0
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When you are an immigrant coming to a country and you re not accepted, either you accept that or you don t.
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And I think for me, it was, I really want to change that.
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And I want to be the leader.
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Role models make it real.
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if the role model is somebody you can relate to in some way.
0
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And so each year I try to bring in a couple of extraordinary entrepreneurs, people that have started with nothing and people who built something that s extraordinary.
0
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And there are certain qualities that do that.
0
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And especially if you ve done it over the last 10, 15, 20 years.
0
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because we ve experienced the 2008, the world financial crisis, we ve experienced COVID.
0
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So if you did well in business during this time, it s a lot different than when everything s just flowing so easily.
0
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So I m going to introduce you to two entrepreneurs that are dear friends of mine who are just brilliant, but they re also super humble.
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You d never know who they are.
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And that s one of the things I respect about them, but they always over deliver for their clients.
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And the first person is a gentleman who has been an entrepreneur basically his whole life.
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He didn t have to be.
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We ll talk about this a little bit when he comes up here, but his family comes from Iran.
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They lost everything.
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But his father was an amazing entrepreneur as well.
0
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And literally, he s a philanthropist, extraordinary investor, business person, self-made billionaire starting over from scratch again here in the United States.
0
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Pretty extraordinary.
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But rather than have his dad s money or hotels, he wanted to do everything himself.
0
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He could have easily, like most kids would do, just, hey, take the ride.
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But he had his own vision, his own sense of creativity.
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And he wanted to, well, initially, just make some great nightclubs.
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You know, he was a young man.
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But gradually, he designed lifestyle hotels.
0
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And today, he s created a whole new technology around food that we re going to talk about in a second.
0
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Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for my dear friend Sam Nazarian.
0
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Sam, it s so great to have you.
0
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Thank you, thank you, thank you.
0
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Hello, everybody.
0
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Well, listen, we have 4,000 entrepreneurs here, 1,000 in the room, 3,000 around the world in 76 countries, all here to maximize their ability.
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There are people here just beginning their journey.
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The largest business in the room, 750 million.
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So there s quite diversity.
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But every entrepreneur has a journey.
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And yours is really, really unique and special, as all great ones are, but yours is especially.
0
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Because you came to this country when you were four, right?
0
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Four years old.
0
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Exactly, four years old from here on, yeah.
0
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Tell people a little bit.
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I m just curious.
0
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Tell a little bit about how you came here, what it s like to enter a country, live in a hotel, not know the language, not know the culture.
0
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And then how the hell do you turn into the guy that creates culture for everybody around the world?
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I mean, how did that play a role, if at all?
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But I m really just curious.
0
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Tell us a little bit about your journey, if you will.
0
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Well, no, it s a great question.
0
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I think, first of all, I ve been blessed to have the most amazing parents.
0
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And I think when we left Iran, I was four years old.
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A revolution had just happened.
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And we ended up having to kind of start over.
0
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And the thing that was probably some of my first memories living in a small hotel, and it wasn t necessarily that we were living in the hotel because that s where we wanted to live.
0
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It was just we didn t know if we were going to go back.
0
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It took about a year to two years to ultimately
0
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you know, for that to set in that we cannot go back there again for my parents and for my uncle and his family.
0
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And through that process, I think the part that was the best for me, my first memories was I didn t know any different.
0
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I was four years old.
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I don t remember what we left.
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So for us, it was really about the culture, the values, and then I think the complete instinct right away to assimilate.
0
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You know, for my family to really be a part of the communities we re in, and right away they threw us in school, and right away it was, you know, it was something that for us, you know, I think immigrants really appreciate this country the most.
0
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Yes.
0
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Because, you know, and...
0
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And, you know, that first generation mentality of urgency.
0
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Yes.
0
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You know, of accountability.
0
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And that s really kind of what stemmed the growth of us into the communities we re in and ultimately through stabilization into Los Angeles, where I grew up.
0
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I remember you telling me that in the beginning it was a little rough because you guys didn t exactly fit in, right?
0
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A huge number of Iranians came here and you weren t considered too cool or hip.
0
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People were trying to kind of sometimes push you aside or make you wait outside for a restaurant forever.
0
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Did that play in a role in how you treat people differently?
0
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Well, growing up, all of a sudden, roughly 200,000, 300,000 Iranians came to LA and LA County.
0
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It s actually still the biggest population of Iranians in the world outside of Iran are in Los Angeles, Los Angeles County.
0
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So all of a sudden, it was a shock to the system.
0
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And a lot of people dealt with it differently.
0
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I mean, the people that were absorbing this amazing migration.
0
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But it was very, you know, my parents, I m the youngest of four kids.
0
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My brothers and sisters are a lot older than me.
0
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Um, and you know, they were, they came as teenagers.
0
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So for me, you know, going to school every day, you know, bullied, picked on.
0
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Luckily I was bigger than everybody else.
0
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So I had a qualifier that I could, but there was always kids bigger than you cause they re older.
0
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But you know, the, the thing that kind of always was a constant for us was, you know, never really disrespecting the name and the family name and our, you know, doing things that were really, you know,
0
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outside of what our parents expected from us.
0
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So that kind of kept us all in line and it kind of really was the DNA of what my parents and my parents ultimately gave to us.
0
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It wasn t the wealth or it was just really the DNA of being good people.
0
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Yes.
0
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What, um, your father came here, he lost everything.
0
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He built quite a business in Iran and I guess he d gone overseas for a period of time as well, but not the U.S.
0
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When he came here, he lost it all.
0
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And then he developed into this amazing investor, philanthropist, businessman, a billionaire, self-made billionaire in America from nothing.
0
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How did he turn that around?
0
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It s a great, I mean, we could sit here and talk about that.
0
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There s so many great stories like that, the American dream.
0
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Well, my dad and my uncle, they lost their dad when they were two and four years old in Iran.
0
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We re Jewish, and back then in Iran, Jews lived in certain parts of the city of Tehran.
0
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So they were selling light bulbs and cigarettes, and they were trying to support their single mom.
0
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And that kind of resonated with them, which transcended to us.
0
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And by 1979, they had built a big business in construction and construction equipment and all the trials and tribulations from that to that.
0
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But to me, what was probably the most unbelievably unique thing about my dad and my mom was when we did lose everything, meaning houses, homes, birth certificates, we just had to leave overnight.
0
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Four kids, four suitcases, as they say.
0
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They never once at the dining room table said,
0
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look backwards.
0
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They always were optimistic and looked forward, even though it was very difficult to do that.
0
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And instinctually, you want to say why and what we lost.
0
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And I think that also kind of resonated with us as far as kind of how we looked at the perception of life.
0
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But he and my uncle ended up borrowing money from some family, some money they had outside of Iran.
0
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And they ended up buying a tool and dye company, a small one in Pasadena.
0
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And in 1985, one of their great friends, who was a scientist, now mind you, they had fourth and fifth grade educations, my dad and uncle.
0
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They were worldly, but they didn t have the kind of core engineering DNA.
0
SPEAKER_01
Somebody came to them and said, hey, we have an opportunity to invest in a company.
0
SPEAKER_01
They did.
0
SPEAKER_01
That company ended up being Qualcomm.
0
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So they kind of, yeah.
0
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Wow.
0
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That s amazing.
0
SPEAKER_00
That s amazing.
0
SPEAKER_00
So how did your entrepreneurial spirit, your core values, obviously, are affected by your father and your mother.
0
SPEAKER_00
How did it affect the way you looked at entrepreneurship?
0
SPEAKER_01
Well, again, to me, because I was kind of in this little bucket between older siblings and myself, I really was trying to find my own way.
0
SPEAKER_01
And ultimately, sports was a big way of how I expressed myself.
0
SPEAKER_01
I played college basketball.
