Bo Davis Co-Founder and CEO of MarginEdge

#46. Meet Bo Davis, the co-founder and CEO of MarginEdge, a cutting-edge back office technology tailored for restaurants, streamlining operations from accounting to POS systems and beyond, encompassing all facets of kitchen management.

Despite dropping out of high school, Bo's insatiable thirst for knowledge propelled him to attain two master's degrees, one in finance and another in artificial intelligence from Northwestern University, showcasing his dedication to continuous learning.

Prior to MarginEdge, Bo's entrepreneurial spirit led him to establish multiple successful ventures in both the restaurant and technology sectors. Notably, MarginEdge's commitment to fostering a positive workplace culture was recognized with a prestigious seventh-place ranking in Glassdoor's nationwide list of best places to work.

Throughout the episode, Bo shares invaluable insights into building a thriving organizational culture, delving into the nuances of restaurant unit economics, exploring both the triumphs and challenges faced in the industry.

Tune in to gain a deeper understanding of the restaurant industry's dynamics and entrepreneurial pursuits, accompanied by engaging discussions and practical advice. Enjoy the conversation and join the dialogue on the evolving landscape of entrepreneurship.

Where to find Bo Davis: 

• LinkedIn

Where to find host Josh Sharkey:

• Instagram
• LinkedIn
• TikTok
• Twitter

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In this episode, we cover:

(05:13) Bo Davis' background
(05:38) How being a parent has impacted the way Bo runs a company
(16:03) The reasoning behind MarginEdge's strong company culture
(23:29) The irony behind teammates being eager to share the pain
(25:59) Separation agreements
(33:27) What good restaurant economics look like today
(37:56) How Bo handles mistakes
(44:29) What makes Bo really really angry
(49:48) Why people work at MarginEdge
(51:47) Final thoughts from Bo

Transcript

[00:00:00] Josh Sharkey: 

You're listening to season two of The meez Podcast. I'm your host Josh Sharkey, the founder and CEO of meez, a culinary operating system for food professionals. On the show, we're going to talk to high performers in the food business, everything from Chefs to CEOs, technologists, writers, investors, and more about how they innovate and operate and how they consistently execute at a high level day after day.

[00:00:24] 

And I would really love it if you could drop us a five star review anywhere that you listen to your podcast. That could be Apple, that could be Spotify, could be Google. I'm not picky Anywhere works, but I really appreciate the support and as always, I hope you enjoy the show.

[00:00:44] 

My guest today is the co-founder and CEO of MarginEdge, a back office technology for restaurants, connecting, accounting, POS, and more. So all your kitchen operations. Name's Bo Davis. Bo and I met years ago, actually, while I was still running restaurants, and we've been friends ever since. He's one of those people that you realize more and more over time how smart they really are.

[00:01:04] 

Bo actually dropped out of high school, which I didn't know, but he still managed to get two master's degrees. One in finance and then 30 years later another degree in data science from Northwestern. So he's definitely an avid learner and he's built several successful companies. So before MarginEdge, he had a couple others.

[00:01:20] 

He had restaurants and another tech company. Most importantly for him recently, uh, MarginEdge won seventh out of the entire country from Glassdoor of best places to work. So we talk a lot about some of the tactical advice related to building great culture before digging into restaurant unit economics, the good, the bad, and sometimes scary.

[00:01:36] 

I'm curious what you think about our last topic as we start to talk about what it's like to be an entrepreneur and what it means to be an entrepreneur. Shoot me a DM if you agree or disagree or just any thoughts that you have. I'd love to hear what you think. And as always, I hope you enjoy the conversation as much as I did.

[00:02:00] Josh Sharkey: 

Welcome to the show. We're live. So thank you. 

[00:02:03] Bo Davis: 

Super excited to be here, Josh. I look forward to talking to you. I always enjoy our conversations, so doing it recorded should be interesting. 

[00:02:09] Josh Sharkey: 

I know. Well, I find I'm usually picking your brain anyways, so I'm going to take today to pick your brain even more. You know, for, I'm going to wind everyone up a little bit, and then maybe you can fill in the blanks. Okay. About your background, because it's pretty, it's pretty impressive. I didn't know. It's a little random, but. Well, I didn't know you actually dropped out of high school, yet still have two master's degrees.

That's pretty awesome. 

[00:02:29] Bo Davis: 

A little random, as I said. 

[00:02:31] Josh Sharkey: 

And you started a company long before MarginEdge, and you also obviously started restaurants, which we'll talk about, but an educational platform that you sold to Blackboard. What I didn't know, I knew you were like digging into data science recently.

[00:02:44] 

Obviously you went to college, I'm not going to know how many decades ago. It was a while ago. Yeah, but like literally two years ago, you got a master's from Northwestern in data science, which I had no idea. I knew you were taking classes. I thought they were like a fun little like, you know, laissez faire, like nighttime data science class, but you're actually like. Got a degree in data science.

[00:03:04] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, it's actually, it's, it's technically artificial intelligence and it's out of the engineering school at Northwestern. 

[00:03:10] Josh Sharkey: 

That's amazing, man. It was fun. Well, can you just fill in the blanks a little bit about who you are? 

[00:03:15] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, so it is a little bit of a random walk. So yeah, I'm a high school dropout, went to community college, ended up getting out of college, a sixth, I think forever, but finally graduated.

[00:03:24] 

And then started a software company right out of college, higher ed tech, as you mentioned, a company called Prometheus that I sold to Blackboard. And that was. 27 years ago. So I started that in 97 and it was actually my first job out of college. So I was a kid and then I wasn't sure what to do. So my wife and I went into the peace corps.

[00:03:40] 

So we moved to Eastern Europe, did a couple of years in the peace corps, still wasn't sure what to do. So I went to graduate school and did my first master's in finance in London. And there decided to go into the restaurant business with a couple of buddies. And so we hired a chef out of London and moved to DC, opened our first restaurant, did that for 10 years. And then in 2015, started MarginEdge

[00:03:59] Josh Sharkey: 

So you and your wife were both in the Peace Corps together? 

[00:04:02] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. So we got engaged when I was running my first company, my first software company back in the nineties. And then when I sold the company, we weren't sure what we wanted to do. And she had just finished a master's in history.

[00:04:12] 

And I just. You know, had an exit, so I had flexibility and, and we realized that like, this was probably the only point in our lives that we would have that flexibility until we retired. And so we were like brainstorming ideas and she said, you know, I always wanted to join the Peace Corps when I was in college.

[00:04:26] 

And so we looked into it and it felt like a great chance to give back and go see the world. And so, yeah, we spent two years in Eastern Europe together. She was a teacher of English. I was doing economic development in a little tiny town called Krivopolanka in the corner of Serbia, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, middle of nowhere. This is definitely a learning experience. 

[00:04:44] Josh Sharkey: 

So, my sister was in the Peace Corps in Mali, in West Africa for a few years, and then she went back to Malawi, I think, actually not for the Peace Corps at that point, but originally the Peace Corps in Mali, but it was, it was a process, and to get, and it's somewhat random who got in where, like how did you and your wife end up getting to the same place?

[00:05:01] Bo Davis: 

So the deal with the Peace Corps is if you are married upon application, you go together. Ah. So we actually got assigned together. Their story's a little bit funny though, in that we applied and we wanted to go to Russia and we got accepted and we're going to Russia, we got married in June, we were leaving in August, and in July of that year, Putin threw the Peace Corps out of Russia.

