Formulating Success: The Sweet Journey of No Bake Cookie Dough w/ Co-Founder Jimmy Feeman

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Well, it starts right about now. 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 talking with them on LinkedIn. I was like, who's this Jimmy guy? Who's this Jimmy guy? What? Cookie dough? Hell yeah. I'm going to talk to him. We got Jimmy Freeman. He is the co-founder of NoBake. What's up, man? What's up, man? How are you doing? I'm great. I get to talk business stories in cookie dough. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, this is like what I do it for. Hey, I mean, if you get to eat some good stuff while you're doing the show, that's just the plus. Makes it a lot better. I know. I know. Exactly. 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 and summer. 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 this so damn good? 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 begs cookies. I usually get the dough before the decaying cookies. That's how you end up where I end today. But yeah, everything in moderation, right? Like, it just gives me more fuel to go work out or do whatever. It's, let's do it again. But yeah. If you don't know, I mean, you started young, though, man. You guys, you been begging, I mean, how old were y'all? Like when this started formulating? 23. 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 if 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 going to go for it, the best time to go for it is when you're like, sub 25. Like, what do you have to lose? You don't have cars, you don't have house, you've not. So just go for it. The worst thing you can have when you file a bankruptcy you're back in like five years, it's fine. My wife would agree with that. I started when I was almost 40, late 30s. And had all those things, but still did it. Yeah. I don't know. It's 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 doing, you do have time to, I mean, you've got to 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've got to do this or that, you know, it's like the combined part of the pressure and the amount of time you have to put into it, right? Yeah, I mean, that's everything, dude. Like, you, your time slowly compresses until one day you wake up, you're 40, you've got three or four kids, you have a mortgage, you have a bunch of responsibilities, you've 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 to hunt for your little journey then, by the way, I have more respect for you because you're crazy. And I like that. 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 David Till 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 don't like your life story. Anyway, funny and a little raunchy. But nonetheless, Jimmy, I got to know, 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 really well? 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 just telling my cookie dough at the farmers market and like sell it online. And 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 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 out 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 hops three times. And I also hated my job. But we had bills. By the middle of the summer, after I spent all my time helping Megan basically make cookie dough at night, I'd go to my job during the day. Eventually I was like, this job is stupid. I'm just going to sell cookie dough. And I quit my job in July 2017. And it was great. Everyone thought I was insane. Insane and also stupid. My dad called me and 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 from like a back of a truck or like 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 screwed I don't want to work for anyone else. And that took us down that path. The other thing is Megan already had that recipe. She'd been making nightable 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 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. I got asked so. I know we'll get to it. But do you get tired? Like, I don't feel like I'd ever, am I not even every day? But are you, do you still eat the cookie dough? Or does it eventually do all good things come to an end? I still eat it. I eat. 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. Yeah. Oh god. That's me. I'd be snacking on that shit all day. You get like a school's good. Yeah. Yeah. I put my glove on and get my, you know, whatever you got to do to make it, you know, clean. We ruined this fine. 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. So 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. How does the, how does no big, I'd be looking at dad like, how does no bank not have cookie dough in the refrigerator? Come on. 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 bought for me. Oh. Oh, me. So the base, the base, the first recipe, is it, is it chocolate chip cookie doughs? That's original. Yeah. Chocolate chips, the original. Okay. 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 chip. Like it'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. Really, there's just one thing, this one recipe you made it a long time ago when you were a kid. And that's the thing that keeps going. It keeps on paying. That's funny. But such is the way of life, man. I mean, that's the recipe. What was it like with, you know, those first years? And how long have we been at it? Where we, what year are we in? 2025. For eight years. For eight years. How long? How many? Eight years? Eight years next month, 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 about to say it was Rosie. We're going to get to some of that. I'm sure. But it says something about the relationship. It does. I also think it says something. You don't necessarily have to go start a business through spouse to make this happen. Well, 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 each 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're going to 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. 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, 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 100 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 Steve's. And I didn't tell you about it. I'm sorry. Like, why are you not tell her first of all? Or like people wouldn't go like fool. 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 you even married? Cause like, at a certain point, you have to be like all in transparent. Like, here we are. Cause 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 making like fully my life. So like, you have situations where it's like, I'll sign on something. And we'll use my credit. My credit gets jacked up. I know that like Megan's not going to like leave me and leave me like screwed. Instead, it's like next time we're going to use yours. We're going to like rotate it back and forth. We're going to use this to our advantage. Cause 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 20s like doing this. They're like, make all that happen. And overnight, it doesn't happen like normally. And also to your point could like completely destroy your relationship. Probably cause reports. But hey, I mean, it just works really well for us. I don't think it works for everybody. But it's it's been fun and in bad and everything in between. 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 had 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 the 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 that's the good thing. I just want to get that, you know, to the the story of the the bus down by the river. I heard a school bus was somewhere involved in the story of no bake. And we're talking with Jimmy, no bake Freeman. That's I'll give everybody a pet nickname. That's yours now, Jimmy. I love that. I love it. I'm a big no bake. Yes, yes. The bus like how you 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 the franchise system, opened a bunch of shops. So from October 2017 when the first shop opened, so October 2019, we opened nine stores. And then October 2019, you know, leads right into March of 2020, which is the first time we had to like switch up what the business did. And prior to that, you know, like 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. And wife called the cops on me. I had to spend the next two days in jail. And I'm just like, what am I supposed to do? He might have been no bake. He might have been too baked. Right? So you have to wait. These situations, right? That makes that that fucks your life. You're like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do this day. So then March comes along. Yeah. Ironically, I started to like the fact that we had to pivot to DC. 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 DC business. And then we went to raise money in the beginning of 2021. And right before that, during 2020, my pet project, 30 to pandemic, was 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. It was 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 the thing where we had like read the four hour work week. Like really bought into the D to see thing. And we're like, we can work from anywhere. I'm going to show up in my office can be in like Yellowstone National Park. I have news for you. It can't. It's a terrible idea. And it's why we actually stopped. But it was a fun six months. It was like a brand experiment. And like, can you be fully remote? Do you actually have to have any peace 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 three PL work. We've manufactured our own product. 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 to do. But yeah, it was like a good solid year of us like really deep believing that the D to see dream. Which is like, I can run my 10 million dollar a year of business from BG. That'd be fun. 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 got to be in the business. I mean, doing your thing. Yeah. And it's a full time, more than a full time job. So it was fun. It's a fun break if you'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 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. I've actually been fixing up golf carts in my spare time. I find it very, and I go over the dash. It's 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 that Mr. Hammer in 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 shit. Yeah. They're like, oh, that's cool. I love that. Yeah. I think all of these people are understanding the other shit. But digital ads, Facebook ads, what? Branding. Let's stop. Yeah. What's, what, let's talk about the brand. You know, like obviously, no big. 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 a good girl. You can eat that shit. 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? 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. I 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 going to build a product, right? You're going to do your thing. Like you said, you're like, hey, cookie dough. You eat it. Let's go. Buy it. Try it. And then what happens if you sell that to one, two, three million people? And those people help inform you, like, what flavors should you make? Which 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 bake was very like, I wouldn't call it like neutral, but we were very like, neutral. I don'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 in the CPG and the DNC, until like having a package product, then it became obvious that there were 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. Like better for you, like worse for you, premium food, whatever. That's when we started to really like craft to the brand around like what our mission is today, which is to be chef driven, not lab driven. So like we made the product in the scoop shop, right? Like we made it for customers fresh. We had nine of them. That was our core business that we did. We tried 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 going to make a sugar-free cookie dough. Are you going to make like this cookie dough, that cookie dough, like this certification, this BS? And it's like, no, I'm not. What I'm going to do is I'm going to stick to the thing that we do best, which is you make a really really tasty treat. Like we call like a premium indulgence. And we're going to stick to the chef driven thing, which is that Megan's going to craft these flavors as if you're 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 going to 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, great. 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 going to a food haul downtown in Nashville. We have a shop on Broadway. So it sees a lot of traffic. You know, this is probably like 15 million people that walk across like order 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 pulled her and pulled you 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 the cookie dough? 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 other 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 branch 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, you started with like exactly what you said. And then we moved into like, we have to get 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 is not that? And you got to take stand for what you are. You got that you got to define it. Like Gary wants to define you. But you've got to define it and stick to your guns. Like you said. Yeah. I mean, you know, like every business owner has always suggested like, Hey, you thought about this. We 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. I 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. 