Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jenny Johnson. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Alright, Jenny thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?
I started this venture as a way to spend time with my grown kids and build a family business. Both of my kids LOVE to cook! I love people and dream of doing fundraising for families and community programs. It just seemed like a win, win! The adventure of chasing the good ole American Dream is amazing! It has ups and downs, twists, turns, curves, and sometimes a dead end or two. We bought our food truck from a friend who wanted to retire for the “third time”. He gave us a decent price and let us know what to expect for repairs etc. We bought it as Covid was unfolding (February 2020). And, Boy, did that make things interesting. We finally opened up May 22, 2021. We decided to kick off our season opener with a fundraiser. And every year instead of paying for advertising, we invest in our communities by doing fundraising projects. Word of mouth is the best advertising… It’s. FREE! Plus, we get to make a difference in someone’s life. When we plant love, we get to harvest kindness. Our main ingredient in every dish is Love… the spice for living!
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
If someone said to me, you’re going to own a food business someday, I would have laughed so hard. I’m not a very good cook! I got into the food industry because of my kids. One child wanted to be a baker and the other a chef. My son, Seth was 19 when we started this dream. He is 21 now and his sister is 34. He has decided to take a different path… it’s too hard building a business working for peanuts. I hope he sees that one day those peanuts are going to lead to a family legacy… with just enough hard work, dedication, and perseverance. I’ve been told by others the American Dream is dead… And by golly I’m here to prove it’s alive and well. You just have to work for it! My favorite part is working with my family. We have brought Grammy (Mary Wallace) out of retirement, recruited my husband Sean and my daughter Erica has always played a role behind the scenes. She actually came up with our name, The Dutch Oven On Wheels. The Dutch oven is the cooking instrument for Arkansas and we have a great sense of humor!
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
We had hurdles to jump every step of the way. First all, Covid happened right as we were creating our business. Talk about tough. The State was shut down, the IRS was shut down and getting answers or navigating through the process was tough in itself. Then we had mechanical problems. We had issues with licensing And had to have modifications completed to pass inspection. We aren’t rich and work our regular jobs. So that each week could accomplish one more check mark on our long list of things to do. We’ve never owned our own business and it was ALL new to us! We would take two steps and four back. Once we got it going, we’ve been going ever since! We love feeding people good food!
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
Food costs! Food costs keeps us pivoting. Our profit margin isn’t the best but we believe this to be temporary. We will ride it out and keep pivoting forward.
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Angela Martin