0
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I was very athletic a long time ago.
0
SPEAKER_00
For all that good food, right?
0
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
0
SPEAKER_01
But ultimately to me, you know, I got exposed.
0
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My first business I started was in telecom, ironically, but not Qualcomm.
0
SPEAKER_01
We became, we saw this technology called Nextel back in 1999.
0
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We ended up becoming the biggest reseller of Nextel in Southern California.
0
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And I sold that for $2 million.
0
SPEAKER_00
You were only 21 when you started that.
0
SPEAKER_01
I started at 21.
0
SPEAKER_01
I sold it at 23 and it was a big deal.
0
SPEAKER_01
You know, I had 75, I had no idea what I was doing.
0
SPEAKER_01
Um, you know, started from scratch, but you know, instincts were there as far as seeing an opportunity, filling a void and getting it to scale, looking back.
0
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
0
SPEAKER_01
And that s kind of all our business is subsidized.
1
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have followed that same kind of core principle.
1
SPEAKER_01
What do you think made you successful at 21, so successful in that company?
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, I think betting on the right idea always helps.
1
SPEAKER_01
If you have the commitment, and I always say this when I speak at universities or with kids that are trying to mentor, if you re on the right idea and you have the consistency to be curious and learn the business as you go, as long as you have enough money to get there, you ll get to altitude.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we say that the turbulence is really what defines you.
1
SPEAKER_01
And then once you get to altitude, that s really what kind of gives you the satisfaction of being successful.
1
SPEAKER_01
And ultimately, that s kind of how that business ran.
1
SPEAKER_01
We were at the right time, at the right idea.
1
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And I was curious enough to understand what the competitors were doing, more importantly, to know why this was a good idea at that time.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I m fascinated.
1
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We ve become good friends.
1
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And I ve got a chance to partner with you.
1
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You ve given me that privilege, which I m very appreciative of.
1
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But the thing I m most fascinated by besides your ability to be such a tastemaker and brand creator is the level of humility you have.
1
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And I don t say that lightly.
1
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It s just really a beautiful thing.
1
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And yet you also have the drive.
1
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They don t always go together.
1
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And I m curious, you said, I want to have my own money.
1
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I m not taking a dime from my father.
1
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What gave you that inner drive?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think, to me, the important part was how I felt about myself.
1
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And also, instinctually, I wanted to prove to my dad.
1
SPEAKER_01
OK, got it.
1
SPEAKER_01
So to me, it was, coming at that time, there was such success around us as a family.
1
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I wanted to really kind of showcase that to him.
1
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And I was able to do that through many, many stages of his life and my life with him.
1
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I think that s really what it was.
1
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And I think, ultimately, once I got into the lifestyle business,
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, there was a lot of chips, you know, immigrants also have chips on their shoulder, you know?
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think, as you said, you know, when you are an immigrant coming to a country and you re not accepted,
1
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Either you accept that or you don t.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I think for, for me, it was, I really want to change that and I want to be the leader.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so there was a lot of, I think, core DNA in that, um, me growing up being around, you know, people that really enjoyed the ride, enjoyed the hustle, you know, the grind, if you will, of getting to six being entrepreneurial from that perspective.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you surrounded yourself with people like that also?
1
SPEAKER_01
I tried to surround myself again in hospitality, you know, we were in a hotel company, we were in a hotel family, restaurants, nightclub, zero.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was like, you know, full stop, especially in a new country and a new, you know, a new custom and a new culture.
1
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So I did, I did.
1
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And I, the other part that I think is very important is if you are the customer,
1
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for what you re aiming to do, then you can build something for yourself.
1
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In that time, I was 22, 23 years old.
1
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I was the customer of nightlife.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was the customer of lifestyle.
1
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I did build a hotel brand like SLS that didn t exist and I wanted to go.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so that s what makes it fun as well, right?
1
SPEAKER_01
When you are the customer.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think in all those respects, we went from one nightclub to LA to 45, 50 locations in LA, and we became the largest operator in LA s history since.
1
SPEAKER_00
When you were 28, I think is when you made your first
1
SPEAKER_00
built your first nightclub.
1
SPEAKER_00
Is that true?
1
SPEAKER_00
Hide what s what hide up and when you would in the West, West Hollywood, because no one was there.
1
SPEAKER_00
It was like, West Hollywood was just a bunch of places that stored stuff, right?
1
SPEAKER_00
There was certainly not the hip place to go.
1
SPEAKER_00
So when you did that, a why d you pick that?
1
SPEAKER_00
B?
1
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Did you?
1
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What made you certain you d be able to succeed in an environment that was not considered hip or cool?
1
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Did you have any concerns?
1
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And how d you get over?
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think the first place we did was exactly right, 27, 28.
1
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It was part of a bigger idea at the time.
1
SPEAKER_01
Entertainment and nightlife, to me, seemed like a big void that hotel companies didn t understand.
1
SPEAKER_01
Restaurants were also a big void that hotel companies didn t understand.
1
SPEAKER_01
So I had some exposure in hotels.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was an investor in a couple of hotels, like the Viceroy brand.
1
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It was one of the first brands we started, but as a limited partner.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I said to myself, if one company can actually build a hotel brand that s relevant,
1
SPEAKER_01
and restaurants and work with chefs that are about to break, not Nobu, but Katsuya, not John George, but this crazy guy in Washington, D.C.
1
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named Jose Andres, you know, that nobody had ever heard of.
1
SPEAKER_01
And so back to your point of surrounding yourself around great people that were very entrepreneurial that really also had the same drive.
1
SPEAKER_01
And nightlife to me was this.
1
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That was a special sauce.
1
SPEAKER_01
If I can bring energy
1
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to a hotel, to a residential project in the form of entertainment, whatever a nightclub or entertainment represent, that could be very interesting.
1
SPEAKER_01
So when we started SBE in 2002, when I was 26, 27, the first vertical that actually launched first was nightclubs because it was easy to do.
1
SPEAKER_01
And that location specifically was a tough location, gang shootings.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we kind of turned it around.
1
SPEAKER_00
Why did you go there?
1
SPEAKER_00
Because it was cheap?
1
SPEAKER_00
Or did you go there because you thought you could turn it around?
1
SPEAKER_01
I wouldn t go there, but we ended up buying the operator.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was a place that, so we bought it, we shut it down, and we renovated it.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we brought, luckily at that time, all the celebrities ended up showing up.
1
SPEAKER_01
So all the A-list celebrities wanted a place that was run by an owner, not by promoters and all these elements that nightclubs have.
1
SPEAKER_01
We never brought in investors.
1
SPEAKER_01
It was just me.
1
SPEAKER_01
and and we ended up leveraging that into kind of a connectivity to celebrities and then ultimately our guests and they trusted us and they knew that we re going to be safe and have a good time and it kind of
1
SPEAKER_00
So you re 29 now, and you make the decision to actually get in the hotel business.
1
SPEAKER_00
And you start out in Miami at the Ritz Plaza in Miami Beach, pretty big investment.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I think it was 2014, is that right?
1
SPEAKER_00
2014, exactly.
1
SPEAKER_01
Well, we bought the hotel in 2004.
1
SPEAKER_01
No, four, that s right, sorry, four.
1
SPEAKER_00
So you went through 2008, refurbishing that hotel, eventually turning it into SLS Hotel there in Miami.
1
SPEAKER_00
That was a huge investment, and you went through one of the worst economic times in our lifetimes.
1
SPEAKER_00
How did you make it through that time?
1
SPEAKER_00
How did you manage through it?
1
SPEAKER_00
It must have been intense.
1
SPEAKER_01
You know, 2008 was a real 9 and 10, pivotal years for me because either I was going to just, because I had a hotel in Beverly Hills that just opened, SLS Beverly Hills.
