The Lazy Way to Success

The Ice Cream Story: The Dark Side

Installment #9

I’ve have had more than my share of dramatic business ups and downs. I’ve had breathtaking successes. I’ve had violent train wrecks. I danced euphorically with friends one day and I’ve experienced vicious betrayals the next.

Everyone has something extraordinary to offer and, at the same time, everyone is seriously flawed. Even me. Especially me.

I have noticed that one’s strongest asset can also be one’s greatest liability. For example, someone who is intellectually brilliant beyond measure, who comprehends quickly, and who is therefore able to make rapid-fire decisions, is a wonderful asset to a business. However, the downside of quick decision-making is when the decisions are wrong. When bad decisions are made quickly one after another, they can just as quickly sink a business.

I believe my greatest asset is my innocence. I’m a fairly guileless dude. As a result, I am a terrible liar and actor. I am basically incapable of cheating someone. I have to deliver value. I believe that it is this character trait that has attracted enormous good luck, people, and resources to me. That’s the good news.

But like I said, assets are double-edged swords. The downside of innocence is that I am easily taken advantage of. Those who don’t appreciate what I bring to the table can easily dismiss me as a lightweight or unsophisticated or unnecessary.

In the early days of my enterprises, I attracted good friends to join me. I wanted to have fun and share the joy and the gains. Those early days were wonderful, filled with laughter and creativity and high spirits. I could not wait to get there in the morning. I never ever regarded it as work and I never ever wanted anyone else to experience it as work either. It was all to be fun.

For the record, I never required anyone to stay late. Ever. I don’t like to be bossed so I didn’t boss others. I did unto others as I would have others do unto me. The collective energy that was created was mutually supportive, relaxed, loving, and free. As a result the businesses grew.

Here’s a downside to growth which I have experienced in both my fast-growing businesses: As the stakes increase, people (some of whom were my dear friends) get increasingly grabby for money and power and ego-enhancements. (I won’t go into sordid details.)

I remember leaving for a three-week vacation to India. When I left, the ice cream business operated as a harmonious wholeness. It was highly creative and fun. Of course, we had our disagreements, but they were never strong enough to disrupt the underlying harmony and friendship.

When I returned from my trip, refreshed and recharged, I was taken aside and told that while I was away, many important changes were made. Decisions, I was told, were now being made more quickly with less discussion and undisciplined input. The sounded okay until I was told that while I was away, they cut the funding for two of my pet projects without even asking me.

Cubicle walls then started to go up around desks. The reason given was that the past chaotic nature of the business disallowed focused attention. That sounded reasonable at the time but what it actually did was physically divide the collective spirit.

The food business is a tough, ruthless business. Supermarket chains in the major cities are corrupt. I don’t know if the practice still exists, but back in the 80’s, there was a kind of institutionalized bribery called slotting allowances. That meant that the food producer had to PAY the supermarket to get their products put on a supermarket’s shelves.

This is how a slotting allowance was computed. The number of flavors was multiplied by the number of stores in the chain and that was multiplied by the slotting allowance. It added up to be a HUGE number. And even if we were able to pay such a bribe, if the product didn’t sell within a month or so, we’d be thrown out.

We refused to pay slotting allowances. That doomed us to the smaller independent stores. And because we did not have a large promotional budget, I had to try to stimulate consumer demand through publicity.

I’d travel to various cities, meet with the press, and gave everything I had in each interview. Three or four interviews per day for several days in a row really took it out of me. I’d come home quite tired. Added to that, I’d have been out of the loop and ignorant of all the quick decisions that were being made by the guys who were organizing the distribution.

Most of our ice cream distributors did miserable jobs. One even cheated us for over a hundred thousand dollars. Yet I was the one receiving more and more criticism and resentment from my so-called friends in the office. I overheard one spouse complain, “My husband does all the work but Fred gets all the credit.”

What used to be a place I could not wait to come to in the morning turned into a place I dreaded. Each morning I’d go with an awful feeling in my stomach.

