Ilir Sela: How I Founded Slice Pizza & Became One of Macedonia’s Largest Employers | E1044

1. 0:00 – 13:19

   Background and Early Ventures

   1. ISIlir Sela0:00

      Pizza, in the US at least, is a staple. It is a product that is low cost, travels well, it feeds an entire family or group of friends. In recessions, in fact, consumers will tend to turn their nights out in, and instead of going out to a restaurant, they'll order pizza at home and they'll have a family pizza night. Pizzerias thrive, especially in the most challenging times, and this was also true in the middle of COVID. It became probably the last option standing in many suburbs and small towns across the country.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings0:27

      (music) Elia, I am so excited for this show. I heard so many good things from, from Ben Sun, from Wily, from Jeff Richards. So, thank you so much for joining me today.

   3. ISIlir Sela0:37

      Thank you so much for hosting me. I'm, uh, I'm looking forward to this one. Let's have some fun.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings0:41

      It's gonna be great. But I wanna start, and you know, I'm secretly an armchair psychologist, so I like to dig into people's childhoods. But, uh, you know, you saw your parents running small businesses, and your grandparents even. What is the single biggest takeaway for you from seeing your parents and grandparents build their small business in your more formative years?

   5. ISIlir Sela1:00

      Yeah. The, the biggest takeaway is that building a small business is an incredibly lonely journey. It's lonely, uh, because you kinda start off this business trying to solve one problem, and then you inherit an infinite amount of other problems that you suddenly have to be an expert in solving. Um, and so that process can be incredibly lonely.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings1:23

      It's a lonely process. And then you decide to be a sole founder. (laughs) Can you talk to me-

   7. ISIlir Sela1:30

      That's right.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings1:30

      Uh, it is so lonely, why did you decide to be a sole founder when you could have had a co-founder? And do you find it lonely today? I know I do.

   9. ISIlir Sela1:38

      Being a founder, a CEO, is, uh, can certainly be a lonely job. Uh, I think it's very different than what small independent businesses face. Uh, I'm fortunate enough to have the resources, uh, to be able to surround myself with an amazing team, and so that makes my journey much less lonely than, imagine a pizza shop owner or a bakery owner and the lack of resources or time or know-how that they may be facing with in order to have the same luxury that I do. So, it's a very different, uh, experience. But for me, I think being a sole founder, I'll be honest, I didn't, I didn't really come, come through sort of the VC or Silicon Valley sort of part of, uh, the business world. I was just raised to build businesses by creating something that the world needs. Um, you know, if that cost me a dollar, charge two dollars for it, and do that as many times as possible.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings2:40

       (laughs)

   11. ISIlir Sela2:40

       Like, I, you know, I'm much more of a small business owner at heart than I am, uh, this person who sought out to build, you know, a multi-billion dollar company.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings2:51

       It's funny. We'll get into the kind of not coming from Silicon Valley central casting later. But I do just wanna stay on this one element of kind of lessons from upbringing. I, I always think that we're kind of shaped by our past. How do you think about what you're running from?

   13. ISIlir Sela3:06

       That's a really good question. I don't really run from things. I, I'm more optimistic, uh, by design. I wouldn't say I'm running from any- from anything. I think I'm running more towards something. I, I'm really passionate about, um, building products that are really impactful to people, I'm really passionate about building teams. You know, I, I just wanna create something really special. I will tell you my upbringing. I was born in this town of, uh, called Diber in what was then former Yugoslavia. It's like on the border today of Macedonia and Albania. Uh, I'm Albanian by background. This is a town of like 5,000 people. And there are no traffic lights. There's like, it's a tiny little business. I mean, uh, little, uh, town. And growing up, like the understanding, the common knowledge, or what we were taught was to simply do your best to get a really good job, hopefully save enough money, and maybe buy a house, have a car. You know, do all that. That was the north star. That's like the most ambitious, um, plan that anyone from that town could have. And when I was 10 years old, my family moved back to New York. Um, it was my first time immigrating to the US, but my family used to live in New York in the '70s before I was born. Anyway, uh, we're flying back to JFK Airport. And as a 10-year-old, you're looking out the window and, uh, you see all these lights. Lights like, imagine the stark difference between a town of 5,000 people with no traffic lights and then approaching the landing at JFK Airport in New York City and looking out the window as a 10-year-old. And I remember, uh, one of the things my dad said was, "Imagine, like think about what's possible here. One of the things I don't want you," and he said this to my brothers as well, was to not really squander is the opportunity, because they made a, the ultimate sacrifice to leave their family to come to the US for more opportunity for their kids. I think coming back to New York, um, growing up where I did, um, very important for me to prove to the world, I think, that, and, and especially people that come from where I come from, that anything's possible but you just have to work really, really hard.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings5:33

       I totally agree. I think that's a wonderful story. Can I ask you, I, I spoke to Ben Sun before the show, and the joy of, um, the way we do this is like we just have a great chat, so fuck the schedule. He told me about you having a Bentley, but then also kind of being in like-

   15. ISIlir Sela5:48

       (laughs)

   16. HSHarry Stebbings5:48

       ... Staten Island.

   17. ISIlir Sela5:49

       Yeah.

   18. HSHarry Stebbings5:49

       My question to you is, and something I, I think about a lot having come from nothing, is like financial security. How much were you chasing financial security in the early days, do you think? And was that important to you? 'Cause you say you're just running towards, and I get that.... but then also you are making sure that you capture the opportunity and you came from nothing. How do you think about that, importance of financial security?

   19. ISIlir Sela6:14

       Yeah. I think, look, financial security is important. Um, and I will tell you the Bentley story in a moment. However, growing up when we moved to New York, uh, we moved in with my uncle. And so my uncle and his family, my dad and our family, we all lived together- my grandparents, we all lived together in a single apartment in Staten Island, two bedrooms. All of the kids slept on these, uh, sort of mattresses on the floor at night, and then we had to pick them up and shove them under the couch during the day. That was a- I'm- I can imagine it was a struggle for my parents, my uncle, um, and his wife. But for me, it was some of the best times of my life. I remember those days vividly. We didn't have a lot, but life was awesome. And so for that reason, I'm actually not afraid to land or to end up in a situation where I don't have enough or a lot or, um, you know, I guess, it's- a simple way to say, financial outcomes is not what motivates me. Like, I enjoy the process of hard work. I think I'm enjoying the process of going through a lot of pain. And, uh, sometimes business feels a bit like a game. It gives you purpose. It's- it's all of that. Now, one of the things I do love are car- I love cars. Um, and when I was bootstrapping the company in 2015, I want to say February of 2015, I look at my spreadsheet one day, I was tracking my company on an Excel sheet, not even on QuickBooks. And in one month, we profited about $250,000 and it was a tiny team. I was the sole owner, small business. Well, not that small at- at that point. And my twin brother, who's much more of a free spirit than I am, uh, he's like, "Hey, you know, let's have some fun with it." And so went to this really expensive car dealership in Manhattan, New York City, and bought a Bentley on the spot. It was fun. I- I, you know... but I would say immediately after I was like, "What am I doing?" I need to- I need to figure out how to reinvest this money back in the business. And that is truly what led to me reaching out to Wylie, for example, on Twitter, which is, um, I think, a magical platform, by the way. We- we can talk about that separately.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings8:35

       Fuck it. Why not just go there? I love a natural conversation.

   21. ISIlir Sela8:37

       (laughs)

   22. HSHarry Stebbings8:38

       Talk to me about that reach out to Wylie. Literally, you told me that you reached out to him on Twitter, and that was the catalyst to them, you know, getting to know you and ultimately leading you around. Can you tell me the story?

   23. ISIlir Sela8:49

       Yeah. So that same month, February of 2015, uh, I realized that there was an opportunity for me to really restart what was then called My Pizza, uh, ultimately became Slice. Two reasons. One, we were performing really well as a business. Two, I had just gotten my first acquisition offer, you know, the offer to sell the company for $18 million. Would have been awesome. Sole owner. No debt. $18 million would have been great. And I turned it down. I turned it down because I thought, what would I do if I sold the company? Well, I would probably go and try and open up or launch a very similar business, work really hard again for another five years, and maybe have some, you know, similar outcome, we'll see. But that wasn't really that exciting for me. What I wanted to know is what happens if I approach this business as that new company that I may launch post-sale? What would that look like? What would that journey look like? I would learn a lot more, I'd scale to a point that I hadn't scaled before, but hopefully I can surround myself with people who can really help me get there. And so I went on Twitter, which, by the way, could- like I said, can be a magical platform. Twitter is sort of a mirror of what you're seeking, right? You can follow some really great people and they'll bring back some really great content and lessons. Or you can follow, you know, the news, and that'll give you the news. But Twitter can be whatever you want it to be, and I went and followed a number of really great founders and entrepreneurs in the food tech ecosystem. I tweeted at the- within minutes, Wylie, who was, who I thought at the time was still leading a company called Single Platform, uh, around, focused around SMBs, he was an early leader at Seamless. I tweeted the founder of Delivery Hero, I tweeted the founder of Zomato, um, and a couple of other people, and Wylie is the only one who replied. So Wylie replied to my tweet and he's like, "Sure, you know, send me a message," and I couldn't message him because he wasn't following me back, so I couldn't DM him. Anyway, we- we got on a call and he was like, "What's going on?" Like, "Why are you-" you know, "Who are you?" Like, "Why are you reaching out? How can I help?" And I told him that I am getting some traction with this really great merchant-centric, um, online ordering and commerce enablement for small businesses company. And he's like, "Look, when you're working with about 100 or 200 locations, give me a call back." And I said, "Well, we're working with about 3,000 locations," and he's like, "Come to my office tomorrow" (laughs) . And so, uh, I go to his office at the time, uh, it was at First Round Capital, which, by the way, I had no idea what First Round Capital was. Um, but went and met with him and, um, that led to a number of other introductions.

   24. HSHarry Stebbings11:48

       I have so many questions to ask here. I think the first thing that I do just have to ask is this, quite striking there, 3,000 locations, and he was saying come back with 100 or 200, I probably would have said the same if I was him, why did you not go to investors before?

   25. ISIlir Sela12:04

       Like, I didn't go to Wylie as an investor. I went to Wylie as...... a leader in the food tech ecosystem, hoping that he can connect me to some people who can join my company to help me scale. I didn't need money at the time. We were very profitable. The last thing I needed was money. What I needed was people and leadership and just broaden my network. But like I said, I went to the First Round office and one of the people he connected me with was, uh, Josh Kopelman. And Josh and I spoke for about 90 minutes, we had a great conversation and I leave that meeting and Wylie calls me, he's like, "Josh loved you." And I was like, "W- why does that matter?" (laughs) I didn't know, I really didn't know Josh's, uh, background and probably why I was maybe so loose and the conversation went so well. Yeah, I think for, for Wylie, uh, and some other folks he introduced me to, uh, one of the reasons why I ended up raising money was because that was the way to get them involved in the business. And so that's really how my bootstrap company became venture-backed. It was almost like not for that purpose as a primary reason, it was to get the right people on board and then money was the, like capital was the way to get them on.

2. 13:19 – 23:59

   Entrepreneurial Journey and Building a Team

   1. HSHarry Stebbings13:19

      Can I ask, what did you do due to not having money that would have been different had you had money?

   2. ISIlir Sela13:26

      Oh my God. Um, not having money forces you, forces entrepreneurs to become incredibly creative, uh, to s- you know, in order to solve problems. I would say capital constraints create some incredible solutions that are very hard to replicate by other companies who may not have the same constraints. One of the examples is, I started investing and building a team in Macedonia, which is again where I'm from. So in that small town of 5,000 people, I started hiring people there for two reasons. One, unemployment rate in that country is like 50%, so no one's really working. Uh, average wage for those who do work is about, or at the time, was about $200 per month, average wage. Yeah, I mean, we're talking about, um, very, very limited opportunities. However, in terms of culturally, education is instilled in every human, ev- uh, like hard work is instilled in every person. And I felt like there was an opportunity for me to, uh, onboard some really great team members early days and pay them really well, double the national average. But that would cost me a lot less than having to hire people in, in the New York or anywhere in the US really. So we very quickly started building out that team. Uh, today we have about 650 people in Macedonia. We're one of the largest employers in the country. That would not have happened if capital wasn't, wasn't a constraint. I mean, we, we went as far as like creating schools, like English courses because we ran out of people who spoke English. Like we couldn't hire people who spoke English 'cause, you know, we hired them all. So we started, we started creating English courses. If someone passed the course and they got a certificate, they would then be qualified to work at Slice.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings15:32

      Sorry, I'm just, uh, how do you create an English course? Like you go online and record videos teaching English? Like just take me to that era.

   4. ISIlir Sela15:40

      Like physical schools. Like so went to, to the city, like, uh, there's English teachers at the actual schools in Macedonia who teach the English language and I hired them to become teachers, at the time it was called mypizza.com, but to, to become teachers at our company and they were holding courses. It was like a classroom and so people had to show up every day. It was free, anyone can join, anyone can go and learn English. You didn't have to work at My Pizza after, but if you learned and you were proficient and you were excelling in that course, then you would immediately graduate to a job at My Pizza.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings16:21

      Where did you not spend money because you didn't have it, but with the benefit of hindsight you wish you had have done?

   6. ISIlir Sela16:28

      Uh, it was really mostly probably in the go-to-market side of things. One, I was limited by the number of salespeople I can get based on the profits or the amount of money that we were, you know, making at the time and it took a long time to ramp up. Like it took five years to get to a point where we had real scale. You know, one salesperson led to two, two led to four, four led to six, but it was like a very slow ramp. I couldn't hire like sales classes to go and introduce this product to as many locations as possible. That created a, a very slower ramp time. The other part was product. I mean, I had one engineer, uh, his name is Sam Kennedy, he's incredible. He's the only engineer and product person and tech pers- he's the only tech person we had in the company for five years.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings17:18

      Wow.

