Carlos Schulz has been the CEO and co-founder of Frangus since 2011, and I have been following this Portuguese entrepreneur ever since.
First I discovered one of his Frangus restaurants in Madrid, and a few months later I met him because he was a finalist in the AJE Madrid Young Entrepreneur Awards (Premios Joven Empresario) in 2012.
After an excellent education in their home country, Carlos and his brother Claudio landed in Spain and soon decided to start their own business. Both come from a family of well-established business people in Portugal, but Frangus is their first company and they pulled it along on their own to get it going: Family, Friends and Fools. They didn’t ask any bank for help.
Carlos came to Madrid to complete his education with a Master’s in International Trade at the Complutense and worked in the consultancy department of BBVA, but before long he was bitten by the “entrepreneurial bug”.
Carlos and Claudio are two brave men, as they decided to start a business in the middle of the crisis, but that didn’t scare them, since in Portugal they have always lived with it. When I interviewed Carlos, he told me that in Spain he learnt the word “superávit” (surplus), which isn’t in the Portuguese dictionary.
What is FRANGUS?
They are takeaway restaurants serving the best Portuguese cooking, where the stars are undoubtedly the chargrilled chicken, frango (cooked over charcoal, in the typical Portuguese style), and the salt cod.
Frangus restaurants are designed for you to come in, choose your menu and enjoy it at home or at work. They take the utmost care over quality, being very demanding but also loyal to their suppliers. As well as the two star dishes, you can enjoy typical desserts such as “baba de camelo” or “pastéis de Belém”, Portuguese beer and a wide selection of Portuguese wines.
In just a year and a half they opened 3 restaurants in Madrid and created jobs, but they had to put the brakes on because licences in Madrid are slow to come through.
Because of this rapid growth and job creation they were finalists in the AJE Madrid awards.
Carlos Schulz as a businessman
In the time I have known Carlos, what stands out is his commitment to helping others. He is a professional who stays loyal to those who helped him at the beginning, especially some suppliers with whom he got his business up and running more quickly.
He is also a businessman committed to his Portuguese colleagues, as he is active in the circle of Portuguese business people, who meet regularly and help one another when they want to set up a company in Spain.
He has also been active in AJE Madrid since arriving in Spain, networking and growing his network of contacts with local business people.
He is always at the helm, and I have been able to see that for myself over these 3 years. Although the hospitality business is usually a very demanding one, some owners leave someone else in charge and step away, but in Carlos’s case he is there every day.
Carlos cares about innovation and process improvement, and he applies them in his business. In this time he has analysed his business thoroughly to be more efficient and provide a better service, and the next step he is taking is the option to order online and collect a few minutes later, which he has built in-house.
He is now working on a new line of business that we will hear about soon, so we’ll have to keep a close eye on him. Here is the interview we did with him at Financialred.
If you have ever been to Portugal, Lisbon in particular, and you fancy reliving the best of its cuisine, be sure to pay them a visit.
To make you a little jealous, here is the octopus rice I enjoyed with him, finished off with a pastel de Belém and a strong Portuguese coffee. Bom proveito 😉
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