Summary

Bennett Maxwell, a multifaceted entrepreneur and the founder of Dirty Dough Cookies, shares his inspiring journey of overcoming challenges and innovating in the competitive cookie market. He discusses the unexpected lawsuit from Crumble, a billion-dollar company, which initially seemed like a setback but ultimately became a catalyst for his brand's growth. With a focus on joy and fulfillment, Bennett emphasizes the importance of maintaining a work-life balance, especially after realizing that monetary success does not equate to happiness. He reflects on his experiences growing up in a large family and how that instilled a sense of grit and determination. Through candid insights, Bennett highlights the significance of nurturing relationships and prioritizing personal well-being over purely financial goals.

Story

Bennett Maxwell’s entrepreneurial journey is a compelling tale of innovation, resilience, and the pursuit of fulfillment beyond financial success. From his early days of selling lemonade and cookies to navigating the challenges of running a national franchise, Bennett’s path is marked by both triumphs and tribulations. The conversation reveals the intense pressures of scaling a business, including facing a lawsuit from Crumble, a larger competitor. Bennett’s reaction to this legal challenge transformed it into an opportunity for growth, showcasing the power of a positive mindset in the face of adversity. His ability to pivot and leverage the situation for brand exposure not only solidified his company’s presence in the market but also highlighted the often unpredictable nature of the entrepreneurial landscape.

Central to the discussion is Bennett’s personal evolution regarding the meaning of success. After achieving his goal of becoming a millionaire by the age of 30, he faced a profound realization: financial success does not equate to happiness. This awakening prompted him to reassess his priorities, placing a higher value on joy and fulfillment in his daily life. He candidly shares how he now approaches decision-making with an emphasis on family time and personal well-being, a practice that has enriched his life significantly. This shift not only transformed his perspective on work-life balance but also reinforced the idea that true success encompasses emotional and relational dimensions.

Listeners will appreciate Bennett’s insights into the entrepreneurial mindset, particularly the importance of perseverance and adaptability when faced with setbacks. His journey serves as a reminder that success is not solely measured by monetary achievement but by the quality of relationships and experiences we cultivate along the way. This episode resonates with anyone navigating the tumultuous waters of entrepreneurship, offering valuable lessons on maintaining one’s values and prioritizing what truly matters in life.

Takeaways

• Bennett Maxwell emphasizes the importance of work-life balance, especially after selling his solar company.
• He shares how legal challenges from Crumble Cookies turned into unexpected marketing opportunities for Dirty Dough.
• Maxwell highlights the role of mentorship and guidance in navigating business challenges and personal growth.
• He explains that true fulfillment comes from relationships and joy, not just financial success.
• The journey of growing Dirty Dough from a single store to 80 franchises showcases innovative business strategies.
• Maxwell discusses how personal experiences and family influence entrepreneurial grit and resilience.

Links

Dirty Doug site: https://dirtydoughcookies.com

Please leave us a review: https://podchaser.com/DesigningSuccessfulStartups

Tech Startup Toolkit (book): https://www.amazon.com/Tech-Startup-Toolkit-launch-strong/dp/1633438422/

Site with all podcasts: https://jothyrosenberg.com/podcast

Jothy’s non-profit: https://whosaysicant.org

Jothy’s TEDx talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNtOawXAx5A

Hello, I'm Jathi Rosenberg, the host of Designing Successful Startups, where today's guest is Bennett Maxwell.

And it was right after CRMBLE just put up some billboards because we're both kind of right here in Utah county that said like selling a million cookies a day.

And you know me, I mean, I'm all analytical.

I was like, a million cookies and they're selling for $3 and 75 cents each.

I'm like, oh, that's a billion dollar company.

So I just calculated that they were a billion dollar company.

And then literally a week or so after I get a lawsuit served.

To me, never read a lawsuit, right?

And I'm just like, oh my gosh.

I honestly, I mean a lot of it was, we're probably like, should I just give up right now?

Because this lawsuit's stupid.

Um, like I read through it and it talked about our cookies having sprinkles and their cookies having sprinkles and we have white vanilla ice cream and they have white vanilla ice cream and we do a, a cookie with caramel and chocolate like a Twix and they also do one.

Bennet Maxwell is a multifaceted entrepreneur renowned for his innovative approach to business and commitment to enhancing the entrepreneurial landscape.

He is currently the driving force behind Dirty Dough Cookies, a fast growing national cookie brand with over 80 stores open and dozens more set to launch this year.

Maxwell's career spans diverse industries from real estate in Utah to co founding and successfully selling switch to solar.

In addition to his entrepreneurial ventures, he is a sought after speaker who regularly shares insights with the media.

And here is Bennett.

Hello, Bennett.

Jonathan, how's it going?

It's great to see you again.

We've had one chance to get to know each other just a little bit and so we're going to spend some time here getting to know each other better and hopefully giving some good information to the listeners.

Let's start by giving people a sense of, you know, context.

Where are you originally from and where do you live now?

I mean, same place, I guess.

Utah, Utah County.

