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The Difference Between B2B & B2C Startups in Hospitality
99 Plays1 year ago
Michael Tingsager is Co-Founder of Pulse Kitchen (The plant-rich meal solution for Food Service) and Host of Hospitality Mavericks Podcast Show. With a lifetime of experience in the hospitality industry behind him, Michael is known for his passion for making a positive impact on people, communities, and the planet through service businesses. In this episode of the First-time Founders Podcast, Michael shares his insights on a wide range of topics, such as “The difference between B2B and B2C startups”, "Business as a Force for Good", "Agile Hospitality", and "Why People Strategy Makes or Break a Business".
Interested viewers can reach Michael (https://www.linkedin.com/in/michaeltingsager/) at michael@hospitalitymavericks.com and Rob (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertliddiard/) at Rob@mission-group.co.uk (or to book some free time with Rob, visit https://www.eosworldwide.com/rob-liddiard).
First-time Founders on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7hcdluu5ywrZ6qFhhI8EVH?si=840a4f564e6d4ea4
First-time Founders on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC0SfnHZhV747su-Wnd-9Z0Q
First-time Founders on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/first-time-founders/id1697488388
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Transcript
Introduction and Background
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the First Time Founders Podcast, the show where we talk about how to start a business from nothing and grow into something meaningful. I'm Rob Lydiard. I co-founded a software business called Yapster, which was acquired in 2022. I'm now a professional implementer of the Entrepreneur and Operating System, or EOS, which means that I work with entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial leadership teams to help them get more of what they want from their businesses. That's my day job, but in my spare time, my passion is talking to entrepreneurs
00:00:29
Speaker
and entrepreneurial people about their first time founder experiences, what they learned on the journey, and what we can pay forward in terms of experience to give to new entrepreneurs embarking on their first entrepreneurial endeavors to hopefully try and save them more pain along the way.
Introducing Michael Tingshager
00:00:44
Speaker
Today, I'm speaking to Michael Tingshager. Michael's the host of the Hospitality Mavericks podcast, a lifelong hospitality person, founder of a number of really interesting hospitality businesses, most recently a business called Pulse Kitchen.
00:00:59
Speaker
Michael's got a wealth of experience about how to build a great business, particularly in and around hospitality and hospitality supply chain. Both from experiences he's earned himself, but also from doing more than 280 interviews with world-class hospitality operators through his podcast. I'm sure you're going to learn a ton from this conversation. So without further ado, my conversation with Michael Tiggs.
00:01:27
Speaker
Michael, welcome to the First Time Founders podcast. Thank you for doing this, my friend. Yeah. Thank you for inviting me, Rob. I'm very honored. And I was, you know, as I said to you, I'm a bit puzzled about what we're going to be talking about, but I'm sure you have a great plan in mind.
00:01:42
Speaker
Well, you inspired me with your podcast, of course, the Hospitality Mavericks podcast. I suspect we've got quite a few contacts in common, at least from our respective time in the hospitality industry. But you're a humble guy and you're very disciplined about resisting, I think, too much of your story on Hospitality Mavericks because you very, very much make it about the guests. But of course, I know from our conversations offline that you have a terrifically interesting background of your own.
00:02:11
Speaker
which includes also founding businesses in a few different
Michael's Hospitality Journey
00:02:14
Speaker
areas. And so of course, with this being the first time founders podcast, I feel like you have an unusual vantage point in the, you know, a bit about hospitality, you know, a bit about management in big companies. We can talk about the McDonald's experience, you know, a bit about B2B, you know, quite a lot about B2C. So I just feel like this could be a tour de force of cockups and experience and learnings that we can share with newbies coming into the entrepreneurial world. So Michael, before we dive in, would you mind just the kind of quick
00:02:40
Speaker
two-minute tour of your very, very crazy CV so we can then dive into the latest adventures.
00:02:47
Speaker
So the quick one, and thank you for all the kind words, Rob. The quick one is that I'm born and raised in the Danish hospitality family run by my mom. And she grew that to six different sites. It was not like set out to be a chain or anything in the way it never became. It was a mom and pop group. And she did quite well and she got some health problems and needed to, you know, reduce some of the pressure there and sold some of the business off and it meant that I had
00:03:16
Speaker
a job, of course, because working in mom and dad's restaurant happens very early on. So I was three months old when I was in the restaurant and my mom was probably cleaning or doing something. So I was running this little, you know, it would be called a direct translation from Danish to English, like a sausage trailer. It doesn't sound very charming, but they sell these hot dogs. If you've been to Copenhagen anyone, you will see these around. So I was running that in the weekend and
00:03:43
Speaker
learning P and L by my dad. And you know, you need to sell so much to let the trickle down to the bottom. The sausage cost this. And, uh, but then my mom came and said, we, we, we sold this, we selling this and, uh, you need to go and have a job somewhere else. Of course you cannot not have a job because they're grafters and you always work.
00:04:01
Speaker
My mom and dad then said, no, I don't want to go and have another job. So my mom said, there's nothing else to do. She's quite black and white. And they said, but you don't want us to worry about, I found your job. You're gonna be working at McDonald's. Like Paul, their friend was over at McDonald's. Said McDonald's, I think I've been to once in Paris. So you have to go back to the nineties here. There's a bit of gray here. So McDonald's is rolling out in Denmark. So this is a six to seven restaurant. I can't remember exactly.
00:04:29
Speaker
But yeah, of course I do what mom tells me. Uh, and I think my mom at that point was hoping like I was around 15. She was opening McDonald's going to tire him out for hospitality and he's going to leave hospitality, but it did the opposite because I went starting cleaning the loose for a long time and opening the lobby. And I worked my, you know, over the time up to become running shift to running restaurants, to go to a headquarters, doing different roles within people.
