May 20, 2026 • 45 mins
Downtime is a profit leak, but over-complicating your systems before you even prove your market is an absolute cash killer. Many aspiring founders stall out because they believe the modern myth that you need an elaborate pitch deck, automated tech stacks, and millions in venture capital just to open your doors. In reality, real business traction is built on local, unglamorous consistency and operational clarity. We sit down with restaurant veteran and author Matt Friedman to break down how he took a simple concept and scaled it into a massive international brand.
We get into the tactical grit of launching a business from a fraternity house with a five hundred dollar investment, navigating the shift from single-unit operations to a massive franchise model, and the strategic framework of his "Wings to Wins" philosophy. Matt shares how early grassroots marketing tactics like door hangers outperformed complex strategies because they targeted the consumer directly. We also unpack the critical importance of finding a business partner who brings an opposite skill set to the table rather than cloning your own strengths, alongside the vital role of "innovation through learning" to protect your core product from shiny object syndrome.
The unglamorous truth of entrepreneurship is that you will make hundreds of mistakes, and perfection is a moving target you will never actually hit. True scale requires you to check your ego, acknowledge what you are bad at, and actively build tight relationships with your team, your consumers, and your vendor network. You will walk away from this conversation with a blueprint on how to run a lean operation, structure healthy partnership sandboxes, and leverage your supply chain partners to fuel long-term expansion.
Subscribe and tune in for new episodes of Big Talk About Small Business with Mark Zweig and Eric Howerton. Each week we focus on practical insights and real-world strategies to grow your business!
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Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_03 (00:00):
As a CEO, a leader, an entrepreneur, you are not
going to be great at everything.
Sorry, you got to check yourego.
Like I knew what I was reallygood at, but I knew what I
really wasn't good at.
And so I really, when I coachand work with some executives
and founders and franchisors Iwork with, I really try to help
(00:22):
them kind of establish, youknow, what are you passionate
about and what are you great at?
And then let's fill in the gapsof what you really need to
really build this company.
SPEAKER_02 (00:37):
All right.
Welcome everybody back toanother episode of Big Talk
About That Small Business.
And my co-host, Marcus Zwaiig,is slacking the day.
And so he won't be here.
He is moving his residentialhouse yet one more time.
Literally, I've never in myentire life met anybody that
(01:00):
moves more than Marcus C.
Zweig.
I think this is the second timehe's moved in about 12 months.
And he acts like that's no bigdeal.
But he's he's in the middle ofboxing everything up and getting
going.
So I have uh once again carriedthe weight for the show uh and
(01:20):
and keeping us going.
But have no fear, folks, becauseI have a fantastic guest with me
today.
His name's Matt Friedman.
And for anybody that is startinga business or is in the middle
of a business, and you havetaken the bait of that you have
to raise a certainunsurmountable amount of capital
(01:42):
to get going, or that you've gotto have a bunch of investors,
that you've got to have allthese things happening to get
going.
You are about to have thatcompletely countered with Mr.
Friedman's story.
It was a fantastic one, and I'mreally excited to have him on
the show.
Matt, welcome.
Welcome to the show, man.
SPEAKER_03 (02:03):
Thank you, Eric.
And please don't call me Mr.
Friedman.
I mean, that's an insult.
Maybe Matt the wing guy.
I don't know.
That's fine.
SPEAKER_02 (02:11):
Matt, listen, man.
Just because you started yourbusiness out of a frat house
doesn't mean you don't grow upand become a respected
professional sir.
SPEAKER_03 (02:22):
You know?
Well, I appreciate that.
I think I have a wonderful storyand hopefully a lot of great
nuggets of information for thelisteners.
Uh, I'd love to give you alittle background on my story if
that's okay, Eric.
SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
Please do.
Please do.
Looking forward to it.
Go for it.
SPEAKER_03 (02:38):
So uh I went to the University of Florida in
Gainesville, Florida, back in1990.
And I was a very typical collegestudent, right?
Lived in the dorm, joined afraternity, then moved to an
apartment.
And so I understood the collegeconsumer better than anyone.
(03:00):
And back in the day, you couldget Domino's pizza delivered,
you could get maybe a localChinese joint delivered.
But I always felt that there wasan opportunity to deliver
additional items.
I grew up as a massive wing fan,I still am today.
(03:20):
And so I came up with thisincredibly simple business plan
going into my junior year ofcollege, which was 1992.
Uh, and the premise of thebusiness was to be a
delivery-themed wing restaurantthat would be open late and
service this lazy customer base,typically without a means of
(03:45):
transportation.
And the business model wasreally built on a Domino's pizza
foundation, except we were doingauthentic buffalo wings.
So everyone, or there's a lot ofpeople that come up with
phenomenal business ideas, buthow do you take that idea and
actually get it to a beta testor to really test whether this
(04:08):
thing has legs?
And so one of the mostresourceful things I did as a
young entrepreneur is I lived ina fraternity house.
That fraternity house had a fullcommercial kitchen.
It housed 50 brothers.
There were 150 fraternitybrothers in the fraternity that
were served breakfast, lunch,and dinner five days a week.
(04:31):
And so I made my best salespitch to my fraternity president
and said, Man, I I've createdthis business plan and I need a
place to test this thing out.
And I said, you know, we've gotthis kitchen, it's got the
walk-in cooler and the freezersand the fryers and the grills
and everything.
And so I love to tell the storyof that Wing Zone started with a
(04:54):
$500 investment back in 1992,and that is a true story.
People always ask me, you know,what'd you do with$500?
Well, number one is we had atelephone line installed in our
fraternity house kitchen.
I like to say that we were theworld's first ghost kitchen,
meaning people didn't know wherewe were.
(05:15):
They just knew they could pickup the phone and call us and
we'd, you know, deliverauthentic buffalo wings to their
dorm or frat or sorority orapartment.
Then we had some simple menusand flyers printed, and for the
remainder of the money, we wentto Sam's club and bought some of
our ingredients the wings, thepackaging, the sauces, the
(05:36):
french fries.
And so with a very simplebusiness idea, the premise of
Wing Zone started in 1992 in ourfrat house kitchen.
SPEAKER_02 (05:47):
That's crazy, man.
So when how did you deliver it?
Talk us a little bit about thedelivery because that was ahead
of its time.
SPEAKER_03 (05:55):
Really interesting question.
Uh we used our fraternitybrothers, right?
Pledges, brothers.
Uh, we used to pay them$1.50 anhour and$1.50 per delivery.
Plus, they'd keep some of theirtips.
So we had a built-in labor forcefrom that perspective.
(06:15):
I was the one in the kitchen.
I had a business partner, myfraternity brother.
Interesting note, Adam Scott andI were business partners for 27
years as we went through thevoyage of Wing Zone from the
frat house to our first locationto seven company-owned stores to
franchising this model with 140plus locations.
(06:39):
So for the audience, this wasnot a simple road, right?
There were bumps and and bruisesand some of those things that I
hope to share with everyonetoday.
But uh 27 years from the firstideation to the exit in 2021.
SPEAKER_01 (06:59):
So he was a uh fraternity member with you when
y'all first started?
SPEAKER_03 (07:05):
Yes, Adam and I are fraternity brothers.
Adam was a year younger than me.
Funny story I like to tell is Iwent to several of my fraternity
brothers with this idea ofstarting this wing delivery
brand or concept, and I got shotdown by like the first five or
six, and I finally went to Adam.
I'm like, this guy seems like asmart dude.
(07:26):
And, you know, I went to him,he's like, Man, I I'm delivering
pizza for a local pizza joint.
I can help you with kind of somelogistics and how it works.
And I was like, I always laughbecause I'm like, Adam, how much
money do you have to invest inthis business?
He goes, I don't have any money.
I said, Good, I don't have anyeither.
SPEAKER_02 (07:44):
That makes you equal partners right out of the gate.
That's right.
So when you just a real quickquestion on that, whenever you
would sell to your customers,would they pay for the delivery
fee on top of their order, orwas that kind of baked in?
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
Remember, this is early 90s.
The whole idea of charging fordelivery or a delivery charge
really wasn't there.
Everything was free delivery.
So we baked it into the product.
I always like to share withpeople like we used to sell 10
wings for$3.99.
And after midnight, we used torun 20 cent wing night.
(08:23):
So every night of the week aftermidnight to get that bar crowd.
So think about it that you get20 wings for$4.
I have some old receipts fromback in the day.
It's so funny.
It's like you you you manuallywrite their phone number, their
address.
There was no GPS.
You you know, use a calculatorto add it up.
(08:44):
And you know, a lot of theorders were like$6,$550, you
know, the orders were not likethey are today.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
You know, man, I mean, I know this isn't the
topic of our conversation, but Ido think it's something to be
said about it, especially intoday's time with tech and AI.
Man, I mean, writing downorders, like you had a
relationship with your customer,first of all, that was a lot
more authentic.
(09:12):
Second of all, you kind ofunderstood what was going on in
your business because you wouldhear it, write it down, like the
physical writing it down versusall this automated stuff that
might happen online.
Like you knew really kind of atthe end of the day, did you
actually do pretty well or not?
And then you could hear directresponses, you know.
(09:33):
I mean, and there and not tomention there's just something a
little bit more gratifying.
It's like mowing a yard, right?
You can see work getting done,you know, especially for the
young folks out there that mightbe in their first business.
Like, I mean, don't don't feellike you have to automate
everything under the sun.
Like, there is you're you havean innate desire to work with
(09:56):
your hands and to process thingshand to mouth.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it's I think and therethere was something rewarding
about that, like what you'rejust talking about, looking back
to those old receipts.
Like you can recall writingthose things down.
