Agenda

All attendees, sponsors, and speakers must check in at the registration desk and pick up a name badge. Please wear your badge at all times during the Summit.

Spend some time visiting with our sponsors where you can learn about products and services dedicated to improving your company's operations.

The Founderology Growth Summit opens with hosts Kathleen Wood and Cherryh Cansler welcoming Founders into a room built for breakthrough growth. This session features rapid-fire introductions where Founders immediately connect, spark collaborations, and tap into the game-changing energy of like-minded visionaries ready to scale bigger and faster together.

You know you're stuck. But do you know exactly WHERE—and what to fix first?

Kathleen Wood shares the proprietary KWP Scaling System™—the same framework she's used for 20+ years to help Founders pinpoint exactly where they are and identify the moves required to scale. 

Kathleen has been the strategic catalyst behind Raising Cane's (from 2 units to first President & COO), Walk-On's, Tap Room (3 units to national brand), Bango Bowls, and Toast Coffee + Kitchen.

What you'll gain:

• An honest assessment of your current stage 
• The specific bottleneck costing you the most 
• The moves with the biggest impact on your trajectory 
• A clear roadmap from stuck to scaled 

This isn't theory from a consultant who's never operated. Kathleen has been in the trenches—as an operator, strategic leader, and board member. Founders leave energized with actionable plays to create momentum immediately.

This exclusive evening brings everyone together for great food, premium drinks, and conversations that matter. No nametags. No elevator pitches. No transactional networking.

Just Founders—guards down, phones away—talking about the things that keep them up at night and the moves driving their growth.

Every Founder in this room has built something real. They've faced your challenges. They've solved problems you're still wrestling with. The deal you close next quarter might start with a handshake tonight. The Founder who saves you from a $200K mistake? You might meet them over El Arroyo favorites.

Ellis Winstanley is a serial entrepreneur who's built, scaled, and transformed multiple ventures—from legendary restaurant El Arroyo to tech innovation with Axial Shift. 

In this candid session, Ellis shares how he's blended creativity, culture, and operational excellence to grow businesses that break the mold. Founders walk away with real-world lessons in reinvention, leadership, and building brands that connect.

Jeff Chandler has spent his career proving that culture is a growth strategy. As CEO of Hopdoddy and Founder of HiBar Hospitality—the platform behind Hopdoddy and Grub Burger Bar—he has scaled a multi-state better-burger powerhouse by staying anchored in values, investing deeply in people, and leading with what he calls the Power of Yes.

From M&A integrations to people-first leadership to building brands that stand for something, Jeff shares how intentional culture, strategic clarity, and courageous decision-making create growth that lasts. Jeff will share his playbook for success and scaling with purpose and profitability.

This is the session that will remind you why you started, challenge how you lead, and ignite the fire to scale boldly and authentically.

Pinky Cole built Slutty Vegan from a shared kitchen to a $100 million brand—earning recognition on the TIME 100 Next List, Forbes Next 1000, and the covers of Forbes, TIME, and Inc. 

Derrick Hayes launched Big Dave's Cheesesteaks from a 749-square-foot gas station and now operates 12 locations nationwide—ranking #6 on Fast Casual's Top 100 as the first majority Black-owned brand in the top 10.

Together, they lead Hayes Hospitality Group—a rising food empire built on purpose, strategy, and partnership.

You'll gain hard-earned lessons for scaling:

• The hiring framework that builds A-player teams 
• The 20% financial factor for smart growth decisions 
• The brand expansion playbook for retail and new revenue streams 
• The leadership model for scaling while staying hands-on where it matters 
• The partnership system for running multiple brands while staying aligned

Whether you're scaling one brand or building a portfolio, this session delivers real frameworks from two Founders who turned purpose into profit—and movements into empires.

Every iconic brand started with one Founder's idea. Behind every great restaurant company is a Founder who believed in something before anyone else did. Someone who saw a gap and filled it. Someone who built something from nothing—and kept building.

Join us as we celebrate the inaugural Top 5 Movers & Shakers: Visionary Restaurant Founders—honoring the leaders who turn vision into reality, blaze new trails, and see possibilities where others see impossibilities.

One stage. Five visionaries. The Founders building today and shaping tomorrow.

Every growing brand faces the same fear: that it just doesn’t feel like your brand anymore as you expand. The secret to maintaining your secret sauce while growing is a system we’ve proven at Chipotle, and beyond, where 80% of managers come from within. We call it the Rate of Internal Promotion, or RIP. By focusing on four moments that matter: new hire orientation, new shift leaders, new managers, and new restaurant openings you promote people who truly get your culture. That way, every new store still feels like yours, because it’s led by people who already live and breathe your brand.

Our celebrated Top 5 Visionary Founders take the stage for an unfiltered conversation about what truly moved the needle in their journey to breakthrough. 

This is Founder-to-Founder wisdom you won't find in any playbook—the pivotal decisions, the unexpected turning points, and the unconventional strategies that changed everything.

What you'll take away:

• The specific moments that accelerated their growth trajectory 
• Opportunities they almost missed—and how they recognized them 
• The moves that seemed risky but paid off 
• Strategies they'd double down on if they started over today 
• Honest answers to your questions, live from the stage

Five Award-Winning Founders. Five journeys. The wisdom that only comes from living it.

It's the question every Founder wants answered—and rarely gets a straight answer. Until now.

Wayne Vacek is providing the proprietary Investor Grade Assessment exclusively to the Founderology Growth Summit (Value $499). This is the same lens that investors, partners, and acquirers use to evaluate excellence—now in your hands.

Every Founder receives complimentary access to this powerful evaluation measuring performance across 17 dimensions that define investment-grade readiness.

You'll gain immediate insights:

• Your Investor Grade score across 17 critical dimensions 
• The one metric every Founder must measure to drive growth 
• The three areas that directly influence your valuation

This isn't about selling your company. It's about building one that endures—and commands the value it deserves.

Meet powerhouse duo Don and Evonne Varady, the visionaries behind Clean Eatz—one of the fastest-growing franchise brands in the nation. From humble beginnings—literally living in a closet in their first location—to building a nationally recognized brand with hundreds of locations, nationwide distribution, and QVC features, their journey is built on grit, growth, and game-changing entrepreneurship.

Discover how they transformed passion into a purpose-driven empire and learn what it really takes to scale a brand with impact.

Behind every fast-growing brand is something you won’t see on a P&L: a great guest experience. Zack Oates reveals why experience is the true leading indicator of revenue and how founders can use it to build smarter systems and stronger brands.

This is the session Founders talk about for years. Founder-to-Founder, unfiltered.

A live mastermind where the room shares the secrets that don't make it into interviews—the negotiation tactics, the hiring hacks, the margin moves, the systems shortcuts, and the painful mistakes that became their greatest lessons.

Let's talk AI, tech stacks, purchasing, recruiters, funding, and more. You share what's working. You learn what's working for others. You leave fired up with game-changing insights from Founders who've already solved the problems keeping you up at night.

The best ideas in the room? They're about to be yours.

This unforgettable evening is all about Founders designed to honor the heart, hustle, and humanity of every Founder in the room.

Hosted at the historic County Line on the Lake, this off-site dinner offers a retreat into the Texas Hill Country. Settle into an old lake lodge on the banks of Bull Creek to enjoy legendary slow-smoked BBQ and a cold beverage on the redwood deck overlooking the water.

Expect laughter, inspiration, and the memorable tradition of every Founder raising a glass to the journey—their own and each other's. No keynote. No slideshow. Just real stories, real connection, and real celebration. You are the celebration. You are the legacy in the making.

In a world obsessed with rapid scaling and exit strategies, Skeeter Miller took the road of total ownership. Discover how The County Line built a multi-city BBQ empire by keeping every operation in-house. This is a masterclass in holding the line on brand consistency, managing family-run operations at scale, and the strategic advantages of maintaining a singular, hands-on vision across five decades of growth.

This is the moment of truth. Wayne Vacek reveals the collective Investor Readiness scores from the Founders in the room—showing you exactly how you measure up across the 17 dimensions that define investment-grade excellence.

Wayne breaks down the biggest growth opportunities hiding in the results and shares real-world strategies top-performing companies use to scale and strengthen their businesses.

What you'll gain for yourself and your business:

• Your Investor Grade results—and what they really mean 
• How you compare to the collective scores in the room 
• A clear path to turn investment readiness into real-world results

You came to the Summit to grow. This is where you see exactly how.

Danielle Mahon saw something no one else saw—a standalone business built around the magic of seafood steam pots. Not attached to a restaurant. Not inside a seafood market. A category that didn't exist until she made it exist.

From a single seaside kitchen in Topsail Island to the Shark Tank stage as 1 of 100 chosen from 40,000 applicants, Danielle has blazed a trail for Founders bold enough to create something the market has never seen.

You will gain:

• How to see opportunity where others see nothing 
• The mindset required to create and own a new category 
• Real lessons from the Shark Tank experience—what it takes and what it teaches 
• The power of building a brand rooted in connection and purpose

This is for Founders ready to stop following “what you are supposed to do” and start leading “with your vision and purpose.”

$900. A parking lot. Four childhood friends. One vision.

In 2017, Dave Kopushyan, Arman Oganesyan, and Tommy Rubenyan pooled their last dollars and started selling Nashville-style hot chicken out of a parking lot in East Hollywood. No investors. No restaurant experience. No safety net. Just a bold idea and the audacity to go for it.

Eight years later, Dave's Hot Chicken sold to Roark Capital for $1 billion—with the founders still at the helm.

This is the story of how a pop-up became a phenomenon. How four friends attracted celebrity investors like Drake, Samuel L. Jackson, and Michael Strahan. How viral execution and relentless focus on brand and culture transformed a cult concept into a global empire with 300+ locations.

Founders will gain billion-dollar insights:

• How to build a brand that creates obsession, not just customers 
• The decisions that accelerated their trajectory from pop-up to powerhouse 
• How to attract the right partners and investors at the right time 
• Why brand and culture became their ultimate competitive advantage 
• The mindset it takes to bet on yourself when no one else will

This is how legends are built. This is how you close the Founderology Growth Summit.

You came to Austin as a Founder. You leave as part of something bigger.

Over these three days, you've gained strategies that will change how you lead. You've built relationships that will shape your trajectory. You've seen what's possible when visionary Founders come together with one purpose—to grow.

Cherryh and Kathleen close the Summit with a challenge: What will you do differently starting tomorrow? What bold move have you been waiting to make? Who in this room will you call when you need to think bigger?

This isn't goodbye. This is the beginning.

You've seen your scores. Now let's do something with them.

This exclusive bonus workshop gives every Founder the opportunity to dig deeper into their Investor Grade Assessment results—with direct access to Wayne Vacek and the Founders Advisors team.

Bring your questions. Bring your challenges. Bring the areas where you want clarity. This is your chance to get guidance on the dimensions that matter most—whether it's leadership, financial performance, culture, systems, or growth readiness.

What this session delivers:

• Personalized interpretation of your specific results 
• Targeted strategies for your highest-priority gaps 
• Expert guidance on turning weak spots into strengths 
• A focused action plan you can execute immediately

The assessment gave you the answers. This session gives you the roadmap.