My conversation with Todd Graves

Founders

David Senra

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4.8 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 9 November 2025

⏱️ 121 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Todd Graves is one of my favorite living founders. He owns over 90% of Raising Canes — a business that is worth at least $20 billion. Todd's maxim is "Do one thing and do it better than anyone else." It is impossible not to be inspired by his terminator levels of determination. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Episode show notes: ⁠https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/to... Made possible by Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ HubSpot: ⁠⁠https://hubspot.com⁠⁠ Function: ⁠https://functionhealth.com/senra⁠ Chapters (00:00) The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Sleep and Business Obsession (02:13) The Birth of Raising Cane's: Overcoming Skepticism (03:29) Inspiration from In-N-Out Burger (07:17) The Importance of Quality and Focus (14:49) The Journey to Success: Hard Work and Sacrifice (19:21) The Early Days: Building Raising Cane's from Scratch (21:23) Financing the Dream: Unconventional Paths (32:28) The Relentless Pursuit of Success (33:02) Commitment and Oaths: The Camping Trip (34:02) Fanaticism and Relentless Focus (34:53) Learning from Others and Continuous Improvement (35:06) The Never-Satisfied Mindset (36:04) The Importance of Founders in Business (39:55) The Purpose Beyond Profit (51:52) Financing the Dream: Credit Cards and SBA Loans (55:47) Building the First Restaurant (57:56) Expanding the Vision (58:59) Positive Motivational Management (01:00:51) Creating a Coaching Culture (01:01:42) Intrinsic Motivation vs. Titles (01:02:41) The Importance of Being Present (01:06:35) Respect, Recognition, and Rewards (01:09:12) The Power of Encouragement (01:18:10) The Myth of Delegation (01:22:57) Focus on What You Do Best (01:30:07) Dining at Jiro in Tokyo (01:30:59) The Franchise Model Debate (01:32:50) Challenges of Franchising (01:35:21) Building a Business Authentic to You (01:37:07) Financing and Expansion Strategies (01:49:13) Surviving Hurricane Katrina (01:55:48) Lessons from Estée Lauder (01:58:06) Final Thoughts and Reflections

Transcript

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0:00.0	I've started a new show where I have conversations with some of the greatest living founders.
0:03.9	That show is called David Senra. It will be on a separate podcast feed from founders.
0:08.7	So it's very important that you follow David Senor on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or really
0:13.0	wherever you're listening to this right now, so you don't miss future episodes.
0:17.2	This conversation is with one of my favorite living founders, Todd Graves.
0:21.7	Todd owns over 90% of Raising Cains, a business that is worth over $20 billion, and he's
0:26.5	been working on this business for almost 30 years.
0:29.2	Todd has an extreme level of focus and a love of radical simplicity that I love and I try
0:34.5	to apply to my own craft.
0:36.4	I am posting our entire conversation on this feed so you know what the new show is like.
0:40.6	I hope you enjoy our conversation and please don't forget to follow the new show, David Senra,
0:45.5	now so you don't miss future episodes.
0:47.8	And by the way, nothing is changing with founders.
0:50.9	I am still doing episodes every week and it will work on founders until I die.
0:57.4	I was not expecting to start here, Todd. We were just talking before recording. I didn't expect
1:01.7	to start on sleep, but what you just said is exactly how most of history-scraised entrepreneurs are.
1:06.2	They just can't stop thinking about their business. Because I was asking you, like, how much caffeine
1:10.2	do you take? How much caffeine do you take?
1:11.1	How much sleep do you need?
1:12.1	And then your answer was what? I just have a really erratic sleep. So I'll go, you know, some nights I'll go maybe three hours to sleep. The next night I'd be three to four hours. The next night I'd be five hours. And usually about that point is the next night I have to crash. So I'll sleep 10 or 11 hours to catch up,
1:27.5	and then I'll actually wake up feeling great,
1:29.1	and feel like I don't have to muscle through a day,
	...

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