Flatbread Grill is a fresh casual Turkish Mediterranean concept conceived and developed by the Esendemir sisters in 2007. The menu features a diverse mix of soups, gourmet salads, sandwiches, platters, and kids items all paired with specialty flatbreads baked daily on-premises. The Esendemir sisters also developed a spinoff brand, Thumb Bread – a versatile, Turkish bread available in stores. Gonca and her sisters knew that introducing Turkish food into the community would not be easy. Turkish culture tends to be very traditional, while the Sendemir sisters made small changes to Turkish culinary traditions and thought outside the box when it comes to using ingredients and preparing traditional Turkish dishes. Gonca and her sisters approach social media with an open mind and a willingness to post photos and content on the fly and in the spur of the moment. In the restaurant industry, you can do things rather quickly. With CPG products (like Thumb Bread), the processes take longer. Quotes “We were very apprehensive at first (about using social media). It took a little bit of dipping our feet in until we got warmed up. [...] It’s been really helpful in reaching a worldwide audience.” - Gonca “I learned (about social media) as I went along. It comes naturally because I love story-telling.” - Gonca “A lot of people almost get paralyzed by the thought of putting content out there or they get analysis paralysis where they have to fine tune everything. I think the key to successful marketing in general – especially in the social universe – is ‘let’s commit to the fact that we’re going to learn and we’re going to iterate and adjust and that it’s okay if it’s a miss.” - Joseph “The essence of bread-making and the art of baking is lost in the factory process.” - Gonca “One of the things about being a female in business, especially if you’re perky and you smile a lot, people have a misconception that everything comes easily and your ideas just fall out of the sky and land at your feet and it’s not like that.” - Gonca Transcript 00:00.00 vigorbranding Hey everyone this week I am joined by my friend and social media Maverick gunja Ascendimir she is the founder of flatbread grill and thumbbred and we're gonna talk all about that journey and all about what she's all about. But for now say hello give a little backstory. 00:15.36 Gonca Hi I'm gunja I started a fast casual Mediterranean Rushur concept in 2007 with my 2 sisters our Zoom and feesoon while I was still in college. I'm the chief marketing officer I take care of marketing social media communications for for that brand and also for our new brand which is a consumer package goods product thumbbred. It's a spinoff from our restaurant brand and I also take care of the marketing and communications social media for that as well. With my sisters arzu is the Ceo and my big sister is the chief financial officer of both companies. 00:57.55 vigorbranding Awesome! So we're working with 2 sisters I imagine has its benefits but also I'm sure there's some people out there like who I could not imagine working with my family. How has that dynamic been over the years 01:12.21 Gonca It's gotten it's gotten better obviously when when I was in in college I had a I was in ah, a different different space I was you know interning in the music industry I had a little bit of a wild and crazy social life. I was kind of bouncing around from job to job and my sisters were definitely had had a more linear path arzou knew right? after high school that she was going to work to save up money to put herself through college and that's basically what she did throughout her entire college career. It was basically going to work. Going to class going to work going to class. No sort of you know, no social, no real social life and then my big sister obviously has just been. She's the first child of immigrant parents so she had a a world of responsibility growing up and