Ashish Tulsian

Hi. Welcome to Restrocast. Today my guest is Troy Hooper. Troy is the founder of Kiwi Restaurant Partners and the CEO of Hot Palette North America. It’s a company that runs Pepper Lunch. Troy is, you know, is somebody who, in his own words, was born into hospitality from being the captain of yachts in the early life to turning around restaurants. Troy has done probably everything within the realm of hospitality. He’s also somebody who not only read Steven Covey’s Seven Habits of effective, highly Effective people, but somebody who lives by it. You’re going to find a lot more in this conversation. Stay tuned. Welcome to this Restrocast. Troy, Welcome to Restrocast.

Troy Hooper

Thank you for having me.

Ashish Tulsian

You know, with all that you do on LinkedIn and we are going to, you know, taking from the conversation that we were having off camera, you know, I want to know and I want to talk about things that the world doesn’t know or things that, you know, probably were before LinkedIn. I also have a thesis. I don’t know if it applies to you or not, But, you know, I think that people don’t really walk into the restaurant industry as a plan. You know, it’s crazy. It’s crazy good. But it’s crazy after all. So I want to know where it all started. What were the early years like and when did you, you know, land in the restaurant space?

Troy Hooper

I was born into the cult of hospitality. My father had construction companies and he had three companies that focused on different areas of construction. I’m third generation from Miami. Although I was born in Nashville, I was only there for four days. I was raised in Miami in the seventies and eighties, and my father’s business, one of his specialties was restaurants, bars and nightclubs. So he built and renovated those those assets. And he did that because he actually just loved a good party. He loved being in restaurants, bars and nightclubs, and he loved being a part of them. He he he built it back in the day. There were kind of what we would consider a private city club today. They’re more posh and sort of formal today. Back then, it was really like a private restaurant or bar. A bar would just say, look, we’re going to sell memberships and anybody can be here, but we can kind of control who the nice people are and the good looking people are. And the people with some money are and maybe some different industries so they can co-mingle, you know, some very early on like YPO stuff, you know, but at a bar. So I grew up in those environments, either spending time in the entity after it was open or certainly on the construction site. And I really found a great interest in not the construction stuff, but like what the business was. This is very complex and what is all these things. And so very early on I was very curious. I actually thought I was going to be an architect. I wanted to be an architect, actually. My dad bought me a draft table and he taught me over many years how to draw a blueprint.

Ashish Tulsian

Have you used the drafter?

Troy Hooper

So I haven’t because in 1992, Hurricane Andrew flattened our house. It took it down to four feet tall, and all of that was destroyed. And as a teenager, the biggest issue was I had spent about three years drawing my dream home, you know, at night and on the weekends. And what do you do? And I would sit in my room for a couple of hours a day and or so. And and imagine what the Dream mansion, the Troy mansion would look like.

Ashish Tulsian

How old were you?

Troy Hooper

I started it was about 13. And the hurricane came just before I turned 17. So. Interesting gift, right? I mean, Dad’s give their kids a full sized draft table and the tools and stuff, but my dad had been a draftsman. He went to school to get his drafting certificate or whatnot, and so he just wanted to pass it on because he saw I was creative and liked art and liked the, you know, the detail work. And so I thought I would be an architect. And that when you’re a teenager and something you’ve put so much time into, it gets ripped away or you lost, or people have tragedies, fires, whatever. It kind of broke my soul of wanting to pick it back up like, Oh my God, I did all that work. Now, of course, I could have gone to school and you know, to work on something for three years necessarily is it’s a giant project. But yeah, so I thought, I want to be an architect, but always very interested in the hospitality. My dad loved to throw big parties. My dad was famous for throwing a 48 hour New Year’s Eve party.

Ashish Tulsian

Wow. But you were invited?

Troy Hooper

Well, I was around. I’ll just say that I was in the background, so he would love to cook.

Ashish Tulsian

Yeah, that’s that’s.

Troy Hooper

Put platters together in Back in the day. We would roll cheese and roll ham. Nowadays you have these fancy grazing tables, right? But. But I loved that stuff. I was like, Ooh, we’re going to throw a party. And I can I can help, right?

Ashish Tulsian

This was at one of those, one of the clubs that, you know?

Troy Hooper

No, you do it at home. He’d actually bring everybody to the home. And so you just love to host a good party. And so I grew up hosting. I understood hospitality early. I knew what it meant to bring people into your home or your business and share with them and serve them and help them have a good time. It wasn’t really about were you having a good time? It was What can you do to facilitate their enjoyment? Right? And so that just stuck. That was foundational.

Ashish Tulsian

Wow. That’s that’s powerful because, you know, if I if I would have been an architect, I would have definitely chosen that side because, you know, being friends with restaurateurs was my early thing. Right? Because, you know, these were people who were absolutely fun. And I also have a draft story, you know, so in engineering back in India, I was in computer science engineering. But in year one, like, you kind of learn almost everything, right? So so one of these subjects is engineering drawing where you use drafter, you actually do all the, you know, views and all. So, you know, I, my wife, who’s also my business partner, was my then college classmate. And she you know, she came in and she was a damsel in distress figuring out the drafter because she had not done this before. And I was the guy who basically, you know, scored her teaching her how to use drafter for three months. I was almost, you know, giving her tutions to do that. So drafter was the.

Troy Hooper

Student captures the pupil Yes I see.

Ashish Tulsian

No but but on that so when did this you know convert into in a profession like what where did you study?

Troy Hooper

Yeah. So you know that hurricane hit my senior year of high school and it kind of left the world a little unsure. Right. And so I kind of grew up a lot quicker, although I had kind of grown up fast my whole life. I had to grow up very quickly because my father basically spent about nine months taking advantage of the work that was provided from that devastation. And but he was at the latter part of his career. So he said, hey, I’m going to retire. You can have the business, you can have all the trucks and tools and you can keep doing this if you want. And I’ll help teach you how to continue to run the business, or I’m just going to sell everything and I’m going to retire. And it left me kind of unsure what my next step or future was. Right. Things happened very quickly, so I did a couple of things. I was very curious about a few things. I enrolled in culinary school at 17, and at 18 I enrolled in maritime school. So learned to be a boat captain. Ultimately, you come up through the ranks and you do all those things. And so I kind of took those two tracks simultaneously. The boat thing was more of an interest and enjoyment thing, but it did find its way into a piece of my career and but I really thought I wanted to be a chef. I was like, Oh, I want to be a chef. And by the way, long before Anthony Bourdain or any of these, there were no TV guys. I think Emerald might have been on TV. Wolfgang might have been out there a little bit. But it wasn’t like today. It wasn’t like you’re going to look up and aspire to be one of these people. And so I went to school and I cooked through school. And then I continued, you know, the certificate is 18 months or something like that. And and both of them were about a year and a half or two years. And so I enrolled in regular college. And while I was getting my undergraduate and graduate degree in college, I cooked full time and I came out through the ranks, ended up being a sous chef of a family Italian restaurant. So that’s the height of my culinary career. Enjoyed it to the degree that I enjoyed the creating, I didn’t mind the hard work. I grew up in construction sites. My father made me work, so sweating and standing for 16 hours, none of that bothered me at all. Really kind of enjoyed the buzz and the camaraderie of the kitchen. But it’s hard work. I got things thrown at me. I got yelled at. All the old school horror stories you’ve ever heard, and these were in corporate environments. I tried to jump from family to corporate, and that’s actually where I got all the bad behavior. Believe it or not. So I basically cooked my way through college. And when I finished with my business degree, the entrepreneurial spirit that my father and my grandfather and I actually don’t know anybody in my entire family that’s ever worked for a job. All my father’s siblings were entrepreneurs. They own their own this, that or the others. And so it was just in our blood. It was just it was just destined to be. And I, I really wasn’t enjoying working for other people in that capacity. So I decided I was going to pursue the business side of hospitality, which means starting over, you just literally just start over and go be the lowest man on the totem pole at the next thing, right? And so I actually got into hotels and resorts a little bit early on to kind of feel that out. And I got grabbed and I went and spent a number of years in the superyacht industry. So I lived in the Caribbean for six years. I worked on two of the ten largest yachts in the world.

