Ashish Tulsian:

Hi, welcome to Restocast. Today, my guest on the pod is Leon Devoyan, CTO at Dave’s Hot Chicken. Leon is someone who started at the bottom as the POS guy and rose up to become the Chief Technology Officer of one of the fastest growing chains in the world right now. As one of the early super geeks to somebody who talks about driving his Fiat down the canyon when he wants to clear his head. Someone who in the middle of his career went on to do MBA outside of America just to not only learn, but to make sure that he gets a view of the world that is outside of his comfort zone. Leon’s journey was really, really interesting and worth learning from, do watch. Welcome to Restocast. Leon, welcome to RestoCast.

Leon Davoyan:

Thank you, glad to be here.

Ashish Tulsian:

Thank you for agreeing to do this. I want to start from where it all started. Tell me, take me through your early years and how come technology and that to restaurant technology back in early 90s. When I was looking at your career graph, I was like, wow, you were doing tech in F&B when people were not doing tech in the world in general so well. How did it all start? 

Leon Davoyan:

That’s right, so we’re gonna go even before I was old enough to work. So during my teenage years, I convinced my dad somehow to buy me a computer. And back then, it was all DOS-based, right? And then- 

Ashish Tulsian:

What year was this?

Leon Davoyan:

Man, this was probably 1990, as early as 1990.

Ashish Tulsian:

What, do you remember the computer?

Leon Davoyan:

It was a Packard Bell Pac-Mate 3. It was a 486 system with one mega RAM and a 40 megabyte hard drive. 

Ashish Tulsian:

486?

Leon Davoyan:

Sorry, 286, I’m sorry, it was a 286. It was a 286, 486. And so it started there. And then, I was a band geek in high school, but that has nothing to do with it. But I met a lot of geeks through being a band geek, right? So I learned a lot about DOS and how to write batch files and to work the system. So then when I was 16, right when I turned 16, I got a job as a cashier at Universal. Who doesn’t wanna work at Universal Studios, right? And we started off on the cash registers, right? You’re just a big old cash register. And then, about three or six months into me being a cashier there, they started rolling out these big honking IBM cash registers, the ones that are connected to AS400 on the back end. And these systems would obviously go down all the time, right? Cuz it’s a brand new system, brand new to the industry. So I would watch over the tech’s shoulders as they’re fixing it, right? Cuz it’s all familiar to me. And so I ended up just going to the help desk, naturally, right? Like my plan was to get a business degree. I was majoring in marketing. I wanted to go into marketing.

Ashish Tulsian:

And so- Universal was your part time gig?

Leon Davoyan:

And Universal was, yeah, just to get enough money to pay for dates, basically. That was my goal, right? My parents were paying for my college education. I lived at home during college. So all I had was, all I needed was alcohol money and dating money. That was it, that was my goal. And I remember I made $88 a week working part time, and that’s all I needed. And it was enough for me to do everything I wanted. So anyhow, so then I got hired into the POS help desk because they found that the stores that I was in didn’t have any issues. Well, they did, but I fixed them, cuz it was natural to me. So then fast forward to me graduating college, and I said, okay, this tech thing is cool, now I’m going to go do what my calling is, which is go into marketing, do something. And I remember at the time, I was making more than any entry level job that I can find, right? I mean, I didn’t go to the USC’s or the Ivy League’s of the world, I went to CSUN, right? And I was a C student, I did, who cares, right? But it’s like, I just get the degree, and that gets me wherever I want to go. So then I decided, you know what, I’m going to use my business degree, because it’s a business degree with an emphasis in marketing, right? So I’m going to use the business degree to get into management. And so from there, I just fell into one job after the next, and after the next. And although, when you look at my resume, it feels as though I planned every single step, but I didn’t. I’ve just been all over the hospitality industry, because that next job happened to be in another sector. And so here I am today, it just naturally happened. And somewhere along the line, I went back and got an MBA, and I didn’t want to get an MBA from the States, because that would make me, you know, just like every other MBA, it would just make me yet another MBA guy. So I went back home to Lebanon, and I studied in one of the- 

Ashish Tulsian:

Oh, you’re from Lebanon? 

Leon Davoyan:

I’m from Lebanon originally, yeah.

Ashish Tulsian:

No, then I need to dial this back to, you know, 90s. So you are saying that you got a hands-on 286 Packard machine in Lebanon? 

Leon Davoyan:

No, here. We moved here in ‘89. So yeah, it was about a year after we moved here. And I remember exactly when I saw the computer. In Lebanon, there are computers, but it’s not like it is here, right? No one had a computer back in the early 90s, right? It’s just, it was something that, you know, businesses were just starting to adopt and trying to figure it out. You know, you had accountants that were trying to make Lotus 1, 2, 3 work. 

Ashish Tulsian:

I was back in India, so as a kid, you know, I got my hands on a 286 in ‘92. Yeah, so that was like, like in ‘93, there was a 386. You know, I think for me, the funny thing was that while there’s 286, 386 and 486 had no correlation to the years, you know, in my head as a kid, ‘92, I got a 286, ‘93, 386, 486, and ‘95, voila, Pentium, right? Pentium, yeah. So I mean, as a kid, for me, it was like almost Intel is doing this by years. I mean, of course, later I realized it had nothing to do with them, but. 

