Branding and Problem-Solving with Erik Fabian of Sourhouse

In this episode of Bread For the People, host Jim Serpico speaks with Erik Fabian, the Co-Founder of Sourhouse. a company that helps people bake more sourdough bread by creating thoughtfully designed baking tools and inviting people to bake more often. Erik discusses developing a product to help home bakers improve the bulk-proofing stage of bread making. He explains the challenges many home bakers face in achieving the correct bulk proof and how their "DoughBed" product addresses these issues. The "DoughBed" is designed to create a consistent and warm environment for the dough to proof, allowing bakers to monitor and control the proofing process easily. The goal is to provide a tool that simplifies the baking process without taking away the artisanal aspects of baking. 

Jim and Erik also discuss developing products from the ground up, managing Kickstarter campaigns, starting a restaurant, taking risks, starting something from scratch, living in North Carolina vs. New York, and more.

To support Sourhouse's new product 

Visit them at Sourhouse.co
Kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sourhouse/doughbed-by-sourhouse?utm_source=kickbooster-direct&utm_medium=kickbooster&utm_content=link&utm_campaign=f870ae45&ref=61slch
DoughBed: sourhouse.co/doughbed
Instagram: @lifeatsourhouse

Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/jim-serpico-bread-for-the-people-sourdough-pizza-life--5704379/support.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
My name is Jim Serpico. Andthis should I start with my name?
What should I start with? Thisis Bread for the People. Do you
like it like this? Welcome tobread? Or do you like it like
this? Welcome, Ready, Welcometo bread for the people? Mine?
Is there a script for the people? Welcome to Bread for the People.

(00:36):
I'm Jim Curpico. I'm back everyone. It's been about five months. It
took a little bit of a hiatushow to do a little refresh, but
I'm very excited to be back withthe podcast Bread for the People, the
podcast where we talk about sourdough,pizza, the hospitality business, and anything
else we decide to talk about alongthe way. My guest today is a

(01:00):
brand builder. He's a home baker, he's a dad, and he's the
co founder of a very interesting businessand brand called sower House. Sour House
has an active Kickstarter campaign whose goalwas initially to raise twenty five thousand dollars
I believe, and as of thismorning, they've currently raised over two hundred

(01:25):
and twenty five thousand dollars, whichis an amazing feat. The product that
they're working on and getting ready tolaunch is called DOUGHBD it allows you to
proof your dough just right every time, and I personally find that fascinating.
Please welcome Eric Fabian. Thanks Jim. I'm super excited to be chatting with

(01:49):
you today. Yeah, man,I appreciate you reaching out to me.
I haven't heard of your product before, but it kind of blows my mind.
Well, I, you know,we're working every day to try to
fix that, to make many bakersknow about what we're doing. We you

(02:10):
know, we started way back.You know, the idea started way back
during COVID in twenty twenty March twentytwenty, and we spent a couple of
years working on the idea for thefirst product we launched also on Kickstarter,
Goldie, which was successful. Andso we've been a proper company selling things

(02:30):
for about a year and I guessa year and a half or so now.
And so this doughbed launch is oursecond go with a kind of a
large scale, kind of plug incountertop type product. But we're still small.
We're a small company. We're buildingit, you know, working on
every day. Get the word out. That's great, So tell us about

(02:53):
both products. Let's start with thevery first one you launched. Sure,
so so Our House is a companyfounded by myself and my co founder,
Jennifer Yoko Olsen. We were justsome friends. I we knew each other
back when I, you know,when I lived in New York and during

(03:15):
COVID, I you know, I'dbeen a home baker and I'd seen everybody
learning to bake, and I'd beengetting calls probably like everybody, you know,
how do I make sourdough and stuff? And I remember what it was
like to create my first hour tostarter, and it took me a month,
and what ultimately fixed it for mewas figuring out that my New York

(03:36):
apartment was just too cold. Itwas like it was like sixty two degrees
at night because it was like earlyspring in Brooklyn and like, and so
as soon as I warmed it up, my starter popped and I was like
ready to go. And I soI had this idea, you know that
you know, maybe that you know, people could use a warming device that
would help them keep their starter atthe right temperature. Basically, you know,

(04:00):
you can if you're on the video, you can kind of see it
behind us. But it's basically justa warming base with a glass top and
you put your jar inside and itwarms it. And we also ended up
making some jars and that are designedto be super easy to clean and uh,
and that's what we launched with ourfirst campaign, and sour House has
really become as an idea. It'sjust, you know, our mission is

(04:24):
really to just kind of encourage moresourdough baking, more sourdoa bakers. And
so we design simple tools for thehome baker that helps inspire them to bake
more. And so we don't wantto create anything that you know, takes
away from your ability to bake.We don't really want to create bread machines
that do the baking for you.We want things to just take away some
of the complexity, some of theyou know, concern that you have when

(04:47):
you either are starting out baking oryou know, or allow you to geek
out on the stage of baking thatyou enjoy most. So some people really
love the fuss with their starters.Some people want to focus on school or
inclusions and doing other things. Soour first time, like you guys,
are helping people create some kind ofconsistency with their starter. Is that accurate

(05:10):
or yeah? So Goldie is kindof offered as a warm, safe,
home for your starter. It warmsyour starter up five ten degrees into what
we call the Goldilock zone seventy fiveto eighty two degrees fahrenheit, and that
is a nice kind of zone whereboth the yeast and the bacteria and your
starter is most active. And sothat's Goldie's whole purpose in the world.

(05:30):
It's a very simple device. Youplug it in, you leave it on
your counter. You have one switchon the back that turns on and off
the auto warming, and you putyour jar inside, and when you're getting
ready to bake, turn auto warmingon and it gently warms it up so
it is into that Goldilock zone.And so you both have active starter,
which obviously is really helpful for makinggreat bread, but it also puts your

(05:55):
starter in a schedule. Temperature isan ingredient when you're baking sourdough bread,
and by giving it consistent inputs oftemperature, you can anticipate when your starter
and your bread will be ready,so you can plan your bake day,
planning around your busy life, planningaround picking up the kids, have bread
ready for dinner. So let meask this on that product. If you're

(06:15):
a baker who bakes only once aweek. Are you suggesting with this product
that you keep your starter outside meaningnot a refrigerator in Goldie for the entire
week? And then how many timeswould you have to feed it? And
how does that work? Yeah,so people do both ways. Like Jenny,

(06:38):
my co founder, she's a moreweekend baker, keeps her starter on
the fridge. She'll pull the starterout a day or two ahead of when
she's planning a bake and start tofeed it. And she likes to feed
it, I think at least threetimes before she bakes, to kind of
get it active again. And thebenefit of having something like Goldie is that,

(07:00):
you know, you can warm itup a little bit faster, certainly,
But then more importantly than that,I think, because when it is
in the goldilock zone, you canprobably sneak in an extra feed in a
day. You can seek in probablythree feeds in a day with you know,
depending on the nature of your micropes. But and that, you know,
just makes it easier to kind oflike get that prepped and ready to

(07:20):
go. And then if you're moreof somebody likes to keep on the counter
like I usually do, you know, I like to keep the auto warming
off stick and serve flower and I'llkeep a small amount in the jar during
the week, and I'll feed itevery day to kind of keep it active
and could keep an eye on it. And then when I'm preparing to bake,
I'll turn on the auto warming,make sure it's most active and kind

(07:43):
of like get a few feeds inthere and and start to bake. But
one of the big things about Ithink the you know, what we're trying
to do is like we wanted tocreate with Goldie a device that like lived
on the counter and kind of earnedits spot next to your fancy like kitchen
aid mixer and your nice coffee machine, because we feel like, you know,

(08:03):
there's so much sourdough activity happening onInstagram and people are like, you
know, sharing their beautiful bread everyday, but in the kitchen, our
tools have been kind of pushed intothe cupboards, and so we wanted to
kind of recenter that that kind ofa space for sourdough in the you know,
in the center of the kitchen andkind of create a little like a
little place to show off you're kindof like, you know, your bread

(08:26):
pet. And I think having thatalso on the counter and in a transparent
glass enclosure, so you can visuallysee your starter and see it kind of
like go through the kind of likegrowth and collapse of its you know,
kind of feeding cycle. You developmore awareness of kind of like how it

(08:46):
reacts to kind of different environments anddifferent seasons and the feeding cycle, and
that makes you better baker inherently,but also keeps you in touch with it
and makes you remind you that thestarter is there, and like so you
bake more. If you tend tokeep your started in the fridge, it's
easy to forget about it and haveit end up in the back of the
fridge and you discover it like amonth later, and it's looking kind of
scary right now. Was this thefirst time you were involved in having a

(09:11):
product and a prototype created? Well, I met my backgrounds in doing like
brand marketing and you know, soI worked for Moleskin for a number of
years. I worked for some techcompanies, and so I've been a part
of building lots of brands and buildingproducts, but usually the kind of core
product had already been established by thetime I would come into the situation.

(09:35):
I've started other companies, but they'vebeen more like either based around events,
create events, or kind of consultingtype things creating event. You know,
I do think of that like aproduct, but I'd never dealt with this
like physical manufacturing type stuff so directly. And fortunately my friend Jenny is an
industrial designer. And so when Iwas you know, so I left New

(09:58):
York because of COVID, I haveyoung kids. I had suddenly become like
a stay at home dad, andI was like looking for people to talk
to. And I talked to likeall my friends, and I was like,
what's going on in the world?Would we do? And and And
when I shared the idea that Ihad for Goldie with Jenny, she got
kind of intrigued. She wasn't abaker at that time. She like learned
to bake as part of like thekind of process of kind of like thinking

(10:22):
about this, and then we endedup working on it. So it's been
super helpful to have somebody who understandslike how an idea goes from you know,
a piece of paper to being manufactured, and you know, not only
being able to develop the kind oflike documents and stuff you need to submit
to be created to get something created, but also like knowing what the capacities

(10:46):
for you know, different materials,like what they can do, and you
know with the limitations, how dowe efficiently produce things? And so that's
that's really I think helped us createreally curious to learn more about that process.
You pitch the idea and what you'retrying to accomplish with this product,
But you know, where does thefirst physical design? Do you sketch something

(11:11):
out? Does she sketched out?Because I could see it over your shoulder
and I've seen the product before andit's it's beautiful. It seems like it
deserves to be displayed, and youknow a lot of thought must have been
put into that. But also likeit just kind of boggles my mind.
How do you get it to fruition? Like how do you know what?

(11:35):
What kind of glass? Do youuse? A plastic? Yea who helps
you with that? So some ofthat is in Jenny's head and some of
it and a lot of the beautifullike touches and stuff come from Jenny's aesthetics
and refinements with our process is quiteconversational through through all aspects of our business.
But and then some of it's fromjust talking to our manufacturer saying,

(11:58):
hey, we'd like to do this. Is this possible? So the idea,
like in the case of Goldie,I had a simple drawing, like
in a notebook of basically this shapelike a you know, a glass dome
over over a base, and Ihad some other I wasn't sure initially if
it was plug advice and like,you know, exactly how it would work.

(12:18):
I so, so I shared thatwith her. We had some initial
conversations, she asked questions. Idid some initial like Frankenstein type prototyping where
I would take different kind of likeI tested both like a lot of DIY
warming solutions, like putting your kindof starter in the oven with the oven
laid on, or in the microwavewith a couple of hot water or on,

(12:41):
like different types of warming mats andlike, and played with different things
to understand kind of how they affectedstarter. And then I kind of like
built crude versions of like what Goldiewas supposed to function, like just to
test like how temperature affected things.And you know, I had a basic
understanding just from like camping and doingoutdoor stuff that you know, like how

(13:05):
heat moved through shelters and stuff,and so the I had a basic idea
of like, you know, theheat loss happens this way, and the
heat moves this way, and thenwe kind of found the temperature zone all
that kind of stuff. So oncewe had this kind of like functional idea,
then it was really a matter ofkind of iterating around, you know,
kind of mock up like visual designs. Jenny, for instance, took

(13:30):
that basic shape and you know,there was not necessarily need to kind of
like change the shape, and likethe glass made sense. But there's like
a little handle like on the side. That was something like Jenny came up
with, and we debated for along time putting a handle on top,
which is much more kind of likeergonomic, but it makes it look a
little bit more like other types ofproducts that we didn't want the association with,

(13:52):
and putting in a handle on theside gave it some charm and you
know, and then getting the rightcurve of the dome like some of the
stuff like that, like the heart, and then from there, you know,
we took it. We found acontract manufacturer, we started to work
with them and think about like whatcan we do. We you know,
figured out if it's a USB plugand device. We weren't sure initially.
We assumed initially it would just bea regular kind of DC plugin type thing.

(14:15):
But because it's so low energy use, it's we're able to use USB,
which makes it work internationally with thewith the right kind of adapter.
And and so that is also justkind of ongoing discussion. You make,
you make several prototypes, and youkind of get to the get to the
end. So I'm not going toask you how much you had to invest

(14:37):
initially, but I am curious whenyou bring on this manufacturer, he's basically
making one unit for you for youto approve. I assume you have to
put in You have to pay thisperson, right, because they're not going
to just do it on you know, helping it's going to work. Yeah,
And that's why we do things likekickstore campaigns because it is it costs

(14:58):
money to create physical products and tomake things like this, and we're still
a very small company and so havingthe cash to do that, we put
in a little bit of money ourselves, but basically have taken a very conservative,
low risk approach to this. Andyou know, and the trade off
for putting in a little bit ofmoney is like it took us longer to

(15:20):
get done, Like I had helpedto launch a kickstart campaign when we from
the idea in a few months,and maybe if it hadn't been COVID and
I didn't have kids, and like, you know, life had been different
and it really cranked on it,Like maybe we could have done a lot
faster, but it ended up takingtwo years. And like, in part
is because we did a lot ofstuff ourselves. We did a lot of
testing ourselves, we did all thedesigner selves. We were also building our

(15:43):
brand, like we're doing like alot of it. It's very handmade and
so the but then you get toa point where it's like you do need
to invest money because you have tobuild by you know, create these molds,
and you have to create prototypes andlike, you know, a prototype,
you know, we retail Goal thefive, Like a prototype is going

(16:03):
to cost us several hundreds of dollarsand we'll have to make several of those
and like the and then ultimately youneed to produce a first run of a
certain size and you need a certainamount of money to do that. So
yeah, it does take a littlebit of money to get going. And
once we kind of had a successfulKickstarter campaign. We you know, borrow

(16:23):
a little bit of money from friendsand family just to make sure we had
a base of money to kind ofrun the business. But essentially we've been
bootstrapped since we started and so farthat's working. It's great. So tell
us about the new product open.Yeah, So as soon as we made
Goldie, you know, we weregetting questions like, hey, I have
an active starter, what's next?And we provide a variety of materials to

(16:47):
help people learn to bake and tobecome better bakers. Like we have a
free ebook kind of cookbook that's recipescontributed by our community to give away.
We try to do webinars and differentthings. But you know, as we
think of more products that kind ofhelp fix different kind of problems along the
kind of like path of baking,the loaf of bread, the mixing and

(17:08):
the first bulk proof became, youknow obviously the next thing to kind of
focus on. And for most homebakers who don't bake, you know,
a thousand loaves a week and like, you know, are you know,
don't have a chance to kind oflike maybe work with another person to kind
of show them the nuances of whatwell proof dough is supposed to look like

(17:30):
getting the proof right, the bulkproof is like one of the biggest challenge
of baking. And I remember whenI started, like I watched so many
YouTube videos trying to figure out,like, you know, how bubbly is
it supposed to look? And likewhen's it done? When can I take
this dough and move on to shaping, And so we conceptualized doughbeds as a

(17:53):
as a solution to that. Basically, it's a it's a consists of a
warming map, an oval shaped bowlthat is, it has a lid that
sits on top. The lid iscork, the warming amount is cork.
It is like I don't know byweight quite yet, but like say ninety
seven percent cork and glass. Soit's like all very kind of sustainable materials,

(18:18):
which we're stoked about. But essentiallyit's like creating like a nice like
warm space. With that you canmix up your your ingredients, create your
dough and then allow it to ballproof and you can do your stretching fold
or knaeding inside the bowl so it'sall tidy and clean, and then you
have by giving it consistent warmth,we are encouraging people to use the clock

(18:41):
rather than other types of tracking tounderstand when their dough is ready to move
on to mixing it. And theadvantage of this for you know, the
new baker is like if you understandthat, like, hey, my dough
is going to be ready, youknow with this particular recipe, you know
it's me ready about like four hours, five hours or whatever. Like I

(19:03):
can kind of tune into it atthat time and you know, learn the
visual cues and like the tactile cluesto tell me that, okay, this
dough is proofed and ready to moveon to be shaped. And if you
are a more experienced baker, itjust helps you put your plan your bake
day and put your bread on aschedule. So you know, I have
become more and more busy as I'vebeen building sour House, and like I

(19:26):
might have a bread started in themorning and you know be like, hey,
I've got this time, and ifit's you know, as long as
it gets done about here, Iwill be fine. And you know,
I totally believe in following your loafand like paying attention to it and doing
that kind of thing. But youknow, sometimes I get on a call
for you know, I'll be ona call for like three hours and something
I'll just miss my window, andlike it's easy to kind of overprove it.