Ashish Tulsian

That is right out of college?

Troy Hooper

Right out of college. Okay. Yeah.

Ashish Tulsian

And like what? What? How did you do that? Like you were working for them?

Troy Hooper

Well, you know, I went to. Well, when you live in Miami and you’re around boats most of your life, and the true answer is I had a girlfriend whose dad owned a 72 foot sport fish. And he, as I was going to maritime school and sort of figuring it out, just call this the first long term girlfriend, Right. Or real serious girlfriend. And and he took a liking to me to try to encourage me on down a path. And he said, hey, I’ll pay for you to get your certificates and I’ll let you use my boat. I’ll teach you on my boat and then you can use my boat. But you have to decide if you want to be a diesel mechanic or a captain. And I was like, Yeah, I don’t really think I want to be a mechanic. Thanks. Although they made a lot of money, right? So. So I took the captain sort of hierarchy route. So that to be said that I’ve always kind of had two parallel tracks in my life, the personal interest side, that maybe it makes money, maybe it’s a career, maybe it’s a job sometimes. So I pursued that for a little while, out of curiosity. Never really thinking that I could have been a chef on a yacht. Although that’s very hard work. I kind of was enjoying the the wheelhouse, so to speak.

Ashish Tulsian

So. So what were you doing? Like you were. You were, you know, you’re managing a boat?

Troy Hooper

Yeah. So immediately went into managing his boat. Driving his boat for him and his friends to different events and things. And then in South Florida, in this environment, it’s called Cash Captain. And so rather than take complete ownership of a boat, I would be a captain for hire. I knew the waters really well. I grew up in the area, grew up on boats, and so I would just get three or five clients that had occasional use of their yachts and they would say, I want to go to lunch or we want to go to the Bahamas for the weekend, or we want to go to the Keys for a couple of days. And I would just arrange everything, get on the boat, drive them around as a chauffeur for a few days, take care of things. Obviously, there’s more responsibility there than just being a chauffeur. But anyway, so I spent some time doing that. Yeah, six years. Trying to figure out what was next. Doing a little bit of this and that in the hotels and resorts around the Caribbean as I was hobnobbing around and then kind of burnt out on that and came back to the US and got very serious about this hospitality thing. And so I, I went to work at, at some fine hotels, I went to work at some fine restaurants within some nice hotels and just worked my way up through management, understanding all those dynamics and elements of management and found that one of my natural gifts was really understanding people and teams and really understanding how to motivate people in groups to achieve a common goal. Right? And that really led me to taking on projects that were nobody else wanted. Rebranding or starting a new concept, starting a new restaurant in a hotel, fixing a troubled group, the toxic employee group over this property or whatever. And so I got sent around a little bit to do that. And that’s that’s where I found my real passion was taking something in trouble. People have given up on the possibility of that business being profitable or having high potential, definitely giving up on the team and not knowing what to do. They’ve struggled with it and and I would come in and I would just have my own way and my own plan to say, Here’s how we’re going to do that.

Ashish Tulsian

That’s what I’m hearing. I say it’s a it’s a very interesting spin on I think entrepreneurs are that, yeah, you know, you need your own playing field, you need your own rules, you need to figure out your own rules. You don’t want to be told. And it can only happen in two ways. One, like the ideal route when you start something from scratch or, if you pick up something that nobody wants to meddle with.

Ashish Tulsian

Right. And that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s quite cool and interesting

Troy Hooper

Well, I’ve been given those opportunities by leaders, by mentors. Right.

Ashish Tulsian

You of course. You know, raise your hand for that.

Troy Hooper

Absolutely.

Ashish Tulsian

You rose up for the opportunity. Yeah, but, you know, while you were doing that yacht thing and you said that you know, acting as your you were out of school, you wanted to be an entrepreneur, like in some way. Yeah, but six years is a long time. You know, at yachts.

Troy Hooper

Foundations. You have to build foundations.

Ashish Tulsian

Was it like a solopreneur or was it like?

Troy Hooper

Yeah, No. Yeah, No, it really was. It really was. It was taking ownership and control of something that was valuable to other people, that the experience mattered a lot. There was no room for failure or, you know, dropping the ball. High expectations, highest of expectations. And I enjoyed that challenge. I enjoyed that pressure of early is on time and on time’s late, right? So I enjoyed the discipline that came from that, you know, yachting and even in hotels, very specific hierarchy, right. The hotels, the general manager and then these different positions and these departments. And it’s very strict and very controlled. So is the yachting business in that same way? It’s like the Navy in that same way. So rather than go to the military, I did the civilian version of the same discipline learning, but I was really an open book to learning from mentors, learning from people who were successful. I really looked for those people and yes, I asked a lot of questions.

Ashish Tulsian

What did you learn in those years? Like these are formative years, right?

Troy Hooper

So yeah, the foundation of.

Ashish Tulsian

What do you what do you look back and see that okay, these got ingrained in those six years, which kind of amplified over the rest of the way?

