Todd Graves, Raising Cane's

**David Senra** (0:02)
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** (0:18)
I just have a really erratic sleep. So I'll go some nights, I'll go maybe three hours of 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 ten or eleven hours to catch up. And then I'll actually wake up feeling great. I 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 got to 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. I wake up and go first and then start sending out emails, just actually solve that problem. But if I get caught up at work and there's nothing like really pressing that 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** (1:18)
This keeps reoccurring in all these biographies of history's greatest entrepreneurs that I read. So I just did this episode on Jiro, the best sushi chef in Japan.
The documentary on hand is, Jiro 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 a computer, or he'd have a notebook.

**Todd Graves** (2:06)
Notepad just to write it down.

**David Senra** (2:07)
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 were very kind enough to let us record in here.

**Todd Graves** (2:18)
The mothership.

**David Senra** (2:19)
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 the bad advice, these so-called experts gave you when you were trying to start the very first Raising Canes?

**Todd Graves** (2:35)
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, 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. So starting a restaurant and having an idea 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?

**David Senra** (3:29)
But you knew about Harry Snyder.

**Todd Graves** (3:30)
Not until I went to LA to work in the refineries. That's when I went out there and to work in the refineries. When I went to In-N-Out Burger, that's reaffirmed my belief that, hey, you can do one thing and do it better than anybody else. And then I researched and I started studying the In-N-Out model since 1948 So 1948, they have the exact same menu, right? People know what to go in. It took me one time to go there and someone to recommend, get a double-double and get it animal style. Get the fries, get whatever beverage you like and then get a chocolate shake. And it's my same order every time. So when I first went, I kind of held the order line for a second and went inside and done. Next time I went there, I went through the drive-thru, double-double animal style fries and a Coke. And then I also want to get that chocolate shake. And so seeing that really reaffirmed that belief for me, because since 1948, you think about how many different burger chains opened up and then went all around In-N-Out Burger. And they added all different menu items. They added unbelievable marketing. In-N-Out Burger's marketing is not much. Generally, they put big billboards on the interstate and say, here's where it is. Here's where we're at.