SPEAKER_03 (10:11):
Yeah, I it's such a great point.
I love the voyage we were onbecause we started in kind of
the stone age and eventuallyevolved to all of the technology
now.
But you're right, taking thatorder with the with the customer
over the phone, you knew, oh,Beatty Towers, you know, we got
four deliveries going there, orwe got this fraternity or this
(10:33):
apartment.
You knew where the business wascoming from just because you
were taking the orders.
And it was just uh, I tell myson and and younger, the younger
generation, like, wait, holdhold on a second.
You took the order by hand, andhow did your delivery drivers
even know where they were going?
I'm like, well, we had a map onthe wall, and they'd say, Oh,
(10:55):
I'm in, you know, uh I thinkit's over here, and they'd get
in their car and hopefully getthere.
SPEAKER_02 (11:01):
Well, I mean, but but on the same principle, this
is like I think the big point tothis is like if you're starting
a business, like you don't haveto get so technologically
advanced.
Because I mean that yes, there'sa lot of value to that,
especially on the scaling side,but that usually happens later.
To get into a business, start abusiness low budget at$500.
(11:25):
You can start very manual andwork and find out your market.
Because I bet you, whenever youknew, if you got three or four
calls and you're writing down,you know that it's going to that
hall that you were talkingabout, right?
That certain dorm.
And it's kind of like, well, weneed to put more flyers out
there because we could probablyjuice that.
They love wings.
Totally agree.
SPEAKER_03 (11:46):
And I'll tell you, one of our most effective
marketing campaigns that we didfor years was flyers and door
hangers.
So we'd go to a particularapartment complex that maybe had
a hundred apartments, and we'dgo hang door hangers on people's
doors.
And I will tell you, it was likeclockwork.
I knew that night we were gonnaget five to seven orders from
(12:08):
that apartment complex.
unknown (12:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (12:10):
And it was like grassroots marketing, but that's
all we could afford.
Yeah.
And I think that was just, Imean, I I love the story of Wing
Zone and what we did because itwas just such a remarkable story
from incredible humblebeginnings.
I mean, the truth is this thingprobably had a less than a 1%
chance of actually making it.
(12:32):
And I think that, you know,listen, through a lot of trials
and tribulations, you know, wemade it, but it was not an easy
path.
SPEAKER_02 (12:40):
Yeah.
No, that's right.
Um so fast forward a little bit,you guys end up kind of really
scaling out.
Tell us about your scale-outstory.
Like how did that starthappening?
Where did you what did you getto?
SPEAKER_03 (12:55):
It's a great question because everyone or a
lot of people can open a singlebusiness or a single location,
but how do you really scale thatbusiness?
First of all, I want to sharewith the audience that our
business model was incrediblysimple, right?
We sold original bone in wings,french fries, and cans of
(13:16):
Coca-Cola.
We didn't even offer Diet Cokeor Sprite.
Just straight Coke.
So we, you know, that's it.
And so, and we had one of ourunique things was we had seven
different sauces, which weeventually called flavors.
So simplicity to me is one ofthe cornerstones of a business,
(13:36):
especially in its infancy.
But after we ventured into thefraternity house, we knew that
it would not be a long-termplay.
We weren't going to open wingzones through fraternity houses
all over the country, right?
So we were there for about asemester, and then I realized
(13:57):
that we were going to need totake this leap to actually
opening a real storefront,right?
So we thought that we had thisamazing success story.
We had great revenue numbers outof the fraternity house, we were
profitable.
So we went traditional route.
We went and marched into a dozenbanks and said, we'd like to
(14:19):
apply for a business loan.
And here's our business model,and here's some of our
financials.
And ultimately they said, Well,that's wonderful.
Can you fill out a financialstatement or an application?
And all we could put on therewere zeros, right?
We didn't have any cash or verylittle, we didn't have any
assets, you know, we didn'tprobably even have any credit at
(14:40):
that time.
And so the dream of opening ourfirst real storefront really
kind of fell apart.
Adam and I were both going intoour senior year of college and
we were going home for thesummer, and I said, Adam, the
only way this is going topossibly work is that if we find
someone to invest in us, andthose people are typically the
(15:04):
ones closest to you, the onesthat believe in you.
You can say they're friends, butin for the most part, it's
family.
So we both went home for thesummer and I said, Adam, you
pitch your parents on lendingyou$25,000.
I'm gonna do the same.
And so we were it was not aneasy set sell, so to speak.
(15:26):
Uh my parents, I Adam and I bothgrew up in middle class
families.
$25,000 in 1993 was asignificant amount of money.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:37):
And they set three stipulations for us, which I
think really made us who we aretoday.
Number one is we had to stay inschool.
We were a year away fromgraduating.
SPEAKER_01 (15:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:49):
We had to graduate.
That was stipulation number two,because the reality is this
business probably wouldn't makeit, and we needed to fall back
on another career.
And the third thing that Ithought was really important was
this was a loan, not a gift.
SPEAKER_01 (16:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (16:06):
This was not something that was like, hey, go
do this, and if it doesn't work,don't worry about it.
It's like you're gonna pay usback at some point.
So with$50,000, we get back tocampus that fall.
And fortunately, we found uh anold restaurant that had closed
steps away from campus.
(16:27):
I mean, it was beat up, but ithad some of the bones to it,
right?
It had the bathrooms and the airconditioning, and it had a hood
exhaust system, and we went inthere and kind of made it our
own.
And we opened in the fall of1993.
And, you know, I like to say therest is history, but when you go
(16:48):
from a fraternity house tooperating your first real
location, it was really anamazing learning experience.
We were very fortunate that, youknow, the term lightning in a
bottle or, you know, you gottahave a little luck in business,
but the consumer base reallyliked what we were doing.
(17:09):
We had a great location.
People saw the building and thesignage.
And uh, I know I'm datingmyself, but we were doing about
$12,000 a week, which is about$50,000 a month in business.
And I will tell you that thatwas more money than we ever
thought we could generate.
So the business became a veryprofitable business.
(17:32):
Adam and I worked that businessday in and day out.
We stayed in school.
We paid ourselves$200 a week forthe first two years we were in
business.
So think about humble living,right?
Yeah.
And we didn't just take all theprofits.
But in 1995, we went on a, weboth had graduated and we went
(17:53):
on a an aggressive growth voyagewhere we had opened six new
locations, one per year in majorcollege markets in the U.S.
Um, and so that was really thethe proof of going from one to
seven.
We built an amazing relationshipwith our core banker, and so
(18:18):
they would lend us money for thestore, and then we move to the
next one, and so on, and soforth.
I think for the audience, you'vegot to establish these lending
partner relationships, and Italk a lot about that in my
book.
Without that relationship, wewould have not been able to
scale.
And then 2001 rolls around andwe decide to venture into
(18:43):
franchising.
You know, a little plug for you,Eric.
I know you're about to getstarted into your own franchise
business as a franchise, or Ididn't know a lot about
franchising.
And so I did a lot of researchand reading, and I really felt
Wing Zone was a phenomenalfranchise model.
A couple checklists I look for,like, was the business
(19:06):
profitable?
Could we teach it to others?
Can it work in differentmarkets?
Um, and so for me, that was thebeginning of the franchising
side.
I will tell you and the audiencethat operating seven restaurants
and running a franchise companyare two very distinctive models.
unknown (19:28):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (19:29):
So I had to learn the franchising business, but we
were in franchising for 19 yearsand you know opened over a
hundred locations in the U.S.
and in six countries.
Well, I think I learned a lotabout franchising.
I'm a huge proponent of themodel.
Last thing I'll just say aboutfranchising is it's not a
(19:52):
guarantee of success, it is aprobability or likelihood of
success.
You've got the model, thetraining, the supply chain, the
technology, all the foundationaltools instead of just starting
your own.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:09):
Well, man, that's a uh a lot to unpack there, Eric.
I know.
No, it is it is.
I don't I'm I want to go back tothat first store real quick and
uh give give a sense about soyou and and it's Adam, right?
Who's your partner?
Y'all you have basically 50,000bucks collectively from your
(20:31):
folks.
You come back to school afterthe summer after raising that
capital, and you said that youopened up in the fall of that
year.
So that like what that puts inmy brain is is you came back to
school, you found a location,you negotiated a lease, you
moved in, you cleaned up, youpolished it up, you got your
(20:51):
supplies, materials, all thisstuff.
And within a couple of months,you were open for business.
Fact.
100% fact.
SPEAKER_03 (21:00):
Yeah, and it's funny because I laugh sometimes when
we leased our first location.
I think the landlord said, youknow, I'll you know, here's a
lease, and you know, and I'mlike, just I just signed it,
right?
I didn't read it.
I'm like, just give me the keysand and we'll figure it out,
right?
And you know, it was lipstick ona pig.
(21:20):
Like it was like it still lookedlike this old restaurant, but it
had a wing zone sign on thebuilding.
SPEAKER_02 (21:25):
You know, Matt, what I love about this stuff, right?
Is I I've been reading uh SamWalton's Made in America book,
like over and over them for thelast 60 days.
I bet you I've read it 20 timesin the last 60 days.
SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
One of my favorite books.
Another great book, by the way,is um Tom Monahan, who's the
founder of Domino's Pizza, wrotea book many years ago called
Pizza Tiger.
And it's another phenomenalstory of I mean, Domino's has
15,000 locations throughout theworld.
Like what a what an amazingbrand.
But it reminds me so much ofMade in America.
SPEAKER_02 (22:01):
Yeah, you know what I love about that, and you're
and you're we're talking aboutthe dirty details here, is like,
I mean, Sam Walton runningaround in the 50s and 60s.
I mean, everybody thinks it wasperfect, well orchestrated.
