September 4, 2024 • 39 mins
In this episode, I sit down with Rob Giuliani, the visionary co-founder behind Playa Bowls. Rob's story is a masterclass in entrepreneurship, revealing how a small idea sparked on the Jersey Shore evolved into a nationwide brand with over 280 locations.
We explore the foundational values Rob brought from his military background—like precision and perseverance—and how these have been key to Playa Bowls' growth.
Rob opens up about the early days of Playa Bowls, sharing how he and his co-founder Abby Taylor turned a humble cart into a cult favorite despite the challenges and doubts from those around them. He talks about the critical decisions that shaped the company's trajectory, including the strategic move to franchise and the importance of building a robust, culture-driven team.
Rob’s emphasis on staying authentic in a rapidly changing industry makes this conversation genuinely insightful. He discusses the delicate balance between innovation and sticking to what you know best and how Playa Bowls has managed to keep its identity intact while scaling. Rob also reflects on the invaluable lessons he's learned from mentors and the importance of knowing when to ask for help—a trait he believes is often overlooked in the entrepreneurial world.
This is more than just a business story—it's about perseverance, creativity, and staying true to your vision, no matter the obstacles. Join us for an inspiring conversation highlighting the grind behind what some might call "overnight success."
00:00 - Introduction
02:09 - Building a Brand
07:15 - Guerrilla Marketing and Early Challenges
10:53 - The Power of Culture
2:59 - Overcoming Doubts and Building a Strong Brand
19:52 - Scaling the Business and Injecting Corporization
20:21 - Maintaining Innovation and Consistency
25:46 - Unbelievable Challenges of Franchising
28:15 - Staying Innovative in the Fast-Casual Industry
30:19 - The Role of Healthy Eating in the Industry
33:30 - Challenges of Scaling and Creating Upward Mobility
36:04 - The Impact of Social Media and the Importance of Authenticity
38:02 - Reflecting on Risks and Influential People
Rob On Socials:
IG @rgewls @ playabowls
FB: https://www.facebook.com/PlayaBowls/
X: @playabowls
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-giuliani
Jon on Socials:
IG: @streetschultz
FB: Jon Schultz
X: @JonSchultz_Onyx
LinkedIn: jonschultz1
www.jonschultz.com
We explore the foundational values Rob brought from his military background—like precision and perseverance—and how these have been key to Playa Bowls' growth.
Rob opens up about the early days of Playa Bowls, sharing how he and his co-founder Abby Taylor turned a humble cart into a cult favorite despite the challenges and doubts from those around them. He talks about the critical decisions that shaped the company's trajectory, including the strategic move to franchise and the importance of building a robust, culture-driven team.
Rob’s emphasis on staying authentic in a rapidly changing industry makes this conversation genuinely insightful. He discusses the delicate balance between innovation and sticking to what you know best and how Playa Bowls has managed to keep its identity intact while scaling. Rob also reflects on the invaluable lessons he's learned from mentors and the importance of knowing when to ask for help—a trait he believes is often overlooked in the entrepreneurial world.
This is more than just a business story—it's about perseverance, creativity, and staying true to your vision, no matter the obstacles. Join us for an inspiring conversation highlighting the grind behind what some might call "overnight success."
00:00 - Introduction
02:09 - Building a Brand
07:15 - Guerrilla Marketing and Early Challenges
10:53 - The Power of Culture
2:59 - Overcoming Doubts and Building a Strong Brand
19:52 - Scaling the Business and Injecting Corporization
20:21 - Maintaining Innovation and Consistency
25:46 - Unbelievable Challenges of Franchising
28:15 - Staying Innovative in the Fast-Casual Industry
30:19 - The Role of Healthy Eating in the Industry
33:30 - Challenges of Scaling and Creating Upward Mobility
36:04 - The Impact of Social Media and the Importance of Authenticity
38:02 - Reflecting on Risks and Influential People
Rob On Socials:
IG @rgewls @ playabowls
FB: https://www.facebook.com/PlayaBowls/
X: @playabowls
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-giuliani
Jon on Socials:
IG: @streetschultz
FB: Jon Schultz
X: @JonSchultz_Onyx
LinkedIn: jonschultz1
www.jonschultz.com
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
Every successful person got there by going through tough times.
Success is a hard ass teacher who likes to knock
you around along that journey. You know, it takes real
guts to not give up and keep going. Well, here's
stories about failures and how these leaders flip the script
to create success. I'm John Schultz. Join me and let's
(00:35):
discover how success is never really overnight. Welcome to the
John Schultz Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Look how excited should I be?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Looking at the Jersey shore with a Jersey guy who
started with his co founder and amazing company, Rob Jiuliani.
Welcome to the podcast. The co founder of Pliaballs, which
we love, has a cult following and he founded it
with Abby Taylor twenty fourteen, and they launched it in
(01:11):
front of a pizzeria in Belmar, which I frequented when
I was younger and still do love that town. It's
an amazing town. Their first storefront in twenty fifteen, then
started franchising in twenty sixteen, and you know, many years
later with lots of hard work, grinding it out, creating
(01:33):
the best culture I think you could possibly create with
a brand has over two hundred locations.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So excited you're here thanks Rob.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Thanks for having me man. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, it's awesome. I'm so glad we're finally able to
do this.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I want to you know, my podcast is the
myth of overnight success. You know, I always feel learning
about someone when they're young and what they go through,
you know, you can sort of feel and see why
they done what they've done. So we're gonna go all
the way back to you know, I know you have
a lot of friends, Like, how would your friends describe
(02:09):
you growing up as a young Rob?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Well, if we're being completely honest, I would use the
word savage. I mean I'm just like I'm always go.
It's go, go go. I mean I never do anything halfway.
And I think my friends know that about me and
they appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Even to this current day.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
I mean they still see me involved appliables and even
like the other endeavors I've gotten involved with in the
past like year or two, They're like, dude, They're like,
isn't pliables enough for you? I'm like, no, it's never enough.
I was like, you gotta keep going. And for me,
it's not about the money. And I know that might
sound like a load of bs because you know, what
do you get into business for, which is certainly a
part of it for me, but it's more about just
(02:49):
the drive and like having fun doing things and you know,
keep going. But on that note, I mean my friends,
the funny little you know thing that goes between us
is when I start this little car the side of
the road, which is right behind me. I asked them
all to invest with me. Ten years ago. They all
made fun of me. They called it a lemonade stand,
and now they all want in.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
No, it's good, and I know you're still friendly with
all your friends. You're you're just that type of person
you never lose touch. You care about people in such
a strong way. And listen, you know, it's not easy
to be an entrepreneur, as we know, but you need
people around you and mentors. So you're you're you've always
(03:30):
reached out for that, and then you've always never been afraid.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
To ask for help, which is great.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, So you know what inspired I mean? I know
you love to surf, you love outdoors.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You know, I think you've created a.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Pretty cool balance, But what, like, what inspired you to
want to do pliaballs?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know, how did that happen.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You know, it's funny going back to like my Seaside
Heights where I'd work on the boardwalk Lucky Leo's and no,
I was a Jersey Shore guy and I always saw
people making money at the Jersey Shore and I was
obviously I'm a frequay to go where.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I've lived up here my whole entire life.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
And like I just said to myself, I'm like, I
want to get involved with this. I don't want to
work at these frog bogs stands anymore, work on the boardwalk,
or work at the pizzrie. It's like, I want to
start something. And to your you know, you were right.
It did start with the love of surfing and traveling
the world. And you know, I kind of combined the two.
I said, holy cow, lightning. You know, the lightning bulb
went off coming back to the Jersey Shore after a
long trip in Costa Rica, and I'm like, there's nothing
(04:32):
healthy on the Jersey Shore and boom, light bulb hit up.
Back to my Seaside Heights state knowing that you know
Midway Steakhouse and you know, uh saw Mill Pizza and
Three Brothers Pizza. I'm like, let's go I was like,
let's put a little cart at the side of the road,
let's serve the Jersey Shore something healthy for the first
time in probably history. So that that's kind of really
how the brainstorm idea came.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And you know, you had a lot going on prior
to that, right you you know, from high school you
joined the military. Yeah, then you got into sales and
you know, obviously you could just see by how you're
talking to us now you would get people excited about
anything you do. But how did how did some of
those experiences shape you? Like the military, you know, how
(05:15):
did that shape you as an entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
What did you learn from that?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Yeah, every instance in my life, through every time frame
gave me something different and new, from like you know,
my pledging and fraternity at ruckers, learning how to get
like a brotherhood there and becoming friends with people. But
you know, Air Force, I mean the biggest you know,
takeaway from Air Force for me was my attention to detail.
You know, being in the Air Force for nine years,
(05:38):
going to boot camp, tech school, fixing case. He won
thirty five airplanes and like, every little detail matter on
that plane, and if you missed one little thing, obviously
it's a matter of life and death.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So kind of.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Carry that over toppliables too. The little cart the side
of the road, like we weren't making money in the beginning.
And I sat there and I was like, I kept thinking, thinking, thinking,
like what details am I missing here? We'd moved the sun,
it is just you know, five feet over. I'd angle
it differently. I'd have the blenders running with ice in them,
even though there was nothing in there, just to draw
(06:10):
attention to our little car in the side of the road.
And all these little attention to detailed things that I
kept thinking of really start attracting the crowds and attracting
the customers appliables because they didn't know what we were.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
But okay, so you're saying maybe the military, just your
experience of not giving up iterating, you know, learning how
to sort of focus on an issue and not let
it sort of get away from you. That did that help?
And you know, how how did that with your co
founder Abby? Like, how did how did you guys work
(06:44):
together in a way to make it from just a
stand to that first store.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I know, listen, I'm a huge proponent of teamwork. You know,
we always had this phrase at blibles we still do.
