How I Built This with Guy Raz - Advice Line with Stacy Madison of Stacy’s Pita Chips

Episode Date: October 16, 2025

Stacy’s Pita Chips co-founder Stacy Madison joins Guy on the Advice Line to answer questions from three early-stage entrepreneurs. Plus, Stacy talks about her hard-won experience of knowing when to stick with an idea… and when to walk away.First up, Sam wants to figure out how to leverage his popular pizza instagram account into the go-to place for men to learn how to bake. Then, Alex wants to know how to make his Peruvian pisco brand stand out in a relatively unknown liquor category. And finally, Stephanie is eager to learn how she can rejuvenate what had been her family’s 88-year-old candy business. Thank you to the founders of Dough Guy, SUYO, and Stuckey’s for being a part of our show.If you’d like to be featured on a future Advice Line episode, leave us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and a specific question you’d like answered. Send a voice memo to [e-mail] or call 1-800-433-1298.And be sure to go back and listen to Stacy’s episode from 2019 where she shares how a decision to make chips with the leftover pita from her sandwich cart led to a multi-million dollar snack category that didn’t exist before her. This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music by Ramtin Arablouei. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. You can follow HIBT on Twitter & Instagram and sign up for Guy's free newsletter at guyraz.com and on Substack.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Away, Patrick Ta, and Dollar Shave Club that already grow with Clavio at K-L-A-V-I-O-O-com. Hello and welcome to the advice line on How I Built This Lab. I'm Guy Raz. This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges. Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on this show who will help me try to help you. And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show. Our number is 1-800-433-1298.

Send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you like help with. And you can also send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondery.com. And make sure to tell us how to reach. you. And also, don't forget to sign up for my newsletter. It's full of insights and ideas from some of the world's greatest entrepreneurs. You can sign up for free at guyraz.com or on Substack. And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description. All right, let's get to it. Joining me this week is Stacey Madison. She's the founder and namesake of Stacey's Pita Chips.

Stacey, it's great to have you back on the show. Thank you so much. I was really excited and I'm flattered that you asked me. We love, we were, you were first on the show in 2019. You went to the High Built the Summit. And as always, for those of you who haven't heard Stacey's original episode, we will put a link to it in the episode description. Stacey, so many listeners are the years. We have like 600 plus episodes in our archives. So many people tell me yours is their all-time favorite.

I hear it again and again all the time. And do people still come up to you and say, oh, I remember your story from now I built this? They do. That's the connection that they make. It's so, it's crazy. I mean, people, it's an amazing story. I mean, you talk about how you started out as a social worker. You were in Washington, D.C., and then you moved around a bit, and then you tried a bunch of different things.

And then you, when your partner at the time, Mark, you decided to come back to Boston area where you guys bought a hot dog cart and kind of turned it into a sandwich cart, like pita sandwiches. And you had all this extra pita every day. So you started to toast it and, you know, toss it in parmesan cheese. and then you would offer these toasted pita chips to people waiting in line for their pita sandwich. And this is how Stacey's pita chips began. I mean, they were, it's an amazing story because they were so popular. It became this huge brand. You eventually sold to Pepsi in 2006.

I know that you started a couple of brands. You had a juice bar. You had an energy bar business, which were awesome. I love them. I know neither of them are going at the moment. But tell me a little bit about what you've been up to in the last couple of years. Yeah. So I'd like to say I've been raising my kids and both of them are seniors in college and going to graduate this year. I had Stacey's juice bar, which I have to say was really next to Stacey's Pita Chips was my passion.

Because when I started the Pita Chip company, you know, I was selling healthy sandwiches. And with the juice bar, I was able to. to kind of make the cart come to life and make, you know, healthy lunches come to fruition through juices and smoothies. And we sold salads and kinawas and, and we sold the Be Bold bars. You had basically started an energy bar. They were so good. They were like they had oats and chocolate chips and they were so popular that people said, you've got to sell these in the stores. You've got to sell these at grocery stores. Yeah, everybody, everybody was, you know, would buy one with their lunch. And I had a huge following. I was in the suburbs. You know, it was very kind of local.

You know, I'm not a social media kind of person. So we also got a buyer, actually, who listened to how I built this and was interested, you know, they had had the pita chips forever and was interested in buying the bars. And so we got 1,200 stores, put more money into it, produced enough to stock the shells, produced enough to, you know, have backup for it. And yeah, and then the pandemic hit. And then it ended up costing a lot of money. It definitely burned me out of the entrepreneurial world. And, you know, it still, it still hits hard. I can imagine how much energy that was sucking from you. And I guess, I mean, it sounds like it just wasn't fun. anymore. It was just...

Crazy. What were we doing? No, it's... And it's really hard. And it's $250,000 in bars and had to make the decision. Am I going to take and throw $250,000 in the dumpster? Or am I going to invest some more and try to make it go of it? Yeah. At a certain point, you're sort of saying, well, I can pour more money into this and keep going. Or I can say, all right, it was an interesting experiment and move on. I mean, There are all these other things that you do.

You are an investor. I think you're an early investor in Sweetgreen and Evolution Juice and a couple of other cool food brands. I want to go back to Stacey's for a moment because that story, it's a story that comes up often in my conversations, in part because it was the side hustle to the main hustle, right? And really what you started to see was people asking for those chips. It wasn't part of the plan. And I wonder, you know, if you can kind of speak to this idea of when you know that actually the side project is really the thing that you have to hit the gas on. And the thing that you thought you were doing, you've got to kind of roll it up. When did you start to understand that the sandwiches were not actually the business?

