Latest / Marci talks money (and life) / Rethinking Money and Success with Michael Farino
Transcript
- Marci Grossman (00:05) Hello, welcome to Marci Talks Money and Life. I'm Money Marci. I'm so pleased to welcome Michael Farino. Michael Farino is a former high-level corporate executive who spent 35 years navigating the world of big law firms, leading multi-million dollar budgets, initiatives, and mastering the ins and outs growth. After decades of budgeting and managing finances for others, he made the ultimate investment in himself as he traded in boardrooms and balance sheets for stovetops and storytelling, launching Pudding on the Rice, a dessert company inspired by his father, Papa Nick, and his legendary rice pudding recipe. His only rule? Don't mess with it. Michael honored that while adding a Broadway twist that blends tradition with innovation. This episode is geared toward anyone ready to rethink their relationship with money, success, and self-worth. Welcome, Michael. Michael Farino (01:03) Good morning Marci, thank you so much for that beautiful introduction. Marci Grossman (01:06) Well, you know, I love a good rice pudding. So we'll start there. I do want to talk about your business and what you're doing now, but I want to start with how you got from where you were to here, because that had to be some big financial decisions and life decisions that you and your husband made to move this business forward. Michael Farino (01:30) Yeah, so... As you stated, I spent a long career working for attorneys, large law firms here in New York. I started working in high school. I was part of the cooperative education program where I went to school one week and I worked one week and I started gaining experience at law firms and I just liked the people and went on a trajectory from there. I went on to manage groups of people, offices, and I worked for five major law firms throughout my career. And after all of that time of working for others and managing their money and budgeting for them and cutting corners, you know we went through recessions, we went through cutbacks. You know, lawyers used to spend a lot of money, right? They used to get cabs for everything. They didn't think about the money they spent until there was a downturn in the economy. And then we had to shift gears. So it really taught me a lesson about money and watching what I was spending, because I didn't always have the healthiest relationship with my money. So for me, I just decided it was time. I worked long enough. I felt that the landscape of corporate America was changing. I don't wanna say I didn't wanna be part of it anymore, but I grew tired very recently, maybe a little over a year ago when I left my job to then turn my dad's rice pudding recipe into my own business and start working for myself. So yes, it was a leap, but I took that leap and so far, fingers crossed it's working out well. Marci Grossman (03:04) Well, I want to back up a second and say, okay, so you're making a big financial decision, which is going to impact the lives of both you and your husband. I assume you guys did a lot of talking. You didn't just walk in one day and say, by the way, I'm going to do this. You guys had conversations, made plans, worked together and communicated together in this process. Michael Farino (03:27) So I had been saving for quite a while and putting money aside for this type of decision that I was hoping to come to and make in my life. Yes, we spoke several times, but it happened rather quickly. I made the decision and I ripped the bandaid off pretty quickly. We talked about it maybe for a couple of months, very short months, and then I decided it's time to do this. I probably would have been smarter to do this during the pandemic when I was working from home. I could have started this business working from home, but... I didn't think about it until I grew tired of corporate America. So there we are. But yeah, we did speak about it, but not at great length. It was a couple of months worth of conversations of should we do this, shouldn't we do this? And we both decided it was time. Marci Grossman (04:17) So, entrepreneurship after 50. You're coming in with, obviously, a lot more knowledge than you would have at a younger age and hopefully some financial stability that you wouldn't have necessarily had at a younger age. On the flip side, you don't have necessarily as much of a time horizon to make it work. or maybe you already have the savings you need, so if it doesn't work as well as you'd like, you still are in a good position. How do you make these decisions to become an entrepreneur? Michael Farino (04:47) Well, I'd certainly like for it to be successful tomorrow and be rich tomorrow. Obviously, wouldn't we all? But I think, you know, for me, I knew it was gonna take some time to grab our grounding and our footing in this business. There's lots of competition for desserts and home-baked goods and things like that. So we decided to start out from home instead of... investing in real estate and getting a pudding shop, so to speak, which eventually I'd love to have. But yes, I decided that it was time to put the money aside to make sure I had enough to pay my bills for a while. And it really wasn't a hard decision. I just decided that it was time to take the leap because I am over 50 and I don't want to the next 50 years trying to be successful. So I figured before I get too late and my mind gets too feeble, I better start doing this now. Marci Grossman (05:43) Fair enough. Would you say that you've reached financial independence that you could make this or that still is your guiding light is to get to financial independence? Where are your strategies and how impacted the decision making? Michael Farino (05:58) So I think for me, I didn't reach full financial success. Like I said, I had a very poor relationship with money for many years. I spent most of my money. I'm a huge theater fan. Our business is theater, Broadway themed. I've been going to Broadway shows for 35 years. So I've spent a lot of money on Broadway shows where I could have chosen a more economical choice of entertainment. For me, I just felt like it was time. So I wasn't fully prepared. I can't live forever. I don't have enough money to live forever without income, but I did save enough so that I would have at least two years to fund this and make this possible. Marci Grossman (06:40) Okay, well two years is a pretty good investment in yourself to do it. It's a realistic investment and I like that you didn't start by saying, okay, I'm gonna get a storefront. Michael Farino (06:51) I would love that. I mean, you know that's the ultimate dream and goal, but I live in Jersey City, which is outside of Manhattan. And for me, the rent is much cheaper here. But our business is Broadway themed. So my dream is to eventually have a pudding shop in the Broadway area, you know, where I would attract the right customers for our business and our niche. But I couldn't afford that. I was never going to be able to save enough money to invest in a brick and mortar store. So that's why we started out at home, because here in Jersey we're allowed to have an LLC for home business as we do. Marci Grossman (07:28) Okay. What about getting one of those carts? I see the pretzel carts and the hot dog carts. Could there be a rice pudding cart? Michael Farino (07:34) There will definitely be rice pudding carts. We're looking into signing up to doing local fairs, local events. We would love to be able, there's a traveling block, I call it a block party, but it's traveling shopping. They shut down like five or six blocks in the city all throughout the summer and they go from neighborhood to neighborhood. And I would love to be a vendor at that. I would love to eventually maybe have a cart at different events. They have wedding events. You can go and pitch yourself for different types of things. So yes, a cart is something we would definitely eventually like to do. Marci Grossman (08:12) So it sounds like you've got a business plan in your head. Did you write down a business plan and go through the whole process of that, or is it more head-based? Michael Farino (08:22) Well, I wrote down general ideas. I haven't fully investigated everything. I just wrote down topics of things that I'd like to accomplish during this process. And what I do is every couple of days, I do my research, I go online, I meet with other business owners to find out how they became successful. I've done some seminars. I'm going to be taking some classes at Baruch about small business. Even though this isn't my first business, I did have, or I should say I was partnered with someone when marriage equality became legal here in New York. My friend and I started a business called Over the Rainbow Productions. And I had been working for law firms for many years and I've been planning their events internally, their holiday parties from 50 to a thousand people. So when marriage became legal, here in New York, we started our own event planning business. She was in the food catering industry and I was an event planner for corporate and we started doing events on the side. So it was on the side. I kept my corporate job at the time. It definitely tired me out because doing both was very hard. Which led me to this decision where I decided I can't do both. Again, in retrospect, it would have been great if I would have come to this realization during the pandemic when I had the time. But I've always been a little late to every party. So, you know, I've always missed a little bit of you could have gotten rich doing this or you could have, you know, lost all your money had you done this. So I've always been a little late to every trend or party, but that's just me. So. Marci Grossman (10:05) Don't think of it as being a little late. Think of it as making an entrance. Michael Farino (10:09) I like that and I'm going to steal that, thank you. ⁓ Thank you. Marci Grossman (10:13) No stealing, it's a gift. ⁓ What does it take? If people were looking behind the veil, how much you're willing to share unfiltered, what it takes to build a business from financial, the creativity, the, you know, what are the things that you had to say, okay, these are what I have to know going in. These are what I have to find out along the way. Michael Farino (10:38) I think the creativity of the business itself came very easy because again, I'm a huge Broadway lover and our rice pudding is Broadway themed, which we'll talk about eventually. But for me, the creativity was easy. Learning the business world and the new business world of today, not the business world that I knew 10 years ago, which is very different now with social media and the way people advertise and TikTok being such a big influence in in how you express yourself online and gain customers. So for me, it was a learning process. Like I said, I would take every couple of days, I would go online and learn something new. It really took a good year for me to learn, okay, this is what I'm gonna need to do. It's gonna take time to hit and be successful, but I needed to learn how do I incorporate? How do I LLC? How do I get much capital do I have to invest originally? We started our business, by the way, I forgot to mention, we started our business and six months later we had a house fire, which was unrelated to the business, but we had to shut down for a few months. Which was really disappointing because we were making small headway and then we had to scale it back. We are back up and running now, but it took about six months worth of construction. So that was also an unexpected, these are things that happen in business, right? Things break, you have to replace them. So it took a while because we didn't have electric. I didn't plug in my freezers and my refrigerators. So some of the things you learn as you go and a lot of the things I tried to prepare by taking classes and researching and speaking with other business owners before. Marci Grossman (12:22) So are you part of lot of networking groups? Are those in person or online? Michael Farino (12:26) They are mostly online. I do have two that I join in person and they have networking events that I can go to. One is through the Rutgers University. The woman there that I personally know. She's an old friend of mine. She's the one that helped me incorporate and I took some classes through them online. So I've gone to some of their networking events as well. Marci Grossman (12:51) Networking is huge, whether you are working at building an existing business or creating a new business. I've been a part of different networking groups and the opportunities that they create for that community, for that support, for the things where you don't have to reinvent the wheel because someone's already done it and are usually so willing to share that information, even if it's just, this is what I did, boy, it was wrong, don't do it this way. Michael Farino (13:18) I do find that people are very giving and open and helpful and I think it's wonderful. really... I'm sure there are things I don't know, obviously. I don't know everything about running a massive corporation or business for myself. But working for corporate law firms, I definitely understand the value of budgeting, making sure that we're not overspending, making sure that we allocate funds properly to different operating expenses. You know, there's the website, there's upgrades to that, there is product that you have to buy. With all the prices going up right now, we have to be very careful about where we buy those products so that we don't have to raise prices on what we're selling. So that's a lot of what I'm learning now. A lot of the contacts that I've made are struggling through rising costs and how to keep their costs down so that we can continue to make a profit without having to raise prices. Marci Grossman (14:13) That's a hard thing for any business right now with prices going all over the place for various items, whether it's food or hard goods or whatever else. Certainly as a business, you want to make sure you always have the ingredients on hand for those orders that come in. Michael Farino (14:30) Right. Yeah, some things we could buy in bulk, right? And there are things like heavy cream, which has almost doubled in price over the last couple of years that we can't stock up on. We can only buy that when we're ready to make the pudding each week because it has a shelf life and it goes bad. So some things we're able to stock up on like boxes and packing material and those things we have here. But there are other products that are just freshly made products that we can't buy, like milk and heavy cream. We have to deal with what the market fluctuations are. Marci Grossman (15:03) You're keeping to the recipe, you're following the rules, and you're using the quality ingredients ⁓ so that you don't mess with the basis because you don't want, what was it, Papa Nick? Yeah, Michael Farino (15:06) Yes. Yes. Yes, so My dad was Papa Nick. He passed away a few years ago. He gave me this recipe for his rice pudding, which was family favorite for many years. Everyone in the family loved it. My father was sort of required to make it for every holiday and every event. He made one flavor, which was plain rice pudding. He tried putting raisins in it once, but I wouldn't have it. So that stopped. But when he gave me the recipe, he said, don't play with it. And of course he knew that that was gonna be the first thing that I was gonna do. So I started out easy with making it with chocolate milk, just to see what chocolate rice pudding would taste like. And then I said, well, if I could do this, I could try other things. And slowly but surely I built up a recipe. I have about 16 different flavors that we circulate. And they all start with the same core recipe, the same ingredients, but different recipes get different. additives, so to speak. Different flavorings, different purees, different fruit. It depends. We make a blueberry cobbler and I have to make crumbs for the tops. My great grandmother taught me that recipe because she was a child of the depression and she hated wasting food. And when I was a kid, I used to eat the crumbs off the Entenmann's crumb cake and I never ate the cake. And she used to yell at me and she used to say, that's a sin. What are you doing? You don't throw away food so I would eat the crumbs and she