Food52: Amanda Hesser

Did you guys get to the point where you were almost out of cash? Yeah. You know, that was that was tough. Yeah. We had a moment um at Roberta's Pizzeria. Um I love Roberta's. Yeah, we cried over pizza and but really good pizza. And you know, we needed to have a conversation of like, where is our breaking point because it felt like we just it wasn't that we had no traction, we definitely had people interested, but we just couldn't get that lead. And then I actually like

Often with Things that are bad memories. I I sort of shoved them into a drawer somewhere in my brain. Sure. And I don't know, maybe it was a good pizza that we were just like, Yes, we're gonna keep going.

Rom and PR is how I built this. show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements. Build. I'm Guy Raz and on the show today how Amanda Hesser walked away from one of the most coveted jobs in journalism. to build a digital media company for recipes and kitchen gear?

Called Food Fifty. Some of my favorite people to hang out with are reporters. They generally tend to be fun and interesting and a little snarky, but usually with the best intentions. And because I used to be one myself? I understand where they're coming from. Reporters actually have a lot of the same skills and qualities required to become a great entrepreneur.

They're curious, they know how to become experts pretty fast. They know how to ask questions, how to get around insurmountable obstacles, how to spot an opportunity. And some of them are pretty big risk takers. They stand in waste deep water in the middle of hurricanes and jump into the middle of war zones. But for all the entrepreneurial zeal embedded in the profession,

There is one thing that many journalists share that is not conducive to starting a business. Reporters are deeply skeptical people. They have to be. They're trained to doubt and debate everything they're told. Unlike many of the founders I've met, The very best reporters are generally not Fake it till you make it type of people. They're meticulous about getting the facts straight.

And making sure they're not getting spun by a source. And years and years of doing that? Well, it can make you kind of cynical, suspicious, even a bit jaded. None of which is helpful if suddenly you decide you want to start a business. So when a story of a former journalist turned entrepreneur crosses my desk, I get excited because it's a reminder that it takes a lot of courage to leave a prestigious job in a newsroom.

But that is essentially what Amanda Hesser did. For a little over ten years, Amanda had one of the most coveted jobs in journalism. She was a food critic and writer at the New York Times, testing recipes, writing reviews, and compiling cookbooks. It's the kind of job a lot of people would have stayed at forever. But around two thousand nine Amanda decided to take a big risk and start her own venture.

A food blog called Food Fifty Two. With a limited amount of money and using her own apartment as a test kitchen, Amanda and her co-founder, Meryl Stubbs, gradually and sometimes painfully built Food 52 into a digital media company. Which today reaches about twenty five million users a month. And along the way Amanda sort of combined the best of two careers. The relentless drive and intensity of a New York Times reporter.

And The improvisational instincts of an entrepreneur. Instincts she actually learned from her dad. In the 1970s, when Amanda was a kid, her dad owned a Chevy dealership in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Her parents took out a massive loan to buy that dealership, and Amanda remembers her dad.

as a smart and scrappy businessman. One of my memories around that is he created something called the Jello Jump and It involved filling a garbage dumpster, a clean garbage dumpster. With

Orange. Jello. And putting a bunch of numbered keys in the bottom of the dumpster. And so every number correlated with A prize, and one of the prizes was a car. And so in order to get to get your key, you had to jump into the Jell O Dumpster. And

You know, he just instinctively knew that this was funny and also would energize people and the local news media covered it and lots of people came and it was like, you know, a hot summer day and um perfect day for jumping in a dumpster of jello. But yeah, he was he was really good at um getting attention. Yeah, getting attention and there was definitely a sense in the household of, you know, w I I felt like we've we felt as a family kind of like the the pressures of of what it was like to to build a business. And it wasn't easy. You know, there was the the the oil crisis, so gas prices were up and people weren't buying cars But there was also um you know c few years after my parents bought this dealership. It went up in flames and uh the whole building burnt to the ground in the middle of the night.

And uh it was just a giant fire because, you know, when when um a building filled with cars that are filled with gasoline Catches fire. It's just um It's a pretty big disaster. So he you know, they lost m most of everything. They had a um some cars and a lot. Across the street.

that hadn't been damaged. And, you know, it was a very sort of defining moment for Child in that You know my I think a lot of people could really feel quite defeated and

You know, my memory isn't you know, my dad didn't pause for a moment, he, you know, immediately rented a trailer so that he could have a a temporary office and you know continued selling the cars that weren't burned. Wow. Um What what were you like as as a teenager?

Um w were you a good student? Were you were you well behaved? Like t tell me tell me what you remember about W what you are like. So I I was a good student. And I uh you know, I was a very like you know, involved in a lot of school activities. I played basketball, I

you know, ran track, I played tennis, I was uh very active. But I you know, I think that a couple of things like heavily influenced um certainly my teenage years. when I was eleven, you know, my dad He had um A massive heart attack.

And from from he you know, he uh he survived this heart attack, um but it severely diminished his health. And it was a pretty intense period of my life. And I think that, you know, at at that age I was I just had a a very different feeling about my parents than most teenagers. You know, I think uh, you know, I had a real appreciation for the fact that they were alive and it was very clear that to me that like, you know, life was precious and this was um

We were lucky. Yeah. Well. Yeah. How did you How did you kind of discover your interest in food?

But how did that how did that start? You know, it's always been there. I think it took me a while to realize that. It took me leaving home to realize that. Uh, you know, even though I I come from a family with very kind of like work like I would say like a very kind of like working class Uh like values I I the Yeah.

food was always a really important part of our our family life and cooked or contributed in some way. You know, I think about m like you know, when we g would go to my grandparents in Maryland, we would go crabbing and then we would cook the crabs and we would eat them with tomatoes that they grew in their garden and We never had a store bought cake. It was always made from scratch. My mom, you know, she would even bake her own bread and you know, she always made jam in the summer and like my when my mother would go to the grocery store

I I'm very like you know, list oriented. Like I wanna get things done. So I I would always be like, Okay, mom, what's the list? Let's split it up. And she's said, Well, you know, I have a couple of things on the list, but I just wanna see what looks good. She didn't go in saying like we're gonna have steak. She would go in and look at at what she determined what she deemed, you know, good quality. Um and then decide on what we were gonna have from there. And so I think there was a lot of influence that was built in to my upbringing and you know and it was even something that I I think was a little weird back then. Like I remember Um, you know, one of my best friends coming over and her crying at our dinner table because my mom was serving asparagus. And, you know, that's not an unusual vegetable now, but certainly in you know, in Pennsylvania in the seventies it was nobody was really eating asparagus. I I I know, Amanda, that that you went to college uh at at Bentley University near Boston to to study finance. Um

But I I guess when you graduated you you decided that you wanted to go into uh into food, into the food world and and maybe become a a chef was Was that your ambition initially? So I I I just wanna back up a a minute because betwe so between my junior and senior years my dad died

And That was a big obviously you know it was a it was a devastating moment and You know, put me You know, in a place where I felt

Yeah, quite lost. But I also looking back I realized that it was it was this moment of like liberation from Like I felt so lost that I felt like I didn't I really didn't have to conform to anybody's expectation about what I should or shouldn't do. Um after college. In large part because of his death, because Yeah. Like I was so unhappy and

Um And you know, really wrecked by it that I just in it in in a pr you know, odd way it it freed me up because I just wasn't I wasn't I wasn't driven to please anyone, you know. I was really um I I I think I understood that I had to find my way and that I had to find my way to to happiness. Even if it meant following an unconventional path. You know, and I I I remember a a bunch of my college friends were getting ready to like do interviews and they were all buying kind of work clothes and I just thought, Oh, that's the last thing I want to do right now. And it was it was just one of the many signals to me that I I needed to

push myself to to find find what interested me. So so w what'd you do? I wrote letters. I wrote to my favorite chef in Boston, Jodie Adams, who at the time wrote uh ran a restaurant called Mikaela's. And I you know, I just said like I'd love I like I'm I'm really interested in working. I I'll work for free. I just I just wanna learn. And so, you know, she

Um she hired me and I was like a kitchen runner basically. Uh you know, I I got ingredients for the line line cooks, I helped plate desserts, I strained stock, I did whatever. I was just thrilled to be there. I also worked at a bread bakery and I It was a it was a s like three women and I was one of them and we would, you know, get the ovens heated, we would mix the bread, shape it, bake it, and then I would drive a truck around Boston in the middle of the night. You're like in the early hours I would say, um, delivering the bread to hotels and restaurants. Um And so it's and then I also I took this food history course at Radcliffe and I was so in over my head, but

What was fascinating about it and so lucky was that in my class, whereas Corby Cummer, who's a long time uh food writer and just editor and writer at at The Atlantic. Um also another student is was Cheryl Julian who is the food editor at the Boston Globe. And, you know, I was just like this kid in the class and they took me under their wing and kind of showed me the way. And it was the w it was really the first time that I saw that, oh, food writing is this Is actually a job.

