If you are reading this, there is a good chance you have spent years building something most people will never fully appreciate. You have worked weekends, worried about payroll, obsessed over recipes, hired people, trained them, watched some leave, and celebrated the ones who stayed.
If that is you, I wrote this letter for you.
I Did Not Always Love the Restaurant Business
When I graduated from university and joined my family’s company, Juici Patties, I thought the restaurants were the problem. If you had asked me during my first few months, I would have said we should sell the corporate restaurants and focus entirely on manufacturing.
The truth was simpler: I was not good at operating restaurants.
Over the next two years, together with an incredible team—many of whom had already dedicated decades to Juici Patties before I arrived—we became better operators. Thousands of small improvements compounded into a much better business.
It is remarkably easy to love a business once you become good at it.
I Fell in Love With Teaching
The part I enjoyed most was not operating restaurants. It was teaching other people what we had learned. Every lesson we had learned the hard way became one less mistake our franchisees had to make.
Without realizing it, I had fallen in love with franchising—not because of agreements or royalties, but because franchising is one of the most powerful ways to transfer knowledge from one entrepreneur to another.
Preparation Creates Confidence
People ask when I knew the U.S. expansion would work. The honest answer is before we opened our first restaurant—not because I was overconfident, but because I believe in measuring three times before cutting once.
Franchisees Lend You Their Trust
The hardest period was waiting through construction delays while our first franchisees paid rent on restaurants they could not yet open. I felt like I had let them down. They had trusted us with their savings, their time, and years of their lives.
Leadership is not just celebrating success when things go well. It is feeling responsible when they do not.
The Meal I Never Forgot
Years ago in Barcelona, I wandered into a crowded local restaurant. I do not remember its name, but I remember the grilled squid. It remains the best squid I have ever eaten. Almost every table around me was ordering it.
Why would millions of people never experience something this good? Not because the food was not extraordinary—simply because almost nobody knew it existed.
The Barrier Should Be Almost Zero
For years I believed becoming a franchisor was reserved for the largest restaurant companies. I was wrong. The barriers remain high, but they do not have to remain that way.
I believe the quality of a restaurant should determine whether it has an opportunity to grow—not the founder’s access to capital, franchising expertise, or expensive consultants.
The Idea Came in a Gym
Lumera came to me in a gym, not a boardroom. I realized I had reached the financial goals I once thought would define success. What excited me was not opening one more restaurant under one brand. It was discovering hidden gems around the world and helping founders build something they never thought possible.
I realized I would genuinely enjoy doing this even if I were doing it for free.
What Success Means to Me
Success is creating a system with tens of thousands of franchisees operating 50,000 restaurants across perhaps 50 to 100 brands. It is helping a founder bring their life’s work to more communities, helping a franchisee achieve financial independence, and helping employees build careers in organizations where their ideas matter.
Giving a Chance to Those Who Deserve It
If there is one thing I hope people remember about me, it is not how many restaurants I helped build. I hope they remember me as someone who gave a chance to people who deserved one.
I do not know where the next great restaurant brand is. Maybe Vietnam. Peru. Jamaica. Italy. Or a city neither of us has visited.
Great food deserves to travel. And great founders deserve world-class franchising.
— Daniel Chin
Founder, Lumera