March 20, 2025 • 37 mins
Curt Jones shares the fascinating journey of how he invented Dippin' Dots using cryogenic technology from his microbiology background, built it into a $47 million business, then lost it all during the 2008 recession before making his comeback with 40 Below.
• Starting as a pig farmer in southern Illinois before studying microbiology at university
• Using liquid nitrogen technology originally developed for preserving bacteria to create beaded ice cream
• Opening the first struggling Dippin' Dots store with limited savings and credit cards in Lexington, Kentucky
• Breaking into theme parks starting with Opryland USA after persistent efforts
• Creating the "Ice Cream of the Future" branding that helped propel the company to international success
• Facing devastating financial challenges during the 2008 recession despite $47 million in annual revenue
• Losing control of Dippin' Dots in 2011 after years of struggling with predatory lending practices
• Building 40 Below with his daughter, creating innovative frozen products including coffee beads, mocktails and dairy-free desserts
• Applying the knowledge and connections from decades in the industry to build his comeback business
Visit 40belowco.com to order products online or find them at water parks, small theme parks, bowling alleys and family fun centers across the country.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past
failures and you're ready tobreak through your comfort zones
to finally reach the pinnacleof success in every area of your
life, then this podcast is foryou.
Here's your host, Terry LFossum.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey, this is Terry L Fossum, and welcome back once
again to the Comeback Chroniclespodcast.
I have a very exciting guesthere today, the founder of
Dippin' Dots, mr Kurt Jones.
Kurt invented the beaded icecream concept in 1988 when he
used his knowledge of cryogenictechnology and his love for ice
cream to create Dippin' Dots,and it's since been America's
number one beaded ice creambrand.
Through innovation andimagination, dippin' Dots truly
(00:54):
did redefine ice cream.
Now his new venture, forty Blow, is absolutely delicious.
He has Forty Blow.
Joe yeah coffee it's fantastic.
Island Rocks Mocktails the has40 Below Joe yeah coffee it's
fantastic.
Island Rocks Mocktails.
The Fruity Way my favorite israspberry and 40 Below Desserts
(01:15):
which I'm enjoying right now, inthis case, cookie dough.
Kurt, thank you so much forjoining me on the Comeback
Chronicles podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, Barry, thank you, it's an honor to be on the
podcast today.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So you're a microbiologist, Was that what it
was?
Yeah, I'm actually sitting herein Carbondale.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Illinois at Southern Illinois University today, and I
got a bachelor's degree and amaster's degree in microbiology
back in the last century and,just to clarify, I didn't really
focus a lot on the medical side.
I always focused on theindustrial side fermentations
and things like that but, yes,microbiology is my major and
(01:50):
what led you to Dippin' Dots?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It wasn't specifically ice cream to begin
with, correct?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, I grew up on a farm about 45 miles south of
here in southern Illinois when Icame to college and I got
interested in microbiology.
One reason I got interestedbecause of its relationship to
agriculture.
You know a lot of things happenin the agricultural cycles that
that you know there's bacteriaon the roots of soybeans and
there's all kind of things goingon.
I actually did my master'sthesis on the production of
(02:19):
lysine, which is an amino acid,and it's limiting, it's the most
limiting amino acid in a corndiet for pigs and I was a pig
farmer, all right, so it's funny.
I was literally scooping manureout of a pig pen one day in a
in a and going to college at thesame time and a feed salesman
(02:40):
came up and he started talkingabout our pigs and everything
and he said so how much soybeanmeal do you put in to get us 16%
protein diet and the 14%?
I was telling him he said well,he held up a little bottle of
white powder.
And he said I'll tell you whatif you could add three pounds of
this white powder, you couldsave a hundred pounds of soybean
(03:00):
meal, which was the mostexpensive ingredient.
I said well, what is it?
He said it's pure lysine.
It's made by bacterialfermentation in Japan.
Well, I was already intomicrobiology so that just kind
of caught me and I ended updoing my master's thesis on the
production of lysine and I wasgoing to be the first person in
(03:21):
America to put a lysine plant in.
This was back in like 1985 or86.
All right, I'm sorry I got off alittle bit here, but it's kind
of an interesting story becauseas soon as I got my thesis
finished, after several years ofdoing a lot of research and
everything, I had developed astrain of bacteria that would
produce 75% of what the Japanesewere producing and I thought,
(03:45):
well, if I can set this up andnot have to ship things across
the ocean, I could becompetitive.
Well, they announced a $25million lysine plant coming into
Cape Girardeau, missouri, froma Japanese plant.
Oh, wow, the year that I wasgraduating.
Wow, of course you know mostpeople would say, well, why
don't you take that knowledgeand go to work for them?
I thought no, I just kind ofmissed the boat on that one.
(04:08):
So I ended up taking a job downin Lexington, kentucky, for a
company called Alltech, and thisis how I kind of got into the
Dippin' Dots business eventually.
But they were just getting intothe probiotics business.
So you know, your probioticsare good bacteria, outnumber bad
bacteria in your digestivesystem.
But we were putting it intoanimal feeds, you know for, so
that the farmers wouldn't beusing so many, so much
antibiotics basically okay,which is not good.
(04:32):
So we would keep the animalshealthy by putting like a good
bacteria, like a lactobacillusor something you'd find in
yogurt.
And so I was growing thesecultures and in charge of all
that because I'd had theexperience from the lysine
production and growing bacteria.
So one step in the process isthat you have to take these
(04:53):
cultures of bacteria that aretrillions and trillions of cells
and you have to concentratethem down, you have to freeze
them and then freeze, drive theminto a powder to blend back
into all the formulations.
So there's one key step you wantto have a quick freeze, to have
a small ice crystal so that youdon't puncture the cell, so the
cells survive.
Well, the way that they weredoing it, I thought there's got
(05:16):
to be a better way, and so Istarted playing around with
liquid nitrogen, which is 320below zero.
I thought, well, that could bethe fastest way to do it and it
worked, you know, and there areseveral different ways you can
do this.
But I found, if you dribblethese cultures into a bed of
liquid nitrogen, that you canmake little pellets.
So a month or two after doingthat, I was making homemade ice
(05:39):
cream and I thought you know,well, when you make ice cream.
You want to have small icecrystals, and so that's kind of
when the two kind of cametogether.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So that's kind of how I got.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Sorry for the long answer.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
that's kind of why?
No, that's fantastic.
That's fascinating, becauseeverybody knows what Dippin'
Dots is, you know they've seenthem everywhere.
And to hear that started frompig farming and then
microbiology too you were makinghomemade ice cream that's just
fascinating to me.
That's fantastic.
And then you said we got abusiness here.
(06:11):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Well, actually the company I was working for was a
very interesting company.
It was called AlltechBiotechnology Center and it was
started by one of the peoplethat I regard as one of the best
entrepreneurs, because hetaught me a lot.
He was actually a guy namedPierce Lyons and he was from
Ireland and he's passed away inrecent years, but he was such a
(06:34):
go-getter and it's a wholeinteresting story how he started
his business.
But I actually took the idea tohim and I said, hey, what do you
think about this?
And he's like, in a nutshell,he's like, you know, cute idea,
kurt, to get back to work, youknow because I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
He was.
He was building a company.
I was there for their firstmillion dollar month and they
become like a four billiondollar company.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Ok, ok, later.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So he was really growing a company very fast and
I and I got to be a part of thatearly stage, which really
helped me when I started DippinDots.
Now the good news is is that Istayed there six months after I
had the idea.
I just worked on my project onweekends and nights.
And then I finally told him Isaid, look, I've got the bug,
I've got to go try to dosomething with this.
(07:21):
And he actually this doesn'thappen very often, but he
actually threw me a party like agoing away party, bought me a
briefcase with my initials on itand, you know, said good luck,
you know.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So I'll be darned.
You started up the company,yeah, and then so did it take
off.
How did you get it into places?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
no, it was very difficult in the beginning.
My wife and I opened up an icecream store.
We had saved a little bit ofmoney not much.
We had about maybe $12,000 or$10,000 to $12,000 in a savings
account.
We had some credit cards we hadjust taken out.
That's back when you firststarted getting credit cards.
We basically opened a store onthe wrong side of town in
(08:06):
Lexington, kentucky.
We didn't know anything aboutretail and in fact we got bit
right out the gate because wewere talking to this guy who
liked our product and he hadbeen building out these
restaurants and he said well, Ican get you into these
restaurants and we were talkingabout that.
He had restaurants inIndianapolis, lexington and
different places and then heapproached me one day he said
(08:30):
hey, we're building a, arestaurant, in lexington, and
it's going into this newshopping center.
There's going to be 20 000 carsa day going by, be a perfect
place, you know to build out adip and dot store basically.
But, wow, okay.
So we we basically gave himhalf of our life savings and
(08:50):
well, at one point he actuallykind of skipped down with our
money.
We had to hire an attorney.
All these different thingshappened.
So what was supposed to open inDecember, which was still a bad
time to open an ice cream storeit didn't open until March by
the time we worked through allthese things.
So all of our money that we hadsaved for like advertising and
things was just gone.
(09:10):
So we got the store open withno money.
But anyway, we still had apretty good summer just because
we were running it.
So when people did come in, wewere able to talk to them and
explain what we were doing.
We did get a couple of newsstations that did pieces on us,
which helped us a lot.
So we kind of got someadvertising there.
But, like I said, we made a lotof mistakes out of the gate.
(09:32):
But that first year runningthat store we were able to
develop all of our recipes andeverything that we used for
years and years.
You know, once we got intoother other types of businesses
and things and then how did itgo?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
it started building up.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Started building up, yeah, um after the first year of
having the store open, we, wewanted to branch out and do a
few other things.
So we, we did a few fairs andthings like that.
We and we found that when wewere having a crowd of people we
could sell our product.
But if we went and sold it tolike a store or a restaurant to
(10:06):
say, hey, here's our product,you know, nobody knew.
There was no name recognition,right, nobody knew anything
about the product and unless youreally were willing to sample
people and talk to them, youcouldn't really sell it.
So what happened is that mysister, connie, had also gotten
involved in the business.
By that time my wife and I livedin Lexington, kentucky.
So we were, you know, 250 milesaway from the, from the farm,
(10:29):
if you will.
But my family back home wantedto get involved too.
But my, what we?
What we determined is thateverywhere that we went to sell
a product we had to have a 40below freezer to keep the
product in beans.
So we finally figured out well,well, if we have to buy an
expensive freezer to putsomewhere, we really need to
make sure there's a lot ofpeople mining out that freezer.
(10:49):
So that's what led us to likestate fairs and amusement parks
and things like that.
But the very first theme parkwe got into was Opryland, usa,
and that's where we got.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah but the way that happened is, my sister just
made a cold call down there andit's I always like hearing her
tell the story because she saideverything I could have said
wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I said wrong.
You know like they're like well, how long you've been around?
Oh, we just started, well, uh,well, you know how do your sales
do?
Well, we don't know, we'venever sold it anywhere, you know
.
Just, she wasn't really likebeing a salesperson.
You know she has an accountingbackground.
But even that it worked,because I guess she got their
attention enough to where theysaid well, yeah, bring it down
(11:31):
and show it to us.
So we got to go down andpresent it in person and the
same thing happened there.
We were there for two years andno success at all.
No-transcript.
(12:09):
So if the sun's shining and weget busy, we don't even open
your kiosk oh my gosh, wow so wewere asked to leave at the end
of that season.
one guy there thought we gotkind of a bum rap and it just so
happened his dad was thegeneral manager of the park.
So he said we've got a new foodservice guy coming in next year
to run food service.
(12:30):
Why don't you talk to him?
Let's give it one more shot?
And the deal that we worked outwas that we would come in and
we would run the locations inthe park.
So again, now we had our ownstorefront, if you will.
We had access to thousands ofpeople a day.
So now we were able to finallyget it going, you know, so we,
we got people.
Just we just gave so manysamples out and then people
(12:52):
started buying it.
Yeah, now you fast forwardanother year.
After that we went to thekennedy space center and got an
appointment there, got got in.
That's a whole funny story totell today sometime.
But anyway we got in there andby then we kind of knew what we
were doing.
But we knew it was a newlocation.
(13:13):
So they wanted to call itsomething besides Dippin' Dots.
So we came up with Space DotsRight, and we also had just come
up with the term Ice Cream ofthe Future.
So we had this little kioskcalled Space Dots, ice Cream in
the Future.
But it was perfect because itgot people's attention.
And when we opened that stand,I remember telling them I was
(13:34):
still doing a few things on thesignage and I said, now, you
guys will have to sample this,you'll have to stop people,
you'll have to get them to tryit.
And so I was walking arounddoing stuff and I saw one of
them, one of the food servicepeople.
I said, well, how's it goingover there?
And they said, well, it's goinggood, we're not sampling very
much.
I said, well, you got to sample?
They said, no, we don't havetime, people are lined up to buy
it.
That was the first time that hadever happened, and that was
(13:57):
exciting because then it hadfinally taken off and we would.
We were actually deliveringproduct in a pickup truck at
that time all the way fromIllinois to Orlando floor or
Kennedy Space Center nearDaytona Beach, and so we would
sometimes be coming back with atruck and then taking off with
another truck to go down andsupply.
(14:18):
Wow, they were going throughproduct that fast and it kept
selling.
Oh, go ahead Then it got greatafter that, you know so.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Now it became the ice cream ofthe future.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You're right, more people did it by ice cream of
the future than Dippin' Dots.
Yeah, then it kind of flippedeventually and then, you know,
dippin' Dots became the brandname and all that.
But, yeah, we went from KennedySpace Center, we went to
literally almost every themepark in America over the next 10
years, and so it was crazytimes.
(14:52):
We were building big walk-infreezers and then we'd outgrow
that.
We moved into a 26,000 squarefoot building from a 2,000
square foot building and then wemoved on two years years later
and so we built probably fourwalk-in freezers that were just
kept getting bigger and bigger.
Uh, we went international.
We went into japan and thensouth korea during the mid 90s.
(15:15):
So, yeah, it was quite a ride.
You know, we were just blowingand going and then, and then,
like you said, 2008 hit and youknow that's a different story.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So do you recall what your volume was prior to 2008,?
Just prior to, yeah, actuallyin?
Speaker 3 (15:33):
2007.
Now, this was just the maincompany of Dippin' Dots, which
was Dippin' Dots Incorporated.
We did right at $47 million,wow, wow, okay.
Well, we'd also at $47 million,wow, wow, okay.
Well, we'd also done that in2006.
And that was really strange forus because we were used to
growing every year.
So only $100,000 differencebetween 2006 and 2007.
(15:56):
But what happened and this isbefore the recession really hit-
is we noticed?
that and we had a nice profit in2006,.
But 2007, we were doing thesales with our.
You know it's kind of liketoday.
You know the high prices, youknow everything.
But for example, you know fuelprices had gone up.
You know, I think it was.
(16:17):
I can't remember what the exactpercentage rate, but on milk,
milk had gone up 34% oh geez wowIn 2007 over 2006, and we used
a lot of milk.
Milk had gone up 34% oh geez,wow, in 2007 over 2006.
And we used a lot of milk,obviously.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, our liquid nitrogen costs went up, our fuel
costs went up.
Everything was going throughthe roof and, honestly, we had a
One of our accounting folks wastalking to our banker.
Now, the other thing that wasgoing on in the background is
that we had gotten into a patentlawsuit really going way back
into the 90s.
We had been straight upinfringed and we got an
(16:52):
injunction against the infringer.
But before all that got settledand came to court the judge it
was down in Dallas, texas.
He had retired from being ajudge or went back into private
practice, something like that,and it got to another judge's
hands and again I could do awhole podcast on that.
But long story short, again webasically the second judge did a
(17:16):
thing that really hurt us.
He, he started getting thingsready to go to trial and they
started doing these definitionson the patents.
They call it when a specialexaminer comes in and they start
, you know, trying to get thingsready to go to trial.
Well, there was a ruling thatcame out.
Just to simplify everything I'mtelling you, and, by the way, so
we had an injunction againstthe guy trying to infringe, so
(17:38):
he went overseas and starteddoing stuff.
Oh geez, against the guy tryingto infringe.
So he went overseas and starteddoing stuff.
Oh geez, okay.
Basically, if you put twoidentical cups of beaded ice
cream in front of you and youput a chunk of ice cream on the
one on the right, it no longerinfringed the cup on the left oh
, wow okay, the most amazing,detrimental thing that had
(17:59):
happened.
So that, along with the factthat we at the time were
converting our dealershipnetwork over to a franchise
network only because a lot ofdealers had requested that they
have more stable contracts wehad been doing like year-to-year
dealership contracts and theywanted some equity in their
(18:20):
business.
So we found that by franchisingwe could offer longer
agreements.
They'd have something to sell,we could keep our branding a
little bit higher level, alittle more control over that.
But we brought everybody inthat was a franchise or a dealer
.
We converted to a franchisewith no franchise fees Wow.
(18:41):
We also lowered the price ofthe product but we collected a
4% royalty.
So everybody was happy, exceptwe noticed that six or seven
pretty large dealers didn't signup.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, what had?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
happened, this ruling had come out, one of the
ringleaders had gone to one ofthe guys we were in a lawsuit
with and said well, why don'tyou make product now?
And that way we're not underall these franchise controls or
whatever.
So all that was going on in thebackground and we were spending
hundreds of thousands ofdollars on lawyers, patent
(19:16):
lawyers, the most expensivelawyer you can get yes, and this
was going on for years, youknow.
So, anyway, I'm saying all thatto say that by the time 2008
rolled around, we'd already hadthis little bit of a cancer
growing within the business.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know just all of our profits were going towards
attorney's fees.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I mean to the tune of millions and millions of
dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So anyway, what?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
happened is between 2006 and 2007,.
Almost identical sales.
We went from making a couplemillion dollars to losing a
couple million dollars.
Well, we didn't know that therewas also a banking crisis
getting ready to hit, because wehappened to have one of the
banks that was hurting the mostand they started.
Well, I mentioned we had anaccounting person that talked to
(19:59):
our local banker and, justbeing very honest, she said, hey
, we're going to have troublepaying our credit line down this
year because everything is justso tough.
We usually we had a $6 millioncredit line.
We'd pay it down to zero everyseason because it was a seasonal
business.
Well, as it turns out, hewasn't worried because it's like
well, yeah, you guys got $40million worth of assets on your
(20:21):
books, you guys got great trackrecord, nothing to worry about.
Well, we didn't know in thebackground that they were
merging or being bought out byanother bank and all this stuff,
oh geez.
Well, he lost control of ouraccount, basically, and the bank
that I can't remember.
It was a merger or an, I thinkit was.
it was an acquisition One boughtthe other, but they had all
(20:42):
those properties in thesoutheast that had gone, you
know, got overvalued, and thenit came back to help cause the
banking crisis, right?
So basically we did athree-month extension on our
credit line and we had met withthe bank once and you know we
were working through everything.
We didn't think there was anyreal urgency there, but on the
(21:04):
day it was due they wrote us anemail and said you've missed
your credit line.
Now all of your loans are indefault.
All of your loans which we nevermissed a payment.
We were not behind them, and sowe thought well, this is crazy.
So we thought, well, we'll justgo to another bank.
Well, we went to another bank,spent about a month with
(21:25):
everything.
Well, by then everything'sgetting worse behind the scenes
that none of us know about.
So all of a sudden, they'veagreed to do a loan, but then
they pull out at the last minutebecause one of the big Wall
Street companies had fell.
So then it was almostimpossible to get a loan in
(21:48):
because everybody was alreadystarting to panic.
You know, while this was goingon, the other thing that
happened in 2007, well, reallystarted in 2007 for us, and then
it really happened in 2008 wasall these Dippin' Dot stores
that were out in the country.
You know that franchisees owned.
When everything really hit thefan fan.
All those sales went down about40 or 50 percent, wow.
So it just created panicseverywhere.
And then what happens is that,if you're not with the right
(22:09):
bank, all your assets getdevalued.
They're trying to force youinto, like, some type of a
foreclosure or getting you tomove to another bank, which you
couldn't move to another bankright now.
To make it worse, we thought wesaw this bright light of sun,
this bright ray of sunlight,because, all of a sudden, the
government was going to bail outall these banks.
(22:29):
Well, that'll solve everything,great, well, yeah, not really.
They just propped up their ownbottom, their own balance sheets
, and they even made it harderto get money.
So, you couldn't get a loan, youcouldn't move.
So eventually, what happened isthat we tried to operate our
business for about the next twoor three years without a bank.
(22:54):
Some of our interest rates onour loans that got called
literally went up to 24%.
I had loans over a milliondollars that I was paying 24%
interest on, and then, after awhile, you just couldn't sustain
that because your sales werealready down from the recession
basically.
And, like I said, the banks gotbailed out, but the people
(23:16):
below them didn't.
So we're fighting this battlewith the bank and we finally are
still surviving.
We're putting our personalmoney back in, we're doing all
these things, you know, to tryto survive all this, but it just
keeps going on and on and on.
And so finally, we felt likethere was a light at the end of
the tunnel.
We thought, well, let's just go, sit down with these crazy
people and see if we can worksomething out.
(23:36):
Drive all the way to St Louisand we're sitting in around a
table and we're saying, you know, let's work something out,
let's.
You know, we got.
We got a certain amount of cashflow.
We got some things we can do ifyou can.
You know, just let's worksomething out.
And they said well, actuallywe're glad you drove up here
because we want to let you knowwe've already drawn up
(23:56):
foreclosure papers on you.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh my gosh wow, on Monday morning we'll be running
your business.
This is on a Friday.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Wow.
We had to, over the weekend,figure out a way to keep that
from happening.
So we filed for a Chapter 11.
And this was in 2011.
We had survived that long, youknow, without a main company.
Well, I wish I would have stuckwith that, because I probably
(24:24):
would have ended up on the otherside with the company and it
would have been restructured,debt and all these different
things.
But I was raised on a farmwhere you always paid your bills
.
You know, I didn't want to havebankruptcy on my title.
You know, I just got a littlebit scared, to be honest with
you, and so we'd already beenworking with a company that had
brought in what I what I wouldcall bottom feeders.
(24:45):
You know and I say that becausethere's nothing illegal about
it you try to get a good dealand you buy a business.
I understand all that.
But if you're someone thatstarted something from scratch,
you don't really want someonelike that to come in and take
over your business.
We'd always avoided those.
But we knew we had to dosomething, and so we got an
email from someone that had seenwhere we had filed for Chapter
(25:08):
11 in the Wall Street Journaland seemed like it could be a
pretty good fit.
They had said they had kind ofbeen through some similar things
in the past.
Now they were doing pretty well.
They were in the oil businessand so on and so forth.
And we thought, well, you know,this makes sense.
So we started working with themover the next few months and
they said they were gettingready to sell a business I think
(25:29):
it was their oil businessactually and you know, through
that six-month process we hadgiven up a lot of things, I
guess because we were trying tokeep the business going and they
were going to put in a certainamount of money.
But they.
But what really happened is,over a six month period, it
ended up that we pretty much gotdrawn in far enough where we
almost didn't have any choice togo out.
(25:50):
You know, I like bid it on theopen market or those kinds of
things.
So, yeah, it just kind ofbecame more of a.
Well, first of all they saidthey didn't sell their business,
so they weren't going to haveall this cash laying around.
So now they had to figure out adifferent way to do it.
And so, oh geez, okay, well, bythen it was almost too late to
do something else, and so, okay,well, let's just partner,
(26:13):
because part of the deal was wewere supposed to be able to earn
back into the company orbecause we were going to be 50
50 partners.
It kind of got whittled downover time and then it became
like, well, we'll need to be thefull owner because we're going
to take out you know, bank loanswith, you know to take out your
loans, and, um, but they had 40million dollars worth of assets
(26:34):
to work with too, that you knowwe weren't getting any credit
or so anyway, we got credit.
So anyway, we got basicallybought out.
They basically bought the debtfrom the bank and I stayed with
the company, thinking I wouldearn back into the company.
But after three years there wasa way to get me out, so I was
kind of like pushed out the door.
(26:55):
By then we had already gottensales kind of going back in the
right direction and everythingkind of go.
The good news is, all theemployees that we had employed
over the years which I grew upin the second poorest county in
the state of Illinois and we hada lot of people that had jobs
from that they kept all thoseemployees and they pretty much
ran the business the way that wewere running it.
They let the people in Paducahdo a lot of the things, because
(27:18):
there's a certain way you sellbeads of ice cream into the
amusement park industry anddifferent things.
They did keep a lot of thingsgoing for the brand and kept the
brand alive.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
But, kurt, you started this brand.
You're going from pig farmingto working with the feed to hey,
I've got homemade ice creamhere.
You went through all thestruggles to build that to what
it was, to have it taken fromyou.
Now this, this is the comebackChronicles podcast.
So that's what we talk abouthere, because there are people
(27:51):
listening that are going throughthings, that have gone through
things, that still are trying toget out of things, and it's
important to me that they hearreal raw stories about you know,
we all have challenges and buthow we come through those
challenges so let's start withthat had to feel like crap, you
know let's just be honest hereyeah, and it happened gradually
(28:14):
because it well, I say ithappened gradually, but there
there was that point where you'dkind of signed over the
business and you didn't reallyfeel like you were signing over
because you thought you werestill going to be a part of it.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
So that I think it was much later on, maybe after
I'd been there for three years,thinking when I heard that they
weren't going to renew.
We had automatically renewablecontracts and I'm thinking, wait
a minute, that don't make sense.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
We had automatically renewable contracts and I'm
thinking wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
That don't make sense .
But I think it was then when itreally hit me and I was like,
well, what can I do now?
So I kind of had to.
It was a tough acceptance therefor the next couple of years or
so, especially hard on myfamily.
My wife was, I mean, like I said, we owned a $50 million
business, and not only it's likewe went and bought a bunch of
yachts with that or anythingbecause we put everything back
(29:07):
into the business.
You know, we didn't really.
We didn't really.
We had some other investmentswe'd made, we'd done.
You know we had some things,but we also had put a lot of
stuff back in the business fromthe recession all the way up to
2011 that we never got and wedidn't ask for it because all we
wanted was to own a piece forour business again.
We felt like we could get it.
We knew the brand was strong,we knew we could get it there.
(29:28):
So it would be tough to feellike you had that, that rug
pulled out from under you andand.
But it's like you said, peoplehave things happen to them much
worse than what I had.
I've always, always said youknow the one thing I had through
all of that was I had thehistory of growing up on a farm
and scraping and scratching foreverything you had anyway, and I
(29:52):
had my health during that timeand fortunately, knock on wood,
still do so to me.
I just had to, I had to just sayyou know, look, you can.
Either you can either sit hereand cry about it or you can.
You can get up and see what.
And I knew it's like you said,we built that business, we had
the knowledge of that business,so we just decided to.
(30:13):
Well, my daughter was five yearsold when I started Dippin' Dots
and she's, you know, 41, 42years old now, and so we started
this 40 below business togetherand my wife, of course, along
with us.
But so we've been through itbefore.
We kind of know how to do itand she enjoyed dipping dots.
She had her ups and downs withdipping dots.
But my daughter didn'texperience all the startup
(30:37):
things that we went through tothe degree that we did.
I mean, remember we weresetting up theme parks around
the country so she would get togo with us.
But she, she still knew therewas a certain amount of stress
in a startup business.
You just that, that just goeswith the territory.
But this time she's getting toexperience the um, the real
(30:58):
startup of a business, and butshe knows that it can turn into
something because of what we haddone with dip and dot.
So it's been it's been kind of a, it was tough, but you also
feel good about what you'redoing.
It's like we talked aboutbefore the interview.
You know, if you go to bed atnight and you're really tired
from really working hard all day, it's a good tired, you know,
(31:19):
and that's that's.
That's kind of where we're atin our life right now.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well, I think there's so many lessons right there in
just that last few minutes Cause, again, it's you.
You can tell the measure of aperson, not during the good
times, but during the toughtimes and what you went back to
is, like you said, instead ofcrying yourself to sleep every
night okay, Not every night,might've been a couple of nights
, but you took a look at okay,there's people who are going
through a lot worse, and thereare.
(31:42):
You know, whatever you're goinginto my listeners now, whatever
you're going through, odds aresomebody else is going through
something a lot worse right now.
So keep things in perspective.
The planet's still spinning.
You didn't just completely failbecause you'd learned so much
along the way.
You gained so much knowledgeand experience on.
(32:03):
I've done it before.
I can do it again.
And that's where your comebackstory is happening right now, as
people are listening to this,because you're putting all of
that experience and knowledgeand know-how back into 40 below.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
It's true, and to give you a perfect example, I
mean just a week and a half ago.
As you know, I'm not real bigon social media.
I mean, I've got LinkedIn, I'vegot all the things, but someone
happened to reach out and say,you know, happy work anniversary
.
And it was someone that I usedto sell Dippin' Tots to at a
major theme park.
I'll be darned and I reachedback out and said oh hey, it's
good to hear from you and, bythe way, we're doing this and
(32:44):
she went out and looked at ourwebsites and within two days she
ordered, you know, 40 cases ofproduct from us, because she was
in a new position now.
She went to a convention center.
I love that and so, you know,we just delivered that product
yesterday.
And she says oh, by the way,I'm with a group now that we
have 300 locations, and she saidI'm going to start, you know.
So I mean, it's just, you know,you just got to stay in it.
(33:06):
You really do, I think.
Starting a business.
I played sports in high schooland a little bit of junior
college, but I used to alwayssay it's kind of like a
basketball game.
You know where you're, you'rehaving all these ups and downs,
but it really doesn't matter toyou until about the middle of
the fourth quarter.
You know, you really just gotto stay in the game.
(33:27):
I guess is what I'm trying tosay, because anything can happen
at that point.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I absolutely love that.
So, and that's what a what agreat story.
That is about what's going onnow with 40 Below.
Tell us more about, okay, whereis 40 Below going?
How are you building it up?
Where can people find it?
And, by the way, if they wantto represent your product, how
do they get a hold of you to doso?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Well, it's interesting because even though
we're starting over, as youmentioned earlier, we have a
product called 40 Below Joe.
Yeah, and even though I hadn'tknow some non-competes, I didn't
really, I didn't really.
I wanted to kind of keep myfreedom, in that I didn't really
want to go right at dippingdots either right away either,
because I I kept thinking, well,maybe there's still a way we're
(34:13):
, maybe maybe it's meant to be,we're still going to work
together someday, or whatever.
So right on, I took the conceptof 40 below joe.
It was something I'd already hadin my mind and we'd already
kind of actually experimentedwith it when I was at dippin
dots but, and I actually had putall that into the new company.
But whenever they pushed me out, I kind of I kind of told him,
I got an attorney and said I'mtaking this with me because you
(34:34):
guys, you didn't invest in it,you didn't do.
And so we got that all straight.
And so I thought, well, if Iget into the coffee business and
the idea was little beads ofcoffee and they're a
high-quality coffee, we use realhigh-quality Arabica beans.
It's good.
It's good.
I've developed an espressoprocess that uses gaseous
(34:58):
nitrogen.
So in other words, we useliquid nitrogen to freeze our
products, but at the top of thatnitrogen tank is gas under
pressure.
I use that to push all thepressure through the water, you
know, through the beans and theground up beans, and basically
it keeps the oxygen out of theprocess, which is what I'm after
, because oxygen is the enemy ofcoffee.
(35:19):
So the whole idea is that wewould make this great product
that all you had to do was addwater and microwave it or steam
it and you would have a greatcup of coffee and that worked.
And it works great that coffeewill maintain its freshness to
40 below for years actually.
So now we got to thinking well,we already got beads of coffee,
(35:41):
why not add some creamer beadsto it and flavors like salted
caramel or mocha or Frenchvanilla?
And so we started kind of downthat road, and so it's basically
an edible coffee, well anyway.
So then you fast forward.
You know, we developed out theisland rocks, which are the
margarita drinks, the pinacoladas and all that, and I
(36:06):
still was just like I'm nottrying to go right at dippin
dots, I'm not trying to go rightat different dots.
Well then, the people thatactually bought me out got
bought out by a bigger publiccompany um, j j smack foods now
owns dippin dots, and and, uh,the guys that sold it and you
know, made a pretty profit offof and everything.
But I'm still thinking, I'mstill not going right at Dippin'
Dots.
You know, maybe there's a waywe'll work together.
And so we actually did talk alittle bit, but nothing really
(36:28):
came of it.
So finally, where I'm goingwith all this is last summer we
just decided, you know, thecoffee's great, the fruit
products are great, island rocksare great.
But we developed this businessselling to kids with cookies and
cream and cookie dough andrainbow and all these, and so
(36:48):
it's like it's time to just goon out there and get going with
it.
So since last summer, when weactually launched everything on
the dessert side, we really cantell that our business is
getting ready to take off.
So you ask where can you get itat?
Well, first of all you can goonline.
You can order it at, basically,www.40belowcocom.
So it's 40belowcocom, but wealso are starting to get out
(37:12):
into a few water parks, smalltheme parks.
You know we're going up againsta competitor now.
You know it's a pretty goodsize that we created, but people
do like the fact that we have alot of varieties.
Now We've got a lot ofdifferent brands and so we're
starting to get a little toeholdin some of those places.
But we also have little bitty 40below freezers.
(37:33):
So it might have six desserts.
It might have, you know,cookies and cream, cookie dough,
rainbow chocolate, but it wouldalso have a couple of
dairy-free desserts.
So a couple made out of coconutmilk that's made with real
fruit, strawberries and cream,for example, or cotton candy
with all natural flavors andcolors.
So you can see these littlefreezers starting to pop up in
(37:56):
places like bowling alleys andfamily fun centers, starting to
pop up in places like bowlingalleys and family fun centers,
and we're also starting to workwith distributors in different
parts of the country.
So you'll see this more andmore over the next two or three
years where hopefully you'll seea 40 blow freezer that you can
purchase product from andthere'll be in these nice,
brightly colored little packslike you just just held up
(38:17):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
What's the way we're out of time, which is too bad,
because this is amazing.
What is some advice you'd liketo leave everybody with?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Well, I think and.
I've started reading your book,which I think is going to be a
great book.
But I know you talk aboutpassion.
I think anybody that's going tobe in business, especially if
they're starting something newyou've got to be passionate
about whatever it is.
In other words, I used to tellkids I could talk to a college
or high school class and theywould say well, you know, I want
(38:49):
to be an entrepreneur.
What do you, what do you advise?
I said, well, first of all,you've got to have an idea or a
concept or a product that youreally believe in.
I mean, you've got to reallybelieve in yourself.
Because I'm not a salesperson,but I can sell Dippin' Dots or I
can sell beaded ice creambecause I believe in it.
I know it's the best way youcan make ice cream, small ice
crystals.
(39:09):
You know everything that goeswith it.
So I think that's you got tohave an idea you believe in.
You've got to be passionateabout it, and then you just
can't give up.
You know you.
Just you have to be willingabout it, and then you, you just
can't give up.
You know you.
Just you have to be willing toget get up and you get knocked
down and, uh, you just got toknow it's not going to be a a
yellow brick road.
I mean that that's just perfect.
(39:29):
Everywhere you go, you knowyou're going to get.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
You're going to get knocked down a few times.
You're going to get knockeddown, there's going to be bumps
in the road, but you're still onthe road.
Keep moving forward, right?
Fantastic Well, kurt, thank youso much for joining us today.
I really really appreciate it.
Everybody you're hearing acomeback Chronicle story in the
process right now.
Kurt Jones, who built upDippin' Dots to what it was.
(39:54):
Things happen, but he did notcry in his corner.
He came back out fighting Okay,there's a new idea that I
believe in Put that pig farmerwork ethic to work there, work
smart, don't hold vengeance,because he's moving forward with
some people right now as well,and then you can create your own
Comeback Chronicle.
(40:15):
Thanks so much, kurt.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback
Chronicles.
Head on over to Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen and
subscribe to the show.
One lucky listener every singleweek that posts a review on
Apple Podcasts will win a chancein the grand prize drawing to
win a $25,000 private VIP datewith Terry O Fossum himself.
(40:40):
Be sure to head on over toComeback Chronicles podcastcom
and pick up a free copy ofTerry's gift and join us on the
next episode.
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past
failures and you're ready tobreak through your comfort zones
to finally reach the pinnacleof success in every area of your
life, then this podcast is foryou.
Here's your host, Terry LFossum.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
Hey, this is Terry L Fossum, and welcome back once
again to the Comeback Chroniclespodcast.
I have a very exciting guesthere today, the founder of
Dippin' Dots, mr Kurt Jones.
