• July Breakfast Club Sign Up

• Pulse (Sponsor)

• Rushir, Founder of Popchew Interview

This coming Wednesday (7/26) - July’s Breakfast Club! (Only Breakfast Club Meetup of the Summer)

Ariel Purnsrian and I (Morgan Barrett) are teaming up with Breakfast Club legend and one of the savviest young VC’s out there, Jack McClelland, to celebrate tech, summer, breakfast, and New York.

If you enjoy no longer being Vitamin D deficient and can string a coherent sentence together before noon (or not!) come hang with us in SoHo. Click the button below:

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Pulse

I couldn't think of a more perfect partner for the Breakfast Club. I've been on the lookout for a way to keep track of all the connections I make between hosting Breakfast Club and attending dozens of other events in New York.

Ricky, the founder of Pulse, has built such an easy to use tool. You import a contact, you tag info, record some notes, Pulse remembers where you met, and then it prompts you about when to follow up - maybe next week?

A big goal for me (now that there's less than 6 months left in 2023) is to stop networking and focus on building relationships - following up and providing value for the interesting, amazing, super talented people I meet.

I encourage you to download Pulse before next week's meetup. Give it a shot. I think you’ll appreciate that Pulse gives you a free digital business card to share all your links and info with others.

I've invited Ricky to the meetup so if you see him, be sure to tell him what you think of the app.

Breakfast Club Member Spotlight: Rushir Parikh

Rushir is the co-founder of Popchew, a plug and play platform for creators to launch delivery only food brands. He’s also a Breakfast Club OG. Popchew has hosted several of the first breakfast clubs at their office in Soho. We broke their elevator though and haven’t been asked back since. Sorry!

Full disclosure, I invested in Popchew. I’m biased.

For the interview, Rushir takes me to Torissi, a new Italian restaurant in Soho.

Rushir suggests listening to “Bogus” by Don Toliver while enjoying his interview

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8sIUEEIxvg

Why did you suggest a song to accompany your interview?
All of life’s moments need a soundtrack

[Dinner at Torissi]

You’re the Co-founder of Popchew – what is Popchew?
Popchew is the next McDonalds. We’re building a food company that's fun, delicious, and at the center of pop culture.

Where are we?
Torissi, the best Italian restaurant in New York right now. It’s seven or eight months old. I’ve been here at least 20 times so far.

Have you ever come consecutive nights?
My longest streak is 3 nights in a row. Which isn’t that long. But yeah, it’s consistent. It’s really good. To be a great restaurant, the vibe and atmosphere has to be great. The hardest part, though, is the consistency. Nailing it every single time.

Torissi is owned by Major Food Group. They’re best known for Carbone and run a bunch of phenomenal restaurants.

So it’s three guys, Mario Carbone, Rich Torissi, and Jeff Zalaznick. Mario and Rich met in culinary school and started Torrisi Italian Specialties – kind of like a sandwich shop. Jeff, he’s a business, finance guy, rolls in one day and says we gotta blow this up.

Torissi, the restaurant, named after Rich, is very special, because the pasta here, you don’t get it anywhere else. There’s a cavatelli on the menu with a Jamaican beef ragu. No other Italian restaurant has something like this. Here you get some innovation, there’s a wow factor.

What do you think about the interior?
Carbone is a very intimate restaurant. Mario did an interview recently where he said what sets them apart in their restaurants is everything feels like it’s a show, a performance. Carbone is very much that. The door guy, wearing a three-piece suit, greets you. Heavy velvet drapes. Comically large menu, physically large. Only a couple items on each side of the menu, though. You feel like you’re in a mob movie. Even the breadbasket is visually stunning.

The interior here at Torissi is at the other end of the spectrum. Spacious, tall ceilings. I like it.

[1^st dish arrives: Foie Gras]

It’s not as intimate. Same level of service but much more grand. Lot’s of marble. Lots of space. The kitchen is open.

Why did you want to go to Torissi tonight?
I like it. This place is in the current top rotation for NYC. I need to take all my friends and show them how good food can be.

