What was the hardest thing about building up the company?

[deleted]

[deleted]

If you could start over, what would you do differently?

Why would you bet your net worth on your success in a market with no barriers to competition?

Why would you bet your net worth on your success in a market with no barriers to competition?

take the time to be more selective in hiring. My first bookkeeper stole $30k -caught him/went to jail but it was a crisis that we didn't need

[deleted]

I grew up in Texas where Mexican vanilla had such a legendary reputation people going to Mexico were always asked to bring some back with them. How did you decide on using Madagascar vanilla for your cookies and what has it been like to obtain vanilla from that country?

I choose to be the best at what I do. There's always room at the top.

Did you feel a calling from God or something similar?

“End of the road” means you’re going out out of business? Sorry to hear. What’s next for you?

“End of the road” means you’re going out out of business? Sorry to hear. What’s next for you?

Did you have to sell Dispoz-a-Scoop after California DAs sent a notice that it was illegal to sell the dog poop scooper because it was called "99% biodegradable" on the packaging? And was it biodegradable?

Because it is cheaper to buy vanilla from Madagascar.

What's your chicken salad recipe?

Its also better tbh. Mexican vanilla is over-rated

no. It was a ignorant move by the DA. Any intelligent responsible DA would have given notice so the "issue" could be resolved. Still in business but I lost 2 major customers who still accounted for over $1million in sales annually. 12 people lost their jobs. Fault of a overzealous DA trying to advance herself by taking irresponsible/wrong action

[deleted]

I read that your inspiration was how good Famous Amos cookies were when Wally Amos started the business at one location on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. How hard was it to reverse engineer a cookie similar to his original?

[deleted]

You made $2.5 million or spent that much?

You made $2.5 million or spent that much?

Posting on Indigogo for crowd-funding

finance and making correct decisions. You need to be fearless and have conviction to find a solution for every problem

[deleted]

How much money have you put towards charitable causes in the last year?

Posting on Indigogo to try to raise revenue

ha/ha

I have ultimate confidence in my intuition, abilities and experience. I love a great chocolate chip cookie and couldn't find one that satisfied my taste buds.

But was the scoop biodegradable?

I researched vanilla and in the end it came down to the fact that I am willing to pay the price. I'm always researching to find the best and test it. (it can make a difference)

Hello /u/begreen622,

There is not enough proof included in the post that connects your identity to the IAmA.

Unfortunately, the links or photos you've posted could have been posted by anyone, and they don't prove that you are the person doing the AMA. Your proof needs to be something that connects the fact that you're doing an AMA with your identity. This could be something like a photo of you in a work uniform or at a relevant location with a sign that has your username and the date. It could also be documents (partially redacted if desired) with a note that has your username and the date. We're happy for you to get creative with your proof as long as it makes it clear to a reasonable person that the person doing the AMA does meet the criteria laid out in the topic of the AMA.

If you can't think of a way to prove your claims publicly, you can also submit confidential proof to the moderators at this link, though bear in mind it may take some time to review.

Here's a link to the section of our wiki that discusses proof.

Please edit your post and add new proof, and reply here to let us know. If your post is more than a couple of hours old, it may be more effective to create a new post and include the proof from the start. Thanks!

If you'd like to appeal, please click here to send a message to the moderator team.

^(This comment was made by a bot, but a real live human reviewed the post and made the decision.)

[removed]

It actually wasn't too hard. His secret was serving his cookies fresh and still warm. Judy and I began baking at home and tested in Farmers Markets around L.A. We actually greatly improved his cookie by employing butter and higher quality chocolate chips. Judy and I tested for weeks and weeks and found that the real "truth" of a chocolate chip cookie is discovered about 36 hours after baking.

You aren't taking accountability when you blame the entire thing on the DA, nor did you answer the question. Was it biodegradable?

[removed]

We developed a cat litter box scoop that we didn't market because of the immense barriers to trade in the pet industry. I invested $25k in tooling and making a incredible video however in the industry you are dead without Petco and Petsmart. You will never survive with the independent stores. I still have the tooling and will introduce it down the line because it is a great safety and convenience item

A cookie made from ingredients sourced only because they were cheapest probably wouldn't be very good.

Ha! I remember that Famous Amos. Is it's still there?

If you count going out of my way to take the risk with providing marginal people with excellent opportunities, lots of money. Outside of that perhaps $1,000

I believe in kavanna -the power of intention and and good will. I try to follow my inspiration and it may not a "solid" way to proceed but I have good instincts and sense and it's always led me will. I definitely believe in God -you can never fool God

And that is exactly why OP’s business failed. They lost 2 million dollars marketing a value product to a luxury consumer.

