Doug Taylor on Taylor Chip, Faith, Grit, and Starting From Scratch

Viewer discretion is advised. This episode includes sensitive conversations about childhood adversity, trauma, addiction, abuse, faith, business stress, and difficult family experiences.

In this episode of Hidden Foundations, Kendall sits down with Doug Taylor of Taylor Chip to explore the family, faith, pressure, and grit behind building a cookie company from scratch. Doug shares how he and his wife started Taylor Chip with a $50 mixer in a 900-square-foot apartment, how Dave Portnoy’s Barstool review changed their e-commerce momentum, and how the company grew across retail, manufacturing, nutrition products, and online sales.

Doug also opens up about his mother’s traumatic past, her sobriety, the stability created by adoption, and the belief system that shaped his own approach to entrepreneurship, fatherhood, leadership, and legacy. The conversation also includes important context that Taylor Chip has since gone bankrupt, and this episode is shared as a real look at the ambition, risk, pressure, mistakes, and humanity behind building a business.

A special thank you to The Franklin on Rittenhouse for graciously allowing us to record these episodes inside their hotel. Their hospitality, atmosphere, and attention to detail gave us the perfect setting to host thoughtful conversations and bring Hidden Foundations to life in Philadelphia.
Check out their hotel here: https://www.thefranklinonrittenhouse.com/
https://www.instagram.com/franklinonrittenhouse/

Hidden Foundations is a weekly podcast hosted by entrepreneur and investor Kendall Schoenrock, examining how family systems, early adversity, and childhood dynamics quietly shape high-performing adults. Each conversation uncovers the “invisible wiring” behind resilience, ambition, leadership, and grit — told through candid stories from entrepreneurs, athletes, creators, and leaders.

Guided by the thesis that strength is forged early at home, the show uses a consistent framework to explore emotional environments, money narratives, family roles, conflict patterns, and early challenges. Every episode delivers at least one practical, repeatable insight for parents, leaders, and anyone seeking to understand how greatness is built long before it’s visible.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Not to be offensive to anybody, but like hard work is easy. Dave Portnoy reviewed our cookies, which lost our e-commerce like crazy during COVID.

SPEAKER_03 0:08

What do you want your children to take away from the Taylor Chip experience that you're going on right now?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

We started with a $50 mixer off Facebook Marketplace in a 900 square foot apartment in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Out of the screen came this darkness. And then it was like wolf eyes opened up. And I heard from behind say, everything that's about to happen is fear. It changed nothing. I totally believe that we will end up very close to billionaires.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

This is Hidden Foundations. A show about how family, childhood, and adversity shape leaders. Because before they became who they are, their foundation was already being formed. This is a conversation with Doug Taylor of Taylor Chip. We filmed this episode in January of 2026, and Doug was one of my very first guests. We've held on to it based on the production schedule, and we're excited to bring it to you now. Since we filmed this episode, Taylor Chip has unfortunately gone bankrupt. This is due to economic headwinds. It's due to a shift in consumer purchasing behavior and a retail overexpansion with the opening of the stores in Philadelphia. The e-commerce side of the business wasn't strong enough to carry some of that overexpansion. Doug did a lot of things right in that business and still it didn't work out. And that's life, that's business. And he's now handling that with grace and poise, and we will continue to support him in his next journey. We're excited for what comes next for them. I did want you, as the viewer, to have that context as we have this conversation with Doug, knowing the challenges that they're going through right now. We appreciate uh your support as the viewer, but we wanted you to understand uh where Taylor Chip is now. Thanks for your continued support and enjoy the show. Welcome back for another episode of the Hidden Foundation podcast. Today I'm joined with Doug Taylor with Taylor Chip makes an amazing chocolate chip cookie. I'm a personal fan. Um, so talk to me a little bit about how the company came about, how you got started, uh, and then I really want to dive into some of the things that makes this special.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Yeah. Um, so my wife and I, when we were just dating, we started making cookies and we were making protein cookies and regular cookies and baking cakes and all, you know, it was just like, what do you do when you're dating and you see each other all the time? For us, it was baking. We we really connected over that, and we baked our own cake for our wedding, you know, saved costs there. And then we made our cookie recipe that we had been working on for like a year and a half, just out of personal ambitions. I was eating cookies that had Crisco in them, and they were my favorite. My friend's mom made them. And when Sarah and I started dating, she's like, You can't have Red Bull anymore, you can't have, you know, vegetable oils anymore, like all the things that I love. She was taken away. And I was like, You can't take away my chocolate chip cookies, so we'll we'll just make the same exact cookie, but with butter. And so that was the whole idea. It's like I wanted to keep eating these cookies. Sarah said I couldn't, and so we started making a ton of them and just testing and reiterating all that stuff. But it was never for a business, it was always just to be together, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:44

Self-vestialization is fun.

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Do you have any food science background? Did you snubby?

SPEAKER_01 3:48

No, I was I was a drummer. Yeah, I had a recording studio, loved doing that. My dream was to be a well, my dream was to be a front man for like a pop punk band, but I can't sing. So I would write, so I would write music, and I was also not the best musician naturally. So I partnered with, I was homeschooled. So I partnered with my all my friends were super good musicians. I mean, my one friend good friend growing up, one of my best friends growing up, his brother played for like Foo Fighters and all that stuff. Like he was just like, it was so cool. He'd come back with his guitar that that's torn up or his bass that's torn up from just his tours and different things, the studio time, and it's like so cool. Um, so I just loved that, but I wasn't naturally good at it. No one in my family did music. And so I found my way through, I partnered with him and another friend to own a studio that we started. And so then it was like, well, we didn't come from successful bands, so we didn't have a network. And so I was like, How are we gonna make this succeed? And so I became the website builder, the marketing guy, the SEO guy. And so that's kind of how things spiraled into eventually I sold that in 2019 to my partner, and um, and I took everything I learned with selling music to start Taylor Chip. Wow.

