Ally Svenson

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Episode Information

Joining Maggie and Hannah this week is Ally Svenson, the co-founder of MOD Pizza. After founding and selling a couple of businesses in the UK, Ally and her husband Scott returned to the Pacific Northwest where they were inspired to create a family-friendly restaurant that was fast, healthy, and affordable. In 2008, they opened their first MOD Pizza in downtown Seattle, and pizza with a purpose was born. Five hundred locations later, the MOD Squad is serving pizzas to people all over the country and beyond.  In part one, Ally shares the inspiration for starting a Seattle-style coffee shop in London, what drives them to continue the path of an entrepreneur with a purpose, how taking care of their team (MOD Squad) has powered their success.

About Ally Svenson & MOD Pizza:
After founding and selling two successful businesses in the U.K. — Seattle Coffee Company and Carluccio’s Ltd. — Scott and Ally returned to their hometown of Seattle to raise their family. With four growing boys, they soon discovered a need for family-friendly dining options that were fast, healthy, and affordable. They wondered, was there a way to innovate this restaurant segment? Soon their entrepreneurial spirit kicked in, and they began exploring ideas that combined their love of business, people, and purpose. The goal? Create a people-first culture where everyone could thrive. The result was MOD Pizza. The first MOD opened in 2008 in downtown Seattle, and the “pizza with a purpose” brand grew from there. Today, Scott serves as MOD’s CEO and Ally as MOD’s Protector of the Purpose.

Read The Transcript

Joe Pardavila:

Welcome to Magnify Your Impact, presented by ForbesBooks. Each week, our hosts, Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes talk with business leaders powering their company success with a secret ingredient. Purpose. Here's Maggie and Hannah.

Hannah Nokes:

Joining us this week Ally Svenson, the Co-Founder of MOD Pizza. After founding and selling a couple of businesses across the pond in the UK, Ally and her husband Scott returned to the Pacific Northwest, where they were inspired to create a family friendly restaurant that was fast, healthy, and affordable.

Maggie Miller:

In 2008, they opened their first MOD Pizza in downtown Seattle. And pizza with a purpose was born. 500 location later, the MOD Squad is serving pizzas to people all over the country and beyond. Ally. Thanks for joining us today.

Ally Svenson:

Thank you for having me.

Hannah Nokes

Well, we're excited to talk to you about all the great things you're doing with MOD Pizza, but before we do that, can we take a step back and talk about the journey that took you here? MOD Pizza is not your first successful business. So what prepared you for this life of entrepreneurship?

Ally Svenson:

Hmm. Like probably every entrepreneur you talk to, we sort of stumbled into the world of entrepreneurship. Had no master plan. Certainly no confidence around the idea that, hey, maybe I'd be an entrepreneur. Our journey started with really a very kind of desperate, passionate search for something that we needed and did not exist. And that was back in about 1990 in the United Kingdom in London, believe it or not, there was no Seattle-style. Starbucks-style coffee offering. And if you've been raised in Seattle like we have been, something like a double tall skinny latte just feels like your birthright. And you should be able to get the coffee the way you want it and enjoy it.

Ally Svenson:

And shockingly, when we moved to London, that didn't exist. And so it took us a while, took several years, but the search for that cup of coffee led to actually very reluctantly, the creation of a singular little coffee shop, because we needed to be able to get that coffee after looking for it and waiting for almost four years. So that was the birth of our first little business. It was called Seattle Coffee Company and it started in 1995 and we eventually sold it to Starbucks in 1998.

Hannah Nokes:

Hmm. That's incredible. I love how you talked about the desperate search and that it took four years. So I imagine that there were probably some false starts along the way. And you know we all will learn from our failures. Are there any examples that you can share with us of maybe things that didn't go well that put you on the right path or helped you along the way?

Ally Svenson:

Oh my gosh. The list long. If I had to distill it down to what's the main lesson learned from that first little journey we took, try to create and try to build something, we took so long to actually get to work. I think we just didn't trust our gut enough early on. We questioned ourselves. And we were young and we were incredibly inexperienced as it relates to retail business. But what we realized after a period of time was, perhaps we're not the only ones looking for this thing. And we were right. We should have known that sooner. And we did learn a lesson from that, which we can talk about in a minute because we applied that lesson to MOD, but... It's so interesting. I think we waited far too long, assuming that other people would deal with this problem, deal with this gap, deal with the thing that needed to be fixed.

