Alinea - The Business Plan

[C_Ruark]

Mr. Kokonas,

Given the unique qualities of Alinea, what are the safeguards being put into place to protect Alinea's recipes, brand identity, and the like? Are any of these measures above and beyond standard practice in the food service industry?

Again, many thanks for sharing your thoughts.

- CSR

[nick.kokonas]

Mr. Kokonas,

Given the unique qualities of Alinea, what are the safeguards being put into place to protect Alinea's recipes, brand identity, and the like? Are any of these measures above and beyond standard practice in the food service industry?

Again, many thanks for sharing your thoughts.

- CSR

←

We have in place intellectual property rights agreements with some of the creative professionals involved with Alinea. In addition, where warranted and appropriate, we will be seeking design patents, or trademarks, or copyrights, depending on the category of IP we are trying to protect.

Obviously, we have taken an "open source" type of approach to the whole project, sharing much of our information with the public via eGullet, and with the press when they have inquired. It should be noted, though it is off topic, that we have turned down a number of opportunities and projects that would likely have paid money in the short term, but could have diminished Alinea in the long term.

Since my professional background is not from the food service industry, I am not aware what constitutes typical industry practices.

[project]

There are seven aspects of the Alinea business planning I find curious, surprising, astounding, even amazing. I compare with planning new businesses in 'information technology' with candidate investors the venture capital funds, heavily on Sand Hill Road in CA or Winter Street in MA. There appear to be some examples of some large conflicts in investment strategy.

(1) Business Plan:

Entrepreneurs starting businesses in 'information technology' and contacting candidate investors are commonly advised to have a business description that can be given in 30 seconds as an 'elevator pitch', an 'executive summary' of 3-5 pages, and a 'business plan' of about 25 pages, usually no more than 50 pages, and to place little emphasis on spreadsheet tables or detailed budget projections and to submit documents electronically and not to use color printing, expensive paper or binding, or anything else expensive.

The Alinea business plan on hand made paper with detailed spreadsheet tables and food samples ranges from significantly to astoundingly different.

It sounds like the Alinea plan did not stay under the 50 page limit and depended only a little or not at all on an 'executive summary' or an 'elevator pitch'.

An amazing contrast.

(2) Research:

The US Federal Government heavily funds peer-reviewed research. The main agencies are the DoD, including DARPA, DoE, NSF, and NIH.

Sand Hill Road and Winter Street take such research results in 'information technology' as something that with a dime will at best just cover a 10 cent cup of coffee and usually as just an unwanted distraction. At least the initial product development should be solidly done and in the hands of happy customers, and either using or doing 'research' should not be anywhere in sight as a relevant activity.

Yet, Alinea seems fully eager to exploit research and, possibly, even contribute to it.

An amazing contrast.

(3) Creativity:

In 'information technology', 'creativity' is supposed to be already in the product and, hopefully, protected with patents, and any suggestion for a role for creativity continuing in the future is regarded as an absurd reason for investment comparable to betting on visions seen in the clouds.

Yet, with Alinea, clearly Chef Achatz and the senior staff will be expected to continue to be creative for a major fraction of their time far into the future, over the horizon.

An amazing contrast.

(4) 'Stage':

In 'information technology', the investor general partners and limited partners mostly agree about the appropriate 'stage' for an investment. One of the most important criteria include existing paying customers. In particular, for 'due diligence', the investors are supposed mostly to take the attitude that they personally do not need to, and should not attempt to, understand, evaluate, or judge the product for themselves but just to use the opinions of paying customers.

For Alinea, however, hard work spending funds from investors has been going on for months with no hope of any paying customers before 1Q05. Further, Alinea investors actually got literally to taste the product as they first looked at the business plan. Later they got to taste the product at an investor's dinner.

An amazing contrast.

(5) 'Team':

In 'information technology', it is accepted that there should be a 'team' with a lot of emphasis on generalists and at most secondary emphasis on specialists. The generalists are supposed to have a track record of managing large -- hundreds of employees, hundreds of millions in annual revenue -- rapidly growing businesses that were sold with large gains -- hundreds of millions of dollars -- for the investors. Further, the project is not supposed to be very vulnerable to the loss of any one person.

At Alinea, however, Mr. Kokonas seems to be the closest approximation to a 'generalist' and his work will soon be "97%" done. Chef Achatz is one of the world's most advanced specialists in his industry and is clearly a key person for Alinea.