It was finally concluded (without my input, of course) that the business could not survive trying to create its own brand. Instead it should private label other people’s ice cream. And since PR was no longer needed with such a strategy, I was no longer needed. A monthly buy-out plan for my stock was arranged and I agreed to step down. My colleagues praised me up and down for this decision.

Now keep in mind, over the previous year, I had made some major life decisions based on a salary that I thought would never go away. I married. We decided to have a baby. We bought a house. And we borrowed money to buy furniture.

Yet the salary went away. The monthly stock buy-out was supposed to keep our noses above water until I got whatever was next in my life up and running.

However, right around the time my son was born, I was called back to the office and told that the business was no longer going to buy back my stock. The same guy who structured the stock buy-back deal and who praised me effusively for selflessly stepping down, had now researched the law to find reasons why buying back my stock was no longer possible. (A note on this guy: He at one time was a dear friend who desperately wanted to move to my town but could only do so because I gave him a job in the ice cream company.)

I went from following Nancy Reagan through the buffet line to standing on the unemployment line. I had no money, no income, no assets, and having signed a non-compete clause with the most recent investors that said that if I left the business for any reason, I could not compete in the ice cream industry.

During this time, I met and had lunch with John Mackey, the founder and CEO of Whole Foods, an enormous health food store chain. He knew about me and my ice cream. He asked if I could develop a special health food brand that he could sell in his chain of stores. I said I could.

I went to my old ice cream factory and told the new president that I had a private label account for them. It did not compete with any of their other business; it only opened up a new, potentially huge, market for them. I would  need to come in for only ONE day to use the small R&D freezer. The distribution was already in place. They would manufacture the product. All I wanted was a small royalty (like one nickel) on each pint sold. To me it seemed like a major win-win for them as well as me.

I was told no. Flat no.

Basically, just to satisfy my own curiosity, I borrowed an inefficient household ice cream freezer and did the experiment in my kitchen with non-commercial grade ingredients. Even still, the health food ice cream that I created was drop-to-your-knees fantastic.

All that took place seventeen years ago. While it may appear that I am bitter, I am not. I’m only trying to tell a good story. I’ve forgiven those guys long ago (although I haven’t forgotten). I am cordial to them (but I don’t invite them to our family celebrations). And rest assured, I certainly won’t do business with them again.

My next business turned out to be over 100 times larger than Great Midwestern Ice Cream and gave to me innumerable priceless (and pricey) gifts. Getting shoved out of the ice cream business was a great blessing. But I am certain the shovers didn’t have that in their long range vision when they pushed me from the plane without a parachute.

P.S. When the three guys in charge of Great Midwestern cut me off financially, claiming they could not afford to pay me any more, they sold the store in Iowa City (the one that I built with my own hands) for $250,000. They then gave themselves 50% pay raises and did not pay down the bank loan (the one that I had personally guaranteed). I had to pay off that loan years later, even though I never received one penny from the sale of that store and got screwed in a rights offering that reduced my stock ownership from 40% to between 1% and 2%.

The moral of the story: If you are going to be an entrepreneur, make sure you develop equanimity in pleasure and pain, victory and defeat. 

www.lazyway.net

The Ice Cream Story: An Invitation to the White House

Installment #8

After the initial flurry of press attention, I took each article or TV spot and showed them to other media to get more interviews and onto more shows. The more press I accumulated the easier it became to get other media interested. It just kept building on itself. TV crews and press photographers became such common occurrences at Great Midwestern that regular customers stopped being curious about the lights and cameras and simply ignored the activity to focus exclusively on their organoleptic indulgences.

It got to the point where Newsweek, Forbes, Fortune, et al were doing stories.

Besides being able to leverage the press to get more press, I used the notoriety to negotiate the financing for a factory that could supply both supermarkets and franchise stores.

One day the receptionist at my ice cream factory ran up to me all a-twitter and said breathlessly, “Fred, the White House is on line 6.”

