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- [00:00]
Guy Raz
Wondery subscribers can listen to How I built this early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Stripe helps many of the world's most influential businesses grow their revenue and build a more profitable business. Whether it's Hertz making checkout a smooth ride for their customers, OpenAI answering unprecedented demand, or PGA chipping away at back office inefficiency, Stripe's financial infrastructure platform helps companies achieve ambitious goals. No matter what success looks like for your business, Stripe helps ensure the complexity of financial systems doesn't get in your way. Learn more@swepe.com Ryan Reynolds here from Mint.
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- [02:12]
Guy Raz
Hello and welcome to the advice line on How I Built this Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. And each week I'm joined by a legendary founder of former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And so if you are building something and you need advice, go ahead and give us a call and you might just be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a 1 minute message with your name, a bit about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with or you can send us a voice memo@hibtid.wondery.com and make sure to tell us how to reach you. Also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's filled with insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free@guyraz.com or on substack and we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's go. Joining me this week is Jonathan Niemann. He's the co founder of sweetgreen. Jonathan, it's great to have you back on the show, Guy.
- [03:16]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It's great to be here with you.
- [03:17]
Guy Raz
So you were first on the show back in 2020. I think you were my last in person interview before COVID and it was crazy. It was like a week. For anyone listening, if you haven't heard that story, we will put a link in the episode description of this episode and it's well worth going back and listening to it. It is such a cool story. You guys started Sweet Green in 2007. You started with your friends Nicholas Jamay and Nathaniel Rue. And you guys opened it a salad shack in Georgetown in Washington D.C. you guys were students there. I know the location well. I used to live there. Since then you guys have grown into a, a huge national chain of almost 250 stores all over the US and I think just about a year, Jonathan, after your episode aired, this is In November of 2021, you guys went public and you are now the CEO of a publicly traded company valued at around $3 billion, which is just incredible. What a ride.
- [04:11]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Well, thank you. First of all, I'll never forget that day recording with you because it must have been exactly five years ago almost to the day because when we flew up in the morning, everything was fine. And I remember landing in San Francisco and getting a call from a board member, Steve Case, and he's like, are you ready for what's about to happen? I'm like, is this really that big of a deal? We recorded, we left and within hours, you know, the news started coming out. And so it's been quite a wild.
- [04:37]
Guy Raz
Ride the past five years and so much was happening. Like you guys were going through all kinds of changes with the business. I think your entire like corporate team turned over and you had to kind of start again. And amazing things that have happened and amazing innovations which I want to ask you about. But before I do, I want to ask you some. First of all, give me a quick update of where we are now. I mean, a lot of people have heard your episode of How I Built this. A lot of people have eaten that sweet green. I know it well. I have my go to. I love the lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. That's my thing.
- [05:11]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
I love it. Very healthy.
- [05:13]
Guy Raz
Tell me a little bit about where you guys are right now and just a kind of a taste of where you're headed.
- [05:19]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Absolutely. So today's Sweetgreen has 250 locations around the country. We're now in 22 states. And since we last spoke, a few things we've been focused on. One has been a broadening of our menu. So while we started as more of a salad shop, our vision was always more around connecting people to real food and leveraging the supply chain we had built and the scratch cooking and more. The ethos and the brand to go beyond just salads. So over the past couple years, we've introduced protein plates. We've introduced caramelized garlic steak. We had a huge launch. Introducing ripple fries.
- [05:52]
Guy Raz
Ripple fries?
- [05:53]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Yeah.
- [05:53]
Guy Raz
These are air fried french fries.
- [05:55]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Exactly. Sweetgreens to take on the classic french fry. Only five ingredients. Air fried, no seed oils cooked in avocado oil. Just about transparent ingredients cooked. Great quality food cooked simply. And the vision is to redefine fast foods. Kind of this idea of you can have your cake and eat it too. There's a permissible indulgence. So one has been this menu expansion and broadening. Obviously, we've been opening a lot of restaurants, and then there's been a new innovation that we've been working on, which is called our Infinite Kitchen. We've always been huge innovators in technology, thinking about ways to leverage technology to improve the experience for customers and team members. And the Infinite Kitchen is our newest way of doing that. It is an automated assembly line. So the way it works is you still put in your order. We still scratch cook and prep and make everything from scratch. But the actual bowl is now assembled.
- [06:48]
Guy Raz
By a machine, by robot, by, like, by hand.
- [06:51]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It's not a hand. It looks more like a giant kind of mainframe. Like giant, like refrigerators. They're clear tubes where you can see the food and there's a track underneath it. Oh, wow.
- [07:02]
Guy Raz
And it shoots out like lettuce or shoots out the cabbage or.
- [07:05]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
That's exactly right. And every single dispenser had to be engineered for that ingredient.
- [07:10]
Guy Raz
I bet.
- [07:11]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Yeah. So to get the perfect dispense the right, you know, thinking about the different viscosity levels of different dressings and different.
- [07:19]
Guy Raz
Items and you gotta make it doesn't get blocked up like kale.
- [07:23]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Exactly. If everything was as easy as almonds, this would have been an easy exercise.
- [07:28]
Guy Raz
Right.
- [07:28]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
But you have to make it so that it plates perfectly. It doesn't all sit on top of each other. So, you know, the bowl spins around and customers are loving it. We can do 500 bowls an hour. Perfect consistency. The food quality is better. We're seeing great results from a business perspective as well as we're able to run the stores with significantly less labor and I think a better quality job for our team members.
- [07:51]
Guy Raz
So how many of these locations you have now?
