Right About Now - Legendary Business Advice - Formulating Success: The Sweet Journey of NoBaked Cookie Dough w/ Co-Founder Jimmy Feeman

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

Right About Now with Ryan AlfordJoin media personality and marketing expert Ryan Alford as he dives into dynamic conversations with top entrepreneurs, marketers, and influencers. "Right About Now" brings you actionable insights on business, marketing, and personal branding, helping you stay ahead in today's fast-paced digital world. Whether it's exploring how character and charisma can make millions or unveiling the strategies behind viral success, Ryan delivers a fresh perspective with every episode. Perfect for anyone looking to elevate their business game and unlock their full potential. Resources:Right About Now NewsletterFree Podcast Monetization CourseJoin The NetworkFollow Us On InstagramSubscribe To Our Youtube ChannelVibe Science MediaSUMMARYIn this episode of "Right About Now," host Ryan Alford chats with Jimmy Feeman, co-founder of NoBaked, a cookie dough company. Jimmy shares his entrepreneurial journey, starting with his and his wife Megan's dissatisfaction with traditional jobs, leading them to sell cookie dough at farmers' markets. They discuss the nostalgic appeal of cookie dough, the challenges of running a business as a couple, and the importance of transparency and trust. Jimmy also recounts their pivot during the pandemic, including living in a converted school bus. The episode highlights resilience, adaptability, and the joy of pursuing one's passions.TAKEAWAYS Entrepreneurial journey and experiences of co-founding a cookie dough company. Nostalgia associated with cookie dough and its appeal to consumers. Challenges faced in the early years of starting a business. Dynamics of running a business as a couple and the importance of communication. The significance of trust and transparency in personal and business relationships. Evolution of brand identity and understanding customer preferences. The importance of craftsmanship and hands-on work in entrepreneurship. Strategies for scaling a consumer brand while maintaining authenticity. The balance between indulgence and health-consciousness in food choices. Lessons learned from the entrepreneurial journey, including resilience and adaptability.   If you enjoyed this episode and want to learn more, join Ryan’s newsletter https://ryanalford.com/newsletter/ to get Ferrari level advice daily for FREE.  Learn how to build a 7 figure business from your personal brand by signing up for a FREE introduction to personal branding https://ryanalford.com/personalbranding.  Learn more by visiting our website at www.ryanisright.comSubscribe to our YouTube channel  www.youtube.com/@RightAboutNowwithRyanAlford. 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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This is right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over one million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes. You ready to start snapping next and cash and checks? Well, it starts right about now. What's up guys? Welcome to Right About Now. We're always talking about what's now.

We're talking about business. We're talking about marketing. We're talking about life. And look, sometimes there's stories behind the company. And, you know, there's a certain product that kind of rang my bell when I was, you know, talking with him on LinkedIn. I was like, who's this Jimmy guy? Who's this Jimmy guy? What?

Cookie dough. Hell yeah. I'm going to talk to him. We got Jimmy Freeman. He is the co-founder of No Bake. What's up, man? What's up, man? How are you doing?

I'm great. Look, I get to talk business stories and cookie dough. Are you fucking kidding me? Like, this is like what I do it for. Hey, I mean, if you get to eat some good stuff while you're doing the show, that's just a plus. It makes it a lot better. I know. I know, exactly.

I don't have my wife might argue with this, but I don't have too many vices. But cookie dough, you probably since your company wouldn't call it a vice. I just call it, you know, maybe a vice to my waistline in summer when I'm trying to show that one pack, that dad pack. But hey, look, everything in moderation, Jimmy, I love some cookie dough, man. Why is it so damn good? I don't know, man. There's a few things that they're like from your childhood. There's stuff that you just do.

And one of those things for me and my wife, Megan, was just eating cookie dough. I don't know what it is. My grandma always bakes cookies. I usually get the dough before the became cookies. That's how you end up where I am today. But yeah, everything in moderation, right? It just gives me more fuel to go, like work out or do whatever it's going to do, I guess. But yeah, if you know, I know.

I mean, you started young, though, man. You guys, you and Megan, I mean, how old were y'all? Like, when this started formulating. 23. 23. I did not have a lot of time out of college to figure out, or didn't take a lot of time, I guess, to figure out that I was not supposed to work for someone else. And it took Megan even less time to figure out she wasn't supposed to work for someone

else. So, yeah, it's just, it's one of those things I tell people now, and I've seen people post about this recently people will talk about it but if you're gonna go for it the best time to go for it's when you're like sub 25 like what do you have to lose you don't have a car you don't have house you've you've nothing so just go for it worst thing it can happen you file bankruptcy you're back in like five years it's fine my wife would agree with that i uh i started when i was uh almost 40 late 30s and had all of those things but still did it yeah I don't know if it makes me dumber.