And I guess in the meantime, you were noticing that You know, like a lot of Young American cooks. we're going over to Europe and and doing these like short training stints uh at at restaurants there, and I guess you

You decided that that sounded kind of interesting? Yes, I you know, it was an alternative way to really you know, to become a a chef. um but also to immerse yourself in a cuisine. And I spent my spring break actually traveling. I went to Europe and I knocked on doors because, you know, not to age myself, but at this point there was no email and you know, the only way I mean, I wrote letters to these these restaurants and bakeries and said, Hi, you know, like I really want to come work for you and either I got a response or I didn't and so I would

showed up on the doorstep to say, like, hey, you know, I was the one that wrote that letter and I really do want to come. So from what I I've read you you managed to Yeah. find a scholarship a grant.

Overseas like Apprenticing in a bunch of different kitchens. And um and where was your first stop? Uh my first stop was in Germany, uh, in a small town in the Black Forest called uh Weingarten and I worked in a bread bakery there.

And I worked there for a few months and it was a very old school bakery in the sense that Uh in the front the the the people who sold the bread were all women. who wore these kind of like nice dresses and everyone who worked in the bread bakery, uh was was ma a man. And so I and I lived above the bakery and the bakery owners he had a spare apartment up there that was filled with his uh taxidermy Uh prizes from his trips to Africa.

And so Yeah, and so I would sleep there with these kind of giant animal shadows um looming and when the the head baker would come in and turn on the oven, it the whole building vibrated. And that was a that was my wake up call to get downstairs and You know, it was um I would say it was not the most pleasant place to work. Um, but it was it was really you know, I learned how to make um you know pretzels and all sorts of different grain breads. And also it was such a weird place, you know, the the owner w had a very fierce temper and if things didn't go the way he wanted them, he would often come in shouting and sometimes he would hit people over the head with a loaf of bread and you know, it was um It was

Yeah, I then th these are the the the sort of beginnings where I feel like I was my the sort of writer part of of my soul was starting to Come alive. And I mean you must have been I mean you you you know, I I'm imagining you as a As a young woman, college graduate, recent college graduate Going to these places in the

wanting to learn cooking, but Probably also Pretty isolating. Yes, I you know, this again, this was a time that was not that long after, you know, my dad had died and I

I was g doing the thing. no one I knew was doing I and I and because communication was so different then, the only way that I could really stay in touch with my friends and family was to write them letters.

And so that's what I did. And it awakened this part of me that I didn't even know existed and that I I think I would say I actively resisted previously. I really never liked writing. I never really liked my English courses, or I never valued them. And suddenly I was just writing all of the time and really enjoying it and also getting interesting, like sort of positive feedback from it. And Again, it was just a seed that was planted, but I wasn't really intent on doing something about it. It just happened to be something that I was really f

like a muscle that I was forced to develop I was very lonely and I could o this this was my my sort of lifeline to people who I cared about. Mm.

Alright, so you you're kind of bouncing around Europe at this time, I guess, um like working in restaurants and and some bakeries and And I guess eventually you land in in France. Mm-hmm. Uh at the cooking school, Love Arendt, the famous cooking school there. And and I know you you kind of went there as as part of like a like a work study program where you sort of worked for the owner of the school and then cooked for a family. This is this is Ann Willen, right? Ann Willen, yes. And tell me about what that was. I mean did you D like did you live in her house or or would you show up every day or or what?

Yes, I well she had a Giant. chateau in Burgundy that It was sort of wonderful in that it wasn't that fancy. It was actually kind of falling apart, but all w but this very beautiful old seventeenth century chateau.

Um that she lived in and that the cooking school was also in and so yeah, anyone who worked there also lived there. And I stayed there for Two or three years. I had only intended to stay for kind of a few months, but then she worked. uh she was working on a new cookbook and so I decided to stay on and help her with that. And it was during the the course of

That project that I started to really see How food writing worked. I felt like my attraction and interest in it started intensifying. But more importantly I felt like I was getting to a point where

I felt like I had knowledge to share and I had stories to share and I had one in particular that I really wanted to tell, which was her gardener, uh Mr Melbert, who also lived on the property, Um he grew

many of the vegetables and fruits that we used in the kitchen. Oh wow. And it was like a walled garden, right? It was a walled garden. Okay. And had been there actually, I think even longer than the chateau. It had, you know, there was a found like the foundation of an old ice house. It just like was this this whole place was like this museum of French life from hundreds of years ago.

And he also seemed like this relic of the past. You know, he rolled his own cigarettes, he planted according to the moons. He was this very kind of cranky, grumbly Gardener who had this tiny little dog named Poose. who would follow him around and I just loved him. I just thought, well this is the France that I've been looking for. These are the people who like I want to get to know.

But at the same time I was also really cognizant of the fact that even though I grew up with a you know upbringing I had where you know we co my mom cooked seasonally, we you know we ate a v huge variety of food and everything was home made you know made from scratch. I didn't understand fully the cycle of the seasons and like how it influenced like what you you know, if you cooked seasonally, like genuinely seasonally, like what that really would look like. And so My idea was to write about

getting to know was well basically my idea was first just a project. You know, I asked Anne like can I stay another year and just follow Monsieur Melbert around. and get to know him and what he does and continue cooking and She agreed to it. um very nicely and Um Mr Melbert reluctantly agreed to it. Uh and you know, then uh once I started, you know, following him around and just keeping notes and I I could very quickly see that there was a story to be told. And I felt like there was a story that

Like I wanted to preserve. I wanted to preserve in like some tiny way this way of life. And I felt like my sort of understanding of how to put at that point of how to put to put together a cookbook uh as a way a a framework in which to tell the story made sense. So I you know developed this um idea to write a book that was, you know, each chapter was a month of the year and and I told stories about Mr Melbert and like what I was learning from him and what I was cooking in the kitchen And I didn't really think there was anything necessarily innovative about it. I was really focused on um, this the preservation aspect. But you know, it really is it was one of the earlier cookbooks that

that celebrated seasonal cooking and kinda made a point to say that it matters and that it's a it's a a better way of of approaching cooking. And What did you do? I mean, y you're you were in your early twenties and Assuming you don't you've no experience or you have no probably no book agent. Um

So what did you how did you How did you pitch this idea? Two. I looked up cookbook agents and then I, you know, wrote a proposal and

Send it to all of them. And followed up by by fax uh and phone call and one day a fax came through from an agent named Doe Coover. who's based in Massachusetts and she said I'd you know, I'd love to work with you. I love your proposal. And

I s you know soon had a a contract while And Yeah. and had the realization of like, okay, I guess I'm gonna I guess I'm gonna write a book now. And I have to assume it was probably a small contract'cause it was your first book. It was ten thousand dollars, I believe. Which probably for you was like crazy money.

was huge. I was just totally thrilled. And now you've got to write the book. But around that time I guess you somehow kinda got on the radar screen of the New York Times. How did how did that happen? Yeah, so I you know, while I was working on the book and I think even leading up to the proposal, I had started pitching newspapers and magazines. You know, and I think that what I was imagining was going to happen after I finished my book was that I would then become a freelance writer.

