"So, why are we doin' this?"

Michelle and Joan are doers. They don't just have ideas, they go after them - sometimes too hard and for too long. Sometimes to great success and following. This first episode of Proofing Stage lays the groundwork for why, after a professional lifetime of going after things, creating and improving, it's time to take a look back and figure out where to go from here. And, why doing it with others is the only way to do it. 

As the episode title suggests, we answer the question: "Why are we doin' the podcast?" 

Together with our host, Amanda, the answer includes:

• Capturing years of entrepreneurship
• Shining a light on the challenging experiences we face as minority business owners
• Describing what Michelle and Joan did before the bagel biz
• Explaining how businesses reflect their founders
• Demonstrating what goes into a minimally viable product
• Fostering community
• Talking about how others perceive your dreams
• To open up our networks
• Highlighting mistakes for others to learn from
• Because the hustle and grind wants to keep us from communing
• Along the way, you learn more about Joan, Michelle and Amanda.
• And, yes, Michelle explains the significance of this pod's name. 

CW: Seasoned with explicit language

Links:

Fugue the App

"Descent into Sadness" (Fugue app commercial)

"Through the Ages" (Fugue app commercial)

Karmic Messenger

Bottoms Up Bagels

Theme music by Thorn Haze
Artwork by Lisa Orye

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Transcript

Proofing Stage - Episode 1: So, Why Are We Doin’ This?

Amanda: It's difficult to talk about your life experience and not drop a name or many names of people, organizations, towns, and the like that were characters in it. That said, we want to honor privacy while making things relatable for our audience. To that end, we really won't be naming names here. Instead, we'll do our best to portray systems, organizations, and archetypes in a way that we hope resonates.

After all, while we operate in different circuses, many of the clowns are the same. For more information, including notice and disclaimers, please visit proofingstage.com

Welcome to Proofing Stage. If you're an entrepreneur, you've probably been on the receiving end of a lot of advice. Some of it helpful, some of it useless, some of it loaded. You get the picture. It's one thing to start a business. It's another thing to keep it going, especially when you encounter the systems in place.

Some systems are intended to support and others look fine on the outside until you dig deeper. There's so much you may think you know, until you find yourself in the place where you just don't, Whose advice do you listen to then? I mean, after you register for the EIN, the rest is kind of a crap shoot, no?

Well, this is a podcast that's inspired by the journey of two entrepreneurs, Joan Kanner and Michelle Bond, and their desire to create some space for themselves, as well as other business owners to take that breath, honor where they've been, deconstruct what they have experienced, and take those lessons on to the next level.

I'm your host, Amanda Schwarz. I own a small business too, Michelle and Joan are growing their business in an "active pause," the same kind of pause that's necessary within a proofing stage. Curious? I hope you are. I'm kind of banking on it. Oh, either way, just trust the process. Let's get to introductions.

Joan: I'm Joan Kanner co-founder and chief vision officer for Bottoms up Bagels. And I primarily oversee our savories production. 

Michelle: I'm Michelle Bond, co-founder of Bottoms Up Bagels. And I primarily have led the charge on learning and training to make bagels 

Amanda: How did you choose your roles?

Joan: At first it was quite tacit, that understanding you were both handling different things. But when you witness another person perform something like dough creation or like see how someone thinks by nature of like what they say or how they physically handle stuff, it's easier to determine, okay, who might be better at something. And just seeing how Michelle worked with things and conditions. It's not like it was completely natural, um, although Michelle's talents in that regard are definitely innate, but just also how her brain figured out different ways of dealing with different conditions.

And how we're thinking really lends itself well to, to that work, although you would not call yourself a baker necessarily. 

Michelle: No, and I think that may be the first time I've ever heard you say that, so thank you. My memory of it is that we started this business in our home. Joan was still working full time.

I was consulting and in between permanent jobs, and I had the time to mess around with this stuff. But, you know, as is the dynamic of our relationship and therefore the business, Joan has an idea. And then, um, I have to figure out how to make it happen. And that's not to say that Joan is not, um, you know, not putting in the effort.

But it's like, she's the one, like, I, you know, she's always the one who's like, “Oh, we should do such and such.” And I'm like, “no, we have too much to do. We can't fit that in. That doesn't make any sense.” And then there I am, because I know it's a good idea, being like, okay, well, if we were to move this way and we did this thing and we cleared this space, we could, you know, do it, and that's the beauty of, of the dynamic.

I mean, and Joan will be like, “okay, where do you need me? What do you need me to do? How can I help you execute my idea?” But that's kind of the dynamic and it's oversimplifying it, but I think that's what's made it. What's made us work well together.

Amanda: Well, all right, friends, why are we doing this? Why are we doing a podcast?

Michelle: Yeah, we've run - at this point - Bottoms Up Bagels for eight years. We have done other entrepreneurial stints before that, but this was by far the most exciting, successful, uh, activated and all of those things. And we were operating in one format for most of that time, but for the past year, we've been operating in a slightly different business model with much more of an administrative focus and a more kind of like CEO focus on growing and funding the business from having been on the ground so much in the early part.

But yeah, we have this gift of time, which is like the most rare of all gifts in terms of being able to reflect on what we've done as business owners, how this has impacted us personally, who we've brought along, who we have learned from. And it just seems like the right time to help us kind of capture this experience.

And also. Just to share a little bit about what it's like, you know, we've been tossing around exploring this space between "atta girl" and "I told you so," and it's got me thinking like, really, what is that space? Like, what would be necessary in that space? Is it, you know,” I'll help you” or “what do you need” or “how's it going?”

I think this is the space that we're trying to create with this is just the ability to, with the benefit of time and perspective, have a little bit of straight talk, have a little bit of light shine, shown, shined(?) on the darker spaces of this journey, particularly for, for women and people of color and minorities who don't necessarily have that light on them, but also, you know, the path that's laid before us as the one that we're supposed to travel on, that path was not made by us, it was not forged by us.

And so a lot of the things along the way, even those meant to be helpful, maybe are not helpful to us. And so, you know, we just thought we've got a chance to actually put voice to some of these things, to share our story, but more importantly, hopefully open up space for a community of people doing similar things to be like, "Oh my God. Yes. Like, I know what that feels like," or "yeah, can you believe what this guy said to me?" or just like, "Oh, that was a really helpful tip. Thank you." I mean, it seems cliché, but I think it's really important that we don't feel alone, especially with all the things going on in the world. It's just really helpful sometimes to know that you're not losing your mind, or if you are losing your mind, you know, it's not your fault.

And, and even if it is your fault - or fault, right, with a small “f” - like, there are tools and resources in the community out there that can help you out. 

Joan: I was watching NewsHour yesterday. Big surprise, I listen to NewsHour on PBS. And I really don't care for politicians generally, but there are some I feel like who have been really fierce and have gone against the grain. 

And they were interviewing Adam Kinziger.Who is just as fierce as that fine Liz Cheney. Anyway, so Adam has a new book coming out. And he was talking about like why he was basically his reflections now versus when he was in the office and talked about the difference between, like, operating and then being able to, like, really reflect on what you're doing when you're not in the day-to-day.

So he couldn't see certain reflections,  he couldn't stand back and take a broader look at things, a detailed look at patterns, and figure out the “why’s” of some things without stepping away from day-to-day operations. And I feel like we would be remiss if we didn't step away from things for a bit and figure out why we did certain things - did they work? Did they not work?

I feel like certainly in the podcast, we're not going to come out as, like, the heroes who make perfect decisions all the time. And it's really important for us to also, in the community of women and minorities in small business, to share not just our foibles, but how systems and gatekeepers and other things can get in the way, in a way that they can benefit from.

I feel like our experience and our mistakes are something that other people can learn from. And also by us looking at things, I think people will get a sense as to who we are, and can consider whether or not they'd want to work with us, invest in us. But yeah, I think it's, that's what it's for. It's not just for us. It's also for others.

Michelle: So the proofing stage is the period of time that you are giving the yeast to grow and activate. And for us, we have, you know, multiple proof stages in the making of our bagels. It really is a period in which you have to be patient and a period during which the product transforms from one thing to another. There are quick proofs, you know, if you ever made a pizza dough at home, right?

Like, you don't always have to wait a full hour to 90 minutes. Different doughs have different proof times. But we have several stages from a bulk rise to, you know, after the dough is sectioned to, after the dough is made into rounds to after it's “bageled” - which is a verb we coined early on - “bageling” as a verb, and, and then eventually, you know, still another proof before it goes into kind of a retardation process where it's kept at a cold temperature so that it doesn't continue to rise or overproof.

