Heroes in Business - Brent and Therese Ludwig Founders of Sweet Moments Family

Episode Date: July 15, 2023

Sweet Moments Family Founders Brent and Therese Ludwig interviewed by David Cogan, Celebrity Host and founder of Go to to learn more about Sweet Moments,  Connecting People Through Virtual Cooking Classes.

Welcome back to Alliances Heroes, where heroes in business align. To be part of our super community and find out more about Alliances, visit www.alliances.com. That's right, and we're back. And again, I'm so excited. Wait till you see who we have coming on. You're going to get hungry. I'm just giving you a warning about that. But I'm really excited. And by the way, before we get started, thank you again for the feedback that we continue to have.

When I interviewed the CFO of NASA, who is a member of Alliances. So make sure that you check out Alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S dot com. Well, we have with us today Brent Ludwig and Teresa Ludwig. They're co-founders together of Sweet Moments Company. And you can reach them at smcoaz.com. All right. So we're just going to jump right in because I'm getting hungry. Tell me why I'm getting hungry and why our audience will get hungry too about sncoaz.com.

Well, we offer virtual cooking classes, and we ship all of the ingredients straight to all the participants, which makes us really unique that you get on, you have fun. It's live chef instruction. You don't have to run out to the grocery store. You just get everything neatly packaged and sent to you. And we have been doing this for a couple years now, two and a half years. It's been wonderful. We meet so many people. I'm

the executive chef for the company. So I teach a lot of the classes. And it's just been really an awesome thing that we've been able to do the last couple years. So that's amazing. Okay, so I go to your website, I order and then just everything sent to me. I don't have to worry about going shopping, finding the thing, finding the specific. Okay, excellent. And then you said it's live? Yeah, it's live chef led. So you can actually ask the instructor questions. And we try to keep our class sizes smaller for our public events. So it's a little more intimate. And the chef can, you know, reach out to each person that's on and help guide them through the recipe. Amazing. Now, how did you even come up with this concept of doing it? Well, Brent's a huge contributor to that, but I've been teaching

for probably over 15 years in the culinary world at various colleges, and we decided, well, why not do it for ourselves and try to reach more people throughout the country. And Brent's like, you know what, let's start doing virtual classes. You love the teaching aspect. And he said, you know what, let's take it one step further and send the ingredients. So it's kind of a joint effort. Oh, yeah, we're go big or go home. We even it's everything's portioned even down to the salt. So it's just as easy as possible for each participant. I think that's great because, you know, it's different. You're definitely right.

Different than our others that are out there, either where you're going there and you're using their kitchen, their things, which you may or may not have at home or even know what to get, or you're getting everything sent to you. And it's like, here it is. Good luck. Follow these instructions. I've always had the biggest challenge of doing it. Where and all that.

So they can interact and ask you questions right there while they're all cooking. And you've got others along with you that are on there, too, cooking. So what? Sounds like a party. It is, yes. And you get to meet so many different people, I mean, from, like, kids and parents doing it together, which we think that's an amazing thing for kids to do in the kitchen is get in there with their parents and do the cooking. And then we have date nights,

so couples who are doing something special together to grow their relationship. So it's always a party. You have different people all the time. Oh, for sure. And even team building. We do a ton of team building events for companies that have other employees across the country. Now, what is your passion, though?

I mean, why? What drove you to do that? I mean, Brent, your background, an accomplished R&D engineer leader. You have six patents. It was as if one isn't a big deal. Six in the aerospace industry at NASA, Honeywell, and Boeing. And, again, you can reach them both at smcoaz.com smcoaz.com or you can go to alliances.com elinces.com we'll have the link there too but what what was the why for this?

I think there's like two aspects of I mean the first is probably going to be Teresa's why and it kind of married up with my why and what I have passion about I mean Teresa loves cooking and growing up when she was doing all the cooking with her family, it was about bringing people together, connecting people. And we found a really unique opportunity to be able to connect people together in a different and unique format. For me, my passion with my previous engineering is we will, it's a multitude of businesses kind of combined into one where we also have a lot of operations and logistics and that's where a lot of my background comes in it actually pairs really

well with Teresa to be able to make something like this successful oh yeah that's great so you I mean and yeah for you guys to get along in the kitchen right they say if you can get along in the kitchen with your spouse like like, yeah, then you're truly set in a match. Yeah, absolutely. Yes. And he has his stuff and I have mine. Like we stay in our lanes.

The things that he can do, I'm like, I don't want to touch that. I'll be the creative spirit over here. I love it. I love it. And again, you're listening and watching me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Also go to alliances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com. It is the only place where entrepreneurs align. In fact, too, you're part of the Alliances community.

So what's it been like for you to be part of that? You've come to our roundtable and stuff. Share your experience. It's actually been very rewarding. When I first heard about eLiances, I wasn't exactly sure at first, but when I was able to come to the roundtable, and just to be able to connect with so many people in different industries, but ultimately doing the same thing, growing, and the connections and support that you're able to get

through eLiances, I've been actually very, very happy with and thrilled to be part of. Who is your key customers? Is it male, female? Is it, you know, do you have to be a beautiful couple like both of you? Oh my gosh. A lot of female, like ages 35 to 55. We have the, that group that likes to do it like recreationally something that they can just kind of relax pour a glass of wine get out of their head and just get in the kitchen and cook something special um we see a lot of couples and then we see a lot of like young up-and-coming chefs that want to learn something new and they can do it from home so i'd say that's probably our primary range for our public classes and we still have like the B2B side of it where we do actually have a lot of companies that we do events for as well. And

that's been very, very rewarding as well for us. Yeah, that's been huge. Huge for businesses to connect, you know, their employees together, do the team building, something unique. Yeah. I mean, I always kind of relate it back to like, when I was at Honeywell or Boeing, you know, I had 25 people in my engineering team and only two of us were on the same physical location. So we never really got to hang out or do anything outside of work. And so this has been a great opportunity that we're able to see, like, be able to help connect people like that as well. Oh, that's awesome. No, that's great. Now, what do you do with people like they're like, wait, you know, I can't have salt and this I can't have sugar and all these things. How do you how do how can they or do you customize it for that type or they can't eat this or that or the other?

Yeah, we'll modify their ingredient kits for them. So actually on the website, you can let us know, are you gluten free? Are you allergic to nuts, vegan? And we always do our best to send something in its place so they still get the same meal outcome, but works for their diet. So we're really good about that, you know, because I know nowadays everybody has a different allergy to something. And what about vegetarians? Yes, vegetarians all the way. Oh, yeah. We can definitely do vegetarian dishes instead. Even with the steak dishes, we've got many options instead. How did you guys, like, again, come up with, know that you, that even something like this would take off? I mean, the thing is, is, you know, we think of an idea, but how, at what

point was it the point of like, you know what, this is working, like, because it's, I haven't never heard of anybody doing this before, where it's live and you're cooking? I would have to say, you know, it started in our neighborhood. Our community said, hey, everyone's just been indoors, not able to go out and do anything. They asked if we'd start doing cooking classes for the neighborhood. And in like two months, just having a website up for our neighborhood people to sign up for, we had other people reaching out saying, I want to take classes. Are you going to do other classes? And it exploded so quickly. We were like, okay, well, this seems like this is a good business model. People want this. They're looking for something creative like

this to do. Exactly. That's great. That's great. All right. So how do you guys get along so well? I mean, again, working together, you know, right. I mean, really, it puts a lot of stress on relationships having also to work together. So do you guys kind of divide the roles or give us some secrets of that? I mean, we're, I mean, we are structured that we make sure that we divide the roles. We also make sure that, you know, we have boundaries and stuff. So like, you know, when we're outside of work, okay, we can't keep letting work overflow into everything. Because starting a small business and growing it, if you let it take over, it'll take over. So we have to set aside time of, okay, now it's personal time, not business time. And so that definitely helps a lot.

Yeah, there's work Teresa Brent, and then there's outside of work Teresa Brent. And obviously, a lot of times the lines can get blurred. But we've worked really hard. And it's a blessing, actually, that we do get along so well. I mean, we're different personalities, we're different strengths, but he's my best friend. So it makes it easy. I can come to him for things and don't get me wrong. There are moments where we drive each other crazy at work, but it's just part of it. So yeah, we're very blessed to have each other and be able to kind of separate that out. Yeah. I think it's such a cool activity again, too, for couples, right? I mean, it's just another one of those things of something unique, something they can do together, something that they could do at home, right? In their own kitchen and not

have to worry about picking up and getting all the different ingredients because you ship it all right i mean they get it and they've got everything they need exactly they don't worry about anything they just get to enjoy great what kind of uh maybe secrets or advice can you advise for children young adults that want to write own of their own, create something of their own, to really be able to do it, make a difference like you guys are making a difference of, again, creating something from scratch, Braddock, from scratch. I think the key is patience. And if you're really passionate about it and it's something you really want, you need to work really hard to obtain it. I think a lot of times, especially in the culinary industry, you get into it. I can't

tell you how many people have said, oh, I want to open a restaurant. I want to own a business. But there are so many complexities to that. It sounds like a great idea. And then you get into it and you're like, wow, there's so much going on with this. So I think just holding onto that drive, working and pushing yourself really hard and being flexible because things are going to change constantly. Oh, yeah, definitely. Because it's, it's always changing. And then also realize, like, even for what we're working on, it's like, it's a big thing we're trying to do. But just take it little by little step by step kind of thing. It's, you know, you don't eat an elephant at once, you know, bite by bite kind of thing, you know, that definitely that mentality helps a lot. Excellent. We've got time for one more question here. And this one's important.

What is your favorite thing to cook? And is it the same for both of you? No. Oh yeah, we're totally different. You can go first. My engineering side, I like to do the tweaky stuff. So if there's like sous vide or a new gadget or smoking, I get to experiment and, you know, try new things. I love doing that. And it can drive Teresa crazy because they don't always come out right every single time. Oh, it's okay. It doesn't come out right. But it's like, oh, I'm gonna make something quick for dinner. And it turns into a four hour project because he starts tweaking. He's like, oh, I'm gonna modify this. Which is fine. Me, I'm like comfort dishes, things that like feed the soul, warm and cozy.

That's what I grew up with my mom. And I definitely love that, but doing like a modern twist on it. Excellent. Well, you both bring your passion for cooking to help others connect and enjoy food together. That's a hero. Welcome again, too. Thank you so much, Brent and Teresa Ludwig. Make sure that you go to SMCOAZ.com. That's SMCOAZ.com because they are the founders of Sweet Moments Company. This has been David Kogan with the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure you go to alliances.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-S.com. Why?

Because it's the only place where entrepreneurs align. Thank you, David. Thank you.