Experiences

Jean Thompson: 00:00

We had no earthquake insurance, and so, basically, it was gonna go out of business. Oh, shoot. I don't know how to run a company, and I wouldn't even begin to know how to go out and hire a CEO who said, and it got back to me, like, oh, this housewife is gonna take this company to its knees. And that was my rocket fuel for many, many years. Like, really?

Jean Thompson: 00:22

But you are uniquely qualified to run your own company because it's your company. So you get to take it on the journey that it needs to go on that you want it to go on, and nobody's gonna be better at that than you.

Mark Sandeno: 00:36

Okay. Jean Thompson. I am so delighted to be talking with you today. Just for full disclosure, you and I go, we go way back. And so we're old friends, but you are perfectly suited for the Experiences podcast.

Mark Sandeno: 00:50

How are you doing today?

Jean Thompson: 00:52

I'm doing great. Excited to see you and talk to you today.

Mark Sandeno: 00:55

Yeah. And we're sitting in the middle of a Seattle springtime and we have marginally sunny kind of patchy sunny weather, which in Seattle means it's a fully sunny day. So we have that going for us well. So we should both be happier than usual.

Jean Thompson: 01:08

And we are.

Mark Sandeno: 01:09

You are the CEO of Maeve Chocolate, formerly known as Seattle Chocolate. The way I like to start these podcasts is to kind of bait you. And I'm gonna bait you with something I think every CEO should love to share, which is tell me the story. Where did you come from? What's going on with the business?

Mark Sandeno: 01:28

Go as far back as you want to go. And if I hear something I want to tease out of you, I'll definitely do that. But I just wanna give you a chance. Tell us about Jean Thompson in the context of Maeve, formerly known as Seattle Chocolate. And the only reason I say that is this is a rebrand that happened relatively recently.

Mark Sandeno: 01:46

So don't forget to cover that, but just take it away.

Jean Thompson: 01:49

Yeah. That was one year ago. So I have, lived in the Pacific Northwest since 1987 when I moved here to work at Microsoft. So I had a tech background in marketing, And then I, had my first son who's now 35 years old, and I decided to stay home. And then I had my daughter, and I ended up staying home for nine years as an as an at home mom not working.

Jean Thompson: 02:13

And then when my daughter went off to kindergarten, I was like, okay. I can't be in any more PTA meetings, and I'm I'm gonna need more stimulus in my life. And so we were investors in this company called Seattle Chocolate, And I didn't know too much about it, but I was like, you know what? I know marketing. I've even been in sales.

Jean Thompson: 02:32

Maybe I can just help them because they were really struggling. And at that point, they were about ten years into their now thirty five year old history, and they just couldn't couldn't pull it together. And and even the year prior to me joining them, which was two thousand and one, familiar date because of 09/11. But earlier in that year, there was an earthquake in Seattle that destroyed the the building that Seattle Chocolate was renting, and we had no earthquake insurance. And so, basically, it was gonna go out of business.

Jean Thompson: 03:02

But my now ex husband and I stepped in and paid for the machines to be moved and to retrofit a building with, you know, insulation and air conditioning like a chocolate plant needs, and we became the owners. So by the time 2002 and my daughter went off to kindergarten, we were like, what the heck? They can't cover payroll again. And it was kind of frustrating. And so I'm like, you know, maybe I could just pitch in, not pull a salary, only go when my kids are in school and, you know, coordinate this because I was very committed to being there for my kids and really enjoyed it.

Jean Thompson: 03:35

And so I did, long story short, I ended up having to well, the person who was running the company, the CEO, would not give me anything to work on. He was very threatened by the owner being involved. And so he ended up quitting. There's more drama there, but I'm not gonna talk about it. And then I was left holding the bag like, oh, shoot.

Jean Thompson: 03:59

I don't know how to run a company, and we don't have enough money to even go I wouldn't even begin to know how to go out and hire a CEO.

Mark Sandeno: 04:06

That was a classic sink or swim moment for you. I actually had that in my notes. You've spoken about that before in other interviews and podcasts and how did that permanently shape your leadership style? You're you're in there as basically a volunteer part time, you weren't taking a salary at first working around your daughter's kindergarten schedule and there was some, from what we understand, drama and in order for this to all work, it was a sink or some, I've got to step in here and really commit. Has that changed how you do business or did it change the way you think about running the company, being involved in this CEO position?

Jean Thompson: 04:52

I had never run a company. I had never even I never had an accounting class because I went to a liberal arts school that didn't even offer it. I don't think they do still. And I so I, you know, didn't even know what a balance sheet, all that stuff that was required for running a company. I didn't know anything except for marketing.

Jean Thompson: 05:08

Right? And and so I really didn't feel confident in doing it, but then I was like, well, it's chocolate. And I've always been a huge chocolate fan. And by that point, it was like two months into just having a little exposure to it and I could see some things that were really broken about how chocolate was being marketed in general. There was no color.

Jean Thompson: 05:26

There was no appeal to to women the way other consumer products try to do. And I thought, really think I could maybe make a difference. And so I just said, well, what do I have to lose? They're already, you know, almost out of business, not ever able to cover payroll. They were kind of a mess.

Jean Thompson: 05:42

So I I guess I can't blow it any worse. But how it still stays in my leadership style is this sense of like, you know, dare me. Tell me that you don't think I can do

Mark Sandeno: 05:53

it. Okay.

Jean Thompson: 05:54

Because I had people when I decided to run the company who said and it got back to me like, oh, this housewife is gonna take this company to its knees. And that was my rocket fuel for many many years. Was like, really? Okay. And you know, it took me nine years to turn this non profitable company to have even the slightest bit of profit.

Jean Thompson: 06:19

Many times along the way, I was like, okay. You know, talk about impostor syndrome. I genuinely was an impostor. And I I thought, you know, I remember going to an entrepreneur organization meeting, and Mark and I were in the same what they call forum. And I remember saying, you guys, I just I know that I'm the worst thing for this company.

