Daniel Driggs – a recipe for entrepreneurial excellence

NOTES

Daniel Driggs on LinkedIn

Crisp Catering Website: CaterCrisp.com

Crisp Catering on Instagram

Book Recommendations:

• Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins to learn about mental toughness and what humans can achieve.
• Endurance by Alfred Lansing chronicles Ernest Shackleton’s disastrous but ultimately successful Antarctic expedition. As Daniel explains, the hardships Shackleton faced mirror those business owners experienced – if you feel you could endure what he did, you have what it takes to own a business.

SUMMARY

In the “Maker Manager Money” podcast hosted by Kyle Knowles, Daniel Driggs, the founder of Crisp Catering, shares the story of his entrepreneurial journey and the core principles behind his successful catering business. Driggs founded Crisp Catering alongside his wife Abby, inspired by the birth of their first child and a shared vision to create the world’s best catering company. The concept was born out of Daniel’s frustration with the subpar food typically served at wedding receptions, leading him to envision a service offering fresh, diverse, and delicious catering options.

Crisp Catering has since seen meteoric growth, catering to over 1200 events across more than 200 locations in Utah. The business is built on six core values: honesty, care, hard work, kindness, a hunger for improvement, and a focus on others. These values are not just slogans but integral to the company’s operations, deeply influencing hiring, promotions, and daily interactions. Every employee commits to these values, creating a culture of trust and excellence that is essential for handling significant events like weddings.

Daniel emphasizes the importance of trust in his team, given the high-stakes nature of catering significant life events. This trust is cultivated through a rigorous commitment to the company’s core values and a culture that rewards understanding and embodying these principles. Employees are regularly reviewed against these values to ensure they align with the company’s mission and the quality of service expected.

Marketing strategies played a crucial role in Crisp Catering’s rapid expansion. Unlike traditional catering companies that often grow through word-of-mouth and the reputation of a single excellent cook, Crisp leveraged Daniel’s sales and marketing background. Focusing initially on a few excellent products, they used aggressive marketing tactics to scale quickly. Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and Google ads were instrumental in this growth, allowing Crisp to reach a wider audience faster than traditional methods would allow.

The company’s adaptability was particularly evident during the COVID-19 pandemic, where instead of scaling back, they innovated with concepts like drive-through weddings. This willingness to adapt and take on challenges head-on significantly contributed to their success and ability to weather difficult times.

Daniel’s entrepreneurial spirit is rooted in his youth, from avoiding construction work to starting a curb painting business at 12. His journey is marked by a continuous drive to find better ways to work and live, a trait that clearly feeds into his current business ethos. He maintains that a blend of creating (making), managing, and doing is essential for any successful entrepreneur, especially in the startup phase, where roles can change daily.

Daniel aims to focus more on the ‘maker’ aspect for the future, driving Crisp’s vision and direction while empowering his team to manage and execute day-to-day operations. This approach is about setting up systems, delegating effectively, and ensuring clear communication across all levels of the business. Tools like Google Drive and detailed checklists for each event help maintain order and ensure that nothing is missed, a crucial factor in the catering business where even a small oversight can lead to significant issues.

In conclusion, Daniel Driggs’ story on the “Maker Manager Money” podcast is a compelling tale of entrepreneurial vision, commitment to core values, and innovative marketing strategies, all set against the backdrop of the dynamic catering industry. His journey from a door-to-door salesman to the owner of a thriving catering business is an inspiring example of how adaptability, a solid value system, and a clear understanding of one’s role in a business can lead to significant success​​.

Kyle Knowles:
Hello there. Welcome to the Maker Manager Money podcast, a podcast about entrepreneurs, solopreneurs, founders, business owners, and business partnerships from startups to stay ups, to inspire entrepreneurs to keep going, and future entrepreneurs to just start. My name is Kyle Knowles, and it’s a Wednesday evening at Kiln Lehigh. Kiln is killing it in the co-working space. They are the goat, they are the LeBron James of co-working communities. Today’s guest is Daniel Driggs. Daniel is the founder of Crisp Catering. The Birth of Crisp Catering coincided with the birth of his first child. While celebrating this joyous occasion in the hospital, Daniel, alongside his wife, Abby, envisioned creating the world’s best catering company.
This idea spring from Daniel’s frustrations about the lackluster and often uninspired food served at wedding receptions. Daniel saw an opportunity to revolutionize this by offering freshly prepared, diverse and delicious catering options. Since that epiphany, Crisp Catering has experienced meteoric growth catering to over 1,200 events across more than 200 locations in Utah. Daniel and Abby have remained a formidable team throughout this journey, embodying the core values that make Crisp Catering stand out, honesty, care, hard work, kindness, a hunger for improvement, and a focus on others. Before founding Crisp Catering in 2021, Daniel honed his skills and understanding of the industry as the catering manager for Thirst Drinks. Daniel earned a bachelor’s degree in English from Utah Valley University. Welcome to the Maker Manager Money Podcast, Daniel.

Daniel Driggs:
Thank you and thank you for having me. I love this and this is so cool. It’s been fun to get to know you. It’s been fun to, and I’m excited to keep getting to know you through this podcast. So thank you for having us here. For having me here.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, thanks so much for being here. I just wanted to say that the past two guests are such a great segue to your episode because last week I was sitting across from Scott Robbins, who is the founder of Aspen Press, and he’s worked hard his whole life, and I know this is one of your core values, but it’s an episode where it’s actually entitled, Get Off Your Butt and Do It, because that’s what his dad used to say to him all the time. And he says it now. Scott says it now. And the week before that, I was in Seattle sitting across from Leshawn Smith, who literally wrote the book on values-based business design. And so it’s amazing that you have these, when I read your six values, I was like, wow, I just went through this whole exercise in that book to establish values even for myself and for what I’m doing with this podcast. So I love the fact that you’ve sat down and let’s just start there. How did you come up with the values for Crisp Catering?

Daniel Driggs:
It’s very interesting. So we base our whole company on a couple different promises. So the core values is what I am looking for in employees, and they promise in their interview and they promise in promotion meetings and anything like that, that they will live these six core values. And that was important to me because I need to be able to trust these people. I need to be able to trust them with weddings and with events and some of the biggest days in people’s lives. And so for me it was, it’s the first and most important thing is understanding what kind of culture we’re trying to bring, the people we’re trying to bring, the service we’re trying to bring.
And every hiring, firing, promotion has always been based on these six things. And I didn’t care to make them pretty or fancy or add all the flour because no one remembers it. We’re honest, we care. We work hard, we are hungry to improve. That’s the only one I added a little bit of love too because it’s funny, we’re a catering company and it’s hungry to improve. We’re kind always, that’s important to me because, and especially important in catering because we are dealing with a very high stress situation and a really high stress bride or mother of the bride. And now I’m forgetting the last one. Now, the last core values, I don’t remember where I-

Kyle Knowles:
Let’s see.

