#383 Todd Graves and his $10 Billion Chicken Finger Dream

0:00 Todd Graves is obsessed about staying in the details of his business. He says the most successful people he knows stay in the details of their business. In fact, he mentioned learning from his friend who runs a multi billion dollar shipping company. And how his friend would even pay attention to how much his business was spending on bottled water. And when I read that section, I thought it would be a lot easier to do this. If that shipping company was running on ramp, something a lot of history's greatest founders have in common.

0:28 Is it the fact that they know their business from A to Z? And their costs down to the penny. Ramp makes doing this effortless. Ramp gives you easy to use corporate cards for your entire team. Automated expense reporting and cost control. These corporate cards

0:42 Are fully programmable. You can set limits so the spending of your team never gets out of hand. Most companies only find out about excessive spending. After the fact. Like the shipping company with the rampant spending on water. With ramp.

0:54 You can stop it before it happens. Matt Paulson, who is the founder of Market Beat, recently switched to ramp and this is what he said about it. Ramp is the best. The amount of money That you will save from unwanted renewals and employees who think Company credit card equals buy whatever you want.

1:10 Will far exceed the best credit card rewards program. Matt is talking about the importance of cost control. There's a line in Andrew Carnegie's biography that says cost control became nearly an obsession. All of history's greatest founders were the exact same way. Ramp helps you make it an obsession. If Carnegie was alive today.

1:29 I believe he'd be running his business on ramp. Take the time and set up a demo of the product and you will see why many of the world's top founders are running their company on ramp. go to ramp.com to learn how they can help your business today. That is ramp.com. One more tool that I need to tell you about is the AI assistant that I built for Founders Notes. So Founders Notes has This giant database that has all the notes.

1:51 for every book that I read for the podcast, all the highlights for every book that I read for the podcast. And all the transcripts for every episode that I make for the podcast. And I built an AI system on top of it called Sage. And so what Sage does is it reads all of my notes and highlights for every book that I've read for the podcast and it reads all the transcripts for every episode. So when I ask Sage a question, It's able to pull up the collective knowledge of history's greatest founders immediately.

2:14 It's like having access to the super brain that has read all of these books on history space founders? And then you can ask that super brain for advice on how to solve problems in your business. If you are running a successful business, I highly recommend going to foundersnotes.com. and getting access today. I highly recommend using Sage.

2:32 to supplement the decisions that you're making in your work. And you can do that. By going to founders notes dot com. The link will also be down below. Since I studied dead entrepreneurs for a living. I get the question.

2:45 Like out of the living entrepreneurs, who do you most admire? And a lot of the people on the list would be familiar to you. But I found when I mentioned that one of the living entrepreneurs that I most admire is this guy named Todd Graves. people first of all haven't heard of them and they're even more surprised when I said, Well Todd Graves founded this

3:02 Quick service restaurant. That serves only chicken fingers. Over thirty years ago. He owns over ninety percent of it. And the business his business is worth at least

3:11 Ten billion dollars. And I think Todd is a great uh example of one of my favorite ideas I hear from Charlie Munger of Find a simple idea. and take it seriously.

3:21 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. And so for this episode what I did is there's two main interviews that he he gave. I transcribed them and then I went through the transcribe to transcribe.

3:37 Just like I do for the books. 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. It could be like in a sentence or two, and you're immediately like, Yes, I feel that way too.

3:53 Uh, this happened with Pat Riley. You know, the legendary coach and a an NBA executive. uh an interview with him many years ago.

4:02 And he was asked. Why is winning insatiable? You know, Pat is in his seventies and he's still pushing it every day. He's still working very hard, he's still determined to win. And he said, I hated to lose.

4:13 I always thought that there'd be severe consequences if I lost. It was personal to me. Gonna pause there. Remember that line, it was personal to me. Todd's gonna repeat that over and over and over again. I like how serious he takes his business. I feel the same way, just like I feel exactly I identify exactly with the way

4:29 Todd is building raisin canes with the way that Pat Rayleigh's still approaching his career, you know, five decades into it. And then he continu and then uh the follow up question in this interview with Pat Riley was But how could you feel that way? And

4:43 As soon as I heard this. This is how I know I'm eventually gonna do an episode on Pat too,'cause it's like I felt I feel this way too. He goes, I just did. I felt that way since the day I came out of my mother's womb. I felt That I wasn't going to let anybody take anything from me.

4:58 that I worked hard to get. You were gonna see a lot of similarities. between that short excerpt from an interview with Pat Riley Pra the what we're gonna go through with Todd Graves. I'm gonna start I'm gonna go kind of in in order. Uh Todd's career.

5:10 But I do wanna start with the one clip that I saw that made that piqued my interest. As soon as I heard that, I sat up, I was like, Wait, wait, wait. I I've seen this before, once 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. Charlie Mungers' great line, something to the effect of uh oftentimes in the winning uh we find the winning system in business goes ridiculously far

5:32 minimizing and or maximizing one or a few variables and he used Costco as an example. And so the clip that I saw Well Todd saying, you know, he has this very simple menu, the same menu that he's had since day one. He had all these people tell him.

5:46 before he started the business and the early years of the business to this day. What you're doing's not gonna work. Your menu's too simple, you need to follow the trends, you need to do what your competitors are doing. And he's just so stubbornly believes in doing one thing. and doing it the best you can. So he says, I've always believed in doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else.

6:04 If you do what you do well and consistently do it great, Your customers will come back. And so if I added different things meaning to the menu, if I overcomplicated things, if I made things He's he's believes in this like this beautiful simplicity that I identify with. So if I add different things, I wouldn't be as quick in the drive thing.

6:19 If I added all these things my quality would go down. My speed would go down. And it wouldn't be our concept. Adding different things and losing focus. we lose while we're special and so it's not just

6:30 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

6:45 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 it

6:56 You have four things. You go into racing canes. Right? You like Do you want three chicken fingers? Do you want Four or do you want six?

7:03 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 Fifteen.

7:11 Thirty seconds e for each order. But it makes a hell of a difference. Right, when you have eight hundred stores like he does today. And so he continues this and I didn't see this That's where the clip ended. And then he he continues

7:23 So we even try to limit distracting things in the drive thru. So he does a lot of like charity work. there's a lot of celebrities. He has like Brazy King's has a cult like following. It's very much like in and out. And I'm gonna draw the analogy of in and out over and over again today. 'Cause it's just like, Oh, this is like Harry Snyder, the founder of Innite. Yeah, no, it's reincarnated and his name is Todd Graves.

7:41 And so There's this the show that he was doing that was helping restaurants with Snoop Dogg. And so he's like, Oh, let's let's advertise the show, we'll put it in the drive through. And so there's a picture of me and Snoop Dogg. He's like, Wait a minute That the problem was Even putting that poster, people sit there for like an extra five or ten seconds and look at this and he's like, Wait, wait, we gotta rethink this.

8:00 Because we got twenty cars. Behind that guy That is sitting there taking an extra ten or fifteen seconds. And delaying his order because he's looking at this picture of Snoop Duck. That actually's not Serving.

8:13 My goal. Which is to get the best food, the highest quality meals. Unbelievably fast. There's a couple things that immediately, you know, popped my mind. Because any time I'm reading about anybody as you already know, it's like I'm not thinking about just

8:25 What Todd Graves is telling us. Or what he's trying to teach you and I. I'm thinking it's like who else Who how who else does this relate to? And so there's this great exchange that happens in

8:34 This biography of Rockefeller called Titan, which is the most famous biography of Rockefeller. Right. And it it's a perfect example of this. And so Rockefeller was uh as obsessed with with the efficiency of every single aspect of his business, just like Todd Graves is. And so he's going walking around

8:49 Uh at this refinery. And he's seeing that One of his Employees They're soldering the like closing these cans of one of the byproducts that

8:59 that they're they're they're selling from refining oil. And so he goes up to him, Rockefeller goes up to goes, Hey, how many drops of solder Do you use on each can? And the guy says forty. And Rockefeller goes, Have you ever tried thirty eight? And the guy said no, he goes, Would you mind having some sealed with thirty eight and let me know.

