Transcript

Advice Line with Jeni Britton of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams (2025)

0:00 Before we get into the episode, thanks to our presenting sponsor, Anthropic, they make Claude an AI built for the problems that take real thinking. research, strategy, planning, and making sense of a lot of moving pieces. Give it a try for the next thing you can't quite stop turning over in your head. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash H I B T. Hey everyone, so this week we're revisiting one of our favorite episodes from The Advice Line. It's the episode with Jenny Britton, the founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. And stick around to the very end of the episode because we checked back in with our callers and they have some really awesome updates. This episode first ran in March of 2025, and I hope you enjoy it.

0:54 Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298. Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. You can also send us a voice memo at hibt at id.wondery.com, and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free. Gyros dot com

1:45 and we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right. Let's get to it. Joining me this week is Jenny Britten. She's the founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. Jenny, it's great to have you back on the show. Hey guy, it's so so great to be back.

2:00 You were a guest on a show back in twenty eighteen. I we did a live show in Columbus, Ohio. It was so fun. And by the way, guys, if you haven't heard that original episode, we will put a link in the episode description. Um you of course started Jenny's uh your first location was in a food hall. And then you opened your first scoop shop a few years later, um, and I think most people know your ice cream. I mean creamy, amazing, uh weirdly wonderful flavors like um powder jelly donut and brambleberry crisp and Texas sheet cake and my current favorite, I have to say, A brown butter brittle.

2:34 That's my favorite. Yeah. We have a a pint and a half. My my son eats a pint of your ice cream like Almost daily. It's very it's just really amazing when they're growing How much ice cream they eat. Yeah, well, I know that very well too. My kids eat a lot of ice cream as well. We we are an ice cream family, of course. Um but yes, that one's my favorite too, and the one that I'm I always, always, always have in my freezer. It's so good. Um today your ice creams are sold, I think in a in about eighty at least eighty scoop shops across the country. That's right. twelve thousand retail locations. Um you built an incredible business. Um

3:09 Jenny, before we get to to today's callers, um, I I want to ask you a couple of questions about Your story. I mean when you were in college, right, you had this moment when you knew you wanted to make ice cream. Right, basically for the rest of your life. And you dropped out of of the Ohio State University to start

3:25 What would become Jesus first called um Scream, I scream. Yeah, in nineteen ninety six I walked out of art class. Literally. I mean, yeah, you walked out and and so a lot of you know, a lot of callers have asked this in the past, which is when w like how do you know That it was the right thing to do at that time.

3:42 Uh well First of all, I didn't question it. It it wasn't something that I sat and thought, is this really right? Is it not right? Um I just knew that I couldn't do art anymore. And I had spent my entire life in art. My grandmother's an art teacher. My mother's an artist. And um and it just wasn't for me anymore.

3:58 I just wanted to be making ice cream and I wanted to be serving ice cream and I wanted to light people up in that way and I didn't uh know at all what I was doing and I just thought it was just gonna be you know, you make ice cream, you serve it, people love it, and then you know, you become Ben and Jerry's overnight. Yeah, and obviously that's not true. You know, that was just the beginning. Yeah. I think a lot of people

4:16 Assume that. brand start in you know, coastal cities, LA, New York, San Francisco Um, but y you started this in Columbus and built a national brand really on on the sheer force of the quality of the product and the br and the branding and the look of it.

4:33 Um tell me why do you think Columbus turned out to be the perfect place for you to launch the business. Columbus is a perfect place. Um and and m these smaller markets are really perfect for a lot of reasons actually. I mean Um I you know, I was in Columbus and one of the reasons that I wanted to be a an ice cream maker is because I drove by farms every day. You go twenty minutes outside of downtown and you're driving by dairy farms. So I knew that we were a dairy state because I saw it in front of me. So I thought, Okay, great, it's awesome for ice cream.

5:01 And um And we forget. That a lot of innovation can come from the middle of the country, whether it's in food, especially in food where we have ag states. Um, but also when you're in a smaller small to mid size city, the city gets behind it in a different way. You know, you can you can really try things and also fail a lot, and people still

5:19 And I have noticed that in big cities, everybody's trying new things. Um, everybody's got something going on and it's really hard to stand out. And of course the cost of doing business is lower. Just the start up costs are lower in a place like Columbus versus Brooklyn, New York. It would be impossible to do what we do at Jenny's. All of our money would have been in You know, rent. And paying people and and all the things that you have to do in Brooklyn that would be different from Columbus. Yeah. Um, and here we can put it all in the ice cream. And that's just a huge difference.

5:48 Yeah. Jenny, before we get to our callers, um, you have a new product that you've launched. A completely I think it's a completely separate company. It is. Um called Flora. And these are um uh energy bars are or or bars, but they're like high in fiber, like thirteen uh fourteen grams of fiber. Prabhup me about this new like business that you've you've launched.

6:08 Yeah, it Flora is a fiber company. We actually make Fiber. Or um or pole fiber from produce trimmings. So we are located actually inside of a six hundred thousand square foot produce processing company that makes cut produce for all your favorite grocers. Like baby carrots or you know, stuff like that. Mott's apples, for instance. Okay. And so we can take the apple cores and then make them into a paste, which becomes the base of our bars.

6:35 And so we also work with watermelon rinds. We actually ferment the watermelon rinds a little bit, which opens up cellulose and pectin and prebiotic fiber there. Uh we work with honeydew, cantaloupe rinds, uh mango skins. These are really high in fiber, and then 95% of Americans are deficient in fiber, and it's the cause of many chronic illnesses across America. So I don't know, you know, people are like, How do you go from ice cream to fiber? And to me it's just the same thing. It's about making people feel better. I I learned after I was able to kind of step back a little bit from Jenny's over the last five years how important fiber is and how absent it is from our our food system. And we we really need this to have a healthy microbiome. So yeah, so flora exists to to get people fiber every day. That's so cool.

7:14 Um, congrats on that. It's really true. I mean I I I eat so many vegetables and and and I still add cililium husk to my morning smoothie. I eat chia seed pudding every day. We don't eat enough fiber. And you have to work to do it. You have to actually try. It's really hard. And also, you know, of course there's this sustainability a uh aspect because all of these ingredients were going to be.

7:37 Into the landfill, but they are really good for you. You should be eating them. Yep. For sure. Well, all right, congrats on that. I can't wait to try them. Thank you. Back at the beginning. Back at the beginning. I love it. Let's bring in our first caller. Hello, welcome to the advice line. Uh you're on with me and Jenny Britton. Uh, welcome. Please tell us your name, uh where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.

7:57 Hey guy. Hey Jenny. Uh, my name is Jesse Koenig. I'm calling in from Washington, DC. I'm one of the co founders of Jesse and Ben's. And what makes our fries special Is that we don't use seed oils or any weird ingredients. It's just non GMO potatoes, healthy fats, like

8:14 Grass fed beef tallow or avocado oil. And salt and seasonings. That's it. Just real ingredients you can pronounce and none of the bad stuff. Incredible. I love it. Welcome to the show, Jesse. Thanks for c calling in. So these are you these are sold frozen in a bag like at that you would get at the grocery store in the f in the freezer aisle? Exactly. Yep. They are frozen French fries you'd find right in the freezer aisle next to some of the the big red bags you probably recognize from from a long time they've been there. And then you take them home and you just put'em on a baking sheet and you you bake'em? Yeah, exactly, right? And the air fryer air fryer is great. People love their air fryers. I like to make them in the oven too. They're great in the oven as well. Um it's kinda like a

8:50 twice fried Belgian style fry you'd get at a restaurant, and we do the first fry, and you're basically doing that finished cooking at home, either in the air fryer or in the oven. I got it. Cool. Well tell me a little bit about how you started the the business. Uh our background is actually in restaurants and You say R you've got a you've got a partner that's that would be Ben. That would be Ben, exactly. I guess the the Ben and Jesse and Ben's. Yes, we're the the guys behind the fries. I'm I'm one half of the equation being Jesse. Ben and I we met in college, we were friends, we decided This brilliant idea that we were gonna get into the food industry with no experience. Uh, jumped right into it in DC in twenty fourteen with food trucks and farmers markets and kind of running around the city. What were you selling? What kind of food? It actually started out with gourmet grass fed beef spiral cut hot dogs of all things. It was a very niche funky thing. Hand cut fries were a huge part of the menu from day one. And we

9:40 eventually pivoted the concept a little bit more into the burger space and building a better fast food concept. We've had our best year ever in twenty nineteen. We signed our first lease getting ready to open up in twenty twenty. And it was not the best time as you might imagine to be opening your first restaurant. Yes. So we were we were building our restaurant in March, getting ready to open in May. And that actually led us to this kind of idea for French fries because we were trying to solve a problem at our restaurant. We were hand cutting fries for our food trucks and farmers markets and now this new restaurant, and we thought We need to survive. We don't know what we're gonna do. What if we could use a frozen French fry? But since it'd always been a core part of our business from the earliest days, we couldn't sacrifice the quality of our fries. Yeah. And we decided to make our own frozen French fries, because the only one we could find that we really worked. And then we had these frozen fries and we walked the grocery store aisles and we just saw that sea of sameness we learned about from being longtime listeners of how I built this and realized there was a a huge opportunity to just do something better and we realized there was a real problem that needed solving.

10:40 Amazing. All right. Just to clarify though, the w w these are sold In stores, not direct to consumer,'cause it's kinda hard, I'm assuming, to ship these, right? Yeah, we've had people all over the country trying to get us to ship French fries, which we've decided not to do for the time being. Dry ice, it's hard. So so where are they sold? How many shops uh grocery stores are you in right now? So we just launched into retail in June of last year. So June twenty twenty four. And you know, by kind of end of the year, early twenty twenty five, we're in about four hundred grocery stores. And we're actually launching nationally with Sprouts Farmers Market soon. So We've got a lot going on this year and we're just trying to figure out one step at a time of what to do next. All right, what's your question for us today?

