How I Built This with Guy Raz - Kodiak Cakes: Joel Clark

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

When he was 8 years old, Joel Clark loaded bags of his mom's whole grain pancake mix into a red wagon to sell door-to-door. By the mid-90s, he and his older brother had upgraded to selling the mix out of a Mazda sedan and calling it Kodiak Cakes. As he tried to scale the business, Joel made some risky business decisions and almost went bankrupt, but eventually got the brand into Target—a major turning point. Today, Kodiak Cakes is approaching $200 million in annual revenue as one of the best-selling pancake mixes in America.Order the How I Built This book at: https://smarturl.it/HowIBuiltThisSee 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 a Airbnb.ca slash host so i put together a promotion at safeway okay we're going to offer a dollar off right and suddenly i got a call one day from my distributor rep he's like joel he's like look some mistake happened and your promotion got doubled in the system and it was it showed two dollars off on the shelf well that's a huge discount that was a deep deep discount so he's like so i i turned it off

before it got worse and i was like oh man you got to be kidding me this is another near-death experience that we're going to be going through and i when i found out you know the bill was 50 grand man i was like what am i going to do from npr it's how i built this a show about innovators entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. I'm Guy Raz, and on the show today, how Joel Clark ran into every roadblock you can think of on his way to building Kodiak cakes, a pancake mix based on his mom's recipe that he grew into a $200 million brand. There are crucial moments in the lifespan of a business that almost every entrepreneur encounters, moments when you face a hard decision.

When does your side hustle become your main hustle? What's the right moment to make a pivot in your business model? Or when is it time to give up, learn from your mistakes, and start over? This last question is probably the hardest, because in many cases, it makes sense to cut your losses and move on. If Mark Constantine hadn't shut down his failing mail-order contract, cosmetics company, he probably wouldn't have started lush. If Topo Atana didn't give up on his failing e-commerce site selling backyard grills, he might never have built Calendly, which just got valued at over a billion dollars. And if Stuart Butterfield had stuck with his money-losing

video game concept glitch, Slack may never have become a business. But then there is Joel Clark, co-founder of Kodiak cakes. The brand is best known for its pancake mix. And for more than 15 years, Joel struggled to make his business sustainable. Sometimes, as you will hear, to the point of folly. At one critical juncture, he launched a second business selling cookies just to keep Kodiak cakes alive. But when the cookie store failed, it almost took Kodiak cakes down with it. In 2007, Joel thought he could.

fund the business by investing in a piece of real estate. But months later, the real estate market collapsed. He tried to kickstart sales by launching a product promotion, but it ended up costing him thousands of dollars. And to help pay the bills, he even took a job running a home health care company for a while. To be perfectly blunt, Joel had every reason to give up during a 15-year-long streak of failures and struggle. And yet something. kept pulling him back. He really believed that his whole grain pancake mix could really take off. And the thing is, his hunch was correct. Because today, Codiac Cakes is one of the best-selling pancake mixes in America. And the company is approaching $200 million in annual revenue. And the

thing that got in there? Yes, perseverance and yes, luck. But also protein. Specifically, protein power cakes that happened to enter the scene just as a high-protein diet craze was sweeping the country. And it all started as a simple pancake mix created by Joel's mom. Joel grew up in Salt Lake City in the 1970s. He was the youngest of five kids. His dad taught religious classes for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, better known as the Mormon Church. And his mom took care of the house where she made sure there was no.

never any junk food lying around. I remember my friends would come over to our house, and it was always like, let's look for food. You know, you're always, that's what you do when you're growing up. Well, you go to my house, and you open up the fridge, and it's full of lettuce and vegetables. And my sister used to say, everything we eat is green and brown. So I always loved going to my friend's houses,

because they always had all that stuff. You could open up their pantry, and they had, like, gummy bears and jelly things. Doritos. Doritos. I was there Oreos. I got my friends' houses. They had like pantries full of junk. I go back to my house and we had like wheat germ. I was there. Same house. Yes. Oh, that's funny, man. So what kind of things was your mom make you eat? Every night we had a salad every night. And I remember her saying, you know, you should eat a yellow vegetable every day. So we had a lot of carrots or squash and things like that. And then she baked a lot of bread, like whole wheat bread. We had a wheat grinder in the garage. We didn't have a lot of white flas. We didn't have a lot of white flour. lower and white sugar. So, you know, everything we ate was clean and whole and real. And I remember her kind of saying that, like, it's about eating real food. I guess her whole wheat pancakes were like a family kind of favorite and then so good that what other people would ask for them when they would come over. Yeah, well, we loved the whole wheat pancake recipe. So, you know, I have fond memories

of waking up to the smell of that. Like, that was an exciting morning. It's like, oh, yes, mom's making pancakes. And they were really good. She'd beat the egg whites, like in a, you know, separate those, beat them up. So they're nice and fluffy white. Fold those into the batter. And it really was a great breakfast. I mean, that was an awesome meal.

All whole, whole wheat, freshly ground. She would grind the wheat for her pancake mix? Yeah, we had a wheat grinder in the garage. And that thing was turned on a lot. It was pretty loud. You could hear it, you know? You just buy like unmilled grains of wheat and then make flour. Yeah.

Just, yep, the whole wheat, throw it in the grinder, and it would churn out this freshly ground flour is awesome. And so, yeah, our friends would come over once in a while and have those. I remember, like, my brother's friend having breakfast with us a couple times. And, I mean, I think it was some of the neighbors probably asked. I also think it was my mom kind of feeling like there's a need out there for more real food products made with whole grains. And there's probably an opportunity to sell this recipe as a mix. So she was making this pancake mix and decided, hey, maybe I'll like package us up and try to sell it door to door? Right.

She would shop at natural food stores looking for real ingredients, real food, you know, raw sugar, things like that. And the mainstream supermarkets really just didn't have a lot of options. You know, the whole grains were, they were out there, but they just weren't that common. And so, you know, I think that's why she thought of that this would be a good niche. But I think she also thought maybe she could make some extra money doing it. Because money was tight for us growing up. It was very tight. So she basically said, look, I'll package us up.

And how would she sell it? So she started packaging these things up. And I think the initial plan was, hey, let's try selling these to neighbors and see how it works. See if people like it. And what'd she call it, by the way? That's a good question. I don't know if we even had a name for it. What's your mom's name?

Her name's Penny. Her name is Penny? She didn't call them Penny cakes? Yeah. What? She was blessed with a name like Penny to be used in marketing and advertising and she didn't use her own name? Seriously. Yeah, Penny cakes, man.

We should have done that. So she's putting them on like brown paper bags, like lunch bags? Totally. So she packed all these brown paper lunchsacks on the counter with the freshly ground wheat, dried milk, and, you know, the other ingredients, salt baking powder. or stuff like that. And then she hand wrote on these bags. My mom has the most incredible handwriting. And she literally handwrote on every bag, how to make it.

She handwrote every single bag on the instruction. Wow. All right. So you got all these bags. Yeah. So she came to me and she said, hey, and I remember her kind of doing this project. And I don't remember how it sort of came about that I was going to do it. I just remember, like, we were having this conversation.

It's like, hey, do you want to go sell these? So we loaded up this, I have this old red wagon. We put all these bags in there. And I went out and started knocking doors in the neighborhood and asking people if they wanted to buy the pancake mix. And by the way, how much, do you remember how much you sold these bags for? You know, I want to say $5. But that sounds a little expensive for 1982, you know.

