Bobo’s: Beryl Stafford. A Single Mom Turns a Baking Project into a $100M Business

Summary

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Podcast Summary: "How I Built This with Guy Raz"

Episode: Bobo’s: Beryl Stafford—A Single Mom Turns a Baking Project into a $100M Business

Date: March 9, 2026

Guest: Beryl Stafford, Founder of Bobo's
Host: Guy Raz
Duration: Key content from 03:33–63:30

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Overview

In this episode, Guy Raz interviews Beryl Stafford, founder of Bobo's, now a $100 million oat bar company. Beryl recounts her journey from being a newly divorced single mother with no business experience to building one of the most recognizable natural food brands in the U.S. The conversation explores Beryl's resilience, the unique Boulder, Colorado food startup culture, scrappy beginnings, scaling a food business, and finding purpose—and eventual success—against the odds.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Starting Over After Divorce

• Life Change & Financial Necessity (04:08–11:21)
  • Beryl describes her world collapsing in her early 40s after her marriage ended. Out of the workforce for over a decade, she felt her only skills were those of a mom—skills that didn't translate easily to the job market.
  • She tried working at a gourmet cookware store for $7.45 an hour but didn’t want to return to a law firm or enter tech.

"I didn't wanna go back to a law firm and put on a pair of pantyhose and go work for someone else. But I didn't know what to do."
—Beryl Stafford (10:20)

2. The Mother-Daughter Baking Project

• Origin of Bobo's Bars (13:14–16:52)
  • The eventual oat bar recipe came from a cookbook her daughter, Alexandra ("Bobo"), found.
  • Initial recipe: oats, corn syrup, brown sugar, butter—simple, homestyle, but not market-ready for health-focused Boulder.

"She did open up the cookbook and say, I want to make these just one afternoon... I happened to have them all in my cupboard and I said, great, you know, do it. And they were delicious."
—Beryl Stafford (13:23)

• Recipe Iterations & The Nudge to Go Commercial
  • Health-minded friends encouraged her to experiment with healthier ingredients (e.g., brown rice syrup, coconut oil, less processed sugars).
  • Early local support suggested market potential in Boulder's vibrant natural foods scene.

3. Scrappy Beginnings, Community Support

• Branding "Bobo’s" and Initial Sales (17:17–21:20)
  • The brand name honors her daughter’s nickname; the logo—a little girl—was sketched in five minutes by a friend.
  • Beryl’s initial sales method: Saran-wrapped bars with hand-drawn labels, sold door-to-door to neighborhood coffee shops and co-ops.
  • Overcame shyness—pushed by a friend—to approach local businesses.

“I wrap them in Saran Wrap and I go to the printer. I get labels printed with her artwork... I had four flavors. Original chocolate, cranberry, and coconut.”
—Beryl Stafford (19:24)

4. Initial Doubts and Social Challenges

• Fear of Judgment and Family Naysayers (25:23–27:46, 45:40–46:31)
  • Beryl discusses the apprehension of being seen as “the former tennis mom now selling bars.”
  • Kids, ex-husband, and family expressed skepticism, sometimes condescendingly.

“My family thought that I was cuckoo to do this... She said, well, how many of those can a person eat? And I thought to myself, how crazy of a question is that?”
—Beryl Stafford (46:23)

5. Scaling Up: From Home Kitchen to Shared Commercial Space

• Moving Production to Commercial Kitchens (28:07–33:50)
  • To comply with health regulations, Beryl moved to a shared kitchen, eventually partnering with Justin Gold of Justin’s Nut Butters, forming an LLC and sharing staff.
  • Beryl admits having little to no business knowledge—she learned by doing, buying ingredients at retail prices until learning about food-industry sourcing.

"I was buying at Whole Foods. Full retail... I did that for almost a year, just figuring out the ingredients."
—Beryl Stafford (32:17)

6. Breakthrough: Whole Foods & Regional Growth

• Getting into Whole Foods (34:33–38:05)
  • Gained entry to Whole Foods by word-of-mouth and direct pitching; local store managers welcomed her, having tasted her bars at a co-op.
  • Learned about shelf life requirements, packaging regulations, and organic labeling through trial and error.

"She said, I want these. Tell me everything, but you're gonna have to get your packaging together... And she goes, I'm gonna get you in 12 of the Colorado stores."
—Beryl Stafford (35:56)

7. Grit, Authenticity, and Imperfection

• Staying Hands-On and Differentiation (33:03–33:50, 42:35–43:08)
  • Rejected advice to outsource manufacturing, insisting on maintaining a rustic, imperfect look and homemade taste—key to the brand identity.
  • Early growth was slow and hands-on, with minimal staff.

8. Learning by Experience and Self-Reliance

• Growth Pains and Skill Accumulation (44:27–45:13, 62:39–63:30)
  • Spent years learning basic sales, distribution, pricing, and management by trial.
  • Emphasizes the importance of self-taught resilience:

"A light bulb went off once midway through my career here, that you and I and everybody can figure anything out. Anything... It's not about being the smartest person in the room. It's about desire, focus, and time."
—Beryl Stafford (62:39)

9. The Jump to a National Brand and Bringing in Leadership

• Hiring a CEO & Outside Investment (50:34–54:32)
  • After substantial growth and exhaustion, Beryl considered selling but instead hired TJ McIntyre as CEO, transitioned to Founder/President, and began raising capital.
  • With external investment, pressure increased and the nature of the business changed.

"He said, you know, I want to run this company. Don't sell it. You're too little, you're too young, you're too small. You need to grow. And, you know, what's wrong with you? Are you tired?"
—Beryl Stafford (51:47)

• Raising Money and Investor Dynamics
  • Outside investors brought both resources and new challenges in aligning decision-making and economic terms.

10. Navigating Trends, Competition, and Distribution

• Evolving in a Crowded Market (47:07–49:59, 57:20–60:29)
  • Beryl discusses the challenges of fending off competitive brands and dietary trends (protein, keto, paleo) while maintaining authenticity and resisting fads.
  • Distribution partnerships (e.g., with Costco) present both major opportunities and operational risks.

“There are so many bars out there, and retailers will trade you out very quickly.”
—Beryl Stafford (57:20)

11. Reflections on Luck, Grit, and Building Something Real

• Luck vs. Grit and the Power to Learn (61:35–62:39)
  • Beryl attributes her success to being open to learning anything, toughing out difficult stretches, and embracing the joys of building something from scratch—emphasizing that necessity and love for the project fueled her.

“I attribute this successful brand to my grit and love. What you do, you know, it wasn't really work for me. It was fun... I had to be tough and figure it out.”
—Beryl Stafford (61:40)

• Enduring Brand Identity
  • The original, hand-drawn Bobo’s girl still appears on every package—a testament to the company’s grassroots origin.