1
SPEAKER_01
I had bought the Sahara Casino with institutional partners, and we were running that with the intent of turning that to an SLS Las Vegas.
1
SPEAKER_01
And we had this project that was under construction in Miami Beach.
1
SPEAKER_01
And all CMBS loans, all with institutional partners.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it was one of those things that either defined you as an individual, or you just gave up and threw the keys at the bank.
1
SPEAKER_01
and called it a day.
1
SPEAKER_01
And there was a lot of soul searching.
1
SPEAKER_01
I was like, as you said, 29, 30, 31 in that period.
1
SPEAKER_01
And I roughly, I don t know, at that time, four or five, maybe 6,000 employees around the country.
1
SPEAKER_01
And it was, it was tough.
1
SPEAKER_01
But end of the day, we wielded through in the sense that it was
1
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There was no other option.
1
SPEAKER_01
We were going to get this done.
1
SPEAKER_01
We were going to find the guys to take out the old lenders, and we re going to find new private equity partners that were more expensive.
1
SPEAKER_01
But we re going to get the project done.
1
SPEAKER_01
Be fiduciaries to your partners.
1
SPEAKER_01
And all those projects did open.
1
SPEAKER_01
They were successful.
1
SPEAKER_01
And ultimately, we built a global business because of, I think, the reputational aspect of not just the brand, but how we dealt with our partners.
1
SPEAKER_00
Let s talk about your secret sauce.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re talking about nightlife.
1
SPEAKER_00
You re talking about lifestyle.
1
SPEAKER_00
I know you ve talked about how hospitality is really a business where your job is to make people feel good about themselves, good or bad, that that s a part of what it is.
1
SPEAKER_00
And I know you re famous for, man, from the time somebody goes through those velvet ropes, boom, they re greeted there.
1
SPEAKER_00
So tell us a little about your philosophy.
1
SPEAKER_00
What is your secret sauce?
1
SPEAKER_00
What has allowed you
1
SPEAKER_00
Besides, and a little bit about your all-in philosophy, which is, most people, by the way, have a hotel, and then they ll lease out, let s say, the top of that floor for entertainment, for the bar, that type of thing.
1
SPEAKER_00
You came in with a very different approach.
1
SPEAKER_00
So tell us a little bit about your secret sauce and what you came across and what became the basis of really SB and SLS.
1
SPEAKER_01
I think for that it was, we saw that the boutique hotel world in 2002-3 was, it was a very interesting lane in the hospitality space.
1
SPEAKER_01
So if you re Hilton or Marriott or Starwood or Hyatt, you wanted nothing to do with boutique hotels because it wasn t scalable.
1
SPEAKER_01
Hilton, you know, they had the luxury hotels like a Waldorf, they had the convention hotels, they had, you know, limited service.
1
SPEAKER_01
And when I came up with this idea of style, luxury and service, SLS, the idea was, you know, there s a big gap between that luxury customer and that convention customer that wants experiences.
1
SPEAKER_01
So the thing that really jumped out at me instinctually without, again, without any background was if you can provide all those services, you can create a very interesting mousetrap.
1
SPEAKER_01
that not only provides a great experience for your customer,
2
SPEAKER_01
So you re not staying at a hotel, and the restaurant is somebody else s.
2
SPEAKER_01
And they say, sorry, you can t have a table or a reservation.
2
SPEAKER_01
The bar, the rooftop, as you said, are campuses that need multiple F&B branding.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we committed to the restaurant world.
2
SPEAKER_01
We committed to the entertainment world.
2
SPEAKER_01
And more importantly, we committed to the idea of connectivity, which really differentiated us.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the good thing about these big, archaic institutions is they don t know what they don t know.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if you have a conviction that in this particular vertical that the consumer behavior is changing, demand drivers are changing, really the emotion of consumers to your product are changing,
2
SPEAKER_01
stick with it because ultimately those big institutions, once they realize they need it, they re going to pay a lot of money for it, which is what ended up happening to us in the hotel management company.
2
SPEAKER_02
When you design a hotel, restaurant, a club, what s the most important two or three things that you think about in the design and what do you make sure is part of the experience?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, as an operator, it s about flow.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you look at a floor plan, it s making sure that you have experiences for all your customers.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that s kind of one part that architects don t understand, designers don t necessarily understand, and institutions don t understand in the sense of kind of the big hotel companies.
2
SPEAKER_01
So that was a very interesting differentiation.
2
SPEAKER_01
Number two, not too dissimilar with what we re doing now in the food tech business, is creating as many experiences that you can.
2
SPEAKER_01
Right?
2
SPEAKER_01
So you can give people the opportunity of not just for the hotel guests, but for the communities to come and experience your property, which drives awareness, drives organic marketing, and drives revenue and sustainable revenue.
2
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we re in Miami now where it s a cyclical market, usually.
2
SPEAKER_01
And the community has to really embrace you for you to kind of have a very good year-round operation, not just when it s high season, so to speak.
2
SPEAKER_02
And the process that you started to see, what was the incongruency you saw in other hotels?
2
SPEAKER_02
They did one thing, and they left everything else entertainment-wise.
2
SPEAKER_02
How would you describe what you saw that became kind of the breakthrough, the aha moment for you?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I mean, hotel operators want to be hotel operators, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
And they don t want to be involved in food and beverage.
2
SPEAKER_01
They don t want to be involved in entertainment, nightlife, rooftop bars, mixology, beach clubs, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
Entertainment has a lot of categories.
2
SPEAKER_01
And to me, the aha moment was if we can build a company anchored by a great hotel brand and a differentiated hotel brand, which is what we thought luxury lifestyle was, and you do all those services, you can really be a differentiator to your competitors.
2
SPEAKER_01
It s exhausting, as you know better than anybody, my friend, to be relevant in all these businesses.
2
SPEAKER_01
But we ended up having 30 restaurant brands with great chefs, 25 or 30 nightlife entertainment brands.
2
SPEAKER_01
And a good example is SLS in the Bahamas, where we put 19 of our brands with a 300-room SLS, and that became very successful as well.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wow.
2
SPEAKER_02
Tell us a little bit about branding.
2
SPEAKER_02
You ve been genius at creating branding.
2
SPEAKER_02
You hadn t just bought brands, you created brands.
2
SPEAKER_02
How do you decide this person s going to be a brand that you re going to build?
2
SPEAKER_02
Let s say a great chef, for example.
2
SPEAKER_02
You ve really built some reputation.
2
SPEAKER_02
Now everybody knows them, but you found them in the early days.
2
SPEAKER_02
How did that come about?
2
SPEAKER_02
What kind of criteria did you look for if you know this is some star power here or could be built into star power?
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I mean, at first, I just got lucky in finding some great entrepreneurs who had a lot of ambition.
2
SPEAKER_01
Culinary people, generally, they re very focused on their craft.
2
SPEAKER_01
They re very focused on their reputation, how food gets disseminated, food quality.
2
SPEAKER_01
So finding a chef that you say, listen, him or her, we re going to take your idea and take it global.
2
SPEAKER_01
When you have no credibility, it s hard to get them to trust you.
2
SPEAKER_01
So from a culinary perspective, what we focused on was finding great partners, but then having a portfolio of cuisine categories.
2
SPEAKER_01
So brands like Katsuya, or the Bazaar, or Clio, or Morimoto, or you name it, we had every culinary category.
2
SPEAKER_01
So if we needed a steak concept, we had our Dario Cecchini concept, the most famous butcher in the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
If we had a Japanese concept.
2
SPEAKER_01
So by having the portfolio, then you become a complete solution in cuisines.
2
SPEAKER_01
you know, three meal, grab-and-go s, whatever it is, buffets, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
So then you can literally be, as I say, a complete solution to your operators, but also to the owners of these hotels.
2
SPEAKER_01
So the owners only have to deal with one operator, which is a very key distinction, but a very important distinction as you re competing with other brands like W Edition that have none of that.
2
SPEAKER_01
None of them do, you know, from that perspective.
2
SPEAKER_02
When you turned, what was it?
2
SPEAKER_02
It d be 41, it seems like, if my math s right.
2
SPEAKER_02
Is that really when you bought the Morgan Hotel Group, you added Delano, you added the Mandarin Oriental and so forth.
2
SPEAKER_02
And then a couple of years later, 45, you sold your business for $850 million.
2
SPEAKER_02
You kept your brands though.
2
SPEAKER_02
Tell us a little about that.
2
SPEAKER_02
It was December, 2019, if I remember if you re telling me correctly.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right before COVID, he sold all his hotels.
2
SPEAKER_02
for almost a billion dollars.
2
SPEAKER_02
So what, after building all this all around the world, what was the trigger for you to decide to find these cells?
2
SPEAKER_02
Because a lot of people never make that move, you certainly did.
2
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think, I mean, I was, as you said, 45.
2
SPEAKER_01
I had two kids and a beautiful wife who I really saw less and less of just because I was traveling about 280 days a year.
2
SPEAKER_01
I was on the road.
2
SPEAKER_01
We just opened a hotel in Qatar for the Emir.
2
SPEAKER_01
We just opened a hotel.
2
SPEAKER_01
in Dubai.
2
SPEAKER_01
We had just opened three hotels in London and Buenos Aires.
2
SPEAKER_01
Anyway, it was a global business, and I was exhausted.
2
SPEAKER_01
But more importantly, we found the right buyer.
2
SPEAKER_01
We found the right partner.
2
SPEAKER_01
We found somebody.
2
SPEAKER_01
Those same big chains I told you that didn t want nothing to do with it now needed this category, because the category had become so relevant.
2
SPEAKER_01
And we found the right partner to acquire this business from us and from me.
2
SPEAKER_01
And to be honest with you, you know,
2
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t as passionate about that because I wasn t the customer anymore.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t the single 25, 26, 27-year-old person.
2
SPEAKER_01
I wasn t the person who was going out late night or wanted to try all new places around the world.
2
SPEAKER_01
My life had changed.
2
SPEAKER_01
And it wasn t as fun.
2
SPEAKER_01
We opened the first SLS in 2008.
2
SPEAKER_01
2012 was the next one, and then 12, and then 15.
2
SPEAKER_01
So one a year, one every two years.
2
SPEAKER_01
Towards the last three years, we were opening nine or 10 hotels a year.
2
SPEAKER_01
So we were by far the biggest in the world in lifestyle.
2
SPEAKER_01
uh, which brings its downside, you know, which you, you lose that sense of connection and, and yeah, exactly.
2
SPEAKER_02
We re just doing deals and creating and doing the things that fill you up.
2
SPEAKER_02
Notice again, we talked about the other day about your own stage of life and how you evaluate your life and your business differently.
2
SPEAKER_02
Wanting to anticipate that.
2
SPEAKER_02
Right.
2
SPEAKER_02
Before we talk about C3, um, I d like to pick up a couple of questions from the audience here.
2
SPEAKER_02
How about right back here?
2
SPEAKER_02
Yes, sir.
2
SPEAKER_02
In the white.
2
SPEAKER_00
I m in the restaurant industry with us over a year ago and Oh, emotional.
2
SPEAKER_00
Just hold the mic.
2
SPEAKER_00
Over here?
2
SPEAKER_00
Awesome.
2
SPEAKER_00
Sounds better.
2
SPEAKER_00
Beautiful.
2
SPEAKER_00
So, I ve been looking to find other people that are in the industry.
2
SPEAKER_00
Because I m only one year, I m an infant of my business.
2
SPEAKER_00
And what I really have is the passion.
2
SPEAKER_00
The passion for the food and for the customer experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
I was born in Albania, raised in Greece.
2
SPEAKER_00
So Europe focuses on the experience.
2
SPEAKER_00
Everywhere you go, restaurants, nightclubs, hotels, you have the top-notch hospitality.
2
SPEAKER_00
So when I came here, I didn t see that.
2
SPEAKER_00
And that was the gap that I m like, that s what I m going to do.
2
SPEAKER_00
So how do you grow from one to 100, 200, or all the success that you had, and keeping the same passion?
2
SPEAKER_01
By the way, I was just in Albania last week with Eddie Rama in Tirana.
2
SPEAKER_01
My wife s Albanian, so.
2
SPEAKER_01
Some great Albanian operators and entrepreneurs.
2
SPEAKER_01
The question isn t necessarily how do you go from one to 100 and 200.
2
SPEAKER_01
I think the question is, how do you build a sustainable multiple, a brand that you can get a multiple around?
2
SPEAKER_01
A lot of my friends who are in the lifestyle restaurant business, they have a lot of restaurants.
2
SPEAKER_01
End of the day, they have to be able to sell it.
2
SPEAKER_01
There has to be a buyer, right?
2
SPEAKER_01
What we did in our restaurants, we took our restaurants, we tied them to a hotel management company, and we sold them for 32 times multiple.
2
SPEAKER_01
We dragged that revenue up.
3
SPEAKER_01
So to you, I would say right now it s about building one location, one brand and focus on that and be able to expand it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Not to do 10 different ideas, but really focus on one, find the KPIs, the profitability, all the things that go from one and then start building a team that you can start expanding it, whether it s regionally and
3
SPEAKER_01
It ll get there.
3
SPEAKER_01
Success will find you once you get the right model and the right formula.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because it s probably the most difficult business today more than ever because of labor laws, because of all the KPIs are very difficult to execute.
3
SPEAKER_01
So it s getting that right idea, and success will come.
3
SPEAKER_01
But do it in a manner knowing.
3
SPEAKER_01
5, 10, 15, 20 years from now, who s going to buy this thing?
3
SPEAKER_01
And that to me is as important as the time and energy you re going to spend over the next 10 or 15 years being as successful as you want to be.
3
SPEAKER_02
Are you thinking about that when you first started SBE?
3
SPEAKER_02
By the way, SBE tells people what it stands for.
3
SPEAKER_02
I didn t even know I m your buddy and I didn t know.
3
SPEAKER_01
It s just my nickname, Sammy Boy, and then entertainment.
3
SPEAKER_02
So when you first were creating that, were you already thinking that far?
3
SPEAKER_02
When did you start thinking five, 10 years in the future who might be the right purchaser partner?
3
SPEAKER_01
The idea is when we built all these restaurants and bars in LA, the idea was building them and then end up putting them in the SLS hotels.
3
SPEAKER_02
Okay.
3
SPEAKER_01
And which is what we ended up doing.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we had 41 hotels by 2019 around the world.
3
SPEAKER_01
We had another 55 signed that were opening.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we had within those 200 bars and restaurants, of which 90% of them were part of management or management fees that we were getting.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then, as you know, we built the same amount of residential towers.
3
SPEAKER_01
So we built 41 branded residential towers of SLS branded hotels or Mondrian or Delano.
3
SPEAKER_01
And we sold about four billion of branded residential, which meant we got a fee for it.
3
SPEAKER_01
But like when you go to Ritz-Carlton, you know, Four Seasons, we re by far the largest in life.
3
SPEAKER_01
The only ones really in lifestyle that s scaled that business.
3
SPEAKER_01
But to answer your question, that was
3
SPEAKER_01
I don t know if it was the idea when I started, but the idea of building these brands and injecting them into our hotels was definitely part of the original idea.
3
SPEAKER_01
And when you sold the business, you kept the brands.
3
SPEAKER_01
How important was that?
3
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think the F&B brands are the juice, you know, because it, you know, to me, why we still have, you know, almost 40 restaurants around the world and it keeps you relevant.
3
SPEAKER_01
It keeps the conversation going as far as your connectivity.
3
SPEAKER_01
And I think that to me is no matter what business now that we are, we have a couple of very interesting businesses that we ve been doing for the last four or five years.
3
SPEAKER_01
is it really gives you the ability of creating content.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because in our world, original content and executing that is the most important part of real estate all the way down to pretty much anything in the hospitality side.
3
SPEAKER_01
It differentiates you.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
One more question from the audience.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
Sam, thank you for being here.
3
SPEAKER_00
My name is Sam as well, Sam Mustafa.
3
SPEAKER_00
Very similar background.
3
SPEAKER_00
I own Charleston Hospitality Group.
3
SPEAKER_00
He s saying focus on one brand.
3
SPEAKER_00
It ll be too late for me.
3
SPEAKER_00
I have seven brands right now trying to scale and trying to figure out basically how to make a difference.
3
SPEAKER_00
Do I go backward and try to consolidate?
3
SPEAKER_00
Do I sell some of the brands to kind of be able to scale?
3
SPEAKER_00
I do have a hospitality, management hospitality, but it seemed like it s a lot harder now to try to... What s your most successful brand?
3
SPEAKER_00
Toast all day.
3
SPEAKER_00
So three meal all day breakfast.
3
SPEAKER_00
It s actually just one meal.
3
SPEAKER_00
It used to be three meals.
3
SPEAKER_00
Since COVID happened, we decided to do a seven to three model.
3
SPEAKER_00
And actually, it was more profitable.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I m sure you know about First Watch, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
First Watch is a- Oh, yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
I sell them every day.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
So to me, you think about it as what brand can you expand, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you license?
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you get it to food service?
3
SPEAKER_01
Can you bring it to hotels?
3
SPEAKER_01
because ultimately that gives you very fast scale because other people are investing in your brand to put into their locations.
3
SPEAKER_01
The breakfast piece, First Watch is a company that went, you know before it was just IHOP and Denny s.
3
SPEAKER_01
This company came named First Watch who basically said we re gonna take it up a notch, we re gonna make it cool, we re gonna go after all the suburbs and we re gonna go a place you can have breakfast, a full-service concept, but you can have the champagne, you can have brunch,
3
SPEAKER_01
We re only gonna operate from 7 to 3 correct 7 days a week.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, it s second shift.
3
SPEAKER_01
No, and they re doing about 3 million I m that shift 3 million a year and about 500,000 of EBITDA And the company went public we actually I know the CEO very well and the company went public I think it s worth a billion and a half dollars now, right and they re opening 400 locations a year so to me
3
SPEAKER_01
That s a great vertical to be in right now, because very few people can do that.
3
SPEAKER_00
Actually, I beat them at their game.
3
SPEAKER_00
My EBITDA 34%.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I was able to master it just in one location.
3
SPEAKER_00
Then I start duplicating.
3
SPEAKER_00
So I have now six corporate stores, seven under construction.
3
SPEAKER_00
But I felt like I was operating out of a very small town.
3
SPEAKER_00
The more exposure I got, the more attacks.
3
SPEAKER_00
So in my mind, it s like, OK, I need to,
3
SPEAKER_00
you know, build something outside the state.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it seemed like- This is in South Carolina?
3
SPEAKER_00
Charleston, South Carolina, yes.
3
SPEAKER_00
So, I mean, you start from LA, it s a big city, I guess a lot more, you know, people don t really care about who s doing what.
3
SPEAKER_00
There s a lot of money there.
3
SPEAKER_00
In a small town mentality, you know, it s- Don t say that, depends on who you talk to.
3
SPEAKER_00
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_01
The targets become bigger fast.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right, right.
3
SPEAKER_01
Listen,
3
SPEAKER_01
It seems like you have an amazing brand already.
3
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_01
And it seems like your KPIs are there.
3
SPEAKER_01
You re expanding it.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think you ve answered your question.
3
SPEAKER_01
The question is, how can you get it now into the visibility of some of the big operators that can license your brands and manage it?
3
SPEAKER_01
And more importantly, the hotel companies who need exactly that.
3
SPEAKER_01
I mean, we can talk offline.
3
SPEAKER_01
I tell you at this point, go get an advisor, meaning a banker.
3
SPEAKER_01
Right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Have them put your business and your pipeline into some sort of business plan.
3
SPEAKER_01
And then see if you can go out there and raise some good minority capital that can either be strategic or a really good way of which you can leverage your business value.
3
SPEAKER_01
Because that business, the way you ve described it, is worth a lot of money.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_00
I started franchising last year.
3
SPEAKER_00
We went through the FDD and trying to scale.
3
SPEAKER_00
Did you franchise?
3
SPEAKER_00
I wasn t really sure.
3
SPEAKER_01
We have now in our premium fast food business, we do franchise.
3
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
3
SPEAKER_00
OK.
3
SPEAKER_02
You have a motto, you talk about access to currency or access to capital.
3
SPEAKER_02
This team has had hard marks out to speak.
3
SPEAKER_02
During 2008, he was investing $400 million a week in the stock market when everybody was freaking.
3
SPEAKER_02
He s made so much money on distressed debt.
3
SPEAKER_02
I m just curious.
3
SPEAKER_02
I asked him at one time with a group here.
3
SPEAKER_02
I said, you deal with so many companies that go under and make all this money in distressed debt.
3
SPEAKER_02
What s the number one reason they go under?
3
SPEAKER_02
He said, under capitalization, they don t capitalize long enough, besides at the right price point.
3
SPEAKER_02
Tell me what you mean by that model for you, because it sounds like it would relate to him as well.
3
SPEAKER_01
But as I was saying earlier, getting a good idea and getting to the ultimate altitude, you re going to go through turbulence, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
Whether it s a recession, whether it s high interest rates, whatever it is, one bad location taking 90% of your energy as far as growth.
3
SPEAKER_01
So having capital that can withstand that is important, right?
3
SPEAKER_01
But more importantly, having capital that can allow you to take advantage and build your team,
3
SPEAKER_01
you know, build your development team, you know, make sure you don t make, you know, make any mistakes that are, you know, things that, you know, there s always curveballs.
3
SPEAKER_01
Make sure you have the bandwidth to have a couple of curveballs come, because in the restaurant business, curveballs will come, and it could be mealing out, you know, the stuff that s not fun, you know, the technical stuff.
3
SPEAKER_01
So I think access to capital and having a strategic partner, not just a capital partner, can take your business and hopefully be as big as First Watch, if not bigger.
3
SPEAKER_00
Thank you.
3
SPEAKER_00
It will be bigger.
3
SPEAKER_01
I know, no doubt about it.
3
SPEAKER_01
Give it up for him.
3
SPEAKER_02
One of the things, before we talk about C3, one more, to be able to scale and to have that many employees in a business that requires, all businesses require, but really requires giving people a great experience.
3
SPEAKER_02
What s the secret?
3
SPEAKER_02
Is it the right hiring, the right people in the right seats?
3
SPEAKER_02
Is it finding the right manager leaders?
3
SPEAKER_02
I mean, you had how many employees at your peak before you sold?
3
11,000.
3
SPEAKER_02
11,000.
3
SPEAKER_02
In nine countries.
3
SPEAKER_02
In nine countries.
3
SPEAKER_02
So tell us a little bit how you manage that at the level of quality you were able to do.
3
SPEAKER_02
Because because one thing you remember everyone, a low level customer, you can give them a dollar on a dollars worth of spending, you can give them, you know,
4
SPEAKER_00
$0.50 worth of value, they re okay.
4
SPEAKER_00
A high-end customer, you give them dollars worth of value for a dollar, they re gonna be pissed off.
