Cullen Gilchrist
Hello, I'm Cullen Gilchrist CEO and Founder of Union Kitchen. And this is Food Founders stories from launch to scale. In this episode, we speak with Samy Kobrosly, Founder and Kevin Blesy, CEO of Snacklins. Samy, a former radio personality and Chef became obsessed with idea of a vegan pork rind. What started as a bar bet in 2016, has turned into a national snack food craze. In October 2019, Samy bolted through the doors of Shark Tank and secured a deal with Mark Cuban. Since then Snacklins has grown all over the country, but remains a focus team committed to making delicious healthy snacks that people love. Well, why don't we just start with the introduction of beyond what you did, which is great, but will you introduce yourself and yourself Kevin and a little bit about Snacklins?
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah, so I'm Samy Kobrosly I am the first employee of Snacklins, aka the founder, I guess. And yeah, I guess you know, we'll probably talk about this later, but this is probably the best bar bet that has ever happened to us because someone bet me to make a vegan pork rind. And here I am today talking with you guys all about Snacklins.
Kevin Blesy
I'm Kevin Blesy, CEO of Snacklins, came on board with Samy and team going on year and a half, two years ago, I was in a lot of boring corporate jobs around business for most of my career and got more into the restaurant and food scene and saw a good product and a really exciting opportunity with Samy and came on board to grow the ship.
Cullen Gilchrist
Awesome, so Samy, you found the business when?
Samy Kobrosly
2015, 2016 it was a bar bet. So the rough dates a little bit fuzzy but…
Cullen Gilchrist
And then so Kevin, you joined a year and a half ago.
Kevin Blesy
Yep.
Cullen Gilchrist
Gotcha. And so what do you guys? What are your roles now, what you guys are doing?
Samy Kobrosly
I feel like I'm good at just making snacks, so I stick with the product development. I gave myself a made up officer role as Chief Snack Bagger. But really I just I focus on product development and really, you know, making sure that we can manufacture and…
Cullen Gilchrist
CSB?
Samy Kobrosly
Manufacturing, yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist
CSBO or CSB?
Samy Kobrosly
CSBO.
Cullen Gilchrist
Good. All right, Kevin?
Kevin Blesy
It depends on the day, which is kind of the nature of business of this is a little bit everything, which is the fun part. You know, we have a team outside of Samy myself, that handles a lot of operations and marketing. I handle a lot of, you know, the finance and accounting, which is the boring stuff, but the stuff you need to keep the business moving forward and a little bit of sales, a little bit manufacturing and just more than anything setting targets and objectives and keeping everyone growing the same direction.
Cullen Gilchrist
Yeah, I think that's fascinating. That's what I do. That, and I talk to you guys, and try to be cool, Samy. So, Samy, I know you're dying to tell us.
Samy Kobrosly
Let me tell you.
Cullen Gilchrist
How started the business. Tell us about the bar bet.
Samy Kobrosly
Let me tell you something. I’m Muslim, right? We don't eat pork, because you know, Muslims. It's like, how do you go to hell for that, right? And so as a joke, buddy of mine asked me to make a vegan pork rind. And I was like, well, at that point, I had kind of a reputation in the DC food scene for just making weird stuff. As I staged at a bunch of different restaurants. And I said, you know what? I might as well. I could probably figure this out. And so I tinkered. I worked on everything. I actually ate a pork rind. So looks like I'm going to hell, but I ate a pork rind.
Cullen Gilchrist
First time?
Samy Kobrosly
First time I ever had a pork rind. Yeah, I hadn't had it beforehand. Me being a Muslim, Pig skins didn’t sound delicious to me. But that's another that's its own separate thing. Long story short, bar bet worked out really well. We one day created this kind of aha moment, oh my gosh, they puffed up and they were delicious. And you know, we just started kind of snowball selling them, right? Like it was more or less one of those, hey, a friend of ours, like, this is really good. You should come to our brewery this weekend. And we said, Yeah, so we showed it to the brewery to get free beer. It's like giving out Snacklins. Next thing you know, someone from the store was like, hey, you guys put this in a bag. Nutritional labels, we could probably sell it. We said, Oh man. Awesome. Okay, cool. And it just kind of snowballed since then. But I think part of that snowballing, we've realized that it wasn't the bar bet of the vegan pork rind, which is why people liked it so much. It's because it's a crunchy, delicious, salty snack that's low in calories. It's made of like real stuff. A six year old can pronounce the ingredients. And I think that's just kind of, you know, where it started to where we are now.
