← How I Built This with Guy Raz
How I Built This with Guy Raz
Nuts.com: Jeff Braverman. From Corner Store to Snacktime Powerhouse
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- [00:00]
Guy Raz
Wondery subscribers can listen to How I Built this early and ad free right now. Join Wondery in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. You know, I've always loved how Airbnb makes travel feel more authentic. Like when you stay in a home as opposed to a hotel room. You can gather around a table with friends or watch movies on a couch like you do at home. And I've had so much fun on Airbnb experiences during my travels that I decided to host my own in San Francisco this month. An original Airbnb experience all about unlocking your next big move in work or life. To learn more, head to airbnb.comguy if you run a small business, you know there's nothing small about it. As a business owner, I get it. My business is and has always been all consuming since I started it. Every day there is a new decision to make and even the smallest decisions feel massive. Well, Shopify is a commerce platform that gets what running a small business is like because Shopify was once one too. It's the right platform with all the tools you need to be successful. Shopify get all the big stuff for your small business right with Shopify. Sign up for your $1 per month trial and start selling today at shopify.combilt go to shopify.com built shopify what can 160 years of experience teach you about the future? When it comes to protecting what matters, Pacific Life provides life insurance, retirement income, and employee benefits for people and businesses building a more confident tomorrow. Strategies rooted in strength and backed by experience. Ask a financial professional how Pacific Life can help you today. Pacific Life Insurance Company, Omaha, Nebraska and in New York, Pacific Life and Annuity, Phoenix, Arizona.
- [02:13]
Jeff Braverman
When I told my dad and my uncle, I actually met them back in Edison, New Jersey, where they were still living. I went with them for a walk. I remember exactly where I was because I said, I want to join the family business. And they said, verbatim, you're nuts. Like, you can't make this up. I mean, it's classic for my family, of course, but I was making more money than they were. But I made it clear, look, I need the keys to the store and I'm going to deliver. And my uncle kissed me and he was like, I love you and let's you know, I don't understand, but I feel blessed and let's do this.
- [03:02]
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 Jeff Braverman transformed his family business from a humble storefront in Newark, New Jersey into a huge online snack emporium. Nuts.com Normally, we just interview founders on this show, but today we're making somewhat of an exception because technically, my guest, Jeff Braverman didn't found the company that he eventually transformed. It was a small family business that sold nuts in Newark, New Jersey, and it was started by Jeff's grandfather in 1929. Back then, it was called the Newark Nut Company, and as I say, it was a small local business. But around 2003, Jeff decided to leave his job in finance to see if he could turn that nut store into a national brand. Now, at the time, Newark Nut Company was doing about a million dollars a year in sales. So, yeah, very small. But Jeff saw a huge opportunity in turning the family business into an e commerce business. And eventually he rebranded it as nuts.com. today, that same company does over $100 million in sales a year. It's still family owned, with thousands of products. Nuts, chocolate, gummy candy, pretzels, crackers, you name it. The story of how Jeff reinvented a nearly 100-year-old company is full of surprises. A random comment from Rachael Ray that changed everything. A hilariously bad jingle that turned into marketing gold, and even a peanut protest against CBS Studios. And we'll get to all of that. But first, Jeff grew up in the 1980s and 90s in Edison, New Jersey, not far from his grandfather's store in Newark. And some of his earliest memories are of helping out at the shop.
- [05:15]
Jeff Braverman
He loved it. When we came to the store, we would sit down and do stuff, you know, help him cut open bags, believe it or not, M and Ms, we would open up bags of M&M's and dump them into these buckets. He would get up with us when the peanut roaster, when the peanuts would come out of the roaster till almost the day he died, he would get up and help us bag the peanuts. You know, for me, it was special because I would spend up most of my time I would spend with him would be at the store. So to us grandkids, he was this still stoic, kind of quiet guy. Wouldn't say a lot, but very loving and a very proud grandfather. But with the previous generation, it was tougher.
- [05:48]
Guy Raz
It was tougher. How so?
- [05:51]
Jeff Braverman
Kind of his way. His way or the highway, you do what you're told. You know, my dad, you know, he tried. My dad would try to do some forms of innovation or make some Changes in the business. And my grandfather would often say no. At one point I remember my dad telling me the story where he wanted to put display cases. I mean, this is like crazy talk, but like you couldn't see the product in the old store. And my dad said, well, let's make display cases. How much more can you imagine how much more we could sell if the customers could see the product?
- [06:22]
Guy Raz
So you would go prior to that, you walk into the store and you wouldn't see any displays of nuts. You would. What would you see?
- [06:28]
Jeff Braverman
Think about like a, I don't know, like an old country western store. What you would see on TV that were just barrels of product.
- [06:35]
Guy Raz
Right.
- [06:35]
Jeff Braverman
And they would be more in the back and so on. And then they would put custom. Would have to know what they wanted.
- [06:41]
Guy Raz
And then you would go and put it in a bag for the scoop for them.
- [06:44]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. Got it.
- [06:45]
Guy Raz
By the time you were born, 1980, Newark, which is where this, you know, the storefront was and, and where the operations were, was already in serious decline. Right. Economic decline. Do you remember, what do you remember about going to Newark to the store when you were little? Did it feel safe? Like, what do you remember about that?
- [07:07]
Jeff Braverman
Again, the old store, because I was only four or five. I don't remember that much about that. But for the. When we moved. Yeah, like we had code words if someone was going to rob us because.
- [07:16]
Guy Raz
You didn't move, that you were still in Newark.
- [07:17]
Jeff Braverman
Right. Just two blocks away. But the. But then the customers were scared to come. But like. So like I remember when the alarm would go off as a kid, sometimes I would just go in with my dad and uncle. They would have to go in and check and I would be in the car, you know, I think, I don't know when first yet car phones came out. So maybe I don't think I was six years old. Maybe I was 12 or 13, I don't remember. But I remember having 911 pressed, ready to hit it as they went into the store to check what caused the alarm to go off.
- [07:47]
Guy Raz
Meantime, were you, were you always working there? Like during high school, like was this your weekend job and after school work?
- [07:55]
Jeff Braverman
Yes, I would go a lot, certainly when I was little. And one nice thing that my dad did for me is just I was empowered. Maybe we had no choice. But at seven years old, I love doing the cash register, which is pretty cool for a seven year old to do. But yeah, so like, you know, summers I would work in the store. You know, as I got older then I would Go in on Saturdays for sure. Because my grandfather passed when I was about 15 and I would spend.
- [08:17]
Guy Raz
1995, he died.
- [08:18]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. So I would spend lots of Saturdays.
- [08:21]
Guy Raz
Once your grandfather died, I'm assuming. I mean your, your uncle and your dad continue to run the business. It was still generating enough revenue to support their family.
- [08:29]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, it wasn't great though. And they obviously had to work super hard. I mean, this is, you know, most of the time they're just scooping quarter pound of cashews and do it, doing work like that. But they did have to evolve and go more into wholesale just because the retail kept on declining.
- [08:45]
Guy Raz
So who were they selling to?
- [08:47]
Jeff Braverman
So for wholesale it would be, you know, specialty supermarket. The one thing that I learned from my grandfather and my uncle is, hey, you know, give the customer what you want to eat. You know, kind of like the golden rule, you know, treat others as you want to be treated. So we actually had great quality stuff. So there was like this specialty supermarket in more southern Jersey that just appreciated it. But we would just sell them. Most customers, we would just sell them, which to me wasn't that interesting. But we'd sell them bulk cases. They would get 25 pound cases of whether it was going to be medjool dates or freshly roasted peanuts and so on. It was not, it wasn't repackaged at all.
- [09:28]
Guy Raz
And then those customers would repackage them and then sell them themselves.
- [09:32]
Jeff Braverman
Exactly.
- [09:33]
Guy Raz
So at that time, like let's start the late 90s, right. As you're getting ready for college, can you estimate what. How big was the business? Was it doing 5 million a year? 10 million a year?
- [09:43]
Jeff Braverman
No, about a million dollars.
- [09:45]
Guy Raz
So it was a. Yeah, it was a small business. They probably ran things pretty tight to keep costs down.
- [09:50]
Jeff Braverman
Very tight.
- [09:51]
Guy Raz
Right. So they were, I mean your dad and your uncle were literally doing like labor like they were doing. They were moving sacks of nuts and things to. To keep costs down.
- [10:02]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, 100%. I mean back then when we would get. So we in. Our claim to fame was these freshly roasted peanuts in the shell. So we get a truckload in maybe then it was every two months or so. And the truck comes in with 100 pound burlap sacks. They're floor loaded.
- [10:19]
Guy Raz
These are raw peanuts.
- [10:20]
Jeff Braverman
These are raw peanuts in the shell.
- [10:22]
Guy Raz
Coming from Georgia. Where do they.
- [10:23]
Jeff Braverman
These will come from North Carolina, could come from Georgia.
- [10:26]
Guy Raz
And then you roast them on site.
- [10:28]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. But we would have to get them floor loaded. You have to get them inside. We actually had a second level because.