- [07:53]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
We have 12 open today and this year we'll open at least 20 to 25 new ones.
- [07:59]
Guy Raz
So is the experience. Because we had Steve Ells of Chipotle on a year or so ago and he talked about trying to do an automated concept to New York, which I think they are doing. I don't know where it is now, but when you go into one of these stores, are you ordering from a human or do you order from a screen?
- [08:16]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
So you have the option of ordering from a human that has kind of a mobile tablet where they can take your order.
- [08:22]
Guy Raz
Okay. And they're walking around, they can go up to you.
- [08:24]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
That's exactly right. So we've the, the idea, the vision for this is actually to give more hospitality and more service so we save some labor on the menial task so we can lean into the, to more of the service side of the business. We also do have kiosks and you can order on your phone so we have those options available for you. But the again, the idea is how do we make it feel more, more human, more theater, more soul and the technology just being enabler to that experience.
- [08:51]
Guy Raz
Compared to a, let's say a non automated store. How many people do you need to run the automated store?
- [08:57]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
So like, like all of our stores, it depends on the time of day. You know, peak lunch in a New York store is much more than an average store, for example, but on, on average 30 to 50% less labor.
- [09:10]
Guy Raz
Wow.
- [09:10]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
At the store level. So you're running it with far, you know, far fewer people. But what's interesting is our turnover. Our employee turn turnover is a really critical metric for us because the more we can hold our team, the more productive they are, the more they know their customers. Everything kind of starts from there. The turnover in the stores with the Infinite kitchen is significantly less than our classic stores.
- [09:30]
Guy Raz
This is less stress.
- [09:31]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It's less stress. It's a little bit. It's an easier job to work in.
- [09:35]
Guy Raz
Jonathan, before we get to our callers, I'm curious. When you started sweetgreen, you had that location in Georgetown. It was the three of you running it, and then you had a couple more people in, but you had a really clear vision, like the dorm food sucked. You wanted really great, healthy food. And I remember going to, you know, those restaurants in the early days and. But they've evolved over time. 250 locations. Even though they're corporate owned and managed, it does become harder to maintain the culture, maintain the quality, maintain the commitment by the staff. It's very, very rare when you go to a chain of restaurants and they are all entirely consistent. You know, I think In N Out is an example of a brand that does it very well. I don't know how they do it. How do you make sure that they are all operating at the same level?
- [10:26]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
So you're asking the billion or maybe the trillion dollar question, because that is the business of restaurants. I think, you know, the way we think about it is a balance of art and science. The science is all of the tools. How do we make it really easy for you to do your job, whether it be, you know, software in the back of house or helping you, or, you know, AI to help you order the right amount of food, or we're now leveraging AI to schedule labor, kind of make some of the routine things easy for you. But the art is really, really important. The art is leadership. And the most important position at Sweetgreen is the general manager of a restaurant. We call them the head coach. And one of the critical metrics we track is our stability at the head coach level. We know if a head we can get a head coach to stay in their store for a few years. Everything gets more consistent and all the numbers get better. So really figuring out what's the right profile for a sweetgreen employee. And the amazing thing about the restaurant industry is it's one of those places that with not a lot of experience or education, you can start here as a, you know, work in the line. And if you work hard, you can be a manager making over $100,000 a year in less than three years. And for us, those are our best managers. Our best managers were promoted from within. They're the ones that preserve the culture and understood the business kind of from the front line.
- [11:47]
Guy Raz
Yeah. Jonathan, why don't we take some calls because I know people are, are super excited to have you on and to get your advice. So why don't we go ahead and take our first call. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with me and Jonathan Niemann from sweetgreen. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.
- [12:05]
Jonathan Niemann
Hello, guy. Hello, Jonathan. My name is Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia. I own a small pie company called Dini's Divine Pies in Rockville, Maryland. And we make all of our pies in small batches, handmade using simple ingredients, all butter, crust, and a whole lot of love. So that's the ethos of this company.
- [12:26]
Guy Raz
Cool. And is it like, tell me, I mean, what kind of pies?
- [12:30]
Jonathan Niemann
I really like to draw on my own background. I'm half Mexican, half Irish American. And so right now we're working on some Irish inspired recipes. Other times I putting together, you know, I have like a mixed berry made with mezcal, for example. So I really like to play with my, my background, but also to be very creative with the recipes.
- [12:53]
Guy Raz
And how long has the business been around?
- [12:55]
Jonathan Niemann
So it started during the pandemic. I was actually recently divorced. I was dating my former yoga teacher and he really liked key lime pies. So I made him one for his birthday that year. That was October of 2021. And you know, you do crazy things for love. So I, I just busted out the best key lime pie I could imagine I had never made. You know, I'm not a baker. I didn't grow up baking or anything like that. So anyway, he said, this is the best key lime pie I've ever had in my life. There's a market for this. I'm going to prove it to you. So he took it to work the next day. And then that, that fall, basically fall and winter, people were asking me to make not only the key lime pie, but then they'd say, well, that was so great. Can you make a strawberry pie? Can you make whatever? So having never been a chef or anything like that, I learned a lot on YouTube, I read a lot and figured it out. And lo and behold, now three years later, I have a really thriving small business. I quit my job. I'm a lawyer, I'm a public interest attorney. I resigned last spring and I'm all in.
- [14:04]
Guy Raz
So I'm reluctant to ask this because I'm imagining the Andy MacDowell, Hugh Grant movie version of this story. What happened to the yoga instructor boyfriend?
- [14:12]
Jonathan Niemann
That's a great question. Actually, you know, he moved away. He made some choices and it's a.
