How to Start a Food Market and Scale It Around the World with Martin Barry

0:02
This is the digital nomad quest podcast with Sharon Tseung. teaching people how to build passive income become financially free and design the best lives. Hey, guys, so I am in Prague right now. And I’m here speaking with Martin Barry who is the founder every site and manifesto market.0:24
How are you doing? Yeah, I’m Well, I’m not always drinking. Sorry. You caught me like0:29
having a drink. But0:30
no, it’s it’s a chill interview, you can go ahead and drink whatever0:33
I’m doing well, it’s like a beautiful afternoon. It’s a little bit chilly. But we’re, it’s cool. I’m happy to meet Sharon and talk about whatever she wants to talk about.0:41
Yeah, so I wanted to kind of learn more about recite and manifesto market. So basically, my friend and I, we went to manifesto market the other day, it’s kind of like this venue with different shipping containers and like vendors, all different cultures and stuff like that with food, drinks, music and book like, that was really cool. We were just like, wow, there’s like this little bookstore with a really like a good bookshop. Yeah, I was like, the book selections really good. And we are just like feeling the vibes. The aesthetic was really nice, is super visually appealing. I was just thinking it’d be so cool to have that where I live, you know, where I live is like the suburbs. And it’s kind of nothing there.1:22
Yeah, we want to do that everywhere, basically. So we’re ready. Like you saw just the first one. And it’s sort of an experiment for us to build, it’s our first time doing anything and real estate or anything. And definitely in food and beverage, we usually like design experiences. And we see this is like a kind of cool experience that people can come and they get like a variety of food from 20 different restaurants, they can like buy books from like an independent bookseller, and get into just an interesting experience that you wouldn’t normally expect in a city like Prague. It’s kind of like total experiment for us, but it’s working. So we should go next to San Francisco or Fremont or wherever you want us to go. That1:57
would be amazing. I mean, yeah, maybe we can like talk about your story, how you started, I guess with like, design architecture, and then moving into recite and then moving into Manifesto. Are you? Sure?2:09
Yeah. I’m super confusing. Actually, I didn’t tell you earlier. But like I started, like, when I was in school, I studied to be like a historian, actually, I studied oh, OK, history in business. And then I actually got a degree in landscape architecture, masters. And so I was in New York for like, like eight or nine years, and I was practicing landscape architect underneath my mentor, then Barbara Wilcox, and then eventually was like, kind of leading design projects for that office for like, you know, eight years. And I was like, a little bit bored. And maybe it was like, a tough time during the recession. So I was invited here to Prague on a fellowship. So I started teaching on this Fulbright Fellowship. And it was like a total experiment. I didn’t know anybody in Prague, I was sort of alone. And after, like, 24 hours, I thought, like, what the fuck that I was doing was the stupidest thing. I left New York, which is like my hometown, my face favorite city in the world. And I came to this really strange foreign place that that time I thought, like, Eastern Europe, like, you know, it’s like, really strange land. But how long ago 2012. So it was like six or seven years ago, it was probably different back then. Yeah, it changed a lot. I mean, it was like, at the time, like it was, it had already been changing, right? Since like, the early 90s. But like, I never came before that. So it was like in the lat when I came, there was basically like, only like a few places that like you or I would want to eat right? Like, the food was really kind of like locally based check food local, like Central European food. And I was like, I tend to like really like food experiences and food culture. So I was always starving and looking for things to eat. And particularly like, I try to eat it. Like, I’m always eating late, like eight 910 o’clock at night, and I’d come out of the office or something or my friend’s place, and there’d be nothing to eat except for like McDonald’s or something like this. So I was sort of like starving for food. And that’s one of the reasons why I started Manifesto. So the food scene completely changed in the last like, seven years, it’s much more rapid was my fault. And now like much more international scene, and I think we’re a driver of that also, sort of like creating a little bit of change in the food scene.

4:07
Oh, cool. And was reciting first, though.

4:10
Yes. So I started because I was sort of bored teaching when I first came here, and I didn’t know anybody, I thought like, I’ve got to do something to meet people. So I don’t know why. But I started a nonprofit and like a nonprofit organization. And this was like a really good way for me to kind of like engage with local like design community, and architecture community. And so I made a lot of friends and like business partners through this nonprofit. And what we did was organized like events, we organize conferences, and like salon discussions. And you know, we organized a festival with this crazy art installation, in a public square. And people like this, like somehow, like it was a new idea. And still pretty fresh. And since then, we’ve organized like 170 events, like on architecture and kind of public space, and like Lisbon, Berlin, and here in Prague. And so this is kind of the star. And then I like I was doing a lot of that from New York, actually, I moved back to New York in 2013. And, and then I was kind of managing it from there. And it was too much. I was flying like from like China, to Canada, to Mexico, back to New York to Prague, like on a weekly basis when I was like 32 years old. And I was just sort of like a little bit burnt out of that. So I decided to move here full time, like three years ago, okay. And then I got bored of doing just events. So I was like, we don’t want to just talk about architecture we want to build. And so I found that like, as an architect, you work for clients, right? And you have to kind of like, you follow the client script, and you’re kind of a like, beholden or like you’re at the at the, you know, you have to just do what they say, basically. So I didn’t like that, like, I like to do my thing. I like to kind of like direct my own work. And so Manifesto, I thought, like, well, let’s build something like let’s do something that I want to do that I think will be the best solution. And then I don’t if I make a mistake, like it’s my fault, like, I don’t have to blame the client or whatever be like relying on a good client. So now I want to be a good client, basically, for other architects. And so I will I think now like, that’s the future for me is to is to build more and and kind of be like an experiential developer, like develop food experiences, hospitality experiences, like more entertainment based experiences, but in real estate, like property.