But for hand-milled wheat, that's pretty great. Yeah, true. And so this is 1982. How old were you at the time? I was eight. You were eight years old. And so I'm imagining you pulling a red wagon full of pancake mix and did the neighbors buy them? They totally did. I remember I knocked on it.

So we lived in a cul-de-sac and I went around to all the neighbors in the cul-de-sac. And I think everybody bought one. You know, I mean, I'm this eight-year-old kid, right? And I was actually pretty outgoing as a kid. Like, that didn't bother me at all. And so, you know, I remember doing that and then going around to some of the other neighbors outside of our street and I ended up selling all the bags that we had. All right.

So now there's a viable business. And so does this become like a family affair at this point? No. So you know, what happened was so we, you know, we sold all the mixes in the wagon. Yep. But then we didn't keep going with it. You know, we kind of just let it die out and didn't keep pursuing it at that time. And that was it.

That was the end. Yeah. That was it. All right. So you go on, start your life, get through, school and did you do a mission when you were 18? Yeah, I did. I left when I was 19, just like a month after my birthday. Yeah, and yeah, I did. I went to Australia.

Wow, that's pretty great. I was stoked about that. That was like perfect, right? Go foreign, didn't have to learn a language. And, you know, we've talked about this on the show a little bit. And I love this example. People who listen to the show know about this. Young Mormons who go on missions, I think, are very well prepared to become entrepreneurs because you're knocking on a thousand doors a week and 900 of them are just like slamming in your face. And you still have to be polite, right? You do. It's so hard. It's one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. You know, I mean, yeah, you're just doing that over and over and trying to talk to people, trying to get somebody to listen to you. And you get all this

rejection. Yeah. Sometimes people are nice, but most of the time people are nice. But every now and then you get someone who is who's just upset and they're just like, man, get out of here. And, you know, it's, that happens. And how long did you spend in Australia? Was it a two-year mission? Yeah, it was two years. All right. So you, you come back from your mission. You go to college at the University of Utah. And then I guess while you're in college, your older brother John is like, hey, I'm going to, I'm going to start a business selling pancake mix based on mom's pancake recipe. That's exactly what happened. It was. is actually he started thinking about this while I was still on my mission.

And so he started talking to my mom about how he wanted to start a business. And my mom was the one who kind of planted the idea of, you know, hey, John, why don't you take the pancake recipe and make a real product and start a business on that? And just, out of curiosity, what was the value proposition here? Was there, I mean, there was Aunt Jemima and there's plenty of pancake mixed biscuit and whatever, you know, out there. What was this, this was different because it was whole grain? pancake mix and that that wasn't really out there? Well, yeah.

So the way John thought about it was he thought he didn't think there were enough really great whole grain options out there, which is true. The pancake category really didn't have much in it in the way of healthy items. But he also thought, look, if I can get a product that tastes awesome, that's number one, that is healthier, number two. And then convenience was the other thing he was really going for. So he wanted a product that was just to add water. And he felt like if he could get it.

all three and one, then he really accomplished something. And did you say, did you kind of reach out to him and say, hey, I want to, I'm going to join you? Well, the timing of this was so perfect because I was getting off of my mission in October of 1995. And so I went and stayed with John and his wife temporarily until I could figure out what I was going to do. And so right then, that's when John was about ready to go out and start selling this pancake mix that he had been working on, you know, while I was gone. And so timing that was great and John said hey Joel do you want to do you want to help me and he wanted to kind of you know obviously evolve it from where we did it out of the red wagon yeah make a real

product create a brand and then go start selling this in stores and how how did he have any capital to do this I mean he I guess he was a bit older than you at that point he was probably in his late 20s exactly how did he have any cash to even start this up it was incredibly tight so John was about 28 when he started this. And as he got ready to really start putting money into it, I helped him find a truck that he was able to flip. So I used to flip old trucks and make money on him. And I still do it actually. It's pretty fun. You just buy a truck and fix it up? Yeah. Buy an old truck, fix it up, sell it and make money on it. And I did that all, I mean, I did that all through college and, you know, I paid for my mission that way, most of my mission that way.

And what I would do is, look, this is really funny. I would go around, I'd drive around neighborhoods. I'd see an old truck on the side of the house, and I'd walk up to the door and go, hey, do you want to sell your truck? And man, I had so many people say, yeah, actually, we're not driving that truck anymore. And often you'd find them in really good condition. So they would just need, like, you know, a detail, being cleaned up, maybe a little bit of paint touch up or, you know, so usually minor things.

So, you know, I found this truck for John. And John drove it around for a while. and then he sold it and he made $1,400.400. And so he was kind of like, look, I think I can actually start my business on this. On $1,400? On $1,400. Yeah. Wow. So you're in college. He's starting this thing up and you want to be involved with it. What do you do? So I had time. And so John was ready to go. He was ready to, he had found a little producer in Salt Lake City to produce the first kind of run of, of Kodiak cakes. And by the way, was he calling them that by that point? Yeah, actually, by then he had.

He had created the brand, created the first product. And how did he come up with that name? The way John approached it was, he really wanted something that was rustic, that was, you know, wholesome, that had a bit of a Western, rugged feel to it. And so, you know, he and my older brother, Tim, my oldest brother, Tim, And they were talking about it one day and kind of just brainstorming ideas. And Tim said to John, he's like, hey, John, what about bear cakes? And we grew up kind of hearing stories from our dad who lived in Alaska when he was in his early

20s on a survey crew. And he tells us these stories about Kodiak bears and that evolved into Kodiak cakes. What did the package look like? So it looked pretty similar to what it looks like today. The logo hasn't changed a lot. It has a big bear on the front, brown craft look, you know. But what was different about it then is it was in a paper bag, like a printed craft paper bag. And it was like sewn across the top, you know, to seal it off.

Oh, yeah, the bag was sewn, right? So you had to like cut it off or take the string out. Exactly. Take the string out. By the way, that logo, if anyone listening can picture it, right? There's that bear growling and it says codiac cakes. It's got like a maroon, rust-colored circle around it with wheat. And basically what it looks like today was what he made in 1995.

Yeah. I mean, it's, we've been just some subtle changes over time. But, I mean, the bear hasn't changed at all, for example. So tell me, how did you guys, as you kind of started up this business, where did you go to, would you just go door to door to little shops? Yeah. That's basically exactly what I did. So John had a full-time job still. So we had this product ready to go, which we store.

board in his basement. We made this little makeshift warehouse down there. Right. So this was his side hustle. You were a student. And where were you going to try and get people to carry your pancake mix? Yeah. So I remember the first day, John went to work and I was going to go out by myself. So I started downtown Salt Lake and I started going into hotel gift shops. And I remember thinking, man, we have no idea how to sell a product. I'm just going to walk in and start talking to people. Right. Yeah. And so I started going to these hotel gift shops and people were like, hey, that's actually really cool. You know, leave me a sample here and I'll talk to my manager about it, right? And so, you know, we'd get a business card so we could follow up or whatever.

So I started there and then just a few, like I remember I went into a flower shop in Salt Lake that had gifts and a furniture store that had gifts. And so that was kind of my first day out was right in Salt Lake. Huh. You know, this is like just going back to your mission. Right? Right? Yes. That's so true.

That's really funny because, man, yeah, I was fresh home. I mean, I had been home a month. I was ready to go. Like, that did not phase me at all, right? Walking into these stores. And so you start with just like hotel gift shops and small gift shops here and there and mainly in Salt Lake. Or did you venture out of Salt Lake? So the first day or, you know, maybe a couple days I was in Salt Lake.