11:20 Yes, my question's related to just how we should focus our marketing efforts. I know we're a You know, small business. We don't have the budgets of the big guys. And we're getting ready for this nationwide launch in Sprouts, and we're trying to think about, you know, as we get into these new places, how should we be allocating our resources and our time and our budget? On one hand, it seems like there's a good case to be made to Go and find the people that are already removing ultra processed foods and seed oils from their diet,'cause they kinda get it. They can be those early brand evangelists. On the other hand, it kinda seems like it could make sense to go find people who are buying lots of fries and don't even know about this problem. And if we can educate them and get them to know, hey, these fries not only taste better, but they might be better for you and your family too. So we're just trying to figure out how we should, you know, really focus our effort when it comes to marketing as we're rolling into new places.

12:09 All right, we'll get to your question in a moment. I wanna bring Jenny in. Um Jenny uh You may have some answers to his question, but you may have questions of your own before we get to it. Hi, Jesse. Hello. Congratulations on your business. I mean how cool. It's amazing. I feel like there's like a problem with like French fries right now. You guys identified it inside your company where it's like you can't actually buy like decent french fries, but making them is actually really hard too.

12:33 And if you're feeling it, I think the consumer's feeling it. As well. Um I would love to know where are you manufacturing How are you manufacturing these? So we make all of our own French fries ourselves. We actually just opened a brand new six thousand square foot facility in Rockville, Maryland. Because we are doing grass fed beef tallow and avocado oil, and we think we have a very true to form process for these hand cut, you know, Belgian style fries.

12:57 We Don't really think there is an option elsewhere to do co-manufacturing. We kind of like controlling that part of the process. So we do it all. That's actually kind of what Ben's specialty is. Mm-hmm. And what are your I mean, uh your established businesses, h are people just sort of super excited about the fries, you know I mean, is that something that I mean, it sounds like it. But um in addition to your burgers and the the dogs and everything.

13:19 Yeah, at the restaurant level, I think for us we were able to execute on making a fry that tastes as good as any French fries you ever had, but the sort of magic behind the scenes for us as operators is that we just open up a bag of our Jesse and Ben's fries, drop them into the fryer, and we've got a great French rye right there. Um and we actually do sell fries to other restaurants. It's kind of a sneaky wholesale business that we have that helps us grow our business and run our manufacturing plant profitably. Hopefully that's that's the idea at least. Um easier said than done. Totally. It's really interesting. Jesse, can you give me a sense of what your

13:52 what your sales are right now with the Fries are you guys have you broken through Two hundred thousand dollars in sales? Yeah, so in our first twelve months in business, we've done into seven figures in sales. Great. So it's been growing pretty quick. Incredible. Well let me let me take to try to take a crack at your question because I think there's a parallel uh uh with what Jenny's done and you mentioned this is uh idea of like a higher quality

14:14 version of something that you you are used to, right? There's a lot of awareness on social media about uh about seed oils and people are getting sort of weirded out about about using them and there's there's a still some disputes about whether that that that's, you know, accurate or not. But w I think that Most of the people that you want to appeal to aren't really gonna care about that as much yet. I still think it's new. I think most of the people are just gonna like your product because it's delicious. It's a higher quality product and you can taste it. What do do you do you think there's something to that, Jenny, or do you disagree? I really do. If you go super deep on the seed oil thing, that science has not reached consensus yet.

14:52 So it it can be fad like right now, and so you don't want to just be known for that. People who follow that will find you, they'll see tallow, they'll see avocado oil, and they'll find you. But I will say There is another component or an element that you that that to think about which is You know, you're not just moving people from one fry company to another.

15:13 Your customer when you're in grocery is not their customer, it's it's the buyer. And what the buyer wants to see is, yeah, sure, you can split some votes, that's okay. Are you bringing new people to the category? And so the new people that you're bringing, sure, it's some of the seed oil people, it's some of the health conscious people, it's also just people who love fries who just don't think you can get good fries in the grocery store and you can't make them at home. And you have a story. That can back that up, and that's gonna bring new people into the category. And I think

15:40 The buyers are gonna really wanna wanna wanna have you on the shelf. How how what are you guys doing for sampling? I mean, uh do you have air fryer set up in in some of these grocery stores and just uh handing out I'm h hot fresh fry. Uh while you're shopping for groceries, I mean, my God. We we've done it a couple of times. We actually just were jokingly serious, but joking about this idea of like what if we just got a giant food truck and drove it down the east coast and had a French Ride Tour bus and just did cool activations, but I think tasting definitely is believing. We've had a lot of success just finding these really influential people online and on social media, seeding out the product, having them give honest reviews and giving their experience. And that's been really effective. But I think you're right. We

16:21 When you put an air fryer out and you give somebody a couple of French fries in the grocery store, it's it's very hard to keep them on the shelf. We're selling out stores that way, definitely. Yeah, and you go right to your customer in the grocery store. I mean, it's a really great way. Sir Kensington's actually did a really cool thing. She partnered with them. They sent a truck out and they did fren fries, but it was to sell their condiments. And they had this cute like container. And I happened to catch it at at my Whole Foods. And they had their mayo and their ketchup. And so you would go up and you would get that. And it's like I've been a huge fan of Sir Kensington since

16:51 Yeah, I mean you're like a as Jenny said, like when when people would ask her to describe the flavor, she would say, We packed more as much chocolate into this pint as we could possibly get. W when you have people trained people who are sampling Jesse and Ben's at at at Sprouts or wherever it is. Then they can say and it's made with avocado oil or beef tallow and you know, whatever the the pitch is. I mean here you go. It's gonna change your mind about oven fries and it's available in the freezer section just ro around the corner. L that's a pretty good pitch too, guy. We have to hire you to do some samples. I love selling other people's products for them. I think it's like it's so great. And in fact, it's a good thing to do to be to listen to how other people talk about your products because you'll talk about it one way.

17:30 But listen to what other people are saying and then also when you're thinking about your pitch. Think to your customers, think about what do I want them to say to other people. And talk to them the exact way because what you say, they often sort of say it in your words to somebody else. And that word of mouth is gonna be everything. I think that's great advice. I really appreciate the help. Uh Jesse Koenig, the brand is called Jesse and Ben's. Thanks for calling in. Good luck, Ben.

17:54 Good luck. Thanks so much. We really appreciate you guys. Great having you. Um Yeah, I love French fries. And Jenny, you know French fries And it

18:04 Great stake for me is like Она гратист момент. Yeah ever. Oh, same. I'm really excited about this tallow and sea salt though, and I I agree, like I know a lot of people are talking about tallow, but you know, like we're just going back to like some First principles of like how do you make great

18:20 French fries. I know I'm in the Midwest, so I'm hoping that that my stores carry them. Okay, next up after the break, another caller with another business challenge. I'm Guy Raz and we're answering your questions right here on the advice line. on how I built this lab. Our presenting sponsor today is Anthropic.

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20:11 Thinking through strategy or just trying to hand off the busy work that slows everything down? Claude helps you keep moving. For problems worth solving, get started with Claude at Claude.ai slash H I B T. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Roz, and my guest today is Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams founder, Jenny Britton. Uh Jenny, why don't we let's take our another call. Okay. Welcome to the advice line you're on with Jenny Britton. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.

20:54 Hello, nice to meet you both. Um, my name's Casey White, and I'm calling from Boston, Massachusetts, and I'm the co-founder of Jaju Peroge. And we uh specialize in high quality Polish dumplings, so producing high quality Polish dumplings at scale. Using our grandfather's recipes. To grocery stores throughout the country. Amazing. Well thanks for calling in, Casey. And and th so pierogis dumplings, these are I think most people know they are f stuffed with

21:21 Potatoes and cheese and I think you c you can get it with meat. You can put anything you want and it's inside Pasta dough, right? So we make a bunch of different flavors from potato and cheese. Calbasa, which is a pork sausage, and red bell pepper. Sweet potato, caramelized onion. Uh, how up in your cheddar.

21:41 Mm. So it's uh this sold frozen in bags in the grocery store and Like you rehe you just heat it up in the oven? Yeah. So we boil them and freeze them. So you can air fry them, you can bake them. My favorite was sauteing them with some butter oil for about eight to ten minutes on the stove. Um, you could even microwave them if you wanted to, so just reheating them. And tell me how you started the business. Tell me the story behind it.

22:06 Yeah, so my sister and I uh grew up on our grandfather's porgi, so Jaju is our brand name, and that's the phonetic spelling of grandfather in Polish. Um, so we grew up on his pierogi and always had them like in the freezer, like our craft mac and cheese. Like that was our snack, our go to thing. All of our friends would ask Hey where'd you Get those like I

22:27 Can't find handmade dumplings anywhere. And we're like, really? Because we always had them. So we just Assume it. Yeah. Yeah. So We actually drove back to our grandfather's store and found his handwritten recipes in the back of the store. and just started tinkering on our kitchen table and kind of like that small business story, right? Started going to pop ups. Um, farmers markets. We started doing this around the time when breweries were like really hot and new. So

22:57 Pierogian beer is like the perfect combination. So we would hop around and do that and quickly realized that yeah, people could not find Pirogie anywhere. Um, people were like driving from neighboring states to come to our events. It was crazy, but it was awesome, so we kept going with it once we We we saw that demand.

23:17 Wow, that's super cool. All right, so you're you're not sold direct to consumer or you are? We do sell direct to consumer on our website. Um we don't do not a large part of our business because as you said before, you know, frozen is pretty expensive. It's challenging, yes. Yep, not easy to do, but we do offer it. Um and but most of our business is to grocery. So Now we're in about

23:37 Twenty seven hundred stores throughout the country. Um, whole food, sprouts, a lot of lot of sores in the natural channel. And then we still do We do have a big event part of our business that we still operate, um, mostly in the summer months at like music festivals and stuff like that. Right. And and give us a sense of your your

23:58 sales right now. So last year we finished um at two point five million. That's great. This year we should do Almost four because we're actually getting into Costco, which is exciting. Oh wow. All right. So so before we dive in with more questions, what what's your question for us? So my question is How does a company sustainably grow?