Ally Svenson:

And then we'd be the first in line to be recipients of that. But what we didn't realize at the time was just because something doesn't exist and something hasn't been done doesn't necessarily mean it's a bad idea. It just might mean that somebody hasn't actually gotten around to dealing with it yet. And Seattle Coffee Company, that was really the story of Seattle Coffee Company. It did make sense. It worked from day one, because customized great coffee makes sense. And it just wasn't on offer that way in London at the time. And we weren't the only ones that wanted it. We might have been some of the few that were desperately looking for it. So I do wish that we would've trusted our gut sooner and had the confidence to say, just because we don't have training in a certain area or other things haven't been done, it doesn't mean that we need to sit around and wait for somebody else to deal with this. We should roll our sleeves up and get involved and do... Be the change we want to see.

Maggie Miller:

That's such a great quote, I love that. Ally. I'd love to talk about your mention of selling Seattle Coffee Company to Starbucks. I imagine that that was a life changing sum for you.

Ally Svenson:

Yeah.

Maggie Miller:

And what drives you both to continue this path of entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship with a purpose?

Ally Svenson:

Yes, I think, again, we've spent so much time looking back at the experience that we had building Seattle Coffee Company, because it was so many years ago, we've had a lot of time to reflect back on it. And in the building of, and the decision to grow MOD, we've spent a lot of time looking back at our experience with Seattle Coffee Company to really understand what did we love about that? What mattered about that? What did we learn from that? And what did we want to do with that experience? And one of the things that was very clear to us was one of the reasons why I think Seattle Coffee Company Worked. Because it's really hard to build something from scratch. And there are so many reasons to give up along the way, and we had lots of moments where we just wanted to throw the towel in. But failure for us at the time just wasn't an option.

Ally Svenson:

We had no plan B. We had nothing to fall back on. We had college loans. Didn't have big savings. We needed it to work once we decided to put all of our eggs in that basket. Combined with a deep passion. Yes, we were addicted to the notion of getting coffee the way we wanted, but it was more than that. It was, we missed something so much from our hometown and it was something that we wanted again so badly. And combining that deep desire with a sense of, well, failure's not an option if we're in, we're in and we have to make this thing work. That tension was awesome. And it's the reason why we just never threw the towel in, because we couldn't. And so now all these years later, and with the MOD experience, we've realized the importance of having that kind of healthy tension and what will create that drive.

Ally Svenson:

What makes it so that failure's not an option. And for us, after the sale of Seattle Coffee Company, it wasn't necessarily, it was no longer a monetary failure's not an option. It became something quite frankly more important, which is, does what you're doing matter? And if people are counting on it, and it matters to them, and people are changing their life or helping others based on something that you have an involvement with, that becomes, we  have found even a more compelling reason to carry on and to work hard. Every time we hear a story that MOD has helped somebody people take the time to share those stories with us, our immediate reaction is one of we just... We need and want to work harder. And the great news is that seems to be how a lot of people around us respond. And that's why I think MOD has, has been on the journey that it's been on.

Maggie Miller:

That's amazing. What a great story. Thanks for sharing that. Speaking of MOD for folks not familiar with MOD Pizza, maybe there's not one in their area. Can you tell us what it's all about?

Ally Svenson:

Yeah. We're a fast casual pizza and salad concept. I think you mentioned in your intro we opened the first one here in Seattle in 2008. And that was a tricky time to start a business, because it was the start of the great recession, which a lot of people would say quite rightly it's not probably the best time to start a business or launch a brand or... But it actually, the recession played a really important role in what MOD has become, because it forced us to ask the essential questions of, well, gosh, if this is going on in the world, if this is what's happening in our town, if this is how people are feeling, what do we need to do? Or what should we do? How do we show up? And when we launched MOD back in 2008, there really wasn't... The fast casual pizza that category didn't exist.

