YouSaid · the spoken record

Dominique Ansel

lines on the record
86
first
2024-06-17
most recent
2024-06-17
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

  1. “You see, like you have to think differently. By then, by the time you build zero gravity chamber, I will have created a lot of ideas of deserts that you can think of eating it.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “I mean, I think luck is part of it for sure. It's not the main thing. I think you have to try. You have to dare someone asked me once, would you have done this if you were in France? I told them, probably not. New York is a very open-minded CD. I would like to explore some of you give them good food at fair price and you respect your customers. They will come back to you. They will let you try. They will give you a chance. I don't think I would have done this in France. Yeah, I was lucky. I was lucky. I thought of the idea. I was lucky I tried. I was lucky I work hard for it. I was lucky I met my wife. I was lucky for a lot of things. Sure. You can say that. I also work really hard for it. And luck is a part of it, yes, but I think that if you're a good person in life, you attract good people around you and good things happen to you.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “Yeah, we're very good financially. We're profitable business. We're healthy, you know. We still have growth, which is good. It's true that having many different locations comes more stress, more worry, more diluting new time and you focus on things. Sure, but. If every good business is the most important is to surround yourself and build yourself a team, you can do it alone, no matter what. From day one, you know, I couldn't do it alone. I thought I could do it alone. I would have never made it, you know, without my partner, without my wife.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “We have high bay, high standards in terms of quality of production, and we have a lot of system in place to make sure we control the quality. And the team will go through a testing every single day. So they'll pick one pastry, one drink, and one other item that they will test among themselves and send a report on quality. So I can see the photo. I can just looking at a cross-section of a croissant, I can tell you if it was backed properly, if it was proof properly, if there's an issue with the baking, if there's an issue with the fermentation, I can pinpoint this by just again follow because, you know, I've been doing this my whole life. And this system of check and balances help us control quality at the highest level possible.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “She wants a business, she runs everything I cannot run. So she takes care of all the business side, the legal side, the front of the house side, and every other aspect that I don't”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “I felt stressed out for sure. Never felt too overwhelmed. I think every business has had local partners. You know, I can't do it by myself. I have an amazing team behind me and the best person is my wife today, the one that believed in me from the beginning.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “It's a different kind of expansion, right? I think the idea was to bring a New York Bakery and elevate it and bring it to Japan. I was in love with the idea. I was like, I thought, you know, it would be like a great thing. So it was this place was so busy. We opened with another like 750 people in line. It was like five to six hour wait line just to get into the bakery out opening. It was just insane.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “I think it's a different approach. I think you have to think of it like, can I open 100 shops tomorrow? And find the money for it easily. Easily. Is this what I want to do today? Not necessarily. I don't want to run a factory, you know, policing like a million content every day and ship it frozen around the world. I don't believe in that.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “It's a fascinating idea, you know, like we created for a partnership with a PR company that was launching something in South by Southwest. And we brought there. We're like, oh, it's a cool idea. Let's do it for this event. And we were like, oh, we're just going to do it for this event. And that's it. It went viral right here and there. We had 750 people landing outside. I was like, this is insane. Not even the cornet that we created. Something else that we're bringing. Wow. And the demon was so insane that we had to put it on the menu when we came back. So we were only at the time saving the cookie shot after 3 p.m. The reason why is because our line was so long in the morning that we couldn't have the ball line and all these lines of people coming for our pastry. So we decided to do it after school snack. We decided to do it after 3 p.m.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “Yes, shy glass. And we serve it warm, a warm cookie, and we pour vanilla-infused milk inside the cookie. So you drink out of the cookie and then you eat the cookie.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “It went viral, but I think it was like overwhelmed by the news of the corner. So, yes, you're right. It's a chocolate chip cookie shape as a shot glass. It's a shot glass. It's lined with chocolate.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “No, absolutely not. I think it's a genuine innocent, like simple, like, you know, heartfelt story. And even if you give me all the money of the world tomorrow, you cannot plan for this. You cannot expect the same, you know, kind of like frenzy. You cannot inception people into liking the idea or not. They like it or not for X, Y, Z. And again, for a million reasons, they went viral. You cannot give me all the money of the one. Expect me to recreate something that goes viral. I have some great ideas for sure. What goes viral or not, at the end of the day, it's not me who decides. It's people.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Exactly. That's part of it as well. Brand Confucian, people try to make other product out of it. People try to resell it, make money out of it. Our intention was not to be malicious or to stop everyone from being creative. Our intention was to protect our mark. And once you register a mark, you have no choice. If you don't protect it, you just essentially give up on it and you let everyone use it.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “That's right. It was truly a fun of ours, who was a lawyer, and she saw this very early on. I think it was the day like four or five. She came to the bakery. She's like, hey, Dominique should trademark this thing in the corner. So she registered the trademark cornet for me. And three or four days later, there were like 24, 25 applications for the same mark.