0:00
Since I study dead entrepreneurs for a living, I get the question like out of the living entrepreneurs, who do you most admire?
Search this video
0:05
And a lot of the people on the list, it would be familiar to you.
0:09
But I found when I mention that one of the living entrepreneurs that I most admire is this guy named Todd Graves, people first of all haven't heard of him, and they're even more surprised when I said, well, Todd Graves founded this quick service restaurant that serves only chicken fingers over 30 years ago.
0:24
He owns over 90% of it and the business, his business is worth at least $10 billion.
0:31
And I think Todd is a great example of one of my favorite ideas that I heard from Charlie Mer of find a simple idea and take it seriously.
0:37
And so I didn't know who Todd Graves was because there's no books written about him uh until I saw a clip a few years ago and then I watched every interview I could find with him.
0:48
And so for this episode, what I did is there's two main interviews that he he gave.
0:51
I transcribed them and then I went through the transcri transcripts just like I do for the books.
0:56
But there is my my fascination with this person is sometimes you can find you you hear somebody say express an idea or perspective or philosophy and it could be like in a sentence or two and you're immediately like yes I feel that way too.
1:10
Uh this happened with Pat Riley, you know, a legendary coach and and NBA executive and I was listening to uh an interview with him many years ago and he was asked why is winning insatable?
1:21
You know, Pat is in his 70s and he's still pushing it every day.
1:26
He's still working very hard.
1:28
He's still determined to win.
1:30
And he said, "I hated to lose.
1:30
I always thought that there would be severe consequences if I lost. It was personal to me."
1:37
I'm going to pause there. Remember that line. It was personal to me.
1:40
Todd's going to repeat that over and over and over again.
1:41
I like how serious he takes his business.
1:43
I feel the same way just like I feel exactly I identify exactly with the way Todd is building raising canes with the way that Pat Riley's still approaching his career, you know, five decades into it.
1:53
And then he and then uh the follow-up question in this interview with Pat Riley was, "But how could you feel that way?"
1:59
And as soon as I heard this, this is how I know I'm eventually going to do an episode on Pat too because it's like I felt I feel this way, too. He goes, "I just did.
2:06
I felt that way since the day I came out of my mother's womb.
2:11
I felt that I wasn't going to let anybody take anything from me that I worked hard to get.
2:18
You are going to see a lot of similarities between that short excerpt from an interview with Pat Riley for the what we're going to go through with Todd Graves.
2:25
I'm going to start I'm going to go kind of in in order uh Todd's career, but I do want to start with the one clip that I saw that made that piqu my interest.
2:32
As soon as I heard that, I sat up.
2:34
I was like, "Wait, wait, wait.
2:34
I I've seen this before once.
2:35
Todd has a lot in common as we'll see with a lot of history's greatest founders, but also you see this idea over and over again where you can have a lot of success.
2:44
Charlie Mer has this great line something to the effect of uh oftentimes in the winning uh we find the winning system in business goes ridiculously far minimizing and or maximizing one or a few variables and he used Costco as an example.
2:56
And so the clip that I saw was Todd saying, you know, he has this very simple menu, the same menu that he's had since day one.
3:02
He had all these people tell him before he started the business in the early years of the business to this day, what you're doing is not going to work. Your menu's too simple.
3:09
You need to follow the trends.
3:11
You need to do what your competitors are doing.
3:12
And he just so stubbornly believes in doing one thing and doing it the best you can.
3:19
So he says, I've always believed in doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else.
3:21
If you do what you do well and consistently do it great, your customers will come back.
3:26
And so if I added different things, meaning to the menu, if I over complicated things, if I made things, he's he believes in this like this beautiful simplicity that I identify with.
3:34
So if I added different things, I wouldn't be as quick in the drive-thru.
3:37
If I added all these things, my quality would go down, my speed would go down, and it wouldn't be our concept.
3:43
Adding different things and losing focus would lose while we're special.
3:46
And so it's not just hey if I narrow the focus if I limit the amount of details that my business has and then perfect every single detail I will create the greatest product in my category which he has obviously done but it's also he understands how everything he does relates to the entire system.
4:02
relates to the entire system. So this idea it's like well if I have a more simple menu one that makes my product better because I can really focus on that right but it means that people come through the drive-thru or come into the store and because there you have four things you go into raising canes right
4:17
you're like do you want three chicken fingers do you want four or do you want six it makes you can order faster and so why is that important may not make a difference when you have one or two stores if you save 15 30 seconds for each order but it makes a hell of a difference right when you have 800 100 stores like he does today. And so he
4:35
And so he continues this and I didn't see this.
4:39
That's where the clip ended.
4:39
And then he he continues adding to this.
4:41
He goes, "So we even try to limit distracting things in the drive-thru."
4:44
So he does a lot of like charity work.
4:46
There's a lot of celebrities.
4:48
He has like K has a cult-like following.
4:50
It's very much like In-N-Out.
4:51
And I'm going to draw the analogy of In-N-Out over and over again today because it's just like, "Oh, this is like Harry Snyder, the founder of Inite.
4:57
In-N-Out is reincarnated."
4:57
And his name is Todd Graves.
4:58
And so there's this this show that he was doing that was helping restaurants with Snoop Dogg.
5:05
And so he's like, "Oh, let's let's advertise the show.
5:06
We'll put in the drive-through."
5:07
And so there's a picture of me and Snoop Dogg.
5:08
He's like, "Wait a minute."
5:10
The problem was even putting that poster, people sit there for like an extra five or 10 seconds and look at this.
5:16
And he's like, "Wait, wait, we got to rethink this because we got 20 cars behind that guy that is sitting there taking an extra 10 or 15 seconds and delaying his order because he's looking at this picture of Snoop Dog."
5:29
actually is not serving my goal, which is to get the best food, the highest quality meals unbelievably fast.
5:36
There's a couple things that immediately, you know, popped my mind because anytime I'm reading about anybody, as you already know, it's like I'm not thinking about just what Todd Graves is telling us or what he's trying to teach you and I.
5:45
I'm thinking is like who else who how who who else does this relate to?
5:49
And so there's this great exchange that happens in this biography of Rockefeller called Titan, which is the most famous biography of Rockefeller, right?
5:56
And it's a perfect example of this.
5:58
And so Rockefeller was as obsessed with with the efficiency of every single aspect of his business just like Todd Graves is.
6:05
And so he's going walking around uh at this refinery.
6:07
And he's seeing that one of his employees, they're soldering the like closing these cans of one of the byproducts that that they're they're they're selling from refining oil.
6:20
And so he goes up to him, Rockefeller goes up, he goes, "Hey, how many drops of solder do you use on each can?" And the guy says, "4."
6:25
And Rockefeller goes, "Have you ever tried 38?" And the guy said, "No."
6:29
He goes, "Would you mind having some sealed with 38 and let me know?"
6:33
When 38 drops were applied, a small percentage of cans leaked. So they try again. They tried 39.
6:39
At 39 drops of solder, none leaked.
6:42
Hence, 39 drops of solder became the new standard instituted at all standard oil refineries.
6:47
Now, this is what Rockefeller Rockefeller is smiling.
6:48
He's talking about this in his retirement.
6:52
He's telling a story after he retired.
6:55
That one drop of solder saved $2,500 in the first year.
6:58
But the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled and quadrupled and became immensely greater than it was.
7:04
And that savings has gone steadily along.
7:06
One drop on each can and has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings.
7:14
I feel the same way about Todd Grace.
7:16
If he's clipping 15, 30 sec 30 seconds off of each order when he has one store, that's, you know, not as important, but it's very important.
7:26
Think about the time saved when he has 800 stores.
7:28
This guy's going to have thousands of stores. I do the same thing.
7:31
So, I'm one of the very few podcasters cuz I go out and and talk to all these other podcasters that still insist on editing his own podcast.
7:36
And you I the idea and the reason I think this is important because I'm completely obsessed about saving not not wasting a second of your time.
7:45
So, I will go back through and I will literally clip a second.
7:49
And people think this is a a bit ridiculous.
7:52
My point is like, let's say a million people listen to that episode over the life of that episode.
7:56
Okay, I didn't That means I didn't take out a second.
7:59
I did the math the other day.
7:59
I think it's like I took for every second I I'm able to cut, that's a waste of time. I saved 244 hours.
8:05
It's the same exact thinking that Todd Graves is applying to the speed of his drive-thru that Rockefeller is applying to how many drops of solder on an individual can in one of the he had like a thousand byproducts that he was selling.
8:19
And then the second thing that came to my mind when he talks about, you know, this isn't our concept.
8:25
I'm just going to do one thing.
8:27
I'm going to do it great.
8:27
I'm going to do that that same thing forever.
8:29
And the guy has had the same menu for 30 years.
8:31
If you go look at In-N-Outs menu, it's barely changed.
8:34
And now was found in like 1948.
