Episode 53: From Haircuts to Donuts – A Serial Entrepreneur’s Journey

My good afternoon everybody. Welcome to the Overruled podcast brought to you by the Scott Vicknair Law Firm. I am your host, David Vicknair, alone today. Brad’s not here, but I’m excited. We’re talking to an incredible guest, that we have in the studio here. Thomas Matthews. Thomas, welcome to the Overruled podcast. Thank you, guys, for having me. I appreciate you. Absolutely. Well, it’s our pleasure to have you, Thomas, and let’s just get straight into it. I was hoping you could tell our listeners a little bit about you, your background, and how you became, what I’m going to call a serial entrepreneur because you have, I mean, I’m running one business, you’re running like a million, it feels like. So it’s kind of overwhelming to read about you and research you for the show today.

It’s just really impressive. So just tell everybody a little bit about you. I’m gonna try to sum this up. I’m gonna try to sum it on that. I’m born and raised in New Orleans, Uptown New Orleans. I come from a family of eight. So my mother and father, we all have the same mother and father. And, it was a lot of us. In one, yeah, eight of us in a two-bedroom. My mom was in a family of eight. What? Six sisters and two brothers. Okay. So it was five boys and three girls, almost like the opposite. Opposite. Yes. It was like the opposite. So, of course, you know, when you grew up in a household like that, you have challenging times, and challenging moments, and things just don’t go your way all the time. Because, of course, you know, when you’re born, you don’t get a chance to pick your height, you can’t, you know, you don’t get a chance to pick who your parents are, your skin color, all type of things. You just don’t get a chance to choose those things.

So you really just have to roll the dice and work with what you have. So that’s pretty much where I come from. So, in the back of my mind, coming through high school and different things like that, I’ve always wanted more. And, my parents, they didn’t get a chance to finish high school. So when I was, when I had a chance to finish high school, you know, it was a big old thing. Hey, you finish high school. And, actually, I went to college too. Also, I graduated from, University of New Orleans. So that was a really, really huge thing in the family. But just after high school, I just knew that it had to be more. So I literally, you know, through the help of God and prayers, I kind of willed myself and forced myself, to be what I am today, which is the serial entrepreneur that you explained in the beginning, just now on the show. So I pretty much started off, my uncle gave me a shot at cutting hair. This was way back in the day. I was always kind of talented with that.

My cousin Calvin Scott, he was kind of showing me some things with the clippers, and I was like, all right, cool. I like how people felt when they got up out of the chair. So that was kind of like a, a start of my entrepreneurial thing. So my uncle gave me a shot. Of course, I didn’t have any clients, so I was calling people up and begging them, you know, hey, let me cut your hair. And, I just stuck with it through hard work and dedication, like you say, and eventually my clientele grew over a period of time. And at that time, when I started, it really wasn’t no social media. So it was just all great customer service, giving the customer a good product, and giving them a result that they wanted. And word of mouth just spread it. And that’s how I was able to get my clientele up. So I started off with that, and from that, I got into music. So people actually call me Shorty. That’s what you don’t know on the paper. I didn’t see Shorty. Yeah, I know, I know. I kind of got away, I’ve gotten away from him a little bit, but, my mother gave me that name because I’m five seven. And, I’ve done music. I had a really, really good music career. Shout out to Mama and Daddy.

Had a really good music career. I had two number one records and, in 2012 and 2018. What were the names of them? The first one was, featuring my homeboy, my brother, my family, Trey Parker, T-R-E. It was called Tipsy. And the second one number one was a song, all by myself, this time was called For You. And it was a number one like in the Southeast region, Q93, I mean, you know, I was just everywhere. I wish I’d have known that because I’d have listened to the music. Yeah, yeah, I’ve had it playing over. I’m changing characters now. So, yeah. There’s a season for everything in life. It is. You know, I’ll have kids and different things like that. So I, eventually when COVID happened, I kind of shut that down because, you know, obviously, you wasn’t able to move around and go outside and different things like that. So a little bit before COVID, in 2019, 2018, I ended up going broke over the music because of ignorance. Something I didn’t know. I did my music campaign. At the end of the campaign, I was completely broke. So I knew I needed something different. I wanted to make some money that I didn’t have to be on my feet. So that’s when I got into real estate. And I stumbled into real estate. Shout out to Demi Miller, which is my realtor. I stumbled into real estate looking for a donut cafe. In 2018. Well, you can’t spoil everything because we got a lot to do. I know, I know.

So, pretty much, I’m a serial entrepreneur. I kind of got started off with cutting hair. I got into real estate in 2019. And, I kept it going from there, man. Kept it going from there. New construction, renovations, multiple doors that I own and, kind of got into the donut cafe. So we’ll get to that. Yeah, one of the things that you said that kind of struck me just now, Thomas, was you talked about, consistently, consistently performing results for each client, which helped you grow at the hair salon. Yeah. I think about it because everybody here’s probably sick of hearing me say it because now, at the law firm, we, you know, we have TV commercials, we have all this brand marketing, we’re spending more and more money on marketing.

