Closed on Sunday, Not Our Future....
+ $50 Million Plant-based Chicken Nuggets & The Infamous Burger Joint with Hidden Locations
Happy Sunday everyone!
We decided to go with a theme for this newsletter. It’s food.
Want some Chick-fil-A🐔? We’ve got you covered.
Not a fan of Chick-fil-A? We’ve got some plant-based 🌱 nuggets if you like.
Not a fan of chicken? How about Five Guys 🍔?
Please enjoy these scrumptious business stories from your favorite business media brand.
🔒 Closed on Sunday
📲 TikTok Video Views: 414,000
Why is Kanye West best friends with the CEO of Chick-fil-A?
In 2019, Kanye called Chick-fil-A's CEO, Dan Cathy, out of the blue. He told him his friend wanted to open a Chick-fil-A in LA, and sensing he was going through a rough patch, Cathy invited Kanye to come out to Atlanta.
Cathy wanted to do this because he knew his friend, Steve Harvey, would be a great mentor to Kanye through this rough time. When they were all hanging out, Kanye had a stroke of inspiration and asked Cathy if he had a studio.
Cathy didn't have one at Chick-fil-A HQ, but he did know a spot where they filmed the Marvel movies in Atlanta. It was here that Kanye recorded his infamous song, 'Closed on Sunday', and released his album not long after.
🐔 Plant-Based Chicken Startup
📲 TikTok Video Views: 492,000
This kid raised 50 million to reinvent the chicken nugget.
His name is Ben Pasternak and at age 14, he coded up a game in his science class and it ended up topping app store charts with 2M downloads.
When he moved to the US at age 16, he immediately raised 500K from investors for his next startup, Monkey. It was a hit and was a mix of Tik Tok and Omegle. Soon after, it was acquired by a Chinese firm.
Now at age 21, Pasternak is creating plant-based chicken nuggets with his newest startup, Simulate. He's raised $50M dollars for it and wants to disrupt the entire food industry.
If his parents expected him home sometime soon, it's clear they'll have to wait.
🍔 Hide & Seek
📲 TikTok Video Views: 210,000
The founder of Five Guys was a genius for this.
Everyone knows that word of mouth is one of the best forms of marketing. However, it's also the hardest channel to measure. But Five Guys founder, Jerry Murrell, found a way around it.
When picking the first Five Guys location, he intentionally picked somewhere that was really hard to find. Nobody was driving or walking past it, which meant anybody that showed up, was probably recommended by a friend.
Within a few days, Five Guys had a line out the door and Jerry knew right away—and with certainty—his burgers were amazing.
Today, Five Guys has over 1500 locations and you can bet there are still some you can’t find.
📧Making $75M by Writing an Email
Austin Rief and Alex Lieberman were recruiting for finance internships when they realized college kids didn’t have a great way to consume business news.
The Wall Street Journal wasn’t fun to read, meaning they and their friends had no way of being properly informed of daily occurrences in business. So they launched Morning Brew, a daily newsletter that covers the most interesting business stories every morning in a fun and energetic style.
Today, it has over 3M subscribers and was acquired for $75M in 2020 by Insider Inc.
Here at Our Future, we read the Brew every morning to stay up-to-date on the top things happening in business. Subscribe to get smarter starting tomorrow morning:
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