By his own admission, Simon Crowe is \u201cglass half empty\u201d character. A fear of failure evidently propels the founder and managing director of Grill\u2019d.<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n During our interview at a Grill\u2019d restaurant in Degraves Street in Melbourne\u2019s CDB, Crowe finds it hard to relax. He leaps from his seat several times to adjust unsatisfactory elements of the venue\u2019s d\u00e9cor and mutters about the lack of music in the restaurant\u2019s outdoor area. Our lunch is concluded with Crowe removing empty boxes and other debris from the restaurant entrance.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Such hands-on verve is admirable for someone in their sixth year of business ownership. But Crowe always knew that he wanted to be an entrepreneur (although it\u2019s a term he openly questions).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n His family ran a chemist for more than 30 years and Crowe fondly remembers going to the store after school for a lift home. Business ownership is in his blood.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI knew from a very early age that I would own my own business and it would be in that consumer space,\u201d he says. \u201cI love the consumer front end and I love brands.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fear of failure<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crowe drew up around 20 business plans before coming up with Grill\u2019d, with ideas spanning from pet insurance to Berrocca in a bottle, before the concept hit the market. The desire was there, but a terror at the prospect of failure was an obstacle then, as much as it\u2019s a driving motivation now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn many ways that fear of failure has been a driver of success but on the flip side it\u2019s actually quite paralysing sometimes,\u201d he says. \u201cYou become scared to take risks and you\u2019re afraid to act.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf you take the risk and the answer\u2019s no, the dream is over. Sometimes, intelligence can almost be negative. If you look at professors and people in academia, they generally theorise so much that they don\u2019t act, there\u2019s a counterbalance to any argument and therefore paralysis can sometimes set in.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Instead of plunging straight into a start-up following his degree at Melbourne University, Crowe joined pharmaceutical giant Proctor and Gamble. He was mindful that he didn\u2019t have the knowledge and skills to be a business owner, something that P&G, a \u201cwonderful employer\u201d according to Crowe, provided him.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI think I benefited from being in a corporate world and getting learnings in a sophisticated environment where systems and processes played a part and learning and development was key,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A less successful period followed at Davenport followed, where Crowe hoped to gain mentorship under the founder Clyde Davenport. His next move was to Foster\u2019s, but by now Crowe was determined to finally become his own boss. The only problem was that he didn\u2019t have a fully-formed business idea.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m really fortunate that the business experience I got gave me management and leadership skills, as well as confidence I probably wouldn\u2019t have otherwise,\u201d he says. \u201c(But) I felt I was running out of time. I was 31 when I left Foster\u2019s, not married, no mortgage and I suppose I felt if I let time slip by for too long I\u2019d have responsibilities at risk, rather than just my own ego.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Taking the plunge<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n A spell in the US with Foster\u2019s followed, which provided Crowe with fresh inspiration. After an unsuccessful attempt to secure a master franchise contract for the Build-A-Bear Workshop retailer, Crowe returned to Australia and finally begun work on his start-up. Even then, he did so with trepidation.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI wasn\u2019t frustrated as much as comfortable – I call it the scourge of the middle class.,\u201d he explains. \u201cMy parents made sacrifices to put me through a good school and in my mum\u2019s eyes, working for a corporate with international travel was success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThis country says if you try and it doesn\u2019t work, you\u2019ve failed. But we should be celebrating the fact that people are trying. Every failure and setback in the States is seen as a stepping stone for success.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Drawing upon his experience in the US, Crowe realised there was a gap in the healthy burger market. After bemoaning the fact that he couldn\u2019t find a decent burger anywhere, his friends helped convince him to finally take the plunge.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIn most countries, in the burger market there are the fast food players, the high end players and those in the middle,\u201d he says. \u201cAustralia didn\u2019t have any of that. It was very much a consumer proposition and I looked to explore the gap in the market.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe were in the pub talking about how it\u2019s hard to get a good burger and (my friends) said \u2018can you just do it? You\u2019re always full of ideas and never translate them into action.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The start-up process<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Crowe called upon the help of the partners that he worked with in the US to land the Build-A-Bear Workshop franchise, childhood friend Simon McNamara and ex-Foster\u2019s colleague Geoff Bainbridge, offering them 20% of the business each for their expertise, rather than money.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Realising that his skills were in brands rather than creating premium burgers, Crowe immediately hired two chefs and spent 12 consecutive Saturdays thrashing out the menu before launch.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The first restaurant, which opened in the Melbourne suburb of Hawthorn in March 2004, was funded through savings. An initial $200,000 was put into start-up costs before a further $70,000 was raised via a bank. After an initial jitter, business was booming.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI remember prior to opening, after we signed the lease, I had a panic attack,\u201d Crowe recalls. \u201cI drove down there on a Monday night, it had been raining and the street was desolate. I thought \u2018what are we doing? This is ridiculous\u2019.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n “The vision was always was to not grow a business that was one location only and that influenced how we went about the process. We spent a lot more money on point of sale system, branding and design than we would on one restaurant.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIt opened at $14,000 or $15,000 and that restaurant now does 30 grand. Because we moved the business on week on week, there wasn\u2019t a sense of \u2018oh my God, where is this going.\u2019 It was improving all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Growing the brand<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Grill\u2019d had five outlets by December 2005 and now has 35 restaurants across Australia. The stunning success of the brand has delighted Crowe, but he insists that complacency is the last thing that will ever afflict the business.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cThe worst thing we could do is become a top-down cookie cutter brand,\u201d he says \u201cWe see that so often with food in this country \u2013 when they scale up, they dumb down.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cOur big challenge is to grow without selling out. That\u2019s not in terms of me selling out, that\u2019s not going to happen \u2013 I want to be part of this journey for the next 10 to 15 years. But the real challenge is to take the road less travelled, let\u2019s invest more money into the business so that scale doesn\u2019t run down the operation.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Fear continues to be a major motivation for Crowe, who says: \u201cI was pleased to read that Dick Pratt, even as a billionaire, had that same fear. More often than not, people who are successful and are driven are paranoid about failing. It\u2019s not particularly healthy or balanced but I know that it drives me.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cI just have to make sure that the negative energy that drives me isn\u2019t conveyed to my people. If I played football and the coach said \u2018you\u2019re doing a shit job\u2019 that would spur me to prove him wrong. But if you do that to most people too often, they stop believing in themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Voucher woe<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n One high-profile glitch to hit Grill\u2019d was in March this year when a two-for-one voucher was printed in a student magazine, only for enterprising students to scan and email the voucher, leading to a deluge of copied coupons. Grill\u2019d refused the vouchers, leading to a rare reversal in Grill\u2019d\u2019s PR fortunes.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe don\u2019t own our brand,\u201d Crowe says. \u201cWe want our customers to own our brand. That means we\u2019ve set quite a high bar as their perception of us very much determines our success or otherwise.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201c(Customers) clearly said that they expect Grill\u2019d to be honest and to live by its principles and promises and they felt very strongly that we weren\u2019t.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWe needed to make sure that we understood the power of the internet, secondly, the unbelievable passion for Grill\u2019d out there. If I said that a bank or insurance broker promised something and delivered something else, you\u2019d almost expect it of them because it\u2019s not an industry that we respect or trust. We are different. But we are learning all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Look for advice \u2013<\/strong> \u201cAt the end of the day you have to back yourself, but there\u2019s nothing wrong with seeking advice.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cIf your skill set isn\u2019t broad enough, to manage that burden exclusively is debilitating, having something else involved can be beneficial.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cAs the leader of a business, irrespective of its size, you don\u2019t have peers anymore. You have colleagues and friends, but you can\u2019t share all of those frustrations. Having an outlet, people to speak to such as mentors, becomes important.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Plan properly, but act \u2013<\/strong> \u201cIf you don\u2019t plan properly, you won\u2019t succeed. But if you don\u2019t act, there\u2019s no chance of success. The thing I\u2019m most proud of, other than our baby, is Grill’d. The fact that I left a good job and had the balls to do it, no-one can take that away from me. I hope we\u2019re financially successful, but we\u2019ve given it a crack. I encourage people to do it, you just need support along the track.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By his own admission, Simon Crowe is \u201cglass half empty\u201d character. A fear of failure evidently propels the founder and<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":60295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42503"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42503"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42503\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/60295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}What are Simon Crowe\u2019s start-up tips?<\/h2>\n
<\/b><\/p>\n