Okay, let's just jump right in. When you hear
the name dominoes, what's the first thing that
talks into your head? Oh, that's a good question.
Is it the red and blue dots or maybe the sound
of a scooter pulling up outside? For me, it's
that feeling, that nervous energy of watching
the clock, right? The whole 30 minutes or less
thing. Exactly. And that's what's so fascinating.
I mean, for a company that just sells pizza,
something so, so common, their story is really
a masterclass in logistics. It's about how a
ruthless focus on efficiency can build a global
empire. That's the paradox, isn't it? That's
what we're looking at today. We are doing a deep
dive into Domino's Pizza Inc., a company that
went from one tiny local pizzeria to this multinational
tech platform that happens to sell food. And
our dive today, it's based on a really comprehensive
set of sources that cover everything. We're talking
its founding history, its global strategy, some
really wild product changes, and some of the
most disruptive marketing campaigns I think I've
ever seen. And our mission for you, the listener,
is to give you that strategic shortcut. We want
to get past the toppings and the crust and really
understand the engineering of their success.
We're going to uncover those key moments, those
huge bets they made on speed and technology.
And crucially, on changing the very definition
of their own product. Yeah, even when that product
was facing, I mean, existential criticism. The
goal is for you to walk away understanding how
this brand completely dominated the delivery
market by, weirdly enough, prioritizing the box
and the journey over what was actually inside
it. And just to set the stage with the scale
we're dealing with, Domino's was founded way
back on December 9th, 1960. It's headquartered
in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and as of 2024, it has,
get this, 21 ,366 locations worldwide. Wow. With
revenue of four point seven one billion dollars.
That's not just a pizza joint. That is a massive
global system. It absolutely is. And the story
of how they built that nearly five billion dollar
foundation. It starts with some incredibly humble,
almost desperate high stakes decisions right
at the very beginning. OK, so let's go back.
Part one, the Monaghan era. We need to rewind
to 1960. The very beginning. We start with the
founders who were brothers, Tom and Jim Monaghan.
They took over an existing pizza place called
Dominick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan. It was right
near Eastern Michigan University. And the money
they started with was just, it's laughably small
by today's standards. They put down $500, a $500
down payment, and then they had to borrow another
$900 just to get the thing running. Just to buy
supplies. Yeah, just to get flour and cheese.
I mean, you're really starting from absolute
zero there. And what's so incredible about that
early period is how fast the basic problems of
the business money, ownership, delivery. It all
came to a head. It forced a decision. Immediately.
And that first big decision really foreshadows
every single strategic move the company would
make for the next 60 years. So the moment of
truth comes just eight months in. Jim Monahan,
he was a full time postman and he just he couldn't
keep up. The pizza business was just too demanding
on top of his day job. So Tom Monahan, who's
now running it all himself, he has to buy his
brother out, but they have no money. So. What
do you trade for half of a future pizza empire?
The answer is almost unbelievable. Jim traded
his half of the entire business, his entire 50
% stake, to his brother Tom for the Volkswagen
Beetle they were using for deliveries. Stop right
there. That's the whole story, isn't it? It is.
Think about what that trade means. In 1961...
The means of delivery, the car, was valued as
being equal to half the ownership of the entire
company. So when Tom Monaghan accepted that deal,
he wasn't just getting full control. He was making
a statement. His number one priority was the
delivery vehicle, the logistics. The Beetle was
the most valuable asset they owned. More than
the ovens, more than the recipes, more than the
store itself. Everything else was secondary.
And that Beetle really became the philosophical
blueprint for the whole company. They couldn't
stay Dominic's forever. Right, because by 1965,
Tom had bought two more pizzerias in the area,
and he needed a single brand name for all three.
But the original owner, Dominic DiVarti, he forbade
him from using the Dominic's name on the new
stores. So again, necessity forces their hand.
The sources say an employee, a guy named Jim
Kennedy, came back from a delivery and just threw
out the name Domino's. And Monaghan loved it
instantly. Simple, memorable. So that year, he
officially renames the business Domino's Pizza,
Inc. And this is where we see Monaghan's early
ambition really shine through with the logo.
The original design had three dots. For the three
stores they had in 1965. Exactly. And the plan
was, well, it was wonderfully optimistic. They
were going to add a new dot for every single
new store they opened. A plan that shows you
the boundless energy of a founder, but maybe
not a ton of foresight about just how fast they
were about to grow. Oh, not at all. It was hilariously
unsustainable. They had to abandon that idea
very, very quickly because the growth was just
explosive. The first franchise opened just two
years later in 67. And by 1978, they had 200
stores. Can you imagine a logo with 200 dots?
Or today, a logo with over 21 ,000 tiny, unreadable
dots? It just, it would have been a mess. But
it shows you how fast that franchise model scaled.
And right in the middle of that growth spurt,
in the mid -70s, they hit a huge corporate roadblock.
A lawsuit. A big one. In 1975, Amstar Corporation,
the company that makes Domino Sugar, sued them
for trademark infringement. Arguing that the
names were too similar and would confuse people.
And this wasn't a quick thing. This legal battle
dragged on for five years. It wasn't resolved
until 1980 when the Fifth Circuit Court of...
They showed this incredible resilience. While
the lawsuit was happening, while their very name
was at risk, they didn't stop expanding. Not
for a second. They just opened 15 new stores
under a different name. A super practical, temporary
name, Pizza Dispatch. And as soon as they won
the case, they just switched the science back.
They refused to let a legal fight slow down their
physical, aggressive growth. Speaking of aggressive
and physical. Yeah. We cannot move on without
talking about Tom Monaghan's genuinely bizarre
architectural vision for the corporate headquarters.
Ah, yes. The famous or maybe infamous Leaning
Tower of Pizza. This wasn't just an office building.
This was Monian's ultimate statement piece. It
was pure ambition. We're talking about a proposed
30 -story skyscraper slanted at an angle that
was supposed to be the centerpiece of their corporate
campus, Domino's Farms, near Ann Arbor. It's
such a wild contrast, isn't it? A company built
on cheap, fast, efficient pizza, and the founder
wants to build this incredibly expensive, high
-concept architectural monument. The contrast
is everything. Monaghan was obsessed with the
architect Frank Lloyd Wright. So his first move
was to go to Taliesin Associated Architects,
the firm that carries on Wright's legacy, and
asked them to base the tower on an unbuilt 1956
design of Wright's called the Golden Beacon.
But that fell apart. Yeah, it dissolved pretty
quickly. Apparently, both sides felt the design
just wasn't capturing the true spirit of Wright's
work. So Monaghan pivots. He goes to Gunnar Burkerts,
who was already designing the main headquarters
building, which is this unusual half mile long
low rise structure. And Burkerts comes up with
this new design, a tower rising at a sharp 15
degree angle. And the nickname was immediate.
You couldn't avoid it. The Leaning Tower of Pisa.
A direct and maybe slightly mocking reference
to Italy's Leaning Tower of Pisa. It just stuck.
But here's the ultimate twist in the story. A
company that made its fortune on speed. and ruthless
efficiency. It was run by a man willing to spend
a fortune on this beautiful but completely impractical
corporate showpiece. So how do you square that?
Well, you don't. And that's the point. The tower
was never actually built. Too expensive. Too
weird. All of the above. It was too much of a
distraction from the core business of selling
pizzas. But, and this is the great part, if you
go to the site in Ann Arbor today, there's a
50 -foot -tall scale model of it still standing
there. A monument to unbuilt ambition. Exactly.
It's the perfect symbol of the Monaghan era.
Yeah. Huge dreams constantly bumping up against
the reality of practical logistics. But, you
know, that founder -led era had to end eventually.
It did. After 38 years, Tom Monaghan retired
in 1998. He sold 93 % of the company he built
to Bain Capital for about $1 billion. Which is
a staggering exit. And that sale to a private
equity firm like Bain, that's a huge strategic
pivot for the company. Oh, absolutely. The focus
shifts immediately. doesn't it? Completely. Private
equity firms buy companies to streamline them,
maximize profits and then usually take them public.
