How to Start & Run a Restaurant Business | Block Craft Beer & Kitchen

Episode 48 — Block Craft Beer & Kitchen — Cleaned Transcript

Guest: Jason Jokers, co-founder of Block Craft Beer & Kitchen

Note: This transcript has been cleaned for readability. Raw timecodes and placeholder speaker labels were removed, obvious transcription errors involving the restaurant name and common business terms were corrected, and repeated teaser material after the main interview was omitted. The substance of the conversation was preserved.

Opening & Meet Jason Jokers

It was actually one of the worst sellers, but the reason why they thought it was the best seller is because they noticed it. Because they created it. What am I going to sell today? To get to where I want to be tomorrow? If it doesn't speak to the brand, it violates that criteria that you said you don't do it.

That beer is going to cost you like $40. And the reason is because they go, oh, he's drinking a beer. Maybe when I'm when I'm done here in a little bit, I'll have a couple of beers. There's nothing no harm in going in and working for a business like the one that you want to start. I think having a yes culture is the most dangerous aspect.

Technology is coming whether we like it or not. So the best thing for us to do is to see how we can adopt it. People often don't think about choosing their partners wisely.

today's special guest is Jason Jokers, the co-founder of Block Craft Beer & Kitchen, a Sacramento based restaurant focused on building community.

Jason, thank you so much for joining me today. Thanks for having me, Kory. Great to be here. Yeah, it's very happy. It's a pleasure actually. Love the idea of craft

beer and kitchen.

The idea about being more community focused. So we're going to dive into that. That sounds great. Before we get into it. We asked that the last guest leave a question for the next guest. And

so the question that was left for you is what was your most memorable vacation and why? Oh my gosh, that's great. That's a great question.

Most memorable vacation.

There's there's a few contenders for that too. But I will say,

one of the places that I absolutely fell in love with was Helsinki, Finland. That was one of my favorite places. That was very memorable. I met some great people there.

everything's so relaxed there. Everything's taken down a notch. There's not all this,

busyness. Right. But the city is just gorgeous. Is very, you know, that old Russian architecture because they were a part of Russia before 1917.

So I would say that that that would be the the spot. Yeah. That was a great, great vacation.

That's awesome. So it was kind of sounds like the community and culture is really what you

look for whenever you're traveling essentially. Absolutely. Yeah.

What Is Block Craft Beer & Kitchen?

Jason, for those hearing about Block Craft Beer & Kitchen for the first time, can you explain the type of food and drinks that you offer and where you're

located? Yes, absolutely. So we're located at seven, 485 Rush River Drive at suite 650, and that's in the pocket area of Sacramento.

we're a new American style food. So we have

great salads, burgers.

French dip.

and we have a great beer. So we're constantly evolving that too, as well. We have 16 taps. And

been bringing some beers on and we're kind of seeing, you know, which which ones that are resonating well with the consumer base, which people are, not liking and liking and then sort of taking some in, taking some off so we can kind of build a good, you know, beer portfolio and offer.

Yeah, no. That's awesome. I mean, you're starting small assessing, reassessing, figuring out what works and then figuring out the next steps on what to add, what to remove and so on. So that's a good business strategy. Yeah that's right.

If someone comes in for the first time what's like as of right now anyways. Like a go to that they must try. Oh gosh. That would definitely be the block burger.

So our Block burger is our number one seller.

also have a,

sour chicken sandwich that people are just raving over

if you are a salad person.

block salad is incredible. So it's just it's just very hearty and really good. People love it.

It fills you up to,

Those three seem to be pretty popular

that people pick. And those seem to do really well.

Well, I'm down for burgers. I love burgers anyway. Yeah. Yeah,

that's a good option. Yeah. But for your name, you said block salad and that was a block.

Kraft kitchen and beer. And how did you come up with the name.

How the Block Brand Was Created

when we were putting this together, I probably had 200 names and nothing. I would just pull up Evernote, you know, the app, I use that all the time.

I would just have a file for a, new restaurant names.

And as we were, because we were still in the process of getting the lease finalized.

So we weren't we weren't there yet. I had some time

and I was just going through and I kept going,

putting this name. Okay. And like, that doesn't look right. Here's another name. And I just get these ideas for a name or I, you know, Google and try to come up with names,

I couldn't get a name. And usually I feel like I'm kind of good at

picking a name for something. It came from my brother. So my twin brother,

was like, I've always liked the name block. And I was like, that's a really good I liked that. So we start, you know, you start penning it out and looking at it and kind of thinking about how how it would, what it would mean.

so he came up with the name and then, the craft beer and kitchen we added because we wanted to kind of get away from the the Brewery Taphouse concept that was really big ten years ago and everything. Now I feel it's a little bit more premium because people are going out less, but when they do go out, they they spend more, so they want an experience.

So you really have to heighten the atmosphere. So we felt that the name Block Craft Beer & Kitchen was just a little bit more

premium sounding than, you know, block tap House or Block Brewery. Nothing against anyone with those names.

It's just that for our concept. But we were trying to do it just fit because we're doing a lot more nonalcoholic.

We're doing a lot of wine.

So it's not just like a brewery, if that. That makes sense. So, so anyways, with the name,

worked out good because there were so many

meanings for, for blocks. So the big thing for us was, blocking in time. Right? So when you look at your calendar, you have blocks on your calendar and you, you block time for things that are important family, hobbies, you know, reading.

And that's so important today because

today's world, there's so much digital residue and so much

around us. We have to set up boundaries. Whereas before, in the past 500 years ago, you didn't you went out in nature and there was there wasn't distraction. You were living life and hunting and fishing and being around, you know, family and all that.

And now you have all this stuff that can can pull you away from that. So when we came up with the name block, that worked good for that, that concept. And that's what we want to do is be a hub

community. And we we think that name represents that really well.

So you alluded to blocking off time and even on your social media accounts you're saying find your block. So is it like how do you block out time. Is that kind of like what you're trying to achieve with that.

Finding Your Block: Community and Lifestyle

Yeah. So exactly. So the messaging with like finding your block is, is, is optimizing your lifestyle instead of just falling into distraction.

Like I'll give you an example. Like if you

don't do anything you'll just default to watching Netflix and,

sitting around all day right after work or something. Right.

You

have to put the effort out. You have to be conscious and aware that I need to I want to, you know, start playing tennis or I want to start playing guitar.

So I got to make the time for these things, and I got to put in a plan every day, because every day we gotta, we have to get up and go, you know, what do I want to accomplish today? How am I going to show up today?

so the block is just a kind of a something in the brand to where it gets people to know that, you know, family and connections and being around good things is where you need to be.

So what is what is what does it take in your schedule to do that and align that?

yeah. Block off the time and come to come to the block, I guess.

That's right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. But

Choosing Business Partners and Defining Roles

magic happens when people get together. Yeah. Now you are a co-founder. So there is something between you and your business partner. Partner

that you guys saw in each other that made you guys trust each other's so much to go into business together. So what was it that made you guys trust each other enough to do business?

That's a great question. You know, and you're right, because

people often don't think about,

choosing their partners wisely. Right.

my partners, I've known them for once. My brother. So I've known him forever. So right there, we worked together well and get along well. One of the good things about that is we all have our different roles. So role clarity is really important in a partnership, because if everyone's trying to do the same thing,

you end up spending your wheels.