Cullen Gilchrist
Where is it. You were in radio before? Can you tell us a little bit about that. Did you want to do like a food business? Was that your plan? Or did you just get back into it?
Samy Kobrosly
I don’t know, after like 10 years in radio, after Snoop Dogg gives you marijuana and Justin Bieber takes a selfie with you and he's like 14 years old, you've kind of hit your peak, right? Like I don't really have anything else to do in the radio. So I think I was just looking for something else. And honestly, like food really intrigued me. I think that if you had asked me six years ago, I probably wanted to be in a restaurant cooking, right? But I think that you know, this just kind of stumbled on and I realized that it kind of works out. People know my mom worked in food manufacturing right? For like, 30 years and so it's kind of full circle to me going back and like, crap, I'm in a food manufacturing facility all over again. So yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist
Our parents are probably disappointed. Kevin did you? Did you want to be in food? Or did this just kind of meandered here as well because you were doing other stuff?
Kevin Blesy
Yeah. I was, like I said, I was kind of in the consulting investing worlds early on, which is great kind of business training. But you know, at a certain point, I like to be working with companies that make things and employ people as opposed to you know, your output being service and slides and Excel, which I still do a fair amount of. No, but yeah, after doing those things I actually landed at & pizza. So spent three years there kind of building that, you know, the empire that's now 40 or 50 stores.
Cullen Gilchrist
And that did not dissuade you?
Kevin Blesy
No, I mean there's pros and cons, right? I think the biggest things are again, just working in a job that you can see the output, and you can really grow it from a people perspective, which is exciting. And also just having more diversity of backgrounds and experiences on a team you know? Restaurants or a chain restaurant, you're talking about operations, marketing and finance and accounting. And, you know, all those people have very different backgrounds working together, which can be good, can be frustrating, but overall, I think is a lot more interesting day to day. And yeah, then just kind of connected through shared connections with our investors a year and a half ago, wasn't looking to get out of restaurants necessarily, we were doing cool things. But it's a new fun opportunity, sort of similar, sort of different.
Cullen Gilchrist
So I always say this, I was drawn to food because it was real and you're producing things and I was less interested in other industries and what you're talking about, because it was not as tangible. And that's what I loved about the manufacturing, hiring people, the engagement with those people, then people eat it, you know, and they feel a certain way. And I think it's powerful all the way around. That makes me feel good. And it makes you guys feel good. So in getting started with the business, the first thing you had to do was make the product of course, right? So you made it, but then then you’ve got to get some to buy it. So you sold it. The question I like to ask is like, what was the first sale, like when someone actually paid you money for it?
Samy Kobrosly
Oh it was at the brewery. That's why we knew it was like it was like, that following weekend.
Cullen Gilchrist
What brewery?
Samy Kobrosly
Three Stars brewery in DC. They'd invited us out for like some Christmas market. They had buddies with them. They're like, hey, come on by, get some free beer, give us your pork rinds. And we showed up I think that's when we realized that because I think, I guess you’re talking about that first sale. That was exclusively because it was an oddity item. We were a local brand at some brewery selling vegan pork rinds. Like, everyone that was drunk wanted to try it. Right. So like, that was obvious. I think that moving forward, that vegan pork rind shtick really, it was a good hook. You know what I mean? Like it hooked people because they're like, oh, wow, we have heard of everything else. I don't know how many other cookie brands we can see but like holy crap, I’ve never seen this. That hooked them in and then I think what what really kind of, that's what got like the Yes Organics of the world to pick us up. Right? The vegan pork rind.
Cullen Gilchrist
Were they your first store?
Samy Kobrosly
Technically, it was, it was like kind of mix. We were at like a couple juice bars and some locals stores at the same time. But Yes, was gonna be like, Yes, was when I finally was like, oh, crap. It's like, we need help. But we actually need to do this. I can't just do this one time every week. You know, my night off, like I actually need to do this with them. You realize just because they even came to us like, this is selling a lot better than we thought a vegan pork rind would. And it was because the audience was seeing the vegan pork rind, but they were turning the bag over and they were buying it because low in calories and it was simple ingredients. And that's kind of how we realized like, oh, wow, that's what's reeling them in. Being a pork rind might be the hook, but really the reason they're buying, they're coming back is because it's low in calories. And it's like simple, fresh ingredients. So that's kind of how that first sale to the second sale kind of evolved.
Cullen Gilchrist
To the third. Yeah, though. Very cool.
Samy Kobrosly
Now we're at sale number 4. So we've sold 4 bags of chips.
Cullen Gilchrist
How many? How many stores do you sell into right now?
Kevin Blesy
Great question.
Cullen Gilchrist
You're not a math guy.
Kevin Blesy
Plus or minus, so we'll call it 1000.
Cullen Gilchrist
Okay! And that's pretty good. Four digits. Yeah.
Samy Kobrosly
Not bad. Not bad compared to the brewery.
Cullen Gilchrist
That's fantastic growth. So we are at the Snacktory right now. This is where you guys are manufacturing and running the office growing the business. Why did you guys decide to to open a factory and to manufacture this product?
Samy Kobrosly
Honestly, it came to the fact that I did what everyone else does. You get to a certain point that you're like, I can't make this myself anymore. I need to find a co-manufacturer or help. Upon looking with everyone and talking to a handful of them I realized that the fresh ingredients was what was going to hold us back. Back then no one was making chips using fresh ingredients like outside of a potato chip. Nothing else is really thrown in there raw or used in its raw state to make. They're using a powder version.
Cullen Gilchrist
In the big co-manufacturing world?
Samy Kobrosly
Any puff, any healthy snack you can think of, and it says it’s made with peas, it's pea powder. Don't let them lie to you, right?
Kevin Blesy
I never.
Samy Kobrosly
We were using fresh ingredients. And so that kind of hit me, that was like, wow, we will never find someone to make this for me so it's either do or die. And I either had to figure out a way to make more pellets, which I mean, Cullen can back me up on this one. I literally started YouTubing, Googling anything I could. I was talking to like 20 or 30 companies in China and India at any given time, just to figure out what I needed. I end up going to China, not really having an idea. Like I knew I needed these kind of machines, I didn't even know if they would work. And I literally brought a suitcase filled with like, seasoning, you know what I mean? And I showed up in China and was like, started testing on all these different machines, we finally found like a process which semi worked, and then we had to modify it. And so yeah, it was a it was, we didn't manufacture because it made us feel good we manufactured out of necessity. I guess, you know, but now in hindsight, I mean, you look over the past year, right. And when other people that we've worked with a co-packer is when they were the small guy, they all got cut out, you know, and they were going months of out of stock, just because they didn't make anything themselves. Like, we make everything up until it's fried, season, and bagged. Seasoning is easy, we do everything else here. And so when we talk to these guys, like, wow, there is no hold on, we can just be like, find us some time on your line, we got the seasoning for you. We've already made all the pellets, you know, here you go.
Cullen Gilchrist
Yeah, Kevin consulting background, been here a year and a half. I'm sure you've looked at, you know, the pros and cons of manufacturing, you know, with the stuff Samy said, does that resonate with what you're learning and what you had learned before?
Kevin Blesy
Yeah, I sort of went through the same process after the fact because I started thinking the same thing. Okay, there has to be someone who can do this at scale better than us, cheaper than us. And I've had not as many conversations as you did years ago. But enough with these guys where they just kind of look the other way, when you're saying "Oh, wait, there's there's fresh mushrooms or fresh vegetables. It's not something we really do." So that was just one aspect of it. The others is the control aspect. And you know, down the line, if you want to keep growing this business and have it look attractive to outside investment, or someday there's something strategically valuable about the fact that we're the only ones doing it this way, and sure, someone can reverse engineer pretty much any product and they'll try, but it'll take a while. But it's not as easy as oh, just go find the co-manufacturing that Snacklins is using, we'll just go do that, put a different label on it. So I think there's there's huge value to that as well. When it comes to these headaches. I mean, it's more capital intensive. You're running a manufacturing plant day to day, it's not on autopilot. We don't just run a brand. We think there's strategic value to your team.
Samy Kobrosly
Two engineers in the other room who worked for major, I mean, major, major snack brands, that are looking at a live being like... I've never seen anything like this. How does this, like… We've been working since 7am. So if I swear a lot, that's why .
Cullen Gilchrist
And that's your advantage!
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah. But no. And honestly, I think part of it too, is if you go out there and you buy, well, different varieties of the same snack, right? They're all going to taste the same. They're all going to taste bland, and then you try a Snacklin and you’re like, wait, this tastes different. That's because we own it from the beginning to the end, you know? And if you wonder why your stuff tastes like everyone else's, it's because you're using the same manufacturer as everyone else.
Cullen Gilchrist
There's a theme I kind of keep hearing is I was talking to Luis from Caribe Juice yesterday, he built a factory down in the Dominican Republic. And the conversation was like, that was really hard. And I was talking about yeah, like, we built Union Kitchen, which you know, has stores and distribution, and then the Kitchen and all this other crap. And you know, it was really hard. And I, the the conversation comes around to, and that's why we feel really good about this business. Because it's really hard. We built something, you know, that gives us advantage. It's a defensible advantage. It's challenging for kind of a corporation just to come running in and take that, and take that. And I think that's huge. Like you guys have that, which is pretty cool. So anyways, you have a team, which I think teams are advantages. I think Union Kitchen has a great team. I think Snacklins has a great team, we get to work on stuff together, which is fun. What, what is the team? How do you guys structure it? So you know, you've got you guys, you know, somewhere up here or here or there.
Samy Kobrosly
I'm here. I'm below the camera.
Kevin Blesy
Pedro and Sylvia are up here.
Samy Kobrosly
I'm like, way down here.
Kevin Blesy
We hang out here.
Cullen Gilchrist
Yes. So what how many people on our team?
Kevin Blesy
So we have about five or six in corporate administrative, computer roles like myself, and more like 12 or 15 on the production staff which actually make the product, the important part. I mean, Samy can talk to the relationships there and how we've grown the production staff over time, but on the, on the admin or the corporate side, you know, we keep it pretty tight. And that's the, again, not to sound too businessy. But that's the exciting thing about scaling a business like this, we've had the same people on board. I'm the newest guy, like, we’ve had the same people for two plus years. And, sure, we're gonna add resources over time as we grow. But I still think we could double, triple the business this year, which after doing it last year itself, that same team, like there's a lot of leverage of, you know, our base of people. You don't need double the people to double the revenue. But that's kind of within the corporate side. And then on the production side, it's, you know, it's grown over time, and it's definitely evolved. But we have those strong leaders on top.
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah you got to care of your people, man, you got to take care of people, like you've walked through there right now. And if you saw somebody, right? At Union Kitchen, and we had like, four or five employees, like, four of those people still work with us today, you know what I mean? And so I think part of just like taking care of the people around you, and really, you know, understanding like they, I mean, if I have someone who has to be there at 6am, I'll be here at 6am too, you know, and just being that go getter.
Cullen Gilchrist
I think a neat thing about what you guys have done, is obviously you are an investor in this business, right? You're an investor in this business, and that you own part of the business and the people you're talking about that are producing the product, some of them are as well.
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah, I think I didn't. Yeah, I mean, I look at it this way. I think I just gave this quote to somebody else. I'm gonna rip it off again.
Cullen Gilchrist
Good. We'll use it.
Samy Kobrosly
Use it again. Come up for them. That's how you get as they grew with us. We knew we had to go with that. You know, I mean, I look at it like a team, right? Like, when the Lakers won the champ. I don't know anything about sports. So there's anything about sports, but alright with this the Lakers won the championship, okay, they didn't give just LeBron the ring. Everyone got a ring. Even the person that plays the mascot as a full time employee got a ring, like the secretary who answers, like she got a ring, right? Like, because it takes a whole team and organization to get to that championship. I look at it that way. You know what I mean? Like it's taking a lot more like, yes, I may have been the first idiot to agree to do this for a living, but like, there was a bunch of other people that sacrifice and join us too and I think that we're all equal in this union.
Cullen Gilchrist
Future episodes of this. I want to do one on just to you in China.
Samy Kobrosly
I got hit by a car twice in one night in China after a bender on my last day, it was good. I'll tell you I met a lot of new people because they picked me up and they helped me walk to the next bar. And then I hung out with them for the night.
Kevin Blesy
An allegory.
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah. And then I got, then I, you know, whatever.
Cullen Gilchrist
Yeah, another another day. And another would be other people on the team. We have some good characters here.
Kevin Blesy
Great characters.
Samy Kobrosly
Just remind me, I'll make sure I still have the sweater too, with a tire mark on it. So it's a reminder.
Cullen Gilchrist
You should frame it now you get the mic. The museum glass?
Samy Kobrosly
Mm hmm. What was this? Well, let me tell you guys, when someone tells you to get on a conference call at 4pm US time when you're in China, would not recommend trying to stay up and party until it happens.
Cullen Gilchrist
All right. So thinking of things we recommend you guys have a team, you have a great team, you've kind of gone through some of the things that you guys like doing quick. One thing you recommend for building a team and then one thing you don't recommend, so something that maybe you got wrong and you learn from. Hopefully you learn from.
Samy Kobrosly
Don't hire your friends or your family. Don't hire friends, like straight up.
Cullen Gilchrist
I fired my brother three times.
Samy Kobrosly
We're an anomaly here, right, as in the production staff seems to be pretty well connected, and they somehow work. But in my personal opinion, anytime I've had any friend of mine, it's like, yo, man, I want to come work for Snacklins, we've gotten to a point which I go get the hell out of here. And so it's like, don't do that. Like that's my one thing is just don't hire for like, because at that point you have a bias it really should be going in not saying, okay, I feel like we work well together. It should be what do they offer? Like, as weird as it sounds, Pedro and Sylvia have done so successfully? Because they offered a bunch of skills that I did not offer whatsoever.
Cullen Gilchrist
If Pedro and Sylvia are on the production side. Yeah, they're the first employees?
Samy Kobrosly
Sylvia was number two. I think Pedro was number four. Yeah. But that's, like, you know, like, you want to fill in the gap of something you can’t do. So I kind of explained people this, like your job as an entrepreneur is great, you have a great snack. Now your job is to learn all of the packaging in the boxes, and you learn all that until you sell enough snacks, that everything that you learn, you hire someone else to do that. And then you go start learning something new. You know what I mean?
Kevin Blesy
Exactly. It's similar to that, don't bring anyone on the team who wouldn't do any job that is necessary, especially at this scale. I mean, there can't be any ego or living above, above any tasks. It just doesn't work. And that doesn't fly here. And everyone we have who's on marketing or production or sales or ops, they'll go do anything else, you know, it's go drive three hours to go somewhere in Pennsylvania, go get yuca. Or everyone get here to offload these pallets and repack them because they have to go out tomorrow, everyone will drop a hat and do it. And that's a pretty, I think, a pretty easy thing to suss out, and interviewing new people, meeting new people to see that they actually fit with your team, I think you can, based on their past experiences and how they talk about what they want to do, I think you can get a read on them pretty quickly.
Cullen Gilchrist
Do you make them unload a truck when you interview them?
Kevin Blesy
I mean, I still remember I mean, Jeremy does a lot of our marketing, e-commerce, and he runs that pallet jack a lot better than I did. When we were at an angry truck driver here like a year and a half ago, like my second week, and I was like, I'm not as good at this. He's like, get out of the way and just like started doing it. So everyone can do it.
Cullen Gilchrist
So we talked about your first sale before, but something I'm really interested in is what it was, like, you know, the first year or so selling, what were the things that you were doing, to get your product into from one store to 30 to 50.
Samy Kobrosly
I think that here when you have zero customers, like go to one customer is huge, right? When you go from one customer to like 30 too that's, that's huge, right? And so as simple as that was, was it was me like, I knew these stores are selling our products. So I would go into the store and I would have some samples, I'd find the people that work there like yo, let's try this. I say oh I brought the bags for you guys. It's so good. You're gonna love it. They try it. They tell one person like, wow, that doubled our sales in that store because they told one person like, wow, that was crazy. And that kind of just got me in the habit of especially like, more, I guess like I'd still do it now. But with COVID is you're not in any social situations. But for expos if we're at a Food Show, like I'm notoriously known for I walk around with a backpack. And that backpack is stuffed with Snacklins like so if I meet anyone and they start talking to Oh, here you go, man here's a bag of chips, you know what I mean? Just having that available, because even though it may not have turned into like an immediate Wow, that worked out like those people knew about us, you know, like, Giant had to get our product at some point, it may have taken up, you know, may have taken two years for us to finally get big enough to get in there. But like they knew about it, you know, and I think just being that gung ho like they only like salespeople are a weird breed. And I don't think I'm that person. But at least I took the one posit thing was like they're willing to talk and sell their product. And me but being an if you're not willing to do that, then you don't know who you're going to miss.
Cullen Gilchrist
Well, you're not going to sell.
Samy Kobrosly
You're just not going to sell.
Cullen Gilchrist
if you don't sell, we don't get to have this conversation. So you guys are now kind of sharing some of the sales responsibilities. And there's other folks involved in that across the company. You're in 1000 stores, your goal is, you know, I wrote down 10,000. Eventually 2021 you two will happen. It's coming. How do you think about sales now, from your perspective, Kevin?