Kurt invented the beaded icecream concept in 1988 when he
used his knowledge of cryogenictechnology and his love for ice
cream to create Dippin' Dots,and it's since been America's
number one beaded ice creambrand.
Through innovation andimagination, dippin' Dots truly
(00:54):
did redefine ice cream.
Now his new venture, forty Blow, is absolutely delicious.
He has Forty Blow.
Joe yeah coffee it's fantastic.
Island Rocks Mocktails the has40 Below Joe yeah coffee it's
fantastic.
Island Rocks Mocktails.
The Fruity Way my favorite israspberry and 40 Below Desserts
(01:15):
which I'm enjoying right now, inthis case, cookie dough.
Kurt, thank you so much forjoining me on the Comeback
Chronicles podcast.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, Barry, thank you, it's an honor to be on the
podcast today.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
So you're a microbiologist, Was that what it
was?
Yeah, I'm actually sitting herein Carbondale.
Speaker 3 (01:30):
Illinois at Southern Illinois University today, and I
got a bachelor's degree and amaster's degree in microbiology
back in the last century and,just to clarify, I didn't really
focus a lot on the medical side.
I always focused on theindustrial side fermentations
and things like that but, yes,microbiology is my major and
(01:50):
what led you to Dippin' Dots?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
It wasn't specifically ice cream to begin
with, correct?
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Yeah, I grew up on a farm about 45 miles south of
here in southern Illinois when Icame to college and I got
interested in microbiology.
One reason I got interestedbecause of its relationship to
agriculture.
You know a lot of things happenin the agricultural cycles that
that you know there's bacteriaon the roots of soybeans and
there's all kind of things goingon.
I actually did my master'sthesis on the production of
(02:19):
lysine, which is an amino acid,and it's limiting, it's the most
limiting amino acid in a corndiet for pigs and I was a pig
farmer, all right, so it's funny.
I was literally scooping manureout of a pig pen one day in a
in a and going to college at thesame time and a feed salesman
(02:40):
came up and he started talkingabout our pigs and everything
and he said so how much soybeanmeal do you put in to get us 16%
protein diet and the 14%?
I was telling him he said well,he held up a little bottle of
white powder.
And he said I'll tell you whatif you could add three pounds of
this white powder, you couldsave a hundred pounds of soybean
(03:00):
meal, which was the mostexpensive ingredient.
I said well, what is it?
He said it's pure lysine.
It's made by bacterialfermentation in Japan.
Well, I was already intomicrobiology so that just kind
of caught me and I ended updoing my master's thesis on the
production of lysine and I wasgoing to be the first person in
(03:21):
America to put a lysine plant in.
This was back in like 1985 or86.
All right, I'm sorry I got off alittle bit here, but it's kind
of an interesting story becauseas soon as I got my thesis
finished, after several years ofdoing a lot of research and
everything, I had developed astrain of bacteria that would
produce 75% of what the Japanesewere producing and I thought,
(03:45):
well, if I can set this up andnot have to ship things across
the ocean, I could becompetitive.
Well, they announced a $25million lysine plant coming into
Cape Girardeau, missouri, froma Japanese plant.
Oh, wow, the year that I wasgraduating.
Wow, of course you know mostpeople would say, well, why
don't you take that knowledgeand go to work for them?
I thought no, I just kind ofmissed the boat on that one.
(04:08):
So I ended up taking a job downin Lexington, kentucky, for a
company called Alltech, and thisis how I kind of got into the
Dippin' Dots business eventually.
But they were just getting intothe probiotics business.
So you know, your probioticsare good bacteria, outnumber bad
bacteria in your digestivesystem.
But we were putting it intoanimal feeds, you know for, so
that the farmers wouldn't beusing so many, so much
antibiotics basically okay,which is not good.
(04:32):
So we would keep the animalshealthy by putting like a good
bacteria, like a lactobacillusor something you'd find in
yogurt.
And so I was growing thesecultures and in charge of all
that because I'd had theexperience from the lysine
production and growing bacteria.
So one step in the process isthat you have to take these
(04:53):
cultures of bacteria that aretrillions and trillions of cells
and you have to concentratethem down, you have to freeze
them and then freeze, drive theminto a powder to blend back
into all the formulations.
So there's one key step you wantto have a quick freeze, to have
a small ice crystal so that youdon't puncture the cell, so the
cells survive.
Well, the way that they weredoing it, I thought there's got
(05:16):
to be a better way, and so Istarted playing around with
liquid nitrogen, which is 320below zero.
I thought, well, that could bethe fastest way to do it and it
worked, you know, and there areseveral different ways you can
do this.
But I found, if you dribblethese cultures into a bed of
liquid nitrogen, that you canmake little pellets.
So a month or two after doingthat, I was making homemade ice
(05:39):
cream and I thought you know,well, when you make ice cream.
You want to have small icecrystals, and so that's kind of
when the two kind of cametogether.
Speaker 1 (05:46):
So that's kind of how I got.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Sorry for the long answer.
Speaker 2 (05:50):
that's kind of why?
No, that's fantastic.
That's fascinating, becauseeverybody knows what Dippin'
Dots is, you know they've seenthem everywhere.
And to hear that started frompig farming and then
microbiology too you were makinghomemade ice cream that's just
fascinating to me.
That's fantastic.
And then you said we got abusiness here.
(06:11):
What happened?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
Well, actually the company I was working for was a
very interesting company.
It was called AlltechBiotechnology Center and it was
started by one of the peoplethat I regard as one of the best
entrepreneurs, because hetaught me a lot.
He was actually a guy namedPierce Lyons and he was from
Ireland and he's passed away inrecent years, but he was such a
(06:34):
go-getter and it's a wholeinteresting story how he started
his business.
But I actually took the idea tohim and I said, hey, what do you
think about this?
And he's like, in a nutshell,he's like, you know, cute idea,
kurt, to get back to work, youknow because I love it.
Speaker 2 (06:51):
I love it.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
He was.
He was building a company.
I was there for their firstmillion dollar month and they
become like a four billiondollar company.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
Ok, ok, later.
Speaker 3 (07:00):
So he was really growing a company very fast and
I and I got to be a part of thatearly stage, which really
helped me when I started DippinDots.
Now the good news is is that Istayed there six months after I
had the idea.
I just worked on my project onweekends and nights.
And then I finally told him Isaid, look, I've got the bug,
I've got to go try to dosomething with this.
(07:21):
And he actually this doesn'thappen very often, but he
actually threw me a party like agoing away party, bought me a
briefcase with my initials on itand, you know, said good luck,
you know.
Speaker 2 (07:31):
So I'll be darned.
You started up the company,yeah, and then so did it take
off.
How did you get it into places?
Speaker 3 (07:42):
no, it was very difficult in the beginning.
My wife and I opened up an icecream store.
We had saved a little bit ofmoney not much.
We had about maybe $12,000 or$10,000 to $12,000 in a savings
account.
We had some credit cards we hadjust taken out.
That's back when you firststarted getting credit cards.
We basically opened a store onthe wrong side of town in
(08:06):
Lexington, kentucky.
We didn't know anything aboutretail and in fact we got bit
right out the gate because wewere talking to this guy who
liked our product and he hadbeen building out these
restaurants and he said well, Ican get you into these
restaurants and we were talkingabout that.
He had restaurants inIndianapolis, lexington and
different places and then heapproached me one day he said
(08:30):
hey, we're building a, arestaurant, in lexington, and
it's going into this newshopping center.
There's going to be 20 000 carsa day going by, be a perfect
place, you know to build out adip and dot store basically.
But, wow, okay.
So we we basically gave himhalf of our life savings and
(08:50):
well, at one point he actuallykind of skipped down with our
money.
We had to hire an attorney.
All these different thingshappened.
So what was supposed to open inDecember, which was still a bad
time to open an ice cream storeit didn't open until March by
the time we worked through allthese things.
So all of our money that we hadsaved for like advertising and
things was just gone.
(09:10):
So we got the store open withno money.
But anyway, we still had apretty good summer just because
we were running it.
So when people did come in, wewere able to talk to them and
explain what we were doing.
We did get a couple of newsstations that did pieces on us,
which helped us a lot.
So we kind of got someadvertising there.
But, like I said, we made a lotof mistakes out of the gate.
(09:32):
But that first year runningthat store we were able to
develop all of our recipes andeverything that we used for
years and years.
You know, once we got intoother other types of businesses
and things and then how did itgo?
Speaker 2 (09:44):
it started building up.
Speaker 3 (09:45):
Started building up, yeah, um after the first year of
having the store open, we, wewanted to branch out and do a
few other things.
So we, we did a few fairs andthings like that.
We and we found that when wewere having a crowd of people we
could sell our product.
But if we went and sold it tolike a store or a restaurant to
(10:06):
say, hey, here's our product,you know, nobody knew.
There was no name recognition,right, nobody knew anything
about the product and unless youreally were willing to sample
people and talk to them, youcouldn't really sell it.
So what happened is that mysister, connie, had also gotten
involved in the business.
By that time my wife and I livedin Lexington, kentucky.
So we were, you know, 250 milesaway from the, from the farm,
(10:29):
if you will.
But my family back home wantedto get involved too.
But my, what we?
What we determined is thateverywhere that we went to sell
a product we had to have a 40below freezer to keep the
product in beans.
