Talenti: Josh Hochschuler

Transcript from https://podmenti.com/t/c5f96e4aab76b760

It was
Getting close to Christmas time.
And uh
I
was completely out of money.
Didn't know how to make payroll. And so
I remember I called a meeting and I said
I'm gonna go to the bank and I'm gonna try to sign and get more money from the bank.
to pay you what I owe you.
But
If you leave in the meantime, I can't even
Service the customers I have and
I'll lose them as well.
So they spoke amongst themselves and then came back and said
We trust you.
We're gonna stay.
Go find the money.
I said, You got it.

Welcome to How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements.

Guy Raz and on the show today
how a 22 year old landed in Argentina with no job and no plan, and came back to America with the recipe for the country's best-selling gelato.
Talenti.
Have you ever visited another country and just thought, man, I wish I could recreate this at home? It's sort of like when Howard Schultz first visited Italy. He became obsessed with the sidewalk cafe culture in Milan.
And of course the really amazing espresso drinks. Now that was in the 1980s, when espresso drinks were super rare in the US. And Howard Schultz decided to try and bring as much of that culture as he could back home.
Now you might quibble with the idea that Starbucks is like a sidewalk cafe in Milan, but it did change the way Americans drink coffee.
Today's story has a few of those elements. It's a story about falling in love with a culture and then building something inspired by it. For Josh Hochschuler, that culture was in Buenos Aires, and in particular the legendary gelato shops around the city.
In 1996, just after graduating from college, he decided to move to Argentina and just figure it out.
He had no job.
very little money and he knew no one.
Now, in a moment, you'll find out what happened once he got there, including how he became totally enchanted by the gelato he tasted.
Now just to get this out of the way.
Gelato and ice cream are different. Ice cream is higher in fat, gelato is churned a lot slower.
Ice cream often has eggs, gelato does not, and finally
Ice cream is usu and gelato is softer and creamier.
And in 1996, almost no one in America ate gelato.
So when Josh returned to the US in the early two thousands,
He came up with a plan.
A plan to open a chain of gelato shops.
But as you will hear
That plan did not pan out.
His dream came crashing down.
And like many entrepreneurs before and after him.
Josh Hocksuler had to let go of his original vision.
Which was really hard.
But also a blessing in disguise.
because it would force him to think about turning his gelato into a product he could sell in other stores.
Talenty's rise was long and slow, but then
Something clicked and it just exploded in popularity.
By the time Unilever bought the brand in 2014,
Talenti was selling well over$100 million of gelato per year.
And that was just the start.
Walk into any major grocery store today and you'll find those eye-catching clear talenti jars showing every little swirl and speck inside.
Today it's far and away the
Best selling gelato brand in America.
As for Josh, he grew up in Dallas. His father was a back surgeon, but also an entrepreneur who built a pretty successful medical practice.
From a young age, Josh was encouraged to start his own business someday.
As a college student at Boston University, he would save money and travel abroad during the summers, and after graduating in 1995,
Josh visited Argentina and fell in love with the place.
So he made himself a promise.
he'd return to the States, sell all of his possessions, and hop a one-way ticket back to Buenos Aires.
which is exactly what he did.
I land there, it was like January fourth or fifth, and when I landed there. Nineteen ninety six. Nineteen ninety six. And I
Go up to an information booth.
And I say to the young lady behind the booth, I say hi.
Um
I've come here now and I'd like to live here.
What do you suggest I do?
And
She just looked at me and she goes, Hold on a second and she starts calling over to the other information booths and gets everyone to come. She goes, Just say again what you just said to me and I said, I I I want to live here, I don't know what I should be doing and they all just start dying laughing, that I just land there and I'm in the airport and I'm trying to figure out what to do next.
So they told me everyone's on vacation down there, everyone takes
a month or even two months off, which is January and February, which is the summer.
Yeah.
And they said everyone's in Uruguay right now. The country's closed down.
So you picked the wrong day to arrive. Well.
To be twenty two and just not know what to do.
Yeah. And they're like well you speak no Spanish
You don't know anybody and you're asking for work? Like that's what I would have said to you if I met you.
Yeah, I was pretty bold. I was uh
I was a little bit
At the point where
I needed money no matter what.
So I started teaching English.
And I did that to make money. Um it was very little money.
Like Burlitz or one of these companies?
Exactly. And where uh where were you living? Were you living at a youth hostel?
So um
I mean the story's quite long, but just to kinda to make it not too long, I I become friendly with a taxi driver
Who
W spoke English.
And he knew of um an apartment
Where the person
They were renovating it.
And so I said I' I'll look, I'll make a deal. I will pay for
two or three months worth of rent up front.
So they can finish the paint and whatever they have to do. But I get to sleep there every day while they're doing the
the work. So I would sleep on the floor, I used like a
you know, a sweatshirt as a pillow, and they were finishing the construction of the apartment while I lived there. It it didn't bother me very much.
And I got to uh have a place where I could sleep and
Make food, so
It worked out.
So what did you want to do in Buenos Aires? I mean you had studied business, administration and finance at college. Did
Were you looking for work in that?
In that area?
I was. So
Whenever I had free time I'd put on a suit and tie.
And I would go knocking on doors downtown and ask for the re uh human resources department and
Give them my resume.
At Banks?
At banks, at financial institutions.
But the the the biggest problem I always had was language. And it was always frustrating for them because I didn't speak Spanish. So that made it
I kept getting nos.
Until one day there was a girl who was teaching at Berlitz.
And she said to me, you know, my father.
had kind of a similar story to yours. He had gone to the States looking for work, and uh ended up working for
Bank of Boston.
Go meet with him. I'll I'll get you a meeting with him.
So I went, I gave him my resume, I explained to him what I wanted to do.
So he said to me, I'm gonna give you a thirty day contract, which I still have.
And of course it was back then it was printed.
Yeah.
And I'm gonna give you a uh Spanish tutor.
And if you do a great job for thirty days, I'll give you thirty more.
And so
That was the beginning of my career at Bank of Boston.
What did he what did you do?
What was your job?
So at first I was for two years I was in um strategic planning, and they were at the time
Growing branches of the bank.
Was a really good year in Arntina.
And business was booming. So
They wanted me to do Excel spreadsheet and PowerPoints and stay there all night printing things on the printer and then collating them and then stapling them and then so I you know I kind of did the the lowest level of work for that office
And
Because I spoke English.
There was a lot of presentations that had to be made in English to corporate from Boston.
And so
They liked having me there.
To help the
C sweet.
of Argentina.
to go through the English parts of it, so they all got to know me.
Mm.
How how quickly before you became proficient in Spanish?
It was a process uh
Probably within a year.
Now I didn't have any
English speaking friends.
Friends that I made
Spoke Spanish.
I started dating a girl.
So that that's very helpful. Argentinian.
Yes, and we spoke in Spanish and then
You know just day in and day out at work when I went out to eat.
It would actually I'd go home and my head would hurt because I would be trying so hard to

And there would be times when you just
don't have the words or know how to say things and
And then over time, oddly enough, I be I started to gain a lot of vocabulary in the working world. So like in the finance world, I I knew a lot of terms that
A lot of people might not know otherwise.
Yeah.
You would end up staying there for uh roughly five years.
One of the things that you discovered there, which uh of course we're gonna talk a lot about, is
Their ice cream.
If people haven't had
Argentinian gelato.
It's very different than Italian gelato. And gelato Italian gelato is so different than American ice cream. It's soft and smooth and
Imagine
Like nineteen ninety six, ninety seven, when you're trying it, you're like wow, this is
Unlike anything I've ever tried.
The way I like to describe it is
There was this huge influx of Italians who

And
They really clung to a lot of
what they loved about their own culture and ways of life. And it it influenced the language
A lot of the slang is Italian, a lot of the
Tango has Italian influence in the food everywhere.
And they really took so much pride that and they didn't look to change things'cause this to them was like
something that beckoned back to the old country, so they wanted to keep it the way it was. So the way I describe it is that Argentinian gelato is the way Italian gelato used to be a very long time ago, hundred years ago.
So you you you try gelato and it just it's just one of the things you're eating, like steaks and malbec and
But really what what you're doing is you're working in finance and when you were in Argentina, like you're a year, two, three years in
What did you think you were gonna do? Did you d were there moments where you're like, I think I'm gonna settle here forever. I think I'm gonna live here
This gonna be my home.
Yes.
There were moments of that.
Um
The hardest part with for me was I miss my family.
Back then i it was harder to get home, there weren't direct flights to Dallas, you would go through Miami.
Uh I have my my mom's mother, my grandmother passed away and and it was very hard for me to make it in time. I didn't. For her funeral, that made a big impact on me.
And then also my sister, my older sister started having children and I I felt very far away because I it was hard for me to see them. So
Although I loved being there in in many ways.
was thinking maybe this should just be home forever.
There was that pull as well to come back.
And I guess an opportunity.

Two thousand one.
you got an opportunity to transfer to Bank of Boston in
In Boston.
In Boston. So a job opens up, so you are
This is like almost five years in.
And
That's what you're gonna do.
So
The gentleman who was leaving the office had come down from the States.
Um and
He's
grab me because I at that point I was bilingual.
So I was able to
uh help him manage the team.
He was the one who got the offer to come back to Boston and then
in turn made the offer to me.
That was
uh January or even before January of uh two thousand one and I simply said to him
I want to take the job.
But I want a few months'cause I'd like to go travel.
Okay.
So I did that.
I actually started in Easter Island.
And then headed.
East.
uh and made my way around the world, but spent a lot of time in Asia.
So the last stop along the way was in Dallas to see my folks and I get an email from my boss from Argentina who says
Everything has been stopped, all of the hires have been dissolved, there is no job here anymore for you, it's gone.
Because the dot com had busted. Wow. This was in what what what summer summer of two thousand one?
Yeah.
Okay.
You're twenty eight.
And you're done with Bank of Austin.
And so at that point
I mean, did you start to think, Well, I better look at it for another bank job?
Yeah, it was a thought, but also
My father he
He had always told me that if you're going to try to start a business
It'll be a lot easier for you if you do that before you have a wife and children.
So
That kind of was
going over and over in my mind and I started to think
Maybe this is a signal.
that this is the right time for me to start thinking about
doing something I I can live off pasta for
Six months and
Sleep at one of my parents

And try to build a business.
So like a sign almost like a sign from God, right? Like that maybe this is what this is the moment to do. I'm twenty eight and
You know you want to be back in the US. Um so first of all
What did you start to think about? Like
Did you think maybe you'd start a financial consulting business, like'cause that was your background.
What did you start to think about?
So I was already
Missing Argentina. And
I immediately started to think
I really want to do something that combines
Argentina with the state. Somehow I wanna be tied to Argentina.
And
The thinking at the time after the dot com bust.

I really want to come up with something that's super basic, like something people will always want. And so it was food based.
And I I was thinking about
Mallek wine.
Orchelato.
Alright, let's talk about food for a moment. I mean, you didn't have any experience in food, you just liked it, you just enjoyed it. Yeah. But you knew some people in Argentina, so you thought well maybe I can
I don't know, import wine.
Or maybe we could do something with with with
gelato like the just kind of spitballing ideas.
Exactly. I put it like onto a little PowerPoint and I walked around and anyone who would listen to me I asked them which which idea do you like better. And what what would they say to you? They would like who what kind of people were you
Talking to about it.
Yes.
Friends, old friends.
My parents' friends?
There was one gentleman who had bought an apartment from my mother who
I don't know if you're not going to be able to do
Ever heard of Dean Foods, but it was a big dairy. And I was able to get a meeting with him and he told me that my idea was horrific. Your idea to do ice cream.
Yeah.
So funny enough, the guy what he said to me was
Uh it's a terrible idea, it'll never work.
Everyone told me that when I
decided to get into the milk business.
Uh, so don't listen to a word I'm telling you.
Okay, so you're you're starting to
Coalesce around this idea of the
Doing gelato.
In the US, in Dallas, right? Like opening up a gelato shop.
Yeah, the whole concept was
Replicate.
The gelateria is.
that are in Argentina.
An open one.
And then eventually more than one.
Starting in Dallas.
Okay.
And

You could buy gelato and
Places that had one or two stores.
kind of a mom and pop type style, but it was pretty new. It was like
Cutting edge at the time.
And when you before we even put a business plan together
Are you a cook? Like are you a good home cook? Are you like do you know how to make food? Are w did you know how to make gelato?
No. No.
was not a good cook. I didn't know how to make any of those things really. Um
The thought was I will.
be able to find someone who can help to those that part of the business.
And then I was gonna um concentrate on other aspects of it.
And to be fair, Ben and Jerry's took a correspondence class at Penn State. That's how they learn how to make ice cream.
Tell me what the order of operations did you start with a business plan
And then start to look for money and then go to Argentina, or did you go back to Argentina to find
A potential partner first.
First I went back down to Argentina.
Okay.
the gelateria's that I knew of that I liked.
And you'd walk in and you'd say
What?
Who owns the Urgell Lotteria, how do I get in touch with this person? I'd like to speak to them about the possibility of bringing
The concept to the states.
And one of them obviously worked out and I was able to
Speaker and they liked it.
The ideas I had
You found somebody who agreed to work with you.
Yes.
Horly.
Alright, okay.
And Jorge had a s uh a small chain of
gelato shops in Buenos Aires.
Yes. And he said, Sure, this sounds interesting, and you guys came to terms on what a partnership would look like. This is even before you had any money, right?
No money. Okay.
And uh and and the idea was he was gonna teach you how to make gelato and then you would go back to Dallas and make it, or that
He eventually he would come to Dallas with you.
Actually the plan was that one of the guys that makes gelato for him, who was really good
was supposed to come and
work with us in
Dallas. So it it wasn't gonna initially gonna be Jorge, it was gonna be this other person.
So you start to learn how to make gelato and what tell me what you're learning.
So
I'm learning his way of doing things.
And
It was a very old world approach. It was all starting with the original
ingredients, whatever that could be. A block of chocolate.
He would caramelize nuts.
He would
Roast the nuts. He would
Make his own
Pace and
You know
make his own butters, like nut butters and so he was showing me how they did things there.
And it was a very manual
Slow
in tiny little batches and he started to show me w how he manages a store.

