Sweet Success with Lauren Roumayah Founder of Detroit Cookies

Summary

Cookies were always part of Lauren’s life, but she never thought she’d open her own business, bake cookies for a living, much less have three Detroit Cookie Company stores in just a few short years.

Lauren shares her story of how she got started and things she’s doing to grow her business that’s allowed her to expand in a short time period.

Lauren and her team bring the ultimate cookie experience to their cookie family by taking flavors from your most beloved memories and adapting them into cookie form.

I’ve tried Detroit Cookie Company’s cookies and can attest to just how good they are! You’ll love Lauren and her story.

WARNING: This episode will leave you smarter, happier and hungry.

Links:

Hello Friends.

Brandon:

Welcome to the Edge. Today we’re talking with Lauren ra moya, the founder of the Detroit cookie company.

Brandon:

And before we did this recording I had placed an order and these cookies are so stinking good that you’re going to leave hungry but you’re gonna leave fulfilled because Lauren shares her story of how she founded a cookie company.

Brandon:

I think she already has by the time you’re listening to this three locations and she shares tons of her lessons learned along her journey.

Brandon:

Lauren ro moya, founder of Detroit cookie company.

Brandon:

Here we go.

Brandon:

Welcome to the Edge podcast, your weekly playbook about the inner game of building a successful business, making you a happier, healthier and richer business owner.

Brandon:

And here’s your host, Brandon White.

Brandon:

Hi, how are you?

Brandon:

Good.

Brandon:

How are you doing today? Good.

Brandon:

What are you cooking in Detroit today?

Brandon:

So right now my team is making our blueberry chip doughnut cookie.

Brandon:

So for this cookie we actually partnered with a local doughnut shop. So the owner, her name is also Lauren and she is second generation or third generation owner and she makes these, her family makes these amazing blueberry chip doughnuts. They’re to die for. So we literally by like 72 dozen and throw them into our cookie dough with real blueberries and it’s so, so good.

Brandon:

So can you add that to my order that I placed this morning?

Brandon:

You got it?

Brandon:

I didn’t see them on the site this morning. So we actually just launched it today. So it’ll be up there later. But if you place an order, I’ll definitely hook you up. Yeah. I was telling my wife that I was going to interview this cookie lady from Detroit named Lauren and we read that you have Captain Crunch cookies which I saw when I originally reached out to you and they look so good.

Brandon:

Thank you.

Brandon:

Captain Crunch is just one of those cereals that I don’t know.

Brandon:

I feel like it really evokes nostalgia and childhood memories and people really love to see that in on our website that we have Captain Crunch and cookies.

Brandon:

Yeah, I got this bro cookie too.

Brandon:

So that cookie, it’s so funny when we first started and we opened our bakery, we were trying to incorporate some other things besides cookies.

Brandon:

So we made brownies and they just were not selling and I didn’t, I hated throwing them out like wasting all this product.

Brandon:

So instead of tossing the old brownies I just started throwing them in our cookie dough and it ended up being a really popular flavor.

Brandon:

So now we kind of made more work for ourselves because we have to make tons of batches of homemade brownies just to be thrown inside of our cookie dough.

Brandon:

So why do you, why do you think brownies didn’t don’t sell as well as cookies.

Brandon:

But then when you put the brownie in the cookie and you call it a cookie it sells, you know, I’m not 100% certain but I think that people are intrigued by the combination of the two.

Brandon:

I think that brownies are so rich, like we have, we have a cookie, we have two cookies that are a double chocolate base and although I think double chocolate cookies are so amazing and I love chocolate, it’s not a really popular seller, like people don’t want something so chocolatey.

Brandon:

So I feel like it balances it out because it’s kind of like a, it’s more like a milk chocolate cookie in my opinion.

Brandon:

I don’t know, it’s weird, isn’t it?

Brandon:

It is.

Brandon:

But you get the best of both worlds.

Brandon:

You can have brownies and cookies and one bite Yeah, I’m looking forward to that cookie.

Brandon:

So I want to go back when you started this whole cookie journey I read and maybe you can even go back before you went to college because you went to college to be a fashion merchandiser if I remember right.

Brandon:

Yeah, so going back even further.

Brandon:

So even so I would the first time I went, I went away to school so I actually went away to school at Grand Valley to begin with and I went away as a dance major and I really enjoyed the arts and I love being active on my feet and creative and I slowly realized that that wasn’t something that I could first see myself doing for the rest of my life.

Brandon:

I just think I hate quitting things and I hate giving up, but I kind of lost my passion for dance and it it just wasn’t fulfilling me anymore.

Brandon:

So I knew that devoting myself for the next four years in this degree that I already kind of could feel myself falling out of love with wasn’t going to be what I should do for the rest of my life.

Brandon:

I’m also a home body so I wanted to come home so bad.

Brandon:

So then I transferred home and I really gave myself a good year to figure out what I really wanted to do and even then I wasn’t 100% sure and I know I know I didn’t want to go into like just get like a broad business degree.

Brandon:

So someone I was working in retail at the time, I really love fashion and so someone had mentioned that Wayne State had a fashion program, so I looked more into it and ended up falling in love with Wayne State and the fashion program and what was really cool about the fashion program was that our professors were very realistic with the job market here in michigan as well as the rest of the country and they were telling us like don’t pigeon yourself whole, don’t pigeonhole yourself with this degree and just stick to fashion and clothing, like think outside of the box, like interiors and car companies, interior design or even take it out to more of a broad retail experience and develop that into fashion marketing or any marketing in general, you just just get your foot in the door somewhere because it might not be like fashion forward as in clothing and it kind of opened my eyes to different avenues that I could go down because eventually I did decide that fashion was not my thing and I didn’t want to be in retail anymore.

Brandon:

So it was nice to have those mentors to tell us, don’t just think this is a one lane highway like you could go in many different directions.

Brandon:

But I guess even before that I grew up baking my whole life, my mom is a baker, she was a stay at home mom and she always baked for us for birthday, special occasions.

Brandon:

She would bake cookies in the morning before we go to school and that was something that I grew up being a part of.

Brandon:

She had a lot of patients with us, she taught us at a very young age to bake and always included us in the kitchen.

Brandon:

It was very much so her love language and it’s now my love language.

Brandon:

Like if anyone’s upset, I bake him a cake or make them dinner and try to feed them.

Brandon:

And that’s really where my passion for baking and baking cookies specifically came from.

Brandon:

You must be very disciplined because being a dancer and having fresh baked things at home, you can’t eat that stuff all the time, right?

