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Hello and welcome to the advice line on how I built this lab.
I'm Guy Raz.
This is the place where we help try to solve your business challenges.
Each week, I'm joined by a legendary founder, a former guest on the show, who will help me.
Try to help you.
And if you're building something and you need advice, give us a call and you just might be the next guest on the show.
Our number is 1-800-433-1298.
Send us a one minute message that tells us about your business and the issues or questions that you'd like help with.
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And we'll put all of this info in the podcast description.
All right, let's get to it.
Joining me this week is Stacey Madison.
She's the founder and namesake of Stacey's Pita Chips.
Stacey, it's great to have you back on the show.
Thank you so much.
I was really excited and I'm flattered that you asked me.
You were first on the show in 2019.
You went to the High Belt, the Summit.
And, as always, for those of you who haven't heard Stacey's original episode, we will put a link to it in the episode description.
Stacey.
So many listeners are these.
We have like 600 plus episodes in our archives.
So many people tell me yours is their all-time favorite.
I hear it again and again all the time.
And do people still come up to you and say, oh, I remember your story from how I built this?
They do.
That's the connection that they make.
It's crazy.
I mean, people – it's an amazing story.
I mean, you talk about how you started out as a social worker.
You were in Washington DC and then you moved around a bit and then you tried a bunch of different things.
And then you and your partner at the time Mark, you decided to come back to Boston area where you guys bought a hot dog cart and kind of turned it into a sandwich cart, like pita sandwiches.
And you had all this extra pita every day, so you started to toast it and – you know, toss it in in parmesan cheese.
And then you would offer these toasted pita chips to people waiting in line for their pita sandwich.
And this is how stacy's pita chips began.
I mean, they were.
It's an amazing story.
Because they were so popular it became this huge brand, eventually sold to pepsi in 2006.
Uh, i know that you started a couple of of brands.
You had a juice bar.
You You had an energy bar business, which were awesome.
I love them.
I know neither of them are going at the moment, but tell me a little bit about what you've been up to in the last couple years.
Yeah.
So I'd like to say I've been raising my kids and both of them are seniors in college and going to graduate this year.
Okay.
I had Stacy's juice bar which, I have to say, was really next to Stacy's.
With the juice bar I was able to kind of make the cart come to life and make you know healthy lunches come to fruition through juices and smoothies.
And we sold salads and quinoas and we sold the Be Bold bars.
You had basically started an energy bar.
They were so good.
They had oats and chocolate chips and they were so popular that people said you've got to sell these in the stores.
You've got to sell these at grocery stores.
Yeah, everybody would buy one with their lunch.
And I had a huge following.
I was in the suburbs.
It was very kind of local.
I'm not a social media kind of person.
So we also got a buyer, actually, who listened to how I built this.
And was interested.
You know they'd had the pita chips forever and was interested in buying the bars.
And so we got twelve hundred stores, put more money into it, produced enough to stock the shelves, produced enough to, you know, have backup for it.
And yeah.
And then the pandemic hit and then.
It ended up costing a lot of money.
It definitely burned me out of the entrepreneurial world and You know, it still hits hard.
I can imagine how much energy that was sucking from you.
And I guess – I mean it sounds like it just wasn't fun anymore.
Crazy.
What were we doing?
No, it's – and it's really hard.
I had $250,000 in bars and had to make the decision.
Am I going to take and throw $250,000 in the dumpster or am I going to invest some more and try to make a go of it?
Yeah, at a certain point you're sort of saying well, I can pour more money into this and keep going.
Or I can say, all right, it was an interesting experiment and move on.
I mean, there are all these other things that you do.
You are an investor.
I think you're an early investor in Sweetgreen and Evolution Juice and a couple of other cool food brands.
I want to go back to Stacy's for a moment, because that story it's a story that comes up often in my conversations, in part because It was the side hustle to the main hustle right.
And really what you started to see was people asking for those chips.
It wasn't part of the plan.
And I wonder if you can kind of speak to this idea of when you know that actually the side project is really the thing that you have to hit the gas on.
And the thing that you thought you were doing, you've got to kind of roll it up.
When did you start to understand that the sandwiches were not actually the business?
It was these chips that you were handing out for free to people waiting in line.
Yeah.
It's kind of like you have to make a decision.
Am I going in the fork in the road?
Am I going right?
Am I going left?
Right.
And the decision was based on we're in New England.
And so your income is really only in the good weather.
Right.
And over the winter worked on the marketing, the packaging, went to trade shows, talked to other snack food companies and kind of got it ready to launch.
The second year, we had a little help at the food cart so that we could focus more on the chips.
And then eventually, in 97, we ended up just doing the chips.
It just made more sense because of just the demand that you were hearing from people, the chatter?
Or did you actually start to see the dollars coming in were more heavily weighed toward the chips?
Chatter.
And can you make me an extra bag, like just bulk, so I can take them home?
When people, you know, asking you questions like that.
You know, listen to your customers.
I mean, that is so super important.
And then you know, you ask the question well, when do you know when you switch or you make that decision?
My answer would be you need to prove out the concept outside of just where you are.
So you have to take, whether it's taking the bags of chips to the stores, talking to the stores, sampling them at the stores, things like that.
That's what helps you make those kinds of decisions.
Yeah.
Before we get to our callers, I want to ask you just one more question, which is You know when you started this right, the food cart?
This was in the 90s.
