How I Built This with Guy Raz - How I Built Resilience: Live with Jeni Britton Bauer

Episode Date: April 2, 2020

Each week, Guy will be hosting brief online conversations with founders and members of the How I Built This community about how they're navigating these uncertain times. This past Friday, Guy spoke with Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams. Jeni's company battled a Listeria outbreak in 2015 that almost broke her business, but she bounced back stronger than ever and is confident her company will survive this crisis, too.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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made it feel less like a visit and more like we were actually living there. Plus, taking a trip is the perfect time to host your space on Airbnb. Your place with all of its personal touches and its amazing location could make someone else's vacation even better. Your home might be worth more than you think. Find out how much at Airbnb.ca.com host. Hey, everyone, so I hope you are doing well. I hope you are safe and staying at home. These are obviously crazy times, but in these crazy moments, we are trying to find ways to learn about resilience and adaptation from some of the founders we've interviewed and try to hear about how they're managing their businesses as creatively as possible under the circumstances. So we're doing a conversation with a different founder every Friday at noon Eastern time, a live video chat

that I'm going to be hosting with a different founder. And we know a lot of you are looking for ideas and ways to keep momentum even during this difficult time. So if you have a chance, join us every Friday. Bring your questions. We're going to take your questions as well. You can find it at facebook.com slash how I built this, and you don't need a Facebook account to watch it or to join. Anyway, in case you missed a live conversation this past Friday, every Thursday we're going to post an excerpt right here in your podcast feed. And today is the first one. My guest on Friday was Jenny Britton Bauer, founder of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. She joined me from her kitchen in Columbus, Ohio.

This is, yeah, this is the corner of my own kitchen. I went and got my professional ice cream machine and some other equipment from our HQ test kitchen. And this is where I spend half my day. I'm actually making videos too and posting those and asking people for flavor ideas. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah. That just started this week and it's kind of been a lot of fun.

I really do think that ice cream is comforting and it's a good distraction. So we've been having fun here. Jenny, one of the reasons why we're so. we really wanted you as our first guest, and we're so excited to have you, is because you dealt with a huge crisis back in 2015, I think. It was, you had a situation where there was Listeria found in one plant, or one, like, tiny bit of Listeria.

You had to shut down your whole operation for weeks. I think it was, you guys were hemorrhaging money, you were worried whether the business was going to survive. But your response to that was incredible. I mean, you were transparent and open with your customers. You had blog posts. You talked about what you were doing. You closed down all the Jenny's shops.

I mean, this could have killed your whole business. And not only did you recover, but you thrive. You're much bigger company today. And this is a different crisis. It's a different ballgame. So there is no playbook. But talk a little bit about, I don't know, I mean, are there lessons from that experience for you

that you're kind of able to apply creatively right now? I definitely think so. I mean, in 2015, what was, you know, looking back, at the time we were doing the same thing we're doing now, which is doing the best we can, we could at the time. And so when you can't necessarily make sense of something, you sort of fall back on your values and you let them lead you. And so in doing that in 2015, we closed everything down,

brought everything back, we did the recall, and we prevented any kind of outbreak, which was really awesome and awesome being just an incredible effort from a lot of people, and we did it very quickly. Now it's like, it's similar in that we want to be able to make, you know, to assess the situation, to accept the situation, and then to create a plan and move quickly, if possible. And so we began this process a week and a half ago or so, and we've been able to act very, very, very quickly. We had a bunch of sort of levels of what our stores might look like when we didn't know what the future was going to be like, even in the next five hours. And we've created plans for every channel in that way.

And you've shut down all of your scoop shops? We are still doing delivery. and the way that we've been able to do that is having an incredible team who was able to put together a very safe work environment and way of doing that so that the first people that we have to make feel good and comfort our own team. So they have to feel comfortable coming to work and we did that and so then we can do delivery. So the stores are closed for anything but delivery. in terms of like your your business right i mean this these are uncertain times a lot of people

watching run small businesses there are i've i've been talking i've been on the phone and and and texting with tons of founders who've been on the show um and you know obviously understandably a lot of them are really worried right now they're concerned about their employees and how they're going to continue to meet payroll i mean some companies have enough cash for maybe 30 45 days because no one plans for a zero revenue day. Most companies don't have 18 months of cash sitting around because they're investing that in R&D or in new products or in production or inventory,

in your case, ice cream, making ice cream, you know, in different flavors. So tell me about your situation. I mean, is there any way to know how you're going to be impacted? The company will be impacted by this? I mean, you're right. We don't, you know, we're like every other company. We don't have 18 months to, you know, just, you know, cash sitting around that we can just do this. So the plans are coming together as we speak.

We feel very confident we will survive. I think that it goes back, and this is where I always go, but it's really, I've proven this so many times in my company and my story, I do think it goes back to community. And when your community loves you and values you and your community follows you where you go, it's not necessarily where you live, although that's important. but it's anyone you touch all day long every day. Those are the people that make, that sort of make up your life. That's your community. And if that's really important to you,

those people don't want to see you go away or what your work. And in the end, it's not about money or about profit or about, you know, all of the operations, all the things. It ends up in crisis. It ends up how many people are you affecting on a daily basis

positively. And that's important. And that's right now. we'll see. We don't know what the future is going to be like, but we do know that we're in it together. Yeah. By the way, you're, I mean, one of the cool things that you're doing, you mentioned earlier, is you're kind of crowdsourcing ideas for new flavors. I mean, you're using this time, like I think all of us, you know, to try and think creatively. I mean, we're doing these Facebook online conversations, live conversations every week now through Zoom. And we're still doing how I built

this and we're coming up with creative ways to interview people by not bringing them to studio. And so I love this idea that you're crowdsourcing flavors. Any, any cool flavor ideas so far? Can you give us a like a sense of what, what you're experimenting with? So I was just going to, so I asked people to come up with some like just to tell to send me memories. You know, what was, that's your grandfather. You know, and those were the ones that I got that I, I read it was a thousandth between DMs, text messages and the comments just on. the post there were literally thousands and I answered almost everyone if I haven't gotten to years I will I'm still working my way through them but I read every single one and and the longer

ones you know about um you know the vacation in Michigan or the whatever you know like the grandfather who had some specific banana cream pie but it had chocolate in it or whatever like there's there those are those are the things that I'm running to hear right now and I'm loving very very very much. It's almost like in the evening, I put out the call like two or three days ago, and since then, in the evening, that's what I do is go back and read some of those. They're just wonderful, but those stories, that's what's so exciting and interesting to me is those stories. And so I'm hoping to come up with some good flavors based on those stories. I got it made me think about all those flavors that that I used to love when I was a kid, like Rainbow Sherbert. You know, there's something so special

about Rainbow Sherbert. You know, I can't. Are you so excited to get? Yes. Now listen, what I love is Rainbow Sherbet, like in a glass or metal foot in this. Yes. Right? Yeah. Maybe a doily or something like that. With my grandparents.

I mean, that was, yeah, I just, I felt so special when I was with my grandparents. And that's something that I would order at the end of a meal with them. Like, it makes me feel so special. But that's exactly the kinds of stories that I love. I love it. All right. Jenny, we got some questions coming in from our viewers. Jenny, one of the secrets of your success has been the community that you built first in Columbus.

I mean, you started out at, like, you know, food halls, you know, sort of, so people have seen you since you were a young woman, you know, younger woman doing this at the food halls in Columbus. And you really, over time, that community that sort of that you built, they stepped up and supported you during times of crisis for Jenny's. Now is another time of crisis. This is a question from Lindsay Johnson Droze. She asks, what are some ways that you built your community in the beginning that prepared you for this moment? I think that everything for me and for our company goes back to that place. When you're in the market every day, you learn so many wonderful lessons. Of course, as an ice cream maker, learned about ingredients and how they're grown, how they're made, whether they're from far away or near.

but I also learned about community. And I think we talked about this when we did our how I built this, but I moved every year growing up. I didn't really have a sense of community until I got there in my early 20s when I was 22. And I failed a ton in there. And I didn't, you know, some of the merchants were mad at me for doing stupid stuff in the early days or whatever. But I learned, it's like family.

I learned, but I didn't like that. I wanted to make them, you know, I wanted to make them proud of me. And I sort of learned as I went and I kept adjusting. that, but listening to their feedback constantly, over time I learned that a rising tide lifts all ships, that we're all in this together, that I represent this community and that I have to do my part to, in the market, bring people down. I can't just rely on the people they were bringing down to the market. And then I have to, I have to represent the standards of the community. And if not, maybe even lift those standards in my own unique way. All of these amazing lessons really to me come

back to the market. It's an indoor public market, a farmer's market. I think you can learn a lot, even in big business from these tiny places. And I have those motto, start small and build. Every project I've ever done has been from that perspective, start small and build, including the one I'm doing on Instagram right now, which I'm learning how to edit videos and all these things and, you know, whatever. But you can just start something and build. But if you're listening to that feedback and open to it, I think that's important. And then people feel like they're a part of what you do. Of course, I haven't even talked about the one, you know, the millions of people who would come through the market that I got to learn from every year. But I think it's that, like,

just starting something, putting it out there, listening, incorporating it and continuing to do that. This is a question from, this is a question from Kevin Dremel. Kevin asks, and I'm assuming Kevin has a food business. He says, you know, what suggestions do you have for businesses that just started as this whole issue began? He's saying, you know, is it better to push out are the products through the internet or to kind of step back, write it out until you can do, do like tasting demos. I mean, God, if you start a food company today, as you know, with your company, you've got to do tasting demos. If you just launched your business and it's about food, a food-related product, and it's tough. So what in the meantime, while we're

waiting, would it, I mean, is it worthwhile to kind of try and push it out through social media through the internet to see if at least you could get it in front of people's eyes. That's a really tough question to answer without knowing exactly what that kind of business is and the perishability, the food and so on and just what the kind of food is. But I would say, yeah, those are the two paths, either just sort of hit pause and wait, you might be in a better position because then you can go back out and step on the gas. But there's a lot of opportunity right now. I mean, I don't remember what they said, but it might be our e-com.

is up maybe five or seven times. Wow. Kind of crazy. Like we're running out of boxes and we have to speed up that and get that. Wow. So, and it's already, it was always 12% of our business,

which is pretty great for that small channel to continue to build. I mean, it's not tiny. So there are a lot of opportunities now if you can get the word out. And that's always the challenge is getting the word out. But, you know, I always say one person at a time. And if you just need to fight forward on social media now and on person,

and one person at a time, that's fine. You know, find the person you can have a conversation with. Media are still hungry for stories that are positive right now. So, you know, if you're in a position where you can send out samples and things like that, I think it's going to be tough now, but it's not instrumental. I mean, you can do it. Yeah. That's very important.

Before we go, I want to just thank everyone watching. We didn't get to all your questions, but thank you, Jenny. I am so grateful for everything you do. You're such a wonderful person. and thank you for your advice. And we'll stay in touch. We'll keep talking. And maybe I'll update our audience on any updates you have for me, too.

Well, thanks so much. It's so much fun to be with you and stay safe. That was Jenny Britton Bauer of Jenny's Splendid Ice Creams. On our new weekly live video conversation, we're going to be putting excerpts of these conversations in your podcast feed every Thursday for the time being. And we're doing the actual conversations every Friday on Facebook Live. And this Friday, April 3rd, bring your questions from me and Susan Griffin Black of EO products.

She's going to be talking about how they've been really pivoting from essential oils to hand sanitizer. That's happening at 12 noon eastern time 9 a.m. Pacific. This Friday, April 3rd, you can find it at Facebook.com slash how I built this. You don't need a Facebook account to watch. Again, that's 9 a.m. Pacific, 12 noon eastern at Facebook.com slash how I built this this Friday. See you there. Life Kit is like your friend with really good advice. So, can I really be truthful?

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