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

So I am a very disciplined person, but I believe in balance and I love nourishing my body with whole foods and I love exercising.

Brandon:

But I also love indulging.

Brandon:

And I think that when you, you know, eliminate a certain category from your life, whether that be indulging in entertainment or time with friends because you want to just like be so focused at work or you know, eliminating an entire food group because you want to be the epitome of health, health.

Brandon:

I think that it really limits you and Can cause problems in your life because you’re not allowing yourself to enjoy those things that are really exciting and it’s all about balance.

Brandon:

So I like to have like an 8020 rule, although we did go out for ice cream last night and they accidentally gave us two cones and we were like, not sad about it.

Brandon:

Well, I want to ask you because I was having a conversation with my wife this morning because I needed to lose some weight because of Covid probably eating too many cookies and I’ve gone to eating only vegetables.

Brandon:

Oh my gosh!

Brandon:

So no, wheat.

Brandon:

Now I am going to eat your cookies of course, But, and I ordered some gluten free.

Brandon:

I didn’t, I’m not a vegan or whatever, but I figured the gluten free will try to see how they taste.

Brandon:

Do you think?

Brandon:

And my wife was saying body, so I eat asparagus this morning because I didn’t have any broccoli and cauliflower and she’s like, And we’ve been together 25 years.

Brandon:

So she knows this right?

Brandon:

But I guess it just still always amazes her or shocks or pulls her hair out one of all three maybe.

Brandon:

But she’s like, you can never do anything in moderation and I really can.

Brandon:

I told her, I said, I think people do moderation are scared to commit.

Brandon:

So here’s my question to you.

Brandon:

You have been in business, you you are disciplined, you grew this company which we’re going to talk about, but but you’ve grown Detroit cookie company to the best that I can tell.

Brandon:

Like it’s a and I mean this in the in a compliment, it’s, it’s a real business.

Brandon:

Like you have stores, you have employees.

Brandon:

I’m looking at your kitchen and I’m like, and I don’t even know if I, I I do some complicated things but that just seems complicated baking all this stuff and you got this big freezer and you’ve got to keep the ingredients and always amazes me of how people who run food companies, whether that’s a cookie company or a restaurant.

Brandon:

All the planning that you actually have to really do.

Brandon:

So in this journey since we’re talking, we’re just on this topic and you brought up moderation or maybe that wasn’t your word, but balance.

Brandon:

You think that you can really be balanced as an entrepreneur.

Brandon:

I think that you always strive for balance in the beginning, I think that I was, I had no balance at all.

Brandon:

I felt like if I took a break, I was failing myself or you know not working hard enough because we really value pushing ourselves to the limits and being constantly busy and almost making ourselves miserable, try to reach our goals.

Brandon:

So I was really focused on just like getting there, getting there, getting there, and I kind of had to reel myself in and think about you know, my mental health and how much I could work after all this energy expenditure day to day on these 12 to 14 hour days and over time I learned how to incorporate balance and every day is not balanced, but I try to find a little bit of like me time or self care time and each day so that I can feel balanced and that was something that I had to work on because I’m a very structured person and when my schedule gets disrupted or used to, I am now accustomed to this, but I used to be all out of whack, like almost like didn’t know how to function because I’ve been so regimented my whole life, but you have to learn to kind of balance each day and really balance your, it’s more so for me at least balancing your, your emotions and your reactions to things that are coming your way.

Brandon:

So no, I don’t know if you can truly be balanced as an entrepreneur, I think that you have to kind of just learn the way of that life and over time it you feel kind of more balanced just because you’re more accustomed to the things that are coming at you from all different directions, if that makes sense?

Brandon:

Yeah, it totally, it totally makes sense and I agree with you, I tend to tell people who are getting in the business that you’re, there’s just no room to be balance.

Brandon:

I mean balance, you need to be all in, it takes so much effort as you know that start any company from the ground up from your spare bedroom or your kitchen counter to a kitchen baking.

Brandon:

How many cookies do you bake a day?

Brandon:

Oh wow.

Brandon:

We make a lot of cookies a day.

Brandon:

So we make anywhere between 1000 to like Two, cookies on any given day.

Brandon:

Everything leads up towards the weekend or around holidays and it really all depends on, you know, whether we have a lot of shipping orders or catering orders to fulfill, but we make a lot of cookies.

Brandon:

So I got a bunch of questions, I want to go back to when you we’re going to school too while you’re dancing, you’re going to school to be a dancer and you said I lost the passion and then you said the same kind of thing when you said I was doing fashion while you were doing fashion design or merchandizing and studying that and then you realized that it wasn’t for you.

Brandon:

What, what made you realize that was it one day you woke up and I call these things pivotal moments and you’re like, oh Lauren, this is it like hang up the dancing shoes, this is over.

Brandon:

I mean how how does that happen or did something happen that caused it?

Brandon:

I think that what, so I grew up dancing my whole life and my mom was also a dancer and so she put me, well I have 54 older sister, so she put all of us in dance and me and my I’m the youngest out of five, so me and my sister Leslie who is the fourth youngest out of five, we really took to dance and we loved it and I loved it for a really long time and I think that I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do.

Brandon:

So I did what I always like what’s comfortable doing and that was dance and so I was kind of just like coasting in this comfort zone, just trying to like stretch this high school life that I was accustomed to, even though I knew like I couldn’t keep doing this, like it was getting hard on my body, hard on my mind and I was learning that I’m becoming miserable doing this and I wasn’t really that happy doing it at the end of my dance career in high school.

Brandon:

I just felt like it was my identity, it’s what I had always done and I feel that people get really stuck in their comfort zone and they’ll sit in their misery even though they can choose a little bit of discomfort and then branch out into something else and then eventually find comfort.

Brandon:

But they’re just so it’s just daunting to accept change and it’s not that I hated dance, I just knew it wasn’t it wasn’t fulfilling me anymore.

Brandon:

And then when I went into fashion, it was something that I had always identified with as well, because it was, I feel like it was more of like my ego talking and people would compliment me on my clothes and you know, I always felt like as a person when I was growing up, I was I was about people like me for what I did not who I was and that just wasn’t the case.

Brandon:

And so I was always trying to feel gratification from having really put together outfits and helping other people.

Brandon:

Like I loved putting together outfits for people, that’s what I did at my retail job and people would come in and show me how happy they were and I think that was the most fulfilling part and that was what I wasn’t connecting that it wasn’t about me, it was about the feeling that I got from making others happy and that was what really kind of led me into the direction that I am in now is that my passion is truly making others happy.

