Grant Quezada 0:00

You can create a business out of thin air and run it, but really you have to be able to have the foresight and tension with why am I actually building something. You know, like one, I'm building it for myself and my family. Two, you're building it for the people that you employ and the ability to create opportunities within the ecosystem of your community, right? Whether it's upward mobility for team members or the ability for them to connect with other people within the community so they can like spring out and move into other opportunities for them as individuals. It's that's your responsibility as a leader, right? Build something massive, bring people with you. And then if they leave, are they leaving or exiting on good terms and are you able to help them land on their feet somewhere else?

Trev Warnke 0:45

All right, guys, welcome back to another episode of the Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. Today we're here with Grant of Founding Fathers. I'm gonna have him dig into his personal life. We're gonna talk about why he started Founding Fathers, what Founding Fathers is all about, and we're gonna end with his legacy and where he's going with everything. So Grant, go ahead and kick us off.

Grant Quezada 0:58

Hey Troy, thanks for having me on, man. Yeah, so I'm from Prescott, met my wife in second grade, joined the military in 2006. So I was 22 at the time. Spent eight years in special operations. We had our oldest son at the time, last couple years in. I was she by the time he was two, I think I was deployed for another three times. So I was over there for nine deployments, and uh he was two, and I was already done with another three. And kind of at that point, it was like, okay, do I want to continually maintain this pace, you know, at a career level, or get out and kind of reinvent the wheel and do something different. So always love business and reading business books since I was about 14, 15, uh, and just find it fascinating with the ability and the freedom that business can give you in the sense of like everything is on the table. Your own creativity and drive and willpower really drives what your potential might be and what you're capable of doing. And there's no real guide rails. You know, it's like the last frontier you can you can tackle as an individual, which is business, small business, obviously growing business, and you have to do with a team. And so I got out in 14, started everything with a one-chair barbershop. Uh, two years later, had, or 16 months later, had two locations, and then a year after that bought a building. Um, a year after that, opened up the whole concept. So in the middle of COVID. But within that space, you know, it's a 12,000 square foot building, go a barber shop, nine-chair barber shop, open Saturdays a week, 12 hours a day, uh, a coffee shop, a tap wall, there's a cigar lounge, there's you know, Speakeasy, um, there's a jujitsu studio, a gym, dance studio, men's health. So I own the majority of them. Then there's a few businesses where you find the right partnerships and like bring them into the concept, and there's alignment there with with shared values and mission statements of like how they want to be perceived by the community, how they want to serve, how they want to bring people together. And then like everything, you know, iron show and iron, and you're just working together as a team to kind of create an elevated experience for uh the end user, right?

Trev Warnke 2:56

So what let's go back in time a little bit. What started like why barbershop? Like, why was that for you?

Grant Quezada 3:02

Yeah, so when I was 20, I moved from here out to Missouri, and so I got into hairdressing as a as a joke. So a buddy of mine, first day I was out there, he's like, opens up a birthday card and there's 500 bucks cash in it. This is time frame of like 2002 or three, and that's a lot of cash back then, especially when you're you're a 20-year-old kid, you know. So I asked him where he got the money, I'm thinking it's an uncle or something like that. And he tells me it's one of his parents' friends that was a hairdresser up in Baltimore and owned a salon. And he's like, dude, this guy sends me and my brothers $500 a year since we have kids. And I was like, dude, I could cut hair. And so he tells me, I could totally see you cutting hair. So went into hairdressing, worked in a university of town. There's about six universities or colleges in Springfield, Missouri at the time. And I was very blessed to get a job with still to this day a very good friend of mine, mentor, Paul Catlett, so Studio 417 out there. And he's taken that concept from like a couple chair salon into I think it's 15,000, 20,000 square foot salon, and he owns 10 or 15 barbershops now. And him and his wife are great friends. They have a couple of boys, but just a uh he's about nine years older than I am. Very motivated in the sense of business, very competent, very driven. And so worked with him for a couple of years, always wanted to go in the military and uh joined when I was 22. So when I when I got out, I knew that was a skill set I could fall back on, and that's that's what happened. Okay.

Trev Warnke 4:28

So yeah, I mean it's not the normal path. We see a guy your size, it's probably not that normal thing, but being like, it's nothing, I mean it's a it's a great profession. Service in general. Like I think a lot of people we went into this this 2010 on, people went into this true white-collar stuff, right? And everybody's investing in white-collar jobs, and now white collar is kind of being destroyed by AI and stuff, and we're looking at the true service-based industries from plumbing to electrical to barber shops to even like things like coffee shops and things of that nature, like are really the foundations of a community that people kind of forget about. So when you were designing Founding Fathers, did you have the initial idea these were the different businesses you want? What kind of or what kind of got you into, you know, obviously you're doing a barbershop already? I thought, okay, coffee shop, like what kind of created the design, the speakeasy and all that stuff.

