Wall Street To Y'all Street

[00:00:00] Rejection is like just a thing, like just get used to it and like it like it. Know that you're that much closer to the Yes, because you got another net. My mom worked four jobs to send me to culinary school. My dad helped. My grandma helped, like it was a whole collaborative thing to send me to culinary school.
My mom passed away in 2009 while I was still in school and people that were so generous. Picked up the bill for the rest of school. And I was so concerned, 'cause I don't any money, and they were like, oh, it's all paid. People want overnight success. And what they see with entrepreneurs is they see the tip of the iceberg.
They see, oh, the success, oh, it happened overnight. Oh, you have these sponsors, oh, they're helping you out so much. And it's, yeah, but at the same time, look at how much grit and hard work and failure and just, there's nights that I would just sit in my hands and just cry and just be like, this was like three days ago.
I was like, it's all circling the drain right now. If you're gonna start a business, you have to be [00:01:00] prepared of what it takes. And it's not an overnight success. A lot of the social media says it is just bananas. Hard. Like we're, this has been the hardest. We've gone through things that. We did not choose to go through, but it's made us stronger, better, and faster.
Now, I want to come back to what you were talking about, chef, about the capital raising. Because to date, you guys don't have investors right. To date. It's partnerships, it's different things that you've done. And I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing how do you do that? Because the number one thing I hear from clients is, I want to do this, but I don't have money.
Yeah. And you guys didn't let that stop you. Right? You found a way.
Hello, friends. Episode three. All In. This is, uh, aptly named episode. Reached out to Chef Robbie and after I saw what he was doing in River Oaks in Houston, he's [00:02:00] doing an amazing undertaking. A really amazing, huge, almost 9,000 square feet. Seven kitchen. Very unique experiential retail showroom, private club.
Uh, and more it's set to open here in a couple months. I caught them in build out phase and despite he and his wife Mandy, being busy, they were kind enough to share time with me to share their story about how they got here. You know, what their concept is, but really how to make something out of nothing.
How to just have grit and passion and a, a positive attitude and push through the hills and valleys and reach out for support from others. And so you don't have to have a hundred thousand or a million or $10 million to undertake a large venture. Uh, you can leverage a lot. And, um, that, that's, I hope you get that from this [00:03:00] episode three.
And I couldn't think of a better book for this episode than. Um, this is a great book by Dan Sullivan and he is a great business coach, and it's called Who, not How, uh, it's been around for a while. It's a, it's a bestseller. You may already have read it if you, you, um, want to get a copy for someone else, now's the time.
It's be really good after watching this episode and the subtitle to this Who Not, how is the formula to achieve bigger roles through accelerating Teamwork, um, which I thought was spot on for Chef Robbie and his wife Mandy, and, and what they're doing. Uh, they're certainly accelerating teamwork with the vendor relationships and sponsors and what they've done with their landlord and contractor and all of that.
So I'll put an affiliate link and Amazon affiliate link down in the description that will help support the channel. Thank you very much. Speaking of which, if you want to support the channel, subscribe, click that subscribe button. It sounds so cliche. I saw it for so many decades, so many years. Oh, why are these guys asking me for this?
It really makes [00:04:00] a huge difference in the algorithm. Drop me a D at LinkedIn. If you have a guest suggestion or question or better yet, drop something in the comments and I will read it in due course and reply. I hope you enjoy episode three. All in, enjoy.
Okay, wonderful. I am here in Houston, Texas River Oaks with Chef Robbie and his wife Mandy. Thank you both for meeting with me today. Here in your new venue. Space is a new venue space. Yeah, 8,700 square feet. Not small. Not small. Clearly in build out mode. As you can see, I got some footage Yeah, earlier.
It's clearly still in build out mode, but before we get into what you're doing here in this venue, what the luxury treehouse is, what the revenue streams are, and what your future plans are, why don't you fi first chef, stare with us a little bit about. Go all the [00:05:00] way back to the beginning, to your upbringing and what was the genesis for you wanting to not only be entrepreneurial, but also a chef in the culinary space?
Yeah, so my grandpa was a very successful first generation entrepreneur. My dad was, he is an entrepreneur. And what grandpa? A chef. No chefs inside of you. Were the first chef. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, really inspiration on the chef side. I just materialized things that my family probably didn't want to eat, but tasted anyways.
Okay. I was like, oh man, this kind of goes together, which it totally didn't and probably my family was like, oh my gosh, he's cooking again and this is terrible, but. Really how it happened is I needed a job. I had a car, and the deal was get a car, get a job. And so my brothers worked at a five diamond resort in our city, which we're very lucky to have it.
And they were like, what do you like to do? I was like, to cook and we'll talk to the chef. And we did. He is, I don't really have a job open [00:06:00] for you, but you can do everything no one else wants to do. And I was like, okay, cool deal. I think they paid me like 6 25 or something and I was like, all right, yeah, whatever.
Satisfies the job thing, we're gonna go from there. And ended up running the kitchen after a year and a half. And it just comes naturally to me. Everybody's got their thing that they're really good at naturally. And cooking's my thing. And so grandpa was an entrepreneur? Dad was an entrepreneur as well?
Yep. Okay. And mom was an entrepreneur or, and my mom helped run the business with my grandpa. Okay. And so. You had a culinary bite at a young age. It sounds like you were experimenting much to everyone's lament, right? Yep. Yep. Detriment and lament. At what stage did you know you wanted to do your own thing?
Was that much, much later or do you feel like at a young age you wanted to do something? No, I was 15. Okay. Yeah. So I always knew I wanted to set my own destiny in a sense. And really what came down to is I wanted to build my life in a way [00:07:00] that I wanted to build it, not build someone else's future. And I guess I didn't know what that meant at a young age, but I knew that's what I want to go towards.
