Ami Kassar: You Gave Away Equity for Nothing

Josh Kopel (0:00)

I'm going to ask you a question that might sting a bit. How many holiday parties do you have booked for the month of December? Not like, how many do you expect? It's how many are on the books right now with the deposits collected and the contracts signed. And for many of you, I worry that the answer is not enough. And here's why that matters. I think that the companies that are going to throw those parties are picking their venues right now. This is a sweet spot between August and September. And by the time you start thinking about December, the decision has already been made. You're not losing those parties in November. You're going to lose them this month. And that's why I built the Private Events Engine. It's a simple three-part system that leverages AI to do most of the work for you. And this month in the Marketing Masterclass, I'm going to walk you through it. It's going to show you how to package events, how to get in front of the people that are booking them, and how to close them without discounting. And you get the whole thing for free. So show up to this month's Marketing Masterclass. Go to restaurantbusinessschool.com today to sign up. Now here we go.

Ami Kassar (1:08)

We all have short memories when things are going well. You feel great, you feel awesome. Cash is flowing in and out, you're making payroll, you're growing, you're adding people. Things are groovy until they're not. Just remember that almost always never goes in the straight line. When the going is good, that's a time to take advantage of things.

Josh Kopel (1:28)

Welcome to FULL COMP, a show offering insight into the hospitality industry, featuring restaurateurs, thought leaders, and innovators. Served up on the house.

What if the reason you gave away a piece of your restaurant is a myth you had never bothered to test? Most operators believe banks won't touch restaurants, so they go straight to investors, credit cards, and whatever money is the easiest to reach. Ami Kassar has placed over a billion dollars in small business loans. And he says the restaurant exception doesn't exist. In today's conversation, we get into why a line of credit belongs in your business before you need it, how the cash advance built into your point of sale locks you out of real financing, and why the monthly payments matter more than the rate. If you have ever asked yourself whether your restaurant is bankable, this episode is going to answer that question.

So I'd like to start with some context for the audience. And you were the Chief Innovation Officer, one of the biggest insurers of small businesses in the country. You have this front row seat to watching the collapse of this company during the Great Recession. You got fired on a Friday and you started multi-funding like the next day. And nevertheless, it was just wild, man. And then you spent the last 16 years on the other side of the table. So I want to start with perspective, because I think so much of what we do for a living is informed by our life experience. So what did watching a financial institution implode teach you about money and risk?

Ami Kassar (3:10)

First of all, it was just emotional, right? So before it was my turn to be let go, I watched 960 about people let go. Many of them were friends, they had mortgages, they had families, they had worked there for 10, 20, 30 years. It was part of that was devastating. And then there was also that you couldn't feel it because we're in a corporate office, but a million small businesses lost their credit and it got shut down.

And that was also very difficult and the rates were getting jacked up. But we weren't too big to fail. Way bigger financial institutions than us were failing left, right and center. We were relative to the size of the crisis.

We were a speck.

So it's almost, are there lessons about money and risk? Sure. But no one anticipated a Titanic to come hit the financial system of the United States. That's a risk that I think, I don't know if there's much hindsight around that. Yes, it was left without, there was risk, etc. And there was definitely a heavy concentration of predominantly one business line. But ultimately a Titanic hit the financial system at that time, and it was tough.

Josh Kopel (4:28)

We started multifunding. I feel like whenever we start any business, when I started my restaurants, right, I had a song to sing. There was this thing that I wanted to bring out into the world. I felt like there was this expression of self associated with it. And I feel that same way about this show and my coaching and consulting practice. When you started multifunding, what was your song to sing? What was your perspective on financing and on lending and on risk that you wanted to share with the world?