Troy Hooper

Yeah. Some of the lessons are it doesn’t matter what you think. If you need to move the needle, you need to move that person, You need to change a behavior. You need to get a team to a goal. You have to work in their framework, not in your framework. My framework doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work for you. If they if you’re a visual learner and my framework is read this, report back, perform, then you’re not going to win at that. I need to know that you’re a visual learner and I need to transfer that information into a media that you can digest and therefore move the action to achieve the goals I want. So that’s just an example. But you have to do that at scale. You’ve to do that across 100, 200, 300 employees. And so it comes down to knowing the individual having a real relationship. For me, having focus on the right priorities, money is never the first priority. I had a great mentor who gave me the following phrase: If you balance the needs of the employee, the guest and the business, you’ll always be successful because you’ll make the right decisions. And the word balance is the operative word. Because balance doesn’t mean equality. It means balance. Sometimes one takes a greater priority or has a greater weight as long as the other two balance it out, then that’s okay. So in taking decisions and thinking about strategies, thinking about plans for growing a business or improving a business, moving a team. One of the most important things for me, beyond knowing the individuals, is understanding that our plan is not focused solely on the one piece of that which most of the time, if a CFO is leading the conversation, is the money. And if you lead with money, I feel like you’ll always lose. Money always comes. The success of the business always comes as a direct result of the other actions of the other focus areas. So those were some of the formative things. Again, mentorship. That was one example for many times of being taken aside and being taught self awareness, right? I followed by accident, Stephen Covey. So the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, right? I found that completely by accident. I was in Washington, D.C. at that big fancy mall. I always forget the name of it just outside of D.C. And and I walked into a store called Franklin Covey, and I was the guy who kind of likes nice gizmos and gadgets. I have a nice pen, something like that. And I saw the store and I was I was a businessman. Right. I was a traveling businessman at this point. I was like, oh, day planners and umbrellas and and satchels and attachés, you know? Well, let me see what they have in the store. And I went in and I bought a day planner, now a day planner for all the kids listening, is a book and it has empty pages in it. And they’re dated like a calendar. And you wrote down all the things you wanted to accomplish. It might have had actually, with a pen. Yeah, they might have actually had an address book in it. What that is, is that your contacts in your phone written down. So I bought a day planner and I had no idea what Franklin Covey was I saw some books. I didn’t know who the author. It didn’t matter. I bought a day planner and I had this thing for about two or three months. And it had these phrases, these sayings, these inspirational quotes on the side panel of every day. I was like, Oh, this is cool. It will motivate me. I’ll learn something. What I didn’t realize is they were all Franklin Covey, Stephen Covey’s quotes, and I was like, Wait a minute, these are all the same guy. Who’s the Stephen Covey guy? And and then I went back and I realized, Oh, he wrote a book. Oh, that book is a blueprint for business, officially. But it’s a blueprint for being a great employee, being a great husband, being a great father, being a great citizen, neighbor. It’s a really cool blueprint for how to focus yourself. And so I read the book and I was hooked. I was hooked. I became a certified facilitator of the program. I taught it to all of my employees. I used it as a I use it as a weekly meeting workshop. So every weekly staff meeting or leadership meeting that I would either be a part of or lead, it would be like the chapter of the week or the phrase of the week or the paragraph of the week. So it really became a very foundational piece of my professional development.

Ashish Tulsian

That is that is phenomenal. I’ve never seen I’ve never heard somebody really using that book for real. Right. And and I think my opinion of almost every self-help book is not poor, but it’s like somewhere there, you know, it just, you know, a lot of people buy it. Some people read it and very few, you know, walk into the steps and you like just took it to the next level.

Troy Hooper

I was at the right age and in the right place in my career that I was hungry for a plan or a map or the answers to the test. I was looking for the solution to be a great businessman. I want to be. And this was all to lead towards like I want. Ultimately, at the end of the day, when you ask about my entrepreneur journey, I wanted to own a restaurant. How many people do you know in your life who said, Oh, one day I’m going to own a restaurant, loved.

Ashish Tulsian

Hundred and one percent.

Troy Hooper

Almost everybody? Yeah, practically. Right. And so that was my goal. One day when I own a restaurant, I’ll understand how to do all these things. You know, I’ll understand all these aspects in these business and leading people and hiring people and training people. So everything I’m doing in this, the 20 years of my life was designed to absorb as much of that as possible and formulate the leader I wanted to be or the owner of the operator I wanted to be.

Ashish Tulsian

You talked about, you know, the, you know, as an example assignment to also fix or maneuver a group of toxic, toxic employees. Yeah. Give me an anecdote Like.

Troy Hooper

Well, you know, a lot of people don’t focus on the people aspect. And unless you’re running a building of robots and automations that take no human beings, which that doesn’t exist really, yet. You’re going to interact with and have to lead people. If you’re the owner, the operating manager, the GM doesn’t matter what you are and understanding how to move people in the direction you need them to move in to achieve the goals. And we can use sports analogies. There’s many ways to do that, right? F1 is in Las Vegas now and so you see all these teams walking around proudly wearing their uniforms and things. How do you get people coalesced around a cause, right? And when when they’ve been ignored or mistreated or dismissed, especially for a period of time, especially as a collective group, they it’s it’s Lord of the Flies, they actually start to manage themselves in an absentee of direction. They will formulate a team and they will decide hierarchy. And usually the not nicest person takes the lead. You know, somebody puts their foot down and says, I got this. And and so it does lead to some toxicity, fear based leadership and things of that nature. And so when you have an owner and operator ownership group or whatever it is that’s hands off or is uncomfortable managing people or understanding people, they didn’t hire the right people to do that job. You know, you end up with a business that’s in trouble and because they’re not functional, the business isn’t as functional as it can be. And so you have all kinds of issues in the restaurant, in the hospitality, the hotels I’ve worked in, managed private clubs and all that environment, all of the imaginable problems from waste and stealing and misordering and over ordering and not rotating food, this is all that kind of kitchen stuff I come to think of. But you know, customer service, over-pouring free drinks to the favorite guests, not charging for everything. All of those things will sink a ship. And so there are eroding the ship. So the question is, is why are those people here? What can you do to re-energize them? I find that if you just put the goal out there and you put a light on the path and you show them that if they follow you, they will achieve this higher goal. And for them the benefit is X, Y, and Z, and for the customer and for the business and for the community. All of the potential extrapolated benefits that come from that. Most of them will will come along. Look, whether it’s ten, 20 or 25% of them that will voluntarily see their way out or have to be shown out because they’re just not going to conform. That’s part of the process. But I always let that process play out on its own as well. You have to be patient.

Ashish Tulsian

That’s beautiful because, yeah, I think you know what you just said, you know, and people don’t know the goal. And when you’re not aligning them, they will align themselves to something. And you’re also kind of seeing that toxicity in groups or in people is more of their defense mechanism, to whatever perceived fear or uncertainty that they’re feeling.

Troy Hooper

Right. If you don’t give the information you want, they will fill in the blanks. Wherever you leave a blank to be determined and you have not clearly defined and stated the goal or the mission or the path or the steps we’re going to take, they’re going to assume the worst. They fill the blank with the highest fear based data they have. And so you have to replace that and make it very, very clear. It’s just about setting clear expectations and goals and setting very strong processes and systems in place.

Ashish Tulsian

That’s powerful. What after that?

