Bobo’s: Beryl Stafford. A Single Mom Turns a Baking Project into a $100M Business

11:47Beryl Stafford:Yeah. And she did open up the cookbook and say, I want to make these.

11:52Guy Raz:Just one afternoon.

11:53Beryl Stafford:Yeah, just one afternoon. And she was 12 or 14, somewhere around there.

11:59Guy Raz:Yeah. By the way, her name is Alex, right?

12:02Beryl Stafford:Alex. But when she was born, Alexandra seemed like too big of a name for a baby. Yeah. You know? And so just as a little nickname, we called her Bobo for no reason, just cute name. So the recipe she found had four ingredients and I happened to have them all in my cupboard. And I said, great, you know, do it. And they were delicious.

12:25Guy Raz:These bars.

12:26Beryl Stafford:Yes. They were dripping in butter and corn syrup.

12:29Guy Raz:And it was just, it was like probably corn syrup, oats, corn syrup.

12:33Beryl Stafford:Oats, corn syrup, brown sugar, and butter.

12:38Guy Raz:Then you cook them on low temperature for like 15 minutes.

12:42Beryl Stafford:Yeah. And they were really good. And she was taking them to school and sharing them with her friends. And then she said, Mom, I got to make some more. People love these. And I said, okay, let's keep making them. And I had some friends in the natural food industry that were saying, you got to make these healthier and sell them.

13:04Guy Raz:Because they're made with corn syrup at the time. Corn syrup and butter and – although now butter is not that.

13:09Beryl Stafford:Butter is fine.

13:10Guy Raz:Butter is great. And corn syrup is a weird one because, you know, it's just another form of sugar. I guess people – I guess companies tend to use more of it. And I think that's –

13:22Beryl Stafford:Well, it is genetically modified. Yeah. So that's the problem. And it's got a great shelf life and it gives you a great mouthfeel. But it's, you know, bad for you. Say the experts.

13:34Guy Raz:But people are saying use like a different kind of sugar, a cane sugar or what?

13:40Beryl Stafford:Yeah. Well, what I picked was sucanat. It's a less processed brown sugar than brown sugar.

13:49Guy Raz:Yeah.

13:49Beryl Stafford:And so I picked that. Now we use coconut oil, but coconut oil was one of the first oils that I used. And instead of corn syrup, I used brown rice syrup. And it wasn't so easy that I just, aha, this is what we'll do and bought those ingredients. We tried different ingredients for many months.

14:11Guy Raz:I mean, you're making these bars. Your daughter is saying people want them. Can you make more for school? Then you have friends who are like, you should change the ingredients up. But I'm thinking the subtext there was like, hey, Beryl, like maybe there's something here, here. Is that, was that there?

14:31Beryl Stafford:Yes.

14:32Guy Raz:Like how fast did that start?

14:34Beryl Stafford:I would say after a few weeks because this was a thing that she was doing, making these. I mean, that didn't last that long. You know how kids are. She just, that phase was going to peter out quickly. And so that's when Laura Bar had just come around and Cliff Bar was here. But we're all kind of new, you know, and vegan was new. And they said, you know, go to Whole Foods and see what the bars are like. It's growing. It's becoming a bigger category. And also with the backdrop of me not knowing what the hell I was going to do with my life. Maybe you should make these and sell them is what I was hearing.

15:19Guy Raz:What was it about this recipe that was like, you know, versus, I don't know, some chocolate blondie or some cookie recipe that you'd made or something else that you'd made?

15:30Beryl Stafford:They were unusual because they were fresh baked. And for a bar that you might sell in a retail store, there aren't that many fresh baked, but a lot of them were guillotine pressed.

15:45Guy Raz:Like a guillotine, like it just cuts it, cuts it. Cuts it in four corners, four straight corners.

15:50Beryl Stafford:And they were great. And I didn't have any other options. I didn't have anything else to do, really. And so it just kind of became this idea. And her nickname was Bobo. That's so catchy. And so I thought, Bobo's oat bar, well, that's kind of cute. And I didn't think anything of it more than it'll be some kind of hobby or this will be fun.

16:15Guy Raz:Farmers markets maybe or something.

16:17Beryl Stafford:farmer's market. You know, I didn't spend a lot of money on it or a lot of time. And also, my kids thought I was insane. They were becoming teenagers and they were like weirded out by it, that I would do that. But I didn't care. And so I wrapped them in saran wrap without a label for a few days and brought them around to my neighbors and changed flavors. And I kept working on the ingredients. And then my girlfriend came over one day in my round kitchen table, and we sat down and she said, you know what, let's draw you a label and we'll call it Bobo's Oat Bars. I think that's a great idea. Go to your kitchen drawer and get me a Sharpie.

