#136 Decoding Success with Andrew Wilkinson Part 1

WEBVTT
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Check podcasts.
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The Bread and Butter Collective is a collection of hospitality
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professionals working together to help strengthen our industry to build
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strong culture, community and sustainability.
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I'm Kaylen McNeil and I'm Sam Jones and this is
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the Bread and Butter Podcast. Welcome to the Bread and
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Butter Podcast. Klen, You're not kiln oh Man, but you
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are a very special guest. Kalen can't be here today
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because he has strep throat and he feels really bad
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because today our guest is Andrew Wilkinson. Hello, Hello Andrew Wilkinson.
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So Andrew. For people who don't know you, let me
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give a brief bio. Sure, you're a billionaire former billionaire
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for details. Okay, yeah, former, that's that's a good thing
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to know you. You're you're also the lead in tiny
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Industries and Meta and aerow Press, amongst maybe what twenty
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thirty forty other companies. Yeah, wow, amazing. And you looked
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so young.
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I'm forty.
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That's not so young.
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If I shaved So the other day, I was doing
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my mustache about a week ago, and I trimmed it wrong,
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and so I had to cut the entire thing off.
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Otherwise I have a massive hole in it. Yeah, and
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my girlfriend shrieked, and she's like, never ever ever do
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that again. I look like I look like I'm like
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eighteen again.
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You know, this is the first time I think I've
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seen you with any facial hair.
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I can finally grow it at forty.
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Well, it took me forever to grow facial hair.
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You know.
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Want what got me going with facial hair with kids?
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It seems I started to have kids, hair just started
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to row up everywhere for me.
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It was gray hair?
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Was it?
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The moment I had kids, I got gray hair and
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I finally got back hair, which I'm not a big
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fan of. Two years ago, really, chat, I had nothing.
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I was like a naked mole rat.
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Yeah, you meet both. I had like twelve that you
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could really count, and now there's probably forty.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, speaking of your facial hair, whose idea was it
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to grow facial hair?
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It was Chatchypete's thought. He took a photo of myself
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and I said, tell me how to be more handsome,
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and it said grow a beard. I'm really here, we are.
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That's that's all it took to be more handsome. Apparently,
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apparently you've got naturally good looking jeans.
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Then yeah, I guess I don't know.
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So you just take your pictures sticking into chat chipeky
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and say make me.
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I just said, like, here's a bunch of photos of me,
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what should I do? What should I wear? How should
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I style my hair? And it gave me a bunch
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of advice and I felt really good about that. But
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then now there's this guy who's like viral on TikTok
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and he'll do really ugly photos of himself and say,
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what do you think of my face? Or how is
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my out fit? And it'll tell them it's amazing. So actually,
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I don't think it's I think it's just probably telling
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me what I want to hear.
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Well, isn't that The thing with AI is that it
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kind of goes off your prompts and it can read
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maybe a bit more into the prompts then you'd want
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to think, And so it gives you the answers it
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thinks that you're prompting it to give it.
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It's a little bit sick, a fantic, for sure. Yeah,
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although it's getting better.
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Okay, because when AI first started to become popular with
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with chat GTT, I kind of looked at it really quickly,
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and I asked a bunch of dumb questions and I
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got kind of dumb answers, and I got pretty good
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at asking really good questions and I got more interesting answers.
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But I didn't really like it that much at the time.
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It felt clunky, and it felt like it was all
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about how much effort you put into into coming up
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with a really brilliant question. If you can think of
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those questions, probably think of an answer to you. So
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I just kind of dropped it, But I keep hearing
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it gets better and better and better and more useful,
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and it's going to take the jobs of all the
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way workers.
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Yeah. So I mean, if you think about it, to
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use a coffee shop analogy, you know, four or five
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years ago, it was like it wasn't even like the intern,
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you know, training wage kind of employ right, It couldn't
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do basic things. If it was a robot, it would
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be you know, making terrible coffee and spilling things. But
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flash forward three years it's at the point where it
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could be the coffee roaster, the master coffee roaster, where
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it's doing something that requires taste and sophistication and learning.
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So in my industry in technology, We've gone from three
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years ago. You know, it's kind of like, oh, I
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can write like some website copy or something like that,
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to now doing the work of somebody that I would
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otherwise pay three hundred thousand dollars, so like a programmer,
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like a world class programmer. And that's really scary because
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if you just apply that to the rest of the economy.
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They're focused on that first because they're in tech, right,
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so they're building out AI to be amazing designers, programmers, copywriters,
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all those things. Now it's at the point where instead
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of hiring people, I'm just spending more and more money
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on AI credits. So we're spending like thirty forty thousand
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dollars a month in payroll, but it's just AI for
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digital employees basically. So it's scary. It's going to be
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really scary as that rolls across the economy.
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Why would you think that that chech people creating AI
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would create something that's inevitably gonna be their the demise
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of their industry, or maybe it's not the demise of
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the industry, maybe it's just a change. But why would
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someone create something so evidently self distrcy.
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Well, I think because it's so powerful, right, I think
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it's like a double edged or just like nuclear fission. Right,
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So it's like it can create a nuclear bomb and
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kill us all, but it can also create nuclear power.
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And I think it's like that times a thousand, because
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if you think about it, we are we will have
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the potential maybe if AI does do what it hopes
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to do to have crazy innovation that is basically automatic.
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So imagine, you know, two hundred years of cancer research
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in a five year period. That's possible because you can
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basically just take a thousand PhDs and they're just like
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a data center digital PhDs and be like, hey, go
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figure out cancer, Go figure out this rare disease. And
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so when that happens, it's like it could unlock so
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much incredible opportunity for humanity. And on the same side,
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it could also eliminate a lot of jobs. And there's
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an argument around you know, the economy maybe changes and
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we do jobs that we can never could have imagined.
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You know, if you told someone four hundred years ago,
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you go to a farmer and you explain to them
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that you were in a coffee shop, they would be
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like what are you talking about? That's not a job, right,
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So the economy invents new jobs sometimes, sure, But if
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you think about AI, it can eat any job that's
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behind a keyboard, and maybe with robots it can eat
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any job period. And so the entire economy has to
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change potentially.
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It kind of feels like the entire economy is on
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the cusp of a radical change even now. And I
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don't think of it as a change with AI, but
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having what you just said, it kind of makes sense
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that it's happening quicker and it's going to be more
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kind of a clean slate of the economy perhaps. Oh yeah,
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I've been thinking for the last couple of years, the
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entire global economy is going to be changing radically. We're
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not going to be working off the US the US
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greenback anymore. Oil is not going to be traded in
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it anymore. Gold may or may not have any kind
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of value anymore. And I don't know, have you got
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any predictions as to ask you how complete the economic
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change is going to be?
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So I used to I used to read the newspaper
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every single day. I'd read the New York Times, in
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the Wall Street Journal and local news and all that
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kind of stuff, and I found that I just would
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get into like anxiety loops about often about things that
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wouldn't actually directly affect me. So i'd, you know, obsessively
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read about what Trump was doing and then freak out.
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And at a certain point, I remember I was talking
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to a friend and he goes, you know, you live
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in an earthquake auction zone where a super thrust earthquake
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could hit at any moment. How much time do you
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spend thinking about that? And I said, well, I don't
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really think. I don't spend a lot of time thinking
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about it because I don't control it, and because I
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have an earthquake preparedness kit. I got one in my car,
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i have one in my basement. I've got food, I've
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got all those things. That's the best that I can do.
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And so once I prepared, then I realized it's way
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more fruitful to spend my time worrying about stuff I
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can control. And so I can't control geopolitics, I can't
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predict the price of oil, gold, any of that stuff.
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But with the AI stuff, I feel like I can
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spend my time understanding it and then preparing for that
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in some way, and So for me, that's been trying
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to invest in businesses that won't get blown up. It's
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been investing in like data centers and trying to find
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ways of protecting myself. But I feel like there's an
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earthq that's been accurately predicted. Like, imagine if we could
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accurately predict the earthquake, and I said, Sam, in three
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hundred and sixty five days, there's a super thrust earthquake
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that could kill twenty percent of Victoria's population. Everyone be
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freaking the fuck out, they would, But that's AI. That's
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like the media is headed for Earth. It's quite predictable,
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and nobody a lot of people I talk to, unless
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they're like tech nerds like me, are aware of what's coming.
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And I think it's the sad part about it is
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in some ways it's said, in some ways it's kind
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of ironic. But the people who are a white collar
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who went to school and got their degrees and they
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got the accounting CPA or they are a lawyer or
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whatever it is, those are the first jobs to go.
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And you know, you think about the Great Depression, it's
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like people who are laborers, those are the people getting
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laid off. You could have your wealthy lawyer neighbor hammering
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on your door asking you for money. Like, that's a
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strange world to be a part of, and I think
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that there could be a period where it's really rough.
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My long term belief is like this will create a
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lot of abundance and opportunity, and it can, to your point,
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reshape the entire economy, like communism and socialism could be
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possible because you can't have a couple dudes control an
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entire country, but you can't have a super intelligent AI.
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So maybe UBI and socialism and stuff is far more impossible.
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I don't know.
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Well, yeah, so AI is your earthquake preparedness kit. Kind
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of you're putting a lot of attention on that, trying
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to build up your folio INAI and understanding it so
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that you can kind of navigate through whatever's coming.
