HIBT Lab! Slutty Vegan: Pinky Cole

It’s hard to miss a Slutty Vegan when you’re driving past one. No, we’re not talking about a person… We’re talking about a fast-casual burger chain — and a vegan one at that! Since launching Slutty Vegan in 2017, Pinky has seen her plant-based brand through several iterations: a ghost kitchen, then a food truck, then eventually several brick and mortar locations that continue to pop up across the east coast. And with a valuation of $100 million and expansion into other sectors, Pinky is only getting started... This week on How I Built This Lab, Pinky talks with Guy about her journey as a TV producer-turned-restaurateur, and how Slutty Vegan is a prime example of Seth Godin’s Purple Cow theory: companies must build things worth noticing into their products and services. Plus, Pinky reflects on her roots, sharing the valuable lessons about discipline and work ethic that she learned from her parents. This episode was produced by Carla Esteves and edited by John Isabella, with music by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Neal Rauch. You can follow HIBT on Twitter https://twitter.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis, and email us at [email protected] mailto:[email protected]. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 0:46Guy Raz?

  build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.

• 1:32Guy Raz?

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• 2:16Guy Raz?

  on gas and EV charging, office supply stores, cellphone service, and restaurants. You pick up an extra $750 cash back as a bonus. And you've got a low APR on purchases and balance transfers for 12 months while you're scaling. Same business, same expenses, two completely different outcomes based on one small decision. Visit usbank.com/business to learn more. The creditor and issuer of this card is US Bank National Association, pursuant to a license from Visa USA, Inc. Some restrictions apply. If you travel often, you'll want to hear about this unprecedented offer. For the first time ever,

• 3:00Guy Raz?

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• 3:45Guy Raz?

  or bring a guest to the Delta Sky Club. Make every trip feel more rewarding with the car that upgrades your travel. Apply today at delta.com/cardsocial. Offer ends November 4, 2026. Minimum spending requirements and terms apply. Flights are fulfilled as flight certificates valid for Delta Comfort or Delta Maine to select domestic destinations. Book 21-plus days in advance. Up to $80 per person and taxes and fees apply. Other restrictions apply. When I pull up to a gas pump to fill my car, I'm not thinking about chemistry or engineering. I'm thinking about getting in, filling up, and getting on with my day. And it reminds me a little bit of the founders I talked to on this show, because the best

• 4:27Guy Raz?

  ones obsess over things their customers will never see. Tiny details, invisible improvements, relentless iteration. And not because anyone's watching, but because it makes the product better. That's what the mobile brand does. It engineers fuel the same way great founders engineer their products. Mobile Supreme Plus Premium Gas helps keep engines three times cleaner, which can mean better performance and improved gas mileage. It's for people who care about what's under the hood, even if they never see it. Three times cleaner compared to mobile regular gas in port fuel-injected engines. Actual results may vary. Visit mobilefuels.com for details.

• 5:12Guy Raz?

  Hello and welcome to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. So it's hard to know how many Americans are vegans. Estimates range from 2% to 6% of the population. And this means that if you're a vegan restaurant, you have to figure out a way to bring in non-vegans if you want to build a sustainable business. Now, imagine you start a vegan restaurant and you call it, say, Vegan Delight or Plant-Based Heaven. It is not likely you're going to get a wide range of customers through the door. So in 2018, Pinky Cole came up with a different idea. She wanted to open a greasy fast food joint with all the hits.

• 5:54Guy Raz?

  Sloppy cheese steaks, double bacon cheeseburgers, smothered french fries, except entirely vegan, totally plant-based. But to get lots of people into the door, vegan, vegetarians, carnivores, flexitarians, et cetera, Pinky decided to start with a name that would attract, well, a lot of attention. And the name of her restaurant is Slutty Vegan. Slutty Vegan. The company now has nine locations, mainly in and around Atlanta, but also in Brooklyn and soon in Washington DC. And her plan, quite simply, is to become the McDonald's of vegan food. Pinky actually grew up in Baltimore.

• 6:38Guy Raz?

  Her parents immigrated from Jamaica, where they practiced Rastafarianism. And her mother ate a strict vegetarian diet.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  You know, I tell a funny story about how I marinated in the womb of a vegetarian. Like, I've never seen my mother wear earrings. I've never seen her wear makeup. She's a very holistic, natural woman.

• 7:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:01Speaker 01

  So I grew up under the wing of that kind of woman. So you could only imagine the traits that I got from my mother growing up.

• 7:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah, she was like Earth Mother.

• 7:10Speaker 01

  She was like the Earth Mother. And my mother has hair that touches the ground. And she's about like, my mom is 5'9", and her hair drow eggs on the ground. She's been growing her hair for almost, what, 50 years now? So she has lots of love.

• 7:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right, so you were born in Baltimore, right?

• 7:28Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:29Guy Raz?

  And your dad went to, was incarcerated from the day you were basically born. So I guess, did you get to know him by visiting him in prison?

• 7:43Speaker 01

  You know, that's an interesting question. So when I was a kid, I can remember going to Hagerstown in Jessup, Maryland.

• 7:51Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  To see my father. And then when you enter a room, you sit around a six inch table and you get to talk to your loved one. Like, I grew up doing that.

• 7:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 7:59Speaker 01

  So did my father do a good job at like doing the best that he could um by raising us by way of the prison system? Yeah, like he would call me, he would tell me to read um so many books, um Rich Dad, Poor Dad. He was teaching me about stocks. He was telling me that like I'm going to be an entrepreneur and things that I could do to set my life up. Like, he was doing that from jail.

• 8:22Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  So it was definitely a life that was

• 8:27Speaker 01

  a roller coaster ride, to say the least. But I realized that I learned about resilience through my dad.

• 8:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 8:34Speaker 01

  And even in the midst of his circumstance, he still said, you know what? Like, I'm going to make sure that I pass this down to my child. So, you know, he taught me life from behind bars.

• 8:44Guy Raz?

  Wow. And your dad, I mean, before he he went to prison, I mean, he was an entrepreneur. He ran nightclubs in Baltimore.

• 8:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. Now, obviously, I wasn't born to see it, but like I hear so many great stories of my father. He tells me all of these stories of how he was like a top shot, and I'm like. So I I get submitted to know that my father had this level of energy and confidence as I'm the man. Like, like, that level of confidence I admire because I know where I get it from. You know what I mean? And um he was just a businessman. Was it always legal? No, but at the time, you know, I don't know what his psyche was when he made decisions to do what he did to take care of the family. But I respect him for who he is as a man.

• 9:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Tell me about how your mom supported for kids when your dad was. You know incarcerated, what'd she do?

