Heroes in Business - Jennifer Maxwell CoFounder PowerBar, grew to 130Million sold to Nestle, Founder JamBar

Episode Date: December 28, 2021

What you need to transform your life. Jennifer Maxwell CoFounder PowerBar, grew to 130Million sold to Nestle, Founder JamBar is interviewed by David Cogan Founder of Eliances and famous celebrity host The Heroes Show.  

Up in the sky. Look, it's captivating. It's energizing. It's Eliance's Heroes. Eliance's is the destination for entrepreneurs, investors, CEOs, inventors, leaders, celebrities, and startups, where our heroes in business align. Now, here's your host flying in, David Kogan, founder of Eliance's. That's right. And we always have so much going on. It's just like off the hook with the number of interviews. And by the way, too, if you want to submit your interview, go ahead and submit it to Eliance.com. You'll see contact information in there. Please keep in mind, we get over 200 requests a week. We definitely try to go through as many as we can. So again, you can go ahead and go to eliancer.com. And I

really appreciate the feedback we continue to have when I had the founder of Spartan Race on. So make sure you go to eliancer.com, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-R.com to hear some past interviews. and CER.com to hear some past interviews. Well, guess who's sitting next to me? All right. Now, I know of her product that she co-founded many years ago and just ate it all the time. Because with me is Jennifer Maxwell. She's the co-founder of Power Bar.

She ended up growing it to $130 million. And what did she do? She sold it to a company you've probably heard of called Nestle. Now, if that wasn't enough, she's back as the founder of Jambar and you could reach her at jambar.com. So Jennifer, let's first take a step back here. So how did you end up, you know, at the time when you created PowerBar, there was like nothing, people didn't even know like, what's an energy bar? How did you even like get into that market? Yeah, thanks, David. I'm really happy to be here. You know, the energy bar didn't exist in 1985, is when brian and i first started our concept it was really to meet our personal need of having an easy to digest convenient energy product and we spent several years developing it and made it for friends and family and it was highly successful so now our

market is huge right we've got hundreds of energy bars on the market now so you know you started off as pretty much the first at least the first of what people ended up recognizing then you ended up selling it how many years later did you end up selling it well we started in 85 and sold it in 2000. so it took us about 15 years to growing into the great company that uh that it was so you end up selling it to nestle like that just I mean what was the feeling like that I mean here you are signing a contract you 15 years of development you know sleepless nights and I mean all the energy that you had with you and your co-founder developing this and whoom you sell your baby. Well it's interesting it was our baby but it was a it was a

an effort with all of our employees as well. So Brian and I, husband and wife, we started it. And it was really a group effort. We believe in having our employees be part of the process. So we had a stock ownership program. So they all owned part of Power Bar. Nice. Can you believe how many are on the market now?

It's amazing. The market's really changed and grown into all kinds of different segments. So then what led to with as crowded as the market is now, especially so different from when you first started with the Power Bar, to now create Jam Bar and tell us about Jam Bar. Yeah. So Jam Bar is something that is, I think, not only a different product than all the rest, and it's super high quality, premium, all organic ingredients. And it's super tasty recipe that I worked on for four years in my kitchen, just like I did in the 80s. But we also have a business model of really involving ourselves in community and giving back. So we have 50% of our profits going to support organizations that promote active living and music. And where can we get Jam Bar?

So you can get Jam Bar locally in the Bay Area at health food stores, some larger grocery chains, music stores, and some running stores and bike shops or easy is jam bar.com online sure and eventually this will probably be everywhere right yeah we're going to go across the country kind of slow you know we're taking our time to do it right so i think online is the easiest if you're not living in the bay area so I think online is the easiest if you're not living in the Bay Area all right so with the gazillion bars that are out there now though tell me what stands out from Jam Bar is it yeah what part of it yeah everyone can say well this product's great but you know Jam Bar is really it's a labor of love and it is um you know I was developing the recipe I was looking at innovation in protein sources and different kinds of grains

Different kinds of sweeteners because I really didn't like a lot of the products on the market right now I mean, it's available now a lot of more manufactured things getting a little too far away from nature so I wanted to use authentic sweeteners like maple syrup and honey and You know really close to nature because it makes my body feel better to eat that way all organic ingredients and then I as a food scientist I'm really interested in vegan vegan sources of protein so I use a sunflower seed protein as well as providing two varieties with whey protein and it's really a grain based product that's lower in fat than many of the other products out there.

And like I said, the sweetening sources being very close to nature makes it taste better and is better for your body. And in fact, let's talk about, you know, as a nutritionist and food scientist, how does the lay person who doesn't have the education that you do be able to compare the bars? So they're going, well, this sounds great. Okay, so I've got this type of bar. Now I'm looking at Jam Bar. I mean, how do they know what to, because things are so coded now. Yeah. I mean, there's so many different types of products out there. You know, what I always say is, you know, try to understand what the ingredients are by being able to recognize them,

right? At Jam Bar, we don't add anything that's not real food so you want to keep it pretty simple but i also wanted to add protein and fiber and more of a whole food component rather than just like ground up dried fruit which would be great for no added sugars but then that product really doesn't have much protein so you want to have a comprehensive product that's you know organic closer to nature you know have the protein have the fiber and at the end of the day you want it to taste good so that's where jam bar really shines because we have four flavors and each of those four flavors are very distinct right so we don't have just a base of whatever and then add a little this a little of that to distinguish

between our flavors we have a chocolate which is using all organic ingredients and 23 of the bar is actually guitarred fair trade premium chocolate and then we have a jazzleberry which is 24 real fruit and a mango which is 22 real dried mango all organic and then we have a malt nut melody which is a combination of peanut butter sesame malt and vanilla so each flavor really stands on itself as it is a delicious eating experience that's healthy and all organic wow you know and the thing is is with the crowded space that's at a lot of these stores right i mean now it's almost i think i just recently went to one of these like whole foods and stuff and it's almost a whole one side of an aisle with the number of bars that are out there how do you get your product though when you're competing with so

much and again that's new many haven't yet heard of a jam Bar yet. You're expanding. How do you get it out there? Yeah, I mean, it's partly what we are one of. Jam Bar is one of the few 100% organic options, right? So that narrows the playing field right there. We are organic. It's more expensive to be organic. Also, we have a history with my history of developing the category. We have the power of ours.

So we have the trust and authenticity that comes with my history of being a food scientist, being a creator of the category. And then really, David, what distinguishes us is our incredible supportive community. Right. In fact, talk to us about that because you've got the Give Back program. Yeah, that was really important to me because i want to make a great product but i also want to support my passion and which is music and sports so i've always been an athlete my whole life and you know ran in as a young girl marathons races ran in high school up through college brian was an olympic athlete so we have that athletic heritage in myself. And then I became a musician when Brian passed away in 2004. The music resonated within my healing process,

became a musician, learned how to play the drums, and just involved myself in the music community. And so that passion and healing aspect of music is really what I want to combine with the sports. So I'm like, well, what can I do to make an impact in the community? And so I'm like, I just want to help entities and organizations that give back to music, music education for kids, musicians playing gigs out there, inspiring people to dance and live their lives and listen to music and get involved. And so we have a lot of programs in the Bay Area that we contribute to and then sort of branching out into other areas of the country as well. Yeah. And you talked about kids and that aspect and stuff.

What about like, you know, again, with like students who are looking to make an impact in the world? I mean, you've been very successful. You were very with power with uh the power bar being the co-founder and now launching the jam bar um what kind of maybe secrets that you've learned that you would give back to students as advice now and or parents that are watching now who would like to raise their kids to be able to make an impact on the world what can they do yeah that's a good question um i think it's again like just get involved in your community you know develop your passions right so develop what what are your interests in your life that you can hold on to dearly start on a small scale and then build from there because it can just it can be a collaborative effort to build within the community, to keep it strong within yourself, knowing what you want to achieve in your life and then how to bring those things together.

And with Jam Bar, I mean, do you eventually want to be as large as or larger than your first creation of co-founder of Power Bar? No, no. You know, we want to do what we do super well. We want to stay small. We want to stay focused on creating a super high-quality premium energy bar. We manufactured ourself in our state-of-the-art factory, which also distinguishes.

We don't co-pack it. So that distinguishes us. But to run a plant and do the marketing and do all the, you know, run a plant and do the marketing and all that you know create run a company is a lot of work so we want to stay pretty small focused um continue to involve ourselves as organizations to support active living sports music and all those things so that that doesn't go along with being a super big company now. How do you decompress Jennifer? I mean, with the, you know, because it is still very stressful starting a company from scratch again and,

and all the work that it takes. I mean, what do you do to decompress? Yeah, I get out into the trails. I get out and I run, you know, I've been running for over 45 years. I started as a young child. So for me, getting out into nature is really what it's all about. You know, even if I'm just going a couple of miles, I just want to get out, feel my body moving, getting those endorphins, being fit. So that in combination with frankly, playing the drums, I mean, music is a great decompressor. And so those two things, music and active living, there you got it.

Yeah. All right. What's your favorite music that you listen to while you're out there running? Well, my favorite band of all time would be Pink Floyd, without a doubt. Although I'm more of a jazz musician now because I really like the improvisation and communication that jazz gives you playing in an ensemble with your other fellow musicians. But I like almost any music, David. I really just, I just love music. Yeah. All right.

And before we wrap it up, the key to success that you have that you're going to bring over from Power Bar now to Jam Bar, if there was one thing, what would that be? Treat your employees as you would like to be treated. Excellent. Well, Jennifer, you found a way to bring back better nutrition to consumers who are conscious of their health and giving back to support better health for all of us. That's it, you know, Jennifer Maxwell, co-founder of Power Bar, grew 230 million, sold it to Nestle, and now back with Jam Bar. You can get it at jambar.com.

Go to jambar.com. This has been David Kogan with the Alliance's Hero Show. Get your dad one. And we jam on.