WEBVTT - Ilir Sela 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:03.760 What's up, everybody. Welcome to another episode of The Big 0:00:03.760 --> 0:00:06.520 Money Energy Podcast, Season two with I Heart Radio, the 0:00:06.519 --> 0:00:10.560 greatest podcast ever. Obviously, today we have a really really, 0:00:10.600 --> 0:00:14.120 really cool entrepreneur, Elier Sela. And now you might be 0:00:14.160 --> 0:00:17.079 saying what I don't know? That is I don't but 0:00:17.160 --> 0:00:18.520 you know what you do have you know what you 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:21.560 do know? You know you have tasted pizza. Elier Sela 0:00:21.920 --> 0:00:26.160 is the new pizza king because he founded a company 0:00:26.200 --> 0:00:30.840 called Slice, which has completely changed the way people order 0:00:30.960 --> 0:00:34.720 pizza all over the world. He's created it not too 0:00:34.720 --> 0:00:37.000 long ago and he's now built it to one thousand, 0:00:37.120 --> 0:00:40.400 seventy five employees and they're going to do a billion 0:00:40.520 --> 0:00:45.440 dollars in pizza sales this year. The story is totally incredible. 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:50.400 He's a first generation immigrant from Macedonia, grew up in 0:00:50.520 --> 0:00:54.120 Staten Island, went to local college and just figured out 0:00:54.160 --> 0:00:56.640 what his passion was and so many other things. Also, 0:00:56.680 --> 0:00:58.960 he turned down an offer to sell the company once 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:00.920 for eighteen million dollars or he said no. That was 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:03.200 a really really tough decision for him, and then again 0:01:03.760 --> 0:01:06.160 for three hundred and fifty million dollars he said no. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.440 We go through the whole thing. I'll be like it 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.200 typically there's so much information that I'm like trying to 0:01:23.200 --> 0:01:24.880 pare it down. I'm like, all right, how do I 0:01:24.959 --> 0:01:29.560 be as efficient with questions as possible? Right with you? Like, 0:01:30.200 --> 0:01:32.640 I know just enough, but you're also kind of like 0:01:32.680 --> 0:01:37.840 the secret Ninja entrepreneur, Like there's not a lot out there, 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.760 and so, um, I kind of want to like dig 0:01:40.880 --> 0:01:43.760 into it. People know your background and they're listening to this, 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.000 so they've obviously read the caption and the description of 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.880 what the podcast episode is. But your first generation, Yeah, 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.160 I moved here when I was ten years old. Came 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:57.200 here from Europe. Um. I remember literally vividly remember flying 0:01:57.200 --> 0:02:00.880 into JFK. I come from a town in Europe, in 0:02:00.880 --> 0:02:04.480 southeastern Europe that has zero traffic lights. I mean there's 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:08.399 no there's barely ading lights. And coming into New York 0:02:08.400 --> 0:02:11.200 City from from JFK. You look around, you look out 0:02:11.200 --> 0:02:14.160 the window, you're ten years old. I mean it looks 0:02:14.160 --> 0:02:17.120 like magic, It looks like anything, anything could be possible, 0:02:17.160 --> 0:02:20.800 which is kind of the it's stuck with me from 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.840 from that moment forward. And what brought your family to 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:27.480 the US into New York. Yeah, My my family actually 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.400 has been um, going back and forth. My um, my grandfather, 0:02:31.520 --> 0:02:34.320 my parents lived in the city in the seventies and 0:02:34.320 --> 0:02:37.280 they owned a pizza shop called Charlie's Pizza on sevent 0:02:38.840 --> 0:02:41.200 and the Wild Story. As a real estate U person, 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:45.720 you'll appreciate this. Yeah, they earned a lot with their 0:02:45.720 --> 0:02:49.560 pizza shop. It was seven operation, saved a lot of 0:02:49.600 --> 0:02:53.079 cash there at least ran up and the building owner 0:02:53.680 --> 0:03:00.280 offered them to buy the building for dollars h five 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:03.239 man and they turned it down so they could all 0:03:03.280 --> 0:03:06.440 move back home. Got it to take the money exactly. 