We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Courtney Leon a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Courtney, thanks for joining us today. Was there a moment in your career that meaningfully altered your trajectory? If so, we’d love to hear the backstory.

Every move along my journey of life was made at the perfect time. I’ve had many “defining moments” that have directly incfluenced the trajectory of my life/career.

Courtney, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

Courtney’s Cookies was created out of experience and necessity. I grew up baking with my mom and grandma since childhood and always enjoyed it. I come from a family where most our our food is homemade, desserts included. In high school I became very interested in health and nutrition as a result of overcoming eating disorders. This passion only grew as time went on.

I originally went to FIU to study dietetics, but wanted a more practical approach to health, so I changed my major to Psychology and English. I knew I wanted to do something health/nutrition related, so I figured I’d get my masters in mental health psychology and help girls overcome eating disorders. Trying to figure out my next step, I picked the brain of one of my Psych professors. He referred me to a colleague who told me about her training as a certified holistic health coach through the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (IIN). I immediately knew that was the next step for me.

While I was studying at IIN I developed a gluten sensitivity. I needed to figure out a new gluten-free diet, and at the top of my list was how to replace my homemade chocolate chip cookies. Not only did they need to be gluten-free, but I wanted them to be made from nutrient-dense ingredients that were good for me. I joined The Earth Diet health coaching team and learned about tigernut flour. I was sent some samples to experiment with, which is when I created my original cookie recipe. The cookies were SO good, I couldn’t stop eating them. I remember some days I’d eat 6-8 cookies a day. They were organic, high fiber, had no refined sugar, and were made from quality ingredients, so I went all out enjoying them.

My plan was to create my own health coaching practice called Pyour Vitality and offer healthy food options to my clients as well. Since I was such a foodie, I figured I’d take my health desserts to a local farmers market. I spent many hours preparing chocolate avocado pudding, banana cream chia seed pudding, black bean brownies and chocolate chip cookies. Everyone loved all of my creations, at the time called Pyour Vitality Sweets, but I specifically remember someone telling me, “with my healthy hat on, I loved the puddings and brownies, but with my unhealthy hat, those cookies were to die for!” Considering all of the work I did making different healthy dessert items and realizing how the cookies were the star of the show, I decided to only focus on cookies moving forward.

The more people I shared the cookies with, the more positive feedback I received. I kept saying I was going to create a cookie business, but was slow to get things rolling, as I had other jobs at the time. My boyfriend (now husband) was working a corporate job and wasn’t happy with it. He studied business and always wanted to be involved with operating a business. He began noticing all of the positive feedback which got his wheels turning. After spending two weeks thinking about it, he told me he wanted to back the cookie business idea and create it together.

Honestly, I was really reluctant at first to create the business together. But the reality is, we perfectly compliment each other with business operations, as he’s more of the behind the scenes operator dealing with the logistics, numbers, graphic art, heavy lifting and sales experience, whereas I am more of the creator/face of the brand, health educator, PR/marketing director, and customer service rep.

We spent six months laying the foundation for our business and officially had our first day of sales October 1, 2016. We started off with three cookie flavors at the Coconut Grove Farmers Market (you can still find us there every Saturday from 10:30 am-6 pm.) Since starting the business in 2016, we have organically expanded our product line and reach across Miami and beyond. We now offer six permanent signature cookie flavors, three holiday flavors, a line of ice cream sandwiches, CBD infused cookies, keto cookies, brownies, cookie cakes and ice cream sandwich cakes. All of our products are organic, vegan, gluten-free, refined sugar-free, soy-free, mostly nut-free, nutrient-dense and unbelievably delicious.

The inspiration behind everything we offer is that we should always eat to nourish our bodies, souls and minds. I believe you are what you eat, so to be well, you must eat well. Unfortunately our food supply is tainted with toxic ingredients all over the place, with an excess of sugar, chemicals and GMOs. This is not a sustainable approach to health and leads to all kinds of health complications. I am very picky about what I eat, and am proud to offer such healthy, guilt-free desserts that truly nourish your sweet side.

You can find our products at our local partner stores around Miami, every Saturday at the Coconut Grove Farmers Market, for delivery though UberEats, Postmates, DoorDash and GrubHub (or for direct delivery if you are outside of the delivery radius), or from our storefront in Coral Gables where we operate Wednesday-Sunday 7 pm-10:30 pm and Saturday 7:30 pm-11 pm. We also ship our cookies and brownies nationwide.

We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.

Thinking about the word resilience, the first thing that comes to mind is the most expensive learning lesson we have encountered with our business. We were given the opportunity to become a vendor at a local university. We were told, essentially, that it would be foolish to pass up such an opportunity. My initial feeling toward the proposal was a resounding no for many reasons. It wasn’t our target demographic, the mobile vending cart we’d have to purchase was around $7k, the university wanted 20% of all of our sales off the top, and we were given a contract as if we were some massive corporation requiring hefty insurance policies even though we were and still are a small, local business.

After much hesitancy and deliberation and too many people in my ear telling me to not pass up the opportunity, we decided to move forward. Six months of structuring the business model for this venture, hiring and training employees to manage the food cart, working with a company to design the cart, getting the cart shipped to us and brainstorming all of the possibilities of growth/expansion to other universities, we were all in and ready to rock. We did everything that was asked of us and did it well.

Fast forward to our first day of sales. We quickly learned the other side wasn’t holding up their side of the agreement. Nothing they were supposed to have ready was ready, the marketing promised to us didn’t happen, and within two weeks of sales the supposed demand for our gluten-free and vegan desserts wasn’t there. We stuck it out hoping it would get better, but it never did. Shortly after, COVID hit and we decided to call it quits.

We invested a generous amount of money and effort into that project, only to end in the red. Our projection for paying the cart off by a certain time and profiting never came. The silver lining was the insurance company refunding our policy as a result of COVID, which at least helped cover most of our losses. Thankfully this experience didn’t hurt us enough to put us out of business, but it definitely left a mark for a while. Once we saw it was going nowhere, we knew we needed to transition out of the deal and move forward in other directions. Looking back, the biggest learning lesson from that experience was to ALWAYS listen to your gut, no matter what. I could have avoided lost money and months worth of work and energy by just standing firm on my gut intuition.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I’ve lost track of how many people over the years have been so excited and relieved to finally find a cookie or ice cream sandwich they can eat and enjoy due to food allergies or intolerances. Gluten-free cookies typically contain nuts. I have found many people who are allergic to dairy and gluten are also allergic to nuts. Our cookies are nut-free and soy-free, in addition to being gluten-free and dairy-free, so we really check most of the food allergy boxes.

We understand that our business only continues to exist as a result of our happy customers. Providing excellent customer service is at the heart of everything we do. The power of a genuine smile and positive attitude goes a long way, especially nowadays. It’s always an honor for me to see our customer’s happy reactions to our guilt-free sweets. It’s very rewarding to serve our local community and beyond through our desserts.

There are many gluten-free and vegan cookies out there, but when you take a look at the ingredient list, you’ll quickly understand what makes our products unique. We have always been super transparent and proud of our ingredients, as they are entirely unrefined and nutrient-dense, derived from whole food, plant-based ingredients. Typically taste or texture is compromised with GF/V baked goods, but not with our cookies. I created them to be as authentic to the classic chocolate chip cookies I grew up baking with my mom and grandma. After all, I originally created our cookies just for myself to enjoy once I developed a gluten sensitivity.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.courtneyscookies.com
• Instagram: Www.instagram.com/courtneyscookies
• Facebook: Www.Facebook.com/courtneyscookies
• Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/courtneys-cookies-coral-gables-6

Image Credits
Courtney León