Brandon:

It wasn’t you know the clothes or the dance or the compliments people gave me, it was myself making other people happy and in turn it made me really happy and really fulfilled and that’s what I get when I bake things for people and I see people for me, that’s like I said, my love language and it’s what I feel makes others happy as well.

Brandon:

Did it scare you when you decided that you were gonna give up dance and give up the fashion industry when that was really your identity?

Brandon:

Yeah, I was really petrified.

Brandon:

I was really petrified to give up dancing because it was really all I knew and I didn’t want people to think that I was a quitter, but I knew like there was this greater sense of me that I needed to tap into and that this like going down this road was just making me more and more unhappy and I eventually got over it and I was really happy with my decision do I miss dance?

Brandon:

Yeah, but I dance in my kitchen.

Brandon:

I don’t need to do it for a profession to really love it and appreciate it.

Brandon:

And then with fashion merchandizing, I was really scared and I was really nervous because it was also something that I had done.

Brandon:

Like, I mean that was the only job that I had done my whole life, I was always either in dance or I worked in retail and those were the only two things that I did.

Brandon:

And it wasn’t until my husband had said to me and he was my boyfriend at the time.

Brandon:

You’re really unhappy in this career path.

Brandon:

You have a very inconsistent schedule.

Brandon:

Why don’t you apply to do something totally different?

Brandon:

And he suggested I go and apply for this company in Troy and um called United wholesale mortgage.

Brandon:

And he was like, why don’t you try underwriting like because he was in real estate and he’s like, I think that you might really enjoy this.

Brandon:

It’s really relationship based and this company seems like it has a great culture.

Brandon:

Why don’t you try doing this?

Brandon:

And that was when I really transitioned out of fashion, merchandizing and fashion in general and went into something completely off the grid for me.

Brandon:

And that was a huge, huge jump for me.

Brandon:

And I think I felt really proud of myself and I felt really rewarded for pushing myself to, you know, recognize that, hey, this, you know, dance wasn’t good for me.

Brandon:

I left that and look, I, you know, went down a different road and I was happy for a while and now, you know, I decided this isn’t good for me and I already know like I’ve already decided to quit something because it wasn’t good for me and I am happy with that decision.

Brandon:

Like don’t be afraid to leave this behind.

Brandon:

You can always come back to it.

Brandon:

You can try this.

Brandon:

You don’t know if you’re going to like it, but you never know until you try.

Brandon:

You can’t judge something just because of what you’ve heard about it or I mean, I guess it’s like judging a book by its cover, you just really got to try it first before you can really decide if it’s right for your or not right for you.

Brandon:

So they were both challenging.

Brandon:

But I was happy for both of the experiences and I was happy that I did ultimately leave um those career fields, you’re dancing in high school, you’re begging at home, you go into the fashion industry now, you’re in the mortgage industry.

Brandon:

I know I’m jumping all over them.

Brandon:

So no, I think it’s great because I think people get really scared to do these completely different things and then they get stuck, as you said earlier into this.

Brandon:

It’s a self licking ice cream cone as a friend of mine says, it’s, it’s your identity is this, you’re scared you don’t want to give up the identity, but you want to leave, but then it pulls you back so it takes a lot of strength to drop the mic and say, hey, I’m going to switch.

Brandon:

So how do I mean, how do you do this mortgage, real estate gig and how long does it last.

Brandon:

So when before I actually took this position, I had decided like it was the last couple of months of my last semester at wayne state and this was when my now husband asked me because I was very depressed and that was just not myself and he had said to me listen like you’re not yourself, you’re not happy anymore, this isn’t something I can tell like this isn’t going to be right for you like in a perfect world, what do you want to do and if there’s no reservations, like if you could do anything that you wanted to do, what would it be and no one had ever asked me that question.

Brandon:

I have really never thought of it myself and and I immediately like the first thought that came to mind was I just want to bake cookies and he was like okay well then why don’t we do that?

Brandon:

And I was so upset by the question because I was like I can’t just make cookies like how am I going to make cookies and make a living growing up?

Brandon:

I saw this cookie company herb I saw not this is a specific one, but I saw multiple cookie companies and bakeries going in and out of this location by my house.

Brandon:

Now I understand it was just a terrible location but I had, I had always thought about it and people had always suggested like you should open a bakery but it was something that I didn’t believe I could make a living doing even though it was my passion.

Brandon:

So we started doing that and I started with the one, like I started with the one cookie flavor, a business name and then we started working out of a commercial, shared use kitchen space and he was like, okay, well like now that you, we have started this like maybe because I was really not able to put immerse myself in that business until I could get like a more consistent scheduling with retail.

Brandon:

It was just all crazy.

Brandon:

So he’s like, how about you try this other job while we’re trying to start this.

Brandon:

And I honestly didn’t think that my side gig was going to be anything.

Brandon:

So I was like sure, like I do need to, you know make a living and we do need to pay bills so I’ll go and happen to the mortgage industry and I did the cookies at night and on the side and I think that’s like really what kept me going in the mortgage industry, I actually really did love my underwriting job.

Brandon:

I loved the company I worked for, I loved the people I met, I learned a tremendous amount about just business in general and communicating and creating relationships, all the knowledge that I learned there.

Brandon:

I used in my business every single day.

Brandon:

So I think that even though it was something I knew I wasn’t gonna do forever, I could keep going because I knew I was working towards a goal and I still had my passion, I was still like working my passion at night or in the morning and I think that’s really how I kept going in the mortgage industry.

Brandon:

And like had had that goal in mind like, hey, this isn’t forever.

Brandon:

That was a really loaded question.

Brandon:

No, it was, it’s great and I’m grateful for you opening up and sharing that for our listeners out there because there’s a lot of people who, there’s a lot of people who are even entrepreneurs who are doing the business that they don’t like and you know, they’re burned out.

Brandon:

So making that shift, I do want to talk about this this guy who’s your husband keeps coming up and he seems very supportive and I mean, I’m thinking like, God, was I that mature in college to say that to somebody?

Brandon:

Like, I don’t, I don’t, I hope so, I can’t remember.

Brandon:

But I mean it seems like he’s been supportive the whole way, even sounds like before you were married.

Brandon:

Yeah, he, he’s the one that really, he’s my business partner.

Brandon:

He definitely helped me.

Brandon:

Like, I would have never have done this business if it wasn’t for him, he ended up, he actually works in the business full time now.

Brandon:

Does we work together every single day.

Brandon:

So if I if it wasn’t for his name’s Tony, so I’ll call Tony if it wasn’t for Tony, I definitely would not have done this.

