A future Hall of Fame quarterback that wants to buy Indiana, my partner and I, at the same time, we were like Peyton Manning, and he was like, no. And then we're like, oh, Drew Brees outsized. Return on an hour of my time. Yeah. Delivering something of high value. I was like, that's pretty fun. I think owning a business doesn't have to be as intimidating as we make it out to be.
Yeah. If you do it in community, what's the biggest misconception people have about franchising? From South Bend to Evansville and everywhere in between. This is Get IN, the show focused on the Hoosier State and the incredible stories happening here today. I'm Nate Spangle, founder of Get Indiana, and I will be your host for today's conversation.
getindiana.com is your one-stop shop for everything Indiana. From festival and event guides, to blog posts covering hidden gems, local businesses, small towns, and more. Check it out and learn something new about the Hoosier State@getindiana.com. And don't forget to subscribe to our weekly newsletter right there at the top.
My guest today is Alex Yeater. He's a business growth advisor with over 20 years in franchising, business ownership and mergers and acquisitions. After exiting his 32 unit Verizon organization, he began helping franchisees and local brands scale. He now leads development for Everbowl across 13 states as part of the EV Masters Group with Drew Brees.
He also co-founded Bowls & Business, one of Indiana's fastest growing entrepreneurial communities. We're gonna be talking about. He talked about going from a broke hillbilly to scaling to 32 Verizon stores. Talk about your new mission of giving back to local business owners and the power of investing into community and how that continues to pour back rewards into your life.
Alex, welcome to the show. Thank you. Excited and appreciate all you do man. And uh, this is gonna be fun. It is gonna be fun. Uh, I first met Alex going up to check out the Noblesville Everbowl, and that also happens to be connected to a content studio up there, right? And I came on your podcast and got to chit chat with you and, uh, talk a lot about me.
So it'll be fun to switch the tables a little bit and learn more about you. I will say this story does not start in Indiana, if I remember so correct. That's correct. It starts at our friends to the East. Correct. Unique timing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When we're recording this, uh, one of the teams just won the Big 10 championship and it was not Ohio, correct.
So. You grew up in Ohio, correct? Uh, north northwest Ohio. Yep. Uh, small town called Vanlue. Mm-hmm. Population 300. Graduated top 20. My class, uh, were there 20, 27. Hey, there you go. Yeah. Um, but yeah, small wa literally walked to school every day. The school was, you know, 200 yards away. Uh, same school, kindergarten through senior lunch, we would be eating lunch with the kindergartners all the way up.
So That's wild. Yeah. Okay. And then from there, did you go to college? I did, uh, ended up, well, I went to Wright State. For a little bit. Um, and then I ended up graduating from Bowling Green State University. Okay. Which, uh, when I was there is when Urban Meyer was the football coach and Dan Dakich was the basketball coach.
That's pretty crazy. And I actually used to, uh, because it's a state school, you could go to the basketball prac or the practices, but you had to sign in beforehand. So I went to a lot of basketball practices 'cause I coached basketball and Dakich would always send up one of his assistants to try to chase me outta there because they thought I was like a spy from another team.
No way. Trying to get information. Was entrepreneurship always the goal for you? No, um, it. Uh, marriage is what got me motivated. Um, I was a teacher, so I was a teacher and a basketball coach, and I was also because teachers and basketball coaches at the high school level don't make a ton of money. I was also working at Cracker Barrel waiting tables to make extra money.
Stop. Yeah. A four star, you know, I still have the apron busted out every once in a while. Okay. So you were a teacher Yeah. And a basketball coach, correct. In Ohio? Yes. Yes. And also working at which Cracker Barrel? Uh, in Findlay, Ohio. Wow. Yeah. Yep. So I did that, did that for a while, was getting married and my father-in-law was like, Hey, what are you gonna do for health insurance?
And it's like, just stuff you don't think about when you're a kid. Uh, and so I started looking for full-time jobs. Wait, the school didn't have No. 'cause I was like a, I was, it was my first year in teaching, so it was like I was sub teaching Yeah. And hopping around. Um. So I look for a job in the newspaper.
Um, I don't know if you know what that is. Oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the old version of what you do. Now. You, oh, I thought you were saying you worked, looked for a job at a, no, no, I'm just kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Help wanted, yeah, help wanted Alltel, which was a, a regional cell phone carrier, was hiring for 18,000 a year plus commission.
I honestly didn't even know what commission was. I was excited, took the job, had health benefits, and got started in the wireless industry through the, the wireless. We were selling the flip phones, and then when the first camera phone came out, we were selling the camera phone. Was Tel a carrier? Yeah. Okay.
So this small, be like competitor. Okay. A small regional carrier, like, uh, today it's like there's five of 'em or whatever. Correct. Like Verizon, T-Mobile, at and t. Whoever else. Yeah. Okay. So Alltel was a local, a regional cell phone carrier? Correct. And you're just selling, you're like in a store, just slinging phones?
Yeah. Okay. So like you walk into the Alltel store and you, you're ready for your upgrade. Like Yes. You get the new flip phone or whatever? Yes. Okay. Yeah. Uh, and were you like a, a sales associate there, so you're just like, Hey, people come in and you help them get their phones? Yep. Yep. How long did you do that for?
I did that at Alltel right at a year. And then, um, I was trying to get into management. A lot of my story is like, I'm just a, I was a dumb kid and inpatient, um, but it's ended up working out for me. Yeah. So I wasn't quite there a year. Their thing was you had to be there a year before you could get into management and I was like, well, I'm, you know, one of the top three salespeople in the northwest out of hundreds of people.
And, um, so I was, grew frustrated and left and went and got a job working for a Verizon dealer in Columbus, Ohio. Um, and, you know, helped two, three different companies grow from small to big in the Verizon space. So they would have 2, 3, 4 stores and then we'd help 'em grow to 50 stores. And you what? Yeah.
Yep. You said We like the royal weep. Yeah. Like it's you. Yeah. And what What was the secret to help them grow from two to four stores to 50? it was, a lot of it was culture. A lot of it was, you know, my family and I, we were willing to go relocate. So we relocated to Cincinnati, Ohio. Um, we relo relocated to Cleveland, Ohio to go plant markets and to start markets for them.
Um, so I would just take my knowledge that I had in the industry and I was really good at leading and growing teams. Um, so, you know, and I was good at relationship management with the, with the, with the corporate level people. Yeah. So Verizon is kind of like franchises, like a lot of wireless, a lot of in the early two.
Is it still that way today? Yes. Yeah. It's cons, it's, you know, it's consolidated to where, I think there's like four or five large companies, but the, the company that we ended up being with is actually a local, uh, company. They were Morehead Communications at the time. Now they're called Round Room. I mean, it's a, you know, probably pushing billion dollar valuation company locally.
No way. I way to get you connected with them to talk to, and they own Verizon stores? Yeah. Thousand plus. And then they own a whole bunch of their own, and then they have a franchise system under them. Okay. So. You were going and helping out these Verizon organizations grow from small to big. Right? The, the secret sauce was in people leadership.
Yeah. Like what were you instituting from a team perspective that was helping grow? Yeah, so I think another one of our secret sauces as well was we would go into markets that other people didn't want. So we would look at towns that had, let's say 10,000 people and then the closest Verizon store is 20 minutes away.
So we could go in town and be like the mini corporate store and kind of castle it off. Um, and then we were big on sales training and we, we used conversion data, meaning we had like a camera system that would monitor how many door swings we had. And we bought into that really early and would look at, you know, a, let's say an average conversion percentage in the industry was 15%.
Our team would be at 22 to 24%. So five people walk in. One of them's getting the phone. Yeah. And we, would teach methods to be better at that. Wow. And just simple stuff. Right. But yeah, we, we were really good at the sales training. How long were you helping other organizations grow? Uh, it was, it was like right at 10 years that I was an employee.
So you were an employee for 10 years? Correct. Yeah. So then you went from, you went from being like an inpatient kid to then, you know, doing anything for a decade is a long time. Right? Right. Yeah. And then, and then that's when my partner, Mitch and I, we were tired of doing it for other people. Um, he was in Chicago.
I was in Cleveland at the time. Yeah. And you were probably like what, early thirties? Yeah. Yeah. And we were, we were looking at, we were looking at what market to go to. Indy was just getting 4G. The Super Bowl was coming. So there was like a lot of hype around Indy and there wasn't a lot of stores. So we identified Indy as the market to come to, and our first store was at Kessler in Michigan.
Um, which I think has been, is closed down now. And then we opened one at Southport Kessler in Michigan. Yeah, there's a Walmart neighborhood market right there now. Yeah, it's right across the street. Yeah. From that there was a Starbucks. Yeah. Right next to Starbucks. You know, we grew from three to 32 and, and a lot of that was through acquisition.
Um, so I'm a big fan of, uh, don't start a business, buy a business, um, you know, so, which we did a little bit of both, but it was like 80% of our growth was buying the guys over. Did you start the first one or buy the first one? So the first one, um, we started and my partner started it while I was in Cleveland.
