I recently spoke with Boardroom Styling Lounge’s CEO Josh Goodell about his company’s bullish expansion plans. Within the next three to five years, he plans to increase nationwide store count from 45 to 100. But before the expansion, Goodell and company needed to streamline operations—one of Goodell’s most difficult tasks of his career.
“There were 40 stores and 40 different ways to do the Boardroom experience,” he said. “We went down to one Boardroom playbook and really got consistency in delivering that experience. When we got the operations right, we started leaning into the other pieces of the pie.”
So, for D CEO‘s May issue, we asked other area executives to tell us about the toughest challenge they have faced in business and how they responded. Here’s what they had to say:
I. Bobby Majumder
Member, Frost Brown Todd
“The dot-com crash of 2000 was the biggest shock I had to my business. At that time, I was doing a lot of tech work and I learned a lot about bankruptcy. I too had to retool my practice and find new clients. It was then that I made sure I diversified my client base in terms of avoiding customer concentration risk and extending the industries in which I operated to energy and healthcare.”
Taylor Shead
Founder and CEO, Stemuli
“In the middle of the pandemic, I signed a $3.2 million contract and staffed up accordingly. Unfortunately, the customer stopped paying after two payments. Our team deeply cared about the school community we had pledged to support and chose to continue working for eight months without pay before we were able to raise venture capital funds to make everyone whole.”
Stephan Courseau
Founder and CEO, Travis Street Hospitality
“My toughest challenge was when I opened Le Bilboquet nine years ago. I picked the wrong business partner—a childhood friend. Because of the friendship, it took me a while to face the issue and part ways. Luckily, I found a new partner in Edward Goemans, who started on day one at Le Bilboquet as a lead waiter and manager. Nine years later, he is my director of operations and partner.”
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