I've lived a lot in California doing cells, but Orem, Utah is where I grew up and now I'm in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

And it's beautiful outside.

We got snow right on the.

All over the mountains.

Absolutely gorgeous.

So are the ski areas opening early?

I don't know, I haven't looked into it.

But this is the first year that I'm going to take my two kids skiing or snowboarding.

So we're, we're looking forward to it.

Oh, fantastic.

And what's the ski area of choice?

Well, we probably just do Sundance.

It's the closest one to us.

It's probably like the crappiest of all the resorts too, and the cheapest.

But that's 25 minutes from our house.

And my kids, like, you go up there, you get the hot chocolate and then you get this special sucker that they sell and they just want to go to Sundance all the time for just the sucker.

Yeah, they have the right idea.

Well, as I mentioned to you last time we talked, I spent a lot of time skiing in Utah and I'll be out again.

I just booked my trip to come out first week of March to ski at Deer Valley.

Oh, awesome.

Well, let me know if you're in town, you have some extra free time for some lunch, okay?

Okay, that sounds great.

All right, so you've had a journey through several different things.

And we'll dig into the thing you're running right now, but in a minute.

But what are some of the things that you've done on your entire entrepreneurial journey?

Yeah, started pretty young, I think in elementary school selling stuff, shaved ice, lemonade stands, candy bars at school.

It's kind of, that was just a environment that I grew up with with my siblings.

There was nine of us and we were, most of us are spaced.

Just every two years there's another kid.

So anyways, we did a lot of business together and then fast forward 20 years, we're still doing a lot of business together with a lot of my, my siblings.

I got into Cutco sales right out of high school, served a two year Mormon mission, which is another two years of sales and persuasion and follow up, which was great.

That led very well into a door to door career for a few years, which then led me to start a solar company.

I ran that only for 18 months, sold it, bought my, the current company, Dirty Dough.

I shouldn't even say it's the current company.

I don't know if I told you this, Jothi, but last month I exited Dirty Dough.

We sold to Crave Worthy Brands, a restaurant portfolio company led by the Jimmy John's former CEO.

So now, now I'm on to the next thing again.

Well, I mean I'm always, I'm always on to the next thing.

You're not just, you know, gonna take the season off and just focus on skiing?

I mean, maybe, maybe I should, maybe I should do that.

I'm always busy though.

Try not to be too busy.

But I don't know, it's so exciting.

Like turning.

Ending one business and going to the next is just everything's up in the air, you know, and it's what am I going to do next and who am I going to meet?

So right now I'm very in that first excited phase.

Now I'm staying on as the director of franchise sales for crave worthy brands.

They have 15 portfolio brands to sell franchises.

But you know, I'm always doing more than one thing.

All right, well, so one of the things that you told me that you really like to spend time on is entrepreneurial innovation.

The idea or the general concept of.

Well, there's some very simple ideas that could be turned into thriving businesses even in competitive markets.

And I'm, I'm imagining that Dirty Dough is one of those examples.

Yeah, I mean there was nothing.

I bought Dirty Dough and it was a single store out of Tempe, Arizona.

I bought it with the purchase with the intention of franchising it and really expanding it to, you know, with.

I wanted a national brand.

And if you want to open up like right now we have 80 stores.

We've opened up 80 stores in the last two years.

And a lot of people know the brand name.

How did you open up 80 stores?

You know, if each store costs, let's call it a quarter million dollars, it's quite a bit of money, you know, $20 million to open up all those.

Either you have the 20 million or you go find franchise partners.

They fund it, right.

They're paying for the store to be open and then the benefit to them is they get to use your name, brand your products, your systems.

So it's a really good win win in that franchising.

So I chose the franchising.

Now what am I going to do to be different?

The big competitor in the space is Crumble Gourmet Large Cookies weekly rotations and they do really well.

But their back end system, everything is made by hand and weighed by hand.

And it just, I don't think that that's sustainable.

Especially when you have California minimum wage is $20 an hour if you're a food brand with or if you're any brand with over 50 locations.

So it's just really hard.

So what I did is I want to compete with Crumble but on the back end I wanted to compete with more established models.

Mrs.

Fields, great American Cookie, Insomnia cookies.

What do they do?

They centralize all their production so you get economies of skill.

And then you mix thousands of cookies at a time rather than 60.

Right.

Use professional bakers rather than college kids in the store.

And then rather than hand weighing and hand portioning, you throw them to machine, which gives you greater accuracy.

And then for us, it gives us a much more unique product.

All of our cookies are stuffed and we also do the world's only three layer cookie, which is like a peanut butter cookie on the outside, chocolate cookie in the middle with hot fudge filling.

So really, as far as that sounds good, it was taking the backend model from systems that have been working, looking at the crumble model, that's proven that it's very good at high, you know, high revenue sales and kind of combining them.

So that was the innovation, which is funny because there's nothing new about it, but it is just combining two things that already worked and making a little bit better.

But you bought this one store in Tempe, Arizona and you hadn't, you hadn't done a really scaled franchise before that.

Know what a franchise, I mean there's the franchisee and the franchisor.