8:37
And so I think of what David Oggovy said because he noticed this.
8:39
Not people, they're so it's it's in human nature to like constantly want to jump around and be distracted.
8:46
And in David Ogrey's case, he's watching all of these businesses have like these great ads that they pull.
8:53
And so he noticed he's like the the the people that had the most success is they'd find a winning promise for their product, right?
8:58
and they would run that same ad and build ads around that same pro promise for decades.
9:06
And this is what David Ogre said about this, which I feel, you know, David died.
9:09
He didn't know what raising gains was.
9:11
But I feel like he would describe exactly what Todd is doing with his business. This is what David said.
9:19
What guts it takes, what obstinate determination to stick to one coherent creative policy year after year in the face of all the pressure to come up with something new every six months.
9:30
That is David David talking about a winning idea could work for decades.
9:36
So that's what really drew my attention to him.
9:38
I've been studying this guy for a few years and I realized the reason I need to do this episode for you because it comes up in conversation like every week and I was like now I just want to be like hey you want to know what this guy's about go listen to you know episode 383 or whatever episode number this going to be.
9:52
So I'm going to go through I organized all my notes and highlights and I try to put it in a chronological order as much as I can.
9:57
So he's going to talk about the fact this early experience he had before he started raising canes.
10:02
He says I grew up working in restaurants and bars in high school and college and before that I was the kid that did the lemonade stand in the neighborhood.
10:08
I was always entrepreneurial.
10:10
Another thing that I identify and I love about Todd Graves, he loves founders.
10:14
He talks about over and over again, we need more founders.
10:16
Stop selling your goddamn business.
10:16
We need more founders to retain control of their business and to actually give a damn about what they're doing. I absolutely love this.
10:24
He says, "Raising canes was a college business plan."
10:25
And so for business planning class, me and my partner wrote a paper and they wrote a paper about starting a quick service restaurant that only sells chicken fingers.
10:36
and he was doing this at LSU.
10:39
The first Raising Canes is actually opened uh around at I think the northern gates of LSU writes the paper. What happens?
10:45
We get the worst grade in the class.
10:48
Okay, we've seen this over and over again. It's amazing.
10:50
There is a rather big indictment, right, where you get a bad grade for this idea that winds up being worth, you know, 10 $10 billion.
10:59
This is not the first time we saw this.
11:00
Fred Smith, I don't know how much FedEx is worth today, but it's a lot, right?
11:04
He writes a paper that he's going to start FedEx.
11:06
He wrote the paper in college.
11:09
His business professor gave him a C.
11:11
Phil Knight, founder of Nike, same thing.
11:14
He talks about this in his great autobiography and Shoe Dog.
11:15
He says, "Being a business buff, I knew that Japanese cameras had made deep cuts into the camera market, which had once been dominated by the Germans at the time that that Phil Knight starts Nike, the Germans are dominating running shoes."
11:28
So, he takes that idea that one idea that happened in another industry.
11:31
He's like, I wonder if that would work in this industry.
11:32
So I argued in this paper that I made uh that Japanese running shoes might do the same thing.
11:38
That idea interested me and it inspired me and then it captivated me.
11:40
It seemed so obvious to me, so simple, so potentially huge.
11:44
And so he gives this presentation.
11:46
He talks about they greeted my passion and intensity with labored size and vacant stairs.
11:49
So again canes, FedEx, Nike, I would not be discouraged at all.
11:56
If you're telling other people or you're writing, you're in business school and you're writing papers about this this business you want to start and people like this sucks. This idea is terrible.
12:02
like, well, that's what they said to Todd Graves, they said it to Fred Smith, and they said it to Phil Knight, and they were wrong.
12:07
Now, this is what I also absolutely love about Todd Graves is everybody saw that it's a stupid idea.
12:15
And he goes, if you tell me I can't do something, his immediate reaction is, let me show you, I'm going to do it.
12:19
let me show you, I'm going to do it. And so he to he hinted there the fact that when he started raising canes he had a co-founder he had a partner and this partner is going to actually leave after the second store and that's one thing that Todd repeats a bunch the fact that you know he's just you should set up
12:37
your business to actually the activity of your business you actually love to do the co-founder did not love the business like Todd he did not have a chicken finger dream this is again I think some people would even think you know this is a bit ridiculous you're saying you're living a chicken finger dream this guy's completely obsessed with figures. It's
12:50
It's not ridiculous to me cuz it make I see it over and over and over again cuz I went through this like when I said I want to start a podcast on the books I read.
12:58
You know, I had some of my closest friends saying this is the stupidest idea like no one's going to listen.
13:00
This isn't going to work.
13:01
And so the partner sells out after a second one. Okay. And Todd explains this.
13:06
It makes perfect sense to Todd why his partner quit and he didn't.
13:10
He goes he wasn't a fry cook cashier.
13:12
So to this day that's the way Todd describes himself.
13:16
He says his business card says founder CEO fry cook cashier.
13:20
He likes working drive-throughs.
13:22
He likes making chicken fingers.
13:23
He likes working the fry line.
13:25
He goes, "It didn't make my partner happy, but I love working drive-throughs.
13:28
I like working fry lines.
13:29
It's what I love, which is important."
13:31
I tell all these young entrepreneurs, I tell these students now, whatever you get into, make sure it's something you like to do.
13:36
Make sure it's something you're passionate about because if not, you won't be successful at it.
13:41
Work comes down to a grind.
13:41
But if you love it, then you'll always be happy doing it.
13:45
And more importantly, what he doesn't say, but is implied, you'll do it for a long time.
13:48
Okay, so raising canes is growing faster now 30 years into the business than it has ever grown before and I've seen this over and over again because it's in all these biographies over and over again.
14:00
In fact, uh there's a great line in Peter Thiel's book 0ero to1 where he talks about this and he mentioned this phenomenon the fact that you know you can if concepts working it actually will grow faster many decades into the future than it will at the beginning which is surprising to a lot of people.
14:14
surprising to a lot of people. Peter mentions this that you know with respect to technology companies but I've seen it in all kinds of businesses and so Peter said the vast majority of a tech company's value will come from profits it'll generate in the future 10 20 or 30 years out that is also true with raising canes and that's why again I think the
14:32
implication there is like if you'd love to do it like you're never going to stop doing it therefore you'll never interrupt the compounding Steve Jobs had a great line about this he says you know people say you will have a lot of passion for what you're doing and it's totally true and the reason is because it's so hard that if you don't love it, any rational person would give up because they're sane. That is exactly
14:49
That is exactly what Todd Graves expressed the exact same opinion of as Steve Jobs in this interview.
14:56
And this is something that Todd repeats over and over again that giving up was never an option.
15:00
Selling was never an option.
15:04
This guy has turned down billions and billions of dollars and says later on that he never even thought about taking the money for a second.
15:13
So, I want to get into he writes this this paper. Okay.
15:16
So, how do you go from writing the paper to getting the money?
15:19
Uh he's a 23-year-old kid when he has this this idea.
15:22
It's like I'm actually going to do this for real.
15:24
This is really important because you're going to see a lot of parallels between him and Harry Snyder, which I'll get to, the founder of In-N-Out.
15:30
So, he's like, "Okay, I need money to open up my first spot.
15:33
I thought, you know, I was I was turning into a businessman.
15:35
So, I go and I buy some cheap suit. I go to Office Depot. I buy a briefcase. Okay.
15:38
I I put the business plan that I got a bad grade on in the in the briefcase and I come down and I talk to these bankers because I'm going to get a obviously I'm going to get a loan about this chicken finger dream I had.
15:50
He repeats that line over and over again.
15:52
I'm living a chicken finger dream.
15:53
He says the banks were nice enough but every one of them was like, "Hey man, you might want to work in the industry for 10 years.
15:58
You might want to do this.
16:00
You might want to do that.
16:02
You're not in a position for us to lend you money."
16:04
Once again, I'm hearing no, no, no.
16:07
And that made me want to do it even more.
16:10
And so what one thing that Todd is shares in common with a lot of the great founders that you and I study is like they know their their business from A to Z.
16:18
They know their business cold.
16:19
And he was telling them, listen, I knew how much I knew down to how much like each apron was going to cost me. I had done my research.
16:24
And the problem is he had all these people saying that he hadn't done his research because you just came up with a chicken finger only concept.
16:33
and they said, "You didn't do your research because McDonald's is adding all this variety and all these different things, and you're doing the opposite."
16:39
But I knew doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else would always pay off.
16:44
And so, it might be a little ridiculous, but I was kind of induced into a state of rage when I'm hearing this because first of all, I hate other people going around telling young entrepreneurs that your idea won't work. Like, you don't know. You have no idea.
16:56
How the hell could you even think that you would be able to predict what would work, right?
17:00
But they're like, "Oh, you know, you didn't do your research.
17:02
uh obviously you don't know anything about this industry you're going to want to work in.
17:05
We're not going to loan you money because look what McDonald's is doing. Okay.
