Leaders | Interview with Jacob Jaber

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James Fratzke: [00:00:00] Jacob welcome to
the show. How are you doing today?

Jacob Jaber: [00:00:02] Doing great. How
are you?

James Fratzke: [00:00:03] I'm doing well. Thanks for
being here. You are the CEO of Philz Coffee which is my favorite cup of coffee.
The iced mint mojito is to die for.

Jacob Jaber: [00:00:13] I agree.

James Fratzke: [00:00:14] Good. Well, we've already
agreed on our first thing, so this is off to a great start. Let me start with
this: At 18 your dad gave you the opportunity to run the business. Now you've
grown into 40 plus locations, and you've raised about 75 million dollars in VC
funding. In an interview one time, you said that you didn't know anything so
everything was hard and easy at the same time. What did you mean by that? And
what were some of those early lessons that you learned?

Jacob Jaber: [00:00:38] Yeah, well I'm generally
curious, and I like to ask a lot of questions and I grew up young working near
my dad. So I learned a lot. I learned the way to do business and I understood
it at a young age [it] became pretty natural to me because of that experience.
So working with people, understanding numbers and that you do good business in
the right way was something I learned at a young age. That combined with just
being curious and asking a lot of questions allowed me to learn in an effective
way. And whenever I came across somebody who I thought had good knowledge in an
area that I wanted to learn more about, I wouldn't be shy to talk to them and
ask them a lot of questions so [that] I could learn. But, I wouldn't
immediately accept what they told me. I had always filtered [it] through my own
thoughts and you know, common sense. Most of the time that lined up, but
sometimes I would challenge what someone would tell me because I thought a
little bit differently. I think in business and in life one of the best traits
is to be a constant learner no matter your role or title. You should always be
learning and you should always be asking questions. I love challenging the
status quo and asking why. Why is it done that way? And if you just go back to
the root principles of any concept or thing and peel back the onion you begin
to see things in a new light. I like meaning and I like to dig into the core of
important topics so that you could come up with the right solutions.

James Fratzke: [00:02:40] So you mentioned being
curious and having these "curiosity conversations" with people that
had experience in things that were interesting to you, or that you wanted to
learn more about. Would you categorize those as mentors or were these just
casual conversations?

Jacob Jaber: [00:02:56] I guess you can, it depends
how you define mentors [and] it is much more casual than that. There is just
people I see regularly who I talk to. But I think learning could come from
anywhere and anyone, and it's all about the questions and [...] the interest
and the conversation. So you know if you're present in a conversation and you're
talking with somebody who knows about a topic that you don't know, you can
learn a lot from them -- as they can from you. So it's really about learning
and less about having a mentor and [or] advisor. I definitely had a lot of
relationships with people, but it [...] was always very casual until I grew in
my career a little bit more. I've formalized a few relationships a little bit
more and [...], monthly or bi-monthly with some of the folks that I admired a
lot that helped me learn and grow.

James Fratzke: [00:03:54] Speaking of mentors I
assume your dad Phil who is the Phil and Philz coffee was a mentor to you. That
balance between father and mentor and founder of a company can be a little bit
difficult. Can you tell us a little bit about that dynamic between the two of
you?

Jacob Jaber: [00:04:12] Yeah, I mean I learned the
most from him. He is an amazing person with some of the best business and
people skills that I've come across [...] it's very authentic and that's the
key. So you know I wouldn't necessarily sit and have a ton of conversations
with my dad every day because we'd be working side by side. So again the
learning was very organic, natural, and casual and sometimes you can't beat
just working side by side and observing and seeing and watching. So a lot of
the learning's with my dad were just working with him side by side versus
sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and talking about things. And that was
really effective because it improved efficiency. Like I learned [at a] much [more]
rapid rate because instead of hearing words, [I] saw things and when you see
things you can get a clearer picture of what it looks like in real life. Then
you can make your own judgment on how to do it yourself.

James Fratzke: [00:05:14] You said in the interview
one time that your job as CEO is really to uphold your dads values, those
values that he taught you about business. What are some of those values that
are crucial to Philz' success today?

