Geoff Alexander Of Wow Bao On 5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand

An Interview With Martita Mestey

Good People — The staff behind any food & beverage brand are also essential for a successful product. For example, when a diner walks into a restaurant, there is an intrinsic barrier to them getting their food that is on the restaurant employees to manage. A host seats them, a server takes their order and brings them their food. That relationship and experience with the customer is part of what keeps people coming back. Every aspect of a dining experience is touched by the people you hire.

As a part of our series called “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Geoff Alexander.

President and CEO of Wow Bao and Managing Partner with Lettuce Entertain You Enterprises (LEYE), Geoff Alexander is a restaurant industry veteran and has worked in every capacity of the business, starting as a fry cook at his local university watering hole. During his 30-year tenure with Chicago-based LEYE, Alexander has worked on numerous restaurant concepts, ultimately landing at Wow Bao, an Asian fast-casual restaurant, and growing it into a nationally recognized omni-channel brand that is available in over 700 virtual restaurants, 5,000 grocery stores, airports, universities, hotels, brick & mortar, e-commerce, and even hot-food vending machines.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dive in, our readers would love to learn a bit more about you. Can you tell us a bit about your “childhood backstory”?

I was born and raised on the upper west side of Manhattan and my father died when I was eight years old. My sister was born mentally handicapped and lived with my mother and me until I was 12. New York City as a backdrop is enough in and of itself to teach a kid independence, but being the child of a single parent also shaped me in a way that still defines who I am. It was important to me to be a good student, as well as a hard worker — ensuring my mom had one less thing to worry about. Each summer, we would vacation on Fire Island and at the age of 13 I began working at the local grocery store. Not only did that plant a seed for customer service and hospitality, but I found my first two mentors in the owners of the store. Frank and Bobbie were leaders who would do anything for their customers, as well as their employees.

When it was time for me to attend college, my mom encouraged me to spread my wings. I chose the University of Wisconsin — and while I majored in Art History, after working multiple positions over the course of three years at State Street Brats, I was bitten by the restaurant bug. I joined LEYE nine days out of college and just celebrated my 30th anniversary with the company. Many of my earliest experiences gave me the foundation to take risks within this company and do things at Wow Bao that no one in the industry had tried.

Can you share with us the story of the “ah ha” moment that led to the creation of the food or beverage brand you are leading?

Initially, I was an area director for another LEYE Asian concept called Big Bowl. At one of the menu tastings the chef served bao as a potential option. The item wasn’t included on the Big Bowl menu, but was noted for its simplicity, portability, unique flavors, and ease of preparation. A few years later, Water Tower Place, one of Chicago’s flagship shopping malls on the Magnificent Mile, offered LEYE a small space for a restaurant, but it had no ventilation. This was the perfect location to prepare bao, as all they require is a steamer. The rest they say is Wow Bao history. We went on to add several more Chicago locations and grew the menu to include rice bowls and dumplings.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

Mistakes are building blocks, and while in the moment they rarely seem funny, there’s a lot that can be taken away from them. For example, in the early 2000s I was regarded as an up and comer at LEYE. There were seminars I had to attend to advance my career and in one I was asked by the head of HR to play the role of an interviewer and she would be the interviewee. I began “interviewing” her by talking about myself and my accomplishments — she fortunately stopped me and showed us the correct way to interview a prospect — but not before I realized I had wasted a huge part of the seminar trying to show off to my peers. There’s a saying in football, “Don’t overshoot the receiver.” That translates into business leadership as well — whether speaking to an individual or a room full of people, as a leader it’s never the right time to show off how smart you are. I’ve learned that if my message isn’t received by my audience, that’s on me and the way I sent it. I can look back now and laugh at myself and lack of hubris. But I am incredibly fortunate to have been surrounded by mentors like Rich Melman, founder and chairman of LEYE, and Kevin Brown, CEO of LEYE, as I evolved into the leader I needed to be.

What are the most common mistakes you have seen people make when they start a food or beverage line? What can be done to avoid those errors?

When you’re growing a business, especially a food or beverage brand, you must have the foresight to look down the road. You can’t make decisions that don’t scale and grow with your product — it’s imperative entrepreneurs in this industry are open to evolution and can take feedback from their guests. Our job as restaurateurs is to be hospitable and sell — if your customers are asking for changes, listen to them and avoid getting so emotionally attached to menu items that you’re not willing to change. I’ve seen plenty of established restaurants that haven’t bothered to make any audits to their menu, but guests want to see you stay current with trends.

Let’s imagine that someone reading this interview has an idea for a product that they would like to produce. What are the first few steps that you would recommend that they take?

First you need to determine what your goal is and how committed you are to the project. Everyone wants to get involved in the food business — it’s glamourous and sexy. But it comes at an incredible cost and a lot of work. So, if you’re creating a new product, ask yourself a) Is this something I want to make a huge financial investment in along with the blood, sweat and tears? or b) Is this a passion that lends itself more to a side gig where I’m creating that product organically, for friends and family?

If you’re truly up for the challenge, you’ll want to understand the financial cost, along with the research and development time that is required. It’s a tremendous sacrifice and to avoid as many unexpected pitfalls as possible, a plan is essential.

For example, when we launched Wow Bao CPG, I was simply taking boxes from our restaurant freezer cases and peddling them on my own to grocers without much of a thought. After physically knocking on doors and asking local grocers if they would sell this product, I started to worry that the packaging wasn’t attractive enough, and the price point was off relative to other frozen products. Eventually we had 200 stores and needed distributors, marketing, and promotions. Getting our CPG product off the ground wasn’t so much a lesson in building the plane as we were flying as much as it was crashing and burning a bit as we were building the plane. While we’re now in over 5,000 retailers across the country, including Walmart; what I learned by creating this product is that a plan with the right people involved is essential.

Many people have good ideas all the time. But some people seem to struggle in taking a good idea and translating it into an actual business. How would you encourage someone to overcome this hurdle?

Be able to explain your idea to anyone in the world in less than two sentences. If you can’t do that, you haven’t fully formed your idea. Once you can do that, get others to believe in that idea using your passion and direction, but also be open to feedback. Anyone can have an idea and put a stake in the ground, but rarely is success achieved that way. Know what you don’t know. And while I’m not saying an entrepreneur shouldn’t hold true to their beliefs, there are forces at play that you’ll always have to compromise with.

In the restaurant industry, we work with a lot of technology — but none of that technology was created by a restaurant person. To achieve the best result for our diners we need to be able to compromise with how we integrate that technology and be willing to deal with the inevitable headaches. So, while you can have the greatest idea in the world, to get it to the masses you’ve got to be willing to be flexible and deal with some of the pain along the way.

There are many invention development consultants. Would you recommend that a person with a new idea hire such a consultant, or should they try to strike out on their own?

You need to go out there on your own and give it a try because what makes that consultant any more knowledgeable than you are about your idea? Additionally, most individuals who are in the business of creating and developing have a robust network of individuals that they can bounce ideas off, rather than hiring someone right away.

Wow Bao is currently in 5,000 retailers — if we go to 10,000 do I hire someone in house or turn to consultant and pay commission? I’d rather hire someone who’s on my team to help me get to where I’m going and who really understands and has a passion for Wow Bao. I have a fantastic team of individuals who hold strong opinions but will admit when they don’t know something. It’s fine to be steadfast in the decisions you make about your ideas, but having insight from the people you’ve surrounded yourself with goes a long way.

What are your thoughts about bootstrapping vs looking for venture capital? What is the best way to decide if you should do either one?

I’ve always bootstrapped, and I believe in the startup mentality. Once you get involved with capital — especially if you haven’t had capital — it’s easier to start writing unnecessary checks. We do everything in-house — we knock on doors and build relationships. While we have capital through Valor Equity Partners, we continue to operate as if we don’t because Wow Bao is intrinsically a nimble concept. The biggest thing that’s changed for us are our operations because we have a larger team and more departments. That said, we’re still all hands on deck and I’m just as involved as the team. For example, I’m at all four days of the National Restaurant Show along with the team, I’ll work the Wow Bao concession booth each year at Lollapalooza, and each of our corporate staff works at least two shifts a quarter in our storefronts. No job is too big or too small for anyone in our office, much like the days when we were just getting off the ground.

The beauty of bootstrapping with a dependable team is that the pitcher knows he can throw out any pitch and even if it’s hit, he’s got a teammate who will make the catch and back him up. Running Wow Bao this way goes back to having a single parent who taught me that everyone pitches in. I try and lead by that example and thrive on having those kinds of people around me. That’s what I attribute our success to.

Can you share thoughts from your experience about how to file a patent, how to source good raw ingredients, how to source a good manufacturer, and how to find a retailer or distributor?

We hire a legal team when dealing with patents, but have significant experience in sourcing ingredients, manufacturers, and finding retailers/distributors.

As far as sourcing raw ingredients, I rely on our executive chef to work with the manufacturer. When they work in tandem the integrity of the product isn’t compromised and we’re ensuring the best ingredients are being used for our recipes.

When I look for a good manufacturer, I want to know they’ve been in the business awhile — are they established with financial backing? Then it’s really about relationships and whether they can give feedback and vice versa. And you always want to have a good supply agreement in place to protect your business.

With a distributor, I ask myself: Where do we want to go? How do we want to get there? And who will best represent Wow Bao and look out for our interests? One of our first distributors was very small and I didn’t know much about them. But they sought us out because they knew we had a strong product and could do a lot with our brand. Despite being smaller, they were trustworthy and established a solid relationship with us.

At the end of the day, sourcing all these things is about strong relationships. Everyone has to be someone we want to do business with and in turn, we have to have a reputation for being a good company with a good product. I’ve been fortunate because what I’ve promised my manufacturers over the years has come to fruition and then some. When you maintain a strong reputation, companies will continually want to partner with you and that creates even more value for your organization.

Here is the main question of our discussion. What are your “5 Things You Need To Create a Successful Food or Beverage Brand” and why?

1 . Good Food — We’re in the food business and at the end of the day you can always find food, but what sets your product apart? You can play with price, branding and location, but the one thing that will always win is the most delicious option. Everything we do starts with the food. Wow Bao has to be the best Asian fast-casual option available to a diner for the brand to be successful.

2 . Good People — The staff behind any food & beverage brand are also essential for a successful product. For example, when a diner walks into a restaurant, there is an intrinsic barrier to them getting their food that is on the restaurant employees to manage. A host seats them, a server takes their order and brings them their food. That relationship and experience with the customer is part of what keeps people coming back. Every aspect of a dining experience is touched by the people you hire.

The same holds true for a product that comes out of a grocery store. I can’t be the one who is representing Wow Bao among our retail partners. Those relationships need to be with people who care about our product and are going to showcase the brand well.

3. Constant Evolution — The world around us evolves every minute of every day. If you’re not evolving your restaurant regarding the food and experience, you’re dead in the water because there’s so much competition. McDonald’s may have started as a burger chain, but they recognized the need to expand their menu to include chicken, salads, and Happy Meals to evolve for the family unit. Change is positive and essential for the health of your food & beverage brand. Whether incorporating more plant-based food or serving farm raised fish vs. line caught, things like this have an impact on today’s consumer.

4. Care — You have to care about everything surrounding your brand. From the employees and customers to your product and surroundings — as the leader of your brand you must have a vested interest. The first word in our Wow Bao employee handbook is “Care.” By caring about the safety and success of our employees, they in turn will care about every aspect of our business and that carries over to our customers. We always want our employees to be a part of what we’re doing while being aware of what their needs are. There’s no reason not to know something unique about each one of your employees — no one is too busy to stop and show they care.

5. Trust — Everyone that comes in contact with your product should be trustworthy. And your customers must trust you, as well as your brand. This is particularly important for Wow Bao because we do a lot of business in the virtual space. Much of our food is delivered through a 3rd party app and prepared by one of our restaurant partners. We need to trust that they’ll represent our brand well, but our product also needs to be consistent and safe. You can’t maintain any of these relationships if you don’t trust that I have your back and you have mine in return.

Can you share your ideas about how to create a product that people really love and are ‘crazy about’?

There has to be intrinsic value to a product. In the case of food, it should give you a feeling or memory that you can’t get from anything else. As an example, I have several candy bars that I enjoy depending on what I’m craving, but if I see an Oh Henry! bar, I’ll choose that every time because it’s what I enjoyed as a child. There is an emotion associated with that flavor and I want it to take me back to that feeling. If your brand can evoke that and provide something another brand can’t, you’ve cracked the code.

Ok. We are nearly done. Here are our final questions. How have you used your success to make the world a better place?

The advent of social media, specifically LinkedIn, has given me the opportunity to make a small impact on people around the world. Time is the greatest thing I can offer and when a contact reaches out asking advice about the industry or my successes, I don’t hesitate to take a moment and make myself available. There is no shortage of successful people in this industry and when someone takes the time to single me out for advice, I’m going to make sure I pay it forward and provide any insight I can offer.

You are an inspiration to a great many people. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.

That is a big question I’m not sure I’m prepared to answer — but what I can tell you is I’m trying to drive home to everyone in this industry that we need to get back to the business of hospitality and social interaction. Before the pandemic we were in the hospitality business, and post-pandemic we have become the food business. Food prices have never been higher, and there has never been such a disparity between the service we’re providing customers and what we’re charging them. We are not meeting their expectations and that needs to change. Let’s get back to a time when managers and chefs were talking to diners, and servers could take their time with each table. I’m all for technology making our lives easier, but it can’t replace the social experience that is the heart of the hospitality industry.

On the flip side, the pandemic was a catalyst for the greatest transformation in our industry. Restaurant operators moved away from being so siloed and leaned on one another to survive and save the industry. We asked one another how we could help, what was working, and what wasn’t. This has remained, and I’ve never had better relationships with my peers and competitors. That same mentality needs to translate to other aspects of the world right now.

Humans are social creatures, and every encounter involves food. We celebrate with food. We commiserate and sympathize with food. We greet new neighbors with food, and say goodbye to friends, co-workers, and loved ones with food.

Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.