The Comeback Chronicles Podcast
Welcome to The Comeback Chronicles, where raw truth meets unwavering resilience. Hosted by Terry L. Fossum, this podcast reveals the untold stories of remarkable individuals who’ve faced crushing defeats—only to rise stronger, wiser, and more determined.
Through candid interviews, you’ll hear about moments of failure, heartbreak, and doubt, as well as the transformational steps that led to victory. This isn’t just about inspiration—it’s about equipping you with actionable strategies, like Terry’s signature ‘Oxcart Technique,’ to overcome challenges and ignite your own comeback story.
If you’re ready to break free from fear, shame, or self-doubt and move boldly into your conquer zone, The Comeback Chronicles will empower you with the tools, mindset, and motivation to rise above and achieve your next great success.
Get ready to turn your setbacks into stepping stones and reclaim the life you’re destined to lead.
The Comeback Chronicles Podcast
Breaking Through: From Dippin' Dots to Starting Over with Curt Jones
Curt Jones shares the fascinating journey of how he invented Dippin' Dots using cryogenic technology from his microbiology background, built it into a $47 million business, then lost it all during the 2008 recession before making his comeback with 40 Below.
• Starting as a pig farmer in southern Illinois before studying microbiology at university
• Using liquid nitrogen technology originally developed for preserving bacteria to create beaded ice cream
• Opening the first struggling Dippin' Dots store with limited savings and credit cards in Lexington, Kentucky
• Breaking into theme parks starting with Opryland USA after persistent efforts
• Creating the "Ice Cream of the Future" branding that helped propel the company to international success
• Facing devastating financial challenges during the 2008 recession despite $47 million in annual revenue
• Losing control of Dippin' Dots in 2011 after years of struggling with predatory lending practices
• Building 40 Below with his daughter, creating innovative frozen products including coffee beads, mocktails and dairy-free desserts
• Applying the knowledge and connections from decades in the industry to build his comeback business
Visit 40belowco.com to order products online or find them at water parks, small theme parks, bowling alleys and family fun centers across the country.
If you've been stuck in fear, self-doubt, your past failures and you're ready to break through your comfort zones to finally reach the pinnacle of success in every area of your life, then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, Terry L Fossum.
Speaker 2:Hey, this is Terry L Fossum, and welcome back once again to the Comeback Chronicles podcast. I have a very exciting guest here today, the founder of Dippin' Dots, mr Kurt Jones. Kurt invented the beaded ice cream concept in 1988 when he used his knowledge of cryogenic technology and his love for ice cream to create Dippin' Dots, and it's since been America's number one beaded ice cream brand. Through innovation and imagination, dippin' Dots truly did redefine ice cream. Now his new venture, forty Blow, is absolutely delicious. He has Forty Blow. Joe yeah coffee it's fantastic. Island Rocks Mocktails the has 40 Below Joe yeah coffee it's fantastic. Island Rocks Mocktails. The Fruity Way my favorite is raspberry and 40 Below Desserts which I'm enjoying right now, in this case, cookie dough. Kurt, thank you so much for joining me on the Comeback Chronicles podcast.
Speaker 3:Well, Barry, thank you, it's an honor to be on the podcast today.
Speaker 2:So you're a microbiologist, Was that what it was? Yeah, I'm actually sitting here in Carbondale.
Speaker 3:Illinois at Southern Illinois University today, and I got a bachelor's degree and a master's degree in microbiology back in the last century and, just to clarify, I didn't really focus a lot on the medical side. I always focused on the industrial side fermentations and things like that but, yes, microbiology is my major and what led you to Dippin' Dots?
Speaker 2:It wasn't specifically ice cream to begin with, correct?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I grew up on a farm about 45 miles south of here in southern Illinois when I came to college and I got interested in microbiology. One reason I got interested because of its relationship to agriculture. You know a lot of things happen in the agricultural cycles that that you know there's bacteria on the roots of soybeans and there's all kind of things going on. I actually did my master's thesis on the production of lysine, which is an amino acid, and it's limiting, it's the most limiting amino acid in a corn diet for pigs and I was a pig farmer, all right, so it's funny. I was literally scooping manure out of a pig pen one day in a in a and going to college at the same time and a feed salesman came up and he started talking about our pigs and everything and he said so how much soybean meal do you put in to get us 16% protein diet and the 14%? I was telling him he said well, he held up a little bottle of white powder.