• 9:40Speaker 01

  So, all I recognize my mother for, mostly for, is hard work and being consistent with hard work. Like, I have never seen my mother be lazy. Like, she works hard when she's at home. She works hard in the world. She's a lead singer of a reggae band and has always been since I was a kid. So she would do like all the weddings, all the local events. So my mom became like a, a, a local celebrity, right? And I watched her do all of these things with so much grace. So one time she worked at McDonald's, then she worked at the bank, and then she worked at another bank. And currently, she's been at the same company for about 40 years. So I've watched my mom commit to causes that she cares about.

• 10:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I read that, um, like, as a little kid, like, you started, started basically businesses. I mean, you started, you know, you would sell sandwiches at school and then started to organize parties, like, local parties and charge admission, um, when you were like 14, 15. Tell me about that. What, what, what would you do?

• 10:46Speaker 01

  So, um, so my mother was a musician, right? So she would always play throughout the city. So she had a lot of friends and she would rehearse in the basement. So like, we always had like people over, like, we were just the house that had everybody coming over. Like, it was a through house, for the right reasons, obviously.

• 11:04Speaker 01

  So I had a couple of parties as a kid and I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna have a recreation party and I'm gonna charge people to get in. And I'm gonna sell bottled waters for a dollar.

• 11:15Guy Raz?

  This is at your house that you, or you did it like a rec center?

• 11:18Speaker 01

  I did it at a rec center, my first one. But let me tell you, what I did was, I would call the local recreation centers and I would pretend I was an adult. So I would say, hi, this is, uh, Ms. Pinky Cole. Like, I'm 14 years old calling myself Ms. Pinky Cole. So like, when I tell you like, the hustle was in me since my early teenage years. And I would have these parties and the whole entire city would come out to my parties. I was the youngest party promoter and I um.

• 11:47Guy Raz?

  You would have, sorry, I'm just curious. You, so you would, you would have a party at a rec center and you would basically, what? Advertise it on flyers?

• 11:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. This was before um, Facebook and Instagram. This was like, you print out some flyers and you have them cut. I would go to the place in Baltimore that printed obituaries. So we would send them the design and they would put it together and make us flyers. And then after school, um, every time a school let out, we would literally post up at the school and pass out flyers.

• 12:17Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 12:18Speaker 01

  It was a DJ, it was people dancing, having a good time and bottled water, that's it. No decorations, no frills.

• 12:25Guy Raz?

  Just to DJ it in the front?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:27Guy Raz?

  Bottle the water for a dollar and like five bucks to get in or something?

• 12:30Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 12:31Guy Raz?

  Wow. And so these rec centers would just be packed with like, middle school and, and maybe high school kids?

• 12:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, we would have between like, eight to a thousand every party.

• 12:40Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 12:40Speaker 01

  They would stand for hours just to get into my party. You going to pinky parties? Oh, pinky parties be lit, like, let's go to pinky parties, like. And I had everybody coming and I'm like, I built a movement. I know how to bring people together.

• 12:53Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I mean, if you had like, you know, up to a thousand kids and charging them between five and 10 bucks, you were clearing like, seven thousand, eight thousand dollars sometimes.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yes. Do you hear what I'm saying to you? Yes.

• 13:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  I remember one time specifically, me and my mother were in the living room in the house that I grew up on, counting money. It was more than her paychecks.

• 13:15Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 13:15Speaker 01

  Sitting on the floor, counting money in a shoebox.

• 13:18Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 13:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:20Guy Raz?

  When you were, um, when you graduated high school, you went on to Clark Atlanta University. And, I mean, you had gone to college with some considerable like, experience under your belt as a music promoter and a, and a party organizer and an entrepreneur. Was that your goal? Was that like your intention? I'm gonna go to college, I'm gonna get a business degree or something like that and then I'm gonna go start a business? Was that what you were thinking?

• 13:44Speaker 01

  So, I don't know what I was thinking at the time, I'll be honest, you know?

• 13:48Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 13:48Speaker 01

  It's interesting because this is a part of the story that I don't often tell, but I got kicked out of high school. And after I got kicked out of high school, um, I was expelled from all Baltimore city public schools.

• 14:00Guy Raz?

  What, what happened?

• 14:01Speaker 01

  I got into a fight. And I was the aggressor in the fight. And I feel like I'm having therapy. But but I was the aggressor in the fight. So I got put out, but I wrote the superintendent and they gave me another chance. Like, I literally got a second chance at life.

• 14:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 14:19Speaker 01

  And when I got to college, it literally was a transfer of skill set. So that character, the organization, the maturity, I just put that in my books. And I put that in the experience on campus.

• 14:32Guy Raz?

  Yeah. When you finished, you left, moved to LA and decided to maybe try your hand at acting or getting into TV or something.

• 14:45Speaker 01

  You did your research, guy.

• 14:49Speaker 01

  I love it. Yeah, I've always been a big dreamer. And I was laughing just now. I get so excited about this that I'm like, let me tell you like how life was for me.

• 15:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:02Speaker 01

  So I packed up my bags, a duffel bag, a suitcase and a Bible. And I moved to Los Angeles, California. So when I was in LA, my sorority sister, she told me that like, hey, I got an opportunity for you. You need some money, I'm gonna help you out. And I'm like, OK, cool. She was like, I'm gonna get you the job as a production assistant. Now, I have never gotten an internship before, right?

• 15:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 15:25Speaker 01

  I have never worked in TV before, like, TV what? I don't know anything else about TV at this time. But literally, that's how it happened.

• 15:33Guy Raz?

  And and and this would, I guess, basically start a period of several years where you worked in TV as a producer and and eventually TV brought you out to to New York. And I guess while you were there, you you were working on a show called The Jeremy Kyle Show. And and what you decided to like, like sock away almost all the money that you were earning at at the time?

• 15:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, so um, when I was working at Jeremy Kyle, I used to always do these things. I've been, I've always been like this super conscious thinker, right? So I said that I was going to, to do a savings challenge. Don't ask me why. Now that I think about it, it's not a little bit crazy, but what I used to do is, I used to live off five dollars a day. Like I was that like disciplined, but now that I think about it, I'm like, oh, that was a little extreme. But I was learning discipline. It wasn't just about saving money. I was like, discipline was the name of the exercise. It's almost like somebody that goes to work out, right? Like you go to work out and that, that muscle memory got to come back. Like you gotta keep that.

• 16:37Speaker 01

  So you gotta work out, you gotta do the same thing over and over again, even in the moments when it don't feel good.

• 16:42Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I mean, that, I mean, and that's what a lot of these business books that like your dad was talking to you about tell you, like, live very frugally and put as much away as you can. Because ultimately that will help you build, you know, a, a, a life where you can live off what's left.

• 17:00Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 17:00Guy Raz?

  And, and retire early.

• 17:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 17:04Guy Raz?