And so this idea of, the period during which you're being patient, waiting for the dough to transform itself, and, you know, you don't want to be a minute too soon on that process, but you also don't want to be too late. And so as we think about this podcast project, it's really about what factors have gone into the making of BUB as a business, what pieces we thought we could hit hard in the beginning, and we did, you know, hustle culture and all. And, a lot of the success that we had or have had to date is really attributed to just relentless effort, but we're in a stage now where we recognize that this is a long game. And for most things, they do require this - equal parts of patience and diligence. And I think that's the really cool thing about the proofing metaphor is you do have to be diligent.

You're still watching the clock. You're still making sure you haven't waited too long or are, you know, too, too impatient and doing something too quickly. But, you know, it takes both of those things in equal measure to get a good product at the end. 

Amanda: Tell us a little bit more about your background in building business and doing business before BUB or maybe even just including BUB as well.

Joan: Believe it or not , Michelle and I were landlords for a time. So we live in Baltimore City; own a house here. And at one point there was an opportunity to purchase the house next door to us. We did not seek to become landlords. We have had landlords historically. We know the other side of things by being tenants, and the opportunity came up and we bought the house next door. And it was… I learned a lot about myself and how I handle different stresses and about people's different situations with that experience.

Michelle: Yeah, and I mean that experience really came out of simply just being in a neighborhood that speculators and house flippers and absentee landlords have occupied for as long as, you know, we can remember and probably long before. And just wanting to have a little bit of control over that situation in terms of being able to be more active in the management of that property, and create a nice space for people who wanted to also be a part of the community.

So that was yeah, unexpected, but I think it came out of this need to, you know, this, this justice streak that I think we both have that materializes itself in different ways. I remember sitting on our front porch when the auction was going on. And I had no interest in buying a property nor the money to do that. You know, I was just sitting there just being like, okay, let's see who shows up. Come on. Who's going to, like, you know, will the people from New York come down and like, you know, buy something and flip it and don't care what's going on? And I'm the one who has to live here. I'm the one who gets woken up at three in the morning. I'm the one who, like, hears people screaming and fighting. 

The long story short is that nobody showed up for that auction. And the people running it were just like, "do you want to buy this house?" And, you know, and it went kind of from there. But over the years, yeah, we definitely have had some stories and we've had some great tenants and in the end we ended up actually selling the house to, to folks who were renting it for a few years and, you know, kind of a perfect ending for everybody.

Joan: I just wanted to saw that when it comes to being landlords and Michelle's beautiful and thoughtful description of things, she should've - and could've - really virtue signaled about who we rented to. You know what I mean? But for God's sake, we rented to people who were like, escaping Boko Haram. We rented to grad students who were returned Peace Corps volunteers.We even like, rented to a gay divorcee. Literally. 

I mean, we just need to just sell ourselves more, Michelle. The guys do it. I feel like the way people treat women and our voices and what we share and the good things. It's definitely made me, like, hold back in terms of what I've done that's like good and important. It's like some sort of, like, bizarre shaming for, like, just stating a fact, you know? Or if we said like that we were landlords, some would be like, “oh, you had financial privilege.” I'm thinking, like, it was a fire sale because the dude who owned it was divorcing and needed to, like, fucking liquidate quickly. I would never buy a house if it weren't that cheap, you know. I just I just think at some point it's just good to mention, like, how people's behavior can be seen based on their gender - and other components can be seen as like virtue signaling or other negative things when they're just simply factual. And they kind of show you, your… your values.

Michelle: Joan's a visionary, you know, like, her title for BUB is chief visionary officer, and it's not just a title. I mean, she really does always push the envelope of being creative and being, um, collaborative and innovative. Uh, even in places where it might not seem to make sense. Like, why is this bagel business making parody skits, you know?

Um, but like any business, it reflects its founders. And so Joan's always brought that energy to anything. We did something called the Baltimore Diners Survey in 2015, which was a precursor to Bottoms Up Bagels and started largely because we were foodies and diners and we ate out a lot and we loved the local food scene. But we felt like there were these trends that were coming out, you know, at the time it was long communal tables and, you know, farm-to-plate, which in and of itself is great, but it just felt like all of a sudden it was everywhere and we were being told as consumers what we should like, and what was cool, and what was trendy. And it was like, celebrity chefs were all the rage and we're just like, is this what people want? Like, are people like eating out because of these things?

So just first and foremost, to satisfy our own curiosity, like, we developed a pretty extensive survey. We took an ad out in the City Paper and we sent it around, obviously, through our networks, but we also handed out flyers at the downtown farmer's market with QR codes where people could just take the survey.

Joan: We got a lot of responses and I need to revisit that data. Of course, I included skip patterns and other things that, as someone who's worked on, um, surveys and social science research, it's just something that you do to, like, not waste people's time. And I remember when we were wrapping things up and we had concluded, um, receiving responses, working with a dear friend - and I, and I still mean that - he gave me such a hard time. He works for a university and I knew that he would do a great job at crunching numbers. I had the benefit of, when I worked doing survey work for a university here, that had amazing graduate students, they were just brilliant when it comes to mathematics and statistics and everything.

So I needed someone like that. I needed somebody on the cheap. So I worked with him on it and he was just giving me a hard time: "the data is garbage" and like, "I don't get it." And "what are you trying to do?" And I was just like, "just find me the trends and the patterns. Let's just see how many people answer a certain way."

And "yes, if people say M O U N T for "Mt." in “Mount Vernon” versus "M T period," it's the same “Mount Vernon.” I mean, he was pushing back pretty hard on some basic stuff. He’s a very intelligent person. After all that, and I got the data needed. And we ended up having a better response rate than an Open Table survey that year in various ways, which tells you, if people responding in that way, no, dear friend of mine, the survey was not too long because we had things like skip patterns. 

And also people were so eager to talk about these things. So to Michelle's point, I think some people were tired of, like star chef bullshit, but it also gave people a chance to talk about what there's too much of in Baltimore City, what there's not enough of.

I think we had some really clever questions. Having all the research and all the results, we talked to a dear friend of ours who is a woman who works in the research space. And I shared with her the concerns our friend had mentioned who did the analysis with me. And she was just like, “dude, it's a marketing survey. You weren't doing, like, a HIPAA related blah, blah, blah. Like, what you did was an amazing marketing survey. Did you get what you needed?” I was like, “yeah.” She's just like, “then it was a success.”

Amanda: Did you go into this survey out of just pure curiosity or did you have it in the back of your mind that you were thinking about building something that someone might need?

Michelle: Definitely more the latter. I mean, the whole premise was that, like, we have certain skills, like any entrepreneurs, right? Like you, I mean, you have certain skills, you've been working for other people for a long time, you're dissatisfied in the environments that you've been working in because they don't, you know, you don't feel like they're getting it quite right.

Or maybe you feel, like, there's something that you could do better. Or like in my case, I had just worked so long and so hard for other people. And I was like, wow, what would it be like if I did that for myself? You know? But really it did help us inform what would become Bottoms Up Bagels. 

We always had that interest in food. We always wanted to do something in that realm, but I don't think at the time there was even a direct link. I think it was more adjacent to the food world. Like, if we can do this because we're interested in, when we want to give people more of what they want, we can work with people who can do it. I wasn't originally thinking, like, we would be the ones to do it.

Amanda: So, you've done the survey, you had gotten these results, you went into the survey thinking, you know, maybe it'll be business for us, maybe it'll be recommendations for other people. Tell me about the space between you having the results and “we've decided we're going to go in and try to build a bagel business based on these results.”

Joan: I don't think that the connection was that direct, but it certainly, like, got us thinking as to, like, what was missing. We already wanted to do something involving food to some degree. I think it was more the personal side to things that really pushed us over into testing out BUB at all. 

Michelle: Yeah, I mean, I think the results helped validate that inexpensive, high value, quality options were missing. I mean, something that we already felt, but it, it helped to validate that for sure. But I think I'm trying to think of the timing, that's what I'm pausing. I don't know if one was, like, conclusive before the other started. I mean, I think I was between jobs and like, we had been making bagels as a hobby, and so that was getting more serious, and then I think we realized that we could just actually test it out in real time by doing the farmer's markets and stuff, so it wasn't like we were trying to go from zero, then to having data, then to, like, having a full-blown restaurant, you know. And it kind of organically happened that way, but I think based on the response that we had from the beginning, that is what kind of kicked it into less dabbling and more like a full blown business that we were essentially then, like, off and running and trying to grow well within the first year.

In 2013? 2012? 2013, Joan founded a company called Karmic Messenger. 

