Use the code MBA at nordpass.com/MBA to get a free 3-month NordPass Business trial. No credit card required. 🍪 COOKIE GOOD (Ross & Melanie) cookiegood.com instagram.com/cookiegoodla/ 2448 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90403 🍪 BAKESOMENOISE (Ren & Caroline) www.bakesomenoise.com instagram.com/bakesomenoise/ 3822 Sunset Blvd Los Angeles, CA 90026 🎬 Support Modern MBA: buymeacoffee.com/modernmba ☕ Support Modern MBA on Patreon: patreon.com/modernmba 💬 Join Modern MBA on Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/modernmba/ 🌎 Follow Modern MBA on Facebook: facebook.com/profile.php?id=61570667949655 🕊 Follow Modern MBA on Twitter: x.com/modern_mba
This Cookie Good guy is terrific. He's built a strong business through passion and hard work. He was torn when the finance guy wanted to help his business grow, but finance people don't want "your" business to grow, they want "their" business to grow with none of the hard work.
Meh. It seems more like they had a different strategic vision. The Cookie Good owners wanted slow, controlled growth while the “Finance Guy” was looking to be more aggressive and really scale up. Neither are wrong, just different.
Venture capitals motto is go big, then go home. All they want to do is artificially inflate the value of a bussiness by pumping money into it then sell it to someone else who thinks that growth will continue when the money pumping stops
Plus the more hands in your business the less power you have over decision making. Investors sounds good in theory but he still seems super connected and involved with his business since it's his passion. That might be a struggle for him.
This is such a simpleton comment. Look for one second at all the companies which have been helped a lot by private equity and investors. You’re only looking at the bad results and parrot that to the world in a comment
The guy at Cookie Good seems to want more out of his cookies business, but I hope he recognizes that he is a success case and celebrates that. The food business is unforgiving and unprofitable, with long-term success a rarity. He has driven his business to millions in revenue by innovation and hard work. But, I can completely understand why his business is unscalable to the franchisee business model. Also, it wouldn't align well with his values - the franchisee model is less about the cookies and innovation as it is about streamlining processes and collecting from franchise owners. Regardless, the mom & pop shop style doesn't need to constantly grow. He has found success in his small pocket in LA - and, that's damn impressive in itself.
@@AlexaSmith If you visit the webpage of Cookie Good, it seems that they are Jewish, as they sell Hanukkah cookies. "Ethnic" connections means that, somehow, other Jews would help them succeed. It's just a very out of pocket antisemitic comment. Someone has to be very miserable to look at someone's successful small business and automatically thinking (and commenting) something like this.
I have a pretty big sweet tooth/sugar tolerance but after trying the undercooked pure sugar that is crumbl i never gave them a second chance. A simple, hot and fresh chocolate chip cookie is one of lifes greatest joys, if it aint broke don’t fix it.
Agreed! I don’t just have a sweet tooth, I have entire mouth of sweet teeth and I couldn’t even finish one crumbl cookie. It was cold, flavorless and underbaked
The commenters here saying Crumbl's success was due to people wanting Instagrammable cookies / good visuals for social media makes sense because, yeah, the first and absolutely last time I tried the, I was literally shocked and appalled at how genuinely awful tasting they were. I had one each of six to sample. I took one small bite of each and then threw them in the garbage ASAP. I dunno - I might've taken 2 bites to be sure. I can't remember. All I remember was how shockingly awful they were and feeling absurdly ripped off. I felt I definitely paid for the name, the logo, packaging, "concept", marketing, the franchise, the property / location / rent, and ALL those annoying and unhelpful sort of pretty young girls / women staffing the place - and why were there SO MANY? - and in those awful & boring identical black pants and tshirt "uniforms". But I definitely did not pay for one molecule of anything that was edible much less good.
Eating a Crumbl cookie was the first time I knew what a calorie bomb felt like. I felt so sluggish afterwards since I didn't know how calorie dense they were.
@@troylee4196yeah, there comes a moment where sugar just becomes too much, like it starts to taste gross and you immediately feel the calories, like there definitely should be a limit to how much sugar can be put into some foods
Cookies are one of the easiest (and satisfying) desserts to make at home. You can exist but not really thrive long term just doing the classics. So you have to go indulgent and make overly expensive cookies that are extremely caloric. At the end of the day, these are never more than pricey gimmicks that don't build long term customers. Dessert is extremely fad based and any shop in this space has a ceiling because its one of the easiest things for people to cut out of their lives.
yeah when i saw that crumbl franchising fees and initial buy in was as much as popeyes and burger king, i had to laugh. like you said, cutting out 800 calorie absurdly flavored 5 dollar cookies is pretty easy to do. versus people will always want fried chicken and burgers, especially from well established names. crumbl is a joke and corporate knows exactly what theyre doing. i just hope the franchisees see its short term as well.
I could try to make my own croissants at home, but it will be a pain in the ass, take a few days, I'll end up with at least 6 of them when I live on my own, which won't be as good as is for a few hours, and if I want to revive the ones I couldn't eat in time, I'll need more ingredients and prep work to turn them into almond croissants (which are delicious, but even more calorie dense). Or I can walk 10mn to a bakery where someone qualified makes dozens of them every day, I can buy just one, which will potentially be cheaper than buying all the ingredients for my very small batch, and won't have to gorge myself for three days. Some pastries require more know-how, efforts, time and material/supplies than others, and bakeries have survived for decades selling bread and pastries to people who can't do it as well. These shops predate social media, don't rely exclusively on trends, and survive by selling a majority of relatively low profit, staple goods, and a minority of high profit pleasure food, because their regulars want to indulge every once in a while. i@@pavelow235
@@filiaaut Point was you can make that argument for everything. Everybody loves to rag on crazy ideas like paying another human to move your furniture, paying others to grill a burger, paying others to cut your hair....etc, etc, etc,.....point was the original comment comes off as elitist and rude. All employment is "gimmicky" for some others. I think Nickel mining is "gimmicky" because I don't drive Tesla electric cars....but somebody pays those miners and respects their employment.
@@VinceroAlpha You can look for yourself. Every time a PE buys a company, its after the company recently announced financial struggles. Why would a company even want to sell if its doing well?
It’s why they are “ diversifying” with cakes and now pies from his failing “ crust club” they have to turn into full fledged bakeries to survive…. But the overpricing scheme they had with the cookies won’t work as an over saturated bakery chain. They are grasping at straws and they know it… but still selling 200 franchises a year to try to capitalize on people as long as possible. People that bought Crumbl franchises are not getting what they bargained for. They will soon be getting up at 4 am to make baked goods instead of popping cookies from an easy dough in the oven at 9 am! This franchise is definitely dying off! The “ advertising ceo” spends more time suing people than he should, that’s for sure!!
I agree their own fans are turning on them. I look at the comments when they announce the new flavors and it's usually more negative comments than positive ones
They're a great example of why to never buy a franchise. They started with a good deal then altered the deal over and over and over to screw people that had already bought in. Sure you can give it up at any time, but you don't get a refund.
@@LeisurelySeaOttertheir main business is sending people to hospitals, and big pharma's, the commissions they pay to crumble company is millions of dollars every month because they helping those doctors make millions of dollars per weak
The owner lives in my small farming town in Idaho. We call him the Cookie Monster. Everyone despises him, at the least the ones not trying to suckle at his teet for his money. He thinks he is king and is trying to buy up everything in our town. He operates out of an old bank building thats called Hemsley Ventures now.
definitely. i think it's a good thing they didn't expand the business. it didn't seem fitting, given that they seem to have this homely authentic feel. but they could really look into social media marketing if they're not already doing it. it's more cost effective and scalable, and it could help draw some attention to them during these trying times
Plus I love that the captions clarified it just in case. Idk about anyone else, but even a casual scrape wit sci fi over the years makes that term immediately crystal clear 🦎🦎
I hate to break it to you, but it's just antisemitism. (Which doesnt mean the guy hates Jews, lots of people say "gyp" or "welch" without hating the Roma/Welsh.)
Depends… I worked with some franchisees and some of them definitely benefit from a corporation managing a lot of the work. A business needs good operations, management, branding, marketing. Some people are good at operations and management but need someone to handle branding/marketing. Franchising is basically paying for someone to handle the branding and marketing piece and a good chunk of the operations. That costs a lot of money… (obviously some franchisers are exploitative like Crumbl seems like and Quiznos before).
It's basically owning a restaurant on easy mode, but with a lower ceiling. And since restaurants are a risky headache to manage, it makes sense that a lot of private investors would opt for the proven business model and safe prebuilt brand recognition (+marketing budget) of established chains. It's less of a venture capital boom/bust, and more like a blue chip stock with good dividends. Although, franchising a trend-based business like Crumbl is definitely more of a gamble that you'll make the money back quickly in order to get an ROI.
The first signs of their downfall is already showing. They're expanding their menu in an attempt to expand their consumer base and generate new excitement but that too will fade. They've done cereal, cookie dough, cake and pies. They've also introduced mini cookies.
the cakes and pies are pissing me off because they take a cookie spot on the regular menu but their cookies are so stupid expensive and sweet that i only usually want to buy a 3 pack of minis, which you can’t get cakes or pies of, so they make the cookie menu smaller in favor of their dumb new products and then there are fewer flavors to choose from 😞 stupid complaint but it’s a good example of how adding new products isn’t going to increase their customer base
yes and the shops introduced boba and mochi long before the boba tea trend. I used to get a vanilla with all sorts of fruity boba and mochi and it was soooooo good. I miss it too.
