12 ms·

Let me get this straight: 1. With zero experience, zero education, and training he was paid to go through, he was handed a franchise and allowed to keep a larg

by 93po 6y ago

Let me get this straight: 1. With zero experience, zero education, and training he was paid to go through, he was handed a franchise and allowed to keep a large portion of the profits 2. In less than a year he was able to use his profits to buy a second location that was presumably all his to profit from 3. Within two years of starting he made $40k in SAVINGS (not just profit) from these two locations, in the 70s I wish we had it this easy today. No wonder this generation is constantly telling us about bootstraps

dkdk8283 6y ago
The biggest difference today is work ethic, IMO. You worked hard and took failures on the chin. Now you can bitch on social media and feel sorry for yourself.
bruceb 6y ago
He also worked 12-17 hours a day according to the article, benefiting from child labor.
chasd00 6y ago
if it were easy there wouldn't be an article written about it
- sidlls 6y ago
  "as easy" shouldn't be taken to mean "objectively, absolutely easy." It's relative. And relative to today, I agree. Where, today, can one be given a franchise after (paid) training and save close to $200k (net of profits, taxes, etc.) over a one year period? Even given the same work habits and use of family (child) labor? There is either an element of (relative) less difficulty and or extraordinary luck at play here.
  - kjksf 6y ago
    He wasn't given anything. Winchell was (and is) a business, not a charity. The article lacks details but Ockham's Razor dictates that the most plausible was that Winchell and he entered into a business arrangement where he was running their donut shop for a share of profits. They provided the capital, he did all the work and Winchell got a cut of his profits. He then saved aggressively and started buying more donut shops. Notice that Winchell had similar arrangement with many other people and presumably they didn't become millionaires. As to luck: he trained 100+ other immigrants to successfully operate a donut shop so if an immigrant that most likely doesn't even speak English can profitably operate a donut shop, maybe luck is not such a big factor. As for why he became a millionaire and not others - I don't see any luck there either. He followed the same formula a hundred times: open one more donut shop. He was just more ambitious, worked harder, saved more aggressively and took a bit more risk.
    - sumedh 6y ago
      > He followed the same formula a hundred times: Its the same formula used by particular Indian community who came to the US in 70s, 80's and now own most of the motels in US. Put your family to work, save lots of money, use those savings to buy another motel, bring immigrants from your community, put them to work, rinse and repeat and that is how a small Indian community are the Motel Kings in the US. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2018/09/south-asia-america-motels-immigration/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2018/09/south-asi...
- maxerickson 6y ago
  One implied question is whether the franchise opportunity even exists today.
  - ghufran_syed 6y ago
    Winchells bought out their franchisees in 1971, at least 4 years before he did the training course and started running a winchells store. So it was a job, not a franchise https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/winchells-donut-houses-operating-company-lp https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-mag...
1123581321 6y ago
These shops were not expensive as a modern franchise would be, true, but a modern store could expect to also make a lot by employing family to save money. Also, I would not call the hours the whole family worked at the shop, or the extreme cost savings they employed, easy. Let alone the difficulty of saving up his first $3,000 by working three jobs.
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  he was a manager, not a franchisee [edit: added reference] https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/winchells-donut-houses-operating-company-lp https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-mag...
  - 1123581321 6y ago
    Thank you - I suppose the reverse, then, that the family captured the labor cost. Did he earn a performance bonus that incentivized him to minimize supply cost?
neom 6y ago
The guy scaled a tree and evaded security to profess his love to a government officials daughter, lived under her bed for almost 2 months, learned four languages, married her, built an empire, reasoned his way through a gambling addiction and rebuilt his life. He sounds quite extraordinary to me.
- colmvp 6y ago
  In my teens and twenties, I would've been like "what a lovely gesture." Now that I'm in my thirties and we've gone through various social movements, I think "whoa, what a creeper." Specifically the whole jumping into her bedroom. And the whole stabbing himself if they broke them apart. Then I had gave a gut check: they were kids. In my teens my mind was definitely in that realm of ambitious gestures.
  - watwut 6y ago
    The stabbing thing however points to toxic relationship even if they are kids. Even as teenagers those are massive red flags.
- 93po 6y ago
  I also jumped fences for girls, and unlike this guy I didn't marry into a rich family. I think the only notable thing that happened here is he built an empire, and as my comment pointed out it's much easier to build an empire when you're in an environment that allows you enough profit to buy a house with cash only two years after starting from nothing and taking virtually zero risk.
koolba 6y ago
You left out the part where he and his wife were each working 18 hours a day and saving every penny of earnings to the point where his kids were so hungry they were stealing other children’s lunches.
- ggggtez 6y ago
  This sentiment is backwards. You seem to be implying that the children wouldn't be hungry if he wasn't granted a free franchise to run and profit from. Obviously you are trying to imply that it was the "saving every penny" that made him rich, not the "granted a franchise to run". But let's be real: You can't save money you didn't make to start with. The above poster is clearly calling out the gift as the reason for his success.
