How to reinvent franchising with tech and transparency

Alibaba Group lobbied for a direct Beijing Capital Airlines flight between Moscow and Hangzhou and succeeded :-) It suits Dodo Pizza just fine, as Hangzhou, the Internet capital of China, is the very place where we are going to launch our cashier-less “pizzeria of the future.” Our target opening date is April 1, 2019. For the next week and a half I’ll be with our team in China.

It is our first day in Hangzhou in the photo. This is our China team, Bauyrzhan, Patty, and Cheng. You don’t see Eric and Ali here, since they are at the construction site—we’re building the “pizzeria of the future” production facility already. Here we are at the Dodo Pizza China headquarters, meaning a small room at the WeWork coworking space in downtown Hangzhou.

Today, we’ve met with real estate agents, and I’ve told them about our company and our plans. Together we’ve been getting ready for tomorrow’s meeting with the administration of the most fashionable shopping center in Hangzhou. In the afternoon and in the evening, we checked premises where we may open our pizzeria, and counted foot traffic there. After that, we ate frogs with pepper (and it still burns something terrible), and talked about our project concept a lot. And then, we took the subway to the hotel and took a walk through the evening city…