I didn't come out until the opportunity came for the third store, which was Newcastle, Indiana. Oh, home of Steve Alford, Henry County baby. Yeah. Why, why Indianapolis? Kessler in Michigan? Yeah. In like, you know, the heart of Marion County, right? To Southport, to Newcastle. Yeah. Just gaps in the market, places that needed it.
Um. N Kessler and then Southport, they, we b built those from the ground up. Newcastle was an acquisition, so we started to run into a lot of owners that were hitting retirement age, didn't know what they had to do, had like one store, had one store, two stores, and we would gobble 'em up and roll them together.
Yeah. And were you, what did it take to start a Verizon store in the 2010s? Um, as far as like capital and stuff like that? Yeah. It wasn't bad. A lot of it was in the inventory. You know, back then we were carrying 30 to $50,000 worth of inventory in the store. But I mean, you know, you're not, it's not like a restaurant where you have plumbing and stuff.
So I mean, probably sub $200,000. Wow. And so how did you, did you like just save up? Did you guys save up and invest your own personal money to start this with your partner? So the first, the first, um, the first two stores, Mitch, my partner, um. Did it with a little bit of his own money, borrowed some money from grandpa and then credit cards.
And then the third store, we did owner financing. So we bought the store for like a hundred thousand dollars, but we only gave him 10,000 upfront. And then we paid the rest out over four or five years. Yeah. And so, you know, I think a lot of times people are worried about getting, like they hear a business is worth a hundred, 200, $500,000 and they're like, well, I don't have.
Crazy. I don't have 500 grand. Right. Sitting around to buy a business. Yeah. Um, and are you seeing a lot of that, like people getting into, whether it be franchises or small local businesses with creative financing? Yeah, absolutely. I mean that's, we, we bought two different companies that had four to five stores at, um, where like different unique ways.
Maybe a little bit would come from a line of credit from the bank, but then we would spread the rest out over five years. Uh, paying the owner over time. A lot of times the owners, there's a tax advantage for them not to take that money all in the first year. They could spread it out over five years and, and, you know, depreciate assets or, you know, buy real estate to help offset that so there can be a benefit.
So a lot of times we would bring in their accountant, um, to help help them understand the benefits of that. Yeah. And so you grow to three stores. You get Kessler, you get Southport. You buy one out in Newcastle. Uh, and that how, what was the timeframe of those first three? Like how long from That was really, that was like within a year of me jumping in.
Yeah. That, so that was really quick. Okay. We opened one in Elwood. Um, like we're, we're going to all the, you know, the small town. Oh, I'm here for that small town breakdowns here. Yes, sir. Um, that's why I learned all these awesome restaurants. Like, like, and well, you, you had one in Elwood, you know. Yes. Like you Newcastle as well.
Yeah. Like you're out there. Oh, yeah. In, which is interesting because like Newcastle's not small. No, not at all. Like, it's way big enough to have a Verizon store. Yeah. Yeah. There was actually two. Oh, we were at four or five stores and then we had the opportunity to do our big purchase. That was our first purchase where we bought somebody that had six stores.
Okay. And we, we, so you got, you buy out six, so you. Two, that's 200% bigger than what you are. Yeah. You're three, you buy six, now you're at nine. Yeah. Why did the bigger brand wanna sell to you guys? So they were, they were not getting the return that they were wanting, or they were getting pressure from Verizon.
'cause we were, at that time, we were the young hustlers in the industry. And we said yes to a lot of what innovations and ideas that Verizon would co bring to the table. Like what? Like, Hey, we want you to, um, start selling more smartphones, right? Uh, we want you to sell internet devices. We want you to sell home phones.
And the the old dudes would, they would fight and push back on that. Right? They wanted to sell flip phone wireless. Yeah. Yeah. It's like they were not adapting to change. Okay. Right. And Verizon changes back then, they changed stuff every couple of years, so we viewed that as opportunity for ourselves. Yeah.
So, so then you end up buying a group of six. Yep. Where were those six located? So they were, were they all Yeah, they were all in Indy Fishers, Westfield. Okay. All yeah. Yeah, guys, I mean, those are pretty good markets. Yeah. Yeah. So we did that. We have those stores for now. Was that five years now? Was that a pretty large say?
Was that like a pretty large purchase? Um, yeah. It wasn't the largest one that we did, but yeah, it was a, it was a decent sized one. And you're like in your mid thirties. How are you. Learning. Yeah. Like this isn't the world of, like Cody Sanchez is on the internet teaching everyone how to buy businesses.
Right. So this is 20 14, 20 15. Yeah. Yeah. And a little, like, a little bit past that, but yeah, it was, you know, it would just come down to a lot of times, and I think the, the first one that we did in Indiana, the first large purchase we did, we used the bank, but then the bank was like, well, you gotta wait two or three years before we give you more money.
So that's when we started doing creative financing. Yeah. Did that start to get scary? Um, yes. When you start to put your personal assets on the line Yeah. For business credit, like, yeah. Yeah, I, I, um, in some like irrationally don't get worried about stuff. 'cause I'm like, yeah, if everything falls apart, I'll just start over and do something cool.
Um, my partner on the other hand, thankfully he's my partner because he's like the adult in the room that's like, Hey, we might wanna, you know, think about this a little bit. So, um, but yeah. And then that led into, that led into the acquisition opportunities where, um, I remember one time, you know, I was, we were trying to acquire this guy near Lima, Ohio.
He had four stores and, uh, we're going back and forth and, and I called him, I was like, Hey, hey Tony, really wanna get this deal done? But at this point the bank's not approving us. Um, so keep shopping it out and I'm gonna try to find alternative solutions to get this deal done. And he was like, just tell me what you could put down, Alex.
I really want you guys to buy the company from me. 'cause people knew that we were gonna honor what they built. Right. And we were not gonna come. 'cause a lot of times when, when other people buy a business, one of the fears for the. Current owner is, you're gonna come in and make changes. You're gonna come in and get rid of all my people.
You're gonna come in and, and say, oh, this guy did everything wrong. You're gonna do it my way. And we didn't do that. We, we honored what other people Bill. Like when we bought the guy in Lima, he was really big on Make-A-Wish. And we made a, a big donation to Make-A-Wish in Lima when we did that. So, um, was it, is it hard on a franchise to honor all of these different previous operators wishes?
Yes. While also bringing your own culture? The one thing that we were kind of non-negotiable on was that like, upper management, the district managers, they had to be our culture. They had to do things our way. Um, but our culture was people first. You know, you've, you've seen my, like the hoodie I wear all the time, or the sign I have in my studio, which is people over profits.
Yeah. Like, we really, really mean that. Um, and, you know, it's, it's a tough one. What does it, okay. I think a lot of people say that. Yeah. Like a lot of people say, oh, I care about people, right. I care about people. But like, do you have an example of a time where. Honoring people has, has hurt profits. I have an example of where, um, we did things the right way.
Yeah. And in the long, and in the short term, it turned out being a win. Yeah. Right. It's the biggest example that I think of when it comes to people over profits. And it was during COVID d uh, Verizon was deemed an essential business. Right. And, um, it was a, so you gotta imagine COVID is happening and all of our employees, we have a hundred plus employees and their friends are getting sent home, um, from their jobs.
And our, our kids, I say kids, but like the kids are like getting nervous, like, should we even be working? And it's a Friday night on GroupMe and it's like everybody's, you had a GroupMe with every employee. Oh yeah. We had a GroupMe and I was like the hype man of the company. Yeah, of course you were right?
Yeah. Yeah. And um, so we like, it's like a meltdown on our GroupMe and people are reaching out to me like, do you want us to shut this down? I was like, no. I was like. I don't know how they're supposed to be feeling right now. We've not, none of us have gone through that. So I took the weekend to think about it and pray about it, and I called my partner Mitch, and I was like, I've got a crazy idea.
We're going to send people home that want to go home and we're gonna pay them for two weeks. Um, but we're gonna do a leadership conference for two weeks. So we did a virtual leadership conference for two weeks. About 20% of our team stayed. We reduced our hours, paid them more commission to the people that stayed, everybody else that went home, they got their normally hourly wage full time.
So we invested a bunch of money to do that because we didn't know what was right or wrong. So we almost let them make their own personal decisions on what was right or wrong. So then I started reaching out to, um. It's funny how things have fast forwarded so much when it comes to like virtual conferences or virtual speaking and stuff, but these people that were traveling around speaking on stages, they had no stage to go onto.
So I reached out to a couple of, at that time, you know, big speakers and they virtually came on and spoke to my team. Like who? Uh, a guy named David Meltzer. Um, oh my gosh. Mark Schleck, I think is his name, which he has this book called Nice Bike, which you need to check out. It's absolutely amazing. Really?
Yeah. Nice bike. Nice bike. And it's all about the, like the Harley Davidson, right? Like the Har Harley Davidson culture. Like Harley Davidson's a brand that people get tattooed on their arms. Yes. Right. And um, he, he talks about nice biking everybody. So it's like when you, when you, you know, engage in a conversation, it's like, Hey, I like your hat.
