We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Javier Fulgencio. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Javier below.
Javier, appreciate you joining us today. What do you think Corporate America gets wrong in your industry?
The way Corporate America handles people and customer service compared to the way we handle is night and day. I did the corporate thing for years and you’re handcuffed to their rules. Now we have constant discussions around making sure we thank our customers and let them know we appreciate them. We’re able to have real humor and real convos without being worried of Corporate leaders coming down on us. We can tell jokes and have fun in a natural normal way. We actually know our customers, some on a personal basis now. We have connections that go beyond food. It’s not an act for us either, we know without them we’re nothing so we want every single person who orders to know we care.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
Im Javier and I’m very proud of where I come from. My early years were a combination of BV and Saginaw. I grew up as a city boy who spent weekdays on the West Side on Waller St. with my Great Grandparents, weekends on the East Side on Mott St. with my grandma and uncles and aunt and the rest between Jefferson St and BV. So I would consider myself as Saginaw as it gets. Some years ago I wanted my kids to be in a different school district so I made the tough choice to move them just outside of the city to Freeland and I don’t regret it all. It’s been such a great place for my kids to grow and learn a see a different way of living. As a young kid I was so lucky to experience what I did and be surrounded by amazing people who allowed me to love food, dance to music, be creative and always feel loved. I did the corporate grind for years and years and learned a lot and made a good living but there was always the dream to be involved in food and or music my whole life. I started by catering and from there it never went away, food literally haunted me daily cause I knew I could do it. I found myself researching and watching others do this food thing and thought if they could I can. Finally November 2023 while sitting at home with Covid for almost a month I put together a hard plan that made sense. I presented it to my wife Dyann and with her help and the help of my best friend Angel we pushed to make it happen.
What makes Wonder work isn’t just one thing. It’s the whole working company so everything from branding, food, social media, customer engagement, picking the correct events and most importantly our amazing crew. One thing most people reading this won’t know is where our branding comes from which is kinda funny because it actually originated from my Instagram and apple gamer tag WonderJav. I wanted the vibe and overall feel of the company to mimic myself and the people I surround myself with, fun, happy, energetic and cool. I believed the word was interesting enough and different to work. Sounds goofy but I wanted it to be something people would remember and from there that’s why the logo I created was simple and straight forward so people would know exactly what they were getting without having to walk up and read a menu. In these times peoples attention spans including my own are programmed to be quick so I always kept in mind it needs to be one word like Wonder.
I’m most proud the we can count on regulars. That means the world to us because if they’re coming back event after event, traveling to find us it means we’re doing something right. Using their gas and hard earned money to buy something from us is not taken lightly and very much appreciated.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Our social media following and presence has been one of my proudest parts of this whole journey. I took a lot of ideas from my previous career where the last few years were centered around helping local businesses grow and learn how our products could help them. I paid attention to how they ran their companies and how they communicated with their customers. I wanted to focus our socials on community and allowing our customers to take part in our posts on a daily basis by interacting and showing we are human. We don’t always post pics of us and our food, we appreciate the invites we get from our partners so instead of just making it about Wonder, we post of pics of our partners and friends to show and possibly help them like they’re helping us. Humor and responding in a timely manner show that we really care and in turn our customers show us love by giving us likes shares and comments which really helps drive business to our site. That love we get on Facebook and Instagram are so valuable to us and now we can better anticipate how much to prep and staff for because in most cases the analytics compared to sales go hand in hand.
Does your business have multiple or supplementary revenue streams (like a ATM machine at a barbershop, etc)?
Our business and platform has lead to many opportunities for us like merchandise. Now that’s not some get rich thing, we make a couple bucks per shirt, hoodie or hat but it helps the business with advertising and such. We’ve also slowly started thinking outside the box and are already planning on using our knowledge in food, music and entertainment to bring some events to area. That’s beyond exciting for us because it’s everything we love but in one place. I’d love to share more but until it’s set in stone well just leave it at that.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://gowonder.net/
- Instagram: @gowonderburger
- Facebook: @gowonderburger