Latest / The Steve Harvey Morning Show / Full Episode: ABC Anchor Linsey Davis, Denise Woodard of Partake Foods, TV Personality Duff Goldman & Creamalicious gourmet Ice Cream Executive Chef Liz Rogers

Transcript

Full Episode: ABC Anchor Linsey Davis, Denise Woodard of Partake Foods, TV Personality Duff Goldman & Creamalicious gourmet Ice Cream Executive Chef Liz Rogers · The Steve Harvey Morning Show

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversations. It's the show that she
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: has the secrets of success experience firsthand by marketing and
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: Brandon expert Rashan McDonald. I will know he's giving me
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: advice to many occasions. In the case you didn't notice,
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: I'm not broke, you know he'll be interview with celebrity CEOs,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and industry decision makers. It's what he likes to do,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: it's what he likes to share. Now it's time to
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: hear from my man, Rashan McDonald money Making Conversations. Here
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: we come. Welcome to Money Making Conversation. I am your host,
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: Roushan McDonald. It is important to stop reading other people's
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: success stories and really start writing your own. I always
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: tell people to leave with their gifts as meaning to
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: leave with your passion, your your belief, it what you
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: want to do, and don't let your age, friends, family
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: or coworkers stop you from planning or living your dreams.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: My interviews I do on Money Making Conversation consists of celebrities, CEOs,
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: entrepreneurs and industry decision makers. My next guest is Lindsay Davis.
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: She is a best selling author of the world is
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Awake and one Big Heart. In February, Lindsey was tapped
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: to anchor the weekend broadcast of ABC News World Tonight
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: and She's All And She also anchors ABC News Lifetime
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: Live Prime, Excuse Me, the network streaming even newscast. She's
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: also corresponding for World News Tonight, Good Morning America at Nightline.
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: Please welcome to Money Making Conversation. The anchor of ABC's
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: weekend World News Tonight and ABC News Live Prime, Lindsey
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: Davis Rushan, thank you so much for having me on.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: I try to get it all in. I try to
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: get it all in because you know the thing about
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: our business business long enough to see faces like yours
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: that are not normal. They're normal now, but you know
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: one Pine in his time and his industry, they weren't normal,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: especially if a female face being normal. And you know
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: Ed Bradley was our man at one time, and then
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: so as you start ascending, That's why I wanted to
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: make sure people saw the body of your work. And
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: this is only a small body of your work, but
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: it's an important body of work with yours. You as
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: a host, as an anchor, get to articulate our stories
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: and I'm pretty sure in as an African American, as
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  Speaker 1: a female, and some of the stories that were put
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: out there, how are you able to balance the actual
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: reporting of the news and then the detachment of what
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  Speaker 1: you were reporting? Well, you know what, Look, it's always
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: about the facts, and I think that it's also about
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: knowing what you don't know. And so I think that
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: when you don't have a lot of variation, a lot
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: of variety of perspectives and lenses and experiences at the
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: proverbial table, um, then you're missing some of the nuance
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: to the story, right, and some of the relevant facts, um,
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: get thrown aside. And so UM, I don't think that
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I'm coloring it, if you will, with with anything except
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: that I do come with the perspective and the experience
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: of of being a black woman in America, and so
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: I think that I may have certain questions that I'm
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: going to ask or that I'm going to lean into
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: based on my own experience. UM. And I think of
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: as you talk about how we haven't had many people
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: who look like me. That was why it was so
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: important on my first night when I assumed the chair
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: of Weekend World News Tonight on Sundays. I had an
• 3:24
  Speaker 1: interview that I did with Carol Simpson, who was the
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: first black woman to anchor any network newscast back in
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: the eighties. And you know, I look forward to the
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: day my son is seven, and I look forward to
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: when he grows up that we won't still be talking about, well,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: this was the first or the second, right, because hopefully
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: the idea and the ideal will be that enough people
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: at that point would would have ascended to various ranks
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: that it just becomes oh, another person, right. And and
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: so for my son, I really do look forward to
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: where it becomes so commonplace that we're not still counting,
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: you know, the first or or the second. You know,
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: it's really interesting, especially entertainment. You know, I remember when
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: Steve Harvey, now back way back in the eighty three,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: when he had his first opportunity ABC offers in the
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: first sitcom. I remember we came to Mr Jian, ABC
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: wants me to do a sitcom. I went, you let
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: up because it was just it was just so far
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I could not even fathom. Somebody I knew, black Man,
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: he was a comedian populic commedia was being offered a
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: TV show on ABC was a pilot at the time,
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: and then I fast forward and as you're aspiring to
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: these heights, I wanted to be on the news, wanted
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: to deliver the news, to be a face of the
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: news and faced in media. What was that? What was
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: that journey like in college and your friends and your
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: peer groups, when you're telling them this is what you
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: wanted to do. Sure, you know, I think that I've
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: had the luxury or the benefit of having especially within
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: my own uh my own home and so not just
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: my parents, um, but in the extended family as well,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: where there was an expectation that you could do what
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: you wanted to do. And so I never felt limited
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: or constrained because of my race or gender, because there
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: was a mindset that if you want to do it,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: if you want to run for president, run for president.
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  Speaker 1: You know, no one was really telling me the likelihood
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: of success or how it was going to be so
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: much more difficult or so much harder, or no one
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: has done this before or whatever. It was just like, Hey,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: you want to do that, here's some tools. We're gonna
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: give you, some exposures, some opportunities, and you run with
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: it and you take it as far as you can.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And so when I decided when I was in college
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: that I wanted to become a journalist at the time,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: in particular reporter um. You know, my parents were just like, Okay,
• 5:42
  Speaker 1: what do we have to do? What do you have
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: to do? And so at the time, you still had
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: to get a college credit for an internship, and I
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: had missed that opportunity because I was about to graduate.
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: I was at University of Coregunitay. So then I I
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: did what I've I've told subsequently that I had my
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: parents pay fifty thou dollars so I could get an
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  Speaker 1: internship because I went to n y U for for
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: grad school to get a master's. You don't need to
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: have a master's to be a journalist, but at the time,
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: I needed to get that extra year in order to
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: get an internship and to get credit for it um.
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: And so I would say that anything that I needed,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: my parents were there right along with me, anticipating that,
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  Speaker 1: you know, if I wanted to do this, it could
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  Speaker 1: be done. And my friends never batted. And I I mean,
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  Speaker 1: I think that there was just this mindset of if you,
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  Speaker 1: you know, work hard and put your mind to it,
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  Speaker 1: you know you can achieve and so I'm glad that
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't have um the naysayers uh too loudly in
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: my ear, But they are, they are, They have just
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: reciting some of my experiences. I remember when I left
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: IBM to pursue a career as a stand up comedian.
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  Speaker 1: Of course it's totally otlers from the news. People look
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  Speaker 1: at you're gonna be a comedian. I thought I would
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  Speaker 1: be the next Eddie Murphus, somebody, somebody great like that.
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  Speaker 1: Richard Pryor had it. Nobody could ever be him. He's
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: like the Michael Jordan of comedy. But then but you know,
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: but it was always you know, people I didn't stand
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  Speaker 1: in my way, but they always went okay, okay. But
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: then you started seeing little little steps well in the way,
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: little crumbs of opportunity became a reality. And then people
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: started realizing, and you started and I started realizing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think I can really do this. Because even though
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: you can dream something, that doesn't mean it's gonna come true.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: So as you were starting to go up there, like
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: you said, you did the intern, you went up to
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: n y U and you know, got the masters. But
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: when did you start really starting to fall start to
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: fall in place for you, lindsay, sure. I mean, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I think that there are a lot of baby steps
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  Speaker 1: and milestones along the way. And I was just a
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  Speaker 1: self starter in a way that I would say, Okay,
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna by the time I'm twenty five, i want
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  Speaker 1: to be in the top market. By the time I'm thirty,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: you want to be at the network. And I made
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: both of those. One the first goal by the skin
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: of my teeth, because I was just about to turn
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  Speaker 1: twenty five and I made it to Indianapolis, which was
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  Speaker 1: the market. Um. But then you know, a few months
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  Speaker 1: shy my thirtieth birthday, I made it here to ABC
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  Speaker 1: News and I've been here now for about fourteen years. Um.
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  Speaker 1: And I would say when I was local news, I
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: was able to make a lot of jumps. So I
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: I started out in Syracuse it was market like eighty one,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: and I went to Flit in Michigan it was market
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: sixty four that went to Indianapolis market. And so I
• 8:16
  Speaker 1: was able to make a lot of those um jumps
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  Speaker 1: based on you know, my own goals that I had set.
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: And I would say once I got to the network,
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: it was a little bit harder to set a milestone
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: or set a goal and and then achieve it because
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: you know a lot of the people who make it
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: here are very talented, right and in some cases there
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: are some sharp elbows, or in some cases they may
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: have better relationships, or they may just be better positioned
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: for you know, opportunity or for growth. And so I
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: think that that did become a struggle for me kind
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: of finding my way once I got here to the network.
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  Speaker 1: But I would say when I was given the opportunity
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: in September two thousand nineteen to be one of the
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  Speaker 1: moderators at the Democratic Debate, that was career changing. That
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: that moment um, and that I went on to moderate
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: another debate again with David Neuir and George Stephanopolis in
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: February of the following year, and uh, in both cases,
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: you know, people gave very good feedback and reviews of
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: of my work um sitting there at the as a moderator,
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: and I think then that was the moment where people thought, oh, wow,
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: you know you could really do this. Now that was
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: many years in, right, Uh, it's the game that that
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: I finally kind of got that recognition that that I
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: believed that I was capable of, but you know, it
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: was really kind of waiting for the opportunity. Well, you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: it's really interesting that we all involved in journeys, and
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: we all involved in trying to reach those dreams and
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: then but then then their sacrifice, like you mentioned Indianapolis,
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  Speaker 1: Mrs Syracuse, I remember when I left I I reterally
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: got married and I moved to New York and my
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: wife was she still in left time. She stayed in Houston,
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: and so so I'm living New York. And then I
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: moved to l A and I lived there and she
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: still was staying in Houston. So they are sacrifices we
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: all make. And in those sacrifices, a lot of people
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: might call them selfish, but they're part of the goals.
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: They're part of the path that you gave. And then
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: you said, Richard, that was instrumental when you did the debates.
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: How first of all, how did they how did the
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: opportunity come to you? And then how did you prepare
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: for that opportunity because you knew it was big? Yes, Um, well,
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: I think that in part it was due to the
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: Democratic National Committee because they had set uh some rules
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: basically so that to prevent the moderator panels from uh
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: not being diverse. They they set some prerequisites basically where
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: you had to have diversity by gender, by race and so. UM.
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I think because ABC had already decided that they were
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: going to have you know, David and George, and at
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: first debate in September that we had for ABC was
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: going to be at an HBCU, and so I think
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: that there was probably a feeling. No one ever told
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: me I wasn't in the room when the decision was
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: made that that I would be, you know, the third moderator,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: but I would have to imagine that that both of
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: those played into it. Um. Look, I would say that
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: I probably never prepared more for anything in my life
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: than I had for that first debate in September two
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: thousand nineteen. You know, I I was kept trying to
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: minimize it in my mind so that I wouldn't over
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: hype myself and and and the let the anxiety run
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: two wild. Um. But I I it was September and
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: so August leading into it. I remember I had a
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: pre planned vacation and I was on the beach with
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: a big three two three ring binders. Um. Just studying
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: and researching and reading and preparing and um, it was
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: a lot. But the benefit of it was that by
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: the time that date came in September, I felt prepared.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And I think that that preparation gave me confidence that
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: in prayer I gotta say right, but um, but I
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: felt that I was ready on that day, and leading
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: up to it, I wasn't so sure. But I think
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: that there's you know, the preparation was key. And you know,
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: I couldn't express to anyone, you know, for whatever kind
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: of position you have, right, no matter what kind of
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: field you're entering into, I think that there's nothing that
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: beats feeling like you're ready. I know, it's it's uh
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: and even when you're ready, there's that fear that you're
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: not ready and and so and as you go along
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: and you start building this brand. And let me step
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: back and just talk about news in general, because I'm
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: kind of confused as to what is news and what
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: is commentary, you know, and like what I think this
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: is my perception, what I think what I see on
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Fox is commentary are and I want you to educate
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: me too, And it's what I see you do, what
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: I see you know, do you did it? Lets the
• 13:06
  Speaker 1: Holts and the David Meirs of the world, you're doing news.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: To me, what I see a lot of times on
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: on CNN and what I see on Fox is a
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: lot of commentary. Am I wrong in saying that? Or
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: it's a blend of news and commentary. You know, I
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: would say, wherever you're hearing a lot of opinions, then
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: that's more editorialized, right, that is more commentary. And so
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that's I guess up to the viewers to decide, you know,
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: how they want to hear their news presented. Do they
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: want to just get the facts, ma'am so to speak,
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: or do you want to hear more of what you
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: already think, you know, for that to be reinforced by
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: the programming that you watch, um. And you know, Fox
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: News for example, has great ratings, and so I think
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: that in a lot of cases, people do want to
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: hear and get their ideas seconded and get support for
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: you know, certain arguments, um that they believe are true.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: And they may be true. You know that that's again
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: up to the viewers to to really decide. But you know,
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: my understanding and what I learned in journalism school was
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: always about just presenting what cannot be debated really right.
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: And so certain facts of let's say a house fire,
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: um cannot be distorted or changed based on your opinion.
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: You know, it was either a three alarm fire or
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: was not. It either went up in flames at twelve
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: o'clock on Brady Avenue or it did not. And so
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: there are certain um uh styles. I guess that that
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: some of the networks take, especially the cable news outlet's take.
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: But um but for us, it is very much just
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: what the facts, the facts of whatever it is that
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: we're presented. Now. I mentioned two of your children's books
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: at the top of your intro, and now you have
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: a third one. It came out stayed this way forever,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: came out in February of this year. How how did
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: that developed? How did you know I would? I'm gonna
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: just say to your hard charging news that the facts, ma'am,
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: just the facts, ma'am to a children was a popular
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: bestselling author in the children's genre. How did that come about? So?
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: I again, I have a son who's seven, and when
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: I was reading books to him early on, I was thinking,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: well I could do this, and over time that could
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: became should I should do this because I was having
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: a hard time finding books that had characters who look
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: like him, and I felt that that was really important.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: And while in general terms, you know, the news industry
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: is very different from you know, authoring children's books, at
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: the heart, at my center, I consider myself to be
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: a storyteller, and so UM, I felt like it wouldn't
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: be that much of a stretch for me to kind
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: of let my creative juices flow and talk about the
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: good news, really and uplifting because quite often what I
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: do with news, which was also kind of part and
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: parcel to this, because my son would want to see
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: Mommy doing the news, and I felt like, you know,
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: quite often the subject matter what we're talking about is
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: just too much for um, a young person like he
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: is at this at this young age, and so writing
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: books I felt was something that I could just share
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: with him one without any kind of filter or concern
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: about the messaging that was being you know, instilled in him.
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: But I could use it as a tool to inspire him,
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: and so UM, initially I really focused on the mirror aspect.
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: There was an essay a while ago that talked about
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: how you need mirrors, windows, and sliding glass doors in
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: all children's books. The idea of mirrors so kids can
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: see themselves reflected in the pages of the books, windows
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: so they can perhaps pure into a world that's unfamiliar
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: to their own. And if that sliding glass door is
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: to really be effective, it can serve as a way
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: to transport them into an unfamiliar world. So with the
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: first book, it was really a matter of, Okay, let
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: me provide more mirrors for my son. But ultimately it
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: really became about and this was before George and the
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: first book protests called racial reckoning, was that the was
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: that the One Big Heart or The World Is Awake?
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: Which one was the was the first one. The first
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: one was The World Is Awake. The second one was
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: One Big Heart. And that was where I really talked
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: about the need for or I felt the need for
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: windows in the book so that kids would be able
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: to be exposed to kids who don't look like them,
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: because I think quite often parents look at books that
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: have black and brown characters and they think, oh, they're
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: just for black and brown children, and that couldn't be
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: further from the truth, really, because it does no benefit
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: to your child if They're only seeing mirrors all around them, right,
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: and they only see their own reflection in their books
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: and their toys and in their neighborhood and their church
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: and their place of worship or you know, school ors
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: place of worship. And so I felt like parents can
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: start with books and with toys that they're looking to
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: expose themselves or expose their children to more diverse people.
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: And this was something that you heard, especially during the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: summer and the so called racial reckoning, where parents were saying,
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: you know, what kind of conversations can I have? How
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: can I raise more empathetic children? And I think you
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: can start by giving them a book that has a
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: character who doesn't look like them, right. And my son
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: has such a diverse book collection that he never talks
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: about the race of the characters who are in the books.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: And I would venture to say that most kids won't.
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: You know, parents will often say like, oh, kids don't
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: see color. Kids do absolutely see dou see color. They
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: just don't assign a value to to color. You know.
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: It's adults who do that. Um. But I think that
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: early on, if they're all used to and accustomed to
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: seeing a variety of shades and hair, colors and features
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: in their books. They're they're not going to point out
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: it is being so far and unusual because they're used
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: to being exposed to it. So that's now what I
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: kind of shifted from. In addition to focusing on the mirror,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: I've found additional value in the window as well. Now
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: they stay away forever. That that's the third book. Stay
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: this way Forever? What is that? What? What? What lineup
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: communication are you trying to get out through that book? Yes?
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: So so stay this Way Forever? Is really any parent
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: I think will relate Who's ever thought, boy, I wish
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: I could just freeze this moment in time and press
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: the pause button and you know, savor these moments that
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: you know are fleeting right that are gonna uh leave
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: the playground of childhood. And one thing that I would
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: say there, you know half the things that you know
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: your kids are gonna outgrow. But I would also venture
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: to say, there are a lot of qualities that you
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: hope that they bring with them into adulthood. So you know,
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: my son's curiosity or his creativity and his joy, you know,
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: all the nights that he says tells me his plans
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: for the next day, and sometimes I'll say tomorrow is
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: gonna be the best day ever. And I hope that
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: he keeps that with him into adulthood, where he's excited
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: about the possibilities of of tomorrow. But this was really
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: kind of a way of journaling all the different moments,
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: because you never know what it's gonna be the last
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: time and a child, you know, falls asleep in your
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: lap or reaches for your hand to hold, or a
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: peter patter of feet before they, you know, jump in
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: bed with you in the morning. And so this was
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: kind of paying tribute to all the different stages of childhood.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: And the theme that has kind of been consistent through
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: my books is the idea of love. The first book
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: is basically, know that you're loved by God, the second
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: one is love each other, you know, love your neighbor,
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: and this one is no, You're loved by your parents
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: and your grandparents. And I hope that kids will read
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: it and not only know that their loved, but just
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: how much they're cherished and adored, and and especially for
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: the cute little little things that they do at these
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: various stages of childhood. My daughter, she's twenty three nine,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: and I always remember I always tell my favorite moment
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: one years old when she was just laying on my chest.
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: She hadn't yet had the ability to push off. She
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: just fell aslips I know exactly. And listen as you
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: go through that moment, it just takes me back to
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: a place where you know, I'm glad my daughter has grown,
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: but it's always those precious moments of being able to
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: experience when trying to set her up to take pictures
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: in the spine wasn't strong enough and you have that
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: pillows on both sides to get that picture that you
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: want to that they stay with you forever. And but
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I wanted to before I get out of here, I
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: wanted to say, like, you have a lot of rhymes
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: in your book. Now, I grew up with them. Function function,
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: what's your junk confunction? So what are these rhymes? And
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: that's that that little flavor there that you that we
• 21:24
  Speaker 1: can go read out loud, your little raps in the book.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: We're gonna one day function? Come on, now, come on,
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: let's when we got here. I think these rymes, so
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: you're wrapping up growing up the books that I read,
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: you know, shel Silverstein and Doctor since they were rhyming books,
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: and I just wanted I love it my whole thing.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: I just wanted to give my audience a look at you,
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: your your special talent. Let's let's put that way. And
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: and how did you get that? I wanted. I'm glad
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: you are willing to share a part of that story
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: how you get there, because so many people just see
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the end results, and that in results doesn't really tell
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: the journey. And like I said, I have a journey,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and uh, Stephen A. Smith, Josey Harvards, so many people
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: that like Nick Cannon has a journey. Is a great
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: job you did on Solo Nation with that interview with him,
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: and that I love seeing you and I want to
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: see more interviews out of you create and pulling out
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: information and very uncomfortable information and maintaining a very comfortable
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: environment when you get in those situations. Telling my audience
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: as we close out this interview, what are you trying
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: to accomplish the most when you're doing sit down, one
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: on one interviews. You know, I'm a very curious person
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: by nature, and so anybody can go and google somebody
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: and kind of see a bio or some statements they've made.
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: But I really want to know what was beyond that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: You know, what motivates you, what caused you to say that,
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: what caused you to feel that way? Help us to
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: understand and explain, you know, beyond just the superficial surface
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: stuff that we see. So I really want to engage.
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: I want to have in depth conversation. I always say
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: in my personal life, I never know what questions are
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: appropriate or now because in my professional work life I'm
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: able to kind of delve in and ask whatever, um.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: But I love having that kind of interaction and engagement
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: with with someone just to help us as humans just
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: get to understand why people think, or feel or say
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: the things that that we do. I think that it's
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: a benefit to us all when we hear, you know,
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the diverse um perspectives that are out there. Well, I
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: want to thank you Lindsay for coming on my show,
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: money making conversation and sharing your story and again the book.
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: Please tell your people to send me some. I got
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: a weekly newsletter goes out in eighty thousand people every Thursday,
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: nine am, and I got a little popular social media
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: following over a million. I love the post your book
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: and your banners. Just to additionally put out the brand
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of you, because you are a great brand and your
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: brand that a lot of young ladies like my daughter
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: look up to. Okay, thank you so much for Sean.
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you talking with me. It's finally here, the
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  Speaker 1: Look for your children's eyes to see the true magic
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• 25:38
  Speaker 1: of a wizard with arms outstretched to the sky. They
• 25:42
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• 25:59
  Speaker 1: Hi right, Richard All, the host of Money Making Conversations
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: dot com. The Cafe Morcha Swag Award is a celebrating
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: the black men who are making a difference in our
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: community by empowering others to reach their life goals. Fromcifically,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: there's businessman, activists, celebrities, and everyday dads. The Kafee Mocha
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Swag Award winning this week years Mark Lennon. After Mark
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: was inspired by video feature Steve Harvey, he decided to
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: follow his passion and started baking. He took that passion
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: and started his business, Brother Bakes. Brother Bakes is an
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: online bakery based out of Houston, Texas. He specializes in
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: cakes in the jar that can be shipped all over
• 26:32
  Speaker 1: the country. I just want to say to people, go
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: for it. You know. I talked to people all the
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: time and they they're always talking about how you did it.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: I just went for it. Everybody has a dream. You're
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: currently not doing your dream, so why not give it
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: a try. If it works out, great, I mean if
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: it doesn't and you're still not living your dream. But
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: if it does happen and then it changes your life.
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: The Cafe Morcha Swag Award represents men who have strength,
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: whose wisdom is assertive, and who is genuine in their spirit.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Money Making Conversations with your host Rashwan McDonald.
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: My next guest on Money Making Conversation is Denise Water.
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: She is the founder and CEO of Partake and line
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: of nationally distributed allergy friendly snacks. Inspired by her daughter's
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: experience with food allergies, launched the seventeen Partake products, which
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: includes cookies and baking mix, can be found in more
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: than six thousand retailers nationwide, including Targets, Sprouts, Whole food Markets.
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Will be and we will be discussing her growing business.
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: And I also ordered her Partake five and one baking
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: mix by the way, you know, because I love her
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: the cook y'all don't know my history by cooking and
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: desserts always on my Facebook. You can get fat watching
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: my timeline. Please work with the money Making Conversation. I'm
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: gonna calling my good friends. She's out of New Jersey.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: Denise Water, How you doing great? Good morning? How are
• 27:48
  Speaker 1: you awesome? Seventeen? I was just gonna be real about this.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: You launched in twenty seventeen. Here we are. We had
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: a pandemic year, we're in one and you in more
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: than six thousand retailers. Come on that. That's uh that's
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: a crazy number in a good way. Talk to tell
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: us about how how can you launch in seventeen and
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: then being six thousand retailers but roughly les in four years.
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: Baby steps we started in August of seen with three
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: flavors of cookies. Um Our business was self funded, so
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: I was dipping into my family's savings account and it
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: was self distributed, which meant I was selling cookies out
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: of my car to natural food stores in New York
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: and New Jersey. And I did that for nearly a year,
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: and it was the most valuable time UM I spent
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: in the company, I think, because it allowed me to
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: meet our customers, to understand who who are consumer was,
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: who they weren't, what they liked about the product, what
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: they didn't, so that we could listen and we could
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: make changes. And then in the summer of eighteen a
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: year later, we launched a region of Whole Foods and
• 28:51
  Speaker 1: we launched Wegmans, and that was our next baby step.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: You know, go into these eight stores, prove ourselves, understand
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: what's different about this than in the independent New York market.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: And we did that for nearly a year. And then
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: in the summer of twenty nineteen, we raised a million
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: dollars seed round of funding that was led by Marcy
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: Venture Partners, of which Jay z is a co founder.
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: That really gave us the capital we needed to begin
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: to scale the business a bit more, to begin to
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: hire UM and then we knew it was going to
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: be a big year. UM but in all the ways
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: that it surprised us, it also surprised our business. And
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: we started the year and about three hundred and fifty stores,
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: and now you can find us in about six thousand
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: stores who closed to five million dollars Series A at
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: the end of have lots of new products coming out
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: that are not just cookies, and so really excited about
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: what we're building here. Wow, you you just said that's
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: so smooth, and you just smooth. You're just a smooth operator.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: You just rand long that information, not just hurt by heat.
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: The success is the rapid rate of success. When you
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: say because a lot of people, you know, they try
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: to get any store like Whole Foods and Targets and
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: things like that, there, it is met with some success.
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: But when you say you listened to the customer, was
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: it tied to the packaging or some of your cookies
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: you thought were your favorites. They didn't like them because
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: you was on the ground, Like you said, you were
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: hands on, and talk to us about that process because
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: you said you had eight stores initially and then that
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: was like a test. They are either going to test
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: you online or they're gonna test you in the limited
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: store distribution. Tell us about that process and how nerve
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: racking that was. So in talking to the customers on
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: the ground, I thought, because I started the company as
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: a food allergy mom, that that's who our primary consumer
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: would be. And I realized very quickly that was actually
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: the customer who wouldn't touch our product with a ten
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: foot pole because they didn't know us, they didn't trust us.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: We hadn't build any credibility with them, and so they
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: were like, oh, we love the idea. However, my allergiest
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: hasn't told me about this. I haven't seen it in
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: my Facebook mom group for people with food allergies, so UM,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: not going to try it. But they were thankfully much
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: broader consumer groups. People who wanted to support our women
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: or minority owned business people who were exploring plant based
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: or gluten free diet for other reasons. UM moms whose
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: kids didn't have allergies, but needed a school safe snack
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: to take to school to share with other kids. And
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: so that's how we got that information, and that's the
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: type of information that we learned. Got lots of feedback
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: on the packaging. UM. You know, as a mom, I
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: thought the idea of trying to sneak fruits and vegetables
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: in would be really interesting. We realized people just want cookies.
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: They don't they want under ingredients they can understand, but
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: they didn't like that idea of me trying to sneak
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: carrots and beats into their cookies. And so we took
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: all of that data, updated our packaging, updated our formulas,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: and updated our marketing strategy to reflect that. And then
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: to go into Whole Foods and Wagmans, we specifically picked
• 31:40
  Speaker 1: retailers that would allow us to do demos because we
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: had done that in the New York market and we
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: knew that when people tried the product, when they heard
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: the story, they converted to customers and they told their
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: friends about it. And to get into Whole Foods and Wagmans, um,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: it was a lot of nose for our whole Foods relationship.
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: I cold emailed our LinkedIn message every single person on
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: LinkedIn I could find that had Whole Foods category manager
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: and their job title. And thankfully, a gentleman out of Boulder,
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: Colorado took pity on me and pointed me in the
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: direction of the right person. And that's how our relationship
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: with Whole Foods started. Oh that's so I always tell
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: people by LinkedIn LinkedIn, I always tell people if you
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: don't have a website, have a LinkedIn account. It is
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: your version of a website. Plus you can create relationships
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: and plus you can message people. Depending on the premium
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: level of your account. You know it can it give
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: you a limited on the messaging and you can message
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: people who who will friend you. I want you to
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: follow you or follow you, then you can friend the
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: message them all the time. But you can go to
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: a certain level you can buy and it gives you
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: a limited premium requested you can direct message these individuals.
