I read an article in the Chicago Tribune about a new concept called ‘ghost restaurants’. Have you heard of them yet? The headline was ” Nine Restaurants, One Kitchen, No Dining Room,” and it got my attention. It’s about a company that runs nine top-rated restaurant brands that only exist online. Imagine that!

They don’t have any dining rooms or retail locations. They run out of a commissary kitchen, they prepare the food, and you can order through Grubhub and Seamless. They only exist on those two apps. Now, the reason I like this idea so much is that I’m becoming more and more fascinated with what’s possible without traditional overheads. While I was reading the article, I realized the essential item for them is the kitchen.

Those nine different restaurants can all exist in the cloud because they all go through the same scalable kitchen. The essential, behind-the-scenes part of the operation.

Think about it

People ordering delivery food don’t actually care about the kitchen. They care about the end result. As long as the food tastes great and arrives on time, they’re happy. The kitchen is not the product – even if it’s essential for creating the product. All the kitchen has to do is run efficiently and be able to scale.

Now, think about how this could be applied to YOUR business. You hear me talk about scale-ready algorithms all the time, so you know how important that is if you want to expand. But you’ll have a much easier time creating your own scale-ready algorithm when you know what your “kitchen” is.

What’s that minimum unit in your business?

In order to expand anything, you have to really refine the thing you’re expanding. Only then can you maximize and optimize it so it runs as efficiently as possible. And that, in turn, will change the way you’re able to deliver your product or service.

Because at the end of the day, it’s all about the results you’re able to deliver for your customers!

Need more help realising those results? head over to the podcast.