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Eater
4 days ago
- Entertainment
- Eater
3 Houston Restaurants to Try This Weekend: May 30
Each week, we'll provide a trusty list of recommendations to answer the most pressing of questions: 'Where should I eat?' Here are three places to check out this weekend in Houston. And if you need ideas on where to drink, here's our list of the hottest places to get cocktails in town . For Detroit-style pizza: Gold Tooth Tony's 1901 North Shepherd Drive, Suite 4, Heights 5225 Bellaire Boulevard, Bellaire 2010 Waugh Drive, Montrose Pizza is always an easy, no-cooking way to end a long week, and while ordering delivery from a chain might seem easiest (Domino's is my go-to lately), sometimes it's good to treat yourself to something special. Fortunately, Houston is brimming with different styles, including Neapolitan; ironclad, a newer-Texas style; and my personal kryptonite, Detroit-style. Anthony Calleo, the pizza mastermind behind Gold Tooth Tony's, has spent a long time working on his craft, starting with his days at the now-closed Pi Pizza to slinging pizzas at Rudyard's and consulting at Betelegeuse Betelgeuse, where the round ironclad-style pizzas have his fingerprints all over them. Now, Calleo has three pizzerias of his own where he dishes out some of the best cheesy Detroit-style pizzas in town, built on a base that offers a pillowy combination of focaccia and sourdough with crispy edges and generous lines of tomato sauce. Diners can build their own pizza with a selection of toppings, but the signature combinations cover all the bases, with classics including pepperoni and cheese pizzas and more adventurous renditions, like the carb-loaded Mac Attack is Back with macaroni and cheese and bacon. Favorites include the Detroit Supreme, which is covered with a mixture of meats and veggies, and Sebastian's Big Idea, a pie that hits all the notes of sweet and salty with spam, togarashi-roasted pineapple, and furikake seasoning. Be sure to look at some of the menu's other items, which include doughy garlic knots, pizza tots, and an assortment of wings served with two styles of homemade ranch (appropriately listed on the menu as the Nectar of the Gods). For a cinematic experience: Haii Keii 3300 Kirby Drive, Suite 9-A, Upper Kirby If you or someone you know would love to dine on what feels like the set of Kill Bill , this one is for you. This new Japanese restaurant in Upper Kirby will make you feel like you're in a movie, with dark and moody interiors illuminated by neon signs, sultry two-person booths separated by red ropes, a bar with an overhanging upside-down bonsai tree, and an LED display of mysterious, shadowy figures floating through the dining room. Go for a few cocktails or stay awhile to soak in the ambiance and dine in. The food and cocktails are captivating, too, with purple-hued ube espresso martinis, soft-shell crab fried rice, and a menu of sushi. Aside from its standout vegetarian nigiri made with delicate slivers of eggplant and bell pepper, Haii Keii also offers the most decadent Murimake roll, which is stuffed with king crab and topped with A5 wagyu and kaluga caviar. The touch of gold leaf on the roll is nice, but the best part is the accompanying crackling crab butter candle. Made from a boiled-down and molded combination of crab and butter, the lit candle sits at the end of the plate in a hunk of wasabi to keep it steady, dripping butter for your dipping pleasure. For a seafood splurge: Little's Oyster Bar 3001 South Shepherd Drive, Montrose One of the newest additions to the Pappas Restaurants catalog has recently switched up its menu, reminding me why we named Little's Oyster Bar the Best New Restaurant in 2023. From start to finish, the menu bedazzles, with quality cold bar offerings, refreshing appetizers like the delicate Local Greens salad, which is paired with a honey dressing and the creamiest goat cheese, and a tender grilled octopus (arguably the best in the city) served with a luxurious zhug you'll want to sop up with the marbled potatoes. Aside from its fresh catches, including a standout Gulf Grouper (ask for the heirloom tomato sauce vierge), the lobster gnocchi is the dish that captivates, with an herbaceous sauce composed of blistered cherry tomatoes with bits of crunchy potato chips for added texture. Dining here, however, will cost you a pretty penny. Most dishes will run you over $20, with entrees priced at $43 and up (and that's not including sides). But you could also pop in for oysters and a martini, or a heart-warming bowl of cioppino with buttery sourdough and a side of Pappas's irresistibly crispy fries. Little's is one of those restaurants you should treat yourself to every once in a while. Sign up for our newsletter.
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Funding a restaurant is a beast - here's how one chef tackled it
Listen and subscribe to The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcast. This week on The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore, chef and restaurateur Russell Jackson joins the show to answer the question: How do I fund a small business? Jackson breaks down all the different ways he has financed his restaurants in the past and offers his pros and cons to the different methods, especially for small business Finance's The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore takes you on a journey with America's entrepreneurs as they navigate the world of small business. This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff How to, I'm Elizabeth Gore. Welcome to the Big Idea from Yahoo Finance, the show that navigates the world of small business and entrepreneurship. All businesses start with one light bulb moment, and I'm going to take you on a journey with America's entrepreneurs. As the co-founder of the small business funding platform, Hello Wallace, it has always been my mission to help ensurewhere entrepreneurs have the tools they need to live the American dream. We're going to get between the spreadsheets with these operators to flow from their smallest failures to their biggest successes. So let's cowboy up. Today, our big idea question is how do you fund a small business? Today's industry is restaurants and I love to eat. My special guest this episode is Russell Jackson, a chef, restaurateur, and community leader. He's also a great Jackson has appeared on shows like Iron Chef America, Food Network Star, and Going Of Menu. He is the owner and chef of Harlem's fine dining, Michelin star nominated restaurant Reverence. Now, in full disclosure, since we recorded this episode, Chef Jackson had decided to put Reverence on hiatus. This is indicative of the environment small businesses are currently in, where small businesses are riding the highs and lows of the economy, butI love this conversation with Chef. I want to share it with you. He has so much wisdom. There is no one better to answer our big idea question today. How do you fund your business? Here's my chef. I'm so, so happy you're for you. Absolutely anything for you. we talk about the big lightbulb moments, and I just have to know what was your big idea when you were moving in and starting Reverence? What was I thinking? How did I end up here again? You know, um, I built Reverence, um, I, I, I built Reverence because there was a need for it. Um, but it was also at the coercion of my very small, very small circle of friends and family when I when I got because I had retired. I, I was done with being in the restaurantbusiness. Imagine you're retired though. I mean, it's almost like a joke. And yeah, yeah, and that's, I think the sad fact of the reality of it is that I retirement wasn't necessarily really what I wanted to do. I think I, I, I ran away from it because of the pain of closing Lafitte in San uh, and then getting sucked into the world of of media on doing television and TV shows and things like that. So you decided to go back in your own kitchen. Yeah, which again wasn't necessarily the brightest moment in my life, but it's what I love to do. Um, again, I'm, I'm an African American and I grew up, I grew up in Southern California in the we were at the time in the 70s when we moved there. We were one of three African American families that were in that entire area, uh which now that people have better understanding the size and scope of it. Um uh so, very few of us, right? It'd be like 3 people living in in the whole of Manhattan, um, and, uh, uh, you know, it was justIt's a beautiful community. Uh, it was the first time I had lived in a predominantly African American community. What I do, how I do things, the reason behind why I do things was important to bring to bear, to help to change the conversation and also American culinary uh nature, you know, we don't just cuisine, uh, there's a wide range of us that cook