How Tabloa began: from an everyday problem to a global vision

Tabloa began because we saw the same problem from two different places. As customers, we experienced slow checkout, bills that were hard to reconstruct and uncertainty about what had been consumed. By listening to owners and teams, we found the other side: handwritten tickets, scattered information, losses that were difficult to explain and several systems that did not communicate with one another.

The idea was simple to state, though not simple to build: bring the operation together in one clear, complete and accessible platform that could help a food truck, restaurant, bar, cafe, ice cream shop, rooftop or multi-location business.

This is the story of why we decided to build it.

How did Tabloa begin? From the other side of the table

Before building Tabloa, we were—and still are—customers of food and hospitality businesses. We sat down to eat, placed orders, waited for the bill and saw how an experience that started well could end with a delay or an uncomfortable question.

Sometimes checkout took too long because someone had to find a ticket. At other times, it was unclear which products belonged to the table. We also saw corrections made from memory, orders that had to be confirmed several times and teams trying to solve in public what was really an information problem.

For the end customer, that feels like waiting or confusion. For the business, each of those moments can mean lost time, an incorrect bill, an unrecorded sale or an experience that does not encourage a return visit.

We started asking what was happening behind the table.

The problem was not a lack of tools

Solutions already existed, yet many operations remained fragmented. One system managed inventory, another organized tables, another received orders, and a notebook still connected the floor to the kitchen. Reports might live in a spreadsheet while shift updates ended up in a group chat.

By listening to owners, managers and team members, we found deeper concerns:

• cash differences that were difficult to reconstruct;
• consumed or voided products without enough traceability;
• inventory that did not reflect what happened during service;
• overly broad permissions or controls that depended on one person;
• complex interfaces the team avoided using;
• and costs that kept digitization beyond the reach of many businesses.

Missing traceability also creates a human problem. Without a clear record, a mistake, waste and deliberate abuse can look exactly the same. Measurement protects the business, but it also protects the team from suspicion without evidence.

We did not want to add another isolated system to that list.

What did we want to do differently?

We wanted to build a platform that understood the operation as one connected journey. An order taken on a phone should reach preparation, affect inventory, close correctly at checkout and become useful information for the next decision. Every part matters, but its full value appears when all the parts are connected.

From the beginning, we set four goals:

1. Bring operations together. Orders, tables, preparation, checkout, inventory, customers and reporting should share the same information.
2. Keep it simple. A feature is not useful if the team cannot understand it during a real shift.
3. Make it accessible. Digitization should not be a privilege reserved for the largest operations.
4. Turn activity into data. What happens every day should help explain what works, what is being lost and what can improve.

Tabloa was not created to replace the experience of people who know their business. It was created to give them a clearer foundation from which to operate and decide.

“You cannot control what you cannot measure”

Someone told us that phrase along the way, and it stayed with us.

A business can feel that something is wrong, but it needs data to know whether the issue is a charge, a void, a recipe, waste, a payment method or a process no one is following. Without measurement there is suspicion; with information there are concrete questions and possible decisions.

That is why we want Tabloa to help businesses measure much more than sales. We want each operation to understand its timing, movements, costs, products, closings, inventory, customers and teams—not to fill dashboards, but to improve what truly happens during service.

Data is not the destination. It is a tool for improving everything else.

Our customers are at the center, from both sides

When we say customers are at the center, we first mean the businesses that trust Tabloa. We listen to owners, managers and teams because they understand the pain points, constraints and goals of their operation. A feature should solve real work, not exist simply to make a sales list longer.

But we also think about the end customer: the person who arrives, orders, waits, consumes and pays. A better-connected operation shows up as clearer tickets, fewer corrections, faster checkout and an experience that flows without exposing the chaos behind it.

Both perspectives matter. Helping the business also means helping it serve people better.

July 1, 2026: Tabloa entered the world

Tabloa launched on July 1, 2026. That day did not mark the end of development; it marked the moment our promise began facing real operations.

Since then, we have confirmed something no prototype can prove on its own: the product is useful, solves concrete problems and helps teams work better. We know we delivered on the promise we started with, and we also know we must deliver on it again with every improvement, conversation and update.

That means listening even when the answer changes our plans. It means acknowledging limits, explaining clearly what is available and building with the care required by a product an entire shift depends on.

Where are we headed?

Our ambition is significant: we want to build the best platform for running food and hospitality businesses.

We are looking first to Colombia, where we want to grow deeply and understand the reality of these businesses even better. From there, we want to bring that learning to Latin America and compete globally—not as a race to add markets, but as an opportunity to prove that world-class, approachable and accessible technology can be built from here.

We want to support a business from its first order to the coordination of several locations. We want to turn more activity into useful information. We want to keep automating repetitive work without making the experience complex. And we want to do it without losing what gave rise to Tabloa: listening to our customers and building around real problems.

The story is just beginning.

You can learn more about our purpose and vision or explore everything you can already do with Tabloa.