Speaker 1: For Denise Woodard, her journey into entrepreneurship started with every
Speaker 1: parent's worst nightmare.
Speaker 2: It was a Wednesday afternoon. I was on a conference call.
Speaker 2: Our nanny, Martha, gave Vivi the snack with just two ingredients.
Speaker 2: As soon as she started to eat it, her lips
Speaker 2: started to swell up, her tongue started to swell up.
Speaker 3: She started to.
Speaker 2: Turn blue in our living room. I hear Martha scream
Speaker 2: from my home office and I immediately run out and
Speaker 2: I see she's like swelling up like a balloon right
Speaker 2: in front of my eyes and clearly couldn't breathe. I
Speaker 2: thought my daughter was going to die.
Speaker 1: This is the Unshakables and I'm Ben Walter, CEO of
Speaker 1: Chase for Business, and.
Speaker 3: I'm Tanya Nepo, a lawyer and consultant for business owners.
Speaker 1: On the Unshakables, we're sharing the daring stories of small
Speaker 1: business owners facing their crisis points and telling the stories
Speaker 1: of how they got through it. Hi, Tanya, Hey Ben Tanya.
Speaker 1: This episode is a one especially for anyone interested in
Speaker 1: raising some serious capital for the company. Today, we have
Speaker 1: the story of Denise Woodard, who, after receiving eighty six
Speaker 1: knows from investors has raised over twenty three million dollars in.
Speaker 3: Capital twenty three million. Huh. I can't wait to hear
Speaker 3: this one.
Speaker 1: On today's episode Partake Foods out of Los Angeles, California.
Speaker 1: So many small businesses are family businesses, and for Denise Woodard,
Speaker 1: founder and CEO of Partake Foods, her family, specifically her
Speaker 1: daughter Vivi, was the whole reason she started a company
Speaker 1: in the first place.
Speaker 2: When Vivi was around eight months old, her first Thanksgiving,
Speaker 2: she had a dish that had baked egg in it,
Speaker 2: and she ended up throwing up like fourteen times over
Speaker 2: five hours, and we ended up rushing her to the
Speaker 2: emergency room. We learned that she had several food allergies.
Speaker 2: One of the things that she wasn't allergic to was peanuts,
Speaker 2: and so the recommendation of our owne ellogist was introduced
Speaker 2: peanuts as soon as possible, and so shortly after her
Speaker 2: first birthday, she had a really simple snack with two ingredients,
Speaker 2: just peanuts and corn, and she had an anaphylactic response immediately.
Speaker 1: Wow, that must have been terrifying.
Speaker 2: It was the scariest five minutes of my life.
Speaker 1: Viv was given two EpiPens and rushed to the emergency room. Thankfully,
Speaker 1: she was fine, but they were clearly living in a
Speaker 1: new reality.
Speaker 2: I felt like inspector Gadget. I felt like a detective
Speaker 2: who had to dig and dig and dig. While the
Speaker 2: ingredients may have looked safe, then there could be the
Speaker 2: concern of it's made on the same equipment with tree nuts.
Speaker 2: And so I found myself calling food manufacturers and trying
Speaker 2: to join all these communities online with other food allergy
Speaker 2: parents to learn what was safe for their kids. And
Speaker 2: so I went into like overdrive in terms of trying
Speaker 2: to always be prepared to make sure that she was safe.
Speaker 1: Of course, Denise was worried about Viv's health, but she
Speaker 1: was also worried about the social stress the allergies would
Speaker 1: create for her daughter.
Speaker 2: I started to think about the emotional impact that having
Speaker 2: food allergies would have on her, how she wouldn't be
Speaker 2: able to safely or confidently participate in playdates and celebrations
Speaker 2: and birthday parties and all the things that involve food.
Speaker 2: And dreamed of like a brand that was cool enough
Speaker 2: that people without food allergies would also willingly choose to
Speaker 2: eat it, And I couldn't find it.
Speaker 1: With nowhere else to turn, she decided to take matters
Speaker 1: into her own hands.
