← Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice
Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice
Formulating Success: The Sweet Journey of No Bake Cookie Dough w/ Co-Founder Jimmy Feeman
00:45:06
In this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford chats with Jimmy Feeman, co-founder of No Bake, a cookie dough company. Jimmy shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his and his wife Megan's dissatisfaction with traditional jobs, leading them to sell cookie dough at farmers' markets. They discuss the nostalgic appeal of cookie dough, the challenges of running a business as a couple, and the importance of transparency and trust. Jimmy also recounts their pivot during the pandemic, including living in a converted school bus. The episode highlights resilience, adaptability, and the joy of pursuing one's passions.
Loading summary
Transcript111 lines
- [00:00]
Jimmy Freeman
In our factory in Chattanooga, we produce anywhere from like 20 to 40,000 pounds of cooking dough a month, which is pretty insane. Yeah, pretty insane.
- [00:09]
Ryan Alford
20 to 40,000amonth.
- [00:11]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah. Wow. This is Right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month, taking the BS out of business for over 6 years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cashing checks? Well, it starts right about now.
- [00:36]
Ryan Alford
What's up, guys? Welcome to Right about now. We're always talking about what's now. We're talking about business, we're talking about marketing, we're talking about life. And look, sometimes there's stories behind the company and, you know, there's a certain product that kind of rang my bell. When I was, you know, talking with him on LinkedIn, I was like, who's this Jimmy guy? Who's this Jimmy what? Cookie dough?
- [01:01]
Jimmy Freeman
Hell yeah.
- [01:02]
Ryan Alford
I'm gonna talk to him. We got Jimmy Freeman. He is the co founder of no Bake. What's up, man?
- [01:08]
Jimmy Freeman
What's up, man? How are you doing?
- [01:10]
Ryan Alford
I'm great. Look, I get to talk business stories and cookie dough. Are you kidding me? Like, this is like, what I do it for.
- [01:19]
Jimmy Freeman
Hey, I mean, if you get to eat some good stuff while you're doing the show, that's just a plus. Makes it a lot better.
- [01:25]
Ryan Alford
I know. I know, exactly. I don't have. My wife might argue with this, but I don't have too many vices, but cookie dough, you probably. Since your company wouldn't call it a vice, I just call it maybe a vice to my waistline in summer when I'm trying to show that one pack, that dad pack. But hey, look, everything in moderation. Jimmy, I love some cookie dough, man. Why is it so damn good?
- [01:56]
Jimmy Freeman
I don't know, man. Like, there's a few things that they're like, from your childhood. There's stuff that you just do. And one of those things for me and my wife Megan, was just eating cookie dough. I don't know what it is. My grandma always bakes cookies. I usually ate the dough before they became cookies. That's how you end up where I am today. But yeah, everything in moderation, right? Like, it just gives me more fuel to go, like, work out or do whatever it is I'm gonna do, I guess.
- [02:22]
Ryan Alford
But yeah, I mean, you started young, though, man. You guys, you and Megan, I mean, how old were y'all, like, when this started formulating?
- [02:31]
Jimmy Freeman
23.
- [02:32]
Ryan Alford
Pun intended.
- [02:32]
Jimmy Freeman
23. I did not have a lot of time out of college to figure out, or didn't take a lot of time, I guess, to figure out that I was not supposed to work for someone else. And it took Megan even less time to figure out she wasn't supposed to work for someone else. So. Yeah, it's just. It's one of those things I tell people now, and I've seen people post about this recently. People will talk about it, but if you're gonna go for it, the best time to go for it's when you're like, sub 25. Like, what do you have to lose? You don't have a car, you don't have a house, you've nothing. So just go for it. Worst thing that can happen, you file bankruptcy, you're back in, like, five years. It's fine.
- [03:11]
Ryan Alford
My wife would agree with that. I. I started when I was almost 40, late 30s, and had all those things, but still did it.
- [03:22]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah.
- [03:23]
Ryan Alford
I don't know if it makes me dumber or I waited, but, you know, it's. Everything you said is true, though it probably added stress to the whole thing because it's not easy. But when you're young, you do have time to. I mean, you've got time. Look, we all have time to fail. Like, it's not that you don't have time to fail, but it's usually less, maybe responsibilities or other people relying on you, you know, especially you and your wife being together or a couple or, you know, we'll get to that story. But it does allow you a little bit more, I don't know, focus. Like, I can't just pull all nighters for five nights, you know, knowing, well, I've got to coach my son's basketball, I got to do this or that. You know, it's like the combined part of the pressure and the. The amount of time you have to put into it. Right?
- [04:16]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah. I mean, that. That's everything, dude. Like, you. Your time slowly compresses until one day, you wake up, you're 40, you got three, four kids, you have a mortgage, you have a bunch of responsibilities, got to coach the kids basketball team. And then you're like, dude, I got a lot of stuff on my plate. If you start. You start the entrepreneurial journey, then, by the way, I have more respect for you because you're crazy. And I like that.