Grant Quezada 5:13

Yeah, so so I got out in late 14, uh, I think August timeframe, I opened up the barber shop in December. It was a one-chair shop with, like I said, with about 16 months, went to two locations. But my goal was always how do I maximize the footprint of what I'm doing and create a like a master plan third space. And so that's kind of where the concept came from. And for me, looking at third spaces, it's like where do people congregate within a community? And it's in the space of hospitality, right? It's like gyms, it's coffee shops, it's bars, it's restaurants, barbershop, salons, stuff like that. And so I have a I've a huge passion for growing business and obviously empowering teams, but really a service to other people and like creating a uh a cohesive brand and concept that will collect the right type of people. And you really can't do that outside of hospitality. So there's plenty of other ways to make money and provide for yourself or your family within the business space. For me, like I said, I just I love people, I love the ability to create something unique that has some complexity to it. You know, nothing that's new. Everybody knows coffee shops and bars and restaurants and you name it. But where it gets unique and a little bit more difficult is like how do you bring everything under under one roof to where it works synergistically and cohesively and and it's a seamless experience for the client or the customer or the member on a daily basis, you know, and then you're creating a space where people come back and frequent you know every day, several days a week for a myriad of different reasons, whether they want a coffee, they want to go to the gym, or they want a cocktail, they want to come down for a date night or play games or use it utilize the spaces like we're in right now where they can be productive and and work in what they're doing for their profession. Uh and so that was the goal. So here we are six years later, you know, we're getting ready to revamp the whole concept. We're doing a massive remodel. Should be submitting to the city here within the next month. That'll be a whole 800 square foot kitchen, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, an entirely new bar within the speakeasy, revamping coverback patio, all sorts of stuff. So it's gonna be about a two, two and a half million dollar project build out. And then from that concept, the goal then is to grow into other markets. So hit Presky Valley, hit six or seven locations down in Phoenix, and then just start taking the model to other locations.

Trev Warnke 7:32

So yeah, I love. I mean, I've always looked at scale scaling businesses, but when you look at scaling businesses, most people go for the ones that are low, low, low ticket to scale, right? What yours is a high-ticket scale, right? Like cost-wise, because just for an addition here is gonna be two, two, two million, two point five million dollars. I don't think people realize how much money has to be invested in these kind of these ideas, right? I think the average person that's watching this that that's is in Prescott, they probably want to know more about founding fathers and that kind of stuff. But it's the the side behind that, I like to really point out to people like what um what are the struggles like these business owners go to to make these awesome things happen in the area that people don't realize? Because as entrepreneurs, we kind of know that journey that there's a lot of money behind it. There's a lot of not taking pay behind it, right? There's a lot of like there people think you own this big location or making, you know, this is called make millions of like grants, like really crushing it. But the amount you've had to invest back into it, people don't even realize. And like, so just talk about some of the like I wouldn't call it pitfalls. What are the struggles of like building something like this and even keeping this going?

Grant Quezada 8:32

Yeah, a lot of that is you need vision and clarity. And so you need to understand what's your end goal. I had a a dear friend of mine who's known me since I was a kid. I grew up with his sons, but he was my CPA for the first several years. And and when I was getting started in business, one of the first books he gave me and rec highly recommended was The E Myths and read that book. But one of the pieces of advice he said too was, hey, you need to build this thing with an exit in mind. So you can't just you can, you can create a business out of thin air and run it, but really you have to be able to have the foresight and tension with why am I actually building something. You know, like one, I'm building it for myself and my family. Two, you're building it for the people that you employ and the ability to create opportunities within the ecosystem of your community, right? So whether it's upward mobility for team members or the ability for them to connect with other people within the community so they can like spring out and move into other opportunities for them as individuals. It's that's your responsibility as a leader, right? Build something massive, bring people with you. And then if they leave, are they leaving and or exiting on good terms and are you able to help them land on their feet somewhere else, right? The vision and goals that I have for Founding Fathers is I'm growing it, you know, they're mine because I want to see if what I'm capable of doing as a person. What can I build as a man? How can I make a massive impact in a local community? Who can I do it with? How are we going to do it? What's the impact that we leave? What's the legacy we leave? But on top of that, the people that I employ, what what do they want to do? You know, are they willing to go along for the ride and be a part of the brand and what we're doing and service to other people? Or do they need the job for a year or two as a placeholder until they graduate college or or they move on to something else? It's a lot easier to define that when you have clarity of what you're doing and what people's personal, professional, financial goals are and where they want to go. And then everything is laid out on the table. So when the time comes that they might leave, I'm already aware of that. And it's like, dude, let me figure out how to help you out. You you said you've been wanting to do this for a year and a half. The time's come. I've made the proper deductions for them. They can then spring into another opportunity that you know is more vectored in a vein or focus that they want to get to. So it's it's fun to do business in that capacity because everything is kind of seen on the table. And it's not like as the business owner or the entrepreneur, you're you're holding everything tight-handed and in fear constantly of losing good people. It's like, hey, you have to invest in the people knowing that they're going to leave. But if if they can leave better than when they got there, then you're doing something right as as the owner, as the operator, as the other thing.