It was these chips that you were handing out for free to people waiting in line. Yeah, it's kind of like you have to make a decision. Am I going, am I in the fork in the road? Am I going right? Am I going left? Right? And the decision was based on, we're in New England. And so your income's really only in the good weather.

And over the winter, worked on the marketing, the packaging, went to trade shows, talked to other snack food companies, you know, and kind of got it ready to launch. The second year, we had a little help at the food cart so that we could focus more on the chips. And then eventually we, in 97, we ended up just doing the chips. It just made more sense because of just the demand that you were hearing from people to chatter, or did you actually start to see the dollars coming in more heavily weighed toward the chips? Chatter. And can you make me an extra bag like just bulk so I can take them home?

When people, you know, asking you questions like that, you know, listen to your customers. Yeah. I mean, that is so super important. And then you know what you ask the question. Well, when do you know when you switch or you make that decision? My answer would be you need to prove out the concept outside of just where you are. So you have to take, whether it's taking the bags of chips to the stores, talking to the stores, sampling them at the stores, things like that. Like, you know, that's what helps you make those kinds of decisions.

Yeah. Before we get to our callers, I want to ask you just one more question, which is, you know, when you started this, right, the food cart, this was in the 90s. And when you started this, it was like people had to show up at the cart and you'd find out about it. somebody would say, oh, I'm going to stay. I'm going to this Pita cart in Boston Common or downtown crossing. Now you would have an Instagram account and you would have a bunch of social media accounts and I hear you. I hate it. I mean, do you think that if you were starting Stacey's cart today and then the chips, would you, do you think it'd have to go about it differently to have the same kind of impact? I would say I'd have to be a victim.

of the times. I think it would be very hard to speak to this, to the times right now and to this generation, if you don't get on their own microphone. Like if they're on Instagram or TikTok or whatever, it is hard to reach people. So that's an important part of it. Yeah.

All right, Stacey, why don't we go ahead and take our first caller? Are you ready? Oh, yeah, definitely. Definitely ready. Okay, hello, caller. Welcome to the advice line you're on with Stacey Madison. Founder of Stacey's Pita Chips, please tell us your name where you're calling from and just one quick line about your business. Yeah, hey, Stacey and Guy.

My name is Sam Kagle and I am based in Utah. I'm the founder of DoGai. It's an online community and an e-commerce brand dedicated to homemade pizza making. And so we provide the physical tools, the resources, and the inspiration so that anybody can make restaurant-quality pizza right at home with nothing but a regular home oven. Got it. What do you sell? It's a pizza steel. So it's a 16 inch by 16 inch steel that you bake pizzas on in a normal oven. So like a pizza stone, but it's a piece of steel, which I've had before. And you put the steel in the oven and then you heat the oven up.

And then the idea is that you're going to get a pizza that's more like a restaurant pizza. Exactly. Awesome. When did you start the business? Yeah. So I officially launched the business April of this year, about end of April. So it's been pretty recent. And how did you come up? I mean, were you like a, were you a baker? Were you working in restaurants?

No, so I've, I mean, I've always loved baking. I've always loved baking, like, desserts and breads, but I had never really dabbled with pizza. And so the story goes, so summer 2024 last year, I quit my job to become a stay-at-home dad. And like I said, I always loved baking, but to keep my sanity, I decided to dive into homemade pizza making and start an Instagram page to document the journey. And I discovered you don't need, like, a fancy pizza oven to make really good pizza at home. And so in January, I decided to do a series where I made a pizza every single day until I got a Dave Portnoy pizza review. And so obviously he's- Wow. How'd you do that?

How'd you get Dave Portnoy to review your pizza? So I... Because he's like the pizza king. He's the pizza king. And he's a pretty controversial guy, so it kind of took off. But like I said, so I started a series where I made a pizza every single day, posted every single day until I got his attention. And I flew out to Chicago and I got a pizza review from him. The first homemade pizza, first pizza from Utah.

and he gave me a really good score. And I had about two weeks before the review came out where I basically set up my entire company, set up everything with my manufacturer because I had nothing ready to go because I thought this was going to take like a year or longer. I didn't think he was just going to have any random guy

come out and make him a pizza. But the day it came out, I launched my business and after that was off to the races. How much have you done so far in sales? Yeah, so since April, we've done just north of 300,000 in revenue. It's awesome. And congrats on getting to a Portlander to review it.

I've had a pizza steal in the past. It's an awesome. Again, this is not a new product. You didn't invent the pizza steel. No. But you basically have a community of people. I guess you follow you on social media and you make pizzas and stuff. Yep.

Yeah, that's right. And so that's really where I differentiate myself. So I've built this community on Instagram. I have since January, I've grown to about 130,000 followers. And people are very into it. People are very loyal to the brand dough guy, and they love everything pizza making because my whole brand is making it as simple and easy and fun as possible,

and to show that really anybody can do it. It's not like some hidden or gate-kept thing that's so hard to do to make pizza. Anybody can do it, and it's really fun and easy to do. It's fun to do with your kids, too. It is. Let me ask you a question. I have, and for years, I've had pizza ovens, right?

And the beauty of these things is they get really hot. Usually you want to cook your pizza like between, you know, six and seven hundred fifty. Yeah. A conventional home oven only gets up to 500, 550. Yep. So can you, I mean, why would somebody pick the steel over a, like an uni pizza oven or even a big green egg? Yeah. I mean, there's lots of reasons.