SPEAKER_03 5:06

Part of this, right, is is a CEO as small business, you're wearing all the hats.

SPEAKER_01 5:11

All the hats.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

So you're actually in the kitchen, yeah, and then you're running sales and marketing, yep, and SEO website optimization, building the website, yep.

SPEAKER_01 5:20

All of that.

SPEAKER_03 5:21

So uh when tell me when the business got founded and where you are now, and then give us a little preview of where you see it going in the next couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

So when when we found were founded, um, we started with a $50 mixer off Facebook Marketplace in a 900 square foot apartment in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And we didn't even know we were starting a business, you know. Um, we didn't know what co manufacturing was, we didn't know anything. Because I just I was not focused on this industry at all, but we just started bringing them to friends' houses, and they were like, these are so good, can we buy them? And we're like, sure. As then we got and then when we got married, we got our kitchen approved in that little apartment, um, and just started baking for events, and just and then we only had the chocolate chip cookie, and then we expand, and then people we would do events for like people thinking about doing weddings. So you would come and there'd be these events, you'd be a preferred vendor, and they're like, Oh, we'd love to have you, but you only have one flavor. And I was like, Is there other flavors of cookies? And so then we we spent a lot of time like developing our law, our first 12 flavors over the winter of 2017, I believe it was. And then we started doing more events with flavors, and it just kind of took off. And then people were like, somebody came up to us, was like, Hey, do you want to do a market stand? Um, we we really you know prayed about it, felt like this is where God was leading us, and it was less than $400 a month all in to be there. It would have cost us like in equipment like $15,000 and to build the stand and stuff. And so we took out, you know, interest-free credit cards and got started. And we paid those interest-free credit cards back before we needed to pay the interest, which was good, and then we kept going and we did not have, and we just, you know, one employee, two employees, one cookie at a time, I always say, and then e-commerce happened, you know. Uh Dave Portnoy reviewed our cookies, was lost our e-commerce like crazy during COVID. We had a makeshift drive-through in our shopping center that the market was in, and people, it was just like lines of traffic out to the road of just people texting us and uh to like their order, and then we'd bring it out and they'd pay with a credit card at the car door. You know, you have your your mask on or whatever. Nobody knew what was going on. So um, and that's how it, that's how it started, you know, and and just kind of kept growing and kept growing and kept growing. And then we decided, you know, to open up another store, and we'd save money and we would open up another store, and we'd save money and open up another store, and then e-commerce as well kept going. So it's always been 50% e-commerce, 50% retail, basically. Very close.

SPEAKER_03 8:02

Very where are you now? How many stores do you have now? How many employees?

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Currently, we have about 40-ish employees. It it always fluctuates. We're always trying to be more lean. Um, and we have seven locations. One is manufacturing, some of those are little markets, like a market in Harrisburg, a market in Hershey. Um, and then we have two Philadelphia locations, Britain House Square and uh Fishtown. And then we have um Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and York County standalone. Those are we have four standalones and then our manufacturing and then uh markets. So yeah, seven locations and um yeah, yeah, seven locations right now. Where do you see the business coming? We have been. I see us, I actually see us scaling back on retail. I don't know, like just with so I don't know if it's the GLP1 effect or what. Like everybody, you know, including yourself, including me, I lost 20 pounds just eating our our new cookies, our nutrition cookies, one in the morning, one at night, because that curves her cravings. So we've worked for almost it's been about a year and a half, and the idea has been circulating for three years because we had customers that were like, oh, I'm doing keto, and I'm like, I don't want to do a keto cookie. And then they're like, I'm doing sugar free. And so the whole idea was like, how do we do as close to sugar free and build a nutrition product that is as close to actually healthy for you as anything the market has ever seen? And so that's and and give it and have it tasty still, so that our customers know that, you know, we have so much RD experience on the flavor side using sugar and these things. And so that long story short, I feel like our business is going to be transitioning more and more into the nutrition side of things and away from the indulgence because that's who me and Sarah are now. Like we very much eat the nutrition cookies. My wife is, I call her a crunchy mom, you know, and so but she is totally fine with sage having our cookies. And so that was another big crunch.

SPEAKER_03 10:11

Sorry to interrupt. When you say crunchy mom, you mean in terms of texture?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

No, it's so it's like it's like a joke or like almond girl or crunchy mom. It's like, it's like a natural path, you know, they the red light therapy and the the natural like muscle testing type of things and like all the different things that come along, you know, um clean diapers and organic chicken and you know, that that whole there's a whole sect of those people. And there's more and more with like the they just flip the nutrition table around, right? And so that that type of thing. And so she is that, and so she's very stringent as far as like like Sna Sage, our daughter, who's three and a half, thinks a snack is a dried fruit bar. And when she says snack, that's what she's asking for. Like that, she's upset if she doesn't have her apple or dried fruit bar, right? And so this, so that's the standard that Sarah, my wife, has set for our family. And so when we were designing this cookie, it had to be something that Sarah was okay with sage having every day. And so that, and so that meant, you know, or and she also has a gluten sensitivity too. Our daughter, she gets when she has too much gluten or any gluten really, she gets um bumps all around her mouth. And uh, she'll grow out of that, I'm sure. But with our nutrition cookie, even though we use flour, she doesn't get it because we're using organic soft red winter, and so there's no glyphosates, there's no modifications happening. It's very much like eincorn or durum, you know, but for baking, and so Italian-style flour, basically. And so very good for your gut, very healthy, has a great, it's a great source of protein. And then we use A2 beta casein. So in milk, you have A1 variant, which was a genetic modification that happened to increase the lactation in cows. And then with our nutrition cookie, um, you have it's A2 beta casein. And so that is something that is genetically the same as your mom's milk. And so that's why it's like one of the best foods you could have. Milk, raw dairy, raw A2A2 is one of the best foods you could have.

