The Exchanges

Q And, and while you were doing this, I mean, were you talking about what, what you were trying to do with anybody?

A A few of my closest friends I shared at a high level the idea with. Really the only person other than my boyfriend at the time, um, that I shared with, uh, on an in-depth level was my grandmother. To which her response was, you know, you're crazy. Why are you throwing away university to be making candy in your kitchen? Have you gone nuts? Have you gone off the rail? What's wrong with you? You know, they're really just German direct. Because for her, she never had the opportunity to go to university, so for me to throw that away to her was just kind of unfathomable, um, but at that point in my life, I had gotten pretty used, I think, to feeling underestimated or misunderstood, so I pretty easily discarded the thoughts and opinions of others that, that didn't Serve me well. My grandmother's words I always took to heart, though, so I know I remember being like, you know, one day she's going to understand, and she's going to get it, and I'm going to do right by her, and she's going to be proud.

AI assessment note: “A few of my closest friends I shared at a high level the idea with.”

Q In year one, you sold roughly Roughly a million US dollars in revenue in Canada in sales, which is pretty great. Were you profitable in year one or was, were you just all the money that all your sales going right back into making more product?

A Year one, we were, like, pretty much almost at break even, but we were not technically profitable, and so I never planned for, what if things go really well? And things went really well, and so I realized I was gonna need more cash to do a larger manufacturing run to continue the train and keep the momentum. I had maxed out on the debt financing available to us at the time, So I was like, okay, shoot. Now I actually am going to really need investors. Um, and Beth was doing demos at a choices markets and met this woman. Her name's Shelly. And right away she was like, I get it. I want to be involved. I met with her the next day at this restaurant. And then kind of like in the cheesiest way possible, she wrote on a napkin that she was going to give me 80 grand. And her, she signed the napkin, I signed the napkin, and we agreed we would sort out the terms at a later date, and so that was a huge blessing to get us to our next run.

AI assessment note: “we were, like, pretty much almost at break even, but we were not technically profitable”

Q Um, tell me a little bit about your, your relationship with food a bit more. I mean, what, what kind of effects did, did it have on you?

A Yeah, I think, especially as a kid, I had, I think I had pretty severe body dysmorphia, so I remember when I was eight years old standing in the Junior Jacobs change room trying on pants, and the salesperson was like, come on out, let's see the pants, and I remember thinking, I can't come out, I'm, like, I don't want her to see how big I am, which I wasn't big at all, but I grew up in a family where my, my grandmother was, was always pretty overweight, And people would make comments in public that I'd hear, um, and we loved enjoying all sorts of amazing foods together. She's German, so very hearty foods, a lot of carbs. And so, at a young age, I think I really adopted the, the thought that, like, oh, food means something that It isn't just food that you feed your body with. It means something about your identity, your weight, all these kind of complex things around it.

AI assessment note: “I think, especially as a kid, I had, I think I had pretty severe body dysmorphia”

Q In terms of finding a manufacturer, how do you, how did you find one? How'd you get into one?

A There was two main things that I realized quickly. One was that all candy manufacturers, their machinery needs sugar in order for the products to be able to be made because sugar is 99% of what is candy for it to run on the machine. The other thing that I learned quickly was that, um, the minimum runs and the quantities were Were very significant for what would pique a manufacturer's interest, so it really focused on sharing the vision of what Smart Suites will be, what's in it for them, and this is happening in the candy industry, whether you move on it or not. And there was one manufacturer that said, yes, so we put a launch date for December of Come second week into December, they call me, and they say, hey, we are not going to let you use this recipe, this formula. You can use another formula with chicory root fiber as the bulking agent, and immediately I knew what they were telling me was, we're going to give you a recipe that's actually not digestible, that's going to blow up people's stomachs. That manufacturer took the recipe and ended up going on to launch a product themselves, So, at that time, pretty much overnight, I was like, oh my gosh, I need to find another manufacturer to launch this product. Went back to another manufacturer that had said no, and went to them in person this time, and really focused on specifically sharing the vision, specifically painting for …

AI assessment note: “Went back to another manufacturer that had said no, and went to them in person”

Q I guess at a certain point, your grandma, um, did she at one point in her life said to you she really regretted the amount of sugar she ate? Did she ever develop diabetes or any, any conditions connected to, to sugar?

A Yeah, she, it was really her whole life really felt like to her, I think, a fight between her body and food and herself, um, and just the weight that she had that impacted her because she wasn't able to walk very well anymore, um, but I really think it just kept her in this place of feeling poorly about herself, and so we're sitting down at, at her table one day, and she She knew how much I loved candy. We enjoyed it so much together. It was just such an emotional thing for us, um, and she, yeah, had shared with me, like, you know, over the years, I regret having so much sugar because now, at my age, I, I, I feel so limited in what I can do mobility-wise. I still feel poorly about myself, um, and I just wish I had done things differently and had Developed a relationship that was a peaceful one with food. So that was shocking to me at the time because I thought magically you grow up and all of a sudden just have a harmonious relationship with food and yourself and all the things.

AI assessment note: “she, yeah, had shared with me, like, you know, over the years, I regret”

Q How high, how, like, what is the temperature? Like, over 200 degrees?

A Oh yeah, the soft and hard boiling point. It's beyond a regular boil point of, let's say you want to boil potatoes in water or something like that. It's, um, very, very high, and then there's different boil points for soft candy versus if you want a, a hard candy boil, um, and then as soon as it reaches that point, you have to remove it right away. I would use my eyedropper, put it in the molds, and And then let it set at room temperature, um, over to kind of let it naturally cure, and then, 72 hours later, I would see how it had set. I'd see, you know, is this, is this even staying together? Is it coming out? Is it moldy? Sometimes it'd be like jello, sometimes they'd be hard, or they'd have a jello-like inside, but they'd form this harder crust on the outside. Um, They really didn't come out in any shape or form that looked like a promising candy until hundreds of recipes down.

AI assessment note: “Oh yeah, the soft and hard boiling point. It's beyond a regular boil point”