Dave Thomas: Tribute to a Truly Great Man

Yesterday we lost one of the most important businessmen in the
world. Dave Thomas, the founder of Wendy's fast food chain, died
of liver cancer at the age of 69. He has left us with an amazing
legacy of making it from nothing, of succeeding in the face of
terrible odds, of finding amazing success without possessing any
of the usually associated advantages. Dave Thomas was a
completely self made man, and it is from him that I have taken my
philosophy of doing business.

Dave started out as a fry cook in a diner, and worked his way up
to management. He bought a group of failing restaurants,
completely turned them around and then sold them back to their
original owner for a huge profit. He started and maintained one
of the most successful fast food businesses in the world, and
never once showed a disdain for getting his hands dirty. Dave
was an everyman who showed us as Americans that anyone can do it.

I have been running my own businesses now for about 20 years, and
Dave's advice and ideas have always rung true to me. My very
first business was a janitorial service, and I did all the work
myself, from vacuuming and washing windows, to scrubbing toilets
and taking out the trash. Too often these days, people who want
to start up a home business simply buy a computer and a desk and
sit back waiting for the orders to come in. Dave believed that
to make it in business you've got to hustle. When you're just
getting started you've got to do everything you can dream up to
promote yourself and your product or service. Quite often this
means getting your hands dirty, and working yourself to the bone.

Another pitfall of the home business world is lack of patience.
Too many people expect success overnight, and throw in the towel
when, if they'd just stuck it out, they could have really made
it big. Anything that is truly worth while takes hard work and
patience. A great home business can take up to a year to really
get going. The first Wendy's store turned a profit almost
immediately, true, but it was a tiny profit, and it actually took
Dave Thomas years to build Wendy's into the empire it is today.
My own first home business took months to get off the ground, but
I saw it building little by little and I held on.

I guess if I had to sum up what Dave was all about, I'd say that
he was an advocate of old fashioned business values, of hard work
and humility, and of not cutting corners. He was also an
advocate of the inherent truth in the American Dream. He
believed that anyone could succeed against any odds, and he
proved it himself. For what he had to offer I am truly grateful.
Thanks, Dave.