Stacy's Pita Chips: Stacy Madison (2019)

In the 1990's, Stacy Madison and her boyfriend Mark Andrus were selling pita sandwiches from a converted hot dog cart in Boston. They decided to bake the leftover pita into chips, adding a dash of parmesan or cinnamon-sugar. At first they handed them out for free, but soon discovered that people were happy to pay for them. So they eventually decided to leave the sandwich cart behind and launch Stacy's Pita Chips. They hoped the brand might grow into a modest regional business—but it kept growing. Roughly ten years after the launch, Stacy's sold to PepsiCo for $250 million. 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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• 0:46Guy Raz?

  build the prototype, analyze the market, maybe even come up with the idea, what separates the people who actually build something from everyone else? I don't have a clean answer yet, so I've been sitting with it with Claude. There's hope in hard questions. Ask yours at claude.ai/hibt. We get support from U.S. Bank. A question I love asking founders. What's the one decision you almost didn't make? The one that changed everything? Because it's never the obvious stuff. It's never, I decided to start a company. It's the small, boring, Tuesday afternoon decision you barely remember making until you realize it's the reason everything after it either worked or didn't.

• 1:32Guy Raz?

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• 2:14Guy Raz?

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• 3:40Guy Raz?

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• 4:23Guy Raz?

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• 5:07Guy Raz?

  Visit mobili fuels.com for details. Hey, it's Guy here, and I just want to mention that for the month of August, the entire team at How I Built This is taking a much deserved summer break. But don't worry, we're going to still be bringing you fresh content every single week this month. Every Thursday, we're going to post one of my conversations from the How I Built This virtual summit, which I hosted back in May. Last Thursday, we had a bonus episode about marketing from Gary Vee. And this week, look out for my conversation with the incomparable Brené Brown. She'll offer some of the best insights on leadership and vulnerability that, honestly, I've ever heard. Anyway, on today's show, you're going to hear from an entrepreneur

• 5:50Guy Raz?

  who turned day-old pita bread into an irresistible snack. This episode first ran in 2019, and I hope you enjoy it.

• 6:05Speaker 01

  When I got that $60,000 loan, within six months, I went back and asked them for 500.

• 6:13Guy Raz?

  And they said, here, sure, here's 500,000 bucks.

• 6:18Speaker 01

  No, they said no. Well, they didn't say no. They said, no, not without equity. And we were like, equity? Equity in what? We've got nothing.

• 6:36Guy Raz?

  From NPR, it's How I Built This, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built.

• 6:47Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Stacy Madison turned day-old pita bread into a new snack, Stacy's Pita Chips, and then went on to sell her brand to one of the world's biggest food companies for a quarter of a billion dollars.

• 7:06Guy Raz?

  So there are some startup stories where most of us are probably thinking, I couldn't do that. Like Squarespace. If you heard that episode, you'll remember that Anthony Cassellina was and is a gifted computer programmer. He had a highly specialized skill. Same story with Steve Madden. He literally designed and then fashioned shoes from leather and sold them. But then there are the stories where most of us can actually imagine doing that thing ourselves, like Brian Scudamore, who bought an old truck and offered to hollow away people's trash. That's how he started 1-800-GOT-JUNK. Or Lisa Price, who tinkered

• 7:46Guy Raz?

  with homemade lotions in her kitchen. She went on to sell her brand, Carol's Daughter, to L'Oréal. Well, today's story is of the second variety, the kind of story that almost anyone can relate to because it is such a simple and elegant idea. You take pita bread, you cut it into wedges, you bake it, throw some Parmesan or seasoning on it, and voila, you've got Stacy's Pita Chips. Now, even though the snack food industry today is a $66 billion juggernaut, Stacy Madison did not have a grand master plan to disrupt snack foods in the late 1990s. At that time, she and her boyfriend were literally selling pita-wrapped sandwiches

• 8:28Guy Raz?

  from a sandwich cart in downtown Boston. The pita chips were an afterthought, a way to use up those extra pitas at the end of the day. Pita chips were never supposed to make Stacy rich, but eventually...

• 8:43Guy Raz?

  Frito Lay would come knocking with a fistful of dollars. But long before that, long before Stacy even sold her first sandwich, she was on an entirely different path. She grew up in the suburbs near Boston. And after college, Stacy went out to California to get a master's degree in social work. She thought about becoming a psychologist like her dad, but he wasn't so enthusiastic about that.

• 9:07Speaker 01

  He felt I should always become a social worker rather than go on to get my PhD and be a psychologist. He was like, oh, that's no profession for a woman. That's... One thing that he said was, "Smile and look pretty and you will find a husband." You know, I don't want to make him sound like a jerk.

• 9:26Guy Raz?

  No, not at all.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  And he wasn't. He was like a caring, loving man that put his family first, but he was also a product of the 50s.

• 9:35Guy Raz?

  Sure. So, once you get your master's degree, I read that you actually moved to Washington, DC to do what? To do social work?

• 9:46Speaker 01

  Yes. I worked in a group home for homeless, pregnant, drug-addicted women. And I have to tell you, I mean, I loved the job. It was very rewarding. But at the time, I think I made $22,000 a year. And it was really paycheck to paycheck and very hard to survive on that kind of an income. So, I decided to go and get licensed and be able to private practice, which eventually I did go on to do, but I found it very isolating.

• 10:18Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 10:19Speaker 01

  You know, now I've got to go and I unlock the door and I do, you know, marriage counseling and then my evening is over. I've seen five or six patients and I close the door behind me and I go home.

• 10:34Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 10:35Speaker 01

  And... I put a lot of effort into getting those degrees and licenses and realized that ultimately it probably just was not for me.

• 10:45Guy Raz?

  So you're, I guess, roughly 30 years old at this time. And by the way, you were engaged to a guy named Rick, right?

