← Making It with Jon Davids
Making It with Jon Davids
149 - She Took Over The Company When Her Dad Died — Now It’s Worth $300M | Julie Smolyansky, Lifeway Foods
00:51:50
Jon () sits down with the President and Chairwoman of Lifeway Foods; Julie Smolyansky. Listen in as Julie tells us about the wild path of her career which has seen its share of loss, massive innovation, and her battle to have her product available in...
Loading summary
Transcript85 lines
- [00:00]
JD
What's up, guys? JD Here. And on today's show, I am talking with Julie Smolanski, president and chairwoman of Lifeaway Foods. At 27 years old, Julie's dad suddenly dies and she becomes the CEO of a publicly traded company doing $12 million a year. Fast forward to 2020. Four companies doing almost $200 million a year under her leadership. But it was a crazy ride. And there is so much Julie talks about here. She talks about how she was early to influencer marketing, how she was one of the very first brands on MySpace and on Twitter, how she went neighborhood by neighborhood, zip code by zip code, hand to hand combat getting her kefir into every grocery store across the nation. And that's right, she sells kefir or kefir, which is a fermented drink product made with milk or water. She's gonna tell you all about it, guys. If you wanna understand about how to build a real business with real grit and real hustle, you guys are going to love this conversation with Julie Smolanski. That's coming up in just a sec. If you're a fan of the show, you know what to do. Smash the subscribe button on Apple and Spotify, YouTube, wherever you're listening to this and make sure to leave a comment, leave a rating, leave a review. You can get my best stuff to your inbox@john davids.com and now let's get to the episode.
- [01:29]
Julie Smolanski
You'Re listening to, Making it with Jon DAVIDS.
- [01:36]
JD
So, Julie, June 10, 2002. You're 27 years old and your life kind of turns upside down. Can you take me back and tell me that story?
- [01:47]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah. So the day before we learned that, my father had a sudden heart attack and passed away. And he was the founder of our company, Lifeway Foods, which is the country's leading manufacturer of kefir or Keir, which is like a probiotic yogurt drink. So my father founded the company. He was like the sole. He was the man and he ran it. It was a small team at the time. The business was about $12 million in revenue annually. I had worked for him for about five years right out of college. I was the director of sales and marketing at the time. And overnight, you know, we were thrown into chaos. Just complete shock, disbelief. He was 55 years old, in the prime of his Life. I was 27 at the time. It was absolutely devastating and epic proportions. You know, obviously just not even just only the personal factor of losing your father. But, you know, he was also the leader of our company and there's 70 employees and everything my parents had risked for, you know, when we, we immigrated, we were, we were immigrants from the former Soviet Union, which I'm sure we can get into later. But, yeah, it was, it was devastating. And crisis doesn't even begin to describe what happened. A few feet away from me, my father's best friend. You know, all the friends of the spouse come together at the spouse's surviving spouse's home. So my dad's best friend, a few feet away from me, said, there's no way a 27 year old girl can run this company. That's it. Sell all of your stock. You know, we were publicly traded. So the next morning when the market opened, the stock crashed. It was dropping. NASDAQ halted trading. It was a really scary time. I really, truly felt all alone. I didn't know what the right next decision was. We had a really sleazeball attorney. He was our SEC counsel. He was trying to do some back deals behind the scenes. You know, he, he was trying to position himself as interim CEO while he was the SEC counsel to try to flip the company like in those days. So I, it was a battle, you know, and I just vividly remember standing over at the cemetery as we were going to pick out the plot for where my dad would be buried. I got a call from a board member who was like, hey, Julie, were you aware of this emergency board meeting that Peter was trying to call? And we had no clue. Nobody in the family knew about it.
- [04:38]
JD
This is like an episode of Succession.
- [04:40]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah. And by the way, this is actually the first time I'm talking about this with you. I've never told the story out loud.
- [04:47]
JD
Can we just pause for one second because this is an amazing story. Were you the, were you the predicted heir? Like, why would people even assume at the funeral that you were going to be the CEO?
- [04:57]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah. My father had been grooming me to be the CEO. He had invested in me. He sent me to media training in New York for a month. I lived in New York. And he said, julie, you're going to, you're going to run this company. He pointed, he pointed out Christy Hefner to me, who took over Hughes because company playboy. He said, julie, I want you to follow in Christie's footsteps. You can do this. He said, you can do anything you want except be the President of the United States. And that's only because you weren't born in America. He really believed in me. And, you know, we had shareholder meetings and they would ask, literally Like a week before this happened, we had our annual meeting of shareholders and a question came from the audience. What happens if something happens to you? This seems like a one man operation. And my dad pointed to me and said, I've been grooming Julie since the day she was born. She's really capable and competent. So knowing that my father believed in me was all I needed to succeed. Even today, nothing else matters. It didn't matter that, that, you know, guy, his best friend said that I couldn't do it. It didn't matter that this SEC council thought that, that he was going to pull one over me. You know, he said, oh, come on. To my mom, he said, come on, Lucy, you need a little gray hair on your board to deal with those folks, you know, to deal with everyone. So, you know, it none of that mattered. All I know is the most important man in my life, the smartest man, my dad believed in me, and that's all I needed to keep going forward, even when the rest of the world was telling me I couldn't do it.
- [06:40]
JD
Did your dad raise you? Were you, like, on the factory floor watching the kefir being made? Were you kind of a kid being raised in the factory, in the business?
- [06:49]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, I was guinea pig number one. The very first batch of kefir that he made in our townhouse in Skokie, Illinois, right outside of Chicago, he made the very first batches. I can see it, like, I can smell it, like the smell of like fermenting milk, the sound of it, like, bubbling as it was as he was making it. And when he had a spoon and he, like walked over, I was sitting on the carpet playing Bargain Hunter with my brother, a board game, or maybe it was Hungry Hippos, one of the two. And he, he came over and he like said, here, try this. And that was the very first sample, very first taste of kefir or kefir. Yeah, I grew up on the factory floor, bring breaks, was, you know, packing cheese or in my very first demo, he. So he launched the company in 1986 when I was 11 years old, my very first trade show. I was 12 years old at the fancy food show, which is a big industry trade show for kind of specialty foods. And yeah, I remember actually another great moment at that show. Lee Iacocca, iconic businessman, he, his daughter was launching one of the very first olive oils in the United States. And nobody knew what olive oil was at the time. It was just butter and margarine. And Lee was there with his daughter standing and signing autographs. And, like, trying to get attention over to their booth. And my dad pointed to me and introduced me, and he said, julie, you're going to be just like his daughter. You're going to, you know, taken after her father's footsteps. So, Yeah, I was 12 years old on my first trade show, my very first demo at a grocery store in Treasure island. Also. It's not there anymore. The chain is gone. But it was a. A really iconic grocery store in Chicago, and I did my first demo at the time just, you know, slinging kefir, and nothing's really changed. Just a few more wrinkles. A few more wrinkles.
- [08:50]
JD
So by the time you're 27, you're, like, fully prepared to do this. You were not kind of thrown in. I'm sure you maybe felt underprepared because of your age or because of what people were telling you, but you knew the business inside and out. Can you tell me how you dealt with this SEC scumbag? Sounds like totally.
- [09:07]
Julie Smolanski
Well, he went to jail. He was investigated by the FBI, and he did go to jail for maybe 10 years or so. So he was a really bad guy. And my instinct told me he was a bad guy. And all it took was a second of doubt in that moment to say, yeah, maybe I'm not up for this. And it would be a very different outcome for the company and our legacy.
- [09:30]
JD
So what actually happened? He says to your mom, we need some gray hair on the board. And then what do you do?
- [09:35]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah. Oh. So he says this, and he was, like, on the speaker phone, and everyone was listening to it. And to me, as soon as somebody says, trust me, trust me, and they're, like, really trying to convince you, it's such a red flag. And when he was like, trust me, Lucy, you need a little bit of gray hair on that board. I was like, whoa, this is, like, screaming, like, danger. And we. So we called in another attorney. So he was SEC counsel. We had corporate counsel. We called corporate counsel to let him know what was happening, and he was like, whoa, this is so highly not okay. This is, like, even used a word. It's like, illegal, basically, us. Like, you can't be a lawyer and try to take over and be a CEO, too.
- [10:18]
JD
It's a total conflict of interest.
- [10:19]
Julie Smolanski
Maybe that's what he. Yeah, there were a couple of words. He used legal words that were, like, describing how illegal it was. So he called an emergency meeting, and we. The board voted me in. Basically, they made a motion to put me in as CEO, and, you know, I made a Strong appeal. The board knew me. I presented to the board every single meeting for the last five years prior to that happening. So they really watched me grow up. They knew my capabilities, my work ethic, all I had done for the company. I was really my father's first English speaking employee. So you know, a lot of the growth. I came to work for him when it was a $6 million company and I helped him take it to 12 million. And he essentially, I would say was semi retired at that point and just fully pushed all of the work onto me, which I was happy and loved it. I was thriving. I was so excited and happy. But yeah, so they voted me in and you know, I just started making decisions and it was as hard as like, I mean the very first decision I was like, we need a new, we need a sign. We don't have a sign outside. We need a sign to show that we're here, we're not going anywhere. We, you know, invested in a, a sign for the first time in the since the founding of our company. I mean and it was these small decisions. It wasn't like a monumental decision but it made a statement that we're here, we're not going anywhere, we're going to keep going, we're strong. And even if it maybe wasn't, you know, a game changing decision that doubled our business or quadrupled our business or with some epic deal, it was a decision. And all you have to do is just start with one decision and keep making a decision.
- [12:07]
JD
Putting aside on side as a statement, it says I'm here and I'm not going anywhere. So you're a $12 million company and now you're at least, I don't know what you are today, but at one point, I mean number I saw was 130 million revenue company. That might be a bit old.
- [12:22]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, it's old. We're trending on. We're basically a $200 million company at this point.
- [12:29]
JD
Okay, so 12 million to 200 million. You know what you're doing here. Tell me what the years have been like there monumental growth moments or was it really just incremental?
- [12:40]
Julie Smolanski
A lot of it was incremental. Kind of slow and steady consistent organic growth. It's every quarter better than the last quarter. It's not taking on more than we can chew. You know, I think a lot of startups especially want to grow big fast and they want to be national fast and they want to get to scale fast. But if your marketplace isn't really ready yet, you're and you're just going to be spending spread too thin. And we, you know, always just worked in small zip codes. You know, conquer a zip code, conquer a marketplace.
- [13:18]
JD
Does that mean go into the local grocery stores there and just make sure your feet on the ground. Is that what you're talking about?
- [13:24]
Julie Smolanski
Exactly. Only bite off what you can chew versus what other people. I've seen other companies in my space do is go and pay a lot of money for slotting dollars and kind of inauthentically get shelf space. But nobody knows their product. And now they have to spend way more money on advertising and investing to get advertising to, to get awareness around, you know, folks to buy their products. It's just too much too fast. If you're a product like ours, where it was unheard of, it's not like it was a new water with flavor, it, you know, that's understandable. Water flavor, got it. Vitamin water, easy to understand. This is something that people still don't even know how to pronounce. It's a 2000 year old product that originated in the Caucus Mountains. And while it was a staple where I'm from and my ancestors passed it down generation to generation for over 2000 years in America, no one had ever heard of it. No one knew what the word was. It was, you know, just a fully unknown concept. Nobody was talking about gut health or probiotics. We were the first to write probiotics on our labels and we really led that conversation. We led the conversation around gut health, we led the conversation around good bacteria and microflora. Nobody would use those words. As a matter of fact, my father, when we started working together, he said, julie, don't use the word bacteria. Americans don't want to hear the word bacteria, even if it's friendly bacteria. Which is why the large yogurt companies never talk about probiotics or bacteria. They talked about it being a diet friendly food in the 80s, which is when kind of yogurt started to make its way onto American shelves. So when we got into a grocery store, we made sure that we crushed it at that grocery store. And when we got.
- [15:16]
JD
Were you doing sampling on the ground?
- [15:18]
Julie Smolanski
Were you doing demos? We're me standing and doing demos. Hi, would you like to try some Lifeway Kefir? Oh, what is that? It looks like Pepto Bismol. That's what I would get a lot of times. So. Yeah. What is this? Oh, it's like a drinkable yogurt or. Yeah, the Pepto Bismol was one that I got repeatedly. But yeah, it's, it's literally getting into the store, standing there and giving people tastes like once you taste it, it's so delicious. People fall in love with it. But more importantly, they learn about the health benefits and they get pulled in by how good they feel after they drink it. Because you know the word kefir. Kefir is a Turkish word that means kaif. Kaif is good feeling. And the people who consumed kefir 2000 years ago in the Caucus Mountains, they reported feeling a sense of well being. They felt better when they consumed it. Which makes total sense because today science and research has backed up that, you know, gut health and having that friendly bacteria contributes to good mental health as well. That the mind and the gut are always communicating so we can help to reduce stress, depression and anxiety. Which is probably why those people felt a sense of well being 2000 years ago. They felt like a joy. They felt, they felt, they said kai if it's like in Russian and it's like kaif is like a buzz. It's like, if I was going to translate it, it's like buzz. They felt like a buzz. And not only the mental health like digestion and immunity are things that we've known for, you know, at least 100 years, we've known that kefir is good for digestion and immunity. And so anyways, I think that when people learn about how, how much health benefits they can get from something in the grocery store for just, you know, a few bucks at how accessible it is and it tastes delicious and you can use it in recipes and whatnot.
- [17:14]
JD
It sounds obvious today. It's funny when you say it because today it's like so on trend. But we're talking about 2002, we're talking about 1988. Like it was completely out there. The word bacteria would have been disgusting to hear as a western consumer. So let me ask you this. So you're, I get the hand to hand combat, you're on the ground, you're doing samples every day. Was your space ever infiltrated by VC backed or just deep pocketed big guys? Like, did that ever happen to you? Because I know a lot of these wellness industries have been really like, there's been a lot of competition. Did you face that?
- [17:48]
Julie Smolanski
So I would say not specifically in kefir, but in every other category. We own 95% of the category in the United States and Mexico and parts of Eastern Europe and Middle East. But what I've noticed is that there are a lot of vc, private equity back companies and that is challenging for us because they have play money, they have Monopoly money. They have Monopoly money to get on shelf. They have Monopoly money to do advertising, to sponsor things. It's become just a lot harder to be in the food industry. And I only know about the food industry. I'm not going to speak to any other industry, but I know I live and breathe the food industry. It's in my DNA. But I do notice that there is a lot of this Monopoly money. And then it just makes it harder for, like, us to go and buy the advertising or, you know, get shelf space, because we're not. We don't consider our money as Monopoly money.
- [18:47]
JD
Real dollars.
- [18:48]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, we're. It's ours. And again, I've just seen people make these mistakes where they try to sit on too many chairs with one ass. If I can say that.
- [19:00]
JD
I love that expression. Too many chairs, one ass. So, yeah, so you're like, you're a business. And I can just tell by the way, you know, you operate and your dad operated. I'm sure it's real. It's cash flow, it's margin, it's profit. It's not just, let's burn through $20 million and see what happens, which is unfortunately what a lot of other companies do, especially when they're new.