It kind of goes to

saying? Too many to many cooks in the kitchen. Right. So you want you want to have partners that show up differently. So like one of our partners is an accountant. My twin brother is an attorney. My other partner and I are both really heavily involved in the operations and the growth.

So we kind of have

process to right with where, how we run things, how we meet, what we talk about.

And everybody has their, their, their different unique perspective and role, which makes things great. What can happen where things get can be a problem with partnerships is when

have two partners doing the same thing and and one has one way of doing it, one has the other, and they don't communicate

other times you have one partner that they call it shirking, where he kind of knows that this one will step in when things get tough.

So he doesn't work as hard as him because he knows that he's gonna work hard.

You'll just see these different dynamics that can be tough. But fortunately for us, we just have a good we have a good group

and

that kind of, you know, transcends into our hiring to. Right. So,

we're at the top of the pyramid in that sense, you know, and we start to build the base out, you know, we want to bake that culture into our staff and have them feel empowered and feel and feel like they're contributing in their a part of something,

and

that they're a part of the community and part of growing the operation and reaching

people at the end of the day.

that makes a lot of sense. Having different roles and processes on how the corporation moves forward or the business moves forward. But let's say there's a new entrepreneur out there. They're watching this podcast today and they're like, man, I do have a business partner. And we're always having these creative

differences, like you said to many cooks in the kitchen.

And no one could really lead. And so what would. What advice or recommendations would you give that entrepreneur that's in that situation where their creative differences are clashing.

Handling Creative Differences With Data

you know, what I would do is that I would look at it scientifically. Right. So

when a scientist comes up with an idea

or something they want to they call it get to failure first. They want to either

make it work or they want it to fail so they can move on. Right. And so, and then also getting to failure, they can work out where their problems are at. Right? They go, okay, this didn't work.

But what do I got to do to fix it? So

just give you the example, if you had two partners and one, one wanted to,

have and I had a marketing idea and one was like, I wanted to convey this. And the other one was like, I wanted to convey this.

What you would do is just look at it and go, how do we set this up? How do we measure results from it?

do we look at it and see what's going to have the biggest impact, and then kind of walk through it and maybe do both? Right. On a small level, you could you could sort of experiment with like getting that out.

It's it's like as simple as like if you

you were making cookies and you were you'd only sell one take, take both of them down to the farmer's market, see how well they sell. Very simple. Put a bed sheet up on a on a table.

Start talking to your customers. See how they react to it. Which one, which one do they like better?

And just kind of it's

make it very scientific.

So for the new entrepreneurs because you don't have to stick with with with your idea.

You always want to be challenging new ideas and trying new things. They call that the moonshot department, right?

Every company has a moonshot department where they invest in, you know, new products and new innovations, and they test it.

And

a lot of times they're total failures. And that's okay. But at least they're taking those steps to like get to innovation and get to new products. And so that's the way to do it. And if you focus on results and data, the numbers don't lie, right. So if you had two guys and they were had these creative differences and one does one thing and the reaction is so much greater than this other guy's reaction or his idea,

and you're getting so many more customers or just it's just resonating with them.

You're maybe seeing an uptick of sales or whatever. Then you kind of know that you're going somewhere with this, with idea A versus B. And again, sometimes and sometimes you can do both, you know, just depends. But I would just look at it that way.

No that's a good way to take a look at it. I mean in a situation where you could try both and maybe just allocate it to a small

group of people or a small niche of people, then you can have some a B testing like we tried this, we try that and then you let the data kind of drive the decision.

That way you're not shooting down the other person's idea, you're not criticizing it.

You're just figuring out, okay, how do we test it? We change that frame. And so for those entrepreneurs, can they do they have the idea those creative differences, are they testable? And can they get some metrics that they'll let them know, like is it doable or is it not?

Yeah, that's a great that's a great way to approach it, I think I don't think I've ever really thought about it that way, but I could see that being a good way to solve probably 80% of the problems. That's like, yeah, it really is. And what it does, it kind of removes emotion and opinion out of it, too.

So I've always kind of been that focus to where I always know my numbers. So I always know I mean, I have labored down to the second, right? It's 4.6 per second when we're at full labor to, to run the restaurant. And that's a little some people might think that's a little overkill, but it's just knowing the numbers and knowing where everything is.

Why Business Owners Need to Know Their Numbers

You can't argue with with a decision that's made when it's based upon numbers because you always tie it back.

Like, I'll give you an example. When we first came into,

operation,

because it was there was a previous restaurant that was there that we tried to buy that didn't work out, but we kind of had we had a little bit of we kind of got acclimated to that location in the process,

but the entire staff was like, oh, our best seller is this grilled chicken sandwich.

And it was made by our head chef. And everybody loves it. We we sell the most of it, but nobody took the time to actually look at the numbers.

It was actually one of the worst sellers, but the reason why they thought it was the best seller is because they noticed it more because they created it.

So it's like, it's like when you have a red car, you see more red cars on the road, right?

that was the case in this where they thought

that this thing was a really good seller. But it turns out it was the bottom 20

of sales of, of the product mix of what was selling. So being able to tie that back to numbers and say, you know, hey, this thing actually isn't moving where, you know, we got to look at it, you people, you can't dispute that.

You can't can't argue with that because it's great. And, you know, it's fantastic that they created this, you know, this great dish. But it really wasn't working with the menu and it really wasn't selling. So once you show those numbers, it's like, okay,

instead of shooting the idea down, how do we maybe modify this and then and then match that, see how that progress is going and see how those KPIs are with that particular product as if it's selling.

We can just keep moving with it so you'll never

you'll you'll never hurt anybody's feelings when it comes to data, because that's the data, you know. So so yeah. Well, you mentioned KPIs. So really briefly, what does that stand for for a listener that may not know what that acronym means for a key performance indicators. Yeah. So just another way to say key data points key metrics and stuff like that.

Yeah. And you alluded to opening up that it was like another restaurant you were trying to buy it out or something like that. So did you have any unexpected roadblocks when you were opening up your restaurant? Oh,

Opening the Restaurant and Lease Restrictions

nothing too crazy. There was just a little bit of delays,

it was just kind of normal with the landlord.

One thing that really delayed us is that we wanted to do pizza. We were really excited about doing pizza. We just thought it would do good, but unfortunately, there was a,

pizza covenant in the lease because there's another pizza place

the shopping center. So that kind of and we kind of tried to fight for that a little bit.

Like, what if we do this, what we know? And then I think that

it just kind of delayed as we if we would have, you know, not have, tried to fight for that pizza. We probably could have gotten open earlier, but, you know, it's all behind us now. But there

had to do just a lot of cleaning, a few things inside, but it was a very turnkey process. We were able to retain a lot of the previous staff, so they were very much acclimated to the space and the customers and having was. So we were really I mean, I feel really grateful. We were very fortunate in the whole process.

And then I was gonna say, so we're doing right now we're doing a lot of reinvestment into the space.

So,

like, just today, we actually we had this big yellow ski chair coming today that we got to put together tomorrow. It's going to be really cool. It's like a Instagrammable thing for people to come in and, you know, has a wow factor. They take pictures with it.

going to be doing a lot of stuff like that to their outside patio. So every week we're reinvesting in something, whether it's a table in the chair or a painting or

putting green outside, which were going to be doing that too as well. So we just want to make the place just really

like this platform for people to go in and just interact with their friends, and we have video games in there.