Leon Davoyan:

So yeah, that was my journey. I went, I got my MBA from the American University of Beirut, which is, you know, no one in the US knows about AUB, right? It’s AUB short. But when you look at the top 500 universities in the world, AUB’s on there. I mean, it’s like, you know, maybe between 400 and 500. So it’s on the bottom of the list, but it’s pretty impressive. And so what was interesting there, because I wanted to set myself apart, right? And I knew that everything was going global. So I said, why am I getting all these degrees from the US? That’s not going to set me apart. But what will is if I go to a foreign country, study how they conduct business there. Obviously, the Middle East is really hot. Lebanon, not so much, but you know, the Gulf region is just on fire. So what that university did is it would draw a lot of people from the Gulf to come to Lebanon for, it was an executive MBA, right? So your commitment was one weekend a month. So it was easy for them to- 

Ashish Tulsian:

One weekend a month.

Leon Davoyan:

Yes, it was very easy for them to do. So you’d have full day Friday, full day Saturday, half day Sunday, and that was it. That was one month.

Ashish Tulsian:

Do you speak Arabic? 

Leon Davoyan:

I do speak Arabic. My mom’s Arab, my dad’s Armenian. So it’s like, so I still speak both of the languages.

Ashish Tulsian:

And like, how much of that Lebanese cultural influence still existed in your life while being here in the States forever? 

Leon Davoyan:

It’s still very strong, right? Because my dad’s not around, but my mom is. And she lives, let’s call it, less than two miles away from me. So every day, she sneaks in. She has a key to my place. So she sneaks in and drops in whatever she’s cooked for the day. So when I get home at night, that I have, I mean, sure, I can put that in the fridge and go eat something else. But Middle Eastern food is so good, I love it. So that part of it’s still very much so. Although I moved here when I was like seven years old, I would have expected to be more Americanized. Sure, I’m very Americanized, right? When I went back to Lebanon to study, I realized that home is the US, and I’m more American than I am Middle Eastern. But it’s very much of a hybrid thing, right? So I felt like I took the best of both worlds and kind of merged them together. And so that’s how I live my life. But then my daughter, on the other hand, she’s very not, you just lose it, right? Over time, you just lose it, and then everyone kind of becomes American with just looking a little different. 

Ashish Tulsian:

So in Indians, in Hindi, an Indian language, people from India are called Desis. Desi is just like countrymen in Hindi, right? So we have a word for Indians, who are like the second generation, who were born in the US and who go back to India. And they’re like, they’re not able to understand what’s going on here, right? Because people want to relate to them, but they’re not able to relate. So the acronym is ABCD, American Born Confused Desi. So ABCD is a thing. It’s like when we have people over who are second generation Americans, Indian Americans, and somebody will basically say ABCD. And I think from that point onwards, people make way for them that it’s okay. Chill, we understand that you don’t get it.

Leon Davoyan:

Yeah, that’s very true. And that happened to me when I went back to the Middle East, right? I made some friends, and that’s when I learned that I was more American than I was Middle Eastern, cuz my parents lived a very Middle Eastern lifestyle, right? Their friends were all from Lebanon. They went to Lebanese restaurants when they went out, and sure, they explored outside of that. But most of their life was lived in America as Middle Eastern people. So it was interesting to see that shift.

Ashish Tulsian:

So Leon, back to your universal time. You started looking at these IBM machines and Point of Sales systems, and got hired by the IT side of Universal. Then what happened? Where did you move next? And when did this become pure IT, though?

Leon Davoyan:

You know, I was never really fully committed to it. So as a younger person, you’re very not strategic and you just chase after money, right? So I knew that at Universal, I had to wait for either someone to get promoted or, unfortunately, die or retire, right, for me to step up, right? And I’ve always been very ambitious, right, and I love a challenge. I truly love a challenge, and I get bored very quickly if I’m doing the same stuff. So what I did is I started looking for a job. As much as I loved Universal, and they paid for part of my education also, I started looking, and then I got picked up by Baja Fresh. And that was during the heyday of Baja Fresh, right? And so I would basically go out and open these stores, right? At the time, DSLs were just becoming a normal thing in restaurants, so there wasn’t very much integration. 

Ashish Tulsian:

DSL means like the lease lines?

Leon Davoyan:

Yes, the connectivity. So there wasn’t very much to do other than make sure the POS system works, and you know what I mean, and you just sit there and wait for something to go wrong, which it never did, but I was traveling the country doing that stuff. And then I did that for a year, and then I kind of got bored of traveling everywhere, had an opportunity, my first opportunity at the age of 25 to be a director at Santa Anita Racetrack. So that was very interesting because it was a very boring job, but, and I was truly an insurance plan for them, right? Because what food and beverage would do at the time at Santa Anita on the big race days, I mean they would pull in like 1.6 million in revenue in one day. So they couldn’t afford for their POS system to go down, so they literally hired me to make sure that POS didn’t go down. It’s big stakes, so I did that for a while, and then I got bored, and I went into the- 

Ashish Tulsian:

How long did you do that? 

Leon Davoyan:

Man, short stints, like maybe a year and a half. I did exactly a year at Baja Fresh. I went from April, I forget what the date was, from April to April, and then I did the Santa Anita thing for a year, and then I’m like, you know what? And Santa Anita was the first time that I had direct reports, because I was in charge of all the cashiers, so I had almost 100 employees that I had to watch as a 25-year-old. And these were older people, ladies in their 50s and 60s, and they’re like, I have grandkids your age, what are you doing, telling me what to do? So it really shaped me as a leader, right? Because I’m not a rule-with-an-iron-fist kind of a leader, I’m more of a, let’s work together so that you can see things my way. And if there’s a flaw in it, let’s chat about that, and then we can pivot it, you know what I mean? So it was interesting, it was interesting managing those ladies. And I just kept going to different places. And I did the nightclub circuit for a while, and that was fun. I worked on the Sahara Hotel when it was being converted into SLS. And that was probably one of the biggest accomplishments for me. I mean, I’ve had a lot of them. I’ve fallen into a lot of these things where I’m like, my God, I’ve done something major here.

