YouSaid · the spoken record

Bill Creelman

lines on the record: 71
first: 2020-01-13
most recent: 2020-01-13
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“To become interesting and it was a time of sex in the city and mojitos and this sort of thing. And the idea of like a colored salt on the rim of the glass was actually pretty new at the time. And it was exciting to us and the consumers seemed to think it was pretty fun. And so that's how we got into the business.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Almost, yeah. So one of our products that we are featuring in the catalog was called Nantucket Offshore Seasonings, and it was a dry rub for grilling. It was in a silver tin, a really colorful label on the outside. And it was started out on island by husband and wife, had kind of a cold following, maybe a half a million dollar business. And so we were really fulfilling his customers' orders in the beginning. And what ended up happening, which was really sort of unexpected for us, is that he was a real creative guy, was always thinking about different ways to provide seasonings. And he stumbled one day upon a cocktail seasoning, so assault for margaritas. And we put it in a tin just like the other seasonings. And suddenly the consumer just sort of woke up and at the time cocktails were just beginning.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We never could. It really never, you know, and that was really the decision for us was, do we stay with this kind of on this crazy annual cycle or do we try to diversify? And it was really through that hard kind of thinking that we were fortunate enough for us to stumble on the wholesale side of the business, which is to say the side where you sell to stores on a regular basis.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, so we were excited. And so we created a catalog literally four, and then eventually eight, 16 page catalog featuring their products. We would mail it out and the end of the summer as the tourists were leaving the island. And what we learned is that people really, you know, other than maybe a birthday or a special occasion, the big time for mail-order food was really kind of going into Thanksgiving and then for that all of December. It was just crazy. Every day we pack hundreds and hundreds of these things and drive them up, you know, just as the UPS store was closing. Or the loading dock was closing. And so, yeah, we were literally receiving orders in the morning, packing things by hand as much as many we could get out. And then we would sort of count our sheckls at the end of December and hope that we'd sort of broken even.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We didn't is really this short answer. I had some savings from the fishing industry. And, you know, our parents helped us out a little bit. But ultimately we didn't. And so we actually turned to the town of New Bedford. And a few other kind of economic incentive areas in southeastern mass. And that's who provided our seed capital for us to get the business off the ground.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we set it up in an old mill town and kind of the port city in Nantucket called New Bedford. Took a couple thousand square feet. We put in refrigeration freezer unit, and we went to work in 1997.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it's almost hard to believe really. But that's exactly what we did. And we started with waiting for the phone to ring and then gradually. Kind of into the 90s and early 2000s, we migrated to more of a kind of a call center model, but we really were pre-internet towards the very end. We were able to take orders online, but really the bulk of our business was all taken by phone.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, in this case, my business partner was a childhood friend named Gil McLean. So we had grown up together. He actually lived in the farming community in Leverett. And so I recruited him to join me in this business.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, so they had, you know, it's 30 miles offshore, so it kind of has some really interesting, unique products really only available out there. There was already a smoke bluefish pate, really beach plum jelly, really interesting jellies, base scallops, you know, lobsters, ice creams. Our thesis was, well, if people love these in the summer, I bet they would love to buy them the other nine months of the year. And we wanted to provide them with a solution to do that”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. So it was mid 90s, Nantucket had all these really interesting producers that, you know, I had gotten to know some of them over the years.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was at least enough for me to second guess it. And so I am incredibly grateful for that person's advice for sure and the business idea that ended up kind of coming out of it was a company called Nantucket Harvest. And Nantucket Harvest offered smoked food items that were already being produced, even though it ultimately long term was not terribly successful. It was much better than where we would have landed.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, the first thing I did was go back out to Nantucket and actually continue now with my captain's license in hand, continue working on the fishing boats. You know, it was probably my fifth year. And so I went out there with an idea of kind of finishing that summer and then ultimately going out to the Pacific Northwest to pursue the smoked food world or at least learn more about it. And so my wife Harley, who was living in her girlfriend at the time, was living in Seattle. We piled into her VW and drove up the coast and basically just started hitting smokehouses and asking them, you know, what the industry was like. Did they like it? Did they not like it? Would they recommend going into it? And I'll never forget finishing a tour. And the guy who's leading me on the tour pulled me aside and said, let me do you a favor. Never get into this business. You know, it's fish, it's fire.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was called Nantucket Smokehouse. So the idea was taking Smoke Bluefish and Striped Bass and other things and creating a smokehouse out on island that we would then offer the products from all over the US. Turned out to luckily not an idea we ended up pursuing, but the seed was planted for sure.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. Yeah. Very lucky to meet my wife Harley while we are Georgetown and we started dating when we were 19. And so we've been together since. I'm not sure she quite knew what she was getting into way back then. But so while I was at Georgetown, I took an entrepreneurship class in my senior year. And she got to see me present my sort of first business plan. So I guess she had some sense of what she was getting into, even in the 90s.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's right. And, you know, it was just magical. You know, you're on the boat all day, you were fishing for whatever you could catch Stripeass and Bluefish. And so when I got to Georgetown, I was working in the summers and then going to school during the year and I started to really sort of solidify, crystallize, you know, what I thought I wanted to do, which was kind of try to figure out, you know, a business that would be interesting to me. So as I was finishing up Georgetown, I took my Coast Guard test and then eventually got my captain's license right after graduation.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and now I was kind of out of the sort of grasps of Western Massachusetts and I was really starting to, for the first time, think about what I wanted to do professionally. And I should mention that kind of in high school and then as I started college, I was starting to work on the fishing boats off of the Cape and Islands.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was an old rat. I mean, just where you imagine a red farmhouse, big red barn, creaking floorboards for sure. So I guess you knew if someone got up during the night. But other than that, it was completely silent.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I remember that really keenly. And I actually think of that often because now, you know, in the suburbs of Boston, that level of silence, that type of silence, is really hard to find. Heat by firewood for the most part. We had a big wood stove. And when that fire would burn down to nothing, there was really no sound left in the house save your breathing or the shuffling of, you know, of a sibling.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It really wasn't. And that's what I mean. It was really a choice. And, you know, I'm not sure what the message was we were supposed to take away from it. I would say my mom, she loved this idea of being out in the woods and being on a farm and surviving off of nature. And she was surrounded by friends that felt the same way. And we had almost no rules, honestly. She had this philosophy that, you know, have fun, do your own thing and be adventurous. I think she sort of thought of the farm as our playground, our self-expression. And I think the thing I remember is at the farm land just kind of continued in all directions. And so we had farmers to the left and right and around us. And even to this day, this neighborhood in Western mass is really still the same way. It's virtually unchanged today.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The thing I remember the most is just that all of the food seemed to come from our farm or the farms around us. So, you know, we had a sugar house up the street from us. We had milk that was delivered with a huge head of cream on the top, you know, unpasteurized. We would make butter from that. I think the key learning for me was just we had a very clear idea of where our food was coming from because it seemed to always be delivered from our neighbors or just off of our own farm, you know, food that was local and available.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I knew where the risk was, or at least I thought I did. But ultimately, there's just risk embedded in between the coolers and going up against the big soda guys and trying to do something really different in terms of the ingredients. All of that just was going to be challenging. So yeah, it was terrifying.”
2020-01-13 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Spindrift: Bill Creelman · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT