>> coming up on your business, i visit the international franchise show where food trucks like these are becoming big business. we head down to virginia where an incubator like company is cashing in on this industry by providing food truck owners with everything they need. we meet two companies to ask them how they navigate mixing love with business and talk to the chairwoman of the international franchise association about what you need to know if you want to franchise your company, go fast, go far, work smarter.

coming up on "your business". >> "your business" is sponsored by american express open helping you get business done. hi everyone. welcome to "your business" the show dedicated to helping your growing business. how many of you love a good food truck? the meals have come a long way. you no longer have to settle for hot dogs or pretzels with hungry couple lines up two virginia business owners have made food trucks their lives, not omtheir own they have started a company to help others. the strategy has been so successful that many food truck owners are now rolling in the dough. >> our entire approach to growth is problem solving. growth is painful and uncomfortable. >> these two know it can be

scary to expand your company. >> when you start your business you're taking a huge risk. everything we've done has been in response to trying to solve our problem. >> the owners of east coast business launch pad in virginia are so focus odd the success of their clients they've made business decisions to support them. >> one is to make it easier to run a food truck so more people can get in the business and two now we're focussing on helping people's skills. >> this company has transformed to a one-stop shop that keeps these restaurants on wheels rolling around washington d.c., maryland and virginia. >> food trucks are like their own attraction now. we believe you don't need the brick and mortar to make the money. it's not a location-based business. that's the point.

that means your rent is cheap and no seating. >> he started his first business after buying a truck in texas and it was awful. >> i brought it back to virginia, i had to rebuild it so i wouldn't die in it and then i was like i can't be the only person with this problem. i said, if this guy can build food trucks, i can build food trucks. i kranched the numbers and it worked. >> both men loved food and it worked in many different conditions. it's that expertise that they're sharing with customers that are buying their first, second and p even third trucks. >> you have to understand what it takes to put together a dish to understand what equipment you need and how it needs to be laid out. >> we know how to value the risk, assess the risk. >> east coast has transformed the food industry by offer more and more services. the expansion was listening to

customers and their needs. the pair saw opportunities they couldn't refuse. >> we're set up to serve the widest range of people that want to start a food struck. our services, you can take them or leave them. >> east coast takes its customers through every step of the process, sources trucks, customizes kitchens, arranges branding. they even offer advice about what food to sell. >> make sure the menu makes some sense to people because otherwise they're not going to order it. >> there is now a second location in washington d.c. the pair has financed some of their equipment by using their own profits. >> most people can't come up with 60 or $70,000. we were seeing people who had good concepts and who would be successful if they had the financing and we wanted the

sale. we then had to figure out how to get the sale. and if we can help them bridge the gap to get a truck, we know they'll pay us back. >> the financing then helps us to develop a revenue straem where we have guaranteed monthly money coming in. >> now that they have so many customers on the road, locally, nationally and even globally, they want to make sure they can keep trucking. >> we want our customers to succeed. before we were putting our own money and investing in this, why because they'll open another food truck. >> most people don't know it but they have food trucks of their own. >> one of the thing that is makes us successful business is we're transparent and honest with people. >> it aallows them to stay on top of trends. >> when i opened my food truck, none of that was available.

i made all the mistakes, burned all kinds of money on the wrong things because you don't know which problem to solve. >> people trust they're in good hands. their questions are getting answered and they're getting good advice. >> he helps translate it down. >> these guys do plenty already, but all the work doesn't pail in comparison to their future goals. >> our big picture is to reply indicate the autoindustry, have service centers in major urban areas around the company. where we sell food truck builds, demo. >> it may be a lot to some, but they've made this their mission. they thoroughly enjoy being by their customers' sides every step of the way. >> we have their back. they're not alone in starting the business. we want our customers to feel

like we're their partner in the endeavor. >> food as we just saw is a real passion for a lot of people. and that love spawns many businesses. but what happens when you take your love for food and business and mix it with your love for your partner? we talk to two couples to find out. >>. >> reporter: this couple has been flipping over good old fashioned flapjacks before they said i do. >> everyone has eaten a pancake in their lifetime. so we want to rely on everyone's personal experience with pancakes. we started this business right out of college. >> six years ago, these two 20-somethings, fresh out of college griddled up their all american, organic waffle pancakes. a business born out of a simple

idea. >> the initial idea came about when i woke up one morning. i wanted pan kaks but didn't want the hassle of making pancakes. >> they said it took 99 taste tests to settle on their recipe which only requires water. >> we wanted to make the best pancake experience with the least possible work. >> i had the feeling we were onto something because there wasn't anything like that. i believed from the bottom of my heart that this would work, but it took a while. >> we would go to the stores and on do two a day demows. and we did it every day for the year. >> the business taking a bit out of the industry that serves up more than 2 million people a year. >> we have different types. we have chocolate chip, original, butter milk.

>> it's rewarding to see how far it's come. >> pillow talk is a lot of pancake talk. >> talking of mixing business and pleasure, there's plenty of sweet talk between this california couple. four years ago they quit their jobs in toys and tech and started sugar fee na. the story has followed our love story and it really sprouted out of our third date. he took me to willy wonka and the chocolate factory. even though candy for grown ups seems obvious, it hasn't been done before. >> when we started sugar f-i-n-a-we thought it was going to be a hobby and the response has been amazing. i think people got it. >> last year their rose infused

gummy bears made a flasplash. >> we're lucky we have a working relationship, row si gets to do the creative packaging and design, i get to do the boaring things. >> he's good at the boaring things. >> i think we're constantly on a sugar high. that helps our relationship. >> and that has translated squarely to success. >> we know how lucky we are we get to spend every day together and travel and experiment and find new candies. it's an amazing experience. >> we're happy to have with us an incredibly successful sberp neurowho's a philanthropist. his rags to riches is being expressed in a documentary. john paul is with us.

thank you so much for joining us today. >> my pleasure. it's nice to be here. >> thank you very much. >> i wish we could talk with you the whole day but we can see the documentary to see your whole story. you've been so successful in your life. i would love to hear from someone who's so successful about the time you felt the need to give this up. did that ever happen to you? was it ever so hard you thought, i can't do it. >> so many times. with john paul mitchell systems because we started with $700, every day for two years we should have gone bankrupt. it was tough. it was hand to mouth. and very difficult. we were like why are we doing this? i better go to work for somebody. i can't pay the bills, sleep at night. that happened many times. but deep inside it was i know what we have is the greatest

product for hair. i know if we keep on talking about it to enough people and they try it they'll reorder it. and after two years, which was a big movement for us, after two years we were able to pay our bills on time and we may have $2,000 each left. now since that time are there ups and downs, of course, there were. you have to realize during those times don't take your minds off the goal. you go like a river, you go around the problems. many times people pay attention to the trivia, and then you learn after a while, pay attention to the vital few, not the trivial many. >> do you think this is your personality, a go getter and optimist and you're ambitious or is there something you did in the middle of the night when you were at 2:00 in the morning worried. >> when i was up at 2:00 in the

morning worried that didn't help any, the bills were still there. but after a couple years, i started writing before i went to bed, the challenges down, write them all down on a piece of paper instead of thinking of them all night long, i put them in the bathroom so when i got up in the morning you do what you do, it's still there, i can read every problem i have, i didn't have to think about it anymore. and believe it or not that helped in the years to come. >> i do believe it. i believe all the things you can do to help yourself get through the days and challenges. every successfully person i have interviewed has this same attitude, i dreamed ridiculously big and when someone didn't agree with me, i didn't listen to them, i think that's where a lot of people get stuck. >> they do. >> they think their dreams are too large and so they don't let themselves believe them. >> that's correct or if they

have an original dream like ours was, if we can only do $5 million a year, we'd make 250,000 each and we're set for life. when we got there, we learned we could do much better. and we thought for sure we'll do 100,000 cases a year and it would be no problem. but we did in the millions. i know they sold one particular at the keel ya company, a billion dollar it sold for. >> they do 120,000 cases a year. pa tron does over a million cases. more money to help the world with, ya. >> we don't have-to-time to get into that bb you're such an inspiring story and i appreciate you coming by. i encourage everyone to read the book and watch the documentary.

>> the american dream is still alive. keep your eye on that goal. there's going to be a lot of things along the way that will discourage you. as long as you know there's rejection coming it doesn't hurt you as much. >> you are the example, homeless to this. thank you very much. >> you're very welcome. thank you. >> it makes it a lot harder to be a good leader if you don't put some focus on your own health and well being. >> get a good night sleep, lack of sleep can reduce your focus and limit high brain function. get six to eight hours a night achieve peak performance. two work on your eating habits. our food is our body's fuel. put bad stuff in, get bad stuff out. wholesome male meals give you stable energy zb.