The person on the other end was Nancy Reagan’s social secretary, who told me that Nancy herself had tasted my ice cream and wanted to serve it at White House functions. The first date was to be the President’s Annual Picnic for all the members of Congress which was to be held on the south lawn of the White House. I was also invited to attend. (Basically, the ice cream was invited and I was told I could tag along.)

I had only been married for three months and here I was telling my new wife that we had just been invited to the White House. I really impressed her. (It has since been an extremely difficult act to follow.)

When we arrived, we got thoroughly sniffed by guard dogs and frisked by the Secret Service. Once inside the gates, we befriended a Coast Guard, one of the ceremonial servicemen whose sole job was to represent his branch of the military and hang out at the White House. (There were also representatives from the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines.) I told the Coast Guard that we wanted to meet the President. He showed us where to stand so that the President and Mrs. Reagan would walk right into us.

There is a phenomenon called darshan, which is a Sanskrit word that means the immediate spiritual upliftment or blessing one receives upon seeing a great saint. In my past I have been in many gatherings that waited for such a personage. When the enlightened person would enter the room, even though you could not see him at first, you can feel a shock wave of excitement sweep across the crowd. Of course, this always culminated with the wonderful feeling of a darshan when you finally did see him.

I bring this up because when President Reagan emerged from the White House, even though I could not yet see him, I felt that same shock wave of excitement sweep across the crowd. Having associated the shock wave with darshan I immediately thought, “Wow, I’m going to get a darshan from President Reagan!”

Alas, when I finally saw the President, there was no darshan. Far from it. In fact, I was stunned to see that Ronald Reagan was really just a very, very old man. And Nancy Reagan was skinnnnnnnneeeeee. I had only seen them on television. But it was immediately obvious that television did them both a great deal of favors. Television easily subtracted 15 years from Reagan’s face and added 20-30 pounds to Nancy. Nancy Reagan’s face has intensely cosmetic-ized. Her skin, devoid of any fat molecules, was stretched tight across her bones and her hair was stiff like coiffed steel wool. She wore an impeccably tailored leather jacket that accentuated her skeletal thinness.

I was standing with Mitch, our local ice cream distributor. (The White House let me invite some “helpers” to serve the ice cream at the picnic and I wanted to give our local distributor the joy of a White House invitation.) That evening happened to be Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and as the President approached, Mitch handed a letter that his six-year old daughter had written to the President. It read, “Dear Mr. President, Happy New Year, I love you. Signed Jessie.”

Reagan was visibly moved. Tears welled in his eyes. Then with his shaky hand he reached into his breast pocket and produced a gaudy, lumpy, gold-plated, jewel-encrusted pen. His hands shook as he offered it to Mitch to write down his address so that the President could send Mitch’s daughter a letter.

I was introduced to the President as the supplier of the ice cream for the event and how it had achieved rave reviews. He said, perfectly imitating President Reagan's accent and mannerisms, “Ahhh, I’m a dessert lover from way back.”

A herd of press people, many wearing scruffy jeans to this elegant event, were roped off some distance from the crowd. They shouted political questions to the President who in turn shouted back some evasive banter.

We then proceeded to the buffet line. The President went first, followed by Mrs. Reagan, followed by me. (Hey, I was hungry! Give me a break.) We each picked up an enormous dinner plate. On her enormous plate, Nancy Reagan served herself three baked beans. Not three spoonfuls, mind you, but three, count ‘em, three baked beans.

Tomorrow, I will discuss the “Dark Side” of my ice cream story and how I got fired from the company I founded.

www.lazyway.net

Internet Radio Interview

I will be a guest on Conscious Talk, a radio show that streams live over the Internet, on Thursday, April 28 between 7:00 am and 7:30 am Pacific time. I would like to cordially invite all my blog readers to tune in. And, of course, I'd like to hear your feedback.

The Ice Cream Story: Fame Comes Knocking

Installment #7

Let’s fast forward to early spring 1984. People Magazine, having decided to find the best ice cream in America, alerted all its writers who were scattered throughout the country to find the best ice cream in their regions. The regional winners would then be sent to the Time-Life Building in New York City where a panel of celebrity judges and food critics would choose the best. 