Speaker 2: I was so frustrated with the lack of options that
Speaker 2: I could find. I immediately went to all the natural
Speaker 2: food stores in our neighborhood, trying to find safe things
Speaker 2: that she could eat. But all the fun stuff that
Speaker 2: kids want to eat and share became off limits, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to do something about that.
Speaker 1: Denise founded Partake Foods with a simple goal in mind,
Speaker 1: make food better so anyone could partake. Though she faced
Speaker 1: a dwindling list of acceptable ingredients, Denise had to find
Speaker 1: a way to make something that would work, so she
Speaker 1: started by experimenting in the kitchen with her nanny, Martha.
Speaker 2: I remember standing in my kitchen covered in flour with
Speaker 2: cookies that looked like dog food, and I quickly realized
Speaker 2: that I was not the person to commercialize this product.
Speaker 2: So it was very clear that we needed the help
Speaker 2: of a professional now.
Speaker 1: Fortunately, Denise did have experience in commercial food and beverage.
Speaker 1: In fact, she'd been at Coca Cola for a decade
Speaker 1: working in sales, but manufacturing food that wasn't her specialty,
Speaker 1: So she got in touch with a food scientist on
Speaker 1: LinkedIn who helped bring the first few products of Partake
Speaker 1: Foods to life.
Speaker 2: Our first product was three flavors of crunchy cookies. We
Speaker 2: had sprouted grain, chocolate chip, sweet potato, millet, and carrot oat.
Speaker 1: Denise finally quit her job and started demoing at natural
Speaker 1: food stores.
Speaker 2: I'd show up to the store and I'd have this
Speaker 2: little folding table and a five dollars tablecloth, and I'd
Speaker 2: show up in my Partake T shirt and I'd share
Speaker 2: about the story. I'd try to convince them to try
Speaker 2: the product and kind of rinse and repeat every day
Speaker 2: for several months.
Speaker 1: Now, Denise received unanimous feedback about her product names, as in,
Speaker 1: they didn't se so good. I mean, imagine seeing a
Speaker 1: package on the shelf, one for a chocolate chip cookie
Speaker 1: and then one for a sprouted grain cookie. Now which
Speaker 1: would you choose.
Speaker 2: I quickly got that feedback of these products taste great,
Speaker 2: but if I saw this on the shelf and it
Speaker 2: was called carrot oat, I would never want to eat it.
Speaker 2: So then those flavor names changed to be much more indulgent,
Speaker 2: like chocolate Deliciousness or whatever, chocolate chip and ginger snap
Speaker 2: and oat meal and like very like traditional indulgent cookie
Speaker 2: flavor names, and we also updated the packaging to match that.
Speaker 1: Now, she'd been working in sales for a long time,
Speaker 1: so she knew how to get products on the shelf,
Speaker 1: but getting those products sold and into people's homes that
Speaker 1: was a whole nother story.
Speaker 2: What I quickly saw was that there was a high
Speaker 2: barrier to entry with the food allergy consumer, and so
Speaker 2: while they liked the idea in theory, we hadn't really
Speaker 2: built any trust or brand equity with that consumer.
Speaker 3: Hey, Ben, can we pause for a second. This one
Speaker 3: really hits.
Speaker 1: Home for me. Why Tony, you tell me I have
Speaker 1: a younger.
Speaker 3: Brother who had severe, severe food allergies. I'm talking nuts, fish, dairy,
Speaker 3: all the stuff we like, right, And when he was
Speaker 3: a child, there were a few life or death situations
Speaker 3: that still to this day make me emotional when I
Speaker 3: think about them. And so with my brother, not only
Speaker 3: did we have to be very mindful of the ingredients
Speaker 3: listed on the back of any food packaging, but also
Speaker 3: we had to be very mindful of where the products
Speaker 3: were manufactured. Could there possibly have been some cross contamination
Speaker 3: with nuts or some other thing that he's allergic to.