So we finally figured out well,well, if we have to buy an
expensive freezer to putsomewhere, we really need to
make sure there's a lot ofpeople mining out that freezer.
(10:49):
So that's what led us to likestate fairs and amusement parks
and things like that.
But the very first theme parkwe got into was Opryland, usa,
and that's where we got.
Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah but the way that happened is, my sister just
made a cold call down there andit's I always like hearing her
tell the story because she saideverything I could have said
wrong.
Speaker 3 (11:09):
I said wrong.
You know like they're like well, how long you've been around?
Oh, we just started, well, uh,well, you know how do your sales
do?
Well, we don't know, we'venever sold it anywhere, you know
.
Just, she wasn't really likebeing a salesperson.
You know she has an accountingbackground.
But even that it worked,because I guess she got their
attention enough to where theysaid well, yeah, bring it down
(11:31):
and show it to us.
So we got to go down andpresent it in person and the
same thing happened there.
We were there for two years andno success at all.
No-transcript.
(12:09):
So if the sun's shining and weget busy, we don't even open
your kiosk oh my gosh, wow so wewere asked to leave at the end
of that season.
one guy there thought we gotkind of a bum rap and it just so
happened his dad was thegeneral manager of the park.
So he said we've got a new foodservice guy coming in next year
to run food service.
(12:30):
Why don't you talk to him?
Let's give it one more shot?
And the deal that we worked outwas that we would come in and
we would run the locations inthe park.
So again, now we had our ownstorefront, if you will.
We had access to thousands ofpeople a day.
So now we were able to finallyget it going, you know, so we,
we got people.
Just we just gave so manysamples out and then people
(12:52):
started buying it.
Yeah, now you fast forwardanother year.
After that we went to thekennedy space center and got an
appointment there, got got in.
That's a whole funny story totell today sometime.
But anyway we got in there andby then we kind of knew what we
were doing.
But we knew it was a newlocation.
(13:13):
So they wanted to call itsomething besides Dippin' Dots.
So we came up with Space DotsRight, and we also had just come
up with the term Ice Cream ofthe Future.
So we had this little kioskcalled Space Dots, ice Cream in
the Future.
But it was perfect because itgot people's attention.
And when we opened that stand,I remember telling them I was
(13:34):
still doing a few things on thesignage and I said, now, you
guys will have to sample this,you'll have to stop people,
you'll have to get them to tryit.
And so I was walking arounddoing stuff and I saw one of
them, one of the food servicepeople.
I said, well, how's it goingover there?
And they said, well, it's goinggood, we're not sampling very
much.
I said, well, you got to sample?
They said, no, we don't havetime, people are lined up to buy
it.
That was the first time that hadever happened, and that was
(13:57):
exciting because then it hadfinally taken off and we would.
We were actually deliveringproduct in a pickup truck at
that time all the way fromIllinois to Orlando floor or
Kennedy Space Center nearDaytona Beach, and so we would
sometimes be coming back with atruck and then taking off with
another truck to go down andsupply.
(14:18):
Wow, they were going throughproduct that fast and it kept
selling.
Oh, go ahead Then it got greatafter that, you know so.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Yeah, yeah.
Now it became the ice cream ofthe future.
Speaker 3 (14:31):
You're right, more people did it by ice cream of
the future than Dippin' Dots.
Yeah, then it kind of flippedeventually and then, you know,
dippin' Dots became the brandname and all that.
But, yeah, we went from KennedySpace Center, we went to
literally almost every themepark in America over the next 10
years, and so it was crazytimes.
(14:52):
We were building big walk-infreezers and then we'd outgrow
that.
We moved into a 26,000 squarefoot building from a 2,000
square foot building and then wemoved on two years years later
and so we built probably fourwalk-in freezers that were just
kept getting bigger and bigger.
Uh, we went international.
We went into japan and thensouth korea during the mid 90s.
(15:15):
So, yeah, it was quite a ride.
You know, we were just blowingand going and then, and then,
like you said, 2008 hit and youknow that's a different story.
Speaker 2 (15:27):
So do you recall what your volume was prior to 2008,?
Just prior to, yeah, actuallyin?
Speaker 3 (15:33):
2007.
Now, this was just the maincompany of Dippin' Dots, which
was Dippin' Dots Incorporated.
We did right at $47 million,wow, wow, okay.
Well, we'd also at $47 million,wow, wow, okay.
Well, we'd also done that in2006.
And that was really strange forus because we were used to
growing every year.
So only $100,000 differencebetween 2006 and 2007.
(15:56):
But what happened and this isbefore the recession really hit-
is we noticed?
that and we had a nice profit in2006,.
But 2007, we were doing thesales with our.
You know it's kind of liketoday.
You know the high prices, youknow everything.
But for example, you know fuelprices had gone up.
You know, I think it was.
(16:17):
I can't remember what the exactpercentage rate, but on milk,
milk had gone up 34% oh geez wowIn 2007 over 2006, and we used
a lot of milk.
Milk had gone up 34% oh geez,wow, in 2007 over 2006.
And we used a lot of milk,obviously.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:28):
You know, our liquid nitrogen costs went up, our fuel
costs went up.
Everything was going throughthe roof and, honestly, we had a
One of our accounting folks wastalking to our banker.
Now, the other thing that wasgoing on in the background is
that we had gotten into a patentlawsuit really going way back
into the 90s.
We had been straight upinfringed and we got an
(16:52):
injunction against the infringer.
But before all that got settledand came to court the judge it
was down in Dallas, texas.
He had retired from being ajudge or went back into private
practice, something like that,and it got to another judge's
hands and again I could do awhole podcast on that.
But long story short, again webasically the second judge did a
(17:16):
thing that really hurt us.
He, he started getting thingsready to go to trial and they
started doing these definitionson the patents.
They call it when a specialexaminer comes in and they start
, you know, trying to get thingsready to go to trial.
Well, there was a ruling thatcame out.
Just to simplify everything I'mtelling you, and, by the way, so
we had an injunction againstthe guy trying to infringe, so
(17:38):
he went overseas and starteddoing stuff.
Oh geez, against the guy tryingto infringe.
So he went overseas and starteddoing stuff.
Oh geez, okay.
Basically, if you put twoidentical cups of beaded ice
cream in front of you and youput a chunk of ice cream on the
one on the right, it no longerinfringed the cup on the left oh
, wow okay, the most amazing,detrimental thing that had
(17:59):
happened.
So that, along with the factthat we at the time were
converting our dealershipnetwork over to a franchise
network only because a lot ofdealers had requested that they
have more stable contracts wehad been doing like year-to-year
dealership contracts and theywanted some equity in their
(18:20):
business.
So we found that by franchisingwe could offer longer
agreements.
They'd have something to sell,we could keep our branding a
little bit higher level, alittle more control over that.
But we brought everybody inthat was a franchise or a dealer
.
We converted to a franchisewith no franchise fees Wow.
(18:41):
We also lowered the price ofthe product but we collected a
4% royalty.
So everybody was happy, exceptwe noticed that six or seven
pretty large dealers didn't signup.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Well, what had?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
happened, this ruling had come out, one of the
ringleaders had gone to one ofthe guys we were in a lawsuit
with and said well, why don'tyou make product now?
And that way we're not underall these franchise controls or
whatever.
So all that was going on in thebackground and we were spending
hundreds of thousands ofdollars on lawyers, patent
(19:16):
lawyers, the most expensivelawyer you can get yes, and this
was going on for years, youknow.
So, anyway, I'm saying all thatto say that by the time 2008
rolled around, we'd already hadthis little bit of a cancer
growing within the business.
Speaker 1 (19:34):
You know just all of our profits were going towards
attorney's fees.
Speaker 3 (19:35):
I mean to the tune of millions and millions of
dollars.
Speaker 1 (19:37):
So anyway, what?
Speaker 3 (19:38):
happened is between 2006 and 2007,.
Almost identical sales.
We went from making a couplemillion dollars to losing a
couple million dollars.
Well, we didn't know that therewas also a banking crisis
getting ready to hit, because wehappened to have one of the
banks that was hurting the mostand they started.
Well, I mentioned we had anaccounting person that talked to
(19:59):
our local banker and, justbeing very honest, she said, hey
, we're going to have troublepaying our credit line down this
year because everything is justso tough.
We usually we had a $6 millioncredit line.
We'd pay it down to zero everyseason because it was a seasonal
business.
Well, as it turns out, hewasn't worried because it's like
well, yeah, you guys got $40million worth of assets on your
(20:21):
books, you guys got great trackrecord, nothing to worry about.
Well, we didn't know in thebackground that they were
merging or being bought out byanother bank and all this stuff,
oh geez.
Well, he lost control of ouraccount, basically, and the bank
that I can't remember.
It was a merger or an, I thinkit was.
it was an acquisition One boughtthe other, but they had all
(20:42):
those properties in thesoutheast that had gone, you
know, got overvalued, and thenit came back to help cause the
banking crisis, right?
So basically we did athree-month extension on our
credit line and we had met withthe bank once and you know we
were working through everything.
We didn't think there was anyreal urgency there, but on the
(21:04):
day it was due they wrote us anemail and said you've missed
your credit line.
Now all of your loans are indefault.
All of your loans which we nevermissed a payment.
We were not behind them, and sowe thought well, this is crazy.
So we thought, well, we'll justgo to another bank.