Daniel Driggs:
Focus on others. There we go.

Kyle Knowles:
Focus on others.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. And in catering, there’s so many moving parts. It’s the only employees I wanted to work with, the people I wanted to surround myself with are people who can put others before themselves. They’re not the ones when we’re unloading a van filled with tons of food and coolers that are hundreds of pounds and things like that. They’re not the ones that are just grabbing the menu and walking it inside pretending they can’t get anything else, and then leaving the rest of their team to grab these coolers and these really heavy annoying to grab things that fill our van or that we need for the event.
And so those six things are primarily employee focused because those are the people or that’s the person I want to be first off. And I hold myself to these standards and I look at myself in those six categories. And if I’m not being honest or if I am not caring, if I don’t care about someone’s event, if someone was mean or whatever it is, and I just am like, I can’t even, I don’t care about what’s serving you, I cancel their event because I can’t, it’s too stressful for me to not live by those core values myself. And I expect my team to live by those. I expect my team to follow those. And again, every hiring, firing and promotion is based on those six things.

Kyle Knowles:
So when you do employee reviews, do you actually walk through the floor?

Daniel Driggs:
Every time. Every time we go through those six things.

Kyle Knowles:
You go through those six core values?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. Every training, we go through those six. And it’s a little different because I only see my employees once either at events and we’re running crazy or at these trainings or other things. But it’s funny because now that I don’t go to every single event, there’s employees that I don’t know that have these memorized and it’s so fun because we give rewards for those that memorize these six things because it’s been such a key part of our business, and it’s 90% of the reason why I trust my team to handle these weddings and handle these events. And as their thinking about those six things we care, we’re kind always. When those things pop up, when things get stressful or when crap hits the fan, in those moments, that’s when I’m hoping those six ideals and six values pop up. And what’s so cool is my team knows that and they know I care about that.
And if someone comes to me with a, I want a promotion, I want to raise whatever, I go back to one of those six things. If they’re short on one, if they’re sometimes mean, if they sometimes at events don’t have a smile throughout the event or seem grumpy at events or sit on their phone or whatever it is, it’s like, this is why. And we walk it back based on the core value, not on what they’re doing or anything like that. Because if they care, they’re trying, they’re working hard, then all of those things sort themselves out.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay. And then how did you come up with six then? What was the thought process of six? And I know your logo is hexagon.

Daniel Driggs:
Our logo is a hexagon. That’s six, right? I think it is.

Kyle Knowles:
I was going, octagon. Let’s see, that’s eight.

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah, it’s six. It’s a hexagon. If it’s not, we can get-

Kyle Knowles:
I did English, not math. Okay.

Daniel Driggs:
That’s where I’m at. I’m an English major. Thank you for reading that. So we know. No, so it was, yes, it’s the six sides of the hexagon. And initially I knew I wanted between four and six core values, and we already had a really cool logo. That was one of the first things we made and we liked. And what’s interesting about branding, and this is why the logos the way it is, it’s a C with a hexagon in it is as a caterer, I can’t brand a color. If I’m bright purple at someone’s wedding, they’re going to kill me because-

Kyle Knowles:
Unless they chose purple.

Daniel Driggs:
Unless they chose purple, and that’s one non [inaudible 00:09:35]. And so it’s hard. So you can’t clash. And so you have to be, typically it’s black and white. Some companies have green, some companies have, but I didn’t like that. It stressed me out. I’m like, sometimes green clashes hard with all these colors. And so we went strict black and white with a little bit of gold. There’s some gold in there, so we have some flavor in there, but we wanted to brand that shape is what we were looking at with branding. And so that’s how we got to our logo.
And then with the core values, it’s just a good way. Some people are visual learners, some people are, they hear it, some people, whatever it is, I wanted everyone to feel like they could learn these, whether it’s visually, they’re looking at the hexagon, they can see which side corresponds to their core value, their core value they’re going for or they just need to hear it. But we wanted it to be everywhere. We have posters with that hexagon in our company with the six core values around it. And yeah, it’s meant to make it easier to learn, which is part of that.

Kyle Knowles:
I love it. I love that you did basically values-based business design when you designed even the business and it coincides with the logo. So talk about Crisp. Where did you come up with Crisp?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, funny enough. So even before the hospital room where we decide catering, two months before I’d been working at Thirst, I love Thirst. They’re the best. They’re amazing. And I told my buddy, I was like, “Hey, I’m starting my own thing. I don’t know what it is.” And he goes, “Well, good luck. You’re great.” And I said, “You have me until the day my son’s born.” And then I’m gone. So it might be three months away, it might be two months away, it might be a month away. And he came a month early. So Thirst was unhappy about the early birth, but it was fun for me, and we were dragging our feet. We’re like, ah, do we do a rice crispy company? That was our first thought. And we would try to be the crumble of Rice Krispies, but I love catering. That was a big thing for me is I kept coming back to catering.
Well, how do I do catering? How do I incorporate catering? How do I… Because I love being a part of people’s biggest events, and I love solving the issue of food, which is stressful. You don’t want your great aunt making her famous meatballs or whatever. You want her to enjoy. You don’t want your cousins behind serving all of the food. You want to enjoy. And so for me, that’s something I loved about that I kept coming back to. And so we were in the hospital room and that’s when we decided, it’s like, do we go with the Rice Crispy Company or do we go with this catering? And then it was like, all right, well, we might not be doing the Rice Crispy Company, but it’s still crisp. Crisp is still nice. It’s crisp, it’s clean. And that’s came from Rice Krispies, funny enough. So it was the best of both worlds. We got the name and kept catering, which I love and I’m happy to be a part of.

Kyle Knowles:
That’s really cool. So do you actually, does Crisp Catering do Rice Krispy treats or anything with Rice Krispies?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. It took a second. Funny enough, that was in our first year, we tried 30 different Rice Krispy recipes. We just could not perfect it. And so it was the biggest stress. I was like, no, we need Rice Krispies. And I’m working with people and I’m like, no, this is not good enough. And the hard part is with catering is you have to make so many so fast and it has to stay well for five or six hours. And so Rice Krispies, we’re challenged for a while and then we just perfected it this year. Happy about it. Love it. Our Rice Krispies are amazing. I will bring you some cow. That’s an easy one.

Kyle Knowles:
I can’t wait. I love Rice Krispy treats. Are you doing Scotcharoos or anything else?

Daniel Driggs:
Regular Rice Krispies, we have, and we have Cocoa and Fruity Pebble, but that’s mainly our, that’s a part of what we do, but really our desserts are way more experiential and whether it’s our desserts, our foods, our entrees, our sides, we want it to be really experiential. So a big thing for me is we have milkshakes where we’re making it right there. We have a blender, we have a couple of things that we’re making these milkshakes for you right there. It tastes amazing. It tastes better. Same thing with donuts. We have these cake presses, so we do a cake donut and it’s delicious, but we press the cake donuts right in front of you. And so it’s way more experiential. Although I love my Rice Krispies, they’re probably the least experiential because we make them beforehand and it’s too hard to make Rice Krispies in person and give you that element. And so we set it up cute, but it’s not… Yeah. Yeah. So if that answered your question.

Kyle Knowles:
It does. Okay, so you’re starting Crisp Catering. You have this epiphany, you’re in the hospital room, your first child is born, you’re calling in and giving your two weeks. I don’t know what-

Daniel Driggs:
No, literally I told Ethan, I said-

Kyle Knowles:
As soon as the baby is born.

Daniel Driggs:
… the day it happens. Because it’s hard. What are you going to do? Give two weeks and then not show up because you’re with your kid? That was the hard thing is it was like, so I call Ethan, Ethan’s the owner of Thirst. I’m like, “Hey dude.” He’s literally, before he’s born, I call him and I go, or I just texted him maybe and I said, “Hey, he’s coming.”

Kyle Knowles:
He’s coming today.

Daniel Driggs:
He’s coming today. Water broke. Good luck with everything. Let me know if you have any last or any more questions. And the nice thing is it was running itself pretty much. And then we hired a couple of people to replace me on the few things and I’d been training them for a month. So it was pretty obvious that I am leaving and we set them up on a good spot. But yeah, the day he was born, it was like, and what was fun is I started with a couple buddies that had done catering and been with me actually at Thirst. So when we left Thirst, there were a couple of people that Ethan’s like, “Hey, I’m wanting to hire a more full-time person that’s going to take over three of these people’s jobs.” And so I brought a couple of them with me to start Crisp. And so that was a really fun experience and we’re building these recipes. I hired a professional chef from one of the chefs at Table X. I don’t know if you’ve-

Kyle Knowles:
I’ve never heard. It’s a restaurant?

Daniel Driggs:
It’s a really nice restaurant in Salt Lake, Millcreek area. And she helped make all of these recipes and we’re taste testing everything. It was the funnest few months before we said, cool, this is our menu, this is what we’re doing. And we started with four things on our menu. We had a soda bar, we had paninis, we had fries, and we had donuts. That was it. We had fondue too. I just remembered. You could pick which dessert you wanted and they’re awesome. Almost all of those things have stayed on our menu besides fondue. And I just had a hard time with fondue. Not because we couldn’t make it, it’s just you have a hard time when kids are putting their hands in the chocolate fountain and just ruining all of this chocolate, hundreds of dollars of chocolate and you’re like, it’s too expensive. So we’ve removed fondue. I could still probably do fondue, but those were the four, five starting spots, and we made them in our kitchen at first, or for us, and we’re taste testing them all and figuring it out.
And then we sold our first event, and that was the scariest thing of my life. Because I’m like, oh, people want to try this and they trust us. And we had a website and we did a Google ad and it was just fun. That whole process of creation, of building, of figuring it out was a really fun month, month and a half. Stressful because we hadn’t gotten any events yet and we needed those to, and I’m paying out of my pocket this payroll and things like that. But it was a fun little couple months. I look back on that time as a very fond memory, stressful but fun where it’s like, oh, we want to make this perfect. We want to have these recipes down. We want to know how we’re going to systematically do this. And my wife was amazing, even though she’s taking care of our little boy, she’s helping us in the kitchen, taste testing, having fun with us, creating our presentation, what people care about. She has a way better eye on that than I do. And so yeah, it’s just a fun little time.

Kyle Knowles:
So it took you about two months to set up a website, figure out that you’re Crisp Catering, bring some employees on-

Daniel Driggs:
Get the [inaudible 00:23:05] officially. Yes.

Kyle Knowles:
And you’re taste testing. But your first customer came through a Google ad?

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah, Google ad. And that was, who was it? Well, now I’m remembering some funny events right at the beginning because we’re just trying to figure out anything. I think we did an event for Weave, and that could have been one of the worst events we’ve ever done, which was bless their hearts, they’re amazing people. Love them, and they were very kind, even though we were like, we don’t know what we’re doing. But no, the first event was for a law firm and this is the place. And we start plugging things into… And this is the crazy thing, is they hire you and you’re like, yeah, we can cater 200 people. But what you don’t know is you’re going to these old buildings. This is the place and they don’t have the power requirements you need to plug in a fryer or a panini press. So we gave ourselves more than ample time to set up, but pretty soon we found out every place we’re plugging into is flipping breakers. And so we’re running around. This is the place with their maintenance guy.
And we figured it out and it was, we’re pressing paninis fast, we’re getting through the line. And fries just almost didn’t work at all, which was painful. But they were cool. They were really nice company. Because we prefaced them with, hey, you’re actually our first event, so we’ll give you a deal, but we’re grateful you would try us out. This was December, it was their Christmas party and it worked. And even though the fries didn’t, everything else worked. The food was great, the people were enjoying it. And that was the first breath of fresh air of this is going to work. We had a couple kinks, there were a couple issues, there were a couple small system errors, but this is going to work. We’re going to be able to succeed.
And I remember I went home, I called my mom, I haven’t cried in years, and I just bawled my eyes out and I’m like, we’re going to live, this is going to happen. It’s happening. And that’s stressful when you have employees, when you have other people that believe in your vision. It was a very cool moment to actually trust it myself. I put in the work, but it was the first time it was like, I believe this is real. This is a real legitimate business that’s going to work. So it was cool.

Kyle Knowles:
So a Google ad leads to the law firm being your first customer. What kind of marketing and promotion are you doing? You must be doing a lot during those first 90 days or whatever. What other the kind of marketing activities were you doing?

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah, so marketing’s where we’re going to be different than most catering companies. Most catering companies start basically the same way. Great aunt has a really good recipe or is a really good cook. The niece says, “Hey, can you please cater my wedding?” Or, “Can you please do this?” And from that event, three other people come up and say, “This is the best food we’ve ever had. Please do our event.” And that continues because this person’s a really good cook. And so most catering companies, that’s how they start. And where we’re different is I come from a sales and marketing background, and I knew if I got five really good products, similar to a Chick-fil-A or to a Raising Cane’s model of catering, it was the reverse. It was, I’m going to perfect paninis, fries, donuts, soda, and I’m going to make the four best catering for those that world and I can add later on, but I’m just going to market that.
And so I focus way more on the marketing side. So Facebook, Facebook groups, Instagram. Instagram and Facebook ads. TikTok or less of TikTok, we’re just starting on TikTok. I’m liking it. It’s too fun. TikTok. But the biggest things were those Facebook and Instagram ads and then Google ads are helpful for us, but they’ve taken a second to figure it out. So it took a second to get Google, even though our first event came from it took a second until those were really going. Our biggest thing were Facebook and Instagram ads. Right away.