The first reason, it's a lot cheaper. And it's a lot more convenient to do. A lot like how many Americans live in an apartment where they can't have a pizza oven outside and they can't have all this space to make pizzas. And that's where the pizza steel comes in. So pizza stones have been around forever. They don't get quite hot enough to get that perfect blackened undercarats that everyone loves on the New York style slice of pizza.

The steel gets up high enough. It can preheat up to 550 plus degrees and it retains his heat super good. So it transfers to the pizza. and makes it super easy to make really high-quality pizza at home. All right. Before we dive in further, tell us what your question is. Yeah, so I've grown this awesome community online, but my vision for doggai actually is to turn it into a full-fledged brand for all things baking. Right now, like most of the momentum depends on me personally.

I'm running the entire thing. I'm editing the videos. I'm doing all the content all by myself. But I want to scale it in a way where the brand can thrive without me at the center of everything. And so my question is, how can I make the leap from being the guy on Instagram that makes pizza to building a lasting brand that stands on its own? All right. Awesome. Question. I want to bring Stacey Madison in.

Thoughts for Sam, questions for Sam, answers for Sam. What you were saying about how do you get it from you? I mean, you got to be in it. Yeah. You have tapped into the secret sauce of the internet. And do you know how many companies are trying to do what you've already done? And you have a following and you have, I mean, you can't go. You're the value right now.

Yeah. Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense. Yeah, okay. I have a question for you. You mentioned that you have this idea for creating a full on baking brand. So you've got the steel. Tell me, like, let's just get a crystal ball. If you had your Barbie dream house, right, I always say that because when I was a little kid, I watched my sisters play with the Barbie dream house.

And I kind of wanted one too because it was a pretty awesome house. You had a pool and all that cool stuff. You're looking at the dream house. What is the bait? What kind of things are you selling in 10 years from now? Yeah. So obviously all thing pizza making in terms of like cutting and launching even hot honey type things, things that sit on shelves, but also bread, desserts, anything baking related. And it happens to be.

So my audience is mostly male. And so there isn't really a baking brand that exists that is targeted towards the male audience. But I think there's a big market for men to get into sourdough baking and things like that. Totally. Do you have, I mean, I wonder, I mean, I agree with Stacey 100%. Right now, it's too early. You have to be the brand guy. And you're going to have to do everything for a while and really establish the steel as the steel to get.

And you're right. I mean, if you want to buy a Noonie or a Gazzini or one of these ovens, you're looking at three, four, five hundred more dollars. And how much is your retail for your product? 119. 119. So, yeah, it's a great deal. You can make a pretty great pizza at home with this deal. I wonder whether you are, I mean, to me it seems like you have an opportunity.

And how many followers do you have on Instagram? About 130,000. That's amazing. I mean, now you have an opportunity and it's all about pizza, basically. It's all pizza right now. Yeah. Do you have, have you put in any, it featured any, like, community content, like, like pizza fails that, you know, great pizza fails from people or anything like that? Because everyone screws up pizza the first time they make it off the peel. When they're trying to put it from the peel into the oven, they always mess it up. Have you had any, tried anything like that? That's a great question. So I do have people tagging me every single day. And I always post about other people's pizza, pizza making creations. But I haven't tried the fail thing, which could be really funny because I failed a lot. You know, it's hard to get it going. My goal is to make it so it's not so hard. But it's definitely a learning curve. So that's a good idea. I think that's good because I quit after I made one.

You quit. Why did you quit? Oh, it was just such a disaster. I'm like, I'm not a very much. I'm not a pizza maker. Stick to salad dressing. No. No, you didn't put enough flour on the peel. Yeah, you need a flour. You got to work fast. Get out of that sauce.

You got to be fast. You have to follow dough guy. I was very good at making it pretty. I was, but, oh. Sam, isn't it true? Isn't it true? You've got it. While you're making the pizza, you got to shake the peel a little bit every once in a while to make sure it's still loose.

You know, you're going to put the sauce on. Shake it a little bit. Okay, it's moving. Put the cheese on. Put the whatever you want on. Yeah. and shake it around. And then you can still save it by pulling up the dough and blowing a little bit of flour under it.

Yeah, you know. You know. Yeah, so semolina flour is going to be your best friend. And, yeah, shaking it, make sure you're not using too much sauce, all that stuff. So, Stacey, do you think, I mean, you said this, that he's got to really be the guy, right? He's got, he's got a grind. But at what point can he say, all right, now I need somebody else to run, you? stuff or operations while I focus on building out this brand.

Like, can you hire some other people to do all the other stuff? Yeah. Like, let, you know, bring in others to help with the other tasks so that you can stay on the internet. And you have to, because you need to be on it now while you're hot. Wow, thank you. And I love that you are hitting the men. Yeah.

I mean, there's so much, like, what else do men cook? Meat. Grilling meat. Smoking meat. Right. You go on the grill and maybe you're, you know, maybe it's a spatula. Maybe it's a, I don't know. But, you know, guys, I mean, again, I hate to hate these categories, but they are true sometimes.

And guys, you see a lot of guys will want to bake with, like cast iron, right? Like when they're camping and make, like, a cobbler or, you. You know, some kind of, like, cookie thing in a cast iron pan. That's a way better idea. You like that? Yeah. A cookie thing in a cast iron pan? Because that's special.