00:04:56
Speaker
technology, training, operation, and also had a stint here in the UK as well.
From Corporate to Entrepreneurial Ventures
00:05:04
Speaker
And then I spent a long time in a chain in the more entrepreneurial world from the more corporate food, going into an entrepreneurial environment and a coffee chain that did organic food and so on. And it was not my business, but I was in there as a partner. I was very much building that business from four units to
00:05:23
Speaker
27 and I'm very much focusing on and talking about how do we actually build the culture and that's really my thing and it became my thing very early on. I got a professor from a professor of mine at university who gave me this book that's called good to great in my hand and coming back to the podcast I run today that's also because of that book and that book is all about why is there some people I'll compete others
00:05:48
Speaker
And again, it comes into some specific behaviors and principles. But the first one is great leadership, and the ability to build great culture. That became my theme. And then I went out as a consultant as well in food and hospitality and did that. And out of that, actually, the podcast was born, because actually, a friend of mine called
00:06:10
Speaker
Ali said to me, oh, I would love to be a fly on the wall when you meet these CEOs and have conversations. And it was more like sales conversations in principle to get a gig, which you had many of before you got one. And then he said, could you write blogs about that? And I, I don't mind writing, but it's very time consuming. And it's not my super skill.
00:06:35
Speaker
And then my mentor i have and i still have chris brilliant guy said to me michael you just do what i think it was two thousand seventeen to just do what tim ferris does i didn't know who. Excuse me in podcasting world but i didn't know which in paris was before you mentioned him now i have.
00:06:54
Speaker
of course, Google for our work week and start listening. So that's brilliant interview people. I thought it's just going to be 10 episodes and then the lead machine will take care of that. And I've held the alley as well. And those 10 turned in now to 288 episodes of sit here today. And, you know, one every week now had great guests as Jeremy King recently, Chip Connolly from the States, Ari Weinsweig, Nisha Katona,
00:07:24
Speaker
Tom Barton, Fondesberger, you know, the list go on and on. Tom Elliott from Pizza Pilgrims, there's a long list of great hospitality leaders there. And now that has also become a pursuit of what I'm, when it all comes together, my purpose is in principle to build businesses as a force for good businesses that deliver profit, impact on people, community and planet. And that's what I do with everything I do. And then,
00:07:49
Speaker
it's difficult to do two minutes you said i'm also involved in a couple of businesses beside these things and that's led to me i met another danish guy in london in 2015 and first we launched them
00:08:01
Speaker
a catering business for office catering. We had customers like Airbnb's in a hotel.
The Birth of Pulse Kitchen
00:08:06
Speaker
It's going really well. And then there came this word, we don't want to talk about anymore the pandemic and wipe the revenue off. And we had to change the way we were thinking about things. So first we saw it was just three months and then we'll be back on track. And then we learned
00:08:25
Speaker
You know, after we have fed the front light workers and been part of all that, that actually looks like very dire. We're not going to come back as we did.
00:08:33
Speaker
We created a new product, and for people that are viewing on video, they can see that we created the Pulse Kitchen, which is principle, a meal solution. You can either buy as a consumer, direct to consumer, and some retail settings. And you take that home when you add your pasta and your sauce. And now we're also starting selling this into food service, which is very interesting. Back to the roots, helping operators,
00:08:59
Speaker
getting delicious plant-based natural food on the table, but also saves lots of labor and waste and complexity and so on. So that's the quick journey of what I've been through. And then there's been some other touch points as well, but that's like the major milestones, Rob. No, thank you. And I actually have tried the products. I loved it. I know you wouldn't go into this if I wasn't provoking you, but I do want to, because I think it would be helpful for folks.
00:09:29
Speaker
Like I thought the product was delicious. What was it about it that inspired you to do it and makes it unique and different for the customers, whether they're consumer or business, because I, you know, and don't cringe because I'm not, I know it feels like a sales pitch, but it is important because we're going to talk about the substance behind the business. I think it's going to mean a lot more to people when they kind of understand the loss of the wire before we get into the how. Yeah.
00:09:54
Speaker
So the product, as people can see, and that's the last product placement we're going to do, is company called Pulse Kitchen, and it's a lentil bolognese. And Pulsar's, I'm not trying to give you, is lentil beans and peas. And the reason why we landed on that was actually what our mission was, but originally what our caring company was to make more climate-friendly, tasty food. Because we knew there was a lot of vegetarian option out there. We are not very tasty.
00:10:22
Speaker
And it was not an uptake on it, especially not in catering at that time. So also we had to do something to reduce complexity in our operation. So we knew that we need to create some basis around how we build our menus. So these sources, which we batch cooked every week, became the basis. You can make an Italian menu. You can make a Mexican menu. You can make a Thai menu. You can make a Japanese menu.
00:10:46
Speaker
around these sources, but there's always pulses in because they replaces the protein. So pulses is very high in protein. Often, you know, dried pulses has the same amount of protein as mint meat or any kind of meat. So we didn't say per se that we were going to replace meat, but we said we're going to reduce meat in the office context. And we found out if you make pulses super tasty,
00:11:13
Speaker
you actually start seeing people dropping off the meat wagon, which was the interesting thing. And then with people saying, these others were saying, can we get this home at night? And that was the touch point in the pandemic. But actually how we think food and the philosophy around exactly that we believe that food should be joy.
