She Built Slutty Vegan Into a $100M Brand, Lost It, and Bought It Back—Pinky Cole Tells All

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3:13All right. All right, guys. Welcome back. This is a special episode of Earn Your Leisure. 1000%. Yes. So, um, we're not even wasting any time. I know you probably heard a lot of stuff on social media about slutty vegan pinky colon. You know, earn your leisure We had to get the real in-depth vibe It was only right Yeah, for sure So this is a teachable moment I feel like for our community Pinky's somebody that we've seen rise Like I feel like, you know A lot of people have seen your journey, right? And they've learned from your journey From business to family Being a mother, being a wife But everything that's trials and tribulations, right?

3:51So there's some stuff that we did not know As far as, I know you got into a car accident Glad that you're doing well and then you had an issue where you lost a certain part of the company and you had to buy it back. So, all right, we're going to jump right into it. We're going to jump right into it. So, okay, like I said, we can go right to it. You're a familiar face at this point, so everybody knows you. It's a three-peat. That's a fact. This is a three-peat. So, okay, so we saw on social media that you put a post up. I think you did an article with people and you said that, you know, I'm the new owner of Slutty Vegan, Slutty Vegan 2.0.

4:23I was telling you, I was reading the comments. A lot of people thought it was an April Fool's joke. Yeah, because people don't read. Well, that's true. That's true. At first glance, I was a bit confused, and then I swiped, and I was like, oh, I get it. Yeah, so some people thought it was an April Fool's joke. Some people thought it was just a publicity stunt. Some people actually thought that you were serious but still didn't understand fully. So, okay. No, no. Then the Maury thing came and I was like. Well, that's why they told them. That's why they told them. Exactly. Okay. So what happened?

5:00Well, first of all, it's interesting because I want this episode to be a true educational episode for people. I want when they walk away from watching this, they've learned so much. They have a different perspective on what entrepreneurship really is. because oftentimes people see the lights, they see the flowers, they see the accolades, they see the accomplishments, but they don't see those sleepless nights. They don't see when you have to make difficult decisions on how to maneuver and navigate through your business. And I want to be able to show all sides of that because I feel like when entrepreneurs have range, that is what makes them able to be able to go in a room and dominate.

5:43And I just like to consider this whole experience now when I look at hindsight 2020 as an opportunity to add more to my resume of range so that I can be able to inspire other people. So let me take you back. Y 'all know I had this company since 2018 and Slutty Vegan has done a lot. We have grown tremendously fast. We have gotten a lot of accomplishments. I've graced the cover of Essence Magazine, Inc. Magazine, made the Time 100 list, all the Bloomberg lists, all the Ebony Power 100, headline and Vespas. Everything that you think of, we have done it. There's nothing that I have not done. I have crossed off every single list.

6:29Right. And we have done a lot of great things over the years. So I had a really strong six and a half year run just as far as marketing, media, press publicity. Right. And, you know, when you think about restaurants, restaurants have like a shelf life of about two years. Right. And once you get into that third year, it usually gets a little rocky. But fortunately, fortunately for me, I built something that the world knows, loves and appreciates. So, you know, I went off and I had kids. I had a baby in 2020, 21, 22 and 23. So while I was focused on being the mascot in the face of the brand and doing brand partnerships and doing the things that I love, because as an entrepreneur, there's a point in your professional career where you have to dominate in the spaces where you do well in domination.

7:21You understand what I'm saying? So I did that and we did a raise. We raised money to grow the business. We grew up to 14 locations and that was great. Right. Like we did a lot of great things. $100 million, right? Valued at$100 million. We got$25 million. And for 25%. Yes. And the company got valued at$100 million, right? So we've always made money. Money has always been good. That was never the issue. But what happened was is our overhead got higher than the money that we were bringing in, right? So, you know, there's some businesses that have like$100 ,000 bills a month. our bills were like a million dollars a month upwards to right for all the locations for all the locations so when you're growing really really fast and you got this really good thing and everybody's coming off you you get sold a lot of stuff right so like there's software there's technology there's all of these things so the leadership is just bringing all of this stuff in right and it works for what we have going on because ai is the future all of the technology is the future.

8:29But what we didn't realize is up under the hood was suffering. Right. So back in 2023, we realized that like, OK, we we we have in some we got a problem and the problem isn't today. The problem is in the future and we got to figure it out. This is like future guidance. This is future guidance. Right. And again, revenue still coming in. Bringing in money is not the problem and has never been the problem. It's the overhead. And I've always been public about that. Right. So I talked about how my corporate overhead was$10 million. And that is high for a business of my size, right? But again, you know, I ain't never grown no company before.

9:06And I stepped outside of the business temporarily to have kids and be a mom and do these things and do the marketing. But neither here nor there, this is where we are. So in 2024, I came back in the company and I let go of the whole C-suite. And I came back in the company January, 2024. And I'm literally like boots on the ground. No pun intended. So you fired everybody. Yeah. Because you felt that they were getting paid too much or that they was doing... It was a combination of a lot of things, right? But overarching, like, when a ship is sinking, you gotta be able to start patching holes. You know what I mean?

9:42And those people probably in hindsight, you're thinking, like, this is the scaling model that they've said that is gonna work. I'm looking at this now. This isn't working. It just wasn't working. We gotta reverse course. And there were so many different variables and obviously to protect the interests of the people involved. There were so many different variables that came with it and I had to do what was best for the business, which I realized that the business is what comes first. Cut all those things, had a couple million in real estate, started selling off the real estate, but I realized that we were too far gone.

10:18And for a couple months I was fighting it, right? The conversation was like, hey, we need to put this into a restructuring. I didn't want to do that. Were you in debt or you was just, were you, yeah, were you in debt or were you just on pace to be in debt? We were in debt. You were in debt. Yeah, we were in debt. You started liquidating. Yeah, we started liquidating. We started liquidating. It's funny enough, and I hope you don't get mad for me saying this, I actually sold one of my properties to Robert Smith. Oh yeah? Yeah. My DC property to Robert Smith. And let me tell you something, it pays to have people in your corner, right?

10:51One who are resource qualified. Do you know what I mean when I say that? Because that was a pick up the phone. Hey, Robert, I know everybody lean on you for everything, but I got this portfolio. I got this $10 million portfolio. Let me sell you one of my properties. Has y 'all had a relationship prior to that moment? Yeah. I could pick up the phone and call him. He always give me advice anytime I reach out to him. But to have somebody to do that for me, right, it pays to have people who are aligned with your vision and your mission to be able to pull the trigger real fast when you need them to do that.

11:20That's why relationships are so very important. Right. So I started selling off property, did not want to do a restructure because I'm like, we can fix this. And I'm like, I get to the point where I'm stressing myself out trying to fix this. It's compromising my quality of life. You know, I'm tapping into my personal life to make sure that the business is still sustaining. Again, money coming in the business was not the problem. It's making sure that like my$100 ,000 a week burn can be covered. You understand what I'm saying? So one day I remember waking up and I'm just like, you know what? I can't do this no more.

11:55I'm too busy worried about reputation, right? And I'm too busy worried about what's going to happen and the opinions of other people. This is the ebb and flow of business. The biggest businesses in the world have gone through changes, right? Like you think about the Hooters and the Red Lobsters and the Bumbles and all the big businesses that are very reputable have gone through changes. The difference between them and me and a lot of other businesses, most people don't talk about it. But I said, you know what? I'm going to use this as a coaching opportunity and as an educational opportunity to show entrepreneurs, especially startup founders, this is what happens when you do this.

12:34This is what happens when you hire too many people at one time. This is what happens when you scale a business. If you would have told me seven years ago that I would be going through this, I'd be like, you lying. But guess what? I realized that I'm an educator and beyond slutty vegan, the vessel for me is to be able to show other entrepreneurs that you can do this, but there is strategy and strategic ways to do it. So on March, on February 13th, the company went into official restructure. This year. Of this year. So that meant for 43 days, I did not own my company. Explain this, official restructure.

13:12Can you just explain this? So when a company goes to an official restructure, that means that the board resigns, I no longer own the company, and it goes into the hands of an assignee, right? And during that time, like, I have no responsibility, but obviously my name is still on it. My name is still on the door. So during that time, guess what I did? I'm still in the stores, making sure that everything is good. I'm like making sure that the store is opening. And the public doesn't know this at all. The public has no idea. Who's the assignee? It's a company. Oh. Yeah. So during that time, I'm still in the stores, making sure that the stores open up, do what they need to do.

13:49Because at the end of the day, my name is the only currency that I have. Right. And this is with no surety that I would get my business back. I would be able to bid for my business because obviously I got a very popular company. People can bid to buy the business. Because that's very interesting, right? Like, you know that internally, but at the same time, I'm assuming people can now bid for the company that you helped. I mean, you're watching this transaction. Like, are you seeing the bids? You have like access to that or you're just limited access. Wow. Limited access. But let me tell you, when you call yourself an entrepreneur and you really love the shit that you're doing, like you're going to do things that people are going to call you crazy for.

14:29Because everybody called me like Pinky, like the company went through a restructure. Why are you still in the stores? What are you doing? And why are you still like making sure that the store has what it needs and go? Because my name is on this and I'm doing what's required. And I know that I'm not going to walk away from the thing that I built because I love it that much. So the process was very it was it was a gruesome process, not for them, but for me. Right. Because my pride and my ego got in a way. This is something that I love. And, you know, I put my blood, sweat and tears in this business.

14:59This is all I know for the last seven years. You know what I'm saying? But then I got really, really still. So if you notice, I went dark on social media, but I didn't go dark because I was sad and depressed. I mean, there was a little bit of that sprinkle, but I'm like, I got to go into strategy mode. I got to figure out, like, what is my next move going to be? What am I going to do? You know, as an entrepreneur and somebody who built a multimillion dollar business for the life of my business, I made like 70 million dollars. This ain't no mom and pop shop. You understand what I'm saying? So I'm like, all right, I got to figure it out.

15:31So I'm going in a strategy mode. I'm getting still. I'm not answering the phone for nobody. So everybody think I'm dead. What's going on? Pinky Shee in the hospital. What's wrong? Because I've never been quiet. I'm a vocal, very vocal person. But I realized guy hit my spirit and said, you got to get still. You got to get really still. And I did that. And for 43 days, let me tell you, you know, I'm spiritual, y 'all. So, you know, four plus three is seven. That's the number of completion. So for 43 days, I went through a period of just trying to figure out like what does the professional life of this business, what is the legacy of Slutty Vegan look like?

16:05And the bid opened to buy the business. And there were a couple bidders, but obviously I'm the face of this brand. Who going to come and buy Slutty Vegan and not bring me with it? It didn't make sense. So I put the bid in for the business. and to be totally transparent because I don't tell a lie, I had a strategic partner at first. I had a strategic partner. So in between those 43 days where are we at now? So the 13th restructuring, we know that March 28th is a significant day. Let me give you an even better timeline. So the 13th was when the restructure happened. Then I look on the internet one day and Spelman College closes.

16:46And it wasn't me. And I'm like, damn, Spelman is closing? You know what I'm saying? They closed. What do you mean they closed? They closed the location. Yeah, they closed the location. You didn't even know about it. I didn't know. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. We seen it like, oh, okay. Yeah, I seen it too. But I also can get mad because this is the nature of business. And I think oftentimes as entrepreneurs, startup founders, and I've been guilty of it up until 2.0, we are always so emotionally tied to business that we let our emotions get the best of us when it's just a business decision and it's nothing personal.

17:22You understand what I'm saying? And, you know, I was just like, okay, all right, now I got to strategize. I got to do what I need to do. Okay, cool. Boom. So I seen the news. All right, let me still get dark. Let me still get still. The bid came out. Maybe like it happened pretty fast. Maybe like 18 days. It took about 18 days. The bid came out. There's a package to say, hey, Slutty Vegan is for sale. And I'm like, I can't let nobody else buy this business. It's mine. It belongs to me. My name, my likeness, my brand, the energy when you walk in a store and they call you a slut. That's my personality.

17:58Can't nobody else buy this. This is mine. And because I got something good. My sales are increasing week over week 12 percent. Right. So it's like I ain't got a dud. Why would I walk away from that. I would never do that. So I put the bed in and I gave it to God and I surrendered. And, you know, that was the first time in my life that I actually met God. And I don't know if y 'all understand what I mean when I said that, like God always knew me, but I really just met God. But it took for this experience to bring me to my knees because it made me get even more spiritual. It made me realize that you got to surrender everything and everything that's supposed to happen is going to happen.

18:34And I can remember getting a call from the assignee saying, Pinky, got some good news. You won the bid. And there was like a sense of calmness and still that went through my body because all of this time that I was worrying and stressing about the future and what was going to happen, it was mine all along. I just had to go through this period of pruning to be able to understand who it belongs to and who I belong to. And as a result of that, I got my business back and I signed on March 28th at 2.53 p.m. And I signed and I got my company back. And that was the best feeling in the world because I'm like, all right, now it's go time.

19:13Well, let me ask you this. Let's bring it back a little bit, right? Okay. So you own 100 % of Slutty Vegan when you start the company. Yep. Slutty Vegan goes viral. You make a bunch of money and you have an opportunity to just scale, right? and you scale by raising money. Yeah. You raise$25 million for 25 % of your company. Correct. To me, that means that you own 75%. Mm-hmm. Right? Am I right so far? Which values your company at$100 million. Then you start to go into debt and you start to have some problems. Well, no, it didn't happen like that. So I want to make sure you got the timeline right.

19:54So we raised the money. We opened up 14 locations. Just to give you some math, it cost about$875. five thousand dollars per box to build a slutty vegan and then we did that in the heart of inflation the heart of the pandemic so supply chain everything there was a lot of variables that came with this right so we did 95 percent of what we said that we would do right um there's just life cycles in business and that happens unless you can raise more money and if you don't raise more money then that life cycle pretty much ends the scale hold on me let me finish so what i'm What I'm trying to see is, OK, I'm trying to see you own 75 percent of the company, right?

20:30How did your ownership get diminished to the point where it was up for sale or like you didn't have full control? Right. Like that's the part that I'm. Copy that. So it doesn't work like that. When you go into a restructure, you can own one hundred and five percent. It doesn't matter. It goes into the hands of almost like an estate. Right. So you basically say the company, it's an assignment for the benefit of creditors. So you basically say, yes, I own this percentage of the company, but because of the company's debt, I am willing to sign this over to lose ownership so that somebody can somebody else can control the business.

21:07It's like having credit card debt. And then, OK, so that's similar today. But it's not a bankruptcy. I want to be clear because bankruptcy and an assignment for the benefit of creditors are totally different. Right. A bankruptcy is what it is. It's a bankruptcy. It's hard. It's ugly. This is not that. A lot of companies go through a restructure. Most companies don't talk about it because it never gets public. It never becomes a public thing. If I never said anything about it, nobody would ever knew about this. And you went through the restructure because of debt. I went through the restructure because of the debt.

21:36Okay. So even though you own 75 % of the company, that didn't matter. Somebody could have still purchased the company and then they would have paid you whatever amount was paid. and then they would have owned the company 100%. Yeah, they would have paid the trustees. And then that trustee would have made the payment. And they would have owned the company, correct. How much of a factor did the form of valuation of the company play inside of the potential sale or bid when it got to you? It played a part. There were so many variables. There was the debt. There was the valuation. How many stores? It played a part.

22:09Everything mattered. It was the IP, the likeness of the business. It wasn't just one thing that said, okay, we're going to give the business back to her. Because technically, I didn't have to go back and purchase my business. I could have said, all right, off to my next project. Somebody else could have just went up and won the bid and could have did what they did. But it was important for me to reclaim my legacy. That was important. And when we did that, when we went to the restructure, I actually had 61 % because I had other investors. So it went down from 75 % to 61 % because I did other money raises.

22:40You understand what I'm saying? And now you own 100%. Yeah, I'm back. But you said you had a strategic partner. Did that partner stay on or? No. No. So that that is no, I did in the process. And right before I closed, I decided that I didn't want that strategic partner anymore. He's a really nice guy. But, you know, just the synergies, it just wasn't the right alignment. And I had to be honest about that, which for all the people that are watching this and no disrespect to him. But the people that are watching this, when you go to raise money, when you go to get investors, when you get new partnership, this is a marriage.

23:17So you got to make sure that that marriage feels right. It feels right in your spirit. You can properly communicate with that person like you don't have any apprehensions. You don't have any reserves or reservations, because if you do, you're going to regret it in the long run. And I wanted to make sure that I was very intentional about who I brought with me to the other side. And that was important for me. And it was a hard decision to make. But I'm like, you know what? I'm going to the other side with peace because I didn't always have peace at first. And I wanted to have peace this time. We get in those conversations a lot.

23:49People talk to us like, you guys should raise, you guys should raise. And even we've had conversations prior to this one. It was like, it's cool to be independent. It's great, right? You take on partners. Now you have people that you're married to. now you've been on both sides of it. Like what are some of the biggest lessons for people who are in that, that, that phase of like, Hey, I want to raise capital because I want to scale verse. Hey, we're doing this thing independent and we're going to scale, you know, at our own pace. So, so I'll be honest, cause I can't tell you a lot. I'm gonna tell you the pros and the cons.

24:17So the pros of getting investors, right. And shout out to my investors. They initially funded my dream. Right. Um, and because they initially believed in my dream, it got me the opportunity to be able to do all the things that I needed to do in the business. And I'll never take that away from them. Right. It is what it is. I'm a professional. Right. But what I realized is when you want to scale, scaling is always a good thing. And if you can get private equity dollars, if you can get investment dollars, you absolutely should. But you have to make sure that the terms make sense. For me, I'm a creative.