SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
EP 387: Restaurant Founder Hits $2m+ Revenue, Doubling Locations
15 Aug 2016
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
This is The Top, where I interview entrepreneurs who are number one or number two in their industry in terms of revenue or customer base. You'll learn how much revenue they're making, what their marketing funnel looks like, and how many customers they have. I'm now at $20,000 per top. Five and six million. He is hell-bent on global domination. We just broke our 100,000-unit soul mark.
And I'm your host, Nathan Latka. Okay, Top Tribe, this week's winner is Charlie Daggs. Okay, he was a middle manager at a manufacturing company. He wants to break free and he won the $100 I give out every Monday. For your chance to win, simply subscribe to the podcast on iTunes right now and then text the word Nathan to 33444 to prove that you did it. This is episode 387.
Tomorrow, you'll hear from Yaya Maksarza with Truebill. He helps you save money on all those monthly subscriptions you pay. It's really unbelievable. All right, Top Tribe. Welcome back to another episode of The Top Entrepreneurs. We are joined today by Regina Pradam. She's got an amazing story. It starts off coming over from Nepal.
She now has a very successful restaurant chain we want to talk about. So Regina, are you ready to take us to the top? Sure. Sure, I am. All right. Okay, so start from the beginning. First off, tell us what the name of the restaurant is and obviously how you make money, and then we'll go back and build up to that story.
So it's Tarka Indian Kitchen. We started our first one in 2009 when the economy was in the dumps. Not a good time. No, not a good time.
You just did it anyway.
Did it anyway, and it worked out really well. Fast forward to 16, we have five units right now. And in the next two years to two and a half, we're planning to double our units between Houston, Austin, and San Antonio.
very good so you'll have 10 locations ideally in the next what two three 24 months or so 24 months okay very good so how did you get into the 2009 is when you got into the business what were you doing before that um no 2009 is when we opened tarka okay um we opened clay pit which is downtown in 98. okay um how i got in the business is uh
Tell people what the cuisine is, by the way.
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Chapter 2: How did Regina Pradam start her restaurant journey?
What school? From University of Washington, Seattle. Okay. And got into a master's program in Vermont. And the same year, I met my husband. We got married. He went to Texas, to Austin, because his cousin lived in Austin. And they figured they'd open an Indian restaurant. So I was...
on the way to Vermont for fall, and in summer he said, well, why don't you come hang out with us, you know, and then go off to Vermont, and came over to Austin, and we bought the really, really old building on 16th.
This was 98 or 2009? 98. 98, okay.
Right, 98.
And back then... What'd you buy it for, I'm curious, in Austin?
Well, since the current owners are my partners at Tarka, I... She's bailing.
Can you feel it? Can you people feel it? She's bailing on... This was 98. They might not even watch this.
Come on.
What was it? Like under a million or above a million? Way above a million? Not way above a million. Where did you get the capital to do that? Do you guys like how I just did that?
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Regina face when opening Tarka Indian Kitchen?
Would you recommend to your 12-year-old when he or she graduates that they do the same thing?
What, we draw money on a credit card and buy stocks? I don't know. I'm not too crazy about credit cards anymore.
It is.
I think ignorance is a blessing. I didn't know any better.
So the majority of the capital came from the growth of Microsoft stock.
My part of it. And then my husband, I think his mom. Yeah, exactly. Helped, and then two other cousins, their parents helped. So we put in. You know, what's interesting is nobody was willing to talk to us back then.
In terms of raising capital?
No, in terms of selling or leasing.
Why?
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