The Comeback Kid: - Rob hunter

NexChapter is the home of unfiltered wisdom from post exit founders. Recorded in The Republic Studio, this show is for founders who are scaling businesses and founders who have sold and are figuring out what the hell happens next. Each episode explores the real story behind the exit, the decisions that mattered, and the personal transition that follows when the deal is done.

 

In this episode, Raman Sehgal sits down with Rob Hunter. Rob is an eccentric entrepreneur who's pushing 40 and still never held a full-time salaried job. He's been an entrepreneur ever since he was a kid, selling Japanese professional wrestling VHS tapes and DVD's on eBay and his own website to pay his way through an undergraduate degree at the Ivey Business School. After dabbling in real estate, Rob sold his mini student housing empire and got into the ice cream business, opening 7 Marble Slab ice cream stores by the time he was 25. Little did he know that Winter Was Coming, as bankruptcy swiftly set in. Rob embarked a fresh start by moving to Boston to do his MBA at the #1 school in the world for entrepreneurship, Babson College. Over the next several years, he built and eventually sold HigherMe, an HR Tech solution for the restaurant industry that went through Y Combinator in 2015. He also tried to solve the US student debt crisis with Reset Button / Lexria, a venture-backed fintech. Rob is back at it with Foundry, an AI startup that helps small business create, grow, and operate franchise systems. He also does some teaching back at Ivey and at the University of Waterloo.

 

What we cover

• Scaling too fast with 7 Marble Slab stores, the hard reality of franchising, and eventual bankruptcy at 29
• Turning that failure into a tech wedge, using his operator scars to build HigherMe through Y Combinator - The strategic pivot from “video applications” to making mobile hiring simple, including text to apply and removing every bit of applicant friction
• Why focus won, narrowing to franchised restaurants and using a bottoms up foot in the door approach that eventually landed major franchise networks
• Choosing a realistic path over unicorn chasing, staying capital efficient, targeting cash flow positive growth, and avoiding too much dilution and liquidation preference risk
• The deal story, COVID as an unexpected tailwind, using strategic interest to create competitive tension, the emotional LOI moment, and the surreal bank refresh moment when the wire hit https://www.linkedin.com/in/robhunter7/

 

Your host Raman Sehgal is the author of the best selling book The Floundering Founder, Toronto Chapter Lead at Post Exit Founders (PEF), investor, and founder of several niche firms and platforms in the pharma and biopharma services space, one of which he sold a majority stake in to private equity. He created NexChapter to capture the hard earned wisdom of founders who have been through an exit and are willing to share what really worked, what surprised them, and what comes next. Connect with Raman.