We were lucky to catch up with Danielle Casilio recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Danielle thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Let’s start with a story that highlights an important way in which your brand diverges from the industry standard.

Doing things differently was one of our first mottos when we started Yelli. We didn’t want to be afraid of being different, even if it meant that we might get a strange reaction here and there, or even sacrifice a sale once in awhile. There are a few things that we do differently than others in our industry, from deciding what new features to build, to how we advertise and even our day-to-day operations.

I would say that the thing we have most committed to doing differently is running with a small team. A lot of tech companies focus on building up the company, hiring a lot of people because there’s this idea that more people equals more work getting done. In our experience we have seen more growth with a small team of people who are passionate about what we’re working on, and who have access to the entire project and understand the big picture.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I started working as a waitress when I was in high school, and even after graduating from college I continued working in restaurants part-time. I was working as a training manager while opening a new restaurant here in LA, and I started thinking about how tedious it was to train restaurant staff. There was a ton of paperwork to keep updated, like our menu information, procedures, steps for interacting with guests, cleaning checklists, and just general handbook information. Every time a new team member needed to be trained, I would have to go through the handbook and make sure everything was up to date and print it out for them. Sometimes this didn’t happen, and then they’d be confused because they had the wrong info!

I began looking for a software that we could use to make the training process easier, and when I couldn’t find one I decided to create Yelli. We basically took the traditional training method of learning the restaurant details and then completing day-by-day training and turned it into a web and mobile app. When a restaurant signs up for a Yelli account, their managers can go in to add all of their training information – including menus, floorplans, uniforms, steps of service, sidework, company info, training videos, training plans, and tests. Then, their team members can review the info, complete tests and training, and also get notified if things are updated in the future.

Our focus was to create a platform that made perfect sense for restaurant teams, and that wouldn’t have a huge learning curve. I’m really proud to say that we accomplished just that, and it continues to be the most common feedback we hear. Our clients save so much time and energy when it comes to training both their new hires and veteran employees – plus the employees are happier because their training is organized and easy to follow.

We’ve just started to roll out Yelli 2.0, which includes lots of new features that we’re really excited about. I can say from my experience of launching Yelli that you will never stop learning and wanting to improve your product, and you never should!

What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?

A lesson that I had to unlearn is that “the customer is always right.”

When you work in hospitality, that’s the first thing you learn. Your job is to make sure the customer is happy, so no matter how crazy their requests might seem to you, you do what you can to make it happen. If you can’t get them what they want, then you still go out of your way to get them the next best thing, or figure out the best way possible to explain why you can’t deliver.

As a business owner I had to very quickly unlearn this. While the customer might be right when asking for what they need, they aren’t always right when telling you how to run your business. I spent a lot of time overthinking absolutely everything about our product, because after every client call I would think to myself “they’re right, we need to build XYZ feature before this will ever be useful” without taking into account who the person was and where they were coming from. Of course listening to client feedback is extremely important, but not every client is right and you’ll quickly exhaust yourself trying to please everyone.

Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?

The most effective strategy for growing our clientele has been word of mouth marketing! I promise that no matter how much you spend on fancy ads and marketing campaigns, nothing will ever beat happy customers who spread the word about your product to other potential customers. Not only is it free, but those new customers are more likely to stick around than those who maybe just saw a curated ad and are trying to see for themselves if your product is worth it or not.

We have had quite a few clients who have come from a good referral, and even a few who signed up because a team member had been trained with Yelli at a previous job and liked the experience so much they convinced their new employer to use us as well. That’s always so cool to hear!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.yelliapp.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yelliapp/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yelliapp
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/76088842/admin/feed/posts/