Jean Thompson: 06:38

I I think if I were not running it, they would already be so far ahead of the game. And this amazing group of fellow entrepreneurs said to me, you're never allowed to give advice. They said to me, you know, it's funny but my takeaway was, but you are uniquely qualified to run your own company because it's your company. So you get to take it on the journey that it needs to go on that you want it to go on and nobody's gonna be better at that than you. That was the moment that I was like, oh, I get it.

Jean Thompson: 07:08

However long this takes me and however painful it is for me and everyone along the way, it's gonna be my journey and that's still the way it is today for me.

Mark Sandeno: 07:17

Yeah, I think that's one of the things that people who have jumped in kind of a sink or swim type of thing learn pretty quickly once they get past the worst part of impostor syndrome is like, wait a second, there's not usually a grand plan for success, it's getting in persistently grinding, figuring it out, what is it about this business, what is it about these customers? And I'm sure you've had this experience when you're encouraging young entrepreneurs or people who are interested, like listen, there's no level of preparation that's going to prepare you to do what you need to do if it's truly a good opportunity. And thinking back to that moment, so you and your husband at the time were rescuing the business already with machinery and then it was with your labor, you got some observability to what was going on and you're saying, this is going to be a lost investment unless we step up. You stepped up and in that moment, as you described, you're like, there's clearly things to do. I clearly have marketing and communication skills.

Mark Sandeno: 08:24

How desperate was it? And can you go back to that time and describe at least one or two of those visceral feelings and then compare it to where you are today and kind of looking back through time, what would you tell yourself in that moment?

Jean Thompson: 08:41

I guess I would tell myself just cut yourself some slack, man. I mean, you're not gonna figure this out right away. I remember one time, I mean, talk about visceral, I was super angry at my sales team for dissing on the first Valentine heart that anyone had ever come up with at the company. Was like, we're gonna do. And one of the guys said, oh, that just doesn't move me.

Jean Thompson: 08:59

And I, like, nearly came unglued to the point where I ended up I'm like, you know, I just need to leave. So I got in my car, I remember a little slug bug, and I was driving home and I started, like, feeling, like, my heart racing and palpitations. And I'm like, oh my god. I'm having a heart attack. And I remember I'm like 40.

Mark Sandeno: 09:18

Yeah. And

Jean Thompson: 09:20

so I I got on the phone and I called 911. And they were like, pull over now. And I was like, no. No. No.

Jean Thompson: 09:27

I think I'm fine to drive someplace. They're like, no. Pull over now. And then they blocked my cell phone. And where I was was the entrance to 5 Twenties Bridge going eastbound.

Jean Thompson: 09:37

And so I blocked traffic. It was a nightmare. Turns out it was a panic attack I was having. The first and only one I've ever had in my life, but that was the level of how seriously I was taking this and how hard I was on myself and how emotional I've always been about this job. Like, is so personal.

Jean Thompson: 09:57

And, like, it caused me physical pain. So now I can tell you that I still have those moments where I'm like, oh, is this a mistake? I don't know if I'm doing the right thing. And, you know, it doesn't get to panic attack anymore. But, yeah, there's some questioning that continues to go on even after twenty three years.

Mark Sandeno: 10:14

You have more tools in your toolkit even if you experience some of that anxiety and a degree of that panic, what is one of those most important tools that you have? And we're going to get into what has happened and how you've led Seattle Chocolate in quite frankly, a remarkable direction. But if we think about a toolkit and you have crescent wrenches and needle nose pliers, what is the metaphorical equivalent that you pull out with some frequency to handle the pressure of this job?

Jean Thompson: 10:42

Well, first thing I have to do is go for some sort of exercise and ideally it's outside, you know, hiking, getting that cardio up and just breathing fresh air. And if I can find a tree, that's all the better. But I will say the other toolkit that I have, which is so much more than a wrench or needle nose, is my team. Right? So the thing I think I'm most proud of that I've done the best over the years is assemble this amazing team of people who that's the first thing I do is I call them together and we're like, what do we do?

Jean Thompson: 11:10

And they all have different perspectives of different ideas and then we I have such confidence that as a team, we're gonna be able to wrestle anything to the ground.

Mark Sandeno: 11:18

So jumping back to this Sudden Kitchen remodel thing, there was that, you stepped into the CE role around 2002. Correct? And that that was after that literal earthquake, not a metaphorical, a literal earthquake condemned the production facility and your previous CEO quit just six weeks into you being there, okay? You had as you mentioned, no c suite experience, and you you were basically tackling a company that literally had just been rocked by an earthquake, but there was one disaster at a time, starting with, and I quote, a shipping department where the employee would just yell, what do you want at people? Yeah.

Mark Sandeno: 12:04

So what was the absolute most WTF, what have I gotten myself into moment during those early had days? Did you ever have the urge to just walk away? We're talking table flip, mic drop, and if so, how did you resist that urge? Because, and the reason I asked that is that people that listen to this podcast, they might be interested in Jean Thompson and chocolate in general or experiences, right, which is what our company is all about. But I think a lot of people are really interested in that founder story and we have a misappropriation of the smooth sailing that comes from an excitement we have over a business or an opportunity.

Mark Sandeno: 12:44

But you are the epitome of things going wrong. So what was the biggest WTF moment and how did you resist just walking away?

Jean Thompson: 12:54

There were so many. I was actually thinking, would I pick one? Is there one that's sort of more representative than others? You know, it's a manufacturing facility in Seattle, Washington. It's a warehouse.

Jean Thompson: 13:04

It's so it's multifaceted. I remember my father saying to me, yeah, you should be able to turn this thing around in about twelve weeks. And, you know, it took me nine years. So but I think that the I remember the the warehouse was too small because we had, you know, had to secure it during and immediately after an earthquake. And so there was no room to even walk around the various boxes and cardboard and things.

Jean Thompson: 13:27

And it was just I literally saw people climbing up to find a particular part. And then on top of the shipping person being so rude and so many people, could tell where the weak parts were, just common sense, right? I mean, a human being. But I think the thing that really flipped me on my ear, but I never was ever ever ever tempted to quit, have to answer that right out, was we had one bar at the check lane of Target. Okay.

Jean Thompson: 13:55

So at that point, you know, how many thousands of you know, hundreds of stores did Target have? And we were the small little company, and so it was a very critical part of our business. I mean, it was probably, you know, 25% of our sales. And we went through a distributor and the distributor went chapter 11. And they had two truckloads of my chocolate en route.

Jean Thompson: 14:18

And if anybody's ever experienced that before, you know, basically you don't get paid. And anything six months, I think it is prior to that doesn't get paid for either. And it's it just blew my mind. I had never realized that this big company could take a little company and put it out of business and do it so callously because of course they're back in business today and we never got paid for those things.

Mark Sandeno: 14:42

And correct me if I'm wrong because this has happened to another mutual friend of ours, a baby products company, and they had When you rely on distributors, they basically own that product and if they go into Or a retailer goes into receivership or bankruptcy, all your products get seized. You can't get those products back. And so once they leave your dock, they're not yours anymore yet you haven't been paid for them. And how can you absorb that kind of disaster? Is that exactly what was going on here?

Jean Thompson: 15:12

Yeah, exactly. And we just lost more money. I mean, we were already losing money. It just got worse. And I will say that this company relied on my amazing right place at the right time at Microsoft for its success because I had to fund it.

Jean Thompson: 15:31

Like, I literally had to take out a home equity loan for probably the first twelve years of my twenty three years at Seattle Chocolate. Nobody, no bank would give me a loan because the company's financials were so bad. Yeah. So, you know, I never gave up.

Mark Sandeno: 15:45

Yeah. You are a believer. I mean, I'm not saying that other entrepreneurs don't do that, but think about that listeners. Think about what it takes to have that resolution that you're going to, well, mortgage your future. And okay, Jean, give yourself some slack here, but was this a stubborn bulldog kind of just like, I don't want an identity play where I won't quit or was it that and this is a good product, This product should be in the world.

Mark Sandeno: 16:18

This is a good industry. I believe in this. What was the the mix there for those who are struggling right now?

Jean Thompson: 16:24

I think it kinda changed over the course of, like, sort of chapters. The first chapter when I I I always loved chocolate but I didn't really understand the industry, I didn't understand the supply chain at that point, I didn't have time, right? That's what motivates me now. But early on it was like, it was this need to not fail which is just definitely part of my DNA.

Mark Sandeno: 16:46

Why? Why why do you need to not fail?

Jean Thompson: 16:49

I feel like a loser. Like I feel like I guess I have like some deep rooted insecurity that proving myself and accomplishing something that I knew was really hard, it helped me. Right? It helped me feel better about myself. So it's like, I'll be damned.

Jean Thompson: 17:07

There was also the people that were like, yeah, she's never gonna be able to do this or this is Jean's folly. I love to tell the story of when I was getting a divorce, from my now ex husband. I had a financial adviser, and and we had two properties. We had, like, less than half of Ferrari of Seattle and a 100% of Seattle Chocolate. And I was working at that point, I've been working there almost ten years.

Jean Thompson: 17:29

It was my baby and third baby. And and the financial adviser said to me, take Ferrari. And I'm like, I don't want Ferrari. I'm Seattle chocolate. Right?

Jean Thompson: 17:40

He's like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You you should not be taking Seattle chocolate.

Jean Thompson: 17:44

It'll basically destroy your financial future kind of thing. And I did it anyway because I was like, I loved that company by that point. Right?

Mark Sandeno: 17:52

Yeah, and that passion as a currency or passion as a weird form of venture capital when you're not getting venture capital or loans from banks is, you know, the greatest foundation for future success, right? We've heard this, we've heard that if you can't wake up in the morning, lift your head off the pillow and say, I want to tackle the problems, the inevitable challenges in this business, then going to fail, it doesn't matter what underpinning I have. Would you say that is a true thing for you in Seattle Chocolate that had you taken on Ferrari, had Ferrari I mean, you probably would have done well in that knowing you.

Jean Thompson: 18:31

To this day, twenty three years in with, you know, I'm gonna say near a 100% of my peers being retired and, you know, I probably should retire, air quoting it right now. I I look forward to every day that I go to that office.

Mark Sandeno: 18:46

Oh, good. That's great.

Jean Thompson: 18:47

I love it so much. Right? Because it's such a learning opportunity every single day. No two days are the same, and it's fun, and I get to work with gen z's and millennials and people of all generations, and they're all on my team. Right?

Jean Thompson: 19:01

So it's super fun. It it fills my needs as an extrovert. It fills my needs as someone who really wants to be a lifelong learner.

Mark Sandeno: 19:08

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Mark Sandeno: 19:46

And it's free to get started with a fourteen day trial. So search Experiences in the Shopify app store or just go to experiencesapp.com. Okay, back to the show. The business world worships at the altar of hyper growth. And, my research said that, somewhere you said you were looking at the business journals and you were looking at these lists and you're like, okay, bigger is better.

Mark Sandeno: 20:11

But apparently chasing growth almost caused the demise of your business. What is the brutal truth about scaling a physical product business that the startup world just doesn't understand or refuses to talk about?

Jean Thompson: 20:26

There was one year and we were only like a $3,000,000 revenue business. There was one year where we lost over 2,000,000.

Mark Sandeno: 20:33

Oh my goodness.

Jean Thompson: 20:34

Net loss. It's like, oh no. I really didn't know what I was doing and I was learning the hard way for sure. I think it's very difficult to do a manufacturing plant as well. It takes a tremendous amount of cash.

Jean Thompson: 20:46

Right? And with no financial background, I didn't really understand that. And it took me a long time in the hiring of this consultant who really has turned the just changed the trajectory for this company. Such a great adviser. And I finally understood the importance of cash.

Jean Thompson: 21:06

Like how how can you possibly take on that level of growth? You know? Because it's the 50 top 50 fastest growing, you know, youngest, fastest growing, always fastest. And plus I'm fast. Right?

Jean Thompson: 21:16

So I like I wanted fast.

Mark Sandeno: 21:18

Yeah.

