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>> Jeanan Yasiri: Welcome, everyone. This is Entrepreneurship in
Society, a course that's offered
I'm Jeanan Yasiri. through the University of Wisconsin School of Human Ecology.
As we begin today, I'd like to extend thanks to the partners who help in supporting this
course, the UW Office of
Corporate Relations, the UW College of Engineering for their technical support, and financial
support that is provided by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation
entrepreneurship. I'd also like to thank our media which is committed to advancing academic education in
partners, Wisconsin Public Television and their University
Place crew for taping our lecture today.
Nancy Potter, co-founder I'm very pleased to introduce our special guest today
of Potter's Crackers. Nancy grew up in Wisconsin and after receiving her degree in
dietetics from the University of
Wisconsin-Stout, she had a brief career as a hospital dietician
returned to Wisconsin to pursue our own food business. in Pennsylvania, and then she
Nancy was a partner in the New Glarus Bakery for 18 years
and then ran it as the sole owner for another five. Nancy sold the bakery in 2001,
her son Peter to open Potter's Fine Foods, LLC, or Potter's Crackers. The initial business plan forh
Potter's envisioned a small,
Twice, Peter and Nancy have rewritten the business plan for sPotter's to accommodate growth months.
They have experienced 35% growth and new opportunities.
just this year. I've asked Nancy to share with us her entrepreneurial journey
and also to share with us what
iPlease join me in welcomingy membeNancy Potter. your entrepr[APPLAUSE]ourney.
Nancy Potter: I had no idea when I volunteered to do this,
would have said no. So I came prepared to tell you it was quite this formal. It's a good thing or I probably
about my two businesses. You heard I had the bakery and I
have Potter's Crackers. I wanted to share with you my experiences starting those and
have. Financially how I did it because the experiences I continued to
was going to pursue my dreams sort of fit together. I thI want to talk about the my college years, money and how I
I've had along the way, and maybe a little bit of do-over advice. suAnd I thought I would alsot
include I'm in business with my son Pete, and Pete is also
pursuing another business at this point in time, so is my
daughter and so is my son-in-law. And they're all close to your age so I thought you would enjoy
just a little few tidbits about their business journey as well. So we'll go over starting with
I lived in New Glarus for many the bakery.
years, and that's where New Glarus Brewing Company is, a place I'm sure you're all very
familiar with, and I remember Deb Carey saying people always
said you must be living your dream.
People thought it was so great
to have this big brewery. And she would answer and she would say yes, by the time I
would finished grade school I knew someday I would want a world class brewery.
business the same way I did. And she actually got to her
She fell in love with somebody who had a passion for a specific
Dan wanted a brewery and Deb business.
made it happen. And that's how it was with me. I married my high school
sweetheart, and we dated all
his big dream was to have his through own bakery. married rigAnd I piggy-backed on thathe time college was done he knew
It hadn't occurred to me. I was going to be a hospital dream.
sounds exciting and that was dietician, but I thought, you know, it sounds interesting, it
sort of part of the package that I wanted to be involved in. So that is how I got to owning a
bakery. It was no big dream that I had
fortunate. for many, many years. When we graduated we were very
We had no college debt. He were both at zero and our assets were a car.
Back then, in 1974, you could buy a Toyota Corolla station
wagon for $2,800, and that about was what I got from my grandma,
and so we had no debt and a car and a goal of owning our own
We both got full-time jobs right business. I can tell you how we did it.
away. He taught baking actually. He had worked as a baker all
through high school and college and all his summers.
And he thought baking in a technical high school, and I got
a job as a hospital dietician.
And we pretended that I didn't have a salary.
never cashed a single check for those four years. We put all I made directly into We lived onthe bank.made, and I
And later when he left and was
baking, he'd get any overtime or any extra, we'd put that in the bank.
So in four years from zero, we
saved our down payment for a business. In that four years we focused on
getting experience. Unfortunately, I made more money
as a dietician than working in a bakery so I didn't garner any
front of the house experience or
accounting experience. I stayed working as a dietician,
different bakeries, and then we went to Europe so that he could train in Swiss pastries because that was his biggest interest.
And we were there for four
journey has some serendipity in months while it.took classes. We were flying back on Icelandic think everybody's business
three-across. A woman was sitting with us and we had no idea how we were going Airlines from Europe and it's
We just knew we wanted to open to make this happen.
up a bakery with Swiss specialties, and we shared that with her.
We were coming back, he'd been
And she mentioned New Glarus, in school aWisconsin.were going to start hunting for a business to buy.
She said, have you ever been there?
