As a serial entrepreneur, Rob Stolker is a franchise and business owner, author, the Membership Chair at Entrepreneurs’ Organization, and proud Founder of Hummingbird Sports. His franchise, Bubbakoo’s Burritos, serves a unique interpretation of traditional Mexican cuisine while maintaining a welcoming atmosphere and fresh food quality.
Here’s a Glimpse of What You’ll Hear:
- Rob Stolker’s insights on innovating through Hummingbird Sports
- Signs you should turn your business into a franchise
- Rob shares important business lessons
- The differences between business and franchise management
In this episode…
In this episode of the SpotOn Series, Chad Franzen welcomes Rob Stolker, owner of Bubbakoo’s Burritos. They discuss the challenges of operating multiple businesses, knowing whether or not you should start a franchise, the top business goals you should keep in mind, and the importance of working in accordance with brand values. Rob also shares the difficult lessons he learned the most from during his entrepreneurial career.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
- Rob Stolker on LinkedIn
- Bubbakoo’s Burritos
- It’s A No-Brainer: An Entrepreneur’s Battle to Reduce Concussions in Girls’ Lacrosse
- Chad Franzen on LinkedIn
- SpotOn
- Rise25
Sponsor for this episode
SpotOn:
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Episode Transcript
Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Top Business Leaders Show, powered by Rise 25 Media, we featured top founders, executives and business leaders from all over the world
Chad Franzen 0:20
Chad Franzen here co-host for this show where we feature top restaurant tours investors and business leaders. This is part of our SpotOn Series.SpotOn has the best-in-class payment platform for retail. And they have a flagship solution called SpotOn Restaurant where they combine marketing software and payments all in one. They serve everyone from larger chains like Dairy Queen and subway to small mom-and-pop restaurants. To learn more, go to spot on.com This episode is brought to you by Rise 25. We help B2B businesses to get ROI clients referrals and strategic partnerships through done for you podcast. If you have a B2B business and want to build great relationships with clients, referrals and thought leaders in your space. There’s no better way to do it than through podcasts and content marketing. To learn more, go to rise25.com or email us at support@rise25media.com Rob Stolker is a true entrepreneur. He currently serves as membership chair for EO Entrepreneurs Organization in New Jersey. He is the founder and owner of Hummingbird Sports a female-focused athletic company and he created the first-ever girls lacrosse headgear. He has started and exited among others, a day trading company, a solar panel installation company and a real estate company. He’s currently a franchisee for Bubbakoo’s Burritos. A father of four four grown daughters and a great guy. Hey, Rob, thanks for joining me today. How are you?
Rob Stolker 1:37
I’m great. Thanks. Thanks for having me on chat.
Chad Franzen 1:41
Good. Hey, this show is mainly about restaurants. So we’ll focus on public who’s in a bit. But first, first, tell me what led you to create the first-ever girls Lacrosse headgear?
Rob Stolker 1:52
Yeah, it’s pretty simple. I as a kid, I love playing sports. I grew up in Philadelphia, playing basketball, soccer, I My dream was to hopefully have kids one day and have them play sports and be involved in sports. And I’m very fortunate. I have four daughters, very athletic. And it started now eight years ago, I was coaching them a basketball, soccer, all those sports I played. And my two youngest asked me to play lacrosse. And I said of course I I was excited and other sport. I put I went to the field, not knowing anything about it. And the boys were on one field and the girls were on the other and boys were wearing big hard helmets on their head and girls were on the other field wearing nothing. I just assumed from having four daughters and I have three older sisters to that it was just another example of the girls being underserved. Maybe their helmets hadn’t gotten there yet. And it was an example of that. But it was more that hey, the girls don’t wear helmets. They don’t need them. Now let’s get started. And that answer didn’t work for me then and eight years later, it still doesn’t work for me. I made the first certify that year ever. It’s my life’s mission to see the US lacrosse USA lacrosse the Governing Body lacrosse mandates that every girl in the country wears and it’s going to happen it’s just a matter of time.
Chad Franzen 3:09
Why were girls not wearing helmets.