  - koolba 6y ago
    I’m not implying that at all. I’m saying the real secret ingredient is a combination of grit and focus. There’s plenty of people in the USA presented with much more opportunity than this man received. Few have achieved anywhere near as much. I’d wager that if he got his first job as a janitor he’d be running a cleaning empire rather than a donut chain.
    - derrida 6y ago
      If you did that you might end up broke like him!
    - nsoonhui 6y ago
      Hardwork and grit is overrated. Without proper opportunity you can achieve nothing. I wish we keep survivor bias in mind when reading success stories; we should ask "out of those who work hard and gritty, how many are successful and how many are actually not?" And not "out of those who are successful, how many are hardworking?" Most of the time, hardwork is just the minimum prerequisite to success that every aspirants have, de-emphasizing the role of luck in life is simply unwise.
      - deleted 6y ago
throwaway201103 6y ago
The word franchise doesn't appear in the article. It's light on detail, but I think it's more likely he completed a management training program, and was then given a store to manage. It's not uncommon for a manager to receive a percent of profits as compensation. He then saved enough to put a down payment on his own store. I.e. he worked very hard, continually leveraged his assets to expand, and was (for a time) successful.
- chrismcb 6y ago
  How children worked for free. And he was successful, not just "for a time" the only reason he failed was a gambling addiction.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
peteretep 6y ago
> was offered a post as liaison officer in Thailand by Suganthini's brother-in-law, Gen Sak Sutsakhan. Instantly acquiring the rank of Major, Ted and his young family moved to Bangkok, and every month he travelled back to Cambodia to collect the wages for his soldiers. This ... won't have hurt!
- fakedang 6y ago
  Except that led them to being put first in line when the executions happened. If he was in Phnom Penh by any chance, he and his family would have been executed too.
marcusverus 6y ago
> I wish we had it this easy today. This is the equivalent of saying that the entire generation known as 'Gen Z' has it easy... because you read a blog post about one kid who makes millions off a YouTube channel.
mmaunder 6y ago
You do have it easy today in the USA. The USA is an absolute paradise for an immigrant. The business environment is unbelievably friendly and helpful, capital is easily available. The country is filled with entrepreneurs who are incredibly supportive. There is a stable economy and system of laws. And the country is safe. These things don’t exist in most other countries. I expect nothing but contempt for my comments above from this community, particularly given how popular it is to drown oneself in self pity. But trust me that when you step off the boat in this country it is exhilarating and inspiring and the world seems filled with possibilities that never existed before. Unless you’ve lived in a corrupt country, seen hyperinflation of 1% per day first hand, experienced the increase in mental bandwidth that comes from feeling safe and the opposite, experienced tall poppy syndrome and the opposite, seen how hard it is to raise money elsewhere and raised money in the USA, you will never understand how absolutely amazing this country is. I remember when I first moved here. I was incorporating my first California corporation using a Nolo book. I called the secretary of state’s office with a question. Someone answered the phone after one ring. I thought I’d called the wrong number. I couldn’t believe how helpful and friendly they were. Doing business on other countries is very hard. This country truly is amazing. If you live here and are an entrepreneur, you’re very fortunate.
- banachtarski 6y ago
  Is being male and white not a factor in your analysis. Just looking statistically at the segment of the demographic which directly correlates with wealth and entrepreneurship paints a different story from your narrative.
  - temporama1 6y ago
    Grow up
  - kjksf 6y ago
    The article we're discussing is about a non-white Asian immigrant becoming a millionaire in U.S. by opening donut shops. He also helped a hundred+ other non-white, Asian immigrants to become small business owners. And if you ever worked in Silicon Valley as a programmer, you must have noticed how people from India and China are over-represented in that profession. Not to mention plenty of white males that are not rich and successful. Being white male is neither sufficient nor necessary for success.
birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago
He was kind of a diplomat back home and he worked 3 jobs when applying for the franchise. If such a person knocks on your door, it would be foolish to not give him a franchise. He go the team slide in his pitch deck right, the franchise knew the market and the profit opportunity. An (angle) investor's dream made in heaven.
sumedh 6y ago
> I wish we had it this easy today. It is, you already have mobile phone, start recording, work hard and put your videos on youtube, you will be a millionaire soon.
Rillen 6y ago
You have to work less today for the same things then in the 70s. We have great shiny things like the internet; Video, Computer games, a lot more music, everyone can vote, smoking indoors is not normal etc. We are living in a different world. Its not feasible to compare it to a time 50 years ago. I prefer this time honestly.
- yao420 6y ago
  > You have to work less today for the same things then in the 70s. Well except for housing, medical costs, and college. So all the important things.
randomdata 6y ago
It is even easier today. A high school kid can write a few lines of code and become a multi-millionaire overnight. However, in both cases we don’t hear about everyone else that didn’t win the lottery.
mgh2 6y ago
The article did not mention it was easy, in fact quite the opposite on their perspective. Yes, there is more competition now, but taken into account all the advantages of education, resources, information, and technology, this levels out the playing field somehow. Every generation has its difficulties- we should not belittle other's challenges since we have never walked in their shoes. We can only learn empathy.

by 93po 6y ago

dkdk8283 6y ago

The biggest difference today is work ethic, IMO. You worked hard and took failures on the chin. Now you can bitch on social media and feel sorry for yourself.

bruceb 6y ago

He also worked 12-17 hours a day according to the article, benefiting from child labor.

chasd00 6y ago

if it were easy there wouldn't be an article written about it

sidlls 6y ago
"as easy" shouldn't be taken to mean "objectively, absolutely easy." It's relative. And relative to today, I agree. Where, today, can one be given a franchise after (paid) training and save close to $200k (net of profits, taxes, etc.) over a one year period? Even given the same work habits and use of family (child) labor? There is either an element of (relative) less difficulty and or extraordinary luck at play here.
- kjksf 6y ago
  He wasn't given anything. Winchell was (and is) a business, not a charity. The article lacks details but Ockham's Razor dictates that the most plausible was that Winchell and he entered into a business arrangement where he was running their donut shop for a share of profits. They provided the capital, he did all the work and Winchell got a cut of his profits. He then saved aggressively and started buying more donut shops. Notice that Winchell had similar arrangement with many other people and presumably they didn't become millionaires. As to luck: he trained 100+ other immigrants to successfully operate a donut shop so if an immigrant that most likely doesn't even speak English can profitably operate a donut shop, maybe luck is not such a big factor. As for why he became a millionaire and not others - I don't see any luck there either. He followed the same formula a hundred times: open one more donut shop. He was just more ambitious, worked harder, saved more aggressively and took a bit more risk.
  - sumedh 6y ago
    > He followed the same formula a hundred times: Its the same formula used by particular Indian community who came to the US in 70s, 80's and now own most of the motels in US. Put your family to work, save lots of money, use those savings to buy another motel, bring immigrants from your community, put them to work, rinse and repeat and that is how a small Indian community are the Motel Kings in the US. https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2018/09/south-asia-america-motels-immigration/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2018/09/south-asi...
maxerickson 6y ago
One implied question is whether the franchise opportunity even exists today.
- ghufran_syed 6y ago
  Winchells bought out their franchisees in 1971, at least 4 years before he did the training course and started running a winchells store. So it was a job, not a franchise https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/winchells-donut-houses-operating-company-lp https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-mag...