Speaker 3:And he said I'll tell you what if you could add three pounds of this white powder, you could save a hundred pounds of soybean meal, which was the most expensive ingredient. I said well, what is it? He said it's pure lysine. It's made by bacterial fermentation in Japan. Well, I was already into microbiology so that just kind of caught me and I ended up doing my master's thesis on the production of lysine and I was going to be the first person in America to put a lysine plant in. This was back in like 1985 or 86.
Speaker 3:All right, I'm sorry I got off a little bit here, but it's kind of an interesting story because as soon as I got my thesis finished, after several years of doing a lot of research and everything, I had developed a strain of bacteria that would produce 75% of what the Japanese were producing and I thought, well, if I can set this up and not have to ship things across the ocean, I could be competitive. Well, they announced a $25 million lysine plant coming into Cape Girardeau, missouri, from a Japanese plant. Oh, wow, the year that I was graduating. Wow, of course you know most people would say, well, why don't you take that knowledge and go to work for them? I thought no, I just kind of missed the boat on that one. So I ended up taking a job down in Lexington, kentucky, for a company called Alltech, and this is how I kind of got into the Dippin' Dots business eventually.
Speaker 3:But they were just getting into the probiotics business. So you know, your probiotics are good bacteria, outnumber bad bacteria in your digestive system. But we were putting it into animal feeds, you know for, so that the farmers wouldn't be using so many, so much antibiotics basically okay, which is not good. So we would keep the animals healthy by putting like a good bacteria, like a lactobacillus or something you'd find in yogurt. And so I was growing these cultures and in charge of all that because I'd had the experience from the lysine production and growing bacteria.
Speaker 3:So one step in the process is that you have to take these cultures of bacteria that are trillions and trillions of cells and you have to concentrate them down, you have to freeze them and then freeze, drive them into a powder to blend back into all the formulations.
Speaker 3:So there's one key step you want to have a quick freeze, to have a small ice crystal so that you don't puncture the cell, so the cells survive. Well, the way that they were doing it, I thought there's got to be a better way, and so I started playing around with liquid nitrogen, which is 320 below zero. I thought, well, that could be the fastest way to do it and it worked, you know, and there are several different ways you can do this. But I found, if you dribble these cultures into a bed of liquid nitrogen, that you can make little pellets. So a month or two after doing that, I was making homemade ice cream and I thought you know, well, when you make ice cream. You want to have small ice crystals, and so that's kind of when the two kind of came together.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of how I got.
Speaker 3:Sorry for the long answer.
Speaker 2:that's kind of why? No, that's fantastic. That's fascinating, because everybody knows what Dippin' Dots is, you know they've seen them everywhere. And to hear that started from pig farming and then microbiology too you were making homemade ice cream that's just fascinating to me. That's fantastic. And then you said we got a business here. What happened?
Speaker 3:Well, actually the company I was working for was a very interesting company. It was called Alltech Biotechnology Center and it was started by one of the people that I regard as one of the best entrepreneurs, because he taught me a lot. He was actually a guy named Pierce Lyons and he was from Ireland and he's passed away in recent years, but he was such a go-getter and it's a whole interesting story how he started his business.
Speaker 3:But I actually took the idea to him and I said, hey, what do you think about this? And he's like, in a nutshell, he's like, you know, cute idea, kurt, to get back to work, you know because I love it.
Speaker 2:I love it.
Speaker 3:He was. He was building a company. I was there for their first million dollar month and they become like a four billion dollar company.
Speaker 2:Ok, ok, later.
Speaker 3:So he was really growing a company very fast and I and I got to be a part of that early stage, which really helped me when I started Dippin Dots. Now the good news is is that I stayed there six months after I had the idea. I just worked on my project on weekends and nights. And then I finally told him I said, look, I've got the bug, I've got to go try to do something with this. And he actually this doesn't happen very often, but he actually threw me a party like a going away party, bought me a briefcase with my initials on it and, you know, said good luck, you know.
Speaker 2:So I'll be darned. You started up the company, yeah, and then so did it take off. How did you get it into places?
Speaker 3:no, it was very difficult in the beginning. My wife and I opened up an ice cream store. We had saved a little bit of money not much. We had about maybe $12,000 or $10,000 to $12,000 in a savings account. We had some credit cards we had just taken out. That's back when you first started getting credit cards. We basically opened a store on the wrong side of town in Lexington, kentucky. We didn't know anything about retail and in fact we got bit right out the gate because we were talking to this guy who liked our product and he had been building out these restaurants and he said well, I can get you into these restaurants and we were talking about that.