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: So with your success, you know you. I love when
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: you say you try to sneak veggies into these uh
• 32:52
  Speaker 1: these into these cookies. You try to be slick, and
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: I see these commercial whether they try to. Kids are smart,
• 32:58
  Speaker 1: and then parents are also that I have a daughter
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: she's grown now, but I can remember giving my daughter
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: that that the green the green baby food that they
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: always spit up. You know, I don't care. I don't
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: care if you put a little apple sauce on top over,
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: they're gonna spit that right back out. So what was
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: your whole process? I know? And when can I ask?
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: What was the allergy that your daughter was tattooed? It
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: really inspired this, uh, this this line of baking and
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: a cookie cookie cookie cookie samples. Sure. So it was
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: actually the combination of allergies that she has. So she's
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: allergic to eggs, tree nuts, corn, and bananas, and so
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: it made it really hard because often like if you
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: don't put egg in something, you mash up a banana
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: to be the substitute. Um, if you don't eat corn,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: if we don't eat a lot of gluten in our house,
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes they use corn flour as the substitute. And
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: so it was a combination of allergies that she had
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: that made it so hard for me to find things
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: that tasted good that I felt good about nutritionally. Wow.
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: So with that being said, you you go through in
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: six thousand stores now and you said you have more
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: product coming out. We've talked about the funding rounds. Now,
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: let's go back that a little bit because a lot
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: of people who ask me that question, because what exactly
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: does that presentation look like? Is it of the one seeter?
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: Is it ten pages? Is it did you hire somebody
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: to help you put it together or usually sat down
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: with your power point and did it on your own.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: How did that work out? Well? I just sat down
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: with my power point and did it on my own.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: It was important to me that we put every dollar
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: back into the business, and so the deck we have,
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: I still sat down at a computer and did my
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: power point because I figure any investor that wants to
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: partner with us wants us to be investing in the business,
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: not investing in pretty graphic designs to try to try
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: to get money. Um. And so that's how we did
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the presentation. It was about ten pages, and it was
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: really just me and Google trying to figure out what
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: a traditional pitch deck looked like. You know, what's the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: problem you're addressing, what's the market opportunity? Who are your competitors?
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: What makes you better than the competitors? But I think
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: the most important thing is trying to get either a
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: warm in trow or get time with those investors, because
• 35:02
  Speaker 1: it's really when you sit down as a founder and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: share why you're doing what you're doing, what inspires you,
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: what your mission is behind the company that I think
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: really gets investors to buy in at the earliest of state,
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: at the earliest stages of the business. Not you know,
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: not information on a piece of paper, but you in
• 35:18
  Speaker 1: the money making business. So now you know the great
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: thing about is your daughter inspired this, But you're in
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: the money making business. You're a cookie making business. So
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: these cookies. Talk tell us about the cookies, and then
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: we're going to talk about the five and one mix
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: that I ordered online, which by the way, was a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: really good experience. And just tell everybody went online and
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: then they give you an option of a discount. If
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: you put in your your email and your telephone no information,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: you can get discount on your purchase. I opted not
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: to do that, so I went on and just bought
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: one package. I think it was twenty three dollars and
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: something for I think you said three and I experienced
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: that and it was and then the receipt came to
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: me afterwards, and then another email came saying, hey, you
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: forgot to buy cookies, and so it's really so it
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: really was a fun experience and also more importantly, a
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: professional experience. And I think that's really important because I
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: was not you know, you can you go online, and
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: sometimes it can be frustrating, especially for new businesses. They
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: think they got the Shopify the shopping car set up
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: correctly and it's not. But your your shopping car was fun.
• 36:21
  Speaker 1: What what was the approach and what was the mindset
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: behind that shopping car design? Because again, after I made
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: my purchase, it came back and said, hey, you forgot
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: to buy cookies, And I thought that was cute, and
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: I said, well, I wasn't thinking about buying cookie, but
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: not that you think about it. I went back and
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: looked at your cookies. So it did drive me back
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: to your website, even though all I wanted was the
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: five and one baking mix. Talk to us about that. Sure.
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: So when we first launched, we launched our website on
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: Squarespace and it was a much simpler website. But similarly,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: I think it's really important to get feedback from people
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: who are your potential customers, from other brands that have
• 36:56
  Speaker 1: had success, from other brands that might not have had
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: success and wish they would have done things friendly. So
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of kind of sharing where we
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: are and asking for feedback on what can make things better.
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: We moved our website over to Shopify when we start
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: to focus more heavily on e commerce in late twenty
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: nineteen UM and very similarly, feedback, feedback, feedback, But also
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: now we have the capital to be able to invest
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: in data to understand you know, what points up what
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: pages on our website, our customers spending more time on
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: what products are they often buying together? How can we
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: then tell them, you know, they forgot something or offer
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: or somebody who doesn't make a purchase, you know, offer
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: some incentive to come back and make a purchase. And
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: then how do we keep sharing content that's relevant, that's engaging,
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: so that the customers that do sign up with their
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: email or phone number are interested and want to hear
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: from us, and that it's not just sales tactics that
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: were actually providing a value to our customers. Well you
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: I have fun with it, in fact, like I told
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: you are in my previous conversation though that were discussing,
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: I went back and looked at the cookies and I'm
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: a big girl Scout cookie so so I would like
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: the boxes were cute, and like I said, I was
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: just not interested in buying because I went on for
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the five and one. Now the five and one I
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: found rather interesting. I've asked you are you are you?
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: Are you? Are you a chelf or your pastry shaff
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: or your chelf with the school? Are you a how do?
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: What did your skill level come from to get into
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: this business? Well, I will say that thirty nine dollars
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: a month for the LinkedIn premium subscription is the best
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: money I've spent because I failed horribly when I got
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: into the kitchen and tried to develop the cookies. But
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: thankfully I was able to find a product developer food
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: scientists who had experience in allergy friendly UM products who
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: was willing to take a leap and work with us,
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: and we still work with her to this day. UM.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: I think on my background is more in the consumer
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: package good space. So I spent nearly a decade at
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Coca Cola prior to starting Partake, and most recently in
• 38:52
  Speaker 1: my time there, I was able to lead sales for
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: a segment of their venture and venturing an Emerging Brands division,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: so brands that Coke had a A fied to invest
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: in or acquire, I was leading sales and helping integrate
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: those brands into the Coca Cola system. And so my
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: background really leans much more heavily on the sales and
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: marketing side of consumer package goods UM. And then I'm
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: a food allergy mom. So like our five and one
• 39:15
  Speaker 1: baking mix came to life because of a problem my
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: family was facing during UM quarantine. Are my daughter's favorite
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: baking mix that we used to make all of our
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: pancakes and waffles got discontinued And I called our product
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: developer frantically, and I was like, what do I do?
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: There's literally nothing she can safely eat. And she whipped
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: up something that we thought was just so wonderful that
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: we needed to share it with our customers too. And
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: that's how our baking like baking mixed line came to be.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: Okay again, you're so smooth. You just say all these
• 39:43
  Speaker 1: things so quickly and so articulately. Articularly is so fantastic.
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: So five and one mix, okay, is cake? Is muffins?
• 39:52
  Speaker 1: What waffles? And it was two other things? What were
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: the pancakes and banana back. Can't pancakes and banana bretta
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: um round out the five Okay? Cool? Now you said
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: your daughter is allergic to bananas, right, yes, so she
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: cannot do banana bread. So we've been experimenting with different
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: ways to just turn that into like a more of
• 40:09
  Speaker 1: a coffeecake option. Okay, cool. So I when I get
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: when I get the five and one micks Okay, off air,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: you said, Rochelle, you gotta make this. What are your
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: favorites to make out of the five and one mis muffins?
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: I woke up this morning at five thirty because my
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: daughter let me know that she would love to. She
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: wanted to have fresh baked muffins for breakfast this morning.
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: So easy. The pancakes and waffles we do a lot
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: because those are just add water and even with the
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: complicated recipes of muffins, it's just pantry staples or kitchen
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: staples like butter um, sugar and water that you're adding
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: to it. So they're all you know, you can whip
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: them up in five minutes or less, which is really nice,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: and they all have ingredients that you can feel really
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: good about and they can be shared really easily no
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: matter who's coming over for breakfast or brunch, because they're
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: free of the top eight allergens, they're gluten free, they're vegan,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: their non gmo there kosher, and so they meet most
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: people's kind of diet Harry restrictions. Now, I love I
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: always see recipes and say add water. I always want
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: to add my two percent milk. Would that change the
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: recipe if I added two percent milk instead of water.
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: We have one of our investors at Oat Milk, and
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: he had very good results, So I think that you're safe.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I will say I haven't tried it. I'm gonna put
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: that disclaimer out there. I just add water, but I
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: know that oat milk works. I'm assuming that two trying.
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: You know, we we're for friends now, so I'll let
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: you know how it goes. Because I love adding that
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: extra little flavor because water is just water. You know,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: Milk give you a little texture, a little flavor and
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: stuff like that. And I'm not allergic to milk, so
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: I enjoy milk on everything that I cook with. So
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna add little milk to mine and muffins. So
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: so now that now, now you just listen to me,
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: so I'm not allergic to anything right now, other so
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: that I know of. So I'm running across something this
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: just send me send me south yet, but I will
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: tell you. So if I take your muffins and I
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: can add some cons in it, right can id? I
• 41:57
  Speaker 1: can add blueberries? We did? I typically do blueberries, or
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: add chocolate chips. You can add whatever your heart desires.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: Oh my god, I'm tasting blueberry muffins or the bomb. Okay,
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: So so okay, So what I'm gonna do is I'm
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: gonna this this week. I'm gonna take some pictures. I'm
• 42:13
  Speaker 1: gonna do your mix. Whenever I get it. It should
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: be if it comes this week, because I ordered it yesterday,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: it should come this week. Okay, So when it comes,
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna immediately I'm gonna do some blueberries. I'm gonna
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: do the milk things. Just show you have fun with
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: I'm not trying. I'm not no, I'm not no food doctor.
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: You know where I just disseminate things to go. Well,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: it just just not work that I'm just going to
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: do it. I like to have fun. And so I
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: have a TV show that I'm launching, and uh, the
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Atlanta market isn't gonna be in two million homes. I
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: love to be able to introduce your product on that
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: because I love doing simple things that can. My whole
• 42:43
  Speaker 1: thing is about So I'm not a guy who sits around.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: I'm like my degrees in mathematics, I have not I'm
• 42:48
  Speaker 1: not a trained pastry chef and mother train cook or chef.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: I just have natural gifts. And so so what I
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: do is I like to do things were fast. So
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: I would like instead of going to the apple pie,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: I go get the cans on the shelf and put
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: that in my apple pie. You know, some people lose
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: their mind over there at the knees. Oh my god,
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: theseus can apples. Hey, hey, calm down the people out
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: there there on this shift. Obviously for a reason because
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: somebody out there by okay, So with your product, I
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: feel that your products to say way, some people are
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: looking at it. Go I've and one. You know it's
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: not you know, it's not breaking it down. But there's
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: a customer out there that wants to use your product
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: because they don't have time, or they may have never
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: experienced that level of shop or baking ability. And so
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: that's why I'm really excited about your product? Was that
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: the thought process? I know you were saying, hey, your daughter,
• 43:38
  Speaker 1: the the battery they was using for your daughter was
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: not available. What is really driving you as a business owner?
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: Are you trying to other than the allergy free? You know,
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: because you're black sea or your female, your entrepreneur, it's
• 43:51
  Speaker 1: a certain degree of passion that is driving you behind
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: all this, this whole food industry that you're right now
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: doing very well because you're in six thousand stores nation.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: I will say that when I started the company, the
• 44:03
  Speaker 1: name Partake came from the idea of people with food
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: allergies like my daughter being able to partake, but as
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: a woman, as a person of color, as a first
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: time founder of first time My parents didn't go to
• 44:15
  Speaker 1: graduate from high school like first time college generation first
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: do you know what I mean? First generation college graduate?
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: Excuse me? Um, I realized that there were a lot
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: more people who needed an opportunity to partake um pun intended.