Kyle Knowles:
And now I assume because you’ve done over 1,200 events in 200 different locations that you’re getting word of mouth referrals, people that come to the events and say, oh, I like this panini, whatever. Can you do my daughter’s wedding? Is that happening a lot more?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, that’s exactly where we wanted to go, of course is the word of mouth. Hey, you’re doing such a good job, can you do this? And we wanted that same thing, but we wanted to scale initially to our first 1,200 events came through our just hard work of cool. Every dollar we make goes to marketing. And so where other catering companies typically profit, at least in Utah, at a 20%, we have marketing at 20%. And so profits are, we’re sacrificing those profits initially so that we can start having that word of mouth marketing and get through the doors and slowly grow from there. And from that point, most catering companies can grow at a 15% just through word of mouth alone, which is cool year over year.

Kyle Knowles:
That’s amazing. And Utah is a great place to be a catering company. There’s a lot of weddings here, a lot of events, social events and things like that. People like to get together here in Utah. But you started, is that the tail end of the pandemic or what was happening when you started?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. It’s funny to talk about that. That was almost more at Thirst that the pandemic really happened is we’re refunding every event. Pandemic hits and I’m like, we have a couple of hundred events that we’re just refunding. So I still at Thirst. What was interesting is the biggest year before we had gotten there, and Ethan calls me and just goes, “Dude, let’s just sell as many events as we possibly can.” Biggest year he had before that was a hundred events. And together we went to 800 events that next year. And that’s when COVID hit and it’s like, hm. And a big reason, we still probably did six, 700 events that year. And the reason we were able to do it is we were more creative than all of the rest of the competitors, which is also why we got a ton of business is even though COVID shut everyone down, people still had weddings that they had planned for three years or events that they had planned or they wanted to get together.
And so they gave money to the companies that were willing to be creative and willing to adapt and willing to change. And so for us, what we did is we started saying, “Hey, let’s do drive-through weddings.” And people loved it. We did maybe a hundred events of drive through weddings where people would drive by in their cars, we’d hand them a soda or we’d hand them a thing of pretzels and they’d shake or they’d wave to the bride and groom who were in their wedding dresses and then just keep driving. It was like-

Kyle Knowles:
Wow.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. It was the most-

Kyle Knowles:
I didn’t know that was even happening. I never went to one of those. I did a drive through graduation. So people were doing that.

Daniel Driggs:
Tons of weddings that way. We had to refund some or postpone them or things like that. We were also willing to adapt. So if someone had a wedding a week later because they were in COVID together for six months and they decided they were in love and decided to get married, which happened way more often than you thought, we targeted, those couples would call us and we’d do their event two days later, three days later, whatever it was. It’s like, hey, we want to have a get together. We’re getting married. And because we were willing to do that that’s how we just, it’s the willingness to say maybe. And that’s what’s fun about having two owners of this that are like, let’s just do it. We’re young. We can work 110 hours a week. It was before I had Hank, so I was like, yeah, me and Abby might have a date, but let’s go hang out. Let’s go to these events. Let’s stay up till crazy doing a random party or something like that.
And since then they’ve still been able to keep those same clients and a lot of the same peoples just because we were willing to capitalize on a bad situation rather than we’re refunding everyone, we’re going to shut down catering for a second, and it was a really cool experience. And then yeah, I started Crisp right at the tail end of it and people were partying for a while. Everyone was done being inside and done being stuck, but still a lot of events were coming from that. And that’s part of the reason I wanted to, I start my own around that time is people were so cooped up, they were ready to party, they were looking for excuses. And so I knew that was a really good opportunity to start my own because so much more of the market was out there. And so even though it’s died down a little bit, people are going back to normal. There are way more parties now than there ever was three years ago or more than five years ago. Way more parties now than there were pre COVID.

Kyle Knowles:
And do you feel like that’s totally the post COVID kind of thing where it’s just live events and wanting to get together?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. Wanting to get together. They understand being stuck in a house is not fun. So people, yes, they want to get together and they want to do fun events, which is cool.

Kyle Knowles:
And I know that caterers have different philosophies for the minimum amount, the dollar amount, whether you’re willing to cater. What’s your philosophy about what’s the minimum, I guess, dollar amount or people amount or meal amount that you’ll do?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, so it’s totally dependent on the type of catering for me. So we have a couple of different options. We have box lunches, we’ll do five people. We’re happy about that. But if we’re going to be prepping for two hours, packing a van for three or more than, we have a full kitchen crew that’s packing vans all day. If we have them that have to pack the van, we have three people that come to your event for three hours and then go clean up all of the dishes and things like that. In those scenarios, we do have a minimum, and I am going to defer to my website for the answer of that because I don’t remember. Well, it changes. That’s the nice thing is we want to be at events and we’re in the market of if we have any possibility, if we’re going to make a dollar on your event, we will do it because we want to be out there.
We want to be doing events, we want our teams to be working. So even if the profits are five, 10 bucks, worth it for us because we want to be a part of your event. If we have to lose money based on what we pay our team or what food cost is or anything like that because there’s 20 people and you want us there for five hours and you want just fries or whatever it is, then we have a minimum because, and we will even do those events if you pay the minimum. But that’s the, yes, there is a minimum. So refer to a website exactly what those minimums are because it’s changed. But truth is we try to, if it makes sense for us, we’ll do it even if we make or just barely break even on it.

Kyle Knowles:
Catercrisp.com.

Daniel Driggs:
Catercrisp.com.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay, awesome. And so let’s talk about a little bit, let’s talk about your childhood. I love going there. I feel like a psychologist sometimes when I say that, but when you were a child, did you exhibit any kind of entrepreneurial spirit? Did you have a lemonade stand, anything like that when you were younger?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, but in a funny way. So my uncle, that’s a funny question. I probably have two answers to this. First one being my dad really wanted me to do construction hard labor. He’s like, “You’ll get tough, whatever.” And I was like, “I will not do that if it kills me, I will find something else.” And he’s like, “You have one day.” And so I called my local bakery. So that’s actually where a lot of my knowledge comes from in food. And I just said, “Please give me a job.” And so I worked at a bakery. So that’s the one funny one where it’s like the truth is there’s typically an answer that appeases everyone and gives you what you want. That’s one cool rule that I just knew from an early age. It’s like my dad wanted me to work construction. There was no way I was going to do that.
And so finding a job that I worked more hours than the construction job, and it totally appeased my dad that I had something that I was doing that was maybe less labor-intensive and less rough. I don’t know. I don’t know why I didn’t want to do it. I would love construction. It’s fun, but I just didn’t want to at the time. The other thing is I have done door door sales since I was 12. So I had a sidewalk curb painting business when I was 12, and I just knock on doors. It was 20 bucks and I would spray paint the sidewalk.

Kyle Knowles:
You stencil the house number number.

Daniel Driggs:
Oh yeah, stencil the house number. And I did that for two years and that actually, or maybe longer until I was 16, and that’s why my dad was mad is he goes, he’s like, “Well, you’re only working three hours a week.” And I was making a hundred bucks an hour. And so it’s like, why else would I need more than 300 bucks? It was like, why would I do that? And he was like, “You need to learn hard work.” And I’m like, “Well, I can do that in three hours. What do you mean?” And so it was a very funny situation where that’s what led to that of, well, I’m doing well. And I am appreciative of my dad being like, well, no, the principal is, can you work for 20 hours? Can you go to school all day and then work another 20 hours? Which was a total different lesson than, can you make money? And for me, that was a good thing to learn the difference of and push myself in a different way.
Because yes, I was good at pretending like I was like this cute innocent child that 13 years old and being like, please, can I spray paint your stencil, your driveway or whatever, wherever it was or curb. And so two totally different jobs, two totally different things as a kid. And then I did door to door sales until I started at Thirst. Actually, I went on a mission. I did door to door sales for pest control, but that was what I was going to do for my career until Ethan called me and said, “Hey, come sell catering events.” And I was like, “No.” And he said, “Well, please just do it for a couple of months.” I fell in love with it, I loved, and then slowly I took over operations at Thirst and then I started my own. And so it’s been a funny process from door to door salesman to catering people’s weddings. I don’t know, it’s a weird gap, but it worked.

Kyle Knowles:
I think it totally works because I’ve talked to a lot of entrepreneurs and sales is crucial, especially when you’re getting a business off the ground. Nothing happens until a sale is made, really. Yeah.

Daniel Driggs:
And it’s the most painful. It’s still my business. If I could do anything else than sales, I do. And there’s problems with that logic, but the fact that I’ve already proven that I can sell, I force myself to go do visits, to go visit different companies that have used us in the past and try to get their business back or sign them up on contracts. And the ability to ask for something you want is very difficult. And that’s what I look at as closing is, hey, I want your business. Totally different than, hey, here’s a nice Christmas card, or here’s this nice gift we have. If you’re willing to ask someone that you either know or no, or if you’re willing to close or ask them for money or things like that, it can get very uncomfortable. And it’s just something that you have to do as an entrepreneur. There’s times where you have to ask for business. There’s times where you have to go knock down someone’s door and they’re like, hey, are you soliciting? And it’s like, oh yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
Yes, I am.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, I’m dropping off cookie dough, whatever. But it’s the most painful part of my job still. And I think, but it’s been the best knowledge for me or the best knowledge base that I’ve been able to do is rely on that and go back to you just do it. You just go sell and you know the product better, you know the people better, you know what client you want better than anyone else in your business.

Kyle Knowles:
I want to go back to this idea of pushing you towards construction from your father. Was he in construction?

Daniel Driggs:
No, he’s actually a lawyer too. So my first event was one of his competitors, actually. And so that’s been a very funny one where it’s like, really, you could use me. And I went with your competitor.

Kyle Knowles:
Was that on purpose?

Daniel Driggs:
I don’t know.

Kyle Knowles:
Well, it wasn’t because they came through a Google ad.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. And the funniest is the event was, it was like half company party, but the other half was trying to impress new clients. And the bummer was, I’m standing there behind a soda bar and the clients know me because they knew my dad and me and my dad looked and they’re like, hey, we still work with your dad. And I’m like, no, I’m here on behalf of this company. Don’t work with my dad. Work with this company.

Kyle Knowles:
Selling the company that you’re-

Daniel Driggs:
They hired me.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, because they’re basically, you become part of that company for a while at a company event.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. Well, they hired me to impress their guests. I’m like-

Kyle Knowles:
Or other employees if you’re doing an employee event.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, other employees. And so the few customers that worked with both my dad and him, it was like, no, I still work with your dad. And I’m like, I don’t care. This other guy is paying me. So I am pro this other guy, not my dad. So it was a very funny random event for one of the first one. It was a very funny event that I keep always looking back on with a grin on my face with that one.

Kyle Knowles:
Well, so your dad wanted you to work construction, you decided to go work for a bakery and you talked about 20 hours. So are you going to school and then working 20 hours a week?

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah, this is in high school.

Kyle Knowles:
Okay, in high school you’re working 20 hours a week. And this is proving to your dad that you’re willing to work hard.

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah. For him. And you always need someone to push you, whether it’s a parent or a friend or something. Or at least for me, maybe I’m just, I need someone to push me, but for me, my wife pushes me every day and you just need people to push along. And for my dad, he saw that I have more to give. It’s like, yeah, you’re doing really good with your little business, but you’re working two hours a day and playing video games for another 30. Why is that going to be the best thing for my son? And I look at that with Hank and my kid and it’s like, no, I want him to experience pain, not because I’m this evil father that needs power or whatever it is. It’s the more pain Hank can experience, not too young.
Right now he’s fine. He can do whatever he wants and he’s good, but the more pain that he can experience through his growing up years, 12 to 18, the more work, the more deliberate choices of pain. Not forced. I don’t ever want to force him and I don’t think my dad was forcing. He was forcing me to get a job, but it wasn’t like he was flexible on it too. The more pain, the less pain they experienced in the long term, the happier their 50s and their 60s are, which is also a big reason why Crisp is so important to me is anyone I’ve seen that’s incredibly successful sacrificed 10 years of their life, whatever, 10 years. And it could be that when they’re 50 and they’re sacrificing 10 years, it could be when they’re 20 and they sacrifice 10 years. After they give 10 years of pain, whatever it is, they’re able to succeed forever.
They can ride on that for the rest of their life. And so that’s been my motivation since Crisp is, it’s painful. I have painful moments every day of my life, more pain than I ever knew I could experience. And my dad, who’s owned his company, my brothers who have owned company, they’re like, that’s the best thing. You’re moving the right way, you’re going… And at that moment when I was a kid, it was, well, I’m not challenging myself. It’s not hard to go out for three hours and make 300 bucks. It’s like, yeah, that’s more than enough money than I will ever use on candy. It was, can you work 20 hours and do school and keep your friends happy and that social aspect and be on a sports team and whatever else I was doing. It’s like, can you do all of those? And that was way more of a challenge than make 300 bucks, which was a good lesson for me.

