Nuts.com: Jeff Braverman. From Corner Store to Snacktime Powerhouse

0:11 And I told my dad and my uncle, I actually met them back in Edison, New Jersey, where they were still living. I I went with them for a walk. I remember exactly where I was because I said I want to join the family business. And they said verbatim, You're nuts. Like like you can't make this up. Yeah. I mean it's c

0:29 Classic for my family, of course, but uh I was making more money than they were. But I made it clear, look, I need the keys to the store. And I'm gonna deliver.

0:41 And My uncle kissed me. And he was like, I love you and let's you know I don't understand. But I feel blessed.

0:51 And uh Let's let's do this. Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. They built.

1:12 I'm Guy Roz, and on the show today, how Jeff Braverman transformed his family business from a humble storefront in Newark, New Jersey. Into a huge online snack emporium. Nuts.com. Normally, we just interview founders on this show, but today we're making somewhat of an exception because technically my guest Jeff Braverman didn't found the company that he eventually transformed. It was a small family business that sold nuts in Newark, New Jersey. and it was started by Jeff's grandfather in nineteen twenty nine.

1:52 Back then, it was called the Newark Nut Company, and as I say, it was a small local business. But around two thousand three Jeff decided to leave his job in finance to see if he could turn that nut store into a national brand. Now at the time, Newark Nut Company was doing about a million dollars a year in sales, so yeah. Very small.

2:16 But Jeff saw a huge opportunity in turning the family business. into an e-commerce business. And eventually he rebranded it as Nuts.com. Today, that same company does over$100 million in sales a year. It's still family owned, with thousands of products.

2:35 Nuts, chocolate, gummy candy, pretzels, crackers, you name it. The story of how Jeff reinvented a nearly 100 year old company? is full of surprises. A random comment from Rachel Ray that changed everything, a hilariously bad jingle that turned into marketing gold. even a peanut protest against CBS Studios. And we'll get to all of that. But first, Jeff grew up in the 1980s and 90s in Edison, New Jersey, not far from his grandfather's store in Newark. And some of his earliest memories

3:09 are of helping out at the shop. He loved it when we came to the store we would sit down and do stuff, you know, help him cut open bags, believe it or not, M's. We would open up bags of Ms and dump them into these buckets. He would get up with us when the uh peanut roaster, when the peanuts would come out of roaster, till almost the day he died, he would get up. And help us bag the peanuts. You know, for me it was special because I I would spend a

3:32 Most of my time I would spend with him would be at the store. So to us grandkids he was this Still a stoic kind of quiet guy, wouldn't say a lot, but very loving and a very proud. Grandfather. But with the previous generation it was it was tougher.

3:46 It was tougher. How he how how so? Kind of his way or his way or the highway. Um you you do what you do what you're told. Uh you know, my dad You know, he tried my dad would try to do some forms of innovation or make some changes in the business.

4:02 And my grandfather would often say no. At one point I remember my dad telling me the story where He wanted to put display cases. I mean this is like crazy talk, but like You couldn't see the product in the old store.

4:14 And my dad said, Well, let's make display cases. How much more could you imagine how much more we could sell if the customers could see the product? So y you would go pr p prior to that you'd walk into the store and you wouldn't see any displays of nuts. You would just what would you Think about like a I don't know, like a old country Western store what you would see on TV. They were just barrels of product. Right. And they would be more in the back and so on. And then they would plus customer would have to know what they wanted. And then the you would go and put it in a bag for the scoop it for them. Correct. Got it.

4:43 By the time you were born, nineteen eighty, Newark, which is where this you know, the storefront was and and where the operations were was already in serious decline, right? Um economic decline. W do you remember what do you remember about going to Newark to the store when you were little? Did it feel Safe? Like what do you remember about that? Again, the old store'cause I was only four or five, I don't remember that much about that, but for the when we moved

5:10 Yeah, like we had code words if someone was gonna rob us. Just two blocks away, but the the But then the customers were scared to come. Um But like so like I remember when the alarm would go off as a kid, sometimes I would just go in with my dad and uncle. They would have to go in and check. And I would be in the car, you know. I think

5:30 uh I don't know when first he had car phones came out. Um, so maybe I don't think I was six years old. Maybe I was twelve or thirteen, I don't remember, but I remember having nine one one pressed ready to hit it as they went into the store to check what caused the alarm to go off. Meantime, were you always working there like during high school, like was this we your your weekend job and after school work? Yeah, so I would go a lot. Certainly when I was little.

5:55 And one nice thing that my dad did for me is just I was empowered. Maybe we had no choice, but at seven years old I love doing the cash register, which is pretty cool for a seven year old to do. Um but yeah, so like You know, summers I would work in the store, you know, as I got older then I would go in on Saturdays for sure. Because my grandfather passed. When I was about fifteen. Mm-hmm. Correct. So I would spend lots of

6:17 Saturdays. W once your grandfather died, I'm assuming I mean your br your uncle and your dad continued to run the business, it was still generating enough revenue to support their family. Yeah. It wasn't great though and they obviously had to work super hard. I mean this is, you know. Most of the time they're just scooping quarter pound of

6:34 Cash using do doing work like that. Uh but they did have to evolve. And and go more into wholesale just because the retail kept on declining. So who were they selling to? So for for wholesale? Yeah.

6:47 Uh you know specialty supermarket. Um the one thing that I learned from my grandfather and my uncle is he You know. Give the customer what you what you want to eat, you know, kind of like the golden g golden rule. treat us as you want to be treated. So so we actually had great quality stuff. So there was like this

7:05 specialty supermarket in st in more southern Jersey that just appreciated it. Um but we would just sell them, most customers we would just sell them. Which to me wasn't that interesting, but we sell them bulk cases. They would get twenty five pound cases of whether it was gonna be mental dates, Or or freshly roasted peanuts and so on, it was not pre it was it wasn't repackaged at all.

7:26 And then that those customers repackage them and then sell them themselves. Exactly. So at that time, like l sort of the late nineties, right, as you're getting ready for college, can you estimate h what Wha how big was the business was it doing five million a year, ten million a year? No, about a million dollars. So it was a yeah, it was a small business. They probably ran things pretty tight. to keep costs down. Very tight. Right. So they were I mean your dad and your uncle were literally doing like

7:54 labor. Like they were doing they were moving Yes. Sacks of nuts and things to to keep costs down. Yeah, a hundred percent. I mean back then When we would get so we uh our claim to fame was were these freshly roasted peanuts in the shell. So we get a truckload in, maybe then it was every two months or so.

8:11 Um And Truck. comes in with hundred pound burlap sacks. They're floor loaded. These are raw peanuts. These are raw peanuts in the shell. Coming from Georgia. Where do where these would come from North Carolina, come from Georgia. And then you roast them on site.

8:25 Correct, but we would have to get them. Flo floor loaded, you have to get them inside. Yeah. We actually had a second level. 'Cause we built this building. How much how but every two months how much how many pounds of peanuts roughly? So a truckload's about forty thousand pounds. Wow, that's a lot of peanuts. All right. Meantime, uh, you're getting ready to go to college and and start your life and and you go to the University of Pennsylvania. Um and from what I've read, you were a a a little bit of a like a like a stock market savant in high school. Uh yeah, yeah.

8:54 And I and I know those kinds of kids. It's always that weird kid who's like really good at stock picking, you know, and and they do pretty well, right? And so sometimes they don't, but but y you were one of those kids. Yeah. Um so getting back to your your life story, you you go to Penn and you get a degree in finance and management and um Uh, did you think or assume like I'm gonna wind up running my dad and granddad's business. Like I'll be a third generation owner of the net store. Like were you thinking that in college? Not at all.