24:18 In the C P G industry without raising a ton of capital, or is raising a ton of capital just part of the equation? All right. Big question and Jenny, I know you've got a lot of thoughts on that. Um Jenny questions for C C? Hey Casey. First of all, congratulations. What an accomplishment. I mean to have

24:36 twenty seven hundred plus stores is I mean, I know from my experience at Jenny's this is a slog that is not easy to do and um I just applaud you. Thank you. I just I guess When I think of bringing capital, I think the first thing I think of is um That entrepreneurs are entrepreneurs for a reason and that's because we like to do things our way and differently and we like to explore and discover and all of that. And when you bring in outside capital, you lose all of that. And so You know, are who's on your team, who how many people do you are you ready to sort of

25:06 like let go of that kind of control. Yeah, that's that's the hard part, right?'Cause it's like We're a very small lean team, so we've been very methodical in our growth, like we've been around for Nine years. And so a lot of people right, they say, Oh, like nine years, like maybe you should be in ten thousand stores or whatever. And we say, like, well, we've just methodically grown because we didn't want to take you know outside investment and stuff like that. And so it's kinda just like that point, like, okay, if we wanna get into the club stores, the big you know, the bigger guys, like

25:37 We need some upfront money to do packaging, like just all of the logistics and all that. piece of it. And so that's what I struggle with'cause it's like, right I don't want to give away control. I wanna be able to still make the the big decisions, but also like Where do I get the money from?

25:54 To do so. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well and that's um that's always that sort of Catch twenty two or whatever, you know, where you're trying to uh to grow and and you need the money to grow. Have you looked into like SBA and like um the sort of SBA and bank loans? Because I think you know, the thing is we don't really ever talk about that. And it can be such an incredible resource, especially, you know

26:16 The the first answer is you're doing it. This is how you do it. This is actually how you raise a company. In the best way because you have control and you're growing and you're doing it. And that's another question too for you is like, what would you do with the money? I mean it's package if it's if it's just packaging and getting into a store. You might be able to get a loan for that. Have you looked into bank loans and if that

26:36 something that you would consider versus Bringing in a a partner. Yeah, uh open to all options. We have taken some um bank loans, the SBA Covid was a great time to get federal money. Um, so that really helped us. So there's definitely that avenue. It's just funny, like

26:54 being in the industry, the CPG industry. I don't know if it's because you're just surrounded by people, right, who are always like, I raise X and I raise this and this round series A B C D E. Like it's like Is this what I'm supposed to be doing, right? But I agree with you. It's like Fine you can get creative. with how you need to front load anything, right? If it's just packaging, like in this case, most of it is, right? It's just accomplishing the execution of a new store.

27:21 then why give, you know, twenty five percent of your business away to someone who does who is never gonna care as much as I do. Yeah, and they're gonna have a lot of opinions on how you do things. And I mean, look, a and to be frank, it is a and we've talked about this on on the advice line before. It happens to be a a more challenging environment to raise money, especially in food Mm-hmm.

27:44 You know, what I'm hearing from investors right now yeah in the food space is They're waiting, they're really looking for brand to hit fifty, really a hundred million dollars in sales. You know, it was a couple years ago it was twenty. If a brand hit twenty million dollars in sales, it was a target for acquisition, you know. Um that being said, I mean you have some friends and family who who uh have invest in the business, right? Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so I mean, is there talk or thought about maybe going back to them and if if that's something that you need, is that an option?

28:18 Yeah, that's also that's part of my plan of attack, right? It's like When we did that round You've ri I learned a lot about myself and my connections, right? Like People want to help you, whether they're giving you money or not, they want to help you and they give you the advice that.

28:35 kinda leads you to the next person that might Yeah, write that check. Who believes in your company has been seeing us grow it for years, right? So that's kind of my first plan of attack. It's like, okay. Look at my network. The people that

28:49 I trust and have believed in this product, tap them first because I was pleasantly surprised the first time. So I probably will be pleasantly surprised the second time I do this. Well just to get to this other this other point that you're making, which is like it does feel like and I felt like this at Jenny's too, it does feel like

29:09 Even now like like your success as an entrepreneur is not whether you're actually selling or creating value for your customers, it's about whether you've gotten what round of funding you're in. And I'm so fundamentally against that. I mean I think that it has to be as entrepreneurs, it has to be about our customers really creating value for people and and Honestly, I think the best way to do it is this. I'm I talk about this Jenny's all the time, but like start small and build, just keep building Uh Jenny's took on partners in twenty fifteen, but that was we know we started in two thousand two other business. I was learning that whole time. I built my brand so that when we brought in uh a private equity firm who we're still with and we we love,

29:47 I mean we're very lucky on that front. But Uh, when we brought them in, the brand was established enough that I still had power, you know you know, to put it frankly. Do you have a board of advisors or a board of um some people that you you lean on?

30:01 We do. We have a few. We haven't fully built out a board, which I I think we need to do. I have found that very helpful. I found I thought that was helpful at Jenny's when we brought in the private equity firm uh in twenty sixteen actually We we organized a board and that just Need us kinda prepare for you know, we had to sort of tell everybody what we were doing every month. We had to get prepared for that meeting. We had to, you know, but it also helped us just organize together as a team

30:26 Uh, they were so helpful to us. So I have a new company now, Flora, and we've already formed a board and we went out and found people who are real experts there. And I think there are a lot of people who would want to help you because you're already out proving it. Yeah. And then also when you get to that point, if you do a little later want to go for for funding, you've already got your board established. So that gives you a little extra leverage. Right. I think that's I think that's great advice. Um Casey White, the brand is called Jaju Parogi. Good luck. Good luck.

30:53 Thank you so much. Yeah, I mean Jenny, do y you know, uh obviously it's a di like it's a different time environment to raise outside capital and in food, right, in the food business. But it was important, right? I mean it really helped you kind of super scale your business. Yeah, and it um we looked for partners and doing this at Flora too, we look for partners who could be who could add more value to the company who could really help us. I mean, we were just a scrappy team. And when they when they came in we we sort of formed an executive team of professionals.

31:22 Yeah. Understood how to do it. And that was a game changer because there are methods that we just you just have to know, you have to learn. Yeah. W what are you hearing, I mean, if anything, about fundraising Uh fo for especially for food brands right now. Well it's funny you should ask because I'm literally in the middle of it. I've been doing this for the last

31:39 You know, I mean building this company for two years, um really scrappy and we've gotten some angel uh investors uh for early stage uh just to get us to kind of figure out what we're doing. And now we're kinda going after the bigger funding, but we are finding, yes, of course, it's very tight, very, very tight. And I think you have to have a massive opportunity. We're W I'm hearing people say that, you know, they're looking for companies who can become a billion dollar company. Yeah. If you think about food. That's Massive. You know, I mean that's just

32:06 That's just global scale almost. Uh they're throwing around that B word a lot. Yeah. Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. I'm Guy Roz, and you're listening to the Advice Line. Right here on how I built this lab. Welcome back to the advice line on how I built this lab. I'm Guy Raz, and today I'm taking your calls with Jenny Britton, founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. Uh so Jenny, let's get back into it and take another call. Okay, sure. Let's go.

32:55 Hello, welcome to the advice line you were on with uh Jenny Britton. Tell us your name where you're calling from and a little bit about your business. Hi Guy, hi Jenny, my name is Cali Zayher. Um I'm calling in from Los Angeles, California. I'm the founder of Ube.co. And we make organic purple sweet potato pet treats tailored to sensitive stomach and skin pets. So purple sweet potato

33:19 Tell me the connection between purple sweet potatoes and like dog tre treats for sensitive Stomachs. Yeah, for sure. They're made of uh organic purple sweet potatoes as our main ingredient. Uh the term for it is Ube. So Filipino yeah, a lot of Filipino um community loves that.

33:38 As uh a really high fiber um ingredient in in a lot of um food and desserts. So I was looking at just in general in the market. There's not a lot of treats that's tailored to sensitive stomach pets. Um, and I have a dog that has a very sensitive stomach. He is a Kava Pooh and he's um

34:00 Just fr from when he was young, it was really hard to hide to find high fiber treats for him. So I was cooking a lot of sweet potatoes. Um a lot of pumpkin things like that for him and then I found purple sweet potatoes. Um, and then I was doing a lot of research'cause my background is in science and um I found that there's a lot of antioxidants and vitamins and minerals that are really good for their health. Um In purple sweet potatoes.

34:28 So that's how it started. Well. And um tell me where you're selling them. Are they uh is it direct to consumer through through website right now? Yeah, mainly direct to consumers. We have we're in ten local stores. around LA and two in Hawaii. Um yeah.

34:45 Cool. I mean g give me a sense a little bit about your sales. Have you guys broken twenty five, fifty thousand dollars in sales yet? We've broken fifty thousand dollars in sales, but not to a hundred K yet. Right. Okay, cool. And what's your question for us today? So my question is, um right now, currently we have uh only relied on organic growth achieving about like thirty percent return returning customer rate online.

35:10 Um, but we're facing like a really big challenge in reaching new customers. And I think to scale the business effectively, I need I think it's time to like partner with a PR firm. for marketing um to allow me to focus on product development. So how can I find a reputable PR firm to help promote Ubay dot co and expand our reach? All right. Jenny, I wanna bring you in

35:34 Dog treats sense stomachs makes a lot of sense. Sweet potatoes. Let's go. Let's let's figure this out. Amazing. Callie, congrats on your business. It's so cool. I mean I'm always floored. I I have two animals and um I adore them and I always just like I I'm really f tuned into this um idea that people spend so much money on their pets. And and you know, we need to like care for our pets. We do. We care for them like there are there are children. We do. Um I love your background in science and I think this can really carry you. Um

36:03 And I'm just curious, as a scientist, what what was your How does that specifically help you wade through the research? Because w when you get a PR firm, I think what what we're gonna do is figure out what your message is. And so figuring out like okay, let's say You're a scientist.

36:18 You looked through all the research. You created this, you know, this idea based on what you know, and now you're sharing it with other people. And so have you thought about like how to use your Experience. in a way that commun to communicate that with others. And I think that would be like I what a but PR for might you do too. Yeah, um I've thought a lot about this actually. I was planning to um do like a fun ingredient list for each product that I launch. Um with the scientific terms of the ingredients in it.

36:46 But also there's a like a a little bit of hesitant in the sense that oh would people think that it's like more like medicinal or like you know, is it chemical? You know, the the words kinda sound like scary. So I try to use just us. like simpler terms antioxidants, high in vitamins and fiber. Things like that. Um But Like my message right now is not coming out as clear as I want it to be.

37:12 Yeah. That's so much a part of our what we what we tackle as entrepreneurs, especially in the beginning when it's just us doing everything. Getting your communications, what you're saying right, because you're right. Even though it matters that the science is accurate and that it's there. What are you actually communicating to the customer that m that activates your customer? And you learn that by selling.

37:32 By selling to people and listening to feedback with your audience. What's resonating? What are people really I mean, yes, the product works, we hope yes, it works, but why? And what is the thing that you can then use because then that becomes your communication strategy, which then leads into like when you go and try to get on the Today Show. Yeah, I think um I I uh from last year we did a lot of farmers market and like sell directly to customers and we found that

37:57 One of the things they're most like interested about is just u the Ube itself. We have a slogan called U Bay for My Bay. And everyone is like, Oh I love Ube, so my dogs must love Ube too. And it turns out they do. Like so I think that's a good way to attract people, but I think what kept the people coming back is the health benefits. the fiber, the vitamin, the antioxidants, like you can see you can see an improvement in their gut health.

38:24 By by feeding them the treats. I and what about um I mean, I know you're small and you're probably s scrappy, but I mean, have you tried putting playing around with social media ads? Yes. I've done it uh just me and my husband learning from like YouTube and everything and just launched the ads and it didn't turn out so well. Like pretty much we we broke even on what we spent. Okay. Customer acquisition is getting harder and harder on social media, but I will just say this.

38:56 We have a uh uh an episode of the show on Misfits Market, which sells like um food that would otherwise get through away, you know, an apple with a blemish or something. And and w what they did, and again, this is in two thousand eighteen, so it was a little slightly different environment, but Still effective today, I think. Instead of focusing on hey, you know, this is still uh edible or we sell food for you know these thirty percent less They would literally have like a weird, freakish looking carrot.

39:22 Right, and a photo of it, and it would just say This carrot needs a home. That was the ad. And and people would click on it'cause it was so weird. You have a product that's unusual. You're using purple sweet potatoes. I know them, right? But if you go to you can get'em at Trader Joe's, but a lot of people were would be like, A purple sweet potato? What is that? Right. And so because you've got this sort of Literally uh like a what Seth Goden would call a purple cow product, right?

39:49 It stands out. I feel like that could be really Just an interesting thing to try. Right, right. I think um I think it we just need a lot of guidance in in marketing and PR right now because I've I've tried a few things and I'm I I honestly am not good at social media and I have hired a part time person to help me with TikTok. And it's um uh not working as well as I wanted to because obviously people don't care as much as I do. So

40:18 Um, and I I've been reached out by so many PR firms in Los Angeles, obviously, that like that they could help. They could help pitch, they could help get us into stores, they could help like they promise so many uh it's not like a promise, but th they're trying to sell their PR firms, obviously. But it's just hard to find who I can trust. I find that PR firms can be really awesome. But you have to have somebody you have to have somebody at that firm who is your champion. Yes. Who adores you, who believes in you, who wants to push it forward. Otherwise it falls flat and you just you you kinda go nowhere and it's very expensive.

40:56 You might be better suited to spend that money on somebody who can work for you in multiple uh places. who could have some contacts um with media or know how to speak to them, might be able to also help you with social media or even do that. But who can really organiz

41:14 communication Just somebody who's like saying this is our message out there and where are we gonna put it? Yeah. Um who can just kinda come in and help. Organized all that and then that is their only job.

41:27 Mm-hmm. And it wouldn't even doesn't even have to be full time yet, you know. Yeah, I think that's really your advice. PR firms are are tricky, right? Yeah. I mean if you find it's it's that perfect fit and Jenny's right. I mean they have to love the product. And if you can find somebody I mean look, if you find a firm that has made a pitch And you say to them, look, I I my budget is Yeah, ten thousand dollars. Or five thousand dollars. Like this is what we can pay.

41:51 So show us what you can do with that. I mean there's an argument to be made that you could if you're willing to take that kind of risk With that amount of money. it might be worth the risk. Right. You say, you know, I don't know social media well, and I think most people feel that way. Like I don't know how to do it. But the reality is most people who do know how to do it They just figured it out by doing it. I love the idea of um really going into social media. I know that it's it's all very scary.

42:16 Yeah. But it but guys right, you learn by doing it. And also just remember that like people like authenticity and especially now when it doesn't seem like anything is authentic, and you're such an authentic person I can tell, you know, I mean obviously and people like that realness and just saying, just going on and saying Try to keep it under thirty seconds, or even under fifteen. Just try to say like

42:38 This is why I did this. This is why it's good for your for your puppy. Just show the behind the scenes. I just start doing it and then part of social media too, a big part of it is just talking to everybody else. So going on every other every anybody who's talking about dogs or pets being on their feed talking to them.

42:56 Right. I was doing that a lot last year. That's why I started hiring hiring another person to help me with like the comments, the likes, the messaging, all that. Because it was taking a lot of my time. I'm still a full time scientist at UCLA. Um, and so this is like a part time passion business, you know. side thing that I hope to hope that it will turn into a full time one day. But we depend a lot on brand ambassadors. Like we use an app that Like, you know, search for Bet Brand Ambassadors and they get like a percentage of the sales.

43:28 So that's has been really helpful. They make really good contents, but I I I do think the messaging needs to be a little more clear. I just wanna say like when you said I'm a full time um scientist at U C LA, like I wanna hear that. I w I'm a full time scientist at U C L A I started a dog food company because I needed something to feed my dog. Totally. You know? And I decided to use Ube because it's Purple, you need colour, you need vibrancy, you need fiber. Or dogs, you know, we all do. I love that so much, just that message over and over and over and over again. Yeah. People invest in it in you.

43:59 Even consumers and customers. Like they wanna know that, like, oh, this came from somebody who really cares and really knows what they're doing. Yeah. Totally. Yeah, 100% agree. The brand's called ube.co. Kelly, thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks so much for calling in. And good luck.

44:15 Um Jenny, I've already asked you about luck or skill on the show many years ago, but I have a different question for you, which is w if you were able to go back, you know, e even in not ch not just at the beginning, but like two thousand five, two thousand ten, you know, when you were still Really? Scrappy business, you weren't this national brand yet. What what advice Now,

44:35 you know, now that you know what you know here at at this point in your in your life and career W do you think might have been helpful for you to have known then? Oh this is I mean, I think it's not a This is what I say when p if if people say, W what what would you have done differently? Yeah. And there are a lot of things I would have done differently, but it's all about who.

44:52 In twenty in two thousand five, two thousand six, I mean What I needed on my team were um I needed a coach. I needed to understand how Founders carry power in companies as we were beginning to grow.

45:04 There are leadership things that you can learn pretty quickly, especially if you have somebody on your side who can help you. А бізнес адвізер That was so important to me, especially as we started to to grow and to like bring on um people from the outside. And I needed to learn how to speak that language. I need somebody on my side outside of the company. Um, and then I would just say a great attorney. As a founder, you know, you you have your your company attorney or whatever, but you do need to have kind of your own really great attorney just to have somebody to ask questions. There's so much. And if you're a leader in your company, you really need to have a an an understanding of law.

45:38 Um so so those people I would have had definitely on my side. Now going back a little earlier than that, I think we get to like where Cali is and I would have I would also say communications. That was something that I spent a lot of time trying to figure out. And it would have been really cool really cool to have somebody who um could just could come and say, Here's here's what you're doing really well. This is what people are resonating with. Cause you might whatever you think is probably not the same as what's going on over the counter. Yeah. So so having that communications person to just help me know what I should be saying every single day. Yeah. That's great advice. That's Jenny Britton, founder of Jenny's splendid ice creams. Uh Jenny, thanks so much for coming back on the show. Oh my gosh, this has been so much fun. Thank you for inviting me, guy and your team. You're the best. You're the best. It's great. And by the way, if you haven't heard Jenny's original How I Built This Episode, um you've gotta go back and check it out. We'll put a link in the podcast description and here's one of my favorite moments from that interview.

46:30 It was the call that none of us could have imagined ever wanted to get a pint of ice cream in Lincoln, Nebraska. Tested positive for Lysteria. So we decided that we were gonna recall everything. Um which meant That w that two hundred and sixty five tons of ice cream

46:46 Mm. That had been out in the world. Came back to us. And there we were. Did you think there was a possibility that you would uh Shut down that your business could basically end.

46:56 I think at that point we realized that that was Yeah. And it was weird because I just kept a journal all the time and I was like I don't even have any ideas.

47:07 Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. And by the way, we checked in with our callers, and we are glad to say that their businesses are all doing pretty well since we first spoke to them. And They're following some of our advice. Callie says Ube has seen stable growth and have had tons of folks reach out about our products. Casey says she took our advice to apply for SBA loans and grants, and those new funds have helped launch Jaju Pierogis in giant and target stores throughout the Midwest. And they've grown their food service by 40%. And Jesse says that Jesse and Benz has grown from being in 400 stores to now being in more than 5,000 stores across chains like Whole Foods, Sprouts, Target, and Costco. They also recently raised 10 million dollars to help support all of this growth.

47:56 And that round of investors included some legendary founders and friends of the show. including Andrew Abraham of Orgain, Alison and Steven Ellsworth of Poppy, and Nick Jamay of Sweet Grain. So congratulations again to Jesse, Casey, and Callie. This episode was produced by Catherine Cypher, with music composed by Ramteen Arabwe. It was edited by John Isabella, our audio engineer was Neil Rausch. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Carrie Thompson, JC Howard, Alex Chung, Chris Massini, Carla Esteves, Sam Paulson, Elaine Coates, and Neva Grant. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to how I built this.

48:34 One more mention for our presenting sponsor, Anthropic. Claude is built for people who like to keep pulling on the thread. The research, the planning, the questions, the follow through all the until the work starts to make sense. So try Claude for the next problem worth solving.