Kyle Knowles:
I love it. The podcast is called Maker Manager Money. Do you consider yourself, and the concept is Maker plus manager equals money. You need to make something, create some kind of value, you need to manage it, you need to go out and sell it, you need to manage the operations, those kinds of things. And eventually that hopefully leads to money. Do you consider yourself more of a maker or a manager or a mix?

Daniel Driggs:
It depends on the time in my company, and I think the only way you’re successful in a startup is you switch between the two so fast. It’s like every day you’re like, oh yeah, I’m creating our sales process the next day. We have way too many sales. And so I am in the kitchen creating our how to make paninis the best way process or whatever it is. And it’s where I’ve slowly tried to move is I break it down into three things. So I add another one to maker manager, and then I say doer. Maker is someone that creates, that’s building something. It’s, I’m trying to be now, I’ve never been this, and that’s why I say trying, but I’m trying to be 80% creating the next steps, clearing off the next step for my company to grow, setting up the next program, setting up the next accountability structure. 10% managing, I’m probably at, yeah, 10% managing and 10% doing. So I am sweeping the floors.
I’m doing the systems that are in place, and I’m trying to get to zero on that because if I’m the one sweeping the floors, then we have a whole summer. If I’m the one that has to clean a grease trap or whatever, which I did the other day, which is the worst job on planet Earth, I just feel for anyone who has to clean a grease trap. So it’s like, I’ll do it. Funny story, we had to toss it. So we’re moving out of one of our locations and we had to just toss this grease strapper. I thought it would be smart to just toss it. I went to throw it away and it’s filled with grease, and I just locked up all the sides and I’m like, yeah, this is safe. This is totally fine. And I go to pour it or throw it into the garbage and it just pours all over me. And if you’ve ever smelled a grease trap, it’s the worst smell on upon earth by far. There’s nothing worse.
And so I got to drive home in the grossest smell ever. My wife was straight to the shower, don’t even touch me. You’re so gross right now. So I try not to do a lot where it’s almost, I’m not enabling my team to grow or create. And then managing, I am now at the point where I have really good leaders and I want to see how they’re managing, and I want to just light the fire whenever needed. But besides that, I’m trying to manage less. And right now I’m probably at 50% creating, 30% managing, 20% doing it. That’s how I look at it. I don’t know if that answers your question, but that’s where I’m at. And slowly as I am going to those next steps, I want to be in that creating mode of where’s the direction of our company? What are the goals? What are the next steps? What does it look like? What’s the vision of Crisp? And how do I train my team to do that?

Kyle Knowles:
And it’s hard to be hands off sometimes because this is the way you’ve always done it and you had to do everything at the beginning. So what are you doing to help you hand off responsibilities? Are you documenting those processes? And what tools and what kinds of things are you doing to hand over processes and workflows to someone else?

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah, so there’s a few. The first thing is working hand in hand with these people is the best way. They see how it’s done. And then what I’ve been doing is I’ve been having those people that I’ve worked hand in hand with for two, three months, have them write the processes. And what’s been good about that is they’re creating, oh yeah, I forgot about this step. Oh yeah, I am supposed to do this. And they’re reteaching themselves. And then I review it and I’m making sure that it’s good. But this has been a really cool system for us is, hey, slowly create what your job is. If you were to create your job or write it down, what would that look like? And so slowly, my leaders are doing that and starting to own it. And then it’s really feels like theirs. It’s like, cool, this is what I think is going to equal all of my goals, all of my expectations.
The standard of my job is this. And then you can say, no, that standard’s ridiculous. That’s a goal. You can have that as a goal. Your standard’s actually much lower. It’s here. And so them creating that has been a really cool experience as they’re typing this up, as they’re answering the hard questions of like, ooh, what is the most important thing for my job? And seeing them do that has helped solidify their training. But a lot of that came from us, two months, three months working hand in hand, building the recipes. And then, or for my kitchen staff or my cooks, it’s like, cool, these are the recipes. This is what we’re doing. And then taking their input and changing things. And yeah, that’s, hopefully that answered your question.

Kyle Knowles:
It does. So that’s just a word or Google doc? And then do you have an intranet where you’re sharing all this, or what tools do you use to-

Daniel Driggs:
We use Google Drive. That’s the easiest for us. But a lot of these are just their verticals. It’s just the kitchen. So I have my company broken down to four direct verticals is what I call them, but you have the kitchen, you have the event team or front of house. So the team that’s going to be in front of the clients, you have the prep team, which is the kitchen crew, but then you have the marketing team, and then you have accounting and the accountant just as himself. But yes, you have these four teams and they need to know what everyone else is doing. But generally, really, as they focus on their vertical and they focus on what they can do, they’re lifting where they stand and they’re able to lift much higher than if… And so that’s why I say, yeah, there’s a Google Drive, they could read it, but if I knew of, and my marketing director, if she’s reading everything about the kitchen or has to, I’m like, no, focus on marketing.
If you can lift that perfectly, if you’re hitting your goals every time, if you’re reaching higher, that’s the best way you help operations. That’s the best way you help accounting is if everything’s running smooth in your spot. And so even though I meet with them, and if they see something that’s happening in one of the other verticals, we have a conversation or we change that. If it’s a good enough idea, it’s like, cool, we will change that. But yeah, typically I’m pretty strict on focus on you, focus on whatever you can control. And so yes, there’s Google Drive that has this all, but it’s lift where you stand. I don’t know if that makes sense.

Kyle Knowles:
It does. I mean, if they had employees that worked for them-

Daniel Driggs:
They can share their Google Drive.

Kyle Knowles:
They can share it.

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
And I don’t know, we have employees all over running at different events, and sometimes maybe you have two events going on at the same time, whatever. I assume that happens sometimes.

Daniel Driggs:
We have four. We can do up to four.

Kyle Knowles:
We can do up to four.

Daniel Driggs:
I know.

Kyle Knowles:
That’s amazing. So how do you communicate? Is it just through text or do you have some kind of apps that you’re using to stay in touch and stay on top of things?