would eat the cake and she got tired of eating all the leftover cake so she taught me how to make crumbs. So again some of these recipes I've sort of adapted from my family and incorporated in my business. Marci Grossman (16:49) Well, I'm a purist at heart. I love a good rice pudding. Raisins are fine. Cinnamon is fine. So I don't know your issue with raisins, but I won't fight about it. I won't yuck your yum. Michael Farino (16:54) You They go well in bagels for me, but that's about it. Marci Grossman (17:03) I'll see, you know, and it's fine in bagels, but I'd rather have a good everything bagel with, you know, the onion, the garlic, the everything, the everything. But, you know, again, can't yuck your yum. Everyone gets to choose their own, their own taste. So let's talk a little bit about your company. I've seen the website. I've seen those flavors you created. Tell me how that's going. Michael Farino (17:25) So, I'm always thinking of new flavors. So that's a problem because I get in my own way. Instead of focusing on the flavors that we have, I'm always looking forward to what can I create for the fall? What can I create for next winter? Because we do have a holiday flavor called Coquito in the Heights. So I'm always thinking about... what am I going to do six months from now? Because I've already established the flavors that I've made. And like I said, that took about, I would say anywhere from two to five years I've been playing with the flavors and the recipes. What happened when I left my job, my corporate job, I decided to incorporate this business. Pudding on the Rice is a play off, Putting on the Ritz. Judy Garland made that song famous, a few others. but she's one of my favorites. And I just felt like it fit. I don't know. It struck me as fun and interesting. And I went online and I started doing research. I looked through my playbills to get inspiration from different shows. And it started with the green tea. It started with Wicked. So for me, Defying Gravity was very trendy for many years. Obviously the movie has made it more popular these days. But before that, I was thinking, what can I do? Where can I incorporate my two I do love to bake and Broadway. So for me, it just connected very quickly. And then the ideas started flowing. The flavors started coming. The flavors aren't the hard part. It's theming them to a show that sometimes can be very tricky because I've seen so many shows, right? There are shows like Wicked that have been out there for 20 years, but some of my greatest experiences at the theater have been shows that have only lasted for six months. And I got to see them, I got to see the performers, I got to meet the performers or whatever the experience was. So for me, I don't want to pick one of those shows to theme a Rice Pudding against because people don't really know the lesser known shows that don't live a long life on Broadway. And nowadays it's so hard for shows to last. it definitely becomes a challenge because I could pick a show like Les Mis, which I do have a flavored rice pudding called One Day S'mores, right? But not everybody knows Les Mis today because it hasn't been out there recently, even though it was on Broadway for over 20 years. So I have to navigate who I'm marketing to. Am I marketing to an audience that knows a Broadway show from years ago or am I looking to find a new show, so to speak, to theme my rice pudding? So that's part of the process as well, but again, for me, joining my two loves was easy. Marci Grossman (20:12) So which comes first, the show or the song or the title of the rice pudding or the flavor? Michael Farino (20:19) The flavor. The flavor comes first because I need to know that I can make the flavor and that it tastes well and that people like it. You know, I try to ask friends more than family to try our rice pudding because my family's very supportive and everything to them tastes great. And I'm looking for more constructive feedback. Does it need more milk? Does it need more sugar? What does it need? You know, so for me, I found a group of taste testers, let's call them. And I love to experiment and try different things. So when I'm making a rice pudding, I might be making an order for someone today. I will actually put up two pots and I'll try a new flavor. I won't do that every time I cook because again, I can't have 90 different flavors at this point because I don't have a storefront. But eventually to have those recipes in the bag and have them ready to go or circulate through the years would be great. So the flavor comes first and then the name and the title sort of work in tandem, because I have to think about a show, right? So I think about what show fits. So Blueberry and the Beast is very easy, a very easy title to come up with, right? So it just flows off your tongue, it's very easy. But then there are other ones like One Day S'mores, I was like, how am gonna title S'mores? I know S'mores doesn't mean... Les Mis specifically, but the song lends to... the s'mores, flowing. So that's why it's themed that way. But some of them are themed specifically for the show, like green tea with Wicked became very popular. So it just depends. Everything's Coming Up Peanut Butter Cup is another flavor. And it's the first flavor that we specifically themed for a Broadway star. Audra McDonald notoriously loves Reese's Peanut Butter Cups. And she's starring in the most recent revival of Gypsy. So for me, Gypsy is one of my favorite shows. I've seen every Mama Rose since Tyne Daly in the 90s. So for me, it was very easy to come up with that idea. And it's the first time that we've actually dedicated a flavor not only to a show, but to the person starring in it. So that's my hope in the future is to be able to make those connections. But again, it depends on the flavor. I start with the flavor. Marci Grossman (22:38) Okay, now I've been to your site, I've seen the flavors and the titles and everything, but I didn't see a sampler pack. So you can only buy the pint. You can't buy a sampler pack with three or four flavors. Michael Farino (22:51) No, but that's a great idea and I'm going to look into adding that. Again, no one's requested that yet, but now that I have a request, I will gladly look and see how I can incorporate that into our site. That's a great idea. Marci Grossman (22:54) HA! Okay, well I want a title after me for that. Michael Farino (23:09) Okay, sounds good! Marci Grossman (23:12) I just need to turn my book into a musical. Michael Farino (23:14) Exactly. Marci Grossman (23:15) So you've turned this passion into a business and you're working at turning it into a profitable business. How are you holding on to all of the chaos that comes with creating a business and certainly a passion project? You're investing yourself and your emotions, your money. So it's a balance between, oh my god, I want to do xyz and saying, you know what, I've got to do this more intentionally because cash flow and finding the balance in that. How do you find the balance? Michael Farino (23:48) Well, in some ways I wish there was more chaos because when I was working for law firms, I was going 24-7. I was busy all the time. Managing law offices keeps you operating at night when people, because, you know, they're a 24-hour business. People are working all the time. For me now, I can literally not need to do anything today. If I've already made all my orders for the week and everything's ready, all I have to do is pack them and ship them out. So I wish in some ways it was a little more chaotic because I thrive on being busy. And for me, I think being in that corporate chain of, you know, just chugging along for so many years, this felt more like a retirement project in the beginning because again, it's not a profitable successful business. I'm not making thousands of pints of rice pudding a week. Not yet anyway. Slowing down, so to speak, was a big challenge for me because I was used to being busy all the time. My mind was always working. That's why now I'm always doing research and I'm always looking up things and classes I can take, things I could learn, networking events that I could attend because I like to keep my mind occupied. Otherwise, like I said, if my orders are fulfilled for now, there's not much I could do but use social media to promote my business. Marci Grossman (25:11) That makes sense. Before we wrap up, have you got anything you would like to share about your business, about the process, about your life, the decisions that brought you to here? Michael Farino (25:23) I think, you know, I think it's really important for other people to recognize that it's never too late. If you have a passion to do something and you prepare yourself properly, you should go for it because the only thing stopping you in this life is you. There is nothing else stopping you from achieving your goals and achieving your dreams. So for me, even though I feel like I might have been a little late to the party, again, now I'm looking at it more as an invitation and a celebration thanks to you. But for me, I really feel like it's important to step into your own power, take control of yourself. But I also feel there are a lot of mistakes I made, right? Through the years, I venture to say I could probably be filthy rich today if I didn't spend all the money that I've spent. But at the end of the day, I also lived a great life so far. I have much more to live. in the past, I've done everything I wanted to do. I traveled the world. I've been to 32 countries. Like I said, I've seen over 1,000 Broadway shows. So I'm not a thrifty person. I don't have sharp, expensive clothes. But I do like to enjoy myself with entertainment. And my grandfather taught me that. Going to see concerts and he was a gambler. So we would go to Atlantic City and Vegas a lot. And he really loved that whole, let me be entertained for a little while. He taught me music helps take you out of depression. You can't be depressed when you're listening to music. So again, it's part of why I wanted to incorporate my love for Broadway music and the Broadway world into this business. So I think that people just need to think about what they're doing, set themselves up for success, learn what they need to learn, and just sometimes you have to rip the band-aid off because no one else is going to do that for you but you. Marci Grossman (27:13) That is wise advice. And I am so thrilled that you were able to come and join me on this episode. Michael, your business, I am so excited to see where Pudding on the Rice goes. I will be sharing the link to your website in the show notes. For those listening, I am so glad you stopped by to catch this podcast. This Money Marci. saying, thanks for listening to Marci Talks Money and Life. Michael Farino (27:42) Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Marci Grossman (27:44) Thank you, Michael. You got this. See ya. Michael Farino (27:45) Alrighty, be well. Thanks.