And I actually moved home to Pennsylvania and I lived in my mom's house for a year and wrote my book. And towards the end of that I decided I was gonna move to Los Angeles because I had a boyfriend who lived there. And I felt like that would That would be a boost to my freelance opportunities because the woods of Pennsylvania was not going to do much for me. So um I started making a plan to leave and

four days before I left, um, I got a phone call from the New York Times from an editor at the New York Times. Uh Yeah, saying that he was ent he had heard about me and was interested in talking with me, which was uh quite a shock. You got this call from an editor at the New York Times. Do who was the editor?

Rick Flasted. And Rick says Hey. You want to come.

Yeah. And I you know, I explained I was moving to LA and he said, Well, can you come before and so the day I think it was the day before I went and The day before you were supposed to move to LA? To move to LA, yeah. Wow. And I it was a warm spring day, like a r like a r an unseasonably h warm spring day, and I didn't the only nice clothes I had were wool pants and a suede jacket that I'd bought when I was a student in London. And so I wore them. And I just poured sweat the entire time'cause I was so nervous. And he was an editor at the f at the dining and dining out section?

He was actually creating the diamond. Yes. And so they were really they were staffing up. They were really investing in it. And I you know, I did the interview and then I moved because I thought L like I'm not gonna get this job. And so about a month later they said we know we like to fly you to New York uh for a day of interviews and so they did that and I needed, you know, uh help from like I didn't have a car, I didn't have, you know, so um my mom drove you know, drove me to the city and you flew back to to Pennsylvania and she drove you to New York. Yeah. Yeah, she drove me to New York. And then because I thought I had this idea that oh the New York Times, it's probably has this like beautiful lobby and there are sofas and she can like hang out down there while I go upstairs and do my interviews.

Definitely not in nineteen ninety seven. Oh my gosh. It so we walk in and it's like These like it's this tiny little entryway and I and so I had to call up and say, like, you know, can I I brought my mom, can I bring her? And uh so I ended up you know, they they ended up sitting my m you know, welcoming my mom and being completely gracious about the fact that I was bringing my mom to my job interview. And and and of course you ended up getting the job, right? And and so Presumably you moved to to New York. Yeah, I moved to New York City. And meanwhile, I I I'm assuming you're still working on on that book, ba based on the time that you were in France, uh, which would become The Cook and the Gardener. Uh

And you were I think you were like what twenty five or something at the time? I was twenty four and all of a sudden I you know s I started a job in an office and I had a cubicle and you know, at the New York Times, you know, uh the first day I had an assignment. They were like, Yep, you're gonna write about mushrooms. And um so I just was like and I had never written a really a news story before. And I remember after I handed in my first story Rick Flast was editing it and he said Well where's your nut graph?

And the nut graph is that gr paragraph if you look in a newspaper story, that's usually like, you know, the second or third paragraph in. It's basically what the story is going to be about. And I Said Well, what's in that graph? And and he literally just slapped his forehead and turned back to his computer because I think he was like, Oh my God, what have we done? You know, we've hired this person who knows nothing about this business. And that was true. But again, it was sort of liberating because I just figure it out and also kind of found my way to towards like r you know writing the kinds of things that

you know, I felt like I as a consumer wanted to read about and um and that you know, the times hadn't really been doing uh up until then. You know, I did you know, I did product reviews, I you know, I I I did these like intense tests of like how to cook duck a million different ways. I you know, I um and it was It was a dream job. Did it feel super competitive? Did it feel like, oh my God, all these other writers are like Ivy League kids and Here I am from Scranton and I don't know, d did you Did you feel any of that?

I think people were interested in the fact that I had an unconventional background and so I was I didn't I didn't mind I actually don't Think of the Times as a s as a particularly like snobby place about like your resume. It's really about the work you're doing. They're really focused on like what you're producing. It is incredibly competitive. It's not warm and fuzzy. And that was a little bit Um that was challenging because not only was I not

Like I there was everyone was like much older and had like, you know, kids and um just different uh you know, they were in a different stage of life and so it was hard to feel like you were really fitting in. But on top of it, no one was really mentoring you. Um, you know, I Like We never had team meetings. I can't think of like a formal one on one that I had with anyone. It was it was very much like sink or swim. It was a little bit of a tough love culture. And um you were

you were pushed to to raise your game, right? So there there were good things too, and I think I I guess I'm a f I'm a fan of of some struggle. But I think for me, like what I found over time was that, you know, when you are writing about other people, you are ultimately you're an observer. And then actually over time what happened was I became more of an editor. I moved to the magazine. I I I started editing there. And you know, an editor, you're kind of helping nurture the observers who are observing the doers, right? And

I I finally I think came to the conclusion correctly that I I'm a doer. And I needed to get back to it. I I know that uh that Ruth Reichel, who is a uh a f a famous restaurant critic at the at the New York Times when you were there.

uh and and later became the editor at at Gourmet. Um described you in her memoir as quote. Frighteningly ambitious.

Um What did you what did you make of that assessment? I You know I I didn't love it, obviously, because everyone in the food world wants to be liked by Ruth Reichel. But I also understood it.

It was tr it you know, I was ambitious and I think I've I've been that way since I was, you know started talking. I don't think I've been shy about it. But did you Did you in your mind think what's wrong with that? Well, exactly. And I but I I think it goes back to, you know, things that I picked up very early on in my life, which were that Where I grew up.

you know, and I I don't say where I grew up, but really like in my I would say my family it wasn't women were not cel necessarily celebrated. And there was a lot of sexism and I picked up on it really early and felt like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna let this hold me back. And so, you know, I just just very quickly, you know, as a child,

I didn't want to play softball because girls played softball. So I played hardball with the boys. And I you know, I just was I felt very determined from a very early age that I was gonna prove them wrong. So when it it came time for my career, I guess it it was just ingrained in me that I felt like it was okay to be ambitious. Um And Yeah, I've I've done a I've done a fair amount of therapy. Um and so w actually when I saw that comment and you know, and I I I really like like Ruth and I think that like

Yeah. people make these kinds of um, you know, have this sort of subtext in in what they're saying often, but you know, I felt like frightening frighteningly ambitious Well, maybe maybe it is frightening to older who sees someone come along who's doing things differently and who isn't, you know, isn't conforming to the kind of norms of how they express themselves around their career. And

I I really I have empathy for that. I under I understand that. It must have been sort of strange. Like why is the Times hiring somebody like this who seems really so focused on success and you know d isn't Isn't she gonna kind of like wait for her turn? I've seen you Describe yourself. during that period is and I think this is a direct quote, um

Um I I managed to find ways to piss people off in new ways. Um do you think that that is true? Because I I mean

I wonder if if if Maybe Maybe people you know. Like you and We're happy with what you did and that was it.

Oh I well, I like that version. I No I I look back I you know what I think my my perspective now is we know with some distance is simply that You know, the New York Times

Is this storied institution But it's also a corporation. And corporations most corporations, you know Things are done. with a lot of you know, there are there are lotta layers, there's a lot of bureaucracy

Um things take time. And this is Іно, з ним вод. You were a young person in a hurry. you know, I again I I came from a background that was very different, but also, you know, I worked I had worked in kitchens and and bakeries were and you know, in in a very different work environment where you really had to kind of ask for what you wanted and you you had to be direct and you had to just kind of go and get things done on your own. So it was very um

Out. side of my understanding and comfort zone to like un like to realize that if I wanted to do something like the quote the proper way, I needed to, you know, talk to a bunch of different people first and kind of get their buy-in and then you know sort of let the process unfold in the way that it does. I just yeah, I ha I I really didn't have patience for it. Cause I felt like whenever I see kind of a a good opportunity, I want to go after it. When we come back in just a moment.

Why Amanda Left the Safety of the Ніорк Таймс. start her first online business. And what happened after that business? hit a total dead end. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this. Welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz.

So by the mid two thousands. Amanda Hesser had become a star food writer at the New York Times. And she decided to take on a really big project. A collection of recipes that would eventually become a classic and a bestseller.

The essential New York Times cookbook. It was an idea I came up with. I again was itching. for something new to tackle and I was thinking about

um a you know, a cookbook and comprehensive cookbook that had recipes from the Times. That's right. The Times has been writing about food since the eighteen fifties and in the eighteen like sixties, seventies, eighties They wrote about food. All the time. And it was actually mostly crowd sourced.

And It was really detailed and really Just like filled with personality and also very surprising. There are things like There's a recipe from the nineteenth century for Dulce de Leche. There's um a recipe

For uh raspberry granita, which honestly will rival the River Cafe um strawberry sorvet. It's so good. Well and there were just a lot of like sort of surprising gems in there. What I didn't realize at the time was just like how the depth of the archives and that it would take five years of work to um to cook really thro through the archives. And the first thing I did was ask readers in the New York Times Um what

their favorite tfr we called it the m your most stained recipes. That was the the the headline. And we asked people to send them in, sent to like let us know. And I got thousands and thousands of emails and then people actually sent me in their yellowed you know, newspaper clippings or you know, they're the clippings that they had marked up and then photocopied for me and um and that became the foundation of what I used to for recipe testing for the book. Wow. In that project you also met

Somebody who would be um pivotal later on. Uh in your career, Meryl Stubbs.

Once I started once I realized oh, I have a full time job and I've just signed up for this giant book project. I'm gonna need help. I asked around, you know, if anyone knew anyone who was you know, who had some cooking experience who could help me with recipe testing and research, and a colleague of of mine at the New York Times um introduced me to Merrill and Meryl had she had gone to cooking school in London, she'd gone to La Cordon Bleu, she um had had her own catering business, she had worked at a a flower bakery in Boston and you know, we had some parallels in our in our training and she had just moved back to New York and was looking

looking uh to figure out what you wanted to do next. So it was this kind of amazing timing, I hired her to help me t on with the research and recipe testing and We spent You know, five years working together on it. Wow. Yeah.

All right, so you're you're working on on that book. And in meantime, I guess this is this is around like two thousand seven, two thousand eight. Um I'm clearly You were restless. You are restless at this point. And and and you sort of start to think about starting a business around this time. Uh

And this is a business that I should mention. had nothing to do with food. And you got kind of serious about this idea. You were still uh at the time. So tell me what this idea was. Yeah, so I think that there was a piece of me that felt limited by being defined by only like my food expertise, and I felt like I wanted to do something more. And There's a thread in my writing. That's about documenting

time and history and you know, it came up in my first book, um, you know, documenting this year with this gardener. certainly is a huge thread in the New York Times cookbook, which is a you know, a re this sort of document of of cooking over time. Um Like I I've always been and really embraced technology, and so I was really fascinated by the fact that our lives were being recorded. in really intense detail in the way it never you know, in ways that n had never been done before. Like whether whether it was the music we were listening to or the messages we were sending to each other, the news we were reading, the photos that we were taking and sharing.

But it was very fragmented and I felt like at the time, well, we're going you're going to want to have this all pulled together into some kind of seamless package that you can so that you can distill your you know, you could look back on, you know, a year or a day and see You know what What music were you listening to? What phot you know, what were the photos, what were like w get a fuller picture of your life history and it was a very big idea. And so I l I left the times In two thousand and eight. To pursue this idea.

It was called Sea Winkle. And just again to kind of describe it, it was gonna be like A social media platform where people could No. It was gonna be this a dynamic timeline. Where could like Like

hook in your Twitter feed, your you know, your any like now you could hook in your Instagram feed, your w w your n the news sources that you read and you could like, you know, zoom in to a day, you could zoom out and and it would, you know, highlight like you know, if you zoomed out for a year, you know, and maybe it would show you like the most important what were deemed, you know, using technology, the most important sort of five photos of the year or the s five songs that you l listen to most, or, you know, important moments, seemingly important moments based on um you know, uh distilling distilling the data. Right. So it was a very like a big sort of data play. And I became fixated with this idea. I decided to pursue it. So I started going to, you know, st startup meetups, and I you know, I use my reporting skills, right? I I just started calling people and New York's tech culture then was kind of, you know, it was like a small neighborhood. Yeah. It was really kind of cozy and people were friendly and, you know, you could get meetings with

people pretty easily and people were generous with their time because they were everyone was just kind of like f figuring it out and there wasn't That kind of like intensity and um that there is now. What I from what I understand, you you also something quite fortunate happened, which was the New York Times. This is the beginning of the financial crisis.

They were offering buyouts and you You took it so Which I think I'm imagining kinda scary to leave the times, but also kinda helpful'cause you were you got a little bit of cash to live off for a while. Yeah. And you know, I I talked a lot, probably um ad nauseum with my husband about it. Um

about what I should do and you know he felt really strongly and this was such great advice, he said, you know, because there's such a strong pull when you're at the times you've it's so hard to leave. And he he said, you know, you know, you're never going to give anything like the time and attention it deserves unless you just cut the cord. And Um and I I just I so love that he had that that bravery and trust um and belief because You know

Here we were, we had twins who were like one and a half. You know, he's a writer He's a New Yorker writer. Yeah, he's a New Yorker writer and We really had no safety net, but he he understood that like I had like I wasn't going to be happy if I stayed. And I think he was totally right that about, you know, my time and attention. And so I I decided to do the buyout. And of course it was totally lucky'cause it it helped kind of helped keep us financially stable for a few months while um I went down this path.

Yeah. When you when you Made the decision. to leave the times and go off and start your own thing. 'Cause that's that's that's you know, that that takes a lot of courage, right? It's a br really good job with a really good retirement plan and

They probably match some some of your retirement money and It's kinda like if you don't mess up, it's sort of like a tenured Professorship. Like it c can be a job for life. And going out and leaping out and starting something on your own. can be scary. A lot of journalists are scared. That's in an and and and many of them

And upstaying. in their organizations for that reason. Wha what do you think gave you the courage to do it? I just was feeling frustrated, and I think I was at a point in my life, you know, where I was no longer the like young kid on on staff. I I if I wanted to

have the interesting career that I had Yearn't for Like I needed to Make it happen.

You know, I'm I I love reading obituaries and I always love the obituaries of people who have, you know done like multiple like distinct things in their career because it takes that leap, it takes that that that bravery and also that sort of belief in yourself. And Yeah, I I think there was just something inside of me that

instinctively knew that I wasn't going to be happy if I stayed. and I w didn't know what was gonna happen on the outside. But it was worth taking that risk. Yeah. So so by this point

You had found I I guess some people to help With the tack side of building Seawinkle. Um And but and how did you fund it, by the way? Yeah, so I just I essentially just funded it with my savings. And I I look back at that year as

My as sort of my startup grad school year because I did nothing but s spend money. But Um and I think how much money do you remember how much it was? It was you know, it was in the tens of thousands of dollars. Like tw thirty, forty thousand? Yeah. We very, you know, quickly realized like this is a big I mean,

I had almost nothing to add on the technology front. I I was really focused on the sort of Concept business side. And um But at that point there was no business side because there was really no business. It was just about trying to get people interested in the concept and sort of trying to learn what we didn't know and and help um kind of pave the way so that we could build this prototype and maybe, you know, raise

a ro our first round. So that was the way I was thinking about it. And w you know I look back and I you know, I met with BetaWorks, I met with Fred Wilson, I met with all these like amazing investors who you could never get access to. Yeah. Yeah. And they were so nice and so supportive. But also not going to put money into it because they're very smart. And they were like this is not gonna go anywhere. Exactly. you know, it was it was not an easy year, you know, I because I of course I was feeling sort of nervous about what I got myself into, but

I was also so energized. I felt like oh I found my people. Right, I was surrounded by people who had ideas and and the sort of guts to pursue them and you know, I it just felt like oh I I know I'm on the right path e whether or not this is the right company. Um, we ultimately kind of came away at the end of the the year feeling like well this is This is a really interesting project. We don't see where the business is. And this is and to really build what we're trying to build is going to take a really big technology team. And and we're not really the team to raise the money to do that. And

One of my f one of my co founders had to move to California and it just became this kind of like natural, actually kind of seamless parting of of ways. It it's just not gonna work. And while you had this idea, you are still working on I mean you you let the times But from what I understand, you're still working on this Times cookbook, right? You were still kind of working on that project. Mm-hmm.

