If you listen to The Perfect Bite, you’ve heard me say this time and time again: The best founders are building businesses based on problems they’ve faced themselves.
1. It’s a problem you inherently understand and know that if you face this, other folks probably do too.
2. You’re not going to burn out as easily on the hard work of building the business because you’re so passionate about fixing the problem.
This is really where the “vitamins” versus “painkillers” differentiation comes into play. I’ve built a "vitamin” before, a “nice-to-have” business that had benefits to both sides of the marketplace, but wasn’t an issue that desperately needed to be solved, making it very difficult to grow. That’s why it’s so great to speak with founders who really know why they’ve started their businesses and what big problem it’s going to solve for others—like Susannah Schoolman.
Susannah launched Tourlami, a better vegan butter company, just a few years ago, but has been developing her product for well over five years. She has created the first vegan butter for professional kitchens in the two forms that professionals actually cook and bake with: Higher and lower butterfat content based on the items you’re making.
When I asked her what her storytelling secret ingredient is, she said it’s her passion when she speaks to other folks in the kitchen because she’s been there. Wanting to tie in her personal lifestyle with an actually high quality product for the pastry chef career she was born to do! She knows what questions are going to come up, how to answer them, and show how her product is better than anything they’ve tried on the market.
So this is your sign: If you’ve been thinking of launching something yourself that fixes a problem you’ve faced, there’s a big chance you’d be helping out a lot of other folks too!
Susannah Schoolman’s Perfect Bite
Courtesy of Tourlami
I met Susannah through a mutual friend and is she a boss or what! At the height of her career as a pastry chef, having worked for b.patisserie and the famed Hart Bakery in Copenhagen, Susannah realized she wanted to live a plant-based lifestyle—which didn’t exactly go with all the butter and eggs she was working with all day everyday.
That’s how she came up with Tourlami, her plant-based butter line that gives professionals the quality they desire in their bakes and cooking applications, without using any animal products. If someone can and should do something … why not you?
You can learn more about Tourlami at www.tourlami.com. You can purchase Tourlami for your own kitchen at Chef’s Warehouse locations across the U.S and Canada and on Webstaurant Store.
You can follow Tourlami on social media @tourlami and Susannah at @itsschool_man.
Storytelling Secret Ingredient: Relate to Your Customers
Susannah relates so well to her customers because she spent most of her career in professional kitchens—just like them!
There’s a reason you can’t get enough of your favorite musical artists. Yes, they may now be superstar performers selling out arenas, but their lyrics and music are something you connect to. And they feel it too. This is how you should think about speaking to your target audience.
Here’s your playbook on how to structure your next banger of messaging:
Be open and honest: You’ve started your brand with a specific mission and vision for how you’re going to solve a problem. Talk about it loud, proud, and often! You built it because you know others need it too.
Think about who you’re talking to: There’s a high likelihood you yourself would be the perfect customer for your solution—it could be the whole reason why you started your business! As you continue to build out your ideal customer profiles, include yourself as one of the characters—and dive deeply into how other brands and their messaging have connected to you. Your audience will likely respond how you did!
Hold a mirror in front of your audience: Have great customer testimonials, reviews, and user generated content you can utilize? Put it out there! Include this in your email marketing, social media campaigns, and throughout your site. The more folks see someone like them enjoy a product or service, the more they’ll want to try it too. Like will then continue to attract like, expanding your audience to the ideal customers.
Storytelling secret ingredient: Talk to your audience like you’re one of them because, well, you are! You have so much in common with your ideal customers—they just need to learn there is someone like them out there with the solution they need.
Relatability Experts
The founders behind these F&B brands know exactly who they’re talking to—they’re just like their audience!
Most award-winning chefs don’t become tech founders—but Matt Jennings did! Former pod guest Matt started MAJC with Andy Coughlin to provide resources and a sense of community to founders and operators in the hospitality industry. When we chatted, he mentioned that his reason for starting the platform is because it’s something he wished he had all those years in kitchens.
’s upcoming cookbook “More, Please!” is filled with over 100 recipes for cooking easily, quickly, and healthily for your family. She was feeling the stress of dinnertime with three kids and all the ventures she works on, and knew others felt the same. And yes, this is a hint that she’s coming to TPB :).
Another former podcast guest (and my absolute favorite chocolate), Mark Elvidge, started Vermont Nut Free Chocolates almost 30 years ago with his wife Gail because they couldn’t find any allergen-friendly chocolates for their son with a nut allergy. Now, they have one of the largest brands in the free-from space, still creating the same products from decades ago, for nut-allergies and for those who just like great chocolate!Thanks so much for being part of The Perfect Bite’s journey. Feel free to respond to any of these messages with thoughts on how I can improve my storytelling in the future or if you have any guest ideas!Subscribe nowLove TPB? Share it with a friend!Share The Perfect Bite Podcast