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:08.760 But yeah, they moved back, moved back home, and then 0:03:08.919 --> 0:03:12.359 um decided to come back again. And I think part 0:03:12.360 --> 0:03:14.360 of it has to do have to do with the 0:03:14.400 --> 0:03:17.360 fact that my brothers and I we were, you know, 0:03:17.400 --> 0:03:20.880 getting older in a in a sort of sense, and 0:03:21.080 --> 0:03:24.400 they wanted to provide opportunity for us, specifically on the 0:03:24.520 --> 0:03:28.040 education front, so better schools, better opportunities, and they made 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.520 a lot of sacrifices to come back. I'm sure. And 0:03:30.639 --> 0:03:34.800 you spoke English at the time, No, not really barely. Yeah, 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:37.840 it's like just so classic, right, like your parents put 0:03:37.920 --> 0:03:40.120 you on an airplane and take you to the US 0:03:40.200 --> 0:03:42.480 and don't really know English, and they're like, go figure 0:03:42.480 --> 0:03:45.440 it out, go to school, go on and be somebody. 0:03:45.480 --> 0:03:50.360 But fortunately I have a twin brother and identical identical 0:03:51.120 --> 0:03:54.920 and are you the twin are you really? You never know? 0:03:55.360 --> 0:03:57.680 We are in a lot of places. I am in 0:03:57.720 --> 0:03:59.240 a lot of places at the same time. Let me 0:03:59.280 --> 0:04:03.720 put it that way. I'm kidding, but we um it was. 0:04:03.760 --> 0:04:05.560 It made things a lot easier. Obviously, I have a 0:04:05.560 --> 0:04:08.280 twin brother, You're kind of going through this journey together. 0:04:09.000 --> 0:04:10.920 You don't feel so alone, and you don't have to 0:04:10.920 --> 0:04:12.720 sort of have this pressure of making friends. So it 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:15.400 kind of softened the experience a little bit. What did 0:04:15.400 --> 0:04:17.200 you want to be when you were a little kid. 0:04:17.240 --> 0:04:19.599 I'm trying to imagine you is like nine years old 0:04:19.680 --> 0:04:23.960 in Macedonia and then eleven in New York. Yeah, I 0:04:23.960 --> 0:04:26.400 I'll be at my My dad really instilled this sort 0:04:26.440 --> 0:04:30.599 of entrepreneurial passion from from the early days. My dad 0:04:31.440 --> 0:04:34.359 worked incredibly hard. He was, you know, part of the 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:36.599 family's pizzeria business when he was younger, and then he 0:04:36.640 --> 0:04:39.280 became a master tailor and opened up a shop in 0:04:39.400 --> 0:04:44.560 Manhattan when we moved back, um and really made a 0:04:44.640 --> 0:04:47.240 name for himself because the suits he made were just 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:49.960 are are incredible? I Mean, we've got to we've got 0:04:49.960 --> 0:04:54.640 to talk after this. But he's retired now and world 0:04:54.839 --> 0:04:58.040 words sort of spread out, and um, you know, John F. 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:01.080 Kennedy Jr. Was getting married and needed a suit for 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:06.200 his wedding and my dad handmade his suit for his wedding. Um, 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:08.040 and that was sort of his own small business, right, 0:05:08.040 --> 0:05:10.279 he was just a master tailor. What he sort of 0:05:10.279 --> 0:05:13.200 taught us was kind of going back to the same 0:05:13.240 --> 0:05:16.120 point I made earlier, which is, when you come to 0:05:16.120 --> 0:05:20.760 to America, every opportunity is available to you. Literally everything, 0:05:21.080 --> 0:05:23.800 it all is um up to you. It's all up 0:05:23.839 --> 0:05:26.520 to you if you want to, um really take advantage 0:05:26.520 --> 0:05:29.720 and seize the moment and sees the opportunities. And basically 0:05:29.800 --> 0:05:32.440 what he said, what are was that the rules of 0:05:32.640 --> 0:05:38.120 this country favor entrepreneurs. Um. Nothing wrong with having a 0:05:38.240 --> 0:05:41.080 job and working for others, of course, but but that 0:05:41.320 --> 0:05:44.400 is what the system is designed to do, is is 0:05:44.520 --> 0:05:49.440 nurture and enable entrepreneurs to launch businesses. And so yeah, 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:53.080 from right out of school, I mean, my my first 0:05:53.160 --> 0:05:56.920 job was a my own business where we built websites 0:05:56.960 --> 0:05:59.800 in the early two thousands. Um, is that nerd Force 0:06:00.040 --> 0:06:05.600 nerd Force A great. I got great, simple to name. Yeah, 0:06:05.640 --> 0:06:09.360 I got really lucky. UM Geek Squad launched with Best 0:06:09.360 --> 0:06:13.120 Buy nationally and um it was not a franchise, but 0:06:13.160 --> 0:06:15.760 people wanted to get into that business. So we started 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.560 painting calls NonStop for people who wanted a franchise. I 0:06:19.600 --> 0:06:22.320 had no idea what that meant, but if they wanted one, 0:06:22.360 --> 0:06:25.200 I needed to sell them that. So I franchised the 0:06:25.240 --> 0:06:27.520 model and we launched the hundred and twenty four locations. 0:06:27.680 --> 0:06:32.040 That's insane. How old were you? I was twenty well 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:34.600 when I launched those twenty one, so twenty one to 0:06:35.120 --> 0:06:38.560 twenty seven you we Did you go to college? Did 0:06:38.560 --> 0:06:40.320 you get out of college? I went to CUNEI. I 0:06:40.360 --> 0:06:42.799 went to the College of Staten Island. So I always 0:06:42.839 --> 0:06:45.839 did really well in school, but albeying culture is one 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:48.160 that we're at the time. It was like you have 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.000 to be home, you can't really go away to school, 0:06:50.560 --> 0:06:54.599 and so I went to the College of Staten Island. Yeah, 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.320 I graduated in three years. I had a bunch of 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.080 college credits from high school. I don't know why, I 0:07:00.080 --> 0:07:04.000 think just I've got this way of memorizing things. I 0:07:04.000 --> 0:07:06.800 guess um, But yeah, I finished school pretty quickly and 0:07:06.800 --> 0:07:09.760 then launched the tech support company, got it. And did 0:07:09.800 --> 0:07:14.040 you always love technology? Yeah? I think I can when 0:07:14.040 --> 0:07:16.320 you're a little kid, even in Macedonia or is this 0:07:16.560 --> 0:07:20.280 like no, definitely not in Macedonia. Now there is. But 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:26.720 I think what really led me to embrace and kind 0:07:26.720 --> 0:07:30.680 of have passion for technology is sometime maybe I was 0:07:31.320 --> 0:07:33.760 thirteen or fourteen years old and my older brother got 0:07:33.760 --> 0:07:36.720 a computer. My older brother who's five years older, he 0:07:36.800 --> 0:07:40.080 was just starting three of you, three boys, three of us. Yeah. 0:07:40.320 --> 0:07:45.080 So my older brother, um started school, he's an architect, um, 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.280 and his freshman year of college, he got a computer 0:07:47.920 --> 0:07:49.600 and we were not allowed to touch it, my brother 0:07:49.640 --> 0:07:51.920 and I. And so the moment you're told you can't 0:07:51.920 --> 0:07:57.880 touch so the moment that that became the rule meant 0:07:57.880 --> 0:08:00.240 that we you know, you obviously want to go and 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:02.960 play with So whenever he would be in school, because 0:08:02.960 --> 0:08:06.080 it was like a desktop, we were just yeah, we 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:09.000 were just like mess around with it, and um, it 0:08:09.080 --> 0:08:11.080 became a real passionate for me. So when I went 0:08:11.120 --> 0:08:14.520 to college, it was a computer science truck, so a 0:08:14.560 --> 0:08:25.800 computer science to me. So you sold NERD Force correct right, 0:08:26.440 --> 0:08:30.240 And you did not go back to Macedonian retiring the beat. 0:08:31.040 --> 0:08:34.560 I did not. I boots strapped nerd Force. In fact, 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.840 I didn't really know what it meant to raise venture 0:08:37.920 --> 0:08:40.199 capital and investments and things like that. Did you raise 0:08:40.240 --> 0:08:42.840 money with nord Force? I did not know. Is just 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:45.400 started from day one, just franchise it because people are 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.840 calling and wanted to franchise. Yeah. Yeah, we started getting 0:08:47.880 --> 0:08:52.080 so many calls. Um, well, we were named one of 0:08:52.120 --> 0:08:55.199 the most thriving companies post nine eleven at the five 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.920 year Anniversity. So in two thousand and six, five years 0:08:58.920 --> 0:09:02.719 after nine eleven, we were on the centerfold. Back then 0:09:02.760 --> 0:09:05.520 it was a big deal of the New York Daily News. Um, 0:09:05.559 --> 0:09:07.960 and it was sort of this company's thriving in New 0:09:08.080 --> 0:09:11.440 York Post and so that gave us a lot of 0:09:11.480 --> 0:09:15.240 brand awareness at the local level. And so again as 0:09:15.320 --> 0:09:18.360 a geek squads started launching on a national scale, we 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:22.280 just we got bombarded with calls for franchising. Yeah, how 0:09:22.280 --> 0:09:24.640 did you figure out how to franchise? Oh my god. 0:09:25.200 --> 0:09:28.200 I went to an attorney in State Island and I said, Hey, 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:30.560 I want to franchise my business. And I said, well, 0:09:30.600 --> 0:09:33.600 it's gonna be two and fifty tho. I was like, 0:09:33.640 --> 0:09:38.840 I don't I don't have two. Um. I locked myself 0:09:38.840 --> 0:09:41.599 in my office for three days. Literally, it was like 0:09:41.640 --> 0:09:44.440 a Friday on Monday, learned everything that there is to 0:09:44.480 --> 0:09:47.880 know about how to franchise your business, including trademarking your 0:09:47.960 --> 0:09:51.320 logo and brand, and I did it myself and within 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:56.800 ninety days we had our first franchise. E wow. Wow. 0:09:56.920 --> 0:09:59.360 So the answer to everyone who's listening to this is 0:09:59.440 --> 0:10:03.160 just be smart, be super smart, get through college in 0:10:03.200 --> 0:10:06.400 three years and learned that. What you just said reminded 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:09.240 me of like, uh, Leonardo DiCaprio, catch me if you can. 0:10:09.640 --> 0:10:11.560 Have you seen that with Tom Hanks at the end 0:10:11.559 --> 0:10:13.240 of the movie Tom? I said, don't you know, how 0:10:13.240 --> 0:10:15.360 did you? Like? What? What was it? Like? How did 0:10:15.360 --> 0:10:17.720 how did you get into law school? Or how what 0:10:17.840 --> 0:10:19.319 was it to become a lawyer or something. He's like, no, 0:10:19.400 --> 0:10:21.480 I just studied and took the test and I passed. 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:23.520 It's like what, No, but you're a con artist. You 0:10:23.600 --> 0:10:25.080 had a separate way to get about it. He's like, now, 0:10:25.120 --> 0:10:27.559 I just I just studied and took the test, and 0:10:27.640 --> 0:10:31.840 I would say that's Um, it's actually less complicated than smart. 0:10:31.880 --> 0:10:34.440 I think it's just put an effort. I don't know 0:10:34.480 --> 0:10:37.360 that I'm smarter than anyone, that we all have the 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:41.200 same abilities. But it really is about the input, the 0:10:41.240 --> 0:10:45.240 effort you put in against that you know ability, and 0:10:45.720 --> 0:10:48.440 that gives you an advantage or not. So it's really 0:10:48.440 --> 0:10:50.800 more effort than it is smart. And do you remember 0:10:50.840 --> 0:10:53.760 where your first franchise wash. Yeah, I was in Fort Lane, 0:10:53.760 --> 0:10:56.800 New Jersey. Nice. And so that person then paid you 0:10:56.840 --> 0:11:00.560 a fee and opened up their own nerd force. Look, yeah, 0:11:00.559 --> 0:11:02.319 I got it where people doing these like out of 0:11:02.320 --> 0:11:04.760 their own homes and garages type thing or opening up 0:11:04.800 --> 0:11:07.400 retail stores. No, it was a mobile. It was like 0:11:07.559 --> 0:11:10.200 a you know, man in a van mobile on side 0:11:10.240 --> 0:11:15.240 tech support in home business. And you know, we grew 0:11:15.280 --> 0:11:17.880 to about nine hundred technicians. So these franchise e s 0:11:17.880 --> 0:11:20.880 started hiring their own technicians and we went from about 0:11:20.880 --> 0:11:23.640 thirty technicians to nine hundred. And you were getting a 0:11:23.720 --> 0:11:27.280 small percentage of all other sales. We were getting four 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.440 hundred and fifty dollars a month as a flat feed royalty. 