And with your partner who you were working with on this cookbook. Meryl. Um Were you guys starting to talk about a business idea?

Pretty much. Focused on the Seawinkle thing and And and just doing that. Well we were talking

You know, we spent a lot of time testing recipes, which meant just being in my kitchen Cooking. And there was a lot of time sort of in between steps to just Chit chat. Yeah. And

One of the things that really interested us in in the times was this was the old archive and how the parallels between what was happening on Twitter and what was happening in the newspaper in the n nineteenth century was really like fascinating to us because it was user generated content. uh recipes were written in a very tweet like form in uh in the in the nineteenth century because people already knew how to make a pastry dough, so you just had to write shorthand instructions. And we thought oh well that's so fascinating. It's kind of like history repeating itself and and it you know it made us sort of talk you know, we talked casually about like where to

like what sites we like and you know, where we're where we're going online and it's kind of just what's happening in the food world. And I you know, I had this idea and about a way to, you know, crowdsource and curate. And uh I I you know, I told Meryl about it and got her thoughts and then decided, you know, I think there's something in this. And so I went to her and asked her if she If she'd like to You know, start this company with me. So once the seawinkle

idea kinda fizzled out. It it sounds like it sort of Like dovetailed into this new idea of of a food website and and I guess with with this new company, you were gonna be going in a completely different direction than than you had been going with Seawinkle. Yeah, so one of the takeaways that came out of Seawinkle was that I felt I could see that there were two kinds of founders. There were founders who were just great at selling an idea. And the idea might not have might much substance, or they might not know a lot about whether or not it can work, but they can really just

Like spin a yarn, get people engaged. And then you know, they have the confidence that that they'll figure it out as they go. Yeah. Right? And I unfortunately do not have that DNA. But the other kind of founder tends to like want to like do proof of concept. uh, you know, bootstrap. They want they're they're the students who sit at the front of the class and like they wanna they wanna know what they're doing before they they try to sell it. And I just understood because I had done tried to do the opposite with Sea Winkle and in process realized okay, no, we've gotta really s like build a prototype. And no you know, like I I found myself gravitating towards like wanting to prove something out before I took anyone's money because I take that really seriously. It's not it's not a game to me. I don't

I don't wanna waste anyone's money. And so knowing that when it came time to try it to start a different company, I felt like it was very clear that we wanted to bootstrap as much as we could so that we could prove that there was there were legs to this idea and then we could go and raise money. And just to be clear, Amanda, your I guess your initial idea was to do a website where you would crowd source

As I understand it, um I in order to help you launch this as a business, you wanted to start Start it by writing a a a cookbook? And one of the things that I knew how to do was to sell a book and

because I felt like there was a a k a kind of clean way to test the concept. of a new l a new kind of business and a new kind of med food media company by using the construct of a cookbook. You know, and that you could y you know, create a cookbook. Through a website.

Have it be crowdsourced. test out ways of curating it and really see if people if it resonates with people. Yeah. And I felt like even if the idea did not resonate as a business and we did not see the other opportunities that we were hoping to see, Mm. I knew that we could come out with a good quality cookbook. But I really, you know, we were betting on it becoming a business.

And but we didn't want to um have to try to raise money and so that's where we use the advanced money, which is what you usually use to pay yourself as an author. Sure. You know, while you're writing the book, we spent all of that on building the site. and operating it for the first eighteen months. And back back at the time and you're like, Hey, you know, listen, the economy's tanking, I just had twins Uh what better time to start a business? Yeah. That it it was a it was kind of a ske a crazy time. Two thousand nine?

To start a business? Kinda nuts. Yeah. But not not really. We know that that we now know that like I mean Air B and B and Slack and all these companies started around that time. But but our instinct is to say, Oh, what a terrible time to start a business. Yeah, and I I think that there were two things

that um Burke here. One is actually that I am Financial security is like an obsession of mine. And it's really important. Um But I do think that I also

really understand That It's Well there's two other pieces. also equally obsessed with doing things that I care about. Um

And that I feel inspired by And I and I think from growing up and seeing my parents like take this risk, I could see that you can't like if you want that financial security. Like you have to you have to put in the work, and you have to take the risks. And so that's really like I think what I was bel you know believing, like I knew it was it was a giant financial risk for uh my family, you know, in the in the situation where we were with two young kids and a mortgage and my husband with a writer with no who who was a writer with no benefits. you know, neither of us had benefits, so we you know, we had to just um you know pay for those on our own and so our bank account was just like it was just like this ticking time bomb was just dwindling. Um but

Again, I was really determined and I just kept I sort of really kept that in the background as much as I could. It was definitely like, you know, inspiration to get me out of bed every morning, but like I really needed to focus on like building something great and not focusing so much on either our dwindling bank account or how we were gonna pay for things in the future. Yeah. And I mean I I'm I'm trying to trying to to to imagine how you would describe this to people. Like if I saw you in two thousand nine and I was like, hey, what are you working on? And you would describe it to me and I'd say, Oh, okay, so it's a website with recipes?

Is that is that what people would say to you? They would say it's a blog. A blog, okay. Yeah, I got it. And uh you know That's I I'm really glad you brought this up because it's something we still talk about at the company that It's hard to describe what we do.

And I spent a lot of time re like reminding people that that's okay. Because Actually when you're building something that's new and that's different and is gonna be the that's going to really feel natural in the future. Like

people aren't gonna necessarily have an easy way of describing it. They always want you to be the Uber of something or they want you to be something that's already just familiar to them. But we were trying to build something that just didn't exist. Yes, there are components of what we do that have been are sort of timeless, right? Recipes, helping people with their cooking and home life um you know connecting people to each other. Like our mission is timeless. but the way we're executing on it is is very different. And so yes, we spend a lot of time and sometimes I would just kind of You know, certainly socially I was like, Yep, it's a it's a food blog. You know? Um But

uh you know, I i with when it came to like investors and and you know to really try to sell it um from a business you know, on the as it from the from the business perspective, it was it was challenging and you know, and sometimes it still is. Like I still have to defend like people are like, Yes, are you a commerce business or are you a media business? And I'm like, we're both and we're also many other things. So I mean so clearly you were setting out to build A different uh kind of media company. But but but what exactly would that be? I mean w what were you imagining it it could be at at that time.