I waited. But, you know, it's everything you said is true, though. It probably added stress to the whole thing because it's not easy. But when you're young, you do have time to, I mean, you've got time. Look, we all have time to fail. Like, it's not that you don't have time to fail, but it's usually less maybe responsibilities or other people relying on you, you know, especially you and your wife. being together or a couple or, you know, we'll get to that story.

But it does allow you a little bit more, I don't know, focus. Like I can't just pull all-nighters for five nights, you know, knowing, well, I've got to coach my son's basketball. I've got to do this or that. You know, it's like the combined part of the pressure and the amount of time you have to put into it, right? Yeah. I mean, that's everything, dude.

Like you, your time slowly compresses until one. day you wake up, you're 40, you got three, four kids, you have a mortgage, you have a bunch of responsibilities, got to coach the kids basketball team, and then you're like, dude, they got a lot of stuff on my plate. If you start, you start the entrepreneurial journey then, by the way, I have more respect for you because you're crazy. And I like that. Oh, I'm definitely crazy.

That's another story for another day. I want to talk cookie dough. And I will say, when you were telling that little bit there, go listen to Dave Attell sometime. He has a really funny but nasty version of that. Like, what happens with you wake up, you're at this, you wake up, you're at that. I like your life story. Anyway, funny.

And a little raunchy. But nonetheless, Jimmy, I got to know, like, obviously the nostalgia, I think you've already probably gave it a little precursor. But what in the hell made you go down to the cookie dare? I guess it's not really a wild story like the beginning of the company is really us just like really hating our jobs so Megan came home one day we were living together at the time she was my girlfriend she was like dude I just can't do this anymore uh can't go to the office can't do the thing I'm just sell my cookie dough at the farmer's market and like sell it online I think I could probably make enough money to replace my income I was like great do it do it who can't do it who can't do it who can't At this point in time, we were both just like real sick of what we were doing. And I'd watched her job hop three times. And we graduated like 14 months before that.

So we're talking like 14 month period, you job hop three times. You probably need a different job. I have a hard time reflecting on myself. So I didn't notice that I also had job hops three times. And I also hated my job. But we had built. By the middle of the summer, after I like spent all my time helping Megan basically make cookie dough at night.

I'd go to my job during the day. Eventually I was like, this job was stupid. I'm just going to sell cookie dough. And I quit my job in July, July 2017. And it was great. Everyone thought I was insane. Insane and also stupid. My dad called me.

He was like, what are you doing, man? And I was like, honestly, I would rather sit on the side of the road, sell cookie dough to people from like a back of a truck or like a cooler, then go back to that office ever again. So, I mean, it was obvious for us. And like I alluded to, it was easy. If I look back on all the decisions I've had to make across the last eight years, the easiest one was just being like, screw it. I don't want to work for anyone else.

And that, like, that took us down that path. The other thing is Megan already had that recipe. She'd been making edible cookie dough since she was like 14, same recipe. She tweaked it a little bit. And then we were off of the races. and it's one of the things where man looking back on it things happened real fast we executed real fast we did nothing right but the execution is really what matters

like if you get up wake up do the thing even if you have no clue what you're doing because we did everything wrong like everything we put it in the wrong packaging didn't know what a health permit was like didn't know shit about running a restaurant but like all you have to do is be willing to learn and be willing to actually wake up and execute. So, I mean, that's kind of what made us go down that road is like Megan had a good products. We were both real sick of what we were doing. I guess that's how you build a cookie dough company. I got to ask so. I know we'll get to it, but do you get tired? Like, I don't feel like I'd ever, I might not eat it every day, but are you, do you still eat the cookie dough or does it

eventually do all good things come to an end? I still eat it. I don't um I'm not the guy that like sits down and eats it I'm the guy that like snacks on it so like it's in the fridge oh god that's me I'd be snacking on that shit all day I mean like a little scoop here yeah yeah I put my glove on and get my you know whatever you got to do to make it you know clean it's fine but we need a snack on it yeah I uh I eat I eat it throughout the day And also my kids love it. So like it just kind of stays in the house, but I try to limit it. Because I'm like, guys, we can't eat cookie dough every day.

My daughter woke up the other morning and she was like, dad, where's the cookie dough? And I was like, it's not, we don't have any right now. And she gave me this look. How does the, how does no bank? I'd be looking at dad. Like, how does no bank not have cookie dough in the refrigerator? Come on. Yeah.

