“You’re either growing or you’re dying.” 
— Anonymous

Everyone always asks me if I envisioned as many locations as we have now. In fact, the answer is a yes and a no! I always wanted to go as far as possible in the pizza industry and I never do anything small. With that being said, it is not like I had an exact plan. A lot of the expansion I have done has been necessary expansion — meaning that I needed more locations to help pay for the current locations I had.

When I opened the second store everyone talked about the second store being the kiss of death. It was not — it added to the cash flow and made everything easier. However, I knew if I wanted to open more locations I would need to build out my infrastructure — meaning I would need to build out my team. I brought on a full-time administrative assistant, and I brought on a full-time person on the operations side who could help with my growth and overall broad lining of our systems. With that being said, the money had to come from somewhere.

I could have probably had two stores forever and reached all of my personal financial goals and felt successful. I had three main goals when I opened our pizzeria. Goal number one was to put my kids through college, because at that time I had no money saved. Goal number two was I wanted a little bigger house than what we had. Finally, goal number three was to have a car in this century because I was the king of $500 cars. I quickly realized all of those goals would be accomplished, but that is not how I would measure my success. I would measure my success when the people who work for me can reach their personal financial goals through working at Caliente Pizza & Draft House.

The third store was crucial in the cash flow plan because it helped fund the ongoing efforts to bring in great talent to expand. At this point I was still paying General Managers an hourly rate. Now I could start to pay them a more than competitive salary. I brought on a full-time marketing director knowing her salary would come from the fourth store. I created a new position in all locations: a front of the house manager. These were all progressions because of cash flow and knowing I would need these positions for future growth.

Fast forward from the fourth store to our current 13 (going on 14) locations and we now have 12 regional positions, and we keep adding to our team and we keep adding assets to our company. Every stream of revenue that comes in, a portion of it goes back into the company to fund future growth. This is the model that has worked for me. In next month’s column we will talk about adding the assets you need to move your growth forward.

Nick Bogacz is the founder and president of Caliente Pizza & Draft House in Pittsburgh.  Instagram: @caliente_pizza