And when you started this, it was like people had to show up at the cart and you'd find out about it because somebody would say oh, I'm going to this pita cart in Boston Common or Downtown Crossing.
Now you would have an Instagram account and you would have a bunch of social media accounts.
I hate it.
I hear you.
I hate it.
I mean, do you think that if you were starting Stacey's cart today – and then the chips, do you think you'd have to go about it differently to have the same kind of impact?
I would say I'd have to be a victim of the times.
I think it would be very hard to speak to this to the times right now and to this generation.
If you don't get on their own microphone, like if they're on instagram or tiktok or whatever, it is hard to reach people.
So that's a that's an important part of it.
Yeah, so All right Stacey, why don't we go ahead and take our first caller?
Are you ready?
Oh, yeah, definitely.
Definitely ready.
Okay.
Hello, caller.
Welcome to the advice line.
You're on with Stacey Madison, founder of Stacey's Pita Chips.
Please tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just one quick line about your business.
Yeah, hey, Stacey and Guy.
My name is Sam Cagle, and I am based in Utah.
I'm the founder of DoughGuy.
It's an online community and an e-commerce brand dedicated to homemade pizza making.
And so we provide the physical tools, the resources and the inspiration so that anybody can make restaurant-quality pizza right at home with nothing but a regular home oven.
Got it.
What do you sell?
It's a pizza steel.
So it's a 16-inch by 16-inch steel that you bake pizzas on in a normal oven.
So like a pizza stone, but it's a piece of steel, which I've had before.
And you put the steel in the oven and then you heat the oven up and then the idea is that you're going to get a pizza that's more like a restaurant pizza.
Exactly.
Awesome.
When did you start the business?
Yeah, so I officially launched the business April of this year, about end of April.
So it's been pretty recent.
And how did you come up?
I mean, were you a baker?
Were you working in restaurants?
No, so I mean, I've always loved baking.
I've always loved baking desserts and breads, but I had never really dabbled with pizza.
And so the story goes, so summer 2024, last year, I quit my job to become a stay-at-home dad.
And like I said, I always loved baking, but to keep my sanity...
I decided to dive into homemade pizza making and start an Instagram page to document the journey.
And I discovered you don't need like a fancy pizza oven to make really good pizza at home.
And so in January, I decided to do a series where I made a pizza every single day until I got a Dave Portnoy pizza review.
And so obviously he's- Wow, how'd you do that?
How'd you get Dave Portnoy to review your pizza?
So I- Because he's like the pizza king.
He's the pizza king.
And he's a pretty controversial guy.
So it kind of took off.
But, like I said so, I started a series where I made a pizza every single day, posted every single day until I got his attention.
And I flew out to Chicago and I got a pizza review from him.
The first homemade pizza, first pizza from Utah.
And he gave me a really good score.
And I had about two weeks- uh, before the review came out where I basically set up my entire company, set up everything with my manufacturer.
Cause I had nothing ready to go because I thought this was going to take like a year or longer.
Like, I didn't think he was just gonna like have any random guy come out and make him a pizza.
Um, but the day it came out, I launched my business.
And, uh, after that was off to the races.
How much have you done so far in sales?
Yeah, so since April, we've done just north of $300,000 in revenue.
That's awesome.
And congrats on getting Dave Portnoy to review it.
I've had a pizza steel in the past.
It's an awesome – again, this is not a new product.
You didn't invent the pizza steel.
No.
But you basically have a community of people, I guess, who follow you on social media.
Mm-hmm. and you make pizzas and stuff?
Yep, yeah, that's right.
And so that's really where I differentiate myself.
So I've built this community on Instagram.
I have, since January, I've grown to about 130,000 followers and people are very into it.
People are very loyal to the Brando guy and they love everything pizza making, because my whole brand is making it as simple and easy and fun as possible and to show that really anybody can do it.
It's not like some hidden skill or gate kept thing that's so hard to do to make pizza.
Um, anybody can do it and it's really fun and easy to do.
It's fun to do with your kids too, it is.
Let me, let me ask you a question.
I have uh, i've been for years.
I've had pizza um ovens, right and, and the beauty of these things is they get really hot.
Usually you want to cook your pizza like between you know, six and 750 yeah um, A conventional home oven only gets up to 500, 550.
So can you?
I mean, why would somebody pick the steel over like an uni pizza oven or even a big green egg?
Yeah, I mean, there's lots of reasons.
The first reason, it's a lot cheaper and it's a lot more convenient.
A lot like how many Americans live in an apartment where they can't have a pizza oven outside and they can't have all this space to make pizzas.
And that's where the pizza steel comes in.
So pizza stones have been around forever.
They don't get quite hot enough to get that perfect temperature blackened undercarriage that everyone loves on the New York style slice of pizza.
The steel gets up high enough.
It can preheat up to 550 plus degrees and it retains its heat super good.
So it transfers to the pizza and makes it super easy to make really high quality pizza at home.
All right.
Before we dive in further, tell us what your question is.
Yeah, so I've grown this awesome community online, but my vision for DoughGuy actually is to turn it into a full-fledged brand for all things baking.
Right now, most of the momentum depends on me personally.
I'm running the entire thing.
I'm editing the videos.
I'm doing all the content all by myself.
But I want to scale it in a way where the brand can thrive without me at the center of everything.
And so my question is how can I make the leap from being the guy on Instagram that makes pizza to building a lasting brand that stands on its own?
All right.
Awesome question.
I want to bring Stacey Madison in.
