Advice Line with Danny Meyer of Shake Shack

This episode is brought to you by JustWorks, one platform that handles the complicated stuff. Payroll, benefits, global hiring, and makes running a small business one million percent smoother. Stick around. I'll tell you more later in the show. Building a business means being 10 people at once. The strategist, the spreadsheet person, the one fixing the office sink. U.S. Bank made a card for exactly that kind of hustle. The creditor and issuer of this card is U.S. Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary business manager, Guy Raz. He's been working with us for a long time, and he's been working with us for a long time. He's been working with us for a long time. He's been a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call, and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. All right, let's get to it. This week, I'm joined by legendary restaurateur Danny Meyer, founder of the Union Square Hospitality Group. Danny, it's great to have you back on the show. Thank you, Guy. If any of you listening have ever eaten out in New York City, there's a chance that you know Danny's story. He is the man behind Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, The Modern, and he's the guy who took a single temporary hot dog stand in Madison Square Park and turned it into Shake Shack, which is now a global publicly traded burger empire. Danny, you were last on the show in June of 2020. And for those of you who haven't heard the story, we will put a link to it in the description. If you haven't heard the story, we will put a link to it in the description. It was actually a term I had never even heard of before. It gave me the chance to continue to come into work every day, but to spend more of my time on fewer of the things, but those things that uniquely lined up with my gifts. So really, it has to do with the culture of the company, the culinary product of the company, and then all of the creative outlets we have for new businesses. And that's what I spend my time on. Whereas before, I was the guy, you know, hopefully making the trains run on time. I'm just not doing that today. You have a new book out. Congrats. What could possibly go right? A big part of the book is about building an enduring culture and keeping teams aligned. Can you tell us a little bit about how you think about culture? I think culture at its most basic is a word to describe how we do things around here. And every company, whether it's intentional or not, every family, every fraternity, sorority, every. sports team, there's a way they do things around here. I think the biggest way to build culture is to have a common set of behaviors that everybody in the organization understands that they are responsible for really emanating. So for example, I actually traveled a long way. I used to think that what we really needed was family values. And we had those in place for about 15 years. And, you know, I wouldn't argue with any of them, but. They weren't specific to our culture. And the other problem with that guy was that it was disingenuous in retrospect to call them family values because a business is not a family. And I noticed that every time we held someone accountable to the point that there just wasn't going to be a place for them on our team going forward, people would go into deep grief because you don't fire a family member. And so the big transition I had was really evolving from. family values to expected behaviors is the shorthand where everybody knows exactly what you're talking about. They know exactly what you're expected of them. And this is the equation that I figured out is our culture is ultimately all of the wanted behaviors that we celebrate actively minus all of the unwanted behaviors that we tolerate. Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, Reed Hastings has long had a similar view, right? That a business is not a family. So I guess like at the end of the day, um, Danny, I. I just, I love that you're here because there's a lot of synergies, you know, because Mike and I come from the bartending scene. We really cared about what we put into that can. We don't use preservatives. We use real juice. We use local bourbon from Kentucky and bitters. Our conversion rate in store when we do tastings is crazy. It's like between 60 and 70%. People taste it, they buy it. And so it's great where we have a little bit of a hiccup, you know, when we're not in the store to be able to do the tastings and there's the sea of RTDs that you're looking at, you know, how do we get, you know, the person to feel excited about trying us with a package product like ours? How do we build that sense of hospitality into the company itself when we're not actually there? Okay. So you're in the ready to drink aisle and how do you build that sense of hospitality into the brand? Okay, Danny, I want to bring you in here. Meet Janelle, Ponyboy Slings. Great idea. But she's trying to figure out how to build that sense of hospitality into the brand. First of all, congratulations. It's exciting starting a new company. My question for you is who personifies your brand? So when somebody goes up and down the aisle, they've got a can and I'm sure that the can has really nice label or nice design to it. Is there any connection with any person? Some incipient brands bring on a celebrity. But you could do it yourselves. I mean, people love a good homemade story. I think that that's an interesting question because Mike and I definitely stepped into creating these, making something that we want to drink. And so we haven't, we don't specifically