17:07
So there's there's a historical equivalent at the time that Todd Graves is trying to raise money for raising games.
17:16
There's already historical equivalent on the West Coast dominating creating a cult-like following.
17:19
The exact approach that that Todd Graves was using is the one that Harry Snyder started back in the 40s with In and Out.
17:26
So, I I pulled all these the I have an AI assistant that reads all of my notes, highlights, and transcripts.
17:32
And I use it constantly to like remind myself of the stuff, you know, that we're learning on this podcast because I'm eight years in.
17:37
I'm going to be like 400 biographies written or read by the end of the year.
17:41
Like, it's possible to remember all this.
17:42
And so, I just pulled I was like, give me all the best ideas from Harry Snyder in and out because I know I've seen this before.
17:48
And so, I'm just going to pull out some chunks that I'm reading to you about Harry Snyder.
17:52
This is not about Harry Snyder. It is about Todd Graves.
17:55
and and implied in that could also be about me and you.
17:57
And so it says uh while other chains constantly expanded their menus, Harry maintained a famously limited menu.
18:03
This menu has been barely changed since the company's founding in 1948.
18:07
That is exactly that this sounds like Todd Graves.
18:09
Harry was fanatical about quality. Todd is the same way.
18:14
Refusing to follow industry trends.
18:14
This is exactly what the bankers are getting wrong.
18:18
They didn't even understand that Todd was right.
18:20
And you could just point in and out.
18:22
It's like, well, I don't know.
18:23
This guy did the same thing. Why wouldn't that work?
18:24
Uh Harry was fanatical about quality, refusing to follow industry trends towards cheaper ingredients and mass production techniques.
18:29
When competitors switched to frozen beef patties, right, the the trend in Harry's industry, Harry hired In-N-Out's first butcher to maintain control over product quality, while other chains adopted frozen French fries.
18:42
In-N-Out continued making theirs by hand from fresh potatoes that were often picked in the morning and delivered in the same evening.
18:47
Harry's leadership was hands-on to the extreme degree.
18:55
Dude, I'm I'm like I got tears in my eyes. Sorry.
18:58
Later on, because I hear the same thing.
19:01
Uh they remember this later on when um when when Todd Everybody tells him, he's like, "You need to delegate."
19:07
And Todd is one of my favorite parts of any interview he's ever done. He goes, "Degle?
19:10
What kind of word is that?"
19:11
He is so obsessed with the details. I feel the same way.
19:13
So, it says, "Harry's leadership was hands-on to an extreme degree.
19:16
He was described as a micromanager before the term existed, keeping scrupulous records of daily operation.
19:22
His work ethic was relentless.
19:25
Every single one of these lines I went through and made sure that if I'm talking to you about Harry Snider, that it's also true for Todd Graves.
19:32
He was always the first person in the shop in the morning inspecting ingredients and ensuring everything ran to his exacting specifications.
19:37
Even when at home, he would watch the restaurant through his living room window and sprint across the street to pitch in when needed.
19:45
Todd lived in an apartment behind the first raising canes.
19:50
Harry also believed in treating employees well.
19:53
This is something Todd's going to repeat over and over again.
19:54
Me and you are going to talk about this a bunch today.
19:56
When California's minimum wage was 65 cents an hour, Harry paid a dollar an hour plus a free hamburger per shift.
20:03
This approach fostered remarkable loyalty.
20:06
Many employees who started as potato peelers stayed at the company for decades.
20:12
That is pretty incredible.
20:12
All of this sounds exactly like Todd Graves approach to building Raising Kane.
20:17
So again, if you want to learn more about uh Harry Snider, the it's the episode I did on him is episode 244.
20:22
It's one of my favorite stories because again, it's like find a simple idea and take it very seriously.
20:28
So this is where I get, you know, this is what kind of made me upset.
20:32
You know, I'm glad I don't think you could stop Todd.
20:34
Todd is like the Terminator anyways.
20:35
This guy's, you know, has superhuman levels of determination.
20:37
But this just like arrogance of these like older bankers telling this kid like, "Oh yeah, you know, obviously like it can't work because McDonald's isn't doing this."
20:45
It just really pisses me off.
20:47
And so good thing is Todd talks about he's like, you know, he was born determined.
20:51
He's like, uh, that determination was always there.
20:55
The determination he always had.
20:55
It was there since he was a kid.
20:57
And he says, "And it really paid off later in a big way when I wanted to start this dream."
21:02
So think about where we are in the story.
21:03
People telling him, "Your plan sucks.
21:05
We're not going to lend you money. your menu is wrong.
21:07
And then shortly after, you know, he gets going, his co-founder quits on him.
21:11
So he's like, "All right, they're not going to lend me money. I I'm on a dream. I'm determined.
21:15
How am I going to raise money?"
21:17
So he hears the job about two different jobs.
21:20
The first job is a boiler maker.
21:21
And so these refineries will pay you insane amount of money because let's say one of their refineries go down, they need maintenance work or repair work.
21:28
They need that back every day that that refinery's not up.
21:31
You know, they're losing a ton of money.
21:32
So these boiler makers go and they travel around and then they do shift work and he says, "You know, you're working 95 hours a week.
21:40
You work for five or six weeks straight, but you make so much money because they want that job done fast."
21:47
And he's around like a bunch of rough necks, you know, imagine who are boiler makers.
21:51
And his they they noticed his work ethic.
21:53
He was he wouldn't shut up about the chicken finger dream.
21:55
And so he his fellow boiler maker, this guy named Wild Bill told him, he's like, "Hey, in the summer you can make money commercial fishing in Alaska."
22:04
So like, you know, probably decade and a half ago, I used to I watched a few episodes of the show called uh I think it's called Deadliest Catch.
22:11
So I didn't know that this is what Todd Graves was doing.
22:15
And so they're like, "Go up to Alaska and you know, you work on a boat for 30 days, for 60 days, and you can just make 25 or $50,000."
22:24
And there's also funny thing in that, you know, he never raised outside equity after this.
22:28
And some of the boiler makers like Wild Bill, one of the few like angel investors that would put in money to raising canes.
22:34
And then he also said that he raised money from his bookie.
22:39
And he goes cuz his bookie could pay him in cash and it was just originally for he says it was just originally for the investment in the first restaurant, but then I rolled them into a small percentage into the overall company.
22:50
So, he doesn't talk about the percentages that Wild Bill has or his bookie has, but it just brought a smile to my face.
22:55
I just love the idea like what if what if like his bookie or Wild Bill this boiler maker somehow figure, you know, had 5% of raising canes, which would be worth like a couple hundred million.
23:04
I just love the idea like this boiler maker or his book or Todd's bookie could have like, you know, $100 million of raising cane stock just cuz he believed in his chicken finger dream.
23:14
So, he saves up a bunch of money for boiler making.
23:16
He's like, "Okay, I'm going to listen to Wild Bill.
23:17
I'm going to go up to Alaska."
23:18
And he says, 'I was doing this when I was 23 years old so I could live very cheaply.
23:21
So literally before I got my job in Alaska, I spent a month living in a tent on the tundra because you got to talk your way into getting on a boat.
23:30
And so I'd be eating pork and beans and ramen noodles every day and just spending as little as you can.
23:36
This is a great example of this thing that you and I see over and over again in these biographies of these great entrepreneurs. How bad do you want it?
23:43
They will do just to get their dream going.
23:45
They will go to great lengths to do that.
23:47
the idea that you're willing to work 95 hour weeks in in a you know very tough environment as a boiler maker.
23:51
Now you're literally risking your life on a boat uh you know off the coast of Alaska.
23:58
So he spends the summer commercial fishing in Alaska and he says people were dying out there.
24:02
You're working 20our days.
24:03
You're sleeping an hour here or there.
24:05
So imagine a kid on a chicken finger dream on the back of this boat.
24:11
National Geographics going out here to film this madness.
24:13
Medical helicopters are taking people out.
24:17
You're hearing so and so boat just had a death and you're filling up the boat with fish.
24:20
Waves are crashing over the side.
24:23
You're scared, but I was there for that chicken finger dream.
24:26
So, he saved up uh I think about $50,000.
24:29
I loved how honest he was.
24:32
He's like, "Listen, I did a lot of things that were really stupid and really risky and just because it worked out for me, I would not recommend you do it. You do it."
24:38
And so he says, "This is something I would not recommend, but I was young and dumb and back then you could get a bunch of credit cards.
24:44
I got as many credit cards as I could." They were like 18, 23%.
24:46
And I lived off credit cards.
24:49
I was young and I had nothing to lose, but I don't think that's a great strategy.
24:54
So he's got credit cards backing him up.
24:56
He's got the money he saved.
24:58
Then he goes and gets an SBA loan.
25:00
He says, "I use all these people and these services that are set up by our government, SBA, Small Business Development Center, Service Corps, retired executives.
