Jeni Britton Bauer, founder of Jeni's Splendid Ice Creams, explains why she shifted from an unpredictable daily menu to a consistent signature product line.
Insight
Scaling improves food quality by unlocking superior ingredient sourcing
“I think that you can get better as you grow, and that's been my experience. When we were really small, and there's this sort of Glow around the sort of mom and pop sort of thing, I think, especially in ice cream. But when we were small, we were really limited …”
What-if
Jeni's Ice Cream Would Have Failed If Launched In Brooklyn
“It would be impossible to do what we do at Jenny's. All of our money would have been in, you know, rent, and paying people, and all the things that you have to do in Brooklyn that would be different from Columbus. And here we can put it all in the ice cream, a…”
Insight
Grocery Buyers Prioritize Brands That Bring New Consumers To The Category
“Your customer when you're in grocery is not their customer, it's the buyer. And what the buyer wants to see is, yeah, sure, you can split some votes, that's okay. Are you bringing new people to the category?”
Insight
Bringing In Outside Capital Costs Founders Their Autonomy To Explore
“And when you bring in outside capital, you lose all of that. And so, you know, are, who's on your team? Who, how many people do you have? Are you ready to sort of like let go of that kind of control?”
Insight
PR Agencies Fail Startups Unless An Internal Champion Truly Believes
“I find that PR firms can be really awesome, but you have to have somebody, you have to have somebody at that firm who is your champion.
Who adores you, who believes in you, who wants to push it forward.
Otherwise it falls flat and you just, you kind of go nowh…”
Insight
Mid-Sized Cities Provide Better Startup Launchpads Than Large Metros
“When you're in a smaller, small to mid-sized city, the city gets behind it in a different way. You know, you can really try things and also fail a lot, and people still stick with you. And I have noticed that in big cities, everybody's trying new things. Every…”