Alexander Debare

I have had a couple of times where people didn’t know that I owned Burger 28 and I was like, Yes. Yesterday I rented a car and I created 25 or 30 pieces of content. And this woman kept coming ordering our chicken burger called the Arbab and saying it’s undercooked.

Ashish Tulsian

I mean, she did that seven times, she used to eat the burger, saying.

Alexander Debare

Eat half the burger, say it’s undercooked. No other animal actually barters things. A monkey might say, can you scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back. But it never says, take a banana, can you scratch my back? My goal would be to create a business which does 1 million MRR. Probably with a subscription component.

Ashish Tulsian

So you are getting into my business.

Alexander Debare

Well, I didn’t want to tell you, but I don’t eat that much fast food.

Ashish Tulsian

So now you’re going to say that you also don’t consume social media?

Alexander Debare

I really don’t consume that much.

Ashish Tulsian

Like you’re like a drug dealer who is sober. Be a dope seller, but don’t be a dope consumer.

Alexander Debare

I didn’t say that.

Ashish Tulsian

Hi. Welcome to Restrocast. Today, my guest is an interesting man, Alexander Debare, founder and CEO at Burger 28, one of the most loved Burger brand in UAE. Alexander’s conversation is short and power packed. This is probably the smallest, you know, episode that we have recorded. And it, you know, made me long for more. Alexander is a social media influencer, a burger joint owner, and, you know, a sane, spiritual entrepreneur all rolled into one. A self-proclaimed Ravi Kant fan. But in his conversation with me, I could clearly see that it’s not only fan-boying Ravi Kant. He’s really embodying a lot of that in his life. We talked about volatility of social media at the same time, thinking about building a sustainable business. I loved this conversation with Alexander. I’m sure you will. Alexander, welcome to Restrocast.

Alexander Debare

Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure.

Ashish Tulsian

Thank you for agreeing to do this. I I’ve been watching your content for Burger 28, and, you know, quite rad stuff. I want to know all about that. But before we go into that, I would like to know where it all started for you. What’s what’s how did you get into this business? What happened? What were the early years like?

Alexander Debare

So my first I think when I was growing up, the one thing that was really important for me is that I wanted to become a lawyer. So I had decided that at a pretty young age that I wanted to become a lawyer. I’m not entirely sure how I decided to do that, but I actually, let me go back, I actually wanted to be a pilot first, so I wanted to be a pilot on a commercial airline. And I remember speaking with a family friend or my parents and understanding that there were private jets. And I thought, you know, it’d be way more fun to fly the private jet. And then I was sitting and thinking, would it be even better if I could own the jet? And then I could fly my own jet. So then I think I went down a rabbit hole of trying to find out, you know what

Ashish Tulsian

How old were you?

Alexander Debare

I think it must have been like seven years old. I mean, I was obsessed with planes. So obsessed. So that pilot, phase seven to 8 to 9, maybe then around ten, ten-ish started to understand. And I think by around 11, I wanted to be a lawyer because I had kind of looked at, you know, where can you make a lot of money?

Alexander Debare

And and lawyers in the past obviously have been very, very wealthy, especially in America.

Ashish Tulsian

So where were you growing up?

Alexander Debare

I was born and raised in Abu Dhabi.

Ashish Tulsian

Mm hmm.

Alexander Debare

My mom is English and my father is French, But I have an American education at school.

Ashish Tulsian

And, like, where was the, like, where did you get this exposure that lawyers are making a lot of money at ten?

Alexander Debare

I honestly can’t remember. There was a movie called Liar, Liar. I don’t know when that came out with Jim Carrey. I love that movie and he’s a lawyer in there. So that might have been a catalyst for it. But that was kind of the idea. So I went to high school. I wanted to be a lawyer since I had started around an eighth grade or ninth grade. I did my undergrad law degree in the UK and then I did an internship and I did a really prestigious internship in Paris where my dad had to pull some strings. One way or another, we managed to get this two week internship in Paris in a big law firm, and I absolutely hated it. I couldn’t stand it. There was no way that I was going to be a lawyer for the rest of my life. So I had to go back to the drawing board.

Ashish Tulsian

And that didn’t occur to you through undergrad?

Alexander Debare

No, I enjoyed the actual theory. I enjoyed learning law and enjoyed criminal law, tort law, contract law, company law, all of that I really enjoyed. But actually putting it in practice and figuring out that all a lawyer does is read a contract. I wasn’t quite aware that that was the case, you know what I mean? Like law is portrayed in such a way that you’re kind of, in England, a barrister, meaning going in front of the judge in the U.S..

Ashish Tulsian

Are they Harvey Specter or.

Alexander Debare

Yeah, it has that kind of appeal, you know what I mean? But the reality is, is this you sit and read contracts and if you’re an aviation lawyer, you read aviation contracts, and if you’re a construction lawyer, guess what? You read construction contracts. It’s the same thing. You know what I mean? So I didn’t do my law practitioner’s course, which is a mandatory thing to do in the UK. I did an undergrad, I did a post-grad M.Sc. in management specializing in entrepreneurship. Then after that, I, my best friend from high school, he had lived in West Africa and he had told me, listen, come to West Africa, let’s try and do some business. So we did a bunch of different businesses. We started off trying to trade fuel, importing, exporting, things like that. But the most lucrative thing that we got involved with was importing apples from South Africa and selling them in Nigeria.

Ashish Tulsian

Okay.

Alexander Debare

By container, not apple iPhones. The fruit.

Ashish Tulsian

Yeah, yeah, I get it. I’m not. I’m not gen-z.

Alexander Debare

Yeah, no, my wife thought I was iPhones the first time, so she whenever I tell this story, even last night we were telling the story and she’s like, I thought it was an iPhone.

Ashish Tulsian

Well, yeah.

Alexander Debare

So then from there I did that for around two years, a year and a half, and then I decided to move back to the UAE and I decided to move back to the UAE because in Nigeria, it’s just quite difficult to deal with the currency devaluation, especially when you’re buying in U.S. dollars and you’re selling in Naira. So getting that money back to the supplier and the devaluation of your stock is is a difficult macroeconomic pressure on your business.

Ashish Tulsian

How long did you do that?

Alexander Debare

I did that for, in total, I was in Africa for around three years and the fruits was around a year and a half. So I came back and I was looking for businesses to start. One of them was a diabetic chocolate shop. There’s a lot of issues with diabetes and blood sugar here in the UAE, so I thought that could be a cool industry to go into. And I believe in serendipity. So fruit industry had paid off before, not fruit, I mean, food. So I thought maybe that would make sense. Um, at the time, a friend of mine had mentioned a burger joint in Sharjah, which is right next door to Dubai. I was living in Abu Dhabi at the time and said, This place is making a killer business. You need to check it out. So I went and looked. I sat for three days in total, like from morning till night counted, the number of orders, went inside, understood their average order value, and realized they were making around 15 to 18000 dirhams per day sales. This is a hole in the wall. Okay, I said if that’s going to work in Sharjah, there’s no reason why it’s not going to work in Abu Dhabi. So yeah, that was the birth of Burger 28.

Ashish Tulsian

How long back was that?

Alexander Debare

That was in 2016.

Ashish Tulsian

Oh, okay.

Alexander Debare

So we’ve been doing this for around six or seven years. I’ve been in the industry. I wouldn’t say that I’m a chef or a passionate foodie necessarily. I like food. When I was younger, I was pretty chubby, actually. Was the fat kid, and since then I’ve taken fitness much more seriously. So I try not to get high on my own supply for lack of that pun. But yeah. So yeah, it’s been around six seven years.

Ashish Tulsian

Burger 28.

Alexander Debare

Yes. Okay.

Ashish Tulsian

And what was the inception like? How did you how did you come about this brand name and like, what was the concept? Burger joints are like all over UAE.

Alexander Debare

Really? I didn’t notice.

Ashish Tulsian

Oh yeah, there are a few. But what like what went behind building this and was burger not really this?

Alexander Debare

So the market wasn’t as saturated as it is today. We were one of the five first players in the market. There was Salt, Huff and Puff, Just Burger, Graffiti Burger and us. They were the key players who started and Morello’s back in the day. The concept of Burger 28 is what would a burger joint be like if it was created for people who had grown up in the UAE during the nineties. So very retro. We used chips Oman, for example, as something we used to eat when we were young here. We have nostalgic drinks like Shani, which is now owned by Pepsi, I believe, but we have drinks like that, which we used to drink when we were growing up here. So it’s really how do you create a burger joint tailored for people who grow up in the UAE? Basically, that was the idea. Now the name Burger 28, the logo is a sign. It’s a street sign. I worked with an amazing branding agency actually called Slash. They’re based in Abu Dhabi still. And we chose 28 because we started on 28th Street. So that was a testament to where we started. And the street sign kind of indicates that it was like an urban contemporary kind of burger joint.

Ashish Tulsian

But for you to come to this business and you’re saying you’re not a chef, right? So what is it like? What’s your what’s your team like? What’s your co-founder circle? Do you have co-founders?

Alexander Debare

No. And Burger 28 I started with myself, but the whole menu creation was a bit of my input, but also my brother’s best friend who helped me out, who has a food production company here called Skinny Genie, and they specialize in actually gluten free food products, but B2B, not B2C. And so we worked together to create the sauces, to create the burgers and I mean, that was we started with only four or five burgers back then. And now we have a catalog menu. It’s it’s enormous. But I rely on going on YouTube to be honest. I mean, there’s so much that you can get on the Internet now.

Ashish Tulsian

And what how did that start? Right. So I can I can totally see that at the center of your strategy is a lot of social media stuff. Social media marketing. Yeah. I saw your Instagram account, you know, quite, quite amazing. Yeah. What happened then? How did that start?

Alexander Debare

So, I mean, at the end of the day, I remember waiting to try and post my first picture on Instagram and I didn’t know whether to post it or what to do. My friends said just post it and no one will care. You know, at the time I experimented with Facebook ads really early on. Okay, Facebook obviously owns Instagram and the conversion and ROI was really cheap. So at one point we were spending like 60, 70,000 dirhams a month just on Facebook and Instagram ads. Yeah, we were spending a lot of money and we were bringing people all the way from Dubai to Abu Dhabi. They would drive down because we created this thing called the cheese volcano, and it’s basically the burger, you fill it, you fill up a can which is open on both sides. You put cheese, you put Cheetos, and then when you go like that, it looks like a volcano. And that was just when people were starting to Instagram things. So now concept kind of went viral.

Ashish Tulsian

What, 2017, 18?

Alexander Debare

Yeah, something like that. Like 2017. Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian

So social media was at the you know.

Alexander Debare

At the core. I mean, look, before social media, how would a guy who doesn’t have a massive marketing team behind him compete with a McDonald’s or a Burger King? It was impossible. I couldn’t buy outdoor advertising space. I couldn’t buy radio, but I could create content. I could take pictures. I could think outside of the box and create a product that people wanted to engage with. People wanted to come and take a picture of. So yeah, we really capitalized on that very early on and that was definitely key to our success.

Ashish Tulsian

So but how did that evolve? Right? So the volcano, I understand that’s a bait, you know, intriguing. You know, people want to want to check out something that not only looks cool, you know, it’s intriguing but how did the strategy change over the years? Because I saw your account and there were like like some funny videos and intriguing videos. How do you look at your social media strategy, if I may say so?

Alexander Debare

So there’s two sides. There’s my personal brand, which I just started working on. It’s been a year that I posted every single day of video, a real on TikTok and Instagram. And then there’s the burger 28 page.

Ashish Tulsian

Like like a vlog?

Alexander Debare

No, not a vlog. Just a funny video. Not necessarily funny, a video every single day for 365 days at the end of this month, it will be 365 days.

Ashish Tulsian

Oh, wow. Okay.

Alexander Debare

And then on the company page, how is it evolved? I mean, at the end of the day, people want to build an emotional connection with a brand, Right? That’s why people pay a fortune for Cristiano Ronaldo to say he uses Gillette and for Messi to write whatever he writes. And for Nike to pay Michael Jordan. Okay, You can’t really fall in love with an inanimate object. You need to fall in love with a human being, a personality. So in the beginning, I was very much the personality in Burger 28. But now I’ve tried to remove myself out and really bring my staff into the equation as much as possible. But I can’t help myself from time to time. I do appear on Burger 28 and I’m still known as the Burger 28 guy. Though I must admit I have had a couple of times where people didn’t know that I owned Burger 28 and I was like, Yes, I’m doing something on my personal branding page to separate myself.

Ashish Tulsian

So they actually thought that you are the actor that Burger 28 has hired?

Alexander Debare

They didn’t even know about Burger 28. So that means they were only looking at maybe some videos and other videos from my personal account and not from Burger 28 account.

Ashish Tulsian

So you mean you have started getting spotted on the streets?

