John Mackey

They loved us.

Our team members worked for free until we could get reopened.

to pay them.

And if we didn't get open, we wouldn't be able to pay them.

Our suppliers gave us more inventory.

Our investors put more capital in.

The bank loaned $100,000 to us on my signature, which I assure you was absolutely worthless.

And we got reopened and we never looked back.

And we just went on from success to success after that.

It's a great question.

So I believe the hardest expansion a retailer ever does is going from one to two stores.

Actually, that's 100% growth.

And now you have to create systems for the first time.

It can't all be tacit knowledge that you keep in your head.

You need to write things down and create policies that both stores will follow.

So since we had four co-founders, we kind of divided it up into three.

two people at each store.

But then, so it took us two years to get, after Whole Foods, it took us two years to get the second one open.

Then two years after that, we got the third one open.

And two years after that, we got the fourth one open.