All this sounds marvelous except for two tiny oversights: 1. there were no writers for People Magazine in Iowa which meant People Magazine did not know that Great Midwestern Ice Cream existed and 2. I didn’t know about this competition. Basically, Great Midwestern was falling through the cracks.

Fortunately, a writer for People living in Kansas City took her job quite seriously. Wanting to do a thorough job, she called the library in Columbia, the home of the University of Missouri. She explained People’s national ice cream competition and asked if there were any good ice creams in Columbia she should consider. The librarian turned out to be a recent graduate from the School of Library Science of the University of Iowa. He said that there were no ice creams in Columbia worth much of anything but he did say that since she was doing a story on fabulous ice cream, she should not overlook Great Midwestern in Iowa City.

The reporter called me up. But she did not identify herself or say where she was from or explain why she was calling or describe the People Magazine competition or anything. She simply asked, “How far do you distribute your ice cream?”

I said, “Gee, sometimes someone buys an ice cream cone and walks around the block.”

She then described her purpose for calling and explained People’s national ice cream competition. Then she said, “But I don’t know if I can include you.”

I was shocked. I said, “Well, if you guys are having a competition to find the best ice cream in America and you don’t include us, then your competiton will only find the second best ice cream in America. You will have overlooked the first.”

She then explained that Iowa may be out of her jurisdiction and that she’d ask her editor if it would be okay for me to send some ice cream to her in Kansas City. Of course, the editor approved so I put the ice cream in a Styrofoam box, packed it with dry ice and sent it via Federal Express. Needless to say, my ice cream easily defeated the other Kansas City entries.

I then was asked to ship it to New York City where the 30 regional winners would be judged. My ice cream came in first there too. People declared that Great Midwestern was “the best ice cream in America.” 

The day that issue was released, the world’s hungry showed up at my door desperate to be slaked with my ice cream. The press came in hordes  Celebrities passing through Iowa City sought out my store. So did politicians. It was crazy.

I was frequently asked by the press why my ice cream was so good. I explained that besides being extremely rich, my ice cream did not contain egg yolks like all the other super-premium ice creams. Putting eggs yolks in ice cream is considered French-style, as in French vanilla. I’d explain that I always objected to the sulfury taste of egg yolks in ice cream. To me it overshadowed the delicate flavors of vanilla and various fruits. Because I did not use egg yolks, my ice cream tasted purer, cleaner, and fresher and the subtle flavors sang out with more fullness.

“After all,” I would say, “ice cream comes from cows, not chickens.”

Tomorrow I’ll explain how I leveraged this notoriety. If you would like to see some pictures from his time, click here.

www.lazyway.net

The Ice Cream Story: Borrowing Money

Installment #6

From the very beginning, it was obvious to me that the next location for an ice cream store was going to be Iowa City, the home of the University of Iowa and its 25,000 ravenously hungry college students.

Six weeks passed. We were deep into December (1979) and had snow up to our belly buttons. The time had come to drive to Iowa City and find a bank to lend me the money to build my second store.

My friends stared at me slack-jawed when I explained my logic that I saw as impeccable. It unfolded as follows: Banks are in the business of lending money to businesses. I’m now a business. Therefore banks will lend me the money.

With my new found sophistication, I realized that I probably couldn’t get away with a hand-written proposal like before. So this time I borrowed a typewriter and I wrote a business plan.

In using the term business plan, I first need to invoke a liberal application of poetic license. That is because this so-called business plan was only seven pages long and that’s only because I double-spaced and put one paragraph, maybe two, on each page. You should also keep in mind that I did no actual planning or research with regard to how much it would cost to create a store in Iowa City. I just guessed.

And the grand total of all those guesses came to $23,900.

Armed with my neatly typed business plan, I drove to Iowa City (a town I had never been to before) to find a bank that would lend me $23,900.