An amazing contrast.

(6) 'Scalability':

In 'information technology', it is accepted that the desired financial gains can be achieved only with a business that is 'scalable', that can grow quickly to a large size, say, annual revenues of $500 million. For this growth, software is looked on with favor for its near zero per unit cost of production, e.g., just copy a CD; and any business that depends heavily on people, e.g., a 'labor intensive' or 'service' business, is regarded as hopeless.

At Alinea, however, providing an 'experience' to the customers is heavily a 'service' business and 'labor intensive' in the extreme.

An amazing contrast.

(7) Direction:

A large and growing fraction of investors on Sand Hill Road and Winter Street have concluded that for business directions they should not listen to entrepreneurs but should identify, formulate, and plan such directions for themselves and, later, find entrepreneurs to execute the plans.

At Alinea, however, clearly the both the direction and technical details have been at least very heavily, likely at least nearly entirely, from the experience, creativity, thinking, and work of Chef Achatz and done well before the business plan on hand made paper presented to the investors.

An amazing contrast.

More broadly, the Sand Hill Road and Winter Street firms commonly claim that they can be pleased to have even two investments in 10 do well but, for those two, need some significant gains, e.g., invest $5 million and get back $500 million in about five years.

It is true that, if we go to the yacht clubs on the Great Lakes, then we see plenty of evidence of people that have done well in business and, if only from geography, the suspicion has to be strong that the successes had little or nothing to do with Sand Hill Road or Winter Street; thus, these streets clearly do not have the only good path to business success.

Still, that Alinea can be so different on the seven points above and still be an attractive investment shows some large differences of opinion among some serious investors.

So, are there some resolutions for some of these seemingly large conflicts in investment strategy?

Edited November 22, 2004 by project (log)

[noambenami]

As a veteran of numerous startups in high technology, I thought I'd add my thoughts to this.

The Alinea business plan on hand made paper with detailed spreadsheet tables and food samples ranges from significantly to astoundingly different.

It sounds like the Alinea plan did not stay under the 50 page limit and depended only a little or not at all on an 'executive summary' or an 'elevator pitch'.

An amazing contrast.

Not at all. Anyone investing in Alinea would do so because of Trio. Similarly, most investors will invest in people with a successful track record. The lengths of business plans vary widely and wildly.

Yet, Alinea seems fully eager to exploit research and, possibly, even contribute to it.

An amazing contrast.

Alinea is in no way a research institution, it is a production environment. All gastronomic restaurants create new recipes. If anything, Alinea is very much like a high tech startup in that before the product is released there is an intense product development effort that builds on both original thinking and existing technology. Frankly, the R&D budget for most serious high tech startup represents a much higher fraction of expenditures than at Alinea.

In 'information technology', 'creativity' is supposed to be already in the product and, hopefully, protected with patents, and any suggestion for a role for creativity continuing in the future is regarded as an absurd reason for investment comparable to betting on visions seen in the clouds.

Yet, with Alinea, clearly Chef Achatz and the senior staff will be expected to continue to be creative for a major fraction of their time far into the future, over the horizon.

Not at all. Any tech company that does not engage in continuous product improvement quickly finds itself out of business. Version two follows version one, and there is furious competition between companies on the basis of features. Much more so than at most restaurants.

In 'information technology', the investor general partners and limited partners mostly agree about the appropriate 'stage' for an investment.  One of the most important criteria include existing paying customers.  In particular, for 'due diligence', the investors are supposed mostly to take the attitude that they personally do not need to, and should not attempt to, understand, evaluate, or judge the product for themselves but just to use the opinions of paying customers.

Ever hear of the term "due diligence?" You have no idea how intensively most startups are studied when serious investors come in.

In 'information technology', it is accepted that there should be a 'team' with a lot of emphasis on generalists and at most secondary emphasis on specialists.  The ...At Alinea, however, Mr. Kokonas seems to be the closest approximation to a 'generalist' and his work will soon be "97%" done.  Chef Achatz is one of the world's most advanced specialists in his industry and is clearly a key person for Alinea.

High tech startups are often started by a partnership between technical specialists and management specialists. Look at a company like Google, that was started by a number of technical wizards, or Juniper Networks, or Amazon. All these companies depend on the expertise and vision of a very small core number of highly specialized people.