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I mean, that's what I'm doing personally, and I'm just
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trying to talk to everyone I can to tell them
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about what I think is coming. And it's hard to predict, right,
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it's very possible that people, I mean, look at realtors
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right when Zillo came out or realtor dot CA, everyone said, oh,
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realtors are screwed. No one's going to use a realtor. Well,
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it turns out that you still kind of need a
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person to trust, right, because people don't trust just listing
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it themselves. It's a million dollar assets, their biggest their
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biggest asset, and they want to sell it, right, so
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they still hire realtors. But realtors on paper makes no sense.
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They're You're giving this huge amount of money to somebody
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who opens the door, puts some photos up on realtor
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dot CA. Yeah, there's great realtors out there, don't get
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me wrong, I'm sure, but it's that shouldn't exist and
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yet it does, right. Or in the health system, we
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have fax machines still, so you know, you can always
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oh yeah, like all the hospitals. So I think like
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we can overestimate the change and how quick it comes.
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But I think in unregulated industries like it's coming really
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really quick.
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Well, in the hospitality industry, you see happening not only
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kind of in the back end, but out front to you.
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Now you see the whole whole entire restaurants that have
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no employees there. I think there was one that just
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opened up in California somewhere, and there's no employees. Wow,
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you order through at chiosk, there's arms in the back
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that are flipping your burgers and wrapping stuff up, and
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you don't necessarily have to talk to anyone. But that's
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not why I go out to eat.
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Okay, you want to, right, you want to, Well, that's
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that's a huge with other people. That's not why you
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go out to eat most of the time. But there
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are times where you probably go. You know, if it's
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you know, labor cost is what thirty five percent of
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the price, right, And so you go in and you say, Okay,
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I can buy a burger for twelve dollars and I'll
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have a human do it. Or I can buy a
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burger for eight dollars and it's just a robot. But
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I just go in and it's really fast and it's
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really consistent. So I feel like, on the low end,
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I could definitely see that being fine. Yeah, But on
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the high end, you know, you out for dinner, you
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want to talk to a human, you want to look
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them in the eye, you want to feel that sense
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of artistry and craftsmanship.
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Absolutely, And you're absolutely right. I think that if you're
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just going for the burger or going to get some
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food in your gut, and you're just drive and you
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don't really care, you don't have plans where lunch with
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a friend. Then yeah, I can see that working.
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But but you know this better than anyone, right, you
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know about creating a culture and a vibe in a space. Right,
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people go to two percent jazz because they want to
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talk to you, or they know that amazing music is
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going to be playing, or there's going to be people
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that are charming to talk to, or the coffee is
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going to be incredible. Like those all come together, and
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we all know we could make coffee for a fifth
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of the costs at home, but instead I want to
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go and I want to be around other people. Yeah,
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so there's still a humanity there. The problem is, you know,
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if the AI stuff happens, like in thirty percent of
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people are just suddenly unemployed or feeling like maybe I
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will be unemployed in a year, it's going to be
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interesting to think about which businesses will survive that.
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Yeah. Yeah, it's a little daunting for sure. I mean
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it's also there's at the end of that tunnel. It
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feels like it feels like it could all be really
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great once we're through it. But we definitely I feel
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like we're going to go through some hard times before
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we get out to the other side with a newer
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economy with different objectives. In that economy, it's not just
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to make money, because maybe we don't need it for
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all that much anymore. If people don't have jobs and
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aren't getting paid, and things are being done by AI
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and they're so much cheaper, and we develop great sources
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of energy that don't cost us very much, why do
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we need an economy at all.
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I mean it's a little bit like newspapers, right. So
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people love newspapers and they have an affinity for them,
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and they are important in a city, you know, flipping
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over rocks and seeing what crawls out in the dark.
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But people were people who worked in the newspaper industry
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were very upset when that got disrupted and we were
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left with the consequences of not having great news in
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many cities. But what used to happen is you'd have
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some rich person who spent five or ten million dollars
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on a printing press. They would have a monopoly in
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a city and they would get to control and make
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all the money from that. Now we have people any
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journalists can spin up a sub stack and they're going
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to make two or three thousand, or five thousand or
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ten thousand dollars a month. Some of them make millions.
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But there's no newspaper baron anymore.
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Now.
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It's sad for the people in that industry, but we're
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also given a lot more creative freedom. If you're a writer,
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you do not need the middleman, You do not need
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the rich person with the printing press to do that.
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And I think what's exciting about AI is like anyone
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now can do things that would otherwise cost them one
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hundred thousand dollars. Like you could make a website that
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is as good as metal ab could make yourself using
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Claude in a few days. Right, that's what's crazy about this.
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How does that make you feel? Coming from that industry
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and being on the on the edge of it all
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the time, and like really pushing where website designs? You did?
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I don't know if I thought this right, but you
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did slack, did you? And a bunch of work on shop.
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As well, chopfy Uber, slack YouTube about while Yeah.
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Wow, so not all came from your own creation or what.
325
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Came from working in your coffee shop.
326
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Because you really hated it.
327
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I loved it. I hated waking up early. Yeah, so
328
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I hated waking up and taking the bus at five
329
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in the morning. But I always tell people being a
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brist is a really damn good job because I like
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to talk and I'm extroverted, and I loved working for you,
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and I loved chatting with all the customers and it
333
00:18:30.960 --> 00:18:33.079
was awesome. I'm just so damn tired.
334
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Right so early. I guess for people who don't know you,
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you did used to work at two.
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Percent Jazz twenty two years ago? Was it twenty years
337
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It was crazy?
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Oh my god? Yeah, yeah, I think two percent Jazz
339
00:18:48.440 --> 00:18:53.160
turned exactly thirty this month. But I don't know what day.
340
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You should be very proud you eat all the all
341
00:18:55.960 --> 00:18:59.519
the statistics on a small business. That's an incredible thing.
342
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But is it wrong that it feels like it's my
343
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first year still? You know?
344
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I think that's normal. I feel I feel I don't know,
345
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I mean definitely don't look at me and think, oh,
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he's got all these businesses and it's easy. Like I
347
00:19:12.440 --> 00:19:16.759
feel like every year there's some new crisis or thing
348
00:19:16.799 --> 00:19:18.880
that comes up that makes it all feel like year
349
00:19:18.920 --> 00:19:21.599
one and the stress. I just want the stress to
350
00:19:21.640 --> 00:19:22.920
go in. It never quite does.
351
00:19:23.359 --> 00:19:26.200
Yeah, I'm at the point where I'm I'm exhausted of
352
00:19:26.680 --> 00:19:32.039
being so busy and being stretched, and you know, I'm
353
00:19:32.480 --> 00:19:34.960
getting older. I think it's definitely time for a change
354
00:19:35.000 --> 00:19:39.920
for me. But that's a different conversation entirely. But when
355
00:19:40.319 --> 00:19:43.359
you used to work work at two percent Jazz, it
356
00:19:43.519 --> 00:19:47.960
was that was some of the funnest times. I think
357
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that I can remember being behind a bar.
358
00:19:50.599 --> 00:19:56.359
Oh yeah, you me, Jeff Mo, Yeah, and oh and
359
00:19:56.799 --> 00:20:00.640
mister Zach and Zach yeah, young you guys went to
360
00:20:00.640 --> 00:20:01.200
school together.
361
00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:03.720
We did okay. That's how we ended up working for you.
362
00:20:03.759 --> 00:20:07.559
I think, okay, because the two of you together were
363
00:20:07.839 --> 00:20:08.880
just a riot.
364
00:20:09.400 --> 00:20:13.559
I remember laughing harder than I've ever laughed, especially with Mo.
365
00:20:14.200 --> 00:20:19.240
She's so funny, she's awesome. She she's still is awesome. Yeah.
366
00:20:19.240 --> 00:20:21.799
I haven't seen her, And it's so weird how in Victoria.
367
00:20:21.960 --> 00:20:24.799
I always think it's such a small place, but sometimes
368
00:20:24.839 --> 00:20:27.480
I just I won't see someone for twenty years somehow,
369
00:20:27.720 --> 00:20:30.359
this are my dad, My dad saw her, she had
370
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a baby. I think, yeah, yeah, yeah, my dad ran
371
00:20:32.680 --> 00:20:35.319
into her. But I haven't seen her. It's awesome full
372
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of beans.
373
00:20:36.240 --> 00:20:41.559
Yeah yeah, and she's doing so did and yeah, we
374
00:20:42.400 --> 00:20:46.319
used to have a really fun time. And you can't.
375
00:20:46.559 --> 00:20:49.599
You can't have a cathete like that anymore. I don't think.
376
00:20:50.279 --> 00:20:52.240
I think has changed.
377
00:20:52.680 --> 00:20:58.039
Well, just how we had fun, who we had that
378
00:20:58.319 --> 00:21:06.119
fun at their expense. You just can't do that anymore.
379
00:21:06.119 --> 00:21:10.720
We're good or for ill. I really miss those times.
380
00:21:11.039 --> 00:21:14.559
And that's why I got into this kind of business,
381
00:21:14.640 --> 00:21:17.599
is because I love having a good time. I love
382
00:21:18.160 --> 00:21:21.720
being a host to entertain people when they come into
383
00:21:21.720 --> 00:21:27.920
my house or my cafe. And that particular group of
384
00:21:28.400 --> 00:21:31.400
people that we had there at that time was the
385
00:21:31.440 --> 00:21:34.759
most fun. I've lost of other really hilarious people who
386
00:21:34.839 --> 00:21:38.640
worked with me in the past, but that particular moment
387
00:21:38.680 --> 00:21:41.480
in time will always be there for me. And it
388
00:21:41.559 --> 00:21:44.039
was so much fun. And I look back to it
389
00:21:44.079 --> 00:21:48.079
and go, I wish I was still having that much fun.
390
00:21:48.599 --> 00:21:55.400
But as we grow up and responsibilities and everything changes, Yeah,
391
00:21:55.880 --> 00:21:56.839
I miss those times.
392
00:21:56.880 --> 00:22:02.519
Man. Like every entrepreneur I know, you say, wow, you
393
00:22:02.599 --> 00:22:04.640
must be so proud, right, So I just said, you
394
00:22:04.720 --> 00:22:06.319
must be so proud. You've been running your business for
395
00:22:06.319 --> 00:22:09.599
thirty years. You're roasting. You've expanded all this stuff, and
396
00:22:09.839 --> 00:22:12.279
to you, you're going, oh, I missed the old days.
397
00:22:12.319 --> 00:22:14.559
And the way. The analogy I always use is like
398
00:22:15.319 --> 00:22:18.039
if I started a business where I chopped wood. Let's say,
399
00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:19.759
just chop wood because I love it in my backyard
400
00:22:19.799 --> 00:22:22.559
and I've got a wood burning fireplace, and my neighbor
401
00:22:22.559 --> 00:22:24.559
pokes his head over the fence and says, hey, would
402
00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:26.160
you chop me some wood too, and I'll pay you
403
00:22:26.200 --> 00:22:28.559
for a cord. And suddenly I'm like, oh my god,
404
00:22:28.599 --> 00:22:30.839
this thing I love is now a business. You know,
405
00:22:30.839 --> 00:22:33.880
I'm making one hundred bucks a day, then three hundred.
406
00:22:33.960 --> 00:22:36.039
Then I hire a buddy and we're laughing our heads
407
00:22:36.039 --> 00:22:38.480
off and chopping wood together. And then if you flash
408
00:22:38.519 --> 00:22:41.240
forward twenty years, you wake up and I own a
409
00:22:41.279 --> 00:22:45.200
sawmill and I'm just doing Excel spreadsheets and trying to
410
00:22:45.200 --> 00:22:49.200
make payroll and I'm talking to my bank, and you know,
411
00:22:49.640 --> 00:22:50.799
that's not why I got into this.
412
00:22:50.839 --> 00:22:52.759
And all you want to do is take an hour
413
00:22:52.839 --> 00:22:54.519
out and go cut some I just want to chop.
414
00:22:54.400 --> 00:22:57.359
Wood, and that I feel like everyone, everyone, all the
415
00:22:57.400 --> 00:22:59.359
young people are so stressed out. They're saying, I can't
416
00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:02.480
wait for the sawmill and all the saw mill guys
417
00:23:02.519 --> 00:23:05.079
are saying, I just want to chop wood, right, you know.
418
00:23:05.720 --> 00:23:12.559
Well, yeah, it's like the the the analogy about the fish. Yeah, yeah,
419
00:23:12.720 --> 00:23:15.759
that's a great analogy. I don't know where I heard
420
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:18.359
that first. It must have been in a book somewhere
421
00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:20.880
I read. It's so good though, But it's the same
422
00:23:20.920 --> 00:23:23.200
thing as chopping wood and ending up with a saw mill,
423
00:23:24.039 --> 00:23:26.799
just like you're only working that hard so you can
424
00:23:26.839 --> 00:23:29.519
take the time off to do what you originally love
425
00:23:29.599 --> 00:23:34.200
to do to begin with. Yeah, and I I always
426
00:23:34.799 --> 00:23:37.400
try to have really good time work, like really I do,
427
00:23:38.119 --> 00:23:41.359
and I do for the most part. I love my job.
428
00:23:41.440 --> 00:23:46.000
I love what I do. I just yeah, it's it's
429
00:23:46.200 --> 00:23:50.240
changed and it's gotten more complex. And even if I
430
00:23:50.440 --> 00:23:54.640
were just to go back to being a brist well,
431
00:23:54.799 --> 00:23:57.839
I couldn't. I can't just go back to being embraced anymore.
432
00:23:58.440 --> 00:24:02.440
So I make coffee at home early in the morning,
433
00:24:02.920 --> 00:24:06.680
and I make my press and I sit and that's
434
00:24:06.680 --> 00:24:10.240
the happiest coffee of my day, always, just that quiet
435
00:24:10.279 --> 00:24:14.200
coffee at home where I'm timing and doing it right
436
00:24:14.319 --> 00:24:19.079
and just loving the process changing something from just these
437
00:24:19.119 --> 00:24:22.839
beans into something delicious and it's just for me at
438
00:24:22.839 --> 00:24:23.279
that point.
439
00:24:23.480 --> 00:24:25.680
It's because you control it, right. I think the hardest
440
00:24:25.720 --> 00:24:29.240
part about being an entrepreneur is you it's like being
441
00:24:29.240 --> 00:24:29.920
a screenwriter.
442
00:24:30.039 --> 00:24:30.240
Right.
443
00:24:30.319 --> 00:24:34.039
So you write a screenplay and let's imagine you're a
444
00:24:34.039 --> 00:24:36.359
screenwriter in Hollywood. You write a screenplay and it's this
445
00:24:36.480 --> 00:24:38.680
masterpiece and you've got it all figured out in your head.
446
00:24:39.240 --> 00:24:40.880
You got to go out and you got to convince
447
00:24:40.960 --> 00:24:44.160
all these douchey executives to do the thing, and then
448
00:24:44.160 --> 00:24:45.839
you've got to hire one hundred people, and you got
449
00:24:45.880 --> 00:24:47.240
to have this film set, and you got to get
450
00:24:47.240 --> 00:24:49.680
the right cinematographer, and then you end up with this
451
00:24:49.759 --> 00:24:52.119
thing and it's you know, you have the idea and
452
00:24:52.200 --> 00:24:54.839
it's here, and there's a thousand people in between, and
453
00:24:54.880 --> 00:24:56.079
it's been bastardized.
454
00:24:56.200 --> 00:24:56.359
Right.
455
00:24:56.400 --> 00:24:58.599
You talk to people in any creative field where there's
456
00:24:58.640 --> 00:25:01.519
a lot of other people involved, right, I think the
457
00:25:01.559 --> 00:25:06.640
purest form of creativity or entrepreneurship, or not entrepreneurship, but
458
00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:10.279
just creating a product is like writing because it's only
459
00:25:10.440 --> 00:25:12.000
in your head and you've just put it on the
460
00:25:12.000 --> 00:25:14.359
page and no one can mess with it. And I
461
00:25:14.359 --> 00:25:16.799
think the hardest part about having a business whether it's
462
00:25:16.880 --> 00:25:21.079
cafe or something you know, like a screenplay or whatever,
463
00:25:21.640 --> 00:25:25.920
is that whenever there's people involved, people are complicated and
464
00:25:26.359 --> 00:25:29.200
it's hard to have your vision executed in the exact
465
00:25:29.240 --> 00:25:32.640
way that you want. And I think that I don't
466
00:25:32.680 --> 00:25:35.720
know if it's my failing as an entrepreneur, having ADHD
467
00:25:35.960 --> 00:25:38.440
or whatever, but like, I've never been able to get
468
00:25:38.759 --> 00:25:41.400
my vision to be precisely what I want. And so,
469
00:25:41.640 --> 00:25:45.599
like you, you know, I'm twenty years into my career,
470
00:25:46.079 --> 00:25:49.319
I'm feeling exhausted, and I have had to change how
471
00:25:49.319 --> 00:25:52.000
I do business, which is I buy a business, I
472
00:25:52.119 --> 00:25:55.279
find someone who's incredibly fired up about that business, and
473
00:25:55.279 --> 00:25:57.000
I let them go do that. But I can't do
474
00:25:57.039 --> 00:25:58.400
it anymore. It's too high.
475
00:25:58.440 --> 00:26:05.119
So you learned the bits of buying businesses and hiring CEOs.
476
00:26:04.119 --> 00:26:06.440
Yeah, I mean. And the way I got there was
477
00:26:07.039 --> 00:26:10.039
I started a bunch of businesses like you Kaotac entrepreneur
478
00:26:10.160 --> 00:26:15.000
started ten different businesses, most of them failed and one
479
00:26:15.000 --> 00:26:17.039
of them worked, and I still had my original web
480
00:26:17.079 --> 00:26:22.400
design business, and I ended up getting really stressed out
481
00:26:22.440 --> 00:26:24.039
and a guy came to me and said, hey, why
482
00:26:24.039 --> 00:26:26.559
don't you sell that business? And so I sold it
483
00:26:26.960 --> 00:26:29.799
and it was a terrible experience. I watched someone else
484
00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:32.559
basically be a bad step parent to my business. It
485
00:26:32.640 --> 00:26:34.559
was like having a kid and handing it off to
486
00:26:34.599 --> 00:26:36.319
someone and then watching them parent in a way that
487
00:26:36.359 --> 00:26:40.200
you don't approve of. And that was hard. And I went,
488
00:26:40.359 --> 00:26:43.000
you know what, like, I want to just buy businesses
489
00:26:43.039 --> 00:26:46.480
and leave them alone from founders who care about them
490
00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:49.200
and either let the founder keep running them or hire
491
00:26:49.240 --> 00:26:51.480
someone who's going to do right by them and just
492
00:26:51.519 --> 00:26:53.440
hold the businesses. And so we've been doing that for
493
00:26:54.000 --> 00:26:55.599
twelve years thirteen years now.
494
00:26:55.960 --> 00:27:00.839
And the majority of your businesses are in the tech industry,
495
00:27:00.880 --> 00:27:01.319
aren't they?
496
00:27:01.480 --> 00:27:05.400
They are, But beyond aerow press, the coffee maker, I really.
