 I think a lot of events take place and people order phone-uts, but we don't know about it like Exactly, we don't do catering per se, gotcha Like a few years ago I remember a couple people texted me, oh did you know you're on the, what is the Kim Kardashian the reality show? Keeping up with the Kardashians? Right, so this was her first kid and they had a huge baby shower with these gorgeous cherry blossom trees in the house I mean it was just so extravagant, I guess it was on the show and because it was her first child And I'm announced to me they had phone-uts there and so I found it online or whatever and you hear her say, oh my god you have to try those donuts, they're amazing This is Startup at Storefront, the podcast where we inspire entrepreneurship through truth And today is our 100th episode, it's also the first time we've hosted a guest in our brand new podcast studio We can't think of a sweeter way to celebrate this milestone than with some donuts So with that being said, today's guests are Tom Furtado and Nancy Truman, the husband and wife duo behind the LA sensation Phone-Uts Those that are in the know, No Los Angeles is a donut loving city There are many, many places that satisfy your sweet tooth, but a few rise above the rest Phone-Uts has made a name for itself not only in the quality and taste of their donuts, but by making all of their creations gluten-free as well They've come to our studio today to tell us all about how they became the creators of the enlightened donut So listen in as we cover everything from their plans to become a national brand through franchising Why Nancy doesn't like the lead with gluten-free when asked what's a phone-ut And why the biggest struggle in running their business has always been hiring quality employees Hang on, hang on, if you're not subscribed, can you go ahead and do that right now before we get on with the video? Helps us out tremendously That's all we ask and we're back Alright guys, welcome to the podcast on today's show We're talking to the founders of Phone-Uts, Tom and Nancy Thanks for coming on, either one of you can take this question What made you want to jump into the vegan donut world? Well it's actually more the gluten-free world because all of them are gluten-free And about half of them are vegan I was a voice actor for about 25 years And I was gluten intolerant So I love baked goods But 20 years ago, 15 years ago, there was no gluten-free to be found Or at least any good gluten-free baked goods to be found So, you know, I always loved baking So I would just take recipes that I loved Started with a banana chocolate, banana bread Recipe of a friend that was so unhealthy I mean, it had like two sticks of butter, two cups of sugar I was like, whoa, and I modified it Oh, I know, right? I mean, it's delicious for sure, right? That's why I took the recipe And I just modified it over dozens and dozens of times Trying to get it as healthy as possible But keeping that deliciousness So that you couldn't tell the difference Took two sticks of butter down to three tablespoons of coconut oil Took the flour from white flour to almond flour and rice flour And when was this? How many years ago was this? This was about 15 years ago Okay, so at that point, like almond flour is not as good as it is now No, it was, almond flour was Yeah, almond and rice flour were Yep, and then I took the sugar down to three tablespoons of sugar from two cups By letting the bananas ripen really well And I called it banana bread And I sold it at the farmer's market And that's kind of how phonuts was born Didn't think anybody would buy the loaf Through some of the batter into the donut mold Called them phonuts And that was it Really? It flew off the shelves So you were solely at the farmer's market That's it, just at the farmer's market So let me get this straight banana bread first And then while still at the farmer's market You started incorporating that into phonuts as well, right? Yeah, I didn't think anybody would buy the whole loaf of bread The banana bread loaf for me So I put it in donut pans and called them phonuts And sold them for a couple bucks People could have the option I put out samplers And the pouring rain flew off the shelves Like 65 loaves in a couple hours And a friend of mine at the time came by And she was a pastry chef She fell in love with the phonuts She quit her job as a pastry chef We opened up phonuts And I started formulating a bunch more recipes gluten-free And so that's how it was born Since then she stepped out And my husband has stepped in I just opened this and it smells amazing I've tried to make gluten-free products with my wife's gluten-free It's never this moist Yeah, the whole goal for me was If you come into the shop I don't even like my employees to say we're gluten-free They say what's a phonut I say it's a faux donut It's baked, not fried And we use almond and rice flour So that people who are not gluten-free Won't even think, oh that's gluten-free But the people who are gluten-free will be like ding ding ding So that we're not alienating those people Who think gluten-free is disgusting Because it's not Our whole goal is to make it taste like the original That you don't even know the difference I've been in your store and people have asked What's gluten? To the point of I was thinking maybe they're visiting from out of town And they've never purchased anything gluten-free And so now they're starting to ask What I would consider now to be a very elementary level question And it was shocking to me What was the moment for you when you said The farmer's market is going really well We're on to something Like a retail strategy It was that day when my friend came to see him The very first farmer's market She was texting me saying I'm going to come and see you She was with her boyfriend who was a fine dining Executive chef They were both fine dining executive chefs I said don't even bother coming I have nothing left And by the time she got there I had two faux nuts left Her boyfriend at the time's idea was like You guys need to open a faux nut shop Like okay And that was it I did the farmer's market a couple more times We found a space and that's when faux nuts was born What was the first space? The one on Beverly? On West third So you've been there the entire time? We've been there the whole time Ten years Okay Ten years ago And at that point did you feel early to the market? We were the first gourmet donut shop in LA And we're one of very few gluten-free bakeries in LA There aren't very many There's maybe three gluten-free bakeries There's a couple more now But you're dedicated Yeah Dedicated gluten-free bakery And I know at some point you guys run out Yes we do So we used to go every morning Because we have to go early Right Like before running Before the hike Not after the hike Because after the hike there are all It's unpredictable It's definitely unpredictable Do you find it seasonal as well? Or is it just year round? Oh it is Sure You would think summers are high season It's like second highest Really March through May June Is our highest season Don't know why That's really interesting And you think the holidays are busy Right But that's not our killing time now So right now You're in your busiest time here Yeah we're pretty busy We just started really getting busier Now that we've opened inside again We just reopened inside a week ago And I don't know if it's because we're reopened inside Or people are getting vaccinated But all of a sudden we're just like Busy again It's definitely everyone else is Gathering And so we're seeing like dozens Orders that we didn't see all COVID Five dozens, six dozens Having gatherings Right And getting phone-ups for everybody Yeah You know that was like our real You know sort of like Tipped us into profitability Was all the big events And the big orders You know once those went away We were just like Yep Yeah that's hard Yeah So let's talk about COVID So COVID hits Oh well no more offices So no more office parties No more phone-up Fridays Or somebody's bringing them For the office No more production Right Hollywood's shut down Right No more parties Kids parties You know they used People used to order Five, six, ten dozen minis For kids parties Done Or birthdays Weddings No more afternoon coffee break Right Nobody's milling around the streets Did you guys close completely Because I know a big part of it Is like going inside And seeing the donuts Right Exactly The inside's closed Well you know so We saw the writing on the wall We were already slumping Before the official shutdown Right But you know When the official shutdown came We were like alright We're joining that Even though we could have stayed open Because we were a food business We just did not feel safe For our employees For our customers Nothing It was so unknown And seemed so dangerous So we were just like Let's just chill for a minute You know we didn't think It was going to be a year Everybody thought A couple weeks Right So we were like We can do that And that was March Our busiest month Right So that was painful We were really lucky That Square added a whole Online e-commerce module For free Right when all that happened I think they kind of You know they're planning to Roll it out like a paid Subscription thing And they just kind of Offered it to all their vendors So that they could get Some revenue in right So once we saw that And I figured that system out And when things started Looking better End of May We said okay You know we can Do sidewalk pickup With this system Online ordering only And all that kind of stuff And so we did that What do you want? How flavor did you have? I think this is the banana Oh that's the banana seed That's the banana seed There's no sugar in the batter Really? Yeah These are shocking It's just really bright bananas They're so delicious I mean a part of the podcasting Is like you have to be honest But when products are amazing They're just amazing But no one believes it They're like of course He's not going to say We're lucky that most people And I mean we've had like Blue collar truck drivers Come in after delivery They're like I don't know about this And we had them like a strawberry Phone it and they're like This is the best donut I've ever had Oh my god I can't go back And that's the thing Especially as a guy So often you'll hear someone say Oh yeah it's a good gluten free version Like this is just a good donut That's what people seem to say And you know when you We use all fresh ingredients Like the strawberries Chock full of fresh strawberries The blueberry We make a wild blueberry compote And we fold it into the batter And then we blend up some of it In a robo coupe Which is like a food price Is this the blueberry? Yeah And then the wild blueberry compote Is also that's what the glaze Is made out of So it's all really high quality We have incredible pastry chefs You know it's not just A fried donut where you're Cutting some dough Throwing it into some cheap Fryer oil And then putting Totally different Yeah How do you guys view marketing Like how do you guys go out And market this Is it social media heavy? Obviously word of mouth Is how I found out Which I think is probably The best form I'm actually I'm going to school To learn digital marketing Because before COVID You know it was just The brick and mortars And we were actually Yeah so social media was heavy And we were trying to figure out Sort of local marketing And some street marketing Trying to figure that Kind of stuff out And it was a brick and mortar Strategy and we were Actually starting to think Okay you know Lots of people want this In their town Lots of people are coming And I was like Let's figure out A franchise strategy for this Right Then COVID hit And we were like Okay that's not happening Any time soon Literally like in January We were starting to go down That road So then You know in the spring Late spring You know summer When we saw COVID baking Was a real thing I had always had a vision To do the Baker kits Like Duncan Heinz style But you know Way down the road And we're established National brand And we've already You know and we could Just go straight to DIY direct to consumer Any of that But then during COVID We were like Okay we're going to DIY this And do direct to consumer And let's figure out How to do that And digital marketing Is the way to do that So yeah I'm actually at demand curve I don't know if you've Heard of them So kind of A lot of people from Y Combinator Have started this other Digital marketing boot camp Kind of thing But they have You know you can get a Coach And you know go along Through all the Whether it's S-E-L-S-E-M On landing pages And you know All the different buckets They'll work with you On projects that you Use for your business As your homework And they iterate it with you And then you know By the end of the Depending on how fast you go Through two to six months You've kind of Built the infrastructure For your digital marketing For your business Do you pay to go to it? Yeah And luckily there was A COVID discount And so sure It was a really Our startup went through Y Combinator In 2015 So that's pretty cool I didn't realize Them exactly But it's kind of in concert With a lot of people From there And yeah I kind of want to Go back to something you said You said You were thinking about doing this When you were an established National brand So that's one of the things That I was curious about Was like your thoughts For expansion And how you do plan To roll out phone Notes as a national brand Like have you guys Taking steps towards that Maybe taking a step back Because of COVID Or whatever But like what's the process Behind your thoughts Your thoughts are not Well now we ship nationally The Baker kit So we are becoming that Direct to consumer And the Fotella So you know We've definitely been Focusing on that right now But you know I'm starting to think again You know now that things Are opening back up And hopefully things Will stabilize And continue to stay stable You know revisiting That franchising model As a possible other avenue To go down Would you want to do it yourself Like a couple more locations First that you guys own And operate before you Not really it's You know because we've got Two locations right now And that's enough for You know we're older And you know Don't have as much energy So that was why We were thinking Franchise would be great Because someone else Can deal with the day to day And we can just give All of that marketing And other support And the other really cool Thing for a franchise model Is that you know As we developed the Dry mixes for the Baker kit Which are the same recipe Okay Just a slight you know Instead of fresh yogurt We found yogurt powder But you know just a couple Changes like that But otherwise the same recipe Once we figured that out We realized oh well now We have a dry mix We could actually sell Two franchisees Right it makes sense And control the recipe And not give away the recipe And have another revenue stream For the franchise model What's the hard part About the business Is it like shelf life Like what's the difficulty Managing employees Yeah definitely employees You know it's Unfortunately we're in that You know sort of retail Employee turn style Where it's really tough Yeah we're very lucky A lot of our employees For the most part for Hourly employees They've been with us A lot of them for a while Some you know there's always Some turnover you know Certain percentage but Our bakers are just Pretty steadfast and You know the front of the house Only leaves when really They've gotten pregnant Or married Right there's always life Changes that move them Right We have a really great crew We all just adore each other And it's just good I know we talked about this Earlier but you know As these places are reopening That we're being told The hard part is like finding Employees all over again Right Because no one's incentive Incentivized to work People are getting unemployment Checks Yup And so this is obviously Impacting you guys Sure Yeah that's been happening To us What do you do Cover front of the house So we work some shifts Yeah Front of the house Which is my favorite knot I'd much rather be in The kitchen I would like to be in The kitchen creating That's sort of my happy place But yeah I've just been covering Front of the house While we're getting people Trained up And looking for people Yeah what I'm finding is And especially after talking Other people in the same Boat All post for the job And normally I'll get Tons of applicants And then I'll text them Hi so and so Thank you for your resumes This is Nancy Pwnuts Are you available to jump On an interview call Tomorrow at 3.30 And yes absolutely This past week This has never happened before I kid you not Like a half dozen I would respond pretty quickly After I'd received their email Crickets Nobody responds So they put in their application So they can You know when they fill out their Employment form They check their Yeah they check out the Check the box Oh yes I'm looking I'm looking Oh okay Are you I don't know Well they don't have