Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to how I built this early and add free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. With Canva, you don't need to be a designer to design compelling, on-brand content. In fact, our team uses Canva to create episode artwork, social media posts, and graphics for our website. Canva has endless templates for things like presentations, business documents, brainstorms, posters, and more.
And you can even create your own custom brand templates for your team to use. And with Canva Magic Resize, you can quickly resize your designs for any social platform. Canva is used by 85% of Fortune 500 companies. Whether you work at a small or big brand in a team of two or two thousand, Canva empowers teams everywhere to design compelling, on-brand visual content together. Start designing today at canva.com, the home for every brand.
Here's a little tip for your growing business. Get the new VentureX business car from Capital One, and start earning unlimited double miles on every purchase. That's one of the reasons Jennifer Garner has won for her business. That's right, Jennifer Garner is a business owner and the co-founder of Once Upon a Farm, providers of organic snacks and meals loved by little ones and their parents. With unlimited double miles, the more Once Upon a Farm spends, the more miles they earn.
Plus, the VentureX business card has no preset spending limit, so their purchasing power can adapt to meet their business needs. The card also gets their team access to over 1300 airport lounges. Just imagine where the VentureX business card from Capital One can take your business. Capital One. What's in your wallet? Terms and conditions apply. Find out more at CapitalOne.com slash VentureX business.
Whether you're shopping for a special someone or giving yourself the gift you really want, Misn and Main is the perfect gift for any guy who works, travels, plays golf, or just generally cares about looking and feeling great. And let's be honest, that's pretty much every guy, including this guy. I'm actually wearing a pair of Misn and Main right now in the studio, a pair of their joggers. I got them in the green. They are awesome.
I wear them all the time. They're super, super versatile and super comfortable. So rush right over to Misn and Main.com and check out their incredible collection. Use promo code built to get 25% off $130 or more at Misn and Main.com. That's promo code built at Misn and Main.com. Hey everyone, you know, every time I run into a high built this fan, the first thing they want to do is tell me about their favorite episode, which is so awesome.
So now I want to share your favorite episode with the millions of people who listen to this show. Episodes they might not have heard or might want to hear again. So here's what I want you to do. Grab your smartphone and record a short memo short like less than 30 seconds and tell us your name. Where do you live and which episode is your favorite and why you loved it? So for example, I might say, hey, it's Guy Ross here in San Francisco.
And my favorite episode of the show is the one about Hamdi, LaKaya and Chabani. Because I learned so much about how to just push through when nothing seems to be working out. And it gave me a whole new perspective on being resilient. So that's it. Something like that. You know, and by the way, that's not my favorite episode. I love them all equally. Anyway, once you're done with the recording, email or message it to us at hibt.id.wondery.com.
And we'll share your favorite right here in the ad breaks in future episodes. Thanks so much. You guys are the best. You know, everyone knows that guy or you've read about that guy that just he can't get out of his own way. And he just entrepreneurs till he dies and he never hits anything big. And you had that in your mind, you thought, am I going to be that guy? Yeah, I mean, there's times that, but you know, the responsibilities I've got for kids and a wife.
And I'm sitting there with one truck thinking, can I scale this? Yeah. But, you know, I was having a great time. My kids thought I was the greatest because I'm driving a nice green truck. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raazan on the show today.
How Tony Lamb went from a door to door vacuum salesman to founding Tony Eiss, a franchise empire of shaved ice trucks that now number more than 1500 across North America. If you've listened to this show long enough, you'll know that we've had some brands and products that started in places that didn't really seem to match. For example, famous Dave's barbecue. Dave Anderson started his barbecue empire in a remote part of Northern Wisconsin.
I mean, I don't know about you, but when I think smoke brisket or baby back ribs, I just don't think, hey, word Wisconsin. But somehow, it worked. Same with Ooni pizza ovens. This brand has transformed home pizza making. And yet, the ovens were invented by a man from Finland who now lives in Scotland. And let's be honest, when you think of a great Neapolitan pie, you imagine the warm son of Naples. Not mid afternoon darkness in Edinburgh.
Now, today's story is about a guy named Tony Lamb who lives in Kentucky. The home of Hawaiian shaved ice. Okay, I'm kidding. Hawaii, of course, is the home of Hawaiian shaved ice. That fluffy, snowy cup of ice, drowning in colorful, fruity syrup. Tony Lamb figured out how to turn it into a huge business, a business called Kona Ice. It now has more than 1,500 shaved ice trucks across the US, Canada, and Mexico. The brand generates over $400 million in annual revenue.
And it was started by a guy who, for much of his adult life, sold vacuum cleaners. Now, if there's one secret, one thing that every successful entrepreneur has in common, it's the ability to hear the word no and just keep plowing ahead. And that, in a nutshell, is what it takes to sell vacuum cleaners and Hawaiian style shaved ice in Kentucky. Tony Lamb was born in the late 1960s. He grew up in Parker's Burg, West Virginia, youngest of four kids. Tony actually shares a birthday with his dad Tom.
And growing up, he watched and learned a lot about entrepreneurship and sales from his dad, who also sold vacuum cleaners for a brand called Rainbow. In fact, Tony describes his dad as, quote, the greatest vacuum cleaner salesman to ever put on a pair of alligator shoes. My dad just got this bigger than life personality. And I had the weirdest perspective ever growing up, because my dad did very well selling vacuum cleaners. And he drove nice cars. We had a nice house.
And then I had buddies who their dads were doctors or lawyers. They didn't live as nice as we were living. And they're like, what is your dad do for a living? I was like, he sells vacuum cleaners. So my perspective was, you know, okay, on the hierarchy of life, you've got vacuum cleaner sales, and then doctors, and then lawyers and bankers. So I always aspired to be a vacuum cleaner salesman, because I thought that was the road to Mercedes and a quality of life.
Tell me about like he was going door to door selling them like to like these for industrial use, where they for home use, what kind of vacuum cleaners? No, it's the rainbow vacuum cleaner. So it's an in-home door to door. They use referrals more so than they go door to door. So if someone buys a rainbow, they'll send you to four of their friends so they can get a free shampooer. And he started out, you know, when I was little, I think he was a regional or a district salesperson or whatever.
So, but then as I got older, he promoted up to the company. And when I was in high school, he was the president of Rex Air, which is the company that produces them. And they're sold in 80 countries around the world. And it's still a thriving business. All right. So you're kind of growing up with just what kind of watching your dad do this and become quite successful in this business.
And I guess you also kind of had a knack for for selling because in high school, you did sales jobs, right? Like you worked, I think you worked at the gap at a certain point. I did. I'm always surprised with people no details of my life. Yes, I worked at the gap was my first W2 job. I detailed cars for a long time. And then I wanted to get a real job. And I took this job at the gap for $3.35 an hour, which was minimum wage at the time.
But the lesson that I pulled from the gap and I'll never forget this was I was at the gap and they said, hey, there are announces this big Christmas contest. And whoever sells the most. And I'm like, well, I'm going to kill everybody. And I come in and my schedule has been cut. And I'm scheduled for like 20 hours this week. And Charlie McKay is scheduled for, you know, 36 hours. I'm like, how am I supposed to beat him?
And so I'm asking the manager and she says, well, I'm trying to give make it even because you sell more. And I'm like, well, how is that fair? And I remember going home to my dad. I'm fussing around. And he said, Tony, listen, when you work for somebody, they're always going to tell you when to work how to work and basically establish your worth as a as a person.
And I'm like, wow, that's, you know, very, very sobering as a sophomore in high school, but, but it's stuck. And I thought, yeah, you're right. So eventually I just moved back into detailing cars. And I had a pretty good little car detailing business for the rest of my high school career. Tell me what, what was it about sales that, but that, you know, what was it about your personality that made you good at sales? Or is it just somebody who can talk to anybody?
I think that was it. I think ego is checked at the door when you're when you're in sales. I have no inhibitions. And I say that. And I don't say it boastfully. I say it almost apologetically. I know that that I'm not an extremely attractive gentleman. So, and but I when I was asking, you know, girls to go out, I was never offended when they would say no. And I would just go to the onto the next one, because it's a it's a numbers game. Just numbers game. Yeah. Just like that. You win or say.
So, okay. So, so when it's time for you to go to college, I guess you go to the University of Kentucky and you study marketing. And I guess I guess to earn some money during that time, you're also selling rainbow vacuum cleaners like your dad. Right. But what you're you're also thinking like after graduation that you'll interview for like an office job like a professional job working under fluorescent lights.
Yeah, I was a fairly good student at UK. I got the grades and the big job interview that came on campus was a pharmaceutical rep, a merc pharmaceuticals. And everyone in my little peer group was talking about it and they said, Lamb, you know, you should do this because you've got all the sales experience, you've got enough chemistry background.
So I go I you know, get a suit. I go to the interview. I sit down with the guy and man, I'm going to tell because I sold vacuum all the way through college and I was actually pretty good at it. So, I'm in there telling this pharmaceutical rep that you know, good salesperson that are done and we're having this conversation is going good. And he said, man, I'm really excited about this interview. And I said, I am too because you got any questions for me and I said, yeah, how much do I make?
And he said, I'll never forget this. He said $36,000 a year and a company car. And I said, what kind of car? What kind of car? Because my god, it better be a Ferrari because I make 36,000 in a summer selling vacuum cleaners. He goes, well, because you have to transport a lot of, you know, samples and things. It's usually a mini van. And I'm like, for the love of God, man, I look like this. I can't drive a mini van. I'll never get married.
Oh man. Alright. So I guess you walk out of that interview and decide to stick with selling vacuum cleaners after college. I mean, you're good at it and you were making good money. Tell me about what you would do. Like, like sell me a vacuum cleaner, right? I mean, let's say I'm in the market to buy one, right? And I'm looking at this brand and at that brand and then you come to my house.
Oh, God, nobody's looking to buy a vacuum cleaner. That's the whole thing. So you knock on the door. You've got an appointment because Mary Smith is bought a rainbow. So she gives four of her unwilling friends names. And so you call their friends and say, hey, Judy, I was one. I'm going to schedule a time to come in and show you and John of the rainbow. I'll be quick about it. I'll do it fast. You guys get a little three day two night vacation package.
Time share presentation. We didn't say that part, but get a little three day two night vacation. Pace for your hotel accommodations. So let's schedule a time. And she's like, my husband's never going to go for this. I know, but tell him I'm fun. It'll be a good time. I'm never going to pressure you guys. Get the credit and I'll be out of your hair. All right. Lord forbid the husband answers the door because he's pissed at me immediately.
And they all started announcing we are not buying. And I'm laughing having a good time. I come in and just and I just try to disarm them a little bit. But guys, there's so many nuances of selling and I'll give you some fun. Yeah, if at some point you can figure out whether the guy's got a hobby or not. So let's just say, and I'm always looking in the cars and the garage when I come in and say, man, you guys got a beautiful garage.
When you show me your garage and he'll take me out. If I see a set of ping golf clubs or a John deer riding lawnmower. And probably most wives don't realize that a set of ping golf clubs cost $1,500. Yeah. And but I will announce that at some point if I'm not getting a sale.
And the guy who just like sits back and smiles real big and I'm like, you know, John, if this was a set of golf clubs or that John deer riding lower, you and I could talk about this all night, but it's not. This is a product that's going to make Judy's job a lot easier in the house. And all we really need to know is if she wanted, would you help her get it? And I think she wants it. So the question comes down to what you help her get it. And of course you would. So what's your middle initial.
Wow. Because you just ask for their middle initial you pull out the sales receipt and you put your head down. And if you get T or S, you've got the sale. But you got to do your, you got to do the presentation right. You got to bring them all the way through the journey. Wow.
There was this there's an old zig-zagger and I and guy God help me if I don't quote zig-zagger a thousand times today. But my dad, I the joke was that I think he put zig-zagger tapes in my crib when growing up because I can talk like zig-zagger and I can recite most of stuff. But his, his great line was,
I mean, Tim and salesmen have skinny kids. And so I wasn't going to be timid. I was going to ask for the order. That's how I married my wife 31 years ago is I asked. I didn't assume. I just asked for the order. Wow. So one of the things that I that I've noticed in all the hundreds of interviews I've done the shows that when I talk to people who started out in sales, the thing that sales really helped them to learn was how to how to move past no.
For a lot of people, they hear no and that's it. That's the end of the road. But then if you can figure out how to hear no and understand that that's just the beginning of the road. Well, it's all in how you interpret no. And the way I was always taught of the way I believe is the answer is no based on the information that I have right now.
So the know is not going to change by you pressuring me the know only changes if you give me more information. So, okay, why would you not purchase the well, it's just too much you can buy a $200 vacuum cleaner at Walmart where I can buy a $1,500 vacuum cleaner from you. Well, let's break that down. Let me go ahead and do a 15 year cost study. So these vacuum cleaners that you buy from Walmart are going to break down every three or four years.
You got to buy bags. You're not getting the job done or you can spend $1,500. You've got a product that'll last 15 years. But most importantly, you're going to get the job done. So let's make it to the point where it's just an obvious yes. And you'd feel almost stupid saying no before you get there. All right. So meantime early in your career, you're you are selling vacuums and you understand me, you were a rep for the rainbow systems, but you had your own team.
It was sort of like a real estate agent that eventually when they become good, they build their own team around them. Is that how it works? Yeah, you basically you I was in Lexington after I graduated. I stayed there for a year and then I moved to Northern Kentucky and I started my own office and very magically. I mean, I don't want to take too much credit for it, but we built a one of the largest offices in the region within a year.
Wow. So yeah, I mean, I'm again, I'm 23, 24 years old. I'm making, you know, $10,000 a month. Yeah. And I ended up with six offices. This is by the time I was 25. I had 300 sales people. I was running a multi million dollar business at 25 selling vacuum cleaners and started door to door. I guess when I say it like this and I'm having this revelation, I'm like, hey, that's not too bad.