Trev Warnke 11:09

Do you do you find it a struggle at all in a smaller town like Prescott to find the talent that you need to keep growing this thing?

Grant Quezada 11:16

I've always heard that. I haven't really found that. We haven't found it as a team. A huge part of that, though, is we're very clear on like what our mission, vision, values are, what we're trying to do, what we're trying to incorporate, how we're helping the people out, the type of people we're looking for within the organization. And so because we have that level of clarity, we know exactly who we want to hire. And we're very clear on because of those mission, vision values, like this is what we hire and fire by. And so everybody on our team knows that. Uh there's a healthy level of balance, healthy level of accountability. Um, it's a fun work environment. And so it I haven't seen really having any problems with finding the right people because we just know who we're looking for. And so we tend to attract those type of people into our organization, right? You want people who are proactive as an individual, who have hobbies, who have some level of ambition or drive in their own personal lives, and they're not just here to to check in and check out, right? That the goal is how do you create an ecosystem that provides opportunities for people within the vertical stratosphere of what you're building, but also opportunities outside if they need to leave. And you need to cultivate that, but more importantly, you need to teach them how to cultivate it within themselves to where they have they they are figuring out how to goal set, they're figuring out their own autonomy, they're figuring out how to find drive and motivation to excel in their own lives. And that's a that's it's a harder way to do business, but it's far more fun and it's far more impactful when you can like speak into other people's lives and get them motivated about their own life and like what they're capable of doing.

Trev Warnke 12:49

Yeah, and I think one thing that, like you said, the reason you haven't found an issue that I've seen for other businesses over the time of worked in business coaching and stuff is when you have a vision truly where you're going, you create this own referral system of like employees that start referring good quality people to you because they want to work with them. You come with members that are like, I want I'd love my son worked here, kind of thing. So you build that culture, that culture comes first, and the great talent actually usually follows it. Whereas most businesses go chase after the great talent, hoping it will improve their business instead of the reverse process. So I love how you kind of approach that. Like we're gonna go through the values and standards first, and we will cultivate the right people and you're growing those people versus expecting them to come. I think in a small community like Press, get people get uh a little bit wrong in this idea is it's gonna be really hard to attract great talent from like Phoenix to come up because homes are expensive here. Um there's not maybe as many kids here comparable to maybe Phoenix, so the sports and stuff aren't as diverse. So there's other reasons why people talent might not want to come. There's a lot of talent here that can be homegrown into that. And the average business, though, doesn't want to invest in the people like you are.

Grant Quezada 13:48

Yeah, when you're a smaller business or when you're getting started, so much of that responsibility falls on the leadership, right? Like it's your ability to cultivate and kind of set the precedence and the cadence and the and the vision of where you want to go and how you're gonna get there, who you're doing it with. But you need to bring your team with you, and that means you have to invest into what they're doing and how to do it properly within the organization. You know, you have to empower them. You have to set that left and right limits of what that looks like, success or fail. And then you have to be able to ultimately trust them to do the right thing. Everybody wants to be seen as a competent person. They want to be seen and trusted for why you put them in that position. And something that might take me five steps to figure out on the floor, somebody can figure it out in two or three, and it's like, well, I don't need to be hamstrung to my own proclivities or my not proclivities, but my own naivety naivete or my my own ego on, hey, this is the proper way to do it. You know, it's like, hey, this is what's worked for me. Maybe you can figure it out faster, or maybe they do it in seven steps instead of my five, or they do it in two or three steps instead of my five. But as long as the job is done and they feel like they have the autonomy to get it done correctly, that's what you want. You want people who can think for themselves, problem solving themselves, and they're not constantly hitting a wall and then immediately instead of problem solving, it's like, I'm just gonna go ask the leadership team. I don't know how to do this, you know, because then as a leader, you're constantly getting drugged back into like having to fix basic things that you know you've you've learned over time, and you need to empower your team to do that for you so you can continually grow and and get to those next levels.

Trev Warnke 15:27

Yeah, I think uh I maybe your military background helps with that a little bit, like trying to like get people to be to own their own skill. But I think the average, specifically white-collar group of people, they're still used to like, I'm just gonna create an SOP and this person's gonna follow the SOP. The issue comes in, problem solving doesn't happen in SOPs. So you still have to have an SOP and get that idea laid out. However, I don't think the average business owner is really empowering their team. They want to have this like high level of control. Mistake goes wrong, they want to come down on these guys, versus like, hey, that was a mistake. Let's figure out figure out how to how we're gonna fix this. You come with the answer on how to fix it. I would say for the majority of business owners don't think that way.

Grant Quezada 16:02

Yeah, yeah. You have to be you ideally you come to a lot of different problems with I mean, you you can come with solutions, but your goal is to cultivate a culture to where you're allowing your team to create their own solutions. There's always going to be problems. Doesn't matter where you're at. That's just the human condition, condition of businesses or life in general. So can you get individuals to think for themselves and problem solve for themselves and feel like they have the autonomy and the authority to like make the right decision? And at the end of the at the end of the day, even if they make the wrong decision or poor decision, it's not like that's going to tank the business. You know, you it and it's okay. We all learn through fail failure or a setback. That's the best way to learn, right? You you do something, you make a decision, it's a poor decision, or it's the wrong decision. How quickly can you adapt, overcome, you know, how resilient are you as a person? And so if you don't teach people how to do that or invite them into a better version of themselves, then you're constantly setting yourself up to be like the nanny, right? Or the constant parent. And at some point, you know, if we're all adults, it's like I don't want to be constantly watched over and being told what to do and not trusted to be competent in my skill set or my job.

Trev Warnke 17:19

So Yeah, I was actually talking to somebody recently about salaries for for employees, and uh, they're talking about, well, I don't think they do more to be worth more money to me. And I said, Well, the biggest obstacle you're running into is one, you're at not giving them the ability to do more. You're only giving them the ability of what you want for parameters on this person. But even if you just give somebody, open up somebody's ability to do more in your business in general, sometimes they don't even want more pay. They just want the ability to, like I like you kind of said, like, why are you pushing founding fathers to this this limit? Like, how far are you going to go with it? Because you want to reach your full potential, what you're capable of, challenge yourself. Everybody has that challenge. It just looks different in their life on how that challenge looks.

Grant Quezada 17:54

Yeah, and we're not, it's it's not like you know what your full potential is until you hit it. And then are you capable of going further? And are you capable of going further? And so the pursuit for me as an individual, as a man, is like, what am I capable of achieving in the sense of like, how big can I grow a concept? How many people can I employ? How many people can I empower? How many people can what are the opportunities within what I'm building that really provides longevity to where people are like, I can see a career here. I started here and I exited here and I have you know a Roth IRA or I have a retirement or have medical, you know, like what other reason is there to grow a business than than actually growing it for it to be successful for the owner, operator, and for the rest of the team? You know, you can't do anything without people. So you need to understand the vehicle that's going to get you to where you're going as people.

Trev Warnke 18:47

So as a father, you have three kids? Yes. Yeah. So what are the obstacles you see? Because I kind of look at a business like this, like there's probably more late later hours than the average business owner thinks about, also possibly more early mornings. What are some of the obstacles you've seen as being a father, like running one of these businesses, and how have you like one, like talk to your family, like, hey, these are the obstacles, these are why I'm doing this. You know, the idea of teaching your kids why we do the work we do. Um, what's kind of your philosophy on the family and how you kind of attack that?

Grant Quezada 19:15

I just incorporate my family into what I'm doing. So I have three kids, 14 down to nine, 14, 11, and nine. And so, you know, they they hang out at the business, they're always hanging out, talking, conversing. I'd much rather put them in that that atmosphere that we've created where you're collecting good people. And then my my children by by being in that atmosphere ecosystem, they're conversating with adults or having thinking differently or processing or learning how to conduct themselves as younger people as they navigate their way through age and through maturity. And and I think it's a very healthy environment by just including them in what we're doing instead of trying to hey, you guys can't come around here or you need to be home. Um, and they might get in the way here and there, that's children, but it's okay. You know, like you have to figure out how to have that. We all hear that term, work-life balance, but the reality is like there's no such thing. You know, you're you're always gonna be working, you're always gonna be thinking of something to problem solve or fix, uh, and you just need to include your family in on that story of what you're doing. You know, ultimately, the legacy I'm trying to leave with on the business of of course is gonna affect my family, but if I can't steward and and lead my family, then I'm not gonna do a good job doing it at the business side. So you I just incorporate both and love having my kids around, love introducing other people, love the ability for them to have conversations and talk with people that are you know 10, 15, 20 years older, and actually carry on in in some capacity a dialogue, and even if it's not them just simply being scared of adults, you know, like not knowing how to conversate or ask questions or articulate themselves, those are good skill sets to have. And there's I I don't know of a better atmosphere to learn that than within the hospitality space where your job is service to other people, but it's also dealing with people who might be persnickity or have issues with, you know, something went wrong here or it goes wrong there, and how well you can how well can you receive the criticism or the critique or or the problem and turn it into a win, looking for the opportunity to turn it into a win. And in the reality of business in general, it doesn't matter. I tell this to my team all the time, but it doesn't matter what you're doing in the in the context of how you provide for yourself, whether you're a doctor or an attorney, a plumber, a construction worker, a barista, that's that's what you're doing to provide for yourself. But the business we're all in is people. So the faster you can realize that and understand it, you realize that's how you're gonna get the traction or the momentum you need in order to grow as an individual or to grow other people around you. Like most of the problems or most of the solutions you're looking for, you have to have the gumption and the drive to figure it out, but you also understand. Like there are going to be people that are a little older, a little wiser. Maybe one or two or five runs up the ladder than you when it comes to success, whatever that might look like. They've been there, they've done it. And if you have the humility to just ask for help or guidance, you're going to get there far faster through working with people than trying to just bash your head into the same wall.

Trev Warnke 22:21

I mean, what you're doing there is exactly what my dad did. So he owned a owns a big manufacturing corporation. We were kids, like, I just remember you just go to the factory, you do the work, you're just around there, you're goofing around. But also we learned a weld at a young age that most kids didn't get that experience. You got to learn how to do AutoCAD, all the things that it stimulated creativity for me as a kid to learn all these different skill sets. Now, when I was in school, maybe that stuff wasn't as interesting. But when I was at the factory, like all this stuff is cool because I can see how that stuff's being put together, while I'm actually using it in the real world. And for your kids, the advantage is like, hey, this is, you know, maybe when I'm in school, some of the stuff will be interesting, but it'll portray back to like us talking to this older guy that was like reading these books. I'm like, oh man, that's really cool. And then maybe they're more interested in that stuff. So getting them in environments where they can actually see how life skill sets work. I think that's one of the biggest issues with kids before college, is they go to college thinking they know what they want to do, but have never experienced any parts of life. And they get out of college and be like, oh wow, I need all these other skill sets that I have no idea how to do to actually just run to do any business.

Grant Quezada 23:19

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you can have a certain level of intelligence, obviously that's going to get you pretty far. Uh, but your emotional intelligence or your relational intelligence carries a lot of weight. You know, you can you can make up for a lot of things with just hard work and determination. Intelligence plays a key factor, but if you don't know how to relate to other people or show some level of emotional intelligence with people that are around you, your peers, people that are above you, people who are below you, whatever it might be, you're only going to get so far, you know? And so it's you're gonna hit a point of stagnation of Peter's principle where you're kind of stuck and you have to get out of your own way to figure out like, do you one, do you have the humility to figure out, okay, I'm I'm stuck, or I'm at a point where I I I haven't been before, and can you figure out how to like pop into a different vertical or or pop over and and reinvent yourself or or continually refine yourself? And that that is the pursuit of life, right? Ideally, I don't I'm not the same man now in my 40s as I would be in my 70s or 80s, and I'm not the same man in my forties as I was at 15 or 20 or 25. So you should always constantly be pursuing like refining yourself, adding value to yourself, refining who you are, your character, your growth, your intelligence, you know, your educational level. Um and if not, life gets really boring, right?

Trev Warnke 24:43

So Yeah, I mean, if it if any young if there's a young person watching this at all, I think for most successful entrepreneurs, it's pretty rare that the first business that we go into, the first location we go into is actually where we end up. But it's just kind of like building skill sets over time. Like I gotta get this skill set to almost go to that next skill set to you're just accumulating skill sets long enough to really develop enough to be, hey, I can own some component of this, or I have enough, I have enough mission behind what I want to do to go to that next phase.

Grant Quezada 25:14

Yeah, I I think I was reading statistically, I think our generation and maybe a little older, most people in the workforce, it's somewhere on like 40 different jobs that rotate through through their life. Whereas we go to our grandparents and it's like two or three. Yep. You know, they kind of got to the factory or whatever it might be and they stuck in that type of career path for 15, 20 years because the opportunities largely weren't there, or because the lack of awareness or understanding of what's around them because they just didn't have the internet. They didn't have the ability to understand, like, dude, I can do this or I can do that. And so in today's day and age with the modern era, you know, some of the positives with social media or the internet is the ability to really understand opportunities that are out there and then how to figure out how do I get there. You know, like do I want to do this job? You know, I can do this step and then I I can ladder over here. Uh, and it's because of connectivity.

Trev Warnke 26:07

So no, and it's the idea that you talked about a lot is like hard work. You just got to consistently put your head down in a sense of whatever you're doing, be in whatever you're doing for a long enough period of time, develop a really strong skill set, not worrying about what the next job is. And I think even for us, as like you're building out founding fathers to a bigger thing, I'm working on building the brotherhood to a national level. It's the idea is like we still have to have our feet where they're at. Like we've got to build whatever this current model is to capacity to prove that this next stage. So for you guys, like here's what founding fathers almost like your vision, here's what it needs to hit for me to feel confident to now just go to PV. Yeah. And then we have these metrics, not just like just because you have a good idea means it scales. Like, no, there's a lot of hard work that goes from stage to stage. And for anybody working jobs, a lot of hard work to go from job to job to job and build that skill set, but you got to just give it time. And for me, it's like follow God's mission, right? Like wherever God's mission's taking you, that's kind of the you just gotta be listening long enough to hear.

Grant Quezada 26:58

So yeah, absolutely. Your ability to I mean sc scale something at any level. You you have to put in all that hard work on the back end, you know, like how do we replicate the KPIs, the metrics, you know, what are the SOPs? What's the standards? What are the roles and responsibilities for each one of the positions? You know, what's the cost incurred to go into purchasing a building compared to like leasing or renting? You know, what's the what's the buill out cost? What's the economic value in the community we're going into? You know, what's the median household income? What's the demographics? How many people are in this area or region? Is it sustainable? Uh if I open up one of the Prescott Valley, am I going to cannibalize from this location 10%? Is that is that sustainable? Or is it going to be like 50%? And then we tank both locations. So you have to be very wise with what you're doing. And I don't know all the answers, but the reality is like I know people that do, or I know companies that help you scale and do this stuff properly. So it's that's where it's worth that front-end investment to figure out how do I do this properly to where I don't fail and break, uh, and then create those opportunities vertically within the business to continually grow and offer long-term benefits and value to the people on our team.

Trev Warnke 28:15

Well, with today's social media, the problem that you see is like these things scaling so fast or these people growing, making millions of dollars so fast. But I don't remember where I saw it exactly. But the average millionaire starts their business at 42 years old and they've had to build enough skill sets up a long enough period of time to be able to even create whatever that business is. And then that that business doesn't turn into a million-dollar business until like they're 52. So it's like a 10-year window of time of them like proving these ideas versus the ones that are scaling super fast. I've seen a lot of businesses go out of business real fast because they saw an idea, it did well to start off with they scaled so fast, which is like what your guys are doing. It's like, hey, we're gonna get all these metrics figured out. Scale can happen really fast when you have the right model. And like, okay, we've proven it multiple times now. We can go, this thing could take off with just finances at that point. But the scalability is not how much money you can get from other people. The the scalability is the model working efficiently right each spot. So that way when you invest the money in, you don't lose all that money.

Grant Quezada 29:09

Yeah, very, very true. You know, and that's that's a whole nother level and a game to play in business, which extremely peaks my curiosity of like what am I capable of doing? And how do we do this together as a team? And how does the concept grow? And like I said earlier, you can't do anything without people. So if you're trying to create something that has massive value to the organization, to all the team members, to the community, which is what a business does, it serves the community at some capacity, wherever it might be. I'm a dentist, I'm a doctor, I'm a lawyer, plumber, electrician. Breeze, you're adding value to the people within the team, and then by extension, the people that want your services. And so as an individual, it's like, I believe I'm capable of more. I'm up for the challenge, I love a good challenge. Life is challenging. So it's like, let's just keep going. You know, like what can I what can I capably hold myself to and how when I hit my own Peter principles, how quickly can I adapt and overcome and pivot and make the right decisions, you know, and and keep moving in some direction, you know, obviously in a growth trajectory.

Trev Warnke 30:19

So and that's what you're saying right there is exactly what makes entrepreneurship fun to me. The average person sees it that sees a business like, oh, they get freedom of time. It's not as free of time as people think it is. Um, they get freedom to make how much money m how much mover money they want in a sense, but there's a lot of like putting back into the business for a long period of time to actually make the wages that people think you might make. But the for us, like people like us, it's like, I mean, I this it's endless. Whatever I can do is up to what I'm capable of doing and what I'm capable of building other people to do. So it's all on me, which I think is the most fun part. It's the game, like being a former athlete, like it's the only thing left I have that's truly competitive where it's like it's only me versus me, really. It's not me versus other businesses. It's me versus me and compet competing from the best version of what I can do. And that's what's like what wakes you up every day is like that's super exciting because it's all on me and that's actually really fun.

Grant Quezada 31:05

Well, completely agree, man. There's there's only a small minority of people in the world of America that can really step out and and risk it all. You know, you have to have a high risk tolerance in order to open up your own business in order to grow it. You know, opening is not you're wearing all the hats, you know. So you have to understand the finance, the management, all the structures, the SOPs. You have to be the technician. And then you slide in another person, and then you have to figure out like, okay, how do I train this person to do or replicate one or two or three of my tasks? You know, then it's another person, then it's another person. And so everything, everything rises and falls in leadership, right? How well can you create a culture that you're empowering your team, but also invested in your team's success and like teaching them to succeed and and giving the grace needed where where need be when they might mess up. You know, we all do, it's fine, but I think it's one of the best worthiest causes you can do as a human being is like create something out of nothing, right? And it's controlled chaos. I love it, you know, coming from the military side. It's I think my brain was definitely rewired and working in that environment for so long in the special operations community. And so this whole notion of going back into working as a civilian and doing a nine to five, I just can't do it. You know, like I have to work kind of just all the time doing doing something productive and and having the flexibility to like, like I said, I today I hopped on a call regardless of business at 6 a.m. for a Zoom call, it was supposed to be an hour, almost two hours. Then it came over here and it's like so you just you're creating time. You know, how do you maximize your time? How do you maximize your schedule? When can you fit things in? When you're focusing in the business, on the business, outside the business, growing the business, who are you doing it with? So it's it's a fun place to be, but it's not for everybody. And you know, most people in life are they have a stabilizer of personality. You know, they want stability, they want to know the left and right limits, they want to just show up and perform, be relied on to do it. And if you thrust them into a chaotic position of like, hey, you have to take ownership of something and run and manage and problem solve on the fly, that's a very uncomfortable place for a lot of people to be in. So it's it's definitely a mindset. I would assume you probably have to be born with it, but at some level too, you you probably had to experience a lot of adversity in your life in order to do it well. And because there's always going to be setbacks or there's gonna be problems or unforeseen issues that you're gonna have to come up with solutions that you haven't before and keep your wit about you while everything else is failing, like the famous poem by uh Rudyard Kiplin If. I don't know if you've ever read that. Fantastic, it's not my favorite. But yeah, can you keep your wit about you while everything else is failing? And it's it's a difficult place to be in, but it's also extremely rewarding and very exciting to really understand like what am I capable of doing? You know, am I capable of moving to the next level? Yeah.

Trev Warnke 34:00

Yeah. And the thing I'm gonna put out there for uh other business owners is decide that like the average person in your life, obviously, not even average, majority of people in your life won't understand the mindset that we have. Like my wife, she didn't come from an entrepreneur family. I did come from an entrepreneur family. So my family understands like kind of the cost trade-off. My wife, when we first started doing it, she didn't come from that. So when when when stuff would get a little chaotic, she'd like, oh, are we gonna be okay? I'm like, honey, and we're always okay. Like I have no doubt, I will bet on myself every single day. And twice on Sunday, I will do it every single time because every single obstacle comes up, there's a way out of it. Worst case, worst case scenario, I have to go work for somebody else and I'm the best employee they've ever had. Like, big deal, but I'm probably not gonna do that, right? So it's just like I had the idea of betting on yourself. And like you talked about a little bit, I think, uh, from like your different experiences of people who met you over life and people that are still in your life, is like having a circle of people that you can rely on that are at that level or higher than that level is a valuable tool for you. Like we call it kind of like your circle is your ceiling. Like you have to have people that surround you that kind of you still have to have some people you can go to, like, because I don't have a lot of people I can talk to about the chaos. It's nice to have people that do understand chaos, like, dude, it's fine, you're gonna be fine. Usually they're they're they're pet probably like, dude, you're gonna be fine. Just get over it, get over yourself. So it's kind of nice to have that circle. Do you have a circle like that?

Grant Quezada 35:11

Yeah, I do. I have several, several really close friends that are all entrepreneurs or business owners, so they understand the stress and the chaos of managing what they're building. Um start to wrap up. But they understand the stress and uh of what they're building, and so the the positive is like we can talk at that same level. You know, it's not it's just that finding the other individuals for us, you know, it's like my circle is going to be a bunch of my male friends, but you find the people that are your peers, then you ideally you can find a circle that is above you by a generation or so, 10, 15 years, 20 years that have gone through what you're doing, and then when you're going, when you're griping up, they can help you reframe it because they've largely all of them have been there before. So if they're good or if they persisted and you know persevered and had resiliency, they popped out the other side, but they all have the same stories. Dude, I almost failed here, went a debt over here, had a bar money here, had to leverage this, had to sell this, and then if they just kept with it at some level, they pop out 10, 15 years later, 20 years later. And so it's good to have your core group of buddies that you're going through the chaos with, but then also can you find mentors or older men that have experienced that, you know, once or twice or three times, you know, like, hey, I started a business here, multiple businesses exited, and you can glean information from them and realize like, dude, everybody goes through this. This it's not just another that is experiencing this setback or this problem or this issue. It's like that is par for the course. You know, it is controlled chaos. How quick can you identify the issues, come up with something that is a reasonable solution, and then execute on it because action and momentum is it's needed. You have to make action, massive, you know, clarity on what you're doing and move forward, get off of X.

Trev Warnke 37:03

So Yeah, no, it's I mean, having older mentors is something I think most people kind of has like they're no longer they're not doing business now, but the chaos they went through is just as chaotic as you did. And like you said, a lot of times it'll be kind of like you're kind of just whining because realistically you you got three more steps where you have to really worry, and you're a long ways away from that. So it is cool to have that. So let's go ahead and wrap up. I want to kind of end on where are you going? Where's founding fathers going? Like I've already you've kind of talked about the book. What's the the future of what where you're going on your path?

Grant Quezada 37:32

Yeah, the goal is starting submitting to the city. I ideally we start the entire remodel at the end of the year. So, you know, you have to deal with the city and refinance the bank, all this other moving pieces in order to get it to the next level. Based on the timelines, red lines of the city and uh recapitalizing and reinvesting back in the business, we're talking November timely. Build-out should be around five or six months. You know, we did the entire build out for Founding Fathers Collective, and it was from start to finish gutting the entire building, and everything was brand new. That was eight months. So all we're doing is like the south side, the south side of the building. So I think reasonably six months. It's gonna be a you know quite a large project, but we can compartmentalize it and break it into rooms without having to shut down the whole place. So it should be open, you know, late spring 2027, and then during that phase and timeline, then it's really focusing on okay, how do we how do we start identifying where the next locations are, how we're gonna do that, how we're gonna fund it, what does that look like? Templating out the the entire business model to understand everything we talked about earlier, like the correct SOPs, what the financial targets are for each one of the concepts, how everything's codified under one roof, what the technology package is, I mean, absolutely everything. It's all the fun business stuff that you need to understand and and identify and have clarity on in order to grow to that next level. And I foresee I really want to get to Prescott Valley because it's right in our backyard. And ideally that would be like the flagship, meaning, hey, that the template of that 45,000, 50,000 square feet is home in Prescott. This was the proving ground in Prescott, but Prescott Valley is like where the the flagship is, and then Peoria, because that's North and they've done a phenomenal job of building out their infrastructure uh on how they're gonna grow as a community, but then identifying key locations down in the valley, so like Chandler, Gilbert, you know, Mesa, Phoenix, Scottsale. So hit those areas.

Trev Warnke 39:34

Very cool. So let's go ahead and leave 70% of our beership are business owners. So just talk just a quick little thing about like what business memberships you guys have here.

Speaker 39:42

Thanks, man. Yeah, so we have three three different business levels. So we have a the membership or the speakeasy was built with intention of of collecting the right people. I hate bars and when I when I bought my liquor license and then built out the whole concept and knew I was gonna do a bar, it was my biggest consternation was how do I how do I do this well to where it's not a race to the bottom or degrading in the sense that you're only seeing the worst in people, but how are you adding value and bringing people into the concept, the right people, right? So the goal was really just finding the productive, finding productive people within the community, largely within the business space who are still working and productive and like understand economically like what their focus is and then what's going on in the in the grayer area. And so we the goal is to attract those type of people and put them into a room, you know, in in the extension of Founding Fathers Collective, and then they're doing life together, they're doing business meetings, they're working within the space, they're hosting parties, they're coming to parties, so the three different levels, like a solo, which is 3,000. It's easier to find all the information on the website. So if you just go to Founding Fathers Collective.com, that you can find the memberships, and then we set up a meeting. There's only three of us that sell memberships. So our goal, of course, is how do we maintain the culture within the Speakeasy and find the right people that see value in what we're doing? How can we add value to them as individuals or collectively as maybe their team, and then bring them on board? So our retention rate for six years in in with the concept being open is about 84% year over year. So that's pretty phenomenal for retaining a membership level status. Uh and then I know as as the whole revamp happens, there'll be a massive amount of clarity and and new stuff that we're offering for the memberships.

Trev Warnke 41:29

Yeah, and and I mean I've been a member almost a year now, and you guys are just every single month it's gotten better and better, more events coming on, just like little things that make a huge difference. For me, I've drawn the majority of our business just out of there. You know, even just being able to use these rooms have been really beneficial to like being like, hey, we're gonna do it at Founding Fathers. Well, everybody knows where that's at, you know? And the ones that don't, it's kind of cool. Business owners walk in and be like, whoa, I didn't know this thing was here. That's kind of cool too. Like, yeah, guys, like this is and then we talked about business memberships a little bit because like it's valuable because then I'm hanging out here. I'd love you guys hung out here too, because then we have a chance to talk business and do things together and like sometimes work side by side while you're working on projects, like we work on stuff. So it's a cool uh just I look at it obviously from a personal side for people in the area, it's really cool. But as a business owner, it's very unique because it's a spot where we can actually come together, hang out, do business together. I think more business owners need to do business together just instead of just trading leads, actually doing business together.

Grant Quezada 42:19

Yeah, absolutely. And and that is what Founding Fathers is. You know, it's like, how do you create the proverbial table that everybody can participate in and somebody needs to own that space? And so I created the space and everybody else that's in business. It's sometimes it's a little awkward when it's like I have to go to his office or he has to come here, or where do we find the random coffee shop he can go to, or maybe over dinner, and that's that's fine. But the focus and the goal for Founding Fathers Collective was creating like a master plan third space that collects individuals within the community that brings them together, and that you know, ideally we're shopping in each other, right? Like your water bottle says, Iron Shop and Zion. So you're bringing people together that then can be productive in each other's lives or their own lives, but you're doing it through an organic level of networking that that that's the best way to move the needle, right? It's like, how can I meet people? How can I genuinely be interested in them, their stories, and where's the where's the synergy between what you or I might be doing that we can then work together to like, hey, I'll I'll support you over here because you got this type of business, you support me over here, and your network continues to grow and like everybody succeed.

Trev Warnke 43:26

So yeah, that's a unique thing in Frescate, like where I came from in Illinois, just doesn't happen that way. So even like the Phoenix thing, when you go to Phoenix, creating a space like that, and you almost almost have to train people a little bit in the community, but like this is something that's actually okay. Like small communities can do that, big communities get almost trained people to go into that. So that's an obstacle that you guys will have to figure out as you go to. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, man. Um I appreciate your time today, Grant. Guys, thanks for joining us for another episode of the Brotherhood Beyond Business Podcast. You can find Founding Fathers Collective at Foundingfathers Collective dot com, all over the place on social media as well. Follow their stuff, join their memberships, come hang out with us. Talk to you guys later. Subscribe, turn on notifications, and stay locked in. Brotherhood is more than business. It's about leading from the front, leveling up in every domain, and becoming the CEO of your own life. Step up, execute, and we'll see you in the next one.