We had not only never been
there, we had never even heard of it.
in southern Wisconsin, you'd She said oh, it's a Swiss town
that in the back of our minds. really like it, it would be a perfect place to have a Swiss bakery, and we sort of filed
We got back, moved to Milwaukee, lived there, he worked in a bakery and we started hunting
for a business to purchase. Went all over the state looking and one weekend we were visiting
she happened to say last weekend some friends here in Madison and
her mother had been down and they'd visited New Glarus.
here? And she said, oh, it's only half And I said, oh, that's close by
there now if you want to. So that Sunday afternoon we drove down to New Glarus and And she said, we can go down
And we started looking at the bakery. Asked for the owners. The owners weren't there.
We went next door.
There was a gift shop that was open. Started asking a lot of
questions there.
And we said, well, yeah. And the woman finally said, why are you so curious? Do you want to buy it?
later. And she said well it is for sale. And we actually closed two weeks
That was a Sunday, two weeks from that Monday we closed. And my hand was shaking so much
when I signed those papers you
can't even read my signature. We ended up purchasing the building, and we thought we
would certainly just be buying a
business and not a building. So it was a huge thing to undertake and we actually had no
clue what we were doing.
We focused on the baking. I knew nothing about accounting. I knew nothing about books.
Somewhere I had heard you should
ask for the records before you buy an existing business. So I asked for the records and
she said, I can't give you
The day of the closing she those, this is a partnership, that's our personal income. So I just said okay.
handed me an old piece of paper about this big, and she had on the previous 11 months and what
their total sales had been for
those 11 months. And that was all the books I had
of my financial knowledge running a business. If I had it to do over, I would certainly know a little bit more
accounting when I began.
We worked like crazy. That's all we did. There was no balance.
We baked constantly.
And never really paid attention to anything but getting that product made and getting it out
in the store and getting it sold. And very fortunate for us, about
bakery there was a huge sugar crisis, and the price of sugar 18 months after we purchased the
because we were working all the time and didn't read the paper. And suddenly we realized we weren't having the cash flow we
did have. It was just the most fortuitous thing to happen that early on in
wake up call that I had to start the business because it was the
paying attention to pricing, costing, and what my ingredients
So that really helped us out in getting our bakery to the next where they were at.
phase when we finally paid attention to the numbers.
The challenges that we had in that business was finding this
balance. We had this big image of Swiss
pastries and yet here we were in
a really small town. In the tourist months, in the summer, we could sell Swiss
pastries. We also had a core of local people that wanted doughnuts and
our vision of our business to do white bread, and it wasn't in
those things. We quickly realized that you have to walk both lines.
That you have to get along with your neighbors and your core, and then you have to get along
want to nurture and grow. And you have to find that balance between those two with this otthings.ket that you
One of the key points and I really notice it because I
business, if you're going to started one business from scratch and I've purchased one
spend the money to purchase a business you're paying for goodwill, you don't want to come
in and immediately change everything. I actually had the opportunity
years after we purchased our to see a friend do that about 10
business. We kept that core of white bread and doughnuts, and then
gradually augmented it with the kind of products that we really wanted to make. And that proved to be a really
good strategy, very challenging at the beginning but then worked
out really well. Some surprises, I would say as
far as surprises go you need to be open to what's going to
it's going to go just along that happen. You can have a plan and think
have to take advantage of. plan, but sometimes things come across your path that you see a-ha this is a new opportunity I
Swiss areas, and Howard had a Atvision for a really goode wanted to make stollen. It's very popular in German,
stollen. So we did a lot of research,
found a really great one. It was a sophisticated product. The people here in Wisconsin
The stollen they knew about was what you could get in the grocery store for $2-$3 a loaf. And there was really not the
market for it, and we really
wanted to make it. So the first year, he made a
leftover. We sold four stollen. The year that I sold the batch of 12 and we had 8
When we first perfected those stollen recipes it wasn't something that we even dreamed business we made 7,000 stollen.
it would get that big. in our wildest imagination that
When I sold the business I had a friend that strongly suggested
stollen business separate, and we divide that off and have that
there's oftentimes I wish I had because clearly there was a mail order market and clearly there
was a demand for stollen and
nobody was meeting it. So it was like when we realized this when that second year we
still made another dozen and we started sampling it all through the fall when we have a lot of
the dozen went to two dozen and three dozen and then finally we had a mail order business where twe had a 90% fulfillment whichd
is unbelievable in any kind of
mail order business because we would send a stollen brochure right before Christmas to people
who had ordered in the past,
received in the past or signed up in the bakery to get the brochure.
And the people that got those brochures ordered, and I look back and that business certainly
I never would have predicted had opportunity to grow.
that when we bought it. We had another surprise is publicity, and that's why now
with Potter's Crackers I try
really hard not to be judgmental because when you're in one place
getting exposure, you do. And when we had the New Glarus long enough and you work at
were in Better Homes and Bakery we were in Redbook, we were in Ladies' Home Journal, we
Gardens, we were in Midwest Living a number of times, we were on the cover of Wisconsin
Trails when it was a really popular magazine and all those
bottom line. resulted in some sales. You saw some influence on the
There was the number one influence on our bottom line was
in Taste of Home which is, I'm when we had a one page article
sure most of you aren't familiar with it but it's a
published in Milwaukee. It's not particularly sophisticated. subscription-only magazine
I never in my wildest imagination would have predicted It's sort of home style.
that that was my market, and the response to that article was
phenomenal. So I've kind of learned when an opportunity approaches me at
like I used to in the past. I sold the bakery. Potter's Crackers I don't judge
Mostly I was ready for something new and my son Pete, that
ultimately became my Potter's Crackers partner, had graduated from high school, and I thought I was no longer tied to the
community with children in the
schools. It was my chance to do something
I anticipated it taking about two years to sell the business different.
because it would take a very special owner.
You were a worker owner.
And so I assumed I had to find a baker out there who really
do Swiss pastries, and manage a bakery as well as working there. wanted to live in a small town,
I thought that would be really hard to find.
I had an employee buy it, and I sold it in two months.
would be, and when it all happened so fast I actually didn't have a next step planned. years to plan what my next step
ended up ultimately going bankrupt. I think there's a lot of to be She did not do well and she
And I can tell you the two learned from that situation.
points that come to my mind immediately. She saw, she had worked there
for many years and she was very bright and she was very capable.
And I was really thrilled that she was going to buy the
business. The first thing she did after she got the business was hire her family.
Her brother and her mother and
for those jobs or not, they were her father immediately worked for the business. Whether they were appropriate
immediately on the payroll. And the second thing she did was immediately get involved in lots
of extra curricular activities. She took presidency of the
Chamber of Commerce three months after she purchased the
business. When you purchase an existing business, it's often that people
goodwill and built up a lot of leaving have built up a lot of
financial capital and they can afford to spend a lot of time in
they can afford extra labor, but extra curricular activities and
when you're coming in and you just purchased a business, you have a new mortgage on that
business that that owner going
out didn't have and you need to work hard. I think that's why it succeeded
when we did is we really put
blood, sweat and tears, all our efforts into it. I think she saw me and how I was
involved in the business after I
had built up 20 years of equity, whereas, it's different when
So immediately I think the labor you're first buying it.
cost that skyrocketed with her family and then the time she
And then she said I don't really didn't spend there.
care to work in the store. I prefer to be a back end person.
But the truth is people love to see the owner.
I never, even when my children were infants, missed working a
Saturday. If I couldn't be there all week,
I still was there on Saturday. That was when most of the locals
went in and they could see me.
I firmly believe that's made a difference on Potter's Crackers as well.
Being out there at the farmers
market and people meet me. And doing tastings and they meet
It's Potter's Crackers and I say me.
I'm Nancy Potter, they're really happy to meet you.
think, in your business. It makes a big difference, I
If I had some advice right off the bat on that bakery
I would know more about bookkeeping. experience I mentioned already,
I think you really actually need And I would, not just accounting.
to know the bookkeeping end of it. You need to start your books
right away. As soon as you start your business you should be starting your QuickBooks so that
everything's entered all along
the way and you're not going back and rebuilding, but in fact
And I also think that you need a it goes in there fresh.
partner. And by that I mean not
but it was different after, we necessarily a financial partner
were divorced and I bought my husband out and ran the business for five years and I felt by
myself. Now in Potter's Crackers I've had my son and I've also
own businesses, and I think that's important, that pool of developed mentors that own their
people that you can talk to. Whether it's a partner, actual
physical financial partner in the business, or if it's an advisory board that you build,
you go to advice, or if it's friends in business that
professionals, an accountant, an attorney that you feel really comfortable with.
You need a partner in your
that business and somebody to bureally talk to about it whoho knows you,understands.style and knows how much you care about
crackers. I thought I had a great plan. Although the business sold My second business was the
a little caught off guard, I faster than I expected and I was
anticipated working more or less for the rest of my life at
income. I had sold the business and that things more for fun rather than
And I had no debt. was going to be my retirement nest egg.
And I had children that no longer needed me for college, college funding was covered.