So, all right, so you grow this, this regional office to quite a big business. And I guess what around sort of the early 2000s, you decide to to lead to retire? I mean, was that was that what happened? It was, I, my dad had stepped down from the company. I thought he was treated very poorly. They rewrote the history of rainbow. And my dad, who I feel like was responsible for a massive part of this growth, all the programs we running, they were my dad's ideas.
And he got like two paragraphs in the history of wrecks air. And I was like, you know, I'm done. I'll go do something else. Little did I know how much money I was making in comparison to the real world. But I did. I got very discouraged. I didn't like the new management coming in. I got a couple of other opportunities and I just started slowly disassembling the organization. I would start selling the offices off to the managers. And it slowly just all went away.
It's interesting because the earlier you talked about how, you know, sort of checking your EW at the door is a really important quality in being a salesperson. I think it really is. And just in life, right, in general. But it sounds like in this case, it did kind of challenge your ego or your families. It doesn't sound like the same Tony Lamb that, you know, that didn't really care what people thought about him.
Listen, nothing will build an ego like, you know, success and that. And again, I will freely admit, you know, you get a little big for your bridges. I was very young. And I was winning all the contest. And I was, they fly you to Hawaii. You're going all these trips. And yeah, you get a little, you get a little bit too big for your bridges. And then, like I said, and I was like, you know what, I'm going to quit this business. And my wife said, are you sure?
Because we are, we are living pretty good. And we get these trips every six months that we go on that are fabulous. And so she wasn't a fan. But I just thought I had some other options out there that turned out not to be as wonderful as rainbow was. So at this point from what I understand, you start to do some, some consulting work like you, I guess there's a friend of yours that you're helping out this guy Ed, Ed Reynolds.
That's it. That's exactly right. And I guess he had, Ed had this struggling furniture company in Louisville. And what was it exactly to have just one furniture store? Was it several. It was, he had several, but the what we did in Louisville transpired into his whole, all of his furniture shops got it. Okay. And so we turned it around and fairly quickly. It got going pretty good. But then they were taking those. How did you do it?
He had finance people running a sales operation. And so you really needed sales people. And you needed some marketing. And I was, I'll tell you this real quick. I didn't have a marketing budget. So I would come up with these yard signs. Now remember, it's buy here, pay here furniture. So it's not. What does that mean? So it's not bank financing. So you come in and you want a couch and you put up, you know, $200 down and you pay them $50 a month to the couch is paid off.
And they can they charge you some interest. Oh yeah. Charge interest. And they make the profit on the on the couch. So yard signs. And I produced like a thousand yard signs. Buy here, pay here furniture, you know, no credit checks. But I started putting them all over Louisville, Kentucky. Like like signs of people when they're running for office, like those kinds of yard.
Exactly. 18 by 24 signs. I put them at every intersection. Business started going up. The city of Louisville calls the furniture store and said, we're getting ready to find you for all these signs. You can't put signs up.
And I'm like, we paid some high school kids to do it. I'm so sorry. We'll get them down. He goes, so a week later they call back because there's more signs now. Cause you know, and he goes, we're going to find you $1,000 a day. Well, we were making probably $5,000 a day. And I was like, I'll take to find.
I read that at a certain point you bought billboard trucks on eBay. I will give you credit guy. You have certainly done your research. I could not get billboard space in Louisville where I wanted it. And I'm on eBay. I'm looking, you know, trying to do maybe temporary billboard or signage or something. And I came across a billboard truck. And I thought, huh, and I bought a billboard truck. And I, and then it became its own business on the side.
You would rent the truck out or you would basically rent the billboard out on the truck and have somebody drive it around. Yeah, you go get a retired guy and say, hey, go get stuck in traffic. And it's brilliant. Slow down. You're going too fast.
I ended up with a bunch of those trucks. And that was, that's kind of a segue into cone of ice because the billboard truck business was turned into a really nice side. But my wife still loves the billboard truck business because it saved us. You know, those were leaner times in the, in the lamb family. Why were they leaner times? I mean, you sold your vacuum business to your managers. And it was a good business. So I have to assume that you did pretty well out of that.
Well, if they would have kept going, I would have done really well. But they know they slowly, they're going to pay me $100 over for the sales for the next five years. But you know, then they started shutting down because they didn't have the, all the skill sets to keep running it. So I got about, I probably a third of what I was expecting. And you know, all the other little things that happened in life. You're like, well, that didn't work out. Well, okay, that didn't work out.
Did you, I mean, the billboard truck idea is a great idea, right? Because it's, it is almost like not quite, but almost like a passive income business, which is, you know, as you say, you, you find some people who want to pay for the billboard. And by the way, how much would it cost to place an ad on a billboard on the truck per week or how did you price it?
Yeah, you want to charge because you've got to inherently you've got gasoline and labor. So you've got a couple hundred bucks a day in expenses. So you're going to need to get $500 to $700 a day, you know, for it to, to be profitable. So, so I started selling the each individual side of the truck. The truck holds, looks like a big T P or whatever and has two sides to it. So I started, what I would do is I went to the, all the casinos in Cincinnati.
And I, because they were the biggest media buyers at the time, what happens in casinos when they come to town, you know, after a while they stopped buying all the ads, the revenues go down and this thing kind of petered out, but then Kona had started up. I want to ask you about Kona just just a minute, but before that, I mean, were you looking for the next thing like that, like an anchor that would be that thing for you?
Yeah, I mean, what I hated about a rainbow was the lack of residuality. Truly, you have to sell another vacuum cleaner every single day. I had buddies that were in insurance and they worked their butts off for a couple of years, then coast for the next 20. And I'm like, you know, what's some of that? Yeah.
And so what was so fabulous about the ad truck was the $500, $600 a day, but it was you're at the mercy of the ad media buyer. You're at the mercy of, you know, how much can I generate up with, you know, multiple billboard trucks, but it was all on me, you know, how much can I sell?
But I was always in the back of my head looking for I want to be able to sell something and make a little bit of money on it for the rest of my life. Yeah, but you didn't know what that was. I did not know what that was. Yeah. All right. So the idea for what would become Kona ice really started a few years before you launched it. So let's first talk about the idea. I guess it's around 2004 and it's as simple as like a bad experience in an ice contract.
Yeah, the origin story and this is true. No embellishment. I moved into a subdivision. We're in the backyard with my kids. We hear the music and my kids all look at each other and take off running to the front yard. And I remember it varies varies distinctly. My wife and I kind of jog behind them here around the corner comes a 72 72 Chevy van blue smoke rolling out of the back of it.
And you know this funky music plan and and I was like, oh my gosh, it looks just like a child predator. It's just screaming. And this guy sticks his head out the window and he doesn't have a shirt on. He's got a beautiful array of fresh prison tattoos.
Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating that. But he was heavily tattooed. So they got their popsicles and I'm paying the guy and they're opening up their freezer burnt icing crusted popsicles and they are disappointed. However, I know for a fact if he the guy would have turned around and come back. They would have had the experience all over again. And so that became that is the true origin of Kona ice because I said, can you imagine if that truck would have been beautiful.