Speaker 3: We were looking at all these things and constantly had
Speaker 3: to do so in order to feel confident about the
Speaker 3: food that we were giving him. I mean, when it's
Speaker 3: literally life or death, which it was, you have to
Speaker 3: pay very close attention to these things. So this really
Speaker 3: matters to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can only imagine. You know, if you're scared
Speaker 1: for the safety of your child, good enough isn't good enough? Right,
Speaker 1: there's only implicit trust or nothing.
Speaker 3: That's so true. So then what happened next.
Speaker 1: Denise didn't have brand equity yet, and she knew it
Speaker 1: would take time to build, but there was a bright spot.
Speaker 1: The demand was much broader than she thought. Her food
Speaker 1: wasn't just for people like Vivi who were restricted by allergies.
Speaker 2: Our products appealed to much broader consumer groups. Folks who
Speaker 2: were looking for health conscious products because they were looking
Speaker 2: to eat gluten free or plant based out of personal preference,
Speaker 2: parents who needed school safe snacks even if their child
Speaker 2: didn't have food allergies, or people who wanted to support
Speaker 2: a woman or minority owned business, and then fell in
Speaker 2: love with the products.
Speaker 1: And by the end of her first year, Denise had
Speaker 1: her product on the shelf. In fifty stores.
Speaker 2: That gave me the confidence to take things to what
Speaker 2: I perceived to be the next level, which for me
Speaker 2: was trying to get into Whole Foods and getting into
Speaker 2: a regional grocery account.
Speaker 1: She went back to her tried and true method cold
Speaker 1: calling and perseverance. In fact, she reached out to every
Speaker 1: single category manager at Whole Foods.
Speaker 2: There was an employee in a Boulder, Colorado store who
Speaker 2: I think took pity on me or saw something interesting
Speaker 2: in my email and passed on to the appropriate contact.
Speaker 1: And finally, after months and months of outreach, Denise got
Speaker 1: a yes.
Speaker 2: I remember getting the email and my mom was visiting
Speaker 2: and my husband was home, and I just remember screaming
Speaker 2: and running through the apartment, like we got in, we
Speaker 2: got in, we got in, We're going into Whole Foods.
Speaker 2: This is it. Literally, Like the next week we got
Speaker 2: a yes from Wegman's as well, which was actually going
Speaker 2: to kind of triple the store account that we were in,
Speaker 2: and so I was just super super excited. Quickly that
Speaker 2: turned into Okay, now the work begins.
Speaker 1: The job to be done was to fill the demand
Speaker 1: for all these new orders. It was a lot of work.
Speaker 1: It also required more money.
Speaker 2: I never said, okay, let's empty the savings account and
Speaker 2: put everything into partake. It would be like, oh, I
Speaker 2: thought the distributor would pay me this week, and I
Speaker 2: have to buy one thousand dollars worth of sugar. Let
Speaker 2: me pull one thousand dollars out of the savings account.
Speaker 2: And it was that continuous drain. As I started to
Speaker 2: see dwindling down, I started to think, oh shit.
Speaker 1: But then she had an idea.
Speaker 2: I remember reading an article about the founder of Tascha
Speaker 2: Beauty and she talked about making the tough decision to
Speaker 2: sell her engagement ring. And I remember being like, WOI la.
Speaker 2: And I called my husband over and I was like,
Speaker 2: what do you think about this? And oddly, I guess
Speaker 2: he and I were both super supportive of it. And
Speaker 2: I sent him to the Diamond District in New York
Speaker 2: and he came home with several thousand dollars and that
Speaker 2: continued to keep the business afloat.
Speaker 3: Ben I got to jump in here. I know we
Speaker 3: give a lot of sound advice on this show, but
Speaker 3: I think tip number one, should we get a partner
Speaker 3: who doesn't bet an eye when you suggest you sell
Speaker 3: your engagement ring? To buy more sugar for cookies.
Speaker 1: Right, I'll call my wife right now and let her know.
Speaker 3: I gotta say, Denise has my favorite type of small
Speaker 3: business crisis.
Speaker 1: What crisis getting big too fast?
Speaker 3: Precisely the moment when you start to consider or in
Speaker 3: Denise's cases, have no other choice but to consider mentor capital.
Speaker 1: All right, and I think you're cheating. I think you
Speaker 1: know what happens next.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's hear it.
Speaker 1: Denise knew it was time to get serious about fundraising.
Speaker 2: I think it was at the moment where I was like, Okay,
Speaker 2: if I'm selling my engagement ring, clearly we need to
Speaker 2: find some investors. I knew nothing about venture capital when
Speaker 2: I started to raise money for Partake, and I think
Speaker 2: that was the scariest part. It felt like people were
Speaker 2: speaking a completely different language. I'd watched Shark Tank religiously,
Speaker 2: but I still didn't fully understand it. So what I
Speaker 2: immediately did was started reaching out to other founders who'd
Speaker 2: raised capital to try to understand more about what they
Speaker 2: would recommend in terms of like what types of capital,
Speaker 2: what types of investors. And I realized quickly that it's
Speaker 2: very much, for lack of better words, an old boys Club.
Speaker 2: I feel like some of the language isn't that complicated.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it's constructed to keep people out.
Speaker 1: But that didn't stop Denise.
Speaker 2: I literally was just like cold emailing people on LinkedIn.
Speaker 2: A lot of those folks were allies. They were white
Speaker 2: men who had done it before, who were willing to
Speaker 2: explain the code to me and to give me confidence
Speaker 2: to go into a room with the same like swagger
Speaker 2: that they would and share why I deserved to get
Speaker 2: this funding.
Speaker 1: She worked with her attorney to decide how to structure
Speaker 1: her fundraise. Denise didn't know what her company was worth,
Speaker 1: so she didn't want to put a price on the
Speaker 1: shares just yet, so she decided to use a convertible
Speaker 1: note for her fundraising. Denise needed to raise six hundred
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and she needed to do it fast.
Speaker 2: At that point, we were personally all tapped out. When
Speaker 2: we started. We'd had a really nice savings cushion in
Speaker 2: four oh one k's and my husband had a fantastic job.
Speaker 2: In late twenty eighteen, he lost his job, and so
Speaker 2: I started to feel the financial pressure like crushing me.
Speaker 2: I was really worried. I was really anxious I was
Speaker 2: really scared, and for me to continue to keep the
Speaker 2: business going, I was going to need to raise more
Speaker 2: capital and I was going to need to be able
Speaker 2: to do it quickly.
Speaker 1: For a brief moment, Denise considered going back to her
Speaker 1: corporate job to make more money, but she really didn't
Speaker 1: want to do that. She knew if she could crack
Speaker 1: the investor code, well, then they could really go for it.
Speaker 2: The angel investor circuit was going horribly for us. I
Speaker 2: was not able to raise any additional capital, and it
Speaker 2: was really demoralizing. I was getting no for a lot
Speaker 2: of different reasons. Sometimes I would get a no because
Speaker 2: this is a too niche of a category, or some
Speaker 2: people would say, oh, this is too crowded, or there
Speaker 2: would be a well come back when you get to
Speaker 2: a million dollars in sales, and I would think, well,
Speaker 2: I can't get to a million dollars in sales if
Speaker 2: I don't have any more money. And so it was
Speaker 2: really really frustrating, felt like this horrible, exhausting cycle that
Speaker 2: wasn't going anywhere.
Speaker 1: She kept pitching, kept getting turned down. Then Denise remembered
Speaker 1: an article she read about jay z Yes that Jay
Speaker 1: z He was starting a venture fund.
Speaker 2: One of our dearest friends, who's also so an investor
Speaker 2: in our business, works in the music industry. And I
Speaker 2: remember saying, do you know jay Z? And he's like, no, no,
Speaker 2: I don't. But he happened to know one of his
Speaker 2: business partners and they were willing to take the call.
Speaker 2: And I was like, you know, I'm going to be
Speaker 2: in La soon. I'd love to get together, just hoping
Speaker 2: they would agree to take a meeting, and they did so.
