Alex as an amazing story to tell. His family started the renowned deli, Canter's, in Los Angeles. He went on to start Ordermark, a system that consolidates the online ordering and third party delivery brands into one device and central hub. From there he launched Nextbite, a leader in virtual restaurant brands. In this episode, we discuss his journey, and tap into the various aspects of virtual brands and how to launch them and market them successfully. Transcript 00:00.00 vigorbranding Everyone today I am joineded by my friend Alex Kantor he is the Ceo and cout co-founder of Nextbyte which where you are going to tap into a bunch until then Alex say hello give a little bit of backstory. 00:10.27 Alex Canter Hey, thanks so much for having me and yeah as mentioned my name is Alex Cantor Ceo and co-founder of nextitee and also fourth generation of cantors delhi in Los Angeles which is one of the largest and oldest restaurants in l la. Started by my great grandfatherfa ninety years ago and just like my father and my grandfather I grew up working in the family business waiting tables at 12 years old working my way up through all the different positions and eventually became in charge of all things new bringing in new technology and proving to my family that. Change can be a good thing I heard a lot growing up if it's not broken. Don't fix it but also really enjoyed running around to all these restaurant conferences and signing up for whatever was available really trying to expand the the cantors brand outside of the 4 walls of the restaurant. Reaching customers everywhere wherever they were and experimented a lot with delivery enjoyed enjoyed the ah the benefit of being on all these great revenue streams from uberries to doorda. Ah all these these apps eventually grew delivery for cantors to be over 30% of our revenue which was. Couple million dollars a year just in just in delivery orders and yep, just a little bit and and the staff in the restaurant hated me because I was the one who brought in all this new technology. We had 9 tablets, 2 laptops and a fax machine to manage all of those incoming orders. 01:28.12 vigorbranding Just a little bit. 01:44.15 Alex Canter Um, so we ah you know we had ah a bit of an operational nightmare to solve and that's what prompted me to eventually start a tech company to help restaurants usher them into the new digital age to help them reach these customers outside of their 4 walls through this new manageable software and solution that we built. Sort of partnering with thousands of restaurants and have really evolved the business now to expand our product offerings into into virtual restaurants and all this other crazy stuff which we can get into it a bit but that's the backstone. 02:13.44 vigorbranding Yeah I Love that? Yeah, So you know what I love most about that is I think it really is the pathway of the American dream. Its immigrant family sees the opportunity onces a bite of that pun intended of that American dream and then through the generation's hard work passing down. Um, and I think that's one of the reasons why I love this Industry. So Absolutely much is your story isn't the only one and I think it's It's such a wonderful path to get ahead. Um, so before we hop fully in let's sort out some misconceptions from the proverbial Horse's Mouth. What are the differences between virtual restaurants Ghost Kitchens and dark Kitchens because we hear them tossed around. 02:58.73 Alex Canter Yes, so these are ah these are new terms to describe restaurants that have no physical storefronts traditionally um, it really started with um with ghost kitchens which are basically warehouses for delivery only restaurants. This is more like in the actual infrastructure like a we work for kitchens in a way where these these large real estate companies