Can you imagine if the product would have been good and this is almost a two week conversation that I just kept obsessing over where I'm sitting there and I'm like, what about if that truck would have been all glass on the side and you could have looked in and it would have been a high school girl or a college girl driving it with you know with a uniform on and you can see what she was doing and the products would have been you know fair and reasonable and the experience would have been engaging would have happened.
And my my assumption would be as you started to research this you would quickly come to the conclusion that this was not a good business like ice cream consumption in the US for example has dropped considerably from like the eighties to today and the ice cream truck business you know depends on the price of gas and like the repairs and there's just so much evidence to show certainly a 2004 when you were looking that that business was in decline it was like getting a taxi medallion you know New York City like that was not the best.
That was not the business that you would naturally think oh yeah there's something you could do here with this right but let me tell you another story that kind of help that so when I sold off the rainbow business my personal secretary as her as her severance I bought out a video store in Cincinnati because they were dying but I we moved it to Warsaw Kentucky which is a small town but rural in country where they're still running video tapes at the time.
Yeah so I moved this video store down there and I we get it all set up she did a great job I was there one time and customer came in and she was trying to turn it over into food and where she was selling ice cream and different things like that was customer came in while I was there she sold a shaved ice to so she was doing shaved ice at her her video store basically yeah okay and she put some slavery on the guy walked out she made three bucks or four bucks or whatever the number was and she said I love that and I said why she goes because I made it's all brought up.
It's just ice it's just shaved frozen water yeah and she says even if I buy the best flavoring and that's out there the most expensive flavoring that's still wildly profitable you know you make a milkshake you sell for $3 you got a buck 50 in it you sell shaved ice for $3 I've got you know 20 cents in it and that's 10 cents for the cup basically pure profit.
Yeah it's pure and and again being a serial entrepreneur you only have to hear that that one time yeah you know being my ears my senses go up spidey senses start tinkling and I was like huh. When we come back in just a moment how Tony builds a tropical themed truck for selling shaved ice and then changes out of his salesman suit and into a Hawaiian shirt stay with us I'm Guy Raaz and you're listening to how I built this.
How I built this is supported by crucible moments new podcast about the pivotal decisions that shape the journeys of some of the most important startups hosted by Sequoia's rule off both a crucible moments provides a peak into the journey of companies like Airbnb PayPal 23 me and Nvidia and the decisions that change their businesses forever like how PayPal formed from a merger of two enemies who've been trying to destroy each other or how early days Airbnb rebuilt trust after a host house was ransacked.
These companies only matter today because of how they navigated these crucible moments I just listen to a recent episode with hub spot founders Brian halogen and darmesh Shah and how they turn hub spot into one of the most influential tech companies of our time it's super interesting tune into Sequoia's new podcast series to discover have some of the most transformational companies of the modern era were built crucible moments is out now and available everywhere you get your podcasts and crucible moments dot com go listen to crucible moments today.
If you want a business then square space is your one stop shop for engaging with your customers and building your brand with square space you can easily design a website that stands out from the competition and that's just scratching the surface with square space video studio you can create pro level videos afterlessly helping you tell your brand story reach new customers and drive sales.
Squarespace also allows you to easily display posts from your businesses social profiles on your website with just a few clicks you can automatically push website content your social media channels so your followers can share it too. And square space offers tons of analytics so you know what's driving web traffic and sales and can adjust your marketing strategy accordingly.
Check out square space dot com for free trial and when you're ready to launch use offer code built to save 10% of your first purchase of a website or domain. Hey welcome back to how I built this on gyros so it's around 2007 and Tony lamb is leaning into a new business idea based on two recent experiences the first a not so fun time buying ice cream for his kids for truck.
And the second watching someone make a very tidy profit from shaved ice and then a third thing happens the guy that Tony's been working with on the furniture stores at Reynolds he happens to buy a Mr. Softy truck.
I actually thought he bought it just to sit at his house so he could eat it but you know he ended up putting a guy in it driving him around or whatever and one time he said you know hey the ice cream truck is not making money what's your thoughts on it making money because I turned his furniture business around a little bit so you look at the ice cream truck and you're like well it's complicated it's expensive it's the product is too much you got to have a mechanic and a salesman.
It's got to get down to a one person operation your food cost or too high you've got way too much waste you feel the entire ice cream machines up if you can't sell it all you know what about shaved you know and we're just back and forth back and forth and this became a very big conversation between us. Yeah I'm working for my contracts are kind of coming to an end we're sitting at string town restaurant in Florence and he goes hey we've talked about this to where blue in the face.
What do you think and I said I think I'm going to go do it you would pursue this you would see if you could turn ice cream trucks into shaved ice trucks basically. Yeah and he goes you want to partner up and I'm like that I want to partner and he goes I'll back it and I was like you know I do want to partner. I don't want to spend the last of my family savings but yeah your money and by the way I guess as you mentioned the reason.
And could back you is that in addition to the furniture stores I guess this primary business was that he owned a finance company right I think you gave you like like half a million dollar line of credit to get things going yeah so you were going to pursue this and and as somebody who grew up with a Snoopy snow cone machine.
What was the difference between what you were going to do and like what we're called snow cones that you would get like County fairs it's all texture of ice this the snow cone I mean the way I picture it my upbringing was you get it from a truck or you get it and then you either have to let it. Melt or you just take the chance of just ruining the roof of your mouth and possibly busting some teeth because it was like a ball shape.
Yeah ice and with some syrup thrown on it right and you go at it like crazy then bite in the bite in the bottom of the cone off and letting all the syrup drain out into your. Taking me back to little league yeah yeah okay so so that's different first of all for people have had shaved ice either in Hawaii or wherever like these are specialized machines it's like it's almost like a vice right that you put a huge like round ice block in and then it's it
swirls around like it to get that really nice shave but yeah but I have to imagine you had to spend some time like learning about that whole thing and like what is it where do you get these machines how do you make it 100% if I would have had to rely on I think it's a swan that does the big block of vice that like you're saying a vice that forces it into an open razor blade that spins on a axis and and shaves it off it produces a very fluffy product I don't think I'm going to do that.
I don't think I would have pursued all the way through because the speed of services slow the danger that the skill that you have to have you can't just let an 18 year old go in there with a spinning razor blade I mean you're going to have to train this person to be able to do that and I didn't want that I don't want to have something so proprietary that we just can't duplicate it on large scale so I found an ice saving machine it produced very acceptable not so.
Not snow cone very acceptable shave dice on a very quick time frame you know in a couple seconds you have a cup full of pretty fluffy snow yeah so we're now talking about you know we're going back to 2006 where you really are jumping into this and you are starting to really figure out how to make this work as you were going to it wasn't going to launch until 2007 but at that time and even to some extent today unless you go to Hawaii
there probably huge parts of the United States where people aren't that familiar with shape would like shape dice they know it's not it's certainly in 2006 so what made you think that that was going to be a winner.
