Arranging the ABCs of business in CEO Now

Arranging the ABCs of business in CEO Now

When Pizza Karma founder and "chief pizza officer" Rajesh Selvaraj joined CEO Now, things were going well for the company. But Rajesh knew he and the leadership team had to work on consistency and the underlying structure of the business to meet their big goals.

When Rajesh joined the cohort program, provided at no cost by Elevate Hennepin, he was working to open the company’s fourth location in Dinkytown, near the University of Minnesota campus. The three prior locations and three food trucks were doing well and the leadership team had a big goal of 300 locations. How to get from four to 300 was a bit of a mystery.

He said the CEO Now curriculum and deep conversations with fellow business leaders transformed how he and the rest of the leadership team organized the company.

"It was kind of like re-learning alphabets from A to Z," said Rajesh. "I knew all the 26 letters, but everything was scrambled. We had the fundamentals like financial forecasting, strategic planning, long-term goals, three-year goals; but we didn't have a structure. CEO Now helped slice those down into yearly and quarterly goals for all those things."

One essential learning for Rajesh was the importance of consistency in navigating the everyday chaos of a growing business.

The inconsistency came through in a lot of places, but one spot was his messaging. He had a goal to expand brand awareness, but he was telling a different story to everyone from staff to customers to his community.

"It really changed based on my mood, time of day, and who I'm talking to,” said Rajesh. “But messaging of the concept is very, very important."

Now, he has a tight, consistent elevator pitch that demonstrates what the company is and core values.

He also learned to systematize hiring, financial planning and daily examinations of the company profit and loss statement. It also helped him break out of his engineer mindset. Rajesh, who was a software engineer prior to cofounding Pizza Karma, would see a problem and jump to solve or fix it, even if it wasn’t all that important for the overall strategy.

He said in discussions with his fellow cohort members, he learned to reprioritize those day-to-day problems like a broken piece of kitchen equipment.

"As an engineer, you want to fix it right away. That's how we’d been operating," said Rajesh. "Now, we balance it out. Is it something that would be good to be fixed, nice to be fixed, or must be fixed. Now, we ask those questions because we don't want to just burn capital."

Now, Rajesh and the team have a straight-forward goals to meet, a consistent way to talk about the brand, and a clarity on what to prioritize each day, week, month, and year. He said all the work, connections, and conversations in CEO Next means a new and stronger foundation for where Pizza Karma goes next.

"You could have a great product, but without a clear plan and proper execution, you know, you might not be able to achieve what you want to achieve," said Raj. "CEO Now provided more clarity."