'Expansion was fast, and we’re moving pretty quickly': Bon AppéSweet CEO
Bon AppéSweet Founder & CEO Thereasa Black joined Yahoo Finance Live to break down how COVID-19 impacted business.
Video Transcript
- There is a company you need to hear about. It is called Bon AppéSweet. They make healthy, wonderful deserts without cane sugar.
They use fruit as a sweetener, and the woman behind all of this and her daughter are joining us now. Teresa Black and five-year-old, Isabella, are here to tell us more about it, and especially, because the story of your business is terrific. It's heartbreaking when you learn about, you know, she was two years old, and you were being deployed and had to make her a promise. So fill us in on the rest.
THEREASA BLACK: Yes, sir, so I deployed right before her second birthday. And I was gone for a little over a year, so it was horrible for me. I literally cried every day, and I knew I couldn't go back on deployment again. And I also couldn't come home and work as an attorney, which is what I was going to be doing. So I started my own business as a promise to my daughter that I would never leave her again.
- So talk to us just a little bit about the challenges that you face just over the last couple of years as you have looked to scale your business. What does that look like, and I guess, what are your plans just for expanding it there going forward?
- Yeah, so, I mean, I literally got home from deployment on April 2019 and launched in farmers markets and winery's in July. So expansion was fast, and we're moving pretty quickly. So this year, we're coming into-- we have a couple of-- we have, at least, three big retailers that are talking about bringing our products on. So we're super excited about that.
In addition to our gelato, we also have chocolate bars, which are also just sweetened with dates and only three or four ingredients. So we are super excited, but it's been a hard journey. Many people, it takes about five years before they get to where we are right now. But the reality is that I had a promise to keep, so I am trying my hardest to do that.
- Very quickly, I want to ask you, Thereasa, about the business and being a woman, an entrepreneur, a woman of color, and getting funding. But I got to ask Isabella. Isabella, what is your favorite dessert that your mom is making?
ISABELLA: Strawberry gelato.
- OK, how hard was it to get the money to get this going, so you can keep making the strawberry gelato, Thereasa?
- So I bootstrapped. So far, I've been bootstrapped. I save a lot of money. I don't usually spend anything, so I had a lot of money saved.
So we've been bootstrapping up to this point. But with our expansion into grocery, we need to start trying to get venture funds. So with women and women of color receiving, I believe, it's less than 1% of all VC funding in this country, it's been kind of difficult. But as I said, I'm also a veteran, right? So there's a lot of veterans groups that have been helping out as well.
- It certainly is very difficult, and we've-- sorry, go ahead.
- No, I'm sorry. Go ahead.
- No, I was going to say. It certainly has been very difficult, and we've talked to so many guests here on Yahoo Finance just about what they have had to do in order to raise funds. When you take a look at a couple of years ago to where we are today, do you think the landscape has improved? How would you rate how far we've come?
- I believe that we are changing for the better, and it's really insane how many people, now, how many venture firms are trying to bring on just, like, the Empower project, right? They're trying to bring on or create projects that are going to assist in bringing out the veterans or the females and black or minorities. So it's changing, and I think the landscape is getting much better.
- You know, we had a guest on two weeks ago from Harlem Capital, which just raised $136 million for investments in businesses, like yours. How does this work at your end? Do they approach you, or do you approach them? And by the way, we're going to send you their contact information.
- It's still me approaching them. I've been approached by some. I have been approached by some investors. I'm not going to lie, but it's primarily me approaching them.
And I'm looking up, like on Google. I love Google now. I Google the questions about venture funding, diversity funding, stuff like that all the time in an effort to find these funds that are being created, and then I try to reach out to them. And then it's a matter of, like, whether they get into CPG, or they do food or not. So a lot of them stick with tech, so finding the CPG companies that are trying to invest, like, focusing on diversity has been kind of difficult for me.
- Thereasa Black, we wish you the best, the founder and CEO of Bon AppéSweet. And Isabella, you have captured our hearts. You're going to be a star.
