What does it take to build a meaningful business that lasts? That's the question we're exploring on Entrepreneur's new series America's Favorite Mom and Pop ShopsTM. We teamed up with Walmart Business to step inside the stores of passionate entrepreneurs to learn how they run shops that fulfill their personal and financial goals and bolster the communities around them.
On this episode, we traveled to Chicago, Illinois to visit business owner Jeremy Lewno who was faced with a decision many founders of growing companies face: Is it better to cling tightly to what worked before or is it better to reinvent their business and themselves to unlock their full potential?
On this episode, we traveled to Chicago, Illinois to visit business owner Jeremy Lewno who was faced with a decision many founders of growing companies face: Is it better to cling tightly to what worked before or is it better to reinvent their business and themselves to unlock their full potential?
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - If you wanna run a great business,
00:05 then you need to learn from the greats.
00:07 And they're all around you.
00:09 They're the mom and pop shops in every local community.
00:13 The barber shops, the coffee shops,
00:15 the bookstores and the diners.
00:17 These aren't just small businesses,
00:19 these are master classes in community building,
00:21 in customer service, in innovative marketing.
00:24 My name is Jason Pfeiffer,
00:25 I'm the editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine,
00:27 and with Walmart Business, we are meeting
00:30 these entrepreneurs to learn what it takes
00:32 to build meaningful businesses that last.
00:34 So join me as we travel the country,
00:37 learning from America's favorite mom and pop shops.
00:40 (upbeat music)
00:42 (upbeat music)
00:45 As a company grows, its leader must make a choice.
01:05 Either cling tightly to what worked before,
01:07 or reinvent their business and themselves
01:11 to unlock their full potential.
01:12 My name is Jason Pfeiffer,
01:14 editor in chief of Entrepreneur Magazine,
01:15 and I have come here to beautiful and freezing cold Chicago.
01:19 It is seven degrees outside right now,
01:22 because I wanted to learn from an entrepreneur
01:24 who made the bold choice.
01:27 His name is Jeremy Levno,
01:28 he's the founder of Bobby's Bike Hike,
01:30 the longest running city bike tour operator in the country.
01:34 Because to build his great business,
01:36 Jeremy first had to slam the brakes and change the gears.
01:40 Now, he's really cruising.
01:42 Let's go meet him.
01:42 (upbeat music)
01:45 We're here at Bobby's Bike Hike.
01:51 You are not Bobby, you are Jeremy.
01:54 Who's Bobby?
01:55 - That's a good question.
01:56 A question I get quite a bit.
01:58 So I named this after my late father, Bob.
02:00 My dad had a motor coach bus tour company,
02:02 and so I was kind of raised taking trips around the country
02:05 on his motor coach tours.
02:07 - When you were growing up, did you start to think,
02:09 this is what I wanna do for a living too,
02:11 or was this your dad's thing for a long time?
02:14 - It wasn't really necessarily anything
02:16 that I had aspirations to do.
02:18 You know, I basically went to school for marketing.
02:20 I remember thinking to myself,
02:21 you know, I don't necessarily know
02:23 if the corporate world is necessarily for me.
02:26 And I kind of realized that I was gonna kind of pursue
02:30 my own kind of path.
02:31 - That's where entrepreneurship begins,
02:33 when you realize you have a drive
02:36 to create something for yourself,
02:37 but you don't always know what it is.
02:39 So how did you come to think
02:41 that you were gonna continue your dad's legacy?
02:44 - Well, I moved up here a little bit on a whim,
02:46 and I kind of started thinking about,
02:48 what do I want my legacy to be?
02:50 You know, my dad had passed when I was young,
02:52 so ultimately these were kind of big questions
02:54 that were going through my mind.
02:55 And at the end of my life, I wanted to look back
02:57 and realize that I had promoted health,
02:59 and travel, and community, and service.
03:02 And so ultimately those four things kind of meshed together.
03:05 The bike tour business is all about all those things.
03:08 And so, you know, I sold my car, bought about 20 bikes,
03:12 and parked them in a parking garage, and started my venture.
03:15 - You grew up going on your dad's tours.
03:23 Did you feel like you had any idea how to run one yourself?
03:26 - You know, I thought that I, I thought I did, actually.
03:32 I'm, you know, 27 years old and slightly naive.
03:35 - That's all you need sometimes to start.
03:37 - Totally.
03:38 You just gotta put that foot out there,
03:40 and then start walking.
03:41 And then, and then hopefully you'll start, or biking.
03:44 And then you'll, and then you just kind of
03:45 pedal faster and faster.
03:47 My first manager I hired, I want to say in 2009,
03:49 and then ultimately he was a manager for us
03:51 for six years, 'til about 2015.
03:54 We unfortunately lost him.
03:56 The workload was just too much.
03:57 I was very hard charging.
03:58 I kind of, you know, this is how we want to do it.
04:00 Just do it, and let's go, and don't ask questions,
04:02 kind of, kind of situation.
04:04 And we replaced him with three people
04:06 that didn't want to be pushed that way,
04:07 and didn't want to be in that type of work environment.
04:11 And so ultimately we went through a little period there
04:13 where it was just kind of, a little bit of a revolving door.
04:16 And you lose the first couple managers,
04:18 and you're kind of thinking, well,
04:19 they weren't fit out to do this, or this wasn't.
