Right About Now with Ryan Alford - 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.TAKEAWAYSEntrepreneurial 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. 

In our factory in Chattanooga, we produce anywhere from like 20 to 40 thousand pounds of cook and dough a month. Which is pretty insane. 20 to 40 thousand a month? Yeah. This is Right About Now with Ryan Alford, a Radcast Network production. We are the number one business show on the planet with over 1 million downloads a month. Taking the BS out of business for over six years and over 400 episodes.

You ready to start snapping necks and cashing 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 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. I get to talk business stories and cookie dough. Are you fucking kidding me? This is 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 maybe a vice to my waistline in summer. I'm trying to show that one 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. Like it there's 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 ate the dough before they 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 work out

or do whatever it's gonna do, I guess. But yeah, if you do it, you 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 it 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, 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 going to go for it, the best time to go for it is when you're like, sub

25. Like what do you have to lose? You don't have a car, you don't have a house, you've nothing. So just go for it. Worst thing that can happen, you file bankruptcy, you're back in like five years. It's fine. My wife would agree with that. I started when I was almost 40, late thirties and had all of those things, but still did it. Yeah. things, but still did it. I don't know if it makes me dumber. I waited. But 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... Look, we all have time to fail. It's not that you don't have time to fail, but it's usually less maybe responsibilities or other people relying on you, especially you and your wife being together or a couple, 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, 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, I 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're telling that little bit there, go listen to David Till sometime. He has a really funny, but nasty version of that. Like what happens when 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, obviously the nostalgia, I think you've already probably gave it a little precursor, but what in the

hell made you go down the cookie dare? It's a wild, 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's. She was like, dude, I just can't do this anymore. Can't go to the office, can't do the thing.

I'm going to sell my cookie to a farmer's market and like sell it online. I think I thing. I'm going to sell my cookie dough at the farmer's market and sell it online. I think I could probably make enough money to replace my income. I was like, great, do it. Who cares? 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 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 bills.

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 is 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, than 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 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 to the races. And it's one of those 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 product, 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 though, 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 doing in? I still eat it. I do a lot, I don't, I'm not the guy that like sits down and eats it. I'm the guy that like snacks eat it. I don't, I'm not the guy that sits down and eats it.

I'm the guy that like snacks on it. So like it's in the fridge. Yeah, oh god, that's me. I'd be snacking on that shit all day. I mean, like, ah, let's go, let's go up here. Yeah. Yeah, I put my glove on and get my, you know, whatever you gotta do to make it clean.

The room is fine, but, you know, clean. It's fine. Yeah, 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. So my 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'd be looking at dad like how does no bake 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 Me is so the base the base the first recipe is it is it chocolate chip cookie doughs? That's original Yeah, chocolate chips the original okay after that Megan made confetti and brownie And then we just took those three and like ran with it. We have a bunch of other flavors today We've done a bunch of crazy stuff, but like 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 sales, 70%

of our effort. It's, which is funny because it's like, you take all this time to do all this other stuff. When really there's this one thing, this one recipe, you made it a long time ago when you were a kid. And that's the thing that keeps going. It keeps like, oh, I'm paying. That's funny. But such is the way of life, man. That's the recipe. What was it like with those first years? And how long have we been at it? What year are we in? 2025. Been at it for eight years.

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 yeah, 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. Sure, but it says something about the relationship. It does. I also think it says something. You don't necessarily have to go start a business with your spouse to make this happen, but you could try it to make sure. But 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 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 started a business together,

what it did and what it forced us to do is be super transparent. Like, you gotta 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. 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 100 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, we talking. Why? Why do you not telling her, first of all, or like people wouldn't 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 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 twenties like doing this to like make all that happen. Like that doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't happen like normally. Or it 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 it's been fun and bad and everything in between.

It's good though, because if it works, having where it mutually benefits both of you pretty equally, if not, it should be, let's call it equally. And you have that built-in trust. And so when you have a partner, when they're not your partner in life and your partner in business, even 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 a good thing. I just want to get to the story of the bus down by the river.

