Advice Line with Gary Hirshberg of Stonyfield

Stonyfield co-founder and former CEO Gary Hirshberg joins Guy on the Advice Line where they answer questions from three early-stage founders. Plus, Gary explains how a social mission can be a competitive advantage for a consumer product. First we meet Cate in Oregon, who’s trying to figure out the best way for her leather goods company to stop cow hides from going to waste. Then Jamie in Santa Barbara, whose gourmet vegan camping meals are speaking to a customer demographic she wasn’t expecting. And Dianna in the Bay Area, who’s ready to hire a right hand for her seeded cracker company but isn’t sure where to look. Thank you to the founders of Range Revolution, Poe & Co. Folk Foods, and Cult Crackers for being a part of our show. If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [email protected] or call 1-800-433-1298. And be sure to listen to Stonyfield’s founding story https://art19.com/shows/831bd173-0992-41b7-b1eb-112db904d947/episodes/383a2c98-69f9-40fd-a4e6-ad493bfb6944/embed as told by Gary on the show in 2017. This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella. Our audio engineer was Cena Loffredo. You can follow HIBT on X https://x.com/HowIBuiltThis & Instagram https://www.instagram.com/howibuiltthis/ and sign up for Guy’s free newsletter at guyraz.com http://guyraz.com. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Guy Raz?

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• 5:44Guy Raz?

  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 [email protected]. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter.

• 6:27Guy Raz?

  It's full of insights and ideas from the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at guyraz.com. And we'll put all this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Gary Hirshberg. He's the founder of the yogurt and dairy company Stonyfield. Gary, thanks so much for coming back on to How I Built This. Great to have you. Good to be with you, Guy. You were first on How I Built This way back in the second year of the show, 2017. And it's amazing, I mean, how you started the business as a one-cow operation on a rundown farm in New Hampshire. And of course, for those of you listening, if you haven't heard it, we will put a link to that episode in the podcast description.

• 7:10Guy Raz?

  One of my favorite things about Gary's story was how many times, Gary, you guys almost went under? How much failure you endured in the first decade of trying to keep Stonyfield afloat? For example, at one point, I remember one of the dairy farms you were working with, like, almost stole the company, the business. I'm laughing. It wasn't funny at the time. You had to borrow millions of dollars, including begging your in-laws to give you loans, almost ruined your marriage. But you made a product that people really liked. I remember you described it as ambrosia. Every time I see Stonyfield, I think of your voice saying, "Ambrosia." And that is ultimately what saved Stonyfield and then ended up turning into one of the biggest organic yogurt brands in the world.

• 7:53Speaker 01

  Well, I thought you were going to say that there were some times when we almost succeeded. That was actually more the ratio. We call ourselves a 40-year overnight success.

• 8:06Guy Raz?

  It's like the Winston Churchill thing, you know, you go from failure to failure until you succeed.

• 8:09Speaker 01

  I think the Churchill line is wisdom is something you get just after you needed it.

• 8:14Guy Raz?

  Well, that's one, but there's the failure one, too, which I'm going to quote for you because I can't always remember it by heart. But the quote is, "Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm."

• 8:27Speaker 01

  No loss of enthusiasm.

• 8:29Guy Raz?

  Yes, that's the one. Yep. Gary, before we get to bring in our callers, I'm curious because a lot, I think a lot of our callers today are going to, are trying to figure out the best sales channels for their products and we'll, we'll address that. But at one point, I remember in our interview, you talked about how, how for your 30th birthday, you basically asked friends to go to their local market.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Bread and circus.

• 8:52Guy Raz?

  Bread and circus, okay. And you asked, you had them go in and ask them to carry Stonyfield yogurt and it worked. The companies eventually called you and said, hey.

• 9:00Speaker 01

  It was, it was my old ultimate frisbee team who had come up to the farm to celebrate. We had finished milking. I asked them on a Sunday at my birthday party to go down and ask for the yogurt. And on Wednesday, the buyer called me and said, Gary, I don't know what's going on, but demand has gone through the roof. Get that yogurt in here right away.

• 9:17Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 9:18Speaker 01

  And we did, we delivered that afternoon.

• 9:20Guy Raz?

  Okay, a great strategy. The retail landscape has changed a little bit since then. What would your general advice to founders be for trying to get their products into a retailer like that today? Like a Whole Foods, I mean, does that same strategy still work?

• 9:36Speaker 01

  It really does because in the end, the retailer and the manufacturer beholden to the very same client. The consumer is who we all work for. And so if you can, my advice to any entrepreneurs trying to sell a CPG product, food or otherwise, is build loyalty. In Stonyfield's case, because of our gross margins, we never really had the ability to spend on advertising, but we were always happy to spend on influencers, bringing people up to the farms. We still do to this day.

• 10:07Guy Raz?

  Pre-influencer marketing, before we even had that word.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  Well, yes, we were actually the first food company I know to hire a blogger back in the day, but the point is to talk to your consumer, consider it a conversation. I call it having a handshake with your consumer and whether that's on mission or on product or on taste or price, but you've got to have that loyalty and then they will pull it. They will help you to pull in. There's nothing better that you can say to a retailer than, hey, I've got 10,000 online consumers in your market. You've got a ready-made marketplace surrounding you.

• 10:45Guy Raz?

  Yeah. You guys were an early pioneer in practices that are kind of the norm today, right? No pesticides, no hormones. You try not to depend on fossil fuels and at a certain point you were fossil fuel free. We've had versions of this discussion on the show before and I'm curious on your take, which is how much do you think today consumers really care about these things to the extent that it actually can make or break a product? Or does it really ultimately come down to taste and value?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  It always comes down to taste if it's food. I always used to say you could ship the yogurt 3,000 miles, but it was the last 18 inches that made all the difference. It has to, because you're not going to get a second taste.

• 11:27Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 11:28Speaker 01

  If it doesn't deliver on the first one. But honestly, mission, environmental, social mission is probably more important today than it was even back then. We often joke that we had a wonderful company back then, just no supply and no demand. Nobody knew what we were doing when we were talking about organic and the need to reduce our carbon footprints and so forth. But today you have a generation of consumers who index extremely high on this stuff. In fact, they're a pretty demanding audience. They kind of want it all. They demand absolute transparency on everything from animal cruelty or avoidance of cruelty to organics, avoidance of pesticides. Climate is extremely important. Equity, very

• 12:11Speaker 01

  important. And that's a real competitive advantage that wasn't an advantage back in my day.

• 12:17Guy Raz?

  See, I'm really surprised to hear you say that because I look at like fast fashion brands like Shein, which have just exploded in growth and that just runs counter to everything that you've said. I mean, I've seen, I see a lot of consumer brands that really are doing well, that don't do any of the things you're describing.

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Sure. I mean, look, it's all depending on your target. If you're seeking brand market leadership, if you're going to be, try to be number one, then of course, price, convenience, taste, in the case of food, are, you know, predominate. But if you're trying to build loyalty and with a higher priced, lower gross margin item, then mission is your secret to success. That's your way of getting trial, getting reach, and ultimately getting that holy grail of consumer products, which is word of mouth.

• 13:04Guy Raz?

  Hmm. Gary, what do you say? Let's take our first caller.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Wonderful.

• 13:08Guy Raz?

  Okay. Hello, caller. Welcome to the advice line with me and Gary Hirshberg. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business, just a little bit.

• 13:18Speaker 02

  Hi, Guy. Hi, Gary. I'm so happy to be here with you both. My name is Kate Hafstad Qasad. I'm calling in from Bend, Oregon, and I am the founder of Range Revolution. Range Revolution is a leather company which sources 100% of its hides from verified regenerative ranches. We were founded to address the massive waste dilemma that exists in the millions of hides which are thrown into the trash each year, and to give consumers a leather product that they can feel good about.

• 13:46Guy Raz?

  Wow. Okay, so welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. Okay, so Kate, you guys basically take cow hides that are otherwise going to be just like incinerated or whatever because like a lot of cows are killed for meat, obviously, and you turn them into like wallets and bags, essentially?

• 14:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, correct. Most people don't know this, but in current systems today, when we send a steer to slaughter, about 65% of the cattle carcass is being utilized.

• 14:13Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 14:14Speaker 02

  And then meanwhile, in the greater fashion movement, we have a giant globalized leather supply chain, which is quite opaque and oftentimes is coming from systems that lead to deforestation.

• 14:25Guy Raz?

  Wow. Most of the beef that's consumed, it's just like... The carcass is wasted. We're not using the le- we're not turning into leather or anything. It's just being burned or thrown away.

• 14:35Speaker 02

  Thirty-five percent of that carcass is going to quote waste. And I say quote because there's no such thing as waste.

• 14:41Guy Raz?

  Why is that just so surprising to me? I mean, you would think that there's a lot of demand for leather goods out there.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  You know, it's just as the consolidation of the industry has led to say these big four packers that really dominate the industry. We've lost a lot of the systems of aggregation that really focus on that middle, the missing middle. Middle agriculture and middle processors. And so there's a need to rebuild that middle system of aggregation to get these hides back into the system.

• 15:06Guy Raz?

  Wow. So Kate, how did you start this business?

• 15:09Speaker 02

  So this all really starts because my husband and I have been farming and ranching together for 11 years. And we've grown our farm and ranch called Cassad Family Farms, which is organic and regenerative. We've grown it from a three acre market farm doing CSAs and farmers markets. And so now we manage about 1,400 acres. And as first generation farmer ranchers, I like to say we've learned not just how to grow food, but what it takes to save a farm. And in the same era of the past decade, I've been operating a custom hat business where I build custom Western hats and fedoras. And it really just came down to, I thought I was building something for Habsdad Hat Company. And I wanted to find hides that align with my ethos, how I source my food and how I live the rest of my life.

• 15:54Speaker 02

  And as soon as I started looking for regional hides, you know, regenerative hides, something that might have traceability. I realized it did not exist. And so that started this journey.

• 16:04Guy Raz?

