Advice Line with Stacy Madison of Stacy’s Pita Chips

Summary

Podcast Summary: How I Built This with Guy Raz – Advice Line with Stacy Madison of Stacy’s Pita Chips

Date: October 16, 2025
Host: Guy Raz
Guest Adviser: Stacy Madison (founder, Stacy’s Pita Chips)
Callers: Sam Cagle (Dough Guy), Alex Hildebrandt (Suyo Pisco), Stephanie Stuckey (Stuckey's)

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Episode Overview

This Advice Line episode offers a deep-dive into the entrepreneurial journeys of audience callers seeking guidance, with the expert insight of Stacy Madison, founder of Stacy’s Pita Chips—a snack brand that began as a food cart side project and grew into an iconic, industry-defining company. Madison joins host Guy Raz to help answer questions around scaling, brand-building, legacy, and consumer behavior. Through lively conversation, the episode explores common struggles such as pivoting after setbacks, leveraging social media, brand identity, and adapting to generational shifts in consumer interest.

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1. Check-In with Stacy Madison: The Journey After Pita Chips

[04:11–11:51]

• Stacy reflects on selling Stacy’s Pita Chips to Pepsi in 2006 and on her subsequent ventures:
  • Stacy’s Juice Bar – her post-sale passion project.
  • Be Bold bars – an energy snack bar line started at the juice bar, which achieved early traction until the pandemic hit, ending in burnout.
  • Raising her children, who are now about to graduate college.
• Key Themes:
  • The unexpected evolution of businesses and the emotional toll of setbacks.
  • Recognizing when a side hustle overtakes a primary venture.
  • Applying lessons from listening to customers and adapting rapidly.
• Memorable moment:
  • “It still hits hard.” (Stacy, on the energy bar business burnout) [07:15]
• Stacy’s Advice:
  • Listen obsessively to customers and prove out a concept beyond your initial market before jumping into full scale.
• On the importance of social media in today’s context:
  • “It would be very hard to speak to this generation if you don’t get on their own microphone.” (Stacy Madison) [11:23]

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2. Caller #1: Sam Cagle – Building Dough Guy Into an Enduring Brand

[12:07–24:06]

The Story So Far

• Business: Dough Guy — a pizza-making e-commerce brand/community built via Instagram. Main product: 16"x16" pizza steel for home ovens.
• Origin:
  • Sam quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad, started baking pizzas, and documented the process online.
  • Went viral after a Dave Portnoy review, leading to rapid sales—over $300k since April, 130k Instagram followers.
• Core Question:
  • “How can I make the leap from being the guy on Instagram that makes pizza to building a lasting brand that stands on its own?” [16:30]

Key Advice & Discussion

• Stacy Madison’s perspective:
  • “You can’t go. You’re the value right now.” (Stacy) [17:16]
  • Sam should stay at the center of the brand for now.
  • Hire support staff to handle non-content tasks, so the founder stays focused on engagement and growth while the brand is hot.
  • Embrace and expand his unique appeal to men—a demographic under-served in home baking.
  • “There’s so much, like, what else do men cook?... Grilling meat.” (Stacy, riffing on product expansion) [21:28]
• Guy Raz’s suggestions:
  • Lean into content showing mistakes ("pizza fails") for relatability and community engagement.
  • Down the line, experiment with new products (e.g., brownies or cookies in cast iron).
  • Consider expanding to unique, male-centric baking tools and products.
• Notable Quotes:
  • “If you can think of things that are unique to the male population and that you’re going to make it easy... I’m like, okay, I’m going to try to make a pizza again.” (Stacy) [22:54]
• Consensus Advice:
  • Build operational support around, not instead of, the founder.
  • Don’t rush to step away from being the brand’s personality; it’s currently the main differentiator.

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3. Caller #2: Alex Hildebrandt – Educating and Branding Suyo Pisco Spirits

[28:38–41:10]

The Story So Far

• Business: Suyo — a single-origin Peruvian pisco spirits company, founded to reconnect Alex to his roots.
• Current State:
  • Launched in 2020; 80% of sales are on-premise (bars/restaurants), 20% retail.
  • $400k+ revenue, in select US regions.
• Core Question:
  • “How do I educate consumers about pisco while also building my brand’s awareness? Should the focus be the spirit or the brand?” [33:28]

Key Advice & Discussion

• Branding vs. Category:
  • “There is no Patron for pisco... the brand is the tip of the spear here.” (Guy Raz) [37:10]
  • Stacy: Double down on making the brand synonymous with the category—like Aperol Spritz or Patron tequila.
  • Lead with Suyo’s story, then educate consumers about pisco.
  • Empower bartenders via training, drink cards, “underground ambassadors,” and signature branded cocktails (e.g., “Suyotonic,” “Suyatini”).
• Product & Marketing Insights:
  • Concerns about overly broad or unapproachable signature drinks (e.g., egg whites in Pisco Sour).
  • Embrace “approachable” cocktails—pisco punch (simple, three-ingredient), pisco tonics, "chilicano" (pisco + ginger ale).
• Notable Quotes:
  • “Consumers rarely champion a category unless there’s a brand to rally behind.” (Guy Raz) [37:10]
  • “Flood the current older population... once you’ve tapped out that market, then expand from there.” (Stacy, on core customer focus)
• Consensus Advice:
  • Lead with Suyo, make the brand the category gateway, and keep the story simple.
  • Product innovation and marketing should educate and excite both bartenders and final consumers.

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4. Caller #3: Stephanie Stuckey – Repositioning an “Old New Brand” (Stuckey’s) in a Crowded Snack Market

[43:33–60:03]

The Story So Far

• Business: Stuckey’s — legacy pecan snack and candy brand; originally a nationwide roadside stop, now focused on pecan snacks.
• Background:
  • Stephanie, a lawyer and third-generation Stuckey, bought the declining brand back for $500k in 2019.
  • Pivoted away from convenience/gas station model to pecan snacks.
  • Now in 4,000+ doors, $10M in sales, but still faces manufacturing and budget challenges.
• Core Question:
  • “How do we position Stuckey’s and pecans as a must-have for new consumers who didn’t grow up stopping at Stuckey’s?” [48:16]

Key Advice & Discussion

• Know Your Core:
  • “I would flood the current older population... there is a population who recognizes your brand.” (Stacy) [51:41]
  • Focus first on core fans (50+), the nostalgic base, to maximize ROI before targeting new generations.
• Brand Positioning Suggestions:
  • Leverage the brand’s heritage (“America’s first natural snack,” or “OG protein bar”).
  • Doug into the nostalgia-rooted logo and branding; consider a light refresh to modernize without alienating loyalists.
  • Highlight “plant-based protein” and pecans’ US origin (vs. imported).
• Product and Marketing Innovation:
  • Avoid stretching into “protein bar” trends if it means compromising the authentic recipe.
  • Be open to weird, buzzworthy experiments (e.g., pecan milk, pecan butter, unconventional marketing stunts à la David Bars with frozen cod).
  • “Do not change your recipe one bit… you have something that works.” (Stacy) [57:08]
• Notable Quotes:
  • “It’s authenticity. That’s what people want in a brand.” (Stephanie & Stacy) [57:53]
  • “Make sure you’re always the Stuckey’s Pecan. Get your name with your product.” (Stacy) [59:50]
• Balancing Act:
  • Maintain and honor the original consumer, but explore avenues to spark curiosity and relevance among younger shoppers.