Alexander Debare

Sometimes people say, to be honest, it’s I feel shy when someone says, are you famous? I mean, how do you quantify being famous? Like anyone can be famous? 20 years ago, only a person who’s in Hollywood can be famous or what is famous, You know what I mean? And like, that’s got into a bunch of people in the early days who created content and have followers that they think there’s something. I don’t think I’m anybody. I’m just being myself, you know what I mean? And when you lose focus on being yourself and you’re trying to be something else to other people, then that’s where I feel like social media is like dangerous in a way. Not dangerous, but for your own mental health, but also like, why are you putting on an act? Like, you know what I mean? I don’t know. That’s how I just try and be as real as possible. And just now, after I’ve made it a habit to create content like it’s a habit. Yesterday I rented a car and I created 25 or 30 pieces of content in 5 hours. Like, I’m just programed to make content now, but that’s only because I’ve done it 285 days. Everything can be done in a year.

Ashish Tulsian

What’s the downside to this?

Alexander Debare

I don’t see any downside in creating content. I don’t see any downside in something where a million people can see you for free. I don’t see any downside in creating a community of people who like and engage with you. As a business.

Ashish Tulsian

But there’s a question which is, you know, personal as well as professional. You know, I see that you start creating content online by being yourself. Yes. And then if the audience starts resonating and you, you know, kind of create your own tribe, community, people you resonate with. Yeah. You know, who resonate with you, you automatically fall into this loop of doing things now that that pleases them. Right? You don’t want to be wrong. You don’t want to not serve your community, you know. Those expectations also start weighing you down. And by that, what I mean, as you know, your creativity gets, you know, weighed down a little bit because now you you can’t be spontaneous anymore. You have to be acting in that mode. Is that is that how you you?

Alexander Debare

I haven’t faced that yet. And I plan on not facing that. And I am not easily swayed by people like, as I told you when I was younger, I was the fat kid, like I was popular in school. Like, I can’t say I was a loser, but like, I got picked on. You know what I mean? I know what it feels like to get picked on by somebody who’s older than you and how that feels. But I credit my mom. My mom is a very, very unique and strong woman. And she gave me a lot of the courage that I have now. And when I look at the people who picked on me, most of them look like shit, to be honest. They’re the ones who are fat losers. So, I mean, the times are changing, you know, things change. And when you’re young, you don’t necessarily know exactly how to handle yourself. And as you get older, you learn what works for you and what works for me is a super healthy lifestyle. I love like having conversations with interesting people. I love creating content. Like I wanted to be an actor when I was younger as well, but didn’t necessarily know how to do that. And I think I’m recently finding my flow. So yesterday, making 30 videos, I had an amazing day. I rented a car. I love cars, I rented my dream car. The 911 Turbo S. Yeah. And wow, it’s the first time I drove it and it was an unbelievable car. I created a bunch of videos with people who I vibe with, who I like, and now I’ll start posting them on social media and see what happens. If people don’t like it, they don’t like it. It doesn’t matter to me, to be honest. I enjoy it. I love it. And I think this is the difference between people who are creating content because they feel they have to and content because they actually enjoy it. And you’re going to start to see a big divide in the world of people who actually love it. And it’s genuine and people who are just faking it or trying to please other people. Now, circling back, obviously, if you see me drinking this water bottle and saying, Oh, Oasis and it gets 15 million views, I’m probably going to try it again, right? Maybe drink it with the other hand or in another setting, because I know that people have reacted with that piece of content, you know what I mean? But I will enjoy it just as much the first time as I did the second time. I hope. I mean, so far.

Ashish Tulsian

Running a restaurant brand and putting yourself out there like that and that too. Like as a person and not even like, you know, not only associating yourself to the product that you’re selling in the food business, I, I think food business is one of the most brutal businesses because every day is a new day and almost every order is technically a new order. You need to consistently deliver each time. You know, How do you look at being out there? What’s what are the brickbats like over the years? You know, when there are disgruntled customers or somebody’s expectation was not met what what happened it any anecdotes any interesting stories where you you found that being out there also meant that immediate feedback immediate responsibility on you.

Alexander Debare

Definitely immediate feedback. People can obviously message you and say how they felt about an experience. Some people do, but I really praise my staff. Like I have an amazing team. I love them like family. We are family. Ian, one of them has been with me since day one. He’s, he’s amazing and we learn at the end of the day, never say no to a customer. Treat them how you want to be treated and say sorry straightaway. If there’s a problem in life, just say sorry. Everyone is so, like finds it so difficult to say sorry. Whether that’s in a relationship or a friendship or business relationship, People are scared to say sorry, but it’s such a powerful word. Hey, I’m sorry. I don’t. This is it. I’m really sorry. How can I make this better? How can I help you? Can I replace that? Like I have no issue trying to replace something straightaway. What’s the point of having an argument with somebody? I remember there was a story. There was this. There was one time where that kind of lapsed. There was this woman who kept and this was in the beginning when I was in the shop every single day, like from night to, you know how it can be. It’s crazy. I have another funny story there. And this woman kept coming ordering our chicken burger called the Arbab and saying it’s undercooked. It was maybe the seventh time I went there. I said, Please take your money back. Please don’t come back because I don’t know how we can cook this chicken. And I wasn’t upset or anything, but I really don’t know how to cook this chicken.

