Feb 24, 2025 · 1h 4m · how-i-built-this
Lenny & Larry’s Protein Snacks: Barry Turner
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this episode of How I Built This, host Guy Raz speaks with Barry Turner about his journey from professional athletics and American Gladiators to pioneering the functional snack industry by building Lenny & Larry's into a multi-million-dollar protein cookie empire.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Guy holds 37.3% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 4.6 Guest teaching 2.8 Guest disagreement 0.8 Guy pushing back 1.6
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:00:29 Barry rejects the label of PE sophistication
When Guy defends buyer Lion Capital as a sophisticated group with proven portfolio successes, Barry dismisses the framing, saying Guy is being too nice and accusing PE of ruining the brand.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 1:00:15 Guy defends private equity management against founder criticismGuy intentionally pushes back on Barry's bitter critique of the buyout firm, pointing out Lion Capital's successful track record with mainstream brands like Kettle Chips.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 13:49 Schooling the host on American Gladiators violenceBarry firmly reframes Guy's assumption that American Gladiators was gentle foam jousting, educating him on how high-speed impacts with padded batons caused severe injuries.
Guy holds their own ▶ 51:10 Guy dissects unit margins and sugar contentGuy leverages industry knowledge of food nutrition and retail economics to compare Barry's 40-cent manufacturing cost and $2.49 shelf price to the markup of an LVMH luxury bag.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pursuing Professional Wrestling as 'Mr. Olympia' | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy asks open-ended biographical questions about Barry's brief wrestling stint as 'Mr. Olympia' and the Hollywood movie script opportunity with Benny Graham. | |
| Bodybuilding in LA, Muscle Growth, and Steroid Use | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Guy directly asks if Barry used steroids to reach 250 lbs and cites his obscure film credits, with Barry responding transparently about mood swings and background acting. | |
| Auditioning for American Gladiators and Becoming 'Cyclone' | 4 | 5 | 3 | 2 | When Guy suggests American Gladiators was non-violent padded fun, Barry firmly corrects him, explaining that getting hit by a high-speed padded joust is extremely violent. | |
| A Severe Injury Ends the Gladiator Dream | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Barry recounts tearing his bicep on set and falling into deep depression, while Guy offers supportive, empathetic prompts exploring southern stoicism and feelings of failure. | |
| The Epiphany at Marina Del Rey: Protein in a Muffin | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Guy contextualizes the 1993 fitness food market (Met-Rx and plain whole foods), and Barry describes the eureka moment of wanting to put protein into a bakery muffin. | |
| Founding Lenny & Larry's and Initial Kitchen Experiments | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Barry explains creating the characters Lenny & Larry instead of using their real names, and how their first home-baked whey muffin attempt turned out rock hard. | |
| Partnering with Montana Bakery and Early Direct Sales | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Barry details partnering with Montana Bakery and hand-crimping packages to fulfill their very first $13.20 order, with Guy clarifying early packaging shelf life. | |
| The 'Better Bad' Philosophy and Daily Delivery Grind | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Barry outlines the early daily grind of early morning deliveries while working as personal trainers, defining their positioning around a 'better bad' treat for average consumers. | |
| Len Hoffman's Formulations and The Coffee Bean Deal | 5 | 4 | 1 | 2 | Guy notes that their massive Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf co-packing contract made money but distracted from building their own proprietary brand. | |
| Benny's Medical Emergency and the 2001 Company Sale | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Guy summarizes the unsustainable bi-coastal split following Benny's surgical artery rupture, leading to the 2001 business sale to Crouch and Felder for $480k. | |
| Post-Sale Remorse and the Need for a Hero Product | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Barry reflects on post-sale remorse and analyzes why the initial run stalled due to lacking a standout hero product, while Guy draws parallels to his Gladiator injury. | |
| Tech Industry Insights and Reacquiring the Brand in 2007 | 4 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Barry explains learning digital customer acquisition while running a software monitoring firm, prompting him to buy back 50% of the struggling brand in 2007. | |
| Brand Refresh and Launching the Muscle Brownie | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Barry describes redesigning the logo into an afro caricature and speculatively baking 72,000 Muscle Brownies without initial retail commitments. | |
| Engineering The Complete Cookie and Expanding Margins | 6 | 3 | 1 | 2 | Guy breaks down the nutritional breakdown (fiber vs high sugar) and margin structure, comparing the 40-cent unit cost and $2.49 retail price to an LVMH luxury margin. | |
| Hypergrowth: Scaling from $11M to $94M with a Lean Team | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Guy highlights the extreme operational efficiency of generating $27M with just 7 employees, before scaling rapidly to $94M following legal advisor Nick Giannuzzi's challenge. | |
| Crisis Management and Navigating Acquisition Inquiries | 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | Barry dismisses worrying about Big Food competitors, describes personally managing a meal moth recall via his personal cell phone, and notes 28 inbound buyout inquiries. | |
| The $250M Private Equity Buyout and Cultural Friction | 6 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Guy actively plays devil's advocate for buyer Lion Capital, citing their sophisticated portfolio, but Barry aggressively dismisses them for tripling headcount and ruining margins. | |
| Founder Purpose, Work Ethic, and Final Reflections | 5 | 3 | 2 | 2 | Barry rejects the role of luck in his success, asserting he created his own lottery, before Guy humorously catches Barry omitting Fabio as his co-star in Death Becomes Her. |
Statements from this episode (27)
Turner wrestled as masked persona 'Mr. Olympia' before founding the company
“So they put a mask on me. They called me Mr. Olympia. And they gave me a manager. I got a guy's name's Diamond Dave. He's wearing a red tuxedo with a red top hat up. It was full on like a major production. And I was getting picked up by a bigger group. They we…”
Turner and his co-founder appeared as extras in 'The Bodyguard'
“We did we did the bodyguard with Kevin Costner, Whitney Houston.”
Turner was cast as 'Cyclone' on the TV show American Gladiators
“They call, they called me Cyclone. That's, they thought I was very, I was big and I was very fast, and that's just the name they came up with.”
Turner would have declined a Schwarzenegger movie for American Gladiators
“You could have cast me in a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger, I wouldn't have taken that over being an American Gladiator.”
In 1993, no one was adding protein to foods besides bars
“But there was no one putting protein in anything other than a protein bar.”
Lenny & Larry's launched its bank account with just $1,400
“We opened up a bank account that day with 1400 dollars. I don't know why it was 1400. Maybe that's all we had. And we did a DBA doing business as. So this all happened the very first day.”
Founders often overthink brand names and design instead of executing
“I think people overthink things now that I look back on this. I think people overthink trying to get the perfect name or the, you know, the perfect design or whatever, rather than just doing it.”
Lenny & Larry's first-ever business invoice was for exactly $13.20
“Our first invoice, we were selling these muffins for like a dollar and 20 cent a piece, and our first invoice for our business was 13 dollars and 20 cents. That was the first invoice we ever issued.”
Early on, Lenny & Larry's targeted mainstream consumers over bodybuilders
“We did, but to be honest with you, we really were developing these, we said, for the average consumer. We thought if we could make a, we coined a term later called better bad, but at that time, we thought if we could get them to stop eating, you know, Little D…”
Lenny & Larry's scones quickly became Coffee Bean's top-selling product
“We made these amazing scones, and it quickly became their number one selling product.”
Making too many products stalled early growth without a hero product
“Somebody asked me one time, what did you, what did that six and a half years cost you? I said, it just cost me time because it came down to being very scattered and not having what I call a hero product. We had all these products that we can make. But none of …”
Turner later bought back 50% of Lenny & Larry's very cheaply
“You want to come back, be a fifty-fifty partner with me.
Yeah, it was very cheap.”
In 2007, no competing brand had ever made a protein brownie
“Everyone was doing protein bars at the time and no one had done a brownie.”
Lenny & Larry's produced 72,000 protein brownies without an advance order
“We ordered 72,000 brownies, 36,000 of two flavors, had those shipped to a warehouse that we were, that we rented, and we're sitting there with 72,000 brownies and said, now we have to go sell these.”
Consumers need intermediate 'better bad' snacks before adopting functional protein bars
“I want to create a better bad. I want people to make a better choice, and nobody's going to go from eating A, you know, a little Debbie to eating some sort of protein bar. It just, there, there's not, there has to be something, there has to be a stop in the mi…”
Lenny & Larry's never raised outside capital or took on debt
“What we liked about it is like we were, we never had to raise money. We never had investors, never had debt.”
Lenny & Larry's grew revenue from $11M to $27M in one year
“So we went from 11 to twenty seven million in one year by opening up accounts and actually managing servicing the accounts we already had.”
Lenny & Larry's operated with only seven employees in 2014 and 2015
“2014, 2015, we may have had seven.”
Companies should avoid unnecessary hiring and pay existing staff more instead
“I never believed in hiring when you didn't have to hire. I believe in paying your people more money that are there.”
Lenny & Larry's revenue surged from $27M to $94M next year
“And from there, twenty seven million turned into ninety four million in revenue the next year.”
Lenny & Larry's had 28 interested buyers when exploring a sale
“And we had 28 interested parties right out of the gate.”
Lion Capital bought 75% of Lenny & Larry's at $250M valuation
“They, so they bought, ended up buying 75% of the business, and we, at the time, now you understand, this is seven years ago, so if you're equating it to the value of today, so at the time, we were valued at two hundred fifty million dollars.”
Lion Capital ballooned headcount and destroyed profitability post-acquisition
“Within six months of selling the company to them, we went from 17 employees to 59 employees. The business didn't triple. They only grow the business about six to eight percent a year, if that. They destroyed profitability.”