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5. Memorable Quotes & Moments

• “You’ve tapped into this secret sauce of the Internet... do you know how many companies are trying to do what you’ve already done?” (Stacy to Sam) [17:16]
• “Listen to your customers... that is so super important.” (Stacy) [09:57]
• “Consumers rarely champion a category unless there’s a brand to rally behind.” (Guy on Suyo) [37:10]
• “I call ourselves an 88-year-old startup.” (Stephanie Stuckey) [43:59]
• “Don’t go into the protein bar.” (Stacy, cautioning against chasing trends at the expense of core product) [58:26]
• “Make sure you’re always the Stuckey’s Pecan.” (Stacy) [59:50]

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6. Timestamps – Key Segments

• Stacy recounts her journey post-Pita Chips: [04:11–11:51]
• Sam Cagle shares Dough Guy’s origin and challenge: [12:07–17:00]
• Advice for building a brand beyond the founder: [17:08–24:06]
• Alex Hildebrandt discusses Pisco, Suyo, and branding: [28:38–33:28]
• Re-framing the spirits branding dilemma: [33:28–41:10]
• Stephanie Stuckey tells her family business turnaround story: [43:33–48:52]
• Reviving and repositioning Stuckey’s: [48:52–60:03]

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Final Thoughts

This Advice Line episode is packed with tactical and philosophical lessons for entrepreneurs at any stage:

• Validate your pivots with real customer enthusiasm—let demand pull you forward.
• In digital-era food and beverage, storytelling, authenticity, and a founder’s personality remain powerful growth engines.
• Brand-first, category-second is especially potent when introducing new or unfamiliar consumer goods.
• Respect your core loyalists—there’s power in both nostalgia and reinvention.

Above all, this is a reminder that entrepreneurship is a constant balancing act between honoring what works and evolving for tomorrow’s opportunities.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

Wondery subscribers can listen to how I built this early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. If you run a small business, you know there's nothing small about it. As a business owner, I get it. My business is and has always been all consuming since I started it. Every day there is a new decision to make and even the smallest decisions feel massive. Well, Shopify is a commerce platform that goes. That's what running a small business is like because Shopify was once one too. It's the right platform with all the tools you need to be successful. Shopify. Get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.combilt go to shopify.com built shopify we all have moments when we could have done better. Like cutting your own hair. Yikes. Or forgetting sunscreen so now you look like a tomato. Ouch. Could have done better. Same goes for where you invest. Level up and invest smarter with Schwab. Get market insights, education and human help when you need it. Learn [e-mail] Morning Zoe. Got donuts.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Jeff Bridges why are you still living above our garage?

[Guy Raz]

Well, I dig the mattress and I want to be in a T mobile commercial like you teach me.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

So Dana oh no, I'm not really prepared. I couldn't possibly AT T Mobile get the new iPhone 17 Pro on them. It's designed to be the most powerful iPhone yet and has the ultimate pro camera system.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Impressive. Let me try. T Mobile is the best place to get iPhone 17 Pro because they've got the best.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Nice Jeffrey, you heard them.

[Guy Raz]

T Mobile is the best place to get the new iPhone 17 Pro on us with eligible traded in any condition. So what are we having for lunch?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Dude, my work here is done.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

The 24 month bill credits on experience beyond for well qualified customers plus tax and 35 device connection charge credits ended balance due if you pay off earlier. Cancel Finance agreement. IPhone 17 Pro 256 gigs $1099.99 and new line minimum 100 plus a month plan with auto pay plus taxes and fees required. Best mobile network in the US based on analysis by Ooklab Speed Test Intelligence.

[Guy Raz]

Data 182025 visit t mobile.com Klaviyo is the only CRM built for B2C and the key to making Black Friday and Cyber Monday your biggest wins yet with marketing, service, analytics and all your customer data in one AI powered platform Klaviyo helps you build relationships that drive more revenue and deliver truly personalized experiences at scale. Join the more than 176,000 brands like Away, Patrick Ta and Dollar Shave that already grow with Klaviyo at K L-A-V-I-Y-O.com 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 1 minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with. And you can also send us a voice [e-mail] and make sure to tell us how to reach you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free@guyraz. Or on substack and we'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Stacey Madison. She's the founder and namesake of Stacy's Pita Chips. Stacy, it's great to have you back on the show.

[Stacey Madison]

Thank you so much. It's so. I was really excited and I'm flattered that you asked me.

[Guy Raz]

We love you. You were first on the show in 2019. You went to the How I Built this Summit. And as always, for those of you who haven't heard Stacey's original episode, we will put a link to it in the episode description. Stacy, so many listeners over the years. We have like 600 plus episodes in our archives. So many people tell me yours is their all time favorite. I hear it again and again, all the time. And do people still come up to you and say, oh, I remember your story from How I Built this.

[Stacey Madison]

They do. That's the connection that they make.

[Guy Raz]

It's crazy. I mean people, it's an amazing story. I mean you talk about how you started out as a social worker, you were in Washington D.C. and then you moved around a bit and then you tried a bunch of different things. And then you and your partner at the time, Mark, you decided to come back to Boston area where you Guys bought a hot dog cart and kind of turned it into a sandwich cart, like pita sandwiches. And you had all this extra pita every day. So you started to toast it and, you know, toss it in parmesan cheese. And then you would offer these toasted pita chips to people waiting in line for their pita sandwich. And this is how Stacy's pita chips began. I mean, they were. It's an amazing story. Because they were so popular, it became this huge brand, eventually sold to pit, to Pepsi in 2006. I know that you started a couple of brands. You had a juice bar, you had an energy bar business, which were awesome. I love them. I know neither of them are going at the moment, but tell me a little bit about what you've been up to in the last couple years.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, I'd like to say I've been raising my kids, and both of them are seniors in college and going to graduate this year. I had Stacy's juice bar, which I have to say was really next to Stacy's. Pita chips was my passion, because when I started the pita chip company, I was selling healthy sandwiches. And with the juice bar, I was able to kind of make the cart come to life and make healthy lunches come to fruition through juices and smoothies. And we sold salads and quinoas and. And we sold the Be Bold bars.

[Guy Raz]

You had basically started an energy bar. They were so good. They were like. They had oats and chocolate chips, and they were so popular that they were so good. People said, you gotta sell these in the stores. You gotta sell these at grocery stores.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, everybody was, you know, would buy one with their lunch. And I had a huge following. I was in the suburbs. You know, it was very kinda local. You know, I'm not a social media kind of person. So we also got a buyer, actually, who listened to how I built this and was interested. They had. Had the pita chips forever and was interested in buying the bars. And so we got 1200 stores, put more money into it, produced enough to stock the shells, produced enough to have backup for it.

[Guy Raz]

And.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, and then the pandemic hit, and then it ended up costing a lot of money. It definitely burned me out of the entrepreneurial world. And, you know, it still. It still hits hard.

[Guy Raz]

I can imagine how much energy that was sucking from you. And I guess it. I mean, it sounds like it just wasn't fun anymore. It was crazy.

[Stacey Madison]

What were we doing? No, and it's really hard to do $250,000 in bars. Yeah. And had to make the decision, am I going to take and throw $250,000 in the dumpster, or am I going to invest some more and try to make a go of it? Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

At a certain point, you're sort of saying, well, I can pour more money into this and keep going. Or I can say, all right, it was an interesting experiment and move on. I mean, there are all these other things that you do. You are an investor. I think you're an early investor in Sweet Green and Evolution Juice and a couple of other cool food brands. I want to go back to Stacy's for a moment, because that story. It's a story that comes up often in my conversations, in part because it was the side hustle to the main hustle. Right. And really what you started to see was people asking for those chips. It wasn't part of the plan. And I wonder if you can kind of speak to this idea of when you know that actually the side project is really the thing that you have to hit the gas on and the thing that you. That you thought you were doing, you've got to kind of roll it up. When did you start to understand that the sandwiches were not actually the business, it was these chips that you were handing out for free to people waiting in line.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah. It's kind of like you have to make a decision, am I going. Am I in the fork in the road? Am I going right? Am I going left? Right. And the decision was based on, we're in New England, and so your income's really only in the good weather and over the winter, worked on the marketing, the packaging, went to trade shows, talked to other snack food companies, and kind of got it ready to launch. The second year, we had a little help at the food cart so that we could focus more on the chips. And then eventually we. In 97, we ended up just doing the chips.

[Guy Raz]

It just made more sense because of just the demand that you were hearing from people, the chatter. Or did you actually start to see the dollars coming in were more heavily.

[Stacey Madison]

Weighed toward the chips, chatter, and can you make me an extra bag, like just bulk so I can take them home? When people asking you questions like that, listen to your customers, I mean, that is so super important. And then you ask the question, well, when do you know when you switch or you make that decision? My answer would be, you need to prove out the concept outside of just where you are. So you have to take. Whether it's taking the bags of chips to the stores, talking to the stores, sampling Them at the stores, things like that. That's what helps you make those kinds of decisions.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Before we get to our callers, I want to ask you just one more question, which is when you started this, the food cart, this was in the 90s. And when you started this, it was like people had to show up at the cartoon and you'd find out about it because somebody would say, oh, I'm going to PETA cart in Boston Common or Downtown Crossing. Now, you would have an Instagram account and you would have a bunch of social media accounts and I hear you, I hear you. I mean, do you think that if you were starting Stacy's cart today and then the chips, do you think you'd have to go about it differently to have the same kind of impact?

[Stacey Madison]

I would say I have to be a victim of the times. I think it would be very hard to speak to this, to the times right now and to this generation. If you don't get on their own microphone, like if they're on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, it is hard to reach people. So that's a, that's an important part of it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

So.

[Guy Raz]

All right, Stacey, why don't we go ahead and take our first caller. You ready?

[Stacey Madison]

Oh, yeah, definitely, Definitely ready.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. Hello, caller, welcome to the advice line. You're on with Stacy Madison, founder of Stacy's Pita Chips. Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one quick line about your business.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah. Hey, Stacey and Guy. My name is Sam Cagle and I am based in Utah. I'm the founder of doguy. It's an online community and an e commerce brand dedicated to homemade pizza making. And so we provide the physical tools, the resources and the inspiration so that anybody can make restaurant quality pizza right at home with nothing but a regular home oven.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. What do you, what do you sell?

[Sam Cagle]

It's a, it's a pizza steel. So it's a 16 inch by 16 inch steel that you bake pizzas on in a normal oven.

[Guy Raz]

So like a pizza stone, but it's a piece of steel, which I've had before, and you put the steel in the oven and then you heat the oven up and then the idea is that you're going to get a pizza that's more like a restaurant pizza.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Exactly.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome. When did you start the business?

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah, so I officially launched the business April of this year, about end of April. So it's been pretty recent.

[Guy Raz]

And how did you come up? I mean, were you like a in, were you A baker? Were you working in restaurants?

[Sam Cagle]

No. So I've. I mean, I've always loved baking. I've always loved baking, like desserts and breads, but I never really dabbled with pizza. And so the story goes. So summer 2024 last year, I quit my job to become a stay at home dad. And I never, like I said, I always loved baking. But to keep my sanity, I decided to dive into homemade pizza making and start an Instagram page to document the journey. And I discovered you don't need like a fancy pizza oven to make really good pizza at home. And so in January, I decided to do a series where I made a pizza every single day until I got a Dave Portnoy pizza review. And so obviously he's, wow, how'd you do that?

[Guy Raz]

How'd you get Dave Portnoy to review your pizza?

[Sam Cagle]

So I.

[Guy Raz]

Because he's like the pizza king.

[Sam Cagle]

He's the pizza king and he's a pretty controversial guy. So it kind of took off, but like I said. So I started a series where I made a pizza every single day, posted every single day, until I got his attention. And I flew out to Chicago and I got a pizza review from him. The first homemade pizza, first pizza from Utah. And he gave me a really good score. And I had about two weeks before the review came out where I basically set up my entire company, set up everything with my manufacturer because I had nothing ready to go because I thought this was going to take like a year or longer. Like, I didn't think he was just going to, like, have any random guy come out and make him a pizza. But the day it came out, I launched my business and after that I was off to the races.

[Guy Raz]

How much have you done so far in sales?

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah. So since April, we've done just north of 300,000 in revenue.

[Guy Raz]

It's awesome. And congrats on getting Dave Portnoy to review it. I've had a Pizza Steel in the past. It's an awesome. I mean, you know, this is not. Again, you. This is not a new product. You didn't invent the Pizza Steel. But you, you basically have a community of people, I guess, who follow you on, on social media and, and, and you make pizzas and stuff.

[Sam Cagle]

Yep. Yeah, that's right. And so that's really where I differentiate myself. So I've built this community on Instagram. I have since January. I've grown to about 130,000 followers. And people are very into it. People are very loyal to the brand Doe guy and they love Everything. Pizza making. Because my, my whole brand is making it as simple and easy and fun as possible. And to show that really anybody can do it. It's not like some hidden or gate kept thing that's so hard to do to make pizza. Anybody can do it. And it's really fun and easy to do.

[Stacey Madison]

It's fun to do with your kids too.

[Guy Raz]

It is. Let me, let me ask you a question. I have and for years have had pizza ovens. Right. And the beauty of these things is they get really hot. Usually you want to cook your pizza like between, you know, 6 and 750.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

A conventional home oven only gets up to 500, 550. So can you. I mean, why would somebody pick the steel over like an ooni pizza oven or even a big green egg?

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah, I mean, there's lots of reasons. The first reason, it's a lot cheaper and it's a lot more convenient to do a lot. Like how many Americans live in an apartment where they can't have a pizza oven outside and they can't have all this space to make pizzas? And that's where the pizza steel comes in. So pizza stones have been around forever. They don't get quite hot enough to get that perfect blackened under carrots that everyone loves. On the New York style slice of pizza, the steel gets up high enough, it can preheat up to 550 plus degrees and it retains this heat super good. So it transfers to the pizza and makes it super easy to make really high quality pizza at home.

[Guy Raz]

All right, before we dive in further, tell us what your question is.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah. So I've grown this awesome community online, but my vision for Doughey actually is to turn it into a full fledged brand for all things baking. Right now, most of the momentum depends on me personally. I'm running the entire thing. I'm editing the videos, I'm doing all the content all by myself. But I want to scale it in a way where the brand can thrive without me at the center of everything. And so my question is, how can I make the leap from being the guy on Instagram that makes pizza to building a lasting brand that stands on its own?

[Guy Raz]

All right, awesome question. I want to bring Stacey Madison in. Thoughts for Sam, questions for Sam, answers for Sam.

