 What happened when COVID hit your business and your location set the close story? Yeah, I love the story. So September of 2019 Megan and I just about two and a half years after we started the company from just our apartment. We had eight stores open Three franchises were there's a three of the eight stores were franchised. We were doing well from the outside like looking in Our average unit volume at each store that we opened was lower and lower and lower each time we opened a store The stores in Nashville were doing really well And Megan and I really didn't like what we did for a living So I didn't like running the scoop shops and neither did Megan and we'd gotten in so deep that it's all we did And you know you you add a new door like you add a new shop like it's twice as much work So we basically signed up for five times as much work plus the franchisees mentoring them and and helping them succeed and Not only did we just not have it in us at the time Which I think we've grown over time and you know Continually done better a bit like at the time. It was like dude. We just we just don't like doing this So we decided like hey, we need to go back to trying to sell online Try to get back to the product because that's why we started the business like Megan loved her cookie dough I loved it That's what we liked doing like sharing it with people. I love to do in pop-up events I just wanted to get the cookie dough in front of more customers And that was kind of what we were desperate for and we thought the way with scoop shops when really it was You need to solve for the best distribution model the best impacts like what you said So like really figure out like how do I have the most impact with my product? Well, it was really CPG the whole time the margins just aren't very good in CPG So when you're younger and you're a little short-term minded You're gonna be like well, let me open this scoop shop where I can make Insane gross margin the verses like if I go to a grocery store making nothing so at the time we were more focused on money and not impacts so in September-October of 2019 we changed that mindset keep put together this plan of We're gonna sell online. We're gonna try to prove it as a CPG products and then kind of go from there We're gonna pivot the company So that was interesting because it happened right before COVID that winter was really hard We had really overextended ourselves the summer before building stores So we're coming into February really low on cash Super low like Megan and I haven't paid ourselves in like seven months. We're in like the red zone as far as like a company and Then we had a tornado in Nashville and shut one of our stores down And it was a store. We were actually trying to shut down. So we were like, all right Well, we were gonna pivot this store into a production facility. So let's just go in You know when they clean up the tornado damage and we're gonna do production there and start shipping our online orders out of that store This is March of March 3rd of 2020 and obviously at that point we're like tracking COVID saying like, you know I wonder what will happen if this actually gets here like what happens to our business because we're food and People have to come in so it was kind of already in our head like what might happen and Megan was also nine months pregnant at the time. Wow. So it was a very rough month. That's a stressful to be a wow Yeah, all right. You don't pay yourself for seven months. You're nine months pregnant. Yep. Yeah. It was a tornado. It was wild. Nice Okay, March 16th, we shut all our stores down and I actually had been driving back and forth to Cincinnati at the time Because we had lost our manager recently and March 16th actually felt really good Like it's weird to talk about but I had told you already like back in September We were like, hey, we don't really like doing this business. Yeah, it made it obvious for you Yeah, and I grinded all winter. Yeah trying to like make sure like we're cutting costs like I'm in the stores like helping the managers do things like Really getting my hands dirty in the business and I was working like 80 hours a week Doing something I didn't like doing so then March 16th rolls around and I'm like, all right This feels kind of freeing. This is weird That feeling led into I think the success that feeling and then the clarity that Megan had because right after that on that day She said something to me that was so powerful. She was like look like we're just gonna have to like make it through and put together a plan to survive But we didn't just put a plan together to survive We took this plan that we had already had to grow the online store and we just put it into overdrive like Let's take all the employees that were at our scoop shops bring them over to that German town store Let's start producing cookie dough that's post and contact all the influencers ever worked with have them post about it Let's partner with our friend that runs a digital agency and like start spending money on facebook ads Like we had no cash in the bank and he was like just commit four hundred dollars a day 300 four hundred dollars a day to instagram ads to see what happens And all of the stars just aligned because anyone that was doing e-com at the time knows Facebook returns were better than they'd been since 2014 The influencer posting worked our online store sales went from like 20 grand a month to like 80 grand a week It was insane like wild stuff like we're getting like 200 orders a day And so by the end of march like our daughter was born on March 31st And I was able to like go to the hospital with megan and and not work and not check my email It was like a complete shift it happened over two weeks and it took no money I mean you could say the pandemic like spurred it on but really the only thing that really needed to happen Was we needed to be like we're shifting like we had said we were gonna pivot and we didn't for months We just set up the online store again Started sort of marketing it weren't putting a lot of effort into it. It was a shift in effort. Yeah, yeah That's so weird Like I love that and and covid forced it to happen We kind of were just Very honest with ourselves about what we needed to do and then My marketing plan became like Let's just be very honest with our customers like I literally posted pictures of our staff members And I was like look We don't want to lose these people these people pay their mortgages with the money we pay them Please like if you've ever wanted to support us if you've ever wanted to buy cookie dough, this is the time And I think the fact that we were so transparent actually worked. That's crazy. That's a good story That's a really really good story. Congratulations on your daughter And at least she entered the world with some clarity from your business You