The early days of Bear Naked Oct 30 2009
16 comments Latest by Jason Liebe
Kelly Flatley and Brendan Synnott were two high school friends who wanted to sell their homemade nutty granola. So they launched Bear Naked in 2002. Here’s the story of how they landed their first big account:
Our first big retail break was landing an account with Stew Leonard’s, the four-store Connecticut grocery chain. For months we bugged the buyer via phone. He ignored us. To get his attention, we decided to bring him breakfast one day.
We woke up at 6 a.m. and dressed in Bear Naked T-shirts. We borrowed china from Kelly’s mom, which we used to display fresh fruit, our granola, and Stew Leonard’s brand of yogurt. We were the first car in the lot at the chain’s headquarters. After we climbed the stairs to the office, the receptionist told us the buyer was on vacation. We were deflated!
But then, as we were walking away, we recognized Stew Leonard Jr. “Stew!” we yelled. “We brought you breakfast!”
He seemed impressed by our youth and enthusiasm and asked us into his office. He said he was used to brokers pitching 55 products at a time and that it was refreshing to meet young kids so eager to sell a bag of granola. After talking with us for two hours, he said he wanted to help us out. He decided to place our granola in his stores.
The article provides good inspiration for how you have to DIY it starting out. For the first few years, the duo ran the company out of Kelly’s parents’ home, bought ingredients at CostCo when distributors wouldn’t fill their undersized orders, crashed triathlons to give out samples, and worked as the company’s distributors, producers, and kitchen cleaners.
Related: Do it yourself first [SvN]
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16 comments so far
Merle 30 Oct 09
A good story and well told. Always nice to read good writing.
Scott 30 Oct 09
He said he was used to brokers pitching 55 products at a time and that it was refreshing to meet young kids so eager to sell a bag of granola.
What a great story and a perfect example of focus and passion.
Robert 30 Oct 09
Sounds like a story from a Dale Carnegie book.
I could never do such a thing. Would feel like loosing my human dignity licking this assholes boots bringing him breakfast because he otherwise wouldn’t talk to me. I not against it though.
EH 30 Oct 09
I’m with Robert. I could never do this, but fully respect people who can and do.
Tamara 30 Oct 09
Inspirational, a really beautiful story! I have to disagree with Robert, because if you’re starting out, you’re nobody, if you want to succeed you will usually have to eat your pride.
Being meek will get better results for sure. Thanks for sharing!
Sean Reynolds 30 Oct 09
Its important to remember that it can still be done. My son produces fresh smoothies and fruit juices and sells them at a local farmers market.
Scott 30 Oct 09
I don’t see how bringing your product to people lacks dignity or diminishes ones pride. If you could never get excited enough about your own product that you want to bring it to everyone and share it with everyone, including store execs, then you’re probably not really excited about your product. I imagine they walked in there super-proud because of what they had to offer.
Bringing breakfast to Stew doesn’t seem much different to me than handing out samples at triathlons. Kelly Flatley and Brendan Synnott have something they love and they want others to try it too. That’s the #1 model of success in business. Be excited about what you do and what you make. Know that you are truly doing good for others when you introduce them to it. Look at almost any successful business person and you’ll find that common thread.
Jamie‚ Baymard Institute 30 Oct 09
Great story! And I’m with Scott on this one..
Doing something every day you’re not so proud of that you want everyone to try it no matter what it takes – that’s loosing human dignity.
Wanting to share something as desperately as Kelly and Brendan, believing that much in what you do – that’s to be admired.
Plus, I’m betting they had a ton of fun doing this.
Robert 30 Oct 09
@ Jamie “human dignity” is a translation issue. Sounds much to hard. My english isn’t perfect.
But still, you said it, they had to desperately want to share it. So normally, you wouldn’t want to do things like that. I guess we can agree on that.
That’s all I’m saying. Depending on such tactics isn’t great. But they were stuck and they got out of it by making that move. That’s great.
PS: I think it problably wasn’t fun.
Blue Sail Creative 30 Oct 09
I have had the same kind of success. I have gotten a lot of sales tips from friends who have said that the avg deal isn’t closed until the 6-7 time you touch base with a prospective client.
I had a local restaurant call me back the other day just because he admired how determined I was. For every 1 business that turns you down because of your persistance , three will say yes.
Keep it up everyone!
Jamie, Baymard Institute 31 Oct 09
@Robert, I guess we can chalk up the use of “desperately” to less than perfect english too (I’m from Denmark = not native). Something like “wanting to share something as much as ..” would have been a better wording.
I definitely agree with you that depending on tactics like this in the long run isn’t great nor sustainable. However, when starting out you come up with all sorts of crazy ideas that you might as well try out since you have nothing to lose and everything to gain.
The reason why I imagine this being fun for them is that at the end of the day they didn’t do this stunt for Mr. Leonard, they did it because they had a crazy idea, an idea you typically wouldn’t be allowed to execute if you were from a big corporate entity. However, being small and having nothing to lose they could allow themselves to do something crazy (which usually is quite fun). At the end of the day, I believe, they did it for themselves. Anyways, this is of course pure speculation.
FredS 31 Oct 09
I was a little less inspired by this story when I found out the founders are from Darien, CT. Rich parents.
Anonymous Coward 31 Oct 09
I love Stew Leonard’s. What, everyone from Darien, CT, is rich?
Anonymous Coward 03 Nov 09
I love Stew Leonard’s. What, everyone from Darien, CT, is rich?
mathew lumbouriko 04 Nov 09
Best post create inspiration for me. Begin idea for my business. Great Thank you
Jason Liebe 04 Nov 09
Yes everyone from Darien is Rich, but so what. This wasn’t a leveraged buyout, they built their business with a lot of hard work.
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