But we’ve never shied internally, and externally, people see that, but internally, we always talk about like, we’re obsessed about, like making each client delighted. Like giving them the best result possible, and exceeding their expectations in every front, whether it be hospitality or the result of their individual case. Because I think, don’t you, like I’m curious, your perspective on this. I wonder sometimes that people are always like chasing away from the simple things that you can do consistently, which is just making the clients that you do have, very happy and satisfied. And it, you’ve basically built, it seems like your entire career learning that individual lesson very early on in the hair salon. Yeah. I apply it with anything that I do in my life. And that’s something that people just don’t understand. Every dollar I make, and I know it might sound cliche, but some people may not know this. Every penny that I make is because I do something that either you don’t want to do, that someone want don’t want to do, or I don’t know how to do. So essentially, all I’m saying is, I solve problems for people. Every penny I make is because I solve a problem. And I give them, well, I solve a problem for them and a result of value. And I give them the outcome that they want. Not that I want. Like if you come to my shop, whatever business that I have, and let’s just say a barber shop. You come to the barber shop, and you say, hey, I want this, I want that. And but I give you what I want. And then now you’re getting up, you’re not satisfied.

That’s right. But, you know, I deliver the customer, or the client, so much value. I do my best to do that, to where as when they get up out of the chair, or when they come into the donut shop, or whatever it is, they are happy to go into their pockets and give me whatever dollar amount because if you spend $10 with me at the donut shop, I promise you, through customer service, the atmosphere, the cleanliness, and the building, you’re gonna get $20 worth of value. 100%. And I think it’s a, it’s a mistake that a lot of business owners make, is that people aren’t, I don’t think people are, and we’re not really in the retail, we are in the retail business since we represent consumers. But they don’t really, like we charge a contingency fee.

Like if we collect anything, we get a percentage of the money in the case. Right. We don’t need them to give us money today. But you do. You’re in the business where they’re giving you money at the hair salon, at the donut shop. But it’s the same concept, right? They don’t mind paying high or better, or more than one of your competitors, if they’re really getting the value. If you’re really giving them the experience. The place looks fantastic. The product is fantastic. They feel a certain way. And that seems like something you figured out very early on, which not everybody does. You know what, man? I figured it out years ago, but I, I recently, the last two years, I just start putting context to it. I always knew that, if you treat people how you want to be treated. And that might sound cliche again, but, cliche for a reason. Right. When I walked in here, guess what? My name was on a thing. That’s how I want to be treated. You know, I had another meeting, 10 o’clock this morning, I pulled up, the parking space, my name was right there. And the number one human need is to feel appreciated. When you can make someone feel appreciated, you got them.

And when I walked in, immediately, y’all said, hey, do you want something to drink? You showed me a list of snacks and a list of drinks. My name was on a digital board. And I was like, okay, cool, we about to have fun today. We about to have fun. It was all intentional. It’s no different than your business. You were doing things intentionally to make people have that experience and feel a certain way, which I think is a small piece of the puzzle of the success that you’re starting to have in your life, professionally. Give people an outcome that they desire, and not the outcome that you want. Because at the end of the day, they have to buy. We don’t have to buy. Right. But if we have the answer to deliver the results, and then they’re going to buy all day. Cause everybody want a problem solved. 100%. I’m I’m here right now. I’m sure that there’s some type of problem being solved. You know, whether you guys want to grow your podcast, whatever the situation is. We all want problems solved. And I don’t like problems. Oh, I don’t like problems. I don’t like problems. Well, let’s talk, shift gears, Thomas. Let’s talk a little bit first at the hair studio because that’s kind of where you started. Yes. And tell us, tell listeners, where is it? How do they access it? Is there a website? Like, just tell us a little bit about it. Honestly, with the hair studio, like I said, I started up with my uncle, and we came from a bigger shop when you had multiple, stylists and multiple barbers. And I kind of got burned out with that. So I literally downsized. I’m in a, a smaller suite now, and it’s just me by myself. And I kind of don’t, like, if you, it’s one of those things where if you know. Yeah. I never really promote it. Because that business, I’ve been doing it so long, it’s kind of autopilot. You have steady customers that come. Just like me, I go to my barber every month.

But here’s the deal. I, I service who I desire to service. So I’ve never told anyone, you know, where it’s at, where it’s located at. Now, if you find out, if you know. But I never really marketed it. I put it out there like that, honestly. You know, for all type of reasons too. So, yeah, but I definitely downsized and I’m, I’m in a unit by myself. I can control the environment, I can control the music, I can control who comes in. And you just have more control over it. Yeah. Opposed to when you went into an old school, shop, that’s, where anybody can walk in. And then, there’s so many variables that you just can’t control. Yeah, and a lot of times too, I see it with my barber, who’s been cutting my hair, Tony, he’s an Italian man. I love him. I love him.