4
SPEAKER_00
They want $3, they want $5 worth of value.
4
SPEAKER_00
So you have a customer that requires a whole different level of focus and attention.
4
SPEAKER_00
So how do you get employees to be unified and create a culture where you can sustain that?
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, you just said it right there.
4
SPEAKER_01
If you have a culture that people want to come work for,
4
SPEAKER_01
And that takes a lot of time.
4
SPEAKER_01
That takes, in many cases, years of dedication.
4
SPEAKER_01
Because word of mouth is the most powerful way in which amazing people come work for you.
4
SPEAKER_01
Like, I want to go work for that company.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re doing something cool.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re taking care of their employees.
4
SPEAKER_01
They re making their employees be part of the story.
4
SPEAKER_01
I always say, when you come work with us, I want your fingerprints on all of our brand.
4
SPEAKER_01
And like when you start at 26, it s a lot different.
4
SPEAKER_01
You can only attract, you know, your track record is, you know, a couple months, you know.
4
SPEAKER_01
And, but I think ultimately, because we started doing dynamic things, we were able to go into a market and say, SBE is coming here.
4
SPEAKER_01
And we were blessed.
4
SPEAKER_01
that people were tracking us in our business say, I want to go work with that company.
4
SPEAKER_01
Even if it s for a year or two years to get exposure into what they re doing and then make it, you know, we have so many of my former people that are entrepreneurs now.
4
SPEAKER_01
I m so proud of them.
4
SPEAKER_01
So the best validation for me is so many of my former team members are now CEOs of companies, running big hotel chains, running big restaurant companies, which are stories we celebrate.
4
SPEAKER_01
in our organization.
4
SPEAKER_01
But listen, when you ve made every mistake there is to make, like me, you can look with a very unique perspective.
4
SPEAKER_01
But I think, ultimately, to your question is, you re going to hire people.
4
SPEAKER_01
Hopefully, 6 out of 10 of them are going to be good.
4
SPEAKER_01
Let s just rule of thumb in this particular space.
4
SPEAKER_01
But if you can build upon, and the four people that aren t good, if you can understand they re not good, have a very clean and respectful break.
4
SPEAKER_01
And then now you hire another tenant, another tenant.
4
SPEAKER_01
The foundation of what you ve built through time should have a very strong foundation.
4
SPEAKER_01
And if you can t hire from within, and if you can t grow from within, that tells the story of your culture the best.
4
SPEAKER_01
And that s where I got into trouble a couple of times.
4
SPEAKER_01
expand from within.
4
SPEAKER_01
And those people weren t ready for the next chapter.
4
SPEAKER_01
But loyalty was there.
4
SPEAKER_01
And I told them I m going to do it.
4
SPEAKER_01
I did.
4
SPEAKER_01
And so even in those stories, there s some really good learnings as well.
4
SPEAKER_01
So it is 100% about, I think, building an organization like you have.
4
SPEAKER_01
built for the last 40 years that you have to work, you have to be at that particular organization.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have to be there, especially if you re somebody young, or if you re somebody who s, who really wants to come monetize the amazing skill sets they ve built around, around that industry.
4
SPEAKER_00
And when you get those six out of 10, which is often the high number for a lot of people, but if the people are coming to you because you built the brand, that s more likely.
4
SPEAKER_00
Those other four, how important, so everybody hears it, how important is to be able to make that transition and get them out soon?
4
SPEAKER_01
I mean, I think doing that as fast as possible and having your HR teams, having your leadership, you know, you have to be able to make that switch fast or else they become toxic, right?
4
SPEAKER_01
They become toxic to our culture and they become toxic to the energy and momentum of a company.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have to do it respectfully.
4
SPEAKER_01
You have to give them a chance.
4
SPEAKER_01
It s not, there isn t, you know, it depends which role they re in.
4
SPEAKER_01
If they re just not coming to work, that s easy.
4
SPEAKER_01
If they re trying but don t have the skill sets they represented, that s a little more difficult and challenging.
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If they re just good people and you like being around them, but they re just not executing their customer s satisfaction.
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So having KPIs and having it as measured as possible and having communications, because, you know,
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Good people wanna make an impact.
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I always say, if we were talking in front of a new hotel we re opening, I say, from the dishwasher to me, we have one thing in common, time.
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That s our denominator.
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Doesn t make a difference who you are.
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You don t wanna come to work and waste your time.
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I don t wanna come to work and waste our time.
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Let s make sure that this is an environment that we re respecting the one thing we all have in common, which is time away from our family, from our kids, from philanthropy, whatever else you wanna do.
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Let s make this the most impactful time
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Some people get it, some people want to get it, and they can t, and some people just can t.
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So turning that fast is very, very important.
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Because it can destroy your brand.
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Yeah, yeah.
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In fact, there s a study done by Stanford.
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Most of you know the Stanford study I told you about that was done on depression.
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They did one starting this last December.
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It s the last largest behavioral study they ve ever done, 750 people.
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And what they wanted to study was the impact of our work on people s level of engagement.
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Because engagement in a company is directly related to EBITDA.
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The highest engagement in companies, Salesforce, Apple, people of that nature, at least prior to COVID, had an absolutely direct relationship to EBITDA or profitability.
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And so what s interesting in three years of shutdowns,
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The people that are engaged, the number dropped the most in history in three years, being shut down people s fees.
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And there s three groups.
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There s engaged, there is disengaged, and disengaged or not engaged is that group of people that you heard people talk about quiet quitting, where they re just doing the minimum to get by.
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And then there s actively disengaged.
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They re actually in your business, but they re pissed.
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And they get pissed at you because they re best at their own life.
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Or maybe you did something.
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I don t know.
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But the bottom line is they re trying to harm your company and they re still in you.
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The biggest jump was dropped from engagement to massive increase in disengagement.
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So it took the biggest drop in history, took three years and in five days of the 750 people were at the six month mark.
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They normally measure people a month or a three month study.
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They re going to do a year long study.
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But we increased their engagement by more than 100 percent across the board.
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And it s grown every month since they went to the event.
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We ve never talked to them again.
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So the tools you ve learned here, you want to take home and make sure you create that kind of engagement.
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Engagement s everything.
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Let s talk about C3.
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This is very exciting.
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You saw an opportunity before COVID.
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Let s talk a little about it.
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It s the fastest growing global tech platform in the world.
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Tell us what C3, how it came about, and what s the intention?
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What s the vision?
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Well, I kind of in 2018, 2019 was, was being curious.
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And I saw brands like Shake Shack and Chipotle and sweet green and all these great premium product.
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Um, we call it premium QSR quick service restaurant, fast, casual type category and food.
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We were dealing only full service.
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And we had a brand that we had for many years called Umami Burger, which is a very famous burger brand.
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And we re deciding whether to sell it or not.
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Anyway, fast forward.
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What we saw was there wasn t one company that had a collection of 20, 30 unique brands that were chef-inspired, entrepreneur-inspired, celebrity-inspired, creator, YouTuber-inspired, that fit the full category of what we thought was the next change and revolution in food, which was a premium product.
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And the consumers were changing, the operators were changing, everybody was really changing to a much better product.
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So we decided to create this company in 2018, 2019, that was gonna focus on all the relationships that we had built.
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in the full service and then now doing it in a fast food portfolio.
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And that was kind of the first idea.
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And then COVID happened.
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So we were kind of at the right time.
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I saw the hotel company before COVID and we had a food tech company right before COVID too.
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So it kind of, you know, it exploded in a good way because then everybody needed our brands to be able to license them and deliver them during COVID, which was very interesting because consumer behavior was really what I was focused on in scale.
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I said, you know what, if Shake Shack today is worth $3 billion, and Danny Meyer, who s the founder of that company, was a legend, his restaurant business in New York is not worth $3 billion.
