How McDonald's Implemented '80/20' and 'MVP' to Become an Empire

I love watching movies based on real life.

This past weekend, I watched The Founder. It tells the story of how McDonald's became the empire it is today.

The one part of the movie I LOVED was hearing how the original McDonald brothers created their revolutionary restaurant system to deliver "fast food".

They understood the concept of 80/20 and applied it to their menu.

To deliver fast food, they needed to eliminate 80% of their menu items and focus only on the top 20% that 80% of the people who ordered.

They narrowed it down to...

1. Hamburgers

2. French Fries

3. Soft Drink

That was it.

Once they figured out the essential items they would sell, they had to redesign their whole kitchen to eliminate wasted steps.

This was another genius part of what the McDonald brothers did.

Instead of designing the kitchen, building the kitchen, THEN testing their new process...

...they went to the tennis court and mapped out the kitchen layout using chalk.

The brothers timed their employees at each station and choreographed how each one would move so they could be as efficient as possible.

They "redesigned" the kitchen layout on the tennis court a few times before they got it right.

After they figured it out on "paper," they took their design and had it custom-built.

How Does This Apply To Your Business?

1. Asking "Where's the 80/20?" in your business is essential to eliminate waste and streamline the way you do business.

• Do you have many products that your customers buy only 20% of?

• How can you eliminate the 80% and allocate ALL resources to making the 20% even better?

• Do you have 20% of your customers that you LOVE working with?

• How can you find the common thread to target them more intentionally?

2. Asking, "How can we "test drive" a new course/system/layout/process before building it out for real?"

• Instead of building a new course, can you write the modules on paper and get feedback from your best customers to see if that's what they'd want?

• Instead of trying to market a new service to new customers, can you sell it to your existing customers FIRST and take payment before you deliver it?

Oftentimes, we can do a lot of work on "paper" and get feedback from the team/customers before we build out the real thing.

This then leverages the iterative process of [build > feedback > build > feedback...etc...] to save time, money, energy, and headaches down the road.

If you have not seen The Founder, I highly recommend it. It's a great movie on drive, determination, persistence, and ingenuity...

... and also how NOT to behave as an Entrepreneur.