[00:05:19] 

And so we were then homeless for like six months until they found a new assignment for us, and we ended up in Eastern Europe.

[00:05:25] Josh Sharkey: 

Awesome. You have a couple kids, at least a couple. Three. Yeah. How old are they again? I know this by the way, I'm just letting the audience know. 

[00:05:33] Bo Davis: 

It changes every four months, so it's fair. 18, 16, and 13. 

[00:05:38] Josh Sharkey: 

I’ve actually been talking about this a lot lately on the, on the, on the podcast with other parents who are not even just like CEOs, but just that have jobs. But like, how has, now it's been quite a while, you know, over a decade of being a parent, like, how does it impact the way that you lead your company?

[00:05:55] Bo Davis: 

The more important thing fundamentally is how it impacted how I work. And then from that, how that impacted the company. And like the, the interesting thing for me is I had my first child and my first restaurant basically back to back. So in 2005, my wife had our first child. It's when we moved back from London and we opened our first place here in DC.

[00:06:12] 

And so, you know, the whole sort of early childhood, first 10 years for my kids, I was a restaurant operator. I had restaurants in California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts, DC. And I would say from the very beginning, I was extremely dedicated to making sure that I made time for the kids and spent a lot of time with them.

[00:06:33] 

And, you know, restaurants are obviously wildly demanding, as we all know, and wildly stressful. And, you know, I've been to, I've been a fair number of restaurants. Failed, right? And I had broken leases and fights with landlords and had to let people go and all the stresses that come with that. And I would say that through that period, having that really tight relationship with the family and making time with the kids helped keep me sane because it really was a very, very emotionally difficult time period, particularly the last like three years.

[00:07:00] 

And so to me that during that time period. I just learned how important it was to have a balance that wasn't just all work because of how difficult it was. And, and so as we started this company MarginEdge, it was really fundamental to me that the work life balance thing wasn't just something that was on paper or something that we bragged about on LinkedIn, but was fundamental to the company. And so, yeah, it's had a deep impact, I think.

[00:07:26] Josh Sharkey: 

It's amazing that you're able to do that. How? 

[00:07:30] Bo Davis: 

Can I tell you one of my favorite bragging points, Josh, as a parent, one of my favorite bragging points, I think this blows people's minds a little bit. So during those years, right? Restaurant operator, restaurants all over the place.

[00:07:39] 

I attended every field trip. My kids went on in elementary school that I could get into. And I know your kids are a little younger, but as they get into like kindergarten and first grade, it's competitive to get in those field trips. And then as they get into like fifth and sixth grade, parents don't want to go anymore, so it's easy.

[00:07:54] 

But like. I was like first email the teacher to go on field trips and I did literally red eyes back from restaurant meetings from meetings in California to get back and get on a field trip, but I went on all of them like I made the fucking time right? Like that's that's how life works. You either make the time or you don't. And I made the time 

[00:08:13] Josh Sharkey: 

Obviously, you know, I have two kids, but my kids were born as I was building a technology company, but most of my life was running restaurants. Yeah. I couldn't imagine, like, how, how would work, you know, like, you know, working 15, 16, 18 hour days. How do you, like, did you like put it into the calendar?

[00:08:31] 

Did you like have some sort of agreement with your, with your wife about like what the times would be and like? 

[00:08:36] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I mean, I will say, so my wife was not working, which is super helpful, right? So we definitely had a stay at home, she was a stay at home mom. And so that gave us a lot of flexibility. 

[00:08:46] Josh Sharkey: 

How long did that, how long was that?

[00:08:46] Bo Davis: 

Basically the whole time they were in elementary school. She went back to work. She'd kill me if I said I didn't know, but I don't know. Five years ago, six years ago, something like that. But basically the whole time they were young, she was at home. And that, so that definitely gave flexibility, right? So it wasn't like I was the primary caretaker at any point.

[00:09:04] 

But my first restaurant, we were busy, lunches were the main business. And then we were, um, you know, there was nothing in the mornings. And so I, in the mornings I spent time with the kids and like, I just always made a point of, of carving out that time. And look, some of it is delegation. Like as a owner, I probably have more, I do have more room to delegate than others, but, but I just always made it a priority and I think, you know, I think it's.

[00:09:28] 

A lot about work, and it's true in the software company too, a lot about work is like, how you approach it, and you know, you can allow any job to take up all of your time, I mean, you can be whatever, any role, and you can work all the time, and you can throw yourself into it, and that can be your personal identity, and you see that, right, with a lot of people, and for me, I never allowed it to be my personal identity, it was a thing that I did, and I dedicated the time I needed to to it, and certainly there were times where it was like, shit, you know, I have to do a thing, and I didn't have complete control, But I always balance that with, no, that's not my personal identity. My personal identity is broader than that. And I made the time to do the other thing.

[00:10:01] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I mean, Whatever you're doing at work, because you still have an incredible company and, you know, three almost fully grown children. 

[00:10:10] Bo Davis: 

Three kids that haven't killed me or each other yet, so that's a thing. 

[00:10:13] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I find that I have to, like, my calendar is, is everything, right? So like, I literally have Oh, I do too. The playtime for the kids in the morning, the playtime 

[00:10:23] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. So I didn't do that in the restaurant business. Cause you know how the restaurant business is less like that, but yeah, since the software company for the last eight years, absolutely. Yeah. No, but the carving out time.

[00:10:31] 

And, um, I even do like a couple hours a day that I carve out for focus time. That is just recurring meetings in my calendar. Sometimes you have to give them up, but I try to make sure I have time to think and not just go from meeting to meeting, to meeting, to meeting, to meeting. Yeah. 

[00:10:44] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I do the same thing. I feel like I keep talking about this app and I have to stop because it sounds like I'm selling it, but there's this app called Reclaim that I'm like obsessed with. And it's, it's like a calendar app, but it uses AI to rearrange your calendar and you create these habits. So I have a habit for strategy and I have a habit.

That's like, you know, X amount of time per week for strategy or email. 

[00:11:03] Bo Davis: 

Writing it down. Catch up, make sure you get your commission. 

[00:11:05] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I should get commission from them and it rearranges, but it makes sure no matter what, you still get the strategy time. Cause that was the hard part for me. It's like my, you know, Maria and my team takes care of my calendar, but she's like, can I just make your strategy time less?

[00:11:16] 

Because there's, I don't know what to do with this thing and just solve the huge problem there. So there's a couple like things I want to like dive into today with you, if it's okay, because one, one is. You know, on the finance side, because you know, a lot about that. I've learned a lot from you over the years, not just as it relates to like tech companies, but restaurants specifically.

[00:11:35] 

And then just to your perspective on what it's been like to build a company in the Delta between like what it was like two decades ago when you first started doing it. 

[00:11:45] Bo Davis: 

Sadly, sadly, Josh, as I was thinking about this, it's 397. So I'm pushing three decades, three decades ago. 

