We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mike Kelly. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mike below.

Mike, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to have you retell us the story behind how you came up with the idea for your business, I think our audience would really enjoy hearing the backstory.

The original idea for Papa Bear’s Churro Butter was built on a really simple concept everyone can relate to, boredom. Well maybe it was a little more than that. I was in a job I was, frankly, miserable in. I started to feel the pressure of climbing the corporate ladder and I looked ahead to the next 30 years of my life. Did I want to be in the passenger seat or driver seat? The best part about entrepreneurship is you, and you solely, are responsible for the success or failure of your endeavor. So I began to ask myself about the things that I love and how I could turn those things into a business.

I’ve always been a healthy, energetic, active person. Peanut Butter was a staple in my diet and I couldn’t help but think it can’t be THAT hard to make peanut butter. I began to play with flavor combinations, different nuts, different added ingredients, all with the idea in mind that I’d stick to making a product for people who love to be healthy but also appreciate a little indulgence.

In dawned on me that Peanut Butter had been done. Almond Butter? Done. Seed Butters (ew)? Done. But for one reason or another there was a major gap in my favorite nut, Pecans! I remember walking the boardwalk in my home state of New Jersey and smelling the candied pecans for sale on the boardwalk. BINGO. I was going to turn that amazing candied nut flavor we can all recognize into a nut butter but how would I differentiate?

I began to think about the typical process for making nut butters. Add Nuts, grind, add ingredients, jar. But what made the candied nuts I smelt on the boardwalk so unique was that warm roasted flavor. BINGO #2!

What makes Papa Bear’s so different is our process is built on caramelization of healthy, organic, low glycemic index sweeteners and creating candied nuts before we grind them down to our nut butter. THIS is what creates an amazing nut butter.

When we produced our first batch of Churro Butter we had no name for it. It was sweet but not too sweet. Cinnamon-y but without being overpowering. We just couldn’t settle on a name. Soon, a friend of mine and I played hooky from work and went to DIsneyLand. Two 28yr olds riding kids rides and eating Churros dipped in ice cream. And that’s when my buddy and I looked at each other and said “We should name it CHURRO BUTTER”. BINGO #3!

Mike, 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?

I grew up in New Jersey before going to school and playing football at the University of Albany where my passion for health and exercise took form. Soon after graduation I packed my bags and took off to greener pastures in San Diego, CA. No plan, just seeking sunshine and change. This is where my eyes were opened to the possibility of creating something for myself and never to be at the mercy of my employer.

A few jobs I had in San Diego moved me to San Francisco where you couldn’t walk ten feet without stumbling on another start up founder looking to be the next Uber. While I knew tech wasn’t for me, It made it possible for me to realize that I can be responsible for my own destiny.

Fast forward a few years and we launched Papa Bear’s out of Santa Monica, CA. We did the Farmer’s Market rounds where we began to build our following before launching online, Amazon, etc. It was our early adopters who kept the brand moving, giving me the confidence to push on despite the roadblocks in our way. I always knew we had a good product, and when you focus on the product your success comes much faster.

Not long after that I met my wife and we just moved the business to Phoenix this past April where she now serves as Co-Founder and Mama Bear.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

OH I like this question. And I’ll give my wife, Cam, the full credit for this.

I used to believe customers didn’t care HOW the product arrived just as long as it arrived in tact. Well, not true.

As customer expectations began to change, I started to find that the act of receiving a jar of our Churro Butter in the mail and the customer experience associated to that act started with the way the customer perceived the package at the front door. Was it beat up? Did it have logos? Branding? Stickers? ANYTHING that would make the customer more excited to open their package?

From there, we began experimenting with branded boxes, simply stamping our logo on the box made all the difference in the world. We began to place discount cards and even, at one point, wrote a very bad hand written poem in every box (I’ll still do this sometimes now, if you ask nice).

Have you ever had to pivot?

When we first started Papa Bear’s we produced 4 flavors. While many of our customers were fans of our other flavors, our Churro Butter was the most unique and really our difference maker. We decided to double down on Churro Butter as our core offering while making variations of the base product.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://iLovePapaBear.com
• Instagram: @EatPapaBears
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/eatpapabears/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/papa-bears-nut-butters

Image Credits

Izzy Seely