I thought, well, all I have to
This will be a great time for do is make me.ugh to live In fact, what happened was about my home, no mortgage.
business my little nest egg dropped by 45% in the big stock debacle we had a number of years 18 months after I sold the
And then it was no longer I'm going to just find something for ago.
fun and fulfillment, but I really wanted to generate some
income. And the crackers just came along
in a chance comment. I knew I wanted to open a food
business. I did go to work for someone and
It clearly was not a good fit for me. I It wasn't too long into thato years.
more to a board of directors as opposed to what I really wanted to do. experience I realized I answered
first year, my creativity and how I wanted to see that And I found over time, after the
My creativity was gone. I knew I couldn't do this for businessomebody else. grown didn't jive with the board.
myself and answering just to I was too used to doing it for
myself. So I knew I wanted to open a food business.
And my first love is candy. I love it.
nougat. If you've ever traveled in Italy Not so much chocolates. I really wanted to do like
could just picture these with toasted hazelnuts and cranberries and used some of our the beautiful logs of nougat, I
And I just thought the world local ingredients.
so seasonal, and I know a candy nebusiness, it's not even justy wanted to do this, but I also remembered in the bakery being
that the holidays they give it a lot for gifts but you also have
humidity issues so candy is never going to be the same in the summer in Wisconsin as it would be in the winter.
I knew it would be extremely
seasonal, and I knew the challenges of that. And I also wasn't sure I wanted
to sell candy.
I just thought no, I think I'd really rather do something
wasn't just fun but I could feel healthier, something I felt
a little better about than nougat. So at a Thanksgiving meal, my
family was all there and I just happened so say, my son kept
doing it and you're not doing it, and I said, well, if I saying, mom, you keep talking about this candy and you're not
wasn't going to do candy I think I'd do crackers.
And everybody just stared at me.
And I said, no, I'm serious. I love crackers.
I don't see any great ones out I eat a lot of them.
there. That's what I'd do. And then there was no more talk
about it. Everybody kind of thought I was nuts. And my son started
investigating.
He started trying crackers. He started looking around. He ordered a bunch of cheese
plates in restaurants.
for dessert here in Madison, and And finally one night he called me from a restaurant where he had just ordered a cheese plate
should do this. And so then he's relentless. fantastic cheeses and they came with cruddy crackers, you really
If you've ever met Pete he's like you should do, you should
do this, you've got to do this, and pretty soon it was we should
do this, we should do this and we did.
We went hunting for a space,
found one at the Madison Enterprise Center where you start out with just a cube.
And then being me and being the fiscal conservative that I am,
we hunted for used equipment and what equipment we would need.
We did write a business plan, and I have to say that I never
But if you apply for a space at a business incubator they wrote a brequire that.once with They have to see your business
plan and approve it before you
get your space. So we were forced to write a business plan which was really
an excellent exercise.
I love the process because it's Once a visioning process.ally enjoyed it. And I've rewritten it twice, and
It lets you think about new things you could do and directions you want to go. It lets you dream.
communication. And it also helps with
page. So the business plan idea for us commit it to writing, Peter and I then are both on the same
was great starting the crackers. We got our equipment together.
We did a minimal amount of
plumbing and electrical work and then boom we were out there with
We didn't want to invest a lot our first crackers.
most expensive pieces. of money, and typically publicity and marketing and public relations are one of your
We did it with farmers markets. I would really call it sweat equity public relations because
we did three farmers markets a
week that first two years. And we couldn't get into any big
market on the square we're still ones, and even the Dane County
on the waiting list after five years and I think it will be two
We were at east side. We were at north side. more.
We were at south side. The little ones that we could
get into. And that's a lot of hours.
That's a lot of commitment every week.
I think the minimum was four
hours. So you've got to figure we put
hours a week actually with in at least minimum 12 to 15
people interested in our crackers and tasting them.
customers made all the And I think meeting those
relationship. diI think overall we're reallyr business. We developed a personal
we've paid for one ad. well-known in Madison, and when you think that in five years
really know about this, and so I When we came out with a vegan cracker, our classic wheat is vegan, I thought people should
bought little green vegan stickers, and on every wheat package we were putting those
stickers on, and I thought this is just taking too much time. So I took an ad out in the Willy
anyway because Willy Street was always an early and great supporter of Potter's Crackers. We took an ad out there and said
happy cows have come to Wisconsin, we now have a vegan
cracker. That's the only ad that Potter's
Crackers has placed in five years.
We've put all of our energy into public relations.
