YouSaid · the spoken record

Dan Gertsacov

lines on the record: 82
first: 2024-07-01
most recent: 2024-07-01
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It's not just B2B companies that create communities of folks love being part of this community. It's also B2C communities. That marketing has also been revamped and reports to me. We have a third group in the accountability section of working with our manufacturer and working with our distributors and dealers. And I brought on the number two in command, that whole team reports the hem. And so we've organized the company to really focus on those three things. And we have finance and accounting and the typical back office functions that support the overall team. But we are a much bigger brand than we are a team. We are very light and agile because we have also, in a way, outsourced some of that work, the work to manufacturing and the work to distributors and dealers. And we will continue to evolve the thing that's most important. I think this is, you know, tech companies didn't invent it, but they've definitely popularized it, is bringing the customers.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And the first thing, you know, I was a senior advisor at McKinsey on the future of food and restaurants. The first thing any of those big consultants will say, oh, I know what to do. You cancel that guy, you take his margin, you reinvest it, but we are then detrimental to the customer experience because this thing also you want somebody to come and tell you how to use it and how to open it and get it on your backyard. That's what this experience is about. But just to answer your question on how we're designed, first direction of the bus, then seats on the bus, then people in the seats. Direction of the bus is that we do not sell the product and we don't manufacture the product. We have partners for all three of those line segments that I mentioned, ceramics, accessories, and charcoal. What we do do, and this is how I've designed the team, we do three things primarily. We design the product and I have a product team. They report to me directly. It's quarter to what we do. We market the product. We are that community.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go to market is also unique in the industry. We're the only brand, major brand in the industry, that has not decided to sell the big box or sell on Amazon or sell in the Costco of the world. We have been, over the last 50 years, worked with local distributors and local dealers. So we have a partnership with Ace Hardware, but those are all local franchisees and they're local into your community. We believe a person pulling out their phone and saying, this is what I cook last weekend makes it a better customer experience. Wearing some of those other venues, you can throw a rock and not hit a salesperson just by the nature of the way they've designed their go-to-market. So that's number one. So we don't sell the product directly. Even if you buy it online, which we do, you can go buy a big green egg. We then send that order to a local dealer to fulfill.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For a reason, your memories from childhood are about the meals that you had and the fight from your uncle who fell asleep at dinner and this other thing that happened in my grandmother's recipes. Food has been the anchor of civilization for hundreds of thousands of years. And I think in our angst to be able to focus on work and focus on other things, we're losing that space for families, friends, and neighbors. And I use that neighbor very intentionally. I'm happy to talk more about that because there's a loneliness epidemic that I think we could be, you know, we may not be curing cancer. I think we can help cure loneliness.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Literally, this is what qualified me for the job. For 25 years, I've been studying how people put fire to food, like literally buying out of print books. I've gone to 43 places around the world to learn how they do, how they do this art of putting fire to food. So in that process is when I, about 10 years ago, I got my egg to complete my part of my collection. I have a place for all those different kinds of cookers. The only one I don't have, and I may offend some of the audience or some of our partners out there, the only one I don't have is a gas grow. I don't think there's a role for gas. I don't think it adds any flavor. And the convenience that it brings to be able to press a button, I would rather light a fire using propane than light my food using propane. And that's what I just...”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Traeger's incredible what they've done for the industry, their product doesn't work unless you plug it in. And that's, I think, is not the way we've been cooking over Live Fire for 4,000 years. And I don't reject it. It's just a place for it. But I think you're missing some of the core experience of lighting fire and creating real live fire. I think carbonized wood is different than compressed sawdust. And I think you get a different flavor from it. So I think the charcoal component adds flavor. I have 11 grill smokers and pizza ovens at home. I've been studying.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You're exactly right, and there's actually, it can make it, you've got the core ones I can add on a little bit more complexity, the space itself, core ceramics, retain heat different than metal So there's the vessel, there's oxygen, which you've been putting your finger on, both on the access to oxygen as well as the fan. There's the charcoal that you use, how you start the fire, and then how you accelerate the fire. So those are the components that you can play with to make a fire. We have already have a product in the market called the Egg Genius that is that fan that you described. And you can control that with your phone and be able to turn it on. I want it at 250, add more oxygen if I need it, you know, maintain the oxygen. If I don't, and keep me at 250 for 18 hours, because I don't want to have to get up in the middle of the night to check on it. We have an accessory like that. Those products as an accessory so that you do not, you are not required to plug in your device, your core cooker unless you want to, you know, need to. And that's where I think I love, you know, Jeremy's a friend.