Heroes in Business - Michael Coles, CEO/President Caribou Coffee Company, Co-Founder Great American Cookie Company (over $100Million before selling), Chairman, Author Time to Get Tough: How Cookies, Coffee, and a Crash Led To Success in Business and Life

Episode Date: January 22, 2021

How Cookies, Coffee, and a devastating crash led to success in the cookie industry. Michael Coles, CEO/President Caribou Coffee Company, Co-Founder Great American Cookie Company (over $100Million before selling), Chairman, Author Time to Get Tough: How Cookies, Coffee, and a Crash Led To Success in Business and Life is interviewed by David Cogan founder of Eliances and host of the Eliances Heroes show broadcast on am and fm network channels, internet radio, and online syndication.

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. All right, listeners and viewers, can you believe it? Do I just, again, I say it, do I not have the best job in the entire world? Why? Because we bring to you the most amazing people on earth. We all can learn from them. There is something in each and every one, and they've made their impact and they continue to make their impact and contribute to society. And by the way, thank you for the feedback. We continue

to have one I recently interviewed, Henrik Fisker. So make sure that you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com because you know it is the only place where entrepreneurs align. It is the only place where entrepreneurs align. All right. Next, you're going to be amazed. First of all, those of you that are cookie fans, you're going to be amazed. Those of you that are coffee fans are going to be amazed because we have with us, are you ready for this? The co-founder of Great American Cookie Company built over 100 million before selling, and if that wasn't enough,

former chairman and CEO and president of Caribou Coffee Company, and now author of Time to Get Tough, How Cookies, Coffee, and a Crash Led to Success in Business and Life. Welcome to the show, Michael Coles. Well, it's great to be here. I hope I can keep up with your enthusiasm. Oh, my God. I mean, you have done and you continue to do so much, but let's really jump right into it. First of all, you go to start a cookie company when you've already got three major competitors in front of you, right? One that had, what, 100 locations, two of the others that had 50 locations,

yet you decide to start a cookie company of all things. Why? Well, first of all, I had no experience in the food business at all and certainly nothing in the cookie business. But the three companies that were out there all came out of the bakery business. My partner and I both came out of the clothing retail business, and we just felt we had a better way of doing it. And even though there were competition out there, I would say we were a disruptive cookie company. We went out and did it in a different way, and we knew the way we would do it would be very successful. So things are going along.

Things are going great. I think, what, you used an $8,000 investment or something. Did I hear something like that? Yeah, we each put in $4,000 and borrowed $25,000 from a bank in which they sent out a forensic accountant to our homes, to inventory all of our personal assets. So when we failed, they didn't have to go through the course to get their money. They could just come and claim our stuff. All right. So things are starting to roll and all of a sudden something drastic happens in your life. What was that? So six weeks after we started the company, I woke up into a hospital with two doctors standing over my bed telling me that I'd been involved in a near fatal motorcycle accident and I would probably never walk normally again.

This was, I mean, it was devastating because we had everything on the line and suddenly I found myself where I couldn't even walk. So as this is happening, then how do you in the world, do you get the motivation to? Well, I mean, a lot of people would just go, if this is what the doctor said, that's it. How do you what's going through your mind of how do you turn it around mentally? Well, you know, I grew up as a really poor kid and throughout my life, people had always told me what my limits were. And it always gave me an incentive to prove them wrong. limits were. And it always gave me an incentive to prove them wrong. But this time I was literally living in a safety zone that doctors had given me. Because I can sit here and tell you today, at 33 years old, learning how to walk again really hurts. I had an incident with my daughter,

Taryn, when she was three, where she asked me to race her to the mailbox up our steep driveway. And when I took off to run, I couldn't do it. The pain was excruciating. And it was the first time since my accident that I really realized I was disabled, but not so much disabled in my legs, disabled in my mind. And I just, at that moment, I didn't want her to grow up with a father that couldn't at least run to the mailbox with her. And so I began a self-styled rehabilitation program that virtually took me from a stationary bike to a regular bike. And when we took that, at the same time we took that $8,000 investment and turned it into hundreds of stores nationwide with sales over $100 million, I not only learned to walk again,

but set three world records riding across the United States on a bicycle. Incredible story. All right. So then you end up selling the company. Why not stop, enjoy, relax, play golf, drink coffee? Well, the truth is I was doing a little bit of consulting and I got hired by the owners of Caribou Coffee who had owned the company only for a couple of years. And the company was going nowhere. And they asked me to do an assessment of the business to see whether or not they had just made a bad deal. And if they had made a bad deal, they were just going to, cut their losses and sell the company. But I fell in love with the company as going through the project. I realized it was a

brand. It was like a brand religion, like you would find at Harley Davidson or Apple. And I had never had an opportunity to turn a company around. I had never had an opportunity to work with a brand religion. And I got really excited, came back, told them I wanted to buy in and go up to Minneapolis and turn this thing around. Fantastic. And boy, you sure did. And you know what too, as we're doing here today, again, you're listening to me, David Kogan, host of the Alliances Hero Show. Make sure you go to alliances.com. That's E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. Because we're now going to learn about the book that Michael Coles has authored, who is the co-founder of Great American Cookie Company, built it to over 100 million before selling, chairman and CEO and president of Caribou Coffee Company, and now author of,

are you ready? Time to Get Tough, How Cookies, coffee, and a crash led to success in business and life. You could reach him by going to michaelcoles.com. Michaelcoles.com. We'll also have on our website at alliances.com, which you all know, E-L-I-A-N-C-E-S.com. So Michael, talk to us about the book and what, in the end, what you want your readers to get out of it. Well, I think first of all, I didn't write the book to boast about my career. I really feel so fortunate, as I said, growing up as a poor kid and having the kind of life that I've had. I wrote this book to try to motivate people to step out of their safe space and do

more than they think they can. And so that was the purpose of the book. By the way, all the royalties from the book, all the money I get for speaking engagements, all of that money goes to Kennesaw State University's foundation, where my wife and I had endowed the business school. And so we don't make any money off the book. I really feel like, you know, this is a time for me to give back. The purpose of writing the book was in a way to give back, be able to contribute to this university and also hopefully motivate some people to do things that they might have been more hesitant to do in the first place.

What do you have for, you know, you talked a lot about previously about, you know, growing up and your background and that. What kind of secrets do you have, though, for children now? You know, the ones that are in high school. We have all ages that listen to our show from high school to 70, 80 years old and that. But really on the high school part where they're having a tough time getting through school, they're challenged. And, you know, it's easy to just give up and just kind of be a wallflower. Well, I mean, first of all, these are really tough times. And frankly, when I wrote my book, which has a lot of motivation in it,

I never imagined that we would be sitting in the middle of a pandemic where I think the message of the book even has more meaning now than it possibly would have. I would say, look, these young people today, especially, are dealing with not seeing their friends, having to have a completely different experience in going to school. I know so many kids in this area where I'm at, they didn't even get to go to a high school graduation. And it's kind of like, I'm sure there's kids sitting there going, what's the point? Well, the point is that it's, it's not so much about what, what the grades are you get, but there is so much you can learn. Well, Michael, I've got to tell you from cookies and coffee to a crash, the three C's, And coffee to a crash.

The three C's. You've been successful and now you're giving back to help others on their entrepreneur path and in business. That's a hero. Co-founder of Great American Cookie Company and author of Time to Get Tough. Make sure you go to MichaelColes.com and of course we'll have it at Alliances.com. And coming up next, ronald cone the father venture capital in the uk