6:21
So maybe we’ll come back up with recite first, like, what were the steps to even start that up? I mean, you didn’t know anyone, right? And know how difficult was that seems very difficult to do that.

6:33
Yeah, it’s very difficult. I had to like I was teaching with another American at the university. And he said, like, that sounds like a great idea to do a festival or conference on like architecture and public space, which was in a different way than like other people that organized this kind of thing, in this part of Europe. So he introduced me to like one of his students who would be kind of who volunteered for a long time, almost like a year for the organization. And then I met someone else through another colleague who was like, just starting in architecture school. So the kind of three or four of us got together and just we figured it out. We applied to the local office for the license to do a nonprofit that like if

7:13
you just pay a fee, and then you like how, though?

7:15
Yeah, I felt like at that time, I felt like everyone and their mother had a nonprofit. Because like, I don’t know anyone

7:21
with one Actually,

7:22
no, I know. But here, it’s it’s different. Like there actually aren’t so many incentives to have a nonprofit organization like there’s no real tax incentive to do so it’s pretty easy to apply have to pay like 50 $50 and fill out a form basically. So it’s like a library card card.

7:37
Okay? Do you have to have like residency or like, how does that work

7:41
you, for me, a foreigner for a nonprofit, you can be like, I’m the chairman, still the nonprofit and I’m foreigner. For businesses a little more complicated, like now I have like seven or eight businesses based in Prague. And I’m like, you have to have more permanent residency and more paperwork. For this. It’s more complicated, I don’t know, the process was just trying to meet as many people as I could. And I was really fortunate that in Prague, like it’s a relatively small city, so you can kind of meet people pretty easily, like once you’re in a kind of network, or some kind of like industry. And so I met a lot of people that really thought my idea to kind of bring on a new discussion on architecture, like about contemporary architecture, and contemporary public space was needed. So they all kind of like really helped out. There’s a lot of like, people, I still consider friends to this day that I met in those first few weeks or months. And they wanted to contribute like to our conference, or, like, help connect us to other people like graphic designers or you know, videographers or people that could kind of helped put it together. So we’re really fortunate I like the the environment, the community is pretty small and pretty tight. And we were able to kind of like work with each other and collaborate. So huge part of it was that networking?

8:45
And did you go to a bunch of meetups and things like that to meet all these people? or How did you how did you do that?

8:52
Yeah, like a lot of the meetings were like through word of mouth, I didn’t go to like these kind of networking things. I’m not really good at that. I’m a little shy in those environments. I’m sort of like, I’m not so great at these like new kind of networking things. I usually have a glass of wine or like a coffee, and then I skip out the back door. I did that last night, actually at a party. I came to give a speech and I was there like to give a speech and I was there for an hour and like literally five minutes after I walked offstage, I just left the event. We call it the Irish exit. Anyway, like, how did it work? Like I just tried to talk to people, like whatever parties or you know, people would introduce me to their friends. And that would be really good about like, pushing really hard to meet those people. Like through the contacts, I was supplied, like three emails or whatever, like, it just takes a lot of work to do the networking. And you know, just not be afraid that people are gonna say no, because especially when do something new? Like everyone says no, like, I’m almost like, 95% of the things you asked for me, they’re gonna be turned down. So was that

9:51
that’s what it was like, when you were okay.

9:52
Mostly, it’s still like that. In fact, it’s like, it’s really funny for me to be here, because I’m like, I’m a total I’m a foreigner. I’m from New York City. I don’t really have like a deep deep network. Some, like, you know, many people know each other for you, like many years here, this is a smaller community. And I’m always turned down and people think I’m like an animal in a cage. They sort of like, you know, they like to look at me, but like they they don’t really engage so deeply with me some calm, you kind of used to being turned down, you have to be I think, if you’re gonna be kind of like successful or whatever, you know, you define success to be if you want to, like get to the next step, you have to be turned down a lot, which kind of sucks, but you just have to deal with it.

10:29
It’ll be more like that. It’s good.

10:31
Well, I don’t know. It’s like,

10:32
six drink.

10:34
Yeah, you have to have a really thick skin and not be afraid to fail. Yeah, I talked to people that work with me a lot about failing, like, I’m totally fine if we make mistakes, like because if we don’t make a mistake, it means we didn’t do anything we didn’t try. So everything that we do is new, like I never organized a conference before I organized the first reciting. And like almost 10,000 people came to that event. Yeah, we organized it in five months. And like we think about 810 thousand people came because it was a kind of big public part of the event. Wait, so was this event about this was an event about architecture and public space, and we installed we brought in like a architecture pavilion, kind of like a big piece of art from London. And we installed it on one of the main squares in Prague. And so we did like films, their discussions, we did a party, some dancing lessons. And then of course, we had like a conference inside the building, which talked about architecture and more kind of professional format. And I was shocked by how many people came and we had never organized anything like this before. Okay, organized like a keg party and college. And it was the only thing I

11:34
mean, okay, what were the steps to do that launch of like that event where it Where did you make videos advertising it, you put up paid ads, or like nothing is just word

11:44
of mouth, we did a lot of social media work. And we also ran a Kickstarter campaign. So we were one of the first kind of architecture projects that had been successful on Kickstarter architecture and event project, Kickstarter just launched like a year earlier. And I was kind of following this cuz there’s a new york based company. So that was helpful. We got like, a lot of word on the street, like based on this. And then we just worked a lot on social media, because we had no money, right? It’s like, we organized this totally on a risk. And so mostly, it was like through word of mouth, friends networking. And since then, I’d say like, the biggest part of my team and the nonprofit and also in Manifesto, like the property development company is marketing. So like, actually, we put a lot of resources into the marketing because I feel like we’re kind of building brands and experiences that’s important, really important part. For me, we do something, it’s not just the brand, but like, it’s really important to kind of like leverage what we’ve can build on the brand, like to use that to kind of find new new audiences, whatever new customers for the market, this kind of thing,

12:40
okay, and this event was in Prague,

12:42
or New York, or this first event was in Prague, and they have

12:45
Kickstarter.

12:47
You know, there are some local Kickstarter kind of like copies. Oh, yeah. No, at that time, and we use Kickstarter. And basically, it was actually the first project in the country that was on Kickstarter. I’m not even sure you can still do that, like from probably you can still put projects on Kickstarter. But then you could basically anyone in the world, you kind of submit a project if you had a US bank account. And so I had a US bank account and cards so I could launch. So you

13:09
did this, like with a small team of people. There was like three or four of us. Okay, and you guys just strategize. You guys thought it could be the best way to bootstrap this event.

13:17
Yeah. And we worked for like 26 hours a day. Oh, my God, we just worked around the clock basically, for five months. Like it was a really kind of stressful time. But it was so much fun. Because when you’re starting something and you don’t really know what you’re doing, I mean, anyone who works in like startup industry or like starts new companies or new projects, you know, the feeling like you’re so driven like your blood is pumping so fast all the time. You’re the this hot blooded like creature just like trying to succeed on these, like, everything’s a challenge. Like, you know, we didn’t know how to market an event. We didn’t know how to do the programming, or the sort of production, anything, but even know what kind of people we needed. Now, this is more like a machine like not really, we’re still making a lot of mistakes, but it’s getting like a as the time goes by, but then we didn’t really know what we’re doing. Yeah. Wow, it was kind of exciting and really scary at the same time. That’s super

14:06
cool. Okay, so your team, it was like three or four people you said right? Or then yeah. And how did you pick these people? Like was there certain qualities about them? You thought you could work well with them?

14:17
And are they are you still working with them. But reciting Manifesto, that original team, this is also interesting part about starting a kind of project like this without like any basic funding, like your money, we like we started on a whim, like I was responsible for it ultimately, like from the budget, but you kind of like to attract people that are really interested in the topic. And we all volunteered, I volunteer for the first three and a half years of this reset, basically, I had another job. So I was able to do that. But the others, like they also had other jobs that are in university, like their graduate students or something. So they committed a lot of like volunteer time. And without them like we couldn’t have done it actually, people commit so much of the energy to it. But when people commit a lot of energy, like typically on a volunteer basis for like, let’s say 369 months or a year, like they get really burned out, and then like have some problems in the team and stuff. So we had some like growing pains in the first couple years. And then actually, none of the original team members were there except for me. So there, I’m still close with with a couple of them, but they moved on to different stuff now.

15:19
So it wasn’t like you co founded Bry site with them. It was your thing. And other people who are passionate about it came through

15:26
Yeah, like I recall, we put I pitched the idea to other people. And that’s when like, people started to approach me and said, like, they’d like to help or they like to help organize it or whatever, like join the team. Ultimately, the team that year was like in that first year was probably like 20. But there’s like four people on the core team. And I should say, actually, the one person on the board with me actually is from the original team. And that’s that’s incorrect. So she’s like my, my co board member. There’s two board members now. And she’s one of them. Yeah, that but ultimately, it was like 20 people. So it’s like a study in doing events and management. And it was really cool. It’s really fun. And manifesto now is the same way. We didn’t know anything about what we were doing in real estate or technology or food and beverage. And we kind of had to build all the experience ourselves.

