David Homan built his approach to connection by instinct. A Harvard data scientist proved every principle was backed by research. Here is what they found.

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Brian Shunia dropped out of high school, got his GED, and started at 14 as a barista before building one of QSR's fastest-growing wing brands out of a shuttered 880-square-foot pizzeria in Livonia, Michigan. What began as a single concept with a tiny menu and a $200 factory order has grown to 70+ open locations across multiple states, with hundreds more in the pipeline, driven by simplicity, culture, and relentless operations discipline. He's now co-founder and CEO of Wing Snob.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:
High school dropout to GED to first job at 14 as a barista
Early career spanning restaurants, call centers, sales, and a marketing agency
Front Page Deli: from $50 days to $5,000 days through canvassing and factory catering
Lessons from scaling the deli too fast without the right systems
Real estate pivot that led to meeting future Wing Snob co-founder Jack Maschini
Choosing wings for simplicity: fast to prep, fast to execute, infinite flavor options
Selling the first location to fund three more and prove the franchise model
Snob Central: proprietary app centralizing training, auditing, ordering, and communication
Supply chain strategy: staying east of the Mississippi while filling geographic gaps
AI deployment: automated review response and AI phone lines across locations

🌟 Brian's Key Mentors:
His Brother: got him into the restaurant industry after high school; taught early ops fundamentals
Jack Maschini (Co-Founder): business school background and franchise expertise that complemented Brian's ops instincts
Dallas Powerhouses: senior operators and VPs of thousand-unit chains who shaped Brian's leadership approach
MUFC Network: fellow franchise entrepreneurs met over four-plus years of industry shows
His Sister: pushed him to get his first job at 14 and instilled early work ethic

👉 Don't miss this raw and energetic conversation about grit, franchising from scratch, and why simplicity might be the most underrated strategy in the restaurant business.

🎧 Liked this one? Watch How Wing Lam Built Wahoo's Fish Taco Into a Cultural Icon next.

🔗 Connect with Brian Shunia:
Website: wingsnob.com

📤 Transcript Available: The Grit Behind Wing Snob: Brian Shunia on Detroit, Dropouts, and Building Something Real
📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast
🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast
📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to Brian Shunia and Wing Snob
2:17 Brian's start in restaurants and dropping out of high school
9:34 Growing the deli through grassroots marketing
15:52 Creating Wing Snob and choosing wings as the concept
23:57 Opening the first location and building early momentum
27:13 The shift from one location to franchising
32:34 Supply chain, expansion strategy, and growing by market
40:23 Training, culture, and the team's central operations app
54:10 Grit, perseverance, and Detroit work ethic

#WingSnob #FranchiseGrowth #QSR #EntrepreneurJourney #Detroit #InspiredStoriesPodcast

#wingfranchise #qsrgrowth #restaurantfranchising #wingsnob #chickenwings #franchiseoperations #supplychainmanagement #restauranttechnology #lmsplatform #franchisetraining #detroitentrepreneurship #restaurantstartup

Elle Piper came up through buffet-style multi-unit operations at Soup Plantation, watched the brand serve 1,600 customers a day and then go dark overnight during the pandemic, spent six months unemployed before landing at a Vietnamese coffee and tea brand she'd never heard of, and spent the next four years building the operational infrastructure that helped take it from a family-run concept to 43 locations across California, Nevada, Texas, Arizona, and Georgia. She's now Senior Director of Operations at 7 Leaves Cafe.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:
Growing up one of four sisters and how a six-person family system translated directly to a volleyball court and then to multi-unit operations
What patience actually means when your four units are outperforming a nine-unit district in volume
The anti-role model lesson that started at Panera and shaped how Elle leads today
What it felt like to communicate the end of Soup Plantation to a team of people for whom it was the only job they had ever known
Joining 7 Leaves six weeks into the pandemic and what the second wave on Christmas Day looked like
Why every store manager at 7 Leaves used to think they were on their own — and the bi-weekly structure that changed that
What a culture crash is and why it happens before a new location opens its doors
How the menu changes depending on the community — and why Brazilian lemonade is on its fourth limited time offer run
Using AI to build a coaching tool that teaches store managers how to have crucial conversations the Simon Sinek and Brené Brown way
Aphantasia, and why Elle asks interview candidates what happens when she says spaghetti and meatballs

🌟 Elle's Key Mentors:
John Haywood (CEO, Soup Plantation): Showed her what steady-state consistent leadership looks like at the top — not through direct interaction but through observation
Simon Sinek (Author and Speaker): The mentor she'll never meet whose work on collective commitment and purpose shapes how she leads every day
Dr. Becky Kennedy (Parenting Expert): The framework that helped Elle break a cycle with her oldest son and teach herself to lead with curiosity instead of reaction
Gabór Maté (Physician and Author): The lens through which she learned to give herself permission for the past and to stop blaming the adults who did their best
Sunny (7 Leaves CEO): The person who hired her when she was almost out of hope and whose mission of being the change you wish to see became the operating system for everything she does

👉 Don't miss this conversation about what it actually looks like to build culture inside a brand at 40-plus locations, why the store manager is the most important person in the company, and how a volleyball player from Southern California ended up as the operational backbone of one of the most interesting beverage brands growing in the country right now.

🎧 Liked this one? Watch Building Restaurant PhD: April King's Framework for Multi-Unit Success and Growth next.

🔗 Connect with Elle Piper:
Website: 7leavescafe.com
LinkedIn: Elle Piper, 7 Leaves Cafe

📤 Transcript Available: Team Is Everything: Elle Piper on Volleyball, Buffet Lines, and Building Culture at Forty-Three Locations
📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast
🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast
📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 Intro to Elle Piper and 7 Leaves Cafe
10:06 Lessons from multi-unit leadership at Soup Plantation
22:29 The pandemic shutdown and the collapse of Soup Plantation
28:37 How Elle joined 7 Leaves during the pandemic
34:17 How menus change across markets and demographics
40:05 Building connection and accountability across store leaders
57:32 How 7 Leaves is using AI for coaching and leadership development
63:23 Elle's hardest personal growth work and parenting her oldest son

#RestaurantOperations #MultiUnitLeadership #7LeavesCafe #EntrepreneurJourney #CompanyCulture #InspiredStoriesPodcast

#7leavescafe #vietnamesecoffeeteabrand #beveragebrandoperations #multiunitrestaurantoperations #cultureatscale #restaurantleadershipdevelopment #soupplantationdistrictmanager #pandemicrestaurantclosure #orangecountycaliforniacafe #aphantasialeadership #teamsportsleadership #simonsinekoperations

John Ratliff built Apple Tree Answers, a 24-hour telephone answering service, from a two-bedroom apartment in 1995 to 24 locations and 650 employees before selling it in 2012 at roughly five times the industry average multiple. Along the way he almost quit at 4 a.m. and yanked the plug from the wall. He got turnover from 110% down to 18% through a program that granted employee dreams. And he learned — by being on both sides of the table — exactly how buyers think and where leverage really lives in an acquisition.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:
How accidental Class A office space became the foundation of a culture shift
The Dream On program: granting 250 employee dreams across 2008–2012 and what it did to turnover
The 4 a.m. moment John almost quit — and the wrong number that changed everything
Seven of ten entrepreneurs struggle with clinical depression — and what the OODA loop has to do with getting through it
The E-Myth visioning exercise that predicted his business six years out almost word for word
Why the entrepreneur most emotionally tied to their business gets the worst exit multiple
How an off-hand comment from a CFO instantly moved all the leverage in John's favor
Selling a $25M revenue company for $75M by finding two buyers who both had to have it
Why industry-specialist investment bankers may actually work against the seller
Holganics: 300% growth, Fast Company's most innovative ag company, and a Super Bowl ad in the works

🌟 John's Key Mentors:
Michael Gerber (E-Myth Author): Set John's foundational belief that the business is separate from the entrepreneur — and should be built that way from day one
Doug (Canadian Competitor at the Bar): Asked one innocent question about turnover that sent John on the journey that transformed his culture
His 23-Year-Old Friend: Wrote a $12,000 check when John couldn't make payroll — the act of generosity that now defines why John works
Barrett Ersek (Holganics Founder): A 20-year relationship built on shared conviction that the hardest road is usually worth it
Michael Singer (Untethered Soul Author): A book that produced a moment on a commercial flight John still describes as physically lifting a weight off him

👉 Don't miss this conversation about what it actually takes to build a culture nobody else is willing to build, why buyers overshare when they have to have something, and how a wrong number at 4 a.m. might have saved a company.

🎧 Liked this one? Watch Jeff Church Took Cold Press Juice from a Kitchen to $350 Million Exit in 8 Years next.

🔗 Connect with John Ratliff:
Website: align5.com

📤 Transcript Available: Master these Skills to Maximize the Wealth Creation Event with John Ratliff of align5
📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast
🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast
📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to John Ratliff
2:41 Starting Apple Tree Answers from a two-bedroom apartment
12:24 Reducing frontline turnover with Dream On
21:51 Why founders need to separate themselves from the business
24:43 Burnout, depression, and the moment everything nearly ended
34:19 The power of a vivid long-term vision
40:33 What John learned from selling his company
52:27 Finding strategic value through the buyer's perspective

#ExitPlanning #CompanyCulture #Align5 #EntrepreneurJourney #BusinessSale #InspiredStoriesPodcast

#businessexitplanning #maadvisory #employeeculture #dreamonprogram #telephoneansweringservice #appletreeanswers #align5 #scalingupmethodology #entrepreneurdepression #buyerleverage #businessacquisition #emyth

David Homan, founder and CEO of Orchestrated Connecting, was a classical composer with 225 works performed at Carnegie Hall when he found himself, at 26, running a multi-million dollar global arts nonprofit through a connection made at a Shabbat dinner. Then Bernie Madoff wiped out the endowment, a billionaire called to scream at him for losing money he never touched, and David had to rebuild an entire organization by throwing out everything he knew about fundraising and starting to simply ask people what they needed.

✨ Key Insights You'll Learn:
Growing up in Gainesville with a theater professor father who never connected the dots between his famous students and his son's career in New York
Meeting Vera Stern at a Shabbat dinner in 2003 and running AICF's Carnegie Hall gala three weeks later
What Jewish geography is and why it stopped working the moment the endowment disappeared
The chain of introductions that ran from a Catholic friend in Ohio through Canada and Germany to a New York Times article to a $2.5 million gift from the Carnival Cruise Line family
Why 85% of David's fundraising work was making connections for people who were never asked for anything
How Orchestrated Connecting works: 2,500 members across 47 countries, entry by recommendation only, and you have to ask for help to get in
SOAR Connect: the relationship intelligence platform that tracks recency, frequency, and duration to surface who you actually trust
The five principles of the USA Today bestseller Orchestrating Connection: curiosity, vulnerability, diversity, generosity, and gratitude
What happened at a conference in March when David shared that it was his first public speaking event since losing his father
The two years David spent writing letters to his father signed as Tim from the Best Western in Cherry Hill, New Jersey

🌟 David's Key Mentors:
Doris (Adopted Jewish Grandmother, Florida): The lifelong family friend who introduced David to Abby, who introduced him to Vera Stern, who changed everything
Vera Stern (Widow of Isaac Stern, AICF): Took David under her wing at that first Shabbat dinner and gave him his first real platform
Bill Schwartz (AICF President): The second father figure who asked David to take over the entire organization at 26
Beth (Journalist Friend from Ohio): The Catholic friend with no connection to the arts who heard him out and started the chain that saved the foundation
His Father, Sid Homan (Professor, Showman): Princeton and Harvard trained, 29 books, brilliant and gullible in equal measure — and the reason David gets on a stage the way he does

👉 Don't miss this conversation about what it costs to rebuild something from nothing when everyone is blaming you for losing it, why asking for help is the most underused strategy in any room of powerful people, and the two years David spent writing letters to his father as Tim from the Best Western in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

🎧 Liked this one? Watch The $10 Startup That Launched Brad Feld's Quest For Non-Transactional Relationships next.

🔗 Connect with David Homan:
Website: davidhoman.com
Website: soarconnect.ai

📤 Transcript Available: David Homan on Why Vulnerability Is Not a Weakness and Curiosity Is Not a Tactic
📺 Watch on YouTube: Inspired Stories Podcast
🌐 Our Website: The Inspired Stories Podcast
📤 Special Thanks to Anthony Codispoti & AddBack Benefits Agency — Providing innovative employee benefits solutions that improve employee well-being while optimizing your bottom line. Website: addbackbenefits.com

⏱️ Chapters:
0:00 Introduction to David Homan and his work connecting founders, family offices, and philanthropists
2:55 How David unexpectedly became executive director of a global arts nonprofit
5:04 The Madoff collapse and losing the organization's endowment
6:13 Rebuilding through relationships rather than traditional fundraising
12:56 The introduction chain that led to a major philanthropic partnership
22:18 What makes someone a fit for Orchestrated Connecting
49:26 The five principles: curiosity, vulnerability, diversity, generosity, and gratitude
63:51 David on grief, leadership, and losing his father

#Networking #ArtsLeadership #OrchestratedConnecting #EntrepreneurJourney #Philanthropy #InspiredStoriesPodcast

#relationshipintelligence #connectorcommunity #familyofficenetwork #soarconnect #orchestratedconnecting #berniemadoffnonprofit #aicfisaacstern #philanthropicnetworking #curiosityvulnerabilitygenerosity #orchestratingconnectionbook #usatodaybestseller #connectorarchetype