I spent my first four years in operations learning the ropes at Starbucks before I opened Uprising Muffin Company in Washington DC in 2014, the same year my youngest daughter was born. First-time operator on a lease that needed $1.2M in annual revenue out of a space doing $800K. I built training systems because turnover was constant. I built inventory tracking because food cost and theft will eat you alive. I learned what the numbers actually mean because my survival depended on it.

I also spent years as Director of Operations for a $10M Chick-fil-A location. 85-person team, moved labor performance from roughly $70 to over $100 in revenue per labor hour. That difference showed up directly on the P&L.