Ally Svenson:

Pizza's been around for a long time, but fast casual pizza hadn't been really invented, the format. And so we had to get a laboratory open that year to figure out what fast casual pizza could or should be. And that's what we did. And the idea of MOD it's you're getting what you want. It's a pizza or it's a salad and you get to customize it. And it is super fast. And you walk through the line at MOD and a member of our MOD Squad helps you create, either you can get one of our classics, or you can make your own, you can add whatever toppings you want. We have over 30 toppings, you get to choose your base. We have a gluten-free option, cauliflower crust. You can do the same with a salad, choose whatever you want in there.

Ally Svenson:

And regardless of how many toppings or what combo you end up with, it's one price. That was in response to the recession, quite frankly. How do we make sure people don't feel like we're nickel-and-diming them? How do you make sure that what you're offering is really fair? One price, no strings attached. You can add extra protein to your pizza and we're not going to charge you two bucks, which historically has always been the case with pizza. So our main size, the MOD size is an 11 inch pizza. We do have a little mini one that's six inches, and we have a mega, it's like a double crust. Same thing, the salads, get them in three different sizes. We have the main MOD size, which is just like an entree size. We have a couple of extra offerings too. We have some cheesy garlic bread and these really awesome little no name cakes that are like a grownup yummy ding dong type sweet thing. Yeah. And then some drinks and in most of our locations, beer and wine, sodas and lemonades and that sort of thing. And so that's MOD Pizza.

Hannah Nokes:

Oh my gosh. I'm so hungry.

Maggie Miller:

I love how your quote was, we needed to get a laboratory open as soon as possible. Just the spirit of entrepreneurship is so strong. It's so wonderful to hear.

Hannah Nokes:

I love the intentionality around giving every customer their own experience and their own choice. And I'll just tell you, my family here in Austin absolutely loves MOD Pizza. We have one down the road. Can you talk about your purpose driven model? You've been recognized for that, I'd love to hear more about it. Ally Svenson:

Yes, that's really the most... I mean, the story of MOD, the why of MOD is completely and utterly rooted in our purpose, which... MOD exists to serve people in order to contribute to a world that works for and includes everyone. It's taken us a while to be able to articulate our purpose. It was a result I think of a mindset that was there in place from day one, which is how do we make sure that this little business is showing up in a way that makes sense, is needed and wanted by, not just the people we employ, but also then the people that we serve? And by our second location, we'd made some pretty interesting hires. We had at the time referred to as second chance employees or opportunity hires. We had provided jobs for people with significant barriers to employment.

Ally Svenson:

A couple of our early members of the team had been incarcerated multiple times. We employed a wonderful gentleman named Jeffrey. He's still with us in our second location. He has down syndrome. Just some incredible people that joined our team. And we did that because it was the right thing to do. It just felt right. And they were worthy of a job, and they were wonderful people to employ. And as crazy as some people thought we were at the time, the crazier piece was that it was these employees that provided the greatest customer service. They poured their heart into their job at MOD. They were so grateful for the opportunity for the job and that came to life in pretty impressive and astonishing ways early on. That became our purpose. Wow, if this business can be used as a platform to make a positive impact in lives of people that we employ, and then through them into lives throughout their community, that seems like a pretty worthy purpose and a worthy business to build. And that's how I can best describe our purpose.

Maggie Miller:

I know that you and Scott have gone out of your way to take initiative when it comes to training your employees right. I know you call them the MOD Squad and you've been recognized with various awards as well as Fortune's Change the World list. So tell us how taking care of your team has helped the success of MOD pizza.

Ally Svenson:

When we say MOD exists to serve people, we are actually to talking first and foremost about the people of MOD. And again, this was something that we observed really early on. And it started to form what we now refer to as our business model. Is a flywheel. It's a very simple little diagram. And sitting at the top is our authentic purpose. It starts the wheel spinning, it's... When people connect to that purpose, if we are truly in service to people and making a difference, and creating opportunity and belonging for the people of MOD, that results in an engaged and inspired squad. And when our squad is engaged and inspired, they provide incredible customer service, which of course then results in loyal customers, which drives a successful business. And that in a nutshell is pretty much the business model that we use at MOD. Our decisions are made using those four key components on authentic purpose. It drives the engagement of our squad, which creates loyal customers, which results in a successful business. That's the blood pumping through the veins at MOD.

Hannah Nokes:

And that must have really helped bring you through the last challenging year and a half. What's been really hard for the business since the pandemic started. And what do you attribute to the success of keeping things running?

Ally Svenson:

Gosh, it's such a... Yeah, it's a great conversation to be having. I think the pandemic has just been obviously so devastating to so many people everywhere. I think the world of restaurants have been particularly hard hit. Everybody knows that. We do strongly believe that because of our embedded purpose, we're surviving the pandemic. And I think a lot of that is because the people that have joined us on this journey, the people at MOD, feel a connection to the purpose. They understand they're part of something that matters. They've either themselves gotten gratitude for an opportunity that they have, or they are witnessing it, and realize that the precious nature and the importance of preserving that platform, MOD, the business, we employ people and we feed people, that's our chosen platform from which we can make a positive social impact.

Ally Svenson:

And over the last two years, it's been the singular focus to preserve that platform. We need to protect the business. The business needs to work. Otherwise the music stops. And it's been a really incredible experience for the last two years to force us to rally around this purpose, and really double down on it, and get very clear with everybody that's involved at MOD. This is the why, why we're here, why this thing exists. And now we need to honor that, and we need to protect it, and we need to use it to get through these tough times. And we have so many really fun and heartwarming examples that we can look back on, just even in the last two years of that, coming to life, whether it's different squads throughout the country. They weren't given an instruction, they just were finding ways to use their store to support first responders or weekly feeding of the nurses at their local hospital, or... Just the list list is so long of how people figured out how to use the platform to help people in need during the crisis, which was a great test of our purpose, and we were able to understand how powerful it can be when people are connected to something that is beyond profit, beyond product. It's really about making a difference in helping people.

Hannah Nokes:

Yeah. Great test indeed. So you have an amazing job title. One of them is Protector of Purpose. Can you tell us about that and what are you your responsibilities as Protector of Purpose?

Ally Svenson:

Gosh, well, how lucky am I? Because first I feel lucky every day, just to be part of MOD. I really do feel that, and I know Scott does too. It's kind of a surreal experience at this point because there're just so many incredible people that continue to inspire us and as I said earlier, just make us want to work harder. When I think about being Protector of the Purpose, I'd say at this point, it's more symbolic than anything else for a couple of reasons. One, I do feel like I'm a little bit of a mama bear at this point, because when you give birth to something or you create something, you become very protective of it. And that's definitely at play with MOD. I'm also... Scott and I are the old timers in the room. We've been around since before MOD started and that brings with it a certain perspective that I think is really, really important.

Ally Svenson:

And when we think about protecting MOD's purpose, that really means protecting since our purpose is people, it's protector of the people of MOD. And another way in which I view my role as being more symbolic than anything else is, we've realized because the purpose was really revealed by the people of MOD, for the people of MOD, that everybody at MOD is protecting the purpose. Everybody at MOD is focused on serving people. And I suppose where I like to focus my energies is to remind people here at MOD, how authentically ingrained this purpose is at MOD, because it wasn't an idea that we had. It was something that we observed that happened by people at MOD. So they created the purpose and our job is to keep the purpose at the forefront of everybody's mind, make sure that it is integrated into everything that we do. We know that there are so many benefits to people feeling connected to purpose that just from our health and wellbeing, not to mention productivity and everything else. So yeah, protecting the purpose I think means just telling the stories and reminding people of how MOD came to be, and hopefully providing some inspiration in increasing people's ability to engage with the purpose.

Hannah Nokes:

Yeah. It's really key you had your team help develop the purpose. That's really impactful.

Maggie Miller:

Okay. Well, we have to stop right here, but coming up in our second part of our talk with Ally Svenson, the Co-Founder of MOD Pizza, Ally shares how raising a family and building a business works hand in hand.

Ally Svenson:

We went into it wanting and needing it to be sub legacy work that would help the boys understand that you can and should be a force for good, no matter what you're doing. Professionally personally, and ideally, tying the two together, which I think is... Is kind of the story of MOD.

Joe Pardavila:

We hope you enjoyed this episode of Magnify Your Impact. A production of ForbesBooks. If you want to ignite purpose in your own company, connect with Maggie Miller and Hannah Nokes at magnify-impact.com.