Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 110 the power duo behind Tiff's Treats

Episode Date: April 6, 2022

Our listeners can sign up below to get 20% off your next Tiff's Treats® order! https://page.cookiedelivery.com/couplethings/ This week we sit down with Tiff and Leon of Tiff's Treats to talk about their successful cookie delivery company, the funny story behind how they decided to start a business together, and what it's like working together as a married couple. They also shared how they managed to snag cookiedelivery.com! Tiff and Leon had a lot of wisdom to share and we can't wait for you to listen! We are sponsored by these companies that we love. Check them out below: LMNT ▶ LMNT is so sure you will love their product and come back for more they are offering you a free LMNT Sample Pack. That’s 8 single serving packets FREE - Just cover the cost of shipping ($5 for US customers). Get yours at DrinkLMNT.com/EASTFAM. This deal is not available on their regular website. Better Help ▶ This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and Couple Things listeners get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com/eastfam Follow Our Instagram ▶ https://www.instagram.com/couplething... Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

When you're with Amex Platinum, you get access to exclusive dining experiences and an annual travel credit. So the best tapas in town might be in a new town altogether. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Terms and conditions apply. Learn more at Amex.ca. did you guys ever almost pull the the shoot on not to get too much in the weeds but either the business or the relationship we probably should have on both uh you know there are times where

day on everything what's up everybody welcome back to a couple things with Sean and Andrew a podcast all about couples and the things they go through today we have Tiffany and Leon Chen, the founders, co-founders, of Tiff's Treats, the OGs, the actual OGs of cookie delivery. So much so, their website. Warm, warm cookie delivery. Yes, but so much so, their website is literally cookiedelivery.com. These two are amazing. We had a blast talking to them.

We were honored they joined us on the show. But the reason they joined us was because they're coming out with a book called It's Not Just Cookies, all about their story of how they founded the company, which started. on a on a date actually together and evidently in the book they have some of their like top secret best selling best ever cookie recipes you can find uh they give you a lot of recipes they give you a lot of good stories and they give you a lot of wisdom we love this episode with tiff and leon and i think you will too if you want to learn more about them and order their book called it's not just cookies we'll link it down below but without further ado we bring you tiff and leon chin wow tiff and leon

A pleasure to have you. Good to meet you. Thanks for joining us today. Thanks for having us. Sean Andrew, we're excited about this. Leon, we have to know the story. How did you guys? No, we have to know the first date story.

Yes. The actual first date? Or you mean the date that she stood me up on? The date she stood you up on. Yeah. I usually make her tell it because she did the standing up. But you see, we were supposed to meet up. And I thought we were going to meet up.

It was understood by me, and for some reason she wasn't there, and that was a little bit upsetting to me, so that's kind of the impetus of the entire business on accident. Yeah, there was no, the date never happened. So I baked cookies for fun as a hobby, and I baked him a set of cookies as an apology because I didn't make the date. I had been ice skating with a friend, and I didn't call to say I was running late. So I came over with cookies later and said I was sorry and he took one bite of the cookies And all of a sudden had the idea to do an entire warm cookie delivery business from that It literally happened right then and there yeah I mean okay first of all I asked her I what I said hey This would be really awesome because when she happened to come over they happen to be hot still

I was like we should deliver this like pizza and kind of like the day she kind of shrugged it off and she's like no I don't want to do that And what's really funny is, at least the way I remember it, I would have let it go. Like, it was just another hairbrained idea. And hours later, she called me and she was at the grocery store. And she's like, you know, I thought about what you said. I'm looking at pricing, flour, eggs. You know, let's give this a try. And so it was one of those things where it happened all within the day, the idea to start the business.

Wait, so this was like on kind of your first date, your second date. It wasn't a first date, because that would have been really weird to launch a business out of that. We were dating at the time. This was just a date. And I mean, what had you have planned for this date? I don't remember. Nothing. It wasn't even going to be coming over to his house.

Wow. So it wasn't like something fancy that I sidestepped. We were dating at the time, which I guess makes it make a little bit more sense. And then we remember it differently because I remember that he was on the phone with me. Going over and over why it would be so great and everything about it would be so awesome. And I relented into going up to the grocery store and pricing things out. But somewhere in there. Our whole relationship, literally in the car just a few minutes ago,

me telling her how great something is and her telling me how not great something is going to be. And that's just pretty much how our whole life works. This guy gets it. That's how our whole life works too. Oh, my gosh. I'm like the dream crusher. Oh, yes. Yeah.

he'll have like some crazy idea and I'm like this will never work like let's be realistic here and he'll get mad he's like can't you just humor it I'm like no yeah the problem with humoring it is they do the ideas so like exactly I freaking like we need to hang out we need a hang out just text me next time she crushes a dream and I will text you as well Andrew I would say it sounds like these two should never hang out I think all of these things will just happen. We'll be going into business together within days. I have so many questions for you guys.

