Ever wondered how a single mom with a dream and a delectable cookie recipe rose to sweet success? Meet Molly Blakely of Molly B's Cookies, a woman whose entrepreneurial spirit and oven-fresh delights transformed $150 into a thriving, nationally recognized brand. With an intimate recount of her journey, Molly opens up about the early days of personal deliveries and the power of forging customer relationships that go beyond the checkout. Her story is a testament to the importance of proof of concept, honest feedback, and the relentless pursuit of a vision, offering invaluable lessons for any aspiring business owner looking to leave a mark on the market.
In a moment of shared reflection, we offer a prayer for perseverance and wisdom, inviting you to consider the values that fuel lasting achievements. Molly's passion for her business, mollybeescookies.com, and the authentic tale of overcoming obstacles to build her brand are as stirring as they are motivational. Join us for a conversation that celebrates conviction, encourages persistence, and reminds you that with faith and hard work, the right recipe can turn into a recipe for success. Don't forget to stay connected for more episodes that inspire and guide you through the entrepreneurial journey.
Ever wondered how a single mom with a dream and a delectable cookie recipe rose to sweet success? Meet Molly Blakely of Molly B's Cookies, a woman whose entrepreneurial spirit and oven-fresh delights transformed $150 into a thriving, nationally recognized brand. With an intimate recount of her journey, Molly opens up about the early days of personal deliveries and the power of forging customer relationships that go beyond the checkout. Her story is a testament to the importance of proof of concept, honest feedback, and the relentless pursuit of a vision, offering invaluable lessons for any aspiring business owner looking to leave a mark on the market.
In a moment of shared reflection, we offer a prayer for perseverance and wisdom, inviting you to consider the values that fuel lasting achievements. Molly's passion for her business, mollybeescookies.com, and the authentic tale of overcoming obstacles to build her brand are as stirring as they are motivational. Join us for a conversation that celebrates conviction, encourages persistence, and reminds you that with faith and hard work, the right recipe can turn into a recipe for success. Don't forget to stay connected for more episodes that inspire and guide you through the entrepreneurial journey.
Welcome back to stand where the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. I'm your host, kelly Chewbacca, a former U S Senate candidate in Alaska and currently the Alaska state chair for president Donald Trump's campaign, and I'm joined today by my amazing son and co-host, josiah Chewbacca, who is about to head off to college. Well, we're so excited to have you with us. Please make sure to check out our website, standshoworg. That's where you can become one of our amazing standouts. Catch all of our past stand episodes and join us on our stand team. We'd love to have you stand showorg. You can find us on YouTube and our social media pages as well. Make sure to hit that subscribe button. We've got a fantastic and delicious show for you.
Speaker 1:
Today we're going to be talking with Molly Blakely. She's the CEO and founder of Molly bees cookies. You can find her website mollybeescom. M O L L Y Bescom.
Speaker 1:
I'm going to give you the formal introduction, but I want to tell you why I care. I met Molly and started talking with her before her business was famous and got a subscription to her box of cookies and fell in love, also put on a lot of weight. It was how we got through COVID. We called them our COVID cookies because they came in the mail faithfully and they got us through a really hard time and they are so amazing. So we're going to tell you the entire story today of how Molly B's cookies became famous.
Speaker 1:
Molly started her business with $150. And now this business has grown from being a little mom kitchen shop, which you're going to see the insider kitchen today and $150, to these cookies now being featured at the Emmys and the Grammys she's talking about or maybe now has the cookies and Walmart across the nation and I can personally tell you these are addictive and unique and featured all over social media. So we are so excited to introduce you to Alaska's own and favorite Molly Bees. We're so excited to have you with us, molly. Thank you for joining us today. What an intro.
Speaker 3:
Thank you so much. Yeah, I remember there was like the first eight months that I was doing sending you your cookies. I was actually driving 45 minutes to deliver them to your door. You personally delivered them to our door.
Speaker 1:
I was actually driving 45 minutes to deliver them to your door. The first eight months you personally delivered them to our door.
Speaker 3:
I was personally delivering them to your door for like the first eight months.
Speaker 1:
Yes, and we got to exchange hugs. And it's the life of an entrepreneur when you're starting out maintaining those client contacts right.
Speaker 3:
I know it. I know it, yeah, so we want to start out talking to you about that.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, yeah, I'm excited too.
Speaker 2:
I remember you bringing the cookies to our doorstep and meeting you a couple of times and I always wondered what led you to start Molly B's cookies.
Speaker 3:
You know, that's a really good question and it actually is like kind of like my anthem now, like I was owned a really well known business in a little tiny town in Alaska and the people that bought it fraud me and didn't pay me. It was like an over million dollar deal and I got down to my last $150. And I had a mortgage and a car payment and I was a single mom and I didn't know what I was going to do. So I started making super weird gourmet cookies and I was doing like 20 boxes a week and then it went to like 45 boxes a day and I had to move production into like a kitchen in a church from me and mixing up my house with my son, who was 10 at the time. And then I started getting help and then we hired one bakery and then two bakeries.
Speaker 3:
I moved to the big city of Anchorage area, you know and started working with bakeries there, and then I ended up having to find out about a cookie factory. I didn't know what I was looking for. I'm thinking in my head I need a Willy Wonka style thing, but I don't know. But it was like as far we just kept growing so fast I couldn't keep up and so we finally got a co-packer and now I work with eight co-packers and I have a warehouse in Dallas and my co-packers on the East Coast and the West Coast and the Mid Coast and I mean it's all a God thing. It's just unbelievable how quickly it's happened.
Speaker 2:
That's truly remarkable. I know it's very hard for businesses to get started, so I mean, that's honestly, it's an American dream story. Right there you have $150. You start off just making something in your kitchen and then, before you know it, you're nationwide. So I'm young and I'm looking to go into business myself. What advice would you have for young entrepreneurs, based on your experiences?
Speaker 3:
Well, to start out, you want to have proof of concept. You want to make sure that you have something that people are going to want. So start with your friends and family and then kind of stalk them. You know, if you have friends and you have to give out a lot of product a lot of product and get feedback and listen to the feedback. Don't take it personally. These are people that will be your customers in the future. So definitely listen to what the feedback is and if it's consistent, then you need to look into that. If it's just a one try or one person here or whatever, there are people that get jealous when you start a business and they don't want you to do. Well, there's you have to see. You really have to vet it out. And just number one stay close to the Lord. He will guide you in every single step that you want to take and the most important thing besides the Lord is to make sure to never give up.
Speaker 1:
The ones that don't make it are because they gave up. Yeah, we were just talking about that. We'll have to follow up with that when we have our discussion later. So, molly, talking about this proof of concept, um, your cookies are unique is a as a special way of putting it. You don't have normal cookies. So I mean we can get cookies, people can get. Go get regular chocolate chip cookies at the store. Yes, boring chocolate chip cookies. We don't actually buy them.
Speaker 1:
Right we, we make cookies at home and we have cookie contests at home, right and? Those but those are not the cookies you make. So what is different? There's a reason why your cookies have taken off from you know hand delivering them to Kelly Chewbacca's house, to more and more people buying boxes, to now them becoming a store brand name.
Speaker 2:
What's different about your?
Speaker 1:
cookies for people who don't know.
Speaker 3:
Well, I mean okay, so our number one seller is called the Straight Fire and it's our rendition of s'mores. So we have like a big roasted marshmallow on top of it and there's, like you know, graham cracker crumbs and chocolate chips, but then, instead of using vanilla extract, I actually am using a cinnamon, like a hot cinnamon extract. So when you take a bite you're getting this crazy palette of all these things. So people love the big marshmallow on top. That's always a good seller. But we also have some that have double smoked bacon.
Speaker 3:
I have a Rebecca coffee grounds and some cookies. We have one that has white chocolate with sun dried mangoes and then we roll it in hot Cheeto dust. There's just, and they have fun names like the hot mess or straight fire, Big Joe or the boss man. They're like really fun names. And, uh, I just most recently launched a, a bag of mini cookies that are it's like a it was snickerdoodle and a shortbread had a baby and then we added boba to it. It would come the boba doodles, and so we I have a bag of boba doodles now and we have them in eight different flavors. We're launching four right now in two major stores, and I actually am flying to Seattle for a meeting with another major store on Tuesday.
