Colega AI: Creating a Personalized AI Editor for Restaurants
When it comes to finding a restaurant, do you open a search engine or Google Maps? For Gen Z, they open Instagram or TikTok. According to Forbes research, 67% of young people aged 18 to 24 choose Instagram as their preferred platform for searching information. This means that restaurant owners need to actively manage their social media presence to capture the attention of young consumers.
However, for many small and inexperienced restaurant owners, creating content for social media can be a headache. Moreover, social media marketing is not just about posting content; it’s about telling a brand story and building an image to create a unique appeal.
Colega AI aims to solve this problem by creating a personalized “AI editor” for restaurants. It automatically generates customized text and images based on the restaurant’s brand tone, target audience, and current events, using publicly available information. This allows small restaurants with no social media experience to easily attract attention and tell their own story.
Understanding the pain points of restaurant management, how does Colega AI assist restaurants in managing social media effortlessly?
Social media has become a battlefield for the food and beverage industry, but for many small businesses, managing social media is a daunting task.
“81% of consumers first use social media to learn about a restaurant before deciding whether to dine there,” says Feng Jianxin, the founder of Colega AI. Many F&B operators understand the importance of social media, but lack the professional knowledge and tools to effectively utilize it to promote their brand and attract customers.
With 15 years of experience in Silicon Valley and co-founder of AI company Basilica, which was selected by Y Combinator in 2019, Feng Jianxin has a deep understanding of the pain points faced by F&B operators. He has also opened several restaurants in the US and introduced Taiwan’s tea brand “Tea For You” to California.
Feng Jianxin once outsourced social media management to professionals, but found that they often lacked an understanding of the product and brand tone, making it difficult to differentiate the brand through posts. Moreover, he discovered that most social media management tools on the market were expensive and complex, making it difficult for small businesses to meet their needs.
Therefore, Feng Jianxin decided to create Colega AI based on his own experience. This tool acts as a dedicated “AI editor” that automatically generates customized text and images based on the restaurant’s brand tone, target audience, and current events. It helps F&B operators easily capture customer attention and improve the effectiveness of social media promotion.
From content generation to post scheduling, everything is handled by the “AI editor”
Using Colega AI is simple. Users just need to enter the restaurant’s name, address, and link their social media accounts. The system will then redirect to Colega AI’s LINE chat room, where users can request the promotion of product information or other needs. The system will automatically generate the content. If users have no ideas, they can ask the system to recommend post ideas based on the restaurant’s location or current events.
After confirming the content, users can choose the publishing time, and Colega AI will automatically publish it on the designated social media platforms. In addition, the tool can generate 30 posts that combine current events and unique characteristics, allowing users to easily plan a month’s worth of marketing materials.
Colega AI analyzes customer reviews on Google Maps and interaction data on social media to precisely generate posts that align with the brand tone. By integrating backend data from social media platforms and Google Maps reviews, Colega AI optimizes social media management strategies.
In addition to providing automatic content generation and publishing functions, Colega AI also integrates with Facebook and Instagram platforms, allowing businesses to post directly on both platforms without switching manually.
Feng Jianxin recalls that it was not easy to convince Meta to collaborate with Colega AI. The biggest challenge was to make Meta believe that Colega AI could provide assistance to their users and ensure that the generated content would not violate any community guidelines.
“The needs of large corporations and small businesses are completely different. If we simply simplify the tools used by large corporations for small businesses, they will have a hard time adapting,” says Feng Jianxin. The team has always focused on the needs of small businesses from the beginning, and to ensure that Colega AI truly solves their problems, they have personally interacted with these small business customers to ensure that the tool is both simple and user-friendly.
A cross-disciplinary team building Colega AI, providing AI-driven social media marketing solutions for restaurants
The Colega AI team consists of members from different fields with rich experience and skills. They believe that with their complementary strengths, they can not only help F&B operators easily manage their social media platforms but also have the confidence to expand to the global market.
Why did Colega AI choose to start in Taiwan instead of the United States?
“Food and dining are the most important aspects of culture in Taiwan, and any industry or research related to food and dining is an opportunity,” says Xu Ziting, the marketing director of Colega AI. Xu Ziting, who previously worked as a marketing manager for Uber Eats and was involved in Uber Eats’ entry into the Taiwan market, has 10 years of experience in F&B marketing and promotion.
During the early stages of the startup, Feng Jianxin realized the need for a partner who understands the Asian market. When Xu Ziting heard about Colega AI’s startup concept, she was immediately attracted and joined the team wholeheartedly. “We have different advantages, but our goals are the same: to use technology to help F&B operators.”
In addition to the flourishing food and beverage industry and diverse food culture in Taiwan, there are well-thought-out reasons why Colega AI chose Taiwan as its base of operations.
Feng Jianxin explains that Taiwan has a complete AI industry chain with abundant resources in terms of GPUs, chips, and hardware equipment. Moreover, Taiwan has many talented technologists, allowing Colega AI’s technical team to grow rapidly. Lastly, Taiwan’s startup ecosystem is maturing, providing a favorable development environment for startup companies.
Currently, besides receiving support from SparkLabs Taiwan, a startup accelerator and venture fund, Colega AI has already collaborated with six restaurants. Although the product has not officially launched yet, they plan to collaborate with retail sales software to provide more diversified services. They also plan to enter the Japanese market next year to assist more F&B operators in online marketing.
As the influence of social media in the F&B industry continues to grow, Colega AI is using technology to create new possibilities for traditional F&B businesses, helping small businesses effortlessly capture attention and tell their own stories, and assisting more F&B operators in achieving success in the digital age.
Quick Q&A:
Q: What is the most common question asked by customers or investors? How do you respond?
The most common question we are asked is: Why are you focusing on restaurant owners instead of developing AI for enterprises? AI has been around for a while, but most tools are designed for white-collar workers or tech-savvy enterprises. However, at Colega AI, we believe that AI should be accessible to even the least tech-savvy business owners and be designed to solve their specific problems.
Q: What resources does your team currently lack to achieve the next goal?
We are currently in the process of fundraising, and the funds will help us build the core founding team, accelerate product development, and provide sufficient resources for market promotion.
Q: What has entrepreneurship taught you? Share some thoughts and experiences since starting the company.
When building a tech startup, your vision should be driven by the problem you want to solve, not the technology you want to use. So, instead of building the best technology first and finding a problem to apply it to, it should be the other way around: find a pressing problem and then build the best technology to solve it.
Q: What are the top three things you have done well in your entrepreneurship journey so far?
We have been selected to join the SparkLabs accelerator.
We have developed an AI solution that automates social media marketing tasks through natural language chat technology on LINE, and our solution requires no technical background.
We have built a recommendation engine tailored to each restaurant owner, providing suggestions and ideas for customized marketing content based on key data that may impact customers, such as local events, weather, news, and trending topics.
Team Information:
Company Name: Colega AI
Established: 2023
Product Name: The world’s first AI social media editor exclusively for restaurants
Official Website: [website]
