What Restaurants Can Learn from Facebook

I recently read a piece from Noah Kagan (a prominent voice in the tech business world) about the lessons he learned much earlier in his career at a small early stage startup called Facebook. While I was going through it, I noticed that although the post is aimed at the tech world, the lessons are good for anyone who’ll listen. So here’s my adaptation.

1) Focus on ONE goal
You may have heard of the concept of “OKRs” (objectives and key results) which, sadly, like a lot of things that get adopted by corporate America, has turned into a bloated mess-but really, this is all it boils down to. Trying to focus everywhere is one of the surest ways to not only sap your energy and money, but also to make sure none of those things ever actually gets done. Choose ONE goal that you want you and your team to focus on. Set expectations. For Facebook, the goal was Growth - to 1 billion users. Difficult, but certainly measurable. Once that goal is set, make sure the team is aware of it and is staying focused on it every day.

2) Move fast
A mantra many have adopted in the tech world came from Facebook: “move fast and break things”. This has fallen out of favor in recent years for reasons you can probably guess, but some of its spirit remains. A spirit it shares with a much older mantra: “you only fail when you give up”. So your latest menu special was a flop. No one saw your latest social media campaign. Good. Learn from it. Find out what went wrong, make adjustments, move forward. It’s funny that even while feeling the weight of the world on our shoulders we can sometimes forget how much control we have. This is real life - there are no rules, only consequences. You don’t need approval from corporate, you don’t need to ask your mom, but you do need to keep moving.

3) Only hire A PLUS players AND 4) Treat your employees well
I know you already know my thoughts on this one. The number one complaint I get from my clients is that it’s too hard to find quality staff. But you know that to not only attract but retain quality staff, you have to be worthy of that staff. Put the lessons from my Call-outs Guide into action and start becoming the best damn place to work in town. And then don’t worry - the best will find you.

5) Scratch your own itch
If you set out to make a restaurant that makes a ton of money, you’ll almost certainly fail. Because while money is a great motivator, it’s a bad navigator. If you make every decision with the goal in mind to make more money, you’re likely to buy low quality products, cut labor unnecessarily, develop adversarial relationships with your customers by nickel-and-diming them. If instead, you have a goal that really matters to you - whether it be to build a lively space in your neighborhood, to bring a new cuisine to the spotlight, or provide a chance for lovers to reconnect, that can easily guide you to much better decisions - and the money will come all on its own.

6) Pay attention to details
There’s a story in Unreasonable Hospitality about the lengths Will Guidara went to find the perfect tasting spoons for the little gelato cart at his cafe. It’s easy to revert to the mean. To take whatever our suppliers give us, get whatever’s cheapest, think that something like which takeout cutlery we give our customers won’t matter at all. But it does. Everything matters. People might not register why, but they’ll feel good using something you’ve vetted and picked intentionally. And that feeling will stick with them.

7) Give ownership to the team
Something else I harp on a lot - if you’re hiring people, giving them money, to do a job - then let them do that job. I mean really do it. Communicate your vision, absolutely, but let them flex the expertise you hired them for in the first place and make the task their own. When you hire well and give people space, they so often rise to the occasion.

8) “People” not “Users”
According to the article, Mark Zuckerberg would literally yell at his team members if they called the people who used Facebook “users”. He felt it was important to remember that they were talking about people. While I wouldn’t generally advocate for screaming as a motivator, I do think that referring to the people who come to your restaurant as “customers” puts you in a transactional mindset. A customer is what? Someone who gives you money. A guest on the other hand, is someone you serve, someone you feel a responsibility towards, someone you want to please.

9) Keep the right people on the bus
Some have criticized the tech industry for being too “fast to fire”, but they’re misunderstanding. It isn’t about being intolerant of mistakes or not allowing space for learning - it’s about vision and maintaining that vision. People are unique in terms of their contribution. While the right person while contribute to your vision in ways no tool or plan ever could, the wrong person will detract from that same vision in incalculable ways. If someone is not a fit for the mission, for the vision, you’re not doing them a favor by keeping them. You’re shackling them and dragging yourself down with them. Let them go with grace.

10) Have a big-ass vision
As a leader, you must develop the skill of seeing past the next dish, the next table, the next promotion. You have to learn to channel it all into something much bigger. Facebook’s goal of “connect the world” was a rallying cry for everyone onboard. Do the people who work for you have a similar clarity of purpose? Do you?

Which of these resonated with you the most? What’s one change you can make this week to apply these lessons? Shoot me an email at Kris@GetAFreshPerspective.com and let me know - I read every one.