He cuts like, all the judges’ hair downtown. But, he was in the foot of the Whitney, him and his brother were in the basement of the Whitney building for like 40 something years. And then when Whitney moved into the, One Shell Square building recently, the bank was like, you gotta come with us because you cut everybody’s hair. And he’s been there so long. Yeah. But he, you know, the downsides of my barber, what I’ve seen with his business is, he’s just gotta be there all the time because you don’t know when people are gonna show up. And he can’t really control it. Like you’re saying, you were able to downsize the barber shop to be able to control your time and the commitment. And I have an answer for that, though. Honestly, he has to go. It’s one way that he can control it. He has to go to strict appointments. Yeah. Because once again, I started off that way. I used to just come open up the door and sit down. And I never knew who was going to come in. And you might get a rush in the morning, and then after noon, you’re dead. Then another rush. But you had three or four hours of non-productive time. Yeah. Opposed to when you’re doing appointments, you can control your life. And I promise you, you can control your life, you control your time. And I really, really promise you, if it’s people of importance, they don’t want to be sitting there. Two, three hours waiting on a service.

They’d rather walk in and rather, walk out. And they will pay you premium price, just because you have that. So I agree. If Tony is listening, he probably old the guy. I’m not sure. But he needs to go to appointment because now, even with me, let’s just say if I do 40 hours a week, that’s still 40 hours on my feet, man. I’m tired. Yeah. I get it. And that’s with appointments. So I can imagine just sitting there like I used to, all day long, not knowing what the next dollar is going to come from. So I’d rather take control of my time and essentially giving the customer better service, experience by them knowing what time they’re coming in, what time they’re done. They can come on their lunch break. You know, they can do anything. Pick up their kids and come. So I just respect for another person’s time. 100%. Tony, go to appointments, man. That’s gonna be tough convincing them at this stage. He’s on the way out, close to retirement. But I want to phase in to talk about your property company. Tell us a little bit about its TLN Properties and Investments. A little bit about how, you mentioned a little bit that your realtor kind of got you into it, but I think you started with one property, you got a commercial property, and now you’re doing another investment. Tell us a little bit about that. I stumbled into it in, 2018, like I mentioned, when I ended up going broke over music, because of ignorance, like I said.

And I knew I needed something different. Reached out to my realtor. I wanted to do a music studio of my own. I wanted to do a, a donut shop. I found a location that I liked. And they sent me the package, the application to fill out, and it was about a thousand pages. Wow. Called my realtor, I said, hey man, this was a female. I said, hey, is this legal? She said, you might be able to buy a donut shop or buy a restaurant with an easier process than that. And I was like, I can buy something? Because at that time, I only had jewelry, clothes, shoes, and a nice car. And I didn’t own any assets, right? So, but I knew it was a, a change that I needed to do in my life. So I ended up, she ended up saying, hey, send me your social security number, send me your ID, and I’m gonna send it to the banker. Now, of course, where I come from, you just don’t send anybody your social security number, right? I don’t want to send it either. Very suspicious. Like, I mean, you know. Yeah, man. I was the same way. But in 30 minutes, so you have to trust somebody. Sure. So in 30 minutes, she called me back and said, hey, you’ve been pre-approved. I’m like, what? That’s pretty quick.

That was in about 30 minutes. So I was like, you know, I didn’t believe it. Send me an email or something. So I still have the email, the, pre-approval letter in my phone. I never deleted it. You know, so, I ended up getting pre-approved for $150,000. Right. And I was looking for restaurants in New Orleans and I couldn’t buy nothing for $150,000. So she said, so we looked and looked. I couldn’t find anything I wanted. So she said, you know, you can buy a home with this. I was like, I can buy a home, I can become a homeowner. She said, well, you want to be a homeowner? Or you want to be a real estate investor? I said, explain. She said, when you buy a single family house, you’re pretty much become a homeowner. Two, three bedroom, garage, your parking, or you can do, duplex, triplex, etc. So I said, I want to go that route. I didn’t have any kids. So that’s how I pretty much got into real estate, looking for a donut shop. And when I did my first purchase, January 11th, 2019, it was a great one. Good price. I didn’t spend the whole 150. I bought it for a cheaper than that. I renovated it. I’m my pocket. Shout out to, Proverbs Elite, Kenneth and, Keith Davis, my contractors that I use. And we was able to flip it. One side, Airbnb, other side, rent. Rental property. Love it. And when COVID happened, she called. She said, you ever thought about selling this? And I was like, no, not really.

She said, well, you might want to think about selling it. And when I looked at the market, because I’m still learning and I’m still learning to this day. Interest rates went down to 2%. And it was a bidding war. Wow. I mean, if your house was $10,000, it was going to be $40,000, $50,000 because everybody had money and there wasn’t that many houses for sale. So I ended up selling that house maybe like 80% more than what I purchased it for. Incredible. Good. And, I took the money and I called Mom. I said, Mom, I said, look at this check. And guess what Mom said? Mom said, now you can buy me another car. Literally. She said, now you can buy me another car. Now you can take me shopping. And I was like, No, Mom. You call me Shorty. Exactly. I said, No, Mom. I literally say no, so I ended up, I ended up doing, I just when I got into new construction, I went over in my rear row, Louisiana, off of Aims and LaPellco. We looked at some lots. I was able to purchase a lot. And I got into new construction then. And it was good. But, you know, since then, I just kept it going, man. I love it. And you got a commercial property too in your portfolio, is that right? What a donut shop is the commercial property. Yes. So I’m working on all that now. And I kind of don’t want to give too much of that away. But, we got a deal going on with that. Awesome. And is that on Canal Street?