497
00:27:05.160 --> 00:27:06.319
Want to talk to you about that.
498
00:27:06.720 --> 00:27:07.160
I love.
499
00:27:09.359 --> 00:27:13.720
Okay. So there's a lot of different ways to make coffee,
500
00:27:13.759 --> 00:27:16.319
and one of them is with the arrow press method
501
00:27:16.440 --> 00:27:20.519
and it it I guess it became quite popular early
502
00:27:20.599 --> 00:27:25.359
two thousands, but didn't really take off yet. I remember
503
00:27:25.680 --> 00:27:32.319
I had just bought the newest Presso machine you could
504
00:27:32.400 --> 00:27:36.279
possibly buy. It. Blew everything out of the water, this thing.
505
00:27:36.319 --> 00:27:37.440
It was beautiful.
506
00:27:38.319 --> 00:27:40.240
Oh my god, I remember that thing. I remember when
507
00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:43.680
it arrived or it just arrived you're so excited about it.
508
00:27:43.880 --> 00:27:48.440
Yeah, okay, So this machine changed how a lot of
509
00:27:49.119 --> 00:27:53.359
parrist has made good espresso coffee. And one day, I
510
00:27:53.480 --> 00:27:56.920
love believe this old guy and a cowboy hat comes
511
00:27:56.960 --> 00:28:01.160
into my cafe with this what like a penis pump.
512
00:28:01.359 --> 00:28:06.720
I'm just gonna say, from what I understand, I awesome power.
513
00:28:06.799 --> 00:28:10.960
Thank you, and and he says, I'm going to make
514
00:28:12.079 --> 00:28:16.440
way better espresso than you with this. I'm like, first
515
00:28:16.480 --> 00:28:18.559
of all, who are you? He tells me who he is,
516
00:28:18.599 --> 00:28:21.920
and I'm like, okay, well I don't think you're going
517
00:28:22.039 --> 00:28:25.079
when he's d let's do it right now. So he did.
518
00:28:25.160 --> 00:28:29.920
I make a beautiful shot, and she presses this contraption
519
00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:32.880
that I've never seen anything like it before, and I
520
00:28:32.960 --> 00:28:36.240
was really intrigued. But he was saying it's the best
521
00:28:36.359 --> 00:28:40.200
espresso maker there is. So I'm like, okay. So we
522
00:28:40.359 --> 00:28:42.880
both have our drinks and we're looking at them, my
523
00:28:43.000 --> 00:28:46.880
manalies in color and all that cram of depth, and
524
00:28:46.920 --> 00:28:50.279
then we drink them. He's like, see, I told you,
525
00:28:51.279 --> 00:28:55.319
mine's so much better than yours. I looked at them
526
00:28:55.359 --> 00:28:58.640
and I'm like, you're crazy, man, You're crazy. I just
527
00:28:58.680 --> 00:29:02.359
spent like thirty thousand dollars on this machine, and you're
528
00:29:02.359 --> 00:29:07.519
telling me that your twenty dollars machine is way better.
529
00:29:08.119 --> 00:29:11.079
So I kind of dismissed him for a couple of years,
530
00:29:11.920 --> 00:29:14.200
and all of a sudden, people were talking about the
531
00:29:14.200 --> 00:29:16.759
Aero Press more, and they were talking about it in
532
00:29:16.839 --> 00:29:20.119
terms of making espresso. But all of a sudden there
533
00:29:20.200 --> 00:29:22.640
was a change and people were talking about it making
534
00:29:22.799 --> 00:29:26.400
just ordinary coffee or a concentrate, or it's good for
535
00:29:26.559 --> 00:29:30.799
camping or in your hotel room or just anything. It
536
00:29:30.920 --> 00:29:33.640
was easy to clean. I'm like, no, no, no. This
537
00:29:33.680 --> 00:29:35.720
guy came up and told me it was for espresso,
538
00:29:35.839 --> 00:29:39.200
he owns it. There's I don't want anything to do
539
00:29:39.240 --> 00:29:42.200
with that. And I tried one. I think I was
540
00:29:42.319 --> 00:29:45.240
in Brazil with a couple of coffee guys and they
541
00:29:45.319 --> 00:29:48.079
had one and they were making this coffee in the
542
00:29:48.079 --> 00:29:52.319
morning that blew me away. I'm like that that's not espress.
543
00:29:52.359 --> 00:29:55.440
But they're like, never easy to make expresso. It's made
544
00:29:55.480 --> 00:29:59.200
to make this beautiful coffee for you. So I went
545
00:29:59.319 --> 00:30:03.119
out and I bought started playing with it, and oh man,
546
00:30:03.240 --> 00:30:07.720
I love it. And then the pass forward years and
547
00:30:07.799 --> 00:30:10.920
years and years ago. You come out with a book
548
00:30:11.680 --> 00:30:14.240
and I reading the book and I get to the
549
00:30:14.359 --> 00:30:19.799
chapter where you want to whim go and buy the
550
00:30:19.839 --> 00:30:25.319
AeroPress company. Can you tell me how that came to
551
00:30:25.359 --> 00:30:29.039
you or and how that process worked and what made
552
00:30:29.119 --> 00:30:32.759
you buy? What were there certain kind of metrics in
553
00:30:32.960 --> 00:30:37.759
how that that business was operating, or certain potential points
554
00:30:37.799 --> 00:30:41.079
there that you could see because all of a sudden,
555
00:30:41.160 --> 00:30:44.759
now that you own it, if you also like aeropresses everywhere,
556
00:30:44.799 --> 00:30:48.400
and it's done some big changes and like you can't
557
00:30:48.400 --> 00:30:52.160
go anywhere without seeing an aerowpress anymore, it's a fantastic success.
558
00:30:53.000 --> 00:30:55.200
So the whole read. I think when I met you,
559
00:30:55.759 --> 00:30:59.279
I walked in with my resume and you said, let
560
00:30:59.279 --> 00:31:01.920
me make you a shot of espresso. And I remember
561
00:31:02.000 --> 00:31:05.839
grimacing because I was a latte I was a latte heathen, right,
562
00:31:05.880 --> 00:31:08.680
I hated the taste of a black coffee, and you
563
00:31:08.720 --> 00:31:11.839
made me an espresso and I remember, you know, I'd
564
00:31:11.839 --> 00:31:13.960
never had a really good espresso with a lot of crema.
565
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:16.119
I think you did like a Ristretto shot or something,
566
00:31:16.319 --> 00:31:18.519
and you were showing me how to you know, suck
567
00:31:18.559 --> 00:31:19.880
it up or whatever, and you were saying, do you
568
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:23.240
do you taste the BlackBerry? You know? And I was like, yeah, yeah, sure,
569
00:31:23.279 --> 00:31:26.640
but I remember working with you. I actually got a
570
00:31:26.680 --> 00:31:30.640
taste for coffee, like black coffee and espresso. I realized
571
00:31:30.680 --> 00:31:33.319
what it should taste like. But I feel like I've
572
00:31:33.319 --> 00:31:36.640
always loved the smell of the beans, but it never
573
00:31:36.759 --> 00:31:39.839
tastes quite like that smell, right. And I remember this
574
00:31:39.880 --> 00:31:43.440
guy similar to you. There's this guy, awesome guy who
575
00:31:43.519 --> 00:31:46.160
I used to work with, one of my earliest and
576
00:31:46.200 --> 00:31:49.160
plays Ali Bosworth, and he came to the office with
577
00:31:49.200 --> 00:31:54.079
this penis pump PVC pipe looking contraption. And at the time, i'd,
578
00:31:54.079 --> 00:31:56.519
you know, always be going to two Percent or one
579
00:31:56.559 --> 00:31:58.839
of the other local cafes, and I would never make
580
00:31:58.880 --> 00:32:01.480
coffee at home. And he said, this thing blows everything
581
00:32:01.480 --> 00:32:03.039
out of the water. Same thing, and he made me
582
00:32:03.079 --> 00:32:06.079
a coffee and I remember just having it black and going,
583
00:32:06.079 --> 00:32:07.759
oh my god, it taste the way the beans smell.
584
00:32:07.960 --> 00:32:11.839
That's very unique. And so that became my daily driver.
585
00:32:11.920 --> 00:32:13.559
When I had kids and I stopped going out, I
586
00:32:13.559 --> 00:32:16.319
started making coffee. And one morning I looked down at
587
00:32:16.359 --> 00:32:18.839
it and I was like, who owns this? You know?
588
00:32:18.880 --> 00:32:21.240
And I assume generally when I see a product that
589
00:32:21.359 --> 00:32:25.160
some big, evil private equity corporation owns you know, everything,
590
00:32:25.559 --> 00:32:27.039
and when I looked it up, I realized that it
591
00:32:27.079 --> 00:32:28.880
was still owned by the I think he was like
592
00:32:28.920 --> 00:32:32.720
in his late seventies early eighties, Alan Adler, who is
593
00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:37.119
a he's a Stanford engineering professor who just came up
594
00:32:37.119 --> 00:32:41.440
with this idea and he had made the a Robie Frisbee. Right,
595
00:32:41.880 --> 00:32:46.079
those are so great, right, Like every eighties kid knows that, right, absolutely,
596
00:32:46.160 --> 00:32:49.799
So I just I emailed him and he was like, Hey,
597
00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:51.640
I'm deaf, so I don't want to talk on the
598
00:32:51.640 --> 00:32:53.599
phone or not deaf, but I'm hard of hearing, so
599
00:32:53.640 --> 00:32:55.839
you're gonna have to fly down here. And we went
600
00:32:55.920 --> 00:32:59.039
down and we were just kind of having a casual
601
00:32:59.039 --> 00:33:01.559
conversation and kind of went like, all right, well do
602
00:33:01.559 --> 00:33:03.680
you want to buy it? And we said, okay, well
603
00:33:03.839 --> 00:33:07.079
what's your price? And he said sixty million bucks and
604
00:33:07.200 --> 00:33:10.160
me and Chris were just like, uh, you know, I
605
00:33:10.200 --> 00:33:12.880
don't know about that. And so we went back and
606
00:33:12.920 --> 00:33:14.960
forth with him over the course of I don't know,
607
00:33:15.000 --> 00:33:17.480
a year or two, and finally we just sucked it up.
608
00:33:17.519 --> 00:33:19.279
We got the money together, and we bought the thing.
609
00:33:19.799 --> 00:33:23.119
And it's been I mean, it's an incredible business if
610
00:33:23.160 --> 00:33:26.279
you think about first of all, coffee is something that
611
00:33:26.440 --> 00:33:29.480
is good for you, right, it actually is like a
612
00:33:29.559 --> 00:33:35.759
VaSID dilator and longevity and it's addictive. Right, So right,
613
00:33:35.880 --> 00:33:38.200
it's what an incredible product. And then you also have
614
00:33:39.319 --> 00:33:42.039
with the AeroPress, one of kind of six methods of
615
00:33:42.079 --> 00:33:44.400
brewing coffee. And we saw him, we were like, oh,
616
00:33:44.440 --> 00:33:47.279
this is like Kleenex. Right. Even if people rip off
617
00:33:47.319 --> 00:33:49.880
the AeroPress, they're always going to call them Aeropresses. There's
618
00:33:50.200 --> 00:33:53.079
incredible value to this brand and there's a lot of
619
00:33:53.079 --> 00:33:56.160
opportunity to take it and do more with it. So
620
00:33:56.519 --> 00:33:58.880
a lot of people didn't want to have plastic. They
621
00:33:58.920 --> 00:34:02.279
wanted metal, they wanted glass, and we've just expanded all that.
622
00:34:02.480 --> 00:34:04.200
And so now we have I'll make sure to get
623
00:34:04.240 --> 00:34:05.440
you the do you have the glass one?
624
00:34:05.519 --> 00:34:08.239
I don't. I still have one of the old old ones.
625
00:34:08.320 --> 00:34:10.679
I'll send you the metal ones. Amazing because you can't
626
00:34:10.760 --> 00:34:12.519
you can beat it up. You can take a traveling
627
00:34:12.880 --> 00:34:16.039
we've made travel ones that pack down. But we've got
628
00:34:16.039 --> 00:34:19.440
this amazing CEO who's just like obsessed with coffee and
629
00:34:19.920 --> 00:34:21.760
he's been growing the hell out of it and it's
630
00:34:21.840 --> 00:34:26.239
been amazing. So I love businesses like that, where it's
631
00:34:26.280 --> 00:34:29.000
you know, does a good thing in the world. It's
632
00:34:29.039 --> 00:34:31.559
a product where we can actually take it and do
633
00:34:31.639 --> 00:34:35.639
something more with it, and it'll exist in fifty years,
634
00:34:35.960 --> 00:34:39.400
you know, whereas you you do some software company and
635
00:34:39.760 --> 00:34:41.840
it's just code and it disappears into the ether.
636
00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:46.400
Right. Yeah, Okay, So when you went down there, just
637
00:34:46.440 --> 00:34:48.760
because he was hardy hearing, did you have a plan
638
00:34:48.880 --> 00:34:51.280
that you wanted to buy it or interest or did
639
00:34:51.280 --> 00:34:52.199
you just want to meet him.
640
00:34:52.079 --> 00:34:53.599
With We flat out said we want to buy it.
641
00:34:53.639 --> 00:34:55.119
We just didn't know that he was going to be
642
00:34:55.239 --> 00:34:58.079
like so upfront, like sixty million dollars and we would
643
00:34:58.079 --> 00:34:58.719
be so expensive.
644
00:34:58.800 --> 00:35:01.480
Yeah. Well, was it pretty big company at that point
645
00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:02.320
or it was?
646
00:35:02.079 --> 00:35:04.519
It was it was very profitable it, you know, as
647
00:35:04.559 --> 00:35:08.039
a cult classic. They spent no money on marketing, and
648
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:11.519
one of the things we saw was just that because
649
00:35:11.519 --> 00:35:14.800
it was run by someone that was much older, they
650
00:35:14.800 --> 00:35:18.320
didn't really prioritize selling it online. So three percent of
651
00:35:18.320 --> 00:35:21.760
their sales were online and almost everything was just through cafes.
652
00:35:21.840 --> 00:35:24.119
Like if you walk into any gourmet coffee shop, odds
653
00:35:24.199 --> 00:35:26.679
are they have an aero press. But otherwise in the
654
00:35:26.719 --> 00:35:30.880
broader retail market or online, there's like nothing, so we
655
00:35:30.920 --> 00:35:33.639
saw that as a big opportunity to wow.
656
00:35:34.159 --> 00:35:38.159
So yeah, it's amazing to me that you actually own
657
00:35:38.239 --> 00:35:41.559
that business. I know you own lots of businesses, but
658
00:35:41.599 --> 00:35:43.000
that one in particular.
659
00:35:42.559 --> 00:35:43.760
It's one of my favorite.
660
00:35:43.840 --> 00:35:53.800
It is. Yeah, yeah, that's so cool. And we got
661
00:35:53.920 --> 00:35:58.320
any kind of plants in the future to to not
662
00:35:58.320 --> 00:36:02.119
not change it drastically because I would you. But are
663
00:36:02.119 --> 00:36:05.199
there any tweaks or anything coming down the pipelines if
664
00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:05.519
you want to.
665
00:36:06.960 --> 00:36:08.760
I don't want to upset our CEO, So I don't
666
00:36:08.760 --> 00:36:10.280
want to say too much, but I just say that
667
00:36:10.320 --> 00:36:17.000
we're looking at how to how to keep at We're
668
00:36:17.039 --> 00:36:23.599
exploring automating and creating maybe an electric brewer. Maybe we'll see.
669
00:36:23.639 --> 00:36:28.400
We're kind of dabbling and looking at that, but otherwise
670
00:36:28.440 --> 00:36:31.000
it's really just kind of take what works and continue
671
00:36:31.039 --> 00:36:34.039
to evolve it over time. Like we've made a really
672
00:36:34.079 --> 00:36:38.079
beautiful hand grinder that fits perfectly into an aerow press
673
00:36:38.119 --> 00:36:40.800
so you can travel with it a hand grinder. We've
674
00:36:40.840 --> 00:36:43.119
made like a flow control cap so you can do
675
00:36:43.599 --> 00:36:47.639
espresso actually get crem out of it. We've got you know,
676
00:36:47.719 --> 00:36:49.599
metal filters, all sorts of stuff.
677
00:36:49.440 --> 00:36:53.239
Because well it's it's I'm sure you don't need my advice,
678
00:36:53.280 --> 00:36:56.039
but I would think that if there were two things
679
00:36:56.119 --> 00:37:00.119
to add to an aerowpress would be temperature control and
680
00:37:00.760 --> 00:37:01.639
pressure control.
681
00:37:01.719 --> 00:37:05.840
And that's exactly the what I would love. I love
682
00:37:05.960 --> 00:37:08.280
making aeropresses, and I make them for me and my
683
00:37:08.280 --> 00:37:11.159
girlfriend every morning, but for making them for more than
684
00:37:11.159 --> 00:37:12.679
two or three people, it's a bit of a pain
685
00:37:12.719 --> 00:37:14.480
in the butt. And I would love to be able
686
00:37:14.519 --> 00:37:17.480
to say, hey, every day at six am, you know,
687
00:37:17.719 --> 00:37:20.679
I want this exact pressure, I want this amount of coffee,
688
00:37:20.960 --> 00:37:24.360
et cetera, et cetera. But we'll see, this is how
689
00:37:24.400 --> 00:37:27.679
people die, right, this is how people You know, you
690
00:37:27.679 --> 00:37:30.880
try and build a Rube Goldberg machine and it costs
691
00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:33.159
you a million dollars and you end up messing up
692
00:37:33.199 --> 00:37:36.000
the brand. Right. So whenever we buy a great business
693
00:37:36.000 --> 00:37:38.079
like this, first and foremost, I think about how do
694
00:37:38.119 --> 00:37:40.199
I make sure I don't embarrass the founder, how do
695
00:37:40.239 --> 00:37:42.039
I make sure I keep it true to its DNA,
696
00:37:42.360 --> 00:37:43.840
How do I make sure that all the people that
697
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:47.079
go to the World AeroPress Competition, like literally thousands of
698
00:37:47.119 --> 00:37:49.679
people fly somewhere every year to compete.
699
00:37:50.159 --> 00:37:53.360
You've you've obviously.
700
00:37:52.880 --> 00:37:57.480
Been there in Vancouver. Yeah, it's crazy, right, so and so,
701
00:37:57.679 --> 00:37:59.920
like I don't want to mess that up. So that's
702
00:38:00.079 --> 00:38:01.079
number priority number one.
703
00:38:01.119 --> 00:38:04.239
Okay, Well that's good because it does. You're right. It
704
00:38:04.239 --> 00:38:08.880
has a tault cult feel to it, like people just
705
00:38:09.400 --> 00:38:11.519
either they love it or they don't know.
706
00:38:11.400 --> 00:38:12.679
Anything about it totally.
707
00:38:12.719 --> 00:38:14.599
And when they learn something about it, like I did
708
00:38:14.679 --> 00:38:17.039
years later, now I love it.
709
00:38:17.039 --> 00:38:19.320
It's amazing. Like it really is one of those products
710
00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:21.960
that sells itself. And if you just if you just
711
00:38:22.320 --> 00:38:25.039
let someone taste the coffee, they're always shocked.
712
00:38:24.960 --> 00:38:28.559
Right, and if you don't say it, well, I mean
713
00:38:28.679 --> 00:38:33.000
back then it was being totally marketed as a portable
714
00:38:33.039 --> 00:38:33.920
expressing machine.
715
00:38:34.480 --> 00:38:36.400
I don't like it for espress. So like I drink
716
00:38:36.559 --> 00:38:39.719
like basically a black Americano every morning with it.
717
00:38:39.960 --> 00:38:43.719
That's okay, Wow, I can't wait to see what you
718
00:38:43.840 --> 00:38:44.360
got coming.
719
00:38:45.159 --> 00:38:47.960
So I'll I'll send you. I'll send you after this,
720
00:38:48.000 --> 00:38:49.800
I'll give me your address. I'll give you a big
721
00:38:49.920 --> 00:38:52.280
package of all the cool stuff, because there's we've made
722
00:38:52.360 --> 00:38:55.039
so much amazing stuff over the last three years, like
723
00:38:55.079 --> 00:38:56.519
it's really evolved, you.
724
00:38:56.559 --> 00:39:00.159
Know, maybe you actually get a bunch whole.
725
00:39:00.079 --> 00:39:02.199
Oh yeah, yeah, let's definitely do that too.
726
00:39:04.960 --> 00:39:07.639
Huh. Yeah, Okay, let's let's talk.
727
00:39:07.440 --> 00:39:09.519
After this, and yeah, I want you to mess with
728
00:39:09.559 --> 00:39:10.639
it and give me some feedback.
729
00:39:10.719 --> 00:39:13.679
Yeah, okay, sounds it sounds like a really good idea.
730
00:39:13.800 --> 00:39:17.840
Sounds fun. I can't wait to make more coffee. I'll
731
00:39:17.840 --> 00:39:20.519
be doing it in my lab at my roastream. I'm
732
00:39:20.519 --> 00:39:29.239
sure I'd like to not change topics completely and kind
733
00:39:29.239 --> 00:39:33.079
of keep this on the hospitality print because we we
734
00:39:33.440 --> 00:39:37.280
got the bread and butter collective of our hospitality focused industry,
735
00:39:37.360 --> 00:39:40.320
and I know we could get off and talk about
736
00:39:40.880 --> 00:39:45.159
the world and all sorts of tech things, But I
737
00:39:45.199 --> 00:39:48.960
also know that you have an interest in hospitality and
738
00:39:49.119 --> 00:39:54.119
hospitality businesses, and I wanted to ask you in a
739
00:39:54.199 --> 00:39:59.199
way that well, I don't know how I wanted to
740
00:39:59.199 --> 00:40:04.760
ask you. What what I wanted to ask was why
741
00:40:04.920 --> 00:40:12.760
would a successful investor an entrepreneur by any kind of
742
00:40:12.800 --> 00:40:17.039
restaurant and think that you're going to make money? And
743
00:40:17.079 --> 00:40:20.280
I know that that's not your primary focus, and I
744
00:40:20.320 --> 00:40:22.880
wanted to clarify that with that question. It sounds like
745
00:40:22.920 --> 00:40:25.599
a good question, but I mean it in the nicest
746
00:40:25.639 --> 00:40:29.320
way possible, like why would you throw good money after
747
00:40:29.440 --> 00:40:33.360
bad and buy hospitality businesses. And I'm not saying you
748
00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:37.280
can't make make money in the industry. You certainly can,
749
00:40:38.400 --> 00:40:42.280
but it's really difficult. And why would you want to
750
00:40:42.320 --> 00:40:46.519
do something so challenging. Is there something else at play there?
751
00:40:47.679 --> 00:40:52.199
I think, like I said, there's something special about a
752
00:40:52.239 --> 00:40:57.239
physical place, and I think there's an energy that there's
753
00:40:57.239 --> 00:40:59.840
an energy and something that happens in a community when
754
00:40:59.880 --> 00:41:02.159
you have like a great cafe or a great restaurant
755
00:41:02.239 --> 00:41:04.519
or whatever it is. And I've always felt that I
756
00:41:04.559 --> 00:41:08.119
love going into restaurants, and I've always had lots of
757
00:41:08.199 --> 00:41:10.519
thoughts about them. I've always thought, oh, they should tweak
758
00:41:10.559 --> 00:41:13.119
the lighting or change the menu or you know, the
759
00:41:13.159 --> 00:41:17.119
flow of it or whatever. And so I think anyone,
760
00:41:17.800 --> 00:41:20.960
anyone who loves food or coffee has at some point
761
00:41:21.039 --> 00:41:24.519
had the stupid thought I should start a cafe or
762
00:41:24.519 --> 00:41:27.599
a restaurant. And I don't think most people know the
763
00:41:27.639 --> 00:41:30.039
failure rate and how difficult it is. When I meet
764
00:41:30.320 --> 00:41:35.079
somebody who has been successful over the long term running
765
00:41:35.239 --> 00:41:38.639
a cafe or a restaurant, I bow down, like Wayne's world,
766
00:41:38.639 --> 00:41:41.360
We're not worthy. And I think what I do is
767
00:41:41.400 --> 00:41:45.079
way way easier, right because you, for example, you have
768
00:41:45.119 --> 00:41:48.199
no margin. For you have five or ten percent margin,
769
00:41:48.280 --> 00:41:51.719
you have to be an incredible operator. Every wasted coffee
770
00:41:51.719 --> 00:41:56.880
bean matters, every broken cup matters, every credit card transaction matters.
771
00:41:56.920 --> 00:41:59.639
Those It is like you are flying a fucking plane
772
00:41:59.679 --> 00:42:02.360
and it's a crash if you fuck up at all, right, right,
773
00:42:02.400 --> 00:42:07.760
And so I don't Yeah, I didn't realize that. And
774
00:42:07.840 --> 00:42:11.679
so you know, in twenty twenty fifteen, I was like,
775
00:42:12.840 --> 00:42:14.920
you know, I was running all these tech businesses and
776
00:42:14.960 --> 00:42:19.119
software companies, and I was feeling kind of depressed because,
777
00:42:19.199 --> 00:42:21.239
you know, like I said, we we make this software
778
00:42:21.960 --> 00:42:24.199
and you don't have an experience of people using it.
779
00:42:24.199 --> 00:42:25.760
It's not like you sit in the room while someone
780
00:42:25.880 --> 00:42:29.679
uses your software. And I kept thinking like, I want
781
00:42:29.719 --> 00:42:32.880
something physical, I want something real, I want to touch,
782
00:42:33.119 --> 00:42:34.840
you know, make make a thing that will exist over
783
00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:38.119
the long term. And so me and my friend Jeeve
784
00:42:38.199 --> 00:42:41.119
and my business partner Chris, we decided, you know, let's
785
00:42:41.119 --> 00:42:43.679
start a restaurant. We'll start a pizza restaurant. And we
786
00:42:43.800 --> 00:42:46.719
just we basically just were like, this should exist. Let's
787
00:42:46.719 --> 00:42:49.239
make a cool bar where you can eat pizza and
788
00:42:49.280 --> 00:42:51.199
it's going to be open late and have cheap beer.
789
00:42:51.719 --> 00:42:55.039
We just had this idea, and so we leased a
790
00:42:55.119 --> 00:42:57.000
space and we went into it and it was like
791
00:42:57.800 --> 00:43:01.719
we were we were Fiji, and we said let's go
792
00:43:01.760 --> 00:43:05.000
and invade the United States. We were doomed. We didn't
793
00:43:05.039 --> 00:43:07.599
know anything about what we were doing. We're in speedboats,
794
00:43:07.880 --> 00:43:10.079
we're driving up to an aircraft carrier and we're about
795
00:43:10.119 --> 00:43:12.239
to get wiped off the face of the earth. So,
796
00:43:12.320 --> 00:43:15.000
you know, we signed a bad lease. We spent too
797
00:43:15.079 --> 00:43:17.360
much on the build out, we didn't do food costing,
798
00:43:17.440 --> 00:43:21.159
we hired the wrong people. We you know, everything was wrong.
799
00:43:21.199 --> 00:43:23.880
And we weren't owner operators. We were just you know,
800
00:43:24.199 --> 00:43:26.320
people that were just putting a bunch of money into
801
00:43:26.360 --> 00:43:28.679
this thing and thinking it's going to run itself. And
802
00:43:28.760 --> 00:43:32.480
so I got utterly humbled. You know, me and my friends,
803
00:43:32.519 --> 00:43:34.760
we all lost all of our money and we ended
804
00:43:34.840 --> 00:43:37.360
up getting into this dispute with the landlord and it
805
00:43:37.440 --> 00:43:44.880
was just horrible, horrible experience. And around that time, Andrew Ware,
806
00:43:45.079 --> 00:43:47.800
who owns a Tavio in Ok Bay, a good friend,
807
00:43:48.280 --> 00:43:51.599
great guy. He he I used to fix his computer
808
00:43:51.639 --> 00:43:54.239
when I was like twelve or thirteen, and my brother
809
00:43:54.320 --> 00:43:55.920
used to work at a Tavio for years.
810
00:43:56.079 --> 00:44:00.400
Oh, because you must have lived really close the way, and.