Thoughts for Sam?
Questions for Sam?
Answers for Sam?
What you were saying about how do you get it from you?
I mean, you got to be in it.
Yeah.
You have tapped into this secret sauce of the internet.
And do you know how many companies are trying to do what you've already done?
And you have a following and you have, I mean, you can't go.
You're the value right now.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, that makes a lot of sense.
Yeah, okay.
I have a question for you.
You mentioned that you have this idea for creating a full-on baking brand.
So you've got the steel.
Tell me, like, let's just get a crystal ball.
If you had your Barbie dream house, right?
I always say that because when I was a little kid I watched my sisters play with the Barbie dream house.
And I kind of wanted one, too, because it was a pretty awesome house.
You had a pool and all that cool stuff.
Yeah.
You're looking at the dream house.
What kind of things are you selling in 10 years from now?
Yeah, so obviously I'll think pizza making in terms of cutting and launching even hot honey type things, things that could sit on shelves, but also bread desserts, anything baking related.
And it happens to be so my audience is mostly male.
And so there isn't really a baking brand that exists that is targeted towards the male audience.
But I think there's a big market for men to get into sourdough baking and things like that.
Totally.
Do you have, I mean, I wonder, I mean, I agree with Stacey 100%.
Right now, it's too early.
You have to be the brand guy and you're going to have to do everything for a while and really establish the steel as the steel to get.
And you're right.
I mean, if you want to buy a Noonie or a Gosney or one of these ovens you're looking at 300 400, 500 more.
And how much is your retail for your product?
$119,000.
$119,000.
So, yeah, it's a great deal.
You can make a pretty great pizza at home with a steel.
So I wonder whether you are – I mean to me it seems like you have an opportunity.
How many followers do you have on Instagram?
About 130,000.
That's amazing.
I mean now you have an opportunity and it's all about pizza basically?
It's all pizza right now, yeah.
Do you have – have you put in any – featured any like community content like pizza fails that –
You know, great pizza fails from people or anything like that?
Because everyone screws up pizza the first time they make it off the peel.
When they're trying to put it from the peel into the oven, they always mess it up.
Have you tried anything like that?
That's a great question.
So I do have people tagging me every single day, and I always post about other people's pizza-making creations.
But I haven't tried the fail thing, which could be really funny because –
I failed a lot.
It's hard to get it going.
My goal is to make it so it's not so hard, but it's definitely a learning curve.
So that's a good idea.
I think that's good because I quit after I made one.
You quit?
Why'd you quit?
Oh, it was just such a disaster.
I'm like, I'm not a pizza maker.
Stick to salad dressing.
No, you didn't put enough flour on the peel.
That's why.
You gotta work fast.
Get rid of that sauce.
You gotta be fast.
You have to follow Dogeye.
I was very good at making it pretty.
Sam, isn't it true?
While you're making the pizza, you've got to shake the peel a little bit every once in a while to make sure it's still loose.
You've got to put the sauce on, shake it a little bit.
Okay, it's moving.
Put the cheese on, put the whatever you want on.
Yeah.
And shake it around.
Yeah, you can.
And then you can still save it by pulling up the dough and blowing a little bit of flour under it.
Yeah, you know.
You know.
Yeah, so semolina flour is going to be your best friend.
And, yeah, shaking it, make sure you're not using too much sauce, all that stuff.
So, Stacey, do you think – I mean you said this, that he's got to really be the guy, right?
He's got to grind.
But at what point can he say all right, now I need somebody else to run stuff or operations while I focus on building out this brand?
Like can you hire some other people to do all the other stuff?
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like, you know, bring in others to help with the other tasks so that you can stay on the Internet.
And you have to because— For sure.
You need to be on it now while you're hot.
Wow, thank you.
And I love that you are hitting the men.
Yeah.
I mean, there's so much—
Like what else do men cook?
Meat.
Grilling meat.
Smoking meat.
Right.
You go on the grill and maybe you're, you know, maybe it's a spatula.
Maybe it's a, I don't know.
But, you know, guys, I mean, again, I hate to hate these categories, but they are true sometimes.
And guys, you see a lot of guys will want to bake with like cast iron, right?
Yeah.
Like when they're camping and make a cobbler or some kind of cookie thing in a cast iron pan.
That's a way better idea.
You like that?
Yeah.
A cookie thing in a cast iron pan?
Because that's special.
That's like, ooh, I want to try that.
Look at that man making brownies in a cast iron pan.
That's a real man.
Yeah, no, that's a great idea.
Yeah, that outdoor space is huge.
Yeah.
And look at Sam.
Look at him, Stacey.
He is the man.
He's got the cool mustache.
He's a handsome guy.
I mean, right?
Like he's the guy.
Cast iron brownies, Sam.
Okay.
I mean, I think I might be going into the brownie space.
Who knows?
That's awesome.
But you know what?
But you have that making something delicious while keeping it fresh.
Simple.
Exactly.
Yep.
Right.
If you can think of things that are unique to the male population and that you're going to make it easy.
Something that's difficult, you're going to make it easy.
Like you just speaking to you now, I'm like, OK, I'm going to try to make a pizza again.
I'm going to get myself a steel because my oven doesn't get hot enough.
There you go.
Or, you know, it's going to retain the heat.
Who knew?
Maybe that's why my—maybe it was my pan.
I think it was.
Maybe it wasn't me.
And, yeah, and Stacey, you know how you're going to figure that out?
