Did you know that most kitchens are unprofitable?
Nick Anastasiades is out to change that.
He’s Co-Founder & CEO of 2ndKitchen. Based in Chicago, the company links any business to restaurants in their area so they can use their kitchen to serve food.
As an on-demand service, 2ndKitchen pools the demand in a local neighborhood.
And it’s catching on. Big time. Since completing the Techstars program, the business has been doubling every 3 months.
Not to mention, attracting big-time VC’s including Hyde Park Venture Partners, MATH Venture Partners, Great North Labs, Bragiel Brothers, and M25.
Now, bars, taprooms, hotels, and any business without a kitchen can offer a custom menu to its patrons, leveraging a hyper-local restaurant to cook and deliver the food. 2ndKitchen facilitates the partnership, including payment, fulfillment, and customer support.
But how is Nick building the team that’s building 2ndKitchen?
In this 20-minute conversation, he reveals the process he uses to find & assess talent. And how he learned to cook up a winning culture.
Every wonder how you see ads online that are so targeted to your desires, it’s like they read your mind?
Well, Target Data makes it possible.
This 40-person Chicago-based performance marketing agency leverages data, technology, & content to provide “hypertargeting” for advertisers.
Ross Shelleman is its CEO & Co-Founder. In this 20 minute conversation, he shares his interview process, how he assesses candidates, and some of the challenges he’s overcome in scaling the business.
Jett McCandless is Founder/CEO of Project 44, the most comprehensive global supply chain visibility platform. If you buy anything, you’re touched by P44. Because it’s used by manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and everyone in the supply chain to know what products will arrive where & when.
By any measure, it’s one of Chicago’s fastest-growing companies.
Along the way, he’s raised over $100M in capital from Sapphire Ventures, OpenView Venture Partners, Emergence Capital, Insight Venture Partners, Chicago Ventures, and Pritzker Group Venture Capital.
What I love about Jett is his candor & humility. In this 20-minute conversation, he shares how he’s built the 200-person team, including the challenges & how he’s overcome them.
That includes how to keep the team’s passion at a high level as you scale your business.
How do PE-backed firms successfully execute a rollup strategy?
Here's one that's doing it.
Marquee Dental Partners, based in Nashville, has done 14 acquisitions so far. And somehow, I convinced CEO Fred Ward to reveal how it's done.
Marquee is backed by leading healthcare PE fund Chicago Pacific Founders.
One particular challenge is how to integrate culture in a roll up, particularly when the locations & employees are distributed.
Here's how.