This is partly why I enjoyed working at, and respected, my old company so much. Having owners who had been burned by terrible managers in the past, and who had families to support made a big difference in terms of the risks that we would and could take. I never worried about losing my job. Rather than try and find seed funding, we just took on projects that we knew could deliver, built relationships that allowed us to continue those projects and slowly grew the business out.

Seems a particularly bad strategy for restaurants, seen countless restaurants that started as one location with queues down the block, to two locations then eventually they're at 5 or more and you go and the food is awful, like the ingredients might all be correct but the way its prepared just tastes gross compared to what it used to be because the process or the passion hasn't transferred correctly.

The odd one manages it but too many just end up with low talent, low invested staff slopping out bad food that has none of the implementation or taste that funded the expansion and the whole things slowly collapses in on itself.

What did they do that was so bad that it cost him 3 locations?