- [10:34]
Guy Raz
We built this building but every two months, how many pounds of peanuts?
- [10:38]
Jeff Braverman
So a truckload is about £40,000.
- [10:41]
Guy Raz
Wow, that's a lot of peanuts. All right, meantime, you're getting ready to go to college and start your life. And you go to the University of Pennsylvania. And from what I've read, you were a little bit of a stock market savant in high school.
- [10:55]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, yeah.
- [10:57]
Guy Raz
And I know those kinds of kids. It's always that weird kid who's like, really good at stock picking and they do pretty well. Right. And sometimes they don't. But you were one of those kids.
- [11:08]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah.
- [11:09]
Guy Raz
All right, so getting back to your life story, you go to Penn and you get a degree in finance and management. And did you think or assume, like, I'm going to wind up running my dad and granddad's business, like, I'll be a third generation owner of the Net store? Like, were you thinking that in college?
- [11:26]
Jeff Braverman
Not at all. You know, I was always going to help in whatever capacity I could, but my dad hated it. It was terrible. All right. He worked really hard, didn't make a lot of money. It was super stressful. Right. We almost lost the house over this thing. So, like, there were no expectations placed on me, and I didn't place any expectations on myself. I didn't. I didn't think I was going to go into the business.
- [11:53]
Guy Raz
But you did. Something in college was interesting to me. I mean, this is, this is the late 90s when it just started to become easier to register domain names. This is, this is why I own guy raz.com because it was around then that I registered that. Although I don't think there was a big clamoring for that at the time. You registered nutsonline.com. tell me about about that. Why did you do that?
- [12:14]
Jeff Braverman
I was. Because of just my stock investing in high school. I was just very attuned to what was going on in that world. I mean, most people knew about the Internet thing, but, like, I'm the kid who, based on Peter Lynch's philosophy, I bought AOL Stock maybe in 1995, before everyone thought I was gonna go bankrupt, when I was like, no way. So I was like, more I was closer to this than most, seeing what was happening. And to be clear then, anyone could make money picking stocks in that Go Go era of the Internet. So, you know, I just looked at our little store and I see this new thing called the Internet taking off. I was like, well, maybe the whole country could be our. You know, we could sell to the whole country. We had my dad and my uncle, because the business was struggling so much, they did try, you know, when I was in high school to do some type of catalog, but it didn't bring that much in. So like I was already thinking of, I already had some exposure, just the seed of other other channels and ways to go to market. But for me, I was like, wow, the Internet's taking off. Let's try it. Let's go sell nuts online.
- [13:19]
Guy Raz
So you registered nutsonline.com probably cost you 10 bucks or whatever, right?
- [13:23]
Jeff Braverman
Not a little 60, $69 or so? A little more, but yes.
- [13:27]
Guy Raz
And all right, so you have this. And what was the plan was to convince your dad and uncle to start to have a website and start taking orders online?
- [13:39]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah. So I put together a little business plan. I met them at the local diner in Edison, New Jersey. This could have been their first or one of few business meetings they've ever really had. And they were excited by the idea. And I said, okay, well, I need a budget. Look, I think they had confidence in me. And I also had a unique relation with my dad where even in high school I started managing his money. So unique set of circumstances.
- [14:08]
Guy Raz
You managed your dad's money. Wow.
- [14:11]
Jeff Braverman
Wasn't like he had that much, but you.
- [14:12]
Guy Raz
Okay, I got you. Okay. You were like, hey, I'll pick stocks for you and stuff.
- [14:15]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. I took it. I started calling a stock broker, said, why are you recommending these? Whatever. I got into it. But then like, I put together a plan for my dad, like how he could retire and what he needs to do. And so he trusted you?
- [14:26]
Guy Raz
Probably. He was like, wow.
- [14:27]
Jeff Braverman
Yes, yes, yes, yes. Not 100, 100%. That comes a couple years into the business, but yes. So they gave me a budget of like made up thing, like $700. Those days it was really hard to build a website for $700.
- [14:42]
Guy Raz
Yeah, it was really expensive.
- [14:43]
Jeff Braverman
I ended up spending closer to $3,000 because I had to hire a company and so on and so.
- [14:50]
Guy Raz
And you had that money from what, your stocks or.
- [14:52]
Jeff Braverman
So this was no, that they still had some. It wasn't like the business was destitute. It wasn't a super profitable business. But like when they did the catalog test, I'm sure it costs more than that, just for perspective, but what you.
- [15:03]
Guy Raz
Were saying to them, hey guys, we can sell stuff while we're asleep. While you're asleep, you can sell nuts through the website, through the Internet. And did either your dad or your uncle say, the Internet? Who's going to buy stuff through the Internet? Isn't that where you go watch? Not even that time. You're even watching cat videos. At that time it was like, you know, I don't know, I don't know what you were doing in 1990.
- [15:24]
Jeff Braverman
Let's put this way, nutsonline.com was my seventh choice for a domain name at the time.
- [15:29]
Guy Raz
Got it. Okay.
- [15:30]
Jeff Braverman
I couldn't get the other six because.
- [15:32]
Guy Raz
They were probably a little racy, right?
- [15:34]
Jeff Braverman
100%.
- [15:35]
Guy Raz
So yeah. How do they react when you said that?
- [15:39]
Jeff Braverman
I don't think they knew I didn't have any huge promises at that point in time. They also recognized that we have to figure something out. The business keeps on declining. I think it was just more. They had just confidence in me and. Let's give this kid a shot.
- [15:53]
Guy Raz
Yeah. Why were you. I'm. I mean, what motivated you to do this? Because this is a great, this is a great son thing to do or a grandson thing to do. Like hey, I want to. Was it you want to help the business grow and thrive or was it just like scratching an itch? Because it was. Seemed fun. Like because you were not going to do this full time.
- [16:12]
Jeff Braverman
It's a great question. I don't know if it was, hey, going to do something big, but certainly it was just this familial pull. I know that goes back generations that just going to do whatever it takes to help. So I think it was just that pull just wanting to help, not much more than that.
- [16:34]
Guy Raz
When were you going to do this? Were you planning on doing this? Because you registered the domain at 99, you got to build a website at the time. Again, very hard to do. There's no Squarespace, there's no Shopify. You need somebody who knows how to do this and it's going to cost someone. And then you need. There's no logistics, there's no third party logistics operators. In the same way, there's no dropshipping. Like none of that infrastructure. That's so easy now. So how are you going to do this?
- [17:04]
Jeff Braverman
One of my friends, he was a year older, happened to have had a roommate who was building websites. So it's one of these. As simple as that. If not for that, I have no idea. Because it was harder and it would have been a lot more money. So that's also why I built it for like $3,000 or so. But we would get a few orders trickling here or there. Could it be one a day? One every two days? But for my dad, Amalga was the most exciting thing in the world. My dad Would scream out. We had this little office above the store. And he would scream out, we got an order. He would be so excited. And we had this little thing I made as a boy with like a clothespin type thing. And he would lower the string down out of the office window. He would still use that to drop the order down.
- [17:45]
Guy Raz
So.
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Jeff Braverman
But then they would. We had a credit card machine. Nothing was automated then. So you have to type in the credit card number. So we get the number. Nothing's encrypted, right? You see the number passes across. You type it into the credit card machine. Where I remember, as we got going a few years later, like, I could do that really fast. So I would do that for a holiday. I would type my fingers really fast.
- [18:04]
Guy Raz
The order would come, and you'd manually see its number and type it into the credit card machine. Correct. And then the amount.
- [18:11]
Jeff Braverman
And then you would do. We didn't even have product labels at that point in time. This is really rudimentary. We would type in the UPS or FedEx shipping label ourselves. We would then have to type the tracking number back into. Back to the customer. But the order would come out. They would go take bags. At the time, they weren't great because there wasn't much else out there but clear cello bags. They would fill them, scoop right from the counter, have a foot pedal to seal them, and you put them in a box. And then UPS comes later on and picks it up.
- [18:44]
Guy Raz
Wow. All right. Meantime, you graduate from Penn and you go work for Blackstone. And when you went to start working at Blackstone again, were you thinking, this is just temporary? I actually am really excited about this nuts business and the potential for the Internet here. Or was there no way you were going to do that?
- [19:05]
Jeff Braverman
No way I was going to do that.
- [19:07]
Guy Raz
You were not going to do that. You were going to go into finance.