We wanted to expand.
we decided that the Green City We thought we want to go beyond the Madison market. So we thought how to do that and
Market in Chicago would be a great venue.
idea. Pete would go down there Friday night, stay for 30 bucks That turned out to be a great
then be out there at 5:00 in the overnight at the Y downtown, and
morning setting up for Potter's Crackers at the Green City Market.
And we've gotten all our
We were just in the Wall Street contJournal.re. We've had wonderful publicist this last year.
We were just in Cooking Light. We were in Rachael Ray.
Bon Appétit just called for samples, and all of those were
people that connected with us at Green City Market in Chicago.
So obviously for us it was an extremely good investment.
But Pete was your age. He was a college student and he
was giving up every single
Friday night to sleep at the Y in Chicago. So we were willing to pay the
price, and it was a good thing
to do. The challenges I think at the crackers, it was really
interesting because coming from a production background in the
bakery, I told Pete right from the beginning production is
going to be our issue not sales.
I really think we need a cracker.
have any problem selling these I don't think we're going to
And I was right. crackers. The issue is going to be making them.
Production is also an issue. It just happens to be one of
handmade, and to go from those products that is very
handmade to a continuous feed operation that's a big factory is kind of your two places.
There's no middle ground. Where the next step up, where almost next step up would be a
of our crackers. belt and continuous manufacture
I think we'll get there someday. I used to fight that. Now more as I get used to my
recipes and my crackers, I think
now. I can do that without sacrificing quality, but that's a huge jump from where we are
So we're looking at how can we maximize where we're at now.
new hand tools, new ideas. I'm on a constant look out for
We expanded. The first two years we only had one space at Madison Enterprise
Center. A wall down the middle, came in the door and the storage and
on the other side was the cracker production. And two years ago we tore down office was on one side, and then
space production and moved the that wall and made that whole
shipping and packaging storage and office next door. Made a huge difference.
I knew layout made a big
We had almost 30% increase in productivity giving ourselves more space and getting that ilayout..
So that helped us to grow to the
next level and now we're doing it on every step. We go through every single step,
how can we make this faster?
How can we make this more efficient? This year I invested in a
twist tie machine so we're
no longer twisting all those bags of crackers by hand. I'm always looking for the next
thing, and the challenge I face is how do I maximize my productivity? That will always be with me.
And not compromise any quality. We're organically certified.
That was really important to me. I had a close friend from
college and her father died of
what they termed at Mayo Clinic farmer's lung. And they said basically it's
from atrazine on your fields all
those years. And he was a farmer who I really
He loved what he did and was admired.
totally devoted to it and was an excellent steward of the land.
farm, and I really feel bad that Loved his home, his cows, his
doing the best. atHe thought that this is whaty did he die from what he did but he all along thought he was
things you should be doing. And he died from atrazine. people were telling him to have a productive herd, these are the
like to be certified organic and So I thought if I ever do another food business I would
know that my farmers weren't exposed to anything like that.
all organic ingredients, but I So we began immediately using
didn't get certification right away. The word on the street was that
it was a really difficult process and really hard, so I thought I'll just make these out
Well, I was called on the carpet of organic ingredients.
by that. It took about a year and a half before the state notified me
that you can't do this. And in fact, the law is you can't say organic on your front label, organic product, without
being certified.
You can only not have organic on the label, you could say made with organic ingredients in the
ingredients list. So I was illegal and we had to
quickly, I realized, get that in shape.
And it was a challenge to go
through but it was a good process. I should have done it right at
the beginning, and I guess I do have pretty strong feelings that
ultimately it's not that expensive, and I see young
entrepreneurs using organic ingredients and not wanting to
go through the effort and cost of certification, and I just
think that's an important selling point and that if you're
going to use organic ingredients and that's important to you, you
should definitely go the next step and be certified.
I guess the other challenge that is in our business, and I would
put this under advice, I think, as well, is that you need to
look at, if you're selling a product, okay if your business
is selling a product, you need
to make the decision ahead of time how you're going to distribute that product.
For instance, I had a friend who
really wanted to own her own business and she sewed Teddy
the weekend. bears and went to craft fairs on
And she wanted to somehow turn this into a business, and she saved all her craft money and
when she had a certain amount of
money in the bank she quit her job, her full-time job and
And she said basically she started a business with gifts.
looked at gifts, well you can either go to shows and sell them wholesale to stores or she could
have a store that had all her gifts in it, and she just knew
said, well, I'm going to have to she wouldn't want to be committed to a store so she
go to gift shows and sell my product there.
expect and what am I going to have to produce my product for What kind of markup do they
sell it at this price. to sell it at this price at the show and then the retailer can
Well, food, it's even more complicated than that.