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Your competitors have different approaches to that, right? Traeger has an auger, they control the fuel. I have a smoker, it's much cheaper because I didn't know how long we would live in the house that could support a smoker on the deck, but I have a thermoworks billows, which is basically a computer fan that goes into the bottom and it just controls the air, right? Those are your choices, I think, to make the thing more stable, more convenient, simpler, more Tuesday night compatible. Which one do you think is the appropriate one for big green egg? Are you going to sell a product like that that makes it more convenient? In which way do you think you would go?”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the other thing I was going to say next to don't take away too much of the anxiety is there's only two ways to make this simpler, right? You can control the error or you can control the fire, the fuel.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's fine. You just wouldn't be part of this big green egg community. The big green egg community has a set of values and one of them is entertaining for your friends and family and the work that goes into entertaining and hosting.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“For restaurants, I don't think it's a good experience for people to be sitting in a drive-thru line on a Tuesday night because I think it's too hard to cook for their family at home. The home kitchen needs to evolve so that it's better, cheaper, and healthier to cook for your friends and family and not accept that it's got to be harder or more expensive or more of a hassle to do that. I think too many. And I did the deal with Latin American Uber Eats. I've been on that side of the equation. I think too many people are ordering food for takeout and delivery. Too many people are in drive-thrus. There is a moment for restaurants. You're not going to meet a bigger foodie than I am. I love restaurants, but there's a lot of occasions where that should be at the home. I reject the idea that you should ever order in the holiday dinner. That is a concept that we used to market towards. We say, hey, pick up your Thanksgiving platter because it's a hassle to do it at home. I reject that concept. And if you don't believe what I believe.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Games people get so vested in the gaming industry because they go through these work to build themselves up and that's what brings them core into being part of a community of Minecraft or any of these games that you play out. And I think that happens in cooking. I would like to make it more accessible, not only generationally, but also in gender. I don't accept that men or the dominate the outside and women in cooking the inside. That's complete BS. This thing can cook, roast, do grill, bake, any kind of cooking you want to do. Women do that just as well as men do that or that, you know, this is a 50 plus product because that's when you've got time to do it. I want to bring into on a Tuesday night you don't, and I'm this is a reformed restaurant guy who used to drive people. I was a guy that helped, at least in Latin America, bring, you know, order on your app, skip the line, pay, convenience.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. You put your finger on it and you said two things. Well, I just want to pick up on that one. On the flip side, it's this Goldilocks moment, right? Not too hot, not too cold. It can't be a pain in the butt. It's got to be accessible. It can't be, you know, that thing. And I do think we have more opportunity there. I think a lot of people look at charcoal and be like, I can't start a fire. I'm not a core cooker. I don't know how to do that. I think we can make it easier. I don't think we need to flip a button. I think that there is value in starting a fire. And so we're working on being able to fulfill a brand promise that in 15 minutes you can have this without getting your hands dirty. It's not in five minutes. It's in 15. And if you've got a problem with waiting 15, let's talk about your other problem. So there's points in your life to slow down. It also shouldn't take an hour, right? So on the flip side of this, there's got to be, it's got to be, you know, that's why I think.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Two things. One, I want you to be careful because the anxiety will I get this pork butt done in time for dinner, I think is like a core part of the human experience. And you don't want to take that away from too many. That's right.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's about the experiences that people relate to that product is core to their childhoods, it's core to their relationships. And that is a privileged place to be. That's when brands transcend products and become part of people's lives. And it sounds trite to say, but this company has achieved it. You know, a quirky name with a quirky product, you know, and a quirky egg look has become an essential part of the way that people relate to each other in their homes.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“While he's done some grill work, he's also worked on Microsoft Surface and he's worked on golf clubs and worked on biotech wearables. So a very broad thinker, which is exactly what this company needs because we do have ceramics accessories and charcoal. So the product team is our first investment. We're right now trying to hire mechanical engineer that would be able to help us think through all of these concepts. I'm hiring a behavioral scientist onto the team. If you'd say, what would a behavioral scientist do for a grill company? That is exactly why we are hiring them. We're trying to play chess while our competitors are playing checkers. And behavioral science and how you entertain and how what you're willing to pay for certain experiences, how important it is for you.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Things in me coming on, and given having a product background when the projects I worked on at Google initially was Google's launch into traditional television advertising way back in the day when they just bought YouTube, then I moved on to opening up offices in Latin America and the international expansion of digital and the kind of the early mid to late 2000s. The focus on product I've tried to bring here. So one of the first things I did as president and now CEO was kind of reinvest in that product team. I did a survey to all of our loyal customers, eggheads. I have over 5,000 responses to a question of what would you do if you were president of the company. And what I heard from them was double down on the resources you're putting in product, not only for the core to expand, but also to give us more accessories at that same quality. So I've hired a guy, I was able to draw him out of California to move to Atlanta. He's a lifetime product designer.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The story on the story of the ceramics, what was happening is the clay cooker's coming over from Japan, something like 20, 30% of them were breaking unwrap, right? It's a long trip on a boat and so forth. And so the founder, Ed Fisher, went to, we're based here in Atlanta, went to Georgia Tech, great engineering program, and started asking about other products or other things that we could be able to make this out of. And their response was, hey, the ceramics is not only a great product, but there's a lot of ceramics production happening out of Mexico. And so he went down to Mexico in the early 80s and started knocking on doors to find somebody that could they make a product that was superior to the way that was being made with clay, have some of the same retention, heat retention practices, but be sturdier as a result. And that's where we started our partnership in Mexico. So while that started earlier on, one of the”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“You mentioned the product, the product is now ceramic. It started as clay in the Pachinco days. You've changed that. I think that change happened early on. How much money does the company spend thinking about the core product? Do you have ceramics engineers? Is that settled? Are you thinking about finishes? Where does that investment go?”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I do like the idea that Sam Altman is going to put us all out of work so we can spend more time thinking about Brisket. He should close that loop. I think a lot of people would change their minds about it.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Recently, like two weeks ago, they asked not what are the jobs that are going to go away with AI, but what are the jobs that are going to be created with AI? One of his responses was a curator of experiences. And I think Big Green Egg is a curator of experiences outdoors for cooking for others. The whole life is already and will be more so connected. You're going to want a space to disconnect so that you can reconnect with what's important. And that's your friends, your family, your neighbors. That's food as a centerpiece of your memories, of your childhood. That's what this company is all about. And that's what attracted me. And as you mentioned, I've had an eccentric career from tech into restaurants, nonprofit earlier in my career. I've been a social entrepreneur. I've done a lot of different things. What attracted me to this company is exactly that purpose. And that's the legacy that I want to leave behind to my kids and their kids is doing work that is meaningful.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Box go into an ACE hardware or any of those folks, and what you'll see is four pizza ovens and three smokers and four pellet grills that didn't exist 10 years ago. You know, it was a gas grill, a cheap charcoal grill, and a big green egg, which is a premium product. We have a lifetime guarantee. That means if your product should not break, and we believe so much that if it does break, we'll replace it over the lifetime of that product. And that's one of the things that's remained constant. So to answer your original question about what's changed, I think the lifestyle nature of it, the accessories that you can do it. And look, we have an accessory where you can look at it on your app and control it and so forth. We don't purposely put that in the core product. I think that there is both an art and a science to this experience. One of the, you probably have had them on your podcast, one of the folks that I follow, like many others, Sam Alton, and one of his comments.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think both. Yeah, I think lump charcoal allows you to go about slow and there's a whole industry, a whole segment of population wants to cook for. And myself included overnight, ribs and brisket and pork butts and that whole industry, which is slow, and then hot and fast where I want to do a steak and I want to get it done real quick. And what lump charcoal allows you to do is both of those things. And with a big green egg or a kamado cooker allows you to do is both those things. You can go from 200 degrees to do low and slow up to a thousand degrees to do a pizza. You know, that 60 second Napolitano pizza will come out a big green egg just like it would come out of your local Italian pizzeria. And that's the diversity of the products and can come off the egg is also a reason why the products been so successful. While there are specialist products and companies now, and this didn't exist 10 years ago, now you go into any, go online, go into a big...”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, I watched the royal oak bags, the section in my local stores got bigger and bigger and bigger as the pandemic sort of went on. And now they remain the same size. They've not gotten smaller. And you're saying that's all because people started buying these kinds of cookers and they wanted that? Or is that the industry started, people realized that was a superior product to the briquette?”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's what this company's really about. So, if you look at it, and you know, every tech company again will see all the analogies here. It says, oh, we're not in the taxi business, we're in the train. We're giving what you want business or all those little spins on the mission. This is the case of this company. This company is about gathering friends, family, and neighbors to cook over live fire. And that has been going on in human history for $400,000. We're not changing anything. Gathering around a fire hasn't been invented by Big Green Egg nor any of the folks in our art. We created a product to be able to do that on.