Tell me about growing up with your Uncle
I grew up all over the south - Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia. I would spend summers with my Uncle and Aunt in Oxford, Mississippi. My Uncle, Vishwesh Bhatt – he’s a James Beard award winning chef

For those who don’t know, what’s James Beard?
It’s a top culinary award, second only to maybe a Michelin star. And Michelin stars go to the restaurant, but you can win a James Beard award as a chef. He’s actually won two James Beard Awards, one for best chef in the south and one for his cookbook, I’m from here. The title is a reference to how, when you’re brown, everyone asks where are you from? I’m from here – he’s claiming the culinary heritage of the South where he’s spent a majority of his life and all of his career.

But spending time with him, I would wake up at 8am and we’d head into the restaurant to begin prepping for dinner service. My job was all the grunt work of chopping onions, cleaning out the fish trays, mopping the floors – making $7.25, Mississippi minimum wage. I learned how to hustle under pressure.

If you mess up a sauce, you have to do it over again until it’s perfect. He forced me to learn discipline – like when a recipe calls for whatever ingredients and you have to go into the walk-in (refrigerator) and you don’t come out until you have all the ingredients on the tray. No going in and out. If you’re not prepared, you freeze your ass off.

When I was living in Oxford as a child, I lived with my Grandparents. My grandfather was a physics professor at Ole Miss and taught quantum mechanics. The guy did math for fun. My mom would visit on weekends and eventually I moved to Arkansas to live with her.

Growing up, moving around so much, not always living with your Mom – your Dad isn’t in the picture, did you sense instability? Was it difficult to adjust?
I don’t know any different and since everyone was family it all felt very natural. Growing up in an Indian family in India, the family is massive and you’re around everyone all the time. So, I felt like it was quite common.

How did your grandfather and uncle impact your outlook and approach to life?They’re both at the top of their games, my grandfather crushed physics and my uncle is top of the southern culinary scene. My grandfather’s parents died young and as the oldest he was in charge of 12 kids and he still found a way to support them and get a PhD. They’re both extremely well read and can talk to anyone. I guess it’s good to be exposed that level of intensity and focus and determination.

I sometimes forget how old you are since you’ve already had what feels like a decade of work experience. You spent two semesters at Georgia Tech before dropping out?
Growing up I wanted to get into Tech. In middle school, I competed in a Lego robotics program. I found mentors online. On twitter. This guy named Aza Raskin - when I first met him he was at Mozilla. He then started his own company, and it was acquired by Google. His dad, Jeff Raskin, invented the Mac.

I remember visiting SF and Aza and Charlie Harding, another mentor, were going to give me a tour of Google. My mom and Grandpa dropped me off and Charlie asked if they wanted a tour too. I turned around, tears in my eyes, because I didn’t want them to come with me. I wanted it to be my thing – to be at Google

Pulling up and there were Lambos in the parking lot.

[Pasta dishes arrive:
Cavatelli with Jamaican Beef Ragu
Garganelli with Morels
Tortellini Pomodoro}

The Tortellini Pomodoro is insane – the sweet tomato sauce is unlike any other tomato sauce. The tortellini explode with cheese.

What gave you the confidence to reach out to these really successful people on twitter who became so influential on your life?
I don’t think it’s confidence. I think it’s naivete. Twitter was relatively new, I was young and used that to my advantage, which was maybe more impressive at the time. Now 14-year-olds do everything

[Rushir tries the Cavatelli with Jamaican Beef Ragu]

Different right?

I’ve never had spice like that in a pasta dish – it’s closer to like a lamb rogan josh

That’s what makes this place special.

So, leaving SF, on the plane, I look back at the city and thought I’m going to be back.

How long did you last at Georgia Tech?
I made it through the first year. I did an internship with a company called Bellhops. It’s a tech enabled moving company. I loved it. I had a ball. Solving real world stuff. Going back to school after that seemed pointless. Convincing my mom and grandfather was not easy.

[Rushir temporarily overwhelmed by the pastas]

I think we ordered too much food.

I went back to bellhops and was making $50k. After a year I was bored. And I told my boss. Give me something else. So the CEO, Steven Vlahos, tagged me to expand Bellhops from labor only movers to tackling the driving of the moving truck. At the time, bellhops had college students who show up and load a Uhaul that the customer would then have to drive. Big part of moving is you don’t want to drive the truck yourself. This seemed like the logical next step – become a full-service mover.