In 'information technology', it is accepted that the desired financial gains can be achieved only with a business that is 'scalable', that can grow quickly to a large size, say, annual revenues of $500 million.  For this growth, software is looked on with favor for its near zero per unit cost of production, e.g., just copy a CD; and any business that depends heavily on people, e.g., a 'labor intensive' or 'service' business, is regarded as hopeless.

At Alinea, however, providing an 'experience' to the customers is heavily a 'service' business and 'labor intensive' in the extreme.

This is not the opinion of anyone who actually understands software. It is understood that creating and maintaining software is an incredibly expensive and tricky proposition. Consulting is, in fact, looked upon as a much safer business proposition due to the lack of development time and quick time to cash.

A large and growing fraction of investors on Sand Hill Road and Winter Street have concluded that for business directions they should not listen to entrepreneurs but should identify, formulate, and plan such directions for themselves and, later, find entrepreneurs to execute the plans.

At Alinea, however, clearly the both the direction and technical details have been at least very heavily, likely at least nearly entirely, from the experience, creativity, thinking, and work of Chef Achatz and done well before the business plan on hand made paper presented to the investors.

Such innovation incubators as you speak of have never proven themselves in the real world. Innovation is way to erratic and dependent on bright individuals to be put under such controlled conditions.

Frankly, Alinea as a business is a nearly risk-free venture and displays a business profile that looks a lot like a straightforward acquistion:

1. An already proven business is purchased - usually for its existing product line or customer list.

2. It is cleaned up and rebranded.

3. The business is relaunched under a different name.

All Alinea is is a rebranding of Trio under chef Achatz - the product is the chef's creativity and style. The business builds upon the success of, and presumably financial data from, the previous business, and upon the buzz generated by having such an incredible and proven team.

Just my opinion.

[nick.kokonas]

Wow, I thought that the business plan thread was dead!

I am not quite sure where to begin, so a bit of background.

I am indeed the generalist that Project accuses me of being, but I have at times been a specialist. For 10 years I was a derivatives trader, both on exchange floors and off, trading options on equities and futures products, as well as more esoteric financial products. In addition, during that time, I was involved as an early stage investor in a web company (invested in 1997 or so) that was very successful and was sold in March, 2000. I currently serve on the boards of two local IT companies: one a Lucent Spin-off that offers a supply chain management tool to large manufacturing companies -- a manufacturing intelligence program (see: www.gsqa.com ), the other is an online immigration law firm that is really an IT company that supplies a software process to individuals and human resource departments of large companies like American Airlines (see: www.visanow.com ). The point is, I have been involved in several different types of businesses.

I will take your points one at a time:

1) The business plan: Since I was not approaching VC's or Sand Hill type folks, I could do away with the pithy elevator pitch. I was already inside and had the ear of folks that knew and trusted me. I opted to be as thorough as possible. Plus, I was committing a significant amount of money myself, something that many start-ups do not have when walking into a VC (or the scale is different, ie they are looking for $25 million and currently have $200k of their own money). So this was not like a venture or private equity pitch at all. At no time was I ever worried about finding the money to build the restaurant.

2) Our research had more in common with research on a real estate deal than on speculative software or hardware constructs. Unlike research by Darpa and the like (which could be fairly termed speculative), I can indeed point to the average price per square foot triple net lease in the Gold Coast area of Chicago and tell the investors that over the last two years it was $55 per square foot. That is a fact, not speculation. Both are called research, but they are very different.

3) I see no difference between any ongoing production venture and Alinea when it comes to creativity. Intel spends billions per year trying to be innovative and creative. They try to hire creative engineers. I think it is the same here.

4) That assumes that the business will be sold, go public, or throw off cash... so the stage becomes important so everyone can figure out their potential dilution on future stages and calculate their return given the three possible exits. In this case, we will have no further investment (if all goes well) and we will in no case sell Alinea. So we are planning only for earnings. In this case, Alinea is more like buying an old-line manufacturing firm than a tech company.

5) Chef Achatz is more of a generalist than anyone would believe. Giving him proper credit, he is a gifted specialist as a Chef and the business is being built around that completely (there will be an Achatz key-man insurance policy in place). But he is also a manager, designer, and businessman.... an owner as well as a chef. He has been integral to every aspect of the business plan and its execution. When I said my work will be 97% done, I meant by that that my greatest utility will not lie in running the operations of the restaurant. However, on the investment, build-out, design, and planning side, I am pretty handy to have around. I will still be active as needed once Alinea is open.

6) Alinea itself is not scalable... no one is going public or selling this place. There is certainly a price cap and a finite number of diners we can serve. That is the nature of the business. I do know of a few high-end chefs that ended up with more than one restaurant, however (Ducasse, Keller, Vongreichten, Boulud)...

7) That is the current thinking. It was very different in 1998, and will likely be revised again in the future. I don't think that the VC's themselves always believe in these investment trends, and the good ones ignore them completely and keep an open mind.

Still, that Alinea can be so different on the seven points above and still be an attractive investment shows some large differences of opinion among some serious investors.

I don't think that is true. It simply means that there are many different ways to make money... I don't think that there are differences of opinion, just different types of businesses. Do these VC's never make a real estate investment with their mega-bucks just because it isn't scalable or doesn't fit their criterion for tech investments? Of course not.

I should like to add that I agree with everything that noambenami said as well... in the future we may want to use him/her as our business-plan spokesperson!

[jackal10]

I don't think that is true.  It simply means that there are many different ways to make money... I don't think that there are differences of opinion, just different types of businesses.  Do these VC's never make a real estate investment with their mega-bucks just because it isn't scalable or doesn't fit their criterion for tech investments?  Of course not.

←

High-tech VCs rarely make real-estate investements: the structure of their funds, and the manifesto they gave to their investors usually preclude this.

High net worth individuals act as angels and also invest in a range of other things to spread their portfolio.

The equivalent to a hgh-tech fast growth and exit would be something like setting up a chain or a set of franchise restaurants, with a view to aquisition by a major in 3-5 years. A single restaurant's growth and hence worth, by definition, is limited by its physical size, and to some extent by its location and demographic.

Since you are not planning (as far as I know) a chain of Alinea's or an early exit rewarding the investors with capital growth, I wonder if traditional equity (selling a share of the business) is the right way to raise funds, or if debt finance such as a debenture (essentially a mortgage on the business) would be more appropriate. That way you could pay interest, and eventually repay the capital out of the profit.

Given the team, the success (and hence profitability) is very likely, and hence the advantage of debt financing is that the amount you have to pay back is fixed, and you wash out the investors. If they own shares, then they are with you forever.

There are also half-way houses, like convertible debentures. One example is a bond covering the loan, that if various conditions are not met, such as timely repayment, can be converted into shares. For a business expecting a reasonable sustained profit, but not high growth this might be attractive to both the founders and the investors. You could even build in an initial interest and repayment holiday for, say, the first year to ease the starting period.

How can I buy in?

Edited November 22, 2004 by jackal10 (log)

[nick.kokonas]

High-tech VCs rarely make real-estate investements: the structure of their funds, and the manifesto they gave to their investors usually preclude this.

High net worth individuals act as angels and also invest in a range of other things to spread their portfolio

I was unclear about this, but I meant with the Venture Capitalist's own personal money, not with the Venture fund. In other words, if you are an individual VC, do you invest in real estate on the side to round out your personal holdings? Of course you do.

wonder if traditional equity (selling a share of the business) is the right way to raise funds, or if debt finance such as a debenture (essentially a mortgage on the business) would be more appropriate. That way you could pay interest, and eventually repay the capital out of the profit.

I have given no details as to how the business deal itself is structured. In fact, it is a combination of shares and what you described, more or less.

There are several other advantages to doing a partial debt financing as well (but I will leave those private).

In fact, though, we did not want to "wash out" the investors as you state. That might be the most profitable way for management, but it does little to engender long-term good will from the investors. I certainly understand that they would make their return and be pleased, but if Alinea is successful I want all the investors to reap rewards beyond a simple preferred return or debt repayment.

That is just a personal business philosophy, rather than a rule.

How can I buy in?

Thanks for the vote of confidence...

Edited November 22, 2004 by nick.kokonas (log)

[project]

I continue to see astounding differences between the Alinea effort and what the Sand Hill Road and Winter Street venture capital communities do. In my first post I did not indicate which I prefer; actually, my main point is that the Alinea case is the good example and one that Sand Hill-Winter should learn from. The thousand or so MBAs at Sand Hill-Winter have a lot to learn from Chef Achatz and Nick Kokonas! Good for Alinea!

nick.kokonas:

You wrote:

"I am indeed the generalist that Project accuses me of being, but I have at times been a specialist."

Oh, no! Clearly I didn't know enough really to "accuse" you of being a "generalist"! I just said "Mr. Kokonas seems to be the closest approximation to a 'generalist' ....", closest on the Alinea 'team', and how "close" left unspecified! My statement would still be true even if you were 99% as good a chef as Chef Achatz!

The business plan and fund raising process you described in "1)" makes good sense. I remain surprised at how different your process was from the Sand Hill-Winter process. Good for Alinea!

Directly for Alinea, my remarks on research were mostly just

"Yet, Alinea seems fully eager to exploit research and, possibly, even contribute to it."

"Exploit research"?

I do believe that Chef Achatz and his staff are ready, willing, and able to draw from H. McGee's books and its references and just as easily could chat with chemists about pH, aerosols, aromatic esters and other flavor compounds, components of wines, contents of some 'secret sauce', chat with microbiologists about cooking without oxygen, chat with physiologists about senses of flavor and smell, and, from such chats, possibly draw from related research, recent or not. Here, then, is how Alinea might "exploit research".

Possibly "contribute" to research?

At some point, it may be that such discussions with scientists could result in some trials in the Alinea kitchens with surprising results -- uh, it was supposed to have nearly no taste, but it tastes great or it was supposed to taste great but is as flat as the floor and duller than the back of a Sabatier, why? -- that would stimulate further investigations in the scientists' laboratories and result in peer-reviewed papers of original research by the scientists with at least acknowledgement and possibly coauthorship for the relevant Alinea staff. Here, then, is how Alinea might "contribute to" research.

Of course with such things there can also be points of intellectual property.

My view is that, in 'information technology' the Sand Hill-Winter approach regards the contents of the shelves of the research libraries as distractions or at best worthless nonsense and any original research, even if already done and past peer-review, as more of the same. My guess is that this view is excused by the success of W. Gates, a college dropout. Really, the 'information technology' community is afraid of, intimidated by, contemptuous of, hung up on the 'risks' of, any contact with 'research', and this is a major mistake. Chatting with a scientist occasionally does not have to be a major business risk! Here Chef Achatz is or can be well ahead of 'information technology' easily. Good for Alinea!

You wrote

"3) I see no difference between any ongoing production venture and Alinea when it comes to creativity. Intel spends billions per year trying to be innovative and creative. They try to hire creative engineers. I think it is the same here."

At times Intel has tried to be creative (I omit examples), but my view of Intel is that A. Grove has been single minded on just shipping faster processors with old architectural features for Microsoft's Windows and letting everything else slide and that almost entirely Intel's development expenditures have been aimed at building the next plant with smaller line widths and more gates per unit area and that otherwise their attempts at creativity and innovation have contributed surprisingly little.

I gave my view on creativity in Sand Hill-Winter startups.

Net, to me Alinea still seems especially, and commendably, 'creative' for US business, in particular, compared with Intel!

For

"I don't think that the VC's themselves always believe in these investment trends, and the good ones ignore them completely and keep an open mind."

Well, that's what the "good ones" really should do. Actually, mostly I blame the limited partners!

noambenami:

For your

"Ever hear of the term 'due diligence?' You have no idea how intensively most startups are studied when serious investors come in."

Yes, I do have more than just an "idea"!

For evaluating technical work in 'information technology', the editors of the relevant research journals and the research problem sponsors at the US DoD, DoE, NSF, and NIH do well; the Sand Hill-Winter people have yet to get started. Partly I blame myself: When I was a professor in an MBA program, I made some efforts to say how to evaluate information technology but didn't get enough across clearly enough! Likely the VCs do much better with biomedical where it is accepted that advanced technical material is relevant.

For your

"Anyone investing in Alinea would do so because of Trio. Similarly, most investors will invest in people with a successful track record. The lengths of business plans vary widely and wildly."

I believe that lengths of plans should and likely do vary "widely and wildly", but 25-50 pages is a quite common recommendation from the Sand Hill-Winter people. This recommendation may be more to reduce the effort to handle the 1000 plans that they reject than to better understand the one plan they accept. Also, even for a plan to be accepted, the shorter the plan, the less there is to check! Whatever the reason, the assumption that an elevator pitch, etc. should be sufficient for a clear explanation, clear enough to separate from, say, perpetual motion, for a business intended to generate the VCs' desired ROI is close to absurd. "Or, a billion dollars is just sitting there; here in 25 words or less is how to get it; although we have described the opportunity meaningfully in 25 words or less, still no one else can see this and beat us to it". Sure. Right. And if you like that, then I've also got this great bridge in New York you'd really be interested in!

Yes, the history of Chef Achatz at Trio, French Laundry, Charlie Trotter's, etc. was no doubt important for the investors, and clearly the Alinea investors were able to evaluate this history.

In contrast, in 'information technology', the Sand Hill-Winter investors commonly have a more difficult time evaluating technical accomplishments.

You wrote:

"Any tech company that does not engage in continuous product improvement quickly finds itself out of business. Version two follows version one, and there is furious competition between companies on the basis of features. Much more so than at most restaurants."

Thus, apparently we differ on 'creativity'. My view is that in 'information technology', especially in software, version n + 1 is not a very good example of 'creativity'. Much of version n + 1 is fixing bugs, adding functionality needed and originally envisioned but delayed, or responding to clear requests from customers. Really, it is as if all the creative parts were done before the first funding round and no further creative efforts are expected, attempted, or wanted.

For "furious competition between companies on the basis of features", I doubt that Alinea will see their menus quickly copied elsewhere, and, similarly, for any genuinely advanced product in 'information technology', there is very little, commonly really no significant, competition for functionality, features, etc. If there is so much competition, then the original work was not very creative! So, for a genuinely advanced product, I do not see "furious competition between companies on the basis of features".

For the Sand Hill-Winter investors, my view is that they want to see the 'creative' 'intellectual property' before writing the first check and will count any prospects of any future creativity as, with a dime, at best just enough to cover a ten cent cup of coffee and more likely a dangerous distraction.

I do believe that Chef Achatz and his investors are intending and counting on continuing creativity quite far beyond what Sand Hill-Winter consider and that here that Alinea fully correct and that Sand Hill-Winter are making some big mistakes.

Heck, I could even see some good Alinea customers coming once each two months or so eager to see what new creations they will find from Chef Achatz and team! Good for Alinea! Of course, the better Alinea does for such good customers, the more they will be creating a tough act to follow!

For

"Frankly, the R&D budget for most serious high tech startup represents a much higher fraction of expenditures than at Alinea."

for "R", there is essentially none budgeted for Sand Hill-Winter "high tech" start-ups or, as I understand it, Alinea. For "D" for "high tech", yes, but the work is rarely very creative; at Alinea, the work is fully creative.

So, I conclude that Alinea is more creative than Sand Hill-Winter are willing to entertain. Good for Alinea!

For

"High tech startups are often started by a partnership between technical specialists and management specialists. Look at a company like Google, that was started by a number of technical wizards, or Juniper Networks, or Amazon. All these companies depend on the expertise and vision of a very small core number of highly specialized people."

For this, my claim basically was that Alinea has a greater role for specialists and a smaller role for generalists than Sand Hill-Winter say they want to see. Good for Alinea!

You are correct in your "High tech startups are often started by a partnership between technical specialists and management specialists.", but Google is an exception! Apparently L. Page and S. Brin were graduate students at Stanford when A. Bechtolsheim invested the first $100 K and relatively soon got M. Moritz and J. Doerr involved. Quickly the investment rose to $25 M. E. Schmidt, to play the role of the 'generalist' or source of 'adult supervision' although he has an excellent specialized background, didn't come over from Novell until much later. Google is one of the high points of insight by Sand Hill, but as 'information technology' the original Page-Brin 'page ranking' ideas appear not to be very advanced. Basically Google is a telephone directory for those of the four billion internet protocol addresses used for HTTP on TCP/IP port 80; that Google could make so much from advertising, especially from their rather subtle approach, is amazing. So, even with Google, Sand Hill was not betting on anything very advanced. My view is that in being advanced the work of Chef Achatz is quite competitive which puts him up with one of the high points of Sand Hill. Good for Alinea!

For Juniper, it appears that T. Li was the technical wizard; I do not recall the rest of the original team. At Amazon, apparently J. Bezos was the main person; I am not sure there was much more of a team.

Google, Juniper, and Amazon aside, the Sand Hill-Winter people in what they say continue to put high emphasis on a team with generalists and at most secondary roles for the specialists, higher emphasis on the generalists than in the Alinea example. So, Alinea is ahead of at least what Sand Hill-Winter actually say. Good for Alinea!

For

"This is not the opinion of anyone who actually understands software. It is understood that creating and maintaining software is an incredibly expensive and tricky proposition. Consulting is, in fact, looked upon as a much safer business proposition due to the lack of development time and quick time to cash."

What I said was:

"For this growth, software is looked on with favor for its near zero per unit cost of production, e.g., just copy a CD; ...."

So, I said that making a copy of a CD was easy; I did not claim that writing the original copy of some valuable software was easy.

Could it be that I am one "who actually understands software"? Let's see: I have worked in software for years and done simple things, some of the most advanced scientific things, some of the most advanced military things, and some of the most advanced commercial things, hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the world's best research universities where my Ph.D. research was heavily in software, have taught the subject at the university level and, as a professor, developed and taught a graduate course in software, done successful research in software at one of the world's best laboratories of computer science, have a long string of peer-reviewed publications in software, have done serious work in systems management, systems administration, and systems planning. Gee, what does it actually take to be one "who actually understands software"?

For

"It is understood that creating and maintaining software is an incredibly expensive and tricky proposition."

well, this is correct in general in practice but has not been my experience or that of the best people I have worked with! The secret is to understand software, and very few in software do! Actually, quite powerful understanding has long been available but is routinely ignored in practice.

Far too commonly the software community rushes to get something that appears to work and later tries to patch the problems that appear in practice; this approach must create huge messes and does and explains what you have observed is common.

For a small connection with Alinea, I would urge the staff to generate detailed internal confidential documentation, possibly with a video camera, hopefully also with weights, volumes, times, temperatures, viscosities, and remarks on color, aroma, and taste, of just what they tried and what the results were.

For

"Consulting is, in fact, looked upon as a much safer business proposition due to the lack of development time and quick time to cash."

you will find that overwhelmingly the Sand Hill-Winter people regard consulting as a low margin business that is difficult to manage and not 'scalable' and want nothing to do with it!

While I do believe that Alinea is a good investment, generally on consulting and 'services' business I agree with Sand Hill-Winter that a software business where producing copy n + 1 is essentially free has a great advantage.

For

"Such innovation incubators as you speak of have never proven themselves in the real world. Innovation is way to erratic and dependent on bright individuals to be put under such controlled conditions."

You are correct that the 'incubators' were a big flop. That the "controlled conditions" were the cause is likely a good explanation.

But, I did not use 'incubator', and the investors I spoke of did not regard their direction as an "incubator". Instead, these investors just believe that, with their "deep domain knowledge", long industry experience, and great insight, they see the opportunities better than the entrepreneurs. The analogy would be restaurant investors that really like good coconut cream pie (I do) and then pushing their chef to concentrate on making such a pie. Clearly these would not be Alinea investors; good for Alinea.

I agree with your "Innovation is way to [too] erratic and dependent on bright individuals" and would say that it also implies that investors need to place more emphasis on the specific entrepreneurs and business plans.

For Alinea, it would be easy for an investor to say "Ah, the restaurant business, that's a low margin sector. We pass." But, for Chef Achatz and Alinea, likely not! So, once again, the Alinea investors looked more deeply than Sand Hill-Winter! Good for Alinea! The Alinea investors stand to enjoy their deeper examination on each visit to the restaurant and the bank.

For

"Frankly, Alinea as a business is a nearly risk-free venture ...."

for the reasons you gave and others, I agree. Alinea doesn't look like another Google (nearly nothing does), but it does look like a good investment, better than a lot that Sand Hill-Winter have pursued! Good for Alinea!

[nick.kokonas]

Frankly, Alinea as a business is a nearly risk-free venture ....

That is probably the only thing that I disagree with strongly...

While I believe in Chef G, Alinea, and the team, we continue to treat it as a very high-risk venture, and continue to spend prudently. When all is said and done, I hope that we have planned well enough that everyone believes we have spent substantially more money in creating Alinea than we actually have.

There is the risk that with the attention we are getting that there could be a backlash, or at least a risk of unrealistically high expectations (I know that RonnieSuburban has addressed that elsewhere).

All we can do is work hard and try hard.

But any venture like this is risky.

[noambenami]

There is the risk that with the attention we are getting that there could be a backlash, or at least a risk of unrealistically high expectations (I know that RonnieSuburban has addressed that elsewhere).

I have to say that I have never worked at a startup where our main identified risk was a "backlash" due to overexposure. If thats your big concern, then I'd trade positions with you any time.

Ah, I'd like to be a fly on your wall...

"Ok folks, our main risk is that the slavering hordes of foodies will injure our maitre d' in the mad rush for the tables. Make sure we get another on standby."

[noambenami]

What I said was:

"For this growth, software is looked on with favor for its near zero per unit cost of production, e.g., just copy a CD; ...."

So, I said that making a copy of a CD was easy; I did not claim that writing the original copy of some valuable software was easy.

Could it be that I am one "who actually understands software"? Let's see: I have worked in software for years and done simple things, some of the most advanced scientific things, some of the most advanced military things, and some of the most advanced commercial things, hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the world's best research universities where my Ph.D. research was heavily in software, have taught the subject at the university level and, as a professor, developed and taught a graduate course in software, done successful research in software at one of the world's best laboratories of computer science, have a long string of peer-reviewed publications in software, have done serious work in systems management, systems administration, and systems planning. Gee, what does it actually take to be one "who actually understands software"?

Frankly, I've worked with folks like yourself for years and find that almost no software engineer actually understands the business of making software. If ability to code and design superb software guaranteed success then I'd be a millionaire right now.

Interestingly, in this is the closest parallel to the food industry that I've seen: If simple quality of food was at all related to success, than there'd be a lot more rich chefs. Frankly, just like in sofware, those who make mediocre and unreliable systems and market them well often do the best. Look at Microsoft, Siebel, Oracle...all firms much of whose sofware is fairly uniformly despised. Likewise, in the food industry, its firms that produce borderline-toxic products, like General Mills, McDonalds, and the like who have the biggest footprint.

Sorry to take this discussion so far afield.

[noambenami]

Incidentally - I apologize if I've come across as rude above - I've got a bit of frustration built up from having too many ludicrous discussions with engineers. e.g. Over whether one should actually talk to one's customers to see if what is being built is what they want ("We don't have time!")

[akwa]

speaking of numbers

has the investment been quantified

or the break even point of the restaurant?

in a "research" based capacity it would seem to be feasible to post modest losses for initial years, as credibility is established.

is a process like this desired or even acceptable?

[nick.kokonas]

speaking of numbers

has the investment been quantified

or the break even point of the restaurant?

in a "research" based capacity it would seem to be feasible to post modest losses for initial years, as credibility is established.

is a process like this desired or even acceptable?

←

All of the spreadsheets for the restaurant were done long ago and are updated regularly as we get closer to opening and real-life numbers replace estimates. The calculations you mentioned were certainly carefully considered.

Obviously, we would prefer that the "research" period you mention be kept to a minimum! I don't know anyone who prefers "modest losses" to gains of any kind.

Edited December 14, 2004 by nick.kokonas (log)

[BigboyDan]

Maybe he means "not making a profit during initial years." I've opened restaurants that started earning a profit versus expenses within four months time of opening, others longer; and a few, much longer. What's really difficult, though, is dealing with the investors (myself included), all of who want their investments back quickly as possible...

[nick.kokonas]

Maybe he means "not making a profit during initial years." I've opened restaurants that started earning a profit versus expenses within four months time of opening, others longer; and a few, much longer. What's really difficult, though, is dealing with the investors (myself included), all of who want their investments back quickly as possible... 

←

I am both an investor and Chef Achatz business partner. While that may seem like a conflict of interest, it actually serves to move everyone's interests together. The investors interests and Chef Achatz' interests are exactly the same.

We have a small group of committed investors who will see every aspect of the restaurant's financial picture every quarter. With one exception, we have all done business together in the past, including both successes and, well, less than successes. In addition, we are going to be keeping detailed information on both financial health and customer preferences. All of this will be viewable by investors on a weekly basis.

If everyone is informed, there are no surprises.

[PurpleDingo99]

Thanks for sharing this cornucopia of information, Nick! I aspire to open a restaurant out of college, and it's refreshing to see that such an unorthodox business plan (or proposal, at least) is still welcomed nowadays. Its only a shame I didn't hear about this whole thing earlier, because I keep trying to talk my dad into going VC from his current money manager/portfolio constructing role. He usually eats up old-dog-does-a-new-trick startups, but watchagonnado?

Just out of curiousity- You said that there was only one investor you hadn't worked with before. Did you approach them with your plan, did they approach you after hearing through the grapevine (or in conversation,) or did you send out a cattle call and it just ended up that way?

[nick.kokonas]

Dingo,

The investor you speak of is the friend of an investor and key player in the plan. It was very comfortable and did not require a broad effort to market the plan.

Edited February 28, 2005 by nick.kokonas (log)