Check podcasts. >> The Bread and Butter Collective is a collection of hospitality professionals working together to help strengthen our industry to build strong culture, community, and sustainability. I'm Kaylin McNeel. And I'm Sam Jones. And this is the Bread and Butter Podcast. Welcome to the Bread and Brother podcast. Kay, you're not Kayn. Oh man. But you are a very special guest. Kaylin can't be here today because he has strep throat and he feels really bad because today our guest is Andrew Wilkinson. >> Hello. >> Hello. Andrew Wilkinson. So Andrew, for people who don't know you, let me give a brief bio. >> Sure. >> You're a billionaire. former billionaire. Important details. >> Okay. Yeah, former. That's that's a good thing to know. You you're you're also the lead in um in tiny industries and meta and aeropress amongst maybe what 20 30 40 other companies. >> Yeah. >> Wow. Amazing. Um and you look so young. >> I'm 40. >> That's not so young. I take it >> I shaved. So, the other day I was doing my mustache about a week ago and I trimmed it wrong and so I had to cut the entire thing off otherwise I have a massive hole in it >> and my girlfriend shrieked and she's like never ever ever do that again because I look like I look like I'm like 18 again. >> You know, this is the first time I think I've seen you with any facial hair. >> I can finally grow it at 40. >> Well, it took me forever to grow facial hair. You know what what got me going with facial hair was kids. As soon as I started to have kids, hair just started to sprout up everywhere. >> For me, it was gray hair. >> Was it? >> The moment I had kids, I got gray hair. And I finally got back hair, which I'm not a big fan of about two years ago. >> Really? Chest hair. I had nothing. I was like a naked mole rat. >> Yeah. You and me both. I had like 12 that you could really count. And now there's probably 40. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Um, speaking of your facial hair, um, whose idea was it to grow facial hair? Uh, it was Chachi PTS. >> I thought it might be >> I took a photo of myself and I said, uh, tell me how to be more handsome. And it said, grow a beard. And so, here we are. >> That That's all it took to be more handsome. >> Apparently, >> apparently you got naturally good-looking jeans then. >> Yeah, I guess. I don't know. >> So, so you just take your picture, stick it into Chat GBT, and say, "Make me." >> I just said like, "Here's a bunch of photos of me. What should I do? What should I wear? how should I style my hair? And it gave me a bunch of advice and I felt really good about that. But then now there's this guy who's like viral on Tik Tok and he'll do really ugly photos of himself and say, "What do you think of my face?" or "How is my outfit?" And it'll tell him it's amazing. So actually, I don't think it's tell I think it's just probably telling me what I want to hear. Well, isn't that the thing with AI is that it kind of goes off your prompts and it can read maybe a bit more into the prompts than you'd want to think and so it gives you the answers. It thinks that you're prompting it to give it. >> It's a little bit sick of fantic for sure. >> Yeah. >> Although it's getting better. >> Okay. Because when AI first started to become popular with uh with chat GPT, I kind of looked at it really quickly and I asked a bunch of dumb questions and I got kind of dumb answers and I got pretty good at asking really good questions and I got more interesting answers, but I didn't really like it that much at the time. It felt clunky and it felt like it was all about how much effort you put into into coming up with a really brilliant question. And if you can think of those questions, you can probably think of an answer, too. So, I just kind of dropped it, but I keep fearing it gets better and better and better and more useful and it's going to take the jobs of all the white collar workers. >> Yeah. So, I mean, if you think about it, um, to use a coffee shop analogy, um, you know, four or five years ago, it was like it wasn't even a like the intern, you know, training wage kind of employee, right? It couldn't do basic things. If it was a robot, it would be, you know, making terrible coffee and spilling things. But flash forward 3 years, it's at the point where it could be the coffee roaster, the master coffee roaster, where it's doing something that requires taste and sophistication and learning. Um, so in my industry in in technology, we've gone from three years ago, you know, it's kind of like, oh, I can write like some website um copy or something like that to now doing the work of somebody that I would otherwise pay $300,000. So like a a programmer, like a worldclass programmer. Yeah. >> And that's really scary because if you just apply that to the rest of the economy, >> they're focused on that first because they're in tech, right? So they're building out AI to be amazing designers, programmers, copywriters, all those things. Now it's at the point where instead of hiring people, I'm just spending more and more money on AI credits. So, we're spending like 30 $40,000 a month in payroll, but it's just AI AI for digital employees basically. Um, so it's scary. It's going to be really scary as that rolls across the economy. >> Why would you think that that tech people creating AI would create something that's inevitably going to be their their the demise of their industry? Or maybe it's not the demise of the industry. Maybe it's just a change, but why would someone create something so evidently self-destructive? >> Well, I think cuz it's so powerful, right? I think it's like a double-edged sword, just like nuclear um fision, right? So, it's like it can create a nuclear bomb and kill us all. Um but it can also create nuclear power. And I think it's like that times a thousand because if you think about it um we are we will have the potential maybe if AI does do what it hopes to do to have crazy innovation that is basically automatic. So imagine you know 200 years of cancer research in a you know 5-year period. That's possible because you can basically just take a thousand PhDs and they're just like a data center digital PhDs and be like, "Hey, go figure out cancer. Go figure out this rare disease." And so when that happens, it's like it could unlock so much incredible opportunity for humanity. And on the same side, it could also eliminate a lot of jobs. And there's an argument around, you know, the economy maybe changes and we do jobs that we never could have imagined. You know, if you told someone 400 years ago, you go to a farmer and you explain to them that you run in a coffee shop, they would be like, "What are you talking about? That's not a job." Right? So, the economy invents new jobs sometimes. >> Sure. >> But if you think about uh AI, it can eat any job that's behind a keyboard and maybe with robots, it can eat any job, period. And so, the entire economy has to change potentially. It kind of feels like the entire economy is on the cusp of a radical change even now. And I I don't think of it as a change with AI, but h having what you just said, it kind of makes makes sense that it's happening quicker and it's going to be more kind of a clean slate of the economy perhaps. >> Oh yeah. I I I I've been thinking for the last couple of years that the entire global economy is going to be changing radically. We're not going to be working off the US um um the US greenback anymore. Oil's not going to be traded in it anymore. Gold may or may not have any kind of value anymore. And I I don't know. I have you got any predictions as to as to how complete the economic change is going to be? >> So, I used to I used to read um the newspaper every single day. I'd read the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal and local news and all that kind of stuff. And I found that I just would get into like anxiety loops about often about things that wouldn't actually directly affect me. So, I'd, you know, obsessively read about what Trump was doing and then freak out. And at a certain point, I remember, um, I was talking to a friend and he goes, "You know, you live in an earthquake subduction zone where a super thrust earthquake could hit at any moment. How much time do you spend thinking about that?" And I said, "Well, I don't really think I don't spend a lot of time thinking about it because I don't control it." And because I have an earthquake preparedness kit, I got one in my car. I have one in my basement. I've got food. I've got all those things. that's the best that I can do. And so once I prepared, then I realized it's way more fruitful to spend my time worrying about stuff I can control. And so I can't control geopolitics. I can't predict the price of oil, gold, any of that stuff. But with the AI stuff, I feel like I can spend my time understanding it and then preparing for that in some way. And so for me that's been trying to invest in businesses that won't get blown up. Um it's been investing in like data centers and trying to find ways of protecting myself. Um but I don't I I feel like there's an earthquake that's been accurately predicted. Like imagine if we could accurately predict the earthquake and I said Sam in 365 days there's a super thrust earthquake that could kill 20% of Victoria's population. everyone would be freaking the out. >> They would. Yeah. >> But that's AI. That's like the the meteor is headed for Earth. It's quite predictable. Um and nobody a lot of people I talk to, unless they're like tech nerds like me, are aware of what's coming. And I think it's the sad part about it is in in some ways it's sad, in some ways it's kind of ironic, but the people who are white collar who went to school and got their degrees and they got the accounting CPA or they are a lawyer or whatever it is, those are the first jobs to go. And you know, you think about in the Great Depression, it's like people who are laborers, those are the people getting laid off. You could have your wealthy lawyer neighbor hammering on your door asking you for money. Like that's a a strange world to be a part of and I think that there could be a period where it's really rough. My long-term belief is like this will create a lot of abundance and opportunity and it can to your point reshape the entire economy. Like communism and socialism could be possible because you can't have a couple dudes control an entire country, but you can have a super intelligent AI. So maybe UBI and socialism and stuff is far more possible. I don't know. Well, yeah. So, AI is your your earthquake preparedness kit. Kind of you're putting a lot of attention on that, trying to build up your portfolio in AI and understanding it so that you can kind of navigate through whatever is coming. I >> I mean, that's what I'm doing personally and I'm just trying to talk to everyone I can to tell them about what I think is coming. And it's hard to predict, right? It's very possible that people I mean look at realtors, right? When Zillow came out or realtor.ca, everyone said, "Oh, realtors are screwed. No one's going to use a realtor." Well, it turns out that you still kind of need a person um to trust, right? Because people don't trust just listing it themselves. It's a million-dollar asset. It's their biggest their biggest asset, and they they want to sell it, right? So, they still hire realtors, but realtors on paper makes no sense. you're giving this huge amount of money to somebody who opens the door, puts some photos up on realtor.ca. Yeah, there's great realtors out there, don't get me wrong, >> I'm sure. >> But it that shouldn't exist and yet it does, right? Or in the health system, we have fax machines still. So, you know, you can always oh yeah, like all the hospitals sell machines, right? So, so I think like we can overestimate the change and how quick it comes, but I think in unregulated industries like it's coming really really quick. >> Well, in the hospitality industry you see it it happening not only kind of in the back end but out front too now you see whole entire restaurants that have no employees there. I think there was one that just opened up in California somewhere and there's no employees. You you order through a kiosk, there's arms in the back that are flipping your burgers and wrapping stuff up and you you don't necessarily have to talk to anyone. Um but that's not why I go out to eat. Um >> yeah, you want to you want to >> engage with other people. That's not why you go out to eat most of the time, but there are times where you probably go, you know, if it's, you know, labor cost is what, 35% of of the price, right? And so you go in and you say, "Okay, I can buy a burger for $12 and I'll have a human do it, or I can buy a burger for $8 and it's just a robot." But I just go in and it's really fast and it's really consistent. So I I feel like on the low end, I could definitely see that being fine. >> Yeah. Yeah, >> but on the high end, you know, you go