We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Odie OConnor. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Odie below.
Odie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
When I first moved to Portland in 2014 I decided to make the jump from being vegetarian to completely plant based, I soon realized that there wasn’t a ton of really GOOD pizza options for vegans in the city. I figured this was an opportunity to learn a new skill so I purchased a small pizza oven intended for backyard use and began making pizzas for my friends. I immediately fell in love with every aspect of it- making the dough, letting it rise, experimenting with different dough hydrations, learning about sour dough vs dry commercial yeast, investigating different ways to mimic meat/cheese flavors using plant based ingredients- I used every spare minute I had to further my skills as a pizza maker. One of my friends was having a party and asked if I would bring my oven to his yard and make pizzas for everyone there, I was incredibly nervous but decided it could be a good learning experience and I could see what strangers thought of my new found love. I got great feedback at the party and that same night I told my girlfriend I wanted to open a food truck serving up my plant based pizzas. The first problem I faced, and the problem that most entrepreneurs face, was money. I really didn’t have any capital to start a business, so I decided the best way forward was to start doing pop-ups around Portland at bars, restaurants, and events to not only raise some money for the food truck, but also get my name out to the public. After about a year of doing pop ups anywhere that would let me in the door, I was able to put a downpayment on a food truck. I opened my food truck in the summer of 2017 in SouthEast Portland. I had to learn everything about running a business in real time- paying taxes, hiring/ managing employees, doing inventory, ordering, dealing with unhappy customers, getting broken into, building and fixing things myself, etc. One of the biggest hurdles I faced was when my food truck caught on fire during the middle of a Saturday service, luckily no one was hurt and we only had to be closed for about a week while things got repaired. In June of 2020 I was presented with an opportunity to take over an old pizza shop that the owner was trying to sell. It cost me every penny my business had made but I decided to take the jump and sign a lease on a brick and mortar pizza shop. Because I had no money left, I was left to do all the work to get the shop open myself (with the help of a few friends). Building storage, counters, painting, making the website, hanging wallpaper were all skills I had to learn in real time to get my new pizza shop open. Since opening our doors in August of 2020, Boxcar has had amazing support from the Portland community. I’ve been able to hire a full staff, accountant, tax person, and lawyer so I don’t have to learn everything at the University of Google anymore. The biggest lesson I learned throughout my time as a business owner is every problem has a solution, and being your own boss means everything falls on your shoulders. In the beginning there can be a lot of sleepless nights and panic attacks, but its far and away the most rewarding job I’ve ever had and although having a “normal” job can sound appetizing sometimes, I really can’t ever picture myself working for someone else again.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I grew up in San Diego, California and began in the restaurant industry when I was 15 years old. Working in the service industry allowed me to follow my passion which was playing music. After living in Los Angeles and giving music my best effort, I decided it was time to figure something else out and was desperately craving a change of scenery. I moved to Portland, OR in 2014 and began tattooing professionally and making pizza as a hobby. Pizza very quickly became my main focus and I threw everything I had into learning every aspect of it. When I started Boxcar, I wanted it to reflect the counter culture that I grew up in. Boxcar is an inviting and friendly place that feels almost like a tattoo shop, with flash hanging on all of the walls. We pride ourselves on being a welcoming place for anyone to come get really great pizza that doesn’t have any animal products.
We sell 100% plant based, Detroit Style pizza. What makes me most proud is when omnivores eat our pizza and tell us they don’t feel like their missing out on anything without having dairy or meat products on the pies. The goal has always been to make really good pizza that happens to be vegan and I believe we are accomplishing that everyday. I never wanted the selling point to be the fact that it is vegan, I just wanted to make really good pizza.
Have you ever had to pivot?
2020 was definitely the most challenging for me as a business owner. In March of that year I had to make the tough decision to temporarily close my food truck as a precautionary measure to Covid-19. After a week of being closed, I reached out to one of my employees, Gus, to see if he wanted to pivot into making and delivery Pizza Kits to people. Each week we opened up an online sign up sheet where folks could order a pizza kit that would be delivered the following Sunday. Gus and I would prepare each kit Fridays and Saturdays in a commissary kitchen and then deliver them on Sundays. Each kit had instructions on how to stretch and top dough and enough supplies to make four 12″ pizzas. The feedback we got each week was incredible, some people said it was the thing they looked forward to most during the lockdown. That experience taught me that even in the worst and most depressing of times, there is a solution to every problem. Selling the kits allowed me to reopen my food truck a few months after and eventually open up my first brick and mortar pizza shop.
Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?
Managing a team and keeping morale high is incredibly difficult, especially the more personalities you have underneath you. The most important thing is to make sure you’re being 100% candid with each member of the team, and encourage the team to be comfortable giving you feedback- both good and bad. If you can create a culture of honest feedback, your staff will work better with each other and do a better job overall. When giving praise or constructive feedback, make sure you’re being specific and keeping it only business related, never personal. Have compassion and genuinely care about your employees. Learn what they like to do outside of work, ask them questions (not too personal), learn about their passions. If you have to give bad news, be direct, honest, and crystal clear. I’ve found most people appreciate constructive feedback because it allows them to perform their duties better. When I first started managing people it was incredibly difficult for me to have tough conversations with people- I was too concerned with being everyones friend and I wanted everyone to like me. I foolishly thought that wanting people to like me made me a nice person, but in reality it just made me vain and a bad leader. Not everyone is going to like you as a boss; your job is not to be liked but it is to make sure your staff have all the information and resources available to do a good job.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.boxcarpizzapdx.com/
- Instagram: @boxcarpizza
- Yelp: Boxcar Pizza
- Other: TikTok: @boxcarpizza
Image Credits
Cameron David Salazar-Smith