9:25 You know, I was always gonna help in whatever capacity I could. But my dad hated it. It was Terrible. All right. He was he worked really hard, didn't make a lot of money. It was super stressful. Right. We almost lost the house over this thing. So like

9:43 There were no expectations placed on me and I didn't place any expectations on myself. I I didn't I didn't think I was gonna go into the business. But you did something in college is interesting to me. I mean, this is this is the late nineties when it just started to become easier to register domain names. This is this is why I own guyRaz dot com because it was around then that I I registered that, although I don't think there was a big clamoring for that at the time. You registered nutsonline.com. Tell me about

10:09 about that. Why did you do that? I was because of just my stock investing in high school, I was just very attuned to what was going on in that world. I mean, most people knew about the inert thing, but like I'm the kid who Based on Peter Lynch's philosophy, I bought AOL stock maybe in 1995 before everyone thought it was gonna go bankrupt, and I was like, no way. So I was like more I was closer to this than most seeing what was happening. And to be clear, then anyone can make money picking stocks when in that go-go era of the internet. Um You know, I just looked at our little store. And I see this new thing called the internet taking off.

10:47 I was like, well, wait maybe the whole country could be our you know, we could sell to the whole country. We had my dad and my uncle, because of this was struggling so much, they did try You know, when I was in high school to do some type of catalog. but it didn't bring that much in. So like I was already thinking of I already had some exposure just the seed of of other other channels and ways to go to market. But for me I was like, wow, the internet's taking off.

11:13 Let's try it. Let's go sell nuts online. So you register nutsonline dot com probably cost you ten bucks or whatever, right? Not A little sixty sixty nine dollars or so. A little more. But yeah. And Alright, so you have Uh this and what what was the plan was to convince your dad and uncle

11:32 To start To have a website and start taking orders online? Yeah. So I put together a little business plan I met them at a the local diner in Edison, New Jersey. Um

11:46 This could have been their first one or one of the few business meetings they've ever really had. And You know, they were excited by the idea and I said, Okay, well I need a budget. You know, I think they had They had confidence in me.

11:59 And I also had a unique relation with my dad where But in high school I started managing his money. So it's so unique set of circumstances. You manage your dad's money. Wow. Wasn't like he had that much, but you can't get a pick stock for you and stuff. Correct. I took it I I started calling it stockbroker said, Why are you recommending these whatever, I got into it. But then like I put together a plan for my dad, like how how he could retire and what he needs to do and So he he trusted you probably. He was like wow. Yeah. Yes, yes. Not a hundred, hundred percent. That comes a couple years into the business. Yep. But yes. So They gave me a budget of like

12:33 It's just a made up thing like seven hundred dollars. Those days it was really hard to build a website for seven hundred dollars. Yeah, it was really expensive. I ended up spending closer to Three thousand dollars? Um,'cause I had to hire a company and and so on and so forth. And you had that money from what, your stocks or you No, that they still had some it wasn't like

12:53 the business was destitute. It wasn't a super profitable business, but like When they did the catalog test, I'm sure it costs more than that, just to show perspective. But what w you were saying then, hey guys We can sell stuff while we're asleep. While you're asleep, you can sell nuts. Through the website, through the internet. And did either your dad or your uncle say, The internet, who's gonna buy stuff through the internet? Uh w isn't that where you go watch not even not that time, you're even watching cat videos. At that time it was like, you know, I don't know

13:21 I don't know what you were doing in night. Let's put it this way. Uh nutsonline.com was my seventh choice for a domain name at the time. Got it. So the w yeah, how do they react when you I don't think they knew. I didn't have any huge promises at that point in time. Um, they also recognize that like we have to figure something out. The business keeps on declining.

13:47 I think it was just more they had just confidence in me and let's give this kid a shot. Yeah. Why were you I'm I'm I mean, what motivated you to do this?'Cause this is a great this is a great son thing to do or a grandson thing to do. Like, hey, I wanna was it you wanna help the business grow and thrive or was it just like scratching an itch'cause it was seemed fun? Like 'Cause you were not gonna Do this full time.

14:09 It's a It's a great question. I don't know if it was hey gonna do something big, but certainly it was just this familial pull I thought that goes back generations that just Just good.

14:22 Do whatever it takes to help. So I think it was just that poll just just wanting to help. Um Not not much more than that. And ha and how w w w w when were you gonna do this? Were you planning on doing this like'cause you register the domain at ninety nine. You gotta build a website, not the time again. Very hard to do. There's no square space.

14:41 There's no Shopify. Like you need somebody who knows how to do this. And it's gonna cost some money. And then you need there's no logistics, there's no there's a third party logistics operators the same way, there's no drop shipping, like none of that infrastructure that's so easy now. So w how are you gonna do this? One of my friends, he was a year older. Happen to have had a roommate.

15:06 Uh who was building websites. So it's one of these As simple as that, if not for that, I have no idea. because it was harder and it would have been a lot more money. So that's also why I built it for like three thousand dollars or so. Um But in order we will get a few orders trickling here or there. Could it be one a day, one every two days.

15:25 But for my dad and mom, it was the most exciting thing in the world. My dad would scream out, We had this little office above the store, and he would scream out, We got an order He would be so excited, and then we had this little thing I made as a boy with like a clothes pin type thing, and he would lower the string down out of the office window. He would still use that to drop the order down. Um so but then they would We had a credit card machine? Nothing was automated then, so you have to type in the credit card number. So we get the number, nothing's encrypted, right? You see the number, it passes across, you type it into the credit card machine. Where I remember as we got going a few years later, like I could do that really fast, so I would do that for a holiday. I would type My finger's really fast. Order would come in you'd manually numbering, type it into the credit card machine.

16:07 And then the the the amount. And then and then you would do We didn't even have product labels at that point in time. This is really rudimentary. Uh we would type in the UPS or FedEx shipping label ourselves. We would then have to type the tracking number back into back to the customer. But the order would come out.

16:26 They would go take bags at the time, they weren't great. 'Cause there wasn't much else out there, but clear cello bags. They would fill them? Scoop right from the counter? Have a foot pedal to seal them? And you put'em in a box and then UPS comes later on and picks it up.

16:42 Alright, meantime you graduate from Penn and you go work for Blackstone. And and when you went to start working at Blackstone. Again. Were you thinking this is just temporary? I actually am really excited about this nuts business and and the the potential for the internet here, or

17:00 Or was there no way you were gonna do that? No no way I was gonna do that. You were not gonna do that. You were gonna go into finance. I was gonna go into Finance.

17:10 Uh You know, I've read the books back then. I read a book called Monkey Business. Where I was like, Oh, investment banking stinks. But I still kind of went into it. Um it's just hard to to to to go against the the herd. Um so I just

17:24 Went along with everyone else, but no expectations of going to the family business. To me, I always had this entrepreneurial bug. Mm. So was what was I gonna do? Maybe through the world of finance, I would buy a business or do something like that. I don't think it was gonna be be in strictly finance and I I think there were a couple of kind of random kind of epiphanous moments for me.

17:46 One is I had to like I think th they said I couldn't take off for Thanksgiving. Um and then I just did anyway. My sister was in Spain. And

17:55 And I visited her. And she wasn't really making any money, but her life was beautiful. I was like, Hm, okay. And and then I went to uh a blackstone sponsored event. They were very involved. The chairman was involved in the council of farm relign relations And so I went to a an event and I happened to have met one of my colleagues' uncles.