And then on December 1st, 1995, John and I took a trip to Jack. Jackson, Wyoming. We left at like 4 a.m., 4 or 5 a.m. We got in his car, and I remember he had this, he had this Mazda 626, and it would hold exactly 19 cases of Kodiak cakes. And the cases were big. I mean, they were 30-pound cases back then. Yeah. And so, you know, we're putting like almost 600 pounds of product in his car.

By the way, a Mazda 626 was a sedan. It was a sedan, yeah. It was a sedan. It was not a truck. Okay. Yeah. So load that thing up with all. all this pancake mix.

And, you know, so John and I, we get up there and we both just kind of went out and started walking into all these gift shops in Jackson, Wyoming, selling pancake mix. So by the end of the day, we sold all 19 cases of product into these gift shops. And so, you know, we were like, yeah, that was a, that was a successful day. So you would go in with a bag of pancake mix, because normally you'd go, like, you'd think that, you know, you have a sample, right? like if you were selling soap or cosmetics, but you've got a bag of pancake mix,

but you didn't have like prepared pancakes. You weren't able to say, like, hey, try this pancake. Right. It was a bag of mix. That's exactly, yeah. We couldn't make it right then. But what happened is these people looked at it and they're like, this is the coolest packaging.

Oh, man, this will work great in here. But even then, I mean, for every 30 customers or 50 customers in a gift shop, 40 of them are really there to buy breathmints or cigarettes or, you know, whatever they might buy, maybe one out of 50 would buy the Codiac cakes. Totally. So, I mean, how are you going to get any attention for it? Yeah. I mean, honestly, that was tough.

I mean, we, you know, we did, we picked up a few more. We went to Sun Valley, Idaho the next weekend and did the same thing. And I think we ended up picking up about maybe 50 gift shops in the first, you know, few weeks. So we're kind of like, okay, cool, we got 50 gift shops. And then I think that was really one of the hardest things was gift shops, you don't sell a lot. I mean, just what you were saying, you don't sell a lot in a gift shop. Yeah. And by the way, when they were placed in gift shops, how did that work?

Would the gift shops just pay you when they sold the bag? No, they would buy the case, so they would luckily pay us. So they'd say, hey, I'll take a case or two, and then we'd give them 30-day terms or whatever, and then they'd pay us. Right. And they were selling, do you remember how much they were trying to sell, or they would sell the bag for, they would retail it for? I think that we sold those bags into the stores for $2.99.

and then they would sell, they'd double it. They'd basically try to put a 50% margin on there and try to get $599 out of it. Right. And in general, did you have any feedback from those stores about how sales were doing? Actually, yes. People loved it.

I mean, people loved the product. And for a gift shop, it was doing well. And I think the best feedback we started to get were that people started to write letters in. And that was just incredible. I mean, we started getting letters in. One day, John got this letter from Tom Bodette, the guy that does, he's a spokesman from Hotel 6.

And he lived in Alaska and he wrote the coolest letter. And, you know, he sent a picture of him and his girlfriend in their cabin up in Alaska making pancakes on this cast iron griddle. It was so cool. But these letters started to come in and people would say, hey, this is the best pancake mix I've ever had. Wow. You know, how do I get more? But, I mean, clearly, you know, you guys are not becoming millionaires.

Right. Right. Through the occasional gift shops and ski towns. And I guess after a certain amount of time, I mean, the stress of running the business becomes kind of overwhelming for your brother. Yeah. So, I mean, after a couple of years, it was just, it was becoming, yeah, he was spending so much time at it. And he was working full time. And he had a little baby.

And he wanted to go back to graduate school to pursue an MBA and just to, you know, keep building. his career and this was taking so long and one day he was you know he was in his basement just kind of thinking about how much he had put into this and you know we talked about 1400 bucks from a truck he flipped and then he took he scraped together everything else that he had from some retirement and some savings and some you know smaller contributions from family members and and it ended up in the 20 thousands I can't remember exactly how much he had spent but you know it was everything he had and for a 28, 29 year old person is like, so one day he's down there and he just had a breakdown and he just was in tears, you know, and he's just sitting there going, man, what did

I do? Why did I waste so much time doing this? And he, he had all these boxes of pancake mix still down there in that little makeshift warehouse in his basement and he picked up a bunch of boxes and he just threw him against the wall, you know, and they just exploded. And he really did. He just had a breakdown. It was just hard because he started, you know, the culmination of that. just realizing that, you know, I can't keep going with this. I've put so much time and so much, everything I had. And he worked on it almost every night for years, you know, three plus years on this thing. And so, you know, that's when he kind of realized I've got to just shut it down or, you know, find another path for it.

He actually tried to sell it. That didn't work. And so, you know, that's when he came to me and said, hey, Joel, do you want to keep going with this thing? Did you immediately say, yes, I want to take it over? Yeah, I'll run it. Yeah, it was immediate for me. It's probably, it's funny when you're that age, you don't always think through the long-term implications as well as you should. And sometimes that's good, right? Because if you do, then maybe you don't take risks as much as you would. But yeah, I mean, when he talked to me about it, I was like, absolutely. I'd love to do it. And I had a real entrepreneurial mindset. I mean, I really did want to do something. start a business someday. I didn't know what was going to be then. I kind of thought, you know, I'm going to go to school.

Maybe I'll probably take a job for a while. And then maybe I'll look at what to do. And little did I know that it was going to be pancakes at, you know, 23 years old. Do you remember what kind of revenue you guys did in that first year? You know, in the first year, I don't recall it was because it was November and December, but what I do remember is so, you know, when I took it over, later in 1997, the revenue that year was $29,000 total revenue. For the year. For the year, yep. And so we were

selling just these, you know, this limited number of stores that aren't moving a whole lot of units per week. Because people would, they would get it on vacation, right? And then they'd go home and they couldn't get it. But yet, we could see that people really loved the product. And so it's like, man, if we could just figure out how to hang in here on this long enough and how to get some distribution going, this could work. So how did that, I mean, it's your brother, right? So it's, you know, in the family. But did, you know, I've talked to co-founders.

Did you guys sit down and kind of formally divide it up? Do you say, well, look, you know, I started it. So I still own 70% and, you know, you're going to get 30% or was it just kind of like, here you go. And it was very informal. It was actually informal. But, well, it was informal that way. But, you know, what we did.

what we did to actually formalize it. We actually made a little contract and John literally sold me the business for a dollar. So he basically gave it to me. And I think, you know, I think in his mind it was like, I'm going to shut this thing down. Yeah.

So what the heck? Give it to Joel. See if he can do anything with it. And at the time, I was running it as a sole proprietorship, which means we hadn't even incorporated the business. And so, you know, it was not until about,

1999 that I actually incorporated the business. And then I went back to John and I gave him half the shares back. All right. So you become this is sole proprietorship. And by the way, you're making the pancake mix yourself or do you have somebody make it for you? We actually, no, we did have somebody making it for us in Salt Lake City. They had the recipe, your recipe, and they would make it for you. Right.

And the same thing were you like hustling on weekends and, because you were a student, right? Yeah. I was going to school. I was working a part-time job. And I mean, for me, I wasn't, you know, I wasn't married. I had a pretty, I had time. You know, I didn't have as many obligations. And so I started to drum up more gift shops and just, you know, try to get as many accounts as I could.

