Eff Around & Find Out - 12.21.22

Scary-ass gorillas + how I scaled companies and "made millions"

Imagine if this gorilla started walking towards you like this…

---

SALES.

Hey, Y’all. Final issue for 2022. Happy Holidays to everyone!

A YouTuber watched this video (please watch and subscribe, if you haven’t; it helps me out!):

And asked this question:

My answers below will honor two entrepreneurial truths.

1. When you’re starting out, say YES. Take every learning opportunity you can; and people love a can-do attitude.

2. Enthusiasm > Experience. Enthusiasm will be the resilient, persistent force that surpasses obstacles, shortcomings, and resistance from the “experienced” who relies on the past and maintains power from keeping the status quo.

Let’s get into this.

Q: How many millions did you make selling your startup?

I didn’t.

For context, in 2005 a few friends and I decided to get into the restaurant business with little-to-no capital, no experience, no research, and no plan.

We just loved Louisiana crawfish (a Southern delicacy); saw that there was an overwhelming demand and meager supply in our area; and decided to jump in.

“Little-to-no capital” meant we used student loans (we were all in college at the time) and borrowed money from friends and family.

“No experience” meant that one of my partners - who was in charge of the recipes - had no culinary schooling, but had a knack for tasting and deconstructing what was in it.

That, and none of us have ever ran a restaurant before; and thought “How hard could it be?”

“No research” meant that we made a ton of stupid, costly, and preventable mistakes…but at the same time, it also meant we weren’t overwhelmed with the knowledge of so many obstacles, that would’ve probably stopped us from getting started.

Because we handled problems as they came, we didn’t stress out about fears that never happened; and whatever did happen, they came one or a few at at time and were surmountable speed bumps - versus being paralyzed by a mountain of odds.

Ignorance helped us, in this case.

“No plan” meant that didn’t put a business plan or feasibility study.

We simply wanted this to exist.

We wanted to scratch our own itch - that, in the absence of focus groups and market studies, there is at least market demand from the four of us. Do we really need anything else to start?

---

I believe that when you say “yes”, the universe starts revealing opportunities and dumb luck:

1. We found an old restaurant space that was abandoned by a few guys who just won a $55 million lottery. We inherited all of the equipment, just needed to put in another $60,000, and roll up our sleeves to do as much DIY (do it yourself) work as possible. This build-out cost should’ve been $500,000.

2. We opened our doors at a time when our biggest and only competitor in the marketplace was closed for two months a year. We didn’t realize that they closed because crawfish wasn’t in season during that time period (this is the drawback of “no research” lol we thought they just closed to go on vacation!). BUT, because we were so excited and we were already paying rent, we decided to open and offer other items like shrimp, clams, and crab. And, because during this two-month hiatus, everybody was craving crawfish but had no where to go; so, instead of us only taking some of our competitor’s business, we were able to capture ALL of their business, and expose everybody to our food while they were away.

Dumb luck, baby.

We ran that business for three years, before we got offered a buy-out of almost three times our investment.

Even though our company was worth more than that, and we had a lot more growth opportunities (opening more stores, expanding the menu, increasing, profitability, franchising, bottling up our sauces, etc.), each of us were still young and wanted to pursue other things (one friend got accepted into film school, the other was studying engineering, the third had other businesses to run, and I found a new obsession with franchising).

So, we sold.

We didn’t make millions, but I’d argue that it set me on the path to doing incredible work, moving forward.

I’m skipping a ton of details, and feel free to ask any questions you’d like; but this led me to:

• Sell over 1,000 franchises around the world. At an average franchise fee of $30,0000 per store, that’s about $30 million in franchise fee revenue. And that’s not counting royalties.

• Help a company go public. There is a Toronto, Canada based restaurant company called freshii hired my company to help them sell franchises. I helped them put over 400 units in development, before they went public for about $100 million.

• Help a company get acquired. A single-unit mom-and-pop burger shop in DC named Elevation Burger hired us to grow their brand. We helped the husband-and-wife owners Hans and April get to about 80 units, including stores that opened overseas, before they got acquired by a public company (Fat Brands, the parent company to Fatburger). Their average unit volume was about $1 million, so that was an $80 million enterprise.

• Jump back into the entrepreneurial realm. I ended up franchising with one of my clients, The Halal Guys. After selling about 100 stores, I asked the owners if I could buy the franchise rights to Southern California, and they agreed. So I built a team, raised a fund of $5 million, and built a chain of stores that currently generate about $15 million a year. I haven’t sold, yet; but we do get overs in the millions, from time to time. Follow us!

• Many more case studies.

So yes, I’ve made millions…but not through selling my first company, and most of those millions were made for my clients.

Q: I thought you only helped restaurants?

Me, too! LOL!

Even though I’ve been very obsessed with Web3 lately, a majority of my work is still purely in restaurants.

It’s just that, as I built relationships with clients, they’ve trust me to help them with non-food stuff, too.

That, and there are a lot of skills that are transferable - like sales, negotiating, entrepreneurship, systems, operations, branding, marketing, and writing.

The vehicle (like food, real estate, healthcare, tech, etc.) might be different; but the principles are the same.

Q: When did you get into scaling for start ups?

Hopefully all of the above will show that I’ve always worked in the scaling department

Hope this answers your questions and more!

Got any questions about entrepreneurship, sales, franchising, restaurants, or Web3?

Do you have any similar stories that honor these truths as well?

Disagree, or want to clarify a few things?

Reply and let me know. Happy to answer!

---

That’s it!

Thanks for reading. I love writing, so this means a ton =)

The best way to show that my work matters?

• Reply and tell me (it goes a long way for my ego lol!)

• Forward this to a friend you care about

• Comment and share feedback to make this better, or with questions (I love ‘em!)

• Hire me to write, speak, and consult on entrepreneurship, sales, and Web3.

Thanks for reading Eff Around & Find Out! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.