@ in america it's a trend. no one knew what boba was ten years ago. in fact, there was a drink called orbitz in the 90s that was essentially a boba-esque soda and it failed because ppl found the texture strange. i always laugh bc orbitz walked so boba could run all the trends discussed in this video are american based, i def respect that boba is a big culture in asia, but as americans do, we've made it an overpriced trend
@@gildedpeahen876 What? I grew up in America and I knew what boba was more than ten years ago. If you had gone to any East Asian-American community a decade ago, you would've still seen a bubble tea shop here or there. I know you're probably not Asian but you have to remember that America is a massive country, and there are many cultures within it. Also, boba was invented before Orbitz.
This channel should follow slime ships next. It’s been surreal watching a common, make at home, kids toy get a new aesthetic for all ages and insane markup.
we can never just have a nice thing. no business can ever just be there to support a family and its employees. always growth. always more. always have to milk every penny from the company and the consumer until it shrivels and dies.
I couldn't agree more! Reminds me of Uber. It used to be profitable to drive as a side hustle, but corporate squeezed, and now driving is just a nothing job like everything else, or that's what I've heard drivers say. And corporate is still squeezing.
I think you hit the nail on the head! A good business is there to sell a good useful product or service that is needed and ALSO provides a living for the owners. It’s the pride of good honest hard work that also is rewarding monetarily for life. We’re supposed to work to live, not work for money. Big difference. These big companies just want money, not for life.
Insomnia Cookies is actually really old, but they have been capitalizing off of the recent success of Crumbl. I had my first Insomnia Cookie probably about 15 years ago in Manhattan
I was also really surprised to hear him say it was new. I remember when I was in high school hearing my older sister talk about insomnia cookies, and I’m in a PhD program now. Its been well established for a long time
I never liked. Overly sweet, but I rarely heard anyone else say that. As a cookie fan, they're disappointing. Started eating Levain a couple years ago. Even more expensive, but I didn't realize there was a trend going on
Guy 22:00 didnt realise he just gave a private equity company the greatest research they could ever get for their own FMCG franchises in the space. They were never going to take on his risk and help him expand from 1 store.
I don't think gourmet cookies count as FMCG, doubt you could translate the model to FMCG. I also doubt given the information we were given on Cookie Goods margins that any private equity firm would move into the space based on their model especially given how competitive the market already is (at the tail end of a trend). I think the reason private equity pulled out is obvious, the business is ultra low margin in a high margin space. Even Crumbl have better margins despite consistent decline.
@@JamesBond-dl7oc $100m+ companies are just 3-5 people at the top making decisions. They're not as infallible as you think. Just look at Google, Adobe, MSFT and their massive declines in quality lately. Spyware, software that constantly breaks, search that's not searching, etc.
Crumbl is the definition of all looks no substance. The taste is overly sweet, the texture is too doughy and cake like, and it always seems undercooked. Terrible cookies.
im pretty sure they underbake them bc people like underbaked more than overbaked ones and if they don't sell all of them at once they could sort of "rebake" them and sell as fresh cookies
Famous Amos was on an early season of Shark Tank pitching another snack brand. He made next to nothing on his business in spite of its massive popularity for years. The sharks seemed very surprised by that, I know I was. Ultimately, he made a really bad deal selling his stake in the business. Now he can’t pool enough to even start a new business. Just a sad story.
His company was stolen from him, that's why he didn't make any money. He's a textbook case on what happens when you go into business with the wrong people
I honestly wondered about how this business model could be in any way sustainable over the long run. Especially with other chains like donuts, ice cream already taking hits. Thanks for the break down.
No hate on the Bake Some Noise guy because I respect the hustle--but, isn't capitalizing on scarcity and stoking FOMO the antithesis of, "authenticity"? If the product is good, it should speak for itself. Stoking FOMO by selling products through drops is literally what a cash-grab is and isn't seeing things long term.
I kinda was on board with his "we've only got a few flavours" take, but the seasonal drops threw me way off - what, so the same few flavours on rotation?
The problem with these kinds of businesses is that at their core they have to compete with actual bakeries. Once the novelty wears off you're left with a bakery with a limited product.
This is why I'm big on supporting more local businesses. Guarantee wherever there's a Crumbl, there's like 3 other bakeries that have way better products and probably even cheaper.
I had a crumbl cookie at a party once. I broke it in half so I could try it. I couldn't get past the first bite. I genuinely hated it. They are so sickeningly sweet that I don't want to ever touch one again, like stevia drinks. Also, 80 grams of sugar in one cookie sounds like a one way trip to wilfred brimley's house.
@ we have a place called yogli mogli. I go maybe once a month and have the tart flavor Id my favorite lol. I never liked Menchies . I was huge on Yogurtland when I lived in Miami but they closed most of them!
@@katiedaly4030 hahahaha it’s spelt ‘segue’ as in moving from one thing to another seamlessly, not ‘Segway’ as in the 2 wheeled thing that tourists ride
The problem with the desert model is that deserts are enticing as they are bad for you. You can't have a "regular" customer that eats 800 calorie cookies because you are going to quite literally going to kill that customer.
I mean they can eat a lot of cookies before they die. But the trendy consumer that they're attracting can't afford to go there that frequently, either in budget or in their diet
I think another factor to remember is crumbl started in Utah. Everyone has a vice. For Mormons it’s sugary sweets. It’s why expensive soda shops are so profitable here. Young Mormons don’t go out to the bar, they go out and get cookies.
They refuse to put coffee in their cookies due to their "health" code, The Word of Wisdom. I wonder what has caused more health problems, coffee or sugar. ;)@@TheRedCap30
Crumbl cookies are also gross. They are overly sweet and always undercooked. Probably all the stuff on and in them. The one near me is only filled with people taking pictures, but they don’t eat them. It’s like running joke in the neighborhood. I don’t think they’ll fully bomb, but once they aren’t viral anymore, I do think we’ll see them very quickly shrink. Very few people actually like the cookies. Reminds me of voodoo donuts. They keep trying to expand, but the doughnuts aren’t actually good. They are always stale, but go viral every fee years because of some weird flavor.
Your channel is so unique in how you talk to real small businesses. I really enjoy hearing their stories and seeing what works and what doesn’t for them.
31:10 Rent, whether residential or commercial, is such a shitty cost. There's so little incentive for the landlord to actually charge a reasonable price, and more often or not, it feels like the price is only dictated by whatever speculative investment the landlord is pursuing.
The problem is the price. For a box of 4 it’s like $15-$20. It has to die because once the hype dies no one will keep crumble in their everyday/every week routine.
@@iaralinharesmotta My 17 year old niece works at a Crumbl and she tells me she sees regulars come in every week for the new rotations and they usually get ALL cookies. So there's definitely regulars who eat them weekly
Cookie good guy has more longevity base on how he handles his business. Crumbl might be big now but the bigger they are the harder the fall. I would rather have a cookie with a mindset with the cookie good guy about flavors we like as a kid.
@@nicogreco7855 this is an overall trend! the beauty space is full of this too. unproven brands that are new to the scene with middling at best product quality charge a luxury+ price. and because of virality and clout chasing, a certain segment sees high price as a status symbol without caring about the base level quality of a product. I think this is the deal with crumbl. its expensive, so its a social media flex to have a 50 dollar box of these abominations.
guy opened a FroYo place by me, it got a little success and he opened another place in a store. I asked him how he planned to make it in the winter when no one will be buying FroYo. He didn't last. He closed the satellite location w/in a few months and the main store not long after.
I think it’s funny how ice cream is a seasonal food in most of the world. In Argentina people eat ice cream religiously even when it’s the middle of winter lol we buy gelato by the kilo all year round
There is literally not a single frozen yogurt place in my entire city anymore. All have shut down or moved elsewhere. They don't even have a single Pinkberry machine inside of an established coffee shop anymore. My kingdom for a Yogen Fruz! I'm going to have to learn to make it myself.
Try the nineties. There was a Dippin' Dots ice cream stand at the mall we went to as a kid and I was always asking my parents if we could go there. XD. I think they advertised themselves as the ice cream astronauts ate.
@@Wh00000 i remember going to amusement parks as a kid and i always wanted to get dippin dots but my mom would never let me bc of the absurd price. i did have some recently and i felt such satisfaction. probably not worth the price but it was like a once/2years treat mom, cmon
When I was a small child I saw the Dippin Dots sign at the mall with that tagline and I remember being very worried that they would stop making normal ice cream.
@@user-yr1si5db3dProbably to rent, insurance, and labor. You gotta remember that public schools cost like 15-20k a year per student at a ratio of 20 ish students per teacher. Daycares require a much lower student to teacher ratio, so that means more people to hire.
Just looking at how the cookies crumble makes me uneasy, you can see the amount of sugar in every ingredient to the point that its like breaking apart crusty honey. And people are surprised when their body literally never gets to turn the insulin down and suddenly they're resistant to it and have the beetus.
Honestly the look of their cookies disgusts me. The base looks pale and undercooked, then it’s coated in a mound of frosting, bleh. It’s just too much! I’d rather have Mrs. Fields or Insomnia, they just look better.
This comment reeks of throwing stones from a glass house..... Almost certainly there's something you do that I laugh and laugh about, namely you probably waste too much time like I do commenting on TH-cam videos, terrible use of a human's time
I was a big Crumbl fan for a few years but quality has always been super inconsistent between stores and as they've expanded their flavor lineups are less intriguing. Despite all of this, they are trying to come out with other desserts which have an added fee and they've come out with family size versions of cakes and pies (because what they already had wasn't insanely calorie/sugar dense enough). Their milk chocolate chip has always been god awful and even when it comes to some of their other flavors, I'd much rather go to Levain or Insomnia if I have to go with a cookie chain - of course local is always best!
You hit the nail on the head. Because Crumbl's business is now based on selling supplies and collecting royalties, they have less financial incentive than ever to procure ingredients and push on product like they did when they were first starting out. It's much easier and more profitable to squeeze generic, wholesale, mass-produced, premade fillings out of a bag onto the cookies (less opportunity for stores to mess up, less perishability, more rebates / kickbacks from suppliers = more money in the pocket, even if the end result is inferior). Crumbl's Thanksgiving lineup is the most obvious offender as the Chocolate Silk, Apple, Cookies & Cream are made from the exact same ingredients in those frozen, cheap, supermarket thaw-and-serve pies - the kind that most Crumbl customers would ironically thumb their noses at.
One of the CEO’s has been trying to start a new ( awful and overpriced) chain called “ crust club” so far it’s a total failure!!! He calls the small pies “ hand pies” ( basically just the stolen idea of a hostess pie) they are like 9 bucks!!! The whole concept of crust club already crashed and burned so he reinvented it. He “ franchised” by having his parents start one up in a failed crumbl location…. So he is trying to rebrand and rebuild that mess by putting pies in the cookie stores. Lower than the original $9 price tag in crust club but people are paying $5-6 for basically a hostess pie as a “ specialty item” lolol
Quickest way to get rid of a chain is to sell out to private equity or some local yokels who pays too much for your company then drive it into the ground (they thought they knew everything). I did the latter and walked away happy with full pockets.
0:07 the mention of unicorn drinks was such a throwback!! and it was only a few years ago! i'd completely forgotten about them. you've already made your point and the video's barely started 😂❤
Crumbl cookies are nasty. Crazy that people are more obsessed with them instead of Levain or Midnight cookies which are actually good and taste like real cookies.
This whole video is absolutely amazing! I appreciate the conversation with the Cookie Good owner. He seems like a person with a creative spirit and real empathy for his team, those are valuable leadership qualities and it’s awesome to see him and his wife actively putting into practice those values in a sincere and vulnerable way. Him and the Bake Some Noise duo were both honest in speaking about their experiences in the cookie/desserts business and I genuinely appreciate that. Also, having a bit of a fashion background myself, I loved seeing how the Bake Some Noise owners used tactics from their previous jobs to drive sales and differentiate themselves. Really cool stuff!
Does anyone from Australia and UK remember Doughnut time? It was a chain of the most indulgent cake-like doughnuts you've ever seen. For a brief spell in about 2016 they were everywhere here in Sydney. But the issue, is that it's hard for these overindulgent desserts to get repeat customers consistently. People try it once and maybe go a few times a year on special occasions. Doughnut time expanded so fast and was gone just as quickly. Recently, they made a modest comeback with two outlets plus selling their wares in a local major supermarket chain (Coles). I think if Crumbl doesn't play it smart and focused purely on expansion, they won't last.
Doughnut time is still alive and doing well in the UK! It bombed out of Australia but the market in London keeps them alive. They used to send me free donuts as a TH-camr
@@evandoughtnut time CEO and his GF tried to copy a black woman owned business, Freyi Flowers. The owner of Freyi brought in receipts. Now, i’ve seen many people claim they will boycott.
When Crumbl opened by me, I was excited and I am not afraid to pay $4+ for a cookie if its a good cookie. Sadly, Crumbl cookies aren't good cookies in my opinion. For me they are more like large under cook dough flats with mediocre offerings but they are flashy and internet famous. Love the video!! What I got from this is, buy from local bakeries! Honestly, after that horrible cookie experience I had with crumbl, I only buy treats from local bakeries now!
Eating that much sugar with zero fiber is EXTREMELY bad for you. I make my own cookies and they are just barely sweet as I find that much sugar nauseating.
I've had Crumbl twice, both times I felt like I ate a brick and wanted to die. Actually the worst baked good I've has the displeasure of ingesting, I'd put them lower than 3 AM gas station donuts.
Crumbl INTENTIONALLY underbakes their cookies. Every cookie from them I've ever had (three) has been raw in the middle. It is shocking how the reviews for these locations are near five stars; these people have no idea what a good cookie is like
Thank you! I live in Utah so the several types I've attempted to eat these, I always complain they're undercooked. Like I bake cookies myself, I'm not dumb, those cookies are raw!
This is like a nature documentary for business. “When we pay close enough attention, we can see the natural cycles happening in business. Lets take a look at that happening right now”
I once had a Crumbl cookie, because they gave out free cookie coupons for the whole neighborhood when they opened near me. And who am I to say no to a free cookie? All I remember is thinking that it wasn't any better than anything I could bake myself while somehow being infinitely more expensive, and that there was no way they'd last. Then I saw how many of the local highschoolers go there during lunch and after school, and realized that they had their target market on lock.
"Its impossible to not see thousands of these videos of people in their cars gorging themselves on cookies for people on social media" This is all news to me. Confectionary social media seems to be pretty self contained.
Where my guys going through “some kind of logarithm” at? 17:51 😂 For real though, I hope all the best for this guy. I’m gonna try his cookies next time I’m in town!
I don't understand who is actually buying cookies from these places... They charge like $4 for a mediocre cookie slathered in random toppings... How did this trend ever catch on?
right at least donuts and cupcakes take a little skill to make and need to be a bit more of a cohesive idea. a big gob of undercooked dough with frosting and random shit on top is just not appetizing.
I feel like they were trying to make cakies (cakes [frosting amount and the thickness of the cookie] + cookies [method of delivery]) which aren't the best thing. Yea, the frosting thing only works well with any form of cake.
Never thought I'd be so captivated by a video talking about the business numbers for cookie businesses but this was so interesting to watch. I especially loved the interviews! Really shows you the passion small business owners have that is so jarringly different from what the "lizard-brained" people who run business like Crumbl are doing. Also I'm craving cookies so badly now. I looked it up and apparently I'm only a 20 minute drive from Cookie God so maybe I'll go fill my cookie craving there soon
I used to work for crumbl and it was pretty apparent back then that crumbl was basically expanding quickly in a bubble. They get a gigantic initial boon within the first few months but then radically slow down by year two. You see this all the time for them, first month has the line wrapping around the shopping mall while nine months later its dead quiet, i know i saw it firsthand! You can't really operate a store like that all you can do is shutter off 30% of them in less than two years
Can’t have booze, can’t have weed, can’t even have friggin coffee, so they just get gacked tf out on sugar to feel something. Mormons are Olympians in the Mental Gymnastics. Don’t google what soaking is if you value your mental health. -source, entire family is Mormon except me
Your "Originals" series really elevates your channel. Many other channels with similar topics now have scripts that sounds AI generated. Real interviews and research elevates the content immensely.
I'm super happy that the froyo trend died down but didn't die entirely. I love how light the texture is, and the way it's priced by weight instead of by scoops is incredibly convenient. I can get as much or as little as I want. Same can't be said for ice cream. On the topic of Crumbl, cookies are literally one of the easiest baked goods you can make from scratch. Literally just "mix all this stuff together in this order and shape into balls/roll out and cut the dough". No special machinery, no special tins or pans you need to use, just mixing dough and baking it. Not even sure why there are franchises that only make cookies to begin with. It should be bakeries that jump on this trend, since they have other things to sell even if it dies.
I hope Crumbl fails. I live in the town where he does. He has come in and bought up a bank building in our small town that closed. Turned it into Hemsley Ventures building, where he operates out of to take over our town. He has gone around and bought up business like he is doing a good thing for our community by bringing it back to life, when all he is doing is acting like a King trying to own everything. People dont want this town to grow. We like that it is small and disconnected from the world. He has built this huge home in our small farming town where the average salaries are maybe 40-50k, where most people despise him. Because yes we despise his wealth because we aren't about that here. Take that sh*t somewhere else. People in our town call him the Cookie Monster because thats how we feel about him.
Theres a cool differentiation occurring in the UK's market. See, we had cookie and dessert places, i.e. the classic Baskin Robins in the town centre selling cookies and Ice cream, but overall they went on a decline until the last few years (i reckon the "dip" was 2012 and its been up from there). Why? The influx of Asian migrants into the country, notably Muslims, can't drink alcohol and therefore a market for a different sort of "hang out" place started to rise in popularity, Dessert places. Lots are still single-location independent, a few are multi-location franchises (my local one is called Kaspa's but I also know of a massive chain called Creams. They are a really clever business design since they aren't tied to just one type of dessert. They chop and change their menu as trends come and go. Artisan Pastry's become a thing? They sell croissants. Cookies? They make them fresh. They distribute some basic equipment and already have supply chains ready supplying most ingredients, all while keeping a "core" set of desserts that will always sell well (Sundaes, Crepes, Waffles etc.). And while it was an "asian" thing for at least a few years, they quite easily integrated themselves into your average, nicer British highstreet as if they were always there and to such an extent people are shocked when I explain basically all these companies were founded by the Asian community. I guess it goes to show that, if you want to start a business, your objective is never to chase trends. It is to find a niche in a culture and stick yourself into it to such an extent no one will ever remember there was a time you werent around.
Such a great video. ❤ I’m wistful for the nostalgia of Mrs. Fields and Famous Amos, depressed by how much corporate squeezes their franchisees at Crumbl, revived by the wholesome passion of Cookie Good, and invigorated by the genius in the name Bake Some Noise. What a roller coaster of emotions. 😂
I don't get the Bake Some Noise one. They only make basic flavours, it's 4 dollar per cookie and it started out during the pandemic. Couldn't people just buy some ready to bake dough and just bake that. Don't they have ovens in LA?
Have you been to LA? They probably do have ovens but the food culture is so strong that everyone eats out anyway. There is no shortage of great restaurants and they are all packed every night.
I can make muffins pretty easily, too, but when I get a muffin at a coffee shop it's usually because I just wanted the one muffin. If you have kids or whatever then the cookie dough is probably a no-brainer, but it feels silly when you just wanted enough for one person.
I walked into crumbl for the first and last time, not because it didn't taste good, but it was the most awkward way of ordering a cookie/treat of all time. Zig zag security-like line where it didnt make sense, ordering through a tablet in front of like 6 employees. It felt so corporate, uncomfortable, and uninviting I almost walked out without ordering anything.
I love these videos, but they all end so abruptly. I usually listen to them more than watch them and I always think the video is accidentally paused instead of over
I had a boss who bought us a box of these every once in a while. She must have picked the best because I'm feeling sick just looking at the $hit in this video.
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Now you have to make a documentary on VPN Services and how they're a scam.
hahahahah nord vpn couldnt even secure its user data hahahahhaha
$4 for a plain donut made by nonbaking ex dropshippers who googled and then modified the recipe. Sounds LA trendy to me.
Its funny how after i watched this is when crumble released a new collaboration with Dove soap 👀 i wonder what this means
I'm glad I know how to read ingredients on a package and know when there's too much sugar.
This Cookie Good guy is terrific. He's built a strong business through passion and hard work. He was torn when the finance guy wanted to help his business grow, but finance people don't want "your" business to grow, they want "their" business to grow with none of the hard work.
Yep. I think he's in the best spot - franchising and PE just leads to stripping everything from your business and removing the charm.
Meh. It seems more like they had a different strategic vision. The Cookie Good owners wanted slow, controlled growth while the “Finance Guy” was looking to be more aggressive and really scale up. Neither are wrong, just different.
Venture capitals motto is go big, then go home. All they want to do is artificially inflate the value of a bussiness by pumping money into it then sell it to someone else who thinks that growth will continue when the money pumping stops
Plus the more hands in your business the less power you have over decision making. Investors sounds good in theory but he still seems super connected and involved with his business since it's his passion. That might be a struggle for him.
@loganparsons5179 you could definitely call crumbl's business model "aggressive," among other things
Insane how every Modern MBA episode is a reminder that Private Equity and Investors have destroyed everything we know and love forever
Murica, amirite?
@@tarpar9190 home of the diabetis, land of the fat
@tarpar9190 this is a problem in every country? But yeah America sure started this milking-business mindset
This is such a simpleton comment. Look for one second at all the companies which have been helped a lot by private equity and investors. You’re only looking at the bad results and parrot that to the world in a comment
there's no accountability for private equity @@ScatPack123
Crumbl owes its success to the rise of social media. People care about food looking pretty more than its flavor
Exactly. IG food. It's just more content for creators
A lot of movies based on the future or Black Mirror Episodes show this, a visual pleasure rather than the perfect taste.
It’s delicious stop lying
They are really good though!
I think it's about the population caring more about beauty overall and wellbeing in the artistic sense of how things feel
The guy at Cookie Good seems to want more out of his cookies business, but I hope he recognizes that he is a success case and celebrates that. The food business is unforgiving and unprofitable, with long-term success a rarity. He has driven his business to millions in revenue by innovation and hard work. But, I can completely understand why his business is unscalable to the franchisee business model. Also, it wouldn't align well with his values - the franchisee model is less about the cookies and innovation as it is about streamlining processes and collecting from franchise owners.
Regardless, the mom & pop shop style doesn't need to constantly grow. He has found success in his small pocket in LA - and, that's damn impressive in itself.
@@AM-bf9tb what does that mean
What a good comment and what a confusing reply
@@AlexaSmith If you visit the webpage of Cookie Good, it seems that they are Jewish, as they sell Hanukkah cookies. "Ethnic" connections means that, somehow, other Jews would help them succeed.
It's just a very out of pocket antisemitic comment. Someone has to be very miserable to look at someone's successful small business and automatically thinking (and commenting) something like this.
I sadly think I have an idea of what that person means and we should all ignore them for our own sanity
@@wendys9500 but I need to know
I have a pretty big sweet tooth/sugar tolerance but after trying the undercooked pure sugar that is crumbl i never gave them a second chance. A simple, hot and fresh chocolate chip cookie is one of lifes greatest joys, if it aint broke don’t fix it.
Same! I was so surprised that *this* was the cookie everyone was going crazy for, it was just a sugar bomb in a somewhat clever disguise
Agreed! I don’t just have a sweet tooth, I have entire mouth of sweet teeth and I couldn’t even finish one crumbl cookie. It was cold, flavorless and underbaked
The commenters here saying Crumbl's success was due to people wanting Instagrammable cookies / good visuals for social media makes sense because, yeah, the first and absolutely last time I tried the, I was literally shocked and appalled at how genuinely awful tasting they were.
I had one each of six to sample. I took one small bite of each and then threw them in the garbage ASAP. I dunno - I might've taken 2 bites to be sure. I can't remember. All I remember was how shockingly awful they were and feeling absurdly ripped off.
I felt I definitely paid for the name, the logo, packaging, "concept", marketing, the franchise, the property / location / rent, and ALL those annoying and unhelpful sort of pretty young girls / women staffing the place - and why were there SO MANY? - and in those awful & boring identical black pants and tshirt "uniforms".
But I definitely did not pay for one molecule of anything that was edible much less good.
Same. I love love love sweets. But those cookies weren't good at all.
Ughhhh, undercooked and overly sweet sounds like a nightmare. Will never eat one of those abominations.
Eating a Crumbl cookie was the first time I knew what a calorie bomb felt like. I felt so sluggish afterwards since I didn't know how calorie dense they were.
Only one? I ate 21 before getting sick
@@gregoryturk1275💀💀
@@gregoryturk1275 mannnn.....WHAT 😂
I ate a bite of one and got a headache, those things shoud be illegal
@@troylee4196yeah, there comes a moment where sugar just becomes too much, like it starts to taste gross and you immediately feel the calories, like there definitely should be a limit to how much sugar can be put into some foods
Cookies are one of the easiest (and satisfying) desserts to make at home. You can exist but not really thrive long term just doing the classics. So you have to go indulgent and make overly expensive cookies that are extremely caloric. At the end of the day, these are never more than pricey gimmicks that don't build long term customers. Dessert is extremely fad based and any shop in this space has a ceiling because its one of the easiest things for people to cut out of their lives.
these points are really grounded and good
yeah when i saw that crumbl franchising fees and initial buy in was as much as popeyes and burger king, i had to laugh. like you said, cutting out 800 calorie absurdly flavored 5 dollar cookies is pretty easy to do. versus people will always want fried chicken and burgers, especially from well established names. crumbl is a joke and corporate knows exactly what theyre doing. i just hope the franchisees see its short term as well.
You can do anything at home, you can also read a book and not watch TH-cam videos.
I could try to make my own croissants at home, but it will be a pain in the ass, take a few days, I'll end up with at least 6 of them when I live on my own, which won't be as good as is for a few hours, and if I want to revive the ones I couldn't eat in time, I'll need more ingredients and prep work to turn them into almond croissants (which are delicious, but even more calorie dense).
Or I can walk 10mn to a bakery where someone qualified makes dozens of them every day, I can buy just one, which will potentially be cheaper than buying all the ingredients for my very small batch, and won't have to gorge myself for three days.
Some pastries require more know-how, efforts, time and material/supplies than others, and bakeries have survived for decades selling bread and pastries to people who can't do it as well. These shops predate social media, don't rely exclusively on trends, and survive by selling a majority of relatively low profit, staple goods, and a minority of high profit pleasure food, because their regulars want to indulge every once in a while. i@@pavelow235
@@filiaaut Point was you can make that argument for everything. Everybody loves to rag on crazy ideas like paying another human to move your furniture, paying others to grill a burger, paying others to cut your hair....etc, etc, etc,.....point was the original comment comes off as elitist and rude. All employment is "gimmicky" for some others. I think Nickel mining is "gimmicky" because I don't drive Tesla electric cars....but somebody pays those miners and respects their employment.
I love private equity. I love extracting from beloved brands, every remaining ounce of value and good will.
Unironically based
well, the alternative is bankruptcy. No brand is selling to PE that is doing well financially.
@ Really have you look at every single brand small and big, gone over the financials or are you just being melodramatic?
@@VinceroAlpha You can look for yourself. Every time a PE buys a company, its after the company recently announced financial struggles.
Why would a company even want to sell if its doing well?
@@poochyenarulez money
People are already beginning to roll their eyes at Crumbl, so I don't think it will last another 5 years.
I give it 2 years
It’s why they are “ diversifying” with cakes and now pies from his failing “ crust club” they have to turn into full fledged bakeries to survive…. But the overpricing scheme they had with the cookies won’t work as an over saturated bakery chain. They are grasping at straws and they know it… but still selling 200 franchises a year to try to capitalize on people as long as possible. People that bought Crumbl franchises are not getting what they bargained for. They will soon be getting up at 4 am to make baked goods instead of popping cookies from an easy dough in the oven at 9 am! This franchise is definitely dying off! The “ advertising ceo” spends more time suing people than he should, that’s for sure!!
I agree their own fans are turning on them. I look at the comments when they announce the new flavors and it's usually more negative comments than positive ones
They're a great example of why to never buy a franchise. They started with a good deal then altered the deal over and over and over to screw people that had already bought in. Sure you can give it up at any time, but you don't get a refund.
I was rolling my eyes when i heard it come out. Who tf wants soft cookies??
Crumbl doesn't sell cookies. It sells icing sugar - at an enormous premium.
They sell diabetes.
@@LeisurelySeaOttertheir main business is sending people to hospitals, and big pharma's, the commissions they pay to crumble company is millions of dollars every month because they helping those doctors make millions of dollars per weak
The owner lives in my small farming town in Idaho. We call him the Cookie Monster. Everyone despises him, at the least the ones not trying to suckle at his teet for his money. He thinks he is king and is trying to buy up everything in our town. He operates out of an old bank building thats called Hemsley Ventures now.
@@DarthVader.Order66 if this is true thats crazyy
@@halalola432 its 100% true
Cookie Good will be in business as long as they focus on the product and customer and long after this cookie trend. What a great business and owner.
definitely. i think it's a good thing they didn't expand the business. it didn't seem fitting, given that they seem to have this homely authentic feel. but they could really look into social media marketing if they're not already doing it. it's more cost effective and scalable, and it could help draw some attention to them during these trying times
19:53 I love that the Cookie Good guy coined his own term for being business-minded: “lizardy”. 😂
Plus I love that the captions clarified it just in case. Idk about anyone else, but even a casual scrape wit sci fi over the years makes that term immediately crystal clear 🦎🦎
You have to admit it was a very accurate term to describe the suits that destroy businesses.
people have been calling zuckerberg a lizard for over 15 years
😂 I was like that's a new one and it completely accurate !
I hate to break it to you, but it's just antisemitism. (Which doesnt mean the guy hates Jews, lots of people say "gyp" or "welch" without hating the Roma/Welsh.)
Next trend is going to be large, chunky supersized chocolate bars with all sorts of toppings and fillings
With the cacao prices jumping so much, I’m not sure
I’m already seeing this 😅
And Hershey is going to try to hop on the trend and immediately make it lame
that sounds pretty good ngl
Mars are gonna be so thrilled about this
Seems like becoming a franchise owner is a terrible trap. The fees would probably be better used to make your own version of the same thing.
I can't quite put my finger on it, but it feels a bit similar to MLM schemes
@@larissabrglum3856 in cases like this it definitely is however it all depends on incentives and how your franchisor makes money off you.
Depends… I worked with some franchisees and some of them definitely benefit from a corporation managing a lot of the work.
A business needs good operations, management, branding, marketing. Some people are good at operations and management but need someone to handle branding/marketing. Franchising is basically paying for someone to handle the branding and marketing piece and a good chunk of the operations. That costs a lot of money… (obviously some franchisers are exploitative like Crumbl seems like and Quiznos before).
It's basically owning a restaurant on easy mode, but with a lower ceiling. And since restaurants are a risky headache to manage, it makes sense that a lot of private investors would opt for the proven business model and safe prebuilt brand recognition (+marketing budget) of established chains. It's less of a venture capital boom/bust, and more like a blue chip stock with good dividends. Although, franchising a trend-based business like Crumbl is definitely more of a gamble that you'll make the money back quickly in order to get an ROI.
The only one making a ton of money is the one selling the franchise.
The first signs of their downfall is already showing. They're expanding their menu in an attempt to expand their consumer base and generate new excitement but that too will fade. They've done cereal, cookie dough, cake and pies. They've also introduced mini cookies.
They even had ice cream at one point.
the cakes and pies are pissing me off because they take a cookie spot on the regular menu but their cookies are so stupid expensive and sweet that i only usually want to buy a 3 pack of minis, which you can’t get cakes or pies of, so they make the cookie menu smaller in favor of their dumb new products and then there are fewer flavors to choose from 😞 stupid complaint but it’s a good example of how adding new products isn’t going to increase their customer base
@@tiarahudson4241 WHAT 😂 I never knew that
@@yoongiverse. Agree!
deodorant now too lol
The treat of getting a Mrs. Fields chocolate chip cookie at the mall in the 90s is a core memory.
Them and the Auntie Anne's pretzels made the whole mall smell good.
Well then it defeats the premise of this video claiming that cookies are a fad....
@pavelow735 It’s almost as if that’s a ridiculous oversimplification of the actual premise.
In the 2000s for me but yes! Loved the M and M cookies.
auntie anne's always makes made me smile
i for one miss frozen yogurt
froyo was so good and so healthy? like dang was so sad when suddenly there were no more places :(
yes and the shops introduced boba and mochi long before the boba tea trend. I used to get a vanilla with all sorts of fruity boba and mochi and it was soooooo good. I miss it too.
@@gildedpeahen876 Boba, bubble tea and mochi existed before the frozen yogurt trend. I'm Asian and grew up with boba.
@ in america it's a trend. no one knew what boba was ten years ago. in fact, there was a drink called orbitz in the 90s that was essentially a boba-esque soda and it failed because ppl found the texture strange. i always laugh bc orbitz walked so boba could run
all the trends discussed in this video are american based, i def respect that boba is
a big culture in asia, but as americans do, we've made it an overpriced trend
@@gildedpeahen876 What? I grew up in America and I knew what boba was more than ten years ago. If you had gone to any East Asian-American community a decade ago, you would've still seen a bubble tea shop here or there. I know you're probably not Asian but you have to remember that America is a massive country, and there are many cultures within it.
Also, boba was invented before Orbitz.
This channel should follow slime ships next. It’s been surreal watching a common, make at home, kids toy get a new aesthetic for all ages and insane markup.
+1
we can never just have a nice thing. no business can ever just be there to support a family and its employees. always growth. always more. always have to milk every penny from the company and the consumer until it shrivels and dies.
I couldn't agree more! Reminds me of Uber. It used to be profitable to drive as a side hustle, but corporate squeezed, and now driving is just a nothing job like everything else, or that's what I've heard drivers say. And corporate is still squeezing.
@@josephward5436
Uber drivers make about $11 an hour, so it’s not even a good paying job in this economy
Greed....greed.....greed.
I think you hit the nail on the head! A good business is there to sell a good useful product or service that is needed and ALSO provides a living for the owners. It’s the pride of good honest hard work that also is rewarding monetarily for life.
We’re supposed to work to live, not work for money. Big difference. These big companies just want money, not for life.
Insomnia Cookies is actually really old, but they have been capitalizing off of the recent success of Crumbl. I had my first Insomnia Cookie probably about 15 years ago in Manhattan
I remember Insomnia being a thing when I was in high school, which was 10+ years ago
yup i remember as a kid my mom bringing them home every friday night when she came home from her job in the upper east side back in 2016
I was also really surprised to hear him say it was new. I remember when I was in high school hearing my older sister talk about insomnia cookies, and I’m in a PhD program now. Its been well established for a long time
@ It’s funny, I commented after hearing that, but later in the video, he ultimately explains the history of the company.
I never liked. Overly sweet, but I rarely heard anyone else say that. As a cookie fan, they're disappointing. Started eating Levain a couple years ago. Even more expensive, but I didn't realize there was a trend going on
Guy 22:00 didnt realise he just gave a private equity company the greatest research they could ever get for their own FMCG franchises in the space. They were never going to take on his risk and help him expand from 1 store.
I don't think gourmet cookies count as FMCG, doubt you could translate the model to FMCG. I also doubt given the information we were given on Cookie Goods margins that any private equity firm would move into the space based on their model especially given how competitive the market already is (at the tail end of a trend). I think the reason private equity pulled out is obvious, the business is ultra low margin in a high margin space. Even Crumbl have better margins despite consistent decline.
the $100m+ company surely just came to the same conclusion the well-researched youtube video came to
@@JamesBond-dl7oc $100m+ companies are just 3-5 people at the top making decisions. They're not as infallible as you think. Just look at Google, Adobe, MSFT and their massive declines in quality lately. Spyware, software that constantly breaks, search that's not searching, etc.
Yeah. I was thinking the same thing. He definitely got played IMO.
I can tell he sounds like a petulant and bitter guy, turned away many legitimate people only to open his door to the "big players", getting played
Crumbl is the definition of all looks no substance. The taste is overly sweet, the texture is too doughy and cake like, and it always seems undercooked. Terrible cookies.
agree. its cookies for ig "models" to post on insta (and to mention their spicy link in bio) but not to eat for the average job.
the cookies literally break apart half the time you try to pick them up. might as well just eat a slice of cake with an actual fork at that point
im pretty sure they underbake them bc people like underbaked more than overbaked ones
and if they don't sell all of them at once they could sort of "rebake" them and sell as fresh cookies
I prefer an undercooked cookie, but I'm also not going to eat an 800 calorie cookie, I'm almost 40
They're gross. Midnight and Levain are SUPERIOR but don't get as much hype. So strange.
Your channel has made such great and well researched videos, love your work. This is just a little thanks for it.
Thank you very much for the support!
Agreed, great content that not many other channels are making at this quality level.
Famous Amos was on an early season of Shark Tank pitching another snack brand. He made next to nothing on his business in spite of its massive popularity for years. The sharks seemed very surprised by that, I know I was. Ultimately, he made a really bad deal selling his stake in the business. Now he can’t pool enough to even start a new business. Just a sad story.
I think the poor guy did recently too
Disgusting !!!! RIP Mr. Amos.
His company was stolen from him, that's why he didn't make any money. He's a textbook case on what happens when you go into business with the wrong people
I love the interview segments. They give a unique and practical perspective that no amount of reading could cover.
I honestly wondered about how this business model could be in any way sustainable over the long run. Especially with other chains like donuts, ice cream already taking hits. Thanks for the break down.
We literally just talked about this last week.
No hate on the Bake Some Noise guy because I respect the hustle--but, isn't capitalizing on scarcity and stoking FOMO the antithesis of, "authenticity"? If the product is good, it should speak for itself. Stoking FOMO by selling products through drops is literally what a cash-grab is and isn't seeing things long term.
Yep dude said some bullshit and is a horrible salesman. I hope they have degrees
I agree. Having a password on the website is part of FOMO as well.
Yea he definitely wasn’t authentic and seemed “lizardly”
The transition from "we were trying to create a brand-centric cookie company" to "I think people see authenticity" felt like a comedy edit.
I kinda was on board with his "we've only got a few flavours" take, but the seasonal drops threw me way off - what, so the same few flavours on rotation?
The problem with these kinds of businesses is that at their core they have to compete with actual bakeries. Once the novelty wears off you're left with a bakery with a limited product.
This is why I'm big on supporting more local businesses. Guarantee wherever there's a Crumbl, there's like 3 other bakeries that have way better products and probably even cheaper.
I had a crumbl cookie at a party once. I broke it in half so I could try it.
I couldn't get past the first bite. I genuinely hated it. They are so sickeningly sweet that I don't want to ever touch one again, like stevia drinks.
Also, 80 grams of sugar in one cookie sounds like a one way trip to wilfred brimley's house.
0:49 Froyo is so so good though. It should never go away.
real
Fr, there's a yogurtland near my college and I go there at least once a month because I love a good cup of froyo
@ we have a place called yogli mogli. I go maybe once a month and have the tart flavor Id my favorite lol. I never liked Menchies . I was huge on Yogurtland when I lived in Miami but they closed most of them!
It won’t. It’s just lost some of its popularity and charm.
It won’t
That NordPass pitch was a stretch.
Lmao. When he started talking about data i immediately knew where this was going.
The Segway was so bad it made me sick to my stomach
Flawless transition ✨️
It was CRAZY
@@katiedaly4030 hahahaha it’s spelt ‘segue’ as in moving from one thing to another seamlessly, not ‘Segway’ as in the 2 wheeled thing that tourists ride
The problem with the desert model is that deserts are enticing as they are bad for you. You can't have a "regular" customer that eats 800 calorie cookies because you are going to quite literally going to kill that customer.
In America, with an 800-calorie cookie you're targeting people on a diet.
I mean they can eat a lot of cookies before they die. But the trendy consumer that they're attracting can't afford to go there that frequently, either in budget or in their diet
Yeah, but not before passing the habit to their kid(s)
Cigarette companies are very successful.
@@mangos2888damn this just gave me a reality check.
I think another factor to remember is crumbl started in Utah. Everyone has a vice. For Mormons it’s sugary sweets. It’s why expensive soda shops are so profitable here. Young Mormons don’t go out to the bar, they go out and get cookies.
They don't even drink coffee lmao
It’s the same here with Swig and other drink shops selling 80 gram sugar drinks. Utah is the headquarters of MLMs and fad pop ups for a reason.
They refuse to put coffee in their cookies due to their "health" code, The Word of Wisdom. I wonder what has caused more health problems, coffee or sugar. ;)@@TheRedCap30
Crumbl cookies are also gross. They are overly sweet and always undercooked. Probably all the stuff on and in them. The one near me is only filled with people taking pictures, but they don’t eat them. It’s like running joke in the neighborhood. I don’t think they’ll fully bomb, but once they aren’t viral anymore, I do think we’ll see them very quickly shrink. Very few people actually like the cookies.
Reminds me of voodoo donuts. They keep trying to expand, but the doughnuts aren’t actually good. They are always stale, but go viral every fee years because of some weird flavor.
I hope Cookie Good and Bake Some Noise both succeed
Your channel is so unique in how you talk to real small businesses. I really enjoy hearing their stories and seeing what works and what doesn’t for them.
1:45 bru their cookies dont even look fully cooked in the commercial😭
AGREED😷😭
This!
They're trash, just straight sugar
31:10 Rent, whether residential or commercial, is such a shitty cost. There's so little incentive for the landlord to actually charge a reasonable price, and more often or not, it feels like the price is only dictated by whatever speculative investment the landlord is pursuing.
Reminds me of that Onion headline that's like "Landlord Raises Rent Due to Thinking of Bigger Number"
The problem is the price. For a box of 4 it’s like $15-$20. It has to die because once the hype dies no one will keep crumble in their everyday/every week routine.
well, that and a single cookie is 800+ calories... hard to imagine anyone eating that on a regular basis for a long time lol
@@iaralinharesmotta My 17 year old niece works at a Crumbl and she tells me she sees regulars come in every week for the new rotations and they usually get ALL cookies. So there's definitely regulars who eat them weekly
@@LeeEverett1 holy cow. That's hard to imagine!
Cookie good guy has more longevity base on how he handles his business. Crumbl might be big now but the bigger they are the harder the fall. I would rather have a cookie with a mindset with the cookie good guy about flavors we like as a kid.
Can we bring back the Fro-Yo trend?
No. It’s all low fat crap filled with sugar. Just get an ice cream. At least ice cream has some fat to dampen the blood sugar spike.
Right? I love it self serve add whatever toppings i want?
Buy the Ninja Creami machine. Lifechanging for homemade frozen desserts.
Come to Australia- booming at the moment with Yo-chi
It never died in the Midwest. 😂 we still have a few FroYo Shops.
And that's how the cookie crumbles.
*crumbls 😂
Lol I see what you did there
🥁 🪘
How original.
"Why Crumbl Cookies Can't Survive"
Is it the fact that the cookies are 7 dollars a piece?
$4
Charging premium prices without a premium product
@@nicogreco7855 this is an overall trend! the beauty space is full of this too. unproven brands that are new to the scene with middling at best product quality charge a luxury+ price. and because of virality and clout chasing, a certain segment sees high price as a status symbol without caring about the base level quality of a product. I think this is the deal with crumbl. its expensive, so its a social media flex to have a 50 dollar box of these abominations.
@@lilysgram5886 Dunno where youre at, but they are 6 dollars and change here.
@@nicogreco7855 I literally told my wife after we each took a bite
"I wish I spent the 7 dollars on a cookie cake from the grocer."
guy opened a FroYo place by me, it got a little success and he opened another place in a store. I asked him how he planned to make it in the winter when no one will be buying FroYo. He didn't last. He closed the satellite location w/in a few months and the main store not long after.
I think it’s funny how ice cream is a seasonal food in most of the world. In Argentina people eat ice cream religiously even when it’s the middle of winter lol we buy gelato by the kilo all year round
@@agme8045 Cheers. Here in Finland we also eat ice cream etc. year-round.
I do wish we had some (reasonably priced) froyo.
There is literally not a single frozen yogurt place in my entire city anymore. All have shut down or moved elsewhere. They don't even have a single Pinkberry machine inside of an established coffee shop anymore. My kingdom for a Yogen Fruz!
I'm going to have to learn to make it myself.
Dippin Dots crossing their fingers🤞🏼 "The ice cream of the future" back in 2004🤣🤣🤣
Try the nineties. There was a Dippin' Dots ice cream stand at the mall we went to as a kid and I was always asking my parents if we could go there. XD. I think they advertised themselves as the ice cream astronauts ate.
@@Wh00000 i remember going to amusement parks as a kid and i always wanted to get dippin dots but my mom would never let me bc of the absurd price.
i did have some recently and i felt such satisfaction. probably not worth the price but it was like a once/2years treat mom, cmon
When I was a small child I saw the Dippin Dots sign at the mall with that tagline and I remember being very worried that they would stop making normal ice cream.
I remember when they were sold from a case at McDonald's, was sad to see it eventually removed.
Now you see some off brand prepacked in some gas stations.
Can you do the economics of daycare next!
second this! i used to work in daycare and the business is actually pretty complicated..
That’s going to depress me I think…
Yes !
Whoo! Because where is all the money going?!
@@user-yr1si5db3dProbably to rent, insurance, and labor.
You gotta remember that public schools cost like 15-20k a year per student at a ratio of 20 ish students per teacher. Daycares require a much lower student to teacher ratio, so that means more people to hire.
Just looking at how the cookies crumble makes me uneasy, you can see the amount of sugar in every ingredient to the point that its like breaking apart crusty honey.
And people are surprised when their body literally never gets to turn the insulin down and suddenly they're resistant to it and have the beetus.
You should check out how much sugar is in 1 serving of soda or orange juice.
Honestly the look of their cookies disgusts me. The base looks pale and undercooked, then it’s coated in a mound of frosting, bleh. It’s just too much! I’d rather have Mrs. Fields or Insomnia, they just look better.
@miaomiaou_ The last crumb is also really good too!!^^
It looks good imo but then again I'm not a cookie expert
This comment reeks of throwing stones from a glass house..... Almost certainly there's something you do that I laugh and laugh about, namely you probably waste too much time like I do commenting on TH-cam videos, terrible use of a human's time
I was a big Crumbl fan for a few years but quality has always been super inconsistent between stores and as they've expanded their flavor lineups are less intriguing. Despite all of this, they are trying to come out with other desserts which have an added fee and they've come out with family size versions of cakes and pies (because what they already had wasn't insanely calorie/sugar dense enough). Their milk chocolate chip has always been god awful and even when it comes to some of their other flavors, I'd much rather go to Levain or Insomnia if I have to go with a cookie chain - of course local is always best!
You hit the nail on the head. Because Crumbl's business is now based on selling supplies and collecting royalties, they have less financial incentive than ever to procure ingredients and push on product like they did when they were first starting out.
It's much easier and more profitable to squeeze generic, wholesale, mass-produced, premade fillings out of a bag onto the cookies (less opportunity for stores to mess up, less perishability, more rebates / kickbacks from suppliers = more money in the pocket, even if the end result is inferior).
Crumbl's Thanksgiving lineup is the most obvious offender as the Chocolate Silk, Apple, Cookies & Cream are made from the exact same ingredients in those frozen, cheap, supermarket thaw-and-serve pies - the kind that most Crumbl customers would ironically thumb their noses at.
@@ModernMBAI agree, and all valid points. That being said, the chocolate silk and cookies & cream pies were great.
One of the CEO’s has been trying to start a new ( awful and overpriced) chain called “ crust club” so far it’s a total failure!!! He calls the small pies “ hand pies” ( basically just the stolen idea of a hostess pie) they are like 9 bucks!!! The whole concept of crust club already crashed and burned so he reinvented it. He “ franchised” by having his parents start one up in a failed crumbl location…. So he is trying to rebrand and rebuild that mess by putting pies in the cookie stores. Lower than the original $9 price tag in crust club but people are paying $5-6 for basically a hostess pie as a “ specialty item” lolol
Yeah I don’t like milk chocolate chip. If they had regular chocolate chip I might buy one.
I will only get the free birthday cookie these days
Summarizing, and this is KEY, if you are thinking about opening a franchise of these companies, juts don't do it
Quickest way to get rid of a chain is to sell out to private equity or some local yokels who pays too much for your company then drive it into the ground (they thought they knew everything). I did the latter and walked away happy with full pockets.
bro really created a season cookie drop from his kitchen and it work! i got to respect the hustle.
I think people miss the home grown feeling. It's like when your grandma bakes cookies for you to take home. It gives you the fuzzy feeling
Cookie Good will be around longer than Crumbl. They are at the peak right now, you can see the cracks already.
But will Cookie Good outlast Insominia?
@@insertcolorherehawk3761 Its a different more established business that been around for a long time. They aren't gimmicky like Crumbl.
0:07 the mention of unicorn drinks was such a throwback!! and it was only a few years ago! i'd completely forgotten about them. you've already made your point and the video's barely started 😂❤
Crumbl cookies are nasty. Crazy that people are more obsessed with them instead of Levain or Midnight cookies which are actually good and taste like real cookies.
not as many locations.
lack social media presence
not really a fan of sweets but istg levain has the best cookies I've ever tasted, their cookies don't make me feel guilty unlike crumbl
Levain is actually a good cookie exactly
Your marketing strategy is nasty
I’ve never even heard of Levain bakery
This whole video is absolutely amazing! I appreciate the conversation with the Cookie Good owner. He seems like a person with a creative spirit and real empathy for his team, those are valuable leadership qualities and it’s awesome to see him and his wife actively putting into practice those values in a sincere and vulnerable way. Him and the Bake Some Noise duo were both honest in speaking about their experiences in the cookie/desserts business and I genuinely appreciate that. Also, having a bit of a fashion background myself, I loved seeing how the Bake Some Noise owners used tactics from their previous jobs to drive sales and differentiate themselves. Really cool stuff!
Does anyone from Australia and UK remember Doughnut time? It was a chain of the most indulgent cake-like doughnuts you've ever seen. For a brief spell in about 2016 they were everywhere here in Sydney.
But the issue, is that it's hard for these overindulgent desserts to get repeat customers consistently. People try it once and maybe go a few times a year on special occasions.
Doughnut time expanded so fast and was gone just as quickly. Recently, they made a modest comeback with two outlets plus selling their wares in a local major supermarket chain (Coles).
I think if Crumbl doesn't play it smart and focused purely on expansion, they won't last.
Doughnut time is still alive and doing well in the UK! It bombed out of Australia but the market in London keeps them alive. They used to send me free donuts as a TH-camr
@@evandoughtnut time CEO and his GF tried to copy a black woman owned business, Freyi Flowers. The owner of Freyi brought in receipts. Now, i’ve seen many people claim they will boycott.
To play devil's advocate, the serving size is a QUARTER cookie. No shit you feel sick after eating 200+ grams of sugar in one sitting.
i would rather have over a dozen smaller cookies than one huge cookie
A guy even imported these and made a pop up store and people still lined up for them here in Australia
When Crumbl opened by me, I was excited and I am not afraid to pay $4+ for a cookie if its a good cookie. Sadly, Crumbl cookies aren't good cookies in my opinion. For me they are more like large under cook dough flats with mediocre offerings but they are flashy and internet famous.
Love the video!!
What I got from this is, buy from local bakeries! Honestly, after that horrible cookie experience I had with crumbl, I only buy treats from local bakeries now!
They were giving out free cookies at a campus i was at and everyone i know who ate one felt sick later
Eating that much sugar with zero fiber is EXTREMELY bad for you.
I make my own cookies and they are just barely sweet as I find that much sugar nauseating.
I've had Crumbl twice, both times I felt like I ate a brick and wanted to die. Actually the worst baked good I've has the displeasure of ingesting, I'd put them lower than 3 AM gas station donuts.
Crumbl INTENTIONALLY underbakes their cookies. Every cookie from them I've ever had (three) has been raw in the middle. It is shocking how the reviews for these locations are near five stars; these people have no idea what a good cookie is like
crumbl underbakes their cookies btw, I'm not sure how this is even allowed or how they haven't been shut down at this point.
Thank you! I live in Utah so the several types I've attempted to eat these, I always complain they're undercooked. Like I bake cookies myself, I'm not dumb, those cookies are raw!
This is like a nature documentary for business. “When we pay close enough attention, we can see the natural cycles happening in business. Lets take a look at that happening right now”
I once had a Crumbl cookie, because they gave out free cookie coupons for the whole neighborhood when they opened near me. And who am I to say no to a free cookie? All I remember is thinking that it wasn't any better than anything I could bake myself while somehow being infinitely more expensive, and that there was no way they'd last.
Then I saw how many of the local highschoolers go there during lunch and after school, and realized that they had their target market on lock.
I wonder how highschoolers budget that though. They very likely get their parents' money, and 1 single cookie is 5$. It's insane
@@Siana-2103its pretty affordable when ur a kid with a job and no bills
@lljw7151 My limit was 20$ a week which was for lunch. You're spoiled lol
I hope Insomnia wins the cookie war. They were the unpretentious comfort when I needed it most back in school.
No friend, no. It was the experience that got ya so just remember that moment. Insomnia has horrible business practices just like all the rest.
"Its impossible to not see thousands of these videos of people in their cars gorging themselves on cookies for people on social media"
This is all news to me. Confectionary social media seems to be pretty self contained.
Sure grandpa, let’s get you to bed.
@@markramos1216 this is how I feel every time someone says something is impossible to avoid on the internet
I never saw these cookies on insta-face-tok-app, but people in my life have. Next thing you know I have cookies on my counter tempting me
Where my guys going through “some kind of logarithm” at? 17:51 😂 For real though, I hope all the best for this guy. I’m gonna try his cookies next time I’m in town!
“There are some people who start businesses to start a business.” 😂😂😂😂 Amazing 😅
that's how I know he's the real deal, homie just wanted to bake some cookies and never heard of algorithms in his life
@@littlekirby6 Algorithm? Didn't he invent the internet or something?
@@thegs7320woah lame ...
The children do not know what _logarithm_ means 😭 I feel old
Wait is Crumbl Just pulling a Quiznos 2.0
Their chocolate chip cookie is one of the worst cookies you'll ever eat.
@LionelWatson-ji1bf I think I've only been once, and honestly no matter how good the cookies are the prices just make my eyes bleed so I can't do it
@@LionelWatson-ji1bfThey don't sell cookies per se. They sell icing sugar.
@@LionelWatson-ji1bf😮😮😂😂😂
I haven't thought about Quiznos in like 10 years
The mrs. fields at my hometown mall had an elevator oven with a window display to watch the cookies bake. Way cool.
I don't understand who is actually buying cookies from these places... They charge like $4 for a mediocre cookie slathered in random toppings... How did this trend ever catch on?
right at least donuts and cupcakes take a little skill to make and need to be a bit more of a cohesive idea. a big gob of undercooked dough with frosting and random shit on top is just not appetizing.
I feel like they were trying to make cakies (cakes [frosting amount and the thickness of the cookie] + cookies [method of delivery]) which aren't the best thing. Yea, the frosting thing only works well with any form of cake.
Same way the trend of wasting time and commenting on TH-cam caught on, humans just don't seem to be good at time management
My boyfriend 🤮
I think people are struggling w inflation, but still want to go out, so something that is still only 4 dollars, no matter how worthless, are appealing
This was such an interesting episode, it’s fun to get perspective from the different people and how they approach their business
4:00
You are so beautiful 😍 😊
Upvote this comment!
Thanks, chief
Commenting just to push yours higher
Comment to put this higher
Never thought I'd be so captivated by a video talking about the business numbers for cookie businesses but this was so interesting to watch. I especially loved the interviews! Really shows you the passion small business owners have that is so jarringly different from what the "lizard-brained" people who run business like Crumbl are doing. Also I'm craving cookies so badly now. I looked it up and apparently I'm only a 20 minute drive from Cookie God so maybe I'll go fill my cookie craving there soon
I’ve seen the shift from crumbl being beloved to being made fun of and I wasn’t surprised at all lol
I used to work for crumbl and it was pretty apparent back then that crumbl was basically expanding quickly in a bubble. They get a gigantic initial boon within the first few months but then radically slow down by year two. You see this all the time for them, first month has the line wrapping around the shopping mall while nine months later its dead quiet, i know i saw it firsthand! You can't really operate a store like that all you can do is shutter off 30% of them in less than two years
28:34 Doesn't take a rocket scientist to see what's wrong with society. Homeless guy walking by as you hype up your $32 dollar cookies.
So dystopian
I don't understand. It's the cookie guys responsibility to solve homelessness?
@chillaxer8273 no, it's that we are more focused on profit than people.
@@lasfloresdicen what if that guy had expensive cookies to pay of his debt? Perspective is what we need in the world rn 💀
@@lasfloresdicen 💯
Crumbl and Swig are Mormon puritan culture gone haywire and looping back to gluttony lol
Can’t have booze, can’t have weed, can’t even have friggin coffee, so they just get gacked tf out on sugar to feel something. Mormons are Olympians in the Mental Gymnastics.
Don’t google what soaking is if you value your mental health.
-source, entire family is Mormon except me
Your "Originals" series really elevates your channel. Many other channels with similar topics now have scripts that sounds AI generated. Real interviews and research elevates the content immensely.
I'm super happy that the froyo trend died down but didn't die entirely. I love how light the texture is, and the way it's priced by weight instead of by scoops is incredibly convenient. I can get as much or as little as I want. Same can't be said for ice cream.
On the topic of Crumbl, cookies are literally one of the easiest baked goods you can make from scratch. Literally just "mix all this stuff together in this order and shape into balls/roll out and cut the dough". No special machinery, no special tins or pans you need to use, just mixing dough and baking it. Not even sure why there are franchises that only make cookies to begin with. It should be bakeries that jump on this trend, since they have other things to sell even if it dies.
I hope Crumbl fails. I live in the town where he does. He has come in and bought up a bank building in our small town that closed. Turned it into Hemsley Ventures building, where he operates out of to take over our town. He has gone around and bought up business like he is doing a good thing for our community by bringing it back to life, when all he is doing is acting like a King trying to own everything. People dont want this town to grow. We like that it is small and disconnected from the world. He has built this huge home in our small farming town where the average salaries are maybe 40-50k, where most people despise him. Because yes we despise his wealth because we aren't about that here. Take that sh*t somewhere else. People in our town call him the Cookie Monster because thats how we feel about him.
what a jerk! i hope the best for your town!
Cookie monster 😂
Missed opportunity to have titled the video “Crumbl is crumbling” :(
Or “How the Cookie Business Crumbls”
Theres a cool differentiation occurring in the UK's market. See, we had cookie and dessert places, i.e. the classic Baskin Robins in the town centre selling cookies and Ice cream, but overall they went on a decline until the last few years (i reckon the "dip" was 2012 and its been up from there). Why? The influx of Asian migrants into the country, notably Muslims, can't drink alcohol and therefore a market for a different sort of "hang out" place started to rise in popularity, Dessert places. Lots are still single-location independent, a few are multi-location franchises (my local one is called Kaspa's but I also know of a massive chain called Creams. They are a really clever business design since they aren't tied to just one type of dessert. They chop and change their menu as trends come and go. Artisan Pastry's become a thing? They sell croissants. Cookies? They make them fresh. They distribute some basic equipment and already have supply chains ready supplying most ingredients, all while keeping a "core" set of desserts that will always sell well (Sundaes, Crepes, Waffles etc.). And while it was an "asian" thing for at least a few years, they quite easily integrated themselves into your average, nicer British highstreet as if they were always there and to such an extent people are shocked when I explain basically all these companies were founded by the Asian community.
I guess it goes to show that, if you want to start a business, your objective is never to chase trends. It is to find a niche in a culture and stick yourself into it to such an extent no one will ever remember there was a time you werent around.
Thank you to the businesses that come on your channel.
Didn’t the 2010’s also have the rainbow food trend that cause stomach aches
Unicorn everything lol. forgot about that
160k to make cookies at the mall is a solid gig
Such a great video. ❤ I’m wistful for the nostalgia of Mrs. Fields and Famous Amos, depressed by how much corporate squeezes their franchisees at Crumbl, revived by the wholesome passion of Cookie Good, and invigorated by the genius in the name Bake Some Noise. What a roller coaster of emotions. 😂
lizard brain cracked me up lol
I don't get the Bake Some Noise one. They only make basic flavours, it's 4 dollar per cookie and it started out during the pandemic. Couldn't people just buy some ready to bake dough and just bake that. Don't they have ovens in LA?
I agree, but what they did was the hyped up their cookies, created scarcity, and since we humans aint too logical, that was enough.
Have you been to LA? They probably do have ovens but the food culture is so strong that everyone eats out anyway. There is no shortage of great restaurants and they are all packed every night.
Looks like good marketing to me, good logo, cool packaging :) their cookies look yummy too.
Because people who buy mediocre looking cookies for $4 are generally too busy or too lazy to stop in the grocery store and pop them in the oven.
I can make muffins pretty easily, too, but when I get a muffin at a coffee shop it's usually because I just wanted the one muffin. If you have kids or whatever then the cookie dough is probably a no-brainer, but it feels silly when you just wanted enough for one person.
bro those cookies look TERRIBLE what
They taste horrible too
Ive lived in a town with insomnia cookies and people loved it
as an Eastern European, I've never heard of crumbl cookies before the Sydney fiasco
I've had Crumbl Cookies twice and both times it gave me explosive diarrhea...I hope they go bankrupt lol
Skill issue
Because they are baked by idiots who don’t know what soap is
They were under baked or had raw dough in the center?
Probably food poisoning. Maybe you left it out too long?
crumbl intentionally undercooks their cookies, do a youtube/google search it's a well known thing and I'm surprised they haven't been shut down
I am a guy who can really eat and is very fond of sweets. I have never been able to finish a single one of these monstrosities in one sitting
Funnel cake is needed
Definitely an underserved market
Crumbl cookies have a strange chemical “shelf stable” taste that I absolutely can’t stand.
I walked into crumbl for the first and last time, not because it didn't taste good, but it was the most awkward way of ordering a cookie/treat of all time. Zig zag security-like line where it didnt make sense, ordering through a tablet in front of like 6 employees. It felt so corporate, uncomfortable, and uninviting I almost walked out without ordering anything.
I love these videos, but they all end so abruptly. I usually listen to them more than watch them and I always think the video is accidentally paused instead of over
Agree. It’s jarring because most creators end with a simple “thank you for watching.”
I'm impressed that you did your own interviews. Great video!
I had a boss who bought us a box of these every once in a while. She must have picked the best because I'm feeling sick just looking at the $hit in this video.
Literally same, why are crumbl cookies so sickening to look at 🫣
First ad before getting to the video was Crumbl cookie OTW 😂