First of all, I mean, from a business standpoint, you've done phenomenal things. Also, from a parenting standpoint, you've done awesome things. And a lot of times when we talk to couples, well, we found that it is an anomaly to have built a business such as you guys have and also do it together. Like a lot of times it's, you know, the wife or the husband. been one of the two sacrifices so that the other can go do the thing but you guys have done it together and in Sean and I's experience I guess we've worked together for like four or five years that's not easy and you guys are like on a way different scale than we are so a lot of questions that I'm excited to dig into but I do want to start with you started this before like the internet

was a thing 1990 right you know right as it I mean we have cookie delivery.com as our URL so that's That's how long ago we started it. It was all her idea. It was genius to get cookie delivery.com. Yeah, the internet was becoming widely available. So we started in 99. And so it was just new. And people were just, I mean, dial-up.

When we talked about figuring out how we were going to run the business, we were cranking through dial-up internet to figure out what packaging options there were and things like that. But yeah, and then we launched our online ordering platform about a year after we started. So in about 2000, and that's when we snagged cookiedelivery.com because we thought, People wouldn't remember our name, but they could maybe remember that. And it was available because no one was on the internet. Wow. It is funny talking like in today's world, the fact that you have cookie delivery.com.

Yeah. It's incredible. It's like such a valuable asset. I just keep saying, I'm like, how much would that domain cost? I don't know now. I don't know, but it's not for sale. Yeah. Yeah.

Wow. And you made it through Y2K, you know. Yeah, we were in business. Yeah, that was a, that was a least of our word. back then actually. I can't imagine taking you're taking orders on dial-up. I haven't heard someone mentioned dial-up in like a while.

It kind of dates us a bit. I mean, like you said, we were in business before the internet exists, which, you know, that's dating and now. Well, our first phone line was a cell phone that we bought just to take calls. So we never had a cell phone

before the business. That's how long ago it was. Dang. So within your business, Can you give us a little glimpse into what working together looks like for you two now? Who has what role? Yeah, well, Leon is the CEO and I'm the president, which means he's a little bit more focused on the strategic growth,

investor relations, things that are pushing us forward. I'm a little more focused on the day-to-day branding, the product side, and we oversee different elements of the business. Yeah, she likes to say that she makes. all my crazy, stupid dreams come true. So I'm the dreamer, according to her, and she executes it. I'll filter them down to something doable. Yeah.

Dang. So when it comes to your titles and how you guys operate, are you guys operating out of the same house every day? Do you have several office, office spaces? Yeah. We share an office. So we have, like, I don't know why people get, people are tickled by this, but we have face-to-face desks.

So we're in one office together in our desk. that's your face-to-face, but we have, like, monitors. So this is like what face-to-face. It just covers it. Yeah, and sometimes we'll get into a personal discussion or disagreement at work, and we're like, we stand up over the desk. So you're walking by and you see us kind of standing up over the monitor, you know it's because we're arguing.

You guys are adorable. This is a couple goals. I know. I don't know about that. It sounds like you said if someone walks by and sees that you guys are standing up, they know you're in an argument. I feel like our girls and guys who work with us have very quickly learned what the signals are of like, oh, let's just not go in there just yet.

Let's give them a few minutes. I am curious, though. So you guys have been married 11 years. Together, 20? A thousand? So this is something we actually never really told until our book. But we actually went to high school prom together. So before the infamous stand-up date,

I totally thought we went as a couple to prom, but she likes to say that it was just as friends. So like mixed signals even back then. We went as friends. We started dating when we got to college. And then over Y2K, we broke up. Not because of Y2K, just happened to meet on that date. We broke up for a little while, but we still kept doing the business.

And then we eventually got back together. And then eventually after that, married. So we were together. long, long, long time before he got married. And then, so out of married 11 years, you guys have worked together, how many years? 23? Yeah, 23 years. Yeah, you guys should write a book on just working with your significant other.

So the bigger question I have in that time frame is, so you were working together long before you're married. What did you guys learn in working together of like, what boundaries? did you learn we always talk about boundaries what boundaries did you learn you had to put in place in order to protect your relationship and give yourself that like business and and home separation boundary list yeah or we're more like not what we did right but we'll tell you what not to do kind of people because we mess up a lot uh number one is uh definitely trying to date other people while you're trying to build a business together is

impossible because that's what we try to do so That didn't work. We were in college sophomores. We were 19 years old when we started the business. Business was growing. We were, you know, still doing it part-time while going to school. But since we had dated for so long, we decided, you know, maybe we should date other people at some point. And what better time than when you're in college?

So we made a pact. It's like a stupid romantic comedy. It makes no sense. But we would start dating other people basically the year 2000. January 1st, yeah, 2000. And we had no fight, no impetus to break up, but we kind of did just because we, hey, we wanted to have other relationships, meet other people. But we had this business, so we kept doing the business for the first few years while we dated other people.

And I'll just skip to it. She had a lot more success than I did, let's put it that way. And it was very difficult on us. And we actually write about this in the book, too, because it's so ludicrous looking back on it. Yeah, in terms of boundary, I think the only lesson we really learned over all of these years in terms of working together and that kind of thing was identifying when you're having a work fight and when you're having a personal fight. Because in all of our younger years, like the first half of the years working together, we would be arguing and we realized we were sort of like heatedly really fighting, fighting about something work related, that if you were talking to any of your other coworkers, you would never be that. fired up and you would never be that unprofessional in your mode of communication with them and so

to take a step back and understand okay if this is a work fight it ought to just be like kind of a level-headed argument um or disagreement and then personal stuff like try to work on personal fights separately from work if it's personal you can be as you know dramatic yeah we would find out that oh we'd be arguing about something a disagreement on work. But then all of a sudden, you get into the personal stuff, and we'd have to be like, whoa, timeout. Like, are we arguing about, like, price seeing here or something to do with work? Or, like, we're starting to tell each other all the things. Are we still mad about, like, the wedding guest list?

Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Defender. With its 626 horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine, the Defender Octa is taking on the Dakar rally, the ultimate off-road challenge. Learn more at landrover.ca. Today's episode of A couple things is brought to you by Element. As you know, I'm obsessed with this new company that we have partnered with and cannot believe that more of you don't know about them.

Well, let's tell them about it, babe. So Element is a tasty electrolyte drink mix with everything that you need and nothing that you don't. It contains science-backed electrolyte ratio, which, if you're asking, is 1,000 milligrams of sodium, 200 milligrams of potassium and 16 milligrams of magnesium element is formulated to help anyone with their electrolyte needs and is perfectly suited for people who are following a keto low carb or paleo diet you don't have to worry about all the extra fillers and i love the fact that i can use it for my after workout recovery because i know that it will replace the sodium that i have lost you cannot go wrong with that who sweats more mirror you you by far by a long shot element is used by everyone from

the NBA, NFL, and NHL players to Olympic athletes to the everyday parent like Sean and I are now. It doesn't matter who you are. Element will take care of you. Element is so sure you will love their product and come back for more. They're offering you a free element sample pack. That's eight single serving packs free. Just cover the cost of shipping, which is $5 for you as customers. Get yours at drinkelement.com forward slash EastFam. This deal is not available on their regular website. Try it totally risk-free. If you don't like it, share it with a salty friend and we'll give you your money back. No questions asked.

You have nothing to lose. You must go to D-R-I-N-K-L-M-T-T-com forward-slash East Fan. Let's get back to it. I actually now thinking about it. I haven't had this thought until you just described it like you did. But like a lot of people say, oh, there's so much complication that is injected when you work with your spouse. But there is the benefit of having kind of like that third-party perspective where you can

always like kind of step back and view it. from, you know, everything from, is this a work or personal fight or, you know, I feel like it gives you a reason to step back and view the argument, not from the, you know, the trenches in the moment. You know what I'm saying? I feel like it can lessen the emotions that way. Yeah, and I think one of the best things about working together is understanding, not the best thing about working together but what makes your marriage easier in that way is that you really understand what's going on in his day to day that day or mine that day so you don't have to argue over my meeting's more important or this is more important to me today because we completely get it so there may be a day

where I'm like yeah I'm going to take the kids to school because I 1,000% understand you have to be at the office at a certain time there's no like trying to convince mine's more important or yours is more important, but they're together as one goal. That's good. So you guys have twins. That is Andrew's dream in life. I don't know. Like the first few years were not

a dream. Yeah, not a dream. How old are your twins now? They're seven now. Oh my gosh. So boy and girl. My dream. Yeah. And it actually runs in his family, which is kind of scary to me. First, congratulations. And second,

how did the dynamic of having twins affect your life because you're your own bosses, you run your own business, you guys work together, you work probably from home when it comes to like maternity leaves and stuff, how did the dynamic of having twins affect your business and your relationship? I think at beginning, having twins for us was probably the same impact as it is for anybody, which is just pure exhaustion when they're infants. So you're not getting a ton of your best work done.

You're not getting a ton of your best communication with each other or other people done. So for the temporary time being when they're infants, it changes in that way in that you're just not really at the top of your game. But it is ultimate teamwork, though, because if we had just had one at a time, right, we'd be arguing like, you hold him or I can watch her or whatever. When you have two at once, it was just mayhem. It's all hands on deck. So it's no time for disagreeing on who's watching the kid or. anything like that we both had one in our arms the entire time yeah that's true some of the some advice that I heard recently that helped me change my perspective was uh don't try to simultaneously work and like

be a parent at the same time so like sometimes I found myself historically being on my computer like trying to write an email one-handed while holding the baby and that 100% of the time will end in frustration do you guys have do you guys agree with that and or have other tips such as this I would agree with that we had the kind of babies that wouldn't be like they needed 100% attention they weren't meant to be twins I think they needed all the attention and they weren't the kind that you could just put in one of those little bouncers and then do something they would just cry their heads off about that so I don't even think we had the luxury of trying to write an email the entire time that they were infants and little babies I think we sat down and watched 15 minutes of a show

one time because they just weren't happy to be you needed to be like doing things performing for them at all times you know i'll say looking back you know i have this regret because i was on my phone a lot like trying to catch up on work or like read emails but i'll watch videos now of them when they were little and we're like oh that's so cute that's so sweet and i'm literally in the video but i feel like i wasn't there there and like i'm kind of wish i could go back and just be even more present i mean i was there and in the videos i'm a lot of times i'm engaging but i just feel like because it goes by so fast when you have twins, you don't have one, and then you go through all the milestones, then you have the other. It just, it all starts and it all, you know, you get out of that

milestone right away. It just felt like I wanted and needed more time looking back on it. I wish I was even more present than I am. I was then. Dang. You're hit me right now, Leon. We're in it. We have a six-month-old. Yes. Well, it's one of those things, too, with infants. It's like you're rushing to get them to the next milestone, but then as soon as they hit it, it's almost like you're sad that it's there because it's also you're sleep deprived. So you forget half of it. And you're like, wait, did they start walking last night? Or was that two years ago? Or is that happened yet? The sleep situation is crazy. I mean, you're just not, you're just not your right self with little babies and no sleep. But yeah, that's the one thing about twins that we absolutely love having twins.

But the one downside is once you've reached, if that's all you're going to have, which is for us, that's it. It's just this one set. Once they're done, you know, like once they're done mispronouncing a certain word, then it's gone. Like, there's no more baby talk. Like, it's over. I once came down and their babysitter was correcting. I forget what it was. They used to say stop and wet a lot instead of sopping wet.

And she was like, it's sopping wet. And they were like, it is. And I was like, no, don't correct it. That's my last baby thing. left. I'm getting all sentimental. I know. Our two-year-old's like really talking and she's starting to like figure the words out. And we actually had that the other day. She says Baba for Bottle. And we had someone come in her house. Oh, one of our friends is a speech pathologist. And she's like, oh, you should really work on her saying bottle.

And I was like, no. I disagree. Absolutely not. It makes her sound like a baby. Yeah. You still have like three or four more years. Oh, okay. Good. Yeah. Don't tell. Two talking is like prime cute time. It's so fun. Okay, jumping back, though, I have a lot of questions in regards to, like, business and your relationship. So you guys have been very open, especially in your book and, like, interviews that when you first started, like, really diving into the business, it wasn't all, you know, roses and sunshine.

Rainbow, what's the? Sunshine and rainbows. There you go. I think so. Sunshine and rainbows. But you guys were working, like, 120 hours. the money was really tight, especially when it comes to starting any very successful businesses like that. Did that ever affect your relationship when it came to, like, finances and trying to manage potentially a family and run that business at the same time?

So that's a fantastic question. And I think we were lucky in that when we started the business, we were still in college. And then as soon as we graduated college, we went full time with it. We didn't have the pressures of starting a family at the same time of starting the business. So by the time we started a family, the business was sort of stable. And there were no finances. I mean, we were very, we didn't need anything. We shared a 500 square foot apartment that cost not very much money.

But we just didn't have any expenses. And so, yes, we were losing money and not making money, but it didn't really put a strain on us because we didn't really have any expectations for anything outside of that. Do you guys really like cookies still? Yeah. Oh, yeah. We, you would think,

that, you know, at work, we're always trying cookies out. It's like this big, you know, more cookies, more flavors coming in. And it is literally like that, especially for the book. There's, I think, 30 recipes. And so we were testing out recipes for the better half of a year and a half. That was a lot. But still, yes, still like them. What was, I'm curious, because now they had to go through recipe tasting,

what was your least favorite flavor that you've tasted? from the book recipe tested or any ever any over the years oh we've had some we've had some sinkers that didn't even make the cut I remember one of the ones we did roll out that it doesn't sound that bad it was milk chocolate cherry with like dried cherries in it nobody wanted that it did not so and after that I made a rule that outside of raisins we don't do dried fruit in cookies because it's just not just not fantastic they're not I can get behind that rule amazing. And then we did a maple bacon one once that

sounded really good, but the bacon was all soggy. Yeah. It wouldn't very good. Not a winner. Yeah. Interesting. I'm kind of into soggy bacon, but that's personal preference. What's your, what's each of your favorite flavors? Um, on the, on a regular menu, my favorite flavor is oatmeal

chocolate chip. And nice thicker dittle for me. Oh, meal chocolate chip. Talk to me. I'd say oatmeal chocolate chip is maybe one of our favorite like, oh wow. Because that's not like one of the most popular ones. It's weirdly not, but I wonder if it divides between oatmeal raisin and oatmeal chocolate chip. So it's like a... Yes, because I'm more chocolate chip and he's more oatmeal raisin.

So I think that's probably one. I'm in on anything oatmeal. Did you guys ever almost pull the shoot on not to get too much in the weeds, but either the business or... The relationship? We probably should have on both. You know, there are times where... Day by day on everything.

no we didn't um no we surprisingly not you would think and when you look back on it we should have considered closing the business in those first few years it had no future it was making no money it was growing to us it seemed like it was growing great but on paper it was growing very very slowly um and then you know then we then we'd get somewhere and then we make another move we'd start losing money because of our new growth venture um i think the biggest time it could have gone out of business with without us making the choice was when we lost our lease to our kitchen space that we were using. And we just, we were really struggling to find another spot. So we ended up getting very, very lucky and finding a new spot to move into just under the wire. But that was the biggest time when it could have gone out of business. That was back in 2003. Yeah. And Tiff said what kept us in it was we just kept feeling like there was something special building with the brand.

