The Peel

Dan Lorenc is the Co-founder and CEO of Chainguard, the best way to secure your open source software. Dan and his co-founders Kim, Matt, and Ville started the company in 2021 after spending a decade working together at Google on all things open source and software security. They’ve since raised $116 million from investors including Spark (led Series B), Sequoia (led Series A), Amplify (led Seed), The Chainsmoker’s Mantis VC, Banana Capital, and dozens of angels in the cyber security and open source communities. — Topics discussed:

• What is the “software supply chain”?
• How the SolarWinds breach created the software supply chain security market
• The history of open source software
• Why open source software makes software supply chains even less secure
• The moment Dan and his co-founders decided to start Chainguard
• Why they started selling consulting services before even building a product
• The reason their first two products solved completely different problems (top-down and bottoms-up), and why the one that didn’t work at first is now their main business
• Why Chainguard decided to focus on a broad communications and marketing strategy so early on
• How Dan gets quoted in major media publications as an early stage startup founder
• Why Chainguard uses memes for marketing
• Why Dan thinks startups should “make content optimized for the group chat”
• How they raised their Seed round from Amplify a week after leaving Google
• Raising a Series A from Sequoia as the market started collapsing in Spring of 2022
• Dan’s advice for founders on dealing with investor inbound when not fundraising
• Why he wish he hired sales reps sooner
• Raising a Series B from Spark Capital to accelerate their enterprise sales process

— Referenced:

• https://www.chainguard.dev
• https://www.sigstore.dev/
• Battling the Trojan Horse in Open Source: https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/dan-lorenc-chainguard-spotlight/
• Chainguard Series B Announcement: https://www.chainguard.dev/unchained/series-b-funding
• Dan’s favorite open source project: https://github.com/jqlang/jq
• Reflections on Trusting Trust: https://www.cs.cmu.edu/~rdriley/487/papers/Thompson_1984_ReflectionsonTrustingTrust.pdf

— Where to find Dan:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/lorenc_dan
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danlorenc

— Where to find Turner:

• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak
• Banana Capital: https://bananacapital.vc

— Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io — Want to sponsor the show? https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Waseem Daher is the Co-founder and CEO of Pilot, the bookkeeping, CFO, and tax provider for startups and fast growing businesses. Prior to Pilot, Waseem and his co-founders Jeff and Jessica sold companies to Oracle and Dropbox.

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Waseem, Jeff, and Jessica started Pilot in 2017, and have since raised over $160 million from investors like Index Ventures, Stripe, Sequoia, Whale Rock, Jeff Bezos, and over 40+ angel investors.

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Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://bit.ly/3FoYm52

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In this episode, we discuss:
• Why Waseem’s building a startup that does your accounting
• The reason he first started doing his own bookkeeping, and why he doesn’t recommend it to other founders
• When startups should build something themselves and when to outsource
• All the mistakes Waseem made building and selling his first two startups to Oracle and Dropbox
• How to avoid “fake work”
• How to get ROI from conferences
• His disastrous first ever meeting with a VC
• Why the best fundraising advice is to build a business that doesn’t need to raise money
• “Companies are bought, not sold” and his framework for startup M&A
• Why it’s a mistake to build your startup just to be acquired
• Why consensus startup ideas rarely work, and the best startups need some secret or structural change that no one else has noticed yet
• Why tech-enabled service businesses are so hard to scale
• How Pilot got its first customers
• Pilot’s unique approach to raising its Seed round
• The initial scare when raising their Series A
• Why its Series B was half of what they could have raised

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Where to find Waseem:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/waseem

• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wdaher

• Newsletter: https://waseem.substack.com/

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Where to find Turner:

• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

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Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io

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For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Semil Shah is the Founder of Haystack, an institutional venture capital firm that backs outlier founders at the earliest stages. Semil started Haystack in 2013, and has since invested in X unicorns like DoorDash, Instacart, Figma, HashiCorp, Ironclad, Carta, Applied Intuition, and Opendoor.

This episode takes us behind the scenes of Semil’s two decade journey building Haystack from scratch. We’ll dive into how he raised and deployed each of the first six Haystack funds, including all the mistakes made along the way, plus the details around Haystack’s new $75 million and $25 million funds announced the date this episode was published.

Read Haystack's announcement here: https://semilshah.com/2023/09/10/announcing-haystack-vii-same-model-fresh-funds-and-new-era/

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Brought to you by Mercury, the bank built for startups. Join more than 100,000 startups and venture capital firms on Mercury, the powerful and intuitive way for ambitious companies to bank.

Sign-up now: https://bit.ly/3sQRzOw

Listen to my conversation with Immad, the Co-founder and CEO of Mercury:

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/24ujuXZ2uws48bvwOh9NcR
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lessons-from-building-mercury-with-immad-akhund-co/id1694440669?i=1000619360042

Disclaimer: Mercury is a financial technology company, not a bank. Banking services are provided by Choice Financial Group and Evolve Bank & Trust; Members FDIC.

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Topics discussed include:

• Juggling multiple jobs while living paycheck to paycheck his first eight years in Silicon Valley
• Failing to get his first job in venture three times
• Investing in the Seed rounds of unicorns DoorDash, Instacart, Hashicorp, and Envoy within the first six months of starting Haystack
• Why he initially thought Haystack would be a short-term thing
• Turning down multiple lucrative job offers two years in
• How the best LPs evaluate VC funds on the “Entry Ownership to Fund Size” ratio
• Semil’s strategy of “crawl, walk, run” to increase Haystack’s check sizes over time
• The pain he felt failing to hit his target fund size on the first four fundraises and how he handled it
• Why everyone should “pre-market” a fundraise, and how to do it
• The things most founders don’t appreciate about raising a venture fund
• Fighting to invest in Ironclad’s Seed round before he had his next fund raised
• How LPs reference VCs, and how a VC can become referenceable
• Why Haystack Fund IV was the scariest fund to raise
• How Semil builds relationships with LPs
• The hardest questions he faced raising each fund and what other VCs should anticipate while raising their own fund
• How LP investment committees make decisions
• What’s going on behind the scenes at most large venture LPs today
• Why the traditional advice of “finding an anchor LP” makes no sense
• Spilling his secret on the best quarter to fundraise
• Why VCs should fundraise with a hard cap on fund size
• Why every VC should appreciate and remember how LPs supported them through the pandemic
• All the details on Haystack’s new $75 million and $25 million funds
• Semil’s plan for the next 10 years
• Three pieces of advice for emerging fund managers

Where to find Semil:

• Twitter: https://twitter.com/semil
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/semilshah/

Where to find Turner:

• Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

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Nick Saltarelli is the Co-founder of Mid-Day Squares, a healthy, functional chocolate bar. Nick, his wife Lezlie, and her brother Jake started the company in 2018 from their kitchen in Montreal, and have since built their own factory with $70 million in capacity, and grown the company to a $26 million revenue run rate. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/building-a-70-million-chocolate-factory In this episode, we discuss: The history of the $200 billion chocolate market Competing against 100+ year-old monopolies Finding a huge opportunity in healthier chocolate The dirty secrets of contract manufacturing Why no one knows how to make a Snickers bar, and Coca-Cola doesn't have a patent How to build a moat in CPG Why Mid-Day Squares had to build their own factory Making chocolate like Tesla makes cars Copying Facebook’s launch strategy Measuring product market fit in CPG Almost running out of money during COVID Why every founding team should go to therapy Surviving an 85% drop in revenue How to raise a bridge round Building an enduring brand Why marketers should study the music industry Timestamps [00:00:00] Intro [00:03:07] The insane politics of chocolate [00:04:53] The history of chocolate [00:07:11] The enormous market for chocolate [00:10:24] The nutrition of chocolate [00:15:00] The Mid-Day Squares origin story [00:20:05] Creating the first product [00:25:53] Why Coca-Cola never filed a patent on their formula [00:29:08] Why they built their own manufacturing plant [00:31:35] A crazy and creative fundraising strategy [00:39:26] Taking over an island and finding PMF [00:46:32] Raising $2m to prove 2 things [00:47:15] Automating production and navigating manufacturing chaos [00:51:11] Why he had to "plead with the government on public TV” [00:53:51] On "eating shit sandwiches” [00:57:30] The COVID mistake that dropped revenue by 85% [01:03:02] Advice for raising a bridge round [01:04:55] How to build fans not customers [01:07:12] How to build in public [01:12:23] Rapid fire questions Where to find Nick Twitter: https://twitter.com/nickywonka Where to find Turner LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/turnernovak Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Where to follow The Peel podcast YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ThePeelPod Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ThePeelPod TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ThePeelPodcast Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/building-a-70-million-chocolate-factory Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Ilir Sela is the Founder & CEO of Slice, the online ordering and all-in-one software platform that helps pizzeria’s manage their business. Ilir started the company in 2010 as MyPizza, rebranded to Slice in 2015, and has since raised over $125 million and supports over 20,000 independent pizza shops. Slice is supported by investors like GGV, KKR, 01 Advisors, Primary Ventures, FJ Labs, and RiverPark Ventures. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/arming-the-pizza-rebels-ilir-sela In this episode we cover - The three reasons small pizza shops are growing 24x faster than big chains - How franchising and "reverse franchising" works - Ilir's biggest mistakes building a franchise business before starting Slice - How to explain a new business model to investors - The customer acquisition benefits of a multi-product model - Bootstrapping Slice to $3 million in profit - Turning down two acquisition offers, one that would have made him nine figures personally - Why MrBeast Burger failed - Why we don't need more cloud kitchens - Empowering entrepreneurs to open their own pizza shops - Building a strong board - Advice for founders selling to small businesses Referenced Cloud Kitchens: ⁠https://www.thefoodcorridor.com/blog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-cloud-kitchens-ghost-kitchens/ Frank Slootman from Snowflake, who Illir said inspires him: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/frankslootman/ Growth in independent pizzerias vs big chains in 2022: ⁠https://www.pmq.com/pizza-power-report-2023/ Jeff Richards from GGV Capital, who invested in Slice and gave Illir some advice mentioned in the podcast: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeffrichards/ Michelle Obama on whether pizza is a vegetable: ⁠https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G14qNHPE4qo&t=21s ⁠ MrBeast’s MrBeast Burger: ⁠https://www.mrbeastburger.com/ The growth of Domino’s stock since 2010: ⁠https://www.cnbc.com/2020/02/25/dominos-stock-yields-higher-returns-than-google-since-ipos.html Slice’s website: ⁠https://slicelife.com/ Where to find Turner Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Where to find Ilir: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ilirsela Twitter: https://twitter.com/ilirsela Timestamps [00:03:34]: The enormous and fascinating pizza industry [00:04:30]: Why there are so many independent pizza shops [00:07:33]: Illir's deep family history with pizza [00:10:43]: What Slice provides independent pizzerias [00:14:21]: The origins of Slice (mypizza.com) [00:16:55]: Building "Nerd Force" before Slice [00:18:22]: How franchises like “Nerd Force” work [00:22:15]: Selling his first company: Nerd Force [00:23:46]: Forming the idea for Slice [00:27:19]: The very first customers [00:32:37]: Turning down $18 million to double down on Slice [00:33:41]: Raising money and starting Slice phase 2.0 [00:39:27]: An acquisition offer that was “tough to say no to” [00:41:55]: Slice's focus now and in the near future [00:45:01]: Why there are so many pizza shops [00:46:46]: Hot takes on Cloud Kitchen and Beast Burgers [00:51:55]: Why online customers are worth 4x more than offline ones [00:53:32]: Why some investors doubted Slice [00:57:58]: The underrated value of a good board [01:00:57]: Advice for founders serving small businesses [01:03:29]: Hitting $500m annual revenue with Slice 3.0 [01:04:31]: Other categories Slice could go after [01:06:25]: Rapid fire questions Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/arming-the-pizza-rebels-ilir-sela Production and distribution by: https://supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Adrian Aoun is the Founder and CEO of Forward Health, which is rebuilding healthcare as a product, not a service. Forward is supported by investors like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Softbank, Expa, Marc Beinoff, Ashton Kutcher, The Weeknd, Lee Linden, Josh Kushner, First Round Capital, Eric Schmidt, DCVC, and more, Before starting Forward, Adrian worked with Larry Page at Google to setup and launch new companies inside of Alphabet. He joined Google through the acquisition of his AI startup Wavii, and spent his first year at Google helping create and build its AI division. Adrian was on the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, and is an angel investor in companies including Stripe, Uber, Anduril, and more. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit In this episode, we discuss: Rad the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/making-healthcare-a-product-not-a - How the healthcare industry actually works - Why poor incentives make technology in the industry ROI-negative - The founding story of Forward - Why healthcare should be a product, not a service - Building doctor's offices like Tesla builds cars - Being Larry Page’s right hand man at Google - Building a “healthcare operating system” like Apple builds the app store - Adrian’s contrarian views on the food industry - Why animal farming is a bigger climate issue than you might think - Zuck: the man in the arena Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Where to find Adrian: Twitter: https://twitter.com/adrianaoun LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrianaoun Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/making-healthcare-a-product-not-a Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Immad Akhund is the Co-founder and CEO of Mercury, a digitally native bank for startups. Mercury is supported by investors like a16z, Coatue, CRV, Chapter One, Ryan Peterson, Scott Belsky, Serena Williams, Terrence Rohan, Zach Coelius, Todd Goldberg, and more. Before Mercury, Immad was a part-time partner at YC, co-founded Heyzap which sold for $45 million, and co-founded and scaled Clickpass to millions of users. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-future-of-banking-remote-work
In this episode, we discuss: - The future of banking - Why Mercury’s beautiful onboarding was an accident - Cultural mistakes most startups make - Two lessons from selling his first company for $45 million - How to get free legal advice - Why it’s better to build a network of entrepreneurs than investors - How to fundraise - Why its contrarian to start a non-AI company right now - How Mercury is thinking about AI - Why each operational team has its own engineering team - The embarrassing pitch meeting that raised his Series A from a16z - How crypto used up all its goodwill - The hiring advice he gives every founder Where to find Immad: Twitter: https://twitter.com/immad LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iakhund Podcast: https://curiositypodcast.substack.com/ Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Mentioned in this episode: Mercury https://www.mercury.com The Logan Bartlett Show: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QcL_cjZDeFU Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (5:58) Mercury's "accidentally great" onboarding experience (8:13) The fundamental banking business model (9:34) The basics of banking regulation (11:07) How Mercury works with banks (13:27) The future of banking (19:34) Immad's previous startups (22:30) What culture actually means (27:06) Importance of ideas vs execution (32:03) Learning banking from scratch (35:54) Why the first banking partnership failed (37:56) Why the second banking partnership worked (39:24) The difference between compliance and risk teams (42:08) Why compliance is so relevant for better banking (50:13) The biggest mistake for doing remote work (51:21) Mercury Raise (53:33) The game theory of fundraising (54:54) Playbook for generating fundraising momentum (60:45) Common fundraising mistakes (63:12) Hilarious fundraising mishap in front of a16z (68:16) Companies that aren't like this shouldn't touch AI (70:57) Who will win big from AI? (72:10) Immad's take on crypto (86:14) Outro

Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-future-of-banking-remote-work Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform

Ryan Delk is the Co-Founder and CEO of Primer, a startup helping ambitious kids unlock their potential by empowering teachers to launch and run their own micro-schools. Primer’s supported by investors like Founders Fund, Khosla Ventures, Village Global, Susa Ventures, Sam Altman, Naval, Ryan Peterson, Amjad Masad, Julie Zhuo, Tobias Lutke, Lachy Groom, Howie Liu, Dylan Field, Packy McCormick, and many more. Before Primer, Ryan was the COO at peer-to-peer rental marketplace Omni (sold to Coinbase), and prior to that led Growth and Partnerships at Gumroad from $10,000 to $50 million in GMV. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit

Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes In this episode, we discuss: - How the $1 trillion US K-12 education system works - The broken incentive structures in education - Why teachers are superheroes - How to double a teacher’s income - Primer’s origin story - How to open a school - If online school works - Why founders make the best employees - How the US government wastes billions of dollars - Why everyone should care more about local politics Where to find Ryan: Twitter https://twitter.com/delk LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/delk/

Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Timestamps: (3:42) The state of K-12 education in the US (6:35) The structural problem causing a radical misallocation of resources (8:00) The importance of teachers (9:34) The “totally flipped” incentive structure for teachers  (12:22) The problem of bureaucracy in education  (13:38) Primer’s thesis (14:52) How to start a school (16:00) How Primer helps teachers start their own schools (18:20) Using underutilized real estate to host micro-schools (20:05) Ryan’s take on digital vs in-person learning (21:59) How Primer supports teachers (23:21) Inspirational stories from Primer users (28:00) The underestimated entrepreneurship of teachers  (29:12) How Primer stays affordable for all users  (30:26) How Primer gets teachers on board  (32:04) The role of after-school activities  (33:07) How Primer sets its Curriculum (35:14) Ryan’s unique education and how it inspired Primer  (38:39) Why someone hadn’t solved this problem yet (40:24) Primer’s initial strategy (41:30) The breakfast that changed everything (42:09) The concept of “Barrels” from Keith Rabois (42:36) Finding and recruiting Ian Bravo (43:31) How Primer recruits ex-founders (44:52) The 3 things Primer screens for in teachers (46:27) What Primer messed up when launching (48:19) Re-thinking school admissions from first principles (51:03) How they convinced the very first teachers to try Primer (51:59) The ineffective usage of education spending (53:28) Policymakers prioritizing “signal over outcomes” (57:21) The worst public schools are worse than you think  (59:08) How the Government wastes billions of dollars and Ryan’s idea for solving this (61:31) The importance of increasing engagement with local politics (63:37) The vision for Primer

Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/turning-techers-into-superheroes

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Ken Ehrman is the co-founder and Managing Partner of Halo Collar, a smart dog collar that tracks your dog with GPS. Halo Collar uses patented technology that allows customers to instantly create up to 20 unique virtual dog fences from their phone using GPS.