What's the story with your hat? What's the story with your sweatshirt? That type of thing. So, oh, okay. So they came on, they gave us their time. Um, but at the like. At the two week mark, at the 30 day mark of COVID, that's when Verizon and the world started to open up a little bit and everybody was like, okay, get your stores back open.
Let's get back to business as usual. Well, a lot of our, our friends that owned stores, they had laid their people off, so they had to start over where we already had our army of people that we had taken care of during the tough times, and that helped us massively to grow the, the profitability of our company, which made us get peak value when we decided to sell our stores.
So, yeah, I mean, I feel like that's hard in the short term. Mm-hmm. 'cause it's like your bottom line definitely gets a little bit tricky there. Absolutely. And. Uh, a lot of, in a lot of companies had to make hard decisions there. Yeah. So, and I do think that's the time, right? You take care of your people.
Then when it comes at that point, did you have 32 stores? Uh, yeah, that's when we had the 32 stores. Yeah. What got you to the point where you were ready to sell it? A lot of bureaucratic, uh, political stuff in the Verizon world in a good way. I mean, they, you know, they're, so, you have the layer of Verizon, you also have the layer of Wireless Zone, which was the franchise that we were selling through.
Um, and just a lot of pressure and time that we had to commit to it, to do it the right way. And my boys were starting to enter an age where I wanted to be able to spend more time with them. Um, my partner was going through some health stuff, so I was concerned about the added stress of just the industry.
Um, we did decide, uh, towards the end of the summer of COVID that we were like, okay, we're gonna hang on to these things for three years, drive the value up, and then do a big exit. And it was like, after that conversation, we started to get emails saying, Hey, if you're ever thinking about selling, so people started to reach out to us.
And I was just like, there's, there's too many clues that this is probably the right time and we've got a premium price and ended up selling to like three or four different companies. So we kind of chopped 'em up, you know, three of the four organizations ended up being great and, you know, they, they took care of our people.
One of 'em did not. And it was heartbreaker. You're going through that and you're like, Hey, take care of my people. Yeah. And it's like, oh, I definitely will. How did you think about that or feel, or like what does that process feel like when you're going through the sale? That was, that was one of the hardest things personally that I've gone through.
Um, and, you know, transparently, I literally, God gave me a vision through a dream where I was sitting with my partner and we are celebrating. 'cause we had sold the stores. This is before we even knew that people wanted to buy the stores. And then Mitch leaves the room and then all of our key people start coming in one by one.
And I'm like, Hey, we sold the stores. And they're like, okay, well what does that mean for me? Like I woke up cold sweat because I mean, that was really, really hard, right? Because you know, people over profit. We're building this culture, we're building this family, and then it's like, Hey guys, we're breaking up the family type of situation.
So yeah, it was hard, I would say that I How did you, how did you communicate that to your people? Yeah, so we, we, we waited until we knew we had the deal done. Obviously it takes a while to get deals done at that size. Um, and then when we had, when we had confirmation, um, we just started at the top of the leadership chain and worked our way down.
And I was very, very much holding the line on like, this deal doesn't happen unless you're keeping everybody at the, like our top management team. Um, there was a couple of people that we took with us, like, 'cause we started a real estate business and um, you know, we jumped into Everbowl and stuff, so, yeah.
Um, so we started at the top down and then once, like all of our district managers and stuff knew, we did a team call. Um, with like different regions and started to let people know Yeah. And we would introduce the new owners and, you know, help with the transition as much as we could. Yeah. But it's, it's hard, dude.
It's really hard. When you, when you look back on that, what was the greatest lesson that you learned from starting, growing Yeah. And exiting your business. I would face the realization that, that, like, that's how business works. Right. And, and then also bring your team along in the journey that this could be happening at some point.
Right. I think it's unrealistic to think in the modern age that somebody's gonna have this business and keep it for 30 years. Like those are, there's a lot of great examples of people that do that. But you, you know, you're in business, um, you know, to, to make money, to grow, to grow people, to grow communities.
Uh, but when the opportunity's right, you should exit. Yeah. Right. And or so I think bringing people along for the journey. I mean, we really, you know. We ended up, we had the stores for 10 years. We had that company for 10 years. And it really wasn't until the last like two years that selling the stores became real.
Um, so I would've brought them along a little bit more. Um, and been been, you know, being transparent, I wasn't not transparent as far as like trying to hide. I just didn't know. I didn't properly know how to handle it. Yeah. So, so you spent 20 years in wireless. Yeah. And then you sell your stores, 32 of 'em, you kind of get like a clean slate of like, okay, now what do we wanna do?
What, what do you wake up the day after the transactions finalized? Right? Like, what do you do? Yeah, so we, you know, we, we had started plan B early, right? We started to dabble in a little bit of Airbnbs. We were buying Airbnbs in traditional vacation markets. I went on a mission trip to la, to the LA Dream Center, had my first acai bowl there.
And fire became obsessed, right? I was like, where can I get this back home? And really the only place at that time was Vitality Bowls and Carmel, which I think they've closed down. But, um, they were great products. So I would go there with my son a couple times a week to get an acai bowl and I started to hunt out franchises that that did, um, acai and I came across Everbowl.
I heard the founder Jeff Fenster on a podcast talking about it. I knew the podcast host. Um, this is why we do podcasting, right? Like it's a great, great way to get connected to it. Amen. Um, knew, knew the podcast host. He got me connected, started talking to Jeff, took my partner out to San Diego 'cause I knew he needed to taste it to really understand.
'cause he just thought it was like an ice cream replacement, not like you could eat it as a meal, breakfast, lunch, dinner, or dessert. So went out to meet Everbowl. Everbowl, knew that we were in Indiana. They knew that we were interested in buying more than just one or two stores. In the conversation with the founder, he said.
I, well, I actually asked him like, Hey, what are some territories that you kinda have in your back pocket that you think would be great? And he, he mentioned Nashville. So we, we actually bought the rights to the entire state of Tennessee and we wanted to buy all of Indiana. And he was like, I, I want to talk you out of that.
And we were like, why? And, and he said, I have a, a future Hall of Fame quarterback that wants to buy Indiana and Louisiana. And our minds went to Peyton Manning. Yeah. And we literally, my partner and I, at the same time, we were like, Peyton Manning. And he was like, no. And then we're like, oh, Drew Brees. And, um, because Drew Brees got introduced to Everbowl because he was in San Diego, um, started to visit the stores, got connected to the owners.
So we kind of were entering the Everbowl universe at the same time. And, you know, obviously if you had the opportunity to bring Drew Brees on over, you know, Alex and Mitch, it makes a lot more sense. So, um, so we kind of backed off of the idea of doing a bunch of stores in Indiana, but we still got the rights to do our Noblesville store, the Hamilton Town Center store.
And in that process, got to meet, um, a guy named Ben Smith, who's partners with Drew. Went to college together. They came in as freshmen together. Ben came in as a quarterback, saw Drew at one practice, was like, I better switch positions, or I'm not gonna be sticking around here. Um, great guys. Um, and the, their third, their third buddy Jason, um, uh, came in as a freshman as well, but I pitched them on the idea of like, Hey guys, let's do this together.
Right there, there's, in franchising, there's master franchises, there's area reps who buy territories, and then they sell the franchises, they support the franchises. And that's what we did. We, we initially started with buying six states and then we grew it up to 13 states. But it was So how does that work?
Like Yeah. For people that aren't experts in franchising. Mm-hmm. Like where did Everbowl Start. Yeah. So Everbowl started, as you know, Jeff Fenster was obsessed with acai. Yeah. And, uh, was in ca in San Diego. Out in San Diego. And he saw like, I think it was a smoothie King closing down. And he like went up to the guys that were moving stuff out and was like, do you know the landlord?
And got it connected with landlord and he opened up his own restaurant and he opened up an Everbowl there. And then he grew that to 20, 25 stores started to get, uh, investors involved. And the investors were really pushing him towards franchising. 'cause franchising allows brands to scale rapidly.
Right. You know, and, and Everbowl's a good example of that. We've gone from 20 to a 100 in like four years. What's the biggest restaurant group that's grown without franchising? I mean, Chipotle, they're No, they're not franchise. Yeah. Chipotle's not a franchise. Yeah. Okay. Um, but like, Cava growing, they're not a franchise.
Ca That's like the salad one. Yeah. Uh, Mediterranean. It's like a Mediterranean Chipotle. Yes. Okay. I got You haven't been to Kava yet? No, I haven't. Fire, fire. Yeah. We gotta go. Okay. Alright. So. Those ones. Whereas like, is Sweetgreen franchise or No. Okay. Yeah. So those ones that are like really well known there.
Yeah. On the other side you have like the Chick-fil-A. The Chick-fil-A is not a, I don't wanna say bad as in a negative term, but it's a bad example of a franchise, Chick-fil-A's almost more of like a partnership that they do with the owners. Yeah. And it's a very, it's like a lottery system. Yeah. I mean, you met with Nick and Sam.