Speaker 3:He had restaurants in Indianapolis, lexington and different places and then he approached me one day he said hey, we're building a, a restaurant, in lexington, and it's going into this new shopping center. There's going to be 20 000 cars a day going by, be a perfect place, you know to build out a dip and dot store basically.
Speaker 3:But, wow, okay. So we we basically gave him half of our life savings and well, at one point he actually kind of skipped down with our money. We had to hire an attorney. All these different things happened. So what was supposed to open in December, which was still a bad time to open an ice cream store it didn't open until March by the time we worked through all these things. So all of our money that we had saved for like advertising and things was just gone. So we got the store open with no money.
Speaker 3:But anyway, we still had a pretty good summer just because we were running it. So when people did come in, we were able to talk to them and explain what we were doing. We did get a couple of news stations that did pieces on us, which helped us a lot. So we kind of got some advertising there. But, like I said, we made a lot of mistakes out of the gate. But that first year running that store we were able to develop all of our recipes and everything that we used for years and years. You know, once we got into other other types of businesses and things and then how did it go?
Speaker 2:it started building up.
Speaker 3:Started building up, yeah, um after the first year of having the store open, we, we wanted to branch out and do a few other things. So we, we did a few fairs and things like that. We and we found that when we were having a crowd of people we could sell our product. But if we went and sold it to like a store or a restaurant to say, hey, here's our product, you know, nobody knew. There was no name recognition, right, nobody knew anything about the product and unless you really were willing to sample people and talk to them, you couldn't really sell it. So what happened is that my sister, connie, had also gotten involved in the business.
Speaker 3:By that time my wife and I lived in Lexington, kentucky. So we were, you know, 250 miles away from the, from the farm, if you will. But my family back home wanted to get involved too. But my, what we? What we determined is that everywhere that we went to sell a product we had to have a 40 below freezer to keep the product in beans. So we finally figured out well, well, if we have to buy an expensive freezer to put somewhere, we really need to make sure there's a lot of people mining out that freezer. So that's what led us to like state fairs and amusement parks and things like that. But the very first theme park we got into was Opryland, usa, and that's where we got.
Speaker 1:Yeah but the way that happened is, my sister just made a cold call down there and it's I always like hearing her tell the story because she said everything I could have said wrong.
Speaker 3:I said wrong. You know like they're like well, how long you've been around? Oh, we just started, well, uh, well, you know how do your sales do? Well, we don't know, we've never sold it anywhere, you know. Just, she wasn't really like being a salesperson. You know she has an accounting background. But even that it worked, because I guess she got their attention enough to where they said well, yeah, bring it down and show it to us. So we got to go down and present it in person and the same thing happened there. We were there for two years and no success at all. No-transcript. So if the sun's shining and we get busy, we don't even open your kiosk oh my gosh, wow so we were asked to leave at the end of that season.
Speaker 3:one guy there thought we got kind of a bum rap and it just so happened his dad was the general manager of the park. So he said we've got a new food service guy coming in next year to run food service. Why don't you talk to him? Let's give it one more shot? And the deal that we worked out was that we would come in and we would run the locations in the park. So again, now we had our own storefront, if you will.
Speaker 3:We had access to thousands of people a day. So now we were able to finally get it going, you know, so we, we got people. Just we just gave so many samples out and then people started buying it. Yeah, now you fast forward another year. After that we went to the kennedy space center and got an appointment there, got got in. That's a whole funny story to tell today sometime.
Speaker 3:But anyway we got in there and by then we kind of knew what we were doing. But we knew it was a new location. So they wanted to call it something besides Dippin' Dots. So we came up with Space Dots Right, and we also had just come up with the term Ice Cream of the Future. So we had this little kiosk called Space Dots, ice Cream in the Future. But it was perfect because it got people's attention. And when we opened that stand, I remember telling them I was still doing a few things on the signage and I said, now, you guys will have to sample this, you'll have to stop people, you'll have to get them to try it. And so I was walking around doing stuff and I saw one of them, one of the food service people. I said, well, how's it going over there? And they said, well, it's going good, we're not sampling very much. I said, well, you got to sample? They said, no, we don't have time, people are lined up to buy it.
Speaker 3:That was the first time that had ever happened, and that was exciting because then it had finally taken off and we would. We were actually delivering product in a pickup truck at that time all the way from Illinois to Orlando floor or Kennedy Space Center near Daytona Beach, and so we would sometimes be coming back with a truck and then taking off with another truck to go down and supply. Wow, they were going through product that fast and it kept selling. Oh, go ahead Then it got great after that, you know so.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Now it became the ice cream of the future.
Speaker 3:You're right, more people did it by ice cream of the future than Dippin' Dots. Yeah, then it kind of flipped eventually and then, you know, dippin' Dots became the brand name and all that. But, yeah, we went from Kennedy Space Center, we went to literally almost every theme park in America over the next 10 years, and so it was crazy times. We were building big walk-in freezers and then we'd outgrow that. We moved into a 26,000 square foot building from a 2,000 square foot building and then we moved on two years years later and so we built probably four walk-in freezers that were just kept getting bigger and bigger. Uh, we went international. We went into japan and then south korea during the mid 90s. So, yeah, it was quite a ride. You know, we were just blowing and going and then, and then, like you said, 2008 hit and you know that's a different story.
Speaker 2:So do you recall what your volume was prior to 2008,? Just prior to, yeah, actually in?
Speaker 3:2007. Now, this was just the main company of Dippin' Dots, which was Dippin' Dots Incorporated. We did right at $47 million, wow, wow, okay. Well, we'd also at $47 million, wow, wow, okay. Well, we'd also done that in 2006. And that was really strange for us because we were used to growing every year. So only $100,000 difference between 2006 and 2007. But what happened and this is before the recession really hit- is we noticed?
Speaker 3:that and we had a nice profit in 2006,. But 2007, we were doing the sales with our. You know it's kind of like today. You know the high prices, you know everything. But for example, you know fuel prices had gone up. You know, I think it was. I can't remember what the exact percentage rate, but on milk, milk had gone up 34% oh geez wow In 2007 over 2006, and we used a lot of milk. Milk had gone up 34% oh geez, wow, in 2007 over 2006. And we used a lot of milk, obviously.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:You know, our liquid nitrogen costs went up, our fuel costs went up. Everything was going through the roof and, honestly, we had a One of our accounting folks was talking to our banker.
Speaker 3:Now, the other thing that was going on in the background is that we had gotten into a patent lawsuit really going way back into the 90s. We had been straight up infringed and we got an injunction against the infringer. But before all that got settled and came to court the judge it was down in Dallas, texas. He had retired from being a judge or went back into private practice, something like that, and it got to another judge's hands and again I could do a whole podcast on that. But long story short, again we basically the second judge did a thing that really hurt us. He, he started getting things ready to go to trial and they started doing these definitions on the patents. They call it when a special examiner comes in and they start, you know, trying to get things ready to go to trial. Well, there was a ruling that came out.
Speaker 3:Just to simplify everything I'm telling you, and, by the way, so we had an injunction against the guy trying to infringe, so he went overseas and started doing stuff. Oh geez, against the guy trying to infringe. So he went overseas and started doing stuff. Oh geez, okay. Basically, if you put two identical cups of beaded ice cream in front of you and you put a chunk of ice cream on the one on the right, it no longer infringed the cup on the left oh, wow okay, the most amazing, detrimental thing that had happened.
Speaker 3:So that, along with the fact that we at the time were converting our dealership network over to a franchise network only because a lot of dealers had requested that they have more stable contracts we had been doing like year-to-year dealership contracts and they wanted some equity in their business. So we found that by franchising we could offer longer agreements. They'd have something to sell, we could keep our branding a little bit higher level, a little more control over that. But we brought everybody in that was a franchise or a dealer. We converted to a franchise with no franchise fees Wow. We also lowered the price of the product but we collected a 4% royalty. So everybody was happy, except we noticed that six or seven pretty large dealers didn't sign up.
Speaker 1:Well, what had?
Speaker 3:happened, this ruling had come out, one of the ringleaders had gone to one of the guys we were in a lawsuit with and said well, why don't you make product now? And that way we're not under all these franchise controls or whatever. So all that was going on in the background and we were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on lawyers, patent lawyers, the most expensive lawyer you can get yes, and this was going on for years, you know. So, anyway, I'm saying all that to say that by the time 2008 rolled around, we'd already had this little bit of a cancer growing within the business.
Speaker 1:You know just all of our profits were going towards attorney's fees.
Speaker 3:I mean to the tune of millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 1:So anyway, what?
Speaker 3:happened is between 2006 and 2007,. Almost identical sales. We went from making a couple million dollars to losing a couple million dollars. Well, we didn't know that there was also a banking crisis getting ready to hit, because we happened to have one of the banks that was hurting the most and they started. Well, I mentioned we had an accounting person that talked to our local banker and, just being very honest, she said, hey, we're going to have trouble paying our credit line down this year because everything is just so tough. We usually we had a $6 million credit line. We'd pay it down to zero every season because it was a seasonal business. Well, as it turns out, he wasn't worried because it's like well, yeah, you guys got $40 million worth of assets on your books, you guys got great track record, nothing to worry about. Well, we didn't know in the background that they were merging or being bought out by another bank and all this stuff, oh geez.
Speaker 3:Well, he lost control of our account, basically, and the bank that I can't remember. It was a merger or an, I think it was.
Speaker 3:it was an acquisition One bought the other, but they had all those properties in the southeast that had gone, you know, got overvalued, and then it came back to help cause the banking crisis, right? So basically we did a three-month extension on our credit line and we had met with the bank once and you know we were working through everything. We didn't think there was any real urgency there, but on the day it was due they wrote us an email and said you've missed your credit line. Now all of your loans are in default.
Speaker 3:All of your loans which we never missed a payment. We were not behind them, and so we thought well, this is crazy. So we thought, well, we'll just go to another bank. Well, we went to another bank, spent about a month with everything. Well, by then everything's getting worse behind the scenes that none of us know about. So all of a sudden, they've agreed to do a loan, but then they pull out at the last minute because one of the big Wall Street companies had fell. So then it was almost impossible to get a loan in because everybody was already starting to panic.
Speaker 3:You know, while this was going on, the other thing that happened in 2007, well, really started in 2007 for us, and then it really happened in 2008 was all these Dippin' Dot stores that were out in the country. You know that franchisees owned. When everything really hit the fan fan. All those sales went down about 40 or 50 percent, wow. So it just created panics everywhere. And then what happens is that, if you're not with the right bank, all your assets get devalued. They're trying to force you into, like, some type of a foreclosure or getting you to move to another bank, which you couldn't move to another bank right now. To make it worse, we thought we saw this bright light of sun, this bright ray of sunlight, because, all of a sudden, the government was going to bail out all these banks. Well, that'll solve everything, great, well, yeah, not really. They just propped up their own bottom, their own balance sheets, and they even made it harder to get money.
Speaker 3:So, you couldn't get a loan, you couldn't move. So eventually, what happened is that we tried to operate our business for about the next two or three years without a bank. Some of our interest rates on our loans that got called literally went up to 24%. I had loans over a million dollars that I was paying 24% interest on, and then, after a while, you just couldn't sustain that because your sales were already down from the recession basically. And, like I said, the banks got bailed out, but the people below them didn't.
Speaker 3:So we're fighting this battle with the bank and we finally are still surviving. We're putting our personal money back in, we're doing all these things, you know, to try to survive all this, but it just keeps going on and on and on. And so finally, we felt like there was a light at the end of the tunnel. We thought, well, let's just go, sit down with these crazy people and see if we can work something out. Drive all the way to St Louis and we're sitting in around a table and we're saying, you know, let's work something out, let's. You know, we got. We got a certain amount of cash flow. We got some things we can do if you can. You know, just let's work something out. And they said well, actually we're glad you drove up here because we want to let you know we've already drawn up foreclosure papers on you.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh wow, on Monday morning we'll be running your business. This is on a Friday.
Speaker 3:Wow. We had to, over the weekend, figure out a way to keep that from happening. So we filed for a Chapter 11. And this was in 2011.
Speaker 3:We had survived that long, you know, without a main company. Well, I wish I would have stuck with that, because I probably would have ended up on the other side with the company and it would have been restructured, debt and all these different things. But I was raised on a farm where you always paid your bills. You know, I didn't want to have bankruptcy on my title. You know, I just got a little bit scared, to be honest with you, and so we'd already been working with a company that had brought in what I what I would call bottom feeders. You know and I say that because there's nothing illegal about it you try to get a good deal and you buy a business. I understand all that. But if you're someone that started something from scratch, you don't really want someone like that to come in and take over your business. We'd always avoided those. But we knew we had to do something, and so we got an email from someone that had seen where we had filed for Chapter 11 in the Wall Street Journal and seemed like it could be a pretty good fit. They had said they had kind of been through some similar things in the past. Now they were doing pretty well. They were in the oil business and so on and so forth. And we thought, well, you know, this makes sense. So we started working with them over the next few months and they said they were getting ready to sell a business I think it was their oil business actually and you know, through that six-month process we had given up a lot of things, I guess because we were trying to keep the business going and they were going to put in a certain amount of money. But they. But what really happened is, over a six month period, it ended up that we pretty much got drawn in far enough where we almost didn't have any choice to go out. You know, I like bid it on the open market or those kinds of things. So, yeah, it just kind of became more of a.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all they said they didn't sell their business, so they weren't going to have all this cash laying around. So now they had to figure out a different way to do it. And so, oh geez, okay, well, by then it was almost too late to do something else, and so, okay, well, let's just partner, because part of the deal was we were supposed to be able to earn back into the company or because we were going to be 50 50 partners. It kind of got whittled down over time and then it became like, well, we'll need to be the full owner because we're going to take out you know, bank loans with, you know to take out your loans, and, um, but they had 40 million dollars worth of assets to work with too, that you know we weren't getting any credit or so anyway, we got credit. So anyway, we got basically bought out.
Speaker 3:They basically bought the debt from the bank and I stayed with the company, thinking I would earn back into the company. But after three years there was a way to get me out, so I was kind of like pushed out the door. By then we had already gotten sales kind of going back in the right direction and everything kind of go. The good news is, all the employees that we had employed over the years which I grew up in the second poorest county in the state of Illinois and we had a lot of people that had jobs from that they kept all those employees and they pretty much ran the business the way that we were running it. They let the people in Paducah do a lot of the things, because there's a certain way you sell beads of ice cream into the amusement park industry and different things. They did keep a lot of things going for the brand and kept the brand alive.
Speaker 2:But, kurt, you started this brand. You're going from pig farming to working with the feed to hey, I've got homemade ice cream here. You went through all the struggles to build that to what it was, to have it taken from you. Now this, this is the comeback Chronicles podcast. So that's what we talk about here, because there are people listening that are going through things, that have gone through things, that still are trying to get out of things, and it's important to me that they hear real raw stories about you know, we all have challenges and but how we come through those challenges so let's start with that had to feel like crap, you know let's just be honest here yeah, and it happened gradually because it well, I say it happened gradually, but there there was that point where you'd kind of signed over the business and you didn't really feel like you were signing over because you thought you were still going to be a part of it.
Speaker 3:So that I think it was much later on, maybe after I'd been there for three years, thinking when I heard that they weren't going to renew. We had automatically renewable contracts and I'm thinking, wait a minute, that don't make sense.
Speaker 1:We had automatically renewable contracts and I'm thinking wait a minute.
Speaker 3:That don't make sense. But I think it was then when it really hit me and I was like, well, what can I do now? So I kind of had to. It was a tough acceptance there for the next couple of years or so, especially hard on my family.
Speaker 3:My wife was, I mean, like I said, we owned a $50 million business, and not only it's like we went and bought a bunch of yachts with that or anything because we put everything back into the business. You know, we didn't really. We didn't really. We had some other investments we'd made, we'd done. You know we had some things, but we also had put a lot of stuff back in the business from the recession all the way up to 2011 that we never got and we didn't ask for it because all we wanted was to own a piece for our business again.
Speaker 3:We felt like we could get it. We knew the brand was strong, we knew we could get it there. So it would be tough to feel like you had that, that rug pulled out from under you and and. But it's like you said, people have things happen to them much worse than what I had. I've always, always said you know the one thing I had through all of that was I had the history of growing up on a farm and scraping and scratching for everything you had anyway, and I had my health during that time and fortunately, knock on wood, still do so to me.
Speaker 3:I just had to, I had to just say you know, look, you can. Either you can either sit here and cry about it or you can. You can get up and see what. And I knew it's like you said, we built that business, we had the knowledge of that business, so we just decided to.
Speaker 3:Well, my daughter was five years old when I started Dippin' Dots and she's, you know, 41, 42 years old now, and so we started this 40 below business together and my wife, of course, along with us. But so we've been through it before. We kind of know how to do it and she enjoyed dipping dots. She had her ups and downs with dipping dots. But my daughter didn't experience all the startup things that we went through to the degree that we did. I mean, remember we were setting up theme parks around the country so she would get to go with us. But she, she still knew there was a certain amount of stress in a startup business. You just that, that just goes with the territory. But this time she's getting to experience the um, the real startup of a business, and but she knows that it can turn into something because of what we had done with dip and dot.
Speaker 3:So it's been it's been kind of a, it was tough, but you also feel good about what you're doing. It's like we talked about before the interview. You know, if you go to bed at night and you're really tired from really working hard all day, it's a good tired, you know, and that's that's. That's kind of where we're at in our life right now.
Speaker 2:Well, I think there's so many lessons right there in just that last few minutes Cause, again, it's you.
Speaker 2:You can tell the measure of a person, not during the good times, but during the tough times and what you went back to is, like you said, instead of crying yourself to sleep every night okay, Not every night, might've been a couple of nights, but you took a look at okay, there's people who are going through a lot worse, and there are. You know, whatever you're going into my listeners now, whatever you're going through, odds are somebody else is going through something a lot worse right now. So keep things in perspective. The planet's still spinning. You didn't just completely fail because you'd learned so much along the way. You gained so much knowledge and experience on. I've done it before. I can do it again. And that's where your comeback story is happening right now, as people are listening to this, because you're putting all of that experience and knowledge and know-how back into 40 below. Is that right?
Speaker 3:It's true, and to give you a perfect example, I mean just a week and a half ago. As you know, I'm not real big on social media. I mean, I've got LinkedIn, I've got all the things, but someone happened to reach out and say, you know, happy work anniversary. And it was someone that I used to sell Dippin' Tots to at a major theme park.
Speaker 3:I'll be darned and I reached back out and said oh hey, it's good to hear from you and, by the way, we're doing this and she went out and looked at our websites and within two days she ordered, you know, 40 cases of product from us, because she was in a new position now. She went to a convention center. I love that and so, you know, we just delivered that product yesterday. And she says oh, by the way, I'm with a group now that we have 300 locations, and she said I'm going to start, you know. So I mean, it's just, you know, you just got to stay in it. You really do, I think. Starting a business.
Speaker 3:I played sports in high school and a little bit of junior college, but I used to always say it's kind of like a basketball game. You know where you're, you're having all these ups and downs, but it really doesn't matter to you until about the middle of the fourth quarter. You know, you really just got to stay in the game. I guess is what I'm trying to say, because anything can happen at that point.
Speaker 2:I absolutely love that. So, and that's what a what a great story. That is about what's going on now with 40 Below. Tell us more about, okay, where is 40 Below going? How are you building it up? Where can people find it? And, by the way, if they want to represent your product, how do they get a hold of you to do so?
Speaker 3:Well, it's interesting because even though we're starting over, as you mentioned earlier, we have a product called 40 Below Joe. Yeah, and even though I hadn't know some non-competes, I didn't really, I didn't really. I wanted to kind of keep my freedom, in that I didn't really want to go right at dipping dots either right away either, because I I kept thinking, well, maybe there's still a way we're, maybe maybe it's meant to be, we're still going to work together someday, or whatever. So right on, I took the concept of 40 below joe.
Speaker 3:It was something I'd already had in my mind and we'd already kind of actually experimented with it when I was at dippin dots but, and I actually had put all that into the new company. But whenever they pushed me out, I kind of I kind of told him, I got an attorney and said I'm taking this with me because you guys, you didn't invest in it, you didn't do. And so we got that all straight. And so I thought, well, if I get into the coffee business and the idea was little beads of coffee and they're a high-quality coffee, we use real high-quality Arabica beans. It's good. It's good.
Speaker 3:I've developed an espresso process that uses gaseous nitrogen. So in other words, we use liquid nitrogen to freeze our products, but at the top of that nitrogen tank is gas under pressure. I use that to push all the pressure through the water, you know, through the beans and the ground up beans, and basically it keeps the oxygen out of the process, which is what I'm after, because oxygen is the enemy of coffee. So the whole idea is that we would make this great product that all you had to do was add water and microwave it or steam it and you would have a great cup of coffee and that worked. And it works great that coffee will maintain its freshness to 40 below for years actually.
Speaker 3:So now we got to thinking well, we already got beads of coffee, why not add some creamer beads to it and flavors like salted caramel or mocha or French vanilla? And so we started kind of down that road, and so it's basically an edible coffee, well anyway. So then you fast forward. You know, we developed out the island rocks, which are the margarita drinks, the pina coladas and all that, and I still was just like I'm not trying to go right at dippin dots, I'm not trying to go right at different dots. Well then, the people that actually bought me out got bought out by a bigger public company um, j j smack foods now owns dippin dots, and and, uh, the guys that sold it and you know, made a pretty profit off of and everything. But I'm still thinking, I'm still not going right at Dippin' Dots. You know, maybe there's a way we'll work together. And so we actually did talk a little bit, but nothing really came of it. So finally, where I'm going with all this is last summer we just decided, you know, the coffee's great, the fruit products are great, island rocks are great. But we developed this business selling to kids with cookies and cream and cookie dough and rainbow and all these, and so it's like it's time to just go on out there and get going with it. So since last summer, when we actually launched everything on the dessert side, we really can tell that our business is getting ready to take off.
Speaker 3:So you ask where can you get it at? Well, first of all you can go online. You can order it at, basically, www.40belowcocom. So it's 40belowcocom, but we also are starting to get out into a few water parks, small theme parks. You know we're going up against a competitor now. You know it's a pretty good size that we created, but people do like the fact that we have a lot of varieties. Now We've got a lot of different brands and so we're starting to get a little toehold in some of those places.
Speaker 3:But we also have little bitty 40 below freezers. So it might have six desserts. It might have, you know, cookies and cream, cookie dough, rainbow chocolate, but it would also have a couple of dairy-free desserts. So a couple made out of coconut milk that's made with real fruit, strawberries and cream, for example, or cotton candy with all natural flavors and colors. So you can see these little freezers starting to pop up in places like bowling alleys and family fun centers, starting to pop up in places like bowling alleys and family fun centers, and we're also starting to work with distributors in different parts of the country. So you'll see this more and more over the next two or three years where hopefully you'll see a 40 blow freezer that you can purchase product from and there'll be in these nice, brightly colored little packs like you just just held up Fantastic.
Speaker 2:What's the way we're out of time, which is too bad, because this is amazing. What is some advice you'd like to leave everybody with?
Speaker 3:Well, I think and.
Speaker 3:I've started reading your book, which I think is going to be a great book. But I know you talk about passion. I think anybody that's going to be in business, especially if they're starting something new you've got to be passionate about whatever it is. In other words, I used to tell kids I could talk to a college or high school class and they would say well, you know, I want to be an entrepreneur. What do you, what do you advise?
Speaker 3:I said, well, first of all, you've got to have an idea or a concept or a product that you really believe in. I mean, you've got to really believe in yourself. Because I'm not a salesperson, but I can sell Dippin' Dots or I can sell beaded ice cream because I believe in it. I know it's the best way you can make ice cream, small ice crystals. You know everything that goes with it. So I think that's you got to have an idea you believe in. You've got to be passionate about it, and then you just can't give up. You know you. Just you have to be willing about it, and then you, you just can't give up. You know you. Just you have to be willing to get get up and you get knocked down and, uh, you just got to know it's not going to be a a yellow brick road. I mean that that's just perfect. Everywhere you go, you know you're going to get.
Speaker 2:You're going to get knocked down a few times. You're going to get knocked down, there's going to be bumps in the road, but you're still on the road. Keep moving forward, right? Fantastic Well, kurt, thank you so much for joining us today. I really really appreciate it. Everybody you're hearing a comeback Chronicle story in the process right now. Kurt Jones, who built up Dippin' Dots to what it was. Things happen, but he did not cry in his corner. He came back out fighting Okay, there's a new idea that I believe in Put that pig farmer work ethic to work there, work smart, don't hold vengeance, because he's moving forward with some people right now as well, and then you can create your own Comeback Chronicle. Thanks so much, kurt.
Speaker 1:So that's it for today's episode of the Comeback Chronicles. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts will win a chance in the grand prize drawing to win a $25,000 private VIP date with Terry O Fossum himself. Be sure to head on over to Comeback Chronicles podcastcom and pick up a free copy of Terry's gift and join us on the next episode.