exceptional levels of, of, of food, and California cuisine and it's in its aspect, in its own genre, uh, is an impor is an important element to the conversation because it leads the way in so many different for me to be able to do that and represent those ideas, uh, uh, within Harlem, within this community, and then to definitively work hard to get back to it in every aspect to from not just being there, but also trying to um create diversity within the workplace, build wealth within the workplace, um, uh, give opportunity for education expansion, uh, and now with us the best damn I've ever eaten. You know, I mean that kind of you got to make that happenforemost, you're one of, I think the the leading experts on on financing a restaurant. Well, you are. I mean, you've done such a good job over and over and our actually our big idea question today is how do you think through funding your business andWhether you're in the restaurant business or anything else, I mean, what are the steps that you take as you prepare to fund your business? Well, I, I, I've done three different approaches to thisday. Walk us through three. So, so the first one, my very first one, Russell's in, in, in, in Los Angeles on Lasanga, uh in uh in the early 90s, um uh not self fineness, but I had some friends and my family and, and like, um, uh, Marian Williamson kicked some money in and Stephen Bray kicked some money in and uh uh uh a a a guy who owned a uh a high-end model house and my father kicked the lion's share of money um, that was, and that was tough. That was closing that restaurant was exceedingly difficult, but again, we went through some very unprecedented. Oh my goodness closing that restaurant. Now we call it a and family round and and sometimes, I mean, you and I have backgrounds thatYou know, we didn't come from high net worth families. And so, um, you know, walking up to one of your family members and asking is tough. And sometimes relationships can change and so on. I mean, would you, would you say to a small business owner, really consider this option? No, no, absolutely OK, I think that's really fair because umYou know, sometimes that's our only route, but do you wait, do you self-finance? Do you bootstrap? So what was your second? So the second was Lafitte. Lafitte was a multimillion dollar monster that took, uh, we didn't have any any institutional lending, but we took private, private equity partners. We had a developer that was partnered with us for the build out, um, raised our rent at one point, I think we were paying the highest per square foot restaurant rent in the state of California, and that's California, I but again, another historic landmark property you had to deal with historic society, the waterfront and other federal government agencies to just do the build out. That was, that was an excessive raise. So that, so let's just for our listeners, so when you say raise, if we break it down, you are valuing your business at a certain potential amount andAnd you are saying, OK, so and so, if you put in $50,000 I'm going to give you quote shares or equity. It's essentially an SEC, it's a traded share. It has, it has an intrinsic value and ultimately, in those situations, like, like for myself, um, uh, I didn't have the highest amount of equity. I had a percentage that was a reasonable voting block, butUh, the decision was out of my hands in the respect of, do I continue on with this while we're losing money or do we have to close? And in that case, the investors said, we're done. So you lose, you lose the ability to have that control. That's a tough thing. We're at we're venture backed and you know, it's tough because you have a lot ofbosses at that point. And that's that's the thing it's the only way to get in a restaurant, you know, it's a Saturday night, and this is, I, I'm putting this example up from a from a true story that walks up on a Saturday night when you're getting hammered and says, I want to sit at that table, and we, you go, I don't have a waiter for you. I have no place. I can't keep you there. And then says, and I want a Diet Coke. Well, we don't serve Diet Coke. We'll send somebody out to get one. It's like I'm sorry, what? I know you and I can't imagine doing that. All right, again, this is the put the gun to the temple model, um, self-finance. So, uh, I had, I had money that I'd saved up and worked for, uh, and, uh, I went out and I actually got an SBA uh matching loan, uh, that, uh can we stop there just for a second. So, um, SBA loans, I critical. And um so how how did you decide to get an SBA loan and why, if I can ask real quick? Well, to be very honest, it having gone through so many different levels of development and even trying to get SBA loans when I opened my very first restaurant, the labyrinth of red tape and hurdles and all of the, it's, it's, it always seemed like a sheer impossibility. So I applied for the SBA loan in this almost as just trying to turn over a last rock, not having any expectation whatsoever that this was a possibility. So when I got the notification that I had gotten it.I realized that I had turned into a unicorn because I had only heard of one other restaurant group people that a group of people that I knew that had gotten an SBA loan for a restaurant, and they were as different than I as I as I could possiblybe, very white. They have lower interest rates too. Is that a fairlike a traditional they're great loans. I mean, they're not and and I think the type of loans that if I ever go back to deal with the SBA for my own work, uh, I would probably end up doing the 7A program because the idea for me now is I would prefer, and as I've learned over through the pandemic, uh, is I would rather own the real estate below So that would, if you're going to do an SBA loan, I would probably always say try to go with an SBA loan. It's still, it's a, it's a sizable chunk of down payment that you have to come up with, but the terms are better than any other bank can get for you. Uh, and money comes quickly, system, you know, there are checks and balances and things that you're going to have to go through, uh, a lot of signoffs that you're going to have to go through. ButAll in all, the last thing I would say is, is, especially about personal and self finances is figure out how to keep your credit, at least in the 600s. That, that I, yeah, that's absolutely critical because you can look at my 300 score credit right now and see how incredibly difficult it is to work around anything, you know, and credit's cre credit's malleable, it's flexible. It, it goes up and down every single frigging week, you know, all kinds of different factors, you drop below a certain number, don't freak out. Don't start thinking I got to do this and just figure out how to work it back up and, you know, I mean it. Yeah, yeah, but if you want to make moves, just make sure that you're keeping that in a thought process of if I'm going to take loans out or I'm going to do these things or I'm gonna, I need to, I need to make sure that my personal in alignment with where I want to ultimately go and then don't worry about it for a while. You alsoapplied for grants, right? Oh, so many so many grants. I'm also, by the way, a huge fan of small business grants. I think they're an underutilized resource. I mean, I mean, it's a lot of paperwork, but it's, I mean, not free capital, butCome on. No, it's, it's, it's accessible capital and, and, you know, the reality of, of grants didn't kick into for us until we had gotten to, to the pandemic. That's when we had turned to that idea and fortunately my wife is tenacious andshe, she is, so is your son. And that's how we ended up being introduced to heal Alice. So, and without, you know, and then learning so much about the grants programs, the different types of things, uh, we've, we've been awarded quite a few different grants through the course of the last 5 years of our 6 years of our existence. So, and they've been really helpful a lot of times, very you know, like, how am I going to make payroll? Well, chef, you, I mean, you've been through hell and back. I mean, you know, all of our restaurants are still climbing back from COVID. You had a significant break do, so tell me your advice to, so all small business owners are going to go through adversity for something. How do you, how do you get through that both the business and then personally through things like that. And by the way, I have to come in, you paid your employees while you were closed. I mean, it was, it was tremendous, but can you just give that small business owner right now who is just having a hard time?What? You know, I mean, and I've said this before, um, and I've said this with you many times is that you can never give up. You just have to, I mean, you have to keep fighting until you are utterly dead. And maybe that's the skydiver