to That's the problem with the system All they have to do Is like put a valiant attempt Which I would call Just like a dusting Yeah You know And then as long as They're checking the box Saying yeah I tried It's definitely gotten harder You know I have a few people Now that are potentials Yeah But you know it's taken You know a week longer Than it normally might I mean we're just lucky We get people to To apply But I see the difference Even in our little world Yeah in West Hollywood As I've mentioned Like the Chamber of Commerce On the calls This is the biggest thing That hotels are struggling With employees Just restaurant employees Oh yeah Baristas They can't seem to fill the Seats as the hotels Are getting way more Operating Oh yeah they need people Yeah I heard about one restaurant Had to close for two weeks Because they didn't have Labor Imagine after COVID After everything Everything else Now they have to close Because they can't find People looking for work Who want to work It's a combo of The unemployment checks And the insimulus And all of that And a lot of people Are going and following Their passion Like you know I go back to that Yeah life short Let me find a business That I want to start Or that I want to follow And it's apparently A lot of people Going back to school Right Yeah a lot of people I can't even notice When I interview people They've gone back to school But I wonder if this is LA and the big cities Because people have all Left the big expensive cities And gone back To maybe where they were From Or if this is happening All over the country Well people have moved Out of the cities Also you know I saw a statistic A chart That looked legitimate That food service Whether it's cooks Bakers Servers All of the food service And all the hospitality Were in the top Of COVID deaths Per job occupation So you know If they didn't move Or go back to school They died They're in the highest Percentage Of all You know job occupations For COVID deaths You were saying that It's like a hot topic This whole thing about Well yeah Because you know Like this one headline That I've been seeing A lot is basically If a business can't afford To pay $15 an hour or more Then they shouldn't be in business Workers are sick of subsidizing Owners that aren't willing To pay A fair living wage And you know I get that argument I think you know There's some validity to that Because it depends on the business You know it depends On the location I don't think that a $15 An hour should be A national standard Because you know Wichita, Kansas And LA are completely Different right But I you know I certainly believe In a fair living wage You know And I think we've always been Able to be competitive with that You know We're not on the high end of that But we're hoping to be able to As we you know Grow a little more I wish people knew the numbers Like I remember we almost Opened up a restaurant I was helping a restaurant open And I got to see all the Financials And this was a James Beard Award winning chef So they're coming with A lot of credibility And you know There's a lot of hype And blah blah blah And in looking at the numbers They were making like 5% profit margin And it just goes to show you Like these businesses are Next to impossible Yeah If you're a logical human Being you wouldn't do it Right Which made me rethink About restaurants as A hospitality art That's really what it is You fly to Los Angeles To enjoy culinary experience That you couldn't Right And just like you paid For a flight And a bunch of other expensive Stuff along the way You should probably pay more Right 5% doesn't keep The industry alive No And it keeps two things Happening Right It keeps either the And you'll see Three Michelin stars And there'll be nothing in between Right So it's like everything's Either corporate Or super high end And now the family of four Can't go out to dinner And experience a meal Because it's way too expensive Yep And this is what's happening And I think covid just threw That into overdrive Right It's a sad truth It's really sad But it's like the consumer Doesn't also understand The cost has to be Offset somehow Right And so it's this thing of Like you have to Understand the simple Math of it Before you ask For astronomical things Right Like we want $18 an hour I mean it's not like We're you know Rolling in it Exactly Come on I mean We're working our butts off And I think most restaurant Owners would agree And it's Yeah There's not a whole lot Of return Well if you ask the Consumer The consumer says That they're willing to Pay higher prices If that cost Of product increase Goes to employees Or whatever it is But then In actuality You find that They don't actually Follow through And then Everyone's left Blaming the other person Right And so it really Is just this Really tough area Right now And like Diego said It's been thrown Even more into a loop Because of COVID And so people are trying To figure out How to deal with it And then Also there's What we were talking About earlier with $15 increase To minimum wage There was also The talk of hazard pay For Right All these frontline Food employees Grocery store Employees Like Certain industries Were thriving for sure And maybe could afford it But it's not every industry And it should be A sliding scale I don't think you can Hold someone To a black and white Standard When it's very gray Yep Absolutely, yeah A lot of people Are raising their prices Now though I think they have The ingredients are Going up The gas is going up We're also seeing Inflation starting To creep in Yeah I think one positive Thing is that So now A lot more dialogue About universal healthcare Because if that was around That would really help The situation as well Right It wouldn't It wouldn't just be About wage only When you guys first Got started Did you bootstrap Did you raise capital To start your business Yeah I wasn't around When she started So my Former business partner She actually Put up the capital She really wanted to And then afterward I bought her out And then Tom Stepped in And now she's happily On a farm And with Horses And animals And on a ranch You know She's loving it So she's not tied To the business anymore at all She's not And now since she's gone out We've I've gone all gluten free Because she was doing The non-gluten free Phone nuts So I basically just Took all those recipes Some of them And modified them To be gluten free What's your recipe Creation process like How do you decide To maybe add a new flavor Or whatever It might be like The Fotella Yeah How was the Fotella Oh, I know I challenged you Okay, yeah Because you know I wanted to have Lots of sort of like Seasonal flavors And whatever When I came on board And so we had a Seasonal flavor Which was the No, it wasn't seasonal It was an old flavor It was We had a flavor That was chocolate hazelnuts It was a chocolate Phone nut With chocolate glaze And hazelnuts on top That was my favorite A little bit of Maldon seashell Right Well It didn't sell that well We had a regular chocolate It was okay But not great It's always me Yeah Not great I'm your market Yeah, I took it off I took it out of rotation Because you did something else New, I think at that point Yeah, I think we were At the time we had Like a pecan pie I think for Christmas And that was chocolate With the pecan So it was nuts and chocolate So I took the Chocolate hazelnut Out of rotation And didn't put it back in And we had a bunch Of hazelnuts left over Which I, you know In a kitchen The enemy of the kitchen Is waste So I kept them For a while I was like, God I just hate to throw those away So Tom's like What are you gonna do With the hazelnuts What are you gonna He's like, why can't you think Of something to do With the hazelnut Yeah, because we were Trying to come up with A new seasonal flavor At that point And I don't know how I figured like Do a nutella Type of thing I don't remember How it came to pass But I started Tinkering with Quote nutella recipes Like chocolate hazelnut Spread And just modified You know, different recipes Until, because I'll start With a base And then I'll modify Whatever recipe I'm working with Like I said with the Bananthi bread And just to make it As little sugar as possible I also do that So the flavors pop I'll start with One ingredient at a time And I'll modify Till I get the right texture The right flavor And then I'll do Another ingredient You know, so It's just a slow Scientific process Do you have any dream Collaborations? Like if you could collaborate On a phone nut With somebody Or maybe like There's a variety of people Maybe people in the food world I don't know But then you release like The blah blah flow nut Right I'm just thinking like The social media sensation Of that Would also be pretty kind of I don't know Kind of cool You know Along the way People have always said Who are you gonna collaborate For some reason It's just never been A big part of the model You know, we did the want You did the one Oh yeah, I just collaborated With Liz She owns Little house confections Down the street They make olive oil cakes So we collaborated So now I have an olive oil Wild blueberry I mean, I would love to work With Christina Dosey But she doesn't do Gluten-free She doesn't do low sugar None of it I just like You know She's just creative And I just like her Right She doesn't do it yet Yet So we are On opposite sides Of the spectrum She's like Whatever I can throw in there I'll throw it in Which is great You know But we're so different Any favorite events That you guys have catered Well We tried to cater The one thing for United friends And then we got Ranged out Yeah So you know Our one Sort of You know Community social Platform Is with United friends Who foster children And they specifically Focus on Older foster kids That are about to age out And they help them Get into college Help them Get into housing Post foster system And so it's You know It's a personal Soft spot for us And so we found them And you know This is actually Foster Care Awareness Month Right now And I've been remiss I haven't posted The foster phone So we Donate proceeds From our vanilla Phone up Every May And then we also You know Participate in their Gala events And different fundraiser Things like that Yeah I think a lot of Events take place A few years ago We don't do Catering per se Right Like a few years ago I remember A couple of people Texted me Oh did you know You're on the What is the Kim Kardashian The reality show Keeping up With the Kardashians Right So this was her first Kid And they had a huge Baby shower With these Gorgeous Cherry blossom Trees in the house I mean it was Just so extravagant I guess it was On the show And because They had phone Nuts there And you hear her And so I Found it online Or whatever And you hear her say Oh my god You have to try those Donuts They're amazing But they don't mention Phone Nuts I found out about it Through a Baker of mine Or an employee And somebody else Who watched the show So they didn't have Like the phone Up box Or anything Nothing They've never mentioned Us They order from us All the time So many events Like that But you know Certain people They're not going to mention That it's phone Nuts Right How do you view it? Do you view it as a missed Opportunity? Or do you view it like That would have been Insane It would have been Insane And we're glad that Didn't happen No we would love it to Happen Afterwards