18:15 who was an entrepreneur, so not finance, but an engineer. He he he was actually a Working for the man. Working a hundred hour weeks. And you know, said Hey, I'm better than this and he left and

18:27 went on to entrepreneurial pursuits. So uh you know. I a and I mentioned that point about working for the man. I did have an entrepreneur management fress professor who said the greatest risk in life is working for the man. So I have these seeds in my head. It's a great it's a great quote. Yeah, and for me like seeing

18:46 I was sad. I'm a pretty empathetic person and Let's say, you know, I'm in the office early on a Saturday morning. And I see the partner there. Making

18:58 Millions and millions. I don't know if it's tens of millions, but millions and millions of dollars. And it was really sad to see this. Grown man. who's not spending time with his kids. Not just not with his wife. And it was just like sad and and for me You know, I just

19:14 Wanted better. And I felt like look, I felt there was something I wanna s I say this with humility, but I felt there was something special. about me that I can do good things in life. So just like these And when I met with that

19:27 uncle that that the colleague's uncle, I was like, Well should I just wait after the the one year? 'Cause I'm sure you get this question from people all the time. Like when is the right time? Yeah. And he's like Uh what, you get a stub bonus in December?

19:42 He's like 'Cause he was like, now I was like, Well, I get a stup bonus in in five weeks. Yeah. Um he said, just leave as soon as you can. All right, so you decide you're gonna quit Blackstone and go join the family business. And th at this point it's still called the Newark Nut Company, right? Correct. It's not called Nuts Online. It's called the Newark Nut Company. Nuts Online was just a website.

20:04 Correct. And what was your I mean you know, Blackstone in two thousand three or two thousand two, you were easily making I don't know, seventy, eighty grand a year, maybe more. Even more, yeah. I was making about a hundred and five thousand or exactly a hundred and five thousand. Yeah, I cash. Yeah. When I told my dad and my uncle, I actually met them b back in Edison, New Jersey, where they're we're still living. Um I I went with them for a walk. I remember exactly where I was because I said I want to join the family business.

20:33 This is before quitting. And they said verbatim, You're nuts. Like like you can't make this up. I mean. classic from my family, of course, but uh'cause they're they're a cast of character, but

20:45 I was making more money than they were. I was really highly rated, you know, I was well educated and and doing phenomenal and They hated More my dad more so than my uncle, but they hated what they did, you know? Um and

21:01 You know, what might Dad though said to me at that point was it wasn't Necessarily a carte blanche. But I made it clear, look, I need the keys to the store. And

21:12 I'm gonna deliver. And My uncle kissed me. And he was like I love you and let's you know I don't understand.

21:23 But I feel blessed. And uh let's let's do this. So you and and you didn't y you joined to basically the to to take over Or to run, I guess the internet side of this thing. But what was your deal? I mean I mean what how would you get paid?

21:39 Yeah, and it wasn't even with the internet. I didn't know the internet was gonna be the big thing. So what I did was I said okay. Right. I understood the value for the the the the symbolic value of equity. This business was worth nothing.

21:53 I said, hey, I want ten percent of the business. I want 50% of the upside of profit. There wasn't much profit. Um And I need a draw.

22:05 'Cause I need some money to I suppose still living in Manhattan. So I took a twenty eight thousand dollar draw against my profit share. Okay, so it makes sense. Alright, so your Now working full time.

22:18 at the family business, the the Newark Nut Company. And and what? Uh w were you Like making suggestions on how to change the business. Like what what were you doing? Yeah, so I just rolled up my sleeves and and and dug in and just looked at like Let's just Study this business, try to see where the opportunities are. So some would be simple as hey.

22:38 We sell raw cashews in the store and roasted cashews. I know what we pay for raw cash is. We're buying from our friend the roasted cashews'cause he was a roaster. That spread is pretty big. Well why don't we just send him the raw cashews, pay him just to toll it, just to roast it.

22:54 And that would suddenly save us ten thousand dollars. That's like Mana from heaven. Right. So A I start winning proof points of my datam uncle because that's like You know.

23:03 real money for a business that's not making any money. Um, and then the other thing I did was well there's a couple of things. One thing I did was I visited our wholesale customers and just said What more can we do for you? Mind you, I'm a shy kid. I don't like selling at all.

23:18 And I didn't love that we were selling sometimes commodities in a twenty five pound box. Right. Point of differentiation there. So we had, for example, the specialty supermarket said

23:31 I really want you to package the product for us. My dad and my uncle said No, too much labor. Hm. I showed them the math.

23:41 And then I became the laborer. Right. But this is still this is not This is still Newark Nut company. Correct. It's still, you know, your grandpa's company. And and but this really is the beginning of why we're doing this story. And I wanna explain this

23:58 this quirk uh of this story to our listeners because You are not the founder of Newark Nut Company. you join the family business. But And this is the

24:10 You essentially founded a new company. And this was not what you were thought you were doing when you joined, right? You didn't think that it was gonna be a completely different company, which we're gonna get to. You thought you were gonna Help. grow this business. Is that fair to say?

24:26 A hundred percent. It was gonna be Newark Nut Company, and maybe it would be Five, ten, twenty percent bigger and and it would be a nice lifestyle. Yeah. You would have to get a little bit bigger than that to be a nice nice lifestyle. Maybe four or five X that, but yes. Right. But uh again, early days, this is pre stripe, pre internet security.

24:47 Um People are still wary about I mean there were st I remember like you get on the Today Show you watch the Today Show or the nightly news with Tom Broke on it's like, you know, people are using their credit cards on the internet and uh getting you know, be m many people are reluctant to do that. In two thousand three People were reluctant to do that. So how did you start to

25:08 use the internet or see the internet as as a bigger opportunity. What what kinds of things were you doing e just to even create awareness around w what you were offering. Yeah. I saw the potential with Google certainly in two thousand three. Um, once I joined the business, I started seeing it. A book came out.

25:27 I don't remember exactly when it was one of the first books about how to use Google Add words. And at some point I just hired the guy. The guy who wrote the book Do you remember his name? Yeah, Andrew Goodman. Guy named Andrew Goodman wrote a book. It was like a like a paperback about how to use Google.

25:44 Oh I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even and I'm friends with them still, but uh we don't you know, we don't work together anymore, but uh A friend of mine sent me the PDF, I didn't even pay for it. So we were one of the first, not the first nut guy online, there was a couple other people, but we're in that

26:02 Freshman class, right? Um uh of of of people online. You know, so so there was some distinct first mover kind of competitive advantage. And kind of I looked at it similar earlier on, it's like well We can sell it. One order.

26:19 To a one customer. In every state a day. That's fifty orders a day. Mind at an average average price of what twenty, twenty five bucks an order. Maybe a little more than that. And we used to charge shipping then. I don't remember what it was back then, but it it could be a little bit more. I don't remember to be honest back then. So

26:37 Um, you know, bottom line is I said hey. I don't like this wholesale bulk stuff. This concession supply stuff I don't like selling. I like more building and engineering and being behind the scenes. Let's go all in.

26:52 Let's take advantage of this early mover advantage. and just run faster than This is a stodgy industry. Let's move faster than Anyone else. In our in our space.

27:04 You know, we we probably had, you know, let's say call 150 or so products. I started adding some more products at the time, but nothing aggressive. Um and let's really utilize the power of Google AdWords. So what did that mean? I mean this is 2003. You you're revamping the website. And Again, two thousand three websites, these are a different world.'Cause b before

27:26 And we're gonna get to the day when you launched it, because we think it's december fourth, two thousand three. Correct. Is that right? Yes, yes. But before that date, you were getting what, between one and five orders a day on average? Yes, it it could be a few orders a day type of a thing. So what before December fourth,'cause we're gonna get to that in a second. What did you do? What did you put in place that was going to change the equation that day? So we m were spending very small amounts of money advertising. Okay.

27:56 And the shift was just still not to spend that much more, but it was going from three dollars a day to a hundred dollars a day. Got it. You were going from a spending a thousand dollars a year to thirty six thousand dollars a year. Correct, which is a bill. Through Google AdWords. Correct.

28:10 Okay, so to December fourth, two thousand three. Is the day you relaunch this new Revamped site, nuts online. We launch the ad campaigns immediately on. And it's like the floodgates completely open.

28:26 It it goes up ten X immediately. But if we were doing three orders a day, suddenly it's thirty. Well. But it was But the reason why you saw this shift was because of

28:37 The way you used Google AdWords. Yes. I mean that was the Yes, we launched a much the site was better, don't get me wrong, and and faster and friendlier and and easier to use and so on. But then it also then at that point I was able to unlock, you know, unleash begin to unleas Google. What w when all of a sudden these this flood of orders comes in, it's still a small team of people. Like you guys are literally packing these orders

29:03 Um, how did your dad and uncle respond? Were they like, Oh my God, this is amazing. So my my dad I mentioned earlier, but my dad's uh a creature of habit. And Look in this store.

29:15 when we would be busy for Christmas just in the store, he'd be so nervous. I loved it. He'd just be so nervous. It was busy. But most days it would be dead. Like we'd be sitting there on Saturdays. In the summer. And it's like

29:28 I I I did the math. I finally said we're shutting down on Saturdays. We were making two dollars a person an hour. It was just like there was nothing. There were no claims. So he would be so nervous when it was dead too. So here, right, it just like It's just like boom boom like like'cause suddenly you're talking about it could be a few an hour, right? And

29:53 He says shut it off. He said shut it off. He said shut it off because he was so nervous because again It was just us. We have to do the work similarly. Gotta fill those orders. And you know, there might have been some expletive said, but uh it's like if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I told him go home. We got this. Go home.

30:16 When we come back in just a moment, the online business gets a huge and crazy boost. When some T V fans launch a protest against CBS. By sending them pounds. Of peanuts.

30:30 Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz. So it's early 2005, and the revamped website for nutsonline.com is getting some serious traction. So serious that Jeff has to convince his nervous dad not to shut it down. Meanwhile, most business is still coming from wholesale in the brick and mortar store in Newark. But that store?

31:12 It's about to get raised to the ground. So the city can build a hockey arena. There went the retail store. Um so you had no choice but to find somewhere some location somewhere else. Okay, you did find a location, a facility where you were gonna do your roasting and your packing.

31:28 But no retail store, right? Correct. Essentially ne two thousand five was the end. Of a storefront. of Newark Nuts. Correct. It's it's obviously sad from the family heritage standpoint.

31:44 My uncle was probably more sad than my dad, but my dad hated this store. Snow customers and it was hard. And people try to rob you. So like not not a not a great thing. I think the biggest emotion was fear. Because the store still brought in revenue. even though it wasn't a fun place to work, it's still brought in cash. And margin, much better margin than wholesale.

32:05 You're talking retail margins. You sell you're buying truckload of peanuts. And you roast it. Okay, granted, you're selling a pound bag for a dollar fifty nine or whatever, dollar seventy nine. It's not a lot of gross profit dollars, but there's margin on it. Um, you know, meaning you can't make tons of money, but you can make you can make money. So great. I mean, even though the the numbers are small, the margins are high. So there was fear, but do you remember specifically saying or or or having a conversation

32:31 That wouldn't smell like this. We're not gonna have a a brick and mortar store anymore. We're not gonna have customers coming in. W the internet is seems to be working, the wholesale business seems to be working. We're not gonna stand there and and sell uh to retail customers anymore.

32:47 We just had no we had no choice. Like this is a store that was already there. for for for generations, right? For for You know, but you could have. I mean you could have opened up a new you could have gone to the suburbs and opened a Newark Nut company. I'm just saying it wasn't out of yeah. But we just didn't know how to do that. Like would the customers come? Will they come from scratch? Like

33:08 We already were losing more and more customers. It was just something that wasn't in the family vocabulary and it would be super risky. Yeah. But yeah, when we but when we moved out I was terrified we were now gonna have like much more of a real warehouse. So about a fifteen thousand square foot building and I was nervous. We had offices in the front. I was go about to sublease it, but then something told me not to.

33:29 And You know, thank God we didn't. Yeah, because you you were thinking this is too big for us. So all right, so you guys are now no longer, you know, brick and mortar, no longer face f customer facing. Now it's all online and all A wholesale business Um W when did you start to see the the

33:50 online business. just really become the main Business. Do you remember when you start sort of s sort of see that happen? Yeah, if not.

33:59 Two thousand four. By two thousand five. Yeah, we started adding a lot of products. Besides roasted peanuts and cashews and we started with this base of You know, a hundred fifty products.

34:12 Cross nuts and tried fruit and seeds and candies. And chocolates and so on. Um And then some of it was I would just say to my dad and uncle, uh We're selling.

34:23 We're selling salted sunflower seeds in the shell. Other products we sell unsalted. Why aren't we selling unsalted sunflower seeds in the shell? That's funny because they would say no one no one wants them, right? Nobody wants unsalted they would say, No one wants unsalted sunflower seeds in the shell. Correct. But it turns out diabetics do, and that's what they want to chew on at a baseball game. And that became like, at the time, like our top if not our top Uh five sell it could have been our top ten certainly was our top ten seller. Um so so found gaps in the assortment. Um You know, I

34:55 We would There was a serendipitous moment where Uh my friend wasn't wasn't well and I donated blood for him on the Upper East Side in Manhattan. And instead of You know, drinking the orange juice or apple juice, I went to Dylan's candy bar.

35:10 on the corner. Yeah. And I had some of the most amazing chocolates. And so I called that I had to write a letter. I thought the supplier was huge. I had to write them a letter convincing them to sell to me as a distributor. I knew the Google game, so like these guys invented dark chocolate expressos beans. So I knew how to rank number one for dark chocolate expressos beans. So that one product allowed us to be a distributor for these guys. This was called Cooperman's, right? Uh Coppers. Copper's Coppers. Copper. Right. I just called I said, Hey uh uh give me your top forty products and we're gonna sell them all. And that was the beauty. And it was easy then when we had one distribution center. Um and just kept on, you know Going after it were like

35:49 I had a friend who had celiac disease and couldn't get gluten-free snacks. I was like, great, and in thirty days we certified seven hundred products. Bam, organic. We just kept on expanding. We would take catalogs from our suppliers. and you dump him into a keyword tool. So you didn't need to do any research. It just told you what people were searching for. The US is a huge place. Lots and lots of people.

36:10 So g we just went after it super aggressively and suddenly had thousands of products over the next, you know, X number of years. And and was your wholesale business still significant? The traditional legacy wholesale business? Yeah. It just Kind of. Stay the same.

36:27 Right,'cause I I did put effort into it. And then it was like less effort into it and then it would just be a slow decline. But m the bulk of your business was was basically individuals going to nutsonline dot com and ordering Product.

36:42 That was that was like More than sixty, seventy percent of your business? I Yeah, by two thousand and Ten.

36:52 Right, it's it's it's it's the vast it's the vast majority. Right, I I know I know the revenue we did when we switched to To nuts.com. And at that point the wholesale business is like You know, two percent or something, three percent. So when I mean this the company is still called Newark Nut Company, right? to it.

37:10 W but just out of curiosity, when did you finally just change the name to what it is now? Once we rebranded in two thousand twelve to nuts.com. It's got it when we change the name. Okay, so it's still the Newark Company, but it's nuts online. That's really what you're known as. And Uh but still, you know, it's and and I think I've read that by two thousand six you're doing about five million dollars in revenue. You know better than I do, but yeah, something like that. Sounds about right to you.

37:36 So that's pretty great. I mean you joined in two thousand three f officially formally. And you hit your five X now, more uh cl a little four and a half X since since you know in terms of revenue doing pretty well, and it's all coming from the internet. There was a a stunt. That you pulled. Uh uh the year after that. Now I wanna I wanna ask you about this, because it was uh there was a show on TV called Jericho about this town in Kansas and it was post apocalyptic and how they survived this nuclear attack on the United States.

38:06 And it was canceled. Uh CBS threatened to cancel it'cause they didn't get I didn't get enough viewers. I was looking at it. The the numbers t by today's standards are insane. They got like nine million viewers. But in two thousand seven That was a disaster. And you you sort of got involved in the protest about

38:26 And tell me tell me this story, because this is a crazy story and and it it actually got you tons of press, but what what was the story? Yeah. This post apocalyptic drama, like you said, got canceled on CBS. And fans decided to protest because in the last episode there was this

38:46 historical illusion and it talked about the the details matter less, but a general says the US general says to the Germans, nuts. Like we're not gonna surrender, nuts. So fans decided to send nuts in protest. uh s said nuts in response to something like Yeah, it's a true s like I think it's a true true story. Okay. I forgot if it was the Battle of the Bold or Battle of the Snow. I don't remember. But

39:12 The general says not, so fans decide that's their rally and cry. Nuts. And they're gonna send nuts to CBS. to protest CBS's decision to cancel the show. Okay. Correct. We see these strange orders coming in and my cousin says, Hey, what the heck's going on here? I'm scared.

39:27 There's people placing orders for one pound bags of different types of nuts, often cheap nuts, like Mixed nuts and shell or peanuts. Yeah. Shipping to CBS. In New York. Yeah, they're the their their New York office. Yeah. Okay. So my cousin was like, Hey, we gotta we can't ship this stuff, we have to cancel it. And I said, Hold on.

39:45 Let me just do some research here and I find out what's going on, the show's canceled. And I had never seen the show. And by the way, were they sending it to a specific person at CBS or just a pound of nuts to CBS. I'll get her name wrong but something like Nina Tassler or something like that. Okay. Okay. Um And um I just looked her up, Nina Tassler, she was at CBS.

40:07 There's a lot of energy here. And I said, let's go. Let's do something here where you have like All these people, it's super inefficient and it's expensive to ship a one pound. The shipping is freaking eight dollars or something like that.

40:21 Let's harness this energy. Uh, you know, when you're a uh fundraising drive, they have the thermometer type of a thing. I said, Let's go, let's get up a thermometer. And this is where I've always heard this expression. You know, man plans and and

40:34 God laughs. And then Probably for the next three weeks I didn't sleep. Wait, so sorry, on the website, let me understand this. You had a you had a you had a a a banner or something that said, Hey, if you're if you don't want CBS to cancel Jericho, click here Save Jericho.

40:53 Right. Save Jericho. Send Peanuts. And we're gonna make it super easy. Give ten dollars, give twenty dollars, give fifty dollars, whatever this is.'Cause we had a gift certificate functionality. We'll send knots in bulk. In twenty five punk cases, freshly roasted peanuts,'cause that was our shtick. Still is our shtick.

41:11 And um Everyone came to us. We start collecting so much money. I think very quickly it goes to forty thousand dollars. How how many pounds did you end up of penis did you end up sending the CBS? The number I remember was we ship forty thousand pounds of peanuts. So that's how that full truckload of peans. What did they do with all those peanuts? I don't know. I think I don't remember such a long time ago. I think they ended up donating

41:38 Donating them. addresses of where to to send them where people could use them. I mean the just the publicity that you got uh out of that you were the New Yorker and the and New York Times and C and CNN like National Inquirer more than once, which was quite embarrassing. I mean a ma and and by the way. Uh this was they d decided not to cancel it. They decided to renew it for another uh few well it was only seven more episodes, but they did dis they agree. And and I guess they actually appreciated the stunt. They like invited you to meet the cast. Yeah, they flew me out. I was the celebrity at the fall CBS fall lineup party. Mind you, I slept at my friend's dorm or whatever the hell I stayed, you know, I walked there, you know, people come with limousines. Um, this cast were kissing me.

42:24 Um and these were like famous people. Well yeah, they they and then when Nina Tassler. Just please stop sending

42:33 The nuts. But for us, I mean, our website crashed at one point in time. We were on like K Rock and all these places where like The traffic was unbelievable. Interestingly, from a business standpoint, we then did some analysis on hey, did these people become customers and come back?

42:49 Nah, not really. But what I realized was we're getting links, as you can imagine, mattered a lot then. New York Times. That's a lot of authority it's lending. ultimately when the can you'll get a kick out of this when the campaign was done.

43:03 I then redirected that page to our nuts page so our rings would go off once everyone was done with this thing. Yeah. Well Meantime, the nuts business just growing on it I mean obviously you're doing advertising, but it just continues to grow year after year. I mean the online business. Correct.

43:22 And and you were by this point CEO of the company. Yeah, we didn't have quite titles, but you would say by two thousand certainly once we bulldoze and moved in I was already calling ninety percent of the shots. Now this is just a very different business. Was your dad and uncle were they still involved by two thousand? Seven, eight. Oh yeah. Creatures of habit. They're helping us laborers. This is like you get into Christmas season. You don't hire more people necessarily. You bring in friends and family and and it was different with food safety. Now you can't do any of the stuff, but we would just you feed'em. Like they let them eat the stuff.

43:58 So all right, so let's let's go 'Cause this is a pivotal another pivotal moment. I mean at this point You are Nuts online. Dot com

44:09 And that year you would change the URL. And I guess The uh uh the story I've read starts with Rachel Ray, which I'm gonna ask you about, but I guess the story goes back even years before that. So you're nuts online, but you realize that actually You'd be better off if you were nuts dot com, not nutsonline.com. That that would be a better

44:30 URL for you to have. Tell me about Why didn't you register that back in nineteen ninety nine? Was it not available? Yeah, it wasn't available and I I didn't have the money I didn't even think. Like hindsight's twenty twenty.

44:43 Just because I didn't come from like we didn't have tons of money. I didn't even think about buying a domain from someone. It didn't even cross my mind. It was like, Oh, these six are taken, let me move on to the next one. Yeah. Like I remember In two thousand five I saved to my files the name.

44:59 Of the of the person who owned it. Of the person who owned it. Yes. They had owned a bunch of things. And I DM'd him. Which I've never done. And he wrote back.

45:10 And I feel like I gave him an offer that I thought was quite generous. I think I offered him something like two hundred thousand dollars then. Yeah. And he just said, No, thank you. So so you forgot about it. Okay. Correct. That was in two thousand eight. Let's fast forward to two thousand twelve. Rachel Ray Two thousand eleven. Yeah. Two thousand eleven, because she's got she's got her show on TV.