811
00:44:00.360 --> 00:44:02.679
So I love you know, I love Otavio. I used
812
00:44:02.719 --> 00:44:05.000
to sit and listen to a podcast every weekend before
813
00:44:05.039 --> 00:44:07.519
I had kids on the patio there, and so Andrew
814
00:44:07.639 --> 00:44:09.440
came and he said, hey, you know, I hear you're
815
00:44:09.480 --> 00:44:13.559
buying businesses. I'm thinking about selling. And he told me
816
00:44:13.559 --> 00:44:17.280
who's going to sell to? And I went, oh, I
817
00:44:17.320 --> 00:44:18.920
don't know if that's going to go very well. I
818
00:44:18.920 --> 00:44:20.880
don't know if they're going to, you know, keep this thing,
819
00:44:22.000 --> 00:44:25.840
keep Otavio true to Otavio. And so I said, okay,
820
00:44:25.920 --> 00:44:27.360
i'll look at it. I don't normally do this, but
821
00:44:27.400 --> 00:44:28.719
I'll look at it. And so I looked at the
822
00:44:28.760 --> 00:44:30.239
p and L and I saw, oh my god, it
823
00:44:30.320 --> 00:44:33.320
actually makes money. This is insane. I can't believe this
824
00:44:33.400 --> 00:44:36.559
business exists. It's actually like a really good food business.
825
00:44:36.599 --> 00:44:38.559
Because I'd looked at lots of restaurant p and ls
826
00:44:38.599 --> 00:44:40.440
and I'd looked at our own, and so when I
827
00:44:40.480 --> 00:44:43.679
saw it, it slapped me in the face. They're good
828
00:44:43.719 --> 00:44:46.000
operators and and you know, it's a good model. And
829
00:44:46.039 --> 00:44:49.400
so you know, I bought that. And then I just said,
830
00:44:49.840 --> 00:44:53.880
every dollar I make, we'll go into buying more institutional
831
00:44:53.920 --> 00:44:58.000
restaurants in Victoria, and so we ended up buying Ferris's.
832
00:44:58.760 --> 00:45:02.119
We ended up buying Part and Part Soul and kind
833
00:45:02.119 --> 00:45:04.159
of similar to what we do at Tiny. I just
834
00:45:04.280 --> 00:45:05.920
was like, Okay, I'm going to buy these businesses and
835
00:45:05.960 --> 00:45:08.920
just leave them alone. And so we've been doing that,
836
00:45:09.039 --> 00:45:13.039
and you know, about a year ago we merged with Swans.
837
00:45:13.400 --> 00:45:15.880
So I met Mike Boyle, who you know, and it
838
00:45:15.960 --> 00:45:17.880
was that thing of that moment of like, oh my god,
839
00:45:17.960 --> 00:45:19.920
like you're a good operator, you know what you're doing.
840
00:45:20.039 --> 00:45:24.639
He's a phenomenal guy, and like I just loved he's
841
00:45:24.719 --> 00:45:27.960
a he's a great business brain in the hospitality world
842
00:45:28.000 --> 00:45:31.000
but then also outside. And so I just said to him, look,
843
00:45:31.000 --> 00:45:34.000
we've got all these restaurants, we don't really know what
844
00:45:34.039 --> 00:45:35.880
to do with them. Why don't we just merge and
845
00:45:35.920 --> 00:45:38.280
you can oversee everything. And so now we started this
846
00:45:38.440 --> 00:45:41.440
company called Foe Top that owns all of it. So
847
00:45:41.519 --> 00:45:47.920
we're now shareholders and Swans, Batavio, Paranegro, Ferris's, you know
848
00:45:48.119 --> 00:45:51.559
all the ones I mentioned. But we haven't made any money.
849
00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:53.800
We've made money on paper, but we've always had to
850
00:45:53.800 --> 00:45:56.960
buy a new fridge or repair something or we've put
851
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:00.280
it into buying more restaurants, and so I look at
852
00:46:00.280 --> 00:46:05.039
it as it's like preserving forest. You know, sometimes you
853
00:46:05.039 --> 00:46:07.400
hear these like rich guys like Chip Wilson will like
854
00:46:07.800 --> 00:46:10.840
buy a national or a buy a big swath of
855
00:46:10.880 --> 00:46:13.719
forest to protect it. I'm kind of going like, this
856
00:46:13.840 --> 00:46:18.559
is old growth forest in hospitality. Let's keep it alive, right, huh.
857
00:46:18.599 --> 00:46:24.000
So you come at it through trying to preserved as
858
00:46:24.039 --> 00:46:26.440
opposed to you thinking they're going to make money.
859
00:46:26.480 --> 00:46:28.159
I just don't want to lose money. And the reason
860
00:46:28.199 --> 00:46:29.760
I don't want to lose money is because there's no
861
00:46:29.840 --> 00:46:32.840
fun to run a business that loses money. For the manager,
862
00:46:33.000 --> 00:46:35.559
for the employees, for anybody. Has to be sustainable.
863
00:46:35.800 --> 00:46:40.039
Yeah, for sure. So when you purchase them, are you
864
00:46:40.199 --> 00:46:42.960
buying them outright? Are you buying a portion of the
865
00:46:42.960 --> 00:46:44.920
business or is it a mature Depending on the d
866
00:46:45.079 --> 00:46:46.039
O you're making.
867
00:46:45.960 --> 00:46:48.679
Depends on what it is. So with otavioid, but one
868
00:46:48.719 --> 00:46:52.440
hundred percent, there's somewhere. We're just investors. We've just supported them,
869
00:46:52.559 --> 00:46:55.840
like Ruth and Dean, we help help give them startup capital.
870
00:46:55.760 --> 00:46:59.920
R and Category twelve as well.
871
00:47:00.119 --> 00:47:02.719
Yeah yeah, yeah, So it's almost almost fifteen years ago.
872
00:47:02.920 --> 00:47:07.199
Wo yeah, there's yeah, they're doing They're awesome. They're great.
873
00:47:07.280 --> 00:47:10.960
I mean they're they're really good people. And this is
874
00:47:11.039 --> 00:47:14.480
this is the thing is like the problem with the
875
00:47:14.519 --> 00:47:18.719
restaurant industry is like manyfold, but I feel like part
876
00:47:18.719 --> 00:47:22.159
of it is that the permitting process. Like here's an example.
877
00:47:22.239 --> 00:47:26.280
So we own a building down in Cadbro Bay and
878
00:47:26.480 --> 00:47:29.079
I bought it because I wanted to put a phenomenal
879
00:47:29.119 --> 00:47:29.760
cafe there.
880
00:47:29.840 --> 00:47:31.639
I mean waiting to see what's going on.
881
00:47:31.719 --> 00:47:34.840
Yeah, and I can't say who it's. Someone really really
882
00:47:34.880 --> 00:47:39.159
exciting is going in there. But we bought this building
883
00:47:39.199 --> 00:47:41.960
a year and a half ago and the rezoning process
884
00:47:42.119 --> 00:47:44.599
has taken All we're doing is we're knocking down a
885
00:47:44.599 --> 00:47:47.519
wall and we're putting in some plumbing and electrical. To
886
00:47:47.559 --> 00:47:50.199
get the demo permit took six months and now it's
887
00:47:50.239 --> 00:47:54.000
been still in purgatory and sandwich permitting just to get
888
00:47:54.079 --> 00:47:56.000
approval to start doing the build out. And so when
889
00:47:56.000 --> 00:47:59.360
you think about this, like, yeah, I'm lucky, like I
890
00:47:59.360 --> 00:48:01.480
can afford to wait a year and a half and
891
00:48:01.639 --> 00:48:04.239
suck that up and not get paid rent. But I
892
00:48:04.280 --> 00:48:09.119
have a friend who runs a comedy club. I think
893
00:48:09.199 --> 00:48:11.840
everyone knows this. But Alex and Nash from Okay Dope,
894
00:48:12.239 --> 00:48:15.840
they do comedy at the Mint and they've actually they've
895
00:48:15.840 --> 00:48:18.360
actually rented a space on Cook Street and they're doing
896
00:48:18.400 --> 00:48:21.239
a comedy club there. And I texted Alex the other
897
00:48:21.280 --> 00:48:22.719
day and I said, oh, when you guys going in?
898
00:48:22.920 --> 00:48:25.360
Is the buildout done? They said, the buildout's totally done,
899
00:48:25.360 --> 00:48:27.440
we just don't have an occupancy permit and it might
900
00:48:27.480 --> 00:48:29.440
be another like two or three months. And if you
901
00:48:29.440 --> 00:48:32.000
think about that, for them, that's five or ten grand
902
00:48:32.000 --> 00:48:33.760
a month. Just hang li it on fire. And their
903
00:48:33.800 --> 00:48:35.800
comedians they don't have they don't have a lot of money.
904
00:48:36.000 --> 00:48:38.159
And so I just go like, how can anyone do
905
00:48:38.280 --> 00:48:40.119
business in this environment? This is crazy?
906
00:48:40.559 --> 00:48:46.000
So yeah, I'm always coming up against permits and just
907
00:48:46.159 --> 00:48:49.239
all the red tape, all the hurdles. It should be
908
00:48:49.280 --> 00:48:52.559
so much easier. You've got a good idea. They say,
909
00:48:52.599 --> 00:48:55.840
it's a good idea. What's what's what's to hold you?
910
00:48:56.320 --> 00:48:59.079
It's all well intentioned, right if you said, well, we
911
00:48:59.119 --> 00:49:01.039
want to make sure that there's fire exits. We don't
912
00:49:01.039 --> 00:49:03.000
want people to panic and die in a fire. We
913
00:49:03.039 --> 00:49:05.719
don't want the ceiling to collapse when there's an earthquake.