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. Like and really go deep on whatever that thing is that you're doing. And you guys probably see that in a brand space all the time. Like some people are really distracted. Other people go really deep. Just go deep. Stay true to yourself. Usually works out. It's just kind of hard. Talk about Jimmy, no bake Freeman. So Jimmy, I would 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 are cookie dough we make in a year or a week? Or like, what's some numbers that would surprise and delight the audience? 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 investment. And like, I had one guy tell me it 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's just like fucking me. Seven elephants. That's one of these. Ten thousand pounds. Yeah. Like, it's like a ten thousand pound elephant. Let's go. No, right now it's today in our factory in Chattanooga. We produce anywhere from like 20 to 40 thousand pounds of cookie dough a month. I'm pretty insane. Yeah. Pretty insane. 20 to 40 thousand a month. Yeah. Holy shit. It's wild to see. It's been growing really fast. 500 thousand pounds of cookie dough a year. Yeah. Yeah. Is that what I was doing this year? Somewhere in that neighborhood. Yeah. This year will probably break like one to million pounds, which is insane. Just wild to see. It also smells really good. What's? Yeah. It just smelled like I would think that it would smell like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. Yeah. Is that combo? Yeah. 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. The 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. It gets in the craziest places because every time you turn the mixer on, it's flour going in there. Slopping everywhere. Basically every time. Yeah. You're like, we're going to lose 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 and over again. There's just a light coating of dust. But I love it. Is this a mixing bowl that I could climb into? Like, is it that size? I wonder if you could fit inside of it. That's a good question. You might be able to. I'm six five. You're pretty. You're pretty good on that. You'd have to crouch down. Yeah. But you could fit in there. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. So I can get in there and just start going to town. You know, on a, on a, on a fresh, my own personal batch. Yeah. Yeah. Like I'd like to make a batch. You could never get out of that. Swimming it. Exactly. I thought I'd be thinking about like, yeah. It's like, this is like my, you talk about indulgent. That's the perfect word. Like, this is my, uh, like dream indulgence. It's like, when I really want to treat myself, it's, it's probably some form of cookie dough. Yeah. And I think that's just going to become a lot. That's going to be a lot more important over the next like 10 years. People, I'll pitch investors now and they actually ask me about GOP1. Agonist is like, immediately. That's like a big question. Big question for the field industry general. But if you're going to 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 where I'm at. I'm like, if I'm going to like go out to eat, I want to go to like a nice restaurant. I don't want to go to like random. Yeah. 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 going to eat this when I want to. And like, this is the way I feed that. 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 the same. And we'll always think we take a bite. It's not worth it. 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. Yeah. No, it just has 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 to be good. Like worth the calories actually matters. Like if you eating something you actually like, you're just eating it because you're bored. What's the biggest thing that surprised you, Jimmy? Jimmy Nobake? Jimmy with this whole experience I'm running the company. Like, you know, there's always surprises. Everybody's any entrepreneur you got through ups and downs. The bus story is obviously great. But like, what's been like the 180 from maybe what's your thought or expected? The biggest surprise? There, there's been 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 profit. Which was like, what is happening? Whoa. And really what happened is actually worth the money for like a small, for like a kid basically for someone that's like, not all figured it out at all. We were 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 like do the thing you know works, don't complicate it. Keep it really simple to 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, you're driving people to a Facebook event. This is all you're doing. It was a solid strategy for like 2017, 18, 19. It worked really well. And I blew my mind that like, this is so easy. Why? You 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 going to get surprised like that. And then you're going to 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 dollars. Like if you're going to 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're saying to yourself, I'm going to scale. Because this is the surprise, right? Like I was so locked in on the small thing that I was like, we didn't kick it in like me and Megan. I mean, we went to the moon quickly like going 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 D to C and then it was. And every time we've gone to scale, it has blown my mind how hard it is to go from like, hey, we're like clicking. We have looking MVP. We have a thing that's working to like sell 10 million dollars of that thing and consumer that seems to be the number. It seems to me the thing where it's like if you people like fast 10 million sales on like a small item that costs less than $20. Like you can break down down to like customers. But like it's a lot of customers to shift on. If it's $10, it's a gift to a million people a year. That's incredibly hard to do. In our pie chart in retail is around $10 on shelf. We make like five bucks on it. I'd have to sell two million pounds, two million pint jars over a cookie dough. A year to break the $10 million market. It's very hard. But you realize that like there are all these things in between like the product and then getting to that point is in there. The pieces get complicated. Everything gets complicated. Your life gets complicated. You over complicated. 