But none of the financial metrics, you know, showed that. But we had so much great customer feedback, people emailing, calling us, saying you're making such a special moment in our lives. And that's when we kind of realize that we call them, it's corny, but we call them warm cookie moments. Because what we're realizing is people are using the warm cookies as a way to connect with each other and show love, appreciation, gratitude, comfort. And so it was really always, there's always something there beyond just the cookies. And so that really kept us going, and that kept us motivated when everything else seemed to go against us staying alive as a business. Yeah, it was like we were operating off of gut. In our guts, we knew there was something special here.

So truthfully, other than those times when, you know, luck's just not going your way, we never, ever considered quitting. And we've never considered leaving each other either. Yeah. And we got to move on for that. Wait. I didn't get charged for my donut. It was free with the Tim's Rewards points. I think I just stole it.

I'm a donut stealer. Ooh. Earn points so fast, it'll seem too good to be true. Plus, join Tim's Rewards today and get enough points for a free donut, drink, or timbits. With 800 points after registration, activation, and first purchase of a dollar or more. See the Tim's out for details at participating in restaurants in Canada for a limited time. I will say, I found you guys probably five years ago, six years ago. And I think it's really cool.

In Nashville, it's very, like, small local businesses. And so there were a couple, like, cookie places I knew of. But I remember there was a friend of ours who had just gotten home from the hospital. And it was, like, an odd time of the day where you couldn't really get anybody to deliver anything. And I came across you guys. And the whole concept of, like, the warm cookie delivery, I remember it was when Chuck got out of the hospital. And we sent him this huge delivery of milk and cookies. And I just remember him just being blown.

loan away, that they were still warm. And it was just the coolest thing. So you guys have been our go-to ever since then, which has been really cool. It's almost like your mom's showing up. It really is. It's a warm hug. Awesome. Yeah.

And we saw that during the shutdown and the beginning of the pandemic. We couldn't handle the amount of business we were getting because people needed a way to literally connect because they physically couldn't connect. And so we saw people ordering for their grandparents that were stuck in nursing homes. they were sending them cookies at least to say hey you know we're thinking about you we hope you're okay um skips birthdays a lot a lot of people miss their birthdays they miss birthdays mother's day was big because you know in 2020 mother's day people couldn't really get together for that mother's day graduation all kinds of stuff um so yeah we had a huge uptick in people wanting to send gifts to each

other which has been more difficult so far based off your experience uh the times where the business wasn't going well or more recently when you guys have been absolutely smashing it is there like yeah i i you know i say this a lot when times aren't going well when we were like looking at payroll in our bank account and there's there are times where i look at the bank account and i'd be like i i have no idea how we make payroll i you know i don't know how we're going to make rent those early days it was just stress stress stress Stress, stress. Just so much stress. I, you know, I started having these panic attacks. I thought I was, you know, having a stroke. I went to the emergency room. I literally didn't know what was wrong with me. And the doctor was like, yeah, you're just, you're really stressed out. And so during those times when you're struggling, you have stress. Then I always thought, hey, once we get to a certain point and we're able to pay our bills and things are going, well, there won't be stressed. There won't be stress at all. And I was right. The stress gets replaced, though. pressure. Now you have pressure to succeed. You have investors counting on you. You have

employees that have been with us for 20 years, 15 years, who've given up doing other things to stay a part of this company to help grow it. We've seen people grow up and have families and people are counting on us for their mortgage now. And so that pressure replaces that stress and it's not any better. It's not any worse. It's just different. Wow. That's deep. Yeah, that is. That's good. We have, we just got off of a podcast tour where we actually got to see a lot of people face to face, which has been a change because of the past two years.

And we actually got asked that a lot of the whole entrepreneurial world. What's like the most valuable lesson in starting a business that you wish you could have told yourself back then? If we wish we could tell ourselves back then. That's a good question. Yeah. I mean, some of the lessons that we learned along the way were, one, stick to what you do. Like, find a niche and stick to that niche. Be really, really good at the thing that you want to be good at, especially in the beginning.

There's time to branch out later, but kind of like put your flag down on something. And ours was warm cookie delivery because you guys were just saying, oh, I can't believe, you know, they're still warm. We get that all the time. But that's what we do. I mean, that is the one thing that we really specialize in, getting you the cookies right out of the oven. That and then, our other big takeaway was make it your focus and get ready to work hard on it. Yeah, it's, it's, you hear like work smart, you know, not hard. Well, I really think competition is such in everything you do, whether it's an Olympic event or starting a business where you can't just work smart.

you got to also work hard. You just, you can't, you can't stress that enough. And so that's something that, um, we consistently say, and it seems so simple. But these days, we, we, we, we can't shout it loud enough. You still got to work hard. Wow. With your guys' book that you released, um, no, it released this April. It's coming this April.

Yeah. Coming this April. What was the whole like, um, I guess inspiration behind that, behind writing. a book behind sharing the recipes, behind just all the stories you're sharing? Yeah, I mean, we've been in business for a long time now, and so we've always toyed with the idea of telling our story, especially as we get sort of bigger as a company. When we were smaller, everybody sort of knew how we started, and then now they've gotten a little bit bigger.

We're like, you know, it's a fun time to go in and really talk about the early days and how this started and kind of what are some of the things we did to get from there to hear. but still in the middle of our journey because we're still growing. It's not like a look-back memoir per se because we're not done. We still have so much more to go. So that seemed like a fun time. And then the recipes was an addition that we weren't initially expecting to do because we've never published recipes before.

You guys have... Yeah, recipe time. You guys have 30 recipes in the book? I think there was about 28, something like that. Okay. Yeah. And so what we decided to do was highlight our flavors of the, week. So for years, we've done a certain flavor of the week. About every month, we would throw one

out there. And so they're a little bit more fun, things that maybe aren't just the standards that are on your standard menu. And so we decided, we've got enough of these that we would put those together for the book, all the really fun ones, the limited time ones that people are always anxious to come back. And just to give the book a little bit of extra something fun. Right. And we also, whenever we do some speaking engagements every so often at universities or we've had big corporations like Dell or Southwest Airlines invite us to speak to their people and we get a lot of the same questions. You know, hey, how do you do this or how does it like working with your spouse is, is, was one of them. That's why we put it in the book. And so we wanted to consolidate all of the things that

people were most curious about and just put it into a, you know, book format. And we thought it'd be fun to do and um it has been fun to do yeah do you find yourselves baking at home a lot since you have like a baking business um i think it ebbs and flows we baked at home a ton when we were putting their recipes together because we were testing out so many different ones because we had reformulate them all for home baking because when we make them you know they're giant and so we had to tweak everything down and then you would test it a thousand times plus home ovens are completely different than commercial ovens so everything needed to be. be changed. Interesting. But yeah, you know, we bake for like all of the holidays and things and

we still bake for fun. You bake. I know, yeah, yeah. Her and the twins take. Yeah. Tiff, did you have a reputation before you sent the, uh, sorry for sanding you up cookies? Were you like known as a cookie chick? I did. Yes. I was really more through high school than anything else that I would, I was known for making cookies. I would make cookies for part of my dance. There was like, I was on a 60 person and dance team. I remember making cookies for everyone, which at the time seemed like a lot. Now that makes me laugh because I probably wouldn't run many cookies. Yeah, she was drill team captain. And for her girls, she would just make these cookies. And that's what she's known. Yeah. And then when we went to college, I stopped doing it because I

didn't have a kitchen. I was living in a dorm. And so I hadn't actually baked in a couple of years. And then we just happened to be back at home for winter break. And I struck it back up for this. Remind me where you guys went to college? At University of Texas at Austin. Oh, nice. I will say Tiff, that was like my, my big move for him back in the day. I said I would bake him cookies or cupcakes. Oh, really? That was my only thing.

You crushed it. We have a lot in common. That's really cool. Yes. I don't believe you when you said you were stressed, Leon. I can't imagine you as a stressed out. No, you know, there was a period of time. Yeah.

I, you know, Sean and I are building. both a family and a business and our timelines maybe a little more compressed than yours was where you had the business and then, you know, it was kind of established by the time you had the kids. But there's definitely been times where I'm like, gosh, this is not worth it. Let's just stop doing the business stuff and just I can just get a job and we can go our separate ways and like and take that. Not us go our separate ways. No, yeah. Do you. Do it. Professionally. But then I always think about how fun and amazing it is for Sean and I to have these shared memories and spend for better for worse most of every day together and like build this project together.

And I hear couples who don't work together. Like they'll always still have dreams, it seems of like, oh, you know, this is our house that we want to build. They're like they always have projects in the works they're still doing together. And for Sean and I to have this project. together is so special so I always try to remind myself with that but I'm it you like it yeah I was gonna say what you're saying right now is we don't recommend every couple work together you know I wouldn't even say that I recommended us working together but when you go through all that we went through and it is just a whole whole book's worth of just misfortune and bad luck and also some good luck

too. But if you're lucky enough to get to the other side of it as a couple through the arguments and disagreements and stress and all that, it is so amazing to have. We have something that not very many people have and that's, you know, I can look at her and I've literally seen her blood, sweat, and tears pour her life into something. I saw her, I've seen her at the lowest of the lows, the most scared she's ever been, the most stress she's ever been, the saddest she's ever been or the most doubt she's ever had. And then to be able to see her every step along the way, I just feel that's so special. And we have this respect for each other that I don't think you can get unless you've been there with each other during all those bad times. Yeah. Yeah,

it's cool. I think it's too, it's cool as well, like Andrew is saying, you can have, if you share separate jobs and you're doing your nine to fives and you see each other at night, you do have those shared dreams of like the house or whatever and what is fun is being able to dream and build the business together it's almost like you can celebrate with each other on a daily basis you see like the business calls that go well or or don't and you kind of get to like live out those little those little wins every day all day you know through the year the don't the don't parts are some of the best memories you know we when we were working those 120 hours and we weren't making any money and we were working day and night and I remember some of our most fondest memories is driving home with her after a long day

and we skipped dinner because we were just us two were so busy and I'd look over at her and I'd be like hey what do you want to do tonight do you want to eat or do you want to go straight to sleep and we only have time for one and if you want one extra hour of sleep you've got to go home but if you're too hungry you've got to stop and depending on the day she'd look over at me and she'd be like sorry I gotta eat can we stop somewhere and it was but it was those

moments that you look back on now the not great ones that are the fondness it's really interesting summer's here and you can now get almost anything you need for your sunny days delivered with Uber Eats what do we mean by almost when you can't get a well-groom lawn delivered

but you can get a chicken parmesan delivered a cabana that's a no but a banana That's a yes. A nice tan. Sorry, nope. But a box fan? Happily, yes. A day of sunshine?

No. A box of fine wines? Yes. Uber Eats can definitely get you that. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol and select markets. Product availability may vary by Regency app for details.

Today's episode is brought to you by an important sponsor, a life-changing sponsor, and that's BetterHelp. I couldn't agree more, baby. I wish that BetterHelp had been an option during my career because I love the fact that it's available for everyone. everyone. Better help actually helps to assess your needs and then they match you with your own licensed professional therapists. It takes all the stress out of trying to find someone to be able to talk to, which we've been through that process. You look them up online. You go down to sit with them. You don't like them. It's on the next one. It's like a kind of a waste of your time, you feel like, but not with Better Help. It really is. So with Better Help, they're awesome.

You can even start communicating in under 48 hours with your matched therapist. This is not a crisis line. It's not self-help. It is professional counseling, done securely. online you'll get timely and thoughtful responses plus you can schedule weekly video or phone sessions so you won't ever have to sit in that uncomfortable waiting room like we have as with traditional therapy it's also more affordable than traditional offline counseling and financial aid is available which we love you cannot go wrong with better help better help is customized online therapy that offers video phone and even live chat sessions with your therapist so you don't have to see anyone on camera if you don't want to it's much more affordable than in-person therapy

and you can give it a try and see if online therapy can help lower your stress. This podcast is sponsored by BetterHelp and a couple things listeners can get 10% off their first month at BetterHelp.com slash EastFam. Let's get back to it. So, Leanne, you seem to be the one who encouraged Tiff to really pursue building this business and doing it together. What did you see in her that you knew she would be successful? um i don't know if you thought that through at all i'll tell you this much without getting too sappy

uh tip is the most humble person in the world she just she doesn't get it she doesn't understand how capable and smart she is people here will um you know we'll walk in someplace and if somebody notices it recognizes her they'll be like they'll freak out and she just she can't imagine what anyone would care about her at all. But I see it. And so it's one of those things where she's so humble, it's almost to a fault. She really is. She's always deflecting praise. She's always saying, I don't deserve this or I don't deserve that. You know, I don't think we can do this. You know, I don't think I'm capable of doing this every step of the way. But then when you really, when she really goes up against it, she always succeeds in everything she does. She's like one of the

most successful slash humble people that I've ever known. Wow. And then Tiff, same question to you. What did you see in Leon way back in the day where you were like, I want to go into business with him? So I really don't think, I mean, you're assuming that we put any thought into starting the business and that would be overstepping it. But what makes them continuing to be successful is that, When Leon puts his sight on doing something, which is why it's scary when they have these dreams.

But when he puts his sights towards doing something, he's going to do it. He's going to figure out a way to get it done. And he's going to, you could trust that he's going to be successful even if it was crazy to start with. He's just one of those people. He's probably the most, the best creative problem solver I've ever seen. There's never a problem to him that doesn't have like five potential solutions that he comes up with like, bam, bam, bam, bang. you could do this, this, this, this, this, this, or this. And so if you want to put something in his hands, it's pretty much a layup.

Like, if he wants to do it, he'll do it. So next time we're having marriage problems, we just need to come on here and talk to you guys about it. Because, you know, why. Let's ask you all the reasons why you love each other. Yes. You guys have said some things that have really impacted me positively. So thank you for this. Seriously.

My last question is, when we come, you guys are in Texas? Yeah. when we come down there can we can we buy you dinner oh absolutely yeah you guys you guys ever been to austin yeah i'm actually going tomorrow what the heck dude gosh well we got to do it together or we don't want to make you go yes yes yeah but yeah you guys i mean austin is i mean it's very similar to nashville uh a lot of folks say right and so come on down we'd love to meet up with you guys that's great uh all right so we heard the sentimental side of things from a marriage perspective what's the best advice you've either been given or would give based off your experience

oh i let you go first marriage advice yeah we're we're not really great at that giving giving marriage or marriage i guess we're currently married um oh gosh you know i don't know if this is impactful to other people, but one thing we try to do is to maintain being polite to each other. We don't always succeed. But we do, like, instead of saying, go fix that light bulb, you know, I would say, would you mind, could you please when you have a chance, that light bulb is out? It would be great if you would fix it. And so, you know, treating ourselves with the same kind of courtesy that you would treat somebody else. It's not always easy to do. We don't always succeed at it, but we do try to do that. I love that. I'm...

No, Leanne's not done. Well, I just want to say real quick, we've gotten to interview a lot of couples from every walk of life. And we have yet to ever hear that. That's really special. Yeah, that's mostly her. I think it's probably because I'm not good at that. She's like, we need to try to do that as a couple. No, it's not.

It's honestly, because you can see older couples sometimes and just the way that they're interacting with each other on an airplane, for example. And they don't even notice that they're doing it. But you're like, you know, that's, it's not. great talking to somebody else in that tone. Nobody wants to be spoken to that way. And we don't have to. Even though we're super comfortable with each other, we don't have to speak to each other in that kind of tone all the time. Yeah. And, you know, for me, it's, there's obviously a trust thing that has to work in a marriage, but also in a business as well. And so we differ on almost every little opinion. We luckily, big people.

picture we are very aligned but like on how to get to the big picture she's this goes this way i go the other way and but at a certain point you delegate trust uh to the other person depending on what it is and so it's a kind of like i don't see it i actually disagree with you vehemently but like fine i trust you and and depending on what it is we try to do that for each other kind of out of no other, there's no, we could sit there and fight all day long. It's more efficient. Yeah, but it's more efficient to really just be like, okay, for this one, it's all you. Yeah, it's all you. And so we try to do that. Piggyback question. How long did it take you to settle into your defined role as a CEO and

president? I mean, I guess our roles have changed over time, but a long time ago, we dedicated or declared that Leon would be CEO. I like the idea of having one point person, so there's not confusion over, well, you know, mom said this, but dad said that, and we're not sure who's in charge. But our role are super naturally, like, they just naturally split just because we're so different. Yeah, she's really good at the details, and I am awful at the details. And so, in the things, and she doesn't like to do the finance stuff, or, I mean, I don't

love to do that, but I like it a lot more than her, and the investor stuff, and the and the best of relationships and stuff like that. And so it just naturally delineates, and she's really in charge of the brand. Her name is on the sign. And so anything that touches the look and the feel or the taste of the product, it's 100% her.

I can say whatever I want, but at the end of the day, it definitely is going to be up to her. We have so much to learn, dude. Holy crap. I know. I'm jazzed up. I know.

We got to ask you guys a ton more questions. Okay. right before we wrap you guys are in the cookie business a lot of people's hobby would be baking but what are your hobbies outside of your business of baking?

You know we like to spend time with friends a lot harder now with COVID you know it's been kind of a weird couple years for that but we'll go see music shows you know we live in Austin so we'll go see concerts a lot we love going to movies

I haven't done as much of that late Yeah, and we're just not homebody. So even though we have a place here in Austin near our work, we got a place downtown a few years ago because we were just going downtown so much and we didn't want to take a long Uber or whatever. So we got a little place downtown and where they're every weekend with the kids.

And so we like to go eat. We like to be out and about. Yeah, out and about by the lake and all that. So we're just not the couple that stays. It's probably because we, for years, all we did was work. and so when a lot of our friends were you know they had a job a nine to five but then they'd go to happy hours they'd go out on weekends we never got that in our 20s we were just working through our 20s and so I think to this day we're still kind of like trying to make up for lost time because and so we're just never the sit at home type of people wow I can't tell you the last time I heard someone say that they weren't a home body I feel like it's like part for the course of like oh yeah I'm a homebody I like to just watch movies on the couch yeah our friends get a little annoyed sometimes yeah because we're always like arranging dinner yeah they don't like my itineraries do you find yourself outside of austin a lot like are you guys trying to not stay in austin

like travel wise do you antsy about that or do you like being home in the city we love to travel also really enjoy being in austin but obviously we haven't traveled a ton in the last couple of years not like we would have wanted but travel you know kind of took a back seat we love to do it we don't do it as much as we like just because a lot of times we're tied for responsibilities here to the to the office yeah we we've always taken like a long weekend right and we've never had the time or we felt like for the business we could go on a three week trip to europe we did go on an 11 day trip to europe probably 11 years ago 10 or 11 years ago and that's the longest trip we've ever been on otherwise it's 11 weeks 11 days 11 days 11 days sorry you guys are out here

grinding no 11 days yeah yeah what was the last concert you went to last question um well we saw churches pretty recently yeah oh sick yeah so acl moody is a it's a 2,000 seat theater here um and it's the best music venue ever it's just there's not a bad seat in the house um you you can see no matter where you get and it the acoustics are great and so um it happens to be really close to where we live downtown and so we just walk and see shows all the time that's awesome i challenge that come up to nashville we'll go to the rhyman yep and you'll see what a good music can not to bash down we'll do a home and away we'll take each other to the concerts hey listen i uh i am so impressed

by what you both have built for for what it's worth uh it's inspiring and also to see how you've done it is even, I think, more fascinating and impressive. And the fact that you wrote a book about it is amazing. And congratulations on that. If you listening are curious to read their book called It's Not Just Cookies. We'll link it down below. It is a fantastic book full of recipes, pictures, and warm cookie stories, as you say. But Tiff and Leon, so much wisdom clearly to share and glad that you are actively doing it.

So thank you for joining us today, and we're looking forward to staying in touch. Thank you, both, so awesome meeting you both. I always thank you guys.