What Nobody Tells You About Betting Your Life on an Idea | Episode 39 w/ Aubrey & Tyler O'Laskey

0:00Chris Cruz:I've been asking people who build things the same question lately. It's the one most podcast hosts skip because it doesn't lead to a tidy answer. It leads to a pause. If it all disappeared tomorrow, done, all that ended, what would remain of who you have become because of it? I could like cry. That's a very like great way that you dispose of that. A couple I asked that question to is Aubrey and Tyler. They own Prairie Bakery. Multiple locations, a bistro, a grocery, 170 people on payroll. But I didn't ask them on the show because of any of that. Aubrey's dad was like, no, you need to quit now and you need to 100 % commit to it.

0:39And without that edge, you will not be able to do this. I think 100 % commitment, 100 % scared because there is nothing else. And when you know that there's nothing else, you have no other thing to worry about other than succeeding.

0:53Chris Cruz:A commitment like that changes you. And nobody tells you that part. Nobody tells you what happens internally when there's no plan B. That's the answer to the question. If it all disappeared, the name, the revenue, the locations, what would remain as the person who learned how to commit to something all the way? And you can't take that from someone. This is episode 39 of Anatomy of a Brand. I'm Chris Cruz. And this is my conversation with Paren Bakery owners, Aubrey and Tyler. All right, so if you had to describe Paren, but you couldn't tell anybody what it actually is and you do, how would you describe what it is?

1:29Chris Cruz:Like, how would you describe any of its existence? Like, but you couldn't say what you actually do. Yeah, I think I can answer that. Go for it. She's like, yes. We've been doing a lot of reflection on this, especially when coming to Tennessee, because we grew so organically when we started in Nevada. Okay. And it really just evolved day after day where we didn't even necessarily realize that it was happening. It just was. And it was largely, you know, us interjecting our personalities into it. But when we came to Tennessee and we had to go into a new market and we had to like introduce ourselves, we're like, what are we?

2:09Chris Cruz:Oh, wow. And that like was a little existential. We're like, what are we really doing? And what I think we've kind of come to the realization with is like everyone says like lifestyle brand. You hear that thrown around a lot. You're like, what does that mean? But what we strive to be is a feeling. And obviously it's different depending on how you come in and experience our locations. They're all different. So it's not like one size fits all. but we really want to be a part of your daily life and feel like we're integrated into your routine yeah your routine okay um and how we do that we use a certain medium yeah to express that yeah but we're starting to kind of diversify that too oh wow um especially you know without saying yeah what we're doing but our next location yeah and we ho yeah is going to i think really embody that for sure.

3:08Chris Cruz:Okay. That's a long winded answer to a question. I'm not sure we answered. No, you're great. This is going to be fun. I'm already excited because I'm like, we're going to have some dialogue. This is going to be good. But how would you answer it? Yeah. But because literally, because we talked about this the other day, we have kind of moments where we talk to each other and look at each other and go, what, what's our, why, why are we doing this? What direction are we doing it? And it's actually really relevant right now because sometimes we don't have a lot of accolade. We're not searching for awards.

3:40But our award is when we see people coming in every day. And we realize that is our reward to us. Yeah, the regular is way more rewarding than some actual accolade you get once. When you see people that are coming in weekly, if not daily, and it's a part of their daily routine, that is the biggest compliment we could ever get, is that we are part of someone's daily thought. And I think developing those relationships too. Most of the adult relationships that we have are, I don't know if this is a good thing or a bad thing, but they're through work. Yeah, I get it. Totally. You get to the stage in life where you're like,

4:19Chris Cruz:my family, my wife, and work. Yeah, I mean, everyone throws around the third place thing, and that is the same. We are at our house, we're either with each other or we're at work. Yeah, so then describe what you actually do then. So like unpack like all the layers to what is Paren. Yeah.

4:40Chris Cruz:It's evolving. It's an always evolving. How did it start? Maybe if I asked you that question, like what was the first iteration of Paren? Yeah. Paren started as an 800 square foot tiny bakery that was open four days a week from 8 a.m. to 12 p.m. Wow. And Aubrey jokes, and I'm just preface that specifically that this is Aubrey's joke because Paren was our side chick. Okay. It wasn't the main thing. For many years, yeah. No. And we could wind back to where we started, but we both met in culinary school, and we were both doing culinary arts, not baking a pastry. Who's the better cook? I've got to ask.

5:16Chris Cruz:If you guys had to put it on right now, we had to. We asked our kids this the other day. No, you didn't. I love it. It was so cruel. It was so cruel. And I don't actually want to answer this because we both have our strengths and weaknesses. I'll say it's yin and yang. It's yin and yang. We operate very differently, just like inside our minds. Okay. And I think it complements each other for a really long time. You guys are very diplomatic in this answer. I would have told you right now I'm a better cook than my wife. 12 years of marriage, 13 years of being together. I think when we first started, there was a whole lot of competition with that.

5:51Was there? But we've found our ways and how we complement each other. Aubrey was ahead of me in the program. So she started before us.

6:01Chris Cruz:Is this Culinary Institute of America? Yes. Is this in, are we talking about Yonville, Napa? Hyde Park, New York. Okay, cool. The OG. The OG one, all right. So she was ahead of me. All right. So naturally thought, well, at the time, she definitely knew more than me. And she probably still does. But then he worked at Blue Hill at Stone Barns. And then I was like, okay, we were on different playing fields. But yes, we are, to answer the who's a better cook, we both have completely different minds. And we worked so well together with it. Well played. I agree with that. Well played. Okay. So if you could describe, it was a bakery that you started.

6:38Chris Cruz:It was not the main thing you were doing. It was a side thing. It eventually evolves into this thing that has become multiple locations, but not franchising multiple locations. We're not talking like spread in the way that some people might think when you're like, all right, we have more locations. You're doing something different and each location has a little bit of a different feel to them. What's the logic behind your expansion? Like, why are you doing this? You know, it's like having children. You can't have too much logic when you start to go into it. We have four kids. Yeah, I got three.

7:08Chris Cruz:We loved having babies. They were really fun. They were cool people. We both wanted to have a big family. Still are. Still are cool. We wanted to have a big family, mostly because we wanted built-in friends for ourselves who loved big holidays. And when we decided, you know, we probably can't just keep having babies, we decided family it was that was we were good before and then building businesses became our babies so it's actually kind of funny if you look back on their ages it's baby the next year was a restaurant baby the next year was restaurant baby and now it's like well in 2022 was our last baby and in 2020 three five in the last year we've opened three locations and so I think we just love that growth yeah you like a little bit of insanity you like a little chaos we love we love we like to keep the edge there's that idea and I think the biggest thing to know about us is we love pushing ourselves we love being uncomfortable and it all started because when Tyler went to culinary school it was a huge life changing thing for him when I decided to move to New York obviously we didn't know each other at the time It was the biggest life-changing thing for me.

8:20And we both realized separately that when you really go for it all and you get really uncomfortable, you have the greatest moment of growth. And we got addicted to that, I think. And we realized that whenever you get comfortable is the point that potentially that could go away. So we like to always be a little bit stressed out. We thrive on the little stress.

8:40Chris Cruz:I like the idea of some chaos. We're good with it. Okay, so then was there a moment when you realized the person you were wasn't going to be kind of enough to build what you were trying to build? Like internally, like, and what was that moment? What was the moment where you're like, who I am is just not enough. And then what did you do? I have like one standout. Like the imposter syndrome kind of ideology. For sure. When we first, so we were, we joked that it was like the side chick and we were simultaneously running like a pretty large catering company in Lake Tahoe. And this would be like 2018 when we were doing both simultaneously.

9:16Okay. And obviously that was like pretty maxed out at that stage of our professionalism in our career. And, you know, we started hiring a lot of people. We started recognizing, well, I hadn't recognized it yet. Okay. This is like the biggest growth moment where I was like, what am I doing? Was just like the people management part of it. And just realizing that I was like a bad leader.

9:40Chris Cruz:How did you realize that? Like what was coming? Mistakes. And they weren't even like, in retrospect, I don't think they were huge, but it was like someone asked me how to clean a mixer. And I was like, what do you mean, how do you clean the mixer? You know, you pick up a bucket of sanitizer and soap and you go and clean it. But it was like a genuine question. And I realized that I just kind of came across as a huge jerk. And it was because I was so caught up in what we were doing and trying to push so hard. and like we obviously were pushing ourselves doing multiple things at once but i had to like really reflect and literally like i mean this is like therapy and like all right this took years but this is like the aha yeah where i was like we have to do this differently and it cannot be how we were taught and like if you had to if you had to articulate that you had to articulate what you had to do differently what is that mindset that had to change well i mean everybody's like seeing the bear now.

10:37Right, yes, chef. You know, culinary school is very much like that. Definitely the, you know, job experiences we had after culinary school were totally like that.

10:47Chris Cruz:Okay. And it's very, you know, authoritative, intense yelling. And that's how I learned. And I actually like, I kind of thrive in that. Like I like to be just told like, direct feedback immediately. What's up and like, that's not good enough. I mean, okay, I'll just do it differently then. Yeah, you have to almost like either disassociate to be like, I can do this? It is definitely disassociating. You're like, I've got to separate something right now and either I'm going to be healthy because I can make this tougher skin or I'm going to actually come back later and realize I've shut a huge part of myself down.

11:18Yeah, and that is probably what happens to most people that go through that experience is that a part of them dies and they just become this new thing. And that isn't really healthy or sustainable, I think. And yeah, that was the moment where I was like, we have to do this differently. and it took us, we're still working on that. The people management, for me particularly, I love control. I love the honesty both of you

11:44Chris Cruz:are bringing to this conversation, so keep it up. The company's actual name is Transparent Hospital. Yeah, our company is Transparent Hospital. We try to throw it out there. And that was the goal of always admitting that we're trying, we're not perfect, but we are transparent about that process. And it trickles down to what we serve, the ingredients and all that my my aha moment was a moment where i realized you are so much better when you work with other people that are really good at what they're doing and that's something that we're still striving to to bring together a group of people that are expert in what they're doing and relinquish that control to those that are better than you and you hear this all the time of leaders saying find people that are better than you to work with you because it's really it's really beneficial all around but it's also really really energizing to do that so relinquishing control and trusting others to do something i think was a huge for us and still is um do you do you find with with the dynamic between both of you mentioned it a little bit earlier like the competition that you had before did you have to have moments of realizing like you're you even mentioned it healthily lam like the yin and the yang did you guys have to navigate even some of that control and some of the sense of like, I'm so driven that I'm going to like, how did that, was there clashes in ways that you had to navigate?

13:07I wouldn't say between us because we're very much like in the same mindset as that, but we definitely had pushback from our employees, recognizing that the pace at which we were trying to go and push was more than most people could handle. And ourselves could handle. Yeah. And I think that was a really it's a hard balance because, well, for instance, opening new locations, it's taxing to the team that is in charge of helping us open locations. And there's a balancing act of making sure that we're doing that in a healthy way, both for us mentally and for everyone that it's affecting. And I think also just the background that it was literally just Aubrey and I when we started and it was very like fluid.

13:50we were able to be like laying in bed saying, oh, I have this idea. And it would be like, okay, tomorrow we're going to do it. You can do it.

13:57Chris Cruz:There's no gap between your idea and execution because it's just you. Because it's just us. And now that there's 170 people on our team that need to have all that communication. Systems. You know, when we talk about, you know, as we grow becoming more, you know, air quotes corporate, it's actually just more of the foundation of communication. And there's nothing wrong with that and being organized. so what i what i want what i want to dive into just a little bit deeper with what you're saying is how now how do you do that differently with your teams like you mentioned the size you are now how are you not outpacing them in a way that you find like oh my gosh this is not good like how are you what are the things you're paying attention to how are you doing that where you're just not outpacing them and driving them into the ground when you're expanding to 100 and some people and more than three locations.

14:47Chris Cruz:What are you doing? It's really difficult not having some of them here at this table to answer because I'm like, I don't know. But there's an element where we want to, at one point, we want to protect where we want to go and how we want to grow. Also, we go by complete gut instinct. We don't have a major master plan. We go off what we feel is right. And so some of that is not sharing ideas with some of our team because we don't want to have them constantly feel like, well, are they going to do this or not? I think the biggest thing is when Tyler and I want to do something, we're going to do it.

15:22And it's one of those elements where, I mean, some of our team that's been with us for five years go, okay, here we go, because they've seen us do this. But what they have seen is they've seen us execute it too. And I think that has been a huge thing for us is to do what we'll say we're doing.

15:39Chris Cruz:Because they're not just hearing ideas flowing from you and all of a sudden they're like, oh, it's just another idea. just another idea you guys you're like i we execute so there's a track record because we hold that information back a little bit until we know what's right for instance we won't tell a new location's done until a lease is signed and it's a pretty done deal okay so sometimes it's like and then in six months we're going to open this which is not a lot of time and considering something so there's a little bit of that communication we're always trying to figure out the best way to communicate in the right way to also know that we're all human beings and this is not coming from this corporate letter that comes out.

16:15We do things like we have a daily Danish, even though it's sent out monthly, but we always include a note from Tyler and I. We talk about things that we're upcoming and doing, and that's just our way of trying to figure out how do we communicate to 170 people? And this is just your team. Yeah, it's just internal. Just internal. Yeah.

16:32Chris Cruz:Oh, that's amazing. So there's some form of an internal newsletter that you guys are doing to all your employees. That's cool. Yeah, and I mean, it goes down into kind of like a hierarchy, if you will, where, you know, we meet weekly with our management teams and there's about like 10 individuals that, you know, are doing the organization throughout the whole company. And then in theory, they take that down into their like subgroups and their sub departments and have the same exact types of conversations. So you're, you're essentially going, the way that we treat you, we want you guys to keep this going down.

17:06Yeah, I think that's the hardest thing is communicating our own personal ethos and energy. That's sometimes really difficult. So, you know, there's definitely been times where we've had certain managers that definitely aren't able to bring that energy down. And we are still trying to figure out, okay, how do we... Or bottlenecks. How do we give that energy off constantly of what we're doing?

17:27Chris Cruz:Because that feels much more like the soul of your brand than even the product. Obviously, you have quality control. You have people who have to be good at their craft and all the areas of your incredible pastries and food. Like, amazing. I love it. I'm, like, a slight addict. It's a problem. The issue, like, you're saying here is I am expanding. We're expanding. Well, how do we not lose our soul while we do that? Number one question. Number one question. Number one question and constantly asking yourselves. And, you know, to give more insight, we own our company 100%. Just Tyler and I. Yeah. We are not backed by a huge hedge fund or anything.

18:05But we are at that point where we are heavily leveraged. Heavily leveraged and probably growing in the most difficult way possible. But part of that is we want to make sure that we're doing it still with the right ethos. And we don't ever want something to jeopardize that in our goals. And our goal truly was to start as a couple working for each other so that we can make our own kind of framework for our schedule and our life and having children and what does that look like? And then as we added people to our team, it was, well, we want them to have the same thing. We want them to have maternity leave and healthcare and have holidays off with their family.

18:44Chris Cruz:I remember you guys posting something about even that. Like when people are reflecting on the cost of certain things, you're like, this is what it is so that we can fulfill our mission to our employees, that we have this deep desire to do some things for them that are not industry standard, that are not the normal in our industry, but we're trying to do that, which is reflected in what you're saying there. I love that. So if, what is something nobody tells you? Because it sounds like you guys have bet your life on this thing. No doubt. Yeah. Like what, what, what is nobody telling people about betting their life an idea that you have?

19:15You have to be all in. Yeah. Say the same thing. It's like a hundred percent commitment. A hundred percent commitment. Aubrey's dad, I like vividly have this memory. We had just moved into like our first apartment after school. and we were doing the math of just our bills and what we had. We had tons of money in student loans. Immediately we had to start paying when we got out of school. This is right when we started our own company. So we're like, how are we going to make money to pay ourselves to pay for our bills? And we were like, do we need to still keep our day job while we do this? And Pat, Aubrey's dad, was like, no.

19:48You need to quit now, and you need to 100 % commit to it. And without that edge, you will not be able to quit. Let me just preface. It's not like my dad was like, and I'll give you help if something fails. There was no safety blanket. I want to preface that because sometimes I listen to a lot of stories and it's like, well, my aunt helped me out. My parents, which is great and by all means love that for them. But I think 100 % commitment, 100 % scared because there is nothing else. And when you know that there's nothing else, you have no other thing to worry about other than succeeding. Yeah, I've written about it a little bit on our sub stack, but it's like there is no option to quit.

20:26and I think a lot of people have a contingency plan. Yeah, they have plan B, plan C, plan B. Maybe that evolves over time, but we didn't have the option. Just the way we structured things and we took personal loans. That's how we funded our kitchen build-outs. You put up your house for these types of things. So it's like, what do you do when that fails? It's not an option.

20:50Chris Cruz:Yeah. So answer this question for me. What has building this asked of you? that you didn't know you'd have to give? Like a part of you that are like, I didn't know that that was going to be something I'd have to give up or change because I'm building this thing. Or maybe it's something internally. Like you're like, I had to give up this thing that I didn't know I had to give up. It doesn't feel like giving up when you believe in it. Yeah. And we did this obviously by choice. We weren't forced into it. And I know it sounds like a little corny or cliche, but do you think we were like meant to be in that role?

21:25Chris Cruz:You got to feel a bit of that. to go all in as you guys went all in you gotta feel a little bit of like there's something more happening here than just this. I remember doing like in school like elementary school writing floor plans out for like silly things like I wanted to have a vet clinic because I was like yeah. I had like a restaurant in our house my parents would come home and I had to take like packing tape and made a menu and like laminated the menu and was like here are the options for this evening you must choose this one because this is what it's actually made you know I was actually making I would cook for my teachers and I think it was an internal thing to at least in an entrepreneurial spirit but to to actually give that true honest answer is especially now it's kind of relevant to what I said earlier is I didn't realize how much I would have to pump myself and ourselves up so much and constantly be your biggest cheerleader you have to really trust yourself.

22:23And that takes a lot of inter-reflection and constantly asking yourself or telling yourself you can do this. And especially when you have imposter syndrome. Yeah, which never goes away. The first job, I'll never forget, the first private chef job we ever had, someone was like, so you do this a lot? And we're like, oh yeah, absolutely, 100%. We didn't just buy this pot on the way here. and you know you just have to make it till you make it time you have to tell yourself i am worthy i can do this you know i also think like we have a internal motto that's like it sounds ridiculous but it's like do it the hard way and it's because usually that is the right way and you know we always say like don't have crutches you know if you have like some one singular thing that you're fully dependent on like that's probably the one you need to address now and like build up some stability there.