And then started to think about, okay, how do we, you know, how do we get this into grocery stores? Right. So, yeah, I would work, I was working nights on this thing every day. This is the late 90s. Did you think that this had legs, that this could be something really huge? Or did you think, did you think, well, it's my side hustle, but I'm going to probably pursue something a little bit more stable? So, yeah, do you know what's interesting is when I first took it over? I thought, I mean, seriously, I was like, I'm going to make this thing go now.

You know, but what happened was, like, it became, the reality check hit pretty hard, pretty fast as I got into. it. And I started to realize that, holy cow, this is actually going to be a while. This is going to be hard. And what were your, I mean, besides obviously money, what were the other limitations that you were facing at that point? Yeah, yeah, right. Money was huge. We had no capital to put into this thing. But, you know, I think the other real limitation was, I was 23 years old with no experience. Like, I had zero experience. The only thing I really had was a lot of enthusiasm, you know, and some confidence, which is good. But, man, I knew nothing about how to get a food product off the ground, you know, nothing.

While you were, I mean, running this as a sole proprietorship and then as a small business, and still just you in the early 2000s, right? Right. How were you actually earning a living if your revenue was still fairly low? So I right out, well, during my senior year at the University of Utah, I took a job working for a management, consulting, firm. It was right downtown Salt Lake. And after I graduated, they wanted me to take a full-time job there. And I told them, I said, look, how about if I work 30 hours a week? And then that way, I'll still have time for my little side hustle, the pancake business. And so they were good with it. So I worked there

to make money. And then, you know, on the side, I was flipping cars to try to make extra money. Buying cars, detailing them, fixing them up. And that's how you'd make money. Yeah. That saved our bacon, man. Because I was married at the time. I got married. fairly young. Utah standard is probably average. I got married just before I turned 24. And did you, were you telling people, like, would you talk about this to people? You would say, yeah, I got this pancake mixed business going, like, at your job and with friends.

Were you talking to everybody about it or were you kind of quiet about it? You know, I was never, like, I would talk about it, just if people would ask. But yeah, I talked about it. It was fun. I'd bring it up. You know, and I wasn't shy. about trying to go and get publicity either. I mean, I really did try hard to go and get publicity.

And you just couldn't? No, I actually did. I actually had some pretty good success with it. I remember somebody one day said, hey, Joel, you could probably go get a newspaper article on this. And this is like 1998, right? 1998, 1998, 1999. The Internet's out there, but not a lot.

So I'm like, okay, I'll see if I can get a newspaper article. So I remember I called up the Desert News one day, and I got this. It's a main paper in Salt Lake. Yeah, it's like the newspaper. Yeah. Exactly, yeah. Desert News, big newspaper. I got the food editor on the phone. And I just started telling her my story and our story about this pancake mix. And she said, oh, that sounds really cool. I may want to do a story on you. Can you send me a press release? And I go, I'm like, what's a press release? I literally said that to her And she goes, just type it up.

Just type up the story. You know, kind of what you talked about and sent it to me. So I did. And then, you know, she called me up and she's like, hey, we're going to run a story on you. We're going to send a photographer out. And, you know, I was at work this one morning that the story hit. She told me it was going to hit.

And I can't remember what day of the week it was. But she told me in advance, hey, we're going to run the story. It's going to hit, you know, Tuesday or whatever. And so I'm sitting there at work. And all of a sudden I get this phone call from Dan's grocery store on Foothill Drive in Salt Lake. And the grocery manager calls me. She's like, Joel, you got to get over here. We sold out your pancake mix by 10 a.m.

And we need more. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, you got to be kidding me. I didn't even think about getting more product in the store. I had no idea what this newspaper article would do. And so I told my boss, I'm like, I got to go. You know, so I left work and I went home and I grabbed because I was delivering the pancake mix. into these five grocery stores, these five Dan's grocery stores, among everything else I was doing. But that was, so they called me up. And I went in and I, I reloaded the shelf. And I, and she's like,

I'll take like, 10 cases. And I'm like, okay. You know, usually I'd go in and take one case a week or less, you know, every other week. And Dan's was your biggest distributor at that point? In Salt Lake, it was. We had, my brother John had gotten the product into QFC grocery stores up in Seattle prior to me taking it over. So they were our biggest. All right, so it is 2000. Because you had not taken any outside investment at this point. I mean, maybe we're not able to attract outside investment at this point because you were so small. Right.

But I guess a friend of the family gave you like a check for $13,000. What's the story about that around that? So, yeah, this guy, his name's Gary Beiner, a neighbor of my parents loved Kodiak's. He'd buy it at Dan's down the road. and he started talking to us and he's like, hey, I love this pancake mix. This is awesome. You need investment money.

And, you know, John and I, we would talk. I was running it, but we would talk all the time. And I remember thinking, yeah, it would be really nice to get a little bit of capital to, you know, try to do some advertising, try to do some marketing and just try to help kind of kickstart this little business. And so Gary, John and I, we all started talking. And Gary said, all right, guys, I'll put 35,000. bucks in for, I can't remember, is like 18% of the business or something like that.

He's like, look, let's start with 13,000. And then when you need more, you know, we can give you the rest of the money. So I went to Gary's house one night to pick up a check, you know. So I knocked down his door, we chatted for a little bit. And he wrote me a check for $13,000. And man, I had never seen that much money. Like I walked out of there. I'm like, I was probably, what was like, 24, something like that, 25.

I walked out of his house just going, scared. Like, oh man, I've got to get this guy's money back. I've got to do it. When we come back in just a moment, Joel starts making cookies to sell more pancakes and nearly loses everything after a failed promotion put some $50,000 in the hole. Stay with us.

I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to How I Built This from NPR. And one more thing, the New York Times best-selling book How I Built This is now available. It's a great read and a great gift for anyone looking for ideas, inspiration, wisdom, and encouragement to have the courage to put out an idea into the world. It's filled with tons of stories you haven't heard about how some of the greatest entrepreneurs you know and respect started out at the very bottom. Check out How I Built This, The Book, available wherever you buy your books.

Hey, welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So it's the early 2000s and Joel Clark has brought in his very first investment in Kodiak cakes, a check for $13,000. And he's starting to gain some traction, getting his pancake mix into stores in and around Salt Lake City. I managed to get it into Smith's grocery stores around here. That was 70 stores. And then the distributor for these Dan's store stores. took it in, and then we got some Albertson store. So I think I was able to get it into maybe around 150 grocery stores during that year. The revenue was around, I got it up to about $150,000 in total revenue. And it was one product. It was pancake mix. That was it. Correct. One skew, like one product. And I read that around this time. You actually, like, decided to go attend business school in the UK at Oxford. And you got someone to keep the business going in Salt Lake while you were gone. Yeah. And then what? Like you just came back to Utah and picked up where you left off?

I did. Yeah. I came back to Salt Lake. And I actually went back to, I went back to the consulting company. Oh, wow. So you went back to doing consulting because it was a steady income. Right. But still working on Kodiak. Yeah, I was. Yeah, I was. I guess around this time it's like, 2003, you start to think about jumping into Kodiak full time and just doing it, just focusing on that business. Yeah, I really wanted to. And so like after I got back from school, so I got home in the fall of 2002 and I went back to the consulting firm for about and almost two years, just, you know, over a year and a half. And while I did that, my brother-in-law ran it part-time out of my in-law's basement. So I'd help him and we'd work on it at night together and he kept it going during the day.