9:16 When thirty eight drops were applied, a small percentage of cans leaked. So they try again, they try thirty nine. At thirty nine drops of solder, none link. Hence thirty nine drops of solder became the new standard instituted at all standard oil refineries. Now this is where Rockefeller Rockefeller's smiling. He's talking about this.

9:33 in his retirement. He's telling a story after he retired. That one drop of solder. saved twenty five hundred dollars in the first year. But the export business kept on increasing after that and doubled and quadrupled and became immensely greater than it was. And that savings has gone steadily along.

9:50 One drop on each can. And has amounted since to many hundreds of thousands of dollars of savings. I feel the same way about Todd Grace. If he's clipping. fifteen, thirty sec thirty seconds off of each order when he has one store. That's

10:04 You know, not as important. But It's very important. Think about the time saved when he has eight hundred stores. This guy's gonna have thousands of stores. I do the same thing. So I'm one of the very few podcasters'cause I go out and and and talk to all these other podcasters that still insist on editing his own podcast. And you I

10:20 the the idea and the reason I think this is important because I'm Completely obsessed. about save not w not wasting a second of your time. So I will go back through and I will literally Clip a second.

10:31 And people think this is a a bit ridiculous. My point is like let's say a million people listen to that episode over the life of that episode, okay? I didn't that means I didn't take out a second. I did the math the other day. I think it's like I took for every second I I'm able to cut. That's a waste of time.

10:47 I say two hundred and forty four hours. 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 like a thousand byproducts. That he was selling.

11:03 And then the second thing that came to my mind When he talks about, you know, this isn't our concept. I just gonna do one thing I'm gonna do it great. I'm gonna do that that same thing forever. And the guys had the same menu for thirty Years.

11:15 If you go look at In N Out's menu, it's barely changed. In and Out was found in like 1948. And so I think of what David Ogby said because he noticed this Not the People It there's so it's called it's hu in human nature to like constantly want to jump around

11:28 And be distracted. And in David Ogreby's case, he's watching all of these Businesses. have like these great ads that they pull. 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?

11:42 And they would run. that same ad and build ads around that same prom promise. Sure. Decades. And this is what David Ogie said about this, which I feel, you know, David died.

11:52 He he didn't know what Raising Gains was. But I feel like he would describe exactly What Todd is doing with his business. This is what David Ogie said. What guts it takes, what obstinate determination to stick to one

12:05 Coherent creative policy Year after year. In the face of all the pressure To come up with something new. Every

12:13 six months. That is David David will be talking about A winning idea could work for decades. So That's what really drew my attention to him. I've been studying this guy for a few years. And I realized the reason I needed to do this episode for you'cause it comes up in conversation like every week. And I was like Now I just wanna be like okay.

12:29 You wanna know what this guy's about? Go listen to, you know, episode three eighty three or whatever episode number this gonna be. So I'm gonna go through I organized all my notes and highlights. And I try to put in a chronological order as much as I can. So he's gonna talk about the fact that This early experience he had before he started raising canes.

12:44 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. I was always entrepreneurial. Another thing that I identify and I love about Ty Briggs, he loves founders. He talks about over and over again, we need more founders. Stop selling your goddamn business. We need more founders to retain control of their business and to actually give a damn about what they're doing.

13:05 I absolutely love this. He says raising canes was a college business plan. And so for business planning class, me and my partner wrote a paper. And they wrote a paper about starting Eight.

13:15 Quick service restaurant. That only sells Chicken fingers. And he was doing this at LSU. The first Raising Caines is actually opened.

13:23 uh around at I think the northern gates of LSU. Writes the paper. What happens? We get the worst grade in The class.

13:31 Okay. We've seen this over and over again. It's amazing. There is a rather big indictment, right? Where you get a bad grade for this idea that winds up being worth, you know, ten ten billion dollars.

13:41 Well, it's not the first time we saw us. Fred Smith. I don't know how much FedEx is worth today, but it's a lot, right? He writes a paper that he's gonna start FedEx. He wrote the paper in college. His business professor gave him a seat.

13:53 Phil Knight. Founder of Nike, same thing. He talks about this in his great autobiography and Shoe Dog. 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.

14:10 So he takes that idea that one idea that happened in another industry, he's like, I wonder if that would work in this industry. So I argued in this paper that I made Uh the Japanese running shoes might do the same thing. That idea interested me and it inspired me, and then it captivated me. It seems so obvious to me, so simple, so potentially huge.

14:26 And so he gives this presentation, he talks about they greeted my passion and intensity. with labored sighs and vacant stairs. So again. Fat X.

14:36 Nike, I would not be discouraged at all if you're telling people 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. Just like well, that's what they said to Todd Graves. They sent it to Fred Smith. They're to film night. And they were wrong.

14:49 Now This is what I also absolutely love. About Todd Graves. Is Everybody's telling this stupid idea. And he goes, If you tell me I can't do something

14:59 His immediate reaction is, let me show you. I'm going to do it. And so He t 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

15:12 After the second store. And that's one thing that Todd repeats a a bunch. The fact that you know, he's just You should set up 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

15:27 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 chicken fingers. It's not ridiculous to me. 'Cause it make I see it over and over and over again'cause I went through this like when I said I want to start a podcast on the books I read. You know, I had some of my closest friends saying this is the stupidest idea. Like no one's gonna listen. This isn't gonna work. And so the partner sells out after a second one. Okay, and Todd explains this. It makes perfect sense to Todd why his partner

15:50 quit and he didn't. He goes he wasn't a fry Cook cashier. So To this day. That's the way Todd describes himself. He says his business card says founder CEO. Fry cook cashier.

16:02 He likes working drive throughs. He likes making chicken fingers. He likes working the fry line. He goes, it didn't make my partner happy, but I love working drive through. I like working for eye lines. It's what I love, which is important. I tell all these young entrepreneurs, I tell these students now, whatever you get into. Make sure it's something you like to do. Make sure it's something you're passionate about.

16:21 Because if not, you won't be successful at it. Work comes down to a grind. But if you love it, then you'll always be happy doing it. And more importantly, what he doesn't say but is implied. You'll do it for a long time. Okay, so raising canes is growing faster now.

16:35 thirty 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. In fact Uh, there's a great line in Peter Thiel's book, Zero to One, where he talks about this. And he mentioned this phenomenon, the fact that you know, you can i if a concepts are working, they actually will grow faster.

16:53 many decades into the future than it will at the beginning. Which is 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 companies value will come from profits it'll generate in the future, ten, twenty, or thirty years out. That is also true.

17:10 With raising canes and that's why I again I think the implication there is like If you'd love to do it, like you're never gonna 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.

17:23 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 what. Todd Graves expressed the exact same opinion. of st as Steve Jobs.

17:37 In this interview. And this is something that Todd repeats. Over and over again. was never an option. Selling.

17:45 was never an option. 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. So I wanna get into

17:57 He writes this this paper. Okay. So how do you go from writing the paper to getting the money? Uh he he's a twenty three year old kid when he has this this idea, it's like I'm actually gonna do this for real. This is really important because it

18:08 You're gonna see a lot of parallels between him and Harry Snyder, which I'll get to, the founder of In and Out. So he's like, okay, I need money to open up my first spot. I thought, you know, I was I was turning into a businessman, so I go in and buy some cheap suit. I go to office deep or I buy a briefcase, okay? I br I put the business plan that I got a bad grade on. In the in the briefcase.

