Hi, The Investor’s Podcast Network Community!

😮 The world’s oldest practicing doctor is 101 years old, and we thought we could learn a thing or two from him.

His longevity secrets? He works, volunteers, and fills his day by pursuing activities he enjoys. He stays social, meeting with friends at least twice per week. And he does a ton of reading to sharpen his mind.

“Keep your mind engaged through work, social, and entertainment activities,” he says.

Today, we’ll discuss the fun and inspiring story behind Tate’s Bake Shop cookies. 🍪

All this, and more, in just 4 minutes to read.

QUOTE OF THE DAY

“I like treating things as if they’re small. You know, Amazon, even though it’s a large company, I want it to have the heart and spirit of a small one.”

— Jeff Bezos

WHAT ELSE WE’RE INTO

📺 WATCH: Why the U.S. gave up on public transit

🎧 LISTEN: Back together with Stig Brodersen and Preston Pysh

📖 READ: A few stories about making big decisions in markets and life

THE STORY OF TATE’S BAKE SHOP

A taste of home

Before Kathleen King sold her bakery brand to Mondolēz International for $500 million, before she endured a defining business failure, she was just an 11-year-old girl who loved baking.

King cherished the smell of fresh batches of her crisp, buttery chocolate chip cookies. The art of mixing ingredients to create something people enjoyed always fascinated her. At 11, she began selling her cookies off a fold-out card table on North Sea Farm, her parents’ property on eastern Long Island.

She calls her cookies “a taste of home.”

In 1980, at 21, King rented a space for $5,000 and opened her first bake shop. She developed a full line of traditional American baked goods, including cookies, cakes, cupcakes, and muffins, all from scratch.

Thirty-eight years later, in 2018, King sold her business to the maker of Oreo and Chips Ahoy for half a billion dollars. Consumer Reports and other magazines have rated her regular chocolate chip cookie No. 1 in the U.S. — an inspiring success story from tiny farmstand to a national brand.

It all formed in the kitchen, with a love for baking cookies.

King said in retirement, “If I didn’t have my epic failure, I wouldn’t have had my epic success; they go hand in hand.”

Humble roots

King sold for a bargain at her father’s farm stand — six for $0.59. She spent her high school summers baking 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

“When I was (growing up on a farm), I felt like a child slave, but looking back it was really heavenly,” King said. “It’s a tremendous amount of hard work, you start working at a really early age. It’s not easy. There’s nothing cushy or protective. Which is what made me survive my journey.”

By 1983, still in her 20s, King began wholesaling her cookies to local farm stands, and positive word of mouth about her cookies was spreading. She bought her first bakeshop with a $50,000 down payment.

A dose of failure

In 1999, King, then 40, brought on her bookkeeper and his brother to help expand her business. King thought the partners would help expand her bakeshop nationally while she remained CEO and ran the business.

“As soon as I signed the contract, the partner I knew well turned into a different person,” King said. It became a disaster. They moved the business to a factory in Virginia, made lesser-quality cookies, and stopped paying some bills to vendors.

“They were money hungry, couldn’t reproduce any of my products, and when I put my foot down, they told me my pride was getting in the way of my job,” King said. Her goal has always centered on cookie quality, not money: “You do the right thing, and the money comes.”

King couldn’t bear the guilt of not paying vendors, so she paid them. But the partners accused her of stealing, fired her, and locked her out of the bakeshop she founded.

They went to court, which resulted in King walking away with only a third of the company’s debt, about $200,000. She had to start the business again almost from scratch.

But then King did what she’s always done: Focus on super high-quality, delicious cookies that people love, with quality ingredients to make a cookie that tastes different from everything else on the market. By 2003, she estimated to be back around $3 million in annual revenue.

King said losing her business to her former business partners was a “gift,” adding: “I had the gift of dying and coming back, learning what didn’t work in that lifetime and what will work in this lifetime.”

All about quality

King makes her cookies with regular flour and insists there really aren’t any secrets to why Tate’s cookies appeal to millions.

“As with all baking,” she said, “it’s about experimenting and knowing your ingredients. Their quality is crucial, as is not being afraid to make a mistake. It’s about learning.”

For years, King traveled to New York City with her cookies, trying to place them in local markets. Some loved them and asked for hundreds of packages; others questioned how they differed from other cookie brands.

“That didn’t bother me,” King recalled. “To start a small business you need a work ethic, integrity and common sense. I had all that from the farm. You also have to stop thinking and start doing. When I moved over here, I had to make double to pay the mortgage, so my business plan was, ‘Yeah, I can do that.’ We started shipping products and were here 24 hours a day.”

King bought a former school building on Long Island, which she turned into a 45,000-square-foot bakery.

In year one, Mondolēz International increased cookie production from 1.5 million cookies weekly to one million daily.

Modern tailwind

You can find Tate’s cookies in many stores nationwide, such as Whole Foods, Wegmans, Walmart, and local specialty stores. They’re also popular on Amazon. The national movement toward well-baked snacks has helped Tate’s national rise.

Tate’s cookies are made with ingredients such as brown cane sugar and butter rather than high fructose corn syrup and vegetable oil. Tate’s sales quadrupled in the five years leading up to its 2018 sale alone.

“When I was younger, I was older than I am now,” King said. “I would tell my twenty-something self don’t take things too seriously; everything will be okay.”

King also credits her business fortitude for her remarkable success. “I’m a big believer in, ‘That was yesterday, this is today.’ You can’t keep swirling in it. Move on.”

Dive deeper

Here’s King on her three baking tips, including salted butter.