The View from the Office.

I met up with Kiran Chokshi, founder of Forkast, in the offices of the venture capital firm Antler, where he’s taking part in their six-week accelerator. 

Forkast is an AI startup that helps restaurants optimize their menus and prices using data to more accurately and quickly assess shifts in the market. 

Most everyone is familiar with how ride share companies like airlines or hotels employ value-based pricing models. Forkast brings that intelligence to restaurants, most of whom price each item on the menu using little more than their gut instinct or some margin over costs. 

After interviewing 200+ operators, Kiran found 95% still use “cost-plus” pricing or gut instinct. Forkast’s mission is to replace that intuition with intelligence — helping restaurants make pricing more of a science.

The company uses AI and data science to analyze sales, costs, competitors, and macro trends and recommends smart, data-backed price and promo changes that lift revenue and maintain customers. In part that’s because it gives you the ability to price specific menu items and create smart bundles instead of lifting prices across the board. 

It’s such a cool idea and such a great way to use technology. Imagine you own an Italian restaurant and need to price your signature Cacio e pepe. Imagine if you could easily gather prices from all the restaurants in the area and know what to do quickly and easily.  

Kiran’s path makes sense when you know he spent time working in restaurants — from food runner to bartender to cook — to understand the business from the inside. He also worked as a senior consultant at Simon-Kucher, which advises companies on pricing and revenue strategies. 

Kiran hails from my home state of New Jersey but unlike me he was a) an Eagle Scout, b) attended high school at Pingry and c) got a perfect SAT score before going to Yale and then Wharton for his MBA. Impressive! 

You can connect with Kiran on LinkedIn or DM me for a warm intro.