- [04:44]
Ryan Alford
Oh, I'm definitely crazy. That's another story for another day. I want to talk cookie dough. And I will say, when you're telling that little bit there Go listen to Dave Attell sometime. He has a really funny but nasty version of that. Like, what happens when you wake up. You're at this, you wake up, you're at that. I like your life story anyway. Funny and a little raunchy, but nonetheless, Jimmy, I gotta know, like, obviously the nostalgia, I think you've already probably gave it a little precursor. But what in the hell made you go down the cookie dough river?
- [05:23]
Jimmy Freeman
It's a wild. I guess it's not really a wild story. Like, the beginning of the company is really us just, like, really hating our jobs. So Megan came home one day. We were living together at the time. She was my girlfriend. She was like, dude, I just can't do this anymore. Can't go to the office, can't do the thing. I'm going to sell my cookie dough at the farmer's market and, like, sell it online. I think I could probably make enough money to replace my income. I was like, great, do it. Who cares? At this point in time, we were both just, like, real sick of what we were doing. And I'd watched her job hop three times. And we graduated like 14 months before that. So we're talking like 14 month period. You job hop three times. You probably need a different job. I have a hard time reflecting on myself, so I didn't notice that I also had job hopped three times. And I also hated my job, but we had bills by the middle of the summer after, I, like, spent all my time helping Megan basically make cookie dough at night. I go to my job during the day. Eventually I was like, this job is stupid. I'm just gonna sell cookie dough. And I quit my job in July, July 2017. And it was great. Everyone thought I was insane. Insane and also stupid. My dad called me. He was like, what are you doing, man? And I was like, honestly, I would rather sit on the side of the road, sell cookie dough to people selling from a back of a truck or a cooler than go back to that office ever again. So, I mean, it was obvious for us. And like, I alluded to, it was easy. If I look back on all the decisions I've had to make across the last eight years, the easiest one was just being like, screwed. I don't want to work for anyone else. And that, like, that took us down that path. The other thing is, Megan already had that recipe. She'd been making edible cookie dough since she was like 14. Same recipe. She tweaked it a little bit, and then we were off to the races. And it's One of those things where, man, looking back on it, things happened real fast. We executed real fast. We did nothing right, but the execution is really what matters. Like, if you get up, wake up, do the thing, even if you have no clue what you're doing. Because we did everything wrong. Like, everything. We put it in the wrong packaging. Didn't know what a health permit was, like, didn't know shit about running a restaurant. But, like, all you have to do is be willing to learn and be willing to actually wake up and execute. So, I mean, that's kind of what made us go down that road, is, like, Megan had a good product. We were both real sick of what we were doing. I guess that's how you build a cookie dough company.
- [08:03]
Ryan Alford
I gotta ask, though. I know. We'll get to it, but do you get tired? Like, I don't feel like I'd ever. I might not eat it every day, but are you. Do you still eat the cookie dough, or does it eventually. Do all good things come to an end?
- [08:20]
Jimmy Freeman
I still eat it. I. A lot. I. I don't. I'm not the guy that, like, sits down and eats it. I'm the guy that, like, snacks on it. So, like, it's in the fridge?
- [08:31]
Ryan Alford
Yeah. Oh, God, that's me. I'd be snacking on that all day. I mean.
- [08:37]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah.
- [08:38]
Ryan Alford
Yeah. I put my glove on and get my. You know, whatever you gotta do to make it, you know, clean, we're just fine.
- [08:45]
Jimmy Freeman
But we need a snack on it. Yeah. I eat it throughout the day, and also, my kids love it. So, like, it just kind of stays in the house. But I try to limit it because I'm like, guys, we can't eat cookie dough every day. My daughter woke up the other morning and she was like, dad, where's the cookie dough? And I was like, it's not. We don't have any right now. And she gave me this look.
- [09:04]
Ryan Alford
How does the. How does no bake? I'd be looking at dad like, how does no bake not have cookie dough in the refrigerator? Come on.
- [09:10]
Jimmy Freeman
And she was like, what do you mean we don't have cookie dough? And I was like, there's just none in there. You ate all of it? I don't know what you want from me.
- [09:19]
Ryan Alford
Oh, me. So the base. The base. The first recipe, is it. Is it chocolate chip cookie dough? Is that the original?
- [09:27]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah, chocolate chips, the original. After that, Megan made confetti and brownie, and then we just took those three and, like, ran with it. We have a bunch of Other flavors. Today, we've done a bunch of crazy stuff, but, like, those three are still, like, top sellers. That's where all the stuff comes from. People like chocolate shit. Like, that's like 70% of our sales, 70% of our effort. Which is funny because it's like you take all this time to do all this other stuff when really there's this one thing, this one recipe made it a long time ago when you were a kid. And that's the thing that keeps going and keeps, like, on paying. That's funny. But such is the way of life, man. I mean, that's the recipe.
- [10:05]
Ryan Alford
What was it like with, you know, those first years and how long have we been at it? Were we. What year are we in?
- [10:14]
Jimmy Freeman
2025. We've been at it for eight years.
- [10:17]
Ryan Alford
What? How long? How many? Eight years. Your eight years.