You know, teamwork makes the dream work. And it was corny,
but like, you know, I was the one.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I was up till four or five in the.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Morning every night during that time from the social media,
you know, getting followers in the area, thinking of ways
to make our thing, our little thing better for the
next day, to bring more.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
People to that car.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And you know, if I didn't do that, you know
my again, it was wake up in the morning, putting
the umbrella up and having a team of people behind
me that, you know, begrudgingly.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Sometimes I'd ask them to do things and they're like, Rob,
are you crazy. I'm like, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Like we would you know, print out little Staples cars
that you know, a thousand of them, would go on
the beach every day and like basically just go up
and cold coal all the drunk, you know, hungover kids
from DJ's night before and explain to them, you know,
this shit is going to make you feel ten times better.
You look like hell right now eating a sea bowl.
They're like, Okay, this sounds good, and like that's what
(07:48):
it was. And it was just a grint. It's like
gorilla marketing one on one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
No I and I read about that and it's like
it's just doing anything that you need to do to
get the word out right. And listen, yet, good thing
is social media was in play in a bigger way
when you started. Oh yeah, but what what was your
biggest challenge from that cart to the first store, Because listen,
I mean, I'm not saying a cart doesn't cost any money,
(08:15):
but once you get to that first store, you got
real estate, rent, construction leases, you know, more people to
supply to the you know, to the to the store
to make it work. Like, what was your biggest challenges? No,
you know, being that you never did it before, and
how did you and Abby you know figure that out?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean, nothing that we did was orthodox appliable.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
So like that little cart in the side of the road,
we kind of we anchored to the pizzeria using you know,
their health department certification and we did it all right.
The health department would come out and we had you know,
we used the pizzerias three compartments sync, we used all
their sanitation things to get.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Approved for it. So like for me, that was hard.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
It was an orthodox because we had to literally sit
there and rely on somebody else to make sure that
our business was working all the time, you know, and
then the transition from that car into the storefront again unorthodox.
We had a friend in town that basically gave us
this Belmar building which I'm sitting in front of right now,
because he planned on redeveloping it in like five seven years,
(09:14):
going through variancees. So in his mind, he liked us,
he liked me, he liked Abby. He said, hey, guys,
why don't you just take the building until we do so,
no rent, so on and so forth. And I was like,
all right, sound this sounds pretty cool until I opened
the front doors to this. It was Bellmar Gym for
ten fifteen years. Hurricane Sandy hit. I opened up the
two front doors and there was probably like seven squirrels
(09:35):
running through the ceiling.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Every copper pipe was busted.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
And I brought my buddy who's a construction guy to
price it out for me to like say, hey, what's
it going to take to get this store up and running?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And it was like another blow.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
He was like, dude, He's like, you're talking like seventy
eighty thousand bucks.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
At that time.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
I think I had like maybe seven hundred dollars in
my savings account. Like I'm like, oh, I'm like, how
am I gonna get this done? But again, he said
at the beginning of this podcast, like I reached out
to my mentor. I reached out to people that have
done business before. I said, what do you think I
should do? I didn't just give up right there. You know,
I come from a construction background. I worked on union jobs.
I have a lot of friends that are union, you know,
(10:11):
union construction workers, plumbing, carpenters. I reached out to them
and I pulled all the strings that I could, and
we got this thing built in seventeen days before Fourth
of July weekend twenty fifteen, you know, begrudgingly to the
building department. I remember when the building inspector came here
at seven in the morning. He was like, no way,
this happened. And we did it all right, we got
the inspections, but it was cool.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
We opened up the day before fourth of July, July third,
and we had a line down the road and that
was kind of like our That was the next step.
That was like, all right, we're gonna start going more
serious and crushing it with this concept.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
It's great and you know you have all right, and
brands come.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
And go, you know, small businesses, if you really look
at the track record, most don't survive after five years.
Right here you are with an idea of something that
you know. Obviously you may not want to eat it
every day if you don't really taste it right, You
may look at it, you may say I'll try it once.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
But you created a culture because.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Like I can go to a lot of places and
eat something, but like there's certain places that you go
because you feel good about going. How are you able
to create this culture? And I know you say culture
culture culture is better than locational locational location, you know
what you need both, but you always survive with the
other because a location can come and go no one
(11:35):
goes there. Right, So how did you how did you
create this this this feeling?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Because that's what it is?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
What? What? What a loaded question? That is, John?
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Because I can honestly keep you know, going on this
podcast for like, you know, six months to explain what
it is. Because we've had competition that has tried doing
what we have done through the ASA E Bulls. They
always said, like you know, in the beginning, I handled
it a different a different way. I think I've matured
a little bit when it comes to competition. But like
I've always said it, I've said another podcast, I've said
it in.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
A lot of interviews.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
You know, there's a mixture of things, and to define
what culture is, you can't really teach it. It's just
becomes something within the four walls of your business. The
way that we played the music, the way that I
set up the back line, the way that I decorate
the stores, the way that we painted the walls, like, it's.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
A combination of things.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
And really, you know, like I said, it's the people,
it's the ambiance on here and here, and then most importantly,
it's the quality of our products. So you kind of
have that trifecta that all came together, and you always
had competition that I watched it from a mile away.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
They always missed one too, sometimes.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Three of those things, and I'm like, well, that's why
you're not pliables. And I think that's why a lot
of the brands, to your point, you know, they.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Die after before five years.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Brands like Chipotle, brands like Starbucks that we see they're
always reinventing themselves. They're always looking at the competition and
not taking ideas from them, but maybe getting a brainstorm
from another business out there that has you know, like
Starbucks as the refreshers now at the Pattaia at the
Assai and they may have gotten that from us, I
don't know, but at the end of the day, they
took it and they're doing a great job with it.
You know, you're watching a lot of gen zs walking
(13:09):
to Starbucks now and they're buying iced coffees, They're buying
all these refreshing drinks, and Starbucks is.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Back and they're absolutely crushing it.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So for pliables, you know, that was a huge uh
knock that I got in the very beginning for the
first you know, I call it three to five years
from business people said, you know, do you think this
is a trender of fad rob And my line back
to them all the time was, yeah, it could be
a trender of fad if I let it bait. But
I'm not going to let it bait. And that's the
most important thing.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
You know, how did we do that?
Speaker 4 (13:39):
We got different types of customers in heret you know,
I see a lot of construction workers come into our
store in the morning, guys that are in their thirties forties.
I'm watching families come in here now, and like, you know,
if I had a nickel for every time I said,
you know, a father says me, oh, my daughter loves pliables,
But now it's I've got guys that are like, oh
my daughterless pliables.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
But I actually I love it just as much. So
that's the.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Evolution of what Flatbles is coming. And I think it
still has a lot more legs behind it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Well, Like I.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Love the word authentic, and I know you do too.
You and Abby are so authentic to this brand. Just
looking at you now with your hat turned back and
your shades with umbrellas behind you, I think you've never
left what you are as for why you and Abby
started this, and I get it. But now you did
(14:30):
really well in this first store, because we know you did,
people started understanding it that we're in that area. But
then it's a big difference to scale anything. So my
question to you is what was the challenge you guys fell,
because franchising to corporate stores is a big difference. Where
you started franchising and most people don't. So soon after
(14:55):
you opened your first flagship store, which is still there right,
which is amazing. Yeah, what was the process of that,
What were your thoughts and why did you go in
that direction?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
What were the challenges?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
You know, going back to what you said about authenticity,
you know, from from myself to Abby and being Jersey
Shore kids surfers, Like when we heard the word franchise,
it was like this, like, well, franchise, like no way,
nerds cop out. That's when I was like in my
early thirties, and like we had another partner in the beginning.
That was my buddy from Rutgers University, and he went
to Rutgers Business School and he pushed me on it.
(15:29):
He pushed Abby on it to because he saw the
opportunity of franchising of Flyballs. I didn't see it. I
was like, no, I'm not going to franchise this. I'm
gonna build four more stores on the Jersey Shore.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Keep going that way.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
But I started learning more about the franchising model, and
you know, I made a deal with my old partner.
I said, if you do X, Y and Z, I'll
give you X, Y and Z, but you have to
get it done for us because I won't be able
to I don't have that sort of savviness when it
comes to, you know, getting these contracts done and getting
an FDD and hiring a franchise attorney.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
He did it.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
You know, he did it very very quick for us,
which I appreciate and I'll never forget it because it
was obviously one of the best moves that Pliables made
going into the franchising because now you know, fast.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Forward two hundred and eighty stores.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I don't know the exact number, but several different groups
of franchising groups right now, from my brother to friends
and family.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
They're the ones who built Bibles.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
I mean, yes, Robin Abbey are a big part of
the brand and it's authentic.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But without our franchisees, there's no way this would have
been what it is right now.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
There's no Ifsands or bus And you know, I'll take credit,
We will take credit that we picked the right franchisees.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
But once they came into this system.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
And talking about culture and how much they loved this brand,
they built it it was like a natural.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
It was like a machine.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
They came into Pliables and we started watching them build
it with us.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
But I love it.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Now.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
The next challenge, though, is you get to two hundred
and eighty locations. We can't do what we used to do,
Like I used to give franchisees full carblanche to go
out and hey, create something different in this story. You know,
serve this product or you you know, everybody does something different.
It was undorthodox us again, but now we're bigger and
now it has to be more standard throughout the entire organization.
(17:05):
Still little touches here and there, but not like it
used today.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I just went and I hope everyone caught this with
what you said that you weren't afraid to ask for
help for something you didn't know, so you can stick
to your core character traits and what you're good at
to create something amazing and keep it going. And you
did that with your friend, and it just shows, you know,
sometimes you got to give a little trust in someone
(17:33):
else to help you succeed.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And you did that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And then I guess they took a region like you said,
and expanded it. How did you get through the challenge
of you know, because it wasn't like you had a
corporate culture prior so, and I know you said at
the beginning it was easier because you could do more
as you were, But what were the challenges scaling to
(17:57):
this many stores?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It's staggering.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I mean, when you.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Really think about it, you should be proud of yourself.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This is a staggering amount of stores with lots of people,
I'm sure problems every other minute of the.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Day, and you know, and that's really not.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Where you feel your comfort zone is. So how did
you build a team? What were the challenges in building
a team? And give everyone insights to that.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
I mean, I can't count it on my fingers and toes.