Kevin Blesy
Yeah I think it's funny because I think you hear this a lot around your account. And some people get really excited and Ammonite door count. But the other truism that you hear from folks who have done it well over time is actually growing velocities in those doors, right, you'd rather have 100, stores selling 10 units a week and 1000 stores selling one because in the final velocity, right. So just for us, it's how many bags per flavor per store per week we're selling. And that's pretty much the be all end all metric for a buyer at a retail store. And that's all they're gonna do is look at how you're doing and the places you're currently at. Because for them, it's all about real estate, they have four feet, they want as many dollars running through that four feet a week as possible. They're going to get the margin they get regardless, it's really how quickly Are you selling that product. And so focusing on if you have 100 stores, really running through product because you have the right promotional calendar set up, you have the right merchandising in the store, you're focusing on just getting people to try it and repeat and come back and come back. So sometimes folks get really excited about kind of spray and pray get me in any doors you want. But if you look back a year later, you're in 5000 doors and your velocities are crap, your business is probably just going away in the next year or two. So we're really focused on kind of regional infill Mid Atlantic Northeast East Coast, getting into kind of the the natural chains and the more progressive conventional chains that we know we should be in and really moving velocities because it really is that stepping stone of you are at Yes, and you have five or 10 stores and you really well. And you're going to Mom's, and you're going to Whole Foods Mid Atlantic, and you're going to Wegmans and you're going to Giant, because again, you need to show this success to go to the next rung in the ladder. You can't just go up four levels, and you'll take those calls if they opportunistically come along, but that's really how we focus on and then resourcing against that is it's an evolving thing. I mean, no one has a silver bullet answer for it. You know, we've tried internal resources. We also lean on brokers in some scenarios. So I think it's a hodgepodge. And you kind of see what works and we're gonna keep evolving to see you know, what partners and resources will help us achieve that plan.
Cullen Gilchrist
So far, I'm thinking have a great product. Yep. And velocity is kind of the number one metric that we're looking at, followed by stores. You know, it's it's this is a, this is a math problem, but starts with velocity. Awesome. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense to me if people need to want it again and again and again. And that's what velocity is. It's not one time buyers, it's, I don't know, 50 time buyers.
Samy Kobrosly
I mean, we all have that jar of pickled corn or whatever that we bought at some farmers market that sits in the back of our fridge like
Cullen Gilchrist
Chow Chow.
Samy Kobrosly
Chow Chow, great example. He bought it that one time, you never touched it, and then you're not going to go back and buy it again. And I bet that you went back to that same story when you guys got that child show. They go, No, no one else bought it. Either. You bought it one time, you never came back? Yeah, it's no different than your fridge. That's it. People run their stores, you know.
Kevin Blesy
When you're trying to get somewhere new, again, it's a real estate game, the shelves are already full. So why are you better than this other bag of chips. Like it's not only Oh, we're going to turn faster, but we're going to grow with you. We're going to have more flavors, those guys aren't as good. It's not that antagonistic. But you kind of have to make the case with why why do I have to kick out this to put you in there?
Cullen Gilchrist
Absolutely. dollars, their business, they need to make money. So dollars, leads me into the next thing, which which I think is similar to sales. But the idea of, you have to capitalize the business, you know, to do all these things, to grow these things to go to China to buy equipment, there needs to be some cash, right? And there's different amounts at different times. So Kevin, you've been here for a year and a half, and there's been, you know, money, capital that you've been working on. And then Samy, I mean, you were four years ago or so trying to figure out what you're going to do to keep the business growing, to invest in machinery to invest in people to pay your rent. How were you thinking about raising money? Three, four years ago?
Samy Kobrosly
Honestly, at that point, we were just we're in survival mode. Like you know, I think, I think, which is the one piece of advice that I think a lot people are like well, we're not ready yet, like, but you should start prepping yourself to get ready because I wasn't ready yet. And then when I finally was ready, I was already so far behind. You know what I mean? And so I think that you're one of the best things. I always tell people this, like when people ask me about Union Kitchen, I always tell him that. Yeah, well, they made me have Board Meetings, they made me put down minutes, they made me set up an actual structure. Like they made me keep track of the basic stuff. I wasn't doing any of that. Even though that's like, now comparatively speaking, Kevin would laugh at that. And he was like, Oh, my God, that's horrible. But like, then it was at least enough to get us. So we looked like a legit business, that when we didn't need the capital, it wasn't us trying to put together pitch decks trying to Oh, crap, I haven't kept track of this for so many months. I've done this for so many months. Like, you have to act like, you know, you have to act like you belong there right?
Cullen Gilchrist
Yeah, absolutely. So you were able to get some money in and then kind of build the business. And open up this factory, with the with some of that capital, which is pretty sweet. And I think a fair amount of blood, sweat, tears, blood, mostly,
Samy Kobrosly
Mostly blood.
Cullen Gilchrist
We're sitting in it. Kevin, you, as a CEO of the company are of course, you know, inner goal, and I think largely in charge of looking at raising capital. In terms of raising capital for the future of the business. One, is that even mildly true, too. Are you thinking about that?