  One of the things that that enabled you to do was to open your first restaurant in 2014, which was a Jamaican restaurant, Pinky's. Tell me about that idea. I mean, you grew up, you know, in a home where food was central and important, but you know, the restaurant business is hard.

• 17:18Speaker 01

  Very.

• 17:19Guy Raz?

  As you know, um, tell me about this idea to open up a restaurant in New York, in Harlem in 2014.

• 17:27Speaker 01

  So working as a television producer is very eventful.

• 17:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 17:31Speaker 01

  But while I was working on the show, um, a good friend of mine who had a restaurant in Harlem, told me about a property that was available for lease. I could take over somebody else's lease. And I'm like, okay, I don't know the first thing about restaurants, but I like to eat. So like, this is a recipe for success. And

• 17:50Guy Raz?

  And it was a restaurant already?

• 17:51Speaker 01

  It was a restaurant already. Yeah.

• 17:53Guy Raz?

  So it had all the gear in there. It had all the cooking stuff.

• 17:56Speaker 01

  It had like 65% of the gear. I had to like upgrade and do all of this stuff, right? And I got that space. And what I realized is, I don't know about business, but I'm gonna try this thing out. That was like practice. That was like pitcher's practice.

• 18:11Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  And when I opened it, guess what I had? A line down the block.

• 18:16Guy Raz?

  Wow. This was, this restaurant, as you mentioned, this is Jamaican food. And you were not the cook, right? And, and this was not necessarily food that you knew how to cook well, I think, right? So how did you, did you like hire somebody and find somebody to make the food or teach you how to make the food?

• 18:32Speaker 01

  So it's a funny story. Not only was I not the cook, I was vegetarian at the time and I was selling oxtail.

• 18:38Guy Raz?

  You weren't eating the food.

• 18:40Speaker 01

  I wasn't eating the food. Like, so I was selling something that I wouldn't even consume. But when I had the restaurant, I had people coming and supporting. But it wasn't just for the food. I believe it was also for the experience. Like, it felt like you were in Jamaica when you came to my spot. Like, I had the Jamaica music booming. It was colorful in there. It felt tropical and light and airy. And I had a Jamaican at the cash register. You know, like, it, it was that. So I thought it was successful at the time. I made money, you know? I, I was just learning how to be a restaurateur and a business person legitimately.

• 19:19Guy Raz?

  You ran this restaurant. It was doing well. And two years in, it, the fire destroyed the restaurant. And you weren't there at the time, right?

• 19:29Speaker 01

  No, I worked that night and I closed at like 9 o'clock. And I went home with my friend at the time. And we were sitting in the house and I got a call from the fire department telling me that my restaurant was on fire. And I'm like, on fire? I just left. And when I got there, the fire had been out at this point. But all it was was smoke, the windows were busted. So like, smoke was coming out the windows. Everything was black on the inside. And I'm like, holy [BLEEP]. Like, everything that I worked for is literally gone up in flames.

• 20:04Guy Raz?

  We're gonna take a quick break. But when we come back, how Pinky reevaluates everything after the fire and gets back into the food business in an entirely different way. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This Lab.

• 20:25Guy Raz?

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• 21:07Guy Raz?

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• 21:51Guy Raz?

  NetSuite Next surfaces insights exactly when you need them, puts agents to work on routine tasks and problems, and lets you ask complex questions in plain language, like talking to a knowledgeable colleague. But technology is only part of the story. AI is also reshaping how people and teams work together, and that shift is already underway. That's why NetSuite wants to put a new expert-created business guide in your hands today. It's called "Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work." And right now, it's yours, absolutely free. Inside, you'll discover how AI could reshape work across your entire organization,

• 22:33Guy Raz?

  and how to position your business to prosper from it. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures, get NetSuite's free business guide, "Aligning for the Agentic Era: How AI is Changing Everyday Work." At netsuite.com/built. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com/built. Netsuite.com/built. Stripe is built for whatever comes next because the pace of change has never been faster than it is right now. New business models, new currencies, and new expectations for speed, reliability, and scale. Stripe builds financial infrastructure that helps businesses start, grow, and operate globally.

• 23:16Guy Raz?

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• 24:04Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Pinky Cole, the founder of Slutty Vegan. So Pinky, you pour your heart and soul into this restaurant, Pinky's Jamaican, for two years, and then in an instant, it literally all goes up in flames. I can't even imagine how horrible that must have been. But of course, you are the owner of this restaurant. You can't like, close your eyes and make it all go away. So what happened once that fire was out? What did you do?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  So there were things at the front that were salvageable, but majority of the items in there, the roof had came in, like, it was not salvageable. So I'm like, OK, cool. Fire insurance is going to take care of this. So I called my insurance agent, and they were like, no, you don't have fire insurance. And I'm like, what? Like, you just have regular, basic business insurance. And if you want to be able to, you know, get the things that you got back, like, we aren't responsible. Like, we don't have a policy for that.

• 25:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:07Speaker 01

  So that's literally blood, sweat, and tears down the drain. And I don't wish that on my worst enemy.

• 25:14Guy Raz?

  You lost everything.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  I lost everything. And I make a joke about it, like I almost lost my mind, but I really almost lost my mind. You gotta imagine what I've told you so far is.

• 25:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 25:25Speaker 01

  I used to throw parties. I was the it girl on campus. I got this job working in TV. Like, everything that I've done have always been successful, right? Like, anything I touched turned to gold. Pinky Cole got the Midas touch, but I didn't have the Midas touch on this one. And I felt like the biggest failure at the time. It didn't feel good to me at all, because my pride and my ego wouldn't allow me to be that vulnerable. So when it happened, it really humbled me in a way that it's never happened in my life, but I needed that level of humility, Guy.

• 25:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I mean, going into the, as you know, going into the restaurant business is so complicated and the margins are so thin and it's so challenging because, I mean, it's a crash course in running a really complicated business, which, you know, I've never done it, but I've just seen people do it.

• 26:18Speaker 01

  It's hard.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Tell me about what you learned doing that.

• 26:24Speaker 01

  I wish I could come here and like, tell you, like, it's all rainbows and lilies and like, but it's not. Like, it's really not. I walked in so blind. And when I say blind, I didn't have anybody that has done it before to ask those kind of questions.

• 26:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  So I was in the lake all by myself. But being in the lake, like, I really stuck myself out there to like, do the research. So I'd be on Google all night. I'd be on YouTube. Like, I would, I would go to different restaurants and just look around and like, it was a lot of trial and error.

• 26:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 26:56Speaker 01

  Hell, it still is trial and error. But when I, what I realized is that creating it the way that it was created gave me the opportunity to learn every side of the business.

• 27:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 27:10Speaker 01

  Like, I'd had no choice but to learn accountant. I had no choice but to learn how to, like, cook burgers and fries. And I didn't grow up eating burgers and fries. Like, I had no choice but to be customer service.

