![\"Kal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tbbw_aug26_kal-9699-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n\n Kal Gullapalli was in eighth grade when he told his mother he wasn\u2019t going to medical school because he had already decided he wanted to become an investment banker, even though nearly every adult in his family practiced medicine.\n <\/p>\n
\n His parents immigrated from India in the early 1970s, recruited by American hospitals during a nationwide doctor shortage, and settled in suburban Detroit, where both built medical careers. Gullapalli visited India only twice before turning 18 because most of his extended family had already settled in the United States and after his grandparents died young, there was little reason to return regularly.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cWhen you\u2019re in that type of ecosystem, my uncles, my aunts, everybody is a doctor. My cousins are all doctors,\u201d he said. \u201cSo I was kind of the black sheep.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n His mother was distraught when he told her he wanted to become an investment banker instead, then spent years asking whether he might still change his mind. \u201cFor like 10 years,\u201d Gullapalli said. \u201cBut I think over time she\u2019s like, \u2018All right, he\u2019s doing what he loves.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Gullapalli now runs Tampa-based Built Different Brands, which generates about $120 million in revenue from more than 80 locations across several states through a portfolio that includes Marco\u2019s Pizza, Dave\u2019s Hot Chicken, PopUp Bagels, Restore Hyper Wellness, VIO Med Spa, Sandbox VR and Hand & Stone Massage. The company plans to open 15 to 17 locations this year and as many as 24 next year as Gullapalli pursues $500 million in annual revenue within fi ve years.\n <\/p>\n
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Kal Gullapalli, founder and CEO of Built Different Brands. Photo by Pamella Winslow.<\/p>\n
\n His parents left for work around eight every morning, returned home for dinner and expected their children to fi nish whatever they started, whether that meant homework, basketball practice or another commitment. His mother often reminded him, \u201cIf you\u2019re sick, just go to work. Work as hard as possible because that\u2019s how you\u2019re going to get ahead in life.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cThey had that immigrant mentality that, \u2018We\u2019re blessed to be here, and you\u2019ve got to work as hard as possible because you\u2019ve got to prove you deserve to be here,\u2019\u201d Gullapalli said. \u201cBut they also believed we had to assimilate to the culture. They didn\u2019t just hang out with the folks that came over.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n His parents spent time with doctors from their hospitals and private practices because, as he put it, \u201cWe\u2019re going to be here forever. We\u2019re going to have our lineage here.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI\u2019ve always been kind of a reserved person, shy,\u201d Gullapalli said. Basketball and golf introduced him to people beyond his immediate circle, and more than 25 years after graduating from high school, six classmates from the Class of 2000 still take the same annual golf trip together. Many of the people he considers his closest friends are former high school teammates. \u201cAs I played sports and met a lot of people, it helped me build confi dence and talk to different people.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n After he was caught using a fake ID to gamble at Windsor Casino during his freshman year of college, his parents gave him what he remembers as a serious lecture and responded similarly when his grades slipped. \u201cI\u2019ve always been a pretty responsible kid,\u201d he said. \u201cThey always saw that I\u2019d get back in line.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Gullapalli graduated from high school with a 3.6 GPA, earned varsity letters in basketball and golf and enrolled at the University of Michigan, where investment banking remained the only career he had seriously considered. \u201cToo much fun,\u201d he said with a laugh. \u201cA lot of drinking and other extracurriculars.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n His grades kept him out of Michigan\u2019s Ross School of Business, where investment banks recruited heavily and students spent months preparing for technical interviews together, so he remained in the College of Literature, Science and the Arts as an economics major.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cI realized that if I\u2019m actually going to become the investment banker I told my mom I was going to become, I had to fi gure out how to get better grades and at least create a better r\u00e9sum\u00e9 so people would actually interview me.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n His parents paid tuition and living expenses but encouraged him to get hourly jobs to understand the value of a dollar. While classmates drove luxury cars around Ann Arbor, Gullapalli drove a Toyota Camry. \u201cThey said, \u201cbut they didn\u2019t give me so much that I lost my hunger.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n While he was at Michigan, he began dating his now-wife, Krishna, whom he had known for years as the cousin of his best friend and college roommate and who arrived at Michigan as a freshman while he was a sophomore.\n <\/p>\n
\n His fi rst interview for a Merrill Lynch investment banking internship went badly because Ross students had spent months practicing technical questions together while Gullapalli arrived without that preparation and left without an offer. He found someone inside the fi rm, volunteered to work for free if necessary and earned another opportunity.\n <\/p>\n
\n Once he arrived, he walked from associate to associate and vice president to vice president each day asking for more work. \u201cI\u2019d go to every associate and every vice president every day and say, \u2018What can I do for you?\u2019\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d stay as late as possible because I really wanted that job.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n By the end of the summer, Merrill Lynch had offered him a full-time position after graduation.\n <\/p>\n
\n Merrill Lynch\u2019s investment banking analysts rarely left the offi ce before midnight. Client meetings fi lled the daytime hours, but the work usually arrived after 6 p.m., leaving analysts to rebuild fi nancial models, revise pitch books and prepare presentations before the next morning. For two years after graduating from Michigan in 2004, Gullapalli worked those hours six days a week.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cYou work your butt off,\u201d he said. \u201cSometimes you\u2019re just doing face time. But the work always comes at 6 p.m., and you\u2019ve got to stay until you fi nish it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n He regarded Wall Street as \u201ca means to the end\u201d and a vehicle for learning how businesses were fi nanced and building relationships he could carry into ownership. \u201cI really enjoyed the people I worked with. I mean, still to this day, friends of mine,\u201d he said. \u201cI never enjoyed the work.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
![\"Kal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tbbw_aug26_kal-0040-scaled.jpg\")
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Kal Gullapalli. Photo by Pamella Winslow.<\/p>\n
\n His wife joined him in New York after graduating from Michigan a year later and began her own investment banking career at Jefferies while Gullapalli continued building relationships inside Merrill Lynch.\n <\/p>\n
\n Those relationships led him to the fi rm\u2019s internal hedge fund in 2006, where Merrill Lynch invested its own capital instead of advising clients. Portfolio managers handed him companies to analyze, sending him through fi nancial statements, debt agreements, legal fi lings and capital structures before deciding whether the fi rm should invest. \u201cWe were more focused on the credit side, the downside,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n The fund invested in high-yield and distressed companies, where Gullapalli had to understand balance sheets and the legal structures governing how companies were built. \u201cNothing was learned from school,\u201d he said. \u201cEverything was taught to me by mentors.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n In investment banking, a managing director named Dave Iwan insisted Gullapalli work on his deals, expected him to move quickly and, unlike many senior bankers, tried to get him home before another midnight whenever he could. \u201cHe was the guy that was like, \u2018I want to get you out of here by 8, so get this done,\u2019\u201d Gullapalli said.\n <\/p>\n
\n At the hedge fund, he worked under Mike McEvilly, who later left Merrill Lynch with him to launch an independent fund. Nearly two decades later, they still speak.\n <\/p>\n
\n After Bank of America acquired Merrill Lynch, Gullapalli and McEvilly chose to leave and start an independent hedge fund rather than spend the next two years liquidating Merrill Lynch\u2019s proprietary trading portfolio. McEvilly\u2019s reputation helped the group raise roughly $40 million to $50 million, but institutions had little appetite for a new fund in 2009 and 2010.\n <\/p>\n