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:33.560 There was a marketing fee and that was it. And 0:11:33.600 --> 0:11:36.080 were you taking a percentage? So the royalty fee was 0:11:36.120 --> 0:11:38.760 on top of that right. So then you sold the 0:11:38.840 --> 0:11:42.839 franchise and the rights to nerd Force right correct to 0:11:42.840 --> 0:11:46.160 a public company called Nexus Management out of the United Kingdom, 0:11:46.600 --> 0:11:49.720 public company where they just knock on your door. Yeah. Well, 0:11:49.800 --> 0:11:54.000 they provided enterprise level support to larger companies, and they 0:11:54.000 --> 0:11:56.560 wanted to get into the SMB space too, small business space, 0:11:56.880 --> 0:11:58.800 and they viewed nerd Force as their wedge into a 0:11:58.840 --> 0:12:01.439 small business and then they were going to provide their 0:12:01.559 --> 0:12:04.559 enterprise level products to small businesses. Did you have to 0:12:04.559 --> 0:12:06.520 stay on board once you sold? I did. I had 0:12:06.520 --> 0:12:09.640 to stay on board for a couple of years. Um, 0:12:09.679 --> 0:12:12.160 I got really lucky. So I sold in June of 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:17.120 two November of two thousand eight. The world changed economically 0:12:18.120 --> 0:12:21.439 and access to capital just completely went away. And the 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:25.960 franchise system is highly dependent on small business loans, which 0:12:25.960 --> 0:12:30.240 became impossible. And so I would say the next year 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:34.720 year and a half became pretty challenging. Um, and eventually 0:12:34.720 --> 0:12:38.439 I ended up leaving got it to do what you're 0:12:38.440 --> 0:12:40.319 doing now, or something totally different, to do what I'm 0:12:40.320 --> 0:12:45.319 doing now? So where is that mindset switch for you? 0:12:45.320 --> 0:12:47.400 You're sitting there, you just sold a company to a 0:12:47.440 --> 0:12:50.040 public company. You're in the middle of a recession, things 0:12:50.040 --> 0:12:55.720 are really really tough, and you're like, you know what pizza? Yeah, yeah, 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:57.880 so your family has been in pizza for a long time, 0:12:57.880 --> 0:12:59.720 so I get correct, correct. So I've got a lot 0:12:59.800 --> 0:13:02.679 of family members that own pizzerias, being albeying this is 0:13:02.720 --> 0:13:06.120 what albeings do. That or construction, which is what my 0:13:06.160 --> 0:13:11.120 twin brother does. Um. Yeah. And I started getting a 0:13:11.160 --> 0:13:13.160 lot of family members asking me for help to build 0:13:13.200 --> 0:13:15.839 in websites because we were because of the Nerd Force 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:20.280 experience and just my background and the consistency with which 0:13:20.320 --> 0:13:26.080 these asks came across was kind of jarring. And you know, 0:13:26.200 --> 0:13:28.480 I knew everything about the franchise model. So I'm looking 0:13:28.520 --> 0:13:32.040 at Dominoes and I'm watching commercials and they're like order online. 0:13:32.400 --> 0:13:36.840 Every commercial they stopped advertising phone numbers. Everything was e commerce. 0:13:37.320 --> 0:13:38.959 So I wanted to learn more about what was going 0:13:39.000 --> 0:13:41.480 on there, and I also wanted to learn more about 0:13:41.480 --> 0:13:45.480 the pizza industry more holistically. Um, but I didn't really 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.200 I'll be honest, I don't really think about challenges Like 0:13:48.240 --> 0:13:51.680 I didn't really think, well, it's a recession, like maybe 0:13:51.720 --> 0:13:53.720 I shouldn't start a business. I don't my brain isn't 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:56.640 wired that way. My brain is more just like what 0:13:56.840 --> 0:13:58.920 is what is the opportunity