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “It is crazy. It sounds crazy. It's a blessing. It's beautiful. And to be a part of this, you feel like, okay, I have a big amiss here. There's something more I can do. And we've done it many times again. And the price ran very high and people were willing to bid just to try the coconut.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “And this is when I was like, hey, wait a second. I'm like, you're right. Maybe we can do something with this and turn into something good. So I decided very early on to be involved with a lot of charities to fight against hunger because this is something I can kind of like suffer from going up and to help out. So the first auction we did, we went to a charity event and we sold the 12 cornet for $100,000.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Answer your question? No, I always told myself very early on I don't want my creation to kill my creativity. And I refuse to turn into a corner shop and to do the only thing. A lot of people came, talked to me about supply and demand and how I should capitalize on the idea and open a hundred current shop. And I said no. I said I'm a chef. I believe in a craft. Maybe Shua called me like stupid or called me like innocent but. I love what I do. I cannot, you know, I would tell people my dad work in the factory. I don't want to own a factory making the same thing. Every day, like, it was not a good thing, you know, until someone reach out to me on Twitter and they were comparing the contact line to the line that people go to to wait for food in New York City for like the food bank.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “This went on for years. The staff was stressed out, the customers were stressed out. All I felt like it's like, it's a nightmare.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “It doesn't matter who you are, my family came at the time, it was like a coincidence. And I was supposed to spend some time with them. Of course, I spent no time with them. They want to try and say, okay, go in line. And they're like, you're joking, right? Like, I'm dead serious. Please go in line if you want to try. They didn't try it, but...”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “Yes, I lost a few friends in the process I wanted to be true to myself. You know, I was out of respect of people coming as early as 2 o'clock in the morning. If you want to try, you have to go inline. The funniest part, I remember this once like this guy. It was a long line. I was at the door actually trying to help the team. This guy came from Los Angeles and told me it was this famous producer of movies. He was like, oh, he knows this movie and this movie. I was like, yeah, I love these movies. He's like, I made them. I was like, And he was a little bito about it, but you know, I was like, I can't we have to be respectful of everyone in line. It doesn't matter.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “Two o'clock in the morning. People were coming to try to sell stuff to the line. People were resetting pastries on the street. I was overwhelmed. I didn't know how to handle this. I was like, I can't. I can't be outside and police everyone and we need someone to help.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Is minus people were coming fighting in line. I had to hire security to manage the line. So what happens that people are coming at 2 o'clock in the morning because they want to be first in line?”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “Yeah, maybe, and we had no rules in the beginning, people buying a dozen, buying two dozen, and then we're like left with like nothing. And people were cursing at us. They were like, you know, angry and I get it. You wait in line like you. You don't know if you're going to get it or not. And very early on, I decided to actually take care of the line. Going outside, letting people how many we have, how many we have left, and making sure that everyone is aware of it. So if they wanted to wait or not, they could. But it was just insane because we couldn't make enough.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “I was like, what the hell is this? Like, what's going on here? And then it was just Riki as the line got longer and longer every single day.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “Yeah, still, like people always ask me, why do you think it went viral? You can't tell there's so many things that got attached to this idea. I think first the name, the school, the simplicity of like when you look at it, it looks like a donut. When you hear about it, it's croissant and donuts. So you can visualize it without even eating. And by day three, day three of the article being posted. We had a look outside and I see a line and I see a line stretching around the corner. So I go around the corner and it's going all the way down to the block, to the end of the block. I was like, what the hell's happening? So I go count the people myself and I count 150 people before we open the doors.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Yeah, it was true, yeah, yeah. And then he put his article on the blog on Grab Street at the time. And then he called me this afternoon, and I was like, okay, let's send Dominic. Like, I think you're going to be busy this weekend. My article went viral. I was like, what? Went viral, what does that even mean? Your article went viral. He's like, well, I have over 140,000 link to my article, an increase of traffic on the website of 300%. So I think I'm going to be busy as we can I was like, I have no idea what you're talking about. I'm happy. I don't know what vowel means. You know, it's just the beginning of social media. Nobody knew anything about it.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “And it's not, it was just like. That exertion like a round table and they call him like, Oh, let me take a photo, push it to the corner. He took a photo. And then he was like, cool, like, I'm going to write about it. I was like, okay, he put it on his blog that was Grub Street at the time.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “It's software, though. So the more you add water, the more Biryoshi you make You cannot make it too wushy or too flaky either. It has to be just in between. Try different type of oil to fry. I use different temperature as well for the lamination. Which is counterintuitive. It cannot be too cold. If it's too cold, it's too many layers, too many layers too flaky, so it doesn't work. And then when I was more or less satisfied with the texture, which took a while, that was the hardest part. I play a little bit with the feeling. And I was like, okay, let's try it. And we're like, yeah, it's good. And we remember like a friend of ours was journalist and he randomly, without knowing by the bakery, we were testing it. We were like, what are you guys doing? This thing, we're going to call it the cornet. We're going to put it on the men this weekend.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “I changed the type of flyer I was using. I had to change the Let's see the hydration of the dough. There's a high hydration. So it's a little bit softer.