\n Gullapalli said their returns from Merrill Lynch\u2019s proprietary trading desk were harder to document than those of traditional hedge funds with audited records. \u201cGiven the housing crisis of 2008, capital was just harder to raise,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n After about a year and a half, Gullapalli decided to move on. He evaluated everything from gas stations to other Main Street businesses before buying a 50-year-old butcher shop on Long Island. \u201cThis just was a value play,\u201d Gullapalli said. \u201cThe perception of that probably didn\u2019t look great to Indian parents. But I bought a butcher shop.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The previous owner, John Guardino, stayed for roughly two months after the sale, introducing him to suppliers, customers and employees who had spent decades behind the counter, while experienced butchers taught him the trade until, as he put it, \u201cI became an intermediate butcher.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Many employees had worked in butcher shops longer than Gullapalli had been alive. \u201cI learned how to manage people that were much older than me,\u201d he said. \u201cMade a ton of mistakes. But I really enjoyed the process.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The shop had belonged to Guardino\u2019s family for decades, and employees relayed the questions longtime customers asked after the sale, including whether the new owner was \u201cgoing to put curry in the marinades.\u201d Gullapalli said the hardest part was convincing people he wasn\u2019t going to change the business. He introduced himself to customers, explained why he had bought the shop and spent time visiting neighboring businesses throughout Malverne because, as he put it, \u201cI got to get to know the community just like John did.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Gullapalli added a prime beef selection and acquired a second butcher shop in nearby New Hyde Park. \u201cThat\u2019s probably my fi rst mistake,\u201d he said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t a scalable concept.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n The average butcher was about 55 or 60 years old, apprentices were scarce and replacing one employee often meant poaching an experienced butcher from another shop. The second location also lost much of its catering business during the ownership transition because it lacked experienced management. \u201cI\u2019m not a twostore butcher shop guy,\u201d he said. \u201cWe had to fi nd a way to get to 500.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n After his wife accepted a job with Converse, the couple moved to Boston, where Gullapalli sold the butcher shops and bought Lisa\u2019s Family Pizzeria in Woburn, Massachusetts. He worked six and sometimes seven days a week across the front and back of the house. Unlike the butcher shops, where replacing a skilled employee could take months, most pizzeria jobs could be learned quickly. \u201cI could see the scaling nature of it,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
\n He and a childhood friend opened a smash burger concept called WuBurger across the street from the pizzeria before opening a second location in Cambridge. The Cambridge restaurant opened in Inman Square, farther from Harvard and MIT than Gullapalli had expected and without a nearby train stop, leaving it with too little customer traffi c to remain open. \u201cReal estate is 80% of the game,\u201d Gullapalli said.\n <\/p>\n
![\"Kal](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/tbbw_aug26_kal-0019-scaled.jpg\")
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Kal Gullapalli of Built Different Brands. Photo by Pamella Winslow.<\/p>\n
\n \u201cThe most important thing for all these local businesses,\u201d Gullapalli said, \u201cis being part of the community.\u201d He joined chamber events, donated pizzas to schools and police departments, and supported neighborhood organizations when they asked for help. \u201cWhen people in schools come for donations, make sure you take care of them,\u201d he said. \u201cJust taking care of everyone possible in the community.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n After gaining weight in the food business, Gullapalli joined an OrangeTheory Fitness studio, where after every workout he stopped in owner Paul\u2019s offi ce to ask about memberships, operations and fi nancial performance until Paul began sharing the studio\u2019s fi nancial statements.\n <\/p>\n
\n \u201cEvery time I went to class,\u201d Gullapalli said, \u201cI\u2019d stop by Paul\u2019s offi ce and ask him a bunch of questions. He started showing me his fi nancials and being very transparent about everything. Memberships generated recurring revenue. Labor was predictable. Every studio looked the same. I\u2019m like, \u2018Shit, I\u2019ve got to get into this. This is crazy.\u2019\u201d\n <\/p>\n