in me thinking, you know, just keep ripping away at it until, until I'm absolutely done, done, um, uh, but just never give up. And, and I, it's easy to say, and it's so much harder to do because, you know, there's so many different bearing pressures uh, uh, feeling bad and the guilt and the, the, the anguish and the stress and the, you know, it's like I, I, I currently have hives and losing my hair and, you know, you know, I haven't been able to lose the weight that has been on my frame for the last, you know, it's likeit's, it's, it's a wait, do you love your own food the most? I have to. No,really, I, I, and I, I' are moments in time when I'm working I'll say something and I'll go, wow, that's really good. That surprised me. And then there are there but for the most part, I again, I'm the hardest, you know, and I think that as a chef, you have to be entrepreneurs we are our worst bosses, aren't we? It's so hard on ourselves. I mean, it's it's an absolute necessity, but you know, I think just the the the the importance for people to remember is that they're, you're not you know, it may feel like it, but I guarantee you you're not, that you can't be in fear to reach out, to even just talk with people that may have had similar experiences. We've had a lot of my phone calls you and I haven't we just have, you know, talking to people that that can at least whether they can't necessarily solve the problems for you, but you have that ability to voice things outside of your, your, you know, treadmill, uh, andSometimes those solutions pop in those conversations. Um, so it's, it's important to. Yeah, that's that's really, really tough and I because I did that for years, I would just in everything and then it would blow up some other ways. Chef, hold that thought. We got to take a quick break and we'll be right back to The Big Idea. I'm Elizabeth Gore here with Chef Russell Jackson. Hey, speaking of problems, so on the show, we talk about the dirty unicorn, which is, you know, the biggest mistake you've learned from in business. What's yours? Oh, stop it, stop it. No, you know, I.I, it's hard to look back and say, OK, this was a real mistake. I think that, I I look at some of my other ventures, um, giving up when I did might have been construed as a mistake. I don't, you know, that why now you never give up? I think that that's why now I'm, I'm, I'm willing to go, go down with the ship in, in a spectacularly fireball way, um, and keep trying to figure out how to make it work to some degree or another, um, uh, simply becauseI know how hard it is to get back to it. I know the level of effort. I know I that I put into it, the, the importance of it to my family, to my staff, to the community in what we're attempting to achieve, whether they, whether everybody else realizes it or not, I realize it. Well, it's interesting because you umYou get so much of your time to educate other entrepreneurs, to community one fair wage. By the way, let's just talk about that really quickly. When does the world inspired one fair wage? Tell us what that is because it's an important part of your life. So one fair wage, I'm a board on the board of directors, uh, it's a 501c3 program that that was born out of um the attack at the Trade Center. Uh, it was, it was created as a fundraiser for the Windows in the world, uh, families and, and, and and what it did was it spawned this whole idea of equality, representation, and equal pay, uh, and now we are the, the, the, the tip of the spear when it comes to, uh, uh, hospitality workers, uh, to achieve equal pay, uh, uh, uh, pay parity as well as, um, um, a minimum, full minimum wages because there's so many laws that are on the books across the United States, which still represent, um, uh,Civil War level laws that that and even this state still has uh a carveout for hospitality workers to pay them a subminimum wage. So as a tipped employee that they do a calculation where, well, you've gotten so many tips where we can pay you less per the whole idea is that's ridiculous. You should be getting the full minimum wage with your tips ontop. So I just mentioned that you give so much of your time to your community, obviously to your family, and then I always think about you because you're so good at the business side of your business, but you also love to be a chef. How do you time manage being in the business or working on the business? I mean that's a really tough. It'sit's a ridiculous. What's your advice to small business owners?Because if my passion is cooking or doing this or that, and then I still have to do my accounting and everything else, how do you, what's your advice on time management that I thinkprobably one of the best suggestions I can have a a good accountant for God's sakes, don't try to do your own accounting in-house. Um, there are enough systems and organizations out there now that help to automate and and really streamline your business uh and make you have to do it early because you, you get a year in and you go, oh, I'll get around to it. And then all of a sudden there's this mountain of paperwork to have to deciphering, well, I thought I remember what that was, like, it's, it's best to have it set up ahead of time, you know, at the end of the day you're not, you willburn so much cash and then and the worst part about it is is your is your biggest equation. Your personal time is your biggest cost factor. Um, the, therunning the calendar, running the schedule, pre-planning, giving yourself enough time and then rest. I'm sorry, what is that? Yeah, I know, but like you know I try to carve out your son's pizza, right? Yeah, that's movie and pizzas now, um, but it's, it's for me, the importance of having that, that whether we do anything or we don't do it and don't fill it up with stuff like take your day and like really don't answer the phone, don't answer emails, play games, do whatever, do you go to a movie, yeah, just be there with the people that that love you and and probably one of the most fulfilling things and then you get to remember like, oh, this is why I work so hardbecause thisis this moment in time, this place in time, um, just walking with my son to go get groceries on Sunday, I had to stop and look at him and I just said, you know, I absolutely adore and love you and I get to have this right now. And he's like, well, I love you too, but know, at 5 years old, whatever, dad. I'm 10 and 13 and I'm getting the whatever now. Oh my God. Now chef, I just want to thank you. I loved your counsel on our big idea question on how do you fund your business today? Um, you know, self-funding, equity, SBA loans, grants. Thank you. And most of all, thanks for feeding me all these years. Thank you for being on the show. My the end of each episode, I like to give a shout out to a small business or entrepreneur who are doing amazing work. Since we're talking food today with Chef, I'd like to shout out Tratttori Farms in Geyserville, California. Their Dry Creek olive oil is the best in the business. So check them out at We are all out of time, but thank you, chef Russell Jackson for coming on the show and thanks to all of you for joining us. I hope you learned a has been the big idea from Yahoo Finance. Tune in every week on your favorite streaming service and find videos at and listen wherever you get your podcasts. And if you follow on Amazon Music, just ask Alexa to play the big idea. You can also come say howdy to me on any of my social channels at Elizabeth Gore USA. I'm Elizabeth Gore, and as my grandmother always said, hold your head up high and give them hell. See you soon. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
11-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How some early feedback put Warby Parker on the path to success
Listen and subscribe to The Big Idea on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcasts. On Yahoo Finance's Big Idea podcast, Warby Parker (WRBY) co-founder and CEO Neil Blumenthal discussed the "bizarre" early days of the glasses company and how its famous home try-on model emerged from some pivotal feedback. Blumenthal said some glasses were "more expensive than the iPhone" when the company launched in the competitive eyewear space in 2010. Knowing that the manufacturing process for spectacles was fairly cheap, Blumenthal and his co-founders sought to capitalize on the booming online market and sell eyewear directly to consumers for a fraction of the price. "I think the best business ideas solve real problems," Blumenthal said (see video above or listen below). "And this was a problem for us that you'd walk into an optical shop, get excited, and walk out feeling like you'd been ripped off. Here, we could design the frames that we loved and sell them at a fraction of the price, at $95 instead of $400, including prescription lenses." This embedded content is not available in your region. As he built his idea, Blumenthal sought feedback from his business school classmates, asking what they thought of the model. His classmates were supportive, but Blumenthal sensed they were holding back. "We would push them a little bit harder and be like, 'Hey, ... would you actually buy them online?' And they were like, 'Uh, maybe. But I really like to try them on first,'" Blumenthal recalled. "That feedback was so valuable because it inspired us to go back to the drawing board, and we came up with this idea of a home try-on, where we would ship people five pairs of glasses," he continued. "They have five days to try it on at home. If at that point there was a pair they loved, we would put in the prescription lenses and send it to them." That model was ultimately what set Warby Parker apart from its competitors. Even Blumenthal and his co-founders didn't expect it to take off as well as it did, which led to some hiccups early on and a pivot to offering showrooms down the line. Not long after launching, orders poured in, and the company ran out of frames for customers to try on at home. This led to a panicked pause while they waited for customers to return the frames so the company could ship them to other prospective customers. "We suspended our home try-on program because all the glasses were out with customers," Blumenthal said. "We had to wait for them to come back. People started calling up and saying, 'Hey, I want to try on your glasses, they're not available for home try-on.' And so we said, 'Well, if you want, you can come to my apartment.'" This bizarre experience (that ultimately netted them some consistent conversions) was what ultimately led the co-founders to pivot from their original online-only model and search for a showroom space to offer more in-person try-ons. Warby Parker's first showroom space, which was a part of its office, proved successful, leading the co-founders to try other pop-up events and eventually open stores. Today, Warby Parker has 287 locations and plans to open 45 new stores this year, including some smaller shop-in-shops inside Target (TGT) stores. In the first quarter, Warby Parker reported its first quarterly profit since going public in 2021 and grew earnings 11.9% year over year. Blumenthal noted the company still has that home try-on model today. "If we didn't have that in the early days, we would not have been as successful as we've been," he said. Every Thursday, Elizabeth Gore discusses real-life stories and smart strategies for launching a small business on The Big Idea podcast. You can find more episodes on our video hub or watch on your preferred streaming service. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
09-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
How Warby Parker CEO started billion-dollar eyewear brand at home
Listen and subscribe to The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcast. This week on The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore, Warby Parker co-CEO and co-founder Neil Blumenthal answers the question: How do I make my brand stand out in a dominated industry? Gore and Blumenthal look at the entrepreneur's early days with Warby Parker and the innovative and "bizarre" moves he and his business partners took to become one of the top-selling eyewear brands in the country. Yahoo Finance's The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore takes you on a journey with America's entrepreneurs as they navigate the world of small business. This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff How to y'all. I'm Elizabeth Gore. Welcome to the Big Idea from Yahoo Finance, the show that navigates the world of small business and entrepreneurship. All businesses start with one light bulb moment, and I'm going to take you on a journey with America's entrepreneurs. As the co-founder of the small platform. Hello, Alice. It has always been my mission to help ensure entrepreneurs have the tools they need to live the American dream. We're going to get between the spreadsheets with these operators to flow from their smallest failures to their biggest successes. So let's cowboy big idea question is how do I make my brand stand out in a crowded industry? Our industry focus is eyewear. Joining me today to talk about the eyewear industry is co-founder and CEO of Warby Parker, Neil Blumenthal. He is also the reason I can see when I'm at least 2.2 billion people in the world having some form of vision impairment and 1 billion without access to glasses, eyewear is crucial and it is a massive industry. Revenue for the market in 2025, listen to this, is going to reach 151 billion. So Neil is literally a visionary and he loves puns like I founded Warby Parker in 2010 with Andrew Hunt, Dave Gilboa, and Jeff Rader with the goal of making affordable and fashionable eyewear for consumers. What started as a small e-commerce eyewear business, Warby Parker hit their first target within 3 weeks of launching. 15 years ago, I would love for every business to do that. To grow this quickly in such a dominated industry seems unfathomable, which is why I am so excited to have Neil join us today to tell his I cannot believe you we were here together. We've known each other for 10 years, 15 years. Yeah, it's wild and it's super exciting to be here. Well, thank you. And you know, something you and I have in common is we were both humanitarian public sector and then jumped to the private sector. I mean, does that seem like a lifetime ago or yesterday? It does feel like yesterday, but yeah, it's a complete lifetime ago, but I learned so much that helps me every day at work. I know you might have shaped who you are. Well, I mean, I would say the most entrepreneurial people I've ever seen or someone trying to work in a refugee camp, right? It's, it's, I think it made you and I super scrappy, right? And I have a thank you note. I'm wearing your glasses. I mean, I turned 45 and couldn't see anymore, so I actually got to become a client for the first time. But no, know, you, your, your big idea was to break into one of the most dominated industries. I mean, I mean, walk me back to what was that inspiration. Yeah, so kind of similar to what you were just saying, you know, starting in international development, I was working at a nonprofit social enterprise that would train low income women all around the world in places where people are living on less than $4 a day, um, would train them to start their own businesses, giving simple vision screenings and selling glasses in their communities, and I would have to source these glasses and I would visit the factories where they were made andAnd here on production lines where I was sourcing glasses for people living on less than $4 a day, 10 ft away on similar machinery were some of the biggest names in fashion, Lan Vaughn, Marc Jacobs, and these were being produced and being sold in Europe and the US and it didn't make sense that glasses were so expensive right in the US and elsewhere when the cost to produce them, didn't justify it. Um andI had been talking with a few of my business school classmates, one of whom had just bought an iPhone because he had and a pair of glasses, and the glasses were more expensive than the iPhone. Oh my Lord. Sowhat was the differentiator? I mean, I mean, here's this billion dollar industry and you and your college mates who you are still working together today said, you know, we can break in with all this money we don't have, by the way. Yeah. You know, I think the best business ideas solve real problems, and this was a problem for us that you'd walk into an optical shop, get excited, um, and walk out feeling like you'd been ripped off. Um, and here we could design the frames that we loved and sell them as a fraction of the price at $95 instead of $400 including prescription lenses. And we started working on this at the time that e-commerce was really starting toTo explode. Yes. This is like 2010. We launched in 2010. Amazon certainly was around. Zappos was starting to gain attention for selling sneakers and footwear, Blue Nile for selling engagement rings and jewelry, right? And footwear and jewelry were categories that people initially thought couldn't be sold online. But so there was this whole trend of, hey, likeYou know, e-commerce is the future. Everything is going to be sold on there. So we thought that, you know what, if we design the frames we love, we produce them, we go direct to our customers online, right? We can cut out the middleman, right? We don't have to wholesale a product to aRetailer that then marks it up, you know, we could sell it for a fraction of the price and it would be the same quality. So that was the idea. But didn't youget at first, I think you and I were getting a lot of nos in the early days because folks were like, I have to try them