Troy Hooper

So just about 20 years ago, um, I started taking on some consulting opportunities, some single unit fine dining restaurants, because my, my entire career was in this luxury space billionaire yachts, ultra fine dining, ultra fine hotels and restaurants. And I really enjoy that space. And so there’s a lot of independents and small groups and just through natural networking and, you know, your employees go somewhere and say, Man, I just left this place and had this great experience and I can see the trappings happening in this. I know this guy. Maybe he can help us. And, you know, the phone calls always, Hey, can I hire you? Can you come work here? And then you make that mistake, You jump a couple of times, you’re like, the grass is not always greener. And then I realize there was this thing called consulting that I could just spend a little bit of time in my spare time or between roles and get paid some fee that I made up in my mind to go in and assess and evaluate and sort of write a report, right. Write a findings of this is what I see is going on in your business. Here’s what I think you can do to repair or improve or change that. And then it just led to an action based consulting where, hey, well, great, can I don’t have time to do that. Can you stick around and and help lead that? And so I started doing these short term consulting practice jobs, you know, projects and and that just led one thing to another, which ended up being a management company. So I started a company 18 and a half years ago called Kiwi Hospitality Partners, and it was both consulting and management. And so we would do what is called turnaround management. We would go in to a distressed asset that the current owner or maybe a new buyer of the business needed help righting the ship, correcting the putting in place the appropriate systems and processes. And and that’s generally a short term project, you know, up to about 18 months. And I did a couple of those just back to back and I loved it. It was it was just like jumping in. It’s like jumping from a winning football team to the not winning football team. And coaching that one up.

Ashish Tulsian

What are you what are you inspired by Gordon Ramsay’s, You know.

Troy Hooper

No, I’m it’s everything is inspired by the University of Miami College football team everything is you know, some of the famous coaches and people that I’ve admired and followed. So to me, I kind of watch that from the outside. I’m like, whether it’s football or other other sports or business, it doesn’t. It’s all the same thing. Humans are Humans are humans. The process is the same. I could do the same thing in any business today. I don’t have to know anything about that business. You don’t have to be an expert in the business. You have to be an expert in getting the people who know the business and understanding that your employees actually know more, know more. They should know more about their job than you.

Ashish Tulsian

All the time. Yeah, all the time. Yeah. They always have the, you know, all the right data points to find the right answer.

Troy Hooper

But you have to open the door. And that’s a bad analogy because the open door policy never really actually works. You actually have to actively engage and say, I know you know more than me about this. I need to understand it better so that when I have to make decisions that impact your role or your your, your resources, the things that you need to do your job to the best ability. I need to understand that so I can get those for you. Because as a leader, that’s your job.

Ashish Tulsian

Also, I think. I think as a leader, I also believe that, you know, while your people like people on the ground, people like in the, you know, the frontline have the most data points to really, you know, solve anything or know what’s the right solution. I think the role of a leader is also to provide that cushion of decision making that says, hey, all right, now what’s the right solution? Okay, this is the right solution. All right. Go ahead. I’m with you. You know, somebody needs to shoulder the responsibility. You know, if you know what if this goes wrong and and I think most of the times that empowerment makes all the difference because they always know. They always know what’s the right thing. So, you know, I in my life have done much better by not giving answers and just asking right questions and then just saying, all right, what do you think we should do? What’s the downside in that and what’s the upside in that? And, you know, the person always, almost all the time told me the right path and I said, all right, you know, let’s do this with you. Fails? Fails. You go all in.

Troy Hooper

You just describe my favorite quote and it’s so much my favorite quote. It’s actually stitched into the color of every jacket that I wear.

Ashish Tulsian

Wow. I need to see that.

Troy Hooper

Seek first to understand, then be understood. It is a Stephen Covey quote from seven Habits. It’s an entire chapter of seven habits.

Ashish Tulsian

Can you repeat that?

Troy Hooper

Seek first to understand, then be understood. And you said it. Ask questions, then give direction, right? Have humility and have empathy. And if you have humility that you don’t have all the answers that another person or group of people collectively can give you the information you need to make the right decision. And that what you just said, when you make that decision, you own that decision because you took in the data, as you said, and you made the educated decision that you made. And if it doesn’t work out, it was not actually their fault. They gave you the information they had. You made the decision.

Ashish Tulsian

And these were all these were the only data points we had anyway. Correct. And also, I think there’s another side which is which, you know, I think surprised me more often than I would appreciate, is that, you know, problem how it looks to different stakeholders. You know, in the system, it’s not the same problem. So, you know, when when you as a leader walk in and even with the data points that you have or you got if you make a decision basis that, it still has your own biases. So, you know, the one who’s executing because because I have pondered upon this a lot that, hey, you know, why does like the same actor, you know, will absolutely do the wrong thing under a different leader. And the same person under a different leader will be an absolute rock star. Most of the times I’ve seen that it’s the perception problem, right? As a leader, when I take a decision and I say, Hey, you, you soldier, go execute. The problem is that if I did not align, you know how the problem occurs to that one versus me. And if that is not aligned, we are screwed because then, you know, he or she is executing something else. And my worldview of what the problem is and solution looks like is absolutely different. I think it’s more it’s to me it became more like that. I don’t need the right answers. I don’t need the right solution. I need the solution or the answers for exactly what we need, what the world needs, what that situation needs. It may be wrong for somebody else, but if that fits the situation right, we are all good.

Troy Hooper

Well, if you’re trying to solve for everyone, you’ll solve for no one. And and again and I’ll say this is a very important is in our industry and the restaurant, hospitality industry. It’s almost never taking into consideration that one of the more powerful stakeholders, which is your customer. Either you ask your customer or you try to solve for your customer, or you try to determine for the customer what their problem is and what their solution should be. And you completely screw your staff because you’ve made that decision solely based on the customer. Or you’re so focused on your staff and you lose touch. So again, back to balance, what is the right balance? Are you taking inputs from your customer or are you taking inputs in from your employee employees, or are you taking inputs in from the data of the business, the financial data, the capability, the bandwidth that we have, the resources financially, we have to make that change or make that investment or bring in that solution. All of these things have to be considered really equally.

Ashish Tulsian

Absolutely. Absolutely. That’s that’s again, powerful. Yeah. And how is this really written?

Troy Hooper

It is stitched in the back of this jacket. Does it say seek first to understand?

Ashish Tulsian

Oh, wow, That’s amazing.

Troy Hooper

It’s in the back of every one of my jackets.

Ashish Tulsian

That is amazing. I mean, you know, these are the.

Troy Hooper

Here’s a little treat for ‘ya.

Ashish Tulsian

Yeah, but these are these are, like, really hard to steal. I mean.

Troy Hooper

Yeah, that’s okay. You can steal it.

Ashish Tulsian

Yeah, that’s amazing. So, you know, kiwi restaurants. Uh, sorry.

Troy Hooper

Kiwi. So kiwi hospitality. So that management company existed for 15 years. Basically took on one or two clients at a time. It’s very laborious. It’s all energy and high stress. Got to get results. Got to. We got to make this thing work. I really enjoy creating. So recreating a concept, redoing the menu, re redoing the supply chain, negotiating. I like those aspects of what can be fine tuned here, right? And so that would lead to new profit center.