- [19:10]
Jeff Braverman
So I was going to go into finance. I've read the books. Back then I read a book called Monkey Business where I was like, oh, investment banking stinks. But I still kind of went into it. It's just hard to go against the herd. So I just went along with everyone else. But no expectations of going to the family business. To me, I always had this entrepreneurial bug. So what was I going to do? Maybe through the world of finance, I would buy a business or do something like that. I don't think it was going to be in strictly finance. And I think there were a couple of kind of random, kind of epiphanous moments for me. One is I had to Like, I think they said I couldn't take off for Thanksgiving, and then I just did. Anyway, my sister was in Spain and I visited her and she wasn't really making any money, but her life was beautiful. I was like, hmm, okay. And then I went to a Blackstone sponsored event. They were very involved. The chairman was involved in the Council of Foreign Relations. And so I went to an event and I happened to have met one of my colleagues, uncles, who was an entrepreneur, so not finance, but an engineer. He was at GE working for the man, working 100 hour weeks and, you know, said, hey, I'm better than this. And he left and went on to entrepreneurial pursuits. So, you know, and I mentioned that point about working for the man. I did have an entrepreneurial management professor who said, the greatest risk in life is working for the man. So I have these seeds in my head.
- [20:44]
Guy Raz
It's a great. That's a great quote.
- [20:47]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah. And for me, like, seeing, I was sad. I'm a pretty empathetic person. And let's say, you know, I'm in the office early on a Saturday morning and I see the partner there making millions and millions. I don't know if it's tens of millions, but millions and millions of dollars. It was really sad to see this grown man who's not spending time with his kids, not with his wife, and it was just like, sad. And for me, you know, I just wanted better. And I felt like, look, I felt there was something I want to say. I say this with humility, but I felt there was something special about me, that I can do good things in life. So it's just like these confluence of things. And when I met with that uncle, that colleague's uncle, I was like, well, should I just wait after the one year? Because I'm sure you get this question from people all the time, like, when is the right time? And he's like, what? You get a stub bonus in December? Because he was like, now? I was like, well, I get a stub bonus in five weeks. He said, just leave as soon as you can.
- [21:52]
Guy Raz
All right. So you decide you're going to quit Blackstone and go join the family business. And at this point, it's still called the Newark Nut Company, right?
- [22:01]
Jeff Braverman
Correct.
- [22:02]
Guy Raz
It's not called Nuts Online. It's called the Newark Nut Company. Nuts Online was just the website.
- [22:06]
Jeff Braverman
Correct.
- [22:07]
Guy Raz
And what was your, I mean, you know, Blackstone in 2003 or 2002, you were easily making, I don't know, 70, 80 grand a year, maybe more.
- [22:16]
Jeff Braverman
Even more Yeah, I was making about 105,000 or exactly 105,000. Yeah. When I told my dad and my uncle, I actually met them back in Edison, New Jersey, where they were still living. I went with them for a walk. I remember exactly where I was because I said, I want to join the family business. This is before quitting. And they said verbatim, you're nuts. You can't make this up. I mean, classic from my family, of course, because they're a cast of characters. But I was making more money than they were. I was really highly rated. I was well educated and doing phenomenal. And they hated my dad more so than my uncle, but they hated what they did. And you know, what my dad, though, said to me at that point was it wasn't necessarily a carte blanche, but I made it clear, look, I need the keys to the store and I'm going to deliver. And my uncle kissed me and he was like, I love you and let's. You know, I don't understand, but I feel blessed. And let's. Let's do this.
- [23:30]
Guy Raz
So you, and you didn't. You joined to basically to take over or to run, I guess, the Internet side of this thing. But what was your deal? I mean, I mean, how would you get paid?
- [23:41]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah. And it wasn't with the Internet. I didn't know the Internet was going to be the big thing. So what I did was I said, okay, right. I understood the value or the symbolic value of equity. This business was worth nothing. I said, hey, I want 10% of the business. I want 50% of the upside of profit. There wasn't much profit, and I need a draw because I need some money to. I was still living in Manhattan, so I took a $28,000 draw against my profit share.
- [24:16]
Guy Raz
Okay, so it makes sense. All right. So you're now working full time at the family business, the Newark Nut Company. And what were you, like, making suggestions on how to change the business? Like, what were you doing?
- [24:28]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, so I just rolled up my sleeves and dug in and just looked at like, let's just study this business, try to see where the opportunities are. So some would be simple as, hey, we sell raw cashews in the store. And roasted cashews. I know what we pay for raw cashews. We're buying from our friend, the roasted cashews, because he was a roaster. That spread is pretty big. Well, why don't we just send them the raw cashews, pay them just to toll it. Just to roast it. And that would Suddenly save us $10,000. That's like manna from heaven, right? So a I start winning proof points with my dad and uncle because that's like, you know, real money for a business that's not making any money. And then the other thing I did was, well, there's a couple of things. One thing I did was I visited our wholesale customers and just said, what more can we do for you? Mind you, I'm a shy kid. I don't like selling at all. And I didn't love that we were selling sometimes commodities in a 25 pound box. Right. There wasn't a point of differentiation there. So we had, for example, the specialty supermarket said, I really want you to package the product for us. My dad and my uncle said, no, too much labor. I showed them the math and then I became the laborer.
- [25:46]
Guy Raz
Right. But this is still Newark Nut Company. It's still, you know, your grandpa's company. But this really is the beginning of why we're doing this story. And I want to explain this quirk of this story to our listeners. Because you are not the founder of Newark Nut Co. You joined the family business. But, and this is the big difference here, you essentially founded a new company and this was not what you thought you were doing when you joined. Right. You didn't think that it was going to be a completely different company, which we're going to get to. You thought you were going to help grow this business. Is that fair to say?
- [26:29]
Jeff Braverman
100% it was going to be Newark.
- [26:31]
Guy Raz
Nut Company and maybe it would be 5, 10, 20% bigger and it would be a nice lifestyle.
- [26:38]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, you'd have to get a little bit bigger than that to be a nice lifestyle. Maybe 4 or 5x that. But yes, right.
- [26:44]
Guy Raz
But again, early days, this is pre stripe, pre Internet security. People are still wary about. I mean, I remember like you get on the Today show, you watch the Today show or the Nightly News with Tom Brokaw and it's like people are using their credit cards on the Internet and getting. Many people are elected to do that. In 2003, people were reluctant to do that. So how did you start to use the Internet or see the Internet as a bigger opportunity? What kinds of things were you doing just to even create awareness around what you were offering?
- [27:21]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, I saw the potential with Google. Certainly in 2003, once I joined the business, I started seeing it. A book came out. I don't remember exactly when it was one of the first books about how to use Google AdWords. And at some point I just hired.
- [27:36]
Guy Raz
The guy, the guy who wrote the book. Do you remember his name?
- [27:39]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, Andrew Goodman.
- [27:41]
Guy Raz
Guy named Andrew Goodman wrote a book, it was like a paperback about how to use Google.
- [27:47]
Jeff Braverman
Oh, I'm embarrassed to say I didn't even. And I'm friends with him still, but we don't, you know, we don't work together anymore. But a friend of mine sent me the PDF. I didn't even pay for it. So we were one of the first. Not the first nut guy online. There was a couple other people. But we're in that freshman class, right. Of people online, you know, so. So there was some distinct first mover kind of competitive advantage and kind of. I looked at it similar earlier on. It's like, well, if we can sell one order to one customer in every state a day, that's 50 orders a day.
- [28:27]
Guy Raz
I had an average, average price of what, 20, 25 bucks an order?
- [28:32]
Jeff Braverman
Maybe a little more than that. And we used to charge shipping then. I don't remember what it was back then, but it could be a little bit more. I don't remember, to be honest, back then. So, you know, bottom line is I said, hey, I don't like this wholesale bulk stuff, this concession supply stuff. I don't like selling. I like more building and engineering and being behind the scenes. Let's go all in. Let's take advantage of this early mover advantage and just run faster than. This is a stodgy industry. Let's move faster than anyone else in our space. We probably had, let's say, call it 150 or so products. I started adding some more products at the time, but nothing aggressive. And let's really utilize the power of Google AdWords.
- [29:18]
Guy Raz
So what did that mean? I mean, this is 2003. You're revamping the website and again, 2003 websites, these are a different world because before. And we're gonna get to the day when you launched it because December 4, 2003.
- [29:32]
Jeff Braverman
Correct?
- [29:33]
Guy Raz
Is that right?
- [29:33]
Jeff Braverman
Yes, yes.
- [29:34]
Guy Raz
Before that date, you were getting what, between one and five orders a day on average?
- [29:40]
Jeff Braverman
Yes. It could be a few orders a day type of a thing.
- [29:43]
Guy Raz
So what before December 4th? Because we're going to get to that in a second. What did you do? What did you put in place that was going to change the equation that day?
- [29:53]
Jeff Braverman
So we were spending very small amounts of money advertising. Okay. And the shift was just still not to spend that much more, but it was going from $3 a day to $100 a day. Got it.
- [30:04]
Guy Raz
You were going from spending $1,000 a year to 35, $6,000.
- [30:08]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. Which is a big deal through Google AdWords. Correct.
- [30:12]
Guy Raz
Okay, so December 4th, 2003 is the day you relaunch this new revamped site, Nuts Online.
- [30:21]
Jeff Braverman
We launch, the ad campaign's immediately on, and it's like the floodgates completely open. It goes up 10x immediately. But if we were doing three orders a day, suddenly it's 30.
- [30:34]
Guy Raz
Wow. But the reason why you saw this shift was because of the way you used Google AdWords.
- [30:44]
Jeff Braverman
Yes. I mean, that was the. Yes. We launched a much. The site was better, don't get me wrong, and faster and friendlier and easier to use and so on. But then it also then at that point I was able to unlock, you know, unleash, begin to unleash Google, when.
- [30:58]
Guy Raz
All of a sudden this flood of orders comes in. It's still a small team of people like you guys are literally packing these order. How did your dad and uncle respond? Were they like, oh my God, this is amazing.
- [31:10]
Jeff Braverman
So my dad, I mentioned earlier, but my dad's a creature of habit. And look in this store, when we would be busy for Christmas, just in the store, he'd be so nervous. I loved it. He would just be so nervous. It was busy, but most days it would be dead. Like, we'd be sitting there on Saturdays in the summer. And it's like I did the math. I finally said, we're shutting down on Saturdays. We were making $2 a person an hour. It was just like there was nothing. There were.
- [31:37]
Guy Raz
Nobody buys nuts in the summer unless you're at a baseball game, I guess.
- [31:40]
Jeff Braverman
But like, the retail business was dying anyway. There was nothing doing. So he would be so nervous when it was dead too. So here, right? It just like, it's just like boom, boom. Like suddenly you're talking about it could be a few an hour, right? And he says, shut it off.
- [31:57]
Guy Raz
He said, shut it off.
- [31:58]
Jeff Braverman
He said, shut it off. Because he was so nervous, because again, it was just us. We have to do the work. Similarly, gotta fill those orders. Yes. Like, we're the laborers. And you know, there might have been some expletives said, but it's like, if you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. I told him, go home. We got this. Go home.
- [32:19]
Guy Raz
When we come back in just a moment, the online business gets a huge and crazy boost when some TV fans launch a protest against CBS by sending them pounds of peanuts. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz and you're listening to How I Built this One of the things I really love about Airbnb is how it helps you feel part of a place. Sharing meals in a real kitchen, hanging out in a real living room, staying together instead of apart. It just makes travel feel so much more meaningful. And it's not just the homes. This past week, I actually hosted my own original Airbnb experience in San Francisco, and it was incredible. I got to sit down with different kinds of people, hear their stories, and talk through how they're unlocking their next big move in their careers and lives. And a huge thank you to everyone who turned out. If you're planning a trip, check out Airbnb Experiences. For the most authentic things to do every anywhere in the world, visit Airbnb.com experiences. You know, as someone who's built an entire career around curiosity, I find myself asking questions even in the quietest moments of my day. Whether I'm walking my dog in the morning or just reading a good book, my mind is always wondering about the why behind things. Which is exactly how Claude has become such an incredible collaborator in my daily life. Claude is the AI for minds that don't stop at good enough, the thinking partner that works with you to explore the things that fascinate you. Take last night while making dinner, I found myself wondering about the science behind making the perfect crispy roast chicken. And this all led to an enlightening conversation with Claude that went far beyond basic cooking science. We explored the Maillard reaction, moisture management, salting and brining, and even the history of how humans discovered the cooking process. It was really cool stuff, and I love how Claude matches my natural curiosity rather than trying to shut it down with quick answers. Like when I recently noticed all the different layers in a cliff face during a hike. Claude transported me back in time. It helped me explore how these rocks formed under ancient seas and all the forces that transformed them over millions of years. Whether you're researching outdoor curiosity spirals or working through complex creative challenges, Claude extends your thinking to tackle the problems together. And it helps me see connections I never would have made on my own, turning casual observations into moments of genuine discovery. Ready to explore what's possible? Try Claude for free at Claude AI Hibt. That's Claude AI Hibt to start thinking deeper today. Ever had one of those afternoons where your brain just quits on you? You're sluggish, hangry, maybe even a little foggy? What if it's your glucose? See, glucose is an energy currency for your mind and body. When it's stable, you're on point. When it crashes. So can you. That's why Lingo is so interesting. Lingo is a glucose wearable designed to help you connect the dots between your glucose and what you eat, how you move, and how you feel. It shows your glucose data in real time. Instead of guessing, you see the impact of your choices. Maybe that healthy snack is actually sending your glucose on a roller coaster. Or that afternoon walk is the perfect stabilizer. It's about unlocking your consistent best all day long by truly understanding your body's unique responses. Get to know your glucose and learn about how to build healthy habits that work for you with Lingo, Designed for you by Abbott through November 30th. Use code GUY10 on hello Lingo.com to get 10% off a lingo plan. Purchase one use per customer. This offer cannot be combined with other offers, US Puerto Rico and UK only. The Lingo Glucose system is for users 18 years and older, not on insulin. It is not intended for diagnosis of diseases, including diabetes. Individual responses may vary. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy Raz. So it's early 2005, and the revamped website for nutsonline.com is getting some serious traction. So serious that Jeff has to convince his nervous dad not to shut it down. Meanwhile, most business is still coming from home wholesale in the brick and mortar store in Newark. But that store, it's about to get razed to the ground so the city can build a hockey arena.
- [37:19]
Jeff Braverman
There went the retail store. So we had no choice but to find a location somewhere else.
- [37:24]
Guy Raz
Okay, you did find a location, a facility where you were going to do your roasting and your packing, but no retail store, right? Correct. Essentially, 2005 was the end of a storefront of Newark Nuts, and it was still called Newark Nut Company at that point.
- [37:41]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. It's obviously sad from the family heritage standpoint. My uncle was probably more sad than my dad, but my dad hated the store. There's no customers and it was hard and people tried to rob you. So like not a great thing. I think the biggest emotion was fear.
- [37:59]
Guy Raz
Because the store still brought in revenue, even though it wasn't a fun place to work, is still brought in cash and margin.
- [38:05]
Jeff Braverman
Much better margin than wholesale. You're talking retail margins. You're buying truckload of peanuts and you roast it. Okay, granted, you're selling a pound bag for $1.59 or whatever. $1.79. It's not a lot of gross profit dollars, but there's margin on it, meaning you can't make Tons of money. But you can make money so great.
- [38:23]
Guy Raz
I mean, even though the numbers are small, the margins are high. So there was fear. But do you remember specifically saying or having a conversation that went something like this? We're not gonna have a brick and mortar store anymore. We're not gonna have customers coming in. The Internet seems to be working. The wholesale business seems to be working. We're not gonna stand there and sell to retail customers anymore.
- [38:48]
Jeff Braverman
We just had no. We had no choice. Right. This is a store that was already there for generations. Right. For.
- [38:56]
Guy Raz
But you could have. I mean, you could have opened up a new. You could have gone to the suburbs and opened a Newark nut company. I'm just saying it wasn't out of.
- [39:03]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, but we just didn't know how to do that. Like, would the customers come? Will they come from scratch? Like, we already were losing more and more customers. It was just something that wasn't in the family vocabulary. And it would be super risky. Yeah, but. Yeah, when we. But when we moved out, I was terrified we were now going to have, like, much more of a real warehouse. So about a 15,000 square foot building. And I was nervous. We had offices in the front. I was about to sublease it, but then something told me not to, and thank God we didn't.
- [39:32]
Guy Raz
Yeah, because you were thinking, this is too big for us. So. All right, so you guys are now no longer brick and mortar, no longer customer facing. Now it's all online and all a wholesale business. When did you start to see the online business just really become the main business? Do you remember when you start sort of. Sort of see that happen?
- [39:59]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah. If not 2004. By 2005, you know, we started adding.
- [40:04]
Guy Raz
A lot of products besides roasted peanuts and cashews and.
- [40:08]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, like, we started. We started with this base of, you know, 150 products across nuts and dried fruit and seeds and candies and chocolates and so on. And then some of it was. I would just say to my dad and my uncle, we're selling. We're selling salted sunflower seeds in the shell. Other products we sell unsalted. Why aren't we selling unsalted sunflower seeds in the shell? That's funny, because they would say no one. No one wants them. Right. Because they would.
- [40:34]
Guy Raz
Nobody wants unsalted. They would say no one wants unsalted sunflower seeds in the shell.
- [40:38]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. But it turns out diabetics do, and that's what they want to chew on at a baseball game. And that became, like, at the time, like Our top, if not our top five seller, it could have been our top ten. Certainly was our top ten seller. So found gaps in the assortment. You know, there was a serendipitous moment where my friend wasn't well and I donated blood for him on the Upper east side in Manhattan. And instead of, you know, drinking the orange juice or apple juice, I went to Dylan's candy bar on the corner and I had some of the most amazing chocolates. And so I called that. I had to write a letter. I thought the supplier was huge. I had to write them a letter convincing them to sell to me. As a distributor, I knew the Google game. So, like, these guys invented dark chocolate espresso beans. So I knew how to rank number one for dark chocolate espresso beans. So that one product allowed us to be a distributor for these guys.
- [41:33]
Guy Raz
This was called Cooperman's.
- [41:34]
Jeff Braverman
Right. Coppers. Coppers, Coppers, Coppers. And right. I just called, I said, hey, give me your top 40 products and we're gonna sell them all. And that was the beauty. And it was easy. Then when we had one distribution center and just kept on you know, going after it were like, I had a friend who had celiac disease and couldn't get gluten free snacks. I was like, great. And in 30 days, we certified 700 products. Bam. Organic. We just kept on expanding. We would take catalogs from our suppliers and you dump them into a keyword tool. So you didn't need to do any research. It just told you what people were searching for. The US Is a huge place, lots and lots of people. So we just went after it super aggressively and suddenly had thousands of products over the next X number of years.
- [42:18]
Guy Raz
And was your wholesale business still significant?
- [42:22]
Jeff Braverman
The traditional legacy wholesale business? Yeah, it just kind of stayed the same. Right. Because I did put effort into it and then it was like less effort into it, and then it would just be a slow decline.
- [42:36]
Guy Raz
But the bulk of your business was basically individuals going to nutsonline.com and ordering product. That was like more than 60, 70%.
- [42:47]
Jeff Braverman
Of your business by, you know, by 2010. Right. It's, it's, it's, it's the vast, it's the vast majority. Right. I know the revenue we did when we switched to nuts.com and at that point, the wholesale business is like, you know, 2% or something, 3%.
- [43:07]
Guy Raz
So when, I mean, this, the company is still called Newark Nut Company, right?
- [43:11]
Jeff Braverman
Correct.
- [43:12]
Guy Raz
Just out of curiosity, when did you finally just change the name to what it is now?
- [43:17]
Jeff Braverman
Once we rebranded in 2012 to nuts.com is when we changed the name.
- [43:22]
Guy Raz
Okay. So it's still the newer company, but it's nuts online. That's really what you're known as. But still. And I think I've read that by 2006 you're doing about $5 million in revenue.
- [43:34]
Jeff Braverman
Okay, so you know better than I do. But yeah, something like that sounds about right to you.
- [43:38]
Guy Raz
So that's pretty great. I mean, you joined in 2003, officially, formally.
- [43:42]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, yeah.
- [43:43]
Guy Raz
And you hit your 5x now, 4 1/2x since, you know, in terms of revenue, doing pretty well. And it's all coming from the Internet. There was a stunt that you pulled the year after that. I want to ask you about this because there was a show on TV called Jericho about this town in Kansas and it was post apocalyptic and how they survived this nuclear attack on the United States. And it was canceled. CBS threatened to cancel it because they didn't get. They didn't get enough viewers. I was looking at it. The numbers by today's standards are insane. They got like 9 million viewers. But in 2007, that was a disaster. And you sort of got involved in the protest about canceling the show and. Tell me this story, because this is a crazy story and it actually got you tons of press, but what was the story?
- [44:38]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, so this post apocalyptic drama, like you said, got canceled on cbs and fans decided to protest because in the last episode there was this historical illusion and it talked about. The details matter less. But a general says, the US General says to the Germans, nuts. Like, we're not going to surrender nuts. So fans decided to send nuts in protest to cbs.
- [45:01]
Guy Raz
In the show, a character said, said nuts in response to something like.
- [45:06]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, it's a true. Like, I think it's a true, true story. Okay, I forgot it was the Battle of the Bulge or Battle of a snow. I don't remember. But the general says nuts. So fans decide that's their rally and cry nuts. And they're gonna send nuts to CBS.
- [45:20]
Guy Raz
To protest CBS's decision to cancel the show. Okay.
- [45:23]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. So we see these strange orders coming in, and my cousin says, hey, what the heck's going on here? I'm scared. Was people placing orders for one pound bags of different types of nuts, often cheap nuts like mixed nuts and shell or peanuts.
- [45:36]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [45:37]
Jeff Braverman
Shipping to CBS in New York. Yeah. Their New York office. Yeah.
- [45:41]
Guy Raz
Okay.
- [45:42]
Jeff Braverman
So my cousin was like, hey, we gotta, we can't ship this stuff. We have to cancel it. And I said, hold on, let me just do some Research here and I find out what's going on. The show's canceled. And I had never seen the show.
- [45:54]
Guy Raz
And by the way, were they sending it to specific person at CBS or just a pound of nuts to cbs?
- [45:59]
Jeff Braverman
I'll get her name wrong, but something like Nina Tassler or something like that. Okay, okay. And I just looked her up.
- [46:06]
Guy Raz
Nina Tesler. She was at cbs.
- [46:09]
Jeff Braverman
There's a lot of energy here. And I said, let's go. Let's do something here where you have like all these people. It's super inefficient and it's expensive to ship a 1 pound. The shipping is freaking $8 or something like that. Let's harness this energy. You know, when you're at a fundraising drive, they have the thermometer type of a thing. I said, let's go, let's get up a thermometer. And this is where I've always heard this expression, you know, man plans and God laughs. And then probably for the next three weeks, I didn't sleep.
- [46:43]
Guy Raz
Wait. So sorry. On the website, have me understand this. You had a banner or something that said, hey, if you're. If you don't want CBS to cancel Jericho, click here.
- [46:53]
Jeff Braverman
Save Jericho. Right. Save Jericho. Send peanuts. And we're going to make it super easy. Give $10, give $20, give $50, whatever this is, because we had to give us. We'll send nuts in bulk in 25 pound cases. Freshly roasted peanuts. Because that was our shtick. Still is our shtick. And everyone came to us. We start collecting so much money. I think very quickly it goes to $40,000.
- [47:22]
Guy Raz
How. How many pounds did you end up of peanuts did you end up sending the CBS?
- [47:25]
Jeff Braverman
So the number I remember was we shipped 40,000 pounds of peanuts.
- [47:29]
Guy Raz
40.
- [47:29]
Jeff Braverman
So that's that full truckload of peanuts.
- [47:32]
Guy Raz
What did they do with all those peanuts?
- [47:35]
Jeff Braverman
I don't know. I think, I don't remember such a long time ago. I think they ended up donating them. We gave them addresses of where to send them where people could use them.
- [47:44]
Guy Raz
I mean, the. Just the publicity that you got out of that. You were in the New Yorker and New York Times and cnn like National Enquirer than once.
- [47:53]
Jeff Braverman
Which was quite embarrassing.
- [47:55]
Guy Raz
I mean, and by the way, this was. They decided not to cancel it. They decided to renew it for another few. Well, it was only seven more episodes, but they did dis. They agree. And I guess they actually appreciated the stunt. They invited you to meet the cast?
- [48:12]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, they flew me out. I was the celebrity at the CBS fall lineup. Party, mind you, I slept at my friend's dorm or whatever the hell. I stayed. I walked there. People come at limousines. This cast were kissing me. And these were like famous people. But yeah, they, they. And then when Nina Tassler brought it back and she says, just please stop sending the nuts. But for us, I mean, our website crashed. At one point in time, we were on like, KROQ and all these places where, like, the traffic was unbelievable. Interestingly, from a business standpoint, we then did some analysis on, hey, did these people become customers and come back? Nah, not really. But what I realized was we're getting links, as you can imagine. Mattered a lot then. New York Times. That's a lot of authority. It's lending ultimately, when they can't. You'll get a kick out of this. When the campaign was done, I then redirected that page to our nuts page so our rankings would go off once everyone was done with this thing. Yeah.
- [49:12]
Guy Raz
Wow. Meantime, the nuts business is growing. I mean, obviously you're doing advertising, but it just continues to grow year after year. I mean, the online business.
- [49:23]
Jeff Braverman
Correct.
- [49:23]
Guy Raz
And you were by this point, CEO of the company.
- [49:27]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, we didn't have quite titles, but you would say by 2000, certainly once we bulldozed and moved in, I was already calling 90% of the shots. Now this is just a very different business.
- [49:38]
Guy Raz
Was your dad and uncle, were they still involved by 27, 8?
- [49:43]
Jeff Braverman
Oh, yeah. Creatures of habit. They're helping us laborers. This is like you get into Christmas season, you don't hire more people necessarily. You bring in friends and family. And it was different with food safety. Now you can't do any of this stuff, but we would just, you feed them, let them eat the stuff.
- [50:00]
Guy Raz
So. All right, so let's go to 2012 because this is a pivotal. Another pivotal moment. I mean, at this point, you are nutsonline.com and that year you would change the URL. And I guess the story I've read starts with Rachael Ray, which I'll ask you about, but I guess the story goes back even years before that. So you're nuts online, but you realize that actually you'd be better off if you were nuts.com, not nutsonline.com, that would be a better URL for you to have tell me about. Why didn't you register that back in 1999? Was it not available?
- [50:39]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, it wasn't available, and I didn't have the money. I didn't even think, like, hindsight's 2020 just because I didn't come from, like, we didn't have tons of money. I didn't even think about buying a domain from someone. It didn't even cross my mind. It was like, oh, these six are taken. Let me move on to the next one.
- [50:54]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [50:55]
Jeff Braverman
Like, I remember in 2005, I saved to my files the name of the.
- [51:02]
Guy Raz
Of the person who owned it.
- [51:03]
Jeff Braverman
Of the person who owned it. Yes. They had owned a bunch of things. And I DMed him, which I'd never done. And he wrote back, and I feel like I gave him an offer that I thought was quite generous. I think I offered him something like $200,000 then.
- [51:17]
Guy Raz
Yep.
- [51:18]
Jeff Braverman
And he just said, no, thank you.
- [51:20]
Guy Raz
So you forgot about it. Okay.
- [51:22]
Jeff Braverman
Correct.
- [51:22]
Guy Raz
That was in 2008. Let's fast forward to 2012. Rachael Ray, she's got four.
- [51:28]
Jeff Braverman
2011.
- [51:28]
Guy Raz
Yeah, 2011. Okay. She's got her show on TV. And what, you guys provided snacks for her show?
- [51:35]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, it was a wedding. It was a wedding episode. And, you know, we had a nice wedding candy business online.
- [51:41]
Guy Raz
And, you know, what's wedding candies?
- [51:43]
Jeff Braverman
Think of, like, Jordan almonds in this organza bag.
- [51:46]
Guy Raz
Oh, Jordan almonds.
- [51:47]
Jeff Braverman
And you throw the stuff.
- [51:48]
Guy Raz
They're pastel colored. Okay. Who likes Jordan almonds, by the way? They're not good.
- [51:54]
Jeff Braverman
Ours are like, super fine. So it's less sugar. But I can't. I don't like Jordan almonds.
- [51:58]
Guy Raz
It's gross. It's just coated.
- [52:00]
Jeff Braverman
I think one of my kids does, but I think they're gross.
- [52:02]
Guy Raz
But whatever. Put chocolate on sugar. Candied sugar on it.
- [52:07]
Jeff Braverman
Yes. Look, we'll sell a better quality than most. And we did ship them to Rachael Ray. And at the very end, she says in the credit, she says, oh, I really want to thank nuts.com and we were nutsonline.com so I was like, oh, man.
- [52:20]
Guy Raz
Oh, wait, sorry, go slow down. She says nuts.com not nutsonline.com Correct.
- [52:28]
Jeff Braverman
I was like, oh.
- [52:31]
Guy Raz
When we come back in just a moment, how Nuts online finally gets a name change and turns into an earworm in the most annoying rap jingle ever written. Stay with us. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built this. This show is presented to you by American Express. Building a business is never a straight line. It's full of unexpected turns. And the right tools can make all the difference along the way. That's why when I talk to entrepreneurs about how they keep growing, American Express often comes up the new enhancements to the amex Business Platinum Card are designed for how business owners actually work today, offering them more value, flexibility and rewards than ever before. With two Times Membership Rewards points on select business purchases, those everyday choices can fuel even more growth. And when it's time to hit the road or the skies, Business Platinum Card members have access to the largest global airport lounge network of any credit card. It's a way to stay productive even while traveling. Plus, the flexible spending limit changes as your business does, adapting to where you are and where you're headed next. Because when it comes to growing your business, there's truly nothing like Business Platinum. Not all purchases will be approved. Terms and points cap apply. Learn more at Go Amex bplat startups move fast, and with AI, they're shipping even faster and attracting enterprise buyers sooner. But big deals bring even bigger security and compliance requirements. A SOC 2 isn't always enough. The right kind of security can make a deal or break it, but what founder or engineer can afford to take time away from building their company? Vanta's AI and automation make it easy to get big Deal ready in days. And Vanta continuously monitors your compliance, so future deals are never blocked. Plus, Vanta scales with you backed by support that's there when you need it. Every step of the way. My listeners can get $1,000 off@vanta.combilt that's V A N T A dot com biltine for $1,000 off. Hey, welcome back to How I Built this. I'm Guy raz. So it's 2012 and Rachael Ray has made a slip of the tongue on our TV show, referring to nutsonline.com as nuts.com which actually is the name that Jeff had always wanted.
- [55:33]
Jeff Braverman
I thought it was better. And like over the years people would often say, wait, what is it? Nuts.com they wouldn't catch the nuts online. I think, you know, I'll say we, but more me had just the foresight that like this Amazon centric world is going to do a great job at intermediating your relationship with the brand. Think about when you go on Amazon, you buy a light that breaks the next day. But like it's vendor qbz, a Y, you know, whatever from China, right? So I think I had appreciation for where that was going. Where, how brand? Even though we had a brand, how we could lean in more, right? Certainly like, hey, if someone sees our ads and it's nuts.com, that's like, whoa, these guys have much more credibility when that stuff mattered more. From a retention standpoint, you Know, I did back of the envelope math. If you get a 1% improvement in retention, whatever, that's long term. This stuff can pay off from a recruiting standpoint, from employees, everything, it's just, it's cooler. And then I just asked a friend, I asked some friends what they thought and they were supportive. So I re engaged with this guy.
- [56:34]
Guy Raz
And in the end, what did you agree to? What was the price?
- [56:36]
Jeff Braverman
Sold to me was $700,000.
- [56:38]
Guy Raz
700 grand.
- [56:41]
Jeff Braverman
He never countered. I had to make eight moves in a row.
- [56:44]
Guy Raz
He would just say no, no, no, no, no. He wouldn't even counter. You would offer this? No. This. No, no. So you were negotiating against yourself.
- [56:51]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. And at the end I was getting fed up, honestly. And I have principles. And I was like, not that this was like a playbook or anything. I was like, hey, this is exploding in 48 hours, I'm walking. And he then accepted it.
- [57:04]
Guy Raz
So 700 grand for a business doing 30 million a year seems very reasonable. Were you nervous about spending that much money?
- [57:12]
Jeff Braverman
No, it was reasonable. We were very profitable at the time. I just believed in it. And again, my BS back of the envelope math felt like, hey, a slight change of one of these things we'll get. Okay, maybe it's not a two year payback, but maybe it's a ten year payback.
- [57:29]
Guy Raz
Okay, so you have the domain. I want to go back to the margins thing for a second because earlier you had mentioned that the retail store did really well from a margin standpoint. Even if the overall revenue wasn't so high, that 50%, you know, you're, you're selling direct to the customer. Well, you've got an online direct to consumer business. So I'm assuming the margins are, I mean you got to ship it, you know, but, and package it up. But still, I mean the margins are probably great.
- [57:55]
Jeff Braverman
They were great because also there was different times where. Right. Amazon didn't create the table stakes of what they are. Right. We used to have shipping actually was a profit center where.
- [58:07]
Guy Raz
Oh. Because you could charge for shipping, but that included your costs.
- [58:11]
Jeff Braverman
And also, look, I wanted to build the business, you know, the way I wanted to. So I don't want to condition customers to expect discounts. I actually wanted shipping because I wanted the hurdle, because I wanted to get the good customers. I wanted to adversely select away the bad customers. You know, and the complaints we got back then, let's say for free shipping, when you would actually look at the customers complaining, this was then it was a person buying a bag of sunflower seeds for $2.99.
- [58:37]
Guy Raz
Right.
- [58:38]
Jeff Braverman
You can't ever make money doing that.
- [58:40]
Guy Raz
So. All right, just to be clear, this is Amazon changed the game when they made shipping free because then everybody expected all shipping, which today everybody expects shipping to be free.
- [58:50]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. And obviously you pay for prime, but people obviously forget that you did not.
- [58:55]
Guy Raz
You were charging for shipping up until Amazon just kind of changed that because you could. Because people assumed you got to pay for shipping, but you could charge a premium for it because you know, you had to cover your costs. The person in the warehouse. And so even though the shipping costs might be 399, you could charge $4.99 for shipping.
- [59:13]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. The economics were great. Advertising, what people call, you know, CAC and so on back then was very different. So your advertising as a percentage of revenue was way lower, labor was way lower than what it is now. So yeah, pretty good economics back then.
- [59:31]
Guy Raz
All right, I want to just digress for a moment and ask about sourcing because you're selling, you were selling at this point 150, 200 plus different SKUs, different items. Right. From Jordan almonds to candy to, you know, chocolate covered espresso beans. But were nuts still the primary driver? Was that still what most people ordered like cashews, peanuts, walnuts, pecans, nuts?
- [59:57]
Jeff Braverman
About in 2012. What time frame?
- [60:01]
Guy Raz
Yeah, about then.
- [60:02]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, I would say by then it's getting closer to a 50. 50.
- [60:05]
Guy Raz
Okay. And where, I mean, I know that you were, you know, you're buying espresso beans from Cooper, so I keep forgetting Copper's Chocolate. Copper. Copper. And so where were you sourcing almonds come from? California. Right. Peanuts. Peanuts are also us. But where are you getting your stuff from?
- [60:23]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, so a lot of stuff is grown domestically. And look, this is one thing that's unique. Even though I came into a small business, but because also we had a little bigger aperture than just a retail store because we had this little hol wholesale business. You know, we had direct relationships with farmers and growers and it's like a nice thing. For example, where we buy walnuts in California. Last time I actually visited the farm, the owner of that company, he's a farmer and processor. So like he processes for other people too. He's like, Jeff, you're our longest standing customer. Like his father did business with my grandfather. So if it's though domestic, we're going to go as direct as we can. When it comes to stuff overseas, it depends. Like, you know, today when I think about tariffs and our exposure, I would say direct and indirect exposure to tariffs is like 50% of our products.
- [61:12]
Guy Raz
Because a lot of your stuff, right, I mean like cashews do come from I think Brazil, right?
- [61:16]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. Right now, yes. Brazil or Vietnam. Look, my favorite product of ours is an organic dried mango. It comes from Mexico. Right, Right. It's not, you know, a lot of this stuff. Look, we have a lot of chocolate in our business. Ain't grown, not grown, not grown here.
- [61:31]
Guy Raz
And chocolate's getting more expensive, as is coffee.
- [61:33]
Jeff Braverman
Oh, well, that's a whole nother story. A lot of stress over the last couple of years. Yeah, these are all time 50 year highs and.
- [61:40]
Guy Raz
Well, let's just talk about this for a minute. I mean climate change and I don't want to get into this too much but I mean it is affecting, it's got to affect some of these things, right? Like coffee prices are going up, chocolate prices are going up. I'm sure that changing weather patterns are affecting certain crops. Nuts for example. Right, Correct.
- [61:59]
Jeff Braverman
And look, we've seen stuff, obviously we've been in the business for a while. We saw stuff where almond pricing went up 2 to 3x our cost years ago because there was concerns about there was a bad crop, but they're concerned about drought.
- [62:09]
Guy Raz
Drought in California. I just drove up the 5 in calm. It's all almond farms and you're like, there's no water here. This is crazy. This is all being diverted and somehow.
- [62:17]
Jeff Braverman
They figured out better yields and whatnot. So then almond pricing has moved a bit, but it's come down from those levels. But yeah, like one of the few things I lose sleep about these days is cocoa pricing. I look at the futures daily because we have a chocolate business and we buy lots of cocoa both here and in Europe and it's down now. You know, when I look at let's say the futures in March, it may be down 20 something percent from its peak, but that's 3x where it was two years ago. Because it's just, it's very hard to grow this stuff. Whereas the climate shifts. There's some insect stuff, but a lot of it's just drought.
- [62:55]
Guy Raz
All right, I want to go back to your kind of fandom marketing side because you bought ad space on Sirius XM in 2015.
- [63:06]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah.
- [63:07]
Guy Raz
And you, and this is so weird, you wrote, I guess you wrote a song, a jingle.
- [63:15]
Jeff Braverman
I helped write a rap.
- [63:16]
Guy Raz
Yeah, you helped write a rap. It's a rap about nuts and it just played on SiriusXM and I've heard it and anybody listening to this you should go just search for thenuts.com jingle because it is, it is so annoying. It is, it is an earworm. But really, you know, tell me the story first about this jingle that you wrote.
- [63:41]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, it's super polarizing. People either loved it or hate it. People have remixed it, like not our versions. People have listened to it hundreds, thousands of times. But yeah, look, I was just dabbling, as I call it, 2015 era. It was like hey, what other channels? So we dabbled a little bit and this was very useful playbook for when Covid hit. We did try tv, we tried some radio, we tried a bit of different things. So look, we're trying to be creative and I don't think it was originally my idea and then I was supposed to do it, but I'm not really musically inclined and I was sick. So my brother in law did the rap, we put it on, we put it on the air. It was again polarizing.
- [64:22]
Guy Raz
Yo, microphone check 1, 2 and 3. It's nuts.com delivery when I need a yummy snack that's good for me There's.
- [64:30]
Jeff Braverman
A sight I hit when I'm hungry.
- [64:31]
Guy Raz
From a cashew to an almond, dried peach or a plum nuts.com won't be outdone. Apparently you start to get letters in from people saying stop, you're driving me nuts.
- [64:45]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, it was like 50, 50, 50% of people loved it, 50% of people hated it and couldn't get out of their heads.
- [64:52]
Guy Raz
So was a part of you thinking this is great, it's annoying people are talking about this or were you like, ooh, it's annoying.
- [64:58]
Jeff Braverman
I think some of the talking and stuff came about actually later too though where we already killed it. For me I was just like looking for a certain return. I think the rap was just okay in terms of it wasn't super performant so just the aperture wasn't wide enough for the returns kind of that we were, we were after.
- [65:15]
Guy Raz
So all right, but all of these different attempts and ways of advertising, like on Sirius xm, I mean they continue, your business continues just year after year was growing. So I would think that really a business like yours, in order to survive and scale, you've got to basically be in every office in America or many offices and that because you just get repeat. I mean when you're selling to corporate offices, it's just automatically someone's hitting the, you know, reorder button and just relying on individual sales, which might be one off sales or maybe somebody might order three, four times a year. It's not enough.
- [65:54]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, correct. And in this day and age, it's super hard. D2C space is super hard. You know what we find with our call it on the website, but our B2B business, believe it or not, even though the margins, the gross margins are lower, the net margins are higher when you factor in everything just a much stickier customer and just handling those orders. And what we found was, look, a lot of this stuff was just accidental and then you just learn from it and lean in. And this along the way we found stuff where like, I don't know, but we have significant market share of microbreweries across the US who would have known? I didn't know who. Just buy in bulk because they're going to buy their. Not their hops or their primary ingredient, but hey, they want to have some toasted coconuts.
- [66:37]
Guy Raz
Right. Pecan flavored brew IPA or something.
- [66:41]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. And so we found that with offices where the offices may not even be buying the 25 pound cases they actually put out. They have one in five pound bags, for example, or single serve stuff and they'll put it out. So it's kind of like. And at that point, then let's focus on that and add more and serve their needs better. Never, never necessarily part of the grand plan. But that's, that's, that's a really healthy part of our business was probably 15% of our revenue or so. Maybe, maybe actually at that point, probably more. Maybe 20, 25%.
- [67:12]
Guy Raz
All right, so you have, I mean you're, you're growing your corporate B2B stuff and, and, and then Covid hits. Right. I mean everything closes, offices shut down. And, and the B2B business must have totally disappeared. But on the flip side, people were suddenly, people were suddenly stuck at home. Right. So imagine your direct to consumer sales must have exploded.
- [67:36]
Jeff Braverman
Yes. And then you fast forward maybe a week or two and then schools are closed and now it became. We have infinite demand. How the heck do you ship this stuff? Yeah, because we're in central New Jersey, which is close to ground zero for Covid. Early on in the pandemic, did you.
- [67:57]
Guy Raz
Have employees who were scared to come to work and scared to be in the.
- [67:59]
Jeff Braverman
Oh yeah, it was terrible. We did like we went to war and back keeping people safe. Like tearing down walls of a cafeteria to expand it. Putting out bathrooms outside in the trailers. We put in UV light. We did. I was like, safety Zara, as I'm working the plant, like yelling. You have to. Yeah, just yell to keep people apart. Some people Certainly got sick. But like my worst, one of the worst days of my life because this was like I was having neurodivers breakdowns. Every day was after Easter. The day after Easter, people would reflect April.
- [68:29]
Guy Raz
So this is 2020.
- [68:30]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, correct. The employees would reflect a lot on the weekends and then more would be scared to come in. And that Monday we had 70% worker call out.
- [68:39]
Guy Raz
Wow, 70% of your employees said they can't come in.
- [68:42]
Jeff Braverman
Correct. These are the. Because we're making stuff, we're roasting chocolate, coating, packaging, shipping. And I'm just working. I'm literally working probably like 10, 12 hour days in the plant, then going home, trying to save the business at night. And the employees demanded to speak with me. And it's one of those surreal kind of out of body experiences where in 30 minutes in Spanish I couldn't find my plant manager who's a native speaker. I speak well enough, but in 30 minutes had to give the speech of all speeches of why we're here and why we need to stay here and how I wish we could close the factory and go home, but we can't and everyone's counting on us and. Yeah, but it was exciting too. Scary and terrifying and also exciting. I'm sure you've experienced it. You just put your head down and you go.
- [69:29]
Guy Raz
You know, one of the things I'm curious about is you mentioned earlier on about watching your dad just work six day weeks and maybe have half a day off on Saturday and just the grind. And that when you went to Blackstone you saw a version of that there and that you didn't want that. And I wonder whether when you started in 2003 at Newark Nut Co. Now it is nuts.com, by this point, you know, talking about 2020, you're grinding, you're working like your dad was working. I mean, of course the return is a little different, but how did you feel about that? Because you wanted to, from what I gather, you wanted to avoid that. You wanted to be able to spend time with your kids and your family and all these things.
- [70:12]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, I mean, look, you didn't have so much time to think about. You're talking about specifically in the COVID period.
- [70:19]
Guy Raz
Yeah. And even before that. It sounds like you were actually probably working hard, but not 60 hour weeks.
- [70:24]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, yeah, easily that. But when you love it, it's like, I'm sure you ask this or people ask you this and so on. It's about work, life, balance. A lot of theory right now is there's no such Thing for me, there was no such thing. I love this.
- [70:35]
Guy Raz
I work all the time and I'm with my family all the time.
- [70:37]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah, I try to be present. Like, okay, if I'm working on the next business idea on a Saturday night at my kids, they asked me to play. Okay. I'm trying to be better about that. But one thing I did was especially is when I got married and had the kids, hey, like, I am going to leave work, right? I had to commute and so on, but I would leave work, you know, 5ish, get home, see the kids, eat with them, and then do work when they're sleeping and so on. And I wake up really early, so I work early in the morning. So look, for me, it's like I rise to the occasion. This past peak 2024, we sold more gifts than we expected. I was supposed to come in for two Saturday corporate volunteer events for morale because, like, the workers are working so hard on the plant. I had to stay. Needed me for seven straight days.
- [71:20]
Guy Raz
These are gift boxes, like tins of gift trays.
- [71:23]
Jeff Braverman
Yes. We're not like, we're seasonal. So our business does. You know, December could be double July, but it's not seasonal.
- [71:30]
Guy Raz
Like Harry and David sells these things, right?
- [71:33]
Jeff Braverman
Correct, Correct, correct. So we do similar, similar stuff.
- [71:35]
Guy Raz
Are they a competitor?
- [71:36]
Jeff Braverman
I mean, everyone's a competitor at this point. Yeah, but no, just in my DNA, like, nothing's beneath me, you know, like, you'll see my dad come in, you know, like Covid. We sent my dad and my uncle home, right? We said, this isn't safe for you guys. Diabetes and so on. And they're old. They were, you know, ready in their 70s. But look, my dad will help. He'll help move when we're in the picking area, he'll drag these totes around. And my uncle, he's meticulous about the quality. So we'll bang out tens of thousands of custom trays, which is a unique thing. We launched, believe it or not, in 1999. My uncle will be at the end of the line and he'll approve them. And one day, they really needed him because we were super busy. He worked the whole time, like 12 hours. He's got to sit on a stool a little bit. He's older. But then the team gives him a.
- [72:20]
Guy Raz
Standing ovation after coming out of COVID I think, understandably, because it was a crazy time In October of 2023, you guys, for the first time, you picked, you decided to step down as CEO. You found a CEO from outside the company outside the family. And you became the chairman of nuts.com? was this. I imagine you were just exhausted. You didn't want to what, you didn't want to be doing operations every day and just. Yeah.
- [72:50]
Jeff Braverman
At this point, it was two years before I said I hired a president. What I started, we were picking up our head, let's build out a team. Covid gave us the luxury of then let's go after this and really build out a team and not be so lean. And at that point, finally I had a friend and I finally brought him as an advisor so I wouldn't be just alone in this journey because it gets really lonely. And even if you're super successful outwardly, internally, there's this imposter syndrome and do I know what I'm doing? And he helped me see a path where Jeff, hey, in three years you could focus on M and a culture and strategy, for example. And I actually heard it on one of your podcasts. It's like, why build on your weaknesses? I don't have to. I could have retired 15 years ago. Why don't I lean into my strengths and do what I love doing and I'm good at, get exactly what I like and it could be better for the business too.
- [73:48]
Guy Raz
Yeah. By the way, I think that was Sarah Blakely from who founded Spanx, who said that lean on your strengths and you know, and don't worry about your weaknesses. And versions of that have been said by others, but it's true. Right. And so. And so today you are. Tell me about how, I mean, how you're involved in the business. I mean, do you go in every day to the office you're still in, you know, still in New Jersey. And I mean, what's your kind of day to day look like?
- [74:14]
Jeff Braverman
I don't go in that much. I want to leave, give the people space. So, you know, maybe I go in a couple times a month. We have a corporate office separate from our manufacturing plant. I would say I'm still more in the weeds than I'm supposed to be. Look, I love being in the weeds. Don't get me wrong. So we'll see. It's still this evolution. And again, I know what I'm good at. I know where I interfere too much. I know things get dangerous and so on. And I'm relatively self aware. Of course I have ego, everyone has ego. But like I'm okay not being the person. Right. I don't need to give the speeches to the employees. I don't need to go to the conferences, that's fine, right? Like I want to work on fun stuff if I can.
- [74:58]
Guy Raz
Still family owned the business.
- [75:00]
Jeff Braverman
Correct.
- [75:01]
Guy Raz
And your dad and your uncle are still both alive?
- [75:04]
Jeff Braverman
Yes, they're both alive.
- [75:05]
Guy Raz
And what, and they're not, of course. I'm assuming they're not involved day to day, are they? What are they? Are they still owners?
- [75:12]
Jeff Braverman
So I bought my dad out a long time ago. I probably bought my dad out 17 years ago. My uncle's still, still an owner, still a shareholder. He maybe comes in once every couple weeks. He helps the team on buying. He's got these long standing relationships and he still has. Yes. Can he chisel someone 5 cents here and there? It's kind of an old school mentality. Yes. But like, the people love talking to him. He goes on vacation with some of our suppliers. You know, it's a nice thing. Or if I'm. I don't want to step on toes, I'll go to him and I'll say, go check the quality of these organic raisins. Because I ordered some and I was like, they could be better.
- [75:50]
Guy Raz
What is, what do they make of, of this? I mean, just the transition or the transformation of the business from what it was to what it is now.
- [75:59]
Jeff Braverman
Yeah. I mean, for them, I mean, they're just amazed. They wish Papisala were still alive. He wouldn't understand because he would say, where's the cash? You know, he doesn't see the register and so on. But for them, look, this worked. And it worked really early on, right? We never took on investors. We grew. We figured out the motto. We grew very quickly and profitably. And look, even before the true financial success, they got a second lease on life. I told the story earlier about Saturdays. We were making $2 a day. I did the math, I said, guys, this is not about me shying from work. This is a waste of time. No one's coming to the retail store. So this is like in, I don't know if it's 2003, the latest, 2004. I said, we're closing on Saturdays. My dad in law said, oh, Poppy Salt would never allow this. Right? You just work, you know. And my uncle says, well, can we just try it out and let's just do a half a day? I said, no, this is a joke, right? Doesn't make any sense for us. We closed and I made the decision on a Monday and we closed on that Saturday. And my uncle on that Monday says, oh my God, that's the best decision of our life. And they got A second lease on their life where they could be involved in the community and go to temple and just do stuff that most other people get to do.
- [77:16]
Guy Raz
I bet, I mean, you know, this question was coming, but when you think about this whole journey and what happened and I mean, you hope to have five exit and you, I mean, I think it's estimated you guys are doing close to $100 million a year in sales. Much bigger than a million dollar business. When you joined. How much of where you are now do you attribute to the work you put in the grind? And how much do you think had to do with just the luck and timing of the era that you happened to live in?
- [77:48]
Jeff Braverman
I was born into a family that had a nut business. That was terrible. My friend's father, when I was my childhood friend, his father was a dentist and he would make fun of me that my dad sells nuts. No one expected me to go into this business. I, I mentioned earlier something about man plans and God laughs. You know, stuff comes your way.
- [78:08]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [78:09]
Jeff Braverman
And it's what you choose to do with it. Are you open to it and are you going to freaking work fast and hard and smart as it, as it comes your way? Okay, great. I chose to join my little family nothing nut business and it was amazing. My dad gave me the keys.
- [78:25]
Guy Raz
Yeah.
- [78:26]
Jeff Braverman
And you know, my dad will get teary eyed because he, you know what he'll say to the new employees for onboarding? We'll do like an onboarding lunch. And he says, you know, I hated this business. I never really wanted to go into this business and I didn't really get listened to. And the thing, you know, that this is speaking for my dad, he says, the thing I said is if I have children one day, I'm never going to make them want to come. I'm never going to make them come into the business. But if they want to come into the business, I'm going to let them come into the business and I'm going to let them do what they want. So this is like a visceral. Right, Right. Vicarious thing for my dad and it's special.
- [79:10]
Guy Raz
That's Jeff Braverman, the chairman of nuts.com. by the way, that annoying rap jingle that we played earlier, Jeff says it's still out there and it's still a thing.
- [79:21]
Jeff Braverman
Oh, I mean, people would, people would jam me with this. You know, they would be talking to me on the phone, they would start playing it. The only thing I do when I, because I still, I still have it is when I go to speak at like schools and stuff. Whether it's executive MBA class or just like Boys and Girls Club. I play the rap at the end and everyone likes it.
- [79:44]
Guy Raz
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 newsletter@guyraz.com or on substack. This episode was produced by Sam Paulson with music composed by Ramtina Rabloui. It was edited by Neva Grant with research help from Olivia Rockman. Our engineers are Patrick Murray and Jimmy Keeley. Our production staff also includes Andrea Bruce, Alex Chung, Elaine Coates, Casey Herman, Noor Gill, Chris Masini, Kerry Thompson, and Rommel Wood. 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 survey@wondery.com survey.