Yeah. How, how have you navigated, because you kind of got into real estate and a roller coaster time, right? Like COVID was like wild. Like you said, bidding wars, low interest rates, people throwing money around, both on property that’s $50,000 versus $5 million. It’s crazy times for real estate. And now we’re in this time, or at least this period we’ve been in for the last year or two, where it’s high interest rates and high insurance, and premiums. You know, the wake of all these hurricanes and all that, hurricane claims have really risen the cost for insurance along with, along with this interest rate hike. So how are you navigating your real estate journey? Is like, where’s your mind at when you see like, not necessarily the best time in certain areas because of the high interest rate and cost of insurance here? Like, how do you think about all that and how do you navigate it? It’s challenging. It’s definitely challenging. The only thing that you can possibly do right now is, pretty much go up on your rent. Yeah. To just offset the costs. Because somebody has, I used to, when I first got into real estate, I was so nice. I sold a property because I didn’t want to go up on the rent.

Because I developed a relationship with the, with the tenant. Yeah. And I literally sold the double because I didn’t want to go up on the rent. And people who know me, they know this. And the day that I sold it, the next day, the guy went up on the rent. You know, so it just started to hit me now that it’s just business. Because I understand people paying, like I said, I come from a family of eight. So, you know, it was more on a personal side, because I want to help people and give them affordable houses and stuff like that. Yeah. And it’s like, now, you really can’t do that anymore because, like I said, insurance is through the roof. Groceries is high, gas, everything is just high. And I have kids and a wife now. So I can no longer eat that cost. Like I said, when I got into real estate, I didn’t have any of this. In the beginning, but now I just can’t eat the cost. So the only thing you could do right now is hope and wait that the interest rates go down again. If you’re in the market, and you can refinance, if that’s what your desire. But honestly, if you don’t have anything, look at the 70s. Interest rates was 10, 12, 13%. Yeah. So what we’re seeing right now, they saw this way before, way back then. So if it’s a young person that’s aspiring to get into it, I’ll say still jump in. If you have a few dollars saved up, if this is something you’ve been desiring for years, still get into it. You have one of the greatest countries in the world.

This is America. God would not make any more land. I’m looking at the camera. No more land would be made, right? So you have to just get in the game and own a piece of the greatest country in the world, which is America. Get in the game. Buy. That’s a great point. And, one of the things I always try to tell young people, Thomas, which was something I did. People who know me, they know this. Which was a big leverage point for me, was right out of law school, I bought a duplex, and I lived on one side and rented the other. Okay. And we have so many opportunities for young people in New Orleans because there’s so many duplexes. Yes. Not every city has as many duplexes we do. And the beauty of that is, I mean, I could go on forever. But the beauty of that is essentially, the other side, or the upstairs, is basically paying for most of your, you know it. And it’s not as big of a pain in the butt because you’re young and you kind of get interested in it at that time. And you’re there. You’re living there. And I just see so less and less interest in that now with younger people I talk to. Maybe I’m in the wrong circles, talking to the wrong young people.

But I, it kind of makes me a little, I don’t, frustrated isn’t the right word. But I’m like, this is a great model for you to start. Because then when you move out, you can rent both sides. And then at some point in time, now I’m in the process of selling the two duplexes I had because I don’t want to deal with them anymore. But like, they were great for the time of my life that they were, I was involved with them, man. And so it really, you’re kind of like, really getting me in my Yeah, I don’t get upset. Not upset, excited, because it’s great to hear you say that because I think more and more young people need to hear that, like when they’re starting out that journey, like consider a duplex. Consider a multi-family property that’s not too much for you to bite off that you can chew.

Be reasoned. But like, there’s a lot of opportunities out there in real estate. You have to, you have to take risks, though. Number one, I’m gonna come back just a second. And I think the answer to that is, things are just way more expensive now. If you look at the numbers, man, the average cost of a house right now, might be a family home is like $400,000 right now. Yeah. Versus it wasn’t that high. So I don’t know if they think that they, they might just can’t afford it now. I’m sure that they want to own some things. Maybe everything is just so high right now. But honestly, I don’t know if it’s gonna go down. Because in history, you know, we’ve always seen things, you know, a bag of potato chips was 25 cents.

Now it’s maybe that same bag is maybe $1.25. So things usually don’t go down. It’s just a great strategy too, to accumulate wealth, I think. Getting into real estate, like you say, just hopping on in. Because you can, you can never sell what you don’t own. That’s right. I’m gonna hit that one again. You cannot sell what you do not own. So getting into real estate, like you say, now you have options. Look what you’re saying. You’re getting ready to do. Now you’re getting ready to move and you’re getting ready to sell your double. Which, I’m sure you’re gonna get some type of return. Yeah. Or if you didn’t get a return, you had somebody paying your rent for you while you was able to save some money. Yeah. You know, also, you can do a, you can refinance. Pull money out of it. You can also do what he like, loan or home equity line of credit. Once you get into the game, there’s so many things you can do, opposed to just renting. Now, if it’s not in your personal personality, because I have a little sister, Tiffany. She just doesn’t drive. She’s 30 years old. Wait, how old is Tiffany now? She was born in 1990. Tiffany, he knows your age, he’s just kidding. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I’m not. 2094.