- [14:19]
Guy Raz
Tough time, but he inspired the business.
- [14:20]
Matt Pinstein
It did.
- [14:21]
Jonathan Niemann
And I had this amazing thing and, you know, it's, it's all good.
- [14:25]
Guy Raz
It's all good. We can still make a movie out of it. We can. He just had a small role in the end and got, you know. Yeah. Yes, a good part. Okay, Jonathan Neiman. First of all, questions for Dini.
- [14:40]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Where are you selling the pies?
- [14:43]
Jonathan Niemann
I have a small little brick and mortar that's in not a really great strip mall. And I'm doing all of my production out of a gorgeous, huge commercial kitchen where I am right now. But I see that I need to pivot and really think about if I'm going to scale up the way that I am. I have to diversify, I think my revenue streams. And so I'm pivoting away from the retail and focusing more on wholesale and pop ups. And I'm on doordash as of last week. Part of what happened in the beginning was that I was baking out of my house. So I approached a winery and they said, hey, bring us five pies of your favorites and we'll try them. And no promises. So I did that and they said, you're on the schedule for Mother's day. That was 2022. And they said you're going to need to be licensed, insured, and be prepared to serve pie to 500 people. So having again, I figured it out. I found a shared commercial kitchen space and squeezed a lot of key limes and rolled out a lot of dough by hand and peeled apples by hand and was incredible.
- [15:52]
Guy Raz
Before we forget, you brought a question for us. What do you need help with?
- [15:56]
Jonathan Niemann
So, well, I mean, what's very important to me in all of this is that the company retains its heart and soul. I think part of why it has taken on a life of its own is because there's something about these pies that make people joyful. I've made so many friends. I've gotten to know customers who have now become very good friends. It's kind of like a little neighborhood hub in a big city, assuming that I can scale this up. And I have some conversations actually this week that are happening with a major national food chain and they're already asking me questions about, well, are you willing to change the name, Are you willing to change a logo and things like that?
- [16:35]
Guy Raz
Jonathan, I want to bring you in here because you have 250 locations and we talked about maintaining brand and quality, and I think that sweetgreen's done a great job at it. Obviously, Deanie's in a different spot, but as she thinks about growing and expanding, how can she keep the Ethos, that kind of homespun feeling with a brand that might, you know, sell in a dozen or two dozen different places.
- [17:01]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
You know, I really think it starts with the ultimate vision you have and what your goals are and what, what's going to make you happy. Because it's, from the way I hear about it, so much of it is about the love you put into it and the connection to your customers and scale will change that. Your business will change, you won't. You know, I, I mean, I'm in restaurants a lot and I meet my customers, but it's not the same as when I was working in the first store and I knew all the customers. And I remember, you know, my CFO tells this story. He joined us exactly, almost exactly 10 years ago. And he's like, you know, these guys had a really beautiful business. They almost owned all of it. And they could have slowly opened a store a year and owned all of it and had full control of this high quality experience. But that wasn't the vision. The vision was, we want to be the next version of McDonald's. So we had, we built it to be that. It was never built to get to 250. It was built to get to 3,000. And I think you have to kind of think about what is like, is that what you want? Or do you really want to have the known for the best pies that are really high priced with great margins and you're sold in the best restaurants in the world and you're on Gold Belly and you're better. Your key lime pie is known to be better than Joe Stone Crab, and that's what's going to bring you joy. You're still actually baking the food. So I think you just, I think where some people get stuck is they think bigger is better.
- [18:30]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [18:31]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
And it's not always better because you're gonna actually, to get big, you have to go through years and years of less profit. I have friends today that have, like, really nice businesses that they own 100% of, don't have investors, do what they love, and make really, really good money.
- [18:46]
Jonathan Niemann
Right.
- [18:47]
Guy Raz
Oftentimes they make more money than people who says they're doing tens of millions of dollars that aren't profitable? Look, Deni, the question is like, again, to Jonathan's point here, do you want to put resources and time in trying to get into stores and see if this can really drive business directly back to your business, or do you want to focus on creating a premium product that people will line up and pay for and it's an important question to ask yourself because you could charge a premium price for what you're making. You're using high quality ingredients. It's all handmade. It's really special and local. I mean, there's a pizza place I used to go to in Berkeley and the guy only opened from 5pm to 8pm and you had to order it. And Venmo, the guy, it's a well known place. I think it's called Amelia's Pizza, and it is amazing pizza. And he sells out every single day. And he's only open four days a week, you know, and he controls his schedule, he controls his lifestyle. You're probably spending a lot of your time now baking, right? I imagine.
- [19:55]
Jonathan Niemann
I mean, I spend my time doing it, all of it. So it's, you know, I'm doing the social media, the everything right now. And that's something. As I'm growing, I have to figure out how to, you know, manage. But I do bake. But I do have, you know, my. I have two chefs who are part time and that's made a huge difference because I can just give them the recipes and they're off and running. And I can, you know, go try to talk with people about wholesale opportunities or work on the social media stuff.
- [20:26]
Guy Raz
Yeah, I mean, Jonathan, I mean, I think it's a natural human instinct, right, to want to expand. Right. And as you did, as our show has, everybody wants to do that. And I think there are good arguments to be made to do it. If you are in Dini's position here and you're thinking about, okay, how do we take this from the shop in Rockville Farmer's Markets to at least a bigger regional presence. What do you think are interesting options for her?