Kevin Blesy
It's true in terms of, you know, making numbers ticking time. But yeah, it's the product is the thing that that moves us board, how we're thinking about it. I mean, I think there's a lot of flavors to this in CPG. You'll see all the headlines of company raises $10 million, $20 million and is at a very small scale. And there are some folks who just that's a high wire act that some people do, and some do it really successfully, right? They raised $25 million at some sky high valuation, and they're doing $4 million in sales. But then they go in, they basically buy 50 $100 million in sales, and they cash out in three years. That doesn't usually happen. It doesn't happen often. But it's a route that a lot of people take, I say we're a little bit more measured in terms of this capital is going to get us hopefully, to this point. And you know, what we've spent the last two years doing is getting the fundamentals right, which is right sizing the unit economics of this product. Turns out you have to sell the product for more than it costs to make it then it sounds easy, but it's really, you know, a pretty challenging thing to do when you're trying to price a product competitively in a marketplace that's filled with billion dollar companies. So like to think we've we're kind of at that point now but it takes a lot of blood sweat and tears and capital and trying things and making mistakes to get there. So you know, we were really focused on the fundamentals first and still are and we're going to see you know what capital we really need to hit, you know, some milestone or series of milestones, be it sales profitability team and, you know, maybe really make the plans appropriately against that so that we're not massively deluding ourselves, we're kind of growing into the valuations that we set out there and get to a point where, you know, you don't need as much external funding and you're getting things like lines of credit and bank debt and non dilutive capital, because you've been smart, and thoughtful about growing the business kind of one step at a time. We don't want it to take 25 years to get to where we want to be. But yeah, there's there's a middle ground there too, which I think we're doing decently well.
Cullen Gilchrist
I think you're doing well. All right, cool. So I have one question I'd like to end with, and it's not one, it's two questions, but I'm gonna say it in one breath. What is the biggest win that you've had? And what's the biggest loss that you've had? You guys can answer this together in unison, or separately.
Samy Kobrosly
I would say, my biggest win personally is because, I guess here my biggest one, if you'd have asked me that, like six months ago, would have been way different than it is now. My biggest one is on and so usually my most recent one is, because I feel like that's the biggest one. And to me, that's Giant, like, I have like Giant that's who I shopped with, you know, when I first moved to DC, I lived next to a Giant so I still shop with them. And to me, that was always just kind of like the bar, like you have made it, like you are in Giant, like that is DC now. Now you have made into the DC, you know, DMV kind of culture. And so getting that email from Giant was awesome.
Cullen Gilchrist
We're gonna have to make that a quote, send directly to Giant.
Samy Kobrosly
The day that we found out I actually went to Giant, and I bought a ton of sushi and I had like a whole Giant party at my place. So they know I love them.
Cullen Gilchrist
That's fantastic.
Kevin Blesy
I would say my, on the plus side, maybe not as specific but it's same idea of I still get really excited. Walking into any store and seeing the product on shelves, like it sounds really simple. I'm going to go to the Whole Foods down the street here after this and do little grocery shopping, and checking on our new set with the multi-serve bags. And that gets you really excited. It goes back to what we were talking about, a tangible business, we're making a product that people like and brings them joy and happiness. And sometimes I'll even like hide out in the aisle for a while and see and see if someone you know comes to pick us up and that's exciting. I mean, that's why we do this.
Cullen Gilchrist
Seeing a customer in the wild.
Kevin Blesy
Yeah, it's really crazy.
Samy Kobrosly
I knew that we were doing well. When I started seeing Snacklins litter. You know, when I was walking down the street and I saw like a litter bag of Snacklins on the floor. I was like, we did it. We've made it guys. And then I picked it up and I threw in the trash can. But before that time I knew we had made it. Yeah, it was good. If we're talking about losses, I guess I'll be honest, this was probably a big loss. For us. It was a big loss. For me personally, when it first happened. I think in hindsight is probably the best that's ever happened to us. But losing Walmart, you know, like we got a chance to work with Walmart. We got invited for open pitch, open call. I had no effing idea when I was like, I don't even, we weren't even in Whole Foods in the Mid Atlantic. Yeah. And Walmart was like, sure. And I did it. And I somehow convinced them. I think it was a joke. I think they just saw me they're like, eff this guy. Let's get them, let's take them for a ride right now. And they were like in 500 Walmarts.
Cullen Gilchrist
What year was that?
Samy Kobrosly
I don't even remember anymore. Yeah, like two years ago it was rough. But it was a cool little thing. We tested it out. We got it. And honestly, like, having that Walmart name got us to where we needed to get, you know, as far as fundraising, as far as you know, getting on Shark Tank and stuff like that. But I always remember one of the first conversations we had with Mark, and he started going through the wall and he goes, why are we even in the store? Why don't we just drop Walmart and I was like, okay, cool. As long as we're on the same page, I think we can all do those things. Like, we just weren't ready. You know, I think a lot of people look at a big name like that. They go Yeah, I made it. But no, now you're competing against, like in the chip aisles. Specifically, you're competing against a Frito Lay driver showing up every day multiple times a day and restocking those shelves and then you have that single item and pray that ends up on a Walmart truck that the staff saw in the back, that they put it on the shelf. You know what I mean? Like, it was like me, winning the middle school soccer game and all of a sudden playing the World Cup and next week, I got destroyed.
Cullen Gilchrist
You weren't ready.
Samy Kobrosly
I wasn't ready yet. You know what I mean? And I think now in hindsight, like we go through, like, we now know that we're ready for a lot of these opportunities. And I, you know, so yeah, was a big loss. But I still keep my Walmart hat over there as a reminder.
Cullen Gilchrist
So lesson learned, is be ready for what you're doing?
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah, be ready for everything.
Cullen Gilchrist
All right. So lesson is, make sure that you're ready for what you're getting into and understanding it. So Walmart, you needed a whole program to support being on those shelves.
Samy Kobrosly
You got to think like, when I go to Walmart, I'm not going to like Ooh I'm excited to discover something. No, I literally need like, two things, paper towels and a box of cereal, I'm not going in to discover. But like someone that maybe is at like a Yes, Organic or a local store, right? Like the Union Kitchens, right? Those customers come in because they want to find new stuff. And so when we were first starting off to be in the places that people were willing to discover, was like the key. And then now you know, when we're doing promos, and we have you know, promo schedules and all that, like, that's kind of that next level, you know, but when you're first there was just about, we were trying to put ourselves in a situation that were like no, we need people to discover us first.
Cullen Gilchrist
Absolutely. And they are. Kevin, do you have a biggest loss? Are you, are you too green? If you've only got a year and a half of sunshine.
Kevin Blesy
Like I said, there's a lot of, you know, businesses of this size growing this quickly. There's lots of ups and downs and it's daily, right. I think that was something I learned going from a very corporate world to the restaurant world. And now here it’s mentally, you have to, you know, smooth that out. Because it's a it's a roller coaster ride and like we live it every day. You get that email a couple weeks ago from Giant, you're up here, something happens and you know, machine breaks down, you're down here. So if you ride that as it actually comes at you, you'll never make it. It's just sort of saying okay, kind of living right here is the best we can do. I think related, it's not one specific thing. But you know, all of the jobs and people on this team and the functions are so interrelated. It's really devastating when you maybe drop the ball or miss an answer or something happens with a machine or a shipment or whatever and it impacts everyone. Those are, I think the gut wrenching moments we all have where it's like oh, man, like that's gonna really not just mess up like my day and my to-do list but a really small team that like has a lot riding on this.
Samy Kobrosly
That's me today. The staff is pissed at me because I had a forklift show up like three hours late so don't do that.
Cullen Gilchrist
Always on time with forklifts.
Kevin Blesy
I think the lesson there though, is a good one, which is we all care more about, I think the other's success and wellbeing in terms of our team and it really hurts us when like we might have done something that has cascading effects across the organization because we're not a giant company yet. And you're not as insulated. Everyone is dependent on everyone else doing the right thing.
Cullen Gilchrist
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I certainly believe and hope that you guys will be a very large company. Maybe even giant.
Kevin Blesy
Yeah.
Cullen Gilchrist
Thank you. Thank you.
Samy Kobrosly
This interviews gonna keep on going, I gotta eat something.
Cullen Gilchrist
Well, so we have the Chief Snack Bagger Sammy, and we have the CEO Kevin of Snacklins. And they're crunchy. If you want to make a crunch sound I can make a crunch sound.
Samy Kobrosly
Oh, yeah. I just want to say thank you guys for coming. Thank you guys for enjoying this delicious really amazing audio slash video combination.
Cullen Gilchrist
Text! We're gonna do it all.
Samy Kobrosly
Yeah, when you text too it will be out on ebook here as well soon. So look for us on Jeffbezos.com. And yeah, Cullen, you have anything else to say? Kevin, anything else to say?
Cullen Gilchrist
Thanks for listening to Food Founders. If you liked today's show, please rate, review, and subscribe to our podcast. We'll see you next time on Food Founders: Stories from Launch to Scale.
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