have a certain like celebrity or persona, except for, you know, when we think about our demographic, we do tend to reach the older millennials and Gen X. And it skews slightly more female when, when we do tastings, but it's so hard because we're still so new. And then Tennessee really brought us a bunch of info too. Janelle, have you guys had like pony boy parties or pop-ups or backyard event tastings? You've done those. Yes. So we, that is one thing that we love. I mean, that's the thing I miss about bartending is curating a space and where you get to sit at my bar and I get to drive the ship of how you feel. For the evening. So with pony boy, we do tons of pop-ups and events around Louisville, Mike DJs. We have a 1977 Chevy van. We, we park and do tastings out of, so we definitely try to curate a moment and a feeling and a vibe. I mean, our website, our Instagram, it's very retro seventies. When we launched, we decided to go opposite of traditional bourbon in a bottle. And we kind of based it on that studio. 54 feeling of like, once you're in the club, everybody's welcome. It's this big party. And so that's kind of the vibe that we took on. And when you do the events, which I thought Guy's question was right on the money, you're bringing your vibe to that. And you also create a sense amongst the drinkers that they are part of a community. You're not selling a product. You're selling the opportunity to belong to a community where people like us do things like this. The question is. How do you curate a group of people who say, I am now part of a community that does this thing? Exactly. And, and, you know, we do tons of stuff here in Louisville and we've got some repeat buys. I mean, our sales are pretty decent for what we've put in. We've, it's just been bootstrapped by us pretty much the whole time, but yeah, just trying to, as it scales to keep going with that feeling when, you know, we're not in the store or we're not there to do the pop-up and for people to, I don't know, just, you know, we're not there to do the pop-up and for people to still feel like they're being taken care of. I mean, that's the question here, right? When somebody encounters the product and neither you or your partner are there, what do you want that person to feel? And the answer to that question is what, what your brand strategy is. So one, one thing I was thinking of looking at your cans are cool. I like the seventies retro feel, but you know, I, I would think about the can is your bartender. Like that's the, you know, in lieu of a bartender say, Oh, you got to try this amazing thing. That's a. It's the, the can initially can sort of be that I think of liquid death. This is murder your thirst on the can. I mean, could you put something cool or unexpected, like under the tab when you pop it or even on the can that says like, come on, join the party or come on in or pop on the pony. Something like that. You know, you should, you could try to be playful with, cause the can, it looks nice, but it's very conventional. It tells the name of the drink and what's in it and you've got the cool logo, but maybe you can be playful. Danny used. That word playful when you know, hospitality is working. Maybe you try that on the can. There's a terrific example in the wine world. Have you heard of Ramona, the, the canned wine? I have actually. Yes. So it's a terrific product. It was launched by somebody, someone who used to work for us named Jordan Salcido. And she was very specific. She wanted to give women a product that they could drink while guys. Were chugging the beer. And she did it just a great launch where when you buy a can of Ramona, you feel like you are with Jordan. So I think that would be a really good case study to have a look at that one. Yeah. I'm looking at that site now. It looks really cool. That packaging's great. Also, Ollipop, you know, a new kind of soda. I mean, but, but you are going for a certain vibe and I think you can use the can as, as the introduction as your ambassador. So I would think about that. Yeah, I love that. I think that's fantastic. That's a great idea. Janelle Bass, the brand is called Ponyboy slings. Good luck. Thanks for calling in. Thank you so much for having me. Bye guys. Thank you. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice, I'm Guy Raz stick around. You're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. I'll see you next time. Just a few clicks because you don't have to worry when it just works. As I mentioned earlier, every founder I talked to does it all the big picture, dreaming the late night spreadsheets, the 6:00 AM coffee run. Nobody asked you to make and every dollar you spend on your business should work just as hard as you do. That's why I want to tell you about the us bank triple cash rewards visa business card. Right now you can earn an extra $790. $50 cash back. Plus you get 3% cash back on eligible purchases at gas and Evie charging stations, office supply stores, cell phone service providers and restaurants, the things you're already buying. And here's the kicker 0% intro APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 billing cycles. That's breathing room. When you need it most visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is us bank national association pursuant to a license from visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply, welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. And my guest today is Danny Meyer, founder of union square hospitality group and Danny. Let's take another call. You ready? Let's go. Hi there. Thank you for having me. My name is Jade Taylor and I am the co-founder of angel Oak smokehouse. We are a premium salmon smokehouse based in Charleston, South Carolina. And we hope to make it a household name in a category that we believe doesn't really have one right now. Thanks for calling in Jade. So angel Oak smokehouse, this is a, uh, you smoke salmon and sell it from a storefront online. Where, where is it sold? So right now we launched. 