>> get out and exercise. exercise reduces stress, fights depression, improves your confidence and boosts your creativity. all of which makes you a better leader. four, make time to med date med the at a time. >> and five, read. reading has a direct impact on your emotional awareness. read everything from news to self-help books to stay balanced and well informed. i recently stopped by the international franchise expo in new york city where companies were wooing potential franchisers. maybe your company has what it takes to be the next edible arrangements, but where do you

start? we asked her to give us the nitty-gritty of what you need to do if you want to franchise your business. >> i think from a franchiser perspective, people need to know they have a solid business model. ideally they've done it once and reply indicated it a second or third time to know it wasn't luck. and then knowing it was something needed by a consumer on a national scale that is not a local or regional fad. and then there's skill sets they might not have that they have to supplement with their own education and building a team. >> what are the mistakes people make? i know people that say i have a great company and want to franchise it. >> i think there's a few. i think one are not properly capita liezed. like building a house it will be

done faster and cost less than it will actually. and the second is they underestimate the skill sets of the franchise sees have coming in and what they need to provide in terms of training. for example, we have robust training programs for our franchise es. multiple weeks. but we realize most of our franchisees have never look at a profit and loss statement so we had to teach them that critical come po independent. >> you need to put a lot of money aside for training that is it. >> absolutely. that's our only intersection, i send one or two of my people out to their location to refine the model but in terms of having access to my entire team and myself. i get to do that in the entire training process. >> do you suggest you have a company-owned franchise. >> i think that's critical. i don't know how you train for

something you haven't done. >> is everything before you franchise, was everything buttoned up? >> i think for us it was very buttoned up. i think was everything written down, i think there's things as you do the business for a few years you might assume it's known. so you're fine tuning to make sure everything is written down. i think that's critical. >> what's the biggest mistake people make in getting franchisees. >> i think it's they're anxious to grow the brands so they don't have the standard and needs they will evolve to. but i think there's multidifferent criteria. they need a certain amount of money, a certain skill set, whether they're going to be in an operations roll or sales role, whatever that's going to look like for them. and then, have they led people? in our organization once the franchisee gets to a large scale

they may have direct or indirect employees of 400. someone who hasn't managed white collar and blue collar laborer when used profiling tools so that we could see who made great franchisees and were happy and who were underperforming franchisees. >> as you grow it's great to use data. thank you so much. i really appreciate -- congratulations on the growth of your company, of this organization. it's really -- it's been great talking to you. >> thank you. my pleasure. >> and everyone stick around because coming up on "your business" we talk to our brain trust about should you mr. an app for your company and if you do how do you get people to download it? so that's the idea. what do you think? hate to play devil's advocate but... i kind of feel like it's a game changer.

i wouldn't go that far. are you there? he's probably on mute. yeah... gary won't like it. why? because he's gary. (phone ringing) what? keep going! yeah... (laughs) (voice on phone) it's not millennial enough. there are a lot of ways to say no. thank you so much. thank you! so we're doing it. yes! start saying yes to your company's best ideas. let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. how does a founder/ceo go from selling enterprise software at a prototype level to being able to license it out at a large scale in two years? >> so we want to take our software that's like in a prototype and we want to sell it and license it out to larger companies. you can do this. this happens all the time. some advice for you, first of all, in the world of business it's all about connections.

you need to see who you are connected to, if you are going to be doing business with some larger software company go through your linkedin connections, ask your friends, see if there is some type of referral, human interaction that you can get, somebody that you know or somebody knows because in business you have to trust these people and hope they are not going to steal your idea. filing for a patent or talking to a patent attorney to make sure your intellectual property is protected that is something you should do before you talk to be is on the outside. if you don't know anybody or you're really not sure, go on to a site like linkedin, search for people in your industry that have the title of business development, business development people at corporations, those are the people tasked with doing deals, doing development arrangements, doing partnerships, that's your first entry in to talking to somebody about the product that you want to sell or license to them. when you are making big decisions for your company or the group that you're leading you need a brain trust, people

you can be honest with and get their feedback. today we have in our segment chris meyers who is the co-founder and ceo of bode tree, a financial services company which works with a million is it -- >> yeah, about a million small businesses. >> a million small businesses. and we have melinda nicki, how long ago did you start your company. >> two and a half years ago. >> you've grown so much. congratulations to you. >> thank you. >> it's a platform for expecting and new moms. all right. you have an app, you have to get people to download things. i find when i talk to people it is nearly impossible to get people to download an app. they may love your company, but to actually download an app is a lot, it is a big ask. so how do you get people to do it and should you have an app? >> well, there was a question we thought long and hard about, but actually our users were asking for an app. so i think moms and pregnant women and our target audience are we app orientated, they like to have the app on their home