And Karmic Messenger was this basically umbrella company. And the common thread there was that - I don't know if it's the common thread in these things - is basically like listening to people and giving them what they want. So, it never really worked, itself, as a business because it was, it was abstract. But the idea is like, if you could person, if you could personify karma and actually actively use it to return to people in the form of a product, something that would make their life better, that's what we were trying to do.

Audio from a recording of Joan’s Karmic Messenger Pitch: I'm Joan Kanner, originally from Northern New Jersey, and now living in my chosen home of Baltimore, Maryland for the past 12 years.

And I am a Karmic Messenger. So what is a Karmic Messenger? Let's say you have a boss who's been awful to you. You might feel powerless when it comes to getting her fired, but an outside auditor manages to do it, and your work life is changed. The person who took away your boss's keys, that's a Karmic Messenger.

You leave your wallet at the checkout counter. An hour later you come back and the cashier has it waiting for you. That cashier is a Karmic Messenger. Think of it as a third party that didn't perform the original good or bad deed, nor was a recipient of that action. It's someone who steps in later to balance things out. [Pitch recording ends here|

Joan continues our conversation: I will say that I just want to further explain about Karmic Messenger, which I will refer to as KM. It was important to like, again, like. start with the question and to say: "I also personally am just tired of being told what I want and need by everyone and everything, and then just being asked to accept it." And when I don't, I’m  just being like a "harpy" or a bad customer or whatever. So it's really important to, like, start a company with the overarching belief that's for asking people what they want or need. And then that's also meant to encourage product fit. [I ]was working for a university and I had to work a lot with tech transfer folks, basically the people who work on the intellectual property and other types of legal aspects of contracts and agreements that go between universities and other public sector places. So for-profits, let's say. 

And we were going to be doing, someone had the idea of doing a pitch night as a happy hour. Yes, that never happened. For some reason the event fell through and I don't know if people just like shat the bed not wanting to show up? But I, being the A student - question mark - decided to come up with my full pitch.

I had, like the deck, I had, like, I had some music behind it. And I wanted to pitch this idea that was inspired earlier that summer. So the idea behind Fugue came from sharing a beach house with a bunch of randos. No, literally, it's sharing a beach house with a bunch of randos. And I was on the beach with this one woman who I did not know, who was right after a breakup. 

So she was like, just fresh from it. She was all torn up about it. And one of her biggest issues at the moment was dealing with music that reminded her of her ex, and she wanted to rid herself of it. And she, in the course of sharing this with me, she mentioned how long it was taking to, like, literally remove, remove music and make space for new things that could represent who she is now. Because, basically, she went into this relationship as one person, and at the end had drifted to [being] somebody else. And she wanted to find her way back to who she was. And I thought, there has to be a way to mechanically do this. There has to be a way to digitally do this.

Audio from a recording of Joan’s Fugue Pitch: What if someone stepped in and handed her a tool that put back in her hands some of the control she had lost?

Enter Fugue. Whether you've just gone through a breakup, are sick of an artist, or don't want certain music to play for just one day, my app, Fugue, can help. Fugue saves you from hitting “skip” or “dislike” over and over, and lets you forget songs, artists, and albums for as short or as long as you want. This award would help us develop version 1. 0 features, including social media integration and Music SwapTM. And it would also be able to fully launch our marketing plan to increase downloads and users. [Pitch recording fades out|

Amanda: I worked in the tech space for a really long time before kind of backing out of it. I was in product development for a company way back when, in the mid aughts, and it was really interesting to watch how people would develop a product and then they'd say, “well, who is it for?” And they would make up this person that would use this product.

And then we would go out and talk to the people who we thought would be using it. And they'd say,” well, what we actually need is this, this, and this.” And then we go back to the product team and say, well, “they need this, this and this” and they said, “well, we're not building that, we're building this.” So can you find the person that needs this because we're not building that.

And I feel like that was the kind of behavior that was accepted and rewarded within those spaces. You're coming at it from a totally different angle, which is the way that we're kind of taught to do, but it doesn't really play within the systems that I'm based in. It's one of the reasons why I didn't feel comfortable in those systems.

So I want to explore more of that if, if we just have a second, I mean, how has, how has that worked in terms of people hearing what you're doing and you know, whether you're playing in your lane by going in with something that people want versus something that the system is more willing to put their backing behind because it serves them.

Joan: Michelle and I ran some really cool and very interesting focus groups of people who are in UX and UI and also people who are in other fields. So I just want to make sure that people understand that, like, we went through quite a scientific and rigorous process to understand some of these things. This is without having any type of formal backing. 

Michelle: Yeah. And I mean, I appreciate that question, Amanda, because it's, it's really astute and it, and it, it kind of, as you were, as you were formulating the question, I was thinking about just this process, even just wanting to do the podcast and the process of the last year where we adjusted our operating model for BUB a little bit, because I think those things did kind of come to a head, you know, when you start a business based on a known question or a known need, right?

You really…Iit kind of gives you this amazing permission to just go like all in, like, a thousand percent in because you know that you're hitting the right note there. You know, I mean, there's all kinds of stuff you don't know. And this is, this was very much like, you know, you're, you're building the bike while you're riding it.

A good… one of our collaborators in Baltimore always likes to say you're, you know, “you're building a plane on the way down,” but it's like, but, but like, so it gives you this amazing amount of energy and focus and drive, I think, to be able to begin with, from that place versus like, "Oh, I created this thing and now I got to figure out who I can sell it to."

And, you know, any business course, webinar, accelerator program, pitch session, anything is going to tell you, you know, what's, “what's the problem you're solving?” And then, you know, “what's the size of that market?” And it's true, but like what the, the problem is that you're solving, does get at answering that question? But they think there's a difference between, like, firsthand experience with the problem.

Like most, like many of the most passionate entrepreneurs I know, they're trying to solve a problem that they had, that somebody that they love has, something that would improve their life. So that, you know. And at its core, all business is meant to do that. But the culture that you're explaining really, I think, did rule kind of the mainstream psyche for so long in terms of that whole, like, what is it like? "Move fast and break things "-kind of idea that, that is rewarded and often rewarded with other peoples’ money. And I think many of the people out there who have the idea that is born out of a real problem that they've had, or, or out of listening to someone's need, they don't, they don't have the luxury of that.

You know, they don't have the luxury of using other people's money to break things along the way. I mean, I do think that conceptually, sure, that helps with innovation and it helps with creativity and it helps with failing fast and all the things that you also need to do. But I think that brings us back to why we're having this conversation is because, you know, we were at something over the summer for a pitch night for women, mostly women of color.

And I mean, one, one of the women in that group had, she had become a surrogate in order to fund her concept, in order to keep her business going. She got to the point where she had nothing left. And knew that, like, her future was hinged on making this thing work. You know, and like, those are the stories that I think are more often than not. I mean, that's amazing not to, you know, minimize - those things are happening left, right and center. But those aren't the things that are getting air. So when you ask about, like, your lane, I don't even know. Because in some ways it feels like we're having a whole different conversation. You know, these conversations are focused on making space and bringing other people in and asking people questions and being like, "Well, I think this is what you're saying. Is that what you're saying?" "No, it's not." "Okay. Well, then what are you saying? And can that work? And does that make sense?" And like, there aren't traditional lanes in that format. But then it also, the flip side of it explains that like, I think a lot of what we've been trying to process about our experience with Bottoms Up Bagels is, like, not realizing that people were looking at us almost like we were from another planet because they did have lanes in their mind and what we were doing, like, didn't fit in any of those as they were laid out.

Amanda: You know that people are looking for something that is delicious and affordable. You have the, you have everything, you know, you, you have the facts, you have the studies, you have the research. How did you not fit into a lane? What lane were you supposed to fit into?

Would it’ve been possible for you to have fit into a lane? Be it that one thing were different, or maybe, you know, what was it? 

Michelle: I mean, I think that it's never one thing. Right. Like, like, when we made the tough decision to close our shop in 2022, we, I don't know how many conversations we had that, like, the reasons are many, you know, but the fact of the matter is that if, when the reasons are many, if a couple of them can’t change but a couple of them can, you know, be supportive versus not, that might be all you need.

And so that's a tangent, but to your point about lanes, I think we, we were operating this business just with, like, all of our fire and all of our passion and all of our data and all of our everything, and we weren't really looking to see, you know, what people were, how they were looking at us or what they expected, you know.

We're roughly like two, five foot, two, white-presenting women, you know, but we're also, you know, we're also queer. We also have never really had the luxury of just playing by the rules that were given to us. And so we weren't paying attention, you know, but I think that question about lanes comes up in subtle ways. You know, we were like, we're creating a brand. It's going to be like, it's about brand. It's about bringing people in. It's about making people feel something that they associate with the term “Bottoms Up Bagels” beyond just how good the bagels are. And that was what drove us. We weren't thinking about, like, "Oh, how do I get into this farmer's market specifically,” or "how do I sell to this vendor?"

And I think the people around us, not, not necessarily the founders, but the people supporting those businesses were like, “well, this is what you do”. Like, you know, “it doesn't matter what your brand is. You got to, like, make this $200 today and that $200 tomorrow” and then, you know, and, like, that's certainly one way to do it.

Amanda: Joan, what's going on in your mind? 

Joan: We're not ass kissers. I feel like if you read that script, it's like what you expect for women do to do well in certain spaces. You need to be an ass kisser. We're also not going to be people who are going to change the business into a non-profit because that's what people think we should be doing.

I mean, are you telling some dude to, like, turn his [business] into a fucking non-profit?

Michelle: Because we care about workforce… I mean, that's the thing. It's like, "oh, you really care about workforce. You should be a non-profit." It's like, well, like, so I don't know. 

Joan: Or a program. I swear to God, like, I feel like there were so many people who would stop by the shop or even, like, in different stands that we've had, and want us to, like, serve basically people who are like these bizarre combinations of things and, like, then we're allowed to, like, be in this space and do the things, but my dreams are much more than that. And I think at some point I realized that people saw my dreams as, like, dirty and were not worthwhile.

Like, I can't possibly want more. And that's what I come up to when we talk about some of our, um, first runs of the [BUB] Roadshow. Like it was amazing to, in a certain way, to go to places like Montana, have the experience that we had, meet the staff members there that we, we met in doing that process and come back. And I feel like my dreams or my experience were immediately squashed by the people around us. And that was tough. And this, I mean, from team members. And just along the way, I have realized that people treat my dreams and desires as being either less worthwhile, simply dirty or something to be ignored, or I'm supposed to have the desires that you want for me. Which I don't. I want more. It's not enough for me. What we've done is not enough for me still.

Amanda: Why do you think the case is that people treat your dreams like trash? Because they're not their own dreams? Because they don't fit? Like, I don't mean to answer, but like, why? Why do you think? 

Joan: I wonder why, what people associate with just the demographics of me in, like, I think they probably have an idea of, like, what I should want or not want.

And this comes across from people who were/had different political views. This comes across with people of different ages, has come across people who could be the same age as me and, like, the same race. When it comes to funding and venture capital and people who hold the purse strings and connection to property, all these different things, because they do not look and act and sound like us or have a background like I do.

Like, yeah, I'm master's educated, but that's through bootstrapping. And, that's not through family lineage. I didn't go to an Ivy League school. And because those people are so different, who are in those positions, they're just not going to get what we do. I mean, some of it can feel very maniacal - and I believe some of it is - but they simply do not have the habitus, or just the experience in their lives, to be able to relate to these great ideas.

But one thing I've always wanted to do is to have a male team member or someone we know in our lives pitch the exact same thing I fucking said. And then be able to record what that experience was like, how the audience views it, and I bet you it would be received better. So I'm up for that. It's amazing to me. I, I think it's just, I mean, to say it's part of the patriarchy just seems like a very simple answer to your question. I feel like even with AI - and you put in, like, “what an entrepreneur looks like” or “what a CEO looks like”; you don't fucking come up with me. 

Amanda: Well, I feel like the patriarchy is a just fine answer in that I understand it's simple, but it pretty much hits all of it, from many different angles, depending on how, you know, it's just systems, you know, the patriarchy is just representation of systems. 

Michelle: And I think that's also related to your first question about lanes and things. I think it's just that simple. It's like, you know, any entrepreneur is trying to buck the system in some way by saying, “I'm going to go out on my own. I'm going to solve a problem. I'm going to make a living doing that, not answering to anybody else,” right? In its simplest form. But at some point you have to interact with that system, right? Like at some point you need, you need champions who are part of that system. You need money from people who are part of that system.

You need access, but I think part of the point, and especially in 2023 here, is that systems can be different. And if enough people are trying to buck the systems or, or play outside the lanes or create more inclusive spaces, you know, we're going to be the majority at some point. You know, and so, I mean, already are in some places.

And so, but if we're not talking to one another, if we're, if we're so busy having our head down, trying to play by someone else's rules to advance to someone else's definition of “success,” it's not going to happen. 

Amanda: Where are the groups of those entrepreneurs who are, you know, they are fact-based, they are building what needs to be built, but they're working together to infiltrate these spaces or perhaps create their own structures where they're able to, within, as a group, come together.

And say, this is what we've created, this is what people want, and we are claiming our space now. And, and what does that connection look like? And those connections don't get made because we're so fucking busy with the hustle and grind. And told to hustle and grind, and hustle and grind, and hustle and grind.

Whereas all these others are kind of hanging out in their boardrooms making their connections, and, you know, having their beer pong nights and free pizza lunches and all that bullshit while the hustle and grinders continue to hustle and grind and don't come together, don't have the time to do it. Um, so, you know, here's to hoping.

Michelle: Yeah, no, well said. I mean, I fully admit that, you know, this is a, like I said, we have had the benefit of time and the… out of sheer absolute complete burnout had to take a pause from operating in the way that we had been for seven years, but then we've also been operating in a whole different way for the last, you know, year, essentially in more of that CEO role, more of that, you know, pounding the pavement for funding.

We were doing the Roadshow and all these things, but you know what, still that hasn't felt like enough either. And so I think that's part of the reason why we are at the point of this, of this product in terms of the podcast, because we need to open up the conversation. We need to open up our network. 

We need to stop, you know, banging our head against the same walls, no matter how many, like, different walls and networks and things that we feel like we have tried to broach, it does, it/your/that story is really salient because I feel like I recognize that we're still in a place that most people just are not because they're still just trying to, like, bring money in to pay, you know, their employees or that month's rent and, and keep things going.

And, I think we've said this before. I mean, it's not a small cost. I mean, we, we have had, you know, our future is, is TBD based on taking this break, but we also feel like we need to come out the other side of it as something, something different, something better, something more capable of contributing to, to things in a different kind of way.

And so a lot of this is a process to try to get there.

Joan: With pausing, because of who we are, there's punishment. Not brilliance. 

This is a consequence of all the things that we're doing, but we're doing it, like, with eyes wide open. And I, I don't see it as being like the wrong thing to do just because certain systems want to punish you for taking time for yourself or wanting to do things better.

I still wouldn't… I'm still not regretting any of this.

Michelle: No, but I mean, we have had, I mean, well, I guess if we do talk funding at some point, but you know, we've had a direct, there's a direct consequence to having a break in your operating schedule. Fact. Like on your books, on your, on your bankability, you know, all that kind of stuff.

But Joan is right. I think, like, in other circles that [it’s treated as] "Oh, so, so smart, so strategic. Oh, yes. Well, whenever you're ready, we'll be here for you and you'll do your next brilliant thing." This is a challenge, right? It's like recognizing these systems, recognizing in some ways you are banging your head against the wall. And then being a person who is so focused on, like, “put your head down, do the work.” Like, you know, you have an internal locus of control, like you're responsible for making things happen. And I think that's why sometimes we do take these things even farther, because, it's like, we need to know we did everything possible, even though we know like 2 percent of female founders get funded.

We're just like, yeah, but like we could be part of that 2%, you know? 

Joan: Two. Maybe like three. 

Michelle: Yeah. I mean, and that's like, that's. That's the beauty of this struggle, but it is still a struggle, and you know, I think just none of us benefit from not talking candidly about it. 

Joan: Can you just quit your whining, both of you?

It's just like this, this harpy sound you guys are coming up with, just… It's just so irritating. Just stop your whining, work a little harder.

Amanda: Thank you so much to Michelle Bond and Joan Kanner, entrepreneurs and co-owners of Bottoms Up Bagels. I look forward to sharing more of our conversation next week. You've been listening to Proofing Stage brought to you by Icarus Airlines. Icarus Airlines, now with metal wings. Our theme song, Bagels for the Kraken, was written and performed by Thorn Haze.

We also want to cite Pixabay for that sweet stock track that served as the soundtrack for Karmic Messenger and Fugue. If you're looking for a transcript, show notes, and additional credits, they can be found on our website, ProofingStage.com. Want to join the conversation? Email us at ProofingStagePod at gmail dot com.

Proofing Stage is produced by Mended Digital. I'm Amanda Schwarz. Until next time, I'll quit my whining and get back to the grind.