Bob invited Alex Velasco back for a franchising update. Instead he found out Alex had quietly taught himself to code and built a proprietary AI platform — 6 provisional patents, an official Garmin partnership, read/write access to Toast, and zero outside capital. “Do I really need outside capital to accomplish what I wanna do?” He got off LinkedIn, went heads down, and built it himself.

#LifeCurrency #RestaurantBusiness #Franchising #RestaurantTech #AIForRestaurants #ForkToFit #RGV #FoodAndPeople

Life Currency sits down with Alex Velasco, co-founder of Fork To Fit, for his second appearance — 15 months after the first. Alex walks through building ForkPulse from scratch starting last October: food logging, biometrics, telehealth, supplements, and ordering in one closed loop, running on an in-house AI model rather than a wrapper on someone else’s. He explains why he walked away from the private equity conversations he’d been courting, what it took to get read and write access out of Toast (a six-month fight and an ultimatum), and why he thinks most SaaS vendors serving restaurants should be nervous. Bob mirrors it with his own build — then demos it live, asking his business out loud how the McAllen Dairy Queens are performing. They get into the CAC problem most operators ignore, why Alex awards franchisees instead of selling to them, the commissary model behind the G5 Restaurant Group deal, and the goal he’s actually chasing: $5 meals and 100 million lives fed by 2030. Plus the emo band ambush and a live walkthrough of the app.

0:00 Cold Open: A Secret App
0:38 15 Months Later, He’s Back
1:03 Meet ForkPulse: Garmin, Toast, and In-House AI
3:16 Six Patents and a Closed Loop
4:29 “How’s Corporate Pushing AI?” — “They’re Not.”
6:04 Imposter Syndrome and Hiring People Who Care Too Much
8:30 Zero Outside Capital: Why He Walked Away From VC
10:04 The CAC Problem Every Restaurant Ignores
17:56 Selling What You Built For Yourself
19:28 50 Restaurants, 950 Employees, 100% Turnover
28:52 LIVE DEMO: Talking to Your Own Business
30:33 The Toast Ultimatum
33:00 Award Franchisees, Don’t Sell Them
39:51 $5 Meals and 100 Million Lives by 2030
41:04 G5 Restaurant Group and the Hub-and-Spoke Model
47:54 The Telehealth Play
54:04 AI Will Reform Industry by Industry
1:00:39 Surprise: His Emo Band on Video
1:02:03 The Gift He Sat On For 15 Months
1:11:06 Band Kid to Dentist to Bodybuilder to Founder
1:14:26 App Demo: Macros, Coach, Order in Four Taps
1:18:05 Why SaaS Vendors Should Be Scared

About Alex Velasco: Co-founder of Fork To Fit and The Grill, built with no outside capital alongside his partner Jose. Self-taught developer behind ForkPulse — 6 provisional patents, official Garmin partner, integrated with Apple Health, WHOOP, and Toast. Former competitive bodybuilder, biology graduate, and before all of it, a teenage guitarist in the RGV emo scene.

About us: Bob Lozano is the CEO of F&P Group, a company involved in restaurant management, commercial real estate, and digital marketing. Coming from a family of franchise owners, he’s a passionate entrepreneur who builds successful businesses and creates positive company cultures. Interested in starting, growing, or improving your work with multi-unit franchises? Learn more below.