- [20:55]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
I am actually very bullish on brick and mortar right now. I think that in this world, and you said of kind of everything digitized, we're seeing a lot of energy around the analog experience again and the power of building community in a physical space. You know, I'll give you an example. In our business, when delivery became a thing, we're like, oh, maybe we don't need restaurants because people know the brand. We can open these kind of ghost kitchens and we can just deliver to people through either our app or all these other, all the marketplaces. Well, what's interesting is I can have delivery coverage in an area and then I can open a restaurant there and the whole thing lifts. So the physical presence of an actual A place actually can help lift your wholesale and the rest of the business. You have to make sure you can afford it and build it out and all of that. And with real estate, I'll say real estate markets are relatively efficient. When rent is really, really cheap, there might be a reason it's really cheap. And that the old adage of location, location, location, it means something. It's real. Like, even today, a brand like sweetgreen Big, we can market. We could. We have all of these capabilities. If we take a bad location, it doesn't work.
- [22:15]
Jonathan Niemann
Right.
- [22:16]
Guy Raz
You know, I just had an idea, Deni, which is, you know, especially in where you are, it's all over the country, right. There are often incentives to bring local businesses to a new development. Right. Like, I think here in the Bay Area, there was. There's a famous fried chicken place in Oakland called Bake Sale Betty's. And then when the Chase center, where the Golden State warriors play, opened up, they invited them to open a location there because it's local. It's. You know, you go to San Francisco Airport and there are all these local restaurants there with locations there. And I imagine that, to Jonathan's point, this idea of authenticity, of analog experience, like, I think that's so true. I'm seeing it anecdotally, and I'm sure the data is going to back this up soon, which is a brand like yours, which is. It's rooted in Rockville, it's rooted in the Maryland, Virginia area. I bet that there might be opportunities to partner with, you know, somebody who's building some kind of, you know, new development or maybe a food hall or something where your presence will be really welcome because you are local. And I. I don't know exactly what's available, but there might be something out there.
- [23:28]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
I love that idea, guy. You know, you've probably been to Union Market.
- [23:31]
Guy Raz
Yeah, exactly. Like a Union Market.
- [23:33]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Union Market would be, like, a perfect place for that. And then you could. You have the. The people that go there are looking for those. Those sorts of things. It can also, you know, function as your bakery. So instead of the rent space, you're renting there. But then you have a physical presence for discovery. So I really like that idea.
- [23:51]
Guy Raz
Yeah, I think there's a lot of cool opportunities. Dini, good luck. Thank you. The company's called Dini's Divine Pies. We will. We are cheering you on.
- [24:00]
Jonathan Niemann
Thank you.
- [24:01]
Guy Raz
And we'll. We'll keep tabs on you.
- [24:03]
Jonathan Niemann
Thank you very much. It's so nice to meet you both.
- [24:05]
Guy Raz
Thank you.
- [24:05]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Best of luck. Dini, great to meet you.
- [24:08]
Guy Raz
Yeah. I mean, I feel like Especially with a business like this where people are willing to pay more for, like when you're seeing the people actually made it and you can talk to them and it's a sense, it's like wine is like a terroir. Like you're tasting a sense of the place. In this case, Rockville, Maryland.
- [24:26]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Yeah.
- [24:26]
Guy Raz
And you know what I mean. So I feel like there's something there about a willingness to pay more for something that you can really connect with.
- [24:36]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Absolutely. And I also think you've probably heard of the Japanese term ikigai.
- [24:40]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [24:41]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It also matters, you know, what, what are you uniquely good at? What do you love to do? And what can you be best in the world at and make money? And you got to find that intersection. So from what I heard from, you know, from Dini is she loved that the actual hands on piece of it and that connection and scale may come at odds with that. And there's a way to have a very successful business and brand and keep it tight still and do the things you love.
- [25:08]
Guy Raz
We're gonna take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line on how I built this lab. You've heard of speed dating, but if you're the owner of a growing business, you may wonder, what if there was a feature like speed dating only for hiring? Some way you could meet multiple interested qualified candidates at once. Well, good news there is. It's zip intro from ZipRecruiter. You can post your job today and start talking to qualified candidates tomorrow. And right now you can try Zip Intro for free at ziprecruiter.com Bilt Zip Intro helps you quickly assess great candidates for your job via back to back video calls. Simply choose a time and Zip Intro will find and schedule meetings with qualified candidates for you. Enjoy the benefits of speed hiring with new Zip intro only from ZipRecruiter rated number one hiring site based on G2. Try Zip Intro for free at ZipRecruiter.com virtual again, that's ZipRecruiter.com bilt zip intro post jobs today. Talk to qualified candidates tomorrow. One of the hardest parts about B2B marketing is reaching the right audience. So when you want to reach the right professionals, use LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn has grown to a network of over 1 billion professionals. And that's where it stands apart from the other ad buys. You can target your buyers by job title, industry company role, seniority skills, company revenue, all the professionals you need to reach in one place. Stop wasting budget on the wrong audience and start targeting the right professionals only on LinkedIn ads. LinkedIn will even give you a $100 credit on your next campaign so you can try it yourself. Just go to LinkedIn.com built this. That's LinkedIn.com builtthis Terms and conditions apply only on LinkedIn ads. If you have a locked AT&T phone, we're here with bolt cutters. T Mobile will help pay off your.
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Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Locked phone and give you a new.
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Guy Raz
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Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
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Matt Pinstein
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Guy Raz
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Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
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Matt Pinstein
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- [27:50]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
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Matt Pinstein
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Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
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- [28:01]
Guy Raz
Welcome back to the advice line on How I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Sweet Green co founder Jonathan Niemann. Jonathan, let's, let's take another call.