16:59Beryl Stafford:And she right there drew on a piece of paper, the girl that's on the bar to this day, I mean, in five minutes. And she was trained in graphic design, but she was also a stay at home mom and she wasn't working. And she said, no, this would be cute. We'll draw a little girl and make the writing kind of fun, homemade looking. And we'll go to the brewing market, which is right down the street, coffee shop. And I'm very shy. And I'm like, I don't know how to do that. And I don't have experience in sales or the food business. And she said, so what? You know, let's just try it. It'll be fun. And so I wrapped them in saran wrap.

17:40Beryl Stafford:And I go to the printer. I get labels printed with her artwork with no nutritionals. And I put the word organic on it, not knowing that I couldn't.

17:51Guy Raz:Right. You got to get a certified organic. Yeah.

17:53Beryl Stafford:But I did anyway, because all my ingredients were organic. And I soon changed that.

17:59Guy Raz:But in that context of just like selling it in a little store, you can get away with it.

18:04Beryl Stafford:And so I wrap up a few. I had four flavors, original chocolate, cranberry, and coconut. And she said, okay, I'm going to take you to the coffee shop, and I'm going to make the block. You get out, and you go to the barista and ask who wants to sell them. And I said, no, I'm scared. What do I say? And she said, get out of the car. I'll see you in a little bit. And so I walk in there, and this was 20 years ago. There was a long line. The barista standing there hardly can keep up with making lattes. And I'm standing there looking at him, and I don't want to stand in that line. And so I just walk over and put it down on his little shelf, and he's looking at me like I'm insane.

18:46Beryl Stafford:And he goes, what is this? And I go, I just want to see if you'll sell these. They're vegan. And I had a little sell sheet, and I dropped them off, and I ran out. And he said, well, wait, hold on. What do I sell these for? And, of course, I hadn't thought about that. I thought he would know. and I just made something up$2.50 or$2 and he was irritated and ran out and then I had the courage to go back in in two weeks and he said I need some more of those they sold out and then he reordered in about a month maybe and I was shocked and I just went back and made more and that was 12 bars and he said we do get a lot of vegans in here now So great.

19:29Beryl Stafford:I don't have any vegan options. And so I brought in more, and gradually I made$14 one month. I'll never forget. And I thought, okay, this might work. $14 could be$14 ,000.

19:46Guy Raz:When we come back in just a moment, Beryl saves money by sharing a commercial kitchen, but burns through it by buying her ingredients at the wrong place. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

20:17Guy Raz:Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2004, and after getting her homemade oat bars into one coffee shop, Beryl starts baking more of them and shopping them around town. I had gotten into a little co-op in Boulder that opened and wasn't around for very long,

20:35Beryl Stafford:but they were the perfect store for me. Very granola-ish. And they didn't mind that I was wrapped in saran wrap with a three-day shelf life. And they sold very well there. And then I had a call from some random coffee shop, and I got in there, And then there was another little local grocery store called Lucky's that actually is now owned by Kroger and has grown. But same thing. I just went in the back door with a couple and ran out as fast as I could.

21:07Guy Raz:So it was mostly or all local co-ops and little shops and grocers and coffee stores in Boulder.

21:17Beryl Stafford:Yeah.

21:18Guy Raz:And they had a three-day shelf life?

21:19Beryl Stafford:They did with the saran wrap in the very beginning.

21:22Guy Raz:here's a question for you you were you boulders i mean it's not a tiny town but it's compared to los angeles or new york it's a small town and probably it's not uncommon to run into people you know a few times a week right randomly in boulder totally and you uh knew people you'd been there since you went to college was any part of you like nervous or worried that like somebody would see you and they'd be like, Beryl? Is that you? What are you doing? What are you selling?

21:56Beryl Stafford:Yes, I can't believe you said that because yes. And it was such a stupid fear, but I was afraid of people seeing me because it was a new me. I was a stay-at-home mom tennis player who had a social life and now this was the new me. And I mean, I was put in such a tough situation that it was sink or swim. I mean, I was trying to survive. And in the beginning, that's not what I was thinking. I didn't think it was going to make a living for me. But I thought maybe what if it did? And what if I just made a little bit of money and lived on that? I would be okay with that, you know, because I thought it was so fun and so unusual to be able to bake something and people are going to buy these, you know, wow.

22:46Beryl Stafford:That was just so remarkable to me. It was a miracle that somebody would actually buy, take them home and eat them, feed them to their family. It was like play in store.

22:58Guy Raz:Do you remember in those early days when you were selling at the coffee shops, ever running into somebody who said something like, Oh, hey, Beryl, I hear you're doing this, like, granola bar thing? Yeah. Do you ever? Oh, yeah.

