A brief shout-out to Panera, without whose bottomless decaf and wireless access we would not have been able to interview our small army of GM candidates. If I were their landlord, I would be taking a hard look at their parking requirements because there were many others like me (and Marc last week) who camped out there for quite some time. I think the small-business-person-too-cheap-to-have-an-office contingent made up 1/3 of their traffic while I was there.
Thank you Panera.
Anyway, we are getting close to the end of this round of interviewing. As an entrepreneur, it is interesting to see how the caliber of people you interview can influence your ideas about the position you are hiring for. In the end, I think you get a better outcome being little flexible based on the talent walking in the door. The Five Guys concept is pretty compelling, and so is working for a growth business with a lot of career path and opportunity, so we have been fortunate to talk to some very, very good people this week.
Showing posts with label franchising. Show all posts
Showing posts with label franchising. Show all posts
Friday, November 21, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
How We Got Started
Welcome to the Six Guys blog! The 6 of us (4 founders, 2 additional investors) are one of the nation's largest franchisees of Five Guys Famous Burgers and Fries. We plan to use this blog to keep followers informed on our progress as we the build the business. It turns out that there is a lot to do, which we plan to chronicle on this blog.
One question we frequently get is: how did you get into this business anyway? Here goes...
The 4 of us all connect through Peter Weber, one of our founders who is based in D.C. He and Bill Ranney have worked together, most recently in an IT startup business called SevenSpace, which Peter and crew sold to Sun Microsystems for a tidy profit. Peter Biro (based in Wellesley, MA) helped Peter and Bill in their venture by working with them on acquisitions for their business. Peter Weber and Marc Magerman (based in Franklin, MA) are old friends from college. Peter Weber introduced Marc to Peter Biro; Biro and Magerman then partnered up and almost bought a small business together. Peter and Marc had been looking for a business to buy together, and Peter Weber and Bill Ranney had been looking at franchise concepts and live in the Five Guys epicenter. Voila.
Weber approached Five Guys in the spring of 2007 about an area franchise in Virginia, but none was available. They recommended that he look elsewhere, like maybe Massachusetts. Together with Bill, Peter called his old friend Marc Magerman, who then called his would-be business partner Peter Biro. Peter and Marc drove to visit a Five Guys in West Avon, CT and after one taste, we were hooked. Marc brought in 2 more investors, also successful business owners. Almost one year and a lot of legal bills later, we closed our area deal with Five Guys, our Series A equity round, our debt financing, our deal with Restaurant Sites (our real estate broker) and our group's partnership, which we very imaginatively called Massachusetts Burger Enterprises, LLC. And then the work began...
We will continue to keep followers posted.
One question we frequently get is: how did you get into this business anyway? Here goes...
The 4 of us all connect through Peter Weber, one of our founders who is based in D.C. He and Bill Ranney have worked together, most recently in an IT startup business called SevenSpace, which Peter and crew sold to Sun Microsystems for a tidy profit. Peter Biro (based in Wellesley, MA) helped Peter and Bill in their venture by working with them on acquisitions for their business. Peter Weber and Marc Magerman (based in Franklin, MA) are old friends from college. Peter Weber introduced Marc to Peter Biro; Biro and Magerman then partnered up and almost bought a small business together. Peter and Marc had been looking for a business to buy together, and Peter Weber and Bill Ranney had been looking at franchise concepts and live in the Five Guys epicenter. Voila.
Weber approached Five Guys in the spring of 2007 about an area franchise in Virginia, but none was available. They recommended that he look elsewhere, like maybe Massachusetts. Together with Bill, Peter called his old friend Marc Magerman, who then called his would-be business partner Peter Biro. Peter and Marc drove to visit a Five Guys in West Avon, CT and after one taste, we were hooked. Marc brought in 2 more investors, also successful business owners. Almost one year and a lot of legal bills later, we closed our area deal with Five Guys, our Series A equity round, our debt financing, our deal with Restaurant Sites (our real estate broker) and our group's partnership, which we very imaginatively called Massachusetts Burger Enterprises, LLC. And then the work began...
We will continue to keep followers posted.
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