[00:11:49] Josh Sharkey: 

I'm careful not to, but what, so what has changed the most? I mean, obviously you created. Your first company almost three decades ago sold it to a pretty large, you know, education platform, started this new company. What are the biggest differences that, you know, we know everything that's the same. What are the biggest differences today from, you know, 

[00:12:10] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I mean, I think what was pretty wild about when I got started and, and I was actually coding in 96 and we really started selling the software in 97. What was really wild about that time period was that the internet was like, I mean, technically the infrastructure wasn't new, but the internet was coming out to the world. Like Amazon was a new thing. Google wasn't a thing. Right. Like it was still very, very early. And if anything, it was mainly brochure where, right.

[00:12:34] 

There were a bunch of websites where you could like learn a thing, but there wasn't a ton that was very interactive and, and there wasn't much shopping or whatever. And so, so in those days, it was like. The wild west, like, I mean, honestly, venture capitalists were just like money around. Like nobody knew what the hell it was going to look like in the end.

[00:12:51] 

And a lot of people had a lot of different ideas. And frankly, I got extremely lucky because I was, you know, 22 had never worked for anybody in my life and got funding for a fucking software company. There was no reason that I should have gotten funding for that thing. Yeah, it was, it was definitely the wild west.

[00:13:06] 

Anyone who was around at that time knows it ended fairly ugly with the 2001 crash of the dot com bubble because people got a little bit over their skis. But yeah, I mean, I think that's one thing. Certainly the, the, you know, when you think about SAS, for example, right, we have all these metrics now, and I know I've seen your numbers, you've seen my numbers, right?

[00:13:23] 

It's all about like retention, ARPU and. Whatever, all the different acronyms, none of that existed. Like my first company in 97, we charged an annual subscription fee, but it wasn't called software as a service that didn't exist. Right. And so like all that sort of knowledge and math and all of that was just still coming around.

[00:13:41] 

And that was certainly interesting. And then the other thing is like. There was no cloud, like there was the internet, but everyone had to run their own servers. So we had a machine room, right? That had stacks of servers and we had our own database administrators and everything that had to run, you know, Linux admins and all that stuff that had to run all of the layers of software.

[00:13:59] 

So the incremental cost to start a software company was materially higher than it is today. And so that also pretty dramatically changed the landscape of what the companies were. You needed more capital. And now, as you know, like. Two guys in an AWS account can actually get something on the web that's dynamic pretty easily.

Now it might not be powerful or scalable, but it at least looks like something.

[00:14:20] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Independent of the, of like the mechanics of starting a business and the infrastructure that's involved. Like, is there anything as it relates to people or how you, you know, build processes or, or, or culture that is just

[00:14:35] 

You know, in some ways, some sort of paradigm shift, or much different today than it was 30 years ago. Obviously 30 years ago was also pre social media. It was pre kind of, you know, a lot of the, a lot of those #MeToo, these kinds of things. Did that have any impact? 

[00:14:52] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. I mean, look, obviously there's been lots of evolution of all of that. It has been a long time. I think, you know, the mechanics are completely different, right? It used to be waterfall, right? You would develop software and you release it once a year and then you would spend a year debugging and getting ready for the next big release. And, and so, yeah, there's tons of like mechanical things like that that have changed.

[00:15:12]

But, but honestly, no, I mean, I think a lot of the fundamental stuff is the same. I mean, I have. Aged and matured and learned a lot, obviously, over the last 30 years doing this. And so the culture in my company today is radically different than my culture. And 27 years ago, you know, 27 years ago, it was like heads down work, work, work, work, work, work, work.

[00:15:30] 

And like, just, you know, it was like just no perspective at all on anything. So, so that has all changed completely. But. I don't think the overall business environment is still very similar, right? The things that are important are still important. And you know, like the, the, you mentioned the #Metoo and the DEI and all that stuff.

[00:15:46] 

Like, I think that's more in the forefront today, but I mean, we were talking about that 20 years ago, right? I mean, like. Equality is not new. It might be a little more in the forefront than it was in the past and the acronyms may have changed, but you know, treating people equally and promoting everyone properly and that stuff.

[00:16:03] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are pretty universal. Poor values, right? Yeah. People don't change much, but you know. At least with MarginEdge, I mean, you've won some pretty incredible awards related to people, which is like best places to work, and I know that means a lot to you. 

[00:16:18] Bo Davis: 

I'm super proud of the one we just won, which is on Glassdoor. So, you know, a lot of these things you have to apply for them. So there's a limited number of companies applying at any given time. So I'm still very proud of winning any of them, but like the Glassdoor one. They actually go into their data set, you don't apply, you don't submit anything, and they only use the analytics on their own data set.

[00:16:36] 

And they only have two categories for the entire country, above a thousand employees and below a thousand employees. So whether you're a electric, electrical firm or whatever, anything, you're in that category. So we're in the sub 1000, obviously. And we got seventh place in the country for best places to work across all industries.

across all industries. Like how cool is that? Like super, super stoked. 

[00:16:56] Josh Sharkey: 

What do you think it is? Like, what, what is it about the, the, the culture that you're building? 

[00:17:01] Bo Davis: 

I mean, look, there's a few things that I think are super important. I think if I, at the top of it though, I would say there was a really good mix at the very beginning between my co founder, one of my co founders, Roy Phillips and myself, where Roy, like, I think I had a lot of the sort of basic fundamental beliefs about the importance of work life balance and that stuff, like, so, so it wasn't like a philosophical difference between the two of us.

[00:17:23] 

But what he had that I didn't is that he was really intentional about thinking about the culture of the company. So if I think about the company I had before, Wasabi, the restaurants, like I acted. Very similarly, but I was less focused on like, are we treating everyone? And does everyone have the same?

[00:17:39] 

Does everyone have the ability to go on a field trip with their kids? Right? Like I just was less focused on that and more focused on, on whatever. And, and with Roy, when we started MarginEdge. He had come out of the Outback Group, which had focused really heavily on culture for decades, and he had spent 25 years there.

[00:17:55] 

And so he and I, from the beginning, we're like, okay, we're going to be really intentional about the philosophy, which both of he and I agreed on the fundamentals, but we're going to be really intentional that that is applied to the organization and that we focus on that from the beginning in the early hires and what we talk about.

[00:18:10] 

And as we scale, we were going to continue to focus on it in a really meaningful way. And to this day, this is Roy's primary job with MarginEdge is focusing on the culture. And so, So we were super intentional about it. Um, and I think that, I think it matters. Like I think you have to be. 

[00:18:25] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. So, I mean, tactically, what are some of the things that you do to be intentional?

[00:18:30] Bo Davis: 

Um, well, I think it's, some of it evolves with different, eight different stages in the company. I would say early on, uh, we were, uh, I mean, we're still careful about who we hire, obviously, but in the beginning we were super careful about who we hired, right? When you're, when you're five people and you're going to six, that's 20 percent of your company and you need to make, you know, there can be no room for error.

[00:18:48] 

And so. You know, we made sure we found, uh, the right people and we can talk a little bit about what that means, but early on, I think it was more about that as we got into a certain size, so currently we're 250 people in the U S and 800 overseas, as we got to a certain size, it got more about trying to systematize and standardize and I'll say.

[00:19:06] 

I also have a tool that I would recommend that I also do not get commissioned for, but I am a huge believer in. Somebody else at a company whose culture I admire told me about, it's called Office Vibe. 

[00:19:16] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh yeah, we use that. Do you? Love it. I'm sure I gave you the speech previously. I think you told me about it, yeah.

[00:19:22] Bo Davis: 

So basically for those who don't, it's what's called a pulse survey. And so basically every two weeks, every employee in the company, all 250 people will get five questions, but the five questions are randomized across the 250 people. And all of the 250 people ladder up in the organization. So the sales team goes to sales manager, goes to

[00:19:41] 

Director goes to head of sales, right? So you can see statistically significant information across your entire team and across like 15 different segments of information. Like, what do they think about compensation? What do they think about their work life environment, blah, blah, blah. And so we've been doing this for years.

[00:19:55] 

And so we can look in there and we can see down to, it's anonymized, but down to groups of five. Who's happy, who's not, what they're happy about, what they're not. And honestly, I think the most valuable thing, like I'd love to say I'm a data person, as you said, I'd like to say the data is what drives us, but honestly, it's really not.

[00:20:10] 

What really drives us out of that is that there's one question, which is open, right? They can write text and. I don't know, we've used it for like four or five years. I've read every single anonymous text message from every single person that has posted in that, in the company. And I respond to the ones that are relevant and I pull in people where needed and I do the things right.

[00:20:32] 

And their managers are also reading it. And so there is this, this great. This is a great channel for everyone to speak up and be heard. And I think that's recognized. Another thing I did during the yes, tactical. So I'm giving you technicals. Another thing I did during COVID is, you know, reading about how you, how people are dealing with it.

[00:20:49] 

I got this idea from someone about a water cooler session. So I have an hour a day that is set in a three 20 minute segments that are water cooler, and I have the link that's out to the whole company and the description of the meeting is like. I ran into you at the water cooler, you don't have to have an agenda.

[00:21:05] 

You don't have to have a target. You don't have to come to me to report on anything. We're just going to bullshit. And so we'll get on the phone and, you know, I'll talk to people about their kids. I'll talk to them about what they like or don't like. I'll talk to them about their career path, or I'll talk to them about an issue they're having in MarginEdge and how I can coach them.

[00:21:19] 

And so it's just a, it's a, a low bar way for people to, to communicate. And I think, I think those kinds of things, that openness, that transparency. Those are a couple of examples. The other one is we're just super transparent on all of our reporting. So whether it's good news or bad news, it's transparent.

[00:21:37] 

And I think a lot of companies are transparent when it's good and spinning when it's bad and people can see through that shit. And so, you know, some of my favorite moments have been when I look back are the hardest times where we leaned into the difficult decision of being super transparent when things were bad and people on my exec team and others were like.

[00:21:57] 

That's not what you're supposed to do. And we were like, nope, that's what we're going to do. And it works every single time. People want to help. They want to lean in. They want to be supportive. They don't get scared off as easily as you think they do. And frankly, if they do get scared off, fine, let them go.

[00:22:12] Josh Sharkey: 

Keep moving. I a hundred percent agree. We take the same approach and people surprise you so much. If you're just completely honest with them and you bring them in and make them part of the solution, they, you know, they want to, right? 

[00:22:22] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. And honestly, one of my biggest lessons in the last few years through COVID was. And it's one of these things that philosophically makes sense, but in practice, almost no one does it. And that is, humans actually like to share pain, like they, they are open to sharing pain. They get value out of taking part of the pain and they want to then help solve the problem. And what I mean is, when COVID first hit, we looked at Laying off with, I forget the numbers, but we were going to lay off 30 or 40 percent of the people to get our cashflow where it needed to be because our revenues were dropping.

[00:22:52] 

And at the last minute, the exec team was like, you know what? Instead of that, we're going to cut everyone's pay and we cut everyone's pay, developers, sales, mark, literally execs, everyone's pay. And we're like, sorry, we're going to do this. And we don't even know how long we're going to do it for, but we're going to cut pay until our revenues get back up.

[00:23:08] 

And then we're going to bring everybody back. Now the playbook is. Let go of 30%, spare pain from the 70%, do it quick, do it deep, and then move on. And we did the opposite, right? It was neither quick, nor was it localized. We shared the pain. No one quit, like even the developers who were still hot and everybody wanted engineers, nobody quit.

[00:23:29] 

We got through it. We went back to normal salaries and that was the first year we won a best place to work award, right? Everyone dug in because they, they actually, they don't mind sharing the pain. They want to, they want to help.

[00:23:40] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, it's funny how contrarian that is. I mean, the advice you get from every single not, by the way, not just investor, but employment attorney from every people advisor is do a quick, you know, make, make the cut, make it very clear, make it big enough that you don't have to do it again and just communicate very clearly what's, what's going on.

[00:24:03] 

I don't think I've heard anybody. I mean, it's tough. You have to get everybody to buy into that. But I think. It's, it's, that risk is, is really beautiful, right? When they all do buy in and say, yeah, we'll, we'll take the cut even though we don't know how long it's going to be for. I, I, I'm, I'm sure all of them are now back up to there.

[00:24:18] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. So, I mean, it turned out it was about six months and yeah, I mean. It was a, it was pretty wild. I will say that was a riskier decision, but in the, in retrospect, it's, it is actually the easy decision because it is, it's just the right thing to do. Right. Like instead of localize the pain on some people, everybody take a piece.

[00:24:37] Josh Sharkey: 

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[00:25:23] Josh Sharkey: 

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[00:25:47] 

So you were talking about your partners a bunch and I've had business partners in previous restaurants. Things have gone good. Things have gone bad. Yeah. You have multiple partners, right? So there's Roy and then don't you, there's a couple other involved, right? 

[00:25:59] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. So we had, they're basically five of us with MarginEdge. When we started three of us are still with the company two or not. Yeah. I'll say with all three companies, I had co-founders and I've had the full range of disaster, like out of the gate. And, you know, total success still working together after eight, 10 years and everything in between. I think the advice that I give founders and I, I give this very strongly is the relationship between co founders will be directly proportional to the clarity of the separation agreement.

[00:26:30] 

In other words, if it is very clear that if you're going to break up, it's going to look like a certain thing, it takes an enormous amount of pressure out of the relationship. And this is another thing that might feel a little contrarian, but like. You hear this all the time. I heard this just recently.

[00:26:44] 

Yeah. But people basically think that they're so sure they're going to work together that they don't need to plan for that. And then they act like if you talk to them candidly, they're, they're concerned about what that discussion will be, and what laying that process will look like out. And I always say to them, like, if you can't decide that, but you're going to run a company and build a billion dollar organization together and go through a thousand complexities, maybe you're not as close as you think you are.

[00:27:11] 

Maybe you don't have as good working relationship as you think you are. This should actually be fairly straightforward. So like getting that, having that conversation, laying it out, it just makes, it makes all the difference in the world.

[00:27:21] Josh Sharkey: 

No, that's super helpful. And I'll even just the notion of. Lay out your separation agreement out front, because I think a lot of, a lot of folks might not even think to do that.

[00:27:32] 

The other thing I, I've learned is that it's so important to be crystal clear on separation of responsibilities. Because what ends up happening is, you know, you, you have a partner, a couple partners, and you're like, let's go build this thing. And then as things start coming, you know, coming in, who's gonna address it?

[00:27:50] 

Both of you address it, or multiple people, and then that means no one does, and then there's arguments, and then you're doing more of it, they're doing less of it, and you're resentful. It's like, if it's, not to mention, you know, I think that having different skill sets is so important, right? You feel the gaps of, of, you know, your skills from, from someone else's, but being clear on, Hey, I'm going to own, you know, this piece of the business and you own this piece. Even if it's a racy matrix or something. That part is hard. 

[00:28:14] Bo Davis: 

And then the really hard part, in my opinion, is on the accountability because not everybody ends up carrying their weight as much as everyone thought they were going in. And then it's like, Those are hard conversations, right? And that's why the knowing where it would end if it separates is important to know so that those conversations can be a little bit cleaner.

[00:28:34] 

Because if there's also ambiguity in what the next steps look like, then that's really okay. Yeah. 

[00:28:39] Josh Sharkey: 

No, 100%. If you all agree on what You're accountable and I'm accountable for it and we're like, yes, that makes sense, right? We think that's fair, then it's, it becomes a lot, you know, easier to then sort of determine if things don't go well, what happened because you didn't, you know, hold up your end of the bargain 

[00:28:56] Bo Davis: 

And then the other thing that happens and it's really challenging. It's just the nature of. Growth companies is that people, any human is good at some stages and bad at others. Like, yeah, like I don't, I don't think I would enjoy running a big public company. Like it's just not my shtick. And so like, whatever, there's different people who like different stages, but letting go isn't always the easiest thing in the world either. And so figuring out like where that, where that works can be challenging.

[00:29:21] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. You know, in terms of culture, you hire a lot of restaurant folks, folks that work in restaurants. I mean, all the obvious. You know, reason why they work well, they think they understand restaurants and you sell to restaurants.

[00:29:33] 

That part's pretty obvious. Pretty obvious. But there's, there's more. Like, why else? Why do you think restaurant operators? Are such great hires in, in, in like a tech company, like MarginEdge.

[00:29:43] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, it's funny. We ended up spending a lot of time talking about that obvious part. Um, but you're right. That is straightforward.

[00:29:48] 

They, they understand each other. Now, I think, look, there's two things that I think are critical in this besides that area. And one is I like to describe it as when I was a restaurant owner. What really bothered me is when people would call who understood technology and would not really understand restaurants and then tell me, basically talk down to me, which I always thought was funny 'cause I had started and sold a software company and they didn't know that.

[00:30:13] 

And it was like, really, really. But anyway, the, that sort of talking down to restaurateurs, the, the empathy of the true difficultness, how difficult it really is to do it is critical. And so that, that empathy I think is part of it. And the other part of it, honestly, is people who come from the restaurant industry are hardworking.

[00:30:31] 

Like they're hardworking and you know, we're hiring obviously. People who are really good at it, right? People who have been in great positions in restaurants and, you know, as well as anyone on earth, Josh, that is a hard place to get to management of a top restaurant and to get to being a chef at a top restaurant.

[00:30:45] 

Like there's, there's a grueling process you go through to get that. And it's tough to keep it. And a lot of those people want to get out and want to do other things. They want to have kids. They want to have nine to fives, right? They want to, they want to still be involved in the industry and do things to help the industry and they love the industry, but they don't mind getting off their feet for a minute.

[00:31:02] 

If you find those people and you give them the opportunity to come into a software company where they get to directly impact the people they care about, and they get to use their skills in a way that is meaningful, like deeply meaningful to them because it's to the industry they love, but. They get to have dinner with their kids.

[00:31:19] 

Yeah. They get stock options and HSA and a 401k and a great health plan. And like, forget about it. Right. All those, the tech company stuff. Fuck. That'll make people pretty happy. And so I do attribute, like, I like to talk about our focus on culture, all the things we do. But the reality is we have very, very strong tailwinds because we get to take people from a brutal industry, the rest of the industry and bring them into a.

[00:31:46] 

Honestly, tech is a lot easier than restaurants. Bring them into the tech industry, and they're pretty stoked about it. And so, that certainly helps.

[00:31:50] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, when you haven't had a holiday off in 20 years, it's a pretty big, it's a pretty big change when you actually can go have dinner with your fam for Christmas or Thanksgiving or Hanukkah or whatever.

[00:32:02] 

Yeah. You know the other thing I find, I don't know if you find this as well, but I mean, I think it's definitely true is, and it's actually very similar to a Broadway show or ballet, but one of the things I think that's most incredible as an attribute, Restaurant operators is that they understand that.

[00:32:20] 

That chaos and like curve balls are the norm, not the edge case. And because every day there's like a curve ball every day. There's some, there's some amount of like, you know, shit going down, you know, that some of it crazy, some of it not so crazy, but every day you expect something's going to go wrong. And especially in a startup. You know.

[00:32:41] Bo Davis: 

But even as the company gets bigger, I mean, that's, that's just true, right? Stuff happens. And yeah, the folks from the restaurant industry are very thick skinned. 

[00:32:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. For your mental health, the ability to like, accept that and not because, you know, the problem is, is if you can't accept that, then you're just constantly going to be upset and be like, wait a second.

[00:32:58] 

No, no, this is my job. You hired me to do this thing and now this is happening or no, no, I'm supposed to be done here. And, you know, but when you accept it, you know, like, no, this is just, this is. 

[00:33:08] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I would saynot just accept. I mean, as you know, these people, this is, this is the, this is what they have chosen to do for years. And so they thrive on it. They're good at it. They think about, they think on their feet, they're energized by it, right there. The challenge is like. It's a good thing. And yeah, and frankly, they've, they've, they've come up through the ranks where you have to be able to do that stuff and feel good about it.

[00:33:27] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. I'm going to pivot a little bit here because something else that I love that you do at MarginEdge is you, you share sort of aggregate results, data of, of how restaurants are doing in, I don't know if it's in all areas or just DC, uh, I've, I've seen, you know, one regional and national. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:33:44] 

So, for folks out there, maybe we can kind of anchor this to small to medium restaurants. What do you see as, like, good, four wall, unit economics, as it relates to, like, whether it's percentage based or whatever, like, COGS, labor, OPEX, you know? Just four wall EBITDA, like what is good today?

[00:34:02] Bo Davis:  

Oh, good God, that is a broad question Josh. I mean, you know, as well as I do, that it matters dramatically a number of variables, right? Are you a multi unit fast casual? Are you full service fine dining operating in Manhattan? Are you, you know, I'm wearing a t- shirt for Billy, who's one of my favorite clients who has a Fairhope, Alabama. It's all over the map.

[00:34:24] 

But I mean, generally speaking, you know, 10 to 20% Profit margin, I do think is possible. You hear all the time that 10 percent is the EBITDA number for restaurants that they strive for. I think it's actually North of that. Again, it depends on the concept. 

[00:34:37] Josh Sharkey: 

Uh, 20, 10 to 20 percent EBITDA or, or prime cost margin, like margin after prime cost?

[00:34:43] Bo Davis: 

No, no. Take home EBITDA. Take home. Got it. I mean, I think the problem, honestly, at least. You know, again, there's a wide range of this cause you're talking about, you know, tens and hundreds of thousands of restaurants in this whole bucket, but 

[00:34:56] Josh Sharkey: 

You can anchor it to like, maybe just whatever full service.

