Smash Notes
#21 Alissa Leinonen
Alissa Leinonen started Gourmondo, Seattle’s leading catering and gourmet box lunch company, 24 years ago. Back in 1996, Alissa had a dream that she turned into a reality by refinancing her car and opening a 470 square-foot, four table café. Gourmondo has now tripled the size of the company in the last three years, serving between 3,000-4,000 guests per…
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Notes
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On What Fuels You, Alissa Leinonen says she loved restaurant work in Seattle but, after a business degree at the University of Washington, wanted a food career that would still leave nights and weekends for the family she planned to have. The answer, she says, came out of necessity. She refinanced her car and opened a small cafe with two other people so she could control her own schedule. The written plan was packaged meals delivered for dinner. That market was not there, so the dinner service never started. They had four tables and a decent lunch business, which she says could not produce a real income, and the first months were slow.
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Alissa Leinonen tells What Fuels You that Gourmondo never had one giant order that transformed the company. The shift was entering new markets. In 2006 she wanted corporate dining, the campus cafeterias run by large employers. Gourmondo was about a 1 million dollars company, and the contract she won was another 1 million dollars of business, enough to double the firm overnight. They had never done that work. She says they overpromised and did not understand the people actually eating there, many of them in shipping and receiving, who wanted inexpensive, familiar food. The menu she brought, including crab cakes, was the wrong offer. She calls that market a profound change in the company.
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A business owner must put the shame and frustration of failure aside and think critically on how to overcome tough, emergent situations. Integrity and honesty with vendors and employees are necessary. Community is so important.
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CEOs often feel the pressure to work all of the time, wear every hat, lead by example, etc. But, it is important for each individual leader to analyze areas where they truly add value to their business and areas where they get in the way. In the areas where a CEO may be lacking, they have the responsibility to bring in strong leaders to fill those gaps.
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Individuals who are smart, more educated, and more experienced are beneficial. However, it is more than that. The magic happens when leaders move out of the way of their employees in order for them to do what they are capable of doing. The leader's role should be to provide their employees with the necessary resources and support to do great things.
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Alissa Leinonen tells What Fuels You that guilt showed up when her schedule and her promises did not match. If she told people she would be at Gourmondo full time and then was not there, she felt guilty. The hard stretch was the first shift to part time. Once she made the commitment known, so the company expected her to be out on those days, it became much easier. She keeps the boundary concrete. If she does not work Wednesdays and Fridays, she does not book them. For a long time her email was not on her phone, and only a few people know how to reach her in an emergency.
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On What Fuels You, Alissa Leinonen, founder of Seattle caterer Gourmondo, says the lesson she took from her father was humility. He stayed humble, stayed curious, asked questions, and held himself and his daughters to a high standard of integrity. She wants the same work ethic for her daughter Olivia and her son Joe. Olivia, working a summer in the cafes, would not drop a chicken-sandwich idea. She built prototypes, and the sandwich, named the Olivia, became the top seller in the cafe division. Leinonen says she is proud of how hard they work and how passionate they are, and she calls fearlessness and tenacity qualities she likes seeing in them.
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