• 27:23Guy Raz?

  So you lost your restaurant. So that's like not, not a good place to be. I can imagine you were depressed. I can, I mean, what else can you be? I mean,

• 27:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:35Guy Raz?

  Right? I mean, but within a week or so, you get this call. I think it was from a show that's on the Oprah Network, right? Own?

• 27:42Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 27:43Guy Raz?

  And, and they offered you a job and you went and you took that job.

• 27:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. I took that job. And I don't know why I'm having all these revelations while I'm talking to you, guy. But you, you ever been in a situation where you're like, okay, it's time to move on? Okay, this is not working.

• 27:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 28:00Speaker 01

  Has that ever happened to you before?

• 28:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah, totally.

• 28:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that was the moment that I was in when I had the restaurant right before the fire. And it was so many things happening at that time. And when it happened, I didn't understand it then. But then I got the opportunity to go on a show. And I'm like, I don't got nothing to lose at this point. Like, I might as well go and be great and fly and start over. Because one thing about me is I was never afraid to start over. And when I got to LA to work on the show, it was the best thing that could have happened to me. Because it was actually like a healing therapy show. I'm like, go figure.

• 28:37Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 28:37Speaker 01

  Healing therapy, like I'm coming from a depressed space, like, great. But I needed it.

• 28:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 28:43Speaker 01

  Because it allowed me the opportunity to get the therapy that I needed to heal.

• 28:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah, the show's called Fix My Life. And it was conversations about struggles and challenges, right?

• 28:52Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 28:53Guy Raz?

  And in this show, they would kind of try to resolve these challenges or just, just talk through them.

• 28:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 29:00Guy Raz?

  It was like a therapy show.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  It was like a therapy show. But what I liked about the show is that I got the opportunity to connect with people who were also going through it.

• 29:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So you're working for the show in LA, back in LA, right?

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Yeah.

• 29:16Guy Raz?

  And, and while you are working on the show, you decide, because you are a little bit of a masochist, that you want to go back into the restaurant business.

• 29:27Speaker 01

  Cause I'm crazy, that's why.

• 29:29Guy Raz?

  And you come up with this idea for like a vegan fast food place. Tell me about how you came up with this concept at first.

• 29:39Speaker 01

  So again, I told you that like. I got a couple of screws loose, but it's okay. So, right before I started Slutty Vegan, something just went over me. I don't know what it is. But now that I look at like the holistic picture, I'm like, it happened on purpose. So, when we were on hiatus, you know, when you have hiatus on a show, you gotta find ways to supplement your income.

• 30:00Guy Raz?

  Right, cuz usually there's a season, you work, it's like four to six months, and then you've got four or five months off.

• 30:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, so like you can have a whole lot of money and then you could be trying to figure out like how you're gonna pay the next bill.

• 30:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 30:11Speaker 01

  Like, that's how it works. Nobody really talks about that world, but it's the truth.

• 30:13Guy Raz?

  Right, cuz TV work is project based. They don't, it's not like a salary. You get paid for the project and you're done.

• 30:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, and then you gotta figure it out while you're done, until it comes back. So, I'm like, okay, all right, let me do DoorDash. So, while I was doing DoorDash, I'm like, all right, let me start working out. Let me start reading a book every day, and I did that. I read a book every day, I was raw vegan, I did DoorDash, and I ran five miles a day consistently. Like, I did that because I was practicing discipline.

• 30:40Guy Raz?

  This, can I just pause for a moment? This is just five and a half years ago we're talking about, that you were doing this.

• 30:45Speaker 01

  It's, it's, it's coming up on five years.

• 30:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah, I mean, and, because we're gonna talk about where you, you are today, which is incredible. This is five years ago, you're like, okay, I'm gonna figure out, I'm just gonna, there was no end goal. You were just like, I just wanna be disciplined. I wanna run every day and read a book. It wasn't like, and then that will lead me to this. It was just, I'm gonna do this because it's gonna focus me.

• 31:09Speaker 01

  Well, you know what my thought process was now that I think about it? I'm gonna do this because discipline breeds rewards. I know that if I'm disciplined on something, there will be like a cosmic effect that happens when I display that level of discipline. And I did that. And now that I'm thinking about it, I did it all of my life. There were certain levels of discipline, and some of it probably was a little bit more extreme than others.

• 31:36Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 31:36Speaker 01

  But that level of discipline really like opened up my mindset to be able to receive what it is that the assignment was. And the assignment was to open up Slutty Vegan and build a multimillion dollar brand.

• 31:49Guy Raz?

  By the way, I hope my mom is listening to this interview because you sound exactly like my mom.

• 31:53Speaker 01

  I hope that's a good thing.

• 31:54Guy Raz?

  She used to say to me when I was a kid about discipline and the connection between discipline and rewards. And my mom always used to say, the busier you are, the more time you have, cuz you have to be efficient. All right, so you are... Being disciplined and how does this this idea of a vegan, fast food, like comfort food, kind of, you know, fast casual restaurant come to your mind?

• 32:17Speaker 01

  Okay, so when I was the casting director, because I had gotten promoted within that time.

• 32:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 32:23Speaker 01

  They asked me to move to Atlanta temporarily to do the show. So while I was living in Atlanta, I was in my two bedroom apartment and God, I can only be transparent, so I'm gonna tell you the honest truth. I don't smoke, right? I'm not a, I'm not a weed smoker, but on this night, I smoked. And after I smoked, Slutty Vegan literally like hit me like a light bulb. And I gotta be transparent about that story because literally, I don't know if I was super relaxed, if my conscience was open, I'm still trying to figure it out. But when I, when I came up with Slutty Vegan, it was literally like the universe just put it in my hand, like, okay, run, fly and be free.

• 33:03Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 33:03Speaker 01

  And I called up my best friends and I asked them, like, what y'all think about this idea? And they're like, oh, Pinky, that's good. Like, you need to do that. I'm like, all right, cool.

• 33:10Guy Raz?

  You had the idea and the name all in that night?

• 33:13Speaker 01

  Yes, all in that time, literally.

• 33:16Guy Raz?

  It was gonna be called Slutty Vegan, which is, I mean, it's, it's not, it's not Pinky's Vegan.

• 33:23Speaker 01

  No.

• 33:23Guy Raz?

  It's not vegan fast food or, you know, vegan burgers. It was, I mean, you picked a provocative name.