23:14Beryl Stafford:How's the cookie business? Yeah. Kind of in a condescending way. Yeah. Those things hurt. At the same time, you're going through some self-doubt.

23:24Guy Raz:And apparently your own children were doubtful about this.

23:28Beryl Stafford:Oh, yeah. And, of course, my ex-husband.

23:32Guy Raz:He was like, what? I mean.

23:34Beryl Stafford:Oh, what are these stupid bars doing in my country club? But that came back to me and I thought,

23:43Guy Raz:well, success is a good pushback. So at what point do you remember? Because this is, you know, I can imagine you were baking them yourself for the coffee shops because you're dropping off, what, a few dozen or a dozen at a time?

23:56Beryl Stafford:A dozen, yeah.

23:57Guy Raz:All right, a dozen at a time, so you can manage that. But I guess at a certain point you had to move out of your kitchen, right? You had to do this in a bigger space.

24:06Beryl Stafford:Yes. And I knew that from the beginning, the health department wouldn't like that. So I found a shared kitchen. They were looking for more cooks or people starting a business.

24:18Guy Raz:To rent space, right?

24:18Beryl Stafford:To rent space. And they were a sandwich delivery company and they wanted somebody to come in a couple of days a week and use their ovens.

24:28Guy Raz:And pay them a rental fee or whatever.

24:30Beryl Stafford:Yeah, and like hourly or daily. And so I came in one day a week and used their oven, and I hired some of their people that worked for them, two girls, to help me. And so I did that for probably a year.

24:48Guy Raz:And did you, I mean, at what point did you move from saran wrap to like a more kind of professional packaging?

24:58Beryl Stafford:So then I knew I had to extend my shelf life. This was crazy. And I finally ended up with my first packaging machine, the biggest piece of equipment that I bought for$25 ,000.

25:12Guy Raz:How did you, how were you able to do that?

25:14Beryl Stafford:I went to the bank back then. It was easier. And they gave me a loan for$100 ,000. But first, up until then, I took a second mortgage on my home, and I used credit cards. And I just was very frugal. And I mean, this was all just very scrappy. I didn't know anything about payroll and I didn't care. I had no idea if I was making any money or what things cost. I just knew at some point I'd figure all that out. So then I outgrew finally this commercial kitchen. But a next door space became available. in another commercial kitchen. And so I went over there, loved it, left. And when I went back the next day to sign, another food entrepreneur had gone in.

26:10Beryl Stafford:And I said, I got it first though. I was there first. And he said, let's work a deal. Let's share it. And it's Justin's nut butter. Oh. And so he and I ended up, and he started just like me, knowing nothing, making this peanut butter in his kitchen. And so he and I jointly took this new space, bigger, and it was just the two of us. And we formed a little LLC. It was crazy. And we shared employees and we shared the space.

26:40Guy Raz:Wow. So you basically pooled your resources, but you had your separate businesses. But that LLC that you formed covered employees who did work for both of you and the space.

26:53Beryl Stafford:Right. And the employees would one day make nut butter and one day make oat bars.

26:59Guy Raz:What an interesting idea. So that LLC, it was the employer.

27:04Beryl Stafford:Yes. And our only expenses were rent and payroll. Otherwise, we had our own bank accounts.

27:13Guy Raz:And you guys got along great and that worked okay? Yeah. What if he needed more help?

27:20Beryl Stafford:Oh, we argued about it all the time.

27:22Guy Raz:Yeah.

27:23Beryl Stafford:And I had a bookkeeper that I had just found. And so I turned her on to Justin. And he was like me. He said, well, I don't understand what she would do. You'll never forget he said that. And I said, trust me, she's going to help you. So we ended up sharing her. But we'd argue about it. So when she was working for me, of course, he couldn't help himself to come in and say, hey, I've got a quick question for you. Did I screw up on this check? And it was always like, no, no, get out. You can't talk to her now. You have to wait till tomorrow.

27:56Guy Raz:I imagine that your costs, I mean, you said you borrowed$100 ,000 from the bank, which is a lot. But also, I mean, your costs were what? Buying oats and sugar and coconut oil. And were you buying it like, I don't know, at Costco? Like, where were you buying this stuff?

28:16Beryl Stafford:Believe it or not, I was buying it at Whole Foods full retail. Wow. In the beginning.

28:22Guy Raz:That's really expensive.

28:22Beryl Stafford:Crazy. And then I started buying it in bigger bulk, but at Whole Foods until I figured out the food distribution network. But crazy expensive. But I did that for almost a year, just figuring out the ingredients.

28:39Guy Raz:I mean, it sounds like, and I mean this with the utmost respect because I think that it's not uncommon, but also it takes a lot of courage. It sounds like you didn't really know much at all. Like you didn't know about the industry. No. You didn't know about like how to run a business. You didn't know how to buy your products. Yep. I'll write a bill on a piece of paper and I just got to keep moving.