Yeah. Nick Filet, as we call him Nick file. That's great. I mean, yeah, yeah. Okay. That's true. Not a, not a great example, but, but like, I mean like, you name a pizza place that's, you know, multiple locations, you know, like they're. They're, they're mainly franchise. What's the fastest growing franchise? Fact? Check me.
But you know, this is a podcast so we could say whatever we want. Yeah, it's true. Yeah, absolutely. It's true. Uh, Seven Brew is one of the biggest ones. Have you seen That's the coffee one. Yeah. Right. That's like the, is Dutch Bros. Like Dutch Bros. Um, Dutch Bros might not be a franchise. Yeah. For a while I bet it was like Jimmy John's, but Seven Brew, um, Hotworx.
Hotworx like Yeah. 'cause yeah, these fitness places are franchises too. Oh yeah. Yeah. Jersey Mike's number four. Wingstop number six. I've seen Wingstop all over Popeyes. Number nine. Dunkin number 10. Yep. Taco Bell 12, still hanging in there. Kona Ice. Yeah, at 14. I've seen more of those recently. Well, and the Kona Ice is nice because you don't need brick and mortar, right?
Yeah. So it's like you could, you could Oh, the, okay. I have a few good ones too. Scooter's? Coffee. Coffee. Those are one the small towns. Yep. And then Stretch Lab. Yep. Those would be top 20. I have to, you mentioned stretch lab. I have to say Stretch Zone instead of stretch lab. Um, as my association to Drew Brees.
He's a part of Stretch Zone, but anyways, oh yeah, absolutely. Of course. Stretch Zone. Um, okay. So those are like some, so the model is you build out, like the founder builds out, the initial concept gets into 20, 25 stores, and then. Creates like operating procedures. Yeah, yeah. Documented plan. Marketing, marketing system, the brand, the recipes.
Yeah. Um, a, a great example that I just experienced yesterday, uh, a buddy of mine, he's a chiropractor in town. He went from one location to two locations. He actually opened a second loca. He, he's local in Carmel. And then he opened one in Alaska with one of his doctors, which I'm like, bro, this is, you're gonna do the hardest thing ever and you're gonna do it first.
And it wasn't a franchise, it was his own thing. Well, he's also working with a franchise concept, um, like a health and wellness franchise concept. And he signed with them and he is like Alex, they're doing all the real, all the stuff that was hard for us. They're helping us with, they do the real estate, they're gonna help with the construction, they're gonna, so like when you get with the right franchise, um, you know they're gonna hold your hand through this entire process.
Was franchising, like the, have you read um, oh my gosh. The Ray Kroc book. Like I feel like McDonald's was like the original franchise, right? Yeah. Ab yeah. Absolutely. That's a great movie, by the way. Uh, great movie. And then I just finished the book. Yeah. Um, I haven't read the book yet. The book is phenomenal.
'cause it talks about, he was like older when he like got into, because McDonald's was, um, it was like a single unit. It was like a couple store or one store that grew to a couple stores out in California. Yeah. He met them. He was like, he was calling on them and selling them stuff. Right. Like multim mixers for their milkshakes.
Yeah. And then he ends up getting the rights to grow across the country. Yeah. Um, and everyone's so confused that the guy who grew McDonald's, his last name was not McDonald's. Right. Right. Um, but rights, yes. Rights are very important. Yes. When it comes to franchises. Yep. So you guys talk about buying the rights to six states to start without the intention.
Of being the owner of all of the ever bowls in those six states. Correct? Correct. But having the rights to sell them to other people, why, why does that work like that? Yeah. 'cause the, you know, for, for Everbowl they have to have a team to do that. And basically we are the team, we also, we paid for the rights to do that, so we did a big cash injection into Everbowl.
So it helped Everbowl on that way Also, every time we'd buy a state, you know, it's Drew Brees commits to, for, you know, there was, there's all these articles out because you know, there are Chico, Chico, Drew Brees Invest. Yeah, exactly. He's in everything. The, what is it? Like the Walk-On's? Walk-On's, the Pickler, like he's in all this stuff.
Jimmy John's? Yeah. Oh, he's in Jimmy John's. Yeah, that was Jimmy John's was his, was his first one, so, yeah. Okay. So you guys buy the rights to these six states and then. Y do you then sell sub franchise license Yeah. To the Yeah. Individual locations. Yeah. Like take me through the economics of franchising.
Yeah, so franchising, like some really quick rapid fire tips. If you're looking at franchising, if you wanna be safe, look for something that's been around for five years and has at least 50 locations open. Also do validation. And what I mean by that is if, if you're gonna go to a franchise that has 50 locations, talk to as many owners as you can to understand their experience, right?
So, and, but what a lot of people look at is the unit level economics, right? How much does it cost to start? Right. So like in Everbowl's 250 to 300,000, if you seen the, the billboards on the side of the road, you could start a staking shake. Yeah. Grand 10. Yeah. For 10 grand. Yeah. Um, you know, so it's understanding the unit level economics of what's the startup cost.
Right. So in Everbowl, you know, we're on the lower end because we're very small footprint, 250 to 300,000, you could typically get that number. What does that go to? Like what do you need? Uh, it goes to the construction of taking the space from whatever condition it is right now into a mini restaurant or I, I have some, um, some, some people that are with Chick-fil-A that are looking to come to the Everbowl and they're like, this is like a Fisher Price restaurant compared to a Chick-fil-A's kitchen.
Because we don't have like grease traps or hoods or any, we're not cooking anything. Um, so it goes to the construction and then it goes to the furniture and the fixtures, the signage, your inventory. There's a franchise fee. All franchises have a franchise fee. So like that's interesting. So for like the economic side for you all?
Yeah. You already bought the rights from. Everbowl corporate? Correct. Where, where is, does it make sense for you guys? So we get, and why not start them all on your own? Yeah. So the, the capital outlay for us to start them out on our own for, to open the stores, but then also lead the team and, and run the team.
The, the beautiful thing about our, you know, right now we have 30 stores that we are supporting and there's probably 20 owners. And I've got a guy on my team that is, he is an owner. Him and his wife own two stores in Virginia, but then he leads up the franchise support for us. Right? So scale way more scalable for us as an organization, right?
Like our, our hope is to get to a hundred stores over the next two or three years. That we support. Yeah. Um, so we're get, the way that it works is the, the franchisees pay their normal royalties that they would pay to Everbowl, and then Everbowl gives us a share of the royalties. And it's the same thing with the franchise fee.
So if you have 32 stores and we're getting the cut of the royalties, and then the goal is to continue to grow that, and we want to earn that by overly supporting, you know, we, we, um, coming from the franchise space, the thing that we talk about as a team is we wanna be obsessed with the, the, the success of our franchisees.
Right. I do, you know, people put a lot of money in even, you know, 250, 300,000. Some people don't think that's a lot of money, but Oh my gosh. Yeah, absolutely. You know, they're on this podcast, that's a lot of money. Yeah. Facts and, and like the, you know, so I take that very seriously when people put money.
Like that could be someone's life that's like their retirement, hundred percent, their life savings. Hundred percent. Yeah. Like, so we tell, people know, it's not like everyone is an exited. It's not like everyone is like a Sure. Exited billionaire. Yeah. You know, like, yeah, okay, this could be someone who had a corporate job for 30 years.
It's a, that's and is cashing out their 401k and going all in on Everbowl. Yeah. That's, that's a lot of times the blueprint in franchising, right? Yeah. So, um, and that's where like, if you're gonna go with the franchise, you know, take your time to validate it. Take your time. Literally reach out to me. How has acai, I'll talk to anybody about helping them out with that stuff.
Yeah. How has acai been. Uh, received in the Midwest. Yeah. Uh, extremely well because like, um, well in Hamilton County, like I get it is interesting that Hamilton County and the north side of Indianapolis is a small microcosm right. Of Yeah. Uh, not necessarily representational of the entire state of Indiana.
Right, right. Always. Yeah. They love them. I, this is no shade against Hamilton County, but like what people eat and buy and drink and shop for in Carmel is not the same as Southport. Well, I think the best example then would be Brownsburg. Yeah. We do have a store in Brownsburg and it crushes it really.
Now the owners are the, you know, they're very tied to their community. They sponsor the local football team, you know, they are, you know, they're, that's sell in Brownsburg for sure, right? Oh yeah, absolutely. Oh yeah, absolutely. So, you know, I think that helps a lot. 'cause all of our stores are Hamilton County or College Campus.
We're on IU campus Purdue or Ball State. So, um, you know, but, but you look at like. We have opportunities for people in Greenwood, you know, potentially Nora, we have somebody looking in Zionsville right now. Wait, so you had, wait, what's like the, because you know how like, uh, different organizations have city requirements, right?
Or population or whatever. Yeah. What are the requirements for? So we, we usually look at, um, like a three to a five mile radius. We want there to be 40,000 plus people with, you know, strong income and strong education. Um, like graduation rate, college graduation rate and stuff. Those are kind of our indicators of success for our stores.