Ashish Tulsian

I mean, she did that the seven time means she used to eat the burger.

Alexander Debare

Eat Half the burger. Say it’s undercooked. We try and make her another one, and then she leaves kind of thing. You know what I mean? Or gets a refund or. Exactly. It changed every single time, but it got to a point. My staff were like, Alex, sir, can you please just deal with this? And I was like, Please, like, take it. Here’s your money back, but please don’t come back because we will serve you every single time you come back. I’m not going to say no.

Ashish Tulsian

But you’re probably not the customer for us.

Alexander Debare

Yeah, you’re just not for us, like and I. And that’s cool. You know what I mean? Another funny story is, is that in the very beginning, in the first week, I remember the food supplies are on the other side. So Mohamed bin Zayed is opposite Mustafa in Abu Dhabi, which is an industrial area. And we had so many orders that we run out of buns. So I was like, No problem, I’m just going to drive over. I called them, I got the buns, I came back, I realized they were frozen. There are pending orders. There are people in their cars waiting for us to serve them. I ran next door to the bakery and can you heat these buns? Man, it was a complete disaster. But even in that situation, what happens? You go to the customer and you say, what? Sorry. And every single customer is like, no problem. I know you’re just opened, but if you go, why are you honking? Or why? Like, why do you put fire on fire? Come with a token, come with a sorry and you’ll be shocked at how much positive energy you can bring about.

Ashish Tulsian

I think restaurant business is, you know, kind of I believe that everybody in life should.

Alexander Debare

Own a restaurant.

Ashish Tulsian

Yeah, that’ll be for my business.

Alexander Debare

And use my POS system!

Ashish Tulsian

100%, all the time. But no, I think everybody should work in the restaurant, you know, at some point in life and especially corporate areas because the kind of public interaction exposure it puts you in immediately, is is phenomenal. And and what part of your ego and understanding of human behavior, it can just melt. It’s amazing that happened for me.

Alexander Debare

Yeah. So so there have been instances where I’ve been in the restaurant and someone didn’t know that I owned the restaurant or anything like that, and they’re just like, Hey, you like that? I’m like, Yes, sir, how can I help you? You know what I mean? Like, honest. No problem. What do you need? I need napkin. No problem. Here’s a napkin. I actually create content around that. I don’t know if you saw it, but it’s like, what does excellent customer service look like? Or what do customers expect you, how to treat them? But it’s true. No matter like I have put myself in a position where I don’t have a boss. Yeah, on purpose because I don’t like people telling me what to do. However, if you’re my customer, I’m at the bottom. What do you need? I’ll do anything for you. And I think that’s humbling. You know what I mean? To be able to to understand that in this interaction, I will do anything you need to please you. I think it’s something that a lot of people haven’t experienced. And I think being in the restaurant industry forces you to experience that.

Ashish Tulsian

How do you how do you nurture yourself? How do you better yourself and what how do you work on yourself? And in which area are you working on yourself?

Alexander Debare

I try and read as much as I can and listen to podcasts.

Ashish Tulsian

What are you reading?

Alexander Debare

I’m reading at the moment The Rational Optimist, which is an incredible book. I’m actually super interested in economics, like economics, microeconomics, not macroeconomics. Macroeconomics is a bit of a fallacy, as you know, Naval says. In a lot of ways it’s used by politicians and whatnot to peddle whatever is working for them. But microeconomics is the only thing that really makes sense. Supply and demand, elasticity of demand, elasticity of price and all these things. And rational optimist kind of looks at our human history and what has defined us as Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals that came before us, and that was trade. So no other animal actually barters things. A monkey might say, Can you scratch my back and I’ll scratch your back, but it never says, Take a banana, can you scratch my back? That doesn’t happen. We are the only animals who do that. And they kind of talk about trade and how that’s changed and the exchange of goods and then specialization. Now Naval talks about specialization a lot and how we have grown because I’m really good at fishing, but I need nets. You live in the mountains, you have good access to cotton, you make the nets, I’ll give you the fish. And that allows me to focus on being the best fisherman and you to be the best net producer. And net net, as a society, we’re always getting better. You know what I mean? Obviously, that’s really basic. And now we have technology, we have AI have all these copilots and stuff like that. But that’s a very interesting book.

