198. How to Lead a Team People Actually Want to Work For

0:00Ryan grew up in a trailer in West Texas desert. No internet, no TV, and a two-hour bus ride to school. When his mom was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, everything changed. He and his siblings were separated and adopted by different families. Somehow, though, through it all, Ryan held onto his creativity and sense of purpose. Years later, working at a cafe to support his music dreams, he met Ryan, his boss, and eventually his business partner. After earning Ryan's trust through one of the toughest seasons of his life, Ryan was offered something rare. A chance to co-found a business with no capital, just belief.

0:34This is your host, Ryan Atkinson, and you're listening to the Outfit Podcast, where we uncover the secrets of building and running successful businesses. Today, that business is Bird Bird Biscuits, one of Austin's most beloved restaurants. In this episode, Brian's going to share how he built a cult favorite with intention, experimentation, and a whole lot of heart. Brian, thank you so, so much for being here. So excited to have you on. Happy to be here, man. Happy to be here. Thanks for having me. It's great to chat to you again because you're already on the YouTube channel, So I'm super excited that we could get you over to the podcast.

1:00We're going to talk a lot about a lot today, but let's start at your very early beginnings because you were in West Texas. I mean, you're not in Austin, Texas. You're not in Dallas. You're not in Houston. You're in West Texas, the middle of nowhere. I mean, what was life like growing up in kind of like the desert, essentially? Yeah, man, it was cool. So my dad and my uncle had this crazy idea to move out to the desert and start an airport. And so I lived out in the desert, but it was amazing because they farmed the land and put this irrigation system in. And so though I was in the desert, they grew grass on these runways and taught people how to fly planes.

1:29And so he was wild. It was very unusual. I'll use that as a word. I had an unusual childhood. I mean, talk to us about like your mom's illness and being like adopted. I mean, that is such like a hard thing to like internalize at a young age. I mean, how is that like those experiences like influence like who you became today? And like, talk to us about what happened. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. So, you know, there are five of us. I have 300 brothers and an older sister. And it kind of started with a trip. I remember pretty vividly, like we went to the San Antonio Zoo. as a family, which for us was like a big trip because, you know, we didn't have much money.

1:59I just remember distinctly that on that trip, you know, my mom, she just wasn't able to make it far. Like her legs were just super tired. And then what really culminated with us knowing that there's something wrong is we got to a car accident. Like my mom and I were driving it somewhere in Odessa and we were approaching this red light and she just kind of looks over at me and she's just like, I can't stop. You know what I mean? And we just plowed like headlong into the back of this car at a red light and she wasn't able to control her legs. You know what I mean? And so we rear-ended this car. And that was the moment where we were all like, okay, look, like something's like, something's really wrong here.

2:28And we found out she was diagnosed with MS. And, you know, long story short, it's a long story, but, you know, my mom and my dad wound up getting separated. A nuance there is I learned later on in my life that the reason they separated was because if they were together, the cost of putting my mom in a nursing home was going to be carried by, like, our family. Whereas if they weren't married, basically the state would pay for it. Oh, wow. Yeah, I learned that later on in life. And I think there's still kind of more to that story because, you know, there's another woman involved in my dad's life.

2:59It gets messy, you know what I mean? But I've released a lot of that to let it be what it is. So my mom went to a nursing home and the kids wound up staying out of our trailer for long amounts of time by ourselves. My dad would go off and build houses. CPS got wind of that. They didn't like it. So they kind of tried to, you know, separate us. And luckily, we had some really great families that kind of stepped in. And each one of us kind of went to stay at a different family's house for a season. I had a couple of families that helped me out. Talk to us about like being, you know, you're going into like a new family, an adoptive family.

3:28I'm sure many of our listeners can like relate to this as well. I mean, what values did your adopted family like instilled into that, like help you still guide to who you are today? And listeners, we are going to dive into Bird Bird here. It's such a good restaurant. But I really want to talk about Brian's story because it is such a good story here. But like, yeah, what are the values like your adoptive family instilled in you? I don't know. I'm sure if anyone's been in this situation that day. I was older. I was like 10 or 11. So I had a very distinct understanding that the families who were taking me in did not owe me anything.