29:02Beryl Stafford:Yes, exactly. And sell, sell, sell. That was the first and foremost on my mind every day. once I started taking it seriously. But then, you know, I joined the Naturally Bolder Network, which is a nonprofit organization to help food entrepreneurs that were just starting and didn't know anything and surrounded myself with people that were doing this or had done this. Most of them advised me to stop baking, have somebody else bake this, and you focus on sales and marketing. And I said, no, I want to control this. And I don't want them to look like they're guillotine cut with four square corners. They're imperfect, each bar.

29:48Beryl Stafford:And I wanted them to look like that.

29:50Guy Raz:Right. And you were selling the bars. Do you remember at that point how much you were selling the bars for? This is in like 2006-ish. I think I was selling them for$1.17. Wow. Wow. And then they would sell them for$2.00 or$2.50 or whatever.

30:06Beryl Stafford:Or$1.17 to distributors.

30:08Guy Raz:Right. Okay. But you probably weren't profitable yet. I mean, you were probably spending more than you were bringing in still.

30:16Beryl Stafford:So I became profitable probably six years after I started, six or seven years.

30:23Guy Raz:Okay. I think it was maybe around 2007 that you managed to get into the Whole Foods in Boulder. Is that right? Does that sound right, 2007? Yeah, that sounds right.

30:32Beryl Stafford:Right.

30:32Guy Raz:And I think back then you could walk into a Whole Foods. The company had a lot more autonomy, gave the store autonomy. And you could meet with a buyer there and say, hey, I'm making these. I'm local. And often they'd say, great, this sounds cool. Tell me how you got into that Whole Foods.

30:49Beryl Stafford:Yes, so they were very into the local entrepreneur, the local farmers. That was their thing, and it worked like that. You could get into one store. They might then spread you into other stores in that region. But after I kind of got my courage up and I felt a little more confident in this Bobo bar, I had sold at the co-op for a while. I walked into the bakery, and I asked for the manager, and she said, oh well we've been buying these and eating them from the co-op down the street oh wow we've been wondering when you're gonna walk in and I said duh you know what took me so long but I said great you know and she said yeah let's let's talk about this let's bring these in and we're just having a conversation right there and on top of the bread you know just standing there no office visit she said yes I want these tell me everything but you're gonna have to get your packaging together In other words, I need a freezer safe packaging.

31:50Beryl Stafford:And I said, you got it. And she goes, I'm going to get you in 12 of the Colorado stores.

31:56Guy Raz:She said that even before you were in just that one?

31:59Beryl Stafford:Yes. And she said, I need you to demo in all of these stores. And I said, okay, you got it. Not even knowing what she meant, not knowing about freezer safe packaging. But I just said, oh, yeah. And I walked out of the store pinching myself, but freaked out because I had no idea what she really wanted me to do. So I called my packaging guy. And by that time, I had my packaging machine. So I went to him and said, I need to be freezer safe. I need six months shelf life.

32:36Guy Raz:Six months shelf life. Yeah. And did that scare you?

32:41Beryl Stafford:It scared me that I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to do it. But no, I knew I'd figure it out. I mean, I'm like, are you kidding me? This is my big break. And asked around, what's the best way to do the demo? I called the stores in Denver. I'm coming in this weekend. Can you tell me the best time to come? Of course, most of them hang up on you because they don't want to teach you. You should know what you're doing. And doing a demo is not really that hard. So that's what I did every weekend for a long time. And the whole time I'm figuring it out, I'm showing up at these Whole Foods, and they're telling me, you've got to get the word organic off your label.

33:24Guy Raz:Right, because you were using organic this and organic that, and you're like, it's organic.

33:28Beryl Stafford:Yeah, and they're saying, no, you've got to go through the certification process.

33:31Guy Raz:That organic certification is cost money.

33:35Beryl Stafford:Yes, and time. And so I stopped using an ingredient that I was using organic. I started using conventional, stayed with conventional oats, which was 80 % of the product. And so then I said, made with organic ingredients. And then I came to find out later, you really can't say that. There's all these limitations on what you can say. But I pushed it as long as I could. So, all right.

34:05Guy Raz:So you are in Whole Foods and you start to demo this because that's how you get people to buy it. And you were the demo person or did you bring anyone else on to help you?

34:15Beryl Stafford:I was in the beginning because it was expensive to have somebody stand there for four hours.

34:20Guy Raz:Yeah.

34:20Beryl Stafford:And I enjoyed it. I mean, it took up my whole weekend.

34:25Guy Raz:How did you? Yeah. Tell me a little bit about the experience of putting yourself out there because you're not a performer. You're not like, I don't think, were you like a drama kid in high school? Did you do the play, the theater or any of that? No. You were not that kid, right? You were the one who was like in the back of the choir, like, oh God, well, they made you all sing, right? You're like, I really don't want to do this. So now you are on stage. As a demo person, you are on stage. You are embodying a character because you kind of sell stuff. Right.

34:54Beryl Stafford:You're acting. Hey, come try this. You're the busker. but these are all strangers coming to me. They don't know anything about me. They don't know that I'm just trying to figure this out. So it became a lot easier fast. I always tell people when you're standing behind that table, you know, you're kind of in charge and they don't know anything about you and they're happy to eat free food. And I got good at it. And I got good at the trade shows for that reason. I felt like once I'm behind that table, I'm safe.

35:29Guy Raz:And so you're in Whole Foods and you start to go to trade shows and presumably the big ones, right? The Anaheim one, the Baltimore one, but you're still small. Were you the only full-time employee even once you were in Whole Foods?

35:45Beryl Stafford:Yes, for a few years. And then I hired a marketing assistant slash sales assistant and she did the trade shows with me. And then I had my bookkeeper, who was a contract laborer. Well, they're all part-time, though. Yeah, I didn't want to manage people. I didn't know how. I didn't have experience in that. And I knew I needed help. And I did that for many, many years and basically burned myself out after 10 years.

36:19Guy Raz:I mean, at a certain point, you've got to start working with a food distributor. like that becomes required in order to hit more stores a lot of stores yes so i had a small

36:32Beryl Stafford:distributor here dpi it's called and they started taking my bars to whole foods in denver and it was the first pallet i had ever used and i didn't even know what a pallet was when i started the business and I have a picture of me in this truck but that was my first foray into distribution and then I'm at Expo West one year this is in Anaheim the biggest trade show and a woman walks up to me quickly with the clipboard and says here I need please fill out this paperwork and this is for UNFI East and UNFI is our biggest natural food distributor in the country they have an East Coast Distribution Network.

37:17Beryl Stafford:She said, please fill this out. I'm running the Whole Foods and the whole East Coast, and I want to get your bars in there. Please fill out this paperwork to get into distribution. Thank you. And she walked away. And I thought, what just happened? So this means now I'm in national distribution, and that just kind of fell in my lap. And I didn't know how to fill out distribution paperwork. So I did and I figured it out. And now I'm in the whole country of Whole Foods. Wow. And I was really taking it seriously then. And I was excited about it. And I was working very, very hard and traveling a lot to Seattle, Austin, Southern Cal, where I thought was the best market for a vegan oat bar.

38:08Guy Raz:Yeah. How are you positioning them? You describe them as a vegan oat bar, but of course this is really like the sort of prime time era of gluten-free is really starting to take off and organic, obviously. But gluten-free is a big one, right? Vegan, gluten-free. So did you jump on that at all? because oats are normally gluten-free.

38:34Beryl Stafford:Oh, yeah. That was a big thing for me. And as a matter of fact, in the beginning, I had a gluten-free line that was made with certified gluten-free oats and then the regular oats. Even though oats are gluten-free, they've got to be certified gluten-free.

38:48Guy Raz:Cross-contamination sometimes, yeah.

38:49Beryl Stafford:Out in the field. And so I had those two lines going. It was too confusing for the consumer because I had the word gluten-free written under there. So I ended up just making them all gluten-free. And yes, that was a big selling point. It was a big feature for us then and is now.

39:07Guy Raz:And by this point, I mean, by, I don't know, six years in, I guess both your daughters are probably in college out of the house, right? So you had time to really dig in.

39:20Beryl Stafford:Dig in.

39:20Guy Raz:Yeah.

39:21Beryl Stafford:Yeah. And I did. And I worked all weekend at night. I was obsessed with making this work, but I was having fun. I would say I was kind of in a vacuum because I'm still doing everything myself. And that part was hard, but I didn't want to partner because I couldn't figure out who that would be or what they would do.

39:46Guy Raz:And by the way, when you're in every Whole Foods, you know, it's great, but it's not atypical to do around, I don't know, anywhere from five to ten million dollars in sales. Like even if you're in every Whole Foods, by and large, many of the brands in Whole Foods are still very small businesses.

40:03Beryl Stafford:Yeah. I mean, I was probably bringing in, I don't know, maybe five million at that time.

40:10Guy Raz:Which still, I mean, you probably were, that was great. Four million. Given that you had started at, you know. At zero. At zero, right.

40:19Beryl Stafford:And I was very profitable.

40:21Guy Raz:And lean. You didn't have a whole bunch of people.

40:24Beryl Stafford:Right.

40:26Guy Raz:What do you remember? I mean, even six years in, right, 2010 when you're profitable finally, what were things that were just so hard for you to figure out that you probably could have figured out earlier had you done things a little differently?

40:42Beryl Stafford:I probably could have hired a more elevated salesperson in the beginning. I was doing it all myself, and I didn't have relationships with the buyers. So a more seasoned sales expert, if you will, probably would have been a good hire. You know, I learned everything about the business, though. So I do think it's important to try to do everything yourself in the beginning, as long as you can.

41:12Guy Raz:Yeah. I mean, how did you, for example, figure out how to price it?

41:16Beryl Stafford:You know what I did in the beginning? I just went to Whole Foods, and I saw what everybody else was charging for their bars. And my bar was bigger than most. It's a three-ounce, and most bars are an ounce and a half, two ounces. So I kind of bumped it up a little. You know, I feel like I went on my instinct a lot. and I had a lot of naysayers around me.

41:39Guy Raz:Who? Why would somebody be a naysayer?

41:42Beryl Stafford:Don't do this. Don't do this. You're crazy. You're going to have to sell too many to make a living at this and you need to make a living. And family, I always say family is the worst person to get advice from in the beginning because they don't want you to fail. And my family thought that I was cuckoo to do this, But I remember having lunch with my sister once in Boulder, and she said, well, what? You're going to do this? You're going to delve into this and actually make it work? And I said, yeah, what do you think? And she said, well, how many of those can a person eat? And I thought to myself, how crazy of a question is that?

42:23Beryl Stafford:You know, she doesn't really get it. And I said, how many people are in the country?

42:31Guy Raz:When we come back in just a moment, Bobo's raises some outside money, and all of a sudden, the pressure starts to ramp up. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This.

43:05Guy Raz:Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2014 and Bobo's is profitable, but Beryl is still doing a lot of the work herself. And there's another thing to worry about. Competition as the snack bar market is starting to explode.

43:22Beryl Stafford:Yeah, I did get a little nervous when I would see new brands come after me. I thought maybe they had more money behind them. They knew what they were doing. But I just was a firm believer in the flavor of my bar and the taste. And it was a little different because they're imperfect. They're a little bigger. And I got positive feedback constantly. I just, I knew it was going to work. I had to make it work.

43:50Guy Raz:And what about marketing? I mean, even, you know, bringing$5 million in sales is great. but it doesn't leave you with a lot to spend on advertising, right? So how are you, what were you doing to get people to become aware of the product?

44:07Beryl Stafford:You know, it was mostly in-person demos. And then I did hire demo teams, a lot of them. And they were very expensive and they could only be there at the store for two to four hours. And that's your audience. And then after that, you missed a lot of people. Yeah. And you've spent$200, which to me was a lot then. And I wasn't doing a lot of marketing. There was no social media then, I don't think.

44:37Guy Raz:Not to the same extent, no.

44:39Beryl Stafford:I shipped samples. I gave away a lot of free product. I did a lot of events, races and athletic events, mom groups all over the country. But that was it. I came across a budget I did in 2014, 2013, handwritten in pencil. And I think my marketing budget was 10%. You know, that's what an advisor told me.

45:04Guy Raz:Yeah, it's 10%.

45:05Beryl Stafford:Yeah.

45:06Guy Raz:And meantime, there's all these different and food trends, there's paleo and keto and, and, you know, this and that. And, and, and I wonder whether you would get people from time to time saying, Look what they're doing. Look what those guys are doing. Oh, this brand is really attracting a lot of interest, and look what they're doing. Did you ever feel under pressure to try and do any of those things?

45:33Beryl Stafford:Yeah, and the protein push was brought to us many years ago, and we are sticking with what the bar was in the beginning, which is just an old-fashioned cookie that your grandmother could bake. in her oven and we'll be a hundred year old brand. We're not trendy and we're not adding any superfoods to it.

45:58Guy Raz:So, okay. So you've, you have, you've got this business and I think, you know, as you expand, um, this is now 11 years after you launched this. And I want to, I want to get into this period because you had been spending day and night, weekend after weekend on this thing. And you get to 2015 and you are doing$8 million in sales that year. Did you start to around that time think, I'm getting tired. I need to figure something out here. Yeah.

46:34Beryl Stafford:I was burning out and probably in 2014. I was traveling. I was doing trade shows myself. and I felt like I had gotten it to a certain level and I was tired and I thought what if I sell this yeah and make a little money and be done with this and I started asking around the community in this industry and then I meet this guy TJ McIntyre and I had known him for many years in the natural food business with he was with other companies and he had never been a CEO before I had never thought of hiring a CEO. And he came in and we talked for a while. And he said, you know, I want to run this company. Don't sell it.