Yeah, so we felt like The flaws of traditional media were very apparent, right? Like having a w single revenue stream was not going to be lasting. have which would, you know, in traditional media is is just advertising. we also felt like traditional media was really just broadcasting at people and that with the dig with the digital age

People wanted something different. They wanted an interaction. And Separate from kind of you know, technology and media just in the food world itself. Fo had become had really sh gone through the sea change from being this kind of niche area of interest for some people to

becoming threaded throughout our culture and really threaded into people's identities. And we felt like no one was really Acknowledging that. Where you saw it was online. There were all of these bloggers who were, you know, now these blogging platforms developed in the in the mid two, you know, two thousands. And People started all of a sudden out of the word work. You know, traditional media was like kind of like we are the gatekeepers, we we're the experts, and you're just you're kind of a home cook who follows us. Then all of a sudden you saw all these people who know a ton about food and who are like

lawyers by day, or you know, who who just do this on the side, or who or who just Uh it's like their total life passion. They just don't Like make money off of it, right? And they have a lot of stuff to share and we felt like That was really interesting. There's like this constellation of creators and knowledgeable people who did not have a platform. And so that was really where our heads were. We were like, okay

We want to give those people a platform to express themselves. But a place that's centralized so that it's like it becomes this hub where you can like connect with other people, you can get a bigger audience, you can create Um uh the the the sort of foundation of a really powerful media company so much more efficiently because you can do it through user generated content as long as you figure out a way to curate it.

w how did you pitch this to potential investors? What were you I'm an investor and I'm like, Okay, nice to meet you. And I w and tell me what you're you're doing. What would you say? We

described it as we're creating this hub for people who care, you know, who see food as you know a s a central piece of their lives. And You know, it's a place where you know you can connect with others, you can you can discover, you can learn, you can figure out what to cook for dinner, you can go for inspiration. Um And

I think it's one of the things I just wanna point out is that we did yes, when we launched we were super focused on recipes and specifically recipe contests as a way to generate content. Contests. Yeah, contests. And you would you would um you would cook them or or you would judge which recipe was the best. Yes. a anybody c was welcome to participate, right? It wasn't this like this kind of gatekeeper mentality that you know we had sort of c we we were responding to.

I wanna note though, so we launched in September of two thousand nine. And By December, we launched a shop because we wanted to put a steak in the ground and say, like, this isn't just going to be recipes or content. This is like we're just getting started. We're going to Also

be a place where you can discover like a new ingredient or a new piece of cookware or something, you know, beautiful for your table. And that this was like this was taking cooking and really like playing it out in every kind of scenario of your life. And so that was a it was like an important piece. Now we didn't transact customers then. We just um had a shop where we had a friend of ours who would curate every day she would curate like a new product And then it would go into the shop and it had you know categories just like any e commerce site. But if you clicked on a product, we would tell you about it. And then if you wanted to buy it, you we would send you off to another site. Now That's really common now and there's a whole people get affiliate

You know, commissions for that. But we didn't do that because we did A affiliate. Um systems like well they sort of barely existed and they were wonky. B, we really it was so important to us to build trust. We want to be like neutral, like journalists. You didn't want people to say, Oh, they're just getting paid to promote it. We wanted them to like trust our aesthetic, trust our point of view. And that was something I I feel like so much of traditional Like the amazing parts of traditional journalism

informed how we built this company. Sure. And that was like you have to earn uh your authority. You have to earn the trust and and the way to and you you need to have like a really s like distinct aesthetic and voice Um for people to recognize you. We wanted it to feel like a home. Like you like you come you come to the site and you're like, Oh yes, like I know like if you saw a food fifty two photo photo out in the wild, you would know that it was a food fifty two photo. And food fifty two refers to fifty two weeks of the year. Right. That's right. Like we're with you fifty two weeks of the year. Right. But you're like like let's say I was an investor, right? And you were gonna come to my office because you went to investors.

In two thousand ten looking for funding. And and I would I would I would ask you, and I hope I hope this doesn't like reawaken traumatic experiences or or long buried bad experiences, but but I would say Okay, well h how are you guys gonna make money, right? Uh you you've got a website, but like w are you gonna are you gonna do advertising? I mean I mean I I'm assuming initially that at least that that was the plan, right? Yeah. We were absolutely

focus on that as our our initial primary revenue stream and that commerce would come later. And you know, there would be cookbooks and there would be events and there would be other things. Um we didn't have like a big track record to prove this. And we were also I think most more importantly, we were

Uh Two editors coming from traditional media. And media was just not Like it was in two thousand nine, two thousand ten. Like nobody wanted to invest in media. Yeah. You know, there's just the there are these shifting winds in venture capital. And I I think that like every time we went out to raise, we were always at the like

Um but I think that in in You know it. In retrospect you end up kind of with the right investors, right? Because you get a lot of no's, but you push you know, if if you can if you can push through, you know, you you end up with the with the real believers.

Uh were were you I mean I I have to imagine in the s in you know, by the summer of two thousand ten you're pitching and pitching and pitching and and from what I understand you you c you were not successful. Did you guys get to the point where you were almost out of cash? Oh yes. And we were also putting our own personal money into it. So You know, that was that was tough.

Did you get to the point where you were like maybe we should pack this in? I mean uh you'd been through Seawinkle. You saw that that wasn't working. That that wasn't gonna work. Did you ever get to the point where The two of you are like maybe maybe this just isn't gonna work. Yeah, we we had a moment um at Roberta's Pizzeria. Um I love Roberta's Yeah, we cried over pizza and but really good pizza and

Uh But you know, we just had a conv I think, you know, we needed to have a conversation of like where is our breaking point because it felt like we just we had we didn't it wasn't that we had no traction. We definitely had people interested, but we just couldn't get that lead. We couldn't get that one person to be like, I'm gonna like I'm gonna champion this round. Um there were a lot of people who were like, Yeah, I'll put in twenty five K or I'll put in this or that and then I actually like Because I'm often looking forward, I I feel like sometimes I'm not fairly good at being reflective and often with

Things that are bad memories. I sort of shoved them into a drawer somewhere in my brain. And I don't know, maybe it was a good pizza that we were just like, yes, we're gonna keep going. when we come back in just a moment, how Amanda was slowly able to build Food 52 out of her apartment. Where she did photo shoots in the bedroom. and tested barbecue recipes on the balcony. Stay with us, I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to how I built this.

from NPR. Welcome back to how I built this from NPR. I'm Guy Raz. So by late 2010, Amanda Hesser and her co-founder, Meryl Stubbs, had had no success pitching their idea to investors and were just about out of cash. And it all led to a sad conversation at a pizzeria where they almost called it quits. But they didn't.

And six weeks later They finally managed to secure an investment. And it was seven hundred and fifty thhous. And this is from friends, family, angels, anybody you could find. Actually it wasn't really friends and family. It was actually mostly institutional or professional angel investors. Um we wanted this vetted by people who do this all the time and who, you know, could be really adding to the business. And with that, Seven hundred fifty thousand dollars.

Were the two of you. Finally able to pay yourselves. A salary?'Cause I imagine that you were You know.

were making a pretty good salary at the times when you left, were you now finally making The same salary? Oh no. Um No, you know, I at this point I was like financially gasping for air. Uh, you know, it wasn't pretty. But obviously having the funding felt like We were we were heading in the right direction. But you know, we we didn't want to be spending the money on ourselves. Like we uh you know, w so we gave ourselves thousand dollars. Um which is l uh

what I made in nineteen ninety seven when I was hired at the New York Times. Wow. And what were you able to do with the rest of the money? Were you guys able to hire people? Yeah. We st we were able to s begin hiring. We hired sort of engineers and editors and Yeah, we just we were able to then start like building more because we had we had nice traction.

Um but we also I think you know we understood that we were up against We were gonna build the company differently than what the expectation in venture capital was which was that which is to put a lot of money well, at the time and I again I'm this is a probably a g a gross generalization, but The it was to you know, you'd put a lot of money into paid marketing and also you would crank out content at an insane rate. You know, this was this was the begin like this this was the age of Huffington Post when these like sort of new kinds of media organizations started really gaining steam and and they were

they were just like increasing content volume, you know, um by the such a ma a great magnitude. And and we didn't want to do that. Like we we wanted to build a brand and a relationship with people And we wanted to do it organically and we knew it was gonna take time. And so we were really careful about how we spent the money because we didn't just make a bunch of hires or spend a m a bunch of money on marketing. In fact, I don't even think we spent any money on marketing for years. Because we just didn't have it. It was we were really focused on just keeping the business going while we You know built this new path.

