A noodle bar owner turned to a regular customer for help as he planned a second outlet. Three years on and the team behind Pho is eyeing even bigger rewards. What's its recipe for success?

Stephen Wall My wife, Jules, and I opened Pho in 2005 after travelling the world. I had been made redundant and I wanted to take a bit of control. We wanted to run our own business and be in charge of our destiny. I didn't want to be made redundant again unless it was my fault. We started eating our way through Asia and we became addicted to pho, the national noodle dish in Vietnam. We wondered why nobody had ever thought about specialising in this dish in the UK and to serve it to more of the mass market. We decided that once we got back we'd research and plan it.

Ed Martin I run eight pubs with my brother, Tom, from our company ETM Group. We were early customers at Pho, which is near one of our pubs. We absolutely loved it and we ended up eating there sometimes three or four times a week. We got to know Stephen and Jules a bit and we talked about what we did, so we had something in common straightaway.

SW For the first 18 months, Jules and I worked every single shift. We created the platform and the customer base that helped us get to the next stage. We got to know Ed and Tom because we worked the floor and the kitchen every day. When we realised that it was going well, we wanted to open a second site but we didn't have the money.

EM When Stephen told us that he was looking to open a second restaurant we thought it was a fantastic opportunity to diversify slightly. We started talking about it in 2006 and we went into business in April 2007. We loved the product so much that we wanted to be a part of it and we were delighted when the opportunity arose.

SW We did have one other serious offer. It was from another regular customer—he was interested in putting the money we required on the table and he would have taken a minority percentage in return. We did think long and hard about handing over 50 per cent, but we thought that Ed and Tom could bring so much more than money to it. They had experience, business contacts, an infrastructure and their own finance team.

EM We own a 50 per cent stake. We have always been of the mind that you have to be 50/50 to be real partners. If you have a minority stake you are never true partners. I think it worked because of our background. The other people were purely financial so they would have been silent partners whereas what I think attracted them to us was the fact that we were in the business as well.

SW I am the managing director so I run Pho on a daily basis and Jules is the operations director. Tom and Ed have few dealings with the day-to-day running of the business. What they do have an involvement with is strategy and finance, looking at the bigger picture.

EM Our partnership is balanced. Stephen and Jules run Pho and we provide support in any way we can. I am in charge of the financial side of ETM so from the beginning I wanted to have everything in-house. It was perfect for Pho because we had a full office set up and ready to go. Rather than taking on pointless overheads that restrict a business we hire out ETM's services to Pho on an hourly-cost basis.

SW We have never had a cross word between the four of us. They were happy that Jules and I would continue to forge ahead and operate Pho, and they respect the fact that we live and breathe Pho on a daily basis. They will always listen to what we have to say and never try and force decisions on us.

EM Stephen and Jules are both personable people. Their drive, energy, ambition and innovation have made Pho a success. It is pretty cool going to Vietnam and bringing back an amazing idea like that, setting it all up and making it happen. We were impressed with them from the start. I find it totally inspirational and we have gained as a company from working with them as well.

SW The fact that we run Pho and they are involved in the strategy side of things is a compliment to the strength of the partnership. We all bring different things and we are really happy with it.

EM We share an ambition to build Pho up to massive success; we have invested in it to see big growth and that is happening. We will have five sites this summer, hopefully six this year, and then a few sites a year for the next few years. The aim is a total of 15 to 20 sites.