3:55Like they didn't have to take me in. They were doing it out of the kindness of their heart. And so one of the things that I learned a massive lot about was just being grateful and being generous because they were generous with their money. They were generous with their allowing me to come into their family. And that really kind of made me want to be the kind of person that would do that for somebody else. I love it. And now you're like one of those generous people like I have met. So, so, so good. Let's kind of fast forward here slightly before Bird Bird opens because you're focused on music. I mean, like music, like it's probably still is your heart.

4:25It was your heart. What drew you working into a cafe during that time and kind of like connect that bridge for listeners as well? Like music cafe. Talk to us about that. Oh, yeah, for sure. So anybody who's been a touring musician, you know, you kind of need a job where it's flexible, where you can pop in for a couple of weeks and then they're OK with you being gone for maybe three, four or five weeks at a time. And there aren't very many jobs like that. It just so happens that the service industry is one of them. And Thunderbird Coffee, I think it was called Thunderbird Cafe later on, was within walking distance of the place where I was living.

4:53And so it was one of the first places I applied to. So you're at Thunderbird Cafe and that's where you met Ryan. Can you tell us about what your relationship was like? Because Ryan, you'd go on to co-found Bird Bird with, which we're about to get to in a moment here. But talk to us about like what that relationship was like even before Bird Bird. Yeah, so I mean, I'll try to share too much. I don't want to tell too much of Ryan's story, but I don't think he'd mind. So I didn't know Ryan super well at the beginning of work at Thunderbird. But where we got to know each other very well was his partner was diagnosed with a formal cancer that was terminal.

5:23And he had to go away to really help her through that. And where our relationship got closest, he basically had to put his business. At this point, I was like running the cafe and he had to put his business in my hands and trust that I was going to take care of his business while he was gone. And that's where Ryan, I got really, really close through that process. Well, he's obviously puts a lot of trust in you. and obviously he sees you enough to be like that business partner. Like, actually, let's like start something new, like ourselves here. I mean, how did the idea of like BirdBird come up?

5:48Talk to you about founding story. I know listeners, they're probably hungry. I'm going to say they're hungry to hear how this happened here. We decided we wanted to start something that the intention behind it was one, we could grow with the people that were awesome that we worked with at BirdBird. And then two, there was a flaw in the concept of a cafe because people just came there for too many different reasons. So we wanted to start a business where the product itself was the reason why people were coming to the place. Because if we're at a cafe, you know, people go for dates, people go for work, they go for, you know, meetings, you know, but we wanted Bird Bird to be like, I'm going there to get a biscuit sandwich.

6:19So we traveled, man. We traveled across the US to many different cities, seeing what was resonating in different places and just distilled it down and down and tried to keep it simple. There's more to it than that, but really like that's the process where we came to Bird Bird Biscuit. It was simple. It was something that wasn't saturated in Austin. There was no place else doing that. And so for us, you see, Mike, it was a good recipe for success. This is going to be the story of BirdBird here, but I want to get actual for our listeners here. Something that caught my ear was saturation. You chose something that wasn't saturated.

6:47I feel like with a lot of restaurants and a lot of towns, everyone always does a restaurant. It's always like a sports bar, like American food there. I mean, you guys chose something that wasn't saturated. Talk to us about the importance of like identifying and like, how did you identify there wasn't really saturation with biscuits in Austin, Texas, which is a huge market, of course. Yeah, sure. So it gets there, but it also starts with we noticed that there was something that was resonating with the idea of breakfast. We went to a place and we had a biscuit sandwich and we really loved the experience of it ourselves.

7:15And other people were enjoying that. That was out in L.A. So when we came back to Austin, we knew that there was something there that people liked that resonated. And then when we looked around, you know, it's all tacos. You know what I mean? Like it's it's there wasn't a specifically focused on doing breakfast biscuit sandwiches. And so that's why we honed in on the biscuit. And that's why we don't make any other kind of bread because we decided we were going to live or die by focus and simplicity. We had someone on the podcast recently and he was in a class in Madison, Wisconsin. And it was like a business class.

7:46And the guy was like, all right, if all you had to open up a business in Madison, Wisconsin right now, what would you do? And everyone, of course, is like cheese curds, like cheeseburgers. And he's like, that's wrong because there's thousands of other ones in Wisconsin. You need to do like a Venezuelan type of cuisine or something. And that is like just so much more different for Bird Bird in particular. I mean, building that you guys are like, OK, let's do biscuits. I mean, what did you guys then do? Come back to Austin, plan a place and just grow it? Or like, what did you guys do once you decide on biscuits?

8:15Yeah, yeah. So we actually were very fortunate because when we came back, we had connections like Ryan knew people and he knew this one gentleman who's a really great chef who when he heard what we wanted to do, he basically was like, look, you know, like I can help you guys with your base recipe for a biscuit. He's like, I got a great one. And so we were like, thank you so much. And he gave us, helped us get our base recipe for our biscuit, which once we had that and we had, we experienced it and saw how good it could be. We knew that all we needed to do is keep making it better and then learn how to scale it.

8:44So we're very fortunate to have a great start. What I think is also interesting about this story is like you didn't really have to put any capital in, but like Ryan made you a partner in this, which is just like amazing. What do you think was that trust that like Ryan was like so confident in you for the co-founder? Was your past experience with them or like what made him so confident to invest like in you essentially? It was a couple of things. One, I worked with him for 10 years at Thunderbird Cafe, which he saw that I was willing to commit and dedicate myself. But then the other thing that I think was really important is halfway through my managing his restaurants, one of the cafes was suffering from a really poor culture.

9:22And he basically asked me to go over there and try to be a part of correcting that and placed me there. And I had to be a part of trying to correct a culture. And it was very difficult and very hard. And I think also watching that process take place, I think allowed him and helped him put his trust in me that I was the kind of person that could help create something like that and also deal with different kinds of personalities. And when you're on the ground building the business, you have to be able to deal with so many different kinds of people and so many different personalities. Talk to us.

9:54I mean, how do you change a culture that you're walking into without, you know, establishing it? How did you change it? Like, what did you do? Relationships. So like when I went in first, you know, I didn't go in trying to tell people what to do. I went in and tried to build relationships with people so that they saw in me someone who was there trying to help them. And then I worked hard to help them build their, like respecting me by how I served them. And then once it got to the point to where they genuinely saw that I was there to do what was best for the business, which was what was ultimately best for them, if it was what was best for the business, I think the people who wanted to be a part of that chose to be a part of that.

10:32And then the people who didn't want to be a part of that ultimately wound up leaving. And we had to let a few people go, but people, once it started to change, they didn't or opted out. Most people spend months, sometimes years, just thinking about starting a business. But what if you could do it in just 10 days? That's exactly what the 10-day business launch plan is designed for. It's a step-by-step roadmap that takes you from idea to real operational business in just 10 days. Click the link in the description below and get ready with your business. I want to go back to like that launch of Bird Bird Biscuit because you guys were doing pop-ups to like really start this out.

11:04I mean, what was that feedback like? And when were you like, holy smokes, like we got something here that could work. Talk to us about those first pop-ups. Yeah, they were very cool. It was very well received. Our product was like nowhere near, you know, what it is now, but people still resonated with it, you know? And so we had a couple of pop-ups, you know, sold out of each of the ones that we had. And then we did realize that there was something that people were resonating with. It was new. It was fresh. Like nobody was doing it. And even though we weren't doing it great at that point in time, nobody else was doing it.

11:34So nobody knew, you know? And so I think that that was really it. And then we've just spent time just trying to make it a little bit better every day. I mean, nobody knew, but again, that goes back to your point of like going into a saturated market. I mean, if you think of Austin Tech, I could think of 30 breakfast taco spots right off the top of my head. Like there's so many, but because you're operating with not a lot of competition, if any, you have that to your advantage. I also want to talk about this because a lot of your success early on was word of mouth. Why was word of mouth so successful for you?

12:01Was it such a good product? Did you guys employ any tactics? Like why did word of mouth work so well for you to begin? Well, first off, I mean, you're way more likely to go somewhere that somebody that you trust recommends to you, whether rather than something that you see, you know, that you feel like somebody's trying to push down your throat. And so one of our values is we try to blow people's minds. And I think that treating people well when they come to your establishment and giving them a great product and giving them something to tell people about, it's super powerful because they're your biggest advocates.

12:30Like if you can create fans out of your guests, like what more can you ask for? And then they go out and they advocate for you because they want to share the experience they had with their friends. Beautiful. Word of mouth is so powerful, especially I feel like in the restaurant industry, because if you mean you create a great experience, they're going to talk about it. But opposite side, you create a bad experience in the restaurant industry. People are definitely going to be sharing that with their friends as well. Super important for you here, COVID came. Everyone knows COVID. Everyone understands how difficult that was.

12:59You guys made a bull pivot. Can you walk us through that service window idea? And yeah, kind of leading up to that. We had a window that was closed off and we almost shut down the business because we thought it was just going to be two weeks like everybody else did. And he's recommended, he was like, you know, I think we should pop that window open and just start serving out of the window so that we can keep serving and, you know, all of us can keep working and nothing really has to change. And we did. And everybody knows the history, like two weeks turned into what? I don't know, a year and a half, two years.

13:25But it allowed us to utilize our kitchen to its full potential because when we didn't have people coming into the store, the whole inside shifted into a kitchen space that was coupled with getting busier because a lot of businesses had shut down. And so if you were one of the businesses that didn't shut down, you received a lot of extra business. And so it pushed our entire business model into this completely new form that allowed is to maximize our revenue. I mean, talk about the blessing of that. I mean, it seems like a curse at first, but I mean, that ends up being probably one of the biggest blessings of bird bird is that shift.

13:57Yeah, for sure, man. You got to be careful calling COVID a blessing. You know, some people like they'll zing you for that. And then the comment section, you know what I mean? But for us, it really was something that allowed our business to thrive. So continue off of COVID. Obviously, you guys make that big shift. Revenue is going up, growth is going up. You guys are continuing to grow here because you're now leading a team of 55. And I alluded to in the past, I want to talk about culture because you have built a phenomenal culture. How do you keep culture tight as like the business continues to scale?

14:24Can you give us some like actual tips? Because culture is such a big part of any company, but 55 people is not a small company by any means. How do you like employ culture at BirdBird? Well, I think first it starts with you got to live it yourself. You know what I mean? Because if you speak a word that shows false by your actions, no one's going to trust you. And so it starts with the person who says that they believe in this stuff, showing that they value it. And so how do we as leaders treat the people around us? That's how it starts, you know, because then if you treat the people around you the way that you say that you uphold and live your life, well, then you attract to yourself leaders that want to embody those values.

14:59And once you can bring lead, want to embody those same values, you can take those leaders and you can put them in strategic positions to help generate and grow the same kind of thing. But if you don't have leaders in place that buy in, that want to live that out, it'll never work because you can't be three, four, five, six places at once. And look, you got to tend to the garden because sometimes you have to prune, you know what I mean? Sometimes you have to weed and remove things from the garden that aren't good for it and you have to tend to it. And so bird bird has been this really beautiful plant that it's not been perfect, but we've done the work to keep it a healthy garden.

15:35Brian, I spent a lot of time with you now doing the YouTube And that might be one of my favorite quotes you've said is you have to attend to your garden. And just the meaning of that, I think is like so beautiful because to your point, I mean, you can get weeds in there, you can get bad growth in there, but ultimately like you do have to prune it if you actually want to take care of it and be able to grow. Absolutely. And like speaking of culture here, I mean, talk to us about like setting core values. I mean, do you guys have core values? What are the core values? How did you establish those core values?

16:00I'd love to talk to you about the values because we do. and we've really, the thing that I love about values is when they're solid and when everybody buys into them, they actually supersede any individual. So I am subservient to the values of Bird Bird Biscuit, business owner, you know what I mean? And when the values are good and you can put yourself and everyone else in living those values, it gives a sense of accountability that everybody knows anyone can be held accountable to. And people can trust that. If they feel like the system is rigged, people don't trust that. But when they feel like the system is honorable, people can trust that.

16:32And so the values of Burr Burr, we have four of them. The first one is people, not objects. The second one is consistent quality above all. The third one is this is fun for us. And the fourth one is to blow people's minds. And the first three work together to generate the last one, which the last one's kind of the culmination of when we do our first three, right? Yeah, yeah. I would love to hear like, how did you guys like choose those values in particular? Because culture setting and like setting your values as a company, I mean, we've done it here, my own company as well. It's so important to do.

17:01How did you guys like just land on like those four sayings right there then? We wanted them to be things that had action to them. Because sometimes people think about values and the values are like integrity, honesty, but we wanted values that actually like had movement in them. So it's like consistent quality above all. You have to think about, okay, it's not just about the quality. It's about how you maintain that quality and consistency over time. So there's movement to it. People, not objects. It's like, no, it's not just like we value people. It's like we value people, but we also put in the work to make sure we don't view people as objects, right?

17:33This is fun for us. There's movement to it. It's like, we're not gonna do anything that doesn't add to the experience of our enjoyment of life. And then blowing people's minds, that's also one that there's just, there's action to. It's like you have to think about and you have to put effort into understanding how to read a scenario to bring out the best in someone else's experience. And so all four of them, they can't be passive. And I think that that's really important when you have values, that the values can't easily be passive because if they can, people can talk about them. They're easier to talk about and not employ.

18:05I'm actually laughing at this because one of our values is just integrity. Like I just think about like all of our values that we have here, like they are all just like one word, but I love the action or the examples you give, like putting in emotion and whatnot. So I feel like taking that extra step, I think listeners, like that's an action point for you when you are setting company cultures, like be able to take that a step further with like movement to it. Brian, some of that I always like admire about you as well is just like how much you put thoughtful like action into leadership. Humongous question here, but if you had like one piece of actual advice for someone that's an aspiring leader, like what would it be to become their best selves?

18:40It all starts there. That's not hypothetical. That is the most practical thing that any person can do if they wanna be a good leader is sit down, really look at themselves and tend to their garden because it's very easy to overlook your own opportunities for growth, we'll call them. I used to call them faults. I try to transmute it and make it positive, but it's really easy to do that. And when you do that and you couple that with like finding flaws around you and other people, it just, it stunts your growth. It makes people not really trust you. It gives you a false sense of like who you are and you gotta be able to stand true in your own integrity.

19:14And so damn, that's it. Like, yeah, tender garden. I like it. another phrase that you have is also, we're all just walking each other home, which I also like that. Expand on that. Like what exactly does that mean? And like, what is that philosophy there for your leadership style? That's a Ram Dass quote. It's my favorite. I put it on everything, as you know. It's the idea that we come into this earth, we live our journey, and ultimately at the end of it, we all have the same outcome. Nobody's staying here for forever. So while you're on this journey, we have to realize that because we all start in the same place and we all end in the same place, This is all one collective ride on the bus.

19:50Just look at how divided the world is. Just look at it anywhere you look. It's all divided. It's not divided though. We're all in this together. And that quote encompasses a mindset of really not just recognizing that, but being like, okay, well, what does it mean then to live life in such a way to where we see each other as walking each other on our journey to the destination that will ultimately be the same for all of us? And I call it home because I think that when we leave here, there's a beautiful thing that happens after that. Like that's my feeling, you know? I love it. Well, talking about journeys and walking us home, we are coming to the end of this episode here.