Inside the store.
Okay, so you're learning about just the process of making gelato, but but ultimately you're gonna bring somebody back with you who's gonna be like the gelato master, right? I mean let's just double click on gelato for a second here because
It is different than American ice cream, right? Like most ice cream that we eat in America is custard based. It's got eggs, it's very rich and delicious.
Chilado is mostly uh there's different milk fat.
proportions and it's generally does not have egg in it.
I think it's churned more slowly, like
Just tell me the differences between gelato and ice cream.
So I always describe it with three main differences. It's um
Like when you say churn more slowly, it's basically how much air is being incorporated into the product. So j uh gelato has very low amounts of air. It's super dense, but creamy. Super dense.
Super dense.
So you get a totally different mouthfeel.
It also has much, much lower fat. It could be half the amount of butter fat.
And then it has h really high solids. So you you're avoiding water.
And that lends itself to
Texture and flavor.
Alright, so you're back in O two and now you know
You've got sort of developing a plan on on starting on opening a gelato shop in Dallas.
But there's a challenge there, which is you need cash. Do you need money to do that. So
How much money did you have?
Did you savings of your own?
I did have savings of my own.
And
I basically
Made a list.
Of people to speak to, friends and family?
And I went and met with them one by one.
It was about 11 people.
And you showed them what? What did you show them?
A business plan I had built which was
one of the longest business plans you could ever imagine, and the vast majority, probably ninety five of them or so.
Said now.
What was in the plan? Was it like, hey, do you want to invest in my ice cream shop?
Or was there something bigger? Was there a bigger idea there?
Well the yeah, the bigger idea was that it would become a chain.
Okay.
The pitch was look, I've got these experts from Argentina.
The product is
Second to none.
Yeah.
There's a great opportunity here to do this.
And part of the plan is
We wanna introduce to people that once they've gone out for dinner
They come by and have gelato.
And people also bring it home.
It was kinda like I wanted to
create this culture that I had become accustomed to when living in Argentina where
The night
is a series of stops. You go s one place first
maybe have an appetizer or or a cocktail or a glass of wine.
Next place for the meal, next place for the dessert. It didn't all take place in the same spot.
Okay.
How much money did you
Were you able to raise?
I think my goal was six hundred grand.
I think I got close to it.
Maybe I was a little bit shy.
But it was around there.
Okay, so you have you've raised six hundred thousand dollars to open a store in Dallas in 2002.
First of all, what are you gonna call it?
So I know I actually had in the business plan when I built the plan, it already had the name. It was gonna be Talenti Gelado.
Uh from the very, very, very beginning.
As I was doing research trying to
understand gelato and the history of gelato.
I was reading a lot about this gentleman, Bernardo Bontalenti from uh
Florence.
And he's credited with
Basically inventing
Gelato.
Uh
Actually as the story goes, Guy
There was this huge banquet by Catherine Domenici and
Each course, subsequent course was gonna be more fantastic than the previous, and it culminated with his gelato. So
I basically took part of his name.
And n and it was like a tribute to him. Okay, this guy invented it. I'm gonna name it after him. I've got this very old world labor intensive way of making things. And
I'm sure he did it that way, so I'm gonna I'm gonna name it after him.
Well.
All right, you have six hundred grand to do this, to sign a lease.
And to build this out and to buy all the equipment.
You opened the store in two thousand three and um I mean it's it's in it's Dallas and it's an unusual
kind of ice cream and did you get
Some attention to the newspapers start writing about you? Um was it
W what was it like on opening day?
Yeah, it was great. We got a lot of it uh great coverage and
People loved the product and we had long lines of people coming to buy it.
So in that regard it was wonderful. We had
We were m really making a name for ourselves. I remember the Dallas Morning News did a whole

ice creams and gelatos in all of Dallas and they ranked us number one. So we were getting some good coverage and
People loved it.
And how long does that last? I mean does the d does does a hype
It must eventually fade, I imagine, or or did it last for a long time?
Well, when the sun was out, it was lasting.
Summers were great.
Winners were really hard.
Uh people loved it.
But uh
Yeah, the the summers were great, but the numbers weren't working out.
What's the problem?
The problem is the average ticket.
uh the the small size was let's say two dollars and almost everyone was just buying that.
And the store itself was quite large and there was a lot of overhead.
And the business model was built on there being a considerable amount of people that would buy the larger containers in the cider foam and take it home in order to get that transaction up. But nobody was doing that'cause Americans buy ice cream at the grocery store.
If I sold one, I was happy. It was it was shockingly um disappointing.
how few people would buy anything of any considerable size.
But did you try to educate people on how to do that or did you just expect people to do it?
Oh, I had A frames everywhere outside. I had signage everywhere. We were doing running specials. There was signage all over the store. I had the signage that said what?
You know, bu buy one, get one, or whatever the promotion was, or here you know, you here's the container, you should take it home and have a party and look how w we can beautifully present it and this, that and the other.
It was like hitting my head up against culture. It was like trying to convince people to change the way they did things w just wasn't working.
And I had some chefs from around town that love to come and the chefs really liked it and they were asking me, hey
Can you

size for me and I'll buy it from you. I'll
Solid at my
At my restaurant.
In two thousand four, so the second year of the store.
I started doing that.
I would have a cooler, I would
Sit there and help make it.
But in the cooler.
deliver it to the restaurant.
They loved it and it was just kept growing. I was like, wow, there's there's something here about
going this other route, this is gonna be really helpful and amazing.
But still I imagine that's not
Clay.
Making up for the loss.
No, it wasn't making up for the loss.
We were losing money.
And there's one chef.
From
Very
popular steakhouse here in town.
Which was is owned by a gentleman who also owned
A little bit
Specialty supermarket.
Said look, we love
Your product.
Would you now put it in the container that we can set inside this little specialty supermarket and we'll sell it there.
And uh
Sales were amazing.
That's when I started to say to myself
I'm being held down.
I I can't first of all, I hate the retail life. It was not for me.
You were there seven days a week.
Yeah, oh yeah, from morning to night.
And the most intense times.
Or when everyone would be either having dinner
or going out or whatever they're doing and I I'm always working. So
I said, Wow, this is uh you know
I'd rather work when people are working and not work when people aren't working because I want to be able to
do things as well.
Um
Your now wife at the time.
So I hired my wife to be the pastry chef.
At the store we we had a little pastry
Display.
Yeah, I was
Crazy about her.
Figure out that she loved me too.
And uh
We eventually started dating and and
But this was all in oh five. So as I was starting to try to say
maybe I need to start thinking about
But there's a better opportunity out there.
going into this other space of restaurants which is food service.
So you start to basically say I gotta close this store.
Yes. But your whole business model was about building.
Show all around the country.
That's right.
A year and a half in
You realize
That's not gonna work.
Not gonna work.
It was heartbreaking.
When we come back in just a moment.
How that heartbreaking decision to close the shop
actually set up Telenti to grow much, much bigger than Josh had ever imagined.
Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.
Hey, welcome back to how I built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's 2005 and Josh makes an agonizing decision. He's gonna close down his retail gelato shop.
But he's still making gelato.
pivoting to service wholesale accounts.
When you went to your
fifteen investors and you said I'm gonna close the store and do this.
What was their reaction?
Well, um
Probably some level of disappointment.
But for the most part I I was dead set on making sure they were all whole. So I said
I'm you're coming with me, you're gonna own part of this business.
But I just think that the opportunity is elsewhere.
Again, these were friends and family at the time, so most people were like look, we're betting on you, we want to see you succeed.
So if you really think this is the direction that it needs to go and it's sad to see that store close
Uh
Let's go for it. Let's try this new angle.
Did it feel like a relief or or was it were you sad or was it both?
All the above.
There was a lot of emotion involved. I had
Spent quite a long time working on it. I
I spent long hours there.
It was a dream.
And you know, it felt like somewhat of a failure closing it down.
I had to let everyone go.
Including my wife.
And I basically ended up
moving into a tiny little
Warehouse.
Taking the machines over there.
and had one hourly helping me.
And actually, guy, that move was scary because
I had already started to sell to these restaurants in this one store.
And you can't
just disappear for a while because all of a sudden you're moving and they need it every week. They need the product because they're selling it.
And I didn't have a freezer anymore once I was shutting down

Wanted
frozen distribution company.
Who I asked, Do you mind if I put a pile of product in your freezer, I'll pay you rent or whatever you need. I just I have to have product to get through the next

And he just said, Don't worry about it.
You just use it.
You don't have to pay me anything.
And when you went to your Argentinian partner and you said, Hey
We're gonna shut down the store. I need to focus on wholesale.
What did he say?
He totally disagreed with me.
Huh.
he was very opposed to
kind of this new direction we were going in.
It's frowned upon down there. You don't take artisanal high end products.
And sell them in the in
quote unquote industrial setting.
So
They just
lost all interest, the relationship was dwindling and it just seemed like the right time to say, look, I will do w what I can to buy you out. So let's come up with a number. It might take me five years, but
Give me time, but over time I will buy your your part out.
But I was riddled with that.
And did you I mean
You had to break the lease.
Right? Mm-hmm. Yeah.
the landlord and explained to them the plan and I had to go out and find someone to take over the lease and
I s I found someone who took over the lease and then
I negotiated with them to buy my own freezer back because it it was considered part of the building
So there was a lot of work trying to wind it down. It was a a lot of work.
Do you remember how much debt you were in? Were you like more than two hundred thousand, three hundred thousand?
Probably something like that, like two to three hundred thousand.
If as long as you don't consider the fact that at the time there was a a lease, right? So I had to figure out a way out of the lease and
The easiest way is to find someone to take it over.
Um, okay, you're thirty one ish at the time.
with this debt.
Were you comfortable with that? I mean were you
Were you like I I got this, or were you
Was it stressful?
very stressful and it just kept getting more stressful because
I kept taking on more dead.
But you might recall that
Those years five, six, seven.
Banks were very willing to hand out money.
Oh yes they were.
So um I was one of those guys.
They were handing money too.
Um
Had it not been for that those times, it would not have qualified. Yeah, they would not have given you the money today. And and you couldn't have probably gotten a credit card today with that much debt.
Right. And I don't know if you remember this too, but
They used to be handing out credit cards zero percent interest all the time.
So I had like sixteen of those.
That I built up. I got um
I was able to buy a house with like five percent down a little house, and then I took a second mortgage out on that and then put it into the business. So I was doing everything I could to come up with any penny I could to stick it into this business, and it was all on me personally.
at that time and I was carrying the investors because I had told them I w I would do everything I can to take care of them. There was a couple of capital calls that they had the option to put in some more money, and some of them ended up putting a little bit more money in, but a the vast majority was on me.
Right, because uh uh it seems like a failing business at this point.
Without question.
So the investors are like, uh, you know, I don't know about this. Let's just see what happens. You're taking on debt, but you move into this small space to
Just make ice cream for restaurants and then that one specialty store with the idea that
you would turn this into a
a business doing like pints, like Ben and Jerry style. Pints?
Yes.
Pints to specialty stores as well as
the larger containers to restaurants.
The plan was we're gonna sell bigger ticket items.
In pint format as well as in these larger containers for
Restaurants, hotels
Convention centers, stadiums, cruise lines, you name it, that that was the model.
And and who was making the gelato in that little warehouse for you?
I was.
You are making it now. Yeah.
I was making it, I was delivering it, I was doing the accounting, I was the lawyer, I was the janitor
I had one employee, she was hourly.
And she would help me. So if I'm out
Making deliveries in my
Or
Green.
Chevy Tahoe, she would
Stay there and make sure everything's running properly.
And
That went on for
That year, two thousand five, that's what it was like.
And I can't imagine you're doing more than a few hundred thousand, maybe two, three hundred thousand dollars in sales max.
In two thousand five I did a hundred and seventy five thousand dollars in sales.
Right.
So it's tough business.
Very tough.
Very tough.
I mean,
I was selling furniture, I was selling anything I could
To fund the business and
To keep in mind I was now dating my
Current wife.
Ended up buying an old beaten up white.
Delivery van.
And started picking her up for dates in this van and she's just like, What the hell is going on here? This is crazy. Milk's in the back with sugar,'cause I'd go and buy all my
My raw materials with the van.
Walgreens and C V S used to have a special where you could buy so much milk at a certain price, but you could only buy so much. They wouldn't allow you to buy more. So I would go around to every C V S and Walgreens in the whole city buying milk and putting it in the back of the
the van to take back and make gelato and so anyways, she lived through that whole that whole episode.
All right, but your customers still small it's small customer base. It's like high end steakhouses and restaurants in Dallas, a specialty store.
And that's two thousand and five. That's right.
And how many different flavors are you making, do you remember? Because that's that's also challenging. If you've gotta make like ten different flavors, it'd be more efficient to make like three.
Oh, I was making any flavor anyone wanted.
I had certain chefs that said Wasabi Ice.
One guy wanted wasabi ice. Whatever you want, I will come over the formula, I will make it, and it will be exclusive to you. And I did that for any restaurant that was willing to work with me.
So how did I mean while you're doing this, you're making the ice cream, you're delivering it, you're hand packing it.
'Cause you don't have a I'm assuming you didn't have the machinery that could pack the ice cream.
No, it was all hand done, yeah.
Uh so this is like this really is a farmer's market business, right?
Yes. And this is a point where
I have to imagine you're thinking, How am I gonna get out of this hamster wheel?
'Cause I'm doing all these things I've got an hourly employee.
And I don't have time to do business development or try and pitch other stores or whatever.
Yeah, I did have that sensation that that came more about a year later, but yes, that that
In two thousand six
There was a broker who had seen
The gelato.
This is like a broker who who represents food brands.

Uh huh, okay.
For Texas.
And she called me and said, We've I love your product. Would you consider working with Costco, Texas? And of course I was excited, thrilled.
Said yes.
And the first thing they said is that the only way to get in is to do something called road shows.
So you would actually go to the
whichever store it was, set up a little stand and sit there and sell your product to everyone who's shopping in the store.
So I did that for a very long time. I drove around the entire state.
Um so at the time I did have Costco as a customer on a very limited basis for a short period of time. It was it was very, very helpful.
And we were getting new.
New restaurants and that specialty store.
That I had been in had expanded. They had several locations in different areas. They had all picked up the product, so I had like five or six of those as well. That year we did four hundred and thirty grand in sales. So things were growing and I was starting to take on more help.
Employees at the
warehouse and sales we're building.
Okay, it's two thousand six.
And that specialty store which is really where you all began. Now they're growing and they're ordering more ice cream.
Uh but
Apparently they're having problems.
The specialty chain is
behind the scenes they're having
Financial problems.
Yeah, I did not know that.
I got into this um bad cycle where you allow for a customer
Let's say you have thirty day terms where they whatever they buy from you, they can pay you.
Thirty days later.
Where they would go beyond that time frame.
and you would let them slide.
And I let them slide'cause I wanted to be able to sell to them.
There was always the fear that if you
Lay down the law and say I'm not gonna deliver till you pay me what you owe me. That you lose the customer. It is a dangerous slope.
And that is exactly what happened. I got
way past thirty days, past sixty, probably past ninety.
So
I had it was a very important client of mine and I didn't know how to
kinda get myself out of that situation.
And and so
Wha what happened?
So um

Before they went bankrupt, they ordered this huge order.
Like
Way larger than normal.
They received it and then they marked it way down.
And sold it off, but I never got paid.
So it was really bad for the business. That and then a couple of the restaurants to go out of business as well. I was owed a lot of money.
And it was
Getting close to Christmas time.
Everyone who worked for me celebrated Christmas and it was an important time for them.
And
I
But
Completely out of money.
I basically
Didn't know how to make payroll. I owed payroll.
Fifteen employees you had, roughly?
Roughly.
And so
I remember I called a meeting and I said, Everyone let's huddle up and talk.
And I said
I'm gonna go to the bank and I'm gonna
Try to sign and get more money from the bank.
To pay you what I owe you.
Because I don't have it right now.
Because of what just happened with this big customer.
But
It's gonna take a week or two weeks, you know, ten days to get this done.
If you leave in the meantime, I can't even
service the customers I have
And I'll lose them as well. So I really need you guys please to give me some time and I will pay you what I owe you. And I know the timing's horrible.
So they spoke amongst themselves and then came back and said.
We trust you.
We're gonna stay.
Go find the money. And I said, You got it.
Okay, how did you find the money?

Sign for more.
Even though you were heavily in debt
Heavily independent.
Oh man, the early two thousands. What a time. What a time. It was it was unbelievable, but it was like a personal loan you took out, or what?
Yeah.
Personal ownership.
I remember because I've been waiting to get the news, waiting to get the news, waiting to get the news.
And it was amazing news. And then of course
We stay in business.
The entire time every time I would call my father and say to him.
You know, this is happening and this is hard and I'm worried about this. And he'd say, You you keep going, it will work out, you keep going, it's gonna be fine. And this time I called him and he said
You know?
Maybe you're gonna have to close the doors. And that was just heartbreaking.
But we didn't. We made it through. It was a real crisis moment.
I mean it must have been it was a loan and that was big enough to cover payroll, but it was not I imagine it wasn't a giant loan. It was probably a couple, you know, a few maybe ten, twenty thousand dollars. I think it was more than that. I think it was like seventy or eighty thousand dollars, but it was it was way more than they probably should have given me, but they did. But back then it was like why do you only want seventy? You know, take eighty.
It worked out for me. It saved the business.
But you are still okay, so now you've got some some cash to keep the business going. You're in Costco, you're in c a few Costco's in Texas are doing these road shows. Being in Costco must have given you visibility.
'Cause that's what happens. Like other people who work for other brands will see you somewhere and they'll say, Oh, this is an interesting product. Did any of that happen? Did you start to get contacted by other
Grocery companies or
Yeah.
Yeah, so that is
True, that's helpful, but it's also if you can have good numbers.
And show what you're able to do.
And tell the story.
Incredibly helpful in sales meetings.
And so that's the point when we started going around and meeting
Literally in the stores.
With the uh frozen aisle.
Manager could be
a teenager.
And saying to them, look, we're selling here, we're selling there.
Let us go on your shelf, try us out.
That was starting to go into 2007 and that's kind of how we started getting more and more stores in 2007 was meeting with the frozen aisle manager. But these aren't independent grocery stores?
So Whole Foods was way different back then.
Each store had a lot of autonomy.
and they were able to take us on. So that would be one example. But there was some other specialty stores that were just getting started.
Maybe you've heard of Sprouts. Time Sprouts had very, very few.
locations uh they're out of Arizona, but they had come to Texas and they had opened I I think it was two locations in all of Texas and
And so that would be another example. So we were able to get into these kind of specialty markets that had the autonomy to be able to make these decisions and put us on shelf.
Hm. Um let's talk for a moment about the packaging, right? Because
Part of I think of what's really distinctive about Telente is
uh is the pines, right? Like the the clear
plastic containers where you can actually see the gelato, right? It it and it makes the brand stand out on the shelves.
Uh, I mean w what was it packed in at at the time?
So way back
In two thousand four, when I started at that first specialty store, in the very, very, very beginning.
I was doing it in those little tiny styrofoam containers that they
Mm.
Shortly thereafter I had gone to a trade show. It was actually in Italy.
Um
They had a new display case that rather than having metal pans, it it was made out of um
Transparent plastic.
Mm.
That pan allowed for you to see the ribboning, all the different
Swirls, the bits and pieces, the inclusions.
And so
I was like, wow, I should try to do something like that on the shelf in a in a supermarket.
So I came back and I I found a a jar.
And I showed it to my wife.
And I said, What if I were to package it in this?
And she said.
That's a terrible idea. That looks like uh a urine sample jar. No one's gonna ever buy anything from that.
So but I wasn't discouraged. I said, No, no, no, it's gonna be great. You'll see. Watch, watch, watch. So I came up with the pack. That was pretty early on, that was still an 04.
The concept of not being in a
in cardboard in a s when there was a sea of cardboard and coming out with something completely different that would hopefully generate trial.
started pretty early on. It started in oh four.
Okay, so two thousand seven, you get into get into more whole foods.
Locally and then Atlanta and Denver.
Business is starting to pick up.
How are you financing this? I mean again
These businesses are paying you uh thirty days. You've got to make the product
Deliver it.
And you're not a cash
Rich business at this point.
So I imagine
You're st once again running into challenges.
Yes, finances were very, very tight. Uh and then the salesperson that we had knew of a
Friend.
Інніаполис
And he
Helped us get a couple of years.
of chains in Minneapolis.
And I knew
That I couldn't
Just keep going into further debt. I and I had started to go out and try to find
A more sophisticated
Investor.
uh a bigger investor to come in and put in some real money to give relief to these investors that I've been
carrying since the days of the store.
And did you want just investors or did you want operators to come and work with you?
I really wanted smart money. I was trying to find someone who I thought could bring a lot of value. I started to feel like I really don't know what I'm doing.
А нет само
Who has more experience in this who can show me the way.
Uh, I I think I have a great product and I'm got all the energy in the world

But I I don't know exactly how that how that works and I need help with the expertise.
Okay, so you're looking around and you get
somehow connected to these guys, Steve Gill and Eddie Phillips, before we talk about who they are, how are you connected to them?
So in two thousand seven a friend from college was in town.
Uh, he had done public relations for
Steve and Eddie at Belvedere vodka when they still owned it.
Um these guys had founded Belvedere vodka.
Yes, and shopan vodka. Okay.
At that point they no longer owned them, they had sold them, they sold them to Louis Vatama Hennessy.
But
They were kind of now.

And uh but I didn't know that.
But this friend of mine from college had come.
to Dallas and we were together and I said he said, What are you gonna do? How are you gonna finance this thing? You're
Things are going well as far as the top line, but it is
Unsustainable what's happening here.
And I said I'm so anxious.
so so much need to meet someone. You know who would be perfect? Is these guys that you just did this PR for.
And he said, Well hold on I'm I'm
friendly with them and

Called them and said, Hey, uh
Steve, you should meet this guy, Josh. He has a business site. He'd love to
Tell you about it.
And
You thought they would be good partners I mean you didn't know yet, but you thought simp I mean, they were an alcohol, it was a different completely different business, but you thought look, they built two great brands.
They might be good to work with me.
Absolutely. I saw a lot of similarities. I've I saw
You know, their brand, they came out, they were much more expensive than the competition. We were more expensive than the competition. Not to that extent, but we were more expensive.
They invented the the bottle that you could look through the window and see the image on the back.
So I they had this innovative uh packaging.
I I just was like these guys know a lot about branding and they've had tremendous success.
They have been down that road as entrepreneurs.
So I I called and
said, you know, I really want to come meet with you guys. I had just had my first child
Uh
And they go, Come.
Come, we'll give you a few minutes. And in their minds it was they were just doing this
PR guy a favor.
There was no
real thought of that anything would come from this.
But I went there
And I sat down in their offices.
And I was very intimidated at the time. I'm sitting there's a massive office and they come walking in and this huge
board room table and sat down and they're like all right, you got a few minutes, tell us
What you're thinking.
And for some reason they thought it was a uh retail concept and they were not interested in retail. But then I explained to them, no, this is wholesale.
This is wholesale and this is what we're doing.
And they're like, Oh, we like it.
Then I had brought product with me and I had them taste it and they loved it.
They thought it was amazing. They loved the pack and they said, Make us a proposal.
And I guess they ended up putting in a million bucks into the business.
Yeah, there was like
We needed to sign some get some bank loans or line of credit or things like that.
So they're
Their balance sheets helped with
getting approvals on those things. Um
And so but yeah.
They put in money and they bought out all of my original.
Storefront investors.
When we come back after a quick break, how this fresh investment marked a new phase of Josh's business.
and eventually lead to a phone call?
from one of the biggest consumer products companies.
in the world. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.
Hey, welcome back to How I Built This. I'm Guy Raz.
So in 2007, Josh brings in two seasoned entrepreneurs, Steve Gill and Eddie Phillips, as investors in Telenty.
And at first, the idea was that the pair would simply be passive investors and board advisors.
But soon.
That arrangement.
would change.
I think it became clear
Pretty quickly.
That
It would be much better if Steve.
uh got involved in operations. It didn't take long to figure that out.
Mainly'cause I think he's an incredible operator. He he really knows how to build and run businesses. He became
uh like a business mentor for me and he he was just a natural at
leading and
a lot of marketing and sales as well as finance. He's he's very, very strong in in those areas.
Alright, you brought in that money fortuitously because
We're about to enter a dark period in the you know, starting in two thousand eight with a financial crisis that would last
At least two years.
How were you affected by
This significant
Downturn in the economy.
Oh, it was horrible for us. Uh
A few things that happened this
There was a a large
Sale that was made.

The understanding was
That would then go to these different customers.
what wasn't realized was it had it not been sold to those customers, we get it all back. So we got that
sent back to us and you can't then resell it. So that was trash. So that was a hard one. Um
Steve really took over most I would go with him, but he was heading up VP of sales, managing sales.
I really dedicated most of my time to product and
manufacturing and
More of the trade.
Um
And so
We lost money, we lost considerable money that year, a a lot of of bad debt.
And
There was no more money out there.
By by the end of O eight.
Try it up.
There was nothing left.
And so you were
you were making more product because you were growing
But you couldn't finance it.
Right. So by two thousand nine, I mean now again
Steve and Eddie.
These guys had made money, but a lot of money, selling Belvedere and Chopin vodka.
So now
I'm assuming they become the bank in two thousand nine.
Absolutely.
So
The end of O eight.
Till through oh nine, let's call it. And that was the period of
needing to
Live to see another day.
And those two gentlemen for the most part
uh funding that.
What was it that
About this th I I mean.
I mean I'd have to ask them, but
Why did they believe in this business so much? I mean it's
Vodka makes sense to me. It's shelf stable.
I mean, it's complicated. You're dealing with it's a highly regulated business and industry, but you know, you don't have to deal with putting it in cold storage and it going bad and shelf life and
Once it clicks, you're good to go.
Ice cream is
Tough business. I mean it is these are these are smart guys. Wha what attracted them to this thing?
Um again you'll you would you would have to ask them, but my my my best understanding from just having spoken to them about it is they liked the size of the category a lot.
It had been boring for so long, nothing had happened in that category for everybody.
Yeah, forever. So it was exciting to come and disrupt and then start taking away enough market share to just completely become a nuisance to them until they have to buy us. And so they
been through it, they had been wildly successful.
And uh
They thought that they would be able to
Together with me.
Repeat that.
That series of events.
Yes. So okay, so they
They're excited about this category. They see potential and they see the possibility of one day
maybe selling it to uh one of these bigger companies. But but in the meantime, you've gotta you've gotta finance the business.
What was the playbook here? Okay, so you've got the financial crisis.
But you gotta grow.
And so you have to invest in
Factory equipment, uh automation. You can't hand pack this stuff'cause I think you were still hand packing it in in two thousand eight.
There was an evolution of the packing.
You know, we went from packing with a spatula to where we were
move to what's called a continuous freezer and it would actually flow out as if it were coming out of a hose. And which made it easier
But
Still it was not automated. We did not automating. Oh you had to hold the hose yourself? You had to hold the cup underneath the spigot. It was like a it was like in the kitchen faucet and fill and then put the lid on and then keep doing that one by one, but one by one. Yes, and and we had multiple of these machines, so we were not doing one at a time, but each machine would do one at a time.
And
We didn't really automate to fillers until
Pretty much two thousand
Twelve.
So okay, so two thousand eight the money dries up from the banks. You've got two thousand nine.
And that year
Based on the numbers I've seen you
You go from to six point eight million.
So that's significant
Did it still feel scary or did it were you feeling more confident like okay, we're turning a corner here despite the financial crisis?
I would say
It was either the end of O nine or two thousand ten when it was feeling really good.
The big turning point of O Nine.
Was that
We

into public, which is a chain.
In Florida.
Yeah.
Why'd you want to get in public?
Public's
It's looked at as uh a leader in the industry. People focus on what they're doing, they're trend setters. It also

And Florida.
helps offset the seasonality of the business. Whereas it's always people always eating ice cream.
And especially you know, they get the snowbirds, they get a lot of people in the winter when we don't have much going on elsewhere. So that's a huge plus. They have a ton of locations. They had they own Florida.
So you had the ability to do tremendous business with them
Um
And we wanted to be able to show a win at a big
Chain.
What ended up happening was we went and pitched to them.
Um we got a phone call.
From the broker and he said, I got bad news. Unfortunately, they decided not to go with you. This was in the very beginning of O nine.
And
We said no no no no no no cannot be cannot be.
So Steve said
Call the buyer.
And tell him.
I just want thirty minutes with a guy.
Any thirty minutes he wants, I just want to talk to him face to face.
Get me a meeting.
So he calls us back and he says
You got your meeting. That's the good news. The bad news is it's tomorrow morning, like
eight thirty in the morning. And we're sitting in Dallas, Texas. It's
Five something in the afternoon.
So I'm like, Oh my God, go to the airport, go to the airport. So he just gets in his car driving to the airport.
At the time you could not go into publics.
Without wearing a suit and tie.
So I call his wife.
And we're saying grab a suit, grab a tie, stick it into a an envelope and uh a FedEx, go to a FedEx location and within a a s short period of time I will have an address for you.
So we find some little
Motel Hotel on the side of the road. Have her
Overnight at first thing delivery by seven AM.
He get catches the flight, gets there.
Puts on a suit, makes it to the meeting.
Tells the guys, you've gotta give us a chance. You have to let us in. We are going to make you look good. We're gonna sell well.
And it will be good for your career.
So he says, Well how are you gonna do that?
And he says, Well you know I've
I have done this before, but we're gonna do it. And he goes, No, I wanna know how.
And so Steve just goes.
Radio.
And he goes, Really radio? He goes, Yeah, radio.
He said, Well, how much are you gonna spend on the radio?
Five hundred thousand dollars.
So we ended up getting the business after that meeting and Steve calls me and he says
Good news, bad news. Good news is I gotta send and I'm like oh amazing, amazing. He goes bad news is we've gotta come up with five hundred thousand dollars to pay for radio that I just guaranteed them.
take our product and we'll go and and sell it with radio ads? Exactly. And what would the ad what would the ad say? Like
'Cause it's a visual thing. You see the idea or taste it.
But what did the the radio ads say?
I think I still have'em, I'm gonna send them to you, but i they're really funny. Um
The ads themselves

So it talked about the pack.
And it talked about the brand.
We're showing off.
We want you to see nothing except the finest all natural ingredients sourced from all over the world. And it played over and over until that buyer called us and said, You weren't kidding about your spend. I I can't get to work in the morning without hearing your ad on the on the radio.
Look for Talenti, Gelato, and Sorbeto at your local public supermarket where shopping is a pleasure.
And uh and did it have an impact?
I think it did. I mean our sales were great. We did we we came out of the gates just blazing and uh it just kept going up and up and up. All right, so two thousand ten really is when you start to see the light now. You're you're you're really growing. I think by twenty eleven you're doing twenty six million in sales.
And I imagine s really supercharged by the public's in Florida. Yeah. We took that success and went around to uh all different chains. Kroger's the biggest. And we started gaining distribution just across the country and a lot of sales. People were buying it.
So clearly this playbook is working and people are discovering this ice cream. I think you hit uh 95 million dollars in twenty thirteen and uh the team is just exploding, right? And and are you were you technically or officially the CEO of the business?
So I think w for a while it was Steve was CEO and I was president.
basically running it together. Eventually as we hired more C Suite on, I took on the title of founder. But until the very, very, very end, uh it was Steve and I running running that business.
And did you like did you it sounds like that was a better arrangement for you. Like you had been doing operations and payroll and an admin for so long on a smaller scale, but it's a grind. Yeah.
I came to the conclusion that there was a concept where there's certain people that like to do businesses on their own.
And I don't like that. I like having a partner because
both in the hard times and in the good times, I like being able to share those times with someone who knows every single detail of them.
That there's nothing that you have to explain.
So traditionally, once a brand
reaches a hundred million in sales.
It really starts to get the attention of the big players.
Right.
It's growing.
And it's not maybe not yet a threat.
But it is certainly a competitor now.
And you guys reach all almost a hundred million sales.
in twenty thirteen, and I imagine that's when you start to see maybe
Interest from outside.
companies or maybe you guys start to approach
Or hire like a law firm to see if there might be any interest?
So we hadn't approached anyone.
The business um
at that time was owned by three people was me, Steve and and
Eddie's son had taken his had inherited his shares. And and Eddie Phillips had had unfortunately passed away.
uh in two thousand eleven and his son
had taken over, a guy named Dean Dean Phillips, who actually was a became a congressman and then uh briefly ran for for president.
That's right, teen Phillips. Yep, yep.
So
We weren't actively looking to sell the business. In fact we we felt as though
It was still growing really strongly.
And no serious competitors yet. I think Hagendas was starting to launch its own gelato and Briars were but right, there wasn't any any
Head to head competitor yet.
Yeah, and it's hard to come out and be behind the the
the original authentic one.
Um so no we weren't, but then the Unilever actually came to us.
They came to us.
And thirteen.
Said, uh, this is the call you've been waiting for. And said, We want to buy your business. And we're like, Well, it's not for sale.
We're not selling. Wow.
And that started this
At least a year I think it was a year and a half.
Back and forth with those guys.
We just
Didn't feel like we were ready to sell yet.
Why not?
You know
I think
You start thinking to yourself
Is this a business I want
To run for a very long time.
And
Bring my children into it and make it a family.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I was having children.
Do I want

Novelties or what what have you, other
products and bring my sons in and make this kind of my life's

Do I want to be more of that serial entrepreneur and
So
That was a lot of the thinking.
My father had a lot of influence on me.
And
he thought it was a good idea to take some chips off the table. Yeah. Although the company was very profitable.
But we just kept pouring it all back right back into the business to you were making a decent salary probably by that point. Yeah, yeah, I had a nice salary. I was able to, you know
Go out for dinner and uh
But in any case, um, and my father said, look, I don't care what you're worth, it doesn't matter to me if if you have money is
I just think that to be able to sleep
Well at night it's nice to have an estate that you can depend on, and I'm just proud of you because you're a good person.
And that meant the world to me, and that helped me get over that.
So you decided.
Let's investigate this.
Sale.
Yes.
No, it wasn't just me alone, but yes, we
F it was a lot of back and forth.

Oh.
We're gonna this time we'll get there. This time we'll get there. And
We were too far apart, so
It took almost a year and a half, I think.
Before we were able to finally say
Okay.
We're ready to do this.
Right.
I think in December of twenty fourteen, Unilever announces that they've acquired
They will acquire Tlenty.
The acquisition figure is was is undisclosed, but
It was a lot of money.
And you had some incentives to stay on, I think for
Roughly two years.
That's right.
First of all.
Coming into, you know.
Now you're
I mean you're forty one and and haven't enough money to stop working at this point.
How did that change your life?
Um
Did you buy a bigger house or did you were you able to do you know, um you were able to do those things, for example.
was able to be more charitable.
Am I giving?
That was uh something I'm proud of.
Um
Ended up buying a ranch.
So some land?
Outside of Dallas.
Yeah.
Kind of like a nice place for the family to get away on the weekends.
Here or there.
Play sports, fish.
That sort of thing. So I guess th that would be a material
Difference.
But
My wife said to me.
Go buy something. You just did this, go buy something. Go buy yourself a watch.
Go buy yourself something. And I said, I don't know. What am I gonna buy? And she goes, just figure it out. You gotta I insist you buy something. So
That last night when we sold the business to Unilever
We had gone out.
The uh investment bankers.
We're ordering
McCallan twenty five.
That's an expensive scotch.

God, I don't know. Two hundred and fifty dollars per ounce that they were drinking.
Anyway, so they're passing it around, they're like everyone smell it, don't drink it, just smell it because it's too expensive. Can't drink it. So then they down it and next thing you're everyone's laughing and they bought everyone a round of of this scotch, which I was never
Able to afford.
before that I'd never tasted it. So I said, you know, that was such a fun night. I would like to
Go buy a bottle of that.
and hold it for special occasions. And so that's what I did. I bought a bottle of that. That was how I celebrated.
Um and whenever I open it, whether that be a birthday or a big milestone in in someone's life, we always write down on the bottle why why I'm having a sip of it to celebrate uh the date and the the event.
Um That's a nice tradition. Buy a two thousand dollar bottle of scotch and then write down every time you take a little sip of it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um so
Uh you end up sp you now you become an employee of Unilever for at least two years and
And imagine they just have you run it in Dallas, right? You don't go like move to Hoboken or London or Rotterdam or wherever their you know, their offices are, do you?
No, and part of the negotiation so Steve had been through the whole Belvedere experience and they wanted him to live in Paris and then they w
They were like counting his days of vacation and so like he didn't want to feel like he was going back inside some sort of cage. So uh
The negotiation involved a lot of freedom on our
Part of the
However, they knew that we were incredibly motivated to see this through.
big time incentives. So we were incredibly motivated to work very, very hard and make sure that they were left with a beautiful business. And so by the end of uh 16 we had hit two hundred and forty five million in sales and
It was extremely profitable and
They got what they paid for.
And at that point you were like okay, this was fun, but I I really don't want to work for a big company.
Right, I stayed on for three years as a consultant, w a number a handful, maybe a week or two a year I would be involved with them. Um, and they were great. They were a very, very stand up impressive
organization and company.
So I'm very happy about that. It makes it made me very proud that the person who took over
What was like my baby.
Was a company that makes me proud.
Um, we didn't talk we talked a little bit about your personal life. You got married and and raised a family throughout this whole
building this business, but uh you I think you now have what, five children? Yeah, five kids. Yeah. Wow. Three boys and two girls. All under the age of
The oldest is seventeen.
Right. So the oldest really was on that journey.
kind of with you, right? And some of them were probably born after the acquisition.
Yes, for sure. The youngest two both girls were born after.
And how did you
Just as a
Dad.
manage that. I mean I I believe that your your wife
was uh sort of manning the home front.
For a lot of that.
You know, I imagine you didn't want to be away from your kids.
So how did you manage
being a dad and and having, you know

running a business and trying to get this off the ground.
So um
There's nothing more important to me than family.
And I am incredibly involved in my
In my children's lives and and
Together with my wife.
Um
But I definitely was a workaholic for a long time. Uh
And it was about uh February of two thousand six when my wife and I decided that we would start uh
Keeping Shabbos, which is
The Jewish Sabbath.
The Sabbath, yeah.
Use electricity, you don't answer the phones, you don't
Drive.
Correct. Yeah. All of the above. That's so you started this in two thousand six when you were not in a
Secure position in the business at all.
I was terrified.
I left I remember leaving that Friday.
And thinking to myself, uh you know.
What happens? You know, how is this gonna work? Like what happens if there's God forbid a a fire or you know, it's a important day of the week.
Saturdays and it took a very long time to get over this
I'm not gonna work for that day. I'm done working, I'm gonna
I will have faith in God that the business will be okay for twenty five hours. Um and uh it really helped our our home life tremendously because
As my wife used to joke, she's like thank God for Shavas, I wouldn't get to see you otherwise. So she knows she has me that time frame together with the kids with uh un uninterrupted, uh completely focused on
on uh you know our faith and and our family.
And this is a thing, like there you there's so much research around this, right? People who take
A day off.
Or you know, who meditate or who just unplug. And lots of people do this, whether they're religious or not.
And
It sounds like you credit that with
Even though I'm sure.
it was an you were anxious at the beginning, right? Oh, what's going on? It's I can't manage my phone, but
Sure over time it became like this really meditative
Day of rest, which is what you know.
Right? God created the world in six days and then the seventh he rested, so there's a reason behind that.
Yeah, it's hard for me now to imagine.

Um
Completely look forward to it. Uh kind of.
resets everything perspective and
A life and
Excetera. So yeah, now I mean once you get past the initial fear and it can
have real trust and faith and you move on and you and you learn to to love it and live it and enjoy it. So it plays a huge role for us and for our children and for the way that we raise our family.
So basically every time you you know, from starting two thousand six, whenever you'd you'd work with somebody, or even when these t partners came on in two thousand seven, it was very clear, like listen, you need to know I don't work on Saturday.
I had the phone.
I need electricity.
It's non negotiable.
You could say that at the fr at the front and sort of
Set of expectations, I guess.
Yeah, yeah, it was uh well Ed Eddie Phillips is uh was Jewish, so he he understood a lot of
of what I w what was important to me. Um Steve has enjoyed the the
kind of learning about this and being involved and w speaking to me about it, et cetera. And funny enough, um
during Passover there's certain rules you're not allowed to own certain things one of them being
food that you're not allowed to eat during that period. So I would I would have to sell him the business uh and
he would have to give me twenty dollars and have a handshake and uh
you know, the the rabbis would have to see that this was happening with the handshake of but through a picture. And so after a number of years he said to me, Is this real or you just want twenty dollars from me every year?
What's going on? What's going on? But uh so we've had fun with it. We've had fun with it.
Josh, when you think about this journey, right, starting this thing and and really came out of n of not having a job.
At Bank of Boston.
And all those years I mean it took you a long time. It c start this in tw two thousand two, opened up a shop in two thousand three, and it really doesn't start to
fight its legs until two thousand ten.
So it's not it's a long journey.
When you think about that.
How much of it do you attribute to luck and how much do you think has to do with the the hard work you put in?
I don't attribute to luck. Um
I do think I've been blessed.
Um very, very blessed and I think it's a team effort, but you know, I
I feel extremely fortunate.
To God, you know, for
for the blessings in my life and um
There's been this
common thing that people like to call it an overnight success, but I say yeah, it was a fifteen year overnight success.
Because it it wasn't
Just from one day to the next, like you said, there was a a tremendous amount of
Hard work.
It was
Rollercoaster ride and it was scary.
And I think that's how a lot of these
entrepreneurial uh businesses go. There's it's just so different from being an employee that you expect to get a check.
Every two weeks. When you go home and you worry about
Could there be a fire or
You know, is there I don't can't get robbed. There's just a different set of concerns that you have when you own
And starting a business is hard.
And it takes
Tremendous amounts of work and a lot of good fortune.
That's Josh Hockschuler, founder of Telenty.
By the way, since selling to Unilever, Josh and his business partner, Steve, have been involved in a few other food-based ventures, but then during COVID, Josh got really into gardening as a hobby.
So today he's working with Steve and Steve's brother Mark on a business in a totally new industry.
It's called Green Acre's Nursery and Supply.

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This episode was research by Carrie Thomson and produced by Casey Herman, with music composed by Raptina Rabui. It was edited by Kevin Leahy.
Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, JC Howard, Chris Massini, Carla Esteves, Sam Paulson, Andrea Bruce, and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to
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