“The packaging... still has that same drawing of a smiling blonde haired girl. The one that Beryl’s friend sketched out in five minutes in her kitchen using a Sharpie.”
—Guy Raz (63:30)

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Memorable Quotes & Timestamps

• On persistence through adversity:
  “It was the kind of feeling where your heart physically hurts. Yeah, I remember feeling that.”
  —Beryl Stafford [09:52]

• On the skepticism of family/friends:
  “How many of those can a person eat?... how many people are in the country?”
  —Beryl Stafford [46:23]

• On learning by necessity:
  “I was buying at Whole Foods. Full retail... I did that for almost a year.”
  —Beryl Stafford [32:17]

• On embracing imperfection:
  “I don’t want them to look like their guillotine cut with four square corners. They're imperfect. Each bar. And I wanted them to look like that.”
  —Beryl Stafford [33:40]

• On the power of self-driven learning:
  “You can figure anything out. It's not about being the smartest in the room. It's about desire, focus, and time.”
  —Beryl Stafford [62:39]

• On scaling up and keeping authenticity:
  “We're not trendy and we're not adding any superfoods to it.”
  —Beryl Stafford [49:34]

• On the surreal feeling of success:
  “Anytime I would see somebody that I didn't know eating a Bobo Bar... that just touches my heart, you know.”
  —Beryl Stafford [62:10]

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Important Segments (with Timestamps)

• Beryl's Family Doubts & Early Motivation: 03:33–04:08, 45:40–46:31
• Personal Struggles & Launching the Business: 09:18–14:37
• First Sales & Hand-Drawn Brand: 17:17–21:20
• Moving into Commercial Kitchens & Partnering with Justin’s: 28:07–33:50
• Whole Foods Breakthrough: 34:33–38:05
• Growing Pains and Joining Naturally Boulder: 33:03–33:50
• Becoming Profitable, Scaling Distribution: 43:08–44:03
• Hiring a CEO, Raising Capital: 50:34–54:32
• Navigating Trends and Competition: 47:07–49:59, 57:20–60:29
• Biggest Lessons & Final Reflections: 61:35–63:30

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Tone and Style

The conversation is candid, encouraging, and at times self-deprecating—full of practical wisdom. Beryl’s story is one of humility, honesty about failures and ignorance, and a refusal to be boxed in by circumstance. Guy Raz’s tone, as always, is warm, curious, and supportive, guiding the listener through the milestones and emotional beats of the founder’s journey.

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Conclusion

Beryl Stafford’s journey with Bobo’s is a testament to the power of resilience, the strength found in community, and the willingness to start small and learn everything the hard way. Her story is proof that with enough grit and an openness to learning, even the most unorthodox beginnings can lead to building a $100 million brand—one oat bar at a time.

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Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[Beryl Stafford]

My family thought that I was cuckoo to do this. I remember having lunch with my sister once in Boulder, and she said, well, what? You're gonna do this? You're gonna delve into this and actually make it work? And I said, yeah, what do you think? And she said, well, how many of those can a person eat? And I thought to myself, how crazy of a question is that? You know, she doesn't really get it. And I said, how many people are in the country?

[Guy Raz]

Welcome to How I Built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how a single mom restarted her life with a friend, four ingredient recipe and built it into a $100 million brand. Bobos. A business idea almost always starts with solving a problem, right? But starting a business for most people is also about necessity, about needing to earn a living to do something with your life. And that can be really hard, especially if life throws you a curveball early in middle age. That's what happened to Beryl Stafford. In her early 40s, her marriage collapsed, and she had to figure out how to earn a living. For more than a decade, she'd been out of the workforce, focused mainly on raising her two daughters. So when her marriage ended, Beryl felt like any skills she had as a mom weren't translating to the job market. So out of desperation, she started a small business. She did what she was good at, and in Beryl's case, that was baking. She baked homemade oat bars made with fruit and coconut and sometimes a bit of chocolate. She'd wrap them in cellophane and try to get local coffee shops to sell them. This was back in 2003, and I should mention Beryl's great good fortune was that she lived and still lives in Boulder, Colorado. And if you know anything about Boulder's economy, you'll know that it's kind of like the Silicon Valley of natural foods. Celestial Seasonings, White Wave, which makes Silk soy milk, Izzy Sparkling water, and Justin's Nut Butters all started in Boulder. And Beryl Stafford, who knew nothing about the food business or business at all, was able to tap into her community to figure out how to grow her little snack bar brand, which she called Bobo's Oat Bars. At one point, to save cash, she shared a kitchen and employees with Justin from Justin's Nut Butters. Bobo's grew slowly for its first decade, but eventually was able to scale. Today, the brand is estimated to do around $100 million in annual sales. And Boulder, by the way, is where Beryl ended up almost by chance. She actually grew up in a small town in Louisiana a few hours drive from Baton Rouge.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, it was kind of considered in the woods. There's a lot of lumber business there. And it was a very kind of beautiful, small Southern town with big oak trees, not a lot of crime. We never locked our door. And then I graduated from high school and decided I didn't want to follow the path of my brothers and sisters and my uncles and aunts and parents and go to Tulane or lsu. I wanted to go somewhere else outside of Louisiana, and my aunt lived here in Boulder.

[Alex Chung]

In Boulder.

[Beryl Stafford]

And I came out here when I was in high school with a girlfriend and thought I had died and gone to heaven. I want to come back here. And I applied, and my parents said, great. You know, one less person to worry about in Louisiana.

[Alex Chung]

So you decided to go to Colorado when you got to the University of Colorado in 1977? Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Did you have, like, a thick Louisiana accent?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. And I was in the dorms, and my friends would say, come over here. Listen to the way this girl talks.

[Alex Chung]

You were like a curiosity.

[Beryl Stafford]

I was a hick from Louisiana, and we had this thing on campus called. It was a pizza place called Mai Piece, but I called it My Pie. And my friends would say, say it. Say it. This is hysterical. And so when you're 18, you quickly change because you want to fit in.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

I think that's why I changed my accent so fast. I kind of sound like a Yankee now, but when I go back home, it kind of comes back. You know, the little Southern drawl. But I know everybody says that. To me, you don't sound like a Southerner.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah. All right.

[Guy Raz]

So when you graduated, right, I guess

[Alex Chung]

you did a few different jobs. Like, I think for a few years, you were a paraleg.

[Guy Raz]

And also you met a guy in

[Alex Chung]

Boulder, I think, when you were in

[Guy Raz]

your late 20s maybe. And you Got married.

[Beryl Stafford]

Right.

[Alex Chung]

And I think within a couple years, you guys had started a family. You had two girls.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

And from what I understand, you decide you really want to be full time at home with the girls.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, it was a lot of that. Driving them around, being involved in their activities. And then, you know, my friends became the parents of their friends. That was okay for me because I didn't know what I was going to do. And then when I wasn't married, when I became unmarried, I still didn't know what I was going to do.

