Pret & Itsu Founder: How I Built TWO Billion Dollar Brands At The Same Time!: Julian Metcalfe

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 29 August 2022

⏱️ 78 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Julian Metcalfe is the founder of Pret A Manger and Itsu, and since he’s been a young man has been on a mission to change the way we think about eating out and how we eat. His companies are together worth over $3 billion. But he’s also been on a mission to prove something to himself after the suicide of his mother and a life threatening car crash when he was still young uprooted his life as he knew it. Like all founders, he chose the long road back to being secure in himself. Julian spews with original thoughts on how to really take a company from zero to $1 billion+, from hiring and firing to knowing when to take the leap to expand your brand. Business is a game of thousands of little decisions, a few really big ones, and a hawks eye for knowing when to pounce. Few people we’ve encountered on the podcast had such a good gut instinct as Julian, nor were so good at articulating exactly how they did it. Follow me: https://beacons.ai/diaryofaceo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	I love failure I fail every day I don't care about it just get on with it
0:05.1	A prayer to now you've got it to you are absolutely an entrepreneur at heart as all the fish are going in one way you suddenly look around you think damn it I'm going to go the other way
0:14.1	When you look back at print at a business you ended up selling for two billion I have no idea what I was doing it
0:19.4	It wasn't planned endless moments of magic moments of bizarre creativity and confidence.
0:24.4	What was motivating you? I wanted to make a difference. I suddenly found myself with this
0:28.8	responsibility to open a restaurant. From that start we built 76 of them. We started developing it so it could become the future.
0:39.0	The absence of both parents. He was quite distant my father. My mother committed suicide when I was seven
0:44.2	that created a loneliness. To create something new you've got to put yourself in
0:49.7	slightly uncharted territory. Business isn't just business to you, is it?
0:53.5	It's not just about the money.
0:54.5	No, and it shouldn't be to anyone.
0:56.5	I'm far more interested in the relationships with the customer and the staff and the product.
1:00.2	I was obsessed by that.
1:01.6	Obsessed! It's incredible what people can do. People don't
1:04.5	trust them. People don't nurture them because they're too busy being selfish
1:08.2	nurturing themselves. What's the worst crisis you've ever had in your business? I
1:12.2	didn't want to go into it. I want to hear it.
1:16.7	So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett and this is the diary of a CEO. I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this
1:24.8	yourself. Julian. I was exposed to a number of hardships as a child. You said that. What did you mean? I love the way you start off with a little killer.
1:47.0	I can't remember how I said that to and I was, well I'm not alone by the way, a great many people watching this or listening to this were exposed to hardships far greater than mine.
2:01.0	But the death of my mother when I was seven, my mother committed
2:04.6	suicide on Boxing Day. So I was left, and my parents were divorced. So we lived, the three of us,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

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

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