Brandon:

He has no fear and I live in fear so for Tony, he loves to take risks and like the riskier the better, like it’s always a calculated risk but he’s like these, this is the world is our oyster, let’s tap on these opportunities, let’s create the life that we want.

Brandon:

Like let’s not work for anybody, let’s work for ourselves.

Brandon:

And that was always his mentality and I was always like, I want to play it safe, like I want to have structure, I want to have a backing, I want to make sure that we have income coming in.

Brandon:

So we’re kind of like yin and yang.

Brandon:

But yeah, I Tony was actually eight years older than me.

Brandon:

So he had had, he was a real estate broker, he had his own business, he was entitled company are title company service worked in a title company services, what I might say and he had done a lot of different things within the mortgage industry and working for himself.

Brandon:

So he saw a gap in the market when, because he knew I loved baking and when I told him I want to make cookies, he saw that gap in the market like hey, like there’s not a lot of cookie companies especially around us, like if this is what you want to do, I want to make you happy and I’m really lucky that he is so supportive as he is and so sensitive in that way where he just wanted to create the life that we dreamed of, that he supported me and believed in my dreams more than I believed in myself.

Brandon:

And one thing he kept saying to me is dreams don’t work unless you do and I think that people hear that quote all the time, but they really don’t think about it.

Brandon:

And when we started the business and he kept saying it to me, I kept thinking like this is this, it resonated with me so much more because I was like, you’re right, like you can dream, but if you don’t act on those dreams, they’re never going to come true.

Brandon:

A dream isn’t sunshine and rainbow, Is it fire underneath your butt and you’re trying to ride a bike over volcano that’s about to erupt.

Brandon:

Like sometimes it’s really scary, but you just got to keep going and believe in yourself and and ultimately take those risks.

Brandon:

But yeah, I was really lucky to have someone who is so, so supportive of me and helped guide me through this process and help me build this.

Brandon:

You know, I like to call it a cookie empire because I couldn’t have done it without him.

Brandon:

It it definitely takes a team and I credit it to my team as well.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

And I’m grateful for you sharing that because I think that as business owners, we talk about our team and what we mean is the team that works with us every day, but I’ve come to realize myself that the team is really at home and people forget that the team is your partner, whoever that is, husband, wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, whatever, whatever it is.

Brandon:

Because without that it’s a tough road because if you have somebody at home saying no or not embracing or not letting you be who you are, then you’re already swimming upstream and doing this whole business thing is hard anyway.

Brandon:

Mm hmm.

Brandon:

I think that I mean I couldn’t agree more with you on that.

Brandon:

I don’t think people truly understand what it’s like to own a business and have employees and have responsibilities and liabilities and plan for the future and work for yourself unless they are truly in that business or have had a business and had that experience.

Brandon:

It’s really hard to see it from an outside perspective, you can only assume so much, but you really cannot feel what it is like to wake up every day.

Brandon:

And I mean in the beginning it was like this for me, I don’t I don’t feel this way too much anymore.

Brandon:

But it was I would wake up every day with anxiety, I was like, oh my gosh, like working for yourself is hard and it’s a lot easier when you have a great support system and when you’re working together, it’s easier in my opinion to not give up because when you’re working alone, it’s you against you.

Brandon:

You’re you know, if you wake up in the morning and you had a bad day and you’re like, I just want to quit and then like you can talk yourself into quitting but say you’re working.

Brandon:

Like when Tony and I worked together, I may have had a bad day and he didn’t and he’s like, no, like we’re not quitting.

Brandon:

Like there’s so much more that we can do and we can pivot this way or we can go this way and vice versa.

Brandon:

Like say he had a bad experience and where he was like, I just want to throw in the towel.

Brandon:

This isn’t for me, like I don’t want to do this.

Brandon:

Like no, that’s, that’s not why we started this.

Brandon:

Like this is the reason why we’re going to keep going and this is how we’re going to keep going when you have like that team mentality and like that ability to rally when it’s hard, it’s a lot easier to push through those struggles and those obstacles that you see is like roadblock and a stop sign.

Brandon:

I think that it’s a lot better when you have a partner and someone to boost you up and keep you going.

Brandon:

Yeah, I like this guy Tony, it looks like he’s in the background there with a little photo of you and him.

Brandon:

Oh yeah, he’s the best.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

Is that a bike helmet?

Brandon:

It looks so it’s so funny because he always wears these giant hats and all my friends are like tell Tony, he’s wearing a helmet, not a hat?

Brandon:

It’s a hat?

Brandon:

So here’s something that I find interesting and I’m glad you believed him.

Brandon:

But the cookie industry is hugely competitive thinking about this when I was reading your story and I think you know, one of the reasons I was, I reached out to you was I could tell you’re very driven and you built this this cool company, but also you build a company in a wildly competitive market.

Brandon:

Like for me to say that is, I’m glad he said it to you because it worked.

Brandon:

But also because it proves, you know, people will always say, and I’m sure they come up to you and they say, oh I can’t do it because there’s so much competition or I can’t do that.

Brandon:

Yeah, I mean that’s, that’s what they say and you are in arguably one of the most competitive market.

Brandon:

I mean there’s cookies everywhere.

Brandon:

I was thinking about it.

Brandon:

I know and you went in so I’d like to hear what your thought is.

Brandon:

You mean you believe Tony, you know Tony is not here, but maybe we should talk Tony someday.

Brandon:

But what what, you know, if he was just, he sounds like he’s got a lot of energy and he just, he just said that energy, you just concentrated on one recipe and I think that’s really important for people you believe that you had the best chocolate chip cookie in the entire world.

Brandon:

So how did, how long did you only make what I call or what is called the halo product of your company.

Brandon:

So honestly, it wasn’t that long that I only made that flavor like you had identified Tony has a lot of energy and a lot of drive and he really truly pushed me and I just had to keep making flavors because he would like give me these deadlines.

Brandon:

I’m a very driven person, but I need to have someone like encouraging me to keep going.

Brandon:

So having him say, I need you to have four flavors by next week.

Brandon:

And I would say to him, I can’t have four flavors by next week.

Brandon:

And he’d say why not?

Brandon:

And I was like, I don’t really know why not.

Brandon:

Like there was really nothing stopping me.

Brandon:

So I would just go to work making different cookie flavors and I just kept trying to think of like, what would the kidney like?

Brandon:

What’s something that isn’t a cookie?

Brandon:

Like in a flavor that’s not really in a cookie on the market right now or something that I can make that’s totally different and unique or how can I incorporate Detroit products in our cookies.

