Pinky Cole Hayes on bankruptcy, starting over, and rebuilding her vegan burger chain

“Being a founder is ghetto,” Pinky Cole Hayes told Founder Brew. “Being a founder is probably the hardest thing that I’ve ever had to do.”

The entrepreneur and reality television personality—Cole Hayes joined the cast of the Real Housewives of Atlanta in April for Season 17—shared her advice for other founders about bouncing back from bankruptcy and the lessons she’s learned running the Slutty Vegan plant-based burger chain.

After launching the restaurant brand in 2018 first via Instagram and then as a food truck business, Cole Hayes built a brand around a cheeky name, bold marketing, and a whole lot of buzz. The original Atlanta location quickly drew traction, with customers waiting hours in line after it opened. By 2022, the company was reportedly valued at $100 million.

But she eventually realized operations was one of her biggest blind spots, a founder lesson she had to learn the hard way. After restructuring the business and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in February, she’s now rebuilding Slutty Vegan with a different approach to growth, leadership, and the people around her.

“It’s a lot of pressure when you’re a public figure and a founder at the same time,” she said.

In a conversation with Founder Brew, Cole Hayes talks about what she had to unlearn about being a “bad boss” and why building a business that lasts requires more than getting people in the door.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Looking back, was there anything you overlooked because you were so focused on growth? When did you realize you’d missed it?

I’ll be honest, when I was running the company, I didn’t know a thing about operations. What I’m really good at is marketing. I know how to market really well. I know how to story-tell really well. I learned operations just by experience, not by trade. I had to learn that the hard way. So now operations is my focus.

When I think about me growing Slutty Vegan 2.0 and all that I’ve went through to get to this point, I’m only picking operators to franchise with. I’m only picking people who have the level of expertise that I don’t have. I want people who have scaled companies before because they can teach me a thing or two in business. And I think that this is a call to action to founders everywhere trying to scale. You’ve got to make sure that that operations is right. It’s not enough to just look good and not be good.

Take me back to the decision to file for bankruptcy. What were you trying to accomplish by filing rather than continuing to fight your way through the existing situation?

Before I filed for bankruptcy, I did a restructure in my business because I had about $20 million in totality in Slutty Vegan, and I fought it for a long time. I didn’t want to do it. My ego got in the way…Sometimes founders think that you just gotta hold on to this thing that’s just dead. It’s already on life support. It’s dead. You ain’’t coming back to life. Start playing at a funeral…That was really what was happening to me. One day I finally surrendered.

When I surrendered to the restructure, which is called an ABC—that’s an assignment for the benefit of creditors—the creditors started coming after me personally because I was personally guaranteed for everything. …Nobody tells you, “Hey, be mindful that if this doesn’t go right, you’re still on the hook.” You think that you’re building this business, and, “Yeah, I’ll sign my name on it. I’ll sign my name on these leases,” not thinking that the business can go south. “Slutty Vegan would never go south. No, that would never happen.” But then when it happened, I’m like, “Okay, well, what do I do next?”

When [creditors] started coming after me personally, I had no choice but to utilize the tool, which is bankruptcy, to be able to start over personally, so that I wouldn’t be on the hook for debts that I’m no longer affiliated with. because the company went through an estate, and that was the best thing that I ever did.

My Chapter 11 bankruptcy was probably the best thing that I could have ever done. One, for my mental health. Two, for my journey as an entrepreneur. Three, it’s given me an opportunity to really start over.

What did you have to unlearn about yourself as Slutty Vegan grew?

A lot. I used to be super militant as an entrepreneur. It used to be, “My way or the highway”…I never gave grace to people because I was just so on a mission to grow, grow, grow, grow, grow. What I realized is you can go farther together.

I had to unlearn how to be a bad boss. I started being a good boss, and I realized that I got more. The output was much better because the input was even better.

What I also had to unlearn is that you have to cut the cancer fast. I didn’t used to do that, and I used to hold on to people far beyond their expiration date. I had people who worked for my company, and I knew that they didn’t have the capacity to take me there. But I was just so worried about their finances and making sure that I could pay them and their bills got paid. But I ended up suffering in the end because it made my business stagnant because I couldn’t grow because I didn’t have the right people.

Why did you decide that growth was the right move for this next chapter of Slutty Vegan?

The brand has always been strong. The brand has always been bulletproof. Slutty Vegan is probably one of the most interesting brands in America, right? You’ve never seen anything like it. We are leading the vegan movement culturally for sure.

How do you pick back up after you do a restructure and you do start over with a brand that is already very well-established, that’s already very well respected? You continue to grow, but you grow strategically this time. The strategic part of that growth is finding operators who know how to grow businesses. Remember what I said the first time around. Operations wasn’t at the forefront of what it is that we do. This time around, operations is all we know.

I’m being mindful on who I allow into that ecosystem to run my business because I know what it looks like when you got to close stores. And obviously that’s inevitable. I’m doing more research. I’m meeting more people. I’m taking my time. I’m not moving with haste. I’m making sure that we’re making sound decisions so that we can continue to properly grow this company, and people can love and respect it for years.

You’ve had a high level of visibility for years, including on reality TV. What has that taught you about when attention helps the business and when it becomes a burden?

It can be both if you don’t do it right. It’s all about how you show up.

I’ve always kept it real, and I’ve always been a real individual. I never shied away from the truth about what was happening in my business…Most people would never speak about it.

Being on the show really gave me an opportunity: one, to learn more about myself, and also to realize that I don’t give a damn what people got to say. I just keep focused, and I just grow my business and do what is required because I know that I got something special, and nobody could ever take that away from me.

What is the best money you’ve ever spent as a founder?

It was a McKinsey brand equity study…It’s a case study of your business where they do all of these surveys and they tell you the blueprint of how you need to take your business to the next level. What exactly do you need to do to make your business a billion-dollar brand? Who are your competitors? I think that that was like the best data survey for me because it gave my business an identity, more than just calling people “sluts.”

It really showed me I can really make this a billion-dollar brand. I can really make this a business that is going to unlock generational wealth for my family and be in conversations with the Five Guys and the Chick-Fil-As and all of those things, and it wasn’t cheap. It was very expensive, but it’s the best money that I believe that has ever been spent on behalf of my business.

Current Slutty Vegan order?

Hennessy wings, fries, ranch dressing, and a strawberry slushy.