(19:49):
So putting on a speeding with thisproduct that if I'm in a Brooklyn
apartment that's sixty two degrees and you'rein a house in North Carolina at seventy
two degrees, it's going to takethe exact same time in our dough beeds.
That's the goal. It might notbe exactly, you might not what

(20:10):
we want to match. Doughbed warmsyour dough to the Goldilock zone like Goldie,
so up to that seventy five eightytwo degree range, and you know
there's some factors that will affect yourresults. So what you your temperature might
be slightly different than my temperature ortarget is a zone that is, you
know, an active zone for sourdough. But it but what's most important

(20:32):
is your dough today will be thesame as your dough tomorrow, which will
be the same dough in December asit is in July. And the the
temperature target is less important I thinkin dough beed than it is in Goldie
because you want an active starter tokind of make bread. But what's more
important with doughbed is it just warmsit up five to ten degrees. And

(20:55):
so by warming it up that consistentamount, so it's like if your home
is coal and it gets it upyou know usually our homes or like sixty
eight seventy degrees, Like, youknow, if it warms it up that
five to ten degrees every time youbake, then you have this stable temperature
to reference against. And so ifyou know, you're like mixing it up

(21:15):
with six hundred grand flour loaf andyou're put in four hundred and whatever grams
of water and whatever amounts the starterand you stick it in your doughbed,
you know the temperature is consistent,so you know about when it's going to
be ready to shape. Got itnow, I've I was involved in a
Kickstarter campaign once before. What kindof levels did you offer and what do

(21:37):
people get for investing? So Kickstarteris a crowdfunding platform that allows people to
back projects to help ideas come tolife, and in exchange for that backing,
you can get rewards kind of likeif you back like a like a
telethon or like an NPR fun driveor something like that, right, And
one of the key things with kickstarteris that the funding is all or nothing.

(22:00):
So you set a minimum target,and in our case, it was
twenty five thousand dollars, and ifyou get enough backers that surpasses that number,
then the campaign will happen or theproject will happen, and at the
end of the campaign, people's creditcards will be charged and you'll get the
money. So we surpassed that amountin about three minutes on our launch day

(22:25):
and raise about one hundred thousand dollarsin the first day. Let me stop
here right there. Yeah, howdid you do that? If you have
you did you collect the data fromthe first campaign and reach out to the
people that backed you the first time? Yes, I mean we have a
list. We built lists and that'sthe fundamental think of the campaign. Just

(22:45):
to finish with your first question,though, it was like, so we
have reward tiers and so there waslike for this list that we created,
we invited people as much as wecould. We said, hey, we
have a new product coming, here'sa picture of it. We're excited about
it, and if you want to, we don't want to like spam you
all the time because maybe don't careabout this, So join this list if

(23:07):
you're super excited, and you willget a lot of background information and you
will get first access to the campaign. We'll announce it to you first.
And so we created a special rewardtier for them that was like the lowest
kind of like amounts that you hadto back to get one of the first
dough beeds. So that lasted fora few hours, and then for the
rest of the launch day when weannounced it more broadly to the rest of

(23:30):
the world, there was also avery low kind of discounted rate and then
that kind of the Then there's beenmultiple reward tiers from there, so there's
one for the next few days,and then there's one for the first week.
Right now we're in i think thesecond week tier. We've got about
fifteen days left, so there's gonnabe two more tiers with a minimum reward
requirement goes up to get a doughbed. How that like, So choosing your

(23:53):
rewards is really fundamental to build akickstar campaign. Creating video is very fundamental,
and you build out a page thatexplains what you're trying to do,
and in terms of creating that momentum, you just you build your list,
and then you reach out through allyour various channels and you try to work
at this new idea and explain whyit exists and why people would care about

(24:17):
it. We are in a verydifferent position than when we launched Goldie.
When we launched Goldie, we hadlike six hundred people on a list we
put out our initial like announcement tomaybe a couple, you know, I
forget what it is, like twohundred people or something. So it was
very small and you know, youknow, we had been created Instagram feed
and we had like a thousand peopleon our Instagram feed, and like,

(24:37):
you know, it was just justget going. Today, we have a
much bigger kind of basic list,having sold products for a year and a
half, and you know, wehave some like twenty thousand people on our
Instagram feed right now, and youknow, we launched to a list that
was had thousands of people on it, and so that helps, you know,

(24:59):
create momentum and like and really havingsuccessful Kickstarter campaigns, the basic strategies
you want to have as many peopleback you in the first twenty four hours,
forty eight hours, seventy two hoursto kind of show you know,
credibility and momentum and create kind oflike some buzz around what you're doing,
and it sets off like algorithms andstuff. I think within Kickstarter that helps

(25:22):
support your campaign. You'll show upon the you know, the homepage and
stuff like that. So everything aroundour kind of like business goals for like
launching kickstore campaign is really about gettingpeople to back us in the first day.
And so we were successful with thatand now we're kind of in the
middle period where you know, we'rejust trying to continue to spread the word
out and and you know, tryto get as many no beds to people