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Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-iphone-for-your-dog-ken-ehrman

In this episode, we discuss: - Working for Mike Markkula, the first investor in Apple - Building hardware and the importance of patents - Listening to customers, solving their problems, and sizing a market - Qualifying enterprise customers and selling with "calm confidence." - Early investors trying to buy 95% of his first company - Getting the US Post Office and Army to fund $15 million in R&D - Taking a company public in 1999 with $3 million in revenue - Using AI to train dog movements and make "the Apple Watch" for dogs - The crazy story of how he met his celebrity co-founder, Cesar Millan the Dog Whisperer - What happened when they met famous TikToker Charli D'Amelio Where to find Ken: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-ehrman

Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak

Referenced: Buy the Halo Collar: https://www.halocollar.com/ Cesar Millan, 'the Dog Whisperer': https://www.cesarsway.com/ More on RFID tags: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ukfpq71BoMo&ab_channel=ALLABOUTELECTRONICS Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-iphone-for-your-dog-ken-ehrman

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Jonathan Neman is Co-Founder & CEO of Sweetgreen, an American fast casual restaurant chain that serves salads. Jonathan and his co-founders started the company in 2007, opening their first restaurant just three months out of college. Sweetgreen opened its second and third locations in the middle of the 2008 Global Financial Crisis, and went public in 2021 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sweetgreen’s focus on locally sourced quality ingredients has built it into a national brand with more than 200 restaurants across the US. Brought to you by Secureframe, the automated compliance platform built by compliance experts: https://secureframe.com/request-demo-4?utm_source=partner&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=062023-thesplit Read the transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-peel-episode-1-building-mcdonalds In this episode, we discuss: - How the restaurant industry actually works - How the US food system leads to over $2 trillion in indirect healthcare and environmental costs - Sweetgreen’s origin story - The early constraints that led to Sweetgreen’s ingenious business model - Launching a music festival headlined by Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd, and The Strokes - Killing a major product line to double down on online ordering in 2015 - How to build an enduring brand - Sweetgreen’s new salad subscription and gamified loyalty program - The surprising benefits of Sweetgreen’s new automated Infinite Kitchen - How the best entrepreneurs never give up Where to find Jonathan: Twitter https://twitter.com/jonnynemo LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-neman-9a28aa8/ Where to find Turner: Newsletter: https://www.thespl.it Twitter: https://twitter.com/TurnerNovak Timestamps: (2:35) The state of the restaurant industry since 2007 (6:03) How COVID-19 changed the restaurant industry (9:05) The bad incentives holding back the US health system (10:58) How Sweetgreen built a local AND national brand (13:07) How he made $40,000 a year in high school (15:30) How a stint in Australia inspired Sweetgreen (17:45) Sweetgreen’s 50-person friends & family round (20:14) Challenges of opening the first restaurant (21:58) How a tiny 500-square-foot restaurant unlocked Sweetgreen's success (22:50) When sales suddenly dropped 70% (23:40) The moment he realized he wanted to start his own business (26:23) Opening early restaurants during the Global Financial Crisis (27:35) Using a farmer's market to start a music festival and promote Sweetgreen (29:49) Landing Kendrick Lamar, The Weeknd and The Strokes as festival headliners (32:41) Why they shut down their second-largest product line (35:16) Launching Sweetpass (a gamified loyalty program) (38:19) Launching Infinite Kitchen (a fully automated restaurant) (42:05) Online ordering trends (44:13) The challenge with customizable food (45:36) Using automation to reduce preparation error rates (46:50) Acquiring a startup built by MIT grad students (49:04) The surprising benefits of Infinite Kitchen (52:25) The key to making healthy food accessible (53:30) Unfortunate facts of the US food system (57:25) How to “do the right thing” AND maximize profits (59:58) His favorite board game is... (60:52) We need to stop glamorizing overnight success Read the full transcript: https://www.thespl.it/p/the-peel-episode-1-building-mcdonalds Production and distribution by: https://www.supermix.io For sponsorship inquiries: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSebvhBlDDfHJyQdQWs8RwpFxWg-UbG0H-VFey05QSHvLxkZPQ/viewform