out for dinner, you want to talk to a human, you want to look them in the eye, you want to feel that sense of artistry and craftsmanship. >> Absolutely. And you're absolutely right. I think that if you're just going for the burger or going to get some food in your in your gut and you're just driving, you don't really care, you don't have plans for lunch with a friend, then yeah, I can see that working. But >> but you know this better than anyone, right? you know, about creating a a culture and a vibe in a space, right? People go to 2% jazz because they want to talk to you or they know that amazing music is going to be playing or there's going to be people that are charming to talk to or the coffee is going to be incredible. Like those all come together and we all know we could make coffee for a fifth of the cost at home, but instead I want to go and I want to be around other people. >> Yeah. >> So, there's still a humanity there. The problem is um you know if the AI stuff happens like and 30% of people are just suddenly unemployed or or feeling like maybe I will be unemployed in a year. It's going to be interesting to think about which businesses will survive that. >> Yeah. Yeah. It's a little daunting for sure. I mean it's also there's there's light at the end of that tunnel. It feels like it feels like it could all be really great once we're through it, but we definitely I I feel like we're going to go through some hard times before we get out to the other side with a newer economy with different objectives in that economy. It's not just to make money cuz maybe we don't need it for all that much anymore. Right? People don't have jobs and aren't getting paid and things are being done by AI and they're so much cheaper and we develop great great sources of energy that don't cost us very much. Why do we need an economy at all? >> I mean it's a little bit like um newspapers, right? So people love newspapers and they have an affinity for them and they are important in a city, you know, flipping over rocks and seeing what crawls out in the dark. Um, but people were people who worked in the newspaper industry were very upset when that got disrupted and we're left with the consequences of not having great news in many cities. But what used to happen is you'd have some rich person who spent5 or $10 million on a printing press. They would have a monopoly in a city and they would get to control and make all the money from that. Now we have people any journalist can spin up a substack and they're going to make two or three,000 or 5,000 or $10,000 a month. Some of them make millions, but um there's no newspaper baron anymore. Now, it's sad for the people in that industry, but we're also uh given a lot more creative freedom if you're a writer. You you do not need the middleman. You do not need the rich person with the printing press to do that. And I think what's exciting about AI is like anyone now can do things that would otherwise cost them $100,000. Like you could make a website that is as good as Metalab could make yourself using Claude in a few days, right? That's what's that's what's crazy about this. How does that make you feel coming from that industry and being being on on the on the edge of it all the time and like really pushing for website designs? You you did I I don't know if I caught this straight, but you did Slack, did you? >> And a bunch of work on on Shopify as well. >> Shopify, Uber, Slack, YouTube, a bunch of those. Yeah. >> Wow. So, not all came from your own creation or >> Well, came from working in your coffee shop >> because you really hated it. >> No, I loved it. I loved it. I hated I hated waking up early. >> So, I hated waking up and taking the bus at 5 in the morning, but I always tell people >> being a barista is a really damn good job cuz I like to talk and I'm extroverted and I loved working for you and I loved chatting with all the customers and it was awesome. I just so damn tired, >> right? so early. Um, I guess for people who don't know, you you did used to work at 2% Jazz. >> 22 years ago, I think. >> Was it 22 years ago? Oh my god. >> Yeah. I think 2% Jazz turned exactly 30 this month. >> Wow. >> But I don't know what day. >> You should be very proud. You beat all the all the statistics on a small business. >> That's an incredible thing. But is it wrong that it feels like it's my first year still? >> No, I think that's normal. I feel I feel >> I don't know. I mean, definitely don't look at me and think, "Oh, he's got all these businesses and it's easy." Like, I feel like every year there's some new crisis or thing that comes up that makes it all feel like year one. And the stress I just want the stress to go away and it never quite does. >> Yeah. I'm I'm at the point where I'm I'm exhausted of being so busy and being stretched and and you know I'm getting older. I think it's definitely time for a change for me. >> But that's a different conversation entirely. >> But when you used to work work at 2% Jazz, it was that was some of the funnest times I think that I can remember being behind a bar. >> Oh yeah. You, me, Jeff Mo. Yeah. >> So fun. >> And Oh, and Mr. Zack Young. >> And Zack. Yeah. >> Zack Young. Now, you guys went to school together, didn't you? >> We did. Went to Bay. That's how he ended up working for you, I think. >> Okay. Cuz the two of you together were just a riot. >> Oh, I I remember laughing harder than I've ever laughed, especially with Mo. She's so funny. >> She's awesome. She She still is awesome. >> Yeah. I haven't seen her in It's so weird how in Victoria I always think it's such a small place, but sometimes I just I won't see someone for 20 years somehow. Bizarre. My dad My dad saw her. She had a baby, I think. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. Yeah. My dad ran into her, but I haven't seen her. And >> it's awesome. >> Full of beans. Yeah. Yeah. And she she's doing so good. >> Um and yeah, we used to have a really fun time. And you you can't you can't have a cafe like that anymore. I don't think I I think times have changed. >> Well, just how we had fun, the who we had that fun at their expense, you just you just can't do that anymore. >> Um for for for good or for ill. Um, I really miss those times. And that's why I got into this kind of business is because I love having a good time. I love being a host to entertain people when they come into my house or my cafe. And that particular group of people that we had there at that time was the most fun. I I had lots of other really hilarious people who worked with me in the past, but that particular moment in time will always be there for me and it was so much fun. And I look back to it and go, I wish I was still having that much fun. But as we grow up and responsibilities and everything changes, um yeah, I I miss those times, man. >> Yeah. Well, it's so funny because like uh every entrepreneur I know, you say, "Wow, you must be so proud, right?" So, so I just said, "You must be so proud. You've been running your business for 30 years. You're roasting. You've expanded all this stuff." And to you, you're going, "Oh, I I missed the old days." And the way the analogy I always use is like if I started a business where I chopped wood, let's say I just chop wood cuz I love it in my backyard and I've got a wood burning fireplace >> and my neighbor pokes his head over the fence and says, "Hey, would you chop me some wood, too? And I'll pay you for a cord." And suddenly I'm like, "Oh my god, this thing I love is now a business." You know, I'm making a hundred bucks a day, then 300. Then I hire a buddy and we're laughing our heads off and chopping wood together. And then if you flash forward 20 years, you wake up and I own a sawmill and I'm just doing Excel spreadsheets and trying to make payroll and I'm talking to my my bank and you know, that's not why I got into this. >> And all you want to do is take an hour out and go cut some. >> I just want to chop wood. And that that I feel like everyone everyone all the young people are so stressed out. They're saying, "I can't wait for the sawmill." And all the sawmill guys are saying, "I just want to chop wood." Right. >> You know. >> Well, yeah. It's like the uh the the analogy about the fisherman. Yeah, that's a great analogy. >> I don't know where I heard that first. It must have been in a book somewhere I read. So good though. But it's the same thing as chopping wood and ending up with a sawmill. Just like you're only working that hard so you can take the time off to do what you originally love to do to begin with. >> Yeah. >> And I I always try to have a really good time work. Like really I do. And I do for the most part. I love my job. I love what I do. I just Yeah. It's it's changed and it's gotten more complex. And even if I were just to go back to being a barista, uh, well, I I couldn't I can't just go back to being a bree. So, I make coffee at home early in the morning. I'm I make my my press and I sit and that's the happiest coffee of my day. Always just that quiet coffee at home where I'm timing and doing it right. just loving the process, changing something from just these beans into something delicious and it's just for me at that point. >> Well, it's cuz you control it, right? I think the hardest part about being an entrepreneur is you it's like being a screenwriter, right? So, you write a screenplay and let's imagine you're you're a screenwriter in Hollywood. You write a screenplay and it's this masterpiece and you've got it all figured out in your head. You got to go out and you got to convince all these douchy executives to do the thing and then you got to hire a hundred people and you got to have this film set and you got to get the right cinematographer and then you end up with this thing and it's you know you had the idea and it's here and there's a thousand people in between and it's been bastardized right you talk to people in any creative field where there's a lot of other people involved right I think the purest form of creativity or entrepreneurship or or not entrepreneurship but just creating a product is like writing because it's only in your head and you've just put it on the page. Uh, and no one can mess with it. And I think the hardest part about having a business, whether it's cafe or something, you know, like a screenplay or whatever, is that whenever there's people involved, people are complicated. And it's hard to have your vision executed in the exact way that you want. And I think that I don't know if it's my failing as an entrepreneur, having ADHD or whatever, but like I've never been able to get my vision to be precisely what I want. And so like you, you know, I'm 20 years into my career, I'm feeling exhausted and I have had to change how I do business, which is I buy a business, I find someone who's incredibly fired up about that business, I let them go do that, but I can't do it anymore. It's too hard. So, so you're in the business of buying businesses and hiring CEO CEOs. >> Yeah. I mean, and the way I got there was I started a bunch of businesses like you, Chaotic Entrepreneur, started 10 different businesses. Um, most of them failed and one of them worked and I still had my original web design business and um I ended up getting really stressed out and a guy came to me and said, "Hey, why don't you sell that business?" And so I sold it and it was a terrible experience. I watched someone else basically be a bad stepparent to my business. It was like having a kid and handing it off to someone and then watching them parent in a way that you don't approve of. >> And that was hard. And I went, you know what? Like I want to just buy businesses and leave them alone >> from founders who care about them >> and either let the founder keep running them or hire someone who's going to do right by them and just hold the businesses. And so we've been doing that for 12 years, 13 years now. >> And the majority of your businesses are in the in the tech industry, aren't they? >> They are, but I mean, we own um Aerop Press, the coffee maker business. >> I really want to talk to you about that. >> Well, let's I love >> Okay. You want to jump right in on that? >> Totally. >> Okay. So there's a lot of different ways to make coffee and one of them is with the Aerop press method and it it I guess it became quite popular early 2000s but didn't really take off yet. I remember I had just bought the newest espresso machine you could possibly buy. It blew everything out of the water. This thing. It was beautiful. >> The Sesso. the semester. >> Oh my god, I remember that thing. I remember when it arrived or it just arrived and you're so excited about it. Yeah. >> Okay. So, this machine changed how a lot of baristas made good espresso coffee. And one day, out of the blue, this old guy in a cowboy hat comes into my cafe with this what looked like a penis pump. I'm just going to say it. >> Sure. >> From what I understand, I >> Austin Powers. Yeah. >> Austin Powers. Thank you. And um and he says, "I'm going to make way better espresso than you with this." I'm like, "First of all, who are you?" And he tells me who he is. And I'm like, "Okay, well, I don't think you're going to." And he said, "Let's do it right now." So he did I make a beautiful shot and he presses this contraption that I've never seen anything like it before. And I was really intrigued, but he was saying it's the best espresso maker there is. So I'm like, "Okay." So we both have our drinks and we're looking at them. I'm analyzing color and all that crema of depth and then we drink them. He's like, "See, I told you mine's so much better than yours." And I looked at him and I'm like, "You're crazy, man. You're crazy. I just spent like $30,000 on this machine and you're telling me that your $20 machine is way better. So I kind of dismissed him for a couple of years and all of a sudden people were talking about the AeroPress more and they were talking about it in terms of making espresso. But all of a sudden there was a change and people were talking about it making just ordinary coffee or a concentrate or it's good for camping or in your hotel room or just anything. It was easy to clean. I'm like no no no. This guy came up and told me it was for espresso. He owns it. there's I don't want anything to do with it. And then I tried one. Uh I think I was in Brazil with a couple coffee guys and they had one and they were making this coffee in the morning that blew me away. I'm like that's that's not espresso. They're like we never use it to make espresso. It's made to make this beautiful coffee for you. So I went out and I bought one and started playing with it and oh man, I love it. And then fast forward years and years and years ago, you come out with a book and I reading the book and I get to the chapter where you on a whim go and buy the Aeropress company. Um, can you tell me how that came to you or and how that process worked and what made you buy it? Were there certain kind kind of metrics in how that that business was operating or certain potential points there that you could see? Cuz all of a sudden now that you own it, it feels like Arrow Press is everywhere and it's done some big changes and like you can't go anywhere without seeing an Aeropress anymore. It's a fantastic success. So the whole re I think when I met you, I walked in with my resume and you said, "Let me make you a shot of espresso." And I remember grimacing because I was a latte. I was a latte heathen, right? I hated the taste of a black coffee and you made me an espresso and I I remember, you know, I'd never had a really good espresso with a lot of crema. I think you did like a reststredo shot or something and you were showing me how to, you know, suck it up or whatever and you were saying, "Do you do you taste the blackberry?" you know, and I I was like, "Yeah, yeah, sure." But but but I remember working with you, I actually got a taste for coffee, like black coffee and espresso. I realized what it should taste like. >> But I feel like I've always loved the smell of the beans, but it never tastes quite like that smell. And I remember this guy, similar to you, there's this guy, a awesome guy who I I used to work with, one of my earliest employees, Alli Bosworth, and he came to the office with this penis pump PVC pipe looking contraption. And at the time, I'd, you know, always be going to 2% or or one of the other local cafes, and I would never make coffee at home. And he said, "This thing blows everything out of the water." Same thing. And he made me a coffee. And I remember just having it black and going, "Oh my god, it tastes the way the beans smell. That's very unique. And so that became my like daily driver. When I had kids and I stopped going out, I started making coffee. And one morning I looked down at it and I was like, >> who owns this? You know, and I assume generally when I see a product that some big evil private equity corporation owns, you know, everything. And when I looked it up, I realized that it was still owned by the I think he was like in his late 70s, early 80s, Alan Adler, who he is a um he's a Stanford engineering professor who just came up with this idea and he had made the Aroi Frisbee. >> I know, right? Those are so great, >> right? Like CL every '8s kid knows that, right? >> Absolutely. >> So, um I just I emailed him and he was like, "Hey, I'm deaf, so I don't want to talk on the phone." Or not deaf, but I have I'm hard of hearing, so you're going to have to fly down here. and we went down and uh we were just kind of having a casual conversation and he kind of went like all right well do you want to buy it and we said okay well what's your price and he said 60 million bucks and me and Chris were just like uh you know I don't know about that and so we went back and forth with him over the course of I don't know a year or two and finally we just sucked it up we got the money together and we bought the thing and it's been I mean it's an incredible business if you think about first of Well, coffee is something that is good for you, right? It actually is like a vasod diilator and longevity >> and it's addictive, right? >> High in antioxidants, >> right? What an incredible product. And then you also have um with the AeroPress, one of kind of six methods of brewing coffee and we saw it and we were like, "Oh, this is like Kleenex, right? Even if people rip off the AeroPress, they're always going to call them AeroPresses. There's incredible value to this brand and there's a lot of opportunity to take it and do more with it. So, a lot of people didn't want to have plastic, they wanted metal, they wanted glass and we've just expanded all that and so now we have I'll make sure to get you the Do you have the glass one? >> I don't. I still have one of the old old ones. >> I'll send you the the metal one's amazing because it you can't you can beat it up. You can take it traveling. We've made travel ones that pack down. But we've got this amazing CEO who's just like obsessed with coffee and uh he's been growing the hell out of it and it's been amazing. So I love businesses like that where it's, you know, does a good thing in the world. Uh it's a product where we can actually take it and do something more with it. Um and it'll exist in 50 years, you know, whereas you you do some software company and it's just code and it disappears into the ether, right? >> Yeah. Okay. Hey, so when you went down there just cuz he was hard of hearing, did you have a plan that you wanted to buy it or were you interested or or did you just want to meet him? >> We flat out said we want to buy it. We just didn't know that he was going to be like so upfront >> like $60 million >> and we didn't know it would be so expensive. Yeah. >> Was it a pretty big company at that point or it was >> it was it was very profitable. It had you know it was a cult classic. They spent no money on marketing. And one of the things we saw was just that um because it was run by um someone that was much older, they didn't really prioritize selling it online. So 3% of their sales were online and almost everything was just through cafes. Like if you walk into any gourmet coffee shop, odds are they have an Aeropress, but otherwise in the broader uh retail market or online, there's like nothing. So we saw that as a big opportunity, too. >> Wow. So, yeah, it's it's amazing to me that that you actually own that business. I I I know you own lots of businesses, but that one in particular, >> it's my one of my favorites. It is. Yeah. Yeah. >> That is so cool. Have you got any kind of plans in the future to to not not change it drastically cuz why would you, but are there any tweaks or anything coming down the pipelines that you want to share? Um, I don't want to upset our CEO, so I don't want to say too much, but I just say that we're looking at >> how to um how to keep autom we're exploring automating and creating maybe an electric brewer. Maybe we'll see. We're kind of dabbling and looking at that. Um, >> but uh but otherwise, it's really just kind of take what works and continue to evolve it over time. Like we've made a really beautiful um hand grinder that fits perfectly into an arrow press so you can travel with it. A hand grinder. We've made like a flow control cap so you can do espresso actually get crema out of it. >> Um we've got you know metal filters, all sorts of stuff >> because well it's it's I'm I'm sure you don't need my advice, but I I I would think that if there were two things to add to an Aerop press, it would be temperature control and and pressure control. And that that's exactly the what I would love. I I love making arrow presses and I make them for me and my girlfriend every morning, but for making them for more than two or three people, it's a bit of a pain in the butt. And I would love to be able to say, "Hey, every day at 6 a.m., you know, I want this exact pressure. I want this amount of coffee, etc., etc." Um, but we'll see. We This is how people die, right? This is how people, you know, you try and build a Rube Goldberg machine and it c it costs you a million dollars and you you end up messing up the brand, right? So, whenever we buy a great business like this, first and foremost, I think about how do I make sure I don't embarrass the founder? How do I make sure I keep it true to its DNA? How do I make sure that all the people that go to the World Aeropress competition, like literally thousands of people fly somewhere every year to compete? >> You've you've you've obviously been there and in Vancouver. Yeah. Okay. >> It's crazy, right? So, and so like I don't want to mess that up. So, that's priority number one. >> Okay. Well, that's good because it does, you're right, it has a cult cult feel to it. Like people just either they love it or they don't know anything about it. >> Totally. >> And when they learn something about it, like I did years later, now I love it. >> It's amazing. Like, it really is one of those products that sells itself. And if you just if you just let someone taste the coffee, they're always shocked, >> right? And if you don't say it's Well, I mean, back then it was being totally marketed as a portable espresso machine. >> I don't like it for espresso. Like I drink like basically a black Americano every morning with it. >> That's awesome. Okay. Wow. I I can't wait to see what you got coming. It sounds I'll send you I'll send you after this. I'll give me your address. They'll give you a big package of all the cool stuff cuz there's we've made so much amazing stuff over the last 3 years. Like it's really evolved. >> Yeah. Maybe I should get a bunch uh wholesale >> Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Let's definitely do that, too. That'd be awesome. >> Yeah. Huh. Yeah. Okay. Let's let's talk after this and >> and Yeah. I want you to mess with it and give me some feedback. >> Yeah. Okay. Sound it sounds like a really good idea. Sounds fun. I can't wait to make more coffee. I'll be doing it in my lab at my roaster, I'm sure. Um, I' I'd like to not change topics completely and and kind of keep this on the hospitality front because we we at the Bread and Butter Collective are a hospitality focused industry. And I know we could get off and talk about the world and all sorts of tech things, but I also know that you have an interest in hospitality and hospitality businesses. And I wanted to ask you in a way that well I I I don't know how I wanted to ask you. What what what I wanted to ask was why would a successful investor and entrepreneur buy any kind of restaurant and think that you're going to make money? And I know that that's not your primary focus. And I wanted to clarify that with that question because it sounds like a hard question, but I mean it in the nicest way possible. Like why would you throw good money after bad and buy hospitality businesses? And I'm not saying you can't make make money in the industry. You certainly can, but it's really difficult. And why would you want to do something so challenging? Is there something else at play there? I think um like I said, there's something special about a physical place and I think there's an energy that there's an energy and and something that happens in a community when you have like a great cafe or a great restaurant or whatever it is. And I've always felt that. I love going into restaurants and I've always had lots of thoughts about them. I've always thought, "Oh, they should tweak the lighting or change the menu or, you know, the flow of it or whatever." And so I think um anyone um anyone who loves food or coffee has at some point had the stupid thought I should start a cafe or restaurant. And I don't think most people know the failure rate and how difficult it is. When I meet somebody who has been successful over the long term running a cafe or a restaurant, I bow down like Wayne's World. We're not worthy. And I think what I do is way way easier, right? Because you, for example, you have no margin for error. You have 5 or 10% margin. You have to be an incredible operator. Every wasted coffee bean matters. Every broken cup matters. Every credit card transaction matters. Those it is like you are flying a plane and it's going to crash if you up at all. Right. >> Right. >> And so, um, I didn't >> That's a good analogy actually. >> Yeah. I didn't realize that. And so um you know in 20 2015 I was like um you know I was running all these tech businesses and software companies and I was feeling kind of depressed because you know like I said we we make this software and you don't have an experience of people using it. It's not like you sit in the room while someone uses your software. >> And I kept thinking like I want something physical. I want something real. I want to touch you know make make a thing that'll exist over the long term. And so me and my friend um Rajie and my business partner Chris, we decided, you know, let's start a restaurant. We'll start a pizza restaurant. And we just we basically just were like, "This should exist. Let's make a cool bar where you can eat pizza and it's going to be open late and have cheap beer." We just had this idea. And so we leased this space and we went into it and it was like we were we were Fiji and we said, "Let's go invade the United States." >> We were doomed. We didn't know anything about what we were doing. We're in speedboats. We're driving up to an aircraft carrier and we're about to get wiped off the face of the earth. So, you know, we signed a bad lease. We spent too much on the buildout. We didn't do food costing. We hired the wrong people. We, you know, everything was wrong. And we weren't owner operators. We were just, you know, people that were just putting a bunch of money into this thing and thinking it's going to run itself. And so, I got utterly humbled. You know, me and my friends, we all lost all of our money. And we ended up getting into this dispute with the landlord and it was just horrible, horrible experience. >> And around that time, um, Andrew Moyer, who owns Otavio in Oak Bay, >> a good friend of >> a great guy. He he, um, I used to fix his computer when I was like 12 or 13, and my brother used to work at Otavio for years. >> Oh. Cuz you must have lived really close >> and lived a block away. And so I I love, you know, I love Otavio. I used to sit and listen to a podcast every weekend before I had kids on the patio there. And so Andrew came and he said, "Hey, you know, I hear you're buying businesses. I'm thinking about selling." And he told me who he's going to sell to. And I went, "Oh, I don't know if that's going to go very well. I don't know if they're going to, you know, keep this thing keep Otavio true to Otavio." And so I said, "Okay, I'll look at it. I don't normally do this, but I'll look at it." And so I looked at the P&L and I saw, oh my god, it actually makes money. this is insane. I can't believe this business exists. It's actually like a really good food business because I'd looked at lots of restaurant P&Ls and I'd looked at our own and so when I saw it, it slapped me in the face. >> Well, they're good operators. >> They're good operators and and you know, it's a good model. And so, um, you know, I bought that and then I just said every dollar I make will go into buying more uh institutional restaurants in Victoria. And so, we ended up buying Ferrises. We ended up buying part and parcel and kind of similar to what we do at Tiny. I just was like, "Okay, I'm going to buy these businesses and just leave them alone." And so we've been doing that and um you know about a year ago we merged with Swans. So I met Mike Bole who you know and it was that thing of that moment of like oh my god like you're a good operator. You know what you're doing. >> He's tremendous operator. He's a phenomenal guy and like I just loved I he's a he's a great business brain in the hospitality world but then also outside and so I just said to him look we've got all these um restaurants we don't really know what to do with them why don't we just merge and you can oversee everything and so now we started this company called fortop that owns all of it so we're now shareholders in Swans um Otavio Perenegro Ferrises you know all the ones I mentioned but >> we haven't made money. We've made money on paper, but we've always had to buy a new fridge or repair something or we've put it into buying more restaurants. And so I look at it as um it's like preserving forest. You know, sometimes you hear these like rich guys like Chip Wilson will like buy a national or buy a big swath of forest to protect it. >> I'm kind of going like this is old growth forest and hospitality. Let's keep it alive. Right. >> Right. >> Huh. So you come at it through trying to pres preserve as opposed to thinking you're going to make money. >> I just don't want to lose money. And the reason I don't want to lose money is because it's no fun to run a business that loses money for the manager, for the employees, for anybody. It has to be sustainable. >> Yeah, for sure. So when you purchase them, are you buying them outright? Are you buying a portion of the business or is it a mixture depending on the deal you're making? >> Depends on what it is. with Otavio. But 100% um there's some where we're just investors. We've just supported them like Ruth and Dean. We help help give them startup capital. >> Um >> and and and category 12 as well. Yeah. Is that almost 15 years ago? >> Wow. >> Yeah. And they still seem like they're doing really well. >> They're awesome. They're great. I mean, >> they're good people. >> They're they're really good people. Um, and this is this is the thing is like um the problem with the restaurant industry is like manyfold, but I feel like part of it is that the permitting process like here's an example. So, we own a building down in um Cadra Bay and I bought it because I wanted to put a phenomenal cafe there. >> I've been waiting to see what's going on in there >> and and I can't say who, but it's someone really really exciting >> um is going in there. But we we bought this building a year and a half ago and the reasoning process has taken all we're doing is we're knocking down a wall and we're putting in some plumbing and electrical to get the demo permit took 6 months and now it's been still in purgatory in Sanich permitting just to get approval to start doing the buildout. And so when you think about this, like yeah, I'm lucky. Like I can afford to wait a year and a half and suck that up and not get paid rent, but I have a friend who um runs a comedy club. Although I think everyone knows this, but Alex and Nash from Okay Dope. They do comedy at the Mint and they they've actually they've actually rented a space on Cook Street and they're doing a comedy club there. And I texted Alex the other day and I said, "Oh, when are you guys going in? Is the buildout done?" And they said, "The buildout's totally done. We just don't have an occupancy permit, and it might be another like 2 or 3 months." And if you think about that for them, >> that's five or 10 grand a month just being lit on fire. And they're comedians. They don't have they don't have a lot of money. And so I just go like, "How can anyone do business in this environment? This is crazy." >> So yeah, um I'm always coming up against permits and just all the red tape, all the hurdles. It should be so much easier. You got a good idea? They say it's a good idea. What's what's what's to hold you back? >> It's all it's all well intentioned, right? If you said, um, well, we want to make sure that there's fire exits. We don't want people to panic and die in a fire. We don't want the ceiling to collapse when there's an earthquake. These are all totally valid concerns. But what it means is that you've got all these people that want to start businesses and you have this tiny little pipe they all have to fit through and they don't have enough money to fit through the pipe. And so you end up in this situation where you have a city that is not thriving. And and that's not the only piece. There's many different aspects to this. And I don't want to on the government too much, but I do struggle a little bit. I just go, why wouldn't they just hire 20 more people to do permits? >> Like Langford, >> you have an idea. It started now Langford's a mess. You go down the street and you're going, why is there a house next to a building? They build stuff, you know? >> Yeah. They're they're quick. Their their their their business licensing is permanent. You buy it once, you're good forever. Not like Victoria where it feels like a tax every year. >> You have to renew your business license every year. >> Every year. >> What? >> Every year. >> That's ridiculous. >> I know. And you got to pay them every year. >> And yet you have to do all your backflow prevention checks and like things have gotten more and more complicated over the years. They certainly haven't gotten easier and I don't know if they've gotten any better in terms of safety. >> I mean, I I I just wouldn't know that. I think I'd be speculating. >> I I think like part of this comes from the fact that there are so many municipalities, right? And so if they were all like part of the problem is like the people that go downtown to go to these businesses are not even voting in what occurs downtown, right? And there's no way for everyone to coordinate costs and and fix these problems. And I I think it's probably too messy to combine everyone right now. I really scratched my head because I I remember um about almost 10 years ago now, I bought um I bought a lot that I wanted to build a house on and I said um I said to said to a friend who's in Texas, I said, "Oh, I'm building my dream house. I'm so excited. I'm going to build design and build this house, right?" And he said, "Oh my god, that's crazy. I bought a lot, too, and I'm about to do the same thing." And I said, "Oh, amazing. How long are they You think it's going to take? They're telling me it's going to take about four years." and he said, "Oh my god, that's crazy. We're going to be in in 12 months." >> In and done. >> In and done. And I said, "Well, that's ridiculous. There's no way." And lo and behold, he sent me photos of his place. And the reason for that, you've got a lot of different reasons. Building cost is cheaper. There's some things like that. There's more labor. But the biggest thing is that in Dallas, they just have preapproved permitting. So, if you build, they just say, "These are the rules. Build to the rules. And if you don't build to the rules, you're going to knock it down. So, you're going to have a problem. But you just start building. So, you have this lot and you just start building. Whereas in Canada or in BC at least, or Victoria, you have to file ahead of time. They this whole back and forth. In Oak Bay, you even have to have it look a certain way or in Uplands, like all this stuff. I just think it's like um it's like licensing for people who are barbers. It's like, do we really need someone to have a license to cut hair or could we just trust that people are going to cut hair and if you know I want to take the risk of letting you cut my hair, that's my choice, >> right? And if you don't like it, you don't go back. >> Totally. >> Pretty simple. >> And again, these are these are things that I I like I can argue both sides, right? I know exactly what the argument is for why we need the regulation to protect individuals, to protect building owners, to protect tenants, all these things, protect the city from liability. But man, like this is not a good environment for making things happen quickly. >> It's a lot of protection for for a slim chance of anything happening. Well, you just listen to the first part of our interview with Andrew Wilkinson and stay tuned or keep subscribing so that when part two drops next week, you're going to be there and hear it all. Bread and Butter Collective membership includes the following local businesses. 2% Jazz, Bunny's Kitchen, Buzz Coffee House, Eagleite, Big Wheelburg, Blue Mountain Solutions, Bodega Tapis Wine Bar, Eva Schnitle House, Farmsgate Foods and Catering, Victoria Chocolate and Company, Drum Roster Coffee, Habit Coffee, FU Asian Street Food, The Culinary Arts Program at Kimosen, Cafe Fantastico, Fall Epi, Harold Street Brewworks, Ahappy, House of Bang Nikke Ramena Jenny Marie's Cracker Company La Pasta Laroo Petisserie Mocha House Part and Parcel Poco Ainto Bar Pizzeria Primistrada Keing Pizza Roast Table 9 Consulting Sherwood Cafe and Bar Sweets by Selena the Collective Wine Bar and Kitchen, The Drake Tapup Bar, The Nimble Bar Company, Ruth and Dean, the Whole beast, the wienery, spoons diner, truffles inspired catering, and zambres. To hear more from the breadandbut collective, go to checknews.ca/mpodcasts on Czech Plus or find us on your favorite podcasting platform.