Now, here's the thing. I mean you are I'm I'm trying to figure out how you guys were kind of building. building out the site and and and the the aesthetic of it because you had to make recipes, you had to make things and then photograph them Did you guys do this in your own kitchens? Did you rent

A kitchen? Where did you start to do that? So we did this in my apartment where I still live. Every Tuesday was our photo shoot day. And so we and that, you know, in the beginning was Meryl and me and I think one other person and we would and a and a photographer who we hired and we would, you know, cook all the recipes and style them and then shoot them in my bedroom. In your bedroom. Yes. Because that was that that was where the best natural light was. We had the northern light and so we would clear off uh one of our bedside tables and set it up and You know, and I it it was really important to us that it was done in in a h a home environment, that it wasn't overly styled, that it had style, but it wasn't it it felt real. Because I think we were trying to get across the message that this is really about like

real people in their homes. And But we're with the the sort of elevated, you know, a little bit of elevated styling and, you know, really beautiful photography that you that you can get. W what were you making? We were

Cooking you know, recipes that our community were uploading to the site and you know that we were you know kind of adding through our curation process and like cakes or trays. It was oh sorry, it was like everything from, you know, salads to cakes to stews, braises, grilled food. You know, I had a little grill out on we have a little um terrace, so we I have a little Weber grill out there. And so sometimes we'd have to go and shoot out there. And you know, but it ultimately it's really it was stuff that can be cooked in a home because that was that's our premise, right? We're really all about the home. In in that first year or first two years. Most people were going to the site, presumably just Not just, but to get recipes, do you think?

Recipes, food articles, yeah. Mm-hmm. And given that you didn't have budget for marketing or you weren't spending m money on marketing, Were you able to get attention because you were Amanda Hesser of the New York Times? I I think it helped in the beginning. We had a very lucky thing happen early on, actually before we launched. We had a splash page up

Uh where we could collect email addresses. And We did a video that was just a video tour of my my kitchen. And because of we wanted that was that was another element. We wanted people to like be able to upload their own videos, show us what they were doing, you know, show us their kitchens. Um again we were just trying to sort of

plant little seeds of the different things that we felt like, you know, could be done. We put that video up on Vimeo. And didn't put a password on it because we were like, you know, nobody Nobody knows that. Nobody knows we're working on this. We just felt like food people aren't on Vim Vimeo necessarily. Well, it turns out that somebody from Serious Eats, which is another website, was on Vimeo and found it and published it. And that was and and it was essentially like hey, you know

Amanda Hesser and Meryl Stubbs are up to the s on the they're working on something new and you know we've got like the first scoop on it. And it was sort of this gift because what happened was thousands of people signed up on our splash page. And so which allowed us to do a closed beta where we could let like a couple hundred people in per day. So that when we finally launched, we already had, you know t like ten thousand, I think, community members, and we got a lot of good media coverage. In fact, I remember um Scoop. wrote about it on our uh our launch week and uh Daily Candy did and both of them like broke our site. Like they they our s our site went down because we obviously didn't have

the most amazing technology at that point. When did it become clear to you that advertising was not going to advertising alone was not gonna be Able to to to sustain it. I think that was clear very early. And I I think that there are a lot of c a lot of people actually still say to me, They're like, Oh, right, so you you know, you added a shop so that you could you know have

like a different f revenue stream. And it's like, well no, no, that's not that's not why we did it. We really were focused on like what Like if we're gonna say this is a hub, we're creating a hu real hub, we have to be able to serve people in a lot of different ways. So we focused on how we wanted to serve them and then we figure out how to monetize them. In the beginning it's just that like advertising was an is very established mechanism for funding media, right, online and it It was

Of course, we needed to develop that as a core revenue stream. But if we were only gonna build our business around that, we were just gonna be a media company and that wasn't our goal. Mm. And and and of course over the years you've you've I think largely moved away from ads. Um and and and you now get the Bulk of your revenue assuming from

from your online shop and and your partnership with with hundreds of of brands where you like sell food and home goods and and you do videos and podcasts and and events and and all kinds of things. Mm-hmm. And I'm assuming that that's meant that throughout the years you needed to raise a lot more money, right? I know around Uh twenty seventeen you you started to raise money for a series B round. Um

And From what I I understand there was a l a little bit of a crisis because one of your uh lead investors at the time basically like pulled out, right?

From the quote I read, he said something like Like you guys weren't focused and Uh and I and I guess this investor Kind of ghosted you. Um

What What happened? I I don't know fully what happened, um, because I I haven't heard the other side. Sure. I can sort of only glean from the signals, but We had in I you know

Previously Try to understand what Right, like how they thought about exits and like what were like what was on their mind. And it's always a delicate conversation. And I think

Um that conversation for this particular investor like signaled that like You know somehow like perhaps we wanted out, which wasn't the case. So then when we wanted to raise money, I think he felt like it was Like th those were those were maybe con for him confusing messages and

You know, it was it was a very strange experience because I think up until that point we'd had very supportive investors. And so it was really just like I think somehow we We like lost his um gaze and um and You know, he just checked out. I mean this is twenty seventeen You lose the confidence of a former lead investor.

Mm-hmm. That must have been I would imagine. Uh stressful at the very least. It was really stressful. I mean I was

On uh spr uh like winter break with my kids and I I just had to like forge on and try to, you know, put a smile on my face and prefer them and like have a good time that day. But I was really tortured inside. We've had so many t like honestly like gut wrenching ter terrifying moments on It's like you know, th I think that it in some ways that you you kinda you do build up a a

a thicker skin for them, but they're also in some like they they sort of hit you harder over time because you just like they're I I fully expect that like we we will have other you know other challenges in the future too. It's like I'm I'm ready for them, but um but and I probably am s more steeled for them, but they're They're they're pretty horrifying because they really can um change the fate of a company.

Amanda, by your own account, and I say this as somebody who totally identifies with this. And I appreciate your Vulnerability on this. You have said

In the early days of this business you gained a reputation for being difficult. hard driving and not at all warm. Um which is a reputation not a

R reflection of reality, of course. Um How did you how did you discover that that was Your reputation. Or that your perceived reputation. Oh well, I would hear about it, um, but I would it it you know, once we started doing employee surveys and I

you know, reading through them, you know, could sometimes be quite painful. And I don't think I even realized it. It was just You know, again Like it certainly was how I was raised. You know, that was definitely not a like you know, it wasn't super Um

There was a lot there was such a tough love element to like how I was raised, but also, you know, my work experience to into before starting the company was, you know, at the times, which is definitely not a warm and fuzzy place. And I've always been, you know Kind of. assertive and um and ambitious and So Um it you know, it just took me a while to understand that how

I think as a leader you have a different impact than you do on some you know, when you say something than you do when you're a colleague. And I think once I started to uh see that it just you know it was it was very clear that Um I I should work on it. Um, I just there was one em one employee survey that where someone referred to Meryl as The nice one.

And I thought that was I mean, we we joke about it still, but um not I'm not something I'm proud of, but I can laugh at it at least, you know. You guys did eventually raise uh money for a series B round. Mm-hmm. By this point you had like more than fifty employees You know, it's expensive to create a content site. You've got photographers and videographers and

I mean that I have to imagine you were still had to be super careful with money. Yeah, we've always been super careful with money and I think through the B round we had raised only

thirteen million dollars. That's a really small amount. I mean it's a huge amount of money in my in my view, but it you know, in this world in the industry, it's it's a pretty small amount to fund a company of our size. And um but yeah, so we've always had to be just ver you know, really pretty scrappy and you know, we've never been that sort of shiny new object that like, you know, where everyone wants to you know, we're it we're we were never the employer who was like paying the most or who had the the most you know, the snaziest perks and punk tables. Yeah, we just you know, we had snacks we had we had good snacks, but but you know, we didn't have the other all the other kind of accoutrement that you know that certainly people look for in startups.

In twenty nineteen, a big part of the the business was was purchased, a majority stake, was purchased by an outside investment group. Um and I think you guys were valued at a hundred million dollars. um which and also and a huge infusion of cash into the business. Mm-hmm. This happened in in before the pandemic, shortly before the pandemic, a few months before. But I have to imagine that really has enabled you to actually Supercharge growth.