I meandered my way into downtown, found a parking space (the only time I ever found a parking space in downtown Iowa City), saw a bank on the corner, walked in, and announced to the receptionist that I was there to borrow $23,900 to open an ice cream store in Iowa City.

She was taken aback by my directness but she recovered to tell me that I needed to see the commercial loan officer.

“Great,” I said. “Take me to him.”

“But he’s not in the bank today,” she said. “He’ll be here tomorrow.”

“I just drove 60 miles in the snow,” I protested. “I don’t want to come back tomorrow. Is there someone else I can see?”

“Perhaps the Senior Vice President will see you,” she offered.

“Fine,” I said, I’ll see the Senior Vice President.”

After calling him on the phone, she looked up and said, “He’ll see you. I’ll take you to him.”

As we approached a distinguished, elderly gentleman, he motioned for me to sit. I handed him my business plan. He perched his tiny half-lens reading glasses on the end of his nose and read my business plan in about four nanoseconds. He then lowered his chin and looked at me over the frames of his glasses.

“Son,” he said, “you have no experience. Your business shows no operating profit. You have no equity. You have no collateral.”

Each of his points was a devastating blow. I was heart-broken and was fighting back the tears. Then he said, “And besides, for what you want to do, $23,900 is not nearly enough.”

I was crushed. But I figured, hey, there are more fish in the sea. I’ll just find another bank. So to quickly end the meeting in order to make maximum use out of my trip to Iowa City, I asked, “Well, are you interested?”

He paused for a moment and replied, “Yeah, I am very interested.” He ended up lending me $35,000.

Now the truth be told, it did not take $35,000 to build that store in Iowa City. It took $55,000.

You may well ask where the extra $20,000 came from. I kind of like borrowed it. From the carpenters, the electricians, the lumber yard, the hardware store, the restaurant supply house, the equipment rental store, the refrigeration man, well, you get the picture.

When their bills would arrive, I’d call each one and explained what little I could pay if I could pay anything. Usually, I’d ask for more time. But I’d always ask if I could bring them some ice cream in the meantime. It was magical. Their responses were identical, “Ice cream. Your ice cream! Of course, you can have more time to pay.” 

It took about a year to finally pay each one off.

Over the years I became friends with the Senior Vice President of the bank. One day I asked him, “Dick, why did you lend me the money? I mean I flunked every single criterion that a bank uses to make a loan. I had no experience. I had no operating profit. I had no equity and I had no collateral.”

“Fred,” he said, “I lent you the money based on your enthusiasm. And besides, the day you came was my birthday and here you were bringing me ice cream on my birthday.”

Tomorrow, we shall sally forth.

www.lazyway.net

The Ice Cream Story: Expansion

Installment #5

Expand? Are you nuts? Have you completely lost your mind? How are you going to get the money? You don’t have any, in case you haven’t noticed.

Ah, the rational mind, it is so orderly, so logical, so linear, and so easy to understand and appreciate. And all my friends who possessed such minds, peppered me with these kinds of logical, linear, rational questions, expecting logical, linear, rational answers.

Alas, I don’t have a rational mind. I envy people who do, but my brain is devoid of such abilities. While it was true beyond the slightest whiff of doubt that I had no money and had no customers, factoids which need not have been pointed out to me and which comprised ample logic against any thought of expansion, I was still obsessed with the idea. Why?

Here is the reason: After being in business for two days, that’s right, only two days, I went to Chicago to attend a major trade show called DFISA – the Dairy and Food Industries Supply Association. Back then, the DFISA convention took place every other year and everything and everyone with anything to do with dairy processing was in attendance. I learned about DFISA in a fluke. But since I was now a dairy processor (and not just any dairy processor, mind you, but one who just made the best ice cream in the world) I decided to go, if for no other reason but to brag.

For the next four days, I walked through McCormick Place, a gargantuan exhibition hall. I went from booth to booth meeting people and learning of all the companies that supplied the ice cream industry. I purposely sought out experts who could teach me stuff. I could not have designed a better, more thorough, more enjoyable, more needed education.

My little freezer made a five-gallon batch at a time. I marveled at the equipment that pumped out 1200 gallons per hour. And I dreamed. I sat in the cabs of huge brand new refrigerated trucks. And I dreamed some more. I sampled various flavors and candies and nuts to see if any were worthy of my ice cream.

When I found the exhibit of the manufacturer of a piece of equipment that I owned, I squeezed him for every bit of information I could. Many (but not all) of the parts that were left over when we assembled the stuff from Texas found their rightful homes after those conversations. “So that‘s where that silly thing goes!” It was like getting enlightened.

I met people who were experts in just vanilla. Period. Or just chocolate. Period. Or just fruit. Or just candy. Or just nuts. I boldly told each one that even though I was in business for only two days that I was convinced I made the best ice cream in the world and that my mission was to make it even better and I needed their help. I only wanted the best ingredients, and the best knowledge, and the best equipment.

After comparing all the vanilla companies, I found the best one. After comparing the dozens of the chocolate suppliers, I found the best one. It was like that for every aspect of the business. During those four days, I received an education that no single institution could have ever organized for me. And I befriended many people who subsequently supplied my company for many years to come.

I returned home like I was shot from a cannon. I couldn’t wait to integrate what I had learned. It didn’t matter that the present was filled with obstacles. The vision I had of the future was so rosy and sweet and creamy that it sustained me through frigid temperatures and empty cash registers. I knew I had been given the knowledge and the contacts to make a great company.

(I mentioned early that I had written extensively in my book, The Lazy Way to Success, that once you take a big leap into the unknown by making a major commitment, then Nature supports you by giving you the resources necessary to fulfill your aspirations. In these four days at DFISA, I was receiving those resources in the form of knowledge and materials. Tomorrow I’ll explain how Nature delivered the money.)

The Ice Cream Story: My First Batch

Installment #4

After sending the check for $7000, I passed the first week by asking questions of anyone who knew anything about ice cream. Those answers stimulated more questions. The second week passed – more questions were accompanied by increasing nervousness. After the third week, I was beside myself with anxiety. Then one day, I looked out the picture window of the bakery where I had rented a small corner to make ice cream. The words North American Van Lines filled my entire view. The equipment had arrived!

I ran out and watched the two drivers roll up the rear door of the tractor trailer to reveal a truckload of shiny stainless steel stuff – boxes and motors and mixers and pipes and compressors and wires and metal things and stuff. I was jumping out of my skin with excitement but I didn’t know one piece from the next.

I had thought that I’d just have to plug this stuff in and after a day or two I’d be off to Peaches and Cream Heaven.

WRONG!

This stuff required industrial-strength 3-phase electricity, not your limp-wristed, everyday household current. In other words, SPECIAL WIRING FROM THE OUTSIDE UTILITY POLES. I also had to fight, beg, and, yes, bribe the baker for more space, not on the floor, but in the undersized electrical breaker box, of all places. Wars would be fought over each circuit breaker. Amperes became valuable bargaining chips.

In addition, other pieces of equipment required direct water feeds. In other words, SPECIAL PLUMBING.

It took about two weeks with the invaluable help of a mechanically-inclined friend/ice cream aficionado plus approximately four billion long distance calls to the man in Texas but we kind of figured the whole thing out. Irrespective of the box of left-over parts that we had no clue where each belonged, I was finally ready for business. 

NOVEMBER 8, 1979 – this is a date that will live forever in gastronomic lore. This was the evening I made my first ice cream.

Now the story-teller in me says I should stop here and continue tomorrow but since devoted reader Ben has appealed for extra dollops, I will continue. Ben, this one’s for you.

November 8, 1979 remains to this day a golden-lettered, unforgettable, life-altering moment. That’s because that first bite of ice cream was out-of-this-world fantastic. No, it was better than fantastic. It was, by far, the best ice cream a human tongue had ever licked. Period. Bar none. End of story.

I knew, more than anything I had ever known, that I had just made the best ice cream ever.

I know what you are all thinking. How lucky can you get? He knew nothing. NOTHING! And he ends up, on this first try no less, making the world’s best ice cream.

