- From the outside it looks beautiful,
Ben & Jerry's, Stonyfield, they look like these,
ah yeah you have the cows, the farms, the people,
and you get, nah it's all
constant, constant challenges and problem-solving
and when you solve these 10 problems
10 more are just lurking there to bite you back.
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- Flew into LA yesterday, and I'm here at Expo West
to meet with Gary one on one
and get his advice about Wheyward Spirit.
The expo hasn't even started yet.
Gary's about to walk through the door.
I'm super excited and a little nervous.
- Hello.
- Hi Gary, good to see you!
- Nice to see you. - Yeah!
- Well, people will ask me well,
how did I choose you as a mentee?
And, you know, the answer's in the glass right here.
This is fabulous, really fabulous.
- Thank you. - [Gary] Really wonderful.
- The first time I met Gary he was giving a speech
at a conference I was at for MBAs.
- She was standing there holding her bottle,
and she was not going away.
- And I went up to him with my bottle of Wheyward Spirit,
just hoping to get his feedback.
- Just in the courage she had to come up to me
and for her to foist her bottle and her presence,
I know she's going to be successful.
She's got a real backbone.
- For at least the cheese producer,
for every 10 pounds of milk they bring in,
nine pounds of it is left as whey, one pound is cheese.
- Wow, my god, that's 90%.
People need to understand that.
We've got to find a way to communicate that.
So tell me the latest then, tell me where you are
and what you've been doing the last couple weeks.
- Well I have a lot lined out.
I have a lot of options, done a lot of research.
And I'm just not quite sure which trigger to pull first,
because that's going to impact the rest of my decisions.
- Emily has a tendency to want it to be just perfect, right?
She's a really thoughtful scientist.
Yeah, the answer is don't seek perfection.
You know, there's a lot of value in good analysis
but there's even more value in action, taking real actions.
You do the best you can, you get your advisors,
you call me, you turn to people you know, but then acting.
'Cause with the action will come more learnings,
and with more learnings there'll come more opportunities.
The business plan that you go in with,
it's going to get changed.
And just knowing that it's going to change,
knowing that you're wandering in the unknown,
and that's what this is all about.
And I know you're up to it. - That's great advice.
- So what do you think, in your own mind,
what do you think is that number-one thing
you've got to really do right now?
- To me that's transportation.
- Well, you make my heart (thumps chest)
very happy to hear that. (Emily laughs)
And you're unbelievably correct.
I mean I'm so thrilled that you're
taking transportation seriously
because it's the thing that people forget about.
You know, they'll think about the plant,
they'll think about the market,
but they forget that all this stuff has to move around.
This is liquid, so it's super heavy, right?
Eight, nine pounds a gallon.
In the early days of Stonyfield Farm,
transportation costs really caught us by surprise.
One of the great things about being a mentor
as I remind entrepreneurs,
they don't have to make my mistakes.
When it comes to transportation,
I don't want her to make the same mistakes.
She can skip that learning curve, I can help her with that.
- What part of that transportation network
should I lock down first?
- We've got to nail down that distillery, very simply.
That's your hub, right?
It's got to have enough proximity
to the end market, to the warehouse,
because you're moving these heavy bottles of glass
and that's not where you want your dollars to go,
you want it to go to the consumer or to the product, right?
But also it's got to be a good proximity
to the supply, to the whey.
And it also has to be like a super producer,
and without that we're nowhere, right?
So we've got to nail down that one distillery,
and I would even pull out a map
and just literally look at distances.
Because distances is miles, miles is money.
- You expect the first thing he's going to focus on
is the dairy, but really I think he's absolutely right
to focus on the production thing,
because everything else can fall in place
and I can really nail down that transportation
to be successful.
I have one in mind. - Oh good.
- I think it can work; I think I need to make a phone call.
- She's got the fortitude.
She's going to put one foot in front of the other.
Yeah I think she's got what it takes.
- When times were tough what kept you going?
- Well it's very simple, it's all about determination.
I think it's actually the most important attribute
that people don't really focus on.
They talk about your smarts or your degree or your knowhow,
but your guts, that ability, when it's dark,
when it's cold, when things aren't working out,
when the cash is tight, when your heart is in your throat,
it's the ability to stay with it; that's what it is.
- I think the biggest thing that came from this meeting
is just encouragement and validation that I can do this.
Thank you so much!
Like, I can't wait to walk the floor with you
and to continue down the journey, for sure.
- Yeah, here here, but let's get that distillery my dear.
- [Emily] I'm on it.
- Okay, all right, good luck.
- First thing when I do when I go back home
is make those calls and find that production location,
and try to lock that down, and take Gary's advice
that every day is an iteration, but you gotta get moving.
I think as an entrepreneur you have to
keep your hopes in check.
If this distillery doesn't work out,
I need to go back to the map and start planning again.
It would definitely be somewhat of a step back,
because I'd have to rethink my entire supply chain.
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