The franchisor owns the corporation, the franchisees buying the franchise.

I didn't know what that was three years ago.

Yeah, I'd had no experience or into food, but I did believe that generally like business is business, right.

You have a product, you have to go sell the product and keep your costs low.

It's just a different industry.

So there's a lot of pros and cons obviously jumping into a new industry.

But, but a lot of the pros were, I didn't have like this is how I used to do it when I worked for KFC or whatever.

Right.

There was no preconceived notion.

So I think we did try a lot of things that maybe other people wouldn't have tried and a lot of those failed, but a lot of them really worked.

When you were first just the owner of a single store, but you knew you wanted to to franchise, where did you go to learn all about a cookies and all the equipment that you needed and how to scale it.

Did you have a bunch of advisors or how did you do that?

A little bit of everything.

The first employee that we hired kind of on the corporate side, not that's running in the store, was a former Mrs.

Fields employee.

So that brought, you know, a lot of knowledge of cookies and how to make them.

And anyways, so it kind of started with, with her.

And then it.

And then the next step was finding, I mean, anybody and everybody who could teach me.

So way before I found that first employee or any advisors, I was already just talking to any and everybody, hey, what do you know about franchising?

This is what I'm doing.

How do you do it?

And then it's like, oh, I recommend this franchise attorney and then I talk with them and somebody else recommends a different franchise attorney.

I talk with them and then somebody else says, oh, this person used to be in franchising, you know, So a lot of it was just networking with random people, which is a little intimidating in the fact, like I don't even know what I was asking them.

Right.

I didn't have a clear.

I just like, I want to franchise it.

What do I do?

But once I had that general concept, I got my first advisor, John Richards, very good business guy.

He had a company that went public called InfoSpace.

$30 billion IPO.

He knows business.

I'm like, can you be an advisor?

I got him on.

Then I asked him, okay, now what do we do?

He goes, we need more advisors, but you need an advisor that's an expert in the franchise space.

So he called his buddy Steve Hart, who owns Property Management Inc.

Which is the largest property management franchisor in the nation.

And then we got him on the board as well.

And then the third person that I was going for for my advisor ended up being our CEO.

She was the founder of Maui Wowie Smoothies and coffee.

Started that 40 years ago, grew it to 600 plus locations or franchises before exiting.

So yes, it was surrounding myself with really good people and listening to their advice and then I guess staying in my lane in the sales side.

Like, I know I'm really good at sales, setting up some processes, but I don't follow anything, you know, I'm not, I'm not, I'm not a follow through person.

I'm a big idea.

Let's start on a project, get excited, and then in two weeks I'm on to the next idea.

And I want to hand that off to a good operations or good integrator, which I found with that CEO.

Very, very lucky.

So I'm guessing by the name that of her coffee franchise that she from Hawaii, not from.

Honestly, I forgot the story around it.

It was something.

Yeah, they went to Maui quite a bit.

Not from there though.

I'm going to ask her because I should definitely note that.

Okay, so you're a workaholic, but.

And you came from a really, I.

Mean, I like working, but I really don't work more than 40 hours a week and have it for probably at least three years, at least, since I sold my solar company.

Maybe I didn't mean workaholic in terms of hours, but you work hard, but you also have a family and a lot of people who are startup people or want to be startup people that might be listening to this, I think sometimes worry that it's pretty hard to balance work life balance when you're, you know, running a startup.

But.

But you've always considered that to be really important.

Yeah, and I.

I would say it got.

It got really important when I sold my solar company.

So that was just three years ago.

And I just put kind of everything on hold until I was a workaholic that was, you know, working 80 hours a week because it's like, I just once I'm a millionaire.

If I could achieve millionaire status before 30, all your problems go away.

I got up to 310 pounds, didn't have a great relationship with my wife.

Didn't even know I didn't have a great relationship with my wife.

I thought it was great because we didn't fight, but I guess there's more to relationship than just not fighting.

But that was kind of the situation I was in.

Sold the company, achieved that goal, and I felt amazing.

But what happens in the brain is your dopamine levels go back to baseline very quickly.

So then it's like, okay, I sacrificed all of that for an hour, a week, a month worth of dopamine.

It wasn't worth it.

So at that point I'm like, okay, well, what am I even working for?

And I told myself this.

If I have more money, then that equals more time off, more time freedom.

And what am I gonna do with more time?

I'm gonna go on more vacations.

And why do I want to go on vacations?

Because I'm with my family and I.

And I need to be with my family because they make me happy.

And then going through all of that, selling the company, achieving all of that, and I'm like, shoot, what do I do from here?

I started seeing a therapist.

And he kept.

He helped me see that loop that I was telling myself for that progression.

And he said, well, why don't you just start doing it every day?

Like, you don't need to go on a vacation to take your kids out, you know?

So, yeah, about four years ago, I was like, okay, I'm just not going to work past four.

I'm not going to work the Weekends, there's a few exceptions here or there.

Like this last weekend I went to Houston, but I took the day off before and the day off after.

That way, you know, if I'm working two days over the weekend, then I'm not working two days during the week.

And that really helped kind of with the work life balance.

Because again, what is it all for?

It's all to be with your family.

But I don't need to sacrifice my family to then be with them later.

I could just be with them now.

So I think having that clear distinction right from the beginning of like, what am I after?

And if I'm after increasing relationships with my family, don't sacrifice that to start off with, if that makes sense.

You must have a lot of discipline to.

I mean, obviously you do, but I mean, to be able to shed a lot of extra weight that you somehow gained during that period of time.

Yes.

I mean that the whole weight loss thing was, was a, was a whole nother journey and a necessary journey, I think Dirty dough with our, I mean, last year we went from seven to 70 stores in one year.

And it was as stressful as can be.

You know, I don't know how honestly I would have gotten through all of that if I didn't really lean into health and fitness and being present in my body because there's just so much stress.

You know, you're always worried about tomorrow and this problem or that.

But the thing is, they don't exist in the moment.

Right.

So if you, for me, what I did is you have debilitating stress and you're like, crap, am I going to make it?

Do I need to go raise more money?

Do we have money?

Am I going bankrupt?

Like all of those are going through your thoughts as an entrepreneur.

If you're rapid growth, or at least it was for me, so very stressful.

And the way that I was able to, I guess, cope with that was ice baths and saunas and working out and red light and vibration plate and really.

Because all of those things allow you to not think about the future.

Right.

You're not thinking about how I going to pay rent next week.

When you're in an ice bath, that's 35 degrees.

So it really shows you, hey, you can get rid of your problems because by just being present.

And for me, that was very beneficial.

Is your strategy for exercise to, you know, put it on your calendar and make sure you, you know, it's.

It's a meeting.

It's a meeting that's just with you.

Is that how you do it.

Yes.

Except for it's not just with me.

In the last, in the last few months, maybe two months ago, I posted on LinkedIn, I said, hey, anybody like to talk business and want to work out together?

And I got several dozen people to hit me up on that.

So, um, almost at two to three times a week, I go to the gym with a random person.

Just business, another business owner.

And we just kind of talk and network and that's, that's super fun.

Um, I try not to get too regimen with my workout because the purpose of working out for me is to feel good and I don't want to feel stressed around working out.

So like this morning I didn't work out, it was on my calendar, but instead I took my kids to school and my other kid to the babysitter.

Right.

And then I'll just find some time later.

Um, which is a little weird on the working out.

Like when I work out as well, I'm also not counting sets or reps, which is kind of very weird.

I'm just going till whatever feels good and then I, and then I leave after 30 minutes.

So because it's such an enjoyable time, it doesn't cost a lot of work to get there because it's not like, oh crap, I have to go to squat £400 today.

Um, it's.

No, I'm just going to go do whatever feels good.

On, on swim workout days.

I have to be very regimented because it's, it's a, it's a, it's a, it's a set time, you know, with a coach.

So.

Okay, yeah, so it is it.

I did have to quit one master's program because it was very stressful.

I had to get up at 4:15 because we were in the water at 5:15 and, and, and then for some reason the coach kept, just thought he should push me and make me lead the lane and then somebody's touching my heels and, and it was like, okay, this is, this is.

Stop being fun, you know?

Yeah.

And then, and then you just gotta quit and try something else.

Yeah.

And I think that relates back to having business as well.

It's like, what?

Well, what are you doing this for?

It's for fun.

And if it's not fun anymore, then make it fun or go do something else again.

I mean, I think that's a pretty good principle.

One of the things that you mentioned to me before, but we didn't have time to go into any details, so now is a good time to go into Those details was that dirty dough had some legal challenges.

And I think that's a useful thing to talk about because people need to be prepared for, for dealing with those kinds of surprises.

So talk about that, would you?

Yeah.

About two and a half years ago, before we opened up our first franchise, we got a lawsuit from Crumble.

And it was right after Crumble just put up some billboards because we're both kind of right here in Utah county that said like selling a million cookies a day.

And you know me, I mean, I'm all analytical.

I was like, a million cookies and they're selling for $3 and 75 cents each.

I'm like, oh, that's $1 billion company.

So I just calculated that they were a billion dollar company.

And then literally a week or so after I get a lawsuit served.

To me, never read a lawsuit, right?

And I'm just like, oh my gosh.

I honestly, I mean a lot of it was, we're probably like, should I just give up right now?

Because this lawsuit, stupid.

Like I read through it and it talked about our cookies having sprinkles, their cookies having sprinkles.

And we have white vanilla ice cream.

And they have white vanilla ice cream.

And we do a cookie with caramel and chocolate, like a Twix.

And they also do one.

And it was just like we use rectangle boxes.

We do whimsical designs.

And they use whimsical designs.

Obviously they didn't invent any of this.

So it was, it's a tactic that a lot of businesses use to stifle competition because it doesn't matter if it's legitimate or not.

If you're suing someone that's doesn't have a hundred thousand dollars sitting in the bank and to like fight you off and say no.

I mean, we went through this a year and a half till it.

And we did settle it, but a year and a half spent 300 something thousand dollars.

And we didn't even start into expert witnesses yet.

It was just like discovery.

So it was about to start getting really expensive.

Anyways, back to the, back to the story.

So they sue us.

Nothing happens.

A local news article a month and a half later picks it up.

Crumble suing.

Dirty though.

So then it's like, crap.

We, we'd sold like 60 franchises in the first six months, which was off to a great start.

And now I'm like, crap.

Now I have to, you know, talk about this lawsuit to our existing franchisees.

It's going to be an issue for all potential Franchisees.

So I'm going to be out there on social media.

But I chose to do it kind of as a smart ass because that's, that's who I am.

So the first thing I, I, I took a screenshot of the lawsuit and I tad crumble.

And I, I said something about like a billion dollar company suing startups like over sprinkles, something like that.

Watch out, granny there, they might be coming for you next.

Something, something stupid, you know, but that gained a lot of traction and people really like that and it was kind of funny.

And then we put up billboards to respond to their billboards, but our billboards said, cookies so good, we're being sued.

Cook our cookies.

Don't crumble with the competition.

Let your taste buds be the judge.

Just stupid.

Tongue in cheek things.

Super funny.

Same thing posted on social media.

Got over a million impressions just on LinkedIn alone.

Again, tagging crumble.

Love your billboards.

What do you think about mine?

And I guess a lot of people, I guess got behind us as kind of the David and Goliath story.

And I also broke down every single point in the lawsuit and said why it was kind of bullcrap.

And I was trying to raise awareness that, I guess legal war warfare, you know, you can just sue people out of business even if you're wrong.

And that, and that's completely legal.

Long story short, we had sold 60 franchises in the first six months.

The next six months we sold an additional 230 franchises.

And that was from the exposure of our reaction to the lawsuit.

We also did professional commercials of the big cookie company shutting down lemonade stands because they also sell cookies.

And very fun and very playful, but it got us on Good Morning America, cnbc, all of that.

So it really gave us the eyes that we needed to fuel the growth.

So kind of a lemon at first and I end up turning into the most amount of lemonade that I could ever imagine.

But so I don't understand how they the real grounds for their suit.

So they don't need any real grounds.

I could sue you today right after this call because the glare off of your glasses caused me emotional disturbance.

You don't need any grounds to file a lawsuit.

You could claim whatever you want and then you can't go get an SBA loan tomorrow.

And you're like, no, no, it's a lawsuit about the glare in my glasses.

This is stupid.

Just read it.

And the SBA or any bank says, nope, it's just a hard and fast rule.

We won't Give you a loan.

And that's just, and then you also have to disclose it on your franchise documents if you're in a lawsuit as well.

So that means every potential franchisee is seeing that you're being sued by a billion dollar company.

So it doesn't, it doesn't matter that it was about sprinkles in a rectangle box.

It matters that we have to now disclose it on our fdd and that could scare away potential franchisees.

And now I can't go get funding.

Um, so then I had to go the private route.

And you know, that was a full time job just raising money from angel investors.

But I, I, you know, if they're saying sprinkles in the rectangle box, then it sounds like an infringement kind of argument, which is, like you said, is, is, is crap because there's no patent.

You know, there's no, this is how crappy it was.

There's six pitchers on the lawsuit side by side.

And when I say vanilla ice cream, they, they put a picture of our product, which is a cookie and an orange cup with vanilla ice cream on top.

That's an actual product that we sell.

And they set it next to their product that they don't even sell, which is a black cup of a pint of ice cream.

And that's how they sell it.

But it's like they're not even the same.

But they put those pictures side by side and then sprinkles and a handful of other cookies.

Well, everything's timestamped on social media, right?

When, when we release a cookie for the first time, it's on social media.

Same thing with crumble.

Of the six examples, five of them we did first.

So they actually found five examples that they copied us and they sued us over it.

So yeah, their attorney was an idiot.

Zero like that.

The facts on the lawsuit were all wrong.

And that's why it went in our favor because it wasn't like a he said, she said battle.

This was something that I'm telling people on social media.

Look at the two screenshots.

Who did sprinkles first?

Dirty dough did who?

Yet they're suing us.

Look at the rectangle box.

They, they do have a trade dress on their box, but it specifically says we do not claim the shape of this box in this mark, period.

So they're saying it has nothing to do with the shape and then they're suing us only over the shape.

So it was just a bullshit lawsuit.

So, so you're saying.

So you're Saying that.

That when this.

There was a settlement.

They paid you?

No.

And I can't disclose settlement other than what we.

We threw out.

We did some general press release about the settlement.

We changed.

We did actually change our boxes from a square to Rank Tango.

There's no way in hell they would have ever won, but it would have cost another hundred thousand to go through that process at least.

So it was just like, who cares about the shape of the box?

I don't care, you know?

So that is, that is what we, we changed.

And other than that, I think it worked out really well.

Oh, that's great.

By the way, you're.

As I said earlier, your cookie that you described really sounds delicious.