25:07
I talked to everybody that I thought was smart in business to get advice on how to raise money for this."
25:13
So, I raised my own money.
25:15
I got the preferred shareholder money.
25:17
That's what he's talking about, the the money Wild Bill gave him, the the money that his bookie gave him, and then he got a $50,000 SBA loan.
25:22
And that was the seed capital that I needed to start the first restaurant.
25:28
So in while he's telling the story, one of the people are interviewing him asked him, you know, we have a lot of different entrepreneurs on the show.
25:34
Some say you should use you should always do OPM, which is other people's money.
25:37
Some founders say, no, no, no, use as much of your own money as possible.
25:40
And so like, how do you think about this?
25:42
And I think by now you're going to know how Todd thinks about it.
25:47
And uh he goes, I'm the latter.
25:49
I put all of my own money in uh and go full speed.
25:52
So I own over 90% of my business.
25:54
It is a multi-billion dollar business, and we're continuing to grow over 30%.
25:57
It is very rare that I meet someone that owns that large a percentage of a business when you talk about businesses that are worth multi-billions of dollars.
26:04
Uh and I think some of these private equity people come in and they tell these entrepreneurs, this is what you need to do.
26:11
You could take money off the table now because you never know if someone's going to stop coming and buying your product.
26:17
And then these entrepreneurs get whittleled down so low.
26:18
They get diluted so much.
26:20
And for me, that takes a lot of your own spirit out because you're making money for people that just put cash in.
26:27
But that's the easy part.
26:30
You making your brand successful is hard, man. You live it every day.
26:32
You do this stuff and then these people get bewildered.
26:37
He's talking about these entrepreneurs.
26:38
They eventually just sell out.
26:40
We have a lack of founders in big businesses, especially in the restaurant business.
26:46
When I was a kid, these businesses were run by their founders.
26:50
founders care about their people.
26:50
They care about their customers. They care. They care. They care.
26:55
And then I also think this is why if you just look at the product he's putting out, the marketing he does, the financial performance he has, he's smoking everybody because he's competing against non-founders.
27:05
They're just and he'll talk about like, you know, later on he's asked like, "What is the biggest threat to your business?
27:10
Like who are you worried about?"
27:12
And I promise you his answer when we get there is not, "Oh, I'm worried about McDonald's or the founder's been dead for decades."
27:17
He's just not worried about that.
27:19
And so that's another thing he he preaches like we need more founders.
27:22
Founder-ledd businesses are just better businesses.
27:26
Um and so this leads to the idea, you know, something I always talk about.
27:29
It's like if you truly love what you do and you're working on your best ideas, like your exit strategy should be death.
27:33
That is your exit strategy.
27:33
Steve Jobs worked until he died.
27:35
Charlie Mer worked until he died.
27:36
Coco Chanel till she died.
27:38
Enzo Ferrari, all these people over and over again there.
27:40
The exit strategy was death.
27:41
And so his whole thing was people always asking, "Hey man, what's your exit strategy?" I don't have one.
27:46
This is a multi-generation business. I wouldn't sell.
27:48
People need to have a higher risk tolerance because if you're an entrepreneur, that's just what you do.
27:54
My risk tolerance was very, very high, but try to keep as much equity as you can because this is yours.
28:01
So, when I get to that section, remind me of Dietrich Mattress, founder of Red Bull, reminds me of James Dyson, founder of Dyson, still owns 100% of his business.
28:09
Reminds me of Michael Bloomberg, still owns 100% of Bloomberg.
28:13
If you think of the founder of Red Bull, who just passed away recently, that's one of my favorite episodes I've ever done. Episode 333.
28:17
There was no biographies in English about Dietrich Mastis.
28:22
So we we had to translate one from German uh to do that episode.
28:24
But he owned uh him and his partner.
28:27
So he owned 49% and his other his partner owned 49%.
28:30
They were paying themselves like five the dividends every year were between 500 800 million a year.
28:34
And then they were turning down offers.
28:37
His 49% would be worth at least $20 billion he could have taken off the table if he sold.
28:42
And he just absolutely refused.
28:44
He's like I don't want to take the company public. I'm never selling it.
28:46
And now, um, just like Todd, Todd wants to pass the business on to his his kids.
28:51
It's exactly what Dietrich did.
28:51
Dietri son passed his part of the business on to his son.
28:54
Go, let's go back to he's got the money.
28:57
The first one takes a while to get it up, but it's starting to cash flow.
29:01
A lot of the businesses think you're it's right next to a college.
29:05
You're going on a Friday or Thursday or Saturday having a little drink.
29:08
So, the main business for Raising Canes at the very beginning was that like late night business.
29:13
I think they'd stay open till like 3:00 in the morning.
29:15
And Todd wouldn't get out of there till like five in the morning.
29:18
But he was talking about the hardest part of growing the business is not going from, you know, 700 to 800.
29:24
It was going from one to two because he didn't know what he was doing and he didn't have any help.
29:27
The hardest growth for me was from one store to two, the first restaurant to the second restaurant.
29:32
I didn't do it the right way because I didn't have a lot of bench strength or management in my business.
29:34
I lived at that restaurant.
29:36
We were open seven days a week most nights until 3:00 a. m.
29:40
after we had to stay open until after the bars closed.
29:42
I would get out of there at 5:00 a. m.
29:44
Then I would turn right around the next morning and do it all over again.
29:48
I I didn't really know how to develop other leaders.
29:50
And so this is the time when they open the second restaurant, that's when his partner's like, "Hey, I got to get out of here."
29:57
And so the way that Todd describes this part, making a lot of mistakes.
30:01
He's like, "I was trying to build a plane while I was flying it."
30:04
And his whole point, the advice that he gives to other entrepreneurs is like, you're going to make a lot of mistakes.
30:08
You've got to go in with the mindset that you're going to make make a lot of mistakes and be okay with it.
30:11
You want to make mistakes fast but fix them even faster.
30:15
And so, you know, this guy's he says he has a very high risk tolerance.
30:19
I think it's been obvious so far for what you and I have talked about.
30:20
And so, he's got two, you know, they're starting to cash flow, but they have a lot of mistakes.
30:26
He doesn't have a lot of talent, but there's a bunch of these like double drive-thru burger joints in Louisiana that go out of business.
30:33
And he's like, I got to take an opportunity because I can expand from two, I think he adds another five stores really rapidly.
30:41
So from 2 to 7 by taking over these double drive-through burger joints.
30:45
So you can't even walk inside.
30:46
There is no walking inside, right?
30:46
And what he realized is like I could convert them for about $100,000.
30:50
And the way he could do that rather cheaply is because they had a bunch of equipment that he could utilize.
30:56
And he he's like, I had to do this the cheapest way I could.
30:58
Uh and I needed to open up as fast as possible because he's got to get to the cash flow as possible.
31:04
He he'll talk about how he finances all this growth in a minute.
31:07
And so the way to do that is like, okay, just repurpose, use their equipment instead of making burgers are making chicken fingers.
31:11
And so the landlords were just sitting on these because all these double uh drive-through burger joints had just went out of business.
31:19
And so he goes to the landlord.
31:19
He says, "Hey, uh, I can get in really fast.
31:20
I want to lease this from you, but I want to utilize all the equipment.
31:24
Can we do like a package deal?"
31:25
And so they could turn them around fast.
31:27
They could turn each round for $100,000.
31:28
And so he does four of these.
31:31
I think he does one in um he does one in like a food court in a mall.
31:34
He comes up with a very unique way to finance all this, okay?
31:37
Because remember, it's really not investable.
31:41
Really, no venture capital at the time.
31:42
He's got to figure out a way to to make him, you know, somebody that the banks would want to loan to.
31:46
And he goes, "This is how I finance this."
31:48
And I do not recommend this, but what I would go I would go to an angel investor and I'd say, "Hey, invest $250,000 in a subordinate subordinated debt note.
31:57
I will give you a This is what he sell investor.
32:00
I will give you a I will guarantee you a 15% return and I will personally sign I will personally obligate myself to this.
32:07
We He goes I want it on a onepage contract.
32:10
Nothing bigger than one page.
32:11
We have a proven concept.
32:14
We're cash flowing but I personally sign for this.
32:16
Then I would take this and bring it down to the local community bank.
32:20
They would look at this and say, "Oh, you have $250,000."
32:22
They consider this equity and I could borrow up to a million dollar off that deal.
32:30
And so this is how we did it.
32:30
And he goes I he's on a operating on a nice edge when he's doing this. Okay?
32:34
So has to he he has to open up as fast as possible. Okay?
32:38
If he opens up day one, people are going to come in.
32:41
They're going to he's going to have some amount of revenue coming in day one. Okay?
32:44
And what he realized, okay, we opened a restaurant, so we got some revenue day one.
32:49
The crew members, we have two weeks to pay them.
32:51
The food, my suppliers, I don't have to pay for 30 days.
32:54
The rent I can pay 30 days later.
32:55
So, I'm making cash flow and he has to make sure that he is making enough that he can make his payroll in 2 weeks and then 2 weeks after that that he can start paying for the food that he sold 30 days earlier.
33:08
Now, this winds up working and he goes, "I did this this is how he financed growth up to his first 28 restaurants."
33:16
And he said, "We were just rolling and rolling and rolling, but I was leveraging myself horribly."
33:19
And and this is when he almost goes out of business.
33:24
I'm going to stop there though because these creative, you know, these creative ways to finance things when you're starting out and you don't have a lot of money.
33:31
One of my favorite book biographies that I've ever read for the podcast I discovered is getting Daniel Lewig. It's episode 292.
33:35
The name of the biography is called the invisible billionaire.
33:39
And the reason it's called that is because in the 80s, I think Daniel Lewig was the richest American and no one knew who he was.
33:44
And he started out, I mean, he had uh he ends up building this huge conglomerate that he owned that he owned completely. He had no partners.
33:50
He had 200 companies in 50 countries.
33:52
But he started out by uh shipping by transporting oil for standard oil because the government had broken them up.
34:00
And he came up he had no money but not enough money to do what he wanted to do.
34:04
So he came up with this idea called the two paper two name paper arrangement which is a foundation of his incredible wealth.
34:10
And the genius of Lewig's financing method worked like this.
34:15
He would approach an oil company secure a long-term charter agreement to ship their petroleum.
34:19
Then using that charter as collateral, he'd go to a bank and obtain a loan to either build or renovate a ship specifically to fulfill that charter.
34:27
The oil company would then make payments directly to the bank, which would and then the bank would deduct the loan payment and deposit any remainder into Lewig's account.
34:34
So the financing innovation was particularly brilliant because number one, it used other people's credit, which is the oil companies, uh, which had obviously better credit credit ratings at the time than Lewig did.
34:45
Two, it required minimum personal investment on Lewig's part.
34:47
And three, it resulted in Lewig owning valuable assets free and clear after the contracts inspired.
34:53
So, I thought that was very interesting.
34:55
For some reason, that popped in my mind uh when I was thinking about uh you know him doing the subordinated debt loan.
35:00
So, he's like, "I'm rolling.
35:02
We're adding restaurant after restaurant. We have 28 restaurants.
35:06
I'm but I'm leveraged horribly. Very nervous."
35:07
And then he's in Louisiana.
35:10
Hurricane Katrina hits and 21 out of his 28 restaurants go dark.
35:13
He says, "My cash flow stops. I'm in a bind.
35:19
And so there's a there's several examples, especially if you have a better product than all your competitors, how he's he turns Hurricane Katrina into a tragedy, into an asset.
35:30
And he does the same thing in the pandemic.
35:32
And I'll explain both of these to you right now.
35:33
So Hurricane Katrina hits, everything's flooded.
35:35
He rallies his team together.
35:37
He's like, "Listen, we need to get open as quickly as possible for two reasons.
35:39
One, our crew needs to come back.
35:41
They need to make money and our communities need food.
35:43
And two, if we don't, we're out of business. We're done."
35:46
So, he was the very first restaurant to open back up in these communities that got destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
35:54
Now, why does that matter?
35:56
Because he had a 90day window when he was the only restaurant open in the area.
36:03
And he says, "We crushed it.
36:05
We absolutely crushed it."
36:05
And so, think about all the new customers who may have never tried Raising Canes before.
36:09
They try it because there's literally nothing else open and like, "Oh, this is really good."
36:14
And they're stay customers for life.
36:15
They recommend it to all these other people.
36:16
But that's not the lesson that he wanted us to learn from this.
36:17
He says, "But the lesson out of all this is what I tell entrepreneurs.
36:20
Don't do that because my dream almost died.
36:23
My dream almost went away.
36:25
I was overleveraged and stupid."
36:28
And so, Hurricane Katrina wind up being an opportunity uh the pandemic actually turned into an opportunity as well.
36:35
So, in 2020, the Raising Canes was doing 1. 5 billion in revenue.
36:40
Four years later, they're at 4. 5 billion.
36:41
And Todd's reaction to both crisis was that he says this entrepreneurial thing just kicks in on you.
36:48
And he says, "We ain't going to stop, man.
36:50
We're going to get open and we're going to make this work."
36:52
And the pandemic wind up being, you know, a blessing in disguise because we had a great format because we could do all the if you remember during the pandemic, drive-throughs were open, but you couldn't like go and sit inside of a restaurant.
37:05
And the government said that, you know, you have to stay open because people need to eat.
37:07
And so this is he was labeled an essential business.
37:12
and same thing like one of the few areas that had all these drive-throughs uh open and they stayed open through the entire pandemic and he says sales were insane and as a result that that huge growth from 1. 5 billion to 4.
37:23
5 billion in 3 years like we had to learn to get better and we had to learn to get better and quicker and very fascinating he talks about both both examples uh was the fact that he's the ultimate decision maker like he doesn't have partners he doesn't have board of directors he doesn't have shareholders so he could just say hey we're going to do this and it's going to happen.
37:42
And so he says, I don't have to answer to anybody my but my crew members and my customers.
37:45
I can make decisions and immediately we can do all this stuff.
37:48
I didn't have to go through shareholders.
37:49
I didn't have to go through a board that might say, "Hey, I don't know if it's safe to do that.
37:52
Should we wait another two weeks?
37:52
What are our competitors doing?
37:54
I don't have to answer anybody but my crew and my customers."
37:57
So, I can get out there and make things happen right away.
37:59
And uh there's a line that Michael Bloomberg says in his autobiography, which I covered all the way back on episode 228 that I think Todd Graves would agree with.
38:08
And Michael Bloomberg said, "Answering to no one is the ultimate situation."
38:11
So in the middle of this interview, I want to pull something out because he's constantly talking about the fact that like he cares. He cares. He cares. Founders care.
38:19
We need more founder founder businesses.
38:21
And you know, this is when he has 800 locations.
38:26
It's worth all this money. It's growing like crazy.
38:27
And he's doing this interview.
38:29
And right before the interview started, Todd's crew comes in and they're literally showing him the reel, the Instagram reel, the video that they're about to post.
38:37
And the guy interviewing is like, in my head, I'm thinking, Todd, you're one of the 350 richest people in the world running this giant company, and you're checking the reels to make sure that everything aligns with the brand.
38:46
Again, I don't think of Todd Graves in that situation.
38:51
I think of how it relates to every single other person you and I talk about.
38:53
Because if you have this idea that's used by all these people, didn't know each other, were alive at different times, worked in different industries, obvious. What does that tell you? It's a good idea.
38:59
You should use in your business.
39:00
Steve, I did this episode called How Steve Jobs kept things simple. It's episode 349.
39:04
Said Steve I I pulled it a line from the transcript.
39:07
Uh when I got to the section, Steve did not believe in delegating marketing and advertising decisions at all.
39:12
This is not an exaggeration.
39:14
He approved every single image that was used in an ad.
39:16
He would approve every single word.
39:19
He would deliberate over the copy.
39:21
He is calling Ken, who's running his ads, the guy writing the book.
39:26
He's calling Ken at midnight to talk about a single word.
39:32
Another idea that Todd repeats over and over again, you have to make your your people feel appreciated.
39:35
He says he has this great line.
39:38
He says, "Communicate the appreciation you have with your people and with them constantly."
39:40
So, he actually has an entire department dedicated to this.
39:44
And he he talks about this later, but he learned the right way to do something by seeing it done the wrong way first.
39:51
So he says, "In high school and college, I worked in all these restaurants and they would yell at you and say, "You're doing it wrong."
39:57
Negative reinforcement doesn't work in my business.
39:59
If you go through a raising canes, you're going to see a bunch of happy, smiling people, but they're going to crank out food as quickly and as high quality as they can.
40:06
Good quality comes from positive motivational management.
40:08
I go through all my kitchens and see all my crews all over the country.
40:13
I go through the kitchen, I'll say, "Hey man, nice toast.
40:16
Hey, thanks for the hard work. I appreciate it."
40:18
Positive, positive, positive.
40:20
They know I care about them and they work even harder.
40:24
And so he has this thing called the Kane's love department.
40:25
I created a department in the business actually called Kane's love.
40:30
And it talks about respecting, rewarding, and recognizing crew members.
40:34
So some some things as simple as you come in and cover a ship, a shift, and you went out and you cleaned the dumpster.
40:41
You're like, "Hey, here's a gift card, man.
40:43
Thank you so much for doing this."
40:44
And these men and women work so hard, so they know it's all about Kane's love.
40:48
and he'll do like fun things for them too.
40:51
He's really great at marketing.
40:52
And so there was I guess there was like this huge lottery.
40:56
It was like 800 worth like 800 million or something.
40:58
I think this might have been in Louisiana.