on. Wasn't there kind of a we got a pivot here. You know, you and I have always spoken about this, about these entrepreneurial journeys that are really emotional roller coasters. there's moments where you feel so smart and then moments where you feel like you're the dumbest person on the planet. Well, we started to tell all of our classmates that we were going to sell $95 glasses that would typically cost $400 and they were like, brilliant idea. And then we were like, We're going to sell it online. And you would see their facial expression change, but they would still be very nice to us and they'd be like, Oh, that's that's nice. That's a good idea. we'd be like, That's sweet. then we would push them a little bit harder and be like, Hey, look, you know, would you actually buy them online? And they're like, uh, maybe, but I really like to try them on first. And right as you are getting feedback and you hear it again and again, it's like, we got to solve for this. And that feedback was so it inspired us to go back to the drawing board and we came up with this idea of a home try on where we would ship people 5 pairs of glasses. They have 5 days to try it on at home. If at that point there was a pair they loved, we would put in the prescription lenses and send it to them. So we still have that home try-on program today and it's on our website. And I think that if we didn't have that in the early days, we would not have been as successful as we've been. Yeah, I mean, the pivot is real, right? And then, and then you, here comes storefront. So I think you have 300 now, is that right? Yeah, we have roughly 300 stores across the US and Canada. It's been really fun to open these stores because they're sort of, you know, great expressions of the it's where the action is, right? That was also a very organic process. So when we launched, we were fortunate to be featured in Vogue and GQ and got a ton of press because it was newsworthy that there were these beautiful glasses being sold for a fraction of the we ran out of inventory of home try on program. It was, it was madness. We were literally in my apartment and with my co-founders, and we were debating what do we do? We're about to run out of inventory. We had no sold out functionality on the website. As we were discussing it, Dave's cell phone kept getting ping because he had said where he'd get a text message every time we got an order. I said, since we've been discussing we had to quickly call up um our software engineer who we had contractor like, Hey, you've got to shut everything down. Like we've got to figure out how to have sold out functionality because this was also the days before Shopify. So you had to build all the stuff from scratch. But what ended up happening is, so we suspended our home triumph program because all the glasses were out with customers. We had to wait for them to come people start calling up and saying, hey, um, I want to try on your glasses, um, but the home, they're not available for your home try on. And so we said, well, um, if you want, you can come to my apartment. Um. Listeners, please don't do that. Do not have strangers come into your apartment. Please go ahead. We invited 5 customers to come into the apartment. We laid the glasses on the dining room table. We had people check out on Dave's laptop and you know it was a bizarre experience, but sometimes bizarre experiences get people talking. And one of those 1st 5 people I remember vividly was in he was a doctor at the University of Pennsylvania. Um, and suddenly we started over the next few weeks seeing a bunch of orders coming in from email addresses in which people at the hospital at the University of Pennsylvania. Oh, just word of mouth from him. We thought, huh, yes, this is a bizarre experience, but it must have been pleasant and interesting enough to talk about that it's leading driving sales. So when we opened a proper office after we graduated school, we moved back to New York. We looked for an office that was more like in a sort of commercial residential area and we dedicated a portion of the office to being a store. So we had this showroom, people would come in, try on the glasses, order um still through our website, but suddenly we were doing likeOn track to do $3 million of sales through our office. So that gave us confidence to then do pop-ups and eventually open up stores. And as the stores did better and better, we just started opening up more and more of them. You're up with it. Yeah, well, it's always so energizing meeting with our teams who are super talented. It's, right? They're the ones with customers every single day. There's a lesson in that. I mean, what would you tell our small business owners aboutGetting customer feedback through your employees. Yeah, it's it's critical and your employees are your brand, are your team, right? You're, you know, either you're living your values as a team or you're not. You're either an authentic brand or you're not. You're either making customers happy or you're not. And um right, you should be soliciting feedback.24/7 and then working to get better every single day. And I think that's a strong part of our culture at Warby Parker. So uh backing back up, I always like understanding how did y'all finance the company in the beginning? So we bootstrapped it. Um, we had yourown money. We usedour own money. we each put in $30,000. So there are 4 of us, we started with $120,000 and that was enough to purchase ourInitial collection, so get some inventory of frames, and we're fortunate we are able to pay for the lenses on an as needed basis. Um, so we had our product to sell, then we needed a place to sell it. So we also paid to build our website um and then we need to let people know that we existed. SoWe hired a PR firm because we knew we were launching a fashion and lifestyle brand, so we needed to get the word out, um, but also in a thoughtful way, because you know launching, I think of fashion brand is different than launching, you know, a services company or you know a fast moving consumer good type. Now that sounds very classy, but if I remember correctly, you were stealing pens and likeThe truth. Let's hear it. Absolutely. Well, the question is always like, how do you spend as little money as humanly possible, right, to give you more confidence to continue to invest in your business. Um, and I thought it would, there's so many pens in the world that I'd be crazy to go and buy pens. So we would often take pens from our friends when they weren't looking, but also TD Bank gave you free pens. So anytime we went intothe bank or we're walking by it, you know, we would just grab some pens. So thank you. So Carolyn and I we always took them from hotels and then the little notepads. So our team members would have notepads from like 6 different hotel chains. But that's what you have to do, right? You have to be frivolous, you know. And do you um would you recommend, I mean, that's a really big risk. I mean $30,000 at y'all's that time, but do you like that y'all self-finance? Would you recommend that path for other small businesses? I think it depends on how much capital you need and how much capital you have. So for us, it was great because it ensured that we had more ownership when we eventually went and raised capital and especially launching a business with 4 people, right? The ownership was split, know, in, in 4, but more importantly, it creates discipline, right, where you're going to be really frugal, you're going to think 10 times before spending any money. Now, there is that old adage you need to spend money to make money, but you need to spend it smartly and strategically and when it's your own capital, right, you end up being a lot more careful than somebodyelse's. Very true. Neil, hold that thought. We have to take a quick break and we'll be right back on the big back to The Big Idea. I am here with Warby Parker, CEO and co-founder Neil Blumenthal. We have what we call the dirty unicorn, and this is, you know, a monumental mistake that you really learned from and our business owners can learn from that. What what's your dirty unicorn? You know, I, I think it was, uh, those early days where, um, you know, we were running out of inventory, um, we were um having trouble sort of keeping up with demand, and that is a high class problem, but it's a problem nonetheless, and it's sort of how do you handle those situations and what we always said was right, customer service is so important. So how can we be unbelievably kind, unbelievably sympathetic? Um if we made a mistake, how do you immediately apologize but also take action to correct it? And sometimes that means, you know, giving the pair of glasses away for free. Um, and you can earn, you write that customer loyalty. Um, so yeah, in those early days we lost.A lot of money from orders that we had screwed