Lenny & Larry’s Protein Snacks: Barry Turner

Summary

How I Built This with Guy Raz: Lenny & Larry’s Protein Snacks – Barry Turner

Release Date: February 24, 2025

In this compelling episode of How I Built This with Guy Raz, host Guy Raz delves into the entrepreneurial journey of Barry Turner, the co-founder of Lenny & Larry’s, a leading brand in the protein-packed snack industry. Barry’s story is one of resilience, innovation, and the challenges of building and maintaining a brand amidst personal setbacks and business decisions.

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Early Life and Athletic Pursuits

Barry Turner’s path to entrepreneurship began long before he founded Lenny & Larry’s. Growing up in Hickory, North Carolina, Barry was a talented athlete, excelling in baseball until an injury left him deaf in one ear. Determined to continue his athletic career, he turned to wrestling during his time at Georgia State University.

Quote:

"I felt like this was the pinnacle of my sports career. Everything had led me to that moment."
— Barry Turner [06:46]

Barry’s dedication saw him auditioning for shows like Knights and Warriors and eventually landing a spot on the popular TV show American Gladiators, where he adopted the persona of Cyclone. However, his burgeoning career was cut short by a severe injury during a Powerball event, leading to the termination of his role on the show.

Quote:

"It was one of the most painful things I’ve ever gone through. I didn't know what I was going to do next."
— Barry Turner [19:10]

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The Birth of an Idea: Protein Muffins

After recovering from his injury, Barry reconnected with his friend Benny Graham. The two shared frustrations over their monotonous bodybuilding diets and sought a more palatable way to incorporate protein into their meals. This conversation sparked the groundbreaking idea of infusing protein powder into everyday baked goods.

Quote:

"Why can't we put that protein in that muffin?"
— Barry Turner [23:00]

In 1993, armed with $1,400 and a DIY mentality, Barry and Benny launched Lenny & Larry’s by baking protein-rich muffins. Their initial trials faced challenges, with the muffins being hard and having a short shelf life. Undeterred, they partnered with Len Hoffman, a retired baker from Entenmann’s Bakery, who introduced a scientific approach to perfecting their recipes.

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Scaling Up: Private Label Success

Lenny & Larry’s began gaining traction through private label partnerships, notably with Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. Their reduced-fat scones became the coffee chain's top-selling product, leading to expanded offerings like protein brownies and cookies. This period marked significant growth, with Lenny & Larry’s servicing over a hundred Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf locations, generating substantial revenue.

Quote:

"Our first invoice was $13.20. That was our first sale."
— Barry Turner [32:29]

Despite the success, personal circumstances led Benny to relocate to Georgia in 2001, forcing Barry to make the tough decision to sell Lenny & Larry’s for $480,000. This sale was a moment of deep regret for Barry, who felt he had relinquished his vision for the brand.

Quote:

"That day was the worst day in my life."
— Barry Turner [65:56]

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A Second Chance: Reacquiring the Brand

Six years later, in 2007, Barry seized an opportunity to reacquire 50% of Lenny & Larry’s from the new owners, Don Crouch and Jim Felder. Motivated by a renewed passion to build the brand, Barry set out to innovate beyond the original protein muffins.

He introduced the high-protein brownie, a novel concept at the time, and later the protein cookie. These products resonated with a broader audience beyond bodybuilders, targeting the average consumer seeking healthier snack alternatives. The protein cookie, in particular, became a massive hit, fueling exponential growth.

Quote:

"I just saw this as building a brand, not just a business."
— Barry Turner [52:00]

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Exponential Growth and Challenges

By 2016, Lenny & Larry’s achieved impressive revenues of $94 million, primarily driven by the success of their protein cookies. However, rapid growth brought new challenges, including quality control issues and the pressures of maintaining brand integrity amidst increasing competition.

Barry remained steadfast in his commitment to quality and brand vision, focusing on offering "better bad" snacks—indulgent foods with added nutritional benefits. His philosophy was to provide consumers with healthier choices without sacrificing the pleasure of their favorite treats.

Quote:

"I created my own lottery. It was all the work and grind that got us here."
— Barry Turner [70:03]

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A Painful Second Sale and Reflections

In 2016, faced with acquisition offers from larger corporations eager to capitalize on Lenny & Larry’s success, Barry made the difficult decision to sell 75% of the company to Lion Capital for $250 million. This second sale mirrored his feelings from the first, leading Barry to view it as the second worst day of his life. He expressed profound regret over relinquishing control and felt that the new owners failed to uphold the entrepreneurial spirit that defined the brand.

Quote:

"I wish I never would have sold my company."
— Barry Turner [65:57]

Barry highlighted issues such as poor management decisions and a lack of commitment to the brand’s original vision under the new ownership. Despite the financial success, the emotional toll of selling the company twice left Barry yearning for the times when he could directly influence the brand’s trajectory.

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Lessons Learned and Moving Forward

Barry Turner’s journey with Lenny & Larry’s underscores the complexities of entrepreneurship—balancing innovation, growth, personal passion, and the hard choices that come with scaling a business. His story serves as a testament to the importance of staying true to one’s vision and the emotional challenges that accompany building a brand.

Quote:

"Luck wins you the lottery, I created my own lottery."
— Barry Turner [70:23]

Barry emphasizes that success is built through relentless work and dedication rather than mere luck. His experience illustrates the highs and lows of entrepreneurship, offering invaluable insights for aspiring business leaders.

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Conclusion

Barry Turner’s story with Lenny & Larry’s is a rich narrative of ambition, innovation, and the bittersweet nature of business decisions. From humble beginnings and athletic pursuits to building a multi-million dollar brand and facing the emotional aftermath of selling it twice, Barry’s journey encapsulates the essence of what it takes to build something lasting and meaningful.

Quote:

"Doing what I wanted to do from the very beginning, which was build this brand. Money didn't excite me. Building my brand excited me."
— Barry Turner [52:00]

Barry Turner continues to serve on the board of Lenny & Larry’s, remaining quietly hopeful about the brand’s future while reflecting on his profound connection to its origins.

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Notable Quotes:

1. "I felt like this was the pinnacle of my sports career. Everything had led me to that moment."
   — Barry Turner [06:46]

2. "Why can't we put that protein in that muffin?"
   — Barry Turner [23:00]

3. "Our first invoice was $13.20. That was our first sale."
   — Barry Turner [32:29]

4. "That day was the worst day in my life."
   — Barry Turner [65:56]

5. "I created my own lottery. It was all the work and grind that got us here."
   — Barry Turner [70:03]

6. "Luck wins you the lottery, I created my own lottery."
   — Barry Turner [70:23]

7. "I wish I never would have sold my company."
   — Barry Turner [65:57]

8. "Doing what I wanted to do from the very beginning, which was build this brand. Money didn't excite me. Building my brand excited me."
   — Barry Turner [52:00]

---

Barry Turner’s narrative is a poignant reminder of the passion and perseverance required to build a successful brand, and the emotional complexities that come with letting go of a creation one has poured their heart into.

Transcript

[Guy Raz]

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[Barry Turner]

Len Hoffman was a retired baker from Intamin's Bakery and the first thing he said he goes stop calling these recipes. He goes these are formulas. And I was like, okay. He goes, this is scientific now, boys. So we get Len to start helping us with these products that we're working on. And we're also starting to do some private label for a pretty large coffee chain here in Southern California. And they're like, well, hey, I wonder what else these guys do. So they ask us about doing some scones. And we told them we made the best scones in the city. Which was not a total lie, which was not true. Just completely.

[Guy Raz]

You did not even make scones.

[Barry Turner]

The guy. We didn't even know what the hell a scone was.

[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 former American gladiator found his true calling. Lost it, and then found it again by building a top selling protein cookie brand. Lenny and Larry's. If you follow food trends, protein right now is an exploding category. Just to put it in perspective, in 2024, the global market size for protein fortified foods was around $27 billion. But by the end of this decade, it's expected to reach close to $50 billion. Just take a look at the aisles of Whole Foods or even Costco, you will start to notice more and more products that tout their protein content, whether it's crackers or nut butter or even ice cream. But back in the days when protein was kind of out of fashion in the 90s, two former bodybuilders entered the space with a pretty revolutionary product. It was a protein packed muffin. This was in 1993 when Barry Turner and his friend Benny Graham were out of work and struggling to make it in Hollywood. A few months earlier, Barry finally caught a lucky break when he was cast on the TV show Gladiators. But just a few episodes in, he got injured. And that was the end of his TV career as an American gladiator. So one afternoon, Barry and Benny were talking about how boring their bodybuilding diets were, namely chicken breasts and egg whites. And they wondered, could you take protein powder and just mix it into things that are more interesting, like muffins or brownies? A few days later, they started to experiment, literally dumping protein powder into muffin mixes. And eventually they found a recipe that worked. They decided to start a small business selling their muffins to local coffee shops around Los Angeles. The muffins did pretty well, but the business never really took off. So in 2001, they sold Lenny and Larry's for a small amount of money and moved on. But Barry Turner would come to regret that decision almost immediately. And it would take him six years to buy most of the business. And that's when he started to turn Lenny and Larry's into a national brand of cookies, brownies and other protein packed treats. Today you'll find Lenny and Larry snacks at thousands of locations across the country. The brand was really a pioneer in protein fortified food. And Barry's path to building that brand was a windy one. He grew up in the 1960s and 70s in Hickory, North Carolina. He was a pretty talented baseball player, but an injury on the field left him deaf in one ear. So when he started college in Georgia, he set his sights on wrestling.

