Hickey Delivers Fast Growth At Vromo
As the restaurant software platform expands into the massive US market, CEO Brian Hickey tells Karina Corbett how the company’s major pivot is paying off
Being at the helm of an earlystage tech start-up has been the natural next step in what has been a varied career path for Brian Hickey. The CEO of Vromo, a restaurant delivery software platform, studied business in Dublin Institute of Technology, where he specialised in finance and marketing.
He went on to work for corporates including Procter & Gamble and Danone, before taking on the role of commercial director at Innocent, when the drinks company was just starting out. He remained there for a few years, overseeing its growth, until Coca-Cola bought a stake in 2009.
“After I left Innocent, I was a little fed up of retail and wanted to do something different,” Hickey recalls. “Just Eat had launched in Ireland, so I went to work for them, heading up the operation. Ireland became one of the most successful countries for Just Eat, which led to me moving into a different role where I was responsible for multiple territories. That’s how I developed an interest in food delivery and what was going on in the sector.”
After leaving Just Eat, Hickey (48) came across a company called WeBringg, which had been founded in 2016 by Sean Murray and Alan Hickey (no relation) to provide e-tailers with a same-day delivery service, using a team of crowdsourced drivers and cyclists. Drawn to its business model, Hickey decided to invest in the start-up and took a seat on the board in 2018.
“We soon discovered that it was our software that was really generating the demand,” says Hickey. “We had started to receive interest from the US. Large restaurant brands were telling us that they didn’t need our drivers, but they liked our software, and
that it was better than what they were currently using.”
Hickey and the founders decided to shift the direction of the business. “It was more than a pivot; we effectively shut down WeBringg, handing that market share to our competitors, and started again as Vromo in late 2019,” explains Hickey. “It was from there that I got more heavily involved in the dayto-day operations.”
Concentrating on restaurant deliveries was Vromo’s strategic direction from the outset. “There is lots of software out there to manage dispatch and delivery, but it tends to straddle restaurant, parcel and grocery delivery,” notes Hickey.
“If you are going to do it that way, then you’re not going to be particularly good at any one of them. We saw an opportunity to just focus on restaurant delivery, which is an absolutely massive market. It’s in double-digit growth, and has been for years, and that’s only going to increase as consumers always want more and more convenience.
So we decided to position ourselves as a restaurant delivery software provider. It’s very specific because when it comes to restaurant delivery, every second counts.”
So how exactly does the Vromo software work and what are its benefits