• 10:54Speaker 01

  No, that ended, I think it was just mutual. I think ultimately it was just not the right thing. I think we just both agreed. We had had the place picked out that we were going to get married. And it was kind of a bizarre story, but I went and I had a massage. This is, I know it sounds like I'm going off on a tangent here, but it'll come back. I went and I had a massage. And the woman told me to take off all my jewelry and blah, blah, blah, blah. And I took it off. I put it in the dish, got my massage. And I got up and I went to get dressed. And I was like, oh, my God, all my jewelry is gone, including

• 11:36Speaker 01

  my ring, my engagement ring. And I was just, you know, it was from his family. It was like, I was just so upset. And the girl was gone. She had gone, gone, like, never to return. I think she took off to Florida or somewhere. She never came back to work. She just kind of took all my stuff. But with Rick and I, it was kind of like, the ring wasn't replaced immediately. Even, and I don't care about the ring, even if it's just a cigar brand or something like that, that it kind of took so long replacing the ring that it forced both of us to look at, should we really be doing this? Maybe this was a sign or something. And ultimately, yeah, we just decided, maybe we shouldn't get married.

• 12:21Guy Raz?

  So you, so you guys split up. Meantime,

• 12:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:26Guy Raz?

  there was this guy, Mark Andrus, who you had met through your brother a few years before. He was a friend. Did you guys start dating or would you just kind of keep in touch?

• 12:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, so he was still a friend and I talked to him all the time about my disengagement and all of that. He was super supportive and eventually our friendship led to dating. And he was getting his PhD, so he was doing an internship in Hawaii and said, well, why don't you come out to Hawaii?

• 12:59Guy Raz?

  And what did you do in Hawaii?

• 13:02Speaker 01

  So Hawaii was an amazing experience. We lived in just this tiny box and there was no kitchen or anything and there was no bedroom. It was basically a cot and we bought an electric wok and we used to cook in the wok. We'd wash it in the bathtub. And eventually we found a roommate and she had a nicer apartment and we worked out a deal where we would take her second bedroom and in exchange for a lower rent, we would cook for her. And while I was out there, I worked at a restaurant and I got a job as an assistant manager.

• 13:47Speaker 01

  And the restaurant was going to open up a surf theme, you know, another location, a surf theme restaurant. And they said, do you want to be part of that opening? And I said, yeah, that's great. And we had this big opening with, you know, all the surfers, the local surfers in Hawaii and even retired surfers. They came and the owners of the restaurant were like, if we could pull this off, you know, you guys are going to get a big bonus and blah, blah, blah. And we did. I mean, we were, money was coming in left and right and to the point that we had to stuff it in beer boxes and bring the cash down to the basement because they couldn't fit it all in the register. It was just crazy.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  So, successful opening of the restaurant. Couple of weeks later, I sat down with my general manager and said, how about the bonuses they were talking about, you know, when they're coming? And he's like, well, let me meet with the owners and get back to you. Wait another couple of weeks, sat down with them again and he said, well, I spoke to the owners and they've decided that we need to let you go.

• 14:57Speaker 01

  And

• 14:58Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 14:58Speaker 01

  I was devastated. I never lost a job in my life. And then I remember speaking to my aunt, who was in the restaurant business, and she's saying, are you kidding me? Don't be so naive. They always hire people to get restaurants open and then they let them go. And ultimately, I circled back and said, well, if I can work this hard for someone else, then why can't I do it for myself?

• 15:25Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 15:26Speaker 01

  And it's kind of funny, because at that point, Mark was still in his internship. And we were in these high-rise buildings in downtown Honolulu. And we were cooking meals for our roommate anyway. And we figured, well, why not just put a sign in the bottom of the building? And when people got home, they could, well, it was at the time of fax machines. They could fax over and order. And we would just have their dinner ready.

• 15:57Guy Raz?

  Wait, you would, you and Mark, because Mark was a trained psychologist, right? I mean, that's what his work was.

• 16:03Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:03Guy Raz?

  But you guys were also just like, pretty good home cooks?

• 16:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, we loved cooking. I mean, Mark was a total foodie. And we marketed to our building and the surrounding buildings that if anybody else wanted us to cook them dinner, that we would do that, too. And we called it condo cuisine.

• 16:20Guy Raz?

  And what were you offering? Like, was it just like, tonight's dinner is? Or you could order from a menu of things?

• 16:26Speaker 01

  Oh, no, it was just more of a, you know, you had a choice between two or three items. You know, we had seared tuna with pineapple salsa and things like that. Needless to say, we were cooking in our apartment and got very quickly shut down. Then some guy, you know, called or knocked on the door and was like, you can't do this.

• 16:49Guy Raz?

  So basically, the health department was like, you don't have a license to do this. So that didn't last long.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was the health department that was like, yeah, you are not doing this. If you want to do this, you have to get into a commercial kitchen and you have to

• 17:02Guy Raz?

  Right.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  et cetera, et cetera.

• 17:04Guy Raz?

  So that dream, that dream died. And how, how long, by the way, did it last before you were shut down?

• 17:10Speaker 01

  A couple of months, three or four months.

• 17:12Guy Raz?

  I mean, that clearly, like, that experience kind of set into motion this idea that maybe we could do some kind of business.

• 17:20Speaker 01

  Yes, definitely. And it kind of picked me back up onto my feet after losing that other job. And Mark, even though he's getting his doctorate at this point, he always wanted to be a chef. He came from a family of doctors and it was kind of just, that's what you're going to be. But it also meant that he was setting aside his dream of becoming a chef. So it was a really crazy decision, but we decided when we got back to Massachusetts, we would try something in the food business.

• 17:59Guy Raz?

  Wow. So, OK, Mark has a PhD in clinical psychology. You are a social worker by training. You always knew that you were going to go back to Boston, because that's where both of you guys were, I guess, from.

• 18:11Speaker 01

  Yeah, New England.

• 18:13Guy Raz?

  And he was going to become a psychologist, but I guess your plan was, hey, before you do that, let's just kind of test out this food business idea for a short time.

• 18:22Speaker 01

  Yeah. Going into this, I mean, you got to also keep in mind the reality of the fact that he's got $100,000 in student loans. I don't have a penny to my name.

• 18:33Guy Raz?

  Right. So you moved back to Boston in 1996. What did you guys decide to do?