Rob Stolker 3:11
It’s an old school every I thought I shouldn’t say every but other sports have gone through it. The NFL went through what the NFL went through the NHL. It’s only 50 years ago in our history that the NHL had to grandfather in helmets. Because there was resistance I always say if you went to a ski slope 15 years ago and went to a good skier with a helmet they would have looked at you and said get out of here I don’t like your helmet and now I don’t like you go find a kid I’m a good skier. I don’t need a helmet. Now go to a ski slope everybody’s wearing so like I said I thinking the first ever certified product that I had the first one on fields ever and now the state of Florida mandated others are gonna mandate it and eventually soon USA lacrosse the governing body is going to mandate
Chad Franzen 3:52
what makes girls lacrosse headgear different than you know boys lacrosse headgear.
Rob Stolker 3:56
Yeah. So I’ll show you real quick they put in a standard for soft headgear, so you can squeeze it to withstand serious impact, like hard head gear. So it has to be soft, and also withstand those impacts and we made some great partnerships. And I made all kinds of patented things a ponytail hair board here, and I’m a bird sports our company behind it. We are working on another model headgear, we never thought that our first model was gonna be our last model. We’re in this for the long haul and I’m excited to be leading this mission to get USA lacrosse the governing body of lacrosse. It’s a mandate that every girl in the country playing who’s registered under USA lacrosse wears.
Chad Franzen 4:37
So you mentioned Hummingbird Sports. You’re the founder and owner tell me about kind of what led to that and what it is.
Rob Stolker 4:43
Yeah, like I said, I we knew that girls as female athletes were underserved. We knew that products were being made for boys. And then as a secondary thing, the manufacturer saying you know what? We have pink good trinket, get it out there put it out for our girls. Filling the fields, courts. We know they’re underserved. We know there’s so many products and so many different sports that we want to make specifically designed for female athletes and if you look at it there’s not too many of us there’s not a companies who make products for girls, but their primary market and their primary conversations. Trust me are about the boys.
Chad Franzen 5:21
So is that a like a brick and mortar location? Now,
Rob Stolker 5:25
so we’re making products we made the first ever leather gloves for these girls, lacrosse players. The second thing I noticed was, girls were going like this. And I said, Why aren’t they wearing gloves? The boys were big, like hockey like lacrosse gloves to protect their hands and girls were wearing nothing. I said why the basically the point was, there’s a couple on the market, but they’re designed by those boys manufacturers. They don’t work for thin girls love. So we made the first ever please girls. And they’re you know, it’s it’s been great. So again, my Hummingbird Sports and leather gloves, gloves, they’re protective. The girls love them. And we have so many things in the pipeline we want to do for sure.
Chad Franzen 6:04
Hey, tell me about some of you. You’ve got all kinds of entrepreneurial experience. Tell me some of your past entrepreneurial experience. I don’t know. Maybe there’s a story that comes to mind as you think about your journey, you know, maybe an exit or a great failure. Maybe is there anything that comes to mind?
Rob Stolker 6:21
Yeah, so I wow, I, I’ll say the number one story I can tell is that from a young age, what’s made me I was never a student. I did not like school, at least the Lord. When I got a textbook, I instantly realized I had no chance of doing it. My attention span was very limited, but I always loved business. And I’m very fortunate that I was from a young age fortunate enough to make friends. And I always work with my friends. And I still work with my friends. So in Bubbakoo’s Burritos, my friend Wayne Jordan, who I’ve been friends with for 30 plus years. And my answer always is, why wouldn’t I want to work with a friend and I have worked with so many. And I’ve even so many relationships I have, whether it’s my interior padding, my friend, Shawn Springs, the number three pick in the ’97-’98 draft, one of the best college players ever, this is his technology, we have an unbelievable relationship. So I’ve always worked with my friends. And then my story would be in 2008, I moved into a new house, the house, the back of the house space directly south, just like my neighbor’s house. I didn’t know my neighbor at all. We talked for a very little bit and we both decided to put solar on our house. Next thing I knew people were coming to us saying put solar on my house. Within three months of knowing the guy, we were in the company and we’re doing lots of jobs. And next thing you know, there was a lot of money in the account and a lot of assets and he stole it all. Oh, and we were in court Monmouth County Court for 10 years, from 2009 to 2019. And I got a judgment against them. I write about it in my book and you can google Rob Stolker, Randy go over and read about the case but I got a judgment of $288,000 against them. But people who know a 10 year lawsuit know I spent double that and legal fees, and the time and energy wasted and the lesson that some people took from it was that’s why you don’t do business with friends. And my answer is No no, no, no, no, I’ve lived my whole life my family. We do business with friends. This was my one example that I did business with somebody who was not a friend was a neighbor moving in with a really good idea a good business idea. There was no trust there clearly no friendship whatsoever. And it was in the end my fault and my biggest lesson that said I need to stick with my friends and my friends and never let me now would never let me down and there are endless in business as well. And that is people have asked me what’s the secret and it’s just that step great friends who I always work with and connect with and we feed off each other do we argue of course but we you know, we always have a lot of love.