- [10:20]
Jimmy Freeman
Eight years next month.
- [10:21]
Ryan Alford
Yeah. I mean, you and Megan must have a strong relationship to have made it through all of it. I mean, a lot of people listening probably have started business with their significant other and not made it, or it been like hell. And. Yeah, I'm not saying it was rosy. We're gonna get to some of that, I'm sure. But it says something about the relationship.
- [10:45]
Jimmy Freeman
It does. I also think it says something it would. You don't necessarily have to go start a business with your spouse to make this happen, but you could try it to make sure. But, like, if you start a business or something, or with someone and you've probably seen this, Ryan, you'll go out, you find a partner, that person's your partner. Sometimes you know that person better than you know your spouse. Sometimes, you know, you spend more time with that person than you spend with your kids. So when it was me, Megan, we started business together. What it did and what it forced us to do is be super transparent. Like, you gotta be up in each other's head all the time. Like, you can't lie about stuff. You can't hide things from each other. You can't just be like, I'll leave that at work. Everything follows you everywhere. And so you have to be super aligned and super transparent. That does cause you to argue and fight more. But I would say that that stuff is healthy as long as you're not letting it, like, you know, blow up your relationship, make you hate each other. You can argue about stuff. Like, we'll argue about, like, how to allocate like, a hundred grand, like, oh, should we spend it on these ads? Should we do it on this thing? But, like, we're not arguing about stupid stuff that I see my other friends argue about with their wives, which is like, I bought, like, S.K. and I didn't tell you about it. I'm sorry. Like, what are you talking. Why are you. Why did you not tell her first of all? Or, like, people wouldn't go, like, full. Like, I've got separate bank accounts. We do our separate thing. We do our own thing. And I'm like, dude, that doesn't make any sense. Why are you even married? Because, like, at a certain point, you have to be, like, all in transparent, like, here we are. Because that's how I run it with, like, a business partner. And so, like, that's how you run it with, like, your spouse, I guess, if they are your business partner. But I mean, I trust Megan, like, fully my life. So, like, you have situations where it's like, I'll sign on something, we'll use my credit. My credit gets jacked up. I know that, like, Megan's not gonna, like, leave me and leave me, like, screwed. Instead, it's like, next time we're gonna use yours. We're gonna, like, rotate it back and forth. We're gonna use this to our advantage. Because honestly, you're more powerful as a team than you are as an individual. But people don't see it that way usually. And I think it took, like, the pressure cooker and then like, the shared experience of our twenties, like, doing this to, like, make all that happen. Like, that doesn't happen overnight, and it doesn't happen, like, normally or. And it also, to your point, could, like, completely destroy your relationship. But hey, I mean, it works really well for us. I don't think it works for everybody, but it's. It's been fun and bad and everything in between.
- [13:24]
Ryan Alford
It's good, though, because if it works, having where you're mutually. It mutually benefits both of you pretty equally. If not, it should be. Let's call it equally. And so when. And you have that built in trust because it's. And so when you have a partner, when they're not your partner in life and your partner in business, even when you love them and you trust them, they're mutually separate paths of gain a lot of times. And so that's where you sort of get that trouble out of the way. As long as the relationship is tight, which is what you had. So that's a good thing. I just want to get to the story of the bus down by the river. I heard a school bus was somewhere involved in. In the story of no bake and we're talking with Jimmy no Bake Freeman. That's. I give everybody a pet nickname. That's yours now, Jim.
- [14:26]
Jimmy Freeman
I love that. Jimmy no baked. I love it. Yeah.
- [14:32]
Ryan Alford
Yes.
- [14:33]
Jimmy Freeman
The. The bus, like, kind of came into the picture because of the way we ran the business. So the first three years we ran no Bake, we built a dessert shop chain, basically. So we built a franchise system, opened a bunch of shops. So from October 2017, when the first shop opens, to October 2019, we opened nine stores. And then October 2019 leads right into March of 2020, which is the first time we had to switch up what the business did. And prior to that, I had actually gotten really burnt out. I hated going to those shops. I hated managing all the managers. I had a manager call me from jail that was managing our Cincinnati store and be like, yeah, man. Wife called the cops on me. I have to spend the next two days in jail. And I'm just like, what am I supposed to do?
- [15:23]
Ryan Alford
He might not have been no baked. He might have been too baked. Yeah.