[00:35:01] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I mean, I would say in the, in, in small businesses, in my experience, right. So I've opened a dozen restaurants and in my experience. The restaurants that are, that have that healthy sort of 10 plus steady EBITDA margin, obviously there's seasonality, but in a year, a 10 to 20 percent EBITDA margin, you can run it properly, you can staff it properly, you can have good food costs, you don't have to constantly be looking with where do you shave a dime, where do you shave a dime, you know, not being able to put proper management in place, and so if you are in that sort of 0 to 10 percent range where you're bouncing in and out of profitability from month to month and trying to make 5 or 10 points, it's, A lot of times you run it into the ground because you're trying to squeeze a few points and you're working so hard to squeeze a few points.

[00:35:42] 

You're making compromises on staffing, you're making compromises on, on, on quality. And when you do that, the revenue number comes down. And when the revenue number comes down, then you do it again. Right? You're like shit. And then you do it again. And, and those are the ones that end up with a bullet in their head, right?

[00:35:56] 

It's very, very, very hard to get out of that cycle. And so, so as far as, you know, running a healthy long term business, you know, 10 to 20 percent I think is, is what, what you want to aim for. You want to have food costs. Again, it depends if you're fine dining or whatever, but 25%, right? 30 percent and then prime costs, similarly, 25 to 30%.

[00:36:17] 

So you get 50 to 60, you get 8 percent on your rent, right? And then. 10 percent on your direct operating and basically try to leave 10 to 20 at the top for yourself. 

[00:36:26] Josh Sharkey: 

But are there any like common, I mean, in case we weren't clear, like, so you're sharing mostly sales metrics of restaurants in different regions, but generally speaking, is there, are there any

[00:36:37] 

common threads that you've seen across all the restaurants, I mean, you guys have thousands of restaurants that you work with. Six. Common threads that you've seen. Six thousand. Six thousand restaurants. That's a lot. Right? So, any common threads you've seen. 

[00:36:51] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, what's crazy is it's like, it's like eleven billion in sales across them. Common threads. Uh, uh, um. Yeah. I mean, look, I can tell you the common thread, but it's the stuff you already know. 

[00:36:59] Josh Sharkey: 

Well, you just said 11 billion in the sale. Where's your payment platform? 

[00:37:04] Bo Davis: 

I know, right? That's only at one, that's only at 1 billion. Yeah. I don't know that I can say anything. Honestly, Josh, that isn't something you're going to know, right?

[00:37:09] Bo Davis: 

I mean, it's food and labor. It's the, it is the managing of the controllable costs. It's coming in and getting a lease that is not out of line. I mean, one of the things that I would like to see MarginEdge do that we haven't done yet is provide. Some other help around like negotiating leases and knowing what to look for in that lease to make sure that you've got the flexibility because, you know, people put personal guarantees on 10 year leases and it wipes them out and it's brutal and you don't have to do that.

[00:37:33] 

And so I'll be honest with you, the, the, I think the restaurant business is on the one hand, you know, it's all about operations. You can have a bad location, but operate it tremendously and draw a crowd, but honestly you can get a location and operate it tremendously and people don't come also there is some, there is, you know, it's, it's, I'm not telling you anything you don't know. It's a hard business.

[00:37:56] Josh Sharkey: 

So I could probably ask you a hundred more questions about, about that, but we're going to move on just to spare you. You know, we talked a little bit about culture, but I am curious. We can just keep this to maybe your direct reports, like your executive team, but like, how do you handle mistakes that are made, you know, by your team?

[00:38:12] Bo Davis: 

Um, I mean, I think, I, I think we try to encourage experimentation. And so by encouraging experimentation, you are by default encouraging mistakes because you can't experiment and always get things right. That's wouldn't be very good experimentation. So we certainly try it. I would say. We really focus on what is the broader impact of an experiment to make sure that the experiment is controlled and not taking us down a road that is going to cause a bunch of disruptions in other areas.

[00:38:39] 

And that can be really hard. I mean, I think, you know, the two big things when thinking about what mistakes are, what things fit into a category of things where a mistake is totally fine is like, what is the broader impact on it? And what does the opportunity cost? Right. So like, if we're doing this experiment, does it mean we're not spending time on our core business, right?

[00:38:57] 

Where we have these things happening. And, and so, but generally speaking, I mean, I think experimentation is huge and we're always trying to learn. And I'm certainly, I tell stories all the time about how, and I'm happy to be wrong, right? I have no problem being wrong. It's fun. I like finding out that I'm wrong because we try something and learn something different, you know, and I have some fundamental ones.

[00:39:15] 

Like I thought, you know, a big part of what MarginEdge does is we process invoices overseas. Obviously one of my favorite being wrong stories is in 2005, we were starting, starting wasabi. My co-founder was like, Hey, he was the banker. I was, he was like, Hey, I'm going to sign up this group in India. That's going to put the invoices into margin, into QuickBooks.

[00:39:33] 

And I was like, that's the dumbest thing I've ever heard in my life. Why wouldn't you just do it? That just seems like you're adding a bunch of complexity that's useless. And we had a big fight about it. I remember to the day, like, I was like, this is a terrible idea. Turns out it's a great idea. We did 135,000 invoices last week. So yeah, you experiment. 

[00:39:48] Josh Sharkey: 

It is funny how, you know, I don't even think it was a decade ago when we just, we, we had an accountant that put in all our invoices. I remember spreadsheets, you know, in the early days where we would just, we would have a spreadsheet and you plug in the, you type in the number of the, the dollar amount from the invoice and the vendor and you would have all these.

[00:40:06] 

Like, you know, inputs, and at the end of the week, you'd have your spreadsheet of all the things, and you'd 

[00:40:10] Bo Davis: 

I love that you're talking about it like it's the past tense, because it's not, in so many places. I mean, you know, Josh, it's funny, when we started MarginEdge, everyone, so in 2015, 10 years ago, that's what everyone did, right?

[00:40:22] 

That's all there was to do. And we would constantly explain, like, why you wouldn't, and now it is true. At least we don't have to explain it anymore, right? So we are past that phase. But you'd be amazed how many people are still doing that.

[00:40:31] Josh Sharkey: 

You know the tough thing I don't know how to, how do I say this the right way? t's a time savings, right? And as a restaurant operator, the unit, I mean, 10 to 20 really, it's really good, right? And we don't have, there's not a lot of money coming in. So when you're thinking about how to, you know, have better economics in your business as a restaurant, it's sometimes a tough sell when you're so busy, but you're doing everything to say, Oh yeah, I'll spend money for time savings.

[00:41:01] 

Yeah. When it doesn't get quantified into, you know, a dollar amount necessarily unless you actually get rid of that person.

[00:41:07] Bo Davis: 

No, I think, I think that's a hundred percent true. And I think the other thing that is unfortunate is that that is true and unfortunate is that it takes time to set things up to save time.

[00:41:18] 

And so few people are willing to invest time to save time. They're just, you know, putting out a fire, moving on to the next fire. And, uh, yeah, we deal with that a lot to this day. People who will say, yes, sign me up. Super excited. I get it. I get it. It's going to save time. It's gonna be wonderful. But then they don't make the time to do it.

[00:41:35] Josh Sharkey: 

They also, um, empathetic. Understand why you can feel very backed into a corner. I was like, okay, I, I understand that this can save me money, but, you know, I just can't see myself spending this time and money investing in this now because I, I don't have time. Yeah. You have to get over that hump. 

[00:41:52] Bo Davis: 

And we definitely see like our success with clients correlates to their revenue level very directly. Right. The higher the revenue, the more likely they've got to EBITDA to invest in the, in the time savings and in the improvements. I mean, it's sort of like what I said about like, you know, when revenues are going down and you're cutting costs and cutting costs and cutting costs, it's sort of the same thing, right?