914
00:49:05.760 --> 00:49:08.559
These are all totally valid concerns. But what it means
915
00:49:08.599 --> 00:49:11.360
is that you've got all these people that want to
916
00:49:11.400 --> 00:49:14.039
start businesses and you have this tiny little pipe they
917
00:49:14.039 --> 00:49:16.199
all have to fit through, and they don't have enough
918
00:49:16.239 --> 00:49:18.039
money to fit through the pipe, and so you end
919
00:49:18.119 --> 00:49:20.400
up in the situation where you have a city that
920
00:49:20.519 --> 00:49:23.440
is not thriving. And and that's not the only piece.
921
00:49:23.440 --> 00:49:26.039
There's many different aspects to this, and I don't want
922
00:49:26.039 --> 00:49:28.079
to shoot on the government too much, but I do
923
00:49:28.559 --> 00:49:31.400
struggle a little bit. I just go, why wouldn't they
924
00:49:31.400 --> 00:49:34.760
just hire twenty more people to do permits? Like Langford?
925
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:38.440
You have an idea it started. Now Langford's a mess.
926
00:49:38.760 --> 00:49:40.199
You go down the street and you're going, why is
927
00:49:40.199 --> 00:49:42.519
there a house next to a building where they fucking
928
00:49:42.599 --> 00:49:43.599
build stuff? You know?
929
00:49:44.159 --> 00:49:49.360
Yeah, they're they're quick there there there they're business licensing
930
00:49:49.519 --> 00:49:53.679
is permanent. You buy it once, you're good forever, not
931
00:49:53.760 --> 00:49:56.480
like with Tori, where it feels like attacked every year.
932
00:49:56.960 --> 00:49:59.199
You have to renew your business license every year every year?
933
00:49:59.760 --> 00:50:03.119
What every year? That's ridiculous, I know, And you got
934
00:50:03.119 --> 00:50:06.039
to pay them every year and you have to do
935
00:50:06.079 --> 00:50:10.280
all your backflow prevens and checks and like things that
936
00:50:10.320 --> 00:50:13.360
have gotten more and more complicated over the years. They
937
00:50:13.400 --> 00:50:16.519
certainly haven't gotten easier, and I don't know if they've
938
00:50:16.559 --> 00:50:25.239
gotten gotten any better in terms of safety. I mean,
939
00:50:26.119 --> 00:50:29.039
I just wouldn't know that. I think i'd be speculating.
940
00:50:29.280 --> 00:50:31.639
I think like part of this comes from the fact
941
00:50:31.639 --> 00:50:35.320
that there's so many municipalities, right, and so if they
942
00:50:35.320 --> 00:50:37.559
were all like part of the problem is, like the
943
00:50:37.599 --> 00:50:41.000
people that go downtown to go to these businesses are
944
00:50:41.000 --> 00:50:44.920
not even voting in what occurs downtown, right, And there's
945
00:50:44.960 --> 00:50:49.559
no way for everyone to coordinate costs and fix these problems.
946
00:50:49.880 --> 00:50:52.719
And I think it's probably too messy to combine everyone
947
00:50:52.760 --> 00:50:55.199
right now. But I really scratch my head because I
948
00:50:55.559 --> 00:51:00.360
remember about almost ten years ago now, I bought I
949
00:51:00.400 --> 00:51:01.960
bought a lot that I wanted to build a house
950
00:51:02.000 --> 00:51:05.679
on and I said, I it said to a friend
951
00:51:05.679 --> 00:51:07.960
who's in Texas. I said, Oh, I'm building my dream house.
952
00:51:08.000 --> 00:51:10.119
I'm so excited. I'm going to build, design and build
953
00:51:10.119 --> 00:51:12.679
this house, right. And he said, oh my god, that's crazy.
954
00:51:12.719 --> 00:51:14.320
I bought a lot too, and I'm about to do
955
00:51:14.360 --> 00:51:17.079
the same thing. And I said, oh, amazing. How long
956
00:51:17.199 --> 00:51:19.599
are they you think it's going to take they're telling
957
00:51:19.599 --> 00:51:22.239
me it's going to take about four years. And he said,
958
00:51:22.239 --> 00:51:24.039
oh my god, that's crazy. We're going to be in
959
00:51:24.039 --> 00:51:27.480
in twelve months. Why not in and done? And I said, well,
960
00:51:27.480 --> 00:51:30.119
that's ridiculous, there's no way, and lo and behold he
961
00:51:30.199 --> 00:51:33.559
sent me photos of his place. And the reason for that.
962
00:51:34.199 --> 00:51:37.159
You've got a lot of different reasons. Building costs is cheaper,
963
00:51:37.199 --> 00:51:39.760
there's some things like that, there's more labor. But the
964
00:51:39.800 --> 00:51:42.800
biggest thing is that in Dallas they just have pre
965
00:51:42.920 --> 00:51:46.000
approved permitting. So if you build, they just say these
966
00:51:46.000 --> 00:51:48.960
are the rules. Build to the rules. And if you
967
00:51:48.960 --> 00:51:51.159
don't build the rules, you're going to knock it down.
968
00:51:51.320 --> 00:51:53.880
So you're gonna have a problem. But you just start building.
969
00:51:53.920 --> 00:51:56.039
So you have this lot, you just start building. Whereas
970
00:51:56.079 --> 00:51:59.599
in Canada you're in BC at least or Victoria, you
971
00:51:59.639 --> 00:52:03.079
have to file ahead of time, this hole back and forth.
972
00:52:03.400 --> 00:52:05.719
In Okay you even have to have it look a
973
00:52:05.760 --> 00:52:08.760
certain way or an uplands like all this stuff. I
974
00:52:08.800 --> 00:52:12.960
just think it's like, it's like licensing for people who
975
00:52:13.000 --> 00:52:15.519
are barberous. It's like, do we really need someone to
976
00:52:15.519 --> 00:52:17.480
have a license to cut hair or could we just
977
00:52:17.519 --> 00:52:19.519
trust that people are going to cut hair and if
978
00:52:19.599 --> 00:52:20.960
you know, I want to take the risk of letting
979
00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:22.039
you cut my hair, that's my.
980
00:52:22.079 --> 00:52:24.119
Choice, right and if you don't like it, you don't
981
00:52:24.119 --> 00:52:25.760
go back. Totally pretty simple.
982
00:52:25.840 --> 00:52:28.079
And again these are these are things that I like,
983
00:52:28.280 --> 00:52:30.760
I can argue both sides, right, I know exactly what
984
00:52:30.800 --> 00:52:33.440
the argument is for why we need the regulation to
985
00:52:33.559 --> 00:52:37.960
protect individuals, to protect building owners, to protect tenants. All
986
00:52:38.000 --> 00:52:41.679
these things protect the city from liability. But man, like,
987
00:52:41.800 --> 00:52:45.199
this is not a good environment for making things happen quickly.
988
00:52:45.320 --> 00:52:49.199
It's a lot of protection for a slim chance of
989
00:52:49.280 --> 00:52:52.920
anything happening. Well, you just listen to the first part
990
00:52:52.960 --> 00:52:56.400
of our interview with Andrew Wilkinson and stay tune or
991
00:52:57.199 --> 00:53:01.559
keep subscribing so that when part two drops next week
992
00:53:01.800 --> 00:53:03.239
you're going to be there and they're at all.
993
00:53:06.000 --> 00:53:09.840
Bread and Butter Collectives membership includes the following local businesses.
994
00:53:10.239 --> 00:53:16.840
Two Percent Jazz, Bunny's Kitchen, Buzz Coffee House, Eaglelite, Big Wheelburger,
995
00:53:17.320 --> 00:53:23.679
Blue Mountain Solutions, Bodega, Tapas, Wine Bar, Evish, Nitzelhouse, Farmsgate
996
00:53:23.760 --> 00:53:28.679
Foods and Catering, Victoria Chocolate and Company, Frum Roaster Coffee,
997
00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:33.440
Habit Coffee, Foo, Asian Street Food, the Culinary Arts program
998
00:53:33.480 --> 00:53:39.199
at Kamosin Cafe, Fantastico, fall Epi, Harold Street, brewworks Hey,
999
00:53:39.280 --> 00:53:44.679
Happy House of Boutang, Nick Ramaya, Jenny Marie's Cracker Company,
1000
00:53:45.079 --> 00:53:51.079
La Pasta LaRue, Patisseri, Mocha House, Part and Parcel, Poco A,
1001
00:53:51.159 --> 00:53:57.440
Pinto Bar, Pizzeria, Prima Strata, Keating, Pizza, Roast Table Nine Consulting,
1002
00:53:57.760 --> 00:54:03.239
Sherwood Cafe and Barry Selena, The Collective Wine Bar and Kitchen,
1003
00:54:03.639 --> 00:54:08.519
The Drake, Tapa Bar, The Nimble Bar Company, Ruth and Dean,
1004
00:54:09.079 --> 00:54:14.840
The Whole Beast, The Weanery, Spoons, Diner, Truffles, Inspired Catering,
1005
00:54:15.079 --> 00:54:16.679
and Zambreeze.
1006
00:54:18.639 --> 00:54:20.880
To hear more from the Bread and Butter Collective, go
1007
00:54:20.920 --> 00:54:25.199
to checknews dot Ca, slash podcasts on check Bluss, or
1008
00:54:25.320 --> 00:54:32.079
find us on your favorite podcasting platform