   8. ISIlir Sela17:19

      Yeah. So, so we had one person doing product and engineering. This person became a bit of a hero to our team in Macedonia because I would say no to a lot of stuff and he would stay up late at night building things and tools for the team to be able to work better. They had this like behind the scenes roadmap that he would work on after hours, uh, while, you know, he would build sort of the consumer-facing or shop-facing products during the day.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings17:47

      I mean, I, I love that. I also am terrified that he's gonna get sick. (laughs)

   10. ISIlir Sela17:52

       (laughs)

   11. HSHarry Stebbings17:52

       'Cause then you're fucked.

   12. ISIlir Sela17:53

       Yeah.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings17:53

       Um, speaking of like, you know, that one person dependency, often it is said that you should hire great people and then the best CEOs get out of the way. You've disagreed with that before when we've chatted. Why do you think that's bullshit?

   14. ISIlir Sela18:09

       ... I, it's, it's complete bullshit. I mean, I used to feel like, okay, hire good people, get it out of the way, and I've done that. I've done that many times and every time I've done that, uh, things have failed. I've f- I have failed the person and the person typically fails at Slice. And the reason why I think that is, is because every situation is incredibly unique. Even if it's the similar role in a similar company in a similar industry, there are details in every business that really, really matter that I think are very important for, um, for leaders to align on. It's my job to make sure that leaders are successful at the company. It's my job to make sure that we talk about the details and really understand the decisions that are made on a weekly or monthly basis. You know, a company's growth trajectory is a collection of mini pivots, I call them. Like, you don't have to make this huge company pivot, but every decision tree is a little pivot, right? You're kind of going down a path and those decisions are so important and alignment around those decisions is incredibly important. How can you align on those things if you're just kind of zooming out and saying, "Hey, I've got this leader running, go to market," and like, you know, I'm sure what they're doing is great, the numbers are great, but you know, three months or six months later you get into the details and you realize that things have deviated significantly. I just don't believe in, like, getting out of the way of anybody. I think it's being, um, teammates and going along the journey together.

   15. HSHarry Stebbings19:49

       Are you decisive? You mentioned there mini pivots. Are you decisive in your thought process?

   16. ISIlir Sela19:56

       Not as decisive as I would like to be. Um, I feel-

   17. HSHarry Stebbings19:59

       (laughs) .

   18. ISIlir Sela20:00

       ... like I'm progressing. I'm getting better at it. I used to be really bad at it. I used to really try to run companies, uh, the company with consensus, right? It was like going to these exec meetings and it's, "Okay, what do you think and what do you think?" And everyone had a say and we had to, like, all get on the same page eventually, and it would be this really slow process because it's hard to get consensus when you have, you know, five, six, seven strong-minded experienced people around the table. And we've been fortunate to have really good leaders at the company. I think that that was a terrible way to run a business. I think people want... Uh, especially great leaders look for, um, someone to make decisions, they want someone to carve out a vision for where we're headed. So I feel like I've become better, but I'm still not as good as I think I need to be.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings20:53

       Why not?

   20. ISIlir Sela20:54

       I would say when I was growing up, the culture that's instilled in me is to... It's like hospitality first culture, which is you kind of wanna take a little bit of a backseat, you definitely wanna get people along, you don't wanna, like, piss anybody off. I come from a culture where, you know, telling people what to do is a bit of a disrespectful, um, element, right? Like, it's kind of... It's not respectful to go to people and say, "This is what I want you to do." It's more like, "How do you get them there?" This is something that I've been talking to some, you know, other founders, you know, in the ecosystem about. Like, things that we've been taught when we are young actually, I believe, sometimes create a lot more damage than good. Now, I'm not saying things like, "Hey, be kind or be nice or be good to people." I'm saying don't speak when you're not, you know, called upon. That kind of stuff is... I think can be very, very dangerous, but it's probably because of my upbringing.

   21. HSHarry Stebbings21:58

       My therapist once told me, "Parents, ah parents, they fuck you up, Hari." And I thought that was a wonderfully concise (laughs) -

   22. ISIlir Sela22:05

       That's right.

   23. HSHarry Stebbings22:06

       ... ah, way to put it. Um, I think the... So that's, like, decision-making in many ways. The other thing that's fascinating is you mentioned the mini pivots. With mini pivots, you need good communication to discuss why you're moving, where you're moving to, and the thought process around it. What have been your biggest lessons in effective communication in management given the many, many pivots?

   24. ISIlir Sela22:28

       I think the number one thing, uh, is really just the frequency of communication. So the same thing really needs to be communicated incredibly frequently, uh, especially as the company scales. There's no communication debt in the early days. It's a small team, everyone kind of is in the same place, everyone's talking about the same stuff, nothing's lost in translation. As the company scales, the first thing you wanna do is obviously communicate these things multiple times. Um, a mentor of mine once said, "If you're not feeling nauseous because you're communicating the same thing over and over that you just feel like, you know, why am I saying this again, do it one more time." That's how you know that you've communicated enough. I think the other part is I think it's very rare that people clearly communicate the why, 'cause the why is very, very important. Not just the decision we're making, but why are we making that decision and how can we articulate that not just a step ahead but, like, five steps ahead? H- how can we connect the current why with some future decisions? I think it's a really important part of clear communication because then you want people, the team members, to be able to make their own little mini decisions, and if they don't understand the why, then how can they make the right decisions? I mean, you can't be... You can't be present for every single one of them. So communication frequency and then being incredibly clear with the why, not just, like, one step ahead but many steps ahead. Very, very important. That's one of the lessons

3. 23:59 – 36:44

   Management and Company Structure

   1. ISIlir Sela23:59

      I've learned.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings23:59

      That's, that's all good and well and I totally agree with you. You decided to go from hard mode to extra hard mode though and have, uh, teams in Macedonia with those communication pathways. How do you prevent... I'm fascinated. How do you prevent a team with, like, two islands, one in the US, a US team, and one in Macedonia, Macedonia team? How do you prevent those kind of silos between the two, in communication especially?

   3. ISIlir Sela24:27

      Yeah. And by the way, to make things more complicated, we also have an incredible team in Belfast, Northern Ireland and some folks in the UK generally. Uh, that team is about, I wanna say, 100, 150 people now. You've got this company that is part US, part UK, part Macedonia. You know, the question is how to prevent those silos. What I've learned is, I think it's probably more important to just embrace the silos. I don't think you can prevent them because every single geography, every single region has its own cultural dynamics. And what we've done is we've actually created, uh, geographic, uh, sort of communication, um, frameworks and platforms. So actually today, I've got an all-hands, uh, meeting with everybody in the US. Next week, it'll be everyone in, uh, in Macedonia and then Belfast. And so the reality is, that what motivates people in Macedonia and the cultural differences there would be... are, are incredibly unique. If I communicated to the company more broadly and tried to, like, make sure that all these people behaved identically or as similar as possible, we, it would be a total failure in my opinion. Who made the rule that everyone has to be, like, all on, like, one cultural norm? It doesn't have to be that way.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings25:47

      Can I ask you a weird one? What infrastructure do you work on across all of those different teams and geographies? Is it Slack with Airtable and Asana? How do you, from a technology infrastructure standpoint, make them come together in some cohesive way?

