Failing With Someone

This should be a short note, but I was thinking about the idea of long term business partners and relationships in general. I came to the conclusion that the truest test of a relationship is going through failure together with someone else. I think if a relationship can survive mutual failure, it is not only stronger as a result, but it should be reasonable to conclude that the relationship can achieve mutual success on a higher level. So I come to the conclusion that if you want to work someone to succeed in something, take a moment to think through the relationship surviving failure. If you can run through a burning house tied together, you will have no problem winning together.

Qdoba vs. Chipotle: Customer Service

Recently, Chipotle opened up at a new location on UPenn’s campus. Qdoba has been at Penn for as long as most people here can remember and there’s never been a real serious challenge to Qdoba’s Mexican Grill store. Until now. Chipotle has been a smash hit by all empirical evidence and they’re showing what true customer service is all about. I’m not surprised that I got an e-mail from Qdoba the other day telling me I can “buy 1 get 1 free” for any burrito at their on-campus location. In fact, just the other night two of my friends were discussing this coupon and decided they’d rather pay full price at Chipotle than split the cost of one burrito at Qdoba. Go figure.

But I wanted to bring forth an empirical example of why I think Chipotle is going to crush and destroy Qdoba. Beyond the fact that their burritos taste better and that their menu is more simply designed. I want to talk customer service. What makes it easy to compare is that I know of the same exact situation, which was handled differently at both places.

Customer Service at Qdoba

Two of my friends went to Qdoba while a third went to the nearby Greek Lady. The third friend joined the first two at Qdoba after they had all received their respective meals. He was quickly told that he couldn’t eat there because only Qdoba customers were allowed. That makes sense in theory, but fails in practice because:

1) The Qdoba store was pretty much empty

2) His friends were paying customers at Qdoba and he was joining them

Customer Service at Chipotle

This past week, I went to the new Jimmy John’s which is a few doors down from Chipotle. Two of my buddies were at Chipotle, but I had eaten there for the past 4 days and didn’t want to make it my 5th day. So I decided to mix things up with some Jimmy John’s. I joined them shortly after at Chipotle and sat down with them in the middle of a really crowded store. The manager at the cash register watched me walk in with Jimmy John’s in hand. She smiled and didn’t say a word. Someone even came over to our table and wiped it down before we started it eating. They didn’t say a word about my Jimmy John’s sandwich either. In fact, the manager even gave us free soda cups.

Conclusion

Beyond the obvious incredible taste of Chipotle, they are going to win because they care about the important things — like not annoying loyal customers who may not choose them on a particular day. Qdoba is completely empty everyday I walk by there and I fully expect that trend to continue.

David Einhorn Book Review

My friend Kiley Austin-Young gave me a copy of an incredible book which I devoured over the course of my Colorado trip (read about 80% of the book on the flight there/back.) The book is called Fooling Some of the People All of the Time and it’s written by star hedge fund manager David Einhorn (Greenlight Capital).  David Einhorn recently rose to more fame with his public short of Lehman Brothers back in Spring of ‘08, which led to Lehman’s CFO being fired.

The book chronicles David Einhorn’s drawn out battle against Allied Capital, a company that David Einhorn publicly shorted. What starts out as small balance sheet discrepancies turns into a drawn out investigation which results in mountains of evidence of fraud in Allied Capital subsidiaries, government (SEC) incompetency, and an alarming vilification of short sellers. The book is really one mans journey for truth and fairness. In fact, he donates all of the book profits and all proceeds from the short sale of Allied Capital to charity.

It’s truly scary to read about how failure riddled the SEC is, how Allied Capital was able to lure away government lawyers to work for them as lobbyists, how Allied Capital management consistently showed a disregard for the truth and refused to own up to mistakes/problems. Allied Capital even wire tapped David Einhorn’s phones! The sell-side analysts show a complete disregard for mounting evidence against Allied Capital and constantly shove their “buy ratings” to anyone who will listen. I think the part that really got me was the lack of serious investigations at the SEC and the rampant bureaucracy at other government branches involved in the book. He also writes about the financial media’s lack of concern for the truth. Basically, he shows the world the true dark side to the financial world. 

This book reads like a detective mystery book. Only it’s all real and backed up with loads of publicly available documentation. It’s a fantastic insight into the hedge fund world, Wall Street, and the government. And best of all the book proceeds and the killing that he made from shorting this fraud of a company are going to fund some great causes.

I can’t recommend this book enough.

Obama is Buying My Rolex

Obama is buying me a brand new Rolex. At least that’s what I started thinking when I saw this spam ad come up on my Facebook profile page today. I couldn’t help taking a screenshot. Facebook needs to crack down on junk like this and make sure there are more sophisticated ways to block spam. This spammer is clearly trying to take advantage of the current financial turmoil and play on the news of a coming government stimulus package. I hope people don’t fall for this scam, but I give them credit for the “clever” ad.

Super Bowl Sunday

The End of the Season

Tomorrow marks the end of football season. It’s definitely an exciting day, but it’s also a bit sad because I have no more football to look forward too.

It’s definitely been a weird post season for me. I don’t remember the last time that the New England Patriots didn’t make it to the playoffs, so I didn’t really have a team to follow. I must say it’s very rare for a team to go 11-5 in the regular season and not make the playoffs, but things happen and you can’t always win.