and what's the current sort 0:13:58.920 --> 0:14:02.920 of data set? And so um. Anyway, learned a couple 0:14:03.000 --> 0:14:07.080 of things. One, you may be surprised, but the pizza 0:14:07.120 --> 0:14:11.280 industry in the US is forty seven billion dollars. That 0:14:11.400 --> 0:14:15.480 is revenue that passes through seventies seven thousand locations in 0:14:15.520 --> 0:14:21.600 the US. That's a massive, massive industry, forty seven billion. Two, 0:14:21.880 --> 0:14:26.760 only twenty of all locations are the big chains combined Domino's, 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:31.160 Papa John's, Little Caesars, Pizza Hut. Everyone else is independent 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:36.400 for the most part. And three, Domino's locations were starting 0:14:36.440 --> 0:14:42.080 to really outperform independence because of the e commerce play exactly. 0:14:42.240 --> 0:14:46.600 And so I UM, I was like, wait, going back 0:14:46.600 --> 0:14:49.520 to my experience with nerd Force, these independent operators, these 0:14:49.520 --> 0:14:53.520 mom and pop locations have the same problem that the 0:14:53.560 --> 0:14:57.200 independents who were competing with us did as well. But 0:14:57.440 --> 0:14:58.800 let me go and talk to them. Let me see 0:14:58.800 --> 0:15:01.680 why did why did my uncle not open up a 0:15:01.760 --> 0:15:04.920 Papa John's, Why did he open up John Anthony's Pizza. 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.640 So what you learn is that most small business owners 0:15:09.120 --> 0:15:11.840 are really passionate about a craft, and so they go 0:15:11.920 --> 0:15:14.440 into the business because of that, and they inherit all 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.960 these business problems, but they are not really business people. 0:15:18.120 --> 0:15:20.520 They don't know marketing, they don't know technology, they don't 0:15:20.520 --> 0:15:23.320 know you know, finances and all those things. They just 0:15:23.400 --> 0:15:26.040 kind of have to figure that stuff out. So the 0:15:26.240 --> 0:15:29.920 artists first. Yeah, and so I realized that there's an 0:15:29.920 --> 0:15:33.119 opportunity to create a new model called a reverse franchise, 0:15:33.280 --> 0:15:37.600 where instead of doing sort of recreating the franchise, I 0:15:37.640 --> 0:15:41.680 wanted to unite all the independence and in essence create 0:15:41.720 --> 0:15:44.920 the world's largest pizza chain, but this time instead of 0:15:44.960 --> 0:15:47.360 all of them being the same brand, for them to 0:15:47.400 --> 0:15:51.040 be independent brands but have the same benefits. So that 0:15:51.160 --> 0:15:54.480 was the moment I realized that those three things and 0:15:54.600 --> 0:15:57.960 and sort of that lesson for why independence go into 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:01.640 business or mom and pop sort of owners go into business. Um, 0:16:01.760 --> 0:16:04.200 I went and bought a domain name called my pizza 0:16:04.240 --> 0:16:08.000 dot com, which was the brand of my company for 0:16:08.040 --> 0:16:09.560 the first five years. Did you to buy it for 0:16:09.680 --> 0:16:12.200 somebody else? I did. It was for sale for one 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:16.160 and fifty thousand dollars. Yeah, my pizza dot com. Yeah 0:16:16.520 --> 0:16:18.600 it was. It was. I mean, this is two thousand 0:16:18.680 --> 0:16:21.520 nine billion names were pretty popular. Pizza dot Com, which 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.360 I tried to buy, was on sale for four million dollars. 0:16:25.000 --> 0:16:28.880 So it's like, I'll take the mine, and uh, but 0:16:28.960 --> 0:16:33.280 I negotiated that down to you are a good salesman. 0:16:33.560 --> 0:16:36.080 I mean that you can't see the storyteller, you not 0:16:36.160 --> 0:16:39.160 get down. Yeah, and so UM got that on board 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:42.760 and we started, um yeah, we started scaling quickly, bootstrapped again, 0:16:43.080 --> 0:16:48.120 no investments, but it started as my Pizza. Yeah. And 0:16:48.120 --> 0:16:51.680 then obviously, so this is two ten, so creating an 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:54.440 app wasn't even an idea yet. No, it was still 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:57.080 super early. I mean, in hindsight, I probably should have 0:16:57.080 --> 0:16:59.560 invested there early enough, but I did not. Instead, we 0:17:00.000 --> 0:17:03.480 for the most part built websites for the pizzeria powered 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:07.280 by my Pizza, and then we have the platform and 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:11.679 and so you would just cold call independent pizzerias and say, hey, 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:14.320 we're gonna help you sell more pizza online. Yeah. Well, 0:17:14.359 --> 0:17:16.480 well we tried doing that and they were like, what 0:17:16.520 --> 0:17:18.720 are you talking about? Who needs to sell pizza online? 0:17:18.720 --> 0:17:22.720 It's again, it's two thousand nine. No one really wants technology. 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:27.440 And so UM I went and got three cars, these 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:32.040 like little Nissan cubes. They look like pizza boxes. UM 0:17:32.080 --> 0:17:34.280 branded them with my Pizza and I would park them 0:17:34.480 --> 0:17:37.040 in front of pizzeria's literally just moving around with my 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.960 twin brother and we would leave him around town and 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:42.680 it would give us credibility because we were a brand 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:45.800 new like who knew my Pizza dot Com and UM. 0:17:46.600 --> 0:17:48.480 And then after leaving them, you know, in front of 0:17:48.520 --> 0:17:50.040 a pizzeria for a day or two, I would go 0:17:50.119 --> 0:17:52.639 inside the pizza and say, hey, I'm with my Pizza 0:17:52.680 --> 0:17:54.280 dot Com. If you guys want to want to work 0:17:54.320 --> 0:17:56.240 with us, here's what we do. And that's how we 0:17:56.280 --> 0:18:00.560 got probably the first locations. But you build them all 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:04.160 their own individual websites, correct, because that's what your friends 0:18:04.160 --> 0:18:06.760 and family were having you do, because that's what you 0:18:06.800 --> 0:18:09.040 asked somebody who starts a company called nerd force, did 0:18:09.080 --> 0:18:12.520 you exactly? But what we did was and the unlock 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.920 here is that all these PiZZ threas are almost identical. 0:18:15.160 --> 0:18:17.800 They just don't know it. They all operate the same way. 0:18:18.119 --> 0:18:20.560 And so what we did was we built a system 0:18:20.640 --> 0:18:23.160 where as long as I can enter a PiZZ reas, 0:18:23.200 --> 0:18:25.879 information on the back end, on the front end of 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:28.520 website would be created automatically. But it was just like 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:31.879 a cookie cutter website, same one, just different photos and 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.920 different stuff. What how do you make money? So we 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.359 basically charged two dollars per order. For every order we 0:18:39.440 --> 0:18:43.440 generated online, we will charge two dollars and can building 0:18:43.480 --> 0:18:47.159 the website. You're knowing what orders you're coming through. So 0:18:47.240 --> 0:18:49.520 we built a website, We had my pizza dot com. 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:53.199 We created some advertising channels, the marketing channels online through Google, 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.879 and so for every order that would pass through, the 0:18:56.920 --> 0:18:59.840 restaurant would pay us two dollars. It would cost us 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.040 on so literally like it was like create something for 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:05.600 for a dollar, sell it for two, and do that 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.720 as many times as possible. Got it good? Think people 0:19:08.720 --> 0:19:11.280 buy a lot of pizza though, And you started just 0:19:11.359 --> 0:19:13.680 east coast to start, Yeah, just mostly in New York. 0:19:13.760 --> 0:19:15.040 And I'll tell you a story. By the way, my 0:19:15.080 --> 0:19:16.800 mom was like, what is this new thing you're doing. 