There is a lot of truth to that. I was lucky, no question about it. But I am only telling you half the story. I now want to bring your attention back to the date November 8, 1979.

What this means is, I was starting an ice cream business at the beginning of an Iowa winter. And proceeded to lose my shirt.

Iowa winters are brutal – bone-breakingly cold, wet, windy, and mercilessly long affairs. But the winter of 1979 was particularly foul. Nobody, and I mean nobody, thought about eating ice cream in the winter of 1979.

I basically had no customers. I had no money to advertise. And even if I did, no sane human would venture out in the weather. It was so cold I could store the ice cream outside and not be afraid it would melt. (Ice cream starts to soften between 5 and 10 degrees Fahrenheit.) I had no money to buy food so my diet consisted of ice cream and maraschino cherries. Suppliers were asking COD and I had no C. It was all I could do just to keep myself alive, let alone keep the business alive. For all practical purposes, I was dead in the water, dead on arrival, dead as a doornail, and dearly departed. I am dead serious.

During this god-forsaken time, I was obsessed with one thought and one thought only – expand.

So until the next time, I wish you a wonderful weekend. For those to whom it is applicable, have a joyful Passover. For me I am going to adorn my weekend with a particularly large helping of NFL draft (Iggles) and NBA playoffs (Sixers) and I am sure I’ll cuss at the Phillies at least once or twice. Of course, if it ever stops raining I may just feel compelled to chase after the few golf balls I don’t hit in the water.

www.lazyway.net

The Ice Cream Story: Finding Investors

(Installment #3 of a series)

I had never needed investors before. I didn’t know how to talk to them. I didn’t know how to appeal to them. I didn’t even know I needed a business plan.

I simply handwrote a few sentences on a sheet of yellow legal paper which took up about one half of one page. It said that an investor could purchase a certain percentage of the business for one thousand dollars. There was no mention of how much I needed or what I would actually do with the money. The paragraph concluded by guaranteeing that the investor would receive a lifetime supply of ice cream.

Once I had written this document, I approached a venerable, well-established, majorly-conservative financial institution to invest in my ice cream business. In other words, I asked my mother.

My mother, like mothers everywhere, said, “My son, my glorious son, anything you do is great. Of course, I will invest in your ice cream business.”

She committed to $2000.

I was on a roll. Who’s next?

Dad, of course!

So I called my father. And my father, like fathers everywhere, said, “What? Are you some kind of a nut? You’ve already suckered your mother for $2000. That’s it, pal!”

It took another three weeks of hustling my friends before I had $7500 in investment capital and $2500 from a loan.

I had $10,000!

My first act as Chief Executive Officer of The Great Midwestern Ice Cream Company was to send the man in Texas a check for $7000. (The man in Texas was described in yesterday’s post.)

Did I know this man in Texas?

No.

Did I have any idea what I was actually buying for $7000?

No.

Tomorrow, or thereabouts, we’ll see what happens next.

P.S. To answer a question I received yesterday regarding the time frame of this yarn, I moved to Iowa in early to mid August of 1979. I am guessing the idea to start an ice cream biz came after two weeks of living in Iowa. The first $10,000 was raised in September.

www.lazyway.net

The Ice Cream Story: The First Hurdle

Picking up from where I left off on my previous post . . .

My first thought was to import ice cream from the east coast. When the supreme impracticality of that idea dawned on me, I thought I’d get a little homemade ice cream freezer to make my own to sell. But someone pointed out that ice cream made that way developed coarse ice crystals if stored in a normal household freezer. He said ice cream needed to be hardened quickly at extremely low temperatures so those ice crystals couldn’t grow. 

With that piece of knowledge, I was stymied. I had run out of ideas. But then I heard about this man in Texas who sold used ice cream making equipment. I called him up. He said he had everything I needed to set up a small homemade ice cream parlor. And then I heard the price – $7000.

I distinctly remember thinking, ‘Gee, if I had $7000, I wouldn’t need to start a business.’