18:26 And I come down and I talk to these bankers because I'm gonna get a obviously get a loan about this chicken finger dream I had. He repeats that line over and over again. I'm living a chicken finger dream. 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. You might want to do this. You might want to do that. You're not in a position for us to lend you money.

18:47 Once again I'm hearing no. No, no, and that made me want to do it even more. And so What one thing that Todd is shares in common with a lot of the great founders that U and I studies. Like they know their their business from A to Z, they know their business cold.

19:01 And he was telling them, listen. I knew how much I knew down to how much like each apron was gonna cost me. I had done my research. 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.

19:14 Finger only concept. And they said, You didn't do your research because McDonalds is adding all this variety and all these different things and you're doing the opposite. But I knew doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else. would always pay off. And so I it might be a little ridiculous, but I was kind of induced into a state of rage.

19:31 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. How the hell could you even think? that you would be able to predict what would work, right?

19:42 But they're like, Oh, you know, you didn't do your research. Uh, obviously you don't know anything about this industry you're gonna want to work in. We're not gonna loan you money because look what McDonald's is doing. Okay. So there's there's a historical equivalent. At the time that Todd Graves is trying to raise money for raising Kings

19:57 There's already historical equipment on the West Coast. Dominating. Creating a cult like following. The exact approach that that Todd Graves was using is the one that Harry Snyder started back in the forties with In and Out.

20:08 So I I pulled all this the I have an AI system that it reads all of my notes, highlights, and and Transcription 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.

20:20 I'm gonna be like four hundred biographies written or read by the end of the year. Like it's possible to remember all this. And so I just pulled out give me all the best ideas from Harry Snyder of In and Out, because I know I've seen this before. And so I'm just gonna pull out some chunks that I'm reading to you about Harry Snyder. This is not about Harry Snyder. It is about Todd Graves. And implied nice could also be about me and you.

20:40 And so it says uh while other chains constantly expanded their menus, Harry maintained a famously limited menu. This menu has been barely changed since the company's founding in nineteen forty eight. That is exactly the This sounds like Cal Grace. Harry was fanatical about quality. Todd's the same way. Refusing to follow industry trends. This is exactly what the bankers are getting wrong. They didn't even understand.

21:01 The Todd was right. And you could just point it in and out. It's like, Well, I don't know. This guy did the same thing. Why wouldn't that work? Harry was fanatical about quality, refusing to follow industry trends towards cheaper ingredients and mass production techniques. When competitors switch to frozen beef patties, right? The the trend in Harry's industry. Harry hired

21:18 In and out's first butcher to maintain control over product quality. While other chains adopted fro frozen french fries. In and out continued making theirs by hand from fresh potatoes that were often picked in the morning and delivered in the same way. Evening. Harry's leadership.

21:32 was hands on to the extreme degree. Dude. I'm I'm I'm like uh tears my sorry. Later on,'cause I hear the same thing. The uh the remember this later on when um when

21:46 When Dodd. Everybody tells him he's like, You need to delegate. And Todd is one of my favorite parts of any interviews ever done. He goes, Delegate, what kind of word is that? He is so obsessed with details, I feel the same way. So it says Harry's leadership was hands on to an extreme degree. He was described as a micromanager before the term existed.

22:02 Keeping scrupulous records of daily operation. His work ethic was relentless. Every single one of these lines I went through. And made sure that if I'm talking to you about Harry Snyder That it's also true. For Todd Grades.

22:14 He was always the first person in the shop in the morning, inspecting ingredients and ensuring everything ran to his exacting specifications. Even when at home. He would watch the restaurant through his living room window. And sprint across the street to pitch in when needed. Todd Lived in an apartment.

22:30 behind the first raising canes. Harry also believed in treating employees well. This is something Todd's gonna repeat over and over again. We're me and you're gonna talk about this a bunch today. When California's minimum wage was sixty five cents an hour. Harry paid a dollar an hour plus a free hamburger per shift. This approach fostered remarkable loyalty.

22:48 many employees who started as potato peelers stay at the company For decades. It is pretty incredible. All of this sounds exactly Like Todd Graves' approach to building raising cane. So again. You wanna learn more about uh Harry Snyder.

23:02 Uh it's the episode I didn't have is episode two forty four. It's one of my favorite stories. 'Cause again it's like find a simple idea and take it very seriously. So This is where I get it you know, this is what kinda made me upset. You know, I'm glad i I don't think you could stop Todd. Todd is like determinator anyways. This guy's you know has superhum levels of determination.

23:20 But there's 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. It just really pisses me off. And so Good thing is Todd talks about he's like you know, he was born determined. He's like uh that determination was always there. The determination he always had.

23:38 He was there since he was a kid and he says and it really paid off later in a big way. When I wanted to start this dream. So think about where we're in the story. People telling'em. Your plan sucks.

23:47 We're not gonna lend you money. Your menu is wrong. And then shortly after, you know, he gets going, his co founder quits on him. So he's like, All right, they're not gonna lend me money. I I'm on a dream, I'm determined how am I gonna raise money. So

23:59 He hears the job about two different jobs. The first job is a boilermaker. 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. They need that back every day that that refinery's not up, you know, they're losing a ton of money.

24:15 So these boilermakers go and they travel around. And then they should do shift work and he says, You know, you're working ninety five hours a week. You work for five or six weeks straight, but you make so much money. Because They want that job done.

24:28 Fast. And he's around like a bunch of roughnecks, you know, imagine who are boilermakers. And his they they noticed his work ethic, he was he wouldn't shut up about the chicken finger dream. And so he his fellow boilermaker is a guy named Wild Bill. told him he's like, Hey, in the summer you can make money

24:45 commercial fishing in Alaskan. 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. So th I didn't know that this is what Todd Graves was doing.

24:57 And so they're like go up to Alaska. And you know, you work on a boat for thirty days for sixty days, and you can just make twenty five or fifty thousand dollars. And there's also funny thing in that You know, he never raised outside equity after this.

25:10 And some of the boiler makers, like Wild Bill, one of the few like angel investors that would put in money. To raising canes. And then he also said that he raised money from his bookie. Yeah. And he goes,'Cause his book he could pay him in cash.

25:24 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. 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, and I just love the idea. Like, what if what if like his bookier Wild Bill the Boiler Baker? Somewhere.

25:42 figure you know, had five percent of raising cane's, which would be worth like a couple hundred million. I just love the idea of like this boilermaker. Or his book Art's bookie could have like, you know, a hundred million dollars. of raising cane stock just because he believed in his chicken finger dream. So he saves up a bunch of money from boiling making. He's like, Okay, I'm gonna listen to Wild Bill, I'm gonna go up to Alaska. And he says, I was doing this when I was twenty three years old, so I could live very cheaply.

26:04 So literally before I got my job in Alaska, I spent a month living in a tent on the tundra because you gotta w talk your way into getting on a boat. And so I'd be eating pork and beans and ramen noodles every day and just spending as little as you can. 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? They will do just to get their dream going. They will go to great lengths to do that. The idea that you're willing to work ninety five hour weeks in a in a you know, very tough environment as a boilermaker.

26:34 Yeah, you're literally risking your life on a boat. Uh you know, o off the coast of Alaska. So he spends the summer commercial fishing in Alaska. And he says, People were dying out there. You're working twenty hour days. You're sleeping an hour here or there. So imagine a kid on a chicken finger dream.

26:52 On the back of this boat, National Geographics going out here to film this madness. Medical h helicopters are taking people out. You're hearing so and so boat just had a death. And you're filling up the boat with fish. Waves are crashing over the side.