The fact that I've never seen a kid turn down a sugary treat I get a little grief for that to because I used to make a statement hey it's not hard sales or selling sugar to kids and you know now that's the worst thing you can possibly say you're an animal like everything in moderation lighten up you know but you really thought that it was just a matter of time like and I guess because the margins were better than selling popsicles or ice cream yeah.
Because you can handle the you're basically you've got your own manufacturing in your truck yeah yeah so. Alright so you start let's talk about kind of like breakdown how you started to think about this first of all you want to remake the experience so starting with the truck how did you start to think about that.
Well a lot of the ice cream trucks I saw you people are hunched over running back and forth in the van opening up freezers passing out stuff so you want to it want to be a comfortable experience for the operator yeah and I started getting the visualization of what I wanted pretty early on you look at ice cream truck
and rolls through your neighborhood you're like oh my gosh it just it looks terrible and it looks disgusting but your kids are screaming and you're trying to you know you lie to your kids you say well what it plays music you know that means it's out of ice cream and you know so you lie to your kids about stuff like that.
Let's get the presentation down to where you can't say no you know a truck drives through it looks like Disney World and your kids are losing their mind you can't say no to that I mean what can you say no to on that yeah.
All right so you have this line of equity to start you know half a million dollars you got to start with a truck so you know you bought these off the shelf billboard trucks where you're just going to buy like an off the shelf like used ice cream truck and repurpose it no I was I was going to go strict custom from the ground up I got so so you and where did where at that time could you source those from well I was sourcing my billboard trucks out of I was having them built up around L card Indiana.
Okay L card Indiana's this mecca in the United States for the RV industry they built all right that's right that's right yes and so there's so all kinds of fabricators up there I went up there I spent a couple days I went around and visited several fabricators and introduced myself told him my idea they probably I was probably the fifth person that day that walked in and had a screwy idea.
So I found a guy that I was really going to go with he was very professionals a big operation but then one guy was this very small operation but he was I really liked him and so I actually I called him to say hey I'm not going to go with you I'm always respectful when I get bids I'm hey I don't think I'm going to go with you and he said why not I said well you know better than I told him why and he said Tony neither one of us are going to make a lot of money if we only build a couple of these things he said but if we get in there and figure it out.
Because you're going to need somebody to to go through the ups and downs in the beginning but if we can figure this out because this is what I don't want to just build you a truck I want to get in business with you and you know I just love that attitude and his name's Tony Marquetti and you know doesn't have to sell me too hard you know his name's Tony my name's Tony my God talking to me.
And did you have a design scheme for what you wanted to look like at that point or not not yet I did I had a really close friend Tony guard another Tony another Tony wow and he's an industrial designer and then Tony was so talented he was also able to kind of help me you know map out the look of the outside of the truck I want a tropical truck I just don't want tropical colors I want a scene on the truck I want the escape is and when someone comes up to that truck for 10 minutes I want them to be a little bit more
tropical island so you wanted it like painted like because I mean I'm describing the truck today but you wanted it like to look like the ocean and sort of the sand on the ocean and almost like a painting on the side of the sky like you know bamboo hot basically selling shave ice yes and palm trees some little characters in the sun you know the sand for the kids to like and then tropical music playing
clips of music playing and just these ideas just kept coming and you're just but but all again comes back to you want this experience all right so you're working on this on the truck with Tony and Elkhart Indiana and I guess you also wanted it to have like a self service part like when you go to a fast food place you can fill up your soda yourself right which my kids unfortunately love too much right as much as I prevent them from drinking all that sort of but
you wanted away for I guess for kids to what to to flavor it themselves well if you start talking to kids about snow cones or even shaved ice and some you either you go to a hut or you buy a pre made product and there's the complaints are never enough not juice on or it's not exactly the flavor combination that I wanted blah blah these different things and so the idea was hey can you get the economics right to where you can turn it over to the customer to put as much
syrup on as they want but here's the moment that I had it so I'm talking to Ed and he's got two sons that are hilarious and there I think there were nine years old at the time and I said I said hey boys let me ask you a question I said a truck comes down the street it's a shaved ice truck snow cone truck or whatever and it pulls up and they hand you a cup of fresh unflaver snow and you get to go to the side and put as much flavoring on as you want what's your reaction to that and they both I mean you're giving me the keys to the
yeah magical syrup yes give me more of that that was a moment that I thought this has to happen so you got you work on the economics you figure out the flavoring on how you can dispense it in a way that it's not crippling financially where kids you know we're putting you know sticking their mouths under the spout and pulling them on so you got to design the flavor wave to where the kids head and eight year olds head won't fit in there.
This is the dispensers are called flavor wave and it's like ten or whatever I don't how many flavors but basically it's the idea was you could take your own you get the shaved ice in the cup and then you could just put the flavors on whatever you want to put on which is as you say I mean presumably
before you you had the prototype you had to ask yourself is this a good idea is this going to get a hand is this is this going to break I mean would it be better to just have like bottles like ketchup bottles of right of syrup I don't know oh yeah and the variations are legendary I the very first flavor wave would fold out from the truck okay so you picture this thing folding out from the truck and it's made out of aluminum so in
essence guy there was a two foot aluminum edged sickle as I like to say driving through neighborhoods what could possibly go wrong with that then the next generation we had a handle where you could close it from the inside but no one closed it so that then it would drain into the in all the flavors the excess flavors would drain and well you know variation variation variation until let's work on and and betting this end of the truck I
hate to say stuff like that because it then people realize how maybe unintelligent all right so the other thing I'm wondering about is you had some savings right but you weren't financially secure for life like you needed you still need to work yeah and this was a risk I mean you had some of your money in this and obviously you had an investor who believed in in this idea did you have any doubts at all going
into this that maybe this might not work or were you a hundred percent confident you know I guess you would say progressively I'm a hundred percent confident you know as the more meat you put on the bone the more you realize this has got some legs so the truck shows up you start working the truck the customer reaction was so good you're like okay there's something magical here we've got to figure
everything else out but at the core it's working I've got a winner here now just don't screw it up so this was this is June of 2007 and the first trucks are ready first truck period first truck and you were going to be the first driver of this truck I was the only guy I say employed but I wasn't
being paid so I was the only guy in the in the game so this is what you have to do is not to ignore I mean if you see the movie the founder like Ray Croc was in his 50s trying to sell ice cream machines right getting the doors on his face you had run a really successful business selling
vacuum cleaners you had 300 people working under you had a really very successful business here you are almost 40 making shaved ice and selling shit like I don't I was any part of you like I used to oversee 300 people and now I'm like and I scream man I'm not saying and I hope this doesn't
sound condescending I'm just trying to get into your head like oh no I listen my buddies her you know kids loved me but my buddies were harassing me and they were heckling you oh my gosh I pulled into one of this cul-de-sacs and as soon as I turned down and I thought oh for the love of
God Jim lives at the end of this cul-de-sac I go down to the end of the street and he comes out I'm like oh she many Christmas and he's like lamb what are you doing you know he comes out you know and he's just in a our mony suit and he's like lamb you used to drive a nice car and and
