Twenty years running businesses.
Now building the systems I always wished I had.
Ponzu AI was founded by John Longland. Not a developer who read a business book. A business operator who learned to build.
The short version
I spent twenty years in hospitality. Chef, head chef, general manager, director, co-founder. I have run teams of 3 and teams of 50. I have chased invoices at midnight, rebuilt rotas at 6am, and done five jobs at once because nobody else was going to do them.
In 2025, I took my ICB bookkeeping qualifications because I wanted to understand every line of the books the same way I understood every section of a kitchen. That same instinct led me to AI. Not the stuff everyone is talking about. The infrastructure underneath. Systems that actually run, day in and day out, without someone babysitting them.
Ponzu AI is what happened when I combined twenty years of operational experience with the ability to build the tools I always wished I had.
The timeline
2007
Front of House
Started in hospitality on the floor. Front of house, learning the trade from the ground up. Service, customers, suppliers, stocktakes, rotas. Every system a small business runs, I was inside it before I was old enough to know what I was learning.
2010
General Manager
First GM role in Hertfordshire at 23. Then into London. Ran craft beer pubs and some of the most talked-about independent rooms in the capital. Hosted some of the first pop-up kitchens in the city before anyone had a name for them. P&L responsibility, team builds from scratch, supplier negotiations, licensing, refurbs. The full weight of running a venue, not just managing one.
2014
Recruitment
A year inside dozens of small businesses at close range. Different industries, same story. Brilliant at what they did, buried in everything else. Owners losing hours every week to admin, chasing, and processes held together by one person who could not take a day off. That pattern never left me.
2019
Into the Kitchen
Ran a pop-up kitchen, then went full-time. CDP to head chef. Part of the opening team at Bubala Soho, one of the most celebrated restaurant launches in London. Built kitchen systems, managed food costs across volatile menus, ran services doing 200+ covers. Learned that the back of house has the same operational problems as the front, just with sharper knives.
2023
Co-Founder & Director
Co-founded and directed hospitality businesses. Not just the operations this time. Company formation, shareholder agreements, cash flow forecasting, HMRC, insurance, employment law. Every aspect of running a company from incorporation to service, from the inside.
2025
ICB Bookkeeping
Took my ICB qualifications because I wanted to understand every line of the books the way I understood every section of a kitchen. Xero, Sage, QuickBooks. That financial rigour carried straight into how I build automation systems. If you do not understand the numbers, you cannot build tools that protect them.
2026
Ponzu AI Launches
Twenty years of operational experience meets the ability to build. Every problem I had ever wanted to solve, I could now build the solution for. Ponzu AI is what happened when I stopped waiting for someone else to build the tools I always wished I had.
Why it matters
Most people building AI tools for businesses have never run one. They understand the technology but not the 60-hour weeks, the missed invoices, the leads that went cold because you were too busy doing three other things.
I have been on the other side of every problem I solve. When I build your system, I already know where the friction is. I am not guessing. I have been the person staying late to do the work these systems now handle.
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About the name
Ponzu is my Welsh Terrier. Named after the Japanese citrus soy sauce. Sharp, distinctive, and impossible to ignore. He is tenacious, fearless, opinionated, and certainly never takes no for an answer. Seemed right for an agency.
Chief Security Officer since 2024.
If any of this sounds like your kind of operator, the discovery call is free and there is no pitch.