"Great ideas don't come in one lightning bolt moment. They come in a series of whispers." When Michael de Lyon (founder of Super Team) first started his line of savory protein bars, he was worried he didn't have that "family recipe" story where so many of us believe successful food businesses start. He had something far more crucial: a problem to solve. He was sick of the flavorless protein bar options in stores. He wanted them to taste like his favorite chip. So, an idea was born and a business was given life. Join us as Michael breaks down how he went from amateur snacker to professional snack-maker.
Located in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles, Crafted Kitchen is a shared commercial kitchen space that provides small food business owners with the tools and resources they need to Prepare For Greatness™. Visit craftedkitchenla.com to learn more.
"Great ideas don't come in one lightning bolt moment. They come in a series of whispers." When Michael de Lyon (founder of Super Team) first started his line of savory protein bars, he was worried he didn't have that "family recipe" story where so many of us believe successful food businesses start. He had something far more crucial: a problem to solve. He was sick of the flavorless protein bar options in stores. He wanted them to taste like his favorite chip. So, an idea was born and a business was given life. Join us as Michael breaks down how he went from amateur snacker to professional snack-maker.
Located in the Arts District of Downtown Los Angeles, Crafted Kitchen is a shared commercial kitchen space that provides small food business owners with the tools and resources they need to Prepare For Greatness™. Visit craftedkitchenla.com to learn more.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Crafted Kitchen Podcast, where we talk about more than just food. In this episode, you'll meet Michael DeLeon, the maker behind Super Team. A SoCal native, he's been a lifelong snacker who finally had enough of flavorless health foods and started up his own line of savory protein bars with one mission at its heart to make a healthy protein bar that tastes like your favorite chip. In this conversation, recorded at our facility in downtown Los Angeles, cindy and Michael get into the many hard-won lessons that have guided him on his journey from amateur snacker to professional snack maker. Have a listen.
Speaker 2:
So you are in the business of savory protein bars, energy bars. Why that business?
Speaker 3:
I'm always a little jealous of a lot of like founder stories where they're like. I have my grandma's secret recipe that was handed down for generations. You know they had a severe crisis in their life that made this like a calling or passion. For me I think it's a little more straightforward and that just. I like snacking and that's probably why I sometimes have struggled with my weight, but there's not a lot of snacks that taste good but also help from, like, a nutritional perspective.
Speaker 3:
And so that was just something that kind of got stuck in my mind and I was like at Whole Foods one day. It's just like you're looking at the snacks and go to the protein bar aisle and they have hundreds of protein bars that all are the same and they're all gross and I think that they should all be thrown in the trash. But I realized there was nothing savory in there and so that was like kind of what inspired me. What happens? I took the flavor profiles of a chip and tried to make it into a protein bar form.
Speaker 2:
So I want to just step back for a moment. And you mentioned that you had this envy of people, of founders, who had this. You know my grandmother's secret recipe, et cetera, et cetera. I'm going to push back on that a little bit. And the reason I'm going to push back on that a little bit is because when you talk to someone who says I have this recipe, that was my great grandmother's and it's been a secret and et cetera, that's their story. But their story has nothing to do at all with the person who's buying the product.
Speaker 2:
Great ideas, I don't think come with a lightning bolt. I think they come through a series of whispers and I think we're sort of programmed to believe that it's the lightning bolt. And when the lightning bolt doesn't happen, we think what's wrong with me? I don't have these great ideas. That somebody else had this great idea Yours, and correct me, yours was not. It's all about me, which the recipe is or what have you. It's more. It's saying I see something that is not what I want and I don't see what it is that I do want. And that was what then informed your decision to create something that was what you wanted, where you found there was a hole in the marketplace that you sought to fill.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, that's definitely where I think the inspiration came from probably years or maybe even decades of frustration with not being able to snack and still feel okay about it.
Speaker 2:
Tell me who your target customer is. Get as specific as you can.
Speaker 3:
I'll say this is something I'm definitely still struggling with, but let me pause for a second and think about the best way to describe this. So, while you're, thinking about that.
Speaker 2:
I'm not asking the in the archetype of the person who buys the product. What I'm talking about is the person that, in your mind, you're making this for.
Speaker 3:
So I think the biggest target customer she is a mom and she probably has kids who are, you know, four to 16. Life is starting to get really busy. She doesn't have time to maybe take care of herself as much as she used to.