SPEAKER_03 12:22

So I wanted to drill into this for you. Yeah, because you're talking about your history as a drummer and a musician. Yeah, there's a we're gonna just listed a relatively in-depth analysis of food science.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Maybe yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:39

What where does that come from? Where did is this all self-taught? Did you I mean I mean, is it you just starting to peel this back? And you said, well, if we alter the formula this way, this happens and it's just trial and error, or how unpack that.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

I had there were time growing up, like my mom fed us McDonald's, you know, or the anything from the cheapest aisle to grocery. Like we went to this, it's called BB's in Lancaster Aquarius. They have them all around, but it's all Amish run and it's like out-of-date stuff. So you might pay 25 cents for a can of some beans or or less. And so that's where we ate from. And so that didn't, it was all about my mom knew nothing and still knows nothing about nutrition. So it was all about how many calories can you get for the cheapest amount, right? And how can I feed my family tonight? And you know, I remember going to the grocery store wanting roast beef, and we got ham because that was you know half the price. And so I started baking, I started cooking when I I was 14. I got work started working full-time during the summers, landscaping. And so I started using most of my money went to food and and things like that. And so I started cooking. I was the person that cooked, and I'm just learning that. So I was always interested in food. Um, and then I had horrible stomach issues um ever since I was I uh started around 18, 19, and to where I would, I couldn't, you know, even part, I couldn't like I just would get bloated. I have to lay down for an extended period of time. And, you know, I even when I I didn't drink my first sip until I was like 23, and I've never even been able to drink beer or even alcohol because it just would bloat me right away so much. Like I would be in regret for the next forever. And so um I think it's just a curiosity, like what's wrong with me? You know, that's where it starts. Sarah, her mom, her parents got divorced, and her mom, very much the same way, didn't have money. But instead of going to BB's, she had a garden. And so everything was about, you know, know what you're planting, you know, understanding like they would buy a half a cow at a time, and that would last half the year. And so that's how they saved money. This and so she can't came from this, everything was natural. She actually never went, never, her family never had a doctor, you know, a medical doctor. It was always like Chinese medicine type thing that they were doing. And so she just came from that end of the spectrum. And I was learning because I was going through all this stuff, and so that's why that's kind of where we came to that. And then in our cookies, you know, we were making cookies that had sugar in it, but we've always tried to be, you know, better for use out of things that so 90% of our cookies don't have any dyes. Everything doesn't have natural flavors, but we are in Hershey, so we might have like a Reese's peanut butter cup cookie or something like that, and or an Oreo cookie, because people, it's the market that we were in. So, but we always would even trash them in our emails and things like that. And so we've always just been focused on you're going to, you know, when in the 50s, your grandfather or your father, you know, my dad's father, they would eat apple pie for dinner. That was what they had for dinner. Nobody was fat, nobody was overweight. And that was before really the that food industrial revolution, you know, when they took the cigarette company scientists and added them to food. And so, because flour is not bad for you, you know, apples are not bad for you, sugar in moderation, it's not bad for you. And so that whole idea is really something that we've always thought about with Taylor Chip. And then that's why I think the next phase of where Taylor chip is going makes so much sense.

SPEAKER_03 16:33

In terms of the focus on nutrition, it's focus on nutrition, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

And you have the GLP one side of things, the market is shifting very, very quickly, and we see that too. And it's something that we've been working on for a long time. So we're kind of at strategic position positioned really well to kind of capitalize on that too.

SPEAKER_03 16:51

So you talked about the inputs from your mother, and then also Sarah's uh upbringing and and kind of how they're similar in terms of what it sounds like um finances come from from resources, yeah. Um but baked into those and excuse the bad pun, bak baked into those journeys are uh really interesting inputs that are are represented now in Taylor Chip. Yeah. From different perspectives, right? Your your perspective is uh obviously is I want a good cookie, that's what matters. And and she's also on the or organic, and that's why she was pushing to get rid of the Chrisco. Talk to me about your mother and some of the history there, and I know there's some trauma and some some abuse that that um could be a sensitive subject.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Yeah. Well, I mean, so my mom is an incredibly strong woman. She um she was she started her journey with drugs when she was 11 years old, ran away from home at 17, uh, lived in Florida as like just a druggie, you know, meth, all that stuff, you know. She would do everything. Yeah, uh, she had multiple stories where of telling me, you know, how she left her body and people were trying to revive her, revive her, and she killed comes back into the body and all that stuff. And so that is all kind of how she handled what happened to her since she couldn't remember, which was, you know, sexually abused, abused in her home. And that was from a family member. It wasn't from, you know, her her mom or dad or anything, but it was just, you know, somebody got in and was doing this to her, and it was just something that really affected just like it would affect anyone. And so she kept it a secret. She didn't know how to handle that. Um and so, yeah, and that's how she dealt with it. With she started cigarettes and drinking when she was 11.

SPEAKER_03 18:58

And when did she tell you about it? Because of then then she eventually gets clean.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

She had a she I mean, she was math, all of that stuff, and she got sober cold turkey. She fell, she says she she says she fell off her bar stool and woke up sober. And you know, she had a spiritual encounter from who she says is the Holy Spirit, who basically came into her and totally made her all of her addictions went away, just like that. And then that's when she found out also she was pregnant with my older sister.

SPEAKER_03 19:35

And your sister's a couple years older, and then you come along. When in your childhood did she tell you about the trauma and her history and try to describe to you why she is the way she is?

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Um she did it, she always was open from the very beginning. Uh, I remember she told me who the person was that abused her when I was probably like 13 or 14. I think it was around the time that I really wanted to start having sleepovers. She that was a no-no in our house. And uh so she eventually told she told that was uh kind of when she told us why and all of that. So she's always been really good. You know, we were homeschooled. I think she did that selfishly. I mean, got God she was very led by the spirit. She would bless she has this audible voice that speaks to her. And she homeschooled us, but it was because she didn't make it past seventh grade. She couldn't read really well at all. And you so she would teach herself the material and then teach it back to us. And so there was just this level of acuity that most people wouldn't have in this spiritual connection that she had because she had been so, you know, whether she's had multiple abortions, she's done uh she should be in jail, you know, essentially. The the things that she has done, you know, is something that most people would go away for a long time for, right? And so she was spared from from all of that, you know, and um really so she understands what she's saved from and more than I do, more than most people do. And so she was always really good at just listening to the Holy Spirit and and raising us as best that she could, really.

SPEAKER_03 21:26

Yeah. So through the the journey of sobriety and then raising your sister and you without a lot of resources, yeah. What what lessons were you taking away from your mother through those early years knowing the experience that she had and how she's attempting to change that for you and break the cycle?

SPEAKER_01 21:51

Yeah, I mean, you know, she never was a victim. I think that's the biggest thing that I. I've learned is like life happens, things don't go as planned. Man has a plan, and sometimes other people don't care about those plans, other things, external forces, and I think even in entrepreneurship, like the last two years for us has not gone the way that you want the way that I my model said it would. So and so you can get down about that. And but then you think about you know my mom who raped all through childhood and lost everything ten times, was had had gangs trying to kill her. Um and so when she got her her husband left her and took everything, all the money that was there when he did that too, leaving her to have to go back. She tried to live by herself and couldn't sustain it. And her parents took her back in, thankfully. And I grew up on I grew up with my for those until I met my dad who adopted us, you know. Um I will we lived at my grandmother's house, which was awesome as a little kid, you know. So you don't care. But um she never complained, she always took ownership, even when she shouldn't have, uh, which is a fault of hers, probably. And including, you know, she she when she got sober, she in order to homeschool us and not put us in any system or anything, she would take us with her to do cleaning. And we clean inner city apartments, you know, people places that the landlord wouldn't go into without a gun. She didn't have a gun, she wasn't allowed. So, you know, um, so we but we game with her. And I remember, you know, uh you'd walk, you'd be well playing in the hallways as she's vacuuming them, and there's needles on the side, there's fece human feces in the hallway, steps indoors, and you just clean it up, you know. And that was like, it was just you, it was good money because nobody wanted to do it. And that's just and that's just how how life was. So I mean, it was just, it's just the the amount of I have never once through my journey thought, oh man, woe is me. You know, and uh or like and so when I think about what I'm doing, I don't know how successful we will be. I think we are we don't have, we've never had opportunities for investment really. I mean, and and I've been raising for, I mean, you know, I've been raising for a long time, you know, very personally. And um, and we just never had any legs to fall on from a financial side of things, but God has always provided. And also that means that if things go wrong, well, things are go very wrong. And so, but I I take a lot of what I've learned from her, and that that just always sticks to my mind. Like you're you are not a victim. The only victim, the only way you're a victim is you if you allow yourself to be, no matter what.

SPEAKER_03 24:54

I also hear in that find a way, yeah. Figure it out. Yep. Right. Talk to me about the relationship between so she came back and her your parents took her back in. Was that a rock, that stability to have your grandparents around? Did that help? And how long were you with them?

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Uh, I think I was with them for I was so young. I think it was like a year and a half or something like that. But stability. Yeah, stability. Um, and she, you know, the other thing that I love to think about is my dad came in, fell in love with my mom. It was such a god thing. And then he physically adopted us. When he did that, he went into they my parents went into debt severely because it's very expensive to do do adoption, but he wanted to do that. And um, and so that that's been like one thing that we've always done with Taylor Chip is every year, whenever we have profit, you know, every year we've always given away a car or you know, helped we help we've we've helped fund adoptions and things like that. And and also we're very passionate about um fertility and just being able to have a family and being able moms, being able to mom because and just very we're very pro-life in a sense too, because we just really believe that like it's such a blessing to be able to, even if you think it's the worst thing ever, it ends up being the best thing ever for you. And there's so much that people miss out on when they cheat themselves out of that experience just because they think they're not ready. No one's ready.

SPEAKER_03 26:28

Um, but yeah, that was the what was the no the the the stability in the relationship with your grandparents.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah, that that added stubb that added some stability. Um, and then when my dad adopted us, that's what I was saying. My dad adopted us, he you know, never we never made more as a household than like 40,000, 50,000 a year to well with three kids and a mortgage and all that stuff very tight, but he was there all the time. He provided stability and uh yeah, yeah. So that that was that was really great.

SPEAKER_03 26:58

So now you have 40 employees. About that. About 40 employees. Yeah. And you're you're supporting them through their journeys as well.

SPEAKER_01 27:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 27:08

Does your your mother see that? What does she think about?

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Oh, she's so I tell her mom everything, good and bad, about the business and all that stuff, and she's just you know, she's our prayer role warrior. She's she is so so so supportive, so proud, maybe too proud. Like, don't know if there's anything to be proud of just yet. But she's just proud that we are married and you know, she loves the family that we're building and she feels like we're doing it the right way and just feels uh we're we're honoring her by that, you know. So that's she doesn't care about I mean, she cares, like she's excited, but she doesn't care about the business or anything like that. Yeah, you know, again, she this person has nothing, you know, she's had nothing. And what is life to someone who has for an extended period of time lost their purity, lost their self, their everything, you know, and to have that back, but she just cares that we're following Jesus and and and loves that that we're a family, you know.

SPEAKER_03 28:12

That's amazing. Yeah. So when you look at your employees and their dreams, yeah, how do you help them uh uh achieve that outside of one cookie at a time?

SPEAKER_01 28:24

Yeah. Well that that's always been something that is I think about because our our our senior leadership, like they they want to grow and they want to see progress, and that's what's exciting. And so that has been that has been a burden to to continue down that path and like be the leader that they deserve. And I think I don't know if I succeed sometimes. And there's been times like we've been struggling. I mean, when we opened up Philadelphia, we thought it would be like a quarter million dollars per store, and we thought we could do it in and we basically had two stores that we opened, but one was supposed to start a year and a half. The construction was supposed to start like a year and a half after we opened the one, but we went back to zoning and couldn't get the plumbing permits and all these things, and it just ended up costing, you know, way too much to open the store, and it took two years, which meant that we were working on two stores at the same time and did not have the capital. And so there's so that's been hard. You know, now I have so one uh Cameron, who is our creative director. I'm like, sometimes I'm like, man, I don't even have like we're trying to survive. I don't have vision right now. I need you to have a vision, I need you to help them with sales, and and he's totally taken that along. So it's it's we've really built a great family. You know, we have John, who's our retail systems and growth manager, who is just he's been with us now for four years, I think. And he's he was a counselor, a school counselor, you know, and as he just made a career shift and really liked the cookies and the product and just believed in what was going on. And you know, he we call him Papa John because he's like, oh, I forget, whatever, 50s in his 50s, and the oldest guy of everybody in there. And so, and then we have great retail team members and managers too. I mean, we try to be competitive, labors have gone up, labor rate has gone up so much, and and it is a stressful environment because you're always doing too much with too little, and so yeah, but when it comes to our senior management and then our managers, we try to prov just try to continue to grow and do what provide them with a hope in a future, is basically what we're what how I think about it, which is burdensome to a certain degree, too, as an entrepreneur, because you get paid at last, you know.

SPEAKER_03 30:50

So yeah, yeah, yeah. Um when you look at the the CEO journey was it the intent when you were just baking cookies that you're gonna have all of these people, but you're you'd be responsible for all these people, you're responsible for all of the stores, the manufacturing, the international distribution, as well as, and then the list goes on and on. Is that I mean that was not the goal.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

Well, I don't know if the what the the pro we didn't have a goal. I was like, I didn't have I when we started this, there was no vision for a cookie company. Somebody asked us to go into a market, and we were like, sure, sounds like a good thing we can do together. Me and Sarah could do it together. Um, and so there was no grand plan with this. And sometimes I feel like you could tell, but it just things kept on happening to us, and so you kind of react and grow, and like now we need more people, and that's that's kind of how it how it started. You know, there was I've always wanted to do a business. I thought business was going to be music. I love I don't know anything about manufacturing. Well, now I do, but I didn't so I was like, but I knew about like crew the you know, I do all of our design and like I love the creative side of things. I love the marketing, I love the idea that you can touch a hundred people from your or a hundred thousand people, or you know, we get up to 50 million views a month off our socials, and that happens from my basement, right? Like, and and in my mind growing up, I I wasn't allowed to have internet until my parents finally gave in when I was like 14, and that was dial-up and all of that stuff, and I just spend so much time just trying to figure out like what can you use this thing for? And so I'm still I never got into development, but I got into the creative side of things, and I was like, and so I'm still trying to figure out what you can use this for, and so that's really where it came from is like there is 100% a path forward for me, for my family, for Taylor Chip, and it and it's just through the creative arts and and providing a good product. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:03

There's a level of intuition now. So let me dive into this because I one of the things that I've observed about you, what I I think is really interesting. You made a deliberate decision to uh send cookies to Barstool, support for review based on intuition. Yeah. Where does that intuition come from and how did that moment change the trajectory for KO Chip?

SPEAKER_01 33:31

I mean, that is from my paradigm, I would say. Um, I don't know. You know, everybody has different beliefs, but for me, I've always looked at Yahoo and just what how that's been a significant part of my journey. I've seen, you know, even with my mom, have f things have happened where she was having seizures and almost we thought she was gonna die because of the health she was in, and then I would uh I had just come off of a 40-day fast that the Lord had told me to do. And then he it was it it was to pray for her uh during that time, and and then, you know, put my hands on her to pray, and and nothing happened. And God spoke to me and he said, He said, Um, you know, I told you she would be healed. I didn't say what that would be look, what that would look like. Go back and pray over her according to my will, not yours. And when I did that, she got better 100% like that, really quick. And so, in the same way, like we grew with COVID because I had an open vision where I saw there was this person on the news saying how he was sick or blah, blah, blah. And out of the screen came this darkness. And then it was like wolf eyes opened up, and I heard from behind say, everything that's about to happen is fear, changed nothing. And so that's where that's why we didn't let anyone go or shut down during COVID, like every other stand and every other business was doing. We never did because God told me change nothing. So we didn't, and we grew 400% that year, and then 2,000 the next year. And so that was, and so I have everything good that has happened in our business was when I was listening to that intuition. Everything bad that has happened in our business, and it was together, me and Sarah, consulting each other and the intuition and God. When we were aligned on in the home and aligned spiritually, that's when things would happen. And then when we were like when when I decided to go to Philly, we had just had the kid, things were hectic. I wasn't listening to Sarah because she's doing her own thing. She quit on me, right? Because of course she did. Like, what are you? And so it was like uh she was always our floor manager, so everything was crazy. And I was like, but I was like, I had this burden to continue to grow. I really want, I mean, selfishly, I wanted to too. Um, and so I said, Philadelphia, like all our stores are killing it. Philadelphia is the next frontier. And so I made that decision without consulting the intuition side of things, without consulting the Lord. And it just has not worked out the way that I've hoped it would. And so, you know, that is um that's a perfect example of just like you, I think every good CEO, whether or not they'll admit it or not, they're pulling from a higher power. Um and and I think once you get to the, I've met a lot of people, you know, once you get to the upper echelons of business, everybody has their meditation routine. Everybody has this alignment that they go through every day. And so I think that is something that people, the people on the lower levels of skills and the lower levels of business do not pay mind to. And I think that hinders their growth. So yeah, that is something that I've been thinking about a lot too.

