 Do you find cooler people wanting to work here because your stores are cool and fashionable? I think it's a component. I think aesthetics matter specifically for younger demographics, but no, I think the core reason is because we're good to our people and we pay a livable wage and we do a lot of things that other restaurant businesses just don't do. Doug Jacob, co-founder of And Pizza. You ready to answer some questions? Let's do it. Pizza didn't seem disruptible. How'd you find the white space? Well, I think we started with developing the concept that reflected us as individuals and we were countercultured as ourselves and what we were doing and so we started with that. How important is the actual pizza? Product is a prerequisite today, specifically if you're going into urban markets where we're urban out, which means we start in urban cities and then we'll scale out to suburbs. So it's incredibly important. We take the quality of our pizza to great lengths and we make sure that the vendors that we work with are the best of the best. It feels like you have some leeway though because the brand is so cool and it's like all the design is great and it's like oh that already looks delicious. So I feel like the pizza's less of a factor when the branding is so hot. I think that that has happened not on purpose. I think that again though we continue to concentrate on the core economics of our business and obviously product being one of them and you're seeing in today's age that that's going to be more and more important. Sort of this pie in sky, I'm worth X, but the core fundamentals of the business don't work. You know that's going to come to I think an intersection and it already has. So we've yes we've we've had some leeway but we've also concentrated on the product the whole way through. Black is usually something people shy away from. Why'd you lean into it? It's the only color that my business partner wears. I've never actually seen him in color. So it started with that again. It reflects sort of our personal style and we're starting to change that and evolve that as the brand becomes a little bit wider and and a little bit more friendly. Notice the addition of the color yellow in your downtown store. Why? Truthfully it started because the space is very small and the worst way to make a space you know smaller is to paint it black. So yellow and white felt like a some sunshine in a place where we're close to a recession and and honestly there wasn't too much else behind it other than that. Now because we've liked the reaction from it and being a little bit more friendly as a brand we're going to introduce colors as we expand and scale. If you had to give a dictionary definition of your design aesthetic what would it be? Modernism meets bold colors. Has anyone tried fashion pizza before? Are there any copycats? There's certainly copycats now but no I don't believe prior to us there were but we are we're going to take it a step further and start start merchandising seasonality similar to a fashion brand. Do you find cooler people wanting to work here because your stores are cool and fashionable? I think it's a component I think aesthetics matter specifically for younger demographics but no I think the core reason is because we're we're good to our people and we pay a livable wage and we do a lot of things that other restaurant businesses just don't do. So much of a food service brand are the people that you interact with how do you make sure your employees are on brand? We make them interview via video which I think is quite different and we do that because they have to feel comfortable submitting themselves on video and because of that we know that they're comfortable in front of a customer so it helps us kind of weed out tribe members that that wouldn't be part of our culture or that wouldn't fit well with our customer. What do you love more business or pizza? Business. What was the hardest thing you've had to learn on the job? To work with others I like to be in control of the things that I'm in control of and so I think you know I've learned to deal with different personalities in in a better way than I used to. What part of the business sucks? I think the retail part of the business sucks they always dynamic that that that is dynamically changing and I think we are we are seeing sort of the the height of expenses when it comes to retail so that that's been the toughest part. So the overhead? The overhead yeah and it's capital intensive. What's next for you? Not retail business. How important is community? Community to us is is is incredibly important you know I think being a purpose driven brand and and not just using that as a buzzword that's where how we started and that's the core of us you know without community you really can't speak to speak. Now how many people do you think if they heard Ampizza would say purpose driven? I think out of our consumers that use our brand on a frequent basis close to 90% of them. As the outside it looks like a cool fashion brand I wouldn't say purpose but you keep saying purpose. Yeah I think in our in our largest market and as we start to build mass within each one of the markets you'll start to understand it better like you know New York City has three stores whereas Washington DC Virginia area has 18 stores so I think as we start to build up volume within our core markets you'll understand it better so maybe if I had to back up that answer if you're in the DC area it's probably 90% as we get into the new markets we probably could do a better job of of communicating that. Well part of your brand still needs work? Obviously our our ability to tell our story and being a purpose driven brand needs work. I would say that we need to continue to evolve to the marketplace to understand delivery it's difficult to maintain quality and third-party delivery is not an easy thing easy game to get so I think the delivery game and then you know we want to continue to refine our technology and our ability to communicate with consumers in the new way which we think we are doing through text. What is the key to your brand? The key to our brand is is the principles that that we stand behind and I think the product quality for sure. Who do you consider your competitor? We consider our competitor Domino's and Papa John's and and yes the the mods and the blazes of the world but we'd like to be on a stage where we're competing with larger pizza. How has the marketplace changed since you launched? Well I think the convenience continues to be the story you know people want still experience in store but they also want to be able to get the pizza when they when they want the pizza and they want the quality of that pizza to be you know as good as it is inside of the store so I think that this idea of being nimble with the size of our of our boxes has changed and I think we've been at the forefront of being able to do that so that we can serve you know people out of 400 square foot space the same way that we could at a 1500 square foot space. What's next and burgers? I think for us next is potentially something at CPG. Do you think some of the things that make and pizza special in the retail environment no longer translate into CPG space and what do you do to make up for that? I don't think it's always a one to one but I think as it pertains to our brand it does translate whether it's the shape it's the purpose behind it it's the style it's the taste it's the ingredients that are better we're not trying to be a cauliflower pizza or a healthy pizza but we're trying to be a pizza with better ingredients cleaner. Is there anyone that has tried to do what you've done before and are you looking at them as an example of what to and not to do? Within CPG or just in general? Well you offer a pizza and I presume there's a huge frozen pizza market so naturally other than California pizza kitchens the only one I can think of where they try to take the retail experience but in thing and if they don't align and one might mar the other brand yeah so what do you do to make sure that doesn't happen and people don't conflate them? Well I think we're positioned nicely as a retail brand to you know serve the masses which is why we have our eyes on on competing with big pizza and so because of that I think that there is a white space in the market for frozen pizza to also do the same so better for you cleaner ingredient cooler brand purpose-driven but still for the masses whereas you're seeing some of the specialty pizzas you know sell for you know upwards of $15 to $20 and then you have pizzas where they have a lot of you know fake cheese etc in it that are at $6 right so if we can position ourselves you know similar to what we serve inside of our retail stores at a $9 pie but with much better ingredients and without chemicals I think we'll we'll do quite well. So you said you compete with the big boys like Domino's and Papa John's in retail then who are you going to be competing with in the freezer? I think we're going to try and compete with the DeGiorno's and the Tombstones of the world and that that's our goal. Feels like you could do it. Yeah I think we can. What individual marketing PR media influencer has been the most impactful to date? I think the ones that we reacted to well that we didn't necessarily plan pizza intern. There was an intern in DC that kind of popped up in a moment when everybody was watching CNBC and was sitting there eating and pizza without knowing that there was a camera there and we were able to kind of merchandise that pretty quickly and and create hallway pizza. What's your social media strategy? For the brand it needs to reflect both the aesthetic that we carry through our stores as well as the principles that we have as a brand so it's sticking to those and being authentic towards those. Doug Jacob co-founder of Ann Pizza thanks for answering my questions. You got it. I'm Ian Wichagrad and we'll see you next time on I'm with the brand.