27:05 You're scared. But I was there For that chicken finger. Dream. So

27:11 Saved up uh I think about fifty thousand dollars. I loved how honest he was. He's like listen, I did a lot of things. There were. really stupid and really risky. And just because it worked out for me, I would not recommend you do it. You do it. 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. I got as many credit cards as I could.

27:28 They were like eighteen, twenty three percent. And I lived off credit cards. I was young. And I had nothing to lose, but I don't think that's a great strategy. So he's got credit cards backing him up. He's got the money he saved.

27:41 Then he goes and gets an SBA loan. He says I use all these People in these services that are set up by our government, SBA, small business development center, service corps, retired executives. I talked to everybody that I thought was smart in business to get advice. on how to raise money for this. So I raised my own money.

27:57 I got that preferred shareholder money. That's what he's talking about, though the money wild Bill gave him the wild the money. That his bookie gave him a little bit of a And then he got a fifty thousand dollar SBA loan. And that was the seed capital. that I needed to start the first restaurant. So in while he's telling the story, one of the people interviewing him

28:13 uh asked them, you know, we have a lot of different entrepreneurs on the show. Some say you should use you should always do OPM, which is other people's money. Some founders say no no use as much of your own money as possible. And so it's like how do you Think about this. And I think by now you you're gonna know. How Todd thinks about it. And uh he goes, I'm the latter. I put all of my own money in.

28:33 uh and go full speed. So I own over ninety percent of my business. It is a multi billion dollar business and we're continuing to grow over thircent. It is very rare. Than I meet someone that owns that large a percentage of a business when you talk about businesses that are worth multi billions of dollars. Uh and I think some of these private equity people come in and they tell these entrepreneurs

28:52 This is what you need to do. You could take money off the table now because you never know if someone's gonna stop coming. In buying your product. And then these entrepreneurs get whittled down so low, they get diluted so much. And for me

29:04 That takes a lot of your own spirit out. because you're making money for people that just put cash in. But that's the easy part. You making your brand successful is hard, man. You live it every day.

29:16 You do this stuff. And then these people get bewildered. Talking about these entrepreneurs. They eventually just sell out. We have a lack of founders. In big businesses. Especially in the restaurant business.

29:28 When I was a kid These businesses were run by their founders. Founders care about their people. They care about their customers. They care, they care. they care. And then I also think this is why if you just look at the product he's putting out

29:41 The marking that he does. the financial performance he has, he's smoking everybody. Because he's competing against non founders. They're just any he'll talk about like you know, later on he's asked like what is the biggest threat to your business? Like who are you worried about?

29:54 And I promise you his answer when we get there. is not oh I'm worried about McDonald's. Where the phone has been dead for decades. He's just not worried about that. And so that's another thing he put pre he preaches like we need more founders. Founder led businesses are just better businesses.

30:07 Um, and so this leads to the the idea, you know, something I always talk about. It's like If you truly love what you do and you're working on your best ideas, like your extra strategy should be death. That is your extra strategy. Steve Jobs worked until he died. Charlie Margaret worked until he died. Coco Chanel till she died. Enzo Ferrari.

30:21 All these people over and over again. There there was the XIG was deaf. And so his whole thing was people always ask me, Hey man, what's your extra strategy? I don't have one. This is a multi generation business. I wouldn't sell. People need to have a higher risk tolerance because if you're an entrepreneur,

30:35 That's just what you do. My risk tolerance was very, very high. But try to keep as much equity as you can because this is yours. So I guess that section. Mind me of Dietrich Masters'.

30:46 Founder of Red Bull. Reminds me of James Dyson. Founder of Dyson still is a hundred percent of his business. Reminds me of Michael Bloomberg. So it's a hundred percent of Bloomberg. If you think of the the founder of Red Bull who just passed away recently. That's one of my favorite episodes I've ever done. Episode three thirty three. There was no biographies.

31:01 in English about Dietrich Mashtis. So we we had to translate one. From German. uh to do that episode. But he owned f uh him and his partner, so he owned forty nine percent and his other his partner owned forty nine percent. They were paying themselves like five

31:14 the dividends every year were between five hundred and eight hundred million a year. And then they were turning down offers, his forty nine percent. would be worth at least twenty billion dollars she could have taken off the table if he sold? And he just absolutely refused. He's like, I don't want to take the company public. I'm never selling it. And now um just like Todd, Todd wants to pass the business on to his his kids.

31:32 That's exactly what Dietrich did. Dietrich sa passed his part of the business on to his son. go let's go back to He's got the money. The first one takes a while to get it up. But it's starting to cash flow. A lot of the businesses think you're it's right next to a college.

31:47 You're going on on a Friday or T or Thursday or a Saturday. having a little drink, so h the main business for raising gains at the very beginning. was that like late night business. I think they'd stay o open till like three in the morning. And Todd wouldn't get out of there till like five in the morning. But he was talking about the hardest part of growing the business is not going from, you know

32:04 Seven hundred to eight hundred. It was going from one to two because he didn't know what he was doing and he didn't have any help. The hardest growth for me was from one store to two. the first restaurant to the second restaurant. I didn't do it the right way because I didn't have a lot of bench strength or management in my business. I lived at that restaurant.

32:19 We were open seven days a week, most nights until three AM. After the we had to stay open until after the bar's closed. I would get out of there at five AM Then I would turn right around the next morning and do it all over again. I I didn't really know how to develop other leaders.

32:34 And so this is the time. When they open the second restaurant, that's when his partner's like, Hey, I gotta get out of here. And so the way that Todd describes this part, making a lot of mistakes. He's like, I was trying to build a plane while I was flying it.

32:46 And his whole point, the advice that he gives to other entrepreneurs is like you're gonna make a lot of mistakes. you've gotta go in with the mindset that you're gonna be make a lot of snakes and be okay with it. You wanna make mistakes, but fix them even faster. And so You know, this guy's he says he has a very high risk tolerance. I think it's been obvious so far for what you and I've talked about.

33:04 And so he's got two. you know, there's certain cash flow. But it you have a lot of mistakes, it doesn't have a lot of talent. But there's a bunch of these like double drive through burger joints. in Louisiana.

33:15 Make you want a business. And he's like, I gotta take an opportunity because I can expand from two I think he adds another five stores really rapidly, so from two to seven. by taking over these double drive through burger joints. So you can't even walk inside. There is no walking inside, right? And what he realized is like I could convert them for about a hundred thousand dollars.

33:33 And the way he could do that rather cheaply is because They had a bunch of equipment that he could utilize. And he he's like, I had to do this the cheapest way I could. Uh and I need to get open up. as fast as possible'cause he's gotta get to the cash flow as f as possible. And he'll he'll talk about how he finances all this growth in a minute.

33:48 And so the way you do that is like okay. Just repurpose, use their equipment instead of making burgers, I'm making chicken fingers. And so the landlords were just sitting on these because all these double uh drive through burger joints had just went out of business. And so he goes to the landlord, he says, Hey Uh, I can get in really fast. I wanna lease this from you, but I wanna utilize all the equipment. Can we do like a package deal?

34:08 And so they could turn around fast, and they could turn each around for a hundred thousand dollars. And so he does four of these, and I think he does one in um he does one in like a food court in a mall. he comes up with a a very unique way to finance all this. Okay,'cause remember, it's really not investable. There were really no venture capital the time. he's gotta figure out a way to to make him, you know, somebody that the banks would want to loan to. And he goes, This is how I finance this and I do not recommend this.

34:32 But what I would go, I would go to an angel investor and I'd say, hey, invest two hundred fifty thousand dollars in a subordinate subordinated debt note. I will give you a fifty this is what he's selling the Angel Vester I will give you a I will guarantee you. A fifteen percent return and I will personally Sign.