Ashish Tulsian:

What was that? What was the major challenge that you felt was really a big challenge and an accomplishment later on? 

Leon Davoyan:

I’m not sure if there was- 

Ashish Tulsian:

The hotels that you’re talking about, right?

Leon Davoyan:

With the hotel? Well, it was brand new to me, right? The hotel world was brand new to me, because I had restaurants down by then. And so hotels was new, and then you layer in a casino hotel, and it’s a whole other world, right? Because from a wiring perspective, there’s special requirements. So learning all of that stuff was really tough. And there was no one to basically say, well, here’s what you need to do. So I had to learn while building the plans and everything like that. So it was very interesting.  And what was more interesting was that, so we did the plans, and then funding didn’t hit on the project. So I ended up leaving SBE because ‘08 hit. It was around the time when ‘08 hit, which is why funding didn’t hit. And so I moved on to Pinkberry, but I never saw my plans come to fruition. So fast forward several years later, they built the SLS Hotel, and I got to go in and see how much of what I planned got implemented. And I think that was really rewarding, right? Because someone else took over the project. And when you typically take over someone else’s project, you tear it apart and redo everything. So it was nice to see some of the things that I had put in there that were still there.

Ashish Tulsian:

What was the next stint after the hotel? 

Leon Davoyan:

So after SBE, I went to Pinkberry. And that’s where I started finding my true calling, which is high growth companies, right? So Pinkberry was at a place where they were in California, mostly SoCal, and New York, because one of our California franchisees had a brother that lived in New York. So New York was just kind of a byproduct of being related to someone in California, and they wanted to move nationwide and worldwide. So that was a challenge that I faced, is that how do we take this and take it to the Middle East and India and everywhere else? And then how do we replicate it internally?

Ashish Tulsian:

So you joined them when they were about to go global?

Leon Davoyan:

Right, yeah, they brought me on board to help them do that. And so that was very fun and interesting. What year was this? This was, it was right around when the ‘08 crash hit. So it was like September of ‘08, I think, right when everybody was doing nothing. Pinkberry was just exploding. So they were getting real estate, prime real estate pennies on the dollar, and just kind of doubling down on that side of the business. So it was really fun to do that. And then after that, I joined Greg Dollarhide at Veggie Grill. So Greg was the guy that bought Baja Fresh and grew it and then sold it to Wendy’s for multiples. And so he got involved with Veggie Grill, and he’s like, we’re gonna do this thing all over again that we did with Baja Fresh. And he had done that with a couple other businesses in the meantime. So I took a peek out and then went to Veggie Grill to help him scale it. And so we did some of that. And I ended up leaving and going to the Middle East to get my MBA. And my dad had some things to take care of, some legal things to take care of over there. So-

Ashish Tulsian:

So you went for your MBA in what year? 2015.

Leon Davoyan:

2015.

Ashish Tulsian:

And your Pinkberry stint was how long?

Leon Davoyan:

My Pinkberry stint was about three years-ish, three years-ish. If you look at my resume, and it’s not by design, it just so happens that way. Maybe I’ll ask ChatGPT one day to figure it out. But I have about a three to three and a half year shelf life at companies. It’s just at the three to three and a half year mark, something happens and I end up going somewhere else. And it truly is a sweet spot for both sides, right? For the business and for me, right? Because I come in, there’s two things that I do. I fix broken departments and I scale companies, right, from an IT perspective. And so at the three year mark, regardless of what the company brought me in to do, I end up accomplishing that, stabilizing. And once things stabilize, I get really demotivated, because I’m not somebody that just wants to do the same thing over and over again. I don’t want to keep the lights on. There’s plenty of people that are really good at that. I probably really fail at that. So I end up just hiring my replacement, and I’ve done that plenty of times. I’ll hire my replacement, give it a month runway so that they’re up and running, and then I exit and start something else.

Ashish Tulsian:

Was Pinkberry the first one where you got a global exposure?

Leon Davoyan:

Yes, at SBE, there was some global exposure there. They were just about to expand the Katsuya brand. And they had a bunch of restaurant brands and hotel brands, obviously. There were nightclubs, restaurants, and hotels, mostly. So there was some exposure there, but I didn’t execute on anything. It was a lot of planning and then no execution. So Pinkberry was the whole thing, right? Planning to even formulating what the model looks like for international. Because the thing about international is that you’re just giving them the secret sauce and they’re running it, they’re growing it, they’re putting in their own POS, they have their own infrastructure and everything, right? So there’s very little to do. But the little that you have to do, you have to make sure that you do it right. Otherwise, the international part of it becomes, it’s hard to scale. So that’s where I learned that.

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean, international and restaurant tech can be really wild because each country comes with its own fiscalization at times, their own language, their own currency, their own decimal system and whatnot, right? So did you deal with that or was that not your problem?

Leon Davoyan:

It was less that, and so the local franchisee has all that, right? Has all that figured out. The biggest challenge was that around the time that I was growing Pinkberry, there were a couple problems, right? There was news about Taco Bell, cuz Taco Bell in the early days allowed you to, as a franchisee, to get any POS you wanted. And then around ‘08 was when systems, just the heavy integration into systems, like started really coming into fruition where you just, you saw your tech stack beyond just the POS at the core, right? There was all this stuff that was happening around it. So we learned from Taco Bell that having different POS systems was a disadvantage. So we didn’t wanna do that, and we had just put in a data warehouse where we’re back pulling sales automatically and things like that. So that was really the biggest challenge that we had to face is that, well, what do we do from a POS perspective because we want to get sales automatically overnight from all the international sites and do the currency conversion thing at the data warehouse level, and what are the rules with exchange rates and stuff like that. So that was really the biggest challenge, right? From a menu perspective, sure, as long as we’ll give you the PLU numbers, you match them, and then you can run whatever you want. But we needed a system that we could- 

Ashish Tulsian:

I think that the challenge that you’re talking about that still remains even in 2024 for so many brands in the world, right? The challenge never got solved.

Leon Davoyan:

It didn’t. Integrations got better.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, yeah. But that’s still incremental. Got it, and what after Pinkberry?

Leon Davoyan:

So after Pinkberry, I did the veggie grill thing, and I grew it, then went to the Middle East for two years. So I had planned to go to the Middle East, and I said, you know what? I’m just gonna become a socialite for two years. I’ve worked so hard in my career, and obviously, the cost of living in Lebanon is much less, right? From a day-to-day standpoint, if you’re gonna go clubbing and drinking and stuff like that, it’s about the same, right?

Ashish Tulsian:

And Beirut parties hard, huh?

Leon Davoyan:

Beirut parties like no one else. I mean, the parties there are really, really good. But three weeks into it, I learned that I couldn’t just sit around and do nothing. And that was very sad for me, right? Because it was foreshadowing about how my retirement was gonna look. Cuz I knew that, cuz you always dream of, I wanna retire by the time I’m 55, and then travel the world and do all the things I wanted to do that I couldn’t do when I was younger. But I realized that, sure, I can do that, but I have to be working part time. So that’s when I started a consulting gig. And I just, all I wanted to do is work like ten hours a week, just to feel like I have a purpose. Because I was waking up in the morning, and I’d see everyone exiting the building and going to work. And then in the evening coming back, and I was sitting there, and I’m like, my life is worth more than me going to a bar or a pool club and just being by myself. And I kinda want someone to be with me, right? You kinda want a companion. Well, it’s hard finding a companion during working hours, yeah? So I did the consulting thing, and it was fun. I worked with a bunch of brands. I worked with some of the vendors that are here, just helping them have it be with strategy or integrations or whatever.

Ashish Tulsian:

That is 2015, 16? 

Leon Davoyan:

This is 2015 to 2017. 

Ashish Tulsian:

But why did you go for MBA in the first place?

Leon Davoyan:

It’s interesting. So I was doing really well at Veggie Grill. I’ve always wanted to get my MBA, and I always specifically wanted to get my MBA from USC. But then I decided I was just going to be another USC grad with a big bill to pay. So I knew I wanted my MBA, cuz I had spoken to people that had them. And it wasn’t so much about the curriculum. It was more about that common theme that everyone kept talking about, which is that you really mature as a person and as a professional when you go through that program. So I wanted that. And so I went and got my MBA, and sure enough, it just made me so much more mature and confident.

Ashish Tulsian:

What dimensions, what did it add to you which you immediately felt was different?

Leon Davoyan:

At the most basic level, it made me realize that no one has all the answers. And no one is really right. So prior to completing my MBA, first of all, I was too shy to talk to CEOs. Cuz I felt that there was something that was bigger than I was. It wasn’t, their time wasn’t worth me taking it away from them, to ask a question or to converse. So, and what that did is, it took that, not the fear, but it gave me more confidence to walk up and have a conversation, right? And so we did that. And then it also helped me quite a bit with negotiation and de-escalating and stuff like that. You just, you learn a lot. What I liked about my program was that I learned a lot about using the tools that I already had, just developing them more. So it wasn’t like they were taking me through this process for me to become a lemming, coming out of the other end of it. I just, I became a better version of my lemming.

Ashish Tulsian:

But, you know, it’s interesting when you say, you know, what you said about, like the, like how you viewed a CEO’s time and, you know, you know, probably your own worth in the system as a, as a role, let’s say. What part of MBA gave you that confidence that you can, like what, what, what did it look like? Was it just the communication or was it some other realization?

Leon Davoyan:

I think it was the, the re, well, it was twofold. One of them is that the the, the MBA program, although no one really knows about it here, it’s like all of our professors were celebrities almost. So they flew in a lot of, a lot of profound professors from here. Because it’s a weekend course, right? So within a weekend, you’re basically doing a semester worth of coursework. So they would fly in someone from the US that’s, you know, Harvard, Stanford, whatever, like these, these big time professors to, to basically lecture you. Right? So, so there’s a lot of insight there from them, because these guys are beyond these CEOs that I was. You know what I mean? Like these, these guys like published stuff and people listened to. So it was, it was really that, that that kind of gave me the realization that we’re all people, right? And and, and some people have, you know, smaller titles. Because they just choose to be comfortable there and, and have a social life. And others, like CEOs and CFOs and, and CTOs live their life in the office, and that’s why they’re there, right? There’s, I think, there’s not very many C-levels that just accidentally get into a role. And if they do, then they’re not very good at it, so they just, the, the industry kind of weeds them out, right? But it was basically that. And then everyone kind of saying, no one has it figured out. We all read articles and we deduce what we deduce from articles, and that’s what we talk about. And sometimes the article’s incorrect, so we end up being incorrect. So it kind of gave me the, the confidence to challenge things or to ask follow up questions. And, and you get those tools too, right? Because that’s what you’re essentially doing, because my MBA program was less about study this book and then take a test. It was more about case studies, and then they completely shred you apart on this thing that you’re really proud of. And, and you just learn that it’s less about the answer, more about the perspective. And it’s like there’s so many dimensions to everything. Like, you could just, kind of like a Rubik’s cube, right? You could take it and like, and, and just, and just turn it. And, and you have another dimension, another picture of that topic.