Chad Franzen 8:51
Shawn Springs cornerback, right?
Rob Stolker 8:53
Cornerback. Yep.
Chad Franzen 8:54
All right, and he played for Washington?
[continue to page 2]
Rob Stolker 8:58
Played for Washington long time. Yeah. So he founded a company when PAC technology’s amazing company Shawn is an amazing person his team is amazing. And I’m so proud to be partners with them but and his company and it comes from the two of us have a very similar passion and you know, being people always say or some people say nice people fitness last and that’s absolutely not true. It is you know, it’s we have similar passions and similar motivations and love our families and enjoy life and enjoy doing the right thing. And that’s what I know I’m doing with this headgear.
Chad Franzen 9:33
Yeah. You mentioned that you’ve written a book. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
Rob Stolker 9:37
Sure. It’s called It’s A No-Brainer. So one of the things that people like to do is give me quote unquote, advice and I always I talked to us have so many conversations and so whether it’s going on Shark Tank or something like that, and oh my god, that’s nice, but I’m not interested. One of the top thing was write a book, write a book, get all these girls stories. I met so many girls who one single ball to their head impacts them. her life. Some of the stories I tell in my book about how I met these girls, their families, what their families go through seven years later, I have one girl who has had eight medicated shots to the back of her neck. She was helicoptered often across from one stick to the head. And years and years later eat medicated shots to the back of her neck and none of her work. I grant evidence she’s doing great, but i She will talk about how much better she could and should be doing if it wasn’t for that one injury on the lacrosse field. So I put all those girls story science together, I was encouraged to put my personal story why it was me who went on this mission to create the first ever girls across idea and push it and get us across lacrosse to mandate. I know it was it was hard to do. But I also pulled some very personal stories, childhood stories, and I talked about this journey, which was not easy making this head year and pushing, you’re basically doing something that a lot of people inside that world did not like,
Chad Franzen 10:58
Where can people find your book.
Rob Stolker 11:00
So it’s on Amazon, it’s called It’s A No-Brainer, it’s $9.99 kept the price low. I the first 30 or 40 pages is my story I get a lot of feedback of, you know, I you know that I the way that I tell my story and what I went through, you know something and then I start to talk about making the headgear and the resistance and all the you know, girls stories and doctors and scientists and coaches who are all on board with the need to have us and across mandate. And
Chad Franzen 11:30
so for those not familiar with Bubbakoo’s, tell us when a customer can expect when they go to your location.
Rob Stolker 11:36
We love my partner Wayne joint and I love Bubbakoo’s Burritos. We loved it from the minute we we built it. My first experience was abaci steak. I just love it. It’s just quality of made well, you know, there’s so many proteins, chicken, shrimp, healthy options, brown rice, vegetables, everything is made fresh. You come in you order steak steak goes down on the grill right in front of you. It’s all made fresh. We just love it. We love the concept. We love the taste of the food, we love that it’s healthy. We also have priors, we have great desserts and stuff that’s good, not so healthy, but it tastes good. And you know who doesn’t love those things every once in a while. We just love the brand love the food and we’re so excited to be franchisees. And we have one open now and another one coming in a month and a third coming in about three months and more after that.
Chad Franzen 12:30
Wow, good for you. So what attracted you to becoming a franchisee? It’s one thing to enjoy the food. It’s another thing to want to just own one.
Rob Stolker 12:39
Yeah, I, you know, my patience level is very low. It’s one of the things I wrote about in my book, I have been with my wife since college and she’s the most patient person in the world. And I always say she has to be because she’s married to me, I am terribly terribly impatient. And other thing is I do have a thirst for learning. And I knew nothing about the franchise. Well, no different than I knew nothing about the helmet making world. But that’s what intrigues me the things is learning and and when it came to the franchise world, one of the things that we recognized quickly is that if we ask all the questions from the start the dumbest of the dumbest questions were which we did, and we start to learn we’re gonna get it, we’re gonna get it relatively quickly, we knew we would get in with a great brand, like we did with Bubbakoo’s Burritos. And now someone relatively quickly the doors are open, and we’re able to employ people, which we love to do, I’ve always loved employing people and you know, making a difference and installing our core values. Now, it’s very important to me always to instill core values. And in everybody, our employees and myself, I always, you know, every meeting we have starts with our core values. And we have a lot of employees now just for in one store. And already I can see the impact that we made and my team has made on a lot of lives.
