See Into Running a Bakery w/ NotJustCookies
Hustle Gurus is a series of interviews, videos, and podcasts for day-in-the-life content of Chicago founders, business leaders, and startup entrepreneurs. In this interview Matt L.F Smith sat down to talk with Jonathan Bush, founder of Not Just Cookies. Showing you a fist-hand day-in-the-life of his business.
NotJustCookies is a natural bakery where we provide gourmet cookies and pies, we sell our desserts wholesale, we sell product retail, and all of our desserts are online as well. — Jonathan Bush, Founder of NotJustCookies
JOHNATHAN: So I started the business when I was 13 in my mom’s kitchen. I had a passion for business and I wanted a job at the time. I had a love for desserts and pastries, and I still love to eat desserts probably more than I should [laughs].
When I started it was my mom’s kitchen so I didn’t have a location. Now, we have a presence downtown, we have our store-front in the south loop, and then we have a space where we bake and create all our goods from scratch. We’re also looking at a store front #2, that’s being negotiated right now.
MATT: What would you say is your most significant business challenge right now? Either with a specific project or in general.
JOHNATHAN: Trying to make sure this thing can run with out me… I always have to be involved in different areas of the business, and I’m looking to better delegate some of that work. Obviously, more bakers would help because we’re a bakery haha. Then we need to train them to bake cookies the way that we bake them and learn our process. Also, I’m looking for a manager, a good sales person to help me with sales and development.
I mean, its baking cookies, but it really is hard work to communicate and get a process down and make sure my bakers are educated on the quality of what they’re producing.
I went to visit Johnathan in his actual bakery and asked him about the work environment/processes there.
JOHNATHAN: The other bakers (there were 2) come in Monday through Friday, with the exception of the weekend. I try to come in Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, to make sure everything is running smooth and help out with the baking.
We try to get most of our deliveries here, but sometimes we can’t get it all delivered on a truck, so when I’m not here (but still working for the bakery) I’m either shopping, in meetings, and I’ve been working on a lot more general business development to increase sales. A lot of the time I’m managing the business behind my computer, sending emails, communicating, seeing how I can get more customers. I need to be able to bring in more bakers so I can continue to devote more time and focus on scaling.
I asked a young high school senior who bakes for NotJustCookies about how it has been for him.
HIGH SCHOOL BAKER: I learned a lot… meaning I didn’t have any experience with baking before. I learned everything I know about cooking and baking here.
Back to the interview.
JOHNATHAN: I take responsibility too, you know? How can I always be better at training and organizing my team.
MATT: Since you’re Not Just Cookies… what else are you?
JOHNATHAN: [laughing] basically, we’re cookies and pies. We even have a line of gluten-free and vegan items, we have plenty of specialty cookies too, cookies that you wont find in any typical grocery store’s desert isle.
MATT: What does your whole team look like right now? What jobs are being more delegated than not? What positions are people taking care of?
JOHNATHAN: The folks that are currently working for me are either baking cookies or they’re manning the register and selling the actual product.
MATT: Where are you usually going back and forth between?
JOHNATHAN: Usually the store-front, the kitchen that we were just at, and the post office sometimes when I have to make deliveries.
MATT: What are some short-term goals that you have with NotJustCookies right now? What might be making it difficult to achieve those goals? What’s standing in your way?
JOHNATHAN: The store front is the south loop is going extremely well, and so there’s an opportunity for us to open up a new store front here in Chicago.
One of the challenges with a new store though is the packaging… We’re competing with packaging that’s been designed from other giant food companies, and their packaging is stellar! We’re looking for a designer that would be able to help us out in terms of creating some truly appealing and beautiful packaging. Right now if you come into our store we have our cookies wrapped in nice little cellophane bags, but when we have them on actual store shelfs we’re going to need extremely nice packaging, that has UPC codes, and really just catches folks eyes! The only thing is that packaging is very costly…
MATT: So would you say one of your key goals right now is figuring out how to make much better packaging while making that packaging much less expensive?
JOHNATHAN: Absolutely. Hopefully we can do that [haha].
MATT: What are some examples of current projects you guys have been more focused on recently?
JOHNATHAN: Well the store-front is still new, so we’re working on marketing, getting more customers in, thinking about how we can boost that word-of-mouth. There’s more demand, so we’re expanding our menu.
MATT: Are there any longer-term goals you have in mind? How do you want NotJustCookies to look like 5 years down the line?
JOHNATHAN: I guess five years down the line I would love to expand our wholesale line. Basically, having our cookies in national retailers, not just in Chicago or the midwest, but folks on the east and west coasts can have an opportunity to purchase our cookies just by going to their local grocer.
Retail was never actually a goal of mine, but seeing how successful that’s been, and how neighborhoods and communities really love the stores, we would love to expand some NotJustCookies franchises around the Chicago area in the next couple of years.
Another thing we’ve been going back and forth over is wether we’re going to continue to produce our own product, or wether we’re going to work with a co-packer to give our formula to and be able to scale our production faster… One of the things that I’ve made up my mind on is that I would like to always be in charge of my own manufacturing, and be able to provide a lot of jobs especially to minorities and inner-city communities.
MATT: How can people help you? How can people contribute to the growth of NotJustCookies?
JOHNATHAN: Yeah, I mean there are so many ways people can contribute… Right now I’ve been re-investing all of our profits back into the business and its still not growing nearly as fast as we need, so I’m looking for any type of investors to help us acquire that capital. That’s huge.
We talked about the packaging, for his new store-front opportunity here. Any folks who may have experience designing/creating other food businesses’s packaging and figuring out how to make it affordable. That would be great!
Or even if you have any ideas on finding investors or designing our packaging, please reach out!
The summer is coming up and we’ll be doing a lot of farmers markets, and I’m always looking for folks who can drive and help us set up at the event. Just eager, energetic folks that’d like to learn something.
MATT: Great! Thank you again!
JOHNATHAN: Thank you, Matt.
[You can reach out to Johnathan here]
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