Brandon:

So my mind was just racing, racing racing and I love to bake.

Brandon:

So it was, it was really easy for me to keep going and have this like love like a little bit of anxiety, which was Tony behind me being like, all right, you’re deadlines next week and then I’d be like, like you’re our flavors and I would ultimately come up with more.

Brandon:

So we had, when we really push out our website, we had eight flavors and then he was like, we need more and I was like more like, how am I going to have more flavors?

Brandon:

I was like, I can’t have more like, how are we going to keep up with this?

Brandon:

It’s just us.

Brandon:

And he would say to me, it sounds like you’re scared of success.

Brandon:

This is what I’m hearing.

Brandon:

I’m hearing that you’re scared of success and I didn’t really even understand what he was saying and I was like, I don’t even know what that means.

Brandon:

Like I could not comprehend what he meant by that.

Brandon:

And now I realize I was scared that we were going to get to a point where people were gonna want all these different cookie flavors and that I wouldn’t be able to keep up with it because people were gonna love my cookies that much.

Brandon:

And now I understand what he was saying by by telling me like, oh, you’re scared of success.

Brandon:

It sounds like and I was and really I was the only one stopping myself because I was putting these limits on myself and yeah, like cookies is hugely competitive and I mean I knew that there was a lot of bakeries and a lot of cookie bakeries out there because I’m a cookie person.

Brandon:

so I knew they were all over.

Brandon:

But yeah, I, I really did believe him when he was like there’s a gap in the market and I was like yeah, there is like even though deep down I knew all these places like I mean you go into Mayer and Kroeger in Costco like there’s cookies everywhere to, it doesn’t even have to be levin bakery in new york or I know there’s this place called Schmack Aries in Chicago, I think it’s called, I don’t know there’s a lot, but there are cookies everywhere like Orioles the number one cookie right?

Brandon:

Like everywhere.

Brandon:

So I really did buy into that and I think it really did help me to just kind of like narrow in and keep my vision ahead and not looking at all these different roadblocks and just to think like I can do this like I can feel this, I can get there and believing in myself because he was there telling me like there’s no option to fail like you got to keep going, don’t relax his Tony’s last name Robbins, he is a pistol, he is just so quick, it sounds like it so you how do you, how do you, you’re doing it as a side gig because you’re doing the mortgage stuff underwriting on the side while your morning and night cooking in a commercial kitchen at one point was it a revenue goal was it just, I can’t keep up at what point did you say, okay, we gotta, I gotta go and do start doing this full time.

Brandon:

So for me, I really was unsure of when that was going to be and Tony kept saying like we’re not working this hard to do this as a side gig, like we’re going to make this our life, mark my words and I was kind of just like okay, like maybe he’s kind of crazy because I just, I could believe that it would happen, but I didn’t know how we were going to make it happen and we had some doubters and then we also, like for instance, my dad, I kept talking to him about it and he’s an entrepreneur as well and when we were getting closer to securing a location and really thinking about doing this full time, I had said to him, this is when we had found our location, what do you think?

Brandon:

Like I’m kind of nervous about this, like do I make this jump, do I take this risk?

Brandon:

And he said, you’re so you guys are so young, like if you’re going to fail, you might as well fail now.

Brandon:

And my mom had said to me, you can always get another job like what’s holding you back?

Brandon:

And that really helped me because I really trust their opinion and I knew we were taking a calculated risk, It wasn’t just all, you know willy nilly and like we’re just throwing our lives away.

Brandon:

Like we, I worked at this worried company for a while and I had a favor and so I’ve been saving since I was like 12, so I had my savings and we, we happened, so how we found our building was we lived in this condo on Woodward and we would ride our bikes up and down Woodward from Royal Oak to Ferndale and we passed by the bakery called the french gourmet and it had a release and a for sale sign.

Brandon:

So it was either or, but we would always drive past buildings in Tony would make me call the number on the building and and inquire about the least.

Brandon:

And I was always like, why are we doing this?

Brandon:

Like, we can’t afford this, like, you can’t build this out and we’ll just call, just call.

Brandon:

So we’re riding our bikes past this bakery and he’s like, call this number and I was like 20 he’s like, we’re going to buy this building and I’m like, we’re not buying this building, we don’t have any money.

Brandon:

And so I would call started calling this building and no one would answer.

Brandon:

Then finally someone answered and they were like, actually it’s not for sale anymore, the owners died.

Brandon:

And yeah, it’s not for sale.

Brandon:

And we’re like, okay, well let us know if it ever goes for sale.

Brandon:

So then a year later, the broker called back and he says, hey, someone, uh, investor bought this building and they’re looking to lease it out, do you guys want to be the first ones to take a walk through?

Brandon:

And I was like, oh my God, like my stomach was doing somersaults and I was just so uneasy.

Brandon:

I was so nervous and Tony was like, this is what we’ve been waiting for.

Brandon:

And I was like, Oh my God, this is crazy!

Brandon:

So we take a walk through this bakery and find out that it literally has all the equipment that we need.

Brandon:

It has 84 Hobart mixers, it has a rack oven, these amazing work tables, Dunwich racks, like everything that you could have imagined, and this is all stuff that we couldn’t have afforded to buy on our own.

Brandon:

And so we literally took to walk throughs and It was like a week after my 25th birthday, I signed the lease and I remember sitting at the table in our condo and we looked at each other and we were like, we’re doing this, and I, as I’m signing the lease, I’m literally staring a prayer inside my head, like 234 to 1 Woodward Avenue is going to be Detroit cookie company, it’s going to thrive, I’m going to do great.

Brandon:

I got this, we believe, like we have so much to give and I’m trying to give myself like these positive affirmations while I’m freaking out, but it wasn’t until two weeks after we opened that I decided that I couldn’t do both the mortgage industry And on my own business that I if I opened this business I had I had to be 100% in this business.

Brandon:

There was no, you know, it would have been like 42 Percent in the business and 60% and mortgages and both would be suffering.

Brandon:

So it was really hard for me to leave and recognize.

Brandon:

But I think that having signed this lease, I I couldn’t cut myself short and and I was if I wouldn’t have left the mortgage industry, I I needed to put my fall into this business and that’s not to say that we had sales to do so because our sales were really, really small in comparison to what we needed to cover this building in this lease.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

I was thinking in my head, I mean I was just I just do the math and if I sell 1000 cookie, I mean 1000 cookies.

Brandon:

A lot of cookies I guess.

Brandon:

But you’re probably, you’re obviously making them every day.

Brandon:

But if you could sell 1000 cookies at two bucks.