15 months ago and we are primarily in retail. Our first major retailer was Whole Foods. Uh, we launched there in March in the Southeast region. And how many, um, products do you sell right now? We have two, uh, we have our cold smoked salmon, uh, which, you know, traditionally would go on a bagel. And then we have our hot smoked salmon, which is smokier, more like, um, a piece of salmon you would cook at home. Yeah. Um, really flakes beautifully, um, and much more versatile in what you can do. Well, I had to, I, you know, you a chef background? Like, what's your background? How did you get into smoking salmon? I am not, no. So the story really starts over 40 years ago with my dad. He was salmon fishing in the north of England. He caught too many, took them home, and he put them in the family bathtub. And when my grandfather found them, he said, you got to get rid of them. So my dad smoked them and sold them in the village. He left school at 16 and then ended up building his career around smoking fish. I went to Duke University and studied mechanical engineering. So started my career as an aerospace engineer at Boeing on the 787 Dreamliner. First as a repair engineer and then as a design engineer. You could have called it flying fish at that point. Transition into smoking salmon. I love that. Smooth transition. And now you said you are in whole, how many whole foods are you in? We're in the southeast region right now. We just launched a couple months ago. It's 42 stores. We just got a PO this week from Harris Teeter for 20 of their stores. And then next month we'll be launching in all of Fresh Market's 170 stores. And you say we, it's you and? It's me and my husband. Okay. Before we dive in further, what's your question? So, Dani, like you, we care deeply about having a consistent, high quality experience every time for our customers. Should we continue to expand in retail and in food service, or should we continue to expand in retail and in food service? Or should we take that leap and go into the direct-to-consumer shipping from our website, knowing that one bad delivery could mean spoiled fish on someone's doorstep, instead of giving them that premium experience that we've worked so hard to build? All right. Dani, Jade is doing premium smoked salmon. They've got some great traction with whole foods and retail. Should they go DDC? Should they start to explore that, knowing that there's risks involved? Well, first of all, I'm excited to try your product because I grew up hating salmon, mostly because every time I had it, it was overcooked, smelly. Although, the first time I got to try smoked salmon, I loved it. And then the first time I got to try hot smoked salmon, I loved that too. So, you obviously have a product that is appealing to people. So, you have what we call a high-class problem. And now the question is, you know, you've got a good thing. You've got a great story. It's fantastic that you're, carry on with your family tradition. That actually makes the salmon taste even better, if you ask me. And you're clearly not concerned, or you don't seem to be concerned about whole foods getting a bad shipment. So, what's the trouble with selling it in other ways? Like, you are confident that they're going to handle the product the right way, the way you're packaging it. So, what is your concern? Is it shipping? Correct. It's letting go of that, control that once it leaves our facility, we're dependent on UPS or FedEx, getting it to that customer. Yeah. And then reliant on them getting it from their doorstep into the refrigerator. Now, have you heard of Goldbelly? I have heard of Goldbelly. Yep. Because that's a company that we like so much. We invested in it and they ship daily all kinds of products that I think are even more perishable than yours. They ship my daughter's ice cream and it was packaged. It was packaged. It was packaged. It was packaged. It was packaged. It was packed frozen. It arrives frozen. They ship Joe's Stone Crab. They have so many companies that have otherwise perishable products. And all they do is provide the logistics for you so that when it leaves you, it leaves exactly as you want it. You get to bundle onto their incredibly low shipping rates, which means that your customers are not paying some exorbitant higher fee for all costs when you get DTC stuff shipped, especially perishable. Yeah. I'm going to take a slightly contrarian view on this one, Danny, because Goldbelly is amazing. They do great stuff. And it may be a great option, you know, whether you decide to do it on your own or with them. But I would say down the road, right? Because right now you're in 42 Whole Foods. You're in 12 to 15 Harris Teeters. You're barely a year plus some change old. That's pretty good. That's great traction, right? And so I guess I would say, do you want to also get into DTC right now before you have solidified those retail outlets? The other thing is, if you want to do it, I would start very limited, limited, like geographic experiment and then really track everything. Like, are there repeat orders? You know, that's the most important because if a customer isn't you're sending, you have an expensive way of sending people salmon that they could go buy at Whole