00:11:31
Speaker
without restriction and of course should be natural. So when I was out, restriction is that we're not saying any kind of isms that you have to be vegan or vegetarian. We actually just saying that you have to enjoy your food and we just made sure there's a very tasty product. Then you can add your meat if you want to. And it's all built on as a huge study done by Harvard University around the menus of change and how we actually should eat if we should do the best for our health and the planet.
00:12:01
Speaker
And it's actually eating more of four key food groups, which is grains, pulses, lots of veg, and then nuts and seeds. If we get that on our plate all the time, we're in a good place. Then you can add meat, and you do that in a lot of culture, more for taste and flavor. Not the main thing. So the meat comes last, not first, as it often does in Western cooking as it is today.
00:12:29
Speaker
Another thing the philosophy we build around these products and then that's the philosophy we go out and work with in food service or also to the consumer likely we've actually done the hot but we don't the batch cooking and batch cooking is a pain both at home and in kitchen and in commercial kitchen and in commercial kitchen is actually super risky and very inconsistent.
Challenges in Scaling and Brand Identity
00:12:51
Speaker
And that's actually the whole idea comes from that we were eating like that and we saw the impact on ourselves. We translated that into a catering company that was doing quite well. We couldn't do anything about the pandemic. And now we're trying to translate that into a product and also the support we give, especially in food service, to bring that to a life. Because we believe that if we can eat like this, we can change the world by the way we eat, which is our purpose of the business.
00:13:16
Speaker
I love it. And you know what makes me laugh is I've obviously gone from being in a product business to now running a sort of teaching and advisory business 50% of my time. And of course you've gone from having other businesses, but also an advisory business, you know, like relatively low overhead, like intellectually complex, but operationally simple. And you've decided to go into a product business, you've gone directly the other way. And I have to say, mate, it sounds awesome, but I don't envy you because it is complicated, isn't it? So for the uninitiated,
00:13:43
Speaker
would you just start with the very hardest thing about the new business and work towards simple? This is a place to talk about, not to feel sorry for ourselves, but to talk honestly about the hardship of entrepreneurship. That's where we learn. No one learns from hearing successes. That's BS in my opinion.
00:14:03
Speaker
world. So I think the really key thing is that there's many things that's complex in us in any business. And if you knew what you would be facing, you wouldn't be doing so it's good to be naive. And even though you have this beautiful plan, you know, as we said before, without recording, you only have a plan to your punch in the face, you know, that plans gone out of the out of the window. I think the toughest bit up to now has been really, first of all, we were producing ourselves first, that was
00:14:32
Speaker
Those issues around scalability, food service, safety kind of rules. You need to be Salsa, BSE accredited. That's quite difficult if you don't have a smaller professional setup or a factory. So we had to go out and find a manufacturing partner really to go national with this.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah, there's lots of factories, but finding the right factory and people who want to work with you, doesn't matter how great your story is, how good you are selling it, it takes time. And it took us, we thought it would take us six months, it took us 18 months. Is there a chicken and egg problem in that like the best manufacturing partners want scale for obvious reasons, but you don't get to scale until you've got a manufacturing partner?
00:15:14
Speaker
There's some places we ended there and then also that they can't deliver the product or they, we had a place where they changed the recipe to worse ingredients. And of course we are all naturally high ingredients. So there's again some ethics as well. And you need to learn these things and complex contracts. It's a new world. And as you said, you've gone from
00:15:39
Speaker
selling products to service. I went both, you know, from service to product, but also to selling and being a supplier. And suddenly you have complexity in the supply chain. I thought I knew what the supply chain in food looked like. But again, there's so many things I didn't understand and still learning in a steep way, because it's a very different and a very
00:16:04
Speaker
complex people as in food would know, it's not just that there's a factory to send the product on. And then there's the margins as well. Like, how do you then get your margin? You find your partner, how do you then you get your cost price? And then how do you then build your margins? And how can you sell the product at the price you need to sell it at? That's the next hurdle, I would say.
00:16:24
Speaker
How many corporate customers attempted to kind of produce their own product? I mean, one of the things we're seeing in the software world now is, you know, with cloud computing and engineers being, you know, I mean, there's still not enough engineers being educated, but there are more, it's a more fashionable thing to do now. It's actually easier for corporates to
00:16:44
Speaker
hire their own engineers sometimes. They only actually give up those products when they realise the cost of supporting those products without spreading it across more customers than their own requirements. But it is still something that puts sometimes downward price pressure on an early stage product company and software.
00:17:00
Speaker
Do you find the same thing in your world where you present this great idea and then they're like tempted to go and try and find the manufacturer themselves? How do you protect the margin in the middle when you haven't yet established the brand? Of course, there's a risk we put up, but we haven't seen it really yet because I think if it was just a product, if you just look at the product, everybody can copy a product. So it's really about where we are focusing on.
00:17:23
Speaker
and have been focusing with creating a brand identity has also changed three times since we launched because there's also we've done lots of tests with consumers and also in the food service really understanding you know how do we bring all these things that's inside the founders because there always is the founder story how do you scale that and how did that come alive in the logo
00:17:48
Speaker
How do all these things we believe in come to life? How do we bring this life? Not just getting the design done, but how do we start communicating about it? I think we're first ready now, a bit more than two years in. We need to go aggressively out talking about
00:18:04
Speaker
that journey and why it actually, you know, it was very funny you asked that question about why is it that you have this philosophy around food and so on. And it's just taking time to write that down and get, you know, mold into the business. So I think there's an element of that. And that's the only way you can win if you don't want to be copied. Yeah. That's on the story, I believe. And, you know, of course, the quality of your product has to be consistent. It's just baseline, you know, but everybody I believe can copy the product.
00:18:32
Speaker
I know that I'm not naive about that. And that's also why.
