Advice Line with Jeni Britton of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams

23:59Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams founder, Jenny Britton. Jenny, why don't we, let's take another call. Okay. Welcome to The Advice Line. You're on with Jenny Britton. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business. Hello. Nice to meet you both. My name is Casey White, and I'm calling from Boston, Massachusetts, and I'm the co-founder of Jaju Pierogi. And we specialize in high-quality Polish dumplings. They're producing high-quality Polish dumplings at scale using our grandfather's recipes to grocery stores throughout the country.

24:36Amazing. Well, thanks for calling in, Casey. And so pierogies, dumplings, these are, I think most people know what they are, stuffed with potatoes and cheese. And I think you can get it with meat. You can put anything you want inside pasta dough, right? So we make a bunch of different flavors from potato and cheese, kielbasa, which is a pork sausage, and red bell pepper, a sweet potato, caramelized onion, jalapeno cheddar, we name it, we can put it inside. So this sold frozen in bags in the grocery store and you just heat it up in the oven? Yeah. So we boil them and freeze them so you can air fry them, you can bake them.

25:17My favorite is sauteing them with some butter or oil for about eight to ten minutes on the stove. You could even microwave them if you wanted to. So just reheating them. And tell me how you started the business. Tell me the story behind it. Yes. So my sister and I grew up on our grandfather's pierogi. So Jaju is our brand name, and that's the phonetic spelling of grandfather in Polish. So we grew up on his pierogi and always had them in the freezer, like our Kraft mac and cheese. That was our snack, our go-to thing. All of our friends would ask, hey, where'd you get those? Like I can't find handmade dumplings anywhere.

25:52And we were like, really? Because we always had them. So we just assumed that everybody had them. Yeah. Yeah. So we actually drove back to our grandfather's store and found his handwritten recipes in the back of the store and just started tinkering on our kitchen table and kind of like that small business story, right? Started going to pop-ups, farmer's markets. We started doing this around the time when breweries were like really hot and new. So pierogi and beer is like the perfect combination. So we would hop around and do that and quickly realize that, yeah, people could not find pierogi anywhere.

26:29People were like driving from neighboring states to come to our events. It was crazy, but it was awesome. So we kept going with it once we saw that demand. Wow, that's super cool. All right. So you're not sold direct to consumer or you are? We do sell direct to consumer on our website. Um, we don't do, it's not a large part of our business because as you said before, you know, frozen is pretty expensive. It's challenging. Yeah. Yep. Not easy to do, but we do offer it. Um, and, but most of our business is to grocery. So now we're in about 2 ,700 stores throughout the country. Um, whole foods, sprouts, a lot of, a lot of stores in the natural channel.

27:07And then we still do, we do have a big event part of our business that we still operate, mostly in the summer months, like music festivals and stuff like that. Right. And give us a sense of your sales right now. So last year we finished at$2.5 million. That's great. This year we should do almost four because we're actually getting into Costco, which is exciting. Oh, wow. All right. So before we dive in with more questions, what's your question for us? So my question is, how does a company sustainably grow in the CPG industry without raising a ton of capital? Or is raising a ton of capital just part of the equation?

27:48All right. Big question. And Jenny, I know you've got a lot of thoughts on that. Jenny, questions for Casey? Hey, Casey. First of all, congratulations. What an accomplishment. I mean, to have 2 ,700 plus stores is, I mean, I know from my experience at Jenny's, this is a slog that is not easy to do. And I just applaud you. Thank you. I just, I guess when I think of bringing capital, I think the first thing I think of is that entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs for a reason. And that's because we like to do things our way and differently. And we like to explore and discover and all of that. And when you bring in outside capital, you lose all of that.

28:23And so, you know, who's on your team? How many people do you have? Are you ready to sort of like let go of that kind of control? Yeah, that's the hard part, right? Because it's like we're a very small lean team still. We've been very methodical in our growth. Like we've been around for nine years. And so a lot of people, right, they say, oh, like nine years, like maybe you should be in 10 ,000 stores or whatever. And we say like, well, we've just methodically grown because we didn't want to take, you know, outside investment and stuff like that. And so it's kind of just like that point, like, okay, if we want to get into the club stores, the bigger guys, like we need some upfront money to do packaging, like just all of the logistics and all of that piece of it.