Marketing 101: set clear expectations.

I've invested much more. I first began with less than $20k on my first product that received a great deal of acclaim. I built and expanded around that. Times are very different now. It is MUCH more difficult to bootstrap $20k into millions of dollars. My cookie project began with $800k net from the sale of our house. Unless you are in high technology I think it is very very very difficult to bootstrap a enterprise today. Shark Tank is NOT the way to go. The sharks end up controlling you and your original inspiration gets compromised for dollars. Creating wealth for the Sharks is what Shark Tank is about.

I've made many millions and I've invested many, many millions in our enterprise. What Judy and I "need" to live is not much, our kids are grown and on their own and we are not into showing off.

Madagascar vanilla is the most expensive by far.

99% as I've always stated.

If you think cookies don't have luxury customers, you must not have been to a Crumbl yet.

It's a Brazilian restaurant Bossa Nova at 7181 Sunset Blvd. that kept the triangle roof.

no. It was a ignorant move by the DA. Any intelligent responsible DA would have given notice so the "issue" could be resolved. Still in business but I lost 2 major customers who still accounted for over $1million in sales annually. 12 people lost their jobs. Fault of a overzealous DA trying to advance herself by taking irresponsible/wrong action

Okay, but what do you mean by biodegradable? How long does it take to break down, and under what conditions? Do you mean that, per FTC guidelines, the bags (or 99% of them?) "will completely break down into its natural components within one year after customary disposal"?

Hi, OP. To prove your identity so this post might be restored, put up a photo at bartsbakery.com where you're holding up a note that says "I'm Bart Greenhut and I'm doing an IAmA on 02/11/2023," then send a message to the moderators.

There's never a bad time to start. Will you take the Giving What We Can pledge?

https://www.givingwhatwecan.org/pledge

We've dropped that claim years ago. A waste of time

I noticed that your Amazon page says a 1.6 oz bag of Belgian Chocolate Chip Cookies is 105 calories, but evidently the bags say that there are actually two 105 calorie servings per bag. Can you clear up this ambiguity, given that you specifically market your cookies as healthier than alternatives?

We dropped the claim and would have the day the idiot contacted us, if she would have and that's where the rub is. She didn't take responsibility as a "public servant" to have contacted us before taking drastic unwarranted action. She cost me big money and our employees their livelihoods. All to promote herself.

read above answer

I don’t know what to tell you. When evaluating whether I should buy or crowdfund your projects, I have to take into account the track record of your marketing of previous products. Do you believe your marketing was deceptive or not?

I have good intuition; can spot opportunity, develop great niche products to fulfill a perceived need that I feel I can handle. It's been a long road, many great experiences. What we are experiencing is a temporary setback. We have love and I have no regrets.

He is in Hawaii last I heard. Living on Social Security. A good human, not a good businessman.

my marketing has never been nor ever will be deceptive. Ever.

it's 105 calories per serving. adjusting it upward to I believe 124 calories in our next package printing

I’d like to trust you on that, but you understand that I can’t know that unless you go into some detail about specifically what conditions under which the bags biodegrade, and what you think happens to your poop bags after people throw them away.

My guess is that if people throw the bags away in the trash (as they must, since dog poop isn’t compostable), the bags will sit in a landfill for substantially longer than a year. Is that correct or incorrect?

Understood, thanks. Will you correct your Amazon store page, which suggests that a single package contains 105 calories? I notice several reviewers have been confused by this.

How's this? I set myself up as a product on bartsbakery.com (3rd product) Please advise so I can post the product photo again, thx

I will correct on Monday. I'd do it now except revising Amazon confuses me and the person who does this will be at the office Monday 8AM. Thx B

Here's the proof he provided for the moderators:

https://bartsbakery.com/products/triple-belgian-chocolate-chip-cookies?_pos=1&_sid=6b6067c49&_ss=r

That's a good price for a pack of entrepreneurs. How much is the shipping on 12 Barts?

Thanks!

Your proof looks sufficient to me, but I'm not a moderator. Please use this link to tell them about your proof:

https://askmeanythi.ng/

I can not answer that accurately- what I can say is that I dropped the claim, I would have dropped it years ago if I had any idea that California had enacted a new law that eluded my daily research, that an ridiculously overzealous Assistant DA would glom on to to promote her career instead of acting responsibly. I am most proud that my Dispoz-A-Scoop saves lives as I developed it in the first place to isolate peoples hands who want to pick up poop, from contact with bacteria -especially those with compromised such as those who have a auto-immunity deficiency (cancer patients), and pregnant women.

I never consciously would do anything deceptive - I do not have to.