You know what the challenges are as you get bigger
and you start franchising more and more. But I think
the biggest key, and we keep harping on this right now,
is as I grew, I kept bringing more people in this organization,
from consultants to a private equity firm. That helped me
build the team even stronger than what we were, you know,
(18:46):
because it was more of the back end at that point.
You use the word corporate, Yeah, just like franchising. I
was like, oh, corporate, big bad word. I don't want
Blibles to ever be a corporation and I still don't
think it is. But we had to inject some corporization
intpliables because if you didn't do that, and what I
mean by that, you know, I'm looking at one of
my stories right now, and none of our customers feel
(19:08):
that type of corporization. I was very steadfast with that
with my new partners. The four walls can't change in here,
but the back end, you know, the infrastructure, you know,
setting up you know, the financing department, setting up the HR,
setting up all these things that we were I'll call
it what it was before the private equity firms came
a little blackluster in. I recognize that. From a mile away.
I saw a new challenge, new horizon coming. I'm like, yo,
(19:31):
we need to bring some people that have a lot
more experience in this world to make sure that we're protected.
You know, could I have done it myself without them?
I asked myself that every single morning. But I don't
think about it too long because I'm happy where it's
at right now, because again, my customers haven't felt the
changes of corporization. Were more protected, We're stronger, and we
now have the ability to go from two hundred and
(19:51):
eighty locations too hopefully a thousand one day.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
All right, So there you go, you're you're on this path.
You know, you weren't afraid to to both you and Abbey
on like what.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You needed to do to make you better.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
But then there's now growing a brand that you don't
really touch every day.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So how do you ensure pliballs remains innovative? How do
you make.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sure the culture is consistent since you're in so many
places that you can't be at once.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I mean that's a good question for me.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
You know about four years ago when we were at
two hundred one hundred and eighty to two hundred locations,
where I started seeing it getting out of my control
a little bit, where Rob couldn't be everywhere, my partners
couldn't be everywhere. We use tools and resources, you know,
things like group me where I would have every single
employee across the you know, the the all the stores
(20:47):
that we had, and again, I was up till probably
two in the morning. I was playing trivia with every
single store. I was getting them excited. I was learning
about my employees, what colleges they were going to, what
inspired them to work at blibles, and like I kind
of kept feeding off that NonStop. And you know, the
group mes Honestly, that play it's like about probably eight
hours of my day every single day. But it was
important to me and I had fun watching the employees
(21:09):
get like super psyched about like oh Rob's in here,
and they got like they you see them, You felt
them getting excited through.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
This group chat.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
So that's how I kept the culture going with all
the employees, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And when I talk about the store employees.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
And the mid management, you know, again I started giving
incentivization packages. We started, you know, getting them more involved
with the the innovation of pliables.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
You know they always were, but again as we grew.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
The mid management team, everybody's involvement was was extremely important.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
It's one thing to create what you've created, It's another
thing to keep it going. There's so many new brands coming,
you know, different tastes, cultures, products. How do you stay
innovative when it comes to the product, right, Like, how
(21:58):
do you keep something fresh and new? I know your
stores when you walk in and every new one's even cooler.
You know the one in Woodbridge, I know you didn't
open too long ago.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's like you walk in, you.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Just want to hang out, like you said, like a Starbucks,
like you feel something when you walk into your stores,
but you still got to get people to want to
come back and eat something every day.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
How do you stay innovated with the product?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
I think that's the million dollar question, right And I
got to stick to what my gut tells me.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
And I communicate this to my new partners.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
I communicate this to the new team where it's like,
my philosophy is stick to what you know you're good at.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
And right now, we're an off site bowl shop.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
We do smoothie bulls, we do juices, we do you know,
oak Field bowls, and I think there is so much
more room for improvement and innovation within what we already do.
So like, you know, I've been doing this for ten years,
and you know, if every day wake up and I've
got a friend, a family member.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Or somebody who I met and they're like, hey, have
you ever thought about, you know, putting this in your store?
Doing this? And I'm like, yeah, I have. But for me, the.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Philosophy is, if you do that, it starts detracting from
what your attention should be. You know, I had a
good friend of mine, like a mentor that always said, like,
you know, like when the horses they go out in
their race, they get the blinders on, you know, when
they break out that gate, they don't want to look
left right because they're gonna lose a mills, you know,
millisecond and lose the race. And I've held true to that,
you know, as long as I possibly can go and
just look forward. You know, this is a race. We're
(23:24):
gonna get to the end.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
What the end is, I don't know, but I know
I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Now listen, it's it's it's gotta be hard, I mean,
and I'm sure you get so many inbound requests from
your franchisees, right because everybody wants to make more revenue.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And I think sticking to your knitting and.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
To your focus is why most brands have stayed to
the length of.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Time that they've stayed.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
But you know, you started out in the healthy How
am I gonna give a healthy choice? How do you
see the role of healthy eating evolving? Actually in the
fast casual industry? Is there gonna be things that are
going to be challenges moving forward. The more we learn
and the more we see how important that is as
a society.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And we're getting you know, we're living older, right, we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, well, I can't give you all my secrets.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
No love that I should.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
But no, to be honest with you, I mean, listen
to health foods industry right now. I don't know the
exact numbers, and you know i'd read your before its
I mean, it's growing, you know these again gen zs
even you know, the millennials in their thirties, like they
want to be healthier.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
And I think we were.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
At the you know, in the very beginning of it,
and we had ingredients in our sie that you know,
maybe in the beginning I modified it to make it
a better healthier ingredient. You know, we use better proteins,
we use college and peptides. You know, there's different things
that work for everybody so differently. Like you know, it's
funny when you come to Flybles again, a lot of
the so called haters in the beginning, we're like, oh,
(24:52):
Flybles is filled with sugar.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And it's you know, fattening for you.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And you know, I tell people that you know, the
lowdown on it and what the you break down is
in the sugar and educate them a little bit more.
They get it to the point where it's like you
can't sit in your couch and eat ten pliables to
day and wonder why am I not losing any weight
or why am I not getting healthier? Like this? This
was built for two things, right and it might be
more than two things, but two things that pop into
my mind right now. It was for healthy, active people
(25:19):
or even feel that wanted to be healthier and active.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You know, you eat this.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Before you worked out, you eat it as a post workout,
you know, so that was important too. And the other
thing for me was this was never considered a health
food cafe.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
It was a healthier food cafe to where.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Like my nephews were sixteen seventeen years old, these toich visit.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Me at the Jersey Shore. I'd wake up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
They were up till three in the morning down in
my basement like playing video games, and there was Taco
Bell rappers, McDonald's rappers everywhere, and I'm like, this is insanity.
And they're sixteen seventeen years old and once now my
nephews they're eating pliables. I mean, they still eating Taco
Bell and McDonald's probably, but this was more like a
gateway for them to get into healthier you know, conscious eating,
(25:57):
and that's where it started with the younger generation. But
now I see it happening to people my age in
their forties fifties.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
So I think that's important to understand about pliables. You know.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
For the answer your question, John, what's the next step?
You know, Yes, the health food industry is growing.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Right now.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Again, like I said earlier, it's just about improving our
products and putting better ingredients to them all the time.
You know, Wendy's reinvented themselves with better ingredients, never frozen meat.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
We can get better in our stories.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
We're not perfect yet, and I think that's what's going
to you know, really lead us through the charge. And
who knows, if some cool concept comes around and I
can recommend it to my partners and team that I
think is going to be the next thing that fits
with us, then certainly we can do it.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
But right now we're just sticking to what we're good at.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And then you know another thing that in any scaled
growth mindset to company, you got to create like a path,
like an upward mobility path. What has been the challenge
with your growth being that it's franchised and then there
has to be a corporate, right, a corporization you said
(27:01):
to grow and to serve, right, not just the customers,
but I think your main customers are franchise you know, partners.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
How did you create the ability to for people to
feel this could be a career because I know at
the beginning, right, it started out and there you know
it's a great.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Entry level job, right when you're a younger person.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
To go work in a great brand and learn how
to deal with people and have conversations and learn all
the business uh, you know, important stuff that you need
to know.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
How did you create that?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
I think it happened, not think, I know it happened
to naturally, like a you know economy of scale. The
bigger that we got, the bigger we needed. Our corporate
team debate, and you've had a lot of employees that
again love Pliables so much and just like everything else
in life, and you know, to be more of a teacher.
Now it's like the harder you work, the better you get,
the more you'll grow within an organization. And you know
(27:55):
the numbers that Pliables are doing right now, it's it's
a big corporation and there are tons of opportunities within
bibles from marketing to HR to operations, to finance, to
event planning to you know, technology. The list goes on
and on and on. And I think that's key for
the you know, the managerial team right now and the
(28:15):
ownership of bliables to once.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Again educate these kids, you know, that's what we have
to do. Right. Like when I was in high school and.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
College, like now, I didn't know that taxes were taken
out of my paycheck. So when I got my first
paycheck of a Seaside Heights boardwalk, and I was like.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Wait, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Like the government takes that much, and that's what happens
with our employees, Like they don't understand that, and that
was up to us as their bosses, to be good
bosses to them, to educate them on how to know
where the taxes are being taken out, where their tips
are going the cash versus there you know, credit card tips.
