How to reinvent franchising with tech and transparency

In 2019, Dodo Pizza launched 141 new pizzerias and closed 5, capping off the year with 576 units in 13 countries. Outlets outside of Russia generated 11.4% of total revenue, up from 9.5% a year before. Our annual system sales exceeded 20.2 billion rubles—around $314m. In US dollars, that’s a 46% year-over-year growth in sales. Building at such a pace, Dodo remains one of the fastest-growing QSR brands in the world.

We have closed our pizzeria in California.

In Los Angeles, Dodo Pizza worked for just three weeks. Overall, we’ve got more than 450 pizzerias in our chain already. Our company has been working for eight years now, and in all this time we’ve closed only three pizzerias. So what happened in California?

On our map, the Los Angeles pizzeria appeared as a surprise. We hadn’t built it from scratch. It was the result of our current guerilla tactics in the vast and complex US market. The Los Angeles pizzeria was there, and...

The world is getting smaller. On Sunday, Marlon Huerta (photo: left) visited our pizzeria in Memphis, Tennessee. Marlon is a businessman and manager from Chile where he had built the world’s most successful Papa Johns master franchise. Then it was sold to a private equity fund, and he went on to work on Papa Johns pizzerias in Spain. Now Marlon and his partner are building a new and very hot fast casual pizza chain in Chile called Melt Pizza. The project was launched in May 2018, and they have opened 11 pizzerias already; eight more are awaiting approval from Chile official agencies. Now that’s what I call speed! 🦄 🍕 We’ve invited Marlon to visit us in Russia. Pizza connects people… #pizzabrothers

The world is getting smaller. I came to New York and met Michael Lastoria, the founder of the &pizza chain. He treated me to honey pizza, showed me how their kitchen worked, and how their special bot talked to every guest differently. &pizza is a really iconic fast casual pizza chain on the East Coast. In business, Michael believes in design, values, and culture, and doesn’t want to sell his franchise because he doesn’t believe in typical American franchisees who believe only in money. He calls his team The Tribe. He and I have found a lot in common. Even the age of our companies is similar; Dodo Pizza came to being in 2011, &pizza, in 2012; they, in Washington, and we, in Syktyvkar 🙂 #pizzabrothers

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One of Oxford’s newest pizza restaurants, Dodo Pizza, quickly became one of the community’s most loved places to grab a slice. Now the owner says the brand is pursuing an opportunity of a lifetime by expanding to California.

Alena Tikhova, owner and CEO of Dodo Pizza, began the Russian-based pizza company in Oxford in the summer of 2015. She then led the charge to expand into Southaven and Memphis shortly after. The store uses a unique approach to the regional marketplace by only serving high-grade ingredients like meats and cheeses flown in from New York, dough made from scratch in-store, and fresh herbs that top each slice of their premium pizza.

“The opportunity was a coincidence,” Tikhova said about moving the brand across the country. “We believe the Los Angeles area is a good market for us to be in.”

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