• 18:39Speaker 01

  So we decided to buy a food cart, because we couldn't afford anything else. I think it was $5,000. And I worked with my sister, who, she owned a catering company in downtown Boston. She was a huge help. And I laid out the menu, and she would look at the menu and tell me, you know, you have too many items on here, you're going to have too big of an inventory, you have to streamline this, you have to, like, she kind of always gave us that reality check on what we're in that business sense. And at the same time, as, because now we learned, you have to be in a facility.

• 19:18Speaker 01

  So all of our menu, we prepped and made out of her catering place in Boston.

• 19:26Guy Raz?

  So what kind of food were you making? I mean, this is, this is like, I'm imagining like a hot dog push cart with like, you know, a water bin that's hot and warm and like, another bin to keep buns, like, steaming hot. Was that what the food cart looked like?

• 19:39Speaker 01

  Oh, my god, yes.

• 19:42Speaker 01

  The food cart, yes, was a cart with, that was a hot dog cart. And we used to go out at night after the bars closed. And we did the sausage scene. We were cooking up and we were just trying to get money any way that we could so that we could revamp the cart. And once we collected enough money, then we put the cart into a shop. And, you know, I designed it, you know, made it pretty front and a beautiful green awning. And we hollowed the whole thing out and made it almost into a deli counter. And we served healthy sandwiches rolled in pita bread off of the food cart. And then we made everything to order.

• 20:26Guy Raz?

  So these were like, I mean, wraps kind of became a big thing in the 2000s. This is the late 90s. And I remember this, like, pita, pita bread sandwiches started to just like pop up all over the place.

• 20:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, but just to clarify that, it was basically a chicken Caesar rolled in a piece of pita bread.

• 20:44Guy Raz?

  Got it.

• 20:44Speaker 01

  There were very few options. But we made, you know, ours were, you know, we had goat cheese. We had turkey and havarti. And we had more upscale choices. So we prepared, we sliced all the meat, we put everything in a giant cooler. And then we went to downtown Boston. We would literally roll the cart up the street and put it on the corner of Chauncey and Summer Street. And we'd get an ice delivery to the corner. And we'd throw the ice in the bottom and then we'd put out all of the ingredients. And then we'd roll it up in the pita bread. And then we had this big white piece of paper.

• 21:27Speaker 01

  And we'd roll the sandwich in the white piece of paper and we'd twist the bottom. So people were walking around. It was almost like they had this big white club. And so it was really good because they'd walk away and other people would say, "Ooh, that looks good. Where'd you get that?"

• 21:40Guy Raz?

  What's that? Yeah. And what, what was the name of the, did you have a name for the push cart?

• 21:43Speaker 01

  Stacy's Delights.

• 21:45Guy Raz?

  Stacy's Delights.

• 21:46Speaker 01

  D apostrophe L I T E S.

• 21:48Guy Raz?

  D L I T E S. So it wasn't even D lights, it was delights. That is so 90s. I love that.

• 21:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 21:57Guy Raz?

  How did it do? Was it a hit? Did you guys get customer, like, lots of customers right away?

• 22:01Speaker 01

  Yes, it was a hit. But we were not the only food cart down there. You have to remember that, you know, up this, you know,

• 22:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:08Speaker 01

  50 yards away is the pretzel cart and then there's the burrito guy and then there's, you know, so it was at a time when in the food cart world, I mean, now a food cart is more hip and trendy and

• 22:19Guy Raz?

  And it's a food truck now.

• 22:20Speaker 01

  More inviting. It's more of a food truck. But at the time, a food cart had the connotation of dirty and disgusting.

• 22:28Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 22:28Speaker 01

  But the way that the cart was designed and that it was presented and that it looked and we had fresh tomatoes, you know, a mountain of them out front and it was, it broke the traditional mold of what is a food cart.

• 22:40Guy Raz?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 22:41Speaker 01

  And every day we ordered fresh bread.

• 22:43Guy Raz?

  Where would you get the bread from?

• 22:45Speaker 01

  Just a local bakery and it would always over order the bread because you can run out of alfalfa sprouts. You can run out of tomatoes and it's not going to be a big deal. But in this business, if you run out of bread, you're closed.

• 22:59Guy Raz?

  Yeah, so I, I think I see where this is going. So you, you have all this extra bread and you're thinking, what do we do with this extra bread?

• 23:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, and we didn't want to use it the second day because it's not as pliable to roll the pita sandwiches.

• 23:13Guy Raz?

  Sure.

• 23:14Speaker 01

  So when we got back to the kitchen, we would cut them up and bake them into different flavor chips.

• 23:20Guy Raz?

  And the idea was that you would, you would do what with the pita chips? You would give them away, you would sell them, like what, initially, what were you going to do with them?

• 23:27Speaker 01

  So initially, it was just a way to retain our customer base and to keep people happy as they were waiting in line.

• 23:34Guy Raz?

  Ah, because it was a long wait. You had every pita sandwich made to order.

• 23:38Speaker 01

  Yes, and people would, you know, we hired a, a college student. She was a cashier, but in between she'd go up and down with a basket of pita chips and just give them for free to people standing in line while they waited and people loved it because it was kind of like a happy hour. And, you know, we gave them away for free, but people started saying that they did want to buy them. So initially, we would just put some in a little baggie with a little ribbon and, and keep a basket of them out on the food cart as well.

• 24:05Guy Raz?

  And you could buy it for like 50 cents or a dollar or something?

• 24:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, a buck with the sandwich.

• 24:10Guy Raz?

  And just, just out of curiosity, like, Did you guys experiment with the baking? Because pita bread can like burn pretty quickly and it can get, right? Like, I have to assume that you had to experiment with like the right temperature and the right flavors and stuff like that?

• 24:27Speaker 01

  That came later. Initially, we just baked the cinnamon sugar and the Parmesan garlic. Everybody thinks Simply Naked was our first flavor. It wasn't. It was the Parmesan and the cinnamon sugar. We were baking them in a four-rack oven. I mean, literally four or maybe eight trays. Sorry, it's eight-rack oven. So we could spread out the pita chips on a tray and we could bake eight of them at a time. And, you know, you, really, we were making toast.

• 24:58Guy Raz?

  Yeah, you were making thin slices of toast.

• 25:00Speaker 01

  Really good toast.

• 25:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah, really good toast.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  And it wasn't until later, as the company started growing, that there was a huge jump between I'm going to make toast in my oven and I'm going to manufacture.

• 25:15Guy Raz?

  Hmm.

• 25:16Speaker 01

  And keeping in mind, I mean, Mark's deferring his loans and deferring his loans and, you know, that adds up.

• 25:22Guy Raz?

  Yeah, he's not, at this point, he's like full on in the food business and you are too. He's not using his PhD in clinical psychology.

• 25:31Speaker 01

  Right. You know, I was a clinical social worker. He's got his PhD in psychology. And we're on a street corner selling sandwiches. And so at that point, you know, we are all in. We are going to do something and we could not put our tail between our legs and go running home.

• 25:54Guy Raz?

  When we come back, have Stacy and Mark make a full pivot to pita chips and shake off the warnings of an industry expert who says they will never grow their business. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR.

• 26:19Guy Raz?

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• 27:46Guy Raz?

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• 28:31Guy Raz?

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• 29:57Guy Raz?

  Hey, welcome back to How I Built This from NPR. So it's the late 1990s, and Stacy and Mark have created kind of a side hustle out of a side hustle, selling pita chips from the little sandwich cart they started in Boston. And at a certain point, the chips are doing so well that they decide to make more of them. They're using an oven that can only make eight racks of them at a time. But then, they find a way to scale up.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  We met a very nice woman when we were doing the food cart who sold pretzels. It was Boston Pretzel Bakery. And she said, "Oh, I have a 40 rack oven. Why don't you come try to make them over there?"

• 30:39Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 30:39Speaker 01

  So we went over to Boston Pretzel and we mixed up the pita chips and we were able to make a rack of 40 of them at a time. Instead of, you know, instead of eight trays, we could make 40 trays. And she had backup racks, so while 40 were in the oven, we could load up another 40 trays. And 40 came out and 40 went in. And we were like, "Okay, well, this is, this kind of makes more sense."

• 31:04Guy Raz?

  What I'm trying to understand is like, at what point, running this cart, did you and Mark say, "You know what? Actually, the business we really should focus on is the pita chips and not the pita sandwiches."

• 31:17Speaker 01

  So I think the coming about of that whole thing was the struggle of getting an inside location. And, you know, come winter, it's really rough being out there in the cold.

• 31:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 31:30Speaker 01

  And we started working with a Realtor and the Realtor kind of laughed at us and said, "If you want a tiny little indoor location near where you are," because we wanted to keep our following of people, "you and your food cart can stand on line behind Oban Pan, Dunkin' Donuts." At the time, Starbucks was coming into the world, you know? Everybody wants those little spaces. And we realized we had to make a choice. And we decided to go for the pita chips because in the winter, I was working on the pita chips and the bag and the design and the licensing and all that I needed to do in order to get that off the ground.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  So with the pita chips, we could get bigger faster.

• 32:16Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 32:17Speaker 01

  And I took a bag, you know, we had put them in almost like a coffee bag, like with a little window.

• 32:24Guy Raz?

  Oh, yeah.

• 32:25Speaker 01

  Plus, a little plastic bag inside of the paper bag. So a lot of labor went into it. But you know what? I took the bag and I walked into Bread and Circus in downtown Boston and I said, "Hi, I'm Stacy. These are my chips and I'd love for you to give them a try."

• 32:41Guy Raz?

  Wait, you just walked into a Bread and Circus, which eventually was bought by Whole Foods, and you asked, did you ask for the manager?

• 32:48Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 32:48Guy Raz?

  Yeah, okay. And what did the manager say?

• 32:51Speaker 01

  He said, "Wow, these are good."

• 32:53Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 32:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'd love to get them. And now we have one store.

• 32:57Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 32:58Speaker 01

  There was like six or eight of these bread and circus stores. And he showed them to corporate.

• 33:05Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 33:06Speaker 01

  And there was nothing in them. They were all natural. And it was the time of the beginning of the natural food revolution. And that's just what we were innately doing.

• 33:17Guy Raz?

  And, and obviously, you guys, presumably, you chose the name Stacy's Pita Chips just because that's what it was called Stacy's Delight when you were a food cart, right?

• 33:26Speaker 01

  We chose it because we thought that a female name on a snack food brand would sell more than a male name.

• 33:33Guy Raz?

  Ah.

• 33:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, the woman in the kitchen kind of thing is, I hate to say it, but that's really, that was the thought behind it, was that it sounded better than, than Mark's.

• 33:43Guy Raz?

  Let's just pause for a moment and, and talk about money. Because even though you were getting some stores, you know, willing to pick up the chips and to sell them, I can't imagine your business could, could operate entirely on like the sale of pita chips. How did you have money to, to run this thing?

• 34:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, we had a lot of debt between the two of us. We ran up our credit cards. We applied for, so I was, I started working with the Neighborhood Development Center, and they helped me write a business plan. There was, I, I really networked with everybody I could possibly draw information from. So there was the Neighborhood Center. There was, I think Jewish Vocational Services was in downtown Boston. And there was this one girl that used to eat at the cart. And she said to me, um, how do you know if you have enough bread? And she'd ask all these weird questions. And, and one day I said, why are you asking me these weird questions?

• 34:49Speaker 01

  She said, well, I teach a business plan boot camp. And, you know, I use your cart as an example all the time.

• 34:57Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 34:57Speaker 01

  And I said, really? I'm like, can I take that class? She's like, yeah, you want to take, you come on over. And, and I went and I took an eight-week business plan boot camp. So between all of these agencies that I kind of worked with, because remember, I didn't have a business degree. I didn't know. I didn't know what a business plan was.

• 35:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 35:19Speaker 01

  So after that eight weeks, I realized that I didn't just need $25,000 for the packaging machine, but I also needed $20,000 to buy bags.

• 35:29Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 35:30Speaker 01

  To run on the machine. And then I needed $20,000 for this thing that people kept calling working capital. So that was all new to me. So where I thought I only needed $25,000.

• 35:42Guy Raz?

  You needed 60.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  I needed 60.

• 35:44Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 35:45Speaker 01

  Right.

• 35:45Guy Raz?

  How did you get $60,000?

• 35:48Speaker 01

  So the Neighborhood Development Center in Jamaica Plain helped me spruce up my business plan a little bit and put me in touch with a bank that they used that worked with the SBA. So we had to put down 20% of the 60,000, and that's where our family kicked in.

• 36:09Guy Raz?

  You needed to put up 12,000 bucks in collateral, basically?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah.

• 36:13Guy Raz?

  And that was a $60,000 loan from a Small Business Administration-backed bank in Boston.

• 36:19Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 36:20Guy Raz?

  So you got $60,000, which gave you how much runway? How long could you function off $60,000? Because you're talking about needing to buy a machine to seal the bags, to buy the bags, and then you're not left with a whole lot.

• 36:35Speaker 01

  $60,000 was not going to go very far because, yes, we bought the machine, we bought the bags. But the one thing that we did have, we had customers, both the consumer and the retailers, that loved our chips and kept reordering. And when I got that $60,000 loan, within six months, I went back and asked them for 500.

• 37:00Guy Raz?

  Wow. And they said, here, sure, here's 500,000 bucks.

• 37:06Speaker 01

  No, no, they said no. Well, they didn't say no. They said, no, not without equity. And we were like, equity? Equity in what? We've got nothing.

• 37:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  I mean, this company's not worth anything at this point. So they said no to 500. And over a couple of months, we were able to scale it back. And they did say yes to 350.

• 37:31Guy Raz?

  Wow. So you got a $350,000 loan from the bank?

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:37Guy Raz?

  But how did you get the word out about the Pita Chips? I get it that you were, you were kind of pounding the pavement and you were asking for managers at, at, at local, you know, markets and asking to talk with them. But how did people find out about the chips? Was it entirely word of mouth? I mean, this is pre-internet, pre-social media, pre, I mean, you didn't have ad dollars.

• 37:59Speaker 01

  We would go everywhere we could to sample. So we would go into the store and we would set up a table and we would just give away, chips were free, just like we did on the cart. And people would try them and they would buy them. And that just, that's how we built our customer base. We had three words. Sample, sample, sample.

• 38:19Guy Raz?

  Did you, at this point, have a vision for how big this could be? Were you and Mark saying? Because I have to assume you were still doing a lot of the legwork. You were still maybe even baking the chips and, or maybe hiring people to help you. But did you think this is going to be huge? It's going to be a national brand? Or was, was that your ambition at this point or not quite?

• 38:40Speaker 01

  No, our goal was to be a regional brand, more like Cape Cod potato chips. And we were, we were going to keep things manageable and in the Northeast. But what happened was with the growth of the natural food industry. There were these pockets like Colorado and Atlanta and California. And there were these little pockets where the natural food business was really booming. And the whole creation of Whole Foods and them buying up all of these smaller stores. We were in all those smaller stores. So we were in the Bread and Circus and Wild Harvest. And then they all became Whole Foods.

• 39:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 39:23Speaker 01

  Which grew tremendously. So our initial plan to be a small regional brand, we had to rethink that. And I think that, you know, one of the things that Mark and I were really good at was, you know, not being so locked in to a straight path that we were able to see when other opportunities came along. So for example, the pita chips over the food cart. Or, you know, rather than sell into small gourmet food stores, we're going to go into the natural food. You know, we're like, well, we could sell to these 10 stores or this one chain has 100.

• 40:07Guy Raz?

  But the business was still you and Mark, right? You were the only permanent employees at this point?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  So it was Mark and I for the first two years. And then my brother, who at this point had his PhD also. And we said to him, you want to sell some chips? And, you know, and ha, ha, ha, ha. We were all joking around about it. And then he came back like a couple of weeks later and said, you know what? If I don't try this now. He's married, they don't have kids. If I don't try this now, when am I going to try it again? He's like, sure.

• 40:45Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 40:46Speaker 01

  Because his wife, she was an accountant. She had a steady income. So, you know, he said, you can just pay me minimum wage and then we'll give it a try. And after the first of the year, you can just kind of start paying me back as we start generating a little bit of money. And that's what really, really important. Is that in the beginning, we surrounded ourself with believers.

• 41:09Guy Raz?

  I mean, here you've got two psychologists and a social worker running a pita chip business, right? Like, how implausible is that? Like, what? Like, nobody would say, I want to start my business. I need two psychologists and a social worker. But somehow, like, you're, you guys all brought these skill sets to this, to this thing.

• 41:30Speaker 01

  I was street smart, and those guys were both street smart and book smart. You know, so we all worked together on trying to figure out how we're going to do this. And I'll tell you, at one point, we had paid $1,500, and we flew a consultant up from Frito. He was a retired Frito guy, and he walked into our, how we were running things. And he was just like, these are very good, and they taste good, but this cannot be done.

• 42:05Guy Raz?

  Huh.

• 42:05Speaker 01

  This is a home baked type product, and it's fine, but you won't be able to scale this business.

• 42:13Guy Raz?

  Wait, why did he say that? Was, were you literally like, hand cutting the pita, pita bread? I mean, was it?

• 42:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. Mark's right bicep was like, three times the size of his left, because he was literally using a knife to cut bread.

• 42:27Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 42:28Speaker 01

  So when this guy walked in and he saw, you know, we're cut, hand cutting bread, and we're hand bagging everything, and each batch took a certain amount of time, and then we have to like, you know, scrape off the trays and clean everything. And he was just like, yeah, you'll never be able to bring this product to market on any kind of scale. So for us, that was a really hard blow.

• 42:55Guy Raz?

  I bet.

• 42:56Speaker 01

  But we also still found it hard to believe. Like, if we can take 40 racks, you know, 40 trays of pita chips, and we can make that, why can't we just line up a whole bunch of these ovens and be able to make so many racks at a time? And then what that led to was us realizing, we needed a conveyorized oven.

• 43:22Guy Raz?

  You needed a conveyor belt oven, where you could just throw the pita on there, and it would just go through the conveyor belt, and then come out the end, and just into a, just a big barrel, and the pita chips were made.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Yeah, in the end game, we ended up having to purchase a custom-built oven. It was the size of a 52-foot, like, an 18-wheeler truck.

• 43:44Guy Raz?

  Wow. But you were still, I mean, or Mark was still hand slicing the pita into the right shapes. You can't scale that. Like, one or two or 10 people can't do that. So how did you solve that problem?

• 43:57Speaker 01

  You're right on target here. So we broke it down into each stage of making a pita chip. And that piece of it, what we did was we would go and we would tour other factories. So we went down to Cape Cod Potato Chips, and we went on that tour that everybody in Cape Cod goes on that tour.

• 44:16Guy Raz?

  Oh, you just went as tourists?

• 44:17Speaker 01

  We went as tourists.

• 44:18Guy Raz?

  Nice.

• 44:19Speaker 01

  And we looked through that window, and we saw they were cutting potatoes with this machine. And we asked them, well, how does that machine cut the potatoes? And they gave us the name of the machine, and then we went out and we contacted that company and said, this is what we're trying to do. And we had this guy who worked for us, who could tinker with anything. And so what we ended up buying was a machine that used to cut carrots for Campbell's Soup. So you know how they cut those tiny little squares?

• 44:55Guy Raz?

  Sure.

• 44:56Speaker 01

  Well, what he did is he took those blades and spaced them further apart. And when he first spaced these blades, and all of us are kind of gathered around the opposite end of the machine, holding a bucket where these are tempted chips are going to come out. And so he feeds the bread into the machine, he starts tossing, you know, a piece of bread, a piece of bread, a piece of bread. And we're standing out at the other end, and we're like, holy shit, lo and behold, pita chips. It's a chip, you know? And that was the very last day that Mark ever cut a piece of bread.

• 45:29Guy Raz?

  You and Mark eventually got married, right? You were business partners, and then you got married because you were together, right?

• 45:35Speaker 01

  Yes. We had been together for a long time, and eventually, we just got married in 97, and all was good.

• 45:46Guy Raz?

  Yep. All right, 1999, you get your production method down, you get the machines you need, your revenue is growing. I have to imagine that there are big chip companies looking at you guys, even though you're this tiny little New England-based pita chip company, and thinking, huh, pita chips, that's the new craze, let's make pita chips and crush these guys.

• 46:09Speaker 01

  Not really, because, so at this point in time in the company, as we just started to grow, it was also during the time of the no-carb phase. It was all those no-carb, low-carb diets.

• 46:22Guy Raz?

  Oh, yeah.

• 46:23Speaker 01

  And we were like, here we are, once again, we're making toast. And we thought, oh, my god, that's going to put us out of business. Like, all these things along the way, you think, oh, my god, that's going to put us out of business. Oh, my god, that's going to put us out of business. But ultimately, people loved the chips. It was something people ate all the time, and it was becoming a staple in their cabinet. It wasn't just a one-time purchase.

• 46:47Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right, so you guys are kind of operating under the radar, but growing steadily. Do you remember the first year you actually turned a profit, like a significant profit? Was it in 1999 or in 2000?

• 47:04Speaker 01

  People say it takes three years. I would say it takes five.

• 47:08Guy Raz?

  Right, so it took some time.

• 47:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:09Guy Raz?

  But I guess you guys hit $1 million in revenue, like, around 2001, which sounds super impressive. Did that mean that you guys were all making lots of money?

• 47:21Speaker 01

  No. We really paid ourselves very little. And if anything, we really weren't making anything, because everything went back into, you know, if we needed another oven, well, you know, you don't buy this, you don't buy that, you don't do this, because you need another oven.

• 47:35Guy Raz?

  Yeah. All right, so you guys, by 2001, you're starting to become more sort of stable in the production process. But just about, I think about five years after the two of you get married, you and Mark divorce. You decide to get a divorce that year.

• 47:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 47:53Guy Raz?

  But then you stay on as 50/50 business partners. This is not normally how the story unfolds. Like, normally, this is very messy and traumatic and difficult. I mean, it doesn't sound like that's what happened.

• 48:06Speaker 01

  Yeah. Like, I'm not gonna say we didn't argue. I mean, certainly, we argued over a lot of things. I mean, there's a lot of tension. And the employees had to put up with us like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, arguing with each other. And you know what? And they'd go, like, oh, boy, there they go. And they'd turn around and they'd leave the room. And, you know, and then, and then eventually, everybody would come back to their desk. And, and, and that's okay. But we had a common goal. And I would have to say, I think he'd probably agree, that during the time that we were married, for the most part, it was a successful marriage. But we also had a successful divorce. It was clean and it was clear.

• 48:51Speaker 01

  And we shared the company like it was our child. And everything that we did was in the best interest of the company. So we went to court together. And we went before the judge. And we said, we want to get a divorce. And we're splitting this 50/50. And we really had no assets.

• 49:10Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 49:11Speaker 01

  Everything we had was the company. And we agreed, we built this together, and we were splitting the company. And we were both going to stay on. And the judge was like, wow, this was the easiest one I've ever seen come in front of me.

• 49:23Guy Raz?

  Yeah. It is, it is, I think it's surprising, at least for me, and I think probably for a lot of people listening, just because it, it seems to me that it takes a remarkably, like, clear-headed people to come to this agreement, to say, hey, you know, like, we're not gonna be romantic partners anymore, but we're really good business partners. And we've got this good thing going. And let's keep it going. Now, now, when I hear that, I'm thinking, of course you would say that. That makes total sense.

• 49:51Speaker 01

  Right.

• 49:51Guy Raz?

  But most people don't say that.

• 49:54Speaker 01

  So the greatest gift that Mark gave me during this period was his honesty. Because at one point, he said, I don't know when or if I want to have children.

• 50:07Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:08Speaker 01

  And I was in my mid-30s already. So, you know, he said that to me. And it was really, I mean, it was that night that I left. I went to the factory. I had, you know, I brought my dog to the factory all the time. So I really, I went to the factory and I slept in the dog bed that night. But, you know, now that I look back on it, I mean, really, could you imagine if we would have stayed together and, and we might have hadn't done up having a kid, that he wasn't really into having kids? And that could have been that road that so many people go down and it ends up being a mess.

• 50:43Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  But I did decide to start a family and he was very supportive of that.

• 50:50Guy Raz?

  I think this is like two years later, right? 2003, you, you gave birth to, to your twins.

• 50:55Speaker 01

  Yep. I was 39 years old. I gave birth to my twins. I mean, I went to Boston IVF and that's how I, I had the kids. And I, and I have always spoken openly about that, that I was financially and emotionally ready to start a family and I just needed a little help.

• 51:14Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So at this point, when your girls were born in 2003, was Stacy's Pita Chips, was the trajectory like, was it clear that it was going to be a much bigger brand? Or, or did it still feel like it was a, you know, more successful regional brand?

• 51:36Speaker 01

  So at this point, the company was growing like crazy. It was successful enough that we could each be taking a decent salary. We couldn't pull that much out of the business, but, you know, it was enough so that we could each, you know, buy a car and, you know, we could each buy our own place or whatever. So it was successful enough to do that, but we really, we decided how much are we going to pay each other? And then everything else just stayed in the business.

• 52:06Guy Raz?

  And were companies coming to you guys at this point and saying, hey, we want Stacy's Pita Chips in our, in our stores?

• 52:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. So I think it was when we got into the club accounts, like Costco and Sam's Club and all of those. So we started manufacturing for them. And then we got into Trader Joe's and we just, and it was the perfect demographic for us. And Trader Joe's was an amazing company to do business with. They paid On time or early.

• 52:41Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 52:42Speaker 01

  And because of that, we were able to not take on equity.

• 52:47Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  And at that point, you know, everything just went back into the business. But we were just about to give up a piece of the company. And we never ended up actually doing that because we got Trader Joe's and they were ordering by the truckload. And when we were selling, when we say truckloads, I mean, it is really amazing when trucks are lined up. We're selling a, you know, a $2 item. We're not selling computers, you know? So, you know, when we're, when we get to the point that we're doing, you know, 30, 40, 50 million dollars in sales, those are $2 sales or $1 sales that are going. So there's like just truckloads of chips going out the door.

• 53:29Speaker 01

  And at this point, we were, we had moved to the Sealy Mattress Factory where we bought the building. And it was 200,000 or 300,000 square feet, something like that. It was basically four acres inside.

• 53:42Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 53:43Speaker 01

  And we converted the Sealy Mattress Factory into a giant PETA chip factory.

• 53:50Guy Raz?

  I think it's like by 2005, 2006, you're selling like more than $50 million worth of PETA chips a year, which is...

• 53:59Speaker 01

  65, I think.

• 54:00Guy Raz?

  65, thank you.

• 54:03Guy Raz?

  Pepsi announces that they were acquiring Stacy's. How did that happen? Did they approach you like a year before? Did they say, hey, we're really interested in buying your company? Is that what happened? Or were you looking to sell it?

• 54:16Speaker 01

  So a couple of months before, we saw them at a trade show and, and they were like, oh, this is a good product. And in order for them to even look at you, you have to be at least 50 million in sales and blah, blah, blah. And we were nowhere near there at the time. And, and that was the only contact we ever had with them. Then, you know, a year later, at the trade show, again, there was this one month window where we got phone calls from three of the biggest food companies in the world. And we were like, we better start looking at this. And this, at this time, I had two little kids, you know, they're two years old, a single mom. So we, we really...

• 55:02Speaker 01

  Said, you know what, we should, we should, where we never considered selling. Yeah, we should maybe think about this.

• 55:08Guy Raz?

  Yeah. So you decide to sell.

• 55:12Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:12Guy Raz?

  And then I read that in the middle of working on that deal, there's actually, there's actually a fire in the factory.

• 55:19Speaker 01

  Yeah, there was a big, big fire and we had already signed the SPA, the stock purchase agreement. We had already signed that, but it hadn't closed. We agreed on a price and all of this. And then we had a fire. There was $9 million in damages and 25% of the factory was burnt down.

• 55:38Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 55:38Speaker 01

  And that's a really hard phone call. When they call you, you don't know what they're gonna say. And basically, the way that it ended up working out is, you know, we still ultimately had a brand that was worth value. And we were like, we will get it back up and running. And the way we did it was we built a wall across half of the plant. So we were still able to manufacture on the side that wasn't burnt down. And then the other side, we called in every person over the last decade that had helped us with anything. And then people were working, electricians, they brought in like, the one guy turned

• 56:21Speaker 01

  into six guys and overnight, round the clock. We were supposed to close in December. And by January 12th, they inspected the plant and they said, we don't believe it.

• 56:38Speaker 01

  They're back up and running. Place looks great.

• 56:40Guy Raz?

  Good to go. Send them the check.

• 56:42Speaker 01

  Exactly. Send them the check. Which, it would have been nice to see a check, but nowadays, it's a transfer. So we all sat in front of the computer, just looking, like, waiting for the number to change. Is it there? Is it there? Is it there? Is it there? And then it was like, you know, the money transferred in. And we did, obviously, close the deal.

• 57:03Guy Raz?

  I've asked, you know, other entrepreneurs about the sale of their business, and they're different answers. I asked the co-founders of Reddit, why they agreed to sell their company at the time they did. And the answer was, because it was more money than I had ever had in my life. I didn't grow up with a lot of money, and it was life-changing money, which I think is a fair answer. I have to assume that was a factor, if not the factor, in your decision.

• 57:30Speaker 01

  It was life changing money. But it had also become, you know, where we loved this business and we loved running it. At a point, the tables turn and the business starts to run you. So I think it was the perfect timing. Yeah, I was working crazy hours. I was lucky if I got home on time before my kids went to sleep. So for me, it was the right time. For Mark, I think it was the right time. He was burnt out. That being said, after it sold, there is this major, like, this was my whole life. This and my, and my kids. And what am I going to do now?

• 58:14Guy Raz?

  So what, what did you do? I mean, how long did you stay with Stacy's after you sold to Pepsi?

• 58:22Speaker 01

  One very disastrous year.

• 58:26Guy Raz?

  What was, what was, what was disastrous about it?

• 58:29Speaker 01

  It was so hard. I was contracted to stay, but I really only had to work 20 days a year. But I didn't know what else to do, so I would really go in every day. And I think I was more in the way. And I thought that I was going to be like a buffer between, you know, the new leadership team and the employees. And I think I probably just created more confusion. So it was eight months of, yeah, I probably just was in the way.

• 59:01Guy Raz?

  Yeah. I can imagine, like, you don't sound like a person who is different from the person who you were in high school or college. Of course, we all change and we, we grow and evolve. But like, you, you sound like a very down to earth person. But all of a sudden, you were, you had this wealth that I have to assume you weren't, you had no experience with. How did it change the way you live your life or anything else?

• 59:28Speaker 01

  I think it, even today, sometimes when I go to do something, you think twice. Oh, can I do that? Oh, can I buy that? Oh, can I, you know? And initially, I went out and I bought a castle. Right? I was like, I'm going to buy a big house in a beautiful neighborhood and get a sports car and do all of that. And I did. But then I realized.

• 59:57Speaker 01

  My kids can't ride their bike and they go on the bus and, and there's only five kids on the bus because everybody else is going to private school and

• 1:00:06Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  And I was like, we're done. We're done with this house. I put the house on the market and I bought a smaller house in a neighborhood where our neighbors are right next door and you could, you know, borrow a can opener and the kids can ride their bike and, you know, that's how I wanted to raise my family.

• 1:00:32Guy Raz?

  I'm just curious, I mean, you, you were young, you were in your early 40s, having accomplished this incredible thing, like growing this business and the whole rest of your life ahead of you, I mean, huge part of that incredible, exciting, like I, you know, I think lots of people listening would say, I would love to have that. But at the same time, you had to figure out, I guess, what you were going to do with the rest of your life, right?

• 1:01:00Speaker 01

  Right. People are, people look at you like you can do anything, but at the same time, you look at yourself and, and you're like, well, now what am I going to do with my life? Of course, I'm, I'm a mom and I'm parenting and that's first and foremost. But, um, what else am I?

• 1:01:18Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:19Speaker 01

  And it's a very hard position, it's a very hard place to be. And the past four or five years, I've had some big medical challenges. I had breast cancer. I had an autoimmune disease. I had a full knee replacement. So I was really kind of knocked down for

• 1:01:38Guy Raz?

  Wow.

• 1:01:38Speaker 01

  four years. And when you're in that position, you really feel like the money at that point doesn't matter, you know? If there's a day where you think you may die, all of a sudden, there's this mortality.

• 1:01:56Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:57Speaker 01

  And you have to think of your kids. It's the most awful thing to think about what's going to happen with my children.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  Who's gonna give them a hug? Who's gonna, you know, take care of them? Obviously, you know, I mean, I've got family that would, that would step in and take care of them, but, but it's the little things, it's the day to day things that you mentally go through, um, that makes it really hard.

• 1:02:24Guy Raz?

  How's your, how's your health now?

• 1:02:26Speaker 01

  Now I'm good.

• 1:02:27Guy Raz?

  That's great.

• 1:02:28Speaker 01

  I had double mastectomies.

• 1:02:30Guy Raz?

  Yeah.

• 1:02:31Speaker 01

  I don't identify myself as a cancer survivor. I just look at it as this was a shit ass time in my life and now it's over. And, you know, all of that, you know, getting past the medical issues, selling the company, all of that adds up to taking control. And that's my sense of bold. So you kind of got it. Now you got your mind in a new space.

• 1:03:00Guy Raz?

  Amazing. Stacy, when you think about the trajectory of your life and your career and the incredible success you had, do you, do you think that it's because of the skills that you brought and the hard work that you brought? Or do you think that luck played a bigger role in, in that?

• 1:03:20Speaker 01

  You know, a lot of people say, oh, she got lucky. That really pisses me off. Cause you know, yeah, maybe the stars aligned and maybe the timing was right for a lot of things, but each and every one of the challenges and the hurdles that you overcome, others might not have gotten there. And we did. I could have very easily followed the path that my father laid out for me. You know, I probably could have just stayed in that comfort zone, but you know, yes, by moving to this place and moving to that place and taking on additional challenges,

• 1:04:03Speaker 01

  you know, I think you develop the skill, somewhat of a survival skill. That's what got us to where we were in 2007, when we sold. Yeah, maybe there was some luck in there, but there was a lot of skill that's involved in crossing that finish line.

• 1:04:24Guy Raz?

  That's Stacy Madison, co-founder of Stacy's Pita Chips. By the way, Stacy is still in the food business. A few years ago, along with her brother Dave, she launched a new energy snack called Be Bold Bars. But she hasn't forgotten her first obsession, and she still gets excited when she sees somebody buying a bag of her Pita Chips.

• 1:04:46Speaker 01

  There was a time I was in the grocery store and this woman picked up two or three bags and she put them in her cart. And I just couldn't resist. I'm like, you know what? I'm just gonna go tell her. And I did. I went up and I said, "Those are my chips." And she looks at me and she goes, "No, they're not. They're my chips." And I was like, "Oh, my god."

• 1:05:05Guy Raz?

  Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you are not yet a subscriber, please do subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is [email protected]. To find us on Twitter, it's @HowIBuiltThis or @GuyRaz. And on Instagram, it's @HowIBuiltThisNPR or @Guy.Raz. This episode was produced by J.C. Howard with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Candace Lem. Our production staff includes Casey Herman, Rachel Faulkner, James Delahoussaye, Julia Carney, Elaine Coats, Farah Safari, Liz Metzger, and Annalise Ober. Our intern is Harrison B.J. Choi, and Jeff Rogers is our executive producer.

• 1:05:50Guy Raz?

  I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR.