Latest / Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast) / Tiffany Chen started her biz with $20 bucks... Now it’s valued at $500 million. Here’s her warm cookie story (part 1)

Transcript

Tiffany Chen started her biz with $20 bucks... Now it’s valued at $500 million. Here’s her warm cookie story (part 1) · Imagine If with Doone Roisin | Health, Wealth & Wisdom for Women (formerly Female Startup Club Podcast)

• 0:00
  This is Tiffany Chen for Female Startup Club. Hey, it's Dune here, your host and hype girl. Today on the show, we're chatting with Tiffany Chen, founder of Tiff's Treats. We've had some real crackers on the show recently, and this is just another totally epic story. Okay.
• 0:27
  In 1999, Tiffany Taylor accidentally stood up Leon Chen for a date, and as an apology, she baked and delivered a batch of warm cookies, and the concept of warm cookie delivery was born. Tiff and Leon, just 19-year-old sophomores at the University of Texas, then opened Tiff Treats with $20, a cell phone, and a dream.
• 0:51
  Since then, the business has raised more than $100 million, grown to 68 stores with close to 2,000 employees, and has baked more than 200 million cookies since the company started.
• 1:04
  Before we get into this epic episode, if you're on your phone listening right now, I have a favor to ask you. Please take a quick screenshot in your podcast app and share this to your Instagram stories. It helps me know that you really love the show, it helps other ears find us, and it shows that you are part of our club. Okay, let's get into it. This is Tiff for Female Startup Club. Tiff, hi, hello, welcome to the show.
• 1:33
  Hi, thanks for having me. I'm so excited to have you on the journey today to hear your 20-something year entrepreneurial journey. I want to get straight into it. Let's go back to 1999, actually pre-1999, to the cell phone, the $20, and the dream. Where do you like to start the story? Okay.
• 1:56
  Yeah. So I think it does start in 1999. The way we started our business was that I was, me and my now husband were in college and we were sophomores at the University of Texas in Austin. And we were on winter break and I went out with a friend and I was supposed to meet him up later and I didn't have a cell phone and I did not call him to let him know I was running late. And so I accidentally stood him up and did not,
• 2:23
  meet him when we were supposed to meet. So as an apology, I baked him a batch of cookies and drove them over to his house. And I think the cookies just so happened to still be warm when I got over there. And he takes the box of cookies. Well, I guess it wasn't a box. It was whatever you would have put it on a plate. And he takes a bite and he just had this moment. He was like, we should do this as a business. When we were going to go back to school to start the new semester in two weeks,
• 2:49
  He said, when we go back, let's open a delivery business and we're going to bake cookies and deliver them just like pizza delivery, but only with warm cookies. And so initially, my gut reaction and audible reaction was no, I didn't want to do it. I told him, no, thank you. Not even close. You know, I was just a regular college student and I didn't have aspirations to be in business. Not then and not later, really. That wasn't my that's not what I was looking to do.
• 3:17
  But he's a really persistent guy. And he spends the next, you know, few minutes on the phone kind of talking me into why this would be so great and fun. The pitch. The pitch. Yeah, he had an immediate pitch. And I guess he got me jazzed enough to where later that day, I ended up at the grocery store pricing out.
• 3:34
  How much does it cost to make cookies? What other flavors besides chocolate chip would be something easy we could do? And I called him back, kind of filled him in. And he says he was stunned that he thought that the dream had died when I initially said no. To me, I feel like he never would have dropped it. And so it was just like, we had to do it. And then we spent the next two weeks just doing basic research. How are we going to
• 3:56
  package them? How are we going to get the word out? Where are we going to do this from? And so we decided to just, he had an apartment that he shared with roommates and we decided to do the whole thing from that apartment. We bought a cell phone. So that's where that comes in because we didn't have one. So we bought a cell phone so that we would have a direct line for our customers to call.
• 4:16
  and place orders. So we got the cell phone, we printed up some flyers that then it was called Kinko's. And we just walked around campus, we put them under all the doors. And that was how we got our name out in the beginning. We were students, so we could go into any of the dorms. Well, actually, you weren't supposed to if you didn't live there, but nobody could notice because we look like we live there. So we went in, we put flyers under everywhere. And then we just waited for the phone to ring. Oh, my gosh. And like,
• 4:43
  How long did it take for people to ring? Is it immediate? I feel like it's immediate. It's not. And that's the great question because we have this all set up and we were just going to do it at nights because we went to school during the day. So our service was open from 8 p.m. to midnight, Sunday through Thursday. At least that's what we put on the flyer. I mean, it could have been anything. And we waited three days and nobody called. And so we truly thought, well, it's...
