The Story of Gotab: Building the Invisible Future of Restaurant Technology

Sometimes the best business ideas come from experiencing problems firsthand. For Tim McLaughlin, co-founding Gotab in 2016 emerged from an unusual intersection: running breweries while having deep expertise in enterprise software development.

In a recent Category Visionaries episode, Tim shared how his journey to revolutionizing restaurant technology began with personal frustration. After building successful software consulting companies, he found himself co-owning two breweries with his wife. It was there he discovered just how broken restaurant technology really was.

“I quickly learned just how broken restaurant technology is,” Tim explains. “It’s all closed, it’s all proprietary. I mean, as an architecture and data, it’s all proprietary. Massive lock in. No portability, hardware lock in. It’s totally crazy.”

This realization led to Gotab’s founding vision: eliminating the friction points in guest experiences. As Tim puts it, they wanted to “make it so guests don’t have to do the things they don’t want to do in restaurants, aka pay split the non fun stuff, not ordering and tasting stuff, not talking to great service staff, but taking away the not fun stuff.”

But the path wasn’t straightforward. “It took us, frankly, about two years to finally get what we consider product market fit,” Tim recalls. When they introduced QR ordering to tables in 2018, they faced significant industry resistance. Restaurant operators were deeply skeptical of giving guests this level of control.

Their breakthrough came from an unexpected source: the operational challenges created by their own success. As Tim explains, “We would actually take more orders than they’d ever taken before at the same time.” This forced Gotab to expand beyond just ordering into comprehensive operational tools for kitchens and staff.

This expansion led to remarkable results. While typical restaurants struggle to keep labor costs under 30% of revenue, Gotab’s clients average 22% – a 25% reduction that translates directly to improved profitability. These results have attracted high-profile clients, including their recent opening of T Squared, a new venture by Tiger Woods and Justin Timberlake in New York City.

The company’s growth strategy focuses on quality over quantity. Rather than chasing restaurant count like many competitors, they target high-volume establishments where their technology can make the biggest impact. Tim notes, “If I can go win a $30 million restaurant… it’s actually a lot better for us as a business. And we can also build some really rich functionality for those operators.”

Looking ahead, Tim envisions a future where technology becomes invisible in the hospitality experience. “Our vision is that payments should disappear,” he explains. He describes scenarios where guests can seamlessly order from multiple venues, participate in activities like golf simulators, and make retail purchases – all without the friction of separate transactions.

This vision extends beyond just payments. As Tim puts it, “We think that the best technology is invisible and magic. And that’s really what we want, is we want all these things to disappear so you can enjoy the experience, so the server can enjoy the experience and talk with you about your golf game.”

For founders, Gotab’s story demonstrates how deep industry experience combined with technical expertise can unlock opportunities for innovation. Sometimes the most valuable startups emerge not from chasing the latest technology trends, but from solving fundamental problems in traditional industries that are ripe for transformation.