She’s yeah, she so she’s 30, about to be 31 years old. And she just, she doesn’t drive. And I don’t think she desires to drive. Her nerves might be too bad. So there are some people that may not want to get into real estate. They can’t handle the capacity of it. Because honestly, it could become a lot. From roofing issues to, you know, how much I spent on landscaping, man. Yeah, it’s a lot. I spent at my personal home now, I spent just for the guys to come and do weeds, just to pick weeds out and spread, the guy just sent me a bill this morning, $900. That’s a lot. Right. So, opposed to renting, that way all of the stress and the pressure, it’s on the landlord. So it’s different options. But I think if you want to accumulate the wealth, and you don’t have any plan, getting into the real estate game would definitely crack open that door for you because there’s so many different options. Yeah, you hit on something in that, discussion, Thomas, that I want to ask you about, but it struck me earlier. I’m hitting on everything that you do today. Yeah. He loved it. I knew I mean, I can sit here and I’m afraid this show’s going to go two hours.

But, when you were talking about going to LaPellco Boulevard, and I’m thinking you’re building stuff out there, you had this real estate company going, you have the hair shop, we’re about to get into the donuts. What I was thinking before you even said it, is this is a guy who’s not afraid of risk and manages risk. I was watching a video recently, Jeff Bezos, the owner of Amazon. Oh, yeah. Yeah. One of the richest people. You know everybody knows who that is. He had a little clip, that he was talking about, humans that we are predisposed to overestimate risk and underestimate opportunity. And so he thinks we should all be cognizant that’s how we are all wired and bias ourselves against risk. And that really got me thinking in the last month since I’ve seen that clip, how right he is, I think, about that. But I’m curious, how do you manage, like somebody’s listening to this like, this guy is doing it all. Like, how do you manage in your mind? Like, how do you work through the risk of the different things that you’re doing and how do you go through the mental process of handling it? It can become scary. And sometimes I feel as though I, I’m a little bit too risky.

But I have confidence in myself that, that I do have a cash flow coming in pretty much every day now. To where is if I do take a risk and it doesn’t work, today is the youngest that I will ever be. I have confidence in myself that I will be able to bounce back. And I was reading that in a book, they was talking about the rich versus poor. And I may not be all the way right when I say this, but, and you’ll understand exactly what I’m at. They say that poor people think about, scarcity and, I mean, say I want to put this. They’re scared to take the risk first. They’ll put safety over the risk. Rich people take the risk and think about the safety later. Yeah. Right. So that’s what I do. Like I, I just take the risk.

I’ve read them all, man, for years. And I’m just starting to get some of the answers. But that’s how I manage it. I have confidence in myself. Like I said, today is the youngest I will ever be. So if I do make a mistake, because we don’t get them all right. I’m able to shake back from it. I’d rather do this now than take these risks at 67. Yeah. I mean, your quality of life is a little different then. Time, you probably have more time behind you than in front of you. So, you know, if you’re a younger person, man, take the risk now. And even if you’re older person, if you have that vitality, still jump in the game, man. That’s a, that’s really great advice. One thing I’ve been thinking about lately because I mean, that is a great mental mindset to have about it. And a lot of the things that you’re doing, a lot of the things that we’re doing in the firm, really are mindset shifts. But how do you change your mindset and the way you look at things when you make decisions and process decisions? One thing I’ve been thinking about and telling people lately is we could all be dead tomorrow. What do you have to lose? Like so like, life is not guaranteed. It is harsh. I mean, like it’s not guaranteed. Don’t you want to live it while you’re here? You know? Anything good that God has to offer, I want to experience it. At least one time. Yeah. And I refuse to settle, I refuse to stop until I get there.

And I may never get there, but I’m definitely going to constantly shoot the shot. To get there. Yeah. And that, but to answer your question, David, honestly, I really believe that you were born like this. Talked to both of my parents, before I could even remember and talk. They say that he’s different. And as I start getting older, I’ve been hearing this throughout the years. My father just told me this maybe two weeks ago. We’ve always saw this in you. And I’m, I’m telling you, I’m just wired like this. Yeah. I’m completely crazy. I’m completely nuts. And there’s no such thing as, it’s, it’s no such thing as balance when you were, when you were in a mood of accomplishing goals. Yeah. Because it’s going to take a lot of, intention. A lot of great intention.

