Atul Sood, Chief Business Officer at Curry Up Now, has spent his career moving between restaurant operations and restaurant technology. From leading global delivery initiatives at McDonald’s to helping build Kitchen United as an early executive, Atul has developed a unique perspective on how operators, vendors, and technology partners can work together to improve guest experiences. In this conversation with Zack Oates, he explains why relationships, trust, and long-term thinking remain critical in an increasingly technology-driven industry.

Why Buyers Don’t Buy from Sellers (04:25)

“Buyers buy when they want to buy.”

Atul explains why the strongest business relationships are built long before a purchase decision is made. Trust and credibility often matter more than sales tactics when operators evaluate new solutions.

The Difference Between a Product and a Feature (11:32)

“There are a lot of features in this industry that present themselves as companies.”

Atul discusses one of the biggest mistakes operators make when evaluating technology vendors and explains why long-term product vision matters more than flashy demonstrations.

Why Restaurants Need to Show They Care (06:26)

“The experience has to incorporate care into it.”

For Atul, great guest experiences begin with genuine hospitality. He explains why guests increasingly want restaurants to demonstrate that they truly care about earning their business.

How AI Is Changing Restaurant Technology (14:38)

“We can do that now.”

The conversation explores how AI is accelerating product development and changing expectations around vendor responsiveness, innovation, and customization.

Choosing the Right Technology Partner (10:16)

“Do you have trust in the leadership to build a product for tomorrow?”

Atul shares how operators should think beyond current features and evaluate whether a technology company can continue evolving alongside their business.

Who Deserves an Ovation? (15:55)

“He’s built a brand in the Indian fast casual segment that has a lot of legs.”

Atul gives recognition to Akash Kapoor, founder and CEO of Curry Up Now, for building an innovative brand with a strong culture and long-term growth potential.

Links:

https://www.instagram.com/curryupnow/?hl=en

https://www.linkedin.com/in/atulsood/

linkedin.com/company/curry-up-now

https://www.curryupnow.com/

Transcript

00:00:00:13 – 00:00:25:04

Zack Oates

Welcome to another edition of Give an Ovation, the Restaurant Guest Experience podcast. I’m your host, Zack Oates, and each week I chat with industry experts to uncover their strategies and tactics you can use to create five star guest experiences. This podcast is powered by ovation, the AI feedback and operations platform built for multi-unit restaurants. Learn what’s actually happening in your restaurants and exactly how to improve while driving revenue.

00:00:25:05 – 00:00:43:05

Zack Oates

Learn more at ovation. Com and today I’m so excited because Atul Sood is going to be joining us on the podcast today. And not only is Atul a good friend, but he is someone who’s been in this industry for a long time and he doesn’t look it. I mean, like Atul. He probably.

00:00:43:06 – 00:00:46:13

Atul Sood

A lot of gray hair in the spirit. Look at this.

00:00:46:15 – 00:01:03:21

Zack Oates

I know before I started ovation, I had no grays in my beard. Just to say I believe that, but Atul. You’ve had such an interesting career. You were head of business development at McDonald’s, then you were chief business officer at Kitchen United. You’ve gone on the tech side of things. You’ve been on the restaurant side of things.

00:01:03:21 – 00:01:20:15

Zack Oates

You are now working as a fractional biz dev executive for restaurants and food tech companies. So you’re sitting on both sides of the fence. How do you do it all and what do you like more? Do you like the dark side more or do you like the light side more? Yeah, I’ll let you guess which ones which exactly.

00:01:20:15 – 00:01:36:09

Atul Sood

I’ll have to interpret that on my own one. I feel very fortunate to be in this industry. Thank you for having me on this call. What I love about this, by the way, is we’ve done absolutely no prep, no questions in advance, none of that which I absolutely love. Seat of the pants conversations.

00:01:36:09 – 00:01:40:13

Zack Oates

I did seed you with a nice blue ovation hat though. So that’s it.

00:01:40:14 – 00:02:11:13

Atul Sood

I appreciated that at risk, and I’ve been wearing it plenty over the last several weeks. I’ve got to say I love the operator side. I was fully embedded in it at McDonald’s. I started there doing a handful of business development things and then focused on leading global delivery. Still love being an operator and having that hat on, but I think that makes me a better operator to have the tech experience of selling into operators and understanding what their needs are outside of my own limited universe.

00:02:11:13 – 00:02:18:20

Atul Sood

So although I prefer, let’s call it the light side, I have some dark blood in me as well.

00:02:18:22 – 00:02:46:08

Zack Oates

Well, not everyone is maybe as familiar with what a chief business officer does, either on the restaurant side or the tech side. So I think let’s start there, because I think there’s some education and maybe both in the tech and on the restaurant side, maybe there’s some gaps that they need filled fractionally, or maybe there’s some rearranging of what they need to be doing, because maybe there’s some responsibilities that don’t quite have a home right now that should.

00:02:46:09 – 00:03:16:10

Atul Sood

Yeah, absolutely. So it is a broad ranging title. When I joined Kitchen United about nine years ago as the first employee and they were deciding on the title they offered me the CEO role, didn’t want to be CEO. We were deciding on title. I picked chief business officer because it is broad and encompasses everything from fundraising to sales to PR to general growth initiatives, and that applies both to restaurants and to tech companies.

00:03:16:12 – 00:03:36:15

Atul Sood

It’s kind of a catch all bucket to do anything that needs to be done to advance the business interests of a company, while playing a senior role in the C-suite, and making sure that I can impact strategic and or product decisions as well. So it’s been a role that fits me like a glove. It’s not a direct sales role.

00:03:36:15 – 00:03:51:14

Atul Sood

I’m not a good direct sales person. I care more about the relationship than about the deal. So it gives me the wiggle room in business development to be sales minded without necessarily needing the clothes to be successful.

00:03:51:16 – 00:04:12:15

Zack Oates

Yeah, and I think that’s so important taking that long term approach, because in sales it’s like, all right, what am I closing this month this quarter. Right. Right now. Right now. But with what you’re talking about and how this industry works, it’s so much about relationships. Like how many times have you connected with someone where it’s like three years later they’re like, hey, I actually need what you do.

00:04:12:16 – 00:04:24:23

Zack Oates

Can we talk? And boom, there you go. Right. And I think that that is something that this industry probably more than others, that relationship really means something because we’re a bunch of people. People. Right?

00:04:25:00 – 00:04:45:13

Atul Sood

Absolutely. And look, at the end of the day, I firmly believe buyers by they don’t buy from sellers who sell. They buy when they want to buy. So if you have the relationship when they’re ready to buy, if they know who you are and what you sell, then they will reach out to you. I see it as a buyer right now.

00:04:45:14 – 00:05:10:17

Atul Sood

I’m a chief business officer of Cardinal, and I see that when we have needs, we reach out because we’re well in tune with what’s happening in the industry. So as hard as you try to close the deal this quarter, this month, this week, if the buyer isn’t ready to buy, they’re not going to press the button. And the relationship, the duration of it, the trust that you build, the friendliness, the meeting at conferences, shaking hands, giving away baseball caps.

00:05:10:17 – 00:05:11:14

Atul Sood

That’s the key to it.

00:05:11:15 – 00:05:29:24

Zack Oates

And I think the other aspect of it is doing it because you really do care. I feel like there’s people that I’m friends with who have canceled ovation, and I’m still friends with them. There’s people who have never done business with and like friends with them, and I’m not friends with them just to like, try to earn their business one day.

00:05:29:24 – 00:05:47:22

Zack Oates

But I’m friends with them because they’re good people, right? And I think that’s part of it is like, and you have that Atul. You’re a very authentic person. And so like you and I have talked, we’ve never really done direct business with each other, but we’re friends, like we’ve had numerous conversations just catching up and on the phone.

00:05:47:22 – 00:06:12:09

Zack Oates

And I remember driving to Vegas and having long conversations with you, and you’ve always been very generous with your advice and your time. So when someone is like, hey, I need this, I’m like, oh, I know Atul. I think you do a great job of building your reputation like that. What advice would you give to restaurants who are looking to improve their guest experience in terms of like, how do I leverage biz dev to improve my guest experience?

00:06:12:09 – 00:06:26:22

Zack Oates

Because we’re talking here about the relationships in the industry. But at the end of the day, it’s like these relationships are for when you boil everything down. It’s either to improve the penal or to improve the guest experience. Right? Yeah.

00:06:26:23 – 00:06:51:15

Atul Sood

Well, I think one restaurants really need to care about their guests and exude that care. The quality of the food is important. The quality of the experience is equally important, I would say, and that experience has to incorporate care into it. And I use that word carefully because I think that’s the feeling that a customer wants to get from the restaurant experience today.

00:06:51:15 – 00:07:23:19

Atul Sood

And I think to leverage business development in most effectively, they can hire a business developer can also often be a role intermingled with the CEO role, where that person is charged with going out to market, investigating the tech vendors out there like ovation, who can impact the guest experience, identifying the best of breed, identifying the different niche requirements that apply to my restaurant versus your restaurant, and then figuring out the roadmap to implement that strategy.

00:07:23:20 – 00:07:51:24

Atul Sood

Obviously, ovation has a suite of solutions. There are others out there as well. But having somebody who is truly, I would say, friends with the community and understands both the solution and the people behind it, because one thing is the solution. The other thing, from a tech vendor perspective, is the service you’re going to offer to clients. As you implement that solution, and having a business development representative to be the interface between the brand and the tech is, I’d say, very important.

