David Zhao

Intro: (00:00:00) Hey guys, welcome to Asian Hustle Network Podcast, my name is Bryan and my name is Maggie. We interview Asian entrepreneurs around the world to amplify their voices and empower Asians to pursue their dreams and goals. We believe that each person has a message and a unique story from their entrepreneurial journey that they can share with all of us.

Maggie: (00:00:23) Hi everyone. Welcome to the Asian Hustle Network. Today we have a very special guest with us. His name is David Zhao. David is an entrepreneur investor and activist originally from Shanghai, China. He is currently the managing partner of the next group. Its diversified businesses include food and beverage ventures, such as the X-pot, Chubby Cattle, and Next factor, a full-service digital agency. David is here to share insights about entrepreneurship, the startup lifestyle, and tools and tips to help you with your daily life. David, welcome to the show. David.

Bryan: (00:01:00) David, we’re so excited to have you on the podcast today. Let’s hop right into the first question, man. What was your upbringing like? And where’d you grow up?

David: (00:01:07) Thank you, Bryan, for having me a big fan of the Asian Hustle Network. Amazing how you got all the Asian community to be here, where we are, and see how young you are and getting us together as much needed in today’s world. My upbringing, I grew up in Shanghai, China. That’s where I was born. When I was 12, I came to the US with my mom and didn’t speak a word of English then. So Chinese is my first language and at the time I thought it was challenging growing up, not speaking English, and having to learn 11, and 12 in middle school when everyone else is speaking. But I realized now that it’s a blessing in disguise and you’ll see a lot in life, it’s a lot of blessing in disguise in the world that when you’re younger, you don’t realize.

So now obviously my work revolves around bridging cultures through food, through entertainment, and I’m able to do so because I understand both cultures and how to combine them and westernized it so that everyone can enjoy some of the most popular things that are happening in Asia from food to entertainment. So, upbringing I went to school on long island and after I got into college, I took some gap years before going to college and during college to build my ad agency and build the restaurant group, which is called Chubby Cattle.

And we have the X-Pot, which is fine dining, hot pot concept. We have Chubby Cattle, which is the first, it’s a conveyor belt hotpot concept. One of the first conveyor belts hops out in the world. And then we also have dessert shops, call me fresh for which, which franchise. And now we’re doing our dessert concept.

In the next few years, we’re doing a lot of automated restaurant concepts. We’re doing also a barbecue concept where we’re doing karaoke. We’ll bring karaoke here. We’re bringing the spot culture from Asia here as well. So, we’re trying to bring the best that’s to be offered in Asia to the US-North America, and to Europe.

Bryan: (00:02:54)  I love that man and that’s a lot of things you’re trying to bridge, right. Kind of curious too. We kind of skipped that part of that. How are you so driven? I know this is a very loaded question, but it sounds like you’re almost born with that drive to do more, what was your environment you grew up with, and what was that like? Would your dad give you a lot of pressure?

David: (00:03:18) Yeah, absolutely. So, growing up in, I guess, when communist China went into capitalism, just started, I guess, in my parents’ generation. My dad was a small business owner who did fashion. It’s a very small business. And, to me, it was still inspiring because I can see that he was able to work with his partner in a great relationship.

I see that he was very kind to the family and deal to have a lot of friends through work and just this strong bond. And I think that that kind of brought up to me. It wasn’t, I was born to do business, but rather I liked enjoying high school. I started a non-profit and started the ad agency while I didn’t even know it was an ad agency during high school time because it gave me an outlet to connect with people, work with people and work with friends became a cool concept. So, during high school, I started a nonprofit called cyberbullying, which is still up now. And it was just a cool project that came out of our health class. And on, the ad agency side, I was able to pretty much service speed arbitrage of people in India and people in the US musicians’ creators and help them build their YouTube channels to help them deal with their websites.

 I will learn these skill sets at the time and charge an arbitrage price and just provide the service like a freelancer, but with a website and be able to use proficient English service clients, rather than people in India, maybe they don’t want to work with them because they don’t have the trust.

And there’s there wasn’t a platform, to bridge guys. So I was that bridge during my ninth grade, 10th grade, and 11th grade, all the way to my gap year. So, I finally got an office when, I was in New York City, where we had no idea what we were doing and made a lot of mistakes. I was able to increase the revenue but wasn’t able to generate profit throughout. So, it’s, it’s been a learning process.

Bryan: (00:05:00) And it sounds so, so gutsy, right? It’s more than your typical high school student. I can’t imagine my high school career being any close to yours. I’ll just keep my head down, work hard, and study hard and he is taking those risks right. And when you took those gap years, what was the logic behind that?

And what are your parents to say about that? When you’re, hey, I don’t want to go to college immediately. And I feel most of my successful friends nowadays took that gap year because I feel when you put yourself in the real world, it does mature you in some ways because you’re seeing things from a different perspective, right?

David: (00:05:32) Yeah. So, for me, I think it was easier for me to take a gap year. Again, this is a blessing in disguise, which I didn’t know at the moment when I came to the US and didn’t know much about the American education system, my mother did it. I’m an only child. So, my parents want me to get the best education.

So, we came to the US. I loved the US when I came here because it was pretty diverse. It’s not just academics. And my mother was very loving to me, and made sure I had food every day. So, I’m very blessed with that. Food everyday emotional support was their everyday. I’m her focus as a child and she just, quit her job and she’s just raising me.

That’s her full-time job. Which is very commendable and it’s a huge sacrifice, so she’s had no idea, she didn’t speak English. She didn’t know how to file our taxes. She didn’t know how to make car payments. They don’t know how the banking system works. So, at the time, I remember I had to help out with a lot of these things. Set up her brokerage accounts set up per credit card statement called to dispute and do all these things where other kids just focused on school.

And I was frustrated when I was younger oh, I wish my parents can maybe give me an interview at an Ivy league school or know people that can connect me or hey, do the right thing. But when my parents were able to offer me, it was a lot of support and love as long as you’re doing nothing illegal.

And you’re doing the best you can and you’re healthy, we’re proud of you, just work hard. Don’t go on the wrong track in the world and that’s it. So, they were very supportive, and even when I was spending probably 80 hours, 60 to 80 hours a week working on my business. Which was just a side hustle to build these websites.

And my hourly wage is probably $2 an hour. If I think about breaking down hourly rates, I was so proud of it. I was yeah, I’m making side big come as a high school student, I was pulling two, $3,000 a month. I got myself a car. What a terrible, terrible financial decision. I know credit.