Well, we went to another bank,spent about a month with
(21:25):
everything.
Well, by then everything'sgetting worse behind the scenes
that none of us know about.
So all of a sudden, they'veagreed to do a loan, but then
they pull out at the last minutebecause one of the big Wall
Street companies had fell.
So then it was almostimpossible to get a loan in
(21:48):
because everybody was alreadystarting to panic.
You know, while this was goingon, the other thing that
happened in 2007, well, reallystarted in 2007 for us, and then
it really happened in 2008 wasall these Dippin' Dot stores
that were out in the country.
You know that franchisees owned.
When everything really hit thefan fan.
All those sales went down about40 or 50 percent, wow.
So it just created panicseverywhere.
And then what happens is that,if you're not with the right
(22:09):
bank, all your assets getdevalued.
They're trying to force youinto, like, some type of a
foreclosure or getting you tomove to another bank, which you
couldn't move to another bankright now.
To make it worse, we thought wesaw this bright light of sun,
this bright ray of sunlight,because, all of a sudden, the
government was going to bail outall these banks.
(22:29):
Well, that'll solve everything,great, well, yeah, not really.
They just propped up their ownbottom, their own balance sheets
, and they even made it harderto get money.
So, you couldn't get a loan, youcouldn't move.
So eventually, what happened isthat we tried to operate our
business for about the next twoor three years without a bank.
(22:54):
Some of our interest rates onour loans that got called
literally went up to 24%.
I had loans over a milliondollars that I was paying 24%
interest on, and then, after awhile, you just couldn't sustain
that because your sales werealready down from the recession
basically.
And, like I said, the banks gotbailed out, but the people
(23:16):
below them didn't.
So we're fighting this battlewith the bank and we finally are
still surviving.
We're putting our personalmoney back in, we're doing all
these things, you know, to tryto survive all this, but it just
keeps going on and on and on.
And so finally, we felt likethere was a light at the end of
the tunnel.
We thought, well, let's just go, sit down with these crazy
people and see if we can worksomething out.
(23:36):
Drive all the way to St Louisand we're sitting in around a
table and we're saying, you know, let's work something out,
let's.
You know, we got.
We got a certain amount of cashflow.
We got some things we can do ifyou can.
You know, just let's worksomething out.
And they said well, actuallywe're glad you drove up here
because we want to let you knowwe've already drawn up
(23:56):
foreclosure papers on you.
Speaker 2 (23:58):
Oh my gosh wow, on Monday morning we'll be running
your business.
This is on a Friday.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
Wow.
We had to, over the weekend,figure out a way to keep that
from happening.
So we filed for a Chapter 11.
And this was in 2011.
We had survived that long, youknow, without a main company.
Well, I wish I would have stuckwith that, because I probably
(24:24):
would have ended up on the otherside with the company and it
would have been restructured,debt and all these different
things.
But I was raised on a farmwhere you always paid your bills
.
You know, I didn't want to havebankruptcy on my title.
You know, I just got a littlebit scared, to be honest with
you, and so we'd already beenworking with a company that had
brought in what I what I wouldcall bottom feeders.
(24:45):
You know and I say that becausethere's nothing illegal about
it you try to get a good dealand you buy a business.
I understand all that.
But if you're someone thatstarted something from scratch,
you don't really want someonelike that to come in and take
over your business.
We'd always avoided those.
But we knew we had to dosomething, and so we got an
email from someone that had seenwhere we had filed for Chapter
(25:08):
11 in the Wall Street Journaland seemed like it could be a
pretty good fit.
They had said they had kind ofbeen through some similar things
in the past.
Now they were doing pretty well.
They were in the oil businessand so on and so forth.
And we thought, well, you know,this makes sense.
So we started working with themover the next few months and
they said they were gettingready to sell a business I think
(25:29):
it was their oil businessactually and you know, through
that six-month process we hadgiven up a lot of things, I
guess because we were trying tokeep the business going and they
were going to put in a certainamount of money.
But they.
But what really happened is,over a six month period, it
ended up that we pretty much gotdrawn in far enough where we
almost didn't have any choice togo out.
(25:50):
You know, I like bid it on theopen market or those kinds of
things.
So, yeah, it just kind ofbecame more of a.
Well, first of all they saidthey didn't sell their business,
so they weren't going to haveall this cash laying around.
So now they had to figure out adifferent way to do it.
And so, oh geez, okay, well, bythen it was almost too late to
do something else, and so, okay,well, let's just partner,
(26:13):
because part of the deal was wewere supposed to be able to earn
back into the company orbecause we were going to be 50
50 partners.
It kind of got whittled downover time and then it became
like, well, we'll need to be thefull owner because we're going
to take out you know, bank loanswith, you know to take out your
loans, and, um, but they had 40million dollars worth of assets
(26:34):
to work with too, that you knowwe weren't getting any credit
or so anyway, we got credit.
So anyway, we got basicallybought out.
They basically bought the debtfrom the bank and I stayed with
the company, thinking I wouldearn back into the company.
But after three years there wasa way to get me out, so I was
kind of like pushed out the door.
(26:55):
By then we had already gottensales kind of going back in the
right direction and everythingkind of go.
The good news is, all theemployees that we had employed
over the years which I grew upin the second poorest county in
the state of Illinois and we hada lot of people that had jobs
from that they kept all thoseemployees and they pretty much
ran the business the way that wewere running it.
They let the people in Paducahdo a lot of the things, because
(27:18):
there's a certain way you sellbeads of ice cream into the
amusement park industry anddifferent things.
They did keep a lot of thingsgoing for the brand and kept the
brand alive.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
But, kurt, you started this brand.
You're going from pig farmingto working with the feed to hey,
I've got homemade ice creamhere.
You went through all thestruggles to build that to what
it was, to have it taken fromyou.
Now this, this is the comebackChronicles podcast.
So that's what we talk abouthere, because there are people
(27:51):
listening that are going throughthings, that have gone through
things, that still are trying toget out of things, and it's
important to me that they hearreal raw stories about you know,
we all have challenges and buthow we come through those
challenges so let's start withthat had to feel like crap, you
know let's just be honest hereyeah, and it happened gradually
(28:14):
because it well, I say ithappened gradually, but there
there was that point where you'dkind of signed over the
business and you didn't reallyfeel like you were signing over
because you thought you werestill going to be a part of it.
Speaker 3 (28:28):
So that I think it was much later on, maybe after
I'd been there for three years,thinking when I heard that they
weren't going to renew.
We had automatically renewablecontracts and I'm thinking, wait
a minute, that don't make sense.
Speaker 1 (28:41):
We had automatically renewable contracts and I'm
thinking wait a minute.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
That don't make sense .
But I think it was then when itreally hit me and I was like,
well, what can I do now?
So I kind of had to.
It was a tough acceptance therefor the next couple of years or
so, especially hard on myfamily.
My wife was, I mean, like I said, we owned a $50 million
business, and not only it's likewe went and bought a bunch of
yachts with that or anythingbecause we put everything back
(29:07):
into the business.
You know, we didn't really.
We didn't really.
We had some other investmentswe'd made, we'd done.
You know we had some things,but we also had put a lot of
stuff back in the business fromthe recession all the way up to
2011 that we never got and wedidn't ask for it because all we
wanted was to own a piece forour business again.
We felt like we could get it.
We knew the brand was strong,we knew we could get it there.
(29:28):
So it would be tough to feellike you had that, that rug
pulled out from under you andand.
But it's like you said, peoplehave things happen to them much
worse than what I had.
I've always, always said youknow the one thing I had through
all of that was I had thehistory of growing up on a farm
and scraping and scratching foreverything you had anyway, and I
(29:52):
had my health during that timeand fortunately, knock on wood,
still do so to me.
I just had to, I had to just sayyou know, look, you can.
Either you can either sit hereand cry about it or you can.
You can get up and see what.
And I knew it's like you said,we built that business, we had
the knowledge of that business,so we just decided to.
(30:13):
Well, my daughter was five yearsold when I started Dippin' Dots
and she's, you know, 41, 42years old now, and so we started
this 40 below business togetherand my wife, of course, along
with us.
But so we've been through itbefore.
We kind of know how to do itand she enjoyed dipping dots.
She had her ups and downs withdipping dots.
But my daughter didn'texperience all the startup
(30:37):
things that we went through tothe degree that we did.
I mean, remember we weresetting up theme parks around
the country so she would get togo with us.
But she, she still knew therewas a certain amount of stress
in a startup business.
You just that, that just goeswith the territory.
But this time she's getting toexperience the um, the real
(30:58):
startup of a business, and butshe knows that it can turn into
something because of what we haddone with dip and dot.
So it's been it's been kind of a, it was tough, but you also
feel good about what you'redoing.
It's like we talked aboutbefore the interview.
You know, if you go to bed atnight and you're really tired
from really working hard all day, it's a good tired, you know,
(31:19):
and that's that's.
That's kind of where we're atin our life right now.
Speaker 2 (31:21):
Well, I think there's so many lessons right there in
just that last few minutes Cause, again, it's you.
You can tell the measure of aperson, not during the good
times, but during the toughtimes and what you went back to
is, like you said, instead ofcrying yourself to sleep every
night okay, Not every night,might've been a couple of nights
, but you took a look at okay,there's people who are going
through a lot worse, and thereare.