wear a nice suit what's what's happened brother is is the economy just and I'm like Jim this is a pretty I mean I'm wearing a Hawaiian shirt this is not the worst thing in the world you were in a in a tiki van with a painting of the ocean on it in a Hawaiian shirt which is awesome and it's
that you're living the life but you got to explain it a lot you got to tell him how good it is they don't see how good it is but this is a good story actually because why Jim and I are sitting there talking and probably 15 20 kids come up they're all buying cone is I'm serving them out and
you know collecting I probably made 50 60 bucks or whatever just sitting there for I don't know 10 minutes and he goes well you didn't do bad here I'm like you know we're laughing or whatever and I drive away and of course there was a little bruising on the ego at that moment but I
thought tech on it you know I just you know without you know that I'm sitting there with one truck thinking can I scale this yeah but you know the responsibilities I've got three four kids and a wife and you know you everyone knows that guy or you've read about that guy that just he can't get
out of his own way and he just entrepreneurs till he dies and he never hits anything big and you had that in your mind you thought am I going to be that guy yeah I mean there's times that but you know I don't know I was having a great time my kids thought I was the greatest because I'm driving
a nice green drive and so when you started to drive around your neighborhood you would just drive down streets and then as you would see kids run out of their homes you would just pull up on the sidewalk and stop yeah it's it's it's I took this fell out by name of David Jones and we were I
was training him to be a driver I think we had three or four trucks at the time and we pulled into this call to sack and I said David here's the trick we got to get those two kids right there off that porch drove around I said go real slow I said I said I we're not getting them I said I go
let's stop and go out and clean the flavor wave so we stopped the truck and we this is early on because not everyone knew the Conan truck so we I went out and so these kids come wondering down off their front porch and they're like hey what do you got there I said oh this is shaved ice
truck and that it they come in they and then people start because I'm stopped music is playing lights or flashing here comes some people and I've got a picture this somewhere in my phone because I remember getting back up on the hill and taking a little picture was about 60 people gathered
around the truck with lawn chairs I mean it looked like something out of Norman Rockwell they're skipping ropes they're drawing hopscotch on the ground with chalk and and David remembers this and I he said you remember the time you we got stopped in that call to sack and it turned into a
block party and I was like yeah I wonder when you I mean what did you have to make what did that truck have to sell per day for it to be worthwhile what was your goal in northern Kentucky we have a 210 day season I remember these numbers right well for inclement weather in blah blah you got
about 180 days to sell you can make a thousand dollars a day you make a hundred eighty thousand dollars you've got food costs and labor costs and operational costs that are you can make you can net well over a hundred thousand dollars even debt service meant to pay the truck off over a five
year period of time so I remember calling Ed and I said hey I've done the math and I think I can get the truck up to about a hundred and fifty thousand dollars a year and he's like no way and I'm like yeah I think I can he said well that's you how many by the way how many hours a day would you
have to work to hit thousand bucks a day you really start making your money after schools I mean this in the summer you make money all day long all the way till nighttime as soon as school starts up you really start making your money about three to three or three thirty right we were
primarily neighborhood sales that's what the business model was and I was trying to get a neighborhood's up to a thousand dollars a night I got a couple neighborhoods up to a thousand dollars a night through some techniques that we were doing techniques meaning what well you you know it's all about consistency and it's about knowing so I would I would go to crystal lake subdivision I would sign it all up in the morning so Conan ice is coming tonight you put signs up in the neighborhood
okay oh yeah yard signs and just like the same playbook from the furniture shop okay I don't have I don't have many aces up my sleeve brother I keep going back to the well to know it's a good playbook yeah okay keep going so so now as kids are going or leaving and parents are leaving they
see the big signs cone is coming tonight you make a little deal with the houses at the edge of the neighborhood hey if you keep the sign up you know I'll give your kids free cone when I stop by so the signs go up you do the same path you so you're basically at the same house with the same
street almost every once a week so I got this subdivision in northern Kentucky to an easy thousand dollars a night this is 2007 2008 yes you remember what happened in 2008 massive financial crisis yeah my neighborhood sales start dropping precipitously and during the the financial crisis you saw
sales drop even though some people still spend money on like small pleasures like ice cream they do and but you and so it doesn't take much to drop your sales in a neighborhood I mean you saw a lot of people not in homes you know yeah yeah yeah yeah right there's more for sales signs
especially at that socio economic level of of starter homes with a lot of kids and you know someone says do you do good in in country clubs I'm like no because the houses are too big too far away from the road and the kids are in the basement but yeah you get a you know little starter homes
or something where you know they're full of kids and the parents want them outside you know get outside you're driving us all crazy so that's where you do the best at but those kids there's not crazy amounts of disposable money floating around out there so yeah we we saw it tick down
yeah but we have this amazing margins in Kona so we we are responsible with the amazing margins because the margins I mean your costs were were frozen water and syrup and obviously the cups and gas but in general like your overhead was quite low oh yeah just crazy low and so how long did it
take you before you hit profitability I paid the equity line off this in 2008 so I had granted all the way up to about four yeah how did you pay off a half a million dollar equity line in less than a year well we we spent a lot of it buying the trucks and then we were able to sell
the trucks and of course we were oh you sold it to other people correct right so all right let me go to this let me let's talk about selling the trucks right because was that the idea that you would basically franchise this out to other people from the beginning I didn't know whether to franchise
or license or just sell the truck as a commodity and you know let people just do what they want yeah franchising is wonderful because it helps maintain the integrity of the brand it helps make sure that you can control the brand you can control the rather than just licensing it or let or just
selling the trucks yeah so so we decided to go down that road is expensive we spent some more money but you and Ed decided to do this and just to be clear it's expensive because of what legal fees and registration fees yeah that's exactly what it is it's writing the FDD is say $50,000 and then
all the registrations and all the states the attorneys that are involved and it's no easy task yeah so you decide to start small presumably in Kentucky to sell some of these trucks and how are you going to structure that um ridiculously um the model out there was you know Mr. Softy would sell a
truck for whatever let's say back in the day they would sell truck for $150,000 make a lot of money on their trucks but then the royalty was $3,000 a year and you had to buy all the cones in the cups and stuff from them and they they were marked up pretty substantially so that was
kind of the model to go after whatever it's an all cash business so what I really don't want to get involved in is percentages yeah sales I thought let's just keep this all on the up and up let's charge a very minimal royalty yeah and we'll sell the trucks as close to cost as we can so we
just get the trucks out there let's just build the brand and then just like Amazon at some point we'll look around and say hey do we have something that we can parlay on so to speak yeah so you start out with a couple of franchisees driving their own trucks this is in 2008 but it's also
the financial crisis so people still had to pay I think $15,000 for for the franchise which is nothing you know compared to other franchise opportunities and then and then royalty fees but they had to buy a truck and the truck was going to cost them you know 100 plus thousand dollars
given that we were in the middle of a financial crisis was it harder to attract franchisees well let me quote for his gum when the hurricane hit by LaBattre and he said all the shrimp and boats were all all busted up he said after that shrimp him was easy Ed Reynolds owned a