We're going to be adding more video games

It's just doing things like that that are going to be really good. So

yeah, you're creating a unique experience. You're giving the customer a reason to come in. Even the the big chair and everything

who wouldn't want to step a photo, post it to their friends and family? That's a really good marketing tip that I think a lot of people maybe have missed is, how do you create these murals or activities that people can come and post pictures on to,

that

they're going to want to share with their friends and family.

But you mentioned one other thing and I don't want to miss. This

is the pizza covenant that you guys had in the location.

If someone is an entrepreneur and they're looking at places to lease, places to buy, what are some of those contract blind spots that they may not know about? Because I

if there's another pizza spot in that plaza, you can't do that type of food. So is that how that works?

Yeah. That is yeah. So sometimes, you know, these, landlords will have these covenants that got established with the previous tenant, and it actually makes sense because, you know, there's, you know, if you're if you're a person investing in the space and you're a pizza place and they're going to go, hey, we're we're going to lease out three more pizza spots,

it's going to really hurt them, you know, because they're going to have that capital investment of, of

building the restaurant space out.

So they they want some kind of,

exclusiveness

their lease. So yeah that's a great. So I always recommend to if you're looking at a lease and looking at space,

broker should be very candid about that. Like the broker should the commercial broker should know that. Hey, you. Hey, I know you want to do pizza, but I'm sorry, but we have a, you know, we have x, y, z pizza company in here, and it's going to kind of bar you from, from doing that.

And then they might be able to search a new space for you too,

what I always tell people,

and this happens a lot with new entrepreneurs, is they get, you know, so excited about their,

business, and they might

overlook where they're going to put their space because they think, if I build it, it'll just work, right.

Location Strategy and Commercial Lease Lessons

And

that's not always the case. You really want to be like strategic about about your location. How does it speak into the demographic? You

but it all depends on your business. Sometimes you can have a business where, where location doesn't matter because you're doing online sales, you know, and, and then you could also have this thing where you a location matters a little bit. So you could, you know, promote it and bring people in and make it a destination location.

That was the thing that happened with the breweries before in the past was

they were they'd always be in some obscure place behind a Home Depot in a warehouse, you know.

they brought the people because that's what the market was doing. I mean, people were really excited to go try, you know, this new beer from this new brewery.

And so you would have these

buzz where they did have these cheap leases and it did work. You know, it's not so much the case now, but it was really big ten years ago to do that.

Well. So the biggest takeaway I'm getting out of that is even for an entrepreneur, if they lock into a lease, they should be negotiating with the landlord

the exclusivity

to that plaza that they're in, like whether you're doing burgers or beer or whatever you're doing, like the non-compete clause is like, hey, throw this in there, I'm renting from you anyways.

So yeah, give me a, you know, putting a lot of money to making it work. So that's right. Yeah. That's a, that's a, that's a good tip for someone that's going to start their business. Like get that if you don't if no one's there already. Like make sure you lock that in you. You be that person.

KPIs, Margins, and Building Around the Numbers

But in your case, you've opened up several businesses. You have a big business background and so can you share what was like the one thing that you've learned in some of your other businesses that you've carried over and implemented into block?

yeah, you know, it would kind of go back to the numbers, right?

knowing your numbers, it just it just paints this framework for what you're trying to accomplish. Right. Because you look at that thing, you know, everything in businesses. Where am I now? Where do I want to go and how am I going to get there?

Right. And your numbers really line that out. And,

it's easy for people to not know the numbers because sometimes people are afraid of it.

kind of reminds me of Simpsons when Homer, gets this elephant right, and it's so expensive, but he's getting a bit of money coming in, and Marge is like, today stampedes.

Food bill was $2,000. He's like, please, not in front of the money like that. You know, he only has 500. So like his costs her way, but he doesn't want to hear the costs. You know,

kind of that kind of happens a lot in business where

people might not want to look at the numbers very detailed, but it's so important because you get the idea of

what am I going to sell today to get to where I want to be tomorrow?

What do I got to reduce today in terms of cost to get? And then you start to make those right decisions. So that's one thing that I learned. And every time I've implemented that, it's always worked out so well. Not just getting

things aligned as far as offer, but also,

inspirational. Like you get ideas for stuff like you look at something and go, wow, look, this right here is working so well, we need to do more of this or add this onto it or this is coming in.

There's so much margin in it. We can experiment with something. Right. Going back to the whole moonshot thing, maybe take a, you know, experiment with a new product or something that can come can can,

leapfrog or piggyback off that or something.

Yeah. No that's awesome. I mean, to your earlier point about the numbers.

How do you make sure you're always monitoring the numbers so you don't backslide and get lost in your operations?

Brand Discipline and Decision Criteria

before you start anything,

you want to write out everything that you, your brand stands for. And in this case, when it comes to process, everything that you need to do

to grow or to accomplish, or to build, build the business.

Right. So that would include, like, you know, going through the numbers

you want to pen that all out and have that in like a mission statement or a list of criteria that you can always refer to. Because what happens is, to your point, emotion does come in. And then when emotion comes in and you start,

making decisions off the hip or thinking shortsighted, you will totally deviate from your original plan.

So you have to know why you have this plan, why it's good, why do you have to stick to it? So so knowing the why of like, okay, the reason why I got to know the numbers is because I got to make sure that we're profitable. We're not profitable. I got to work on cutting labor. I got to work on raising capital.

I got to work on maybe, you know, this or that, but if you try to go into it blind, you're just going to, you know, you're you're you're you're not going to you're just going to hold yourself back. You're going to anchor yourself. So that's why writing out that criteria

of what I'm trying to accomplish, why I'm doing it, and why I need to do the numbers every day or whatever it is every day.

Right?

Then

you'll never deviate from your plan and you always stick to it. It's kind of like the gym, right? Like if you, you know, people go to the gym and sometimes, like, they don't want to go, but they go, I gotta go. I gotta go. I'm sticking to five days a week going to the gym.

drudge in there, you know, and be tired.

But as soon there in their, they're, they're sticking to their plan and they feel good that they made it in there. And so it's the same

thing with brand too. So you know, when you have, you know, you always want to keep your brand consistent. What is the brand stand for. So

set of criteria for the brand.

And any every decision should be rooted in that criteria. If you are doing something with marketing or you're doing something with the inside of the business,

if it doesn't speak to the brand, it violates that criteria that you set. You don't do it. But if you if you go, oh, wait, it fits all the key criteria points. Let's do it.

Let's go in heavy. You know.

Yeah. That's awesome. So you could get to the numbers. You can incorporate it into the plan. And then if you needed that extra little boost, you could probably find a few software to help

alleviate the mundane task of crunching the numbers. And yeah, making it all sense. Now

Business Leadership, Humility, and Culture

what are some of the do-nots that people should not do in business.

I see this a lot with business owners where they,

think that because they own the place that gives them license to do what they want, but they don't

know how to honor the asset. Like, you have to treat it like I'm working for this. I want to honor this. And by honoring this, I'm honoring my customers.

And I'm honoring my staff because I want to see them happy. And when you're the guy that puts up a, you know, owner parking only right here, what are you telling your staff? Like you have the right to do that. But the question is, should you do that?

it's really coming in and just working hard for everybody and always thinking about, how can I work hard for the staff? How can I work hard for the team? How can I work hard for my client? And treating it like, like I'm so grateful to be here, to be able to participate

and bring this opportunity to people and and to the community, and just really looking at

through that lens.

