I cannot think of a business category more “tired” than fast food–especially hamburgers.

Despite this, Five Guys, a fast-food franchise with a very un-glamorous name and simplistic business model, has managed to re-invent this category.

Starting out about 23 years ago in the Washington DC area, Five Guys now has about 450 locations scattered across the U.S. and (by the looks of their Store Locator map) a bunch in Central America.

I am not especially picky about food, but I generally do not eat hamburgers, and I never go to a fast food joint for a buger–or at least I didn’t until a Five Guys recently opened up in our nearest town.

The burgers and fries are exceptionally good, but I am almost more impressed with the business operation itself. Talk about clarity of focus and disciplined execution! 

Everything–from the simple two-color decorating scheme (red & white), the menu (burgers, fries, soft drinks) and the crew composition (cashier/table washer and mostly cooks)–is optimized to focus on the efficient delivery of great burgers and fries.

There are some useful lessons here for many of us–especially in the technology business:

1. Original ideas are great, but fabulous execution of even an old-school idea trumps originality any day.
2. We don’t need a “great” idea (0riginal or not). Before experiencing Five Guys, Google was my go-to example of this. (It’s easy to forget that when Google was a start-up, about the last thing any of us “needed” was another search engine.)
3. Simplicity is power: It is much easier to execute well with the clarity provided by simplicity.

This all sounds obvious, but I need to keep reminding myself about some of these uncommonly common-sense truths as I ponder my next big thaing.