I never really thought about I came from a retail bakery.
distribution because people were walking in my door. If you're going to develop a
food product, you have to have a
distribution system. I don't have a store. And it didn't occur to me that
you can't just say well, I think
they could sell this at Willy Street Co-Op for this. I've looked at all my
competition and this is a fair
price for my crackers, so I'll produce it for this price and they sell it for this price,
I've got it made. That was really as far as it
I didn't realize that you need went for me in my head when I was first doing this.
to work in distributors. And you needed a whole other cut
And then I also didn't realize in there.
They're handmade. They're certified organic. instance, our crackers are an artisan product.
They're whole grain. They don't do well on the
cracker shelf.
Most places don't put them on the cracker shelf. They put them in the specialty
cheese department where they
sell three to one from a cracker aisle to specialty cheese.
also have a much higher margin But specialty cheese departments
being grocery item to specialty cheese item made a huge, huge difference on my bottom line. SSo it's a challenge I face nowm
and my advice to anybody who
wants to be selling something, particularly something you
your distribution system ahead manufacture, you need to look at
of time and work back on how many cuts you're going to have
expect in all those areas. to have and what margins people
I think that's probably a pretty thorough window of my bakery
experience. As you can see, I'm a financial conservative so both businesses expwe grew organically.ers
We self-financed all our
expansion. We took no loans. And I'm still that way.
So I know a lot of start-ups
today aren't like that. They look for investors, they do it differently.
So I realize this is only one model, but I have to say I'm
I like this low control growth really glad I've done it this way.
and it just being organic and self-financed. I wanted to tell you a little
bit about my kids' businesses just because, again, it's one more window into
more your age. entrepreneurship and they're
I thought you would really relate. Pete did the crackers with me
while he was an undergrad here
because he knew he wanted to own in Madison and then he went on, actually, to right here get a degree in systems management
some sort of food business and he needed to know the systems end of it as well as the food
end of it.
And then he wanted to know the business end of it and loved
UC Davis, and got his MBA. school, so he went out to Davis,
And he just finished this last spring. So I lost my partner,
physically. For him being there, helping me with all those farmers markets. But even when he left
California, we talk frequently
on the phone and we discuss everything, but he loves California has a significant
other there and said he was committed to staying there at least another year. And during his business school
he was supposed to serve an internship between the two
years, and instead of serving an internship he opened up a
business with another partner because they knew they wanted to
worthwhile experience. be entrepreneurs and they thought it would be a really
And he did gourmet jalapeno poppers, and they actually did really well.
They have a line of five. They got them in at all the Whole Foods and a lot of
But when he graduated from northern California stores.
school he didn't want to leave there because of his significant
to the partner and he's running the poppers, and he decided to other, and he sold that business
want to capitalize on the local that has been really important open up a Potter's Crackers California mostly because we
with Potter's. We're trying, we've always
gotten all our flour here in
Wisconsin, all our butter, all our milk and cracked wheat, so
of your ingredients in crackers, that right there covers like 90%
but more and more we're trying to get as much as possible, like
California. We're trying really hard to go garlic can be easier to get in
local. We want to do as much local as
possible, and we see a real appreciation for that in our
There is strong interest in Potter's Crackers, but they did not want a Potter's Crackers California even more so.
They wanted an artisan cracker from Wisconsin.
that was made there with their ingredients.
phone and says, oh, gosh I was So he now calls me up on the
just at the Olive farmer, mom, I picked up Kalamata olives for seconds.
This is the best cracker in the world.
He's got a lot more to work with Too bad you can't make Kalamata olive crackers in Wisconsin.
than I do. He's doing an orange graham.
graham. He's using local ingredients He's doing an orange coconut
there and is really excited. He just got in to Whole Foods
northern California region, and he just got in to one of the
really large supermarket chains. And so he's growing that.
He started really small.
And he bought the equipment and he and a friend started baking and he is doing the baking three
days a week and then Jeremy is
staying there baking while Pete goes and calls on customers. And he's finding out what it's
like to do both.
And it's been a great experience for him.
he'd like to do another one somewhere. He's excited to grow it big, and
My daughter's business is really The local thing is a really great thing to work with.
interesting because she and her husband graduated from Minneapolis College of Art and
Design or MCAD, I can't think of
their own business and didn't know what they were going to do. So two art degrees. And they really wanted to own
So they worked in a hardware store for a while because they
knew materials. They both graduated in furniture
design, and they know how to manipulate all sorts of
materials.
They were working in a hardware store and she did some decorating and realized she
couldn't get some of the
products that she was used to in the bakery when she grew up there.