Right. And then I guess, and so kind of goes back to

do not is do whatever you can to remain humble and not let that ego come in, because people do that often and they start to really go after money. And then the more they get, the more they want. And that just really I mean, we have so much historical

evidence that being greedy and going after high, high amounts of money and stepping on people to do it, you never win.

Your soul gets corrupted from that. You get really, you get dragged down and nothing's ever enough.

Yeah. And to your last point, I think it shows if you're kind of egotistical or you're on your high horse,

the staff see it, they can smell it from a mile away and no one wants to.

That's right. Work with someone who's arrogant and full of themselves is like, cool. Yeah, you may have the business, but like also just the person at the end of the day.

It could definitely do the opposite of what you're trying to achieve for your business, I totally agree. You know, I would say that is that you're absolutely right. It's like you think about it, if you were working for this amazing company that you were just totally excited to work for and

just feel like they were going somewhere, you felt like you felt like it was just

great, and then you got one of the owners who's just joking around all the time and showing up late and you know, oh, I'm going to take the this computer home with me because it's mine.

You know, you know, it's like it's like it's like it just it makes it it really denigrates what you're trying to do. And so I wanted to add to that, like one of the things that we do, like with our team is we don't drink. I don't drink that much to begin with, but neither does our partners.

But we will not drink at our restaurant at all.

And that's what a lot of restaurant owners and speaking specifically with restaurants, because there's a proclivity to do that because it is a restaurant

and you want to invite your friends down.

But

we stay completely away from that because

I look at it like this. I go, if you're going to drink one beer at your restaurant in front of your staff during service hours,

that beer is going to cost you, like $40.

And the reason is because they go, oh, he's drinking a beer. Maybe when I'm when I'm done here in a little bit, I'll have a couple of beers and then maybe then the other person, I'm gonna have a couple of beers and it's okay because the owner is having beers. Next thing you know, you just lost $40

beer because everybody thought it was okay because you were doing it

then when you show up and you don't do that,

it, you know, first of all, you're not going to allow yourself to slip up. If you have a couple of beers and

know, you might make a promise that you didn't want to

make to one of the staff, or they might talk to one of the it's just you just you want to look at it like, I'm going in, I'm working and I'm leaving, right?

And then when the staff sees you, they're with your friends and you're all joking around, and it's just. I always thought it was so tacky to me. I thought it was such a bad look

to just to behave that way with your restaurant. Again,

as a restaurant owner, they have the right to do that.

You have the right to

take that corner with your friends. Order three bottles of wine on the house, down those that ball of wine joke around and do that, but it really is bad taste and speaks so bad to your culture because they're just going to look at you like, wow, you know?

And you definitely want to lead by example.

Like you kind of set the precedent and the team is only going to be as strong as its leader. So if you're a strong leader,

it should kind of

instill the culture, the work habits, and everybody will be kind of better off for it. But you weren't always in business, right?

Jason's Path Into Entrepreneurship

Like at some point you probably were in high school graduating. Maybe you went to college

at what point in your life where you're like, I'm not going to do the 95 in the morning, I'm going to be an entrepreneur. Tell me what that was like.

when I was in college. During that time, it felt like there was wasn't a lot of opportunity. It was like right after September 11th. Right.

things were a little bit shaky with the economy. And I would see people that would have like these service businesses or construction businesses, and

they were always doing fine, you know, and it just felt like that the the job market was different.

it felt like doing doing business was just a great way to go at that time,

So you didn't have the,

the same prospects and business kind of just sounded funner. But

what gave you the encouragement? Was it you your friends brainstorming and you guys

we went into business together. Like what was it in you that gave you the courage

to take that risk?

Because it's not so simple to just open a business. So you must have been like

what do I have to lose? Is that kind of like the mindset that you were in?

Yeah. You know, very similar. So because I was 22 years old. Right. So I just finished college and

thought to myself, I go, well, if you're going to do take risks, now's the time to do it. At 22, it's harder to do it at 42 than it is 22. You can recover quicker.

And, you know, at that time didn't have any bills really at all to. So it was like,

low investment to get started.

But what

it does actually looked at franchising. And so,

what I liked about franchising was they have a model that's already worked out. It's a system. So you just have to follow the system.

I will say one of the downsides about the franchising, though, is that sometimes they can they can have a lot of teeth in their lease,

right where there's, you know, the royalties can be high.

There's a lot of limitations,

you're kind of just buying a job with a high liability.

as you started that first business, did you have people that

Franchising, Risk, and Starting Small

supported you?

What was your support system like?

funny you mentioned that because people will throw

these weird questions at you sometimes,

like your friends, meaning like they'll, they'll, they'll they'll be like, well, what happens with it?

And it's like, man, where did you even come up with that? You know, like

people are afraid of the unknown. And your friends look at it like, oh, what's what about this? And what's going to happen if this happens.

people have their concerns. But for the most part, I think, you know, family was very supportive.

That's good that at least your core family was supportive.

If there's an entrepreneur that's sitting at home they don't have that support system. And they do having people, their close friends and family that they can't just

remove out of their life.

What advice would you give them to kind of

get through all of that noise and that criticism to try their idea and test their idea and see if they can make it?

let's just say you wanted to get into a certain business.

You know, there's nothing no harm in going in and working for a business like the one that you want to start, right? So you can get some ideas and offer something for free, right? Say, hey, listen, you know, I want to come in. This is what I want to do is what I want to learn.

know, it's like, sometimes you have to give value before you can ask for value. And I think really connecting with other people. And, and now there's so many online resources. I mean, you can search for people that are going through the same kind of,

troubles that you are trying to get started

and it's good to talk to people who've been through it before and they can tell you.

Yeah, this works. That doesn't work. You know, it's good to listen to that too, because then, you know, okay, then I can save time and money by not doing it this way and following this path.

So it sounds like a few things there is. If you have the idea, share it with the right group, share it with the the other business owners, find the other people that are doing what you're doing, and then they're not going to criticize

downplay your ideas are going to give you more of, hey, this is how I overcame that same struggle that you're having.

And you said you work for someone for free, or

of sounded like you're saying find a mentor. Did you have a mentor going through your early? I mean, you had the franchise and that they're kind of like the mentor, but as you're kind of going through your other businesses, even for block, did you guys have a mentor

a lot of it was, yeah, trial and error in the past and then put it together for a block. And then in the in when I was younger,

We had bought a restaurant down in San Diego 20 plus years ago,

and the former owners,

he was a been doing business, had a lot of successes.

And,

he kind of took us under her wing. And we were 24 at the time. Right. And and he was just a great guy and learned a lot from him. And so that's probably the closest thing I've had to, like a mentor. He was really direct, really good. And then he actually introduced us to,

Lessons From Earlier Businesses

this church down in San Diego.

That's how I met the people I know today from that. So it's kind of funny how that full circle that came. So. Yeah. Yeah. But but yeah. No. Yeah. Mentors are good to, you know,

There really is a power in being hungry. You know, it's, it's a that that key principle is great. So,

know, if you're young and you're you, you get out there and just start talking to people.

You'd be surprised at how many people are willing to respond, you know, and wanting to help. There's a lot of people out there that do want that want to help, and they want to they like to share their devices. It's the reason why people become teachers and professors. They love to talk about,

what they've done and what they know.

