Solving Your Own Problem
Happy President’s Day! I hope the weekend is treating you well.
I love entrepreneurship – it makes the world go around.
I started my first company when I was 25. The company didn’t work out and folded within a couple of years. But I had been bitten by the bug. I joined another startup and went on to become CEO of an education company that was acquired. I turned around and founded an entrepreneurship organization, Venture for America, that I ran for 6 years. My love of entrepreneurs runs deep.
Last year I met an enterprising young man, Nick Naclerio, at a dinner in New York hosted by a friend. I asked him what he did.
He said, “I’m the founder of a healthy cookie company.”
“Do you have any on you?”
“Of course,” he responded and took out a couple of samples of Mmmly cookies. I tried them and was blown away.
It turns out that Nick was a former chef who had had a weight problem when he was young. “I was around food all through my childhood and had a complex relationship with it.” I interviewed Nick about his journey on the podcast this week. It might have also have been that he was working through his sexual orientation. “I came out to my family as gay when I graduated from high school, and they said, ‘we kind of knew.’”
Nick went to culinary school and became a pastry chef. While working, he became obsessed with trying to create a cookie that was both healthy and tasted great. “It had to be something that people enjoy to get that full cookie experience.” After a year of experimenting in his apartment, he finally came up with recipes that both he and other people loved. “It’s delicious and healthy; we use apple juice as a sweetener that also keeps the cookie moist.”
It’s a very big leap to go from recipe to company. “I went to my friends and family and managed to raise some money from my aunt and parents and others. It wasn’t easy. People invested out of love. I’ve been out trying to sell these cookies for the last two years, literally going door-to-door in some cases. We worked on packaging and honed our recipes and product lines. We’re now at about 1 million cookies sold, and are in Whole Foods, Sprouts and other retailers.”
I loved Nick, his product and his story. He had already done the hardest parts: come up with a set of cookies that people loved and then gotten distribution in retailers, who are generally very finicky. But his passion was clear; the best entrepreneurs are energized about the problem they’re solving because it affected them. That’s Nick.
Mmmly is now raising money for growth and has decided to crowdfund to open it up to its fans. “We have about $2 million in orders and need to be able to produce cookies and put them in retailers. This is a multibillion dollar market and we are just scratching the surface.” You can become a stakeholder in Mmmly for as little as $100 right now.
I consider myself an entrepreneur working on improving policy via Forward and Humanity Forward, but in the meantime I eat a lot of cookies.
“We can make millions of people happier and healthier with Mmmly,” says Nick. “if that’s not a great reason to get up and work every day, what is?” If enough people solve their own problems like Nick, the world would be a much better place.
To hear my interview with Nick Naclerio of Mmmly click here. To try his cookies click here and to become a backer/shareholder of Nick’s company for as little as $100 click here. For an entrepreneur running for President check out dean24.com.