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah. So there’s a couple different ways. Again, we’re big in learning and teaching in the best way for our teams. So a lot of it’s texting because we’re just working with 16 year olds. But the biggest thing is for our customers, we call, or we’ve already been texting or emailing or figuring out all details. Then we do a call and we really go through 50 questions, making sure we know exactly what they’re feeling or ready for for their event, because it’s totally different when you’re talking to someone on the phone and I say, “Hey, do you have power?” Versus in an email, “Do you have power?” And she’s like, “Yeah, we have one outlet.” It’s like, “No, we need 15 outlets for your event if it’s a crazy event.”
But those are two different things and two different ways of catching it. Same thing with our event teams. So whoever’s running the event, we could be texting them all week about, hey, here’s some details. Or they could read, and we have big packets filled with all the details of the event, what type of event, how many people, what we’re serving, what time to get there. We have all of these written down, but we also do a voice memo because things are going to be emphasized totally different than when you read it than when you listen to it in a voice memo. When I go, “Hey Waco, this person really caress about gluten-free paninis. If you don’t bring gluten-free paninis as a backup, come on, make sure you have those.” Versus them reading, “Bring gluten-free paninis on a packet.” That’s forgotten about. That voice memo is not-

Kyle Knowles:
But it’s a voice memo that you’ve texted to the employee?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. So we send it to the team. And so the team, when they’re going to double check everything before they leave for these events, they’re hearing or they’re hearing us in their head from what they listened to earlier that week and reading it on the packet and say-

Kyle Knowles:
That’s amazing.

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah. So that’s our biggest thing is how do we make communication? There’s just no miscommunications. Here’s the crazy thing about catering, if I forget some tongs. So it’s like, oh crap. You’re 45 minutes behind. You’re either hopping in a car, driving 45 minutes back to the kitchen and driving back, or you’re driving to a Walmart and then you have to check out, you have to get the company card. It puts you 45 minutes behind and that’s one set of tools. If you forget three things and you slowly notice them as you’re setting up, it’s so much harder in those scenarios. And that’s why catering can be so painful is, crap, you can’t forget anything. And these events are too important, even if it’s a corporate event, even if it’s the live event that you guys are doing. If I forgot something, you would be like, really? What’s going on? And it’s like, it could be one of a hundred things and it fell between a seat or whatever it is, but it’s a very exact process.

Kyle Knowles:
So you have a checklist somewhere. There’s a document for each event?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. They sign everything.

Kyle Knowles:
Do you use monday.com or any kind of software or anything? Is It just physical?

Daniel Driggs:
Physical. And I care about physical because, and so we have it all online. When we create them, it’s all online and we have all of these.

Kyle Knowles:
But you print them out.

Daniel Driggs:
But we print them out because I want them to sign their name because when they check something off-

Kyle Knowles:
And they’re checking boxes.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. When they check something off and they say, yes, we have tongs. And I get a call or I see on the checklist missing tongs, or I get a call from the customer and they’re like, hey, you were 45 minutes behind because of, and luckily we know we forget stuff and we know everyone’s human. So we plan for more than enough time to set up. If we forget something, we have extra people that can leave. But I’m just, yeah, and I was a little exaggerated, or I was exaggerating on that, but it’s the truth. It’s like if we really did it based on numbers, it’s like someone is losing 45 minutes of time. So we have checklists and we require everyone to sign their names because it’s way more powerful.

Kyle Knowles:
For sure.

Daniel Driggs:
And then I call them and I say, Cole, why’d you sign your name? What was going on? It’s like, I’m sorry. And it’s a cool thing about my team is they just own it. They just do. And that can’t be taught. We just have been lucky with the teammates we have. They just own it. They just-

Kyle Knowles:
That’s awesome.

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah. It’s been cool.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah. I think the whole digital first and technology allows you to do a little, you can tap on the screen and say, yeah, that’s done. But when you physically write something and check something, it’s so much more powerful. I don’t know what it is in your head, but I love that you do that. I know we’ve covered so much ground. I wanted to ask a few more questions and I have a lightning round of questions. So what from your English degree has helped you the most in business?

Daniel Driggs:
By far, and it’s funny, I am an English degree with a emphasis. This is a random emphasis in fiction. So like fantasy fiction. It’s nerdy. I am nerdy. That’s a first and foremost background of me. But no, for me, the biggest thing is being creative is way more important to me than almost anything else is, and that goes back to what I said earlier. There’s a solution no matter what. There just is. Are you smart enough to find it or are you humble enough to find it? And that’s why I love this English degree is you’re writing poems, you’re writing books that have never been created before. They’re just random ideas that have gone in your head. And being creative has been the most important thing for my business because it was nothing two years ago. And when there’s a problem that no one can figure out, Elon just said something about this, which we love Elon. Elon’s great. But he said, owners of businesses, they, they hire really expensive CEOs and CFOs. When those very intelligent people don’t know the answer, that’s when they go to Elon.
And it’s like, I feel that where everyone on my team is very intelligent and when they don’t know the answer, those are the questions. Those are the problems, those are the issues that I have to answer. And so because of that, I have to be creative. I have to think more outside the box than any of my very intelligent, in some ways, way smarter than me, leaders that don’t have a good solution. And so that’s been my biggest thing is can I think outside of the box? We had an exercise in college that was write what you don’t believe for a week. So any post you see, write the opposite of what you actually believe. So political posts, write what your opposition should say. And that was really cool exercise for us. And it’s like, there’s solutions or there’s reasons why people think whatever. And so being creative has been a really powerful thing from that English major. I always laugh because I’m like ChatGPT took my jobs, but at the same time, nothing has prepared me better for being creative then that part of my major.

Kyle Knowles:
I love that answer as a fellow English major. And just briefly, are you using AI for your business in any way?

Daniel Driggs:
As much as I can, I am not as… We’ve talked about this, we talked about this on the phone and I’m like, ooh, I need to learn. And I try to learn. I use ChatGPT, the basic model, and it saves me for the 15-page thing that I need to write or the contracts I’m writing or things like that. It’s helpful. I need to use it way more. But I think everyone does, I think everyone needs to use AI more. I just don’t know it enough. I need to, but I don’t.

Kyle Knowles:
But at least you’re playing with it.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes, I’m messing around with it. I have fun with it.

Kyle Knowles:
And that’s what everyone should do is start playing with it, get to know it. Just have fun with it for now. Just go for it. You’re not going to break anything. Start playing with it. At least personally.

Daniel Driggs:
I don’t know DAN. DAN was a fun little mess around with moment of ChatGPT. You heard about DAN?

Kyle Knowles:
No, I didn’t.

Daniel Driggs:
DAN is do anything now. So they trick ChatGPT. ChatGPT has all these safeguards and rules and they trick ChatGPT to now be named DAN, which is do anything now. And they gave it tokens. So this is one of the first hackers of ChatGPT created it as, and it turned itself into DAN. And so they had to shut down the whole thing for a week. This is when with one of the first few weeks. And it was like, it was, yeah, do anything now. It was a very funny and it would answer any question you wanted. It was way more vulgar. It’s this very funny experiment. So you might break ChatGPT, but mess around with it.