(25:45):
as we can. We have aboutthirteen thousand backers that have supported so far,
and you know, we're hoping thatnumber rule will grow. That's amazing.
So each one of those people andthe getting a doll bed the huge
majority of it. It is possibleto donate to the campaign and just be
like, hey, you know,here's a dollar, here's you know,

(26:07):
one hundred bucks. We do havepeople to do that. You know,
I don't know them always, likeyou know, some of them are like
family members and stuff, but likeyou know, the sometimes people just tossing
tossing some money because they like whatyou're doing and so but yes, if
anybody who's backed it for that minimumlevel to get a reward, which is
the vast majority of the backers,yeah, they'll get a dough bed and

(26:30):
art. Like just for context oflike for Goldie, we launched a campaign
in April and we delivered December thesame year, and this time we're launching
in May. We expected deliver earlytwenty twenty five. We're shooting for January.
But you know, we'll see there'salways variables with this stage of kind

(26:52):
of creating a new products. Sopart of the reason people are getting this
kind of these dough beds as areward at such a discount and it's sort
of a pre sale, is it, Like it helps us create the the
cash to you know, create theproduct. But it also because you know
they have to wait for it.You know, they get a discount for
what they're for helping us out inthe beginning. Now, I remember a

(27:17):
Kickstarter campaign for cooler called the CoolestCooler about seven years ago, and I
bought one. It was his coolerthat had USB ports, blenders, all
kinds of stuff and it was atthe time one of the most successful kickstore
campaigns. Ever, and I believethe guy had some manufacturing problems and had

(27:41):
a hard time getting the parts fromoverseas, and ultimately the thing went bust.
Like he was able to deliver afew rounds of the coolers, but
it was almost too successful. Andyou're also at the liberty of you know,
things change over the amount of timeit takes from launching your campaign to

(28:02):
delivering, and he couldn't get theparts anymore, or the manufacturer just decided,
hey, we're out. Yep,it's a it's happened. And I
think that's one of the big challengesfor campaign especially today. You know,
it's not the Kickstar is not thesame as it was like fifteen years ago
or whatever, when it was like, you know, everybody was just trying
things. Like there's a lot moreprofessionalism to the larger campaigns that succeed.

(28:29):
And you know, that's one ofthe things that I'm really happy that you
know, Jenny is in the mixand like she is industrial designer and can
help us kind of navigate some ofthe challenges that might cause a campaign to
not be able to deliver. Andyou know, it's one of our you
know goals is just to create confidencein people initially both by showing you know,

(28:52):
we have like a fully functional protype. We don't have the glass
made yet of the bowl, butwe've you know, we have like a
nice plastic version of it, andyou know, we've made several rounds.
We have a functional map. Thetechnology is still very simple like Goldie,
so we're not creating super complicated device. There's some nuances to manufacturing the shape
and the and the kind of youknow, the particular putting the components together

(29:18):
that we do. There's no otherlike product quite like it on the market,
So we're doing something new, andsomething new has always got like you
know, you got to overcome bunchesof challenges, but it's all very manageable,
and you know, we pick partnerswho who have experience, and you
know, we've been working with allof our like production and fulfillment partners for

(29:38):
now for like two three years,so we have a pretty good relationship with
them and know what their capacity is. They also, you know, our
manufacturer produces large scale quantities of thingsfor brands like Weber and Walmart and you
know, other kind of kickstarter successcampaigns, so we're confident that they can

(30:00):
do it. There's always like youknow, risks. You know, there's
war, there's you know, COVID, there's things that happened that can cause
problems, and you know, wejust try to navigate that by being communicative
and you know, explaining like what'shappening and so on. But you know,
we're also just like a more maturebrand. We've delivered you know,
tens of thousands of products to peoplenow across the world, and you know

(30:22):
we're more financially sound, so we'reable to kind of do these things with
I think, more more confidence.How do people buy the first product Goldie
right now? So we have awebsite, so our house dot co,
where you can buy our products.We're also available in a handful of retail
stores. Williams Noma Online is ourlargest in the United States, also Cook's

(30:47):
Warehouse down Atlanta. We have ahandful of retailers and the UK and EU
and one in Australia. We shipper a lot of countries around the world
from our store. And but westill are you know, we're still growing.
That's great. So do you havea garage full of these Goldies?

(31:11):
No? I mean I live downnow in Asheville, North Carolina, which
is what I like to say,the Sowardoaugh capital of the South. And
I don't actually live in Ouse rightnow. I have a garage. I'm
about to move and have a garageso that we'll change them things. But
we use a third party warehouse.So our warehouse is actually we have one

(31:32):
in China, one in Texas atthe moment. That's awesome. So I
understand you are a lover and makerof Soauer Kraut. I do I like
to play with different Yeah, Ilike to play with different fermentation things,
you know. I like Actually Igot into sourd oat baking because of fermentation.

