Book: Daring to Succeed: How Alain Bouchard Built the Couche-Tard & Circle K Convenience Store Empire

The following business biography delivers: Daring to Succeed: How Alain Bouchard Built the Couche-Tard & Circle K Convenience Store Empire. It’s business biography that delivers,a lot on business, management, culture, M&A, and leadership. It’s an easy read, not dry, and contains tons of real life lessons. It’s better than most of the stuff I read in business school.

It’s a great business book that’s under the radar. You probably never heard of Alain Bouchard or Alimentation Couche-Tard (ATD). But convenience store chain Circle-K probably rings the bell. Alain Bouchard and ATD are the low profile type, French Canadian, and convenience stores are a boring business. Combined all that together and it doesn’t vibrate “best seller” list. But if you are looking for quality content, then you won’t be disappointed.

Circle-K is the global leader in convenience store. But how did 4 guys (Alain + 3 partners) from Montreal, Québec, achieved that kind of success? And who dreams of becoming a convenience store leader?

What kind of success you asked? Well since the IPO in 1984 Couched-Tard is up 875x. It’s up more than 10x in the last ten years. It’s closing in $60b in sales (well pre-covid). Not bad for a boring business.

Summary: Great book if you are looking to further your business/investment knowledge for the slow summer days.

If I have the time I will try to write notes to share.