My guest today is Ana Chaud. Ana was the co-founder and CEO of Garden Bar, the incredibly successful Portland based fast casual healthy eating restaurant chain that was acquired last year by Evergreens of Seattle. In our discussion Ana talks about her key learning from starting a restaurant business with no prior food industry experience and what it was like to let go of the business she built. She shares invaluable advice for anyone starting or running a business.
Episode Notes
2:00 The passion behind Garden Bar – fast, convenient healthy eating
4:00 Starting out without a background in running restaurants. What got Ana started?
6:30 Ana’s key learnings from taking Garden Bar from inception to exit in the food and beverage industry.
9:00 How Ana developed an intentional company culture and got her team to buy in.
14:00 Growing up in Brazil helped shape Ana’s leadership philosophy and build her resilience.
18:30 What kept Ana going when things were difficult and an important framing of ‘failure’.
22:00 What we can do to level the playing field for female and minority entrepreneurs
27:00 Selling Garden Bar to Evergreens, a successful exit
31:00 How Ana was able to let go of Garden Bar
32:00 What lies ahead, helping other entrepreneurs
Links
360 Advisory on the web
Learn more about Ana via LinkedIn
Credits
Music by Isaac Chambers – ‘Change’