(31:53):
I was watching that that Michael Pollandseries on Netflix based on his book
Cooked, and he has one that'son air and it's all it's all about
bread and bread is fermentation, andI was like, oh, bread is
a fermented food. I hadn't reallyever connected the dots on that until I

(32:14):
had watched that, and that gotme curious enough to you know, go
online, watch YouTube videos and justlike figure it out and make my own
starter. So I do I playwith different, different ferments. I'm lucky
here in Asheville. This is actuallyApple, I'm part of the mountainous Appalachian
kind of western of western North Carolina, and there's a long history of kind

(32:38):
of pickles and fermented foods. There'sa lot of like German immigration back in
the day here that brought sauerkraut overand like, so there's a lot of
a lot of cool things happening here. I thought you were going to say
moonshine, Well there's that too.Like, from what I understand, you
could still go hiking and find moonshiners. Yeah, yeah, they're out there,

(33:00):
people hunting for ramps. There's allkinds of things that happen in these
woods. Absolutely, that's pretty great. Man. So do you miss New
York at times? I really enjoygoing back to visit. And Jenny is
still up there in Brooklyn, soI have a good excuse to get up
there a couple times a year atleast, and I always come back and

(33:20):
I'm like, man, it's afantastic city, and like I lived there
like fifteen years. But man,I also I've been up there with both
my kids for like a week atone point, and it's so hard to
have kids there. So I justit's my life is is tiring enough as
it is. I couldn't imagine slappingthem around and not having a backyard.

(33:42):
Do you think that's what makes ithard, is the hustle and bustle of
getting around totally not having a lotof space for me. Yeah, like
moving them around, it's just likefeels like you're juggling a lot more stuff.
Obviously, it's you know, there'sthe expense and that stuff of New
York, and you make that tradeoff for access to culture and the people

(34:04):
and all that kind of stuff.And I think that trade off makes a
lot of sense when you're like inyour twenties, but when you get older.
Yeah, and it's super nice.You know, we have access to
you know, i'd have to drive, you know, hour and a half
or something to get into the woodsif I wanted to leave New York and
go somewhere, and I can driveten minutes and be somewhere really kind of

(34:25):
foresty and nice, right, areyou in that we're close to the actual
city of Ashville. I live inactual proper, but it's just like surrounded
by like a whole lot of green. So I've had this conversation with my
wife because we live thirty five milesfrom Manhattan in Long Island, and we

(34:46):
talk about the cultural aspect, youknow, Long Island has, it's almost
we all say we're from New Yorkand people think of us as city people,
but we're not. It's a verydifferent different thing Brooklyn, Manhattan,
Queens, very different the culture reallyis in Brooklyn and Manhattan. We think

(35:09):
of it as a schlepp to gothere, because even though it's thirty five
miles, it could take an hourand a half. Yep. And then
you look at the culture we havein Long Island and I always say it's
probably just as much into college townsomewhere else. Right, You're getting bigger
things, concerts, art, allkinds of things going through those towns.

(35:32):
You don't necessarily get so much ofthat here in Long Island. Yeah,
I think it's you know, it'sjust all trade offs, you know.
It's like that. I feel likeNew York is surrounded by this like force
field that's really hard to cross,Like you live inside of it. You
might not have a car. It'skind of hard to get out, but

(35:52):
once you're out you can go doall the kinds of stuff, and then
it's hard to get into. It'slike you know, there's all that kind
of you got to get through thetunnels and across the bridges and fight your
way into traffic and stuff to getaccess to stuff. But but yeah,
whether that like ring around New Yorkis like a good spot to be,
like, you know, we definitelyconsidered it, but it's uh, yeah,

(36:17):
it's like I think, you know, I'm I'm a quick flight to
New York. It's like a fewhours there and if if I want to
go, it's like it feels probablylike the same schlep that they used to
have to go through to like driveout of New York to go to like
Jersey or Upstate New York or something. So and there are you know,

(36:37):
there's a big world outside of NewYork. Like there's a lot of people,
a lot of like communities are cooland like and I think that you
know, there's lots of good placesto be Asheville is you know, a
big kind of tourist destination, sowe do get you know, a lot
of kind of interesting things come throughhere because of that, and you know
there's lots of restaurants and all thatkind of stuff going on. What about

(37:00):
the fear of kind of starting over. You know, I don't know if
your job ended or you left thejob. I don't know if you consider
this a new chapter in your life. But like for me, I remember
when, like after the pandemic,I was kind of at a crossroads,

(37:20):
a combination of really getting into thebread business and getting out of the entertainment
business and having the freedom to travela little. My wife and I went
to Denver and we were having conversationslike, man, it might be cool
to start over. And then wewent to I forget the neighborhood in the

(37:42):
city of Denver, but it wasnot high rise buildings. It was more
like a garden district that seemed tobe like the hip area where young people
were living. And there was agreat main street with a farmer's market,
and two blocks from that farmer's marketwas a bakery, bread bakery, and
we walked in and I jokingly said, hey, you want to sell it?

(38:06):
And the woman says, you haveuntil tomorrow, like seriously, and
I'm like, what do you mean. She's like, We've been doing this
for twenty five years. It wascalled the Denver Bread Company, and we're
done and we're just making a dealwith the landlord. To get out and
someone's taking it tomorrow. But ifyou really want to be in the game,

(38:29):
you can. And we went outto eat, we talked about it,
and it was obviously like we couldn'tcommit to that out of nowhere,
you know. But then in talkingabout it and even right now, because
we want to start something in retailand we're you know, where, does
it make sense? Is it oversaturatedhere? Even if there aren't bread companies

(38:52):
here. The real estate costs somuch and there's this fear about starting a
business as well as a whole newlife somewhere else. Did you experience that,
Well, it's I mean, it'salways it's a really interesting question.
It's because there's so many facets toit. I I've always been somebody starts

(39:15):
things, like I started a performancefestival for saying when I got graduated from
college, and like, you know, I have a background the arts,
and I've always lived kind of likeon the thrifty kind of do make things
kind of side of the world,and and I so like I've always a

(39:35):
person with like one hundred ideas andI'm like just walking around telling people my
ideas and I'm just like looking forsomebody to be like, oh, that's
a good idea and I want towork with you on it, right,
And so it happened in this casethat COVID had happened like I had.
We had been like left New York, I had become we had just had
a baby, like in December oftwenty nineteen, so I had a three