Foods. So I would really wait. And if you want to do it, start small in a small geographic region. That's my feeling. But Danny, you may think differently. Well, I think similarly and differently. So I'll try both sides of that coin. The similar thing is that I do agree that it's a good thing to really solidify what's working right now. It's also a really good idea to ask yourself, why do we want to do it? How much growth do you want? What are you hoping for? How much growth can you have? I have no idea about how solid your supply of salmon is. I have no idea what would happen if you'd triple that or quadruple that. I have no idea how big your capacity is for smoking. So, you know, the book that I just wrote is called What Could Possibly Go Right? And what happens if it does go really right? Are you going to be prepared for that? Is that something you really want? So that's the part of Guy's point of view that I agree with, which is it's not really about DTC versus in-store versus on-premise. It's really about what are your goals. But then the contrary point of view, I think it's worth dabbling a little bit with a platform like GoldBelly because you can do it just one day a week. My daughter's ice cream, it's called Cafe Panna. She doesn't have capacity or interest in selling more than one or two days a week on GoldBelly. But here's what she's learned. She knows that if you don't have it available in your local Whole Foods because you live in St. Louis or Cleveland or Idaho, wherever, you still have an opportunity. She's been able, without adding bricks and mortar and without adding any capacity to have a national audience. And she can actually tell you exactly where the most demand is while she has no interest in opening bricks and mortar in other cities. If ever she were to, she has built-in data on where there is actually demand beyond anything she could learn if she were just selling at her own place. So I like dipping your toe if in fact you're interested in growing. What about the dipping? I like dipping my toes being in more of a B2B model. So there are a lot of these gourmet shops and markets across the country that have been emailing us and would love our product. But again, we don't have large nationwide distribution yet. So they can't get it besides us shipping it to them. So maybe that's how we dip our toes. I think that's even smarter. Find one or two places that you would be proud to own yourself and create a scarcity where everybody else wants it. But only those one or two can get it. And now all of a sudden your brand has even more luster to go with it. Yeah, I agree. I mean, look, you've got a lot of leverage. You're in 42 Whole Foods, right? And the advantage there is you can also sample in those places and people can try it. But you've got some leverage here. If these other smaller grocers want it, I agree with Danny, the scarcity. And also you want to make sure there's a minimum order there. You don't want to be selling $40 worth of salmon. You want to be selling $250, $300 worth of salmon. Danny, any final words of advice? I think your idea is great. Try Goldbelly, maybe. And Danny, any final thoughts? Keep smoking. Keep smoking. No, it's exciting. It sounds like you guys are off to the races. Yeah. Jade, thanks so much for calling in. Angel Oak Smokehouse in South Carolina. Good luck. Thank you so much, both of you. Thank you. All right. We're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab. Welcome back to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with the legendary Danny Meyer, founder of Union Square Hospitality Group and the man behind Shake Shack and Grandma. really is just, it's like wheat, like tiny wheat, into tiny little grains that you cook like rice. And so this is different than that couscous that most of us know of? Yeah, great question. Yeah. Most people actually think that couscous is a grain similar to quinoa. So impressive that you know that it's a regular couscous is actually just semolina flour and water. So it's just pasta. Yeah. Our couscous is high in protein and high in fiber. We have 18 grams of protein, 11 grams of fiber per serving. And really importantly, we are only made with three simple natural ingredients. So it's just made out of chickpea flour, lentil flour, and pea flour. So all of that is naturally occurring. We don't use any xanthan gum or any. So no wheat at all? No wheat at all. It's actually, yeah, gluten free. And it's been a huge part of our demographic of buyers. That's amazing. How long have you been making this? Yeah. So we launched in December of last year. So just, you know, we're under a year old now. And say we, is it you and a team or just you and the, will we? It's me and my co-founder. He's my best friend and kind of adventure partner out in Colorado. Did you guys invent this? So yeah, I was born in Israel. That's where the name bar comes from and kind of grew up eating couscous and always loved how quick and easy it is to make and how versatile it is. You can cook it in about five minutes, which is way faster than rice and pasta. And then you can eat it hot or cold, whether that's on a salad or, you know, as a rice replacement hot and yeah, was looking for a better for you option and realized that there wasn't one, obviously like on the pasta aisle and there's bonsai and brahmi and Google's so many options. A lot of heavy protein pastas now, which are great. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So how did you invent this? How did you, you just started playing around with chickpea and lentil flour and pea flour? Yeah, it's a good question. Um, that could probably be its own separate podcast cause it took us a year and a half. Um, but the short version is we started in our kitchen and we tried to infuse protein into regular couscous failed. And then through a lot of trial and error, we, uh, finally landed on our current product and, um, the, the command that we're working with. Yeah, that's a really cool. And, and tell us how is the business doing so far? So the first half of this year, we were really focused on direct to consumer, um, and, and built a pretty thriving business there. We've shipped over 150,000 boxes. We have a $2 million run rate. Is this self-funded? Uh, yeah, all bootstrapped. How did you, how did you reach so many people? How did you have the money to do advertising and all those things? Yeah. So we're, we're first order profitable. So the money really went into the inventory, but because we're first order profitable, we're able to kind of keep investing into this marketing engine. And we are doing a small raise now as well to, to kind of help with, with a retail expansion. Um, we'll be launching into a couple of retailers before the end of the year. Uh, I love innovative ideas like this. All right, before we dive in for the, what's your question for us? Yeah. So we've had a good amount of success on direct to consumer. We're actually starting to have a lot of success in retail. The next logical step is going into food services and specifically fast, casual restaurants like Kava and sweet green that already have that kind of build your own bowl with rice and other grains. And we've had a lot of success in that. So we're starting to build our own bowl with rice and other grains. And we feel that boost goose could be a complimentary to those other grains, obviously adding more fiber and more protein. Um, anything that you guys could help with in terms of like bringing those ingredients in, what, what does that decision look like? How can we set ourself up for success there? All right, Danny, I want to bring you in here. Um, I mean, 18 grams of protein and 11 grams of fiber, uh, interesting new way of eating couscous, uh, thoughts, questions, ideas. Well, you're on the right track in terms of how everybody wants to eat these days. You know, when you start to see protein showing up in coffee drinks, right. And fiber showing up in soft drinks, you know, you're on the right track. And I think it's a great idea that you're doing this as far as getting into food service. I'm wondering if a good place to start might be instead of going for the big boys right off the bat, because they're going to need supply that you may or may not have already. They're going to need some quality assurance. Not that you wouldn't have the quality assurance, but their purchasing departments have so many boxes you have to check. I would start with a smaller business, maybe even a onesie or twosie that already has couscous on their menu, because then you don't have the added burden of trying to convince the big guys. You know, I don't think they should, or maybe they will someday, thanks to you. But I would start with someone who already has that on their menu, learn with them, get a couple good victories under your belt. That'll probably lead you to another threesie and foursie. And there's time. I mean, you'll definitely get there. If the product, if it works in places that already have couscous, then I think it's a good time to take it to someone where you've got to educate them, even if they're not going to be before you sell them. Yeah, I agree. I mean, Danny, you know, this makes me think of what, I mean, it's not a great analogy because Impossible Meat is, you know, it's not doing as well as it was at one point, but, you know, their sort of rollout plan was really interesting. They didn't just all of a sudden start selling it at Safeway. They started with, I think they sent it to like David Chang, you know, and other like high-end chefs and said, hey, here is Impossible Meat. Like, we want you to experiment with this. And that got the brand a lot of attention and buzz. And I agree that, you know, Cava, Sweetgreen, these kinds of places, they need to know that this works at, you know, at a food service level and it can be cooked quickly and it doesn't get mushy when it's sitting in these large containers and, you know, that people are going down the line. And so there are all these questions they're going to need to answer. And so experimenting small could be interesting. Sending it to chefs could be interesting. But I also think you've got a great thing going, right? You're going to get into stores. You said maybe you've got DTC working. I mean, you're just starting out and you're, you know, you're already hitting what close to $2 million in sales this year. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. And yeah, I think really good feedback on starting small. We certainly should. And we've had a couple of smaller restaurants reach out. So we should definitely test that out. And I really like the fact that we've done some of that and we've had chefs get really creative and even some creators on online, you know, make dolmas and make sushi with arbuscus and some of that has gone viral. So yeah, I think it could help both for the food service side and our DTC business. So really appreciate that. Yeah. And I also don't want to understate the part of this in addition to a kava or a sweetgreen trying to figure out if it works for them. I don't want to omit the fact that you have to figure out how to do it. I don't want to omit the fact that you have to figure out how it works for you. So as a very young