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: And so what our business is really all about is
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: inclusivity and lifting as we climb. And the way that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: we bring that to life is you know, as we've
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: grown the business, the thing that's made me the most
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: excited is the impact that we're able to have on
• 44:44
  Speaker 1: underfunded and underestimated and underrepresented groups of people. UM. And
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: so those partnerships have been We partner with a group
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: called the Food and Food Equality Initiative UM. It was
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: a it was It's a nonprofit that was started by
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: UM Emily around a black woman that's based in Kansas
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: City and her family was experiencing food and securities and
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: they had the double whammy of her children also have
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: food allergies, and they went to their local food pantry
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: and there was literally only two things her kids can
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: safely eat, tomatoes and potatoes. UM and food allergies have
• 45:17
  Speaker 1: a much higher incidents in the Black and Latino communities,
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: and so how do we get foods like hours that
• 45:23
  Speaker 1: everyone deserves to eat. How do we get education and
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: advocacy for these communities? And so we've been able to
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: partner with Emily's group and feed thousands of family through
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: monetary donations, through product donations UM and the other UH
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: cause that we're really really working a champion is diversity
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: in the food space. I think that far, far too long,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: there have been folks who don't look like us who
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: are making decisions about what we put into our bodies,
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: and so how do we create a more diverse food industry? Um,
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: you know, companies that startups it seems like we all
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: started New York and San Francisco are Austin and giving
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: acts us to founders from all over, giving access to
• 46:02
  Speaker 1: college students to get the entry level positions, whether it
• 46:05
  Speaker 1: be at startups, are big CpG companies to help make
• 46:08
  Speaker 1: the decisions and grow into the leadership roles that are
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: going to change and shape our food economy moving forward.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: And so we launched a fellowship program in called the
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: Black Futures and Food and Beverage Fellowship. We partnered with
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: five HBCUs. We selected eight fellows and we provided an
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: eight week curriculum of the nuts and bolts of the
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: CpG industry and then it culminated with an opportunity to
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: either get a full time interns of summer internship or
• 46:34
  Speaker 1: full time entry level job. And I'm really excited for
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: that program to be even bigger. This there, we're partnering
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: with several most more schools, hoping to be able to
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: impact more fellows. And so, you know, how do we
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: provide access, how do we leave the door a little
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: bit wider open than it was when we started. Partake Well,
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Partake has the Black Futures and Food and Beverage Fellowship
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: Program for the active HBCU students. HBCUs became the fourth
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: on a lot of news, a lot of high profile
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: corporate executives and firms decided to donate the hpc US
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: or what is when you say the Black Futures and
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: Food and Beverage Fellowship Program, what exactly is that? So
• 47:12
  Speaker 1: we were fortunate enough to be a part of a
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: Tabanis incubator program back in ten and the founder of Tavani,
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Hamdi Ulakaya wanted to make it easier for food startups
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: to bring better food to more people. And he had
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: been on this journey you know that took ten years
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: to build a billion dollar brand, and he was like,
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: what can I do to make y'all's journey a little
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: bit shorter? And so similarly, I'm coming from big CpG
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: and now I'm out of food startup. And the thing
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: that has remained true across both is, unfortunately there aren't
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: that many black or brown folks in leadership roles. So
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: how can I provide access, whether it's through education or
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: through social capital through introductions, through access to executives in
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: the CpG space to help these students get the opportunities
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: and the education that they need to throw even the
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: food industry. And so for us, that was we opened
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: up an application process. We ran an eight week curriculum
• 48:07
  Speaker 1: where we taught, you know, all the different facets of
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: the food industry in a condensed period of time, supply chain,
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: food safety, UM, E commerce. Because I know that when
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: I was in college, I assumed that if you worked
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: for a big food company you could do marketing. I
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: didn't think about all the other aspects that it takes
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: to run a food business. And so we want to
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: give those students that education. And then it culminates with
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: a virtual Career Day, which we hope to be in
• 48:32
  Speaker 1: person this year UM and we had attendees from companies
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: like Ubani, from Beyond Meat, from Once Upon a Farm
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: that we're there to give the students internships or job
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: offers and to learn more about the students, and so
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: it was really exciting to see how that turned into
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: something actionable. I think often women and people of color
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: are over mentored and not there's not enough action. Like
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: I always go to the simple phrase of send the
• 48:57
  Speaker 1: wire or make the higher and so that's what we're
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: trying to do. We're trying to be action oriented to health.
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: The students get jobs or you're fantastic. And uh, I
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: know I've talked a little bit about your five and
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: one baking mix, but we didn't talk about the cookies.
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: So I want to talk about the different cookies, and
• 49:11
  Speaker 1: they also want to talk about the future products that
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: you have coming out. Let's talk about the cookies that
• 49:15
  Speaker 1: I have not ordered yet that I will be ordered
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: because I've been reminded politely I forgot to buy the cookies.
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: So tell us about the cookie line. Well, you might
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: get another email. You're gonna come back to me the
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: way that our system is. But the cookies, we have
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: eight flavors, um, five crunchy flavors, three soft baked flavors.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Everything's free of the top eight allergens. Everything's gluten free
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: and vegan and made with less sugar than our competitors.
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: And the gluten free and vegan space made with really
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: simple ingredients that you can understand. And then we have
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: two seasonal We're actually going to come out with three
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: seasonal varieties this year. So we have a pumpkin spice
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: and then two seasonal varieties that come closer to the
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: Christmas holidays. Um and that was our first flagship products.
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: So we have three flavors when we launch. So it's
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: been exciting to see that grow to ten flavors of cookies. Well,
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: you know, I am a dessert nut. Everybody knows I
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: eat my dessert for eat my meal from in a restaurant.
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: You sit down with the nies before when you auder
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: your honest, excuse me, I need to dessert men. That's
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: how much of a dessert person. I am. So so
• 50:19
  Speaker 1: when I'm so, I'm excited about these cookies now because
• 50:22
  Speaker 1: you know, I like to crumble up my cookies and
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I like to put some nice ice cream on top,
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: and I put a little whooped cream and put a
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: little I put a lot of extra that comes on
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: top of it. So, so what do you because are
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: you are? You? Are? You are a fan of your
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: cookies From the standpoint, do you what do you do
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: with your cookies? You do it with what do you
• 50:38
  Speaker 1: eat your cookies? Just eat them individually. I eat them
• 50:42
  Speaker 1: individually in the afternoon for like a pick me up
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: with like a coffee or tea. I do crumble them
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: on top of ice cream sometimes sometimes I make ice
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: cream sandwiches with them. Um, I used them for a
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: cookie for a pie crust before, like our our carrot
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: cake arch and just sumer there. So I do lots
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: of stuff with So you say you you crumbling them
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: up for as a crust. That sounds which which brand
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: do you use? What brand of cookie do you use
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: as your crust? So we have a ginger snap and
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: we have a carrot cake, and so they make a
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: really nice substitute for like a Graham cracker crust. So
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: if you just, like um, crumble the cookies up and
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: mix it with like a melted butter melted and you
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: kind of pack it in, you can create a pot crust.
• 51:24
  Speaker 1: Wow you really? So you're really excited me about because
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: because I I do a cheesecake, I think that'd be
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: cool to use as my cheesecakes. I have a lot
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: of like I got about eighty different recipes in my
• 51:35
  Speaker 1: recipe app and I think they're using that as because
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: I just put that in the mix and just ground
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: it up and it becomes very fine. And now can
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: I put sugar with that and you do you put
• 51:44
  Speaker 1: sugar with the crust, with the butter or do you
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: just lose just the butter and the crust when you
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: grind it up. I'm talking about the ginger snaps. I
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: use just the butter and the crust. I'll send you
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: since we're friendly now, I'll send you a recipe. And
• 51:55
  Speaker 1: we actually did one with the cheesecake, so I'll send
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: you the recipe that we use. But I don't typically
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: add extra sugar. Um, but you totally could. Yeah, send
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: me that recipe and I do it on my show. Okay,
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: because it sounds the man is because are your person?
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: Does your recipe include sour cream? Is no sour cream?
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: It doesn't have sour creamy just because we try to
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: avoid dairy. We can see me and you, Saint Paige.
• 52:18
  Speaker 1: I do not put sour cream in my cheese, in
• 52:21
  Speaker 1: my and my and my cheesecakes at all. I don't
• 52:23
  Speaker 1: know why you're gonna add all. You gotta add extra
• 52:25
  Speaker 1: sugar to offset the sour So we're on the same
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: page right there. I'm gonna stuff it with some apples.
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do you up right and make you proud
• 52:31
  Speaker 1: of me when I do my cheesecake your way, So
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: send that recipe to me, it would be great. And
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: then closing, what's what's the future. You have six thousand
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: stores and we're talking about worldwide. You're you're you're fantastic
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: post person. Uh, your incredible mom, incredible young business person.
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: I love the mentorship campaigns that you have out there,
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: especially involved in HBCUs. What is the future Partake? My
• 52:52
  Speaker 1: goal is that will continue to grow across multiple product
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: lines that one day you'll see Partake in every isle
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: of your grocery store, are UM and in stores around
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: the country. While six thousand is a big jump from
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: where we were, I think there's a ton of opportunity
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: ahead of us UM. So we're excited to grow the
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: business and along the way, continue to grow the impact
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: that we're having on our community. Okay, cool, here's our relationship.
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: You O your Mia cheesecake recipe. Okay Cool, I've ordered
• 53:19
  Speaker 1: my five and one mix, so I owe you some
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: some pictures at least of me making the product. I'm
• 53:26
  Speaker 1: gonna do Blueblirer Muffriends, I gotta do. I've yet to
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: do Blueberry Muffriends, so I'm gonna I'm gonna take your
• 53:31
  Speaker 1: mix and do a blueberry mums. I've done the banana nuts,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I've done all the crumbles and all that, the apple crumbles.
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: Now blueberries. I'm excited about that because you warm blueberry
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: muffin for breakfast is like outstanding. I'm gonna do that
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: and so and from there, we're gonna go first and
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: we just see where our relationship goes from there. Is
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: that cool? That sounds like a plan. I appreciate you
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: having me. It was wonderful chatting with you. Okay, thank you,
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: and thank you Dennis Water for coming on money making conversations.
• 53:58
  Speaker 1: And we're live here outside the Perez family home, just
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: waiting for the and there they go, almost on time.
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: This morning. Mom is coming out the front door strong
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: with a double arm kid carry. Looks like dad has
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: the bags. Daughter is bringing up the rear. Oh, but
• 54:13
  Speaker 1: the diaper bag wasn't closed. Diapers and toys are everywhere.
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: But mom has just nailed the perfect car seat buckle
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: for the toddler. And now the eldest daughter, who looks
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: to be about nine or ten, has secured herself in
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: the booster seat. Dad zips the bag clothes and they're off.
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: But looks like Mom doesn't realize her coffee cup is
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: still on the roof of the car, and there it goes. Oh,
• 54:39
  Speaker 1: that's a shame that mug was a fan favorite. Don't
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: sweat the small stuff, just nailed the big stuff, like
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: making sure your kids are buckled correctly in the right
• 54:47
  Speaker 1: seat for their agent's eyes. Learn more n h t
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: s A dot gov slash the Right Seat visits h
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: s A dot gov Slash the Right Seat, brought to
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: you by MIZZA and the AD Council. What grows in
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: the forest trees, Sure no one else grows in the forest.
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: Our imagination, our sense of wonder, and our family bonds
• 55:07
  Speaker 1: grow too, because when we disconnect from this and connect
• 55:13
  Speaker 1: with this, we reconnect with each other. The forest is
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: closer than you think. Find a forest near you and
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: start exploring. I Discover the Forest dot org, brought to
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: you by the United States Forest Service and the AD Council. Hi, everyone,
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: I'll roker here as a guy with his own catchphrase.
• 55:31
  Speaker 1: I appreciate that Smokey's only said only you can prevent wildfires,
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: but I'm filling in because there's a lot more to report,
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: like when they're parched or windy conditions out there, you
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: gotta be extra careful with things like burning yard waste.
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: After all, wildfires can start anywhere, even in your neck
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: of the woods. Go to Smokey Bear dot com to
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: learn more about wildfire prevention. Brought to you by the U. S.
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: Forest Service, your state Forester, and the AD Council. Today,
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: my guest is one of my favorite people on the
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: Food Network Challenge. Any challenge deals with food, it's Duff Golden.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: When he when his dream of rock starting wasn't playing
• 56:06
  Speaker 1: paying the bills, like my dream of being a comedian
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: wasn't paying the bill, he turned his pastry talents and
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: found the Charm City Cakes in Baltimore, Maryland in two
• 56:14
  Speaker 1: thousand two. He's an entrepreneur. His cakes are soldo on
• 56:17
  Speaker 1: gold Belly and are available nationwide. Do shipping and you
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: also can buy Duff cake mix. He really released his
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: first kids cookbook, Super Good Baking for Kids, and in
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: two thousand twenty one he became a proud paper which
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: I love to talk about. Boy changes your life. I
• 56:34
  Speaker 1: got the only daughter and changed my life. Duff is
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: on the show to talk about his new Discovery Plus
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: original series, Duff's Happy fun Baked Time premier April Tune
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: in eight on Discovery Plus. Please walking the money Made conversation.
• 56:47
  Speaker 1: He's gonna make a smile. I know he is duff.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: Now you got you just marketing it all. You got
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the T shirt all. I don't know what kind of
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: bull you got on your shirt. You're just doing it
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: looking good man, A proud proper to talk about that,
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: being a proud paper man. Oh man. So we have
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: a daughter and she is three months old, and I
• 57:11
  Speaker 1: feel like I feel like I finally have proposed in
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: my life. There I understand now the reason why they
• 57:18
  Speaker 1: put me on this earth. It was to be a daddy.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: I love it. I just love it. It's really amazing,
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: you know, I know, I you know, fortunate to have
• 57:27
  Speaker 1: a daughter, you know, and as well and just the
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: the you know, it's it's just unconditional love, you know.
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: And then and then you get to that part stuff
• 57:36
  Speaker 1: where you know you you can't hurt them, you know,
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: even though they followed, they can't sit up because they
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: don't have a spine yet strong enough to hold them up.
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: And the whole processes is it really does give you
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: a sense of purpose, man, you know, because I'm not
• 57:48
  Speaker 1: saying you don't have it, but it gives you a future.
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: It becomes part of your what what you know, you
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: have a purpose of planning this young child eighteen years
• 57:57
  Speaker 1: all the years that you had in your head about
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: your life to people have talked about now as being
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: transferred into this child. Tell us about it. Well, you know,
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: if there's something about like raising a child and then
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: you think about like my own childhood and I'm like, Okay,
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: what do I like about myself? And how do I
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: foster that into her? And what what would I like
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: to not have? Like you know, there's we all have
• 58:21
  Speaker 1: things where we're critical of ourselves, and how do you
• 58:24
  Speaker 1: when you're raising a child, like how do you make
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: sure that you know they are equipped with the things
• 58:29
  Speaker 1: that will help them through those problems better than you
• 58:32
  Speaker 1: were when you know, you were trying to figure that
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: out and just trying to understand, like how do I
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: articulate these things to my child as she's growing up?
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: You know, Yeah, that's that's important because you know, you're
• 58:43
  Speaker 1: you're moving your your industry has always been adult driven.
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: It's not kind of moving in that direction of children.
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: And I'm gonna tell you some I've watched the show
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about, and I'm gonna jump around little
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: bit because I'm talking really moving into the dulf happy
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: fun bag time because they see me a bunch of
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: clips on the show because the premier you know this,
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: And so when I watched the clips, who audience are you?