Yeah, I mean the structure of that investment, um you know, meant that yes, we got a bigger certainly a bigger infusion of cash than we we had ever seen. But they were all you know, it wasn't the invest total investment amount, a lot of the investment went into um you know, buying out existing investors, former employees who had who had vested stock and um things like that, which were amazing and really great to be able to do at that at that what I really feel was a turning point for the company. And yes, but it has but it has given us, you know, funding to um, you know, grow our team, um, in you know, invest in more senior leadership, which has been really amazing, and to be, you know, invest in in new areas of the business. Uh bearing in mind who listens to the show, which is, you know, it's a big audience, but it's also a lot of people are starting up their own businesses are looking for inspiration.

Um did you guys eventually were you able to to reach profitability or or not? Quite yet. So uh in twenty twenty we did and um So that was the first time you guys that's that's pretty great. I mean it's and it's it's a reminder that this can take a long time. Takes a long time. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And

every year it we'd have kind of more profitable months. than the last, um, but we weren't entirely profitable, but we had you know, we were definitely on the path toward it. And you know, and twenty twenty was a really You know. Um for companies that are focused on

Cooking and home. Um naturally those were companies that people were very f were very interested in and needed help from and support from uh during the pandemic. So You know, we had a lot of

um really strong organic growth. Last year. So it takes a while. It's a it I mean, you know. And and to stay with it. For eleven years until you get

become profitable. That also takes A lot of grit. I mean Right. You know, it it it can that I I that idea can be stressful.

Yeah, I I think Uh again though, I I really am focused on the long game and I I think it's important Two I don't we we the way we've run the business is really f uh like focus on like

writing running it as lean as possible, but really staying focused on the long game. Cause there are going to be years, you know, even if you're profitable, you might decide Well, in order for us to get grow to that next stage, we're gonna intentionally spend and invest um in that growth and that means the next year we're not gonna be profitable. Um companies do that all the time. And I it's just so I think that I'm I'm I'm focused on the health of the business and not overly obsessed on the profitability yet.

When I I know that in last November, um your co founder Merrill stepped down. um f a as president, I think she's still involved with the company and is on the board. Um How about you? I mean, I know that you're committed to this and and you know, you've got an investor on board who wants you there, but

Imagine at some point, you know, you you will Probably Mm-hmm. move on and and and maybe start something new or maybe not. I don't know. What do what do you think? I'm so happy doing what I'm doing and

I sh I'm sure that anyone who's listened to like my my history, you know, yes, I had been restless many times and I'm always looking for things that are different and new and ways to innovate and I'm But uh That's the beauty of r of starting a company, right? Is that ever like there are new problems to solve every day and there are new challenges. And you know, I think that in the beginning, um, you know, I hit I I mentioned earlier that I'd wanted to like do something that was outside of food initially.

But I think you know, I've come to really value that I have domain expertise in an area that really matters to me and matters to my like my life outside of work too. And so it's really um I'm excited to push this as far as we can and And Meryl, um she left at sort of this perfect time. I you know, it was like she left when we you know, we got into a point where it felt like We had built something really great together and

Um, you know, and she wants wanted to take some time with her family and like kinda figure out what's next. So You know Uh not everybody, you know, can or or decides to leave at you know at it at sort of an ideal time, I feel like we we we both lucked out, right?

Um, she l she was able to leave at a time when she can feel like, Way, wow, you know, we did build this great thing and it was at a time when I you know, like we had this we had new funding where, you know, I could really um like build up my uh leadership team and you know because when with her leaving, you know, there was definitely gonna be there were gonna be some gaps. I know that you kind of You had this um

You you kinda grew up in this entrepreneurial family and and With your dad who was You know, as you describe him this kind of charismatic. Um more of a risk taker, but um and and of course he passed away when you were so young. Um

And I don't know, I I I mean do you ever think about what Wha what he might have thought of of of you seeing you as a you know, running running a business and having started this business and and where it's gone? I think he would have been super excited. Um, and it that's sort of devastating because he never got to see it. Um

And I was pretty you know, like in a not a great state when he when he died and Um But I I think you know, he was always like a a Yeah.

conflicted person, um, in that, you know, he yes, he was sexist, but he was incredibly supportive of me and always told me I could do whatever I wanted. And Yeah, I think that Um he would have been so pleased. And yeah, I I'm I'm sorry, he can't he can't know.

But your mom who who was like why are you Right? She was like, W what's my daughter doing in life? Then you got this job with the New York Times and she was so proud of you and she must have been so f Concerned when you left that job.

Yeah. She she was. I mean, she I I think she was really affrightened and unhappy that I left the Times. My mom is just you know, she she's of a generation where women weren't encouraged, and my mom is a really, like ambitious, smart, savvy person who You know, unfortunately, like hasn't gotten to pursue her dreams. And so I think you know she's been a great supporter. She she definitely has like a a tough love way about her, but it, but I also think that's been really inspiring for me. And I think that like, yeah, part part of my goal is to like, you know, prove that w you know women can can do these things, right? And you know, show my mom and like

Um could I take advantage of the fact that I you know, like of the opportunities that she didn't have, because I think that's what she would want, right? And so um I think that's why when I left the New York Times, she thought like What are you doing? Like you like you have this amazing job. Why would you ever leave? And and so she Uh in her her way, um she would refer to Food Fifty Two as a my project.

Um, even when we had twenty employees. Your project. Now she calls it a company and she's very happy, but you know, it it took a few years. W I asked. pretty much everybody comes on the show this question and I and I'm I'm I'm I'm in the process of modifying it, but I'll ask you a version of it, which is when you think about your story and your journey and and the success you've had, how much of that do you attribute to how hard you worked in your skill and how much do you tribute that to

luck. And how much do you attribute that to I don't know? other things. Your your lot in life, the advantages you might have had. What what what do you think? Yeah, I I I think it's a really a blend of all of that. I definitely believe that in luck

Um and I think you You have to show up in order to be be there to be lucky. Um, and so that kinda like they're all tied, right? They're all to me like So tied together. I even think, you know, like my Um birth order.

a big impact on like what you end up doing. Like I was the I was the last child you know in my siblings were all born right in a row. And then there was a five year break and then I was born. And so like I mean the joke in the family is that I was the mistake. But because my parents had sort of been done with parenting, they took Much I was sort of like this kind of fun, oh right, you know, parenting is fun and it's interesting and now we have more time to pay attention to you and like so I think that that had a big influence on my feelings of um that I could that I could do things and that I was empowered and that I didn't have to follow all the rules and you know and I think that really kind of fed into my entrepreneurial side. What are you cooking these days?

Actually it's funny, I'm making a cake tomorrow. I find that doing cakes these days is very gratifying and um and sort of soothing because, you know, I can measure and it's like and then this magical thing happens in the oven and it poofs up and it becomes something that, you know, we can ha you know, that pleases everyone and um yeah, I've I have found that c that cakes are I I w I wish I could tell you that I was st like still keeping my sourdough starter from early in in the pandemic alive, but I I haven't been. That's Amanda Hesser, co founder of Food 52. By the way, if you've ever seen the movie Julie and Julia, There's a scene where Amy Adams, who plays the food blogger Julie Powell,

is freaking out because a certain famous New York Times writer is coming to dinner. What if she doesn't eat pork? She's a food writer, of course she eats pork. You'll be fine. Is she early? Matt Rider was of course Amanda Hester from the New York Times. Who played herself in the film and in that scene turned out to be the perfect dinner guest.

Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show this week. If you're not a subscriber to the podcast, please do subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. If you want to write to us, our email address is hivtnpr.org. If you want to follow us on Twitter, we're at how I built this or at Kai Raz. Our Instagram is at HowIBiltThisNPR and mine is at guy.ros where I often post my food recipes. This episode was produced by Rachel Faulkner with music composed by Repteen Arabului. Thanks also to Liz Metzger, Farah Safari, Dereth Gales, JC Howard, Julia Carney, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers.

Our intern is Janet Ujong Li. I'm Guy Raz and you've been listening to how I built this. This is NPR.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.