[Stacey Madison]

What you were saying about how do you get it from you? I mean, you got to be in it.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

You have tapped into this secret sauce of the Internet and do you know how many companies are trying to do what you've already done? And you have a following and you have. I mean, you can't go. You're the value right now.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah, yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Guy, I have a question for you. You mentioned that you have this idea for creating a full, like a full on baking brand. So you've got the steel. Tell me, like, let's just get a crystal ball. If you had your Barbie Dreamhouse. Right. I always say that because when I was a little kid, I watched my sisters play with the Barbie Dream House and I kind of wanted one too because it was a pretty awesome house. She had a pool and all that cool stuff. Yeah, you're looking at the dream House. What is the ba. What. What kind of things are you selling in 10 years from now?

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah, so obviously all things pizza making in terms of like cutting and launching, even hot honey type things, things that could sit on shelves, but also bread, desserts, anything baking related. And it happens to be. So my audience is mostly male and so there isn't really a baking brand that exists that is targeted towards the male audience. But I think there's a big market for men to get into sourdough baking and things like that.

[Stacey Madison]

Totally.

[Guy Raz]

Do you have. I mean, I wonder. I mean, I agree with Stacey 100% right now. It's too early. You have to be the brand guy and you're going to have to do everything for a while and really establish the steel as the steel to get. And you're right. I mean, if you want to buy a Ooni or a Gozney or one of these ovens, you're looking at 3, 4, 500 more dollars. And how much is your retail for your product?

[Sam Cagle]

119.

[Guy Raz]

119. So yeah, it's a great deal. You can make a pretty great pizza at home with a steel. I wonder whether you are. I mean, to me it seems like you have an opportunity. And how many followers do you have on Instagram?

[Sam Cagle]

About 130,000.

[Guy Raz]

That's amazing. I mean, now you have an opportunity and it's all about pizza. Basically.

[Sam Cagle]

It's all pizza right now. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Do you have, have you put in any featured. Any like community content like, like pizza fails that, you know, great pizza fails from people or anything like that? Because everyone screws up pizza the first time they make it off the peel. When they're trying to put it from the peel into the oven, they always mess it up. Have you had any tried anything like that?

[Sam Cagle]

That's a great question. So I do have people tagging me every single day and I always post about other People's pizza making creations. But I haven't tried the fail thing, which could be really funny because I failed a lot. It's hard to get it going. My goal is to make it so it's not so hard, but it's definitely a learning curve. So that's a good idea.

[Stacey Madison]

I think that's good because I quit after I made one.

[Guy Raz]

You quit? Why'd you quit?

[Stacey Madison]

Oh, it was just such a disaster. I'm like, I'm not a pizza maker. Stick to salad dressing.

[Guy Raz]

No, no, you didn't put enough flour on the peel.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

That's why you gotta work fast. That sauce. You gotta be fast.

[Sam Cagle]

You have to follow dough guy.

[Stacey Madison]

I was very good at making it pretty. I was.

[Sam Cagle]

But.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, Sam, is it true? Isn't it true? You've got it. While you're making the pizza, you gotta shake the peel a little bit every once in a while to make sure it's still loose. You know, you're gonna put the sauce on. Shake it a little bit. Okay. It's moving. Put the cheese on. Put the whatever you want on.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And shake it around. And if you can't. And then you can still save it by pulling up the dough and blowing a little bit of flour under it.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah. You know. You know? Yeah. So semolina flour is gonna be your best friend.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

And.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah. Shaking it. Make sure you're not using too much sauce, all that stuff.

[Guy Raz]

So, Stacy, do you think. I mean, you.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

You.

[Guy Raz]

You said this, that he's got a really big. Be the guy. Right. He's got. It's just. He's got a grind. But at what point can he say, all right, now I need somebody else to run stuff or operations while I focus on building out this brand.

[Stacey Madison]

Like, can you hire some other people to do all the other stuff?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

Like let, you know, bring in others to help with the other tasks so that you can stay on the Internet. And you have to, because for sure, you need to be on it now while you're hot.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Sam Cagle]

Thank you.

[Stacey Madison]

And I love that you are hitting the men.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

I mean, there's so much, like, what else do men cook?

[Sam Cagle]

Meat.

[Guy Raz]

Grilling meat, Smoking meat, Grilling meat.

[Stacey Madison]

You go on the grill and maybe you're, you know, maybe it's a spatula, maybe it's a. I don't know.

[Guy Raz]

But, you know, guys, I mean, again, I hate to hate these categories, but. But they are true sometimes. And guys, you see, a lot of guys will want to bake with it like cast iron. Right. Like, when they're camping and make like a cobbler or you know, some kind of like cookie thing in a cast iron pan.

[Stacey Madison]

That's a way better idea.

[Guy Raz]

You like that?

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

A cookie thing in a cast iron pan.

[Stacey Madison]

Cause that's special. Like, you know, that's like, ooh, I want to try that.

[Guy Raz]

Look at that man. Making brownies in a cast iron pan.

[Stacey Madison]

That's a real man.

[Sam Cagle]

Yeah. No, that's a great idea.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah.

[Sam Cagle]

That outdoor space is huge.

[Guy Raz]

And look at Sam. Look at him, Stacy. He is the man. He's got the cool mustache. He's a handsome guy. I mean, right? Like he's the guy. Cast iron brownie Sam.

[Sam Cagle]

Okay. I mean, I think I might be going into the brownie space. Who knows?

[Guy Raz]

That's awesome.

[Stacey Madison]

But you know what? But you have that. Making something delicious while keeping it simple.

[Sam Cagle]

Exactly.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yep.

[Stacey Madison]

Right? If you can think of things that are unique to the male population and that you're going to make it easy. Something that's difficult, you're going to make it easy. Like you just speaking to you now, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try to make a pizza again. I'm going to get myself a steel because my oven doesn't get hot enough.

[Sam Cagle]

There you go.

[Stacey Madison]

Or you know, it's going to retain the heat. Who knew? Maybe that's why my. Maybe it was my pan.

[Sam Cagle]

I think it was.

[Stacey Madison]

Maybe it wasn't me.

[Guy Raz]

And yeah. And Stacy, you know how you're going to figure that out? How to figure out how to do this, right?

[Stacey Madison]

I'm going to go to your house and you're going to show me.

[Guy Raz]

No, you're going to go to Sam's Instagram and you're going to see all the videos there, all the how tos.

[Stacey Madison]

I'm going to Sam's and then I'm going to. Yeah. And I'm going to watch all those videos. I'm going to get myself a steel square and I'm going to make it for my children activity.

[Guy Raz]

I'm telling you what. Forget about Naples, forget about Sicily, forget about even the Roman style pizza. It's the salt city style. It's all.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Exactly.

[Sam Cagle]

All about.

[Guy Raz]

All about the Utah. It's awesome. I love this story. Sam, thanks for calling in. The brand's called dough guy, Sam Cagle. Good luck and we'll, we'll keep tabs on you, man. Thank you.

[Sam Cagle]

Thanks for having me on.

[Guy Raz]

Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level. That's after the break. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. You know, as someone who's built an entire career around curiosity, I find myself asking questions even in the quietest moments of my day. Whether I'm walking my dog in the morning or just reading a good book, my mind is always wondering about the why behind things, which is exactly how Claude has become such an incredible collaborator in my daily life. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough, the thinking partner that works with you to explore the things that fascinate you. Take last night while making dinner, I found myself wondering about the science behind making the perfect crispy roast chicken. And this all led to an enlightening conversation with Claude that went far beyond basic cooking science. We explored the Maillard reaction, moisture management, salting and brining, and even the history of how humans discovered the cooking process. It was really cool stuff, and I love how Claude matches my natural curiosity rather than trying to shut it down with quick answers. Like when I recently noticed all the different layers in a cliff face during a hike, Claude transported me back in time. It helped me explore how these rocks formed under ancient seas and all the forces that transformed them over millions of years. Whether you're researching outdoor curiosity spirals or working through complex creative challenges, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems together. And it helps me see connections I never would have made on my own, turning casual observations into moments of genuine discovery. Ready to explore what's possible? Try Claude for free at Claude AI hibt. That's Claude AI Hibt to start thinking deeper Today, the holidays are upon us, and businesses are hiring for seasonal roles. Everything from haunted corn maze workers to snowplow drivers. This means that people with certain skills, experience, or even a special license are in high demand and not easy to find. Whether you're hiring for one of these roles or any other role, the best way to find the perfect match for your role is on ZipRecruiter, and right now you can try it for [e-mail] Bilt ZipRecruiter's matching technology works fast to find top talent so you don't waste time or money. You can find out right away how many job seekers in your area are qualified for your role. Let ZipRecruiter find the right people for your roles, seasonal or otherwise. Four out of five employers who post on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day, and right now you can Try it for [e-mail] Bilt Again, that's ZipRecruiter.com built ZipRecruiter the smartest way to hire startups move fast. And with AI, they're shipping even faster and attracting enterprise buyers sooner. But big deals bring even bigger security and compliance requirements. A SOC 2 isn't always enough. The right kind of security can make a deal or break it. But what founder or engineer can afford to take time away from building their company? Vanta's AI and automation make it easy to get big deal ready in days. And Vanta continuously monitors your compliance, so future deals are never blocked. Plus plus Vanta scales with you backed by support that's there when you need it. Every step of the way. My listeners can get $1,000 [e-mail] that's V A N T A dot com Bilt for $1,000. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Stacy Madison, founder of Stacy's Pita Chips. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a line about your business, please.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Hi guy. Hi, Stacy. My name is Alex Hildebrandt and I live in Boston, but I'm currently in New York City where I spend a lot of time for my business. And I'm a co founder of Studio Pisco. Suyo is a spirits company and we're introducing the world to single origin pisco, which is the national spirit of Peru. And pisco also happens to be the only spirit in the world that by law is made with one ingredient, which is grapes, presumably. That's right, which is grapes.

[Guy Raz]

Alex, thanks for calling in and thanks for asking us, hopefully to help you out. Tell me a little bit about how you started this business. I think most people, a lot of people know peace go sour, right? Tell me about how you got into making and selling pisco.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

I'm from Peru, which is what really inspired me to do something really to reconnect with my, with my home country. As a, as a Peruvian who spent most of his life in the United States, I always felt like I wanted to do something that reconnected me. And I don't come from the pisco space. I don't come from a family of producers or anything like that. But one of my best friends and now co founder is a Peruvian and we had been brainstorming ideas for a really long period of time and we decided that we both shared this passion about doing something that reconnected Us with our roots. It hit us right in the head one time. We were back home in Miraflores in Lima, Peru, and we were drinking a pisco cocktail, and we kind of looked at each other and we were wondering, wait, what do you know about pisco? And we explored and we decided to launch a pisco brand.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so first of all, I'm assuming, like, tequila or other. Certain other spirits, it has to be made in Peru to be called pisco.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

That's exactly right.

[Guy Raz]

So, yeah, you can't just distill grapes in California and call it pisco.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Correct. So much like a tequila or a champagne, it has denomination of origin. So that means it has to come from a very specific place in Peru and be produced a very specific type of way, which I think, for the most part, is a good thing, because that ensures that we have this. The spirit that only has one ingredient at the end of the day, which is very, very cool and unique.

[Guy Raz]

When did you launch the brand, Suyo?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

We. We launched the brand in 2020 after having started the project in 2019. Of course, Covid came around and we imported our first pallet into the United states in late 2021 and started selling it in early 2022.

[Guy Raz]

Where are you selling it right now?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

We're very focused geographically, mostly between New York and Boston and then between San Francisco and la. That's about the majority of our California sales, and that's kind of at the request of our distributor.

[Guy Raz]

And again, we should mention with spirits, it's tricky because you got to go state by state. Every state has different regulations. So you got to start with one state and then grow from there. What is the. In terms of, like, your sales, where does. Mostly from restaurants and bars, mostly from liquor stores. Where are you seeing sales?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Great question. So roughly 80% of our sales this year to date have been in bars and restaurants. Roughly 20% will be liquor stores, which is kind of in line with what we expected when we launched the brand. Because when you're introducing someone to something new, I think it's oftentimes more approachable to purchase a cocktail at a more approachable price point than going into a liquor store and buying a bottle of something that's, you know, tends to be a little bit more premium priced and you may not know what to do with it.

[Guy Raz]

It.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

So it's kind of in line with our expectations.

[Guy Raz]

And give us a sense, Alex, of what kind of revenue you expect to do this year. Do you expect to break 300,000, 400,000?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah, we think we'll do a little bit over 400,000 this year.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. And before we dive in further, tell us what your question is. What question you brought for us.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah, so I'm sort of facing a consumer behavior dilemma. If we take, for instance, being at a bar or. Or liquor store, consumers tend to first decide what kind of alcohol to drink.

[Guy Raz]

For example, they'll think vodka. Yeah, yeah.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Or I feel like having a vodka soda and. Or vodka. I feel like having a vodka soda. Today I'm going to have Tito's, which is the brand. But on the other hand, sometimes consumers also just order a brand without knowing or even caring what kind of alcohol category it is. One example is Hennessy, which is often thought of as its own thing, but it's a cognac, which is also a denomination of a controlled spirit.

[Guy Raz]

It's a grape spirit.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

That's right. So here I am building a brand that's in a category that's relatively unknown. And I'm wondering if you, Stacey, or Guy could offer any advice on how to prioritize my efforts in educating consumers about pisco while also building my brand's awareness, which is suyo.

[Guy Raz]

Interesting, because I can't think of a single pisco brand. Right. I can think of vodka brands or, you know, gin brands, but I cannot think of a pisco brand, which. Which to me, seems like a great opportunity. Before we. I weigh in, I want to bring in Stacy Madison. Stacy, a lot to think about here. Alex has his pisco brand. I'm sure you've had pisco sours in Miami because there's some awesome Peruvian restaurants down there. What do you think? What I mean, brand or. Or. Or category or what?

[Stacey Madison]

Okay, well, first I went last night and had a pisco sour. I asked the bartender, you know, can I see your pisco? Like, what kind of pisco you pour in here? Because I wanted to hear what he. Did he know anything about it? You know, things like that. The question is, is there, like, a suyo sour?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Great question. We actually tend to lean away from the pisco sour, which could be another question to phrase back at you. The pisco sour is what everybody intuitively orders, because that's really all they know. But our experience has been that the pisco sour tends to be a little less approachable in that it has an egg white in it, and it's kind of complicated to make at home. So we've been looking for something that can be made at home. It has very few ingredients. It's very simple. So what we push is the pisco punch. Which I think maybe to your point, doesn't have our name in it and maybe we should find a way to incorporate our name into it. But it is a traditional cocktail that we.

