We were lucky to catch up with Stephanie Gilewicz recently and have shared our conversation below.
Stephanie, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Risking taking is a huge part of most people’s story but too often society overlooks those risks and only focuses on where you are today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – it could be a big risk or a small one – but walk us through the backstory.
We have taken so many risks in the life of our business it has become a large part of our MO. Over the last almost 8 years, our plan has often been ‘jump and the net will appear!’ We took a risk when we decided to bring yogurt to a farmers market in Dallas in August while I was 6 months pregnant, then another risk when we accepted placement in a major 10 store artisanal grocery planogram across Texas with no additional equipment to scale at such a degree. Any time we chose to upgrade our ingredients, packaging and equipment, it required money we didn’t have, man power we didn’t have and a massive amount of faith in ourselves and our product. We are taking our biggest risk yet this month. Our greek style coconut yogurt has been accepted nationwide and our yogurts will be coast to coast within the next month! We have upgraded EVERYTHING! This is such an exciting and terrifying time but once again we look at each other, our family and remind ourselves how far we’ve come, and we just know this is the right next move for us. So now it’s ‘burn the boats!’ There is no plan B, no turning back, this is happening: we will go nationwide, we WILL succeed and we will see our business grow faster and larger than we ever expected it to. It has to.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
I was a restaurant manager right out of college. I studied communications, marketing, psychology and spanish and I used them all every single day. I loved my job. Then my husband and I got pregnant and with no maternity leave available, we had to make some fast decisions. He is a chef, and I often joke that I married him bc of the free meals! But I also had terrible stomach issues for years, and after some research into fermentation, he determined that I needed healthy bacteria in my gut. We started making yogurt at home and within weeks my tummy troubles were over. When I was told I had no paid leave once my daughter Emi was due, we decided to take our yogurt to the farmers market and try our luck, simply hoping to make enough to supplement my salary. After a few months we were approached by Central Market here in Texas and asked if we could produce enough to fill their shelves in all 10 stores across the state. This meant we would be going from roughly 200 cups of yogurt a week to 1200 a week, which over the years has grown to about 11,000 cups a month! We have been a two person team from the start: we cook, flavor and pack every ounce of yogurt ourselves. Only until the last couple of years have we had someone help us apply the labels to the containers. So as it turns out, my husband and I thought we would be restauranteurs for life, but instead we have become the yogurt manufacturers of a national brand, still pretty cool we think!
Okay – so how did you figure out the manufacturing part? Did you have prior experience?
My husband has a chef background, so when he started making yogurt for us at home, he had vague idea of how to do it. That said, he also did plenty research because I am picky and wasn’t going to settle for runny yogurt, I wanted what I remembered eating as a kid in England and France, which is the really good stuff by the way! We have been making our yogurt by hand since June 2018. We are very passionate and dedicated to the process, which is part of the reason we never connected with a manufacturer until now. We’ve had offers and conversations, but at the end of the day, our resolve is to stay true to our formula, our limited ingredients, our fresh fruit puree with no added flavors, oils or aromatics, and most importantly, our strong determination to create something healthy, delicious and indulgent for our customer. Now our customer base is growing, we went from farmers markets and small retailers, to a state wide retailer, and now onto a national scale, but we remain steadfast in our commitments to quality and thats something we will never budge on. In fact, the co-packer we are moving in with is only 20 minutes from our home, so we will still have hands on every batch from start to finish. Maybe one day that idea will have to evolve, but for now, we are happy to remain aligned with our most important goal.
How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?
Funding our business is a topic we have only just addressed in the last year and half. We have managed to get by, narrowly at times, for the last 8 years. We were always sure we didn’t want loans from banks or VCs because we felt that having capital that was connected to a no-name in an ivory tower whose only interest was the payback, then we wouldn’t feel positively aligned. We have chosen to take the route of SAFE loans, and have reached out to only friends and family. Fortunately, and I am daily grateful, but we have managed to secure the necessary funds to keep us scaling up! We worked through an ever-changing budget at first, and as we started making bulk purchase deals and found better pricing, we updated this spreadsheet almost weekly. We found that making sure there was a cushion in place for un foreseen expenses was a must, which we are especially thankful for now, as we have determined that freight is one of the master killers of all small businesses! In fact we’ve joked we should have started a freight company. But one thing thats important to remember, is that there are those friends and family out there that may really want to help but may just have to remain in the positive thinking category, and not the financial one. It is a hard pill to swallow when you think you’ve got funding and it falls through, but as any other small business owner will agree, its the ebs and flows that keep us going, and a strong backbone! Having a slight feeling of nausea throughout the process is par for the course. If you’re stress free, you’re doing something wrong.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.milkandpatience.com
- Instagram: @milkandpatience