They charged me a state amount of at least the price. But to me, it was all a learning experience. I was able to invest in stocks and 10th grade and custodial accounts and all these things allowed me to when I applied to Warden. I didn’t have the highest SAT score or standardized score in my class, actually the program, I probably had the lowest sat score, but I was able to go not the traditional route.

I went to talk to the admission officer. I took a trip and set up a meeting to get to know them and get to know the program. And at the best point, I realized that there’s no one way to succeed. And a lot of people like my peers, that it’s hard to see that when you’re going through like systems.

Standardized testing these are the AP courses. You take to high school and then to college apps. So, everyone’s on this train track, but everyone, in reality, has different skillsets and different passions. So, what gap year has allowed me to do is to find that passion and not to be pressured to go into a corporate job or do so, or go to consulting our best event.

As most of my peers are in software engineering. So that helped me. And I shared that on YouTube about my gap year, like pros and I went through it. I don’t think there are many cons and a lot of people think, oh, you know, gap year you can start your startup after college. Why do you need a gap year?

But it helps me. It helped me gain perspectives on life. There are different ways to succeed and success means different things for different people. And at that age, I still I want to make money. I want to make as much as I can. I build more impacts through that. And fortunately, throughout the past, probably eight years of entrepreneurship, my standard of success and my definition of success have changed thankfully and evolved as well.

So then now, going back, I don’t regret at all taking the gap year. And encourage others to take action cause then you can gain new perspectives and not be in a rat race, just to chase a higher income or try to follow your peer’s path, even though you might not be passionate or happy about doing something.

So that was very helpful with the gap year and the fact that my parents didn’t know what they were doing and didn’t have a set stubborn mindset. You need to be a doctor, a lawyer it’s about a med school, which, you know, a lot of, especially Asian community members have gone through that. I’ve seen my peers like, oh, you should be a doctor. That’s a safe way to go not having that type of pressure. It helped me to develop, and to become the person I am today.

Bryan: (00:09:31) That’s a mature response right I’m really glad that your parents are very supportive of that because I think I suggested a gap year. My dad’s you’re a failure. I’m, why can I take a gap year, right? And I feel like that’s right. Whenever he takes some time off to see a different perspective, it helps you grow as a person. And I think a lot of younger people fall into the trap of, oh, I’m behind in life. I’m not going to finish on time. I’m going to be like a total more year-old graduate, but in retrospect, that’s young as heck.

David: (00:09:53) Gary V always says that if you’re 60 or the joke is you’re 60, you’re still young. You’ve got time. And for me, I graduated technically last year during COVID I finally finished my bachelor of science, and because I was able to take classes remote or else, I probably have to take more gap years when I started to be built in Chicago and LA.

So, I’d take time off. So, I took. Including gap years, six years to finish seven years to finish undergrad. So, everyone has success in different ways. And even if my ventures didn’t take off, which during COVID was very challenged and we don’t know what the future would be, and I’m not saying the next five years, 10 years, everything will always do the so it’s, but you know and I’ve been through the times where we’re not generating profit, we’ve been through a time of challenges.

I’ve been through COVID, but I still wouldn’t regret a thing that’s what you realize as you get older, I think for us we’re getting older, we start to realize everyone has to be so many successful. Everyone’s success is different and it’s the perspective best key and joining the process is key.

Bryan: (00:10:57) I couldn’t say that any better, right? You have to enjoy what you do because sometimes the things that you do every day, especially as entrepreneurs suck, it’s just, why am I going through this crap for it? So, let’s take it back a notch and talk about you finding you are, finding your Chubby Cattle right and I know you met your partner. In 2014 and eight, right. Well, what was that like meeting him? And I know he’s currently CEO of the company, what’s it being, hey, let’s work together. Let’s do something crazy. I can’t imagine coming to any of my friends at age 20 to be hey, do you want to create?

David: (00:11:37) The crazy thing is didn’t know him at the time. So how the story was, this was during my gap year, I was running my ad agency. I had a client which is a hotpot restaurant called shell where a little lamp is in Flushing. And he was there that day learning and he was friends with the owner’s family and friends.

So, he was shadowing and learning about the process of how to operate the restaurant and he’s from Vegas. So high being is my partner and he’s from Vegas. And I met him that day cause I’m trying to pitch to this top hot restaurant to be my client as the marketing client and the owner is also my neighbor.

We got together and high bay shared his fear, hey, I live in Vegas. I think hotpot is very overdue. There’s not a good hot pot restaurant, not even a traditional franchise little sheep is a little bit. And we’re, and I saved up at the time, probably $40,000 through my gap year.

Well, that’s, all my savings for the one year of the gap year. And I was okay, let me, let me know how I can participate. I’ll be the CMO. I’ll run the marketing. I don’t know anything about restaurants other than I do marketing for a lot of restaurants in New York City. So, we met blind trust like my wired him $40,000 without knowing much here’s my life savings.

And we ended up making so many mistakes. Now we look back, it’s hilarious. It’s waiting, we ended up buying this failing restaurant. I don’t even know why we will buy this failing restaurant because we had no idea how to do due diligence. So, we bought this current day where Chubby Cattle downtown Chinatown is before then it was a Hong Kong restaurant Cantonese restaurant that wasn’t profitable.

We paid $400,000 turnkey money just to buy that failing business when we could’ve gotten it for free. And we had no idea. So, we bought that business. I own 10%. And my partner tried to operate it but failed like running a Chinese restaurant, just to can’t think of a restaurant with no niche is very difficult

And we finally all right, we need more capital to turn it into the hotpot creams that we want, because we want it to get some restaurant operating experience. We want to see that we can make that Cantonese restaurant profitable, which we didn’t, and which is the most do some people might give up at a time, like, you know what?

I don’t want to be involved in this project anymore. I stayed nine months. I didn’t get paid. And now I’m asked to put more capital involved into the project. I haven’t got paid a dime. So, what I love in a heartbeat. My partner never got it there was no doubt, like, oh, we’re going to give up.

And I’m a guy that’s also I’m not going to give up. So, both of us like islands, the more capital into this project and we added another $400,000 and converted it into what we know today as chubby cattle in Las Vegas, which is the first location. And it was a success in terms of customer feedback.

We got great Yelp reviews, and people started loving it, but we weren’t able to see a profit. And that’s now coming back, seven years later, being an industry, I’ve realized like we made a lot of mistakes to operate a profitable restaurant, operate a profitable restaurant. You need to have an edge in every field of operation from lease acquisition, and negotiating a good lease to proper payroll management, proper labor cost control, food, cost control, and run appropriate marketing and all of these things that we kind of had no idea.

We just thought like, hey, you got to build a good restaurant and profit’s going to be so easy. As long as the customers love it. So fast forward two years, this is now than 2018 is finally when we started generating profit. And at the time, even though we were not generating profit, we knew the concept was going.

So, we open up in Denver. We opened up Philadelphia, where I was in college at the time when I came back to school. So, during my school time, I would fly back and forth to Vegas, go to my ad agency in New York and balance out a dual degree program at Penn. I learned that you can’t do everything.

You have to know which thing you will sacrifice so that you have the time and not burn out. So, I ended up dropping out of the engineering degree and just pursued my business degree and still, it took me seven years to complete. So, it’s been a process and it wasn’t, when you said early oh, how’d you find success at a young age?

For me, it was eight years into it just probably a year before COVID was what was generating profit in all locations. And there are still problems day to day, especially with the restaurant space to problem day-to-day with the ad agency, but it wasn’t until a year before COVID 2019 or so, that things are so smooth.

Month to month, we have profit, we run distribution to investors and we got a huge deal at the Venetian. And we got a huge deal with Prudential real estate. At Roosevelt. We got huge throughout Rowland Heights in California with things that are completely 180 from what we started when people asked us to pay money, to get into space.

Now, landlords. To pay us and tenant incentive alive to the tenant allow us to give us millions of dollars to open up a location, which proves that they know that our concept works well and their space, and they want to invest and be a partner rather than just a vendor as a landlord. So, it’s eight years that got through from failures and not accepting the failures and pivoting and learning to where we are today, which we’re still learning every day.

We’re opening a new concept and I’m sure we’ll have new challenges that come up we didn’t expect COVID we thought things were good for a year. And we learn to adjust again. And we came out of COVID without closing locations, which we’re very proud of that we opened three during COVID. So yeah.

Bryan: (00:16:41) That’s amazing dude. And congrats to you guys. I haven’t met an Asian person out there it doesn’t know what X-Pot is so you’re doing a fantastic job grounding yourself, especially in Las Vegas, too, right, You’re right. I think that I remember coming to Vegas when I was younger and saying, oh yeah, there’s no good hot pot here.

And all of a sudden, Chubby Cattle popped up, and everybody’s you had to check out. And then a couple of years later, it’s oh yeah, the guys from Chubby Cattle, open up X-Pot, and here you are joining. Asian Hustle Network I mean, that brand looks kind of familiar. Then here you are sending me a DM, which is like quite a guy.

David: (00:17:16) No, that to me is probably the biggest driver in running entrepreneurship is to bring the community together. And not a lot of Asia restaurants outside of maybe Panda Express, are truly Asian-owned and minority-owned led by female leaders. We have all-female GMs and London operators, and we also have Asian ownership and majority ownership in our restaurant.

So, there are not many restaurant groups outside of Panda Express that. That runs this type of scale. So, it’s very nice to have the Asian community and what’s even more impressive to us is that we’re able to influence the non-Asian demographic to eat hot pot for the first time. I remember just maybe four or five years ago.

You tell them how pot nobody knows. Nobody knows what if I explain out what, what, how probably they were oh, maybe it was found do, or it’s just now you go into landlords, yeah, no, Heidi Lowel, Liv, that X-Pot, yeah, I know I’ve had this. It’s an amazing experience.

And you see that change. And I think back It really will help people bring people together. I know in a way where we don’t see, it’s like a soft weapon of getting people together. So, through culture, our music, entertainment, and food and fewer people are afraid of like the unknown and do not know what sushi is.

Soon as they start to accept the culture and realize that we’re not different apart we have great food and every culture has different food. And that’s something that we’re very proud of and yeah.

Bryan: (00:18:41) Definitely. I think you guys contributed to the culture shift as well. Cause I feel there’s a huge change where we’re embracing more Asian culture, especially Asian food now compared to like 10 years ago, 20 years ago. I’m not that old, 15 years ago, you know, the concept of bringing your Asian foods is cool. It’s kind of looked down upon like food and the smell and everything. And nowadays Asian food is cool. I’ll try Asian food, right?

David: (00:19:10) Absolutely. So, I think, yeah, we’re in that perfect space and seeing COVID and how much Asian hate there was out there. And even today. I just hope that’s what we’re doing through food. That people start to understand each other more and be less afraid of other cultures because they don’t know. And most people that are not educated about each other’s culture, it becomes oh, these stairs. So, so crazy. And I don’t want to do this. I don’t know their culture is so weird. Then when you engage in their culture, their movies, their music, and their food, you realize every kosher is a base and you should enjoy that process. And it does bring people closer together.

Bryan: (00:19:46) Definitely. I couldn’t agree more. And I want to go back to your early days of being an entrepreneur right I know you mentioned that you guys, you, and your partner have a no-quit mentality. And as you guys run into problems, you’re okay, I will quit. What kind of curious, not many people will put more money into operations. That’s already losing money. And how did you convince investors to put more money into this? It takes some mad hustle right there to be hey, I know this is losing all our money, what we need more money and this is how we’re going to structure it. So, how’d you, do it?

David: (00:20:19) Initially, we operate a Cantonese restaurant and my partner put it up. At the time, 40, 50% of the capital, I’m putting up 10%. And throughout the six months, when it wasn’t generating profit, it was breaking even, but we didn’t generate any profit. I didn’t have to put any additional capital. We just realized, hey, this concept is not what we want it to create. And it’s hard to market just Chinese food in a rundown restaurant.

We didn’t have put any budget into renovation and there’s not much, it’s not our expertise and we can’t do any marketing. That’s not maybe the food is amazing and tastes good, but it’s not special enough. I get for us, you all for any business, especially in service space, you need time at the edge.

So, when you look at the X-Pot, Chubby Cattle, there’s a conveyor belt aspect to it. We have robots at the expo. We have a projection show, a fine dining room, an insane lounge and our food itself is like a hot pot. I’ve never had it before. It’s a fine-dining level hotpot and I’ve traveled around the world to try different hot pots.

And I’d never had that type of customer service where the person’s pulling my soup without me asking pouring water without me asking and just really be there and wear a suit and service the customers the way that we do. So, my partner page fee like, hey, we will build a refrigerator compared by power, which is one of the kinds and first in the world.

And this is something that we could market. It’s a cuisine that people will be excited to try for the first time. And I remember at the beginning of Chubby Cattle, like 90% Asian customers, I mean 90% Chinese. Now you look, go in, it’s probably. 80%, 70% non-Asian customers. You go to our Chicago location because there are not a lot of Asian demographics there.

It’s 90%, non-Asian customers 95% non-Asian customers, which shows this huge drive, to be able to get the mainstream customers into our Chinese cuisine. And that was revolutionary with chubby cattle and it gave the motivation to be the original concept. And it worked because it didn’t stand out and it couldn’t display what we wanted to show to the world and what the view concepts, there’s an edge technology.

We’re bringing technology together. We can showcase our customer service and the food presentation and with the new renovation, it will be a cool local spot. At the time we didn’t think about the X pot or anything. It was just my time. I’m running the ad agency. And this is a side project. Let me invest the rest of my savings again the next year, which is another $45,000 into the space.

And yeah, thankfully we didn’t need any more capital, but we didn’t generate any profit. And I was putting like both my partner and I don’t take us out. Even to this date, we have no salary. We get a monthly distribution from our equity. So, we were working as he’s working probably 80 hours a week on this project.

He’s working every little part of the restaurant doing the construction, doing everything, which is that like now it’s not efficient. And I’m we don’t want him to do any of that. He’s not doing any of that because that’s not scalable. But at the time it was great to be that Superman, to have that Superman syndrome and learn everything. And I can see that as a partner, as a CEO, as he works so hard and things don’t work out the way you plan. And that’s part of it. It’s the Dunning-Kruger effect we have so high confidence. So, we start the prep because we have no idea how the industry works. Then we go through this valley of death, which most.

And probably give up and you see all of these problems. And finally, eight years later, we’d go through the process. Now we know the industry is very difficult. If someone comes up to me, I want to open a restaurant, I’ll ask them a list of questions. I want to sit there. At least I want to see their team.

I want to see all of these things, which I want to, I didn’t even ask when I chose to get into the project with them, and just we, we learned together and it’s a learning, learning curve for both of us. And, but I want to do anything to the way those failures allowed us to. Learned about the industry and I’m sure there’s talking faster way for you to kind of mentor and go through another, like having another partner that understood what was going on so we can learn from them. But you know, this is, and there’s no one way to success. Maybe we took the longer term, but the failures helped us learn a little bit more knowledge for future concepts of what.

Bryan: (00:24:11) There’s nothing to be afraid of a failure. I think failure is just a way of telling you that this is not working right. That’s I guess the worst type of failure is you don’t fail immediately. It takes a long time for it to fail and it never questioned feed and never fail. You’re wasting time. This is precious.

David: (00:24:28) We’re at we’re four years in probably four years since I invested it. Didn’t take one day. No profit from thousands of hours of work. And mostly what that time we’ll probably give up probably most. I think most people are like, you know what? This is not working out. And I see friends, new tech startup, that value goes up to 20 mil, 30 mil without even a single dollar revenue and sell it to another company, Spotify, whatever.

And you have to, for me, like we pivoted you learn to fail. Then you pivot from it, like give yourself some time. Like a lot of people want to be successful in six months. They want to build a YouTube channel and be famous if three months coz we see all these Tik TOK, famous people, and Instagram, and you got famous and you get big all of a sudden.

But for, at least for me, it took, you know, eight to 10 years of pivot for the ad agency, for the restaurants to do well. And for us to be in this phase right now, which we’re scaling and building another 10 locations and we just closed the last round at a hundred million dollars, which is the valuation of a holding company. Thank you. Thank you. So, it’s a time it was not long ago, probably just three years ago. Pen pre-pandemic was only valued at 16 million before X tot. So, it takes up. Yeah.

Bryan: (00:25:32) That’s a big deal. You’re getting to a hundred-million-dollar evaluation. Congratulations. And also, you and your partner. You guys are also Forbes 30, under 30 this year.

David: (00:25:41) Thank you. Absolutely. Yeah, that was an honor as well, to be nominated and to be, I guess honored in that way.

Bryan: (00:25:49) Yeah because I think I met you in Vegas randomly and you came off as very much. So, when I saw you in Forbes 30, under 30, man you are so young.

David: (00:25:59) When I was trying to pitch clients when I was 18, 19, where I have to be yeah, I went to Wharton when I was before pre-war and I’m yeah, I’m at Wharton. That’s college and trying to convince people to believe in me to run their advertising campaign. So that was, that was young.

And I had to like convince people now, at least the age, just people say, oh yeah, your young entrepreneur. But at the time, you had to, when you were especially, we’re just starting young and you have to prove to people and do extra work. 

Bryan: (00:26:24) I want to hear about your working relationship with your partner. I know you mentioned him a couple of times already, but how did, when things are going terrible, mean things are going great. You were like, oh yeah, we’re both awesome. We can make things happen, but the real conflict comes out with things aren’t working. And you mentioned that things were working for the first two to four years, right?

Tell us about a time when you guys got heated against each other. It happens right?

David: (00:26:50) I think, yeah, it was on my tip actually on finding the good partner and sometimes, you know, even friends can’t be great partners, but you have to have really good long-term goals together.

So, both my partner and I are not looking at short-term profit and we’re not looking at, we’re not people that are, look, I need to make X amount of dollars in this way. Like we never thought that we wanted to build a successful venture. Want to go big, make the company go to a billion-dollar valuation one day.

And we always had that goal. So, there was never a moment where, my time is not worth it, and this is not worth it. My hourly rates were more than this. And I shouldn’t be doing this. It’s more. We have no pride and ego in doing that. And our long-term vision is the same. We don’t mind giving out a piece of the pie to all the partners and operators and investors that have helped us throughout, the way.

Want a bit of the bigger pie and have more impact in the world rather than be I want more. So, my parked partner gave out more equity during the time gifted equity too because he was the largest shareholder and gifted equity and did equity swap in my ad agency so that we could work together and have this long-term dream.

So, what’s important to see is that, for my partner, it wasn’t about the capital, he doesn’t spend much and doesn’t live a lavish life. He just enjoys building the product and impacting, seeing this product. See the smile on the customer’s face and seeing the investors are happy, but that’s what drives him.

He doesn’t spend that dollar and I respect that. I probably live a little bit more luxurious life than he does. I enjoyed some living in a good, better space where he’s all about working and just building this and seeing that as really important and building trust and someone that you can trust.

