We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Hilary Anderson a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hilary, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Almost all entrepreneurs have had to decide whether to start now or later? There are always pros and cons for waiting and so we’d love to hear what you think about your decision in retrospect. If you could go back in time, would you have started your business sooner, later or at the exact time you started?
I always believed in order to start and have a successful business that you had to begin young. For me this wasn’t going to happen because my first priority was raising my daughters. They were athletic so we were gone every weekend and starting my business at a younger age was not going to happen. After my daughters finished sports and college, I knew it was time to find something that gave me purpose again. I actually had an unsuccessful business during COVID but I learned a ton about business but most of all about myself. I have a quote that I would share and preach to my players when I was coaching field hockey, “Failure is a big part of your path to success. It’s not your enemy. It’s you partner in growth. It doesn’t define you; it refines you. If you didn’t fail, you wouldn’t build the character you need to succeed. Failure is an event, not a definition” John Gordon I had to practice what I had been preaching. Through this failure, I was able to recognize that this was not my first defeat and probably not my last but with age comes wisdom and resilience. I was able to see the big picture and realize that age gives you more opportunities because of the relationships you have formed and the insight from successes and failures throughout my life. OBO Foods came to life 2.5 years ago and we are still going strong.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I was so fortunate to have an article published with Voyage Ohio – https://voyageohio.com/interview/meet-hilary-anderson-of-ama-time-dba-obo-foods/ that I wanted to focus on our new logo Oh Beautiful One Foods (OBO Foods). I grew up in Shaker Heights, Ohio, and graduated from Shaker Heights High School. I went to the University of Michigan on a field hockey scholarship and graduated with a degree in Kinesiology. I married right out of college and followed my husband as he pursued his career in the NFL. One of my first jobs was working in a health club, and realized it was not my dream job. I worked for his agent and did a lot of research and analyzing. I really enjoyed this, but we had to move, and I was pregnant. We had 2 beautiful daughters while my husband finished his career in the NFL and he started a new career. I was a stay-at-home mom. We moved back to Cleveland in December 1999 because my mom was sick. My mom passed away from ALS, aka Lou Gehrig’s Disease on Thanksgiving Day on November 23, 2000.
When I created AMA Time I didn’t realize the confusion it would cause in the food business. I’ve always wanted to honor my mother. My mother never wanted to be call grandma so she made up OBO which means Oh Beautiful One. OBO Foods was registered with the state in 2022 and my business felt complete. I found a fantastic product and logo designer who loved Oh Beautiful One. The new logo has the Oh which is in the same script as the Welcome to Ohio sign and the Cleveland skyline is over Oh Beautiful One and it looks like a crown over my queen. I couldn’t be happier and more proud of my new logo.
Are there any books, videos, essays or other resources that have significantly impacted your management and entrepreneurial thinking and philosophy?
I have been religiously listening to the podcast How I built This with Guy Raz. I distinctly remember the very first episode I listened to which was the BoomChickaPop kettle corn story. The food podcast always seems to give me hope with my business but I also learn a ton. Right before I started the process of designing new packaging and changing AMA Time to a new DBA (Doing Business As) OBO Foods, I had listened to the Halo Top Ice Cream which had started under a different name. The owner, Justin Woolverton did not do his due diligence with his old name because he did not do a trademark search. He lost over $250,000 because he was told to cease and desist. He had to create his new name Halo Top and change all his packaging. I listened and had OBO Foods checked and was told I shouldn’t use it. By the way my mother did not want to be called grandma so she made up OBO which means Oh Beautiful One which is now the official name of my company.
We’d really appreciate if you could talk to us about how you figured out the manufacturing process.
We use a co-op culinary kitchen to manufacture all our products. I knew how to make each of the products in my own kitchen. Because we were making multiple orders we had to use larger capacity machinery that I was not used to using. What I thought was going to take me just a couple hours took me 5 hours. I had no idea what I was doing but managed to make all the products well but it was a process that I knew I had to make better. The old saying that practice makes perfect still holds true. We spent a year perfecting our process and products. We added new flavors to our Kiki’s Cheesy Potatoes line. We make Onion (our original), Spicy, Garlic and Plain. We know that this manufacturing process works now but will change in the future. We continue every day to get prepared and ready for that day.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.obofoods.com
- Instagram: @obofoods
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/obofds
- Twitter: @obofds.com