At the time, $7000 was an astronomical figure. I never in my entire life had anything close to $7000. If anything was going to kill my impetus, it was that price tag of $7000. I hung up the phone completely depressed. The idea of starting an ice cream company was dead.

And then it occurred to me in an inspired flash of pure lucidity – investors!

In my book, I have written about key moments on one’s path to success where it is necessary to make a commitment. These are times when you realize that you can no longer dibble-dabble. It is like Nature has increased the stakes and, if you want to continue to play the game, you have to ante up. That means you have to make a leap. More specifically, it means you have to make a commitment of time or money or brain capacity or something that requires you to stretch out of your comfort zone. Miraculous things happen when you do make that leap but we’ll get into that later. Before the leap is made, however, those miraculous things are not at all obvious or certain so it can be a very scary time.

At first blush, you may think that my wanting to use other people’s money was a way of avoiding that personal commitment. That would be a wrong analysis. I gave the prospect of using other people’s money deep thought because I knew it would mean that the idea of an ice cream company was leaving the realm of fanciful mealtime gossip and entering the domain where I’d actually be required to do it. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I should quickly point out that I didn’t see that my not knowing the first thing about how to make ice cream as an impediment to getting investors. Tomorrow (or thereabouts) we’ll see how I fare in convincing investors.

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By Popular Demand: The Ice Cream Story

Okay, okay, okay. Since many of my dear readers are clamoring to hear my stories of entrepreneurial intrigue, adventure, and discovery, I will tell them. Be forewarned that given the blog format, which goes against how we traditionally read stuff, it will be somewhat of a challenge to tell stories in installments. I’ll try to break them up into bite-sized portions that can stand on their own. We’ll see how I fare. So buckle your seat belts, here we go:

Once upon a time (actually it was 1979) I moved to Fairfield, Iowa from the east coast where I had been teaching Transcendental Meditation. I relocated because I wanted to participate in the advanced meditation programs that were being offered at the then-named Maharishi International University. (The university’s name has since been changed to Maharishi University of Management.)

Teaching TM was my livelihood, however being a TM teacher in Fairfield was like being a Toyota in Tokyo. Several hundred TM teachers lived there. And, on the other side of the coin, it being rural Iowa where hogs out-numbered humans, there were very few humans to teach. (Plenty of pigs but I didn’t speak Snort.) Basically it meant I needed to find a new way of supporting myself.

The thought of getting a job never fluctuated a single brain neuron. In the past, I responded to jobs and work in the exact same way a cat responds when you try to put it in water. I’d run out screaming, usually in a matter of days, and that’s assuming I wasn’t fired first. My resume has gaping chasms of time between a couple of weeks of employment here and there.* To give you some idea of how work-adverse I am, I was even fired from a civil service job.

So, unless I wanted to starve, there was only one viable choice for me – become an entrepreneur. 

(The definition of an entrepreneur – someone who will do absolutely anything to avoid getting a job.)

I had no business experience. I had no knowledge. I had no skills. I had no education. (I was an art major in college.) I had no money. I had no direction. And I had no clue. 

We’ve all heard the expression that the key to a successful business is to find a need and fill it. The need I noticed was strictly personal. Having come from the east coast where there was great ice cream, I couldn’t find anything comparable in Iowa. In fact, the ice cream in Iowa was hideous. I called it cow snot. As much as I loved TM, the thought of living anywhere without great ice cream was simply intolerable. If I wanted to stay in Iowa I knew I had to fix that problem.

This is a good place to stop for today. Tomorrow, or whenever I get around to it, I’ll write Act 1 Scene 2.

*(By the way, my record for holding a job is two months. That’s when I was a lifeguard at a private beach on the Jersey shore. Every day I’d arrive late, sleep, read, sun-bathe, body-surf, hustle girls for lunch, and leave early. Since it was a private beach, not many of the rich people ever went in the ocean so I never really had to stay alert. Plus I got enough tips beyond my salary to pay my college tuition.)

www.lazyway.net