So in 2004, I had been working on sales, you know, kind of part-time, and I'd been working with Safeway. And I sent some samples out to this buyer. Her name was Donna Sullivan. She called me, and she's like, hey, Joel, we're going to bring your pancake mix in to 1,200 stores. That's about to, like, fall out of my chair. Wait, let me just get this straight. How did you pitch your product to Safeway? Did you just kind of blind, cold-call them?

Yeah, it's exactly right. So I would cold-call buyers. I'd just get on the phone. I'd call the headquarters office and say, hey, who's the buyer for pancake mixes or whatever? And I just sent her samples. I don't even know if I spoke to her initially or if I just left a voicemail and sent samples.

Then when she called me and told me she wanted to bring it in, I had never even met with her. And usually you need to meet with these people. Yeah. And I'm just curious. I mean, when you send somebody, like we've done lots of products like Tate's cookies or Angie's boom chickapop,

When you send a sample of that, all the person has to do is open the bag and eat it. Yeah. With your product, like somebody has to take that to a kitchen, add water, and make pancakes. Like, that's not, and they must get hundreds of pitches every week, people sending them all kinds of things. I'm just surprised that they actually made them and tried them. Totally. The odds are kind of piled up against you, right? When you have no one knows who you are, you have no track record.

What we had going for us was great packaging that was so unique. And finally, Donna calls me and says, hey, Joel, we're going to bring this into 1,200 stores. And I'm like, but we've never met. Do you want me to come down and meet you? She's like, no, we're beyond that. We're good. We're going to move ahead. So that right then, I mean, you're going to be in 1,200 Safeway stores.

This is real. Yeah. So I'm assuming this is when you decide, okay, I got to focus on this full time. Yeah. So when that happened, I'm like, okay, I think I can live on this. So, you know, but, you know, keep in mind, it's one skew, right? And so it sounded like awesome. Yeah.

But I really didn't know. I didn't have a great feel for how much I was going to sell. And what kind of order? How much, what was the amount of money that they were going to spend on this? It was probably in the realm of 20, 25,000 bucks. You know, something like that. Because you're thinking, 1,200 Safeway stores. You're a millionaire.

No, no. This is like a $20,000, $30,000 order. Yeah. Because you're still, I mean, even. I mean, you're not sure that this business is going to make it at this point, right? Like at this time, you were still, like, flipping cars and you started to flip houses. And then I read, like, around this time, you actually started like a whole new business, like a cookie company. What was the cookie company?

So it was called Ben's Cookies. And it was a, it's a company that exists in England. It's a great business, great product. And my wife and I were regular customers when we were in graduate school. over there. And so one day I sat at a coffee shop with the owner before I was leaving grad school to come home. And I said, hey, I'd love to start one of these in Utah. So you started a branch, like a brick and mortar Ben's cookies shop in Utah? I did. We opened up two of them. And you put all the money behind it? No, I put some. I didn't have a lot. So I borrowed the rest. I had a little bit

left on my student loan to go. And so I took the rest of my student loan and put it towards it. And then my partner put the rest, he lent the business the rest of the capital to get started. Ben, your partner? His name's Chris. Oh, Chris. I was it called Ben's cookies. It was the original founder who started at her son's name was Ben, and so she named it after him. I'm looking their website now.

Yum. Ginger, dark chocolate, lemon, orange and milk chocolate cookies. Wow, it looks so good. They are awesome, awesome cookies. And how does it do? How to do? So, yeah, we ended up opening one in orange. Orham, which is about 45 minutes south of Salt Lake, and then one in Salt Lake. And the one in

Orum just, it just didn't do well. We had to shut it after a year and a half. And then the one in Salt Lake did better. I mean, we, we kept that going for about 10 years. But it was hard. I mean, that was another side hustle that I had added. I was spread thin. And I was trying to do Kodiak cakes. And when I first opened that store, I was still working in the consulting world. So that was just, I bit off a ton, just trying to do two months. Wow. I have to imagine you lost some money from that venture. I did. It was super painful. And my partner lost a lot more than I did. So it was painful for both of us. And this plan was to bring you more income for your family, but it

wasn't working. I read that. At one point, you went to a bankruptcy lawyer to explore your option. Yeah, I did. So what happened in 2007, Let me back up just a bit. So in 2004, my dad joined me out of retirement. He was 65 years old and he's like, hey, Joel, I'll help you. Let's do this together. And this is your dad with a PhD in education. Yeah.

And I've been teaching religious studies for the church. So not a whole lot of business experience. Not a lot. I mean, what's cool about my dad, though, he always had a little, he had a side hustle all those years because he didn't make a lot of money from teaching. So my dad and I had managed to build revenue up to around 800,000. So we had some pretty good success over those years, right? And 800,000 is still pretty small, but 2007 was a hard year.

I mean, I think what happened was I actually tried to sell the business in early 2007. It didn't work. Gas prices went through the roof in 2007. Egg white prices went crazy. Wheat prices went up. So I was just, we were getting squeezed and our margins were getting, you know, just getting hurt. And so when we were getting squeezed, I remember this phone call on Valentine's Day from our producer and he goes

the guys that were manufacturing Kodiak cakes and he's like Joel are you sitting down we got some bad news he's like we have to raise your price by 11 and a half percent today and I was just floored I was like you gotta be kidding me it's another I don't know how I'm gonna make it

and and so you know it was Valentine's Day so I didn't tell my wife we went to dinner that night and I didn't want to tell her because I didn't want to like wreck the night because I was so stirred up and just concerned about it. And I decided that I had to quit Kodiak Kakes. And in early 2008, I took a job and left Kodiak Kakes.

And I licensed the brand over to another small business to kind of manage for me and to pay me a royalty. Because you couldn't find a buyer, somebody to buy you out. Yeah, I couldn't find anybody to buy it. And so this royalty deal looked great on paper. It was like, okay, I don't have to sell it. And somebody else can manage it, pay a royalty, and I can go get a job and make more money. I just wasn't making it. I wasn't making it enough money.

You were like 33, 34 at this point. Yeah. Had kids already? Yeah, I had three kids by then in 2008. And probably not a whole lot of savings. Like nothing, you know, just kind of squeaking by trying to make it. And it was hard. So, you know, I took that job.

What was the job you took? So I went and ran a home health care agency in Salt Lake. And I had found this company. They were looking for somebody to come in and help, you know, run the business. And so I took it. And meantime, you licensed the brand, Kodiac cakes, to some other manufacturer. Uh-huh. And did you make any money off that?

A little bit. You know, I was making like five. It was I think we did like a 5% royalty. And so, yeah, there was a little bit of extra income there, which really helped. And so because the thing that I did, the other thing that really contributed to this whole thing in 2007 was I was being the distracted entrepreneur a little bit. I bought and sold a couple homes, made some money, and then we put all the money we made onto a lot. We bought a lot, like a building lot. Oh, in 2007?

Yeah, near the end of 2007. Bad time. Oh, you could not have picked a worse time. Yeah. We thought we got a great deal in this lot that we could maybe flip it. Well, not long after that, the market just tanked, and we were stuck with this lot. Oh. That over, you know, over the next couple of years, I just started to get eaten alive, you know,

financially from that. But then what happened was the it just this licensing agreement that we had put together, it just wasn't working. The company that we were, you know, that was managing the brand, Kodiak cakes, they had other things to do. And, you know, it wasn't a massive focus. And, you know, a couple mistakes were made. And the revenue started to really dip. And pricing mistakes went through. We lost some accounts. And it wasn't just wasn't completely their fault. I mean, there were some, you know, innocent mistakes that happened. But it did create kind of, we lost some, we lost significant revenue. I think we lost about 25% of the revenue.

So you felt like they were mismanaging the brand. Yeah, there was some mismanagement. And so you had the right to withdraw the contract, the licensing deal, and take it back over. That's right. But so here's my question. I mean, you had financial problems. I mean, you had this lot that you were settled with. You had just the cookie business that wasn't really working.

You were in debt. I mean, you had no savings. Finally get this job paying you pretty well as a CEO of a health care agency. Yep. And you decide to leave that and go back to Kodiak cakes. I mean, that's pretty risky. I mean, weren't you worried about your financial situation? I was so worried.

I was incredibly worried. but what, you know, what happened is I just, you know, I talked to my wife and I just thought, you know, I've already spent 11 years on this thing. Like, you know, what's the worst thing that can happen? And I started to go there and I started to think, well, maybe I go bankrupt. Well, if that's the worst, I'm not going to die. And here's the other thing, guy that was really weighing on my mind was I was 34 years old. Like, those are really prime career building years.

And not only was I walking into more financial risk, but I was walking away. A big opportunity cost to really building my career. And that was a fear for me because I remember thinking, man, if I go into this pancake gig and it doesn't work, what do I have to show for myself? You know, I didn't, I wasn't in consulting long enough to to really gain a skill that could command a great income. And I wasn't CEO of this home health care business long enough to become a great CEO. And so I was worried about that. That was hard. So you come back to the company and this is what, 2008, 2008, yeah, into 2008.

So financial crisis, like the economy's tanking. And I guess pretty soon after you rejoined, you actually made a decision that cost the business 50,000 bucks? Is that true? Man, you dug deep guy. What did you do? I made a, I made, it was kind of an innocent mistake, but what happened was, so I decided to exercise my right and take it back. And I put together a promotion at Safeway. It was going to be a dollar off.

It was like a, they had a Christmas display. And they put these unique products on these tables out in front of the store. And so Cody Eye Cakes was going to be on there. And we were going to offer a dollar off. So what happened was somehow that promotion got doubled in the system. And it was, it showed $2 off on the shelf. Well, that's a huge discount. That was a deep, deep discount.

And so consumers were, I mean, people were buying it like crazy. And suddenly I got a call one day from my distributor rep. And he's like, Joel. He's like, look, some mistake happened. And your promotion got doubled in the system. And it's been $2 and we're selling. So he's like, so I turned it off. before it got worse.

And I was like, oh man, you got to be kidding me. You know, I'm like, oh, crap, this is another near-death experience that we're going to be going through. And when I found out, you know, the bill was 50 grand. Man, I was like, what am I going to do? You did sell a lot of pancake mix, probably, though. We did. We sold a ton. So, yeah, so the silver lining.

You gave away a ton, I should say. We did. So my dad came down. He was, he would, I had gotten a teeny tiny, tiny one. room office downtown salt lake and i just said to my dad i said dad i told him what happened and i said look i've got this 50 000 problem man i i sobbed in that office man my dad is in there come i'm getting teary now i just thinking about it but but it was just god it was just i thought about just all the years i'd put into this thing and and still it was just barely getting by you know i had just quit my job man

I'm sorry, guy. I'm just like, oh, it's all right. You know, my dad's in there, and I just gave me, he gave me a huge hug. And, you know, we just,

we sat there for a couple of minutes. And it was hard because I thought, am I going to, I guess I'm done, you know, for, you know, I thought that was a possibility. And,

you know, my dad and I talked and, um, he, you know, we were talking about it. He's like, look,

Joel, it's just, I've got a, I've got a home equity line on my house. And, you know, I'll go get you 50 grand. And my dad was not a rich guy.

You know, he, he had been careful. My parents were really careful with their money for all those years. And so, you know, their house was paid off. And so he's like, he's like, look, let's just, let's do it. I'm going to go to the bank. I'll get you a check and let's make it work. Let's work through it. And so he did.

He wrote me a check for 50 grand. And we made it. You know, I put it in the bank. I kept going. I paid him back, you know, six months later, whatever. and we kept working it through. And I think, you know, it was, you know, a lot of near-death experiences over these years, you know, and that was a big one. Joel, did your wife ever say to you, maybe we should just like pack this end?

It's too risky. She should have. But you know, it's funny, she never did. I mean, to her credit, man. I mean, she was great. So she was always just steady, consistent cheerleader. And I think, man, that made all the difference because I think, no, it's really funny. It's like, you know, I was listening to one of your other episodes and Andy Dunn from Bonobos said it.

Man, he said it better than I could have. He said, companies don't die because the companies fail. They die because the entrepreneur gives up. And I remember thinking that. I remember thinking if I can just figure out how to give this business enough time, I think it'll work. but it's the practical element of can you give it enough time? And luckily, my wife Colleen, she was a huge support. Did you, I mean, still at this point, 2009, you're doing one product, still one product, right?

So my dad was, well, my dad and I were working together, we launched a second pancake mix, and then we had a brownie mix and a cookie mix. So we had four items. All right. So you get to 2009, which is like this is not a great year for most businesses. Yeah. But that year you met this kid named Cameron Smith. He just graduated from the University of Utah and you hired him.

Who's Cameron? How did you meet him? Why did you hire him? So I, my dad was by this time, about 70. And he's like, look, I need to retire, Joel. And I'm like, yeah, you should, dad. And so I needed somebody to help me. And, you know, I didn't have the money to pay for some super experienced person.

So I went up to the University of Utah Career Services Department where you could like put, you could post job postings there. And so I posted a job up there. And I think I called it like a marketing manager or something like that. I talked about, hey, come join a small entrepreneurial business and have an entrepreneurial experience, something like that and help me build the business. All right. So you put this ad up. And this guy, Cameron Smith, response and what did you hire him to do? So when I taught, he came into our little one room office and

he was wearing a suit and a tie. I was probably wearing jeans and I just thought, man, this kid's sharp. We just, I mean, we just connected. I really liked him. I thought, man, he's a good person. He seemed to have a ton of energy and drive. And I thought he seems like the perfect fit. So I immediately kind of put him in charge of some sales. And I gave him this list of small gift shops that we had sold to in the past. And I'm like, hey, call these guys and see if you can sell some product by the case to these little gift shops. Well, Cameron, he thinks ahead.

And he, by the way, is exactly what I needed because I needed that. I needed somebody to come in and bring a spark of new energy. So he started really thinking about, look, you know, I can do more? Can I start calling grocery stores? And I'm like, yeah. So he started putting together this list of like the top grocery stores in America. And he started thinking really strategically about it. Like at a really young age.

And I started going, man, this guy is great. He was like you when you just got back from your mission. Fearless. Totally. Right? Fearless and blinders. Yeah. He didn't see the obstacles.

Yeah. If he saw him, he didn't care. So did he have any success getting into bigger grocery stores? Oh, he really did. So one day we were at a trade show and I got the buyer's name for Target. And Cameron reached out and got an appointment. And he's like, hey, it's going to be this day in November. I think this was around 2011, something like that, 2011, 2012.

An appointment for Target in Minneapolis? Yes, headquarter appointment. We're like, oh, man, way to go. I mean, this was a big deal. To go pitch Kodiakkees to their buyers. Yeah. And did you guys go hop on a plane together? Well, I couldn't go.

And so, you know, he set the time and I'm like, man, I can't go. I can't remember what I had. I had, usually I would have dropped everything to go. But there was, I cannot remember what I had, but I couldn't make it. So I'm like, just go on your own. You'll be fine, you know. So he went into the meeting. Her name was Anne Plastead.

And the way Cameron describes it, he's walked in there. And he actually made pancakes for her. And he said, you know, he was pretty nervous. And he's like, you know, he's like, man, the spatula was kind of shaking. I cooked pancakes for her. And so he gave her some pancakes to try. And she liked it. And so she decided to bring it in to, you know, test it out into 40 stores.

He locked up a test around at Target. That was a, we were, we were stoked. And so what, how long before they put in an order, like a real order? So, okay, so after the 40 store test, it was probably within a few months. We got a new buyer named Tommy Greenberg. Tommy called us up and he's like, guys. I'm going to take your two product. We had two pancake mixes in the stores.

He's like, I'm going to take them in chainwide, nationwide. We're like, you got to be kidding me. He's like, yep, let's go. He's like, just remember, you know, just remember I was on the desk when this happened. And so we're like, all right, let's go. And so I remember we were, they started ordering by the case. And a lot of this was even UPS. We weren't even shipping pallets out.

So Cameron and I would go into the warehouse of our, we had a contract manufacturer. But they were busy, so we would go in often and pack up cases together and get them all ready to ship. We did a ton of that. And it started to work. It actually started to really work. How were you financing that? I mean, when big companies like Target put in orders, it can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars and they won't pay you for another 60 days. You need that cash to make the product.

How are you able to have that money? I was scared. So we got this PO. it was $260,000 PO. That's a big purchase order, yeah. Massive. I mean, we'd never seen anything like it. And at the time, we had to prepay for our inventory.

So it was really, I didn't have the money. We did not have the money to do it. So what I did is I called my dad. And I said, hey, dad, I need to borrow money again. You know, and I said, but I think we're going to be really good for this. This is a lot of money. So, you know, we talked about it. my dad was like, you know, I think this is good because this is going against a purchase order from Target.

So I'm going to do it, Joel. So he went down at the bank. He got a check on his home equity line. So he had to borrow the money. And he showed back up to my office with a check for $260,000. That was the turning point. That was a huge, huge turning point. And were you still manufacturing at that small plant in Salt Lake?

It wasn't the small, small plant from the very beginning. It was a different plant by now. It was bigger. So they had a lot more capacity by now. And by the way, around this time, do you remember what your annual sales were at that point? So we were doing 2012, we were doing around three and a half. So that target order really was transformational. Yeah, it was a huge order.

Three and a half million dollars. I mean, but three and a half million dollars, most of that, it's revenue. You're not, that's not going in your pocket. Right. And we were talking about this very thing. We were like, okay, we need a bump. We have got to get some real marketing. And so Cameron comes to me one day.

He's like, look, he's like, I'm going to try to get us on Shark Tank. I'm like, all right, go to town, man. I've never even seen the show. He thought, let's go on Shark Tank because presumably he liked the show, but also maybe to get some outside investment. Yeah, yeah. We had been talking on and off about, God, when are we going to raise capital? We're at some point we're going to need some money to help us to grow.

So we, you know, we were talking about that. So all he did was he went to the website one day. This is January of 2013. He goes to the website, he sends an email. Literally,

I have still never seen the email. I don't even know what he said. Like it wasn't even a casting call or anything. It was just like, he goes to the website, sends an email. And I forgot about it. We forgot about it.

We didn't even talk about it again, you know, until they actually, reached back out to him in March and said, hey, if we think your story's interesting. This is of 2013. Yeah, March 2013. So we started working with producers. And then it was about June of 2013 where we went out and filmed the episode.

And so you film it in June of 2013. And by the way, when was it, when did it air? It didn't air until April of 2014. So almost a year later it airs. Yeah. It's Mr. Wonderful. and Mark Cuban and Barbara and they're all there, right? Yeah.

And right after we did kind of our opening one-minute spiel or 30-second spiel or whatever, then Cameron went over and actually cooked pancakes for them. Right. And then we passed them out. And what were you looking for? What were you hoping for in terms of investment? So we went on the show trying to get, we were pitching for $500,000 for 10% of the business. pretty good deal. We thought it was. And any of them bite? So the first offer was Kevin. So Kevin says,

I'll give you, I'll give you that 500 grand, but I want half the business. Unbelievable. I know. It's just insane. Okay. So let me think about that. Like, we're valuing the business at five million bucks, right? You know, then, uh, he wanted to value it at a million bucks. Oh my God. So then Robert goes, well, you know, I'll do it. I'll do the 500 grand, but I'll do it for 35% of the business. God. And so what's funny is like immediately I had this like, we're done. Let's get out of here, right?

Hopefully we'll still get the publicity. Yep. So I'm kind of like starting to wrap it up. I'm like, yeah, well, you know, it's not going to work. Thanks, guys, whatever. Camera goes, should we counter? I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, good point, you know. So he's like got more presence of mind than I have.

And I'm like, oh, that's a great point. So we should do that. So, you know, we countered at, I think we went up to 15% that we would give them for, you know, for the money. Yep. And we just weren't close. So we ended up just walking off. Were you sad about that? Did you feel like this is a failure?

No, it's funny. I actually felt fine about it. I mean, I think if they would have gotten really close to where we wanted to be, I would have taken the deal. Yeah. And also, I think it helped that we didn't have to have the capital, right? I mean, we were growing pretty well. I think we were like, look, if we can get the right partner for a pretty decent valuation, let's take it. But since they were so far, it's like, well, we don't have to have it today.

Let's move on and we'll look again with somebody else. So what did you have any plan at that point? I mean, you don't have a shark take money. So what do you do? Do you go looking for money elsewhere? Do you just kind of put it on ice for a while? We put it on ice for a while. But right after the show,

our demand went crazy. Oh, really? Because of the publicity? Yeah. Yeah, what happened? I mean, it just cranked it. So, like, people, and particularly at Target,

and I think it's because Target was mentioned on the show. And so people went to Target and they just cleared the shelves. And so we struggled, we struggled for a couple months just to keep up with it. Wow. And so we're like, well, let's let's let this settle out. Like, let's wait. We're selling a lot right now. let's just kind of get ahead of this.

Let's not worry about trying to raise money right now. We'll get back to it later. So 2014, presumably that was a banner year for you. Oh, man. That was an inflection year. It really was. There was one more thing we did that really just contributed to this. So the Shark Tank thing hit.

But then two months later, so Shark Tank hits April 2014. In June of 2014, we launched Power Cakes. Power Cakes is our high protein. pancake mix. So the first time we'd ever put protein in a product, and that hits the shelves at Target and just takes off. And this is basically just you're adding weight protein powder to your mix, more or less. Yeah. First of all, it seems like a no-brainer now. You're like, oh, no-brainer, add protein to breakfast pancakes. But that was a really innovative concept. Where did that come from? So I remember one day, I mean, really it was just, I was home one morning, and I was,

was looking at this vanilla protein powder that we had. I was trying to incorporate more protein into my diet and we were making, we were adding protein to our smoothies in the morning at home and stuff like that. And one day I'm just looking at this vanilla protein powder going, I wonder how that is in a pancake. I wonder if it's good. So I made it right there. And I was like, it was great. I was like, this is awesome. I think this could actually be a product. It was that simple. It really was. But in terms of the concept, it was totally that simple. But after we, And so what we did is we came up with the name Power Cakes. And then we went ahead and trademarked that and it did great.

