<p class="g_eyebrow_text">BACKSTORY</p>

Learning the Ropes

I started as a GM with Jimmy John's and worked my way up to Director of Operations for the franchise, so I knew the brand really well. When I started there, I think it was like two hundred or three hundred units. So I was a part of the brand as it grew and had a real understanding of the ins and outs. If you're going to devote your life to something, understanding it from the very beginning is a good place to start from. There was a trust there.

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The Path to Independence

When I was working for Jimmy John's in the early 2000’s in Detroit the auto industry collapsed. I remember watching friends and family lose pensions, retirements, or get laid off regardless of what they did right. It was like they had no control over their life and I remember that really scared me. You could work twenty years, and no matter what you do, it’s all out of your control. I didn't trust that someone else was going to work harder than me or was going to care about my well-being, not in a cynical way, just that it's not their responsibility.

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I had been working my way up the food chain, meeting more and more owners, and being in the room with the smart people. And I realized I was just as smart as a lot of the people who were supposed to be smarter than me. That kinda scared me, but I knew that I could do this. 

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When my wife told me she was pregnant with our daughter that was kind of the turning point. I have no problem sacrificing for a better life for my kids and decided it's not just going to be for someone else's gain, it's going to be for our gain as a family. That was the thing that put me over the edge.

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<p class="g_eyebrow_text">CHALLENGE</p>

Hurry Up and Wait

I was thirty-three or thirty four years old. No assets. Just a lot of experience. Everyone was used to delays with local banks and things taking a lot of time, on both sides. I would go to a bank and they're talking to me and thinking I'm going to send them stuff in thirty to sixty days because that's what they're used to, and I was like, it's already done. I came in prepared and they weren't used to that, and I'd get annoyed because they weren't really ready to start. I can't count how many times I go to a bank, and they'd be like, we'll bring it to the lending committee, and you know, a month or two would go by. It was just frustrating. A lot of it, I think, is that they just didn't want to deal with restaurants unless you also had the land. It was basically if you don't have the real estate, we're not going to touch it.

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<p class="g_eyebrow_text">SOLUTION</p>

The Gift of Partnership

It felt like I'd been given a gift to have a lender to work with me as a partner. Travis and the folks at ApplePie were always up front with me. It was just so refreshing. ApplePie just makes it easy. I don't mean easy like, snap your fingers and you get money, I mean for what it is and how much paperwork there is, they make it efficient. I go into the portal. I submit what's needed and I'm done. It takes me ten minutes if something is needed. It's not hard and the stress levels are low because it's usable and easy. When you've got a million things to deal with having somebody you can get a hold of and talk to and work with, it’s really beneficial.

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I really haven't had a good experience with any lender other than ApplePie to be honest. Other banks suck. I don't want to say that, but they do. They were constantly saying hey, we need this form -- you mean the one I sent you seven times already? Even their own software says it's been sent and checked off and they’re like, well, we can't find it. Can you send it again? It's just brutal.

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ApplePie makes it understandable. It's like going to the gym with a trainer, right? You can have a trainer that makes you feel comfortable in what's in front of you, or one that makes you feel like you don't want to come back the second day. ApplePie is like the trainer that makes you want to come back the second day and try twice as hard. And you feel like you really have a partner. You know what I mean? You feel like you're gonna reach your goals, because there's somebody there you can count on. That's the best way to describe it.

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<p class="g_eyebrow_text">GROWTH</p>

Experience Pays Off

I never thought I'd have one location, let alone eleven. When I got the third, I realized I wasn't gonna survive with just three. It was going to be really hard for me to build new stores because the deposit that you need to build a new unit? And I was like, okay, I got my third really cheaply, maybe I can make this a thing where I find these owners that are underperforming and just want out. So I can get the stores cheap, use my experience to fix the operational issues, and then recapitalize them a year or so later and use that money to fix everything. I knew I was in an area of the country that had a lot of people that had built stores, but just didn't know what they were doing.

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What's Next

I'm actually trying to kind of diversify, trying to find other brands. Maybe non food brands. Instead of building, I wouldn't mind buying out some other businesses that need some love and then revamping. That's something I like doing, something I'm good at. Just be into the retail space, I guess for lack of a better phrase. And I can kind of balance the old portfolio with the new.

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I’d especially like opportunities  that could affect lower income neighborhoods. I don't feel like we take care of certain neighborhoods and communities properly. So I'd love to find footprints that also still impact a community. Maybe it's laundromats that you know, are actually really good cash cows, but they're just not taken care of right. It’s simple things like just taking care of the lighting and then cleaning them up and giving people a safe space to do their laundry.

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The First Truck

My first day being a Jimmy John's owner, I remember being so excited. The delivery truck shows up at eight-o-clock in the morning. My first truck that I'm gonna have to pay for right? It was like, oh my god, this is your first owner moment, like you're running your own store. From being a GM or area manager it was always someone else's problem and now this is technically your first big bill that's showing up and it's kind of cool.

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