04:22 And then you start kind of realizing
04:23 what's the common thread here.
04:25 - You.
04:25 - It was me.
04:26 - You're the common thread.
04:27 - You know, that's not an easy thing
04:28 to necessarily kind of take a look at.
04:31 But ultimately, you know, I wanted to grow,
04:33 and I was passionate about growing,
04:35 and I kind of realized, like, if we're gonna grow,
04:38 you know, the most important thing
04:39 that I gotta change around here is me.
04:41 - So describe the culture now,
04:45 because it sounds like what you've built is really cohesive.
04:48 - Yeah, we have a strong team.
04:50 More importantly, we have an organization
04:52 that really runs and is predictable, and built for growth.
04:55 There's a lot going on behind the scenes now
04:57 that I don't necessarily need to be a part of anymore.
05:00 And that's the biggest benefit that's come out of this,
05:02 is propagating people to be leaders within the company
05:05 that know how to take charge, solve issues,
05:08 and more importantly, just have a business
05:10 that you love and care about,
05:11 and that's the culture you wanna have.
05:13 - It's that exact culture that led Bobby's Bike Hike
05:17 to become a top touring company.
05:19 And the man behind it is gonna give me a VIP tour.
05:22 Let's hit the streets.
05:24 - That's an interesting building, what's that?
05:28 - Yeah, so this is the Wrigley Building.
05:30 It's actually the first building built
05:32 north of the Chicago River.
05:34 - Huh.
05:35 It looks like the Arctic out there.
05:39 - Well, and they also bring an ice splitter through here,
05:41 so sometimes they'll break it all up.
05:43 (upbeat music)
05:46 (upbeat music)
05:59 (upbeat music)
06:01 - Jeremy, when you started this business 23 years ago,
06:04 you called it Bobby's Bike Hikes,
06:06 and it focused on bikes.
06:08 But you've since added a lot more,
06:10 kayaking, food, summer camps, why?
06:14 - Yeah, so we saw an opportunity.
06:15 There started to become an interest in, say, food tourism.
06:18 I mean, there's no better way to experience a city
06:22 or experience a culture than through its food.
06:25 And when you see those trends come in,
06:26 and you can see how they can make sense
06:28 within your own business model.
06:29 So we started bike tours, launched into food tours,
06:32 launched into walking tours,
06:34 and now we're even doing summer camps.
06:36 - You're also expanding into different cities.
06:40 I know, for example, that you are now operating in Miami.
06:43 So how did you prepare for such a big change?
06:46 - Yeah, so basically we wanted to find an area of Miami
06:49 that would be suitable for what we wanted to do,
06:51 which was walking and food tours.
06:53 We wanted to be really nimble,
06:54 so we haven't operated bike tours just yet down there.
06:57 So there were other food tour operators,
07:00 but we saw an opportunity in this neighborhood of Wynwood.
07:02 Great art district.
07:04 The Wynwood Walls is the highest concentration
07:06 of graffiti art in the country,
07:08 and they have an amazing food scene.
07:10 And really, no one was offering food and walking tours,
07:13 and so we saw an opportunity there
07:15 that we wanted to get started in about a year ago,
07:17 and so we did.
07:18 - And you're not stopping in Miami, right?
07:20 - We're not stopping in Miami.
07:21 So ultimately, we're looking for major cities
07:24 that are culturally rich, that are food-centric.
07:27 And so if that fits the bill,
07:29 we'll probably see us in there.
07:30 - And Bobby's Bike Hike might be hiking there.
07:31 - You might be seeing us there, yes.
07:33 - What's your advice to someone building a complex business
07:37 with a lot of different parts
07:39 and making sure that it all works together?
07:40 - You gotta focus on the big things,
07:42 like quality guides, quality equipment.
07:44 But ultimately, you gotta always focus
07:46 on the small stuff as well, like the inventory.
07:48 - And how do you manage all that?
07:49 - We have somebody at our shop, Mallory,
07:51 who actually takes care of all of the ins and outs
07:54 of the stockroom, because it is an important part of it.
07:56 - Jeremy, before we wrap up,
07:58 Walmart Business actually has a surprise for you.
08:01 They're setting you up
08:01 with a six-month Walmart Business Plus membership.
08:05 So that's free shipping and limited-time offers
08:07 on products for business owners,
08:09 and 2% rewards back on purchases over $250,
08:13 and you're getting a $1,000 e-gift card
08:16 to spend on whatever you need at business.walmart.com.
08:20 - Wow, thank you, that's amazing.
08:22 We actually just ordered some bins from Walmart,
08:24 so thank you so much, I appreciate it.
08:26 That will help us quite a bit.
08:27 - That's awesome, well, now you can buy stuff
08:29 to put in the bins.
08:30 - Perfect.
08:31 (upbeat music)
08:35 - As I toured Chicago with Jeremy,
08:39 I kept thinking about something
08:40 that a real estate developer once told me.
08:42 He said that if a city isn't growing, it's dying.
08:46 And I realized the same is true
08:48 for a business or its founder.
08:51 Growth and change are the only way forwards,
08:55 but the road ahead can be bumpy.
08:57 So don't forget to wear a helmet.
08:59 (upbeat music)
09:02 (upbeat music)
09:05 (upbeat music)
09:07 (upbeat music)
09:10 (whooshing)
09:12 you