I mean, right out of the gate, it started selling really, really well. And did you know you were kind of riding this wave, this like CrossFit, you know, high protein diet wave that did you know that you were kind of riding that wave yet? No, I'll be honest. We didn't know that it was going to be this big. I mean, we were watching, Cameron was watching protein trends on Google, like Google search trends and just kind of seeing. you know, seeing the searches go up and up and more people interested in protein. But we weren't really sure how big it could be. And we were also kind of living in the dark.

We didn't have a lot of data. Like, you know, we didn't have a lot of store level data to really watch trends. Yeah. And so we were kind of just making some assumptions. But yeah, at the time, we didn't know how big it would be. All right. So you're growing. And presumably you, and I think you even start to expand out, right, beyond, beyond these powders.

Like, I think you started to do frozen. and waffles and muffin mixes and more products, right? Right. Yeah, we really started to go into more categories and where we felt like our brand could do well. I have to assume at this point, after Shark Tank, after the protein power cakes, after the other products and the other categories,

you start to get investment firms, private equity firms knocking on your door. Oh, yeah. Oh, totally. Yeah, we were a lot of people's friends all of a sudden. You're like knocking on doors, People are slamming them in your face for 20 years, and all of a sudden now, everybody wants to be a friend. Totally. So I'm assuming you started to look at some of these offers, and you did eventually decide to take outside money in 2016 from a group.

What was the thinking behind that? Did you feel like we need to take this money to really scale? Yeah. We were growing really, really fast. And so it's not like we were out of money. You know, we were actually making money, but we started to look at this business really growing. and started to think, man, we need some resources. We need some.

I kind of, you know, even personally I felt like I need somebody to share the risk. My house was still on the line, for example, for, you know, for a business loan. Yeah. You know, like every little bump, you know, it kind of starts to rattle your cage. And you're like, you're feeling about, you're feeling like the business is so vulnerable for all these years. And just my mind shifted. And, man, I was just like, I've got to unload this so I can not be so worried about the business. but, you know, start to become a better leader. And so, you know, we, we felt like, let's go find

somebody that has some real experience in the space and let's get a partner. Honestly, that was incredibly healthy to do that. You know, this business now, and are you still a, I mean, you and your family members still majority owners of the business? We, we're not, I mean, if, well, yeah, if you, if you include myself, my dad, my brother, and Cameron, then we are a majority shareholders. Right. Right. Yeah. I think by 2018, you were like the top pancake seller at Target. Like, you were bigger than Aunt Jemima and Bisquick at Target. You were like the fourth biggest pancake mixed brand in the country by 2018. Right. We were blown away. I mean, we were, our numbers at Target were incredible. And so we, you know, we took that story out to the rest of the market. And we started to gain distribution and really started to make an impact into the category.

So 2019, for many companies, record year. I mean, for most companies, or on how I built this. And then 2020, for a lot of companies, especially non-food items, this has been a disastrous year. Oh, totally. Right? And what about for you? I mean, people are not going to Walmart and Target and Costco as much. there's more purchasing from Amazon.

People aren't walking through the aisles of stores. They're not meandering. They're going in and out. Have you guys taken a hit? Well, you know, we've actually been pretty fortunate now, you know, because as people eat away from home, like restaurants less, right? People are at home more eating at home more. So, yeah, the grocery stores have been, you know, up.

So the pancake mix category has grown a lot. I mean, we've seen a big boom in that space. People making pancakes at home. Exactly. You know, you have more time. It's fun. Like, usually it's a weekend thing, right? It's like a heavy user of pancake mix has in the past been maybe, you know, three, four times a month.

Yeah. On average, you know, but now it's like, it can be a couple times a week. Not that long ago. Like, 10 years ago, you were teetering, really. Nine years ago. I mean, your dad, like, bailed you out with that 50 grand. Yeah. You know, I think, you know, you're projected to do a lot of.

$100 million in revenue, or maybe you did last year, that's pretty crazy. It's insane. And you're projecting $200 million in revenue this year, right? Yeah, we should go over that this year. Wow. It's incredible. Like, I mean, it really is incredible. And I think about, I think about that time, yeah, going from, I mean, it took us 16 years to hit a million dollars in revenue, right? It's like, come on, man. Like, I look at it. I'm like, what the heck? What the crap was I doing, man? Like, like, those were some really hard years. And it's like, man, you should have been able to grow quicker than that. Then you look at the context.

It's like no capital, no money to put in, no expertise. And it just like going to school, like the distractions and all that stuff. But it's like we finally got there. And then over the last 10 yearsish, it's like now we're going to break, we should go past 200 million this year. I mean, it's incredible. And I think it's like as we've kind of talked about this journey, it's like there's so many different phases. And I mean, even though it was hard, I almost gave up a lot. I try to sell the business a couple times and it almost just died a couple times.

I mean, I'm actually grateful for all that. Yeah. I am. I mean, those things are so hard to go through while you're going through them. But you get, you make it through and then you're stronger, you're smarter. And then you really, you're more cautious. Yeah. I mean, it's almost like the, the success is sweeter.

It's a cliche, but it is because of the pain. You're not kidding. I mean, it totally is. Because I think if it would have come easy, I just, I don't know. I mean, I wouldn't appreciate it quite as much, you know. Yeah. When you think about this, this just unbelievable journey, right? I mean, close to bankrupt a little more than 10 years ago,

probably never really sure whether you'd be financially secure and you are. I mean, this business has made you and presumably your family and Cameron, financially secure for life based on your mom's pancake recipe. Do you think that this happened because of your hard work or do you attribute more of it to luck? Man, you know what I say sometimes is people always say that fish don't just jump in your boat, but you know what? I actually believe they do. But here's the thing, you got to be out fishing for that to happen, right?

And so I think it's both. It's such a combination of both. It's like we have had some lucky breaks. I'd have to attribute some of this to luck. Definitely. Yeah. Well, you got really lucky that nobody wanted to buy you. Yeah, totally.

It's funny you say that because it's like you don't think about those closed doors as luck sometimes, do you? I mean, you think about those as failures or disasters or yeah. Yeah, another failure. Like, oh my gosh. And you go home and you're like, okay. what do I do now to keep going? This business can is going to continue, presumably continue to grow. You know, you're in your mid-40s.

You can do a bunch of other things. You can sell your shares and walk away and start something new. You can stay on. I mean, what do you think? Do you think you want to be in the Kodiak's business in 10, 15 years? That's a great question. I mean, this has been, like, it's been my life, right? I mean, I've put everything into this my whole career.

But, you know, am I the guy that runs Kodiak cakes at $500 million, a billion? I don't know. I mean, I just, I don't know. How long do I ride this? I mean, it's, you know, I've got quite a bit of gas in the tank for a while. So it's still really fun. I love the people I work with. And I love this brand.

That's Joel Clark. He's the co-founder and CEO of Kodiak Kakes. And by the way, if you saw their episode of Shark Tank, you may remember that they actually brought their bear mascot into the pitch. There is literally a human-sized bear on the set with them. And the bear costume has been through quite a lot over the years. If you check out Kodiak's Instagram page, you can see their giant mascot shopping at Costco, riding a horse, lifting weights, and dancing, TikTok style, to a song, by Drake. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is hibt at npr.org. If you

want to follow us on Twitter, it's at How I Built This or at Guy Raz. And on Instagram, it's at guy.org. Please also remember to visit donate.npr.org-o-g-slash-built and give directly to a local NPR station. Our show is produced this week by J.C. Howard with music composed by Rumpteen Arablui. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Dareth Gales, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Farah Safari. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to How I Built This. This is NPR.