  Wow, I'm looking at your website and beautiful bags and purses and phone cases and wallets. So. And how, and you're selling these direct to consumer only right now?

• 16:14Speaker 02

  Yep, we launched direct to consumer softly in December of 2023. And then we launched our first kind of brand campaign earlier this year. And we got our first handful of independent boutique retailers this summer. And this will get into our question. There's, there's kind of a second arm of this business that is percolating in my mind. That has to do with both improving our cost of goods and also moving more of these hides.

• 16:39Guy Raz?

  Yeah, so going to ask your question.

• 16:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay. So we've been approached by a lot of people who are so excited about the value proposition of these hides that they would like them for their business. And whether it's an interior designer, a furniture maker, other bag designers or, you know, makers, I see this B to B play opportunity where we can provide a finished leather option to somebody. And as a small startup with limited resources, it's always a question of where we, you know, divide our attention and our, our resources. And so I'm curious, both you, Guy and Gary, how you would think about dividing our attention on building the direct to consumer brand with finished products versus starting to really funnel resources into the material play.

• 17:24Guy Raz?

  Hmm. So you basically have more hides than you need right now.

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Absolutely. There's a lot of volume that, you know, even when Range reaches $10 million in sales by 2028, we're still barely touching the volume that really needs to be pulled out of the supply chains, even just on the West Coast.

• 17:44Guy Raz?

  All right. You're projecting $10 million in sales in four years?

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Yep.

• 17:47Guy Raz?

  I love it. Okay. But right now, you've got a warehouse full of hides.

• 17:52Speaker 02

  Well, I don't have a warehouse full of them yet. I have processors beating down my door saying, come take my hides, come take my hides. But I know what's in that pipeline and it's large. And the more we move, it improves the cost of goods for the brand, of course.

• 18:08Guy Raz?

  Gary, let's tackle Kate's question, but you may have some questions for her before we do that.

• 18:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. Hey, Kate. First of all, obviously, we are connected in lots of ways here. I love your, there is no such thing as waste. I add to that, there's no such thing as a way. It's another myth. So I know we speak the same language and obviously the mission is close to my heart. What of those two of the bifurcated choices you just laid out, which one excites you the most? What stirs you?

• 18:40Speaker 02

  Because I'm such a producer first, farmer first human, I just want to see more of these hides pulled out of the trash. But if I were to add the caveat, in order for this movement to truly scale, we need the consumer mindsets to shift.

• 18:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 18:56Speaker 02

  In order to care about natural fibers again and not think that it's evil or bad. And so the brand has such a huge role to play in that narrative.

• 19:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, it does. I think your cred is your brand. By the way, I think your cred is also that you're farming and ranching. Your story is really, really important and central. But I agree with you, there's a bigger mission here than just selling purses and wallets. But it does, I think your cred and probably your cash flow depend on the brand being strong. And so I guess, since I think your question is how do you divide your time and resources, that's your key. I would be very focused on making sure you have an excellent brand manager, CEO, head of sales, chief offensive officer, whatever you call it. But I would not allow your attention to move off to the mission that gives you so much passion,

• 19:49Speaker 01

  which is moving these hides, without being absolutely sure that the mothership is being completely taken care of. Because, you know, that's your cash flow.

• 19:57Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 19:58Speaker 01

  You know, entrepreneurs, I always call us pathological optimists. We tend to think there's sort of no limits to what we can do. So I really appreciate that you recognize that there are limits and also recognize that you can't do too many things. Look, I chaired the national campaign to label GMOs. It was a major distractant. But the luxury of taking that time to work on a mission that is basically a generational mission.

• 20:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 20:23Speaker 01

  Comes from being sure that the mothership, like I keep calling it, is taken care of. The more I'm hearing you, I would make sure that the 10 million is in the bag, no pun intended. I would really concentrate for the next year. On the things you need to do to cement and lock in that growth trajectory, which includes, you know, that right hand that you can appoint to take up the critical roles you play. I would become a sponsor of an environmental media association of environmental working groups, earth dinners, I would award shows, I would make yourself the boutique. You know, I would really, really use all your talents and wisdom and lock in the brand trajectory.

• 21:03Speaker 01

  Be sure the gross margins are protected, be sure you've got a defensive business as well as a niche before allowing yourself to slip off too far. And by the way, you might even consider, you know, maybe there's a nonprofit to the hides thing. Maybe there's other partners for you. Yeah. You know, my, my first $10 million, I was just nose to the grindstone. But once I got there and I could hire good, talented people, I was freer to start focusing on the mission, which in turn came back and fed the product, right, for the yogurt sales. Yeah.

• 21:36Guy Raz?

  Hmm. Gary, I have a question about branding here because at the end of the day, I mean, as beautiful as these bags are, in this category, it's all about brand, right? Like, why do people buy a Kate Spade bag or a Tori Burch bag, right? Because of the brand that they built.

• 21:53Speaker 01

  I mean, this goes back to the opening conversation in our, in our intro chat. You know, there's a changed consumer out there.

• 22:00Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  I think what Kate is on to, I think this is a fashion statement, being truly green, truly clean, and let's not forget, Kate is providing a critical currency for these farms. So I think the mission here is the brand. I think it's selling hard on, on the big picture, the big story of what you stand for that's going to earn you your long-term sustained niche.

• 22:25Guy Raz?

  So I, I agree with you, but I'm going to take a slightly different, different perspective here, which is to say that these bags, especially the women's handbags, right? You need to see these bags on women in New York and Los Angeles.

• 22:39Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yes.

• 22:40Guy Raz?

  Or in Paris. And so.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:42Guy Raz?

  Is there a world where Range Revolution? Is sort of the all encompassing company, but you might consider changing the brand name to your name. Your last name is Havstad? Cassad or something like that. You've got a nice European or sort of a cool last name that sounds like-

• 22:59Speaker 01

  She's got the Kate part already.

• 23:01Guy Raz?

  Right, Kate, I mean, it kind of sounds like a cool name. Like, it could be from Denmark or something. I don't know, maybe play around with that idea because Range Revolution is what you're doing. But I wonder whether it might sound too much like the cowboy hats. And in a sense, that may limit the kind of consumer that would otherwise be attracted to these designs.

• 23:28Speaker 01

  Look, I actually disagree a little bit here because I think that Range Revolution is your brand, is your mission. The reason I slipped into my chatter a few minutes ago, this Environmental Media Association, this is all the environmental stars in Hollywood, stars who lend their time and efforts to really green stuff. You should be the handbag of that thing. You know, you should be the want to handbag at the Oscars.

• 23:55Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 23:55Speaker 01

  I think, you know, you're not just another fashion brand. You're truly fashionable, which is you're building a future for the farms and for all of us. And I would really concentrate on, you know, get on Goop or whatever, but on celebrity endorsement, you know, Michelle Pfeiffer or somebody perhaps. And I think that will carry you into, onto the red carpet.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  We, I was just thinking through, first of all, my, some of my favorite How I Built This episodes, and Gary, yours is right up there, but as is the Kate Spade, Tory Pritchard, Eileen Fisher. And of course, they're all names of those founders. So I totally hear what you're saying, Guy.

• 24:31Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 24:31Speaker 02

  But at the same time, I selfishly want to start this beautiful revolution. And I want people to feel that, that fire, that fashion can be, design can be for good. And the most radical fibers are the ones we already have. And let's start thinking that way.

• 24:46Guy Raz?

  I think it makes a lot of sense. I mean, you can experiment with different ways of trying to bring it in front of consumers. But at the end of the day, you've got a beautifully designed line. And now the question is, how do you get it into the right hands, right? It's a, the hardest thing about what you've done, what you're going to do is building a brand. It's turning that into a brand that people know and want to buy.

• 25:07Speaker 02

  Yeah. Maybe by the next time we talk, you'll see Gwyneth Paltrow with a regenerative leather tote on her arm.

• 25:13Guy Raz?

  Maybe. Maybe Kate, the brand is called Range Revolution. Good luck. Congrats.

• 25:17Speaker 02

  Thank you both so much.

• 25:18Guy Raz?

  Thank you.

• 25:19Speaker 01

  Good luck.

• 25:21Guy Raz?

  I mean, Michelle Pfeiffer, who is great, but Gary, I mean, you gotta get with the...

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Well, it happens. Michelle is on the EWG board and I'm a fan.

• 25:32Guy Raz?

  Michelle Pfeiffer. No one knows Michelle Pfeiffer anymore. I mean, she's amazing. Get this into the hands of the, like Addison Rae or one of these TikTokers.

• 25:42Speaker 01

  Yeah, I don't disagree. And, you know, again, this is this sort of theme, I think, that happens as entrepreneurs with a mission, you know, the brand or the company, sometimes they forget, right? That that's actually what enables them to get to their platform. So important that she doesn't put the cart before the horse.

• 26:00Guy Raz?

  For sure. All right, we're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller and another round of advice. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.

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• 29:56Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the Advice Line here on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz, and my guest today is Gary Hirshberg. He's the co-founder of the organic yogurt and dairy company Stonyfield. Gary, what do you say? Let's take another call.

• 30:09Speaker 01

  Here, here.

• 30:10Guy Raz?

  All right, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the Advice Line. You are on with me and Gary Hirshberg. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a little bit about your business.

• 30:19Speaker 03

  My name is Jamie Poe. I'm from Santa Barbara, California. I'm the co-owner and co-chef of Poe & Co. Folk Foods. We make vegan dried camping meals. They're shelf-stable. You just add boiling water and eat them directly from the pouch.

• 30:32Guy Raz?

  Amazing. Okay, well, welcome to the show, Jamie. Thank you for calling in. Okay, how did you start this? Where'd the idea come from? Are you a camp, like a backpacker or camper?

• 30:41Speaker 03

  So that will lead to my question, but I am not a backpacker. I am just your all-around adventure buddy who likes to go camping on the weekends. I have always had a Monday through Friday or Monday through Saturday job.

• 30:55Guy Raz?

  What's your day job, if you don't mind me asking?

• 30:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, so my husband and I work together, and we own a catering company in Santa Barbara.

• 31:03Guy Raz?

  Uh-huh, so that makes sense that you started this as a sidebar. Tell me, what was the impetus or idea? You've got a catering business. You're probably super busy. You're probably working probably every weekend, I imagine. But what was the idea around this camping food or the dried food?

• 31:18Speaker 03

  So a little background. My husband and I have a lot of food experience, about over 50 years of cooking experience between the two of us. And when we decided to have kids about six years ago, we tried to figure out how two chefs could still make a living and work. And that's what started the catering business. And we've done pretty well with that over the years. And as the years have gone on and as our kids have gotten a little older, we have been thinking about what we can do to not work most weekends or at least Saturdays. We kind of actually don't even work that many Sundays right now. And, you know, we thought a lot about the fact that we have the service-based business, but what can we do as a product?

• 32:03Speaker 03

  And it kind of led us to the fact that we both love the outdoors, and that brought us to this category.

• 32:10Guy Raz?

  That's awesome. Where are you selling them right now?

• 32:13Speaker 03

  So we sell them direct to consumer. We sell them in about 25 indie places. And then we're about to launch on Amazon.

• 32:22Guy Raz?

  And I know they're a pretty new business, just maybe a year and a half old. But have you guys managed to crack, I don't know, 25, 50 grand in sales yet?

• 32:31Speaker 03

  We're about there. And I like to say we're much more tortoise than hare.

• 32:36Guy Raz?

  Mm hmm. Great.

• 32:36Speaker 03

  It is very much our side hustle and it is one we want to see grow. And we want to be able to become, you know, even more choosy about what catering events we take on and supplement it with running this business.

• 32:49Guy Raz?

  Cool. Well, Gary Hirshberg was the OG tortoise to scale that into Stonyfield. What's, what's your question for us today?

• 32:57Speaker 03

  How do we reach our target audience who doesn't seem to know our category exists? You know, I think what we've come to, the crossroads, which we're seeing is that when we develop these, we develop them for your kind of comfort camper. So, I mean, in California, car camping is huge. And what we have found is that the category itself is much more known and sought after by kind of more hardcore people, so the backpackers in particular. And, you know, what they want from the product, they want more protein, they want more calories. And so we're sort of at this point where, you know, when we design these, we design

• 33:40Speaker 03

  them for all these other people, but the backpackers and the ones who know about this category are the ones who have found us.

• 33:47Guy Raz?

  All right. So you design these for like families who are driving to a campground for the night, but actually the people who want this are backpackers who, who are like going deep into the backcountry and they want something light to carry. But the problem, if I'm reading this correctly, the problem for them is there's not enough calories and protein in what you offer so far.

• 34:08Speaker 03

  Yes. So the backpackers are the ones who have really found us and they, you know, they're like, great, new backpacking food, but it doesn't have this, this and this. And we're like, well, it's really something that we thought more of, like the young families going to a campsite after school on the weekend and people who just want convenience food to have with their bottle of wine while watching, you know, the waves on the Pacific.

• 34:34Guy Raz?

  Right. Gary, questions for Jamie?

• 34:37Speaker 01

  I mean, you've got a number of attributes here. You really are both chefs. And so you've got a gourmet aspect. I see in your background that you've been on Michelin star restaurants. And then you've got convenience and then you've got gluten free, right? And you've got taste. So if you have 10 seconds with a consumer to say, this is why you should have it. What's the elevator pitch? What's the one thing you tell people?

• 35:05Speaker 03

  You can have this food in the outdoors. You don't need to worry about a cooler or refrigeration and it's ready in 20 minutes.

• 35:13Speaker 01

  And why you versus Mountain House or one of the-

• 35:16Guy Raz?

  Patagonia provisions or whatever, yeah.

• 35:18Speaker 03

  They're all vegan. They're designed by chefs to add boiling water to. So culinarily, they just make sense. They're delicious. They're flavorful. They're better for you. And they don't contain dried animal chunks that you're trying to rehydrate with water.

• 35:36Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 35:37Guy Raz?

  And I'm looking at them right now. They're about 12 bucks a pop. So that's a pretty good price. That's for a full meal per person. I mean, I would think that the channel would be like the REIs and the sports base, you know, the outdoor stores, right? That people go to. Have you guys, I mean, is there one down in Santa Barbara or-

• 35:58Speaker 03

  There is.

• 35:59Guy Raz?

  Camping stores down there? Yeah.

• 36:00Speaker 03

  Yeah. So the local buyer there was actually super interested in bringing in our product, but they can't do it at a local level if it's a topical or a food. So when we first started, we applied there and we got denied and I haven't revisited that.

• 36:14Speaker 01

  Could I just stand back for a second? I'm Googling around while we're chatting here and there's this report you should get called Data Intello. The global outdoor camping food market size was valued at $2.5 billion-

• 36:28Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 36:29Speaker 01

  -last year.

• 36:29Guy Raz?

  That's big.

• 36:30Speaker 01

  It's going to be 4.8 billion by 2032, growing at a compounded growth rate of 7.5%. So congratulations, number one. You're in a growth category. But here, catch this sentence. "One of the most significant opportunities lies in the development of new and innovative food products that cater to the evolving preferences of consumers. There's a growing demand for camping foods that align with these dietary preferences. Manufacturers can capitalize on this term by introducing new product lines that cater to vegan, gluten free, et cetera." So some of this depends on how you're talking about- Yourself, you're not just your average ad water. You're gourmet, you're delicious. And when we were opening up this call, Guy, we were going back over some early Stonyfield successes.

• 37:13Speaker 01

  And I'll tell you, it all came down to getting consumers to pull in. You know, REI or your camping stores will carry you if consumers come in saying, hey, do you have that Poe and company stuff? So I'm Googling again, you've got Santa Barbara County Hikers Club, 3,310 members. Right there, can you do an event for them? Can you make a, give some donations to help them raise money? Or can you do a contest, maybe go out camping with you guys for a night? I mean, people think automatically like, how do I get into retail? But remember that in retail, there's consumers who are getting their information, you know, in lots of places. And how can you go directly to them?

• 37:54Speaker 01

  I would work hard on that succinct pitch, that one sentence.

• 38:00Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:01Speaker 01

  You know, sort of like tired of compromising with extra chewy campaign meals or I loved your dried animal. You know, that's a, that's a good one. You know, why not eat gourmet in the outdoors? I'm sort of.

• 38:13Guy Raz?

  Gary, I'm looking at these flavor, black garlic ramen and coconut chickpea stew. You know, one of the things that you asked Jamie was should we lean into the people driving the Subarus and going and, you know, for day hikes or the hardcore campers? I think there's a value in at least trying one SKU that's a hardcore protein brand. Like each packet has 10 grams of protein and, you know, where you really lean into the idea of like, this is not only delicious, but it's going to really give you sustenance.

• 38:41Speaker 03

  Okay.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  I do think I'm on your site. I think testimonials would be a really important thing to have there. Again, this is going back to who your consumer is or even testimonials about you. And that's the other thing I want to say on a recent episode, Guy was interviewing my friend Jim Cook, you know, Sam Adams. And Jim was really emphasizing the personal stories and, you know, he used his story. Your story is your unique asset. And I think you've got a really unique story and the idea that, man, I mean, isn't it kind of cool? These two gourmet chefs, you know, who like to camp have now made this product. I mean, that says so much. So I'd try to. Maybe invite a food writer to come camp with you. Get your story out there a little bit.

• 39:27Speaker 01

  A lot of entrepreneurs are shy about that, but you've got a hell of a good one. And really a compelling reason to try the product, I think.

• 39:35Guy Raz?

  Gary, you know, it's always a trade off. How much do you put on the label and how much do you leave off? You know, is there value? Do you think there'd be value in these guys putting just a line there? This is like made by Michelin trained chefs or something like that at the top?

• 39:48Speaker 01

  Yes. But even better would be if, I see you worked for Danny Meyer, maybe my old friend Danny, maybe a quote from Danny. I mean, maybe Tom Colicchio, maybe a peer chef out there with a quote that sort of implies, says it all right there, you know, a must have for every meal. But I will say less about the package and more about the website because this is, you're not really as much of a retail play as you are a direct, right? To consumer. And so I think having your site dimensionalized with, like I say, chefs talking, hikers talking, active people talking.

• 40:26Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 40:26Speaker 01

  And again, I think, gosh, you know, for me, the thought that there's a lot of commodity products out there, but you're not a commodity. You're chefs who want to have something great for yourself. Well, that's what I want to have.

• 40:37Speaker 03

  I like that.

• 40:38Guy Raz?

  Agreed. The brand is called Poe & Co Folk Foods. Jamie, good luck. Thanks so much for calling in.

• 40:44Speaker 03

  Thank you, Guy. Thank you, Gary.

• 40:45Speaker 01

  Yeah, good luck.

• 40:46Guy Raz?

  Thank you.

• 40:49Guy Raz?

  I mean, $4 billion, who would have thought in camping food?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  That's right. And again, that means there's a lot of commodity. There's a lot of stuff out there. There's always room for something better. I also think, by the way, a lot of times these retailers who say they can't carry it, they might allow you to do a demo or something, you know, an enterprising manager. Give a little trial outside, you know, out in the parking lot. Just see if it creates a little excitement for them and interest for you.

• 41:19Guy Raz?

  Just don't take no for an answer.

• 41:21Speaker 01

  Right. If you don't ask, you don't get is my favorite line.

• 41:26Guy Raz?

  All right, we're going to take another quick break, but we'll be right back with another caller. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to the Advice Line right here on How I Built This.

• 41:52Guy Raz?

  Welcome back to the Advice Line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz and today I'm taking calls with Gary Hirshberg. So Gary, why don't we bring in our next caller? Let's go. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Hello, welcome to the Advice Line. You're on with Gary Hirshberg. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and a little bit about your business.

• 42:10Speaker 04

  Okay. Hi, Guy and Gary. My name is Diana Dar. I'm the CEO and founder of Colt Crackers, an organic seeded cracker company. We bake and manufacture in our commercial kitchen in Berkeley, California, and we ship and sell to about 500 retailers across the country and on our website.

• 42:29Guy Raz?

  Awesome. Welcome to the show. Thank you for calling in. First of all, just full disclosure, I live in the Bay Area, so I know them. I've tried them, I bought them. But describe what they are. They're crackers, but what makes them different?

• 42:41Speaker 04

  So they're made with six seeds: sunflower, sesame, chia, hemp, pumpkin, and flax. So they are naturally gluten-free, vegan, organic.

• 42:52Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 42:52Speaker 04

  One flavor is made with cornmeal and cornflour, and the second flavor is made with cassava flour, which is a root vegetable, sustainably grown.

• 43:01Guy Raz?

  Got it. So one is totally grain-free with a cassava.

• 43:04Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 43:04Guy Raz?

  And tell me how you launched this. Were you in food before?

• 43:09Speaker 04

  So I had gone to culinary school and I had baked, and I couldn't support myself working in restaurants. So I got into e-commerce and marketing. And when I was in my 50s, I was let go from my job. And a mom at my daughter's school suggested we should make these seeded crackers. And I was excited to start a new business, which combined the baking background and my marketing background.

• 43:33Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  And then a shout out to Berkeley. I think it's the perfect place to start a food business. They really embraced me here. I was at the farmer's market, and I'm in a lot of local stores. And people are just really supportive of local makers and good food. And along the way, I bought out my business partner. And now, seven years in, the business is humming along and growing.

• 43:57Guy Raz?

  And give us a sense of what, I mean, have you guys cracked a million dollars in sales yet? I mean, that's a big Pun intended. Milestone.

• 44:06Speaker 04

  We will at the end of this year.

• 44:07Guy Raz?

  Congrats. Okay. And tell us what question you have for us today.

• 44:12Speaker 04

  So my question is, every hire I have made along the way has been so I can focus on the next thing to grow the business.

• 44:19Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 44:20Speaker 04

  And I now have a strong but lean team of four people. Um, and they bake and package and manage the store accounts. And because my team is so small, I end up doing everything else. So it's sales, uh, which I love. HR, not so much, uh, social media, purchasing and on and on. And my question is, how do I hire someone who has those skills to take on many of those day-to-day things so I can focus on that next thing?

• 44:47Guy Raz?

  All right, lots to unpack there. Gary Hirshberg, let's bring you in. I'm sure you've got some questions for Diana before we tackle her question.

• 44:54Speaker 01

  I do, Diana. Nice to meet you and I look forward to trying your crackers. I guess the question is, what are those things that you want to be freed up to do? Is it sales or where will you focus?

• 45:05Speaker 04

  So it's sales and it's also recipe development. So creating a third cracker flavor. I need time to work on it.

• 45:12Speaker 01

  Hmm, yeah. And is your impediment, uh, scale and profitability? You don't have enough cash or is it more that you haven't been able to find the right person?

• 45:20Speaker 04

  Uh, it's not knowing who that, what that role is. Um, cash is not an issue. Uh, scalability is not an issue. I could double the business with a few more production workers. Um, it's really taking those day-to-day things, um, that were not on my to-do list yesterday that have to be taken care of. The website goes down and I need to fix it. Something breaks in the kitchen, I'm the one that has to do it. And I don't know if it's a, a group of consultants that I take on, or it's one person who can do some HR, some operations, some facility managing. I don't know how to find that sort of octopus.

• 45:59Speaker 01

  But you are comfortable that you have enough cash to pay a, a market salary for that role?

• 46:06Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 46:07Speaker 01

  Okay, great. Cause I'm, actually have lived your experience, Diana. I, there were all kinds of administrative things that not only did I not like, I just wasn't good at them, right?

• 46:17Speaker 04

  Right.

• 46:17Speaker 01

  And, uh, after four tries, I finally found.

• 46:22Speaker 01

  The right person and I would call her my partner today. In other words, she became that important to me and ended up being with me for almost 30 years, but it took a lot of trial and error. And I actually called it a controller. But it turned out she was really a COO, a Chief Operating Officer, which of course would be have been too fancy a title for the early going. Diana, by your own admission, you don't yet know exactly what it is that you're looking for. It's okay to be open about that. They, you need some definitions around it. You know, I think HR and administration, something along those lines. You're looking for somebody who's decent with accounting, who's decent with numbers,

• 47:05Speaker 01

  who's a probably more precise and therefore legalistic and therefore okay with contracts and negotiations and things like that. And so one thing I really recommend here is networking the daylights out of. I mean, think of your marketing, your positions like you're thinking about marketing your product. Right. I, I think it's okay to be out there talking to people, talking to your banker, talking to your accountants. There's lots of folks who I call corporate refugees looking to get into something like this. The other good place to look is often community colleges. I find there's often a lot of diamonds in the rough.

• 47:43Guy Raz?

  You're talking about professors, people who are adjuncts there or teaching?

• 47:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm talking about that, but I'm also saying, you know, do you have listing yourself in there, all the students there are looking for positions. Right. And define, you know, a little bit about who you are and what you're looking for. But again, it's less about skill set and more about the kind of person. Good thoughts. The best people I've found, and again, this goes back to the Stonyfield story. We've always been very mission driven, our whole thing. And you, you have a mission too. Yeah. Don't underestimate the power of that mission to attract the right person. Right.

• 48:18Guy Raz?

  I totally agree with that. The idea that you're looking for a Swiss Army knife.

• 48:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 48:22Guy Raz?

  And somebody who's passionate about the product. Whenever we look for people to work on the show, we want people who love what we do. It's critical, not necessarily the best producer editor off, you know, we can make them that. But somebody who's really passionate about what we do. We want them to believe in our mission.

• 48:38Speaker 01

  I have one last source for you that's going to seem like totally crazy. But you mentioned you're selling at Air One and Berkeley Bowl and

• 48:46Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 48:46Speaker 01

  Local grocers. Talk it up there.

• 48:48Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 48:49Speaker 01

  You may find people there who are looking to make a change or who talk to their own customers. And they may become advocates for you. They may say, hey, there's this awesome lady with this really cool cracker company. It's got real legs and people in retail know a lot of people and have a lot of surface area.

• 49:05Guy Raz?

  Gary, let me ask you this question. When, when looking for somebody like that, does Diana have to give that person some skin in the game in order to ensure that that person is going to really supercharge her business? In other words, not just a salaried employee, but somebody who has some equity?

• 49:22Speaker 01

  I wouldn't give away too much at the outset. I really believe in dating before you get pitched. And so much of it is chemistry. But I would say if you, to answer you, Guy, when you do find that right person and you want to keep them, that's where the, what I call the three-legged stool comes in. You need to have obviously a market-based salary. So they're not going to be looking for elsewhere for a better pay. They should have some kind of equity incentives or options if possible. And I also think profit sharing, some kind of annual incentives. Frankly, that's better shared with the whole team is also important. I call that the three-legged stool.

• 50:01Speaker 04

  Great. Thank you.

• 50:03Guy Raz?

  Awesome. Diana Dahr, the brand is called Cult Crackers. Good luck. Congrats.

• 50:07Speaker 01

  I'm going online to order some right now.

• 50:10Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 50:11Guy Raz?

  Get some cheese and we have a party.

• 50:13Speaker 01

  Mm hmm. Well, you know, crackers, crackers are so, it's so competitive.

• 50:18Guy Raz?

  It's competitive, yeah.

• 50:20Speaker 01

  Good on, good on her. She sort of fits into the earlier discussion that, you know, she wants to really build word of mouth, build passion from the consumer.

• 50:29Guy Raz?

  Gary, before we let you go, what, when you look back on your time, starting at Stonyfield, you know, in your twenties, is there something you, you wish you would have known that would have made it a little bit easier? Or, I don't know, that were just smoothed away a little bit more for you that you kind of wish you knew?

• 50:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wish I understood that being an entrepreneur is really being a pathological optimist. And the most dangerous word in my vocabulary was yes. Doing fewer things better. You know, I can point to the marketplace that was a challenge. I can point to lots of external factors, but I have to hold up the mirror too and tell you that a big part of our curve to getting on our own feet was our own excessive imagination and optimism, taking on too many things. I can't do it all. Which ones should I do? I think that, again, gets back to that Churchill quote about the wisdom when you needed it, after you needed it.

• 51:26Guy Raz?

  Yeah. Gary Hirshberg, thanks so much.

• 51:29Speaker 01

  Guy, always a pleasure. Thank you.

• 51:32Guy Raz?

  That's Gary Hirshberg, co-founder and former CEO of Stony Field. And by the way, if you haven't heard Gary's original How I Built This episode, you have got to go back and listen to it. It is so good. We will put a link to it in the podcast description. And here is one of my favorite moments from that interview.

• 51:49Speaker 01

  On many occasions, I would tiptoe over to the office to call my mother-in-law, to have a chat, to see if I could borrow another 3,500 or 2,500 to make ends meet. And one night, I heard the click click of call waiting on my mother-in-law's phone, and Meg was calling from the house to say, Mom, don't do this.

• 52:08Guy Raz?

  Wait, your wife was telling her mom not to lend you money for the business?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  Right.

• 52:13Guy Raz?

  Because it sounds like maybe she didn't believe in it.

• 52:15Speaker 01

  Well, she had no reason to believe in it. It was insane.

• 52:19Guy Raz?

  Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at guyraz.com. Each week, it's packed with tons of insights from entrepreneurs and my own observations and experiences interviewing some of the greatest entrepreneurs ever. And if you're working on a business and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully, we can help you with them. And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at [email protected]. Wondery.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there and we'll put

• 53:04Guy Raz?

  all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Alex Cheng with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by John Isabella and our audio engineer was Sana LaFredo. Our production staff also includes Carla Estevez, Chris Messini, Devin Schwartz, Elaine Coates, J.C. Howard, Katherine Seifer, Carrie Thompson, Niva Grant, and Sam Paulson. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.