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“In my family, I've always been the black sheep.”
For JJ, the foundations of his never-conform attitude were created very early on in his life and, in many ways, were formed with the help of his grandmother on one memorable night.
“I had piercings and stuff like that. We were going to a family function and I decided to take off all my earrings. She saw me get into the car and was like, ‘Go back and wear all your earrings because there's no way you're going to walk into that place and try and conform to what they want.'”
Whether he realized it on that night or not, that simple message would end up informing his personality for the rest of his life.
Growing up in Dubai, JJ always stood out a little bit more than his peers—especially having spent some of his childhood years in Georgia.
“I was a kid with a southern accent, going to an Indian school in Dubai.”
For him, the early years of his life were steeped in challenges: the divorce of his parents, moving from Georgia to Dubai, his rough family dynamics.
And on top of that, the challenges he was facing trying to find himself. JJ operated on a different wavelength than others and his grandmother was the only person in his family who truly accepted him as he was.
But as he grew into his teen years, he was constantly being told to "be realistic" and follow a conventional path laid out by his family. For JJ this was never truly an option.
JJ's life took a turn when he met a young girl named Rhea at just 13-years-old. She was already an accomplished actress, having played Nala in The Lion King on the West End in London, which left JJ starstruck. In what would ultimately become a prophecy, he confidently told his school friends that she was the girl he would marry.
"We both graduated from university. I think she knew at that point that I was actually serious. I think it was like a 10-year test in a way. And I passed.”
For JJ, Rhea and he share many common traits, one of which is a never-back-down mentality that many life experiences instilled in them.
“Both of us have always been delusional is probably the best way to put it. Like, there's nothing we're not capable of if we want to do it.”
Coming out of university, JJ knew that he wanted to go into the food industry. His great grandfather was one of the first people to import shrimp to the United States and many of his uncles had also laid roots in the industry.
So his next chapter took him to New York to work for his uncle, who already owned a successful seafood business.
The experience was eye-opening but challenging and would ultimately be the genesis of the company he would eventually create. Though JJ would quickly realize that he was not being trained for success, but rather, was continually told he wasn’t good enough.
“I kind of just got sucked into this whole idea of doing whatever the family wanted me to do in a way, where it was like, ‘Cook for us, clean for us, take us here and take us there.’”
One of the harshest lessons came when he was tasked with moving 2,500 pounds of shrimp—a job that left him physically and mentally drained.
Despite the challenges, JJ reached out to his family in Dubai for advice, only to be met with harsh words of discouragement: "'You don't have an MBA. Who else is going to give you a job?’ I felt like there was no option for me to get out. I was stuck."
For JJ, the turning point came on April 20th, 2020.
While cooking with Rhea, his body gave out and he was bedridden for two weeks with excruciating pain. The diagnosis, after nearly 9 months of tests and analysis: Amplified Musculoskeletal Pain Syndrome—a condition signaling that his mind and body had reached their limit.
“It felt like my bones were being crushed and we had no idea what was going on. By the time it hit about two months, I lost about 50 pounds. Because of the amount of pain I was in, I was put into palliative care.”
In JJ’s eyes, it was practically a near-death experience. One that he thankfully would recover from over the next few years. While on the mend, Rhea’s words of encouragement became JJ’s motivation. She saw his potential and continuously urged him to start a business.
Enter, burnt.
Together, JJ and Rhea decided to launch burnt, a restaurant tech company aimed at streamlining back-of-house operations for independent businesses.
While major chains like Chick-fil-A and McDonald's have robust systems in place, JJ and Rhea realized that smaller businesses needed similar tools to thrive.
burnt’s mission was clear: to design user-friendly technology that maximizes efficiency while minimizing the effort required from restaurant staff. Drawing from their hands-on experience in the industry, they set out to create solutions that genuinely resonated with restaurant owners and staff.
But this mission wasn’t without its challenges: JJ would find that small restaurant owners would put their guard up whenever he would approach them about burnt. But once he cited his past experiences in the industry, the guard slowly went down.
“That's just how the industry is. Like, if you talk the talk, you're in. The second they hear my background and stuff like that, they're like, ‘Come sit, let's talk.’”
All of these efforts are not without their setbacks though. Their mantra? Keep pushing forward, no matter the obstacles.
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