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: Let me ask you first? What audience are you shooting
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: folk for the show? Let me ask you that first. So, um,
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: I really want everybody to watch it. I want kids
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: to watch it. I want their parents to watch it
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: with them. I wanted it to be like not just tolerable,
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: but really enjoyable for adults. But I want people who
• 59:24
  Speaker 1: don't have kids to watch it too. And my last
• 59:27
  Speaker 1: cookbook was for kids, and I wrote that book especially
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: so if kids get it, they're gonna be stoked. If
• 59:34
  Speaker 1: adults get it, they're going to be stoked too, because
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: all the recipes are real. I tend to find that
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: if I talk to kids an adults the same, like
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: like if I talk to the kids like adults, kids
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: respond much better. You know, when you when you really
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: kind of like slow it way down and really talked
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: down the kids too, Now they're like, I don't got
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: time to that, you know, and so um hopefully for
• 59:57
  Speaker 1: dust Happy Fund Big Time. I hope everybody a fross
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: across the spectrum was that high school kids, college kids, adults, kids, parents, everybody. Well,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: I think it's gonna be a big hit with millennials
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: because millennials are into that, you know, you know, do
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: it yourself. They they are used to the podcast. They
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 1: grew up on the video, the YouTube, so they used
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: to watching stuff and being told what to do through
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: a screen and also until some adult telling them what
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: to do. But I'm gonna tell you watching the videos,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: one thing I did notice this it's really good, is
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: that because you're moving kind of slow, you know, because
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: because you're dealing with Jim Hanson characters around, you have
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: to respond back to them. It really helped me and
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: I can bake it. I can cook. But when I
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: normally watch TV, you guys are so smooth, You're so
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: fast that sometimes you know you have to put pause,
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: and really watching you, you don't have to put them
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: you you almost follow you and bake it at the
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: same time. Right, It's good, you know. One of the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 1: things that I try to do and we do it
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: on Happy for Big time too. Whatever I'm cooking on television,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: I always tell them leaves the mistakes, and if you
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 1: make a mistake, I want everybody to see it and
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: then they can hear me talk myself through it. And
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 1: that way, like when I'm learning, if I if I
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 1: do something, I'm like, okay, I messed this thing up.
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: I need to think about my process. I need to
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: think about what I'm doing. I do it out loud,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 1: and I talked through my thought process and that way
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: everybody at home understand how I'm thinking about that, and
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: it goes. It doesn't. It becomes an opportunity. They're not
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: a mistake anymore, and now everybody's learning good. Well you
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: know that that thought that was really important that I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: got that out to you because you know videos of
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: you know, you have these little quick videos on buzz
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: and all buzz feed and all that stuff. You know,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: they moved so fast you have to pause, pause, pause
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: pause watching your show. Are the clips that they sent
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 1: to me of your show. I was like, wow, I
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: could actually simultaneously do this as he as he doing it,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: and I'm adult. So that's why I asked you earlier,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: who are you really playing too? If you plan for Key.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: It's I think a lot of adults are gonna glob into,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: you know, gonna watch this show because I can follow
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: it and it's very important. Yeah, yeah, I think so.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: I mean I really think that. Um, the tone of it,
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: it's very funny. Uh. You know, my sort of biggest
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: influences are, like, I like everything absurdists, So you know, money, Python,
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 1: kids in the hall, things like that. Um, I love
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: Pewee's Playhouse growing up. You know, that was another sort
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: of big influence, you know, and I just you know,
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: just Pewee's you know, Paul Rubin's just imagination. It's just
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: through the roof. I just love the way he thinks.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: And so you know, there's a lot of those kind
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: of influences really went into the show. When you watch it,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: there's some really absurd, silly fun stuff like there's, um,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: there are six eggs in the refrigerator that are puppets.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: Each one of them is a different grandmother and so
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: any anytime I opened the fridge, all the grandmother's you know,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: they kind of you know, yell at me. And it's
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: really funny. It's really Okay, Well you gotta start. Let's
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: talk about these characters. You got cous cous, Dizzy Eggers
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: later dragging oven, and your boy Jeff. So let's talk
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 1: about it, look like, let's Jeff, let's talk about each
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: one of those characters because off area and I gotta
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 1: bring it on the air. You know, I'm a little
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: older than you. It reminded me of watching a great
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: cooking version of uh Mr Rodgers Neighborhood. It reminded me
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 1: of Captain Kangaroo, and you know, so it was refreshing
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: watching this show. But I also know, you know, it's
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: a risk too, because people can come across as silly
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 1: and can come what is he doing? It looks crazy,
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 1: but it really comes across as entertaining. And you have
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: a really good sense of humor and perfect comic timing,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: perfect comic time than you know. I grew up listening
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: to like comedic records. You know, my parents had a
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: lot of comedy on records that he used to listen
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: to him over and over again. And I think I
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: developed like comedic time and relatively early without even think
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: thinking about it. So, like all the characters there, let's
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: start with Jeff. So, Jeff is my real life, you know,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: a partner chef de cuisine. I mean he's been my
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 1: sux chef since you know, almost day one. Um, you know,
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: I started Charge to the Case in two thousand two.
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: Jeff started working for me in two thousand three, and
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 1: we've known each other since college, you know, I mean
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 1: we've been friends forever. And um, so Jeff is also
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: a musicians and I'm a musician. A lot of the
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: people when we started Charging to the Case, it was
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: all my friends who were in band who needed a job,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 1: and so we started this bakery so we could all work.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: And so, um, Jeff is in in happy fun daytime.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: He's the purveyors. So whenever I need ingredients, flower but
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 1: or whatever, Jeff shows up and brings it to me.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: Jeff is also an amazing singer songwriter, So every time
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: Jeff comes and drops off the groceries, he pulls out
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: a guitar or ukulele or something and he sings a
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: song about whatever it is that we're doing in the kitchen.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 1: And it was just kind of like a fun way
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: to sort of like get Jeff like other talents that
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 1: cake decorating, you know, as part of the show. The
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: music is a big, big part of it. Yeah, and
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: now we have you, now, Jim Hedson, we cannot forget.
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Let's let's go back to all these all these puppets
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: that are powered by Jim Hidson's genius, his brand genius,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: and now you doff. Okay, did the idea come to
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 1: you or did you pitch the idea to them? And
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: then let's talk about these characters that were developed around
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: you while you doing these cooking sessions and baking sessions. Yeah.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 1: So I was in my apartment and I was baking,
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: and I was watching Esthome Streets. Um, I watched a
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 1: lot of kids shows, like just I really do enjoy them,
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: like not just as research or anything. I just I
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: like watching Testhme Street. It's fantastic show. And so I
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: was baking and watching TV and baking, and I'm like
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: looking at it and I was like, you know, this
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: would be a really good idea, right, baking and you know,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: having puppets and like being able to do all like
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: the really conceptual view the full artwork that that they
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: did on Sesame Street. So I wrote basically like a
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: like I wrote the first episode, right. My wife and
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: I created these characters and we kind of came up
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: with like how we're explaining the science of how an
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: egg works. And then um, I wrote this whole thing
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: and I brought it to Jim Henson, h the Jim
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: Henson Company, and I was like, Hey, here's my idea
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: and I kind of like act it out the whole show,
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: and uh, they were like, yes, we're gonna we want
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: to make that. And then we brought the Food Network,
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: and we brought to Discovery and we're like, hey, I
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: got this idea. It's not like, you know, there's no
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 1: scripted television on Food Network or really on any Discovery.
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: And I was like, I really want to do this show.
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: I think it's great. They're like, we do two, let's
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: make it. I'm like, oh my goodness. Yeah, like you
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: understand how this business works. Like the fact that something
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: this different and kind of you know, just like there's
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 1: not really a model for what we did. The fact
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: that something like this got made is I mean, it's
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: a million one and you know, well that's the power.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: That's the power of streaming television, because you know, it
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: was like if it was on the where we slopped
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 1: this on the Cooking Channel, why do we slopped this
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: on the Food network, but in streaming, you know, it's
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: everything is a category and your and your brand. So
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 1: they go, well, this is a duff new show. And
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 1: I just love the fact that you know, I know,
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 1: you said Sesame Street. And the reason I went with
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Captain Kangaroo and I went with, uh, you know, Mr
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 1: Rogers neighborhood is because there was an individuals and individuals
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: and I was just saying, it's just me just talking
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 1: about your talent, and you was just a curismatic, fun
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 1: entertaining guy, you know, And we're gonna talk about charm
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: City in a minute. Because the fact that that evolved
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: around just just just individuals who just thought out of
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: the box and the kitchen is amazing to me. But
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: that's why I thought that it was special, because you know,
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: every every era, every twenty years, you know, there's a
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: new individual that comes along that just really separates himself
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 1: in that educational platform because this is what this really
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: is a cation for the young people to make them
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 1: understand and be safe in the kitchen because you teach
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 1: all those tips and you have all these devices that
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: the oven talks and and all these things, and the
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: robots sitting right next to you with the big eyeballs
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 1: and all these different things. And Slater, you know, the
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 1: slow movie Sloth is over there, just just you know,
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: hanging off on you. That that really and and it
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 1: helps me out. And I think that because you're a
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 1: new father now, you know, this is even more exciting
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 1: because of the fact that it's gonna repeat, repeat, repeat,
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: and your child's gonna grow up on this and you're
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 1: gonna have a whole new army of bakers and cooks
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 1: because of you do. I love it. I love it.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 1: I love it well you know, it's it's nice like
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 1: so with all the other characters. So couscous is my
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 1: sous chef, and she issus is really in charge of
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 1: the kids. And she is a robot that I made
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: out of old kitchen part and she kind of keeps
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 1: the rest of it to mind because everybody else is
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 1: a little crazy, including me. Um. So there is uh,
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 1: there's a there's a blue crab from you know, chest Peak, Babe.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: You know, I wanted to give a little nod to Baltimore.
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 1: So there's a blue crab who's real crabby and another
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 1: little nod to Baltimore. His name is Edgar after ed
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 1: Ground Poe who was born in Baltimore. UM. And then
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: let's see there's Slater, who's kind of like the slacker
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 1: sloth who lives in the ceiling and he kind of
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: comes down every once in a while. And Yeah, the
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 1: nice thing about Slater is that he's the one that's
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: asking a lot of questions. Right, He'll be like, why
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: are you doing that? What's going on here? Why are
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: we going to stick that thing in the mixture? You know,
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: He's always asking questions. And so by asking questions, he
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 1: gets me to to, you know, sort of like, you know,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: save the things that are really kind of the meat,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 1: you know of like, well, let me show you how
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: eggs work. Let me show you how the gluten in
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: flower makes pasta chewy, you know, things like that. Um.
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 1: There's also our oven is a dragon and he based
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: everything in his mouth. So when we need to base something,
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: he gives a big roar and steen comes out. We
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: put the food in his mouth, he closes it and
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: he bakes it and pull it back out. I love
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: that we do. The beauty of UM. The mixer is
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: I was looking at my mixer and I was like, okay,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: you need a mixer, and I was kind of thinking
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 1: of Cherry from TV's Playhouse Big Chair that talks. I
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 1: trying to think of like what's like, what does mixture
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: like look like? And I just thought, you know what
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: if there was an elephant, right, like, you know, you
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 1: can kind of this big years and then she would
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: mix her and she mixes everything with her trunk. Yeah.
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 1: I just say, this guy is really to engage with
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: this show. But I am because I'm excited about what
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: you're doing. Because first of all, it's a lot of
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 1: hard work because the scripted and so a lot of
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 1: so you you pitched the idea that really, unlike the
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: other shows you've done, which is natural talent and prov
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: you have a script that you have to memorize and
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: because when you throw a joke, somebody got respond to
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 1: the joke. How much work was that was involved in
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 1: the in the in the table reason description of the
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: stuff and you staying on point with your conversation. Um man,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: I gotta say it's it was very uncomfortable, you know
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: what I mean, Like I really had to like, wow,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: I have to say a thing that I have to
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: I have to I actually have to know what's about
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: to come out of my mouth because like usually it's
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: just you know, it's just coming out like now I
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 1: have like a specific thing that I have to say.
• 1:11:29
  Speaker 1: I'm not good at that, you know. And when it's funny,
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: when I first pitched the show to Jim Hinson Company,
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: I assume that somebody would be playing the head baker
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: that you know, the person, and they're like, no, no, no no,
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: it's got to be you. And I was like, not
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 1: an actor, you know me, Like I'm a decorator, Like
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: it has to be you. And I was like, I'll
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 1: give it a shot, you know, um, and uh so
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 1: you know we did, but it was it was it
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: was really difficult. But it was also because the puppet
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 1: heers are so amazing. They kind of remember like these
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 1: are the best and the best in this industry. I mean,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: these guys like they were, um, you know what wanted.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: The puppet lead on Duff Topping Fund Baking Punt was
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 1: also Augre in the Dark Crystal, And when I found
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: that out, I'd like kind of like I got like
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: a little star struck, you know, because I mean I
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: just the puppeteers that were on the show was just
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: really really good. And one of the things that They're
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: great at is improv and you know, I am a
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 1: total nubie. I've never acted. This is the first time
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: I've had a learned lines and like, you know, interact
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 1: with I've never worked with puppets before. I mean, this
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: was all new to me. But they were so good
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: at what they do. They could take somebody that had
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: never been seen any of this world, you know, any
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: of it, and they brought me in and just they
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: made me good. You know, it was magic. You know.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: The thing about it is that, first of all, I'm
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: excited for you. You were your great man. Uh, I
• 1:13:05
  Speaker 1: love you. But it all started somewhere and then all
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: started with a with a like a Madhouse genius. I'm
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: gonna use that word, the Madhouse gez in two thousand
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: two at Chalm City Cakes. Can you at least tell
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: my listeners and viewers how did that come about? And
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: then how did TV discover you? So? Um? I was
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: I graduated culinary school in ninety seven, and I was
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: working in hotels and restaurants, and I was I was
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: basically just driving around the country and kind of bumming
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: and and you know, doing different things, just trying things out.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't really know what I wanted to do. I know,
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: I wanted to cook, but I wasn't sure like that,
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: I want to be a Patriot chef at the hotel.
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: Did I want to work in the bakery? Did I
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: want to own a bakery? And then I want to
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: work in the cake shop for a restaurant. They want
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: to be the pastry chef in a five started you know,
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: a really crazy place. I didn't know where I sit
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 1: and um, eventually I got back to Baltimore. Um, and
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 1: I was working as a personal chef for a family. Uh.