Speaker 1:
That's amazing. I remember my favorite cookies. I really could not stop eating. Them were the Earl gray ones. What were those called London tea?
Speaker 3:
Those are someone. Just two days ago I was on a podcast for another guy and he got his box of cookies. He said it it was this is the best cookie I've ever had, ever had absolutely, and and you can't stop eating them because they go with everything.
Speaker 1:
They're the perfect dessert cookie. They're the perfect mid-afternoon cookie. They're the perfect breakfast pastry. They go with everything. Do you remember which was your favorite cookie?
Speaker 2:
it had, like this, lemon glaze on top.
Speaker 3:
Oh, yeah, I remember that. I remember that that's the tea.
Speaker 4:
Yeah, that's the tea the best cookie yeah.
Speaker 1:
Really really good unique cookie. So for people who are listening right now and thinking I want a cookie mollybeescom M-O-L-L-Y-B-E-E-S-E dot com B-E-E-E-S-E, I didn't want to be Molly BZ. Well, so, speaking of BZ, people who are business owners, people who are entrepreneurs, encounter a lot of BZ, face a lot of trials, maybe hit bumps or even hit failures and setbacks. You talked about one in your previous entrepreneur experience with just hitting a fraudster. What are some of the trials you've hit in Molly BZ? Maybe we talk about one and pick it up after the break. Can you just sort of inspire us with hey, it's not like it's all cookies and time with my son over here. This is what actually happened in this journey. That would be great.
Speaker 3:
Yeah Well, a lot of people don't realize, like, just to get from start to finish to like with the Walmart deal, from the first conversation until we're actually in store, is about 15 to 18 months, and so it takes a really long time to do that and there's a lot of stuff in between that has to happen and they might be like we don't like that and drop you and be like nevermind, and so and that has happened to me, you know, and we're like whoa, what just happened?
Speaker 3:
We I thought we were best friends, you know, and so you have to be on the game, make sure that your team and you have to work in excellence. You have to make sure that everything is the same, like yesterday. All we did was a meeting about UPC numbers and three of us read them off the same ones to each other. Because did you know that stores can find you up to a hundred thousand dollars if you have the wrong UPC number, which is the barcode on the back of your thing? If they get your product and it doesn't scan correctly, they will find you. So there's just things like that that you have to constantly be, but I'd say, the biggest struggle in my business because we are growing so fast. Right now I'm doing seven launches and we've got a H1 coming and it's just getting enough investment to grow as fast as we're growing, because every single launch is a several like $50,000 a launch around there, yeah.
Speaker 1:
That makes sense, just finding people who believe enough in the vision and the product to continue to invest in the next stage and the next launch. So I'm I'm curious, and maybe if you even have a soundbite on this where do you get? Where do you draw on for your perseverance? It sounds like a lot of this is just like you said, not giving up. Where do you draw on your perseverance from?
Speaker 3:
A hundred percent Jesus, a hundred percent Jesus. And like I, my, I love my church. I go to King's Chapel, Eagle River, and it's a spirit-filled church and they will pray for me and pray with me, or they will. They will know and just call me and say like we feel, like you need prayer today, and it's always on time, you know, and so that's where it is. You know, listening for that still small voice and sometimes, like I got invited to a thing from a major, major TV network and I prayed about it and God said no and I didn't go. But it was a big decision. You know, I wanted to go, my flesh wanted to go, but I knew that they were I found out later aligned with something that I don't believe in. So you know, it was such a protection for my brand, you know. So, definitely, when things get hard, just hit your knees and pray. God will always show up and it won't make sense sometimes right away, but it always does in the long run.
Speaker 1:
That's good. So there are people listening right now who need a little dose of that perseverance. We're going to close out this segment. I want to close it out with a prayer for you. I pray that the Lord gives you the perseverance that you need and the wisdom that you need is guiding you. Gives you the strength by his spirit for these next decisions, that little voice behind you to tell you that this is the way. Walk in it and the courage to continue to take a stand. You're on stand with Kelly and Josiah Chewbacca. Today we're talking to Molly Blakely with mollybeescookiescom. We'll pick up on the other side of the break. Hit us up at stanshoworg during the break. Hit subscribe. We'll see you in just a minute.
Speaker 5:
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