- [28:10]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Let's do it.
- [28:11]
Guy Raz
All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Jonathan Niemann, co founder of sweetgreen. Welcome. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.
- [28:22]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Yeah.
- [28:23]
Matt Pinstein
How's it going, guys? Well, Guy and Jonathan, my name's Matt Pinstein. I'm calling from Gloucester, Massachusetts, and I am the founder of Underground Mushroom Company. I produce gourmet mushrooms for local farmers markets at home, deliveries and restaurants in the area.
- [28:40]
Guy Raz
Nice. Well, welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. So you've got a business. You're growing mushrooms. Where are you growing the mushrooms? Because Gloucester is. I don't know enough about mushroom cultivation. I mean, I eat them, but I think Gloucester's pretty cold for a big part of the year, so I'm assuming it's indoors. Heat lamps sound like you're growing something dodgy, but is that right?
- [29:04]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah. So the name, Underground Mushroom Company. My intention was to start in a basement just for that very reason. Less fluctuation. Fluctuation of temperature and consistency is really the name of the game when you're growing mushrooms. They like about 63 degrees. And I figured the heating and cooling throughout the year would. Would be more advantageous in a basement. So that's where I started.
- [29:26]
Guy Raz
You are growing in a basement?
- [29:27]
Matt Pinstein
I am, yeah. And. And you know, as far as retail space is concerned, you get cheap rent, right?
- [29:34]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [29:34]
Matt Pinstein
I rent 2,000 square feet of commercial basement space. It used to be a lobster pound, so they used to wholesale lobsters out of there. And I took one of the lobster pools and converted it into a mushroom grow room.
- [29:47]
Guy Raz
Oh, wow.
- [29:48]
Matt Pinstein
So it's a 12 by 20 foot space, and it allows me to grow anywhere between 150 to 300 pounds of mushrooms a week.
- [29:54]
Guy Raz
Wow. What's your rent like there?
- [29:55]
Matt Pinstein
Oh, it's like 1600 bucks a month.
- [29:57]
Guy Raz
Oh, so it's nothing?
- [29:58]
Matt Pinstein
It's super cheap. Yeah. I mean, one of the things is during king tides, I've been told that it floods. I mean, there was flood damage in the space, but I saw that and I'm like, what a great place to get my feet wet.
- [30:12]
Guy Raz
Yeah, exactly. And so how do you make sure that the mushrooms don't get flooded out if there's king tides?
- [30:18]
Matt Pinstein
Well, I haven't run into that problem yet. I mean, that's probably the impetus to move to my next space. With this space right now is kind of a proof of concept, but I've already become profitable and I love what I do, so I just want to take this to the next level.
- [30:33]
Guy Raz
What are you doing in sales right now?
- [30:37]
Matt Pinstein
So the cost of production is actually pretty cheap. I can produce one of these substrate blocks for only $6, and I'm getting about a $40 return on that investment.
- [30:49]
Guy Raz
How many mushrooms in a block?
- [30:51]
Matt Pinstein
It's about two and a half pounds of mushrooms per block. And, you know, not only is it the cultivation of mushrooms, but I actually sell at home grow kits that I can ship anywhere throughout the country. I also do tinctures that I sell at farmer's markets and. Yeah, yeah.
- [31:08]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
What's the final product are you turning it into? Is it more functional mushrooms like the lion's mane, ashwagandha, those sorts of things?
- [31:14]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah.
- [31:14]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Or is it. Tell me a little bit more how it shows up for the consumer.
- [31:18]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, less of that. More of just the gourmet angle.
- [31:21]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Oh, gourmet, okay. Gourmet mushrooms.
- [31:23]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, yeah. I studied sustainable food systems in college and worked on farms, and I got into mushrooms primarily because it's the most sustainable food out there. I mean, because they're decomposers. They take sawdust which otherwise would be wasted and creates a viable, healthy food source.
- [31:43]
Guy Raz
Wow. So you're. So you're selling a restaurants mainly?
- [31:45]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, yeah, high end restaurants. In the area.
- [31:49]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It's awesome. So the idea is to create a. I'm thinking here in la, for example, we have a famous farmer named Alex Weiser. It's like you want to be that the guy known where the best restaurants are serving your mushrooms and they're putting your name on the mushroom on the menu. They're putting your mushroom name on the menu as a selling point.
- [32:10]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, you got it. I mean, I get a real thrill from seeing my name on a menu and the way that I go about selling these mushrooms. I really just knock on the back door of restaurants and I get a real kick out of talking with chefs and explaining, you know, different recipes that they can incorporate my ingredients into.
- [32:28]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
And you said you're at the farmers markets as well?
- [32:30]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, I am. And I'm a one man show right now, so I haven't hired anybody, but I'm able to hold it down. All the spinning plates I can do myself.
- [32:40]
Guy Raz
Before I forget, what question do you need help with? What's your question for us?
- [32:44]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, so the question has to do with scaling, but not just scaling to scale. I think one of the ways that a lot of people fail in this industry is that they grow too big too quickly. Mushrooms have a limited shelf life. And yeah, as a, as a result, I would rather people start finding me through virtuous food choices. So I was wondering, you know, since Sweetgreen really prides themselves on, on people making healthy food choices, how do you go about that? How do you, how do you shift people's perception of choices they make and. And what you're putting out?