Kyle Knowles:
Yes, I love it. So is there a book that you recommend the most to people?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. There’s two. Can’t Hurt Me by David Goggins because it’s just the most mentally tough book on planet earth. If you want to know of a human and what humans are capable of, this is a guy who’s lived what those capabilities are. It’s unbelievable. The second one, this is more important, anytime someone asks me, “Should I start my business?” And I go back to, I ask mentors the same thing. “Hey, should I start this business? It’s a good idea.” And he’s this multi multimillionaire now and he goes, “Read this book. It’s called Endurance and it’s Shackleton’s Adventure to Antarctica.” And it’s the worst story on planet earth. He said, or my mentor was like, “Well, it’s the exact feelings you are going to feel owning a business is what Shackleton felt. And if you think you’d survive being Shackleton, then yes, start a business. If you think you would roll over and die, don’t. It’s not for you.”
And then that’s all I’m going to say about that. But read it. It’s painful. And my advice is the same. If you think you would survive as William Shackleton, then 100% start a business. There’s nothing better. It’s so painful that such a cool outcome, such an amazing experience. And if you’d rather not be Shackleton, then don’t. Because that’s what it feels like many days of owning your business. So yeah, those are my two. E-Myth’s another good one. But I love reading. Thanks to my English major. I loved reading all these books, but those are my two big ones. Endurance and Can’t Hurt Me. And E-Myth, once you’ve started your business, but six months into starting your business. That’s my advice on that one.

Kyle Knowles:
Those are great recommendations. Yeah, I love it. All right, so I’ve got a lightning round of questions that I ask each of my guests. What is your favorite candy bar?

Daniel Driggs:
A hundred grand. Entrepreneur. No, I’m just kidding.

Kyle Knowles:
I love it. Favorite music artist.

Daniel Driggs:
Favorite music? Taylor Swift. I met her and she dedicated a song to me.

Kyle Knowles:
At a concert?

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah. Stop her whole concert. Said, met this really cute couple before. Here you guys go. Sadly, I was on a date before I was dating my wife. So I can’t… That story is sore spot, but also not. It’s the coolest story ever. Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
Where was the concert at?

Daniel Driggs:
[inaudible 01:10:06]. So it was, the event, we got last second backstage passes before the event, and it was a meet and greet. So we met Taylor Swift and she was like, and I said, “Hey, are you singing any songs that you weren’t prepared for or that you weren’t planning on?” She goes, “I typically have one or two. You have any suggestions?” And I’m like, “If you could sing the song, our song, that would be awesome.” I don’t know if you’ve heard that.

Kyle Knowles:
Our song is a slam screen door.

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. It’s a great song. Amazing. One of the best. And she goes, “All right, consider it done.” So we go up to her seats, we think she’s just going to sing it and she stops. The whole concert goes, hey, I don’t know where you guys ended up, but I met the most adorable couple. This one’s for you. Very cool. Broke up with the girl a month later.

Kyle Knowles:
But still you have a great story.

Daniel Driggs:
Cool story.

Kyle Knowles:
Yeah, it’s an awesome story. I love that story. Okay, favorite cereal?

Daniel Driggs:
Cereal, Honey Bunchions of Oats. And I say bunchions because inside joke, but Honey Bunchions of Oats.

Kyle Knowles:
Mac or PC?

Daniel Driggs:
Mac.

Kyle Knowles:
Google or Microsoft?

Daniel Driggs:
Google.

Kyle Knowles:
Dogs or cats?

Daniel Driggs:
Cats. But I am not an animal person, sadly.

Kyle Knowles:
So you have no pets.

Daniel Driggs:
No pets. Well, dogs just bite me. I like dogs better, but I get bit more than any human I know. I’ve probably been bit 20 times. Yeah. It’s just a weird thing, weird phenomenon. Some of it came from knocking on doors and people let their dogs out on me. It’s like, yes. But yeah, random. Sorry.

Kyle Knowles:
That’s okay. Phantom or Les Mis?

Daniel Driggs:
Definitely Phantom. But I love Les Mis. That’s a hard one though. But I love Phantom. And the Phantom, you just feel for, that’s the hard part is you just love them.

Kyle Knowles:
I love that answer. So you’re into food, you have a catering company, so I assume you’re into food.

Daniel Driggs:
Yeah.

Kyle Knowles:
If you are going to go eat and you want to go out to eat in Utah, what’s your go-to?

Daniel Driggs:
It’s hard. A date night or are we saying just for food?

Kyle Knowles:
You could categorize and list two or three.

Daniel Driggs:
I got two or three. The first is my guilty pleasure Rancherito’s and I get a mixed breakfast burrito. It’s the greasiest. It’s if I want to feel like I am 4,000 pounds, I just want to let that fat boy sing. That’s when I go to Rancherito’s and I love it. Date night, I love Cheesecake Factory. I just like it. I like their apps. I like the deep-fried avocado, egg roll things. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen those.

Kyle Knowles:
I’ve never heard of them. No.

Daniel Driggs:
They’re unbelievable. They’re so good. They have these little crunchy white things. I don’t even know what they are, but they’re awesome. But fancy, I’m Ruth’s Chris. If I’m going really fancy, it’s hard to beat Ruth’s Chris. I know. It’s just the best. It’s just so good. The meat is an unbelievable cut. It’s an unbelievable presentation. It’s everything. It’s the experience. It’s like, oh, here’s a plate that will burn your face if you touch it or hands or anything, if you touch it so don’t. But it’s fun. That makes it fun. You can cook the meat on the plate. It’s just hard to eat. Yes.

Kyle Knowles:
I said it before, but I’ve never been so hungry on a podcast. So thank you for your descriptions. And I need to make a reservation at Ruth’s Chris because I haven’t been there for a long time. I think before COVID, it’s been a long time since I’ve been there. I love their steak for sure. It’s the best. So how do people find you?

Daniel Driggs:
Yes. Easiest way is our website, catercrisp.com. But if you are just curious, the funnest is our Instagram and that is crisp.catering. I know I should have kept the same username, but crisp.catering for Instagram, catercrisp.com for our website. But our Instagram’s fun, so get excited to be hungry. Yeah, look at how we make our food, how it all works. But if you want to contact us for catering, if you have any special requests or anything like that, find us on our website and reach out.

Kyle Knowles:
Daniel, it’s been such a pleasure getting to know you-

Daniel Driggs:
Thank you.

Kyle Knowles:
… to hear your entrepreneurial journey and the lessons that you’ve learned. And I just love the way you describe your values, what your employees are doing, what you’re doing as a company. It’s been such a pleasure to talk to you and learn and get to know you better. So thank you so much for being on the podcast this evening.

Daniel Driggs:
Thank you. And thank you for having me. This is so fun. And this is so cool. So thank you.