Raising Cane's
Chicken Fingers
Company description: Restaurant chain
Founder: Todd Graves, 31
Year started: 1996
Location: Baton Rouge, Louisiana
2002 sales: Nearly $20 million
Todd Graves went fishing to start his Raising Cane's Chicken
Fingers restaurant locations. No, he wasn't lounging on a
lake-he and co-founder Greg Silvey, now 31, were working 20-hour
days on a salmon fishing boat in Alaska to raise money to open
their first Baton Rouge, Louisiana, restaurant. It was lucrative,
though dangerous, work. "It was insane," recalls Graves.
"But it was incredible because we were up there for our
dream."
That dream was to build a quick-service restaurant near
Louisiana State University that would specialize in chicken fingers
with a signature sauce and sides. A college student at the time,
Graves knew how popular chicken fingers were in other restaurants,
and he saw a niche to bring chicken fingers off the appetizer menu
and into the main course.
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Today, Raising Cane's grosses nearly $20 million in annual
sales, but in 1994, Graves and Silvey, now the company's vice
president of IT, listened to a business professor dismiss the idea.
"He said, 'This is South Louisiana. We're known all
the world over for our quality food: Creole, Cajun, seafood. Just
chicken fingers will never work here,'" recalls
Graves.
Their first stabs at getting start-up capital elicited the same
responses from investors-and that's when Graves and Silvey went
to Alaska to earn some start-up cash. Their summer earnings
weren't enough to open the first restaurant, "but [it was]
enough to get some private investors interested," says Graves.
"They said, 'If these guys are this passionate about doing
this chicken finger restaurant, we might as well take a chance on
them.'"
Taking a chance paid off. Graves opened the first Raising
Cane's restaurant in 1996 and has since opened 14 more, all in
Louisiana. With role models like McDonald's founder Ray Croc
and Wendy's founder Dave Thomas, it's no surprise Graves
envisions turning Raising Cane's into an international
franchise giant. Indeed, when people ask him about his long-term
goal, Graves doesn't hesitate: "It's to grow something
truly great." -N.L.T.
Success
Secrets
Entrepreneur: Once you opened the doors, did you
still deal with skepticism from the public?
Todd Graves: Everybody that came in was like, "Raising
Cane's Chicken Fingers? You've got to be kidding me. What
else do you have?" And I said, "Just try it." And at
Cane's to this day, [whenever] we go into a new market, it is,
"Just try it!"
Entrepreneur: What has been your biggest reward in
starting Raising Cane's?
Graves: I can tell you this so quickly because I think about
it so much. My biggest reward is I'm living my dream every day.
And my dream, [which] I say has turned into passion, is to grow
this. People ask me, "Why do you want to grow? What is your
end game?" I say, "I don't have an end game."
Ray Croc didn't have an end game. Do you know how much stock he
died with? Dave Thomas didn't have an end game. It's to
grow something that's truly great. It's recognizing your
potential and your potential in the organization to do something
and do it for the right reasons, because it's special.
Aquent
Company description: Temporary placement agency and creative
talent outsourcer
Founder: John Chuang, 38
Location: Boston
2003 projected sales: $280 million
No stranger to the entrepreneurial limelight, John Chuang makes
his second appearance as a Young Millionaire this year, after
debuting in 1998 at the tender age of 33 with staffing and
placement services firm MacTemps Inc. Since then, Chuang and his
business have matured.
Capitalizing on the Internet and technology boom of the late
1990s, Chuang's Boston-based temporary placement agency
expanded from providing creative, Web-authoring, and Mac- and
PC-trained personnel to include Web designers, a hot commodity at
the time. When the bust came, Chuang began acquiring struggling
companies, often for purchase prices far below the asking prices.
MacTemps' growth and diversification prompted Chuang to change
the company's name to Aquent, a word created with Greek and
Latin roots that means "not a follower."
"We tend to enter markets where we're the leaders and
offer lots of new services to our clients and our talent,"
Chuang says. Indeed, Aquent has become a major player in
outsourcing creative teams, running the creative service
departments for several Fortune 500 companies, such as Campbell
Soup Co. and Capital One. Companies also use Aquent's
technology and consulting services in systems integration projects.
Changes in the economy and employment could have easily crippled
Aquent, but adjusting to the climate and desired skill sets has
allowed Aquent to rise above the competition and project 2003 sales
of $280 million. Or, as Chuang puts it, "We decided to make
lemonade from lemons."
Chuang can still be seen driving around Boston in the same old
car he's had since college, a trusty 1987 Toyota Corolla-a
clear testament to his modest ways. In fact, employees were once
required to supply their own pens and stay at Motel 6 hotels while
on business trips. And there are still no private offices at
Aquent, not even for "the frugal mogul," as Chuang was
dubbed by close friends and colleagues. "It's easy to
spend money; the trick is earning it," says Chuang.
"Spending money is not very impressive." Cheap has never
looked so rich. -A.Y.P.
Success
Stories
Entrepreneur: You staff a couple thousand people a
day in 17 countries. How did Aquent expand internationally?
John Chuang: We essentially just go out there. We have
confidence that our products and services are valuable worldwide,
and we have always thought of ourselves as global, even when we
were small.
Entrepreneur: With all you've accomplished,
what do foresee in the future?
Chuang: Our company will be the number-one creative services
company, with a significant amount of Fortune 500 companies as
clients. We'll also be the number-one business in IT staffing.
We are in two really great spaces right now. We're continually
adapting to our marketplace.
Blue Nile
Inc.
Company description: Online jewelry retailer
Founder: Mark Vadon, 33
Year started: 1998
Location: Santa Clarita, California
2003 projected sales: $120 million
"Most men don't know anything about jewelry,"
quips Mark Vadon, who ought to know: Searching for an engagement
ring for his fiancée in 1998 was like looking for a needle in
a haystack-a needle that costs about as much as a compact car.
Maybe that's why Vadon turned to the Internet-where no one
could peer snootily at him or talk him into buying a $17,000 ring.
The Web site where he found his ring belonged to a brick-and-mortar
jewelry store in Seattle. Though rudimentary, the site gave Vadon
what he needed: "straight talk, like how a jeweler would tell
his friends what to buy," he says.
After the experience, Vadon made it his mission to assist guys
everywhere standing before a glass case, scratching their heads in
dismay. How? Develop an e-commerce site where men could get not
just a chunk of jewelry, but also some help in making a purchase.
In 1999, Vadon took the jewelry store owner to dinner and made him
an offer to buy his business, "and that's how we got Blue
Nile," says the former Bain & Co. executive.
That's also how he assembled a throng of loyal
employees-many of them men jaded by the ring-buying process-as well
as venture capital: "This storefront was doing a quarter
million a month with this basic Web site," says Vadon.
"We went to VCs with this information, and [they] loved it;
they all wanted in on the deal."
With an average order price exceeding $1,000 and a lightweight
product, the $72 million company can afford to offer free
shipping-something that kept Vadon from joining the wasteland of
dotcoms shipping 20-pound bags of dog food.
It's powerful word-of-mouth that makes Blue Nile the envy of
the industry. "Other jewelers get upset because they say
we're giving too much information out [about the
jewelry]," says Vadon, who expects sales of $120 million in
2003. "We're pulling back the curtain and showing the
wizard." -K.E.S.
Success
Secrets
Entrepreneur: Why did you decide to buy an existing
business?
Mark Vadon: The good reason to buy rather than start from
scratch is that it had an existing supplier base and experts, and
we added experts over time. We went out and hired phenomenal
merchants in the industry who had 10 to 20 [years of experience];
they had the knowledge and contacts. Most of those people are still
here-we've had incredible retention. I took this business very
personally, and a lot of people we've hired are the same
way.
Entrepreneur: How did you get the name Blue
Nile?
Vadon: The original business was Internet Diamonds-that was
too brown-paper wrapper. A guy would not want to buy a diamond and
say he bought it from Internet Diamonds.com. We were looking for a
name that was somewhat flexible, simple to spell and, most
important, somewhat sticky in consumers' minds. We hired a
naming firm, and "Blue Nile" tested higher [with
consumers] than any of the other names.
Entrepreneur: Do you think you're
successful?
Vadon: Every day we come in here and feel like we
haven't done enough. That's part of the dysfunction of
being a good entrepreneur-you're never satisfied. I don't
think we're ever going to be done.
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