Mimi Wu breaks bread with Min Zeya Phyo, founder and director of Code2Lab, to discover how his technology product can improve our dining experiences and what it took to develop it.
We’ve all been there: An evening dining out in Yangon can go from thrilling to frustrating in a matter of moments as you desperately try to catch one of the 20 servers’ attention.
“Orders get mistaken or they are never served, and the bill takes forever,” lamented Min Zeya Phyo, founder and Director of Code2Lab. “I started Code2Lab because I was trying to solve my own problems and realized there was a market need.”
Zeya grew up in Myanmar until a family vacation to Singapore turned into a 22-year residence overseas. As an adult in Singapore, he worked as a senior software engineer, but when a product his team was developing didn’t work out and the company restructured, he took a leap of faith and moved back to Myanmar. “When I first came back here, I didn’t know anybody. I didn’t have any contacts or any context point.”
A lot has changed in the three years since repatriating. Zeya originally provided software servicing, but the inefficiency and over employment at restaurants sparked an idea. The problem was that restaurant staff didn’t have a good procedure to share information and help stay organised. He switched gears to develop a product – a software system – that would fully automate cashier and order systems at food and beverage outlets. This would minimise errors by connecting all staff from the frontend to the kitchen.
“One of the reasons why our clients use our system is because it saves a lot of time, money, and even headaches.” With relatively cheap labor, it’s easy for food and beverage establishments to over employ staff. But as they say, too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the soup. Over employment comes with the responsibility of managing more staff than necessary and any chaos that may ensue. “Our system evolved to reduce the main head count.”
Code2Lab’s product streamlines the restaurant process of waiters taking orders, the kitchen fulfilling that order, and the cashier handling the bill. “We actually value add the front line staff because they’re focusing on the customer instead of taking orders and running around.”
As one would expect, though, developing such necessary software didn’t come easily.
“During that time, the Internet was expensive, phone SIM cards were expensive, everything was expensive; it was really crazy… no power, sometimes the water didn’t work.”
This made providing and using the service incredibly difficult. “If you want to start a business [in Myanmar], you have to plan for a, b, c, d, maybe even e and f.” Since the company housed central servers for all his customers and the servers constantly need to be online, stable power was critical. It’s from here that he learned to always have a backup plan: the office had a main power connection, a battery, and a generator.
If that wasn’t challenging enough, Zeya had to adjust to the working culture, which he found quite relaxed.
“People are not pressured to keep working, so to change jobs is not a difficult decision.”
For that reason, Zeya doesn’t only look for software engineering talent; he seeks employees who are open to learning, being creative, and working hard.
To retain his staff, Zeya has developed a working environment that encourages his 15-member team to think and develop freely, while at the same time setting a common goal to achieve. And along with training opportunities, karaoke nights have helped staff bond and unwind.
Such camaraderie reinforces the team’s resilience as they research, develop, test, and tweak the product.
“In software development, [engineers] develop a product and stop. The customer then has problems, ‘I need this feature, I want that.’ We wanted to be sure we could service them well and correctly, so we’ve done a lot of testing. I’d say we’re still in the development phase.”
It’s a bit modest, but Zeya has kept a low profile for the last three years to make sure his product is user-friendly and versatile for both fine dining establishments and tea shops. Code2Lab has just over 30 clients, including all eight locations of Shwe Palin Tea Shop, Happy Noodle Restaurant, My Garden, KTV bars, and even Hotel Shwe Gone Daing, but the product has spread organically by word-of-mouth. “We’re only developing a marketing team now.”
There’s little wonder why Zeya has been successful without formal advertising. Code2Lab’s automated solution helps restaurants reduce costly errors, increase staff productivity and organization, and improve the customer experience. It’s a system many restaurants are keen to use.
Zeya and his team are currently in the process of creating their second software. In the past, potential clients saw the intrinsic value of Zeya’s software but were put off by the installation price. Though the product itself was not expensive, power instabilities required a back up power system and redundancies, which pushed up overall costs.
Now, with more consistent electricity and more network providers, Code2Lab is able to cut down those costs. “In this version, we’re making things more simple. First is the cloud component. Instead of individual stores having local servers running – because right now, we have local servers running and everybody connects to it – we’ll have a smaller server gateway terminal that will connect back to our cloud.” And as long as you have Internet connection, “[owners] can push information to the cloud, and they can monitor it any time they want on the road, on a smart phone, or on a tablet.”
Code2Lab has also developed additional app modules for clients that have complex processes and need more than just the basic application platform. In this way, the product is tailored, whether the client wants to build an online mobile store, table reservations page, or warehouse.
With a market-ready product and a good understanding of servicing demands, Zeya is ready to shed his low profile approach. In 2014, Code2Lab participated in Lithan University College’s Startup Bootcamp Myanmar and was filmed for a Channel News Asia startup competition series. The company was crowned the Myanmar champion and went on to compete in the final round in Singapore. The series will debut in early February, and Zeya aims to coincide it with the launch of his new software.
Zeya is primarily focusing on the food and beverage industry, but retail shops have approached him. Perhaps, but not yet, he says. For now, he’s sticking to the food and beverage industry and seeking countrywide expansion. His first voyage outside of Yangon is with Sane Let Tin, the food centre and rest stop halfway to Kyaiktiyo Golden Rock.
“Within the next three to five years, we’ll have quite a big product line. We’ll create an ecosystem where businesses can rely on us. We hope to be the next big thing in terms of a startup in Myanmar and then go regional,” eying countries with both high and low technology infrastructure.
Until then, Zeya is proud to have built a missing product from the market and to provide unparalleled service. And that’s what keeps him going: “Every time you hit a road block, there’s a silver lining. People actually value what I made, and you build energy from that.”
This article was first published in MYANMORE’s monthly lifestyle magazine InDepth, February 2015
