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Ty Vansteenburg, left, and Nate Meyer became fast friends as proud Frog freshmen. As seniors, they're business partners.
Nate Meyer and Ty Vansteenburg met one another the way thousands of other college freshmen have since universities first began rolling dice and pairing names on a housing form.
They were first-year roommates at TCU.
They were both born and raised in Minnesota, a seeming perfect match for two strangers who might get along, what with a shared Midwest manner, cold-weather camaraderie, and, of course, the annual laments on a Minnesota Vikings season that has again ended long before the Super Bowl halftime show.
“We ended up finding each other through a mutual student connection and we just kind of hit it off,” said Vansteenburg. “And we’ve been roommates ever since.”
Today, the two are also seniors in their last semester, studying for a degree in TCU’s Neeley School of Business Entrepreneurship and Innovation program.
They have also taken to the entrepreneurship thing. It has clearly become a part of who they are, both individually and as buddies.
“We both love business,” Vansteenburg said.
In the fall, the two partnered in a Jimmy John’s sandwich franchise planted squarely in the heart of the TCU campus on University Drive in the same 3000 block that has catered to student-life balance for generations.
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Business and school require Vansteenburg and Meyer to work long hours doing a little bit of everything.
“We've always kind of discussed going into business together,” Vansteenburg said. “It's always been kind of floated around. Just an idea.”
Opportunity presents itself at the most random times like a golden ticket just simply appearing, tucked inside a chocolate bar.
These guys are running a marathon every day, burning the candle at both ends, as students and entrepreneurs, with objectives of walking across the stage at graduation in May and turning around a struggling franchise, whose previous owner declined to renew with corporate after 10 years at 3021 University Dr.
When I caught up with them one recent morning, Meyer was finishing up chopping fresh vegetables and Vansteenburg was standing over an oven waiting for it to finish up another batch of fresh, golden, airy loaves the brand is noted for.
The two have arranged their schedules so that one or the other is always in the store. Meyer has morning classes. Vansteenburg goes to class at night. They’re both off on Wednesdays, the day I paid a visit.
“If we can sneak away for a night, we do,” Vansteenburg said. “Whether that's to get homework done or just relax for a second. But, yeah, you just got to put your head down and go. I mean, that's the whole part of being business owners, especially early on.”
The guys said they’ve had great mentorship along the way, specifically Michael Browning, a TCU graduate, entrepreneur, and adjunct professor in the Neeley School. Both took his franchising class, one Vansteenburg said he had to beg to get into because it had filled up before he could register for it.
Browning is the founder and CEO of Unleashed Brands, a platform company that houses the world's best franchise brands to help kids learn, play, and grow, including Urban Air Adventure Park, which has generated more than $1.1 billion of annual systemwide revenue.
The experience in Browning’s class “got me super excited,” said Vansteenburg. “And he ended up helping us out along the way.”
Said Meyer: “His entire C-suite that he has at his company has been helpful in terms of giving us tips. They've been great. That's one teacher, but all teachers are like that at Neeley, whether they're adjunct or full-time professors. That's what they love to do. Whether it's research or they have outside careers, they just enjoy teaching. Everyone within the business school is super, super helpful.”
Another mentor has been Vansteenburg’s father, Dan Vansteenburg. The elder Vansteenburg is the owner of 46 Jimmy John’s franchises. So, young Vansteenburg has been around franchising and Jimmy John’s his entire life.
The store employs 18.
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The store's grand reopening attracted a dream rush during the lunch hours.
The Jimmy John’s store they took on wasn’t in the best of shape. Sales weren’t good and its reputation in the community lagged, especially with the school itself. The university actually took its catering business to another Jimmy John’s store, Vansteenburg said.
He can only speculate why, but he believes the brand standards and the accuracy of the store were “maybe not up to par.”
“It was something that we saw. We're like, ‘OK, we can change this,’” Vansteenburg said. “We knew it was going to be a rocky start in the beginning, but we saw a lot of potential and we knew that we could rebuild it.”
One of the first things the new owners did was reestablish the relationship with the university, which is always catering for something — camps, meetings with internal and external stakeholders, and departmental lunches, just to name a few.
“It’s been a great relationship to reestablish with them,” Meyer said.
The store’s grand reopening the last week of February was a rousing success. Discounted sandwiches had customers lined up outside the door and down the sidewalk. The rush lasted 4 ½ hours, Meyer and Vansteenburg said.
It was the kind of start the two had hoped for as a new business and living classroom — and new business partners. New Texas business partners, that is.
“We’d love to stay in business together,” Meyer said. “Over the next five years, we would love to continue to open more stores, grow as franchisees, grow as business owners, meet new people, develop new relationships, and go from there.”