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He s talked to our group.
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So when you think about getting a good idea and get it to scale fast, but with right branding and right focus, that was the real idea.
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What we ended up figuring out during COVID is that we could then, through these brands, license them to airlines, license them to food service companies, license them to everybody who needs new bespoke product.
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But then we could license them to restaurant chains like TGI Fridays, IHOP, Denny s, Quiznos.
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and let them, through our brands, reinvent themselves to their core customer, not just for delivery, but helping them reshape their menus globally and giving them an instant amount of credibility where they can change their EBITDA multiple and also their franchisees multiple.
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And that s where the thing kind of really has taken off in the sense of being able to sit with companies and through our brands, be able to have them reposition themselves in a global community.
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And it s that, the ability to take on brands.
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So now you re not getting fast food, you re getting the most exquisite branded chef in the world, but it s been delivered to it.
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SPEAKER_01
And you built your own system for delivery as well, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, so we have our own marketplace, we have our own tech marketplace.
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So the idea was how do I...
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how do I deal with a chain that has a thousand stores?
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How can I license them something that they can make another million dollars a year in revenue by licensing my brand and not spend any money in the kitchen?
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More importantly, not spend any money on their tech, you know, their point of sale systems and things like that and make it almost a no brainer and help them really look at the future.
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Cause you know, casual dining is a tough category, right?
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We re talking millions and millions of,
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You know, casual dining chains that are just, you know, we call them, you don t want to be the next Blockbuster.
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You don t want to be the next Kodak.
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You have to embrace the digital transformation of your customer.
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And your customer doesn t necessarily want to come in the store.
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And if they do, they want something healthy, chef-inspired, unique.
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You can t culturally do that because your organization may be a little not as innovative as you hope.
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We can be that solution.
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And the business model, which I ve shared with you, is super exciting because if Burger King does $1.2 million a year in revenue, an average Burger King in the US,
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Burger King is a brand which doesn t own any restaurants.
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They just own their brand.
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They take about 4%.
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So you can do the math.
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It s roughly about $40,000 or $50,000 in licensing fees.
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Each Burger King pays back to RBI, which is a $42 billion public company here in Miami.
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We are now generating half a million dollars for, let s say, TGIF Fridays.
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We take 6%.
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Right?
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So for us, we re basically almost reinventing the Burger King model.
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And we re at 850 locations with that particular partner.
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And no investment needed.
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Wow.
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And to us, that s the digital revolution of food.
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And I think one of the things you guys had earlier today is that Abraham Lincoln, the future is what you make of it.
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Right?
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And I actually sent that to my branding team and said, if you want to be the future, you have to create.
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In this particular case, you see a white space
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You know that they need a digital disruption.
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They don t know how.
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People can t really figure out how to make money on going on DoorDash or Uber Eats because they got to pay a commission.
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And they re not really doing anything other than putting their menu up on a big marketing platform.
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Can you help them redefine themselves?
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And that s what C3 is at its core.
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There s a lot of other stuff we do, but that s really the core.
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20, 30,000 locations cooking your food, your brands, it becomes a very valuable business.
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Think about what we talked about on day one.
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What is it all about?
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Identifying the pattern, seeing the pattern, then being smart enough to use it, and then find a way to create something that fulfills it at a higher level.
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And think of the difference.
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He s getting 50% more than Burger King and didn t have to build the chain.
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He s going to all these chains that took forever to build and saying, oh, add a million dollars to TGIF, to every one of your restaurants here.
5
SPEAKER_01
And he s taken the downtime, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Because these are what they call ghost kitchens, the prep kitchens, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
Maybe explain that to people, because I don t think people understand.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yeah, well, what we first said is, OK, kitchens in general, a lot of our restaurant, they have underutilized capacity, right?
5
SPEAKER_00
If you re, let s say, a steak concept, you re generally 90% of your revenue is dinner, right?
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You may have a lunch business, breakfast, your clothes.
5
SPEAKER_00
But the infrastructure is there.
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Your kitchens are there.
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Your team is there.
5
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Your general manager.
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You re paying rent.
5
SPEAKER_00
So the first idea was how can we look at existing infrastructure and unlock the value of that real estate by giving you tools that then you can be able to monetize by using that through your supply chain, your vendors.
5
SPEAKER_00
So that was interesting.
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That was the first learning.
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The second one was, what if we licensed your brands, then you can start putting on your menus for customers to come back.
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You know, in-store sales.
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Bring in your customer, which means no delivery fee, no packaging.
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And I can bring a millennial customer
5
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now back into a chain that had probably never been.
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We have one of our big partners is IHOP.
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It s 1,600 locations.
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And 90% of their revenue is breakfast.
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And it s really over three days, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.
5
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And now IHOP 30, 20, 15 years ago was a disruptor.
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I mean, IHOP was the breakfast concept of the future.
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And they re a great company owned by Dine Brands, again, another public company.
5
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So we acquired a company who was in 1,100 of the locations.
5
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Wow.
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And they were generating, using the same menus, creating a Mexican brand for dinner.
5
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Because most of the IHOPs are open 24 hours.
5
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Wow.
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So it s not as sexy as doing an SLS in Dubai, but the impact, because you re really saving the casual dining industry.
5
SPEAKER_00
Yes.
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You re saving it because, end of the day, these big 5,000 square foot locations around the country and around the world were built by entrepreneurs
5
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that we re franchising this brand.
5
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If we don t give them the solution, how to make more money and bring new customers and be relevant, all the things that are part of business mastery at all levels, and even AI and all these other things that you guys are at the cutting edge of, is at its core, how do you bring people back out and into the restaurants?
5
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And how do you give them tools?
5
SPEAKER_00
It s like when Target 20 years ago did a partnership with a cool designer, and everyone was like, why the hell is Target doing a deal with this crazy designer, Isaac Mizrahi or Lenny Kravitz?
5
SPEAKER_00
And they realized, the designer realized, I may have to justify a little bit of brand equity by going to the masses.
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Target realized, I need to continue my relevancy.
5
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So it s kind of the same model from that perspective.
5
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It became the notch up above Walmart by doing that.
5
SPEAKER_00
Exactly.
5
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And now Walmart does it.
5
SPEAKER_00
So we have a partnership with Sofia Vergara, who was a great friend.
5
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And we re really going after non-Mexican Latin food.
5
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It s called Toma, and Sophie has a 50-50 partner with us.
5
SPEAKER_00
And we re going after the fastest growing demographic in the US, which is non-Mexican Latinos.
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They don t have croquetas and avena para.
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I mean, Miami, you got it.
5
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LA, you got it.
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But around the world, and Walmart is a big partner of hers.
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So we ve created a huge relationship through her with Walmart.
5
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And that s how we can disrupt that.
5
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So there s CBG.
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If you like branding and marketing, it s an endless business to be in, because you can really make an impact in many different ways.
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How many of you feel how this man thinks, the different intentions, thinks?
5
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It s amazing.
5
SPEAKER_01
Sam, you talked about in the beginning, you created what you wanted, right?
5
SPEAKER_01
So you wanted nightclubs and nightlife, and then lifestyle.
5
SPEAKER_01
Then you got older, and it didn t appeal to you at the same level.
5
SPEAKER_01
You and I met because of your concept of the estate and what you need and want for yourself today.
5
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People like you and I both want for ourselves, our lives, our families.
5
SPEAKER_01
Tell people about what you re creating with the estate.
5
SPEAKER_00
Sure.
5
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Um, so in 2018, 2019, I got, as I told you, and I think we shared with you guys, I wasn t as excited about that category.
5
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I wasn t the customer.
5
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The customer I was, uh, was really now looking for a more unique product, like a luxury hotel brand, some place I can take my family and my kids a little better service, better, you know, brands like four seasons and one and only and Rosewood and some of these brands that you guys I m sure are familiar with.
