Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dallas Shaw. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Dallas, appreciate you joining us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?
From a very young age, my parents and I would joke about me owning a food business. Most times it was a fictitious place called “Big D’s Burgers” since my name is Dallas and I really liked burgers. The dream of opening a restaurant stuck with me into college, with many of my business class projects centering around a restaurant theme, however, when it came to the end of my undergrad program, I wasn’t sure what exactly I wanted to do. I decided to continue my education and spent the next 2 years completing my MBA while working in management at major retail company. I continued my business roles moving into B2B sales, pushing the dream of opening a restaurant further down the line. It wasn’t until 2011 before I started to look at getting back into the food industry. After deciding to open a burger food truck in Nashville, I put together a business plan, got a loan, bought my food truck, and was open for business in August 2011.
When it came to naming my business, I thought back to 20 years prior and looked up “Big D’s Burgers” as a possible business name. Unfortunately, someone was already using that name, so I would have to come up with something new and unique. My niche was Juicy Lucy style burgers with cheese hand-patted inside the burger patty. I wanted a name that included that concept, and “stuffed” seemed to be the best option at first. Thinking about the rest of the name, growing up, my father told me a story about when he was younger and working for a man that could never remember his name, instead calling him “hoss”, “lad”, or simply “boy”. In the years following the telling of that story, my dad started calling me Hoss, “Hoss, Lad, Boy”, and even “HLB” as a term of endearment. Going back to the business name, I decided to use “Hoss'” instead of “Big D’s”, but “Hoss’ Stuffed Burgers” was too many S’s in a row. That’s when I remembered the acronym “HLB”, I changed “Stuffed” to “Loaded”, and “Hoss’ Loaded Burgers” born.
Dallas, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
[A lot of this was answered with the previous question, so I’ll just add some additional info with this question rather than rehashing the same info.]
When deciding my menu and specialty, I wanted to make sure I offered menu items that customers couldn’t get anywhere else in town. After watching an episode of Diner, Drive-ins, and Dives about a Juicy Lucy burger restaurant in Minnesota, I knew that’s what Nashville needed. Having the cheese hand-patted inside the patty is a unique experience that our customers love. There is just something amazing about biting into our burgers and having a pocket of cheese oozing out. I also wanted to support other small businesses by sourcing my beef from a local companies that humanely raise their cattle, allowing them to roam free in fields instead of being crammed in a warehouse. We were Porter Road Butchers’ first commercial client and they have been great to work. I also wanted a really smokey bacon, so the natural choice was Benton’s Country Bacon in Madisonville, TN. And, finally, a major part of any burger is the bun. I tested a few bakeries around Nashville and Charpier’s had the perfect bun that was light enough to allow the burger to take the main stage, but not so light it would turn to mush from the burger grease. Taking the time to choose the best ingredient for the burgers allowed me to stand out from the competition and offer something not available anywhere else.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Back in 2011, food trucks were common in big cities like Miami, New York, and LA, but in Nashville, there were only a few on the road. When I came up with the idea to start a food truck, I knew how to write a solid business plan and forecast the best I could how I would pay off a loan, but banks weren’t convinced that funding a food truck would be a good investment on their part. I heard “I’m sorry, we’re not interested in offering a loan for that type of business” from multiple banks. Finally, I heard that BB&T had created a loan for another food truck in town, so I went to them and was able to secure the funds I needed. I got a $28,000 loan on a 60 month term. I paid it off in 25 months.
BB&T was only willing to give me 75% of the value of the truck, so my parents offered $15,000 to cover the rest and offer some operating funds. I created a payment plan and paid them off with interest, just like I would a bank. My wife and I also put in some funds to give me a bigger buffer with my operating expenses just in case it took a few months before the business made enough to pay all the bills.
How did you build your audience on social media?
While our follower counts aren’t a high as some other food truck accounts in Nashville, our followers engage with out content and share it with others. The first step with setting up social media accounts is to get the same username for all of the systems. You don’t want BobsDonuts for twitter, Bobs_donuts for Facebook, and BobsDonuts1 for Instagram. Having multiple names is confusing for potential followers and reduces your chances of being searched for on any of the systems.
The next important steps is to have professional photos of your items or services. Whether you are selling burgers, candles, personal training, or anything else, having beautiful photos will catch the attention of your followers. Mobile phone cameras have improved over the years, but using a professional camera with professional photo editing software will allow you to get the best lighting and colors. I addition to having high quality photos, don’t post images with a lot of words. Stick to images of what you have to provide for customers and put the words in the description.
Finally, the last important thing is to post regularly to keep your photos in the feeds of your followers. Followers on Instagram’s see more often the posts of the accounts they are interacting with each day. If you go weeks between posting, your posts will be really far down on your followers’ feeds and won’t get the interaction you are looking for.
Contact Info:
- Website: hossburgers.com
- Instagram: Instagram.com/hossburgers
- Facebook: Facebook.com/hossburgers
- Twitter: twitter.com/hossburgers
Image Credits
Fresh Marketing.
Kyle Dreier Photography