{"id":45173,"date":"2023-10-20T15:41:39","date_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:41:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/startupsmart.test\/2023\/10\/20\/prevailing-from-the-mexican-stand-off-startupsmart\/"},"modified":"2023-10-20T15:41:39","modified_gmt":"2023-10-20T15:41:39","slug":"prevailing-from-the-mexican-stand-off-startupsmart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/uncategorized\/prevailing-from-the-mexican-stand-off-startupsmart\/","title":{"rendered":"Prevailing from the Mexican stand-off – StartupSmart"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Guzman<\/div>\n

Steven Marks\u2019 enthusiasm for Guzman Y Gomez, the Mexican restaurant chain he started up, is palpable. He speaks about the business with the excitement of someone explaining their \u2018eureka\u2019 moment for the first time.<\/p>\n

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Marks\u2019 verve is evidenced by the first Guzman Y Gomez (named after two childhood friends, commonly abbreviated to GYG) outlet he opened, in the Sydney district of Newtown in 2006.<\/p>\n

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The desire for authenticity saw a Mexican chef flown in to oversee the food, with Latin staff and Mexican-sourced ingredients aimed at appealing to Australian tastebuds that, Marks felt, had been missing out on a genuine Mexican gastronomy.<\/p>\n

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However, Marks had to correct several missteps before the business became cashflow positive, six months ago.<\/p>\n

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Consumers just didn\u2019t get the concept to begin with. Despite this, he insists in typically upbeat fashion that the initial \u201cpain\u201d of starting up was crucial to GYG\u2019s success.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI would never give up the pain of those first three years, ever,\u201d he states. \u201cIt was invaluable. It was painful, yes, but I didn\u2019t give up my job for something that was easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cGetting that consistency and the cashflow was much harder than I imagined. You need deep pockets and you need to spend wisely. Most businesses set up a couple of stores and then struggle. We did it the other way around \u2013 we struggled initially and then we fine-tuned the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Quitting the rat race<\/h2>\n

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The job Marks refers to was as a hedge fund manager in London and New York. Caught up in the ultimate rat race, New Yorker Marks decided to turn to entrepreneurship in the unlikely setting of Sydney.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was tired of betting on other people\u2019s companies and the culture of greed got to me,\u201d he recalls. \u201cI thought \u2018I\u2019m out of here\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cMy best friend was moving to Sydney in 2002 and I was burnt out, so I thought I\u2019d head to Bondi for a break, as I\u2019d seen pictures of the beach. I didn\u2019t ever end up going back.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Marks wasn\u2019t a stranger to entrepreneurship \u2013 he ran businesses as diverse as snow ploughing to t-shirt retailing with his twin brother while at university \u2013 and he attempted to turn several brainwaves into viable enterprises.<\/p>\n

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His initial ideas to build a beachside hotel in Sydney and went as far as raising money for the concept before realising that \u201cpeople here just don\u2019t spend their leisure time like that \u2013 there\u2019s a different vibe here\u201d and abandoning the idea.<\/p>\n

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The second concept managed to get off the ground, with Marks and his best friend, Robert Hazan, selling Australian fashion labels to the US. However, Marks says he \u201cfreaked out\u201d at how the market was faring and sold up.<\/p>\n

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The winning idea<\/h2>\n

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The idea that had legs was devised after Marks experienced an unpleasant meal at a Sydney Mexican restaurant.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt was horrible. Absolute shit,\u201d he contends, rather bluntly. \u201cWhere I grew up, there were a lot of Latins and there was a lot of great Mexican food.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cIn the States, there\u2019s something called \u2018fast casual\u2019, which is burritos of restaurant quality served quickly. In Australia, you had traditional fast food and the restaurants, and the restaurants are very expensive. There\u2019s nothing in-between.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cI knew that Aussies wanted it. All they had was Old El Paso, which was the biggest seller in supermarkets and was clearly inferior. We knew we could sell the food at a $10 price point.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Starting up<\/h2>\n

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Convinced that he could set up a \u201chigh volume low labour\u201d alternative that would resonate with Australian diners, Marks and Hazan ploughed their own money into the venture \u2013 a total of $5 million was invested in premises, stock and systems.<\/p>\n

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Design guru Tony Ibbotson created the colourful GYG branding, which included a logo featuring the faces of the eponymous duo.<\/p>\n

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Marks went to great lengths to offer a new kind of Mexican dining experience. He settled on Newtown \u2013 \u201cit was a bit like East Village (in New York), it had a great mix of gay people and yuppies\u201d \u2013 for the first GYG location and spent 18 months prior to launch in 2006 getting the offering right.<\/p>\n

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The restaurant was pitched widely \u2013 people aged 18- to 45-years old, with a 60\/40 split in favour of women.<\/p>\n

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\u201cMost of the staff were Latin and we brought over a Mexican chef,\u201d he explains. \u201cWe originally dealt with mom and pop stores for supplies and then went directly to suppliers in Mexico. We did a lot of food tastings.<\/p>\n

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“We wanted people to see how the salsa and guacamole was made and make the kitchen into a theatre.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo many restaurants, such as Thai restaurants, dumb down their food for Australian palettes. We wanted to create something more authentic.<\/p>\n

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“We also wanted to create a contemporary Mexican, urban, young vibe. The brand isn\u2019t about tequila, sombreros and donkeys.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Steven Marks\u2019 enthusiasm for Guzman Y Gomez, the Mexican restaurant chain he started up, is palpable. He speaks about the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":58885,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45173"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.startupsmart.com.au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}