I had attorneys all the time, Ihad all this capital, things
were figured out.
I'm a merchandising genius, youknow, from day one.
(22:21):
It's not like starting abusiness is grinding.
It's getting in, you saidlipstick on a pig.
It's always lipstick on a pig.
You know, this whole paradigmshift that we've had in business
in the last decade that I'vewatched is trying to make a
(22:42):
business beautiful before youeven kick it off the ground.
All the learnings happen in thegrind in the grind of the
business.
That's how you know, and it justkind of stacks and stacks and
stacks, and it gets better andbetter and more refined.
You know, and and what I've hada problem with, Matt, over my
course of years of business isthat I'll have folks that might
(23:03):
join a small business that comefrom established companies, and
their expectation is that we'vegot things figured out, but they
kind of come into a lion's den,you know, and it's like and I'm
and there's like such adisconnect, you know.
I'm like, no, I mean, like, whatdo you mean you're you're you're
worried about our direction ofthe company?
(23:25):
I'm like, we're living thedirection of the company.
There is no grandiose.
SPEAKER_03 (23:28):
You gotta make payroll.
SPEAKER_02 (23:30):
That's it, man.
Yeah, you know, obviously.
SPEAKER_03 (23:32):
You gotta pay your food distributor.
I I think I think analysisparalysis sometimes is accurate
too.
I I think as as youngentrepreneurs, you strive for
perfection.
And let me be honest with you,you never get there.
I I had built 140 locations andwe never got to perfection,
ever.
Right?
(23:52):
I I will tell you that the firstthree stores we opened were oh
my god, what a learningexperience.
It wasn't until we got to storefour, call it almost four or
five years after we opened thefirst store, until we really
said, okay, we have the model,we understand how to do this and
(24:13):
replicate it.
And so that was, you know, I Italk in my book that we'll
mention, I have an acronymcalled WINGS to WINS.
And I talk a lot, the WINS hasan acronym, but the I is what I
call innovation throughlearning.
Too many business owners try toinnovate from the beginning
(24:36):
without learning a lot aboutwhat that innovation takes from
your consumer, from you know theoutside world and some of those
things.
Like we didn't just rush intoyou know online ordering or a
loyalty program for ourcustomers or um you know a
multitude of different things inthe business.
(24:57):
Like it was a gradual play asyou grow the business.
Uh one of my weaknesses, I'llsay it as a weakness.
Uh, maybe some people think itwas a skill, is I was an
innovator.
I was constantly looking atchanging the model, tweaking
this.
And I think as I look back, thatwas a mistake many times.
(25:21):
I I lost focus on what the corebusiness was.
I was trying to strive forperfection when I'm like, just
do what you do really damn well,yeah, and don't worry about some
of that outside noise.
SPEAKER_01 (25:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:35):
So I think that's a another great learning
experience.
I think for me, I I I do love toshare this story and and with
people like yourself and yourlisteners, because man, I I can
tell you the amount of mistakesthat were made in in my career
were were in the hundreds,right?
SPEAKER_01 (25:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:56):
You you have to try to learn from those mistakes,
but really lean on a mentor, acoach, an advisor, someone
that's gonna kind of push backand say, you know, is that
really the best idea for you?
Is that really the bestdecision?
Because as entrepreneurs, wethink we're like the smartest
(26:18):
people in the room and ourdecisions are always perfect.
SPEAKER_02 (26:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (26:21):
I can tell you that they are not.
SPEAKER_02 (26:23):
Yeah.
You know, that's a that's an Idon't know, my personal
experience on that.
It's it's a it's an interestingbalance, right?
You kind of go back and forth asan entrepreneur because you also
have to trust your gut a lot oftimes.
But that's the the kind of thething here, I guess this is a
way good way to put it, kind ofgoing deep with this.
(26:45):
There's a lot of times that Ihave a gut instinct that I know
I need to do something.
Then I will reason my way out ofit or I'll talk to other folks
and you know, that aren't reallywhat you would call what you
just said are advisors or trueadvisors.
They're just people that are inin my uh ecosystem.
(27:07):
And then I'll reason my way outof it, or I'll emotionally get
my way out of it, right?
By by fear or fear of criticismis always usually my bigger
blockade than anything.
And then I'll talk to, you know,then I'll talk to an advisor and
like resets me back to my gut,right?
Or something to that effect.
And so um, you know, but youthat toggling back and forth is
(27:30):
a is an interesting paradigm asan entrepreneur.
Like you're always kind of atwar with that.
Should I, shouldn't I, should I,shouldn't I?
SPEAKER_03 (27:38):
You know?
I think I think it's aninteresting point, and I I like
this conversation because as anentrepreneur, as a business
owner, as a leader, one of yourcore responsibilities in
leadership is to make decisions.
I think these people that liketoggle between do I do it, do I
(28:00):
not do it, like sometimes youjust got to take that leap of
faith.
And you're not gonna be rightall the time.
I think, you know, in general, Ifeel I'm a good leader.
I've I've made a lot of gooddecisions.
Of course I've made some baddecisions, but you stick with
it.
And one thing I always lovedabout Adam and mine's
relationship was we didsomething incredibly different
(28:24):
in in our daily roles, right?
We were completely different inour skill sets.
But and I was I was the ideaguy, I was the decision maker,
and he never beat me up about abad decision.
I think partnerships are reallyan interesting conversation for
entrepreneurs.
I happen to have loved having apartner.
(28:46):
Uh he was more of the financialCFO type, legal technology.
I was in operations and salesand and marketing, and we kind
of in a way stayed in our ownsandbox.
But to me, it was a really greatpartnership.
SPEAKER_02 (29:04):
Mark and I talk about this a lot, and what you
just said is exactly kind ofwhat we see as a strength in a
partnership.
You you're yin and you're yang,right?
You have uh strengths andweaknesses on both sides, but
you you mentioned somethingreally important that Adam did
was he trusted you to make thosedecisions, and you trusted Adam
(29:27):
about his decisions, like andyou stay in your lanes and
respect each other.
You know, I mean, to be honestwith you, like uh uh my previous
business, the one that weexited, I had partners that
entire time.
There's zero way under the sunthat we've been anywhere
remotely successful had it justbeen me.
(29:47):
Like I know that as a fact.
There's been a milliondecisions.
You probably do this with Adamtoo.
Like you actually over time youwant them to make that decision.
Like you're talking about letAdam decide because A, it it's a
tremendous amount of stressrelief for you, you know, as a
business owner, to be able todepend on somebody that you
(30:11):
trust and that you know and youhave confidence that they're
gonna make the best decisionthat they possibly can, and you
don't have to deal with it.
SPEAKER_03 (30:20):
Yes, and I think selecting the right partner is
critical.
I think if you have a badpartnership, then of course it's
not gonna work well.
Right.
But when you do find the rightpartner, and I do really
recommend that people don'tclone themselves and say, I want
a partner just like me.
You need to find someone thathas different skill sets and
(30:40):
different passions and bringsomething different to the
table.
As a CEO, a leader, anentrepreneur, you are not going
to be great at everything.
Sorry, you got to check yourego.
Like I knew what I was reallygood at, but I knew what I
really wasn't good at.
Right.
And so I really, when I coachand work with some executives
(31:02):
and founders and and franchisorsI work with, I really try to
help them kind of establish, youknow, what are you passionate
about and what are you great at?
And then let's fill in the gapsof what you really need to
really build this company.
SPEAKER_02 (31:18):
It's great, Matt.
Hey, Matt, I want to make surewe have enough time here to
cover your you your book, right?
You wrote a book.
What's the title of your book?
SPEAKER_03 (31:26):
I mean, what else could it be, right?
From frat house to franchising,the wing zone story.
It's beautiful.
And I think if people chuckleand they kind of hear the title
and say, man, cool title, that'swhat it was, right?
Yeah.
We started in a frat house, weended up becoming a fran
successful global franchise.
(31:47):
And I I will say this, I'mreally proud of the book.
I think it's it's the feedbackI've gotten from people is man,
you were really open and honestin that book.
Like it wasn't just like, oh, itwas success, and it was like the
easiest thing in the world.
It's like, man, you were reallyreal about the voyage and
(32:08):
business.
Uh, part one is really the storyof Wing Zone, right?
From the Frat House tofranchising to going
international to the exit in2021.
And the second part are reallythe stories of what I learned.
And I think anyone, whetheryou're starting a business, I
(32:29):
definitely think it's skewed alot to a younger audience
because they can relate to thosedays when you were in college
and had this idea, and maybe youdon't have a lot of capital.
But uh, and then last thing Ijust want to mention, just as a
simple plug, is um I'm a bigaudiobook uh listener, and I I
(32:51):
did the audio version myself,and I think it's just really
genuine in how it comes out.
And so I think for a lot ofpeople, they like listening to
the story, especially being toldfrom a founder perspective.
SPEAKER_02 (33:05):
100% agree, man.
I'm I'm a big listener, right?
I mean, I I just I don't know, Ifeel like I can absorb it, you
know, subconsciously even alittle bit more.
I mean, I, you know, as I'mdoing whatever activities, it's
like really convenient.
But I always do appreciate whenthe author is reading the book
because you can get the genuineexpression, like you can really
(33:26):
feel like that that you know,there's a better connection
there and more authenticitybehind the words.
unknown (33:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:32):
So talk about, you know, interesting.
Like I had to, I spent 14 hoursin a recording studio over a
course of many days and youknow, recorded it.
And, you know, it's it's justit's another cool experience.
I think I guess one thing that Ijust as I reflect back on my
career a little bit is I reallyhad fun doing it.
Like it was just a really coolexperience, and I always liked
(33:57):
so many different aspects of thebusiness, the relationships you
build with your vendors, yourfranchisees, um, just some of
the funny stories that happenthrough it.
And I think that also resonateswell in the book about the fun
times as well.
SPEAKER_02 (34:14):
You know, Matt, uh, on that part, I don't think
we've ever really talked aboutthis, but I have a firm belief,
you know, from my perspective,I'm starting up no new
businesses because genuinely Ilike to be part of a team.
I like to build things with agroup of people.
(34:35):
And work to me is is much moreit's it's about your life
experience with these groups ofpeople.
I mean, it's kind of like youknow, I was in a fraternity too,
back in college, so I canrelate, right?
But that group of people, whenyou did things, you did
philanthropic events, you hostedparties, you know, you hung out,
you were chilling.
(34:56):
All that stuff builds thesetight relations.
It's the same thing to me whenyou when you start a business or
when you're at work.
You know, like there's peoplethat I worked with my previous
company 20 years ago that arejust like some of the greatest
people I've ever met, andthey've impacted my life, and we
have stories together.
But I mean, is that kind of Imean, that's what I feel.
How I mean, what do you do youfeel the same kind of way about
(35:18):
your experiences?
SPEAKER_03 (35:19):
I do.
In fact, I keep in touch with alot of the people that were core
to our company's growth, right?
The 17 people that were in mycorporate office.
I mean, we're having a reunionthis summer to kind of get
everyone together.
And you know, listen, they'reprobably like Matt wasn't the
easiest boss, and I get that,but you know, they're listening
(35:41):
they they still respect me, andat the end of the day, I treated
them as well as I could.
But even the relationships withsome relationship with a lot of
key like vendors and suppliersand and those things, like those
are really I I I talk about thisin the book.
There's three legs to the stoolin kind of the the business
(36:06):
model.
You've got your team, right?
You've got the consumer, andthen you've you're always gonna
have some key vendor partners.
And they they they believed inus, and so they really bent over
backwards to help us grow.
And some of those relationships,whether it was our food
distributor, our point of salesupplier, our sign company, our
(36:26):
equipment company, the guys thatsold us french fries or fresh
wings, like I was all into likewe are one team and we're gonna
do this together.
And they loved it, right?
And I think that was reallysomething that I still to this
day feel like thoserelationships are lifelong
relationships.
SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
Man, I really just took that in, Matt.
I mean, you you gave mesomething to that I've that I'm
immediately gonna change alittle bit my perspective my
perspective on as far as likethe the value that three the
third leg of the stool in that.
I I really appreciate thatbecause I haven't really seen it
like that.
Now, I can recall key vendorsand partners back before in my
(37:12):
business, and they were key,like looking back, but like
existing today, I don't Ihaven't really thought about
making sure that I've investenergy and time as the founder
and entrepreneur into thosevendors today, right?
I do with my team and I do withmy clients 100%, but there's
another part of energy that Ishould really be contributing to
(37:33):
that.
That's really great.
That's a great piece of advice,man.
SPEAKER_03 (37:37):
I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
I learned something, brother.
I learned something.
SPEAKER_03 (37:40):
Hey, you learn something every day.
I I promise you, I've been inbusiness for I was in business
for 27 years.
I've been helping otherfounders, leaders grow their
companies for the last fouryears, and I've enjoyed it, and
I learned something every singleday.
SPEAKER_02 (37:56):
Yeah, so speaking of like, so you you had do you
still like you wrote your book?
When did the book get published?
When did it get released?
SPEAKER_03 (38:05):
Just uh March, like a couple months ago.
So it's brand new.
I I spent uh a year writing thebook, and really what I'm doing
right now is I have my ownadvisory.
I hate to use the wordconsulting, but I'm a coach,
right?
I'm a mentor, and so I loveworking with uh founders and
(38:25):
emerging companies, primarily inthe franchising world, right?
But not just restaurants, right?
There's home services, there'shealth and wellness, there's
kids' enrichment, there's pets.
And so I've built a nice littlebusiness where I'm doing
something that I'm passionateabout.
I feel like I'm really helpingother leaders and founders kind
(38:49):
of uh grow their company ortheir brand.
And so I think that's a littlebit of kind of what I'm doing
right now.
I always like to reflect back.
I didn't have a mentor, a coachthrough my through my career.
And I maybe I would have beentoo hard-headed to even listen,
(39:11):
but I really believe that everygreat entrepreneur, founder,
leader, executive needs someoneto kind of help them make the
right decisions or avoid thewrong decisions.
SPEAKER_01 (39:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (39:25):
And so that's really what I'm doing right now.
It's my opportunity to give backand uh hopefully see a lot of
these companies succeed.
SPEAKER_02 (39:35):
That's excellent.
So that's what you're doing now.
You and not to mention nowyou're a bona fide author.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (39:42):
Which is which is probably not a profitable
business venture.
It's more like, hey, I wrote thebook and you know, and I want
people to read it.
But it's it's kind of a, youknow, it it was also written
because I think, you know, atsome point my grandkids, I I
have kids that aren't ready tohave kids, but you know,
(40:03):
hopefully they'll read it andsay, Oh, my grandpa was a cool
guy, and you know, he had he hada good story to tell.
But yeah, I I enjoyed it and I'myeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (40:13):
That's cool.
Where do you get the is the bookavailable at all the main
channels, Walmart.com, etcetera.
SPEAKER_03 (40:19):
It is Walmart.com, Barnes and Noble.
I even went to some independentbookshops, so and it's available
in uh audio, you know, ebook,Kindle, and that sort of thing.
And uh, you know, I think peoplewill enjoy it.
And if you read the book and youwant to reach out to me and you
know have a conversation aboutthe book or your business, I am
(40:42):
an open book, no pun intended,but I want to help people.
That's really my main focus.
I'm even gonna help you, Eric.
SPEAKER_02 (40:49):
I know, man, and I'm gonna take you up on it.
We were talking right for theshow.
I mean, and I'm I'm I'm asgreedy as they come.
I mean, I will absolutely takeyou up on it, man.
You have to.
That's what you're looking for.
You're looking for somebodythat's kind of shameless and
greedy and wants to askquestions, and maybe I'll listen
to something, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (41:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (41:10):
You know, all right.
This has been, I'm sorry, Ididn't want to cut you off, but
well, yeah, but one one thing isat the very beginning of the
show, you said a key word for mehere in northwest Arkansas,
where we're at.
You said Sam's Club.
You and Adam went to a Sam'sClub and you'd buy the
ingredients.
That's their their home base ishere, them in Walmart, right?
(41:31):
And so just shout out to Sam'sClub, samsclub.com for all your
small business owners' needs.
Just like Matt.
If you buy at Sam's Club, youcan have a major franchise and
have a successful exit as well.
You know, I bet Sam's Club lovesthat promo, you know.
I mean, that would be great.
I mean, you can't even spendenough on advertising to get it
(41:54):
shout out like that.
By the way, they're not in the.
SPEAKER_03 (41:56):
And it was also just because I was ignorant, I didn't
know how this whole businessworked.
I thought every restaurant wentand went to these warehouse
clubs and bought their, wentdown the with their buggy and
filled in their carts andeverything else.
But for me, it was perfectbecause we could, and it's
funny, we would like we werecrushing it back then.
(42:17):
Like we would sell out aproduct, close up shop.
The next day we'd go load upagain, sell out, load up again.
So it was a true, like we wereliving on the cash on hand type
of model.
Dude, I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (42:31):
Writing stuff in paper, taking cash.
You probably got hard cash too,right?
Because that was a little bitbefore credit card swipes were
around.
Cash and checks, run to thebank, deposit, go to Sam's Club
in the morning, stack up on yourone drink of Coca-Cola, you got
some frozen fries.
That's beautiful, man.
(42:51):
I mean, that's simplicity.
I love it.
I actually, you know, my my nextexit, I might just get a little
get a little bit uh dirty againas far as like just raw kind of
business.
It's just there's something fun.
Like I clean the windows.
It's just me and maybe one otherperson, right?
And just just grinding at it andsee what happens, man.
(43:12):
I love it.
SPEAKER_03 (43:13):
I love it.
Simplicity.
So I've really enjoyed this,Eric.
You're you're a great host.
SPEAKER_02 (43:18):
Thank you, man.
How do people get a hold of you,Matt?
What's the best way?
SPEAKER_03 (43:22):
Yeah, so I have my own website, mattfriedman.com.
I'm on LinkedIn.
And obviously you can you knowcheck out my book, but I'm
around.
I live in the Atlanta, Georgiamarket.
And uh please, any of theaudience, feel free to reach out
to me.
I'm not one of these peoplethat'll be like, nope, I'm not
answering you.
(43:42):
Um, so I think that's a littlebit of where I am in my life
right now.
SPEAKER_02 (43:46):
I hear you, man.
I love it.
Uh, and that's Freeman F R I E DM A N.
All right.
Well, check them out, folks, onLinkedIn.
Get a hold of Matt.
He uh, man, it's been a great,great guest.
Thank you.
Congratulations on your success.
Congrats on your book.
I know that's a big lifetimeachievement.
Your grandkids, your kids aregoing to appreciate that for
(44:08):
sure, as well as other folksthat are looking to drive their
business.
This has been extremely helpful.
Aspiring entrepreneurs, smallbusiness owners.
Again, you don't have to be thebest pitch deck raiser and raise
$2 billion to get your businessgoing.
Just start getting at it.
Get some advice and some consultfrom folks like Matt that have
(44:28):
been there and done that.
They can help you along theprocess.
This has been another insanelyexcellent show and episode of
Big Talk About Small Businesswith Eric Howerton, No Marks
Wag.
