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Speaker 2: Hey everyone, I'm Austin Hankwitz and I'm Jnise Torres.
Speaker 1: Welcome to Mine the Business. Small Business Success Stories, a
Speaker 1: podcast brought to you by iHeartRadio and Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 1: In each episode, Austin and I chat with small business
Speaker 1: owners as they share their stories about the ups and
Speaker 1: downs of owning a small business. Plus we'll learn from
Speaker 1: their experience about how you can help fortify and strengthen
Speaker 1: your own business.
Speaker 2: Now, Jennie's I'm really excited about today's guest, but before
Speaker 2: we jump into that, I really want to understand the
Speaker 2: early days of running your business right. I know the
Speaker 2: VC world. Pretty well. I made some mistakes early with
Speaker 2: my money. I'll happily admit that, but I want to
Speaker 2: learn more about your journey. So what was your journey
Speaker 2: like setting up the financial infrastructure of your business for
Speaker 2: the very first time.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought this up, Austin, because as
Speaker 1: someone who teaches folks how to start the small business,
Speaker 1: I teach them from a place of I made all
Speaker 1: the mistakes, so don't do any of this. And mistake
Speaker 1: number one was me not having any idea what was
Speaker 1: happening financially in my business until tax time and then
Speaker 1: getting a huge tax bill because I didn't know anything
Speaker 1: about quarterly estimated payments. I didn't know what my cash
Speaker 1: flow situation was looking like. I didn't know where my
Speaker 1: expenses were, and so every year it was like the
Speaker 1: moment of dread when my accountant would tell me, oh,
Speaker 1: by the way, you owe nine thousand dollars in taxes
Speaker 1: because you didn't plan for this. And the biggest problem
Speaker 1: was that I wasn't using a robust accounting system like QuickBooks.
Speaker 1: So QuickBooks, I always say, saved my sanity and my
Speaker 1: accountant when I hired her, she said, if you don't
Speaker 1: use QuickBooks. We can work together because they're the gold
Speaker 1: standard for accounting software. Plus they have so many other
Speaker 1: features like business accounts, invoicing, payroll, et cetera. She's like,
Speaker 1: we're not going to do this unless you're on board
Speaker 1: with this system. And I totally get it because it's
Speaker 1: just a robust software that's tracking everything that's happening in
Speaker 1: your business. I'm curious what your experience was like, Austin.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right there with you. I think the tracking everything
Speaker 2: in your business is special because I was the person
Speaker 2: that in the beginning was like, oh, the smallest expense,
Speaker 2: the smallest subscription anything I can think of, Oh, that's
Speaker 2: a business expense. That's a business expense. And soon enough
Speaker 2: I started having subscriptions to every newsletter you can imagine.
Speaker 2: I had subscriptions to so many different softwares that I
Speaker 2: thought were going to help me build my business. And
Speaker 2: it took me a little bit of looking at what
Speaker 2: I was spending because obviously, inside of quick Books you
Speaker 2: get to see the cash flow out every month, and
Speaker 2: so I'm like, dang, I really spent that much more
Speaker 2: this month than I did, you know two months ago.
Speaker 2: What's going on? And for me, that was reconcilling those expenses,
Speaker 2: seeing do I really need this? So I think, like
Speaker 2: in the beginning, one of the biggest money mistakes I
Speaker 2: made was just over indulging on what I thought could
Speaker 2: be a business expense or what should help me build
Speaker 2: my business. And then the second thing to kind of
Speaker 2: piggyback off your taxes here the payroll stuff. I did
Speaker 2: not set myself up for payroll as soon as I
Speaker 2: should have. It was really hard for me to understand that,
Speaker 2: you know, I'm not just the entrepreneur co founder of
Speaker 2: this business. I am also an employee, which means I
Speaker 2: need to be taking a payroll, I need to be
Speaker 2: paying taxes, I need to be setting side money for
Speaker 2: my four to one k and my health insurance and
Speaker 2: things of that nature, right, And so it was just
Speaker 2: such an eye opening moment. Once my accountant, who also
Speaker 2: used this quick books, sat me down, I was like,
Speaker 2: all right, Austin, you guys are at this point where
Speaker 2: and I have a co founder's name's Christian and he's like,
Speaker 2: you guys are at this point where you'll definitely should
Speaker 2: not just be doing this whle ten ninety nine and
Speaker 2: stuff anymore, Like why if you guys not set up
Speaker 2: payroll and it's like, cause I don't know.
Speaker 1: One thing that I also love about the platform is
Speaker 1: that you have an option to work with an expert,
Speaker 1: and a lot of small business owners try to di
Speaker 1: why their way to success and at some point we
Speaker 1: realize we're in over our heads, and things like recommending
Speaker 1: making the election for es Corps so that you do
Speaker 1: start paying yourself, those are all things that an expert
Speaker 1: can work with you on. So it's definitely good always
Speaker 1: to think about where are you maybe just not sufficiently
Speaker 1: educated in a specific area when it comes to business finances,
Speaker 1: and then finding the people that can support you on
Speaker 1: your journey. But enough about us, let's go ahead and
Speaker 1: introduce our guest.
Speaker 2: Jessica Spalding grew up in an anti sugar home, but
Speaker 2: there was one exception to this rule. Chocolate, not just
Speaker 2: any chocolate. Her mother knew the higher the quality, the
Speaker 2: lower the sugar, and the better the flavor. They would
Speaker 2: attend every chocolate show and learn about chocolate from around
Speaker 2: the world, but can never find anything that reflected her culture.
Speaker 2: So she tempered her first batch of chocolate at ten
Speaker 2: years old and dreamed devoting her own shop. One day
Speaker 2: that dream would manifest itself into the Harlem Chocolate Factory.
Speaker 2: Although being a chocolatear wasn't a supported career path, she
Speaker 2: never gave up on her dream. Merging her passion for
Speaker 2: chocolate with her love of Harlem, she created a unique
Speaker 2: experience she wants to share with everyone.
Speaker 3: Jessica, welcome to the show. Hey, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: So excited to have you here. First and foremost, how
Speaker 1: did you come up with the idea for Harlem Chocolate Factory?
Speaker 4: Ooh, I think the idea for the company came up
Speaker 4: with me. You know, you've already said it. Like, I've
Speaker 4: been going to chocolate show since I was a little kid,
Speaker 4: and I was immersed in this thing I have been
Speaker 4: looking forward to for like the entire year. But as
Speaker 4: you start to get older and go to them, I'm
Speaker 4: experiencing cultures and understanding what cultural experiences are and never
Speaker 4: seeing anything that reflected what I felt like my culture
Speaker 4: was as a black woman, an African American woman in
Speaker 4: this country. And as you get older and you find
Speaker 4: out seventy eighty percent of the chocolate on this earth
Speaker 4: is from countries in Africa, you start to like wonder
Speaker 4: why there's not more cultural representation.
Speaker 3: Man.
Speaker 4: That's literally how I I came up with the concept.
Speaker 2: So as it relates to Harlem Chocolate Factory, walk me
Speaker 2: through sort of step by step as to one, how
Speaker 2: you got fifteen thousand dollars and then two, once you
Speaker 2: got the money, what were you doing with it?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: How did you decide the first couple of things to
Speaker 2: spend the money on.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So that was a part of the New York
Speaker 4: Public Libraries business plan competition, which we won. I wanted
Speaker 4: to find a way to let people know about Harlem
Speaker 4: Chocolate Factory, but then also to set myself up to
Speaker 4: have something sustainable. So as a part of the business
Speaker 4: plan competition that there were like little things you were
Speaker 4: doing to legitimize that you were going to actually do
Speaker 4: in the use of funds, Right, Like, I'm going to
Speaker 4: spend twenty five hundred on this, and that's going to
Speaker 4: be an equipment and supplies, and twenty five hundred is
Speaker 4: going to be on marketing. So I think by the
Speaker 4: time we were all set and done, like fifty percent
Speaker 4: of it went to just setting us up to produce.
Speaker 4: Probably twenty five percent went to setting up the business
Speaker 4: so like getting our website to be an actual website,
Speaker 4: Like I had kind of coded something, but we needed
Speaker 4: now a payment system, and we needed stuff for people
Speaker 4: to be able to order and filing the actual LLC
Speaker 4: and going through that part, I got a lot of
Speaker 4: subsidized help because I had turned to a lot of
Speaker 4: nonprofits to just help me and receiving like free accounting,
Speaker 4: free legal and I wanted to keep like five thousand
Speaker 4: in reserve, and it wound up coming in handy very
Speaker 4: quickly because by the end of that first year, we
Speaker 4: got an order for like two hundred and fifty six
Speaker 4: count boxes that were going to Sam Adams for their
Speaker 4: media kits, and so we needed a whole bunch of
Speaker 4: money to like get that order done and processed.
Speaker 3: That's how like the money got split up.
Speaker 2: And I hope you don't mind, but I kind of
Speaker 2: want to rewind for a second, because you were talking
Speaker 2: about these nonprofits that you kind of leaned into that
Speaker 2: really helped you pull together the accounting, the legal things
Speaker 2: of that nature. And I'm sure there's some people listening
Speaker 2: right now that might be in your shoes as you
Speaker 2: were when you were still kind of figuring it all out.
Speaker 2: How did you find those nonprofits?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: How were you so resourceful and what were you pulling
Speaker 2: on to find these different resources to help you move
Speaker 2: forward in your business?
Speaker 4: One percent the library. There were a group of women
Speaker 4: at the library that I was going to. They kind
Speaker 4: of rallied around me, and they had so many different
Speaker 4: resources and so many different like reference points. So like
Speaker 4: all of my initial marketing analysis was done at the library.
Speaker 4: I can't afford a five thousand dollars research report or
Speaker 4: you know, like those reports caused money, and a lot
Speaker 4: of times they're available for free through your local library.
Speaker 4: And the only resourcefulness was like getting out of my
Speaker 4: own comfort zone to be able to really lean on
Speaker 4: them and ask for help. The only way to do
Speaker 4: it is with the assistance of other people.
Speaker 2: Okay, so back to sort of the discussion here, right,
Speaker 2: You got the money, you're spending it here and there,
Speaker 2: you're trying to figure out what's going on, what maybe
Speaker 2: software tools resources were you using to help make sure
Speaker 2: that you didn't overspend, that you were analyzing the data
Speaker 2: that you are figuring out this money coming out, this
Speaker 2: money coming in.
Speaker 4: When I started in the business plan competition, they had
Speaker 4: given us like a whole bunch of access to spreadsheets
Speaker 4: right where you were supposed to like manage your cost
Speaker 4: of goods, manage all these things and the stress. So
Speaker 4: when I went to this nonprofit called Start Small, Thin Big,
Speaker 4: they offered free legal help and free accounting, and I
Speaker 4: got an accountant that used to work for the IRS,
Speaker 4: and she set me up on quick books and explain
Speaker 4: to me reporting. She broke down like the chart of
Speaker 4: accounts and set me up in such a good way
Speaker 4: that we didn't hire accountants until this year. Not to
Speaker 4: say we didn't need it, but we couldn't afford it.
Speaker 4: And QuickBooks kind of worked as our adjunct CFO during
Speaker 4: this time because I was able to really understand, like, Okay,
Speaker 4: when we buy from this vendor, it's packaging, but it's
Speaker 4: not necessarily packaging.
Speaker 3: That's a part of our cost of goods.
Speaker 4: It's a part of our operations, right, like where do
Speaker 4: you put shopping bags? And those are the things that
Speaker 4: people don't start to understand about how to set themselves
Speaker 4: up financially to be able to get an accurate identification
Speaker 4: about how profitable you are, and do you need to
Speaker 4: scale in terms of volume or do you need to
Speaker 4: cut your costs in terms of operation, and while we
Speaker 4: weren't profitable that year, the next year we definitely were,
Speaker 4: and we've maintained profitability throughout our time.
Speaker 1: Having that data is so important, So I'm curious did
Speaker 1: it play into your decision in twenty eighteen to open
Speaker 1: your flagship location. How did you make the decision financially
Speaker 1: that it was the right time for a brick and.
Speaker 4: Mortar man, I did the cardinal sin of what you
Speaker 4: should never do, and I'm going to be like completely
Speaker 4: transparent here. I let a sale dictate to me what
Speaker 4: my next move was going to be, and then I
Speaker 4: let a market that was a little inhospitable to me
Speaker 4: scaling dictate which step was next.
Speaker 3: So I'll break that down very plainly to you.
Speaker 4: We had went to the fancy food show and got
Speaker 4: in the list of the top ten things, and.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my god, it's gonna be our
Speaker 3: big break.
Speaker 4: And we got this like six figure order and we
Speaker 4: were trying to find space to fulfill the order and
Speaker 4: just genuinely, honestly couldn't find it. We were supposed to
Speaker 4: get space, and that deal fell through after very lengthy
Speaker 4: stringing along, which was another mistake I made. I allowed
Speaker 4: myself to move forward without paperwork on a deal and
Speaker 4: do not ever do that. Yes, there are good faith
Speaker 4: handshakes and everything, but the day before we were supposed
Speaker 4: to sign the lease, they kind of told me that
Speaker 4: they weren't going to give me the space.
Speaker 2: No kidding, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So I was devastated. But then there wasn't a
Speaker 4: lot of time for devastation because I had equipment on
Speaker 4: the way from Italy, which can happen to a lot
Speaker 4: of entrepreneurs, So that pushed me toward finding this space
Speaker 4: because after I had such a short amount of time
Speaker 4: between when that equipment was coming and when we were
Speaker 4: supposed to have the order ready. But it was like
Speaker 4: it took us over a year to build out because
Speaker 4: we weren't necessarily ready for a change in business model.
Speaker 4: I had put having a store in a space after
Speaker 4: building a production facility. But I will say having an
Speaker 4: analysis of what was working is what kept us open
Speaker 4: right Like it was a struggle, a dramatic and drastic
Speaker 4: struggle because now this space required my full attention, so
Speaker 4: I wasn't able to work anymore. So I was constantly
Speaker 4: watching my cost of goods and my operating expenses, but
Speaker 4: it didn't make it any less difficult.
Speaker 2: So, as someone who went through the ups and downs
Speaker 2: of trying to find a retail space for you to
Speaker 2: produce this large sale, what's like the actual way it's
Speaker 2: supposed to happen?
Speaker 4: I can't say in terms of normal because business is
Speaker 4: like children, you know what I'm saying, Like every child
Speaker 4: is different, But we.
Speaker 3: Can say ideal.
Speaker 4: If I had any piece of advice for someone looking
Speaker 4: for a space, it would be think about what you
Speaker 4: actually need to make your sale. Everyone immediately assumes retail.
Speaker 4: You may not necessarily need that because people drastically undercount
Speaker 4: how expensive and also difficult and time consuming dealing with
Speaker 4: direct to consumer is. And now like retailing to stores
Speaker 4: has its own difficulties because now you have to create
Speaker 4: a marketing machine. You're just choosing your heart, but you
Speaker 4: got to understand the financial ramifications of taking on that
Speaker 4: cost for yourself. If you want to get into target
Speaker 4: and you're like, well, we're not ready for that, so
Speaker 4: we're going to open our own store, take that from
Speaker 4: your brain. There's no way you're gonna tell me that
Speaker 4: you're not ready for targets. So I'm gonna open my
Speaker 4: own retail shop.
Speaker 3: If you are not ready.
Speaker 4: For that, I urge you to reconsider how ready you
Speaker 4: may specifically be to own your own retail shop. What
Speaker 4: wound up happening with us because we were so ill
Speaker 4: prepared for a specific retail scenario. We were consumed with
Speaker 4: our consumers. The power of a dollar walking into your
Speaker 4: face is very hard to deny and unless you go
Speaker 4: in with the this retail space is just here to
Speaker 4: be here, and our actual goal is scaling our production.
Speaker 4: That is very, very different than just like now we're
Speaker 4: going to open a retail space in addition to this
Speaker 4: other thing we're trying to do at the same time,
Speaker 4: because of how time consuming and thoughtful you have to
Speaker 4: be about your brand with that at the same time,
Speaker 4: it's not impossible.
Speaker 3: You just have to be intentional.
Speaker 1: Coming up on Mind the Business Small Business success Stories, we.
Speaker 4: Want to have these polethero options because we feel like
Speaker 4: we are offering our customers something different. The reality is
Speaker 4: is you're just cannibalizing your sales.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after the break.
Speaker 2: Welcome back to Mind the Business Small Business Success Stories,
Speaker 2: brought to you by iHeartRadio and into it quick books.
Speaker 1: So I imagine you as a retail business owner. You're confronted
Speaker 1: by the pandemic and that requires some pivoting. So how
Speaker 1: did the pandemic actually affect your business operations and what
Speaker 1: did you change about your strategy?
Speaker 4: It was the ultimate gut punch, but it also made
Speaker 4: me recognize where we were going terribly wrong. Our customers
Speaker 4: dictated what we had previously. When we were working out
Speaker 4: of the incubator. For clarification, we only had like three products.
Speaker 4: But in the store is a little different. People are
Speaker 4: coming in and they now have the things that they like.
Speaker 4: I love y'all, but I want turtles. Y'all got something
Speaker 4: with Karen mil y'all got something with DUTs, y'all got
Speaker 4: something with this.
Speaker 3: Y'all got something with that.
Speaker 4: And now that we are relying on those people coming back,
Speaker 4: we have to fill that. And when the pandemic shut
Speaker 4: us down, we had gone from those three skews to upwards.
Speaker 3: I would say of like forty five. Yeah, that's quite
Speaker 3: a leap, wow.
Speaker 4: Because everybody and their mother coming in about the things
Speaker 4: that they specifically want.
Speaker 2: So just want to jump in here for a second
Speaker 2: for the person listening right now, who's thinking about starting
Speaker 2: their business that don't yet know what a skew is.
Speaker 2: What is a skew, Jessica.
Speaker 4: It is just an individual product that you make, right,
Speaker 4: So it's that specific color, size, and quantity of whatever
Speaker 4: item that you are ordering.
Speaker 1: It's that unique item number. According to Google, it's stock
Speaker 1: keeping unit.
Speaker 3: There you go.
Speaker 2: I did not know that either, Professor Goo strikes again.
Speaker 4: Yeah, right, so we're going to come back to my
Speaker 4: homegirl quick books. So we were always doing analysis around
Speaker 4: our costs. We were not doing analysis around our sales.
Speaker 4: We were looking at the sections right like this is
Speaker 4: how much we're doing in corporate, this is how much
Speaker 4: we're doing in retail, but not per item. So we're
Speaker 4: sitting down. We ain't got nothing to do, right because
Speaker 4: it was supposed to be two weeks. And then we
Speaker 4: started looking because we're like, all right, if we're going
Speaker 4: to open back up, there's no way that now, not
Speaker 4: having any staff, not having any you know, it being
Speaker 4: a little bit dicey to bring people in to help me.
Speaker 3: It was a lot.
Speaker 4: We got to do. How much stuff we're making, and
Speaker 4: I mean everything we have sells out. So there's a
Speaker 4: mental kind of thing where you feel like, all right,
Speaker 4: we always selling out, so we are clearly making money
Speaker 4: from it. And we started analyzing, we have this one
Speaker 4: skew that sells out all the time. I mean literally
Speaker 4: in minutes when we had them online, they were selling
Speaker 4: out all the time.
Speaker 2: Don't be shy, what's the skew? Let me hear what
Speaker 2: I need to start making from a chocolate perspective.
Speaker 4: Let me tell you something, but it ain't don't ask
Speaker 4: me for it because I ain't got it.
Speaker 3: You're going to wait until we scale up. It is
Speaker 3: our chocolate turtles.
Speaker 1: Mmmm.
Speaker 3: Okay, boom, that's what it is. I mean, you know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying.
Speaker 4: But it was almost a two to maybe three day
Speaker 4: production process, and the yield was around one hundred and
Speaker 4: twenty turtles at a time, and they could sell out
Speaker 4: in the day. And over the course of the three
Speaker 4: years that we had those turtles, we made fifteen or
Speaker 4: twenty thousand dollars in turtle sales. Now for some entrepreneurs
Speaker 4: that oh, okay, that's great for one Okay, let's break
Speaker 4: that down. Fifteen twenty thousand over the course of honestly
Speaker 4: maybe two years, so that's ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 4: We're gonna put it all the way up to the
Speaker 4: top two years, ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: Per month eight hundred.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we're talking about less than one thousand dollars a month.
Speaker 1: And is that factoring in like labor and all that stuff,
Speaker 1: like the money you're paying folks to make those things.
Speaker 4: Right, And so once we take out the margin, we
Speaker 4: are talking about maybe five hundred dollars a month. Yeah,
Speaker 4: five hundred dollars for a month for an item that
Speaker 4: takes three days of the production schedule. If we have
Speaker 4: seven days to work with thirty percent of our time
Speaker 4: to make five hundred.
Speaker 2: Dollars, that is such you've been up in gems, Jessica.
Speaker 2: I mean truly, this whole conversation has been amazing, but
Speaker 2: that I think is so important for the entrepreneurs listening
Speaker 2: right now who's trying to scale that business. You've sort
Speaker 2: of realized, like from a scaling perspective, this part isn't
Speaker 2: helping me scale the top line. I mean, I'm you know,
Speaker 2: thirty percent of my time is going into making I
Speaker 2: don't know how much money you do, but call it
Speaker 2: ten thousand dollars a year, I would imagine Harlem Chocolate
Speaker 2: factory is doing much more than ten thousand dollars a year.
Speaker 2: But for the person listening right now, what was the
Speaker 2: big realization that was like, okay, wait, so thirty percent
Speaker 2: of my time's going here. How does that now affect
Speaker 2: what you're doing? Did you change anything? Are you not
Speaker 2: focusing on different skills?
Speaker 3: Absolutely?
Speaker 4: It don't take long for me to tell myself I'm
Speaker 4: doing some stupid all right. Yes, entrepreneurship is difficult, But
Speaker 4: there was a level of hardness to like what was
Speaker 4: going on that I felt like, Okay, maybe we're hitting
Speaker 4: our heads against the wall. And so it's how I
Speaker 4: develop those equations. How much time do I have? How
Speaker 4: much time am I spending on a certain product? And
Speaker 4: how much does that product make? And we realize ninety
Speaker 4: five to ninety six percent of our money was made
Speaker 4: between two product lines. It was chocolate bars and truffles
Speaker 4: and bomb bonds. Everything else went.
Speaker 2: That reminds me here, Jessica, of that eighty twenty rule. Right,
Speaker 2: eighty percent of your money comes from twenty percent of
Speaker 2: your products.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And the thing is, I think that small business
Speaker 4: owners wait too long to think about scaling. You need
Speaker 4: to have a timeline on identifying what your hero product is.
Speaker 4: You cannot keep throwing things out the wall and saying like, Okay,
Speaker 4: well this didn't pop, and that didn't pop, and that.
Speaker 4: You know, as soon as something doesn't necessarily sell and
Speaker 4: scale till millions and millions and millions, people are just
Speaker 4: stuck in that creative rut. I tell entrepreneurs all the
Speaker 4: time that creativity is the enemy of entrepreneurship at times.
Speaker 4: Don't just keep all your creativity on product development. It
Speaker 4: may need to be your sales and your marketing plan
Speaker 4: that needs that creativity. But we get up on the
Speaker 4: product and developing all these different kinds of products and like, Okay,
Speaker 4: that one product didn't sell, so we're gonna move on
Speaker 4: and make another product.
Speaker 3: No, take a time. If it's a year, if it's
Speaker 3: six months.
Speaker 4: Which one of those five products that you make up,
Speaker 4: which one of those moved the furthest all right, boom,
Speaker 4: two of them did. I don't care if it was
Speaker 4: a thousand dollars and more sales than the other two.
Speaker 4: Stick on those. But we want to have this polethoral
Speaker 4: options because we feel like we are offering our customers
Speaker 4: something different. The reality is is you're just cannibalizing your sales.
Speaker 2: That part right there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's it. That's the generrate there.
Speaker 1: You know, next time, Jessica, just at me, okay, because
Speaker 1: you're literally describing the first like seven years of my
Speaker 1: journey as an entrepreneur, y'all.
Speaker 4: I literally did that all the time. We used to
Speaker 4: do pop ups. This was another thing, y'all.
Speaker 3: Pop ups.
Speaker 4: This helped us with deciding that we were gonna go
Speaker 4: into retail. It felt cheap because I didn't have to
Speaker 4: pay staff, right it was me. There was somebody that
Speaker 4: loved me. They're working for the day. But the table rental,
Speaker 4: getting to the pop up, the time that it took
Speaker 4: to create the products for the pop up, I was
Speaker 4: paying for absolutely every single thing. The pop up profitability
Speaker 4: was at honestly, like less than twenty percent. So I'm like,
Speaker 4: the products got seventy percent margins and I'm only making
Speaker 4: twenty percent and some zero at the end. All in
Speaker 4: to rent all those tables and do all those pop
Speaker 4: ups and get to all those pop ups and get
Speaker 4: the products for all those pop ups, we were literally
Speaker 4: spending probably around forty five hundred dollars a month. So
Speaker 4: I'm like Okay, that's how I knew I was able
Speaker 4: to afford the shop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jessica, this conversation has been so full of gems.
Speaker 1: I know folks are gonna get so much value added
Speaker 1: information here. I wanted you to tell us what's next
Speaker 1: for Hard Chocolate Factory and where we can find you.
Speaker 4: Definitely follow us on all the social media signups for
Speaker 4: our newsletter. Our goal is to just grow right. We
Speaker 4: are now finally looking for a real life production space
Speaker 4: and you can find us at Harlem Chocolate Factory dot com.
Speaker 4: You'll see us in stores very soon and maybe in
Speaker 4: places where you take flights.
Speaker 3: So that's that's not violating it, because that's not violating it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying, like maybe if you was going to
Speaker 4: go get on a flight and you was at a
Speaker 4: place that has.
Speaker 2: Planes, might start with an A of some It might.
Speaker 3: It just might, It just might. I don't know.
Speaker 2: You're awesome, such a great episode.
Speaker 3: Yeah, thank you, thank you, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2: That was such an incredible come with Jessica. Jennie's tell
Speaker 2: me what's stuck out with you the most about that conversation.
Speaker 1: Well, first and foremost, I definitely need the truffles in
Speaker 1: my life, and I need to make my way to
Speaker 1: Harlem to go and get some of those because I
Speaker 1: am starving now after this conversation. But for me, I
Speaker 1: think Jessica was just so transparent in the fact that
Speaker 1: entrepreneurship is messy, it's ugly. You're gonna make mistakes, especially
Speaker 1: if you're doing this for the first time you don't
Speaker 1: have a circle of people around you. So how about you,
Speaker 1: Elsin what did you take away?
Speaker 2: I think for me it was like understanding and I'm
Speaker 2: sort of going through this myself, right, so it really
Speaker 2: resonates with me. Is it takes one side of you
Speaker 2: as a business owner to start a business, but then
Speaker 2: it takes a completely different side of you to scale
Speaker 2: that business. Right, you can get that fifteen thousand dollars check,
Speaker 2: you can win the contest, you can buy the equipment,
Speaker 2: you can get your first couple of customers, but it's
Speaker 2: a completely different game plan now to say, wait, what
Speaker 2: skews are actually working for me? Right? How do I
Speaker 2: double down on what's working? Are these pop up shops
Speaker 2: really worth it? Right? Everything that she was talking about
Speaker 2: as it really is to scaling her business, Like those
Speaker 2: are so so so important.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 1: I really loved the idea that as you grow, you
Speaker 1: have to let go, which is one thing that she
Speaker 1: really emphasized on when she said, you know, all of
Speaker 1: these SKUs were in demand, bright customers, but were they
Speaker 1: actually a good use of my time as a business owner?
Speaker 1: And you kind of got to get ruthless. You got
Speaker 1: to take your feelings out of Oh well, I invested
Speaker 1: so much time and energy and money into launching this
Speaker 1: product and maybe it's just not serving you.
Speaker 3: And that's okay.
Speaker 1: Entrepreneurship is really about not just making good decisions, but
Speaker 1: making sustainable decisions as a business owner that are going
Speaker 1: to help you in the long run. And sometimes that
Speaker 1: means doing less, not more.
Speaker 2: And I think I just want to call this out too,
Speaker 2: is she did that handshake deal right with the storefront
Speaker 2: owner and turned out to be a bad deal and
Speaker 2: it didn't work in her favor. And so contracts, get
Speaker 2: it written, get it written, get it signed, get it
Speaker 2: figured out. You know, I'm not here to say that
Speaker 2: there are people out there to cheat you or lie
Speaker 2: ar still from you, but man, that piece of paper
Speaker 2: sure feels a lot better than someone's you know, handshake,
Speaker 2: Absolutely well.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. You can find me on
Speaker 1: social media at jokierro Den Neto Podcast.
Speaker 2: And you can find me at Austin Hankwitz. You can
Speaker 2: follow Into It QuickBooks on all social media at QuickBooks.
Speaker 2: To get the tools you need to start, run, and
Speaker 2: grow your business, head to QuickBooks dot com today. Join
Speaker 2: us for the next episode on Thursday, May eleventh, We're
Speaker 2: talking with Emily Doyle and May Qualk about their company
Speaker 2: Dooon Suncare and how they manage to make their burgeoning
Speaker 2: brand into a successful business in under three years.
Speaker 1: You won't want to miss that one, so don't forget
Speaker 1: to follow, rate, and review this show wherever you listen
Speaker 1: to podcasts so you can stay up to date on
Speaker 1: our future episodes, and.
Speaker 2: Check out our show notes for more info from this
Speaker 2: episode about money management and a.
Speaker 1: Huge thank you to our guest Jessica Spaulding.
Speaker 2: This podcast is a production of iHeartRadio and Into It QuickBooks.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Molly Sosha, Our supervising producer is
Speaker 1: Nikia Swinton, and our writer is Tyree Rush.
Speaker 2: Our head of post production is James Foster.
Speaker 1: See you next
Speaker 3: Time and make one