Meet Ron Simpson and Julien Zaal, co-founders of The Avocado Show
Ron Simpson and Julien Zaal - co-founders of The Avocado Show, the world’s first all-avocado franchise. The world's first all-avocado concept restaurant and beautifully Instagramable, The Avocado Show global Instagram account has attracted nearly 150,000 followers, rapidly becoming a worldwide phenomenon due to its renowned signature “Pretty Healthy Food”: a selection of visually stunning and delicious avo dishes made from 100% sustainable avocados.
What inspired you to launch your business and what is the end goal?
Launching the business was simply inspired by fun. Julien and I wanted our own little hangout with good food, so we followed the trends [healthy food, food styling, flexitarians] and our favourite dishes and ended up with a mono restaurant centred around the avocado. After the announcement went out and we saw how much impact our idea had all around the world, that’s when we started to really shape the business and decided that our little hangout should become an international franchise and brand. The end goal would be to serve our Pretty Healthy Food in all cool cities across the world and bring joy to avocado lovers for years to come.
How do you set yourself apart from other businesses in your industry?
We have a different background than most of the other entrepreneurs in our industry, so to us, our story and our values are as important as our bottom line. We want to create a success story that showcases both strong moral values and creativity, establishing The Avocado Show as a socially responsible and profitable venture, so we do things in a modern and sustainable way. It is important for us to set a good example for ourselves, our team, our fans and customers and even other companies that will follow.
Keeping an eye on the numbers in any business is important. How do you ensure that you’re always up to date?
There are three answers to that question, so let’s start with the global avocado trends and numbers: partnering up with Shawn Harris as our investor, really opened the door to avocado data for us. Thanks to this relationship we can see the best-calculated guess at the future, learn great insights and understand how to approach challenges. Next, we know how to curate information and try to keep in touch with titans of our industry as well as the right platforms that can inform us about any major trends and insights about hospitality too. And last, we make sure we can analyze our own numbers too, by implementing the right tools in each layer and outlet of our business to track all of our own data. From COGS to consumers and social media to supply chain. Tech and data can really change a lot in the hospitality industry, so we are investing in our own data dashboard with AI to track all the numbers and data within our own daily operations. We track the usual data like our sales, COGS and staff costs, but also our marketing activities vs our sales, weather conditions vs sales and more. This doesn’t just support our owned restaurants, but also our current and future franchisees.
What are your thoughts on failure?
Everybody fails sometimes, it’s about the lessons that you learn from it. It also gets you where you are now. We try to plan, discuss and execute everything as good as we can, based on predictions, expertise and experience, but without real risk, there is no real reward. It’s important to be allowed to fail, to understand that you can fail and not be paralyzed by it before you even try something new. So some things are simply bound to fail, but other things aren’t. If you have the right team and will, you will find a way to succeed eventually.
If you could be in a room with 4 entrepreneurs, who would they be and why?
This is hard as there are so many! But we would definitely pick diverse and interesting people like:
Elon Musk; for trying to change the world and the future and aiming for the moon and beyond. He really is the manifestation of speaking things into existence.
Oprah Winfrey; for pioneering her way through one of the toughest industries and times while being an example for the whole world.
Richard Branson; for showing how a to build a global brand and showing how to switch your time, efforts and resources to do good.
Simon Sinek; for inspiring every entrepreneur in the world to start thinking about why they get out of bed every morning. Adding purpose to the mix of fun and profit.
What are your top tips for entrepreneurs wanting to get their business out there?
The biggest tip for me would be, figure out your goals, purpose and values and write them down in the most simple and repeatable way. If you have a north star to follow, then so does your team. If you have a key message to share, then so will the media. If you have a mission to get behind, then so will your customers. If you don’t then no one knows what to do if you’re not there.
How important is company culture and what is your top tip to get it right?
To be honest, getting everyone aligned with your values day in day out is one of the hardest things to do in your company. But we’re always striving to live by it because unless you are a robot company, it’s basically everything. We are in a people business and so we grow our business with people. That could be partners, franchisees and investors, but also waiting staff, chefs and cleaners. Every part of your company shapes its culture and to get it right, they all need to speak the same language and share the values you live by. A good document reflecting your mission, vision and values is as important as the right onboarding of every person that needs to know about them. It’s not enough to just design a cool looking booklet, make sure they feel it, believe it and want to become part of it.
What would be your top marketing tip, to grow a business that is niche?
Go where the people are. If you are a niche business, the first thing you need to figure out is who you are trying to reach, who your customer and target group is. Next, the most important thing to know is how to reach them. Where do they spend their time and attention? It’s not just about using the cool new platforms every time, it’s about actually understanding where your target group spends time reading, watching and consuming. For some companies, it will be TikTok and for others, it will be a niche print magazine like it’s still 1999. Once you figure out how and where to reach them, that’s when the fun starts and you get to produce the content that is based on your why and your key messages, but created in a way that represents your brand and is appealing to the viewer.
Is word of mouth working to your advantage?
It just might be our biggest asset really. Our social media accounts are doing very well and people love our content, but you know what they love even more? Seeing their friends have a good time or discovering amazing dishes and places they never even knew existed. So every time someone visits one of our restaurants and enjoys our Pretty Healthy Food, we see a spike in user-generated content that is shared on their own social channels, telling everyone they know about this amazing experience. To us, that’s the new word of mouth.
Any moments where you thought you’ve bitten off more than you can chew?
Hahaha, every week! But we always figure it out. They say if your dreams don’t scare you, you need to think bigger right? Well, we believe you can speak anything into existence, so we tend to dream out loud a lot. It keeps amazing us how many of these wishes are actually turning into reality. Rolling out 19 new locations in multiple markets won’t be easy, and it definitely comes with its challenges, but we really enjoy figuring out how to do it and then making it happen.
What do you think gives a brand longevity?
The secret to longevity is to find a timeless foundation of your brand, like let’s say an avocado or a strong idea like “everyone’s an athlete”. Something that will last a lifetime and will appeal to generations, but can be adapted whenever needed to the modern times we live in. The avocado itself has been around for centuries and has been part of many cultures in different ways. People love the taste, the look and the benefits it has to offer and will always keep those basics alive. If you can go from the plain avocado to guacamole, to smashed avo on toast, to poke bowls and bun burgers or even 3D printing avo in the future, you are looking at a concept that knows how to survive and stay relevant. It updates itself but stays true to its core. So maybe the hype or the trend might seem to go down, ask yourself the question: do you still see avocados in your salad and supermarkets 5 years from now? Because we do.