Like, you know, that's like, ooh, I want to try that. Look at that man making brownies in a cast iron pan. That's a real man. Yeah, no, that's a great idea. Yeah, that outdoor space is huge. And look at Sam. Look at him, Stacey. He is the man.

He's got the cool. He's a handsome or handsome guy. I mean, right? Like, he's the guy. Cast iron brownie, Sam. Okay. I mean, I think I might be going into the brownie space. Who knows?

That's awesome. But you know what? But you have that making something delicious while keeping it simple. Yeah, exactly. Yep. Right? If you can think of things that are unique to the male population and that you're going to make it easy, something that's difficult, you're going to make it easy.

Something that's difficult. you're going to make it easy. Like you, just speaking to you now, I'm like, okay, I'm going to try to make a pizza again. I'm going to get myself as steel because my oven doesn't get hot enough. There you go. Or, you know, it's going to retain the heat. Who knew? Maybe that's why I might.

Maybe it was my pants. I think it was. Maybe it wasn't me. And, yeah, and Stacy, you know how you're going to figure that out? How did figure out how to do this work right? I'm going to go to your house and you're going to show me. No, you're going to go to Sam's Instagram and you're going to see all the videos there, all the how-toes. I'm going to Sims and then I'm going to, yeah, and I'm going to watch all those videos.

I'm going to get myself a steel square. And I'm going to make it for my kids. I'm telling you what, forget about Naples, forget about Sicily. Forget about even the Roman style pizza. It's the Salt Lake City style. It's all about the Utah piece. No, it's awesome. I love this story.

Sam, thanks for calling in the brands called Dogey. Sam Cagle. Good luck, and we'll keep tabs on you, man. Thank you. Thanks for having me on. Stay with us because after the break, we'll talk to another founder working to take their business

to the next level. That's after the break. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the advice line right here on how I built this lab. All right, let's bring in our next caller. Welcome to the advice line. You're on with Stacey Madison,

founder of Stacey's Piachips. Tell us your name where you're calling from and just a line about your business, please. Hi, Guy. I, Stacy. My name's Alex Hildebrand. and I live in Boston, but I'm currently in New York City where I spend a lot of time for my business. And I'm a co-founder of Suyo Pisco.

Soyo is a spirits company, and we're introducing the world to single origin Pisco, which is the national spirit of Peru. And Pisco also happens to be the only spirit in the world that by law is made with one ingredient. Which is grapes, presumably. That's right, which is grapes. Alex, thanks for calling in, and thanks for asking us hopefully to have. help you out. Tell me a little bit about how you started this business. I mean, I, you know, I think most people, a lot of people know Pisco Sauer, right? Tell me about how you got into making and selling Pisco. I'm from Peru, which is what really inspired me to do something,

really, to reconnect with my home country as a Peruvian who spent most of his life in the United States. I always felt like I wanted to do something that reconnected me. And I don't come from the Pisco space. I don't come from a family of producers. or anything like that. But one of my best friends and now co-founder is a Peruvian, and we had been brainstorming ideas for a really long period of time, and we decided that we both shared this passion about doing something that reconnected us with our roots. And so it hit us right in the head one time.

We were back home in Mida Flores in Lima, Peru, and we were drinking a Pisco cocktail, and we kind of looked at each other, and we were wondering, wait, what do you know about Pisco? And we explored, and we decided to launch a Pisco brand. Okay. So, first of all, I'm assuming like tequila or certain other spirits, it has to be made in Peru to be called Pisco. That's exactly right.

So you can't just distill grapes in California and call it Pisco. Correct. So much like a tequila or a champagne, it has denomination of origin. So that means it has to come from a very specific place in Peru and be produced a very specific type of way, which I think for the most part is a good thing because that, ensures that we have this spirit that only has one ingredient at the end of the day, which is very, very cool and unique. When did you launch the brand, Sue? We launched the brand in 2020. After having started the project in 2019, of course, COVID came around and we imported our first pallet into the United States in late 2021 and started selling it in early 2022. Where are you selling it right now? We're very focused geographically,

mostly between New York and Boston and then between San Francisco and L.A. That's about the majority of our California sales. And that's kind of at the request of our distributor. And again, we should mention, with spirits, it's tricky because you've got to go state by state. Every state has different regulations. So you've got to start with one state and then grow from there. What is the, in terms of like your sales, where does mostly from restaurants and bars, mostly from liquor stores, where are you seeing sales?

Great question. So roughly 80% of our sales this year to date have been in bars and restaurants. Roughly 20% will be liquor stores, which is kind of in line with what we expected when we launched the brand. Because when you're introducing someone to something new, I think it's oftentimes more approachable to purchase a cocktail at a more approachable price point than going into a liquor store and buying a bottle of something that tends to be a little bit more premium price and you may not know what to do with it. So it's kind of in line with our expectations. And give us a sense, Alex, of what kind of revenue you expect to do this year. Do you expect to break 300,000, 400,000? Yeah, we think we'll do a little bit over 400,000 this year.

Okay. And before we, I dive in further, tell us what your question is, what question you brought for us. Yeah, so I'm sort of facing a consumer behavior dilemma. If we take, for instance, being at a bar or liquor store, consumers tend to first decide what kind of. alcohol to drink. For example, gin, vodka, yeah. Yeah, or I feel like having a vodka soda. Or vodka, I feel like having a vodka soda, today I'm going to have Tito's, which is the brand.

But on the other hand, sometimes consumers also just order a brand without knowing or even caring what kind of alcohol category it is. One example is Hennessy, which is often thought of as its own thing, but it's a cognac which is also a denomination of origin controlled spirit. Right. It's a grape spirit. That's right. So here I am building a brand that's in a category that's relatively unknown.

And I'm wondering if you, Stacey, or Guy, could offer any advice on how to prioritize my efforts and educating consumers about Piscoe while also building my brand's awareness, which is Sue Yo. Interesting, because I can't think of a single Pisco brand, right? I can think of vodka brands or, you know, gin brands, but I cannot think of a Pisco brand, which to me seems like a great opportunity. Before we, I weigh and I want to bring in Stacey Madison. Stacey, a lot to think about here. Alex has this Pisco brand. I'm sure you've had Pisco Sowers in Miami because there's some awesome Peruvian restaurants down there.

What do you think? I mean, brand or category or what? Okay. Well, first I went last night. and had a Pisco Sour, I asked the bartender, you know, can I see your Pisco? Like, what kind of Pisco you pour in here? Because I wanted to hear what he, did he know anything about it, you know, things like that. The question is, is there like a Suryo Yosaur?

Great question. We actually tend to lean away from the Pisco Sour, which could be another question to phrase back at you. The Pisco Sour is what everybody intuitively orders because that's really all they know. But our experience has been that the Pisco Sour tends to be a little less approachable in that it has an egg white in it and it's kind of complicated to make at home. So we've been looking for something that can be made at home. It has very few ingredients. It's very simple. So what we push is the Pisco punch, which I think maybe to your point doesn't have our name in it. And maybe we should find a way to incorporate our name into it. But it is.

is a traditional cocktail that we... Well, it's in the Pisco punch, yeah. Yeah. The Pisco punch traditionally is really just three ingredients. And because we love simplicity, this has made a lot of sense for us. It's going to be Pisco, of course, pineapple juice and lime juice. And that's all you need. If you know how to make a margarita, you can make a Pisco punch is the way we've been approaching it.

You just need those three ingredients. Got it. Okay, cool. Yeah. Other than a Pisco sour, what else is Piscoe used for? There are a lot of options, which is a double-edged sword. There's so many different directions we can go, but how do you keep it simple and try to find that one thing that really, really takes off? So we play a lot with the martini, swap in Pisco for the vodka or the gin, because we have two different expressions that have similar profiles to both vodka and gin, respectively.

You can do other easy highballs like Pisco Tonic, which is a super Peruvian drink as well, because tonic comes from quinine, which is originally from Peruvian. So that's a fun storytelling opportunity for us that we use. And then there's some others that are more traditional in Peru. For instance, if you go to a house party or you go to a family gathering, a celebration, just about everybody's going to be drinking what's called a Chilcano, which is just Pisco and ginger ale and you put a dash of lime on top. That is super simple. It's much like a mule if you've had a mule before.

Most people enjoy that if you drink. You have to bring your name into it. I agree. I agree 100%. I mean, if it were me and you're selling to all these bars, take, you know, 10 free drink cards, you know, work it out with the bar. And you have a whole underground crew of ambassadors to go into the bar. And people who do this as a free drink, to go in and to order a suyatonic and have the people next to that person. person go at suya tonic like what's that oh it's made with pisko and you know a piececo suea piececo and buy them a drink i completely agree that's your underground network i completely agree stacey because

look consumers they rarely champion a category unless there's a brand to rally behind right so like apparel like apparel there are other things that are like apparel but you order an apparel sprits. Patron is a great example in tequila, right? You have an opportunity to make suyo synonymous with Pisco to U.S. consumers because there isn't anything like that. There is no Patron for Pisco. Like the brand is the tip of the spear here, right? Like you're leading with the story of Suyu and what it does. I mean, the other thing is, Peruvian food is some of the greatest food in the world, some of the greatest restaurants in the world are in Lima. So people who know about food,

know about Peruvian food, but like, I didn't know that Pisco had to have a single ingredient, you know, single origin. I didn't know that. And maybe on the bottle, you know, says something like, you know, Peru's best kept secret or something like that. I would really lean into talking to bartenders about making suyo drinks. As Stacy said, suyo tonics, suyo and orange juice, but then also the punch, suyo punch, and really just start to build on the brand and a mixer rather than Pisco in a mixer. Soyo Sowers, it can be a Pisco sour. Suyatini.

Yeah, I mean, I think that's really what you, the opportunity is to make your brand synonymous with Pisco. It's just a category that is, to me, it seems wide open. I mean, tequila, everybody's in tequila, you know, gin, vodka. but not that many Pisco brands known in the U.S., if any. None. None. And the market is wide open.

It was the exact same thing with the Pita chips. Nobody knew what a Pita chip was, which is crazy. Stacey, I thought you were such a perfect person to ask this question. And I think you've answered the question here. But it's like, we get asked to come to bars and do what they call staff trainings or staff educations. and we 100% of the time start with, let me talk to you quickly about what Pisco is to set the basis, and then now let me talk to you about Suyu.

What I'm hearing from you to is maybe it makes sense to flip the script, and we lead with Suyo, and then, oh, by the way, this is a Pisco, let me tell you a couple of things about what that means. So how much, can I ask, how much does the bar pay for a bottle? Yeah, of course. So for our core line, which are the Giverranta in Italia that you see in there, they pay depending on the tier that they get because it changes depending on how many you buy it's between about $30 a bottle and about $33 a bottle depending on the market okay so it ends up at retail roughly

$45 is the SRP that we that we aim for yeah yeah I'm just trying to get a handle on a feel for you're both your sales and for what kind of drink you're creating because if you're creating I have to say I'm not a big fan of the punch thing. I think of something red. Okay. Oh, you're a red punch, not a yellow. Yeah, I think of something red, and I think of something that's not as expensive. And I think that, you know, you should keep it equivalent to the more expensive cocktails.

It sounds like jungle juice. It doesn't sound as elevated to you. Well, but it can, but it can. I mean, have you had milk punch at some of these high-end bars? But that's such a the category is so small, like the general public, I think, you know, in order to get that extra buck. So, Alex, I think, I mean, here, I think there's a, I think we agree. There's a huge opportunity here. It's all about Sioux.

It's not about Pisco. Pisco comes next. People discover Pisco through Sueyo. That's a direction you should take. The brand is called Sueyo, Pisco. Alex Halebrandt. Good luck, man. Thanks for calling.

Thanks so much, Guy. Thanks, Stacey. It's great chatting with you both. Thank you. Yeah, I tell you what, I love Pisco. I mean, I don't order them often, but every time, every once in a while, I'm like, oh, Pisco's sour. That sounds great. I want that egg white.

Yeah, it's like you're drinking an egg white. I mean, how much healthier can a bit. Delicious. Spirits is a tricky category because there are so many spirits brands, but certain kind of wormholes in that world, right? Like Piscos or other kinds of spirits have an opportunity. And I would also think about partnering with maybe some interesting Peruvian chefs. Because that, I mean, I think the number one restaurant in the world for a while was in Lima. So there you go.

I think he's on to something he could really, it could really take off. We're going to take a quick break. But when we come back, another caller, another question, and another round of advice. I'm Guy Raz. Stick around. You're listening to the advice line on how I built this lab. Let's bring in our final caller. line you are on with Stacy Madison, founder of Stacey's Piediships. Tell us your name where you're calling from and one line about your business, please. I'm Stephanie Stucky. I am with Stuckies. I'm calling from Rends, Georgia, and we make pecan snacks and candies.

Awesome. Stephanie, welcome to the show Stuckies. You make pecan candy. So just give me kind of a sense of what kind of candy do you sell? We're best known for the pecan log roll, which is my grandmother's recipe. We've actually been. been making it since 1937. Wow. Yeah, I call ourselves an 88-year-old startup. Yeah. Yeah, and we also make prelines and gophers. It's caramel, pecans, and chocolate. We do dark chocolate pecans, white chocolate pecans, and then we have a whole line of flavored pecans, everything from roasted and salted to honey roasted, kettle glazed, bourbon. I love it. I love it. We're crazy about pecans. Wow.

This is an old, this is an old new brand, right? Right. This is not, okay, tell me this, tell me what is the story of Stuckies? It's a crazy journey. So I am an attorney. I spent my entire life doing different things. I was a public defender, a state representative, and head of sustainability for the city of Atlanta. And five years ago, I got a phone call that the company that my grandfather had founded and sold was for sale.

And it's your last name, Stucky. It's my last name. Yeah. So he started it as a roadside pecan stand. When did he start it? 1937. Wow. Okay.

Yeah. People love that he made snacks and candies. And people said, oh, this is great, but where's a restroom? Where can I get gas? So he built a gas station that sold snacks, candies, kitchy, fun souvenirs, clean restrooms. And he just built it from there. At its peak, Stuckies had 370 stores and 4.4. States. He had a candy company, a trucking company, a billboard company. We were synonymous with

road tripping in America. Wow. You were the, what's it called, the Buckeys or the Wawaws of that time? Yeah. Before there was T.A. Loves or Buckees, there were Stuckies. We were the first roadside retail chain. Wow. And so what happened to it? Did he sell it? When did he sell it? He sold it when I was a little girl. So, So, 1964 is when he sold it, but he remained involved in controlling it until the mid-70s. I totally remember Stuckies. Yeah. I mean, I think I was 13.

We did a trip across country, and we would always stop at a Stuckies. So, all right, so your grandfather starts as he sells it. Yes. And how does it end up back in your hands? I got a phone call that the company was for sale. It was six figures in the red. The owners at the time were looking to sell. How many gas stations do they have?

They, there were, there are about a dozen original stores still around. We do not own or operate them. And they were losing money. It was a hot mess. So the brand comes up for sale. I mean, how much did they want or how much were they willing to take? I paid $500,000. It was my life savings.

So you bought the brand back with the idea to revive this roadside stand or to do something different? And then I realized it was. wasn't working, and we were sinking further into debt. So I made a pivot after about a year, and I got some business partners, and we decided to reinvent the brand just the way it started as a pecan snack and candy company. And we bought a manufacturing facility. Wow. And everything was outsourced, and the pecans came from Mexico. And pecans are the only snack nut native to this country. They are absolutely delicious. They are. Georgia, Georgia grows more pecan's

than anywhere else in the world. I know. Why is it called the peach state? Yeah. It should be the pecan state. Is it pecans or pecans? What do you say? I say pecans, but I thought in Georgia you say pecans.

Yeah, the customer's always right. Yeah, you're supposed to say pecans. Just say stuckies. That's what I want to be synonymous with pecans. And before I get to your question, give me a sense of where, like, how is the business doing now as a candy business? It's doing well. we're in about 4,000 doors nationwide.

We do very well in farm and hardware. We're in some sea stores, some grocery like Food Lion and Ingalls. We just launched in Select Walmart and Sam's Club. And we have 65 employees. We're the largest employer, Rens, Georgia. Sales have grown from 2 to 10 million. 10 million. Yeah.

But it's still a challenge, right? So that's my question. So Stuckies was once known, this roadside stand, but today we're reinventing ourselves as a pecan snack and candy company and a market that is dominated by big budget brands backing pistachios, cashews, almonds, peanuts, how do we position stuckeys and pecan as a distinctive must have choice for a new generation of consumers who didn't grow up like Stacey stopping at Stuckees? We've got to introduce ourselves.

We're getting on shells. How do we move off the shelf? All right. All right. Good question. Stacey, I want to bring you in. You obviously know this brand from when you were a kid. But now it's not a gas station roadside stop. It's a pecan logs and rolls and pecans. And, you know, they're doing pretty well. 11, $10 million in sales, probably still not, right? You guys made some investments in manufacturing equipment. And you've got a lot of it. You got a lot employees. So you probably still have some debt. You still are probably not able to pay yourself a whole lot. Because people here 10 million are the year rolling in. Pekando. No, you're not. Not, right? No, it's very manufacturing is very capital intensive. We pay our employees very well. That was one of the most important things we did. We bought an existing facility, and we gave everyone a pay raise, and we brought in insurance. And so all of that costs money. It's worth it. Yeah. All right. So let's get to, Stacey, I want to bring you in before we answer Stephanie's question. Maybe you've got some questions for her. Yeah. Oh, I definitely do. Well,

First of all, you're talking to somebody that does not eat peanuts. Oh. I like pecans. I just, I love them, you know, and that's my first choice. Yeah, it's my first choice of nut. I love that. I have a question. Like, you seem to have a lot of skews.

Yes. Yeah. Right? Just to clarify, there's like dark chocolate, white chocolate be canned, cinnamon be cans. There's the bourbon be cans. I mean, there's a lot of stuff here. You're saying, yeah, it's a lot to manage. We do have a core line for.

for mass distribution. So we have, we call them the seven core. Okay. So what area of the store, where would I find you? And where would I find it? Like if you have all these things that are, like, it seems like they're very different to have a pecan roll than a bag of pecans or a chocolate or like what section of the store are you targeting?

The nut aisle, snack nut aisle, and then also the candy aisle. And ideally, like, we're in a fair amount of convenience stores, a lot of independent convenience stores. So you might find a center store. In a perfect role, we're in the impulse section right at the register, right? What's your top seller? The pecan log roll. The log roll is the number one seller. It's been delivering for us since my grandmother first whipped it up in her country kitchen.

Who's buying them? Probably mostly 50-ish and up. Yeah. I mean, it's people who recognize the brand. And that's the exact direction I'm going. And it may not be what you want to hear. Yeah, I hear you. But I'll tell you, I would flood the current older population.

Like you have a population out there who knows and recognizes your brand. Yeah. So I would start with hitting all the stucky people. And, you know, all that age range, the over 50. Yeah. Grow the corn. It's not as big. It's not, yeah, for your core population.

And then once you've kind of tapped out that market, then I would, you know, expand from there. Yeah. What's the shelf life of this loaf? It's seven months. And then the bagged pecans are 12 months. Stacey, this, your advice is interesting, right? Because the question is, how do we make this more appealing to younger consumers? And most of us are like, of course, it's a no-brainer.

You want younger consumers? are going to grow up with this and they have disposable cash. But actually, older consumers are often ignored at our peril, right? It's like you almost want to double down on the people who know this and are buying it. I think you can kind of split the difference here a little bit, right? Because you've got a heritage brand, but you do want to appeal to younger consumers. You do want people to see this. And so there are a number of things you could try.

I mean, I think one of the questions is your branding really leans into nostalgia, right? It looks like the 40s or the 50s. It's, it, and the Stuckey's logo is, is like that. And I wonder if you can keep the integrity of the Stucke's logo, but maybe think about a more modern rebrand overall for the brand. But I actually think at the end of the day, people are focused on their own interests and, and people are focused on, a lot of people are focused on protein. And pecans are a protein. It's a plant-based protein source. I mean, I, again, I would double down on what's selling best. I would double down on the rules and really try and put any marketing dollars, any promotional dollars, any social media dollars into the bar, into the log.

But I would also think about maybe trying a different approach in parallel, which is, you know, America's oldest natural snack since, you know, 1776 or something. I was thinking of something. American's first protein bar. The original. delivering plant-based proteins since, you know, since whatever. Yeah. Before is a thing. I think you could say you're the original.

I mean, yeah. The OG protein. We were doing protein before anybody, yeah, or something. Yeah. The other question I have is, you know, we, there's a brand called Nuts.com, which it was an amazing brand and we're featuring that brand on our show. They, they sell like 3,000 different things, right? And so the other question is, Stuckies, I know.

I was looking at your website, you do sell some almonds and some walnuts, but really this is a pecan brand. Yeah. And so down the road, is Stuckey's bigger? Is it a bigger candy confectionary nostalgic brand? Can you, or if you're going to lean into pecans, is it worth trying things like pecan butter? I don't, I've never seen that anywhere. It's delicious. It's delicious.

Pekin nut milk. I don't know anybody who makes pecan nut milk. I mean, it's kind of pecan ice cream is obvious. Pecan coffee beans. But I think I keep thinking about this brand and Stacey's, you know this brand, David bars. It's just blown up. It's a protein bar brand. It was started by the same guy who created RX bars, Peter Rahal, who's been on our show.

And this brand is all about protein and he's leaned into it. And he did something really unusual in the last few months, which is they sell protein bars, but they started to sell frozen fish. You can go to grocery stores in New York and find David branded. frozen cod. It looks like a David bar, but it's a literally piece of frozen cod. They are not getting into the frozen cod business. This is a marketing tool. This is a way to say to people, look, you can eat this frozen cod and go prepared at home, or you can pretty much get the same amount of protein by just buying a David bar. And people are talking about that. It's all over the place. It's an incredibly smart marketing campaign. And if you try something weird like pecan nut milk,

you know, who knows? We just have to get new equipment. Yeah, it's, We sell it in our candy. We have a candy outlet store. We don't make it, but it is so yummy. I'm sure you just whizz it with some water and filter it. Yeah, I would source that one out. Great. I have a question.

Yeah, question. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah, so my question is, all right, along the lines of the protein bar, so someone suggested to me this to me is take our pecan log roll, which is a, it's a candy bar, and add protein powder to it. So it's like a protein, but it's got, it would have caramel coating and it has some sugar in it. How many grams of protein is in it without doing that? Good question.

Let me see if I can. Protein says two grams. All right, to start. I mean, I think you could try something like that. I think you'd probably, if you're trying to appeal to sort of a fitness crowd, I mean, they're going to want less sugar. or you pack it, you really sort of, it's more nut heavy and less caramel-y, right? I mean, there are ways to do this with reduced sugar, and it's worth trying. I mean, at the end of the day, you want people talking about this.

Yeah. And I love to disagree with you, Guy. Please. Go, please. I don't think a bar that's starting with two grams of protein is, I mean, she has a product. that's selling already. Yeah. And, you know, she went from 2 to 10 million in four years.

I think that, you know, she's kind of found something that works. And the product, people like it. People must like it if you're selling that much of it. I would not change your recipe one bit. People used to come to us and say, can you make a gluten-free pita chip? Yeah. How are we going to make this gluten-free? It's bread.

You can do rice flour pitas. You could do, but I hear you, there was an integrity in Stacey's Pita chips that you didn't want to mess with. And, you know, if people wanted gluten-free brand, they can start their own brand. It's authenticity, right? That's what people want in a brand. Yeah. I would lean into the history. I would definitely try to do some kind of crossover since you're in two sections of the store. That's going to be crazy expensive in the long run. So, and you're doing your own manufacturing. So you have to be very careful on how many skews you're putting out there.

So many people are looking for a recipe that works that's going to sell, and you have that. Got it. Sorry, Guy. I'm not, I mean, I'm, I'm, I'm with you. I think you should have something weird. I think you should think about the codfish idea with David bars and have something weird. And I think it would be worth just thinking about some kind of refresh. Keeping the integrity of that logo, the Stuckey's logo, you know, if you're doing good business with people over 50, great.

But I think it would, you would still retain those people, but bring some new people in. Go ahead, Stacey. You know what is really a great thing to have. You know, you have that pecan coating for the fish. The pecan coated fish. Right. Yes. Yes.

Yes. You can do a pecan meal, which we make. If you have that petcan coating in there, you're sold. And it's made with, it's made with sucky's pecan. It's got to be good. There we go. Can you hook me up, Guy, with a fish maker? With that brand.

There you go. But I agree with you both, right? Like, I think we need to make sure our base stays loyal and true and spent a lot of money. For sure. For sure. But we've got to get a younger demographic if we're going to continue. And so maybe getting a little weird. Get a little weird. And a fun way that gets people talking. For sure. Yeah. And I would make sure that you're always the Stuckies Peacons. Yes. Get your name with your product. Stacey's Pita Chip. Yes. Stuckees. All right. Stuckies is the brand. Stephanie Stucky. Thanks so much for calling in. Good luck. Keep us posted. It's an honor to meet you. I was a Stuckies fan.

Thank you. It's been a pleasure. Thank you. Stacey, thanks so much for coming back on the show. It's great having you. It was great being here. Thank you, Guy. That's Stacey's Pita Chips founder, Stacey Madison. And by the way, if you haven't heard Stacey's original how I built this episode, please go back and check it out. So many people tell me all the time that's like one of their favorites of all time. And here is one of my favorite moments from that episode. Wait, why did he say that? Were you literally like hand cutting the pita bread? Mark's right bicep was like three times the size of his left because he was literally using a knifed cut bread.

He was just like, yeah, you'll never be able to bring this product to market on any kind of scale. So for us, that was a really hard blow. Thanks so much for listening to the show this week. Please make sure to check out my newsletter. You can sign up for it for free at gairoze.com. And if you're working on a business and business. and you'd like to be on this show, send us a one-minute message that tells us about your business, the issues, or questions you'd like help with, and hopefully we can help you with them.

And make sure to tell us how to reach you. You can send us a voice memo at hibt at ID.wondry.com or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there. And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well. This episode was produced by Rommel Wood with music composed by Rumtin Arablui. It was edited by Andrea Bruce. Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez. Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Carla Estevez, Noor Gill, Sam Paulson, and Elaine Coates. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.