- [15:27]
Jimmy Freeman
Right. So, like, these situations, right. That makes that. That up your life. You're like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do this thing. So then March retail's hard. Yeah. Ironically, I started to like the fact that we had to pivot to dtc, and then it was like, all the shops are closed. Yeah. We're under a lot of pressure, but, like, this is working. Scaled up the D2C business, and then we went to raise money in the beginning of 2021. And right before that, during 2020, my pet project during the pandemic is I bought a school bus, and I was going to turn it into an RV because, you know, everyone's sitting on, like, TikTok in, like, March of 2020, April 2020. I see the people who are living in the van, and I'm like, I'm not one to let you live in the van, and I don't get to live in the van, which. Cool. I want to do it. So you go from there to. I guess I'm going to buy one. So we sold our food truck, ironically, and then I took the cash from that and went and bought this old bus from this church. Spent the whole year remodeling the bus. That was just like my. It was my side project, and I'm not that handy, but I guess now I am because it didn't work out. But, yeah, we moved on to that bus in March of 2021. Or March, April 2021. And then we lived on it for about six months. Right around that time, my daughter was one year old. So we only have one kid. It was, it was a challenge. But it was also this thing where we had like read the four hour work week. Like really bought into the D2C thing. And we were like, we could work from anywhere. But then you're like, I'm gonna be able to show up and my office can be in like Yellowstone National Park. I have news for you. It can't. That's a terrible idea. And it's why we actually stopped. But it was a fun six months. It was a grand experiment. And like, can you be fully remote? Do you actually have to have any piece of the pie? Ironically, today we like moved all the way back toward like in the third pivot of the company, we moved all the way back toward like owning everything. Like, we do our own 3 PL work, we manufacture our own products. We have a lot of like, hands on stuff going on. And I'm there for a lot of it. There's a lot now where I'm not because I've kind of learned to train people to do the things that I should be training them to do. But yeah, it was like a good solid year of us like really deep believing the B2C dream, which is like, I can run my $10 million a year business from Fiji and I'll be fine. And you're in the like brand space. So you know, like, I mean, there are people that can achieve something like that, but you really gotta be in the business, be doing your thing.
- [18:14]
Ryan Alford
Yeah.
- [18:15]
Jimmy Freeman
And it's a full time, it's more than a full time job. So I mean, it was fun. It's fun break if you're being, if we're being honest. But yeah, I recommend something like that to everyone. I also recommend building something that you live in, even if it's like a shed in your backyard, like to every guy, it's like, it's a transformational experience. You're like, I built this thing with my bare hands and now I'm like living in it. It's satisfying. I don't know why. I have no idea why it's satisfying. It just feels right.
- [18:48]
Ryan Alford
I've actually been fixing up golf carts, like in my spare time. I find it very my. I grew up with a dad, like a master craftsman, plays. Plays eight instruments. He's a master craftsman, can build anything. And I'm the, the idea. The writer guy. I'm right. I'm a digital, like, true, like that guy. I'm not the Mr. Hammer and Nail, but I have found therapy in, like, fixing up golf carts. I have no idea why, but it's something about working with your hands that is rewarding and learning to be a little handy. So my dad is finally. I think. I think he was always proud of me, but there's a different level of proud now that I can, you know, turn the screwdriver and know how to wire. Yeah.
- [19:32]
Jimmy Freeman
They're like, oh, that's cool. I love that.
- [19:35]
Ryan Alford
Yeah, the golf cart thing's cool. You don't understand any of the other shit. Digital ads, Facebook ads, what branding. Stop. Yeah. What's what? Let's talk about the brand. You know, like, obviously, no bake. You get it. The product and what it is describes what it is. But when you think about your brand, I'm sure you guys have evolved in this. At first, it's like, hey, we're making cookie dough. You can eat that. Let's go. Let's go. But now, how. How's that evolved for how you do think about the company and the brand and sort of your, I don't know, customer experience.
- [20:18]
Jimmy Freeman
It'S evolved over time, and it's been really informed by the customer, because I think when you start out, you don't necessarily know the customer. You sort of do. And Megan would claim that she does. Her thought was always that she is the customer. I will market to myself. Totally get that. The way that it's evolved is kind of like, moving away from that and then moving into, like, what have we learned? And that that's hard to do. And I think a lot of brands have to evolve that way because you're gonna, like, build a product, right? You're gonna do your thing. Like you said, you're like, hey, cookie dough. You eat it. Let's go, like, buy it, try it. Then what happens is, you sell that to 1, 2, 3 million people. Those people help inform you, like, what flavors should we make? What challenges are there? Like, around, like, the product itself, that type of stuff. And then on the brand side, they start to inform you of, like, what should I be marketing to? So, like, originally, no baked was very, like. I wouldn't call it, like, neutral, but we were very, like, neutral. We didn't want to offend anybody. Like, this brand is just like, we're making cookie dough. It's our thing. And then slowly, over time, we started to realize, especially once we got into CPG and to DTC into, like, having a package product. Then it became obvious that there are A bunch of people out there that are like, I'm plant based, I'm vegan, I'm a carnivore. I only eat meat. I only do this. I only eat organic food. Better for you, worse for you. Premium food, whatever. That's when we started to really craft the brand around what our mission is today, which is to be chef driven, not lab driven. So we made the product in the soup shop. We made it for customers fresh. We had nine of them. That was our core business. It's what we did. We try to stay true to that even today, because it helps us stay, like, really centered. Like, people will come to me and be like, you're gonna make a sugar free cookie dough? Are you gonna make, like, this cookie dough? That cookie dough? Like this certification, this BS and it's like, no, I'm not. What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna stick to the thing that we do best, which is you make a really, really tasty treat. Like, we call it, like a premium indulgence. And we're gonna stick to the chef driven thing, which is that Megan's gonna craft these flavors as if she's serving it to you, like, in your kitchen. That just made sense for us. And, like, when you stick to your guns like that and then you craft the brand around it, you start to realize that you're gonna piss off some people, and that's okay, because those people aren't supposed to be eating your stuff anyways. Like you said, you're like, dude, I love cookie dough. That's great. Those are the people I'm marketing to. Like, someone likes cookie dough.