• 33:30Speaker 01

  Listen, because slutty and vegan ain't supposed to go together, right? Like, right? When you think, that's like how peanut butter and jelly goes together, like slutty and vegan don't go together. But what it did is, it really was the biggest oxymoron. So I'm like, if I, we all know veganism to be like, very rich and wealthy and like, clean and like, the person who's vegan works out all the time. No, this ain't that. But it literally, really like, took all the politics out of what being vegan was. So came up with the name, literally started to do the work. Like, I got all my permits, I did everything that I could, all on my own. And I got the shared kitchen and I asked them, I said, hey, can I, I saw something

• 34:14Speaker 01

  in LA when I was working for DoorDash, and basically it's a cloud kitchen, so can I do a cloud kitchen here? This was before cloud kitchens got popular, Guy.

• 34:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah, this was one of those, like, right, these A lot of people who have like farmer's market stands, they'll use these, they're commercial kitchens, they're shared kitchens.

• 34:30Speaker 01

  Yeah, exactly.

• 34:31Guy Raz?

  And, and that's what it was. You rented space in one of these kitchens.

• 34:35Speaker 01

  Yep. And so they allowed me to do it. So I hired two employees and we were making burgers and fries. And I came up with the recipe for the sauce. It's like a, similar to like what a McDonald's sauce would be, but not.

• 34:50Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 34:50Speaker 01

  Right? So.

• 34:51Guy Raz?

  But vegan, so no egg in the mayonnaise and.

• 34:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:54Guy Raz?

  Right?

• 34:55Speaker 01

  So, mind you, I'm not a chef guy. So I came up with a recipe, like I was just tasting and putting my finger in like, okay, this is good.

• 35:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 35:02Speaker 01

  And came up with that, came up with the fry seasoning. And I was just like doing as I go. And like, everything was tasting really good. So we started selling it.

• 35:11Guy Raz?

  How?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  Online through DoorDash, Postmates, Grubhub, and Uber Eats.

• 35:18Guy Raz?

  You started a, literally a ghost kitchen called Slutty Vegan?

• 35:22Speaker 01

  Yes. Slutty Vegan was a ghost kitchen before it was anything else.

• 35:25Guy Raz?

  Wow. Yeah. This is, this is so interesting. There's this famous book by Seth Godin where he talks about the purple cow. The purple cow theory is like, if you're gonna start a business, you want to think about a purple cow business. Cause like, if you're driving through, you know, the countryside and you just see a cow in a field, you're just gonna keep driving. But if it was a purple cow in the field, you would jump out of your car and hop in front of that cow and take a selfie with that cow and then put on Instagram and say, look, I found a purple cow. That was Slutty Vegan.

• 35:54Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 35:55Guy Raz?

  It was a purple cow. Because people are gonna say, what a weird name. I have to know more about this thing. It's so weird.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yes. And guess what it did? I love the purple cow theory, by the way. Purple is my favorite color, so it just works all the way around. I gotta grab that book. But what I realized is, this concept came at a time where people wanted something new. And in wanting something new, if I can make them uncomfortable and ask questions at the same time.

• 36:24Guy Raz?

  Or laugh, or chuckle, or whatever.

• 36:26Speaker 01

  Or chuckle, or be surprised.

• 36:27Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:28Speaker 01

  Then I know that I have their attention. And when I have their attention, I can teach and educate them on whatever it is that I want to. So I took the approach to educate people on how veganism can be cool and be fun and not be stuffy and uptight, but you can have a good time and we'll meet you where you are.

• 36:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 36:47Guy Raz?

  So when you started out, right, in a ghost kitchen, which is true, like if you go to DoorDash or Uber Eats today, like a lot of the, and I do it all the time. I'll order up and like, oh, this looks pretty good. I don't even know if it's a restaurant. I just, I'm ordering it. I don't know where it's coming from. And it is often coming from one of these ghost kitchens. You were doing this in 2018. And were you just buying like garden burgers and, and buns just off the shelf initially at the beginning? Just from the grocery store?

• 37:12Speaker 01

  Nope. You know what I did? There was like a procurement director and she was showing me some new products that they had. Like there's this newer company called Impossible. And I'm like, oh, let me taste it.

• 37:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:26Speaker 01

  And, and I tasted it and I'm like, oh, this is good. And I'm like, I want it. So she got me a delivery of the Impossible patty and I started from there. And I added my little razzle to the already dazzle.

• 37:39Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 37:40Speaker 01

  And I started growing and building.

• 37:42Guy Raz?

  Those were hard to get. I mean, restaurants could get them. But now, of course, Impossible meat is available everywhere. But you were basically turning those into patties and getting vegan cheese again.

• 37:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:53Guy Raz?

  And basically packaging them up. And then some driver would pick them up and then that was it.

• 38:00Speaker 01

  Well, that's how it started. How, how it ended is that I got kicked out of the facility. And I appreciate them for that because they pushed me to get uncomfortable.

• 38:10Guy Raz?

  Why?

• 38:11Speaker 01

  Because I had too many people coming. Like people started talking about the brand so much that customers started Instagramming us, sending us private messages, saying, hey, can I order the one night stand with the fries, ketchup on the side? And I'm like, okay, I'm not going to not take the order. So I would take the order from Instagram while taking orders from these online platforms.

• 38:32Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 38:32Speaker 01

  And it got out of hand, guy. When I tell you like people from everywhere were coming. Literally it was like 300 people standing outside to get their food.

• 38:41Guy Raz?

  From, I mean, you're on DoorDash, but if you type in vegan, it'll show you a bunch of restaurants. And usually, you know, they're. You know, I live in the Bay Area, so I'm not, I mean, there's some great ones, but nothing called Slutty Vegan.

• 38:52Speaker 01

  No.

• 38:52Guy Raz?

  If you see that, you're gonna be like, what is this?

• 38:55Speaker 01

  Yes, but people didn't come for the food. The food was good. That was like the cherry on top.

• 38:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 38:59Speaker 01

  But to say that you were a part of this experience that felt cryptic and you could only get it at a certain time, people love the art of scarcity.

• 39:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  You know, like, the art of scarcity makes you want it more. So I would only open up for like three hours at a time. And once I closed the block, that's it. Nobody else can order. So like, I, I put people on a timeframe on when you can get the food and they complied. And I'm like, wow, people really wanna be a part of this movement just to say that they got it. And when I got put out, they told me that I could use the parking lot. Like, hey, you should get a food truck and you could do it out in the parking lot, but you can't do it in here because it's disrupting the other tenants.

• 39:36Guy Raz?

  Cause people were, so many delivery drivers were coming to pick up orders there.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Yes, and it was disrupting the business of the other tenants.

• 39:44Guy Raz?

  And everybody was like, what's she doing that I'm doing wrong? How is she getting all this business?

• 39:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, so it was crazy, man. Listen, when I got that food truck, I went to this place called Mr. V's in Atlanta. So I went inside and they told me that the food truck would be $45,000.