Chad Franzen 14:04
What were the what were the early days, like? Had you had restaurant experience before? I know you said you hadn’t had franchise experience any restaurant experience before.
Rob Stolker 14:11
I had an plus restaurant experience. I love eating in restaurants, love it, love eating in restaurants, but on the other side of it I have zero. So I love restaurants. I love eating in restaurants. I love the dining experience. My family does I love picking my family out. And I you know I would have been a longtime that my partner and I were looking around getting a feel of what we’re interested in. Like I said we knew we wanted food we knew we wanted healthy food. You know, we knew we wanted a cool brand. And we we we know we got all
Chad Franzen 14:43
over the world in the early days like for you then kind of getting getting bubbled up and running.
Rob Stolker 14:49
Yeah, you know, it’s it’s challenging their channel, especially nowadays. There’s a lot of challenges. But like I said, I knew we had a great brand. I knew people We’re gonna call him I knew people love the food and love the atmosphere that we’ve created. And but there’s plenty of challenges opening a store and a million things that go into it. And, you know, the permit process. And there’s a lot to it, especially like I said, with there, there’s plenty of issues out there.
Chad Franzen 15:19
Did you find yourself working a lot of hours?
Rob Stolker 15:22
Absolutely, but, for me, I’ll always say this. And I know it’s a cliche. And for me, when I’m enjoying myself, it’s not where it’s not, it’s not at all work. So yeah, the first couple of weeks, we were in that store 16 hours a day, I would come home, I wouldn’t last 30 seconds in my house without falling somewhere. There’s a picture of me from our second day, just on the floor of our things sweeping and I just had a lot, I mean, my legs, I had no more in my legs. But like I said, when it comes back to impacting lives, and I know we’re doing good by a lot of people, and that, that makes it so much fun. All that tiredness. And
Chad Franzen 15:59
so when you with that experience, now that you have you have plans to open, you know, a couple more, are you gonna have to do that again? Or do you do you have kind of that down, and you can figure you figured out a way to avoid that?
Rob Stolker 16:11
Yeah, it’s not that I have to do it again, it’s that I can’t wait to do it. I mean, I can’t wait to do it again. And again, and again, and all over, I can’t wait, I can’t wait to go to our next door and annex territory and start from scratch and build up our team there. And you know, where we already are talking about, you know, obviously bring in some team members over phenomenon first, and giving them an opportunity to live out their dream, and that’s part of what we are doing here is, you know, creating a path for people to live out their dreams. And as a leader, that means everything.
Chad Franzen 16:48
Good for you, hey, are there any major differences between opening a restaurant or, you know, a restaurant franchise, like Bubbakoo’ss, and maybe some of the other, you know, entrepreneurial endeavors you’ve started?
Rob Stolker 16:59
Absolutely. So there’s a different, the challenges are different. And the way that I think in everything we’re doing is different. And that’s what I love is the the adaptability to doing something new. And like I said that figuring it out part, that’s the fun for me, that’s not the frustration, that’s that’s the fun is like we’re going to figure this out. But that path and that journey to figure it out. That’s, that’s what gets me going every day. That’s, that’s when I wake up and I just get right back into that mode of what I need to figure out that day. That’s, you know, that’s my personality, I, one of the things that I talked about is when I was a kid, my grandmother, when she would look at my report cards and tell me, you know, you’re very smart, you know, young boy, if you apply yourself and really apply yourself, you could be a doctor. And now even if you don’t do so great, you could be a lawyer and accountant. And I would always look at her and say I don’t want to be any of those things. And not there’s anything wrong with that. It’s great. But you know, I always love being an entrepreneur, I wanted to be an entrepreneur from a young age, and to be able to now speak to kids and go to schools and speak to kids about my journey and things that I’ve done in life as somebody who was not a good student, and just thinking differently, and, you know, I just, I My goal is always just impact as many lives as I can whether it’s taking the first step of girls across Hegyi or opening up doors for an awesome brand and store like Bubbakoo’s Burritos
Chad Franzen 18:40
How has COVID affected operations at Bubbakoo’s? If it has?
Rob Stolker 18:45
Yeah, so, you know, for us, we opened our first words a month ago. So now and we’re in New Jersey, and you know, I don’t really get involved in the COVID talk anymore, but what I see is a ton of happy people coming in our store dining in the restaurant, people are living their lives, I see kids back out living their lives. One of the things that I always say about COVID is I have four young adult daughters years when I knew they wanted to get out and live their lives and for me I’ve had people ask me what was the most painful parts that has nothing to do with business it’s my kids was watching my kids college high school age not you know living to me the life that they you know that you all know hope they live so they now see it in my restaurant. See these kids coming in and all sitting together and enjoying the great food together. That’s that’s the fun fun.
Chad Franzen 19:41
So you mentioned you have some goals with Bubbakoo’s tell me more about those and maybe other future entrepreneurial goals if you’ve if any have crossed your mind.
Rob Stolker 19:49
Yeah, so I you know, I have two main goals at this point. And one is like I said for USA lacrosse to mandate head year that day is kind I mean when that day comes I my biggest fears as an entrepreneur is what is what that next day looks like. And so Bubbakoo’s Burritos is here and I love the brand like I said I love the food I love everything I love their their team that they have in place and I would love nothing more than for USA lacrosse to mandate head gear ASAP and for my great friend Wayne Jordan and I to spend however many years we have building Bubbakoo’s Burritos impacting lives hiring people and you know really feeling fulfilled in so many different ways.
Chad Franzen 20:40
Great, great. Hey, how can people find out more information about everything that you have going on specifically but because
Rob Stolker 20:46
yeah, so Bubbakoo’s Burritos is a great site bubbakoosburritos.com They have a great app to use if you want to order where our first store is in Hazlet New Jersey our second one will be in avenel New Jersey and I think this might be the first time that we’re announcing it but we signed the lease within the last 24 hours for location in Troy New York and an area that I know very well and have a lot of really good friends in and so we’re just starting out here we want to open up a lot of stores and like I said hire out of people promote a lot of people from within let people watch people live out their dreams and the other thing I always say is for me I almost feel selfish in saying all that because it does make me feel good to impact lives and to to lead people to living out their dreams.
Chad Franzen 21:37
What about anything else like Hummingbird can people find it? Where can people find out more about
Rob Stolker 21:41
sports.com But more importantly, there’s a brain safety Alliance www dot brain safety alliance.com that has all the science girl stories go to go to those girls stories watch Sofia’s two minute video under my concussion stories what she’s been through what her family has been through watching her go through from one accidental stick to the head. And then my website is www dot Rob’s Volker or OB s t o l k er.com And you’ll see right on the cover a picture of me holding mag gear and they say My mission is to get USA lacrosse to mandate hedging. I don’t shy away from that. If you Google my name and you know the press has been amazing in that way. But that’s my mission and once they mandate as far as I’m concerned that mission is done and it’ll be back to building these Bubbakoo’s Burritos and who knows what from
Chad Franzen 22:32
what’s your go to item at Bubbakoo’s?
Rob Stolker 22:35
So yeah, the hamachi steak is is great. I do like that but mine is I love chicken, chicken and rice and there’s so many different sauces that great Nashville hot sauce depends when I’m in the mood for great buffalo sauce. There’s quality Parmesan sauce that I like great shredded chicken, shredded pork, there’s just so many different options to choose from. And that’s really what I love about it. Is that it whatever. In a minute, I’m ready to eat and I Yes, I people asked me I do eat there four times a day, five times a day. Because I just love the food. But whenever I’m in the mood for it for that second sometimes sometimes it’s spicy, sometimes it’s deserting, sometimes healthy, sometimes not so healthy. So it’s that’s the great thing about it. Lots of choices and lots of great options.
Chad Franzen 23:22
Sounds great. Hey, Rob, it’s been great talking to you today. Thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it.
Rob Stolker 23:26
You too. Thank you for having me on chat. You’re great away though. It’s, it’s, it’s fun to watch. I’ve watched your videos and I keep doing what you do.
Chad Franzen 23:35
Thank you. Thank you so much for the great talking to you. So well everybody.
Outro 23:38
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