That made them the youngest franchisees in Domino’s New Zealand history. By 2020, they owned four stores between them in Rotorua, Taupō and Whakatāne.
When the pair sold their stores two years later, Liam Stops went into a company job and won a string of in-house awards.
He said it hadn’t always been an easy rise, and there had been a few doubters along the way.
When he took over his first store, he recalls some of his staff thinking, “Why am I listening to an 18-year-old who owns this business?”
Some doubted his age. Others might still baulk at following his path: 19 years in fast food, starting at 12.
Yet his story joins the Herald’s recent report on Mitre 10’s youngest owner, Jacob Cooke-Tait, in spotlighting different pathways to success.
It also recognises regional New Zealand’s opportunities, when seen through a different lens.
Liam Stops and Domino’s NZ chief executive Abhishek Jain are tasked with helping their store owners build more profitable businesses.
Man in the middle of a ‘reset’
Stops’ promotion has come at an important turning point for Domino’s.
The company’s global leadership said in August that it had embarked on a “reset” strategy.
Domino’s Pizza Enterprises – the Australian parent of the NZ chain – owns the master franchise rights in 12 countries from Japan to Germany.
It posted a $134.2m loss in the past financial year after one-off write-downs, it said in its August annual report.
It plans to close 29 underperforming stores across Australia and New Zealand, part of up to 60 worldwide.
Australia and New Zealand were “at the forefront” of the company’s reset, the report said, “shifting the focus from growth-at-any-cost to prioritising long-term franchisee profitability”.
Stops’ job, working with new NZ chief executive Abhishek Jain, is to help those store owners grow their profits and sustainable businesses.
Liam Stops tried to become known as Mr Pizza in his local community when he owned Domino’s stores. He is pictured here giving food away during the Covid pandemic.
As market manager, he works with the country’s 98 franchisees, who collectively own 149 stores, to solve the challenges they face.
He’s in charge of five consultants who also travel the country meeting store owners – a job he was doing the past four years.
During that time, he was named top business consultant across Australia and New Zealand twice in three years, he said.
Running a Domino’s store requires discipline. Profits are made by selling lots of pizzas and keeping costs down, rather than banking a fat margin on each slice.
“It is a low-margin business and focused on increasing turnover,” he said. “You’ve got to understand your numbers. You’ve got to control costs.”
He also tells owners to become part of the fabric of their town; to help out and run “dough raises” for causes like the Westpac rescue helicopter.
When he and his brother started, their “goal was to be Mr Pizza in the community”, he said.
He also gives school career talks to 15, 16 and 17-year-olds.
It has him keeping an eye out for the next young franchisee, possibly even one who could break his record as New Zealand’s youngest store owner, which has stood for 13 years.
Kaedyn (left) and Liam Stops bought their first Domino’s store in 2013, when Liam was 18.
Leadership from the floor up
But breaking his record won’t be easy.
It took Stops six years of work shifts, selling his wheels, every dollar he had saved and the $450,000 loan at age 18 (later transferred from Domino’s to a bank) to get his first store in 2013.
He started at Domino’s through his teenage sister, who was already working at his local store.
He went from dish pit to front counter to making staff rosters to managing by 15.
Jointly buying a store at 18 meant near 80-hour weeks and leaning on his father for advice.
His dad had run his own Hawke’s Bay business, Headstone World, for years.
“It was a bit daunting at first to put everything you have into something,” Stops told Hawke’s Bay Today in 2020, “but Domino’s had a lot of faith in us”.
He suggested that the grind of running four stores and growing so quickly left little time for other pursuits, so he and his brother sold up in 2022.
Kaedyn had his first child and was keen to move closer to their parents in Hawke’s Bay, while Stops also wanted more family time, he said.
Kaedyn and Liam Stops pictured when they were 21 and 20 and preparing to buy their second Domino’s Pizza store in Rotorua. Photo / Andrew Warner
He still loved Domino’s, however, and when the company called about a head office job, he jumped at it.
His efforts in buying four stores with his brother still placed him among rare company.
Today, most of New Zealand’s 98 franchisees own only one store, with a “couple” owning two and three, he said.
The New Zealand franchisee with the most stores owns six.
Now, having reached the ripe age of 31, Stops still regularly finds himself having to advise those older than him.
His belief in how to earn others’ respect is little changed from his time as an 18-year-old rookie business owner.
“It’s all about leading from the front”, creating good teams and workplaces, and showing you had the knowledge required, he said.
Or, as he told the Herald in 2020, when he and Kaedyn were still teenagers: “We’re knees down scrubbing floors with them, and that’s what’s different. Our staff work with us, not for us.”