• 40:03Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 40:03Speaker 01

  So I'm like, all right, well, I'm making a lot of money, but like, I don't have $45,000 like in my hand right now. But what I could do is I can pay you $10,000 a week for the next four weeks or so. It was, it was like 10,000, I think.

• 40:16Guy Raz?

  And this was the cash flow from your business?

• 40:19Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:19Guy Raz?

  And maybe also some savings you had from that, that TV show?

• 40:22Speaker 01

  I never had to tap into my savings.

• 40:24Guy Raz?

  Wow. This was just the cash flow from the Ghost Kitchen business?

• 40:28Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 40:29Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 40:30Speaker 01

  So when I got the food truck, the owner allowed me to pay every single week. And I would go on the east side and the west side and I would post up three hours before and say, hey, the Slutty Vegan food truck will be here from four to seven. Those were my hours, like four to seven or four to nine, I would post on Instagram.

• 40:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  And every time I post on Instagram, I literally had between three to 500 people that would stand outside.

• 40:53Guy Raz?

  Waiting.

• 40:54Speaker 01

  Yes, yes.

• 40:55Guy Raz?

  Waiting for a burger, wow.

• 40:57Speaker 01

  And I realized, but it wasn't about the food. People wanted to be a part of the experience.

• 41:02Guy Raz?

  You're like McDonald's in Moscow in 1989. Just like lines with thousands of people.

• 41:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:09Guy Raz?

  So you have this food truck and obviously you're, I mean, you started this, I read that within six months of starting The Ghost Kitchen, your revenue was $4 million. It's incredible. I mean, and this was based on burgers and fries.

• 41:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, burgers and fries. And literally, hold on, let me, not even just burgers and fries. I didn't sell drinks. I literally only sold burgers and fries. I didn't sell desserts. So you were literally coming for some french fries and a sandwich. But guess what else you got? You got the cultural capital of being able to have the currency of food and take a picture with it. And people get excited because they want to hear about your experience.

• 41:54Guy Raz?

  It's a brand.

• 41:55Speaker 01

  It's a brand.

• 41:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 41:56Speaker 01

  And do you know my business is almost five years old and I still got lines down the block?

• 42:02Guy Raz?

  It's incredible.

• 42:03Speaker 01

  People still come and support me. But I realized I am the slutty vegan. I'm raw on the tongue, plus I'm educated. You know, I move with intention and I'm intellectual. Plus, I like to have a good time and I'm real. And like, I meet you where you are. And I'm just a vibe. Slutty vegan is a vibe. And as long as that happens, my business will continue to be successful.

• 42:29Guy Raz?

  We're going to take another quick break. But when we come back, Laura from Pinky Cole about her work to build one of the first major vegan fast food restaurant chains in the US. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This Lab.

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• 44:34Guy Raz?

  Welcome back. You're listening to How I Built This Lab. And my guest today is Pinky Cole, the founder of Atlanta-based vegan food chain, Slutty Vegan.

• 44:43Guy Raz?

  You opened the first brick and mortar in Atlanta in January of 2019. And initially, the people in the neighborhood were not supportive, to say the least. They did not want a restaurant called Slutty Vegan on their block, right? And this was, this was serious. Like, they battled it out in, like, the city against this permit.

• 45:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. You know, you know, I laughed because it didn't feel good when it was happening.

• 45:12Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 45:13Speaker 01

  But what I learned about, like, failure, like, really rising above that and realizing that this too always passed, like, that literally is the motivation that keeps me going. So let me tell you about that first location on Ralph David Abernathy Boulevard. My grand opening, I had 1,200 people standing outside.

• 45:32Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 45:33Speaker 01

  So I came in as a disruption. So I get it, like, you know, bigger picture. Now I understand I was upset about it at first, but like,

• 45:41Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 45:41Speaker 01

  I'm literally bringing so many people to a neighborhood that often some of the people in the neighborhood felt like, you know, it was turning the neighborhood and like, making it worse. But what they didn't realize is that I was bringing more value to the community. People wanted to be a part of that area more. The real estate increased. And I went to court and I had to literally fight for my brand.

• 46:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  And at that moment, I'm like, yeah, this is my child because I don't play about my child. And my child ain't here to hurt nobody. We just want to have a good time for everybody. And I end up staying. I'm still at that location now.

• 46:22Guy Raz?

  When you opened that first location in Atlanta, did you have the menu you now have? Because you have a lot of different burgers. And I don't know if I can say, do you know, by the way, Pinky, I also-

• 46:35Speaker 01

  This is your show, you can say it.

• 46:37Guy Raz?

  I also host a children's science show. And sometimes those kids listen to How I Built This Too. So if you're listening, please forgive me. I'm just going to say the names of some of the burgers. There's the-

• 46:50Guy Raz?

  There's the Hollywood hooker. There's the menage a trois. There's the super slut. There's the ho boy. Anyway, lot, lot of different kinds of burgers. Some of them are plant-based chicken. Some of them are plant-based burgers. Some of them have, you know, jalapenos, guacamole. Some of them are vegan shrimp.

• 47:12Guy Raz?

  So, yeah, had, did you initially, was it just the burger that you had? Or, or did you already had this big expansive menu?

• 47:19Speaker 01

  No, it was just burgers and fries. That's it. Like, I didn't know how to build a menu. I didn't know how to do pianels. Like, I didn't know, like, it was literally just, okay, burgers and fries. Let me throw this and see if it works. And I threw it on a wall and it stuck.

• 47:33Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 47:33Speaker 01

  And people loved it and they love it because of my sauce. So my secret sauce, I made from scratch. So people come from around the world to taste this sauce because it's so overwhelmingly good.

• 47:46Guy Raz?

  What's the name of the sauce?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  It's called slutty sauce.

• 47:49Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 47:52Speaker 01

  Yes, it's called slutty sauce. But you know what's so cool about my concept, God, like, it has nothing to do with sex.

• 47:58Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 47:58Speaker 01

  The names are just a draw to pull you in, to understand that, like, vegan is a vibe. It's, it can be cool and you can reimagine food in a way that you've never seen it before.

• 48:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah. But when you do that, you have to deliver. The food has to be great. Otherwise, people are gonna say, oh, this is just a gimmick. So you also had to make sure that the food was great.

• 48:17Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I mean, you know, I'm fighting two battles. I gotta make sure that the food is good just because it's good. And I gotta make sure that the food is good because it's vegan food. And historically, people don't feel like vegan food tastes good. So like, I'm at war with two things at the same time. So I make sure that all of the output is just as good.

• 48:37Guy Raz?

  Tell me about the vegan side of this, right, for a moment, which is? You know, this is not necessarily like better for you. It's not like lower in calories, but it is vegan. No animals died to produce this food. And so does part of you, or maybe not just part of you, maybe a big part of you, want to encourage more people to stop eating meat?

• 48:59Speaker 01

  Yes, but this is twofold. So my agenda has always been, I'm gonna meet you where you at.

• 49:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Right? Like, if you don't want to be vegan, just incorporate some vegan options. A little bit of vegan ain't gonna hurt nobody. And because I've had that messaging, like, I'm not gonna hate you if I see you eating meat, but I'm also gonna encourage you that like, this tastes just as good, if not better.

• 49:20Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 49:21Speaker 01

  And no animals were compromised. So people feel comfortable trying new options because they don't feel like the pressure was put on them.

• 49:28Guy Raz?

  Yeah. And we know, I mean, I say this as a meat eater. I do eat meat. And I'm friends with some cattle ranchers in Northern California who listen to the show. So forgive me when I say this, but we know that in general, the livestock industry obviously causes a lot of carbon emissions. Not like, you know, small, grass-fed farms, but I'm talking about mass industrialized, you know, beef and pork and chicken production. So, so the idea is to get people to also think about the planet a little bit, too.

• 50:02Speaker 01

  Climate change is real. Like, it's real. So, you know, you know how they say it's levels to this?

• 50:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:09Speaker 01

  Like, the first level is getting people to understand that like vegan isn't gross. And it can be delicious. So we're going to start with the thing that universally everybody is familiar with, and that's burgers and fries.

• 50:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:23Speaker 01

  And now we got you locked in. Now we're gonna go on to the next thing. After I opened up Slutty Vegan, I opened up a bar called Bar Vegan that sells vegan bar food. So now, not only can you have burgers and fries over at Slutty Vegan, now you can have chili and rice. Now you can have more chicken sandwiches. Now you can have a salad. So I'm literally growing with people who want to learn about veganism, which is why my book is called Eat Plants, Bitch.

• 50:48Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:48Speaker 01

  Because it's an in-your-face approach to get you to understand that like, we just want you to like good food.

• 50:54Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  And that's it. And then you realize that it's vegan. And then you realize certain foods are really good for you, and so on and so forth.

• 51:00Guy Raz?

  And you really like caught this perfect wave of like, All of a sudden, Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods just blew up and they were everywhere. And it was like this wave that just kind of really began with where you started in 2019. I mean, it really started around that time.

• 51:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, I like to call myself the guinea pig.

• 51:21Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 51:24Speaker 01

  But it's interesting because not a lot of people were doing it. There are some great vegan restaurants in Atlanta, but I'm like, OK, I want vegan food on a late night. I don't want to just eat a side salad and fries.

• 51:36Guy Raz?

  Do you want to like, after you go to a club, I want to have a greasy vegan burger?

• 51:40Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 51:41Guy Raz?

  At 2:00 in the morning?

• 51:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. And I knew that that was a market that did not exist because me, as a vegan myself, that was the food that I wanted certain times of the night sometimes, and I couldn't find it. So coming up with this concept, it really gave people an opportunity to see that there is a need for vegan food on menus in restaurants across the world.

• 52:04Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  And putting it on my menu, now I realize other big companies now have impossible this and chicken that. And, you know, there's one side of me that's just like, wait a minute. Like, I know I'm at the head of this movement, but then the other side of me was like, you know what? The idea that more people want to eat this way tells us that we're doing the right thing, and there's a market for it.

• 52:24Guy Raz?

  Pinky, given the long lines and all these people who were just, you know, just like showing up to eat, and your revenue, and it was profitable really quickly, I have to imagine that like, already in 2019, you had all kinds of people who were coming up to you saying, you know, you got to do this, or you got to do that, or you're doing this wrong, or you know, you got to focus on this. Like, were you getting all this endless input from people that sometimes wasn't helpful?

• 52:52Speaker 01

  So much. You know, growing slutty vegan, you know, everybody has an opinion, right? So like, people who know you, colleagues, everybody's like, well, you need to do it this way, do it this way. But I decided to do it my own way because I was clear. And there were a lot of people like, well, you know, there are people talking about your vegan burgers, and, you know, there's other vegan burgers, this, that. But I'm like, I wasn't listening to the noise because I've never seen anybody do it in this capacity, bootstrapping a business and turning it into a multimillion dollar business before any injection of anybody's capital. So to be able to do this before, you know, all of those things, I'm like, OK, I got to figure this out in trial and error.

• 53:33Guy Raz?

  I mean, you were growing this restaurant purely through cash flow because it was doing so well. And you resisted taking in outside investments for a while. But last year, in 2022, you did raise around $25 million, and that was led by Danny Meyer, who was on How I Built This many years ago, obviously known for Shake Shack. And they're obviously, it's a great partner, huge restaurateurs. Was that the reason why you wanted to partner with them? Because they had all this experience and they could help you scale this?

• 54:04Speaker 01

  So interestingly enough, Richie Lou Dennis is my lead and Danny is my co-lead, both collectively leads.

• 54:12Guy Raz?

  And Richie Lou Dennis, he was, he's a beauty entrepreneur.

• 54:15Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 54:15Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 54:16Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Richie Lou is a great guy. And my relationship started with him first. And we knew that we needed to have someone who was strategic in this space in order to get to where we want to be. When you talk about like, growing startup companies, first of all, it's hard as hell. Secondly, you got to be able to rub shoulders with the right people so that you can have the right resources to do the things that you need to do to scale this company. So when we realized we had a scalable and sustainable brand, we're like, okay, all right, we need to bring the big dogs on our team when it comes to restaurants. And I had a conversation with Danny first on Zoom, and it was a great conversation. And he was such a vibe. He was so cool. And I'm very intentional about who I like to

• 54:58Speaker 01

  do business with. And he was on my wish list because I'm like, I really like his energy. He's very calm and pure in his approach to how he communicates. And I like that about him. So then I get an email a couple of months later saying that Danny came to the restaurant at our Edgewood location. And he came a little after midnight. And it was him and like 12 other people. And he had a blast. So we reconnected. And that reconnection turned into them being one of our investors at Slutty Vegan. And I'll be honest, a lot of people don't talk about this, right? When they're growing companies. When the conversation started for me to get an injection of capital, it gave me anxiety.

• 55:38Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 55:39Speaker 01

  It gave me anxiety because I'm like, okay, this business is not mine's anymore. Like, if I get all this money, then I'm a sellout and it doesn't work. And I'm like, wait, wait, wait, no, I'm scaling a company and I need people to come on board with me who have the expertise that I don't to help me make it better.

• 55:55Guy Raz?

  And, and obviously, what's so cool about Shake Shack is it's like, it's massive. It's like In-N-Out Burger, Shake Shack, you know, Chick-fil-A, like, those are the, you know, the kind of the 800-pound gorillas in that world. They're so successful.

• 56:09Speaker 01

  Right. So why wouldn't I want to be a part of the 8-pound gorilla? Like, I, I want to be affiliated with minds who have created something so special, just on the business side, because I want to be clear, I don't eat meat, so I don't eat Shake Shack. But I like what they represent when it comes to community.

• 56:25Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 56:25Speaker 01

  And because Slutty Vegan is a community-driven business, I'm like, okay, there's some alignment here.

• 56:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Tell me about the branding, because the branding is really, really good. I mean, it's the colors that you picked, you know, the yellow, and, and even like the cups. I can't, I can't repeat what, what it says on the cups. Maybe you can, because I just can't, but...

• 56:49Guy Raz?

  What is it? What does it say on the side of the cup?

• 56:51Speaker 01

  On, on the cup, it says, "Drink the fu cup."

• 56:55Guy Raz?

  Yep, got it.

• 56:57Speaker 01

  But, but, but the psychology, again, right, like, again, when I tell you I'm intentional about the marketing, it's like two meanings, right? But it's whatever you think it means.

• 57:05Guy Raz?

  Yeah. It's really, I mean, just things like that, you know, like on the side of the cup, right? Or the colors, or the names of the burgers, or the, the way that you branded this, this whole business, right? I mean, that's, that's a huge part of its success, because if it was just like, I don't know, boring branding and, you know, boring colors, it might not have the same impact.

• 57:28Speaker 01

  Yeah. I am very raw in my approach to everything that I do.

• 57:35Speaker 01

  So when I was thinking about the branding, I said that I wanted to resonate in a way where I didn't have to pay for marketing, because the people were going to market the business because it was so raunchy and in your face. But everything has two meanings to it, right? And while it may sound like sex and sound racy, like it's not that at all.

• 57:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 57:55Speaker 01

  So when we talk about making the colors bright and the messaging and how we talk, it's tongue in cheek, right? We want people to have a good time and not feel dirty when you say the word slutty. We're really redefining the term. And we've done that through the experience when you walk through the door. When you come to Slutty Vegan, we are yelling at you. Before COVID, we were hugging you, dancing with you.

• 58:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 58:20Speaker 01

  But the music is booming through the speakers and the employees are just screaming through the microphone. There's a microphone at my cash register, guy.

• 58:28Guy Raz?

  Right. And tell me some of the things that are said into the microphone, right? Because from what I understand, one of the objections originally from neighbors on that street, on Abernathy Street, was that like, I guess through the loudspeaker, they say, I don't know, what do they say?

• 58:44Speaker 01

  We got a slut in the building.

• 58:46Guy Raz?

  We've got a slut in the building, okay.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, but listen, you know, slut is a person who is being slutified for the first time.

• 58:55Guy Raz?

  Right. You've redefined that word. You've completely, there's a new dictionary definition for that word. It doesn't mean what people think it means anymore.

• 59:04Speaker 01

  It's a new word. It's a new time, which is so cool because there's so much power in the tongue.

• 59:09Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 59:09Speaker 01

  So we've created something that initially you think is uncomfortable, but it really is no uncomfortability to it at all. So we'd be on the loudspeaker saying like, we got a slut in the building. And you would hear it in the neighborhood. But people got excited to be called a slut. You understand what I'm saying? Like, people get excited to be called a slut. But a slut is not what it used to mean.

• 59:32Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 59:32Speaker 01

  A slut is somebody that's experiencing this for the first time. And when they eat the food, they're like, I've been slutified. And it's a movement. And this is that same thing, like having the parties back in the day where people put the water, just were excited to be there. This is that all over again.

• 59:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right. So you're now in, I think, nine locations, mainly in Georgia, but also you've got stores in New York and Alabama. And soon you're going to have locations in Baltimore and then in DC, in Washington DC. Tell me about your ambitions. Like, tell me about what your vision is. Where is this going to be in 10 years?

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  In 10 years, Slutty Vegan will continue to be a household name, not just for restaurants, but for the lifestyle side of the brand. I want Slutty Vegan to embody all parts of the vegan lifestyle, not just food, because we are helping people to reimagine everything at this point, right? But we start with food. So Slutty Vegan locations everywhere. Slutty Productions will be at the top of the food chain when it comes to entertainment and TV. We probably get an EGOT for all of the movies and documentaries that we push out under the Slutty Vegan brand. We will continue our CPG model and put products in stores

• 1:00:51Speaker 01

  everywhere. So when you ask me, where do I see the brand? The brand is going to be what Pepsi is to America, what Coca-Cola is to America. They're not selling products. What they're selling is an experience. And however that experience comes is what Slutty Vegan is going to do.

• 1:01:08Guy Raz?

  So you're not talking about just being like Five Guys?

• 1:01:12Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:12Guy Raz?

  Or Shake Shack?

• 1:01:13Speaker 01

  No.

• 1:01:13Guy Raz?

  You're talking about being PepsiCo?

• 1:01:16Speaker 01

  Yes. That's exactly what it is. You know why? Because I am multi-dimensional, right? I am the person that, you know, as a kid, they would tell me like, Pinky, like, you got all these things going on and like, you need to focus on one of them. So I've always loved to do multiple things at the same time. But I realized I can use the umbrella of my business to do all the things that I've ever dreamed about in my life. And that is how you build empires. So I'm building an empire in real time.

• 1:01:45Guy Raz?

  Amazing. Pinky Cole, thank you so much.

• 1:01:48Speaker 01

  It was a pleasure. Thank you so much. Guy, can I say something to the people?

• 1:01:53Guy Raz?

  Of course.

• 1:01:55Speaker 01

  I want whoever is listening to this to see me and know that how you show up in everything that you do through your business, show up in the most authentic form possible. Guy, a part of the reason why I believe that I've gotten so much success is because I'm always myself. Like, I'm always me. I'm loud, I'm raw, but I'm passionate and I'm real. And as a result of that confidence, it's allowed me to get into every single room that I knock on. Now I'm building my own doors.

• 1:02:24Guy Raz?

  Love it. It's awesome. And now, now I'm gonna go eat a Hollywood hooker.

• 1:02:34Guy Raz?

  Hey, thanks so much for listening to How I Built This Lab. Please do follow us on your podcast app so you always have the latest episode downloaded. If you want to follow us on Twitter, our account is at HowIBuiltThis and mine is at Guy Raz. And on Instagram, I'm at Guy.Raz. If you want to contact the team, our email address is h i v t at i d dot wondery dot com. This episode was produced by Carla Esteves with editing by John Isabella. Our music was composed by Ramtin Arablouei. Our audio engineer was Neil Rouch. Our production team at How I Built This includes Alex Chung, Casey Herman, Chris Messini, Elaine Coats, J.C. Howard, Sam Paulson, Kerry Thompson, and Kira Joakim.

• 1:03:18Guy Raz?

  Neva Grant is our supervising editor. Beth Donovan is our executive producer. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.