I found our first driver with a Craigslist ad. Emailed him the details for the first job. Afterwards we were chatting – I took him to Chick Fil A - and he told me he drives his 26 foot long box truck for Amazon at night. During the day his truck sits empty. And there’s a ton of these of Amazon contractor box trucks that just sit empty during the day.

I build a 12 person team. All hustlers. Running this special project. Using all this excess Amazon capacity.

I’m interviewing logistics guys – tell me everything you know about trucks.

We’re managing hundreds of thousands of dollars in payouts with google sheets. Coordinating hundreds of moves via email and calls.

And then, Stephen, the CEO, my mentor at this point - left the company. A bunch of ex uber people come in.

[Duck Alla Mulberry arrives]

The infamous duck with mulberry sauce, handcrafted by god himself, has arrived. This duck will blow your mind.

Its good.

Stephen leaves and then what?
I decided I should go work at Uber and started running Facebook ads about myself telling Uber employees why they should hire me.

I went on LinkedIn and added a bunch of people that work at Uber, got their emails. Created a custom list then targeted them with Facebook ads.

[Rotisserie Lamb with Flag Sauces arrives]

Why do that?
I applied five times and got auto rejected every single time. Since their screener thought I had zero experience. I end up going to SF on vacation, and meet Akshay who responded to my Uber ads while im there. He had a role for me on his team at Uber - but it was in South America and I wasn’t ready to make that plunge. At the same time I was also interviewing with a company called Shipt, and they suggested I come in while I was in SF.

How’s the lamb?

It’s really good
I end up really liking the team at Shipt and worked there for three years. Shipt had just been acquired by Target. It’s a same day grocery delivery service.

What’s going on with Akshay during this time?
I had heard about ghost kitchens and I’m talking to Akshay about this – Akshay had worked on UberEats and had spent a lot of time on marketing and content.

I write a guest post on his blog about creators and ghost kitchens coming together. And it gets shared a ton.

This is before Mr. Beast’s Burger?
Yeah, it’s like six months before. I can see where things are going. I end up meeting my cofounder, Nick Sopchak, through this blog post. We just had ourselves and a deck. It’s a very convoluted business plan and both had full time jobs. Everyone says, this seems complicated. Let us know if it works and then we’ll be interested.

 Is this around the time we met?
Yeah around this time, you reached out after you saw the blog post or we interacted on twitter.

So when Mr. Beast announced Mr. Beast Burger, all of tech twitter lit up. And I’m in the replies of every single tweet with the blog post from six months ago, showing that we’re building this.

Eventually we get intro’d to Anthony Pompliano. Pomp.

For those who don’t know – who is Pomp?
Early stage investor. Creator, writer, commentator. Really hit his stride during the crypto bubble. Bitcoin was starting to blowup. And we go to him and say hey you should invest.

Pomp dug into the idea and came back with “It’s too complicated.”

He had two signature things. He ordered Domino’s every week and whenever something goes well, he says Bang Bang.

We’re on a call with our friend Jen. “Jen, we’ve talked to so many VC’s, they’re all saying no. We talked to Pomp, he said no” and she’s like “what if you did something with Pomp?”

What if we did Bang Bang Pizza with Pomp?

That night we put up a webflow website made it look super nice, had a menu on there that integrated some of Pomp’s family and words or phrases that he likes. We sent it to him – what do you think? What if we launched your brand? You think it’s too hard? We’ll show you that it’s not.

He shows it to his wife, Polina. Comes back, “we love it” and “by the way, call it Bitcoin pizza.”

Nick and I both have full time jobs but spend the next couple of months recruiting restaurants, ordering boxes, etc.

On launch day – we launched in four cities – I think 20 locations. We went viral on twitter. Stephen Colbert had a segment about us. Hypebeast. CNBC – everywhere

So Pomp crushed it?
He crushed it. That morning was crazy. We had a pop up in Washington square park. I’m there early waiting for people. I look up and Bill Gates walks by.