SPEAKER_03 36:56

So one of your keys for success is meditation and isolation, no distraction.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

I mean, it's just spending time. I is for me, it's spending time with the Lord. Yeah. Very spiritual perspective. From a spiritual perspective. And that includes pr praying, waiting on his voice, hearing from him. Yeah. But I think that's common. I think you probably uh yourself have a meditation practice or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 37:21

Yeah, certainly, you know, I I um I've tried traditional um guided acts, um, and uh you know, there's some there's something there. I I I it's really difficult to describe or to explain. Um you know, I I I really enjoy spending time outside. Yeah. And so it looks different, right? So if if I have an opportunity to go sit outside, um and then I I I also think for me there's a little bit of breath work and um really just trying to stay focused in a moment. So if I'm if I'm doing a strategic plan or something, um you know you know, there's there's the ability to focus in, um ignore all the distractions, isolate, yeah. Isolate.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:18

And so, you know, at our house, I have a a a back room that I'll go and really isolate. Um, and and I have some technology in there, but when I really do my deep thought, and it's traditionally the the the vast majority of of the major changes are always super late nights for me. Yeah. Right. So um traditionally the normal work day, you know, you're back with the family for the evening, and then my day starts after 9 30. 9 30, 10 o'clock. Sometimes it's even later if I get to spend time with my wife. And so if if my time starts at 11 p.m. and I'm now f finally isolated and and play a game of chess or two, and you know, I'm isolated, and then it's okay, let's do work. You know, some of my beautiful work happens between midnight and 2 a.m. Yep, same. And and it's just because okay, that's and then you know it's challenging because you can prove from a cognitive level that the best peak performance is mid-afternoon, but yet my best creative performance normally comes late at night. Yeah. And so it's trying to find the the balance there. Yeah. Yeah, there's there's certainly some of that aspect of of meditation and and breath work and and isolation.

SPEAKER_01 39:37

Yeah, that is uh I mean, that I think there's so much there to help people get to the next level. And and there, you know, with for our business being very transparent, you know, with how things we had to get a bunch of MCA loans because we just never had debt. We never had debt. I didn't have a ton of access to capital. I didn't even know how to get capital because we just ran with cash. And so when we started running it, I had five sit early on secured like $500,000 line of credit through a local bank. Just I was like, I don't know. They're offering it, I'll take it. And then I had another we got another like $200-ish,000 from another local bank, and that still wasn't enough. So then I had to get MCA loans, uh, which is merchant cash advanced loans and all these different like crazy that had crazy interests and crazy fees and like crazy payback. And so um, while we were trying to refi for our 7A, and even after the 7A, it's just been so tight so many times that you're like, I don't know how I'm gonna pull through. And you start almost like hyperventilating, right? Unless you can get into the understanding like everything is gonna be fine, right? Everything is and if like no matter what, I'm alive. And then it's like because I was losing muscle. I was, you know, I was before I was intentionally losing weight, I was gaining weight because I was eating stress eating, losing muscle, couldn't go to focus at the gym and all of that stuff for like two years. Cause it was just like you go from so profitable, so to like, how am I gonna survive this? And it's always been that ability to calm yourself down, spend time with God, just breathe in and out, and just that's continues to get get you through, you know.

SPEAKER_03 41:21

What advice would you have for a young entrepreneur that wants to start a company? Because it sounds to me that you're self-taught. Yes, right. I mean, it's not as if you sat at dinner table and somebody just laid out the the what the investment strategy for the stock market.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Yeah. No, I mean, my I would did landscaping, so I mowed a lot, and so audiobooks and podcasts were my uh my teachers because I had no access to anybody. And um, and so I think I mean one is mentor. If you can find a mentor, an in-person mentor. I mean, I could never find somebody, um, but I use you have books and audio and all bad things. But finding a mentor early is gonna be huge, especially if they're doing something that you're doing. If you can get sucker somebody into just paying some mind to you in the industry that you're in, that is huge. And then I think too, for someone just starting more and more, it's harder to build legacy businesses, businesses that you start one way and you continue. Like I think about in our industry, like the Levain Bakeries or the Milk Bars or um the Van Van Lewen, even like these guys, these guys started 20 years ago or more, and it was a different world. And now you have AI and all these things. So I think we the next great entrepreneurs are going to be aware of the vehicle that they have and the timeline on that vehicle. So it's more about it's more about building your acuity and building your cyst, building the system that will work in and out of different vehicles. So you have to be aware of the vehicle and build systems that work in different vehicles. And so that's why I would say to anyone starting now because everybody has less intention span. And that trickles down to how will could Walmart be built today? I don't, I don't know if it could. I don't know if I don't know if another Walmart will or will. I'm sure there will be something that continue to go, continue to be built, but like everyone's attention span is a lot less. And so, but you can use that to your advantage because you know, in 2026, one of the biggest products, I think, and one of the biggest opportunities for short term gain would be like a rebounding trampoline, where it's just a trampoline with a thing that you can put in your living room and jump. I think that's going to be talked about so much in 2026. And there's gonna be a few people that will capitalize on that. And so there's different opportunities like that where you can make go in and make 10. million, take two million of profit, go to your next thing. So that's what that's what I think about a lot of times as an entrepreneur myself. Um but yeah always be aware of the vehicle find mentors f align yourself with a mentor who has been in your the industry you're about to go into.

SPEAKER_03 44:16

If you could go back and have a conversation with a younger you, when let's let's say you when you're in the uh apartment complex that your mom's cleaning.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

Yeah what would you say to that kid I mean I had such a good childhood and such a really when it comes out to it I I love I'm so blessed with everything. But I would have just paid more attention in school maybe I don't know learn what a P ⁇ L is that's that's like the biggest thing I had to I learned all five my financial acuity from the business which is how most people do it but I would but it's I if I was like I even went to college for one semester but I found it incredibly boring because I had self taught myself everything already that they were teaching in gen eds. But yeah I would say just finance finances is always going to be so it's so much bigger than you think. So having even if you're right brain, you know, having that left brain forcing you got to force yourself. It's a muscle you got to force yourself to learn. So I think that's I just wish I would have had somebody and my mom never valued school because she she valued you know who we were and stuff. So it was which there's different strokes different folks but like yeah I think I think for me to put more have so I wish I had somebody in my life putting more value in school.

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Yeah. Traditional education or did you did you appreciate the homeschool aspect?

SPEAKER_01 45:45

I loved homeschooling it was great because it gave me a lot of world it gave me a lot of street smarts world I mean I was working landscaping construction the youngest guy there and um and I love we're homeschooling we're gonna homeschool but it is important that you as someone who is homeschooling if you're choosing to homeschool your kids you should put a certain amount of pressure and to allow to make sure that they're doing their work as laid out in the curriculum or and also we're gonna have different mentors and things that come in and help and we already take her to we take her to dance class already she loves dancing. We're just trying to look for what she really loves and dive into that and we just didn't have those I mean my mom was busy you know with home with us as kids and then working and stuff like that. And so you kind of went along so yeah talk about legacy for a second.

SPEAKER_03 46:40

So what do you want your children to take away from the Taylor chip experience that you're going on right now?

SPEAKER_01 46:49

Um well I think one is you I love our story so far you know no matter where we end up going because it fights against this the typical narrative that you see within college campuses and things where it's like well daddy was rich right and this is just like everything that we have done and are going to do is really it's it's starting from scratch. You're building your own foundation and so my hope is that I'm able to build a strong enough foundation for them to level up on you know I have a friend who's crushing it in business whose dad was a huge farmer right and so the farm taught him what liabilities looked like and all of that stuff. And so he had this launching pad right and and so yeah that I think for me hopefully to answer the question correctly is like I don't I I totally believe that we will end up very close to billionaires. My wife and I I absolutely believe that and I'm only interested in that because then it will give my kids an access and an opportunity to take that much farther. And so that's really how I think I mean that's how anybody, any father thinks that's course too. And so I I chall I'm always challenged to think multi-generationally and if I'm going through something sucky right now, it's going to be great that my kids won't they'll have bigger hopefully they'll have much bigger problems than me. And so that's and so I'm a huge fan of legacy uh maintaining the maintaining any earned value within the family and and obviously doing good with that as well. But I think it's a biblical principle to pass down your wealth to your kids as well as it's a biblical principle to make sure that they're living morally according to that code that is laid out.

SPEAKER_03 48:52

So and in the meantime you're growing well beyond 40 employees and you're taking care of their needs and their dreams and that burden is also on you as a leader and as CEO. Yeah and from the single cookie all the way through to thousands of cookies a day and cookies a day manufacturing and beyond it's it's uh really fascinating. It is one of my motivations in doing this right is my daughter's yeah um and we've talked about your your kids a little bit how one of the things I struggle with is creating the correct amount of pressure. You talked about pressure from a curriculum perspective but also um talk about pressure from the pressure that that guided you into your work ethic and your grit how do you replicate that without some of the additional trauma that you were exposed to I ask myself that all the time I think you gotta insert some trauma.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

I mean how do you how do you think I mean you are much more successful than I am you are farther along your path right how do you I struggle with this is I mean this is part of the whole journey for me.

SPEAKER_03 50:02

Because I'm asking you because I want to know so my wife and I have talked about this immensely and right now we're leaning into youth sports. And so my oldest daughter is playing soccer uh my youngest is into uh gymnastics and dance yeah and so right now a lot of our time is back and forth to gymnastics competitions dance competitions the and to the soccer pitch and we're we're letting the journey of sports and those activities help guide the the pressure um you know the way my father raised my brother and me was was through landscaping hard work you know I I remember we were cleaning out abandoned apartments and uh apartments that got trashed and there was a story that I I told just recently of where um one of our tenants had left and the power got shut off it was the middle of summer super hot Kansas Day yeah and I'm unloading this freezer and there's a a Tupperware in the freezer that's full of liquid I didn't think anything of it. I go to throw the topperware into the the dumpster it pops open and outfall all of these we used to be frozen fish they're they they were caught they were on a chain. So I go and pick up the chain and of course everything is rotted so the the the the like and I it's like a cartoon I'm holding these fish skeletons yeah and the flies are on me and I'm covered in fish water and it's in that moment that I I really really dislike what I was doing. But the gradient the resiliency to get the job done stop and so it's okay carry on.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