And, and it reinforces the things that they've learned. And

yeah. If they've already done something similar or something that you want to do, or if they're walking their life or have the life that you have, what's the harm of trying to reach out and asking them for the mentorship?

that would take you 160 hours to figure out. You're going to figure it out in 16 minutes. By then, that would be the framework. So yeah. Yeah, that's that's awesome. But let's say you're you're at home and you're now, you know,

running the numbers. You're opening up the business. Do you ever get what they call like that imposter syndrome or that self-doubt.

Yeah. And what do you do to get that out of your head? How do you

rid of that negative self-criticism?

see such a power like in meditation and reading that really helps with clarity in the mind. So for me,

meditation and just diving into because you, you find intuition in the silence, that's really where things come out.

And so

in order to fight that self-doubt, I, I look a lot inward. So again, like, I love to read, I read a lot. And that time of reading and meditation, silence, it kind of lets you work out things that are going on your head, because a lot of times, I mean, if you think about it,

most of your problems are you speaking bad about yourself, right?

Or putting yourself down or thinking that you can't do this? You can't do that. And I think when you look at it, you go, you know what? Even if it doesn't work, I'll figure it out. You

I'll gain something from this. So I think those things are important. I think a lot of times you got to get the noise out of your head,

So for the entrepreneur that does have the self-doubt, just I guess the takeaway is like, hey, they're not alone. Everybody goes through it as part of as part of the process. And it's temporary

how life is. Right. Like life is. You have you have successes and you have failures.

And those failures are so important. You know, it's what your your thinking gets. You get the right perspective. You know, it's really just a, there's an important part of life. It's like Oscar Wilde said.

goes, there's two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, and the other one is getting it.

It's my favorite quote because it's so true. You know, it really is like, if you got everything you wanted, you'd be miserable. You know, you got to have there's got to be some struggle and some adversity in what you're doing. It really

makes you value what you're doing. So yeah, yeah, that's a good way to put it. Yeah.

Now you've been a business owner for a while. So being a business owner, were there any surprise benefits or opportunities that you,

never imagine the business owner or being a business owner would open up for you?

a lot of people really look forward to time,

making more money and having no time is just terrible.

It's better to make less money but have more time. So then you look at that time that you create, and if you create time, it's like, what am I going to do with that time? That's going to be good, you know, how am I going to leverage that time for personal growth or for family or things like that, which I think could be great to.

So it sounds like one of the surprise benefits of being a business owner is that if you do it right, you potentially have more time to spend with your friends and family and other things. Yeah.

And you don't, you know, you don't have to be a employee of the business. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. You can take a step back.

Now you friend small businesses and you've ran businesses upwards of 60 million plus and big corporations and things like that. So what are the challenges that small businesses have let's say under 10 million or 1 million or less than 1 million. And what are what challenges are different once you start reaching the

$60 million companies? Yeah.

How do those challenges change?

for larger corporations is really just important just to key into not actually it's like

Sears deemed Walmart too much of a to small to be a threat. Right.

they and a lot of the stuff happens with Sears where they were so big, they thought that they did nothing could stop them.

But

meanwhile, your competitor, who is nimble, small, he's working against you. So that's with with big companies. They need to be

aware that they still have to act like they're a small company in some regard. Right.

Hiring, Delegation, and Employee Autonomy

with small business, you know,

There is a lot of challenge. It's kind of like,

escape velocity with a rocket, right? You know, it's like when you when they line up a rocket a few inches off can be miles off an orbit.

And just get that it takes all that inertia and energy just to get it off the pad. Right. You know,

Like, don't try to overspend on something, especially if it's a concept that you haven't

worked out yet. You know, I think it's really good to, to, to spend small and test like again, like instead of if you were going to

bring out a food product, you know, take it to a farmer's market costs nothing.

See how people react. What are people saying about it? Then go back. And how

do I change that? How do I amend that? How do I make this better? What are people saying? What's the what is consistent here?

And then just really trying to preserve capital? That's such a huge thing, because it's so easy to get in this idea that

this is definitely going to work.

It's getting people are going to love this. And so you overspend in the in the in the hopes that

the future benefits going to come. But sometimes you can get into a cash crunch and you know there's nothing that can help you weather storm better than cash. Right. So you can cash is you know, you see these companies when there's economic downturns, the one that have these high cash balances, low debt, are they able to, you know, finance cheaply.

They're able to work through their problems

reconfigure their business strategy and plan because of that cash. So I think that's important.

Yeah. Wow.

Yeah. For a small company, it's resources, time, money, all of that getting reinvested.

And

a big company they kind of feel like they've made it. They've captured a market and they stop being competitive or to get

complacent or comfortable. Yeah. And that could really hurt them in the long run because, you know, like your example seer didn't care about Walmart and Walmart ate them up. And yeah, your competition is always trying to improve and do better.

So

you got to keep that mindset of like as a company, even a big company, you got to improve and you got to figure out how to do the next thing that's going to elevate you to that even bigger than where you're at currently, or that the smaller competition

can't catch up.

Yeah. You get overconfident and that overconfidence, really hinders your ability to see things. That's why, like, big companies, they rely on their salespeople as reconnaissance, their salespeople out there talking to vendors. You can get a lot of information from them about what's going on in real time, like what's the pulse of the market where things turning.

But the other thing

that

will happen with a lot of small business owners, and this is one of the things that's tough when you're

single owner, is you can easily get into this myopic type thinking

without a board.

So one of the nice things about a board of directors or partners is there's these countering views that that little bit of tension helps work through paradoxes and work through problems, because

you're coming up with ideas and you're trying to solve problems. And then having that collaboration is good. But sometimes when you're a single business owner, you can really think one way and you can really deviate off course, and you try to do the same thing over and over again, and there's nobody telling you.

Hey, let's try something different. That can be a challenge too.

well, for a small business owner that doesn't have a board of directors, can they create a pseudo board of directors? Like what would that look like? Could you go to three three good friends and be like, hey, I trust you to open up and really be honest about my business.

that business owner, like if they wanted to recreate that in their life. Yeah. Any suggestions on how they go about it without being a big corporation with an actual board?

Right? Right, right. Yes. No. That's a great question to like, you know, arranging some people that you think would be good,

help kind of guide you. Kind of going back to that mentor, is a probably a great way to do it,

I think, to also really,

reading and

listening, even listening to podcasts that have with your guys that you like, that you look up to, you

And then even just asking the question,

through Google, right. You know, hey, this is I remember a problem with this and see what kind of resources you can come up with that. But I but I do but I do like that idea to of because there's something about talking things through with people that can really help

Yeah. So as a small business owner that is maybe struggling with their business and is looking for new perspectives and ideas, all hope is not lost just because the big corporations have just plagiarized the concept. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Agree with that. Pablo Picasso said great artist. Copy or good artists copy.

Great artists steal. I think Apple lived by that, too. So that was their thing. Steve Jobs thing. Yeah. And I love rising stuff. I mean, I know it has a negative connotation in the literature world, but hey, the business world, hey, if you could do it, do it. Yeah. That's right. Somebody works. It works it out. You could take it and make it better.

Yeah, absolutely. That's what that's what we live in. That's right, that's right.