Brandon:

So that’s 2000 bucks a day, right?

Brandon:

Your margins are probably halfway decent.

Brandon:

Your labor is probably your biggest cost would be my guest.

Brandon:

And so that’s 2000 times 30 $60,000.

Brandon:

You’re doing 700 some $1000 a year.

Brandon:

You throw off 2025% net and you’re making a good living.

Brandon:

But you got to sell 1000 cookies a day.

Brandon:

Yeah and that was extremely daunting to me because before we opened, I mean there was, I mean we weren’t making that much money maybe like 300 to $900 a month, which is like not like I keep saying like always took this calculated risk, like it wasn’t a proven calculated risk.

Brandon:

It was, it was exactly what you did.

Brandon:

Like we knew what we could do and we knew what we like what we had to be in order to make this work but we haven’t got there yet and Tony just like he always throws out these like quote that you’ve heard a million times.

Brandon:

He was like if you build it they will come learn if you build it, they will come and like I don’t always know if that’s true, but we, we lucked out because we were met with a great opportunity with this building that we have now on Woodward, it’s right off, it’s right by the expressway, it’s right by the zoo.

Brandon:

It’s in between Ferndale and Royal Oak, you know, we’re close to downtown Ferndale, you people coming from Birmingham, Royal Oak, Ferndale Oak Park all over.

Brandon:

It’s just such a hub where we’re at that it really was the perfect location and I really owe the location to our success among other things, but it’s location, location, location.

Brandon:

So that was the key.

Brandon:

I read somewhere, I thought that you said most of your sales, which I thought would have flipped.

Brandon:

But Most of your sales are from your currently two locations.

Brandon:

Mm hmm.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

During the pandemic, we did shut down and everything went to online.

Brandon:

So that’s really what kept us going.

Brandon:

But then when we reopened it, was it slowly transition back.

Brandon:

So we still have a very great online presence.

Brandon:

But people, you know, they want to come and get their cookies when they want them and they want cookies like now, you know, they don’t want to wait for them.

Brandon:

I know what I want a cookie.

Brandon:

I don’t want to wait a day to get it in the mail.

Brandon:

I want it immediately.

Brandon:

So do you as you, as you, you started with one location.

Brandon:

What made you go to that again?

Brandon:

Was it a revenue thing or was it just a feeling or what made you go to that second location?

Brandon:

I always had in mind that I wanted to own multiple locations and multiple stores.

Brandon:

I wanted to be all over.

Brandon:

I want to be all over the country realistically.

Brandon:

So we were always working towards that And we’ve been at our final location for almost four years now.

Brandon:

It will be four years in september.

Brandon:

So that was always the plan was to, you know, move into other areas and have multiple locations when the pandemic hit.

Brandon:

We kind of scaled back and we’re like, let’s just like make this work right now and not focused on, you know, finding another location, but once things started to go back into motion again and we started having, you know, our retail customers come back.

Brandon:

We were like, okay, let’s, let’s not relax, let’s move forward.

Brandon:

You know, we like to set goals for ourselves, but when we set them and achieve achieve them, we don’t stop.

Brandon:

Like we want to keep going, we want to keep growing.

Brandon:

You have to grow with the momentum and right now we have a lot of momentum so we’re going to use that to expand and grow our businesses.

Brandon:

And ultimately I’d love to franchise and it’s something that we are working on because I want to give other people the opportunity that I have to be successful and be an entrepreneur during when you got started, did you have any cash flow issues or to the first month you sold enough cookies to pay your rent?

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

So luckily we sold enough cookies to pay our rent.

Brandon:

It was just me and my husband and then one of our team members, Brandon who actually has a cookie named after him, it’s called the be special.

Brandon:

But it was just us three and he’s still with us to this day.

Brandon:

He’s just in the, on the other side of the commissary right now making dough.

Brandon:

He’s our head baker.

Brandon:

But yeah, it was just us and we didn’t really have any issues with cash flow until about october and that’s when like we, you know we were doing pretty good like when we first opened like we rode this wave up, up, up and then it kind of plateaus and then it started going down, down down and that’s when things got a little tense and we got really nervous and you know we lived very minimally, we owned our condo so we had cut a lot of our costs and we were really nervous, we were kind of freaking out and then december came, or november came and then december came and we started to do better again and then january came and we were like oh my god, so it was this like constant up and down of like are we going to make enough to pay the bills?

Brandon:

Uh and then like we would you know be riding up and then all of a sudden it was just like after a holiday like we felt like we were like crashing and burning and praying for people to come in but we really focused like when people weren’t coming in, we really put a lot of our energy into focusing on the product, focusing on the scale, focusing on other avenues that we could tap into to sell our cookies other than retail sales and also social media marketing, we just started doing more social media marketing and any downtime we had we were focused on the solution and not the problem that we had and when you say you have the momentum, is it because word of mouth is getting out, you’re posting fresh cookies on instagram.

Brandon:

I mean what’s the ingredient two?

Brandon:

Get that momentum in that way.

Brandon:

That’s a great question.

Brandon:

I guess what we really, what we really pride ourselves on at Detroit cookie company is is our relationships that we build in our social media marketing.

Brandon:

We try to create a sort of cookie lifestyle and communicate it with our, we call them like our cookie clients, but everyone who walks into the bakery, we really try to create these relationships with people and engage with them, whether it’s in person or online and that’s a huge aspect of our business and people really love that, you know, they message us and we respond back and you know, we engage with them and we try to, you know, when they come into our bakery and they’re buying cookies for a birthday, we want to know more about it and the next time they come in we want to hear like how it went and it keeps bringing people back and then word of mouth gets out and and yeah, that’s exactly I think that that’s the momentum that we have and people start saying, you know, I wish that you were closer, I would love for you to have a location and like we’re opening in grand rapids, which is a few hours from us, but they’re like, I wish that you had a presence in grand rapids because this is something that I really love coming to enjoy on a daily basis or a couple times a week.

Brandon:

And, and I I would love it if I could have that closer to me.

Brandon:

And that’s the momentum that we’re riding right now.

Brandon:

So you’re opening a third location.

Brandon:

I was actually just bringing up your website.

Brandon:

So you’re opening a third location?

Brandon:

Yes.

Brandon:

So this one we’re partnering on.

Brandon:

So I were still majority owner, but we are partnering with an awesome couple who really embody what we’re about and we’re really excited about it.

Brandon:

Does that mean you’ve taken on an investor?

Brandon:

I wouldn’t call it an investor, Would you call it an investor?

Brandon:

Are they giving you money?