- [33:24]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
You know, it's interesting because, you know, Sweetgreen, when we started, the business was very much positioned around healthy, you know, around the fact that it's healthy. And that's still a core part of the brand. What we've learned is while a lot of people say they care about health, when it comes down to making a decision about what they're going to eat, it's taste, convenience, and value. Health is kind of there. Right. You know, right in the number four range. And so where we've shifted a lot of what we talk about, and I think this is going to be very true for you, is all of the things that we do around our supply chain and are made from scratch is really to make it taste better. And yes, it happens to be really good for you and good for the environment. But in terms of, like, what we're trying to kind of position more so is we do this because it creates better flavor. And I Think for you that's super true. And I think that that's why, for example, we do these partnerships with these chefs. Sounds like you're already on it to kind of be the mushroom farmer to the greatest chefs.
- [34:27]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah.
- [34:27]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
And I think if you do that for a little while, you will build an amazing brand. And the second thing I would do is figure out how to build a little bit of a brand around yourself. You know, how do you become kind of like what Joel Salatin was or what Al Wiser is, kind of. You become a little bit of a famous farmer. I don't know if you've seen Farmer TikTok. There's a lot of cool stuff going on, and I think I haven't yet. If you could go just really authentic. Here's how we do it on. You know, and kind of. Honestly, you know, there's a lot of people that talk that there's no brands anymore. It's just really people. Right. And it sounds like, you know, given your education background and what you're doing, if you can take people behind the scenes on how you do these things, kind of show them your personality, I think that plus the positioning with chefs and then being at the farmer's market, I think is a really kind of cool winning combination.
- [35:17]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah. Thanks, Jonathan.
- [35:19]
Guy Raz
What are your constraints, Matt? I mean, it seems like the businesses, you don't need a whole lot of money to grow. It seems that the cash flow can kind of help you fuel the growth of the business. Is that true? Do you have any. Are there any resource constraints?
- [35:33]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah, I mean, I raised $50,000 initially through a company called Mainvest.
- [35:38]
Guy Raz
Oh, wow.
- [35:38]
Matt Pinstein
It's like a crowdfunding, not like a GoFundMe, but there is a rate of return that my investors are expecting. I got 106 investors.
- [35:47]
Guy Raz
Mainvest, I think, went out of a business, right?
- [35:49]
Matt Pinstein
That's correct. Yeah. So now it's on me to, you know, allocate those funds back to my investors. And I'm not to the point the.
- [35:57]
Guy Raz
Platform was doing it for you, but now they're not doing it correct.
- [35:59]
Matt Pinstein
So I have to find another platform when I get to that point.
- [36:03]
Guy Raz
But.
- [36:03]
Matt Pinstein
But, you know, between all. All my expenses and. And trying to keep myself afloat, I. I've yet to be able to pay back my investors. But, I mean, that's the next hurdle. That's the next goal. And, you know, I don't know if it would be foolish for me to go out and do a second round of investing having not, you know, started paying Back my initial investors, but, you know, that would certainly speed things up, getting into a second location.
- [36:35]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Are you supply constrained or is it. Is it like if you had more supply, you'd be selling?
- [36:40]
Matt Pinstein
Oh, yeah.
- [36:41]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
So certainly.
- [36:42]
Matt Pinstein
I mean, I'm selling out everything I produce.
- [36:46]
Guy Raz
Wow. Well, that's a good. That's a great sign.
- [36:48]
Matt Pinstein
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So. So here I've. I've survived the winter. We're coming into the spring. Tourism's coming back to Gloucester, Salem, Beverly, the whole area. And I just bought a second sterilizer, so I'm going to be doubling my output. And, you know, that'll. That'll free up some cash, and hopefully I'll be able to hire someone to help me. But. But money helps everything, right? So, yeah, I could certainly expand with added capital.
- [37:17]
Guy Raz
Well, it seems like you have some really interesting opportunities, especially now that, I mean, you're selling everything you can grow, which is a good sign. It means that you have to figure it out. Right? You got to figure out a way to expand your footprint, and whether you can do that through cash flow or whether you're going to take a loan out. I mean, it's possible you might be able to get an SBA loan, and that could be another interesting, interesting way to go. But, I mean, it's a great sign. It means that you're producing something that people want.
- [37:44]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
You might have some pricing power.
- [37:46]
Guy Raz
Yes.
- [37:47]
Matt Pinstein
Yeah. I do sell my product for three, four dollars over what distributors are selling theirs for. But it's because the quality of my product. My chefs want to purchase something local. And, you know, I'm nervous right now. I can hear it in my own voice. But, like, when I'm face to face with the chef, they trust me and want what I have to sell. So not only can I grow them, I can sell them. And I take that as a point of pride.
- [38:13]
Guy Raz
Yeah. That's awesome. Matt, good luck, man. The business called Underground Mushroom Co. Co. Congrats. Good luck.
- [38:20]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Congrats, Matt. Can't wait to.
- [38:21]
Matt Pinstein
Thanks so much, guys. Yeah. Pleasure chatting with you.
- [38:23]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Take care.
- [38:24]
Guy Raz
Thank you. Yep.
- [38:24]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Bye. Bye.
- [38:26]
Guy Raz
I just. Now I'm going to do grilled mushrooms tonight. I'm going to do some sauteed mushrooms. You could take a portobello. You can turn. It's like a burger.
- [38:33]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It's so meaty. So good. So good for you. I mean, it's an amazing, amazing plan.
- [38:38]
Guy Raz
All right, we're gonna take another quick break, but we'll be right back with one more caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice line right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the Advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking your calls with Jonathan Niemann, co founder of Sweetgreen. So Jonathan, let's get back into it and take another call.
- [39:17]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Awesome.
