Kelsey Moreira, Founder & CEO of Doughp | Pivoting From B&M to eComm & Surviving Shark Tank

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Hey everyone just take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode long shot leaders it's a podcast over show to me that I just started listening to because I absolutely love them it's hosted by my good friend Michael Stein it's edgy it's different he interviews absolutely everyone under the sun and speaks through their journey unpack the biggest obstacles they've had to overcome to find success in whatever it is they've done in their life so he interviews academy award winners ex-cons holocaust survivor sports heroes you name it he interviews them and he himself also has a really interesting background so Michael Stein's a host he's an entrepreneur writer actor filmmaker he's also a stand-up comedian so he kind of puts that all into the interview and then he gets into the how the why the secrets of why people do what they do it's really cool I actually love the show he reached out to sponsor but I don't take any sponsorship especially for podcasts unless I actually like them listen to myself so I listen to it highly recommend you check it out that is long shot leaders with Michael Stein today my guest is Kelsey Marrera she is the founder and CEO of dope an edible cookie dough company that is growing at 295% year over year she was at Intel she left she was selling cookie dough at San Francisco's pure 39 and inside Oracle Park she then moved to the Las Vegas strip she raised some capital 1.6 million dollars she had the pivot to e-commerce and direct consumer because of covid she expressed a close 2.7 million in sales by the end of this year on track to do 5 million she was a Forbes 30 under 30 she was a Vegas 40 under 40 she was also featured on shark tank and on top of that she struggled to overcome substance abuse issues which is now part of who she is and what she what she basically evangelized within her company so we spoke about entrepreneurial lessons we spoke about her shark tank experience we spoke about transitioning from brick and mortar to e-commerce we also spoke about some addiction issues that are not discussed enough in startup culture so how Kelsey created a startup culture without any sort of drinking or mind altering substances how to permeate your values as a founder into the company culture so that it actually means something and then of course there's some just straight business lessons in here as well which are pivoting from retail into online how she transitioned 100% online during covid and sales skyrocketed things that a lot of companies have struggled with so let's jump right into this this is Kelsey Marrera founder and CEO of dope how much time do we have now I'm just kidding I love this question like origin story I feel like I'm in like an X-Men like how did I become Kelsey more than as morphing story but in all seriousness yeah it is kind of a wild story and it does start a bit back you know as born in Dallas raised in northern California have a family that just like loves food all the women in my life always love to bake and to cook so as a child did spend a lot of time in the kitchen eating along the baking journey and then also learning a lot about you know baking from them as as a child but when I got into grade school I really like through the pressure on myself my parents had gotten divorced when I was six and I think I just wanted to make them proud wanted to get that approval and it and very self fueled wanted to be the best at anything I did and that caused a ton of anxiety for me perfectionism issues and it would turn into workaholism issues from there really fueled by that desire to just be all on all the time and be performing at the highest level when I was 16 years old I got this opportunity to work at Intel and so I was jumping from you know being a kid to being an adult really quick and this corporate life I mean I was leaving high school at like 10 30 in the morning to go to Intel and work with people who were you know 30 40 years my senior in some cases amazing for the experience side of my life experience side of getting to learn from these amazing individuals and see people making strategic decisions at those levels and what not as I would go through what would become a 10 year career at Intel from that point but it was very hard on my mental health and I wasn't doing the things I needed to do to keep myself grounded to work through childhood traumas and issues that I had and really be able to live a more full life and I was leaning on alcohol through that time to to deal and to cope and alcohol was sort of this quiet for me drink for the first time when I was 14 and drink till I blocked out and I remember feeling you know though I was hung over the next morning it was a feeling of just peace like quiet in my brain you know I didn't have to be on I could just pretend to be like everybody else carefree and relaxed and having fun and trying to fit in and that really just escalated over the the next years of my life as I would go through college and and beyond never really able to get a hold of my drinking I was not just the once in a blue moon problem cause it was you know pretty reliably if I was going to drink I would always drink to excess and had a really hard time stopping myself and it was difficult because everything else seemed so okay in my life to say that it was a problem you know society really has it so coded that you know it's just oh it's fine you know it's just whatever it's happened a few times here and there and really only you and those super close to you you know boyfriend at the time for example who was just getting battered with four years of all these alcohol issues for me other people on the outside think well you don't have a problem you know look at your great job and look at the grades you've been getting and it was very tough for me to come to terms with it but in late 2015 September 14th 2015 to be exact I had my last hurrah and got sober decided that enough was enough that I really wanted to be the Kelsey I knew I had to offer to the world and that was being clouded by alcohol so my choice to get sober really changed my life opened up everything that I am and have today and namely getting back in the kitchen was one of kind of the first big changes I started to bake again and really figure out like who is Kelsey like what do I like to do you know there's so much free time when you're not hung over drinking all the time and I was like yeah baking like crazy nights and weekends from work and bringing in those baked goods into the office and getting enough nudges of like you should sell this you know that I kind of got that light bulb of like oh like shark tick you know I was like I literally only had shark tick as an example of entrepreneurship back then I don't have any entrepreneurs in my family and I just sort of had that inkling of like maybe I could make something that would be mine you know something of my own that I could create and I love making baked goods for people baked or unbaked in my case today