screen open it up and do something. lots of people download but not everybody completes it. it's the install that's the most important thing. that first activation when they download t they put it in their phone and then it's signing up, putting in their details and you're asking a lot from them to do that. so really -- you really have to sell the benefits early on so that they understand exactly what they're going to get by giving you that information. so it's that whole model of like i'm going to give you this information, but here is what i'm going to give you in return. so you've got to make sure that that is a good kind of transaction with them spending the time, taking the effort to do it and then also giving them back something but making sure that the consumer understands exactly what they're going to get or that energy or effort they put it in. >> due to that we went the opposite direction. we don't have a mobile app. >> you just have a mobile site. >> the reason is when we were

thinking through all those things you talked about ultimately we realized there was too much there in our system and, you know, because we're dealing with numbers and financial management to put into an actual phone app. that's been kind of a tough choice because a lot of people say we really want an app, we want to move in that direction, but we have had to really hold the line and say, guys, it doesn't lend itself to that model. >> and you already have their attention, right? they already can open their browser. >> exactly. >> on their phone and get to your site. that's an easier ask than getting them to download and install your app. >> so we have both. sorry, chris. we have both. we have nearly 600,000 people who signed up to get their e-mails from us. so they're getting their content and they're come back to the site, to the mobile site and website, but we only have 25,000 on our app, which is really interesting. >> and -- >> actually the app users are very, very engaged. >> right.

>> they are probably the most engaged because they've invested so much into, you know, down loading the app, installing it, it's taking up a little space on their phone, might be taking up their memory so that's a big investment. once you have them and you are delivering on that those people are your big advocates and that's what we've found as well. those are the people that will go and tell their friends about us, that will use us every single day and we have really good engagement from those people. >> we actually adopted more of a push model for people. so instead of saying, hey, you should download this app and here is how you can engage and get all that information we just said, look, we are going to push the relevant information to you directly to drive that engagement. >> got it. so in an e-mail. >> e-mail, text messages, that sort of thing. >> i see. and when you are trying to make this decision between an app or a mobile site, do you feel like you can launch your app with an mvp as you would a normal product or no, because -- no?

>> so i think it has to be -- mvp has to be kind of well thought through. >> right. >> i think it has to be a minimal valuable product. >> great. thank you. very good discussion. thanks both of you. >> thank you. what really helped us make the leap was we reduced our customer base from 230 down to 8 and we did this basically in year two when we went through what's called an 80/20 process and got rid of customers that were not profitable and freed up capacity. >> the biggest reason we've grown the last few months is the owning of our schengen office. having access to 850 million customers in china has allowed us to grow at over 200% in the last three months. >> a couple years into our business life we discovered that everything we're doing is vendor driven and so everything is based on referrals. vendors, manufacturers and our customers like things that are simple and reliable.

we've been very fortunate that 62% of our business last year, the new contracts, was actually repeat business from existing customers. >> to grow our small business what we did was we try to outsource people before we bring someone in because it's more flexible for us and as a business that has tight resources while you're growing, that always seemed to be helpful. this week's your biz selfie comes from ed roth who owns stencil one in brooklyn, new york. that's where i live. it creates logos, stencil clothing and supplies. ed is an artist and graphic designer. it is so fantastic to see these companies from around the country. send in your selfie to your busines business@msnbc.com. or tweet it. include your name, the name of your business and location and do not forget to use t the #yourbizselfie. i hope you enjoyed the show

today. thank you for joining us. we would love to hear from you. if you have any questions, any comments e-mail us at yourbusiness@msnbc.com. also head over to our website, we put up all the segments from today's show plus a lot more for you. don't forget to connect with us on our social media platforms as well. we look forward to seeing you next time. until then i'm jj ramberg and remember, we make your business our business. thank you so much. thank you! so we're a go? yes! we got a yes! what does that mean for purchasing? purchase. let's do this. got it. book the flights! hai! si! si! ya! ya! ya! what does that mean for us? we can get stuff. what's it mean for shipping? ship the goods. you're a go! you got the green light. that means go! oh, yeah.

start saying yes to your company's best ideas. we're gonna hit our launch date! (scream) thank you! goodbye! let us help with money and know-how, so you can get business done. american express open. ♪ good morning and welcome to "politics nation." we often speak of injustice in our nation's criminal justice system. now that spotlight is focused on a new york teenager, recognized as an honor student, his cry of innocence from infamous rikers island has inspired the kennedy family to help. that's later in the show. >> in other news, outrage, real outrage this morning over the president's comments to the