Thank you very much for joiningus today.
Matt, thank you so much, man.
It's been a great, great, great,great time.
SPEAKER_00 (44:56):
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk
About Small Business.
If you have any questions orideas for upcoming shows, be
sure to head over to ourwebsite,
www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com,and click on the Ask the Host
button for the chance to haveyour questions answered on the
show.
Stay connected with us onLinkedIn at Big Talk About Small
(45:17):
Business.
And be sure to head over to ourwebsite to read articles, browse
episodes, and ask questionsabout upcoming shows.
As a CEO, a leader, an entrepreneur, you are not
going to be great at everything.
Sorry, you got to check yourego.
Like I knew what I was reallygood at, but I knew what I
really wasn't good at.
And so I really, when I coachand work with some executives
and founders and franchisors Iwork with, I really try to help
(00:22):
them kind of establish, youknow, what are you passionate
about and what are you great at?
And then let's fill in the gapsof what you really need to
really build this company.
SPEAKER_02 (00:37):
All right.
Welcome everybody back toanother episode of Big Talk
About That Small Business.
And my co-host, Marcus Zwaiig,is slacking the day.
And so he won't be here.
He is moving his residentialhouse yet one more time.
Literally, I've never in myentire life met anybody that
(01:00):
moves more than Marcus C.
Zweig.
I think this is the second timehe's moved in about 12 months.
And he acts like that's no bigdeal.
But he's he's in the middle ofboxing everything up and getting
going.
So I have uh once again carriedthe weight for the show uh and
(01:20):
and keeping us going.
But have no fear, folks, becauseI have a fantastic guest with me
today.
His name's Matt Friedman.
And for anybody that is startinga business or is in the middle
of a business, and you havetaken the bait of that you have
to raise a certainunsurmountable amount of capital
(01:42):
to get going, or that you've gotto have a bunch of investors,
that you've got to have allthese things happening to get
going.
You are about to have thatcompletely countered with Mr.
Friedman's story.
It was a fantastic one, and I'mreally excited to have him on
the show.
Matt, welcome.
Welcome to the show, man.
SPEAKER_03 (02:03):
Thank you, Eric.
And please don't call me Mr.
Friedman.
I mean, that's an insult.
Maybe Matt the wing guy.
I don't know.
That's fine.
SPEAKER_02 (02:11):
Matt, listen, man.
Just because you started yourbusiness out of a frat house
doesn't mean you don't grow upand become a respected
professional sir.
SPEAKER_03 (02:22):
You know?
Well, I appreciate that.
I think I have a wonderful storyand hopefully a lot of great
nuggets of information for thelisteners.
Uh, I'd love to give you alittle background on my story if
that's okay, Eric.
SPEAKER_02 (02:35):
Please do.
Please do.
Looking forward to it.
Go for it.
SPEAKER_03 (02:38):
So uh I went to the University of Florida in
Gainesville, Florida, back in1990.
And I was a very typical collegestudent, right?
Lived in the dorm, joined afraternity, then moved to an
apartment.
And so I understood the collegeconsumer better than anyone.
(03:00):
And back in the day, you couldget Domino's pizza delivered,
you could get maybe a localChinese joint delivered.
But I always felt that there wasan opportunity to deliver
additional items.
I grew up as a massive wing fan,I still am today.
(03:20):
And so I came up with thisincredibly simple business plan
going into my junior year ofcollege, which was 1992.
Uh, and the premise of thebusiness was to be a
delivery-themed wing restaurantthat would be open late and
service this lazy customer base,typically without a means of
(03:45):
transportation.
And the business model wasreally built on a Domino's pizza
foundation, except we were doingauthentic buffalo wings.
So everyone, or there's a lot ofpeople that come up with
phenomenal business ideas, buthow do you take that idea and
actually get it to a beta testor to really test whether this
(04:08):
thing has legs?
And so one of the mostresourceful things I did as a
young entrepreneur is I lived ina fraternity house.
That fraternity house had a fullcommercial kitchen.
It housed 50 brothers.
There were 150 fraternitybrothers in the fraternity that
were served breakfast, lunch,and dinner five days a week.
(04:31):
And so I made my best salespitch to my fraternity president
and said, Man, I I've createdthis business plan and I need a
place to test this thing out.
And I said, you know, we've gotthis kitchen, it's got the
walk-in cooler and the freezersand the fryers and the grills
and everything.
And so I love to tell the storyof that Wing Zone started with a
(04:54):
$500 investment back in 1992,and that is a true story.
People always ask me, you know,what'd you do with$500?
Well, number one is we had atelephone line installed in our
fraternity house kitchen.
I like to say that we were theworld's first ghost kitchen,
meaning people didn't know wherewe were.
(05:15):
They just knew they could pickup the phone and call us and
we'd, you know, deliverauthentic buffalo wings to their
dorm or frat or sorority orapartment.
Then we had some simple menusand flyers printed, and for the
remainder of the money, we wentto Sam's club and bought some of
our ingredients the wings, thepackaging, the sauces, the
(05:36):
french fries.
And so with a very simplebusiness idea, the premise of
Wing Zone started in 1992 in ourfrat house kitchen.
SPEAKER_02 (05:47):
That's crazy, man.
So when how did you deliver it?
Talk us a little bit about thedelivery because that was ahead
of its time.
SPEAKER_03 (05:55):
Really interesting question.
Uh we used our fraternitybrothers, right?
Pledges, brothers.
Uh, we used to pay them$1.50 anhour and$1.50 per delivery.
Plus, they'd keep some of theirtips.
So we had a built-in labor forcefrom that perspective.
(06:15):
I was the one in the kitchen.
I had a business partner, myfraternity brother.
Interesting note, Adam Scott andI were business partners for 27
years as we went through thevoyage of Wing Zone from the
frat house to our first locationto seven company-owned stores to
franchising this model with 140plus locations.
(06:39):
So for the audience, this wasnot a simple road, right?
There were bumps and and bruisesand some of those things that I
hope to share with everyonetoday.
But uh 27 years from the firstideation to the exit in 2021.
SPEAKER_01 (06:59):
So he was a uh fraternity member with you when
y'all first started?
SPEAKER_03 (07:05):
Yes, Adam and I are fraternity brothers.
Adam was a year younger than me.
Funny story I like to tell is Iwent to several of my fraternity
brothers with this idea ofstarting this wing delivery
brand or concept, and I got shotdown by like the first five or
six, and I finally went to Adam.
I'm like, this guy seems like asmart dude.
(07:26):
And, you know, I went to him,he's like, Man, I I'm delivering
pizza for a local pizza joint.
I can help you with kind of somelogistics and how it works.
And I was like, I always laughbecause I'm like, Adam, how much
money do you have to invest inthis business?
He goes, I don't have any money.
I said, Good, I don't have anyeither.
SPEAKER_02 (07:44):
That makes you equal partners right out of the gate.
That's right.
So when you just a real quickquestion on that, whenever you
would sell to your customers,would they pay for the delivery
fee on top of their order, orwas that kind of baked in?
SPEAKER_03 (08:00):
Remember, this is early 90s.
The whole idea of charging fordelivery or a delivery charge
really wasn't there.
Everything was free delivery.
So we baked it into the product.
I always like to share withpeople like we used to sell 10
wings for$3.99.
And after midnight, we used torun 20 cent wing night.
(08:23):
So every night of the week aftermidnight to get that bar crowd.
So think about it that you get20 wings for$4.
I have some old receipts fromback in the day.
It's so funny.
It's like you you you manuallywrite their phone number, their
address.
There was no GPS.
You you know, use a calculatorto add it up.
(08:44):
And you know, a lot of theorders were like$6,$550, you
know, the orders were not likethey are today.
SPEAKER_02 (08:51):
You know, man, I mean, I know this isn't the
topic of our conversation, but Ido think it's something to be
said about it, especially intoday's time with tech and AI.
Man, I mean, writing downorders, like you had a
relationship with your customer,first of all, that was a lot
more authentic.
(09:12):
Second of all, you kind ofunderstood what was going on in
your business because you wouldhear it, write it down, like the
physical writing it down versusall this automated stuff that
might happen online.
Like you knew really kind of atthe end of the day, did you
actually do pretty well or not?
And then you could hear directresponses, you know.
(09:33):
I mean, and there and not tomention there's just something a
little bit more gratifying.
It's like mowing a yard, right?
You can see work getting done,you know, especially for the
young folks out there that mightbe in their first business.
Like, I mean, don't don't feellike you have to automate
everything under the sun.
Like, there is you're you havean innate desire to work with
(09:56):
your hands and to process thingshand to mouth.
You know what I'm saying?
Like it's I think and therethere was something rewarding
about that, like what you'rejust talking about, looking back
to those old receipts.
Like you can recall writingthose things down.
SPEAKER_03 (10:11):
Yeah, I it's such a great point.
I love the voyage we were onbecause we started in kind of
the stone age and eventuallyevolved to all of the technology
now.
But you're right, taking thatorder with the with the customer
over the phone, you knew, oh,Beatty Towers, you know, we got
four deliveries going there, orwe got this fraternity or this
(10:33):
apartment.
You knew where the business wascoming from just because you
were taking the orders.
And it was just uh, I tell myson and and younger, the younger
generation, like, wait, holdhold on a second.
You took the order by hand, andhow did your delivery drivers
even know where they were going?
I'm like, well, we had a map onthe wall, and they'd say, Oh,
(10:55):
I'm in, you know, uh I thinkit's over here, and they'd get
in their car and hopefully getthere.
SPEAKER_02 (11:01):
Well, I mean, but but on the same principle, this
is like I think the big point tothis is like if you're starting
a business, like you don't haveto get so technologically
advanced.
Because I mean that yes, there'sa lot of value to that,
especially on the scaling side,but that usually happens later.
To get into a business, start abusiness low budget at$500.
(11:25):
You can start very manual andwork and find out your market.
Because I bet you, whenever youknew, if you got three or four
calls and you're writing down,you know that it's going to that
hall that you were talkingabout, right?
That certain dorm.
And it's kind of like, well, weneed to put more flyers out
there because we could probablyjuice that.
They love wings.
Totally agree.
SPEAKER_03 (11:46):
And I'll tell you, one of our most effective
marketing campaigns that we didfor years was flyers and door
hangers.
So we'd go to a particularapartment complex that maybe had
a hundred apartments, and we'dgo hang door hangers on people's
doors.
And I will tell you, it was likeclockwork.
I knew that night we were gonnaget five to seven orders from
(12:08):
that apartment complex.
unknown (12:09):
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (12:10):
And it was like grassroots marketing, but that's
all we could afford.
Yeah.
And I think that was just, Imean, I I love the story of Wing
Zone and what we did because itwas just such a remarkable story
from incredible humblebeginnings.
I mean, the truth is this thingprobably had a less than a 1%
chance of actually making it.
(12:32):
And I think that, you know,listen, through a lot of trials
and tribulations, you know, wemade it, but it was not an easy
path.
SPEAKER_02 (12:40):
Yeah.
No, that's right.
Um so fast forward a little bit,you guys end up kind of really
scaling out.
Tell us about your scale-outstory.
Like how did that starthappening?
Where did you what did you getto?
SPEAKER_03 (12:55):
It's a great question because everyone or a
lot of people can open a singlebusiness or a single location,
but how do you really scale thatbusiness?
First of all, I want to sharewith the audience that our
business model was incrediblysimple, right?
We sold original bone in wings,french fries, and cans of
(13:16):
Coca-Cola.
We didn't even offer Diet Cokeor Sprite.
Just straight Coke.
So we, you know, that's it.
And so, and we had one of ourunique things was we had seven
different sauces, which weeventually called flavors.
So simplicity to me is one ofthe cornerstones of a business,
(13:36):
especially in its infancy.
But after we ventured into thefraternity house, we knew that
it would not be a long-termplay.
We weren't going to open wingzones through fraternity houses
all over the country, right?
So we were there for about asemester, and then I realized
(13:57):
that we were going to need totake this leap to actually
opening a real storefront,right?
So we thought that we had thisamazing success story.
We had great revenue numbers outof the fraternity house, we were
profitable.
So we went traditional route.
We went and marched into a dozenbanks and said, we'd like to
(14:19):
apply for a business loan.
And here's our business model,and here's some of our
financials.
And ultimately they said, Well,that's wonderful.
Can you fill out a financialstatement or an application?
And all we could put on therewere zeros, right?
We didn't have any cash or verylittle, we didn't have any
assets, you know, we didn'tprobably even have any credit at
(14:40):
that time.
And so the dream of opening ourfirst real storefront really
kind of fell apart.
Adam and I were both going intoour senior year of college and
we were going home for thesummer, and I said, Adam, the
only way this is going topossibly work is that if we find
someone to invest in us, andthose people are typically the
(15:04):
ones closest to you, the onesthat believe in you.
You can say they're friends, butin for the most part, it's
family.
So we both went home for thesummer and I said, Adam, you
pitch your parents on lendingyou$25,000.
I'm gonna do the same.
And so we were it was not aneasy set sell, so to speak.
(15:26):
Uh my parents, I Adam and I bothgrew up in middle class
families.
$25,000 in 1993 was asignificant amount of money.
SPEAKER_01 (15:36):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:37):
And they set three stipulations for us, which I
think really made us who we aretoday.
Number one is we had to stay inschool.
We were a year away fromgraduating.
SPEAKER_01 (15:49):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (15:49):
We had to graduate.
That was stipulation number two,because the reality is this
business probably wouldn't makeit, and we needed to fall back
on another career.
And the third thing that Ithought was really important was
this was a loan, not a gift.
SPEAKER_01 (16:05):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (16:06):
This was not something that was like, hey, go
do this, and if it doesn't work,don't worry about it.
It's like you're gonna pay usback at some point.
So with$50,000, we get back tocampus that fall.
And fortunately, we found uh anold restaurant that had closed
steps away from campus.
(16:27):
I mean, it was beat up, but ithad some of the bones to it,
right?
It had the bathrooms and the airconditioning, and it had a hood
exhaust system, and we went inthere and kind of made it our
own.
And we opened in the fall of1993.
And, you know, I like to say therest is history, but when you go
(16:48):
from a fraternity house tooperating your first real
location, it was really anamazing learning experience.
We were very fortunate that, youknow, the term lightning in a
bottle or, you know, you gottahave a little luck in business,
but the consumer base reallyliked what we were doing.
(17:09):
We had a great location.
People saw the building and thesignage.
And uh, I know I'm datingmyself, but we were doing about
$12,000 a week, which is about$50,000 a month in business.
And I will tell you that thatwas more money than we ever
thought we could generate.
So the business became a veryprofitable business.
(17:32):
Adam and I worked that businessday in and day out.
We stayed in school.
We paid ourselves$200 a week forthe first two years we were in
business.
So think about humble living,right?
Yeah.
And we didn't just take all theprofits.
But in 1995, we went on a, weboth had graduated and we went
(17:53):
on a an aggressive growth voyagewhere we had opened six new
locations, one per year in majorcollege markets in the U.S.
Um, and so that was really thethe proof of going from one to
seven.
We built an amazing relationshipwith our core banker, and so
(18:18):
they would lend us money for thestore, and then we move to the
next one, and so on, and soforth.
I think for the audience, you'vegot to establish these lending
partner relationships, and Italk a lot about that in my
book.
Without that relationship, wewould have not been able to
scale.
And then 2001 rolls around andwe decide to venture into
(18:43):
franchising.
You know, a little plug for you,Eric.
I know you're about to getstarted into your own franchise
business as a franchise, or Ididn't know a lot about
franchising.
And so I did a lot of researchand reading, and I really felt
Wing Zone was a phenomenalfranchise model.
A couple checklists I look for,like, was the business
(19:06):
profitable?
Could we teach it to others?
Can it work in differentmarkets?
Um, and so for me, that was thebeginning of the franchising
side.
I will tell you and the audiencethat operating seven restaurants
and running a franchise companyare two very distinctive models.
unknown (19:28):
Okay.
SPEAKER_03 (19:29):
So I had to learn the franchising business, but we
were in franchising for 19 yearsand you know opened over a
hundred locations in the U.S.
and in six countries.
Well, I think I learned a lotabout franchising.
I'm a huge proponent of themodel.
Last thing I'll just say aboutfranchising is it's not a
(19:52):
guarantee of success, it is aprobability or likelihood of
success.
You've got the model, thetraining, the supply chain, the
technology, all the foundationaltools instead of just starting
your own.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (20:09):
Well, man, that's a uh a lot to unpack there, Eric.
I know.
No, it is it is.
I don't I'm I want to go back tothat first store real quick and
uh give give a sense about soyou and and it's Adam, right?
Who's your partner?
Y'all you have basically 50,000bucks collectively from your
(20:31):
folks.
You come back to school afterthe summer after raising that
capital, and you said that youopened up in the fall of that
year.
So that like what that puts inmy brain is is you came back to
school, you found a location,you negotiated a lease, you
moved in, you cleaned up, youpolished it up, you got your
(20:51):
supplies, materials, all thisstuff.
And within a couple of months,you were open for business.
Fact.
100% fact.
SPEAKER_03 (21:00):
Yeah, and it's funny because I laugh sometimes when
we leased our first location.
I think the landlord said, youknow, I'll you know, here's a
lease, and you know, and I'mlike, just I just signed it,
right?
I didn't read it.
I'm like, just give me the keysand and we'll figure it out,
right?
And you know, it was lipstick ona pig.
(21:20):
Like it was like it still lookedlike this old restaurant, but it
had a wing zone sign on thebuilding.
SPEAKER_02 (21:25):
You know, Matt, what I love about this stuff, right?
Is I I've been reading uh SamWalton's Made in America book,
like over and over them for thelast 60 days.
I bet you I've read it 20 timesin the last 60 days.
SPEAKER_03 (21:37):
One of my favorite books.
Another great book, by the way,is um Tom Monahan, who's the
founder of Domino's Pizza, wrotea book many years ago called
Pizza Tiger.
And it's another phenomenalstory of I mean, Domino's has
15,000 locations throughout theworld.
Like what a what an amazingbrand.
But it reminds me so much ofMade in America.
SPEAKER_02 (22:01):
Yeah, you know what I love about that, and you're
and you're we're talking aboutthe dirty details here, is like,
I mean, Sam Walton runningaround in the 50s and 60s.
I mean, everybody thinks it wasperfect, well orchestrated.
I had attorneys all the time, Ihad all this capital, things
were figured out.
I'm a merchandising genius, youknow, from day one.
(22:21):
It's not like starting abusiness is grinding.
It's getting in, you saidlipstick on a pig.
It's always lipstick on a pig.
You know, this whole paradigmshift that we've had in business
in the last decade that I'vewatched is trying to make a
(22:42):
business beautiful before youeven kick it off the ground.
All the learnings happen in thegrind in the grind of the
business.
That's how you know, and it justkind of stacks and stacks and
stacks, and it gets better andbetter and more refined.
You know, and and what I've hada problem with, Matt, over my
course of years of business isthat I'll have folks that might
(23:03):
join a small business that comefrom established companies, and
their expectation is that we'vegot things figured out, but they
kind of come into a lion's den,you know, and it's like and I'm
and there's like such adisconnect, you know.
I'm like, no, I mean, like, whatdo you mean you're you're you're
worried about our direction ofthe company?
(23:25):
I'm like, we're living thedirection of the company.
There is no grandiose.
SPEAKER_03 (23:28):
You gotta make payroll.
SPEAKER_02 (23:30):
That's it, man.
Yeah, you know, obviously.
SPEAKER_03 (23:32):
You gotta pay your food distributor.
I I think I think analysisparalysis sometimes is accurate
too.
I I think as as youngentrepreneurs, you strive for
perfection.
And let me be honest with you,you never get there.
I I had built 140 locations andwe never got to perfection,
ever.
Right?
(23:52):
I I will tell you that the firstthree stores we opened were oh
my god, what a learningexperience.
It wasn't until we got to storefour, call it almost four or
five years after we opened thefirst store, until we really
said, okay, we have the model,we understand how to do this and
(24:13):
replicate it.
And so that was, you know, I Italk in my book that we'll
mention, I have an acronymcalled WINGS to WINS.
And I talk a lot, the WINS hasan acronym, but the I is what I
call innovation throughlearning.
Too many business owners try toinnovate from the beginning
(24:36):
without learning a lot aboutwhat that innovation takes from
your consumer, from you know theoutside world and some of those
things.
Like we didn't just rush intoyou know online ordering or a
loyalty program for ourcustomers or um you know a
multitude of different things inthe business.
(24:57):
Like it was a gradual play asyou grow the business.
Uh one of my weaknesses, I'llsay it as a weakness.
Uh, maybe some people think itwas a skill, is I was an
innovator.
I was constantly looking atchanging the model, tweaking
this.
And I think as I look back, thatwas a mistake many times.
(25:21):
I I lost focus on what the corebusiness was.
I was trying to strive forperfection when I'm like, just
do what you do really damn well,yeah, and don't worry about some
of that outside noise.
SPEAKER_01 (25:35):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:35):
So I think that's a another great learning
experience.
I think for me, I I I do love toshare this story and and with
people like yourself and yourlisteners, because man, I I can
tell you the amount of mistakesthat were made in in my career
were were in the hundreds,right?
SPEAKER_01 (25:55):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (25:56):
You you have to try to learn from those mistakes,
but really lean on a mentor, acoach, an advisor, someone
that's gonna kind of push backand say, you know, is that
really the best idea for you?
Is that really the bestdecision?
Because as entrepreneurs, wethink we're like the smartest
(26:18):
people in the room and ourdecisions are always perfect.
SPEAKER_02 (26:21):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (26:21):
I can tell you that they are not.
SPEAKER_02 (26:23):
Yeah.
You know, that's a that's an Idon't know, my personal
experience on that.
It's it's a it's an interestingbalance, right?
You kind of go back and forth asan entrepreneur because you also
have to trust your gut a lot oftimes.
But that's the the kind of thething here, I guess this is a
way good way to put it, kind ofgoing deep with this.
(26:45):
There's a lot of times that Ihave a gut instinct that I know
I need to do something.
Then I will reason my way out ofit or I'll talk to other folks
and you know, that aren't reallywhat you would call what you
just said are advisors or trueadvisors.
They're just people that are inin my uh ecosystem.
(27:07):
And then I'll reason my way outof it, or I'll emotionally get
my way out of it, right?
By by fear or fear of criticismis always usually my bigger
blockade than anything.
And then I'll talk to, you know,then I'll talk to an advisor and
like resets me back to my gut,right?
Or something to that effect.
And so um, you know, but youthat toggling back and forth is
(27:30):
a is an interesting paradigm asan entrepreneur.
Like you're always kind of atwar with that.
Should I, shouldn't I, should I,shouldn't I?
SPEAKER_03 (27:38):
You know?
I think I think it's aninteresting point, and I I like
this conversation because as anentrepreneur, as a business
owner, as a leader, one of yourcore responsibilities in
leadership is to make decisions.
I think these people that liketoggle between do I do it, do I
(28:00):
not do it, like sometimes youjust got to take that leap of
faith.
And you're not gonna be rightall the time.
I think, you know, in general, Ifeel I'm a good leader.
I've I've made a lot of gooddecisions.
Of course I've made some baddecisions, but you stick with
it.
And one thing I always lovedabout Adam and mine's
relationship was we didsomething incredibly different
(28:24):
in in our daily roles, right?
We were completely different inour skill sets.
But and I was I was the ideaguy, I was the decision maker,
and he never beat me up about abad decision.
I think partnerships are reallyan interesting conversation for
entrepreneurs.
I happen to have loved having apartner.
(28:46):
Uh he was more of the financialCFO type, legal technology.
I was in operations and salesand and marketing, and we kind
of in a way stayed in our ownsandbox.
But to me, it was a really greatpartnership.
SPEAKER_02 (29:04):
Mark and I talk about this a lot, and what you
just said is exactly kind ofwhat we see as a strength in a
partnership.
You you're yin and you're yang,right?
You have uh strengths andweaknesses on both sides, but
you you mentioned somethingreally important that Adam did
was he trusted you to make thosedecisions, and you trusted Adam
(29:27):
about his decisions, like andyou stay in your lanes and
respect each other.
You know, I mean, to be honestwith you, like uh uh my previous
business, the one that weexited, I had partners that
entire time.
There's zero way under the sunthat we've been anywhere
remotely successful had it justbeen me.
(29:47):
Like I know that as a fact.
There's been a milliondecisions.
You probably do this with Adamtoo.
Like you actually over time youwant them to make that decision.
Like you're talking about letAdam decide because A, it it's a
tremendous amount of stressrelief for you, you know, as a
business owner, to be able todepend on somebody that you
(30:11):
trust and that you know and youhave confidence that they're
gonna make the best decisionthat they possibly can, and you
don't have to deal with it.
SPEAKER_03 (30:20):
Yes, and I think selecting the right partner is
critical.
I think if you have a badpartnership, then of course it's
not gonna work well.
Right.
But when you do find the rightpartner, and I do really
recommend that people don'tclone themselves and say, I want
a partner just like me.
You need to find someone thathas different skill sets and
(30:40):
different passions and bringsomething different to the
table.
As a CEO, a leader, anentrepreneur, you are not going
to be great at everything.
Sorry, you got to check yourego.
Like I knew what I was reallygood at, but I knew what I
really wasn't good at.
Right.
And so I really, when I coachand work with some executives
(31:02):
and founders and and franchisorsI work with, I really try to
help them kind of establish, youknow, what are you passionate
about and what are you great at?
And then let's fill in the gapsof what you really need to
really build this company.
SPEAKER_02 (31:18):
It's great, Matt.
Hey, Matt, I want to make surewe have enough time here to
cover your you your book, right?
You wrote a book.
What's the title of your book?
SPEAKER_03 (31:26):
I mean, what else could it be, right?
From frat house to franchising,the wing zone story.
It's beautiful.
And I think if people chuckleand they kind of hear the title
and say, man, cool title, that'swhat it was, right?
Yeah.
We started in a frat house, weended up becoming a fran
successful global franchise.
(31:47):
And I I will say this, I'mreally proud of the book.
I think it's it's the feedbackI've gotten from people is man,
you were really open and honestin that book.
Like it wasn't just like, oh, itwas success, and it was like the
easiest thing in the world.
It's like, man, you were reallyreal about the voyage and
(32:08):
business.
Uh, part one is really the storyof Wing Zone, right?
From the Frat House tofranchising to going
international to the exit in2021.
And the second part are reallythe stories of what I learned.
And I think anyone, whetheryou're starting a business, I
(32:29):
definitely think it's skewed alot to a younger audience
because they can relate to thosedays when you were in college
and had this idea, and maybe youdon't have a lot of capital.
But uh, and then last thing Ijust want to mention, just as a
simple plug, is um I'm a bigaudiobook uh listener, and I I
(32:51):
did the audio version myself,and I think it's just really
genuine in how it comes out.
And so I think for a lot ofpeople, they like listening to
the story, especially being toldfrom a founder perspective.
SPEAKER_02 (33:05):
100% agree, man.
I'm I'm a big listener, right?
I mean, I I just I don't know, Ifeel like I can absorb it, you
know, subconsciously even alittle bit more.
I mean, I, you know, as I'mdoing whatever activities, it's
like really convenient.
But I always do appreciate whenthe author is reading the book
because you can get the genuineexpression, like you can really
(33:26):
feel like that that you know,there's a better connection
there and more authenticitybehind the words.
unknown (33:32):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (33:32):
So talk about, you know, interesting.
Like I had to, I spent 14 hoursin a recording studio over a
course of many days and youknow, recorded it.
And, you know, it's it's justit's another cool experience.
I think I guess one thing that Ijust as I reflect back on my
career a little bit is I reallyhad fun doing it.
Like it was just a really coolexperience, and I always liked
(33:57):
so many different aspects of thebusiness, the relationships you
build with your vendors, yourfranchisees, um, just some of
the funny stories that happenthrough it.
And I think that also resonateswell in the book about the fun
times as well.
SPEAKER_02 (34:14):
You know, Matt, uh, on that part, I don't think
we've ever really talked aboutthis, but I have a firm belief,
you know, from my perspective,I'm starting up no new
businesses because genuinely Ilike to be part of a team.
I like to build things with agroup of people.
(34:35):
And work to me is is much moreit's it's about your life
experience with these groups ofpeople.
I mean, it's kind of like youknow, I was in a fraternity too,
back in college, so I canrelate, right?
But that group of people, whenyou did things, you did
philanthropic events, you hostedparties, you know, you hung out,
you were chilling.