Speaker 3:
but maybe you know she's trying to make a change. It's the new year, she realizes that she's been working too much and trying to keep her family going and you know she's looking for an alternative to all the junk food that's in her pantry right now. That will help her with her, you know new year's goals or just whatever she's trying to accomplish or just really likes snacking and that's that's why she wants something to kind of like replace or make her snacking habit better for her.
Speaker 2:
I wouldn't say or she likes nothing I would say and she likes it.
Speaker 3:
That's a great tip.
Speaker 2:
It is what I would say. Um, so her pain points would be what?
Speaker 3:
The biggest one is, I think, time Okay, um, in that, like sure she could cook something that would be, you know, okay, but they don't have to go through all the trouble, you know midday, if they just want to eat something right away.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, they don't have to figure out what to buy and how to make it and when to make it and how to make it and then also pick up the kids from school and you know, and they've got. They had to bring work home because they didn't get their work finished during the day.
Speaker 3:
She can even eat it on the way to picking up her kids from school. It's very portable and so in that way it's also super convenient for people too. The kind of people who I've seen really attracted to it often are bringing it on the go, like whether it's on airplanes or on trips or even just after the gym.
Speaker 2:
It's a good way to have some portable nutrition. Okay, so switching gears a little bit. Uh, you are an entrepreneur, and tell me one thing about being an entrepreneur that you did not expect.
Speaker 3:
I didn't expect it to be as lonely as it is. It is, isn't it, yeah, and it's not the type of loneliness that I. When I think of loneliness, it's like oh, no one's hanging out with me. It's like more like you don't relate to people the way you used to and you also maybe have like an underlying stress, and you know, let's say both with money and time and trying to make the business go. That, you know, makes it more difficult, I think, to connect with other people.
Speaker 2:
I couldn't have said it better. I think there's a difference between being alone and being lonely, even though it still has the same root word in it. They're very, very different. You can be in a crowd of people and feel lonely because they don't see you, they don't experience what you're experiencing, and it's a very common condition for entrepreneurs, particularly sole owners like you are and like I am. No one gets you. Look the people who go to work at the bank and they come home at five o'clock and they have their 401k plan and they have their vacation time and they have their sick time and they have a bonus here there, whatever it is. They don't get you and you really don't get them anymore, and I think that that's.
Speaker 2:
It's going to sound strange, but that's sort of the beauty of entrepreneurship is recognizing that. Okay, that's fine, I don't get you, you don't get me. So I need to. I need to find a different tribe. I need to find the tribe that is, that is in the same boat as I am, that has the same frustrations and fears as I, because then they, they see me and they understand, and I understand what they're going through as well. So it's just, you know it's, it's just a much different tribe. So tell me, if someone came to you and said oh, you know, I'm thinking of starting a product in the health food space, what advice would you give them? Either something to do, something not to do, yeah.
Speaker 3:
I'll just try to rattle off a couple of things that come to my head immediately. First is don't do an E2 product. You know, if I look at, for example, the protein bar space, I I don't understand how all these companies keep launching with essentially the same exact product and expecting to somehow break into an ultra competitive market and trying to beat people who are, you know, owned by, you know, huge food king kong homer, it's like general mills, like they're gonna lose every time.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, you're gonna lose and so you need to really look at it and ask yourself, like is this actually innovative or not? You know, if you do a, if your solution is I'm gonna have a triple chocolate cupcake flavor instead of a double chocolate, like that's probably not enough and you should probably go back to the drawing board.
Speaker 2:
Right, that's like, that's like defensively unique.
Speaker 3:
And then the second thing I would definitely recommend is really focusing in on your margins, on your margins and uh, the reason I said that is because I probably assumed too much about what my margins were going to be and like how fast I could make stuff and how much money.
Speaker 3:
Sure, um, and you know, you can, you know, browse the internet and maybe get a little info. But the truth, um, I think you got to actually talk to people to figure out whether your assumptions are realistic. So I would reach out to other food entrepreneurs. I've now had some conversations with people who were interested in it and that is always like one of the first things I tell them.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, um, what's your path to profitability?
Speaker 3:
Yeah, and particularly, like you know, if you're doing e-commerce versus you're trying to do wholesale. Those are two different margin profiles and it changes, and so you really need to think about. You know is, is this gonna?
Speaker 2:
is does the?
Speaker 3:
math, add up.
Speaker 2:
Yes, it's, and I think I think you're absolutely right. I think that that's probably you know. Having a having a great recipe is a little controversial. Having a great recipe is meaningless if there is not a path to profitability.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, cause, then it's just, you have a nice at home food product, or it's a non, it's a nonprofit.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, it is All right. So my last real question to you is what did I not ask you that you hoped I would, and what is your answer to that question?
