Everything Kathleen King said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
King viewed Mrs. Fields and David's Cookies as warm-only fads
“The cookies, you know, were thin and crisp and delicious, and they were different from Mrs. Fields and David's cookies, which was a nice concept, but more of a fad. You know, they were hot, Served off the tray type of cookies, and I always used to think, how c…”
In 2000, King was fired from her own bakery by her partners
“So I didn't go on my trip, and I waited, and one day I came to work, they were there, I walked into the office, and they handed me papers, saying that I was fired.”
A food product fails unless taste testers immediately return for another bite
“When I used to create new products at the bake shop, I used to watch my staff taste the product. If they taste it and they would be like, oh, this is good, and they walked away and didn't turn around and come back for another bite, I said it wasn't good enough…”
King says not trusting people is exhausting, preferring open-eyed trust
“I find not trusting people way too exhausting. And it's not the way I want to live my life, so I was very, very naive, and I used to trust blindly. Now I still trust everybody, but I trust with my eyes open.”
Tate's Bake Shop achieved annual revenue growth of 30% or more
“Tate's, you know, had like a 30% or more increase per year.”
King sold an 80% stake in Tate's to private equity in 2014
“In the end we settled on Riverside and I ended up selling 80% of the company because I was really ready to retire.”
King started her first bakery with $5,000 savings and a family loan
“Yeah, I had 5000 or so that I saved before I rented, and I had to borrow some money, and of course I couldn't get it from the bank, so my brother lent me a little bit of money because I had to buy My chocolate chips was 2000 dollars”
King gave equal one-third ownership to her bookkeeper and his brother
“We each had one third.”
King's partners drove her bakery $600K into debt before firing her
“They, at that point, had driven my business, 600,000 dollars into debt. I realized, even though I was fired and had no job, I was responsible for one-third of that debt, and all the money that the company had was gone.”
King launched Tate's Bake Shop with a goal to sell at 55
“I had to have an exit strategy. My goal was to sell when I was 55.”
King earned $5,000 per summer selling homemade cookies in high school
“And you know, in the summer, I could earn, like, five grand.”
King bought her Southampton bakery building for $350,000 via seller financing
“It was 350,000 dollars for the building, and he wanted 50,000 dollar down payment, and he would, he himself would hold the mortgage for 300,000 at like nine and a half percent interest back then.”
How I Built This 11