It is 2 servings. Being corrected

At the moment I am focusing on juggling everything so employees can go to the bank to cash their checks. Please respect that there is a time and place for everything.

done: temporary 3rd product. Please excuse the look.

never claimed it was biodegradable.

biodegradability was never claimed

Not according to this: https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/california-money-grab-causing-layoffs-states-petpro-152260215.html

Mind sharing the letter, promotional materials, and product?

So do you not know whether your own product was biodegradable? How much research did you do into this before you applied that marketing to your product?

The FTC guidelines I posted above originally came out in 1992. Lots of dog bag makers have been taken to task over this issue in the past. You definitely could have known. Whatever the merits to your grievances against that particular DA, you probably shouldn’t have used that marketing term in the first place, no? In a sense, you cost yourself by making claims that you could not support.

I’m drilling into this slightly because if you said “We were wrong to use that term, technically the bag can biodegrade but we didn’t think fully through what most people think that means in practice, so we removed the claim after the DA told us to.” That would make a lot of sense and be basically fine by me. But that would require acknowledging that you made a mistake, which you seem to be psychologically incapable of doing. This is a very troubling (but common) trait for a business leader!

never more than $10. We only ship to the lower 48 states.

It is pretty clear from the discussion and your previous comments and sources I can find online that you did previously package the product with the claim “99% Bio-Degradable”. Can you explain exactly what that means?

GWWC is asking for 10% [a portion] of your personal income. It doesn’t impact your business costs. You can sign up to do recurring donations through Givewell in under 5 minutes. 10% is small enough that you won’t even notice it’s gone, probably. I don’t! If 10 is too much, why not 5%?

So what is the real blocker here, apart from that you don’t want to?

Edit: I received some feedback that this is too harsh. I’m sorry, Mr. Greenhut, it’s not appropriate of me to go to so far into questioning your financial situation. I struck through some portions that are not fair/unanbiguously true.

I developed and introduced D-A-S in 1985. And I'm not as astute as a socially irresponsible, overzealous, CA Asst. DA who cares more about promoting his or her performance to his or her superiors. There is such a thing as employing discretion and human consideration for constituents, many of whom are small business owners struggling to put food on the table.

I don't understand your communication

I'll ship myself by railroad express for $8

Why make the claim in the first place if it wasn't true? Why does it take the threat oh legal action for you to not falsify?

it was true when I made the claim. please read my string of prior replies

the real blocker is that my family, employees, creditors and bank balance are all in the mix. I donate responsibly.

Here is exactly what I can say. 99% biodegradable was exactly accurate when I employed the term. When I first learned I need to change the nomenclature was from a large customer who received the notice from the irresponsible Asst. DA before I even received a courtesy note/letter/email/phone call.

If the claim was exactly accurate, then what did it mean specifically? Is it 99% by weight or by volume or what? Under what conditions do the bags degrade, and how long does it take?

So... What methods and research did you go to confirm your product was biodegradable? Under which conditions are the biodegradable?

You keep saying they are biodegradable and at the same time saying you dropped the claim, then saying you still stand by it.

So once and for all, show us your work.

How was it accurate then? Under what conditions?

How can you claim your never made that claim when you keep repeating the claim?

I don't know where the claim is repeated. must be old or someone copying something old

Right here https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10zozm5/iama_entrepreneur_who_sold_his_house_on_the_ocean/j853mxn

if you wish to be absolutely technical it was true 99% and is true by weight. None-the-less, I stand by everything I say and claim.

How do you know that it was biodegradable? What studies are conducted?

by weight. its made of cardboard a low carbon frame and a light .0002 thick plastic film (producer claim)

P.S. please read all of my comments.

Cool so on your instructions I just read every comment you've posted. You never once cite a source for any study or research that shows your bags were biodegradable. So how did you know the bag was biodegradable?

that claim was dropped years ago, as it really had no strategic importance.

I am and you’re evading the question lol. Just stop answering if you’re going to act like a child

good suggestion. thank you

At the time the claim was made did you do any research or confirmation that the bags were biodegradable? "I stopped making deceptive claims," is different than, "My claim was true."

Well I never heard about your business before this AMA, now I guess I know to NEVER buy your products in the future lol.

Oh lol, this is actually worse than I thought. I thought you made the bag out of something that is *theoretically* degradable (e.g. in soil with water) but just doesn't degrade in practice. It sounds to me like you are calling this 99% biodegradable based solely on the cardboard, because the plastic is a negligible share of the weight.