Figure out how to do this right?
I'm going to go to your house, and you're going to show me.
No, you're going to go to Sam's Instagram and you're going to see all the videos there, all the how-tos.
I'm going to Sam's, and then I'm going to watch all those videos.
I'm going to get myself a steel square, and I'm going to make it for my kids.
It's a great family activity.
I'm telling you what.
Forget about Naples.
Forget about Sicily.
Forget about even the Roman-style pizza.
It's the Salt Lake City style.
Utah.
Exactly.
It's all about the UW nuts.
Awesome.
I love this story.
Sam, thanks for calling in.
The brand's called Dogei.
Sam Cagle, good luck, and we'll keep tabs on you, man.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me on.
Stay with us because after the break we'll talk to another founder working to take their business to the next level.
That's after the break.
I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to The Advice Line right here on How I Built This Lab.
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All right, let's bring in our next caller.
Welcome to the advice line.
You're on with Stacy Madison, founder of Stacy's Pia Chips.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and just a line about your business, please.
Hi, guys.
Hi, Stacy.
My name is Alex Hildebrandt and I live in Boston, but I'm currently in New York City, where I spend a lot of time for my business.
And I'm a co-founder of Suyo Pisco.
Suyo is a spirits company and we're introducing the world to single origin Pisco, which is the national spirit of Peru.
And Pisco also happens to be the only spirit in the world that, by law, is made with one ingredient, which is grapes, presumably.
That's right, which is grapes.
Alex, thanks for calling in.
And thanks for asking us, hopefully, to help you out.
Tell me a little bit about how you started this business.
I mean, I think most people, a lot of people know Pisco Sour, right?
Tell me about how you got into making and selling Pisco.
I'm from Peru, which is what really inspired me to do something really to reconnect with my home country.
As a Peruvian who spent most of his life in the United States, I always felt like I wanted to do something that reconnected me.
And I don't come from the Pisco space.
I don't come from a family of producers or anything like that.
But one of my best friends and now co-founder is a Peruvian.
And we had been brainstorming ideas for a really long period of time.
And we decided that we both shared this passion about doing something that reconnected us with our roots.
And so it hit us right in the head one time.
We were back home in Miraflores in Lima, Peru, and we were drinking a Pisco cocktail.
And we kind of looked at each other and we were wondering, wait, what do you know about Pisco?
And we explored and we decided to launch a Pisco brand.
OK, so first of all, I'm assuming, like tequila or other, certain other spirits, it has to be made in Peru to be called Pisco.
That's exactly right.
So you can't just distill grapes in California and call it Pisco.
Correct.
So much like a tequila or a champagne, it has denomination of origin.
So that means it has to come from a very specific place in Peru and be produced a very specific type of way, which I think, for the most part, is a good thing, because that ensures that we have this spirit that only has one ingredient at the end of the day, which is very, very cool and unique.
When did you launch the brand, Suyo?
We launched the brand in 2020 after having started the project in 2019.
Of course, COVID came around and we imported our first pallet into the United States in late 2021 and started selling it in early 2022.
Where are you selling it right now?
We're very focused geographically, mostly between New York and Boston and then between San Francisco and LA.
That's about the majority of our California sales.
And that's kind of at the request of our distributor.
And again, we should mention with spirits is tricky because you got to go state by state.
Every state has different regulations.
So you got to start with one state and then grow from there.
What is the in terms of like your sales?
Where does mostly from restaurants and bars, mostly from liquor stores?
Where are you seeing sales?
Great question.
So roughly 80% of our sales this year to date have been in bars and restaurants.
Roughly 20 will be liquor stores, which is kind of in line with what we expected when we launched the brand.
Because when you're introducing someone to something new, I think it's oftentimes more approachable to purchase a cocktail at a more approachable price point than going into a liquor store and buying a bottle of something that tends to be a little bit more premium priced and you may not know what to do with it.
So it's kind of in line with our expectations.
And give us a sense, Alex, of what kind of revenue you expect to do this year.
Do you expect to break $300,000, $400,000?
Yeah, we think we'll do a little bit over $400,000 this year.
Okay.
And before I dive in further, tell us what your question is, what question you brought for us.
Yeah, so I'm sort of facing a consumer behavior dilemma here.
If we take, for instance, being at a bar or liquor store, consumers tend to first decide what kind of alcohol to drink.
For example, they'll think... Gin, vodka, yeah.
Yeah, or I feel like having a vodka soda.
Or vodka, I feel like having a vodka soda.
Today I'm going to have Tito's, which is the brand.
But on the other hand, sometimes consumers also just order a brand without knowing or even caring what kind of alcohol category it is.
One example is Hennessy, which is often thought of as its own thing, but it's a cognac which is also a denomination of origin-controlled spirit.
Right, it's a grape spirit.
That's right.
So here I am, building a brand that's in a category that's relatively unknown, and I'm wondering if you, Stacey or Guy, could offer any advice on how to prioritize my efforts in educating consumers about Pisco while also building my brand's awareness, which is Suyo.
Interesting, because I can't think of a single Pisco brand, right?
I can think of vodka brands or gin brands, but I cannot think of a Pisco brand, which to me seems like a great opportunity.
Before I weigh in, I want to bring in Stacey Madison.
Stacey, a lot to think about here.
Alex has this Pisco brand.
I'm sure you've had Pisco Sours in Miami because there's some awesome Peruvian restaurants down there.
What do you think?
I mean, brand or category or what?
Okay.
Well, first I went last night and had a pisco sour.
I asked the bartender, you know, can I see your pisco?
Like, what kind of pisco are you pouring here?
Because I wanted to hear what he, did he know anything about it?
You know, things like that.
The question is, is there like a suyo sour?
Great question.
We actually tend to lean away from the pisco sour, which could be another question to phrase back at you.
The pisco sour is what everybody intuitively orders because that's really all they know.
But our experience has been that the pisco sour tends to be a little less approachable in that it has an egg white in it and it's kind of complicated to make at home.
So we've been looking for something that can be made at home, has very few ingredients, is very simple.
So what we push is the Pisco Punch, which I think maybe to your point doesn't have our name in it.
And maybe we should find a way to incorporate our name into it.
But it is a traditional cocktail.
What's in the Pisco Punch?
Yeah.
The Pisco Punch traditionally is really just three ingredients.
And because we love simplicity, this has made a lot of sense for us.
It's going to be Pisco, of course, pineapple juice and lime juice.
And that's all you need.
If you know how to make a margarita, you can make a pisco punch.
It's the way we've been approaching it.
You just need those three ingredients.
Got it.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
Other than a pisco sour, what else is pisco used for?
There are a lot of options, which is a double-edged sword.
There's so many different directions we can go, but how do you keep it simple and try to find that one thing that really, really takes off?
So we play a lot with the martini swap in Pisco for the vodka or the gin, because we have two different expressions that have similar profiles to both vodka and gin respectively.
You can do other easy highballs, like Pisco Tonic, which is a super Peruvian drink as well, because tonic comes from Quina, which is originally from Peru.
So that's a fun storytelling opportunity for us that we use.
And then there's some others that are more traditional in Peru.
For instance, if you go to a house party or you go to a family gathering a celebration just about everybody's going to be drinking what's called a Chilcano, which is just Pisco and ginger ale.
And you put a dash of lime on top.
That is super simple.
It's much like a mule if you've had a mule before.
Most people enjoy that if you drink.
You have to bring your name into it.
I agree.
I agree 100%.
Yeah.
I mean, if it were me and you're selling to all these bars take, you know, 10 free drink cards.
You know, work it out with the bar.
And you have a whole underground crew of ambassadors, right?
To go into the bar and people do this as a free drink to go in and to order a suya tonic and have the people next to that person go a suya tonic.
Like, what's that?
Oh, it's made with pisco, and, you know, pisco, suya pisco, and buy them a drink.
I completely agree.
And that's your underground network.
I completely agree Stacey, because look consumers they rarely champion a category unless there's a brand to rally behind right.
So, look—
You think of like Aperol.
Like Aperol, there are other things that are like Aperol, but you order an Aperol spritz.
Patron is a great example in tequila, right?
You have an opportunity to make Suyo synonymous with Pisco to US consumers, because there isn't anything like that.
There is no Patron for Pisco.
Like the brand is the tip of the spear here, right?
Like you're leading with the story of Suyo and what it does.
I mean, the other thing is...
Peruvian food is some of the greatest food in the world.
Some of the greatest restaurants in the world are in Lima.
So people who know about food know about Peruvian food.
But, like, I didn't know that Pisco had to have a single ingredient, you know, single origin.
I didn't know that.
I would really lean into...
Talking to bartenders about making suyo drinks.
As Stacey said, suyo tonics, suyo and orange juice.
But then also the punch, suyo punch.
And really just start to build on the brand and a mixer.
Rather than Pisco in a mixer.
Suyo Sours.
It can be a Pisco Sour.
Suyatini.
Yeah.
I mean, I think that's really what you, the opportunity is to make your brand synonymous with Pisco.
It's just a category that is, to me, it seems wide open.
I mean, tequila, everybody's in tequila.
You know, gin, vodka, but not that many Pisco brands known in the U.S., if any.
None.
None.
None.
And the market is wide open.
It was the exact same thing with the pita chips.
Nobody knew what a pita chip was.
Which is crazy.
Stacey, I thought you were such a perfect person to ask this question.
And I think you've answered the question here.
But we get asked to come to bars and do what they call staff trainings or staff educations.
And we 100% of the time start with, let me talk to you quickly about what Pisco is to set the basis.
And then now let me talk to you about Suyo.
What I'm hearing from you two is maybe it makes sense to flip the script.
And we talk, we lead with Suyo.
And then, oh, by the way, this is a Pisco.
Let me tell you a couple of things about what that means.
So how much, can I ask how much does the bar pay for a bottle?
Yeah, of course.
So for our core line, which are the Giverante in Italia that you see in there, they pay depending on the tier that they get, because it changes depending on how many you buy.
It's between about 30 a bottle and about 33 a bottle, depending on the market.
Okay.
So it ends up at retail roughly $45 is the SRP that we aim for.
Yeah.
I'm just trying to get a feel for both your sales and for what kind of drink you're creating.
Because if you're creating, I have to say I'm not a big fan of the punch thing.
I think of something red.
Okay.
Oh, you want a red punch, not a yellow punch.
Yeah, I think of something red and I think of something that's not as expensive.
And I think that, you know, you should keep it equivalent to the more expensive cocktails.
It sounds like jungle juice.
It doesn't sound as elevated to you.
Well, but it can, but it can.
I mean, have you had milk punch at some of these high-end bars, Stacey?
But the category is so small, like the general public, I think, in order to get that extra buck.
So, Alex, I think there's a huge opportunity here.
It's all about Suyo.
It's not about Pisco.
Pisco comes next.
People discover Pisco through Suyo.
That's the direction you should take.
The brand is called Suyo Pisco.
Alex, hello, brand.
Good luck, man.
Thanks for calling.
Thanks so much, Guy.
Thanks, Stacey.
It was great chatting with you both.
Thank you.
Yeah, I tell you what, I love Pisco.
I mean, I don't order them often, but every time, every once in a while, I'm like, oh, Pisco's sour.
That sounds great.
I want that egg white.
It's like you're drinking an egg white.
I mean, how much healthier can it be?
Delicious.
Spirits is a tricky category because there are so many spirits brands.
But certain kind of wormholes in that world right, like Pisco's or other kinds of spirits, have an opportunity.
And I would also think about partnering with maybe some interesting Peruvian chefs, because that I mean.
I think the number one restaurant in the world for a while was in Lima.
So there you go.
I think he's on to something.
He could really, it could really take off.
We're going to take a quick break, but when we come back, another caller, another question and another round of advice.
I'm Guy Raz.
Stick around.
You're listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
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Let's bring in our final caller.
Welcome to the Vice Line.
You are on with Stacey Madison, founder of Stacey's Peanut Chips.
Tell us your name, where you're calling from, and one line about your business, please.
I'm Stephanie Stuckey.
I am with Stuckey's.
I'm calling from Renz, Georgia, and we make pecan snacks and candies.
Awesome.
Stephanie, welcome to the show.
Stuckey's, you make pecan candy.
So just give me kind of a sense of what kind of candy do you sell?
We're best known for the pecan log roll, which is my grandmother's recipe.
We've actually been making it since 1937.
Wow.
Yeah, I call ourselves an 88-year-old startup.
Yeah.
Yeah, and we also make pralines and gophers.
It's caramel, pecans, and chocolate.
We do dark chocolate pecans, white chocolate pecans, and then we have a whole line of flavored pecans, everything from roasted and salted to honey, roasted kettle, glazed bourbon.
I love it.
We're crazy about pecans.
Wow.
This is an old new brand, right?
Right.
This is not... Okay, tell me what is the story of Stucky's?
It's a crazy journey.
So I am an attorney.
I spent my entire life doing different things.
I was a public defender, a state representative, and head of sustainability for the city of Atlanta.
And five years ago I got a phone call that the company that my grandfather had founded and sold was for sale.
And it's your last name, Stucky.
It's my last name.
Yeah.
So he started it as a roadside pecan stand.
When did he start it?
1937.
Wow.
Okay.
Yeah.
People loved that he made snacks and candies.
And people said, oh, this is great, but where's the restroom?
Where can I get gas?
So he built a gas station that sold snacks, candies, kitschy, fun souvenirs, clean restrooms.
And he just built it from there.
At its peak, Stuckey's had 370 stores in 40 states.
Wow.
He had a candy company, a trucking company, a billboard company.
Wow.
We were synonymous with road tripping in America.
Wow.
You were the, what's it called, the Buc-ee's or the Wawa's of that time?
Yeah.
Before there was TA Loves or Buc-ee's, there were Stuc-ee's.
We were the first roadside retail chain.
Wow.
And so what happened to it?
Did he sell it, like, when did he sell it?
He sold it when I was a little girl.
So 1964 is when he sold it, but he remained involved in controlling it until the mid-70s.
I totally remember Stucky's.
I think I was 13.
We did a trip across country, and we would always stop at a Stucky's.
So your grandfather starts this.
He sells it.
Yes.
And how does it end up back in your hands?
I got a phone call that the company was for sale.
It was six figures in the red.
The owners at the time were looking to sell.
How many gas stations do they have?
There are about a dozen original stores still around.
We do not own or operate them.
And they were losing money.
It was a hot mess.
So the brand comes up for sale.
I mean, how much did they want?
Or how much were they willing to take?
I paid $500,000.
It was my life savings.
Okay.
So you bought the brand back with the idea to revive this roadside stand or to do something different.
And then I realized it wasn't working and we were sinking further into debt.
So I made a pivot after about a year and I got some business partners and we decided to reinvent the brand just the way it started, as a pecan snack and candy company.
And we bought a manufacturing facility.
Wow.
Everything was outsourced.
And the pecans came from Mexico.
And pecans are the only snack nut native to this country.
They are absolutely delicious.
They are.
Georgia grows more pecans than anywhere else in the world.
I know.
Why is it called the peach state?
Yeah.
It should be the pecan state.
Is it pecans or pecans?
What do you say?
I say pecans, but I thought in Georgia you say pecans.
Yeah, the customer's always right.
Yeah, you're supposed to say pecans in Georgia.
Just say stuckies.
That's what I want.
I want to be synonymous with pecans.
Before I get to your question, give me a sense of where, like.
How is the business doing now as a candy business?
It's doing well.
We're in about 4,000 doors nationwide.
We do very well in farm and hardware.
We're in some C-stores, some grocery like Food Lion and Ingalls.
We just launched in select Walmart and Sam's Club.
And we have 65 employees.
We're the largest employer in Renz, Georgia.
Wow.
Sales have grown from two to 10 million.
10 million?
Yeah, but it's still a challenge, right?
So that's my question.
So Stucky's was once known as this roadside stand, but today we're reinventing ourselves as a pecan snack and candy company in a market that is dominated by big budget brands backing Stucky's pistachios cashews almonds, peanuts.
How do we position Stucky's and pecans as a distinctive must-have choice for a new generation of consumers who didn't grow up like Stacy stopping at Stucky's?
We got to introduce ourselves.
We're getting on shelves.
How do we move off the shelf?
All right.
All right.
Good question.
Stacey, I want to bring you in.
You obviously know this brand from when you were a kid, but now it's not a gas station, roadside stop.
It's pecan logs and rolls and pecans.
It sounds delicious.
And, you know, they're doing pretty well.
$11, $10 million in sales.
Probably still not, right?
You guys made some investments in manufacturing equipment.
And you've got a lot of employees, so you probably still have some debt.
Yes, we do.
Yeah.
Probably not able to pay yourself a whole lot because people hear $10 million.
I think you're rolling in pecan dough.
Yeah, they do.
No, you're not, right?
No.
Manufacturing is very capital intensive.
We pay our employees very well.
That was one of the most important things we did.
We bought an existing facility and we gave everyone a pay raise and we brought in insurance.
And so all of that costs money.
It's worth it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
So let's get to – Stacey, I want to bring you in before we answer Stephanie's question.
Maybe you've got some questions for her.
Yeah.
Oh, I definitely do.
Well, first of all, you're talking to somebody that does not eat peanuts.
Oh.
I like pecans.
I just – I love them, you know, and that's my first choice.
Yeah, it's my first choice of nut.
I love that.
I have a question.
Like, you seem to have a lot of SKUs.
Yes.
Right?
Just to clarify, there's like dark chocolate, white chocolate B can, cinnamon B cans.
There's the bourbon B cans.
I mean, there's a lot of stuff here, is what you're saying.
Yeah, it's a lot to manage.
We do have a core line for mass distribution.
So we have, we call them the seven core.
Okay.
So what area... of the store, where would I find you?
And where would I find it?
Like, if you have all these things that are like, it seems like they're very different to have a pecan roll than a bag of pecans or a chocolate, or like.
What section of the store are you targeting?
The nut aisle, snack nut aisle, and then also the candy aisle.
And ideally, like we're in a fair amount of convenience stores, a lot of independent convenience stores.
So you might find a center store.
In a perfect world, we're in the impulse section right at the register, right?
What's your top seller?
The pecan log roll.
The log roll is the number one seller.
It's been delivering for us since my grandmother first whipped it up in her country kitchen.
Who's buying them?
Probably mostly 50-ish and up.
Yeah.
I mean, it's people who recognize the brand.
And that's the exact direction I'm going now.
And it may not be what you want to hear.
Yeah, I hear you.
But I'll tell you, I would flood the current older population.
Like you have a population out there who knows and recognizes your brand.
Yeah.
So I would start with hitting all the stucky people and, you know, all that age range, the over 50.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Grow the corn?
It's not as big.
It's not, yeah, for your core population.
And then once you've kind of tapped out that market, then I would, you know, expand from there.
Yeah.
What's the shelf life of this loaf?
It's seven months.
And then the bagged pecans are 12 months.
Stacey, your advice is interesting, right?
Because the question is, how do we make this more appealing to younger consumers?
And most of us are like, of course, it's a no-brainer.
You want younger consumers because they're going to grow up with this and they have disposable cash.
But actually...
Older consumers are often ignored at our peril.
It's like you almost want to double down on the people who know this and are buying it.
I think you can kind of split the difference here a little bit, because you've got a heritage brand but you do want to appeal to younger consumers.
You do want people to – see this.
And so there are a number of things you could try.
I mean, I think one of the questions is your your branding really leans into nostalgia, right?
It looks like the 40s or the 50s.
It's it and the Stucky's logo is is like that.
And I wonder if you can keep the integrity of the Stucky's logo.
But maybe think about a more modern rebrand overall for the brand.
But I actually think, at the end of the day, people are focused on their own interests and people are focused on – a lot of people are focused on protein.
And pecans are a protein.
It's a plant-based protein source.
Yeah.
Again, I would double down on what's selling best.
I would double down on the rules and really try and put any marketing dollars, any promotional dollars, any social media dollars into the bar, into the log.
But I would also think about maybe trying a different approach in parallel.
Which is America's oldest natural snack since 1776 or something?
I was thinking the same thing.
America's first protein bar.
The original, I mean.
Delivering plant-based protein since, you know, since whatever.
Yeah.
I think you could say you're the original.
I mean, the OG protein.
We were doing protein before anybody, yeah, or something.
The other question I have is you know, there's a brand called Nutscom, which it was an amazing brand, and we're featuring that brand on our show.
They sell like 3,000 different things, right?
And so the other question is Stucky's.
I know I was looking at your website.
You do sell some almonds and some walnuts, but really this is a pecan brand.
Yeah, it's pecan.
Or if you're going to lean into pecans, is it worth trying things like pecan butter?
I've never seen that anywhere.
It's delicious.
Pecan nut milk.
I don't know anybody who makes pecan nut milk.
I mean, it's kind of pecan ice cream is obvious.
Pecan coffee beans.
Yeah.
But I keep thinking about this brand, and Stacey, you know this brand, David Bars.
It's just blown up.
It's a protein bar brand.
It was started by the same guy who created RX Bars, Peter Rahal, who's been on our show.
And this brand is all about protein, and he's leaned into it.
And he did something really unusual in the last few months, which is they sell protein bars but they started to sell frozen fish.
You can go to grocery stores in New York and find David-branded frozen cod.
It looks like a David bar, but it's literally a piece of frozen cod.
They are not getting into the frozen cod business.
This is a marketing tool.
This is a way to say to people look, you can eat this frozen cod and go prepare it at home, or you can pretty much get the same amount of protein by just buying a David bar.
And people are talking about that.
It's all over the place.
It's an incredibly smart marketing campaign.
And if you try something weird like pecan nut milk—
You know, who knows?
We just have to get new equipment.
Yeah, we sell it in our, we have a candy outlet store.
We don't make it, but it is so yummy.
I'm sure you just whiz it with some water and filter it.
Yeah, I would source that one out.
Great, I have a question.
Yeah, question, go ahead.
Yeah, so my question is all right along the lines of the protein bar.
So someone suggested this to me is take our pecan log roll, which is a it's a candy bar, and add protein powder to it.
So it's like a protein, but it's got, it would have caramel coating and it has some sugar in it.
How many grams of protein is in it without doing that?
Ah, good question.
Let me see if I can, protein says two grams.
All right, to start.
I mean, I think you could try something like that.
I think you'd probably.
If you're trying to appeal to sort of a fitness crowd, I mean they're going to want less sugar.
Or you pack it, you really sort of, it's more nut heavy and less caramelly, right?
I mean, there are ways to do this with reduced sugar.
And it's worth trying.
I mean, at the end of the day, you want people talking about this.
Yeah.
Am I allowed to disagree with you, Guy?
Please.
Okay.
Go.
Please.
I don't think a bar that's starting with two grams of protein is.
I mean, she has a product that's selling already.
And, you know, she went from two to 10 million in four years.
I think that, you know, she's kind of found something that works.
And the product, people like it.
People must like it if you're selling that much of it.
I would not change your recipe one bit.
Okay.
People used to come to us and say, can you make a gluten-free pita chip?
Yeah.
How are we going to make this gluten-free?
It's bread.
It's toast.
You could do rice flour pitas.
You could do.
But I hear you.
There was an integrity in Stacy's pita chips that you didn't want to mess with.
And, you know, if people wanted a gluten-free brand, they can start their own brand.
It's authenticity, right?
That's what people want in a brand.
Yeah, I would lean into the history.
I would definitely try to do some kind of crossover, since you're in two sections of the store.
That's going to be crazy expensive in the long run.
And you're doing your own manufacturing, so you have to be very careful on how many SKUs you're putting out there.
So many people are looking for a recipe that works that's going to sell, and you have that.
Got it.
Sorry, guys.
I'm not – I mean I'm with you.
Don't go into the turkey part.
I think you should have something weird.
I think you should think about the codfish idea with David Bars and have something weird.
And I think it would be worth just thinking about some kind of refresh, keeping the integrity of that logo, the Stucky's logo.
If you're doing good business with people over 50, great.
Yeah.
But I think you would still retain those people but bring some new people in.
Go ahead, Stacey.
You know what is really a great thing to have?
You have that pecan coating for the fish.
The pecan-coated fish.
Right.
Yes.
Yes.
You can do a pecan meal, which we make, by the way.
If you have that pecan coating in there, you're sold.
And it's made with Stucky's pecan.
It's got to be good.
There we go.
Can you hook me up, Guy, with that brand?
A fish maker?
There you go.
But I agree with you both, right?
Like, I think we need to make sure our base stays loyal and true and spends a lot of money.
For sure.
For sure.
But we've got to get... a younger demographic if we're going to continue.
And so maybe getting a little weird.
Get a little weird.
In a fun way that gets people talking.
For sure.
Yeah.
And I would make sure that you're always the Stucky's Pecan.
Yes.
Get your name with your product.
Stacey's Pita Chips.
Stucky's Pecans.
All right.
Stucky's is the brand.
Stephanie Stucky, thanks so much for calling in.
Good luck.
Keep us posted.
It's an honor to meet you.
I was a Stucky's fan.
Thank you.
It's been a pleasure.
Thank you.
Stacey, thanks so much for coming back on the show.
It's great having you.
It was great being here.
Thank you, Guy.
That's Stacey's Pita Chips founder, Stacey Madison.
And, by the way, if you haven't heard Stacey's original How I Built This episode, please go back and check it out.
So many people tell me all the time that it's like one of their favorites of all time.
And here is one of my favorite moments from that episode.
Wait, why did he say that?
Were you literally like hand cutting the pita bread?
Mark's right bicep was like three times the size of his left, because he was literally using a knife to cut bread.
He was just like, yeah, you'll never be able to bring this product to market on any kind of scale.
So for us, that was a really hard blow.
Thanks so much for listening to the show this week.
And hopefully we can help you with them.
And make sure to tell us how to reach you.
You can send us a voice memo at hibt, at idwonderycom, or call us at 1-800-433-1298 and leave a message there.
And we'll put all this in the podcast description as well.
This episode was produced by Ramel Wood with music composed by Ramteen Arablui.
It was edited by Andrea Bruce.
Our audio engineer was Robert Rodriguez.
Our production staff also includes Casey Herman, Alex Chung, Carrie Thompson, Catherine Seifer, Carla Estevez, Noor Gill, Sam Paulson and Elaine Coates.
I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to The Advice Line on How I Built This Lab.
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