The Devil is in the Details: How Torchys Tacos Founder Built His Empire with Mike Rypka

0:01Boom! Shake the room, Fire Nation! JLD here and welcome to Entrepreneurs on Fire, the only daily show interviewing the world's top entrepreneurs seven days a week. To drop these value bombs, I have brought Mike Ripka into EO Fire Studios. Mike is the CEO and owner and co-founder of Torchy's Tacos and has been in and around the food business for almost 20 years with 130 stores across 16 states. He is still focused on creating innovative food across the country. In today's foundation, we'll talk about passion and persistence, innovation and authenticity, risk and reward, brand and culture, and oh, so much more.

0:36And a big thank you for sponsoring Today's episode goes to Mike and our sponsors. Is now the time to grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

1:16Email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you. Mike, say what's up to Fire Nation and share something that you believe about becoming successful that most people disagree with. Awesome. What's up, gang? Good to be here. Some entrepreneurs kind of get into starting a business, maybe financially based. And look, everyone needs to make a buck. But I think it's hard to go wrong if you're following your passion. And, you know, because then it's not work, right? And anyone who's an entrepreneur knows how much work it takes to start a business and how much of your life you have to give to get that business off the ground.

2:05and if you're doing something you're passionate about, I think you've got a much better chance to win and you'll do the things that you might not otherwise do if you weren't passionate about what you were doing. Well, listen, Mike, I've already given a full introduction of you. We're talking today about the devil is in the details and you said passion right there. So I want to dive deeper there by talking about both passion and persistence, which of course is a definition of your journey. So give us not a long version. Give us a clear, concise, short version, because we have a lot to get to of your story.

2:44Getting a second chance at life and being able to do things different. And out of that, you start to realize that there's a lot of people that can influence you, either good or bad. And it's really about the people that you bring along the journey with you. And that's a lot of what the book's about, about really creating opportunities. And that was the foundation for Torchy's. You know, one, I wanted to do something really fun with food and street food and tacos. And the second was really, I wanted to be able to provide opportunities for people. And we've been able to do that tenfold, which has been awesome.

3:25And there's a lot of stories in there just about all of that in general. Well, within that, you were very innovative and you really brought along authenticity, transparency, and that helped in so many different ways along your journey. How have you stayed original and still continue to take creative risks? Get specific here. One of the things we decided early on was that we were going to do things from a place of inspiration. Because it's a much more authentic way to come from, which sometimes takes a little longer, right? If you don't have something inspired that you're sort of driving from. What's your specific example of that?

4:06Like we want a real world example. Torchy's is really about the food, right? It's a restaurant business. So in terms of recipes, different new tacos. Yeah, but everybody has recipes and tacos when they're doing that stuff. What was something you did that was different, that was actually unique? I have a huge background in international cooking. So I had a lot of that in my wheelhouse. So that was one thing that separated, I think, me from maybe other folks. A lot of experience with just tons of different cultures of food. but really it was about you know being at a market or going to another restaurant or seeing something somewhere and that's sparking an inspiration what's an example of that like give us a real example like what was one of those situations i had seen in my past life in a uh a half-fried avocado stuffed with chicken and cheese and i ate that at a restaurant and that was sort of built in my memory like, wow, that's a really cool way to kind of do an avocado.

5:08And so I was looking for a vegetarian option and started playing around with avocados and frying them. And we came up with our fried avocado taco. Fried avocado taco, something I've never had, but suddenly I feel like I need to have it. I mean, being down here in Puerto Rico, I pretty much eat avocados every single day and that needs to be part of my life. So get down here. I want to talk about risk and reward. I I mean, entrepreneurs know that being a business owner is risky. And of course, that's why there's the reward because so many fail. I mean, 96 % of businesses, Mike, they don't make it five years.

5:42So there's risk. But if you are a winner, you win disproportionately. The reward is huge. So give us a bold yet calculated risk that you took and how it worked out. Just the fact that I started in a food trailer was at the time was a very risky deal. Like they were, you know, now you can go across America and there's quite a bit of food trucks and food trailers in different towns. That was not something that was really baked into sort of the broader culture. And really, I mean, some of it was just by default. I couldn't get bank loans. I couldn't get a bank to fund my business. I didn't have a bunch of rich friends.

6:22So I literally took a loan on my house and maxed out my credit cards and kind of threw my whole hat over the fence. and opened this little food trailer in South Austin. And the main thing I think is I just, I had a lot of passion about the food I was doing and what I was trying to be about in terms of just serving damn good food and making sure that it was authentic and not frozen out of a box. Like we were doing real homemade stuff out of this little trailer and people responded to it. Was there anything different or unique that you did to actually raise money? You said you didn't have any wealthy donors or people that were injecting capital into your business.

7:03You kind of had to start. By the way, most people, I'd say over 98%, with essentially, hey, I've got maybe a handful of hundreds of dollars in my bank account, maybe a few thousands, whatever that number might be for individuals. I've got to make this bootstrapping. I've got to do this my way. Anything you can share to our listeners around that, about the bootstrapping part of when you were just trying to get this thing off the ground? Obviously, I didn't have some big bank account backing me for, you know, months of losses that typically people experience. So I had to go out and figure out how I was going to pay payroll every week and buy groceries for the for the for the trailer.

7:43And so, you know, I had a little red Vespa and I literally just canvassed the streets and handed out as much free tacos and chips and salsa as I could just to get my food in people's mouth. And that really paid off in dividends in terms of just really getting the word out there, getting in front of people, developing relationships, letting them know who I was. and then after about year one I brought in a third partner and his wife and they helped us fund to get a second trailer open and you know those first sort of call it five or six years we we'd find investors to help us own open restaurants and we'd give them a share of the profits over the term of the loan the loan was usually three to five years depending on the expense of the restaurant.

8:40And it was kind of a win-win for everybody. We got to give people a real good payback on their money. And then we got the funding to be able to open the restaurants. And now there's 130 stores across 16 states, Fire Nation. I mean, absolutely incredible stuff. Mike, do you still have that red Vespa? I do. It's sitting in our office. Never let that go. That would be a crime against humanity. I can foresee someday, Maybe 100 years from now, actually, when you and I are obviously long gone. Or who knows? I mean, we might have figured things out by then. But that being auctioned off for untold dollars, or probably by that time, it'll just be Bitcoin.

9:20Because we'll be on the Bitcoin standard. And you'll be able to have, or your company will be able to donate it to some amazing charity. So hang on to that, okay? Oh, yeah. We're not getting rid of that. Fire Nation, and we're not getting rid of you as soon as we get back from thanking our sponsors. Is this your year to grow a successful business? Are you looking to learn the proven processes and success systems that have been used to create thousands of millionaire success stories? See thousands of success stories and testimonials from real people just like you who Clay Clark has mentored and coached into prosperity at thrivetimeshow.com slash EOfire.

9:53Clay's proven business coaching program is month to month and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. Yes, it's month to month and it costs less money than hiring a minimum wage employee. schedule your free personal 13-point assessment with Clay Clark himself today at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire because Clay only takes on 160 clients and only allows 300 attendees to each business conference you will interact with Clay directly see thousands of real success stories and learn about attending the Thrivetimeshow two-day in-person workshop featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son Eric Trump today at Thrivetimeshow.com slash EOFire become the next success story.

10:32Schedule a free consultation and request tickets to join football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at Clay Clark's next business conference today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO fire. Question for you, Fire Nation. Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For me, mentorship was everything from when I was just getting started in podcasting, webinars, course creation, book writing, you name it. I hired a mentor to guide me every step of the way. For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level.

11:11It's a three-month program, and together we will achieve massive results. If you're interested in learning more, email me at john at eofire.com with the subject line, mentor, and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program to see if it's the right fit for you. That's john, J-O-H-N, at eofire.com, but only if you're prepared to ignite. Mike, we're back. We've talked about innovation and authenticity, risk and reward. Now I want to talk brand and culture. You created a unique, engaging customer experience. What was that experience and how did you do it? So we were very purposeful in terms of our brand.

11:57We really wanted something that really spoke to people and not just a certain group of people, but everybody in general. And my my original business partner, Bill, awesome guy. He he came up with the word torches. He actually got that from a vision having a little too much drink drinks probably about 10, 12 years ago. and he was at a late night taco spot and saw this sort of airstream with neon red torches above it and just sort of tucked that in his mind and remembered it as we were trying to figure out like what the name was going to be. And who doesn't love alliteration? I mean, when you have the same letter for the first and second part of that name, I mean, Podcasters Paradise, Torchies Taco.

12:48We love that stuff. Mike, keep going. That was the name. And then we also we thought about, OK, like when you're thinking about iconic brands, there's usually some sort of symbol or mascot or something that like really speaks to the brand. And Torchy's was really about a place where you could just come, kind of be devilish for your own good, let your hair down, enjoy a damn good taco that's authentically made, that's, you know, made from scratch with a lot of flavor. And it didn't matter who you were or where you came from. We were just here to welcome you and enjoy good food. and um you know and we all have this sort of dichotomy of the little angel on our shoulder that says hey i really should eat the kale salad and i should probably work out for an hour today and then there's a little devil side of us it's like you know what i want a margarita and i want to have some queso um and we were sort of appealing to that margarita queso side of just hey, come in, take a break from the norm, be yourself, and just come enjoy damn good food.

14:01And our tagline, damn good, actually came from our original customers. And literally, they were coming up every day after they would eat, and they'd say, damn, these tacos are good. What did you put in here? And so we added that tagline. And that's our mission today. And it It really became sort of this, you know, guiding light of like, hey, if we're going to say damn good, like we've got to work extra hard to make sure that everything we're doing is damn good. And so it really helped set a high standard in the beginning to make sure that like we're getting damn good ingredients, that the recipes are damn good, that we're hiring damn good people and that we're given damn good hospitality when they come up.

14:48And so it's been really a good way to kind of have that standard, you know, and it all just really kind of works together, you know. And again, these are coming from inspired places and out of passion. And I think when you do that, the right stuff comes for the right reasons and people get it. Consistency across the board. I mean, Fire Nation, if you're going to have a brand and your brand is going to stand for something, It can't just stand for something in one area, on one thing. It needs to be across the board. Otherwise, people are like, this is inconsistent. This doesn't feel on brand. This feels off brand.

15:25And that's why I love how Mike's talking about the fact he's trying to be damn good in everything about Torchy's, everything about the business. He wants it to resonate with those words. So Mike, you are speaking to entrepreneurs, to small business owners, solopreneurs, people that are really looking to be on their own journey of entrepreneurial success. What is your best advice? Just one piece, your number one piece of advice for aspiring entrepreneurs? You know, I go back to that word passion. I think that's the biggest thing. Like, you know, find that thing you're passionate about and really dig into that and make that as big a part of your business as you can.

16:08You know, the other thing is just, you know, hire people that are better than you at things that you're not good at. You know, if you're not good at finance, go hire a great finance person. If you're not a good marketer, go find a badass marketing person. You know, if you're in the restaurant business and you're not a great chef, hire a great chef. You know, I think that having that humility need to know that like, you know, you're not going to be able to do it all. But you do have this passion of what you're passionate about and the idea that's driving your business and you're fulfilling the need that you think needs to be fulfilled.

16:47Follow that passion and really get after it. What's next for Torchy's? We've expanded a lot in the last couple of years. So we've been really focused on just really going back. We're in a lot of different states. We've been doubling down, making sure, hey, we're really proud of our operations. We've got a lot of long tenured folks making sure that they're developed and really kind of starting to peek under the curtain of like, hey, where do we want to go next? And we haven't really fully decided that in terms of states or cities, but that's kind of where we're at in our business life cycle today.

17:25Mike, you wrote the book, The Devil is in the Details, How Torchy's Taco co-founder, built his empire. Take the mic, take the stage. What do you want to tell us about this book? That phrase is actually in all of our kitchens and our restaurants, the devil's in the details, because anyone who has a business knows that there's a lot of details that go into making sure that that business is successful, right? So being highly focused on those details, making sure that, you know, there's that underlying passion as everything you're doing you know, come up to that for us, it's damn good. Right. And, um, you know, I think that, um, you know, the other thing is, is really about, you know, your people are the ones that are going to get those details across the, across the board.

18:17So really providing them opportunities, chances to succeed, own their pieces of business, um, and develop them and, and, and let them shine. Where does Fire Nation go if they want to learn more about you, the business, and your book? The best place is probably TortisTacos.com. You can also just Google my name, Michael Ripka. There's a lot of stuff out there on the internet about me as well. Other things I've done and things I've been involved with. and obviously listening to this podcast is a great way to kind of get into what's under the hood between me and Torchies. But yeah, torches.com is always a good place to start that journey.

19:04Fire Nation, you're the average of the five people you spend the most time with and you've been hanging out with MR and JLD today. So keep up that heat. For links to everything we talked about, the book, Mike's website, all the other jazz, visit eofire.com. type Mike, M-I-K-E, in the search bar, and the show notes page will pop right up. And by the way, his last name, Ripka, R-Y-P-K-A. Mike, thank you for sharing your truth, your knowledge, your value with Fire Nation. For that, we salute your brother and we'll catch you on the flip side. Thank you, my man. I appreciate everything. Hey, Fire Nation, a huge thank you to our sponsors and Mike for sponsoring today's episode.

19:44And Fire Nation, are you an entrepreneur on fire who is looking to share your amazing message with the world. If yes, we are now accepting applications for entrepreneurs on fire. To learn more about EO Fire and becoming a guest, visit eofire.com slash guest. And I'll catch you there or on the flip side. Is now the time to grow a successful business? Attend the world's highest rated business growth workshop taught personally by Clay Clark and now featuring football star Tim Tebow and President Trump's son, Eric Trump at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire. Again, request life-changing tickets today at thrivetimeshow.com slash EO Fire.

20:25Do you have the right mentor in your life right now? For the first time in seven years, I'm opening up a few mentorship slots for individuals who know they need the guidance and accountability to take their business and life to the next level. Email me at john at eofire.com with a subject line mentor and we'll schedule a 15-minute chat to go over the program and see if it's the right fit for you.