily adapted to third-party platforms to help drive traffic. This became very obvious when Groupon first launched and grew to be the fastest-growing company in history. Today, we compare Groupon to the delivery apps of today. With all the success came reality and that is that revenue models like Groupons that are very one-sided are not sustainable long term. Sure enough, it happened, restaurants were using the platform to raise needed cash and thinking they were gaining new loyal customers, turns out customers were not loyal, they were there only for the deal. Paying the high price for the Groupon customers turned out not to be a great idea. The food delivery platform from our perspective will fall into the same path, the price is not sustainable long term, and keeping your customers away is not a great idea.

Many of our predictions in the food delivery sector already have surfaced, price wars started, this obviously triggers pay scales which triggers frustrated drivers that no longer care about the quality of service. In return, the restaurants retaliate and react and realize that this is not the answer going forward, customers are also affected. By having high delivery fees, hidden fees and of course, tipping fee. Going back to basics is usually the right move and we know that many restaurants now know that there is value in delivery, but only if you manage it well. We will be offering our partner restaurants self-managing solutions that will make their brands stronger.

We are not taking delivery out of the equation, we are just placing it back in the hands of the people that know what is best for their restaurants.