with cookie dough but I just love giving something that I've created someone else and watching them take a bite of it and light up you know you really can change someone's mood with the sweet treat and just that moment that they take for themselves to have something sweet or share it with another person and what goes on over that just really an exciting moment for me to think about creating something of my own but creating something of your own and and and basically you know putting something out into the world that eventually turns into a business that's a big jump from intel and that's that you know I know a lot of people that do get these career moments and then they do pivot into entrepreneurship and they just don't make it because they think that oh you know I have big company experience I'm sure I'll be good but then they actually go into it and then it's difficult but even just walk me through the mindset so what what gave you the courage what gave you the what gave you even the courage to stop drinking when there was nothing negative going on in your life because that's a that's a pressure situation especially if it was a social thing but then also what gave you the courage to jump from intel how do you like manifest this and bring this forward in your in your in the you know the ideas and the decisions you make yeah too big big jumps in my life you know the choice to say like enough enough I gotta get sober and I think though everything is put together and perfect on the outside seemingly right you always know you know the individual knows how their relationship is with alcohol and like I mentioned those close to me who had gone through the ordeals you know right alongside and my poor parents like through college and and beyond constantly being like okay like let's see what the phone call is from Kelsey this weekend you know or if she's using a someone else's phone because she lost hers but you know as she hospitalized again I got hospitalized twice for over consumption of alcohol you know carried out of a party on a stretcher because I was blocked out I'm a you know five foot to 120 pretty much was all through my college career as well and like that you just can't take the levels I was drinking at at that size so those things happening getting tickets for minor consumption drinking I lied to a police officer I told him information from a fake ID so got false reporting to law enforcement these little you know tickets and issues throughout the time and and then the way I would treat those close to me you know when I was drinking just weren't a reflection of who I wanted to be the final hurrah of coming to the decision to get sober sober I'd gotten sober for four months when I was 21 this idea of like a reset I was like maybe if I just stop drinking for a few months I'll be okay you know and it's really you know this is the joy of alcoholism you just are trying however you can to navigate a path that lets alcohol stay in your life because you just don't want to believe that you're going to have to be different you're going to have to be the one that doesn't drink and you know why is this happening to me so after that failed attempt and then now I'm 24 at the time feeling like you know it's been about six months since the last episode if you will have actually been a couple of months. Acting out drinking and then I'm going on a business trip to Barcelona and from the moment I got off the plane basically you know I got to the hotel and and they gave me a half bottle of wine is like the welcome gift you know so I started drinking at like 10 30 in the morning and on it went and I came to at 3 30 in the morning and a stranger's apartment I had cheated on you know my boyfriend of four years and had to have that phone call the next morning to explain all these things that I was just horrified by and couldn't even had to pick the pieces together even remember what had happened and yeah just feeling this absolute utter moment of clarity of like I never want to feel this way again I had so many mornings apologizing for stuff I barely remembered and now here I am you know where I should be in my I'm in this career it's been already nine years at this time I believe nine years within tell and feeling like I should be in this new phase of life and this is happening you know still I'm still having all these issues I just said enough enough you know alcohol is just not worth it and I found an English speaking a meeting in Barcelona that morning and I'll be six years sober this September. So the recovery one is many chips away at the iceberg you know you're like this stiff thing that's just like I don't want to accept there's a problem I want to find another way you're just like holding on tight and it's like enough little chips away of these nights of these incidents of of letting down people I loved of letting myself down that finally you know enough was enough and I I broke into saying I got to make a change so. That's the recovery jump the intel jump is another story on you know having that decision to say my happiness and joy was worth the pursuit of that risk you know was worth the jump to see what what could happen I honestly as the idea started to grow with for dope in my head I started to think the bigger risk was like what if I didn't do it how sad and upset would I be if I saw someone else you know down the road trying this idea that I have and and me not have. Having done it and always wondering what if and the corporate life though it has its cushions you know there's all these nice cushy things around the organization the structure and the support that you have I always moved like a bit too fast you know I always felt like I was running like at a speed 10 on the treadmill and Intel was like out of four you know it's just is a slower pace of things to get stuff done or people many layers above you making decisions that your program is cut you know the budget that was for this thing you've been working on pouring your heart and soul. And it's not going to happen anymore we're moving this way and you're like what like my child you know I just wanted I thought what a cool chance to have the ownership over if it works or not at least it's going to be on me and that was that was worth taking the leap so February of 17 I got the idea April 20th 2017 was the first day of my sabbatical with Intel and that was the launch for dope that was my first day selling dope cookie dough and made a hundred pounds of dough at a commercial kitchen in Oakland carted it over to San Francisco and went to Dolores Park set up this cart I had had built for like 500 bucks and we sold out in three hours and I was like oh shit people really like cookie dough this is going to be a thing let's go you know and so you you when you take a sabbatical from Intel is that cutting your paycheck day one. 10 weeks paid yeah so 10 weeks paid and usually people travel right I actually had a like backpacking trip through Southeast Asia that I was going to go on of which my dad was super freaked out about but then when I told him that I was going to start this cookie dough company and potentially quit my job he was like what about the backpacking you know maybe we should just do that I'm sure you know those thoughts crossed his mind he was a little a little nervous about this this concept I had but the 10 weeks was a gift you know to be able to say with a safety blanket of sorts you know that I could go back you know if it really didn't work but at the end of the 10 weeks I was like I couldn't even come in to turn in my laptop because I had two events in San Francisco that day I was like I'm going to have to come down to Santa Clara on Monday you know this this thing is is really happening and I'm going to pursue it so my manager at the time you're super supportive and and all that so I definitely felt like they got to watch me spread my wings and you know it's been fun I can't wait to see what I'm going to do. I came back to speak it until earlier this year and and share my journey which was really cool full circle that's amazing and and the first iteration of dope was it it was obviously brick and mortar or was it you were selling at like events trade shows what was that first step. First step of dope was like I will literally sell dope wherever I can wherever anyone will meet me to buy some I'm there so very first thing was we got into a food park in San Francisco and so setting up a tent and table seven days a week you know I wrote them with this idea just after the Dolores Park Day said you know hello I'm just yeah this cookie dough company like you know always sort of acting like a few steps bigger than you really are. And I'd love to sell at spark social and they wrote back within two hours more like oh my god we love cookie dough what a cool idea when can you start and I was like okay how to get you know food permit for like trying to figure all that out like as quick as I could I'm like I'll be there in two weeks so yeah I got everything I needed together in those two weeks to start there and meanwhile catering tons of corporate catering you know anywhere I could get in for an office happy hour birthday celebration Uber lift LinkedIn Google like all these things. There's awesome companies are there in the bay and got that opportunity to yeah go up and down San Francisco Bay area and spread some cookie dough joy to those offices and in about like four months five months from starting the company got my first opportunity for physical location and this is just prior to our pair 39 storefront that we opened in the very start of 2019 sorry 2018 but it was a yeah this kiosk was going to be my two years ago. It was going to be my two year sobriety anniversary was the grand opening for it so this is the inner weaving of like my journey into sobriety and my decision to bring that into dope I put on the Facebook event if you come up and say it's dope to be sober you'll get 20% off. You know come to dopes first first location and the line was like for one just like around the block I've never been so happy filming this like video of like everybody cheering around waiting to get in at the opening and the response that we got from the mention of sobriety and me saying you know it's my two year sober birthday come celebrate at this grand opening people asking for advice you know saying there are a few weeks sober do I know of any good meetings in the city or sharing that there were many years sober and. yeah and saying that they hadn't told anyone publicly like this so it was cool to see me sharing it and I just had this like light bulb like wow if like these kind of conversations are happening in these DMs how many more people out there are wanting to talk about it are curious about getting sober are thinking about their own relationship with alcohol are feeling like there's no way I could get sober in my mid 20s what a chance for me to share what my journey's been like and the joys that have come from this decision. yeah and this this new way of life and just make it a bigger conversation so I started the dope for hope initiative with the company and that really has become the center of everything we do to try and raise awareness and break the stigma around mental health and addiction recovery. I want to I want to what while we're speaking about it let's let's speak on that and then we can continue your stories I think it's relevant because that that dope for hope and that that that mindset of supporting individuals that are having these issues of course alcohol is one there's other addictions there's especially in startup space I'm sure there's enough people that have mental health issues over working. even like during the pandemic just people being always on always working like there's a ton of things that are really eating away at people so what is what is dope for hope what is it trying to accomplish how is it accomplishing it and what are some of the what are some of the ways you feel that people can take better care of themselves when they're overworked or turning to substances. yeah or before they get to those stages even right like the idea of how could we help people recognize that this is for everybody you know before the pandemic I used to have some people say like oh it's really nice what you guys are doing for people with mental illness and I was like yes but it's actually for everybody you know like mental health I think through the pandemic has become really an understanding for everyone that like we all have this responsibility to work on our mental health and to try and keep ourselves balanced and in that state so that we don't fall into you know substance use so that we don't fall into overeating or under eating or you know even there's all these things that people use to distract from the feelings right like trash television or dropping yourself into sex addictions love addictions like there's workaholism even just anything to not have to sit and feel. and think about how you're feeling and be touched you know in touch with that so mental health is is really at the core for me of like getting everybody to think about it and for those in recovery this other hand here is like those in or seeking recovery how can they feel more supported so don't for hope coming to life at my business and and what I mean I feel like it's like dope is ours now this like community concept right like what is it doing for everybody is one straight for the community through mental health Monday so we post information stats and a little dose of hope on a Monday morning through our social we also send that out through our email list dedicated for mental health tips like how to go to your first party sober really keeping it as like a content engine for us as well to be sure I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode feedback loop now if you're a product person entrepreneur start up guy like me you have at some point in your career try to take a product to market you've tried to come up with a new idea and it's fell flat it's ultimately failed 85 to 90% of all new products of all new startup ideas fail why is this basically it is really hard really expensive and really time consuming to validate product market fit with your potential consumers or customers old-style market research is way too slow to complicated to time consuming for dynamic fast moving teams and want to build great stuff but what if you could test out your idea your product with your target consumers whenever you want before you invest in the money time energy effort that it takes to actually develop a product well that's what start ups all the way through to four to five hundred are using feedback loop for you get quality feedback from your target customers early and often feedback loop is the test before you invest product research platform it has built in expert templates for concept testing user discovery prioritizing features on your roadmap and much more you can create your own test in minutes and get quality insights from your target consumers and hours they set up a special link for everybody who's a success story podcast listener to test it out to try it go to go dot feedback loop dot com slash success you get three free tests that's go dot feedback loop dot com slash success you can try it out for free you get three free tests so if you want your next product idea or feature to be a hit test before you invest build based on data not opinion and launch with confidence with feedback loop check it out right now resources and info on this the next is for inside the company so there's so much out there everybody knows about B Corp and whatnot and it's like it's amazing what are you doing out for the rest of the world but I often ask like how are those employees like how is it inside that company and that's really really critical and core to me and and what I care about today is like trying to make more recovery friendly workspaces trying to make more mental health policies come to life and just open that door from employer to employee to be able to have these companies conversations so often the last place someone is showing up is work and what if we could you know make it a more open conversation for managers when they ask how's it going at the start of the one on one it's really like how are you you know how are you really doing how's the balance this work from home life all these things going on right like have you touched in on a real true heart to heart basis with your employee and have you been vulnerable with your staff about how you're doing and be able to open that door that it's okay to talk about the tough stuff in life the things that are going on in your immediate family and this level of vulnerability inside the workplaces I think really what's going to change the future for all of us and how we're able to bring our full selves to work and to get the help we need when we need it the last area from dope is is really for nonprofits working in the space. I am such a big proponent that I don't need to recreate the wheel there are amazing people working on these issues so for 2021 our beneficiary is the she recovers foundation for women that are interseeking recovery they are amazing it's a great you know many paths to recovery for people but at the core is community and so they're really really great community we donate a portion of every single sale of dope to she recovers which is in excess of of $20,000 already this year super exciting it's amazing how do you find this has an impact. I'm just so if I think I'm young I'm going to go work at a startup because if I'm not mistaken I'm doing some research and you tried to create a culture that doesn't include drinking or other drugs or other things right that's what that's one of the tenants but if I'm young I want to join a startup well I don't I don't really get why I can't have drinks at a company party that doesn't make sense to me so what's the what's the end result is it has it attracted talent has it pushed talent away has it attracted potentially the right people that you want to work with I'm curious what the the actual implication is for a company that champions this yeah I mean I think at the core of any authentic mission driven company you want to have employees that are super bought in on what the mission is right you want to have employees that are like living and breathing it to some regard or at least our super passionate in understanding the value of what you're trying to do so for me the idea that what we do would push anyone away is certainly like they probably should work here because it's a big part of the impact we're trying to have elsewhere it's a good take away yeah yeah so I feel like you know for us in in my eyes and and through our journey with dope even from being a brick and mortar storefront you know having to interview more regularly right to get hourly staff working in the stores to now being a remote company with a you know social media side we've got customer support and then obviously like the director rules on operations and and marketing it has helped immensely not only to attract the best talent but to retain them you know to make them feel like they are able to be their full selves at work they're able to talk about what's really going on we have a mental health Monday Slack channel where we all share one high and one low from the last week and like I keep that real like I really share with my staff when something's not going right and I'm feeling out of balance or I'm feeling super anxious or something else is happening and it's not a place of oh feel sorry for me and it's not a place of oh I'm weak and I'm not able to run the company now it's like I'm in touch with what's going on and here's what you know what I'm doing about it and it's okay those those I think those moments when I've been able to share something going on with my life have really opened the door for them to share so we have a number of employees that are in recovery which is awesome and again I think there are some companies in this old school mentality that say they would be an at risk employee you know some you know with sober dates in 2020 even and it's it's like and in 2021 and I'm here for it you know I want to be supportive I want to be that employer that can be there even if people are looking to get into recovery for the first time or relapse and need to get back on the right track pushing them away is a disservice to humanity you know the someone struggling in your company at that moment is when they need you the most to say and to see through the issue and see that there's someone a human struggling with something and that you have an opportunity to help so for employers out there like we did share a policy on our mental health policy like a template version of the mental health policies on our blog so that's something great to look at there's also recovery friendly workplace initiatives in I think 13 states now so really cool to see these structured ways of showing how real the problem is how pervasive it is what cost it's really having to employers to ignore it you know loss of productivity etc turn over rates all of this and things actionable things you can really do to change those change those ways inside your company but it's like you said it has to be a culture change the decision to not have alcohol at client events or you know when we did a client event in San Francisco and it was like we had a mocktail bar we had a bunch of fun mocktails all with cool dope names and stuff and then had kombucha there and like the whole thing so there's fun ways to to bring that around and it's very important even for companies who do allow alcohol to be present you know at events really try to not make it the focus you know really think about how isolated that is your someone who's struggling to feel like they need to drink or they need to be a part of this drinking activity to get the inside scoop you know that is that is a really scary place for someone in early recovery now I was just thinking through as you're as you're describing the culture I'm just thinking there as to the reason why people do drink a company event and it's because they don't have that rapport and they don't feel that connection with other people so they drink to allow them to have this almost like this false sense of comfort right this this false almost is this you know liquid courage right so if you have if you have a cult if you have a company culture that actually has people that feel like they can talk all the time and they know what people are going through the highs the bullshit the good stuff then all of a sudden it's like you don't have to have a drink to talk to your best friend yeah and that's that's a kind of like I'm not saying listen it's still work at the end of the day and like you know I'm always a big fan of saying like you know work is a team not a family like you are working together towards an objective but like you can you can have like friendship camaraderie there that's more than just surface level if you feel like you can be comfortable you can speak your mind you can say what's on your mind and you understand what other people are going through and that alone is probably a healthier environment because I can only think back to all the horrible things that have happened that company events client events that are alcohol related yeah and I had a bad idea yeah an ex-boyfriend of mine in in San Francisco you know telling me these stories of the drugs present at all the parties and it's you know it's superiors offering the drugs in the bathroom at the event and it's like wow what a bad situation to be put in to feel like I have to accept this to to have his you know because if I say no now I was going to think I'm going to rat on him or tell on him or man it's just it's such a bad cycle and it's very pervasive you know with a second you as an employer as an owner of a business second you start to hear or see some of those behaviors I mean cutting it off is like the only way you're going to get it to stop because it really starts to I mean you're creating more addictions down the road but you know it really starts to propel itself so it's really important I think to just be more considerate with how you're trying to shape your company culture and it's like you said the idea that you need the alcohol to bond or to hang out the friendships that I have today like work is one thing right but it's a parallel of like the friendships I have today are so much more meaningful than the friendships that I had when I was drinking I maybe had more friends quote air quotes here right acquaintances drinking buddies I had more plentiful but we weren't really friends like when we were together we were talking about what we were drinking or we were talking about just BS you know nothing yeah and now it's like the time you spend with your friends you know in recovery or those who just choose to drink glass it's like really much deeper relationship and I find that same thing is coming true in the workplace yeah let's keep going down your story because there's a couple other points like the shark tank is a good story I want to I want to understand what your experience was with that even like the pivot from brick and mortar to e-commerce so so what's next in the dope in the dope timeline dope story you now your first brick and mortar you've moved to Las Vegas the Las Vegas strip you're selling there let's keep going from that yeah even pre-selling in Las Vegas we actually went on shark tank to raise funds for that Vegas store so shark tank came in it was may of 2018 so I'm just over a year into the business and shark tank was coming to town with a casting call I don't know anybody in show business similar with like I don't know any entrepreneurs definitely don't have any famous relatives to get me onto the show and so I went to an open casting call and sat on a curb with like 500 other people all waiting to go in and shoot their shot and you get like 90 seconds to pitch why you're gonna be the most amazing entrepreneur for this and made it through that first round and on and on it would become a six-month ordeal through all these video submissions and phone calls and information to be provided contracts to sign that was like pre-understanding how important a lawyer was so I just like okay I mean it's shark tank I was like I guess I just have to sign this you know if I want to be on the show they're not gonna negotiate with me but always negotiate is my take-away there you can always negotiate a contract um so wish I had read that but everything worked out just fine and I was chosen to film for the show in September of 2018 another amazing like alignment with recovery it filmed like the day after I need to look at this exact date because it was either day after day before but the day after my three-year sobriety anniversary so really cool like alignment of like you're doing the right thing you know sobriety kept giving me these little reminders that like look another year in and like this awesome freaking stuff is happening like keep going so uh went on the show I mean I had an amazing time going through that process and so cool to get to shoot my shot to you know these amazing people who could dramatically change my life um through the ordeal you know I had practiced like crazy like I have never you know I told you I was a little over the top in school you think I was taking like the SAT again because I had like flashcards with all my business numbers on it like you know cogs and this profit none of them all the year sales like I mean just everything like to the deepest levels that I could I probably have like 50 flashcards and I memorized them all by the time I went to film so that and my pitch I was just so prepared that I was not going to get caught off guard as the entrepreneur up there going like well I don't know I think it's around blank or whatever I was like super sharp so luckily thanks to that I did have some amazing stuff that you know feedback from the sharks around my um skills as an operator Barbara Corkins that I was most sophisticated store on a sheet ever met and and yeah Mark Cuban said you know everything about this says it's amazing but then the conversation turned into like cookie dough is not healthy and the obesity epidemic and like I'm sitting there going hey and it's cookie dough like it's dessert you know it's it's supposed to be a snack it's supposed to be it's not it's not meant to solve the obesity epidemic is meant to just be fun after dinner solving like the mental health epidemic like take a moment have some self-care you know treat yourself you're doing you're doing all that you're doing that already you're already doing that like how many things can you take out a cookie dough you already are solving mental you're solving addiction you don't have to solve obesity at the same time like that can be someone else's yeah like can we just share this at all or do I get all the weight on my shoulders so yeah it was a little uh you know almost like almost like built for TV because like there was Twitter was like blowing up afterwards like what are you talking about this was the best pitch I've ever seen in shark tank we had a number of people tweeting that like this is the best we've ever seen how does she not get a deal and like look at all these other you know people bringing up other sweet companies that they'd invested in so it was it was really jarring I kept my cool in there you know I was like thank you guys so much I wish I was hugging one of you but thanks for letting me you know you get to hug when you make a deal or whatever but thanks for letting me come up here and turn around like wave to click my heels and then I was like gonna walk down the the hallway and I just lost it like the camera is like right here like six inches in front of you and I just totally broke down you don't see this on TV like thank you editors you guys cut all this out but full emotional like cliff dive you know you just go from like thinking one thing is gonna happen and like it's going pretty well they're saying all this nice stuff and then it's like I'm out I'm out I'm out I'm out I was like oh my god like it didn't end the way I thought and um I took a mental health day the next day you know I told myself I you know didn't even say anything when they saw you crying the um sharks yeah did they hear you they see did they spend the second you turn and start walking those doors close like right behind you and the camera again is like right in front of my face and I'm walking towards them as I start to break down and then I get through the back doors and like just started like hyperventilating you know like really trying to get the camera out of my face like that escalates it a lot because you're just like I just like you know I just kept saying like I just need a minute I just need a minute you know you just want to be able to regroup um but they like want to capture it all and I was so prepared I'm like okay this is gonna happen I'm gonna be the girl sobbing in the shark tank trailer but thank goodness you know they didn't they didn't air that so I don't think they wanted to make an example of somebody who who's already doing incredible work so um that it wasn't like you were the the bad option it's so that's fine um so okay so incredible shark tank experience and obviously um that probably they probably did get some exposure but all this all this all the growth uh the pivot to you got none of that's funded you're still you're you are you still bootstrapped at this point no so I had gotten funding um two months after filming I found another investor and got funding for the Vegas store so I opened that in March of uh 2019 which was luckily like wound up being three months before I got the notice that we were gonna air we aired in May um so very fortunate that it the store was opened by the time we aired because so many people like go to check you out and see like oh are they still around you know but we really weren't so focused on e-commerce the time you know all of 2019 we sold $50,000 online um late 2019 and you know 2019 ended 1.2 million for the business so you can see most of it was in our brick and mortar focus um my husband joined the company in late 2019 great like ops and finance brain and he's like Kelsey 2020 needs to be the year of focus and we sort of looked at all these things you know I like I said in the beginning I was sort of like all sell wherever I can sell right so we were uh hilton union square you'd find us in the lobby of that hotel like we were doing catering so a little bit of wholesale stuff catering a little bit of e-commerce and then the stores so it's like how can we refine all this down and um he's you know with all of us look kind of way in these options even looking at franchising and you know what not e-commerce just made the most sense to focus on which would be like the best decision ever knowing what would happen in 2020 um not knowing what would happen in 2020 rather you know being able to have that uh that decision come to light gave us the ramp time we needed to get the retention marketing in place and get the ads started and really start to optimize the site we moved over to Shopify I just want to take a second and thank the sponsor of today's episode HubSpot HubSpot is the leading business CRM now creating a legacy business starts with investing in sustainable scalable tools HubSpot is the number one CRM for starting growing and scaling businesses with the HubSpot CRM you have a purpose-built solution that's tailored to your business and your business alone now I've used HubSpot for many years now but just this year the releasing some new features these are some of the ones that I'm definitely most excited about so first new feature is called business units so business units allow you to confidently manage contacts marketing and sales assets and settings across multiple brands which means clearer insights to empower whatever it is you're trying to do there's also new admin features like permissions templates and okay TA integration which makes it easier than ever to add, remove and edit users give them the proper permissions as needed and lastly a new HubSpot feature that's rolling out is called sandboxes so with sandboxes all admins have access to production like accounts allowing them to test iterate and experiment with new go-to-market strategies campaigns before they actually push them life this is a game changer because now you can actually see what works in this sandbox environment very similar to what a developer would do in a pre-prod or a testing environment if you want to learn all about HubSpot's latest features some of the new features are just spoke about you can customize your CRM platform as well as learn about all these new features and all the old legacy features as well at HubSpot.com and get all those engines going and just absolutely crazy sales for us to go from 30 boxes a month in November of 2019 to 3000 a week in April 2020 real grow up yeah yeah that's that's insane and you manage that no problem like you didn't have supply chain it like you could staff up like I'm sure you had some no problem was maybe a little far like I'm literally I have PTSD over the spirit of my life you know it was very trying you know and it it is sometimes people ask like what's entrepreneurship to you and it's like entrepreneurship is those months of of that scale and and being so committed to what you've created that like there's nothing that will stop you like you will find a way to make it happen is was helping through on the operations front right so we were doing graveyard shifts at the store and we're both having to still run the business during the day but going to this graveyard shifts at night and one time is was literally gone for I think it was like 38 hours straight no sleep because it was graveyard and someone didn't show up for the the shift at the store during the day like you just have all these all these pieces running together and then the pandemic would happen you know in mid-March getting our notice that we had to shut down so we had 12 hours notice to move our entire we were doing all of our production all of our packing graveyard while the store was shut and now that the store was it's in a casino part of a hotel right so they were going to be shutting it down 12 hours notice to find another kitchen get a u-haul load everything we can think that we might need for the undetermined future that is before us you know no one knew how long the shutdown was going to last so we try to get everything you know and load it up into a u-haul and I mean just pure madness we it is a crazy time to look back on but it's that that grit and grind and determination that you're going to make it happen you know there's just nothing that will stop me from making dope successful and and that that's how I'm here today yeah and and then let's let's move into e-commerce because you you handled like again looking back I'm sure with stressful but it looks it looks graceful it it looks graceful because you made the pivot and you're sick so what was e-commerce play um how did you manage that yeah well for one we had a lot of learnings from what was I suppose three years at the time of you know two and a half years at the time of learnings from what people liked and what they said in the stores and what questions do they ask most often and so when I started to develop our e-commerce strategy and and the website itself right it was like okay these are the top four flavors we have like let's kit those you know operations side like let's make it more simple to have a kit it set so we just did two sizes four flavors and would do those kits in the beginning um trying to keep it as streamlined as we could you know those common questions that we'd get from customers we got to really make that clear on the site um so tons of learnings there and then really moving into paid ads to try and grow the acquisition um of new customers so uh that was the main focus for the strategy on on e-commerce growth components um getting our retention marketing was another thing that was like you can do everything you want to do to keep the hamster wheel going of new customer acquisition but if you have this like leaky funnel where the customers aren't coming back to buy again it's a very expensive game to play so um we had some great success with the ads definitely fueled through the pandemic you know April of 2020 we were getting like a six x row as on her facebook ad account uh unheard of right unheard of especially in our industry so um just amazing like results through that time and then it's really about uh continuing right once you got to that that you know just absolute crazy peak from January through April it was like more than doubling our sales every single month um once we hit sort of this 400 500 thousand dollar mark it was like okay how are we going to keep these monthly sales um steady and the retention marketing was a huge part of that but you know thankfully through all the scaling and growing move into a co-packer fulfillment center you know all those jumps happened through through 2020 uh while the supply chain world was just crazy with the pandemic as well uh we started a co-packer without even physically being able to go and visit because of COVID it was shut down so I taught someone how to make my product through FaceTime um just craziness you know but we wound up yeah doing 2.5 million online in 2020 um 200,000 in brick and mortar and made the decision when things reopened that the store was not going to be the right path for us anymore and closed down the brick and mortar business it was down 82 percent year over year and you know we're having that on one hand while looking at these crazy e-commerce numbers and uh though the emotion side right as a founder you're always so emotionally drawn to what you've created I mean blood sweat and tears I was like out here to oversee the construction of this store from the ground up and uh it was just so beautiful and I loved it but it's like boom like ignore that set your emotions aside let's look at the numbers does it make sense and yeah made the decision to to close that store and it was the best decision we could have made and now gearing up for our launch into retail um later this year and we're just so excited by this opportunity to continue with another great scale opportunity um with what I've learned from all these different business channels and ways to run run a food business e-commerce and and retail is going to make the most sense for us what is your number one recommendation for because I'll tell you where this question is coming from so you've pivoted multiple times you've gone through multiple things you've eventually been successful at most and you just attributed to okay if I love this and I'm passionate and grit and the grind and the perseverance and tenacity I'm going to figure it out but when you are starting something new when you first had to figure out e-commerce how did you figure it out what are the what is the mindset the steps you take where do you go to learn because that is the most important skill I think that anybody can pick up on yeah and I mean through all of the things that we've learned right and we're going through it again now going into retail a new channel to bring up and like wow distribution and like all these contracts and what's this going to be like and trying to be safe on it there's some big like um some big cost risk you run into here uh that have put companies under going out too far into retail so yeah I think for me it's a tip I have for anybody starting a business or running one I never say no to an introduction if anybody thinks I should meet somebody else you know along the way else one says oh you should meet so and so and you're like gosh I don't know like other companies whatever or like I don't know that doesn't seem related take it you know just take it I take 15-minute introduction calls and it really has changed the game there's been some introductions that I otherwise would have passed up on face value and they've just had that perfect person that they knew you should meet or the investor that was just perfect to line up at the right time so yeah I'd never say no to an introduction um another thing is higher for what you suck at so if you're going into something new and you do have the capacity to hire or contract like a consultant in that space highly recommend it you can learn an incredible amount in a rather short period of time from a consultant who can come in and give