Five Guys CEO: How we built a burger empire WITHOUT ANY Marketing: John Eckbert | E168

You know, when Barack Obama left the White House to go pick up Five Guys- We're gonna go get some burgers. 41. ... that's what makes Five Guys a treat and special. Jon Egbert- The CEO of Five Guys Europe. Five Guys has a global cult following.

Five Guys burgers and fries, it was banging.

Covent Garden was the very first Five Guys outside of the US. We knew that we weren't gonna be advertising. We're entirely reliant on someone tasting a great burger and fry and then telling their neighbors or their friends. It has to be, "Whew, that's fucking fantastic."

That Covent Garden location sold more than any in the world.

It did, yeah, by far. I'm responsible for 225 restaurants now.

H- how do you stop getting a little bit sloppy and complacent?

We've actually gotten better. The key to that is... (music)

As the CEO of a business that's gone through such chaos, when was your hardest time?

So I had, uh, two young children. The fact is that there were m- moments when they woke up and needed both their parents and, and I wasn't there. Um... You'll hurt the people you care about in ways that you don't intend, in ways that you don't understand.

So without further ado, I'm Steven Bartlett, and this is The Diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself. Jon, I've, I've read quite extensively through your story and, um, I guess my first question is, when you th- when you think back to your pre-twenties, right, what is the, what are the most important things from that era of your life that shaped your perspective and approach to the world and to business today?

Wow. Well, first, I grew up in a very counter-cultural, isolationist family. Um, so we didn't, we didn't watch TV. We didn't celebrate birthdays or holidays. And, um, I kinda got up at 5:00 AM to practice violin for an hour, um, before school, um, and had music lessons after school every day. Um, and, um, so it was very, um, different. Um, and I think I always... I think I grew up feeling different, with this kind of longing to have a sense of belonging. Um, and that was always something that I was looking for in my professional life, I think, um, as well. I would've been a fourth-generation doctor if I had gone into medicine. Um, and my father told me that the profession was changing and it wasn't so much about patients and, um, and doctors and kind of the relationship that can develop in terms of health and bringing your, you know, your health to your doctor and getting advice, and it was changing in America dramatically. And so he, he said, you know, "Don't, uh, don't do medi- you know, I'm not encouraging you to do medicine." So I knew I had to kind of find a different, um, role in life. And I, I read, um, Ayn Rand in high school, um, and not suggesting that, uh, that, uh, she's gotten everything right. But one, one interesting thing that she did propose was that there's, there could be something noble in business. Be- you know, being a successful entrepreneur could be a noble thing. And I- my... So the, the kind of orientation from my family was make sure that you do something important or, or, um, in your life. And that meant, you know, taking care of other people or doing something that was, um, had some greater purpose to it than kind of just making money. Um, but that seed of a thought that being in business could actually be a noble profession and you actually could do something important to make people's lives better, um, and take care of people in a different way in business was kind of, I think, an important penny to drop for me, um, when I was, when I was 18. Um, but yeah, it was a, it was a, it was a definitely a different upbringing than, than most, and that, that sense of belonging was something I've been searching for my whole life.