Ashish Tulsian

Which any other book?

Alexander Debare

Naval’s, book, The Almanac of Naval Ravikant. I’ve read that multiple times. Podcasts. There’s a podcast called The Founders Podcast by David Senra that has gold as one of the best.

Ashish Tulsian

Which one, which one stood out for you?

Alexander Debare

All of them. The recent one which I really liked, is how to make $1,000,000,000 or something. About $1,000,000,000. That was incredible. Estee Lauder is amazing. Ralph Lauren is amazing. There’s Glock, the guy who made the gun, you know, the Glock in the U.S. that’s amazing. Like his processes of how he took like composite materials instead of metal and got into the police and the army and all of that. That was an incredible. I listen to the All in podcast. I’m a big fan of those guys. A lot of people have different opinions about them.

Ashish Tulsian

But yeah, but those podcasts are amazing.

Alexander Debare

I love it. And then it keeps me up to date on exactly what matters and what’s going on. Yes, it’s North America focused, but I really love that. And then I listen to invest like the best with Patrick O’Shaughnessy. That’s amazing and acquired. I listen to all of that. I try and read a book at the same time. Also listen to audiobooks. So Rational Optimist is and not an audio book. I’m listening to The Ascent of Money on the audio book, which is great also. So a lot of economics, a lot of economic stuff. Physically, I love going to the gym. I love trying to eat healthy.

Ashish Tulsian

And you’re in the business of selling burgers man.

Alexander Debare

Don’t get high on your own supply. That’s rule number one in any industry. Yeah, I know. I don’t eat. I don’t eat that much fast food.

Ashish Tulsian

So now you’re going to say that you also don’t consume social media.

Alexander Debare

I really don’t consume that much.

Ashish Tulsian

Damn, man, you’re really. You’re wicked.

Alexander Debare

Yeah, I don’t. I really like.

Ashish Tulsian

Like you’re like a drug dealer who is sober.

Alexander Debare

Kind of. Yeah. I’m kind of like a sober drug dealer. It’s a good way to put it. But, I mean, you can go down a really dark hole with social media, but it’s not my fault that everybody’s stuck on their phone. I’m creating. You’re consuming. And the beautiful thing is it’s permissionless. So I don’t need your permission to post a video right now.

Ashish Tulsian

Yeah. So be a be a dope seller, but don’t be a dope consumer.

Alexander Debare

I didn’t say that. So no. Yeah, I try and I try and keep it as as clean as possible. And, you know, like, you can’t always be happy, right? Sometimes you have downtimes, but I think you really need to understand how to play with your serotonin levels naturally, whether that’s with the food you eat or the people who you’re around or what makes you happy. You know what I mean? You need to know those triggers and those levers to pull yourself out, because, you know, as a founder, it can be a very dark place and not a lot of people understand.

Ashish Tulsian

What are the, I mean, you know, being a founder and, you know, when people come to you and they say, hey, I want to be my own boss and hence I want to start my own business, what what do you feel in that moment?

Alexander Debare

A lot of people say they want to start a business, but they’d never do. That’s number one. And how do you deal with failure and rejection? Because I’ve dealt with a lot of failure and a lot of rejection and a lot of dark times and times when I didn’t know how I was going to make payroll, times when I didn’t know how I was going to even pay for whatever I had to do. And in society, as you get older, there’s certain expectations, right? Like as you get older and you have a family and kids and a wife, like can you afford to downgrade your life to take a punt, take a risk, Most people can’t. So I’m happy that I started early. I never really worked for anybody. I’ve always created my own value one way or another, and that has put me in a unique position. I don’t think I’ve made it. I don’t consider myself successful, but I know that if I keep doing what I’m doing now that something, something big will happen. So I’m happy to keep on doing it.

Ashish Tulsian

What’s your what do you what are you up to, You know, in life? And it’s not about plans with Burger 28 but and maybe even that but what you think is coming next for you?

Alexander Debare

My goal would be to create a business which does 1 million MRR dollars per month with me and maybe four other people like this, that would be my goal. The fewest people possible with the highest MRR or ARR however you want to look at it, probably with a subscription component and completely bootstrapped.

Ashish Tulsian

So you’re getting into my business.

Alexander Debare

Well, I didn’t want to tell you, but yeah.

Ashish Tulsian

You’re almost there.

Alexander Debare

Yeah, it’s. Look, look, we come back. I know we keep talking about Naval, but for me, he’s since I studied him and understood him, he’s really opened my eyes to a lot of things. And the next billion dollar companies or billionaires is going to be an amalgamation of media and code together. Yeah, so I’m working on the media part right now. Have been for a year. I’m 100% certain that the value that you can get from creating 1000 true fans, a community, people who actually resonate with you because you’re only giving love. Yeah, is priceless. Every brand is trying to figure out how to do it, but they can’t because they’re not an individual and every company wants to understand how to market, you know? So you will always have value some way. But the key is to come in with that tech component, whether that’s a SaaS platform similar to what you have or a direct to consumer sort. The simplest form is a Shopify website. It’s a piece of code. I can be asleep, you can come on, you can purchase click Apple Pay, Stripe checkout in the morning. I have 12 bucks in my bank account. The, I’m working on coffee capsules like Nestlé. It’s called Freedom Bean. That’s the first direct to consumer product. And I’m doing. All of them are in a fulfillment center. Shopify sends an email to the fulfillment center. The fulfillment center emails it to you, I email you how is your rating, NPS score? You give me an eight. Feedback loop there, done. That for me involves the fewest people. That for me gives me the ability to live my life consuming my own products, for example, and sharing it with the world.

Ashish Tulsian

No, I think I think I you know, with that last statement you actually definitely great redemption on being the Naval fan because I think when you said 12 million ARR and fewest you know people on the table. Yeah, I think that’s perfect because what you’re talking about is that you are chasing prosperity and not really a top line or a valuation. Biggest scam of our times is people chasing, you know a billion dollar valuation.

Alexander Debare

So when I started.

Ashish Tulsian

So it’s a proper I call it a scam.

Alexander Debare

It is. So when I started when I started Burger 28, there were like friends of mine or I was reading and they had to raise like $10 million. And I’m sitting there like, Am I the fucking idiot who can’t get any money? Like, why am I so stupid until I realize that they’re burning a hundred or $200,000 a month? They’re just taking investors money to pay themselves salaries. There’s no real value. It’s just a story being regurgitated.

Ashish Tulsian

It’s not even salary. That’s stress, because you know that investor is going to come back and then. That smart nice guy is going to become a monster overnight.

Alexander Debare

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So and then I realized that VCs just have like $100 million and they have to deploy it, you know what I mean? So if they give you a million, it’s not because your idea is the best They just thought, okay, pitch deck story. Well, that was back in the day. It’s a bit more difficult now. Okay, fine.

Ashish Tulsian

It’s always going to be difficult. I think VCs are not the bad guys. I personally think.

Alexander Debare

I don’t think they’re bad guys.

Ashish Tulsian

No, no, I know. I know that you didn’t say that. What I mean is that when entrepreneurs paint investors in the bad picture, I generally ask them back, that hey, exactly the same guy  was a beautiful guy when he was giving you money.

Alexander Debare

But if you take somebody’s money, you don’t think there’s any strings attached? Have you ever taken money from somebody and there was no strings attached?

Ashish Tulsian

No, there’s no free lunch. It’s always comes back and you need to deliver it back, of course.

Alexander Debare

And with integrity. Unfortunately, there is some people who do not have integrity and they burn their reputation, of course. But then you have people like Elon Musk and Adam Newman and however you want to look at him like I have respect for that kind.

Ashish Tulsian

100%.

Alexander Debare

When I heard he was coming to Buy We Work, I was like, You are my hero, bro.

Ashish Tulsian

I mean, of course he did all the stupid shit, but, but I think the.

Alexander Debare

But people are Still willing to back him.

Ashish Tulsian

True. But that’s true, because if you think about it and I was having this conversation we.

Alexander Debare

WeWork is amazing. I love WeWork

Ashish Tulsian

Exactly. I was having this conversation with somebody yesterday. WeWork is a brilliant product. It is a well-rounded, perfect product. Problem is that they blew up the valuation too high and blew up too much money to back it. And they couldn’t get to the equilibrium because by the time equilibrium could have been achieved, everybody else lost their shit and this guy was ousted or whatever, right? Yeah. But the point is that it’s a great product. It is. And I was I was asking somebody yesterday, I was like, in Manhattan or I don’t know about Dubai, at least from the local scene. You find me a WeWork which has space right now in Manhattan, and I will give you like anything that you want.