up, but customers are a lot more sympathetic. But it's a learningprocess, right? And you said high class problem, but look, I love, love, love small business owners who are at the fairs on Sunday mornings, right? And if they've got 10 units and those 10 units are they have a business card to get the next ones to get the next one. So running out of inventory is a real thing, no matter you know where you're at, right? Absolutely. You either overproject and then have you allocate too much capital to inventory and then you could be in trouble or you have too little and your business is not growing and you're disappointing customers. So other than the quality of your products, my favorite thing about your business is that you allI have an incredible social benefit model. So not only do you give a pair of glasses, but you are training individuals. Can you talk through the model for me and why did y'all decide to doit? Sure. So from day one for every pair of glasses we sell, we distribute one to someone in need, and that was important to us because as we Warby Parker. The question was, how can we build a company that we want to come to work to every day? And while we thought that it was an inherent good to lower the price of glasses from $400 to $95 for example, um, we thought that we could do more to have benefit. um and there'sbillion people around the planet that don't have access to glasses. So a billion people don't have to. It's crazy and have been around for 800 years, right? So we're failing as a species if we're not making sure that this technology is available to everyone that needs it at a time when there's a lot of vernacular that businesses should just be there for a profit no matter what. And you all have this model of giving back. I mean,Do you think it is actually, I'm leading the witness here, but advancing your business and profitability by doing this model? Yeah, you know, we look at it a few different ways. One is that we absolutely think that this helps us attract and retain the best and the brightest, um, so that helps just make theThe business thrive, right? Because the business all comes down to people. Um, you know, we do think that this engenders customer loyalty and elevates the brand. That being said, I'm under no illusion that this is not the number one reason why people buy glasses from us, right? Like when most people are buy a pair of glasses, they're first looking at the design. Does this look good on my face? Then how much does it cost? You know, then, you know, is it convenient? Is the service good? And then lastly, like, hey, what does this pair of glasses mean in the world in terms of environmental impact, social purposes. other topic right now going around is just tariffs, and you are a supply chain company. I'm just curious, is this affecting y'all and your and your thoughts or advice to other business owners as they think about this? Yeah, so, you know, I'm often speaking to lots of other CEOs, lots of other board members of public companies, and the new US trade tariff regime is impacting everybody, right? Um, when it costs more to purchase something, right, those costs are going to come out of corporate profits. Those are going to result in higher prices and consumers. So as I speak to lots of companies, what they're doing to mitigate these increased costs for them is they're planning on raising planning on cutting corporate spending, and now they're putting scenarios in place to see if the projections that they had for the year, you know, might be overly optimistic, right? Prices are going to go up, if companies are spending less, right? That could have downstream effects on the and particularly in an environment where also the federal government might be spending less overall, um, it's leading a lot of executives to sort of rethink their annualplans. Right. Yeah, it's a time to be very focused, right, and listen, and so on. Now big idea question of the day, and I would just love your three pieces of advice. How do you break into an already dominated industry? My advice to you aspiring entrepreneurs is, yeah, identify customer pain points, you know, look to industries that are large because it'sIt's always easier to grow a big business in a in a bigger market. Um, and then, you know, if there are sort of dominant players or lots of regulations, sometimes that can be your benefit because that means that it's harder to operate. So, um, you know somebody that isUh, working harder and being more thoughtful can win in thatenvironment. Amazing. Well, are you ready for your double pun? Thank you. Thank you for being a visionary. Thank you for your insights. You're just the best. Thanks for coming on the big idea. Thank you. I love puns. At the end of each episode, I like to give a shout out to a small business who is doing great work. And y'all, something Neil and I have in common, we love Mezcal. So today, I'd like to shout out one of Neil's favorite small business brands, Aqua Magica. Aqua Maica is a New York-based Mezcal brand started by a Mexican American that produces its product through traditional methods in agaves they use are sourced exclusively from small farmers in San Juan. So not only are they providing mezcal made from the best ingredients, but they are also investing in the future of the local community. You can check them out at and I will be drinking this you to Neil for coming on the show and thank you for joining us. We hope you learned a lot. This has been the big idea from Yahoo Finance. Make sure to scan the QR code below to follow Yahoo Finance podcast or check us out at the Big Idea wherever you get your if you follow on Amazon Music, just ask Alexa to play the big idea. You can also come say howdy to me on any of my social channels at Elizabeth Gore USA. I'm Elizabeth Gore, and as I'm a grandmother has always said, hold your head up high and give them hell. See you next time. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Yahoo
01-05-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Why T.D. Jakes says real estate is key to wealth & savings
Listen and subscribe to The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you find your favorite podcast. This week on The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore, T.D. Jakes Group Chairman & CEO T.D. Jakes joins Elizabeth Gore to answer the question: How do I do well by doing good? How can an entrepreneur succeed while also giving back to their community? Gore and Jakes break down his real estate ventures and the Big Idea behind his specific mixed-use housing model that is helping communities in Texas and other cities Finance's The Big Idea with Elizabeth Gore takes you on a journey with America's entrepreneurs as they navigate the world of small business. This post was written by Lauren Pokedoff How to y'all. I'm Elizabeth Gore. Welcome to the Big Idea from Yahoo Finance, the show that navigates the world of small business and entrepreneurship. All businesses start with one light bulb moment and each week I'm going to take you on a journey with America's entrepreneurs. We're going to get betweenThe spreadsheets for these operators to flow from their smallest failures to their biggest successes. As the co-founder of the small business funding platform, Hello Alice, it has always been my mission to help ensure entrepreneurs have the tools they need to live the American dream. So let's cowboy our big idea question is how do you do well by doing good. Now, what I mean by this is how can someone give back to their community while making money on their entrepreneurial journey? Something I'm very passionate about. Today's industry focus is real me today to talk about this is Chairman TD Jakes, who's going to share his stories on how he's given back to the community through his entrepreneurial and spiritual journey. For more than 40 years, Bishop Jakes, as I know him, has helped millions of people realize their purpose through his dynamic ministry. He is the founder of the Potter's House, a non-denominational, multicultural church and global humanitarian organization in Dallas, Texas with 30,000 TD Jakes Enterprises, the chairman is a bestselling author, publisher, and an award winning filmmaker. He has recently founded Good Soil, an entrepreneurial platform and relevant to today's topic, he is a real estate mogul across the country. Please welcome America's preacher, TD Jakes, I can't believe you're here. I, I am just, um, and it's hard for me to call you Charon because you're my bishop. And the first time I ever saw your face was when I took my grandmother to your Potter's house in Dallas and full circle now to be talking about entrepreneurship. I that crazy? I mean your whole philosophy is doing well by doing good. I mean, tell me more. Well, you know, I don't to separate one from the other, and the stats really show that the most successful entrepreneurs are purpose-driven, not just profit-driven. Uh, when you get in it because you have a compassion and a desire to meet a need, when your business finds its problem, it's found its purpose andIt finds this profit arbitrarily. It just just just comes along with it. People who just do it for the money generally have a far less success rate than those who do it because they have an inner conviction that gives meaning to their lives and the money just follows the meaning. Now I think of you asAmerica's preacher. And but you start doing your homework and you were an entrepreneur from a kid. Where did that come from? Well, my parents, my father started a janitorial service with a mop in the bucket back in the 60s, ended up with 10 trucks and 52 employees and traveling all over the I was cheap labor. There you go. OK, so, so I scrubbed out the corners and packed up the trucks. I remind my kids of that, by the way, when I get home,yeah, dinner is your pay. We'll work for food. And then my mother started buying up property, real estate, all up and down the uh, even later, many years later when my mother got Alzheimer's, she was still getting rent. Yeah, didn't no longer remember. She referred it to like 607, 609. I'd say 609 paid, 610 paid, and she, she said, I don't care no more baby. But all of those years she modeled that in front of me. So it's kind of in my DNA and part of who I am. And every church I ever pastored, I started from the ground up. There are a lot ofSimilarities between the two because it's not just about preaching. You have to also pay the bills and pay whatever staff you have, you know, there are a lot of similarities between the two. So believing in yourself, believing in your product, uh, believing in faith, believing in for me believing in God, that some kind of way you're going to get me out of this, the roller coaster. And I think that's OK for us to talk about these small business owners, the folks listening and there are going to be hard days. And if you have that purpose and faith, how does that how does that drive someonethrough? I think it's very, very important because mindsets determine assets and if you lose your mindset, you're going to lose your assets. And so it's very important that you maintain your mindset and surround yourself with other people who can relate to you, who really realize that just because you're an entrepreneur doesn't mean that youhave lots of money and everything goes right and you can come in when you want to and leave when you please. You might think that when you start. Well, then you realize, oh wait, I'm the hardest boss I've ever had. After the first one to come in the last one to leave out the trash. Everyone takes out the trash and whenever somebody has to go, you end up filling their spot sometimes. But that all adds to the education of you fully understanding what is ask of a person. And so the hard times determine the good times. And I think we avoid the hard times, but the hard times is the university of education that exposes you to what it takes to really be an entrepreneur. This is not just about school, it's about experience. Really from day one, and this is our big question on the show today is, is can you do well by doing good? Gave both gave back to your community, found profitable so for a small business owner, I mean, they are trying to, you know, trying to hire the first person, cash is tight, but do you believe you can give back from day one? Yes, I think you can. You can give a smile. You can give a positive attitude. You can give a birthday card, you can keep a record of birthdays and holidays and create because greatest resource in business is relationships. That is so true. And a lot of people do not count relationships as a resource. They only see a resource as the bottom line on a ledger, but in reality, your greatest relates, your greatest resource is your relationship and your ability to relate with your customer, your consumer, your staff, uh, your peripheral staff, meaningThat you should have some people around you that you don't pay, but they are smart and committed to you and they, whether they become your board or they become your mentors and mentees. The reason we started good soil is the lack of all three things, not having access to capital, not having access to cash, not having access to confidants, not having access to somebody who can you and speak into your life. We are getting ready to have the largest transfer of wealth from baby boomers to the next generation. 76 million people. It's amazing. And Good Soil is your entrepreneurial platform where small business owners can come on and they get counsel, they get grants. You have the Good Soul Forum coming up. Tell us about that. Well, we've got the Forum coming up coming up June 12th through the 14th. In your home state we got you. I'm so excited. I'm excited. There's also, I think this woman named, what's her name? Oprah Winfrey. Oprah, Oprah's coming. And I told, I told somebody, this is an opportunity for us to pass to the next generation. What we learned, what we did right, what we did wrong, what to watch out for, so that the learning curve is not so steep or so stiff. And I think it's a very important inundate yourself with this kind of information. We're gonna be doing mentoring. We've got a $500,000 fast pitch competition. Uh, even those who didn't win the competition said they benefited by having to put together, uh, their portfolio, what they were going to do, uh, their business plan, that sort of thing. You cannot walk out of a room full of like-minded not be fuller and richer and more developed in who you are. That's how I felt anytime I'm in the room with you, to be really honest. Now, now tell me, we're in a really interesting time, if you watch the news right now of very strong opinions and and some would say the purpose of a company is to make money, period. So you see a lot of some shareholders pushing back on everything from diversity, equity inclusion to ESG to even corporate I'd love to just hear your opinion on that. And then also, you know, did you ever get pushback from some for your profitable models, because, because you are the purpose driven human. So I'm just curious your thoughts. Yes, you're going to get push back, but the reality is, no matter what we vote or what we say or the semantics or how we change the name, our world is diverse. Our country is diverse. Whether that diversity is gender, whether it is uh, whether it is different ethnicities. It's unavoidable. We just simply do not have enough, uh, white men to run everything in the country by themselves. The birth rates, just do the math. So at the end of the day, if I have a car wreck and an EMT comes, I don't care whether he's Indian or Asian or young or old, I just want to get out of the so we can debate it all day long on paper. We love to do stuff like that, but in reality, this is a diverse country. England is a diverse country. India is a diverse country. It's unavoidable. And so if you're going to, you only have one pond to fish out of. So you can't just pick the fish, you know, and then you've got to pay them fairly and treat them fairly, and we can change the name any way you want the point is, we're all here together and we do not want to get to the point that we become extinct as a species because we figure out how to do artificial intelligence at the expense of human intelligence. And we were just talking about human intelligence, no matter what form it comes in, or color. Hold that thought. We are going to take a quick break and we'll be right back with a big back to The Big Idea. I'm Elizabeth Gore here with Chairman TD Jakes. Now, uh, I picked up on something earlier. I actually didn't realize that your mom, God rest her soul,Um, was investing in real estate all the way up until when she passed. Uh, and today our industry topic and focus as real estate, which you are crazy passionate about. So was she your inspiration and then why do you think that that is a good both profitable and community investment to be in real estate? Well, it solves the problem and the best businesses solve problems. We have homelessness, we havePeople who have less than adequate housing. We have people who are moving up the economic ladder ladder, and as their family dynamics change, they're scaling up, they're scaling down. It's a passive stream of income that for the most part, once you get it up and done, it's making money while you sleep and it's solving problems for people. It accrues in value. And if you're lucky enough to live in Texas, shameless plug like I do, uh, you don't have to worry about state are some special benefits that go along with it. There are 1000 reasons to be able to do it. And what we have a tendency to do is to invest in depreciating assets so that we look like we're doing well, rather than scale down on looking like you're doing well and scale up on actually doing well by focusing on appreciating assets, passing it on to your heirs, becoming part of you can do more business, you can buy more things, and it's just so many good reasons I think you should do it. And when we do it, we do mixed income. Yeah, so your model, if I may, is really unique, and I'm I'm thinking about Texas and Georgia and uh you do mixed income. You also look at the properties, you know, are we going to put data centers? Are we going to do this, we're gonna do that? Tell me about that model because I think it's really interesting for other people to emulate it. Yeah, Ithink it's very, very, very important because whenYou got one group of people and they're all on the same socioeconomic level of life. It kind of gets boring if everybody is completely wealthy or everybody is completely I can't imagine you bored. Lord help us. That cannot happen. Our diversity is interesting and the stats say do better when we have diverse communities. There's more upward mobility. If a boy who has no father grows up in a neighborhood near someone who has a father, he is 7 times less likely to go to so your neighbors impact you. They inspire you, they motivate you. And so our focus is mixed income, mixed use facilities because we're trying to close food deserts where you don't have to drive so far to get food or to get what you need. We have covenants where we don't have payday loans a bunch of liquor stores or intoxicating people to the point that they're not productive in their lives. We're not saying that you can't have it, you have to travel a little further to get it, you know, but getting a balance in your life where you're thinking and you're moving and you're talking with interesting people, we are so isolated, especially since that isolation is affecting our emotional well-being. And so we have little places where you can do a cookout and the neighbors can come into the open spaces and we won't be so alone, even if we do livealone. It's interesting, you almost come to the real estate industry withUm, almost a way of life. You know, you're not just building a house, you're building a way of life, you're building a community, you're building long-term investments, wealth transfer, as we talked what is there any, is there anything you're you're worried about in the real estate industry? Anything people should be concerned about? Oh, I think you have to watch the interest rates. I think we have to watch inflation. I think we have to watch the cost of products, uh, and, and, and the timing of it. That doesn't mean that we shouldn't go forward through hard times, but because hard times don't last. Tough times don' tough people do. And, and by the time you get it built, you're going to be in a different period. So I don't think you ought to give up your dream just because of the inconvenience of where you are right now. Two years from now, it won't be there. Recessions don't last, inflation doesn't last. And thinking about it that way from a long term perspective. In fact, all entrepreneurs listening to me right now, you can't just think about making week. You've got to have a long term perspective of where you want to be 10 years from now. And that's how you monitor whether the year was a success, not by the year itself, but how close are you now to where you want to be 5 years from now. That's where that, as you said, your passion and your values come through, right? Because you have hard years good years, we try to be very transparent on the show that we all make mistakes. So we call our mistakes dirty unicorns. So, so, so get throw me a mistake. I can't imagine you let's get a dirty unicorns. Oh, it's hard to pick one. I think the biggest, most important recent one is being careful who you partner uh, when you get that wrong, you spend so much money trying to get out once you get in that it's better to spend the money on the front end vetting, not only what they have done, but are they compatible and do your rhythm and your pace and your objective. And sometimes I haven't gotten that right. I have confused charisma with character. Oh, confused charisma with character. And my husband just said, um, he works with a lot of tribes and there's this saying that is, I go at the speed of trust. I was really moved by that when he said that to me andSo does does break breaking through one layer to see the next layer down, is that take time? Is that diligence? I mean, what is your advice to business owners when they're choosing that partner? I think you ought to get into partnerships like like uh like my wife gets into the pool. One step at a know, let's do this and see how that goes. And then let's do this. She's not doing cannonballs. No, no, she's not me's not OK. And uh that's great advice. Yeah, it gives you an opportunity to see. It doesn't mean that the partner is bad, but do we have chemistry? It's almost like a marriage, you know, it's have a covenant, you have an agreement, you have principles, you have ideas, but you don't know till you move in how well that's gonna work out. You get married in 20 minutes, but you don't really get married for 10 years. That's right. And then you're married to a different person, I think every 10 years. Yes. Can we grow together or do we grow apart? That happens in partnerships too. That's have to have the equivalent of a prenup is how do I get out if they, yeah, yeah, yeah. Lawyer up and make sure that you have the principles set up so that when the times get hard, you've already agreed how to respect each other as you separate separate one fromanother. That is incredible advice. I, I was going to ask you the best piece of advice you've ever been given, but I'm going to switch out. What what do you think?Would your mother's advice be about real estate? I think, uh,Not to limit yourself to your own zip code that that that we have to think more globally today than we did when she started. She bought up all the houses on the street and then she started branching out into other neighborhoods. Most of us think, you know, I'm gonna invest in my neighborhood and that's good. That's sometimes there are great opportunities in other cities and even other countries, and don't be afraid to branch out because money doesn't watch street signs. It doesn't care about zip codes. And so as you invest into these different areas, you get a return and you build relationships and you become more global because for the first time in the world, I can get on my phone and pick and forth with somebody in Korea and get an immediate answer as if they were across the street. So if, if Japan's stock goes down, it's gonna affect America. We are more interconnected than we've ever been in, in life. And by the way, when we were talking earlier about the discontentment and the restlessness of the areas that we live in, I see it on the news, but I don't see it on the on the elevator.I don't see it in the grocery store. I don't see us running buggies into each other, you know. Yeah, not the same ones anyway, you know, and I'm not sure that we're as angry at each other as they say we are. I think conflicts drive up ratings. And so they show the very worst of us because the planes that land never get covered. It's just the ones that so we're we're seeing all these crashing planes, you know, and you walk around like this, but when you walk up and down the street, people are opening doors for you. How are you today? so forth and so on. I'm not saying that there is an evil out there and injustice out there, but I'm not, I don't think it's as pervasive as we think that it is. Well, it's certainly not here and you're a blessing, and I am so grateful that you came on today and umAll of our listeners at the Big Idea, they're going to learn so much from you. So thank you. It's a real pleasure. At the end of each episode, I like to give a shout out to a small business who is doing amazing work. So today, I'd like to shout out to Mama Laverne's Food, a business known for their award-winning Chicken and waffle pancake mix. Oh my gosh, it sounds so by a mother and daughter duo, Laverne and Donna Richardson, it also happens to be Chairman Jake's favorite. Thank you, Chairman Jakes, for coming on the show and thank all of you for joining us. We hope you learned a lot. This has been the big idea from Yahoo Finance. Watch us every week on your service. Find videos at and listen wherever you get your podcasts. You can also come say howdy to me on any of my social channels at Elizabeth Gore USA. I'm Elizabeth Gore, and as my grandmother always used to say, hold your head up high and give them hell. See you soon. This content was not intended to be financial advice and should not be used as a substitute for professional financial services. Sign in to access your portfolio