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 lived down on a napkin. I shoot you not to Megan where I was like we're going to build a brand. We're going to open a store. And then we're going to franchise it and sell. Like we're going to exit to pee or whatever. The whole like between build store and like exit and sell. It's like that was my step B to see. The stuff like B to Z dude. Yeah, there's a lot of steps in there. You left out. Yeah, I left out all these steps. I was like oh, once the first store 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 going to scale this scale that no one is scaling jack shit. And it seems to me that it's just really hard. As just how it is. Yeah, I mean, 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. I wish it was a lot of things of it. Surprising to get to 1 million and surprising how hard it is to get to 10. That's what I condense that down to. 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 going to a capital raise maybe doing some stuff, looking for some investment. We're in capital raise right now. Yeah. Yeah. So we're in capital raise right now. We have a reg CF round on start engine going, which is great. That means that anyone out there 250 bucks, you can buy shares and donate. It's 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 3PO, a manufacturing facility. A 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. And so we're currently figure out how to get themselves profitable inside of like the umbrella that we're creating. So if the goals to go out, find a brand, maybe they're doing really well. They have a great product and great brand to know what they're doing. But they just cannot make money, which seems to be the curse and consumer. And our goal is to fix that same way we fix it for no big. I busted my ass for the last three years, figuring out like how do we get profitable. And how do we make sure that like we're doing the right things, spending money in the right places. And then growing is that's still incredibly key to being able to actually like survive. When you're able to do that. And now I'm like, okay, the first time that we've had the opportunity to raise like 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 going to be the first of many. Are we acquiring other cookie dough brands or is it broader than that? It's going to be slightly broader. So the first acquisition is actually another cookie dough brand. Okay. That probably not a lot of people have heard of. They're actually much older than us. And in a round of long time, it was a really it's a very synergistic acquisition. We already make cookie dough with a cell 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 going to 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 between me and Megan is like, we have to identify good brand, good product. Like I said earlier, like on the spot, yes. That's everything. And it's going to become so much more important, especially flavor, taste. Like do you actually like eating this stuff? Like because there's no reason to like go buy like a $10 plant-based, better for you to snap. If you don't even like eating it and you're on, tries to appetite 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 going to 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 entities like figure out how to thrive, which is our hope. I got a new name. No brakes. No bake. No brakes. No bake. Let's go. You got to go fast. You got to keep moving. You got to keep growing. No brakes. No bake. I might be the top of the episode. It's fun, man. I love it. We're working everybody fine. How many places are we're like I'm sure a distribution is crazy. If you're selling that much, click you do. But where is where we're located? Where's everywhere we can buy a no bake. Good question. So 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. Door dash go puff are both really great like instant delivery options. You guys order stuff on door dash or go puff look up our brand. It's probably in your area. And then you find that through dash mark on door dash and then the fresh market down in your neck in the woods. My neck in the woods. Really anyone on the East Coast. You can find us at the fresh market. And then we're sold it up bunch of independent natural grocery stores all over the East Coast. Some of 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. I mean, the first grocery store that ever stands on us. And I love that place. They have like if you're like the type of person like me that likes to go grocery shopping and find new stuff. They do a really good job of that. So 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 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 door dash location, that go puff location. Like that's where everyone's ordering. And I love that. And I love that they have a good experience. So intentionally staying out of big box or big retailers. Yeah. I mean, there's one big retailer that we might watch in this year that I like a lot. But we're trying to keep it to places where we think the brand wants. Yeah. 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 brand. Hey, look. On brand on time. No breaks. No bake. Jimmy, where can I keep up with the brand specifically yourself and everything that you've got going with the capital raise? Yeah. So you can find the capital raise, start engine. Go on start engines website and just type in no baked. You'll find it. Do you want to keep up with the brands? 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. Yeah. I think you have to be to stick it through together. And now it's real journey and just being on tour in January. And I have a little bit of a crazy gene. I'm determined that you did. That's true. Yeah. There's a small bit of crazy. Small bit of it. Jimmy has been fun. I appreciate you coming on. Let's stay in touch, brother. For sure, man. I'm pumped. I let me on the show. And I really enjoyed it. So let's do it again. Yeah. We'll stay in touch. But I got to get, we got to 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 you're going to work that out. Now that it's fresh market. Oh, it's close. Yeah. I will. Hey, guys. You know to find us. Ryan is right. Com will find highlight clips from today's episode, the full YouTube video. And of course, all the links to no bank, no breaks, no bank. And Jimmy's free been 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 got to keep it right here on right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alfred, 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. Thanks for listening. Thanks for listening.