29:06And so that's what I struggle with because it's like, right, I don't want to give away control. I want to be able to still make the big decisions, but also like where do I get the money from to do so? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and that's always that sort of catch-22 or whatever, you know, where you're trying to grow and you need the money to grow. Have you looked into like SBA and like the sort of SBA in bank loans? Because I think, you know, the thing is we don't really ever talk about that. And it can be such an incredible resource, especially, you know, the first answer is you're doing it. This is how you do it.

29:42This is actually how you raise a company in the best way because you have control and you're growing and you're doing it. And that's another question, too, for you is like, what would you do with the money? I mean, if it's just packaging and getting into a store, you might be able to get a loan for that. Right. Have you looked into bank loans and is that something that you would consider versus bringing in a partner? Yeah, open to all options. We have taken some bank loans, the SBA. COVID was a great time to get federal money. So that really helped us. So there's definitely that avenue. It's just funny, like being in the industry, the CPG industry, I don't know if it's because you're just surrounded by people, right, who are always like, I raise X and I raise this and this round series, A, B, C, D, E.

30:26Like, it's like, is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Right. But I agree with you. It's like, fine. You can get creative with how you need to front load anything, right? If it's just packaging, like in this case, most of it is, right? It's just accomplishing the execution of a new store, then why give, you know, 25 % of your business away to someone who's never going to care as much as I do. Yeah. And they're going to have a lot of opinions on how you do things. And I mean, look, and to be frank, it is a, we've talked about this on the advice line before, it happens to be a more challenging environment to raise money, especially in food and CPG businesses now.

31:07You know, what I'm hearing from investors right now in the food space is they're waiting, they're really looking for brands to hit 50, really$100 million in sales. You know, a couple years ago, it was 20. If a brand hit$20 million in sales, it was a target for acquisition. You know, that being said, I mean, you have some friends and family who have invested in the business, right? Right. Yep. Yeah. And so, I mean, is there talk or thought about maybe going back to them? And if that's something that you need, is that an option? Yeah, that's also that's part of my plan of attack, right? It's like, when we did that round, you've I learned a lot about myself and my connections, right?

31:51Like, people want to help you, whether they're giving you money or not, they want to help you and they give you the advice that kind of leads you to the next person that might write that check. Who believes in your company has been seeing us grow it for years, right? So that's kind of my first plan of attack. It's like, okay, look at my network, the people that I trust and have believed in this product, tap them first. Because I was pleasantly surprised the first time. So I probably will be pleasantly surprised the second time I do this. Well, just to get to this other point that you're making, which is like, it does feel like, And I felt like this at Jenny's, too.

32:30It does feel like even now, your success as an entrepreneur is not whether you're actually selling or creating value for your customers. It's about whether you've gotten what round of funding you're in. And I'm so fundamentally against that. I mean, I think that it has to be, as entrepreneurs, it has to be about our customers really creating value for people. And honestly, I think the best way to do it is this. I talk about this at Jenny's all the time, but start small and build. Just keep building. Jenny's took on Partners in 2015, but we started in 2002. 2002. From 1996, you know, I was learning that whole time.

33:03I built my brand so that when we brought in a private equity firm, who we're still with and we love, and we're very lucky on that front. But when we brought them in, the brand was established enough that I still had power, you know, to put it frankly. Do you have a board of advisors or a board of some people that you lean on? We do. We have a few. We haven't fully built out a board, which I think we need to do. I have found that very helpful. I thought that was helpful at Jenny's. When we brought in the private equity firm in 2016, actually, we organized a board. And that just made us kind of prepare for, you know, we had to sort of tell everybody what we were doing every month.

33:42We had to get prepared for that meeting. And we had to, you know. But it also helped us just organize together as a team. They were so helpful to us. So I have a new company now, Flora, and we've already formed a board. And we went out and found people who are real experts there. And I think there are a lot of people who would want to help you because you're already out proving it. And then also when you get to that point, if you do a little later want to go for funding, you've already got your board established. So that gives you a little extra leverage. Right. I think that's great advice. Casey White, the brand is called Jaju Pierogi.

34:14Good luck. Good luck. Thank you so much. Yeah. I mean, Jenny, you know, obviously it's a different time environment to raise outside capital and food, right, in the food business. but it was important, right? I mean, it really helped you kind of super scale your business. Yeah, and we looked for partners and in doing this at Flora too, we looked for partners who could be, who could add more value to the company, who could really help us. I mean, we were just a scrappy team and when they came in, we sort of formed an executive team of professionals who understood how to do it. And that was a game changer because there are methods that we just, you just have to know, you have to learn.

34:51Yeah. What are you hearing? I mean, if anything, about fundraising, especially for food brands right now? Well, it's funny you should ask because I'm literally in the middle of it. I've been doing this for the last, you know, I've been building this company for two years, really scrappy, and we've gotten some angel investors for early stage just to get us to kind of figure out what we're doing. And now we're kind of going after the bigger funding. But we are finding, yes, of course, it's very tight, very, very tight. And I think you have to have a massive opportunity. I'm hearing people say that, you know, they're looking for companies who can become a billion other company.

35:23If you think about food, that's massive. I mean, that's just global scale almost. They're throwing around that B word a lot. Yeah. Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

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38:09Welcome back to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Jenny Britton, founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. So, Jenny, let's get back into it and take another call. Okay, sure. Let's go. Hello. Welcome to The Advice Line. You were on with Jenny Britton. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business. Hi, Guy. Hi, Jenny. My name is Callie Seher. I'm calling in from Los Angeles, California. I'm the founder of ube.co, and we make organic purple sweet potato pet treats tailored to sensitive stomach and skin pets.

38:44So purple sweet potato, tell me the connection between purple sweet potatoes and like dog treats for sensitive stomachs. Yeah, for sure. They're made of organic purple sweet potatoes as our main ingredient. The term for it is ube. A lot of Filipino community loves that as a really high fiber ingredient in a lot of food and desserts. So I was looking at just in general in the market, there's not a lot of treats that's tailored to sensitive stomach pets. And I have a dog that has a very sensitive stomach. He is a Kavapu and he's just from when he was young, it was really hard to find high fiber treats for him.

39:33So I was cooking a lot of sweet potatoes, a lot of pumpkin, things like that for him. And then I found purple sweet potatoes. And then I was doing a lot of research because my background is in science. And I found that there's a lot of antioxidants and vitamins and minerals that are really good for their health. in purple sweet potatoes. So that's how it started. Wow. And tell me where you're selling them. Is it direct to consumer through your website right now? Yeah, mainly direct to consumers. We're in 10 local stores around LA and two in Hawaii. Yeah. Cool. I mean, give me a sense a little bit about your sales.

40:15Have you guys broken$25 ,000,$50 ,000 in sales yet? We've broken$50 ,000 in sales, but not to 100K yet. Right. Okay, cool. And what's your question for us today? So my question is, right now, currently, we have only relied on organic growth, achieving about like 30 % return returning customer rate online. But we're facing like a really big challenge in reaching new customers. And I think to scale the business effectively, I need I think it's time to like partner with a PR firm for marketing to allow me to focus on product development. So how can I find a reputable PR firm to help promote ube.co and expand our reach?

40:59All right. Jenny, I want to bring you in. Dog treats, scents to stomachs, makes a lot of sense. Sweet potatoes. Let's go. Let's figure this out. Amazing. Callie, congrats on your business. It's so cool. I mean, I'm always floored. I have two animals and I adore them. And I'm really tuned into this idea that people spend so much money on their pets. And, you know, we need to, like, care for our pets. We do. We care for them like they're our children. We do. I love your background in science, and I think this can really carry you. And I'm just curious, as a scientist, what was your – how does that specifically help you wade through the research?

41:37Because when you get a PR firm, I think what they're going to do is figure out what your message is. And so figuring out, like, okay, let's say you're a scientist. You looked through all the research. You created this idea based on what you know, and now you're sharing it with other people. And so have you thought about how to use your experience to communicate that with others? And I think that would be what a PR firm might help you do too. Yeah. I've thought a lot about this, actually. I was planning to do a fun ingredient list for each product that I launch with the scientific terms of the ingredients in it.