Jean Thompson: 21:18

And, you know, no. Quite the opposite. Once I realized slow and there's a certain percentage, I even asked this adviser. I'm like, how fast can I grow before it's too much for cash? And, you know, he basically was like, if you grow, you know, 10%, you're pushing it.

Jean Thompson: 21:34

Right? And so I have some sort of guidelines now, and I understand the balance sheet and, you know, things that most people would come right out of business school or even, you know, university understanding and would help them. So as I say, the company had to survive my learning curve.

Mark Sandeno: 21:51

Yeah. A little bit of a promotion for EEO, Entrepreneurs Organization, which is where we met. They had this course. I actually have the folder back there somewhere. But me and my, CTO went and took this course, and it was profit mastery is what it was called.

Mark Sandeno: 22:10

I don't know if he ever took that course. I did. And he he he really focuses on the difference between your profit and loss and your balance sheet. And one of the early lessons you learn in that course is, look at this company, look at isn't it amazing? Look how fast it's growing.

Mark Sandeno: 22:24

Look at all the sales and it's about to go bankrupt, right? Profitability does not equal sustainability because if your balance sheet, that cash on hand cannot support sales and operations, you're sunk. Receivers will start to show up. So in a product business, maybe yours isn't as cash intensive as someone who's ordering crates of product from China, you still have from the moment you make that product and ship it, you don't get paid typically for quite a while, right? Or is that not the case in the food industry?

Jean Thompson: 22:59

I gotta be on the worst end of the deal quite frankly because you know, cocoa doesn't grow in The United States except for Hawaii in very limited quantities. It grows really far away. And so in order to you know, you have to order that. You have to sometimes pay those poor farmers even in advance, And then you gotta, like, have the processing happen. You know, the beans then have to be, you know, fermented and dried and then roasted and all of that.

Jean Thompson: 23:23

And then it starts my manufacturing process, and I have to have it, you know, done with enough quantity to take on what used to be an incredibly hockey stick of a seasonality graph. I mean, we sold, like, 70% of our product between the months of October and January. We're down now to that being, like, maybe 30% or maybe 40.

Mark Sandeno: 23:46

Nice. Wow.

Jean Thompson: 23:47

Since it included a fourth month. So we've really, you know, sort of flattened it out by going into like the grocery channel where people do buy and eat chocolate every day. It's not so seasonal around a gift. So between the seasonality and just the long so I would say it probably takes us so we make our own dark chocolate now. This is something that's just a two year old endeavor.

Jean Thompson: 24:06

We used to buy chocolate and turn it into a confection. And so by making your own chocolate actually has even a longer period of time before you get paid, But you get to control how it's sourced and and how the farmers are paid and and then ultimately what it tastes like, which was really important to me. So, yeah, it takes I mean, we don't get paid for four months. Four to six months, yeah.

Mark Sandeno: 24:29

So to grow your business by a million dollars, you've probably gotta have what, $3,000,000 to, I don't know, to fund that from the the time you source I don't know, I'm just back of the envelope math, and I'm definitely not an accountant.

Jean Thompson: 24:43

No. You're pretty good. Let me tell you. I mean, it's we have a, a $3,000,000, revolving line of credit. We almost never tap into it anymore because we've got enough cash ourselves to sustain us most of the year, which is, again, major milestone and accomplishment.

Jean Thompson: 24:59

But, yeah, just in case because Yeah. Stranger things have happened, you know, that we we do use it or we have it.

Mark Sandeno: 25:05

Yeah. Let's talk a little bit more about that that growth versus I'm gonna use a strange word here, contentment. If you have a business and this is something I don't think a lot of people know because news, the news you read is about the standouts, whether those standouts are profitable or not, they're the brands that are everywhere. And I gotta be honest, I see your stuff everywhere I go, but I'm also looking for it, I'm focused on the brands of my friends. What is your mindset about being a ubiquitous everywhere kind of brand versus a fantastic company that has solid profits from regular cash flows that provides a certain quality of life for those involved?

Mark Sandeno: 25:52

Why would you choose to stay a certain size or not stress your future trying to become something that you aren't right now?

Jean Thompson: 26:02

Mostly we've just sort of now have settled into the growth has to be organic. Like it has to be the right retailer and the right product and it has to make sense for everybody and that sort of naturally results in slower growth. Right? And I I have never wanted to flip this company and make the make like, the huge windfall profit. My hope is to never have to sell this company and to be able to turn it over to my daughter who's worked there now for seven years.

Jean Thompson: 26:30

I mean, so we are an evergreen company and that changes your mindset. Like, you wanna make sure that you're paying attention to the product, to the people, to the profitability, to everything in order to be able to deliver for the long haul. Right? It was one of the reasons that we did that rebrand a year ago and that makes me content, right, to know. But I will say that there is part of me that feels an obligation to the farmers at the root of the supply chain.

Jean Thompson: 26:55

It's a it's a very troubled supply chain for cocoa, and probably a lot of people have heard, but probably most people have no idea what I'm talking about. The farmers are all in these sort of developing nations, equatorial nations, and they have never been fairly paid ever. And they eke out they barely eke out survival. Right? And and so what happens is they can't reinvest in the trees.

Jean Thompson: 27:16

And as they get older and their younger kids can see that, you know, wow. You can make a living as a programmer, you know, online. They don't wanna be farmers anymore. And it's just a whole complexity around the supply chain. My feeling is because of the size of my business, it's somewhat unique.

Jean Thompson: 27:32

I'm not huge like Hershey were, and I don't have to answer to a board of directors that demand profitability. I only have to answer to myself. And yet I have machinery that can make probably well, in one shift, I can make probably one and a half million pounds of chocolate a year. So it's kind of a sweet spot where we pay attention to the way that we're sourced, the quality of the ingredients. We have the ability to do it even if there's no profit.

Jean Thompson: 27:58

Right? As like, for example, we use a compostable twist wrap for our little bonbons, and there's only one vendor in the whole world that has developed that technology, and they're in The UK. And so they're a lot more expensive, and you're more vulnerable to not having a second source. And initially when we took it in, it was like jamming up the machines, and I was driving my operations person crazy. She's like, we're not a tiny company anymore.

Jean Thompson: 28:20

We can't do it. And I said, then figure out how you do it. Because if we don't do it, who's gonna do it? You think Hershey's gonna do that? No.

Jean Thompson: 28:28

They're gonna use plastic. It's cheaper. It holds up better to the channel, etcetera, etcetera. So I have the ability to make decisions that I think are going to help with the long term health of the entire category. Cannot do it alone.

Jean Thompson: 28:42

You know, all people in the industry have to make an effort to save the farmers. But back to my original point, the bigger I get, the more reaching. And the reason we wanted to do Maeve Chocolate rebrand was because it wasn't regionally named and we could reach out to all 50 states and get more people in our posse. More people that will spend more, that understand and care about those, you know, those principles and will ultimately result in a better world and better future for Coco.

Mark Sandeno: 29:09

I love it. I wanna talk about that rebrand, but I wanna also wanna point out ethical leadership here. And the capitalism is not a bad thing, but capitalism without a strong ethical underpinning, caring for people, loving society, and sometimes loving people isn't always giving them what they want, it's giving them what they need, right? Your supply chain isn't necessarily going to want to return more value to those farmers, but what those farmers what that supply chain needs is to really recognize the people at the source of of the product and take care of it. We've heard about this in coffee.

Mark Sandeno: 29:43

I learned from you quite a while ago that this is an issue with cocoa. And you did some travel, by the way. You went do you wanna speak to that really quickly? You got some boots on the ground. You went and you saw.

Mark Sandeno: 29:54

What did you see and how did that impact you?

Jean Thompson: 29:56

Well, I've probably been over the last, you know, ten or so years to five or six different origin countries. I've been quite a lot to South And Central America. We do a lot of sourcing from Peru. But last I guess, it must have two years ago, my daughter, Ellie, and I went to Ghana. Now I'd never been to West Africa, but, you know, Ivory Coast and Ghana adjacent countries are the number one and two cocoa growing regions in the world with 70% of the world's cocoa coming from them.

Jean Thompson: 30:25

And I you know, we were sourcing from Ghana, which is much smaller than the Ivory Coast in this regard, but, you know, it's a really different trip. It's not it's not ecotourism. You know, there are no resorts. The people are absolutely beautiful and happy and very productive, but they experienced some hardship. So anyway, went, you know, long long drives into the bush from, you know, the Accra and then staying in a hotel where literally the comforter that was or the blanket that was on my bed was covered with what appeared to be goat hair or something.

Jean Thompson: 31:02

I was so itchy. I oh my god. Things like that. Right? And there was no food that night after the the day visiting the farms.

Jean Thompson: 31:12

So, yeah, different world. Yeah. But such an interesting experience. The flip side of that is, you know, meeting with all of the the tribal leaders and having them never having tasted a piece of chocolate before. And we donate and we put in a well and we put in some seedling nursery and this is where the 10% of our net profit goes to right now.

Jean Thompson: 31:32

And so they were like, this is amazing. And, you know, they didn't even necessarily share the same language among the 10 tribes that are all part of this co op, this organic co op that we source from. But they were so appreciative and they had every single person in their villages come out to, like, have like a presentation. They danced. They read poetry.

Jean Thompson: 31:53

They did all this stuff for us, the kids. It was so meaningful. You're like, wow. You're really, really moving the needle in this tiny little place in the world, but that feels very gratifying.

Mark Sandeno: 32:05

That's amazing to me that the people that produced the core material to make chocolate had never tasted chocolate.

Jean Thompson: 32:12

No. That's very common.

Mark Sandeno: 32:14

And what was I mean, the average Western mind can't even conceive of that. We think, oh, they're probably making a lot of their own chocolate products, but they're just not. They don't have the capacity, the knowledge or the desire maybe even to do it. But what was it like the first time they tasted that? Was it how did did they, as far as you could tell, create this like end to end connection?

Mark Sandeno: 32:38

It's the final step to the first step, it's that deep connection. What was their response?

Jean Thompson: 32:45

They definitely understood the connection because they know where their product goes, Right? And they've heard this thing chocolate that, you know, westerners go crazy over. But it was so funny. Gets so hot there. Okay?

Jean Thompson: 32:56

You know, it is in most cocoa growing regions, but I I found Ghana at that particular time of year to be extremely hot. I was like, oh, red in the face. And so I brought chocolate. By the time I handed it to one of the chiefs, it was completely melted within the wrap. I

Mark Sandeno: 33:08

was like, I'm

Jean Thompson: 33:09

still gonna give it.

Mark Sandeno: 33:10

I don't really have

Jean Thompson: 33:11

a choice. And so he doesn't know probably that it was supposed to be solid. Anyway, he opened it and, you know, it was like dripping all over the place. He loved it. But of course, he's tasted raw beans and it really doesn't taste that simple.

Jean Thompson: 33:24

By the time you add milk, this was a milk chocolate bar that I happened to give him and, you know, sugar and various things and mint or whatever flavor that one was.

Mark Sandeno: 33:32

Yeah, that's really neat. Let's talk about the flipping the script on marketing to women. So one of the things you've spoken about is how you realize that that chocolate industry was stuck on a outdated loop of marketing to men buying gifts for women. And so it looks like what you did and this is I think from your words, you hijacked the cosmetic and fashion industry tactics using bright colors. We're and now this is what we're gonna talk about, Maeve, because I'm I'm just I gotta tell the listeners, if you guys don't have any conception of what Seattle Chocolate was, a regional play.

Mark Sandeno: 34:12

Right? And I'm gonna tell you something funny, a conversation I had in the gym this morning with my friend who's familiar with Seattle chocolate in a second, but you've gone from a respectable semi elegant, maybe a little bit stuffy brand that was a regional play into something that quite frankly, I don't know that I've seen a more fantastic rebrand that kept nothing of the former identity. It's That's so exciting. If you go to Maeve Chocolates, dear listener, m a e v e, is it chocolates.com, maevechocolates.org, just search for it, right?

Jean Thompson: 34:51

Yeah, Maeve has a singular chocolate, maevechocolate.com.

Mark Sandeno: 34:54

MaeveChocolate, it's engaging, it's fun, it feels interactive, there's a lot of motion. So you rebranded the company to Maeve, has a bit of a the naming is after a kind of a, you know, a gnarly first century Irish warrior princess. Just talk about oh, queen. Sorry. Yo, my my my bad.

Mark Sandeno: 35:19

So talk about how you you rebelled in this rebrand from the stuffy serious wait for a gift chocolate trope and then said, we're gonna hit women directly And how hard was it to convince the old guard of retail that you had something worth leaning into? And how does this Irish warrior queen embody this whole rebellion that you are fomenting?

Jean Thompson: 35:47

So I will say that my journey on this targeting like deliberately targeting women and utilizing color, as you said, borrowing it from other industries that were directly targeting women started almost right away. So twenty three years of developing it and sort of evolving the brand and trying to take the price up so that we could pay more. All of that was a slow process. There's no way we could have done it. That massive of a rebrand all you know, I I wouldn't even known what to do in the early days.

Jean Thompson: 36:17

So it was all sort of a necessary part of the foundation. And we just kept running into blockades as we were trying to go into because we were sold in all 50 states for many, many, many years. But like a eager retailer would like, we love this product and we love all the ethics behind it. We'll take it in and then it wouldn't get pulled off the shelf. And then they would have to cancel us.

Jean Thompson: 36:35

So we were running into that too many times and we could see that it was holding us back. I never liked the name, but I was like, oh, it's too late, year ten into its history. And then in year thirty three, I actually did it. Right? So it took my daughter really joining and I knew that it was kind of a little too it just wasn't very representative of my taste and sort of the company's sense of humor and the company's personality.

Jean Thompson: 37:01

But it was what Seattle Chocolate was. Right? And it was beautiful. We got lots of compliments on our packaging, etcetera. My daughter's like, mom, this is boring in my generation.

Jean Thompson: 37:12

They don't wanna and you know I love the you know I love the brand. You know I love the chocolate, but this is not the way we should be conveying. I'm like, okay. I 100% agree. What do we do?

Jean Thompson: 37:21

And that's when we decided together to to rebrand it. And then that was a couple of years in the doing and developing. And we decided, you know, and it maybe was most terribly crazy to throw everything that we didn't like out and start all over because once you you know, just do it once. Right? Because people are like, oh, why don't you make like the the West Coast or at least the Pacific Northwest still stay Seattle chocolate?

Jean Thompson: 37:45

And then I'm like, no. It's all or nothing. And I want my people in the Pacific Northwest to have the very best product. I don't want them having something that is safe. Right?

Jean Thompson: 37:53

No. That isn't who we are and that's not what they want. And also we're trying to not only you know, we continued targeting women, but this one almost targets women less. It's more of a fifty fifty, I would say.

Mark Sandeno: 38:03

Okay.

Jean Thompson: 38:04

But it's skewing well, we we say we still target women. It's skewing younger, that's what we needed because today's consumer is younger. They're not boomers and gen x anymore. It's the millennials and the gen z who have the buying clout. We also needed to sort of invest in the future and make sure that it was something that could last and so we went a little crazy.

Mark Sandeno: 38:24

So I spoke of this conversation I had in the gym today and, I workout, my workout buddy is a guy named Todd. He's like, are you up to today? He's like, oh, I'm talking to Jean Thompson, the CEO of Seattle Chocolate. Was like, I mean, formerly Seattle Chocolate, it's it's Maeve. And he said, oh, Seattle Chocolate changed their name.

Mark Sandeno: 38:41

And I'm like, yeah. He's like, oh, I don't know if that was a good idea. So you probably got a lot of that, especially for people around here. And that's maybe the point. People around here were familiar with that brand.

Mark Sandeno: 38:51

And to your point, you did some really courageous things with the packaging. I think you have artist collaboration stuff. It was when you see it on the end cap or in the chocolate aisle, it really pops. It was it was beautiful and engaging. How has it gone since you've rebranded as Maeve?

Jean Thompson: 39:10

Yeah. I mean, it's it's literally been a year and a month since we did it. So it's it's pretty fresh and I I I believe that, you know, it's it's evolving and it's probably almost too soon to say it was a success, but I feel like it was a success. So I got that a lot as you can imagine because nobody does that. It's insane to do that.

Jean Thompson: 39:31

Right? We knew we needed to because the name was in my opinion so bad. Right? And then all the change where it wasn't even really recognizable anymore. You know, if you were a big fan of San Juan sea salt, it used to look like this and now it has like a pirate ship on it and an octopus.

Jean Thompson: 39:48

I mean, it looks vastly different and may not be recognizable.

Mark Sandeno: 39:52

Right.

Jean Thompson: 39:52

So that was very risky. Right? But as I said earlier, you you go bigger, you go home. But what was interesting is that I was part of the sales team that went to at least 75 different retailers, distributors or major accounts a year before to sort of prepare them and to tell them what was happening. And we were expecting some major blowback from like the local, the QFCs, the met markets, ECCs.

Jean Thompson: 40:18

No, every one of them was like, we love it. We love it and it's great. And we were like, wow. Fantastic. There was like one person who was like, I'm just really worried about it not saying Seattle anymore and I said name one of the brand that says Seattle on it.

Jean Thompson: 40:36

There isn't one and there's a reason.

Mark Sandeno: 40:38

I was in Haggins and where Seattle chocolate stuff used to be, there was Mave and I'm like, I'm thinking this has got to be Seattle chocolate Because it it still has it it took some of that energy and the vitality from some of the new packaging you were doing with Seattle chocolate or new. Yeah. The what it

Jean Thompson: 40:57

becomes. Seasonal

Mark Sandeno: 40:59

stuff. Mhmm. Okay. I have

Jean Thompson: 41:00

a I

Mark Sandeno: 41:00

have a couple more questions and then I'm gonna let you go. I'm gonna release you. So I can kind of drag on because the more we talk, the more I'm like, oh, I have this question, this question, this question. I remember when I was in Eel with you, when we were in our forum, you had made this move to set up in, and this is really just an aside, in the Sea Tac Airport, just a little spot. And I remember you were telling me it's like, oh my gosh, this is a way bigger challenge, way more expensive than I anticipated.