Jacob Jaber: [00:05:28] Yeah, I think [just] being a
good person, doing the right thing, being kind. So I think just treating people
like -- Not like employees or numbers or customers but just people. And I think
to give them an experience that feels warm welcoming and authentic no matter
how they look, where they come from, what they wear. We wanted to celebrate the
human spirit and diversity and making sure that you know hospitality is at the
core of our culture. So just making sure everybody that came in felt welcome
and everybody left with a better day and a smile was extremely important to us.
We were really obsessed about that. So you know you can call that value just
being customer focus or people focus, that's one. Another one I'd say is just
making progress continuous. This ties back to learning a little bit but just
continuously making progress and not being stagnant. And you know always
challenging the status quo and finding ways to do things a little bit better --
Particularly the things that were already good at versus trying to marginally
improve the things that we're not as good at. That doesn't mean we ignore those
opportunities but sometimes in life people are you know instead of just
focusing on elevating your strengths to massive strengths, you spend more time
on the things that you're not as good at and you try to get great at those. You
might be missing the opportunity to give value in the world. You're really
great at.

James Fratzke: [00:07:20] Now one of the things that
I value about Philz coffee and I'm talking about specifically coffee is that
you guys work on one cup at a time, and you try to perfect and customize that
cup for the individual customers. I think that's a great metaphor not only for
business. Like how do you perfect that product to the best of your ability? But
it's also kind of a metaphor for life like what are those little tweaks that
you can do to make yourself the perfect cup of coffee. So in that analogy what
are those tweaks? What are those habits are those tactics that you have that
make you successful every day? Can you think of maybe two to three things that
you do every day that help improve your cup of coffee -- metaphorically?

Jacob Jaber: [00:08:01] Yeah. Great question. [...]
I think that we believe philosophically that the best cup of coffee is the one
that comes to your taste, but that's true for everything in this world. The
best is the one that comes to your tastes. So you know for me what I like to do
is instead -- I haven't been reading books as much but reading really good
articles. There's one site in particular that I that I subscribe to and really
enjoy reading every week. It's called [00:08:32] Farnam Street. [2.3] So that
that's a really good read. I've been listening to podcasts recently which is
great. I kind of mix it up there's not really one I love it just depends on the
subject. It ranges from science to philosophy and math to business to help. And
I think when I go out and visit stores and I visit stores regularly multiple
times a week and try to try to hit 10 stores a week at least. You know just
learning from the team and the customers and seeing people and that's that's
when I feel most alive.

James Fratzke: [00:09:14] We've talked a lot about
learning and your history is interesting in a sense and I think it's kind of
the new normal. You started going to community college. You decided to drop
out. In your words, they were forcing you to learn stuff that wasn't
interesting from people that weren't that interesting. But it seems to have
worked out well for you. So if there was a young entrepreneur that came to you
and said Hey Jacob I'm thinking about going to school but I have this
entrepreneurial drive, Like what do I do? What would be your advice to them?

Jacob Jaber: [00:09:46] Well I mean I have a
weakness which is obsessiveness. I get obsessed with something. So at this
point in my life I'm obsessed about Philz and making it a success and I won't
give up. So it's just about doing everything you can. You got to be determined.
You've got to have perseverance. You're going to suffer a lot of pain. There's
going to be really hard times. There is going to be really good times. But it's
hard. It only gets harder as you grow, as you grow the company but it's also
more exciting and in some ways it gets easier as you start putting together the
right team you know. So the job changes over time but you have to you know -- I
think you have to be super focused. And so many people give up too quick or
spend their time you know circling around the thing they should be working on
but don't necessarily just go for it. In the early days of anyone's career it's
important to sometimes ignore what people might say, or have just a little bit
of ignorance, a healthy amount of ignorance. Just to get you into that inner
circle of what you're most passionate about because otherwise everyone is going
to be too rational and pragmatic and you know talk you out of it. So and then
the problem with school is it just doesn't make sense to me. Not it's so few
people really know what they want to do at that stage in life and you're forced
to choose a topic you spend so much time on and then you feel forced to stay in
that field then that might not be it. So I think school has to be viewed a
little bit differently and I think learning has to be about experiences. So
school wasn't for me. You know I think everybody's a little bit different.