We deal with, he dealt with the operations and I deal with the finances and marketing and we give each other guidance when we need it, we don’t touch each other. All you need to do is to be super controlling on different people’s aspects. So, we trust our partners. We trust our GM.

We give them ownership roles. And that where visions the same now day-to-day decisions for businesses. We might have different opinions and we might have arguments. I, how, what should we say, what should we do? Is this food good? And he might have, he might work with a chef for a month curating these tasting menus.

And I just go into X type. I don’t like this. I don’t like that. I don’t like that. So obviously there are a lot of small things that we both have to respect at the same time. You have to be honest with each other. And he knows that maybe that moment of passion. You’d be you know, this is maybe you don’t know, so you need to work together and real, and that you guys have the same goal.

And I try to emphasize that email and disagree about what should be good for X-Pot. It’s all of that for the same goal that we have. And that’s, that’s the most important thing that we both recognize that we want the best, not for ourselves, for the company. And if the company does well, we do well.

And we have the same goal for that. So, he never went over he never will cross over it to be like, hey, I think the equity structure should be best, maybe best to was like, David, you decided how to raise capital, David. You decided not to run distribution. That’s your area. And I’ll continue focusing on how to build basing products, hired the best chefs in the world to work on all of our projects, build out the most amazing concepts, and keep updating new concepts. So, it’s a good mix and we have our pros and cons. It is even on the language side like my Chinese is not that great. He’s able to speak with all right, Chinese investors and continue building on the Chinese side and have Chinese vendors versus me

I’ll be dealing with US markets, the US news, and social media. So, we have our pros and cons and our weaknesses and strength in different areas. So, we can complement. But fighting, it will happen. And even though the best partnerships don’t have that, then if you don’t have that difference in opinions, actually I don’t, you need to have some different opinions for a better product that we’re building.

Bryan: (00:30:36) I agree, right. And you know, I always elude that having a business partner is almost getting into a relationship with someone.

David: (00:30:46) Too many assets to say, my girlfriend would say the same thing that oh, you’re going out all, you’re cheating on me again. You’re going to, you spend more time talking to your partner Nate day to night and high be my biggest calling is all your second girlfriend your girlfriend is calling you because I always say. It’s the same, as a moment trust the communication is so important and your long-term plans and the core values have to align, or else you will run into issues.

And we’ve had it. We’ve had issues with other partners who have committed cash theft, and we had to deal with that early, early we dealt with investors that have different investment horizons that wanted to make a hundred percent return in six months, the traditional Asian restaurant tours that would maybe skip out on taxes and, you know, try to hire non-documented workers.

And we’re not doing any of that our goals. Long-term even though we’re not generating profit, why don’t you ever do right. So, we can scale. And get to a level where our cost of goods sold is lower, but not because we’re saving money through these cutting corner ways. So, there’s we have, and that’s something I learned to even with investors and the relationship, you’ve set up very clear expectations what your goals are.

We’re not looking to return a high profit by cutting corners. We’re looking to build a product that we’re impressed with and be there for the next 20 years, 30 years in some. 

Bryan: (00:32:01) I mean, that’s, that’s awesome to hear about you, your long-term sight of building this amazing company. That’s going to be around for a very long time right. And I feel as entrepreneurs, especially young ones, it’s so easy for us to oh my God, I could make $10 million right now, or $20 million right now. That’s, it’s taking, this is the exit, right. And I’m kind of glad that you’re building this for the long term and putting, all the right people around.

And I kind of move it up a notch, right. Let’s talk about X-Pot or quake because I read some articles online about this is your kind of, your kind of overwhelmed because it’s your first $10 million projects. And I was doing at the time of the article. I think it was last year or something that you guys are doing $20 billion a year in gross profit.

Right? Pretty sure those numbers are much larger than. Well, what was going through that mindset of yours when you’re okay, this is, we have a chance to have a restaurant in, on the strip. And that’s huge. Right. Especially in an Asian restaurant, that’s, I don’t know. I don’t know how to describe other Asian restaurants.

David: (00:33:09)  When we created X-Pot and told people we’re doing an end. Probably $150 a person tasty manual. Ah, we got so many people and so many doubters that are like, dude, no, one’s going to spend this on a hotpot. But even those hotpot is either Chinese or Asian people are not, don’t do it.

There is no hotspot. That’s 150. We’re probably one of the most expensive, hot pots in the US definitely in the US but not around the world, but in the US one of the most extensive hot pots. So, there’s a risk there and life with do even, and then COVID head what X-Pot is supposed to open and casinos shut down.

There’s still no international travel. And we have no Chinese customers what are we going to do in the beginning? It was nerve-wracking. It was difficult. But when I tried out X-Pot for the first time internally to taste the food and the service. And I’m no, this is going to be a winner. I’ve had hotpot around the world, and this is probably one of the best customer service best ways to present the entire process seating.

It’s the most intuitive way to eat hot pot even if you’d never had hot pot, it’s very intuitive because you’re not ordering anything. You can just say, I want the tasting menu to choose a soup base, and boom, and give your dietary restrictions. And the rest is the tasty menu of French cuisine.

So, combining that French cuisine the level of service, and the food we’re able to bring in, not only Asian clientele, like 80%, 70% of customers are non-Asian and are trying hot pot for the first. So, yeah, definitely nerve-wracking. And there are a lot of doubters and haters and that saying that, no, one’s it.

No, it’s going to be challenged. And yet last year we did 20 mils annualized in gross sales and we project will continue to grow. As international travel comes back and people are traveling more and more. But yeah, it’s, it’s absolutely, we’re very blessed to see the result and see the hard work, pay off and see people appreciate, well, what we spent thousands of hours in probably 30, 40 team members before we opened to curate the menu and curate the experience.

And we built the first five B projection rooms for hot pot. And this means we made an animation for every dish we created people don’t realize I was my partner in the process of making a movie a three-hour movie for the dining experience, which is a whole nother, we’d never made movies before, like animation movies.

So, it was a whole nother interesting negotiation shot what is better, everyone has different opinions. I’ve produced producing a movie and we work with different animators so that was fun. yeah, it’s, it’s a whole challenge. And seeing that open and be successful, we’re very, very proud of, and then see, Chicago had the same revelation sees locals there’s now a traveler to Chicago. So, the local community is fighting back, and loving the concept is something that we’re very proud of yeah,

Bryan: (00:35:45) That’s crazy. It’s just so much thought and effort put into just the presentation alone and everything for you guys, listening to you as you guys end up checking the next spot in any locations, Ashley, Texas, Philadelphia, Las Vegas, LA you know, any of these places you realize that. It’s quite the experience, right. And it’s starting with like the soup base, the presentation, you know, it’s very, very high end.

David: (00:36:14) We have even appetizers for hotpot. Not all places have appetizers for hot pot. So yeah, it’s a, we thought we put a lot of thought process of how to make something that’s special.

And now we’re, we’re having more constants that come out or do your barbecue concept. Now it’s Camico X it’s coming soon. We also want to bring the best karaoke entertainment slash nightlife into North America as well because karaoke and private parties are the biggest things in China, but it’s not our biggest thing, in Asia, but it’s not represented and introduced to the mainstream in the US and I think there’s a gap there in a way to

get that experience out and with virtual reality, with AR and with different technology, and with nightclub appeals to get the mainstream into spaces like that. So, we see the opportunity as well. And we also see this health and fitness-like spa. That’s a huge culture in China, and that’s not built out here in the US the way that we see already happening in Asia, how advanced it is.

So that’s something that also building and we’re trying to bring a bit of fun. The coolest, most fun part of our culture is global to go to the rest of the world.

Bryan: (00:37:20) That’s wildly ambitious. I’m looking forward to all those things right. And, you know, as an entrepreneur, you’re pretty much the visionary of the company. You kind of dictate what, what you, what anything happens, right? Do you ever feel like your personality seats into every single project that you do, where you walk into a restaurant? There’s a part of me in here, even your friends walking, that’s totally David. Right? Do you feel that way when you’re running your business where your personality sips the entire organization and about how much you’ve been at, what you feel right?

You’re feeling great, suddenly you realize that everyone around you is happy. You’re feeling stressed. You realize all your employees are sad and angry. This is crazy. I want to hear about, your experience of you being a leader in your organization.

David: (00:38:05) Yeah, I think what leadership means and our organization, and I’ve seen it in my partner. I respect him a lot for that is how he’s willing to do anything to fill in any role, whether that’s dishwashing or being a host and working 24/7. So, when I was younger, a lot of people when they’re younger, they think being. Yeah, or a leader is you just tell people what to do, hey, you do this, you do this.

And you know, I do nothing and I’m going to be the boss. I tell you around then as you grow, I learn a truly effective leader will be able to pick up every role because they’re not fate understand every role. They might not be the best. And you’re not supposed to be the best. It’s just the hire people that better than you, but you’re there as the leader to facilitate and make sure people were cohesively and you will find the best talents in those spaces by at the end of the day, willing to put in the most out of work.

So, your chef is working 40 hours a week, 50 hours a week. You better be putting in 60, or 70 hours a week and building a business. It’s not passive. A lot of, and I felt it’d be oh, you want to build business goals, reach financial freedom. And you see this all over YouTube, like how to reach financial freedom, build an Amazon warehouse, FBA, blah, blah, blah, like real estate.

And you have to sit and sit, I don’t know, cocktails on the beach. I don’t know, one entrepreneur, a friend of mine that’s like doing that, that are successful. Like even the most successful people are still working on it. Work 60 hours a week, or you were an investor like you ended up being in a VC and you’re passively investing short.

Like you can be an investor and that’s something different, but entrepreneurs, when you’re building projects, nobody is making passive income and stuff. Active income that maybe there’s, I’m an income by the way. For a couple of years, it could be no exit. So, it’s, I wouldn’t recommend entrepreneurship to everyone.

It’s not a healthy lifestyle. I don’t think it’s a balanced lifestyle to build what we built. It’s a lot of stress you’re dealing with things you don’t have off days. My partner even calls me at 2:00 AM and often at 3:00 AM. This happened, this happens. We have a problem. Oh, here’s some situation with the vendor.

This is probably, what we don’t have logged for the next, we’ve got to find solutions and if you’re not ready to deal with that you want to have us healthy nine to five and be able to do everything else, travel, and do this. I respect that you don’t have a, you have a balanced life. I respect Elon Musk,

Jeff Bezos is all these idols, but you don’t realize the amount of sacrifice in their family life and their friendships. They missed that out 10, 15 years. Cause they put into you have to have that almost super hustler and crazy mentality, and you’re sacrificing your day-to-day life.

And I think that’s, it should be made out very clearly when you come out to build a business or be a business owner that that is the path you’re choosing and it’s not an easy make millions kind of lifestyle.

Bryan: (00:40:47) I couldn’t agree more. It’s funny because over the weekend I met a couple of my friends. They’re oh, that’s entrepreneurs should light Bryan. I’m oh I think your life’s much easier to mine. And you know, it’s not anything offensive. It’s true, right. Because when you’re running your own business, the highs are highs and the lows. And it’s, it’s crazy how quickly things happen. It’s oh, I’m the best entrepreneur. And in the next hour, I’m the crappiest entrepreneur.

David: (00:41:14) You will have you’ll feel all the fields and at the end of the day, you’re responsible for your actions. So, you’re working for a bigger corporate baby you don’t care how their sales too. Cause it’s as an impact. But here every little part is you have to build it. You don’t build anyone else. Well and you know, that will fall off. So, props to you for building this amazing community together.

Bryan: (00:41:34) Props to you man, I listen to your entire story during this podcast is highly inspirational and it’s highly relatable in some way. So, it’s you know, to me, it’s no matter what industry you’re in and entrepreneurship, they’re all going to demand from you. It doesn’t matter what industry you’re in this. You’re gonna think about data. Because you’re responsible, for everything you do, you feel the ramifications whether it was good or bad.

David: (00:41:58) 100%. That’s why I say a C level or as a leader, as a managing partner in the space. I don’t feel I’m a boss at all. I feel I work for everyone. I’ve worked for my employees, who will be upset and have complaints about their pay, but I’m working for my customers who will have complaints and have issues and things we need to fix and working for my investors who might not be happy with certain things and have a lot of questions and concerns I’m working for all the vendors who might have to hey, I want this, I want to negotiate higher rates.

So, you’re looking for all of these parties and you’re facilitating. You’re playing. You’re putting people in the right places. And at the end of the day, you have to be ready to serve all of these parties. And that’s how you build a company. It’s not, they’re serving you. That’s not what entrepreneurship is really about how you’re serving the rest of the team. What type of value you’re providing to the rest of the team? Yeah.

Bryan: (00:42:42) You’re also in the restaurant business, which is in my opinion, one of the hardest industries to be a part of, because there are so many things that can go wrong and, you know, supply chain issues, food issues, food quality, food control. You know, people, customers, location. Yeah. A lot of things go wrong and have, yeah.

David: (00:43:04)  It’s a very low barrier to entry. Anyone can say, hey, I saved up a couple hundred thousand dollars. I want to open a restaurant. And you know, I make videos about how to build a successful restaurant.

You need to not only have a great chef or a portion of great food, but you also need to have all of these things legality, you have an expert legal marketing lease acquisition financing. technology to be on par and then you have to chef and then you have the customer experience all these parts have to be, a plus and above and beyond.

Then you will have a, maybe you will have luckily enough if you don’t want to have COVID and the market is right, then you will have a successfully operating restaurant that makes the margins so thin, like five to 10% on average.

Bryan: (00:43:46) I want to, since we’re coming up near the end of the podcast, I want to focus the next part of the podcast on what you said earlier right. And what you said was, you know, when you were younger focus on making a lot of money, but as you’re growing throughout the last eight years priorities and goals have changed, right. And I noticed this throughout your Instagram accounts, you not to be, not to be weird or creepy, but I look through Instagram and be like, oh, he’s changed his captions throughout the years. And I want to hear more about your personal growth as a person about, you know once you get past me, it’s once you get past the barrier of, I’m going to be okay, financially, your mindset changes to like, how can I make the world better? Whatever it is. I want to know your evolution of what your mindset was from year 1 to year 8.

David: (00:44:32) Let me be very frank. Yeah. And I’m glad you asked me that come into the states and see my peers, people, that family that does better. Again, my dad’s swamp is a stoner, and never, I’d seen luxury. I never had, I’ve seen BMWs or anything, a nice car. So, coming into the states and seeing all of these things and online media

One day, I want to be able to buy a Tesla or buy a Lambo, right. And that was like the goal like I want to, and you don’t realize how much marketing that’s been done to you because that’s what you would want. And it’s kind of status. And when I don’t have that, I couldn’t achieve that. Even started next auto club.

I was just failed business. You transition like at the time when you don’t have it, these are the milestones. You tried to hit it just to make yourself feel, wow, it’s a materialistic symbol of like your hard work has paid off. I think that’s what it was for me. And to have, it is to let other people be proved to other people.

And that’s my evolution stopped. At the time I don’t realize it, but subconsciously I wanted to prove to people, that my hard work is deemed paid off because I cannot prove it to myself. That is the paid-off. So, I’m, I’m insecure with bad myself. I have this work because at the time you’re still dealing with all challenges, financial or you’re dealing with, and you don’t know what the future is like.

And even today, I don’t know what the future will be but at least right now is good. But when you get to a point maybe you have more than a million in savings, let’s say where you realize you can buy these things. And just having a thought of yeah, if I want to buy that, I could buy that.

And when you have businesses and ventures, Things, you kind of elevate yourself outside of materialistic things of cars or needing people’s respect and approval of you, but rather than. There’s so much approval and so much proof from customers, from your team already on a day-to-day basis that you know, that your work hard work is respected by a lot of people.

And financially that you feel secure enough where you get to a point and then devolves to apply maybe pretty recently. I don’t want those things don’t fulfilled. What I need. It’s more of a hedonic cycle, I guess if that’s what you think that if that’s what drives you, you should not be untraditional.

What drives you today is that I could build more projects. I love seeing the result of people raving about what we’ve created. So that transition has transitioned. And I see that evolve, but as a process, it’s hard for someone. Hasn’t gone through that process and then enjoys the hedonic cycle of a treadmill to buy these things.

I bought the Lambo when I was probably at the lowest cash flow time of my life. I just started the next auto club. I was the poorest in terms of cash flow, but I had six cars and I rent them out. And the next auto club, I felt great, even though, you know, things are still hectic and volatile and this is before COVID.

So, you know, things don’t seem the way it is then when you do get to a level where I feel I can buy it, you know, I can buy pretty much anything I want to buy. I can’t buy super Yasser jets, but you know, need those things in life. And those things, the marginal utility is pretty low.

You realize that I enjoy it. You know, maybe playing a computer game. I never played computer games in my lifetime and, during COVID I picked up the league of legends for the first time I enjoy continue playing ping pong, which is something I love to do when I was younger. I played professionally table tennis.

And I realized you do these activities, and build a great friendship. Spend time with family, hang out with your lover, my girlfriend travel and do all those things. I just came back from a trip with my brothers. They’re my best. I grew up with when I did speak English, they taught me English in middle school, and high school, and now they’re my investors.

They’re doing those startups traveling to Columbia and all these things that are what make me happy. And that’s an evolution that I think you have to go through as you build it and recognize it. And I have been a victim of materialism. To prove myself add that I’ve made it by buying these cars and making purchases.

I was not, I shouldn’t be making or investing in ways that are way too aggressive. So that’s the evolution that I’ve gone through. And I think many people will go through and talk about it. But at the end of the day, yeah, as I read into the hedonic treadmill, I’d read into what will truly make one happy and how to make yourself more soul still and doing what you do. And those things are important to go through.

Bryan: (00:48:45) Thank you so much for me for being transparent with that, right? Yeah. Again, I’m not narrowly at your level, but you know, it’s very relatable in some ways where it’s you know, the getting nice cars and everything, but the best satisfaction that I have right now, it’s like living a very simple life and. Yeah, that satisfaction.

David: (00:49:05) Yeah, getting on this talk and then hopefully people can see, or someone that looking to be entrepreneurs or get something out of this talking to me is very, it gives you a lot of fulfillment people DM me about their project and even about their situation, they want, they say, hey, your gap year video helped me with my process because my parents didn’t approve me.

Those things I’m, yeah, I feel a lot more fulfillment than people expect. All wildest guys have a nice state by the way that, although the thing I’ve learned. If you have nice things and, it’s something that you can share with your friends and family. It’s better not to have it cause you no one, no, one’s happiness for most people, unless you can share your happiness with other people.

It’s hard for people to be happy for you to have something like that. So, you’re creating more jealousy and toxicity in your life rather than. If I could pay for a meal for my family and go out, have dinner, and that’s my way of spending and getting a room together and everyone can share the happiness or go on a trip.

That’s something I would rather do than wear does expensive watch and for people to be like, oh wow, this guy’s doing. If they’re not happy, then they’re happy for you, but you’re not providing anything for them. So that’s something I’ve learned also even I tell if I like, you know, shouldn’t, you want to be humble to create great friendships and great relationships, and this will make you happier more than any materialistic items or approval that you need from other people because you’re a CEO or you build these ventures that you have X amount of net worth. Yeah. So that’s the type of life I want to live and continue living and continued building cool projects. And hopefully, the videos that continue to create can inspire more people as well.

Bryan: (00:50:34) Definitely, couldn’t agree more with everything you said. Right. And it comes from experience. It comes from looking deep inside. Those are the moments when no one sees you. You’re by yourself, you lay in bed, those thoughts creep in, and I can tell you how a lot of them.

David: (00:50:48)I mean it’s a lot of people think it’s they only see you because you created X-Top. It’ll see the eight years of the first four years of failing. No, one’s there a lot of haters and you’ll go through that. No one sees day to day and night. And I problem only a partner as well. And, and again, like failures are more like teaching and more meaningful than some of the. I can go back and remember maybe I don’t remember all the successes and it’s not; people will just recognize success for me.

When I sit down with my partner, remember the time you know, we didn’t know how to deal with this cash stuff. I’ll remember the time we bought out this terrible restaurant, $400,000, those are the memories that you will have. So, failures are so underrated and success is so overrated and our society, and I think we should place more emphasis on it’s okay to fail, but try it and follow your passion and do it, don’t let statistics or average of most restaurants are failing. Even some would say you will fail to do it and to fail and to learn from it. And that’s, that itself is an exciting movie. You should be writing that movie for your life. 

Bryan: (00:51:51) Definitely. You only fail when you give up, right?

David: (00:51:55) You only fail if it’s your attitude like this is how you define failure for me. If you can live life, you have enough meant to live a life you’re blessed and the child does everything that you can, your life, life is short.

Bryan: (00:52:06) Definitely, man couldn’t agree more. So, I guess the final question I want to ask is about relationships, right? Because I feel you’re the type of guy that’s always on the move and you’re always pushing the limits higher and higher. And, you know, I know you have a healthy relationship with your partner and your girlfriend. So how do you find time to maintain a healthy relationship while hustling so hard for your goals and dreams?

David: (00:52:27) That’s a great question. That’s a question that we’ve not asked in any of the interviews that I had. How do I make sure my girlfriend’s happy while I’m hustling and all this, by the way, congratulations on your engagement? I saw it on Instagram. That’s. Huge step. And I hope to take that step one day. Yeah.

I think it takes a lot of communication. It’s not, it’s the same with business partners. It takes a lot of communication. And it’s not an easy process. So, there’s going to be a lot of debates and arguments about how you resolve those differences. That is key. So, during, I mean, I’m with my girlfriend, a significant other for four years now.

And she’s been with me when I had one location at the first Chubby Cattle. And at that time, I need to rent a nice car to go on a first date that’s kind of my mentality all the way now. You know, she’s taking the bus to see me. I’ve taken the bus to see her drive, so many miles to Michigan and all this stuff, and see the growth of both of us.

Yeah. It takes communication and learning about ourselves. A lot of time relationships. We have a lot of flaws in ourselves, so we have to learn how I become bigger people. How do we communicate? And it’s the same with a business like this, you got to put the effort in and you evolve and ebbs and flow.

And then we learn and we grow up. And hopefully, we grow together and we grow, become more enlightened in our relationship, but it’s not easy. Cause you’re on the road. It’s long, this, this is not easy. It takes a lot of trust. I’m also in the hospitality space where you’re dealing with. I mean, there are a lot of people in there.

If we feel insecure, About the relationship. We might feel insecure sometimes about ourselves, about the relationship very easily jealous you can get in the way of a healthy relationship. Jealousy is good envious is good to a certain level until it becomes toxic. If you can’t address it properly. So, it’s a, I mean, that would tell, I have a whole hour podcast just felt like my perspective, our relationship about open communication about setting your standard.

It’s actually, I think that’s how my personality seeps into a relationship like a business like most people have a track like this. What it is and you need, these are the rules. That’s what the movies tell us. This is what, you cannot let’s say have a, I don’t know, a sexual issue with someone else.

All of these rules are set up just, you don’t know, ask why you don’t talk about it. And that’s just the way it is before we talk about everything and talk about why is it that we would have to be in our life, be sexually exclusive? Why is this a religion religious thing?

Or is this a cultural thing? Or, but what’s the reason why are you hurt by that? All these things you have to create your path, your own rules, and the relationship that works for both of you to have a healthy relationship, just like building any startup. This is a similar way. Communication’s key.

Bryan: (00:55:01) Definitely man. That’s a great answer right. And it kind of shows how what kind of special relationship you have with your girlfriend now and why just share it now with us. Right? Because a lot of us, I mean, I feel like a lot of, a lot of people in entrepreneur space, it’s oh, I can’t keep a healthy relationship and you can’t do this and that. But I feel it’s all mindset. Really. It’s all about it’s up to you when you want it. Bad enough. There are always solutions.

David: (00:55:26) Absolutely. If you love the person, you will find a solution. You will find the time we still find time for quality time together, even though I’m up, I’m away, let’s say traveling and she’s working remotely. Unfortunately, she’s working remotely so she can maybe travel with me sometimes, but other times she’s working, she can, she’s also doing her own business. You know, we find the time. And at the end of the day, that’s key. If you, if you’re, for me, like as an entrepreneur, the whole point is building basic products and putting effort into impressing people.

If I can impress and do something for my girlfriend and also go above and beyond just the same way that I build X-Pot to go above and beyond for the customers. I think it’s kind of correlated. It’s, you don’t want to put an effort. That’s not an excuse. So, you certainly can find time to put in the same amount of effort, but it takes communication.

It takes the mindset. And for two people, to agree on how their relationship model will work. And yeah, and I think a healthy relationship, a long-term relationship is very healthy or entrepreneurial for anyone to have that deep connection with someone just to have someone support you throughout life. And I support each. I think that’s very important.

Bryan: (00:56:26) Yeah. I like that idea. It sounds like we need to have a whole separate podcast just to relate with David, but we’re all right up against the time. And I do appreciate your coming on the podcast today how can our listeners find out more about you and reach out to you?

David: (00:56:38) You can find me on Instagram. I follow linkable. And so, all the questions, are very reachable on Instagram and everything. So, if you have any questions, entrepreneurship about life, relationships, or just a lot of talk or, or give a complaint about our restaurant, feel free to DM me. And I’ll be more than happy to answer and give any guidance and feedback or just chat and connect. It sounds good, Bryan, thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Bryan: (00:57:08) Thank you so much to be on the podcast. I appreciate it.