She was like, what do you mean? We don't have cookie dough. And I was like, there's just none in there. You ate all of it. I don't know what you want for me. Oh, me. So the base, the first recipe, is it chocolate chip? Cookie dough.

That's the original. Yeah, chocolate chips is the original. After that, Megan made confetti and brownie, and then we just took those three and ran with it. We have a bunch of other flavors today. We've done a bunch of crazy stuff, but those three are still, like, top sellers. That's where all the stuff comes from. People like chocolate chip.

Like, that's like 70% of our sales, 70% of our effort. Which is funny because it's like, you take all this time to do all this other stuff. stuff when really there's this one thing, this one recipe, it made it a long time ago when you were a kid. And that's the thing that keeps going and keeps like on paying. That's funny. But such is the way of life, man. I mean, that's the recipe.

What was it like with, you know, those first years? And how long have we been at it? What year are we in? 2025. Been out of it for eight years. What? How long? How many?

Eight years? You're eight years in. Eight years next month, yeah. I mean, you and Megan must have a strong relationship to have made it through all of it. I mean, a lot of people listening probably have started business with their significant other and not made it or it been like hell. And I'm not saying it was rosy. We're going to get to some of that, I'm sure.

But it says something about the relationship. It does. I also think it says something. you don't necessarily have to go start your business through your spouse to make this happen, but you could try it to make sure. But like if you start a business or something or with someone, and you've probably seen this, Ryan, you'll go out, you find a partner, that person's your partner.

Sometimes you know that person better than you know your spouse. Sometimes you spend more time with that person than you spend with your kids. So when it was me, Megan, we start a business together. What it did and what it forced us to do is be super transatlantic. Like you've got to be up in each other's head all the time. Like you can't lie about stuff. You can't hide things from each other. You can't just be like, I'll leave that at work.

Everything follows you everywhere. And so you have to be super aligned and super transparent. That does cause you to argue and fight more. But I would say that that stuff is healthy as long as you're not letting it like, you know, blow up your relationship, make you hate each other. You can argue about stuff like we'll argue about like how. to allocate like a hundred grand. Like,

oh, should we spend it on these ads? Should we do it on this thing? But like, we're not arguing about stupid stuff that I see my other friends argue about with their wives, which is like, I bought like skis and I didn't tell you about it.

I'm sorry. Like, what are you talking? Why do you not tell her, first of all? Or like people wouldn't they go like fool like, I've got separate bank accounts. We do our separate thing.

We do our own thing. And I'm like, dude, that doesn't make any sense. Why are you even married? Because like at a certain point, You have to be like all in transparent. Like here we are because that's how I run it with like a business partner.

And so like that's how you run it with like your spouse. I guess if they are your business partner. But I mean, I trust Megan like fully my life. So like you have situations where it's like I'll sign on something. We'll use my credit. My credit gets jacked up. I know that like Megan's not going to like leave me and leave me like screwed. Instead it's like next time we're going to use yours.

We're going to like rotate it back and forth. we're going to use this to our advantage. Because honestly, you're more powerful as a team than you are as an individual. But people don't see it that way usually. And I think it took like the pressure cooker and then like the shared experience of our 20s like doing this to like make all that happen. Like that doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen like normally. Also to your point could like completely destroy your relationship.

But hey, I mean, it works really well for us. I don't think it works for everybody, but it's been fun and bad and everything in between. It's good, though, because if it works, having where you're mutually, it mutually benefits both of you pretty equally. If not, it should be, let's call it equally. And so when you have that built in trust because it's, and so when you have a partner, when they're not your partner in life and your partner in business, even when you're, when you love them and you trust them, they're the mutually separate paths of gain a lot of times. And so that's where you sort of get that trouble out of the way as long as the relationship is tight,

which is what you had. So that's, that's a good thing. I just want to get that, you know, to the story of the bus down by the river. I heard a school bus was somewhere involved. in the story of Nobake and we're talking with Jimmy Nobake Freeman. I give everybody a pet nickname. That's yours now, Jimmy. I love that. Jimmy Nobakes. I love it.

Jimmy Nobake. Yeah. Yes. The bus like kind of came into the picture because of the way we ran the business. So the first three years we ran Nobake. We built a dessert shop chain basically. So we built a franchise system, opened a bunch of shops.

So from October 2017, when the first shop opens, so October 2019, we opened nine stores. And then October 2019, you know, leads right into March of 2020, which is the first time we had to, like, switch up what the business did. And prior to that, you know, like, I had actually gotten really burnt out. I hated going to those shops. I hated managing all the managers. I had a manager call me from jail that was managing our Cincinnati store and be like,

yeah, man, uh, why, I've called the cops on me. I have to spend the next two days in jail. And I'm just like, what am I supposed to do? He might not have been no baked. He might have been too baked. Yeah, right? So, you know, like these situations, right?

That makes that, that fucks up your life. You're like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do this thing. So then March comes along. Retail's hard. Yeah, ironically, I started to like the fact that we had to pivot. to D to C. And then it was like all the shops are closed. Yeah, we're under a lot of pressure, but like this is working, scaled up the D to C business. And then we went to raise money in

the beginning of 2021. And right before that, during 2020, my pet project during the pandemic is I bought a school bus. And I was going to turn it into an RV. Because, you know, everyone's sitting on like TikTok in like March of 2020, April 2020. I see the people who are living in the van. and I'm like, I'm not one to let you live in the van. I don't get to live in the van. It was cool. I want to do it. So you go from there to, I guess I'm going to buy one.

So we sold our food truck ironically. And then I took the cash from that and went and bought this old bus from this church. Spent the whole year remodeling the bus. It was my side project. And I'm not that handy. But I guess now I am because it didn't work out. But yeah, we moved on. to that bus in March of 2021, or March, April, 2021.

And then we lived on it for about six months. Right around that time, my daughter was one year old. So we only have one kid. It was a challenge, but it was also this thing where we had like read the four-hour work week, like, really bought into the D to C thing. And we were like, we can work from anywhere. So then you're like, I'm going to be able to show up. And my office can be in like Yellowstone National Park. I have news for you.

It can't. That's a terrible idea. And it's why we actually stopped. But it was a fun six months. It was a brand experiment in like, can you be fully remote? Do you actually have to have any piece of the pie? Ironically today, we like moved all the way back toward like in the third pivot of the company.

We moved all the way back toward like owning everything. Like, we do our own 3PL work. We manufacture our own product. We have a lot of like hands on stuff going on. And I'm there for a lot of it. There's a lot now where I'm not because I've kind of learned to train people to do the things that I should be training them to do. But yeah, it was like a good solid year of us like really deep believing the V2C dream, which is like I can run my $10 million a year business from Fiji. And I'll be fine.

and you're in the like brand space so you know like I mean there are people that can achieve something like that but you really got to be in the business be doing your thing yeah and it's a full time it's more than a full time job so I mean it was fun it's fun break if you're being if we're being honest um but yeah I recommend something like that to everyone I also recommend building something that you live in even if it's like a shed in your backyard like to every guy it's like it's a transformational experience you're like I built this thing with my bare hands and now I'm like living in it it's satisfying I don't know why I have no idea why it's satisfying it just feels right I I I've actually been fixing up golf carts like in my

spare time I find it very in my my I go with a dad's like a master craftsman plays plays eight instruments he's a master craftsman can build anything and I'm the the idea the writer guy. I'm right. I'm a digital, like, true, like, that guy. I'm not Mr. Hammer and nail. But I have found therapy in, like, fixing up golf carts. I have no idea why. But it's something about working with your hands that is rewarding and learning to be a little handy. So my dad is finally, I think he was always proud of me, but there's a different level of proud now that I can, you know, turn the screwdriver and know how to wire shit. Yeah.

They're like, oh, that's cool. I love that. Yeah. The golf is cool. You don't understand any of the other shit. Digital ads, Facebook ads, what? Branding? What's that?

Yeah. What's, what, let's talk about the brand, you know, like, obviously, no big. The product and what it is describes what it is. But when you think about your brand, you know, like, obviously, it's, the product and what it is. But when you think about your brand. But when you think about your. brand. I'm sure you guys have evolved in this. At first, it's like, hey, we're making a cook-it-out. You can eat that shit. Let's go. Let's go. But now how, how's that evolved for how

you do think about the company and the brand and sort of your, I don't know, customer experience? It's evolved over time and it's been really informed by the customer. Because I think when you start out, you don't necessarily know the customer. You sort of do. And Megan would claim that she does. her thought was always that she is the customer, I will market to myself. I totally get that. The way that it's evolved is kind of like moving away from that and then moving into like, what have we learned? And that, that's hard to do.

And I think a lot of brands have to evolve that way because you're going to like build a product, right? You're going to do your thing. Like you said, you're like, hey, cookie dough, you eat it. Let's go. Like, buy it. Try it. And then what happens is you sell that to one, two, three million people. And those people help inform you.

you like, well, what flavors should we make? What challenges are there, like, around, like, the product itself, that type of stuff? And then on the brand side, they start to inform you of, like, well, what should I be marketing to? So, like, originally Nobache was very, like, I wouldn't call it, like, neutral, but we were very, like, neutral. We didn't want to offend anybody. Like, this brand is just like, we're making cookie dough. It's our thing. And then slowly over time, we started to realize, especially once we got into CPG and the D&CC

into like having a packaged product. Then it became obvious that there are a bunch of people out there that are like, I'm plant-based, I'm vegan, I'm a carnivore, I only eat meat, I only do this, I only eat organic food, like better for you, like worse for you, premium food, whatever. That's when we started to really like craft the brand around like what our mission is today, which is to be chef-driven, not lab driven. So like we made the product in a scoop shop, right?

