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An inspiring masterclass of The Avocado Show

A crazy story, yet true, Ron Simpson starts his masterclass. With an extremely successful background in the music industry and marketing Ron Simpson, owner and founder of The Avocado Show, decided to do something else. This resulted in a fully funded global brand: The Avocado Show. During this masterclass Ron Simpson shows us the power of social media and inspired us to always think about what to do next and the power of imperfection.

The next step

Things were going great for Ron in the marketing industry. "When things are going really well, you have to think about the next step." Together with his friend and business partner Julien Zaal Ron decided to build something that lasts. We live in a generation where we can literally wake up in the morning, figure out a business that is someone else's specialty and you can actually pull it off. Trends were showing people demanding things that look better, prettier and are healthier, fast casual food, really good food but quicker, they want a 'mono' restaurant. All these trends combined and considering the fact that 400 million people eat avocados world wide, they chose to go all avocado.

Start of the restaurant

This was on a Thursday. On Friday Ron gave his friends the challenge to show him in an hour what an avocado restaurant looks like. Jamie van Heije, friend and top chef, got the challenge to come up with a menu. Ninety percent of what came back is what is now used in the restaurant. On Monday Ron got a wake-up call from Julien saying he found a location in De Pijp (Amsterdam) for their restaurant, The Avocado Show.

212 million views

Instead of going for his press release, with a well composed press pack, they figured that support from their friends and family is more important. So they put a simple picture of the three of them on Facebook tagging Ron's mum. It just said: Oh my God, we're opening an avocado restaurant. It had zero information. This picture is the reason why they had 212 million views. First day maybe a thousands likes, the next day is had already reached 12 million likes. It went world wide. On the Instagram they reached 60.000 views. They started to make international headlines, before the restaurant had even opened yet.

The power of imperfection will always be stronger than a perfect job. If you want to prolong the attention you have to switch up your information. Do not give all the information at once. The Avocado Show achieved a viral effect for eight and a half months. The website had up to 1.1 million hits in one day.

People sleeping outside

Only four months after it went viral the restaurant opened. The night before opening people actually slept outside. It's been three years now and guests are still queueing outside for a table. When we make food we ask one thing: pizza, pasta, pancakes? Can we avocado it? We make food that doesn't need an explanation. A hamburger made from an avocado speaks for itself.

Three goals

Ron and Julien have three goals. Sustainability: They believe they can grow big enough to have a positive effect on the sustainability of the entire supply chain of avocados. Love: Before they opened people started calling them wanting to franchise the business. They started calling it FANchising. They hope to open up to 25 franchises over the next five years. As there is no love in franchising they look for franchisees that have a love for the concept. They now have 1200 franchise requests. Brand: If all of you know the brand Chiquita for bananas, they want everyone to know the avocado brand The Avocado Show.

A crazy story, with the avocado as the Rockstar.

Read more about: excellent, masterclass