My conversation with Todd Graves

**David Senra** (0:00)
I've started a new show where I have conversations with some of the greatest living founders. That show is called David Senra. It will be on a separate podcast feed from Founders. So it's very important that you follow David Senra on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or really wherever you're listening to this right now so you don't miss future episodes. This conversation is with one of my favorite living founders, Todd Graves. Todd owns over 90% of Raising Canes, a business that is worth over $20 billion, and he's been working on this business for almost 30 years. Todd has an extreme level of focus and a love of radical simplicity that I love and I try to apply to my own craft. I am posting our entire conversation on this feed so you know what the new show is like. I hope you enjoy our conversation and please don't forget to follow the new show, David Senra, now so you don't miss future episodes. And by the way, nothing is changing with Founders. I am still doing episodes every week and I will work on Founders until I die.
I was not expecting to start here, Todd. We were just talking before recording. I didn't expect to start on sleep, but what you just said is exactly how most of history's greatest entrepreneurs are. They just can't stop thinking about their business. Because I was asking you, like how much caffeine do you take? How much sleep do you need? And then your answer was what?

**Todd Graves** (1:13)
I just have a really erratic sleep. So I'll go, you know, some nights I'll go maybe three hours to sleep. The next night might be three to four hours. The next night might be five hours. And usually about that point is the next night I have to crash. So I'll sleep 10 or 11 hours to catch up. And then I'll actually wake up feeling great. Feel like I don't have to muscle through a day, keeping myself awake. And then I'll be caught up. I'll go another three hours that night. Four hours and five hours. But what really dictates it is what I have going on in business and what I have to be thinking about. What might give me a little bit of anxiety about things I gotta decide on, the teams, what I have to work through. So my brain will be working as I'm sleeping. I think it's trying to figure out solutions. So then I'll just wake up and I'll actually wake up pretty refreshed thinking about that problem I had and then go jump on the computer in my underwear. In the middle, I wake up and go first, and then start sending out e-mails, just actually solve that problem. But if I get caught up at work and there's nothing like really pressing, then I can sleep like a baby. I don't have a problem sleeping. Let's have a problem sleeping when I got real business on my mind.

**David Senra** (2:14)
This keeps reoccurring in all these biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs that I read. So I just did this episode on Giro, the best sushi chef in Japan. The documentary on him is, Giro dreams of sushi. Why? Because in his sleep, he is thinking about his work. Then I did this episode on this guy named Michael Ferraro. It's another family-held business. It's the Ferraro Chocolate Company. He would say that he dreamed up what he called Comforts, which was new products, new chocolates to make in his sleep. The Michelin Brothers, same thing. They would dream up marketing ideas on how to market tires in their sleep.
Leonardo D'Avecchio, Luxottico, one of the biggest businesses in the world. He just passed away recently. He said he would literally wake up dreaming. He would dream about ideas for his business, and he'd have to either keep a tape recorder next to his bed, or in your case, in your underwear, in your computer, or he'd have a notebook.

**Todd Graves** (3:01)
Notepad just to write it down.

**David Senra** (3:03)
It's very fascinating how you see the same personality type appear over and over again throughout history. So we are in the very first Raising Canes. You're very kind enough to let us record in here. You're almost at your 30-year anniversary for running Raising Canes and starting this. I want to ask you a question. I've heard you say this before. What is the advice that these so-called, the bad advice these so-called experts gave you when you were trying to start the very first Raising Canes?

**Todd Graves** (3:30)
Thank you. So having a dream to start a chicken finger only concept was just, back then in Louisiana, was kind of unheard of. It was just a totally new idea. We're known for our Cajun and Creole food here. Like at lunch, people could get a plate lunch, some Cajun dish, and that's what people are used to. Also in the industry at that time, you know, McDonald's and these other big quick service restaurant chains, they were adding menu items because they didn't want the veto votes, what they called it. One person in the car that might not have the choice at that restaurant that they could get, they said they would veto the whole car and go somewhere else that had that menu item for their deal. They're also adding healthy items back then. And so starting a restaurant and having an idea to do one, to focus just on one thing, one singular product focused menu, which is really unheard of at that time. We didn't have In-N-Out Burger in Louisiana, right?