Like we made it for customers fresh. We had nine of them. That was our core business. That's what we did. We tried to stay true to that even today because it helps us stay like really centered. Like people will come to me and be like, you're going to make a sugar-free cookie dough. Are you going to make like this cookie dough, that cookie dough, like this certification, this BS? And it's like, no, I'm not.

What I'm going to do is I'm going to stick to the thing that we do best, which is you make a really, really tasty treat. Like we call like a premium indulgence. And we're going to stick to the chef's thing, which is. is that Megan's going to craft these flavors as if she's serving it to you, like, in your kitchen. That just made sense for us. And, like, when you stick to your guns like that and then you craft the brand around it, you start to realize that you're going to piss off some people, and that's okay. Because those people aren't supposed to be eating your stuff anyways.

Like you said, you're like, dude, I love cookie dough. That's great. Those are the people I'm marketing to. Like, someone likes cookie dough great. And then there'll be someone that would, like, walk into the scoop shop or something like that. I interacted with one of these people recently. We're in a food hall downtown in Nashville. We have a shop on Broadway.

So it sees a lot of traffic. There's probably like 15 million people that walk across that corner a year. Not all of them are coming in my shop. And in fact, some do come in the shop and they're like, hey, do you know where I can get some ice cream? And I've told our employees straight up. I'm like, tell them where the ice cream shop is. It's right over there. They should go to the ice cream shop.

Why would you want to serve you hook you? And they don't understand the concept. that like you have to turn down people that aren't your customer. You have to send them to wherever they're supposed to be. And that way you can actually get customers that want to eat your stuff. Which that's a whole other thing. And that's something that we, to this day, of like, I think grown slowly. And I wouldn't say struggled to do.

But like it is really, really hard to blow up a consumer brand for that reason. You do have to like get in front of everyone. That's hard. But at the same time, like you do want to make sure you're getting in front of the right people. And you're not trying to market to everyone. when you can't be everything all the time for everybody. It's not possible. So that's kind of how it's evolved.

I mean, we started with like exactly what you said. And then we moved into like we have to take a stance on like what we are or people try to shove random stuff down to your throat all the time. Every business owner gets that though. Like who has not had some. And you got to take a stand for what you are. You got to define it. Like everyone wants to define you, but you've got to define it and stick to your guns like you said. Yeah. I mean, you know, like every business owner is always suggested, like, hey, you thought about this.

You thought about that. I have people ask me if I've ever thought about, like, food truck. So the other day I posted a video of our food truck on LinkedIn. I was like, hey, guys, look, there's a food truck. It was there. In 2019, I already did it. Don't want to do it again. Thanks for suggesting. I'll put it in my like, I'm never going to do that box. people really want to suggest stuff to you or they want to suggest stuff around your brand or your product and it's like your job as I think a founder is to say no most of the time and like stick to your brand

your thing like and really go deep on whatever that thing is that you're doing and you guys probably see that in the brand space all the time it's like some people are really distracted other people go really deep you go deep stay true to yourself usually works out it's just kind of hard talking with Jimmy No bank Freeman. So, Jimmy, I would talk some numbers.

Like, you know, I find fascination. Like, we did a Valentine's thing talking about how many billion of this, how many pounds of that, how much cookie dough we make it? Like, how many pounds of cookie dough we make it a year or week?

Or like, what's some numbers that would surprise and delight the audience? That's actually my favorite. number to like focus on um i made this original pitch deck a long time ago for this tangent where i was like hey like for investment and like i had one guy tell me it was stupid i was like it's not stupid it's cool i was like we have made like seven elephants worth of cookie dough it's just like the fuck the dude like seven elephants dude like that's what he is 10 000 pounds yeah like it's like a 10 000 pound elephant let's go no right now today in our factory in chattanooga we produce

anywhere from like 20 to 40,000 pounds of cookie dough a month. Um, which is pretty insane. Yeah, pretty insane. 20 to 40,000 a month? Yeah. Holy shit. It's wild to sea. It's been growing really fast.

500,000 pounds of cookie dough a year? Upwards? Is that what I'm doing that math somewhere in that neighborhood? Yeah, this year will probably break like one, two million pounds, which is insane. It's just wild to sea. It also smells really good. What's? Yeah.

Does it smell like I would think that it would smell? Like, yeah, smell like, like, like sugar and butter. Yeah, that's what it is.

Yeah. It's that combo of sugar and butter. It's actually kind of funny if you go into our bakery. I mean, we do our best to keep it clean. The one thing that you have a really hard time actually like, uh, keeping.

I mean, we do it by room by room. So it's really just a room where we're mixing, but there's flour everywhere. The light coating of flour. You clean all the surfaces, clean everything like, you know, once a day and then deep clean it once a week. But like it gets in the craziest places because every time you turn the mixer on, it's flour going in there. Slopping everywhere.

Basically every time. Yeah. You're like, ah, we're going to lose it a tiny bit. And it's not a lot. So you wouldn't see it or notice it. But it's over time because you're mixing over and over and over again. There's just a light coating of dust. But I love it.

Is this a mixing bowl that I could climb into? Like, is it that size? I wonder if you could fit inside of it. That's a good question. You might be able to. I'm 6'5. You're pretty, you're pretty, you're pretty, you'd have to crouch down. Yeah.

But you can fit in that. Yeah, okay. Yeah. All right. So I can get in there and just start going to town, you know. I ought to, I'd like to press my own personal badge. Yeah, and get sick. Like, I'd like to make a badger video, I'd never get out of that.

Swim in it. exactly i thought i'd be thinking about like yeah it's like this is like my you talk about indulgent that's the perfect word like this is my uh like dream indulgence it's like when i really want to treat myself it's it's probably some form of cookie dough yeah man and i think that's that's going to become a lot that's going to be a lot more important over the next like 10 years people would i'll pitch investors now and they actually ask me about gop1 agonists like immediately. That's like a big question. Big question for the food industry in general. But if you're going to treat yourself and you're not eating a ton of stuff, like random stuff all

the time, don't you want to eat like better food? Like better tasting food. It's like that's where I'm at. I'm like if I'm going to like go out to eat, I want to go to like a nice restaurant. I don't want to go to like random. Yeah. Restaurant. So like that's that's the thing. Like you want it to be good. Like, you wanted to be that indulgence, like you said, whereas, like, I'm going to eat this when I want to. And, like, this is the thing I want to eat. Like, feed that.

Yeah. I don't want it in between. I don't want it, like, kind of, oh, like, my wife and I joke, you know, we're both watch what we eat, but not anal about it. I mean, but we're probably, I don't know, more fit than maybe the average couple's our age. But we always will say, is it worth the calories? That's kind of say. And we'll always, like, if we take a bite of something, we'll kind of look each other and go.

If, like, if she takes about it, is it worth it? It's not worth it. It's not worth the calories, you know? So I just don't mess with that in between stuff. It's got to be all the way. Yeah. No, it doesn't have to be all the way. Like, that's just the way it is, man.

Like, it's like that for me with, like, every food. I'm like, if I'm going to eat it, I want to be good. Like, worth the calories actually matters. Like, if you're eating something you actually like, you're eating it because you're bored. what's the biggest thing that surprised you jimmy jimmy no bank jimmy with this whole experience and running the company like you know there's always surprises everybody's any entrepreneur you got your ups and downs the bus story is obviously great but like what's been like the 180 for maybe what you thought or expected the biggest surprise

there there's been two one of um that first one The first one was more fun. So, like, surprise in the good direction is we started the thing in March of 2017, right, out of our apartment, which is you're at that point, you're just like, I'm in an apartment selling cookie dough. How good could it possibly get? You fast forward all the way to March of 2018. That month, we made, like, 130 grand in profit, which was like, What is that happening? Whoa.

And really what had happened is also a lot of money for like a small, for like a kid, basically for someone that's like not all figured it out at all. Like you were doing everything wrong. We just nailed the product and nailed the brand. It was basically like the thing that surprised me was like, oh wait, you can make a lot happen when you have no clue what's going on, which is really great. If you just show up every day and like do the thing you know worse, don't complicate. It's like keep it really simple just do your thing and for us that was like build scoop shop do pop up events

build brand like and at the time it was like gather Facebook and Instagram followers and then drive them to Facebook events is ironically the thing that we were doing that's how we were making so much money it's how we were doing the whole thing And then you would do like press and you would do brand stuff and you would do Instagram ads and it would all Build and build into this thing where it was like you're driving people to a Facebook event this is all you're doing It was a solid strategy for like 2017, 18, 19. Works really well. And I blew my mind that like, this is so easy. Why do not more people do this?