Now I want to I want to go like kind of full circle, going somewhat somewhat back to the culture question that we skipped over earlier on in the conversation

Yeah. So how important is employee engagement? Or in addition to that, performance management

your team is everything.

And so it kind of goes back to what I was saying before about how to show showing up. You know, you really got to be cognizant about how you show up

you lack in that area, that can really come down and trickle down into the team and it can really start to.

So,

toxic culture. Right? So it's kind of like, I mean, you

know, if you have one bad seed in your culture that can be like cancer, that can grow.

cynicism really is dangerous to culture. You know, you look at it, I always love that,

scene with Willy Wonka where, she's like, it's not as Barry who's ever heard of a very.

And he's like,

we are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams. You know, the way he shuts that cynicism down, right? You know? And so there's that thing where you want your culture to be imaginative. You want people to feel uplifted and feel good and feel like they're a part of something and they're a part of a purpose.

And,

It's so important because people want to believe in something. They want to be led. They want to have. They want to grow. Like I said, if, you know, if they're there for six months, if they grow, that's fantastic. You know,

you start losing your culture, you start, you start, things start to really, decelerate quickly. Right? And so it almost at that point requires like an overhaul, you

give you an example like the with the Kings, right?

You know,

didn't have the capital to reinvest in the kings by not reinvesting the kings. They weren't get the right players but not getting the right players. They weren't getting people going to the games, but people not going to the games. They weren't buying merchandise. So it starts to trickle down. You know, you have to recap the whole operation.

You have to sell it. You have to get it fresh. New owners in with a heavy handed capital rebrand and do the whole thing. So it's the same thing. Same thing with culture. You start having one, you're not showing up. Good for your team and they start feeling doubt and that doubt starts to spread next. You know, the whole thing is just you got to just restart everything, you know?

Yeah, I could definitely see how those could be disasters for culture and the cascading problems.

If you had to pick between like bad people, bad processes or bad leadership, what do you think is the most dangerous aspect to an organization?

I think having a yes culture is the most dangerous aspect.

I

think when you because there's examples of companies where everything has to go through one guy.

And I think when you restrict

your staff from being empowered to have discretion over certain things and decisions and

even if it's just you and you have two employees. When you're collaborative, it goes such a long ways.

When you're anti collaborative

and

everything is your way of the highway. And you don't allow people in,

good luck. That's going to be really challenging, you know, because you'll start to get, you know, you won't grow, you

it really is detrimental to your operation.

I think you've got to have because you can only do so much, you know, and if you want to stretch yourself thin and make all the decisions,

you're going to really limit yourself. And it seems like, you know, people do this to they'll go,

well, they don't do it as good as means you have. Course, no one's going to do as good as you if you're the owner, right?

But you can still leverage yourself

and still create opportunity. Empower them to feel like they have some responsibility or more that they can grow with you. And then they can. And sometimes they'll bring a lot of times they'll bring a lot of ideas and innovation on the forefront, and people want to have that ability. They don't want to just be told what to do A, B, and C, that's all I got to do.

So, you know, I think really eliminating that, yes, culture is really important.

that's a good point. Find what you can delegate delegate that to a degree. And if it passes a threshold then they can come to you.

But yeah figure out how to give them the autonomy to I mean they're dealing with customers and dealing with dealing with the day to day operations.

So they're going to have their own perspective on it, and they're going to identify some inefficiencies that may have gone overlooked. So having that collaboration, to your point, probably will open up things that you may have not have crossed, came across by yourself by just, you know, being the owner, doing whatever you're doing. So, yeah, I think that's a that's a good way to kind of frame it.

Now, you mentioned this earlier on. You're like, I got this location. The demographics are good,

Location, Unit Economics, and When to Expand

you know, I've always heard location, location, location growing up. So in 2026 is is that still very important if you have a storefront. Yeah, it kind of it is depending on what you're doing with a storefront. Like a like a restaurant.

Absolutely. Right. Yeah.

Unless you have a brand and you're if again, if you are a destination location, you could drive sales in that way. But, you know, even with a restaurant, you can do a lot of online. Online ordering right now is really huge, right? You know, so, you know, you'll do 8 to 10% top line revenue in online ordering.

That's a big thing you know, right now. And that's growing.

what really matters is, is, is what's what's that lease price of that look and working that out.

Right. So if you have this really expensive lease and

the foot traffic isn't there, that's going to be real challenge, you know,

then I think also

terms of a restaurant, I think events are so key. People want that experience

people will are willing to drive somewhere if they know they're getting an experience. So they know that there's bands, live music, you know, comedy show, you know, music trivia, things like that,

I think, like, you see, with a lot of other

businesses, you see the storefronts are closed, a lot of dark space. I think

these big box retailers that used to come in with so much scale are really getting eaten alive by Amazon. Right? So for them to have all that inventory, all that, you know,

huge lease space of some of these places, I think they're the ones that are getting hit the hardest

what are the indicators that a business is ready to scale

to the next location. Oh that's great. That's a great question. Yeah. So

when you start identifying areas

that is you're seeing margin expansion.

So

if you have a location and you're you're getting you start you had 100 customers a month and now you have 200 because that 200 you're seeing cost marginalized. And your, unit economics are good. Right? So when you start analyzing everything we're seeing this reduction in cost is this rise in revenue. People are starting to come in.

Then that starts to have revenue generated to start something else and move on. And you might think that like, okay, we're getting so much traction here. Opening up another location,

it's kind of nice when you can turn key because you know the concept, you know the model, and you can drop it in somewhere else.

And so you pick the right kind of area that fits

your brand and what you're doing.

So it's it's really whenever your, your profits are just scaling in a way where

you can't, you can't kind of keep up. It's smells like yeah, yeah. Those should be some signals to maybe start looking at expansion and, and maybe offload some of those.

Yeah. To the next location and and then and then grow that. Right. What are your thoughts on the artificial intelligence now. I mean with businesses opening up and this new industry of yeah, AI, how important is it for companies to start adopting AI, or is that

AI and Technology in Business

still something maybe four out that they shouldn't be concerned about? Yeah, I think it's really important because it's, you know, it's it's what everybody's doing.

So if you're not doing it, someone else is going to do it. They're going to have a competitive advantage over you. If you're not using AI.

I think that it's good to go into AI with with with boundaries. Right. And and look at it like I'll give you an example. AI is phenomenal for, responding to emails and mundane tasks.

Right. So again, if I respond to an email using AI, I don't just go, oh yeah, I respond to this email and then don't look at it. Look at it free to go. Maybe they'll add a little bit and it still save you some time. Right. But I think with AI when you look at this to this is really important.

the early 1900s, you had 91%, I think 92 or 91% of the labor economy was farming. So

Frederick Taylor came up with this idea that he talked about with the shovel.

When the shovel was invented, it would take ten guys to move this kind of material. Right now, with the shovel, it takes three guys. Now, people would always say, oh, that's going to be so bad for the economy and all this stuff. But it never is. Anytime you're focused on productivity and reducing costs, the the aggregate economy benefits because that money goes back in and stimulates velocity of transactions.

That's really the key thing. I mean, the more transactions and the more velocity we have of money,

the more opportunities get created. So AI will create and new demand, there's no doubt about that.

A

lot of people have this fear of it. But if you look at we had this I mean, right now what's happened with AI is no different to some degree than what happened with the internet and Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel.

I mean, you had these companies that people could have stuck using paper

spreadsheets, but we use Excel now because using Excel saves us a lot of time. A lot of money reduces error. That creates business progress, that creates

capital surplus and things like that. So

think that

you can use AI in your business and use it appropriately, but don't let AI be such a training wheel that you forget what you're doing and what what its progress is.

So use it as a spice. You know, at use it to enhance things, but make

don't wanna inhibit the creative process with AI. And I think that's going to be a big thing to you with companies is

not impeding innovation and creativity, but using AI to enhance that innovation and creativity.

And that requires a really good panoramic view of what that looks like in your operation.

definitely use it like an assistant. Like you said, they can help you.

maybe polish up some stuff and help you get some efficiencies. Like you said, the Excel word. And it's kind of like this new tool.

So use it for kind of what it's designed for. But don't let it replace your creative process, because then you may lose that creative touch in general. And who knows what they'll lead to in the in the long run.

you said that businesses that are adopting it, they're going to have some type of competitive advantage. So for the business owner that's starting out and is not thinking about AI or is not going to implement AI in their business, you think that they're going to be left behind?

I do, yeah. I mean, you know, it kind of depends on I mean,

it

kind of depends on what businesses are doing. Like some of the businesses that I love are like service businesses, whether it be, you know, pest control,

pool cleaning, things like that. There's always a lot of margin

there's always, people that don't want to do that work.

That's why you're doing it, and that's why they're paying you. Well, right. You know. So but but even even in cases like that, I think, I think AI is going to be important when it comes to like, you know, booking your calendar or again, I think it's important I think that, you know, if somebody is afraid of AI,

would say start small with it, right?

Start just looking at where little things that it can do because, you know, even,

Socrates said,

I fear that the pen because I think writing things down were ruin people's memories. That's what he was worried about with with pen. So people always have throughout history, we've always had a fear of technology, you know, but the technology is coming whether we like it or not.

So the best thing for us to do is to see how we can adopt it, you know, and again, be very mindful and meaningful with that adoption of how does that look in the business and how is that going to scale or how is that going to help or benefit us? Right. And then make sure it doesn't, you know, it is not

impeding your growth or anchoring you to something, right?

Which it shouldn't theoretically. Right. It should benefit you, you

But now what? The technology now became more more prominent in the business. What do you think about business acumen versus IT acumen

Customer Experience, Marketing, and Community

in the historically I would always hear like, hey, as a C-suite, as an executive, as a business owner, you really should have the business acumen, because that's what's really going to drive culture and people and so on and so forth.

But now with AI, is there are we seeing a shift into it, acumen being more important, or would you say that business acumen is still more important than IT and running a business? That's a great question. Yeah. I think, you know, the the amalgamation of the two effectively is good. I think your biggest asset going forward with business acumen, that's going to be really important.

I really think that reading between the lines is going to be a great asset going forward, that dedicated focus. Right.

Because it's going to be so easy because, you know,

we're going to get really distracted. I mean, even right now they're doing they do so many,

studies right now, a lot of universities and studies on on the effects of apps and video games and what that does, I mean, you know, of Wisconsin and China conferred on this study with video games and app usage that saw a full point GPA drop in kids.

Right? Just from just from all that screen time. Right. How that affects how they retain information. And this is this is all new stuff. Right. So we have to be so mindful about how this technology is affecting us, our, you know, our spirit, our brain.

And so again then once that study released, China actually outlawed video games for kids

hour and a half per week because it saw how what it was doing, and then all the apps usage and then, you know, looking at,

lot of these, these fake videos, they're starting to find out that it's, you know, creating false memories in people.

Right?

And

so,

getting back to your point, I think that that that dedicated focus of boundaries on the technology, using the technology correctly, but having that ability to see through things and read between the lines and see where things are going, that's so paramount.

will always be in fashion. Right? You know, and so,

think that that's going to be the biggest thing.

I think that if you lead with that, if you leave with lead with a strong mind, strong acumen, the technology that IT stuff will take care of itself because you'll put those inputs in the right place.

think that'll be. Yeah. So you're leaning more towards the business acumen being more of an important skill set, because

you could read between the lines, see the people, understand the industry, have the long term thinking, you will then hire the IT talent to fill in the gaps.

Or maybe the AI stuff and the other stuff. You'll kind of be more people driven, put together the right resources to do those things. So

What would you say are the qualities that someone needs to have to be successful in business?

the thing I noticed with with the people that do really well in business is,

high emotional intelligence, right? Being very humble, being willing to do whatever it takes to

something done, being willing to, you know, if they got to drive the truck themself, they'll do it, right.

You know, if they've got to get something somewhere, they'll make sure it gets there. I think that's really, really key thing, being willing to learn and always being a student. I think those, those types, you know, just go so far. You know, one of the most powerful things is admitting that you're wrong. Right. There's one of the worst things that can happen

is when you think that you double down on on something,

you know, instead of going, look at yourself and going, how do I how could I do this?

But if you're constantly trying to improve yourself,

you're always going to try to try to see things the right way. And that's my point to that, is that in business there's going to be always moving parts. Everything that you plan to do, 20% will probably happen.

if someone's at home and they're terrified to start a business, but they kind of have that internal nudge that's saying, you know, maybe you should give it a try.

But at the same time they're really scared to start.

what kind of advice or recommendation would you tell that person? That's a great, great, great question. What I would do is like everything else, just start small. Start doing your due diligence. Right. I mean, depending on what you're doing, I mean, if you look at the gig economy right now, you can get on Fiverr right now and offer your services.

And I think it is so important just to get out there

just do it. Just start somewhere, right?

just make some step, get online. Let's say if you wanted to do

home service business like carpet cleaning, put a small ad out, spend 35 bucks, put an ad out on some small local newspaper

that advertises that, get a phone number and just start there.

Start talking to people. Right.

and it's really important to take that small step because you don't want to,

again, do all this heavy investment to find out. You know what? That's actually not I'm not into carpet cleaning. I don't want to do that, you know, or you know, so take take experiment a little bit. Go through it.

Discovery.

it reminds me of same Raimi. He's a director, right.

he goes, this guy goes, hey, so what is it going to take to what am I going to do to be a director I like, how do I do?

I need, you know, he was all these questions and he said, listen, if you want to be a director and you want to make movies by a camera, write a script,

go out, have your friends, shoot it with your friends, go through the scenes,

rewrite the script again, do it again and do it again. And then if you do it enough times, you're making movies.

You know you're making films. If you make films, you're a filmmaker, is what he said. Right? So his point was, was that it didn't take a lot. All it took was writing out a script, buying a camera, getting some friends together and just shooting it. But his point was, just go, just do

Yeah. So it's never been easier to start a business in today's market. And it sounds like if you can do a service based, business, it may be a little bit more easier than a product based

business, at least for starting off, because it's just less risky, less capital to kind of figure out how it all works and how operations are and so on and so forth.

Now, what about buying a business versus starting a business from scratch? Would you ever recommend one versus the other? Oh yeah. Absolutely. You know, a lot of your best businesses that you're going to buy be the ones that aren't advertised, you know. So that's where if you have a good network

and

you know someone that's, selling it, sometimes you can find some really good deals.

But buying a business is great because once again, it goes back to that turnkey aspect, right? Like if it's if the business is now the business is really successful, you're going to pay a premium for buying that business. I always recommend to that. You,

Long-Term Vision for Block

work with like an attorney or work with a professional to value the business, because you will see when you buy a business from somebody that's that they're really

been doing it for a long time.