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Has been. I mean, I think it's really emerged as a lifestyle brand, and that's also kind of word du jour, but it's really true in this regard. I can give you a right now example a couple months ago, we got approached by Miller Light, and they said, we want to do a big summer push. We like to do stuff with, you know, barbecue. And we came up with this big green keg. And could we adapt the big green egg to house a quarter keg, a mill of like? And we approached it. Now, they did this, you know, as a one-off. They sold it. You could buy it. They put it up for sale thinking they'll sell 100 of them. We've had thousands of people try to get one. And what does that tell you about the brand is that it's more than just a ceramic cooker. And people want it as a part, as an asset to their backyards, but as an asset to living outdoors and experiencing in hospitality and hosting.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Drown from there, so that's 50 years of history and a quick sound bite, but it's become a cult favorite cult community over those past 50 years.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So he said, I want people to come in for the pinball machine. I'll put some chicken wings out front, and on this clay cooker, we talk about the need for startups to pivot. Well, what he saw was people starting to say, hey, I like the pinball machines, but what about this strange named cooker? How do I get one of those? And he pivoted towards, he said, well, look, I think the opportunity is really in the Kamado cooker. A few years after that, he shifted the company from what was called the Pachinko House to become Big Green Egg. And as all of us love to do market research and hire all these firms and do all these things, the story of the name Big Green Egg came from doing some advertising. The newspaper guy said, hey, people don't understand what kamado cooker is. What should we call it? In his entire market resource was, well, it's big. I like the color green. And it looks like an egg. Let's call it the big green egg.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So big green egg is a ceramic grill of an in smoker and we use all those terms because it does all of those things. It's a kamado cooker which comes from Japan originally, started kind of in 1600s as a rice cooker and traditionally made out of clay. And this was a take in the 1970s when our founder about 50 years ago started importing some products from Japan specifically to view that to go way back in time to the pachinko machine, which is a pinball, a Japanese pinball machine. He was importing these to the United States and they loaded on some of these clay rice cookers onto his load coming from Japan and he put one out front to try to drive people into his store. What is old is new again so demand generation as we like to talk about it, driving foot traffic that was 50 years ago too and they used food to do it.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I am very excited you're here. I love when we do episodes with Grill Company CEOs. It is remarkable how every company has the same problems even when the product is grills. And in your case, very large, very heavy grills. You have quite a journey yourself. You're the new CEO of Big Green Egg just this year. You're the president before. You're the new CEO now. You were at Google. You were at MTV. You were at one of the largest McDonald's franchise operators that exists. On top of all of that, big green egg is 50 years old this year. Talk to you a million questions. Here, but let's just start at the very beginning for people who aren't maybe as in big green egg world as I am. What is big green egg?”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Dan has really strong opinions about protecting the long term relationship people have with big green egg and what kinds of growth are acceptable to the brand. You'll hear him talk a lot about the grill itself lasting a lifetime. Literally, he keeps track of when Big Green Egg comes up in obituaries. That kind of thinking means his approach to decision making is pretty different than what we usually hear about, and part of that is that big green eggs future involves a very different kind of corporate structure. As it turns out, Big Green Egg is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. Dan is only the third CEO the company has ever had, and he's only been in that role for a few months. The founder, Ed Fisher, ran the company for many, many years and is still around in his nineties as the owner, keeping an eye on how everything is going. Fisher's plan is to take the company to what's called a foundation model, which means it might not ever feel the short-term pressures of a normal company. That's a complex process, and Dan and I got into it towards the end of the episode. I'm telling you, these grill episodes often have the most”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Welcome to Decoder. I'm Neil Lapatelle, editor in chief of the Verge, and Decoder is my show about big ideas and other problems. This is our fourth of July episode, so today I'm talking with Dan Gertzikov, the CEO of Big Green Egg, the company that makes the famous Big Green Egg Grill. Talking with grill CEOs during the summer has become a little tradition on Decoder, and it's always fascinating how many of the same themes that we talk about with tech executives come up in the context of cooking in the backyard. I mean, literally, cooking food with fire is one of the oldest innovations in human history. And you'll hear Dan talk a lot about what a meaningful tradition that is to both him and big green egg, the company. But Dan is also a former Google executive who led expansion into foreign markets, and he has a deep history in both media and food service. So you'll hear him immediately start talking about some very modern business issues, customer acquisition, recurring revenue streams, strategy pivots, and organization.”
2024-07-01 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · How Big Green Egg CEO Dan Gertsacov is getting zoomers into the cult of kamado cooking · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT