Hi, everyone. Im j. J. Ramberg and welcome to your business, the show dedicated to helping your growing business. How many of you love a good food truck . The meals have definitely come a long way. You no longer have to settle for hot dogs or pretzels. With hungry customers always lined up, two virginia Business Owners have made food trucks their lives, not only their own trucks, but they started a company to help others. The strategy has been so successful that many food truck owners are now rolling in the dough. Our entire approach to growth is problem solving. Growth is painful and uncomfortable. Edz wardo and jason know it can be scary to expand your company. When you start a business, and youre taking a huge risk, you know, everything weve done has been in response to trying to solve a problem for our customer. The owners of east coast mobile business launchpad in manassas, virginia, are so focused on the success of their clients that theyve made Business Decisions designed to support them. Our intent is two things. One is to make it easier to run a food truck so that more people can get into the business, right, ask two, mow were focusing on helping people scale. What started as a company that only customized food trucks in 2007 has transformed into a onestop shop that keeps these restaurants on wheels rolling around washington, d. C. , maryland, and virginia. Foot food trucks are now like its own attraction. Were Firm Believers that you dont really need that brick and mortar to make money. Its not a locationbased business. Thats the point. Its not a model based location business which means that your rent is cheap and the second thing is, no seating. Eduardo started after buying his first food truck in texas. It was an awful experience and he didnt want anyone else suffering the sedback that he did. I the bought it in virginia, i had to rebuild it essentially and i was like, i cant possibly be the only person with this problem. I said man, if this guy can the do food trucks, i can do food trucks. I crunched the numbers and it worked. Both men loved foot and it worked in many different kitchens. It was that experience they shared with customers buying their first, second and even third trucks. You have to really understand what it takes to put together a dish in order to understand what equipment you need to put that together and in which order it needs to be laid out in order to make it as efficient as possible. We know how to value the risk. Theyve transformed the food truck industry by offering more and more services. The expansion was largely the result of listening to customers and their needs. The pair saw opportunities they couldnt refuse. Were set up to serve the widest possible range of people that want to start a food truck. And our services are you can take them or leave them. Nobody offers the same number of services, nobody. East coast takes its customers through every step of the process. It now sources trucks, customizes the kitchens, orders equipment, arranges branding and advises on business structuring. They even offer advice about what food to sell. Make sure the menu makes sense to people and that theyve ordered stuff similar. Theres now a second location where operators can have trucks checked out as part of a service deal. The pair has financed some of their equipment theyve built by using their own profits. Most people cant come up with 60,000 or 70,000. We were seeing people who had really good concepts and who would be successful if they had the financing. And we wanted the sale. We then had to figure out how to get the sale. And if we can just help them bridge the gap to getting a completed truck, we know theyre going to pay us back. Those payments serve as added revenue during slower periods when theres time to focus on future products. The financing helps us to develop a revenue stream where we have guaranteed monthly money coming in and it gets us through the cyclical nature of the business. Now that they have so many customers on the road locally, nationally they want to make sure they can keep trucking. What we want is to see our customers succeed. Why . Because theyll open another food truck, right, and theyll succeed. Many customers dont know it, but eduardo and jason have food trucks of their own. One of the things that makes us a successful business is that were transparent and honest with people. It allows them to stay on top of trends and better understand the evolving needs of mobile Business Owners. When i open my food truck, none of that was available. And i made all the mistakes, burned all kinds of money on all the wrong things because you dont know which is the right problem to solve. People like conrad heise trust theyre in good hands. His questions are being answered and hes getting welcome advice. These guys do plenty already, but all of the work doesnt even pale in had comparison to their future goals. Our big picture growth plan is to replicate the auto industry, is to have a centralized Production Facility and have Service Centers in major urban areas around the country where we sell food truck builds, we service the local food truck fleet. It may seem overwhelming to some, but eduardo and jason have made this their mission. Theyve come up with ways to help their customers succeed and they thoroughly enjoy being by their side every step of the way. Weve got their back. Theyre not alone in starting the business. We want our customers to feel like were their partner in their endeavor. Food as we just saw is a real passion for a lot of people. And that love spawns many businesses. But what happens when you take your love for food and business and mix it with your love for your partner . Nbc sh had anell jones talk to two entrepreneur couples to find out. This couple has been flipping over good Old Fashioned flapjacks long before they said i do. Pancakes are an american staple. Everyone has eaten a pancake in their looimt. So we wanted to do something that relied on everyones personal experiences with pancakes. We started this business when we were dating, right out of college. Right out of college, yeah. And we got married a couple of years ago. 6 years ago, 20 somethings matt and lizzy griddled up their all natural, all american organic pancake and waffle mix, vendors, a bona fide business born out of a simple idea. The original idea for Birch Benders came up when i woke up one morning, i was really hungry, wanted pancakes, but i didnt want to go to the trouble of making pancakes. The hospital duo says it took 99 taste tests to settle on their one step recipes which only require water. Millennials like things fast and quick but delicious. So we wanted to make the best possible pancake experience with the least possible work. I had a feeling we were on to something because there wasnt anything like that. I truly fundamentally from the bottom of my heart believed that this would work. But it took a while. We would go to the stores and do two a day demos and we did that every day for a year. The concept paid off. The business now taking a bite out of an industry that serves up more than 200 million americans a year. We have 15 different heads of pancake, cinnamon, organic chop lat chip, pumpkin spice, butter milk. Sold at 6,000 groceries and big box retailers across the country. And its very rewarding to see how far its come. Pillow talk is a lot of pancake talk. Talking of mixing business. Pleasure, theres plenty of talk between this california couple. Four years ago, josh and rosy quit their jobs in toys and tech and started sugar phenom, a grownup candy boutique with unique flavors. The. The story has kind of followed our love story. Right. And it really started out of our third day. Josh took me to see willie wonka and the chocolate factory. It hasnt been done before. With 130 different textures, shapes and colors, the company now sells millions of pounds of candy a year. When we started sugarphenom, we thought it would be a hobby. And the response has been amazing. I think people really got it. Last summer, sugar phenas gummy bears made a splash commanding a wait list of 18,000 people. Were really lucky in that were in a working relationship and rosie gets to do all the creative packaging and design. I get to do the more boring things. Hes really good at the boring stuff. And i think were always on a constant sugar high, so that deaf had natalie helps our relationship. Yeah. And that sugar high has translated squarely into success. We know how lucky we are that we get to spend every day together. We get to travel, we get to taste and experiment and find new candies. Its a Pretty Amazing experience. Oh. Were happy today to have with us an incredibly successful entrepreneur who is also a if a lan thr philanthropist and his rags to riches story is being featured in a documentary. John paul, thank you so much tore joining us today. My pleasure. Youve got a great station. Youre super cool so its nice to be here. I wish we could talk with you the whole day, but youve been so successful in your life. And i know you started you were homeless. Things were hard. But i would love to hear from someone who is so successful about the time when you felt i need to give this all up. Did that ever happen to you . So many times. I was so down i could look up and see an apt. Obviously, its abdomen expression. But no, in fact, with John Paul Mitchell systems, because we only started west side 700, every day for two years, we should have gone bankrupt. It was tough. It was hand to mouth. And i and very difficult. It was like, why are we doing this . I cant pay the bills. I cant sleep at night. That happened many times. People are saying no, i cant get this from this person. A lot of times. But deep inside it was i know what we have is the greatest product for hair. I know if i keep on talking about it to enough people and they try it theyll be reordering it. And after two years, which is a big movement for us, after two years we were able to pay our bills on time. Not off, but pay them on time. We made it and 2,000 each. Since that time, were there ups and downs . Of course there were. But what you have to do is when you have ups and downs is realize that dont take your mind off the goal. Obstacles are things well always see, but you put your mind back on the goal and you go around those problems. Because many times people Pay Attention to the to the trivia many. And then you learn after a while, Pay Attention to the vital few, not the trivia many. They were subside. So do you think this is just your personality and who you are that you are just a go gutter and youre an optimist and youre ambitious or is there something that you did in the middle of the night when you were up at 2 00 in the morning worried . Well, when i was up at 2 00 in the morning worried, it didnt help any. The bills were still there the next day. But what happened later on, after a couple of years, i just started writing before i went to bed, challenges down. I cant pay this bill, i have this problem, write them all down on a piece of paper. Instead of thinking of them all night long, like most people do win put it in the bathroom so when i got up in the morning, you do what you do when you get up in the morning, its still there. I can remember every problem i have. I didnt have to think about it any more. And believe it or not, that helped in the years to come. I do believe it. I believe in all those tips and tricks you can do to help yourself get through the day and all these challenges. Sure. Every successful entrepreneur i have interviewed has this same attitude which is i dreamed so big, i dreamed ridiculously big. And when somebody didnt agree with me, instead of listening to them, you didnt listen to your distributor. Oh, no, no, no. I think thats where a lot of people get stuck, right . Thats true. They think their dreams are too large so they dont let themselves believe in them. Thats correct. Or if they have a dream like our original dream was only if we could do 5 million a year at paul mitchell, we would all make like 250,000, were set for life. When we got there, we realized we could do much better and we learned how to be bigger and bigger and bigger. Little did we know we would get into the millions. If you put all of ours together, it was over a million. I know in the news recently they sold one company, George Clooney was involved, a billion dollars. And they do 120,000 cases a year. Patrone does around 3 million cases. That puts us over 10 billion in value. You are a big philanthropist. Unfortunately we dont have time to get into that. Youre such an inspiring story. I appreciate you coming by and i encourage everyone to read the documentary and read the book. The American Dream is still alive and we business can make it. Keep your eye on that goal. There will be a lot of things along the way and theyll discourage you. As long as you know theres rejection coming, it doesnt hurt you as. Much. You are the example. Thank you so much. Youre very welcome. Thank you. It makes it a lot harder to be a good leader if you dont put some focus on your own health and well being. Entrepreneur magazine gives us these five high impact ways tore Business Leaders to protect their minds and increase their productivity. One, get a good nights sleep. According to a Harvard Medical School study, lack of sleep can reduce your focus and limit high brain functions. Get six to eight hours a night to achieve peak performance. Two, work on your eating habits. Our food is our bodys fuel. Put bad stuff in, get bad stuff out. Wholesome meals give you stable energy, fatty foods take more energy to break down and can cause you to feel drained. Three, get out and exercise. Regular exercise can help you be a better leader. Exercise reduces stress, fights depression, improves your confidence and boosts your creativity, all which makes you a better leader. Four, make time to meditate. No matter how spiritual you are, you can yof your performance by taking some time to unplug. Just five to ten minutes reflecting in keeping yourself grounded every day can make a big difference. And five, read voraciously. Reading has a direct impact on your emotional awareness. Read everything from news to selfhelp books to stay balanced and well informed. I recently stopped by the International Franchise expo in new york city where companies were wooing potential franchisors. Maybe your company has what it takes to be next. Where do you start . Shelly sun is the International Franchise association chairperson. There are more than 300 locations nationwide. So she knows what shes talking about. We asked her to give us the nittygritty of what you need to do if you want to franchise your business. I think from a franchise or a perspective, people need to know they have a solid business model. Ideally, theyve done it once for the company on location and replicated it a second and third time to know it wasnt just luck the first time and making sure that its something needed by the consume other a national scale, that its not a local or regional fad. And then i think theres skill sets that they might not have that theyre going to have to make sure they supplement with their own education and building out a team. But what are the mistakes that people make . I know a lot of people would say, i have a great company, i want to franchise it. And they dont quite understand, hey, this is going to be hard work. I think, one, most are not properly capitalized. I think like building a house, i think it will be done faster and cost less than it will, actually. So i think thats one. The second is i think they really underestimate the skill sets of the franchisees coming in have and, therefore, what we need to provide in terms of training. So, for example, you know, we had really robust Training Programs for our franchisees in terms of operations, sales, and clinical. Multiple weeks. We realize most of our franchisees have never looked at a profit. Loss statement. They dont have financial skills. So we had the to build that in and teach our franchisees that critical component. So you need to really put money, a lot of money aside for training. That is it. Absolutely. Thats really our only interaction with our franchisees. I send one or two of my people out to their location to help them refine the model, but in materials of having them have access to my entire team and myself, i get to do that in the training process. So thats critical. Do you suggest that you have a companyowned franchise first . I think its critical. Thats my own bias because i dont know how you train for something you havent done. And is everything before you franchise, was Everything Button upped . I think for us it was very buttoned up. I think was everything written down . I think theres things that as you do the business for a few years, you might just assume its known. So i think youre kind of fine tuning so write everything down. Youre fine tune to go make sure everything is written down. I think thats critical. Whats the biggest mistake people make in getting franchisees . I think its theyre anxious to grow the brand so they might not have the standards that they need and will evolve to hopefully with time. But i think theres multiple. Different criteria and i think it gets better as you have more franchisees. You certainly need to have a certain amount of money. They need to have a certain skill set, whether theyre going to be in an operations role or sales role. And then have they led people . So in our organization, once a franchisee gets to a very large scale, he may have direct and indirect employees of 400. Someone who hasnt managed white collar and blue collar labor when were utilizing, you know, low wage employees for some of our offerings, that were going to need franchisees that have that skill set. So one. And as we grow and scale, we use profiling tools to see who made great franchisees who were happy and who were under performing franchisees. As you grow. It is great to use data. Thank you, ali. Congratulations on the growth of your company and organization. It is really great talking to you. Thank you, my pleasure. Everyone stick around. Coming up on your business, we talk to our brain trust should you build an app for your company. If you do, how do you get people to download it. So thats the idea. What do you think . Hate to play devils advocate but. I kind of feel like its a game changer. I wouldnt go that far. Are you there . Hes probably on mute. Yeah. Gary wont like it. Why . Because hes gary. phone ringing what . Keep going yeah. laughs voice on phone its not millennial enough. There ar