Ashish Tulsian

Why did you I’m just wondering why did you choose I mean I think I know half that answer already, but why did you choose to be in a turnaround You know, you know, consulting rather than the easier, you know, more available thing is?

Troy Hooper

It was boring.

Ashish Tulsian

I said I knew how.

Troy Hooper

I got bored. Yeah, I got bored. I mean, flat out got bored. There’s only so many things you can do. Good afternoon. Nice to see you. Welcome. Let’s. You know, I like. I like solving problems and I see possibilities. This goes back to the architect. My dad as a contractor could walk into any space and actually visualize all of the possibilities of that space. How could this space be many different things and then ask you, what do you want this space to be? Well, I really want these things. Great. How can we make that happen? And so that actually one of my favorite things to do is work on New concepts or new builds or new prototypes for things. That’s why I like building is because you get to imagine all of the ways the space will be utilized by the employee in each position, by the customer in their journey through the environment, etc.. So why am not a restaurant hotel designer? I don’t know. But I enjoy all these little aspects and they come together. So when you’re in a turnaround business, you’re looking at a failed or distressed business. You look at the people. That’s one thing to concern yourself with. You look at the space, you look at the service or product offerings, you look at what’s missing, what are the differentiating possibilities with this land or this building or this, this, this customer base or this membership base? What are the things they want? What can we do? So ask a lot of questions. Usually spend a good period of time asking questions. So I did this for 15 years.

Ashish Tulsian

What was the success metric for you in that?

Troy Hooper

Employee retention. Believe it or not, weirdest thing. My favorite thing. I’ve done a very good job. If I can go back to that business in 3 to 5 years and some or many of the employees I hired are still there and they’ve changed roles or they’ve taken leadership or they’ve, you know, they’ve gone away and come back with new skills. That for me is the highest standard that we built something that was sustainable beyond myself, because that’s extraordinarily important. I don’t care what kind of leader you are, where you’re leading. When people talk about legacy, it’s not about books that will be written or names on buildings. Legacy is will people remember how you made them feel? Will people take what they learned from you? Apply it once you’re gone and continue to apply? Will they teach it on? Will they pass it on? Right? Old school way of doing that? Books. New way of doing that? LinkedIn. Podcasts. Right? This is evergreen. While I might refer to contemporary things or you might refer to current events in conversation, the conversation we’re having is is universal and evergreen, right? So that’s that’s what legacy to me is about, is did you make a lasting change that when you go back is still there.

Ashish Tulsian

15 years Kiwi hospitality.

Troy Hooper

Yep got burned out got tired of that. The real answer is that I watched my partner Mark Bailey, have a hell of a lot of fun working with emerging brands. So he came up on the restaurant side. Director of Ops, COO, was in some big brands, grew some brands, very rapidly from a leadership role. He started consulting as a one man sort of outsource for some consulting groups and he was having a lot of fun. I was really jealous. I was like, Man, what do you what do you this is cool. That’s a it’s a cool new concept and and he had his hands in all of it, same same kind of thing, like turn around, like management contract. He was the man. He was the man making it happen. But he couldn’t scale himself. So I said, Well, what if we work together? And what if I went and got more people that were like us and we put a team together? So we actually created Kiwi Restaurant Partners as a division of the management company because they overlapped. And then as soon as we got it off the ground and started working with the first couple of clients and started seeing some traction and interest in the market, I quickly let the management stuffs like see it’s natural end, right. I didn’t cancel any contracts or walk away from any projects, didn’t continue to take on new projects because I said this is where I want to go. This is more fun. I can work for two, three, five brands at a time. We can bring three or five of us together. We can work on it as a team. You have a lot of experience. I have experience. You have different experience. Let’s let’s go pool our resources. Let’s use our relationships and network, whether it’s a technology friends or supply chain or, you know, equipment or architects or designers, whatever that is, Let’s let’s go pull all of our resources together and offer this as a package, offer this as a outsource solution. You are here. You have three, five, ten restaurants. You want 30, 50, 100 restaurants. Let’s talk about how we get you there. And then we bring the the experience, the tools, the resources, and we can apply that at great speed because we’ve done it many times before. We have a tremendous focus on quality first, and we really enjoy building teams. So you don’t have enough people, you’re ready to make the investment. We’re going to help you get the right people in place, get them upskilled, get your existing team in the right positions to be ready to take on this larger entity that you want to create for yourself and your family or your business partners or investors. So that’s where we started focusing on that. Just about six or so years ago. And we’ve had a hell of a lot of fun. It’s just been a real trip to go all over the country, all over the world, work with these founders and these operating groups, even larger groups. We’ve had quite a few private equity and venture capital partners that made investments or made acquisitions, but they didn’t have the skill set on team. They weren’t that wasn’t their core competency. So they would outsource it to us and say, Hey, we’ve made this investment. Can you tell us what’s possible here? Can you build the systems in the process? Can you upskill the leaders and the founders? Can you help us find the right strategy and path forward to get this to whatever level it is they were looking to achieve? And so we’ve been doing that for six years and it’s been a hell of a lot of fun.

Ashish Tulsian

Is that what you’re doing right now?

Troy Hooper

So yes, yes and no. But yes, that business was fee for service. For the first three or so years. We moved to a fee plus equity. So we’ve taken a small position in some of our clients so that we have some long term.

Ashish Tulsian

Nice.

Troy Hooper

Relationship. We wanted to be there long term to help keep that thing going. It’s really frustrating when you do a really great job and something beautiful is made and you walk away and years later you look back and they didn’t keep it. You know it didn’t. The thing you did is no longer that thing. Back to the legacy.

Ashish Tulsian

And also I mean I mean, the results have to also compound for you. I like I’m a big believer of equity. Yeah. I’m like a massive believer.

Troy Hooper

So, yeah, there’s no you can’t charge enough fee to scale yourself into essentially retirement. Let’s just say. And so we’ve been moving the needle towards that. And just about a year ago, year and two months, year and three months ago, we got an email and a request to be introduced to somebody. And that gentleman was from Japan and he was recently put in charge of a holding company to bring this new acquired asset under one roof and bring all the pieces back together and figure out what this brand could be and how the path forward could be forged. And that brand is Pepper lunch, which is the pin I wear today here at the conference. And we had a really great initial introduction. We talked for a couple of months and they actually hired our company, Kiwi Restaurant Partners, to help them build the US infrastructure. They’re in Japan. They’re building a large infrastructure entity in Singapore. We’re acquiring franchise groups back under this brand. They held, they had their hands full. They also weren’t experts in the US North American market. And so they said we need to find some people or or somebody to help us do this. So they hired our firm first to help begin to bring together the plan and the infrastructure. And in that process, they turned to me and they realized two things. One, that if they had the right people and they put the right resources behind it, North America was the largest opportunity for the brand in the world. And two, that they didn’t have the knowledge, experience or network and capabilities to do it themselves. So they needed help. And so they asked me to please come on and be the North American CEO of the Holding Company and join the executive committee. There’s Five of us on the executive committee, three CEOs, a CFO and a COO to run the brand globally. And so Pepper lunch is the brand and pepper lunch has 513 restaurants in 15 countries. It’s 30 years old. It’s a Japanese hot plate concept. It’s teppanyaki for one, and it’s got a a massive awareness in Asia because of its longevity and it’s spread throughout Asia. But it actually has a tremendous amount of awareness here in North America from folks immigrating here, coming to school here that are of Asian descent, but also American military who’ve been to Guam or Japan. They’ve experienced it. University students have done semesters abroad in Asia, just a whole lot of people.