[00:42:10] 

But if your revenues are only $500,000 a year and you're trying to break even, like, It's a very hard place to be taking time, forget money, taking time to do anything. Like you just can't. And so, yeah, I mean, I do think the reason I was able to have some flexibility in my own life, as we talked about in the restaurant business is that the restaurants were reasonably high volume.

[00:42:29] 

Like, I'll tell you a quick fun story. So we hired the guy that ran Old Ebbitt Grill, which is a restaurant in DC that does, you know, 40, 45 million in sales right now. Beast of a restaurant, top five in the country. And we were chatting one day and I was like, man, that must've been hard to run. He said what you would guess, right?

[00:42:43] 

He's like, no, easiest job ever. He's like, we had great revenue. So I had teams of people who all were very well paid and never quit and loved their jobs. And it was the easiest restaurant on earth to run. And you're like, yeah, right. Of course. That's the thing, right? What's hard is running that $600,000 restaurant that has exactly 0 percent EBITDA. It's like just trying to get. Over the hump, right? Yeah. 

[00:43:07] Josh Sharkey: 

It is tough. And, you know, I remember Danny Meyer once saying like you have to first generate demand, then improve your unit economics. And, you know, there's nothing like top line growing to help motivate you to do more, you know? 

[00:43:21] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I look, I love those quotes, but I have owned restaurants that I have not been able to figure out how to get the top line up. And that quote would make you want to kill them. Right? Like just, just makes you want to kill somebody. Right? Like there's nothing worse than owning a restaurant. Just doesn't do the number it needs to do. And you try new menu items and new marketing programs and new staffing and new, right. And you try and you try and you try and you try.

[00:43:44] 

Yeah. It's brutal. It's not always possible to just generate demand. I'm sorry. 

[00:43:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Of course. It's very difficult. At some point, you'll also hit some sort of plateau, I would assume. You just have some sort of, like, ceiling to the, to the top line that you can do. Yeah. But somehow, we all have to figure out how to, how to grow.

[00:44:00] 

You pay rent based on, you know, some sort of 10 year horizon of if I can get, you know, if I can able to do this much max revenue out of my space, and I have 10 years to do it, you know, how to take me to get there? Anyways. That's a longer conversation, but I'm curious. I've been asking this a lot lately.

[00:44:17] 

What makes you really angry? Like what's the thing at work specifically that like boils your blood? Ooh, that's a good one. I can give you a backstory if you want.

[00:44:25] Bo Davis: 

Sure, that gives me a second to think too as you do it. 

[00:44:29] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, so, so I was at this like CEO retreat like a couple months ago, and there was this like facilitator that was, she was great, and she did this exercise, and that's all she asked, was like, well, you know, what makes you really angry?

[00:44:40] 

And You know, we would also came up with all of our things and the idea was to sort of distill this down to, you know, why does it make you angry? Why does that thing make you angry into a personal value of yours? And it's so clear how, like, when you distill down the thing that makes you angry, if you look deeper into why it makes you angry, it's 99 percent of the time, it's some very deep personal core value of yours.

[00:45:04] Bo Davis: 

That's great. Yeah, that's a Great question, and um, I think for me there's like, the hard part about the question is trying to differentiate between what I would call day to day stress, which will increase my temperature, right, but I don't think that gets at the heart of what you, what you're really asking, which is now what makes you angry?

[00:45:20] 

Like what gets like really under your skin where you, where you're emotionally engaged as opposed to just frustrated and stressed, right? And, and I think if I think about the anger thing, um, It, it generally is around mistreatment of individuals and the individuals could be clients, they could be employees, they could be whatever.

[00:45:40] 

But if, if I get the vibe that someone is, you know, you know, all sorts of things happen, right? But if someone is treating another person in a way that is like. Not just, it's just mean or unfair or fake or like, you know, that stuff like that, my temperature goes up. You know, I don't, I think I'm a big believer.

[00:46:04] 

Once you get angry, you've lost. So I don't think even if you have the best reason to be angry, like if you're operating out of anger, you're going to fuck it up. You're going to get to a good place out of anger. So I mean, I get angry, but I try not to, I think I probably have an anger gene that is stronger than I would like. And so it's something I have struggled with. But that's the first thing that comes to mind. 

[00:46:23] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's, it's, it's sort of, if you distill that down, you really value respect or kindness or 

[00:46:30] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I just think it's so important, right? And, and it's funny, you said business, not personal. I tend to think about personal stuff before business, and I will tell you, the one thing that makes me the angriest in my family Is, and it doesn't happen now.

[00:46:40] 

It used to happen when my kids were young, but I had one child that would pick on another child and like, nothing would make me angrier. Like I would just go red. Like the idea that one was hurting another one, like not acceptable right in any world and like, and I would over, yeah, I would, it would go to the core, right?

[00:47:02] 

Like that was not a thing that could happen. And it was something we struggled with for a while. 

[00:47:05] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, that's a tough one what I find tough with that just in terms of parenting is because it happens You know with my kids as well, and then they're younger. Yeah, this is when they were younger. Yeah, yeah They I mean, you know, it's it's not they're not innately bad there, but they're doing a thing That's bad and it and you have you know, you have to be curious as to why I wonder why they're doing I mean Obviously, they're exploring Wrestling and they're playing at one stronger than the other fine.

[00:47:29] Bo Davis: 

Like that's not what I'm talking about. I mean like yeah picking on like You're like, yeah, taking it too far. You know, it's our job as parents to figure out how to like, how do you dial that back? Like just screaming at them is obviously not the solution, right? You got to figure out like what's driving, what's driving that and how can you change the behavior?

[00:47:45] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, You have to help them understand or at least tell them why you, you know, like, Hey, it seems like maybe you're, you know, cause I get so pissed when my son. Will, like, take a toy from, from Pearl, like, and, and I'm like, Dude, give that back. And then, five minutes later, he'll, like, complain that she's playing with the toy that he wants.

[00:48:04] 

And I'm like, what the fuck? Stop being an asshole. But he's not, you know, it's just, they're, they're kids. They don't, they don't know. And, that, that helps me a lot, honestly. Like, you know, just, people Uh, do things because of some feeling that they're having so often, like, uh, whatever's happening, you know, with one of your team members or something, typically there's something else going on.

[00:48:25] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. I mean, honestly, we had something just this week with our exec team where there was, uh, more tension than I would like around the thing. And I've spent some time talking to team members and trying to diffuse it and figure out what's behind it. And just at a meeting this morning where I, I think we got to the heart of it, which was like miscommunication where people were literally using the same words.

[00:48:41] 

It's like. The words were the same, but they actually meant something different. They were literally talking about different things, but using the same words. And by using those words, they were stepping on each other's toes completely. Right. And instead of like talking it through, they just got angry. And when they got angry, it was like, ow, and then forget about it.

[00:49:01] 

Right. And then like, so literally with conversations with each of them trying to just solve what the heck was that all about? And you're like, Oh, you guys aren't even mad at each other about anything. You're literally saying different things. And once you both understand what you've actually meant, this thing is not even a thing.

[00:49:20] 

But it's just easy for us to like, especially as, you know, stress levels get higher, right? There's a lot going on. There's a lot of pressure on what we're doing. And so there's less room for allowing each person to have their place. 