So she took $50 and she bought
some items and put them on Etsy. And now, three years later, it's
them. She has a website, completely supporting both of
layercakeshop.com, and sells things that amaze me.
I think, how could there be this
giant market for sprinkles and cupcake papers? It boggles my mind but she's got
a good eye. She's very artistic.
She does all her own photography so her expenses are low.
Josh, her husband, can do a lot of the website things.
bought a home here in Oregon and And for them it was a $50 investment that now they've
support their family on. And I think it's fascinating
little. And then Josh actually has done the same thing. He calls himself an importer.
He has found products in China
and brought them in direct. He's been selling a camp stove is his latest.
And his first order he ordered
10 camp stoves, and now he orders about 500 a month and
And that is his complete, the way he supports himself. sells them on Amazon.
So they've done really different things, and it amazes me that
they've done it with little investment but their own
ingenuity. And it's fun to watch, fun to
watch the growth. I guess that is about all I have. And we have time for some
questions.
>> We definitely do have time for questions. Nancy, it's a fabulous story and
there are themes of fearlessness
conservative because I think in there as well as risk, and I appreciate your self-describing yourself as a fiscal
that that's not something we've necessarily heard from some of our other guests, and I think
it's an important part of your
success. I look out to the students and
have questions. And I see one at the very end. look for their hands up as they
Oh, you've got one here. I will come down to you in a
second, Sarah.
>> My name is Cora. First, kind of maybe a silly question, but what's a stollen?
It's a Christmas bread with marzipan in it, and ours were particularly good because it was
it didn't have citron in it which some of the others do, but with Myers' rum and raisins and
it's with candied fruit, marzipan and nuts.
Thank you.
My actual real question is you talked about distribution in
farmers markets but you said one grocery stores and at the
of the ideas was sparked from your son being in a restaurant and realizing that the crackers
weren't the best with the cheese, have you guys done any
distribution through restaurants?
We have, we have, thank you.
with a distributor. WElegant Foods here in Madisons takes our crackers by the pound, from us direct, and we do work
pound to different restaurants. >> I was running across and I don't think that you answered and thenthis question.m by the
It does also have to do with
distribution. How do you get into Whole Foods? This is an area I'm just not
familiar with.
You mentioned that you did and that your son did, and I don't
Foods so much as organizations mean it specifically to Whole
like that. You make the call?
person? >> You know, it's interesting because you hear stories about You work through a middle
to the regional guys and those Whole Foods that you have to get
but our experience has been is are the people that you need to win over. Well, ultimately that's true,
if you get advocates in the local stores in the cheese department that want to bring in
your product and they're the
So most of our marketing has ones taking it to the their regional offices, it's the most successful.
been person to person. >> Hi, my name is Natalie.
How many employees do you run through your business, and then also what are kind of your plans Kind of a couple of questions.
incubator and having your own business out in an own building outside of that for your to possibly be leaving the
The first part, employees, Potter's Crackers?
making the crackers is a three-person process. We have a baker making the
dough, and then somebody sheets the dough and puts it over on the pans, and a third baker cuts
bins them after they're out of them and bakes them and then
Monday through Friday, and then my packaging is done by So we havestudents.kers and a pThat's economical but alsok
packaging is a rote activity
which is not too exciting. I can't imagine someone who could come in for eight hours
and package.
So coming in fresh and just working four to six after school is great for them and it's great
for me. And another issue in that regard
Our tags are put on, we use an is we were cutting string and stringing our tags.
organic hemp string and we tie the tag on to the bag.
string. I would usually cut it at home And we, for years, cut all that
and string tags every free moment, and this year we farmed
that out to a sheltered workshop, and the relationship
And in the past I'd actually has worked beautifully. It's a rote activity.
approached a number of sheltered workshops, and they would give
high, and I said, well, I can get an able-bodied high school me a quote that was just way too
student and it really costs me this.
It really came down to about two
10 cents a tag. And we had somebody approach us and I explained that, and she said let's do a time study, and
they did a time study and the state approved it and said yes, three cents a tag is a really reasonable amount to charge for
this, and so we have that all outsourced which has been a real
catch the second part of your question. >> I think it had to do with And then, I'm sorry, I couldn't
leave the incubator? whether or not you have plans to
>> Me leave the incubator? >> Yeah, or the organization. >> Well, I'm in an incubator.
Okay. Maybe you can describe what that
Business incubators are, at least the ones I'm familiar with, are incorporated as a nonprofit, and they are there to
encourage business growth in
their area. Commonwealth Development here in Madison has two incubators
buildings.
One on Main Street and one on Baldwin. I'm on the Baldwin facility.
And essentially it's a building that is a suite of rooms. They're square cubicles that
at a reduced rate. businesses can come in and rent
incubate. And then you're only there three every year, and then it's supposed to be where you
to four years and you go off then and get market space.
We had to invest quite a bit of money in infrastructure, the
spend quite a bit this last year plumbing and the electrical, to begin with, and then we had to
in ventilation and so our stay has been extended.
we're applying for status as a We can stay indefinitely and
cornerstone tenant, but we can stay longer because of the
It's interesting because all investment we had to make.
very popular concept and a great these business incubators, we have two here in Madison, but there's a number around, it's a
one, but most of them were developed for office space. Well, what they realized is some
of the office spaces, number
one, there hasn't been as much demand as they had hoped and, number two, they don't always
employee a lot of people. And a lot of these business incubators, particularly for
is the business would employee Commonwealth, one of their goals
we're there and want us to stay because all our employees come, we don't have a single employee, So they're really happy that
They all walk or bike to work and are from the neighborhood. actually, that drives.
really growing. So our building is trying to And there's the demand for food spaces and food manufacturing is
space into what could be work with us on the ventilation and things to turn more office
appropriate for a food manufacturer. >> Hi, Nancy, I'm Becca.
I was wondering how you went
organically certified when you about finding local suppliers and if there was any issue at first because you weren't
were looking for suppliers? >> Well, I've had challenges looking for suppliers.
Some things are really easy and other things aren't.
online of farmers markets in the Locally, I don't think it's too hard because there's lists
area that we participated in and we met people there, and there's
at farmers markets that you aren't at where you can find also listings of people who are
complicated then when you want local farms and local contacts. It gets a little more
to go to a next level like flour.
we're actually working with them We do have a local flour and
now and I think we'll use their cracked wheat but flour has to be spec'd out.
It has to be consistent year-round, and wheat, you have to blend the wheat to get the consistency.
So we have to go to somebody
We wish we could get that a little more local, but so far we find a mill here in Wisconsin that has that capability.
local wheat, the mill in haven't been able to do all local wheat, just partially
Fountain City, Wisconsin blends. But other ingredients that's
available locally, there aren't that many organically certified distributors and they both been really hard that aren't
here in Madison and they both require minimums, and we have no require, there's two main ones
two minimums. For that very reason we buy as problem meeting the one minimum but a lot of problems meeting
as possible. much local as possible and as little from a large distributor
So to meet two minimums we can't, and it's really hard to
no flowing agents in it, find, we have to get salt with
and I have often had to go and actually buy my salt
And just recently Elegant Foods agreed to carry my salt. at a retail price.
ingredients can be hard to But as a little organic producer, some of those
the bakery in New Glarus, the owner right away hired her >> Hi, my name is Hannah. You mentioned that when you sold
family, and I was just wondering how you made that work with your
son because obviously it was
successful for you. >> Yeah, I just realized you even mentioned that in the
intro, and I didn't say much
about that. I think that it's probably unfair to use a mother/son combo
as the working with family. I think it would be different if
it was siblings. I think my son, there were times
that he, he has a different attitude. He wants to really get out there
And I was let's slow down, let's and he's like go, go, go.
slow down. And I think as his mom he felt
much. I could tell there were times he like he could only yell at me so
this is my mom, I can't do that. just really wanted to say something and he curbed himself,
So I think for Pete it was much harder than for me because you'll never get away from that
mother/son dynamic there. But I love working with my
family and I think that all of us are in business for ourselves
and so we share that and really have a deep appreciation for
being in business for yourself and end up having a lot of the
same issues and the same
now that he's doing it himself. Here he was a student, I was It's a much better relationship in terms of working with Peter
the day to day person. He was kind of coming in with a
lot of advice.
He'd have the ideas and I'm the one that had to carry them through.
And so now that he's actually doing it himself, I think he's
much more understanding of where I was coming from.
I think what's more critical
than working with a family member is the two people's good communication and not feeling
like, how do I describe this? My son and daughter-in-law
before they opened their own businesses were in a partnership
relationship with a family
friend and it did not work at all. It was really poor.
And I think it's because they did not feel like they were equals, and they didn't speak up
should have. and ask the questions that they
grew up in a family business. So I guess I'm painting a pretty you are able to do that more. I really loved, and then my kids
good picture of it now for us. I also would say that it was the
business that contributed a lot to my divorce, ultimately,
had good balance. So that's something you always because I think we worked all the time, and I don't think we
students join me in thanking you have to keep in mind too. >> Well, Nancy, I know the
very much for joining us today and sharing your entrepreneurial
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