Three operators. One shared focus: the 90 days before opening location two.
A founder-led specialty retailer with three locations. Training lived in the founder's head. The model worked at 3. It would not work at 30.
Two phases over eight years. Direct training across 20+ openings to calibrate what actually replicates. Then the LMS and manager bench that opened locations 30, 40, 50 without senior leadership on-site.
Location two doesn't fail on talent or capital. It fails on the rituals that lived only in the founder's head at location one. The training infrastructure either survives the founder leaving the room, or the second location underperforms the first.