   5. ISIlir Sela26:02

      Uh, to be quite honest, it's mostly Slack and, uh, just Google, uh, Google sort of, uh, Suite. Uh, Docs, Sheets, uh, Presentations, things like that. And then, um, you know, phone calls and, you know, Google Meet. Uh, things like that. But I wanna say, like, our stack is actually incredibly simple. Uh, I'm, I'm a big fan of, like, eliminating, uh, tools versus introducing more and more tools 'cause then what happens is things become fragmented, that no one knows what should I Slack versus what should I email, but what should I present via video. And so I'm going through this process of elimination where, like, how do we streamline and, and focus our communication as much as possible? That's probably more important than always going and sort of turning on more and more tools.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings26:52

      Where do you think you struggle as a leader? I heard so many great things about you from your passion, your hard work. We'll talk about both. Where do you think you struggle?

   7. ISIlir Sela27:01

      Oh, I struggle in (laughs) , uh, in many areas, I would say. Uh, my number one struggle, my ability to really, um, empathize with a team at scale when it comes to my own communication. So for example, I'll communicate broadly, um, with the assumption that everyone knows exactly who I am, and with the assumption that everyone understands my intentions, with the assumption that, like, there are no, you know, commun- like, knowledge gaps. And so I communicate very, I wanna say, authentically and directly, uh, especially when it comes to, like, company-wide forums, and that typically has been a struggle because sometimes I'll say things that are, to be fair to our team, incredibly easy to misinterpret. And then, you know, that can create, uh, a lot of friction or it can create this idea that people need to go into a different direction when my intention was probably something different. So I wanna say, just my ability to communicate more broadly to, to a team at scale, uh, in a way that's clear, simple, and leaves as little room as possible to, you know, misinterpretation.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings28:19

      Were you good at fundraising? You mentioned communicating to different parts of the organization there. Fundraising is communicating and storytelling to investors. Were you good at it given you had no idea, respectfully, you know, who First Round were and really weren't from Silicon Valley casting at all?

   9. ISIlir Sela28:36

      I was really good at it when our numbers were great.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings28:39

       (laughs)

   11. ISIlir Sela28:39

       And I was very bad at it when our numbers were bad.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings28:43

       Okay. W- what, so your numbers-

   13. ISIlir Sela28:44

       (laughs)

   14. HSHarry Stebbings28:45

       ... were good in the First Round days, correct?

   15. ISIlir Sela28:47

       Yes.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings28:47

       That was like... Okay, when were the numbers bad?

   17. ISIlir Sela28:50

       It's not that they were bad. It's like, you know, I wanna say in 2019, I could not fundraise for the life of me. And-

   18. HSHarry Stebbings28:59

       Why?

   19. ISIlir Sela29:00

       ... um, I learned for the first time that when you raise capital... So we raised a round of $15 million, uh, in 2017, and that was led by GGV Capital, by Jeff Richards. Uh, and that was an amazing moment for Slice. Jeff has been one of, uh, the best partners you can ask for. What I didn't realize is that that raises the stakes. Again, I, I'm, I'm not coming from the world of like, "Let's go raise all this money." It was just like a, a moment in time where I felt like capital will be able to really help us, you know, uh, scale faster. But it set expectations that were even further beyond my own, um, realization of what the company needed to accomplish in order to, to then raise more money in the future. I would also say, I got out of the way too much, and so we hired a lot of people. Our team went from like 30 people to 100, and that creates demand for more capital. Some of these people are still learning the, the business. So the performance was great. Like, we were growing, I wanna say, 60, 70, 80%, but at that early stage, in order to do that next round, we needed to grow by 150. There are obviously preconceived sort of, um, metrics that, like, the best investors seek out in order to, uh, to fund a company. And so because of our very clear focus on one segment, pizza shops, any moment where Slice's performance hasn't been...... best in class, immediately the assumption is you're TAM, you're TAM constrained. Immediately it's like, "Okay, you ran out of TAM," which is completely false, but that's, that's the natural reaction. And so, uh, yeah, our numbers weren't like, you know, fascinating or, or really exciting in 2019, and I was terrible at fundraising. Our numbers were incredibly great in 2021 and we raised in like two days.

   20. HSHarry Stebbings31:03

       What did you change when the numbers were shit in twen- or not great in 2019 and it was hard? What did your mind say to yourself and what did you change?

   21. ISIlir Sela31:13

       I needed to stop getting out of the way. Um, I, I basically outsourced is the good name. Like, just because the team is internal doesn't mean founders aren't outsourcing problems or responsibilities. I basically outsourced a lot of the decisions internally to other leaders and again, it's not like they had bad intent or they weren't qualified, it's that I'm going back to the same story which is every business is incredibly unique. I don't care if it's the same industry. Anyone coming, joining Slice from Seamless or Grubhub or someone who may join Slice today from DoorDash or Toast will still need to understand the unique aspects of this business relative to their experience elsewhere. And so I got involved again. Um, I think one of the realizations is companies can actually accomplish a lot with much less so one of the things that I did was just put a lot of constraint on why we're hiring people. You know, I realized we had a lot of people who were hired to do a specific role, but very few founders ask, "Is that a full-time role?" You know, so someone will hire, you know, position A and yes, that's needed for, for the company to continue to grow, but how many hours a week does position A require? Is it 10? Is it 5? What are they doing with the other 35 hours? And so what they're doing is creating more jobs and then that creates more of a downstream, I wanna say impact, on the org to go and do more and it gets very noisy and then expensive and i- i- it's a snowball effect. And so putting constraints, going back to sort of the bootstrap days, putting constraints was probably the best thing I did after 2019.

   22. HSHarry Stebbings33:03

       Can I ask you, do you think it's a failing of you as a manager that when you stepped back a little bit and delegated, it didn't go as well?

   23. ISIlir Sela33:12

       Of course. By the way, all of these are my failures. Um, these are not, like, somebody else's failures, this is a-

   24. HSHarry Stebbings33:18

       But then my question to you is, like, is it right for you to step back in or should you just implement new guardrails and new structures to allow yourself to remain out of it? You know, I often am told that the best CEOs are the ones which go on holiday for a week and they come back and their business is better than it was when they left.

   25. ISIlir Sela33:34

       I disagree with that. Uh, I mean, I hope that that's... Don't get me wrong, I think once you have known motions and you're a growth company, certainly the company's better every single day than the day prior and much of that is the result of not the founder or the CEO, it's the result of the processes and systems you've put in place in order to drive growth. I completely agree with that. I think for me though, in 20, you know, 18, 2019, we were not yet a growth stage company. We- this is a series B company that's still figuring out what exactly is the go-to, what are the go-to-market motions, what is the product. Uh, we were hiring people like crazy, like, I don't think you can get out of the way at that point. Certainly today I can probably zoom out but it's, um, yeah, I think it's a moment in time.

   26. HSHarry Stebbings34:24

       Can I ask you, you mentioned there the, the delegation to senior leaders. Respectfully, um, it, you know, when you're thinking about getting the best senior leaders in the US in particular, it's really hard to hire them, and it's not the obvious company idea to join, to tell your partner when you come home, "Hey, I'm empowering pizzerias around the world and around the US," and that's a... It's just not standard.

   27. ISIlir Sela34:49

       No.

   28. HSHarry Stebbings34:49

       What are some of your biggest lessons on exec talent acquisition having been through that phase? (laughs)

   29. ISIlir Sela34:56

       The, the pizza restaurant is our end customer. Um, what we're doing, our mission is to keep local thriving and there's a reason why we're focused on one very specific category at a time. I've been fortunate to be able to recruit some of the best talent in the world including folks on our board, including our investors, and yes, I think it can be interesting if you have to go home and say, "Okay, now I work for a pizza company." Uh, and maybe you worked at Google before that or you worked at, you know, uh, you know, DoorDash or something like that. You know, I think the, the main, the main takeaway is y- you, you wanna sort of work backwards, like, for me, the number one goal, th- and our number one job is to create a platform that increases the probability of success of small businesses. The only way for us to do that is if we create a true vertically integrated product that not only solves one problem, but solves the many problems that face small businesses. Too many people, uh, and companies, I think, have come and gone that simply solve a very narrow problem for SMBs and they go incredibly wide, so they'll go to, like, millions of small businesses solving one problem, giving them one tool, but all that does really is just, it's like a short-term, um, solution to a long-term problem that still will remain because until someone figures out how to build an end-to-end, uh, sort of ecosystem that changes the...... disadvantage that an independent has by being independent, I think small businesses, the- the failure rate will continue to remain

4. 36:44 – 46:20

   Building a Business: Strategy and Point of Entry

   1. ISIlir Sela36:44

      high.

   2. HSHarry Stebbings36:44

      So, I- I agree with you. I think the most important single point of that, though, is the starting insertion point that you choose. I almost think of it like you have to be at the start of the chain reaction, not in the middle and not at the end. Do you know what I mean? So like-

   3. ISIlir Sela36:58

      Yes.

   4. HSHarry Stebbings36:58

      ... payroll would not be the first thing necessarily 'cause it's post a lot of other things happening.

   5. ISIlir Sela37:04

      Yeah.

   6. HSHarry Stebbings37:04

      Or lending may not be because it's generally in a phase where you've got a lot of things in place. How do you advise founders who do take that very vertical-focused approach on picking the right insertion point that puts them at the start of the chain?

   7. ISIlir Sela37:19

      Well, uh, one, you have to immerse yourself in that category, in that industry, in that problem. You know, you just have to make sure that you really, really understand what the, uh, customer in that segment is really going through, not just in a moment in time but like, every day, every week, every year. What's happening not only with the individual locations, so getting to the very detailed parts, but also what's happening overall with the industry. I think too many people per- perhaps start with leading questions with customers, so they'll go to a customer and they'll say, "Hey, if, uh ... Are you having trouble with payroll?" And they'll say, "Yeah, sure, I'm having trouble with payroll. I'd love for someone to fix that." What they don't ask is, "In what order of priority is payroll your trouble?" And so, what they end up doing is they'll build a product for payroll and then they realize no one's really using it because, for an owner, while payroll may be a problem, it's their eighth problem. Really, what you wanna ask the customer is, "What is your big, like, what is the problem that keeps you up at night? What is the thing that you are trying to solve for?" And then you wanna sort of, uh, triangulate that to a solution that isn't them telling you, "Here's what I need," but it's you then figuring out, uh, through your own research and capabilities and- and product, um, how to solve that problem in a way that's going to help, uh, these businesses, um, succeed. The example I'll give you for me was, every one of these businesses was really struggling with sales. Small businesses, at the end of the day, they just need demand. And everyone I heard, if I spoke to an owner they would say, "How can I get, how can I get new customers?" I figured out that it wasn't new customers that they were struggling with, but they were completely, um, sort of abandoning their existing customers. All of their existing customers were calling their phone line. Once they placed an order, they were gone. They would just come back again by memory. How do you, how do you get in touch with your phone customers again? You don't, you're not gonna call them in a week and say, "Hey, it's time to order pizza again." And so, to me, more sales for SMBs meant how do I increase the customer lifetime value of the existing customers? And the way to do that is to move them from the phone channel to the digital channel.

   8. HSHarry Stebbings39:45

      Can I ask you, are there any benefits of being horizontal? If we look at something like Owner.com, which obviously is not focused on a specific segment of cuisine or SMB, it's much more just restaurant-specific, um, which is very broad, are there benefits of being horizontal and not vertical?

   9. ISIlir Sela40:05

      Uh, of course there's benefits. It all depends on what the vision and the mission of the company is. You can certainly go very horizontal. I think the question is then at what point do you think the, uh, solution will perhaps end up, um, running out of steam? By that I mean a restaurant that sells a different product and maybe has table service is a very different business than a pizza shop, which is a very different business than a coffee shop. Now, they may all have the similar need of commerce, which is what a company like Owner.com provides. But beyond that, um, it becomes very difficult because what happens is each one of these different business models will then have a different need, a different solution that they'll require. And so by default it becomes very challenging to vertically integrate beyond a certain point because the needs deviate significantly after some point.

   10. HSHarry Stebbings41:01

       So, I totally get you and agree with you there. If we continue on the verticalization, I'm fascinated by this, how do you think about when's the right time to add that second product, to start moving on from the initial Trojan horse to add your first ancillary? When did you do it and when's the right time?

   11. ISIlir Sela41:19

       Once you get enough scale with your first product, uh, and you have a cohort of merchants, of customers, merchants I call them on our side, but customers who are adopters of that first product that have realized success with that first product, it's probably time to introduce the next product. But you don't want to introduce it to everyone because the reality is regardless of whether you're a horizontal or vertical, every one of your customers is at a different point in the life cycle. Some opened a month ago and some have been around for 10 years or 30 years. The person who opened up a month ago has a very different need than the person who opened up 30 years ago. There's a merchant, a shop today that needs a lot more customers, and there's a shop who if you call and said, "I'm gonna bring you more customers," they're going to say, "What are you talking about? Like, that's the last thing that I need." So, that's one. That's sort of the external life cycle of a, of a merchant. Two, it's the adoption curve internally. And so, in a geography like New York where we started, we have a lot of merchants who are completely integrated with our commerce products. It is time for us to introduce more products in that stack in order to continue to help, uh, increase the success rate of- of their business and lower their costs, perhaps give them back time.But if I go to a merchant in a geography where we're probably pretty much absent today, let's, let's say Seattle, Washington, and I go with this, like, multi-product thing, that's too intimidating. That's a lot, right? And so, now what I do like about multiple products is that each one independently can become the wedge. So now, you know, a lot of people call it a Trojan horse, but a wedge can become any one of those products so, uh, the tam basically becomes a little bit bigger in that market. But I've found it very challenging to have small business owners, especially these, like, micro-business owners, to adopt more than one product at a time. It's too much change. It's, they're, they're busy running their shop. Like, they're not gonna sit there and make all these changes so that you can, you know, get your sales.

   12. HSHarry Stebbings43:30

       Do you have sales teams who are upselling them or do you let them come to you with customer demand leading their upsell?

   13. ISIlir Sela43:37

       Uh, it's a combination. So I'm really, really proud of the level of service that Slice provides to our merchants. And by the way, you can go and naturally, anyone who's listening, go to any pizza shop in the US, ask them about Slice and the level of service they receive. And I'm incredibly proud to say in advance that they will probably, uh, have in- a lot of positive things to say. The reason why is, uh, twofold. One, we have this amazing restaurant support team that is the inbound team. So if anyone calls us, we answer on the spot. By the way, these folks are all in Macedonia. So we answer on the spot. And then we have this partner success team, we call it. Each partner success person has a portfolio of shops who are existing customers of Slice. They know these owners by name. They know their birthdays, they know the name of their manager. They know everything that these owners are dealing with. Um, I mean, they're part of the team. We're an extension of their staff. And so we know when an owner is ready for one of our products. We also know when they're not ready and, you know, we won't mention it. And so these relationship managers, um, are probably the... One, it's one of the most challenging jobs at Slice, but two, it's one of the most rewarding, uh, jobs at Slice. And so yes, we upsell at the right time g- based on, again, where the mer- where the merchant is in their lifecycle.

   14. HSHarry Stebbings45:05

       What's the average revenue per pizzeria for you today?

   15. ISIlir Sela45:10

       I don't like measuring averages, Harry. Averages hide the truth. I wanna know how many, how many merchants are beyond a certain threshold of revenue. You know, all in all, Slice's products cost about 7 or 8% of the revenue that we create for the merchant. And so if we create more revenue, we'll earn more revenue. What I love is, for example, there's a shop in New Jersey that is managing over a million and a half dollars a year through the Slice pla- uh, platform. For that merchant, our revenue is about $100,000 a year net to Slice. And then there are merchants that are maybe just joining or joined a month ago that are still on their sort of ramp up time where we're maybe earning $1,000 a year. Um, so that's... The goal though is to continue to move, uh, merchants from one bucket to the next, to the next and continue to graduate them, uh, in that, in that, um, wavelength basically, yeah.

   16. HSHarry Stebbings46:16

       I don't know if you can see, but I'm, uh, I'm literally writing on my hand 'cause there are so many things

5. 46:20 – 56:53

   E-commerce and Market Trends

   1. HSHarry Stebbings46:20

      that I'm interested in. I can imagine pizzerias are like, "You know what? Super interesting, but like, can we ease ourselves into this?" No one wants to jump wholeheartedly into something very new. What does that ramp time look like? How long does it take for them to go from first order to actually a meaningful amount of orders in GMB going through Slice?

   2. ISIlir Sela46:42

      Um, it depends. It depends because our number one job is to change the behavior of the existing customers. There are merchants who join who naturally have a lot, a, a greater customer base than other merchants. But it's typically a very quick ramp up time. I mean, w- we do everything we can to make sure that we put in an experience in place that introduces to the consumer, for that merchant, the opportunity to be able to order through a mobile app, the opportunity to be able to pay with Apple Pay, and all these best in class features. And so we believe that we have an experience for the consumers that is, A, more rewarding. By the way, it should cost less to order online than calling, which is kind of fascinating. The, the consumer has been trained in the US to think that ordering online sh- is more expensive. That's kinda wild to me. Isn't software supposed to make things more efficient? I'm proud of the fact that our product has made ordering more efficient online than calling. It is a better experience for the consumer 'cause they don't have to, like, wait on hold and order from memory, and obviously it's less expensive for the merchant because they don't have to answer the phone.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings47:49

      Really easy one given the fact that you just said you don't like averages. When you th- (laughs) so, but I'm gonna go for it anyway. When you think about percent of revenue that's driven through Slice versus alternative channels, where are you today with the majority of pizzerias? D- is it 10%? Is it 50%? Is it 75%? Just help me understand the revenue makeup there for the pizzeria.

   4. ISIlir Sela48:13

      So there are pizzerias where on average we're probably now about 10% of, of their revenue. But there are, uh, pizzerias where we represent more than half of their revenue. Let me give you a quick framework. The average independent pizza shop in the US has total sales of about 550,000 per year and most of that is phone-based, most of that is either phone or walk-in. It's offline. The average Domino's location does about 1.2 million in revenue in sales per year in the US.The delta of 700,000 is primarily online digital volume. Their phone volume is actually identical. It's when Domino's invested in mobile and ordering online and they stopped advertising telephone numbers. That's when the performance of Domino's locations went through the roof. And in fact, their stock, if you look at their performance in the last, uh, you know, 12 months it's been, 12 years it's been just incredible. I mentioned this in a, in a couple of other conversations. I wish I invested in Domino's at the same time that I launched, uh, that I launched Slice. Uh, so when you look at that gap, it's all digital. And so what Slice tries to do is increase the revenue per merchant. So it's not just about the wallet share of Slice relative to the total volume of the merchant, but it's... The first question we have that we wanna answer is, are we increasing same store sales? Are we increasing the total sales of the shop? And if we are, then we earn the right to capture a portion of that value in the form of, you know, our take rate.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings49:53

      Can I ask you, do you get pushback from independents in terms of ownership of customer data? When you think about them signing up on a website, uh, or joining a newsletter for, I don't know, uh, Mama Tito's Pizzeria versus with Slice, you own the customer data. Better business, but not as good for them. Is that a question and a problem for many?

   6. ISIlir Sela50:16

      Uh, it isn't because while Slice has access to the customer data, all the customer data is completely transparent to every merchant. We're not an intermediary, we're not a, uh, third party. So all the customer data, we have an owner's app, every pizza shop knows exactly who the customers are, who their loyal customers are, who the repeat customers are, and who are the first-time customers. Uh, and all that information is completely transparent. Our job is to form stronger connections between small businesses and their customers. And, and our job is to be, uh, as invisible as we can while also making sure that the product experience is best in class.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings50:55

      Can I ask you, when you say about the 10% of revenue makeup that, you know, some have towards Slice, you just see the, kind of the huge potential you have moving forwards. The question I have for you is, so many investors would have said to you, uh, as you mentioned, the TAM of pizzas and really, like, (sighs) is that a f- is that a f- is that, is that exciting for us? What would you advise founders who are consistently told by investors this TAM is not exciting?

   8. ISIlir Sela51:21

      Well, first take the question seriously because they may be right. And then take your own independent approach to the TAM and try to answer the question as intellectually honestly as possible. The question that I was asked, I was asked that question, I've been asked that question many times. I'm sure I'll be asked that same question in a month. And the reality is you wanna take a step back and look at what exactly are you solving for and what is your real TAM? Not like what you make up. Like, I can say pizza is like a billion do- uh, sorry, a trillion dollar TAM if you include frozen pizza and global and this and that. The reality for me is I spent significant time studying the industry because the last thing I wanna be wrong about is our TAM, because that is probably one of the deciding factors whether you can build a multi-billion dollar company or not. And there's two parts to the TAM. One is what i- what is the current TAM? And then two, will that TAM expand due to the product and solution that you bring to the market? And so at the time that I launched, the pizza industry in the US was a 35 billion dollar industry. That was the revenue that was passing through at the time about 60,000 pizza shops, and two-thirds of that was independent. The Domino's and the Pizza Huts and Papa John's of the world started to expand the TAM because they introduced digital. They introduced mobile ordering, you know, all these digital, uh, aspects. And so when I look at independents, I looked at the failure rate and I looked at same store sales, uh, and I realized that I can expand the TAM in two ways. One, I could increase sales per store. Two, I think we can increase the number of stores that exist in the world, uh, that are, you know, pizza shops. And so when you fast-forward today, 47 billion dollars of revenue passes through about 80,000 pizza shops. The fastest growing segment i- are independents. 4,800 new locations opened up, net new locations opened up last year in the US. Um, and I like to believe that Slice is playing a meaningful role, meaningful role in that.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings53:36

      How does the recession impact independent pizzerias?

   10. ISIlir Sela53:40

       Um, it's interesting. Um, I've been telling people forever, 'cause I always used to get this question, that pizza in the US at least, um, is a staple. It is a product that is low cost, travels well, social. It feeds an entire family or a group of friends. And for that reason, Americans have this sort of weekly habit with pizza, whether it's family pizza night, uh, p- you know, uh, we call it, you know, Slice Thursdays at Slice where you order pizza for the team. It's the most attended, you know, lunch at the company. For that reason, I think it's become a staple. And, you know, in recessions, in fact, consumers will tend to turn their nights out in, and instead of going out to a restaurant, they'll order pizza at home and they'll have a family pizza night, uh, or friends pizza night. And so we are seeing a bit of an acceleration as economic environment, as the economic environment gets a little bit more challenging. Pizzerias thrive especially in the most challenging times. And this was also true in the middle of COVID. It became probably the last option standing in many suburbs and small towns across the country.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings54:55

       Can I ask you, are there any questions ... You've done interviews before. I listened to them before the show. Are there any questions which you're not asked that you wish you were asked? I do shows too, and I, you know, I always get asked the same one. How do you start? How do you balance your time between funds and media? You know, are you worried about burnout? And I'm like, "Fucking hell, ask me something new."

   12. ISIlir Sela55:19

       (laughs)

   13. HSHarry Stebbings55:19

       You know? (laughs)

   14. ISIlir Sela55:20

       Um, I'm not gonna answer the question, but one of the questions very few people ask is if I wanted to, uh, if I wanted to compete with Slice. I mean, I guess it's a bit of a cliché question, but if I wanted to compete with Slice, where would I start?

   15. HSHarry Stebbings55:34

       Huh.

   16. ISIlir Sela55:35

       Uh, that's a question that I think very few people ask. I mean, you have an opportunity to really find out about the true weakness of a company, like, the blind spot.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings55:46

       Why would you not answer it? I'm not asking for the answer, but I- it's like, if it's a true, if you are... I'm just positing an idea here and maybe being arrogant, but I would tell you the weakness of my business because even though you know it, you would have to go through eight years of media company build to get to it. So, like, the moat to get there is too big.

   18. ISIlir Sela56:09

       Agree. I agree. Um, because there are no benefits to me sharing it.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings56:14

       (laughs)

   20. ISIlir Sela56:17

       (laughs)

   21. HSHarry Stebbings56:17

       I like you. (laughs)

   22. ISIlir Sela56:19

       (laughs)

   23. HSHarry Stebbings56:20

       Um, c- do you have people to talk to? Do you have, like, a founder community?

   24. ISIlir Sela56:24

       I do. Um, I will say both, uh, Ben at Primary, and, uh, by the way, Ben, I don't know if you've ever spoken to Ben here, but you should. His story is incredible. Incredible. This is a very smart, poised, great person who you can have the best night out with, but he will challenge the fuck out of you the next day at the board meeting.

   25. HSHarry Stebbings56:47

       I love that. I w- I w- I'll definitely ping him after this.

   26. ISIlir Sela56:50

       Um-

   27. HSHarry Stebbings56:50

       Final one, final one from me, I do have to ask, is like,

6. 56:53 – 1:05:01

   Personal Reflections and Inspirations

   1. HSHarry Stebbings56:53

      if you were to call yourself up the night before starting MyPizza and say, "Before you go on this journey, you should know..." what would you say you wish you had known?

   2. ISIlir Sela57:06

      In the early days especially, assume that things would get easier. That when I, when I hire this person, it'll get easier. When I, when we get to this level, it'll get easier. And the reality is, it actually just gets more and more challenging, more and more difficult. I actually enjoy that now that that expectation has been set for myself in terms of my own experience. But-

   3. HSHarry Stebbings57:29

      What do you think gets more difficult? 'Cause I argue it gets easier. Like, I, you know, I have teams now, I have EAs, I have, uh, v- you know, videographers, editors, associates. So much nicer. (laughs)

   4. ISIlir Sela57:41

      Um, it's, it's nicer, uh, but it's more difficult, it's more challenging. It, it gets more challenging because I think the stakes are just much higher. Like, there's so many customers we can disappoint suddenly through one release. There's so many people who, even a person who has invested $1 in my company, that's the last person I would wanna let down with their trust in me. And so, it's a combination of these, like, collection of customers, investors, team members who have joined Slice because they believe in our mission. As that denominator scales, the pressure to make sure that you're working more and making sure that you're limiting mistakes becomes greater and greater. At least, that's my approach.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings58:24

      Do you feel the pressure?

   6. ISIlir Sela58:26

      Um, yes, but I like it. I, I thrive with pressure. When there's no pressure, you know, I think pressure, uh, lack of pressure creates complacency.

   7. HSHarry Stebbings58:37

      I love that. Um, listen, I wanna do a quick-fire. So, I'm gonna say a short statement-

   8. ISIlir Sela58:41

      Sure.

   9. HSHarry Stebbings58:41

      ... you give me your immediate thoughts. Does that sound okay?

   10. ISIlir Sela58:44

       Yep.

   11. HSHarry Stebbings58:45

       Okay. So you can have dinner with one person, dead or alive, who would it be and why them?

   12. ISIlir Sela58:50

       Uh, it would probably be my grandfather, Adam. Uh, my grandfather went, um, back to Macedonia in, um, uh, about 10 years ago, and, uh, ended up facing a health challenge and, and then passed away. I didn't get to be there for that, I didn't get to be there for his funeral. But my grandfather instilled just these incredible, uh, I wanna say values, not only with me but my brothers, my cousins. And I'd love to just have one more dinner with him 'cause I don't think I've ever really sat down with him and just said thank you. Um, I'll tell you one story about him. When he was at his, you know, older age, he loved to work. And, uh, there was suddenly one day, he just couldn't work anymore, and he would ask myself, my brothers to go and do something, perform some job. And I remember him pausing one day and saying, "Do you know how lucky you are?" And I would say, "Why am I lucky?" He said, "Because you are capable of working, because you get to work. And I wanna work, but I can't work anymore." And I thought that that was, um, probably a reflection of... No, it was a really good reflection of who he was.

   13. HSHarry Stebbings59:59

       I love that, and, uh, it's probably one of the nicest answers I've had to that question, to be honest. (laughs) Um, my answer's Bernard Arnault, but (laughs) -

   14. ISIlir Sela1:00:07

       (laughs)

   15. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:07

       ... it's not quite so sentimental. Um, uh, tell me, what was the first luxury you spent money on when you made your first bit of money?

   16. ISIlir Sela1:00:15

       It was probably the, the Bentley that I went and bought. Uh, I love cars. And th- that Bentley GT, the coupe, is still one of my favorite... I mean, it's probably my favorite car ever made.

   17. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:24

       Do you still have the car?

   18. ISIlir Sela1:00:26

       I don't. I sold it.

   19. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:27

       Tell me, Nissan Cubes, there were two of them-

   20. ISIlir Sela1:00:31

       Yeah.

   21. HSHarry Stebbings1:00:31

       ... early days. What the fuck is this?

   22. ISIlir Sela1:00:34

       Yeah, I, uh... So, Nissan Cubes are, like, these boxy cars. Like, they look like pizza boxes, tiny little pizza boxes. And, uh, I was going to pizza shops and I, I was like, "Hey, I'm, I'm here from mypizza.com." They're like, "What the hell is that? I've never heard of that." And so I had to figure out how to, how to create a sense of, uh, scale and legitimize the brand. And the best way to do that in a very hyperlocal way was to buy cars.... I- I leased them, put my brand on these cars, but I can send you the picture if you wanna tweet it when the episode comes out. But put the brand on these cars and then I would park them in front of pizza shops with my twin brother and I would leave 'em there. And then when I would go there the following week, they would say, "Oh, yeah, I've seen the... you know, I've seen my pizza. Uh, I see the cars all over." Meanwhile, there was only two. So that's- that's one of the ways that I had to figure out how to legitimize a brand that just didn't exist.

   23. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:31

       I love it. I- I think this is like creating hyperlocal, uh, attention in very verticalized communities. We did an adventure in the early days and everyone was like, "Oh, I see you all over the place." It's like, "No, you just only follow venture capitalists." (laughs)

   24. ISIlir Sela1:01:44

       Exactly. And when the customer is hyperlocal, you know, this pizzeria owner doesn't know what's going on in San Francisco. They just know what's going on in their three-mile radius.

   25. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:52

       I love that.

   26. ISIlir Sela1:01:53

       Yeah.

   27. HSHarry Stebbings1:01:53

       What do you know to be true that others do not agree with? So mine would be, you cannot build a great, great business, which I would define as $5 billion plus with work-life balance. It is not possible.

   28. ISIlir Sela1:02:07

       Oh, uh, I mean, uh, can I use that? (laughs) .

   29. HSHarry Stebbings1:02:10

       (laughs) .

   30. ISIlir Sela1:02:10

       I, um, you know, 'cause you have luck, timing, and then hard work as the three elements of success. And I think it's really just mostly hard work because if you work hard enough, you will understand what tailwinds are being created or where the world is moving because you're studying, you're understanding the customer so that helps you create timing. When I launched Slice, I knew all orders would move to mobile. It was just, you know, a m- a matter of time. It could have been in 10 years, 20 years, but eventually it would happen. Um, and I knew that, I studied that. That wasn't like I was just lucky to choose what we did in a moment in time and then I worked really hard at it. It was kind of the other way around. So I would say, uh, I don't know that luck and timing really exist, uh, it's really mostly hard work.
7. 1:05:01 – 1:08:11

   Looking Towards the Future

   1. HSHarry Stebbings1:05:01

      one. What's your biggest advice to founders on creating a board? I've heard you've done it incredibly well.

   2. ISIlir Sela1:05:06

      I think, one, sometimes boards become... are an accident for a lot of founders. Meaning, as you fundraise, the- the need for capital creates the need for, you know, um... you kinda end up choosing people because you need capital. And sometimes you don't have your choice, you only... you know, the choice is made for you because that's the only option. And so what happens is a board is created, um, accidentally, right? You end up inheriting all these investors as board members because you were solving for capital, not for board members and I think that's a very dangerous game to play. So, uh, when raising capital, you've gotta be really thoughtful about the fact that not only are you taking capital, but now you're constructing a board. And then pretty early on, you've gotta also go and balance the board of investors with operators because sometimes the conversation can become really, uh, b- very financial. It be- it becomes very investor-centric as a board conversation versus company-centric. And a board is really... these are the stewards of a business and so the earlier that you can bring on people who are operators and aren't necessarily investors and they can really contribute to the conversation, the better it is. For me, that person was Deirdre Bigley. She was the s- chief marketing officer at Bloomberg, on the board of Wix, Shutterstock, amongst others. Most recently, Cat Cole, who's the president at Athletic Greens. Uh, before that she was president of Focus Brands, which is Carvel, Jamba Juice, um, amongst others. These are people who are like... I mean, the last thing they want to talk about is what an investor thinks about, you know, their returns. Like, we- we're all talking about the company and the customer, and it's a- it's a good balance.

   3. HSHarry Stebbings1:06:53

      Final one for you. What do the next five years hold for you? Where do you want Slice to be? It's 2028. What does it look like then?

   4. ISIlir Sela1:07:00

      I would hope that we continue to accelerate the success for small businesses. I'd love to- to finally have sort of our vision for what the platform needs to be for one independent. Um, I'd like for that vision to be as, uh, complete as possible and then step and repeat the process 'cause I think that our model has the right to win in many categories, but we are deliberately continuing to constrain our focus so that we can be the best in class partner for these independents. When we earn the right to go to more categories and as we continue to scale, I would hope that we're, uh, operating as a public company because that gives me the opportunity to restart again. It's kind of like 2015 all over again, right? Begin- new beginnings. It gives the people who helped us get here an opportunity to realize, uh, some financial success due to their hard work. Uh, and I think it'll be a- a really powerful moment for Slice as a brand to- to really be more, uh, mainstream.

   5. HSHarry Stebbings1:08:00

      I cannot thank you enough for this. I absolutely loved this. I- I love the free-flowing discussion. It's so much better than the structured schedule. So thank you so much for putting up with me, and this was a lot of fun.

   6. ISIlir Sela1:08:10

      It was great. Thank you so much, Harry.

Episode duration: 1:08:11