Speaker 1: She met with jay Z's partner and right from the
Speaker 1: beginning this conversation it felt totally different.
Speaker 2: It was so different than the Angel pitches in that,
Speaker 2: like all of the Angel chats typically started with what's
Speaker 2: your gross margin, what's the tam And this conversation was like,
Speaker 2: tell me about where you're from, tell me about why
Speaker 2: you're building this business. And I walked away so excited
Speaker 2: and so hopeful. And then in March of twenty nineteen,
Speaker 2: we got a term sheet that Marcy Venture Partners was
Speaker 2: interested in leading a seed round of funding for us.
Speaker 1: That conversation it changed everything for Denise.
Speaker 2: A lot of the groups that had said no, the
Speaker 2: announcement that we'd closed the seed round came out. A
Speaker 2: lot of those folks came back and they were like,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't a good time when you pitched before,
Speaker 2: but if you have room now, we'd love to invest.
Speaker 2: And I realized, like, maybe there wasn't something wrong with
Speaker 2: me in the business, and they said no. For another reason,
Speaker 2: it gave me some confidence because of that, but practically
Speaker 2: it also gave me the capital we needed to begin
Speaker 2: to scale the business and to begin to hire people.
Speaker 2: And we raise one million dollars.
Speaker 1: And soon she received a massive order from a retailed
Speaker 1: giant Target.
Speaker 2: I read the email and I reread the email, and
Speaker 2: I just like, stand up and sit down, and stand
Speaker 2: up and sit down. I don't know what to do
Speaker 2: with myself. And we had one other full time employee
Speaker 2: in the business, so I immediately call her and I tell
Speaker 2: her what's happened, and like, can we afford this? Can
Speaker 2: we do this? Can we make this many cookies? And
Speaker 2: she's like, I think so. And we needed to make
Speaker 2: a decision that week, and we went for it.
Speaker 1: In May of twenty twenty, George Floyd was tragically murdered.
Speaker 1: Tell us how that impacted your family and the business.
Speaker 2: For my family, you know, I think my husband living
Speaker 2: as a black man in America and as a black family, like,
Speaker 2: we felt so angered and saddened and wanted to channel
Speaker 2: those feelings into something positive and into positive change. And
Speaker 2: so there was some developments in the business. We launched
Speaker 2: an HBCU fellowship program aimed at increasing diversity in the
Speaker 2: food industry, and a lot of that came through kind
Speaker 2: of our feelings about George Floyd's murder.
Speaker 3: And then on the.
Speaker 2: Business front, we received an amount of inbound from potential investors,
Speaker 2: potential retailers, influencers, press, unlike anything I could have ever imagined.
Speaker 1: Surprisingly, twenty twenty was Partake Food's biggest year yet. They
Speaker 1: started the year in three hundred and fifty stores and
Speaker 1: ended in five thousand and got serious interest from investors.
Speaker 2: It's like a total one eighty from when I was
Speaker 2: raising the seed round of funding, where I was like
Speaker 2: begging for scraps, and I feel like I get to
Speaker 2: be selective about who I want to partner with.
Speaker 1: Since then, Denise has raised over twenty three million dollars
Speaker 1: in capital for Partake Foods.
Speaker 2: When I think back about why I started the company,
Speaker 2: it wasn't nutritional. It wasn't taste, it was the emotions.
Speaker 2: Like so much of your childhood experience, so much of
Speaker 2: your life experience is built in this, like emotions and
Speaker 2: the camaraderie and the celebration that comes with enjoying food together.
Speaker 2: And when I hear notes from our customers about how
Speaker 2: they could have s'mores for the first time, or bacup
Speaker 2: pie crust, or enjoy cookies at a birthday party, that's
Speaker 2: the reason I started the business.
Speaker 1: Today, Partake Foods has over ten products in their line
Speaker 1: and is available in thirteen thousand stores across the country.
Speaker 1: You can find them on multiple airlines and even in
Speaker 1: Ben and Jerry's ice cream.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: Then she made some major strides, she really did. There's
Speaker 3: so many parents and caretakers going through that it has
Speaker 3: become a major concern for folks. So this is a
Speaker 3: very real solution that she's provided.
Speaker 1: I think when there are challenges with food, trust becomes everything.
Speaker 1: Because there are a lot of things you do once
Speaker 1: a week, once a month, maybe even once a year.
Speaker 1: Food's not like that. Foods multiple times a day. It's
Speaker 1: always in our minds. It's a big part of our
Speaker 1: lives physically, but it's also a big part of our
Speaker 1: lives socially, So if you can't trust in the food
Speaker 1: brands that you're buying and that you're consuming, it's a
Speaker 1: real issue for consumers. And so you know, she had
Speaker 1: a pretty big trust barrier she had to get up
Speaker 1: over because that's a community that always has trust front
Speaker 1: and center in their minds.
Speaker 3: Yeah, as I said earlier, my younger brother has severe
Speaker 3: food allergies and still does to this day. I mean
Speaker 3: even as an adult, he has to be very, very
Speaker 3: particular about what he eats. So I love that Denise
Speaker 3: brought these products to the market and that they're products
Speaker 3: that people can trust.
Speaker 1: I think there were some good lessons in there in
Speaker 1: terms of how she brought her product to the market,
Speaker 1: how she earned that trust over time, how she stepstoned
Speaker 1: into it. And I think with something like this, you
Speaker 1: can imagine a big food brand goes in and they
Speaker 1: launch a big marketing blitz and it says this is safety,
Speaker 1: and they have that brand equity already and they're able
Speaker 1: to build that. She didn't have any of that, so
Speaker 1: she had to earn that trust along the way, and
Speaker 1: that's not an easy thing to do, but she sort
Speaker 1: of scratched away at it until she got there. And
Speaker 1: I think the authenticity of her story and where she
Speaker 1: was coming from and how the product evolved gave her
Speaker 1: the credibility to do that over time.
Speaker 3: And I like the term scratched away because that's really
Speaker 3: how it felt like. She had to make little strides,
Speaker 3: be open, and of course pivot. I thought that was
Speaker 3: a really great part of her story, the fact that
Speaker 3: she was able to make adjustments and she learned about
Speaker 3: who her target market was and was open to her
Speaker 3: business becoming something other than what she initially thought it
Speaker 3: was going to be. I liked her openness and her flexibility.
Speaker 1: That's a really hard balance to get right, you know.
Speaker 1: On the one hand, I hear people say, stay true
Speaker 1: to what you originally set out to do, and be
Speaker 1: true to your original product and your original audience, and
Speaker 1: she kind of couldn't do that because it wasn't a
Speaker 1: big enough market. Right. What she realized of her time
Speaker 1: is she could be true to that while also catering
Speaker 1: to a larger market. So she managed to throw that
Speaker 1: needle really well because what she didn't do was compromise
Speaker 1: on her original audience. She stayed with it. She kept
Speaker 1: her products completely allagen free and stayed true to that,
Speaker 1: but in a way that appealed to a broader audience
Speaker 1: that grew her dressable market without compromising on the core
Speaker 1: value proposition.
Speaker 3: And I think that the openness and her willingness to
Speaker 3: learn and getting out there and listening to what people
Speaker 3: were saying about her product, her seeing who was finding
Speaker 3: the product to be interesting, I thought that was a
Speaker 3: really great entrepreneurial move on her part.
Speaker 1: I think it was. The other thing I give her
Speaker 1: a ton of credit for is capital pee patients. You know,
Speaker 1: you can imagine when you start a business. Rather than
Speaker 1: just quitting her job and running out there and having
Speaker 1: to make it all go in a short period of
Speaker 1: time and running to market, she took her time in
Speaker 1: a couple of ways. She took her time by keeping
Speaker 1: a job on the side for a while, which helped
Speaker 1: her earn some money and helped her build the business
Speaker 1: more methodically. She took her time getting her product right
Speaker 1: before she went big and launched it and tried to
Speaker 1: sell it beyond its capabilities, beyond her manufacturing capabilities. She
Speaker 1: took her time from an equity perspective, which helped her
Speaker 1: preserve her equity in the business. She didn't just go
Speaker 1: out and raise a bunch of money that deluted her
Speaker 1: down right away. So you know, as fast as she moved,
Speaker 1: and she did move pretty fast, I think she found
Speaker 1: a good balance between pace and patience, and I think
Speaker 1: her patience has really paid off.
Speaker 3: It just makes me think about myself as a business
Speaker 3: owner and other business owners and just how we learn
Speaker 3: to strike that balance, how we learn to make the
Speaker 3: appropriate adjustments, consider timing. There's so many things to think
Speaker 3: about when you are as you're trying to grow. How
Speaker 3: have you seen people strike that balance?
Speaker 1: I think the way that people are successful in that
Speaker 1: is they find ways to prove product market fit. So
Speaker 1: they find ways to prove that their product resonates with
Speaker 1: the right kinds of customers in the right way, number one,
Speaker 1: and to prove to themselves that they can meet the
Speaker 1: supply side of the equation. You know, you have to
Speaker 1: have both supply and demand to run a business, and
Speaker 1: you have to have confidence in both before you press
Speaker 1: the gas pedal. The people I've seen do it really well,
Speaker 1: generally don't have it perfectly right the first time. That's
Speaker 1: more luck than skill, and so they find ways to
Speaker 1: d risk as they go. And I think that's a
Speaker 1: guiding principle that small business owners can have, which is,
Speaker 1: what can I do to de risk what I'm trying
Speaker 1: to do while I learn? And the more you can
Speaker 1: do to take risk out of the business while you
Speaker 1: learn those lessons, the better off you're going to be
Speaker 1: ultimately from the perspective of how much equity you have,
Speaker 1: from the perspective of how much market credibility you have,
Speaker 1: from the perspective of how much goodwill you have with
Speaker 1: your partners. The more that you can de risk while
Speaker 1: you learn those lessons, the more runway you're going to
Speaker 1: have once you've learned them to go do things the
Speaker 1: way you've learned is right.
Speaker 3: That is one way that Denise did that right with
Speaker 3: having her job and holding on to her job. But
Speaker 3: what I like about how she did this because a
Speaker 3: lot of entrepreneurs do that. But what she did was
Speaker 3: she was very consistent about it. She was diligent. Though
Speaker 3: she had the security of her existing position, she still
Speaker 3: was running this company and growing it steadily and learning
Speaker 3: her market and taking major steps. So I like that, Yes,
Speaker 3: she had reduced the risk, but she didn't do what
Speaker 3: a lot of other people do and they're just starting out,
Speaker 3: which is not take it as seriously as they should
Speaker 3: as if they didn't have the security of the position,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she took it seriously, there's no question. And look, ultimately,
Speaker 1: if it's not your passion, you shouldn't quit your job
Speaker 1: and do it because it's going to be all consuming
Speaker 1: and it's going to be your life. So I think
Speaker 1: the other place that her patient's paid off was in
Speaker 1: her fundraising. You know, we've talked to a lot of
Speaker 1: different companies about how they raise money, and some go
Speaker 1: sort of alternative routes, some friends and families, some use
Speaker 1: their own money, some use partners money. She went more
Speaker 1: of a sort of classic outside investor route, and like
Speaker 1: many people who go that route, it wasn't easy, right,
Speaker 1: So she describes pitching twenty thirty, forty fifty times and
Speaker 1: getting a whole bunch of no's before she gets to
Speaker 1: a yes. I always tell people, if you're fundraising and
Speaker 1: you're not walking out with feedback, you're not getting smarter
Speaker 1: and your next pitch is not going to be any
Speaker 1: better than your current pitch. And there's a few things
Speaker 1: she tipped us off for that, I think are good
Speaker 1: things to keep in mind always, you know, number one,
Speaker 1: always be able to articulate how you're going to use
Speaker 1: the money. You know, saying I need to raise money
Speaker 1: for this company without being able to specifically articulate how
Speaker 1: you're going to use that money and what kind of
Speaker 1: return you expect probably isn't gonna win very many fans.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she definitely was taking a long term approach, not
Speaker 3: just seeking money right from wherever she could get it.
Speaker 3: She was very intentional, and I liked that she was
Speaker 3: very committed to her education, and she recognized that she
Speaker 3: was entering an arena that was very unusual or different
Speaker 3: for her, and she stressed that she had to learn
Speaker 3: what to say, she had to learn the language, and
Speaker 3: in addition to being patient, she took that part very
Speaker 3: seriously as well.
Speaker 1: I'm not so sure about that. I think if you
Speaker 1: listened in the early days, she just wanted the money.
Speaker 1: And I can't really blame her for that, because she's
Speaker 1: trying to get going and she's looking for funds, and
Speaker 1: so if you listen to how she talks about it
Speaker 1: at the end, she clearly had a much more evolved
Speaker 1: way of thinking about partnering with someone from a fundraising
Speaker 1: capability than she did in the early days. I think
Speaker 1: she realized that the fundraising process was about finding the
Speaker 1: right long term partner.
Speaker 3: But it worked out well for Denise. I mean, listaid
Speaker 3: there are advantages to the nose. In addition to getting
Speaker 3: substantive feedback from investors on your pitch, there's also the
Speaker 3: men fit of time time to learn more about what
Speaker 3: to do differently and not just what to change in
Speaker 3: your pitch. So the nos were really a great opportunity
Speaker 3: for her to learn.
Speaker 1: Right. If you're not learning from your nose, then you're
Speaker 1: not growing, Tanya, I want to share one last piece
Speaker 1: of the interview with you. Denise had some advice for
Speaker 1: current and aspiring small business owners that I really think
Speaker 1: will resonate.
Speaker 3: Well, let's hear it. It's okay to start small.
Speaker 2: I remember being at those local demos and trade shows
Speaker 2: and I would have a five dollars tablecloth and a
Speaker 2: stand that I made at home myself, and I would
Speaker 2: be embarrassed. I would see other businesses that were much larger,
Speaker 2: with much flashier signs, and think something's wrong with my business.
Speaker 2: I felt the same when we weren't able to hire
Speaker 2: early on. But I think it was that financial scarcity
Speaker 2: that made me have to be much more scrappy. It
Speaker 2: made me a stronger and better business person. And at
Speaker 2: the time I kind of wished it away, but I
Speaker 2: think the starting small was really important for my business.
Speaker 1: Okay, and I have to ask, what is your daughter's
Speaker 1: favorite part take prop.
Speaker 2: She takes the crunchy chocolate chip snack packs for lunch
Speaker 2: every single day and I try to switch it up
Speaker 2: for her sometimes and she's like, no, I want the
Speaker 2: cookies every day.
Speaker 1: Ben.
Speaker 3: I think her daughter is onto something. These crunchy chocolate
Speaker 3: chip snack packs are delicious.
Speaker 1: I can go for some right now.
Speaker 3: And there's ice cream too. Where's ice cream? Where's ice cream?
Speaker 3: I want to try it.
Speaker 1: It sounds like Partake Foods has a really exciting road
Speaker 1: ahead of it, but a lot more to do.
Speaker 3: Yes, so much more to do, so many more snacks
Speaker 3: for Vivi to try and the rest of us too.
Speaker 1: Thanks so much for listening to The Unshakables. If you
Speaker 1: like this episode, please rate and review it. It'll help
Speaker 1: our show find more listeners. On the next episode, after
Speaker 1: a near death experience left him with no one to trust.
Speaker 1: Real estate investor and developer Fukwan Bilal pivoted to reinvent
Speaker 1: his business and his mindset. I'm Ben Walter and this
Speaker 1: is the Unshakables from Chase for Business and Ruby Studio
Speaker 1: from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 2: The Unshakables is a pretty action of Ruby Studio from iHeartMedia.
Speaker 3: And we'll have