From War to Woking: How Yaro Tsyhanenko is Reinventing the Restaurant Pickup Experience with Pickpad
Tech on Toast Podcast – Episode: Yaro Tsyhanenko, Founder of Pickpad
In this episode, Chris Fletcher sits down with Yaro Tsyhanenko, Ukrainian-born entrepreneur and founder of Pickpad, a smart hardware startup solving one of hospitality's most overlooked problems: the pickup area.
What we cover:
- Yaro's journey from building a delivery marketplace across 15 Ukrainian cities to relocating after the outbreak of war
- How he went from Ukraine to Ireland to Chicago to Arizona State's entrepreneurship program to the UK
- Why he spent hours sitting in QSRs with a stopwatch to understand the real pain in restaurant operations
- The Pickpad concept: a modular system of smart pads using weight sensors and machine learning to automate order management at the pickup area
- How Pickpad integrates with existing POS, KDS, and online ordering systems. No capital investment, live in under an hour, from £9/month
- The "ARC" framework: Accurate, Ready, Completed. The three order states restaurants are currently flying blind on
- Why 15% of fast food/QSR orders are inaccurate, and how Pickpad tackles this
- Coverage from TechCrunch and Forbes, and winning a CES National Award in the AI category
- Integrations already in place with Square, Olo, Toast, and Oracle, with UK EPOS partnerships in progress
- Yaro's vision for zero-friction ordering: AI, smart glasses, robots, and a universal interface between local businesses and their customers
- Advice for founders: get out of your head and talk to your customers
Find Pickpad:🌐 pickpad.com💼 Yaro on LinkedIn
Tech on Toast – Hospitality technology, straight talking.