And you got to, like when I was doing the donut shop, it took almost everything in me. So of course, the kids was suffering a little bit, of course, the wife didn’t get the, I was completely out of balance. And two things that haven’t been seen and at the same time, just doesn’t happen. Yeah. So, you know, but the goal is, the more that you’ll start accumulating assets, that balance will get a little bit bigger, but in the beginning, you’re risk taking, and you just completely out of balance. It’s like this, and the more that box starts shrinking. Yeah. A little bit. So I know I’m I’m I’m sold out for it. I’m completely crazy for it. And I don’t care. Yeah. Well, I empathize because we have a lot of the same afflictions. But, you know, at the same time, I have kids, David?

None. But I have a dog now, which is basically like a kid, so. That is a. That’s a child. But the, you know, take all the risks that you can, because it’s going to be way more challenging, you know, with some, with some kids come in. Yeah. Well, what about a partner? And then, which your kids? Yeah. It’s going to be way more challenging. It’s going to be 100%. You’re going to. So I, like I told, like I told her, man, I’d rather do it now. So by the time my kids are eight, nine and 10, we can go to these soccer games, these baseball games, or whatever I can accommodate them and be there for them. I don’t want my kids saying, Dad, you’re at work.

And I’m 50, 60 years old. Nah, I’m not gonna do that. Right. Love it. Okay, I want to jump in the donuts. Let’s get it. I am dying, though, no first. What made you give the passion to start because you own not another donut cafe. It used to be Blue Dot, is that right? Okay. Which is a very, like, long-standing, beloved New Orleans donut shop. And now it’s not another donut cafe. I kind of like the name, it’s like, long, but it’s stuck in my head, I can’t get rid of it. And I went to the website and I started looking at the donuts and I was like, crap. It’s the real deal. So what made you first? What we get into the donut shop? What made you want to be in donuts? That’s a great question. My uncle who gave me the shot with the, with the, with the barber shop. He started it off, as a donut cutter and a donut fryer. So I have two blood brothers. One to finish high school, one didn’t finish high school, and they never went to college. So they needed some type of skill set.

So they started, they attached themselves to my uncle and my uncle taught them how to cut, fry and make donuts. So I have a whole family, like I said, when we were young, them eight kids, my uncle used to bring bags of old donuts, possibly the old donuts, would put them in the freezer. And before school, would zap them in a microwave, get some milk and we go to elementary school. So for years, my family been making donuts for everybody in the city of New Orleans. So when I went broke, I was telling you, I’m like, man, I need another way out. And I watched my brothers, they’re getting older and older and older. And today is the youngest you’ll ever be. I’m like, how about we just do our own family shop? I started that in 2018. That’s how I got into real estate. And I was telling you about. So I got into it because my family been cutting and frying and making donuts from, you Daddy donuts, Joe’s donuts, sweet things, any donut shop you can pretty much think of, think of taste this donuts. They’ve been doing it for years. And I was like, let’s just do our own thing. Y’all have the skill set, right? They have the muscle, the manpower. I possibly have the brain for it, the business side of it.

Let’s put it together. And that’s what we when we came up with not another donut cafe at 4301 Canal Street. Love it. And so how long are you in the donut shop? So far? Now is it four months? You’ve been? Today makes four months. December 14th, 2024. Wow. And today is March 14th, 2025. I’m excited about it. Wow. I love it. And you may not have known this before you came on the show, but we have a small don’t we may have a small donut connect for you because my aunt, who married into my dad’s side of the family, she’s a Pico and the Picos from Homa and they own Mr. Ronnie’s cafe, which is a really like big donut shop down there, beloved donut shop. And they’ve started franchising out there. Don’t what? So I’d love to connect you with the Ronnie’s people if I can. If you’re interested. It’s a donut collab. But we definitely interested. Man. What are the plans for the donut shop? Like what you do want to tell us? Because it looks awesome.

And I know you’ve kind of took over. Your family’s been in this business. And it’s kind of like at this institutional place where Blue Dot was. Like, what are some of the plans and the goals that you have for it? We have, we’re getting ready for, we couldn’t just now, we’re getting ready for the national donut day. I think it’s in June. Okay. So we have some surprises with that. We’re going to do something that people never saw before. We’re going to do, we’re going to do a celebrity donut day. Oh. We gotta do a celebrity donut day. I kind of, by the time this video come out, I don’t want the other donut shop guys to see this. But, yeah, we’re gonna have some celebrities gonna be coming through, they’re gonna be serving donuts. Love it. So let’s just say you might walk in and you might see Taysom Hill from the Saint, or, you know, whoever celebrity is, literally serve your donut. We’re gonna do that for an hour. Then we’re gonna take some pictures for an hour. Then we’re gonna get up out of there. So just future plans for the donut shop. I don’t have them yet, honestly. Yeah. I’m only four months in. But what I do know is, like I tell my brothers and my family all the time, folks call me all the time. Hey, you need a second location. We have another location for you here and there. I’ve been doing business since I was young. I’ve been working for myself since 2007.

And what I found out is, before I go to a second location, I need to master this location. Someone said, what you mean? Not get better. I need to master this location. Because once I master this, now you can start franchising. McDonald’s, all of this is mastering. Someone came in, mastered the system, and now they’re selling the system. Yeah. That’s all it is. So that’s my future plan, mastering this thing, getting a better system and I’m learning through mistakes. Honestly, we’re making a lot of mistakes. Yeah. And thank God that God give us grace and mercy that we still getting the repeated customer through mistakes. Sometimes they know, sometimes they don’t know. But the mistakes is helping us to polish the system. Once I master and polish the system, and then we can go on to a second location. And that wasn’t my plan initially to give, what are my siblings, all of them they can get a store. Love it. That’s fantastic. That’s really awesome.

I don’t care about it that much. I was never the donut guy. I’m just the business guy. I’m in the donut business and I just love serving the customer, giving them a great result. So far as the ownership, I mean, hell, if you want to buy into the franchise, come on. Yeah. Yeah. If you want to buy into it, if you got a quarter million, you can buy the whole business now. Yeah, I do. I don’t know about donuts though. Yeah. I don’t know it’s nothing about donuts. Well, once you buy the franchise, or once you buy from me, I can show you everything. Yeah. Maybe we need to talk about that offline. Yeah. There we go. Now take that quarter million and go do another one somewhere because I have it right here. I have it in my head.

There we go. All right, we did this session, Tom is called Overruled. So I’m gonna ask you three questions. And this is just, you know, a little, new session of ours. I’m hoping you could tell us, Overruled if you disagree, sustained if you do. It’s three quick questions. Okay. So if you agree, it’s sustained. If you disagree, it’s Overruled. You with me? Okay. Let me go over that in my head. If I agree, I’ll sustain. That’s right. And if I disagree, I’m an Overruler. Is it, court ruling talk? Outside the court now? I got you. I got you. I got you. I never been to law school. I took the LSAT. So, you know, I got. But I do understand depositions and interrogatories. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I used to work for a law firm. Oh, no crap. Which, where did you work for? I, I call him my aunt, my aunt. Her name is Marie Buckman. Oh, okay. Who was over at Metairie, like across the street at, what is that 12? No, 1100, sorry, 1100. Yeah. I’ve heard of Sweet 29.

I’ve never had a chance to meet Marie, but I’ve heard of her. Yep. She’s a Magistrate judge, she also does personal injury. Yeah. So I did, some paralegal work for her. Love it. Yep. When I, back in my college days. Didn’t know what I was doing. And I just sat in that little office and I got flustered at and all type of stuff. Made a lot of mistakes. I didn’t understand the language. You know, and then once I started understanding, I was like, okay, this is cool. So I thought about going to law school, but I realized my person, it was a little too boring for me. Yeah. I have more energy. I just can’t sit in the. Nah. It’s a, it’s a whole different language. Interrogatory, but I’m like, interrogatories, depositions, he’s in it. He knows it. Yeah. You know, Yeah. So question number two. Shampooing without conditioner is okay if you have thin hair. Overruled or sustained? I’m going to Overrule. All right. I’m going to Overrule. That’s bad for me because I don’t use conditioner. All right, number three. The Saints will have a winning season in 2025. Overruled or sustained? I’m going to, I will agree with that. I’m going to sustain. All right. I’m going to sustain that. I like the moves they’re making. I think we’re gonna have a great year. And a winning season can be 500 these days. That’s right. So yeah. I hope you’re right. Long as you above. 500 and above, that’s a winning season for the Saints.

All right, I want to talk a lot about your business. I want to just ask you a few, final questions about you, Thomas. One is, what’s the, what’s your favorite book? We talked a little bit earlier, read a lot. And clearly we heard you talking about Rich Dad, Poor Dad, it was a great book for people who are curious about investing and business and stuff. But, what, what is your favorite book if you could pin down to one? Okay. So my favorite book, I have two favorite books, but my favorite. You can say both. Well, I, I have. This is not a freaking serious. Yeah. Yeah. I have to be honest. My favorite book is, I’m gonna go, number one first. My favorite book is a book called How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie. Great book. I interact with people all the time. And you just have to know the, you have to kind of know how to move around with people. Yeah. And be able to feel things out. And reading that book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, I can pretty much get a lot of people to do anything that I desire by the way that I use my tone, how I talk to them. But we all have to get along with people. Yeah. And then number two, I gotta go to the Bible. The Book of Proverbs. There you go. The Book of Proverbs, man. That’s one of my second favorite. I love it. The Dale Carnegie books are a classic. Oh, man. Definitely a good recommendation.

I read it multiple. I’m gonna read it again. You clearly have a lot of talents, Thomas. A lot going on. What is your superpower? If you could name, just that one thing, like this is one talent, I really know I have and this is one of the things that really helps me succeed in my professional and personal life. The one talent that I know I have that helped me succeed in any area, honestly, is my mindset. I know that might sound strange. It may not be a talent, but I sharpen my mind every day, every night. Before I go to sleep, I’m reading something or I’m learning something. And, I learned that even when I was talking about Donald Trump, a friend of mine, Donald Trump went broke multiple times. Yeah. But if you have it up here, you can go broke 30 times. If you have that skill set and that knowledge up here, you’ll shake back almost every time. So that’s one of my strongest, that’s my strength right there. My mind, the way I think, the way I perceive things, the way I look at things. That’s my best asset. It’s my brain. Yeah. I wish more people would listen to that because I’ve learned, at least in the last two to three years, as our law firm has grown, like my mindset has been my biggest power. And just like you, we have this bookshelf out there. I put all the books that I read on the bookshelf. I order like the ones I really like, I order five or six and encourage everybody to read them too. Maybe some books too.

