The jaw dropping story of how these two best pals turned their humble yet simple side hustle into a remarkable a billion dollar enterprise
The jaw dropping story of how these two best pals turned their humble yet simple side hustle into a remarkable a billion dollar enterprise
Even crazier, they’re the first to admit they built their entire business backwards
Back in 1957, Billy Ford was looking for a female vocalist to join his band.
A young 17-year old Lillie Bryant heard from a friend that Billy was hosting auditions, so she decided to give it a try.
Billy was 30 years old and had previous experience in the music industry as a vocalist and trumpeter. He had recorded a few songs early in his career, under the name of Billy Ford and the Thunderbirds. But none of his records achieved much success.
On the day that Lilly showed up for the audition, music writers and producers Bob Crewe and Frank Slay of Swan Records just happened to be in the studio. They had worked with Billy on a few of his recordings.
When they asked Billy how well Lilly could sing he answered, “I don’t know. I’ve never heard her. I was about to audition her.”
Bob asked Lilly to sing a song of her choice for the men. She picked one of her favorites, the Ruth Brown song, Mama.
Before she finished, Frank opened up his briefcase and pulled out a new song he and Bob had just completed, “La Dee Dah.”
They convinced Billy to sing it with Lilly, as a duo.
Good thing he listened because when they recorded the song in 1957, it was hit. In fact “La Dee Dah” made it onto Billboard chart’s top 10, coming in at number 9. And as for “icing on the cake,” it sold well over 1,000,000 copies.
The truth is, it was so popular, that Dick Clark of American Bandstand invited the duo onto the show. After performing the song live, Dick suggested the two writers come up with another song for the two to perform.
Bob and Frank wasted no time in co-writing “Lucky Ladybug,” which also made it onto Billboard charts at number 14.
Then in the early part of 1960, the duo recorded yet a third song, entitled “That’s the Way the Cookie Crumbles,” which was also popular with the public.
Now you could say that song’s tile, which also became a popular idiom throughout the 1960’s might just have been the inspiration for two best pals who eventually turned their side hustle into a $1 billion enterprise in just seven years.
Cousins But Not The Kissing Kind
If there’s one thing Sawyer Hemsley loves to do, it’s baking. But more precisely, baking cookies with his mother, Laurie.
Sawyer tells the story of getting together with his mother Laurie every Sunday and baking cookies. They would follow the old recipes that Laurie’s mother had collected in her own cookbook.
He even jokes that they’d often eat the cookies when they were warm right out of the oven. And ones they didn’t eat were handed out to friends, family and at school and community events.
They were kind of known around the town for making cookies.
When Sawyer wasn’t baking cookies, he was either attending classes at Utah State University or studying for exams. He was focused on communications and when he graduated, had planned on being an event organizer.
But he also had a bit of a passion for being an entrepreneur.
In fact sometime around 2015, he launched a ring named EMBR while he was still in college. His willingness to be an entrepreneur is what impressed his cousin, Jason McGowan.
In fact it was their entrepreneurial spirit that connected the two cousins. Prior to that, they didn’t know each other well.
However Jason was impressed with Sawyer’s new business venture and decided to invest in EMBR. Turns out Jason was an entrepreneur, having already launched a few businesses of his own.
His ventures were more on the tech side. Jason built the We're Related app that helped connect 120 million users to their families, helped design and build Nintendo TVii; and the popular television guide app known as i.TV.
As time progressed, managing EMBR became a challenge for Sawyer because of his academic commitments. So eventually Jason merged the brand with another business venture.
Since the two developed a liking for one another, they decided to concentrate their efforts on starting another business together. But exactly what business, the duo wasn’t quite sure.
First You Start at The End
As they got to know one another better by spending time talking over different ideas, they shared memories of how home-made cookies played a significant role in bringing their families together.
That’s when they got their one good idea … maybe cookies could bring other families together too? In fact what if you made a cookie big enough that it could be cut in pieces and shared with other people?
So they decided their new business venture would be baking cookies.
But whatever they did, it would most likely be a side hustle because Jason had a full time job and Sawyer was still in school.
Knowing what they were going to bake, they needed a place to do their baking. In 2017, when they came across a storefront in Logan, Utah, set for demolition, they took a chance and decided to buy it on the spot.
With a place to bake, the next thing the two did was buy baking equipment. As for developing an actual business plan, they’d do that later. And as for the actual cookie they’d make … well that too was something they would work on later.
“Basically, we did all the things backwards. We don't ever recommend that to people," Jason commented in a video interview.
Now that they had a place to bake and the equipment to do so, it was time to get baking. Their initial plan was to buy dough from a third party. However, after several trials, the cousins concluded that the quality was merely ordinary.
What they knew from baking cookies in their childhood is it has to be the best tasting. And the only way to do that was create their own recipe.
But that proved challenging on two levels. One, neither had commercial baking experience. In fact they say their first baking endeavors were sometimes comical.
Jason explains, “I was so confused when the mixer paddle wasn’t touching the sides of the bowl. I thought our mixer was broken! We later learned you can’t make a normal-sized batch of cookies in large equipment; you need much larger batches.”
Second … they went through hundreds of batches of dough trying to create the perfect recipe.
They kept baking and changing up the recipe until they finally decided on making chocolate chip cookies. Yet there was one big dilemma they had to settle: whether to use milk chocolate chips or semi-sweet chips.
Take It To the People
You see, Sawyer absolutely loved semi-sweet chips while Jason loved milk chocolate ones.
So how do they resolve the issue of which chip to use?
Jason relied on a method from his tech days, called A/B testing which in technical terms refers to a randomized experimentation process wherein two or more versions of a variable are shown to different market segments at the same time.
Or as more commonly known in the culinary world -- taste testing.
The two cousins decided to take their perfect cookie quest to the people. With batches of cookies made with milk chocolate and semi-sweet chips in hand, they’d go to all kinds of crowded places and ask people to taste test their cookies.
They went to gas stations, shopping centers … you name it and there they were asking people to taste their recipe. After doing this several times, they got the answer they needed: use milk chocolate chips!
Now that they knew which kind of chocolate chip to use, it was time to bake those cookies. So they opened the “about to be demolished” building to the public under the name of Crumbl Cookie.
They designed the store so that people could see the cookies being made every step of the way … from mixing the dough, adding the chips, putting it on baking trays and then into to the oven.
For Jason and Sawyer, it was important customers could see and smell just how fresh the cookies were made right in front of their eyes.
They even created special packaging to place the cookie orders in -- a “4-pack” pink box. The unique, oblong-shaped box is the first of its kind and was created by Sawyer and his fellow classmates while he attended Utah State University.
In fact one year later, Sawyer earned his bachelor’s degree at USU in communication studies with minors in marketing and multimedia development.
Cookies for Everyone
The day they opened their store, customers were already forming a line to get in.
Jason remembers serving their very first customer. He says, “I can still vividly remember the day that our first customer stopped by. It was an older man wearing a plaid shirt. He handed me a few dollar bills, and it hit me—people were actually willing to spend money on something we created! He was followed by a line of others.”
Individual Crumbl cookies cost between $4 and $5 apiece, with the per-cookie price decreasing if you order packs of four, six or 12. And remember, the cookies are big enough (averaging 4.5 inches wide) you can cut them into pieces and share with others.
And to help you do just that, Crumbl sells a pink plastic cookie cutter that slices the larger than life cookies into four even pieces
At first, Crumbl only served fresh milk chocolate chip cookies for takeout and delivery, but other services slowly began being offered such as curbside pick-up, catering, and nationwide shipping.
And they also grew their menu as well. They added a chilled pink sugar cookie, which became a semi-permanent menu item soon after. As they added more flavors, the two came up with the idea of a rotating menu, where new cookie creations are highlighted.
Their delicious cookies, along with the distinctive pink box were a smashing success.
Since the doors opened on day one, Jason and Sawyer had a bigger vision for their business.
They knew if they did everything just right, including creating a unique “cookie experience” other people might want to open a Crumbl Cookie shop too. So they turned their business model into a franchise.
The first franchise location opened in Draper, Utah. The two realized that if this franchise location was a success, it would then be easy to have other franchises open. Sawyer helped the new franchise owners as much as possible. Heck, he ended up building the store owner’s counter himself.
Crumbl Cookies Sweep the Nation
Since opening its doors seven years ago, Crumbl has expanded their locations to over 900+ bakeries in 50 states. In 2023, they expanded internationally and have opened stores in Canada.
The cousins credit their success to a commitment to perfecting their product, word-of-mouth, and social media. They business duo takes clues from the fashion industry by organizing weekly “drops” where they announce, new limited edition cookie flavors on social media.
Jason explains, “It creates that hype. It creates that excitement. And it also creates some scarcity because you can only have that cookie for that week.”
The company doesn’t pay influencers for advertisements. “It’s all just natural and organic growth that just happened from people really loving the product and wanting to share it online,” Jason McGowan said in an interview.
To say that Jason and Sawyer have perfected the cookie business is an understatement. Crumbl’s locations average $1.7 million and generate more than $350,000 in net profit by largely selling just cookies.
They have emerged as one of the nation’s fastest growing food chains with over 980 locations scattered across the globe bringing in over $1 billion in annual revenue.
Jason sums it up nicely, “I never imagined in my wildest dreams that we would do over $1 billion in sales. This was supposed to be a side-hustle.”
Awesome Quotes by Awesome People
“There is no downside to a side hustle, there are only benefits to building more than one source of income.” — Sally Davis Berry