1123581321 6y ago

These shops were not expensive as a modern franchise would be, true, but a modern store could expect to also make a lot by employing family to save money. Also, I would not call the hours the whole family worked at the shop, or the extreme cost savings they employed, easy. Let alone the difficulty of saving up his first $3,000 by working three jobs.

ghufran_syed 6y ago
he was a manager, not a franchisee [edit: added reference] https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-magazines/winchells-donut-houses-operating-company-lp https://www.encyclopedia.com/books/politics-and-business-mag...
- 1123581321 6y ago
  Thank you - I suppose the reverse, then, that the family captured the labor cost. Did he earn a performance bonus that incentivized him to minimize supply cost?

neom 6y ago

The guy scaled a tree and evaded security to profess his love to a government officials daughter, lived under her bed for almost 2 months, learned four languages, married her, built an empire, reasoned his way through a gambling addiction and rebuilt his life. He sounds quite extraordinary to me.

colmvp 6y ago
In my teens and twenties, I would've been like "what a lovely gesture." Now that I'm in my thirties and we've gone through various social movements, I think "whoa, what a creeper." Specifically the whole jumping into her bedroom. And the whole stabbing himself if they broke them apart. Then I had gave a gut check: they were kids. In my teens my mind was definitely in that realm of ambitious gestures.
- watwut 6y ago
  The stabbing thing however points to toxic relationship even if they are kids. Even as teenagers those are massive red flags.
93po 6y ago
I also jumped fences for girls, and unlike this guy I didn't marry into a rich family. I think the only notable thing that happened here is he built an empire, and as my comment pointed out it's much easier to build an empire when you're in an environment that allows you enough profit to buy a house with cash only two years after starting from nothing and taking virtually zero risk.

koolba 6y ago

You left out the part where he and his wife were each working 18 hours a day and saving every penny of earnings to the point where his kids were so hungry they were stealing other children’s lunches.

ggggtez 6y ago
This sentiment is backwards. You seem to be implying that the children wouldn't be hungry if he wasn't granted a free franchise to run and profit from. Obviously you are trying to imply that it was the "saving every penny" that made him rich, not the "granted a franchise to run". But let's be real: You can't save money you didn't make to start with. The above poster is clearly calling out the gift as the reason for his success.
- koolba 6y ago
  I’m not implying that at all. I’m saying the real secret ingredient is a combination of grit and focus. There’s plenty of people in the USA presented with much more opportunity than this man received. Few have achieved anywhere near as much. I’d wager that if he got his first job as a janitor he’d be running a cleaning empire rather than a donut chain.
  - derrida 6y ago
    If you did that you might end up broke like him!
  - nsoonhui 6y ago
    Hardwork and grit is overrated. Without proper opportunity you can achieve nothing. I wish we keep survivor bias in mind when reading success stories; we should ask "out of those who work hard and gritty, how many are successful and how many are actually not?" And not "out of those who are successful, how many are hardworking?" Most of the time, hardwork is just the minimum prerequisite to success that every aspirants have, de-emphasizing the role of luck in life is simply unwise.
    - deleted 6y ago

throwaway201103 6y ago

The word franchise doesn't appear in the article. It's light on detail, but I think it's more likely he completed a management training program, and was then given a store to manage. It's not uncommon for a manager to receive a percent of profits as compensation. He then saved enough to put a down payment on his own store. I.e. he worked very hard, continually leveraged his assets to expand, and was (for a time) successful.

chrismcb 6y ago
How children worked for free. And he was successful, not just "for a time" the only reason he failed was a gambling addiction.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

peteretep 6y ago

> was offered a post as liaison officer in Thailand by Suganthini's brother-in-law, Gen Sak Sutsakhan. Instantly acquiring the rank of Major, Ted and his young family moved to Bangkok, and every month he travelled back to Cambodia to collect the wages for his soldiers. This ... won't have hurt!

fakedang 6y ago
Except that led them to being put first in line when the executions happened. If he was in Phnom Penh by any chance, he and his family would have been executed too.

marcusverus 6y ago

> I wish we had it this easy today. This is the equivalent of saying that the entire generation known as 'Gen Z' has it easy... because you read a blog post about one kid who makes millions off a YouTube channel.

mmaunder 6y ago

You do have it easy today in the USA. The USA is an absolute paradise for an immigrant. The business environment is unbelievably friendly and helpful, capital is easily available. The country is filled with entrepreneurs who are incredibly supportive. There is a stable economy and system of laws. And the country is safe. These things don’t exist in most other countries. I expect nothing but contempt for my comments above from this community, particularly given how popular it is to drown oneself in self pity. But trust me that when you step off the boat in this country it is exhilarating and inspiring and the world seems filled with possibilities that never existed before. Unless you’ve lived in a corrupt country, seen hyperinflation of 1% per day first hand, experienced the increase in mental bandwidth that comes from feeling safe and the opposite, experienced tall poppy syndrome and the opposite, seen how hard it is to raise money elsewhere and raised money in the USA, you will never understand how absolutely amazing this country is. I remember when I first moved here. I was incorporating my first California corporation using a Nolo book. I called the secretary of state’s office with a question. Someone answered the phone after one ring. I thought I’d called the wrong number. I couldn’t believe how helpful and friendly they were. Doing business on other countries is very hard. This country truly is amazing. If you live here and are an entrepreneur, you’re very fortunate.

banachtarski 6y ago
Is being male and white not a factor in your analysis. Just looking statistically at the segment of the demographic which directly correlates with wealth and entrepreneurship paints a different story from your narrative.
- temporama1 6y ago
  Grow up
- kjksf 6y ago
  The article we're discussing is about a non-white Asian immigrant becoming a millionaire in U.S. by opening donut shops. He also helped a hundred+ other non-white, Asian immigrants to become small business owners. And if you ever worked in Silicon Valley as a programmer, you must have noticed how people from India and China are over-represented in that profession. Not to mention plenty of white males that are not rich and successful. Being white male is neither sufficient nor necessary for success.

birdsbirdsbirds 6y ago

He was kind of a diplomat back home and he worked 3 jobs when applying for the franchise. If such a person knocks on your door, it would be foolish to not give him a franchise. He go the team slide in his pitch deck right, the franchise knew the market and the profit opportunity. An (angle) investor's dream made in heaven.

sumedh 6y ago

> I wish we had it this easy today. It is, you already have mobile phone, start recording, work hard and put your videos on youtube, you will be a millionaire soon.

Rillen 6y ago

You have to work less today for the same things then in the 70s. We have great shiny things like the internet; Video, Computer games, a lot more music, everyone can vote, smoking indoors is not normal etc. We are living in a different world. Its not feasible to compare it to a time 50 years ago. I prefer this time honestly.

yao420 6y ago
> You have to work less today for the same things then in the 70s. Well except for housing, medical costs, and college. So all the important things.

randomdata 6y ago

It is even easier today. A high school kid can write a few lines of code and become a multi-millionaire overnight. However, in both cases we don’t hear about everyone else that didn’t win the lottery.

mgh2 6y ago

The article did not mention it was easy, in fact quite the opposite on their perspective. Yes, there is more competition now, but taken into account all the advantages of education, resources, information, and technology, this levels out the playing field somehow. Every generation has its difficulties- we should not belittle other's challenges since we have never walked in their shoes. We can only learn empathy.