The Founders of Cousins Maine Lobster Grow By Treating Everyone Like Cousins

Household will come to start with at Cousins Maine Lobster — where by the crew truly is family, or just needs all people to really feel like relatives.

Courtesy of Cousins Maine Lobster

The manufacturer commenced a ten years ago, when Jim Tselikis, who was residing in Boston, went to pay a visit to his cousin Sabin Lomac in Los Angeles to catch up. “When we had been reminiscing,” Tselikis says, “we realized that each time we had been with our loved ones, we would have lobster — stay lobster, lobster rolls, lobster mac and cheese.” Tselikis was in income and had no prior meals or cafe working experience. Lomac experienced labored in more than 20 eating places but was in authentic estate at the time. Nonetheless, they began to picture a organization in which they’d bring their cherished knowledge to individuals across the nation.

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Out of that, Cousins Maine Lobster was born. The brand name was launched in 2012, landed on Shark Tank (wherever they scored a deal with Barbara Corcoran), and now serves seafood out of extra than 30 vans and virtually 10 restaurants across 18 states. But as Tselikis says, spouse and children still drives this manufacturer.

You fellas experienced hardly ever run your individual company. How did you start?

It was about receiving 1 foods truck off the ground. A big issue was controlling funds, figuring out what to set into the business to give it a genuine opportunity to be successful. It can be also how significantly you’re going to perform for it. As an alternative of heading out on a Friday night time to drink beers, it really is dedicating that time to make confident that every single piece of your business is high-quality-tuned, buttoned up, and shielded.

As we started franchising, we did every little thing we could to understand how to succeed here. We have been studying an full new small business on top rated of our meals truck enterprise, and that does not occur overnight. You’re not an skilled in 12 months a single, but you master so considerably around time. Which is the major piece in all of this. You need to have to use studying experiences and change them into probable for the long term. That way, when the future spherical comes, you say, “What did I understand? How am I adjusting?” It’s constant.

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How has becoming family-centered impacted the organization?

We failed to go to organization university. We just desired to build a business enterprise that would be entertaining and significant. Our idea is, “If we improve with folks that we believe in that are blood, or as near to blood as probable, they will not likely allow us down and we will never permit them down, mainly because we’re all in on this mission with each other.”

When it arrives to franchising precisely, we experienced 2,000 requests immediately after Shark Tank, but we only awarded 10. We wished to make certain we chose the proper people, and we actually do contact them loved ones customers. We chose men and women that we understood would run a terrific small business, but also men and women whose lives we would want to discover about. Our connection with the franchisees is like, “Your son just graduated from significant college? Your daughter just got married? Let us grab a drink and discuss about it.” To me, that’s how you establish a really strong basis — when everybody is just invested in each other.

Acquiring now worked with so quite a few franchisees, what suggestions do you have for other folks who are wondering about getting a franchise?

To be a franchisee of a brand name, you want to invest in in — not just actually with your bucks, but also into the truth that this franchisor has performed this. They have this design and toolbox and the aid to make you successful, and it is really acquiring into that route compared to carrying out it on your very own.

It really is also about having an open up intellect. We listen to our franchisees. It’s not us compared to them. It’s incredibly harmonious. We know we’re not best, so if they have an notion, or if they see anything out in the discipline and want to carry it to us, we are all ears, simply because we know we can generally boost. So if a franchisee will come in and suggests they will not know every thing, but they are inclined to study and we can educate them, they’ll be prosperous.

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