Did you think about Reaching out to them Being like Hey we're glad that You enjoy our product Or whatever Yeah Well you know Other than like Oh you know We don't have the contact So how can we reach out And they're not going to Read our DM Like you know These guys are way too big For that right But we've learned since That no just try right You know It happens more often Than you think right So we're starting to Do that a little more As we launch this place We're working with the Publicist now And so a big part Of the campaign And you know My problem is I think I realize Like I like data And I'm like What's the ROI But what I've learned In entrepreneurship Is the mirror behind me You couldn't put A price on this You couldn't put An ROI on it But it lends itself So nicely to the space And the vibe We're trying to create And so these are things That you know Are completely What I call Often Excel sheet And they'll never Be an Excel sheet For that thing And so in the front We're doing like A soft opening With influencers That are really big In the copy space And so they're going To be invited They're going to Have some swag And you know We hope they post Amazing You're going to get word of mouth And you're going to end up On every TV show anyway And all we're trying to do Is just make sure People are aware Of the product Right and so I've shifted my focus To say We need more people Aware of the product And if they happen To have a following Then let's make sure Those people understand How delicious this product is And if they want To share it With their community Great And if they don't Great More often Than not They will And so we're doing That's like one part And there's also Celebrities So making sure There's a few people With big followings That come But also like that care Like are considered In your world A food expert Or a foodie Or loves donuts Like someone's got To be out there That's like a donut fanatic And goes to every Donut shop And makes a review Right there's got To be that person And so that's What we've kind Of just leaned All in on Just making sure People are aware Of the product Because the product's That good Like it's just So disgusting Right But again It just goes back To our products amazing This person has Some semblance Of followers That follow them Because they taste Coffee or whatever And so let's just Invite them We had the The same initial Sort of reaction to The influencer You know paradigm But I think it's How you approach it And who you approach it Exactly There's room For every angle For sure Totally So I know you guys Serve coffee Always the case Yep Okay We've always used LaMille It's an old school L.A. Coffee brand They have one Up in Silver Lake Have you been To the LaMille Up in Silver Lake No I've walked by it 14 times Oh gosh You gotta go in And I've always Like just had a coffee It's like one of those Oh yes And I'm like Yeah Yeah But anyway I really like LaMille We have Really good Cold brew Yeah And it's just a tiny Little store front space And as much as We love the coffee And the people Who drink our coffee Love it But it's never Tipped Over 10% Of our gross Okay So it doesn't matter So people are coming for the phone It's not the coffee So we were like We're not going to go Into all that trouble For no real Return Yeah Talk about ROI And it's such a small space And we didn't have the space For it anyway So we decided to Bottle it And first These cute little whiskey bottles And It's cool Those little square flat ones Glass flasks And so Yeah the flasks We were carrying his But then he got out of that He got out of the bottling And was just doing other stuff And so we bought the rest Of the bottles from him And we were like We'd cold brew our own anyway And so we just started Filling it ourselves And so we sell that out of there We haven't really been pushing it enough We need to push it a little more But a cool little item Yeah People love cold brew Because you can just grab It feels good in the hand It looks like you've got something And it's our number one seller In the shop is our Ice cold brew It's so good Ice lattes It's like rocket fuel That's our number one seller Any way of all the coffee drinks I'm just thinking it's Completely opposite Like so You always hear the person Drinking whiskey out of A coffee cup to hide it Yeah The opposite way Totally Totally Will that be part of The franchise model too The coffee Or at least the cold brew You think It's easy right Because you just need a refrigerator Yeah Well the bottle for sure I think it's still worth having If you got the bakery retail space Having the barista experience Is really nice To me they go hand in hand Definitely adds a whole For me too Oh yeah Experience to it That's just me Is there anything that you found out About your customers That you may have not Thought originally Like being in LA Everyone's so fit But clearly we all love Delicious items Or maybe like Older people Grandparents love you I don't know Is there some data that you found Well the one thing that I You know Because when I came in And you know For one thing I looked at the numbers And the reason we decided To go all gluten free Was two reasons One I looked at the numbers And that was the category That sold the most Okay Except for the blueberry And strawberry Which weren't gluten free They were the only Non-gluten free heroes That sold me Everything else was The gluten free and vegan And so I said You know So the numbers Don't lie But I said most importantly You know Except the owner Should be able to Eat anything on the menu Right And she could Eat half the menu And then thirdly Anecdotally Everyone we met In LA They're like Oh phonets The healthy donut place Like even though Nancy Said they purposely Were not promoting That part of it That was the Consumer identity Of phonets And so we said Let's just lean into that And so that's when I came up The enlightened donut As sort of a Anyone can Read whatever they want Into that That would be Whatever you think Can enlighten Minutes Right So that was Kind of surprising That despite Her effort to not Play that up That was really The main Identification You just leaned into What you believed in And it made sense How many phonets Do you guys Eat a day I just had One today Although I left You one bite As many as I can But that's usually You know I'm usually leaving For the customers To get And for people Listening How much are they How much is like A six pack Of the bigger ones Or the normal size Ones I guess So the six pack Is twenty seven dollars Four fifty each Four fifty each Yeah If you know Things You know Keep going the way They're going We'll probably have to You know Raise the price Incrementally A little bit soon Here We've only raised Our price once In ten years Wow And that was Once in a while You'll get that person Who doesn't quite understand What we're doing And so they'll compare it To a regular donut How much is a regular donut Like At sixty eighty nine cents Maybe Or whatever Depending where you're going But what's interesting is Obviously not somewhere Like a sidecar We're actually Pretty much the same price As them, yeah We're actually on the low end For what we do And what we use For ingredients For gluten free vegan Because there's a couple Of quote gourmet donut Chops in town Like blue star donuts Or sidecar And they are also Like four fifty each But they're not using Really high quality Expensive ingredients Like almond flour And rice flour And all fresh fruit And wild blueberry They're not making a wild Blueberry compote They're monies in their Packaging Yeah They might be doing They might be a little bit Warm They've got some Sheppy creations I'm not going to I'm not dissing them But I'm saying In terms of like The base ingredients It's white flour Which costs You know Significantly There's no comparison I think this is the hard part About companies like this It's like It fundamentally costs more money If you get an almond milk latte It costs more money than just It did It costs way more And yet we're the same price That's what I'm trying to say Not that they're using Cheap ingredients But they're not using Almond flour Which is just a Beat down That's one of the biggest Yeah So we always tell people If they're having hard time Conceive them I say You ever bought a pound Of almonds You see how expensive That is Translate that to So nice of you Yeah I know I used to go to a barbershop Where he would raise the prices 50 cents every year Every single year And I would always get So mad at him Now you know why I was a kid And I'm like Right Because my birthday is in January So what happened is My birthday haircut Would be like Expensive Can I get Last year's revenue He's like You know my rent's gone up That's what he would say He would say Government doesn't care About your birthday Exactly I'm like I'm 12 That's a tough realization Just give me that 50 cents Yeah But I always thought So it wasn't until I was like 18 Where I was like That's actually really intelligent Of him to do And he also trained the customers Right The customers were At that point Everybody expected it Yep And he would just Be like When I first started That gas station was 60 cents again There you go Look at it now And then everyone would be like Oh it makes sense Okay And then no one will care We go back to Barbershop talk Right Like my utilities have gone up Every year too Right Goes up every year What do you guys view as Like your next big thing Besides maybe franchising Anything else Or is that What you guys are focused on Baker mixes We're really trying To push that So you know We tried to really Make an experience How to Phone us videos Wait wait Okay so If I could A bakery mix Yeah Okay First of all That box As you notice It's the half dozen box So when you Finish baking Back in that box And then bring them to A party Or give them as a gift What is this What is this That's the white stripe line That we put on our signature White stripe line This is frosting So that's pre-made Frosting And you just cut the corner And then you've got A little piping bag It's beautiful Okay this is batter So if I were to make this I'd add batter I take the batter What do I add to it So where's your Instruction card Right there It says we need a phone Up pan Any kind of Well we actually Didn't bring the phone To use And so Just like I said Any pan Yeah No the kit comes with the pan Gotcha How much is the kit 38 for all of it With the pan That you reuse over and over Yeah Thanks That's all Tom Is this on your social media Yeah Not yet Yeah and I've been doing Some social ad buying And that kind of thing Can you add Can you add almond milk Instead of Tape the water I think that would work For this one Oh no this one doesn't Take milk This takes oil Olive oil before And it worked great It says 3 tablespoons water Yep Okay Yeah so it's basic I mean everybody has water So all you need is Oil and egg I challenged Nancy When we were developing this To really keep the The ingredients that Someone has to add To the most basic So for example That's why we found Yoga powder You know because Not everyone has yoga And I don't want someone Have to go buy yoga Especially during COVID That's what keeps me From like cooking by the way It's like the one thing I grab Or the two things Exactly And so This has buttermilk powder In our vegan recipes We give you a packet Of applesauce And a packet of vinegar Because not