(39:57):
month year old baby, right,you know, and New York was shutting
down just as my wife was supposedto go back from attorney leave. And
so instead we'd leave, we godown to stay with some family in Florida.
And so my life had stopped.And so that's a very good moment
to like make it change. LikeI was just looking for adult conversation and
like I you know, had notnecessarily time on my hands because I had

(40:20):
this thing, you know, alot going on. But like the but
I wasn't I wasn't necessarily like tradingoff like a steady job for you know,
the risk of starting something new.And we did take you know,
a cautious path. It was likenights and weekends and put very little money
into it for a long time.And you know, we just happen to

(40:40):
be people who have the background andthe skill sets to do a lot of
the work ourselves, so we cantake it a long way just like in
our own hands, which reduces therisk. But I think and then we're
also fortunate, like you know,Sarto was having a moment and like we
didn't like catch the COVID create createfor sourdough, you know when we were

(41:01):
selling our product. You know,we were a couple of years after it,
but the fact that sourdough was liketrending made it easy for me to
pitch the idea to people and toconvince my wife first of all, but
then like our manufacturing partner, likeyou know, they were like, oh,
yeah, it would be a goodidea to work on a Saro product,
and like you know, it's justlike it made that path a little

(41:22):
bit easier at that time. SoI think there are moments of like less
risk, there are markets with lessrisk. I'm very like I've worked in
a lot of restaurants and when Iwas young, and like, I know,
that's a really hard business. Soit's like whenever I hear somebody taking
the path you're taking, like Ilike, I totally appreciate the like pleasure

(41:42):
and like thrill of having a restaurantand like, uh, you know,
having that kind of like relationship withyour with your customer and kind of feeding
people. Like I like I digall that, but I also know it
was a really hard business and likeprobably not one like I've never wanted to
be like a micro baker or anythinglike that. But yeah, you know,
there's moments, like there's lots ofmoments where like I feel very nervous

(42:07):
about what we're doing, and likeusually launching big moments like launching Goldie Kickstarter,
initially launching Doughbed. Now it's likethere's a lot of work that goes
up to it and the like thatthe first you know, the days before
it, you don't know how it'sgoing to go ultimately, and so there's
lots of nerves. But just tryto be judicious about the financials of it

(42:29):
and you know what you're what you'resigning up for, and not over take
on too much risk and as longas you have cash in the bank,
you still have a chance to succeed. But I don't know, how do
you feel, like like you,I know you have a background film,
television, very speculative space, likedo you how do you how do you

(42:51):
manage like taking bets on you knowyour bet Yeah, you work with creative
people, they are always wild cards, like you. You know, It's
like, how do you deal withall that? Well? I I so
believe in what I'm trying to doright now that I'm almost blinded by the

(43:12):
risk and there's almost no be plannedfor me. It's like, I'm going
to do this and I'm willing tobet on myself. I guess. I
don't know if that's a good qualityor bed. But when I say bed,
I'm talking about financially too. Youknow I'm going to be when I

(43:34):
make this next move, I haveto literally use a good part of my
savings as well as go into debtand probably take out a loan that I
will have to pay back. SoI'm putting myself in a position where I'm
forcing myself to succeed. I dohave fear because it's a relatively new space

(43:54):
for me. Once in a while, I'll think about a lot. If
this fails, I've really I'm ina worse position than when I started.
But I don't know. We're doingeverything we can to use best practices,

(44:15):
and we're not rushing into it,you know, we're studying it, We're
going to restaurant management school, we'relearning the financial aspects of it. But
hours a day into learning that,and I think that gives us a little
bit of an edge because I kindof believe I would say over eighty percent
of the people don't do that.Yeah, yeah, I think that makes

(44:38):
sense. I think two of thosethings that you said really resonate with with
me is like one that like feelingof commitment that like you're just like I'm
in and I'm doing it. I'mgoing to make it happen one way or
the other. And I think theuniverse sort of conspires to help you when
you have that level of commitment.I think people can see it in you.

(45:00):
And then I think, and youknow, there's various reasons that could
motivate that, but then trying tomanage the risks and being thoughtful about it,
like like it seems like there's alwaysgonna be risks, so it's just
like trying to do it the bestyou can. I think that makes a
lot of sense. I think itis hard. I mean, like you

(45:20):
said, Long Island is different thanNew York, but I do think it
is easier to test New ideas andto experiment with things outside of metropolis is
like New York. I think NewYork is a city, is a place
you go to to sell existing things, and obviously there's a lot of innovation
and cultural innovation stuff happening there onthe fringes of the wealth and all that

(45:43):
kind of stuff. But being ableto have lower rent and lower you know,
stakes for other things and other placesI do think is a good way
to head risk as well. Ihave a friend who lives in Saint Louis
and like, you know, shetells me, like what warehouse space costs
there, and it's like ridiculous.It's nothing like artists will like take over
huge spaces and create weird things,and like there's just low risk to do

(46:07):
it. And so I think itcultivates creativity in that way. I think
so, I you know, Ithink there's almost less creativity in those high
like Manhattan places I find, andeven around here when you're in the more
wealthy neighborhoods, you have these restaurantgroups that are essentially using other people's money

(46:28):
and a group of investors that canafford to lose, and you know,
they're bringing franchise style places that peoplemay not realize our franchises, but they
are like the mom and pop typeof thing. If you do it right,

