Multiply Your Success with Dr. Tom DuFore

286. Scaling Thrift Retail Into a Global Franchise—Tyler and Zach Gordon, Co-CEOs, Uptown Cheapskate and Kid to Kid

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How well do you know your target customer? What kind of clarity do you have on it? Our guests today are Zach and Tyler Gordon, co-CEOs of Basecamp Franchising, which includes: two brands with more than 200 combined locations, who share with us how they are growing their franchise system in the second hand industry by having clarity and precision around their target customers. 

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The success of your franchisee should be your north star. 

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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Tyler and Zach Gordon are co-CEOs of Basecamp Franchising—parent company of resale leaders Uptown Cheapskate and Kid to Kid. With deep roots in private equity and global franchising (previously Restaurant Brands International), these brothers bring a uniquely analytical yet people-first approach to growing what they call “thrift, reimagined.” Under their leadership, Basecamp is redefining resale retail by focusing not just on expansion, but on elevating the franchisee and customer experience. Their partnership is yielding results: 90% franchisee attendance at national conferences, record satisfaction scores, and bold ambitions to lead the secondhand apparel category both in the U.S. and abroad.  

ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
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The information provided in this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only and should not be considered financial, legal, or professional advice. Always consult with a qualified professional before making any business decisions. The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of the host, Big Sky Franchise Team, or our affiliates. Additionally, this podcast may feature sponsors or advertisers, but any mention of products or services does not constitute an endorsement. Please do your own research before making any purchasing or business decisions.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Multiply Your Success podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I'm your host, Tom Dufour, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open today, I'm wondering how well do you know your target customer? What does that clarity look like? Well, our guests today are Zach and Tyler Gordon, co-CEOs of Basecap Franchising that includes two brands with more than 200 combined locations. And they share with us how they are growing their franchise systems in the secondhand industry by having clarity and precision around their target customers. Now, Tyler and Zach are co-CEOs of Basecamp Franchising, parent company to resale leaders, Uptown Cheapskate and Kid to Kid. With deep roots and private equity and global franchising, previously Restaurant Brands International, these brothers bring a unique, analytical yet people-first approach to growing what they call Thrift Reimagined. Under their leadership, Basecamp is redefining resale retail by focusing not just on expansion, but on evaluating the franchisee and customer experience. You're going to love this interview. So let's go ahead and jump right into it.

SPEAKER_01:

Tyler and Zach Gordon were brothers originally from New York. We're co-CEOs of Basecamp franchising. And for those of you not familiar with Basecamp, it's the parent company that sits above to what would we qualify as upscale thrift concepts. So Uptown Cheapskate and Kid2Kid. We've got about 270 stores currently across the U.S. with another 50 plus under development. We've been in our seats for the past three years or so. And yeah, hope we're doing it for the next 30.

SPEAKER_00:

I think really a good starting point just as a topic of conversation is this idea of resale or thrift stores just in general. And what have you seen or found over the last many years just in terms of the perception of secondhand goods and thrift?

SPEAKER_02:

Maybe the word that comes to mind for me is misunderstood or underestimated, maybe one of those two. First, I would say for the resale space, which is a space that I frankly wasn't even very familiar with until about five years ago, it's much bigger than people realize. So it's about$50 billion already and growing really quickly. So double digits, basically as far back as you look, the last 10, 15 years of growth. So it's a huge space, which is just right off the bat, I think, again, something that people misunderstand. I would say on top of that, the space has historically been and continues to be relatively disorganized, I would say. So just picture what you would walking into a thrift store. What are the things that you're seeing? Maybe there's a smell even associated with walking into a thrift store. That is the conception that a lot of consumers have had in their minds, and especially older consumers continue to have in their minds. What we're doing with our concepts, and we have a couple of competitors who are doing something similar, but we think we're doing it in a really differentiated way, is taking all of the benefits of thrift that you might have gotten traditionally. So really excellent prices. That's certainly something that's always existed. You're going to shop in a thrift store because you're going to get really, really cheap prices. And then two, assortment, a very broad assortment of things to choose from. There's this kind of treasure hunt dynamic embedded in it as well. Those are two sources of value, of excitement that people have gotten from thrift historically. What we're doing with our concepts, Uptown and Kid to Kid, is extracting those two sources of value and then wrapping them in something that is much more familiar and enjoyable to a mainstream consumer. So a really high-end boutique style store that's displaying the right merchandise at the right time. So, you know, right now it's in September. We're here in September. People are obviously outfitting themselves and their kids for fall and for winter. You want to make sure that that's what's on your sales floor. And that's not traditionally what thrift stores have done. It's basically whatever I have in inventory is what I'm going to put out on my floor. In our stores, we're really intentional about what we're displaying. You hook that into the growth that I mentioned at the beginning, where you've got an increasing curiosity, interest, and in fact, purchasing behavior orienting towards secondhand. Where is that happening? It's happening across the board, but especially with young consumers who are interested in the, again, traditional sources of value, price, uh, and this treasure hunt, but then also are really eager to share what they're doing on Instagram, on TikTok. And so they can do that in this really cool, kind of exciting environment that we provide in our stores.

SPEAKER_00:

What do you all see with those trends?

SPEAKER_02:

I would say that the demographics are different for each brand, which makes sense just given the nature of the products that we're selling in the two brands. Let's take Uptown Cheapskate first. So at Uptown, we're buying and selling used items that target a demographic between about 14 years old and 35, somewhere in that orbit. And so by virtue of that, we're naturally just gonna see more of those customers come in through our stores. Now, if you zoom out, that in fact is the demographic. So this is Gen Z, maybe younger millennials, that is most excited about secondhand. I mean, you can look at any survey, you look at the stats, and what used to be a stigma, oh, I I would only shop secondhand if I absolutely had to, has become actually something of a halo where you've got these younger consumers who are actually excited to buy something used, one because it's unique, and two because they feel they're supporting the environment in at least some small way. I would say that at Uptown, the the demo, the target demo is going to be younger, but that aligns exactly with what's driving the trend growth overall. At kid to kid, the demo is a little bit older. So these would be people with kids, you know, maybe mid-20s to mid-40s would be probably the sweet spot for us. These are people who are uh are making purchases and selling their goods on behalf of their kids. I have three kids, so I'm you know, right in the bullseye, I would say, of the demo. It still skews reasonably young. We're not talking boomers, but it's gonna be call it a decade to 15 years higher than the target demo for uptown.

SPEAKER_00:

I think in the retail business today, it's hard not to at least have a conversation or approach the subject of tariffs and how that might be impacting your business. And you have a franchise system and a franchise network that you're working through. And so I'd be curious to know one, how have you seen this tariff or these tariff ideas impact your business and what adjustments you've had to make, if any, to accommodate that?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, Zach talked a little bit before about the fundamentals of the thrift industry, so much larger than people, I would say, originally estimate, growing uh much more rapidly than people would think. But beyond that, there are any number of other elements that just really support about as good industry fundamentals as you could manufacture in a laboratory. So as you think about the current environment, I would say that what is the best set of circumstances for our stores? It's probably a weaker economic environment with crippling tariffs. Like that would probably be the best environment that you could draw up. Now we don't need it. Our concepts have done incredibly well for decades at this point, even in sunnier climates. But it's really when other people are struggling or acting more conservatively that our concepts thrive. And a huge advantage for us, for our franchisees, ends up being that you can then focus on operations. Everything in terms of your success is completely in your control. You're not worried about, hey, what might lurk on the horizon? What are the headwinds that the economy could throw my way? If anything, any of those developments end up being real positives for a concept. So, yeah, we feel we're in a really advantaged uh position in this environment. Again, not that we need it, but certainly far different than most retailers would be experiencing today.

SPEAKER_02:

And certainly I would say that the main driver of traffic to our stores and purchases in our stores is price. After all, we're selling secondhand goods. And so there has to be a very meaningful discount that the consumer is getting because they're purchasing something secondhand to whatever the comparable good would be new. This calculation, which customers or consumers are always running in their heads, whether doing it explicitly or just sort of in the back of their brain, this is what's happening, they're very, very sensitive to the relative price of goods, for instance, in our stores versus goods that they can get in other stores. And so with tariffs, and this is really across the board, including and probably most importantly for us, for low-cost providers of apparel, because most of the stuff we're selling is apparel. Think Target, Walmart, but then these Chinese companies that have really exploded in market share in the last five years, Xi'an and Timu, their whole value proposition is giving rock bottom prices. In the case of those Chinese companies, they've had to raise their prices since the end of last year in the order of 40 and 50% on average, just to deal with the impact of the tariffs that you mentioned. And so if it's all about relative pricing, what can I get at uptown and kid to kid versus other value-oriented concepts? We have been affected basically zero by the tariffs because we're buying and selling goods that are already in circulation. Pretty much every one of our competitors, especially those that focus on real value and low prices, have been hit pretty hard by the tariffs.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing you mentioned was on pricing and making sure that there's a very clear value for that price and a clear distinction between that. So, being in the franchise business, I'm always curious how different franchisors support franchisees or help franchisees with that. So if I were to express an interest in buying one of your franchises, well, I have no background in pricing thrift style goods and clothing. How do you go about helping franchisees sort through that or training or supporting them on that pricing piece?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it's a great question. And if you think about a traditional thrift store, there is so much subjectivity inherent in the model. What do I buy? At what point in the year? What should I pay for that garment? What should I then mark it up at uh when I put it out on the racks? At what point is it appropriate for me to mark down that item? By how much? To the extent there is institutional knowledge around those questions, it's usually trapped in the head of the owner of that establishment. Heaven forbid that owner wants to take a vacation, even worse, wants to retire. Where does that institutional knowledge head? Even more fundamentally, if that person stays involved in the business, especially when you're focusing on the teen and young adult category, trends are always changing. So what worked yesterday might not work today. What we have found is uh through the application of technology and really data analytics, you can take what is inherently a very subjective set of questions or decisions and make them much more data driven and objective. And so a very simple example would be let's say somebody walked into our stores with a pair of jeans, and the person on the buy counter is then determining what should I buy these for and what should their retail price be. What they would really do is just be inputting a series of attributes. So these are women's American Eagle genes that are size 24 and in good condition. The system would then query all of the other transactions that have met that combination of attributes or close to it to determine what is the market clearing price for that item. And so we can say with a pretty good degree of certainty, this is the price that a store should be selling any given item for. And so it takes all of that subjectivity out of the equation. And so the way we like to think about our support, in this case, in the context of pricing and technology, is we want our franchisees to be able to, in let's call it 30 seconds, explain to a new employee who might be a 16-year-old girl, here's how we go about pricing, now go. And our technology allows our franchisees to do that with confidence.

SPEAKER_00:

The data that you're pulling from, is that your internal data?

SPEAKER_01:

So even just in the last 24 months, I mean 12 months, we would have tens of millions of data points for each of our brands. And so we can understand, okay, what was that item priced for originally? When did it get on the floor? How long did it stay on the floor? Did it end up getting marked down? If a given item or combination of attributes is consistently getting marked down, that will then signal to the algorithm that, hey, we're probably pricing this item too high. Conversely, if it's never getting marked down, you might not have found that market clearing price. You could be leaving a lot of money on the table. Okay, that would suggest that maybe the price should be increased. And so, yeah, it's all querying our proprietary database of pricing and transactions to influence our recommendations.

SPEAKER_00:

Going along the same lines and these seasonalities and trends, you just never quite know exactly where it's going. But I'd be curious with this data, if you're able to figure out and help price what things have looked like, are you also then able to start to see some trends in terms of styles or types or whatever purchases consumers are making then?

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, absolutely. I actually think that we probably have as good visibility as anybody out there into what's trending in an upward direction and in a downward direction. It's very easy to see. And why is it so easy to see? It's because we have real-time visibility into everything that's selling in our stores. But then also we are dealing with a very sensitive group of customers, I would say, sensitive especially to price. And so I would say that trends, whether it's hey, it's a pricing trend or a trend, hey, skinny jeans are out, wide leg jeans are in, that sensitivity is going to show up really quickly in our stores.

SPEAKER_00:

One thing I'm curious about, and this is probably something you all are just accustomed to dealing with day-to-day, but as someone looking from the outside in and understanding that in retail, it's not just about the products anymore. So I'm just curious how being a part of the local community or connecting to that community plays into the success, especially of a resale shop or a thrift type environment.

SPEAKER_02:

It's huge. I mean, I and I would maybe touch on two examples. One is I'm a parent, as I said, of a couple of young kids. My motivation for going into a local kid to kid, which I do at least once a month to sell merchandise, is of course partially to get some money out of the operation, because after all, I'm taking time out of my day to drive to the store and wait for them to purchase all the items. So value is definitely a very important driver for vendors. However, I've got a ton of stuff, whether it's apparel or toys, shoes, equipment in my house that I'm candidly just a little self-conscious about just throwing in the garbage. And I really like the idea that I am going to give all of the items that I'm selling into the kids to kids second, third life with another member of the local community. And so there's this kind of connectivity, experiential aspect to our stores that is really, really important in terms of driving people into our stores. So if that's one on the vendor side, vendor, I'm saying somebody who's coming in to sell merchandise to the stores. Then on the shopper side, somebody who's coming in to buy from our stores, I would say absolutely the experiential component is important. We really focus on customer service, understanding our customers. I like to think theoretically, because we're offering such great merchandise at such great prices, if we're doing our job right, customers should want to spend as much money as possible with us just because they're going to be realizing so much value every transaction that they're that they're making with us. What can we do to make it so that people feel like it's a great idea to come to our store once a month? And the experiential component of it, the music, the way that the store looks, feels, smells, the way that the staff is interacting with the customers is really, really an important component. I mentioned the kind of, you know, social media, TikTok story type activity that you can just, if you log on to TikTok and you type in thrift, you can see what I'm talking about. People will videotape themselves and their friends going through thrift stores, including ours, trying on outfits, et cetera. So the experiential component from the shopper perspective is also very, very important.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I I love just as an example, I was at a recent grand opening of ours, and I'm standing up by the register, and a mom and her, what was probably about a 16-year-old daughter, make their way to the front of the line with a huge pile of clothes that they're hoping to buy. And I'm just looking at the mom's face as they start ringing up the items, and you can start seeing her get nervous. Wow, we bought a lot of uh a lot of clothing. And we get to the end, and the employee at the register says, okay, your total is X dollars. And you just see this mom's face just like light up. And she told her daughter, okay, you can go get a few more items. And so this dynamic of people, again, being able to realize and access what would otherwise be maybe aspirational brands or styles or otherwise, and see the real just joy that comes out of that. It's hard not to have fun, whether you're on our end as the franchise or as the store owner, seeing that experience you're able to offer those local members of your community.

SPEAKER_00:

It made me think briefly of an example where recently happened to be in a thrift store and my son he loves the Simpsons. He thinks it's just the greatest thing and was able to find an original Simpsons shirt from probably sometime in the 90s. And he just thinks it's the greatest thing. And so he wears that thing around and he is just happy as a clam. He loves that t-shirt. So I think it's so wonderful. Zach, you had mentioned changing seasons, coming into the fourth quarter with things, and it kind of got me starting to look beyond the end of this year into the next year. And do you see any maybe trends or have any predictions for what you see happening in your franchise system or through secondhand or thrift type businesses in general?

SPEAKER_02:

Look, I would say most importantly for us is we just see a lot of continued room for growth, whether it's opening stores in new markets or further penetrating markets where we're already present, or then growing volume at existing stores. There are so many parts of the country, and then there are so many parts of our operation that are just no-brainer level, we should be doing that. As we just work down this list, it's our expectation that that's, again, just going to drive growth and hopefully very meaningful growth at our two concepts. I would say that touching on something I mentioned earlier, which is that the thrift store landscape has generally speaking been very disorganized, almost primitive when you compare it against other very modern retailers. The list of initiatives that we have that we're confident are going to add value to our stores, to the owners of those stores, to the consumers that are interacting with the stores, it's like 10 pages long and it only gets longer. It's almost the opposite. In fact, it's the exact opposite problem that I've encountered most of my career, which is the page is blank. What are the one or two things that we can put on this page that hopefully will move the needle? For us, there's so many things that fundamentally drive consumer value that we're excited to pursue. So it's it's really growth and development of the category are the two things that I would focus on.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I couldn't agree more with Zach. I mean, it's interesting. You look back over the past several years where we've been involved, but then even more broadly over the past decade or two, and the growth has been somewhat staggering, and I'd say most pronounced even this year, just in terms of the performance of our existing stores, the performance of new stores that's starting coming out of the gates. But what gets us really excited is that we honestly feel like we're only getting started. We're inning one or two of the growth that we see on the horizon. So as much as we're proud of the opportunity we've been able to offer franchisees historically and the growth that we've had, we think that there is so much untapped potential moving forward. And that's awesome. And that gets back to you at the beginning where I said, hey, I hope we're doing this for the next 30 years. It's because there's another 30 years of fun things that we can charge after together.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

And I would say very importantly, most of the stuff that we're selling in our stores is not that old. Ah, okay. But we're talking mostly about stuff that was bought not that long ago. And for whatever reason, there are a whole bunch of different reasons why this might be the case for consumers. A consumer doesn't have value for this or that item anymore. And so they're coming in and selling it to us. So it's stuff that actually still really has a lot of demand. It's not just quirky things like Simpsons t-shirts, although, you know, we definitely do sell some kind of vintage stuff too. It's mostly brands, specific items, even that people really want that are on trend that just happened to have been purchased a year ago. And the person who originally purchased it doesn't have use for it anymore.

SPEAKER_00:

That's a great distinction. And probably I'm one of those folks that's old enough to have certain assumptions pre-built, right? That you were talking about earlier on in the interview here, versus thinking of my kids and their peers that will see on social media and it's a whole trend thing that I'm just not as familiar with.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. And look, I would say that's a big, that's a big consideration, I would say, for people who are not familiar with our brands. If you want to understand them, hopefully we're providing some helpful context during this conversation. But go and look at some photos, some videos on the social media accounts of our stores. Even better, go visit one of our stores. I would say that in general, the reaction of people who go to one of our stores is, what is this place? They actually, it's unlike anything they've ever seen before. And so I would encourage people, if you have an interest, that's going to fill in so many more gaps than will, hey, just reading about our concepts or listening to a couple of podcasts.

SPEAKER_00:

How can someone find out where there might be a location near them, or how can they get in touch with you or learn more about what you're doing?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'd say that there are any number of places you can look. I'd say a great place to start is our just franchise development websites. So those are Uptowncheapskatefranchise.com and Kid2Kidfranchise.com. You can also just look for a store location, as Zach pointed out. That's probably going to be the best introduction to our concepts, uh, certainly the most vibrant one. And at this point, we've got, again, over 270 stores across 30 plus states. So we have a good amount of distribution just across the US. So hopefully there's one close by most of the listeners. And if not, hopefully one come into your neighborhood or community soon. So those are the best places. Again, the Instagram handles either of our corporate accounts or our store accounts. There's so much dynamism and personality that comes through each of our stores. And that's an aspect that I love about franchising when done right, where what you can offer is a set of centralized tools and resources, technology being really critical in our case. They can be applied across the system. But we encourage our owners to bring their own unique personality and culture to their stores. And so, while yes, there will be consistency, whether you're in Green Bay or Tampa Bay, you really will get that unique local feel that's driven by the franchisee and their team members. So yeah, no substitute for going to a store, but certainly check us on the out online as well.

SPEAKER_00:

One question I always like to ask folks in the franchising business is just for someone that's maybe a new franchise or that might tune in or is new into this whole franchise business or thinking about getting into it as a franchise or what advice might you give to someone that's new into franchising?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I I would say in my mind, there should be a singular point of focus for any franchise or and then for a prospective franchisee coming in, which is the success of your franchisees. If that is your door star, if everything that you do is to drive performance at your existing stores, at the new stores you're opening, everything else will solve itself. Conversely, if your franchisees are not happy, if they're not profitable, if they're not excited about growing with you into the future, nothing else matters. So sure, you could put a lot of dots on the map, but we've seen this unfortunately. It's it's really a travesty in these situations, just time and time again, where you'll have a franchise or I would say mess up the order of operations, which is one where I define success as number of dots on the map, how many locations I have. Whereas really what matters is again the individual success of each of those locations. And if you get that right, you'll be expanding for years and decades to come. And so it's really that orientation for the franchise or franchisee success. And then if you're in a the franchisee seat, it's the same exact thing. Do you think that the franchise or holds that as their core number one priority? Do you get that from your interactions? Do you hear that consistently referenced when you speak to existing franchisees? That's where I would always orient my time.

SPEAKER_02:

I really do think that that is the North Star franchisee success. Uh, maybe the other component I would put out there is that there are no shortcuts, and that's a cliche. Clearly, you could apply that to so many different things. But when it comes to especially if you're an emerging franchise or setting up systems that are repeatable, that people from all different backgrounds and different parts of the country can follow and be successful with, you got to start from square one and you got to build a really good process. Then you got to run that process, I don't know, a hundred times and see where it breaks, where there's variability in the outcomes, and re-engineer either that piece or something upstream of that piece of the process, troubleshoot your process over and over and over and over again until you got a process that just works perfectly. And at that stage, something that's almost ironic is if you were then to evaluate the process, it would look very simple and elegant. Like, wow, this must have taken five minutes to come up with. However, there is a humongous amount of brain damage that goes into putting together a really simple and elegant process that works. So there's no shortcuts. You gotta make sure that every step of every process that you're putting in to place is not only something that you can follow, but that your franchisees can follow as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, this is a great time in the show, and we make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go. The first question we ask is have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?

SPEAKER_01:

Zach had referenced before this orientation around process. Process is critically important. And my general belief is if it's not written down, it's not a process. So we've learned a lot about what drives success in terms of building kind of the process component. Another really critical P in the equation is people. People ultimately are the single most important ingredient to success. And as a franchiseor, that's the people that we get to get the chance to work with and partner with here at Basecamp and then our franchisees across the country, focusing on the corporate side of things. We've certainly learned along the way. Learned along the way, hey, what to look for, maybe what to look to avoid. But I'd say the most pronounced element or lesson that I've learned in that experience has really been never, ever, ever relax really high standards. Recruiting is difficult. It's incredibly time consuming. There can be a real desire for most people to say, hey, I'm gonna cut the line. I'm gonna hire the person as soon as I can because I want the seat filled. So I think that there's an incentive or perceived incentive for a lot of people to get recruiting done as quickly as they can just because they want somebody else doing the job that they've had to absorb, or they want to allocate their time away from just finding people on LinkedIn or working with recruiters. At the end of the day, that's invariably a mistake. If you don't hire the right person up front, you don't maintain that high quality standard, you will pay the price down the line. And most of the time you'll end up recruiting again. And so one thing that we have learned is just to be really patient, really patient as we look for people, as we look for the really good right fit, and as we've really oriented around quality, both for people at corporate and then our franchisees, the associated results have just, I would say, spoken for themselves.

SPEAKER_02:

If you are putting together a policy, a program, a project, think about who that policy or project is for. As a franchiseor, of course, a number of the things that we're working on, most of them are going to be for our franchisees. And in considering what the policy of the project should look like, what the output should be, make sure you go talk to the people that the policy or project is intended for. I've seen at a lot of different franchisors maybe some internal discussions around what a policy should be and then just releasing it to the wild. And that's the first time that the franchisees who are on the receiving end of the policy are hearing about it. That's a good way to create confusion at a minimum, if not ultimately friction between you as the franchise or and the franchisee. So make sure that you're talking to the people from the very beginning about a policy or project and getting their input and steering it in the direction that works for everybody.

SPEAKER_00:

Let's talk about the other side of that, or talk about a make or a highlight or two that you'd like to share.

SPEAKER_02:

I would say that a real highlight, and there are a bunch of different highlights from the last three years, I would say, uh, since we've been involved with Basecamp, but is our new store process. When we came in to Basecamp, the new store process was, I would say, pretty underdeveloped. Really, it was run by one person. And the knowledge of how to get from I just signed my franchise agreement to I just had my grand opening at my store was very fragile. It was in different places. Some of it was written down. A lot of it was just in people's heads. And so it resulted in a lot of variability, and in our view, unnecessary variability in terms of the success of different stores that were making their way through that process. We now have a very, very organized process that's fully documented. We've got an eight-person cross-functional team that focuses exclusively on this process. And the results are speaking for themselves. You know, we always like to set ambitious goals of hey, how can we have our grand openings be even better? Why focus on grand openings? It's because if a store has a really successful grand opening, that's going to correlate very tightly with a successful first year, which is then going to correlate with a very successful just store period. And the results that we've seen on the grand opening front have been multiples greater even than what we had hoped. So that has been a real highlight. And frankly, it's just a really, it's a really fun part of the business now that is an engine for self-improvement as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And I think that's a great example just because when we came in three years ago, we poured a lot of time, energy, resources into this new store process with the anticipation that it would make a real difference. As with everything in life, it takes uh time to get everything done and then to ultimately see that hard work manifest itself in results. And to Zach's point, just to put a finer point on some of it, if you look at results so far this year, our average grand opening result is up something like 2x over last year. So not up 5% or 10% or 20%. It's up almost 100% year over year. And now I want to give all the credit first and foremost to the franchisees who are the ones driving these results. Uh, that obviously is the most important ingredient. But the reality is the incremental investments we have made in our team and our processes and our recommendations, the trainings we can offer new and existing franchisees have certainly helped enable a lot of those results as well.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the name of the show is multiply your success. And we always like to ask have you used a multiplier to multiply yourself personally, professionally, or any organizations you've run?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I would say from my vantage point, is I think about providing advice to people who reach out to me or to Zach looking for, hey, what should the next step in my career be? A real advantage in helping multiply your success is finding something that you're really passionate about or that you can get really excited about. And beyond just the dollar and cents, it's not just, oh, this seems like a really compelling financial opportunity, but do you really feel that you'll get a tremendous amount of enjoyment, fulfillment out of what you do? Because it's that degree of motivation that you have, that your teams have, that enable you to then work later hours and not because you have to, but because you want to, and allows you to again pour everything you have into driving results. And so for me, uh a really critical component as I've thought about the evolution of my career is increasingly focusing on opportunities where I feel that they really align with what I'm looking for in a personal standpoint and things that I can get and get fulfillment out of is probably the word that I come back to the most because that has allowed me to absolutely multiply my impact because I just pour so much more into those opportunities.

SPEAKER_02:

And I would go back to the example of process. Uh, and it's funny because I'm not intrinsically somebody who necessarily gravitates to process. I like to kind of color outside the lines, maybe uh more than have the lines like very neatly predetermined for me. However, I have found personally, and you see this all over the place here at Basecamp, you can have a perception that process is actually somehow limiting, that, oh, I now I have to be a robot and I have to follow, you know, all of these steps from A to Z and I have no autonomy to make decisions. If you have good processes that are focused in the right areas, where you're taking something that could be done, you know, a hundred different ways, but in fact, there is just one objectively better way to do it that's much more efficient, then for anybody engaging with that process, it actually is liberating because they're going to be able to get through the tasks associated with that process so much faster and then have all the rest of their time to focus on being creative, maybe, you know, creating a new process. And the the hard work of putting together a process, and it really is hard work to put together a process that's really good and really works, then pays off every single time that you, as the person creating the process or anybody else in your organization, it could be a franchisee, right? It's the same logic applied down to that level. It pays off every single time somebody is going to go through that really, really well developed process. So that I think is a huge multiplier that counterintuitively feels like it's limiting and constraining, but in fact, it's the opposite.

SPEAKER_00:

Zach and Tyler, the final question we ask every guest is what does success mean to you?

SPEAKER_01:

For me, I mean, if you think about it in the context of being a franchisor, and this kind of harkens back to a comment I made before, a lot of franchiseurs, I would say, define success based on the number of units they have across the country or internationally. I truly couldn't care less how many stores we open next year. What I care about is that every store that does open crushes it. That is, again, what really matters to me. And so if you think about what is ultimately the word that I keep coming back to when I think about success, it's impact. To what a degree can what we do here at Basecamp have a positive impact on the lives, on the financial profile of our franchisees, uh, then on the impact that those franchisees can deliver on their customers, on their local communities, on the environment and a sustainability standpoint. And so I really focus on impact. To what extent can we have a really positive impact? And if we get that right, again, everything else in the business context will solve itself, but that is not the end goal. Again, using the word fulfillment, if I can feel really good about that positive impact we've had across the chain, that will be a very successful career in my mind.

SPEAKER_02:

Try to have fun. And if you find yourself working in an industry where it's impossible to have fun, or you're working at a company where it's impossible to have fun just because of the nature of the company or whatever it might be, look for something else. Look for something else because fun is gonna correlate exactly with what Tyler has said a couple of times, which is do something fulfilling, do something that you can believe in. If you're doing something fulfilling and something you can believe in, you're gonna be having fun. So uh they kind of go hand in hand. And have high standards for yourself, I would say. Be willing to think outside the box, be willing to move geographically, I would say. I've moved around a couple of different times. We're originally from New York City, we now live in Salt Lake City. Uh, and that's opened up a world of opportunities for us by solving maybe for one variable, keeping other variables fixed. The geographic component, whether you're, you know, a prospective franchisee or just thinking about your professional career in a corporate context, that's a dimension that I have personally gotten a lot of fulfillment out of.

SPEAKER_00:

Thank you both. And as we bring this to a close, is there anything you were hoping to share or get across that you haven't had a chance to yet?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, I'll speak for myself, but I think Tyler would say the same thing. So many of our franchisees would as well. We're having a great time here at Basecamp. We think that we've got a, you know, really exciting opportunity set from just a business perspective, but then just a really fun business intrinsically as well. Not for everybody, but for plenty of people. And so if you feel like, wow, this does sound actually pretty interesting and pretty fun, then reach out and learn more. Because I'd say that our our expectation is that we're gonna be bigger, uh, let's say, at a minimum uh in a couple of years than we are today. And if you want to be, you know, one of those people, please give us a ring.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I would say don't just take our word for it. When evaluating any opportunity in this context of franchise opportunity, speak to the people on the front lines. Our franchisees are so incredibly generous with their time and their perspectives. And I always like whether you're evaluating get our opportunity or some other thing in franchising, the simple question of if you could hop in a time machine and do it all over again, would you recommend this to a family member? And so, at a minimum, even if you're not thinking about this in a business opportunity, our franchisees are such wonderful people. I guarantee you'd enjoy the conversation.

SPEAKER_00:

Zach and Tyler, thank you so much for a fantastic interview. And let's go ahead and jump into today's three key takeaways. So, takeaway number one is when they talked about secondhand goods just being a misunderstood industry. They said it's a$50 billion industry, which is much bigger than I know I thought, and maybe you were thinking too. And I thought it was interesting that they said most of the stuff and merchandise they sell is less than a few years old and it's still in demand. That was new to me as well. Takeaway number two is when they talked about having clarity on what their customers want. And I found that very interesting where they talked about their customers really are interested in a low price, they're price-driven, right? They want that. And the second piece is they want to feel like they're going on a bit of a treasure hunt to find that jewel or that gem or find that hidden treasure. And they've figured that out. I thought that was great clarity that they have on their customers, and that's why I opened up the show with that question. Takeaway number three is when they talked about a miss, and they said that they have found that people are the most critical piece of success for them. And I like how they describe they've learned what to look for and what to avoid, and to never relax your franchisee standards when they're talking about recruiting franchisees. And then when they're hiring someone, when a franchisee is hiring someone or when they are hiring for their own business, they like to hire the right person up front, even though it might take longer. I really liked how he said you will pay the price one way or another. I think that's great. Same type of thing we talk with our clients about and working with professionals to help them franchise and expand. And now it's time for today's win-win. So today's win-win comes when the brothers talked about advice that they would give to a new franchise owner. And this stood out to me. And I really liked how they said that the success of your franchisee should be your north star. And they said that most franchise oars they found struggle when the order of operations for a franchise system is messed up. And I really, really, really liked that description. There are no shortcuts. And it's just similar to math. If you don't follow the order of operations, you're gonna get the wrong result or the wrong answer. I echo the sentiment my experience has been in franchising. When your franchise order of operations are out of order, you tend to struggle or struggle more so than you would otherwise. So I really like that. Find that North Star for your franchise system. That's the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to our podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchise team.com where you can schedule your free no obligation consultation with me or one of our team members. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.

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Tom DuFore

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