business, scaling is not an automatic thing. You need more people on the team that that comes with cultural responsibilities. You need more equipment that you need more sourcing. There's just so much as you scale. And I bet you'll get there. I really I feel confident that you will get there. One of the really cool things besides hitting the protein and fiber moment, you're also hitting the Mediterranean moment. We've never had more interest in Mediterranean food. We've never had more interest in Mediterranean cooking in this country. And if you did your homework, there's probably six to 12 pretty well-known chefs around the country who already have couscous on their menu as an ingredient in one way, shape or form. And they can be really good proof points and advocates. I think that's a great strategy. Yeah. We did an episode on the show a couple of months ago about Catalina Crunch, really interesting brand. I think it's worth listening to, you know, and, and Danny, you know, this, a lot of these small upstart brands are, you know, they find a co-manufacturer that can make it and it's a good partnership. And I would also target fitness people, people who are just, you know, vegetarian or non-vegetarian people just trying to boost their protein intake for, for workouts. Yeah. The, the protein maxing crowd is definitely something that we have been targeting. You throw chicken in there, you've got 40 grams of protein. Exactly. Yeah. Parents have been loving it. For their kids as well. There's no choking hazard. It's high in iron. Yeah. And then, and then the GLP-1 crowd is also loving it because it's high in protein and high in fiber. So we've kind of found a lot of different niches and now trying to double and triple down on them. And Danny, we're actually hiring our first employee in the next month or so. And culture is definitely going to be a piece of that. So I actually just bought your book. So I'm really excited to read it. Thank you. Send him some booze couscous and then he'll send you a signed copy. I would love that. Yeah. It sounds like a fair trade. And we'll cut, we'll cut Guy a little commission in the process of both. Absolutely. All right. Uh, Barb Ruhis, the brand is called Booze Cous. Good luck, man. Thanks so much. Cool idea. I love when we get things that people have just invented, created, you know, like, or taken a product and just a completely different approach to it. I like these kinds of, of products. Yeah. It's, isn't it fun to walk around a corner and discover a flavor and, and an idea that you never would have thought of yourself? Totally. Danny, before I let you go, quick, question which we ask all of our guests, which is knowing what you know now after 40 plus years in this business, if you could go back to you when you were starting out, you know, when 27, 28 years old, starting your first restaurant, what advice could you go back and give the young Danny Meyer that might have been helpful for him? I think I would tell the young Danny Meyer not to get too upset when the graph goes down because it's always going to come back up again. It might even come back up even higher than the last time. I'll never forget 1987. So two years after I opened Union Square Cafe, I really thought it was the end because we had something called Black Friday. All of a sudden I said, well, that was a fun two-year career. Yeah. And then, you know, you go through something like that and then you go through 9-11 and Superstorm Sandy and the Great Recession and of course the worst one, the pandemic. And you realize that it's a fool's errand to bet that that down dip is not going to come back up. So the root of the word hospitality is hope. And I think we're actually in a business that can actually take pessimism and fear and we can be the antidote to that. So that's what I've learned. And it's like a winemaker. You don't wish a bad vintage on any winemaker, but next one will probably be better. That's Danny Meyer. He's the founder of Union Square Hospitality Group. And by the way, if you haven't heard Danny's original episode, we will definitely, put a link to it in the show notes, go back and check it out. It's a great story. And here's one of my favorite moments from that interview. Let's cut right to the chase. This is one of the greatest pieces of advice I got from my late grandfather, Irving Harris. He said, you know, stop complaining about problems. He said, problems is the definition of business. The people who do best in business aren't the ones with the least problems or the people who solve their problems better and have more fun doing it with better people. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gaiross.com or on Substack. And of course, if you are working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us a little bit about your business and the questions or issues that you're currently facing, because we would love to try and help you solve them. You can send us a voice memo at hibtid.wondery.com. Or call us at 1-800-433-1298. Leave a message there and make sure to tell us how to reach you and we'll put all of this information in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Chris Messini with music composed by Ramteen Arablui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Carla Esteves, JC Howard, Catherine Seifer, Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, Olson, Neva Grant, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. If you're running a small business and payroll benefits and hiring feel like a lot, you're not alone. And JustWorks is ready to help. Because you don't have to worry when it just works.