Tom Monagham, the Man Who Developed Domino’s Pizza into the World’s Largest Pizza Delivery Company

You are about to read the story of a man, who has been through a lot to achieve his goal to get rich.

"My most visible accomplishment in life has been the building of Domino’s Pizza from a single store into the world’s largest pizza delivery company".

It all began in 1959, Michigan, where a 22 year old man has just left the army having received an honorable discharge. He returned to his home town near Ann Arbor and enrolled in college, intending to become an architect. At that time, while still a student, he and his brother James borrowed $500 to purchase a small pizza store called DomiNick's in Ypsilanti, Michigan. The name of this man was Tom Monaghan.  At first, the pizza business was not Tom’s primary goal - "I started out in architecture school, and got into the pizza business to pay my way through school”. Unfortunately, it was not going to be easy, and he had to adapt - “The pizza business was losing so much money I never got back into architecture.”

That next year, James traded his half of the business to Tom for a Volkswagen Beetle and Tom renamed the company to  “Domino’s Pizza”. The intention embedded in the logo was clear - to open more stores, not just one. What is not so obvious is why would Tom continue to persevere in a business that was losing money?

Tom knew life the way that few of us do. His father died when he was four. His mother struggled to raise the two boys alone, and gave them up to an orphanage. Tom and his brother spent six years at St. Joseph Home for Children in Jackson, Michigan. The home was run by nuns and this experience has left its mark on Tom - later on in life, he became a devout Catholic and his political views of a Republican were also strongly influenced by this experience.

Another thing was that, Tom might have wanted to become an architect, but his attitude toward difficulties in life made him an entrepreneur. A key characteristic of many entrepreneurs is their ability to continually persevere despite challenges and failures, until they succeed. Noticing that much more time is spent in the pizza delivery than in making it, Tom knew that he had identified a problem. On one hand, the long delivery times meant that only a limited amount of orders can be completed during the busiest of hours, around lunch and at dinner, so this was limiting the amount of sales that could be made. The store would employ a few drivers and that meant that only a few customers would be served at a time, until the drivers can return and go out again. On the other hand, long delivery times meant lost sales. In 1960s, the customer would pay for their pizza in cash, once the pizza was delivered at the door. And if the pizza was cold, the order was often returned and the sale was lost. Tom knew he had to do better.

Not only Tom persevered in the face of difficulties, but he also put his mind at work and came up with a solution. He invented a new design for the pizza box. The new design allowed many boxes to be stacked on top of each other, without squishing the pizzas inside them. This meant that now one driver can service a lot more customers at a time. It also meant that the pizzas that were in the middle of the stack would stay warmer longer.  

Domino’s Pizza did not become successful overnight. The first Domino’s franchise was opened seven years later. It took a lot of hard work and will to go through all problems and difficulties. It is not a coincidence that Domino’s Pizza became so successful. Today, Domino's Pizza is a recognized world leader in pizza delivery. It operates in more than 50 countries and has a network of over 10,000 franchised and company-owned stores in 70 countries around the world.

This scale of success would not have been possible without franchising. As any good entrepreneur, Tom knew that in order to succeed in the pizza delivery business, he had to achieve bigger market presence. By franchising Tom’s pizza delivery model, Tom could expand this business without the burden of new bank loans.  What Tom knew well was the nature of the business, the problems and their solutions, so franchising was the way to “rent out” his expertise and share its benefits to the others.  

In this process of helping others get rich, Tom discovered that “being rich was not important” to him, so Tom got involved in a lot of charitable work.  But why did Tom discover that riches did not satisfy him? People like him are never satisfied with their success. Another characteristic of a successful entrepreneur is the continual urge to do something new. Surely, Tom enjoyed a lavish lifestyle and passions - expensive automobiles, large mansions, antiques, the ownership of Detroit Tigers, but Tom was also very active in supporting a number of catholic causes.

Despite Tom's humble origin, he managed to build businesses that most of us can recognize immediately - mega brands. Not only is Domino’s Pizza a profitable and publicly traded multinational corporation with solid earnings, but it is also a brand that has become a household name all over the world - from the Americas, through Europe, to Asia. It is very likely that another fifty years from now, Domino’s Pizza will continue to mean the same - excellent pizza, delivered fast!