And I saw my grandpa really build something to where it gave us a life where we were very fortunate to have that entrepreneur. Lifestyle, which is pretty cool. It's interesting growing up in an entrepreneurial environment, you see the good, the bad, and the ugly. Yeah. Right. So you're not going into it with rose colored glasses.
In 2008, the he got Parkinson's and the business totally washed out. Um, was that due to the financial crisis or? It was due to the financial crisis, but also he was the brain, the motivator, the glue that put it all together and he gave it to, it was just something where without his immense business knowledge and his onset Parkinson's, which kind of took him out really quick, plus the financial crisis, it just wasn't a grand combination.
The financial crisis hurt everybody. It didn't matter what [00:08:00] industry you're in. So that's interesting. So how does that make you think about succession planning? You're young. Yeah. You're on a, you're in a new venture eventually. And so how do you think through succession planning with that you have young children.
You two. Between the two of you, you have three young children. Yep. Does is that at the forefront right now? Or you're like, Joe, we're in build out mode. We're not even thinking down that far. No. I mean, I think you always have to look at the future. Our philosophies, we're just not gonna give our kids something they're not prepared for.
It's like they have to earn it, whether that's wealth or success or a business. 'cause I've seen so many businesses, especially family businesses fail because they give it automatically to their children. Mm-hmm. Now, if they own it or they work for it, that's an idea. Learn those different aspects because.
I certainly didn't get anything handed to me. A lot of help by a lot of people. Like we're, this has been the hardest thing we've ever done, but you don't build strong people through an easy life. And I think that's something that is really important is if someone has an easy life, they don't have the grit, they don't have [00:09:00] the not giving up, they don't have the faith, things like that.
'cause they're not forced to. And people, if you're not forced to almost do it. People don't change a lot of times and they don't learn. Yeah. And that's something that I think we struggle with is how do you balance providing a good life for your children, but a hard life because it's like we've gone through things that we did not choose to go through, but it's made us stronger, better, and faster.
It is tough. You don't want your children to suffer or feel pain, but sometimes that's growth. Yeah, right. Interesting. Mandy, what about your upbringing and how you found yourself in this endeavor? This 8,700 square foot build out in the middle of Houston, which is. A huge un undertaking. So take us back to your young childhood, your inception.
Did you ever think you would be doing a venture like this? I grew up in West Texas. Okay. First and foremost. So it's oil field all over. Okay. And then when I was 18, I became a dance teacher. Okay. So I was a dance teacher, [00:10:00] a master advanced hip hop. And then I moved to Houston. And then I worked in the dental field for about 10 years, 10, 11 years.
And then Robbie and I got together and I quit my job three months after meeting him. And, but you had the dream of doing your own thing. I did know the dream. And four years later we're here. Sometimes it takes meeting the right person to unlock that, wait, this is a possibility we could do something like this.
Is, I, I want, I can't wait to talk about this, about the luxury treehouse because. Such a beautiful space. I can't imagine how it's going to look.[00:11:00]
You, you guys are looking to open in, I think two months, two and a half months. Yep. Yep. Is what you're looking at. Yep. But before we get into that, I want a bit more about your [00:12:00] background. Talk to me about how you found yourself. Culinary school has a reputation of being extremely difficult and rigorous program.
Walk us through a little bit about that. How did you decide you wanted to go that route? Yeah, I'm gonna back up just for a second with what Mandy said is, 'cause it's something where we work together. We've always worked together since we've been, at the very start, she saw me really struggling in a big way, trying to run this company by myself, and that's why she left the dental field is to bet on me and believe in me instead of, oh, I just need another job, whatever.
So really she discounted her effort in that, and I think that's what has really brought us together and helped us sustain through these massively hard times, is we believe that each other can. Be this person that we're forming each other in and it's, we've been through things where we've wanted to give up on business, personal relationship.
We see the potential of each [00:13:00] other and it's, we're passionate about counseling and mental health and things like that. 'cause we've been through that and it's very difficult to manage a business, to work together, to have children do things that are just like abnormally hard out if you have 70% and I can't fulfill that 30% here.
Vice versa. We work together. We usually talk in the mornings, try to be on the same page with everything and just make sure that the day goes good. Yeah. Mandy had shared that with me prior to when we were setting up the cameras that she left because she saw the struggles we were having. She also shared with me.
And I think this is beautiful in any couple exactly what you two are saying, you're not twins. Yeah. There's overlap in the skills you each bring to the table. The last thing you want as a partner is a yes man. Yeah, yeah. You don't want a clone of yourself. With Robbie, he's like the big picture guy and I'm the executor, so he does a big picture and I'm like, okay, then you have to do X, Y, and Z and we just make it work and he stays in his lane and I stay in mine.[00:14:00]
I love it, but it always works. That doesn't come just with like events I run. Like the investor proposal that I made pitch deck is like I, I did the deck but I ran it completely past certain. She caught some things that I was like, oh yeah, that's a really good point. 'cause she comes from a whole different perspective.
And I think just talking to couples that work together, I think that. People are scared sometimes when they're so different. They're like, oh, how do we, how do we integrate? How do you guys do it? You're so different. But it's like you have to really play on each other's strengths, believe in each other.
Communication, which is very difficult when you're completely opposite. But just like Manny said, you have to stay in your own lane. You have to believe in what you're doing. And I think the biggest thing, if any couple's gonna work together, you have to be committed to not giving up no matter what it is like each other.
You cannot, you could be in a massive fight, but you have to say, I will always be here. I'm [00:15:00] always sticking around. No matter what happens. We'll always be, I'll always be here and I'll always, I I got your back. And I think that's probably the one thing that is so important. I love that, that and being completely honest with each other.
'cause if you're not honest and you're not telling 'em how you feel. You're both gonna, he's not gonna know how I feel. I'm not gonna know how he feels. So it just makes everything not work together. And I want to come back to what you were talking about chef, about the capital raising. Because to date, you guys don't have investors right.
To date. It's partnerships, it's different things that you've done. And I think a lot of people would be interested in seeing, how do you do that? Because the number one thing I hear from clients is, I want to do this, but I don't have money. Yeah. And you guys didn't let that stop you. Right? You found a way, but we'll get to that.
So tell us about culinary school. Yeah. Obviously I was in the kitchen. I've always been in fine dining and my parents were super supportive and they said, look how [00:16:00] hard you've worked. I got paychecks for 218 hours. When I was still in high school, they were like $800 'cause I got 6 25. And that's with overtime.
They really said, Hey, we want you to go to the best. You're trying so hard that it's, we'll do whatever. You know, to send you. And we did not come from a wealthy family. My mom worked four jobs to send me to culinary school. My dad helped. My grandma helped. Like it was a whole collaborative thing to send me to culinary school.
And then they didn't make me get a job in culinary school. They said either you get a job or you'd be absolutely immersed in the school in and of itself. And that was the biggest blessing for me because I created a network that was astounding, even down to the point where my mom passed away in 2009 while I was still in school.
And people that were so generous picked up the bill for the rest of school. Wow. I just went to the registrar and I was so concerned 'cause I don't any money. And [00:17:00] they were like, oh, it's all paid for. Wow. And actually some very wealthy people that were in my network that I met at school that knew my situation, just paid it off.
Wow. This is like 75. A hundred thousand. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Amazing. And what year was that you graduated? 2010. Okay. Yeah. Okay. And then walk us through your journey and because I'm trying to get up to the entrepreneurial, this venture, obviously, and I know you have a venture before this. Yeah. But walk me through where you were from graduation of culinary school to the venture before this.
Yeah, in culinary school, because I knew what I wanted, I just totally built my whole life around the dream. And I ended up, once again, being very fortunate that I ran the largest club and oldest club in the culinary City of America. And I did that for three and a half years. The president just happened to be graduating six months into the pro after I was into the program.
And that was like running my own little business inside the culinary Ensu America. [00:18:00] And I think that was really cool. I also ran a staffing company that I connected chefs in the Hudson Valley to students who were in the Culinary of America. And so it was always, I always had this vision and I had an idea here and I did it and it failed.
I don't know how many times I failed on these ideas and concepts and talk about that. Yeah, it sucked. Talk about stuff. Oh my. And there's so many times I felt like a complete failure and I was dumb, and what am I doing? And. Like this negative self-talk and it's just like a constant struggle. 'cause I held myself to such a high standard and I was like, why am I coming for all these ideas if they all fail?
Are these restaurants? Are these, walk us through a couple of them that come to mind. So one of 'em was like before ai, like this interactive accounting program that I built from an Excel spreadsheet. One of 'em was like a rewards program from the appliance industry. One of 'em was a something called Luxury Appliance Support, which is like a whole new way to do appliances.
[00:19:00] And then I had the staffing company that was good for a while. There's a lot of logistics in running a company and I didn't really know how to do that. So that's just like a few of 'em. But I was. I don't know, 22, 23. And then I started Savory Celebration 13 years ago in 2012. And that's when things really made sense and took off.
And I really learned a lot and applied all those failures to a business that actually worked for a while at least. So savory Celebration is the prior venture I was referencing earlier. Walk us through what you learned from prior failures and how you move forward with Savory celebrations and what that is.
Yeah, so I actually had, uh, right now it's just me and Mandy, but I actually had with Savory celebrations, a few employees and that was very difficult and they were actually friends and family. And so there's just like a whole different dynamic I learned about taxes than the operation standpoint, but. I guess it's a double edged sword [00:20:00] because I learned that you have to push so hard and you have to ride the line between success and failure so finely in order to grow a business.
And you have to constantly invest to grow a business. And it's like you have to have this long-term vision that is so unbreakable and you have to have this bulletproof mindset that like I'm unbreakable that like it's a necessity. 'cause there are so many times that I want to give up. Manny wants to give up, we wanna give up because it's just, it's, it is so hard.
It was so hard. So talk to me about savory celebrations. What exactly was it? Yeah, so like we specialize in Iron Chef competitions with corporations, team building. We do some catering private in-home, fine dining events, but it's all on site for the most part.
Wow. Would you just look at that?[00:21:00]
And then we partnered with appliance dealers to do our team buildings because they had live appliances. And that's generally where part of this concept came from. And, and then we did in home because we didn't have a location, we were forced to do that. Right. And we just made it work and pieced it together.
So this was 13 years ago. So talk to me about when you started Savory Celebrations. Did you do it just total bootstrap? Where did you get the capital for it? Was it like, how did that work? Yeah. I was running the SLO top cooking school. We had Thermador in there and then dealers started saying, Hey, we wanna bring clients in for interactive cooking demos to sell our appliances.
They partner with dealers and I always knew I wanted to run my own business. So I said, Hey, you guys wanna do this in like the actual dealers. And so our pitch to [00:22:00] Thermador and the dealers were, Hey, you put the appliances live. Robbie will come in, do the demos, and then we can close clients in an interactive environ.
And this was like 10 years ago. And so now that's a standard in the appliance industry, right? We're before thinking back then, yeah. That just didn't happen. And so we dominated the city and really started this interactive platform for dealers and we were able, I was able to start this company just cash flowing it.
No, no in, I've never had investment, like ever. So that's why it's so foreign to me helping to raise investment with this project. I've always bootstrapped it, reinvested in the business. I mean from laser engraving for our products to actual product lines, to our services. We're all internal. We have mass, we can do a whole 50 person fine dining dinner, and it's all our stuff.
Wow. And so there's a lot of investment in the business and just built it over 13 years, getting plates here and glasses here, and [00:23:00] fortunate enough to get this really intense private chef job. Two of 'em, right when we started the company outside of the appliance industry and we were like, oh my gosh, we made so much money and this short period of time.
So it was just very, you call it serendipity, you call it the universe. God's plan. We call it God's plan because it's like, it's. Everything has just worked in such a, Mandy always said, may we make it by the little hair on the chiney chin right at the last minute. But it's to learn and grow. But yeah, it's always just been straight up cash flow reinvestment for okay, 13 years.
Okay. So again, you don't necessarily need investors. You don't necessarily need six figures in your bank account. You can find a way to get it done. Yeah. You just gotta be creative. I think the biggest thing is I try to never burn bridges and always really, and the other biggest thing is ask for help. So many people are scared of looking vulnerable, looking stupid.
And it's so, I've gotten [00:24:00] so far just by asking for help. And this is very successful people. Some of these guys have been billionaires. Yeah. And I just went and I was like, Hey man, I need some help. Can you gimme some advice? Can you help me out here? Help me out there. And they're all so willing to do it.
'cause they've been there, they've been through, it's the same entrepreneurial journey no matter who you are. It's just a different industry. So they get it. So true, so true. And then look at you, Joe, ask for help. I'll say, I'm so grateful because I saw what you were doing. And I reached out and I said, chef, can I interview you?
And you're like, I don't know. What if I can add anything? Yeah. And I came back and I said, are you kidding me? This is awesome. And you're like, okay, I'll do it. That's great. I love it. I love it. Okay, so now I wanna get to the luxury tree house, and I'm gonna share the renderings and the pictures and the concept.
But give us a high level overview, Mandy, about what the luxury tree house is going to be. It's gonna be very private and fun. What I see in luxury is I [00:25:00] wanna give someone else the opportunity that is a busy person, not to have to worry about anything. It's luxury fun. So it's just gonna be one of those things that you can come in and you feel comfortable, you're gonna be treated like family.
And you're gonna get what you pay for. So is it a restaurant, a cooking school, a showroom? There's so many different things going on, right? Yes. So it's all of the above. I guess you can say. It's applicable to your everyday person. If they wanna come in for retail, they wanna do a cooking class, your corporate offices, your private dinners.
So yeah. Okay. And then talk to me Chef. I think you're going to have something like seven kitchens here. Yeah. So playing off that live appliance thing is, especially in luxury retail appliances, like pick it. If you're spending a significant amount of money, you wanna experience it. And I think that is so important.
PE retail has phased out or is phasing out in a traditional way. No one wants to go go to a store and just be sold [00:26:00] something. They really want an experience, they wanna learn something, they want to feel something. And that's what this place is meant to be. It's called the luxury tree house. 'cause it's meant, just like Manny said, to take someone who is super busy.
Take them out of their current environment and bring them into somewhere that is whimsical is fun, that they can just totally like chill. And if you think about a tree house, that's what it meant, right? You go into a whole different dream world. And that's really our goal in how we do things. And everything is experiential from the seven kitchens that we have live.
So you can. Experience, monogram appliances, the beautiful lighting, even down to the knives that we sell, the wine glasses that we have, and why we have a Bordeaux glass and a burgundy glass because you're actually tasting the right wine out of the right glass. So it's a completely immersive format, but what we've done is mix housewares in the building industry together.
So we work with designers, builders, and architects for people who are building a new home [00:27:00] to make it move in ready. Not only do they have the home in and of itself, or they have their China ready, they have their flatware ready, it's all put away and organized. They have their cooking pots and pans and knives and cutting boards, and they don't have to try to figure out, oh, what's good, what's recommended?
This is all like custom chef, curated designer curated products, and I think that's really what's missing in the industry is not only experiential, but customization. And that's really what luxury is. Not only getting that service like Mandy was saying, but. The customization that you get from personalized service,
that's really where we're going with the luxury. Treehouse is integrating 10 different revenue streams into the same place. But the 10 revenue streams are not for different clientele. It's meant for being a all-inclusive experience for that same person. Maybe they're building a new home, but then they like to entertain.
[00:28:00] Maybe they like the social club aspect. So they can join our dinner society, they can host a private event, they can have corporate gifts that are engraved by us. They can do a corporate meeting, an Iron Chef. So we take that person and we build a relationship with them. So for example, A CEO, there's a lot of clients that we have that they're like, Robbie, you guys just handle it and let us know, you know what the bill is because they trust us.
And I think that is so important. And luxury is. The trust. And so you delineated several revenue streams and then on top of that, they can order pretty much everything as you said, even down to the tile, right? Yes, correct. Yes. So it's done. It's not like Sears, you're not Yeah. Into Sears. Yeah, everything's monetized.
But I think the biggest thing, especially from our sponsor's point of view, is everything we sell is used in an event. So the, the event is the activation. It's not just the event itself, it's actually experiencing the product through an experiential activation. [00:29:00] That's really what the events are for in the venue.
Love it. Okay. So the big question is how do you build out an 8,700 square foot space? Stock it with the seven kitchens, have you know, this beautiful, great location in River Oaks and Houston without investors? Through a lot of grit, kindness, asking for help, like being personable. And really what it comes down to is relationships, and you have to have the right pitch.
How we run our business is we try to make other people money first, right? We don't focus on ourselves on how to make us money. If we make someone else money, they're gonna spend the money on us. And I think that's the concept that's really got us very far because no one's gonna do something for free. I understand there's some nice people out there, but still no one's gonna do something for free.
There has to be some, so you gotta find that angle of, hey, [00:30:00] what's in it? What's in it for them? And not think about it like, oh, hey, how? There's so many people, especially on, I know we met on LinkedIn. That's like themselves first. It's oh. What can you do for me, even though I'm pitching my service? It's, that doesn't make sense.
And I've gotten really far with finding the right angle to say, Hey, here's how it's beneficial for you. Here's how we're committed to making you money. And we've really built these strong partnerships with GE Monogram Kohler, Callista Constantino, Sherwin Williams, all these different companies, and building them together to say, Hey, not only can you work with us, but you can work with each other.
And this is a collaborative space for you guys to work with each other for the same client, and why not? They're all trying to go for the same client, so why not? It's a unique model, the partnership with the vendors. And Mandy, you were sharing with me prior to when I was setting up the cameras, that some of these had to go all the way up to the CEOs of these very large companies.
Talk to me about [00:31:00] how you guys negotiated that. Like Robbie said, asking for help. He had this vision, what, four years ago, and you're already pitching it, and nobody really believed in you, but I did. I helped him with his dream, with our dream, and we just worked together and made things work. Yep. And you have to have a, like, we had a lot of meetings.
We had, this is the third generation of this idea. We had a landlord the first time, didn't work out. We had a landlord the second time we kinda got scammed by a private equity guy that wasn't really a private equity guy. And then we're like, we quit for a while, and then the third generation were like, okay, let's try it again.
I had this gut feeling of let's try it again. And then it has materialized into this. It's taken four and a half years. People want overnight success. And what they see with entrepreneurs is they see the tip of the iceberg. They see, oh, the success, oh, it happened overnight. Oh, you have these sponsors. Oh, they're helping you out so much.
And it's, yeah, but [00:32:00] at the same time. Look at how much grit and hard work and failure and just, there's nights that I would just sit in my hands and just cry and just be like, this was like four days ago, three days ago. I was like, it's all circling the drain right now. Oh man. And now it's all back to being good with lots of potential.
But you have to be prepared. If you're gonna start a business, you have to be prepared of what it takes. And it's not an overnight success. A lot of this social media says it is just bananas hard. You also need support. Yeah. You also need somebody who needs going to support you even when things fail. You didn't fail, you just learned something new.
Yeah. And it is very difficult. It is very hard, but we support each other no matter what. I'm doing something or Robbie's doing something, it's like, Hey, you got this. You did great. It's okay. It's okay. Yeah. She gives me encouragement even when she's, oh man, this is circling the drain. Oh, this [00:33:00] might not work.
And I'm like, okay, how are we gonna pivot? What do we do to pivot in another direction? Okay, let's try this out. Okay, so maybe it didn't work out, but maybe it does. Like you always gotta have 10 things in the works, and that all works together because it's, there's clients that will call me six months later and be like, oh, hey, we're ready now.
And I'm like, oh, I totally written that up, wrote that off. But I think that's the big thing is you have to, and you have to be diligent and you have to follow up and follow up and tell. You don't have to follow up until you get the no. And that's it. That was my next question. How do you handle going to a Kohler or a monogram, these high-end brands, and you get all the way up and they say no.
Do you go back six months later? Three months later, and how do you propose to someone contribute this product and install it? You'll start seeing money six or eight months down the road. Yeah. So no, you have to instantly reframe it to them. So you have to take the objection and be like, okay, first you have to recognize their feelings.
Put themselves, put yourself in their shoes. Okay, yeah, I get it. It's a big investment. [00:34:00] Okay. How am I gonna make you money? Okay, let's rephrase it. Let's loop someone else in. How about we think about it this way? And I think that is so important, and being humble, because there's so many people that when they get denied, they're like, oh, didn't work out.
No, you have to continue to just try and follow up, because sometimes it's just not right timing. It's not about you. It's just not the right timing for that person or that company. So then you either get a no from that company and go on to the next one. Or you know that really there's no other option.
Just go on to someone until they say yes. And that's the, you have to know that you're gonna fail. And that rejection is like just a thing. Like just get used to it and like it, like it. Know that you're that much closer to the yes because you got another, no, I love it. So persistence is obviously key. What does success look like one year from now?[00:35:00]
It's so different than what people would probably like think. Like being successful, having the things, paying the bills, being comfortable. As an entrepreneur, you don't ever know when things are gonna fall apart, be successful. You can be broke one day and have lots of money the next day. 'cause a deal went through and that's all great.
But for success for us is giving back. We do the right thing. We do the right thing for others. So it's like that's one of our core principles together is we always do the right thing to others. 'cause we wanna be, we try authentic the best we can. We wanna be authentic, we wanna be real, we wanna be honest.
But one thing is, like Robbie mentioned earlier, mental health is very important for us. So counseling, if we can help somebody go through counseling and help them out, we wanna do that. We wanna be able to do that for them. We wanna create a, we wanna create a charity [00:36:00] in my. Mom's honor, where we pay for mental health services for other people.
We bring people in from organizations, from charities to use this space as a collaborative space to help others. We've seen people that would benefit so much from the counseling we've received and the people that have supported us and paid for counseling for us when we couldn't. And it's changed our lives completely.
So we really want to impact people. This is a great fci. This is a great venture, but we feel it's a facilitator to a bigger calling. So that's an interesting kind of KPI or success metric. We will feel successful when we're making enough to be able to give back. There's that excess to be able to give back.
And chef, you shared with me a very personal thing, and if you're willing to talk about it, that your mom passed at a very young age at 49. Yeah. 46. 46, I apologize. Yeah. Yeah. 46, [00:37:00] I'm 50. So that to me is, that's a young, right? Yeah. What did that do to you? At what point was that and what did that do to you?
Did that push you to do this? Yeah, so tragedy puts a whole different perspective on life. She's my best friend, and really what I got from it is I live by three different principles and every single decision that I make follows that three principles. And it's something where it's easy for me to make decisions.
The first one is never have regrets. So that's what this is built on, is I would rather bet on myself, which is another principle, and fail than get to the end of my life and say, should have would've coulda, because at that point, should have, would've coulda, doesn't mean anything. So I would rather set the example for my kids and really bet on myself and build our future and say, you know what?
I tried, or you know what? Give [00:38:00] the story. The best stories in movies is a superhero that it's like, ah, he can never do that. Oh, that's impossible. Oh, that's, but they do it anyways. The dragon's not too big. And I think that's part of the bigger picture is inspiring others to say, despite mental health, despite all the odds you can do it.
And I think people need a success story to hold onto when things are really hard.
I love that. So what assumptions are you guys making? So you have the open in two and a half months. What are the metrics, the assumptions, booking volumes, events, what, where are we on that? And it's multiple different things. Obviously we're raising some investment for this project, but this is also very scalable because it's very one, once again, we're making money for companies first, and then with us, we're looking to scale this decently quickly to Dallas.
Other cities, we have the social club that really provides a reoccurring revenue as well [00:39:00] as a launching point for us. So that's also an aspect that we're passionate about, but also it gives a very cool service to us. So through initiation fees, through reoccurring fees, our goal is to pay for our core expenses to run, uh, operational standpoint because of this kind of guaranteed reoccurring income.
And then we already have savory celebration that feeds business. Corporate business, things like that into here. We do definitely have KPIs, but it's just me and Manny that run it. We don't have this massive operating team. We hired temp staff, which we already have to do the events, and we're just really taking it in stride, trying to be very conservative and not just blow through money or blow through marketing.
We have a marketing company that's helping us out as just the kindness of their hearts once again, like asking, doing a little trade. And our goal is just to do it, pay for our expenses, and just take it from there. And so the core [00:40:00] monetary is coming from being fed from your other business and then the subscription side.
And then the accretive revenue comes from events and appliance selling and all the other revenues. Yeah, so it's twofold. It's events and retail. Okay. So it's half retail, half events, because also these sponsors are doing events themselves. So we have built in cash flow, we have built in customers that they're bringing in.
So our customer acquisition cost is pretty low because we're bringing in influencers through builders, designer architects, which are bringing in their clients, which is our clients. And the sponsors are bringing in the builders, designer architects, and the influencers and their clients. So we're synergistically working with the sponsors to also use their marketing budgets that they already have.
It's already established. They already spend just, hey, spend it with us. Like we already have some contracts for events with the sponsors. And so it's a combination of a lot of different [00:41:00] things really. So talking specifically about the sponsors once more, 'cause you brought it up. The first couple of times you go to them and they say no, but then you get better and better.
Your batting average increases. So what did you learn about negotiating with premium brands that you can share? There's definitely a lot of layers, but every layer has a different priority, right? So the executive director of marketing has a different priority than the director of sales or the vice president of sales.
And so you really have to cater to and talk in their language and figure out how they present luxury. How do they go to market? How do they see your concept and talk to that specific group or person or whatever it may be in their language. I always say meet people where they're at, and I think that is, you know exactly how to do it because you can't go to a luxury brand and be talking how they go to market for another luxury brand.
It's not gonna be well received. It's like talking gibberish to someone who speaks English. It's [00:42:00] total different language. What is the. Operational risk that keeps you up at night? Failing. Okay. People not signing up, getting the word out. There's just always so many unknowns. Obviously we're in a 9 80, 700 square foot space in River Oaks, and operating expenses are just in and of the core.
Pretty expensive. But we designed it to be a cash generating engine, just like any business. But we have put so many different cash flows into it in a very cohesive way that we should be fine. But always in the back of your head, you run a business, you're like, okay, what if this doesn't work? What if this doesn't work?
What if this doesn't work? What if I fail? What if I lose everything? And that is what keeps us up at night, because you just don't know. And I guess something that we have gained in the last really six months is my motto is we're just showing up because we, it was very difficult. I didn't have [00:43:00] faith in God in.
A big way for the last pretty long time, and there's so much stuff that you can't control in life that just has to be let go and given up. I was stressed, I had anxiety. My, you know, mental health, physical health was just totally de deteriorating because I can't control when people call. I could do marketing, I could throw all kinds of money at it.
Doesn't mean it's gonna work. So it's like this thing has only happened because of his plan, and I firmly believe that because we just met a few days ago. You're important to us. I had some great phone calls and people this morning, which I never, ever thought would be like phone calls. And so I, I guess that's really what's super important to us.
I love that. That speaks to my wife. She says the same thing sometimes. She's Jesus, take the will. Yeah. Out. Whatever happens. This has all been helpful, I think. What. Going back and finalizing [00:44:00] before, I wanna talk about the capital raise, and I wanna talk about the national aspirations and the replication, but I just want to finish out on the luxury point.
When people hear luxury, they just think expensive. Mandy define luxury, not just from a price point. I cover the retail area. Gabby really covers more of the corporate. So for example, we're going to do a cooking class. The luxury part is you're gonna get some wine out of a really nice glass, a hand blown glass, and you're gonna get shark cery or something of that sort to start off with.
But then it's also one of those moments that it's, oh wow, you get the wow factor. That's what makes it feel luxury is just the wow factor and fun because it's one of those things you don't wanna go to a cooking class or somewhere that it's just not very exciting. But you're also getting that luxury feel.
I think that's definitely true. And Mandy's discounting herself a little bit in a sense that you want it to [00:45:00] feel like home. Luxury is about So true. Hospitality has been lost in my point. And I think Mandy personifies this hospitality where when you walk in it's like, Hey, good to see you again. It's the personalization, it's the making people, no matter who you are.
It could be a billionaire, it could be whatever. It doesn't really matter of treating everybody like they're special, but in their own way, not bougie special where you're elevating 'em to a place. 'cause I've talked to a lot of people that some people super successful just wanna be treated like a normal person.
They don't wanna be the starstruck, they don't wanna be that. And I think Mandy does a fantastic job at being the, that person who comes in and is just warm and it's, oh, she's a friend to everybody. And I think that's what really personifies luxury is true hospitality. I love that. So the idea is to [00:46:00] expand across the US and talk a little bit about why you chose Houston River Oaks, and then what are the demographics or the corporate mix or tourism or what is it that you're looking for as you expand?
Yeah, so as far as this just happened very, you know. God's plan serendipitously where this is a third generation. We were done. We just happened to reach out to an amazing landlord that was introduced to us through a YPO event that we did, and he bought into it. He believed in us. He has always believed in us, and the space was just open.
It just happened. And it happened to be in River Oaks. It happened to be in a great location. Wow. So there really was no scouting around? There was no, we didn't even have a commercial realtor. It was just through a mutual conduct. Wow. And so, as far as expansion is concerned. We're not looking, we will follow the building [00:47:00] industry.
When there's a housing boom, we'll put up a venue because it's all centered around that new homeowner because that new homeowner is the key to everything. And I think that's what's really important. Obviously we need a great location, we want a great landlord, we want a great developer. But that is the core because our sponsors, that's their customer.
So if we want their support, which severely takes down our build out cost and gives us a very low CapEx, we follow where their money is. Right? Where do they make money when we put up a venue? 'cause just like I said, you make them money, they invest in us. So Dallas is really the next slated venue for us, and our goal would be to put it up in a year and a half.
So then the idea would be to go to Kohler, to go to Monogram, to go to these other vendors and say, Hey, look, here are the numbers. They know the numbers, but here are the numbers. We wanna move into that cd, get them rolled up, [00:48:00] and then open. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's this, once it's proven, is a pretty much no brainer.
For example, monogram, there's competitors that have showrooms dedicated to their appliances, and so it's a great opportunity for monogram to be able to partner with us and have an exclusive showroom. That that is low investment from a fixed expense where they're operating it. They have staff, they have, they're managing it.
They just partner with us synergistically because of, we only go to manufacturers for the most part, which allows them to give us a special deal on their products because they're the manufacturer. We don't necessarily go through distributors because they're the middle guy. Right? So we go straight to the source and that's how our build out is much lower.
And so the capital raise that capital is for. The portion that you put in life savings wise? Is that the idea? Yeah. Correct. Okay. Okay. So outside of Te Tenant allowance as well as they give us a [00:49:00] discount, a lot of 'em do not give us the product for free. So we still have to pay for part of the product. And there are a few different things that we don't have a sponsor for, like a makeup error system, which is necessary, but also through cash burn a little bit.
But with Houston, because of our build out is so low, Houston and each venue should fund the next venue because we are at probably a 15%. Then traditional, like a 15, we only spend 15% of what we would normally spend on build out. So we can actually replicate this system very quickly. Yeah, 'cause this will have the highest cash flow and you can use that to roll forward on the other units and just the initiation, just the social club.
Through initiation and reoccurring revenue, we'll fund the next venue. Interesting. What do you think is going to be the biggest investor objection? Because it sounds like a really good deal, right? Yeah. It's new. Yeah. Okay. It's new. Okay. This has never been done before. Okay. People get it. It's people frame [00:50:00] it as hospitality.
I just, with my new deck framed it as experiential retail, which is much more, it's actually more accurate, which was on me in that sense. But they just hear doing events and they instant think event venue. But it's so much more in the sense that really we're expanding the housewares industry into the home building industry and then putting it experiential.
'cause everything we sell, we use in our events. And so it's great for those builders, designer, architects, the sponsors. And so I think that's the biggest injection. We've talked to some investors that are like, oh, I get it. Either they get it or they don't. Period. We have some people that are like, Hey, we don't, we're oil and gas guys.
We don't invest out of oil and gas. So it's finding the right fit for the concept. And if they get it and they're like, this is awesome. So I think that's really the key. And we had talked about the importance and value of strategic investors, right? People who can bring something to the relationship rather than just [00:51:00] dollars.
Maybe they have connections or industry insight. Yep. Yeah. We talked to a gentleman just recently and if something wasn't important to him is he runs some hospitality. He understands hospitality. He went to hospitality school. And so that's what's super important is yeah, you get the base hospitality concept, but then you have the retail portion, but then you have the build out capitalization that's compounding and it's, oh, okay.
I get the scalability of it. I get the partnerships. It's okay. But they have to be a very diverse investor, developer. Someone who has resources in multiple different operational real estate hospitality, that that kind of really gets it. That's a good fit for us. What are some of the things that the vendors asked for or the sponsors that, that you didn't want to give up?
Like how was that back and forth? Was it just numbers, like the percentage of the discount or were they asking for certain placement signage? Was there anything they asked for that you didn't want to give? No, not really. Really. We were just negotiating on discount. [00:52:00] Okay. Yeah, so it was just discount and because we don't have any investors, we really had to try very hard to get the discount as low as possible.
But also really at the end of the day, we had to make sure that they were aligned with how we wanted to run things, how we saw the vision of this. 'cause it's new, so you have to understand, once again, just like an investor or sponsors, you have to understand what we're doing or it's not gonna work, period.
If there's no trust there, it's not gonna work. So I think that was one of the biggest points is getting the discounts approved at the right way. 'cause these are discounts that are outside of their normal, which is why it had to go so high up. Correct. And get it, and have the conversations and the understanding.
Because they're not gonna invest just like an investor if they don't understand they're not gonna put their money there. And obviously I wouldn't do it. So that's what's super important. Well, in my mind, it would go a long way towards a traditional investor that's injecting capital, that these large storage institutions are doing something outta the norm and giving you these hefty discounts.
Because they believe in your [00:53:00] model. Yeah. And they're in the industry. Yep. So they think it's gonna, I think there's definitely some clout there. That has been huge for us too. We've had some big, very big anchor sponsors. So entrepreneurship is hard in and of itself. Marriage is hard in itself. Kids, kids are reason, kids is hard.
It's balance. That's really hard. Oh, Mandy, thank you for volunteering. Mandy. How do you balance that? How do you balance that Communication. Okay. Transparency and communication you were talking about. It is, it's like I said earlier, pure honesty and talking things through, making sure you're on the same page.
We get a lot of people that always ask us, how do you work with your spouse? And it's, it's a lot of work. It's not rainbow and sunshines all the time. Sometimes we just have to take a little bit of space, take a little bit of a break and then come back and converse about it. But the balance is you make time for the date nights, you make time for the kids, you make time for business.[00:54:00]
For example, Robbie and I, when we go on dates, it's like we turn our phone off. Completely, it's, we don't wanna see the emails, we don't wanna be interrupted. The same thing with the kids. It's, we make that dedicated time. It might not be all the time because sometimes you do have to sacrifice some things.
Sometimes you do have to sacrifice some time. But at then, at the end of the day, as long as you're talking about it and just being completely open, that's what makes it work in the balance. Yeah. I think the not giving up and knowing the expectation, because yeah, we say that all the time. It's, I don't, I say all the time and we say all the time, it's just, I don't know what to do.
I don't know what to do. It just seems too much. It just seems too much. It just seems too much. And it's like you just have to commit to not giving up, whether that's on each other, whether that's on the business, period. I think that's so important. And I've had people be like, dude, you don't give up. But it has to be a core principle, right?
It can't just be like, oh yeah, I'm not gonna give up. Because when things get like. [00:55:00] Really tough. Like really tough. You gotta have it as like your internal being of I just don't give up. That's just part of my character. That's who I am. Well that too, and I agree with you as well, but we both see things in two different perspectives.
So at the end of the day, it's okay. He sees it this way and I see it that way and it's like, how can we work together to make things work? And I agree with Robbie, it's, oh my gosh, we just wanna quit. We've had those times where, like you said earlier, gonna cry and we have pride and it's, oh my gosh, what do we do?
And just working together. I love that. Thank you. A lot of people won't share this. They, they put on social media, they do put the rainbows and the unicorns and it's just, it's not right. Not all the time, but, and you have to be okay with waiting. That's something I'm like, have an issue with. 'cause I work so fast, so I have to remind her and I'm like, okay, you just sent that email on Monday and it's Wednesday.
So I'm like, they're probably really busy as a give it some time, give it till next week [00:56:00] at least. Talk to me a bit more about that. You'd said, chef, that it's tough sometimes. Give us an example from a business perspective in the last 30 days where you were like, I don't wanna do this anymore. Okay. So I'll give you that in the last three days.
Okay. Fresh? Yes, super fresh. We're just under this massive pressure because we have some surprises with the build out because we don't have any investors. It's something where it's a lot of pressure. They're, we're under a timeline that is almost unattainable and you just sit there and you're like, I have, I don't have any options.
I usually always have an answer. I usually have always some type of direction. And in some certain situations, the last three, three days, I'm just like, I don't have any answers. I don't know. I don't know how we're gonna survive. I don't like, I don't know, just period. So it's just, I just need to wait. And I think the most important thing is you just gotta, in those moments, you gotta give it to God and take care of yourself.
And that is what is so important. And Mandy reminds me all the time, I'm not very great at taking [00:57:00] care of myself. I will work and work, I feel like a failure like every single day. If I'm not getting five times more than the average person done, I feel like trash. I feel like a total freaking failure. Like I didn't get anything done.
And Mandy's like, you got up at four or five o'clock, you work till seven 30 and you got all this stuff done. And I'm like, yeah, such a failure, blah. I can attest to that. 'cause I think we were messaging last night on LinkedIn at 10, or I commented and you commented back and then I messaged you at four 30 this morning.
Yeah. You messaged right back. Wow. Mandy, what about you? Like, I don't want to do this anymore. Maybe in the last 30 days. Has there been that? How do you deal with it? Journaling. Okay. It really helps a lot. Okay. To write out your thoughts because like Robbie said earlier, three Ds have passed and it was one of those things where you just wanna give up, but then you're right there at that peak of the hard part, and it's okay, [00:58:00] I have to be strong and help my husband out.
It's like, how can I be a support system for him? Like he said earlier, he has a hard time taking care of himself, so I'm like, okay, did you eat today? Mm-hmm. All. Okay. What are we working on? How is this going? So it's very difficult and hard sometimes, but. I just make it work. It's amazing. Self-help is so key.
I shared it with both of you that my wife and I had started a national company and grown it and we were running ourselves into the ground and it was so bad that she had a mini stroke and was in the hospital for four days and three nights. And that's when we decided to pull the plug. Kudos to you for recognizing that you need to eat before you have a mini stroke.
That's important. And I think counseling too. We've gone, I've been, I've gone to counseling my entire life since I've been 13. Even in school and stuff like that. Mandy ha has gone to counseling and I think you gotta have someone to talk to and you gotta have someone that is unbiased, that knows how to navigate [00:59:00] these things in life.
And that's why we're so passionate about counseling is 'cause it's totally changed our life. And it is difficult to take care of yourself. It is difficult to find a direction to sort out your mind like. I have really bad A DHD and it used to really affect my life in a really nasty way. And I think that's like an entrepreneurial trait is like we have a DHD maybe, but it's something I think Albert Einstein.
Yeah, exactly. You go and hyper-focus and I think that's what makes entrepreneurs the have the ability to get stuff done abnormally well and fast what you have to do. Mm-hmm. And I have a very specialized counselor that specialized A DHD and it has changed my entire life. I have systems, I have to be built on systems.
I have to know, okay, if I'm feeling like this, even though I don't know how I'm feeling, I need to do this. Systems and tools really. I love that. I love that. Thank you both for your time today. I know you're both busy [01:00:00] doing this build out and I'm very grateful for this and I know there's a lot of nuggets there.
People will get out and the website is. www.comcomluxurytreehouse.com. Easy coming to your city soon. Coming to you soon. Right now in Houston. April. April of 26th, and then 26th. Dallas is next. Yeah, absolutely Wonderful. Okay.