I heard a school bus was somewhere involved in the story of No Bake. And we're talking with Jimmy, No Bake Freeman. I give everybody a pet nickname. That's yours now, Jimmy. I love that. Jimmy No BakeBake Freeman. That's, I give everybody a pet nickname. That's yours now, Jimmy. I love that. Jimmy No-Bake, I love it. Jimmy No-Bake.

Yeah. Yes. The bus like how he came into the picture because of the way we ran the business. So the first three years we ran No-Bake, 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 opened, till October 2019 we opened nine stores.

And then October 2019 leads right into March of 2020, which is the first time we had to switch up what the business did. And prior to that, 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, wife 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 have these situations, right? That makes that fucks 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 DTC. 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 DTC business. And then we went to raise money in the beginning of 2021. And right before that, during 2020, my pet projects during the pandemic, because I bought a school bus, and I was going to turn it into an RV. Cause 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. That was just like my, 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 read the four-hour workweek,

like really bought into the D2C thing, and we were like, we could work from anywhere. Then you're like, I'm going to be able to show up, and my office can be in 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 grand experiment,, 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 three PL work. We manufacture our own products. 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 that the C 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't achieve something like that, but you really got to be in the business. Me 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 a fun break if you're being, if we're being honest. 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've actually been fixing up golf carts in my spare time. I find it very, I grew up with a dad, he's like a master craftsman. Plays eight instruments, he's a master craftsman, can build anything. And I'm the idea, the writer guy, I'm right, I'm a digital, the writer guy. I'm right. I'm a digital, like true, like that guy. I'm not that 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 turn the screwdriver and know how to wire shit. Yeah. They're like, oh, that's cool. I love that. Yeah. They offer things. You're going to understand the other shit, but digital ads, Facebook ads, what? Branding? Let's stop. Yeah. 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, I'm sure you guys have evolved in this. At first, it's like, hey, we're making cookie dough, you can eat that shit, let's go, let's go. But now how has 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. 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's hard to do, and I think a lot of brands have to evolve that way. Because you're going to 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, buy it, try it.

And then what happens is you sell that to one, two, three million people. And those people help inform you what flavors should you make? What challenges are there around the product itself, that type of stuff? And then on the brand side, they start to inform you of what should I be marketing to? So originally, Nobake was very, I wouldn't call it neutral, but we were very neutral. We didn't want to offend anybody. 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 DDC until like having a packaged product, then it became obvious that there were 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, better for you, like worse for you, premium food, whatever.

That's when we started to really craft the brand around what our mission is today, which is to be chef driven, not lab driven. So we made the product in a soup shop, right? 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 really centered. People will come to me and be like, you're going to make a sugar-free cookie dough? Are you going to make this cookie dough, that cookie dough, 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 a premium indulgence. And we're going to stick to the chef driven thing, which 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. You know, 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, you know, I can get some ice cream. And I've pulled our employees straight up. I'm like, tell them where the ice cream shop is. It's right over there. Yeah, they should go to the ice cream shop. Why would you want to serve them? And they don't understand the concept of 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. 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 have,

like, I think grown slowly. And I wouldn't say struggled to do, but like, is really, really hard to blow up a consumer branch for that reason. You do have to like get in front of everyone. That's hard. But at the same time, like you don't want to make sure you're getting in front of the right people. And you're not trying to market to everyone. 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 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, but you've got to define it and stick to your guns, like you said. Yeah, I mean, you know, you're like, every business owner has 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. Oh, put it in my like, I'm never gonna do that box. Um, people really want to suggest stuff to you or they want to suggest stuff around your brand, 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 just go deep, stay true to yourself. Usually it works out. It's just kind of hard. Talking with Jimmy, No Bank Freeman. So Jimmy, I want to talk some numbers. I find fascination, we did a Valentine's Day and talked about how many billion of this, how many pounds of that, how much cookie dough we making? How many pounds of cookie dough we making a year or a week?

What's some numbers that would surprise and delight the audience? That's actually my favorite number to let focus on I made this original pitch deck a long time ago for this tangent where I was like, hey Like for investor in like I had one guy tell me it was stupid. I was it's not stupid. It's cool I was like we have made like seven elephants worth of cookie dough. It was just like, fuck, seven elephants. 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. Which is pretty insane. Yeah, pretty insane. 20 to 40,000 a month? Yeah. Holy shit. It's wild to see. It's been growing really fast.

500,000 pounds of cookie dough a year? Upwards? Is that what I'm doing? That's somewhere in that neighborhood? Yeah, this year we'll probably break like one, two million pounds, which is insane. Just use wild to see. It also smells really good. What's yeah. It just smelled like I would think that it would smell like, yeah, smell like cookies. Yeah. That's what it is. Yeah. It's that combo. Oh,

it's actually kind of funny if you go into our bakery, I mean, we, we do our best to keep it clean. The one thing that you have a really hard time actually like 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 this flour going in there, slopping everywhere, basically every time.

Yeah. You're like, ah, we're going to lose like 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 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'm wondering if you could fit inside of it. That's a good question. You might be able to I'm six five You're pretty you're pretty you'd have to crouch down. Yeah, but you can fit inside of it. That's a good question. You might be able to. I'm six five. You're pretty, you're pretty good. You'd have to crouch down.

Yeah. But you can fit in. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. All right. So I can get in there and just start going to town. You know, I want to, I want to fres my own personal batch. Yeah.

Like I'd like to make a batch of videos. I'd never get out of that. Swim in it. Exactly. I thought I'd be thinking about like, ah, 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, I'll pitch investors now and they actually ask me about GLP-1 agonists 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 that's

where I'm at. I'm like, if I'm gonna 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 want it to be that indulgence, like you said, where it's like, I'm gonna eat this good. Like you wanted to be that indulgence, like you said, where it's 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, how the hell. 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 couples our age. But we always will say, is it worth the calories? That's kind of the thing. And we'll always like, we take a bite of something, we'll kind of look at each other and go, if like, if she takes a bite, 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 just has 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 it to be good. Like worth the calories actually matters. Like if you eating something you actually like, you used to 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 entrepreneurs, you got the ups and downs, the bus story is obviously great. But like,

what's been like the 180 for maybe what you thought are expected? The biggest surprise? There there been one of the 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? Whoa. And really what happened is actually a lot of money for like a small fruit, like a kid, basically for someone that's like, not all figured it out at all. You're doing everything wrong. We just nailed the product and nailed the brand. Um, 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, works, don't

complicate it, keep it really simple. Just do your thing. And for us, that was like build Scoop Shop, do pop-up events, build brand. Like 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 you 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. You're very, 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 gonna get surprised like that. And then you're gonna 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. Cause this is the surprise, right? Like I was so locked in on the small thing that I was like, we can kick it. And like me and Megan, I mean, we went to the moon quickly. Like even with a retail business, it's hard, but it was like all these different pieces coming together. And then we went with the scale, even though it was through like franchising

and then it was DTC and then it was grocery, whatever it's become. Every time we've gone to scale, it has blown my mind how hard it is to go from like, hey, we were like clicking, we have like an MVP, we have a thing that's working, to like, let's sell $10 million of that thing like an MVP, we have a thing that's working to like, let's sell $10 million of that thing.

In consumer, that seems to be the number. It seems to be the thing where it's like, if you could like fast 10 million 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 on. If it's $10, it's a gift to sell it to a million people a year.

That's incredibly gift to sell it to a million people a year. That's incredibly hard to do. In our pint jar in retail is around $10 on shelf. We make like five bucks on it. I'd have to sell 2 million pounds, 2 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 is in there, the pieces get complicated. Everything gets complicated. Your life gets complicated. You overcomplicate it, you get debt that you shouldn't have gotten. You raise money from people that suck. The whole thing blows up in your face. And 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. The step like B to Z dude. There's a lot of steps in there. You left out. 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. That's 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 tens of it surprising To get to 1 million and surprising how hard it is to get to 10 That's what I condensed that down to both million and surprising how hard it is to get to 10. That's what I condensed that down to. 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? What's going on? I think you're in a capital raise maybe, doing some stuff, looking for some investment. Where are we at? Yeah.

Yeah. So we're in a capital raise right now. We have a REG CF round on start engine going, which is great. That means that anyone out there, 250 bucks, you can buy shares with no bids. 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, a cookie dough line where we make millions of pounds of cookie dough, all this stuff that's 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 a few years ago currently, figure out how to get themselves profitable inside of like the umbrella that we're creating. So like the goal is to go out, find a brand, maybe they're doing really well, they have a great product, 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 Novix. 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,, we were able to do that. And now I'm like, okay, the first time that we've had the opportunity to raise, 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. Super, super exciting. Are we acquiring other cookie dough brands or is it broader than that?

It's going to be slightly broader. The first acquisition is actually another cookie dough brand that probably not a lot of people have heard of. They're actually much older than us and in around a long time. It was 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 like between me and Megan, is like, we have to identify 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? Like, cause 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 tri-zepatide 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. Maybe because you're not going to eat a lot anyways. Like I think, I think there's a huge opening for brands like that and a huge opening for people to 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 breaks, no bake. Let's go. You got to go fast. You got to keep go. You got to go fast. You got to keep moving. You got to keep growing. No brakes, no bake. That might be the title of the episode. It's fun, man.

I love it. Where can everybody find... How many places are we? We're like, I'm sure distribution's crazy if you're selling that much cookie dough, but where is, where are we located? Where's everywhere we can buy No Bag? Good question.

So you actually can buy it nationwide, just in a few different places. So we ironically have kept their distribution, our distribution is pretty big, but it's also small compared to other brands. Go 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, and you'd find that through Dashmart 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 us at the fresh market. And then we're sold at a bunch of independent and natural grocery stores all over the East Coast, some on the West Coast,

you can go on the website and look it up. We have a really great store finder, and it's very up to date. But my favorite stores to buy it in are, or honestly my favorite place to buy it in general is the fresh market Market because I just like that store. They're the first grocery store that ever took a chance on us and I love that place. They have like, if you're the type of person like me that likes to go grocery shopping

and find new 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 it works out this year. But yeah, we're trying to keep our distribution very, it's similar to our whole strategy. Very, very deep and very, definitely nationwide, but very deep on channels we know work. So it's like that DoorDash location, that GoPuff location, 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 I 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 is start engine, go on start engines website and just type in no baked. You'll find it. Do you want to keep up with the brands? You can find us at NoBait on 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 as an entrepreneurial journey and just be an entrepreneur in general. You gotta have a little bit of a crazy gene. I'm determined that that's true. Yeah, there's a small bit of a small bit of Jimmy has been fun. I appreciate you coming on. Let's stay in touch, brother. For sure, man. I'm pumped. I love me on the show and I really enjoyed it. So let's do it again.

Yeah, we'll stay in touch. Maybe it would be, 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. Now that it's fresh market. You got to get down to the fresh. Oh, it's close.

Yeah. I will. Hey guys, you know where to find us. Ryanisright.com. We'll find highlight clips from today's episode the full YouTube video and of course all the links to no bake No breaks no bake And Jimmy's Freeman all his stuff We appreciate her Jimmy for coming on and we appreciate you for making us number one

We know you've got a choice, but you got to keep it right here on Right About Now. This has been Right About Now with Ryan Ulford, a Radcast Network production. Visit RyanIsRight.com for full audio and video versions of the show or to inquire about sponsorship opportunities. Thanks for listening.