00:18:37
Speaker
It's not about the way you produce your product. It's about, of course, protecting your IP, but actually what chains are you doing in the world? And what is your social mission besides that? I think that's where they can compete with you. They even be corporates because they can be authentic about that. Not because they're anything wrong, but that's not their role. Their role is to scale things and bring them out to more people.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, that was my argument always with corporates that were minded to write their own software. Whilst there might be a handful that did, you'd often say to them, by the time you've covered the maintenance burden, and you're very welcome to try. You wouldn't be arrogant. You let them go for it. That's what they really want to do. But the loss of focus on their core offer of what actually makes them competitive in the market, just what wasn't worth it. Plus the central overhead they then have to apply to.
00:19:27
Speaker
So producing something made sense. I was just curious because I always think it's really interesting in a product world. So I think it's something that founders don't often think about when they go negotiate with big corporates because they're often dealing with semi entrepreneurial people, client side.
00:19:43
Speaker
are like intellectual tourists occasionally. They'll talk to founders because it's interesting, but they don't really have any appetite to do anything, you know? And so they can really waste their time. I mean, they also have much more time in the world than you have. Yes. And there are timelines and the way they're risk averse.
Sales Strategy and Flexibility
00:20:00
Speaker
And I think, you know, early on the journey as we were pitching in, we also forgot that as entrepreneurs, like, you know, OK, we have to help them take risk out of that.
00:20:12
Speaker
and you know and it's it's very it's very even if you know your customer really well i know lots of my customer really well because i've been there things change you know pandemic has changed decision making process especially in food service as well and i think you have to be
00:20:29
Speaker
really, really assessing all the time. You need to de-risk your sales fund much more than I thought. That was another learning. When I say de-risk, it means that you're not living off 20% of your customers, 80% of your revenue. It's a very fragile world. You will probably see companies, and I have seen companies disappearing off the radar going into administration right now. And as a young company,
00:20:58
Speaker
you really need to do you need to risk that right now but i don't have the answer but i can see that's one of the challenges we are we are facing so we are trying to do a healthy spread. Of that but again that's complicated to sales is not like we just doing big corporate contracts we need to.
00:21:17
Speaker
And that was also something I didn't really thought about. And then you need to have a direct-to-consumer channel. And then if retail comes and want you to come and pitch, you go and pitch, and then you have to do that. So it's this. And then it's something I actually thought we could choose a route to market and say, this is our route to market. We do only food service. This is a primary channel, but I can see also you can't let the other opportunity pass in the environment you're in right now. As an entrepreneur, you need to
00:21:46
Speaker
OK, there's a sale is a sale. It's cash flow. So I think it's really interesting next six months to figure out what is the most effective place to sell in principle. Totally. And you mentioned Jim Collins earlier, of course, you got that famous sort of Jim Collins flywheel he talks about. I don't know which book it was in, but he illustrated the Amazon flywheel, didn't he? And as you're talking, you can see how having a direct to consumer presence
00:22:14
Speaker
Some retail presence kind of building the brand creates sort of higher brand value as it relates to your corporate customers, which can in turn drives discovery, feeding DTC and retail. I can see how that turns, but it does necessarily add some sales and marketing complexity and operational complexity into the business, doesn't it?
00:22:32
Speaker
sometimes the right business model just finds you on its way, doesn't it? Yeah, I think you exactly the same. You have to step into it, even though you know I love the entrepreneurial operating system, one of the key principles is simplify, simplify, simplify, which I do absolutely believe, but what sometimes people misunderstand is you have to simplify to the limits of the right model for your organization, which may sometimes
00:22:58
Speaker
involve trading a little bit of complexity, right? Because you have to step into the actual opportunity in front of you, not the one that you idealized in your mind. Yeah, and I think even you put them down on great presentation, pitch decks and investor decks and so on, and it sounds like that is the root. I think it's being agile is used a lot of time, but I think it's
00:23:20
Speaker
It's still having that, you know, your initial thoughts about would work, go to market probably will work at some point, but maybe you also haven't opened the right door yet. And I think it's a lot about finding people, especially for a small, you know, finding the right people that helps you on the way.
00:23:36
Speaker
So i think i think coming back to your original question about what i found out you know that you know it's hard to get to a point where you can sell a product that is legally compliant on scale that's the first step but then you know you know at the same time getting a brand identity and then.
00:23:52
Speaker
you know you then have to go out and get people to buy at volume and sell that but it's not like you're not hiring a sales force because you're not Unilever in this connection with 10 sales people is going out just banging in every door you have to be very you know your founders with the time you have so again you need to like silver bullet not cannonballs and then you adjust as you miss the target you adjust your things and i think that's again you have to accept that complexity
00:24:21
Speaker
and uncertainty that you will live with and, you know, difficult challenges that comes with more complex, as you say, sales processes and different, different in consumer as well, you know, users. What do you miss if anything about the conventional hospitality? Like now from the vantage point of being the founder or co-founder of Pulse Kitchen, what do you miss about running a multi-site restaurant or cafe business? Like in what ways are they different?
00:24:49
Speaker
The lovely thing about hospitality is you get, you know, instant feedback on your performance. And I think that's why lots of people love hospitality. They didn't have that for a long time.
00:25:03
Speaker
And it's funny enough, one of our ways of our sales techniques with the Postkit is all about taste. This is a taste drive sales. And we do out and do a lot of pop-ups. We're done with ISS, Sodexo, and we're in those situations. That's the founder's tracks. We're playing on the founder's tracks.
00:25:20
Speaker
And that's a bit like being back again, because you can read the room, you can read the person, you can be in service. It's no doubt about when every year since I haven't been in operation and Christmas hit, even how
00:25:36
Speaker
painful it was. I miss it. Like I was in there for lunch today with my friend and you missed that bus of building up to that and have a successful period because again it's instant, you know instant if this works or not. You can correct straight away and I think a lot of hospitality you forget sometimes to enjoy that. Actually I know it's overwhelming sometimes and very hard but also
00:26:00
Speaker
You definitely know if there's coming more customers in next week and it did the week before because you changed something. But what I'm doing now, we're working on some things. We don't know the impact on a new range, for example, that we don't know. We believe this is going to revolutionize sales numbers, but imagine we launched that in Q1 and it doesn't. That feels like nine months of work.
00:26:26
Speaker
where you couldn't get any more feedback than consumer tests, which is consumer tests. It's not the market pulling. So I think it's that instant feedback and also the human element of your, you're surrounded by a lot of humans all the time, which you can impact possibly. And that's really my thing. And you're a much smaller team in a supplier kind of world.
00:26:50
Speaker
and you are in a restaurant kind of setting. Oh my God, that's so interesting. I haven't thought about that. Have you found that you've almost had a bias to want to scale prematurely because your passion for kind of people and process where right now it's about understanding product and market?
00:27:04
Speaker
Also, that's not my background. We have a very good advisor, investor ex-Unilever marketing guy, working a lot with Sean. That's been really, really good. But the whole positioning work becomes even more important than just do a really well-defined restaurant concept.
00:27:23
Speaker
a restaurant doesn't open and actually become a success by, you know, because of the energy that first site had, and then they get the positioning right, because they're adapting, because now we've got the site, we need to open in three months, the money is running, you know, we need to get over where here, you're actually doing a lot of positioning and strategy work, and you're testing assumption, which is a very different world. Which I think for both founders is a totally learning curve, but also
00:27:51
Speaker
principle, we go from being, you know, wouldn't call it operator, but like running teams and the ability to build teams and processes, you say very quickly, it's not the super skill, the super skill is actually positioning and finding out the route to market, which is in a restaurant is opening the door, that's the location, open the doors, that's the route to market, very, you know, very, very simple set, but yeah,
00:28:17
Speaker
And have you ramped up anything prematurely? Yeah. I mean, like one of my favorite topics is in B2B, at least in software, is ramping up a sales team too quickly when your product's not ready. Have you wasted some money? Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And time. Like, you know, either where you thought you would hire something in freelance and this is going to be the big thing or
00:28:44
Speaker
negotiation on deals that suddenly just slips between your hands. Yeah. Because you were almost you hadn't opened the champagne, but you're definitely been thinking about which shop you're going down to the bottle and
00:28:58
Speaker
boom, something changes in their world. And I think that, you know, I think as entrepreneurs, you know, at some point, you're so hungry for that success that you forget, actually, it never comes like that. It comes 1% every day.
00:29:15
Speaker
Drip drip drip drip and then there will suddenly something happen and you will not even see that's the thing just the swing wheel effect again wow that was the thing that was actually what's making a breaking this business you know that that was the thing.
Balancing Feedback with Conviction
00:29:31
Speaker
I think that's been quite hard sometimes that you when you when you come from the hospitality world again where there's.
00:29:38
Speaker
You have this recognition straight away. Are the guests happy or not? Also, everybody has an opinion about a food product you sell to consumers of end users because of course the operators would sell whatever the end consumer wants. There's so many opinions about food and taste.
00:30:02
Speaker
in a restaurant setting many times, this is our menu. This is what we serve. And you don't have these discussion about, oh, there's a bit too much tomato in. And there's all this, lots of complex feedback you need to take on. And at some point, you just have to say, this is our product's going to be, take it or leave it. A bit like Apple. That's what I've learned as well. At some point, as founder, you need to believe in the product instead of taking on feedback. So I think there's
00:30:32
Speaker
And then I think also there was one really good learning where we ramped up. We sold a huge contract before we had manufacturing really nailed down. And then that manufacturer pulled on us. I'll never ever do that again. Because I thought I have a pipeline of people who wanted to work with women, but I didn't think about they maybe also there's an onboarding with them. And of course, people know if you are not
00:30:59
Speaker
really moved yet and you might be looking at something else so you get assessed if you are the right partner for them and then those delays, those these four months of where you were just holding on because everybody was obsessed you know. It's so stressful. Yeah so that that's probably the best ramping up story just made me think that I know I went a bit around but I think that's why that was not fun and you forget about that but that was this year you know like where you thought now we're ready we go
00:31:30
Speaker
Let's just turn it on and then you get the audit. Yeah. And then two days later you have to call them and say, we have a little challenge. You know, we can't produce for next month. We're sorry about that.
00:31:41
Speaker
is amazing like the experience you get doing these different business models. Here's a question for you. Given all of your consulting experience, the fact that you've had 280 something hospitality and related entrepreneurs onto your podcast, you've got a very, very wide network of successful entrepreneurial people plus your own study and learning. Have you at any time had any kind of analysis paralysis on the way that you go about running this or any of your other businesses? Does that make sense? You almost sometimes feel like you know
00:32:11
Speaker
too much. You've got this, you know, a lot of successful entrepreneurs almost fall into their first opportunity, figure a few things out as they go. Hopefully don't make any fatal mistakes that kill them and then you just carry on, you get the survival bias, right? Do you find that? Do you overthink it sometimes? I probably, because I have access sometime, I, if I should, immediately, I ask too much around.
00:32:38
Speaker
And then you get too many opinions coming back to consumer feedback again. And I think you actually as a founder. That's interesting. Because I was not, you know, I did corporate food for many years in McDonald's. And so you, you're very used to take risk out of things. That's been a process over the years. And the thing still is there. I see risk where my founder, other founder would say that that's, that's actually sometimes a good thing. He doesn't see risk because I was like, Oh, red flag, red flag.
00:33:07
Speaker
need to navigate that. And actually, I think sometimes there's a bit you say, if you don't know, you just go through it, you don't look for the problem. So there's no doubt about this, that another we've been a consultant, that's your job. Your job is to
00:33:24
Speaker
digest things out and put them together again and find all the risk you can find and then help the client to mitigate that risk or find the opportunity within that. It's not really to take risk. It's not the job you are hired for. It's to minimize risk and save money or time or make people better.
00:33:44
Speaker
I think you're right and it is a really interesting question and I think it comes up sometimes and again you know also everybody's on their own journey and that's also what I've learned and you can't just copy it's great into you lots of you can get lots of good ideas
00:34:05
Speaker
But you need to apply it and find your own rhythm around it. You need to build your own flywheel. I often say individual flywheel about life and how you approach things. But definitely it is. And it's a very good question, but I think there's no doubt about it has an effect sometimes that I have too much tried a couple of things.
00:34:25
Speaker
And I sometimes have to leave that and then just go with the God, because the God always pull it. Funny enough, always in the right. I also believe in data. So I think it's a very good mixture of that. But I is a couple of times also in the process where some of the people we have on
00:34:44
Speaker
have been very successful in corporate life and they are investors and then they come with their corporate view on because that's what they know and not because they're bad people. That's really valid argument.
00:34:58
Speaker
And then you spend too long procrastinating because you know as the founder, you know what's right in principle to do. Instead of just going and doing it, you like mold it over and mold it over to you get to find out how we spent three months on this.
00:35:16
Speaker
And it was actually not correct what they said. But that's not because they didn't want to give the right advice, just because they had never been founders. But they're good at something else. And that's why you have them on board. So find out how you use your network. I think that's as well. And what you ask for sometimes. Because sometimes you don't want to ask because you maybe get John, my friend John Mason would say, you should always ask. But sometimes you don't want to ask because you know what's right. And if you ask, you just complicate things for yourself.
00:35:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's so true. It's funny, actually, I know that my experience of founding Yapster and then those eight years has made me gun shy.
Influence of Past Experiences and EOS Benefits
00:35:53
Speaker
Like I cannot bear the idea of three, four, five years in the product wilderness, finding product market fit. Again, you know, like so.
00:36:04
Speaker
A lot of that's really valuable. I'm obsessed with customer discovery and message market fit. You don't need to build a product and raise a million quid to check if people are going to buy your idea. Your webpage that explains it and see if they click through is a good start. But sometimes there's a benefit to just diving in and figuring out once you're in the ocean. I can't bring myself to just dive in without knowing what's ahead of me now.
00:36:29
Speaker
Another thing is change. I know you also become a dad. I think dad actually has an impact on me as well. Naturally, as a human, you become less risk averse.
00:36:46
Speaker
because you suddenly have a very big purpose and you also have a very big responsibility to make sure that little one is taken care of, whatever it means, clothes, food, roof over their head. And where in principle, when you're on your own, that's where I started as well, it doesn't really matter. You'll figure it out, or sleep on a couch, worst case.
00:37:08
Speaker
I think that changes also your entrepreneurial mindset. But I think we, quite lucky with my business partner, we are very, we are, we are like, you know, talking about rocket fuel, the entrepreneurial system, you know, that's rocket fuel, there's a dream and visionary and then the media integrator.
00:37:24
Speaker
Have you got that visionary integrator dynamic? Talk to me about your perspective on the entrepreneurial operating system because it obviously is a simple system. It's what I love about it. It's derived from a lot of more complex theories, which I know you're also expert in, so I'd be interested in what your thoughts are on EOS. Geno Wigman, if he's still involved, was the founder of this, and he had this idea about all this great management theory, but how do you actually simplify it so you can use it in small business?
00:37:52
Speaker
Right. And that's why I fell in love with it because it was also because he has a very much that people first thing, you know, if you don't get the team right, forget about scaling, because that's really going to be the thing that breaks your business.
00:38:06
Speaker
But I think what you have behind you, you have the wheel behind you, I can see there's a vision, there's some data, and he talks about process and traction. And we're very much in the traction bit right now. We have the vision bit, but really the traction bit. What is the problem I'll fix? And then you have your people. There's a very small team right now, so that people is always important, but it's more easy to manage. I know when we had 12 people.
00:38:32
Speaker
and knock on wood we do that and then then suddenly becomes from a family of friends to but if I'm not I'm really scared about it is really funny with other entrepreneurs we come back to second they're really scared about growing the team that's not really what I'm scared about I'm really scared right the product market fit because we don't get that that's not gonna be a team
00:38:52
Speaker
So coming back to that, what I really like about the simplicity of it again, it's very practical and there's all these tools you can go and use and they sometimes look very simplified. But if you follow them, but you have to do them and that's the thing. You need to put the work in these templates and then incredible things start to happen. You get clarity and you might use the tool a bit different.
00:39:14
Speaker
And it was actually in part of we were starting writing investment decks a couple of years ago and I came back to the rocket fuel, the integrated and the visionary because we actually had to sell to investors why they should invest and they're not investing in the idea early on, they're investing in the
00:39:32
Speaker
the founders and believing. Because any sensible investor knows when you come and present them, it's not how it's going to run out. It's something not totally different, but it might take a different twist in the pipelines you are presenting and numbers you're presenting. So it's very much talking about how we bring the two skills and we use the language from there. And it was very powerful. We still do that. And we always talk about that, especially if there's a, because the integrator and the visionary also clashes.
00:40:02
Speaker
because it's much about I'm very much focusing on reality and what's happening right now. I can see into the future. It's not because I'm not visionary, but I don't dream all the time. I'm not like, oh, let's start this thing. Let's do that thing. And no, let's finish what we have and fly in the flywheel effect 1% every day. And people listen to the podcast, we know that's the only thing I almost talk about all the time.
00:40:27
Speaker
But again it's healthy because then we can be all about process in the business about where we going and how do we challenge our perception of things how do we do things differently and if you can make that found a team work as you know we've been very powerful but i think lots of i have seen as a consultant as well lots of founders
00:40:50
Speaker
They also set out with their business partners and don't check in on this early enough in the journey. And I think that book is absolutely brilliant because it gives you a language to talk about.
00:41:02
Speaker
why you need this. And you maybe find out you don't have a visionary on the team. Maybe you need to get either an advice or somebody and they can help with the visionary skills. Then it doesn't mean you need to hire them. And I think what's interesting with this is also not just a management book. It's actually, they're actually doing this and they're taking it from their own business into the philosophy, right? And all these people as involved in this is often ex-business owners.
00:41:28
Speaker
which again, it's people that has pain. And have been successful or not, it's not the case. It's the pain they had. And I think often we think people have to be successful for advising. Actually, the people that just buy, you know, there's some the founder businesses and just hit the golden stream and unicorn businesses all very lucky, get bought three years out and wow.
00:41:50
Speaker
I haven't had the pain as you say, you have had a bit of a pain somewhere where you would like to go and have that experience again but you can probably advise very well on that pain and I think often you want to talk with people. Also people have done similar type businesses as you and I think a lot of us is in the small businesses. There's not many
00:42:14
Speaker
startups that actually become we all wish we become big and great and mighty, but most actually become maybe medium sized businesses, or maybe just small, small scale ups and takes a very long time to get there. And I think also working with a system that fits with that instead of the typical management book, and I have some of them behind me are really a big companies. And I think that's another, you know, really strong element with the system. And again, you know,
00:42:41
Speaker
And it's so simple, like the model you have there is like it's in the book. It's not a simplified model. This is how it looks in the book. It is. And it's right. Do you know what's really lovely? It's really nice. You've noticed that about the EOS implementer community. So I, I got certified with EOS worldwide in the like, like this year. So we sold you up to the last year. I'm still working with Sona, like, you know, building the next generation of product. But I got time outside of that. My passion is working with other founders. And I thought,
00:43:09
Speaker
the entrepreneurial operating system changed my life. So something I'm passionate about, but I wanted to do it properly. So I went and got certified. Did you not know? Yes, I got certified. So I'm one of like 30 professional implementers. And as some of them have hired designations to me, they're called certified implementers. They might have done like a thousand sessions or something.
00:43:28
Speaker
And you're right, they all come from business backgrounds and it is like being in a little bit of a cult when you go and do the quarterly sessions because we all are like raving evangelists for it because it's set many of us free in some way in our businesses.
00:43:46
Speaker
you know most of us made a bit of money but not the money that we dreamt of when we started right there aren't that many people that like flying on their private jet to the EOS quarterly implemented session even though some of them are very successful right but like most of us talk about the pain yeah it's interesting and when you're when you're sitting down with other entrepreneurs and visionaries that are in chaos and they just need
00:44:09
Speaker
They just need a simple way to pull it all together. It's so funny how nobody's interested in hearing about your success. He's like, in my story, I literally say, I founded this business called Yapster. For five out of the eight years I ran it, it was a shit show. We raised a bunch of money, hired a bunch of people, won some great customers like, and then I name a whole bunch of brands like Prudog and Next and whoever, Cafe Nero. And I say, and then we were bought by a company backed by Google in 2022.
00:44:35
Speaker
But I can make it sound much better externally than it actually was internally and how it felt for most of the time until a guy called Kenny Blair, who is the MD of a bar group in Scotland called Buzzworks, gave me a copy or recommended I get a copy of Traction. And it was like someone turned the light switch off. So like, I'm really glad that that's kind of come across to you that like, you know, whether you like the system or not, the people that are advocates for it, like it's very real to us, very real.
00:45:02
Speaker
Yeah. And I think it's really, really great because actually that's one of the things I'm going to do in the future is exactly that. And maybe I'm not going to consult on it or anything. But I think it's a better version of a real MBA for most businesses. You would love it. We call it teaching as well, by the way, rather than consulting, because we don't go in and run their business. We just teach them the entrepreneurial operations until they don't need us. And then they just run it themselves.
00:45:29
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's the principles of what you need is if you have to consult, that means that they depend on you, which I always have been very much against. That's a good point. I've had McKinsey coming and visiting me in corporate life and you just think, oh my God, and you never had pain. So why should I listen to you? You never opened a restaurant where there's full of water or
00:45:53
Speaker
know mice or whatever you know you never really understand you don't understand and then I'm not having a go at McKinsey but it's just like I'd never really understood that because that doesn't really change anything because they don't do the transformation they just yeah and then you figure out what you do with that plan that strategy it's beautiful strategy it's really what you call that you have the
00:46:15
Speaker
gc index with some certified and is like where you look at where you play on your strengths and there's something in there called game changer strategist and implement polisher and a team player and of course you have a bit of all but you're strong on two of them and normally if may kenzie or bane or wherever high as they want strategies.
00:46:37
Speaker
what the strategy is just come up with plans. They don't implement anything. So it's very interesting where I see the US framework very much as implementers, teachers as you call them and team players.
Focus on Pulse Kitchen and Industry Connection
00:46:53
Speaker
It's not about me just coming with a beautiful plan and then we're written on the blackboard and I go out. It's about teaching you how to run your business in a more simplified way.
00:47:04
Speaker
It's so true. Are you still available for people that do need some some practical help or are you just totally fully like running at Polls Kitchen and you're happy to chat to people on LinkedIn and things? Yeah, I'm happy to chat with people but actually what I do now is like 100 focusing on Polls Kitchen and then the the podcast which very well it's connected with what we do as well from an entrepreneurial point of view and commercial point of view.
00:47:30
Speaker
We sell to the industry and therefore having the pulse on the industry and understand what's going on. It's quite critical and I will also find it funny as I think I said to you before we record, it's become that thing. A bit like you put your running shoes on and run X times a week.
00:47:50
Speaker
I need my podcasts fixed because also it's my personal MBA, I often call it as well, where you learn a lot by listening. And often, we are not very good at that in podcasting somehow. And you probably learn that you're forced to listen if you want to have a good conversation. Well, I mean, some of the conversations you've had on there are unbelievable. And it is interesting.
00:48:20
Speaker
the depth of insight that your listeners get into the industry and some of the people you have on. It's quite an intimate experience, isn't it? Having someone like...
00:48:29
Speaker
Um, uh, is it Jeremy, Jeremy King, right? Yeah. He is such an impressive guy. Quite, quite, quite imposing. Were you a little bit like nervous? Were you a little bit nervous? I was starstruck. There was one of those, you know, and I'm always nervous because if you're not nervous, you don't care. I believe so. That's good. I was really nervous because that was why, you know, when I started
00:48:53
Speaker
early on the podcast journey because I didn't start out thinking this is going to be a weekly thing, I'll be totally honest. It's a bit like I jump into it and it evolved and it became a thing. And I think I've done that with most things that we didn't start the Pulse Kitchen because saying, oh, we're going to do the Pulse Kitchen and we're going to be
00:49:10
Speaker
feeding people pulses and then it's going to go mental because some kind of trend in the market saying it, because it really comes from inside. But come back to Jeremy King, it's like when you're into you, you're heroes.
00:49:25
Speaker
And I've never met Jeremy King before. I interview him, really. I only read interviews and I couldn't find any really podcast or video interviews. I couldn't get an idea about how you do it. And then you also sit in front of this man that has gone through lots of pain. Oh my gosh.
00:49:45
Speaker
How the hell did he interview this man with respect as well? And he's back again in the game. He got literally thrown under the bus. And now he's back. He don't need to. But he's back because he's like really care. And I thought I was so honored that he wanted to come on the show. And he was recommended by another guest. And that's also like you meet people you would never ever.
00:50:10
Speaker
Listen, I think what you've done is amazing. And he in particular is so cool. Like I heard him talking once and he, one of the things he said is he like had these very exclusive like restaurants and he was talking about the price point. And of course, one of the things he's been famous for is having like really affordable soup and like these world-class wines, but also very affordable sort of house wines or sort of, you know, lower windness wines. And he just, he's got this
00:50:35
Speaker
I can't even do an impression of him because I'm so excitable and he's so dignified. But he was like, to have an interesting restaurant, you can't fill it full of private equity types. It has to be affordable to interesting people.
00:50:48
Speaker
or the wealthy people don't want to come. And it was so simple, but I thought my fucking head was going to explode because it was so insightful. It was so cool. And you could just imagine like these like musicians and bohemians deliberately in his restaurant. And he built his menu so that they were curious and could afford it so that he could sell a 500 quid bottle of wine to some boring pro-annexity dude. And I was just like, man, you're my hero. And the fact that, you know, he's
00:51:16
Speaker
wanting to come into your community and so many other great people have, I think, such a testament to who you are, your passion for the industry, which now straddles like supplier, operator, consultant. Yeah, you've done a lot for entrepreneurship in the industry and, you know, I'm sure I wouldn't be, you know, it'd be remiss of me not to thank you on behalf of all the people that listen but can't like talk back because, you know,
00:51:38
Speaker
podcast doesn't have a comment section. Michael, you're very generous. You said people that have listened and found you interested and welcome to reach out with you on LinkedIn. You don't consult anymore, but you're always happy for founders and ideas to say hi. Always happy to chat and always happy to help. And I believe, you know, you have to give, give, give to get so very much in that mindset. And you can always ask as a, because that's really important to ask as well. And actually,
00:52:03
Speaker
Being on the podcast talking about entrepreneurship, there's like an interview coming up with a guy called Wayne Baker who wrote this book you should always ask and the power of asking questions, which is John Mason. We never asked, she had friend from sideways. He's very, he got me onto him and I hunted him down on LinkedIn. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs will learn a lot of that, but of course we need to ask sometimes for help.
00:52:29
Speaker
when we need help because I think intrapreneur journey is a very hard journey and there's many areas we need help on. And we are not superhumans, you know, we are just humans. So it's about surrounding you with the right, the five most important people all the time and the ability to ask them for help, you know. And I also ask you investors for help. I had this conversation recently, Robert, I think it's perfect time. And I was like, possible over this, you know, a fellow intrapreneur that didn't want to ask his investors for help.
00:52:58
Speaker
If they're just invested with money, then definitely the wrong investors, if you can't ask their great minds about help. Yeah, you just can't be proud, can't you? So you heard it here first, folks, one of the most connected men in hospitality, happy for you to ping him on LinkedIn and shamelessly pump him for wisdom. Michael, thank you so much for doing this. It's been amazing. Thank you, Rob.