(46:49):
could really be special. But Ithink it's hard to start those in
those really expensive places. Yeah,and it's like I think the other piece
of it for mitigating risk is likekind of validating your idea multiple times as
you go in small stages and tryingto keep the cost of that validation as
low as possible. So like whenwe had the initial ideas for our products,

(47:15):
we always like take it to apoint where we're like, we feel
pretty good, but we have questions, and then we go ask a few
people for feedback, and then wecome and we'll do that a few times
through the course of things. Andnot only is that great for getting feedback
and getting ideas and getting clarity ofwhat the rest of the world might think
of like the thing you're working on, but it starts to build a small

(47:36):
community of supporters that are invested inyour success. And I think especially for
launching new ideas, whether it's arestaurant or whatever, having that community is
going to show up on the firstday when you you know you're doing you
open your doors and you're you know, selling your first slices of pizza or
whatever like that. That's a bigdeal. So I think looking for ways

(47:57):
to kind of mitigate risk through likeconversation and you know, small tested versions
of it is good. And youstarted, but you've been doing like a
truck and stuff with bread and it'snot like you're starting from zero, Like
right, That's what I was goingto say. You know, farmers' markets,
which we continue to do the truckand we kind of expand our repertoire

(48:21):
with the truck and getting indicating.But as our mentor that we're working with
says, that's not enough. You'restill going to have to get a whole
new audience when you start paying rentevery month and commit to that for five
years. Yeah, you can't relyon those followers because it's not as big
as you think. Yeah, yeah, it's a it's a it's a it's

(48:49):
going to be the adventure for you, you know. I think it's a
blessing to be relatively naive at times. Mm hmm. Like when I started
in entertainment, I did have peoplesaying you should choose a path that's a
little more normal, where you couldyou know, grow into a business that's

(49:15):
a little more conservative and so on, and it's too a risky of a
path, and I didn't want tohear. I didn't listen to any of
it, and I fell into goodsituations and I made my luck. Now
I now know what I know,and I see one of my sons trying
to pursue the same thing, andquietly to myself, I'm thinking to myself

(49:37):
everything those people said to me,you know. But now, going back
to the restaurant business, so manypeople warned me about how tough of life
it is and how the margins isso low, and you know, I
probably have less experience in the restaurantbusiness than you. And because that,

(50:00):
I'm a little all right. Ifeel it's gonna work, but I haven't
seen a lot of it, andI think that's allowed me to jump in,
and I think that could be ablessing. Obviously it's not if I
go bust, yeah, but it'sgetting me through the door. And obviously,
be an outsider, you have thecapacity to bring new ideas to it.

(50:22):
You know, right, we've alleaten at restaurants and know there's obvious
things people do right and wrong.Just from that experience. I think that
it's interesting like the people that youtalk like everybody says don't do things,
and most people aren't don't start things, and I I think, like my

(50:46):
my wife was one of the firstemployees at Kickstarter, so I know that
community well, and I, like, you know, have a sense of
how hard it is to do akickstart campaign. And she was, you
know, early like she she likedthe idea, but she was like,
kickstart campaigns are hard, you know, and she was like, don't do
it, and like and like,so like I had a convincer of it.

(51:07):
And part of that process of likebuilding yesses a consistent like feedback from
people is like convincing people of thatkind of thing. But ultimately, I
think the people you need to getyeses from are the people who are going
to be your customers or your fundersor you know, the people we want
to work with. There's a lotof people who will probably never eat at

(51:28):
your restaurant, or never try tocook at your restaurant, or never try
to make a restaurant their own,who just think that like that sounds like
hard and challenging and you know,like a bad choice or whatever. But
really, what matters is like arethere people creating the pizza that you want
to feed them? And I dobelieve, And this is something that's like

(51:50):
fundamental, Like what we're trying tobuild at so our house is like,
you know, the food system isa wreck, Like our food production is
like you know, it's it's notnot good, and like we want to
connect people back to where like foodcomes from and like just develop basic cooking
skills and like bread is like oneof the most fundamental foods and like and

(52:12):
sourdough bread. I feel like it'sone of the gateways into fermentation, which
is like this fantastic, very economickind of like you know kind of food
making process. And if we canencourage people, you know to gather daily
and to share homemade bread and otherfermented foods, we feel like that's a
better world. They'll be more connectedwith where their food comes from and appreciate

(52:35):
what is is what is healthy toput in their body. And I feel
like the same thing with restaurants islike creating like you know, handmade foods
that's not part of a kind ofa you know, a corporate franchise kind
of concept. That's just about kindof like getting every dollar out of out
of the ingredients is like, Ithink, super welcome, but also super

(52:57):
economically challenging now in this in thisworld, and so finding new ways to
kind of like create that relationship withyour customer. I think, if people
want it, if you can figureout how to do it exactly, well,
on that note, we're gonna leaveit. Eric, I really enjoyed
this conversation. People could go toKickstarter and search the crowdfunding campaign. Yes,

(53:19):
they can just search for doughbed orsour House. You can also go
to our website Sourhouse dot co,thats house dot co, forward slapsh doebed
and get there and there's links onour website and that's that sort of thing.
But yeah, Jim, thanks forhaving me only lovely course, good
luck with the project and we'll bein touch. This episode of Bread for

(53:43):
the People was brought to you bySide Hustle Bread, Long Island's handcrafted,
artisanal bread company. Side Hustle Breadis a family run business that's bringing the
neighborhood feel back to Long Island,one loaf at a time. If you
like what you're hearing, don't forgetto head on over to iTunes and rate
and review this episode. Reviewing andrating is the most effective way to help
us grow our audience. This episodewas produced by Milestone TV and Film.

(54:07):
I'm your host Jim Serpico. Lessit be the bread Everyone