And I think they appreciate that and telling them in
(28:50):
a way that doesn't make them feel I guess stupid
or just like oh, you know, so, I think that's
the cage.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
No, you can't learn unless someone is teaching you, right,
So I think it's I think it's And what's so
nice is like you have such a molding ability for
the youth coming into the workforce, right because like like
like that's their first job, Like you're a lot of
people's first job, first experience with dealing with people companies.
(29:16):
So the more exciting and helpful you make it, which
you have, which is why you're growing so strong and rapidly.
But you know, there was bumps in the row, you know,
and it's years now, but and it's stemmed other issues.
But you know, from COVID on supply chain prices, what
has been your challenge to you know, keep going at
(29:39):
the pace you've been going with all the changes since then.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Bro, it's like you wake up in the morning and
I know it in my heart that nothing is ever
going to be easy. You know. The bigger we get,
the harder it's getting. You know, even for me personally
as a partner now and work with private equity firms
and relationships and contract negotiation every day is harder. Like
you sit there, you're like, oh, man, I made it.
Things are good. I'm on easy street. Things are in
a coast. That is a fallacy that does not exist
(30:06):
it is. Every day is challenging. But from the pliables business,
you know, bro, we got smacked with COVID, we got
smacked with the pandemic, you know. And we sat there
and I took my team from my military background again
up to forward the details of the story.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
But like I knew we were in trouble.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
And I sat there and I said, We're not going
to be that business that makes excuses because of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
We're gonna do things the way that I know how
to do it, which is grind.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
So you know, we we incentivised our employees to come
to work, incentivize them, and it forced them as a
volunteer program where like in my mind when I was,
you know, shipped overseas for Air Force, we got hazard
pay and I never called it hazard pay.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
When they came to work.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
We just said, if do you want to come to
work and you feel safe, we'll pay you X amount
come in and work at our bibles every employee raiser
hand I said, yep, absolutely, they came in.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
We wore masks, we'd everything sanitary wise. The customers picked
up the bulls of the doors. They didn't come to stores.
So on and so forth. But you know, more importantly,
I knew that we.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Were going to use business within our four walls, and
that was an opportunity to strike on third party delivery,
to strike on family packages, you know, where the kids
can stay home.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
It's from school.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
And people were miserble at the time, like and bring
them do it yourself kids at their house, where now
the kids were at home building goals with their mom
their dads, and it really jumped off. So I guess
the point is that was the first knackdown that we had,
was the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
We fought through and we actually came out as one
of the.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Top fast casual restaurants that I would say beat the
pandemic from an economic standpoint, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
And then from a broader you know spectrum.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Right now, as you get bigger and we start going
across the country, supply chain.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Is extremely difficult. You know.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
When it was in my backyard and I developed relationships
with my distributions, distributor, my manufacturer, we had it on
lot here. But the further we started going west north
south of Florida.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Started getting more challenging.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
We just started incorporating real corporation into our business. Cisco
it got challenging. But again I kind of, you know,
tie this all together. I brought my private equity firm
in the managerial team that we.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Have right now.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
They had the experience to know how to do that
and manage it right now.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I did not have the experience for.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
You know, the didn't know how to do it, and
we would have lost a lot of ground. So we
kept from momentum going for the team that I built
going forward right now and that's why.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
We're you know, we're at we're at right now.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
But the things you do, know, you were amazing at,
both you and Abbey, and like social media, Instagram, what
what kind of a role do you think, because you know,
we hear about it everyone, you know, everyone says that
it works, but like how well did it work?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And what were the issues?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Learning how to be someone good on social media.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
As a brand?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
I mean, social media has changed so much in ten years.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
I mean from a business standpoint too.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
I mean we, I don't want to say took advantage
of social media in the beginning, but we did for
lack of better words, where like Instagram and Facebook, they
weren't charging for ads at that point. It was a
completely different ballgame. You open up social media. Now you
scrolling your story like every other story is an AD,
and they're targeting you.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
They hear you talk, and we all know that's going
on right now. That's not the way it was ten
years ago.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It was there were hashtags, and there were certain people
within your area, and you kind of had to be
crafty and gritty and kind of you know, jump into
these groups to bring their eyes and their attention to
your pliables page.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And that's what I did religiously.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Like I said earlier on this podcast, you know, till
three four in the morning, kids were at DJs till
you know to the morning, getting drunk, and I was
targeting them myself, not through a bot, not through any
sort of you know, developer, and finding the hashtags of
them putting like hashtags DJs, and I would follow them,
I would like all their content, and then they would
follow us back and it just grew naturally organically. So
(33:50):
I think the challenge of social media now is it
is extremely difficult to grow it organically. It's almost to
the point where like you have to pay to play
at this point, and I fully emit in this podcast.
The marketing sector. That's play of a great marketing team
right now at Blibles that had experience in these technological
advancements in social media.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
They know how to manage that.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I would have I would not I would I would
not know how to do that for the slightest bear
right now.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And if you could pick one influencer that was the
epitome of the apply of balls brand or that you'd
want to work with, Like, who would that be?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
I mean, that's a that's a that's a layup. I
mean Kelly Slater. I mean you're talking about like the
goat of surfing. You know, this guy that has you know,
he's in his fifties now, he has more world championships
and surfing than any other surfer. He's a legend. So
like and trust me, I targeted him too. At that time,
I was just sending connects like yo, Kelly, it's Rob
from Bliables. I didn't get a response, but you know
(34:47):
that that's that's a that's a good you know segue
though for me to talk about like influencers, because there
is no one specific influence that I can target and say, oh,
that's who I really think epitomizes Bibles. I think we
did a great job of the ten years of again
organically not paying influencers.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
To love Bibles.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
I mean, I think her name is Lindsay Dunn. Pretty
sure she's the gymnast from LSU. And now that new
regulation just came out for the NCAA.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Where you can pay these employees.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
To you know, advertise as an athlete. You know, she
I think she makes millions of dollars now off of
doing this. She is naturally and organically doing it for
us on her social media platform, on her Instagram where
she's going to Bibles at LSU and she's eating Bibles
and you want to talk about a win beyond a
win for us, And she's probably the biggest example I have,
but I do see it happening a lot now with
(35:36):
football players, basketball players, baseball players, profession you know, actresses,
and they're putting on their social media just organically because
they truly do love it, which goes back to our
first five minutes of this authenticity. Nobody's getting paid fiables
to be a social media influencer for us right now,
and I'm proud of that.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That's interesting because it's really you know, that's not the
game today, So you're bucking the trend and you know
again you're I think, like you said, authenticity is just
built in you and your team's everything.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So last couple questions, and I think you know they're
good ones because the reflection questions, like were there any
risks you regret not taking? Like that's my first questions here.
It's risks, I mean, risks you regret not taking.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
If I know right off the bat what I want
to say, but it's it's it's kind of hypocritical because
I did make a good success off of this decision,
which is, you know, selling my company a couple of
years ago to bring partners in. But you know, through
this podcast, I've talked about the pros the entire.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Time of bringing them and what they've done.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
But in the back of my mind, looking at a
guy like Peter Kanker from Jersey Mikes or Danny Myers,
you know, shakee shack, like could I have kept going
myself and brought this company to where it is today
without that?
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I'll never know that answer.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
But I'm not gonna say I regret decision I made,
but it's certainly one that lingers on the top of
my mind every single day.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well, you're an entrepreneur and it's in every entrepreneur's mind.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So I love your answer.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
It's respectful because what I've learned from you even more
on this podcast is you know what you can and
cannot do, and you're not afraid to ask for help,
which I think is like a superpower. The last question,
is there any particular person event, but I'd rather be
a person that significantly changed your perspective in life.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Larry Hess he was one of my good friends. He
was one of my landlords and bay Head. Unfortunately he
passed away a few years ago, but him and his wife,
you know again talking about being given opportunities by people
that are stronger in business than you are, Bill, Larry
was super important to me. I mean, whenever I had
an issue or a problem, He's the first guy that
(37:58):
I ran to him. Whatever he said, I did and
it worked out. And what I love most about Larry
and Christine. You know this cute story that we have.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
In bay Head.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Larry's got this big restaurant called Charlie's right across the
waterway and Bay Heads, and he used to sit through
the window at the Battia Bowl, which is like the
pink the pink swee that we have. I'm not gonna lie.
Mostly females eat that. But Larry loved it more than anything.
I'd watched it with a big you know, pink ring
around his lips. Just get me the thumbs up from
his window because he loved Pliable so much. But he
(38:27):
was instrumental of really getting over the hump.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I think Bayhead was our store number four or five.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
And things we're getting challenging at that point because now
you know we were signing releases, you know, pure village
in Long Branch through the Kushner family was a big
deal least. I mean that was, Hey, we're getting into
a five year contract.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Your rent is X amount per month.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
I was scared, but I talked to guys that Larry
has the kind of held my hand through the process
to guide me in the right decision making and negotiation.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
With these these powerful guys.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Go using your superpower getting people to believe.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
In what you're doing and and and help you.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
And uh that's why, uh this is just gonna keep going.
And however you're involved, you're you're you, and Abby your
legendary You're always gonna be legendary and when you know,
just keep moving and keep growing. And I just want
to thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Hey man, thanks for having me John. This is this
is really cool obviously. I love talking about Bibles and
let's do it again.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
You got it?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Hi, John Schultz here. Thank you so much for tuning into.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
This week's episode. Would really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
If you would like comment, subscribe, and share with your friends.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Looking forward to being with you soon
Every successful person got there by going through tough times.
Success is a hard ass teacher who likes to knock
you around along that journey. You know, it takes real
guts to not give up and keep going. Well, here's
stories about failures and how these leaders flip the script
to create success. I'm John Schultz. Join me and let's
(00:35):
discover how success is never really overnight. Welcome to the
John Schultz Podcast.
Speaker 2 (00:46):
Look how excited should I be?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Looking at the Jersey shore with a Jersey guy who
started with his co founder and amazing company, Rob Jiuliani.