There's a thing called the endowment effect where their their value, their idea of the valuation of the business is always going to be way more than what it really is. Right.

you want to like, you know, what's the true value of this business? How can I come in and make an impact? How can I grow it? What what investment do I need to do, whether it's, you know, money, time, effort that can actually enhance this and

and grow the business.

But really and also looking at where is where is the business going. Like

there a downturn. Is there. I mean, even little things like you want to see if there's any UCC one filings against the business, you want to make sure that there's they're not in debt and that that's going to debts going to follow when you buy it.

So there's all those things too. But but you had to bind an existing business. Sometimes that can be sometimes the best thing you can do. Because again, people like I mentioned earlier, people sell businesses for all kinds of reasons. You know,

spouse gets cancer, they get divorced, they want to move. They just decide they just want to retire.

And you can find some great deals that way. And one of the great things about being a buyer

versus a seller is that you have full discretion to move on to the next one. So if you're looking at businesses and one just doesn't hit hit at all for you, you can go look at another one. Whereas if you're the seller, you've got to sell that business.

You've got to find a buyer, you know.

So

it's kind of nice to be in that position where if you've got some money saved up or you've got some investment backing,

you can set the tone for what you want to, what you want to buy, you

Yeah. So you don't always have to start everything from scratch. If there's a, a business that's in your industry that you could take and you could scale it and improve it, and

then maybe it's just an easier route or a location or it has employees or it has processes.

You come in and you tweak those things, find those efficiencies, and then you're off to the races. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's kind of the key fundamental principle. When companies acquire other companies, they acquire their companies

integrate and then create scale and create efficiencies or to adopt the technology or whatever the reason is. But usually, you know, there's a lot of benefit to that acquisition, right?

So it's kind of the same concept when you're buying a business already working,

then making it better. Yeah. If someone was one of the dive deeper into finding those businesses that are for sale,

where can people go to a search or window shop and find some of those opportunities?

know, you're so busy. Busy by sell. Is it by sale online? Usually one of the that's that's a big online website for businesses for sale. A lot of people go there. That's good business brokers. Good.

there's nothing wrong with you calling them up and having interest in it, you know,

and asking them some questions, seeing how far you can get, you know, hey, what you know, what's what?

What are you what are you guys, Helen, guy's been in business for? What do you guys sell?

sometimes you'll have to sign an NDA for that, but, it's great to get out there, start talking to people and see.

the opportunity is in that. Right. And you'll you'll find some good ones.

You'll definitely find some bad ones for sale because they're out there for sure.

yeah. So with with all this business talk, what's the roadmap for block in the next 3 to 5 years. Where do you plan

on taking it.

Yeah that's a great question. Yeah. So for for block what we want to do is I mean we definitely want to expand into more locations. It's going to give us a lot bigger footprint in Sacramento,

we are going to again reinvest in the restaurant.

So again, that's going to be it's going to be very much,

accommodating for people to come in and hang out for long periods of time.

Again, we're going to have

music events and a golf putting outside. There's going to be a chess set outside, you know, there's going to be,

these key amenities that make you want to stay, right. So that's going to be our thing. So and then through that process we're going to figure out what works and what doesn't and really try to hone a

product offering a concept that that people love that they can

come into.

And it's their community hangout and they, you know, they want to be there.

So

we'll want to do that. We're going to get into brewing our own beer. So we will be releasing three beers in the next few months, which is going to be really great. So we'd love to get that into distribution.

Also, we're going to

work on not until the next year, but

getting a block beer cart to do events. So there's going to be, you know, concerts and things like that.

then getting into,

a new location. So we're going to be on the hunt looking for restaurants that have closed down the infrastructure still there. We can roll out the same concept, turnkey, come in, assume the lease,

So I think that'll be that'll be good. And I think the big thing we're excited about is bringing our own beer on that. There's something about that that really is good for our brand is to have just three of our own beers, you know, that we can sell

Well. That's exciting. I'm glad you guys came the second window, because I think Sacramento is the best city in California.

It is. You guys are. Yeah. Yeah, yeah I know we love love being or you I know Sacramento is great and they never talk about that. They never know never talks about how eclectic is. There is nowhere else in the world where you can start in Reno area. Right. And that's a tundra. Get a gambling city. You got South Lake Tahoe,

you

got Sacramento, you got Marin County.

Napa, San Francisco, all these great places with great

with different topography, different environments, different atmosphere, nowhere else in the world. You have that range in a short amount of time. And

if you go to Oklahoma, you're going to be driving eight hours, the same thing. You're going to go to same thing in other countries. And, you know, we have so much in such a small amount of space.

It's incredible. Yeah, we're we're so close to everything is just a quick drive. So yeah, it's one of the perks of, of being in the Valley. But yeah. I think we're also overlooked quite a bit, so. Yeah. But I know looking forward to your next location for the one you have currently and then for your expansions and to the events, it's going to be awesome.

And I mean, again, you're in the best city. So I think you're going to be super successful

from everything that we talked about for the listener, what's one thing that you hope they got out of today's conversation? You know, I hope yeah, that's a great question. I hope that they felt like,

Advice for New Entrepreneurs

there was some hope if they're looking to start a business and even if it's not, even if it's just getting into a hobby, just that framework of of starting off small, you know,

don't have to be overwhelmed.

You can just, you know, never play guitar. Just pick it up and start plucking a string. Right. Just start somewhere,

you know, if they feel like they need that little extra push to get going in that inspiration, just don't be afraid. Start small. Manage. Manage your risk. And and you can just go from there. You know I think that would be it.

Well they heard it from the expert himself. Yeah. That's great. Yeah, yeah. Jason,

Where to Find Jason and Block

someone who wants to get in touch with you or maybe ask you some more questions or pick your brain, where can people follow you on your social media accounts? And how can they get in touch? Yeah, that'd be great. So I use my primary social media, uses X Twitter.

I still call it Twitter, but it's it's at J Joker, so it's just my last name, Joker's, but with a J in front. So J Joker is my Twitter.

yeah, I think that that Facebook Jason Joker's

and then, you know, through block, you know, Block Craft Beer & Kitchen. So if they find that on social media,

always on those accounts so you can get in touch with me that way too as well.

Awesome. We'll make sure we put the lower thirds on the screen there. For the audio listeners, just drill into the actual description. We'll have access to all of the content to your socials, as well as the block craft

beer and kitchen, the socials for that as well.

So, Jason, yeah, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story and giving us some of your business insights and some of your advice and tips and encouragement on just business in general. It's been really fun. Yeah, I appreciate that. Thanks for having me. It was really great. Like I said, it was first podcast. It was exciting.

This was really cool. So I really appreciate you having me on.

Closing Takeaways

the viewers, I think what stands out

the most into these conversations, that business is not just about sales, marketing

It's also about relationships and creating something that you genuinely impacts the people and the community around you. So thank you again, Jason, and thank you for watching the podcast.

We'll catch you guys in the next one. Again, thanks so much I appreciate it.

Yeah. So as a small business owner that is maybe struggling with their business and is looking for new perspectives and ideas, all hope is not lost just because the big corporations have just plagiarized the concept. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly, exactly. Agree with that. Pablo Picasso said great artist. Copy or good artists copy.