Cara Waters/Sydney Morning Herald
Bao Hoang’s family escaped Vietnam by boat with nothing besides the traditional recipes which Hoang has used to create Vietnamese food franchise Rolld. Hoang opened the first Rolld store in Melbourne’s city centre in 2012with his classmate Ray Esquieres and cousin Tin Ly using savings of $180,000.
Chef Stephanie Izard prepares spring rolls, much like the ones sold at Rolld in Australia. (Photo by Erika Goldring/Getty Images for VH1 Save The Music Foundation)
Serving up rice paper rolls, pho and banh mi based on Hoang’s family recipes, the store ran out of food within the first hour of opening and in a few weeks was serving 1,000 people a day. With his family recipes for rice paper rolls and pho a hit, Hoang says he was keen to expand from one store from the first day Rolld opened. Soon after their success, Rolld opened another 14 stores within four months and Hoang.
So far, the balance is working with Rolld recording turnover of $25 million a year with 31 stores across Victoria, New South Wales, Western Australia, the ACT and Queensland.
The Vietnamese food franchise now employs 435 people with a growth rate of 769 per cent over the past three years.
Around half of Rolld’s stores are company-owned and another half franchisee-owned with new franchises priced between $280,000 and $400,000, depending on the size of the store.
“People putting their own money in will, most of the time, run a lot better business than a store manager will,” Hoang says.
Hoang plans to open another nine stores in Australia and will open Rolld’s first international store in Manila this year.
“Are we ready for it? Probably not, but it’s a good opportunity for us to go overseas,” he says. “From day one, we always said we wanted to be a globally recognized business”.
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http://www.smh.com.au/small-business/entrepreneur/from-a-family-of-refugees-bao-hoang-has-built-rolld-into-a-25-million-business-20160310-gnfs06.html#ixzz436ZgCJwA