Monahan was driven by his personal passions like
architecture. Bain was driven by one thing. ruthless
financial efficiency. And a year later, Dave
Brandon was brought in as the new CEO. And that
really marks the end of the founder era, the
shift to a professionally managed corporate structure
that was laser focused on one thing, total market
domination. And if the Monaghan era was built
on the philosophy of that Volkswagen Beetle,
the next chapter was all about weaponizing that
speed, which led to some pretty profound and
sometimes tragic consequences. So let's get into
it. Part two. Speed, safety, and NOID. We have
to start with the 30 -minute guarantee. This
wasn't just a marketing slogan. It was the entire
identity of the company for decades. It was absolutely
revolutionary for fast food at the time. Starting
in 1973, Domino's made a simple, powerful promise.
Pizza delivered in 30 minutes. Or it's free.
It's brilliant. It creates this instant competitive
advantage built purely on speed and certainty.
But it was also incredibly high stakes. You're
literally creating a financial incentive for
your drivers to be reckless. In 1987, they tweaked
it a bit. It became a $3 discount instead of
a free pizza, but the pressure was still immense.
And the human cost of that pressure. It became
tragically clear in the early 90s. The sources
we have detail some really significant high -profile
lawsuits that forced the company into a corner.
And they were not minor cases. In 1992, there
was a $2 .8 million settlement after a Domino's
driver who was speeding killed a woman in Indiana.
That should have been a massive warning sign.
But the real death blow to the policy came a
year later, in 1993. Right. A woman was injured
when a delivery driver ran a red light and hit
her car. A jury awarded her nearly $80 million.
$80 million. Now, she eventually accepted a smaller
payout of $15 million, but still. The message
was sent. That's the moment where the brand's
identity speed just violently collides with public
safety and legal liability. And Tom Monahan,
who was still CEO, he had no choice. He was forced
to drop the 30 minute guarantee that year. And
he specifically cited the public perception of
reckless driving. They had pushed their core
strategy right past the breaking point. It had
become a massive liability. But here's the thing.
They dropped the guarantee. But speed is still
in their DNA, right? Oh, absolutely. The current
U .S. slogan, you got 30 minutes, still links
at that history. And what's really wild is that
this exact same high -risk strategy, the one
deemed too dangerous for the U .S., is still
active in other parts of the world. That's right.
The 30 -minute guarantee, with local terms and
conditions, of course, is still honored in countries
like Colombia, Vietnam, Mexico, China, and India.
So what does that tell you about their global
strategy? It says they have a very flexible and
maybe cynical approach to risk. What was unacceptably
dangerous for the American market in the 90s
is still seen as a winning strategy in certain
high growth, high density international markets
today. Different markets, different rules. OK,
so moving from reckless speed to animated madness,
we have to talk about one of the strangest and
most infamous mascots in advertising history.
The Noid. Ah, the Noid, yes. A character that
became way more famous and tragically real than
anyone could have ever planned. So the character
itself was created in late 1986. The idea was
that the Noid was the physical embodiment of
everything that could go wrong with your delivery.
Cold pizza, late delivery, you name it. And the
slogan was super catchy, avoid the Noid. It was
a clever concept, but it got very dark very fast
because of a real world incident in 1989. Yeah.
A man named Kenneth Lamar Noid, who was suffering
from mental health issues, became convinced that
the mascot was a direct personal attack on him.
He believed Tom Monaghan was mocking him. So
you walked into a Domino's in Chambly, Georgia
with a gun and held two employees hostage for
over five hours. The standoff ended in such a
bizarre way. The employees managed to escape
when Kenneth Noid got distracted because he was
eating a pizza that he had forced them to make
for him. The aftermath is just so tragic. Kenneth
Noid was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia,
found not guilty by reason of insanity, and he
later died by suicide in 1995. You'd assume the
company would just scrub the character from existence
after that. But here's the important clarification
from the sources. Domino's has always claimed
that they retired the Noid campaign for business
reasons and that the decision was not a result
of the hostage situation. They maintain control
of the narrative. Exactly. And even though he
was retired, they weren't totally afraid of the
legacy. They briefly brought him back in 2011
for a Facebook game, which is a choice. Wow.
