YouSaid · the spoken record

Cynthia Tice

lines on the record: 78
first: 2024-09-30
most recent: 2024-09-30
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

“Yeah, we had remained friends since we stopped doing consulting together. And he said to me, I've owned a little store in Seattle and I hate it. And my wife and I are getting ready to move. We've adopted a child and I'm looking for something to do. Do you have anything that we could do? Wow.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I really, really wanted chocolate like this. And I believed that there were more people like me out there. And I didn't want to compromise in taste, but I also didn't want to be particularly moderate. Like I didn't want to eat one little square of chocolate at a time in order to avoid sugar. And I just believed that there were going to be other people like me again.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct. And I tasted it and I'm like, oh my God, these guys are really onto something. And so what they had done was something that I never thought of doing, which they had used other sweeteners to mitigate the bitterness and the intensity of Stevia. And so namely, they were using erythritol and some fibers like dextrin.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, we had different views and different expectations of each other. And we had a series of small arguments that culminated in a large argument where we decided not to work together anymore”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We did try putting some Stevie into chocolate, and I knew this chocolate here, and I contacted him. And he was trying to formulate with it. But everything that we got back was really not acceptable. It was horribly bitter undertones. And, you know, Stevia, especially when you're using enough to really sweeten something, has terrible aftertaste and has this almost like a licorice flavor. And it just, it was terrible. It was the worst chocolate I had ever tasted in my life.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, there's no impact on blood sugar level with Stevia. But more importantly, it didn't have any known connections to cancer risk.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, and Coke and Pepsi were looking for the holy grail of natural sweeteners because they were trying to rescue those sales”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So in 2008, Coke and Pepsi were experiencing this enormous downturn of diet beverages. And it was really due to the fact that there was enormous consumer distrust of artificial sweeteners.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, chocolate is my favorite food. But for me, especially as I got older when I passed that. Square or two And I was seeing that there were brands that were beginning to pop into existence that were utilizing other sugar alternatives, notably multitol. As their primary sweetener. But the problem with maltitol was that maltital is a sugar alcohol that is intensively digestively upsetting. Now, people who were desperate to have their favorite food like a candy And didn't want to eat sugar, would tolerate those digestive upsets. And in fact, I was one of them. What ended up happening was I had discovered Stevia as a sweetener.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So we developed a product, and this was right at the end of 2007. And right at the end of 2007, Cog and Pepsi announced that they were coming into the diet beverage segment with a naturally sweetened diet beverage.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They did. I had people who were saying to me, start a brand, start a brand. And I began to think Yeah, you know, maybe I could do this. I believed that I had the expertise at that point. Like I, you know, I really understood what it took to create a brand. I really understood all of the expenses involved with launching in supermarket. I at that point had been working with other brands, so I began to have relationships across the country with some key retailers like Whole Foods and Wegman's and, you know, so I had relationships where I actually knew buyers. And I knew I knew what it took, but that was what was so daunting to me. Like it was like, oh my God, this is, it's a lot of work and a lot of money. And I was very nervous about it, but I was piqued. My interest was piqued.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was making more money than I had ever made before. It was more fun. I was seeing my kids more. I was basically working out of my home because I would, you know, I would sort of generate all this information with my own computer. And I had a shelf in my office that I was like putting products on to measure them. So it was. It was great”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was a shocking moment. And then the light bulb moment for me came about because, you know, a bunch of other speakers get up after that. And these supermarket retailers are now like, they're worried, you know. They're like, uh-oh. And some other guy in the audience raises his hand and he stands up and he goes, because they had talked about The importance of educating the consumer. Like their premise was what they were advocating was in order to score these sales of like these higher priced items like natural organic and supplements and stuff without additives, you had to educate your consumer on the benefits. So, this guy raises his hand and he goes, What do you mean educate consumers? How am I going to do that?”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Doing So Whole Foods gets up and they're presenting their strategic vision and they get done and somebody in one of the supermarket retailers in the audience raises his hand and he goes, I just want to understand how you think you're going to think your audience is big enough. Like if you get every customer in the natural products industries to come into your stores, that's still not going to be enough.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, and I had this light bulb moment when I went to a seminar that was developed by FMI. Food Marketing Institute, which was the big industry organization for supermarkets. And presenting at the event was Whole Foods Market. So we're sitting there and there's, you know, there's all these various topics.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The late 90s. Yeah. And my children were 10 and 7. And I started to really get burnout. I was tired. I was tired of retailing. I had been doing it for over 20 years at that point. And I began to think that I wanted to try to do something else.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I saw there become more and more competition, and there was a big increase of a larger format natural stores that were targeting transitional shoppers. So shoppers that would normally shop in grocery stores that were now going into these larger format natural food stores that had a lot of expertise in merchandising and were willing to be more open to ingredients that small stores like mine were not necessarily comfortable with.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. I mean, there were, you know, there were sort of several, but that was really a big one, primarily because mothers and others really got behind it. And that was, and Merle Streep really. Very vocal. What we saw was people that had never before come into a natural food store came in for the very first time because apples, when you think about it, Apple and apple juice and applesauce is like one of children's first foods. So, you know, it like apples became very, very scarce. Organic apples were like so hard to find. And once people came in, it was a giant opportunity for us because, you know, my personal mission was to always make natural products more enticing, you know, was to really like seduce people into eating more naturally.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was thrilled. I was thrillingly happy. I just felt like I was doing something that I loved that I could support myself with that was good for other people and the planet. It was so fulfilling and I just, you know, I loved it.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was almost never truly profitable But back in those days, I was single. I really didn't care about money. I truly didn't. I lived in a really small, not good apartment, in a bad part of town And I just really didn't care. I was on a mission, but the profitability was really bad. And, you know, we would barely, barely, barely make it. And that continued for, you know, really for years, really until I sold it. I mean, it was always like hand to mouth.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Now he, I remember that when I got my first bank statement, I was like, oh my God, what do I do with this? I did not know how to balance a checkbook. And I'm like, Dad, I really need some help. And he's like, Well, I'm really, really busy. Take it to the bank and tell them to help you with it. So I walk in to the bank with an envelope full of checks. You know, and I like lay everything down, you know, in front of the teller and I'm like, my dad told me that you would help me balance this. Yeah. I don't think so. So then we hired a bookkeeper, which was really useful.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“A lot more. But what ended up happening was during the time where I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do next, you know, and my dad was going crazy because I was a waitress, he came to me and he said, well, you know, if you wanted to open a store, why don't we open a store for you? What kind of store do you want to have? And I was like, oh, okay, yeah, let's open a store for me. I want to have a natural food store. So that was in 1977 and he literally lent me ten grand, which I never paid him back, but it was technically a loan. And he helped me find a location which at that point was on South Street in Philadelphia. It was really small. It was like a 400 square foot store. But I had a friend who owned a natural food store and we decided that we were going to join forces and open a bigger store together. And that was in 1980.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Probably was eating some fast food item and coffee, but I do remember how striking that comment was to make. Like it literally was like somebody slapped me across the face. And I began to research diet and I changed my diet radically. I stopped eating processed food. I just started to eat like whole grains and fruits and vegetables and like I just started to feel better. I was so excited about feeling better, I became like a zealot. And I used to go home for a family dinners and brown baggot. By this point, around 75, there weren't a lot of stuff going on in Philly, but there was some stuff. There was a natural food store called a scene. There was bread and circus that existed in Boston. There was Mrs. Gooches and California.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So the way that I got into natural foods was that I didn't feel well. I was like sick to my stomach all the time. And one day I'm sitting in the cafeteria at Temple University and I'm eating lunch, complaining, as I always did, that I didn't feel good. And some random guy next to me. And I never knew who it was. I don't ever remember seeing him again. But he literally turned around and said to me, well, no wonder you don't feel well. Look at what you're eating.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I thought it was fine. And, you know, my last year of college was an interesting year because that was when I really got into natural foods.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Know, my dad and my uncle were very old school, and they were also quite concerned about the women kind of getting in and getting involved and causing problems. Perfectly frank. You know, they felt that it would be just best for the men to run the business. And if the woman wanted to do something else, I mean, they could do something else. No one did. No, you know, I was the first woman in my family to be college educated. And I was also the first woman in my family to not get married when I was 20 years old. So then it became, you know, once I graduated college, it was like, what am I going to do next? So at that point, I was living in Center City, Philadelphia after college. And I started to be a waitress and it drove my father crazy”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's not only that, I just don't have the time to train you. Like, my kids would call me up and go, Mom, how do we do this? And I'm like, you know what? I don't have time for this. I figured it out. You should too.”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“If I had to identify my greatest skill, it's probably self awareness. And I knew what I was good at, but I also knew what I wasn't good at. Building a team”
2024-09-30 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · Lily’s Sweets: Cynthia Tice · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT