LÄRABAR: Lara Merriken (2018)

Really quick before we start the show, I want to remind you about an upcoming live recording of the podcast. It's happening in Denver on November 13th at the Paramount Theater. I'll be interviewing Kurt Richardson, he's the creator of the Otterbox Phone Case. And if you haven't been to one of our live shows before, they are super fun. They're a chance to see me and to meet other builders and fans of the show. It's all brought to you by American Express and we'd love to see you there, so to get tickets. Go to NPRPresents dot org And I hope to see you in Denver. So Lara Marriken was one of those people who owned a cuisine art but never bothered to use it, until one day she decided to make a new type of a snack bar.

So out came the Quison Art. And about three years later Out came Larabar. If you haven't heard it, it's an incredible story that first ran in March of last year, and if you have heard it, Totally worth hearing again. Enjoy.

Oh. What uh what happened to that name? Well, the trademarking attorney Called me at the eleventh hour. And we were getting ready to launch. It was the year 2002, summer, and she said, I think you're gonna need to change the name.

And I just Thought. You're joking, right? I've left working at Whole Foods. and we're supposed to be launching, but we don't launch.

And everybody's backing out. Because nothing's happening. From NPR, it's how I built this, a show about innovators, entrepreneurs, idealists, and the stories behind the movements they built. Guy Roz, and on today's show, how Lara Merricken threw dates, cashews, and dried cherries into her cuisine art. Turn that mushy mix into Lara Bar.

One of the best selling energy bars in America. So, if you've recently walked to the energy bar section of the supermarket, you might be surprised or rather overwhelmed by the number of choices. I mean for starters, there are hundreds of different types of energy bars, which is kind of crazy if you think about it, they're protein bars and paleo bars and whole thirty and vegan and gluten free and cacao infused with matcha powder, there is probably an energy bar out there for each and every one of us. And that whole revolution

It really got started in the 1990s with Cliff Bar. And if you've heard previous episodes of the show, you might have heard our interview with Gary Erickson, who actually invented those cliffbars. Well, in the early two thousands, Lara Marriken came up with a pretty simple concept that shockingly wasn't really out there in the world. It was an energy bar made from two or three raw ingredients like almonds or cashews, All bound together with dates. Now Larabars may not seem like a big deal today, right? You can get them pretty much anywhere at any 7 Eleven. But back in the day. They were kind of revolutionary.

And how she even came to inventing them to Building this brand. Well, there was no direct path. Lara never intended to start her own business or even to sell a product. She grew up in the Denver area. Her parents ran a pretty successful high-end clothing store, and Lara was really into sports. She was actually good enough to make the USC women's volleyball team. But after she graduated from college with a degree in psychology,

She wasn't really sure what to do. So she came back to Denver and got a job as a social worker. And she started to work with kids and teenagers. who needed help. It was hard.

I mean Just emotionally difficult job. It was intense it was always chaotic. Um we were on call every six weeks I had to call this is at a time where I had to carry a pager round. Remember the pager days? Yeah. And if the pager went off at two in the morning because somebody ran away from our treatment facility, you had to answer the phone call. But it was it was intense work and to see

You know. 15 year old girls, four actually 13 year old girls with kids, and I had to manage their care with the uh judicial system. I went to court a lot, I made recommendations, It was one of the most stressful jobs I've ever had in my life, and I was in my early twenties. How long did it take you before you You got burnt out. Like

A year and a half. So so by a year and a half you're doing this and You just decide this is not This is not for me. I I knew I needed to change what the landscape looked like. So

I wanted to help these kids, but I wanted to do it in more of a recreational component. I didn't want it feel like I was the police all the time. And so I became a community involvement leader and I got these kids involved in the community. How long did you do that for? Uh about four years.

I really loved being in the more recreational component with these kids and kind of Opening their eyes to a bigger world. And hoping that

They saw opportunity for themselves. That was very gratifying. Like sports with them and take them for like nature walks and stuff like that? I would do anything and everything. I mean, we went to a natural food grocery store one day and got a tour of that and Then I would take them to Rocky's games'cause somebody would donate the tickets and then we had the

cat petting club and I take them to the local animal shelter'cause they couldn't have pets in their homes and then we would have our community garden and so it was a year round program. They'd come after school and then during the summer, I basically ran a summer camp. And then I would teach them how to cook and do arts and crafts. I mean anything I could think of to do, I would do so this was like your MBA. That was your management training. It was it was good. It was It was really fun. I mean, to this day I still think about these children and I wonder Where they are, what's happened, what they're doing. So during this time that I was being a social worker

Working as a social worker, I was also cultivating this passion for natural foods. How did that happen? Well So let's go back to college. College volleyball are Our coach had a rule of

No sugar and no red meat. So at the time I was totally into junk food. I was eighteen years old. You know, my favorite place to eat was any fast food restaurant you can name and Then I all of a sudden I'm starting stopping eating sugar. And

No red meat. And and he just and just to and just be clear, he felt that Uh no red meat, no sugar would result in Uh and better performance from his players. Yes. And did he did he like enforce this rule?

Oh yes. This wasn't a joke. This was real. No, this was very real. Like it was a rule in the team and And that was a by the way, must have been an intense team and that's that's division one Volleyball

USC, which is a major, like Pac Ten school. Oh yes. Um I remember thinking I can't believe I have the opportunity to play volleyball on this team. I will do anything this man tells me to do.

And Then I all of a sudden I'm starting stopping eating sugar. And no red meat. It it was really an interesting experience. So I started feeling better. So That was the first light bulb that went off for me.

Post college, I'm you know, I'm working as a social worker, I start doing all this reading. And then I started having migraines. I started getting migraines out of nowhere. I'd never had them. And I got a blood test and learn that I was actually very allergic to wheat. Wow. You'd been eating wheat your whole life and and after college you you discovered this? Yes. I mean We've in the E everything. So this is in the early nineties at the time, and there wasn't really many options. And their their solution to this is Stop eating wheat. And I'm thinking, Well what am I gonna eat?

So at the time I didn't even really know how to cook much. My you know, I grew up with two working parents. My mom went to school and It was just frozen food like slaving over the stove, everything's not. No, it was very much convenient food oriented. So I really didn't even know how to cook. Well I had to learn how to cook for myself because I had such a limited diet, and I got introduced to natural foods at the time. So things like kale and quinoa and all the things that we kind of know now as normal were totally foreign to me. Especially in the mid nineties, like

It was weird to me at first. And then I had I thought well I'm gonna embrace this and so I would read everything I could. about recipes and nutrition, and I just got into it and I made the most of it. Yeah. So then I started thinking to myself in the background of going through this whole experience and feeling better, I thought, I don't know. I love natural foods. This makes such

This is common sense to me. Why don't people know about this? Why isn't somebody teaching us About Healthy food. And so my passion started to build. uh so I g I guess at at a certain point you stopped uh working with kids and and did you find another job or did you uh did you kind of start to just

Like did you start to think about what you had to what you want to do? Well I knew I had an excitement and passion for natural foods. I just didn't know how I was gonna make a transition between Being a social worker. And natural foods.

They were two completely different worlds. What was going on in your personal life? Were you single at the time? I was married. And I was in the middle of Getting divorced. Wow. So is a huge change for me. And I realized that I needed to get a divorce in the middle of all of this.

So you were m you were young young woman married and getting divorced. Yes. And and thinking about changing my career. In a matter of like six months. And what were you thinking about doing at that point? I didn't know.

But all I k knew Is that I needed to find the courage. To take a leap of faith. And somehow, some way, I figured that out.

for myself and I Love my marriage. I left my job. and decided I'm gonna go back to school and I'm gonna study

I want to get into naturopathic medical school. And and naturopathic is like uh like natural, like homeopathic uh remedies and stuff? Yes. So there's A school in Seattle, Washington. And one in uh Portland, Oregon. And the naturopathic medicine.

And I thought I'm gonna practice that. Which covers all natural medicine, nutrition, acupuncture, everything. And that's what I really I think that's the direction I want to go. I looked at the school for years, really renowned school. I thought this is what I'm gonna do. So I started taking chemistry and physics and all these science classes at the local community college. And actually I'd moved back out to California. My parents were living out there.

So I'm on my path of taking classes. And I meet a friend of mine. I who a dear friend of mine now, one day eating at the hell local health food store, we're eating lunch. And he drags me f to this raw food class and

I have one of the most amazing meals I've ever had in my life at this class, and I thought. Wow. Raw foods are kind of amazing. And it just never had occurred to me. And meanwhile I'm taking my classes, I got accepted to this program, two schools, one in Seattle and one in Washington, and I thought, I'm gonna be a naturopathic doctor, that's what I'm gonna do.

And I went to a meeting with all the doctors in California and they were very limited in their scope of practice there at the time because the laws weren't open there. And I went to this meeting and it was like April. I was moving to Seattle in July of this. This is like ninety This is uh the year two thousand. Year two thousand, okay. So I was three months away from moving to Seattle. I was thrilled to death I got into school. I went to this meeting with all these you know, natrophs that had been naturopaths for twenty years.

And this meeting. scared the living daylights out of me. Why? Because all of these people We're passionate. But because the state of California didn't allow them to really practice their scope of medicine. Because the the laws limited them.

It just looked like a giant struggle. Yeah. It looked frustrating to be able to have a degree in something and not be able to really do it. And then I went back to Colorado over Memorial Day weekend to visit one of my dearest and oldest friends. And um I went hiking.

And I was just kind of eating a trail mix and thinking of food and raw foods and Thinking about moving to Seattle. And all of a sudden I'm on this mountain and this light bulb goes off for me and I think

Why hasn't somebody made something made of fruit, nuts, and spices like something very Just pure, simple, real foods. But it's portable and convenient. But it tastes indulgent like you shouldn't be eating it like junk junk food. I mean

I don't know, that day at that moment. It was like the surge of energy I got. I could feel this excitement over an idea. It's not like I hadn't had ideas before. I mean people are walking around every day with ideas. But for whatever reason, in that day and that time, and all those little experiences that built up. I I just felt it. So what'd you do? Did you like run home and and and and start like

writing things down or drawing pictures? Or or did you just kind of mull it over for a f for a while? So I ran down the mountain. I got at a notebook and I started writing down ideas. And then when we got back to Denver.

I thought how can I take fruit nuts and spices and and turn them into something really exciting and I would get ideas from Pies and cookies and cakes and I think, okay, how do I take cherry pie and make it just in my cuisine art. Basically a rough

Raw unprocessed food. And Make it taste like cherry pie or apple pie or banana bread or what have you. w did you immediately think Hey, I can turn this into a business, or was it more like

I just want to m try to experiment and see if I can make this Snack. I did think I think I can turn this into a business.

I don't even know. I I think it was like a day later. And the next thing you know, I'm thinking I'm gonna start this business. And I'm gonna do this in the next three months.

I mean, how naive is that to think that you're gonna start a business in three months? And I called my parents And Everybody thought I was completely out of my mind.

Did they think it was like an early midlife crisis? I don't know what they thought. They just thought We've centered. You know to through private

High school US C. She's graduated. She's thirty two years old. Oh my God, what what's going on here? But it was actually great that people questioned me and wondered why I was doing what I was doing and especially my family because it made me dig in more and recognize that I really did want to do it. That I didn't need to get approval from anybody. But that I needed I had found something that was important to me.

And I just could not be stopped. I arranged to stay with another friend of mine. Uh moved in with her. In Denver. Yes. And then I would

Take these concoctions that I would come up with with using the cuisine art. that I had had for years, by the way, I'd never actually used it. I didn't even know how to use the queasiner. And for some reason I got the queas nerd out and I would do what's called well they officially call it focus group. I didn't even know the name then. And I would I created my own little survey and I would ask people, Why do you you know, what do you eat energy bars for? Why do you like them? Why don't you like them? You know, all these things. And people would fill them out. And then

I would Give them my concoctions and say please tell me what you think. And so is is that how you developed your recipes? Yes. The interesting thing is the recipes came fairly quickly.

Um I you know, because I would sample my friends and they would give me feedback like I really like the cherry, but I don't taste cherry in every bite. And I would go back to the drawing board and think.

Think I need to add more cherries. You should taste cherry in every bite. You shouldn't be searching for it. Then it doesn't taste like cherry pie. Right. By the way, how did you make Like how did you think of cherry pie? Like what would you use dried cherries and or And I don't know, what else?

Well I So I would go to this natural food store because Everything was less expensive there. And I would buy dried cherries and dried bananas and dried apples and then I would come up with the idea of, oh, cherry pie. Okay, let me see if I can make cherry pie with these cherries, the the dates and the almonds. And they sold these tart unsweetened cherries. I will never forget they were the best tasting thing because they actually are a real cherry without a bunch of sugar in them. Yeah and then

What is today Larb or Cherry Pie. Is from these cherries. So I'm just imagining this because I do a lot of cooking, um, and you're in your in your kitchen with your queesen art and I'm thinking you put a bunch of updates and like nuts in there, and you're just gonna get this like ball rolling around the queesen or this sticky like like sticky ball of a mass. And then you would like take it out with your hands and

Like, I would roll it out with a rolling pin and then um I Got a cutter. And I would like a pizza cutter and I would cut it out. Just in your kitchen. And and I would make samples. I mean Batch after batch after batch.

And did you have any of your own I mean, did you have any cash? Did you have to sort of ask your parents to help you out in that year while you were not You know, weren't getting a salary. How did you pay your bills? Um Within About a week I realized, oh, I I had a little bit of money saved up.

And then I thought, I'm gonna start this business, but I have to work. I have to get a job. You know? Yeah. So Whole Foods opened their first store in Denver. at exactly the same time and I started seeing the building go up in the in in the neighborhood I grew up in, actually.

And I thought Huh. I'm gonna get a job with them. I'm gonna work in their nutrition department doing what I love.

But I'm gonna figure out. The business and how it works. And use it as a learning opportunity, almost like a paid internship in a sense. I mean that that's like incredibly Like that's really amazing planning. It reminds me we we interviewed Ben and Jerry's and uh people think that they were just these hippies who but but they actually like stood on a street corner with a counter to count how many people passed the street corner when they were looking for a location for their Ben and Jerry's. You know, like

That is a real planning moment. You were you were sort of looking ahead and saying, All right, well if I'm gonna do this business, let me alert at least learn natural foods and go Like what be like a Cashier at Whole Foods? I I got a job in the n nutrition department doing what I loved, which was working around

All the nutrition products. So I thought Okay, I'm gonna enjoy myself, but I'm also gonna I I'll have a first hand view of what it's like to have a product in their store and what does that mean.

from the standpoint of the vendor and it was one of the best decisions I ever made. So at what point did you think to yourself Okay, this is gonna be really This is really gonna be a big big deal. Like this is people are gonna want wanna buy these.

I'm not sure I ever thought that. It was such a gradual progression, so I first you know, got my recipes together and I would give them out to friends and then friends would say I would buy those. And that

That little tidbit of asking me to buy it would make me feel so excited and motivated to get to the next place, which was How in the world am I to manufacture these things? Yeah. Where am I gonna get dates and almonds? And cherries. I didn't even know I'm buying them at a natural food grocery store in little baggy's. Right.

What do I know about almonds and dates and all that stuff? What do I know about manufacturing equipment? And at the time I started questioning am I actually gonna do this or should I just go to work for whole foods? Maybe I'll just do that.

I and just just to c clarify again, how are you Just like sort of funding this business, like buying the ingredients and stuff. I mean this was were you just using your own money? You know, I had a job at Whole Foods and then I had a credit card. Yeah. And were you n nervous or or anxious at all?

I don't know. I I would have moments where I would be really gung ho and I would get all kinds of great information and a month would go by and I would find out about a piece of manufacturing equipment or just little things and I would Be so motivated, and somebody'd want to buy bars, and I'd make them a a batch of bars in these little ziploc bags and a little Chinese takeout box. And And I would they would pay me like twenty two dollars or something for a box of bars and I would think

Wow. And then another month had go by where I couldn't get anywhere. I felt like my feet were stuck in the mud. And then I would just get really unmotivated and nothing would happen. And this went on. For

The three year period. between my idea phase and when I actually launched. So I I'm trying to figure out how you Uh maintained your uh your optimism and confidence about all this'cause I mean You're thirty two.

You're divorced. And I'm imagine you probably have some mo emotional ups and downs at this point and and I don't know, well like was part of you Uh I mean, did you ever get the feeling that people would look at you and kinda think Oh yeah, that's Laura. She's got this kinda weird side project. Oh a lot of people thought that

I mean I would see people I went to high school with and they would come into Whole Foods and You know, they ha they're they're already climbing the ladder of big jobs and finance and all kinds of things and they say, Oh Oh, I didn't know you worked here and and people would see me and Even if I had those moments with people where it

I would notice the fact that I wasn't on that trajectory. I finally just said, This is your path in life. And you have to go for it and embrace it. and make it happen. When we come back. Halara, embrace the uncertainty and slow, slowly

Figured out how to turn her kitchen project. into a business. 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 Kai Raz. So it's two thousand one, Lara Marikin is working at Whole Foods in Denver and she's trying to figure out how to start a company. But she still doesn't have a whole lot of money, and she doesn't have any professional equipment, or even a way to process and package her energy bars. So

Eventually I went to a packaging company in Denver and they weren't even s taking me seriously and you said hey, how do I make this on on a bigger scale? Well I I said I need packaging and then they'd they'd look at me and go Huh? I mean they couldn't take me seriously. I didn't even have a business. And that they'd give me a giant book that looked so tedious to read through and they'd say, Well read some of this and come back and we'll talk to you about packaging. And then I would read enough that I would come back partially educated and then they they started realizing I was serious about it. That you wanted you were looking for somebody to Uh who had food grade packaging that to package your bars. Yes. And and and meanwhile back at home you're you're still using your Queenard? Yes. I was using the Queenart and I was trying to find a giant Queenart.

I was trying to I I didn't even know what that was called. It's called a vertical cutter mixer, I learned. And and then that led to Some guy that they knew that had a piece of manufacturing equipment that lo and behold was the exact thing that I needed. The giant queens there. Yes. And so because I had the tenacity to ask and I wasn't afraid. At a time when a lot of people questioned what I was doing, but I knew that

that I needed to do it, it it gave me the motivation to keep asking questions and to be curious. And tenacious. And so I'd call the guy with a piece of equipment and I'd meet him and then I'd talk to this guy and he's like, Well, I'm not really using it. If you want to use it, you can And That's how it all kind of pieced together. Yeah. And and did you and w you had the name by that point?

Lara Bars? Well no. It was a different name. So I was going to name it Mana Bar. And your mana is your vital energy or your she. How's that spelled? M A N A What Oh what happened to that name?

Well, the trademarking attorney Called me at the eleventh hour. And we were getting ready to launch. It was the year two thousand two summer. And she said, I think there's gonna be a problem. And she said there's actually manna bread, M A N N A.

And I think it could be confusingly similar. And I think you're gonna need to change the name. Yeah. And I just

Thought You're joking, right? I I don't I don't want to deal with this right now. Naming is one of the hardest things. So I got the phone call, finally came to terms with the fact that that was gonna have to happen.

And um A friend said, You know. Why don't you call Mar? You know, they're you make'em, they're your bars. It sounds kind of Like a good

It rings, Barabar, you know. Yeah. And I thought, no way. I am not putting my name on this product. I don't want my name in there. I No way, I'm not doing that. And then I just kind of sat with it.

For a couple of weeks. And I finally thought Ha, Larabar. I guess that could work. And and by the way, you had raised some money for No, I hadn't raised any money. You didn't raise any money. Okay, I wrote sorry, I wrote a business plan. My dad helped me write a business plan.

I had a few friends and family interested. And between the renaming of Larabar, uh Monabar to Larabar And Manufacturing issues.

I was going to launch in fall of two thousand two. And that got delayed until April of two thousand three. And during that time all of my interested friends and family Backed out. They because they got

Yeah. It was just getting delayed. Yeah. And all these people are starting to slowly back out because things are not happening. I've left working at Whole Foods

It's like mid two thousand two and we're supposed to be launching, but we don't launch. And Everybody's backing out because nothing's happening. So what'd you do? Well I had to

Had to raise the money. And my dad had decided he would let he wanted to get involved in the company. He had a great business background in the retail business. Yeah. He knew operations and how to run a company. And he called me one day and he said Hey.

Would you Would you want a business partner? And then how much money did you decide that you needed to raise? There really wasn't an amount. It wasn't really a specific

I think I think we came up the amount because I had to print packaging. And we I had five flavors that I was launching with. And each rope. Cashew cookie.

Cherry pie, apple pie. Banana bread and chocolate coconut chew. And there was a minimum print run of all of those, and I actually printed um at this company in Minnesota, and I remember it costing somewhere around

You know, a hundred, a hundred and fifty thousand dollars. and the manufacturing wasn't working out, I had been to now four manufacturing places that did not work out. And I had a giant vertical cutter mixer in the back of my old land cruiser that I would haul around to each facility, whether it was two hours away, an hour away, two hours away, what have you. And you would have them install in their facility ideally. You bought this thing. I borrowed it. The giant the giant queznard. Giant que four hundred pounds. It was on a um Palette.

And they'd have to forklift it into the back of my land cruiser. So I was running around the state of Colorado trying to find somewhere to manufacture and when you're new to business, nobody takes you seriously. They they don't even know how to make your product. You know, they just want me to fit into what they're doing. And so I'm running around trying to find a place to manufacture and all the additional investors have now backed out. And I remember it was just like Mm.

a dark night in January and My dad was getting discouraged. So I said to him, You know what? I believe that this is gonna work out. I really have faith and I think the right people will come along at the right time. So I started talking to some other friends about it.

Friends in yoga class, friends I worked with at Whole Foods, and then all of a sudden a whole new group of people came that were just thrilled like six six people. And said we'd love to invest. Yeah. And how much did you raise? Well, was a total of one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Hundred and fifty thousand bucks. And that was going to get you through Some production and printing.

More or less, and then a little bit of extra just for operating costs. But we were operating out of a tiny duplex in Denver, so the overhead was extremely low. Okay, so you have the manufacturing and and the printing nail down, but how did you Then find the stores to to buy and then Sell Lara Bars.

Well Let me let me backtrack to where when I was working at Whole Foods before I left. So one morning I was there because this is also part of what you're asking me. So I was on my the early shift at eight AM. And one of the grocery guys they said Lara, the guy you need to meet, he's the regional buyer from Austin and he's he's the guy he's coming in.

you know, this next week he's the guy you should talk to about your product. So here I am, I'm taking trash out one morning. It's about eight fifteen in the morning and he walks across my path on the back dock of the store. This this fire. And he says, Oh hey, how are you? What's What's new? You know, he just he was being friendly. He'd seen me before, he didn't know who I was. And I, in that moment, I thought,

This is my moment. And I said Oh hi, you know. This is what's new. I've been working on this product, I'm creating my own nutrition bar, this and that and

He literally kinda dead stopped and started doing this motion. I didn't really mean that. Don't pitch me. Don't pitch me. I didn't mean that and I'm I'd like to run away from you right now. And he said, Well I'm only here for two hours. Do you have samples? And he's just trying to get rid of me. And I said Actually I do have samples. I'm leaving in two hours, I said, Well I can go home and get them and i I mean I had an answer to everything. He just tried to Yeah. Make me go away. And I wasn't going away. And He said, Okay, bring me the samples and just kinda

walked off. And so I said to my co worker, I have to go home right now and take my break. Yeah. And so I gave'em to him. And then

Like an hour later, he's sitting there and he goes Laura. This is the most innovative product I've tried. In years. Wow. And I'm standing there

I I couldn't even believe my ears. You know, I knew I made a great product, but he's a buyer, he's a regional buyer. And he said, When you are ready, here's my card. He said, Give me a call. Let me know. He said dot your I's, cross your T's, and

I will let you bring it into the Colorado stores. Huh. And that was just such a motivational moment for me. I bet. I mean this is you know Two years in

And I'm questioning what I'm doing and why I'm doing it. I'm tired. I don't know what I'm doing and he says this and I think wow. So What, like a few months later you were you were ready to put Lara bars out into the world, right? Yes.

I finally have raised all the money we wanted to raise. and found a manufacturing facility. It was the fourth one. And how many bars did you have them make for the first? Big push, the first launch. We made the boots. Okay, how many did you make?

Five hundred bars by hand. So I had rolls of packaging. And a vertical cutter mixer, essentially. And it was you and a bunch of like friends and It was me, my father, and then Any friend that would help.

And it took us about fifteen hours to make five hundred bars because I had to hand cut each Rapper off of the rolls. Of film. Make the bar.

You know, roll it out. with a pizza with a rolling pin and a pizza cutter and then stuff it in a package and heat seal. And and then what, you would take those those bars to like Whole Foods and then Like set up a table with with samples and and try to To to sell them to people who are shopping in the store?

Yes. So what I had learned working at Whole Foods in the three years that I was there among other things was When you sample products For free to people It's this kind of non risky trial.

So in my mind The marketing plan for me was to do that, is to stand in the store to talk to people, educate them, because what I was doing, fruit and nuts, I mean, everybody was afraid of a piece of fruit at the time. The the whole carb thing, the Atkins thing was very big and everybody thought like eating a carrot was a very bad thing. So I'm thinking, what am I gonna do with you know cherries and dates and then and then nuts have high fat in them, but it's good fat and so there was a lot to explain, but I had to make it

digestible and simple for people. So my whole strategy was to get in each store and As m often as I could Lunch and dinner. demo my product. And you were and you were manning the table and you were like saying, Hey, you want to try a Lara Bar?

I was manning the table. In fact I have pictures of me doing all the demos and within two Two weeks of being in Whole Foods. Because one of my friends still worked there. He said, Laura, you have to go look at

the movement chart upstairs. And I said, What? And he said Larbar is the top five. One through five tell selling products in the entire store. Right now. It outsells olive oil and water. You you had one of the five best selling products in that store within two weeks? Yes. That's insane.

I mean I I knew I knew in my heart. And from all the feedback I'd gotten that people were excited about what I was doing. But I also, on the other hand, knew that there was gonna be challenges and That was the

I remember the day I got into the stores and I brought it after making those five hundred bars by hand and I remember standing there and I was just I was excited. Exhilarated Anxious Scared to death. I mean it was like putting a piece of art

What do you think It I mean Like what explains why it sold so well. Like now you think about You know, so many people are paleo, I I am and uh paleo and um you know, people are doing whole thirty and all these and and that's and raw food is just kind of it's a lot more mainstream now.

But in two thousand three, you know, Atkins was still really big as y you know, and and so we were sort of uncommon to a lot of people. They they would they would think, Oh, well, I don't know if I oh the nuts and the fat and this w w what explains how it took off so fast? It was simple.

Yeah. Ten or less ingredients. You know what these ingredients are. Almond states. Cashews, cinnamon. I mean, depends on the bar, but Cherries.

And You know what these things are and we've Been eating these items and you know, they're grown on trees. We know what they are. It's not a question. And then they were made to taste I blended them to taste like something you want to eat, so I didn't feel like you had to sacrifice Oh, it's healthy, but doesn't taste good. I wanted to blend both and I wanted to make it something that you were so happy and excited to eat. And there's like

Two, three, four, five ingredients in the average. Laura, right. There are. Like my all time favorite. Cashew cooking. I love it. It it and it's two ingredients, cashews and dates. It's so simple.

And I think that's What resonated with people is people had never seen something like this before. Which is in that category. Which is crazy because it's such a simple idea. And some I mean complicated but simple ingredients. Even my dad asked me one day, how come somebody else hasn't thought about this? I said, I have no idea, but I have. And I wanna This is why we're doing this.

So once you launch an whole foods and you you realize that you're one of the top five So it's in it's just that one Whole Foods in Denver, right? In that in that neighborhood of Denver. Um How quickly did did Whole Foods generally, you know, the Whole Foods I don't know, Whole Foods come to you and say, Actually we want it we want this to go national.

That took a little time. I mean it was over the next year. that that started to happen, that wasn't as easy as it seemed. But it but it did come together. There was a journalist in Denver that worked for the Denver Post, and he wrote an article about me, Memorial Day of 2003. And it literally put

my company on the map just from that one article. I will always be grateful for that and From that the industry new paper caught it and then all these stores from California. started calling and so I started launching in California.

And It it just started to build. How were you making the bars fast enough? We were doing anything and everything we could to make the bars pass to them. I w I was My father started taking over manufacturing operations And then we started

Just getting help? You had to hire people. We oh yeah, we had to hire people. And we were really riding a great wave. You were you were you were already getting a lot of attention at the point. I mean, we we were two years in, we were basically a national brand now and show revenue in year two. Um Year two, I wanna say like

Five to seven. million dollars? Yeah, f I say about five year two we were jumping. Crazy growth. Yeah. Was your whole life from like T two thousand.

To launch and then In the middle of this, like two thousand five, two thousand six Was it Were you working like crazy or by the time you're hitting five to seven million in sales Were you like kinda kicking back and you and your dad sort of clinking champagne glasses and saying, Alright, we can chill out a little bit.

No. Never. The bigger we got, the more I felt like We can never rest on our laurels. And

I just felt Like I had to work as hard as I could because I was leading our team and if I wasn't showing that I'm working hard. and showing up every day, then how could I ask people that did that for me? Yeah. You know, we're we're building a company. We can't say, Sorry, we're not available until Friday. You answer the phone any time. Somebody calls. I mean, you know, some of these big retailers would call in the most random moments. And say, We're interested. We'd like to bring you in. Can you come out and meet us at our national headquarters and have to go. That's right. So as you continue to grow, you're doing five, seven

Ten. I don't know. Twillion. Thirty million. How many employees did you eventually? We had about

Twist in sales and marketing. And then manufacturing had about Seventy five. Yeah.

You In two thousand eight, I guess, um your approach or uh starting and maybe even earlier than that, you you start to get approached by big companies That were interested in talking to you. Um you did eventually, which I'm gonna get to in a sec, but

Um they were not the only company that approached you. They were not. Um the first phone call I got from a really large company was in Um, early two thousand

Five. So like a year and a half in. Well, and they said, Hey, we want to talk to you. My f one of my investor friends who worked for us was answering the phones and she said So and so from this company's on the phone and I went, What? And It was

a big m m huge Company. Yeah, it's a competitor of General Mills and I was in shock. I didn't I It never occurred to me that

I would sell my company or be approached by these big companies. It just It wasn't in Where my mind was. Yeah. And then it became a s distraction in the middle of

growing the company and running it and um and so You know, my business partners and I had to decide Or we Really gonna be serious entertaining? an offer or were we just

Yeah,'cause it's just too much distraction. Yeah. So we finally decided in Two thousand seven that We would entertain. an offer if it was the right company, if we felt like it was the right company, because we didn't have to sell. We were very

you know, financially stable company. Yeah. But For me, I was starting to get Really tired. And just I was g it was getting worn down. I bet. And and I mean you had spent

most of or all of virtually all of your thirties really just grinding this out, right? And so Presumably you wanted to kinda just focus on yourself a little bit. Yeah, I I just wanted a little relief, I think. And um And then we started to talk to some of these companies and then I met

with General Mills and I just knew the day I walked in that building and how they approached me and The meeting we had I knew I felt that there was a connection and authenticity. that if there were a company that were big that they would be

a great fit. I felt like they understood my brand and respected it and all the brands they'd had have been around forever. So they're not just churning brands out and putting them on the shelf and getting rid of them. I just felt the synergy. I mean Yeah. Almost nobody we've had on the show, um with some exceptions, but almost nobody we've had on the show

um even thinks about money when they're starting their company. They're just committed to a product or a pass there's a passion there, there's a problem they wanna solve. And then one day they find themselves with this money. They're financially secure. You start this thing.

At thirty, thirty three really. Yeah, thirty four eight. Thirty-nine. You sell it and All of a sudden, you and your dad, you have This money and this

Did Like how did you wrap your head around it? It took A while.

You know, during the sale process I had to be Um, you know, we they had to do all of the kind of the research of our company without us telling our employees and that was very nerve wracking. So I had to have this very compartmentalized life for three months and I felt like I was gonna have a nervous breakdown. But um 'Cause you don't know if it's gonna come together until like literally the day before.

So that was very stressful period. For me exciting, but also really unknown and then We put a deal together, and that was the day before I turned forty. And

Then All of a sudden I had to go from running the ship. to realizing that a whole nother team of people wanted needed to come in and do that and I needed to let them do that. As a result.

You know I had a little boy, I'm involved in his life, I You know, I get to spend time pursuing other things important to me. Yeah. And still keep my hand in the business and do the things that I love for it. But without all the stress. Yeah.

And and you go in any seven eleven or any Whole Foods or Safeway or Trader Joe's, they're they're they're lar bars right by the cash register. Everywhere. Your name on this

I I actually have I was in Target one day with my son. It was a couple of years ago and Yeah, he's

He was six at the time and We were, you know, wandering around buying whatnot, and then he saw all the Lara bars and he said Mm. Did you make all these bars for the store? And and I said, Well, yes, indirectly, yes. And you know, it was the first time the light bulb went off for him about what I had done and what Laura you know, he'd seen him at our house.

But to see him in the store and it was it was really exciting. This really positive moment. Has he ever had a stickers? Yes, he has had a snooker. And he does love them. Yes.

Uh of what happened to you is because of luck and how much because of Of your skill.

I I mean I feel lucky that I have opportunity in my life and that and that I've surrounded myself with people that care about me and That

You know, along the way when people thought I was completely out of my mind for starting an energy bark. I remember thinking to myself, You know You need to surround yourself with people that believe in you.

It's really important. And actually I remember thinking to myself, I have more to lose If I don't find out Then I do If I try this and it doesn't work.

And I'm so glad that for whatever reason I had that in my mind because it compelled me to move forward and Make Larber happen. Lar American. Founder of Larabar.

By the way, if you've ever struggled with how to pronounce Larabar, Maybe you thought it was Larabar? you can blame that umlaut above the A in Lara. You know, like the one used in Haganda's or Molly Crew. which serves no real purpose or function.

Lara just thought it looked pretty cool. Okay. And please do stick around because in just a moment, we're gonna hear from you about the things you're building. In nineteen eighty seven, dozens of federal agents surrounded a trailer park in Ozark, Missouri. Their target White supremacist threatening violent revolution. I have eight teams of freedom fighters prepared to start a race war nationwide. The agents fired tear gas, arrested him, and found a massive arsenal. C4 plastic explosives, hand grenades, thousands of rounds of ammunition. So years later, why did the FBI stop watching him?

That story unembedded. From NPR. Hey, thanks so much for sticking around because it's time now for how you built that. And today we're updating a story that first ran about a year ago. And it starts more than twenty years ago when Jerry Stellenberg was a student at Virginia Tech, and he and his friends would hang out at the student center. And there were pinball machines around the pool tables, and all my friends, while we were playing pool, they'd they'd take a break and go over and play pinball, and I thought they were just throwing money away and But one night

one of his friends finally talked him into playing a game, just one game of pinball. Begrudgingly, I walked over and jeez, it must have been just a minute or two, but had the time in my life and I kinda got hooked immediately. And what he loved about it was that it was kind of a physical game. You could manipulate the flippers to keep the ball in play. But Jerry was a tech guy, a computer engineer. And there was something about pinball that started to bug him.

While the ball's rolling around this painted piece of wood, It's not doing anything other than just rolling. Which, by the way, has been perfectly acceptable for the legions of pinball players who've loved the game for decades. But Jerry couldn't shake the feeling that the game could somehow be reimagined. And so in 2009, when touchscreen tablets started to get popular, He got an idea.

So I saw that technology and I wanted to figure out how to implement that in a pinball machine where we could take the physical pinball. and have it interacting with graphics in the same way that your finger does on a tablet computer. So Jerry set out to do just that. So I started with one friend who's a mechanical guy, and we connected with an audio engineer, a very popular audio engineer from the And after three years working nights and weekends, Jerry and his friends built a pinball game where you could use physical buttons and flippers to launch an actual ball. over an L C D display. So that the ball while it's rolling towards the physical devices Could interact with these

Virtual objects. And one of the games they developed is called Rocks, which is kind of a riff on the popular video game Asteroids. where you take the physical pinball, and as it's rolling around the playfield surface, it's interacting with images of asteroids on the screen. And mind you, there's still a physical component of this game, so the ball's still rolling towards physical targets, but uh we enhanced that experience with the virtual. As their prototype got better and better, Jerry and his team decided to show it off at a pinball festival in Frisco, Texas. And so many people came to us and thought it was amazing. People stayed there and played it for hours. And what's kind of surprising here is that up to this point,

Jerry wasn't really thinking about selling these machines. He and his friends had been mostly doing it for fun. But I was fortunate enough to have an aunt and uncle who saw the early prototype and they called me actually after the show. And they said, Hey, if you want to try this. We're willing to give you some money to get started. And so with a very generous investment from Uncle Gary and Aunt Diane. Jerry was able to quit his day job in tech and pay a small team of engineers to build the pinball machines. And in 2016, four years after that show in Texas,

Their company shipped out their first machines to a handful of fans. It doesn't need to be a billion dollar company to make me happy. I'd be happy just selling a few hundred machines a year, making it a lifestyle business, and giving people something new and different and exciting. Jerry's pinball machine is called the P3, the company is called Multimorphic, and it's based out of Austin, Texas. And when we first ran the story, Jerry's hope was to get his machines into bars and restaurants, the same types of places where he discovered pinball. Well, this year they're doing onsite trials at Dave and Buster's, and they're also about to release their first online product, a multiplayer pinball game. To hear more about Multimorphic or hear previous episodes, head to our podcast page, how IbuiltThis.npr.org. And of course, if you want to tell us your story, go to build.npr.

Dot org. And thanks so much for listening to the show this week. You can subscribe at Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts, and while you're there, please do give us a review. You can also write to us at hibt at npr.org, and if you want to send a tweet, it's at how I built this or at guy's. Our show was produced this week by Rem Teen Arab Lui who also composed the music. Thanks also to Candice Lim, Julia Carney, Sanaz Meshkinpore, Neva Grant, and Jeff Rogers. Our intern is Sequoia Carrillo. I'm Guy Raz, and you've been listening to how I built this.

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