Yeah. I got a bunch of them. My recent ones, no ego by Sai Wokeman, that’s a really good one. But, I’m gonna tell you some more offline. But, I’ve really noticed that once my, the more and more I work on my mind and my mindset, the bigger my business has become and the more successful it’s become for everybody who’s on a team member here who works for the business. And I really learned that from another lawyer, I was listening to his podcast, a big mindset guy up in the Northeast. And his whole perspective on it is, you can only grow as much as your mind allows. And so you better get in the freaking books and you better get in time to think, you better listen to podcasts and start working on your mindset. And it was great advice and it’s something I care like very vociferously about now, because I’m seeing how I’ve changed as a person in a positive way and so has my company and the lives of people around me. You know, The law of use, man, whatever you don’t use, you’re gonna lose it. Yeah. And, the more you earn, the more you learn, the more you will earn. Yeah. Yes. I’m big on that, man. Well, it’s been an incredible discussion.

Thomas, tell everybody a little bit about if they want to find you, any of the businesses, like where do they go? Like where is the, like, donut shop, just run through everything. Like we’ll have it in the show notes and all, but I just want you to be able to plug all of your businesses. I got you covered, man. My personal page that I kind of switch gears from a little bit, it’s, I am Shorty World. Okay. S H O R T Y W O R L D. I am Shorty World, that’s personal page. If they want to do, the donut shop, the donut shop, it’s not another donut cafe. And that’s the same thing on Facebook. Not another donut cafe. And that’s pretty much the social media I’m running right now. Those two pages, but really, like I said, I’m just focusing on the donut shop right now to, recoup some of the money that I spent, trying to get some of that back. Yeah. So if you want to follow me, not another donut cafe or I am Shorty World, and you’ll be able to keep up with all new, things that I have going on. And also, the, the philanthropy work that I do. I give back a lot too, also. So. All right, so tell us a little bit about the philanthropy that you’re involved in. Is it your passion? If you don’t mind, before you leave. Gotcha. Okay. I thought you had another question. I did. I did. I wanted to, I was just thinking, I was like, well, we talked about the donut cafe. We talked about you, your page.

But I’m like, you can’t get in the hair salon unless you know. Yes. Unless you know. So that’s why I never really put that out. Never really shot that out. That’s the only way. I figure out how I’m gonna get in there one day. Well, you know me, you know me now, man. Now, man. I just, I, I always help out, like younger. I help our younger kids, less fortunate kids. Even when I had the, my uncle and I, we have the, the barber shop uptown, on 3101 Tilda Dono. You walk in, you always see kids sitting in the window that used to answer the phone for me. I never like to answer my phone. Because I thought that writing the names that before I had appointments, they used to write the names down on a list and answer the phone. And I was just so crazy. I thought that constantly answering the phone and writing the names on a list is taking away from my, productivity. So I asked to hire people to do that. So, mainly I work with a lot of kids that’s less fortunate and put them in position, to win and different things like that, man. So I love it. I just love to give back. Shout out to my bishop, man. Shout out to Bishop Lester Love over at the City of Love and a Prophet Friend.

They have been tremendous in, this journey, man. And I can’t thank them enough. My parents, mother and father, pretty much everybody, man, who always who pray for me, even when I’m not around, man. It’s it’s not me. I can promise you that. I’m only just doing the work that God allowed me to do, which God give us all free will and choices, right? I’m just doing my best to make the right choices and that’s all you can really do. The right choices to your knowledge. And the rest, I’m telling you, it’s all spiritual and it’s all prayers because my first day, grand opening and not another donut cafe. We had about 300 people. Down Canal Street. But I saw that. Yeah. I saw that. And I watched, I had a chance to watch the dream come true. Six, seven years in the making, man. So God is good. So everything I said to you today, everybody watching, it’s nothing to do with me. It’s all spiritual first. After the spiritual and then, now it has I’m gonna come with the muscle. But other than that, it’s all spiritual. I love it. I can’t wait to see where the donut shop goes. And the donut business goes for you. You’re a special guy. I can tell already, Thomas. And I’m really excited to watch your journey. Now that we’re friends and learn a little bit about where it goes and keep the discussion going. So thank you all for listening. As always, this has been an incredible episode of the Overruled podcast, brought to you by the Scott Vicknair Law firm. It’s been a great discussion with our friend Thomas Matthews. We will see y’all next time. Thank you so much for listening. Peace out, Cub Scouts. Scott Vicknair Injury Attorneys. We fight for the win. Information is for illustrative purposes only and does not constitute tax, investment, or legal advice. Always consult with a qualified investment, legal, or tax professional before taking any action.