So you're going to have to tell me where there's a store when I'm up in.

When I'm up.

Yeah.

Well, I'll be in basically Deer Valley and up there.

So there's probably one up there.

Yes.

Well, I guess in Salt Lake.

I'll bring some to you.

Don't worry.

Yeah.

Okay.

Well.

Okay.

So you also talked a lot when you first met with me about just the joy of that.

You want to make sure there's a lot of joy in your life beyond the financial achievements.

And you've, you've, you mentioned family, you've mentioned vacations, and, and what else, what else do you think of when you sort of want to paint this whole picture of kind of your successful life?

Yeah.

So when I went through my midlife crisis at 28 years old and I started seeing a therapist on, like, why am I saying that My family and my health are the most important, but if I look at my calendar, I just am working all the time.

Right.

Like, what's going on there?

And it was because I set my goal, which was the million dollar goal.

Right.

But why did I want a million dollars?

I didn't ask myself that, other than like, because you have less problems.

Right.

But I didn't really think through it.

And then re.

I had to kind of reanalyze life again and say, okay, what drives my behavior?

What drives human behavior?

Because we all set, you know, these material goals.

But do material goals actually drive human behavior?

Well, what are we after?

We're not after material things.

We're after an emotional state.

And I think that's very evident because I could say, do you want a billion dollar company, but you're guaranteed to be depressed every day?

Or do you want to be poor, but you're guaranteed that you're enthusiastic and happy all the time.

Right.

It's like, of course it's not about the money, it's about your state of well being.

So if your goals don't include a state of well being, you're falling short, in my opinion.

So what is that well being that I wanted?

I narrowed it down to joy and fulfillment.

And I chose joy over happiness because at least to me, happiness is more of a momentary emotional state where joy is like, you can have a joyful life, but you're not happy all the time because that's impossible.

And then fulfillment more than just being happy.

But do you feel good about your life?

And then I threw in despite life's dirtiness, you know, kind of play on words.

But for me, it meant don't wait to sell your solar company to find joy fulfillment.

So I created that mission statement, finding joint fulfillment despite life's dirtiness for myself and others.

And then the company adapted that, which really brought on, I mean, I kind of, without an intent, a lot of franchisees gravitated kind of towards that mission statement.

And that I was, I guess, very upfront with it.

So once I narrowed that down, now as I'm making my decisions, I'm making my decisions based off of joy and fulfillment, not money.

So Friday of last week, three days ago, five, four days ago, I have a few meetings.

It's a Friday I and I see that my son is going to his first preschool field trip ever to the pumpkin patch.

And it's like, oh great.

Hey, can I.

This is a pretty important meeting.

But in the grand scheme of things, will it matter if I push it out a week?

It.

No, not at all.

I pushed it out a week.

I went to the.

I went to the field trip and had a great time with my son.

Because again, the question was, what's going to bring me more joy and fulfillment?

Not what's going to bring me more money.

And I think having that emotional state defined and then using that as I'm making my decisions on how many franchises sell, do we raise money?

Who do we accept money from?

It's what's going to bring me more joint fulfillment rather than what's going to maybe make me more money.

Hi.

The podcast you are listening to is a companion to my recent book, Tech Startup Toolkit how to Launch Strong and Exit Big.

This is the book I wish I'd had as I was founding and running eight startups over 35 years.

It's like a memoir of my entrepreneurial journey.

I tell the unvarnished truth about what went right and especially about what went wrong.

It's for the founder, the CEO and wannabe founders of tech and non tech startups.

You could get it from all the usual booksellers and also from the publisher@manning.com.

i hope you like it.

It's a true labor of love.

Now back to the show.

Yeah, I'm curious.

What, what made you think that a million dollars would make you not have to worry?

I don't know.

You just, I don't know, you grow up and you're like.

You hear somebody's a millionaire and you're like, oh, wow, they're a millionaire.

You know, and, and, and granted, a million dollars today is a lot different than a million dollars 20 years ago.

But.

Yeah, I, I don't know.

I never thought it through.

Just like before that.

My goal before that was to be a pediatrician.

Why?

Because it sounded good.

I think doctors are well respected.

I like kids.

Little did I know, you know, I'm, I'm queasy when it comes to blood, but that's still the career path I chose just because I didn't really think through it.

Right.

You, you put a few hours of thought and you're like, okay, they, they make 200 grand.

They're well respected.

I didn't think about 11 years of school and residency and a hundred thousand dollars in debt and not seeing my family.

Um, that's just what I chose because I didn't think about it enough.

So going back to the.

Whether it's a business coach, a mentor, an advisor or therapist, like having somebody else to guide you through that and let you see what you're not seeing is extremely, extremely beneficial.

I did the math like a year or so ago.

I think the number is somewhere between 6 and 8 million.

You can live off of it and not touch the principal.

Yeah, yeah.

If you get $5 million, you're accounting for a 3% inflation and you make an 8% return.

That means without.

While you're accounting for inflation, you could withdraw 5% and your money's not getting eaten by inflation.

5% of $5 million is 250,000 a year.