[Alex Chung]

I don't want to revisit this time of your life, because I'm sure it was really hard. But I know that at some point the marriage breaks down and. And it starts to unravel. And I think you were, what, early 40s, maybe?

[Beryl Stafford]

I was. I was just turning 40.

[Alex Chung]

I can't imagine what that period in your life was like, because there's lawyers and. And court and depositions. It's. Right.

[Guy Raz]

I mean.

[Alex Chung]

And that's sort of what began to happen to you.

[Beryl Stafford]

It was probably the worst time in my life. And like you said, it went on for so long, and I don't remember. I probably blocked it out, but maybe two years, but maybe just a year. But it was an awful period in my life. It was the kind of feeling where your heart physically hurts. Yeah, I remember feeling that.

[Alex Chung]

And did you have the girls with you most of the time?

[Beryl Stafford]

We split 50. 50. He insisted on that. You know, I knew that my life was gonna be a lot harder. But when you're all of a sudden a single divorced mom, you have to figure out how you're gonna support yourself. And I didn't wanna go back to a law firm and put on a pair of pantyhose and go work for someone else. But I didn't know what to do. I did get a job making $7.45 an hour at this kind of gourmet cooking store called Peppercorn here in Boulder. And it was just kind of biding my time because my lawyer said, you have got to get a job while you're going through this divorce. And so it just took me a while to figure out what I was going to be. And I was getting advice from people. Go into tech, you know, learn how to write software, and yuck. I had no interest in that.

[Alex Chung]

And also, I mean, I look at somebody who's 40 now as somebody into my 50s, and I think, oh, they're young. But when you're 40 and you hadn't worked for, you know, at that point, in an office for 10 years, you were probably thinking, how am I going to do that? How am I going to start a career again?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. Who's gonna hire me? You know?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

And the gourmet store, you worked there, I'm assuming. Cause you liked. Did you get. Had you gotten into cooking?

[Beryl Stafford]

So I had been a cook all my life and as a matter of fact, I did a little catering on the side just for some extra income out of my kitchen for friends. And I always love to cook. So I thought, well, this will be perfect for me.

[Alex Chung]

Just self taught, like using cookbooks and.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, just self taught.

[Alex Chung]

Do you. Who are your go to cookbook writers?

[Beryl Stafford]

Paul Prudhomme was big. Yeah. Marcella Hazan is one of my favorites.

[Alex Chung]

Oh, she's amazing. The tomato, the canned tomato and butter and onion.

[Beryl Stafford]

Oh, I've made that many, many times.

[Alex Chung]

You take a canned tomatoes, butter and an onion.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yep. I have some in my freezer right now.

[Alex Chung]

And were you known, like in your friend circles is like, oh, we should go to Beryl's house because she's cooking tonight.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, she loves to cook. She's a great cook. And we entertained a lot. And as a matter of fact, I worked for a caterer a little bit to see what that was like and learn the ropes. It was very hard. It didn't really work with raising kids, I thought. And I quickly decided that wasn't for me. It's too hard.

[Alex Chung]

And I know that there's a. And I say this not to minimize the accuracy of it, but there's a basic story which is one day, a rainy afternoon, Beryl and her daughter baked some oat bars and the rest is history. But I think you probably agree it's not exactly how it happened.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, you probably.

[Beryl Stafford]

It wasn't that easy.

[Alex Chung]

You were probably baking, baking together for a long time.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. And she, she did open up the cookbook and say, I want to make

[Alex Chung]

these just one afternoon.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, just one afternoon. And she was 12 or 14.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

Somewhere around there.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

By the way, her name is Alex, right?

[Beryl Stafford]

Alex. But when she was born, Alexandra seemed like too big of a name for a baby.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

You know, and so just as a little nickname, we called her Bobo for no reason, just cute name. So the recipe she found had four ingredients. And I happened to have them all in my cupboard and I said, great, you know, do it. And they were delicious as bars. Yes. They were dripping in butter and corn syrup.

[Alex Chung]

And it was just, it was like probably corn syrup, oats, corn syrup, oats

[Beryl Stafford]

corn syrup, brown sugar and butter.

[Alex Chung]

Then you cook them on low temperature

[Beryl Stafford]

for, like, 15 minutes.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

And they were really good. And she was taking them to school and sharing them with her friends. And then she said, mom, I gotta make some more. People love these. And I said, okay, let's keep making them. And I had some friends in the natural food industry that were saying, you gotta make these healthier and sell them.

[Alex Chung]

Cause they're made with corn syrup at

[Beryl Stafford]

the time, corn syrup and butter. And although now butter is not.

[Guy Raz]

Butter is fine.

[Alex Chung]

Butter's great. And corn syrup is a weird one because, you know, it's just another form of sugar. I guess people. I guess companies tend to use more of it.

[Beryl Stafford]

And, well, it is genetically modified, so that's the problem. And it's got a great shelf life, and it gives you a great mouth feel. But it's, you know, bad for you, say the experts.

[Alex Chung]

But people are saying, use, like, a different kind of sugar.

[Guy Raz]

A cane sugar, or what?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. Well, what I picked was Sucanation. It's a less processed brown sugar than brown sugar. And so I picked that. Now I use coconut oil, but coconut oil was one of the first oils that I used. And instead of corn syrup, I used brown rice syrup. And it wasn't so easy that I just, aha, this is what we'll do. And bought those ingredients. We tried different ingredients for many months.

[Alex Chung]

I mean, you're making these bars. Your daughter is saying, people want them. Can you make more for school? Then you have friends who are like, you should change the ingredients up. But I'm thinking the subtext there was like, hey, Beryl, like, maybe there's something here. Here. Is that.

[Guy Raz]

Was that there?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes.

[Alex Chung]

Like, how fast did that start?

[Beryl Stafford]

I would say after a few weeks. Because this was a thing that she was doing, making these. I mean, that didn't last that long. You know how kids are. She just. Yeah, that phase was going to peter out quickly. And so that's when Larabar had just come around and Clif Bar was here. But we're all kind of new, you know, and vegan was new. And they said, you know, go to Whole Foods and see what the bars are like. It's growing. It's becoming a bigger category. And also with the backdrop of me not knowing what the hell I was gonna do with my life, maybe you should make these and sell them, is what I was hearing.

[Alex Chung]

What was it about this recipe that was like, you know, versus, I don't know, some chocolate blondie or some cookie recipe that you'd made or something else that you made.

[Beryl Stafford]

They were unusual because they were fresh baked. And for a bar that you might sell in a retail store, there aren't that many fresh baked. But a lot of them were guillotine

[Alex Chung]

pressed like a guillotine.

[Guy Raz]

Like it just cuts. It cuts.