And then I found out why more people don't do it. So like the thing that happens is you're going to get surprised like that. And then you're going to get surprised in the complete opposite direction, which is that I was surprised. It was really easy to make a million dollars. I was really, really surprised that it's incredibly hard to make $10 million. Like, if you're going to go from running like a small business, which is highly profitable, and like you have no overhead, like you've just blown this thing up and like it's working and you say to yourself, I'm going to scale.

Because this is the surprise, right? Like I was so locked in on the small thing that I was like, we can keep. kick it. And like me and Megan, I mean, we went to the moon quickly. Like, with a retail business, it's hard. But it was like all these different pieces coming together. And then we went to scale, even though it was through like franchising and then it was D to C and then it was grocery, whatever it's become. Every time we've gone to scale, it is blown my mind how hard it is to go from like, hey, we are like clicking. We have like an MVP. We have a thing that's working to like, that's sell 10 million dollars in that thing. And consumer.

that seems to be the number. It seems to be the thing where it's like a few people like fast 10 million in sales on like a small item that costs less than $20. Like you could break that down to like customers. But like it's a lot of customers that shit done. If it's $10, it's like you have to sell it to a million people a year. That's incredibly hard to do. In our punch jar, in retail is around $10 on shelf.

We make like five bucks on it. I'd have to sell two million pounds, two, two million pounds. two million pint jars of our cookie dough a year to break the $10 million market. It's very hard. But you realize that like there are all these things in between like the product and then getting to that point. Because in there, the pieces get complicated. Everything gets complicated.

Your life gets complicated. You overcomplicated. You get debt that you shouldn't have gotten. You raise money from people that suck. The whole thing blows up in your face. that has been the most surprising thing because I had this plan that I wrote down on a napkin I should you not to Megan where I was like we're going to build a brand we're going to open a store and then we're going to franchise it and sell like we're going to exit to P or whatever the whole like

between build store and like exit and sell it's like that was my it was step B to C that's step like B to Z dude there's so many things in the Yeah, there's a lot of steps in there. You left out. Yeah. Yeah, I left out all the other steps. I was like, oh, once the first store works, we're clicking and then we just have to scale. And I always find it fascinating that I'm like, everyone talks about like, I'm going to scale this, scale that.

No one is scaling jack shit. And it seems to me that it's just really hard as just how it is. And I mean, I find it fun because it's like a game. And I've tried to like equate this to like, a game that we're playing, why would you try to make it complicated or boring when it should be like interesting? So yeah, that's surprising. It's weird. I wish it wasn't like that. Surprising to get to one million and surprising how hard it is to get to 10. That's what I condense that down to. Both then. And it's true. It is. Scaling is harder than people recognize.

even when you've got it sort of figured out. Where are we headed, Jimmy? Like, you know, what's going on? I think you're in a capital raise maybe, doing some stuff, looking for some investment. We're in capital raise right now. Yeah. Yeah.

So we're in capital raise right now. We have a reg CF round on Start Engine going, which is great. That means that anyone out there, $250, you can buy shares with no big. Super cool opportunity. I'll tell you why. So plans for the company actually right now are over the last three years we had to grow slow. We had to get profitable. We had to build something that actually worked.

And that meant that we now have a 3PL, a manufacturing facility, cookie dough line where we make millions of pounds of cookie dough. All this stuff that's like been built as infrastructure for the brand. And so we're actually raising money so we can go out and acquire other brands. real pumped about this. I think that it's going to allow us to go out there and right now help a lot of people who have been in my shoes or are in our shoes, you know, a few years ago currently, figure out how to get themselves profitable inside of like the umbrella that we're created. So like the goal is to go out, find a brand. Maybe they're doing really well. They have a great product, a great brand.

They know what they're doing. But they just cannot make money, which seems to be the curse in consumer. and our goal is to fix that. Same way we fixed it for Nobakes. I busted my ass for the last three years, figuring out how do we get profitable and how do we make sure that we're doing the right things, spending money in the right places,

and then growing, because that's still incredibly key to being able to actually survive. We were able to do that. And now I'm like, okay, the first time that we've had the opportunity to raise, like, this is the way to go. And so we're raising that money, trying to go out there and make some acquisitions.

We have a really exciting one that's coming up that I wish had already happened so I can announce it. But I'll announce it soon. And that's going to be the first of many. Are we acquiring other cookie dough brands or is it broader than that? It's going to be slightly broader. So the first acquisition is actually another cookie dough brand. Okay. That probably not a lot of people have heard of.

They're actually much older than us. and get around a long time. It was a really, it's a very synergistic acquisition because we already make cookie dough. They sell cookie dough. But then in the future, the hope is like cookies, brownies, bars, all the things that we have the ability to make in our facility, we're going to go after those.

And like I said, like the thing that I'm telling investors, the thing that I'm telling our team, the thing that we're talking about every day, just between me and Megan, is like, we have to identify good brands, good brands, good, products. Like I said earlier, like on this podcast, that's everything. And it's going to become so much more important, especially flavor, taste. Like, do you actually like eating this stuff? Because there's no reason to like go buy like a $10 plant based better for you snack. If you

don't even like eating it and you're on trizepatide and you don't even want to eat anyways. Like, what are you doing? Go eat. Whatever the heck it is you want to eat. because you're not going to eat a lot of anyways. I think there's a huge opening for brands like that and a huge opening for people to like aggregate power like we're going to and then be able to build something that's profitable. Hopefully help a lot of other brand owners figure out how to thrive, which is our hope.

I got a new name. No breaks, no bake. No brakes, no bake. Let's go. You got to go fast. You got to keep. moving, got to keep growing. No breaks, no bake. That might be the title of the episode. It's fun, man. I love it.

The, uh, working everybody, fine. How many places are? We're, we're like, I'm sure distribution's crazy if you're selling that much, click you do. But where is, where are we locate? Where all, where's everywhere we can buy no bag? Good question. So you, you actually can buy it nationwide, um, just a few different places. So, So we ironically have kept their distribution. Our distribution is pretty big, but it's also small. You can compare to other brands. DoorDash, GoPuff are both really great, like, instant delivery options.

You guys order stuff on DoorDash or GoPuff, look up our brand. It's probably in your area. And then you'd find that through Dash Mart on DoorDash. And then the fresh market down in your neck of the woods, my neck of the woods, really anyone on the East Coast, you can find a fresh market. And then we're sold at a bunch of independent and natural grocery stores all over the East Coast. Some of the West Coast. You can go on the website and look it up.

We've a really great store finder, and it's very up to date. But my favorite stores to buy it in are, honestly my favorite place to buy it in general is the fresh market. Because I just like that store. I mean, the first grocery store that ever gets a chance on us. And I love that place. They have like, if you're like the type of person like me that likes to go grocery shop, and find you stuff. They do a really good job of that.

So I'm a real big fan of that store. Real big fan of Sprouts too. Hopefully they hear this and, you know, it works out this year. But yeah, we're trying to like keep our distribution very, it's similar to our whole strategy, very, very deep and very, like, definitely nationwide,

but like very deep on like channels we know work. So it's like that, that DoorDash location, that gopuff location, like that's where everyone's ordering. and I love that. And I love that they're having a good experience. So intentionally staying out of big box or big retailers. Yeah.

I mean, there's one big retailer that we might launch in this year that I like a lot. But we're trying to keep it to places where we think the brand belongs. Yep. Makes sense. Indulge. Where you indulge. Smart.

It's true, though. It is. I indulge when I go to the fresh market. I think of that as an indulgent place. So it aligns with the brand. Hey, look. On brand, on time, no breaks, no bake. Jimmy, where can everybody keep up with the brand specifically yourself and everything that you've got going with the capital raise?

Yeah, so you can find the capital raise, start engine, go on start engines website and just type in NoBaked. You'll find it. If you want to keep up with the brand, you can find us at NoBaked on Base. basically every social media, that's our handle. So Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, all the places you see stuff. And then if you want to follow me, follow me on X or LinkedIn. And you can see and hear all of the ridiculous stuff I say. And you might like that.

So I hope you come and follow me because Megan and I are both very transparent and partially insane. So I hope people like it. Yeah, I think you have to be to stick. it through together an entrepreneurial journey and just being onshore in general you gotta have a little bit of a crazy gene

I'm determined that you that's true yeah there's this small bit of crazy small bit of it Jimmy it's been fun I appreciate you coming on let's stay in touch brother for sure man

I'm pumped I let me on the show and I really enjoyed it so let's do it again yeah we'll stay in touch maybe be uh but I got to get We got to line up that delivery, though. I'm sitting here like, all I want to do is eat this can.

And it's like, it's not cookie dough, though, you know? So I'm going to work that out. I'm not at the fresh market. You got to get down to the fresh market. Oh, it's close. Yeah. I will. Hey, guys, you know where to find us.

Ryan is right.com. We'll find highlight clips from today's episode, the full YouTube video. And of course, all the links to no bank, no breaks, no bank. And Jimmy's Freeman, all his stuff. We appreciate Jimmy for coming on, and we appreciate you for making us, number one. We know you've got a choice, but you've got to keep it right here on right about now. This has been right about now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. Visit Ryanisright.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities.

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