Advice Line with Todd Graves of Raising Cane's

How I Built This with Guy Raz

Guy Raz | Wondery

Business

4.7 • 31.4K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Raising Cane’s founder Todd Graves joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage founders who are each considering a big, next step to grow their businesses.

First, Evan in Texas wants to know if he should franchise drive-thrus for his coffee business. Then, David in St. Louis is trying to get around dents in his financial history to secure financing for his pasta company. And finally, Shane in Los Angeles is weighing the pros and cons of opening a brick-and-mortar restaurant for his focaccia sandwich retail and catering concept.

Thank you to the founders of Whiskey Morning Coffee, Midwest Pasta Company, and Vesti for being a part of our show.

If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to hibt@id.wondery.com or call 1-800-433-1298.

And be sure to listen to the founding story of Raising Cane’s as told by Todd on the show in 2022.

This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Jimmy Keeley.

You can follow HIBT on X & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com or on Substack.

See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to how I built this early and ad-free right now.
0:05.7	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:10.2	If you run a small business, you know there's nothing small about it.
0:14.6	Every day there's a new decision to make.
0:16.8	And even the smallest decisions feel massive.
0:19.8	When all of these decisions feel daunting, it helps to have the right platform with all of the tools you need to be successful.
0:27.7	Shopify.
0:30.0	Shopify's point-of-sale system is a unified command center for your retail business.
0:34.9	It brings together in-store and online operations across
0:39.6	up to 1,000 locations. Get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify.
0:46.5	Sign up for your one pound per month trial and start selling today at shopify.com.
0:52.3	com.com.uk slash built. Go to shopify.com.uk.uk slash built. Go to Shopify.com.ukuk slash built. Startups move fast,
1:04.5	and with AI, they're shipping even faster and attracting enterprise buyers sooner. But big deals bring even bigger security
1:13.8	and compliance requirements. With AI changing regulations and buyers' expectations, Vanta
1:20.3	knows what's needed and when. And they've built the fastest, easiest path to get you there.
1:27.0	That's why serious startups get secure
1:29.4	early with Vanta. My listeners can get $1,000 off at vanta.com slash hibt. That's v-a-n-ta.com
1:42.0	slash h-ib-t for $1,000.com slash H-I-B-T for $1,000 off.
1:55.1	Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
1:58.2	I'm Guy Raz.
1:59.0	This is the place where we help try to solve your
2:01.7	business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on this show
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Guy Raz | Wondery, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of Guy Raz | Wondery and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.