James Fratzke: [00:11:46] So you've talked a lot about
learning and at Philz coffee you guys actually have a program for your team
members called Philz University but it doesn't seem like you necessarily buy
into school. So is this encouraging team members to go to school? How does it
tie into their education

Jacob Jaber: [00:12:01] I think the name should be
changed from school to learning, or from university to learning, because school
isn't about learning. Learning is about learning, and learning comes in many
different forms and ways. So I think whatever you call it it's not important,
what matters is what it is. Philz University is a group of great people who are
passionate about educating the people that join Philz to be their best in a
multitude of ways both mechanically and figuring out how to do the job that
needs to be done. But more importantly the thing we're more excited about is
developmental learning experiences like how to be a leader, how to coach, how
to get feedback business acumen and you know health and wellness. Just a
multitude of different learning experiences that are available to all of our
team members so that's the thing we're really excited about building and in the
early days of it.

James Fratzke: [00:12:55] I love that your dad's
name is Phil -- my dad's name is Scott. He [My dad] used to drive us to school
in the morning and he used to tell us like, I don't care if you get an A or a
C, I want you to learn something today. And so that's kind of a great
perspective that you have. It doesn't really matter the performance from a school
like typical what culture would assign is like you pass or fail it's what did
you learn so I love that little tweak. Let's talk about feedback. You've talked
about in the past how feedback inside your company has been very crucial to its
success. And you welcome feedback from all levels you encourage all levels to
get feedback whether you're a barista or you're one of the chief officers in
the company. Tell us a little bit about that principle

Jacob Jaber: [00:13:42] Yeah I think it's hard --
much harder than you know, it's easy to talk about feedback but it's real hard
to enact in real life because you know, you don't want to hurt anybody's
feelings. But you kind of have to do it in order to help people get better. And
I think you know feedback is just you could kind of look at it as food that
helps you grow muscles. Right? Like just helps you grow skills. So the more
feedback you're. And you don't always -- won't get full off of feedback, Right?
The more feedback that you get, I think the better. It has to come from a good
place. It has to be authentic and you know one of our values is about keeping
it real and being authentic -- so you know if something was done bad you know
it should be clearly said that it was done bad and why and what it could be --
What can be done to make it better, but always in a way that doesn't make the
person feel like you're giving up on them. I think that's that's that's really
important. [00:14:49] And then same thing for positive feedback. I think that.
It's more important to give positive recognition than it is negative, because
oftentimes the most effective way to promote more of the behaviors that you
want and to get better is just acknowledging specifically when someone does
something that you think was awesome and they're going to keep doing it. [23.3]
And the more you recognize them, the things you love about them, that's just
going to overtake the way they work -- versus focusing on the one or two things
that they may not be doing well. So I think it's all a balance. But I think 75
should be positive recognition 25 should be constructive feedback. I don't mean
to put a number on it but just to give a little bit of a concrete guidance on
how to approach these things.

James Fratzke: [00:15:40] No, I think it makes sense
to put a number on it like 75/25 because once you have a process then you can
repeat that over time. I had a leader -- a mentor of mine once tell me the
second I stop giving you feedback is the second you should be worried because I
don't care about you anymore. Right?

Jacob Jaber: [00:15:56] That's great. I
tell leaders that all the time. I think that's awesome advice.

James Fratzke: [00:16:01] Let's talk about [what
it's] like for you as the CEO getting feedback. Does your ego ever come into
play? How do you kind of check that at the door and just [be] be open to maybe
feedback that's coming your way?

Jacob Jaber: [00:16:16] So, you know getting
feedback sometimes for me can be hard depending on what it is because I take --
I put a lot of pressure on myself and I take losses pretty hard. So I'm still
learning how to cope better with tough feedback. In the moment, I'm always
appreciative and I take it in, but what will happen is I'll just muse over it
for the next few days and you know try and learn from it and ask myself What
can I do to get better. So I think that's really important. But it's hard. I
think like baseball players probably have a pretty stressful job because if
they have a pretty bad game, then you know it's going to be rough for them and
it just you have to wait till the next game to see if you can make it up. So I
think it's hard and it should be actually. You know if you don't -- if you're
not a little bit disappointed about it, you're like shoot, you know that
doesn't feel good and I need to get [better at] it. Then maybe you're not
caring enough about that topic.

James Fratzke: [00:17:27] Let me shift gears a
little bit to your personal life. It seems as if from the outside looking in,
that you said it yourself you're obsessed with Philz coffee. Is there a such
thing as work life balance for you right now or is it Philz is the balance and
you get so much positive energy from that that some of the other pieces like a
social life and things like that don't matter as much?

Jacob Jaber: [00:17:50] Both are true but I wouldn't
say social life doesn't matter that much. So this is my other weaknesses, I
don't know what to do with myself when there's no work besides spending time
with my girlfriend -- We'll go to dinners we'll take walks we'll work out,
things like that but I don't know what else to do. I'll sit down and I'll
learn, I'll listen to podcasts. I try not to watch TV much. I like to play
basketball once in a while. But I tell you that it's so important to make sure
you have a social life and you have friends and you spend time with the people
that you like a lot -- in a rich and healthy life friendship, relationship --
Something you're passionate about, family, hobbies -- All of those things need
to be addressed to have a really full circle, rich fulfilling life. And right
now you know what I definitely have going for me is a mission that I'm working
on that I'm really passionate about -- That's very important. But that takes up
that takes up most of my life and sometimes I'm a little too tired to do
anything else.

James Fratzke: [00:19:08] I admire that about your
work life balance. though as you've defined like what's important to you and it
seems like there's little room for margin like you don't watch TV -- You know
that the business is important to you, you know that relationships are
important to you and that seems like a really natural successful mix of things
to focus on. Let me tell you a little bit about a personal story so I had a
friend say oh they're opening Philz in Fullerton. You know there's a drive
through on that particular location, are they going to have a drive thru? I
said no Philz coffee it's not set up for a drive-thru. You go in it's going to
take a while for you to get your cup of coffee. As you guys expand, do you see
that model changing where it's a little bit more of a quick service closer to a
Starbucks or is that kind of intimate experience where it takes a little bit of
time, important to the business model?

Jacob Jaber: [00:20:03] So it's funny you say that.
At the core -- Philz will always be made by a person one cup at a time with
love and passion. The thing to think about here though is the customer
experience and our mission is to better days and build communities. And like
the cup, I think a great experience may look different to one person right? So
somebody may value convenience over going in and waiting in line and you know
sitting in the beautiful gathering place in our stores and just having a cup of
coffee and some food and socializing with people. So I think you have to you
have to be empathetic and you have to think about the customer experience. And
you know as I said earlier we love pushing barriers challenging the status quo.
So our core experience will -- I want everybody to go in and experience Philz
for the first time at that store and let the barista know it's the first time.
But once in a while if you value convenience you know you have a mobile app
where you can pre-order, prepay and pick it up for convenience. In terms of the
drive-thru, We thought of it as an opportunity to think about how do we
preserve and keep the quality and service -- But try this out take this
opportunity to try it out to see if we can make it work for you know maybe the
mom with multiple kids in the car and it being a hassle to get out of the car
-- But she might want her cup of Philz. So it's all about serving the customer
well. And how do we make drive-thru personalized? So we are actually going to
be testing something out at Fullerton that won't distract from what we do.
Yeah, so it might be a complete failure by the way or it might work out. We're
not aiming for failure aiming or success, but you know I think everybody should
go in the store and have the full experience because that's that's the magic.

James Fratzke: [00:22:04] I agree. Well, there's a
couple of things I want to unpack there. Let's start with the first time
experience which you've said before is very important to the success of Philz.
Tell me a little bit about the first time experience in business in general how
important is it?

Jacob Jaber: [00:22:18] I think the first time
experience matters a whole lot. You know their first experience holds a lot of
weight to people's impression of you. At the same time, people are generally
forgiving which is good and they're willing to give things a try if maybe the
first time it wasn't great. But getting that first experience could mean the
difference between somebody who doesn't like it and somebody who kind of likes
it, to somebody who loves it, to somebody who's just becomes an enthusiastic
ambassador of the brand. Obviously we're aiming for the latter, but you know
Philz is different when you walk into Philz it's totally different. You don't
start at the cashier you started the barista you talk to the person that's
crafting your cup. There's a menu board there's no lattes everything is
handmade and I guarantee you like we can get the best cup for you. You know no
matter if you like it dark, light, medium, sweet, not sweet, hot iced. You know
we can there's over four million ways to enjoy Philz. So we can really
personalize the cup for you. My favorite is the Tesora with honey and cream, I
have four a day. And it's really good.

James Fratzke: [00:23:26] What size though,
Jacob?

Jacob Jaber: [00:23:28] Small. Four smalls but it's
still a lot -- that's like forty-eight ounces of coffee. Coffee is good for you
the more you drink sometimes the better.

James Fratzke: [00:23:41] Well to your point coffee
is healthy for you and Philz does a good job of using more natural ingredients.
So things like honey and mint -- I assume those are a lot better for you than
some of those other ingredients that other coffee shops are putting into their
drinks. I want to get back to the drive through because you said something that
stood out to me which is hey this drive-thru idea might fail, but you guys are
going to try it anyway. It just reminds me of kind of how failure is glorified
in a sense in today's world like hey it's okay if you fail. Can you tell me a little
bit about how failure impacts you as an entrepreneur?

Jacob Jaber: [00:24:16] I think when you have
conviction you have to give it a try and do your best to make it a success. But
if it fails use that failure as a learning experience which you can then
iterate on that idea to try it again or you give up on it but you keep the
learning experience. So I look at failure as feedback.

James Fratzke: [00:24:39] This is the portion of the
interview that I like to go into rapid fire mode. So I'm going to ask you some
questions as we get to the tail end of the interview here. You ready?

Jacob Jaber: [00:24:46] Sure.

James Fratzke: [00:24:47] Here's my first one: if
you could write a postcard to anyone on the planet past or present so it can be
an icon or a family member. Who would you write it to and what would that
postcard say?

Jacob Jaber: [00:25:00] I don't know [if
it's] going to be rapid fire. Let's see.

Jacob Jaber: [00:25:04] So one of my favorite books
is Law Of Success written by Napoleon Hill. I think that book really I got a
lot from that and I read it at the right age when I was in my high teens. I
would write is I'd like to have a cup of coffee with you and talk for a few
hours.

James Fratzke: [00:25:22] What's one habit that you
have, you know at night before you go to bed that helps set you up for success
in the morning?

Jacob Jaber: [00:25:29] Oh I learn. I watch
interviews on my iPad. I watch interviews. I'll you know watch any clips that I
find interesting that I can learn from -- in any of the categories that are
listed earlier like science, philosophy, psychology -- I'm really interested in
those areas. So I just I learn before I go to bed, I try to use that as
learning time. And you know like I get a lot more out of watching videos than
reading. So it's a pretty entertaining night.

James Fratzke: [00:26:05] Let me ask you this one if
you could hit the easy button on anything in your life and just kind of skip
past all the hard stuff you had to go through and just get to the moral of the
story or that lesson learned. Can you think of one thing you'd press easy
button on?

Jacob Jaber: [00:26:18] I don't know. I don't know
that I would press the easy button. It's a hard one because then you know just
like people who win the lottery they don't know what to do with it and they
become depressed. But when you work hard for it and you earn it you value it.
So I don't -- I get your question and I'll try to answer your question.

James Fratzke: [00:26:37] I think that's a valuable
answer Jacob. I mean I think to your point like you wouldn't because you
learned lessons along the way and you think that that's it that's a valuable
experience so I'm gonna accept that.

Jacob Jaber: [00:26:48] OK I would just add that
probably learning how to have a more rich life beyond just like work you do.
Yeah, I think that would be one.

James Fratzke: [00:27:00] Here's the last question
What's one thing you haven't been able to share with the audience today that
you'd like to share before we wrap up?

Jacob Jaber: [00:27:08] So I used to love basketball
when I was growing up and I used to play a lot of basketball and I obsessed
about it. And then I got really good at it and I was like number one on the
team in the district for a few years then I stopped after Michael Jordan
retired and then I went into gaming and I used to be obsessed with Starcraft
and Diablo, those two games and I got obsessed about it so much that I would
play all the time and then I got really good. I was in the rankings for like
some of the best in the country after like a lot of hours playing competing
with people in Asia and other parts of the world. And then I stopped that
because I gained a little weight sitting at the desk. I think you know Philz is
that thing now.

James Fratzke: [00:27:57] So it sounds like the
moral of that story is that it doesn't matter what you're doing do it well. If
you're spending your time on anything whether it's gaming, basketball or running
a successful business try to be the best at it.

Jacob Jaber: [00:28:10] I agree. I agree
with that.

James Fratzke: [00:28:13] Where can people keep up
with you online real quick and then we'll let you go.

Jacob Jaber: [00:28:17] Twitter or Instagram. Mostly
on Twitter Jacob Jaber just my name Instagram the same thing. Yeah, those are
probably the two, two good ones.

James Fratzke: [00:28:33] Cool. Jacob thank you so
much for your time today we really appreciate it.

Jacob Jaber: [00:28:37] You too. Take care guys.

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