\n Paul introduced Gullapalli to OrangeTheory\u2019s leadership<\/a>, and after securing development rights in the Boston area, Gullapalli sold Lisa\u2019s Family Pizzeria, WuBurger and his remaining restaurant businesses before opening studios in Westford and Saugus in 2017.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cAt fi rst I thought franchising was weird because you\u2019re giving someone else so much control,\u201d Gullapalli said. \u201cThen I realized I\u2019m actually not a brand builder. Give me a playbook and let me just scale it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf I can have all my concepts that simple and do that type of volume, I\u2019d love it,\u201d Gullapalli said. \u201cThe franchisor sets the menu. They set how you create the products. They set how you serve them. We take their playbook and implement it.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n OrangeTheory was already in what Gullapalli described as the seventh inning of its national expansion, with only two development territories remaining in the Boston market. Gullapalli acquired both licenses and sold the two studios in December 2019, a few months before Covid shut down gyms across the country. \u201cThank God we sold when we did,\u201d he said. \u201cThe behavior of the consumer, particularly in the Northeast, really changed. They left OrangeTheory and never came back.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Before the OrangeTheory sale closed, Gullapalli acquired four struggling European Wax Center locations around Boston that shared one manager, where one manager oversaw all four stores and left him responsible for payroll, operations and nearly every other function. \u201cThe fi rst couple months I was drowning,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was just me doing payroll, doing ops, doing everything.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n He called the company\u2019s COO, who told him to hire managers for every store, close each location for three days, and Corporate would help retrain the staff. His portfolio expanded to 50 stores across multiple states, where he learned how to build a corporate team, integrate acquisitions and work with private equity.\n <\/p>\n \n The private equity investment closed in March 2020, when fear surrounding the emerging pandemic had reached what Gullapalli called \u201can all-time high.\u201d European Wax Center closed its stores until June, and the private equity fi rm had to contribute additional capital almost immediately after completing the investment. \u201cI wasn\u2019t scared for myself,\u201d he said. \u201cI was scared that people would not come back to work after COVID.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Gullapalli created a Facebook group and held video calls to keep employees connected while the stores remained closed. After the company received Paycheck Protection Program funding, it used the money to keep employees on payroll. \u201cWe followed the rules from day one,\u201d he said. \u201cIn hindsight, we probably should have furloughed the team, let them collect government assistance and kept the company better capitalized.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cThe same thing that happened in fi tness happened in waxing,\u201d Gullapalli said. \u201cPeople went to laser. They tried different things. The routine changed. The demand didn\u2019t come back the way people thought it would.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Additional investment rounds reduced his ownership stake. \u201cI realized my personal upside for my family wasn\u2019t there anymore,\u201d he said. \u201cThe opportunity cost was too high.\u201d He gave the company six months\u2019 notice, remained on the board and began investing in other franchises.\n <\/p>\n \n Gullapalli bought 17 Marco\u2019s Pizza restaurants in South Carolina while he was still living in Boston. Much of the country\u2019s population growth was shifting toward the Southeast, where rents were lower than in the Northeast, and, as he put it, \u201cwe wanted to make sure that when we deployed capital, there was a better return.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n As the portfolio expanded, he and his wife moved their family to Tampa in 2022. \u201cThe kids weren\u2019t seeing their grandparents, and both sets live in Orlando,\u201d Gullapalli recalled telling his wife. \u201cI think it\u2019s time to get closer to our assets, since most of our growth is down there.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Marco\u2019s ranked fi fth among the country\u2019s largest pizza chains, behind Domino\u2019s, Pizza Hut, Little Caesars and Papa Johns, and the South Carolina restaurants generated more than $1 million in annual sales apiece with about 15% store-level profi t before corporate expenses. The restaurants made dough inhouse and used freshly cut vegetables, giving Marco\u2019s, in Gullapalli\u2019s view, \u201cthe best of the fi ve in terms of quality.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n On his fi rst day, Gullapalli learned that some managers were drinking on the job, others faced sexual harassment allegations and the restaurants had far fewer operating procedures than he expected. \u201cThere was a lot that I had to clean up,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n
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