47:20Beryl Stafford:You're too little. You're too young. You're too small. You need to grow. And you know, what's wrong with you? Are you tired? And I said, as a matter of fact, yes. And he said, no, don't let's let's do this. Let's run it together. And I thought about it for a while and I think it was around a holiday and I was in New Orleans with my daughter and he called me and he said, you know, I need an answer. And just pressured me, which was good because I couldn't decide what to do. And I said, okay, let's do it. I'll hire you and let's see how it goes.

47:56Guy Raz:And why was TJ, why do you remember he was so enthusiastic about wanting to do this?

48:05Beryl Stafford:I liked him, but I didn't know him well. But we hit it off, very smart. I thought he'd be a great leader. And I thought, okay, big step, but I'm going to do this. So we became a real company then. I had to hire lawyers, and we had to get all the legal documents together, and we created shares. That's how we became a company. And he got some shares, and I've got the rest. And it was a risk, and I was scared. But I believed in him, and he's still here.

48:47Guy Raz:Wow. And so now you guys are creating a new partnership. You are going to step down as CEO. What was your new role going to be? What were you going to focus on?

48:59Beryl Stafford:My new role was going to be founder, president, face of the company. We hadn't yet formed a plan. I was still unclear about raising capital. I had never done that before. But he convinced me that we couldn't do it without growth. And he's right.

49:20Guy Raz:Yeah. He had a playbook. And I think he wanted to double the sales within a year or so. how did it work in terms of like decision making? I mean, did you essentially say, I'm going to trust your playbook and I'm not going to second guess you and you've got the reins here?

49:40Beryl Stafford:Pretty much. There were times that were a little challenging and we butted heads, but all in all, yeah, I just kind of worked alongside of him and then gradually stepped back and let him take over.

49:56Guy Raz:Okay. Part of this plan was to raise outside money. And the first round was about$8 million. Again, not we're not I mean, by tech terms is nothing right. They're raising 100 million per round or whatever. But still, it's now there's money from outsiders coming into the business. How did you feel about that whole process about going out and raising money and having to justify or answer questions that might have felt, I don't know, insulting or invasive. Like, why do you think you're going to be able to do X, Y, and Z kind of questions?

50:32Beryl Stafford:Yeah. All of a sudden, there were some big boys at the table and it was intimidating for me. They're now in my business making decisions. I took some money off the table when the investor came in.

50:47Guy Raz:That was the first time you came into probably real money.

50:52Beryl Stafford:Yeah. Not enough really to retire on.

50:56Guy Raz:Yeah, but still, I mean. But it was a good little chunk. Yeah, given that you started selling it at your coffee shops, right? I mean, to have a few hundred thousand or maybe a million or so more, I mean, that's pretty great.

51:10Beryl Stafford:Yeah.

51:11Guy Raz:I think by the end of 2017 or maybe even earlier, you guys had doubled, you hit 16 million in revenue. So now really, you're starting to see momentum, right? And did you find that your investors were coming in and saying, you guys really should do this? Or I noticed that this brand has this product line, and you guys should really explore that? Or I see this product at Costco, and maybe you guys should try that? Were you getting that from them? Or were they mainly hands off?

51:40Beryl Stafford:In the beginning, the first investor was because, you know, it was just the three or four of us at the table. And I trusted and believed in their advice. You know, it's been a long time now. It's been 10 years since I've had investors. So there have definitely been times where I didn't agree.

52:01Guy Raz:Was it over products? Like, hey, you guys should do more chocolate. Or was it more about strategy? Or was it marketing? What were some of the conflicts over?

52:10Beryl Stafford:Well, I would say mostly the economic terms of their investment. Right. That has been a struggle each time we ran out of money.

52:22Guy Raz:Right. Because as an investor who's listening knows, when the company asks you for more money, the playbook is to ask for more ownership.

52:34Beryl Stafford:They're trying to de-risk. I'm trying to de-risk. So everybody's trying to protect their investment.

52:43Guy Raz:So here's what's interesting is that every year you grew, you continue to grow, right? But every year the bar market became more and more competitive. And you had, you know, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but trends, protein, keto. I mean, RX Bar, we've done that on the show and Cliff Bar and Lara Bar and others. Even though you guys were growing in sales, did it become harder? Did you start to see that it was really hard to compete against all these different brands as this category got so big?

53:20Beryl Stafford:Yes, it's very competitive. And you might have a great promotional period. It might not last. you're constantly trying to innovate and figure out what the consumer wants people get sick of products people get sick of eating the same thing a lot of companies aren't around anymore because consumers get you just get tired of something i guess and that's that is um our worry there's so many bars out there and retailers will trade you out very quickly yeah well i see you at

53:58Guy Raz:Costco, for example. And Costco is tricky because it's great. It's visible. You're Costco, but also Costco is ruthless. They need you to give them the lowest, lowest, lowest price so they can sell it for slightly, slightly higher price, but that's still really low.

54:14Beryl Stafford:Yes. Costco likes to find the newest, best thing and be the first to market with it. They will bring you in and then want the customer to miss you and then be excited when you're back.

54:31Guy Raz:Right. It's always this kind of nightmare scenario if one day they're like, hey, we're going to take a break.

54:36Beryl Stafford:And they do that. But that wrecks havoc on our manufacturing. Right.

54:42Guy Raz:Because you're making all these products for Costco.

54:45Beryl Stafford:And the orders come in big. And so we have bought equipment just for Costco and spent a lot of money on them. And we forecast that Costco will remain our partner. And they don't always do what we want. They do what they want.

55:04Guy Raz:Of course, yeah. Right?

55:06Beryl Stafford:And it's hard running a manufacturing plant as we do. We've got 500 employees and it's 125 ,000 square feet, which sounds enormous to me.

55:16Guy Raz:Yeah.

55:17Beryl Stafford:Still a small business.

55:18Guy Raz:And you are vertically integrated. You make your own. You own your own production lines.

55:23Beryl Stafford:Yes. We have a little bit of co-packing, but mostly we do all of our own baking. And when things get very busy, when we're heavy with Costco, we use our co-packer.

55:35Guy Raz:And, I mean, with the money that you guys have raised over time, I think it's maybe total is$15 million. Is that about right? A little bit more.

55:47Beryl Stafford:$17 million.

55:47Guy Raz:$17 million, yeah. Probably. At some point, right, investors want to return. Sure. And so usually it's like, you know, in a case like this, you sell to a bigger beast, you know, a General Mills or one of these, you know, food brands, PepsiCo or something. There was a time where they were just snapping these Lara Bar and RX Bar and they were snapping them up, right? And Kind Bars and Cliff Bar sold to Mono Lees. And some of that has slowed down in the last two or three years, some of those acquisitions. But, I mean, it has to be on the radar for a brand like yours at some point.

56:29Beryl Stafford:Yeah, and I'm sure we are. It has gotten a lot harder to sell and sell for a figure that you're happy with. Like you said, it used to be profitable. Who cares? As long as you're showing fast growth. Right. And now it's different. It's a lot harder to sell your company now. But yeah, so yes, we will be selling at some point. It's a matter of becoming kind of perfect with your numbers to be as desirable as we want to be.

57:02Guy Raz:So, I mean, here we are now, right? It's estimated that, again, you're a private company, but it's estimated that sales are anywhere between over$100 million now at Bobo's. And there's a lot in the line. There's a crowded energy bar or snack bar market, but this brand is an established known brand. and, you know, it is kind of amazing that you were a divorced mom kind of struggling to figure out what you were going to do with your life. Didn't have a lot of options. And you had no idea where the path was going to go.

57:40Beryl Stafford:No. And I feel like, obviously, luck came in play a lot. I was at the right place at the right time. but I attribute this successful brand to my grit and love what you do. You know, it was, it wasn't really work for me. It was fun. You know, I was just shocked anytime I would see somebody that I didn't know eating a Bobo bar. Billy Bob Thornton, my favorite actor, just said in an interview that that's what he eats for breakfast every day is a Bobo's oat bar. And I mean, that just touches my heart.

58:20Guy Raz:Well, you answered my luck and skill question already, so I don't need to ask it. So thank you for doing that on my behalf. I mean, it's almost like you just kind of followed what you were interested in. It was interesting to you, and that's why it happened.

58:38Beryl Stafford:Yeah, and I think my toughness came out. You know, I had to be tough and figure it out, you know, and there are a lot of situations where I would not have done that. If I had stayed married, I would never have done it. And one thing I learned with doing this business, a light bulb went off once midway through my career here, that you and I and everybody can figure anything out, anything. You can learn how to fly an airplane. You can learn how to build an air conditioner. You can figure anything out. It's not about being the smartest person in the room. It's about desire, focus, and time. And that's what I learned.

59:29Guy Raz:That's Beryl Stafford, founder of Bobo's. By the way, over the years, the packaging has gone through some changes, but it still has that same drawing of a smiling, blonde-haired girl, the one that Beryl's friend sketched out in five minutes in her kitchen using a Sharpie. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas, and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my newsletter at guyroz.com or on Substack.

1:00:04Guy Raz:This episode was produced by Noor Gill with music composed by Ramtina Arablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Alex Chung. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Kweisi Lee. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Catherine Seifer, Chris Messini, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Ramel Wood, Carrie Thompson, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This.

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