Ashish Tulsian

There is a large, large Asian community here.

Troy Hooper

There is there is there’s there’s brand awareness here, which has been phenomenal to learn and experience and enjoy. So they asked me to join the team. And so while I haven’t outsourced myself since we started KRP, one of the things we’ve always done is provide one of our leaders as an outsourced leader of the organization, director of Ops, COO, whatever. Didn’t matter what the title was. We put a leader in place and so I took the opportunity offered. And and so I’ve been in that role for the since February 1st officially this year. And again, just building very, very fast, getting the infrastructure pulled together, bringing all of our friends and resources and tools and economies of scale to bear, building that team, building up the brand awareness, marketing, PR And then we began offering franchises this year. So we’re a franchise system. We do own 126 of our 513 stores as corporate stores, or we’re a franchise system model. And so that’s a competency We have on our team that’s very high level. And so in the last five months, we’ve had some great success finding some large multi-unit operators to join the cause, join the brand. And and we’re excited to be growing in places like Arizona and Tampa and Orlando, Florida, and a few more states to be announced in the coming days. But we’ve hit a really nice trajectory of momentum with that. And it’s just been, again, a lot of fun. I say that a lot. I do have the great luxury of in my mind, of choosing to do what I want to do. I’m one of those people that if I’m not enjoying it, if I don’t have a passion for it, or if I don’t jump out of bed at 04:30 in the morning excited for what I’m going to do that day, I won’t do it. And if I do it, I’m going to do a really bad job at it and it’s not going to last very long and nobody’s going to be happy. So I just choose to do things I enjoy doing. And building these kinds of things is what I enjoy.

Ashish Tulsian

How is it like working with Japanese? You were telling me that you’ve been to you’re going to Tokyo several times a year now, right, given the current assignment. So like how how’s the experience working in Japan and with Japanese people? What are you, what are you experiencing and what are you learning?

Troy Hooper

It’s very new, right? So the Japanese culture overall is very unique and very it’s a brand in and of itself. It’s a thing right? And it’s difficult to describe. It’s not difficult to appreciate when you experience it. It’s instant. It’s actually overwhelming. I actually got choked up filming a video on my first trip to Tokyo because I was actually I did a video essay thank you to the people of Japan. It their hospitality is off the charts. They are the definition of hospitality. They they exemplify hospitality should be emblazoned in gold and diamonds next to the word Japanese people. In business. It’s a very specific business culture as well as well, it’s very different. And so you have to respect and learn that and and do your best to understand that and work within that frame while also being a leader. Also explaining yourself as to why certain things or customs or things make a little more sense, not only here, but even maybe to adopt there, right? And and the beauty of this partnership And we got we got along so well, so fast. The beauty of this partnership with their teams in Asia is that they’re is eager to learn from us as we are to learn from them. It’s really important. We’re not interested in Americanizing vanilla-izing whitewashing, none of it. This is an amazing brand that needs no adaptability applied to it of any sort to make it highly interesting to the American public. It just like any brand, we have to find the images, words and and voice of the brand that resonates. We just have to explain it in a way that brings people in the door. Because once you come into a pepper lunch, you’ll come back pretty quickly. It’s a bit of an addictive sort of experience and food. But back to your question, you know, it’s it’s not it’s not it’s not been difficult, but it’s absolutely been an effort. You have to be mindful, respectful, have empathy, have humility and work within their framework as well.

Ashish Tulsian

But you said that, for example, you said it’s a very specific business culture. Yes. Like like you give. Can you talk about some examples of like things that you have learned and or rather you got present to, you know, in early interactions and you’re going, Oh, wow, I need to probably not navigate this, but learn this.

Troy Hooper

Yes. So our team is used to having confidence that we have most of the answers in what it is we’re being tasked to do or what we know we need. We’ve taken on. We’re not used to explaining it to people. And in the Japanese business culture in particularly, they really, really want to understand every aspect. And it’s not about one of things I had to learn is it’s not about questioning your knowledge or your experience or your confidence. I had to get over that pretty quick. It’s about them wanting to learn and understand it, but also be sure. They’re a culture of assurance. Before they make a decision and take a step, they want to have exhausted all of the findings. They want to have as much input and information as possible. And so not only from you, but they’ll ask around you. Right? They they may challenge your answer by checking it with other people. And you cannot be offended or feel disrespected.

Ashish Tulsian

As a part of the culture.

Troy Hooper

It’s just part of the culture. It’s it’s it’s I the the wrong word is conservative because they actually are pretty aggressive and they’re willing to move quickly and make decisions that can be made quickly, but they want to be confident and their confidence comes from knowledge, very intellectual society, very, very smart people. And so they’re used to seeking much information, lots of data points. Considering those data points, checking that with all of the stakeholders. And then more often than not making a collective decision rather than a than a singular decision, say, from a CEO position.

Ashish Tulsian

But isn’t that like that sounds a little Democratic.

Troy Hooper

It’s Democratic. But when the decisions made right, whether the group likes it or not, the decision is ultimately made by somebody. But yeah, but that’s not what we do in American business culture. Not not in large, right? Most people don’t do what we spent 20 minutes talking about. We have high ego. The American business culture is highly audacious. We don’t often even ask for the data, and use the data or ask other people’s opinions about the data. That’s that’s a more common framework in the United States. And, you know, glass houses, right? There’s somebody on the 59th floor on the corner office who picks up the phone and says, Do this. So I appreciate it. The Japanese culture, especially Japanese business culture, sort of takes that out a bit further over a longer period of time. It’s a bit slower moving process than we are used to. And so you just have to take the ride.

Ashish Tulsian

Is there anything that you like took from, let’s say, last, you know, 15, 16 months of your experience with them that you felt that, hey, you know, I mean, I can I can include this in my, you know, business as usual as well, not only with Japanese. Is there some merit that you saw in any of those practices, you can?

Troy Hooper

So I told you I’m from Miami, Right. Miami. Miami is East Coast culture. Added with Latin, sprinkled very heavily with Latin spice. I grew up, until eighth grade I was the only non Latin student in school. I was surrounded, I lived on the edge of Coral Gables, but on the Little Havana side. So I grew up surrounded by Cubans and Central and South Americans, first time immigrant children. So there’s a lot of there’s a lot of bravado in that society. And so when you take East Coast, fast moving, high pace city and some of that and you’re used to making decisions and used to being the person responsible for making all those decisions, putting it to committee is is a is an exercise in patience. But there’s many, many learnings that you get by slowing down when you slow the thing down, what’s the worst that’s going to happen? I have to say that to myself sometimes is what’s the worst that’s going to happen if this takes three months instead of three weeks, Right? Okay But if if, if my bosses, my benefactors or the people that we’re doing this with and for are okay with whatever those losses in time or or upside, then I should be too, right? I shouldn’t I shouldn’t take that to heart. But the biggest lesson I want to share over my time in Tokyo and in Singapore I’ve spent time in both. This year is the intense amount of courtesy. And I say this and most people outside of America will go, Yeah, well that’s just like the way you should behave. But we just again, back to this East Coast, Miami, New York kind of thing, we move fast, we talk faster, talk short. We’re we get to the point. There’s not a lot of pleasantries and and and tradition or pomp and circumstance or or process to it. Right. The Japanese have some really specific cultural processes to meetings when you arrive to a group meeting either on Zoom or in person, there’s, you know, 3 minutes, maybe 5 minutes of chit chat and and everybody greets everybody eye to eye, face to face, handshake to handshake. Gifts are often given tokens of appreciation and welcome, are often given. Man, back to hospitality, If you’re a guest, you’re overwhelmed with with this sensation of welcome. But even when you’re familiar and your and you’re in a business unit working together, and then they actually say, okay, shall we start the meeting? And it’s almost like cut. Now we’re going to go to business now we’re going to get serious now. Great. That’s wonderful. Thank you so much. Now we’re going to begin the meeting. They do the same thing at the end of the meeting, which is quite fascinating. But in an email, I’m one of these people that struggles to Hi, I hope you’re having a great day. Haven’t seen in a while, hope the weather’s great, blah blah, blah. By the way, can you email me that receipt? Right? If I’m like, Hey Troy, can you send me the receipt? Troy You know, it’s just like, boom, right to the point.

Ashish Tulsian

I’m the guy who.

Troy Hooper

Usually there’s no even salutation. Yeah, there’s not even a salutation. That’s the way I am, you know, in Japanese and Asian culture in general, there’s just so much courtesy to the human that they have some they have some phrases that don’t translate well, but they have some common salutations and openings to the body of the email that they’ll write that are common.

Ashish Tulsian

I think that that’s also one of the reasons why, you know, like Japanese culture and a lot of Asian cultures has a lot of loyalty built to it. Because the the human part from the process of the business or transaction has not been taken out, you know, so bad that there is no human left in that.

Troy Hooper

Well, I’ll tell you this. Sometimes to the detriment of their business, the loyalty comes is weighed way beyond the business case. When I say that balance, for me, sometimes it’s way balanced to the human and and examples are that in that culture they would rather find another role for you than than dismiss you or fire you. Right. You’re going to find a role for you. But in in like doing business or getting an engagement getting hired with them, whether I could do the job and I was the right skilled human to do the job was determined very quickly whether you can or cannot do it, whether you are the expert or the person that is determined and and filed away very quickly. A lot if not most, actually, almost all of this time and effort spent was but are you somebody that I we can and want to and will work with successfully? Are we compatible? Can you and I work together? Can you and I and these other five people work together? And can you be a part of this team is I don’t know if it’s 90%, but it’s a massive percentage of the equation in the decision making because once they decide that, yes, you’re my person, you’re a person we want, the loyalty is given. There is no more questioning. They trust and believe and and expect you to accomplish the task. It is assumed. Because they spent the time assessing the human and the relationship. And so they understand what we started this conversation with, that if we spend that time, if we build that bond, if we understand each other, if we understand that we are committed to solving together and finding the path, even if it’s culturally at odds or our words aren’t matching and we’re not understanding each other and we have to spend extra time and effort really navigating through some of these things, that it’s worth it because we pick the right person. So in their estimation, I believe that they think a lot of people can do the job and that’s true.

Ashish Tulsian

That’s true.

Troy Hooper

A lot of people can do the job. Yeah, a lot of people will get you from A to B or to Z. But whether that’s somebody you want to take that journey with and can find commonality along that path together is the driving largest factor of measurement that they use.

Ashish Tulsian

Like skills are Table stakes.

Troy Hooper

Exactly.

Ashish Tulsian

Post that, it’s compatibility, culture of empathy. A mutual respect. Yeah. No, I mean, honestly, I’ve never worked with I we haven’t got a chance to work with any Japanese yet yet I whatever I know about their culture, you know, I love these parts. Yes I, I have, you know, had like, you know, experiences with my friends. A friend of mine, you know, sold his company to a Japanese listed company and and those people were like investors in their company, like a minority investor before. And I’ve seen that journey where, you know, how like they treated their vendors, how they treated their promise, you know, how much they, you know, kept on standing on what they said six months back, even if, you know, markets crashed.

Troy Hooper

Their word is their bond and it will not be broken.

Ashish Tulsian

And I was like, you know what? I would love to work in this market because, you know, I see them, you know, having, you know, great high bias to quality relationship loyalty, you know, on both sides. And I’m somebody who believes that, you know, loyalty on employee side, company side, vendor side, customer side is the only way to prosper. Sure there is no other way.

Troy Hooper

Win win win.

Ashish Tulsian

When there’s no other way. Because because if you’re if you’re continuously you know, if a bucket is leaking in any of these. Yeah. It’s a leaky bucket. I mean, you still get it full by hustling and, you know, probably but but you won’t be, you know. Prosperity for me is that okay if I’m standing on floor three and I’m not able to jump on floor four, I need to have I can have ten, you know, chances, but I’m going to remain on three. Yeah, right. That’s prosperity because that’s that’s calmness otherwise, you know, juggling between the idea that I may fall to zero or one or two. Why the thinking you know if jumping to five I think that’s too much negative stress that’s not that’s not an ambition that’s or that’s too much negative.

Troy Hooper

It’s also not strategic. You’re not taking one step at a time towards the next level, right?.

Ashish Tulsian

You’re energy is still going in like, you know, covering your downside. Right. You know, while while gunning for the upside. Sure.

Troy Hooper

You have to build a strong foundation.

Ashish Tulsian

That’s that’s awesome. What next?

Troy Hooper

What next? This is this is everything right now. This is this is a lot of work. This is a lot of fun. We’re just getting started. We’ve been at this for less than a year. The the industry has only been aware of Pepper lunch for about five or six months now. We have much work to do. We have lots of new.

Ashish Tulsian

But I must say, you’ve done a great job. Like industry knows it now. I mean, I don’t think industry doesn’t know it anymore.

