Today we will be diving into Cinnabon. Founded in Seattle in 1985, Cinnabon is the market leader among cinnamon roll bakeries and is owned by parent Company Focus Brands. Cinnabon currently operates in almost 50 countries with over 1,500 franchised locations, primarily in high-traffic venues such as shopping malls and airports.   In this breakdown, we start with Cinnabon's scale and an overview of the franchise's fascinating history. We then dive into what really makes Cinnabon special - its omnichannel ecosystem and how it balances franchisees, licensing deals, and distribution through other retails while maintaining its differentiated and relevant brand.    To help me break down Cinnabon, I'm joined by Kat Cole, the former COO and President of North America for Focus Brands. Before that role, she was the president of Cinnabon. Kat's operating and investing experience in this space and her deep understanding of the brand make her the perfect guest to break down Cinnabon. Please enjoy this Business Breakdown.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:03:04] - [First question] - The operational scale and complexity of Cinnabon [00:05:48] - Origins and humble beginnings of Cinnabon [00:10:07] - Diversified stakeholders involved in franchised businesses [00:14:44] - A focus on brand relevance and differentiation [00:19:38] - Building brick and mortar traffic during a recession and partnering with Pillsbury [00:23:21] - Cinnabon’s ability to thrive and support an omnichannel brand ecosystem [00:26:57] - Partnering with Burger King and fast-food market exposure [00:32:55] - Building successfully collaborative equity buckets [00:36:52] - Focus Brands and advantages of being part of a bigger ecosystem [00:41:52] - Balancing licensing opportunities while maintaining core channel partners [00:45:37] - Lessons for operators and investors we can take away from Cinnabon

Today, we will be breaking down the world's largest e-commerce company, Alibaba. Alibaba was founded in 1997 by Jack Ma and almost 20 other co-founders as an online bulletin board that allowed small Chinese manufacturers to tell buyers around the world that they were open for business. Today, Alibaba operates a sprawling ecosystem of businesses that includes e-commerce marketplaces, cloud computing, food delivery, logistics, and financial services.    In this breakdown, we discuss the staggering scale Alibaba's business, how Alibaba went from copycat to innovator, the looming threat to Alibaba from the next generation of Chinese juggernauts, and how competition is viewed differently in China versus the West.    For this episode, I'm joined by a special guest host, Claire Cormier Thielke, who many of you will remember from her appearance on Invest Like the Best. Claire is the managing director of Asia Pacific for Hines and brings her first-hand view of what Alibaba has built in China and her daily experience using the company's products.    To help us break down Alibaba, we're joined by Ram Parameswaran, the founder and managing partner of investment firm Octahedron Capital. Ram has invested in some of the biggest Chinese companies of the past decade, including Pinduoduo and Bytedance, and is the first person I thought of when wanting to discuss Alibaba.   For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here. ----- Business Breakdowns is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Business Breakdowns, visit joincolossus.com/episodes.   Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.   Follow us on Twitter: @JoinColossus | @patrick_oshag | @jspujji | @zbfuss   Show Notes [00:03:13] - [First question] - What Alibaba is [00:04:29] - Tmall and Taobao [00:06:48] - The many faces of Alibaba as a country-scale business [00:09:58] - What defines a company as being country-scale [00:11:29] - Adaptive business models for cities of multiple tiers and mimetic behavior of other large-scale companies [00:18:15] - Alibaba’s ability influence the physical infrastructure of cities and China as a whole [00:19:01] - Full stack solution company JD Global [00:21:03] - Tencent [00:21:47] - Key players in the monetization of commerce in China: JD, Pinduoduo, Meituan [00:26:35] - Reducing friction may be the number one reason for internet businesses to scale [00:31:15] - Is it worth it for Alibaba to explore the social media space? [00:34:05] - Why Chinese companies are naturally more competitive and aggressive than North American ones  [00:38:46] - How China perceives and adopts language such as the Seven Powers framework [00:40:23] - What the West can learn from China and Alibaba [00:43:28] - Adopting Chinese practices for Western brick and mortar stores [00:45:35] - Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization [00:45:51] - Learning more about Alibaba; The House That Jack Ma Built