00:07:52:00 – 00:08:16:16

Atul Sood

I mean, it’s why McDonald’s created the role 12 years ago. I think it was one of the first business, if not the first business development role in the industry for that specific need. And I think a bunch of restaurants should have it. But I know at Curry Up now, we want to make sure that we demonstrate to our guests every dining occasion that we really care about them and want to earn their business back.

00:08:16:17 – 00:08:34:00

Zack Oates

Yeah, and that’s something. Oh my gosh, I Punjab by nature. It is just such a amazing restaurant. If anyone listening has not been to curry up now go Google and find out where the closest one is to you because it’s amazing. Yeah, such a good.

00:08:34:00 – 00:08:55:07

Atul Sood

Food there and more. We’re in Birmingham, Alabama. We’re in Flower Mound, Texas. So we spread our wings a little bit, but the core base is still the Bay area. That’s where the concentration is. It’s got a great brand reputation in the Bay. I’ve got to say everybody you talk to knows about it. It’s accessible Indian cuisine and it’s definitely very tasty.

00:08:55:08 – 00:08:58:22

Atul Sood

You got to come out to the base. You got to let me take you. I know.

00:08:58:24 – 00:09:16:14

Zack Oates

I feel like I got to go out there because there’s just so many good restaurants in the Bay area, and I lived in San Francisco for a while, and I feel like there’s a little bit of a dearth of, like, great restaurants. And in the last few years, I feel like a lot have been coming in, especially around the Bay area.

00:09:16:15 – 00:09:44:06

Zack Oates

So anyway, but glad that Curry up now is still going strong. And so what advice do you give? Because right now there’s a lot of talk about consolidation. How do you balance the consolidation with best in class? Because the way that I look at it as a technology side is like, all right, ovation. We do certain things best in class and then we do other things that are like check the box and like we’re going to be a good solution for you.

00:09:44:06 – 00:10:05:17

Zack Oates

But if you want something about connecting with the guest and turn that into operational improvement, it’s like we are best in class there. And if you want some other things, it’s like, we can do that, but other people have a lot more bells and whistles. And so how do you get people? And I feel like that’s pretty much every company, every company has their strong suit.

00:10:05:17 – 00:10:16:17

Zack Oates

And then there’s other things that are added on in different varying levels of completeness and feature set. How do you balance that as a restaurant of let’s consolidate versus best in class.

00:10:16:17 – 00:11:05:11

Atul Sood

I think you identify what your core need is as a restaurant, what is your core need, and who’s the best in class provider for that. And after that, because it is much better to have one vendor versus a smattering of vendors for point solutions. If the other areas of corollary opportunities are not your core need, you can accept a company that will build a best in class solution that may not have a now, and partnering with that company which has the right intent, which has the right leadership, where you trust their long term strategic plans are going to overlap with your future needs, then that’s a perfectly worthwhile solution.

00:11:05:11 – 00:11:32:02

Atul Sood

And again, it’s not necessarily about the product as it stands today. It’s do you have trust in the leadership to build a product for tomorrow, in the next day that will meet your broader needs? And if that’s the case and they’re reasonably well capitalized and have the right heart behind them, then partner with them for best in class and trust that the kind of, as you say, checkbox solutions will evolve over time.

00:11:32:02 – 00:12:16:07

Atul Sood

One of the challenges I had when I was looking for a job before I decided on this fractional path, is I saw a lot of companies out there that I thought were not products, but were features. And I would argue that there are a lot of features in this industry that present themselves as companies, but they’re not really companies, and it’s very problematic to engage with those feature companies instead of a product company like ovation for your solution, because you’re going to spend more dollars and you’re more importantly going to have more pain, which will distract your leadership team from their core goals, which are serving the customer in the store or in delivery.

00:12:16:08 – 00:12:32:24

Atul Sood

So I would absolutely caution operators to avoid the snazzy demo that is really just a feature with a little bit of lipstick on top, and go with a real company with a real product like you guys have.

00:12:33:01 – 00:12:36:15

Zack Oates

Well, appreciate that and any tips to sniffing that out?

00:12:36:16 – 00:13:10:00

Atul Sood

Yeah. Ask what the roadmap is and then bring them back to what that feature does today and ask what their competition is. And then specifically ask what larger company has this product of yours as a feature. And if they’re wiggly about that, if they try to deflect the conversation, then you know that they don’t even have faith in their own solution, because there are a lot of product companies that have, let’s say, guest reviews as a feature.

00:13:10:00 – 00:13:17:21

Atul Sood

But there are some companies that have guest reviews as their primary product. And you got to wonder about that.

00:13:17:24 – 00:13:38:15

Zack Oates

And I look at that and it’s interesting because as you look in the market, as you see all these different tech companies that are popping up, it’s amazing when you look at who you’re going to partner with because like, for example, in the last six months at ovation, we have 15 x how fast we are building. Wow. And it’s incredible.

00:13:38:15 – 00:14:04:19

Zack Oates

And we’re you know looking to double that again. And so as you look at like the rate of change where we went from, hey, let’s build a few things every month. And now it’s like every week and pushing that out. And then the ability that we have to build at the speed of thought as we’re doing our meetings now, it’s not like, hey, would it be nice if it did this?

00:14:04:20 – 00:14:35:04

Zack Oates

It’s like, hey, let’s build that right now. Is this right? No, I want to do this. Great. Let’s tweak it. And then. Does he want this? Yes. What about this? Yes. And so we can build that quickly now. It’s so incredible because you’re less looking for someone who can maybe have all the features that you’re looking for in terms of today and more looking for that partner that’s going to build with you and going to continuously innovate, because that’s got to be core to who they are.

00:14:35:05 – 00:14:38:03

Zack Oates

Is that obsession with innovation and becoming better?

00:14:38:04 – 00:14:57:24

Atul Sood

Absolutely. I work with a company in the construction project management space driven by AI, and they will literally sit side by side with the customer and ask them what features they want, and they’ll turn around those features next week, and you can do that now. We can do that now. Your customers should start demanding and expecting it, and that’s really exciting.

00:14:57:24 – 00:15:15:22

Atul Sood

And I think it will marginalize a lot of these feature companies, because they don’t have that tip of the spear to enter in with. What we talked about earlier is a core solution. So I think we may see some consolidation in the market, but there’s there’s less and less reason for consolidation now because you can just build a damn thing.

00:15:15:23 – 00:15:38:15

Atul Sood

Right. So I think instead we will see some market share expansion from the established players who adopted AI quickly, who already have a client base and are just spreading their wings and land and expand manner. And I think some of these smaller, more recent upstarts will be honestly forced out of the industry, and it will be a little bit of a reckoning.

00:15:38:16 – 00:15:46:17

Atul Sood

I think it’ll be better for the brand. I think it’ll be better for the ecosystem. It’ll unfortunately be hard on several people.

00:15:46:19 – 00:15:55:18

Zack Oates

Yeah. Yeah, totally. Well, I know that we’re coming up here on time with tools, so who deserves an ovation? Who is someone that we should be following in the industry?

00:15:55:21 – 00:15:59:00

Atul Sood

Is it wrong to give a shout out to my CEO?

00:15:59:01 – 00:16:00:16

Zack Oates

No.

00:16:00:18 – 00:16:19:14

Atul Sood

If some of you watching this have been to conferences over the last several years, he’s been off the circuit the last year and a half or so. But there’s a crazy Indian guy, Punjabi Akash Kapoor. He has a blue goatee. He’s got more earrings than any sensible man or woman should have, I’m pretty sure.

00:16:19:19 – 00:16:21:09

Zack Oates

And the personality to match.

00:16:21:13 – 00:16:24:10

Atul Sood

The personality match? I’m pretty sure he has his belly button pierced.

00:16:24:11 – 00:16:26:07

Zack Oates

I can’t verify that. Just to be clear.

00:16:26:08 – 00:16:40:03

Atul Sood

Yeah, just just to be clear, he does not have his belly button pierced, but. But it wouldn’t surprise me. He’s built a brand in the Indian fast casual segment that has a lot of legs. He has a lot of heart and definitely do innovation.

00:16:40:04 – 00:16:55:08

Zack Oates

Awesome. Yeah. Akash, is someone definitely worth the follow. He’s a great guy and an amazing personality and great person. So and Atul. How do people find and follow you? And if they want to get in touch with you for any fractional biz dev work on the restaurant or tech side.

00:16:55:09 – 00:17:12:06

Atul Sood

I love meeting new people. It is almost an obsession of mine. I am probably easiest to reach on LinkedIn, which is also an obsession of mine. And first name. Last name. I’m very, very responsive when I’m awake. So please, to reach out.

00:17:12:07 – 00:17:24:07

Zack Oates

Yeah. And that’s Atul at UL. Sodhi Atul soon. That’s right. Well, Atul for reminding us that caring about the guest experience is the first step to improving it. Today’s ovation goes to you. Thank you for joining us on Given Ovation.

00:17:24:08 – 00:17:26:12

Atul Sood

Awesome. Thank you for having me.

00:17:26:14 – 00:17:48:06

Zack Oates

Thanks for joining us today. If you liked this episode, leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite place to listen. We’re all about feedback here. Again, this episode was sponsored by ovation, a two question, SMS based, actionable guest feedback platform built for multi-unit restaurants. If you’d like to learn how we can help you measure and create a better guest experience, visit us at ovation.