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 1: And they had four kids, and I was, you know,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: I was really good with the kids. So that was
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: kind of where I first realized. Was like, I don't
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: know why, but for some reason, kids like responsively. But then, um,
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: I kind of wanted to put my cooking career on
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: hold because I'm also musician and I wanted to see
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: a fact could actually make it as a working you know,
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: musician in a rock band. So I quit my job
• 1:14:27
  Speaker 1: and I started making cakes in my apartment so I
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: could play the rent while I was becoming you know,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: a big famous rock star. And so, uh, I'm still
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 1: I'm still a waiting for that to happen when, um so,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: I was just making cakes to my apartment, and like,
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: Baltimore is not a big city, right, It's a you know,
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: medium size city. And so when somebody who's like in
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: their early twenties, covered in tattoos, who's in a rock band,
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: is making you know, really beautiful wedding cakes, like people
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: talk about it. They're like, well, that' weird. And then
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: I started getting more business, and when people start realizing like, oh,
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 1: this guy is actually good at what he does. And then,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: um so, then I hired my friend Jeff, and then
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: I hired a bunch of other of my friends. Um
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: some of them were going to art school in Baltimore,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: but they're all friends from the kind of the music
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: and art community of Baltimore is very very sight community.
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: Um well, then we got a call from Food Network.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: They wanted us to be to compete on one of
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 1: the competition shows, and so Jeff and I were like, yeah, sure,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: let's do it. And so we went and we competed
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, we failed, Like you know, I
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: think we're out like third or fourth place, like did
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: not make a big splash as far as like our
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 1: cake decorating skills go. But we were really funny, so like,
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 1: you know, we're just we kind of have like a
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: very natural banter. We've known each other forever, and um,
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 1: you know, so he's kind of like the straight man
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: on the kind of wild man. And they liked this, like, hey,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 1: do you want to compete, you know, on another one?
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: And I was like, well, we didn't win, and they're like,
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. You guys are great, you're funny. So
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: they kept having us on even though we never went right,
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: we never won. We weren't even like, you know, the
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: top three, like we were always you know, kind of
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: floating around the middle. A couple of times we were
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 1: all the way to buy them, like our cakes could
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: fall apart, to catch on fire and stuff. But they're like,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: you got some great TV. So then they came they
• 1:16:19
  Speaker 1: wanted to shoot some b roll. So in TV, b
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 1: roll is like the kind of like the footage that
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: somebody talks over and so if you're seeing a you know,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: a city state, but you hear somebody's voice, that's b roll, right,
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: So they wanted to get some b roll in the bakery.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: And so when they came to the bakery, everybody in
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 1: there was either in a like a rock band or
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: was going to art school. So everybody was very unique. Right,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: A lot of tattoos, had a weird colored hair, a
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 1: lot of you know people just dressed weird, like we're
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: just you know, a bunch of weirdness. And so they
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: were like filming, They're like, oh, there's a whole bunch
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: of you guys. You know we should we should do
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: a show in your bakery because we've never receiving anything
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: like this. There's a bunch of weird art kids with
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 1: you know, power tools on the wall making insane cake. Wow.
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: Well you're you're a man. You're a genius. Discovery plus
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: original serious. Duff's Half a Fund Bake Time premieres April
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 1: Twining Name. Thank you for the conversation. Thank you for
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: allowing me to speak to somebody I consider a genius
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 1: in the baking, in the culin area, in that world
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 1: that I aspire to. You said you want to be
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: a rock star. I want to be a bake star.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: How about that? If you're ever out in l a man,
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: look me out, come on over with appreciate you. You
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: would be doing my boys Stephen a show today. Right,
• 1:17:36
  Speaker 1: you're doing this show. That did this show right, Steven, Yeah,
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: but that's my TV show too, executively douce that show.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: Oh cool, he's amazing. Yeah, I'm I got love for you, Duff,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: I got love for you. Okay, I appreciate I gotta
• 1:17:51
  Speaker 1: let you go, man, they pressed me. I appreciate you.
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: Talk soon. Bye bye, everybody. If I could be you
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: and you could be me for just tw hour, if
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: you could find a way to get inside each other's mind,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: walcome Mile in my shoes. Wacome Mile in my shoes,
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: my shoes. We've all felt left out, and for some
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 1: that feeling lasts more than a moment. We can change that.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: Learn how it Belonging begins with us dot org. Brought
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 1: to you by the Act Council. Welcome Mile and the Shoes.
• 1:18:27
  Speaker 1: Adoption of teams from foster care is a topic not
• 1:18:30
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• 1:18:32
  Speaker 1: I'm April Dinnuity, host of the new podcast Navigating Adoption,
• 1:18:36
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• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: real life adoption stories told by the families that lived them,
• 1:18:42
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• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: Slash podcast or subscribe to Navigating Adoption, presented by adopt
• 1:18:50
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• 1:18:55
  Speaker 1: and the ACT Council. What grows in the forest to
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 1: sure you know what else? Girls in the forest? Our imagination,
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 1: our sense of wonder, and our family bonds grow too,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: because when we disconnect from this and connect with this,
• 1:19:14
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• 1:19:17
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• 1:19:21
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• 1:19:23
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• 1:19:27
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• 1:19:30
  Speaker 1: The Cafee Mocha Swag Award is a celebration of black
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  Speaker 1: empowering others to reach their life goals from civically this businessman, activists, celebrities,
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: and everyday dad's. The Cafe Morka Swag Award winner this
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 1: week is The black Man Project. The black Man Project
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: founders are a filmmaker Brian Ellison, a sculptor, Anthony Super,
• 1:19:50
  Speaker 1: an anthropologist, wall In Hall, they travel the nation archiving
• 1:19:54
  Speaker 1: the storage Black men tell of masks and life's meeting.
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 1: They're rooted in creating safe spaces for healthy conversation. Are
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: exploring the many nuances that affect men of color. The
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: need of of these conversations and this project. It is
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: something that has gone for so long unnoticed. You know,
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of us are, you know, suffering day to
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: day and a lot of times, you know, we're moving
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 1: without actually going anywhere, and so we're spending our wheels
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 1: and essence when we need to tap into that, that
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 1: inner self and be able to reflect and be mostly healthy. Really,
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 1: the Cafe Morcha Squag Award represents men who have strength,
• 1:20:26
  Speaker 1: whose wisdom is assertive, and who is genuine in their spirit.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to money making Conversations with your host, Rashaan McDonald.
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: My next guest is an entrepreneur. Her name is Liz Rogers.
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: She's the executive chef and CEO of the cream Elicious brand.
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: That's right, cream Alicious brand, a might already owned business
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: that is implementing their innovative approach to desert category. We're
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: talking about ice cream. Y'all ice cream, everybody, I love
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: ice crea ice cream chef. I know, I get excited.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry. Let me calm down. Chef le Rogers honed
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: her passion for cooking and cooking for others growing up,
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: and they're cleaning on higher area, you know, Steve Harvard Country,
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: under the watchful eye of her mother and grandmother. She
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: prides herself on being truly innovative with a two and one.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: Desserts that pair fresh based pastries with homemade ice cream,
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 1: made with only the freshest agreements. Please welcome to money
• 1:21:17
  Speaker 1: making conversations. I met her in person, she drove down,
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: gave me some of that ice cream in person. Then
• 1:21:22
  Speaker 1: I all just saw him online. The Queen of ice cream,
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: that's what I call her, the Queen of ice cream.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: MS cream alicious herself, Liz Rogers, how you do on list?
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: I'm great? Thank you so much for having me today. Cool? Uh,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: Liz um ice cream? Why ice cream? Ice cream is
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: the world's number one dessert. Ice Cream makes people happy.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: It brings the world together. You know, we don't have to,
• 1:21:45
  Speaker 1: you know, wonder what it is or what it tastes like.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: We just know that it's good. So ice cream just
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: brings everybody together. So you can do so many whimsical
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 1: things with it and just be as innovative as you
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 1: want to be. Well, you know the word innovative, now,
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: you know, I'm just I'm just gonna tell you, I'm
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: just a guy who eats the ice cream. Okay, there's
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: certain ice cream don't really like. I'm not going trash
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: and ice cream that I don't like, but I'm a
• 1:22:08
  Speaker 1: big fan of a certain ice creft come from Texas,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 1: which is blue Bell ice cream country, So I kind
• 1:22:13
  Speaker 1: of like grew up on blue Bell ice cream. And
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 1: then you came to town Atlanta, Georgia. That's my town
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 1: with your creamer isious ice cream, you know, just out
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: of the blue. A friend of mine Los Angeles recommended
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: I should eat your ice cream and outstanding ice cream
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 1: was outstanding, Liz. But you, but you, but you, But
• 1:22:34
  Speaker 1: you knew that though, But you you you you have
• 1:22:36
  Speaker 1: the confidence in yourself to know you have a top
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 1: of the line brand. Correct. Well, I'm an executive chef
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: by trade and restaurateur, and I really wanted to make
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: sure that I worked with the top food scientists in
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: the country to um just really bring my brand to light.
• 1:22:53
  Speaker 1: I am like I really did not want to go
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: in and put my label on a private label, someone
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 1: else's brand. I really wanted to create my own intellectual property,
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: things and formulas that would be proprietary to crem Alicious.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: So I wanted to make sure that ice cream was
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: extremely creamy. I wanted to make sure that all the
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 1: pastries and the crust and everything was exactly the texture
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 1: that it needed to be and it wasn't soggy. So
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 1: there was just a lot of time and a lot
• 1:23:25
  Speaker 1: of thought and a lot of research that went into
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 1: creating the ice cream before UH this brand was actually
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: created and able to go on the shelf. Now, before
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: we get more detail about about your crew Relicious brand,
• 1:23:37
  Speaker 1: there's always a journey to get here. You know, your
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 1: four generations. You know we mentioned your mom and your
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: grandmother talk about that relationship that led you to the
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 1: life of being an executive chef. And I'm the oldest
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 1: of of UH four, so I'm the big sister. I
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: have three brothers, and my mom was a single parent.
• 1:23:57
  Speaker 1: She was a welder, and so she taught me how
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 1: to and I used to cook for my brothers and
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: take care of them while she was at work. And
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 1: so the really cool thing was I spent a lot
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: of time with my grandmother and I noticed she made
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 1: just everything from scratch as well. She just really made
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of things from scratch. And we would make
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: up stuff like pound cake and make jello and and
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 1: top the pound cake with the jello with some whipped cream,
• 1:24:20
  Speaker 1: just gave it a lot of different textures and flavors
• 1:24:23
  Speaker 1: and just you know, we just did whatever we wanted
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: to do. And that was my opportunity to really spend
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: time with my family and my mom and my grandmother
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: and just really just build a bond. And that was
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 1: our way of communicating love. And it's it's just full
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 1: of amazing memories for the both of them. Pound cake
• 1:24:41
  Speaker 1: topic with jello and whipped cream, Girl, that sounds pretty
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: good to me. It's just a light, delicious dessert. So
• 1:24:50
  Speaker 1: it wasn't heavy and it was flavorful. So you you
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 1: do the strawberry jello on top of a butter pound
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: cake and some whipped cream, and it was just something
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: we made that you know, we would sit on the
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: porch when it rained. My grandmother, she uh, she she
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 1: loved like all these plants. She had a green thumb,
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: you know, and and we would sit there while it
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: rained and you know, on the porch with like a
• 1:25:12
  Speaker 1: thousand plants and eating this little dessert and it it
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 1: may not be much today, but back then it was
• 1:25:18
  Speaker 1: just a really big deal for me. Well, it's a
• 1:25:20
  Speaker 1: big deal to me right now because I'm trying to
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: figure out how I can get some Yeah. Well, the
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 1: cool thing about is you have history and food. Now,
• 1:25:29
  Speaker 1: you had a very popular restaurant in Hamilton, Ohio, believe
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 1: with the name of it was Mahogany Now, now, what
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: type of restaurant was that in the Ohio area? Tell
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: me a little background on that. Mahogany's was like a
• 1:25:40
  Speaker 1: Southern cuisine restaurant. We made everything from scratch, but it
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 1: really um we we really we could give you an
• 1:25:47
  Speaker 1: amazing plate of food, but it really was about the experiences.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: We had karaoke, live entertainment. It was very intimate, very
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: small kitchen was probably smaller than a submarine kitchen, I feel,
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 1: but we did so anything's out of there. And I
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: think the big thing was we knew all of our
• 1:26:04
  Speaker 1: customers names. We were able to provide just this amazing
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: welcoming experience and people would come there and eat and
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 1: it was almost like you were eating out of your
• 1:26:14
  Speaker 1: mom or your grandmother's kitchen because that's how we cooked.
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: So we peeled our our yams, We didn't cook any
• 1:26:20
  Speaker 1: yams out of the can. We picked our collar greens um,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: we smoked our wings. We had amazing dry rubs, and
• 1:26:28
  Speaker 1: it was just a real good experience. And you never
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 1: knew who you were going to meet when you came there,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: and you just felt like you were home. Now, when
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: you have something like that, it feels it's more of
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 1: a passion tied to the bottom line. But you're an
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: opportunity to the move to a new location. Now, why
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 1: did you make that move? Because that new location it
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 1: sounded like a good idea, but it turned out not
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 1: to be the right idea. Correct. You know, as an entrepreneur,
• 1:26:54
  Speaker 1: you know you you want to see your your brands
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 1: make it. You want to see everything expand. And Um
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: a year and a half after being open, um we
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: became a really big destination. So it was Mahoganies in
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 1: Hamilton's was in a very small area, residential area, not
• 1:27:10
  Speaker 1: the best area, but Hamilton's was just an amazing, welcoming town.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 1: They really took a chance on me. I took a
• 1:27:17
  Speaker 1: chance on them and had to really uh come to
• 1:27:20
  Speaker 1: town and just we just made something together. I feel
• 1:27:22
  Speaker 1: the community really supported it. So we ended up having
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: people driving for two hours away and buses coming from
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: Florida to come to this little bitty place and only
• 1:27:31
  Speaker 1: had about thirty or forty seats. And I had the
• 1:27:34
  Speaker 1: city of Cincinnati come to me and the mayor asking
• 1:27:37
  Speaker 1: what I moved my brand to the banks of Cincinnati.
• 1:27:42
  Speaker 1: So I ended up being uh the first male or
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: female African American to be part of a major multi
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: meandour development in the city of Cincinnati. UH. And I
• 1:27:52
  Speaker 1: didn't take the the offer at first, but with some
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 1: of the leadership in Cincinnati, they thought it would be
• 1:27:59
  Speaker 1: a really great idea, and based on the packages and
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: the different things that I was offered, I thought it
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: would be a good idea too. But it it ended
• 1:28:06
  Speaker 1: up not being the best business move. So I learned
• 1:28:09
  Speaker 1: a lot of lessons, but for me, it didn't mean
• 1:28:12
  Speaker 1: I had to live in my lessons and essentially just
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: ended up making a really bad decision on expanding my
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: brand and pretty much lost everything. So I always say,
• 1:28:21
  Speaker 1: as an executive chef, I don't cook with politics, and
• 1:28:25
  Speaker 1: you know, that was just something that I wasn't really
• 1:28:27
  Speaker 1: familiar with and I pretty much ended up being extremely
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: famous in town for taking that deal and uh losing
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: everything and then coming back. Well know, that just shows
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: about money making conversations also about advice is also I
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 1: always like to take those little nuggets because you said
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 1: you learned a couple of lessons about this. Because you
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: want the show about the success of crem Malicious and
• 1:28:50
  Speaker 1: storage nationwide, you to make an appearance on um Ellen Show,
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 1: which is a national TV appearance. When you say, because
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 1: I always tell people, you know, follow your roam, and
• 1:29:00
  Speaker 1: a lot of times people will give your advice but
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: they have no like you said, they have no bone
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 1: in the fight or no financial commitment and fight. Did
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: you got good ideas? So that seems to me what
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 1: happened a lot of people with a lot of good ideas.
• 1:29:14
  Speaker 1: And it's for sure the city is going to support you,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 1: you know, everybody. The traffic is going to be natural
• 1:29:20
  Speaker 1: down there. What lessons did you learn? Because a lot
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: of people get these these big opportunities and these good suggestions,
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: but they need to do their homework on the suggestion. Correct,
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 1: That's correct? You know you first of all, you need
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: to to research things more. UM, it's about partnerships. Uh.
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: If everyone in the partnership is a good steward and
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 1: everyone's doing exactly what they committed to do and what
• 1:29:43
  Speaker 1: they say that they're going to do, things should work
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: out right. But when you have a partnership and there's
• 1:29:48
  Speaker 1: uh other agendas and people aren't willing to make sure
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: that you're successful, or maybe you were offered something just
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: as upon maybe you were it was a token situation.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: Every business should have the opportunity to succeed or fail
• 1:30:03
  Speaker 1: on its own merits. UM. I went through a lot
• 1:30:06
  Speaker 1: being called the N word, a great amount of racism. UM.
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: You know, I I struggled with a lot from uh
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: the African American community, some that felt that, you know,
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: perhaps I was leaving them behind when essentially I was
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 1: really trying to expand my brand and really take care
• 1:30:23
  Speaker 1: of my family. UH. Dealt with a lot with the
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 1: Caucasian community that really felt like I didn't have the
• 1:30:30
  Speaker 1: right to be on the banks on the riverfront with
• 1:30:33
  Speaker 1: the beautiful restaurant. UM. So you know, I kind of
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: caught it from both ends. But through all of that,
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 1: I was able to create cremalicious and um, just deal
• 1:30:43
  Speaker 1: with things on the other end and staying really really focused.
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 1: So I always say that if you're going to be
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: involved in something, understand the rules of the game. If
• 1:30:51
  Speaker 1: you're gonna suit up. Because I didn't sit on the
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: bench right I was in the game, you know, and
• 1:30:56
  Speaker 1: I'm the type of entrepreneur I'm just gonna go for
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 1: it and fear paralyzed as us. We have to understand
• 1:31:01
  Speaker 1: that at the end of the day, you just got
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: to go for your dreams. You know. You have to
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 1: understand that these are the rules and they're not gonna
• 1:31:08
  Speaker 1: be fair. And we can't sit around and say, oh,
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't get the same treatment, because you're not gonna
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 1: be be treated the same, especially as a minority business.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 1: And you have to own everything. I own all of
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 1: my mistakes, I own all decisions I made. I'm a human, right,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: we all make mistakes. Um, we all are human. Uh.
• 1:31:25
  Speaker 1: In business, we're learning said, my situation was a little
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: bit more public, but I was able to really give
• 1:31:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of minority chefs and opportunities to shine, give
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: them a platform to be leaders, give them a platform
• 1:31:41
  Speaker 1: to be a part of something great. So we have
• 1:31:44
  Speaker 1: to understand that even if it's five seconds on the
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: clock and I get the ball on the fifty yard line,
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: I'm going for it. So I got a fifty fifty
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 1: chance of either making a touchdown or I'm gonna get
• 1:31:55
  Speaker 1: thrown to the ground. But at the end of the day,
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 1: there's always another day to play, you know. And that's
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: where on that well, you're fantastic. You're articulated as well
• 1:32:02
  Speaker 1: as I would have wanted to articulated to people who
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: are watching this or who were listening to its own podcast.
• 1:32:07
  Speaker 1: It's about money making conversation. Now, your desserts and your
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: and your bio say, you craft your desserts by harnessing
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 1: the familiar experience that Southern comfort food brings blended with
• 1:32:17
  Speaker 1: cooling airy artistry, which is your skill level. I'm just
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 1: an eater, okay, But it's the art that you put
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: it together. Because when I dug into your ice cream
• 1:32:25
  Speaker 1: and you was watching me, you know, I saw I
• 1:32:29
  Speaker 1: saw the vanilla waitfer, you know, I the red velvet
• 1:32:33
  Speaker 1: tasted like red velvet. Talk about that whole process, because,
• 1:32:36
  Speaker 1: like you said, you wanted to make sure that that
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: cookie wasn't Sggy you wanted to make sure that the
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: dessert felt like the dessert that you were selling on
• 1:32:45
  Speaker 1: the as far as the brand of the name, because
• 1:32:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna we're gonna get into the name of your
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: funny dessert names that you put on here. But talk
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: about that process and and then you know, because some
• 1:32:55
  Speaker 1: people say, some people level of satisfaction could stop here,
• 1:32:58
  Speaker 1: but you pushed it beyond death satisfaction to reach your
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: standards correct, right, So Cremolitious, it's it's not just the
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 1: dessertest and experience, you know, I want to take you
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 1: on a journey where the storytellers, right we we want
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: to take you to better times. There's so many unprecedented
• 1:33:16
  Speaker 1: times that we're having, you know, in the world right now,
• 1:33:19
  Speaker 1: and I just want to let people understand that, you know,
• 1:33:22
  Speaker 1: we all have something in common. We're not that different.
• 1:33:25
  Speaker 1: We all love ice cream, right of different variations of
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 1: ice cream, whether we're vegan or lactose intolerant. We want
• 1:33:31
  Speaker 1: to make sure that Cremolitious is in a dessert category
• 1:33:34
  Speaker 1: of its own. There there is no other ice cream
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: on the market like Cremolitious at this point, and I
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: don't feel there will be because we all have our
• 1:33:44
  Speaker 1: own niches, and I felt like I can carve my
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: own niche by first of all being extremely authentic, um
• 1:33:51
  Speaker 1: making sure that we have good comfort foods to basically
• 1:33:56
  Speaker 1: comfort us during these crazy moments that we're having in life.
• 1:33:59
  Speaker 1: You know, when you eat that slap your mom a
• 1:34:01
  Speaker 1: banana pudding, it just makes you feel happy. Poward to
• 1:34:04
  Speaker 1: the customers. They you know, it's just so funny in
• 1:34:07
  Speaker 1: different parts of the world just looking at some of
• 1:34:09
  Speaker 1: the video, they always say, oh my god, I just
• 1:34:13
  Speaker 1: feel happy, right, And so you know, just taking that
• 1:34:16
  Speaker 1: second to just enjoy your dessert, making sure that that's
• 1:34:20
  Speaker 1: sweet potato pie taste exactly like a slice of sleep
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: potato pie. You having those notes of nutmeg and cinnamon
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: and fresh vanilla bean and a puree of uh sweet
• 1:34:30
  Speaker 1: potato with the actual butter butter nut crush. I mean,
• 1:34:34
  Speaker 1: you know, like we need that short red crust and
• 1:34:37
  Speaker 1: and everything in that dessert is homemade and it's from
• 1:34:41
  Speaker 1: an actual recipe that came from my mom and my
• 1:34:44
  Speaker 1: grandmother's kitchen. So I just want people to experience that
• 1:34:48
  Speaker 1: and not just have some ice cream and a pine.
• 1:34:51
  Speaker 1: I just want to be a part of their lives
• 1:34:54
  Speaker 1: and the experience at that moment. Now you need I
• 1:34:57
  Speaker 1: gotta come on in. Now you kind of mentioned a
• 1:34:59
  Speaker 1: little you teased us a little bit on some of
• 1:35:01
  Speaker 1: those names. I almost lew everybody down. She was just
• 1:35:04
  Speaker 1: not throwing out names to be funny. Those are some
• 1:35:06
  Speaker 1: of the actual names on the actual cardins of if
• 1:35:09
  Speaker 1: I can by now. This morning I got a prode
• 1:35:12
  Speaker 1: to my interview with her. I ordered you can order
• 1:35:15
  Speaker 1: what they called the seven Indulgent flavors. There's seven of them.
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: You can order seven. Nice little discount you get on it.
• 1:35:21
  Speaker 1: They ship it immediately via ups Already I ordered this morning.
• 1:35:25
  Speaker 1: I already got my notice roughly four hours later that
• 1:35:28
  Speaker 1: the shipment is on the way. That's how fast they operate.
• 1:35:32
  Speaker 1: The packaging, that is fantastic. Let's let's let's go before
• 1:35:35
  Speaker 1: I start getting into flavors. The packaging because and how
• 1:35:38
  Speaker 1: did you come up with the name cream malicious? Because
• 1:35:41
  Speaker 1: instead of delicious, I wanted it to be cream malicious,
• 1:35:44
  Speaker 1: you know, um just whimsical, Like I didn't want it
• 1:35:47
  Speaker 1: to upscale because it's an up scale dessert. But I
• 1:35:50
  Speaker 1: feel like upscale casual um southern um mainly just a
• 1:35:55
  Speaker 1: southern sojourn, you know, just like really like a Surrey
• 1:35:59
  Speaker 1: where you're just like, you know, just having an amazing
• 1:36:02
  Speaker 1: time and dancing and just just enjoying everything that there
• 1:36:07
  Speaker 1: is to enjoy about this particular dessert and just the
• 1:36:10
  Speaker 1: creaminess of it. It's really really creamy. Um. It's a
• 1:36:13
  Speaker 1: lot more creamier than most and it's a super premium item,
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: so it's it really is a very high high product
• 1:36:22
  Speaker 1: that we've made very decadent and very indulgent as well,
• 1:36:26
  Speaker 1: so we didn't spare on anything. We do not use
• 1:36:28
  Speaker 1: any artificial flavoring or coloring. Um. We don't use a
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: lot of high fruit toast, corn syrup or anything like that. So,
• 1:36:35
  Speaker 1: you know, while it does have a lot of catt calories,
• 1:36:37
  Speaker 1: I don't suggest eating a whole uh pint if you're
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: looking out for those calories. But if you are going
• 1:36:43
  Speaker 1: to cheat, I need you to cheat with cream Alicious.
• 1:36:45
  Speaker 1: I'm just gonna let you know I did eat a
• 1:36:47
  Speaker 1: whole paint. In fact, how many when you visited me?
• 1:36:50
  Speaker 1: How many did you leave me? But seven? I left
• 1:36:55
  Speaker 1: you the seven and dog pla. We have all two left, okay,
• 1:37:00
  Speaker 1: my staff my staff ate one total, you know, we
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: all sampled a little bit of but I'll just tell
• 1:37:05
  Speaker 1: you they probably consume one. So so that statement about
• 1:37:08
  Speaker 1: don't eat one consume when I've done that and I apologizically,
• 1:37:12
  Speaker 1: was just that good, you know, I put it on.
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: I even have fun. I had a slice of sweet
• 1:37:17
  Speaker 1: potato pie and I put my little, my little cream
• 1:37:20
  Speaker 1: alicious sweep potato pie right on the top, and then
• 1:37:23
  Speaker 1: I had the slice of peach cobbler. I was just
• 1:37:25
  Speaker 1: having fun with you because I can bake as well.
• 1:37:27
  Speaker 1: So in my kitchen, I just happened, we got I
• 1:37:30
  Speaker 1: happened to put it out there, and so I'm gonna
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: post you on Monday under my motivation On Monday, I
• 1:37:34
  Speaker 1: always post people on motivation about overcoming the arts, and
• 1:37:37
  Speaker 1: I want to post you and recognize you overcoming an
• 1:37:40
  Speaker 1: arts and now have established a national ice cream and
• 1:37:44
  Speaker 1: you're the queen of ice cream. You're You're cream Alicious,
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: your Liz Rodgers, and I want to I want to
• 1:37:48
  Speaker 1: talk about that. But that's what you're trying to do
• 1:37:50
  Speaker 1: right now. You're trying to get your brain out there.
• 1:37:52
  Speaker 1: You're willing to become in the face of your ice
• 1:37:54
  Speaker 1: cream brand, and that's important. Correct is very important. You can't.
• 1:37:59
  Speaker 1: I'm definitely not ashamed of of anything. You know, everyone
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: has a story. Um. You know, sometimes we just can't
• 1:38:06
  Speaker 1: keep getting so caught up in the things that we read.
• 1:38:09
  Speaker 1: I I just learned that just a regular person being
• 1:38:12
  Speaker 1: a chef and just a regular person, just um, being
• 1:38:15
  Speaker 1: involved with people writing stories and dealing with journalists and
• 1:38:19
  Speaker 1: news and media and different things. That was a different
• 1:38:21
  Speaker 1: world for me. That. You know, you can truly have
• 1:38:24
  Speaker 1: an interview and then it turns into something else that
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: and you know, you can be painted a different way.
• 1:38:29
  Speaker 1: But I feel like the people that know me and
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: understand these struggles and how hard it is to have
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: a small business. Um, what I'm doing and what I'm
• 1:38:39
  Speaker 1: trying to do, especially with the ice cream right now. Um,
• 1:38:43
  Speaker 1: I the scream Alicious is it's bigger than me, you know,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: um being one of the first African American ice cream
• 1:38:49
  Speaker 1: manufacturers and mass production in the whole world today. You know,
• 1:38:53
  Speaker 1: I really want people to understand that this is really,
• 1:38:56
  Speaker 1: really a big deal. There's a lot of ice creams
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: out there on the shelf. Um. I went to a
• 1:39:00
  Speaker 1: lot of different retailers and I had many many doors
• 1:39:04
  Speaker 1: slammed in my face. You know, they were like, you know, hey,
• 1:39:07
  Speaker 1: you're a minority business, so we're not going to take
• 1:39:09
  Speaker 1: a chance on you, or they won't return your calls,
• 1:39:11
  Speaker 1: and um, then they taste your ice cream and then
• 1:39:15
  Speaker 1: there's all these things going on and then you start
• 1:39:17
  Speaker 1: to get called. And I was really appreciative that Walmart
• 1:39:20
  Speaker 1: and Meyer and Chinooks just really took a chance on me.
• 1:39:24
  Speaker 1: Walmart is the biggest retailer in the world, and they
• 1:39:27
  Speaker 1: just really really believed in what I was trying to do.
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: Prior to everyone doing things for African American businesses, I
• 1:39:35
  Speaker 1: really just wanted Cremolicious to stand on its own, you know.
• 1:39:39
  Speaker 1: And I don't want to be a token. I want
• 1:39:41
  Speaker 1: to earn my space on the shelf and compete just
• 1:39:44
  Speaker 1: like anyone else. But I always say I'm going to
• 1:39:46
  Speaker 1: compete with myself because I'm I'm innovative, I'm forever changing,
• 1:39:51
  Speaker 1: going to ever be creative and really give the consumer
• 1:39:55
  Speaker 1: something different every time. Well, you know, let's let's go
• 1:39:57
  Speaker 1: down these indulge in flavors that I'm about to receive,
• 1:40:01
  Speaker 1: and uh, I'm gonna say. What I'm gonna do is
• 1:40:03
  Speaker 1: when I get them, I'm gonna stack them all up
• 1:40:05
  Speaker 1: in front of me, and I'm gonna take a picture
• 1:40:06
  Speaker 1: and send it to you. I'm gonna post it, you know,
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: because everybody know I love switch. Now you have ain't Poonies,
• 1:40:13
  Speaker 1: that's right, ponies, right, yeah, ain't poonies, caramel pound cake now,
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: and then you have uh, then you have writer's rain,
• 1:40:22
  Speaker 1: red velvet cheesecake, thick as thieves become pie slap your mama,
• 1:40:31
  Speaker 1: banana pudding, porch like peach cobbler. We all know you
• 1:40:36
  Speaker 1: in the hood. You know about that porch light. Boy,
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: if you got home before that light that's on, we're
• 1:40:40
  Speaker 1: gonna have problems. I had that conversation with my dad
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: several times growing up. Uncle Charles Brown's sugar bourbon cake
• 1:40:48
  Speaker 1: and then Grandma Ggs sweepertato pie. Now, those stories. You know,
• 1:40:56
  Speaker 1: people need to understand the history of the South with
• 1:41:00
  Speaker 1: the desserts. You know, the red velvet cake was considered
• 1:41:04
  Speaker 1: a celebration cake when African Americans received their freedom. Uh,
• 1:41:08
  Speaker 1: porch like peach cobblers. Just like what you said, you know,
• 1:41:10
  Speaker 1: like we'll lead the light on for you. You're welcome.
• 1:41:14
  Speaker 1: This house is safe. You know, it's it was just
• 1:41:18
  Speaker 1: you know, it was just really a big thing. You know. Um,
• 1:41:21
  Speaker 1: I have one called quite Cake that will be out
• 1:41:23
  Speaker 1: this summer and it's a Southern white cake and it
• 1:41:26
  Speaker 1: was one of the first cakes that they made in
• 1:41:28
  Speaker 1: the South and it was considered a peace offering cake.
• 1:41:31
  Speaker 1: Um Ponies caramel pound cake. She was my godmother and
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: she actually made that pound cake and a cast and
• 1:41:38
  Speaker 1: skillet that was passed down from generation to generation to
• 1:41:42
  Speaker 1: her daughter Patricia, and they still have this cast aren't skillet.
• 1:41:46
  Speaker 1: And then finally, um, Uncle Charles Brown sugar Bourbon. You know,
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: everybody has the Uncle Charles that that was the cool
• 1:41:52
  Speaker 1: uncle that you couldn't wait for him, the como re
• 1:41:54
  Speaker 1: always had his brandy, always had his stash and his flask.
• 1:41:57
  Speaker 1: He's always drinking. But he was that uncle that everybody
• 1:42:00
  Speaker 1: loved and and couldn't wait to see at the holidays. So,
• 1:42:03
  Speaker 1: you know, crimal Isious is each one of those brands.
• 1:42:07
  Speaker 1: They're very authentic. They're about real people, real times, real stories,
• 1:42:11
  Speaker 1: and we tell the stories where the storytellers. So people
• 1:42:14
  Speaker 1: should know what they're eating, they should be a part
• 1:42:17
  Speaker 1: of each one of those flavors. I feel that someone
• 1:42:20
  Speaker 1: can actually relate to Uh, better times, you know, in
• 1:42:23
  Speaker 1: their lives and their family. Now do you are we are?
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: We do we see any cream Alicious ice cream stands
• 1:42:29
  Speaker 1: and pop up stands? Uh? That's coming along the way
• 1:42:32
  Speaker 1: because it sounds so fun. It sounds like in the
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: middle of summer, I should see a Creamalious pop up
• 1:42:37
  Speaker 1: somewhere just to surprise people. Are some of some quick
• 1:42:40
  Speaker 1: stories that that will pop up during the summer selling
• 1:42:43
  Speaker 1: this brand, of serving this brand because it's so fun
• 1:42:45
  Speaker 1: that your storytelling is amazing and so authentic. That's what
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: I love about it, because you know, like you said
• 1:42:50
  Speaker 1: when you just said grandma, gig, I know, grandma, and
• 1:42:53
  Speaker 1: then you have slap your mama. You know that's like
• 1:42:55
  Speaker 1: a running to a ball at foods making one slap
• 1:42:58
  Speaker 1: your mama. Boy, I'm telling you you know, and we
• 1:43:01
  Speaker 1: know we've heard that so many times growing up, but
• 1:43:04
  Speaker 1: every time we heard and we smiled, we laughed, And
• 1:43:06
  Speaker 1: so that's what you were saying, Like you said, you know,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: love not hate. You want your ice team to bring
• 1:43:10
  Speaker 1: people together, and that's part of your brand, and that's
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: part of your mantra that you really believe it and
• 1:43:15
  Speaker 1: you're really selling correct, right and I you know, it's
• 1:43:20
  Speaker 1: it's it's crazy because you know, what is what is
• 1:43:24
  Speaker 1: your purpose? You know, like if you open that top,
• 1:43:27
  Speaker 1: it clearly says there's a dream in every scoop. And
• 1:43:30
  Speaker 1: I really believe that because even though it was hard,
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: you know, I felt like I wanted to give up,
• 1:43:35
  Speaker 1: you know sometimes, and and I didn't, you know, I persevered.
• 1:43:39
  Speaker 1: It's almost I always tell the story. Um, we all
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: have driven in the card driving on fumes, hoping the
• 1:43:46
  Speaker 1: goodness that we can get to the exit to get
• 1:43:48
  Speaker 1: some gas before we run out. And that's what hope
• 1:43:51
  Speaker 1: is hope for me, if you me, even when I
• 1:43:55
  Speaker 1: went through so many failures and successes of launching my
• 1:43:59
  Speaker 1: brands and my restaurants, you know, I was like, please
• 1:44:02
  Speaker 1: just let me get to the exit and fill up,
• 1:44:04
  Speaker 1: you know, on hope and so that I can get
• 1:44:06
  Speaker 1: right back on the on the road. So for me,
• 1:44:09
  Speaker 1: it wasn't about the destination because I know exactly what
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: that destination is and where I'm going. It's more about
• 1:44:14
  Speaker 1: the journey. Who am I meeting along the way. You know,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: I may stop off at this town, I may you know,
• 1:44:20
  Speaker 1: meet this person, and maybe this person may even get
• 1:44:23
  Speaker 1: in the car with me and ride with me to
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: a town here and there, you know, a few miles,
• 1:44:27
  Speaker 1: and then they got to get out of the car,
• 1:44:28
  Speaker 1: and then I realized, you know what I'm dealing with.
• 1:44:31
  Speaker 1: But even in those lessons, you know, you know what
• 1:44:34
  Speaker 1: dead ends are, you know what street to turn down,
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: you know what's gonna work and what's not. And then
• 1:44:39
  Speaker 1: you're you're you're learning. And I'm praying to you know,
• 1:44:43
  Speaker 1: launch my foundation, because that's essentially why I launched Crimalicious,
• 1:44:49
  Speaker 1: Because there is a dream in every scoop and there
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: are many entrepreneurs out there that they're afraid. They're afraid
• 1:44:55
  Speaker 1: to fail, and I just want to say today, don't
• 1:44:58
  Speaker 1: be afraid to fail. You have absolutely nothing to lose.
• 1:45:02
  Speaker 1: You may make the more you try and the more
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: you go for it, You're eventually gonna make it. And
• 1:45:08
  Speaker 1: I just want you guys to know that I'm here.
• 1:45:10
  Speaker 1: I'm looking for you, like Professor Xavier on x and
• 1:45:13
  Speaker 1: then like I'm looking for those entrepreneurs that I can
• 1:45:16
  Speaker 1: help build teams around them, give them resources. It's not
• 1:45:20
  Speaker 1: like somebody can come and give you five million dollars,
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: but that's not gonna guarantee your success. So that you're
• 1:45:26
  Speaker 1: going to stand business right. Multimillion dollar brands have money
• 1:45:29
  Speaker 1: injected into them all the time. What we need as
• 1:45:32
  Speaker 1: minority businesses is we need c p a s. We
• 1:45:34
  Speaker 1: need advisors, we need attorneys, we need people that's going
• 1:45:38
  Speaker 1: to help us with our operations. We need to learn
• 1:45:40
  Speaker 1: how to build teams. We need to learn and have
• 1:45:43
  Speaker 1: resources that's going to sustain our business. And through buying
• 1:45:47
  Speaker 1: a point, if you're buying a point, what I'm praying
• 1:45:51
  Speaker 1: to build is you are inadvertently helping another entrepreneur with
• 1:45:55
  Speaker 1: their dream. That's why I say there's a dream in
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: every school. So I just want people to understand that
• 1:46:00
  Speaker 1: they can be a part of something great through this
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: pint because that's what it's all about for me. Wow,
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: you are incredible. I'm just gonna tell you that right now.
• 1:46:10
  Speaker 1: Interview with six people, the gems you're dropping, Dr George
• 1:46:14
  Speaker 1: Fraser is the closest I've had on this show that
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: come that has come to you as far as being
• 1:46:18
  Speaker 1: able to recognize that the battles of being an entrepreneur
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: and how to advise and also how to inspire, you
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: are incredible. Now, Liz, before we leave the Cream Alicious
• 1:46:29
  Speaker 1: brand is expanding. You said you have some vegan products
• 1:46:31
  Speaker 1: that are coming out. Are the other line brands that
• 1:46:34
  Speaker 1: we need to know about before we wrap up the interview.
• 1:46:36
  Speaker 1: The pre Militias does have a vegan line coming out
• 1:46:39
  Speaker 1: this summer and an additional seven flavors UM like the
• 1:46:44
  Speaker 1: Apple Cobbler, the Piece and Quiet Cake. We have a
• 1:46:47
  Speaker 1: strawberry crunch cake. We have a Mama Woes chocolate brownie.
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: We have Baby Listen and that Baby Listen is a
• 1:46:56
  Speaker 1: white chocolate brownie. So I don't know if you've ever
• 1:46:59
  Speaker 1: had the Wilbe's white chocolate brownie. UM with the maple crema,
• 1:47:04
  Speaker 1: I mean, we have some really amazing flavors. And then
• 1:47:07
  Speaker 1: for the vegan line, UM, I pretty much developed a
• 1:47:12
  Speaker 1: Southern mimosa and sangria line, so it's dairy free UM
• 1:47:16
  Speaker 1: and it's completely made with fresh juices and fruit. So
• 1:47:20
  Speaker 1: we'll have people that are a little bit more health
• 1:47:23
  Speaker 1: conscious and vegan and if you're lactose intolerant, I just
• 1:47:27
  Speaker 1: wanted to create a line for you as well. UM,
• 1:47:30
  Speaker 1: and so we have some really amazing things and cream
• 1:47:32
  Speaker 1: Alicius does have a complete frozen dessert line, so each
• 1:47:35
  Speaker 1: one of those points that you have, they have a cake,
• 1:47:37
  Speaker 1: a cobbra or pie to go with those points. Every
• 1:47:40
  Speaker 1: every dessert is a match for the pint. Wow, thank you,
• 1:47:47
  Speaker 1: You're incredible. Now you know when that line comes up,
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: you got your boy? Okay, now you got me right,
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: you got me right? Come on, because because I got
• 1:47:57
  Speaker 1: this already, I got this already. It's coming this for
• 1:48:00
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna take some photos putting on social media. More important. Congratulations,
• 1:48:04
  Speaker 1: I'm a fan. I'll be there whenever you need this
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: phone call of support. We're gonna sit down and talk
• 1:48:08
  Speaker 1: about some marketing ideas because you really really are special
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: and the world needs to hear your story. Okay, Liz,
• 1:48:15
  Speaker 1: thank you sir, and I appreciate you and your team support.
• 1:48:19
  Speaker 1: I just really wanna, you know, just ask that you know,
• 1:48:22
  Speaker 1: everyone get behind us, because you know it's I can't
• 1:48:26
  Speaker 1: change the world by myself, nor would I ever tried.
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: But I can reach out and touch someone. I can
• 1:48:31
  Speaker 1: make ripples in the pond. I can touch someone and
• 1:48:33
  Speaker 1: they're reach can touch someone, and then before you know it,
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: we're across the globe. You know, it's just about having
• 1:48:38
  Speaker 1: purpose in life, and this is God's purpose. For me
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: and my passion. I just want to get out here
• 1:48:43
  Speaker 1: and help other entrepreneurs and inspire them to not just
• 1:48:47
  Speaker 1: exist but start living. Whore you're doing that. Thank you
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: for coming on Money Making Conversation. Liz Rogers, the Queen
• 1:48:53
  Speaker 1: of ice cream Miss cream Malicious. Thank you. If you
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: want to hear or see any interview as of Money
• 1:48:58
  Speaker 1: Making Conversations, please go of Money Making Conversation dot com
• 1:49:01
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• 1:49:05
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