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FOSTERING STUDENT INNOVATION
BLOG "NOTHING IS AS EASY AS YOU THINK IT IS": A CLOSER LOOK AT
YALE STARTUP CHEESEBOY
Posted on Thursday, March 28, 2013
Categories: student ventures, Venture Updates
BY CLAIRE ZHANG
Michael Inwald, SOM’10, has taken one of everybody’s favorite comfort foods – grilled
cheese – and turned it into a burgeoning quick food service restaurant chain called
Cheeseboy, though he doesn’t exactly like the term ‘success.’
“We’re still growing,” said Michael. “I would say it’s too early to say [we’re successful].
We’ve done a great job in a number of areas. We have a lot of stores that are doing
well,” said Michael.
Yet, Michael has been named one of “10 Generation Next entrepreneurs to watch” by
CNN Money. Cheeseboy made #13 on Nation’s Restaurant News’s list of 50 “Breakout
Brands of 2013," and the restaurant currently has eight locations in the Northeast
including Boston, Providence, and Milford. Even if not a “success,” Cheeseboy certainly
seems to be thriving.
Though Michael was uncomfortable responding to the idea of “success,” he was able to
name many things that Cheeseboy has done well.
“We have built a strong brand image, even though we’re still being discovered every day
by customers,” said Michael.
Part of this image is demonstrating that quick service does not mean cutting back on
quality. Cheeseboy restaurants use “all natural bread, premium cheese, [and] fresh
toppings.” Their website boasts bread without “artificial preservatives, flavorings, or
dough conditioners”; cheeses that include “Alpine Light Swiss, sharp cheddar and creamy
white American”; and vegetable toppings that are hand‐picked and cut every morning.
High‐level quality translates to the atmosphere of the restaurants as well. With their fun
fonts and slogans and bright colors, the restaurants seem comforting, friendly, inviting
and modern. They are currently located in high traffic areas like food courts, but the
company is planning to open a brick and mortar shop in Boston this spring.
“When you go to a Cheeseboy restaurant, you should feel like you are in an A+ class
restaurant, everything from customer service to quality of food to the efficiency of
operation,” said Michael.
Additionally, Cheeseboy seeks to cultivate a culture beyond profit driven business,
supporting an organization called Serious Fun Camps, which provides year‐round camp
experiences to children with chronic and life‐threatening conditions. They have pledged
to donate “100% of sales on one full, busy day at each new Cheeseboy location” they
open. Donation boxes are also located at every register.
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An Entrepreneurial Obsession
Michael attended the Yale School of Management when he was 29 years old. By then, he
already had extensive business experience, having run two companies and working in
marketing and business management for large companies. Entrepreneurship had been his
goal since he was 17, and he never pursued any other career path. The first thing he did
after graduating from Cornell was to start a company.
The idea for Cheeseboy originated from his personal experiences cooking grilled cheese
for friends who would visit his apartment, and his own obsession with cheese in general.
Friends suggested he do something entrepreneurial with the obsession. So he began to
look into it.
“I did the research, what kind of model it would be, whether it would be successful
based on what other companies had or hadn’t done, then I looked into real estate to
open up. I really needed a lot of capital to get a new brand off the ground, so I put it on
the backburner.”
When Michael participated in the Yale Entrepreneurial Institute Summer Fellowship
however, the idea came off the backburner. “I am forever indebted to YEI for giving me
the launch pad and resources needed to get my company off the ground. I would not
have this venture were it not for YEI,” said Michael.
The fellowship provided the time, resources, and training necessary for Michael to
develop the venture. “It was there that I fine tuned my model. It was there that I met
my investors. It was there that I met my initial mentors. It was there that I was
encouraged to test [the venture] out in a real life environment, so that I could prove the
model.”
“Nothing is as easy as you think it is”
Michael’s biggest challenge in the business thus far has been building a cohesive and well
functioning team. “It’s not just about hiring, it’s about retaining, letting people go – it’s
a process that takes a long time. You don’t just post a job ad and hire people and all of a
sudden everyone has the right skill set and works well. It takes a lot of trial and error,”
said Michael. He sees building a team as the hardest part of any business, because once
a good team is in place, then the daily operational challenges can be dealt with, but
building the team comes first.
In the process of building Cheeseboy, Michael has learned an extraordinary amount of
things, so much that he finds them hard to pinpoint – ranging from real estate, to food
production, to operations. In terms of the bigger picture, however, Michael noted that
he learned “that nothing is as easy and as affordable as you might think it is. That’s
probably the biggest education I had. No matter how much research you did to estimate
something, how much planning goes into it, how conservative you think you might be in
your budgeting, you just don’t know what you don’t know. You start learning those
things as you go along in the process.”
For new startups and entrepreneurs, Michael has only one piece of advice: “Don’t start a
company for the sake of starting a company. If there is no passion behind your idea and
your desire to build a particular organization around a particular product or service, then
it will be very difficult for you to enjoy success.”
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