5
SPEAKER_00
So selling that business, I knew that I wanted to go this way.
5
SPEAKER_00
I wanted to go feed the masses and democratize food and bring the best chefs to people.
5
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At the same time, I wanted to kind of really leave my legacy for the next 20 or 30 years, which is around luxury.
5
SPEAKER_00
But it was also the one thing that somebody like me needed.
5
SPEAKER_00
I needed access to longevity.
5
SPEAKER_00
I needed access to technology.
5
SPEAKER_00
I needed a place that I could go and reset at the highest level.
5
SPEAKER_00
I needed a place that I know that I would be exposed to technology that I knew was there and I d hear from other people, but not a place.
5
SPEAKER_00
I needed a place that I could go that I could trust and say, you know what?
5
SPEAKER_00
This has been validated by the best people out there in hormone therapy, really the first inning of this evolution.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it kind of hit me in 2018, 2019, that that is going to be the core differentiation of this luxury platform.
5
SPEAKER_00
And it wasn t long after I read in one night, binge read life force by Tony Robbins.
5
SPEAKER_00
You read that in one night?
5
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I listened to it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I listened to it.
5
SPEAKER_00
I listened to it.
5
SPEAKER_01
I listened to it like five, six.
5
SPEAKER_01
You didn t sleep for 20 hours.
5
SPEAKER_00
No, but it was, it was one of those, you know, you guys know, like when you binge watch Netflix, when I binge watch, when I, when I hear a great book, in this case that resonated as a friend and also somebody was just like, so as you know, we, we called your team and then we, you and I spoke and said, you just built the most amazing playbook of what we re trying to do in the world of luxury.
5
SPEAKER_00
And, um, and so it accomplishes all of our missions, helping people more importantly, helping them,
6
SPEAKER_00
helping them in the sense of teaching them something that they didn t even know existed.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s one thing to say, OK, you got to lose weight.
6
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You got to do this.
6
SPEAKER_00
You got to do that.
6
SPEAKER_00
But now the world is evolving so fast.
6
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I m not going to take the thunder of you being the leader in sharing this.
6
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If you can bring the most influential people around the world who stay at certain types of hotels, get them to be adopters,
6
SPEAKER_00
in this format then they can disseminate and make that mission and impact to help people on all levels and that s that s kind of what the vision of the estate is there s residential we have now about 11 locations around the world being built
6
SPEAKER_00
And the team constantly gets stronger.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s just amazing having these discussions with people about helping them, giving them access, giving them credibility and having a brand that undeniably people know they can trust.
6
SPEAKER_00
And it s all about innovation of longevity and prevention and getting people healthy before they need to go.
6
SPEAKER_01
And if you really want to go get yourself healthy and most people will go to someplace in Switzerland or Europe, there s a variety of places you can go.
6
SPEAKER_01
But the actual amount of health support you get in that environment is like a spa.
6
SPEAKER_01
It really isn t anything dramatic.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the technology, as most of you know, has changed so radically and so quickly.
6
SPEAKER_01
So imagine a place that has this man s taste-making that is the greatest quality you can imagine, the greatest food you can imagine, the greatest environment you can imagine, that you can own a home or you go there to stay at the hotel, but this is a place that you go once a year or you go a couple times a year or you send your employees to.
6
SPEAKER_01
And if you saw it, when Sam came in and showed me his vision of this, because he knows every data point you can imagine, so I was blown away by the detail, but also just the pure beauty.
6
SPEAKER_01
You know, when you re at the stage of life when you have money, the next thing you want is quality of life, which is the length of life, duration, energy of vitality, strength.
6
SPEAKER_01
You want to be proud of your body.
6
SPEAKER_01
But where do you go?
6
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And most of it is so outdated.
6
SPEAKER_01
So I m super excited and so grateful to partner with you on this, because we re going to really revolutionize this for people.
6
SPEAKER_01
You are by yourself.
6
SPEAKER_01
I m just bringing the right people to you, but you ve got all the right people and all the employees.
6
SPEAKER_01
Plus, you have all these employees from all that you ve done in the past that you ve reactivated, haven t you?
6
SPEAKER_00
And the one thing you guys will appreciate, and I m sure is when this gentleman who sees what, I don t know how many deals a day, a week, a month, a year, and his team, more importantly, that are under him, who are seeing 5X that.
6
SPEAKER_00
But, you know, I remember the first time you and I spoke about this and the fact that not only you got it, which was obviously, you know, your vision of wellness and taking care of people, but then you decided to work with me.
6
SPEAKER_00
It was really, that s, there s a couple of moments in my life that were transformative, but the day he said, hey, Sam, I think we should do this together.
6
SPEAKER_00
That was one day that I still get goosebumps when I still think about it.
6
SPEAKER_00
But to do that, you have to be prepared.
6
SPEAKER_01
That s my privilege.
6
SPEAKER_01
Are you kidding me?
6
SPEAKER_01
It s my privilege.
6
SPEAKER_00
It really is.
6
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Humility and vision and his dedication to investing in people and technologies and just having all these amazing people come around him and feel his energy when he doesn t, you know, him and his lovely wife who are committed to taking it, making people feel better and making people feel optimistic.
6
SPEAKER_00
And I think we re all, we re all disciples of you, Tony.
6
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Now it s an obligation that we need to do it in our communities and lives.
6
SPEAKER_00
You have taught us, and now it s our obligation now to disseminate that globally, and that s what the estate is, really.
6
SPEAKER_00
It s taking your vision and taking it through a very unique platform around the world.
6
SPEAKER_01
Well, I think right now, some of you know about Fountain Life, where people go, but they don t get to stay.
6
SPEAKER_01
They have to leave their home, be there.
6
SPEAKER_01
And what s invaluable is we find about 14% of the people have a life-threatening situation they don t know about.
6
SPEAKER_01
I have, a gentleman just sent me a video the other day that I knew his wife, I didn t know him personally, and she dragged him down there and he didn t want to go, and he said, oh, I ve already had my blood test and everything else, and I found he had kidney cancer.
6
SPEAKER_01
But you catch it at stage one or two, it s very different than stage three or four.
6
SPEAKER_01
Stage three or four, they talk about 80% of the people die.
6
SPEAKER_01
I prefer 20% live, but that s how they talk about it.
6
SPEAKER_01
But it s 98 to 99.9% if you catch it at stage one or two.
6
SPEAKER_01
It was an outpatient process for him, it lasted 45 minutes and he s totally well.
6
SPEAKER_01
But the doctor showed him that he was probably two to four weeks away before it got into his lymph system and then he would have died.
6
SPEAKER_01
And you see this over and over again.
6
SPEAKER_01
Then there s another 55, 60% of people, guys like us, that push themselves like crazy, that need to rejuvenate, and they ve got something that could explode or transform their energy or their health or got them to lose weight.
6
SPEAKER_01
And the people just don t know about it.
6
SPEAKER_01
So the idea that I don t have to go away, that this becomes my home, my place that my employees go, my family can go and have your level of quality, your level of vision,
6
SPEAKER_01
It s really, really exciting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Really exciting.
6
SPEAKER_00
Those are the two things that we re spending most of our time on.
6
SPEAKER_00
Feeding the masses with quality and then obviously, you know, building a platform that we think is a multi-generational business with so many different verticals of just making people feel better.
6
SPEAKER_01
Yeah.
6
SPEAKER_01
Sam, you re incredible.
6
SPEAKER_01
Thank you.
6
SPEAKER_00
Thank you very much.
6
SPEAKER_01
Sam Nazarian.
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The Tony Robbins Podcast is inspired and directed by Tony Robbins and his teachings.
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It s produced by us, Team Tony.
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SPEAKER_02
Copyright Robbins Research International.