[00:49:30] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, and we all have that. I have that with my wife all the time. We're like, we'll have an argument for like a whole day.

[00:49:35] 

And I'm like, wait a second, you were talking about that? I was talking about this. 

[00:49:39] Bo Davis: Yeah, this is not unique to business for sure. 

[00:49:40] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, yeah. If you had to ask, like, uh, you call them, Meeple is what you call them, right? 

[00:49:45] Bo Davis: 

Yeah, I did not come up with that one. I don't particularly love it. 

[00:49:48] Josh Sharkey: 

All right, well, people that work at Margin Edge. If you had to ask them, like, why they, why they work there, what do you think that someone would say? 

[00:49:55] Bo Davis: 

Um, yeah, I mean, we do have the surveys and we do this. And so we get this a lot and we do get, I mean, it sounds cheesy, but we do get a lot of people say that they want to help the restaurant industry.

[00:50:04] 

They come from the restaurant industry. And honestly, even a lot of the people that are software developers and people who didn't come from the industry. Because 70 to 80 percent of our people did. And we talk about it a lot. These developers recognize that what they're building is affecting those people in a meaningful way.

[00:50:21] 

And so I know it sounds cheesy and canned, but it is actually true. And I, it's what I personally really personally believe also. Like we had a thing yesterday where a relatively new person who's in client services asked me if I would talk to the CFO of a restaurant group. And I was like, yeah, I would love to.

[00:50:35] 

And she was like, oh, that's so great. You're willing to do that. And I was like. Let me list level set with you. I would like to do that. Like, and the more people you can find in the industry that want to take time to talk to me, I'm game, right? Like, so like, right. Like we, we genuinely enjoy the group we work with and engaging with the group we work with.

And because of that, like, it's just sort of self fulfilling. 

[00:50:59] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, it's so funny. I've been asking this question lately and this week just in terms of timestamping this like I did three Recordings this week, which I don't typically do and it was you Jordan from 7shifts. 

[00:51:12] Bo Davis: You're making me feel special. Oh, I love Jordan Jordan's a great guy. 

[00:51:15] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, he's great and Nabeel from from Lunchbox has an identical answer for all three of you. 

[00:51:20] Bo Davis: 

That's funny I don't know Nabeel, I know Jordan and I know Jordan's backstory is not that different from ours. So it makes sense 

[00:51:27] Josh Sharkey: 

Very similar. Yeah. Yeah. Very similar. He was an engineer and he's so sharp.

I love that guy. Yeah.  

[00:51:33] Bo Davis: 

We actually asked him, he's going to come down and do our all hands. So we have 250 people flying in in March and he's going to give a keynote. 

[00:51:40] Josh Sharkey: 

Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That's awesome. Well, Mr. Bo. Is there anything that I didn't ask you today that you think we should talk about? 

[00:51:47] Bo Davis: 

Oh man, I don't know. One thing I always like to talk about from, you know, we talked a lot about my background in entrepreneurship. One thing I like to talk about that is also, I think, a little bit counter to what people hear normally is, you know, there's a lot of like, entrepreneurship is great, everyone should Follow their dream and create their company.

[00:52:05] 

They always wanted that kind of thing. And I, I like to give the counter speech that sure there's positive stuff about entrepreneurship, but it really isn't for everyone. And that there is, uh, there's a lot of sort of extra baggage that goes with being an entrepreneur that you don't get otherwise. And I think particularly for restaurant owners, like it looks great to be a restaurant owner and you're like.

[00:52:28] 

Your neighbors, like to this day, my neighbor's like, Oh my God, you own wasabi, that one restaurant. And even though MarginEdge is worth a hundred times as much as wasabi is, it's sexier that I own Wasabi. But the stress that you take home at night as an entrepreneur, and obviously, you know, this Josh, you're an entrepreneur yourself.

[00:52:43] 

It's just a different thing and it's not for everybody and that people should think deeply before they really go into it.

[00:52:48] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah, I agree entirely. And there are, it's funny, somebody said something to me last week, this guy, Brandon from a company called Bite. That really, I thought was really, at least interesting, I don't know how much I, I mean, I definitely agree, but there are levels to it, and he said, if you're working at a startup, you're an entrepreneur, because the definition of an entrepreneur is, is running a business where there is, where you're taking on significant financial risk to do so, and in any startup, You know, there's a lot of risk, right?

[00:53:15] 

You, you're, you're, you're going from a job where there's probably a lot more security to something where there's less, but there's certainly risk. And so there's some level of entrepreneurship in deciding the early, the first five, six employees at a company. 

[00:53:26] Bo Davis: 

Yeah. So where I would differ and God bless anybody willing to work for a startup. I get it. There is financial risk and I agree with you, but where I would differ is that. When you are the entrepreneur or the co, one of the co founders, your ego and personal value, your, how people perceive you gets wrapped up in a way. Like if you say, Hey, I joined a startup and it failed. People are like, Oh, I bet that was interesting.

[00:53:49] 

If you're like, Hey, I started a company and it failed. They're like, loser. Right? Like different fucking thing.

[00:53:53] Josh Sharkey: 

I 100 percent agree and that's, and that's why, that's why I'm sort of torn because I, I think it's, it's a very novel and interesting notion.

[00:54:00] Bo Davis:  

And also like when we didn't have much pay, the other four people got paid and the co founders didn't. Yes, exactly. When somebody had to put their house up because Wasabi's was broke and we needed to extend our loans, I had to put my house on the line.

[00:54:17] Josh Sharkey: 

Probably a good definition like any entrepreneur. That has, you have, I'm sure I have gone, I've gone, you know, in, in previous businesses a year plus without paying myself and putting all my savings into, you know, into, into something. And it's incredible risk. And it's, it's funny, it's not just the financial risk.

[00:54:34] 

It's also this personal risk of it's you, it's, it, there's no way of separating it from yourself. We talk about like, Oh, you know, Separate my business from my personal, that's true, but, but it is, you, you've built something and if it fails, there's, there's a lot more, there's just, you know, there's a lot more pressure there.

[00:54:49] 

And honestly, almost always there's friends and family money. I mean, I tell people one of the hardest things about Wasabi because we struggled for years was I took, I took a lot of friends and family money. I put my own money in it. So it's not like I was taking others and not doing it myself, but like I had to go to Thanksgiving.

[00:55:05] 

And have a bunch of people around the table that I'd taken their money and put in wasabi and wasabi wasn't doing well. And that's a different level of stress than like. Yeah, yeah, it's a thing. 

[00:55:14] Josh Sharkey: 

Yeah. Yeah, I agree. Well, thanks for sharing that and thanks for taking time today. 

[00:55:19] Bo Davis: 

Thank you. 

[00:55:24] Josh Sharkey: 

Thanks for tuning in to The meez Podcast The music from the show is a remix of the song Art Mirror by an old friend hip hop artist Fresh Daily For show notes and more visit getmeez.com/slash podcast. That's G E T M E E Z dot com forward slash podcast If you enjoyed the show, I'd love it if you can share it with fellow entrepreneurs and culinary pros and give us a five star rating wherever you listen to your podcasts.

[00:55:47] 

Keep innovating, don't settle, make today a little bit better than yesterday. And remember, it's impossible for us to learn what we think we already know. See you next time.