Welcome to the podcast. The co founder of Pliaballs, which
we love, has a cult following and he founded it
with Abby Taylor twenty fourteen, and they launched it in
(01:11):
front of a pizzeria in Belmar, which I frequented when
I was younger and still do love that town. It's
an amazing town. Their first storefront in twenty fifteen, then
started franchising in twenty sixteen, and you know, many years
later with lots of hard work, grinding it out, creating
(01:33):
the best culture I think you could possibly create with
a brand has over two hundred locations.
Speaker 2 (01:39):
So excited you're here thanks Rob.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Thanks for having me man. I appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Yeah, it's awesome. I'm so glad we're finally able to
do this.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
So I want to you know, my podcast is the
myth of overnight success. You know, I always feel learning
about someone when they're young and what they go through,
you know, you can sort of feel and see why
they done what they've done. So we're gonna go all
the way back to you know, I know you have
a lot of friends, Like, how would your friends describe
(02:09):
you growing up as a young Rob?
Speaker 4 (02:13):
Well, if we're being completely honest, I would use the
word savage. I mean I'm just like I'm always go.
It's go, go go. I mean I never do anything halfway.
And I think my friends know that about me and
they appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Even to this current day.
Speaker 4 (02:28):
I mean they still see me involved appliables and even
like the other endeavors I've gotten involved with in the
past like year or two, They're like, dude, They're like,
isn't pliables enough for you? I'm like, no, it's never enough.
I was like, you gotta keep going. And for me,
it's not about the money. And I know that might
sound like a load of bs because you know, what
do you get into business for, which is certainly a
part of it for me, but it's more about just
(02:49):
the drive and like having fun doing things and you know,
keep going. But on that note, I mean my friends,
the funny little you know thing that goes between us
is when I start this little car the side of
the road, which is right behind me. I asked them
all to invest with me. Ten years ago. They all
made fun of me. They called it a lemonade stand,
and now they all want in.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
No, it's good, and I know you're still friendly with
all your friends. You're you're just that type of person
you never lose touch. You care about people in such
a strong way. And listen, you know, it's not easy
to be an entrepreneur, as we know, but you need
people around you and mentors. So you're you're you've always
(03:30):
reached out for that, and then you've always never been afraid.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
To ask for help, which is great.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Yeah, So you know what inspired I mean? I know
you love to surf, you love outdoors.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
You know, I think you've created a.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
Pretty cool balance, But what, like, what inspired you to
want to do pliaballs?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
You know, how did that happen.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
You know, it's funny going back to like my Seaside
Heights where I'd work on the boardwalk Lucky Leo's and no,
I was a Jersey Shore guy and I always saw
people making money at the Jersey Shore and I was
obviously I'm a frequay to go where.
Speaker 3 (04:08):
I've lived up here my whole entire life.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
And like I just said to myself, I'm like, I
want to get involved with this. I don't want to
work at these frog bogs stands anymore, work on the boardwalk,
or work at the pizzrie. It's like, I want to
start something. And to your you know, you were right.
It did start with the love of surfing and traveling
the world. And you know, I kind of combined the two.
I said, holy cow, lightning. You know, the lightning bulb
went off coming back to the Jersey Shore after a
long trip in Costa Rica, and I'm like, there's nothing
(04:32):
healthy on the Jersey Shore and boom, light bulb hit up.
Back to my Seaside Heights state knowing that you know
Midway Steakhouse and you know, uh saw Mill Pizza and
Three Brothers Pizza. I'm like, let's go I was like,
let's put a little cart at the side of the road,
let's serve the Jersey Shore something healthy for the first
time in probably history. So that that's kind of really
how the brainstorm idea came.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And you know, you had a lot going on prior
to that, right you you know, from high school you
joined the military. Yeah, then you got into sales and
you know, obviously you could just see by how you're
talking to us now you would get people excited about
anything you do. But how did how did some of
those experiences shape you? Like the military, you know, how
(05:15):
did that shape you as an entrepreneur?
Speaker 2 (05:17):
What did you learn from that?
Speaker 4 (05:18):
Yeah, every instance in my life, through every time frame
gave me something different and new, from like you know,
my pledging and fraternity at ruckers, learning how to get
like a brotherhood there and becoming friends with people. But
you know, Air Force, I mean the biggest you know,
takeaway from Air Force for me was my attention to detail.
You know, being in the Air Force for nine years,
(05:38):
going to boot camp, tech school, fixing case. He won
thirty five airplanes and like, every little detail matter on
that plane, and if you missed one little thing, obviously
it's a matter of life and death.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
So kind of.
Speaker 4 (05:50):
Carry that over toppliables too. The little cart the side
of the road, like we weren't making money in the beginning.
And I sat there and I was like, I kept thinking, thinking, thinking,
like what details am I missing here? We'd moved the sun,
it is just you know, five feet over. I'd angle
it differently. I'd have the blenders running with ice in them,
even though there was nothing in there, just to draw
(06:10):
attention to our little car in the side of the road.
And all these little attention to detailed things that I
kept thinking of really start attracting the crowds and attracting
the customers appliables because they didn't know what we were.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
But okay, so you're saying maybe the military, just your
experience of not giving up iterating, you know, learning how
to sort of focus on an issue and not let
it sort of get away from you. That did that help?
And you know, how how did that with your co
founder Abby? Like, how did how did you guys work
(06:44):
together in a way to make it from just a
stand to that first store.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
I know, listen, I'm a huge proponent of teamwork. You know,
we always had this phrase at blibles we still do.
You know, teamwork makes the dream work. And it was corny,
but like, you know, I was the one.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
I was up till four or five in the.
Speaker 4 (07:02):
Morning every night during that time from the social media,
you know, getting followers in the area, thinking of ways
to make our thing, our little thing better for the
next day, to bring more.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
People to that car.
Speaker 4 (07:14):
And you know, if I didn't do that, you know
my again, it was wake up in the morning, putting
the umbrella up and having a team of people behind
me that, you know, begrudgingly.
Speaker 3 (07:23):
Sometimes I'd ask them to do things and they're like, Rob,
are you crazy. I'm like, yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 4 (07:28):
Like we would you know, print out little Staples cars
that you know, a thousand of them, would go on
the beach every day and like basically just go up
and cold coal all the drunk, you know, hungover kids
from DJ's night before and explain to them, you know,
this shit is going to make you feel ten times better.
You look like hell right now eating a sea bowl.
They're like, Okay, this sounds good, and like that's what
(07:48):
it was. And it was just a grint. It's like
gorilla marketing one on one.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
No I and I read about that and it's like
it's just doing anything that you need to do to
get the word out right. And listen, yet, good thing
is social media was in play in a bigger way
when you started. Oh yeah, but what what was your
biggest challenge from that cart to the first store, Because listen,
I mean, I'm not saying a cart doesn't cost any money,
(08:15):
but once you get to that first store, you got
real estate, rent, construction leases, you know, more people to
supply to the you know, to the to the store
to make it work. Like, what was your biggest challenges? No,
you know, being that you never did it before, and
how did you and Abby you know figure that out?
Speaker 3 (08:34):
I mean, nothing that we did was orthodox appliable.
Speaker 4 (08:38):
So like that little cart in the side of the road,
we kind of we anchored to the pizzeria using you know,
their health department certification and we did it all right.
The health department would come out and we had you know,
we used the pizzerias three compartments sync, we used all
their sanitation things to get.
Speaker 3 (08:52):
Approved for it. So like for me, that was hard.
Speaker 4 (08:54):
It was an orthodox because we had to literally sit
there and rely on somebody else to make sure that
our business was working all the time, you know, and
then the transition from that car into the storefront again unorthodox.
We had a friend in town that basically gave us
this Belmar building which I'm sitting in front of right now,
because he planned on redeveloping it in like five seven years,
(09:14):
going through variancees. So in his mind, he liked us,
he liked me, he liked Abby. He said, hey, guys,
why don't you just take the building until we do so,
no rent, so on and so forth. And I was like,
all right, sound this sounds pretty cool until I opened
the front doors to this. It was Bellmar Gym for
ten fifteen years. Hurricane Sandy hit. I opened up the
two front doors and there was probably like seven squirrels
(09:35):
running through the ceiling.
Speaker 3 (09:36):
Every copper pipe was busted.
Speaker 4 (09:39):
And I brought my buddy who's a construction guy to
price it out for me to like say, hey, what's
it going to take to get this store up and running?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
And it was like another blow.
Speaker 4 (09:46):
He was like, dude, He's like, you're talking like seventy
eighty thousand bucks.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
At that time.
Speaker 4 (09:50):
I think I had like maybe seven hundred dollars in
my savings account. Like I'm like, oh, I'm like, how
am I gonna get this done? But again, he said
at the beginning of this podcast, like I reached out
to my mentor. I reached out to people that have
done business before. I said, what do you think I
should do? I didn't just give up right there. You know,
I come from a construction background. I worked on union jobs.
I have a lot of friends that are union, you know,
(10:11):
union construction workers, plumbing, carpenters. I reached out to them
and I pulled all the strings that I could, and
we got this thing built in seventeen days before Fourth
of July weekend twenty fifteen, you know, begrudgingly to the
building department. I remember when the building inspector came here
at seven in the morning. He was like, no way,
this happened. And we did it all right, we got
the inspections, but it was cool.
Speaker 3 (10:32):
You know.
Speaker 4 (10:32):
We opened up the day before fourth of July, July third,
and we had a line down the road and that
was kind of like our That was the next step.
That was like, all right, we're gonna start going more
serious and crushing it with this concept.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
It's great and you know you have all right, and
brands come.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
And go, you know, small businesses, if you really look
at the track record, most don't survive after five years.
Right here you are with an idea of something that
you know. Obviously you may not want to eat it
every day if you don't really taste it right, You
may look at it, you may say I'll try it once.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
But you created a culture because.