So, mm-hmm. But Greenwood be Greenwood's Great. You know, up by Notre Dame, we have, uh, I was saying do you have one up in Notre Dame? No, we, we, we haven't, haven't got that done. I think there's opportunity in Fort Wayne. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. And um, you know, we, we think we can add more in Carmel as well.
What does it take to be a, an expert franchise operator? Um, I mean, getting with a system, you know, a franchise system that. Seems super legit. And then running their play, getting an accountant that is gonna help take care of your books. Right? So it's like outsource what needs to be outsourced and really focus on the community development and leading your team is is really important.
And like that's what we see when over and over, doesn't matter what brand you do. Talk to me about opening your own, let's say if it was acai or if it was like the sandwich shop. Yep. Talk to me about the pros and cons of opening. A Jimmy John's or Nate's sandwich shop. Right? Yeah. And, and I use this example a lot with like coffee as an example, right?
Yeah. So if you're gonna go open up a hometown coffee shop, there's no reason to bring a franchise in, right? Like there's plenty of information on roasters. You can work with what equipment you need. Yeah. You could, you could pay an advisor to help lay everything out for you. You don't need that brand.
But if you look at like, acai, like where are you gonna source it from? Where, you know, how, what are you gonna do for this? I don't know where in the world acai comes from. Yeah. Brazil. Me, not Brazil, Indiana. Brazil. Well then I'm out, then I'm out. Thought about it. I'm out. No. As a 28-year-old, I could not tell you where you would Yeah.
And, and how you would make acai. Right, right. But I know it's delicious. Yeah, absolutely. So for us, that's obviously a competitive advantage. Um, and we have other products beyond acai, but the acai is really the, yeah. The main breadwinner of the, of the family, so, yeah, yeah, yeah. When it comes to sourcing like coffee shop, I do feel like hometown coffee shop is one of the easiest things.
Yeah. No, that's no shade to anyone who started coffee. Like it's still, it's still hard. Oh, yeah. Like running a business, especially a consumer brand is hard. Absolutely. But like, you know, roasters to source from, you can buy those pumps to get, you know, syrup, how to make your lattes and stuff. Syrup. Yeah.
So like one would be, yeah, the playbook of how you're gonna start one. What would be other reasons when you're weighing pros and cons of starting your own versus opening a franchise? Marketing brands? You look at swig, right? Like, there's a new swig that just opened, which is a dirty soda shop that just opened in.
What does dirty soda mean? Dirty soda is. It's like you take your Coke or your root beer. Yeah. Um, and then you add more sugar to it. So you add syrup and cream. Cream. Is this like the BYU This is like the Utah thing. Yes. Is that where it started? Yes, a hundred percent. Yeah. They go crazy Utah. Have you not had a dirty soda?
I don't really drink soda. Okay. Like when I think dirty soda, I'm like, oh, we're serving Jack and Cokes. Yeah. Like, that's what we're rolling with. Yeah. Not necessarily like the butterscotch coats or whatever they are. Right, right. Yeah. They're, they're so viral right now if you go put yourself in the right market.
Yeah. Versus if I started, uh, my own soda shop. Yeah. It would like, you'd have to really work Yeah. To get the, the draft off the, the brand that's, that Swig has, that's, that's, yeah, that's perfect. Now, locally Twisters, who's based outta Pendleton, um, they opened one in Noblesville and then I think they just opened one up on Ball State's campus.
They are doing really, really well. They, they have quality product. Um, so yeah. And I'm, and it's funny 'cause like I, I run in the world of like, I love franchising and, and. Remember the franchises, the majority of franchises that you go do business with, that's a local business owner and it's obviously local employees.
So the difference of supporting a franchise versus a, uh, a shop that somebody else started up, you're still putting your money in the local community. Yeah. Um, the majority of the time. Talk to me about qualities, founder slash operator, qualities that are thrive in the franchise and that would thrive Starting their own.
Yeah, like we're kind of comparing and contrasting like, are you the type of person that should. Think about a franchise or are you the type of person that should just do it on your own? Like, if you're not willing to run somebody else's play, then a franchise is not gonna be for you. Right? Because we can't have a franchise where we have a hundred stores and we're going a hundred different directions.
Right? So we need everybody going same way. But what the biggest ways that you feel like sometimes operators are franchises feel restricted? That creativity part. Being able to bring in items or do marketing ideas. Yeah. 'cause a lot of times you can't, like, you don't, they won't you changing your menu?
Yeah, yeah. Like, don't change the menu. Yeah. So like, that goes, like, that's, that's probably the biggest difference if like, you wanna do a franchise or start your own thing. Yeah. What about like marketing? Uh, marketing wise, like for most franchises, you pay a brand fee, right? So you're, you're giving two to 3% of your sales and then they will do the majority of the marketing for you and they will equip you with tools to do local marketing as well.
So that's obviously an advantage. As well when it comes to the franchising. Yeah. What about like, people who probably aren't cut for the, uh, franchise and should start their own? Yeah, that's, that's the people that, um, probably aren't gonna be a team player and maybe they have enough business experience that, um, they don't need that extra help in sport.
'cause you are paying a lot of money in royalties and franchise fees and stuff. So a lot of like the business by, uh, acquisition, like entrepreneurship through acquisition, those are like prime franchise people. Correct. Versus like self-starter creative types that are like, I have a crazy idea and I like, and I wanna do it my way.
I love both worlds. Like bottom line, I just, I'm passionate about people owning businesses. Right. I think that the soapbox that I get on a lot of times is we need to buy these local businesses. So private equity doesn't come in. And, and I'm, when I say private equity, I'm talking about big private equity.
So these companies from OUTTA state don't come in and buy Yeah. Bob's HVAC company or plumbing company. Right? Yeah. Um, and it's the same thing with real estate, right? It's like there, you know, there's a lot of that going on. And, and I think that, you know, part of the American dream is owning your home, owning a business, and I think owning a business doesn't have to be as intimidating as we make it out to be.
Yeah. If you do it in community. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you, you're so passionate about helping people open a bus. Like you, your sons are all very young entrepreneurs. Talk to me about what they're all doing. Yeah. So, uh, Owen, who is 19 is a year and like five months into. Indy photo fund, which is a photo booth business.
Yeah. So he does weddings and events, like he's done three events at Christkindlmarkt, and I say this with all the respect. Yeah. It's not that complex. No. Yeah. It's not like it is still your own, you're 19 years old and you've been doing this for over a year. You're running a business. Yes. But the businesses show bring fun and photos Absolutely.
To events, you know, like it's not necessarily you have to go out there and be the next Mark Zuckerberg. Right? No. And, and that's, there's lots of businesses like that that are a great gateway. So he graduated high school and did some internships over the summer and he, he just was like, I don't know what I want to do Dad.
And I was like, well, maybe we'll find some sort of like side hustle, landscaping, power washing, whatever company for you to buy or start. And I had somebody reach out to me about Indy Photo Fun. The, uh, the, the previous owner reach out to me about us buying it and brought it to Owen. And Owen was excited about it.
So Owen's been doing that for a year? Yeah. Year and a half. Um, he's all in, he wants to continue to grow it. He's been investing a bunch of his money into Grow it. Even if Owen doesn't do that for the next 25 Yeah. Years, it's still a great rep, great experience. Right. You're making money and you're learning that like, oh, business ownership is not that unattainable.
Yeah. Yeah. And if he does it the right way, which you know, we, we've, we already know what he could sell for now he could sell it for twice as much as he paid for it. Yeah. And he made money while he owned it. So if he keeps it longer and he continues to clean it up, bring bringing more reoccurring clients.
Yeah. Um, but yeah, so when it comes to our boys, entrepreneurship was really caught, not taught. Like as a father, I was like obviously always talking business, but they never really showed a lot of passion about it. Yeah. But what they really started to understand was like, if you want. The potential freedom financially.
And if you want freedom time-wise, business ownership is gonna give you that flexibility to Yeah. Like, you know, for you to go run up to Cicero when you want to, to go, you know, go do your thing. Like you control your schedule. And then also, you know, Owen as an example, his first, um, his first big event that we booked was like for $2,000 for four or five hours.
And he is like, that's more money than I made in a month working at Everbowl. You know? 'cause he worked part-time for me Yeah. At Everbowl and stuff. So like you, you start to start to kind of understand that your time is not valued the same as an owner as it is, uh, as an employee. Yeah. And like yeah.
When you, I mean, oh my gosh. When you, for me particularly too, when I got the first outsized return on an hour of my time, right? For owning something, for solving a complex problem for someone, or like delivering something of high value, I was like. Yeah. Oh, this is pretty cool. Yeah. Yeah. Like that's pretty fun.
Yeah. So they're, they're, so that's Owen Mason actually, the, our 21-year-old is going into next year. He's starting, we've been working on this for about six months and we've landed on, he's landed on the idea of he's doing a pop-up bookstore. So imagine like you're going to a coffee shop or a brewery.
