Seth Berkowitz
Founder & CEO, Insomnia Cookies. On 1 show, 1 appearance. The Shows tab opens the full record on each.
founderexecutiveinsomniacookies.com ↗
In 2003, Berkowitz founded Insomnia Cookies out of his University of Pennsylvania dorm room after craving warm, late-night sweet treats instead of standard takeout. He scaled the concept into an international bakery chain with hundreds of locations and hundreds of millions in annual revenue.
1shows
1appearances
25statements
4resolved
3supported
1contradicted
75%fully supported
1said about them ↓ Everything Seth Berkowitz said on any show that made the record, most notable first. Each card names its show and opens the statement there.
Berkowitz: Crumbl's product is more cupcake than cookie
“I see a cupcake, I don't really even see a cookie. So, I see it, it's real, it's not nothing, but it's a different, really a very different business, and it's not something that, that we struggle with.”
Berkowitz: Focusing solely on cookie retail and delivery early on would have accelerated growth
“You know, I look back on the big mistakes I've made in the last 20 years. To me, that was like the biggest one. Because if we had set the course differently, and it just focused on retail with delivery together, the business that we have today it would have ac…”
Berkowitz: Frozen yogurt is fundamentally mismatched to seasonal college markets
“So, but like the critical flaw was that frozen yogurt really does well in summers, and college students are not there in summers.”
Berkowitz: Keeping Insomnia Cookies company-owned protected its delivery model
“I mean, I was always a believer in corporate owned just to make sure that something that was, it was a little bit novel as it related to the restaurant environment, like basically delivery as a core competency. Outside of Domino's and the pizza guys was pretty…”
Berkowitz: In-house drivers deliver a superior brand experience over DoorDash
“Our drivers care about the insomnia cookie order, whereas the DoorDash drivers are agnostic to what they're delivering. And so there's a little bit of an ability to really maneuver and make the experience stronger, and you can't really do it with third party.”
Berkowitz: Six-year Insomnia Cookies co-founder lawsuit settled in January 2024
“I mean, it started right around the Krispy Kreme announcement, and it settled in January of this year. It was almost a six-year litigation, which is pretty wild”
Berkowitz: Warm cookies fit delivery because they travel and reheat effectively
“Well, I think the premise used to be if you were going to deliver, it had to be something that you could deliver really well. Pizza delivers well. If it's not great, you can heat it up. Chinese food, same story. Sandwiches, it didn't matter. And so cookies rea…”
Campus newspaper feature surged Insomnia Cookies orders from five to 80 nightly
“And the phone started ringing. I mean, it started ringing at a different pace, let's say, and from three to five orders to 80 orders that night.”
Berkowitz: Insomnia Cookies raised capital every year from 2003 to 2011
“Which, by the way, I did from 2003 to 2011. So, like, it was every year for eight years, I was just raising capital.”
Berkowitz: 20% to 30% occupancy costs are tough in restaurants
“So you're talking 20 or 30%, you know, occupancy costs, which is not great in the restaurant business. Really a tough starting point.”
Berkowitz: Food trucks were a two-year distraction Insomnia Cookies shouldn't have taken
“Vending trucks ended up being a right turn I wish I hadn't taken. It was like a two-year real distraction.”
Berkowitz: Insomnia cut staff to three and halted salary for 18 months
“And so I ended up cutting my team down to myself. And a finance associate, and we had kind of a field operator who drove around, and I stopped paying myself for 18 months.”
Berkowitz: Cookies serve as resilient small indulgences during economic downturns
“That's what we've experienced at times. I mean, it's also like, it's a nice pick me up, right? Like people just like a little sweet moment, especially in a depressing kind of environment, right? It's just, it's one of those small indulgences.”
Berkowitz: The iPhone turned Insomnia Cookies into mainstream on-demand delivery
“The iPhone was an absolute game changer. It turned us from a late night on demand business in a universe where that did not exist to being right in the middle of what everybody wanted.”
Berkowitz: Insomnia Cookies funded 120 store openings entirely from company profits
“And we then opened a 120 stores exactly like that directly from the profit of the business.”
Berkowitz: Retail sales have equaled delivery at Insomnia Cookies for a decade
“Retail and delivery, right around that point, retail reach about 50%, and it's kind of been like that for 10 years now.”
Berkowitz: Insomnia Cookies resisted DoorDash and Uber Eats until COVID-19
“I didn't really open up to the DoorDash and Ubers of the world in earnest until the middle of COVID when we had to rethink the entire business model.”
Berkowitz: Rapid Scaling to 150 Stores Caused Delivery and Innovation to Slip
“Something happened internally, I don't even remember exactly what it was, where I just felt like we had had this huge growth story, you know, 20 stores, 150 locations, so rapidly, and we didn't hit a wall, but I could see something was breaking. Like, it was, …”
Berkowitz: Insomnia Cookies Met With ~60 Potential Buyers Before Krispy Kreme Deal
“We started a process trying to find buyers. We hired an investment bank and we spoke to dozens and dozens of people. I met Krispy Kreme in February of 2018. Then I met sixty-ish people.”
Berkowitz: Expanding delivery radius to five miles sparked Insomnia's fastest growth
“But we extended out to five miles from three miles, and all of a sudden we were back to normal. And growing, and adding stores and since then, it's been the fastest growth we've ever had.”
Berkowitz: Insomnia Cookies launched with around $100 in initial investment
“I think I spent a hundred dollars on, like, everything. Like, the first mixer, it was like 30 dollars, and like, the first ingredients. It was effectively no investment.”
Berkowitz: Insomnia's model relies on delivering warm cookies within 30 minutes
“The premise was always, I want to get it to you in 20 or 30 minutes. When you eat it, that's gonna be optimal. That moment in time is gonna be optimal. If we can execute against that, you're gonna order again. That was really like the whole business model to s…”
Berkowitz: Insomnia Cookies did 500 weekly orders and $20K monthly in 2004
“At that point, we're probably doing 500 orders a week, 20 grand at most.”
The other half of the tape: Seth Berkowitz's own voice is left out of every number here. 1 statement on the record names them. every mention, with the transcript →
Statements about Seth Berkowitz, by other people (1)
One line per show, most statements first. The link opens Seth's full record on that show: the calibration, argument clarity, speaking style and every statement made there.
| Show | Role there | Eps | Statements | Record | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 HOW I BUILT THISLEDGER | Founder & CEO, Insomnia Cookies | 1 | 25 | 75% 3/4 | full record on How I Built This → |