- [39:18]
Guy Raz
Hello, welcome to the Advice line. You're on with Jonathan Niemann of Sweetgreen. Welcome to the show. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from and a little bit about your business.
- [39:28]
Ryan Reynolds
Hi Guy. Hi Jonathan. My name is Joey Cornell. I'm calling from Villa Park, Illinois. My business is Dak Dak Wings and we specialize in crispy double fried wings, fresh cut fries and unique house made sauces.
- [39:43]
Guy Raz
Yum. Awesome. Welcome to the show, Joey. And where is Dakdak Wings located?
- [39:47]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, so we currently have one brick and mortar location about 10 miles outside of Chicago in Villa Park, Illinois.
- [39:54]
Guy Raz
And it's a late night place, open like super late night or what? What are your hours?
- [39:59]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, so we're lunch and dinner mostly and we're open for the suburbs fairly late 10pm on weekdays and Fridays and.
- [40:09]
Guy Raz
Saturdays till 11pm and you've got a brick and mortar. And tell me a little bit about how you give me some background. Are you a chef or is that your background? Are you a cook? Did you work in restaurants? How, how did you start this?
- [40:21]
Ryan Reynolds
So I got super involved with our high school's culinary program when I was about 15 years old and I just dove into it. And so on top of spending all the time I could in the culinary department, I was working at a local restaurant and kind of in tandem was doing cooking competitions and you know, some illegal catering perhaps for people in my community. But quickly decided to go to culinary hospitality school. So I briefly attended Johnston Wales in Providence, Rhode Island.
- [40:57]
Guy Raz
It was culinary school there. Yeah. Yep.
- [40:58]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. I thought to meet like minded people is a good place to go. So I was working full time and I tried Korean style wings for the first time and was blown away with the texture. It's uniquely crispy, sticky, the chicken is mildly flavored versus being heavily seasoned and you're. It's just a amazing experience. And then when the pandemic hit, I came back home to the Villa park area and was upset that we didn't have anything close to it for wings. So yeah, started writing a business plan and looking at spaces to lease. Finally after about touring 70 locations, I was trying to keep it small, take out only, you know, almost a Covid Proof concept. And I found a former Little Caesars that I was able to retrofit into what I envisioned. And yeah, just with my own cash, and I was able to get a small SBA loan and that's what started our restaurant.
- [42:01]
Guy Raz
Wow. How did you get the cash to do it? I'm just, I'm asking for a friend. People listening. How'd you get the cash?
- [42:06]
Ryan Reynolds
No, for sure. Believe it or not, guy, when I wasn't recipe testing or working on the business plan, I was driving Uber Eats and Doordash.
- [42:16]
Guy Raz
Nice. Nice. That's how you saved the money.
- [42:20]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. And when people were at home, the roads were clear. I was driving a little fast, trying to go from order to order, and that's how I saved most of the money.
- [42:29]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
It's a great story and you probably learned a little bit about part of your business.
- [42:32]
Ryan Reynolds
Thank you, Jonathan. Yeah.
- [42:34]
Guy Raz
How much did you save from Uber and DoorDash?
- [42:36]
Ryan Reynolds
It ended up being close to 50,000.
- [42:39]
Guy Raz
Wow. Amazing.
- [42:41]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah. So I was able to then get a SBA loan for a little more than that. And when I say, you know, opening a restaurant on a shoestring, just plus building out everything, you know, website, online ordering, that's about as tight as you can do a restaurant for most people I talk to say, you know, a restaurant of similar size is 3 to 500,000.
- [43:04]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
I can attest to that.
- [43:06]
Ryan Reynolds
That is, we made it work and came close to running out of cash. But here we stand today, almost three years, a little over three years later. So.
- [43:15]
Guy Raz
Wow. And tell us about what's your challenge? What's your question for us?
- [43:21]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, so the question that I had with future restaurant expansion in mind, how much should I focus on our primary product of crispy wings and fresh cut fries? And how much should I lean into, potentially leaning into trends, whether that's frying and beef tallow, offering a chicken sandwich, chicken tenders, etc.
- [43:45]
Guy Raz
Interesting, interesting.
- [43:47]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Gentlemen, I think it starts where I was going to ask you is understanding who your customer is and a little bit on what the. Where the brand is positioned. Is it positioned kind of trying to compete with Wingstop, trying to be a healthier, more premium version? Because I think a lot the way I'd answer some of those questions depends on which part of the market you're trying to capture.
- [44:08]
Ryan Reynolds
Yeah, definitely not healthier. Sorry, Jonathan. With, you know, it's chicken wings and fried food in general is indulgent. So I kind of take the Todd Graves approach. Is that the day someone wants a salad, they're going to get A salad. If someone wants, you know, fried chicken, they're going to get that either way. But with that said, the product is definitely premium. We use all natural, you know, antibiotic free chicken. Our coleslaw, our pickles, our sauces, everything we're making in house. So we're definitely chef driven. Especially with one restaurant, it's definitely easier. I know that gets tougher as you grow. So yes, we are slightly premium, but really with the focus on just a better chicken wing experience in general, the.
- [44:56]
Guy Raz
Question to me is like, like, could you offer a chicken sandwich? Could you offer a salad? And what I wonder is whether. Cause I think the answer is yes, but I don't think it's a yes. And this is the way it is. To me it's more like a pop up kind of approach. Like, hey, you know, there's a great pizza place that I go to in Sonoma county and they do Roman style pizza, right? But now and again on their Instagram they're like, hey, we're doing New York style pizzas just today. But the place is a Roman style pizza. It's the big square dishes of pizza. But on those days people get psyched because it's like something else that is just new and different. And I wonder whether you can just try that pop up approach. We're doing Korean boneless wing, Korean chicken sandwiches.