45:30 And what you guys provided Snacks for her show? Yeah, it was a wedding it was a wedding episode and You know we had a nice wedding candy business online and you know. Think of like Jordan almonds in this organta bag. Oh Jordan almonds. They're pastel colored. Okay. Who likes Jordan almonds, by the way? They're not good.

45:53 Super fine, so it's less sugar, but I can't I don't like sugar on this. It's gross. It's just coated. I think one of my kids does, but I I think I think they're gross. Don't put more sugar. Don't put sugar, candied sugar on it. Yes. Look, we'll sell a better quality than most. And we did ship them to Rachel Ray, and at the very end she says in the credits, she says, Oh, I really want to thank nuts.com And we were nutsonline dot com, so I was like, Oh man Oh wait, sorry, go but slow down. She says nuts.com. Not nutsonline.com.

46:25 Correct. It's like When we come back in just a moment. How Nuts Online finally gets a name change and turns into an earworm in the most annoying rap jingle? Ever written.

46:41 Stay with us, I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to How I Built This. Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2012, and Rachel Ray has made a slip of the tongue on our TV show referring to NutsOnline.com as Nuts.com, which actually is the name that Jeff had always wanted. Oh, I thought it was better. And like over the years people would often say, Wait, what is it? Nuts.com? They wouldn't catch the nuts online. I I I think You know

47:29 I'll say we, but more me. I just the foresight that like this Amazon centric world. is gonna do a great job at intermediating your relationship with the brand. Think about when you go on Amazon, you buy a light that breaks the next day, but like it's vendor Q B Z A Y, you know, whatever from China. Right. So I think I had appreciation for where that was going, where where how brand even though we had a brand, how we could lean in more Right. Certainly like, hey, if someone sees our ads and it's nuts.com, that's like whoa, these guys have much more credibility when that stuff mattered more. From a retention standpoint. You know, I did back of the envelope math. If you get a one percent improvement in retention, whatever, that's long term the stuff can pay off.

48:06 from a recruiting standpoint, from employees, everything. It's just It's cooler. And then I just asked a friend. I asked some friends what they thought. And they were they were supportive. So I re engaged with this this guy.

48:27 He never countered. I had to make eight moves in a row. He would just say no, no, no, no, no. He wouldn't even counter. You would you would offer this, no, this, no, no. So you were negotiating against yourself. Correct. And at the end I just I was getting fed up, honestly. And I have principles and I was like You know, not that this was like a playbook or anything. It was like hey, this is exploding forty eight hours, I'm walking. And uh he he then accepted it.

48:50 Yeah. So seven hundred grand for a business doing thirty million a year. Seems very Reasonable. Were you were you nervous about spending that much money? No.

48:59 It was reasonable. We were very profitable at the time. And I just believed in it. And again, my B S back of the envelope math. felt like hey a slight in change of one of these things, you know, we'll get a Okay, maybe it's not a two year payback, but maybe it's a ten year payback.

49:14 Mm. Okay, so you have the domain. I I wanna go back to the margins thing for a second, because earlier you had mentioned that that The retail store did really well. from a margin standpoint, even if it the the overall revenue wasn't so high that you know fifty percent, you know, you're you're selling direct to c to the customer. Well you've got an online Direct to consumer business.

49:34 So I'm assuming the margins are I mean you gotta ship it, you know, but and package it up, but still I mean the margins are probably great. They were great because also there was different time. Where

49:46 Right. Amazon didn't create the table stakes of what they are. Right, we used to have shipping actually was a profit center. Where Oh,'cause you could charge for shipping, but that included your costs. And also look, I was I wanted to build the business you know, the way I wanted to. So I don't want to condition customers to expect discounts. I actually wanted shipping. Because I wanted the hurdle.

50:08 Because I wanted to get the good customers. I want I I I want to adversely select away the bad customers, you know, and and the complaints we got back then, let's say for free shipping. When you would actually look at the customers complaining? This is this was then. It was but person buying a a bag of sunflower seeds for two dollars and ninety nine cents. You can't ever make money doing that. So all right, just to be clear, this is Amazon changed the game when they made shipping free because then everybody expected all shipping which today

50:35 Everybody expects shipping to be free. Correct. And obviously you pay for Prime, but people for obviously forget that. You did not ha you were charging for shipping. up until the Amazon just gonna change that because Uh'cause you could,'cause people assumed you gotta pay for shipping, but you could charge a premium for it because, you know, you get to cover your costs, the person in the warehouse, and so even though the shipping costs might be three ninety nine, you could charge four ninety nine for shipping.

50:59 Correct. The the economics were great, advertising, what people call you know, CAC and so on these back then it was very different. So your advertising as a percentage of revenue was way lower. Labor was way lower than what it is now. Um

51:15 So yeah, pretty good economics back then. Alright, I wanna I wanna just digress for a moment and ask about sourcing because you're selling uh you were selling at this point a hundred and fifty, two hundred plus different From Jordan Almonds to Candy to Uh you know.

51:32 Chocolate covered espresso beans, but we're not still The primary Driver was that still where would most people ordered, like cashews, peanuts, walnuts, pecans? What time frame? Yeah, about then. Yeah. Yeah.

51:50 Getting closer to a fifty fifty. Okay. And where I mean I know that you were you know you're buying espresso beans from uh uh uh Cooper sorry, forgetting the copper's chocolate. Copper's copper's and so where were you sourcing Almonds come from California, right? Peanuts. Peanuts are also US uh but where are you getting your stuff from? Yeah, so if it's a lot of stuff has grown domestically. And look, this is one thing that's unique, even though I came into a small business, and but because also we had a little bigger aperture than just a retail store, because we had this little wholesale business.

52:21 You know, we had direct relationships with Farmers and growers. And it's like a nice thing, for example, where we buy walnuts in California. Last time I actually visited the farm. the owner of of that company. It's he's he's a farmer and processor. So like he processes for other people too.

52:38 He's like, Jeff, you're our longest standing customer. Like his father did f business with my grandfather. So if it's still domestic, we're gonna go as direct as we can. When it comes to stuff overseas, it depends. Like You know, uh today when I think about tariffs and exposure, I would say direct and indirect exposure to

52:56 Tariffs is like fifty percent of our products. 'Cause a lot of your stu right, I mean like cashews do come from I think Brazil, right? Correct. Right now, yes, Brazil or Vietnam. Look, uh my favorite product of ours is an organic dried mango. It comes from Mexico. Right. You know, a lot of this stuff, like we have a lot of chocolate in our business.

53:15 Ain't grown. Not grown not grown here. And we'll be able to do that. Oh well that's a whole nother st a lot of stress over the last couple of years. Yeah. These are all time fifty year highs. And well let's uh let's just talk about this for a minute. I mean climate change, and again, I don't want to get into this too much, but I mean It is affect it's gotta affect some of these things, right? Like coffee Prices are going up. Um chocolate price are going up, I'm sure that changing weather patterns are affecting certain crops, nuts, for example, right?

53:45 Correct. And look we've seen stuff Obviously we've been in business for a while. We saw stuff where almond pricing went up two to three X our cost years ago because there was concerns about there was a bad crop, but they're concerned about drought. I just drove up the five in command all almond farms and you're like, there's no water here. This is crazy. This is all being diverted. And somehow they figured out better yields and whatnot. So then almond pricing has moved a bit, but it's come down from th those levels. But yeah, like Uh one of the few things I lose sleep about these days is cocoa pricing.

54:15 I look at the futures daily'cause we have a whole chocolate business and we buy lots of Cocoa both here and in in in Europe. And It's Down now?

54:26 You know, when I look at let's say the futures in March, it may be down twenty something percent from its peak. But that's three X where it was a two years ago. Yeah. Um there's there's some insect stuff, but a lot of it's just Trout.

54:42 Alright, I wanna go back to your um kind of fandom marketing side because You bought space on Sirius XM. In two thousand fifteen. Um and You

54:56 And this is so so weird. You wrote I guess you wrote a song, a jingle. You help write a rap. It's a rap about nuts And it just played on Series XM and I've heard it. And anybody listening to this, you should go just search for the nuts.com jingle,'cause it is It is so annoying. It is a earworm. No no no stock um. But really, you know, tell me the story first about this jingle that you wrote. Yeah, it's super polarizing. People have listened to it hundreds of thousands of times. Yeah, look, I was just dabbling as uh in call it two thousand fifteen era. It was like hey, what other channels

55:42 Um, so we dabbled a little bit and this was very useful playbook for when Covet hit. We did try T V. We tried some radio. We tried a bit of different things. Um so Look, we're trying to be creative.

55:53 And I don't think it was originally my idea. And then I was supposed to do it, but I'm not really musically inclined. And I was sick. So my brother in law Did the rap. Uh we put it on we put it on the air. It was uh again

56:07 Polarizing. Yo microphone check one, two, and three. It's nuts.com delivery. When I need a yummy snack, that's good for me. There's a sight I hit when I'm hungry. From a cash at two and I'ma dry peace, or a plump. Nuts.com won't be outdone. Apparently you start to get. letters in from people saying Stop You're driving me Nuts. Yeah, it was like fifty fifty. Fifty percent of people loved it. Fifty percent of people c hated it and couldn't get out of their heads.

56:38 Like but so we're was a part of you thinking, this is great. It's annoying. People are talking about this, or were you like, ooh, it's annoying. I think some of the talking and stuff came about m actually later too, though, where we're already killed it. For me, I was just like looking for a certain return. I think the wrap was just okay, but in terms of it wasn't super performant. So just the the aperture wasn't wide enough for the returns kind of that we were we were after. So all right, but all of these different Attempts.

57:05 and and and ways of advertising like on Sirius XM. I mean they continue. Your business continues just year after year was growing. So I would think that really a business like yours in order to survive and scale, you've gotta basically be in every office in in America or m many offices. And that'cause you just get repeat, I mean, uh a c when you're selling to corporate offices,

57:27 It's just automatically someone's hitting the, you know, reorder button. And Just relying on individual sales, which might be one off sales, or maybe somebody might order three, four times a year. It's not enough. Yeah, correct. And in in this day and age, it's super hard. DSC space is is super hard. You know what we find with our

57:46 Call it on the website, but our Yeah. Believe it or not, even though the margins the gross margins are lower, the net margins are higher when you factor in everything. just a s much sticker customer and just handling those orders. Yeah. And what we found was look a lot of this stuff was just accidental and then you you just

58:05 And this along the way we found stuff where like I don't know, but we have significant market share of microbreweries. Across the US. Who would have known? I didn't know. But hey, they wanna have Some

58:23 Toasted coconuts. Right, peanut flavored. Correct. And so we found that with offices where the offices may not even be buying the twenty five pound cases, they actually put off They have one in five pound bags, for example, or single surf stuff. and they'll put it out. So it's kind of like and at that point then let's focus on that and add more and and and and and and serve their needs better. Um never never necessarily part of the grand plan, but that's that's that's a really healthy part of our business. was probably fifteen percent of our revenue or so, maybe maybe actually at that point probably more.

58:56 Uh maybe twenty twenty five percent. All right, so you have uh I mean you're you're growing your corporate B to B stuff and and and then Covid hits, right? I mean everything closes, offices shut down. Uh and and the B to B business must have totally disappeared, but uh on the flip side Uh people were suddenly people were suddenly stuck at home, right? So

59:18 Uh, imagine your direct to consumer sales. Must have exploded. Yes. And then you fast forward maybe a week or two. And then schools are closed.

59:28 And Now it became we have infinite demands. How the heck do you ship this stuff? Yeah. Because we're in central New Jersey, which is pa close to ground zero for Covid early on in the pandemic.

59:43 Did you have employees who were scared to come to work and scared to be there? Oh yeah, it was it was it was terrible. We did like we went to warm about keeping people safe, like Tearing down walls. of a cafeteria to expand it, putting out bathrooms outside in the church, you know, trailers to we put in U V light. We did I was like safety czara as I'm working the plant, like yelling.

1:00:05 Um some people certainly got sick. But like My worst One of the worst days of my life, because this was like I was having their diverse breakdowns every day was after Easter, the day after Easter. People would reflect April, so this is twin twenty twenty, yeah. Correct. The employees would ref reflect a lot on the weekends and then more would be scared to come in. And that Monday we had seventy percent worker call out.

1:00:25 Well. Seventy percent of your employees said they can't come in. Correct. These are the these are the'cause we're we're making stuff, we're we're roasting, chocolate coating, packaging, shipping. And I'm just working. I'm literally working, you know, probably like ten, twelve hour days in the plant, then going home trying to save the business at night. And the employees demanded to speak with me.

1:00:45 surreal kind of out of body experiences where in thirty minutes in Spanish, I couldn't find my plant manager who's a native speaker. I I speak well enough, but in thirty minutes had to give the speech of all speeches of why we're here. And why we need to stay here and how I wish we could close the factory f and go home, but we can't. And everyone's counting on us. And um

1:01:06 Yeah. Um but It was Exciting too. Scary and terrifying and and also exciting. Just I'm sure you've experienced it. You just put your head down and you go. You know, one of the things I'm I'm curious about is you you you mentioned earlier on about watching your dad just work six day weeks and maybe have half a day off on Saturday and Just the the grind that he and and that when you went to Blackstone you saw vr a version of that there and that you didn't want that.

1:01:33 And I wonder whether When you started in two thousand three. at Newark Nut Company. Now it is nuts dot com by this point, you know, talking about twenty twenty. You're grinding, you're working. like your dad was working. I mean, of course the return is a little different. But how did you feel about about that?'Cause you wanted to from what I gather, you wanted to avoid that. You wanted to be able to spend time with your kids and

1:01:57 Your family and all these things. Yeah. I mean look, you didn't have so much time to think. Um you're talking about like specifically in the Covid period? Yeah, and even before that it sounds like you were actually probably working hard but sixty hour weeks. Yeah, yeah, easily that but when you love it. It's like I'm sure you ask this or people ask you this and so on. It's about work life balance. A lot of theory right now is there's no such thing. For me, there was no such thing. I I love it. I work all I work all the time and I'm with my family all the time. Yeah. I try to be present, like, okay, if I'm working on the next business idea on a Saturday night and my kids ask me to play, okay, I'm trying to be better about that. But one thing I did was Especially this one I got married and had the kids.

1:02:36 Hey, like I'm gonna leave work. Right I had to commute and so on, but I would leave work. You know, five ish. get home, see the kids, eat with them, and then do work when they're sleeping and so on. And I wake up really ear, so I work early in the morning. Um, so look for me it's like I rise to the occasion. This past peak.

1:02:54 twenty twenty four, we sold more gifts than we expected. I was supposed to come in for two Saturday corporate volunteer events for morale because like the workers are working so hard on the plant. I had to s they needed me for seven straight days. These are gift boxes, like tins of gift trays. Yes. We we're not like We're seasonal, so our business does you know, December could be double July, but it's not a good thing. Like Harry and David sells g these things, right? Correct correct. So we do similar similar stuff. Are they a competitor? I mean everyone's a competitor at this point. Um but not just in my DNA, like Nothing's beneath me.

1:03:30 You know, like you'll see my dad come in. you know, the covet we s we sent my dad a Michael home, right? We said this isn't safe for you guys. Yeah. My dad's diabetes and and so on. They're all they were, you know, already in their seventies. Um, but look, my dad will help He'll help Move when we're in the picking area, he'll he'll drag these totes around and my uncle

1:03:48 He's meticulous about the quality. So we'll we'll bang out tens of thousands of custom trays, which is a unique thing we launched, believe it or not, in nineteen ninety nine. Um my uncle will be at the end of the line and he'll approve them. And one day they really needed him'cause we were super busy. He worked the whole time, like twelve hours. Yeah, he's gotta sit on a stool a little bit, he's older, but then the team gives him a you know, a standing ovation. F coming out of Covid. Um, I I think understandably,'cause it was a cr crazy time. You in the October of twenty twenty three, you d you guys for the first time you picked you decided to step down as CEO.

1:04:20 You found a CEO from outside the company as the family. And uh and you became the chairman. Of nuts.com. Was this I imagine you were just Exhausted. You didn't wanna what you didn't wanna be doing operations every day and just Yeah, at this point it was it was

1:04:38 Oh two years before I said I hired a president. What I started We were picking up our head, let's build out a team. Covid gave us the luxury of then let's go after this and really build out a team and not be not be so lean.

1:04:54 And at that point, finally I had a friend and I finally brought him as an advisor so I wouldn't be just alone in this journey'cause it gets really lonely. And even if you're super successful outwardly, internally, there's this imposter syndrome and do I know what I'm doing? And he helped me see a path where Jeff, hey, in three years you could focus on MA Culture.

1:05:13 Um and strategy, for example. And I actually heard it on one of your podcasts. It's like why why build on your weaknesses? Yeah. I don't have to.

1:05:22 I could re could have retired. Fifteen years ago Why don't I lean into my strengths? And do what I love doing and I'm good at. Get exactly what I like.

1:05:31 And it could be better for the business too. Yeah. By the way, I think that was Sarah Blakely. From Who founded Spanks who said that, lean on your strengths and you know And you know, don't worry about your weaknesses. Um and and versions of that have been said by others, but it's it's it's true, right? And so

1:05:48 And so today you are tell me about how I mean how you're involved in the business. I mean, do you go in every day to the office? It's it's you're still in in this you know, still in New Jersey and I mean what what's your Kind of day to day look like. I don't go in that much. I wanna leave give the people space.

1:06:05 So you know, maybe I go in a couple times a month. We have a corporate office separate from our our manufacturing plant. I would say I'm still more in the weeds than I'm supposed to be. I love being in the weeds, don't get me wrong. I So we'll see. It's still this evolution.

1:06:20 And again. I know I know what I'm good at. I know where I interfere too much, I know things get dangerous and so on, and I'm relatively self aware. But like I'm okay not being the person, right? I don't need to give the speeches to the employees. I don't need to go to the conferences.

1:06:38 That's fine. Right, like I wanna work on fun stuff. If I can. Still family owned the business. Correct.

1:06:51 Yes, the buffer. And what and they're not of course, I'm assuming they're not involved. Day to day. Are they st uh what are they are they still owners? So I bought my dad out a long time ago. I probably bought my dad out. Uh seventeen years ago.

1:07:05 Yeah. Uncle still. Still an owner. He maybe comes in once every couple weeks, he helps the team on buying. He's got these long standing relationships. And he still has, yes, can he chisel someone five cents here and there? It's kind of an old school mentality. Yes. Um, but like the people love talking to him. He goes on vacation with some of our suppliers. You know, it's a nice thing. Or if I'm

1:07:27 I don't want to step on toes. I'll go to him and I'll say, Go check the quality of these organic raisins. Cause I ordered some and I was like, they they could be better. Um, what is what do they make of of this I mean, uh just the transition or the transformation of the business from what it was to what it is now? Yeah. I mean for them They're just amazed. I they wish Papisala were still alive. He wouldn't understand because he would say, Where's the cash? You know, he doesn't see the register and so on. Um but for them

1:07:56 But this worked. And it worked really early on, right? We never took on investors. We grew, we figured out the model, we grew. very quickly. And

1:08:06 Look, even before the true financial success. They got a second lease on life. I I I told a story earlier about uh Saturdays we were making two dollars a day. I did the math. I said, guys, this is not about me shying from work. This is a waste of time. No one's coming to the retail store. So this is like in two I don't know if it's two thousand three, the latest two thousand four, I said we're closing on Saturdays. My dad would say, Oh, Popisol would never allow this.

1:08:32 Right. You just work. You know? And my uncle says well can't we just try it out and let's just Do a half a day. I said no.

1:08:41 This is a joke. Right. Doesn't make any sense for us. We closed and like uh I made decision on a Monday and we closed on that Saturday and my uncle on that Monday says, Oh my God, that's the best decision of our life. And they got a second lease on their life where they could be involved in the community.

1:08:57 And go to temple and and just Do stuff that most other people get to do. I bet. Um I'm I mean, y you know this question was coming, but when you think about

1:09:08 Right, this whole journey and what happened and I mean you h hope to have five exit and you I mean, I think It's estimated you guys are doing oh, you know, close to a hundred million dollars a year in sales. Um much bigger than a million dollar business when you join. How much of where you are now do you do you attribute to the work you put in, the grind and how much do you think had to do with just the luck and timing of of the era that you

1:09:32 Happen to live in. Um I was born into a family That had a nut business that was terrible. My friend's father when I was l my childhood friend, his father was a dentist and he would make fun of me that my dad sells nuts.

1:09:45 No one expected me to go into this business. I I I mentioned earlier something about mm uh man plans and and God laughs. You know, stuff comes your way. Yeah. And it's what you choose to do with it. Are you open to it? And are you gonna freaking work fast and hard and smart?

1:10:03 As it as it comes your way. Okay, great. I chose to join my little family nothing nut business and it was amazing. My dad gave me the keys. Yeah. And you know, my dad will get teary eyed. Because he

1:10:17 you know, what he'll say to to the new employees on for onboarding. We'll do like a onboarding lunch. And he says, you know I hated this business. I never really wanted to go into this business. Um And I didn't really get listened to. And the thing

1:10:32 You know that this is Speaking for my dad. He says the thing I I said is if I have if I have children one day I'm never gonna make them wanna come if I'm never gonna make them come into the business, but if they wanna come into the business, I'm gonna let them come into the business and I'm gonna let them do their do what they want. Um This is like a visceral, right?

1:10:51 Right. Um and then it's special. That's Jeff Braverman, the chairman. Of nuts.com By the way, that annoying rap jingle that we played earlier

1:11:03 Jeff says it's still out there and it's still a thing. Oh, well I mean people would people would jam me with this, you know, they would uh be talking to me on the phone, they would start playing it. Um the only thing I do when I I'cause I still I still have it, is when I go to speak at like schools and stuff, whether it's executive MBA class or just like Boys and girls club, I play the rap at the end and everyone likes it. No.

1:11:30 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. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtina Rablui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Olivia Rockman. Our engineers are Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Andrea Bruce, Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Casey Herman, Nor Gill, Chris Massini, Carrie Thomson, and Ramel Wood.

1:12:05 I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to how I built this.

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