How to reinvent franchising with tech and transparency

Twice he almost cried because of Dodo Pizza. First, after reading a book about the company’s founder, Fyodor Ovchinnikov. Second, when washing the dishes at Dodo Pizza in Pargolovo in the suburbs of St. Petersburg.

Yuri Kostin didn’t consider himself a softy. He used to work at a market. He handed out leaflets in the streets and helped with the family business. He grew up in Syktyvkar, Russia, earned a scholarship in Sweden, and studied and worked in Finland. He now was a father of three kids.

An arduous toil couldn’t scare him off. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have come to...

A guest in Astrakhan found a piece of a finger nail in his pizza.

In Smolensk, a driver was drunk while making a delivery.

In Naberezhnye Chelny, a customer had to wait for his order for... eight hours.

I wish all that happened in places that didn’t provide their services under the name of Dodo Pizza. But they did. No point in hiding it.

Every person who tried to build a large-scale business knows that blunders are inevitable. When your organization performs thousands of operations a day, people sometimes mess up. Things happen.

The real problem appears when things happen, but you don't have...

These five habits I list off below distinguish people who fail. I’ve discovered these traits after watching dozens of our partners.

We at Dodo Pizza provide all our franchisees with an equal amount of support. They all undergo the same training. Everyone gets identical instruments for their business (management system, marketing guidelines, IT solutions).

Not everybody gets identical results.

You might think of a franchising business as a social experiment that can help you determine which strategies to avoid if you want to succeed.

Because those who don’t have a lot in common.