(31:42):
You know, whatever you're goinginto my listeners now, whatever
you're going through, odds aresomebody else is going through
something a lot worse right now.
So keep things in perspective.
The planet's still spinning.
You didn't just completely failbecause you'd learned so much
along the way.
You gained so much knowledgeand experience on.
(32:03):
I've done it before.
I can do it again.
And that's where your comebackstory is happening right now, as
people are listening to this,because you're putting all of
that experience and knowledgeand know-how back into 40 below.
Is that right?
Speaker 3 (32:21):
It's true, and to give you a perfect example, I
mean just a week and a half ago.
As you know, I'm not real bigon social media.
I mean, I've got LinkedIn, I'vegot all the things, but someone
happened to reach out and say,you know, happy work anniversary
.
And it was someone that I usedto sell Dippin' Tots to at a
major theme park.
I'll be darned and I reachedback out and said oh hey, it's
good to hear from you and, bythe way, we're doing this and
(32:44):
she went out and looked at ourwebsites and within two days she
ordered, you know, 40 cases ofproduct from us, because she was
in a new position now.
She went to a convention center.
I love that and so, you know,we just delivered that product
yesterday.
And she says oh, by the way,I'm with a group now that we
have 300 locations, and she saidI'm going to start, you know.
So I mean, it's just, you know,you just got to stay in it.
(33:06):
You really do, I think.
Starting a business.
I played sports in high schooland a little bit of junior
college, but I used to alwayssay it's kind of like a
basketball game.
You know where you're, you'rehaving all these ups and downs,
but it really doesn't matter toyou until about the middle of
the fourth quarter.
You know, you really just gotto stay in the game.
(33:27):
I guess is what I'm trying tosay, because anything can happen
at that point.
Speaker 2 (33:31):
I absolutely love that.
So, and that's what a what agreat story.
That is about what's going onnow with 40 Below.
Tell us more about, okay, whereis 40 Below going?
How are you building it up?
Where can people find it?
And, by the way, if they wantto represent your product, how
do they get a hold of you to doso?
Speaker 3 (33:52):
Well, it's interesting because even though
we're starting over, as youmentioned earlier, we have a
product called 40 Below Joe.
Yeah, and even though I hadn'tknow some non-competes, I didn't
really, I didn't really.
I wanted to kind of keep myfreedom, in that I didn't really
want to go right at dippingdots either right away either,
because I I kept thinking, well,maybe there's still a way we're
(34:13):
, maybe maybe it's meant to be,we're still going to work
together someday, or whatever.
So right on, I took the conceptof 40 below joe.
It was something I'd already hadin my mind and we'd already
kind of actually experimentedwith it when I was at dippin
dots but, and I actually had putall that into the new company.
But whenever they pushed me out, I kind of I kind of told him,
I got an attorney and said I'mtaking this with me because you
(34:34):
guys, you didn't invest in it,you didn't do.
And so we got that all straight.
And so I thought, well, if Iget into the coffee business and
the idea was little beads ofcoffee and they're a
high-quality coffee, we use realhigh-quality Arabica beans.
It's good.
It's good.
I've developed an espressoprocess that uses gaseous
(34:58):
nitrogen.
So in other words, we useliquid nitrogen to freeze our
products, but at the top of thatnitrogen tank is gas under
pressure.
I use that to push all thepressure through the water, you
know, through the beans and theground up beans, and basically
it keeps the oxygen out of theprocess, which is what I'm after
, because oxygen is the enemy ofcoffee.
(35:19):
So the whole idea is that wewould make this great product
that all you had to do was addwater and microwave it or steam
it and you would have a greatcup of coffee and that worked.
And it works great that coffeewill maintain its freshness to
40 below for years actually.
So now we got to thinking well,we already got beads of coffee,
(35:41):
why not add some creamer beadsto it and flavors like salted
caramel or mocha or Frenchvanilla?
And so we started kind of downthat road, and so it's basically
an edible coffee, well anyway.
So then you fast forward.
You know, we developed out theisland rocks, which are the
margarita drinks, the pinacoladas and all that, and I
(36:06):
still was just like I'm nottrying to go right at dippin
dots, I'm not trying to go rightat different dots.
Well then, the people thatactually bought me out got
bought out by a bigger publiccompany um, j j smack foods now
owns dippin dots, and and, uh,the guys that sold it and you
know, made a pretty profit offof and everything.
But I'm still thinking, I'mstill not going right at Dippin'
Dots.
You know, maybe there's a waywe'll work together.
And so we actually did talk alittle bit, but nothing really
(36:28):
came of it.
So finally, where I'm goingwith all this is last summer we
just decided, you know, thecoffee's great, the fruit
products are great, island rocksare great.
But we developed this businessselling to kids with cookies and
cream and cookie dough andrainbow and all these, and so
(36:48):
it's like it's time to just goon out there and get going with
it.
So since last summer, when weactually launched everything on
the dessert side, we really cantell that our business is
getting ready to take off.
So you ask where can you get itat?
Well, first of all you can goonline.
You can order it at, basically,www.40belowcocom.
So it's 40belowcocom, but wealso are starting to get out
(37:12):
into a few water parks, smalltheme parks.
You know we're going up againsta competitor now.
You know it's a pretty goodsize that we created, but people
do like the fact that we have alot of varieties.
Now We've got a lot ofdifferent brands and so we're
starting to get a little toeholdin some of those places.
But we also have little bitty 40below freezers.
(37:33):
So it might have six desserts.
It might have, you know,cookies and cream, cookie dough,
rainbow chocolate, but it wouldalso have a couple of
dairy-free desserts.
So a couple made out of coconutmilk that's made with real
fruit, strawberries and cream,for example, or cotton candy
with all natural flavors andcolors.
So you can see these littlefreezers starting to pop up in
(37:56):
places like bowling alleys andfamily fun centers, starting to
pop up in places like bowlingalleys and family fun centers,
and we're also starting to workwith distributors in different
parts of the country.
So you'll see this more andmore over the next two or three
years where hopefully you'll seea 40 blow freezer that you can
purchase product from andthere'll be in these nice,
brightly colored little packslike you just just held up
(38:17):
Fantastic.
Speaker 2 (38:19):
What's the way we're out of time, which is too bad,
because this is amazing.
What is some advice you'd liketo leave everybody with?
Speaker 3 (38:28):
Well, I think and.
I've started reading your book,which I think is going to be a
great book.
But I know you talk aboutpassion.
I think anybody that's going tobe in business, especially if
they're starting something newyou've got to be passionate
about whatever it is.
In other words, I used to tellkids I could talk to a college
or high school class and theywould say well, you know, I want
(38:49):
to be an entrepreneur.
What do you, what do you advise?
I said, well, first of all,you've got to have an idea or a
concept or a product that youreally believe in.
I mean, you've got to reallybelieve in yourself.
Because I'm not a salesperson,but I can sell Dippin' Dots or I
can sell beaded ice creambecause I believe in it.
I know it's the best way youcan make ice cream, small ice
crystals.
(39:09):
You know everything that goeswith it.
So I think that's you got tohave an idea you believe in.
You've got to be passionateabout it, and then you just
can't give up.
You know you.
Just you have to be willingabout it, and then you, you just
can't give up.
You know you.
Just you have to be willing toget get up and you get knocked
down and, uh, you just got toknow it's not going to be a a
yellow brick road.
I mean that that's just perfect.
(39:29):
Everywhere you go, you knowyou're going to get.
Speaker 2 (39:31):
You're going to get knocked down a few times.
You're going to get knockeddown, there's going to be bumps
in the road, but you're still onthe road.
Keep moving forward, right?
Fantastic Well, kurt, thank youso much for joining us today.
I really really appreciate it.
Everybody you're hearing acomeback Chronicle story in the
process right now.
Kurt Jones, who built upDippin' Dots to what it was.
(39:54):
Things happen, but he did notcry in his corner.
He came back out fighting Okay,there's a new idea that I
believe in Put that pig farmerwork ethic to work there, work
smart, don't hold vengeance,because he's moving forward with
some people right now as well,and then you can create your own
Comeback Chronicle.
(40:15):
Thanks so much, kurt.
Speaker 1 (40:19):
So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback
Chronicles.
Head on over to Apple Podcastsor wherever you listen and
subscribe to the show.
One lucky listener every singleweek that posts a review on
Apple Podcasts will win a chancein the grand prize drawing to
win a $25,000 private VIP datewith Terry O Fossum himself.
(40:40):
Be sure to head on over toComeback Chronicles podcastcom
and pick up a free copy ofTerry's gift and join us on the
next episode.
Popular Podcasts
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
True Crime Tonight
If you eat, sleep, and breathe true crime, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT is serving up your nightly fix. Five nights a week, KT STUDIOS & iHEART RADIO invite listeners to pull up a seat for an unfiltered look at the biggest cases making headlines, celebrity scandals, and the trials everyone is watching. With a mix of expert analysis, hot takes, and listener call-ins, TRUE CRIME TONIGHT goes beyond the headlines to uncover the twists, turns, and unanswered questions that keep us all obsessed—because, at TRUE CRIME TONIGHT, there’s a seat for everyone. Whether breaking down crime scene forensics, scrutinizing serial killers, or debating the most binge-worthy true crime docs, True Crime Tonight is the fresh, fast-paced, and slightly addictive home for true crime lovers.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com