• 5:09
  It was embarrassing only because some of our friends knew we were doing it. And the roommates, you know, they knew we had done this. But then the phone did ring on the third day. And it wasn't a friend. It wasn't anybody who knew us. It was just a random person who saw the flyer and wanted the service. And so that was our very first order. And we still remember her name was Amy. And she lived at one of the dorms. Amy. Yeah. Yeah.
• 5:31
  I love that. And from there, you know, we started getting some business. Oh my gosh. So you guys are making these in your kitchen and then you're going and delivering them up until late at night for anyone who wants them. Are you thinking of this like as a full on business at this point? Or are you just like, oh, you know, it's like a side hustle. See what happens. Like, what's the vision at this point?
• 5:53
  That's a great question. It couldn't have been a full-on business because we were full-time students. And when we started, I don't know that we thought through it a ton. I think for my husband slash business partner, he probably always envisioned that it could be something. But I don't think we were invested too much in what it could be just with the hope that
• 6:16
  maybe this could turn out to be something, but we were really just going to get it off the ground and see what happened with it. And then we spent, so we were only sophomores at the time, which meant we had two more years to go before we graduated college, two and a half, actually. So we had a long time to sort of try it out. And then before we graduated, well, I guess I should say by the time we graduated, we had put so much of our other stuff aside in that the business was growing.
• 6:43
  So it was growing and we were making changes and we were, you know, now we were bringing on delivery drivers and now we have a professional kitchen instead of the apartment and, you know, making moves. So by the time we graduated, I mean, we graduated just fine, but we didn't like our focus wasn't school and we hadn't honed any other skills that would have led us to get jobs.
• 7:04
  So by the time we graduated, we were like, well, we better do this. And so we opened full time. Then after that, more of a lack of any other option. And also just we had put so much time into it at that point that we didn't want to see it just drift away. And you're obviously having fun.
• 7:21
  You're enjoying what you're doing. Yeah, you know, sure. Yes, definitely having fun. But it's a grind. I mean, it was a grind even from the beginning to do it. Doing a food, anybody who has a food-based business knows it's not, you know, it's hard work. And then we were doing delivery on top of that, which is tricky too. And we were doing the deliveries ourselves.
• 7:43
  And I think people differ on their opinion of which is harder working in the kitchen or doing the driving. But they're both, you know, challenging. So, yeah, it was fun for sure. But it was more like we had put so much energy into it that we weren't going to just let it go.
• 7:59
  And so in that two years before you graduated, was the strategy just like flyers to get around campus or was there more to the plan of marketing? Yeah. So yes, initially it was just flyers and word of mouth. But what we found was word of mouth spreads a lot faster if you're in a consolidated group. So really what happened, we were very, very slow to start, but we got in with one of the female dorms.
• 8:26
  And these girls were all sort of in similar sororities to each other. They were in the same social circle. And so once we kind of got in with that one dorm, it really started moving much more quickly rather than spreading it across like an entire population. So let me be specific that when we started, we were targeting just university students because that's what we knew. That's where we were. We were doing nighttime delivery. But within those university students, we found that if you...
• 8:53
  kind of got in with one group, then it spreads much, much more quickly. And then it spreads from that group to other groups. So that was something we sort of stumbled on by accident. And then as we were going, we realized there was a whole professional crowd during the day that wanted our service. So now college really isn't our target at all. We'd
• 9:14
  still are around some colleges and it's a great piece of the puzzle, but we really more target the professionals, people who are at work, whether they're sending something to, it could be a client gift, you know, it could be a business to business thing, or a lot of times it's just a personal gift, but it's happening at work. So we sort of kind of grew up to a professional crowd and that was different, different marketing. So what we did to do that was once we had graduated, then we opened
• 9:40
  We've got this whole other segment, this whole daytime population. And we literally just baked and baked and baked cookies and drove them out to the office buildings and handed them out one by one. And that was our initial, that was how we got the word out to the professionals that we had a business really sampling, which is still a really, really great way. There's no better way than to have people try it and try it in the way that it's meant to be experienced. So for us,
• 10:06
  You know, we bake cookies and deliver them to order. And it's not just like one cookie, one off. It's not just a snack. It comes, it's presented, you know, as a gift, either whether you're treating yourself or treating someone else. And so we just recreate that exact experience, but we were handing it off to people in buildings that didn't expect it and didn't know anything about us.
• 10:25
  Now, one thing that changed big, so this is just such an old reference, but when we were doing that, it was pre-9-11, which meant security was just a totally, totally different at that time. So we could just walk into really any office with boxes of blank. Nobody knew what was inside of them and just go door by door and hand them out and hand them out. And that changed overnight within, because 9-11 happened a couple of months into us being full-time.