[Barry Turner]

I was living in a little town called Cartersville, Georgia, and my mom had seen a guy had a wrestling ring in his backyard and she told me about it. So I kept going to his house every day for two straight weeks, leaving notes, knocking on his door. And I kept saying, I want you to train me. I want you to train me. And he doesn't respond. So finally he calls me one time and he just said, he goes, look dude, I've been traveling, I've been on the road wrestling, you know, All I kept saying was, just see me. I sort of kept just see me and maybe you'd want to train me. So I show up and he sees me, goes, you know, I think I could probably help you. So we trained for two weeks, non stop, seven days a week, we're just training. And I learned, I learned everything I can about professional wrestling. You know, how to fall, how to, you know, how to do a sunset flip, how to come off the, you know, the top rope, flight, elbows, everything. And it was so much fun. And so within two weeks, he gets.

[Guy Raz]

Me a match and you became a character or, or were you, were you Barry Turner? And.

[Barry Turner]

No. Well, when I showed up, I was Barry Turner, but when the promoter saw me, he goes, this guy's too pretty. We got to put a mask on him because I can't look better than the actual guy who's going to beat me. And the coolest thing about that is, man, when they put a mask on you, you just become someone else. Yeah, so they put a mask on me, they called me Mr. Olympia and they gave me a manager. I got a guy's name's Diamond Dave. He's wearing a red tuxedo with a red top hat. It was, it was full on like a major production. And I, I was getting picked up by a bigger group. They were Going to send me on the road, like, immediately. And this was like nwa, WCW type wrestling at the time. And that's where I was heading. And that's what I really thought my career was going to be. I was going to become a professional wrestler and be very successful at it.

[Guy Raz]

So what happened?

[Barry Turner]

My girlfriend at the time thought wrestling was beneath me, thought I could be. I could do better. So I chose a girlfriend and didn't work out, so.

[Guy Raz]

Right, but you did take her advice not to be a pro wrestler. Right. And I guess instead you decided to go back to school to Georgia State University, where you wound up meeting this guy, Benny Grah, who would, of course, factor into this story. So who was Benny?

[Barry Turner]

What Benny was? I actually met him at a gym and he said, hey, I heard you. You. You're doing your. You see a little bit of pro wrestling. Would you want to consider it again? Because I really want to get into it. And I said, yeah, I'd love to. So he and I started training together and we just became instant friends. We were just kind of goofballs and having fun. And he was a personal trainer too, at the time. And so he said, I'm training this lady, and she has this movie script written for two guys that would be you and I. And she'll move us to California. She'll pay for everything. Do you want to go? And I go, sure, let me finish my schooling so I can get my degree. He goes, we got to go next month. And I was like, let's go for it. And so we packed up and we went to California.

[Guy Raz]

Wait, let's just unpack this. Somebody was working on a movie script.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, she had this lady, she was. She had a little bit of money. So when people find people with money at that time, everybody's pitching a movie script around the country. You know, that guy.

[Guy Raz]

What was the premise of the movie?

[Barry Turner]

It was similar to the movie Warrior, if you remember the movie with Tom Hardy and Edgerton Guy back then, it was about like, that was like UFC type fighting for that movie. And so kind of similar to that. It was like, you know, two guys. We were going to be wrestling.

[Guy Raz]

And so the idea was that you and Benny might star in it. Like, you might be the Warriors.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, we might be the guys. We'd be the main characters and Kicking some ass. Kicking some ass. And we're Big Gu. We're growing our hair really long. So we just. We had it. We had a look. So, yeah, it was just. It was just one of those things where you just Go. You know what? It's. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to move to California. I never in my heart believed a movie would ever get made, but I'd ever star in this movie. I just had an opportunity to go to California.

[Guy Raz]

And you were a semester away from graduating from getting your degree.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, because at that time I was like, it was one of those things. I'm still kind of young. I'm like 29 or something at that time. Yeah, I can, I can finish later.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you get to LA 1991, and with the hopes and dreams of being in this film, what happens?

[Barry Turner]

Well, obviously the film never gets made. So we're literally. Benny and I are just being paid by this person to just work out. We worked out twice a day. We ate. That's all we did was just get bigger and bigger and bigger.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Barry Turner]

And yeah, seriously, like, can you give.

[Guy Raz]

Me a sense of how big? Like.

[Barry Turner]

Sure.

[Guy Raz]

What's your height and, and what was your weight at the time?

[Barry Turner]

Well, six feet. The biggest I ever got weight wise was 250. 250 pounds.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. That's.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Insane. I mean, I mean, can I ask you. This is not a very polite question.

[Barry Turner]

No, it's okay, I'm honest.

[Guy Raz]

Were you using steroids to get that big at that.

[Barry Turner]

To get. Yes, yes.

[Guy Raz]

You have to, you can't, you have to. You can't eat food and you can't protein powders without.

[Barry Turner]

Cannot. My natural body, My natural body. I could get to. I got to about 217, I think was the biggest I got to naturally. And it's still alive. It was still big.

[Guy Raz]

I'm still a professional athlete.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. And most people will not tell you the truth when you ask questions like that, but I just believe in being honest about everything.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, does it have long term consequences?

[Barry Turner]

I think it does for people who use it for a long time. I didn't like it. It would. Mood swings galore. I mean you could be, you could be happy one day and you could just be, you know, throwing stuff at a wall the next. It just. Yeah, it's not, it's like. Especially if you're a pretty high strung person anyway or just very aggressive.

[Guy Raz]

Volatile.

[Barry Turner]

Volatile, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So you, but you, that was. Your job is to get really jacked for this, this movie. How long, how long did it did that last before it became clear that this movie was never going to pan out?

[Barry Turner]

I got paid for about a year.

[Guy Raz]

Wow. Yeah, it's a pretty good deal.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, not bad.

[Guy Raz]

Meantime, okay. So once you kind of find out, this is not gonna happen. You're already in la, you're this Jack dude and you have long hair. Tell me about your hair.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, I kept growing my hair to the point where it got down to my waist.

[Guy Raz]

What was that guy? Fabio?

[Barry Turner]

Fabio? Fabio, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Were you like Fabio?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, he had cool hair. His hair was. His hair wasn't as wavy as Min.

[Guy Raz]

He was, like, massive with long hair.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So you had this really long hair and that was your look.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, that was it.

[Guy Raz]

And meantime, Benny was also doing this, right? He was. And you. And you guys were sort of on this parallel path of you're in la, so you might as well keep auditioning for parts, right?

[Barry Turner]

That's exactly right. I was. One thing I'll tell you is I'm not an actor. And I never. I didn't want to become an actor. I just had a look. I was big with long hair. You could. You could put me in and things so I could audition for parts.

[Guy Raz]

I read that you were on Doogie Howser.

[Barry Turner]

It was a guy in a pool with a girl on my shoulders. Benny and I both were on Doogie Howser. We did the Bodyguard with Kevin Costner and Whitney Houston.

[Guy Raz]

You were in the Bodyguard? What'd you play?

[Barry Turner]

We were kind of nightclub, kind of bouncers. There's a scene where they're coming in from the limousine, come into the Mayan theater downtown la, and we're kind of holding back the crowd because they're trying to get to them, whatever. And then in the scene when she's performing, we're right there at the stage. Keep it. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So how many seconds do you get on screen during the Bodyguard?

[Barry Turner]

Honestly, it's maybe three, four seconds. Five seconds, max. Yeah. I was in another movie, too, called Death Becomes her, and I still get residuals for that.

[Guy Raz]

Is that with Meryl Streep?

[Barry Turner]

Meryl Streep, Bruce Willis. Yeah, it's like Bruce Willis, Barry Turner, Meryl Streep. We were. We were all featured actors, but if you had a look, they could. They could use you. So it's funny. And Death becomes her. Our titles were Beefy Guy. I'm not kidding you. So I was Beefy. I think I was Beefy Guy number eight. And we got. It was. It was such. I had so much fun because the other beefy guys in the movie, we were all just. Just big hams on the set. And we didn't have to work that much. It was a lot of hurry up and wait. And we just. We hung out that's all we did. We hung out, we ate and we just messed around. It was a lot of fun.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so this is also the era of, and those of you under the age of 40 will have a harder time remembering this. But American Gladiators, this is a show on television where you had a bunch of really strong men and women and then you have contestants who'd have to battle them out in different scenarios, like trying to get a touchdown or trying to win a wrestling match or a jousting match. This was a huge, massive show. You find out about an open casting call in 1992.

[Barry Turner]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And, and, and, and when you found out about it, what did you think?

[Barry Turner]

Well, the first thing I thought was, I'm going to go become an American Gladiator. Prior to that, I auditioned for a show called Knights and Warriors.

[Guy Raz]

It was like, it was like a knockoff show.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, knockoff show, medieval setting. It lasted one, it lasted one year. And Benny and I both go and audition for, for Knights and Warriors.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

And they wanted both of us. And I said, no, thank you. I said, I'm gonna go become an American Gladiator.

[Guy Raz]

Huh. So what was it? Was it a one day audition and they were going to make a decision at the end of the day or was it a multi day thing?

[Barry Turner]

Well, it turned out to be a multi day and multi month process. And we do all the events. We're, we're doing Powerball, we're doing jousting. We ran two 40 yard dashes in front of these executives.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. But it wasn't, But Gladiators wasn't like boxing and stuff.

[Barry Turner]

No, it was.

[Guy Raz]

No, it was more like violent. It was like jousting with like padded jousts and.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, but it was wrestling. But guy, that, that is violence.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

With a giant Q tip, we'll call it. And it doesn't matter if it's padded. It's like when you're hitting at that speed, very violent show. And so that day we went through all these different events and I could do them all. And so they narrowed it down to 10 people that day. And I was one of the 10 people. And then we all kind of come back and do some things and they narrow it down to three people. I expected to be in that top 10. But now when you get to like, you've got a 33% chance of being on this show, your heart's racing a little bit and you're saying like, holy cow, dude, I'm a Hickory, North Carolina guy. Just, you know, I'M just this guy from the south, and I'm just thinking, like, I'm about to be on the. At that time, the hottest show on tv.

[Guy Raz]

I'm looking at a photo of you at the time you were selected. I think people are gonna make that assumption now. And you became. You become a cyclone. That's your charact.

[Barry Turner]

They called me Cyclone. They thought I was very. I was big and I was very fast. And that's just the name they came up with.

[Guy Raz]

You were like 31.

[Barry Turner]

About 31. 32. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Giant. You were just a giant. Like your. Your bicep is like the size of an adult head.

[Barry Turner]

I had some big arms. I still have big arms guy.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you get the job. You're on this massive show and you've got a serious career ahead of you.

[Barry Turner]

That's exactly what I thought. I was like, this is it. This is the pinnacle of my sports career. I didn't make it. Baseball, football, whatever. But this, this was my pro sports. Everything had led me to that moment. Right. I felt like if anyone had earned it, it was me.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

And. But then God has a way of saying, let me. Let me deal you another blow.

[Guy Raz]

What. What happened on my.

[Barry Turner]

I did eight shows, and on the day that they called, they said, this is your coming out party, Cyclone. They were gonna. They were gonna make me a known. I mean, I was going to become. I felt like I was going to become a star. And so they said, you're in every event today. That means they're going to. They're putting you out there. But the best event was Powerball. People love Powerball. So that's basically the guys that contestants are sticking a ball into these little cylinders, and there's three of us trying to tackle two of them. And so I dive, there's two guys, they come together, I dive between them, I extend my arms and I wrap them up and at that. And my bicep popped when I did that. Yeah. And my bicep was just gone. It had rolled up in my arm. Complete. Complete. Yeah, complete detachment. Started to be gory. But it's. What. Gross. It's what happened. And I wanted to hide it from the. From the producers.

[Guy Raz]

It was like hanging meat off your arm.

[Barry Turner]

Well, it just guy. What it does is it rolls up like a. Like a shade. It just goes up into your. Up into your body, towards your. Towards your shoulder.

[Guy Raz]

Weird.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, it's just complete. It. It attaches at your forearm and. Painful up to that point. One of the most painful thing I'd ever Gone through. It was just like burnt. Like somebody's taking a match and they're lighting your arm on fire for 24 hours a day. I could not stand, but I would not stop. I kept taping it and trying to shut off the pain. I didn't take pain pills or anything, but I was doing. Because you understand, this was my moment. There's nothing that would ever kept me off except a liability issue with the actual producers of the show. They said, you got to go. You got to go to the hospital.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. So they ended. That ended my career as a gladiator.

[Guy Raz]

So you were done. That was it. Which must have been crushing because you worked so hard to get that job.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. If there's ever a. If there's ever a time in my life being depressed, that was it.

[Guy Raz]

So here you are, 31.

[Barry Turner]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

You kind of taste this. This moment of, like, stardom, like just the beginning of it. And, you know, you're probably thinking, okay, here we go. And then it's over.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So what did you. I mean, obviously, to rehabilitate your arm, that was priority.

[Barry Turner]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And when you say you were feeling like, down, like, what does that. What did that mean?

[Barry Turner]

Feeling like, feeling like a failure. I worked my. My whole life. I felt like from the time, you know, being a kid, being an athlete to picking up the weights, you know, going through becoming a bouncer in nightclubs and wrestling, just everything was just like leading towards. There was something. There was a pinnacle somewhere. And American Gladiators was my pinnacle.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

You could have cast me in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger. I wouldn't have taken that over being an American Gladiator. And I. It just. Yeah, just depression is like, not even. It's funny. I'm talking about. I've never really. I've never really shared this with anyone, but when you're a proud person from the south, you don't talk about your feelings. You just. You just swallow it and you go on with life and you pick yourself back up. But, man, behind the scenes, I just. I didn't know what I was going to do. I was like, how. How do I. How do I top that? Yeah, how do. Basically, how do I get that feeling of being, you know, being a success again?

[Guy Raz]

All right, so you're. You're going through this and trying to figure out the next step, I guess.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And Benny, he was on Knights and Warriors, that sort of low budget spinoff of American Gladiators. Also had an injury, like something that kept him from. Right.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. He tore his Shoulder, his labrum or something. And you can't make this up. We're literally two guys on these two opposite shows. We both get injuries, and it's just that I'm like, are you serious? How does this happen?

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So you guys are. You and Betty are not sitting around trying to brainstorm ideas of, hey, what should we do together?

[Barry Turner]

You're just.

[Guy Raz]

You're two Jack guys trying to recover. Recover from your injuries and still eating probably insane amounts of protein and egg whites and chicken and rice and whatever you can just stuff in your body.

[Barry Turner]

That's it.

[Guy Raz]

And I guess one afternoon you're just kind of eating all this food and to. Having a conversation.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, just having a conversation. We're at Coffee Roaster Cafe in Marina Del Rey. It's our favorite little spot. And eating chicken breasts and egg whites. And our thing was we always like to, like, before we'd work out, we'd always like. You'd have like a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with a cup of coffee, a muffin with a cup of coffee. Something sweet with the coffee. Just. That was just our thing. So we had a muffin sitting on the table, and we were going to split that muffin and have a cup of coffee.

[Guy Raz]

It's just a regular muffin. Just.

[Barry Turner]

Just. Just a regular muffin. Yeah, just kind of. Kind of a natural type muffin. Nothing, nothing in it. And I'm eating chicken breast and egg whites, and I point to the chicken breast and egg whites and I said, why can't we put that protein in that muffin? And I looked up and it's like Benny had. Saw a ghost. And he just goes, oh, my God. He goes, we're doing this. And I was like, you damn right we are. And that's all we needed. That was it.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. This is the light bulb moment. And you're like, why can't we put that into that? And now this is 1993. There were some. I mean, protein powders existed. Whey powder existed at the time.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. There was metrics, was big Metrics, was kind of doing their thing. But it's funny, though, there was protein powder and there was protein bars, but there was nothing else.

[Guy Raz]

Metrics is Met rx, right?

[Barry Turner]

Met rx, correct? Yeah, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

GNC existed.

[Barry Turner]

So you get protein powders. You get protein powders. Yep. But there was no one putting protein in anything other than a. Other than a protein bar. You didn't have to. You just. If you wanted protein, you ate tuna, you ate chicken, you ate steak, you.

[Guy Raz]

Ate eggs, which is a pretty Great way to get protein.

[Barry Turner]

Let's be honest, the best way to.

[Guy Raz]

Get protein, it's just not convenient for everybody.

[Barry Turner]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

You can't take a steak on the go with you. Just munch on it while you're driving like Fred Flintstone.

[Barry Turner]

Hang on, I got a steak in my pocket, I need to eat it.

[Guy Raz]

But there then and there you guys are sitting there and both of you are like, this is it.

[Barry Turner]

And it's funny, you said light bulb moment. I always look back on it and I go, this was a giant halo. It was like, this is not your moment where you can maybe go make a little bit of money. This, I think, is something bigger than that. I thought that from that very day.

[Guy Raz]

This is like a Renaissance painting. This is like Fra Angelico's ascension. It is the halo right there on the angel.

[Barry Turner]

That's was our moment. Two Podunk guys from the south gonna.

[Guy Raz]

Go change the world when we come back. In just a moment, Barry and Benny build a business, but not a brand. And Barry makes a deal that he regrets almost as soon as he signs it. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built this. We've all got our own professional goals. Maybe to impress an investor or show off your next big creative idea. Well, Canva can help achieve your goals with the power of visual communication. We spend a lot of our lives at work, so it's time to find ways to enjoy it. Canva lets you jazz up your documents with images and charts from their massive media library or add animations to make your presentations pop. And I just love how easy it is to make designs. So whether you work at a small or a big company, in a team of two or two thousand, Canva empowers workplaces everywhere to design compelling content, save time, and be more productive together. Love your [e-mail] while you're away. Your home could be an Airbnb. Just like the incredible home I stayed in in Mexico City just a couple weeks ago. It was absolutely beautiful and the perfect base for exploring the city. Maybe you're planning a trip for a long holiday weekend. And while you're away, you could Airbnb your home and make some extra income toward the trip. Find out how much your place is [e-mail] host. Like a lot of people, your New Year's resolution may be to drink less alcohol. Luckily, dry doesn't have to be boring. Thanks to Athletic Brewing Company's fun and flavorful non alcoholic beers. Athletic has a huge variety from IPAs, extra dark sours, hazies Belgian style whites and an Irish style red. No matter what you're looking for in a great non alcoholic brew, the answer is always. Athletic Athletics brews are perfect for any occasion. Plus the zero hangover the next day. My personal favorite is Upside Down Golden. There's nothing dry about Athletic Brewing Co. Non alcoholic brews. Give it a try and head to athleticbrewing.combilt to find it near you. That's athleticbrewing.comb u I l t to grab some fun and flavorful brews near you. Athletic Brewing Co. Fit for all times near beer. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 1993 and Barry and his friend Benny are sitting at a cafe in LA where they've just come up with the idea to start a business selling protein muffins.

[Barry Turner]

There was no turning back, Guy. It was just, we're gonna do this. We didn't know how we're gonna do this. No consumer product, good experience, there's no marketing experience, there's no business experience, nothing. And we just, we knew that day that was it. And so we didn't leave that table until we drew out what we thought the logo was gonna look like. And we left there and went straight to a little natural food store, Rainbow Acres, and picked up some protein powder. We bought some muffin mix, went back to my kitchen and started baking these muffins within two hours. We opened up a bank account that day with $1,400. I don't know why, it was 1400 maybe. That's all we had. And we did a DBA doing business as. So this all happened the very first day.

[Guy Raz]

And the business was going to be.

[Barry Turner]

Called what, Lenny and Larry's.

[Guy Raz]

You decided it right then and there. You're gonna call it Lenny and Larry's.

[Barry Turner]

Right? Right then.

[Guy Raz]

Even though you were Benny and Barry.

[Barry Turner]

Yep. We always called each other something different. It was again, something goofy. We just, our names would change every day. It was just something stupid we did. And so we wanted to create these characters and we said Benny and Barry sound like real people. Lenny and Larry sounds like two characters. And that was it. I think people overthink things. Now that I look back on this, I think people overthink trying to get the perfect name or the, you know, the design or whatever rather than just doing it.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so it's going to be Lenny and Larry's.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And what, when you guys were talking about this in that initial, did you say a snack food brand or did you say, let's just make baked goods or what did. What do you remember?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, we were, we were thinking, we're going to put protein in everything. That's what I was thinking.

[Guy Raz]

Just protein powder, like whey powder.

[Barry Turner]

Whey powder is going to go in cookies, muffins, brownies. We started crazy ideas of popcorns and granolas. We're just, we're thinking of everything. We can put this, put protein in.

[Guy Raz]

What did you guys do? Just got like, muffin mix and like, from the grocery store.

[Barry Turner]

That's, that's all we did. Apple cinnamon muffin mix and some whey protein.

[Guy Raz]

Seems like, Seems simple enough.

[Barry Turner]

Seems simple.

[Guy Raz]

Okay.

[Barry Turner]

You take out some of the flour and you replace it with protein. And it's got to work, right?

[Guy Raz]

Of course. And.

[Barry Turner]

And it did not. They. The muffins actually baked, but they were hard as a rock. And we weren't discouraged. We go, we can find somebody that can do this. That's what we kept saying. We knew it wasn't out there, but we said, we can do this. So we find a bakery in Santa Monica called Montana Bakery, small little bakery, and said, hey, here's what we're gonna do. Can you guys help us? We said, we just need help putting these recipes together.

[Guy Raz]

Did you know the owners of the bakery?

[Barry Turner]

We did. And we just, we met them and they were. It's just two brothers. So we just struck up a friendship and they, they started. Started baking muffins for us.

[Guy Raz]

So they agree to help you figure this out. And what you said to them, look, we want. What did you say to them?

[Barry Turner]

Well, we just said we're trying to get a certain amount of protein in these muffins. We didn't want to really use refined sugars. We wanted to use something healthier. Now we're already thinking about how healthy these things can be.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

So we're thinking we wanted to use like a fruit juice concentrate in place of sugar. So we're just, you know, we're thinking even further down the road than just making protein muffins. Muffins.

[Guy Raz]

And by the way, in those early days, what were you using for protein in the muffins?

[Barry Turner]

We started with whey. And that was our, that was our protein source initially. And what happened? The muffins tasted great. They just wouldn't have a crazy good shelf life. And they started to bind up. They started to get a little harder over, like, just too soon. But we did, we did, actually. We launched with whey protein muffins.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so this bakery did make. They came up with a formulation, and the plan was, you guys bake these muffins for us, and then we're gonna take them off your hands. And do what with them?

[Barry Turner]

We're gonna go sell them. We had no idea who we were gonna sell them to, but we knew. We knew we could sell these. And our first. It's funny, our first account was the coffee shop. We dreamed up the idea.

[Guy Raz]

That coffee shop in Bryan, right?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, yeah. She said, Joanie. And Joanie goes, yeah, I'll give you a shot. And I can remember guy. Our first invoice, we were selling these muffins for, like, a dollar and 20 cent a piece. And our first invoice for our business was $13.20. That was the first invoice we ever issued.

[Guy Raz]

And so they would just sell them, like, in their display case.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, they put. Or either put them right by the register. We were big. I don't know why. We were always big about, hey, if we'll. If you could put these by the register, that'd be great. And always would. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And how many. And then presumably also going to some other coffee places or. Did you try gyms?

[Barry Turner]

We did. We did Rainbow Acres Natural Food Store here locally, and we did Gold's Gym in Venice, and we did a local health food store called Mrs. Gooch's before.

[Guy Raz]

Oh, yeah. Which was eventually bought by Whole Foods. And so how long was the shelf life for the muffins?

[Barry Turner]

Probably like four days or something like that.

[Guy Raz]

And it wasn't sold? It wasn't packaged. Was it packaged?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, it was packaged. We had them in, like, a plastic wrapper. And then we had a sticker. We had a label, like a label sticker on top of it.

[Guy Raz]

So you would hand package them yourselves. You'd get.

[Barry Turner]

We would hand package them ourselves. Correct. We had a machine.

[Guy Raz]

Muffins from the bakery.

[Barry Turner]

Muffins from the bakery. We would sit there at night with our little crimping thing, and we would crimp.

[Guy Raz]

You basically put the. The package into the crimping machine. Crimp it. It would seal it, and then you'd slap a sticker on.

[Barry Turner]

Slap a sticker on it. Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And how. And. And what was the flavor of the muffin?

[Barry Turner]

We did apple cinnamon, we did blueberry, and we did a lemon raspberry. Those were our three flavors.

[Guy Raz]

And how much protein in each muffin?

[Barry Turner]

I think back then, around 15 grams.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So this is early 90s. This is like, really before the protein revolution, which is. We're gonna get to it because it's. I would argue, just starting now and only now. Are you really seeing an explosion in protein, protein, protein everywhere. At the time, who did you think was gonna buy these? I'm assuming you thought it was gonna be, like, bodybuilder types.

[Barry Turner]

We did, but to be honest with you, we really were developing these. We said for the average consumer. We thought if we could make a. We coined a term later called better bad. But at that time, we thought if we could get them to stop eating, you know, Little Debbie's or Chips Ahoy and come to this, because we. We thought bodybuilders would enjoy it as, like, a little cheat treat. But we were really targeting the average consumer.

[Guy Raz]

So the idea that you were trying. You were thinking was, hey, maybe we could. We could. If we pitch this as a healthier for you muffin, because there's protein and. But there still was sugar in it. There was still carbs in it, but people didn't care about it that much at the same time. But you thought, okay, if we can get people to think, okay, protein, fiber. Was fiber something?

[Barry Turner]

It was. Yeah, we started. We had. We had added fiber already to that product. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And they tasted as good as they tasted fantastic.

[Barry Turner]

People talk about to this day, they go, that's still the best product you guys ever made. Was your. Was your protein muffin.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

All right. But now this is a. This is a small business. I mean, this is like a tiny business. You're going. I mean, you were selling 15, 20, 30, $50 worth of muffins at this coffee shop and that coffee shop and trying to collect. I mean, that's a tough business.

[Barry Turner]

Listen, we weren't even small. We'd have taken small. We were smaller than small. It was just a crazy little idea that we were so determined to make it successful.

[Guy Raz]

So tell me a little bit about what a typical day was like. Was the. Okay, you were not baking the muffins. You had this bakery make baking the muffins Initially, Yep.

[Barry Turner]

So I had to bring in some money. So I was doing some personal training at Gold's Gym in Venice. I had clients. My wife was a personal trainer. I met her at Gold's Gym in Venice.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, you were married. This is your.

[Barry Turner]

This is my second wife, the one I've been with now for over 30 years. Cheryl Sandy. She was a personal trainer. I was a personal trainer. And we had just had one son at a time. And we would just trade off. Like, she'd go to the gym, I'd watch My son, she'd come home, we'd swap off, I'd run to the gym and they'd go to the bakery and package muffins or whatever had to be done.

[Guy Raz]

And were you presumably driving the muffins to every little location that was telling us?

[Barry Turner]

Absolutely. We delivered. We'd get up at 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning, go deliver them around town just so I could be back to the gym by seven, maybe to train a client. I mean, it was crazy. It was just like. It was like, I don't know, I never. You're driving around a car at 4 o'clock in the morning in LA, or even down, sometimes down to Anaheim just to deliver a bunch of muffins.

[Guy Raz]

And it was just you and Benny?

[Barry Turner]

Just me and Benny.

[Guy Raz]

So I would think in like that first year, maybe you do $10,000, $15,000, maybe. But it's exciting. It felt exciting.

[Barry Turner]

Yes. To know that you're spending X amount of dollars, you're bringing in Y amount of dollars. At the end of the day, you're like, hey, we've got money left over every freaking week. This is incredible. We're making money.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. But the formulation still is a challenge, right?

[Barry Turner]

It's still a challenge.

[Guy Raz]

You're not getting a lot of shelf life. And I guess this starts to change when you meet a guy who is a retired baker, a guy named Len Hoffman. Who's Len Hoffman?

[Barry Turner]

Len Hoffman was a retired baker from Entenmann's Bakery. And our business had started growing. We started. So we. We outgrew the Little Baker on Montana. And we ended up baking at a bakery in the Valley Greens Bakery. It was a little bit bigger and green.

[Guy Raz]

In the San Fernando Valley.

[Barry Turner]

Correct. But Lynn Hoffman was friends with the owner of that. And we told Lynn what we were doing and the first thing he said, he goes, stop calling these recipes recipes. He goes, these are formulas. And I was like, okay. He goes, this is scientific now, boys. So we're like, okay. So we get Len to start helping us with these products that we're working on. And we're also starting to do some private label for a pretty large coffee chain here in Southern California.

[Guy Raz]

Private label meaning that they were not Lenny Larry's, they were just selling it as their protein muffins.

[Barry Turner]

Yep. They. It's called the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf.

[Guy Raz]

Sure. And how many Coffee Bean and Tea Leafs were there at that time?

[Barry Turner]

There were over a hundred. Wow.

[Guy Raz]

And you were servicing all of them?

[Barry Turner]

All of them through their distribution center.

[Guy Raz]

So you got a contract with them.

[Barry Turner]

Correct. We were selling our products to some of their independent stores, and they're like, well, hey, I wonder what else these guys do. So they asked us about doing some scones, and we told them we made the best scones in the city, which.

[Guy Raz]

Was not a total lie.

[Barry Turner]

Which was not true.

[Guy Raz]

You did not even make scones.

[Barry Turner]

The guy. We didn't even know what the hell.

[Guy Raz]

A scone was or a scone if you're in certain parts of the world.

[Barry Turner]

So somebody said, hey, listen, for you two rednecks, that's a biscuit with fruit in it. And we said, okay, we can make that. And so that was one of the first products that Lynn Hoffman actually helped us with. It was reduced fat. I don't know why at that time they were doing these reduced fat scones, but that's what they wanted.

[Guy Raz]

Not protein scones.

[Barry Turner]

Not protein. Just reduced fat.

[Guy Raz]

Reduced fat.

[Barry Turner]

Okay. So we saw an opportunity and we made these amazing scones, and it quickly became their number one selling product.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Barry Turner]

And because they. The scones are such a success at Coffee Bean, they. What do you think? They said, what else do you guys do?

[Guy Raz]

Yes. And you said, what do you need?

[Barry Turner]

Because now we saw opportunity there. We're like, okay, we can. If we get this private label business going, we can use that money and help to grow our brand. So they wanted some new cheesecakes.

[Guy Raz]

Mmm.

[Barry Turner]

So we started doing that for them. And then they. They asked us about if we could do things like bundt cakes. And we're. And the answer was always, yes, we can do this. We can do this.

[Guy Raz]

But again, not protein. These are not protein products.

[Barry Turner]

These aren't. These aren't protein products for them. But then when we started, like, showing them protein products like high protein cinnamon rolls, they. They were like, okay, this is interesting. So we started selling them some of our. Our newest protein inventions.

[Guy Raz]

But this is not Lenny and Larry's. This is.

[Barry Turner]

No, this is Charisma. This is their product. This was. This was a chance to actually. We're actually making money now. And it got the point where we ended up. We were delivering pallets of product to their distribution center. So much. The business was booming. So much on the private label side, we had to go buy a big truck to deliver it seven days a week. We were dropping off product.

[Guy Raz]

Wow.

[Barry Turner]

So this was.

[Guy Raz]

You guys are bringing in like 400.

[Barry Turner]

500,000 a year now. It's starting to make some good money.

[Guy Raz]

But you're not building your brand.

[Barry Turner]

Still working it behind the scenes now. Don't get Me wrong. We did not give up on it. Our day was spent like we just kept opening up more and more accounts locally. Started getting into some independent 7 11s that could actually take product without the approval of the corporate office.

[Guy Raz]

Just the muffins, though.

[Barry Turner]

Just. Just the muffins. Yeah, yeah. And then we started developing more products. We started, we came up with a brownie. High protein brownies at the time. We came up with a high protein cookie. And we still know we're onto something. Then things, things change. One afternoon. So which was, which was Benny was delivering product to Coffee Bean and I got a call. He got rushed to the hospital. He had a deviated septum, so he had a surgery done and they had lanced an artery. Didn't know it at the time, so he bent over, was picking up something and blood just starts gushing. Oh, Jesus. So he gets rushed to hospital, almost dies. He realizes he wants to leave California and go back to Georgia and be around his family. So we tried to manage this, we'll call it as an east coast, west coast business, but 99 of our business was on the west coast.

[Guy Raz]

Let me just pause for a sec because I know, I know that I guess this is around 2000 when he moves, but I think, you know, most of your business, probably 95% of your business was Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, right?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And Benny has this kind of life changing experience. He decides he wants to go to Georgia and you're going to run the business bi. Coastal. But that's hard, especially in the sort of the pre Internet, pre zoom era.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And that meant that you were probably delivering all the product and dealing with all the, you know, know the, the, you know, billing and collection and all that stuff. And he probably wasn't able to do that much that way.

[Barry Turner]

No, at that time we were. It wasn't big enough to do east coast, west coast. So basically doing 99 of the work for half the money.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

And it does take anyone long to figure that out. That's not, that's not a good model. And so you want to change. So what do you do? You say either I buy you out or we sell the business. So we put the business up for sale in 2001. 2001.

[Guy Raz]

And who was the buyer?

[Barry Turner]

Don Crouch and Jim Felder.

[Guy Raz]

They were two friends who were, they.

[Barry Turner]

Were just two local guys, lived in.

[Guy Raz]

The Valley and they saw potential in this business as a white label.

[Barry Turner]

As a white label, yeah. Yeah. They liked the brand, but they really, they thought the white label business they could Turn it into something.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And roughly what did they pay for it in 2000?

[Barry Turner]

They paid $480,000.

[Guy Raz]

So not. Not ideal, but not bad.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, not bad. At least we created. We made money along the way. We created something that had value, and it was kind of cool that you could sell a business for almost a half a million dollars that you created from just an idea.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. And they got those accounts, though they.

[Barry Turner]

Were going to continue. They got everything. Yeah, they got everything.

[Guy Raz]

How'd you feel about that? Did it feel like a relief? You know, Benny's gone and.

[Barry Turner]

No, it's just a. Again, regret that I should have just bought him out. And then Don and I were standing in the parking lot talking after we had done our deal, and Don said, you and I should have just partnered on this. I said, I 100% agree. And so Don and I remained friends as he. As he owned the business. They actually paid me to really kind of manage the Coffee Bean account because they knew how valuable it was, and I had a great relationship with Coffee Bean.

[Guy Raz]

Do you remember feeling similarly to how you felt when you were out of American Gladiator when you injured yourself?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like. Like something ended that you just didn't want it wanted to end. I still had the passion for my brand, and it was like. It was just kind of like giving it away and never watching it, never giving it a chance to grow up.

[Guy Raz]

It was six and a half years.

[Barry Turner]

Six and a half years. Yeah. Somebody asked me one time, what did you. What did that six and a half years cost you? I said, it just cost me time because it came down to being very scattered and not having what I call a hero problem product. We had all these products that we could make, but none of them were the one where you just went to. Yeah, this is. This is our calling card. This is what we're going to be known for.

[Guy Raz]

You never focused on, like, this is the thing that only we make and only we can make it. Great.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. We made too much stuff to really focus on one that could be a winner. Now, we still had our brand, but like I said, it was. The majority of our business was Coffee Bean.

[Guy Raz]

And nobody knew your.

[Barry Turner]

Or nobody knew the brand. No. Locally you did. Like we would. You would have. Yeah. Magic Johnson was a big fan of our brand back in the day when he was still playing with the Lakers. And he would see our product, you know, and he'd always buy it at Gold's Gym. And somebody would say, hey, Magic, that's Lenny. Hilarious. He'd always. He would stop and say, oh, man, I really love your product. So we had those types of things where we had. We had people that knew us in LA, but nowhere else.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. So when that ends, you're 40?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, 2001. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And one kid or two?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, two from our previous marriage. Two daughters and then my two sons. So I had four kids at that time.

[Guy Raz]

Right. So there's a lot on your plate. I mean, that's no joke.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, true.

[Guy Raz]

So, all right, so you are out of Lenny and Larry's. And then I guess over the next few years, you do a bunch of different things, like you go to real estate. I think you even made some money, right? You got out before the bust.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, it did well, actually. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And then I read that you did some work. Like you went to work for a software company for a while.

[Barry Turner]

Well, that's an interesting story there. So one of my good friends, Michael Venney, he was working with these guys in the software business, and they wanted to meet me. I meet these guys and they've got this little software company they're doing, and it's kind of computer monitoring software. And so they asked me one day if I would like to join them. And I was like, well, in what capacity? What do I know about software? Right? And they said, we don't know. We said, we just think that you could. Maybe you'll run our company one day. And I was like, okay. So I hung out with these guys. I call it hanging out with them. They were paying me to hang out with them. And it's just, you know, I'm learning. I'm learning about the software business, but I'm also learning how to market online, direct to consumer. And so after a year of being there, they said, we'd like to make you president of our company and let you run our company. And so I'm running the software company called Awareness Technologies, and we're selling computer monitoring software. Now, this is at the height of, like, the NBC show Catch a Predator. So we're working with, you know, law enforcement agencies, schools, you know, parents, et cetera. Because the software captured everything. Every keystroke, every email, every website visited. And we were doing great. I mean, it was. This thing was catching fire. But I was looking at this. I'm just like, well, if I could do this with software, imagine what I could do with. If I had my old company back, I could sell direct consumer snacks. And it was just, you know, kind of putting it out there in the universe. And that's when Don Crouch reached out to me and said, I need help. I'm about to shut this thing down.

[Guy Raz]

He calls you, says, I'm going to shut this thing down that I bought from you.

[Barry Turner]

Because he said, I don't know what I can do with this. I don't, I don't know where I can go with this anymore.

[Guy Raz]

Was he still supplying coffee beans?

[Barry Turner]

Still supplying coffee bean. And, and he had a little bit of other, like private label stuff he may have, he was doing locally. And he said, I'm about to shut this thing down. Would you ever consider coming back? So we did some quick negotiations and I said, yeah, just throw caution to the wind here. I'm in. Let's.

[Guy Raz]

He said, you want to come back?

[Barry Turner]

You want to come back? Be a 50, 50 partner with me.

[Guy Raz]

5050 partner?

[Barry Turner]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And did you have to buy, buy some of it back?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, it was very, it was very cheap.

[Guy Raz]

Low. It was a low. Okay, so. So you were able to buy 50% of the company back and basically be the partner again?

[Barry Turner]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

What was. I mean, I'm just, it's going to sound like a sort of a dumb question, but teeing you up for it. But I'm curious in your mind, what was exciting about that prospect? I mean, you would. He left six years earlier. Who had not been involved for six years. What was exciting about coming back to this thing?

[Barry Turner]

Now I got to do what I wanted to do from the very beginning, which was build this brand. Money didn't excite me. Building my brand excited me. I wasn't scared at all. I got my baby back.

[Guy Raz]

When we come back in just a moment, Barry has the second worst day of his life. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built this. Do you experience excessive bouts of money stress? Do you avoid your bank balance like it's a text from an ex? Do you feel guilt and second guessing about your spending? If you answered yes, you may be suffering from financial funk. Ynab spelled Y N a B is a life changing app designed to cure financial funk with a simple method that offers total control of your money. The average YNAB user reports saving close to $600 in their first month and 6,000 in their first year. Side effects may include less financial stress, getting better sleep, and eliminating arguments about money. Warning. Using Ynab may be habit forming. Before starting, ask your wallet if adding more joy to every day and every dollar is right for you. Listeners of How I Built this can claim an exclusive 3 month trial subscription for Free with no credit card [e-mail] built Life is short. Spend it well with YNAB. What separates the true leaders from the rest? It's not just vision and ambition. It's the courage to take the road less TR traveled. For those with a palpable passion for life, there's the Range Rover Sport. This isn't your average luxury suv. The Range Rover Sport is a new dimension of sporting prowess. With black hood vents, black brake calipers, and 23 inch gloss black wheels, the optional stealth pack engages your dark side. Plus dynamic launch delivers maximal torque for increased straight line acceleration. And with rapid DC charging and an estimated all electric range of 48 miles, the range Rover Sport plug in electric hybrid delivers thrilling performance with an electric edge. Build your Range Rover Sport@Land RoverUSA.com.

[Barry Turner]

Hey.

[Guy Raz]

Welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2007 and Barry's bought back half of Lenny and Larry's from its current owner, Don Crouch.

[Barry Turner]

I wasn't scared at all. I loved going back into the unknown. But I was so confident that I could turn this into what I originally thought Lenny and Leary's could be, which was a brand. And funny story. I walked in the office the first day we had a small little office on, in Encino on Ventura Boulevard. And jokingly to Don, I just said, okay, I said that, sit down, shut up and watch what I'm about to do. And we had a big laugh about that, right? But I, coming from my experience working in the software company and working with these guys who were very brilliant guys by the way, in terms of marketing, I felt like I could launch the first direct consumer snack food company that was, you know, kind of a protein fiber, all natural. I felt like that's what I was going to do. And so the first product I wanted to launch was a high protein brownie because everyone was doing protein bars at the time and no one had done a brownie.

[Guy Raz]

Let's talk about building the brand. First of all, you didn't have a, you needed a logo, you needed packaging. You needed to get it into shops. I mean, you had the muffins in some, a few places. So let's talk about first, first of all, the logo, okay. Because I don't know if everybody knows what this looks like, but today it looks like two crazy dudes with like clown hair on this. That's the logo?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, that's the logo.

[Guy Raz]

Lenny and Larry's.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. And our original logo was mine and Benny's actual Faces or hair that was original. It was like a real photo. But when I came back, the first thing I said I'm going to do is I'm going to create a caricature. It can't be a photo anymore. So we. So. So we create a caricature of the logo.

[Guy Raz]

It's basically a giant afro with two heads.

[Barry Turner]

That's what it became stuck in it. Two heads. And always say, one head of hair.

[Guy Raz]

One head of hair.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

And you're going to come out with your own product. Lenny and Larry's in shops, and it's going to be a brownie.

[Barry Turner]

It's going to be a brownie. And so we find. I find someone to manufacture the brownie. We designed the film, everything. We ordered 72,000 brownies, 36,000 of two flavors, had those shipped to a warehouse that we were. That we rented. And we're sitting there with 72,000 brownies and said, now we have to go sell these.

[Guy Raz]

You do not have any.

[Barry Turner]

Nope. Not a single commitment? Nope, not a single commitment.

[Guy Raz]

And how long would these brownies last?

[Barry Turner]

Oh, they would last, yeah. 15 months, easily.

[Guy Raz]

Okay.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. These had a really, really good shelf life. Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

So how did you sell them?

[Barry Turner]

First thing, we walked into the Whole Foods office in Sherman Oaks.

[Guy Raz]

Did you have a connection there?

[Barry Turner]

Well, we did. I didn't know who was working there. We just showed up at the office one day and see one of the. One of my former buyers, she walks in, she goes, I remember you. And I said, I remember you. She said, what do you have? And I showed her. She goes, I love this. Let's put it in. Wow. That's it. That's it.

[Guy Raz]

How much, by the way? How much protein in each brownie? 20.

[Barry Turner]

20 grams.

[Guy Raz]

20 grams. And to be clear, you did not. Sugar was not an issue. You weren't worried about sugar and carbs, right?

[Barry Turner]

Nope. I felt like, again, I'm still catering to the masses and not the bodybuilder fitness people.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

I always said if I could be in two retailers at a time, it would be Seven Eleven and Walmart. That's the only groups I wanted to sell to.

[Guy Raz]

And not to minimize the. What this product was and how innovative it was. But basically it was a sweet, sugary brownie, but with a lot of protein.

[Barry Turner]

Correct. It was basically a protein bar, but tastes like a brownie in the shape of a. Like a kind of a square. So I had to be different there, too.

[Guy Raz]

All right, but 2008, I mean, this is super innovative. Nobody's making a protein Brownie.

[Barry Turner]

Nobody's making a protein brownie.

[Guy Raz]

So you get into a few Whole Foods in the LA area.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, actually. Yeah, the LA area. And then it just snowballed from there. GNC accepted it. Vitamin Shop accepted it. Then we said, okay, now we're on to something. And all the while though, we had it. We had a little product. I don't want to jump ahead, but there was a little, little product. It was a cookie. It had a, had a label on it and it had a little like a sheet in the back that you could print our nutritionals on. And we sold that locally to Seven Elevens and a lot of office buildings, stuff like that.

[Guy Raz]

But it's a protein cookie.

[Barry Turner]

Correct. But it didn't have a, it didn't have a great shelf life. And because that clear package, you can see the package and light oxygen can destroy it. But it had a couple weeks shelf life. And we remember a call we had with Vitamin She Shop and Vitamin Shop said if you could get a shelf life on your cookie, we would take that also.

[Guy Raz]

And I went, okay, because how long did the cookie last?

[Barry Turner]

Couple of weeks.

[Guy Raz]

And that was because of the packaging.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, because of the packaging. Yeah, because of the packaging. And so I had the light bulb moment again. It's like, I gotta, I gotta design a film for that cookie. And we did. Then I would say the rest is history. But the, the cookie just became, just became an absolute monster. I wanted, like, again, I was trading. I wasn't creating a low sugar, you know, low carb product. I was creating a freaking cookie.

[Guy Raz]

It had flour, it had sugar, it had everything.

[Barry Turner]

400 calories. It became popular with college kids, construction workers, teachers, people that could say for a buck 99, I get this giant cookie. It's very filling. I can grab, I'll grab my Red Bull and I'll grab a linear cook cookie.

[Guy Raz]

I mean, one cookie I'm looking at today, I think it's probably similar. 10 grams of fiber.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

16 grams of protein, but, you know, 26 grams of sugar. Yeah, but, but I guess you just were like, maybe people can choose this. It's marginally better than a, an Oreo or a Twinkie.

[Barry Turner]

That was, that was it. That was, that was everything. I want to create a better bad. I want people to make a better choice. And nobody's going to go from eating a, you know, a little Debbie to eating some sort of protein bar. It just. There, there's not, There has to be something. There has to be a stop in the middle.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah. What do the cookie Retail for retail.

[Barry Turner]

From anywhere from like $1.99 to $2.49. That range.

[Guy Raz]

And how much did it cost to make?

[Barry Turner]

Less than 50 cents. Around about 40 cents.

[Guy Raz]

That's like a LVMH bag. Yeah, it's like making a Gucci bag. It cost them like, 160 bucks.

[Barry Turner]

They sell it for like.

[Guy Raz]

Like 30,000.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, we weren't shy about making a profit. What we liked about it is that we never had to raise money. We never had investors, never had debt.

[Guy Raz]

So, okay, so by 2014, are you still primarily in California only?

[Barry Turner]

No, we're everywhere. At that time. We're really starting to take off. 2014, we're about doing about 11 million in revenue.

[Guy Raz]

So you hit $11 million in sales by 2014 purely or mainly on the strength of the cookies, not the mussel brownies?

[Barry Turner]

No, the mussel brownie was still there, but the cookie is the one that just. It just literally caught fire.

[Guy Raz]

Why do you think that is? I mean, I think the answer is just because cookies are a much bigger, more popular snack than brownies.

[Barry Turner]

Well, that's it. And a brownie is considered a decadent treat. It's not something you would eat every day. You'd eat a cookie every day, even.

[Guy Raz]

Though, like, nutritionally, they're pretty similar.

[Barry Turner]

Yes, exactly. But it's funny, guy, when we talk about, like, we talk about sugar and carbs and, you know, all this nutrition stuff, you and I are in still in the minority of that world. Rest of the country is still trying to make a better choice, but they're not going to make an extreme choice. So people still want to have their no, you know, cake and eat it too. They'll sacrifice something in order to eat a. Something that's just a little bit less bad. That had some nutritional benefits to them.

[Guy Raz]

I completely agree with that. I think that's exactly right. I think that just as a tiny number of people care about sugar and carbs, I think most people, you're right. If they see protein, fiber, they're good. They're not worried about the carbs or the sugar. Okay, so you're just growing like hockey stick.

[Barry Turner]

Hockey stick.

[Guy Raz]

So, all right, I guess around 2015, you are at a trade show.

[Barry Turner]

Yep.

[Guy Raz]

And you guys are hot ticket there, right?

[Barry Turner]

Hot. Yep. We just finished. I think it's 2014 at 11 million. And we're gonna have. We're gonna grow probably to, you know, 18 million or something the next year, whatever, in 2015. But I got introduced to a gentleman named. Named Nick Gianuzzi. And Nick is an incredible attorney. It represents pretty much every CPG brand that's been sold. He's always represented them. Nick pulled me aside and just said, I love your brand. He goes jokingly, he just said, stop effing around and start doubling your revenue and you're going to get noticed. And I was like, okay. It inspired me to want to really turbocharge my sales. So we went from 11 to 27 million in one year by opening up accounts and actually managing, servicing the accounts we already had.

[Guy Raz]

How many employees did you have?

[Barry Turner]

2014, 2015, we may have had seven.

[Guy Raz]

God. With 27 million coming in, that's an efficient business.

[Barry Turner]

And that's the only way we knew how to do it. I never believed in hiring when you didn't have to hire. I believed in paying your people more money that are there.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

And we had a great, we had a great small, little ragtag team. And from there 27 million turned into 94 million in revenue the next year.

[Guy Raz]

By 2016.

[Barry Turner]

By 2016.

[Guy Raz]

And what percentage of that do you think was the cookies?

[Barry Turner]

Probably 90%.

[Guy Raz]

Were you worried at all that, you know, this was not going to last, that you would have competitors coming in? I mean, in other words, did you think, like, we better really make a bunch of snacks because otherwise we're just going to get General Mills or whoever Nabisco is going to come in and do this?

[Barry Turner]

I'll be 100% honest with you. I have never in my life worried about a competitor, a so called competitor. And that's not being cocky. It's just like if I'm worried about what someone else is doing, then I'm not worried about what I'm doing. So I didn't care what you were doing. I was building a brand. But I fought a bunch of other things along, along that journey that could have destroyed my business.

[Guy Raz]

Like what?

[Barry Turner]

Well, one was a, an issue with one of our manufacturers. Got a call from one of our retailers in Florida, said, hey, we're starting to see these little, we'll call them little bugs. They're in a cookie. No kidding. Like, like a, like a little. And they're, they're called meal moths. So they get in flour. Like flour's been sitting for a long time. Whatever.

[Guy Raz]

Oh yes, I've seen that. I've had that.

[Barry Turner]

Okay, so, so have that happened with a, like a, a, a retailer for. And now, now social media is out there and the first thing people do is they want to start posting. You're just. Oh yeah, yeah. And I had to Take that one on myself. I literally post. I was doing our own social media at the time and I actually posted my own phone number and just said, anyone who gets. I said, I'll trust me. I said, I'm gonna handle this. I'm gonna, you know, I apologize to everyone or whatever. And it was real quick. We were able to isolate it real quick because it was one flavor and we knew that short group that actually made it. So we're able to isolate and pull all that product. But anything to damage your reputation, it just makes you don't sleep at night.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, for sure. But still, even with all that, as you mentioned, I think by 2016, you guys are doing almost $100 million in revenue. And then I think that same year you decide you're going to find. You're going to sell it. You're going to sell the brand again.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. Well, it's only because people start. That's when people start coming for you and you're just, you're feeling call after call after call. A lot of the General. Not General Mills, but General Mills type companies.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah, big companies.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, big companies are coming for you. They're asking about you. They're. They want to buy your company. And we had 28 interested parties right out of the gate. And then I'm like, pardon my French, but we had just moved in this beautiful warehouse office. I was just starting to enjoy this. I didn't really want to sell. And then you're starting to field some.

[Guy Raz]

Big offers for your business and you accept an offer from a group called Lion Capital.

[Barry Turner]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

First of all, I'm curious, was there an option to go. To get acquired by a big food brand?

[Barry Turner]

The rest a couple at the table and had made offers. And I'm just being honest with you. If I was going to sell it, I was going to sell it for. To the highest bid. Highest bidders. Highest bidder.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so they had. They were the highest bidder and they acquired you for. I think it was a mixture of cash and equity. Right?

[Barry Turner]

Yeah. So they bought. Ended up buying 75% of the business. And at the time. Now you understand this is seven years ago. So if you're equating it to the value of today. So at the time, we were valued at $250 million.

[Guy Raz]

Not bad.

[Barry Turner]

And so we sold 75% of the business. And it was just because how. How our business was structured. We were an S corp. It had some. Had some value to them. And so Nick Gianuzzi, who I mentioned earlier, as he represented us he was our attorney, and he told us point blank. He said, don't expect to get the second bite of the apple.

[Guy Raz]

You mean they were going to just hold on to it forever?

[Barry Turner]

Exactly. And exactly what they've done.

[Guy Raz]

All right, so this begins a period of what you're still in today, and they're not on this in this interview. So I want to be careful and mindful and respectful of them. So I'm going to play the part of defending them a little bit here. But you are still in a situation where you own still a chunk of the business. Correct. And technically, you're on the board, right?

[Barry Turner]

I'm on the board, yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. But when you left or when they bought you out. Yep. They replaced you with a new CEO, right?

[Barry Turner]

Correct.

[Guy Raz]

You said that the first time you sold it, 2001 was the worst day of your life.

[Barry Turner]

Terrible.

[Guy Raz]

When you sold it for the second time, you say it was the second worst day of my life.

[Barry Turner]

Yep. I still live by that. I miss my people more than. More than anything. These are my team members. These are people that helped me grow this business. So, yeah, I. To this day, I wish I never would have sold my company.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, so while you're the company, okay. They take it over. You're out as the CEO, but you're still an advisor. Ostensibly. And look, I see Lenny and Larry's everywhere. Every time I go to Whole Foods, I see it everywhere. That logo just pops. I see that afro. So I'm under the impression that things are swimming, going great.

[Barry Turner]

Right.

[Guy Raz]

You have a different view here. You are not happy with how it. How it shook out. You're not happy with the current owners of the brand.

[Barry Turner]

Not at all. I have no problem saying that we're just. We're not each other's cup of tea. And it's just bad decision after bad decision, bad hire after bad hire. They hired. This is no lie. Within six months of selling the company to them, we went from 17 employees to 59 employees. The business in trouble. They only grow the business about 6 to 8% a year. If that. They destroy profitability. I felt like I handed them a Ferrari and they turned it into a Ford Taurus.

[Guy Raz]

But what would the. I mean, listen, I'm looking at their portfolio. This is clearly a sophisticated group. I mean, they own kettle chips. That's just in food. But they own beverage and hospitality and jewelry and licensing, personal care. I mean, they're clearly. They've made a bunch of cash in different places. Like, there's no question.

[Barry Turner]

I think you're being Nice. By saying sophisticated. Okay. They would never have had me stayed in that chair because they. They used a term one time. It always rubbed me the wrong way. After they bought the company, they said, we need to professionalize the management in this company. And that means we weren't professional enough in their lives. Then you fast forward about, you know, four or five years later, they go, we got to go back to being an entrepreneurial brand. Well, that's what we were. That's what we always were, was an entrepreneurial brand. And they never really embraced it because they had to come in. They had. Had to show, we know what we're doing. And. And they just don't.

[Guy Raz]

Okay. Now here's the thing, because, again, you know, we don't do this. Not a documentary show.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

We have you on here. So I've got to be respectful of. Of Lion Cat. This emotional. It's like a house, it's like a business. It's like anything that somebody creates where I'm emotionally attached to how I built this.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Right. The. The reality is that you can just let it go if you want to and just say, you know what? I'm just going to let it go. And I. Whatever. It is what it is.

[Barry Turner]

Oh, I. And I. And I have. I don't.

[Guy Raz]

Okay, good.

[Barry Turner]

The fact that we're talking about it is fine. Like I said, I don't.

[Guy Raz]

That's healthy. That's healthier for you.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't. I don't think about them ever. I do a. Do a board call every now and then, whatever. But I don't. I don't even. I don't comment on the call. I go on the screen. I'm just on mute and I'm listening. But yeah, then there's always two sides to every story, and I 100% agree with that.

[Guy Raz]

Here's the thing, right. And this is like a fear that I think a lot of people have, especially as they get into their 50s, which is you've had some success in your professional life, whether it's a business or you're working for a company or whatever, and for a variety of reasons, that ends. And you can live for the rest of your life.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah.

[Guy Raz]

Like. Right. You can live off what you made and live a good life, but you lose that purpose, that sense of purpose.

[Barry Turner]

Which is really Hungry Guy. That's. It's so important. And no one. You're never going to understand it unless you've lived it.

[Guy Raz]

Yeah.

[Barry Turner]

But I did. Did care about my brand a lot.

[Guy Raz]

When you look back on this whole journey and you think about where you got to, because you did really, really well. You didn't.

[Barry Turner]

You know, here I am.

[Guy Raz]

How much of where you got to do tribute to the work you put in the grind and how much you think has to do with getting lucky?

[Barry Turner]

I think 100% to the work and the grind. I don't. I know a lot of people out there have gotten lucky. Yeah. I don't use words like hope, luck, wish, and try. Yeah, I just don't like the word luck. My thing was always said luck wins you the lottery. I created my own lottery.

[Guy Raz]

That's Barry Turner, co founder of Lenny and Larry's. By the way, I think there's something you're not telling me that you. I think you're concealing from me here, which is I'm looking at the cast of that movie you were in. Death becomes her and Fabio was in that movie.

[Barry Turner]

You know what? You are. You are right.

[Guy Raz]

You did not tell me that.

[Barry Turner]

I forgot about that.

[Guy Raz]

Fabio was your co star. Well, you were a star. You and Fabio were in a movie together.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, there's Fabio.

[Guy Raz]

I wonder what he's doing these days. He seems like a nice guy. I think he's done some, like, self parody stuff.

[Barry Turner]

Yeah, that's. That's my buddy.

[Guy Raz]

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to click the follow button on your podcast apps so you never miss a new episode of the show. And please sign up for my [e-mail] or on substack. This episode was produced by JC Howard with music composed by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Kathryn Seifer. Our audio engineers were Patrick Murray and James Keeley. Our production staff also includes Alex Chung, Karla Estevez, Casey Herman, Sam Paulson, Chris Masini, Kerry Thompson Johnson, John Isabella, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to How I Built this. 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] it takes a lot to grow your business. You've got to attract audiences, score leads, manage all the channels. It's a lot of long days and late nights, but with Breeze HubSpot's new AI tools, it's never been easier to be a marketer and crush your goals fast, which means pretty soon your company will have a lot to celebrate, like 110% more leads in just 12 months. Visit HubSpot. Com Marketers to learn more.