Jon and Joel Clark's long-awaited entrepreneurial dream is well on its way to selling like . . . well . . . hotcakes.
Hey, it is hotcakes!
Kodiak Cakes, that is. After a six-year struggle, the Clark brothers' whole-grain pancake mix has finally found distribution in all major supermarket chains in the Salt Lake area.
But the roots of their recipe were planted long before today.
"Our grandfather used to make a particularly fine pancake for my mom's family, and then she would make them for us," said 34-year-old Jon, a non-clinical operations consultant at the University of Utah Medical Center.
"Our mom really believed in the goodness of whole grains and would grind her own wheat," he said. "Her pancake mix was one where you beat up the egg whites and folded them into the batter. Then she'd add baking powder and vinegar."
The five Clark children loved the light and fluffy flapjacks. But then, they only had two breakfast choices each morning — whole wheat cereal or whole wheat pancakes. They gladly chose the latter.
Jon and brother Tom wrestled ("We were huge!"), and their mother was always cooking for the brawny boys — believing in the healthful attributes of whole grains.
Mrs. Clark had always toyed with the idea of selling her pancake recipe to make some extra cash, since money was scarce when the boys were growing up. Then one summer, when Joel was 8 years old, his mother typed up the recipe, pasted it onto brown paper bags full of pancake ingredients, and he them took around the neighborhood to sell.
They sold out, and the neighbors came back for more.
But with summer's end, the "business" more or less died out.
Six years ago, when Jon was an MBA candidate at the U., he noticed that there was no pancake mix on the market that was good for both children and adults and also tasted good. Joel was on an LDS mission in Australia at the time, Jon said, "and I decided to go ahead and put mom's stuff in a mix." But he didn't know a thing about food.
"I went to some company that sold wheat and said, 'I need some wheat flour, and they said, 'What kind?' So I went to the library and checked out all sorts of books and studied different recipes," Jon explained. "I learned all I could about different recipes, competitive products, baking powder, sweetener, molasses, brown sugar and all the attributes of various grains."
It took him six months of eating pancakes four times a day, experimenting with tastes, textures — every nutritional nuance. "They were pretty awful at first . . . flat," he recalled. "The hardest thing was to get the baking powder right, because whole grains are heavy."
So he talked to chemists at baking powder companies and with their help was able to come up with his own formulation of baking powder that gives Kodiak Cakes their trademark lift and fluffiness.
Another challenge was offsetting the wheat's natural acidic flavor, to which kids seem to have an aversion. By adding just the right mix of dry milk, egg whites and a boost of honey, they were able to smother it out. Kids who sampled the cakes liked them and came back for more.
Then, while Jon was working on perfecting the final flavor, he ran into an old friend, Todd Scofield, at a Skyline High School reunion. Scofield, a talented graphic artist, agreed to design the packaging. The name was inspired by a fishing trip to the Kodiak in Alaska.
"We didn't have any money, so we had to do all the legal work ourselves," said Jon. "We met with the FDA several times to do our own nutrition facts. They'd give me the manuals, and I'd read them and figure things out."
Also required were bar codes, trademark searches, weight and measurements and slotting fees to get a new product on store shelves.
A few weeks before the finished product came out, Joel returned from his mission . . . perfect timing.
"Jon bought and sold a pickup truck and made $1,400 profit. We thought, 'This will do! This will get us in business,' " Joel said with a laugh.
Capitalizing on Joel's missionary zeal, the duo took a bunch of bags and started selling them to area gift shops, traveling together to Park City, Jackson Hole, Wyo.; and Sun Valley, Idaho.
A few months later, unexpectedly, they began receiving letters from people from all over the country who had bought their Kodiak Cake mix in one of the shops they had stocked.
As a result of the positive response, they decided to see if major grocery stores would take it as a product. They began approaching grocery stores, and not one turned them down.
"We got into Dan's and started selling a ton of them," said Joel. "They were our first one. We'd cook in their stores on weekends."
During this time, Jon was working on two self-study classes in conjunction with his MBA to focus on entrepreneurship and their company.
"So I called up Jon Huntsman and Hyrum Smith, Alan Ashton, Ray Noorda and Spencer Kirk and asked them if they'd let us come interview them."
Huntsman's principles of how to make a business a success are the guidelines that govern the way the Clarks work.
Do what you love to do.
Surround yourself with excellent people.
If you "make it," remain humble.
If you do well with one thing, don't assume you can always do it again. You don't have any special ability. Just be grateful.
Be patient. Give it time.
Be diligent.
Make sure you understand the fundamentals of business. Understand a little bit of finance, marketing, operations and accounting.
Look at this as a vocation rather than a hit-and-miss thing, because one out of 10 new businesses succeed.
Study. Do your homework. And if it's not going to work, have the humility to pull out.
The Clark brothers are at year six of their business plan. They've followed Huntsman's advice and have purposely waited, so as not to over-extend themselves. They've also watched the small amount of money they already have invested and learned the business.
"You've got to understand how the industry works," said Joel. "We're being very careful. All the chains said they'd take us three years ago (including Safeway in Seattle), but Jon and I didn't feel ready. But we are now."
There's no doubt about it — Kodiak Cakes easily sell themselves by their delicious, hearty taste and good-for-you ingredients.
Try a box. And flip along with all the letter-writing fans.