Troy Hooper

If you on this conversation, the the sound engineer is able to moderate my voice to an acceptable level. But if we meet in the hallway downstairs at this conference or any other, you won’t miss where Troy is. I’m I’m the loudest guy in the room. It just comes naturally. I have big lungs, but I’m also the loudest guy in the room, so I don’t mind waving the flag proudly and leading the charge and sort of putting my bayonet out and saying, Let’s go, everybody. So we have a lot a lot yet to do. We’re building a team in Los Angeles where we’re headquartered for North America. We’re going to be building out a team in an office there in the coming months. We’re building a corporate store, one each year for the next three years to do some different models of corporate model of our of our brand. And we’ve had we have a lot of wonderful new franchisee partners, multi-unit partners that are going to build multiple stores a year. So we have to be ahead of their needs and make sure that we’re delivering on the promises we’ve made to them. And we we exceed the expectations that we’ve set of ourselves and for them. So a tremendous amount of work is going to go into that. And that’s a new phase of our business. It’s a new focus that we have to take on. So we’re going to be building we’re in build mode for next couple of years.

Ashish Tulsian

Troy what’s what’s up family?

Troy Hooper

Yeah. So I’ve got a wife and a three year old who are the most supportive human beings on the planet. As I’ve traveled more this year than I have probably, and I’ve traveled a lot, probably cumulatively in most of my life. But they they know, they see the passion. They they hear me on the calls at home. They see me working early mornings and late nights. They know it’s because I love what I’m doing and they’re extraordinarily supportive. But we do take the time to set time aside and we’re all in. We’re either all in work or we’re all in play. It’s sort of an old mantra of mine from when I was in my twenties I thought was really cool and sexy to say that I work hard and I play harder because I work really hard. So, man, I must play really. I’m too old to play harder now. I can’t. I can’t play at all. Hardly. So but yeah, and you know, we’re hoping for a second child in the coming year or so. So the family process. Yeah, I think the family processes part of the whole equation and they know that this phase of the building of something like this is temporary in its intensity. It will find its pace that we will have more humans on the team to offset some of my time. So doing everything everywhere, every day, which I look forward to next year, because we’ll probably do as many conferences, conventions and and gatherings and shows.

Ashish Tulsian

Do you, do you communicate, you know, what’s happening in business or like from this, you know, for for from the perspective of, you know, your wife, you know, knowing, you know, what’s happening and is going to be temporary, is this is this the excuse to buy time or is it is it sharing? Because yeah.

Troy Hooper

It’s a common goal. Yeah. So we have a common goal. She knows that. A, if I’m sharing my passion, I have all the energy in the world for them and B, that there is sort of an end in mind. Back to Stephen Covey. There’s, there’s a starting with an end in mind and and so she’s patient to understand that this investment in over a few years will have a longer term impact on our family, our life and our stability and comfort. And so my wife’s a very hardworking career woman, and so that plays into the whole thing. So she gets it. She’s also in hospitality. She’s still on the luxury hotel side.

Ashish Tulsian

What does she do?

Troy Hooper

So she runs a team of sales people for a very, very ultra luxury property. So She manages the events business and all their buyouts and weddings and all the other exciting things that happen on a property like that. But so so for her as well. Right. Is is pursuing and building a career. We’ve always been willing to move to support the other one’s necessities. And so we moved about six months ago to get her closer, to make her commute more convenient and easier. And but yeah, so we’ve always invested in each other in that way and being in the business, we it’s very easy for us to talk business. So we kind of try to limit it. We give each other the highlights of what’s good, what’s bad, what’s stressful, what’s, you know, coming up. It’s not an excuse, but sometimes the necessity is, hey, I’m going to need to put and we both say to other we said last Saturday I need like 4 hours in the office. And she’s like, I need like 4 hours in the office. So we just split the day. I was like, Who’s going to do the morning shift? Who’s doing the night shift? One of us takes our son and does the thing and goes and plays and educates and all that. And then when when that person has achieved enough in that day they needed to accomplish, then there’s a handoff. And then I go and put in my three or four or 5 hours and get that done as quick or as efficient as possible. And then but we always reserve a day a week. We always I have I have no compromise hours and I have I have pushed back very forcefully at times when it’s forgotten that I have blackout hours. There’s very few, but they’re specific. So from 06:30 in the morning to eight in the morning is our family time to get up together and have morning time and have breakfast and set the tone for the day and enjoy some time together and getting ready for the day. And then again from 04:30 to 06:30 every afternoon, I actually retrieve my son from school and I get to spend about an hour and a half with him before my wife comes home. We have dinner together. She takes him to get him ready for bed and the whole process of that. And so we have this very defined routine. If I need extra time, I’m up at four or 04:30 in the morning. That’s my extra time, Right? If I need extra time, I’m we’re both easily 07:30, 8:00 at night. We’ll have dinner, we’ll have an hour or so together, catch up, relax, reset, reset. And then we can both go to the computer and work till midnight. If we need to. Right. So we find this balance purposefully together every day.

Ashish Tulsian

I think it’s also beautiful if you can talk your business or your, you know, your work side with your partner. I think it’s I don’t know if it’s necessary, but I think it’s important. Yeah.

Troy Hooper

You do have to have a little bit of a it’s a natural boundary now. For many years it was there was no boundary and we would talk for 3 hours about work and then was like, oh wait, I’m exhausted. I don’t really want to repeat my entire day. Let’s just do the highlights. Okay? Then, you know, sometimes you just need to be listened to, right? And she needs you to just hear, Oh, this and that and the other thing and what, what a stress. And I got to deal with this with this person, you know, these things that happen obviously similarly, Right?

Ashish Tulsian

What’s your distraction, like something you do when you’re not.

Troy Hooper

Ironically we travel. Yeah it’s the most ridiculous thing as much as I travel for work. As a matter of fact, I was excited that I have no travel plan in December or January. And so immediately looking that far out, I was like, So we should probably go. And she went, No, no, no we’re not going anywhere. So I’m going to be the guy at home. Like, Now look, I have a lot to do in December, January, like I described to you, a lot of things we’re in the middle of building and doing. I have plenty of work to do, but taking the travel out of that aspect temporarily obviously gives you the energy and the time and more, more capability to accomplish these things. So I most certainly will have a little bit more balance and free time, but we’re just going to enjoy our home, enjoy our neighborhood, enjoy our proximity to the beach. Um, winter in southern California is windy and chilly, but a bad day at the beach is better than a good day in the snow for me. So. So we’ll be will be sort of just taking it all in and and taking couple of months to recharge the batteries for what will be a you know a busy 2024.

Ashish Tulsian

That is awesome. Troy this was a great conversation.

Troy Hooper

Thanks for having me on. It’s awesome.

Ashish Tulsian

It’s so good knowing you.

Troy Hooper

A pleasure. Pleasure. Thank you. Thanks so much.