Aaron LeClair, VP Technology @ Jeff's Bagel Run

What, how many stores, um, were there when you first came in? And then what did the technology picture look like? Um, and what was the first problem you decided you were gonna solve?

Yeah, it's a great question.

The, when I ...

So I got in early from that meeting.

Um, yeah, that meeting was sort of the beginning of the partnership, and when the partnership between Jeff and Danielle and Justin, uh, started, we had two locations.

Okay.

It was Jeff and Danielle's original two locations.

And then we immediately started working on leases for the first batch of corporate stores.

So like three or four corporate stores almost immediately.

But they, you know, with construction and everything else, they were a little further out.

So I got involved with our first store in build, and two stores already established.

And so jumped in.

The team, uh, we had a couple of, uh, developers, and this is another favorite part about, you know, working with people that you enjoy and that you know.

Two developers that I'd already worked with, uh, prior, in a prior life with, with this group, were already on staff, so I jumped in with them.

Uh, they were already cranking on the POS system.

So we launched our POS system with two stores, a third on the way.

We launched our mobile app with about a handful of stores, and we launched a full loyalty program at about a dozen stores.

And I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but we've always been technology first.

It doesn't...

We didn't need a certain store count.

We didn't need a certain amount of volume or revenue.

Okay.

We knew that technology was gonna be center to what we do here from day one.

Okay.

And so we just started building it from day one.