Apr 26, 2021 · 1h 39m · how-i-built-this
Pipcorn: Jennifer and Jeff Martin
Jeff Martin · 40m spoken Guy Raz · 25m spoken Jennifer Martin · 24m spoken Oprah Winfrey · 4s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Pipcorn co-founders Jennifer and Jeff Martin recount how they transformed an easily digestible heirloom corn kernel into a multi-million-dollar national snack brand through grassroots hustle, high-profile media exposure, and strategic product reinvention.
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 28.7% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Guy as informed peer 2.1 Guest teaching 1.2 Guest disagreement 0.2 Guy pushing back 0.2
speaking balance: gold is Guy, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 1:31:55 Jennifer refuses to accommodate casual bigotry
Jennifer expresses firm resolve against co-signing or laughing off racist, sexist, or homophobic comments to make others comfortable.
Hardest push from Guy ▶ 57:41 Guy questions the paradox of high sales causing failureGuy pushes back on the counterintuitive claim that massive purchase orders from Whole Foods nearly put the startup out of business.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 18:50 Jeff breaks down heirloom versus commercial crop geneticsJeff educates the host on how industrial agriculture breeds out flavor and nutrient density in favor of size uniformity and yield.
Guy holds their own ▶ 1:31:09 Guy contrasts product-centered brands with mission-driven founder brandsGuy synthesizes insights across multiple past episodes, citing cosmetics founder Melissa Butler to analyze how personal identity connects to consumer branding.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Guy as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Guy pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How I Built This Summit Announcement and Sponsorships | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy delivers the show introduction, outlining startup concepts like unfair advantage and setting up Pipcorn's founding narrative in Brooklyn. | |
| Growing Up in a Supportive Biracial Household | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about Jeff and Jennifer's upbringing in a biracial, interfaith home, creating a supportive space for personal stories. | |
| College Days and Navigating Severe Food Allergies | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Jennifer explains her severe dietary restrictions and how early gluten-free products and conventional feed corn made her sick. | |
| Getting Laid Off from Wall Street | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Jeff recounts being laid off from UBS during the 2008 financial crisis and the encouragement he received from his mother. | |
| Jennifer's Private Juicing Business Venture | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Jennifer shares how an informal juicing arrangement for a customer turned into an early entrepreneurial enterprise. | |
| The Discovery of Heirloom Popcorn Kernels | 3 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Guy asks about the agricultural difference of heirloom corn, and Jeff explains how modern commercial breeding discards nutrition and flavor. | |
| Naming the Brand and Early Bootstrapping | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The co-founders describe bootstrapping their business with 3,000 dollars and working with a naming agency to find the brand name Pipcorn. | |
| Debuting at Smorgasburg and Kitchen Hustle | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The founders detail their Smorgasburg launch, including ruined stale batches and calculating an eight dollar price point. | |
| An Unexpected Encounter with Oprah's Scout | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The guests recount offering shade to an Oprah scout and scrambling to design custom holiday crates and lemon truffle flavors. | |
| Mid-Show Intermission | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Following the mid-roll, Jeff and Jennifer describe commercial kettle hazards and their website instantly crashing upon airing. | |
| Rapid Retail Growth and Cash Flow Struggles at Whole Foods | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Guy probes into how extreme demand from Whole Foods Columbus Circle created severe working capital strains and nearly sank the business. | |
| The Shark Tank Pitch and Deal with Barbara Corcoran | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | The founders describe their Shark Tank preparation, rejecting Robert Herjavec's cut-rate offer, and securing Barbara Corcoran's deal. | |
| National Expansion and a Broken Three Million Dollar Deal | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Jeff explains how a three million dollar funding round with a South African firm abruptly fell apart at the signature stage. | |
| Mid-Show Intermission and Sneak Peek | 2 | 4 | 0 | 0 | Jeff explains the complex extrusion engineering needed to create clean-label, whole-grain cheese balls without artificial additives. | |
| COVID-19 DTC Strategy and Scaling to Twelve Million Dollars | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Jennifer details shifting their website architecture from brand education to e-commerce conversion during the 2020 pandemic. | |
| Reflections on Race, Identity, and the 2020 Social Reckoning | 2 | 3 | 2 | 0 | Jennifer and Jeff reflect on the bittersweet nature of corporate support following George Floyd's murder and refusing to tolerate microaggressions. | |
| Long-Term Vision, Family Support, and Lessons in Resilience | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | The conversation closes with reflections on potential acquisitions, parental dedication in the commercial kitchen, and emotional balance. |
Statements from this episode (23)
Jeff Martin: Parents were among the few Black employees at IBM sales
“They were at the time, you know, our dad was one of the only black men in, in the group and our mom was one of the only women.”
Jennifer Martin: 1990s gluten-free products used feed corn causing perceived allergies
“And a lot of the reason I couldn't eat corn was because at that time, the gluten-free products were all made with really, really bad corn, you know, like not corn that you're supposed to be eating, like it was like feed corn that basically we're eating, and so…”
Jeff Martin: Breeding crops for size and aesthetics sacrifices nutrient density
“When you create a product, you're doing it to accomplish one or more of the goals you just mentioned, and generally it's, like, size and uniformity and aesthetics. So when you do that, you generally breed out or you modify out something, and one of the first t…”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn launched with just $3,000 in personal startup capital
“Incredibly low barriers to entry, where We could start with 3000 dollars in a bank account and get the equipment we needed and at least start.”
Jeff Martin: Kate Spade posted Pipcorn on Instagram during its debut
“Kate Spade. Put us on her Instagram.”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn website crashed immediately upon airing on Oprah
“They showed a pan-across shot at the market of our packaging, and when they showed the name, Pipcorn, our website crashed.”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn generated up to $200,000 in sales following Oprah feature
“It was like close to, you know, 200,000 dollars in sales in, in a short, in a really, maybe like a 150,000 dollars of sales in a really short period of time”
Jennifer Martin: Pipcorn over-indexed on seasonal gifting post-Oprah
“I think the Oprah, we sort of, like, pivoted A little bit too much to focus on, like, being an online gift, and we had to, like, swing all the way back to figure out, like, okay, well, that's seasonal, right? People love that for the holiday, but then the rest…”
Jeff Martin: Columbus Circle Whole Foods volume almost bankrupted early Pipcorn
“The Columbus Circle Whole Foods, like, legitimately almost put us out of business early on because the volume was so huge.”
Jeff Martin: 15-day supplier terms versus 30-day retail payments caused cash crunch
“Yeah, I mean, we would owe our bills in 15, and we'd get paid from them in 30 days. So we had cash flow issues for a really long time, because The growth was so extreme that yesterday's checks might not cover next week's bills.”
Jeff Martin: Robert Herjavec halved Pipcorn's valuation with $200K Shark Tank offer
“So Robert offered us a deal, but he cut our valuation in half. He said, love you guys. Love the product. The valuation is too aggressive. So I'll give you 200,000 for 20%.”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn expanded into three additional Whole Foods regions post-Shark Tank
“Within a couple, so we aired on Shark Tank in November of 2014, and within the following five or six months, we were able to get into, you know, three more regions of Whole Foods, and with those relationships opened up some opportunities to sell to other retai…”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn generated roughly $2 million in annual revenue by 2017
“So to 20 17 was actually closer to two million in revenue. We hadn't gotten to five yet, which is like a major tipping point for brands that we, it was another crazy, crazy milestone.”
Jennifer Martin: Pipcorn received two term sheets within three weeks of fundraising
“Oh, no, the one thing I was just going to add was, like, we kicked off the fundraising process, and then I feel like in two weeks we had, or two or three weeks, we had, like, two term sheets.”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn ran up a $100,000 legal bill on a failed deal
“It is. And we, and then after the term sheet, we negotiated like these long form deal documents and, you know, had a 100,000 dollar legal bill.”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn raised $6 million in funding in May 2019
“So after a little bit, kind of a short period of time, we were introduced to a couple folks and we wound up signing a term sheet that was very different than the first deal, but we were able to raise six million dollars in May of 2019.”
Jennifer Martin: Pipcorn did not run any paid advertisements before 2020
“So we had never run any ads previous to like before 2020.”
Jennifer Martin: Online sales make up 20% to 25% of Pipcorn's revenue
“No, that's correct. Yeah, I think it's like 20%, 20, 25% online, and then the rest is wholesale.”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn projected reaching profitability by the end of 2022
“We we're projecting profitability by end of next year, but yeah, I mean, it's the business that we're operating today is definitely different than what we had been operating. We're, you know, without a doubt, marching towards profitability to really set oursel…”
Jennifer Martin: 2020 corporate outreach to Black founders was often opportunistic promotion
“I think where it feels good is when it's companies or people who are reaching out to you who have always supported you, and they're just amplifying it. I think the part where it gets confusing of how to feel about it is when you can tell it's an opportunity fo…”
Jennifer Martin: I refuse to laugh off discriminatory remarks to diffuse awkwardness
“In the past, I've always just laughed off. Somebody says a comment to me that's racist or sexist or homophobic or whatever it is, I laugh it off because I feel awkward and I don't want them to, you know, I just want to make the situation end, right? Like, that…”
Jeff Martin: Pipcorn is open to an acquisition by the right partner
“In terms of an acquisition, I think it's something that we would be, you know, to the right partner too. Like you can really start to see some amazing things happen. And sometimes the founders stay on and Sometimes they move on, but you know, for the right par…”
Jeff Martin: Extreme founder highs can be as crippling as low points
“One thing that we always honestly joke about is like, don't let the highs get you so high, and don't let the lows get you so low, because being really low is, is hard, and it's, there's a lot to work through as a founder, but those super high highs, like getti…”