• 10:54
  And it totally changed the landscape of how buildings operate. So that was one of those big marketing shifts that we had to pivot on. But then you just figure out another way to do it. So the newer way to do it was that you have to work with the building property management company and say, hey, I want to come in. I want to bring this and work with them so that it's a win-win, as opposed to what we did in the past, which was just storm in anonymously and start doing.
• 11:19
  The landscape of that kind of changed, but there's other ways of still getting to it. And I love how it's still sort of that same blueprint, though, of finding one building and finding one pocket of students together and then just one at a time, building one at a time, one at a time, instead of this mass audience display that a lot of people often think that's what you need to do. Yeah.
• 11:41
  you know, spray everywhere and just see where you land. But you're taking that approach of methodically going one by one. I love that. Yeah. And some of that is also just due to we had no budget, you know, so you do what you're able to do. It's not like it may be almost a little harder when you've got a huge budget and you're trying to figure out how to spend it. We have no money. So we're just doing what we're able to do, which is taking one bite of the apple at a time.
• 12:07
  And the other thing about those days was there was absolutely no social media at all. So that's a whole different, you know, there are other opportunities now. If we were to start up, I think we would have been heavy, heavy into a social presence. And you're kind of doing the same thing, right? You're targeting a small group of like-minded people, but just with a different vehicle.
• 12:26
  Totally. Exactly the same concept. I wanted to ask you about the money piece of the puzzle because you started, you know, really, really lean $20 bought some ingredients that kind of thing. But in those first early years, did you need to invest more money to kind of scale up? Or was it really just like, selling what you could investing it back in to grow and just growing that way?
• 12:45
  Yeah. So in the early days, yes, we would just reinvest. We never paid ourselves for a long time. So we moved in together to save on rent. We kept our personal expenses super low. And we were lucky to be able to do that because we were very, very young and we didn't have children to support or anything like that. So we were in a position where we didn't need to take home a lot of money because our lifestyle was pretty slim.
• 13:07
  And so we would reinvest and grow from there. But then you do get to a point where you've got to have money for something. So what we started to do early on at the time was take out lines of credit from the bank or loans from the bank.
• 13:25
  Now that's a little bit easier said than done because again, this was a different time. And so back in the early 2000s, they were loaning money to people and really for nothing. Like we would just have a signature because our credit ranking was fine. And that was good enough for them. You can't get that anymore. And we learned that about 10 years in after we signed a lease for another location and we thought we would just get another loan.
• 13:52
  But there was no, like that was post 2008 and like everything had changed. Nobody was loaning anything for anything. And that's when we moved into getting investors.
• 14:02
  So I think it depends on your kind of business. But for ours, in order for us to grow, we need we have we have what we consider retail distribution outlets. So they are bakeries and you can walk in and you can and you can buy a cookie or two. But that's where all of our deliveries are coming from. And so we spot them all around town because the cookies have to be warm when we get there.
• 14:22
  So we don't have just like one center for an entire city. You've got a whole bunch of them. And they're also retail outlets. In order to build those, you need money to do it. So unfortunately, we weren't in the kind of business where you could grow without having some kind of money. So at first, it was all loans. And then we ended up starting to raise money from investors when really just because there were no more opportunity for loans.
• 14:46
  I read you've raised a casual 100 mil now. A lot of fundraising there. Holy moly. If you have to kind of distill some of the key things that you've learned in that process, what are your key insights and learnings that you can share with other entrepreneurs who might be thinking about going down the pathway of fundraising or are in it at the moment?
• 15:08
  Yeah. So we didn't know anything about fundraising when we first started doing it. We got connected with an attorney. So you're going to need legal help to set up the structure of your business and to actually sell pieces of it off. You have to have that. And we were fortunate to have somebody who was a very kind person who really walked us through a lot of the steps and was able to give us advice on, oh, do do this, but don't do that. And don't say yes to
• 15:38
  When we very first started, we were just looking at what you consider an angel investor, which is an individual investing their own individual money. And we met the best one. So we were very, very lucky with who we met. It was an easy process. He was great. He's still on our board. He's still an amazing guy. So part of that was just like we got connected through. Well, I guess let me start with this.
• 16:00
  number one, connections are really, really key. So we, you know, we can trace back every connection we have. It's like, oh, because we released this space that didn't work out, but then that landlord introduced us to this guy who introduced us to our accountant and the person who was doing our books that introduced us to this person who ended up being our angel investor. So like every step along the way, you're sort of meeting people that may connect you later to other things. So that's
• 16:26
  Because you can't just do it in isolation. And if you don't have any connections at all, it's going to be difficult to go out there and just suddenly have a huge amount of interest. Two, we had not everybody can or should do it this way, but we had already been in business for at least 10 years by the time that we even started fundraising. Yeah.
• 16:47
  which was great because we had a proven business and we had already built our own technology. So we had a proven platform on top of that. So instead of it just being in theory, we had something that was proven out, which makes it a less of a risk for the investor. They like that.
• 17:04
  It also means that you don't have to sell off as much of your business as you would if it was at the beginning because it's less risky for them. So the valuation of your company is higher. So for us, that worked out well. And we were able to do that. And not every situation is going to be that way. But it's just because we grew very, very slowly over the first 10 years.
• 17:24
  before we started looking into investment. So part of it was timing. Part of it was, networking is not the right word, but it's just like making connections as you go, as you're doing new things in business and knowing that this relationship could lead to this relationship, could lead to that relationship. And so those things end up being important, even though we weren't trying to do that. That's just sort of how it happened. But when you look back on it, you're like, oh yeah, it's,
• 17:49
  so key to have all of these great relationships with people that you're in contact with. And then, so we were able to show him, you know, what we had, and the vision for where we were going and sell on that. And so that's all really important. The other thing I would say is,
• 18:08
  it's super important to pick the person that is going to invest as much as they're picking you because the right person can be amazing, which is what happened to us. And the wrong person can be really, really detrimental. And I think we've raised a ton more money after that initial investment. And so we have lots of investors and they're all different. And if we had had different ones of those that we had down the road, had we brought them on in the very, very early stages of,
• 18:35
  they could have totally derailed us. And not their fault because all these people are going to be very smart and all these people are going to be very capable. But sometimes they could give you advice that like if they're nervous about the investment, they end up kind of squeezing and almost like kind of squeezing the magic out of it. And so you want somebody who's going to let
• 18:57
  I think my biggest advice would be if you're going on for your first investment, make sure that the person who's investing you believes in you and understands the magic that you're creating and doesn't want to step on it. If they don't trust you, then they shouldn't be investing in your business and on their end too. Like...
• 19:16
  If they feel like they need to have control over it, it's because they don't trust that you're going to do it right. And that's not it's not great for your happiness and it's not great for the relationship. But most importantly, it's not great for building a brand, because if you've got a financial person kind of interfering with when you're trying to build a brand, it can be challenging.
• 19:37
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• 19:56
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• 20:23
  What are the kinds of questions you would specifically ask to try and navigate whether an investor is a good fit for you? Not having like gone through the experience that you have kind of thing as a new founder.
• 20:37
  Yeah, I think a lot of that is kind of gut as you're getting to know them. Number one, do you like them? Like, do you sort of enjoy being with them? Are you feeling on edge when you're with them? Are you feeling picked apart when you're with them? I think you've
• 20:54
  need to get on the same page about their involvement. So that would be a huge question. What is their day, what are they expecting their day-to-day involvement to be? And it's different for everybody. Some people really want somebody to say, hey, I need somebody to guide me and to really be hands-on. And what they call that is value add. So to add value to me by being...
• 21:14
  there every day, bringing in outside knowledge, helping me and guiding me. Other people want somebody who's just a little bit more hands-off so that, hey, I'm already on my direction. I really know what I'm doing here. I need the funds and I need support, but I don't need you here every day or making every decision. And as long as you're aligned on what that's going to be, but if you're
• 21:38
  that would be one of the biggest problems. So I would definitely want to understand what they want out of their day-to-day investment. I imagine it's like, it's easy to say all this stuff, but I imagine if there's like a bit of this, you know, this gut feeling that it isn't right, but someone is willing to offer you the money, having the courage to turn down money could also be just like a tough point. Have you had to do that?
• 22:03
  I so agree with you. And it is so much easier said than done. And we, I even, so we have a book coming out in April. Actually, it's April now almost. And in the book, we talk about the fact that we, when we did our very first fundraising round, one of the things we said right off the bat is we don't want a board of directors. And then comes in this investor and his stipulation was, I want to form a board of directors and I want to be on it.
• 22:31
  And now we were faced with actual money with a real person. And, but with the stipulation that we had said no to, and we went down to the, our lawyer's office and we said, he's good to, like, he wants to invest this. He wants a board. So go ahead and like set that all up. And the lawyer said, but you said, you know, two weeks ago that.
• 22:51
  you weren't going to do a board of directors. And that was a non-negotiable. And boy, that changed fast for us. As soon as the money was real, we were like, no, no, it sounds fine now. So you certainly do when you're faced with actual real money. It's very easy. And in our case, it wasn't even a negative. And it's very normal. In fact, it would be abnormal for somebody to invest money and not want some kind of position on the board in a small company like that.
