Ben & Jerry's almost shut down. A hidden message saved them.

[Music] on april 20th ben and jerry's will introduce the burrito and you'll see why 420 will be exactly like 4 20. after two childhood friends failed to achieve their biggest dreams they decided to work for themselves with just five dollars they learn how to make ice cream and open a shop called ben and jerry's in an old run down gas station they nearly fell into bankruptcy and got sucked into a david and goliath battle with pillsbury a billion dollar corporation but they won the public support and turned their shop into an empire that was bought for millions of dollars the ice cream business you know on the outside it's it's fun it's uh it's ice cream you know everybody loves ice cream it's sweet it's kids it's happiness and the reality of the business side of ice cream is it's one of the dirtiest businesses there is from nerds to failures 12 years before ben and jerry's opened in 1951 ben cohen and jerry greenfield were born in brooklyn and raised in long island they met in the 7th grade in gym class where we were the two slowest fattest kids in the class we were running around the track together there was a pack of kids up in the front that was bending me in the back uh the coach was yelling at us gentlemen you've got to run the mile in under seven minutes if you don't you're gonna have to do it again and ben would yell back at the coach g coach if i don't do it in under seven minutes the first time i'm certainly not gonna do it it's the second half being two of the slowest kids at school they quickly became close friends and bonded over their love for food one summer ben got a job driving a pied piper ice cream truck he made a hundred dollars a week and could eat any amount of ice cream for free he thought it was the best job ever and convinced jerry to join him but jerry quit after one day he didn't think there was a future in ice cream when they graduated from high school they remained close friends but chose different paths ben had no intention of attending college and only went because of his parents he later dropped out of four different colleges colgate university skidmore college nyu and the new school in between each stint he worked as a mcdonald's cashier janitor security guard building superintendent taxi driver delivery man and an emergency room clerk meanwhile jerry stuck with studying pre-med at oberler in college in hopes of becoming a doctor but his plans changed after applying to medical school all 20 of his applications were rejected not knowing what to do next jerry moved into ben's apartment in new york city he got a job as a lab technician and took biochemistry class to improve his chances of getting into medical school ben got into pottery and drove all over the country in a white ford van to try and sell his pots we were the only two of our friends that did not appear to be getting anywhere in the world so to speak at the time neither of them knew failing would be part of their journey to success force to start over three years before ben and jerry's expanded to grocery stores one year later jerry got rejected from 20 medical schools again meanwhile ben failed to sell a single pot so they later decided to try their luck at starting a bagel business together but they discovered the equipment would cost forty thousand dollars it was more money than they had combined they figured ice cream had to be cheaper so they pursued that idea instead they started by paying five dollars for a course on how to make ice cream and picked up brochures on how to start a business afterwards they moved to saratoga springs to open their first ice cream shop it turned out to be a huge disappointment before they could even try someone beat them to it so they packed their bags and moved to burlington a college town in desperate need of an ice cream shop the only affordable location they found was an old rundown gas station there were holes in the roof six inches of ice on the floor and hardly any walls still ben and jerry decided to make an offer they applied for a twenty six thousand dollar loan but only received four thousand dollars ben's father made a small investment but it wasn't enough to cover all of their costs so they settled on used equipment and did renovations themselves it forced them not to throw money at problems and become experts in their industry drowning in debt six years before ben and jerry's raised 750 thousand dollars in may 1978 they finally opened their ice cream shop called ben and jerry's with jerry's biochemistry background and help from a textbook they perfected the mix using high quality ingredients there was just one problem ben had anosmia a condition that made it hard for him to smell or taste and test the ice cream so he suggested that they intensify their flavors and add chunks of fruit or candy jerry wasn't sold on the idea but compromised fortunately customers were hooked and considering the chunks part of ben and jerry's signature style still ben and jerry failed to make a profit they later realized it was because they were over scooping their ice cream they couldn't bring themselves to limit their scoops so they decided to start selling wholesale tubs of ice cream we started selling to some local restaurants to try to survive and then after we bought a truck uh it was costing us more money to repair this old truck that we bought than we were making selling ice cream that was a really rough time eventually ben and jerry faced bankruptcy and were forced to come up with another idea they decided to pack their ice cream in pint containers instead of wholesale tubs and sell them to mom and pop grocery stores from there they started selling to independent distributors outside their home state sales increased by more than 300 percent it proved that even a disability in bankruptcy could not stop them from growing proving the lawyers wrong three years before ben and jerry's became a 30 million dollar empire after expanding to other states ben and jerry realized they needed to move operations to a bigger facility but to do that they would need more money while venture capitalists offered to invest they rejected each one in the favor of the vermont community they wanted them to be shareholders instead that way when the business prospered they would too their lawyer told them that they were crazy and insisted they take the money from the venture capitalists instead they visited vermont's head of banking and insurance for advice he told them there was a pretty unknown part of vermont's law that would allow ben and jerry to register as stock brokers if they did they could sell company shares to the vermont community themselves ben and jerry followed his advice and held vermont's first in-state public stock offering everyone told them it would fail since the community was small and not particularly rich still they traveled around the state telling people how they would use their money they also advertised their offering the newspaper with the headline get a scoop of the action the offering sold out and showed what can happen when you put your community first the legendary battle with pillsbury 16 years before ben and jerry's were bought out for 326 million dollars ben and jerry raised 750 000 they had more than enough money to move into a bigger facility all they had to do next was to sell more ice cream they came up with the idea of buying an ad but could only afford to run it on late night tv for 10 seconds hi i'm ben i'm jared you know we may not have the money to go on tv for 30 seconds but we sure do make some of the best ice cream you ever tasted look for us on top of every pipe their simple idea worked but created an even bigger problem the pillsbury corporation just bought haagen-dazs and feared that ben and jerry's would become a threat so they warned their distributors to stop selling their ice cream haagenaz was a steamroller it was just going and what was in its path it took care of under the federal anti-trust law pillsbury's actions were considered a restraint of trade being a company that dominated the market they weren't allowed to use their power to shut competitors out ben and jerry could sue but it would go nowhere since pillsbury was worth over four billion dollars so they decided to launch a campaign called what's the doughboy afraid of you know the reason why you can't find ben and jerry's on the shelf is because this this big corporation is trying to prevent you the consumer from having a choice about what kind of ice cream you want to buy they place the sticker on their pint containers as said what's the dough boy afraid of next to it was a 1 800 number connected to a recording of them telling people what pillsbury was doing their idea worked pillsbury got hundreds of calls from angry customers and even a letter from an unexpected insider it was signed charles pillsbury this was pillsbury's kid and he said you know i'm very disappointed at the actions of the company against this small vermont company and i look forward to discussing it with you dad when i see you for christmas dinner pillsbury backed off and settled out of court under the terms they agreed not to prevent their distributors from selling ben and jerry's ice cream i think ben and jerry's is the establishment now i guess would be the best way to describe it you know they're not the small entrepreneur we're the small entrepreneur ben and jerry's continued to grow and entered several more markets to meet the demand they raised more money through a national public stock offering they also set up a foundation to allocate 7.5 percent of pre-tax profits towards driving social change at the time most u.s corporations gave about 1.5 percent in the first half of the year sales reached 3.6 million dollars double what they earned the year before two years later ben and jerry's became a 30 million dollar empire they went on to launch more iconic flavors including chocolate chip cookie dough and in the year 2000 they were acquired by unilever for 326 million dollars an independent board of directors was created to ensure that the company remained focused on product quality and social change in an interview jerry shared one of his and ben's secrets to success don't just do something because it's a trendy idea and will make you a lot of money the reason i say that is because any kind of venture involves going through difficult times if you're doing something you're passionate about and really believe in then that will carry you through this is the story of how two underdogs took on a billion dollar corporation and built america's favorite ice cream brand for more inspiring stories and advice from today's most successful leaders don't forget to subscribe to our channel

Channel: Hook

Views: 1,772,638

Rating: 4.8827329 out of 5

Keywords: story of ben and jerrys, story of ben jerrys, ben and jerrys story, ben and jerrys, how ben and jerrys started, company man, company man ben and jerrys, the rise of ben and jerrys, ben and jerrys commercial, ben and jerrys vintage commercial, ben and jerrys inventor, behind ben and jerrys, who made ben and jerrys, success story, success stories, ben & jerry's, ice cream, ben and jerrys ice cream

Id: UNC8ohwsPAI

Length: 11min 55sec (715 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 09 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/cellis12]

Great post, I enjoyed watching.