16:10
I asked about the co founder or team situation because I was wondering because whenever I start projects, I find that like finding the person to partner with or something like that is it’s kind of it can be kind of difficult. You don’t want to like ruin a friendship or something like that. And also, sometimes I started to feel like this making it myself is easier than working with someone else. Do you find that like the Do you like working on it as the sole founder? Yeah, you prefer that? Yeah,

16:35
I think in it really depends. But like, of course you need like complimentary skill sets, like someone who can offer something different than you can when you start an organization or a company. But it’s it gets like really tricky, like, especially when you know you’re not really sure like you start something you’re really passionate, you’re not really sure exactly what your responsibility is and what the other person’s responsibility. Yeah, you just like do it full speed, then when things start to settle down a lot, then you start to say like, wait a minute, like I’ve put more work in or that person’s work in, and then you both think it’s unfair. And so this is really sticky situation. Yeah, and you don’t want to lose friends over this. It’s really painful. It can be really painful. Like in Manifesto, for example, I was the founder and CEO and the majority shareholder. So and I knew from experience that resigned that this needed to be defined really clearly. And so any investors that came on like early, which your friends and family primarily, they were either just lending us money or lending me money, sorry to talk about the bunch of money. But like, it’s, it’s really important, especially when you’re kind of dividing the company, they either lend us money, or if they’re investing and coming into the company, they were seed investors and like, you have to hold the rights because like, if you’re going to take responsibility for the project, and pay back all the investors and stuff, you need all the responsibility, like you need to make the decisions, I think, if you’re confident to do so, I don’t know why. But I was sort of confident in this case, a manifesto to kind of like leadership and pull forward. But it’s it’s complicated, though, like because you also want to do something with a friend, you just need to be clear, like about how you divide the responsibilities and once it’s clear and it’s written down, it’s okay. It’s unclear. It can be a little bit hairy.

18:09
Yeah, definitely. Okay. You mentioned the the money aspect. And I mean, I was actually going to ask you like how you got that initial funding for a manifesto I guess moving on to manifest and market how how that came about? Were you guys already huge with recite? And it wasn’t that difficult? Or was it still like a difficult process? To ask a few questions? There’s I feel like the funding her and just like the entire process.

18:31
Yeah. No, the team like I think Risa like, let’s Sue, we started Manifesto, really thinking about it like, Well, the first time I thought about it was really early in recites, like history, like 2013. And I created like a five page proposal. And I presented to some companies and about like, kind of doing it more like a sponsorship basis, like we approached like Vodafone, and like some of the other technology companies. And they’re like, what, no, I don’t want to do that. They didn’t understand it, like containers, and cafes and stuff. They were like, they didn’t get it. And we weren’t big enough. And I wasn’t spending enough time to actually do it as a real project. So we just kind of like put it on the shelf. And then when I moved back to Prague in 2015, I was like, well, maybe we should do that. Try to do this. Again, like maybe the markets more like open to this kind of thing. Now my team at reset at that point was like bigger, we were probably like close to 12 or 15 people and we had like not much time, but we had a little bit more time to spend on something like this. So actually, I paid the team every site like for probably nine months or more like to develop the ideas. And we hired we actually did a student competition, which is the first design like the manifesto, you saw is is primarily designed by students. And then when they won the competition, then they finished their school. And then they became that became their first project that I kind of lead them but it was their their design. And then someone in my office was helping them on some of the details and stuff. I’ll be the she’s amazing architect that works for me. And so like, I basically funded it for the first like nine months on the site. And then it became a real project, right? We had something to show we had a design. Okay, so we worked for like a year. And we had like recently I had produced the design with those student architects and he got and Lucy and then it’ll be in my office as an architect helped to kind of like make it more more real. Then we put together some partners like from around Prague based on our website kind of connections and work like our local partner, Errol films is amazing, like a film distribution company that wanted to work on this. Also, they have bar experience, then we had something like the design, we had the site, we had the partners, and we had a team. And so it was easier to kind of attract funding for it. So I asked friends and family basically, this is the place to start when you have a like a good idea. You really trust it. So we asked friends and family and we got like a first seed investment from a friend that lives in Prague, an American friend, who’s still a partner in the in the company,

20:39
do you create those contracts to like,

20:41
yeah, okay, yeah, you have to

20:44
Yeah, right. Okay. Is it difficult to like right now? Do you have a lawyer,

20:49
or now we have like someone don’t ever start a company, because then you have to get lots and lots of stuff like lawyers. And we have like, four different law firms we work with now. One in New York and three here. And actually, today, we just hired internal lawyer. So like, you know, when you go bigger, just you can just get more problems. And I used to write the contracts myself, like the first like MBAs and that kind of stuff. I wrote myself with some advice from a New York. And then now we use external lawyers for most of the big stuff. Yeah, but anyway, like, whenever you kind of take money from somebody, you have to have some kind of contracts. And before you even get to that point, you have to sign an NDA, a nondisclosure. So if you share lots of information, they don’t like leak it or, you know, take it themselves. So we try to protect everything. And then we kind of enter the negotiation about like, you know, if they’re willing to invest the money, and then we write some kind of like shareholders agreement, it’s important to really pay attention to that stuff. Because I think that’s where it gets a little bit complicated if like, either if it fails, or if it’s successful, you have problems both ways.