Brandon:

They’re putting up some money.

Brandon:

Will that be an investor then?

Brandon:

Yes.

Brandon:

I guess we’re partnering with an investor?

Brandon:

Well, yeah, I think that’s, that’s great.

Brandon:

And it seems like you’re, you’re really determined to open the locations.

Brandon:

Do you believe that it’s the, which is contrary to what a lot of businesses are doing candidly.

Brandon:

A lot of them are, you know, I’m online guy.

Brandon:

I find a lot of risk for a guy who takes risk?

Brandon:

I find a lot of risk in the real estate plays.

Brandon:

But do you believe that that’s really the key to your, Your business or are you going to try to shift it and make it 5050 online?

Brandon:

I understand the fresh cookies because honestly, when I was ordering I was like, well, you know, they’re not going to be quite as good as if I just walk into Lauren’s Detroit cookie company and by this this hot, warm, tasty chocolate chip cookie, but they’re probably still going to taste really good.

Brandon:

We, I ordered for my wife’s birthday crabs from the east coast, from Maryland and they come and are they as good as they come out of the steamer?

Brandon:

I don’t know, but they’re really good.

Brandon:

So you know, I think you can, you can sell food and online.

Brandon:

Why do you think that it’s the, the real estate play is your path to growing.

Brandon:

I think that it’s easier to have people order, in my opinion, it’s easier to have people order online when they’ve been to your location, they know what you’re about and they’ve tried your tried your product and you have that presence there.

Brandon:

You’ve already like, I’m really relationship driven and I feel like it’s really hard to have a relationship by just being online.

Brandon:

You can’t do it.

Brandon:

I’m not saying you can’t do it because I know people who do it and we do have relationship with the people that we do some cookies too.

Brandon:

But I love that in person interaction and I, I guess I’m old fashioned that way and I don’t want to lose that like I want to continue to have these like my whole point of opening a bakery is because I wanted to be that mom and pop joint that you incorporated into your morning routine when you would come in for in the morning for coffee and you just grab a cookie for your lunch.

Brandon:

I want, I wanted to to know people in my community and I want to create those relationships and I wanted to be that place where you went after where a date on a friday night or with your friends after school.

Brandon:

I always think that you can find a way to celebrate every day and I think that when you’re just shipping online, it’s harder to develop those relationships than an in person face to face experience.

Brandon:

I’m all about the experience.

Brandon:

Like I want it to be an amazing experience when you come in, I want, you know, if you’re having a bad day, I want us to be the people to turn that day around even if it’s just the time that you’re in this store, getting the cookies that you want and having the conversation with our team members, if that can be, you know, your five minutes of sanity throughout your day.

Brandon:

Like I want to be it and I think that it is a lot more impactful when you’re needing that person face to face, how are you picking?

Brandon:

I mean I’m just going back here or ballet dancer, fashion person mortgage now you are in a bakery and in retail which is super hard, how do you pick the locations?

Brandon:

So I I did take some classes in college.

Brandon:

I had an awesome professor at Wayne who taught us about site selection so I kinda had a little bit of background in that.

Brandon:

Obviously I had never previously selected a site for any location but I just kind of thought about what our anchor spots around me, what are we accessible to parking are accessible from the expressway.

Brandon:

Is it easy for people to pull in to pull out?

Brandon:

How many different cities are going to be able to come to this one location.

Brandon:

So I kind of like to think about how accessible it is for people and also the people who now because in Ferndale was like my first trial like the type of people that are buying my cookie like what is the demographic, what is it?

Brandon:

A populated area?

Brandon:

Obviously I’m not going to go into a town that doesn’t have a huge population, do they have income that can support they’re cookie buying habits, you know those are things that I think about.

Brandon:

So it’s a lot of collaboration, me and my husband talked about it a lot and we also get other people involved in what they think and for the ANn Arbor location, I had a lot of friends who went to U of them and who also stayed in ANn Arbor, my sister and her husband live in ANn Arbor so I collaborate a lot.

Brandon:

But I also like to do my own research.

Brandon:

No, I think it sounds like to me you nailed it and a lot of this stuff.

Brandon:

And my point really asking you the question is for anybody out there who listening is you can figure this out.

Brandon:

You do not have to go get your PhD in sight location.

Brandon:

Now there’s probably an art or science and you’ll learn that very quickly.

Brandon:

And you’re learning that.

Brandon:

I had another question for ask a lot of questions learn I love questions the oh do you have a loyalty card?

Brandon:

Yeah, we don’t you don’t, we we did but it just wasn’t people really, it’s so funny because people were asking for it.

Brandon:

But then when we were asking them to provide their telephone number even though we don’t like we don’t send up random tax, it was only when you would come into the store and buy cookies, they didn’t want to participate.

Brandon:

And so I was paying for this loyalty program and there wasn’t that many participants which is so bizarre because we do see a lot of people every day.

Brandon:

Maybe it’s something that will incorporate again sometimes when we introduced things, they don’t take very well and then we take them away when we bring them back.

Brandon:

They do.

Brandon:

So yeah we we don’t, well that makes sense.

Brandon:

I mean I think some of this stuff you know you get marketed to say that a lot of people use it.

Brandon:

I don’t know I use the loyalty card.

Brandon:

Uh I like getting a free pizza obviously and and maybe people from Starbucks do that or can do that or Panera bread is another one that I used to use.

Brandon:

Do you serve coffee?

Brandon:

We do.

Brandon:

Okay awesome coffee.

Brandon:

So you do and and do you sell any other ancillary things?

Brandon:

I was thinking to myself if I came in to get the cookie, I was I had a business school professor and the guy from Dunkin Donuts, I forget it was a senior guy from Dunkin donuts came in and they call it dynamite.

Brandon:

So it’s sugar caffeine and what’s the third fat And if you put all three together, it’s just like the ultimate combination.

Brandon:

So I think you gotta serve caffeine in there if you’re gonna get a cookie.

Brandon:

Mm hmm.

Brandon:

Yeah.

Brandon:

We so when we first took over our building that we’re in in Birkdale, I actually had a coffee roaster and the funny story behind this building was that it was a husband and wife couple who owned the building and they both passed away but they had told the broker, whoever goes into this space, I want to be husband and wife couple who embody what we I mean they were I’ve heard really mixed reviews on these people.

Brandon:

I heard that they’re not the greatest people but he wanted us to, he wanted the tenant to bake and still participate in these traditions that they had because they roasted their own coffee and the broker had said to them, you’re crazy.

Brandon:

Like you’re never going to find a tenant who is it fits this description.

Brandon:

And he said it’s okay, I only need one.

Brandon:

And so when we heard this story, we’re like, wow, how bizarre.

Brandon:

So they had a coffee roaster and we learned how to roast coffee and it was a micro roaster.

Brandon:

So we only roasted a pound at a time and it made the whole bakery smelt like burnt bread.

Brandon:

So we didn’t do that forever.

Brandon:

We ultimately started having a local company roast the coffee beans for us.

Brandon:

So we still import our own beans, but we have somewhat roast them off site.

Brandon:

But yeah, we, we have coffee.

Brandon:

We have, you know, obviously milk for milk and cookies ice cream, we do brownies, blondie cereal treats.

Brandon:

We also sell better made potato chips, which is a local Detroit brand of chips.

Brandon:

And we have a, we have a lot of, you know, cookies, coffee, carbs, that’s what we call it.

Brandon:

There you go.

Brandon:

I think that’s the dynamite solution.

Brandon:

We’re looking at your website now.

Brandon:

I think also one thing you said that’s really important.

Brandon:

I’m a big aroma person that a roman you probably know this or studied it.

Brandon:

The aroma of these stores matters.

Brandon:

Oh, tremendously.

Brandon:

So I think what you said is really important that people would overlook it.

Brandon:

But if I’m walking into a candy, I mean a candy store, a cookie store, I want to smell fresh baked chocolate chip cookies, not burnt coffee.

Brandon:

Exactly, yeah.

Brandon:

And and after we, we roasted a few times during the day when we were open and then we were like, we gotta roast at night for the time being because it’s not working out and then it just got to be too much and we were like, we don’t really want to stay here and roast coffee for five hours after we’re done for the day, you know, so it was just more cost effective and time effective for us to outsource that.

Brandon:

So we’re looking at your site, you’ve got Chocolate Chip, The Big three, the ground butter pecan.

Brandon:

I could get going through here banana pudding.

Brandon:

If we’re making you hungry, it’s on purpose.

Brandon:

You can go to Detroit cookie co dot com and buy these cookies.

Brandon:

Captain Ai bought Captain Barrio this morning.

Brandon:

I tried your oatmeal raisin and what else?

Brandon:

Oh my gosh!

Brandon:

We have so many flavors.

Brandon:

I’m gonna, I’m gonna put together a big package for you because I want you to try them.

Brandon:

All.

Brandon:

Our top sellers are chocolate chunk, banana pudding, raspberry oreo cheesecake birthday cake and then the beast special, which is our Cinnabon oreo cookie.

Brandon:

We try to come up with Come out with 2-3 flavors every month.

Brandon:

This month we have the blueberry chip doughnut cookie, which we always bring back and then our new flavor that we’ve never done before is the peach cobbler cookie, I love peaches and I wanted to make it into cookie form, so that’s what we did, but we have a lot of a lot of selection online as well as we have more in store.

Brandon:

Unfortunately we can’t ship everything because right now things will melt, but we’re always trying to come up with new and creative concoctions that you wouldn’t think of yourself and that will make people happy.

Brandon:

Well Lauren thank you so much for sharing your story and being open today and vulnerable with really sharing how it feels to how you felt, building, building your business, what are three tips that you would have for fellow business owners out there who are either scaling or just getting started.

Brandon:

Either either or.

Brandon:

Yeah, so I wrote these down because I have so many tips and I was like I got to just nail it down to 31 of the best tips that I was ever told was to plan backwards.

Brandon:

Think about where you want to be in 10 years in five years and three years and one in nine months and six months in one month and plan backwards and work up up to your goal of that 10 year goal.

Brandon:

That’s helped me tremendously and that’s how we’ve build our business and planned our business and it’s just the most amazing tip that I ever received and then my other one was have an accountant.

Brandon:

It is so important to have an accountant when you’re starting off out.

Brandon:

I really think that people overlook this and think that they can do it themselves and for for a while you’ll be able to do it yourself but you want to make sure that you have everything in line and that you’re making the right decisions and when you have a good accountant and a good C.

Brandon:

That can I mean you need one on your team when you’re trying to grow your business and then my third and last tip is to be flexible and adaptable.

Brandon:

Don’t just think because you have a roadblock or something that stopped you don’t change the goal, change the plan, adapt to what’s thrown at you.

Brandon:

I do embrace failure but I look at it as more of an obstacle to overcome rather than something that’s going to stop me in my tracks.

Brandon:

I think those are awesome and I want you to know that no one on this show has given The Accountant one and I couldn’t agree with you more I guess apparently aren’t it’s not good marketing or buzz on social media to say that because people just want you to be an entrepreneur now but I think it That’s just such a good one.

Brandon:

I wouldn’t you caught me off guard.

Brandon:

I mean I love my accountant.

Brandon:

I mean the account is gonna is gonna make you more money.

Brandon:

Yeah, I mean it’s just, it’s also another sounding board, you know, they’re going to be able to help you out and when you get one that is really understands business and your business and It’s I mean it’s not negotiable, you have to have one and you got to pay for it.

Brandon:

Yeah, don’t be shocked by the bills they’re worth it.

Brandon:

Where can people find listeners who are in Detroit and listeners who want to order online?

Brandon:

What’s the best place to find you?

Brandon:

So if you want to order online you can head to our website, it’s Detroit cookie co dot com and if you want to follow us on instagram, it’s Detroit cookie company and we will tent all of your desires with all of our cookie postings and what about people coming through Detroit?

Brandon:

So we are located in Ferndale in um it’s a mile outside of Detroit.

Brandon:

So we’re in between nine and 10 miles on Woodward by the Detroit zoo.

Brandon:

And then we’re also located in downtown Ann arbor where U.

Brandon:

Of M is, we’re on 609 East William Street, awesome.

Brandon:

And do you work in both locations.

Brandon:

So if any listeners come in, they can ask for the cookie lady.

Brandon:

Yeah, I’m in both locations.

Brandon:

I’m mainly in the Ferndale location but you can find me at both locations.

Brandon:

Awesome.

Brandon:

Lauren, thank you so much for taking time out of your kitchen to come and talk with us today.

Brandon:

It’s been awesome.

Brandon:

My pleasure.

Brandon:

I loved this anytime.

Brandon:

I appreciate you having me on.

Brandon:

Thanks for being generous with your time and joining us for this episode of the edge before you go, a quick question, are you the type of person who wants to get 100% out of your time?

Brandon:

Talent and ideas.

Brandon:

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Brandon:

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Brandon:

Again, that’s e g e newsletter dot com