Speaker 1 (11:12):
Like I can go to a lot of places and
eat something, but like there's certain places that you go
because you feel good about going. How are you able
to create this culture? And I know you say culture
culture culture is better than locational locational location, you know
what you need both, but you always survive with the
other because a location can come and go no one
(11:35):
goes there. Right, So how did you how did you
create this this this feeling?
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Because that's what it is?
Speaker 3 (11:41):
What? What? What a loaded question? That is, John?
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Because I can honestly keep you know, going on this
podcast for like, you know, six months to explain what
it is. Because we've had competition that has tried doing
what we have done through the ASA E Bulls. They
always said, like you know, in the beginning, I handled
it a different a different way. I think I've matured
a little bit when it comes to competition. But like
I've always said it, I've said another podcast, I've said
it in.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
A lot of interviews.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
You know, there's a mixture of things, and to define
what culture is, you can't really teach it. It's just
becomes something within the four walls of your business. The
way that we played the music, the way that I
set up the back line, the way that I decorate
the stores, the way that we painted the walls, like, it's.
Speaker 3 (12:19):
A combination of things.
Speaker 4 (12:20):
And really, you know, like I said, it's the people,
it's the ambiance on here and here, and then most importantly,
it's the quality of our products. So you kind of
have that trifecta that all came together, and you always
had competition that I watched it from a mile away.
Speaker 3 (12:35):
They always missed one too, sometimes.
Speaker 4 (12:37):
Three of those things, and I'm like, well, that's why
you're not pliables. And I think that's why a lot
of the brands, to your point, you know, they.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Die after before five years.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Brands like Chipotle, brands like Starbucks that we see they're
always reinventing themselves. They're always looking at the competition and
not taking ideas from them, but maybe getting a brainstorm
from another business out there that has you know, like
Starbucks as the refreshers now at the Pattaia at the
Assai and they may have gotten that from us, I
don't know, but at the end of the day, they
took it and they're doing a great job with it.
You know, you're watching a lot of gen zs walking
(13:09):
to Starbucks now and they're buying iced coffees, They're buying
all these refreshing drinks, and Starbucks is.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
Back and they're absolutely crushing it.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
So for pliables, you know, that was a huge uh
knock that I got in the very beginning for the
first you know, I call it three to five years
from business people said, you know, do you think this
is a trender of fad rob And my line back
to them all the time was, yeah, it could be
a trender of fad if I let it bait. But
I'm not going to let it bait. And that's the
most important thing.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
You know, how did we do that?
Speaker 4 (13:39):
We got different types of customers in heret you know,
I see a lot of construction workers come into our
store in the morning, guys that are in their thirties forties.
I'm watching families come in here now, and like, you know,
if I had a nickel for every time I said,
you know, a father says me, oh, my daughter loves pliables,
But now it's I've got guys that are like, oh
my daughterless pliables.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
But I actually I love it just as much. So
that's the.
Speaker 4 (14:00):
Evolution of what Flatbles is coming. And I think it
still has a lot more legs behind it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
Well, Like I.
Speaker 1 (14:07):
Love the word authentic, and I know you do too.
You and Abby are so authentic to this brand. Just
looking at you now with your hat turned back and
your shades with umbrellas behind you, I think you've never
left what you are as for why you and Abby
started this, and I get it. But now you did
(14:30):
really well in this first store, because we know you did,
people started understanding it that we're in that area. But
then it's a big difference to scale anything. So my
question to you is what was the challenge you guys fell,
because franchising to corporate stores is a big difference. Where
you started franchising and most people don't. So soon after
(14:55):
you opened your first flagship store, which is still there right,
which is amazing. Yeah, what was the process of that,
What were your thoughts and why did you go in
that direction?
Speaker 2 (15:04):
What were the challenges?
Speaker 4 (15:07):
You know, going back to what you said about authenticity,
you know, from from myself to Abby and being Jersey
Shore kids surfers, Like when we heard the word franchise,
it was like this, like, well, franchise, like no way,
nerds cop out. That's when I was like in my
early thirties, and like we had another partner in the beginning.
That was my buddy from Rutgers University, and he went
to Rutgers Business School and he pushed me on it.
(15:29):
He pushed Abby on it to because he saw the
opportunity of franchising of Flyballs. I didn't see it. I
was like, no, I'm not going to franchise this. I'm
gonna build four more stores on the Jersey Shore.
Speaker 3 (15:39):
Keep going that way.
Speaker 4 (15:41):
But I started learning more about the franchising model, and
you know, I made a deal with my old partner.
I said, if you do X, Y and Z, I'll
give you X, Y and Z, but you have to
get it done for us because I won't be able
to I don't have that sort of savviness when it
comes to, you know, getting these contracts done and getting
an FDD and hiring a franchise attorney.
Speaker 3 (16:00):
He did it.
Speaker 4 (16:00):
You know, he did it very very quick for us,
which I appreciate and I'll never forget it because it
was obviously one of the best moves that Pliables made
going into the franchising because now you know, fast.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Forward two hundred and eighty stores.
Speaker 4 (16:12):
I don't know the exact number, but several different groups
of franchising groups right now, from my brother to friends
and family.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
They're the ones who built Bibles.
Speaker 4 (16:20):
I mean, yes, Robin Abbey are a big part of
the brand and it's authentic.
Speaker 3 (16:24):
But without our franchisees, there's no way this would have
been what it is right now.
Speaker 4 (16:27):
There's no Ifsands or bus And you know, I'll take credit,
We will take credit that we picked the right franchisees.
Speaker 3 (16:33):
But once they came into this system.
Speaker 4 (16:34):
And talking about culture and how much they loved this brand,
they built it it was like a natural.
Speaker 3 (16:39):
It was like a machine.
Speaker 4 (16:40):
They came into Pliables and we started watching them build
it with us.
Speaker 2 (16:43):
But I love it.
Speaker 3 (16:44):
Now.
Speaker 4 (16:45):
The next challenge, though, is you get to two hundred
and eighty locations. We can't do what we used to do,
Like I used to give franchisees full carblanche to go
out and hey, create something different in this story. You know,
serve this product or you you know, everybody does something different.
It was undorthodox us again, but now we're bigger and
now it has to be more standard throughout the entire organization.
(17:05):
Still little touches here and there, but not like it
used today.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
You know, it's interesting.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
I just went and I hope everyone caught this with
what you said that you weren't afraid to ask for
help for something you didn't know, so you can stick
to your core character traits and what you're good at
to create something amazing and keep it going. And you
did that with your friend, and it just shows, you know,
sometimes you got to give a little trust in someone
(17:33):
else to help you succeed.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
And you did that.
Speaker 1 (17:36):
And then I guess they took a region like you said,
and expanded it. How did you get through the challenge
of you know, because it wasn't like you had a
corporate culture prior so, and I know you said at
the beginning it was easier because you could do more
as you were, But what were the challenges scaling to
(17:57):
this many stores?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
It's staggering.
Speaker 3 (18:01):
I mean, when you.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Really think about it, you should be proud of yourself.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
This is a staggering amount of stores with lots of people,
I'm sure problems every other minute of the.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Day, and you know, and that's really not.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Where you feel your comfort zone is. So how did
you build a team? What were the challenges in building
a team? And give everyone insights to that.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
I mean, I can't count it on my fingers and toes.
You know what the challenges are as you get bigger
and you start franchising more and more. But I think
the biggest key, and we keep harping on this right now,
is as I grew, I kept bringing more people in this organization,
from consultants to a private equity firm. That helped me
build the team even stronger than what we were, you know,
(18:46):
because it was more of the back end at that point.
You use the word corporate, Yeah, just like franchising. I
was like, oh, corporate, big bad word. I don't want
Blibles to ever be a corporation and I still don't
think it is. But we had to inject some corporization
intpliables because if you didn't do that, and what I
mean by that, you know, I'm looking at one of
my stories right now, and none of our customers feel
(19:08):
that type of corporization. I was very steadfast with that
with my new partners. The four walls can't change in here,
but the back end, you know, the infrastructure, you know,
setting up you know, the financing department, setting up the HR,
setting up all these things that we were I'll call
it what it was before the private equity firms came
a little blackluster in. I recognize that. From a mile away.
I saw a new challenge, new horizon coming. I'm like, yo,
(19:31):
we need to bring some people that have a lot
more experience in this world to make sure that we're protected.
You know, could I have done it myself without them?
I asked myself that every single morning. But I don't
think about it too long because I'm happy where it's
at right now, because again, my customers haven't felt the
changes of corporization. Were more protected, We're stronger, and we
now have the ability to go from two hundred and
(19:51):
eighty locations too hopefully a thousand one day.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
All right, So there you go, you're you're on this path.
You know, you weren't afraid to to both you and Abbey
on like what.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
You needed to do to make you better.
Speaker 1 (20:04):
But then there's now growing a brand that you don't
really touch every day.
Speaker 2 (20:09):
So how do you ensure pliballs remains innovative? How do
you make.
Speaker 1 (20:16):
Sure the culture is consistent since you're in so many
places that you can't be at once.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
Yeah, I mean that's a good question for me.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
You know about four years ago when we were at
two hundred one hundred and eighty to two hundred locations,
where I started seeing it getting out of my control
a little bit, where Rob couldn't be everywhere, my partners
couldn't be everywhere. We use tools and resources, you know,
things like group me where I would have every single
employee across the you know, the the all the stores
(20:47):
that we had, and again, I was up till probably
two in the morning. I was playing trivia with every
single store. I was getting them excited. I was learning
about my employees, what colleges they were going to, what
inspired them to work at blibles, and like I kind
of kept feeding off that NonStop. And you know, the
group mes Honestly, that play it's like about probably eight
hours of my day every single day. But it was
important to me and I had fun watching the employees
(21:09):
get like super psyched about like oh Rob's in here,
and they got like they you see them, You felt
them getting excited through.