financial institution a finance company yeah and he was my partner and so I had financing wow so after that shrimp him was easy so I could find somebody that I would approve and I liked to be in business with and I'd say $15,000 down Eagle Finance will finance the the product for you
and again I'm back and everything so if the deal were to go bad I get the truck back then I'd have to resell it yeah but that was probably if there's if there's anything that just set us apart in the early days is the fact that we had financing and nobody else did when we come back in just a
moment how Tony grows cone eyes from a few trucks into 1500 and then lands on another idea which he thinks could be even bigger stay with us I'm Guy Roz and you're listening to how I built this raise the bar of your entertainment with Sonos Beam the compact smart sound bar for TV music and more
enjoy panoramic sound for shows movies and games when the TV is on and stream music podcasts and more when it's off precision engineered then fine tuned by Oscar and Grammy winning producers beam delivers crystal clear dialogue and powerful bass in fact I have one in my house and it is
absolutely amazing it's like a cliche but it sounds like you're there with the performers in the room when you listen through it setup is practically plug and play the Sonos app walks you through getting started step-by-step including syncing your TV remote connecting your music services and
adding a voice assistant I did it myself it took like nine or five minutes their speech enhancement mode which is perfect for when you're watching a movie and the characters are whispering or the action intensifies or there's night sound which can tone down loud effects when others at home are
trying to work or sleep visit sonos.com to learn more and find gifts for every listener on your list hey welcome back to how I built this I'm Guy Roz so it's around 2009 and with financial backing from his partner Ed Tony is able to move past the financial crisis and to start growing the business
by franchising so we started getting contacted a little bit of marketing put her out there on the franchise portals as they call him you know franchise.com and that hey this is available these franchises are available right and the leads would come in and people would call and we talk
through it and I've got so many funny stories from franchisees that are doing unbelievably now but they were some of the early adopters and I'll tell you this one real quick mark from down in Georgia called me he was out of work 2008 or 2009 he got laid off and he decided he was going to
get into Kona and he sent us the $20,000 and then planned to come up to pick up his truck and he tells the story and I didn't necessarily know the story word for word but he tells the story goes I sent our last $20,000 and my wife who's a schoolteacher is just pounding me that you have been
taken by a man on the internet slick talking vacuum cleaner sales on the internet and so he drives six hours from Atlanta to come up to Northern Kentucky pulls into my warehouse which was nothing to look at it was a little tiny house with a couple garage doors on it and I had some
trucks parked out front and he said and I pull into the prestigious world headquarters of Kona isome my wife looks over at me says I told you you got skinned so so he comes in he gets and he's nice as he can be and we are who we say we are and then mark in his wife
getting that truck and drive back to Georgia and and we talked almost every day and he was you know I did $300 a day I did $350 and then he does he did some festival or some event and he made a thousand dollars and so you know if you add those numbers up he's doing $300 a day he's working
seven days a week he makes $9,000 a month he's got expenses of about $3,000 probably back then it's profitable so he took off and Mark still in the business today he owns multiple franchises and his entire family is in the business but that that origin story of a person coming up saying
I got scammed yeah it's his my favorite and what was your criteria for accepting a franchise I mean I have to assume it initially in the first couple years it was like you know you need the business so maybe the criteria was a little different or not like who are you looking for
I was very discriminating in the early days I would stick a mirror under their nose and if it falled up and they're check cleared they had themselves a brand new paradise no I was looking for and I'm real proud of this I have talked to every single person that owns a Konofranchise they cannot get into the Konofranchise business to this day unless we have a conversation I'm looking for someone that has that you know I nothing turns me off more than than the ROI question
I was on a call I think this year and someone was I'm looking at his application the guys got tons of money and and I'm like what do you what do you want to get into Konofranchise well I you know sold a rental house I was going to put it in the market I think the markets on the way down I'm
looking for a good rate of return I thought I'd been invested in this I got some friends that I can get to run it I couldn't be out faster there's no interest whatsoever for me to be in business with that guy yeah when a husband and wife calls me or or whoever just they call and they say we love
our community we've lived here for 10 years our kids have grown up here we want to give back or our kids are involved something along those those kind of lines I'm looking for someone that I want to be in business with and you're going to understand a lot of my franchises are first-time
business owners so let's get quick books set up here's your chart of accounts let's get you an account let's form your entity you know these kind of things that we kind of hand hold all the way through Tony I want to talk to you about money for a moment because obviously this is
a business show and you know business is about creating something sustainable and you know money is doesn't necessarily have to be the end goal but it certainly is important there's nothing wrong with making it and your business model is interesting to say the least right because
you have the franchise fee is very low the initial fee the cost to buy the truck it's a turnkey truck you sell that and then it's about I think $3,000 a year per franchisee right correct so I guess per truck so for every truck they pay you three thousand a year and so I have to imagine
that a very small portion of your revenue actually comes from franchise fees right most of your money is coming from selling the trucks or selling the the supplies to the franchisees yeah not even much in supplies I mean at scale it is I mean yeah you sell 50 trucks everyone's paying you three
thousand dollars it's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars you got five people working in the office pay rolls about four fifty right you know you're like I can you know they say franchise systems have to get to a hundred franchises to be before they can float yeah and I'm at a hundred
and I'm not even close to float no but you know the the reality is this we make enough money on you know we've gotten at scale and manufacturing scale to where we can make more money when we do sell the product this year we sold 276 trucks basically so that's the lion's share of the revenues that
come into them but we're at the point now you're making you know I don't know five six seven million in royalty but it's it also it makes us a good steward of the resources and it makes us very lean but you add up the flavoring you add up the the truck sales you add up the royalty you add up the
cops you add up to this and and yeah we've got we've got enough revenue as long as you keep your expenses low and you don't even require the franchisees to report revenue at all so you don't know how much each one is making necessarily we can do the math if we want to you know you do the
cup sales and the flavor sales and you work it backwards and then you realize how stupid you are because you're charging on a royalty so yeah I mean I read that like just I'm just jumping head for sick like in 2023 the system wide sales will be like three hundred and seventy plus million dollars
correct that's not your revenue that's what these entrepreneurs these small business owners who are franchisees this is what they're selling in in shaved ice right and you're only getting a portion of that a small portion of that yeah one or two percent and so really I mean the business
model is in your view like it works because they're incentivized to work hard they're loyal to the brand and you guys are doing well enough yeah we're doing well enough but let me turn the tables on it I was talking to a executive at a big franchise system and you know they've got probably 20
franchisees that pretty much run the company you know whatever those people say goes because they're the ones generating a lion share the profits for the company and I don't have anybody doing that so if a franchisee gets out of line and I say out of line just against the code or I don't
need them right it's not like you know someone's going to threaten hey I'm going to get out of the business and I'm like all right go ahead so there is that double sign to that where I don't get to needy to a franchisee that's pumping in hundreds of thousands of dollars of revenue to the company
um Tony in in terms of like getting the word out right like you talked about early on you know you had the lawn sign approach which is so smart you know hey Kona truck is coming this week um I remember first seeing a Kona truck in uh up here in Sonoma County um in California just