- [22:51]
Ryan Alford
Great.
- [22:51]
Jimmy Freeman
And then there'll be someone that would, like, walk into the scoop shop or something like that. I interacted with one of these people recently. We're in a food hall downtown in Nashville. We have a shop on Broadway, so it sees a lot of traffic. There's probably like 15 million people that walk across that corner a year. Not all of them are coming in my shop. And in fact, some do come in the shop, and they're like, hey, do you know where I can get some ice cream? And I've told our employees straight up, I'm like, tell them where the ice cream shop is. It's right over there. Yeah, they should go to the ice cream shop. Why would you want to serve them? And they don't understand the concept that, like, you have to turn down people that aren't your customer. You have to send them to wherever they're supposed to be, and that way you can actually get customers that want to eat your stuff, which that's a whole nother thing. And that's something that we, to this day of, like, I think grown slowly and I wouldn't say struggled to do, but, like, it is really, really hard to blow up a consumer brand for that reason. You do have to, like, get in front of everyone. That's hard. But at the same time, like, you do want to make sure you're getting in front of the right people and you're not trying to market to everyone. You can't be everything all the time for everybody. It's not possible. So that's kind of how it's evolved. I mean, we started with, like, exactly what you said, and then we moved into, like, we have to take a stance on, like, what we are. Or people try to shove random stuff down your throat all the time. Every business owner gets that, though, like, who has not had something.
- [24:17]
Ryan Alford
And you gotta take a stand for what you are. You got that? You've got to define it. Like, everybody wants to define you, but you've got to define it and stick to your guns, like you said.
- [24:26]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah. I mean, you're like, every business owner is always suggested, like, hey, you thought about this, you thought about that? I have people ask me if I've ever thought about, like, food truck. So the other day I posted a video of our food truck on LinkedIn. I was like, hey, guys, look, there's a food truck. It was there in 2019. I already did it. Don't want to do it again. Thanks for suggesting. Oh, put it in my, like, I'm never going to do that box. People really want to suggest stuff to you or they want to suggest stuff around your brand or your product. And it's like your job, as I think a founder, is to say no most of the time and, like, stick to your brand, your thing, and really go deep on whatever that thing is that you're doing. And you guys probably see that in the brand space all the time. It's like some people are really distracted, Other people go really deep. Go deep, Stay true to yourself. Usually it works out. It's just kind of hard talking with.
- [25:20]
Ryan Alford
Jimmy no Bake Freeman. So, Jimmy, I want to talk some numbers. Like, you know, I find fascination. Like, we did a Valentine's thing talking about how many billion of this, how many pounds of that, how much cookie dough we making? Like, how. How many pounds of cookie dough we make in a year, a week? Or like, what's some numbers that would surprise and delight the audience.
- [25:49]
Jimmy Freeman
That's actually my favorite number to like, focus on. I made this original pitch deck a long time ago for this tangent where I was like, hey, like, for investors. And like, I had one guy told me he was stupid. I was like, it's not stupid, it's cool. I was like, we have made like seven elephants worth of cookie dough. It was just like seven elephants, dude.
- [26:11]
Ryan Alford
That's what it is. £10,000. Yeah.
- [26:14]
Jimmy Freeman
Like, it's like a £10,000 elephant. Let's go. No, right now. Today, in our factory in Chattanooga, we produce anywhere from like 20 to 40,000 pounds of cookie dough a month, which is pretty insane. Yeah, pretty insane.
- [26:28]
Ryan Alford
20 to 40,000amonth?
- [26:30]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah.
- [26:31]
Ryan Alford
Holy.
- [26:32]
Jimmy Freeman
It's wild to see. It's been growing really fast.
- [26:36]
Ryan Alford
500, 000 pounds of cookie dough a year upwards. Is that. What am I doing that math? Somewhere in that neighborhood.
- [26:43]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah. This year will probably break like 12 million pounds, which is insane. It's just wild to see. It also smells really good.
- [26:54]
Ryan Alford
What? Yeah. Does it smell like. I would think that it would smell like. Yeah, Smell like cookies. I'm thinking like when you make cookies. Yeah, that's what it is.
- [27:06]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah.
- [27:06]
Ryan Alford
It's that combo of sugar and butter.
- [27:08]
Jimmy Freeman
Sugar. It's actually kind of funny. If you go into our bakery, I mean, we do our best to keep it clean. The one thing that you have a really hard time actually like, keeping. I mean, we do it by room, by room. So it's really just a room where we're mixing. But there's flour everywhere. A light coating of flour. You clean all the surfaces, clean everything like, you know, once a day and then deep clean it once a week. But like, it gets in the craziest places because every time you turn the mixer on, is flour going in there, slopping everywhere? Basically every time. Yeah. You're like, ah, we're gonna lose like a tiny bit. And it's not a lot, so you wouldn't see it or notice it. But it's over time because you're mixing over and over and over and over again. There's just a light coating of dust, but I love it.
