13-05-2025
He Was a Refugee as a Child. Now, He Runs 11 Businesses.
This story appears in the May 2025 issue of Entrepreneur. Subscribe »
When Orhan Veli's family arrived in the United States in 1995, failure was not an option.
They were forced to flee ethnic conflict in Azerbaijan as the Soviet Union collapsed — and as refugees in the U.S., they had no choice but to rebuild their lives from scratch. Veli, who was 11 at the time, watched his engineer father become a pizza delivery driver. His mother, a trained artist, found work in a screen-printing factory. Their grit and resilience left an impression on Veli, who eventually graduated from college and began a career in finance.
The corporate world didn't satisfy him. So in 2006, Veli and his father leveraged all the equity in their home for Veli to buy his first franchise, a cheesesteak venture. With everything on the line, once again, failure was not an option. In 2012, Veli and his dad opened their first Saladworks location. After expanding to his second location, he cashed out of cheesesteaks to go all in on salads.
Related: 10 Simple Steps to Build an Exceptional and Efficient Team
Today, he operates 11 Saladworks locations in the Philadelphia area, and he's the top franchisee in the system. He believes much of his success comes down to his belief that people are resilient and resourceful, just the way his parents were. As such, his top three success strategies are all about supporting his employees.
1. Adapt to your team, not the other way around.
When Veli took over his first restaurant, most of his team spoke only Spanish. Instead of replacing these hard-working employees, he learned Spanish. "It's about finding the most efficient way that you can make things work," he says. "If that means learning a new skill, you have to do it."
2. Don't just identify ambition. Cultivate it.
Veli believes success comes from giving opportunities to diligent employees. He remembers one of his strongest hires: "She couldn't speak English," he says. "I said, 'Don't worry, you'll figure this out. As long as you're hardworking, you'll be fine.' Today, she's a general manager."
3. Create a team of distinctive individuals.
"You need a mix," Veli says. "You need a leader. You need the team cheerleader. You need the critical thinker who says, 'This isn't good enough.' You need the person who thinks outside the box, and the person who can organize it all and ensure we stay within our operational policies."
Related: 8 Reasons You Should Give Your Employees More Control
Advice from the franchisor
How did Orhan Veli become so successful?
Kelly Roddy, CEO of Saladworks' parent company, WOWorks, says that Veli has a distinct vision for his businesses — which is unique, but also fits within the overall system. "Orhan is more strategic than other top performers," Roddy says. "We have an overall culture that's based on a set of values — but Orhan has taken that and developed his own set of values and his own culture within his own [stores]. He spends a lot of time with his team members and really focuses on how to motivate them."