40:59
And he's like, "Well, we have 50,000 crew members at the time.
41:03
Let's buy lottery tickets.
41:03
You know, it just be fun.
41:05
Each ticket's like two bucks. Cost us 100 grand.
41:07
And we'll agree that if any one of the 50,000 people win this $810 million prize, we're going to we're going to share the winnings."
41:16
And the reason he says this because he's like the crew members were all talking about the lottery.
41:19
They were like fascinated by it.
41:20
He's like, "Okay, well, you know, let's just everybody buy in the company a ticket. We'll have some fun."
41:25
And we pulled this all together.
41:27
And the point was, you know, this is really just a fun deal. But then it went viral.
41:31
And he he didn't do this to go viral, but he's like, "Okay, he does a lot of these things out of his marketing budget.
41:36
He's got a big marketing budget."
41:37
And his whole point was just like, "Well, you know, I got millions and millions of impressions.
41:41
It's on like the Today Show. It's on the news.
41:45
It's in like local media and it cost $100,000.
41:47
And so it wind up being a great recruiting tool because people are like, "Hey, I want to go work at a company that literally has a founder that wants to do fun stuff."
41:54
So great for recruiting, great for marketing.
41:56
And then wind up being a great return on a $100,000 marketing spend.
42:00
And there's a lot of similarities between like Todd Graves and Sam Walton where Todd just just really focuses on a simple idea, you know, taking very seriously, but also in the way he thinks about the people that work inside of his company.
42:15
Sam Walton said that if you're not serving the customer or supporting the folks who do that we don't need you inside of Walmart.
42:20
And Todd Graves version as my crew is my number one focus.
42:24
The company's leadership should serve our crew members who are serving our customers.
42:29
Again, I would go after go after this and compare, you know, the marketing of fast food other fast food competitors.
42:38
Compare what Raisin Canes is doing and compare them to, you know, his competitors.
42:41
They're just a lot better at this.
42:42
And so he talks about learning social media as a grown man.
42:44
So he says, "Being an entrepreneur and starting out with a budget, you have to be really crafty at marketing your business.
42:51
This started for me all the way back in 1996.
42:52
I would go and hand out flyers and say, "Come try this new place raising canes.
42:57
Back then we didn't have social media.
42:59
But for me, I'm always a student in of my business. I'm learning constantly.
43:03
I want to stay on the edge and I want to keep getting better and better."
43:07
And so when social media came out, he says, "Look, I'm an older guy. I'm 52, okay?
43:10
So, I didn't naturally gravitate towards Facebook and Instagram and the things like that, but I watched the marketing value behind it.
43:19
And one of the most interesting things is launching collaborations.
43:21
So, there's a, like I said before, a lot of like huge celebrities that are obsessed with raising canes.
43:26
They kind of grew up on it.
43:27
Over time, Todd Graves has become friends with with this musician named Post Malone.
43:31
And when he starts becoming friends with Todd, he's like, "Man, how can I own a Canes?
43:34
Like, I want to own a Canes."
43:36
Todd's telling he's like, "Well, you know, that's not our model. We don't do franchises.
43:39
is I like to do open company restaurants because, you know, I want control.
43:43
I'm obsessed with with keeping control and keeping the quality.
43:47
And Post Malone's like, "Come on, man.
43:48
We got to figure something out.
43:48
I want to I want to own a Canes. I want to own a Canes."
43:51
And so Todd goes, "Okay, let me let me think about this for a little bit."
43:54
And so he turns later, he's like, "Hey, what if we do uh like a Post Malone version of racing canes?
43:59
You know, you design, we're going to call like Posty Canes or something like that.
44:05
Same menu, but like you design like you can design what it looks like."
44:08
And I think the first one's like bright pink and it's like kind of crazy.
44:10
And I think some of the decor is like tattoos that Post Malone has.
44:13
Just go have fun, like make something super special.
44:16
And then what we'll do is we'll just share in the profits.
44:19
And what was fascinating is the way that Todd thought about this.
44:22
He's like, I'm not setting up another entity, right?
44:24
This is not a separate company.
44:26
We're operating on a corporate level, the Post Malone Raising Canes.
44:28
This is just part of our marketing budget.
44:30
So I think there's like two of them now.
44:32
think there's like two of them now. and they're just they get ton of coverage, you know, outside of Raising Kane's posting about it or marketing about it because people are so like they're so weird and so they're covered by other
44:42
people and so like oh this just a marketing expense and then we just say hey these two stores this is how much revenue they brought in this much expenses and we'll just share the profits and those profits that they they send to Post Malone they just consider that a marketing expense. Now, he uh
44:53
Now, he uh there's something that he said to Post Malone where he's like, "Hey, you know, I I don't this isn't our model.
45:00
I I I don't do franchises."
45:02
And so, this is why he doesn't franchise.
45:03
And this is why he wants corporateowned stores.
45:05
He says, "Most quick service restaurants are franchise models.
45:09
You lose a lot of control when you do that.
45:11
I would rather open company restaurants cuz I can control them.
45:14
I want these things run exceptionally well. It's personal to me."
45:19
Remember what I said about Pat Riley using it's personal to me.
45:20
He says it's easier to compete against these big corporate non-founder-led companies because they just don't care.
45:28
And so he says in big corporate America, it's not a personal decision.
45:32
It's a financial decision that they're doing.
45:34
It's different for people that care.
45:36
He repeats over and over again.
45:38
You know, the fact that it's a Raising Kes is a founder company that everything is personal to him.
45:45
And he's got a great way to describe this.
45:47
He says, "I believe God made me good at this for a reason."
45:51
Todd Graves is a missionary.
45:54
And just like Jeff Bezos says, missionaries make better products.
45:56
And so he'll push that idea. He'll preach that idea.
46:01
The fact that we need more founder companies.
46:02
It's the exact when when a young founder comes to him and asks him for advice about what he should do.
46:06
It's the exact opposite of what the guy the guys in the bank did when he was young.
46:09
He says when I talk to entrepreneurs and they have an idea, I encourage them.
46:11
If you have your own concept to start that, open that.
46:13
And the reason is by having entrepreneurs open more stuff, it gets diversity of thought, diversity of ideas, diversity of different ways to do things.
46:21
And as a result, everybody gets better from more founders trying new things.
46:26
And so the follow-up question to that was, you've been approached with these big dollar amounts, these big checks.
46:30
What was the most enticing time or dollar amount that you were approached with?
46:34
You know, keep in mind, he's been offered billions of dollars.
46:37
He goes, it's ne it was never enticing at all.
46:38
And the reason why is I believe God made me good at chicken fingers to help people.
46:43
I think God makes us all good at what we're doing ultimately to help people.
46:47
And it one of the other things that he says for like for entrepreneurs, it's like there's there's actually two um essentially the way the note I left myself on this was what assets do you have that you're not currently using? Okay.
47:01
So on my computer monitor on my desk, I have two post-it notes that are reminders to myself that I think are both exactly how Todd uh graves things.
47:10
Number one, do one thing.
47:12
It says do one thing relentlessly.
47:12
And the second one says, "What assets do I have that I'm not currently using?"
47:16
And you know, that doesn't mean financial assets necessarily.
47:22
And so Todd's point, he's like, "Yeah, okay.
47:24
Well, maybe you're young and you're starting out, you have no money, but you have assets that older, richer people don't have."
47:28
And it's the fact that, you know, you have a ton of energy.
47:31
And he says Todd didn't have a lot of money or experience when he started, but he had youthful energy and determination.
47:37
I was 23 when I opened up. I was 24.
47:39
I could just outwork everybody.
47:41
I didn't have to sleep much. I was a young man.
47:43
And so it's like, you know, I might not have a lot of money, but at, you know, how it was when you're 23 or 24, you I can sleep for a few hours, get up the next day, and feel fine.
47:53
Or you can't do that when you're it's very it's much harder uh to do that when you're you're much older.
48:00
And I think uh one of the most important things about like, you know, I I give a lot of these talks or you know, these interviews or whatever and something I I repeat is like I'm just not really interested in like your first business.
48:11
I'm interested in your last business.
48:13
I'm interested in the business that like you, you know, to me large part of life is like understanding yourself and then having all these experiences.
48:20
In many cases, it's going to require you to start many, you know, multiple businesses.
48:23
Very rare for Todd, for a person like Todd Graves to start his first business that's going to be his last business.
48:28
But I'm always obsessed like and I asked this question to the founders and me is like, is this your last business?
48:33
Like is this the end for you?
48:36
Like Sam, like I'm about to quote Sam Walton in a minute. Same thing.
48:39
Like once Sam Wall found Walmart, he was like wasn't going to do anything else.
48:42
He was going to keep doing that.
48:44
One of the reasons I think that is important is because things grow over time in mysterious ways that you could have never possibly predicted.
48:49
And I see this over and over again in the books.
48:52
And he's talking about I I had this idea.