(34:56):
All that stuff builds thesetight relations.
It's the same thing to me whenyou when you start a business or
when you're at work.
You know, like there's peoplethat I worked with my previous
company 20 years ago that arejust like some of the greatest
people I've ever met, andthey've impacted my life, and we
have stories together.
But I mean, is that kind of Imean, that's what I feel.
How I mean, what do you do youfeel the same kind of way about
(35:18):
your experiences?
SPEAKER_03 (35:19):
I do.
In fact, I keep in touch with alot of the people that were core
to our company's growth, right?
The 17 people that were in mycorporate office.
I mean, we're having a reunionthis summer to kind of get
everyone together.
And you know, listen, they'reprobably like Matt wasn't the
easiest boss, and I get that,but you know, they're listening
(35:41):
they they still respect me, andat the end of the day, I treated
them as well as I could.
But even the relationships withsome relationship with a lot of
key like vendors and suppliersand and those things, like those
are really I I I talk about thisin the book.
There's three legs to the stoolin kind of the the business
(36:06):
model.
You've got your team, right?
You've got the consumer, andthen you've you're always gonna
have some key vendor partners.
And they they they believed inus, and so they really bent over
backwards to help us grow.
And some of those relationships,whether it was our food
distributor, our point of salesupplier, our sign company, our
(36:26):
equipment company, the guys thatsold us french fries or fresh
wings, like I was all into likewe are one team and we're gonna
do this together.
And they loved it, right?
And I think that was reallysomething that I still to this
day feel like thoserelationships are lifelong
relationships.
SPEAKER_02 (36:47):
Man, I really just took that in, Matt.
I mean, you you gave mesomething to that I've that I'm
immediately gonna change alittle bit my perspective my
perspective on as far as likethe the value that three the
third leg of the stool in that.
I I really appreciate thatbecause I haven't really seen it
like that.
Now, I can recall key vendorsand partners back before in my
(37:12):
business, and they were key,like looking back, but like
existing today, I don't Ihaven't really thought about
making sure that I've investenergy and time as the founder
and entrepreneur into thosevendors today, right?
I do with my team and I do withmy clients 100%, but there's
another part of energy that Ishould really be contributing to
(37:33):
that.
That's really great.
That's a great piece of advice,man.
SPEAKER_03 (37:37):
I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_02 (37:38):
I learned something, brother.
I learned something.
SPEAKER_03 (37:40):
Hey, you learn something every day.
I I promise you, I've been inbusiness for I was in business
for 27 years.
I've been helping otherfounders, leaders grow their
companies for the last fouryears, and I've enjoyed it, and
I learned something every singleday.
SPEAKER_02 (37:56):
Yeah, so speaking of like, so you you had do you
still like you wrote your book?
When did the book get published?
When did it get released?
SPEAKER_03 (38:05):
Just uh March, like a couple months ago.
So it's brand new.
I I spent uh a year writing thebook, and really what I'm doing
right now is I have my ownadvisory.
I hate to use the wordconsulting, but I'm a coach,
right?
I'm a mentor, and so I loveworking with uh founders and
(38:25):
emerging companies, primarily inthe franchising world, right?
But not just restaurants, right?
There's home services, there'shealth and wellness, there's
kids' enrichment, there's pets.
And so I've built a nice littlebusiness where I'm doing
something that I'm passionateabout.
I feel like I'm really helpingother leaders and founders kind
(38:49):
of uh grow their company ortheir brand.
And so I think that's a littlebit of kind of what I'm doing
right now.
I always like to reflect back.
I didn't have a mentor, a coachthrough my through my career.
And I maybe I would have beentoo hard-headed to even listen,
(39:11):
but I really believe that everygreat entrepreneur, founder,
leader, executive needs someoneto kind of help them make the
right decisions or avoid thewrong decisions.
SPEAKER_01 (39:24):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_03 (39:25):
And so that's really what I'm doing right now.
It's my opportunity to give backand uh hopefully see a lot of
these companies succeed.
SPEAKER_02 (39:35):
That's excellent.
So that's what you're doing now.
You and not to mention nowyou're a bona fide author.
Right.
SPEAKER_03 (39:42):
Which is which is probably not a profitable
business venture.
It's more like, hey, I wrote thebook and you know, and I want
people to read it.
But it's it's kind of a, youknow, it it was also written
because I think, you know, atsome point my grandkids, I I
have kids that aren't ready tohave kids, but you know,
(40:03):
hopefully they'll read it andsay, Oh, my grandpa was a cool
guy, and you know, he had he hada good story to tell.
But yeah, I I enjoyed it and I'myeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (40:13):
That's cool.
Where do you get the is the bookavailable at all the main
channels, Walmart.com, etcetera.
SPEAKER_03 (40:19):
It is Walmart.com, Barnes and Noble.
I even went to some independentbookshops, so and it's available
in uh audio, you know, ebook,Kindle, and that sort of thing.
And uh, you know, I think peoplewill enjoy it.
And if you read the book and youwant to reach out to me and you
know have a conversation aboutthe book or your business, I am
(40:42):
an open book, no pun intended,but I want to help people.
That's really my main focus.
I'm even gonna help you, Eric.
SPEAKER_02 (40:49):
I know, man, and I'm gonna take you up on it.
We were talking right for theshow.
I mean, and I'm I'm I'm asgreedy as they come.
I mean, I will absolutely takeyou up on it, man.
You have to.
That's what you're looking for.
You're looking for somebodythat's kind of shameless and
greedy and wants to askquestions, and maybe I'll listen
to something, you know?
SPEAKER_03 (41:08):
Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_02 (41:10):
You know, all right.
This has been, I'm sorry, Ididn't want to cut you off, but
well, yeah, but one one thing isat the very beginning of the
show, you said a key word for mehere in northwest Arkansas,
where we're at.
You said Sam's Club.
You and Adam went to a Sam'sClub and you'd buy the
ingredients.
That's their their home base ishere, them in Walmart, right?
(41:31):
And so just shout out to Sam'sClub, samsclub.com for all your
small business owners' needs.
Just like Matt.
If you buy at Sam's Club, youcan have a major franchise and
have a successful exit as well.
You know, I bet Sam's Club lovesthat promo, you know.
I mean, that would be great.
I mean, you can't even spendenough on advertising to get it
(41:54):
shout out like that.
By the way, they're not in the.
SPEAKER_03 (41:56):
And it was also just because I was ignorant, I didn't
know how this whole businessworked.
I thought every restaurant wentand went to these warehouse
clubs and bought their, wentdown the with their buggy and
filled in their carts andeverything else.
But for me, it was perfectbecause we could, and it's
funny, we would like we werecrushing it back then.
(42:17):
Like we would sell out aproduct, close up shop.
The next day we'd go load upagain, sell out, load up again.
So it was a true, like we wereliving on the cash on hand type
of model.
Dude, I love it.
SPEAKER_02 (42:31):
Writing stuff in paper, taking cash.
You probably got hard cash too,right?
Because that was a little bitbefore credit card swipes were
around.
Cash and checks, run to thebank, deposit, go to Sam's Club
in the morning, stack up on yourone drink of Coca-Cola, you got
some frozen fries.
That's beautiful, man.
(42:51):
I mean, that's simplicity.
I love it.
I actually, you know, my my nextexit, I might just get a little
get a little bit uh dirty againas far as like just raw kind of
business.
It's just there's something fun.
Like I clean the windows.
It's just me and maybe one otherperson, right?
And just just grinding at it andsee what happens, man.
(43:12):
I love it.
SPEAKER_03 (43:13):
I love it.
Simplicity.
So I've really enjoyed this,Eric.
You're you're a great host.
SPEAKER_02 (43:18):
Thank you, man.
How do people get a hold of you,Matt?
What's the best way?
SPEAKER_03 (43:22):
Yeah, so I have my own website, mattfriedman.com.
I'm on LinkedIn.
And obviously you can you knowcheck out my book, but I'm
around.
I live in the Atlanta, Georgiamarket.
And uh please, any of theaudience, feel free to reach out
to me.
I'm not one of these peoplethat'll be like, nope, I'm not
answering you.
(43:42):
Um, so I think that's a littlebit of where I am in my life
right now.
SPEAKER_02 (43:46):
I hear you, man.
I love it.
Uh, and that's Freeman F R I E DM A N.
All right.
Well, check them out, folks, onLinkedIn.
Get a hold of Matt.
He uh, man, it's been a great,great guest.
Thank you.
Congratulations on your success.
Congrats on your book.
I know that's a big lifetimeachievement.
Your grandkids, your kids aregoing to appreciate that for
(44:08):
sure, as well as other folksthat are looking to drive their
business.
This has been extremely helpful.
Aspiring entrepreneurs, smallbusiness owners.
Again, you don't have to be thebest pitch deck raiser and raise
$2 billion to get your businessgoing.
Just start getting at it.
Get some advice and some consultfrom folks like Matt that have
(44:28):
been there and done that.
They can help you along theprocess.
This has been another insanelyexcellent show and episode of
Big Talk About Small Businesswith Eric Howerton, No Marks
Wag.
Thank you very much for joiningus today.
Matt, thank you so much, man.
It's been a great, great, great,great time.
SPEAKER_00 (44:56):
Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Big Talk
About Small Business.
If you have any questions orideas for upcoming shows, be
sure to head over to ourwebsite,
www.bigtalkaboutsmallbusiness.com,and click on the Ask the Host
button for the chance to haveyour questions answered on the
show.
Stay connected with us onLinkedIn at Big Talk About Small
(45:17):
Business.
And be sure to head over to ourwebsite to read articles, browse
episodes, and ask questionsabout upcoming shows.
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