everyone has White vinegar And not everyone has Applesauce right So literally just egg Butter Plant milk Oil Water That's all you need Like basics from your Kitchen Like the vegan recipes All you need is Oil and plant milk Which most vegans Have plant milk in their house We use good milk The maximum one we use In the kitchen The one that you get With the kit The recipe is exactly the same The half dozen bucks Exactly the same So it's as close to The come to get it In the store experience As we could get For you to do it In your home Speaking of marketing We just started doing Something called Pop Shop Live Do you know what that is? No It's QVC for GenZ Basically and it's app based But it's live shopping And it's chat based So there's a chat screen Going while you're Doing your live show And then you can even You can even bring someone That's in your chat You just touch their icon And invite them to have a face time And it'll split the screen for you And you can engage with your customers Do they pay to be paid? Or is it free? What's that? Do they pay? Or is it free? No it's all free It's all free I mean Pop Shop Makes its money They take a tiny cut Way smaller cut Than say delivery app takes And it's just super high Engagement And it's really fun Yeah we just did our first show A couple So they started with collectibles And things that obviously were Much easier And like beauty makeup And things like that And then they wanted to Expand to food So they invited us to be part of The first they called the Farmers Market You know they envisioned Just having lots of vendors Queued up That you could go down The queue And so we did that Had a great time Great response We just did one hour But some vendors are on All day They'll just do an hour Show Yeah that would be Yeah It was the camera That would be But here's the funny thing Is that it was exhausting for us Because we were like trying to be On the whole time But I watched some of the other Shows It's so casual Their kids Their pets are coming through There's like dead air They're just like So You know it's like And it's Checking Instagram It's not like QVC And that way It's not on and on And people don't have that Expectation It's so much more casual Even watching QVC is exhausting Just calm down Brow Exactly Yeah we felt we had to be like The Shamwile guy So now I'm just going to be A little more chill But I baked the whole kid We had an hour She ran through the kid I ran through the kid You can actually have the Batter done Before the oven's even preheated It's that easy So you can have the batter It takes longer than me I never do that Every cooking instruction Ever It's like Preheat your oven first And I never do that Because all of the prep work Takes so long No if you have your egg And your oil Already there And your little quarter cup Turn on your oven The batter makes into a bowl Throw your two eggs Throw your three Whatever tablespoons of water And a little bit of oil Mix it up Your pan is frayed Your oven will not be Preheated yet It's that fast And then when the phonets Are baking Then you can make the glaze It's so easy The longest hardest part Is letting them cool Long enough afterwards Right Because if you don't Then the glaze doesn't Work out But so many people post it And we're like They didn't let the phone Out cool We can tell Yeah They're gonna get excited Yeah We get it We get it That's the hardest part This is so cool It is ingenious Thank you I'm excited to hear what you're working on He's basically the head of Packaging Head of HR Head of construction Head of marketing Design He designed the boxes He designed the boxes These are beautiful Yeah I've tried to do everything So she can just be The creative genius in the kitchen But unfortunately She is left Doing some managing Day to day Well I'm excited To try this Thank you guys Tell us everyone Where they can find you Obviously your locations And then Phoneuts.com It's pretty easy You know Phoneuts is our tag On every social channel And phonus.com We have one on West 3rd Street And you know Shop.phonus.com You just go to phonus.com And you'll link Right through to that So these are available For nationwide sipping We like people to come In the shop though Yeah Let's sit at the bar Have a coffee Where is the one in City of City On Ventura Place So it's just right At like A little triangle street Where John's on 3rd Is they have the phone They're already working On Sunday They call it the Melville Place At the Valley Alfred Coffee I play at Weddington I play tennis at Weddington sometimes And they're like Right down the street Right there Well thank you guys For coming on In person Thank you very much Thanks for having us It's been a lot of fun This is a great way to Break in the new studio Yeah I love it You know what you'll Love is you know You're a data guy You're a big map Where people Search for your For your address You know And map you Where do you think In LA Would be the highest Percentage of people Mapping our location Santa Monica Or West Hollywood Yeah good guesses Yeah How about you Diego Based on the question I'm gonna go He's gonna I know He's gonna I really don't know Van Nuys Beverly Hills Van Nuys No LAX Whoa You're from social posts That people would say On their social posts Like oh you know Making my first stop In phone nuts You know we're Planned my trip around phone Nuts And then when I saw that They literally go from The airport to phone Nuts You should put a billboard At LAX I swear we should Or have like A little phone up Or open up a truck That was In LA That was part of You know we were Thinking about that As part of the expansion You know it's That's a whole different Beast though From what I hear Right