34:48 I will personally obligate myself to this. We he goes, I want it on a one page contract, nothing bigger than one page. We have a proven concept, we're cash flowing. But I personally sign for this. Then I would take this

35:00 and bring it down to the local community bank. they would look at this and say, Oh, you have two hundred and fifty thousand dollars, they've considered this equity, and I could borrow up to a million dollars off that deal. And so this is how we did it. And he goes, I he's on a operating on a nice edge when he's doing this, okay? So Has to he he he has to open up as fast as possible.

35:20 Okay. If he opens up day one People are gonna come in, they're gonna he's gonna have some amount of revenue coming in day one. Okay. And what he realized is, okay, we open a restaurant so we got some revenue day one.

35:31 The crew members, we have two weeks to pay them. The food, my supplier, I don't have to pay for thirty days. The rent I can pay thirty days later. So I'm making cash flow and he has to make sure that he is making enough that he can make his payroll in two weeks. And then

35:45 Two weeks after that, that he could start paying for the food that he sold thirty days. Earlier. No. This winds up working. And he goes, I did this. This this is how he finance growth. Up to his first twenty eight restaurants.

35:57 And he said, We were just rolling and rolling and rolling. But I was leveraging myself. horribly and and this is when he almost goes out of business. I'm gonna 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. The one of my favorite b biographies that I've ever read for the podcast, I discovered it's got named Daniel Ludwig. It's episode two ninety two.

36:19 The name of the biography is called The Invisible Billionaire. And the reason it's called that is because in the eighties, I think. Daniel Ludwig was the richest American and no one knew who he was. And he started out. I mean he had a Who ends up building this huge conglomerate?

36:30 that he owned a hundred that he owned completely, he had no partners, he had two hundred companies in fifty countries. But he started out by Uh shipping. by transporting oil for standard oil because the government had broken them up. And he came up but he had no money.

36:44 But not enough money to do what he wanted to do. So he came up with this idea called the two paper two name paper arrangement, which is the foundation of his incredible wealth. And the genius of Ludwig's financing method work like this. He would approach an oil company

36:58 secure a long term charter agreement to ship their petroleum. 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. the oil company would then make payments directly to the bank Wh and then the bank would deduct the loan payment and deposit any remainder into Ludwig's

37:17 Count. So the financing innovation was particularly brilliant because number one It use other people's credit, which is the oil companies. Uh which had obviously better credit credit ratings at the time than Ludwig did.

37:27 Two, it required minimum personal investment on Ludwig's part. And three, it resulted in Ludwig owning valuable assets free and clear after the contracts. inspired. So I thought that was very interesting. For some reason that popped in my mind. Uh when I was thinking about

37:40 uh you know, him doing the subordinated debt loan. So He's like I'm rolling. We're adding restaurant after restaurant. We have twenty restaurants. I'm but I'm leveraged horribly. Very nervous. And then

37:51 He's in Louisiana. Hurricane Katrina hits and twenty one out of its twenty eight restaurants go dark. He says my cash flow stops. I'm in a bind. And so

38:02 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. And he does the same thing in the pandemic, and I'll explain both of these to you right now.

38:16 So hurricane Katrina hits, everything's flooded. He rallies his team together. He's like, listen, we need to get open as quickly as possible for two reasons. One, our crew needs to come back. They need to make money, and our communities need food. And two, If we don't We're out of business. We're done. So he was the very first restaurant.

38:31 To open back up in these communities to get Destroyed. Bye. Hurricane Katrina. Now why does that matter? Because

38:39 He had a ninety day window. When he was the only restaurant open in the area and he says we crushed it. We absolutely crushed it. And so think about all the new customers that maybe have never tried Raising Canes before. They try it because there's literally nothing else open. They're like, Oh, this is really good. And they're staying customers for life. They recommend it to all these other people. But

38:58 That's not the lesson that he wanted us to learn from this. He says but the lesson out of all this is what I tell entrepreneurs, don't do that. Because my dream almost died. My dream almost went away. I was over leverage. And stupid.

39:10 And so Hurricane Katrina wind up being an opportunity. uh unintended, the pandemic actually turned into an opportunity as well. So in two thousand twenty the Raising Kings was doing one point five billion in revenue. Four years later that four and a half billion. And Todd's reaction to both crisis was

39:27 that he says this entrepreneurial thing just kicks in in you. And he says, We ain't gonna stop, man. We're gonna get open and we're gonna make this work. And the pandemic wind up being, you know, a a blessing in disguise because We had a great format. Because we could do all the drive if you remember during the pandemic, drive throughs were open, but you couldn't like go and sit inside of a restaurant. And the government said that, you know, you have to stay open because

39:49 people need to eat. And so this is he was labeled an essential. And Same thing. Like w 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 one point five billion to four point five billion in three years, like we had to learn to get better and we had to learn to get better and quicker.

40:11 And Very fascinating, he talks about both both examples. Uh, whereas the fact that He's the ultimate decision maker. Like he doesn't have partners, he doesn't have board directors, he doesn't have shareholders.

40:21 So he could just say, Hey, we're gonna do this and it's going to happen. And so he says, I don't have to answer to anybody my but my crew members and my customers. I can make decisions and immediately we can do all this stuff. I didn't have to go through shareholders. I didn't have to go through a board that might say, Hey, I don't know if it's safe to do that. Should wait another two weeks? What are our competitors doing? I don't have to answer anybody but my crew and my customers, so I can get out there and make things happen right away. And uh there's a line that Michael Bloomberg says in his autobiography, which I covered all the way back on episode two twenty eight.

40:47 Then I think Todd Grace would agree with and Michael Bloomberg said answering to no one is the ultimate situation. So In the middle of this interview I wanna pull something out because he's constantly talking about The fact that like he cares, he cares, he cares, founders care.

41:02 We need more founder red. F founder led businesses. And you know This is when he has eight hundred locations, it's worth all this money, it's growing like crazy. And he's doing this interview and right before the interview started

41:12 Todd's crew comes in and they're literally showing him the real, the Instagram reel, the video that they're about to post. And the guy interviewing was like in my head I'm thinking, Todd, you're one of the three hundred fifty richest people in the world. running this giant company and you're checking the wheels to make sure that everything aligns with the brand. Again, I don't think of Todd Graves in that situation. I think of how it relates to every single other person you and I talk about.

41:35 Cause if you have this idea that's used by all these people that know each other, were alive at different times, work in different industries, obvious. What is it telling? It's a good idea. You should use in your business. Steve I did this episode called How'd Steve Jobs Kept Things Simple. It's episode three forty nine. Said Steve the I I pulled a uh a line from the transcript. Uh when I got to the section. Steve did not believe in delegating marketing and advertising decisions at all.

41:55 This is not an exaggeration. He approved every single image. That was used in an ad. He would approve every single word. He would deliberate over the copy. He is calling Ken, who's running his ads, the guy writing the book.

42:08 He's calling Ken at midnight to talk about a single Word. Another idea that Todd repeats over and over again, you have to make your s your people feel appreciated. He says He has this great line, he says, Communicate the appreciation you have with your people and with them constantly.

42:23 So he actually has an entire department dedicated to this? Mm He he talks about this later, but He learned the right way to do something. by seeing it done the wrong way first. So he says in high school and college, I worked in all these restaurants.

42:36 And they would yell at you and say you're doing it wrong. Negative reinforcement doesn't work in my business. If you go through a raising cane, you're gonna see a bunch of happy smiling people. But they're gonna crank out food as quickly and as high quality as they can. Good quality comes from positive

42:51 motivational management. I go through all my kitchens and see all my crews all over the country. I go through the kitchen and I'll say, Hey man, nice toast. Hey, thanks for the hard work. I appreciate it. Positive, positive, positive.

43:03 They know I care about them and they work even harder. And so he has this thing called the Cain's Love Department. I created a department. In the business. Actually called Cain's Love.

43:13 And it talks about respecting, rewarding, and recognizing crew members. So some th some things as simple as You come in and cover ship. Uh a shift. And you went out and you cleaned the dumpster.

43:23 You're like, hey, here's a gift card, man. Thank you so much for doing this. And these men and women work so hard. So they know it's all about Cain's love. And he'll do like fun things for them too. He's really great at marketing. And so there was I guess there was like this huge lottery. It was like eight hundred worth like eight hundred million or something. I think this might have been in Louisiana.

43:41 And he's like, Well, we have fifty thousand crew members at the time. Let's bite. lottery tickets, you know, it'd just be fun. Each ticket's like two bucks. Cost us a hundred grand.

43:50 And we'll agree that if any one of the fifty thousand people win this eight hundred and ten million dollar prize. We're gonna we're gonna share the winnings. And the reason he says'cause he's like the crew members were all talking about the lottery. They were like fascinated by it. He's like, Okay, well, you know, let's just Everybody buying the company.

44:05 I take it, we'll have some fun. And we pulled this all all together. And the point was, you know, he this was really just a fun deal, but then it went viral. And he he do this to go viral. But he's like okay.

44:16 He does a lot of these things out of his marketing budget. He's got a big marketing budget. And his whole point was just like well You know, I got millions and millions of impressions. It's on like tod the today show. It's on the news. It's in like local media. And it costs a hundred thousand dollars. And so it wind up being a great recruiting tool because people are like, Hey, I want to go work at a company.

44:34 That literally has a founder that wants to do fun stuff. So great for recruiting, great for marketing, and then wind up being a great return on a hundred thousand dollar Marketing spent. And there's a lot of similarities between like Todd Graves in in Sam Walton.

44:48 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. Sam Walton said that if you're not serving the customer, Are supporting the folks who do. that we don't need you inside of Walmart.

45:03 And Todd Graves version as my crew is my number one focus. The company's leadership should serve our crew members who are serving Our customers. Again, I I would go after the go after this and compare You know, the the the marketing of

45:17 Fast food. Other fast food competitors compare what Raisin Keynes is doing. And compare him to, you know, the hi his competitors. They're just a lot better at this. And so he talks about learning social media. As a grown man.

45:28 So he says being an entrepreneur and starting out with a budget, you have to be really crafty in marketing your business. This started for me all the way back in nineteen ninety six. I would go and hand out flyers. And say, come try this new place, raisin cane's. Back then we didn't have social media. But for me, I'm always a student in b of my business. I'm learning constantly.

45:46 I wanna stay on the edge and I wanna keep getting better and better. And so when social media came out He says, Look, I'm an older guy. I'm fifty two. Okay. So I didn't naturally gravitate towards Facebook and Instagram and the things like that. But I watch the marketing value behind it. And

46:01 One of the most interesting things is Launching collaboration. So there's a like I said before, a lot of like huge celebrities that are obsessed with raising cane, they kinda grew up on it. over time Todd Graves has become friends with with this musician named Post Malone. And when he starts becoming friends with Todd, he's like, Man

46:16 How can I own a canes? Like I want to own a canes. Todd's telling him is like, Well, you know, that's not our model. We don't do franchises. I like to do open company restaurants because, you know, I want control. I'm obsessed with With Keeping control and keeping the quality. And post one's like, Come on, man, we gotta figure something out. I wanna

46:31 I want to own a canes. I want to own a canes. And so Todd goes, Okay, let me let me think about this for a little bit. And so he turned a couple of days later he's like, Hey, what if we do uh like a post Malone version of racing canes, you know? New design, we're gonna call it like posty cane's or something like that.

46:47 Same menu but like you design like you can design what it looks like and I think the first one's like bright pink and it's like kinda crazy and I think some of the decor is like tattoos that Post Malone has Just go have fun. Like make something super special.

46:59 And then what we'll do is we'll just share in the profits. And What was fascinating is the way that Todd thought about this. He's like, I'm not setting up another entity. Right? This is not a separate company. We're operating uh on a corporate level.

47:10 The post Malone raising canes. This is just part of our marketing budget. So I think there's like two of them now. And they're just They get ton of coverage.

47:18 Yeah, outside of raising canes. posting about it or marketing about it because people are so like they're so weird and so they're covered by other people. And so like oh this is just a marketing expense. And then we're just say, Hey, these two stores, this is how much revenue they brought in, this is how 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.

47:36 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. I I I don't do franchises. And so this is why he does a franchise, and this is why he wants corporate owned stores. He says most quick service restaurants are franchise models. You lose a lot of control when you do that.

47:53 I would rather open company restaurants'cause I can control them. I want these things run exceptionally well. It's Personal. To me.

48:01 Remember what I said about Pat Riley using It's Personal. To me. He says it's easier.

48:06 To compete against these big corporate non founder led companies. Because they just don't care. And so he says in big corporate America, it's not a personal decision. It's a financial decision that they're doing. It's different for people that care.

48:19 He repeats over and over again. You know, the fact that It's a like Raising Keynes is a founder led company. That's Everything is personal to him.

48:27 And he's got a great way to describe this. He says, I believe God made me good at this for a reason. Todd Graves. Is a missionary. And just like Jeff Bezos says, missionaries make better products. And so he'll push that idea, he'll preach that idea, the fact that we need more founder companies.

48:44 It's the exact when when a young founder comes to him and asks him for advice about what he should do, it's the exact opposite of what the guy the guys in the bank did when he was young. He says when I talk to entrepreneurs and they have an idea, I encourage them. If you have your own concept to start that, open that. And the reason By having entrepreneurs open more stuff, it gets diversity of thought. Diversity of ideas.

49:02 Diversity of different ways to do things. And as a result, everybody gets better. From more founders trying new things. And so the follow up question to that was you've been approached with these big dollar amounts, these big checks. What was the most enticing time or dollar amount that you were approached with? Yeah, keep money, he's been offered billions of dollars. He goes, it's ne it was never enticing at all.

49:21 And the reason why is I believe God made me good. at chicken fingers to help people. I think God makes us all good at what we're doing ultimately. To help people. And

49:32 It one of the other things that he says for like for entrepreneurs like Th there's there's actually two um Essentially the the way I the note I left myself on this was What assets do you have that you're not currently using? Okay, so

49:44 on my computer monitor on my desk, I have two post it notes that are reminders to myself. I think or both Exactly how Todd uh graves things. Number one, do one thing. It says do one thing relentlessly. And the second one says.

49:56 What assets do I have that I'm not currently using? And Yeah, that doesn't mean financial assets necessarily. And so Todd's point's like, Yeah, okay, well Maybe you're young and you're starting out and you have no money.

50:08 But You have assets that older, richer people don't have. And it's the fact that You know, you have a ton of energy. And he says Todd didn't have a lot of Money experience when he started, but he had youthful energy and determination.

50:19 I was twenty three. When I opened up, I was twenty four. I could just outwork everybody. I didn't have to sleep much. I was a young man. And so it's like

50:28 Yeah, we don't have a lot of money, but it tr you know how it was when you're twenty three or twenty four. You I could sleep for a few hours, get up the next day and feel fine. Where you can't do that when you're It's very uh much harder Uh to do that.

50:40 when you're you're much older. And I I think uh one of the most important things about like Yeah. I g I give a lot of these talks are You know, these interviews or whatever.

50:49 And something I I repeat is it's like I'm just not really interested in like your first business. I'm interested in your last business. I'm interested in the business that like You you know, to me a large part of life is like understanding yourself and then having all these experiences in many cases it's gonna

51:03 require you to start many, you know, multiple businesses is very rare for Todd. For a person like Todd Graves to start his first business, that's going to be his last business. But I I'm always obsessed like when I ask this question to the founders I mean is like is this your last business? Like is this the end for you, like Sam the like I'm about to quote Sam Walton in a minute.

51:20 Same thing, it's like once the M1 film Walmart, it's like it wasn't gonna do anything else. He was gonna keep doing that. 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, and I see this over and over again in the books. And he's talking about

51:35 I I had this idea, it was like oh actually like Location matters so The average raising Keynes does about six point five million a year in sales. Yeah, that puts him in in on an average store basis. in his industry, he's in second, behind Chick-fil-A.

51:49 for QSRs. And so the average race in Kings will do six and a half million, but they opened up one in Times Square and that one uh did twenty two million its first year. So that the if you pause and actually think about that. It's like okay.

52:02 Where can you go that you what you offer is the exact same product? But you actually saw like four X more. That's an interesting thought to to to sit and think about. And then I was also thinking, I was like I am Positive.

52:15 That when Todd had that first store. He wasn't thinking. You know, outside the north gates of the LSU. That one day I'm gonna have a raisin canes that does twenty two million in sales. It took him thirty years.

52:26 To get to that point. And that's the important part, is it's 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. And you see that over and over again.

52:38 No. I also thought it was interesting. There's a there's a idea that really popped to my mind. You know, I've read every single thing I could find about Sam Walton. He's one of the the founders I most admire. I think it was on like the fourth podcast I made about him before I really if really clicked. Uh this idea of like go slow now.

52:54 To g so you can go faster later on. in the one of the interviews he's saying, Hey, we're we're pushing over six hundred locations. after almost twenty five years of business. And I think that interview was three years ago, and so now they have over eight hundred years. Or eight hundred uh stores rather. And he goes, It blows me away. We're we're about to start cranking about a hundred a year. So it seems like he's right on

53:12 that trajectory that he said a few years ago. He talks about another thing I need to before I get to the same Walton part. Todd says I approve Every site. Every location. Everyone.

53:22 Remember with Walt Disney, the advice that he gave to you and I. From the grave. If we lose the details, we lose everything. I bet you Todd if I asked him. And if you know Todd Graves.

53:32 Please send him this episode because I'd love to meet him. I bet you if I asked him. Did you agree with what Walt Disney's advice? If we lose the details, we lose everything. If we lose the details, we lose everything. So What's fascinating to me is okay. Took him twenty five years.

53:46 To get to six hundred locations. And then Two years. Three years. He had another Two hundred.

53:52 There's this book called Sam Walton, Richest Man in America. It's episode three fifty four. This is when it clicked for me. after reading about him multiple, multiple times. And again, I think it was the fourth episode I've done on him. It's like wait a minute, back up. Sam Walton, when he started a retail career. The first five years of his retail career, he had one store.

54:09 So in the in the beginning of his career, he could only able to make To he was still learning. He can make five years You can make one store in five years. Then you get to what is this, I think thirty years into his career?

54:20 He opens the same club. He goes from zero to one billion in sales in three years. He goes from zero stores. The f uh on day one. To seven years in having a hundred and five

54:33 Stores. So if you think about that, that's a slightly longer time frame. The first five years career, he has One star. Three decades into his career.

54:40 He goes from zero to a hundred and five in seven years. I I pulled this quote from the transcript. uh of this episode. Extreme patience. Coupled with an extreme intolerance for slowness. That is the career.

54:54 of Sam Walton. Something else that appears over and over again when you hear Todd Graves. Speak. Again, people are like, I love what you do. Why don't you change the thing?

55:03 Yeah, and he and he is so relentlessly stubborn about this that I love. And he says. Our number one strategy for growth is staying true to who we are. That means staying true to our one love. And that's quality chicken finger meals. Never losing that focus. That's our concept. Doing one thing and doing it better than anybody else.

55:19 It is important for leaders to retain a singular focus. I would encourage anybody in the business at anybody in business to find your one true love. My one love is chicken fingers, and I strive to be the best at that. Lock in on what you do exceptionally well and then execute it every day, day in and day out.

55:37 That is how you win. 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.

55:45 Two. Anybody. goes back to this founder mentality that he has. He says every box That goes out. To every customer.

55:54 Matter to me. This is a personal business to him. This is a family business to him. He was asked what lessons that he learned from his father. And he says, My father taught me about hard work. He taught me about about the importance of being polite to people. He was teaching me values. I do the same thing with my kids now.

56:11 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. And so while he's giving this interview some of these interviews, his kids are like sitting He br brings his kids with him.

56:23 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. And what what they all do is they bring their kids into the business, they expose them to the business really early. I'm talking about the Wallenberg, we talked about them, Hetty Green, Jerry Jones, Leon Hess. Just go back and l listen to like last like six or seven episodes. This thing comes up over and over again. And so he and Todd Grace talks about this. I like to bring my son with me when I'm doing business and be exposed to it. He's just seventeen.

56:48 But it's good to good to get that stuff into his head. He involves his daughter as well. Why? Because he wants to give he wants to pass this down. to his kids. I want my kids in the business to be able to carry on the values

57:01 after their mom and I are gone. They can turn this this business into a worldwide business and continue to grow it. And then he's constantly repeating the importance of like, you know Yeah. Experts, what experts? Like don't listen to experts. Listen to your gut, listen to your intuition.

57:16 In fact, one time he 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. It w really reminds me of Henry Ford, like Todd the way Todd thinks about experts. And how b of a detriment they can be to an entrepreneur. is the exact same way that Henry Ford about it, you know, a hundred and twenty years ago.

57:33 And so he says the experts are always like, Hey, you guys really need to add a chicken finger salad. You know, you need to jump on the health trends. And when I was younger I listened a little more because I'm like, Wait, maybe these people are smarter than me. Maybe they know more than me. But my gut said no.

57:47 Staying true to what I've done, not listening. I know who I am and I'm not trying to be All things to all People. So there's a great line in Henry Ford's uh autobu autobiography where he's talking about, you know.

58:00 I know it sounds crazy if you if you haven't ever studied this part of of For no history. When Henry Four starts making Automobiles. You know, he he was a big believer in the internal combustion engine.

58:10 the time there wasn't many cars on the world uh on the road. But the ones that were on the road, they were all either steam powered or electric cars. And you know, you have this young mechanically inclined gifted gifted mechanically inclined kid. Saying actually you know what, I'm gonna try to build In a different way. I'm gonna try to

58:26 you i the power source is gonna stay with the car. And I think this internal combustion engine actually has a future. And everybody told Henry Ford, No. You cannot do that. Just like the old Todd Graves, you cannot

58:38 cannot build a ten billion dollar business. doing one thing relentlessly and just serving. Chicken fingers. I love there's another thing I always say. Yeah. Oh my God. So people told

58:48 I forgot to say this, it was too funny. And this uh like I I've recruited so many people to go to Raising Cains. 'Ca th that they haven't had it. because I just love his approach to to what he does. And so people were telling Todd Grace. Okay, you sell chicken fingers.

59:00 But you need a chicken sandwich. He goes, Oh, you want a chicken sandwich? I'm gonna th pay Three of my chicken fingers are putting me into In between two slices of bread. There's your frickin' chicken f chicken sandwich. And that's literally if you order chicken sandwich At Raising Gates, it's just three of the chicken bangers between two

59:17 slices of bread. It's hilarious. But Wanna go back to Henry Ford. Okay. He says. I do not recall anyone who thought that the internal combustion engine could ever have more than a limited use. All these wise people

59:29 Demonstrated conclusively. That the engine could not compete with steam. They never thought that it might carve out a career for itself. That is the way with wise people. They are so wise and practical that they know they always know down to a dot.

59:45 Just why something cannot be done. They always know the limitations. That's why I never employ an expert in full bloom. If I ever wanted to kill opposition, my opposition by unfair means I would endow the opposition with experts. They would have so much good advice.

1:00:00 That I could be sure. That they would do. Little work. And so he goes back to this idea, hey My gut said no.

1:00:08 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. He says I've stuck. With that one love, brother.

1:00:17 Same menu since day one. That has been a big key to my success. Stay focused. Everything on my menu has to be exceptional. So one of the thing they they offer is you can get freshly brewed tea. He goes, I sourced that T.

1:00:30 I know. the tea leaves, the quality of the tea leaves that are coming in. for our freshly sque for the freshly squeezed tea. I can this is the important part. The idea of

1:00:40 Really powerful idea of limiting the amount of details to perfect and then making every detail perfect. Limit the amount of details to perfect and then make every detail perfect. He goes, I can laser focus. On all these items being great. And then this is where one of my favorite parts I just burst it out laughing. And he talks about

1:00:58 You know, bring in people that are smarter than you in their own respective ways. That does not mean when you do that that you stop being detail oriented. It doesn't mean that you're not into the details. People will just say delegate. And he says, Delegate? What kind of word is that? That's where I bust that around laughing. It's one of my favorite things he said. People will say just delegate. Delegate? What kind of word is that?

1:01:19 Work with great leaders. but still be in the details. You should be in the details. People used to tell me the experts again. You won't always know that these things are going on in your business. You can't do these things when you get big. Well, I'm bigger than all of them now. And then he brings up the fact that this is not unique to him.

1:01:39 This is a business I didn't even know. I'm constantly scoving all these like family run businesses that I absolutely love. lot of these people listen to the podcast and I that's how I meet them. But he goes he was asking the person, he goes he goes, You know Edison Edison question? I thought you'd say quest, so I couldn't I had to Google and finally found this guy. It's it's C H O U E S T. You know Edison

1:01:57 Quest? He built a huge company. Multi billion dollar company. He they build like ships and these it's funny, you go to the website like looks like it was made in like nineteen ninety seven. But they have this wildly successful business.

1:02:09 So he's a huge ship builder. Massive company. He goes, he built a huge company. Multi billion dollar company. He got he even got down to the details in his business to know how much The how much they were spending on bottle waters.

1:02:21 Because there was just rampant spending and waste on bottled waters. No one was looking at it. And he said, Look. This is what Edison said. Said, look, it's not just about bottled waters.

1:02:32 Our company makes billions of dollars. This carries over to everything else. It was him staying in the details. The most successful people I know. Stay. In

1:02:43 The details. And it is easier to stay in the deta if you truly Love it. Like last night. You know, uh it was funny because you know everybody Yeah, I ha a lot of people gave me the same advice. Like you shouldn't edit your podcast, you shouldn't do all this I don't maybe you don't know this, maybe you do this like

1:02:57 Yeah. I know a a bunch of other podcasts, but Founders is literally the only podcast that is made by one a single person. A single person. I do all the reading, the research, the recording, the editing, social media posts. Everything. It's just like

1:03:09 It's what I wanna do. You don't work Your entire life. To get to to to be able to do what you love. To not do it. 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.

1:03:21 I I feel 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. I'm really like Focusing? And so it's laughing, like last night, Saturday.

1:03:35 I just happened Saturday night I happened to glance at um at the clock. It was nine o five. Nine o five PM on a Saturday night and what I'm doing. I'm working on the podcast. 'Cause it's fun to me, is what I wanna do. And so

1:03:46 All the advice that Todd is giving us. It's a lot easier to do if you love what you do,'cause he says like this is my chicken finger dream. My business card says founder, chairman, CEO, Fry Cook Cashier. I like working fry lines, I like working drive through, I love the pace of the boat business, I like Cooking.

1:04:01 And guess what? Say you wanted to jump in. And you're like, I'm gonna make A chicken finger QSR. Chain two. Good luck competing with somebody like that.

1:04:09 The guy likes to work the line. Good luck. And so this leads to another question I loved. Who do you fear most in the chicken game? You know. By now.

1:04:19 There's no way he's gonna answer, you know. Some giant non founder led. you know, corporate chain. And he says the thing that gets me

1:04:27 that worries me the most is the young person. that has the fire of Todd Graves going. That wants to come and compete directly. They say, Hey, I'm gonna go head to head with Keynes. I'm gonna do the same thing they do, and this is what I love. I love his response.

1:04:40 'Cause remember, there's a reason why I started our conversation with that Piet Riley quote. That it's personal to me. And so he says. I'm gonna do the same thing they do. He goes, it this is Todd Grace. It's so personal to me. And he's like, if you want to compete with me, that's fine. You better get up early in the morning and you better work late at night, man, because this is what we do.

1:04:57 This is part of my DNA. This is a representation of my family. So you better come with all your guns if you're gonna compete with raising canes because this is my World. And so if he's speaking about his business like that, you know, the question he gets this question over and over again. Sometimes it's from people interviewing. Sometimes people calling in.

1:05:15 It's like why did you never sell off part of the business after being offered billions? He goes, I didn't want private equity partners. I wanted to own and control it. I wanted to work hard for that vision. Because I know this is my purpose. When you this is one of my favorite lines too. When you create and do, you're never gonna stop creating and doing because it's part of what you are. It's part of your D. And A

1:05:37 And then again. He's always at Ask like what is your advice? You know, you're one of the most successful people on the planet. You've done it your way.

1:05:45 uh you know, you're still doing it. What is your advice to other entrepreneurs? And he says, Why are you here? What is your purpose? You need to answer that honestly. I think sometimes it can be scary.

1:05:56 Even to hear what the answer is. It can be a little scary. Because when you lock into something and you do it. It becomes Your life's

1:06:05 Work. I'm so glad he said that because one of my favorite things You reminding me what Kobe Bryant said. Kobe Bryant was giving A talk in front of a bunch of young people. Shortly before he died. And remember what what Todd Graves just said. You you gotta like you gotta answer that honestly, man. Like you

1:06:20 Can't lie to yourself. Really ask something. What is your purpose? Why are you here? And it's gonna be a little scary because that means you're gonna have to lock into that. That means you are foreclosing all the opportunities and you're making that your life's work. Is not very few humans ever get

1:06:32 Every Do that. And so Kobe says the greatest fear we face is ourselves. It's not anything that's external. It's not anything that's superficial.

1:06:40 I think the greatest fe fear you face is yourself. Because we all have dreams and it's very scary sometimes. To accept that dream that you have. And it's scarier still to say, okay, I want that. It's scary because you're afraid that if you put your heart and soul into it and you fail.

1:06:56 Then how are you gonna feel about yourself? So being fearless. means putting yourself out there and going for it. No matter what, go for it. Not for anybody else.

1:07:07 But for yourself. And I think it's a perfect lead in to the final question, the final piece of advice that Todd Graves has for you and I. He's asked what is one secret that you could leave us with. If you're committed If you're really committed.

1:07:20 then tell yourself you're not gonna give up because I've seen so many entrepreneurs give up. Because it's so hard. It's so hard to get finance. It's so hard to get a location. It's so hard to do these things, so they give up. So never.

1:07:32 Ever give up and be fanatical. You've got to be fanatical. You've got to be fanatical about what you're doing. Nothing ever happens. Unless someone pursues a vision.

1:07:43 Fanatically. And that is where I'll leave it. I will leave the two links down below if you want to watch the full interviews, highly recommend that you do so. I will also leave a link down below. Make sure you're on my personal email list. I email the my top ten highlights from every book that I read. And so from every episode as well, you can do that. The link's down below, but it's also at DavidCenter.com. That is three hundred and eighty three books down, one thousand to go.

1:08:05 And I'll talk to you again soon.

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