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Hochschuler: Unilever initiated unsolicited acquisition talks with Talenti in 2013
“Unilever actually came to us. They came to us in 13, they said this is the call you've been waiting for, and said, we want to buy your business, and we're like, well, it's not for sale. We're not selling. And that started this, at least a year, I think it was …”
Argentine gelato preserves century-old Italian formulations and styles
“So the way I describe it is that Argentinian gelato is the way Italian gelato used to be a very long time ago, a hundred years ago.”
Hochschuler pitched 110 friends and family for Talenti; 95 rejected him
“A business plan I had built, which was one of the longest business plans you could ever imagine, and the vast majority, probably 95 of them or so, said no.”
Hochschuler raised nearly $600,000 to launch the first Talenti store in Dallas
“I think my goal was 600 grand. I think I got close to it. Maybe I was a little bit shy, but it was around there.”
Talenti's first retail store failed because customers only bought two-dollar cups
“The problem is the average ticket. The small size was, let's say, two dollars, and almost everyone was just buying that, and the store itself was quite large, and there was a lot of overhead, and the business model was built on there being a considerable amoun…”
Hochschuler: Talenti held $200K–$300K in debt upon closing storefront
“Probably something like that, like two to 300,000, as long as you don't consider the fact that at the time there was a lease, right?”
Hochschuler funded Talenti using 16 zero-percent credit cards and a second mortgage
“I had like 16 of those that I built up. I got I was able to buy a house with like five percent down a little house. And then I took a second mortgage out on that and then put it into the business.”
A major client liquidated a massive Talenti order before declaring bankruptcy
“So towards the end, before they went bankrupt, they ordered this huge order, like, way larger than normal. They received it, and then they marked it way down, and sold it off, but I never got paid.”
Hochschuler took a $70,000 personal loan to cover payroll despite heavy debt
“I think it was more than that. I think it was like 70 or 80,000 dollars, but it was way more than they probably should have given me, but they did.”
Investors Steve Gill and Eddie Phillips bought out Talenti's original storefront backers
“So their balance sheets helped with getting approvals on those things and so, but yeah, they put in money and they bought out all of my original storefront investors.”
Hochschuler: Steve Gill and Eddie Phillips funded Talenti through 2008-2009 crisis
“So the end of oh eight till through oh nine, let's call it. And that was the period of needing to Live to see another day, and those two gentlemen, for the most part funding that.”
Talenti employees manually hand-filled every gelato jar until around 2012
“We did not automate. You had to hold the cup underneath the spigot. It was like a, it was like in the kitchen faucet and fill and then put the lid on and then keep doing that one by one by one by one. Yes. And we had multiple of these machines, so we were not …”
Talenti won Publix distribution by pledging $500,000 in local radio ads
“He said, well, how much are you going to spend on the radio? He says, 500,000 dollars. So we ended up getting the business after that meeting, and Steve calls me, and he says Good news, bad news. Good news is I got us in. And I'm like, oh, amazing, amazing. He…”
Talenti reached $245 million in annual sales by the end of 2016
“And so by the end of 16, we had hit two hundred and forty five million in sales, and it was extremely profitable, and they got what they paid for.”
Hochschuler sold Talenti to his partner for $20 every Passover
“During Passover, there's certain rules, you're not allowed to own certain things, one of them being food that you're not allowed to eat during that period, so I would have to sell him the business and He would have to give me 20 dollars and have a handshake”
Hochschuler: US gelato was limited to mom-and-pop shops in the early 2000s
“And especially at the time, you could buy gelato in places that had one or two stores, kind of a mom-and-pop type style, but it was pretty new. It was like cutting edge. At the time.”
Hochschuler: Gelato has lower butterfat and higher solids than ice cream
“It also has much, much lower fat. It could be half the amount of butter fat. And then it has really high solids, so you, you're avoiding water, and that lends itself to texture and flavor.”
Hochschuler named Talenti after Bernardo Buontalenti, the 16th-century inventor of gelato
“I was reading a lot about this gentleman, Bernardo Buontalenti from Florence. He lived in the 1500, and he's credited with basically inventing gelato.”
Hochschuler: Whole Foods stores had local purchasing autonomy in 2007
“Whole Foods was way different back then. Each store had a lot of autonomy, and they were able to take us on, so that would be one example.”