- [19:22]
Julie Smolanski
Yep, yep. They want to show, they want to get that fast growth. But, you know, we were never in it to build a company for right now. We were building a company for all generations, not just this generation and, you know, to last a lasting legacy. This was never meant to be built to then go and flip. This was meant to provide families, hundreds of families, and we employ 300 people today, a life and a place to come, you know, a second home. And that's what I think we've accomplished. And I couldn't be more proud of the team and everybody who's contributed over the years, because it's been a labor of love. Every person who works for us, I mean, we have very little turnover and it's not because of the high salaries by any means. I think that people feel that connection, that they're real people, that they're not just a number punching in. That's been really important. And I think people see through. They know our family story. They know that we came from the Soviet Union. And I think that's also that resonates. People want authenticity. They want something real. Especially today in the world of AI where so many brands are now just being developed out of chat GPT, you know, and you can tell, you can Tell when something is just an AI developed brand backed by private equity. Throw in a celebrity, throw in some influencers and let's see what happens. But I think consumers are much smarter than that and they can see through it. And those companies won't be successful. They're, they'll, you know, like so many companies, burn through. And listen, we've had really challenges in our space. We had to deal with the plant based movement and an anti dairy movement and that was a really challenging time. We went from a high and then, you know, lost a lot of revenue and had to climb out of that. We've been in a turnaround for the last five years. It's been painful, but fun. Turning it around has been really fun, but it's hard. It's not for the week, let's put it that way.
- [21:31]
JD
Quick break. So I can tell you about my new book. Marketing Superpowers Build a brand so good that getting customers feels like magic. You know, I have spent over a decade working with over 20,000 influencers, Instagrammers, YouTubers, celebrities, seeing how they connect with audiences, seeing how they build their own personal brands and kind of dissecting exactly how it works. And then a lot of these people wind up launching businesses and they do so well. How are they able to do it? Is it just because they're famous? No, there's a lot more to it than that. I have dissected it, I have analyzed it, I have put it in a book for you called Marketing Superpowers, available right now@marketingsuperpowersbook.com now this, this is not a book about becoming an influencer. It's about the influencer playbook and how they launch brands. Building a community, building a movement, building a connection with your customer like no other. Get it all@marketingsuperpowersbook.com you can also get a free chapter there and tons of bonus content when you buy the book. Available for ebook, audio and of course get your physical copy. Marketing Superpowers get your copy right now@marketingsuperpowersbook.com yeah, it's funny when you mentioned, like I'm just picturing right now there could be, you know, two college students out there who were born and raised in whatever Texas and they go and raise a bunch of VC and they start telling this beautiful story about how they were hiking the mountains, you know, they're hiking the Himalayan, you know, and I saw, I learned from this wise man about this chemical. And all of a sudden they're telling a story. You've actually lived it and they're just putting it on paper so I could see that. By the way, I'm just checking out your stock in real time. Are you up like 146% in the last year?
- [23:22]
Julie Smolanski
You know, I don't really focus on my stock price, to be honest. I don't obsess about it. But yeah, we are a lot. But yes, we are.
- [23:32]
JD
Well, I think for the last 97% year to date is the number I see here.
- [23:39]
Julie Smolanski
Yes. And we've had a share price increase of over 1200% in the last five years.
- [23:48]
JD
That's insane. Okay, let me ask you this.
- [23:50]
Julie Smolanski
Crazy.
- [23:52]
JD
Yeah. What's it like? And it's funny because you've only ever known being a public company CEO. What's it like to be a public company CEO? Is this a lot more pressure? Do you ever just wish, like, I wish it was just a family business that was just private, or do you enjoy the spotlight?
- [24:07]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, I think both, you know, both are true. I would love it to not be public and just, you know, not have all the extra risk and expenses. I mean, it's very expensive to run a public company. It's just hard to see that. And there's a lot of nonsense, you know, a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of waste in the process, socks, all of that stuff. But I absolutely do love it. I don't mind being in the spotlight. I think I probably thrive, you know, I thrive under pressure. I love being in that position of, like, having to prove myself. I feel like every quarter is like a new goal. And I love seeing it, you know, happen. I love that everything is so transparent and that everyone can see and there's no trick, there's no, there's nothing hidden. It's all there. And you can see the balance sheet. And even though that's not like my necessarily strong suit, but I do know and we're doing well. I can see it.
- [25:08]
JD
It can be a lot of smoke and mirrors when the company's private and, you know, you're just seeing headlines and you don't actually know what's going on underneath. So. Yeah, it keeps you honest, for sure. Can you talk about. I'm really curious because I know people are listening now and you know, you've had such mega success and I'm wondering about the tactics. So, I mean, my takeaway so far, obviously, you know, focus on cash flow. Focus on real, real profit and real money, not. Not just, you know, playing with Monopoly money. I also understand you're very zip code focused. Like, let's let's get it right on the ground. Are there one or two things that you think you've done where there's a theme you can pull out and you can say, this is why we've been so successful?
- [25:46]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah. Well, one of the big things early on was Malcolm Gladwell's Tipping Point, which I have not read his new book. It's on my list, but it's like the Revenge of the Tipping Point or something, his newest one. But Malcolm Gladwell kind of in that book, I think it became the blueprint for the company and marketing and advertising. Malcolm talks about basically the beginnings of influencer marketing and he talks about, you know, finding the people that can influence the marketplace, find the connectors, find, you know, the experts, etc. Who are those people? And once that, that just clicked. Once I understood what Malcolm was talking about and it made so much sense. It's like the popular people in school, they're the ones who can influence anything to happen. It just, you know, I really. It clicked for me. And so anyways, I laid out a blueprint using the Tipping Point. And I would recommend everyone. I don't know what the new book says, but I would definitely recommend going to read the Tipping Point for anybody, you know, starting a business or continuing.
- [26:56]
JD
Did you use influencer marketing out of what you learned in that book?
- [27:00]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, but before it was called influencers, you know, they weren't called that. They were just nutritionists who were the hottest nutritionists who were on the Today show or whatever. Yeah, so we partnered up with, you know, experts in the field to be kind of our spokespeople, our ambassadors. We, we worked with various ambassadors, you know, people who had some sort of media presence, people who kind of were popular in the community that maybe could host. Host a panel or, you know, chefs that might use our products in recipes, that might share those recipes in a article or something like that. So, yeah, we literally handpicked various influencers in various marketplaces when we would, you know, launch a product.
- [27:43]
JD
What year did you start doing that?
- [27:45]
Julie Smolanski
Around 9. 97, 1997.
- [27:49]
JD
Oh, so that was. So you weren't even CEO yet. That 97 is when you came in as head of sales and marketing, right?
- [27:55]
Julie Smolanski
Yes, exactly. I started. I brought that kind of idea to the company, to my dad. He was kind of doing that also in his own way. He was doing it more in the Euro, in the ethnic market, in the Russian, Ukrainian marketplace. So he would ask like, kind of celebrities, like Russian celebrities to endorse our products, like musicians and stuff that were coming to the US after perestroika. So all of these, like, artists and musicians from Ukraine and Russia would come to America to perform for the community in the States. And he would always get, like, a photo of them holding the product, like, you know, like this.
- [28:33]
JD
It'd be, like, paying them for this or was this.
- [28:36]
Julie Smolanski
He hosted them. He invited them, and they wanted their product because they. They had this, you know, in. In the Soviet Union, and it was a staple, so they missed it. So, you know, he'd bring them a couple of cases. They fell in love with it. They love the story that, you know, a Russian, Ukrainian immigrant was, you know, building a whole company living the American dream off of a staple product that they grew up on. They. They were just, you know, it was. It was a cool thing for them. And so he would then publish those pictures and, like, more and more people, because of these, like, celebrities and their influence, they started to drink, you know, Kefir Lifeway. And that's kind of how it happened, like, just the early stages.
- [29:16]
JD
And then did you. Did you formalize that process in any way? I mean, was it always just casual, or was there actually a system in place? Let's do more of this.
- [29:24]
Julie Smolanski
At first, it was pretty casual, but then we, like, created, like, a strategy, like an actual blue. Like, we're gonna do this, hire these people. This is our budget. We're gonna, you know, go to these outlets with this. And then after my dad died, so that was 2002. In about, like, 2006, social media started taking off, or just the early stages of social media. And I'm talking, like, MySpace.
- [29:48]
JD
So friendship.
- [29:49]
Julie Smolanski
Maybe it was even before that. It was probably before 2006, because by 2006, I was on Twitter. But so we were on MySpace. We were launching a kids product, Probugs in a pouch, and they had, like, a. Like a cartoon character. So I thought, oh, wait, we could give each of these cartoon character pro bugs a profile on MySpace, and then they can just talk to other, you know, whatever, kids, whatever teenagers, whatever. They're, you know, talking. So we gave them a whole, like, we humanize them on MySpace. And that was the very beginning of our influencer marketing on social media. And then when Twitter happened.
- [30:30]
JD
With your own characters, though.
- [30:31]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, we. We had our own little characters that we designed.
- [30:34]
JD
Oh, my God, that's so smart. So you weren't actually going out to others. You were just making your own characters? Humans, basically. Cartoon characters.
- [30:41]
Julie Smolanski
Exactly, exactly. They were, like little character bugs, like probiotic bacteria bugs that we made in Cartoon form. And then, you know, gave them a story and a profile. And then Twitter and Facebook were launched. And Facebook, you know, so some of this was because I was a young, youthful executive. My peer group was showing up in my space and on Facebook and on Twitter. I think that if there was a CEO in my role that was, you know, 65, they probably would never have thought about social media yet. That would be decades away. But for me, my friends were all on social media. And so I thought, wait a second, you know, Kiefer existed for 2000 years because of it, because of word of mouth. It was story to story, you know, mouth to mouth, grandmother, babushka to babushka in these villages. And that's why it survived and stood the test of time. And now, through social media, I can, like wildfire, communicate and share stories, and that could be just amplified so much. So I created a Facebook profile for Lifeway Food. And at the time, that wasn't even allowed. Facebook would take my profile down and say, businesses are not allowed to exist on Facebook. I put. Put it back up. Ten days later, they take it down. Finally they figured out that, hey, this is a whole revenue stream for us to have businesses on Facebook. And so that obviously changed.
- [32:16]
JD
So you were the one who created Pages.
- [32:18]
Julie Smolanski
Exactly. It was thanks to us. Same thing with Twitter. We were the fourth company. Fourth or fifth company on Twitter. Again, I'm up late at night, literally, like, I remember this, like yesterday, I am on Twitter. I'm, like, fascinated with it, just watching these tweets and I start searching for various brands. Who's on here? Pepsi? No, Pepsi's not here. You know, name the brands. It was Sun, Microsystem, Whole Foods, Starbucks, and Comed. Those were the only four brands that I could find on Twitter when I joined Twitter for Lifeway. Now we started, you know, tweeting and our following starts growing. We became Vogue at some point. Vogue magazine, in a profile, said that our early use of social media contributed to our avant garde status and cult, like, following. I remember that.
- [33:07]
JD
That's. That's high praise.
- [33:09]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, yeah.
- [33:09]
JD
So you're. You're super early with this, and I'm imagining you probably had similar experiences with Instagram and like, TikTok. I mean, you jump onto these trends before you're too late to the game because that's something else. It's easy to look at it and say, well, this is working. We should do it. But then it might be too late. When you're early, it's easier to get audience.
- [33:27]
Julie Smolanski
Totally. Yeah. It Gave us authenticity. Everyone started following us because they were learning from us. We were learning as it real time, you know, how to, how to use it and, but it gave us a very authentic voice and our followers were very authentic too. So. Yeah, and it just helped us spread our message faster, wider and definitely contributed to I think a lot of our future growth.
- [33:54]
JD
So now at $200 million revenue or revenue run rate, are you changing like the on the ground hand to hand combat, are you already in all the markets you want to be in or is there still a lot of Runway to grow on a sort of zip code by zip code level?
- [34:10]
Julie Smolanski
Absolutely. There is still so much work to do. I feel like we're just getting started. We haven't even scratch the surface. I still see so much low hanging fruit even just in our core line, let alone new products that we're launching. Oh yes, there is, there is so much that I still want to go and do for the brand and opportunities that I see. It's like I can taste it. I mean there's the whole hospitality, you know, away from home sales, like grocery, we're in every grocery store, we're in Walmart, we're in you know, Whole Foods, we're in upper like Air one type stores which if people don't know it's in California, like probably one of the most expensive stores in the United States. So ultra premium to very affordable, very accessible stores like, like Walmart and Target. But there's always new products that we're launching. As a matter of fact, just today we are announcing 10 new flavors. Really awesome exotic flavors like Taro Ube, an Asian inspired flavor, Lychee passion fruit, guava jackfruit, pink dragon fruit, you know, pot honey. So these trends we were talking about, trends. Hot honey is a hot trend right now. Hot honey is on everything, right? We're going to have the first cultured dairy product, Hot honey flavored Taro ube, you know, named one of the most exciting flavors of the, of the year. That'll be the first, first probiotic flavor. So seeing these various trends that happen and seeing how we can find the intersection for our brand and whatever trend is happening, whether that's a trend of social media or a trend of a flavor or a trend of a grocery store or whatever, I'm always looking for where are those trends and where can we intersect them with, with the brand? Yeah. So there's food, you know, there's college campuses, there's airplanes and hotels. There's convenience stores. We're in a few convenience Stor. But we can definitely be in more. We have new products like farmer's cheese, actually. Sorry, this is a legacy product. This is product number two at LifeWay, but it's a product that we've left in the ethnic market. And now because of the trend of cottage cheese. Cottage cheese went viral on social media last year. This is a blended cottage cheese, essentially. This is one of the hottest things that you'll start seeing all around your grocery stores. We're scaling this. We are the number one manufacturer of farmer's cheese as it is today, but we've been making it for 38 years and now is the time to scale it. So, you know, we waited until the moment was right for the marketplace before we scale, before we spend money in it. But this is going to be really fun to grow and I can't wait to show the community and customers how they can use. Actually, Bethany Frankel. Bethany Frankel just did a TikTok about this this week. Oh, yeah, I'm so excited because. Yeah, it had 177,000 views already in like a few hours. Unbelievable.
- [37:11]
JD
About brand in particular.
- [37:13]
Julie Smolanski
Yes, our brand.
- [37:14]
JD
That's so cool.
- [37:15]
Julie Smolanski
I know. So it's exciting. Lots of fun things.
- [37:18]
JD
So where does this. Like this, this business sounds like. Like it gets better and better every year because a. It's growing, but also because you're just getting. The trends are catching up with where you are. Where does the fire inside you come from? It sounds like your dad had it, you have it. There's this. I don't know, there's this energy that comes across. Is that from your upbringing? Is that because you're. You're an immigrant or an immigrant family?
- [37:41]
Julie Smolanski
Probably all of those things. You know, it's my journey in life that my dad saw something in me. He actually said, julie, I see something in you that you don't even see yourself. Actually said, I'm gonna make you a senator. I see something in you that you don't even see yourself. But, yeah, I. I think first of all, I've had a lot of challenges and I've overcome a lot of obstacles personally and professionally. And. And Today I'm almost 50 and I'm living in my truth, and I bring truth to power. And, you know, I'm just finally stepping into my own confidence. I think I had to keep finding things to validate myself, to show that, hey, yeah, you can do this. You know, you're five feet tall, but you can do this. You know, the youngest only women woman in the room. Very often in a Room of older gray haired men. And I always stood my own ground and I could dance circles around pretty much anybody in any room at this point. Today I am that confident. I feel a sense of power just exuding. But more than that, it's what I do with that power and how I use it. And you know, for me, I feel good that I use it to help bring healing to people, that we can improve people's lives, that we can bring them comfort when they're not feeling well, that we can bring them nutrition when they're going through a horrific medical treatment and feeling dark. And it's these little small things that make me feel like my day is worth it. I just received a message from a new Ukrainian refugee who just came to the country and she escaped, you know, missiles and bombs falling on her head and now she's here and she had a successful business in Ukraine and a successful life and everything was taken away overnight. And she picked up our product in one of the ethnic grocery stores and she read the story on the back of it and she was stunned. She said, just reading your story gave me hope because it makes me feel like I can survive here in America. And thank you so much for being here. And it was such a heartwarming like, reminder for me that there are new people coming to this country and they're also looking to that live their best life. Like everyone wants to have safety and peace and thrive and live their dreams and fulfill their, you know, potential. And it was a reminder that anybody can learn from my story and feel like I hope that my passion is contagious and that others feel the same level of passion that I have for Lifeway and for Kefir and just for life in general, that people can take some of that and use it in their own lives to build a better world for all of us. Like if we all lean into our passions, it would be a really interesting world.
- [40:41]
JD
And you're outspoken about that and other things also on social media. So I wonder how much of your Persona, your profile. Obviously you're a public company chairwoman. You mentioned that maybe your dad wanted you to be a senator. Do you have, I don't want to say, do you have aspirations? I'm sure you have lots of aspirations. You're very young. But like, where do you sort of see yourself using your influence? Like, do you want to be more politically outspoken, socially outspoken? Do you want to stand for something else?
- [41:08]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, well, at this moment I'm mostly, I'm just focused on, you know, life way and that is my number one priority. You know, it's. It's baby number one, and my kids are baby two and three, but in that order. Yeah, they flip sometimes, but Lifeway came before the kids. But, you know, so I'm, I'm focused on that and there's just so much great opportunities that it's hard to even, you know, dream beyond all the things that Lifeway has ahead for itself. But, yeah, I mean, I, I would love to be. I think I am as outspoken as I feel comfortable and as much as I have time for, there's so much more I want to share, but it's just, you know, I think, think time is the greatest commodity and there's just not enough of it. And I would love to be more outspoken, but it's just really hard. I, I really am in awe of those people that are posting every day and creating content because it's, it's really hard to do it well. I think it is time consuming. So I do appreciate it, love to be more outspoken. And I have a lot of opinions and I try to share those and, you know, try to influence people and, you know, sometimes you can step in a couple of messes, you know, but I think mostly everything comes from good intentions. And if you have good intentions around what you're trying to share, maybe people might disagree with you, but they can respect your good intentions. And even if you make a mistake when you're outspoken, I think people are afraid today to speak their mind. But some things are just is, you know, undeniably true. And, you know, we should rally.
- [42:51]
JD
How often do you think to yourself, okay, so how often do you have an opinion, political, social, whatever, and you say, you think to yourself, julie, I should probably just keep that to myself.
- [43:00]
Julie Smolanski
I, you know, yeah, I've learned the hard way. Yeah, just. Well, unfortunately, I think, and my dad was very outspoken politically as well, but it was before social media and it was before the world was as divided. Divided as it is today. So I also just, I have been around that block a little bit and I've learned a lot about politics and kind of having a little bit of an inside track to it. It's kind of, it's, it's kind of turned me off to politics, truthfully, but I was really deep in politics for a little while and now it's like, you know what? I just, I think there's other ways to influence and have power in a more creative way rather than in politics, which to me just seems like circular and intentionally divisive. And it's not helpful. And I really pray for the day when things kind of change. And I hope there's leaders that kind of come up in the next generations that can be more unifying than divisive. I think we probably agree, everyone probably agrees on a few basic things about life and then everything else we get divisive on. But I have a lot of opinions and I look forward to one day when I can just be very, very transparent about them. But who cares about my opinion, I guess, on some of those issues? And I can't make the change anyway. So, you know, there's things that I can influence. And our budget, global budget is probably not one of those things.
- [44:37]
JD
Right. It's funny, I was talking with a sort of a high profile or a PR woman who has high profile clients, and I said to her privately, you know, what's your take? When the CEO of Company X wants to talk about whether it's, you know, who should we vote for, Trump or Kamala, or what do we think about giving money to Ukraine, Israel, all these different topics. And, you know, her response was actually, if you can avoid it at all costs, avoid it. Which I understand is smart for shareholder value and, you know, just staying out of the mud. I understand it. But the flip side of that is then you sometimes just get hit for not saying anything. Like, if you don't condemn this or if you don't endorse that, you actually get in an even worse position. So I don't know, it's kind of like a, you know, darned if you do, darned if you don't scenario.
- [45:25]
Julie Smolanski
It absolutely is. Well, I think in, like, the cases that you pointed out, we've learned or we've been kind of advised, like, if it doesn't impact your community, you don't need to say something. You don't need to say anything. You know, my product originates from Eastern Europe, from Ukraine and Russia. I am Ukrainian. I was born in Kiev. My homeland has been decimated. My staff, most of my staff, many of my staff is from the region, from both sides. They still have family. There's. It's been devastating to watch it. And you know, I think if you have taken any time to learn history or just are human, we know that we don't just throw bombs at people at countries. Like, you just don't do that out of the blue. And that's what happened on February 24, 2022. And, you know, it was unprovoked and, and people were just living their lives. And I mean, I just think, like it's 2020, you know, 2024, 2025. Like, is this. Are we still going to that? We still playing those games, Boys and their toys kind of thing? Like, I just don't understand what's going on. If mothers ran the world, there would definitely be less bombs, I'll tell you that.
- [46:41]
JD
But that's the headline.
- [46:42]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah. And. And mama bears, right? We. We fight for our kids. I think that, you know, once you get a mom in there talking about the devastation and, you know, that her kids can't go to the park or that they're in bomb shelters for days on end, like, that's devastating. It's just no parent wants to go through that. And so, you know, if you think that it's okay to take over a country and take more land, you know, I guess that's an opinion. But I will say where I did influence and change some laws and policy, I'm really proud of this work. And it also goes to show that you don't have to be a senator or in politics to make real, lasting change. So I launched a nonprofit called Test 400K. And it was after I learned that there was 400,000 untested rape kits in the United States. And I was appalled. These kits were collected as evidence kits that were collected, you know, over 30 years ago and never analyzed. And they just sit in police storage, crime labs all across the country. And Human Rights Watch called it the biggest human rights abuse that women in the United States face. So we launched a campaign to shine a light on this. We FedExed a rape kit to every governor, an unused rape kit to every governor. We FedExed it. We published the FedEx numbers so that media and their constituents could see how fast you could track it, how fast it could get from place to place to prove a point. And we put out a call to action. And we had governors sign this call to action. And it was a national campaign. It received a lot of attention. We halted the statute of limitations on rape kits in Illinois. And subsequently, through this work, we were able to create rape kit reform in every single state. So that was really, really powerful. And then the MeToo movement broke, and I felt like, okay, I don't have to be the only one working on this. And that was a really big relief. But it was kind of an example. I've been working in that space for over 30 years, and in this movement, I would say, and suddenly it just. It happened that that was really powerful and special. And I've. I've worked on documentary films I've produced four or five movies that also were in the space around violence against women. And one was the Hunting Ground, which won an Emmy and nominated for an Oscar. And Lady Gaga sang the song Till it happens to you for the movie. We got to share the stage with Lady Gaga. Oscar stage with Lady Gaga and 50 survivors. I'm a survivor myself, so I was we through that movie. It highlighted the. I would say, sexual assault on college campus and the fact that none of them were being investigated or there was no accountability. We had over 320 schools in the United States investigated for Title 9 issues and discrimination.
- [49:45]
JD
Wow. Listen, one. One theme I'm seeing here also to close the loop, is that you are ahead of almost every trend that you touch on. Like, everything you're talking about, you are on it before it becomes mainstream, before it becomes the thing to do. Like you said, you were doing those things to help women and sexual assault survivors before the MeToo movement even happened, which really, I mean, when that. When that took kind of took off, it wasn't a talking point before that, you know, and so. And you were.
- [50:13]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, I was even afraid to share, like, an article around sexual assault on Facebook. That's how taboo it was at the time. When I've been working on it, nobody was talking about it. I. When I was 15, 16 years old, I helped write the first teenager dating violence curriculum in Chicago, and nobody talked about it. And I was really timid about ever sharing my own, you know, experiences as a volunteer as working in this. In this movement. I really did a lot of that work kind of secretly. And I think, you know, it just goes to show that you dedicated people can really change the world. So I definitely feel that I've used, you know, my story and my pain to purpose.
- [51:03]
JD
Well, Julie, it's an inspiring story across the board. Thank you so much for sharing it today. Where can people find out more about you?
- [51:09]
Julie Smolanski
Yeah, you can visit me. Me personally, I'm ulissmolanski on all the platforms. I'm mostly active on Instagram, and then the company is Lifeway Key Fair on all the platforms and on our website.
- [51:24]
JD
Lifewaykeeper.Com well, we'll be drinking our kefir today. Thank you so much for joining.
- [51:29]
Julie Smolanski
Thank you so much for having me. It was a great chat.
- [51:31]
JD
Thanks for listening. If you like what you're hearing, make sure to follow me on Twitter @RealJohnDavids. R E A L J O N D A V I D S and of course, hashtag makingit. Let us know what you think about the show on Twitter. We'll talk to you guys next time.