What Happens When Passion Drives the Business? With Matthew de Gruyter, Co-Founder and CEO of Next Level Burger
Matthew de Gruyter is the Co-founder and CEO of Next Level Burger, America's first 100% vegan and plant-based burger joint. Before delving into the world of vegan fast casual food, Matthew honed his professional acumen in private equity and venture capital, notably serving as an executive for oil and gas venture firms. His journey, from a US Marine to majoring in communication at Metro State University to leading ventures in Denver, Dallas, and Newport Beach, culminated in his decision to champion sustainable eating in the Pacific Northwest.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Matthew de Gruyter explains why he launched the first 100% vegan restaurant
What made Matthew think his idea would be a success?
How the pandemic impacted Next Level Burger
What has Matthew been doing to introduce his brand to new customers?
The ways Next Level Burger uses technology and AI to build customer relationships
Matthew shares concerns about the effects of climate change
How does Matthew balance idealism and pragmatism when it comes to the integrity of his brand?
What you’ll learn in this episode:
Sometimes, you can differentiate your brand through its ideals, and those ideals are often things you are passionate about. Does strictly adhering to your passion and ideals always make perfect sense in business?
According to Next Level Burger’s Matthew de Gruyter, who co-founded the world’s first 100% vegan burger joint in 2013, following his passion has paid off. While Matthew acknowledges the importance of balancing idealism with pragmatism, he says his brand has found ways to reach its business goals without compromising its value set despite struggling at times. He points to three specific instances where Next Level Burger’s direction could have been altered by compromising its ideals to make things easier, but Matthew said no on each occasion, and he doesn’t regret it.
On this episode of From Persona to Personal, Roger Hurni sits down with Matthew de Gruyter, CEO and Co-founder of Next Level Burger, to discuss the challenges of building a brand that offers products born out of a strict set of ideals. Matthew is passionate about fighting climate change, and he talks about his desire to build a restaurant that reflects that passion. He explains why he believes Next Level’s business surged during the pandemic and shares how the brand uses technology for marketing.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
This episode’s sponsor:
Today's episode is brought to you by LighthousePE.
LighthousePE is an AI-powered marketing automation software for mobile apps. It creates one-to-one personalized messaging and experiences that increase brand loyalty, provide competitive intelligence, and drive substantial revenue to your business.
LighthousePE accomplishes this by analyzing your customers’ behaviors and leveraging its onboard AI to automatically generate and deliver the right message at the right time.
To learn more, visit LighthousePE.AI
Episode Transcript
Intro 0:02
This is From Persona to Personal podcast. Today's episode is brought to you by Lighthouse PE. Lighthouse PE is an AI powered marketing automation software for mobile apps. It creates one to one personalized messaging and experiences that increase brand loyalty provide competitive intelligence and drives substantial revenue to your business. LighthousePE accomplishes this by analyzing your customers behaviors and leveraging its onboard AI to automatically generate and deliver the right message at the right time. To learn more, visit lighthousepe.ai. Now let's get started with the show.
Roger Hurni 0:43
Hello, everyone, I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal where I get to use my expertise in consumer behavior modification to engage with top business leaders propelling their brands forward. Before I get to today's guest This episode is brought to you by Lighthouse PE. Lighthouse PE is an AI powered marketing automation software specifically designed for mobile apps. It enables one to one personalized messaging and experiences that increase brand loyalty provide competitive intelligence and can drive vast amounts of additional revenue to your organization. Lighthouse PE accomplishes this by net analyzing your customers behaviors then it's aI automatically generates and delivers the right message to the right individual at exactly the right moment. To learn more visit Lighthouse p e.ai. My guest today, we were chatting before the show starts and found out who he is pretty much my brother from another mother is Matt de Gruyter He is the Co-founder and CEO of America's first vegan burger joint called Next Level Burger and Next Level happens to be the nation's first 100% plant based burger joint. Matt, welcome to the show.
Matthew de Gruyter 1:58
Thank you. Thank you, yeah, Roger, we may have spent half of the time we were otherwise supposed to be recording this catching up and getting to know each other. So we'll see if we got anything left for the interview. But again, pleasure to meet you. Thank you for having me on.
Roger Hurni 2:12
Well, I appreciate you being here. Let's give me and the listeners just a little bit of background about Next Level.
Matthew de Gruyter 2:22
So as you aptly pointed out, Next Level Burger is America's first vegan burger joint chain, which is ironic because I grew up the exact opposite of vegan 100% Not plant based diet, as I jokingly referred to. But in 2010. Unfortunately, I lost my mother to breast cancer. And it was her second time with it actually came back on the 10th anniversary of her being declared free of cancer. And we lost her less than two weeks after we found out so very quick, very, very, very difficult period of time. We we say goodbye to my mom on June 20 of 2010. And four days later, my son turned three, then my mother and my son were very, very close. And it was as you can imagine, one of the more sober birthdays. I remember sitting at the table in the in the breakfast book, actually Dallas, Texas of all places, and watching my son celebrate his third birthday. And realizing that I wanted to do everything I could to be to watch him grow into an old man to be there. Ryan, my mom was only 56 when she passed. And as I get older, the more that younger I realized the more striking that is. And so at this time, I had this idea in my head of if I get to 100 get this kid to 75 I think I would have done my job. And my wife had been exploring this very strange thing at the time. Very strange thing called a vegan diet. She decided to go vegetarian a couple years before this, and I had said Honey, I love you. I'll support you. But don't you dare try to guilt me into becoming a vegetarian because it ain't ever gonna happen. And Roger. I had never met a vegetarian. I am 27 At the time, I couldn't even tell you one is human being that I knew there was a better chance. And so what had happened at this parallel sided timing from my mom's passing as my wife had sort of explore this big thing which sounded like at a a Martian idea for how you would you would consume food and how you would feel your body but kind of ripped open raw. With the passing of my mom. I started reading these books that she had she had purchased about the health benefits and I was blown away. I was shocked I never read anything like this in my my mother's face. I had had four heart attacks for open heart surgeries. Obviously, my mom passed away six months after my mom passed away, her younger brother who's only 48 had a Widowmaker first and only heart attack. That was all she wrote. He was gone. And I had always assumed that, you know, things like heart disease and cancer, they were just Russian Roulette, beginning of Russia, right? Maybe you got the round in the chamber, maybe you did. And so I started reading and I realized, Oh, my goodness, there is this massive correlation between what you eat and your health outcomes. And so in 2010, and as much as it was an unbelievably painful moment, the see a Next Level Burger was sown in that moment of really a lot of pain, suffering and sadness, grief, that I was going to live my life differently. And one of the big ways that I was going to change, the way that I approached my life was I was going to change the way so I didn't say anything to my wife. Because frankly, at the time, the idea of eating plant based was akin to walking around on my hands, you know, as opposed to my feet. And so I said, Okay, I'm going to do this for 30 days, and I'm gonna see how I feel. And I was very skeptical, I'm usually pretty good about putting my head to something and sticking to it. But it felt like such a such a feat, such a Herculean feat. But two weeks into it, I was sold, I felt great. Now my I was in oil and gas, private equity at the time set a very high stress position, the stress seemed to flow off my back. Like it hadn't before I was sleeping better my workouts, I just felt like going. And I felt like I leveled up. And so thus began this process of our family shifting to a plant based diet. And, you know, over those next two or three years, my wife had this idea for a plant based burger concept, which didn't exist in the country at the time. And I kept saying, Are you crazy? I'm already in the oil and gas business, you're literally picking one riskier business that I think exists on this planet. And that's the restaurant business. And I shot it down and 2010 2011 and 2012. But 2013, I've been blessed to make my first million before I was 30. She and I and Sierra both my wife and our co founder, I felt this itch to start something in Barone. And in May of 2013, she brought it up before my umpteenth trip to a conference and investment conference in Vegas. And I said, Okay, let me think about it. It was one of those trips where the stars aligned and seemed to point in this particular direction. And by the time I got back, I said, let's take a real look at doing this. And about two months later, we teed everything up, I resigned my position as EVP at my oil and gas private equity firm. And we set out to build America's first vegan burger joint. Little did we know what a rollercoaster ride we're signing up for?
Roger Hurni 8:06
Let me I think every new business is a roller coaster, right? And the businesses that I've started, you just you never know. And if somebody had told me the odds, were of like some of the things I go through, I might, I might never have started any event. So again, some bliss. But you created you know, I've created a new partner that this entirely unique concept. And having been vegetarian a couple times before, this latest bout, which I think has now stuck completely for the rest of my life. I noticed over the years, it's gotten easier, but when I think back 10-12 years ago, it was hard to be a vegetarian back then. there just weren't the options. And I'm not talking about like plant based meats as much as just even restaurants really having a dish or two on the menu that catered to vegetarians that wasn't just boiled pasta and bad vegetables. So I'm kind of curious when you decided to launch this. It was so new, what made you think it would be successful?
Matthew de Gruyter 9:10
Great question. Great question.
Roger Hurni 9:13
That's why I asked it.
Matthew de Gruyter 9:17
You know, I've thought it was gonna work. But I I viewed a it's funny you bring up odds if you and said, What are the odds just from a vacuum sort of abstract perspective that this thing works? I don't know if I would have tipped in the odds. You know, I don't think it would have given us great odds. I probably even at the time would have said this is a long shot. This is a long shot. But why we thought it would work if it was gonna work is that it was what I considered an inevitability that we would continue to shift as a country We're in as a civilization in this direction of, of where the science is going to take us. Right. I'm back. I mentioned Galileo, when when we were chatting at the beginning of of the hour before according Galileo knew he was right. It took time for the status quo to catch up, but nobody, at least not anybody worth listening to still thinks that the earth is the center of the universe. Right? Yeah. And I and I felt like I'd stumbled upon, maybe not to the same degree, obviously. But, but that sort of analogy of this is the way right, to quote the Mandalorian This is the future. And, and this is before I knew what I know about climate change, I mean, I be the the ignorance, as someone in oil and gas about the state of the world and climate change. When I left my position in 2013, climate change was was down the list, it felt far off, I knew we needed to change. But it felt like something we had time to change what we needed to before we hit a critical mass I was I was shifting in this direction or helpers. And you know, when you consider that two thirds of our country, and this is where my head was at at the time, is, you know, overweight, a third obese, they say by 2030, half of the population is going to be diabetic in the United States. type two. And, and at the time, when we started next level burger, the guess what the you may know, Roger, cuz you're informed kind of fella, but almost no one does. Guess the age in this country, that you can start to see evidence of heart disease. What do you think the average age?
Roger Hurni 11:55
Yeah, I actually I don't know the answer this, but I would suspect it would be in your early 30s, like 31, 32.
Matthew de Gruyter 12:03
Which is a good guess. And one that that makes sort of, you know, conceptual sense. My daughter is 11 years old. And 11 years old is the average age in this country today. The Yes, I see evidence of the symptoms of heart disease. So we have effectively selected a diet for our kids. That means that you can start to see the symptoms of heart disease before they get to junior high.
Roger Hurni 12:31
Yeah, that's that's, that's terrible. I mean, I have a similar story. Like your parents, my father died, his 50s. He was very overweight, never worked out in the whole deal. It's one of the things that sent me I'm a catalyst, because he died in my early 20s sent me on this journey of leading a healthy lifestyle. So you know, Michigan, Galileo, Galileo did get killed for those ideas. Hopefully the perfect won't kill you.
Matthew de Gruyter 12:56
I hope so the gray hair on my head was suggest the stress level has been high, but hopefully nowhere near Galileo stress levels.
Roger Hurni 13:02
So that you kick it off, you're way ahead of the curve on the trend, which is obviously taking the route and you know, pardon the pun, and is is really been elevated over the last few years. Pandemic then hits? And how did that affect the business? And how did you get through that part of it?
Matthew de Gruyter 13:26
Well, when we started so when we started Next Level Burger, I was virtually certain that it would shift that the vegan thing, the plant based thing, which we didn't even use the word vegan back then because almost everything I had a negative association with it, including myself, the first people that I met a couple vegan, very nice, but very strange. And so we grabbed that plant based nomenclature, America's first 100% plant based burger joint, we use that from a branding perspective, very intentional. And then what I couldn't have anticipated was how fast it would go from plant based vegan in the margins, right to is vegan in the mainstream. And that that kind of hit it's it's sort of apex of the last few years, when the economist said okay, 2019, the year of the vegan, right. And, and of course, we had the the the Beyond Meat IPO. unbelievably successful. All of a sudden plant based vegan is the hottest thing since sliced bread. And then of course, as you pointed out, 2020 hits, we open up, our business is just cranking and I'm feeling so good about the world and the direction. And then Bon Jovi 90 Calling versus Neil deGrasse Tyson refers to it begins. And of course, like just about everybody else on planet Earth and all zoom into our country. We we lean back and went oh my good Miss is this Ebola is this The flu is this somewhere in between. and In March, we basically watched our sales in a week dropped by, I don't know about half a little less than it. So here I am, you know, when we started next level burgers here, and I had two kids under the age of six, one under the age of two. You know, I'm, I'm 30 about to turn 31 at the time. Here we are feeling like we are taking off like a rocket ship and then bow the Coronavirus hits, but almost instantaneously. And I said this to our team at the time, they said look, because nobody knew. Nobody knew. I mean, we still know breathtaking little about the COVID-19 sort of origins, at least not from 100% perspective. And there's still a lot of question marks about it. But at the time, no one knew if this was a six month thing, or a two year thing, we had no idea how serious it was going to be ultimately, of course, over a million Americans died from this. And that's just focusing on the us not to mention the rest of the world. But I said to her team at the time, I said, I don't know how long this is going to take but hell or high water, we will see our way to the other side of this. And shortly after that initial drop in our sales, we saw this unbelievable surge. And then not only did our sales come back, they surpassed and had been we'd seen before. And all of a sudden we're in a place where while the world was was against the ropes. We're seeing record setting quarters and record setting years. And what we saw at the time, from a macro perspective, is that basically people were looking for two things at that time. They were looking for comfort food that you Wingstop right for health food. And you know, thinking about their immune system and thinking about their health and trying to stay healthy amidst the backdrop of this of this Coronavirus. And guess what, Next Level burgers set right in between those two opposite sides of the spectrum as comforting food that was better for you better for the planet a way to sort of have your cake and eat it too. And we were able to sling shot for during this time.
Yeah. And while it did. Also, it's fortunate that it sits in this the other leg of that stool is that it sits in this category of affordable luxury. Yeah, where you want to take the family out for dinner. You know, this becomes an affordable luxury to go do that without feel like you're going sort of crazy.
Yes, it also lets you have kids, you know how that is? You go? Yeah, cost a million.
Roger Hurni 17:38
Yeah, well, the older my kids get, the more expensive or dinner meals are its own into that my son's basically eating the equivalent of two adult meals. Now every time we go out. You're probably seeing that, and in your 16 year old as well. You mentioned marketing I, I know your concept like a lot of new kinds of concepts like this, there's an influence amongst family and friends. Because one person is that way like your wife was and have to terian it'll have the spillover effect. But when you're building a business, you can't rely on that, because it's not predictable. And it's it's something that you very difficult to manufacture nearly impossible. It's great when it sort of takes off. And all of a sudden, you know, there's a Kardashian that's vegan and loves your joint and mold. That's, you know, like lightning striking. But that's you can't count on that. So in terms of marketing, what have you been doing? And what have you found to be most successful in terms of introducing Next Level Burger to new customers?
Matthew de Gruyter 18:43
So we realized at the beginning of NLB, that we weren't going to be able to build our house on a vegan Foundation, right? You know, five to 10% of the population is eating vegetarian vegan, depending on which segment of the population you look at millennials is supposedly temper sound average about 5% is that we realized that we weren't going to be able to build the kind of brand because we never wanted to build a restaurant, we wanted to build a house. Right, right. And we wanted to fundamentally reinvent what the American burger doing look like to reflect what we now know, in the 21st century. And so what we realized we were going to have to be able to accomplish in order to be successful period and certainly at scale was we're gonna have to attract the flexitarian right, the person that does he, you know, a steak on Tuesday night, but comes in and grabs a burger and fries and a shake on Wednesday afternoon. And what we wanted to provide is people the easy, awesome tasting, convenient option to choose better for themselves. And that you know, half of our over half of our are guests on a daily basis aren't vegan. We've run surveys to establish these numbers. They come in because they're looking for or something, it's going to be better for them, they're going to feel better and quite literally quantitatively is better for them. And for something that's accessible I'm convinced I've seen this anecdotally I've seen this in the data that when you give people the the better choice about half the time they'll choose that and and if you can get people to even just half the time choose the better option, you change what our country looks like overnight. So it's about making sure that you create a brand that's going to attract the almost everybody from my John Wayne father in law who's a cross between you know, Yosemite Sam and John Wayne handlebar mustache the whole 90 Enid every diner, but doing it in Mississippi and back. And on the other side of the spectrum, my wife who is a you know, Lululemon wearing college educated mother of two, they can both be attracted to next level burger, they can go in, go to great, buy deep walk out feeling fantastic. And being able to bring those two options, the spectrum in one place was the magic, we're able to conjure up,
Roger Hurni 21:09
Though, from a marketing perspective you you've relied, at least to date, or at least in the beginning, for sure, on that customer experience. And I'm not saying that that's not a valid strategy. I did a lot of work on PF Changs, early in the day, and then their whole branding was branding at the table, you know, it's like there was going to be that customer experience, it was one of the reasons why it grew so quickly. So you're not actually spending a lot of money on advertising, you're just trying to create this experience and these options that give people the kinds of choices just to make to make better decisions.
Matthew de Gruyter 21:42
Well, even before, we had to create a brand that was attractive game, because otherwise you're just gonna walk past it. And I'd seen this myself, yeah, being married to someone that was vegetarian before I became vegan. And that was, again, a process that happened over like, overnight pescatarian. And then vegan over about three years, I was pulled into some of the weirdest straits, Roger, in this country with my wife. And, you know, I knew that most of my buddies would never walk into these places, because they're either just strange and odd. And you wonder if anybody washes their hands, or they were so female centric, that as a guy, especially as a guy in my 20s, you know, as like, I don't know, I walk in here. And so the first step for us was creating a brand and a restaurant, they said, Come on, in, whether you're a guy or gal anywhere in between, whether you're a Republican or a Democrat, anywhere in between, yeah, that was gonna, that was going to, to attract 90 plus percent of the folks out there, if not almost everybody, and then capture them with an awesome experience that left them from beginning to end, let them go and damn it if if, if the food that I ate tasted like that all the time, I could always eat plant based. Yeah, that's something we've heard time and time again.
Roger Hurni 23:11
That's my work in consumer psychology and shifting behavior, specifically, what you've done, I'm just going to make this clear, because you probably did it instinctively. And not methodically, if you're going to shift someone's habits, if you're going to change behavior, you need the ability, you need to you have to increase their ability to do so. And so there were certain motivation, or certain levels of motivation out there for people to choose either a better option for food or be influenced in that motivation by some of that might be living with our friend. But the options didn't give you the ability to make that decision to want to go because I had been in those same kinds of places where it was so granola, I felt uncomfortable walking in Nikes, when everybody else was wearing Birkenstocks. And so the atmosphere that you created increases everyone's ability to want to try and I think that there's a lot of genius there and a lot that other businesses can learn from. So with that, let me fast forward now past post pandemic, because the pandemic changed a lot of dining behaviors. I mean, I tell people all the time, nobody knew what a QR code. They even heard of a QR code. They didn't know what to do with it before the pandemic. And now we're, our phones have become practically in appendage. And there's not any sort of restaurant, particularly in the QSR space that doesn't have an app. And we're seeing it all the time. The apps that I had seen are generally very utilitarian, which is fine. I can check reward points in order and pick up and see the menu and there's a need for those sorts of things. I saw that you had a mobile app, are you you're probably doing those kinds of things, but I'm wondering if you're starting to elevate it into pro Personalized brand experiences are offers down to the individual. What are you doing with that mobile app strategy? And have you seen success in that? And are you adopting it the way other restaurants are?
Matthew de Gruyter 25:13
So so what I would say to that is the macro here, when John Mackey and I got to know each other, starting in 16th, Saturday, it's kind of a bit of a mentor of mine. I don't want to overstate that. But he's been very kind to this time over the years, obviously, co founder and former CEO of Whole Foods. One of the first things he asked me when we started getting to know each other is would you rather be luckier good. And I told him, John, I'd rather be both. And so when it came to Next Level Burger from the very beginning, we invested heavily and intentionally in branding. And for us, very early on, we knew, or we were confident that technology in the restaurant space was only going to become more and more important. And so we're investing in apps, we're investing in online ordering technology, we're investing in social media, we're investing in just about in next level point of sales, we wanted to make sure that we're at the cutting edge of whatever technological shift was happening before it was happening to the rest of the industry. And so we were able to be at the front, on on social media, on apps, on kiosks. And you know, you hit the nail on the head here, we're actually going to be launching in just a couple of months, a our next generation of our app, that is going to provide a whole new level, a whole additional level of personalization and customization, you know, that that, frankly, our current application just cannot offer. It's somewhat personalized, at present. But we're taking that to the pun intended next level. And so you know, whether it's robots in the restaurants, Grocery Green has gotten a lot of attention for their affinity kitchen. Or it's the Next Level of that app that puts you in your guests pocket and accessible for that for Jim or for Jane or for whomever that happens to be not just your guests, but for that particular for Roger, right? And understand that that sort of technological shift is never going to stop just deeper. And it's going to get wider from the standpoint of what industries it touches and the restaurant industry. It's kind of funny, because it's a $900 billion business that in a lot of ways, and especially up until the Coronavirus began was operating like it was 9095 like Blockbuster was still the big thing on the block. And the Coronavirus, shifted. And I've heard people suggest that at least 10 years of advancement in a year had to happen so that restaurants too, could catch up. And we were fortunate to be in a position whether it was apps third party, or what have you. Well, we were ready to go. And instant and pivot because we prepare, we just didn't know we're prepared.
Roger Hurni 28:19
So were you also forward looking in terms of AI and what you're doing there? Or are you doing anything yet?
Matthew de Gruyter 28:26
Yeah, we actually started using AI before it got hot. We are really intentional about it. We see it as a tool. And and I'm excited to see where it goes. I think that as is often the case, whether it's you know, people having Skynet flashbacks of Terminator two and worried that the world's gonna end because artificial intelligence or thinking that we found the Holy Grail, as is often the case, it's neither, I think end to this the opposite extreme opposite end of the spectrum. It's instead like everything else. I mean, they had the same concerns about TV in the 50s. Right. As that was launching. So we do this with technology, almost constant fact history repeating itself is one of the saddest and most hilarious aspects of humanity because you'd swear we're all crazy. Maybe we are. But from the standpoint of, of of AI, nothing will ever be the same because of it. And, and yet, I think that much like the rest of the tools in our toolbox. It's going to be up to us to decide how we use it, whether we use it internally, intelligently and intentionally or haphazardly, better.
Roger Hurni 29:34
You've been great with your time. I just have two more questions to try to wrap up. The first one is I'm kind of curious what your biggest challenge is right now and what's keeping you up at night?
Matthew de Gruyter 29:46
The it's always a tough question. I think the biggest challenge is and what keeps me up at night is that I'm probably an optimist. In fact, almost undoubtedly people would say I'm optimist, but I'm also pragmatic and I'm not an idiot, unless you ask my wife and depends on the day. But I'm a little bit I'm worried. I'm worried that we're not, we're not changing fast enough as a planet to stop the the the the sort of civilization in being climate change that we're bringing about it so that it more than anything else keeps me up at night. And it just feels more I was just reading an article last time or CFOs, 20 year vet of the financial industry. Now we're going back and forth on a particular article last night. And every time I see another article about the fires and why, or the smoke in New York City, or the devastation that's happening, I mean, you know, most people are oblivious to massive floods in Indonesia, there displacing millions, because, well, it's done on this side of the world. Right, right. Or drought in Sub Saharan Africa. Or, or, I mean, the list just goes on one. So I would say the things that keep me up at night or less for the business and more for the world, but only more fuel for the fact that we've got to do more, because, like in Galileo's time, there's always there's always the few during the job of the many, you know, whether it's the 8020 rule or whatever you want to look at, and man, we're just not moving fast enough. I have convinced the future's bright I am. And maybe that's because I'm a father. And I've got to believe that we're heading in the right direction. But but not in some sort of naivete, sure hope for the best. No war in the way of it's bright, but it's up to all of us to do as much as we can to secure that future. And I and I've got to believe, you know, my favorite quote of all time was Martin Luther King's, you know, the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends towards justice. Right? And I've got to believe as you look back on the last 500 years of humanity compared to the millennia that stretch back, you know, into antiquity and pre history, that we're actually getting where we need to go, right, it feels slow. But it's actually fast when you look against the beating the last 10,000 years, let alone the last 50,000.
Roger Hurni 32:20
But we sometimes, that's the sometimes we don't think change is going to happen. And then it does rain, it usually changes for the positive at that point.
Matthew de Gruyter 32:28
Yes, exactly. And so I feel like believe in my bones that we're going to figure this out. I don't know how yet. And I don't mean how like, how do we change our or energy system? Or how do we change our food system? We know how to do these things at this point. It's just a matter of doing it. It's enough people being aware and taking the action to do what needs done, whether it's politically I just saw an OP, let's push it just a little bit, because I'll add this in because I think it's really poignant. Everybody just about everybody knows who Carl Sagan was. Right? And I just saw on LinkedIn a couple of days ago, a testimony from night, Team guy cuss on this.
Roger Hurni 33:13
Yeah, you totally can. Okay, they're gonna tune in at fucking
Matthew de Gruyter 33:17
six. And Carl Sagan is in front of Congress, getting testimony about climate change. 1986, I'm 40. I was four years old when he's giving this testimony. Okay. And still, we have sat and waited, and waited and waited, I saw another article from 1912 talking about the 2 billion tons of coal being burned in 1912. And the greenhouse effect that was going to come out of it, and it being drawn as a point of of concern in the future. Well, it's no longer our future. It's our present, then. And what I hope is that enough of us are starting to stand up, starting to make moves starting to change our businesses, because we sure as hell cannot wait on governmental policy to be that which leads us in the right direction. And that's not a comment on any administration. It's just if you wait for government to make the moves, you're probably going to wait too long. And so what I'm excited about is private industry is individuals doing what they can do to make enough of a difference to where our kids get to have kids on a planet that is thriving, not barely surviving.
Roger Hurni 34:42
Yeah, well, you can clearly see that your your passion for this is being moved into the inception of next level burger and where it's going. And whenever I've seen passion, be part of a project with the right kinds of resources. It's always done. It's always unfair. are very well. So I just have one last question because I think we're, we're a little over a lots of people give advice. And a lot of times, it's great. But what we don't do says as much about us as what we do do. And some kind of curious is what was the worst advice you ever got that you said no to? A question you probably have never been asked before now.
Matthew de Gruyter 35:29
But the worst advice and I said no to I love to pull out the trope of when we when I was telling everybody that I knew that I was that I trusted that I was going to leave my super lucrative career then. And with two kids under the age of six, and one of the two, I was going to, I was going to start a vegan burger joint concept with my wife, with neither of us having any professional experience in the restaurant business. Worked bartended through college, and so on and so forth. You know, but just about everybody surprisingly, said, Wow, that didn't work. I kept looking for people to tell me I'm crazy. And yet, even my father, geophysicist, you know, kind of, you know, did the grind 35 years in the business was like, Matt, that that sounds exciting to give him credit where credit's due. And I think I think if I had to I can't say that this is bad advice yet. But the advice that I have been given, broadly speaking, a few times in next level burgers sort of existence has been, Matt. I'm not saying you should compromise. But I'm saying you should comp. Whether living wages, or it's our commitment to I mean, you will not find better ingredients in Michelin starred restaurants around the world than our commitment to organics, non GMO, obviously, plant base is a plant based Burger Joint. And it it's been stuff very difficult to stick to those guns of plant based organic, non GMO living wages, right. But we basically said, if we're gonna build a restaurant from scratch and reflect the 21st century, what would it look like? And so I, what I can say is, so far, there have been three different catalyst crossroad moments where somebody has said, go this direction, and that direction was compromised. And I said, No.
Roger Hurni 37:33
Yeah. Well, you're in good, you're in good company with that, because there are people like Steve Jobs who refused to compromise on the integrity of the products. Usually compromise. Compromise is great for diplomats. But in business, it generally leads to a weakened brand.
Matthew de Gruyter 37:50
Yeah. And I think you and I will, I will measure that or balance that with the fact you do have to be pragmatic. And I think that I hope I strike a nice balance between idealistic and pragmatic, because you die on that hill of idealism, right? And you can make no change, no difference because he died. Or you can strike that balance of being idealistic and passionate, and having vision and also understanding you have to be to a certain extent, pragmatic, but you know, and we need to wrap up, so I'll leave you with this. When we start a Next Level Burger. Our you know, cost of goods was supposed to be 32%. Match Chipotle, it was 45%. Okay, that dog and get a hunt, right? Mm, 35% Gross Margin when going to work. It just wasn't. But what we were able to do, as we began to be, as we got better in the business, and more intelligent and more sophisticated, and iterate it. Now we have a cost of goods that's as good as anybody's in the business that's offering great ingredients, if not better, but right in line with Chipotle. And our gross margin is as good as anybody in the business. So we had to get there. But we didn't have to compromise our value set to get there.
Roger Hurni 39:08
Well, I like the don't compromise thing, people telling you to compromise when you probably shouldn't. Again, I appreciate all of your time today. I had been speaking with Matt de Gruyter. He is the co founder and CEO of Next Level Burger. Matt, where can people learn more about you and Next Level Burger?
Matthew de Gruyter 39:28
So there's this thing that I hear is going to be big Sunday called the internet and social media. So you could definitely bite us on both at nextlevelburger.com or handles on everything from Instagram to Tik Tok is Next Level Burger. So you can just plug Next Level Burger into your search search URL, whether it's Google or chrome or what have you and find us that way. And I'd love to have you follow us on social we've got some pretty fun stuff that we're doing on a perpetual basis that also has some real meaning to it. We'd love to have people find us wherever they can. And of course, our favor way aim is to meet people in their communities. We've got 10 locations from coast to coast, and we'd love to serve anybody that's looking for an awesome plant based option, even if it's just part time plant based. We're here for you.
Roger Hurni 40:15
Okay, that sounds great. Again, thank you for being on the show, everyone I am Roger Hurni, the host of From Persona to Personal and we'll catch you next time.
Outro 40:25
Thanks for listening to From Persona to Personal, the podcast that takes a closer look into how organizations personalize their marketing. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.
