My conversation with Todd Graves

我与托德·格雷夫斯的对话

Founders

2025-11-10

2 小时 0 分钟
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Todd Graves is one of my favorite living founders. He owns over 90% of Raising Canes — a business that is worth at least $20 billion. Todd's maxim is "Do one thing and do it better than anyone else." It is impossible not to be inspired by his terminator levels of determination. I hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did. Episode show notes: ⁠https://www.davidsenra.com/episode/to... Made possible by Ramp: ⁠⁠https://ramp.com⁠⁠ HubSpot: ⁠⁠https://hubspot.com⁠⁠ Function: ⁠https://functionhealth.com/senra⁠ Chapters (00:00) The Entrepreneurial Mindset: Sleep and Business Obsession (02:13) The Birth of Raising Cane's: Overcoming Skepticism (03:29) Inspiration from In-N-Out Burger (07:17) The Importance of Quality and Focus (14:49) The Journey to Success: Hard Work and Sacrifice (19:21) The Early Days: Building Raising Cane's from Scratch (21:23) Financing the Dream: Unconventional Paths (32:28) The Relentless Pursuit of Success (33:02) Commitment and Oaths: The Camping Trip (34:02) Fanaticism and Relentless Focus (34:53) Learning from Others and Continuous Improvement (35:06) The Never-Satisfied Mindset (36:04) The Importance of Founders in Business (39:55) The Purpose Beyond Profit (51:52) Financing the Dream: Credit Cards and SBA Loans (55:47) Building the First Restaurant (57:56) Expanding the Vision (58:59) Positive Motivational Management (01:00:51) Creating a Coaching Culture (01:01:42) Intrinsic Motivation vs. Titles (01:02:41) The Importance of Being Present (01:06:35) Respect, Recognition, and Rewards (01:09:12) The Power of Encouragement (01:18:10) The Myth of Delegation (01:22:57) Focus on What You Do Best (01:30:07) Dining at Jiro in Tokyo (01:30:59) The Franchise Model Debate (01:32:50) Challenges of Franchising (01:35:21) Building a Business Authentic to You (01:37:07) Financing and Expansion Strategies (01:49:13) Surviving Hurricane Katrina (01:55:48) Lessons from Estée Lauder (01:58:06) Final Thoughts and Reflections
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  • I've started a new show where I have conversations with some of the greatest living founders.

  • That show is called David Senra.

  • It will be on a separate podcast feed from founders.

  • So it's very important that you follow David Senra on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube,

  • or really wherever you're listening to this right now so you don't miss future episodes.

  • This conversation is with one of my favorite living founders, Todd Graves.

  • Todd owns over 90% of Raising Canes, a business that is worth over $20 billion.

  • And he's been working on this business for almost 30 years.

  • Todd has an extreme level of focus and a love of radical simplicity that I love and I try to apply to my own craft.

  • I am posting our entire conversation on this feed so you know what the new show is like.

  • I hope you enjoy our conversation and please don't forget to follow the new show,

  • David Sandra, now so you don't miss future episodes.

  • And by the way, nothing is changing with founders.

  • I am still doing episodes every week and it will work on founders until I die.

  • I was not expecting to start here, Todd.

  • We were just talking before recording.

  • I didn't expect to start on sleep,

  • but what you just said is exactly how most of history's great entrepreneurs are.

  • They just can't stop thinking about their business.

  • Because I was asking you, like, how much caffeine do you take?