[Beryl Stafford]

It cuts it in four corners, you know, four straight corners. And they were great. And I didn't have any other options, you know, I didn't have anything else to do really. And so it just kind of became this idea. And her nickname was Bobo. That's so catchy. And so I thought, Bobo's Oat Bar. Well, that's kind of cute. And I didn't think anything of it. More than it'll be some kind of hobby or this will be farmer's markets maybe or something. Yeah, farmer's market. You know, I didn't spend a lot of money on it or a lot of time. And also my kids thought I was insane. They were becoming teenagers and they were like weirded out by it that I would do that, but I didn't care. And so I wrapped them in Saran Wrap without a label for a few days and brought them around to my neighbors and changed flavors. And I kept working on the ingredients. And then my girlfriend came over one day and my round kitchen table, and we sat down and she said, you know what, let's draw you a label and we'll call it Bobo's Oat Bars. I think that's a great idea. Go to your kitchen drawer and get me a Sharpie. And she right there, drew on a piece of paper the girl that's on the bar to this day, I mean, in five minutes. And she was trained in graphic design, but she was also a stay at home mom. And she wasn't working. And she said, no, this'll be cute. We'll draw a little girl and make the writing kind of fun, homemade looking. And we'll go to the brewing market, which is right down the street. Coffee shop. And I'm very shy and I'm like, I don't know how to do that. And I don't have experience in sales or the food business. And she said, so what? You know, let's just try it. It'll be fun. And so I wrap them in Saran Wrap and I go to the printer. I get labels printed with her artwork with no nutritionals. And I put the word organic on it, not knowing that I couldn't.

[Alex Chung]

Right. You can't get certified organic yet.

[Beryl Stafford]

But I did anyway. Cause all my ingredients were organic.

[Alex Chung]

And I soon changed that, but in that context of just, like, selling it in a little store, you could get away with it.

[Beryl Stafford]

And so I wrap up a few. I had four flavors. Original chocolate, cranberry, and coconut. And she said, okay, I'm gonna take you to the coffee shop, and I'm gonna make the block. You get out, and you go to the barista and ask who wants to sell them. And I said, no, I'm scared. What do I say? And she said, get out of the car. I'll see you in a little bit. And so I walk in there, and this was, you know, 20 years ago, there was a long line. The barista standing there hardly can keep up with making lattes. And I'm standing there looking at him, and I don't want to stand in that line. And so I just walk over and put it down on his little shelf. And he's looking at me like I'm insane. And he goes, what is this? And I go, I just want to see if you'll sell these. They're vegan. And I had a little sell sheet, and I dropped them off, and I ran out. And he said, well, wait, hold, hold, hold on. What do I sell these for? And, of course, I hadn't thought about that. I thought he would know. And I just made something up. 250 or $202. And he was irritated and ran out. And then I had the courage to go back in in two weeks. And he said, I need some more of those. They sold out. And then he reordered in about a month maybe. And I was shocked. And I just went back and made more, and that was 12 bars. And he said, we do get a lot of vegans in here now, so great. I don't have any vegan options. And so I brought him more, and gradually I made $14. One month, I'll never forget. And I thought, okay, this might work. 14 could be 14,000.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment. Beryl saves money by sharing a commercial kitchen, but burns through it by buying her ingredients at the wrong place. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this. Every business right now is asking the same question. How do we actually make AI work for us? Because the possibilities are huge. But guessing is risky, and sitting on the sidelines, that's not really an option, because chances are your competitors are already making their movement. That's where Netsuite by Oracle comes in. With Netsuite, you can put AI to work today. NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP trusted by more than 43,000 businesses. It brings everything together. Your financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM all in one unified system. A single source of truth. And now with the NetSuite AI connector, you can connect the AI tools you already like directly to your real business data. That's what makes AI actually useful. Helping automate routine tasks, deliver actionable insights, and even cut costs. So instead of waiting and wondering, you can start moving forward. If your revenues are at least in the seven figures. Get their free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com built the guide is free to you at netsuite.com built netsuite.com built

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[Alex Chung]

have

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[Guy Raz]

Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's around 2004 and after getting her homemade oat bars into one, cop Beryl starts baking more of them and shopping them around town.

[Beryl Stafford]

I had gotten into a little co op in Boulder that opened and wasn't around for very long, but they were the perfect store for me. Very granola ish. And they didn't mind that I was wrapped in Saran wrap with a three day shelf life and they sold very well there. And then I had a call from some random coffee shop and I got in there and then there was another little local grocery store called Lucky's that actually is now owned by Kroger and has grown. But same thing. I just went in the back door with a couple and ran out as fast as I could.

[Alex Chung]

So it was mostly or all local co ops and little shops and grocers and coffee Stores in Boulder.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And they had a three day shelf life.

[Beryl Stafford]

They did with the Saran Wrap in the very beginning.

[Alex Chung]

Here's a question for you. Boulder's a. I mean, it's not a tiny town, but it's compared to Los Angeles or New York. It's a small town and probably it's not uncommon to run into people, you know, a few times a week. Right. Randomly in Boulder. And you knew people, you'd been there since you went to college. Was any part of you, like, nervous or worried that somebody would see you

[Guy Raz]

and they'd be like, beryl, oh my God, what are you doing? What are you selling?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. I can't believe you said that, because. Yes. And it was such a stupid fear, but I was afraid of people seeing me because it was a new me. I was a stay at home mom, tennis player who had a social life. And now this was the new me. And I mean, I was put in such a tough situation that it was sink or swim. I mean, I was trying to survive. And in the beginning, that's not what I was thinking. I didn't think it was gonna make a living for me, but I thought maybe, what if it did? And what if I just made a little bit of money and lived on that I would be okay with that, you know, because I thought it was so fun and so unusual to be able to bake something and people are going to buy these, you know. Wow, that was just so remarkable to me. It was a miracle that somebody would actually buy, take them home and eat them, feed them to their family. It was like playing store.

[Alex Chung]

Do you remember in those early days when you were selling at the coffee shops, ever running into somebody who said

[Guy Raz]

something like, oh, hey, Beryl, I hear you're doing this like, granola bar thing. Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

Do you ever.

[Beryl Stafford]

Oh, yeah. How's the cookie business?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

Kind of in a condescending way. Yeah. Those things hurt. At the same time, you're going through some self doubt.

[Alex Chung]

And apparently your own children were doubtful about this.

[Beryl Stafford]

Oh, yeah. And of course, my ex husband, he was like, what? I mean, oh, what are these stupid bars doing in my country club? That came back to me and I thought, well, success is a good pushback.

[Alex Chung]

So at what point do you remember? Because this is, you know, I can imagine you were baking them yourself for the coffee shops because you're dropping off what, a few dozen or a dozen at a time?

[Beryl Stafford]

A dozen. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. All right.

[Alex Chung]

Dozen at a time.

[Guy Raz]

So you can.

[Alex Chung]

You can manage that. But I guess at a certain point you had to move out of your kitchen. Right. You had to do this in a bigger space.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. And I knew that from the beginning the health department wouldn't like that. So I found a shared kitchen. They were looking for more cooks or people starting to rent space. Right, to rent space. And they were a sandwich delivery company, and they wanted somebody to come in a couple of days a week and use their ovens and pay them a

[Alex Chung]

rental fee or whatever.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. And like hourly or daily. And so I came in one day a week and used their oven, and I hired some of their people that worked for them, two girls to help me. And so I did that for probably a year.

[Alex Chung]

And did you. I mean, at what point did you move from Saran Wrap to, like, a more kind of professional packaging?

[Beryl Stafford]

So then I knew I had to extend my shelf life. This was crazy. And I finally ended up with my first packaging machine, the biggest piece of equipment that I bought for $25,000.

[Alex Chung]

How did you. How were you able to do that?

[Beryl Stafford]

I went to the bank. Back then it was easier. And they gave me a loan for $100,000. But first, up until then, I took a second mortgage on my home and I used credit cards, and I just was very frugal. And I mean, this was all just very scrappy. I didn't know anything about payroll, and I didn't care. I had no idea if I was making any money or what things cost. I just knew at some point I'd figure all that out. So then I outgrew, finally, this commercial kitchen. But a next door space became available in another commercial kitchen. And so I went over there, loved it, left. And when I went back the next day to sign, another food entrepreneur had gone in. And I said, I got it first, though. I was there first. And he said, let's work a deal. Let's share it. And it's Justin's nut butter.

[Guy Raz]

Oh.

[Beryl Stafford]

And so he and I ended up. And he started just like me, knowing nothing, making this peanut butter in his kitchen. And so he and I jointly took this new space bigger, and it was just the two of us, and we formed a little llc. It was crazy. And we shared employees and we shared the space.

[Alex Chung]

Wow. So you basically pooled your resources, but you had your separate businesses. But that LLC that you formed covered employees who did work for both of you and the space.

[Beryl Stafford]

Right. And the employees would one day make nut butter and one day make oat bars.

[Alex Chung]

What an interesting idea. So that llc, it was the employer?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. And our only expenses were rent and Payroll. Otherwise, we had our own bank accounts.

[Alex Chung]

And you guys got along great. And that worked okay. It didn't create, like, what if he needed more help?

[Beryl Stafford]

We argued about it all the time.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

And I had a bookkeeper that I had just found. And so I turned her on to Justin, and he was like me. He said, well, I don't understand what she would do. He'll never forget he said that. And I said, trust me. She's going to help you. So we ended up sharing her, but we'd argue about it. So when she was working for me, of course, he couldn't help himself to come in and say, hey, I've got a quick question for you. You know, did I screw up on this check? And it was always like, no, no, get out. You can't talk to her now. You have to wait till tomorrow.

[Alex Chung]

I imagine that your costs. I mean, you said you borrowed $100,000 from the bank, which is a lot. But also, I mean, your costs were what, Buying oats and sugar and coconut oil? Were you buying it, like, I don't know, at Costco? Like, where were you buying this stuff?

[Beryl Stafford]

Believe it or not, I was buying it at Whole Foods. Full retail. Wow.

[Guy Raz]

In the beginning, really expensive.

[Beryl Stafford]

Crazy. And then. Then I started buying it in bigger bulk, but at Whole Foods until I figured out the food distribution network. But crazy expensive. But I did that for almost a year, just figuring out the ingredients.

[Alex Chung]

I mean, it sounds like. And I mean this with the utmost respect because I think that it's not uncommon, but also, it takes a lot of courage. Sounds like you didn't know really. No much at all. Like, you didn't know the industry. You didn't know about, like, how to run a business. You didn't know how to buy your products.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yep.

[Alex Chung]

I'll write a bill on a piece of paper, and I just got to keep moving.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes, exactly. And sell, sell, sell. That was the first and foremost on my mind every day once I started taking it seriously. But then, you know, I joined the Naturally Bolder Network, which is a nonprofit organization to help food entrepreneurs that were just starting and didn't know anything, and surrounded myself with people that were doing this or had done this. Most of them advised me to stop baking, have somebody else bake this, and you focus on sales and marketing. And I said, no, I want to control this. And I don't want them to look like their guillotine cut with four square corners. They're imperfect. Each bar. And I wanted them to look like that.

[Alex Chung]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

And you were selling the bars.

[Alex Chung]

Do you remember at that point how much you were selling the bars for? This is in, like, 2006.

[Guy Raz]

Ish.

[Beryl Stafford]

I think. I think I was selling them for $1.17.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Alex Chung]

And then they would sell them for

[Beryl Stafford]

two or $2.50 or whatever, or $1.17 to distributors.

[Alex Chung]

Right, okay. So. But you probably weren't profitable yet. I mean, you were probably spending more than you were bringing in still.

[Beryl Stafford]

So I. I was. I became profitable probably six years after I started. Six or seven years.

[Alex Chung]

Okay. I think it was maybe around 2007 that you managed to get into the Whole Foods in Boulder. Is that right?

[Guy Raz]

Does that sound right?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, that sounds right.

[Alex Chung]

And I think back then, you could walk into a Whole Foods.

[Guy Raz]

There was.

[Alex Chung]

The company had a lot more autonomy, gave the store autonomy, and you could meet with a buyer there and say, hey, I'm making these. I'm local. And often they'd say, great, this sounds cool. Tell me how you got into that Whole Foods.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. So they were very into the local entrepreneur, the local farmers. That was their thing. And it worked like that. You could get into one store, they might then spread you into other stores in that region. But after I kind of got my courage up, and I felt a little more confident in this Bobo bar, I had sold at the co op for a while, I walked into the bakery, and I asked for the manager, and she said, oh, well, we've been buying these and eating them from the co op down the street.

[Alex Chung]

Oh, wow.

[Beryl Stafford]

We've been wondering when you're going to walk in. And I said, duh. You know, what took me so long? But I said, great. You know, and she said, yeah, let's. Let's talk about this. Let's bring these in. And we're just having a conversation right there in. On top of the bread, you know, just standing there. No office visit. She said, yes, I want these. Tell me everything, but you're gonna have to get your packaging together. In other words, I need a freezer safe packaging. And I said, you got it. And she goes, I'm gonna get you in 12 of the Colorado stores.

[Alex Chung]

She said that even before you were

[Guy Raz]

in just that one.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. And she said, I need you to demo in all of these stores. And I said, okay, you got it, not even knowing what she meant, not knowing about freezer safe packaging. But I just said, oh, yeah. And I walked out of the store pinching myself, but freaked out because I had no idea what she really wanted me to do. So I called my packaging guy, and by that Time I had my packaging machine. So I went to him and said, I need to be freezer safe. I need six months shelf life.

[Alex Chung]

Six months shelf life. And did that scare you?

[Beryl Stafford]

I mean, it scared me that I didn't know what to do. I didn't know how to do it. But, no, I knew I'd figure it out. I mean, I'm like, are you kidding me? This is my big break. And asked around, what's the best way to do the demo? I called the stores in Denver. I'm coming in this weekend. Can you tell me the best time to come? Of course. Most of them hang up on you. Cause they don't wanna teach you.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

You should know what you're doing. And doing a demo is not really that hard. So that's what I did every weekend for a long time. And the whole time I'm figuring it out, I'm showing up at these Whole Foods, and they're telling me, you've gotta get the word organic off your label.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Alex Chung]

Because you were using organic this and organic that.

[Guy Raz]

And you're like, it's organic.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. And they're saying, now you gotta go through the certification process.

[Alex Chung]

You have to get that organic. Certification is cost money.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. And time.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

And so I. I stopped using an organic. An ingredient that I was using organic. I started using conventional. Stayed with conventional oats, which was 80% of the product. And so then I said, made with organic ingredients. And then I came to find out later. You really can't say that. There's all these limitations on what you can say. But I pushed it as long as I could.

[Alex Chung]

So, all right, so you are in Whole Foods and you start to demo this. Cause that's how you get people to buy it. And you were the demo person, or did you bring anyone else on to help you?

[Beryl Stafford]

I was in the beginning because it was expensive to have somebody stand there for four hours. And. And I enjoyed it. I mean, it was. It took up my whole weekend.

[Alex Chung]

How did you. Yeah, tell me a little bit about the experience of putting yourself out there. Because you're not a performer. You're not like. I don't think you Were you, like

[Guy Raz]

a drama kid in high school?

[Alex Chung]

Did you do the play, the theater and any of that? No. You weren't that kid.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Alex Chung]

You were the one who was, like, in the back of the choir, like, oh, God. Well, they made you all sing, right? You're like, I really don't want to do this. So now you are on stage as a demo person. You are on Stage, you are embodying a character because you gotta sell stuff, right?

[Beryl Stafford]

You're acting. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Hey, come try this.

[Beryl Stafford]

You're the busker. But these are all strangers coming to me. They don't know anything about me. They don't know that I'm just trying to figure this out. So it became a lot easier fast. I. I always tell people when you're standing behind that table, you know, you're kind of in charge and they don't know anything about you, and they're happy to eat free food. And I got good at it and I got good at the trade shows for that reason. I felt like once I'm behind that table, I'm safe.

[Alex Chung]

And so you're in Whole Foods and you start to go to trade shows and presumably the big ones, right? The Anaheim one, the Baltimore one, but you're still small. Were you the only full time employee even once you were in Whole Foods?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes, for a few years. And then I hired a marketing assistant, slash sales assistant, and she did the trade shows with me. And then I had my bookkeeper who was a contract laborer. Well, they're all part time, though. Yeah. I didn't want to manage people I didn't know how. I didn't have experience in that. And I knew I needed help. And I did that for many, many years and basically burned myself out after 10 years.

[Alex Chung]

I mean, at a certain point, you got to start working with a food distributor. Like that becomes required in order to hit more stores. A lot of stores, yes.

[Beryl Stafford]

So I had a small distributor here, dpi, it's called. And they started taking my bars to Whole Foods in Denver. And it was the first pallet I had ever used. And I didn't even know what a pallet was when I started the business. And I have a picture of me in this truck, but that was my first foray into distribution. And then I'm at Expo west one year. This is in Anaheim, the biggest trade show. And a woman walks up to me quickly with the clipboard and says, here, please fill out this paperwork. And this is for UNFI East. And UNFI is our biggest natural food distributor in the country. They have an east coast distribution network. She said, please fill this out. I'm running the Whole Foods and the whole east coast, and I want to get your bars in there. Please fill out this paperwork to get into distribution. Thank you. And she walked away. And I thought, what just happened? So this means now I'm in national distribution. And that just kind of fell in my lap. And I didn't know how to fill out distribution paperwork. So I did and I figured it out and now I'm in the whole country of Whole Foods.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Beryl Stafford]

And I was really taking it seriously then, and I was excited about it and I was working very, very hard and traveling a lot to Seattle, Austin, Southern Cal, where I thought was the best market for a vegan oat bar.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

How are you positioning them? I mean, you described them as a vegan oat bar, but of course, this is really like the sort of prime time era of gluten free is really starting to take off. And organic, obviously, but. But gluten free is a big one, right? Vegan gluten free. So did you jump on that at all? Because oats are normally gluten free.

[Beryl Stafford]

Oh, yeah. That was a big thing for me. And as a matter of fact, in the beginning, I had a gluten free line that was made with certified gluten free oats. And then the regular oats, even though oats are gluten free, they gotta be

[Alex Chung]

certified cross contamination sometimes. Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

Out in the field. And so I had those two lines going. It was too confusing for the consumer because I had the word gluten free written under there. So I ended up just making them all gluten free. And yes, that was a big selling point. It was a big feature for us then and is now.

[Alex Chung]

And by this point, I mean, by, I don't know, six years in, I guess both your daughters are probably in college, out of the house. Right. So you had time to really dig in.

[Guy Raz]

Dig in.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. And I did. And I worked all weekend at night. I was obsessed with making this work, but I was having fun. I would say I was kind of in a vacuum because I'm still doing everything myself. Yeah. And that part was hard, but I didn't want a partner because I couldn't figure out who that would be or what they would do.

[Alex Chung]

And by the way, when you're in Every Whole Foods, you know, it's great, but it's not atypical to do around, I don't know, anywhere from 5 to $10 million in sales. Like, even if you're in Every Whole Foods, by and large, many of the brands at Whole Foods are still very small businesses.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. I mean, I was probably bringing in, I don't know, maybe 5 million at

[Alex Chung]

that time, which still, I mean, you probably were.

[Guy Raz]

That was great, given that 4 million,

[Alex Chung]

given that you had started at, you know, at 00. Right.

[Beryl Stafford]

And I was very profitable and lean.

[Alex Chung]

You didn't Have a whole bunch of people.

[Beryl Stafford]

Right.

[Alex Chung]

What do you remember? I mean, even six years in. Right. 2010, when you're profitable, finally, what were things that you. That were just so hard for you to figure out that you probably could have figured out earlier had you done things a little differently?

[Beryl Stafford]

I probably could have hired a more elevated salesperson. In the beginning, I was doing it all myself, and I didn't have relationships with the buyers. So a more seasoned sales expert, if you will, probably would have been a good hire. You know, I learned everything about the business, though, so I do think it's important to try to do everything yourself in the beginning, as long as you can.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah. I mean, how did you, for example, figure out how to price it?

[Beryl Stafford]

You know what I did in the beginning, I just went to Whole Foods, and I saw what everybody else was charging for their bars, and my bar was bigger than Most. It's a 3 ounce, and most bars are an ounce and a half, 2 ounces. So I kind of bumped it up a little. You know, I feel like I went on my instinct a lot, and I had a lot of naysayers around me who.

[Alex Chung]

Why would somebody be a naysayer?

[Beryl Stafford]

Don't do this. Don't do this. You're crazy. You're gonna have to sell too many to make a living at this. And you need to make a living. And family. I always say family is the worst person to get advice from in the beginning because they don't want you to fail. And my family thought that I was cuckoo to do this. But I remember having lunch with my sister once in Boulder, and she said, well, what? You're gonna do this? You're gonna delve into this and actually make it work? And I said, yeah, what do you think? And she said, well, how many of those can a person eat? And I thought to myself, how crazy of a question is that? You know, she doesn't really get it. And I said, how many people are in the country?

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, Bobo's raises some outside money. And all of a sudden, the pressure starts to ramp up. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this.

[Alex Chung]

I'm Guy Raz.

[Guy Raz]

So it's around 2014, and Bobo's is profitable, But Beryl is still doing a lot of the work herself. And there's another thing to worry about. Competition, as the snack bar market is starting to explode.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, I did get a little nervous when I would see New brands come after me. I thought maybe they had more money behind them, they knew what they were doing. But I just was a firm believer in the flavor of my bar and the taste. And it was a little different because they're imperfect, they're a little bigger. And I got positive feedback constantly. I just, I knew it was going to work. I had to make it work.

[Guy Raz]

And what about marketing?

[Alex Chung]

I mean, even, you know, bringing in $5 million in sales is great, but

[Guy Raz]

it doesn't leave you with a lot

[Alex Chung]

to spend on advertising. Right. So how are you, what were you doing to get people to become aware of the product?

[Beryl Stafford]

You know, it was mostly in person demos. And then I did hire demo teams, a lot of them, and they were very expensive and they could only be there at the store for two to four hours. And that's your audience. And then after that you missed a lot of people and you've spent 200 bucks, which to me was a lot then. And I wasn't doing a lot of marketing. There was no social media then, I don't think.

[Alex Chung]

Not to the same extent.

[Guy Raz]

No.

[Beryl Stafford]

I shipped samples, I gave away a lot of free product. I did a lot of events, races and athletic events, mom groups all over the country, but that was it. I came across a budget I did in 2014, 2013, handwritten in pencil, and I think my marketing budget was 10%. You know, that's what an advisor told me.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, it's 10%.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

And meantime, there's all these different and food trends. There's paleo and keto and, you know, this and that. And I wonder whether you would get people from time to time saying, look

[Guy Raz]

what they're doing, look what those guys are doing.

[Alex Chung]

Oh, this, you know, this is, this brand is really attracting a lot of interest. And look what they're doing. Like, were you ever, did you ever feel under pressure to try and do any of those things?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, and the protein kush was brought to us many years ago and we are sticking with what the bar was in the beginning, which is just an old fashioned cookie that your grandmother could bake and in her oven and will be a 100-year-old brand. We're not trendy and we're not adding any superfoods to it.

[Alex Chung]

So, okay, so you've, you have, you've got this business and I think, you know, as you expand. This is now 11 years after you launch this. And I want to, I want to get into this period because you had been spending day and night, weekend after weekend on this thing and you get to 2015 and you are doing $8 million in sales that year. Did you start to around that time? Think, I'm getting tired.

[Guy Raz]

I need.

[Alex Chung]

I need to. Yeah, I need to figure something out here.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. I was burning out, and probably in 2014, I was traveling. I was doing trade shows myself, and I felt like I had gotten it to a certain level, and I was tired, and I thought, what if I sell this and make a little money and be done with this? And I started asking around the community in this industry. And then I meet this guy, TJ McIntyre, and I had known him for many years in the natural food business. He was with other companies, and he had never been a CEO before. I had never thought of hiring a CEO. And he came in and we talked for a while, and he said, you know, I want to run this company. Don't sell it. You're too little, you're too young, you're too small. You need to grow. And, you know, what's wrong with you? Are you tired? And I said, as a matter of fact, yes. And he said, no, don't. Let's. Let's do this. Let's run it together. And I thought about it for a while, and I think it was around holiday, and I was in New Orleans with my daughter. And he called me and he said, you know, I need an answer, and just pressured me, which was good because I couldn't decide what to do. And I said, okay, let's do it. I'll hire you, and let's see how it goes.

[Alex Chung]

And why was T.J. why?

[Guy Raz]

Do you remember?

[Alex Chung]

He was so enthusiastic about wanting to do this.

[Beryl Stafford]

I liked him, but I didn't know him well. But we hit it off. Very smart. I thought he'd be a great leader, and I thought, okay, big step, but I'm gonna do this. So we became a real company. Then I had to hire lawyers, and we had to, you know, get all the legal documents together, and we created shares. You know, that's how we became a company. And he got some shares, and, you know, I've got the rest. And it was a risk, and I was scared, but I believed in him, and he's still here.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Alex Chung]

And so now you guys are creating a new partnership. You are going to step down as CEO. What was your new role going to be? What were you going to focus on?

[Beryl Stafford]

My new role was going to be founder, president, face of the company. We hadn't yet formed a plan. I was still unclear about raising capital. I had never done that before. But he Convinced me that we couldn't do it without growth. And. And he's right.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah. He had a playbook, and I think he wanted to double the sales within a year or so. How did it work in terms of, like, decision making? I mean, did you essentially say, I'm gonna trust your playbook and I'm not gonna second guess you, and you've got the reins here?

[Beryl Stafford]

Pretty much. There were times that were a little challenging and we butted heads, but all in all, yeah, I just kind of worked alongside of him and then gradually stepped back and let him take over.

[Alex Chung]

Okay. Part of this plan was to raise outside money, and the first round was about $8 million.

[Guy Raz]

Again, not.

[Alex Chung]

We're not. I mean, by tech terms is nothing. Right. They're raising 100 million per round or whatever, but still, it's. Now there's money from outsiders coming into the business. How did you feel about that whole process about going out and raising money and having to justify or answer questions that might have felt, I don't know, insulting or invasive, like, why do you think you're gonna be able to do x, y and z kind of questions?

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. All of a sudden, there were some big boys at the table, and it was intimidating for me. They're now in my business making decisions. I took some money off the table when the investor came in.

[Alex Chung]

That was the first time you came into probably real money.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. Not enough really to retire on.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

But still, I mean.

[Beryl Stafford]

But it was a good little chunk.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah. Given that you started selling it at your coffee shops. Right. I mean, to have, you know, a few hundred thousand or maybe a million or so more, I mean, that's pretty great.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah.

[Alex Chung]

I think by the end of 2017, or maybe even earlier, you guys had doubled. You hit 16 million revenue. So now really, you're starting to see momentum. Right. And did you find that your investors were coming in and saying, you guys really should do this? Or I noticed that this brand has this product line and you guys should really explore that. Or I see this product at Costco, and maybe you guys should try that. Were you getting that from them, or were they mainly hands off?

[Beryl Stafford]

In the beginning, the first investor was because, you know, it was just the three or four of us at the table, and I trusted and believed in their advice. You know, it's been a long time now. It's been 10 years since I've had investors, so there have definitely been times where I didn't agree.

[Alex Chung]

Was it over products like, hey, guys, shoot more chocolate, or was it more about strategy? Or was it marketing? Was it. What were some of the conflicts over?

[Beryl Stafford]

Well, I would say mostly the economic terms of their investment.

[Guy Raz]

Right.

[Beryl Stafford]

That. That has been a struggle each time we ran out of money.

[Alex Chung]

Right. Because as, as an investor who's listening, knows when the company asks you for more money, the playbook is to ask for more ownership.

[Beryl Stafford]

They're trying to de risk, I'm trying to de risk. So everybody's trying to protect their investment.

[Alex Chung]

So here's what's interesting, is that every year you grew, you continued to grow. Right. But every year, the bar market became more and more competitive. And you had. You know, we talked about this a little bit earlier, but trends. Protein, keto. I mean, rxbar. We've done that on the show. And Clif Bar and Larabar and others. Even though you guys were growing in sales, did it become harder? Did you start to see that it was really hard to compete against all these different brands? This category got so big.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. It's very competitive. And you might have a great promotional period. It might not last. You're constantly trying to innovate and figure out what the consumer wants. People get sick of products. People get sick of eating the same thing. A lot of companies aren't around anymore because consumers get. You just get tired of something, I guess. And that is our worry. There's so many bars out there, and retailers will trade you out very quickly.

[Alex Chung]

Yeah. I see you at Costco, for example. And Costco is tricky because it's great. It's visible you're at Costco, but also Costco is ruthless. They need you to give them the lowest, lowest, lowest price so they can sell it for slightly, slightly higher price. But that's still really low.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes. Costco likes to find the newest, best thing and be the first to market with it. They will bring you in and then want the customer to miss you and then be excited when you're back.

[Alex Chung]

Right. It's always this kind of nightmare scenario of one day. They're like, hey, we're gonna take a break.

[Beryl Stafford]

And they do that. But that wreaks havoc on our manufacturing.

[Alex Chung]

Right. Cause you're making all these products for

[Beryl Stafford]

Costco, and the orders come in big. And so we have bought equipment just for Costco and spent a lot of money on them. And we forecast that Costco will remain our partner. And they don't always do what we want. They do what they want, of course.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Beryl Stafford]

Right. And it's hard running a manufacturing plant as we do. We've got 500 employees, and it's 125,000 square feet, which sounds enormous to me. Yeah, still. Still a small business.

[Alex Chung]

And you are vertically integrated. You make your own. You own your own production lines.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yes, we have a little bit of CO packing, but mostly we do all of our own baking. And when things get very busy, when we're heavy with Costco, we use our co packer.

[Alex Chung]

And I mean, with, you know, with the money that you guys have raised over time, I think it's maybe. Total is 15 million.

[Guy Raz]

Is that about right?

[Beryl Stafford]

A little bit more. 17.

[Alex Chung]

17 million, yeah. some point, right. Investors want a return, and so usually it's like, you know, in a case like this, you sell to a bigger beast, you know, a General Mills or one of these, you know, food brands, PepsiCo or something. There was a time where they were just snapping these Larabar and RX bar. And they were snapping them up. Right. And Kind bars and Clif bars sold to Mondelez. And some of that has slowed down in the last two or three years, some of those acquisitions. But, I mean, it has to be on the radar for a brand like yours at some point.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah, and I'm sure we are. It has gotten a lot harder to sell and sell for a figure that you're happy with. Like you said, it used to be profitable. Who cares, as long as you're showing fast growth. And now it's different. It's a lot harder to sell your company now. But, yeah, so, yes, we will be selling at some point. It's a matter of becoming kind of perfect with your numbers to be as desirable as we want to be.

[Alex Chung]

So, I mean, here we are now, right? It's estimated that, again, you're a private company, but it's estimated that sales are anywhere between over $100 million now at Bobo's, and there's a lot in the line. There's a crowded energy bar or snack bar market. But this brand is an established, known brand. And, you know, it is kind of amazing that, you know, you were a divorced mom, kind of struggling to figure out what you're gonna do with your

[Beryl Stafford]

life, didn't have a lot of options,

[Alex Chung]

and you no idea what the. Where the path is gonna go?

[Beryl Stafford]

No. And I feel like, obviously, luck came in play a lot. I was at the right place at the right time. But I attribute this successful brand to my grit and love. What you do, you know, it wasn't really work for me. It was fun. You know, I was just shocked anytime I would see somebody that I didn't know eating a Bobo Bar. Billy Bob Thornton, my favorite actor, just said in an interview that that's what he eats for breakfast every day, is a Bobo's oat bar. And I mean, that just, that just touches my heart, you know.

[Alex Chung]

Well, you answer my, my luck and skill question already, so I don't need to answer ask it. But so thank you for doing that on my behalf. I mean, it's almost like you just kind of followed what you were interested in. It was interesting to you, and that's why it happened.

[Beryl Stafford]

Yeah. And I think my toughness came out, you know, I had to be tough and figure it out, you know, and there are a lot of situations where I would not have done that if I had stayed married. I would never have done it. And one thing I learned with doing this business, a light bulb went off once midway through my career here, that you and I and everybody can figure anything out. Anything. You can learn how to fly an airplane. You can learn how to build an air conditioner. You can figure anything out. It's not about being the smartest person in the room. It's about desire, focus, and time. And that's what I learned.

[Guy Raz]

That's Beryl Stafford, founder of Bobos, by the way. Over the years, the packaging has gone through some changes, but it still has that same drawing of a smiling blonde haired girl. The one that Beryl's friend sketched out in five minutes in her kitchen using a Sharpie. Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast app so you never miss a new episode of the show. And if you're interested in insights, ideas and lessons from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs, please sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by Nour Gill, with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Alex Chung. Our engineers were Patrick Murray and Kwesi Lee. Our production staff also included, includes Casey Herman, Kathryn Cipher, Chris Massini, John Isabella, Sam Paulson, Rommel Wood, Kerry Thompson, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built this.