The Ledger
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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.”
Turner says private equity turned his Ferrari into a Ford Taurus
“I felt like I handed them a Ferrari, and they turned it into a Ford Taurus.”
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.”
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.”
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…”
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 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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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.”
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 operated with only seven employees in 2014 and 2015
“2014, 2015, we may have had seven.”
Lenny & Larry's had 28 interested buyers when exploring a sale
“And we had 28 interested parties right out of the gate.”
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.”
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.”
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.”