So, yeah, even with 5 million, you can live off of $250,000 per year and not touch your nest egg and not be affected by inflation, which is pretty cool.

But I didn't, I didn't know all that.

I also had the same goal to get a million by the time I was 30.

And I didn't achieve it and nothing happened.

Probably.

Right.

And I achieved it and nothing also happened.

It was either way, it was just Like a goal that.

I think goals are very important because they're exciting.

But if we attach our self worth and our progression and our validation on if we achieve that goal or not, I think that is a recipe for failure.

Because at the end of the day, there's so many things that are out of our control.

And to realize that and not try to control everything, I think without a doubt leads to a, to a happier life.

Having less expectations on life leads to a happier life rather than having higher expectation.

Because all discomfort, suffering, whatever comes from wanting something.

Right, that the Buddha, Buddha said desire is the root of all suffering.

And you think about it, you're like, that's true.

So if I could just want less, then you're going to suffer less.

Rather than having, you know, I need $1 million to be happy, I need a Tesla, I need this or that.

It's like, no, I just need to live and experience life.

And then whatever comes, comes.

And that's the way I'm gravitating more and more.

And it's, it's hard because it's different.

But I, I do think that I've made a lot of progress and it's allowed me to not pull my hair out every night.

You know, when, when the business stress and just life stress comes down at you.

We all say that every startup founder has a lot of grit.

In your case, grit probably, I would guess, has to be defined as fearless because you've just taken on these things.

You've had to have no fear to, to turn one cookie shop in a city that's not even where you live into a franchise.

And do all these multiple businesses.

Do all people of the LDS faith have grit?

Or do all people coming from a family of nine kids have grit?

Or where's yours come from?

I mean, I think both looking at family, out of the nine kids, even the few that, like, went to the corporate route, they still have side businesses.

You know, one, one works for Facebook, but he also has an app that he's been running for a few years on the side.

You know, So I do think a lot of the entrepreneur or the grit does come from a kind of figure it out mentality in a household of nine kids with a single mom.

Okay, talking about grit, if you want to go to football camp, it's 400 bucks.

I don't have 400 bucks.

Right.

What do you do?

You can go sell a banner to a business so they could advertise on the, on your football stadium.

I was the only kid in the, in the School that did that.

And I was just cold knocking businesses.

So like those little things, I was selling cookie dough door to door to pay for my wrestling program.

Same thing with rugby.

They also use the same cookie dough fundraising.

So it kind of came full circle.

Was that your mother's idea to do that?

When we first know those, those are your idea programs.

Yeah, yeah.

It's just if you want something, go figure out how to do it.

I mean, I remember maybe in third grade I would wake up, she was, she went back to school, so.

And she was gone.

Like when me and my brothers were waking up.

So me and my two little brothers, I would wake up, make them breakfast burritos every morning, make myself the breakfast burrito and walk over to the neighbor's house and get a ride to school and then we'd walk home, you know, so.

And there's nothing, absolutely nothing wrong with that.

I think that kind of set us all up for the hey, kind of take care of yourself, Mom's here for you.

But you're also capable of taking care of yourself.

Going to the lds, I think that's probably the bigger reason, at least in sales.

You see a lot of ex missionaries, former missionaries, really good at sales.

And you see all of the top door to door companies in the world right here in Utah County.

Brigham Young University, Utah Valley University, 70,000 students, 10 minutes apart from each other.

And then you have all the big door to door companies just recruiting because it's all former missionaries and you do receive all of that training.

I think there's a lot of negativity around it.

There's a lot of positivity.

There's a culture of you.

You go on a mission when you're 19 years old and it's two years, you don't know where you're going.

I went to Tijuana, I didn't know Spanish.

They throw you in the mission, you have a companion.

He didn't speak any English, I don't speak any Spanish.

And it's just like good luck, you know, you get a call home twice a year, once on Mother's Day, once on Mother's Mother's Day and Christmas for an hour each time.

And then you get one hour of emails on Monday.

Everything else is head down and working.

I think that is very healthy for a young adult to go through and be so dedicated to something.

I do think there's a lot of shame around it.

Like if you don't go on a mission, that's shameful.

Girls don't want to marry you you know, because you're not worthy, you're not righteous.

And if you come home early from your mission, forget it, you know, like, oh, you couldn't finish it.

You're not faithful enough for the Lord.

Which I think that's all bullshit.

But it does create a very good culture of these, like, die hard kids that just want to finish it.

And then you take kids out and you teach them.

Summer sells.

So, like, my first year, I recruited 40 college kids, plus me.

We all moved out to North Carolina to go sell pest control in the summer.

And you have.

It's a hard job, right?

Door to door sells.

It's hard job.

And you have a lot of people that don't make money.

It's straight commission.

And you're like telling them, okay, it's time to go home.

It's been a month.

You've made not no money.

And they're like, no, I promised myself I'd finish.

I would see it through.

And you're like, no, this is a job.

This isn't a mission.

It's not a.

It's not shame if you quit, you know.

But yes, I think there's LDS culture gave me a ton of grit that I'm very grateful.