• 23:16
  But yeah, we switched on a dime about what we thought we would or wouldn't say yes to. And so it can be extremely, extremely tempting. And anytime you sort of get wrapped up... And we had another one where we... This was a much bigger fundraise, way more down the line. And we didn't even... We weren't even really looking to fundraise per se. We were introduced to this firm. And they came and they met with us. And then they put out this offer on the table. We're like, oh, well, gosh, that...
• 23:44
  really would be great. And then the longer we got into it, we're like, we got kind of, you get emotionally tied up in the idea that this fundraise is happening. And so it can become harder and harder to step away and just say no. And so I actually don't know if there's, certainly I'm sure there's been some small ones where we've been like, no, it's not worth it. Nothing notable.
• 24:07
  But there have definitely been times where in retrospect, you say, gosh, I wonder if that was worth it. You know, I wonder if we should have been a little stronger and just said, because it's so much easier if you've got a deal on the table, it's easy to take it and it's hard to walk away. But I would say it will be harder if you know it's not right. It will be harder to untangle it later than to walk away at the beginning. So yeah, it's easier said than done.
• 24:34
  I think you raise a good point, though, of like having your clear non-negotiables and like really digging deep into what they are and then just keeping those as your North Star so that when you are navigating, if you are navigating those situations of whether you should take capital, like, you know, how far off is it from those non-negotiables and your very clear lines that you've drawn in the sand?
• 24:56
  Yeah, I think you're so right. And I think you should put thought into what really is non-negotiable and then what is a preference that you prefer. That way you've got your like, we are not going to do X no matter what. We're not going to do this because we are so, so, so certain that we won't do it.
• 25:16
  And then you've got your others like, I'd prefer not to do this or this or this. And those can be negotiated through based on your comfort level. But you're right. There are certain things that you shouldn't. And we do that. We certainly do that now because we'll come into a deal and say, well, we're not doing X. And then the deal will go on and on. And I'll still come back and say, well, we're still not doing X because we're not doing that. And it's easier. I mean, it's easier to walk away from it later when you have funding.
• 25:45
  Yeah, of course. Of course. Going back to the marketing piece, because I feel like I veered off into the money piece, but I'm coming back to the marketing piece now. I love to understand the blueprint. And obviously, we've got 20-something years to cover here. But if you were to kind of distill over the years the key milestones that have leapt you forward and kept you in business when times have been tough, um...
• 26:04
  what would you say are those key moments throughout the last 20 years? Yeah. So let's see. I mean, you start, well, we started with word of mouth. So, and that really, I still think is probably the most important. Um, so getting your name out there, but getting your, your product or your service out there to people who want to talk about it to each other. Um, so um,
• 26:29
  One thing that always sort of seemed to leap us forward a little bit is organic, like press. So if you do something that's press worthy, and you get in the media, not a, not a paid nothing, just like truly just a story. We noticed a big change for us after we did. I remember that the Austin Business Journal put us on the front page. And it was just a, it was like a,
• 26:54
  Profile write-up. And we really started getting busier after that. I sort of credit that time period with a switch from us being sort of kind of clawing and growing slowly to, man, people know who we are and we're taking off.
• 27:10
  Um, so those pieces are always fantastic. It's a little harder because you can't control what the press is going to print. And as much as you try, um, organic, like true press, honestly, it's, it's going to happen when it happens. Sometimes you don't even realize that something that's going to take off and it's not. And other times you're like, oh man, we're doing something that's really press worthy. Um, so I'm going to go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and go ahead and
• 27:31
  And it's crickets. So, you know, it's not something you can rely on, but it is something that really does move the needle. And I think it's because people want to read. They don't want to be sold to. They just want to read interesting stuff. And if it has your brand awareness attached to it, that is really, really helpful.
• 27:49
  Um, let me, let me think on other stuff. I mean, certainly social media has changed the game in terms of being able to enter a market and talk to people, um, about what's your, what you're doing next. We never had that when we were first growing. Um, and we struggled when we would go into new areas and people didn't know who we were and you've got the sign up and like sampling, you know, we were still just hitting the pavement. Um, although that still is a big part of the play, you know, sampling and hitting the pavement is big.
• 28:19
  I'm trying to think if there's other marketing milestones. You know, you'll do some stuff that hits really great. And then other stuff, you're like, oh, I know this is going to be great, but then the cost just doesn't outweigh what it brings back to you. So some of the traditional media stuff, occasionally it works great. And then other times it's like, it worked great, but it didn't work for the cost. You know, the cost was too much. So anytime, I think finding something that's, you know, lower cost, but higher return is great.
• 28:48
  I was wondering when you jumped onto TikTok because you have quite a large following on TikTok. I mean, you have one on Instagram too. You've also got a great following on Twitter and you've got a great tone of voice on Twitter. I actually love your account. I was lolling out loud before being like, these are funny. What was your kind of approach to TikTok and how have you found it? You've obviously grown to, I think, half a million followers at this point and you're doing really well. Was it early? Have you started recently? Yeah.
• 29:15
  I don't think it was early. And we knew we wanted to get on TikTok when it started blowing up. But every new platform is the whole new learning curve. And I feel like not everybody has the same skill set. So it's always a learning for us trying to understand what does this platform, what do people respond to in this platform versus this one? Like, for example, you're talking about Twitter. And it's like, let's just be funny on there. You know, let's just have fun.
• 29:43
  And so each platform is kind of has either a different audience or even if it's the same audience, they're expecting something different out of it. And honestly, we tweak and we learn with it. We post and we see what hits and what doesn't. Sometimes things resonate. Sometimes we do something that's just like gorgeous, you know, just like the most yummy. And then it's like nothing. It's like it doesn't hit. Yeah.
• 30:08
  Yeah, flops. And then you do something that you're like, oh, this is just silly or, you know, or just kind of every day. And it blows up. And so that's one thing that we've learned is that like, I think the more natural you can be, the better. And that's, that's a big shift.
• 30:25
  And it wasn't always like that. And so I think we had to make a big shift over getting from being super professional all the time, being really polished photos and moving over to let's just be a part of people's lives in the way that they would, you know, how would they interact with our brand and post it? And we want to be posting that same way. And the other big thing is, you know, we're a cookie company, so we should be having fun. And that's part of it, too, is like we don't want to be scared to have fun. And we're trying to have fun with all of it.
• 30:53
  And I think like as well, you touched on something. The landscape has shifted so much. It's shifted away from polished content and, you know, very prim and proper. And it is fun now. And in today's landscape, content marketing and storytelling is 100% what we need to be leading into. Talking about the founder story, like I see you and your husband saying,
• 31:14
  and your business partner doing that a lot and sharing those photos from back in the day and back to today. And it's that kind of stuff that people really want to connect with versus the Polish thing. I actually love the way that social media is going
• 31:27
  in that respect. Yeah, that's what's so neat about it is that you can have a personal connection and like really understand our story and who we are. And, you know, we're real and we're here and this is us and our family and our office and, you know, people who work in the store and this is what we're like. And it's really fun to be able to do that. And I think much more authentic. Absolutely. For you now, you know,
• 31:51
  What is your kind of end goal? Like, when do you want to exit? Is that something that you're thinking about now? Or are you just thinking like long-term, you just love what you do. You can keep on going. Yeah, it's a great question because when, so back to raising money,
• 32:05
  I was taken aback when we first started raising money. And every time you do it, that's their first question is like, what's the exit? And we used to be kind of taken aback by that and almost not offended, but just like stunned because we're like, exit? There's no exit. You know, this is our life. This is our life.
• 32:23
  And it really is, you know, it's kind of our life's work. We don't talk about a personal exit for me and Leon, who's my husband slash business partner. We don't ever really talk about an exit. We're really here for the long haul. And we're trying to build a brand and we're trying to take it.
• 32:41
  bigger than it is now. We've got 75 locations now, but you know, we've got goals towards hitting a thousand locations. And so we have a long, long way to go, even though we've been in business a long time, but we've got way more growth to come and we want to be a part of that ride and shape the brand in that way. So, um,
• 32:59
  I think there are different kinds of people out there. There are a lot of really great entrepreneurs. They'll start something up, they'll build it up for five or six years, and then they'll sell it off and somebody else will kind of grow it. And then they start again with the new, which we're always...
• 33:14
  super in awe of because it's like, man, that's so cool to keep doing that. And it would always be fun and fresh. And you have to be really, really talented to do that. And he and I, we just grew so slowly at the beginning that, you know, we kind of just leaned in and said, you know what, this is going to be our baby. And certainly, obviously, at some point, we will do something different, I'm sure. But we really don't think about it or talk about it too much.
• 33:39
  That's amazing. Wow. Gosh, 20 years in business, 20 something years in business. That's so crazy. I'm in awe of you. What would you say? Obviously, you guys are both great operators. You've been able to have that long term hustle. What would you say is your superpower in business?
• 34:00
  Oh, good question. I know what, as a team, but this is really more him than me, but persistence. So we, you know, I think when we talk about this in the book as well, we were knocked down so many times. It's hard to really understand that from the outside. And even people who, you know, work here now really have no idea how much of a struggle it was. And honestly, it's,
• 34:25
  Even now you get, you know, even now, 20 plus years in, you know, you'll wake up one day and go to the office and something crappy has happened. You're like, oh, a setback. But especially in the beginning when you're a little more fragile, it's like setback, setback, setback.
• 34:40
  And the big thing for us was we never stopped and we weren't going to be deterred and we weren't going to feel sorry for ourselves about things. And we were just going to charge forward with it. And it's one is like that's really about more about perseverance and just keep on going. And then persistence in that if you want something, just work.
• 35:01
  Do it until you make it happen. And that really, I can't attribute that to me. That's him. He is, if he wants something, he's like a dog with a bone about it. Like he'll ultimately get it. It may not end up the way he wanted it to be or the way that we were thinking it was going to go. But one way or the other, if it's something that he wants, he'll figure out a way to get it.
• 35:23
  So that's that for him. And then for me, I really am more just of a balance of figuring out the details of how to get, you know, what we want. It's like he's pushing it forward, pushing, pushing, pushing. And I'm almost like pulling, pulling, pulling a little bit, but just to kind of steady the ship.
• 35:41
  When you say you've had these struggles as every entrepreneur experiences on a daily basis, what are some of the bigger ones that come to mind? Because I think we can always, you know, we can talk a lot about the amazing journey and the amazing success and we get caught up in that highlight kind of part of the story. But obviously there are so many low lows and also love to highlight those.
• 36:03
  What comes to mind for you? I think the one that comes to mind for me the most is... We had been in business about four years. And we had... So we started out of Leon's college apartment. And then we shared kitchen space with a restaurant near campus of the university. And then that restaurant overnight went out of business. Like they...
• 36:28
  they moved out in the middle of the night. They told us the day before that they were going to do that. So we were stunned, but we knew it was coming that night. And so we ended up being able to go to the landlord of the space and lease directly from the landlord, which again, like that's about persistence. Cause that didn't just like suddenly happen. That's just one of those things where like we did anything we could to, to stay.
• 36:54
  But we only had month to month with them. They wouldn't give us a long lease because the landlord was going to take over the entire building and they didn't know when. So we had a month to month lease. And then finally, they gave us 45 days notice to move out.
• 37:09
  And so this was huge for us. So first of all, we're doing a food-based business. So you have to have a commercial kitchen. And secondly, it was a delivery-based business, which meant wherever that commercial kitchen is, it needs to be near your clientele. And which for us was downtown and campus in Austin, Texas.
• 37:26
  And so you're limited in, you can't just go anywhere. It's not like you can just go to some random warehouse on the other side of town. And plus we had a retail facing business too. You need a retail. So to lose a location effectively meant losing your whole business unless you were able to find a new one. And so we had 45 days to find a new space, get a landlord to agree to lease to us, which was crazy because we had no money.
• 37:51
  Not only did we have no money, but like our company wasn't making money. So on top of having no funds, we also weren't making money as a company. And then if we were able to do that, then renovate that space into a commercial kitchen, get the permits and open. And the thing is,
• 38:08
  So that process now takes about a year. And so we had 45 days to do it. And if we were to close, so if you were lucky enough to find all that, but then go through that year long process, that would mean closing for almost a whole year, which at that time would mean evaporating the business. It would be gone. Customer base is gone. We wouldn't have had any money to sustain in the meantime. So that was gone.
• 38:31
  So that's what comes to mind for me because you think of, oh, losing a location and you found another one. Seems like kind of a bump in the road. It wasn't a bump in the road. It was like devastating. Oh, my God. How did you find the place? We looked and looked and looked. We just hit the pavement looking at every possible space within any radius, talking to any landlord we could find and looking.
• 38:56
  We found this house. So here's the other thing. We were thinking outside the box. So we couldn't find a restaurant, but we did find a house. And a house that had a sublease sign out front, it was a real estate office. And they had a sign out front saying they wanted a sublease. So the real estate company wanted to get out of their lease early and lease it to somebody else.
• 39:16
  And so we just, and part of this is just because we didn't know how difficult that would be. We were like, I bet you we could turn this into a kitchen and a storefront. And we went directly past the sublease and went straight to the landlord and said, we don't want to just sublease it. We want to take the whole lease. Yeah.
• 39:34
  And renovate it. And so part of that is just, you know, good luck. Part of it is we got a real estate guy who we had met through some connections for some other things that we had done. So we had opened a little walk-up shop. I don't know if you know what Sixth Street is, but Sixth Street is like the row of bars in Austin where everybody kind of walks up and down in the night. We had had a Sixth Street walk-up location and which had gone, which had gone under. It was terrible.
• 39:59
  But the landlord there had introduced us to a real estate guy. And so now we've got this real estate guy on our side and he helped us negotiate with the landlord. And I don't even know why the landlord agreed to do this other than he's just a really, really nice, it's a really nice couple. So some of it's good luck, some of it's connection, and some of it's just like,
• 40:18
  persistence, just like going after it and after it and after it. And we just, we made it happen and it was crazy. And so we got at least, we got the permit and we got a contractor to do it on the cheap and we made it happen. We still have that store. Wow.
• 40:36
  It's crazy to think like those kind of moments in a story because had you have not persevered, the business would have stopped. It wouldn't be where it is today. And, you know, 20 years on, you have 100 stores, you have 2,000 staff, you're valued at $500 million. It's just crazy that that like if you didn't persevere at that time...
• 40:56
  it wouldn't be what it is today. It's wild. Right. And the odds were way more in favor of us not being able to pull that off way more. And if it happened today, you know, if knowing all that I know now, if I was in that position, I'd be like, well, it's over. I mean, it's so crazy. It's so unbelievable that we were able to pull it off, that it is crazy that it happened. But you're right. And there are things like that happen all the time. You know, maybe not to that extreme degree, but there are plenty of things you just get.
• 41:25
  lots and lots and lots of setbacks, but you just have to push and push and push. And that's the thing that's not always as fun about business is like taking the... Because I'm a person that likes to just take the straight path. I'm like, oh, sign says go here. I want to go here. But if there's a blockade in the road, you have to go around and it's not always comfortable. Oh my gosh. I love that. Amazing. Wow. Thank you for sharing that story with me.
• 41:49
  Let's talk about the book. You've just released a book. Oh, no, you've released it on pre-orders. It's coming out soon. What is it? Who needs to read it? Tell me all about it. Yeah, so it's kind of our story of how we started Tips Treats and some of the things we've gone through, definitely lessons that we've learned. And then we have a little bit about us and sort of working together. People are always curious how you work with a spouse.
• 42:14
  So we talk a little bit about, you know, our personal journey on how we make that work. And then the other big fun part about it is that it includes recipes. So we have somewhere between 25 and 30 cookie recipes that are in the book of our specialty flavors of the month. So while we have our regular menu all the time, we have a special flavor each month. And a bunch of those made it into the book. So more fun ones like blueberry muffin cookies or...
• 42:40
  you know, like, oh, like for Halloween type double chocolate with Reese's candies in there. And lots of, and they're easy to do, you know, so anybody who's interested in baking, but you don't have to be a baker at all. It's just something fun and easy. So it's a fun and easy read. But also if you do have a business or you're starting a business or looking to start one, I think we've got a lot of either just inspiring stuff in there or a little bit of nuggets. Like hopefully you can learn from some of our mistakes. We talk a ton about the mistakes that we made along the way.
• 43:10
  Oh my gosh, everyone needs to run, immediately order it. Where can they buy it? So it's called It's Not Just Cookies. It's not just cookies and you can pre-order it now on Amazon or really anywhere that books are sold. You can also get it through us. So our website is cookiedelivery.com. We deliver warm cookies in several locations by hand. We can also ship cookie dough and cookie truffles and other things like that. So you can either get it from cookiedelivery.com or from booksellers.
• 43:39
  And if you had to take kind of your one key piece of advice or your one key thing that you love to tell entrepreneurs from the book, what is that?
• 43:48
  Um, I think probably if you, if just one piece of advice, I'm going to go with hard work beats everything else. Can't control everything. There's going to be a lot outside of your control. There's going to be a lot that other people have that is better than what you have. Um, but you can always work hard. And so if you're able to put in the work and put in the focus on the business, um, you can do anything that you want to do. Oh, I love that. So true. So true. Thank you so much.
• 44:19
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 44:43
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 45:06
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.
• 45:22
  Hey, it's June here. Thanks for listening to this amazing episode of the Female Startup Club podcast. If you're a fan of the show and want even more of the good stuff, I'd recommend checking out femalestartupclub.com where you can subscribe to our free newsletter. We send it out weekly covering female founder business news, insights and learnings in D2C, and interesting business resources.
• 45:47
  And if you're a founder building an e-commerce brand, you can join our private network of entrepreneurs called Hype Club at femalestartupclub.com forward slash Hype Club. We have guests from the show joining us for intimate Ask Me Anythings, expert workshops, and a group of totally amazing, like-minded women building the future of D2C brands.
• 46:09
  As always, please do subscribe, rate and review the show and post your favorite episodes to Instagram stories. I am beyond grateful when you do that.