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:19.399 Why don't you go get a job, And and I 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:20.919 was like, okay, I'll explain to you what we do. 0:19:21.040 --> 0:19:24.399 We we partner with pizzerias, We build this website, we 0:19:24.560 --> 0:19:27.320 enter all their menu items, we go and advertise, and 0:19:27.320 --> 0:19:30.440 then somebody orders. And then when somebody orders, we make money, 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:32.080 and she's like, okay, not bad. So the orders like 0:19:32.119 --> 0:19:34.960 thirty dollars, so you make thirty dollars. I was like, no, no, no, 0:19:35.080 --> 0:19:37.960 we make two and in fact it costs us one. 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:39.600 So we make a dollar. And she's like, all that 0:19:39.680 --> 0:19:44.280 work for a dollar a lot of exactly you read 0:19:44.320 --> 0:19:54.960 scale of lots of dollars. So then where do you 0:19:55.000 --> 0:19:58.159 go from there? Like you just okay, now you're just 0:19:58.160 --> 0:20:00.399 gonna tackle all the independent PiZZ to reas in the 0:20:00.440 --> 0:20:03.520 United States. Yeah. So then you know, once we started 0:20:04.240 --> 0:20:07.280 UM sort of creating some critical mass on the on 0:20:07.320 --> 0:20:11.600 the restaurant side, words started to spread. UM. Really the 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:13.679 unlock for us was when we figured out how to 0:20:13.760 --> 0:20:18.960 turn online orders into faxes to the pizzrea automatically. So 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:23.040 there's technology that converts um something in in you know, 0:20:23.119 --> 0:20:26.560 something digital to a facts within like thirty seconds, so 0:20:26.600 --> 0:20:28.439 that they could get like the paper order and they 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:30.520 would print it out and deliver it. Yeah, because a 0:20:30.560 --> 0:20:32.159 lot of pizzrea's were like, hey, I don't want all 0:20:32.200 --> 0:20:35.520 this technology, you know, they're sort of there's a lot 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.080 of anxiety around that, but they all have a fax 0:20:38.200 --> 0:20:40.840 number on their menu. And so we started asking, Hey, 0:20:40.880 --> 0:20:43.600 how many times this is fax machine print in order 0:20:43.600 --> 0:20:45.760 for you? And they would say once every two weeks, 0:20:46.240 --> 0:20:48.160 and so we were like, what if that printed out 0:20:48.240 --> 0:20:51.240 like thirty times a day. They were like, you know, 0:20:51.280 --> 0:20:53.639 it's great, and it it meant that they didn't have 0:20:53.680 --> 0:20:57.600 to change their workflow. And so we started selling my 0:20:57.760 --> 0:21:01.960 Pizza as a facts ordering service to the restaurant, but 0:21:02.080 --> 0:21:06.320 an online ordering product to the consumer. Crazy and the 0:21:06.359 --> 0:21:09.239 moment that happened, it just kind of took off. And 0:21:09.520 --> 0:21:11.240 pizzeria is just kind of because they all talk to 0:21:11.280 --> 0:21:12.880 each other, right, they all talk to you, and they're 0:21:12.880 --> 0:21:15.080 all very connected. If if you own a pizza shop, 0:21:15.160 --> 0:21:16.840 so does your brother in law and maybe your sister, 0:21:17.560 --> 0:21:19.520 and so there's this sort of community effect and then 0:21:19.520 --> 0:21:20.639 they just all want to be a part of the 0:21:20.680 --> 0:21:24.199 same system because you're also you're making ordering easier, but 0:21:24.359 --> 0:21:27.600 we're also making them more money where they sell more pizza, No, definitely. 0:21:27.600 --> 0:21:30.320 So the big unlock here is that online volume, e 0:21:30.440 --> 0:21:35.879 commerce volume is more valuable than offline volume. So if 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:39.080 you compare to Pizza Rea's, one of them is on 0:21:39.880 --> 0:21:42.840 phone based where you're calling in the orders. The other 0:21:42.840 --> 0:21:46.199 one is e commerce. The difference is going to be 0:21:46.200 --> 0:21:50.879 three x yeah. One because the phone channel is the 0:21:50.920 --> 0:21:53.080 same person who's making the pizza has to answer the phone. 0:21:53.359 --> 0:21:55.760 It's busy, it's all these things, taking down the credit 0:21:55.800 --> 0:21:59.880