Mark Sandeno: 41:29

What is it about, retail and airports that is worth doing or not worth doing? You're now Do you still have a space there? I believe you do. Yeah. Yeah, I've walked I think it was closed last time I went by.

Jean Thompson: 41:43

We were there fixing the floor.

Mark Sandeno: 41:45

Yeah. How how has that gone?

Jean Thompson: 41:48

It's been an amazing success. And I will say that it is despite the fact that, you know, obviously it's very expensive to be in the airport because it's such primo real estate, such great traffic of new people, international people, whatever. It's been our most profitable piece of business with all those added expenses. It was we only have a 10 by 20 space. It's like a trade show booth.

Jean Thompson: 42:09

And but it's in a really great location right at Concourse C. And we sell a ton of products through there and you know, people plan it for when they're bringing gifts. They and you know, some people there were kind of unhappy that didn't say Seattle on it anymore. Well, that's why I brought it as a gift. Right?

Mark Sandeno: 42:25

Yeah. I'm

Jean Thompson: 42:25

like, it says Seattle chocolate presents Maeve on everything. So it's written on there, you know. So it's just an adjustment and they were like, why did you cancel champagne? And there was so much outrage over the the loss of that bonbon flavor that we actually are bringing it back. And, yeah, people don't like change, and they really don't like when you don't ask them for their opinion about the change.

Jean Thompson: 42:47

But the airport has been a it has been a mess. Can I just say I love the Port Of Seattle? I think they're fantastic partners. But the remodel, I mean, the TSA, it's just been a difficult airport. And so this last year has been not our best year, but we're patient and we have faith that the that it'll be better than it ever has been.

Mark Sandeno: 43:08

Well, I love it and I knew that I was in Singapore a few weeks back, meeting with a client and it's customary when you travel to that part of the world to bring a gift and you especially wanna bring it from your hometown? I'm like, well, a 100% I'm bringing Maeve. And so I bought a a stack of, chocolates, from Maeve and it was fantastic. My CTO is from Romania, former Seattle guy, and he lives in Romania now, so he brought some interesting, food from Romania. I brought some stuff from Seattle and and you were featured.

Mark Sandeno: 43:42

And it it's interesting how, chocolate is it's so it's so very portable and it's such a regional thing. Of course, where the beans come from isn't from Seattle, but it is a fantastic gift to take. Okay, I have two more questions. The first question is gonna be elevating the value of chocolate from just cheap gas station consumption to something that's a little bit more like a bottle of wine because you and you do have different tiers of chocolate. You have Maeve, which is a little which is a little bit more accessible than your Jake Jacoco.

Mark Sandeno: 44:22

I think that's how you say that. JC OCO. And we didn't really talk about that. Happy to have you just touch on that really quick. But let's let's start with that, and then we'll talk about the experiential stuff you do.

Jean Thompson: 44:33

Yeah. I think that, chocolate had had quite a journey. It's one of the oldest products in in the world, and it started as like the food and the drink of kings. Right? It was currency.

Jean Thompson: 44:43

And then I think the American, chocolate makers took it down. Like, they added so much sugar, took out so much cocoa, and gave it a price point. It became a Halloween candy essentially. Nothing wrong with that. Right?

Jean Thompson: 44:54

But it doesn't really showcase the beauty of this crop called cocoa, cacao, that has got more sort of antioxidants and health benefits and all kinds of polyphenols and chemicals, if you will, that are it's the most complex product in the world, like so much more complex than a grape or or wine. Okay. And so when properly processed and, you know, fermented, a lot people don't even know it's a fermented food. Right? It it can be such a delicacy.

Jean Thompson: 45:24

But there's so many hands that touch that that that has to be a lot more expensive, especially if you wanna pay the farmers, you know, ethically and fairly. People didn't understand that. So it or maybe still don't. I think more and more they are because there's lots of people in what's called the fine chocolate sector that are telling that story and delivering absolute exquisite beautiful chocolates that are like a journey of tasting. And I personally don't think they pair well with wine, but it's that same type of, like, really savor it and and understand it and ask where it came from and what was the terroir and what percent cacao it is and the region of the world that it's from because it's all vastly different.

Jean Thompson: 46:04

It's fascinating.

Mark Sandeno: 46:05

Is price both those considerations and an economy of scale? How do how do the big chocolate brands make their chocolate so much cheaper than some of these third wave or what do we call these gourmet chocolate companies like yourself?

Jean Thompson: 46:21

Well, they don't put much chocolate in there for starters. There's even like a big thing right now with, you know, Hershey's saying, okay. Okay. We'll put chocolate back in our bars because there was a crisis in 2024 that, you know, there was not enough cocoa to go around. Long story short, it tripled the price of the commodity.

Jean Thompson: 46:40

And, of course, that impacts the cost of chocolate in a very, very big way and also was even difficult to get. And so that was the point where the big boys who do have, you know, a board of directors and investors to answer to stopped really putting it in some of the products or and they never put very much in. So, like, I don't know exact number, but I think a Hershey special dark has something like, you know, 20% cocoa in it. And anybody else would expect a a dark to be at least 60% cocoa. Right?

Jean Thompson: 47:10

So they don't use as much because it's the most expensive part of the bar and that's how they're able to do it. But you know what? They're not saying this is a high cacao, they're saying it's a delicious candy bar.

Mark Sandeno: 47:20

When I go buy a nicer chocolate bar, I expect to pay between 5 and $10 for that bar and that is a reasonable price to pay and it's not necessarily just loaded with reams of profit. Is it a reasonable price with reasonable margin for the manufacturer?

Jean Thompson: 47:37

It's it's tight. So the J Coco bar you're referring to is I think like 12 or $13 retail and Maeve is 7.

Mark Sandeno: 47:47

Yeah. That's the one I'm talking about.

Jean Thompson: 47:49

Yeah. And and so 7 is a really good price point for what they're getting. And how we do that is just volume and efficiencies, you know. I have an amazing operation. And so we have, after thirty five years, we've gotten pretty good at it, and we are able to do it.

