How to reinvent franchising with tech and transparency

We started in 2016 with a radical idea of selling only seven pizzas. It worked much better than even our friends predicted. And we’ve been quite reserved in our menu development, having introduced only two new pizzas since our grand opening. But now the Dodo team’s going rogue, adding salads and milkshakes to the table in our second shop in Southaven. In this post, I want to explain the logic behind our revamped menu strategy and also open a conversation about how new dishes should be invented, tested, and launched by a restaurant team.

The task of measuring employee engagement and satisfaction can sound like a total snooze—especially for those entrepreneurs who work shoulder to shoulder with their team and think they know what’s on everyone’s mind. Isn’t formally surveying your employees too much of a fuss for a small business, like a pizza shop or a burger joint? Actually, it’s not.

In this photo, you see not a homeless person, but a restaurant manager. It's me a year ago, trying to get some rest before a new day kicks in.

This April, we promised to return money paid for any order that left our customers unsatisfied. Late delivery? Missing drink? Cold pizza? Just a pizza you didn’t like? Doesn’t matter. We encouraged our unhappy customers to call or leave a message on Facebook, tell us what the issue was, and get all their money back.