He would, he would bring in like a little. Almost the size of your office. Like a, a used bookstore. Oh. So it's a very huge bookstore Mass. The size of the studio is, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. My bad. No, no, I got you. Yeah. So he's gonna do pop-up bookstores. Yeah. Yeah. So that'll kind of be, ultimately he wants to own his own used bookstore, but this is a good, like, gateway into that.
So, start up with popups. He, he goes to local libraries. He went and bought a hundred, or no, I'm sorry, 47 books from the Westfield Library that they were selling for a hundred dollars. He's gonna be able to sell those 47 books for probably $500. Right. No way. So, so he's just arbitrage and buying books low, selling them high, but then he's taking 'em into like a coffee shop.
'cause Well, and a little bit of that is vibe. Yeah. A hundred percent. Like the economics between used books and more and boutique, yeah. Uh, bookstore. Yes. Is the vibe. Yes. Yeah. You know, like, yeah. Just creating the ambiance, right? Something like a place that people want to hang out and read and, you know, in support of small business owner.
Yeah. That's super cool. Yeah. And then, um, you know, Quinn Quinn just turned 18 on Sunday, so happy birthday Q Quinn Quinn is, uh, I've been blessed that he's been like my right hand man and hype man for, you know, heck, the last 10 years, like when we used to own Verizon stores, he'd go to West Virginia with me on road trips 'cause we homeschooled the boys.
No way. It's like, you wanna learn about, you know, math, let's go, uh, count the drawer in West Virginia. Let's go, come on, whatever. Um, our big, the big dream for the Yeater family though is, um, and it really started like nine months ago. We want to bring family entertainment center, uh, are are like. Our own concept to town, right?
Where it's like, you know, when you say family entertainment center, you're talking like trampoline park, right? Right. Whatever. So we wanna bring in a, you know, 20 to 30,000 square foot arcade, laser tag, putt putt, um, maybe escape room, stuff like that with some quality food. Um, we just, we feel like the Indianapolis market is underserved there, and we could bring two or three of them to town, partner with the right people to where, you know, like Chelsea's keeping up local squad, um, you know, you guys, Marcus, the people that are, are friends, right?
And you just bring fun, bring fun to the area. Um, you know, so make money playing arcade games and laser tags, and then the whole family would do it together. That's, that's the dream. It's probably two or three years down the road that's sick. But yeah, we're, we're really excited about that. I mean, experiences sell.
Yeah, absolutely. Like now more than ever, people are looking for. Stuff to do. Right. It's like the number one thing we always hear is like, there's nothing to do. Right. Blah, blah. And like, no, there is tons of stuff to do. Yeah. But like making it easy, accessible for people to go and find things. I think that's a great idea.
Yeah. Fowling. Yeah. Uh, you've been down to that. I have several times. Dude, that was so fun. But like, stuff like that, right? Yeah. It's like, and it's like that, that started, you know where Fowling started? No. In the Coke lot at the Indianapolis 500. Nice. Nice. Some guys from Detroit that's nice. Would come to the Indianapolis 500 every year and they would bring these, the cornhole boards with the, and they would put them down flat when they didn't wanna play corn hole and they would set up all of the bowling pins and they would throw the football at 'em.
Yeah. And like that is where it started. And it grew from there. And now they have one here and Right. It's such a simple concept too. Yeah. Like, it's so fun, but it's a vibe. Yep. You know, you hang out, you throw the ball, you get a couple drinks and Right. You can bring in your own food and whatever and it's great.
Yeah. Well, and they, I think they just, um. Uh, open a pizza place inside of there. Oh, no way. So way. I haven't, I haven't been there. Um, since I haven't either. Since I've been there. Haven't either. Yeah. Yeah. Because they would be like, just order DoorDash and have it delivered here is what they were doing. So, yeah.
Or our friends at ClusterTruck. Right. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The sport local. Yes. Um, okay, so entrepreneurship. The boys are rolling in their businesses, getting stuff going. Talk to me about what you are doing. 'cause not only are you helping with Everbowl, but you're also doing some other interesting stuff to give back to the entrepreneurial community.
Yeah. I've been to one of the Bowls & Business events. Uh, talk to me about what inspired you to start that as well as lean into more of the coaching side. Right. So Bowls & Business started about a year and a half ago. Yeah. Um, we had, you know, the studio that you came to, we had this great office space and you know, lots of friends that were business owners and we were like, Hey, let's just get together and hang out and help each other's businesses.
So the first meeting was 10. And then fast forward, you know, like our one year anniversary, we had over a 100 people show up. That's crazy. So local small business owners that are trying to help each other. We, we, you know, the, the original, like, kind of what we're driving is like if you're looking to, buy, sell, or grow your business, that's who we're looking for.
And it's become a place where the startup people, right, like the, the, the moms, the dads that are doing a side hustle while they have their job, but they're looking to grow something. Um, you know, that they're coming there and it's, we've just built a really awesome community and it's, um, you know, it's, it's because of people like Mason McDonald, owner of Noble Coffee Lee and Seth Hartzell uh, with Bulldog Moving, you know, those, those type of people.
Tim, Tim and Alexis with Blend Wealth that they come in and they've helped me to grow it. Right. Um, so our, what we do is we, we meet once a month. We'll bring in a speaker typically, or we'll just do straight networking and the speaker will talk, and then it's just a lot of networking and community building.
So, I mean, my guy Mason here, the other Mason, um, I've got a lot of Masons in my life. My son Mason, Mason, McDonald, and, and Mason over here. Um, you know, we met at Bowls & Business and, um, it's just been a great, great community through that. Um, over the last three or four years, I've, I've had a lot of young entrepreneurs or seasoned business owners that have come to me for some advice advisory type thing.
And, um, that's. That's one of the things that I'm really, really passionate about. It goes back to I wanna see the good guys win and I want to help the good guys win. And I also want to help people identify if the business that they're in is actually makes financial sense to go put your time and effort into.
Right. I think that's really important. So, so that's what I'm doing. I, you know, I spend a lot of my time meeting with business owners and trying to make connections with them to help solve problems. Yeah. I'm not typically the one solving the problem. I'm making connections with them to, you know, like, you really need better accounting, you need better marketing, whatever that is.
And, you know, what are the common problems that small business owners are facing in 2025? The one that I'm seeing the most right now is they've got sales coming through the door. Um, but the money in the bank account is not what they think it should be, and it's because they. Are being intimidated by their P&Ls.
And what, what I, what I see and what I've been helping people with is imagine the P&L is actually a person that you're sitting across the table from. That P&L is intimidating you. I mean, there's business owners that they'll months will go by and they don't ask their accountant for P&Ls.
They don't know, you know, and like that's the, that's the stat sheet at the end of the game on whether you won or lost. And if you don't know what you're looking at, um, you're just putting yourself in a dangerous position. Um, so that, and then I think a lack of focus on what's important, right? Like what are the revenue driving activities that are gonna grow the revenue of your company?
And are you getting stuck in the whirlwind, the minutia of the day-to-day part? And you're not spending the time driving revenue or making things better operationally. So like what kind of advice are you giving to small business owners that are looking to grow in 2026? Yeah. Identify. Do you need a lot of customers or a little bit of customers?
Right? And what I mean by that is if you look at, um. You know, somebody that's like trying to grow their bookkeeping firm or accounting firm, they might only need 20, 30, 40 customers to get to the monthly amount that where they wanna be. And in those situations, my advice is go get face to face with people.
It's like, you know, treat it like it's 19, you need 40. Yeah. If you can go shake, if you go shake a hundred hands, you could probably find hundred percent 20 customers go buy people coffee. Right. Go take coffee and lunch. Right. So a lot of that, and then if you need a lot of customers, that's when it's like you've gotta, obviously a lot of times that's brick and mortar, so it's like figuring out their advertising channels.
You know, are you doing Meta ads? What's your Google Business Profile profile look like? You know? Or are you giving it any time and attention and cleaning that kind of stuff out? What's the experience look like in your store? In a world like franchising? Mm-hmm. Like, you can't be necessarily as creative. You can't like change a lot of things.
You can't like, you know, be unique in a lot of ways. How does someone thrive as a franchisee with the. Yeah. Box that you were kind of put in. Yeah, so we did it when we had our Verizon stores, right. And we've done it with Everbowl as well. Um, but it's really being partnered with the franchise, right?
It's like, you know, clearly communicating your frustrations or, or your ideas and bringing those to the table and, you know, so it's like just operating with integrity and letting them know what you want to do and what you wanna try. Why does it matter being willing to test stuff that the franchise is bringing to, to you?
Um, so I mean, you do. You can have that freedom, but it's like freedom within the framework is, uh, is how I've heard somebody explain it in franchising freedom within the framework. Yep. I love it. Alex, this has been a ton of fun. I've learned a lot about your journey. We won't say about where it started at over in our friends to the East, but growing.
And I think that it's so evident, I, I'll have to tell a fun Alex story real quick. So when I first met Alex and you invited me up to come check out the studio and hang out, and I was like, okay, yeah, sure, I'll come check it out. And this guy who's doing the acai bowls up in Noblesville, like, cool. And I met you and we hung out and we went on the podcast and like, I think for like the first maybe month or two, I kept waiting for like the catch where it's like, what does Alex want from me?
Like, he is so nice to me right now. Like, I can't, I know there's gonna be a catch at some point. Yeah. And here we are, a year or so into it. Oh, it's coming. This is, I'm playing the long play. Don't worry. Three years from now. No. You have had every turn been such a huge, uh, support system. Like you've just been so encouraging, motivated, like, and there was no catch.
And I think that that is, again, Indiana, I feel like we were blessed with a lot of really well-intentioned people, but sometimes there always still is like the catching hundred percent. And I was waiting for, I was waiting for a long time and it still does not come. So I don't know if it's coming at some point down the road, but like, I think that, that's so cool and speaks ton to you and your character of like, you really do believe in just pouring into those around you and not asking for anything in return.
And it seems as though like God continues to bless you and, and, uh, pour good things back into your, your community. Yeah. And that, that comes from my parents. We grew up in small town Ohio, like I said, 300 people. And man, there was not a moment that we weren't, you know, chopping firewood, raking leaves, clean, cleaning the church, like just serving the community and serving people in a world where today it seems as though.
Everyone is in things for how it's gonna serve them. Right. It's interesting to come with the approach of serving others. Yeah. And I think about, like, I've never done, I've never regretted serving others. Yeah. Not one time. Yeah. Like whether it's with your time, your talent, your treasure, whatever it is, I have never like gone out and done something for others and then got to the end.
I'm like, wow, I wish I wouldn't have been nice to that person. You know? Right. Yeah, absolutely. And you're gonna find, you know, you're gonna find synergistic opportunities that are win-win, you know, and, and Stephen Covey's seven habits of highly effective People do win-win, or don't do it at all. Right.
And you know, like. I, I think about the relationship I have with Marcus, or that my wife and I have with Chelsea and Pete from keeping up with Carmel. Yeah. And we talk business all the time and like, we haven't pulled the trigger on anything, but like, we just help each other out and we would love to do something together at some point.
Right. But it'll, it'll be the right thing. Right. And, you know, they, the people in my life know that I'm available and I'm willing to help. Yeah. Right. And there's, there's gonna be times where, you know, like, Hey, can you help me with this? Or can you introduce me to this person type of deal. But, um, I mean, I just really enjoy it.
Like, I, once again, I want to see the good guys win. I think that, yeah, I think that we need to, like, we really do, you know, we need high quality, high character people making more money, um, employing more people being in local government. Right? Yeah. Like, it's, it's like, you know, my, my buddy that's in ever the ever world, he's like, I'm done giving money to assholes.
Like, he just doesn't, like, I'm not going to give my money. Or support somebody that, um, just doesn't treat people the right way and doesn't, doesn't take a long-term view of their community and their health of their community. And, um, I just, I take that stuff seriously. Yeah, I love it, man. Uh, I think you're doing spectacular work and just the way you're organizing people from, from different, uh, levels of entrepreneurship too.
I love it. We've come to the final portion of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana. So this question is brought to you by our friends at J.C. Hart. They're a leader in creating enjoyable living experiences at apartment communities all across Indiana and beyond. Check them out at homeisjchart.com.
My question for you, Alex, why do you call Indiana home? You know, we've been out here for 13 years now and, um, we do feel like it's an extension of Ohio, right? Like you kind of cross, sorry, but when you cross the border from Indiana and Ohio, like it, it's not like some drastic looking difference, but, um, you know.
Indiana people are, you know, you get in the right communities and there's just down to earth people that are looking to help you and care about you. And, um, yeah, like we've, we've really enjoyed it. This is where our boys have grown up. They were three of the four were born in Ohio, but, you know, we all call Indiana home and love it and plan on being here forever.
There we go. Come on Now even, and we won't hold it against you that you're, you're an OSU fan. Yeah. Yeah. What's the go-to order at Everbowl? Uh, Everbowl is just like the classic Everbowl acai with granola, blueberries, bananas, and strawberries. Yep. Maybe add a little PB to Oh, I do like the peanut butter.
Yeah. Oh, yes. And, and we have Nutella now. So you, the Nutella Everbowl, what's the number one thing you've learned about managing a restaurant? You gotta get your, your prime, which is your cost of goods sold and your labor, like, you've gotta understand it and you've gotta beat that number, right? So like, let's say for in Everbowl we're trying to be at 55%.
So we look at it on a weekly basis and then we look at it. So it's like you gotta measure what matters. Reviews matter, culture matters. The experience, the interactions with the guests matter a lot. So that was seven things, but yeah. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes sense. Yeah. A lot of that is like the equation, right?
Of uh, what's it cost? What you, what are you bringing in the door, what's it cost? And I feel like hours and days and all that stuff is hard to do. Yeah. There's so much business that goes into the restaurant business. It's like on one side of it is like, you know, the recipes and the food and the product and the customer service and all that.
Right? And then it's also knowing your numbers and like, there's a lot of hard business that goes into it. It's interesting. What's the biggest misconception people have about franchising? Um, that you're not supporting local, right? Yeah. Like how, like you're in all the chatter groups and, uh, I love watching.
Some of your interactions in the local chatter groups. Um, and you know when people will give you crap about some video or something. Oh, classic. I'm just, yeah. Uh, but you know, they'll be like, oh, don't go there because they're a franchise. It's like, well, the, the owner probably lives across the street from you.
The employees are all local people. Right. Um, so that's, a common misconception and that you're. If you get with the right franchise, the money that the franchise takes should be way less than the benefit that you're getting. So yes, there are bad franchises out there, but if you take your time and you look into the right ones, you'll, you'll do just fine.
What do you think is a concept that is rapidly growing in other parts of the country that's gonna come to Indiana? Um, Smalls. Um, Smalls is, you know, you and I talked a little bit about walk-ons earlier on, so the most popular item on the Walk-On's menu is their, their sliders. Um, and they, they call 'em Smalls and they're waffle fries.
Um, so people would get those as appetizers. So Smalls, um, is rapidly growing and they have, you'll pull it up. They have, they do canisters, so it's like drive through cheeseburgers. Waffle fries, milkshakes. Right. And they're, they're Smalls Sliders. Yeah. go big franchise Smalls. Yeah. So, wow. So this is kind of like sliders and waffle fries.
Yes. And milkshakes and Oh yeah. High quality products. They, it looks fire. Yeah. Like, like they are very intentional about the, the beef that they use, the potatoes that they use, all that stuff. So they're growing rapidly across the country. And, um, I actually helped a group that's gonna bring 15 to Indiana did some advisory work for them.
No way. Um, so, and they're like, are they all in shipping containers? Yeah. So they're like competed in for the same spaces as like Seven Brew scooters. That's such a competitive space right now that drive through. Convenient. Um, you look at Taco Bell, we talked a little bit about Taco Bell. Look at that.
Isn't, it's so dope. Yeah. That's sick. Uh, Drew's a part of that brand. Drew Drew, of course. Yes. Yes, yes. Okay. Yeah. Well, and they're, they're Louisiana born, so Damn. Yes. Okay. Is there a franchise or something that's Indiana based, that we're exporting wings, et cetera, which they're my neighbor there at Everbowl, um, wings, et cetera, is based out of like the Fort Wayne area.
They've got 85 units, which doesn't sound like a lot, but those wing places are probably doing over a million dollars on average. And I think 25 of them are corporate stores and the rest of them are franchising. So that's like the, the first thing that, that I was gonna say, were there any historical franchises that Indiana has pushed?
I mean, you've got Jack's Donuts. I know they're, they're, they're struggling, but I think they're gonna bounce. They'll bounce back. They'll fi Yeah. Yeah. They'll figure it out. Yeah. I mean, they've got an incredible brand. Um, you know, so, so Jack's Donuts, oh man. I wish I would've thought about that and did a little bit of research on it.
Yeah. I feel like Java House has kind of been expanding. Yeah. And like are waiting for their like total big explosion. Yeah. Nationwide. Yeah. I feel like that one could go Yeah. Java House crushing it with the, you know, like the, the, the pods. The pods. The B2B Yeah. Um, the B2B space. So Yeah. I guess I don't even know if they will go right to like, you know, open a thousand stores or whatever.
Yeah. But it is interesting to think about like, uh, states that have nationally known franchises. Like is it Wisconsin that has Culver's? Culver's? Yeah. You know, and it's you, Utah is dominating that. Right. And you got crumble cookie. You got a couple of Crumb. You've got Swig. Yeah. Um, so those like, which is so interesting.
'cause it's just like, it's just pop and it's just cookies. Yeah. Sugar and more sugar. Like the OG ones were like Taco Bell. Yep. KFC. Yep. Like pizza, like X, Y, Z pizza place. Yeah. And now it's becoming more of like the niche things. Yeah. You know, like. You want it to be a little more boutique, you want it to be more like the crumble.
Right. Uh, which is really interesting. Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting too to see like the places like Chipotle or the places that are like really well known that aren't franchises. Yeah. And we're trying to refine at Noble Coffee. Um, we're trying to refine. How do we, like, we don't want a franchise, but we want to help.
We we're, the way that we say is we wanna help plant coffee shops. So we're gonna do advisory and obviously provide the roasting, but it's gonna be your brand, it's gonna be your thing, your creativity and stuff. Because we, we feel like the hometown coffee shop is an institution that every town should have.
Doesn't matter how small, it doesn't matter how big it should be. Great. Yeah. And it should be really great coffee. I think you had just put out yesterday, dude, we Main Street. Let's road trip. Let's go. We should go do that. Yeah, we, because they do a scratch kitchen on Saturdays. Oh yeah. Like they have like, I think their menu rotates.
Yeah. Like, I had heard good things about it before and it just happened to be How far is that? Um, I mean, not that, I mean, it is like an hour. Okay. Like it's not Right. McCormick's Creek I would drive an hour with you. Yeah, let's, I mean that would be so far, that's probably the limit, but No, I'm kidding. Oh wow.
Okay. But like that is the one thing, I've been to lots of small towns as people should know, and. There are some that have fantastic local coffee shops that are like really going above and beyond, but there's far too many that just, they just like copy and paste. Yeah. And they like put some syrup and stuff and it's like, ugh.
Yeah. It could be so much better. And what we are finding right now is there's a lot of. The Hometown coffee shop is more of a sandwich shop that happens to do coffee. And if it was a coffee first place that actually did good food. I know like, that kind of sounds weird to say it like that, but if it was like the coffee shop people identified, 'cause the coffee shop is a classic third place.
Hey, you know, third Space. Yeah. All my, like, pretty much all my meetings are at Noble Coffee. Um, another coffee shop that I'm gonna mention here in a little bit. Or one of the coffee shops in Carmel. Right. Um, so I, it's just the perfect place to go meet with people. Yeah. Because you don't have like the full commitment of paying for somebody's lunch.
Okay. Yeah, exactly. You know? Okay. So if you were in small town Indiana and you had to start a new concept, start a business in small Indiana, what would you do? Coffee. Yeah. Yeah. I'm kind of over the restaurant industry of like trying to go explore anything else. But you know, a lot of these pizza places crush it.
Right. Um, but coffee, like coffee would be what I would do. Yeah. And then I would also look at like, what the, who's the HVAC guy? The plumbing guy? Yeah. What, like the biggest return for the, like, what's like some of the hardest franchises or hardest concepts to pull off? I mean, probably restaurant, you know, like the home service industry, you know, you don't have, you have a truck, you have a truck and a truck, right.
You don't have the brick and mortar, you don't have the cost of that kind of stuff. So that also, like going back to the family entertainment center, it's like if we build a family entertainment center, you know, we're not selling products, right. Like you buy the arcade one time and then somebody's gonna come in and repeatedly use it over and over and over again.
Yeah. So, yeah, that's an interesting concept to think about. Okay. We've come to the final part of the show where we get to talk all things Indiana, Alex from Ohio. Spent time. I mean, you got the idea to franchise Everbowl from your trip to Los Angeles. Correct. Spent time in San Diego as you're, you know, traveling and meeting with different people and hanging out with Drew Brees.
What is something the world needs to know about Indiana? It's the crossroads of America. You know, my, um, a past Verizon customer of mine, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, you know, they sang Meet Me at the Crossroads, um, a past Verizon customer. Yeah, yeah. Long fun story. They're, they're, uh, they're, they're great people.
Um, that's great. Yeah. I did not expect Bone Thugs-N-Harmony to be, yeah. And they're like, the fact that, I mean, they're, they've been around since like 1994. They're all still alive. They all still tour stuff like that. Um, anyways, like. I I, one of the things that we love about ever or about Everbowl about Indiana is it's a bit of a melting pot, right?
So you run into people that are kind of from all over the country or all over the Midwest, especially in Hamilton County, right? Yeah. You don't run into a lot of people in Noblesville. Well, Noblesville people in Noblesville are very proud that they were born and raised in Noblesville. You'll hear that a lot.
Yeah. Uh, but you know, a lot of the people, they're from other states, so, so, you know, there's a lot of. Um, you know, there's a lot of, uh, diverse states that are in the area, but like ho honestly, it's like what you say about like, Hey, if you're on the side of the road and you're pushing your car, like that truly is Indiana.
I just, I come across that over and over and over again. Yeah. There's just a lot of people that are willing to help and go the extra mile for you. Amen. Alright. This is your opportunity to share is something that needs to be getting a little bit more love. What is a hidden gem in Indiana? Yeah, so this hidden gem is my wife and i's Hidden Gem and it's Cafe Jardin and Cafe Jardin is in Noblesville.
It's about eight minutes away from my house. It's, it's in Providence Home + Garden. So it's inside. It is a high quality, great coffee shop. Um, our friends Joel and Christie Kempson o own it, um, and Providence Outdoor. They do like commercial landscaping. They do a few other things and they built this beautiful home and garden store and decided to put a coffee shop inside of it.
So it's just a beautiful, beautiful setting. Um, the fact that it's really close to our house, it, it's, you know, it feels like home when you're going in there. Um, husbands be warned, you might go there for a $5 coffee and walk away spending $500 because they have just absolutely gorgeous home and garden stuff, outdoor seating.
There's a dog park there, all the, all the things. And they sell Noble Coffee. So I'm allowed to say that 'cause I am a partner in, yeah. There you go. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Cafe Jardin. Yep. That I've never heard of that before. Yeah. All right. It's on the list now. Yeah. Finally, this is your chance to brag about someone who's just doing some big things in Indiana and someone that more of us need to know about who's a Hoosier.
We need to keep on our radar, someone who's doing big things. Yeah. Uh, my buddy Tim Woodward, uh, Blend Wealth, um, in the story of Bowls & Business and what we've done, Blend Wealth is such an important part of it because they do wealth management and accounting, but they work with all size businesses. A lot of wealth management and accounting firms are like, Hey, I, we only wanna work with, you know, companies that are doing two or 3 million, and they give time to people even, um, if they don't necessarily be a company.
So, like our hearts are aligned on, we wanna help small businesses grow, and we think an important part of that. And, and Tim, Tim and his wife Alexis, are just absolutely wonderful people. And we've gotten to see their journey from startup to where they're at. And, you know, they're, they're, they've been a massive blessing to the Bowls & Business community, so, heck yeah.
Check out Blend Wealth. I love it. Alex, it is always a pleasure to get to sit down and spend time with you. Uh, I am just so impressed and, uh, inspired by your servant leadership and your commitment to the community. Um, obviously in Noblesville, in Hamilton County and just in Indiana in general. I think that if anyone hasn't been up to a Bowls & Business, you gotta go.
Um, it, there's just such an interesting, awesome, encouraging group of people that show up there. And it's different than your YPCI network group and different than maybe, uh, any of your other, you know, big. Large enterprise business groups here in Indiana. You know, like you could run into someone at Bowls & Business that is, you know, the, an executive at a really big company, right.
And also someone who's, you know, starting their art. Yep. Business, you know, like it's really, really a diverse group of people and backgrounds and businesses and, and just really good people. So kudos to you for, you know, really igniting that and obviously bringing other voices and people into the table to, uh, to elevate and help create more business owners.
Man, it's, uh, it's been fun to get to know you over the last year and I'm always rooting for y'all and, uh, you're always up to something fun, which I love. Yeah. Awesome. And, and for the audience, the, the Nate that you guys see on social media and uh, on the podcast stuff, that's the real Nate. He is like one of the most authentic people, uh, that you'll ever meet.
And just full of passion, full of excitement. Um, fun story about Nate and I. We are undefeated, uh, in duos on, uh, on pickleball. This is true at pi at Pickler. We are undefeated in pickleball. Yeah. Like you might not expect it from these two. Yeah. But we are undefeated. We will be taking any challengers on out there.
Yes. If you would like to come, we'll meet up at Pickler. Yes, we can. Uh, we can. Run it back. Yeah, I love it, man. But no, keep, keep rocking bro. This is if people, if people wanna connect with you or if they want to show up to a Bowls & Business. So look me up on social media. Yer, Y-E-A-T-E-R. There's not a lot of us, so you'll find me Alex Yeater.
Um, and then there is a Bowls & Business Facebook group that's got like a thousand people in there. So like that's really the best place. A thousand. Yeah, I know. Crazy dude. In 15 months to grow, right? Something to a thousand. I think the group's even private and stuff, so like, we don't even, we don't know what we're doing.
Uh, we're just, we're just taking care of each other, helping each other out, helping business grow. Hey, amen to that, that brother. Hey, I appreciate you and we'll talk soon. Alright, thank you. This show is made possible by our friends up at Sweetwater. Whether you're looking to start a podcast or take your content to the next level, click the link in the description to see all my gear recommendations at Sweetwater.
If you want a behind the scenes look at everything we're doing across the state. Make sure you follow me on Instagram and TikTok at Nate Spangle. Thank you so much for listening and being a part of what makes the Hoosier State. Great. We'll see you next time here on Get IN.