21:44
How did you say you got the vendors?

21:46
Yeah, this is also like things like with manifesto fell together fell kind of came together. Because I think prod also is interesting in this way. Like it’s a small city. So it’s easy to kind of connect with people. Like I said, with resizing, of course, I you a lot of the connections, I have a free site to kind of open the project up and make it start to come real. But I was still really nervous to talk about it like because we didn’t have any money yet. Right? So most of the people were still employed with the site. And so I did an interview and I thought, like, Okay, if this project is really going to happen, maybe I should see this somehow in the newspaper or magazine. So I did an interview in a marketing magazine, like very strategically, because I thought maybe like a big partner might find it and say, like, Wow, great idea. Like, what will be a partner on that? Did you reach out to them? No, they actually approached us for for an interview with me, because we do some interesting marketing for recites. So they wanted to kind of like a car strategy. As a nonprofit, it’s kind of rare to do such like, let’s say, I don’t know, to spend so much time on the media and marketing. So they wanted to talk to me about that. And we were like, okay, we want to see just one thing. So I put like one line in there that we’re thinking about doing this pop up to market. And it would be like in the next year, maybe like nine months from when that article was published. And like literally, like the day it was printed, we got a phone call from this guy who just started his own, like commercial leasing agency evil, and he was still working with us. Now he has a startup that uses some technology to find kind of like vendors interested in pop up spaces. So that’s his real estate model. He wants to kind of find short term spaces for people, which is like a perfect pairing for us like we want, we want no longer than like one term, one year leases, and he that’s what he does. So he’s like, Hey, man, like awesome project, I want to be part of your team. And, and I’ll give you like, some time to find the partners. And after a while we put him on retainer, like a monthly salary just kind of keep them like engaged. And basically, he worked for a year to kind of like, attract the partners and everything. Everybody did this on like a whim. Like, they’re like, we trust this crazy American like that he can do this. And so, yeah, people put a lot of trust in me, which is also like, you know, it’s heavy. But if you feel like you can deliver, it’s like, it’s really cool, because people will get behind you if you can kind of like, inspire, you know, inspire them. And as I’m really thankful, like, people trust me so much, because otherwise we couldn’t do it without other collaborators and people. Yeah, and the the ownership thing I talked about is like not because like you want to like you know, you don’t trust anybody, and you want to like keep people out of your space, it’s more people are going to trust you, you need to kind of like have the control to do what you need to do to get the project done. And so that’s why I think it’s really important to define that early. Yeah, I guess back to the set of the vendors part. You said once you got that other company, that partnership, yeah, did that just somehow spark like all these food vendors who work with you? That’s a interesting story, too. Yeah. Well, I hadn’t, because I had never done a real estate development project. Like as a developer, I was always been I was the architect, right. And so we really didn’t have as an architect, you don’t have so much insight into the leasing part, or the business part of it, like the commercial side of the business, like you just started tasked to design something. But as the owner and the developer, like, I had no idea how hard it was to lease 25 spaces that were only like, I don’t know, like 30 square foot, you know, maybe like 100 square feet each and, and, and do it all at the same time. Within like four months, I had no idea how hard that was going to be. And I’m really happy we found he evil because he was like, yeah, we can do that. And everyone else I’ve talked to you about that, since they’re like, You’re insane. Like, it’s really hard to lease retail space and food space, like Astro Space, especially where we are like, we’re in the center of the city. So it’s like not so cheap. And so we did it like in four months, we leased 25 spaces, which was really cool. They build the spots,

25:25
and then you guys rent. That’s

25:29
why we build everything. So everything you see in the market we built and then but inside the containers they build. So all the kitchens and stuff, they they install themselves. So we can we provide them like design guidelines. And we kind of we try to control at least, like how it looks and how it feels, we want to make sure it’s like bright enough, and it looks like professional. So we try really hard to work with them closely on the design, but it’s their responsibility. Ultimately, we provide what we call like shelf space, we just kind of build it the containers and we build the public space. And then we do like I don’t know, it’s kind of boring, but like in property, real estate, it’s called space as a service. So they rent the space, but they also get a full service. They get like the marketing, branding, all the communications, and PR, they get the site staff like the cleaning. And basically everyone that you see that works there works for me, basically, except for inside the kitchens. So they rent the space, but we provide everything else. So it’s kind of like we work model for restaurants, kind of a new model.

26:30
Yeah, I think I need to like clarify how are so you said you own the space that you do on the land and everything. And then you have Okay, and then these vendors rent spaces from you.

26:42
Yeah, so like, our real estate containers, right. It’s like, we have these black containers and which you can see probably, hopefully, on this video, and then you we rent those small containers to the merchants or like the kitchens or restaurants or the like the bookshop, for example. And then like once you open the door, like it’s their responsibility. So they put in like the stove, and like all the kitchen equipments, all the furniture, they go inside, that’s all there’s and all the staff that works inside the containers that’s there. So basically like where we have a lot of public or communal space. So basically, we rent the merchants, or the restaurants, those black containers inside of their responsibility in and outside is our responsibility. So all the tables and everything like that’s us, we provide that and we also clean them. And we provide all the marketing and everything. So we do all like all the social media, all the communications and PR that’s on us all the branding and everything that’s on us, too. And we do the design of like the general design over the area, but not inside the containers. Got it. That makes sense

27:40
that makes them okay. The company you partner with wasn’t wasn’t the name. His name is his name, ZO. And then he was he responsible for getting the vendors or am I yeah, confusing that.

27:52
I don’t know. He’s like the leasing manager. So leasing means he finds the businesses that wants to rent space. He kind of like sets up the content, talk with them and lease it to them. And him and I kind of set the price and everything like that.

28:04
Okay, so he was able to acquire it.

28:06
Yes, awesome. Super cool. Because he has like, he’s in this kind of like commercial real estate world. And he had a lot of contacts because he he wants to be in like the food kind of part of that business. So we had a lot of restaurants and his contacts that he was able to, to use, of course, we wanted the best restaurants. So we approached these best restaurants in Prague and we’d say like, Hey, we’re going to do this food market, it’s going to be like street food, but at a lower price than your normal restaurant. So you should produce something cool. And it’s going to be next to the highway. And it’s going to be in shipping containers. And everyone’s like what? So basically, the first like few months was like kind of a total failure. Like we had, like everyone basically said, like, I’m not going to open a restaurant in that container, I’m not going to open a restaurant next to the highway or underneath the highway, which is how they described it. And three, like we’re in a part of the city, which is kind of in pockets in the center. But it was like kind of a crappy place before we went there. It was like it was empty. There’s a lot of garbage on the land. It was kind of like the fence around. People used to get robbed their mug there all the time. So when we approached like, you know, like white tablecloth restaurants or like five star restaurants, we’d be like, yeah, we’ve got this great place and like some sort of street food underneath the highway, and they told them where it was. And they’re like, you can’t serve food. They’re like, no way. Like it’ll fail. Everyone told me it would fail, except for the people that gave me the land. They thought like, okay, is your responsibility, like, go for it? And basically, we had to convince everybody to be there. And like, I also give them a lot of credit, they took a huge risk. Also, what made you choose that plot of land? If

29:36
everyone is saying no, was it cheaper? Was it or was it the mission to make something? Beer nicer?

29:42
That’s exactly like we I don’t know, my mission has always been to kind of improve the city. That’s like, recites mission. And it’s also part of manifestos mission, that we, we want to take a bad place and make it a lot better. So I love that people thought that was a bad location. In fact, there’s like two stories around this. People said, like, no way anyone will go to serve food. They’re like, it’s a bad location. Like, you can’t really have a restaurants or a market there. And now when I talk to people, like in the media or private partners, like, you know, other businesses, they say like, oh, manifestos, super cool. And it’s because of the great location, I just have to like laugh because everyone told me it was like a shit location, and they wouldn’t go there. And the other story was, like, people told me like, I couldn’t serve food there because the highway smelled too bad. And I was like, I don’t know what that means. Like, you know, I live in New York City, like we’re surrounded by highways, and like California, like, you know, you can serve food anywhere, basically. And then like two weeks after we opened my friend, one of my friends who told me that I couldn’t serve food there, he got stuck in traffic on the highway, like right next to where we are sort of like we’re down here. And then like, the highway is above, and so he’s stuck in traffic here, like almost every day. And so he said, like, you guys are geniuses in marketing, like you must be blowing the smells of meat at the highway because like, I’m sitting in my car and summer and I can smell steaks and like all I want to do is pull off the highway and have a beer and a steak. So now the smell of food is actually overcoming the highway. I love that because like, you know, it takes everyone mean, we didn’t actually blow the the smell of steak. Yeah, we should have but it’s just naturally that’s how it works. We’re influencing the highway versus the highway influencing us. So the only lesson is like if you believe in something you can listen to all the like the people haters, like the haters. Yeah, they’re gonna hate and you’ve just got to like plow through it. Thank you for you have like that deeper

31:25
mission or purpose that trumps everything?

31:27
Hmm. I think so. Yeah. It’d be a little bit stupid. And I think I’m a little bit stupid. So I think that’s what makes it work. Yeah. That’s awesome. Yeah, I’m stubborn Irish American. So it’s easy. Don’t look, I need to

31:39
be more like that. I think because I’m like Asian, I’m supposed to like listen to other people. But I gotta be more like individualistic. And

31:46
yeah, be a little bit more of an asshole you have to like just down you have to just be a little bit a little bit more pushy and a little bit more stubborn. I think sometimes, not always, like I generally like people, I don’t know, I try to be like really amenable and really like kind of people and everything. But I think sometimes you have to be a little bit stubborn and just kind of like put your head down and push through the push through the walls. I’m going back to the

32:12
question about funding. So the funding went into the land as well as the containers and the setup and everything right? Was it a lot? I guess it’s relative, but I don’t like a specific numbers, anything, just wondering how difficult that part was? And did friends and family cover everything? Or did you

32:29
get to get a lot more the seed funding, as we call it, like, initial like round of funding was like, we call it like equity funds, like they contributed money. And they became part of the company that was my friend, Mike and Vieira. And that was like, it’s like maybe 40,000 US dollars. So this is relatively small amount of money for an investor, but like it helped us get started. Because like, recite, couldn’t really fund this anymore. It was like going on for nine months or a year. And it wasn’t really our mission to become like a real estate developer. So I didn’t feel comfortable continuing to employ the team there. So that money like basically helped us get to the finish, like to the finish line, and like, you know, finish the architectural drawings and this kind of stuff. And like had one or two people to the team. And it lasted a few months, like our burn rate was pretty low. So it lasted like several months. And then it got us to the point where I could negotiate with like, a friend of a friend who’s also an investor locally, and he loaned us the rest of the money, basically. And then we got like, because we had that I was able to get MasterCard, as a partner, we had the design we had the site or the location, we had some funding and then MasterCard, kind of like they really love the project. Because what we didn’t mention is this is one of the first cash lyst projects and Europe were like you don’t spend cash though you can only use a credit card or digital payments, which is kind of controversial, particularly in California. But this is a future. So we decided like we take a big step and try it. And so MasterCard jumped on board as like a sponsor for this kind of this part of the business. And also they sponsor the cultural program. So we have like maybe five nights a week we have DJ films, live bands. And this was also supported by MasterCard, which is really cool.

33:59
The initial 40 grand covering the land or

34:02
no cover the team, okay didn’t cover land yet. He didn’t have that yet. No, we had we had the land. But in fact, it’s like, it’s almost gifted to us like, I have a partnership with the owner. And basically, we kind of promote them as the owners and like report, there’s a project that they will build in the future. And so we’re kind of helping them like promote that project and promote the land and they give us a really friendly rent. Yeah, so that’s like a really important model for like the startup of the project, but they also trusted it when they trusted that I could deliver it. Oh,

34:31
right. So it was a separate I guess I’m confused again. Are you owning land? Are you renting the land there?

34:38
We rent it from them. Okay, got it. Yeah, yeah, we rent the land from them.

34:42
God, okay. Yeah. Yeah, I was. I was curious. I mean, this is not as related, but just wondering how like, it works to own property and land in Prague. But,

34:53
yeah, we’ve considered buying apartments, but um, I don’t actually own land right now in Prague. That’s fair. So I can’t really comment. There’s a line owner. Yeah. Okay. It’s a little bit complicated as a foreigner, so it’s why it’s not so easy. Okay.

35:07
So in terms of the marketing for, for manifesto market, what was there one thing that really drove visitors? I think I read in your articles, 650,000 people in the first year?

35:18
Yeah. So we were open like six months, and 2018. We opened in June, and we closed and December and we had like, 650,000 people in the first six months now. It’s like about 800,000 people who got we’ve been open eight months now.

35:32
Was there a specific marketing campaign that like help

35:35
specific campaigns not so easy to answer, but we did. I think it’s not really a specific campaign. I think it’s the diversity of campaigns that we ran. So we we tried, like a lot, we didn’t try every channel, we didn’t work on every channel. But we kind of like tried to optimize the work. We’re doing Google like Google search was really important for us in SEO is really important for us, the work we did with TripAdvisor was kind of important, take a while to get started. But that’s important work. Instagram has been really good for us. Like utilizing Actually, we didn’t spend almost any money on advertising in the first year, we didn’t do any really paid campaigns or anything. Like maybe we promoted our Christmas market, because it was kind of like also a huge risk to do this kind of outdoor market in the winter. But um, and that was our most successful campaign we attracted like, I think there was like 18,000 event responses in 24 hours. In total, the campaign, even the unpaid campaign ran for three weeks, and we had something like 60,000 event responses and for like, this kind of event is pretty good being launched right? Before not buy a big agency, right? So yeah, so that those Actually, let’s say Facebook events are really important for us, because this is like offers a lot of organic reach. So one of our models is to have culture events almost every day, particularly when it’s warmer out. So we have DJ or bands or films. And we always host those on Facebook. And then that’s like a really easy way for people to share and understand what we’re doing. We’re not using like, as a user, I’m barely using Facebook anymore, because I don’t know why. It’s just like it’s growing less interesting. But somehow it works really well, for events, at least in this market. Still, Instagram has also been really successful for us, our stories tend to have a lot of traffic and new users. Okay. Yeah.