And that's through it right that's because I've experienced all that I mean I experienced the poop and the cle cleaning you know doing flip flips for real estate investors where you're just ripping out cat urine carpet and things like that. But like one thing that I've realized is um or and not to be offensive to anybody but like hard work is easy it's super easy. It's easy to just go out there and be a laborer on for Pentot unfortunately right like anybody can do that. I mean that's you are using your body and it sucks you're sore and both of those guys complain but they're complaining because they have decided intentionally to not do the hard work right I joke with my wife where she is so good at manual labor. She loves it. She we can't the way she operated our floor she made people work three times as hard as they ever have without realizing they ever did because her spirits of good is just that's where she thrives. And I and I say to her you are the laziest person I've ever met right because she that to get her to pick up and to get read a book is like trying to force an earthquake to happen. You know it's just and I am the same way though I've I've spent the first 10 years of my life doing landscaping and all that stuff and I was like this is not going to give me you know I used to go to the car meets and I love cars and I would have this I spent all my money on a GTI when I was 16 that I repainted, tore apart put up air ride on and like you know all the I don't know it's just this Volkswagen caught thing that I was doing. And I would go to these events and there were these old older guys that had the Ferraris and the Lamborghinis and and the guys that I would go with that were building their own cars including me doing the hard work were like make fun of those those because they didn't it was built it was bought not built right and I was like sounds a lot better than me you know and so I but how do you even get there? And so in the same way it's like um it's a lot harder to figure out how to get other people to do the manual labor because it takes a lot of smarts and it's a different muscle and it's something that is not just natural. You have to really refine it and tune it and that is what to me hard work is. And so I think you know for your kids, for my kids like I'm consistently looking for what is naturally not good, what is hard for them naturally and that's where I'm pushing them the hardest my three and a half year old she wants to go to the park. She loves going to the park. She doesn't like running a mile to the park or riding her bike or her she has a push bike right like a pet like thing riding it to the park so I say oh you want to go to the park we'll go to the park. I will not pick you up and I will not take care of your bike there or back. Do you want to go to the park? Okay all right we're gonna go and you know I would make sure that mom didn't go along right and so then because mom would cave mom would cave. And so she would be when we first started doing this at the beginning of the summer she would just be melting down until we she saw the park in the distance and she's and then she'd have energy to be able to finish it. But on the way back it would take us an hour you know because but I never picked up her bike right because for her it's easier to go to the park. How we get there is harder and she doesn't like that. And now and and that went from can we do this to like dad can we ride bike to the park? Oh I don't want to drive to the park let's ride right and so then it's like and even when she gets tired she no longer asks me to carry her bike she picks up her bike and walks with it as a three year old right and so that is something that I and so I'm just looking for long story short I'm looking for things that are naturally hard for them and I'm forcing that onto them and that is their trauma. So that's how I do it but I don't I'm very much new at this we'll figure it out together.

SPEAKER_03 56:13

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 56:13

Thank you for sharing is there anything else that you'd like to say uh regarding the Taylor experience or your journey as a father um I think it's just no matter what happens we're gonna make mistakes in business we're gonna make mistakes in parenting we're gonna do things right we're gonna do things wrong but like it's all about the journey along the way and I think your kids will forgive you.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

Well and that's well I you know I I talked about this uh before I've started an email address when they were really little and this is one thing I'd recommend for you is oh that's cool. I know you start an email address and document the good times and document the times you make mistakes.

SPEAKER_00 56:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:52

And in terms of how I approached if I made a mistake I would go and write an email and that's my therapy right and I would apologize would talk about what I did wrong and then I would email it to their email address. And then when they turned about 11 or 12, um I guess it was a year and a half ago or so I turned those over to the kids um and I don't know if they've gone back and read the emails and I'm not really sure if that matters. Yeah the the whole point was we could also document photos and and trips and other things and I would just send emails and you know they have their own email addresses that that uh and it's I love so it's free and it's easy way that you can um you know establish that for your kids I would highly recommend I might end up doing that and then I like saying sorry to my kids because there are times where I overreact and all that stuff and and now she knows it.

SPEAKER_01 57:50

When it's when dad did something wrong she's mad at me until and she won't tell me to say sorry but I know that I need to go and apologize to her and as soon as I do she hugged me and she's like it's okay I forgive you and you know so that's a beautiful thing too because we're not perfect at all. Sure. And we're falling yeah and so yeah and and the same thing with business I find is we are just very I am just extremely open with my team. Here's what's happening. You know we lost money this month. Um and and you know the and we get to have great conversations they get to be my counselors sometimes and and there's people on our team that are much smarter at their jobs than I am and so it's just I think it's just about the journey and being open.

SPEAKER_03 58:33

So do you have do you uh have a a traditional talk therapist would do you do lean into mental mental fitness in a traditional sense?

SPEAKER_01 58:41

I do not know I um I have friends that I talk to I'm just very open. I'll say whatever to anybody um but I don't have anything anybody on a traditional side of things my my uh sister-in-law is a um I guess master's uh therapist uh and and um and I don't I've never felt I've never known what I've how I felt about that industry because in my mind like I've seen what my mom goes on through she never needed a therapist maybe she does right but like in a sense it's like I think there's a and maybe this is my fault but I just feel like there's a we certain amount of weakness in the culture where it's just like get the fuck over it. It's literally how I feel you know excuse me for cussing but that's like in my mind I'm just like get over it. You know when I had could barely move from how I was bloated I never quit going to the gym because I said someday this is going to be better. I don't know how.

SPEAKER_03 59:44

Yeah I would say that I would have adopted or subscribed to that mentality 10 years ago. Yeah um I would say that now I take a slightly different approach specifically on the concept of mental fitness um and for me the primary difference is I'm really striving to be consistently more level and I'm not always perfect at that but with my teen I really want to avoid the peaks and valleys that I experienced um through my 30s. Right uh and so the way that I found more clarity is through traditional fog therapy with a focus on mental fitness. And the concept isn't um to embrace because I I I I understand your concept I think for me there's even a fear there.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:44

Right. Like you don't want to be soft.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:46

Right don't be soft and and so and and and then I realize that um if you're not working on it actively working on it as if you do your physical fitness or going to the gym you're potentially missing something. Yeah. So I would potentially explore that as as well. Yeah and and you need to find whatever works best for you. No yeah yeah right I hear you and I've I've thought about it recently but man I'm there's such a mental I know so many therap I know I know quite a few therapists and I'm like I don't know if I want to tell you my problem you know what I mean and I'm like are they all like this I don't the act of be being vulnerable is yeah like it's all wrapped in fear there's there's all out there. Yeah that's interesting very much appreciated our conversation thank you no I did too this was very edifying so very good thank you so much one easy thing that you can do is like comment subscribe share talk to us if you have specific questions we'd love to hear from you in the comments um and appreciate you coming with us on this journey thank you