Insomnia Cookies

“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, …”

“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.”

“Vending trucks ended up being a right turn I wish I hadn't taken. It was like a two-year real distraction.”

“And we then opened a 120 stores exactly like that directly from the profit of the business.”

“At that point, we're probably doing 500 orders a week, 20 grand at most.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Which, by the way, I did from 2003 to 2011. So, like, it was every year for eight years, I was just raising capital.”

“The first three locations were that model. Tasty light locations with insomnia cookies, some branding, and delivery service out of the back of the house.”

“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”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“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.”

“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…”

“Retail and delivery, right around that point, retail reach about 50%, and it's kind of been like that for 10 years now.”

“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.”

“By the way, shortly after we did this interview, Krispy Kreme did announce that they sold a majority of their shares to two private equity groups. Krispy Kreme is still a shareholder in Insomnia, and Seth will remain its CEO.”

“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…”

“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.”