driving around I thought oh that's cool that that looks interesting right so I imagine that you don't really need to spend that much money on advertising because the trucks are like your previous business they're like moving billboards it all comes together doesn't it yeah it's it's I've got 1800 billboard trucks driving around yeah and I always make this comment when a truck pulls up for the first time in a line of kids form on the side of that truck every kid in his mind says
man I want some of that and every adult that sees the truck and the line of kids says man why didn't I think of that yeah because they do the and I mean the testimonies from franchisees are like I saw a line of kids I did the math and here I am in a huge part of the business is school events
right essentially you go you pull up a school or a some kind of fundraiser and the franchise is going to make a lot of money but they can also donate a portion of the money and still walk away having made money yeah and it's it's and that's changed the industry tremendously and as far as
listen you're making a great margin let's figure out how to you know revenue share give back and be communal about it you guys had more than a thousand trucks and moved into a new office space in Florence Kentucky in 2019 things are looking great then COVID hits 2020 I mean you
are an events based business like that's most of your business is doing the school events or charities or fundraisers or parties whatever office parties that's over all of a sudden it was over in like three or four days listen I don't want to you know where people losing their lives but the
businesses were this is traumatic I think but we pivoted what what did you do I had a staff meeting I'll never forget that at us at a staff meeting I brought everybody in and said hey everybody's okay we got we got reserves you you're not going to lose your job you're not going to
lose a paycheck stop worrying our job here is to service and save the franchisees so let's get to work and we had a very multi-pronged approach I had some great people that just went after all the stimulus things that they could possibly get the PPP you know our franchisees were just not skilled
at being able to go through and we were we have a hotline and we had multiple people just we went after all the financial institutions that have loaned money to Kona franchisees they were all still looking to collect their payments and so we went after first stallments and deferments
but the probably the biggest thing that we did it was able to develop a program called Curbocycona and it was a is an ordering platform for mobile and it was it was very arcade but it worked for us so you could go online order it and then the truck would pull up and hand it to you
yeah and you know we we developed our flavor wave to it operated with the end of a spoon not your finger and we just went out at hard and the franchisees just came and bored and ideas were flowing I had guys working here I think sometimes 20 hours a day you know talking franchisees through
this fairly complicated software to to teach everybody how to do it um when you came out of that and now you are fully out of that and growing one of the things that you started to do really in the last two years really in earnest and maybe even more recently is a coffee business can you tell
me a little bit about that business is it's called traveling times is it totally separate business or is it part of Konaise totally separate same same concept though it basically a mobile truck that but does coffee and coffee drinks mobile coffee cafe so tell me where what's going on
what's the status of it right now it is flourishing um this started on March 18th 2020 I looked at my team at that from that staff meeting I told you where I said everybody's okay well you start having to reallocate people around but you started the business in March 2020 or the idea came
to you in March of 2020 now the idea has been with me for years I have behind my desk was just I don't know 20 renderings artist renderings of different coffee trucks cafe trucks and things like that wow so October of 2020 we wrote a prototype of a very elaborate coffee truck
that hit the streets and uh just a couple of them and they started doing really well we put them in a couple other franchisees hands uh the following year in 2021 I think we sold 20 we sold 30 more in 2022 and then this year we've already got 90 so wow they're only selling we're only
selling to Kona franchisees right now right now it's you have to be a Kona franchisee to buy at Tom's traveling yeah when you look at the economics do you see the coffee business eclipsing the shave ice business eventually yeah I don't think I would have said that a year
ago maybe not even six months ago but some of the some of the results that our coffee people are having are pretty spectacular it's amazing because there seems to be such a mass proliferation of good coffee like you can go to remote parts of the United States and find great coffee in Alaska
or you know right um well that's what makes everything so hard about that except for the fact that we're mobile and we'll go places where no one else will go and I don't have the same economics that truck doesn't have to do 1.6 million to service the debt and the 18 people that are working
behind the counter yeah it's just a different mass trap and right now you're only a few states no we're probably I think 13 states right now right and Tom is your dad I should mention Tom is my and he's the mascot too it's his head right is that's him he is he is the orange sunglasses
yeah and the orange glasses he it's been great Tony when you think about like you know this this journey that you took I mean you know from being a very good salesman to kind of leaving that behind and kind of just trying to figure it out and then going into shaved ice and now here you are in
coffee and and and in all of the things that have happened the growth of your business I mean you've got 1,500 trucks just in cone ice um $375 million in in system wide sales in 2023 that's a really great business that you started from you know an idea yeah thank you how much of of where you are today do you do you think has to do with just the hustle the grind and your you know your talent as a salesperson how much do you think has to do with luck I listen there's a lot of smart people a lot
of people that work hard you know so luck plays a huge role in it you know I don't know I think I'm a good student of life I pay attention I see where the problems are what's the solution to fix the problem I wish this for my kids I I admire this and other people is who's a good student of the game
yeah good student of life um yeah I'm glad I was there I'm glad my sleeves were rolled up I glad I was working my butt off but you know I've been so lucky to get around great people and then have a family that you know that has been involved in stuck with me and you know I've been married 31
years and you know you're a serial entrepreneur 31 year marriage is probably my greatest accomplishment because the ups and downs of that is remarkable that's Tony Lamb founder of cone ice by the way kind of like the vacuum cleaner business back in the day cone ice is very much a family
affair Tony's two older brothers work in the business as well as Tony's wife Susie and three of his children and Tony's dad Tom he's not only the mascot for the new coffee truck business he's also been working with Tony since the early days of cone ice he gave himself a special title
the founder of the founder hey thanks so much for listening to the show this week please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show and as always it's free this episode was produced by Casey Herman with music composed by Routine
Arableui he was edited by Niva Grant with research held from Catherine Cipher our audio engineers were co-taka sugi churnavan and Robert Rodriguez our production staff also includes JC Howard Carrie Thompson Alex Chung John Isabella Chris McEnny Sam Paulson Carla Estevez and Malia Aguadello
I'm Guy Ross and you've been listening to how I built this if you like how I built this you can listen early and add free right now by joining Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple podcasts prime members can listen add free on Amazon
music before you go tell us about yourself by filling out a short survey at Wondery.com slash survey New York Times bestselling author Shay Serrano and Emmy winner Jason Concepcion are back together again this time aiming their high powered microscope at the NBA in their new weekly
podcast six trophies Jason and Shay cover the biggest storylines in the league by handing out six pop culture theme trophies for six basketball related activities things like the Ryan Gosling in drive trophy which is given out to a player or team that did something incredibly cool that week
or the Lauren Hill you might win some but you just lost one trophy which is given out to a player or a team that tried something but it didn't work out that great for them or the Walter White tread lightly trophy which is given out to a player or team approaching dicey territory
kickback as Jason and Shay recap the top happenings from around the NBA through their lens of movies music and more follow six trophies on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts you can listen to six trophies add free right now on Wondery plus