- [45:44]
Ryan Reynolds
Definitely, guys. So we've had really good success with ltos. Limited time offerings that we've done now with a decent sized email list. We've done in the past chicken and waffles, chicken sandwiches. We even did a funnel cake and fried chicken special last summer. And just like you say, you send out an email put on Instagram. And those always go over incredibly well. But again, those are one time. You have to get it now or it's, or it's gone. Of course those work well. But I guess to take a step to fully integrate a new trend like Jonathan knows, if you add one menu item, it completely changes the flow of your line, your prep schedule, walk in storage. These are things that I like to have as tight of a menu as possible. We do one thing very well, but sometimes in the back of my head I get, you know, the constant people saying, oh, you should add a chicken sandwich, you should add tender. So we offer those as ltos when we can, but something like frying in beef tallow and eliminating seed oils, we are actively trying to switch over to that. So I guess just what way, how do you know when to make those decisions? Do you trust your gut? Do you trust industry data?
- [47:01]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Yeah, it's an interesting one because we've been going through this transition ourselves and evaluating the cost benefit of it. My gut is to stay focused and stay focused on wings and be known for the, the best wings in the world. Eventually you will, you know, as you grow, you'll want other growth levers. And so keeping that for, you know, another day, I think is a good thing. I wouldn't go into it yet. Wingstop didn't introduce sandwiches until like two years ago. And by the way, the reason they did it was not from a customer perspective, it was from a supply chain perspective because they realized that if they introduce sandwiches now, they can buy whole birds instead of just buying the wings because there was such demand for the wings. And now they bought the whole birds and brought their cost of overall all of their chicken down. So I will say that a lot of it, you know, I keep going back to who's your, your target customer and where you're positioning the brand. My view on health is health is less about calories. It's more about the underlying ingredients not having processed stuff and crap in it. So I think the way you're doing it handmade, you know, no preservatives, no processing, and potentially removing seed oils could have a very cool positioning of a better for you wing. But if you do that, make sure the whole brand is aligned towards that. And in terms of this, you know, the moving to beef tallow, I think it's really interesting. I'd evaluate what's the additional cost, how much more would you have to sell to fund it? What I can tell you, and we've spoken about this publicly, is we did start a journey of removing seed oils about two years ago. Out of our restaurant just introduced fries cooked in avocado oil. And generally, I'd say it's been worth it. The response has been really good for our customer. People did care and we saw a noticeable shift. However, I will say that we saw it very different by market. So places like LA or New York reacted much more positively to it than certain other cities. Again, this was about two years ago. I think the awareness has shifted a bit around seed oil. So. So speak to your customers. I think that even today, at our scale with millions of customers, I spend a lot of time talking directly to customers. And I think at your scale, I would just talk to them. That's the beauty of kind of start being small. Do you care about this? Would it make you want to come more? Is it something that you would tell your friends about and that'll help you get kind of sharpen your gut feeling on what the right decision is.
- [49:28]
Guy Raz
Agreed? Agreed. Joy Cornell. The business is called Dakdak Korean Wings. Good luck. Keep at it, man.
- [49:34]
Ryan Reynolds
Thank you, guys. Jonathan, Guy, it was a pleasure to be here. Thank you very much.
- [49:38]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Great to meet you. Joey, good luck.
- [49:40]
Guy Raz
Thanks for calling in. Jonathan, before I let you go, just a quick question. Now that you have all this experience, I mean, 2007, man, you were a baby. And I still think of you as a baby. But you're a grown up obviously today and running a really significant national business. If you could go back to you in 2007 and just give you some encouragement or advice, what do you think you would say to him?
- [50:06]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
I'd probably say, enjoy the journey. That it will be more challenging than you expect, but more rewarding. And the key is not giving up. And don't take anything too seriously. This too shall pass. You know, you think back on all those existential moments, you know, and we still have them today. I think I talked about this on your podcast. You know, one day you think you're on the verge of world domination, the next on the verge of bankruptcy. You know, you still feel that. And you just got to do your best to kind of maintain that equanimity. You know what's crazy? When you think it's been 18 years, it's been half my life, pretty much incredible. So if you're not having fun while you're doing it, it may not be worth doing.
- [50:51]
Guy Raz
That's awesome. That's sweet. Green co founder and CEO Jonathan Niemann. Jonathan, thanks, guy.
- [50:56]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Thanks so much for having me on. This was fun.
- [50:58]
Guy Raz
And by the way, if you haven't heard Jonathan's original How I Built this episode, you've got to go back and check it out. We'll put a link to it in the podcast description. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. You went to your executive team and you present this plan and within a year they all left. Basically your entire top level execs are gone.
- [51:20]
Dini McCullough Amoso Rutia
Yeah, I remember like the last one where we thought it couldn't get any worse. And I get the text from someone and it's always like the worst text when someone says, hey, can you talk? And then so the last person quits and we're just like, oh God, what are we gonna do?
- [51:39]
Guy Raz
Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free@guyraz.com or on substack. And of course, if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues you are currently facing because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo@hibtid.wondery.com or or call us at 1-800-433-1298. You can leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And by the way, we'll put all of this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Iman Ma'ani with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Casey Herman. Our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production team also includes Alex Chung, John Isabella, Elaine Coates, Chris Messini, Kathryn Seifer, Kerry Thompson, Sam Paulson, J.C. howard, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line on How I Built this Lab. If you like How I Built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey@wondery.com survey.