Just an auspicious Bill Gates sighting?
Yep unrelated. Pop up went great. Went back to a bunch of investors. Long Journey led the round. Long Journey is Cyan Bannister and Lee Jacobs. They were our dream VC. I had followed Cyan for a long time on Twitter.

Before they were like, “we get the creator piece, we don’t get the restaurant side. Come back when you prove it works.” We proved it could work. We had a call with Lee, Cyan and Scott Bannister. They wanted to take the rest of the round.

I’m trying to get a hold of Nick to tell him. He’s in Maine, though, with terrible service. The call keeps dropping – I’m trying to tell him we closed the round.

Same day as that call, I get confronted at work, my day job, by my manager about slacking off. He’s like what’s going on? We’re putting you on a PIP (Performance Improvement Plan).

I explain to him that I’m starting a company.

They didn’t know you were taking nonstop investor meetings and launching a restaurant with 20 locations?
No one knew. But it made sense to him and he invested that same day.

Lol – turning a Performance Improvement Plan into a successful pitch.

[Fresh mint tea arrives]

Virtual Dining Concepts (VDC), the company behind Mr. Beast Burger, is experiencing difficulties. Mr. Beast Burger, not the success that Jimmy hoped it would be –
Well I think a couple of things. People bring up VDC, but we’re very different. Those companies are building individually distinct virtual brands almost like an agency. And operating them without a care for quality or consistency, without a care for experience.

I think that was the core of Jimmy’s complaint
Right. I think Popchew’s difference is that we’re building Popchew as a consumer facing brand – one singular brand and then on top of that we’re doing a bunch of collaborations that drive new customers to Popchew who then order Popchew standard meals – burgers, etc.

We care about quality and consistency. We invest in operations and technology to get the quality and consistency to where we need it to be. We’re competing with Chick fil a and Shake Shack so we need to be just as good and have another value prop.

You recently got an executive coach – how’s that going?
It’s been really good. When starting a company, there’s a ton of stuff you don’t know. A certain way you have to act and a certain things you have to do to be successful.

Even just mindset. I’ve been a solo person achieving goals – but how do you inspire a team? How do you motivate yourself and others when things aren’t going well?

The coach has been super helpful in consistency and improving momentum.

Generally, I would recommend a coach. Especially if it’s two cofounders who haven’t worked together before or have a deep previous relationship. The coach helps a lot with interpersonal relationships.

There were some signs early on that’d you’d be a good fit with Nick (Popchew Cofounder)
Right off the bat, there was a lot of alignment in terms of business vision and who we thought were a good hire. He’s an extremely hard worker. And we balance each other with our strengths.

What has surprised you about Popchew?
A lot of the opportunities, whether it’s people I’ve met, or some of these deals we’ve done has really come from being open to seeing what happens and not necessarily 100% sticking to the plan.

I get texts from you at 4am in the morning that you just met [REDACTED]’s manager or I wake up to a dm from you of you riding in a white lambo –
Hip hop has a bunch of night owls. It goes back to an opportunity seeking mindset. A lot of people don’t want to pick up the phone at 3am in the morning to do a deal. But i think the way to find success is taking every opportunity in front of you and having a “happy to be here” attitude.

The [REDACTED] story – well, I had been out with friends celebrating my Birthday and I get home around 2am and just as I’m about to fall asleep, I get a text from a friend who is a promoter that “[REDACTED]’s manager is at my apartment, do you want to meet him?”

I’m like do not let him leave. I rush over, we chat, exchange info. Fast forward to now and we’re working on a project together.

Don’t leave your phone on silent. You have to be awake for the opportunities.

Can you tell the [REDACTED] story?
Absolutely not.

Tell me about the office?
We were at a WeWork for six months. And you know, basically outgrowing it. We found this space in Soho, at Spring and Mercer. Used to be occupied by Bumble

Did you take that as a good omen? Bumble was about to IPO
Yes, definitely a good sign. And it’s an iconic street in soho, especially for us because we talk about pop culture. Off white, Palace, Billionaire Boys Club, Fanellis. And it was already yellow.

If you made it this far - send me a quick note! I appreciate you