Speaker 3:
I think I don't think you've ever asked me, even outside this conversation, why I chose crafted kitchen instead of a different kitchen.
Speaker 2:
Okay, tell me.
Speaker 3:
Because I've actually thought about this one a lot, because I reached out to a ton of kitchens. I was living in Ventura and then we were moving to LA, and so I was trying to find my first commercial kitchen.
Speaker 2:
I remember meeting you and you saying you lived in Ventura, and I thought to myself well, okay great, but there was like a couple like big things, that like stood out for me and like.
Speaker 3:
So the context is while I've always loved cooking, I have never worked in a professional kitchen setting before.
Speaker 2:
So this was definitely like very a little bit intimidating for me.
Speaker 1:
Okay, yeah, it would be Sure.
Speaker 3:
You know I had already gotten my serve safe license, but you know, that's just, that's just an online course. You know it's very different from actually doing it. It's just an online course. You know it's very different from actually doing it. But so I remember specifically when I reached out, you guys were extremely professional in a very generally unprofessional industry.
Speaker 3:
You've learned better now though, right, but you know, immediate follow up, schedule a call. You were able to answer all my questions. You actually honed in on like what you needed from me, not just yeah, just come on by and sign up for this kitchen. It was this these are the next steps, and, like, for me, that was like a a huge benefit. It's like okay, these people know what they're doing.
Speaker 3:
Um, and then actually it was when we were that came on site um, I remember that yeah, uh, it's the fact that you mentioned your, the fact that you guys do a deep kitchen clean every week, besides also your other kitchen cleans, oh, yeah and so crafted kitchen was super, super clean and that you guys took it seriously, which is very important for me and my product, because I'm terrified of cross-contamination.
Speaker 2:
I know you are.
Speaker 1:
I'm a gluten-free product.
Speaker 3:
I am a vegan product and so I am very sensitive to that stuff and so, like I felt extremely comfortable here and that that was like kind of the reason that I that was the lynch for you.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, and how has your experience here been? And don't pay attention to the fact that I'm sitting here yeah, no, I mean it was.
Speaker 3:
It was awesome. No, like legitimately craft a kitchen was like really huge for super team and also for everyone listening. This is not an ad like. This is like straight up, just how I feel. Um, like to put in perspective.
Speaker 3:
You know, I'd never worked in a kitchen before. You know, I remember the first day I came and I asked the uh, the domey team and said, just told them I've never worked in a kitchen before. If you see me doing anything stupid, please tell me. Um, but what was so great about this is you guys were always extremely open to answer any of my I think, very elementary questions sometimes. Um, and also you guys were really great as almost like we'll call you the consultants or part-time employees, almost where it's like I, from the time I started actually selling to a year later, I was able to double my production output per hour and like that was really big like for the business oh yeah and so just and that wasn't me just magically figuring it out a lot of it was asking you guys questions and ideas and then just kind of being able to push the ball forward on that last question really is where can people find your product?
Speaker 3:
yeah, uh. So we're in some local gyms in la, but unless you happen to be a member there, you're not going to see it, so the best place to get it is going to be our website, which is superteenfoodscom. Great, and we sell them in packs of three, eight and twelve, and I pack every order and ship them myself. So you know, give us a try fantastic um, michael.
Speaker 2:
You have been with us for our two years now yeah, roughly okay, and you are leaving us this week?
Speaker 3:
yes, you are moving to houston yes, it's gonna be a little sweaty out there.
Speaker 2:
It's gonna be a little sweaty out there, uh, and you know when people, when people come here or when people leave, you know the energy always shifts because of the new energy right, or the energy that's gone, and I don't want you to walk out of here tomorrow without knowing that your energy has meant a lot to me personally. Your calm means a lot to me personally, because sometimes I am not, and so having you here has been not only a pleasure, it's been an honor. It's been an honor to watch you go from, I think I want to make these things to sitting in the corridor and packaging hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of protein bars. So just because you will no longer be under this roof does not mean that we will not be standing on the sidelines cheering for you and watching you. You will continue to have questions, and I expect you to pick up the phone and call me, because if I don't have the answer for you, I will get the answer for you.
Speaker 3:
Thank you so much, Cindy. Seriously, that was really wonderful to hear.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, it was our pleasure. Thank you, michael, it's been a great time.