I'm not associated with the religion at all, but the things that it taught me, I.

I'll be forever grateful for our.

So where were you in the nine kids?

Seven.

Seven out of nine.

And there's seven boys as well.

So anyways, yeah, me and I have a brother two years younger than me, four years younger than me, and then another brother two years older than me.

So the four of us, within eight years, we were pretty tight.

And I mean, we still are.

We still do business together, we still hang out, so it's fun.

So the oldest one is quite a bit older than you.

Yeah, his name is Uncle Blake.

He was on his Mormon mission in Ireland when my youngest brother was born, Bailey.

So when he came home from his mission, Bailey was, you know, 12 years old, and he called him Uncle Blake because he didn't know it was his brother.

Yeah, 20 years apart.

That's amazing.

I gather that you're.

You're not planning to repeat the nine kids thing.

No, I mean, I don't know why my mom did it.

I mean, I'm grateful because I was number seven, and I guess if she only had six, I wouldn't be here.

I don't think that that's healthy to have nine kids.

And in the sense of you only have so much time and attention to teach and to nurture your children.

Firsthand experience.

When you got nine, you don't have time to actually pay attention to your kids.

So me and my wife have three kids right now and we are extremely happy with three that we have.

And they're young and it's still like dance practice, gymnastics, tumbling, soccer, field trips, you know, it's still so much.

I'm like, yeah, if we had another, if we had a fourth kid, I would have to start missing games.

And one thing that I've already committed to, I won't miss soccer games.

I mean, I won't miss anything.

I don't care what the work is.

I don't care, like everything can wait for tomorrow.

Because I do know.

I guess this goes back to Harvard study.

If you've heard of the longevity study, it's the longest study out of any study.

I believe it's been going on for like 90 years on happiness.

And they're following up with 700 individuals every 10 years or so.

The study's coming to an end, you know, 90 years later.

And the number one thing that's indicative of a healthier, longer living life is close relationships.

And they also said there's not one person that we've interviewed that said, I wish I would have worked more.

Not one person is saying I wish I would have worked.

But most of them are saying, I wish I would have spent more time with my family.

So I'm like, I'm going to hopefully pull from their wisdom and just say I'm going to put my family first over work.

I'll share one, one little story that because this is a, this is a pretty proud moment for me this summer or sorry, last summer I was going to Vegas for a day.

I had a handful of meetings lined up, important meetings, Allegiant Stadium, we were doing a sponsorship with them.

And that last year was the super bowl.

You know, like, do we want dirty dough here?

I had a meeting with a six time Olympic gold medalist, huge influencer, another big real estate influencer with millions of followers, another guy that has 125 KFCs.

So I have all these meetings lined up and then it's my daughter's graduation, kindergarten graduation.

And I'm like, oh, well, I already booked the flight, you know, I'm going in the morning, coming back, sorry, I'll take you on a date before, I'll take you on a date after.

Like, what do you want to do?

And then my wife said, hey, that's fine, but just so you know, she only graduates kindergarten once.

That's all she said.

Like, not.

Not to guilt trip me.

She just.

That's.

And I'm like, you know what?

That is a thousand percent true.

And I know going forward, I will not remember not, like, missing these meetings, but I will remember missing the kindergarten graduation.

So I texted all those individuals and I said, hey, sorry, I got my schedule confused with my wife.

I'm not going to be able to make it.

And I specifically said for my daughter's kindergarten graduation.

And they all didn't care.

You know, all of them are like, oh, yeah, yeah, go take care of that.

Every single one of them was supportive.

And I was just like, holy crap.

And I did reschedule for the next week, and I was still able to meet with three of the four.

Right?

And I'm like, I'm looking back at that.

And I'm like, now that's a story and a memory and a positive memory.

Something I'm proud of, where if I would have missed it, maybe it's still a memory, but it's something that I probably would have regretted.

So, so far, it's.

It's working.

It's a little scary.

And you're always like, no, this.

These things can't wait for tomorrow.

And they can.

And they can wait always till tomorrow.

They can always wait, wait till the weekend.

Even growing to give people an idea, we've been burning $200,000 more than what we've spent every single month for the last two years.

That's.

That's extremely, extremely stressful.

And even in that environment, and going from zero to 80 stores in two years, even in that environment, I tested this theory that I'm telling everybody, if I get something at 6pm, it's waiting till tomorrow.

And so far, there's never been anything that couldn't wait till tomorrow.

If I get something at 6pm on a Friday, it's waiting till Monday.

Even if it's an investor that's ready to go, it's like, everybody can wait.

And then people are like, no, you just don't get my situation.

I'm like, I don't know.

I don't know if it was harder than this situation.

And it did work.

So if anybody wants to try it, I'm imploring you, please try it, because it works.

That's a great message, and I think it's a great way to kind of end this episode.

Awesome.

Thank you very much.

It's been great.

That's a wrap.

Thanks for tuning into this week's episode of the Designing Successful Startups podcast.

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This is Jonathan Rosenberg saying TTFN ta ta for now.