Even then, I'm not sure how you get to 99%--the frame is metal, right? I would assume it is more than 1% of the weight of the product but maybe I'm wrong. How much does each component weigh, and how biodegradable is it?

if the bag itself is just some non-degradable plastic like PE, then yes I would say this is a very misleading, if technically true, claim. You could make an equally biodegradable product by just selling a regular plastic bag with the dog poop already in it! "Pre-filled!"

You know very well that this is not what people are looking for when they are looking for an environmentally friendly bag. That's as true in 1985 as it is today. Can you explain why you think this isn't deceptive?

I'm interested in the idea that these bags are more sanitary than other dog bags. Your website mentions 'bacterial pass-through.' As far as I am aware, touching dog feces through a plastic bag does not put anybody risk of contact with bacteria passing through the plastic.

Can you substantiate the idea that bacteria can migrate through the plastic bag? If you say that your scoop "saves lives", surely you can provide statistics on how many people get sick and die from bacteria transmitted through a plastic bag?

Your employees have nothing to do with it. I'm not suggesting you donate all of your money to a food bank and live in a hovel. I'm saying it's a basically decent thing to do to voluntary tithe a small but nonzero portion of your ongoing income. I think virtually anybody with any steady income is financially capable to pledge to donate 5-10%. Maybe I should take this to mean that you don't have income and/or are in debt. If so, I am sorry to hear that. However, if you have no income (or that income is otherwise not disposable), you don't have to donate anything and can still take the pledge!

Edit: I received some feedback that this is too harsh. I’m sorry, Mr. Greenhut, it’s not appropriate of me to go to so far into questioning your financial situation. I struck through some portions that are not fair/unambiguously true.

You don't understand. He removed the claim but at the time it was totally true.

Don't worry though, because he dropped the claim when it was.... Well when it was still true... Or something.

Major /s in case anyone is confused.

Evidence: he said it

Bart, is it true that you labeled some of your cookies as gluten-free when in fact they were not safe for celiacs to eat, then made a website specifically to impugn the character of the person who politely called you out on it?

https://glutendude.com/barts-bakery/

[removed]

[removed]

Oh my god what is wrong with this guy

I've read all your comments, and to put it succinctly, you have presented yourself as a delusional conman who is psychologically incapable of taking responsibility for his own failures.

You must be absolutely miserable.

What an incredible pressure campaign to harangue someone to donate money.

Further, you must live in an isolated circle, removed from reality, to repeatedly assert "most people" can give 5-10% of their income without concern. "Most people" can't save 5-10% of their income for a rainy-day fund, let alone give away.

You're doing the good work pressuring this guy about his BS, but don't introduce your own into the convo.

Did Judy go to a private Catholic school by chance?

Wait what?!

"I broke the law but they should have let me off because I'm the main character."

So you're such a successful businessman that you lost millions of dollars and now have to beg online? You are the epitome of the Dunning-Kruger effect lol

You know what, you have a good point. It’s not really productive for me to focus so much on the particular percentage. The important part of ‘Giving what we can” here is “what we can,” and I think basically any nonzero percentage is great, and it’s a very personal decision and you’re right that needling people over numbers is bad.

But I don’t think you are right to say that most people are so financially insecure that they cannot give any money away at all. Actually, most Americans (typically something like 60%) do give to charity, and the bottom fifth in wealth donate the highest proportion of their wealth (about 4.5% iirc). In high-income countries a median income makes you somewhere among the richest 5% of people on Planet Earth. By their own admission, 90% of working Americans would sacrifice some income for more meaningful work. I really do actually think that most Americans can donate something, but if your point is that you think 5% of income is too high then then I’m willing to agree that maybe that isn’t right for everybody. Not to get to hung up on numbers, but I will concede that 5% is not “barely noticeable” for most people. But 1% probably is, and there are several “pledges” that use this instead.

I think it is more important to impress upon the affluent that they are not holding up their share and could be giving substantially more than they do than to give some blanket amount that even low-income folks should feel bad about not giving. Poor people are already doing more than rich people proportionally!

That was my purpose here, was to kind of break down the assumption of somebody who by their own commentary lives comfortably and simply doesn’t seem interested in charitable giving, using their employees as a dubious shield. If that came across as overzealous then I apologize to all. I went ahead and struck through some portions that upon further reflection I don’t feel good about standing behind.

At the same time, I would appreciate it if you (as in anybody reading) please do seriously consider signing the GWWC pledge.

Got ‘em. Poor Judy, his marriage appears to be 99% faithful.

Hi there, it's now Wednesday (an hour away from Thursday) and this has not been corrected as of now. What happened on Monday?

I'll follow up in the AM.. I had to delegate it to someone who knows what they're doing on Amazon. -assumed it was done, my mistake. Stand by (thanks for the reminder)