you the rundown on what what it's like to scale into this this new arena um there's more content coming out particularly around D to C even uh is has you know this on his to-do list aside from us running the company but to create uh you know crash course and consultancy for people trying to get going any commerce because it is just so much knowledge that was packed into our last year and a half um we want to be able to pass that on to other people to learn but you know reaching out never be afraid to ask for uh 15 minutes on someone's calendar on LinkedIn I did a lot of that in the beginning would just reach out and say love what you've built you know I have five questions if I could just get 10 minutes of your time um I'll meet you wherever you know back when in person things we're doing and like an SF I'll literally be like anywhere you're gonna be able to walk in between two meetings at this time like I'll come and meet you. I'll be there. Yeah it's like that so yeah just really always reaching out try to get connected um there's great like CEO networks even for seed stage companies shout out to one world I'm still a part of a um a CEO network for my stage and it's amazingly helpful to just be with other entrepreneurs who though in very different industries sometimes we all have such similar issues we're facing like running a business is still structurally a lot of the same things are gonna run up against and I've I've had great success with that so getting a little cohort and network of other CEOs that um you can share and learn from is huge too. Amazing okay I want to ask some rapid fire career questions uh professional life lesson questions um but first uh where do people connect with you um if they want to reach out where do people uh go find information on dope what's the website socials all of that. Love it yes uh first things first if you're hungry and you want some cookie dough go to dope.com it's DOU GHP it's like dough with a P on the end.com we're at dope on tiktok um I'm sorry at eat dope on tiktok we're at dope on facebook and instagram um hit us up we're very active on social real uh awesome people from my team running those accounts now so say hello to Bella and and the crew so um definitely get connected there and then with me personally I'm very active on LinkedIn so Kelsey moreada it's more ira m-o-r-e-i-r-a um yeah it'd be up. I got complicated words I have to spell everything. Yeah test them into the uh to the the horrible intro that I'll have to redo. It should be like this cut you should go screw like a rewind set or something. Yeah I know I have I have an idea already how I'm gonna have it this because I can't pronounce anything. No that's very good awesome. Okay so let's go through a couple quick rapid fire um you mentioned a few challenges in your career uh professional personal what was the number one that sticks out in your head the biggest challenge and how'd you overcome it. The biggest challenge I faced. I mean yeah this getting sober right like I mean it was it was affecting it's all part of that personal professional so blended these days so definitely this decision to say enough enough and get sober and find the courage to like you know share that with my employer and and be able to go on from there um the beginning is really hard so it took a lot to try and overcome that and say let's do something different here and it affects every part of your life but just committed and and went through it amazing um and and that's a that's a good one that's not that's something that um not everybody's comfortable talking about about how difficult it is so I hope somebody listening takes at the heart and and feels like it's okay because I don't think I've ever had this conversation this topic on the show before so very good um one person who had an incredible impact on your life I know there's probably been a few of you have to pick one and uh what did they teach you. I got it um Elizabeth Witherow is my Nana um it's my dad's mom and uh she was just an incredible human for our family like the rock of our family and she was 21 years sober when she passed away so getting to see me at um one year sober before passing and she was that first person you know second person maybe that I called that morning after uh deciding you know I wanted to get sober and encourage me to go find an A meeting and was just so supportive and along the whole journey to the decision to get sober you know like I talked about um it takes so many things to finally get there and you know a number of letters from her over the years saying how concerned she was and that she thought there'd be a better path for me and um yeah she's just amazing she was such a light and joy in our life so definitely my Nana. A book or a podcast that you'd recommend somebody go check out. You know I always recommend this book because it led me to starting dope uh kind of in the beginning stages of the idea right kind of boiling in my head and I read the book you are a badass um by Jensen Sero at Sprite Yellow Cover very popular a few years back and um just a great book really changed up the mindset around like wrist taking and um you know this idea that you have the propensity to create wealth if you just are focused on it and letting yourself fully uh yeah dedicate your your time and energy towards it you will be able to create and sustain you know a life reassessing risk. Amazing um what uh what would be one thing that you would tell your 20 year old self? God yeah give it up already with the alcohol you know I think it was at the core of it right it's like um go back to therapy work through stuff childhood issues don't go away even when you get sober um many people think like okay that's the trick right if I just stop drinking everything's fine but there's always a reason why you're drinking and I think at 20 I was just really struggling with this desire to fit in and not not having that confidence that I have today to say I'm awesome I love myself and if someone wants to hang out with me cool and if they don't cool you know like that's gonna be okay and it's hard in those younger years to feel that confidence to just be sure that you are enough you have enough to offer the world and yeah 20 year old Kelsey needed to be told she was enough. What does success mean to you? This question is interesting it like changes over the years because some people are like how do you think you're successful now you know and so I really feel like there is no end to me like there is no final success point so success has to be about the journey. Success has to be how much are you enjoying today? I've made this life wrap around where I get to talk about cookie dough, mental health and addiction recovery every day like that's freaking cool and it's so hard to feel to not feel like oh I'll be successful when blank happens but instead like this is success you know today is success so it is just kind of reframing I think for people to consider successes the journey itself what you're learning. Amazing that's perfect that's all I got. Amazing thank you so much. Yeah thanks for having me.