42:13But also there's like a little bit of hesitant in the sense that, oh, would people think that it's like more like medicinal or like, you know, is it chemical? You know, the words kind of sound like scary. So I try to use just like simpler terms, antioxidants, high in vitamins and fiber, things like that. But like my message right now is not coming out as clear as I want it to be. Yeah. That's so much a part of what we tackle as entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning when it's just us doing everything. Getting your communications, what you're saying, right? Because you're right. Even though it matters that the science is accurate and that it's there, what are you actually communicating to the customer that activates your customer?

42:57And you learn that by selling, by selling to people and listening to feedback with your audience. What's resonating? What are people really, I mean, yes, the product works. We hope, yes, it works. But why? And what is the thing that you can then use? Because then that becomes your communication strategy, which then leads into like when you go and try to get on the Today Show. Yeah, I think from last year, we did a lot of farmer's market and like sell directly to customers. And we found that one of the things they're most like interested about is just the ube itself. We have a slogan called ube for my bae.

43:31And everyone's like, oh, I love ube. So my dogs must love ube too. And it turns out they do. Like, so I think that's a good way to attract people. But I think what kept the people coming back is the health benefits, the fiber, the vitamin, the antioxidants. You can see you can see the improvement in their gut health by by feeding them the treats. And what about I mean, I know you're small and you're probably scrappy, but I mean, have you tried putting playing around with social media ads? Yes, I've done it. Just me and my husband learning from like YouTube and everything and just launched the ads and it didn't turn out so well.

44:14Like pretty much we broke even on what we spent. Right. Customer acquisition is getting harder and harder on social media. But I will just say this. We have an episode of the show coming up on Misfits Market, which sells like food that would otherwise get thrown away, you know, an apple with a blemish or something. And what they did, and again, this is in 2018, so it was a slightly different environment, but still effective today, I think. Instead of focusing on, hey, you know, this is still edible or we sell food for, you know, 30 % less, they would literally have like a weird, freakish looking carrot, right, a photo of it.

44:51And it would just say, this carrot needs a home. That was the ad. And people would click on it because it was so weird. You have a product that's unusual. You're using purple sweet potatoes. I know them, right? But if you go to Trader Joe's, but a lot of people would be like a purple sweet potato. What is that? Right. And so because you've got this sort of literally like what Seth Godin would call a purple cow product, right? It's unusual. It stands out. I feel like that could be really just an interesting thing to try. Right, right. I think we just need a lot of guidance in marketing and PR right now because I've tried a few things.

45:30And I honestly am not good at social media. And I have hired a part-time person to help me with TikTok. And it's not working as well as I want it to. Because obviously, people don't care as much as I do. And I've been reached out by so many PR firms in Los Angeles, obviously, that they could help. They could help pitch. They could help get us into stores. They could help. They promise so many. It's not like a promise. But they're trying to sell. their PR firms, obviously. But it's just hard to find who I can trust. I find that PR firms can be really awesome, but you have to have somebody at that firm who is your champion, who adores you, who believes in you, who wants to push it forward.

46:19Otherwise, it falls flat and you just, you kind of go nowhere and it's very expensive. You might be better suited to spend that money on somebody who can work for you in multiple places, who could have some contacts with media or know how to speak to them, might be able to also help you with social media or even do that, but who can really organize this communication, just somebody who's like saying, this is our message out there and where are we going to put it? Who are we going to tell this to? Who can just kind of come in and help organize all that and then that is their only job. And it doesn't even have to be full time yet, you know?

46:58Yeah, I think that's really your advice. PR firms are tricky, right? I mean, if you find it's that perfect fit and Jenny's right. I mean, they have to love the product. And if you can find somebody, I mean, look, if you find a firm that has made a pitch and you say to them, look, my budget is, you know,$10 ,000 or$5 ,000, like this is what we can pay. So show us what you can do with that. I mean, there's an argument to be made that you could, If you're willing to take that kind of risk with that amount of money, it might be worth the risk. You say, you know, I don't know social media well. And I think most people feel that way.

47:32Like, I don't know how to do it. But the reality is most people who do know how to do it, they just figured it out by doing it. I love the idea of really going into social media. I know that it's all very scary. But guys, right, you learn by doing it. And also just remember that people like authenticity. and especially now when it doesn't seem like anything is authentic. And you're such an authentic person. I can tell, you know, I mean, obviously, and people like that realness and just saying, just going on and saying, try to keep it under 30 seconds or even under 15. Just try to say like, this is why I did this.

48:07This is why it's good for your, for your puppy. Just show the behind the scenes and just start doing it. And then part of social media too, a big part of it It's just talking to everybody else. So going on every other, anybody who's talking about dogs or pets, being on their feed, talking to them. Right. I was doing that a lot last year. That's why I started hiring another person to help me with the comments, the likes, the messaging, all that, because it was taking a lot of my time. I'm still a full-time scientist at UCLA. OK. And so this is like a part time passion business, you know, side thing that I hope to hope that it will turn into a full time one day.

48:47But we depend a lot on brand ambassadors. Like we use an app that like, you know, search for brand ambassadors and they get like a percentage of the sales. So that has been really helpful. They make really good contents. But I do think the messaging needs to be a little more clear. I just want to say, like, when you said I'm a full-time scientist at UCLA, like, I want to hear that. I'm a full-time scientist at UCLA. That's so cool, yeah. And I started a dog food company because I needed something to feed my dog. Totally. You know, and I decided to use Ube because it's purple, you need color, you need vibrancy, you need fiber.

49:19Or dogs, you know, we all do. I love that so much, just that message over and over and over and over again. Yeah. People invest in you, even consumers and customers. Like, they want to know that, like, oh, this came from somebody who really cares and really knows what they're doing. Yeah, totally. Yeah, 100 % agree. The brand is called ube.co. Callie, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for calling in and good luck. I'm Jenny I've already asked you about luck or skill on the show many years ago but I have a different question for you which is if you were able to go back you know even in not not just at the beginning but like 2005 2010 you know when you were still really scrappy business you weren't this national brand yet what what advice now you know now that you know what you know here at this point in your in your life and career do you think might have been helpful for you to have known then.

50:11Oh, this is what I say if people say, what would you have done differently? And there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but it's all about who. In 2005, 2006, 2007, what I needed on my team were I needed a coach. I needed to understand how founders carry power in companies as we were beginning to grow. There are leadership things that you can learn pretty quickly, especially if you have somebody on your side who can help you. A business advisor, that was so important to me, especially as we started to grow and to bring on people from the outside. And I needed to learn how to speak that language.

50:46I needed somebody on my side outside of the company. And then I would just say, a great attorney. As a founder, you have your company attorney or whatever, but you do need to have kind of your own really great attorney just to have somebody to ask questions. There's so much. and if you're a leader in your company, you really need to have an understanding of law. So those people I would have had definitely on my side. Now, going back a little earlier than that, I think we get to where Callie is and I would also say communications. That was something that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out and it would have been really cool to have somebody who could just come and say, here's what you're doing really well.

51:24This is what people are resonating with. Because whatever you think is probably not the same as what's going on over the counter. So having that communications person just to help me know what I should be saying every single day. Yeah, that's great advice. That's Jenny Britton, founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. Jenny, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Oh, my gosh. This has been so much fun. Thank you for inviting me, Guy, and your team. You're the best. You're the best. It's great having you. And by the way, if you haven't heard Jenny's original How I Built This episode, you've got to go back and check it out.

51:53We'll put a link in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview. It was the call that none of us could have imagined ever wanted to get. A pint of ice cream in Lincoln, Nebraska, tested positive for listeria. So we decided that we were going to recall everything, which meant that 265 tons of ice cream that had been out in the world came back to us, and there we were. Did you think there was a possibility that you would shut down, that your business could basically end? I think at that point we realized that that was it. And it was weird because I just kept a journal at the time and I was like, I don't even have any ideas.

52:36Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at GuyRoz.com. Each week it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with. And hopefully we can help you with them and make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there.

53:21and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Catherine Seifer with music composed by Ramtin Erablui. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Neil Rauch. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Casey Herman, J.C. Howard, Iman Ma 'ani, Chris Massini, Kerry Thompson, Neva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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