Speaker 3 (21:16):
This group chat.
Speaker 4 (21:17):
So that's how I kept the culture going with all
the employees, you know.
Speaker 3 (21:20):
And when I talk about the store employees.
Speaker 4 (21:21):
And the mid management, you know, again I started giving
incentivization packages. We started, you know, getting them more involved
with the the innovation of pliables.
Speaker 3 (21:29):
You know they always were, but again as we grew.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
The mid management team, everybody's involvement was was extremely important.
Speaker 1 (21:37):
It's one thing to create what you've created, It's another
thing to keep it going. There's so many new brands coming,
you know, different tastes, cultures, products. How do you stay
innovative when it comes to the product, right, Like, how
(21:58):
do you keep something fresh and new? I know your
stores when you walk in and every new one's even cooler.
You know the one in Woodbridge, I know you didn't
open too long ago.
Speaker 2 (22:08):
It's like you walk in, you.
Speaker 1 (22:10):
Just want to hang out, like you said, like a Starbucks,
like you feel something when you walk into your stores,
but you still got to get people to want to
come back and eat something every day.
Speaker 2 (22:20):
How do you stay innovated with the product?
Speaker 4 (22:23):
I think that's the million dollar question, right And I
got to stick to what my gut tells me.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
And I communicate this to my new partners.
Speaker 4 (22:31):
I communicate this to the new team where it's like,
my philosophy is stick to what you know you're good at.
Speaker 3 (22:36):
And right now, we're an off site bowl shop.
Speaker 4 (22:38):
We do smoothie bulls, we do juices, we do you know,
oak Field bowls, and I think there is so much
more room for improvement and innovation within what we already do.
So like, you know, I've been doing this for ten years,
and you know, if every day wake up and I've
got a friend, a family member.
Speaker 3 (22:56):
Or somebody who I met and they're like, hey, have
you ever thought about, you know, putting this in your store?
Doing this? And I'm like, yeah, I have. But for me, the.
Speaker 4 (23:03):
Philosophy is, if you do that, it starts detracting from
what your attention should be. You know, I had a
good friend of mine, like a mentor that always said, like,
you know, like when the horses they go out in
their race, they get the blinders on, you know, when
they break out that gate, they don't want to look
left right because they're gonna lose a mills, you know,
millisecond and lose the race. And I've held true to that,
you know, as long as I possibly can go and
just look forward. You know, this is a race. We're
(23:24):
gonna get to the end.
Speaker 3 (23:25):
What the end is, I don't know, but I know
I'm not there yet.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Now listen, it's it's it's gotta be hard, I mean,
and I'm sure you get so many inbound requests from
your franchisees, right because everybody wants to make more revenue.
Speaker 2 (23:38):
And I think sticking to your knitting and.
Speaker 1 (23:40):
To your focus is why most brands have stayed to
the length of.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Time that they've stayed.
Speaker 1 (23:48):
But you know, you started out in the healthy How
am I gonna give a healthy choice? How do you
see the role of healthy eating evolving? Actually in the
fast casual industry? Is there gonna be things that are
going to be challenges moving forward. The more we learn
and the more we see how important that is as
a society.
Speaker 2 (24:08):
And we're getting you know, we're living older, right, we're gonna.
Speaker 3 (24:11):
Yeah, well, I can't give you all my secrets.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
No love that I should.
Speaker 4 (24:16):
But no, to be honest with you, I mean, listen
to health foods industry right now. I don't know the
exact numbers, and you know i'd read your before its
I mean, it's growing, you know these again gen zs
even you know, the millennials in their thirties, like they
want to be healthier.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
And I think we were.
Speaker 4 (24:31):
At the you know, in the very beginning of it,
and we had ingredients in our sie that you know,
maybe in the beginning I modified it to make it
a better healthier ingredient. You know, we use better proteins,
we use college and peptides. You know, there's different things
that work for everybody so differently. Like you know, it's
funny when you come to Flybles again, a lot of
the so called haters in the beginning, we're like, oh,
(24:52):
Flybles is filled with sugar.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
And it's you know, fattening for you.
Speaker 4 (24:55):
And you know, I tell people that you know, the
lowdown on it and what the you break down is
in the sugar and educate them a little bit more.
They get it to the point where it's like you
can't sit in your couch and eat ten pliables to
day and wonder why am I not losing any weight
or why am I not getting healthier? Like this? This
was built for two things, right and it might be
more than two things, but two things that pop into
my mind right now. It was for healthy, active people
(25:19):
or even feel that wanted to be healthier and active.
Speaker 3 (25:21):
You know, you eat this.
Speaker 4 (25:21):
Before you worked out, you eat it as a post workout,
you know, so that was important too. And the other
thing for me was this was never considered a health
food cafe.
Speaker 3 (25:30):
It was a healthier food cafe to where.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
Like my nephews were sixteen seventeen years old, these toich visit.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Me at the Jersey Shore. I'd wake up in the morning.
Speaker 4 (25:37):
They were up till three in the morning down in
my basement like playing video games, and there was Taco
Bell rappers, McDonald's rappers everywhere, and I'm like, this is insanity.
And they're sixteen seventeen years old and once now my
nephews they're eating pliables. I mean, they still eating Taco
Bell and McDonald's probably, but this was more like a
gateway for them to get into healthier you know, conscious eating,
(25:57):
and that's where it started with the younger generation. But
now I see it happening to people my age in
their forties fifties.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
So I think that's important to understand about pliables. You know.
Speaker 4 (26:07):
For the answer your question, John, what's the next step?
You know, Yes, the health food industry is growing.
Speaker 3 (26:14):
Right now.
Speaker 4 (26:14):
Again, like I said earlier, it's just about improving our
products and putting better ingredients to them all the time.
You know, Wendy's reinvented themselves with better ingredients, never frozen meat.
Speaker 3 (26:24):
We can get better in our stories.
Speaker 4 (26:25):
We're not perfect yet, and I think that's what's going
to you know, really lead us through the charge. And
who knows, if some cool concept comes around and I
can recommend it to my partners and team that I
think is going to be the next thing that fits
with us, then certainly we can do it.
Speaker 3 (26:37):
But right now we're just sticking to what we're good at.
Speaker 2 (26:40):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
And then you know another thing that in any scaled
growth mindset to company, you got to create like a path,
like an upward mobility path. What has been the challenge
with your growth being that it's franchised and then there
has to be a corporate, right, a corporization you said
(27:01):
to grow and to serve, right, not just the customers,
but I think your main customers are franchise you know, partners.
Speaker 3 (27:10):
Right.
Speaker 1 (27:10):
How did you create the ability to for people to
feel this could be a career because I know at
the beginning, right, it started out and there you know
it's a great.
Speaker 2 (27:19):
Entry level job, right when you're a younger person.
Speaker 1 (27:21):
To go work in a great brand and learn how
to deal with people and have conversations and learn all
the business uh, you know, important stuff that you need
to know.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
How did you create that?
Speaker 4 (27:33):
I think it happened, not think, I know it happened
to naturally, like a you know economy of scale. The
bigger that we got, the bigger we needed. Our corporate
team debate, and you've had a lot of employees that
again love Pliables so much and just like everything else
in life, and you know, to be more of a teacher.
Now it's like the harder you work, the better you get,
the more you'll grow within an organization. And you know
(27:55):
the numbers that Pliables are doing right now, it's it's
a big corporation and there are tons of opportunities within
bibles from marketing to HR to operations, to finance, to
event planning to you know, technology. The list goes on
and on and on. And I think that's key for
the you know, the managerial team right now and the
(28:15):
ownership of bliables to once.
Speaker 3 (28:17):
Again educate these kids, you know, that's what we have
to do. Right. Like when I was in high school and.
Speaker 4 (28:21):
College, like now, I didn't know that taxes were taken
out of my paycheck. So when I got my first
paycheck of a Seaside Heights boardwalk, and I was like.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
Wait, are you kidding me?
Speaker 4 (28:29):
Like the government takes that much, and that's what happens
with our employees, Like they don't understand that, and that
was up to us as their bosses, to be good
bosses to them, to educate them on how to know
where the taxes are being taken out, where their tips
are going the cash versus there you know, credit card tips.
And I think they appreciate that and telling them in
(28:50):
a way that doesn't make them feel I guess stupid
or just like oh, you know, so, I think that's
the cage.
Speaker 1 (28:56):
No, you can't learn unless someone is teaching you, right,
So I think it's I think it's And what's so
nice is like you have such a molding ability for
the youth coming into the workforce, right because like like
like that's their first job, Like you're a lot of
people's first job, first experience with dealing with people companies.
(29:16):
So the more exciting and helpful you make it, which
you have, which is why you're growing so strong and rapidly.
But you know, there was bumps in the row, you know,
and it's years now, but and it's stemmed other issues.
But you know, from COVID on supply chain prices, what
has been your challenge to you know, keep going at
(29:39):
the pace you've been going with all the changes since then.
Speaker 4 (29:43):
Bro, it's like you wake up in the morning and
I know it in my heart that nothing is ever
going to be easy. You know. The bigger we get,
the harder it's getting. You know, even for me personally
as a partner now and work with private equity firms
and relationships and contract negotiation every day is harder. Like
you sit there, you're like, oh, man, I made it.
Things are good. I'm on easy street. Things are in
a coast. That is a fallacy that does not exist
(30:06):
it is. Every day is challenging. But from the pliables business,
you know, bro, we got smacked with COVID, we got
smacked with the pandemic, you know. And we sat there
and I took my team from my military background again
up to forward the details of the story.
Speaker 3 (30:18):
But like I knew we were in trouble.
Speaker 4 (30:20):
And I sat there and I said, We're not going
to be that business that makes excuses because of the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (30:26):
We're gonna do things the way that I know how
to do it, which is grind.
Speaker 4 (30:28):
So you know, we we incentivised our employees to come
to work, incentivize them, and it forced them as a
volunteer program where like in my mind when I was,
you know, shipped overseas for Air Force, we got hazard
pay and I never called it hazard pay.
Speaker 3 (30:41):
When they came to work.
Speaker 4 (30:42):
We just said, if do you want to come to
work and you feel safe, we'll pay you X amount
come in and work at our bibles every employee raiser
hand I said, yep, absolutely, they came in.
Speaker 3 (30:50):
We wore masks, we'd everything sanitary wise. The customers picked
up the bulls of the doors. They didn't come to stores.
So on and so forth. But you know, more importantly,
I knew that we.
Speaker 4 (30:59):
Were going to use business within our four walls, and
that was an opportunity to strike on third party delivery,
to strike on family packages, you know, where the kids
can stay home.
Speaker 3 (31:08):
It's from school.
Speaker 4 (31:08):
And people were miserble at the time, like and bring
them do it yourself kids at their house, where now
the kids were at home building goals with their mom
their dads, and it really jumped off. So I guess
the point is that was the first knackdown that we had,
was the pandemic.
Speaker 3 (31:22):
We fought through and we actually came out as one
of the.
Speaker 4 (31:24):
Top fast casual restaurants that I would say beat the
pandemic from an economic standpoint, you know.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
And then from a broader you know spectrum.
Speaker 4 (31:33):
Right now, as you get bigger and we start going
across the country, supply chain.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Is extremely difficult. You know.
Speaker 4 (31:40):
When it was in my backyard and I developed relationships
with my distributions, distributor, my manufacturer, we had it on
lot here. But the further we started going west north
south of Florida.
Speaker 3 (31:53):
Started getting more challenging.
Speaker 4 (31:54):
We just started incorporating real corporation into our business. Cisco
it got challenging. But again I kind of, you know,
tie this all together. I brought my private equity firm
in the managerial team that we.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
Have right now.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
They had the experience to know how to do that
and manage it right now.
Speaker 3 (32:12):
I did not have the experience for.
Speaker 4 (32:13):
You know, the didn't know how to do it, and
we would have lost a lot of ground. So we
kept from momentum going for the team that I built
going forward right now and that's why.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
We're you know, we're at we're at right now.
Speaker 2 (32:23):
It's amazing.
Speaker 1 (32:25):
But the things you do, know, you were amazing at,
both you and Abbey, and like social media, Instagram, what
what kind of a role do you think, because you know,
we hear about it everyone, you know, everyone says that
it works, but like how well did it work?
Speaker 2 (32:39):
And what were the issues?
Speaker 1 (32:41):
Learning how to be someone good on social media.
Speaker 2 (32:44):
As a brand?
Speaker 4 (32:46):
I mean, social media has changed so much in ten years.
Speaker 3 (32:50):
I mean from a business standpoint too.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
I mean we, I don't want to say took advantage
of social media in the beginning, but we did for
lack of better words, where like Instagram and Facebook, they
weren't charging for ads at that point. It was a
completely different ballgame. You open up social media. Now you
scrolling your story like every other story is an AD,
and they're targeting you.
Speaker 3 (33:11):
They hear you talk, and we all know that's going
on right now. That's not the way it was ten
years ago.
Speaker 4 (33:16):
It was there were hashtags, and there were certain people
within your area, and you kind of had to be
crafty and gritty and kind of you know, jump into
these groups to bring their eyes and their attention to
your pliables page.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
And that's what I did religiously.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
Like I said earlier on this podcast, you know, till
three four in the morning, kids were at DJs till
you know to the morning, getting drunk, and I was
targeting them myself, not through a bot, not through any
sort of you know, developer, and finding the hashtags of
them putting like hashtags DJs, and I would follow them,
I would like all their content, and then they would
follow us back and it just grew naturally organically. So
(33:50):
I think the challenge of social media now is it
is extremely difficult to grow it organically. It's almost to
the point where like you have to pay to play
at this point, and I fully emit in this podcast.
The marketing sector. That's play of a great marketing team
right now at Blibles that had experience in these technological
advancements in social media.
Speaker 3 (34:08):
They know how to manage that.
Speaker 4 (34:10):
I would have I would not I would I would
not know how to do that for the slightest bear
right now.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
And if you could pick one influencer that was the
epitome of the apply of balls brand or that you'd
want to work with, Like, who would that be?
Speaker 4 (34:25):
I mean, that's a that's a that's a layup. I
mean Kelly Slater. I mean you're talking about like the
goat of surfing. You know, this guy that has you know,
he's in his fifties now, he has more world championships
and surfing than any other surfer. He's a legend. So
like and trust me, I targeted him too. At that time,
I was just sending connects like yo, Kelly, it's Rob
from Bliables. I didn't get a response, but you know
(34:47):
that that's that's a that's a good you know segue
though for me to talk about like influencers, because there
is no one specific influence that I can target and say, oh,
that's who I really think epitomizes Bibles. I think we
did a great job of the ten years of again
organically not paying influencers.
Speaker 3 (35:04):
To love Bibles.
Speaker 4 (35:05):
I mean, I think her name is Lindsay Dunn. Pretty
sure she's the gymnast from LSU. And now that new
regulation just came out for the NCAA.
Speaker 3 (35:13):
Where you can pay these employees.
Speaker 4 (35:15):
To you know, advertise as an athlete. You know, she
I think she makes millions of dollars now off of
doing this. She is naturally and organically doing it for
us on her social media platform, on her Instagram where
she's going to Bibles at LSU and she's eating Bibles
and you want to talk about a win beyond a
win for us, And she's probably the biggest example I have,
but I do see it happening a lot now with
(35:36):
football players, basketball players, baseball players, profession you know, actresses,
and they're putting on their social media just organically because
they truly do love it, which goes back to our
first five minutes of this authenticity. Nobody's getting paid fiables
to be a social media influencer for us right now,
and I'm proud of that.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
That's interesting because it's really you know, that's not the
game today, So you're bucking the trend and you know
again you're I think, like you said, authenticity is just
built in you and your team's everything.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (36:09):
So last couple questions, and I think you know they're
good ones because the reflection questions, like were there any
risks you regret not taking? Like that's my first questions here.
It's risks, I mean, risks you regret not taking.
Speaker 4 (36:26):
If I know right off the bat what I want
to say, but it's it's it's kind of hypocritical because
I did make a good success off of this decision,
which is, you know, selling my company a couple of
years ago to bring partners in. But you know, through
this podcast, I've talked about the pros the entire.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
Time of bringing them and what they've done.
Speaker 4 (36:47):
But in the back of my mind, looking at a
guy like Peter Kanker from Jersey Mikes or Danny Myers,
you know, shakee shack, like could I have kept going
myself and brought this company to where it is today
without that?
Speaker 3 (36:59):
I'll never know that answer.
Speaker 4 (37:00):
But I'm not gonna say I regret decision I made,
but it's certainly one that lingers on the top of
my mind every single day.
Speaker 1 (37:07):
Well, you're an entrepreneur and it's in every entrepreneur's mind.
Speaker 2 (37:11):
So I love your answer.
Speaker 1 (37:12):
It's respectful because what I've learned from you even more
on this podcast is you know what you can and
cannot do, and you're not afraid to ask for help,
which I think is like a superpower. The last question,
is there any particular person event, but I'd rather be
a person that significantly changed your perspective in life.
Speaker 3 (37:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (37:36):
Larry Hess he was one of my good friends. He
was one of my landlords and bay Head. Unfortunately he
passed away a few years ago, but him and his wife,
you know again talking about being given opportunities by people
that are stronger in business than you are, Bill, Larry
was super important to me. I mean, whenever I had
an issue or a problem, He's the first guy that
(37:58):
I ran to him. Whatever he said, I did and
it worked out. And what I love most about Larry
and Christine. You know this cute story that we have.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
In bay Head.
Speaker 4 (38:06):
Larry's got this big restaurant called Charlie's right across the
waterway and Bay Heads, and he used to sit through
the window at the Battia Bowl, which is like the
pink the pink swee that we have. I'm not gonna lie.
Mostly females eat that. But Larry loved it more than anything.
I'd watched it with a big you know, pink ring
around his lips. Just get me the thumbs up from
his window because he loved Pliable so much. But he
(38:27):
was instrumental of really getting over the hump.
Speaker 3 (38:31):
I think Bayhead was our store number four or five.
Speaker 4 (38:33):
And things we're getting challenging at that point because now
you know we were signing releases, you know, pure village
in Long Branch through the Kushner family was a big
deal least. I mean that was, Hey, we're getting into
a five year contract.
Speaker 3 (38:46):
Your rent is X amount per month.
Speaker 4 (38:48):
I was scared, but I talked to guys that Larry
has the kind of held my hand through the process
to guide me in the right decision making and negotiation.
Speaker 3 (38:56):
With these these powerful guys.
Speaker 1 (39:00):
Go using your superpower getting people to believe.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
In what you're doing and and and help you.
Speaker 1 (39:06):
And uh that's why, uh this is just gonna keep going.
And however you're involved, you're you're you, and Abby your
legendary You're always gonna be legendary and when you know,
just keep moving and keep growing. And I just want
to thank you so much for being on the podcast.
Speaker 4 (39:23):
Hey man, thanks for having me John. This is this
is really cool obviously. I love talking about Bibles and
let's do it again.
Speaker 2 (39:29):
You got it?
Speaker 1 (39:31):
Hi, John Schultz here. Thank you so much for tuning into.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
This week's episode. Would really appreciate it.
Speaker 1 (39:37):
If you would like comment, subscribe, and share with your friends.
Speaker 2 (39:41):
Looking forward to being with you soon
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