Ashish Tulsian:

Suppose 2017, did people around you notice the change that you’re talking about?

Leon Davoyan:

I don’t think so. And, and so, I don’t know about my peers. We all leveled up, right? We just naturally all leveled up. And I don’t know if it was the program or the confidence, right? Because sometimes, it’s less about what you learn and more about just how you present yourself. But we all leveled up, and I’m very informal in my approach, right? In the office, sure, I’m formal, and I use big words and things like that, because you just feel like you need to get whatever you need done. But I’m very informal in my approach, right? So I think the fact that I’m so informal, I just look like a regular guy that just came back from the Middle East and spoke better Arabic.

Ashish Tulsian:

What happened after 2017?

Leon Davoyan:

Well, at 2017, I came back here. And then coincidentally enough, I went back to Universal. And so the cool story about that was that I left Universal as help desk manager. So I started from being the lowest technician, basically doing all the grunt work, swapping out hardwares and stuff like that, to running the entire team over there. So I was running everything. So when I joined, the theme park IT was cut in two things. We had the hardware group, and then we had the software group. And so I was managing the software group that oversaw food, retail, and front gate ticketing. So my team managed all that. And we had a lot of really good accomplishments there, which was awesome. But then I kind of felt like, man, I’m going to have this job forever. And I want to be a director. I want to be a VP. I want to grow. And if I want to do that, I don’t have very many years to wait for someone to die. Because at that point, now you’re gunning for director. And these people have been at Universal for 30, 40 years. And so you’re like, are they going to retire? I don’t think so, because the job’s really easy. So I found myself in that situation. So I knew I had to leave. So less than a year into it, I got that opportunity to join Blaze Pizza. So I hopped on there and joined Blaze. And so we did three and a half years at Blaze.

Ashish Tulsian:

And I think Blaze was really like, you joined them while they were in their high growth phase already. Because for Blaze, I think their growth years were 2012 to 18, if I’m not wrong, or 19.

Leon Davoyan:

A little bit before that. I mean, the pandemic really screwed things up. But up until the pandemic, it was still growing at a steady rate. We were doing 70 to 100 stores a year. And that was very few years, right? Because I think they got to like 375 stores. And then the big growth stopped at 375. And that was right before the pandemic was when they got to that level, that store count. And so we got them through the pandemic. And then just went on to the next challenge.

Ashish Tulsian:

And how did Dave’s happen?

Leon Davoyan:

Dave’s was actually, I fell into Dave’s. So right after Blaze, I went to Kitchen United because ghost kitchens were blowing up. And they needed my help on the IT operations side. So I joined them to run IT operations. And it was a lot of fun because ghost kitchens were the new thing. And I didn’t know. There was definitely an opportunity for ghost kitchens to just explode, right? Because the concept of ghost kitchens makes so much sense for everybody. So I joined them. And then I ended up, the job was great. And I had always kept in touch with Jim, who’s our president COO. And he was at Blaze. So he knew about what I can accomplish and everything like that, my partnerships with all the various cross-functional teams and everything like that. And so he had a spot. And he said he always wanted to bring me on. And we always talked about it jokingly. But it just became a reality. One day, he called me. And he goes, so are you ready to join us? And I was curious. And that curiosity turned into a job. A couple of conversations later, I couldn’t say no because the team was so good. And obviously, most of the people that are at Dave’s Hot Chicken are ex-Blaze people. And so it was. And I loved those guys. You know what I mean? They’re more than just family. It’s just there’s so much that we accomplished together. We failed together. We succeeded together. We pulled late nights together. You know what I mean? And it was just kind of like getting the band back together. And I just couldn’t say no.

Ashish Tulsian:

How was it the second time, getting the same team together? I generally wonder about these kind of dynamics because when a team comes together and accomplishes something like, let’s say, what Blaze saw as growth, you’re doing this for the first time. And a lot can just fall into place. And a lot of dynamics can look great. But does it look as good the second time?

Leon Davoyan:

It’s night and day better. You know why? Because we all make mistakes. We still make mistakes until this day. But when you go through the Blaze pizza thing, you know the mistakes you made. So you avoid those landmines when you’re growing days. And sure, you make some other mistakes at Dave’s. But it’s just the entire team was just more mature. It’s kind of like, do you golf? 

Ashish Tulsian:

No.

Leon Davoyan:

So in golf, your worst shot is always your first shot. And if you take the same shot over again, you just do much better. Because you know what you did wrong the first shot. So it’s like, now you’re swinging the club better. So it’s exactly like that. We do think so much more efficiently with such fewer mistakes. But when you’re advancing at that scale, you obviously make other mistakes. It’s kind of like a video game. You beat the rookie level. Now you’re in the intermediate level. So now there’s new challenges. And so you overcome those things. And really, the team was very mature to begin with at Blaze. Because their ex-Carl’s, the majority of them were Carl’s Jr people. So they grew that brand and kind of got raised in that brand. So we’ve all brought in a bunch of experience doing what we do here at Dave’s, which is to grow a brand and to grow it right and to make sure that we don’t lose sight of why we’re here in the first place. 

Ashish Tulsian:

What’s keeping you excited at Dave’s today? What’s the challenge?