Speaking of accidental marketing of free pizzas,
we have to touch on the bailout glitch. From
March 2009. This was a perfect storm of a new
digital system and early viral social media.
Right. So they had a promotional code, the word
bailout, that was supposed to be turned off.
Yeah. But it wasn't. Someone found it, shared
it on a forum. And it just exploded. They ended
up giving away almost 11 ,000 free medium pizzas
across the country before they could shut it
down. It was a massive uncontrolled giveaway.
But what's key is how they handled it. They immediately
promised to reimburse all the franchise owners
for the cost of those free pizzas. It was an
expensive mistake, but they used it to protect
their relationship with the franchisees. It kind
of became this accidental act of goodwill. So
beyond these more chaotic marketing moments,
they also did a lot of very intentional, very
visible sports and community marketing. For sure.
They were deep into motorsports. They sponsored
a team in kart racing that won the Indianapolis
500 in 1990. Then in 2003, they became the official.
Pizza of NASCAR. Putting their logo on things
that go fast. It makes sense. But I think their
most brilliant community project by far was a
paving for pizza initiative in 2018. Oh, this
is pure marketing genius. It brings their entire
story full circle right back to that core mission
of delivery. They realized that their biggest
enemy wasn't another pizza chain. It was potholes.
Potholes were ruining the pizzas during delivery.
So instead of just dealing with complaints, they
launched a program to give grants to cities like
Burbank, California, and Milford, Delaware, to
actually fix their roads. It's so cynical and
so brilliant at the same time. They took business
expense damage products, car repairs, and turned
it into this huge positive PR campaign. And they
made sure everyone knew about it. The paved sections
of road were literally stamped with the Domino's
logo and the slogan, oh, yes, we did. It literally
branded the infrastructure. It's incredible.
They moved beyond just selling a product and
into selling a solution to a civic problem. But
while they were mastering the roads and the marketing,
there was a huge existential problem brewing
with the actual food. Okay, so part three, the
product itself. For decades, Domino's was all
about that operational efficiency, which meant
the menu had to be incredibly simple. Aggressively
simple, it was a strategic choice. For the longest
time, it was one type of crust, two sizes, 11
toppings, and Coke. That's it. Because anything
more complicated would threaten the 30 -minute
promise. Exactly. But the market started to change.
You have competitors like Pizza Hut offering
more variety, and Domino's had to react. So in
1989, they introduced their first big menu expansion,
deep dish pizza. And that was a massive investment
for them. A huge one. It cost them $25 million,
and $15 million of that was just for new perforated
sheet metal pans to get the crust right. But
they had to do it. The research showed that 40
% of customers wanted a thicker trust. And they
were constantly iterating. That original deep
dish was eventually replaced by a pan pizza in
2012. They also experimented with just sheer
size. In the 90s, they tested something called
the Dominator. Which was a yard -long pizza cut
into 30 slices. Pure novelty. It was aimed at...
Big parties, big families. And then they started
looking at other food categories to compete in.
Right. Like chicken. In 2002, they launched Buffalo
Chicken Kickers. Yeah. They were basically trying
to steal market share from places like KFC and
Buffalo Wild Wings. And they got into specialty
pizzas, too. In 2003, they launched a Philly
Cheesesteak Pizza, which came with this big partnership
with the National Cattlemen's Beef Association.
It was a move to signal. you know, premium ingredients.
Then came the Brooklyn -style pizza in 2006.
Thinner crust, cornmeal cut into bigger slices
you could fold. They were trying to borrow some
of that authentic New York pizza credibility.
But the biggest leap was probably in 2008 when
they launched oven -baked sandwiches. That was
a direct shot at Subway. And their marketing
was ruthless. They ran a promotion offering free
sandwiches to anyone named Jared. Wow. A very
clear, very aggressive jab at Subway's spokesperson
at the time. And the expansion just kept going
right up to the breaking point. In 2009, you
get American Legends pizzas with 40 % more cheese.
You get pasta in a bread bowl. And you get Lava
Crunch cakes for dessert, which they promoted
by flying 1 ,000 of them in a helicopter near
Mount St. Helens. All this marketing energy.
these new products, and yet the core pizza was
still widely considered to be terrible. And this
brings us to what is, I think, the most important
moment in the company's entire history, the ultimate
admission of fault. It's a turning point. In
2009, a consumer taste survey from a firm called
Brand Keys comes out, and the results are just,
they're devastating. Domino's ranked dead last
among all the national pizza chains. Tied for
last. Tied for last with Chuck E. Cheese. Right.
A place known for animatronic bands and ball
pits, not for its culinary excellence. For a
food company, that is an existential crisis.
Your entire business is built on a product that
people actively dislike. And for Bain Capital,
the owners, that had to be the final straw. Absolutely.
They couldn't market their way out of a fundamental
product failure. So they did something radical.
They embraced the criticism. This led to that
incredible self -critical ad campaign in 2010.
They literally put their own customers on camera
saying the crust tasted like cardboard and the
sauce was like ketchup. I mean, that level of
public honesty from a major corporation was just
unheard of. Instead of fighting the criticism,
they owned it. And they used it to announce they
were completely reinventing their pizza from
the crust up. So they changed everything. The
dough, the sauce, the cheese. It was a massive
system -wide overhaul. And it was a formal admission
that their decades -long focus on delivery speed
had come at the expense of the food itself. It
was a huge risk, though, wasn't it, to basically
tell your customers, hey, that stuff we've been
selling you for years, yeah, it was bad. Please
try the new stuff. A colossal. risk, but the
results were immediate and spectacular. The very
next year, the company saw a 14 .3 % quarterly
gain. It completely validated the strategy. Honesty
combined with a real product improvement was
the key to unlocking new growth. It proved the
underlying strength of their delivery model.
Once the pizza was just, you know. good, the
convenience engine took over and sales exploded.
That lesson about adaptation wasn't just limited
to the U .S. recipe. Not at all. It became their
global playbook. In 2013, for example, Domino's
in Israel introduced their first ever vegan pizza
using a soy -based cheese substitute. It showed
they were willing to cater to very specific local
dietary needs. Exactly. They learned that quality
and adaptation meant different things in different
markets. And that successful pivot really becomes
the bridge from their U .S. survival story to
their incredibly complex and often contradictory
global expansion. OK, let's talk about that global
jigsaw puzzle. Part four. I mean, the scale of
their international operation is just staggering,
but it started pretty early, right? It did. The
first international store was in Winnipeg, Canada,
back in 1983. And then they really... pushed
into major established economies. The UK and
Japan both opened in 1985. And they scaled so
fast. By 1995, they had 1 ,000 international
locations. And the pace just kept accelerating.
The sources mentioned this one day in 1997, where
they opened seven new stores on five different
continents. On the same day. On the same day.
It was a pure logistical flex, a message to the
world that they were everywhere. And the way
they managed that growth was through the master
franchise model, which is... It's pretty complex.
There are these two big public -created groups
outside of the U .S. parent company. Right. First,
you've got the Australian group, Domino's Pizza
Enterprises, or DPE. They control a huge territory,
Australia, New Zealand, Japan, France, a lot
of Europe. They're all about aggressive growth.
And then there's the British group, Domino's
Pizza Group, DPG, which handles the U .K. and
Ireland. And it's this web of overlapping franchises
that allows them to delegate all the local decision
making, the advertising, the ingredients, the
labor laws to regional experts. And before we
get into specific countries, we should mention
their corporate responsibility push. Yeah. In
2020, they committed to sourcing 100 percent
cage free eggs by 2025. Which is pretty much
a non -negotiable standard for a global chain
of their size these days. OK, let's zoom in on
Asia. Because this is where you really see the
need for that intense local customization. Let's
start with India. India is the crown jewel of
their international operations. Outside of the
United States, India has more Domino's locations
than any other country in the world. The numbers
are incredible. As of 2018, the master franchise
heir, Jubilant Foodworks, had over 1 ,300 stores
in more than 260 cities. They hit their 1 ,000th
store back in 2016. And they succeeded because
they adapted so well. They have a huge number
of vegetarian options. They use local spices.
But they still leverage that core model of fast,
reliable delivery in these incredibly dense cities.
So India is a story of successful adaptation.
But China? China is a story of radical invention.
A completely different strategy. In China, where
they're known as Damile, They have a smaller
footprint, about 250 stores in nine big cities.
But the menu, the menu is almost unrecognizable
to an American customer. We're talking potato
bacon pizza, crayfish pizza. Durian pulp pizza.
Durian pizza. And salted egg yolk pizza. And
this isn't just a gimmick. This is a profound
strategic choice. The master franchise model
gives them the freedom to completely betray the
core product identity if it means winning over
local tastes. They care more about capturing
the market than they do about brand consistency.
What's also key in China is the tech focus. Over
90 percent of orders are placed online through
their own apps or through platforms like WeChat.
And this is interesting. After years of insisting
on controlling their own delivery in China, they've
had to partner with third party apps like Elo
.me and Meichuan just to compete. A huge strategic
shift for them. But the global story isn't just
about successes. It's also defined by some very
high profile, very public failures. And there
is no bigger failure or bigger irony than their
attempt to conquer Italy. The birthplace of pizza.
In 2015, they decided. to go for it, thinking
their main advantage would be their superior
delivery model. The assumption was we're faster
and more reliable than the local mom and pop
pizzerias. But it proves they didn't really learn
the global lesson of the 2010 recipe change,
did they? If your whole model is convenience,
what happens when everyone else becomes just
as convenient? That's exactly what happened.
The local pizzerias, which already had a vastly
better product, just started using the same delivery
apps for Glovo, Just Eat, and suddenly Domino's
convenience advantage was gone. And the main
reason they failed? The main reason, according
to the sources, was just crushing, brutally low
customer ratings. People in Italy thought the
pizza was terrible. Convenience couldn't make
up for the massive quality gap. By July 2022,
every single Domino's in Italy was closed. A
painful, expensive lesson. And then came the
Russian exit in 2023. This one wasn't about the
product. It was geopolitical. After the invasion
of Ukraine, the franchise operator had to declare
bankruptcy and pull out. A completely different
kind of challenge. And what's wild is that the
Russian network was then bought by a local rapper,
Tamati, and just slightly rebranded to Domano
Pizza. It shows how quickly a brand can be co
-opted when a master franchise is forced to exit.
And that brings us to the present. In February
2025. They announced they're closing over 200
underperforming stores worldwide. And the vast
majority of those, 172 of them, are in Japan.
That's a huge red flag. This is a cost -cutting
move, shedding the weak spots. Japan is a super
competitive, tech savvy, delivery focused market.
The fact that they're failing there suggests
that their model of just being convenient isn't
enough anymore. The competition has caught up.
And what's the one market that's actually growing?
Australia and New Zealand. So they're doubling
down where the model still works and cutting
their losses where it doesn't. So if the 30 minute
guarantee defined the 20th century and the recipe
change. to find the early 21st. Then the next
defining leap has to be their full -on radical
embrace of technology and automation. Okay, so
final section, digital innovation. Domino's figured
out pretty early on that they weren't really
a pizza company. At their heart, they're a logistics
and software company. And you can see that mental
shift reflected in their branding. In 2012, they
officially changed the company name to just Domino's.
They dropped the word pizza. And they updated
the logo at the same time. What was the message
they were sending with that? It was a clear declaration
of intent. We are more than pizza. It opened
the door for them to push sandwiches, pasta,
wings, whatever comes next. It's a name change
that prepares them for a future that might not
even be about food, but about pure logistics.
And then came the tech tools. Online ordering
started in 2007, but the real game changer was
the pizza tracker in 2008. The pizza tracker
was absolute genius. On one level, it's for the
customer. It shows you the status of your order
in real time. It doesn't make the pizza come
faster, but it reduces your anxiety while you
wait. It gives you a feeling of control. And
on the other level? Data. Every click, every
refresh is a data point. They use that massive
stream of information to optimize everything.
Staffing, prep times, delivery routes. They turned
a customer -facing feature into a powerful internal
efficiency tool. And now they're moving beyond
tracking. And into full automation. They're trying
to solve the problem of the human driver once
and for all. Exactly. In some cities in Germany
and the Netherlands, they're already using self
-driving robots from a company called Starship
Technologies for short distance deliveries. And
they're testing everything, aren't they? In 2016,
they did the world's first drone pizza delivery
in New Zealand. And in the U .S., they have a
major partnership with a company called Nuro
to use their R2 self -driving vehicles for deliveries
in Houston. So they're testing ground robots,
aerial drones, and autonomous cars all at the
same time. They are exploring every possible
path to automation. They're trying to build a
future where the cost and the risk associated
with the human driver is massively reduced. It's
the 30 -minute guarantee without the liability.
They also got into some, let's see, unique...
Customer engagement strategies. You mean the
wedding registry? The wedding registry. And then
the baby registry. A way to tie their brand to
these huge emotional life moments. It's all about
convenience. And we have to talk about the Surprise
Freeze campaign from 2021. This was a direct
attack on the delivery apps, right? It was a
tactical counteroffensive against DoorDash and
Uber Eats. They gave away up to $50 million worth
of free items to their own customers. The message
was simple. Order directly from us and we'll
reward you. Go through a third -party app and
you'll just pay extra fees. It was all about
protecting their direct relationship with the
customer and, more importantly, protecting that
valuable first -party data. Okay, before we wrap
up, let's look at the financials that make all
of this possible. They went public on the New
York Stock Exchange in 2004. And they're still
evolving. They just announced they're moving
their stock listing to the NASDAQ starting in
January 2025. Why would they do that? Why move
from the NYSE? to Nasdaq. It's a signal to investors.
Nasdaq is seen as the home for technology and
growth focused companies. It reinforces their
message. We are a tech company that happens to
sell food. And the franchise model is the engine
that funds all this innovation. We got some 2018
numbers here. Of their 6 ,000 plus U .S. stores,
almost all of them are franchised. And the average
store was doing over a million dollars a year
in sales. And here's the secret sauce. Every
franchise pays an initial fee, plus a 5 .5 %
royalty fee and a 4 % advertising fee, both based
on their weekly sales. So 9 .5 % of every single
dollar that a U .S. franchise makes goes straight
back to the parent company. And that's what pays
for the pizza tracker, the neuro partnership,
the drone experiments. Every franchisee is effectively
funding the company's R &D. It's a genius, self
-sustaining financial model. And they've shown
they can be flexible. In 2022, when inflation
hit, they first cut back on deals, which angered
customers. But they pivoted fast. By September,
they launched an inflation relief deal offering
20 % off all online orders. It shows they're
willing to protect customer loyalty, even if
it hurts short -term profits. And finally, to
bring it all back to the beginning, in November
2022, They added 800 Chevy Bolt electric vehicles
to their U .S. delivery fleet. From one single
gas -guzzling Volkswagen Beetle to a fleet of
800 EVs. It's the perfect illustration of their
journey from a local pizza joint to a full -scale
industrialized logistics machine. So when you
put it all together, what does this whole story
tell us? I mean, this deep dive shows that Domino's
built its empire on a foundation of speed, a
guarantee so powerful it almost destroyed them.
They survived a near -death experience with their
own product by doing something terrifying, being
honest. And now their future depends entirely
on staying ahead in the tech race, whether that
means customizing a durian pizza for China or
launching delivery robots in Germany. So the
lesson is that you have to be willing to constantly
criticize yourself, to radically adapt, and to
pour money into technology just to stay on top.
You have to be willing to admit your product
is broken and rebuild it from the ground up.
That's it, exactly. And that leaves us with a
final provocative thought for you to chew on.
Domino's success today still relies on that mix
of convenience and an acceptable product. But
as they plan to close 200 stores, which market
really poses the greater long -term risk for
them? Is it a super competitive fragmented market
like Japan where their convenience advantage
is disappearing? Or is it a new market where
people just fundamentally reject their food like
what happened in Italy? And here's the follow
up. What happens when delivery automation becomes
universal? When drones and robots make instant
delivery the standard for everyone? When that
last logistical advantage is gone, how does that
change their entire risk calculation? Is a pretty
good reinvented pizza still good enough to win
in a world where everyone can deliver in 10 minutes?