Entrepreneurship Lessons from Noah Alper, Founder & Former CEO of Noah’s Bagels
If you are a fan of bagels in the San Francisco Bay Area, there is a big chance that you know Noah’s Bagels. In 1989, Noah Alper founded this successful West Coast bagel chain of 38 stores and later sold it to Einstein Bro. Bagels in 1996. What most people don’t know about Noah Alper is that he had been a longtime entrepreneur before his bagel adventure. He sold rustic wooden salad bowls, and even started a natural foods store when healthy eating was not a mainstream trend in the 1970s. His book, Business Mensch: Timeless Wisdom for Today’s Entrepreneur unveils that being a mensch is not only food for your soul, but for your business.
I spoke with Noah about the behind-the-scene stories of Noah’s Bagels, and advice he wants to share with young entrepreneurs.
Can you share with us how you started Noah’s Bagels?
I was importing items from Israel, and the business was not successful. I had to close the business, and I need some income. At that time, my brother had been to Montreal and saw a bagel concept that he was excited about. He thought it was a good opportunity to start a bagel shop in Berkeley since there were no great bagel shops in the East Bay. I spent about a year to evaluate this business and take a look at various locations, talking to different people about methods and recipes, more importantly, figure out if this proposition could work. What I learned was that bagels would become very popular all across the United States. I also found a great recipe and a talented team to help make this come to life.
We opened the store on College Avenue on August 4th, 1989 and it grew really fast. The first store was a phenomenal success right away, it was such a successful to even keep it up. We had to change our process weekly to keep up with it. It took us a year to get things stabilized. My brother joined me later on and he brought in a very different skill sets from me.
Did you find any challenges working with a close family member?
Yes, there were definitely tensions (laugh). He was the older brother, but I was in charge overall so that came be a problem. The fact that the business was doing very well decreased those tensions. Also, our father was in business as well and we both signed off to certain ways of doing things, such as high-quality food, empowering employees and great customer service.
Before you founded Noah’s Bagels, you didn’t really anything about making a bagel or opening a retail shop. How did you find your support and help throughout the process?
Having good relationships with people in business certainly helped. I was able to find the recipe and the people to help out from unrelated industries. For example, I was in a housewares business previous, and one of my customers actually owned a bagel store. My equipment dealer introduced me to her which I had known from my previous business. I got to tour around her shop and saw how she made bagels, all because we had good relationships.
I have to say the method of doing things are not that complicated. It was more about how to empower your employees. Our turnover rate was only half of the industry average, which really helped.
You had this philosophy that doing good is good for your business, and you cared about the community very much. How did you make sure your store employees cared about the same thing, especially when the business grew rapidly?
What I am seeing from business is usually the people in the middle and in the bottom look up to the people in the top and see how they behave. We took a lot of time hiring people in our senior positions and make sure they share the same the philosophy. Sometimes it took more time to fill the positions but it is more important to find the right people. It is much easier to find people with the right tactical skills but harder to find employees who share the same values.
Before Noah’s Bagels, you opened a natural foods store called Bread & Circus in 1973 which was acquired by Whole Foods later on. How did you identify this trend so early?
Our store concept was very pioneering back in the 1970s and a lot of the items we were selling were now mainstream brands like Haagen Daz ice cream, Tom’s toothpaste, and Celestial Seasonings teas. But I can’t really answer how I identified the trend because it was more of a gut feeling. I just remember European people were eating home-cooked meals while American people at that time ate a lot of canned and processed food. I thought, “Why can’t this lifestyle be transferred to the United States?”
You now work with many entrepreneurs in the food industry. What are some of the common mistakes that entrepreneurs make?
I think very often people underestimate how difficult the food business is. For example, if you want to open a coffee shop, you are not only going to compete with other coffee shops, but also McDonald’s, Wendy’s, coffee at home, and even restaurants. It is an exciting business but it takes so much effort. I know this may sound a little bit discouraging, but sometimes it is probably better to do it as a hobby rather than a full-time job.
Any other advice that you would give to a young entrepreneur?
The chances of success are high if you dare to risk everything for it. I often hear people say, “I like this idea but I am not ready to sell my house for it.” I don’t think you can be successful as an entrepreneur without taking the risk and sacrificing a certain lifestyle.