37:14
Okay, for manifesto market when you first have the vision, and then like when it first watch, and everyone came, like, how long was that

37:23
timeframe, probably 18 months. And that’s pretty fast. Yeah. And when we finally had like a project, like we had a design, and we had a partner, like we were ready to start moving, it was like, maybe six months. And it was kind of crazy. I remember, like, we didn’t even have all the money, like we didn’t have any way this just a seed investor that gave us the money for stuff. And I had already committed to building the container. So we showed up to the factory, and I like was on the hill standing over this, like huge field, and they had my containers in the field. And there’s like 30 of them. They’re like, half built, and I looked down, I was like, holy shit. Like, every can’t do this. Like, if I can’t find the money, like, I’m gonna be like, I’m going to stuffed these containers into my apartment, like, what am I going to do with this stuff? So that was like the moment of truth, like, I got really scared. And this is like two months before we opened, actually. And so I like we ran back to Prague, and I called like, you know, everyone I had been in touch with about potentially lending us money. And like, within two days, we have found the money and so we signed a deal. So it was still a huge risk, but at least like I was able to pay for them. I guess,

38:25
going off of that what was your biggest challenge in your journey? It could be from resale manifesto market, just like anything, what what has been your biggest challenge, the biggest

38:35
challenge for me is always like saying no to good opportunities, like, like now since we opened Manifesto, it’s been crazy. In the last eight months, we’ve had probably like 30 plus requests to build new markets, like around the world, not just around Europe. So we’re kind of like now taking those one by one. And every time I get a request, I’m like, wow, like, let’s build something in Bordeaux, or Paris or LA. So I get really excited by the new projects. And now so we’re now like crazily considering something. And Lisbon. Also in Bordeaux, like these are the most serious we’re taking. And we’re actually building the business model and everything for them. And we’re actually seeking investment for Lisbon right now. And China, which is also came to me like six months ago is crazy, because they were attracting investment for this one in Lisbon right now. And that’s pretty serious. I’m going to Bordeaux next week, because that’s also very serious, we’re going to consider building something there. And China, which came to me like six months ago, and it’s like totally crazy to go to China, we just opened this thing like eight months ago. But I believe we know what we’re doing. And in that case, they want us to build a different kind of projects. Like they want me to build a hospitality, like a hotel with this kind of food and beverage and culture component. And I think that’s a really good idea. Because I think we know we can know how to do that really well. What’s your

39:48
ultimate goal with everything? Yeah,

39:50
well, we want to I think we want to be like the number one brand in the world for pop up gastro environments, and also like, sort of alternative hospitality environments. So that’s my goal is to sort of like create new kinds of spaces for food and beverage, and also hospitality. I

40:04
feel like that’s like your life purpose.

40:07
No, I think my life purpose is to improve, improve people’s lives and with design and build, like cool experiences for people that makes their life better. So that’s my life purpose. And so we’re doing it now with these kind of these kind of projects.

40:21
Cool. Yeah. So are there any other projects you have coming up?

40:25
Yes, we were opening actually another manifesto market. So we’re working really hard on that right now. And it’s almost finished design. And we’re just going towards the fabrication of the containers now. So this will be a cool place that will be kind of like gastro beer garden. So like mostly beer with Pilsner accounts, like a famous check beer, and also a lot of food that goes with kind of beer. So it’d be kind of like a beer focus place, which is actually not my preferred drink of choice, but it’s locally really popular. So we want to kind of do this and surprise people with like, foreign cuisine. So check beer and international kind of beer food boys are going to be looking. It’s in the center of Prague again, but on the other side of the river. So in Prague five,

41:04
okay, cool. Yeah. So make sure to look out for that.

41:08
Yes, look out for that. And you should come to Prague and visit us.

41:10
Yes. Do you have like kind of last words or advice for people who might be interested in creating their own thing? In terms of I guess design is real estate and everything like what you’re doing?

41:23
Yeah, my parting words of advice, or don’t listen to anything I said. Because you’ll always be feeling like concerned and scared. No, I think like my my advice maybe would be if you really feel passionate about something then like, don’t take no for an answer ever. It sounds like a little bit cliche, but you’ll hear so many no’s and the process and people always tell you it’s impossible or they can’t do it and you have to find a way to do it. If you really feel passionately about it. Sometimes you just can’t like you might fail. That’s okay. I think you have to fail in order to find something new make mistake to learn right? So that’s kind of my parting word, I guess.

41:57
Awesome. Boy. I think this is super helpful for me and for like viewers and listeners out there. Hope so it’s really fun for me to is awesome. Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing your information, your knowledge and course. Thank you all. I think you’re awesome, too. So hope you guys enjoyed this episode. Please make sure to rate review and subscribe. It really helps our podcast grow. And thanks again. I’ll see you guys in the next one.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai