Loaded with potential

When your local student pub isn’t operating to its full potential you buy it and fix the problem, right?

That’s what friends and Cook Brothers founders, Richard McLeod, James Arnott and David and Ben Bulling, did aged just 21.

In the following years, Cook Brothers Bars quickly developed. They added a stack of bars across the country to their stable and formed Cook Brothers Construction to help get the job done.

Arnott had a strong interest in technology and was frustrated with the inefficient hospitality systems that were available, so the team launched their own – Loaded.

Now 40, they’re a far cry from those early student days when they made the bold move to bid for the lease on Dunedin’s famous Captain Cook Tavern.

“We thought it was pretty unlikely, but the breweries owning it were doing such a bad job,” says Richard McLeod.

“It felt like a moon shot for us to be the right buyer, but the expressions of interest process took so long that the qualified established operators pulled out.”

Cook Brothers enjoyed great success in a short space of time, working many hours to make the businesses work.

“We had plenty of energy then. That’s one of the benefits of starting at 21, and the naivety of youth,” says McLeod, “It was exciting and fun.”

But running the different operations together became unwieldy. So in 2013, aged 30, they sold Captain Cook Tavern and split the remaining bars and construction operations between them.

The Bulling brothers, with their engineering expertise, took over the construction business. McLeod and Arnott took the hospitality businesses and Loaded.

These days, Arnott owns Cook Brothers Bars, which includes Queenstown bars Searle Lane and Rhino’s Ski Shak.

After selling Loaded, McLeod returned to the business as CEO four years ago. His sole focus is now on growing the successful business further.

“We’re running at just under 1,000 bars and restaurants across NZ, representing about 30 to 35 per cent penetration into the market,” says McLeod.

The back-of-house system has made huge differences for clients.

“We’ve got case studies that show it’s improved profitability by 220 per cent,” explains McLeod.

“People have told us they’d have gone out of business without it.”

With businesses across the country struggling with staffing shortages, Loaded is relied on even more for stock management, time-sheet management and rostering, budgeting, reporting and reconciliation.

“We hired one developer, and then two, and started developing a system and reporting tools. Over time we had a cloud-based hospitality system, which became Loaded,” says McLeod.

“Others in the industry asked if they could use it when they saw what a huge difference it had made to us. Once other operators started using it the value was eye-opening.”

Loaded was before its time, with the hospitality industry then a long way from adopting digital platforms, so they waited until the right time to actively pursue growing the business.

Industry disruptions during Covid proved to be the perfect timing, catapulting Loaded into the spotlight as more hospitality businesses realised they needed to adopt technology.

“We’ve been a core digital product for hospitality since then.”

Loaded is sold on a monthly subscription SaaS (Software as a Service) model with operators accessing it through the cloud.

“It’s been pretty transformational for people’s businesses once they implement it,” says McLeod.

To break into the Australian market, a significant injection of capital was required.

A recent capital raise provided that with Invest South becoming a major partner, investing $1 million and private investors (several South Island based) putting in another million. A further $1.25 million came through the government’s Queenstown Economic Transformation and Resilience Fund, administered by Kānoa.

This has enabled them to build a product that’s specific to the Australian hospitality industry’s needs. Five software developers joined Loaded’s Queenstown-based team in January, several from overseas, bringing the total New Zealand team to 14. McLeod expects to hire a dozen more by 2025.

A head of sales for Australia and New Zealand will be appointed this winter and based on Australia’s East Coast, where they’ll build a sales team this year.

It’s safe to say the Queenstown friends have come a long way, from buying their local pub to running a multitude of businesses and helping to grow the town’s tech industry.