[Stacey Madison]

Well, it's in the Pisco punch. Yeah.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

The Pisco punch traditionally is really just three ingredients. And because we love simplicity, this has made a lot of sense for us. It's going to be pisco, of course, pineapple juice and lime juice. And that's all you need. If you know how to make a margarita, you can make a pisco punch. It's the way we've been approaching it. You just need those three ingredients.

[Guy Raz]

Got it. Okay, cool.

[Stacey Madison]

Yep. Other than a pisco sour, what else is pisco used for?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

There are a lot of options, which is a double edged sword. There's so many different directions we can go. But how do you keep it simple and try to find that one thing that really, really takes off? So we play a lot with the martini, swap in Pisco for the vodka or the gin, because we have two different expressions that have similar profiles to both vodka and gin, respectively. You can do other easy highballs like Pisco tonic, which is a super Peruvian drink as well, because tonic comes from quinine, which is originally from Peru. So that's a fun storytelling opportunity for us that we use. And then there's some others that are more traditional in Peru. For instance, if you go to a house party or you go to a family gathering, a celebration, just about everybody's going to be drinking what's called a chilicano, which is just pisco and ginger ale, and you put a dash of lime on top. That is super simple. It's much like a mule, if you've had a mule before. Most people enjoy that.

[Stacey Madison]

If you drink, you have to bring your name into it.

[Guy Raz]

I agree. I agree 100%. Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

I mean, if it were me and you're selling to all these bars, take 10 free drink cards, work it out with the bar, and you have a whole underground crew of ambassadors to go into the bar and people do this. It's a free drink to go in and to order Suyatonic and have the people next to that person go at Suya Tonic. Like, what's that? Oh, it's made with pisco and you know, Pisco, Suya Pisco, and buy them a drink.

[Guy Raz]

I completely agree.

[Stacey Madison]

And that's your underground network.

[Guy Raz]

I completely agree, Stacy. Because look, consumers, they rarely champion a category unless there's a brand to rally behind. Right. So you think of like, Aperol. Like Aperol. There are Other things that are like aperol, but you order an aperol spritz. Patron is a great example in tequila, right? You have an opportunity to make suyo synonymous with pisco to US Consumers, because there isn't anything like that. There is no patron for pisco. Like, the brand is the tip of the spear here. Right? You're leading with the story of suyo and what it does. I mean, the other thing is Peruvian food is some of the greatest food in the world. Some of the greatest restaurants in the world are in Lima. So people who know about food know about Peruvian food. But, like, I didn't know that pisco had to have a single ingredient, you know, single origin. I didn't know that. And maybe on the bottle, you know, says something like, you know, Peru's best kept secret or something like that. I would really lean into talking to bartenders about making suyo drinks. As Stacy said, tsuyotonics, Suyo and orange juice. But then also the punch, Suyo punch, and really just start to build on the brand. And a mixer rather than pisco and a mixer, Suyo sours. It can be a pisco sour.

[Stacey Madison]

Suyatini.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. I mean, I think that's really what the opportunity is to make your brand synonymous with pisco. It's just a category that is. To me, it seems wide open. I mean, tequila, everybody's in tequila, you know, gin, vodka. But not that many pisco brands known in the US if any.

[Stacey Madison]

None. None. And the market is wide open. It was the exact same thing with the pita chips. Nobody knew what a pita chip was, which is crazy.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Which is why, Stacey, I thought you were such a perfect person to ask this question. And I think you've answered the question here. But, you know, it's like when we go or we get asked to come to bars and. And do what they call staff trainings or staff educations, and we 100% of the time start with. Let me talk to you quickly about what pisco is to set the basis. And then now let me talk to you about Suyu. What I'm hearing from you two is maybe it makes sense to flip the script. And we talk. We lead with suyo. And then, oh, by the way, this is a pisco. Let me tell you a couple of things about what that means.

[Stacey Madison]

So how much, can I ask? How much does the bar pay for a bottle?

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Yeah, of course. So for our core line, which are the quebranta and italia that you see in there, they pay depending on the tier that they get, because it Changes depending on how many you buy. It's between. Between about $30 a bottle and about $33 a bottle, depending on the market.

[Stacey Madison]

Okay.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

So it ends up at retail roughly $45 is the SRP that we. That we aim for.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to get a handle on feel for both your sales and for what kind of drink you're creating. Because if you're creating. I have to say I'm not a big fan of the punch thing. I think of something red.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Okay.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, you want a red punch, not a yellow punch?

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, I think of something red and I think of something that's not as expensive. And I think that, you know, you should keep it equivalent to the more expensive cocktails. It sounds like jungle juice.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

It doesn't sound as elevated to you?

[Guy Raz]

Well, but it can. But it can. I mean, have you had milk punch at some of these high end bars?

[Stacey Madison]

Stacey, Such of the category is so.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

Small, like the general public, I think, you know, in order to get that extra buck.

[Guy Raz]

So, Alex, I think, I mean, here, I think there's. I think we agree there's a huge opportunity here. It's all about Suyo. It's not about Pisco. Pisco comes next. People discover Pisco through Suyo. That's the direction you should take. The brand is called Suyo Pisco. Alex Hillebrand, good luck, man. Thanks for calling.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Thanks so much, Guy. Thanks, Stacy. It's great chatting with you both.

[Guy Raz]

Thank you. Yeah. I tell you what, I love Pisco. I mean, I don't order them often, but every time, every once in a while I'm like, oh, pisco sour. That sounds great. I want that egg white.

[Stacey Madison]

But yeah, you're eating. It's like you're drinking an egg white. I mean, how much healthier can it be?

[Guy Raz]

And delicious spirits is a tricky category because there are so many spirits brands, but certain kind of wormholes in that world, right. Like Pisco's or other kinds of spirits have an opportunity. And I would also think about partnering with maybe some interesting Peruvian chefs. Cause that, I mean, I think the number one restaurant in the world for a while was in Lima. So there you go.

[Stacey Madison]

I think he's onto something. He could really. It could really take off.

[Guy Raz]

Off. We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Ra. Stick around. You're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. We're spending more than ever. I hate my job.

[Stacey Madison]

The price of everything has gone.

[Guy Raz]

AI is threatening my job. It's crisis after crisis. Nothing is working out. I can't find.

[Stacey Madison]

We're one disaster.

[Guy Raz]

Take control of change. I need a change. Disruption is the force of change. Stop the chaos. Stop the madness. Take control.

[Sam Cagle]

Read James Patterson's Disrupt Everything and win.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

With Multiview from Xfinity, you can watch.

[Guy Raz]

Up to four football games at once, which can lead to some tough choices. French toast nibblers or breakfast nachos. Actually, I was thinking about heading out. Only because I want to beat the traffic. The best part of the sleep overs. The next day, I was going to throw the games on Bobby Big Wheels. I mean, how can you call yourself a sports fan without Xfinity? We got the multi view, best college and pro games all in one place. I'm not going anywhere. This is how football was meant to be watched. Xfinity. Imagine that.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Restrictions apply. MultiView requires Xfinity 4K capable TV box.

[Guy Raz]

Let's bring in our final caller. Welcome to the advice line. You are on with Stacey Madison, founder of Stacy's Pita Chips. Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and one line about your business, please.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

I'm Stephanie Stuckey. I am with Stuckey's. I'm calling from Rens, Georgia and we make pecan snacks and candies.

[Guy Raz]

Awesome, Stephanie, welcome to the show. Stuckey's, you make pecan candy. So, like, just give me kind of a sense of what kind of candy do you sell?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

We're best known for the pecan log roll, which is my grandmother's recipe. We've actually been making it since 1937.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah. I call ourselves an 88 year old startup.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, yeah.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

And we also make pralines and gophers. It's caramel, pecans and chocolate. We do dark chocolate, pecans, white chocolate pecans, and then we have a whole line of flavored pecans. Everything from roasted and salted to honey roasted kettle glazed bourbon.

[Guy Raz]

I love it.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

We're crazy about pecans.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Wow.

[Guy Raz]

This is an old. This is an old, new brand. Right?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

This is not. Okay. Tell me, what is the story of Stuckey's?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's a crazy journey. So I am an attorney. I spent my entire life doing different things. I was a public defender, a state representative, and head of sustainability for the city of Atlanta. And five years ago, I got a phone call that the company that my grandfather had founded and sold was for sale.

[Guy Raz]

And it's your last name. Stuckey.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's my last name.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. Stuck.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah. So he started it as a roadside pecan stand.

[Guy Raz]

When did he start it?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

1937.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Okay. Yeah.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

People loved the. He made snacks and candies, and people said, oh, this is great, but where's the restroom? Where can I get gas? So he built a gas station that sold snacks, candies, kitschy fun souvenirs, clean restrooms, and he just built it from there. At its peak, Stuckey's had 370 stores in 40 states.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

He had a candy company, a trucking company, a billboard company. We were synonymous with road tripping in America.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. You were the. What's it called? The BUC EE's or the Wawas of that time.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah. Before there was Ta Loves or Buc Ees, there were Stuckey's. We were the first roadside retail chain.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. And so what happened to it? Did he sell it? Like, when did he sell it?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

He sold it when I was a little girl. So 1964 is when he sold it. But he remained involved in controlling it until the mid-70s.

[Guy Raz]

Okay.

[Stacey Madison]

I totally remember Stuckey's.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

I think I was 13. We did a trip across country, and we would always stop at a Stuckey's.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So, all right, so you. So your grandfather starts this, he sells it, and how does it end up back in your hands?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

I got a phone call that the company was for sale. It was six figures in the red. The owners at the time were looking to sell.

[Guy Raz]

How many gas stations do they have?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

There are about a dozen original stores still around. We do not own or operate them. And they were losing money. It was a hot mess.

[Guy Raz]

So the brand comes up for sale. I mean, how much did they want or how much were they willing to take?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

I paid 500,000. It was my life savings.

[Guy Raz]

So you bought the brand back with the idea to revive this roadside stand or to do something different.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

And then I realized it wasn't working, and we were sinking further into debt. So I made a pivot after about a year, and I got some business partners, and we decided to reinvent the brand just the way it started, as a pecan snack and candy company. And we bought a manufacturing facility.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Everything was outsourced. And the pecans came from Mexico. And pecans are the only snack nut native to this country. They are absolutely delicious.

[Guy Raz]

They are.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Georgia. Georgia grows more pecans than anywhere else.

[Guy Raz]

In the world I know. Why is it called the Peach State? Yeah, it should be the Pecan State. Is it pecans or pecans?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

What do you say?

[Guy Raz]

I say pecans, but I thought in Georgia you say Pecans Yeah.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

The customer's always right.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. You're supposed to say pecans, and so wait, just say stuckies.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

That's what I want. I want to be synonymous with pecans.

[Guy Raz]

Before I get to your question, give me a sense of where. Like, how is the business doing now as a candy business?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's doing well. We're in about 4,000 doors nationwide. We do very well in farm and hardware. We're in some C stores, some grocery, like Food, lion and Ingles. We just launched in select Walmart and Sam's Club, and we have 65 employees. We're the largest employer in Rens, Georgia. Sales have grown from 2 to 10 million.

[Guy Raz]

10 million? Yeah. But amazing.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's still a challenge, right? It's still. So that's my question. So Stuckey's was once known as this roadside stand, but today we're reinventing ourselves as a pecan snack and candy company in a market that is dominated by big budget brands backing pistachios, cashews, almonds, peanuts. How do we position Stuckey's and pecans as a distinctive must have choice for new generation of consumers who didn't grow up like Stacy. Stopping at Stuckey's, we gotta introduce ourselves. We're getting on shelves. How do we move off the shelf?

[Guy Raz]

All right, all right. Good question. Stacy, I want to bring you in. You obviously know this brand from when you were a kid, but now it's not a gas station roadside stop. It's pecan logs and rolls.

[Stacey Madison]

It sounds delicious.

[Guy Raz]

Pecans. And they're doing pretty well. $10 million in sales, probably still not, right? You guys made some investments in manufacturing equipment, and you got a lot of employees. So you probably still have some debt, and you still are.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yes, we do.

[Guy Raz]

Probably not able to pay yourself a whole lot because people hear 10 million are thinking you're rolling in pecan dough. No, you're not. Right?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

No. Manufacturing is very capital intensive. We pay our. Our employees very well. That was one of the most important things we did. We bought an existing facility and we gave everyone a pay raise and we brought in insurance. And so all of that costs money. It's worth it.

[Guy Raz]

Yep. All right, so let's get to Stacey. I want to bring you in before we answer Stephanie's question. Maybe you've got some questions for her.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah. Oh, I definitely do. Well, first of all, you're talking to somebody that does not eat peanuts. Oh, I like pecans. I just. I love them, you know, and that's my first choice. Yeah, it's my first Choice of nut.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

I love that.

[Stacey Madison]

I have a question, like, you seem to have a lot of skus. Yes, right.

[Guy Raz]

Just to clarify, there's like dark chocolate, white chocolate, pecans, cinnamon pecans. There's the bourbon pecans. I mean, there's a lot of stuff here is what you're saying.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, it's a lot to manage.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

We do have a core line for mass distribution, so we have. We call them the seven core.

[Stacey Madison]

Okay, so what area of the store? Where would I find you and where would I find it? Like, if you have all these things that are like, it seems like they're very different to have a pecan roll than a bag of pecans or a chocolate or like, what section of the store are you targeting?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

The nut aisle, snack nut aisle, and then also the candy aisle. And ideally, like, we're in a fair amount of convenience stores, a lot of independent convenience stores. So you might find a center store. In a perfect world. We're in the impulse section Right at the register. Right.

[Stacey Madison]

What's your top seller?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

The pecan log roll.

[Guy Raz]

The log roll is the number one seller.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's been delivering for us since my grandmother first whipped it up in her country kitchen.

[Stacey Madison]

Who's buying them?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Probably mostly 50.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

I mean, it's people who recognize the brand.

[Stacey Madison]

And that's the exact direction I'm going. And it may not be what you want to hear.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah, I hear you.

[Stacey Madison]

But I'll tell you, I would flood the current older population. Like you have a population out there who knows and recognizes your brand.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

So I would start with hitting all the stucky people and, you know, all that age range. The over 50.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah. Grow the core.

[Stacey Madison]

It's not as big. It's not. Yeah. For your core population. And then once you've kind of tapped out that market, then I would, you know, expand from there.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

What's the shelf life of this loaf?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's seven months, and then the bagged pecans are 12 months.

[Guy Raz]

Stacy, your advice is interesting, Right. Because the question is, how do we make this more appealing to younger consumers? And most of us are like, of course it's a no brainer. You want younger consumers because they're going to grow up with this and they have disposable cash. But actually, older consumers are often ignored at our peril. Right. It's like you almost want to double down on the people who know this and are buying it. I think you can kind of split the difference here a little bit because you've got a heritage brand, but you do want to appeal to younger consumers. You do want to want people to see this. And so there are a number of things you could try. I mean, I think one of the questions is your branding really leans into nostalgia. Right. It looks like the 40s or the 50s. And the Stuckey's logo is like that. And I wonder if you can keep the integrity of the Stuckey's logo, but maybe think about a more modern rebrand overall for the brand. But I actually think at the end of the day, people are focused on their own interests and people are focused on. A lot of people are focused on protein. And pecans are a protein. It's a plant based protein source. I mean, again, I would double down on what's selling best. I would double down on the rules and really try and put any marketing dollars, any promotional dollars, any social media dollars into the bar, into the log. But I would also think about maybe trying a different approach in parallel, which is, you know, America's oldest natural snack since, you know, 1776 or something. You know, America's first. American's first. America's first protein bar.

[Stacey Madison]

The original, I mean, delivering protein.

[Guy Raz]

Delivering plant based protein since, you know, since whatever. Yeah. Before we start, I think you could.

[Stacey Madison]

Say you're the original.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, the OG Protein.

[Stacey Madison]

We were doing protein before anybody. Yeah. Or something.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

The other question I have is, you know, there's a brand called nuts.com, which. It was an amazing brand. And we're featuring that brand on our show. They sell like 3,000 different things. Right. And so the other question is Stuckey's. I know, I was looking at your website. You do sell some almonds and some walnuts, but really, this is a pecan brand. Yeah, pecan brand. And so down the road, is Stuckey's bigger. Is it a bigger candy confectionary, nostalgic brand? Can you. Or if you're going to lean into pecans, is it worth trying things like pecan butter? I don't. I've never seen that anywhere. Pecan milk. It's called pecan nut milk. I don't know anybody who makes pecan nut milk. I mean, it's kind of pecan ice cream, as obvious, pecan coffee beans. But I think I keep thinking about this brand and Stacy, you'll know this brand. David Bars. It's just blown up. It's a protein bar brand. It was started by the same guy who created RX bars, Peter Rahal, who's been on our show. And this brand is all about protein. And he's leaned into it. And he did something really unusual in the last few months, which is they. They sell protein bars, but they started to sell frozen fish. You can go to grocery stores in New York and find David branded frozen cod. It looks like a David bar, but it's literally a piece of frozen cod. They are not getting into the frozen cod business. This is a marketing tool. This is a way to say to people, look, you can eat this frozen cod and go prepare it at home, or you can pretty much get the same amount of protein by just buying a David bar. And people are talking about that. It's all over the place. It's an incredibly smart marketing campaign. And if you tried something weird like pecan nut milk, who knows?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

We just have to get new equipment. Yeah. We sell it in our. We have a candy outlet store. We don't make it, but it is so yummy.

[Guy Raz]

I'm sure you just whiz it with some water and filter it.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah, I would source that one out.

[Guy Raz]

Great.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

I have a question.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, question.

[Alex Hildebrandt]

Go ahead.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah. So my question is, all right, along the lines of the protein bar. So someone suggested this to me is take our pecan lagera, which is a. It's a candy bar, and add protein powder to it. So it's like a protein, but it would have caramel coating and it has some sugar in it.

[Stacey Madison]

How many grams of protein is in it without doing that?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Good question. Let me see if I can. Protein says 2 grams.

[Guy Raz]

All right. To start. I mean, I think you could try something like that. I think you'd probably. If you're trying to appeal to sort of a fitness crowd, I mean, they're gonna want less sugar or you pack it. You really sort of. It's more nut heavy and less caramelly. I mean, there are ways to do this with reduced sugar. And it's worth trying. I mean, at the end of the day, you want people talking about this.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

Am I allowed to disagree with you, guy?

[Guy Raz]

Please go, Please.

[Stacey Madison]

I don't think a bar that's starting with 2 grams of protein is. I mean, she has a product that's selling already and you know, she went from 2 to 10 million in four years. I think that, you know, she's kind of found something that works and the product, people like it. People must like it. If you're selling that much of it. I would not change your recipe one bit. People used to come to us and say, can you make a gluten free pita chip?

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yeah.

[Stacey Madison]

How are we going to make this gluten Free. It's bread you could do.

[Guy Raz]

Rice flour, pitas you could do. But I hear you. There was an integrity in Stacy's pita chips that you didn't want to mess with. And if people wanted gluten free brand, they can start their own brand.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

It's authenticity. Right. That's what people want in a brand.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah. I would lean into the history. I would definitely try to do some kind of crossover. Since you're in two sections of the store, that's going to crazy expensive in the long run. So. And you're doing your own manufacturing, so you have to be very careful on how many skus you're putting out there. So many people are looking for a recipe that works, that's gonna sell and you have that.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Got it.

[Stacey Madison]

Sorry, guy, I'm not. Yeah, I mean, I'm don't go into the protein bar.

[Guy Raz]

I think you should have something weird. I think you should think about the cod fish idea with David bars and have something weird. And I think it would be worth just thinking about some kind of refresh, keeping the integrity of that logo, the Stuckey's logo. You know, if you're doing good business with people over 50, great. But I think it would. You could still retain those people, but bring some new people in. Go ahead, Stacey.

[Stacey Madison]

You know what is really a great thing to have? You know you have that pecan coating for the fish.

[Guy Raz]

The pecan coated fish, right? Yes.

[Stacey Madison]

So if you.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

You can do a pecan meal, which.

[Stacey Madison]

We make pecan pecan pudding and then it's made with Sucky's pecan. It's gotta be good.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

There we go. Can you hook me up guy with a fish maker?

[Guy Raz]

That brand. So there you go.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

But I agree with you both. Right. Like, I think we need to make sure our base stays loyal and true and spends a lot of money.

[Guy Raz]

For sure. For sure.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

But we've got to get a younger demographic if we're going to continue. And so maybe getting a little weird.

[Guy Raz]

Get a little weird in a fun.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Way that gets people talking.

[Guy Raz]

For sure.

[Stacey Madison]

Yeah. And I would make sure that you're always the Stuckey's Pecan.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Yes.

[Stacey Madison]

Get your name with your product. Stacy's pita chips.

[Sam Cagle]

Yes.

[Guy Raz]

Stuckey's Pecans. All right. Stuckey's is the brand. Stephanie Stuckey, thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Keep us posted.

[Stacey Madison]

It's an honor to meet you. I'm a Stuck. I was a Stuckey's fan.

[Stephanie Stuckey]

Thank you. It's been a pleasure.

[Guy Raz]

Thank you.

[Sam Cagle]

Stacey.

[Guy Raz]

Thanks so much for coming back on the show. It's great having you.

[Stacey Madison]

It was great being here. Thank you guy.

[Guy Raz]

That's Stacy's Pita Chips founder Stacey Madison. And by the way, if you haven't heard Stacy's original How I Built this episode, please go back and check it out. So many people tell me all the time it's like one of their favorites of all time. And here is one of my favorite moments from that episode. Wait, why did he say that? Were you literally like hand cutting the pita bread?

[Stacey Madison]

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

[Guy 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 [e-mail] 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 [e-mail] or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there and we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Alex Chung, Kerry Thompson, Kathryn Seifer, Carla Estevez, Noor Gill, Sam Paulson, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. If you like how I built this, you can listen early and ad free right now by joining Wondery plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. Prime members can listen ad free on Amazon Music. Before you go, tell us about yourself by filling out a short [e-mail] survey.