- [27:54]
Ryan Alford
Is this a mixing bowl that I could climb into? Like, is it that size?
- [28:00]
Jimmy Freeman
I wonder if you could fit inside of it. That's a good question. You might be able to.
- [28:04]
Ryan Alford
I'm six five.
- [28:05]
Jimmy Freeman
You're pretty. You're pretty big, dude. You'd have to crouch down.
- [28:08]
Ryan Alford
Yeah.
- [28:08]
Jimmy Freeman
But you could fit in there.
- [28:09]
Ryan Alford
Okay.
- [28:10]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah.
- [28:11]
Ryan Alford
All right. So I can get in there and just start going to town. You know, on a fresh. My own personal badge. Yeah.
- [28:21]
Jimmy Freeman
Never get out of that. Swim in it.
- [28:24]
Ryan Alford
Exactly. That's what I've been thinking about. Like, ah. It's like this is like my. You talk about indulgent. That's the perfect word. Like, this is my like dream indulgence. It's like when I really want to treat myself, it's. It's probably some form of cookie dough.
- [28:40]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah, man. And I think that stuff's going to become a lot. That's going to be a lot more important over the next like 10 years. People would. I'll pitch investors now and they actually ask me about GLP1 agonists like immediately. That's like a big question. Big question for the food industry in general. But if you're gonna treat yourself and you're not eating a ton of stuff, like random stuff all the time, don't you want to eat like, better food? Like, better tasting food? It's like, that's what, that's where I'm at. I'm like, if I'm gonna like go out to eat, I want to go to like a nice restaurant. I don't want to go to like random.
- [29:15]
Ryan Alford
Yeah.
- [29:16]
Jimmy Freeman
Restaurant. So like that's, that's the thing. Like you want it to be good. Like you want it to be that indulgence, like you said, where it's like, I'm gonna eat this when I want to and like, this is the thing I want to eat. Like, be that.
- [29:30]
Ryan Alford
Yeah. I don't want it in between. I don't want it like kind of at all. Like, my wife and I joke, you know, we're both watch what we eat, but not anal about it. I mean, but we're probably, I don't know, more fit than maybe the average couples our age. But we always will say, is it worth the calories? That's kind of say. And we'll always like, we take a bite of something. We'll kind of look at each other and go, if, like, if she takes about, like, is it worth it? It's not, it's not worth. It's not worth the calories, you know, So I just don't mess with that in between stuff. It's got to be all the way.
- [30:02]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah, no, it doesn't have to be all the way. Like, that's just the way it is, man. Like, it's like that for me with like every food, I'm like, if I'm going to eat it, I want it to be good. Like worth the calories actually matters. Like if you eating something you actually like, you just eating it because you're bored.
- [30:19]
Ryan Alford
What's the biggest thing that surprised you? Jimmy. Jimmy. Nobake Jimmy. With this whole experience and running the company, like, you know, there's always surprises. Everybody's. Any entrepreneurs, you got your ups and downs, you had the bus story is obviously great. But like what's been like the 180 for maybe what you thought or expected? The biggest surprise.
- [30:44]
Jimmy Freeman
There have been two. One of the first one. The first one's more fun. So like surprise in the good direction is we started the thing in March of 2017 right out of our apartment, which is you're at that point you're just like in an apartment selling cookie dough. How good could it possibly get you? Fast forward all the way to March of 2018. That month we made like 130 grand in profit, which was like, what is happening?
- [31:19]
Ryan Alford
Whoa.
- [31:20]
Jimmy Freeman
And really what had happened is a lot of money for like a small, for like a kid, basically for someone that's like not all figured it out at all. Like you're doing everything wrong. We just nailed the product and nailed the brand. It was basically like the thing that surprised me was like, oh wait, you can make a lot happen when you have no clue what's going on. Which is really great. If you just show up every day and do the thing you know, works. Don't complicate it. Keep it really simple. Just do your thing. And for us that was like build, scoop, shop, do pop up events, build brand. Like at the time it was like gather Facebook and Instagram followers and then drive them to Facebook events. Is ironically the thing that we were doing. That's how we were making so much money. It's how we were doing the whole thing. And then you would do like press and you would do brand stuff and you would do Instagram ads and it would all build and build into this thing where it was like driving people to a Facebook event. This is all you're doing. It was a solid strategy for like 2017, 18, 19. Worked really well. And I blew my mind that like this is so easy. Why do not more people do this? And then I found out why more people don't do it. So like the thing that happens is you're gonna get surprised like that and then you're gonna get surprised in the complete opposite direction, which is that I was surprised. It was really easy to make a million dollars. I was really, really surprised that it's incredibly hard to make $10 million. Like if you're Gonna go from running like a small business which is highly profitable and like you have no overhead, like you've just blown this thing up and like it's working. And you say to yourself, I'm gonna scale because this is the surprise, right? Like, I was so locked in on the small thing that I was like, we can kick it. And like me and Megan, I mean we went to the moon quickly with a retail business. It's hard, but it was like all these different pieces coming together. And then we went to scale even though it was through like franchising and then it was D2C and then it was grocery. Whatever it's become, every time we've gone to scale, it has blown my mind how hard it is to go from like, hey, we were like clicking. We have like an mvp. We have a thing that's working to like, let's sell $10 million of that thing. And consumer, that seems to be the number. It seems to be the thing where it's like, if you could like fast 10 million sales on like a small item that costs less than $20, like you could break that down to like customers. But like it's a lot of customers. Shit done. If it's $10, it's like you have to sell it to a million people a year. That's incredibly hard to do. In our, in our pint jar in retail is around 10, $10 on shelf. We make like five bucks on it. I'd have to sell 2 million pounds, 2 million pint jars of our cookie dough a year to break the 10 million dollar market. It's very hard. But you realize that like there are all these things in between the product and then getting to that point. Because in there the pieces get complicated. Everything gets complicated. Your life gets complicated. You overcomplicate it. You get debt that you shouldn't have gotten. You raise money from people that suck. The whole thing blows up in your face. And that has been the most surprising thing because I had this plan that I wrote down on a napkin. I should you not to Megan where I was like, we're gonna build a brand, we're gonna open a store and then we're gonna franchise it and sell. Like we're gonna exit to PE or whatever. The whole like between build store and like exit and sell. It's like that was my. It was step B to C. The step like B to Z. Dude, there are so many things.
- [35:17]
Ryan Alford
Yeah, there's a lot of steps in there. You left out.
- [35:19]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah, yeah, I left out all the other steps. I Was like, oh, once the first world works, we're clicking, and then we just have to scale. And I always find it fascinating that I'm like, everyone talks about, like, I'm gonna scale this, scale that no one is scaling jack shit. And it seems to be that it's just really hard. That's just how it is. And I mean, I. I find it fun because it's like a game. And I've tried to, like, equate this to, like, a game that we're playing. Why would you try to make it complicated or boring when it should be, like, interesting? So, yeah, that's surprising. It's weird.
- [35:57]
Ryan Alford
I wish it was both ends of it. Surprising that to get to 1 million and surprising how hard it is to get to 10. That's what I condense that down to both ends. And it's true. It is scaling. Scaling is harder than people recognize it, even when you've got it sort of figured out. Where are we headed, Jimmy? Like, you know, what's. What's going on? I think you're in a capital raise, maybe doing some stuff, looking for some investment. Where are we at?
- [36:29]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah, yeah. So we're. We're in a capital raise right now. We. We have a reg CF round on StartEngine going, which is great. That means that anyone out there. 250 bucks. You can buy shares with no bix. Super cool opportunity. I'll tell you why. So plans for the company actually right now are over the last three years. We had to grow slow. We had to get profitable. We had to build something that actually worked. And that meant that we now have a 3PL, a manufacturing facility, cookie dough line where we make millions of pounds of cookie dough. All this stuff that's, like, been built as infrastructure for the brand. And so we're actually raising money so we can go out and acquire other brands. Real pumped about this. I think that it's going to allow us to go out there and right now, like, help a lot of people who have been in my shoes or are in our shoes, you know, a few years ago, currently figure out how to get themselves profitable inside of, like, the umbrella that we're creating. So, like, the goal is to go out, find a brand. Maybe they're doing really well, they have a great product, great brand, they know what they're doing, but they just cannot make money, which seems to be the curse in consumer. And our goal is to fix that, same way we fixed it for Novaks. I busted my ass for the last three years figuring out, like, how do we get profitable and how do we make sure that we're doing the right things, spending money in the right places and then growing? Because that's still incredibly key to being able to actually survive. We were able to do that, and now I'm like, okay, the first time that we've had the opportunity to raise, this is the way to go. And so we're raising that money, trying to go out there and make some acquisitions. We have a really exciting one that's coming up that I wish had already happened. So I can announce it, but I'll announce it soon, and that's gonna be the first of many. Super excited.
- [38:24]
Ryan Alford
Are we acquiring other. Other cookie dough brands or is it broader than that?
- [38:29]
Jimmy Freeman
It's gonna be slightly broader. So the first acquisition is actually another cookie dough brand.
- [38:35]
Ryan Alford
Okay.
- [38:36]
Jimmy Freeman
That probably not a lot of people have heard of. They're actually much older than us and been around a long time. It was a really. It's a very synergistic acquisition because we already make cookie dough. They sell cookie dough. But then in the future, the hope is like, cookies, brownies, bars, all the things that we have the ability to make in our facility, we're gonna go after those. And like I said, like, the thing that I'm telling investors, the thing that I'm telling our team, the thing that we're talking about every day, just like, between me and Megan, is like, we have to identify good brands, good product. Like I said earlier, like, on this podcast, that's everything. And it's going to become so much more important, especially flavor taste. Like, do you actually like eating this stuff? Because there's no reason to, like, go buy like a $10 plant based, better for you snack. If you don't even like eating it and you're on trisepatide and you don't even want to eat anyways. Like, what are you doing? Go eat whatever the heck it is you want to eat, because you're not gonna eat a lot anyways. Like, I think. I think there's a huge opening for brands like that and a huge opening for people to, like, aggregate power. Like we're going to. And then be able to build something that's profitable. Hopefully help a lot of other brand owners, like, figure out how to thrive, which is our hope.
- [39:57]
Ryan Alford
I got a new name. No Breaks, no Bake.
- [40:01]
Jimmy Freeman
No Breaks, no Bake.
- [40:02]
Ryan Alford
Let's go. You got to go fast. You got to keep moving. You got to keep growing. No Breaks, no Bake. That might be the title of the episode. It's fun. Man, I love it. The. Where can everybody find. How many places are. We're like. I'm sure distribution's crazy if you're selling that with cookie dough, but where is. Where are we located? Where all. Where's everywhere we can buy no bake.
- [40:32]
Jimmy Freeman
Good question. So you. You actually can buy it nationwide, just in a few different places. So we ironically have kept their distribution. Our distribution is pretty big, but it's also small compared to other brands. DoorDash, GoPuff are both really great, like, instant delivery options. You guys order stuff on DoorDash or GoPuff, look up our brand. It's probably in your area, and then. And you'd find that through Dashmart on DoorDash and then the Fresh Market down in your neck of the woods. My neck of the woods, really? Anyone on the east coast, you can find us at the Fresh Market. And then we're sold at a bunch of independent and natural grocery stores all over the east coast, some in the west coast. You can go on the website and look it up. We have a really great store finder, and it's very up to date. But my favorite stores to buy it in are honestly my favorite place to buy it in general is the Fresh Market, because I just like that store. They were the first grocery store they ever chance on us, and I love that place. They. They have like, if you're like the type of person like me that likes to go grocery shopping and find huge stuff, they do a really good job of that. So I'm. I'm a real big fan of that store. Real big fan of sprouts too. Hopefully they hear this and, you know, it works out this year. But yeah, we're. We're trying to, like, keep our distribution very. It's similar to our whole strategy. Very, very deep and very, like, definitely nationwide, but, like, very deep on, like, channels we know work. So it's like that. That DoorDash location, that GoPuff location, like, that's where everyone's ordering and. And I love that, and I love that they're having a good experience.
- [42:09]
Ryan Alford
So intentionally staying out of big box or big retailers.
- [42:14]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah, I mean, there's one big retailer that we might launch into this year that I. I like a lot. But we're trying to keep it to places where we think the brand wants.
- [42:23]
Ryan Alford
Yep. Makes sense. Indulge where you indulge. Smart. It's true, though. It is. I indulge when I go to the Fresh Market. I think of that as an indulgent place. So it aligns with the brand. Hey, look on brand on time. No breaks, no bake. Jimmy, where can everybody keep up with the brand? Specifically yourself and everything that you've got going with the capital raise.
- [42:53]
Jimmy Freeman
Yeah. So you can find the capital raise. StartEngine. Go on StartEngine's website and just type in no baked. You'll find it. If you want to keep up with the brand, you can find us at no baked on basically every social media. That's our handle. So Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all the places you see stuff. And then if you want to follow me, follow me ON X or LinkedIn and you can see and hear all of the ridiculous stuff I say and you might like that. So I hope you come and follow me because Megan and I are both very transparent and partially insane. So I hope people like it.
- [43:32]
Ryan Alford
Yeah, I think you have to be. To stick it through together. An entrepreneurial journey and just be an entrepreneur in general. You gotta have a. A little bit of a crazy gene. I'm. I'm determined that you. That that's true. Yeah, there's.
- [43:45]
Jimmy Freeman
There's a small bit of crazy. Small bit of it.
- [43:50]
Ryan Alford
Jimmy, it's been fun. I appreciate you coming on. Let's stay in touch, brother.
- [43:54]
Jimmy Freeman
For sure, man. I'm. I'm pumped. I let me on the show and I really enjoyed it. So let's do it again, man.
- [44:03]
Ryan Alford
Yeah, we'll stay in touch. Maybe be. But I gotta get. We gotta line up that delivery, though. I'm sitting here like all I want to do is eat this can and it's like it's not cookie dough though, you know, so I'm gonna work that out. Now that it's fresh market, you gotta.
- [44:16]
Jimmy Freeman
Get down to the first.
- [44:17]
Ryan Alford
Oh, it's close. Yeah, I will. Hey, guys, you know, to find us Ryan is right.com we'll find highlight clips from today's episode, the full YouTube video, and of course, all the links to no bake, no breaks, no bank, and Jimmy Freeman. All his stuff. We appreciate Jimmy for coming on and we appreciate you for making us number one. We know you've got a choice, but you gotta keep it right here on right about now.
- [44:47]
Jimmy Freeman
This has been Right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast network production. Visit ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.