48:55
I was like, "Oh, actually like location matters."
48:56
So the average raising canes does about 6.
48:58
5 million a year in sales. Yeah.
49:00
that puts him in in on an average store basis in his industry, he's in second behind Chick-fil-A for QSRs.
49:07
And so the average reason Kes will do six and a half million, but they opened up one in Times Square and that one did 22 million its first year.
49:16
So the the if you pause and actually think about that, it's like, okay, where can you go that you what you offer is the exact same product, but you actually sell like 4x more.
49:25
That's an interesting thought to to to sit and think about.
49:29
And then I was also thinking I was like I am positive that when Todd had that first store he wasn't thinking you know outside the north gates of LSU that one day I'm going to have a raising canes that does 22 million in sales.
49:42
It took him 30 years to get to that point.
49:45
And that's the important part is like get to you should be in a rush to get to your last business because the longer that goes on things grow in mysterious and unpredictable ways.
49:55
And you see that over and over again.
49:56
Now I also thought it was interesting.
49:58
There's a there's an idea that really popped in my mind.
49:59
You know, I've read every single thing I could find about Sam. Walton.
50:02
He's one of the the founders I most admire.
50:04
I think it was on like the fourth podcast I made about him before I really it really clicked.
50:09
Uh this idea of like go slow now to so you can go faster later on.
50:14
In one of the interviews, he's saying, "Hey, we're we're pushing over 600 locations after almost 25 years of business."
50:20
And I think that interview was 3 years ago.
50:21
And so now they have over 800 years or 800 uh stores rather.
50:26
And he goes, "It blows me away.
50:26
We're we're about to start cranking about 100 a year.
50:29
So, it seems like he's right on that trajectory that that he said a few years ago.
50:32
He talks about another thing I need to before I get to the same Walton part.
50:35
Todd says, "I approve every site, every location, everyone."
50:41
Remember what Walt Disney advice that he gave to you and I from the grave.
50:43
If we lose the details, we lose everything.
50:45
I bet you Todd, if I asked him, and if you know Todd Graves, please send him this episode because I'd love to meet him.
50:51
I bet you if I asked him, did you agree with Walt Walt Disney's advice?
50:55
If we lose the details, we lose everything.
50:57
If we lose the details, we lose everything.
51:01
So, what's fascinating to me is, okay, took him 25 years to get to 600 locations.
51:06
And in 2 years, 3 years, he had another 200.
51:09
There's this book called Sam Walton, Richest Man in America. It's episode 354.
51:13
This is when it clicked for me after reading about him multiple, multiple times, and again, I think it was the fourth episode I done on him.
51:19
It's like, wait a minute, back up.
51:20
Sam Walton when he started a retail career the first five years of his retail career he had one store.
51:25
So in in the beginning of his career he could only able to make to to he was still learning he can make five years he can make one store in 5 years.
51:34
Then you get to what is this I think 30 years into his career. He opens the same club.
51:38
He goes from zero to 1 billion in sales in three years.
51:43
He goes from zero stores the uh on day one to seven years in having 105 stores.
51:50
So if you think about that, that's a slightly longer time frame.
51:53
The first five years career, he has one store.
51:57
Three decades into his career, he goes from zero to 105 in 7 years.
51:59
I I pulled this quote from the transcript uh of this episode.
52:06
Extreme patience coupled with an extreme intolerance for slowness.
52:11
That is the career of Sam Walton.
52:14
Something else that appears over and over again when you hear Todd Graves speak again.
52:17
People are like, "I love what you do.
52:19
Why don't you change the thing?"
52:21
And and he is so relentlessly stubborn about this that I love.
52:24
And he says, "Our number one strategy for growth is staying true to who we are."
52:30
That means staying true to our one love and that's quality chicken finger meals. Never losing that focus. That's our concept.
52:35
Doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else.
52:36
It is important for leaders to retain a singular focus.
52:40
I would encourage anybody in the business, anybody in business to find your one true love.
52:44
My one love is chicken fingers and I strive to be the best at that.
52:49
Lock in on what you do exceptionally well and then execute it every day, day in and day out. That is how you win.
52:55
Not trying to be all things to all people is so important because if you try to be all things to all people, you're not anything to anybody.
53:03
goes back to this founder mentality that he has.
53:06
He says, "Every box that goes out to every customer matters to me.
53:12
This is a personal business to him.
53:15
This is a family business to him."
53:17
He was asked what lessons that he learned from his father.
53:20
And he says, "My father taught me about hard work.
53:21
He taught me about about the importance of being polite to people.
53:25
He was teaching me values.
53:25
I do the same thing with my kids now.
53:28
I tell them the most important thing you could ever do is to be kind. To be kind, be kind. be kind to people, man.
53:34
And so why he's giving this interview, some of these interviews, his kids are like sitting, he brings his kids with him.
53:41
It's very similar to like what you and I have been talking about over and over and over again about these wildly successful businesses.
53:46
And what what they all do is they bring their kids into the business.
53:50
They expose them to the business really early.
53:51
I'm talking about the Wallenbergs.
53:53
We talked about them, Heddy Green, Jerry Jones, Leon Hess.
53:56
Just go back listen to like last like six or seven episodes.
53:58
This thing comes up over and over again.
54:00
And so he and Todd Grace talks about this.
54:02
I like to bring my son with me when I'm doing business and be exposed to it.
54:04
He's just 17, but it's good to good to get that stuff into his head.
54:08
He involves his daughter as well. Why?
54:11
Because he wants to give he wants to pass this down to his kids.
54:16
I want my kids in the business to be able to carry on the values after their mom and I are gone.
54:20
They can turn this this business into a worldwide business and continue to grow it.
54:24
And then he's constantly repeating the importance of like, you know, experts. What experts?
54:30
like don't listen to experts. Listen to your gut.
54:31
Listen to your intuition.
54:33
In fact, one time he I loved it because when he said the word experts, I was watching the podcast too and he like put it in quotation marks. He's like experts. Sure.
54:40
It really reminds me of Henry Ford.
54:42
Like Todd, the way Todd thinks about experts and how big of a detriment they can be to an entrepreneur is the exact same way that Henry Ford thought about it, you know, 120 years ago.
54:51
And so he says the experts are always like, "Hey, you guys really need to add a chicken finger salad.
54:55
You know, you need to jump on the health trends."
54:56
And when I was younger, I listened a little more because I'm like, wait, maybe these people are smarter than me.
55:01
Maybe they know more than me. But my gut said no.
55:03
Staying true to what I've done, not listening.
55:06
I know who I am, and I'm not trying to be all things to all people.
55:12
So, there's a great line in Henry Ford's uh auto autobiography where he's talking about, you know, I know it sounds crazy if you if you haven't ever studied this part of of entrepreneurial history.
55:21
When Henry Ford starts making automobiles, you know, he he was a big believer in the internal combustion engine.
55:27
At the time, there wasn't many cars on the world on the road.
55:31
But the ones that were on the road, they were all either steamowered or electric cars.
55:34
And you know, you have this young mechanicallyincclined, gifted, gifted, mechanically inclined kid saying, "Actually, you know what?
55:42
I'm going to try to build it a different way.
55:44
I'm going to try to you the power source is going to stay with the car, and I think this internal combustion engine actually has a future."
55:49
And everybody told Henry Ford, "No, you cannot do that."
55:54
Just like they told Todd Graves, "You cannot cannot build a $10 billion business doing one thing relentlessly and just serving chicken fingers."
56:01
I love There's another thing I always say. Oh my god.
56:03
So, people told I forgot to say this. This is too funny.
56:07
And this like I I've recruited so many people to go to Raisin Canes that they haven't had it because I just love his approach to to what he does.
56:15
And so people were telling Todd Graves, "Okay, you sell chicken fingers, but you need a chicken sandwich."
56:20
He goes, "Oh, you want a chicken sandwich?
56:21
I'm going to take three of my chicken fingers and put them in between in between two slices of bread."
56:26
There's your freaking chicken chicken sandwich.
56:28
And that's literally if you order a chicken sandwich at Raisin Canes.
56:32
It's just three of the chicken fingers between two slices of bread. It's hilarious.
56:36
But I want to go back to Henry Ford. Okay.
56:38
He says, "I do not recall anyone who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use.
56:44
All these wise people demonstrated conclusively that the engine could not compete with steam.
56:52
They never thought that it might carve out a career for itself."
56:54
That is the way with wise people.
56:56
They are so wise and practical that they know they always know down to a dot just why something cannot be done.
57:04
They always know the limitations.
57:06
That's why I never employ an expert in full bloom.
57:08
If I ever wanted to kill opposition, my opposition by unfair means, I would endow the opposition with experts.
57:14
They would have so much good advice that I could be sure that they would do little work.
57:22
And so he goes back to this idea, hey, my gut said no.
57:24
Staying true to what I've done, not listening, knowing who I am, and not trying to be all things to all people is very important.
57:33
He says, I have stuck with that one love, brother. same menu since day one.
57:38
That has been a big key to my success. Stay focused.
57:40
Everything on my menu has to be exceptional.
57:42
So, one of the thing they they offer is you can get freshly brewed tea.
57:46
He goes, I sourced that tea.
57:49
I know the tea leaves, the quality of tea leaves that are coming in for our freshly for the freshlysqueezed tea.
57:53
I can, this is the important part, the idea of really powerful idea of limiting the amount of details to perfect and then making every detail perfect.
58:02
limit the amount of details to perfect and then make every detail perfect.
58:05
He goes, I can laser focus on all these items being great.
58:10
And then this is where one of my favorite parts I just bursted out laughing.
58:14
And he talks about, you know, bring in people that are smarter than you in their own respective ways.
58:19
That does not mean when you do that that you stop being detail- oriented.
58:23
It doesn't mean that you're not into the details.
58:28
People will just say delegate. And he says delegate.
58:29
What kind of word is that?
58:31
That's bust out laughing.
58:31
It's one of my favorite things he said.
58:33
People will say just delegate. Delegate?
58:34
What kind of word is that?
58:36
Work with great leaders, but still be in the details.
58:41
You should be in the details.
58:41
People used to tell me the experts again.
58:44
You won't always know that these things are going on in your business.
58:48
You can't do these things when you get big.
58:50
Well, I'm bigger than all of them now.
58:52
And then he brings up the fact that this is not unique to him.
58:57
This is a business I didn't even know.
58:58
I'm constantly discovering all these like familyrun businesses I absolutely love.
59:01
A lot of these people listen to the podcast and that's how I meet him.
59:03
But he goes he was asking the person interview.
59:05
He goes he goes you know Edison Edison Quest.
59:06
I thought he saying Quest.
59:09
So I couldn't I had to Google and I finally found this guy. It's C H O S T. You know Edison Quest?
59:16
He built a huge company multi-billion dollar company.
59:18
He they build like ships and it's funny.
59:21
You go to the website it's like looks like it was made in like 1997 but they have this wildly successful business.
59:26
So he's a huge ship builder. Massive company.
59:28
He goes he built a huge company, multi-billion dollar company.
59:32
He got he even got down to the details in his business to know how much the how much they were spending on bottled waters because there was this rampant spending and waste on bottled waters.
59:42
No one was looking at it.
59:45
And he said, "Look," this is what Edison said.
59:46
He said, "Look, it's not just about bottled waters.
59:48
Our company makes billions of dollars."
59:51
This carries over to everything else.
59:53
It was him staying in the details.
59:56
The most successful people I know stay in the details.
1:00:02
And it is easier to stay in the details if you truly love it.
1:00:04
Like last night, you know, it was funny because, you know, everybody a lot of people gave me the same advice like you shouldn't edit your podcast, you shouldn't do all this.
1:00:13
I maybe you don't know this, maybe doing this like you know, I know a bunch of other podcasts, but founders is literally the only podcast that is made by one a single person. A single person.
1:00:22
I do all the reading, the research, the recording, the editing, social media post, everything.
1:00:25
It's just like it's what I want to do.
1:00:28
You don't work your entire life to get to to to be able to do what you love to not do it.
1:00:32
And so like I was chuckling to myself last night because I was going over and what I've been doing is like after I'm done with all my reading, I I I feel there's been like a lot of value spending a day or two with the material and keep rereading it and most mostly just like eliminating things that that I don't think I need to talk about anymore and really like focusing.
1:00:49
And so I was laughing like last night, Saturday, I just happened at Saturday night, I happened to glance at um at the clock. It was 9:05 9:05 p. m. on a Saturday night.
1:00:59
What I'm doing, I'm working on the podcast because this is fun to me.
1:01:03
This is what I want to do.
1:01:03
And so all the advice that Todd is giving us is a lot easier to do if you love what you do because he says like, "This is my chicken finger dream.
1:01:10
My business card says founder, chairman, CEO, fry, cook, cashier.
1:01:13
I like working fry lines.
1:01:13
I like working drive-thru.
1:01:16
I love the pace of the bo business. I like cooking." And guess what?
1:01:20
Say you wanted to jump in and you're like, I'm going to make a chicken finger QSR chain, too.
1:01:23
Good luck competing with somebody like that.
1:01:26
The guy likes to work the line. Good luck.
1:01:32
And so, this leads to another question I loved.
1:01:34
Who do you fear most in the chicken game?
1:01:35
You know, by now, there's no way he's going to answer, you know, some giant non-founder, you know, corporate chain.
1:01:43
and he says the thing that gets me that worries me the most is the young person that has the fire of Todd Graves going that wants to come and compete directly.
1:01:51
They say hey I'm going to go head-to-head with Canes.
1:01:53
I'm going to do the same thing they do and this is what I love.
1:01:57
I love his response because remember there's a reason why I started our conversation with that Pilot Riley quote that it's personal to me.
1:02:02
And so he says I'm going to do the same thing they do.
1:02:06
He goes, this is Todd Grace. It's so personal to me.
1:02:08
And he's like if you want to compete with me that's fine.
1:02:11
You better get up early in the morning and you better work late at night, man, because this is what we do. This is part of my DNA.
1:02:16
This is a representation of my family.
1:02:19
So, you better come with all your guns if you're going to compete with Raising Canes because this is my world.
1:02:26
And so, if he's speaking about his business like that, you know, the question, he gets this question over and over again.
1:02:30
Sometimes it's from people interviewing, sometimes it's people calling in.
1:02:33
It's like, why did you never sell off part of the business after being offered billions?
1:02:37
He goes, I didn't want private equity partners.
1:02:38
I wanted to own and control it.
1:02:40
I wanted to work hard for that vision because I know this is my purpose.
1:02:44
When you, this is one of my favorite lines, too.
1:02:46
When you create and do, you're never going to stop creating and doing because it's part of what you are. It's part of your DNA.
1:02:54
And then again, he's always at asked like, "What is your advice?
1:02:57
You know, you're one of the most successful people on the planet. You've done it your way.
1:03:02
Uh, you know, you're still doing it.
1:03:04
What is your advice to other entrepreneurs?"
1:03:06
And he says, "Why are you here? What is your purpose?
1:03:08
You need to answer that honestly.
1:03:11
I think sometimes it can be scary even to hear what the answer is.
1:03:15
It can be a little scary because when you lock into something and you do it, it becomes your life's work.
1:03:23
I'm so glad he said that because one of my favorite things reminded me what Kobe Bryant said.
1:03:27
Kobe Bryant was giving a talk in front of a bunch of young people shortly before he died.
1:03:33
And remember what what Todd Graves just said.
1:03:35
You got to like you got to answer that honestly, man.
1:03:37
Like you can't lie to yourself.
1:03:38
really ask yourself what is your purpose? Why are you here?
1:03:42
And it's going to be a little scary because that means you're going to have to lock into that.
1:03:44
That means you are foreclosing all the opportunities and you're making that your life's work.
1:03:49
It's not very few humans ever get ever do that.
1:03:51
And so Kobe says the greatest fear we face is ourselves.
1:03:54
It's not anything that's external.
1:03:56
It's not anything that's superficial.
1:03:57
I think the greatest fear you face is yourself.
1:04:02
Because we all have dreams and it's very scary sometimes to accept that dream that you have.
1:04:06
And it's scarier still to say, "Okay, I want that."
1:04:08
It's scary because you're afraid that if you put your heart and soul into it and you fail, then how are you going to feel about yourself?
1:04:16
So being fearless means putting yourself out there and going for it no matter what. Go for it.
1:04:21
Not for anybody else, but for yourself.
1:04:24
And I think it's a perfect leadin to the final question, the final piece of advice that Todd Graves has for you and I.
1:04:32
He's asked, "What is one secret you could leave us with?"
1:04:35
If you're committed, if you're really committed, then tell yourself you're not going to give up because I've seen so many entrepreneurs give up because it's so hard.
1:04:42
It's so hard to get finance.
1:04:44
It's so hard to get a location.
1:04:46
It's so hard to do these things. So, they give up.
1:04:48
So, never ever give up and be fanatical.
1:04:51
You've got to be fanatical.
1:04:54
You've got to be fanatical about what you're doing.
1:04:57
Nothing ever happens unless someone pursues a vision fanatically.
1:05:03
And that is where I'll leave it.
1:05:04
I will leave the two links down below if you want to watch the full interviews.
1:05:07
Highly recommend that you do so.
1:05:08
I will also leave a link down below.
1:05:10
Make sure you're on my personal email list.
1:05:12
I email that my top 10 highlights from every book that I read and so from every episode as well. You can do that.
1:05:17
The link's down below, but it's also at davidcenter. com.
1:05:19
That is 383 books down, 1,000 to go.
1:05:21
and I'll talk to you again soon.