Leon Davoyan:

You know, Dave’s is- 

Ashish Tulsian:

Unless we are already hitting a three and a half year cycle.

Leon Davoyan:

No, no, no. I’m a year and a half in. I’m going to be at Dave’s for a really long time. I’ve made that commitment. And personally, I want to make that commitment. Because Dave’s is a different kind of company. So first of all, it’s the best company I’ve ever worked at. You know, companies talk about culture, right? Having a good culture. And Dave’s has, they have an authentically good culture. Our founders are still very much involved in the business. They show up at the office and they’re just, and whenever they show up, it’s like this loud event. They come in and everyone’s shaking hands, hugging. And our CEO, Bill, is awesome. One of the best CEOs ever. I mean, his whole thing is just hire people and let them do what they do best, which is great. You know, a lot of CEOs hire great people, but then they have that fear of fully letting go and letting them make mistakes and learn new things and just kind of excel where they are. So he’s very much about that. And Jim’s awesome.You know what I mean? He’s like one of the best people I’ve ever worked with.

Ashish Tulsian:

I loved our conversation(with Jim Bitticks). Like, you know, that’s not out yet. But by the time this comes out, I’m sure it’ll be out. So yeah, I loved him.

Leon Davoyan:

So the team is excellent.The culture is great. Everyone’s awesome. Everyone’s collaborative. Like everything that you read in a magazine about what a great company looks like, like Dave’s is a definition of that. 

Ashish Tulsian:

That’s a big one.

Leon Davoyan:

It is. It is. It doesn’t feel like work. So, and that’s typically when I start kind of getting demotivated and thinking about leaving, when I wake up in the morning and I go, oh man, it’s Tuesday. I got, you know, four more days to go. How am I? You know what I mean? And it’s just, when I wake up on Monday morning, I’m excited. And you know what? Monday mornings for me are not pretty because we have all of the meetings with the vendors on Mondays. My day starts off with a management meeting where we’re basically updating the entire, you know, everyone that’s manager and above in the company on updates in our department. So, you know, I have to set up a PowerPoint every morning, every Monday morning before 8.30 to update the company on what’s happening. And I’ve never woken up and thought, oh God, it’s Monday. I have to do that PowerPoint. And in fact, a lot of times I’ll, you know, you take weekend trips, right? And so you plan to come back on Monday and sure enough, on those days where I’m on vacation, I get up in the morning during vacation, I put my PowerPoint together, I video it so that we can have, you know, one of the hosts basically run the replay. And it’s not a requirement, right? It’s not, no one requires me to, during my vacation to update the company. You just, if you miss a week, then, you know, next time you just give a two week update, you know? But it’s just, I naturally just want to do it and keep everyone updated. And so it’s just, it’s great. 

Ashish Tulsian:

Leon, what kind of leader are you?

Leon Davoyan:

You know, it’s, that’s a very good question. So I’m in the process of finding out what type of, it’s ever evolving. Let me tell you, it’s ever evolving. And a big, there was a big epiphany for me at Universal. So Universal was really good. This is my second round. So not when I was a child, when I was an adult. So Universal is very, very big on rising people from the theme park into management positions. So they have a lot of training sessions and things like that. So I took a, like a management course. So I thought, you know, I have an MBA. Let me just see what these guys are about. And the topic was situational leadership. It talked about people’s willingness to do a task and their ability to do a task. And it’s like four squares, basically. And you go from just micromanaging them to doing what Bill does, which is, if they’re willing and able to do a job, just let them do it. Just leave them alone and let them do it. So I went from, so prior to, let’s say my MBA program, it was very like dictatorial. Like, this is what the vision is. This is what we’re gonna do. We’re gonna go do it. Go do it, you know? And I’ve never been a micromanager, but it’s always been like, you know, just a one-way thing. And then after the MBA, I just learned that people have better ideas than I do, you know? So now I’m more collaborative, but I use my situational leadership skills that I learned there. And it’s really easy. You could watch a YouTube video for three and a half minutes and it tells you everything you need to know. And it’s the greatest thing that anyone can get from an insights perspective, but I’m very collaborative now. And there’s hardly any meetings where I say, no, this is what we have to do.

Ashish Tulsian:

But does that get too soft and democratic? Because, you know, when you are in the business, when you’re supposed to have systems not breaking down or when you are trying to, you know, gun for stability, reliability in the systems, alluding to, you know, parts of your role anyway, right? So having ideas is one thing, but does it become democratic? Because I think at times, and most of the times, you as a leader have to say, hey, you know what? This is the path and we’ll go this way. 

Leon Davoyan:

You definitely have to be the tiebreaker, right? And there’s a place for that in the process, right? So the way I approach it, it’s definitely democratic, but it’s kind of, so the way I work it is that here’s what I think we should be doing. What do you guys think? And then they chime in with their stuff. And then there’s just as much of me challenging them on their response as they’re challenging me on my direction. And then together we get to that final decision, right? And there have been times where I’ve said, guys, I just, my gut tells me that this is the way we have to go. So let’s just go that way. But that’s, you know, if you’ve built credibility with your team, then they go, okay, you’ll get an eye roll, but you’ll get the okay and you’ll get their commitment. So it is democratic, but it just, it comes back to, this is a real decision that we’re making and we’re a franchise system, right? So it’s not our money that we’re wasting, right? It’s the franchisees money that we could potentially be wasting. So we have to be really careful with that.

Ashish Tulsian:

What pisses you off the most when you’re working with people? 

Leon Davoyan:

Man. I’m very impatient with, I’m very impatient when people are slow to get things done that should be done because I just like to, I like to be a wood chipper, right? I just like to get through things, right? And I catch myself, I know that different people have different capacity levels. And so within your capacity, as long as you’re doing your best, then you’re doing a good job. But sometimes people get distracted and there’s competing priorities. And so the real things that we should be focused on don’t really progress as quickly as they should, right? Because, you know, I have a vision and I’m looking at things from a 30,000 foot level. And I go, sure, zip tying cables at a new restaurant that aren’t zip tied correctly is important. But, you know, we really have this really big project with KDS that has been kind of sitting there on a shelf for four weeks. And it’s much better to just do this because there’s gonna be a lot more that’s gonna be contributing to the business than some cables being zip tied that are gonna be cut anyway. And it’s gonna look like a bowl of spaghetti like in two months when something breaks. So it’s that, you know? I get impatient with those things. I go, well, what are you thinking? You gotta focus here. That’s our North Star.

Ashish Tulsian:

So how do you prepare your, like people who are about to work with you or new people who are, you know, who are starting with you? Do you prepare them with a manual that this is how you need to work with me?

Leon Davoyan:

There’s no manual. It’s kind of, it’s always, I’m learning about them and their triggers and they’re learning about me and what I expect. And so it’s always this push and pull, right? And, you know, we hire good people, right? That come to work with a purpose. So I also don’t wanna break anyone’s spirit, right? If you were really passionate about cable management, then you should pursue the passion. 

Ashish Tulsian:

That doesn’t sound that nice.

Leon Davoyan:

But that, I mean, listen, my whole thing is, if I had, and I’m using a really bad analogy or a really bad example, but the way I run it is that if I’m really passionate about cable management and my CTO isn’t really passionate about it, I mean, I’m passionate enough, but not very passionate, then you’re doing that on your personal time, right? And what I mean by that is that if you spent two hours now re-zip tying cables, then maybe you should give an hour to something that really matters at the end of the day where you maybe plan to watch some TV shows. But I don’t force it. But it’s, you know, the guys that I work for, I spend a lot, or I work with, I spend a lot of time with them, like learning them and learning what they like and what they dislike. And so as a manager, I’m more friendly with them. And I’ve learned that, and it took me a while to figure this out that, and I think I got this from one of the guys I worked with in the past, that I’m very friendly with my team, but I can get serious very quickly. And they know that the switch has been flipped so they get serious with me. So I have a really good knack on just flipping that switch without them kind of, you know, missing the beat on it. Because sometimes that could lead to frustration too, right, when you get serious and they’re still joking around with you. And obviously you always have to kind of have a really thin line in the sand on friendship versus like we’re now mean business.

Ashish Tulsian:

What do you do when you have to fire someone? Firing people is never easy. It’s never easy. So I look, I always look for people’s strengths, right? Because that’s one of the things we have to do as a manager, right? Because you assign someone a task or given them a specific job or they were hired to do a specific job. If they’re bad at that, doesn’t mean that they’re bad at everything. So I try to find what people are passionate about and what they’re good at and put them there. But sometimes you don’t have a space for that. And so you have to do what’s right for the business.

Ashish Tulsian:

So what kind of, you know, manager or leader are you when you fire people? Was it confrontational? You’re not used to being able to, like what happens when somebody else is, not doing right and also better, not able to understand what you’re saying? What do you do?

Leon Davoyan:

You know, I don’t think anyone, I fired a couple of people in my career. I don’t think any one of those people were surprised when the event actually took place, right? So there’s a lot of conversations that are happening and it’s not your typical, I’m gonna write you up and then I’m gonna suspend you. It’s not that path that I take. I think it’s that path just leads everyone down the wrong path, right? I mean, you talk to a lawyer, they say that’s the absolute path because you never get sued, right? But I’m very involved in, listen, I really need you to perform at this level. How can I help you get there? And if they choose not to go there or to not work at it, then they’ve chosen to exit already, right? And if they’re on for the ride with you and they can’t cut it, then they also know through the journey that I need more, I need more, I need more. And so it’s anticipated, right?

Ashish Tulsian:

What do you do to keep yourself nurtured? What do you do for your own mind, your own brain, both of them actually?

Leon Davoyan:

My brain is always thinking about work, right? That’s how my dad was wired and he’s never worked for anyone in his entire life. And I’m actually the black sheep of the family because I didn’t join the family business, but I’m always thinking about work. And I found that the only way to get my mind off of work or to not think about work is to do something dangerous, which is my hobby. So I have a little car, a highly modified little car, and I take it down canyons. I do canyon drives with it at very high speeds. So I do that about once a month.

Ashish Tulsian:

When you say a little car, is it a monster truck?

Leon Davoyan:

No, no, no. Are you familiar with the Fiats, the 124? It kind of looks like a Miata, but it’s not. Some of the Fiat fanboys argue that it’s a baby Ferrari because someone from Ferrari came in and designed the car, but it’s like nowhere near a Ferrari. The price tag is definitely not, but I’ve noticed that. I’ve always loved cars, right? But the canyon thing came about when I first became a director because you have real problems that you have to solve and they’re not very easy, right? And so the way I found that it clears my head is that when it’s just you and the steering wheel and there’s a canyon on the other side that you can very easily fall off and end everything, you don’t think about anything but what you’re doing. And so I find that really therapeutic, which is really messed up, but I find it really therapeutic and it’s quite fun.

Ashisht Tulsian:

That’s interesting. I’m almost picturing that. Please let us know if you have a shot of that. We would love to put this at this point. And what do you do to nurture yourself from knowledge, information, or do you read, podcasts?

Leon Davoyan:

I love podcasts, but my commute isn’t very big, right? It’s a 15-minute door-to-door commute, so I can’t get very many podcasts in or keep up with podcasts. But I do read in the morning. Every morning, I go to the office about an hour before anyone else gets in or I try to get in an hour before, and I just read stuff. I read random things to kind of get up to speed on what’s happening in hospitality, what’s happening in airline, what’s happening. You know what I mean? Because the good ideas don’t come from the hospitality industry. It comes from other industries. So that’s what I do to kind of nurture the curiosity and to keep up with stuff.

Ashish Tulsian:

When you say that good ideas don’t come from hospitality and they come from other industries, that’s an interesting statement. Like, what innovation do you think was, you know, actually came from other areas which hospitality or restaurants lapped up quite late?

Leon Davoyan:

You know, the new thing in restaurants is like CDP and learning, truly learning what your customers are doing and where else they’re shopping when they’re not shopping with you. And retail had that figured out a really long time ago, like really, really long time ago. And it’s all new to hospitality. I mean, there’s been companies that have tried to do that, but up until, let’s say, about a year ago, maybe two years ago, no one really did it well or provided any insight where you were looking at real data, right? Because a lot of what the hospitality industry used to do is that they have a loyalty program, which is probably 10% of their population. They make all their business decisions assuming that that 10% population comprises 100%. And sometimes that’s not true, right?

Ashish Tulsian:

Most of the times that’s not true.

Leon Davoyan:

Right, so these new CDP platforms that, you know, CDP is a big thing, right? You can always find out more about the guest, but that requires teams and probably seven-figure budgets just to run those systems, right? And what we’re seeing today is that you just have a dashboard and you ask questions per se. Like it hasn’t gotten there, but if you’re curious about something, you can very easily find that answer through those CDP platforms where retail was doing a long, long time ago. And we just started doing that now.

Ashish Tulsian:

You’re right. I think the same about dynamic pricing, which is a big debate and I have my own opinions on it, but I think if it were to come through the way the world is thinking right now, I think OTAs, online travel, you know, airlines and hotels specifically have had it figured out long, long, long time back and they do it like quite, you know, with a flare.

Leon Davoyan:

Yeah, I think everyone wants to do dynamic pricing to get that opportunity to make more per check. But I don’t think those, it works for airlines because there’s a finite supply of flights.

Ashish Tulsian:

Scarcity of supply is the-

Leon Davoyan:

Same thing with Uber. Like a lot of people use those examples, but in the restaurant industry, there’s bottlenecks. There’s no supply shortage, right? If you’re willing to wait 45 minutes for your food, then you wait 45 minutes for your food. But it’s not like once, you know, your 15 minute window sold out, you just, you can’t buy the food anymore. So I don’t think dynamic pricing works for restaurants, but I hope I’m wrong one day.

Ashish Tulsian:

I mean, I’m of the same opinion, by the way. I also believe that dynamic pricing in the restaurants is being looked at wrong because I don’t think it’s a dynamic pricing. I think the only thing which is finite supply in the restaurants is inventory on certain days and certain times, right? And if there’s a predictable increase in price, for example, a Friday night at a pub can have a 10% increment in the price, which is known and it will still fly, right? Because on a Friday night, that inventory is limited. And I can still appreciate a 10% increase there. I think that’s as far as dynamic pricing in the restaurants ideally should go. Having a surge price, I don’t really get it. I keep seeing all the debates, and I mean, I run a tech company, right? So technically, we are supposed to also offer, integrate with these systems, but I am saying this as a past restaurant operator as well, that when I look at it, I’m like, you know what? Just because technology can do that doesn’t mean that we should do that, right? I mean, it’s probably anti-restaurant customer or restaurant, the way restaurants operate.

Leon Davoyan:

Yeah, you know, it’s interesting that you made that comment about Friday night. It resonates with me, and it makes sense, but only if the restaurant, and this is where it’s gonna fail, right? Only if the restaurant guarantees that I’m gonna get my food in 15 minutes, right? Because I’ll pay 10% more as long as you deliver timely.

Ashish Tulsian:

Some sort of a priority.

Leon Davoyan:

Yeah, so if I pay 10% more, and I’m still waiting 45 minutes, then why am I paying 10% more? You just, you know, if you wanna raise your price, my whole thing is, you wanna raise your prices 10%, raise it. No one’s gonna say anything. There’s, you know, a few people will drop off because they can’t afford it anymore, but there’s something that irks people with this dynamic pricing, because people remember prices. They go, wait a minute. I came in on Tuesday at 4 p.m., and I got the same food for $10 plus tax, whatever. Why is it 11.89 now? And so it’s like, people kind of feel cheated, right? And that’s not good. And then people, and then the younger population games the system, right? They go, okay, well, if at two o’clock, it’s 11 bucks, and at four o’clock, it’s, you know, $8.99, I’m just gonna wait two hours, and I’m gonna go, you know? So it’s like, dynamic pricing isn’t always an advantage. I don’t think it will be an advantage in restaurants, but we’ll see what happens.

Ashish Tulsian:

Yeah, I think, I mean, plus one to that, my opinion also is kind of, you know, against it, if that’s not strong enough. Leon, this was a great conversation. Got to learn a lot about you. And not only you have had an interesting journey, I think I can see very few people I know can own their multiple shifts in the career the way you owned it fully. And that’s amazing, because I can also see that that made you who you are. Thank you for being here. I hope this conversation was worth your time.

Leon Davoyan:

This was great. I loved it. Thank you for inviting me.