Alexander Debare

Even in Dubai.

Ashish Tulsian

And I and I’m and I’m not surprised in India, every WeWork is full.

Alexander Debare

Imagine being able to have quote unquote, office and the most premium real estate wherever you are. A beautiful place to take a meeting, a place where you invite people, they’re like, wow, you work here, what do you do? And you’re just bootstrapping your startup.

Ashish Tulsian

I think I think, you know, there are many, many entrepreneurs and businesses who have actually succumbed to this mad race of high valuation.

Alexander Debare

Of course, it’s a it’s a metric.

Ashish Tulsian

Spent a lot of money, overspend in building that valuation and lost unit economics in the process. And you know, so many of these products and companies, they were not really bad products. They were great businesses. There were great products, just super bad unit economics, because, you know, for mad race. And if, you know, they could get back to a sustainable equilibrium that would be absolute gold. And I think for for our business that has been you know, the philosophy. So we continue to run a bootstrapped company, you know, profitably. And, you know, it has.

Alexander Debare

Forcing you to be bootstrapped, makes you really look at every cost. It makes you really look at your business model. It makes you really think of everything. Do I really need to hire this person or not?

Ashish Tulsian

That’s one. And I think I think, you know, temptation to take money is always there. And honestly, I fiddled with it every year because, you know, so many VCs have over the years, like reaching out. So so we are always grateful and how I use it is to recenter myself. So actually it’s funny, I have over the years used VCs to recenter my goals. So when they knock at the door, I call them in and I say, Hey, let’s whiteboard, tell me if I take your money, how will my life change? Like, how will this company look like? And when they start drawing up all the plans, I basically note all of that down and say, okay, these are the don’ts. I don’t need to do this. And it actually recenters us beautifully.

Alexander Debare

It’s an amazing insight.

Ashish Tulsian

And over the years I have done that so many times that my favorite question to every VC is, all right, let’s assume deal is done. Paint a picture. How do we how do we look like in the next 12 months? And and I’ve seen people fumbling. I’ve seen people like literally falling off the table. I’ve also seen like some very smart people painting a beautiful picture and bro that picture, give me nightmares. I was like, I will be anything but this. And if this is how you can make $1,000,000,000, I agree with you, but I’m not interested. Yeah, in three cases, these three people were so sure at different points in time that they actually went ahead and funded a competitor in different markets. Did exactly what he told me. You know, they will do with that and what happened. And all the three competitors don’t exist today. These money this money has been written off. Yeah. So I was like, okay, this is the best amount of education I can get from VC for sure. And they were not wrong. It just that I figured that we are actually playing different games. Yes, their timeline is short. They want to do 3 to 7 years, zero to billion. Yeah. And they also have a philosophy of go big or go home. I’m not interested in going home. I’ll stay, I’ll compound for sure. It’ll go big anyway. Yeah. The question is whether it goes big in 12 years or 18 and. And I don’t have a paucity of that. I’m quite, I’m quite okay with that. And I figured that. Okay. When my plans don’t have a timeline, like a strict timeline attached to it but his fund has, I don’t want to do a disservice to their money of course, and I don’t want them to do disservice to my business. So stay away from each other and we’ll be very, very happy and sustainable.

Alexander Debare

Well, that’s an amazing insight, actually. You really blew my mind there a little bit. I like that. I really like that.

Ashish Tulsian

Alexander, I think you did the same for me. This is this is beautiful. Not many times I hear people who are talking about building a sustainable business so eloquently. And, you know, the fact that you said that and you’re saying that and you mean that, I can feel it.

Alexander Debare

From the bottom of my heart.

Ashish Tulsian

You know, it’s absolutely great. I would love to actually have another conversation. We should jam a little deeper and.

Alexander Debare

I’ll take your number after this. I like you.

Ashish Tulsian

Perfect, am I blushing? But, you know, thanks for thanks for being on the show.

Alexander Debare

It’s my pleasure. Thank you for having me.

Ashish Tulsian

I am Sure People who are going to watch it and especially young restauranteurs, aspirants or even people who are like probably in the middle of thinking what the fuck to wow, I’m sure they’re going to they’re going to gain from it.

Alexander Debare

I hope there is some value there and it’s really been a pleasure. Thank you so much.

Ashish Tulsian

Thank you.