Jean Thompson: 48:05

Our our margins are pretty good. And at the end of the day, our profit margin is very low. Right? You don't make a ton of money in chocolate, but you make enough money to support 75 families and have a good time and be content as you said earlier and also I think make a difference.

Mark Sandeno: 48:22

Thank you for that insight. Okay. So our last talking point here is is, you know, experiences and world building as a business moat instead of just fighting for grocery store shelf space. So I remember when you first built your tour experience at your flagship store in Tukwila, That was a really neat thing. The the gantry, the walkway, getting to taste the chocolate, your fun showroom.

Mark Sandeno: 48:48

And then, I went to one of your pop ups in Pioneer Square, which was fantastic. Some of my employees later I I don't know if they saw a picture of me there from someone one of their friends took. It, like, elevated it actually elevated my reputation among my younger female employees as a as a boss. They're like, were you at that amazing J Coco chocolate pop up in Pioneer Square? I was like, yeah, you know, I was there.

Mark Sandeno: 49:13

What do you mean? It's like, my gosh. There was it was all over Instagram at the time. So you're you're creating these wild, immersive physical experiences. I don't we haven't talked about this in a long time.

Mark Sandeno: 49:23

I don't know how often you're doing these, but you have the factory tours with Kraken's and haunted escape rooms to sell a consumer packaged good. So in an era where most brands are just buying Instagram ads, how is this kind of immersive world building or just the experiential acting as a competitive moat for your business if you measure that at all?

Jean Thompson: 49:47

You know, we don't really measure it, but we believe that, you know, chocolate is more than just a snack, you know. There's so much about it, but we think that experiencing and being able to immerse yourself and learn more about it is critical to the future of chocolate also. Right? Because once you go on a tour and you know what I've been explaining to you today, it's kinda hard to, you know, buy a $3 bar again because most people would be like, I know that I'm not paying the farmers fairly and that doesn't feel good. But also we're just having a lot of fun.

Jean Thompson: 50:17

You know? Like, we just, two days ago, three days ago, whatever it is, launched a collaboration with a local author, Matt Denimon's, like New York Times blockbuster bestseller book that's lit RPG. I mean, Crate Biz was my daughter's favorite book and it's called Dungeon Crawler Carl and it went crazy when we launched it on Wednesday. We bought we sold out of our entire what we thought was gonna be our entire year's supply of bars in thirty six hours. And so now we're like, oh my god.

Jean Thompson: 50:49

Scrambling to get more cherries, scrambling to get more wrap. But so it's like kind of the first time that we've ever kind of gone viral. And it was this like really tapping into our audiences, what they choose to read and what they love. And, you know, they were like, my god, now I have a bar that goes with my favorite character and that's an experience, right? That's just making it a slightly different experience for people, where the book can come to life.

Mark Sandeno: 51:14

Yeah, that's fantastic and the experience economy, which is what our technology, helps facilitate, is all about the experience economies experience or it's a travel, sports, entertainment, and dining, and you're in that consumable space. But entertainment and consumption is happening at Maeve chocolate at the factory and with some of these pop ups and even somewhat passively when you do these collaborations, right, and they just show up and they go viral. One last question about experiences, do you One of the things we see, with our clients who are doing experiences is, sure, about the consumption of the good or the product, but what's really happening is besties, families, friends, date nights are coming in there, they're creating a durable positive memory together with the experienced providers brand at the nucleus. Have you witnessed that kind of thing happening with Seattle Chocolate in the past and now Maeve at the center and how do you feel about that role that you're playing in at least the local experience economy?

Jean Thompson: 52:28

Oh, I think it's very gratifying. I mean, we see like multi generations. Like a nine year old and his or her mother and grandmother all coming and learning together and tasting together. And you see like a lot of like assisted living homes will come and it's like their field trip for the week and they love it so much. And and then we have school groups coming and then sometimes companies will do their their meetings or off sites there kind of thing.

Jean Thompson: 52:55

So we do feel like we're we're we want to be part of the local fabric, and it seems to be an effective way because everybody wants to see how things are made.

Mark Sandeno: 53:03

Yeah. No. I love factory stuff, by the way. It's one of my favorite things to do. Okay, as we end today, how can we best engage Maeve Chocolate?

Mark Sandeno: 53:12

What would you where where can we find you? What do you recommend for us? What's the best way for people, maybe especially people who aren't in the Seattle area to to get a taste so to speak of your company?

Jean Thompson: 53:24

I guess visiting the website, not only is it it's very multi, you know, technicolor crazy fun. We're developing like a whole world of fantasy characters because the bar will have like a a bear on it for the Blackberry, and we're bringing her to life. And then there's the Moonrocks bar, which has, you know, Greg Glitter's space hunk on it. So we're doing lot of storytelling and fantasy around our line alone, and you can see that on the website. It's gonna be developed more and more.

Jean Thompson: 53:49

We're gonna put a game on there, and we're wanting it to be interactive. If you live local, the best thing is to come to our store, take a tour, and understand, and see the breadth of line we have. I mean, it's kind of ridiculous. We have a lot of skews, a lot of fun flavors. And I guess that's, you know, eat the bar and imagine the farmer that was at the the very start of the whole process.

Mark Sandeno: 54:10

Yeah. That that is something we always wanna keep in mind and it's it's a multisensorial reflection that you can have while you're eating a Maeve chocolate bar. So you can find Maeve chocolate at maevechocolate.com. That's maevechocolate.com. You can order straight from their site.

Mark Sandeno: 54:31

You can book a factory experience and J Coco is also, there's a link to the jcocochocolate.com website if you wanna have an elevated chocolate experience. Jean, thank you so much for taking the time to speak with me and our listeners. And I really appreciate your brand, you especially, I consider you a fantastic friend and your role in the Pacific Northwest food economy.

Jean Thompson: 54:56

Well, I really appreciate the opportunity to chat with you and about my favorite subject, chocolate.

Mark Sandeno: 55:01

Alright. Well, thanks for coming on.