Entrepreneurial Tribes
Entrepreneurs take risks. The fight to overcome challenges builds teams. Seth Godin calls it creating Tribes. David Perell calls it working with obsessives. The Panera Bread story illustrates how entrepreneurial tribes are forged.
After quitting his job, Panera Bread founder Ron Shaich moved to Boston to open an urban cookie store. He started looking for real estate. Nobody would lease him space. Banks didn’t think cookies would pay the rent. Shaich had no credibility, little money, and no balance sheet to qualify for a lease. He went to his dad, who gave him the money to build his a tiny store. They worked together, side by side, to make that store work, with just two employees.
Today, Panera has over 50,000 employees. They call their culture “One Panera.” CIO John Meister says their goal is to make food they’re proud to serve to their kids. His team is obsessive about data; they use our tools. They have a culture of data curation that helped them turn their business model on its head in 10 days during COVID, from cafe to pantry.
I’m proud to be a part of the Panera Bread tribe!
ABOUT THIS IMAGE. Mike Coots is a world-renowned photographer. He's also a shark attack survivor, which makes this image especially poignant.
Entrepreneurs, surfers and surfing photographers form tribes. The Panera Bread tribe is a passionate about food. Mike Coots created a tribe around Shark Advocacy.
Mike Coots: Surfer, photographer, shark attack survivor, shark advocate.
Learn more about Mike’s story and mission, below, from PADI. It’s inspiring! If you’d like to join his tribe, visit Sharks by Mike Coots.
This post is part of a series of entrepreneurial lessons from Panera Bread. Subscribe below for updates as each is released.