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “Yeah, we want to do something for Mother's Day for the weekend. It was just for the weekend, so I tried over and over again, probably like 30, 40 version of it. And then it was getting closer, it was getting better, it was looking better.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “Yeah, it didn't work because there's more to it. It's not just a croissant though. It's a special type of dough that resembles your croissants, similar techniques. So you need those layers, but you need to be, you cannot be too flaky. So it's a little intriguing. It took me about like two to three months to develop the recipe.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “I was like, yeah, I can try, but you know, I really have no recipe for donuts. I can try to do something. I loved, loved, loved Croissant growing up, of course, like millions of Croissants. And I was like, maybe we'll do something. So I decided to take this layer of a croissant, these flaky layers, and shape them as donut and fry it.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “I laugh at her. I laugh at her. I was like, listen, I'm French. I have no recipe for donut. And she was like, come on. And I was like, no. And then she asked me again. And again, she's like, come on, you create it. We can come up with something.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “To be honest, I was busy over one every single day. And my girlfriend, again, now my wife, she was like, okay, this is something like donuts. Maybe you can make a donuts for Mother's.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “Yeah, you know, when you start with so little, every dollar feels like so much money. And even my first check I wrote to one of my vendor for one month was $10,000. And I took a deep breath like, my God, $10,000 for one month.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “I think it took us and we recover our investment very quickly because we invested so little. It took us about four to five months, I think”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “I think not so much negotiation is more doing things myself. So if the fridge will break, I'll fix the fridge. Is an issue with plumbing? I don't call it plumber. I fix it myself. I cannot call it plumber and pay like $1,000. I cannot call an electrician, pay like thousands of dollars to fix more things that sometimes takes them. I mean, to fix that is small. A lot of like, I'm gonna research it, I'm gonna figure it out, I'm gonna fix it myself.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “No, it's not cheaper, it's a lot more expensive but you differentiate yourself. The competition because the quality of the ingredients and the quality of the finished product is much, much higher. Like you want to give the best to your customers and you want to get the best price possible as well.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “Actually, this is gonna sound like crazy and kind of intuitive, but during COVID, everything gone up, all the pricing gone up everywhere.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “Class salad, you know. I think the most important is to build relationship with vendor. You know, you need to get to know them. You need to get to know. They have to make money as well. They have to make profit. But you need a reasonable pricing. And then building that relationship where when they buy, they sell you something, they sell you for the best price.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “Yeah, you're buying a three millimeter trashback right now. That's a thickness for the trashback. You can buy two millimeters. Yep. Or one, one is cheaper. I say, yes, but one will break, and people will start doubling at So I want two millimeters and I want it.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “No, because when it's your own, you fight for everything you have. Know, I was living very humbly. I didn't have any expenses. I have no kids. It was like living with my girlfriend at the time. It's risky, but I knew eventually was going to work. We just had to find the right pattern. Even how much you sell your pastry for, is it really worth it? Would people buy it if you increase your price a little bit? Can you save on cost, like looking at all the packaging? I remember calling one of my suppliers and asking him to drop the price of the trash bag. He's like, excuse me, it's too expensive.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “We're losing money on everything, not so much the cost of goods where you have to build inventory, which I never thought of. You know, never think about building inventory. It costs money. Staff, insurance, benefits, all the stuff added rent when it comes in, packaging, we start investing like, oh my God, who's like bleeding money for like months before we could make a little bit?”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “It is. I don't suggest anyone to do that. I had no choice Had this stamina, the determination, and I don't give up and I stay positive. So we had nothing and nothing but my determination and me fighting every single day to make it work.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “So we close the shop at 8 o'clock and then I had no dishwasher at the time, so I'll wash all the dishes, take out the trash, sweep out the floor, mop the floor. I will go home between like 10 and 11 p.m.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “It was a little bit too much in the beginning, but it was working back, it was fun. It was excited to share. I was excited to show what I could do that I didn't want to stop. I want to do more.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “Rest of the day, I would prepare all the pastries, put everything out by 11 o'clock and 11 30, start service. So we're doing all the sandwiches made to order all the salad soup, everything for lunch.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “Oh my god, yes, it's divine. It's like a flicky Camelot croissant, scrunchy on your outside, like chewy and turned down the center. There was one of our specialty.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “Exactly doing all the folds, getting everything cut and ready. Then at 8 o'clock, I will go to the service station. We have a little service station there where we do all the May to order egg sandwich and stuff like this for breakfast. So we'll help with that. And then I'll go back and prepare the pastries for the day. Everything was baked before opening or right at opening. The Kunya man as well. Kunyaman is one of our bestsellers”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “She's brilliant, knowledgeable about food. She's smarter. And I understand why people read her and why people follow her.”

    2024-06-17 · How I Built This with Guy Raz · The Cronut and Dominique Ansel Bakery: Dominique Ansel · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT