In 2013, Elyse Oleksak, co-founder of Bantam Bagels, acquired a name from her husband Nick a couple of bite-sized snack that will set some large plans in movement. “Mini bagels filled with cream cheese,” Oleksak recollects him saying in her just lately launched memoir A Shark Ate My Bagel: How We Constructed Bantam Bagels. “Type of like doughnut holes, however bagels.” Oleksak had heard loads of formidable concepts from her entrepreneurially-minded husband prior to now, however tiny stuffed bagels have been one she may get behind. The duo met at a grocery retailer after work to start out experimenting.

^{Picture Credit score: Courtesy of Elyse Oleksak}

It was the start of Bantam Bagels’ near-decade-long journey, one which cycled by way of “success adopted by failure” and “elation adopted by panic,” Oleksak tells Entrepreneur solely.

The enterprise made a splash on Shark Tank, the place the Oleksaks struck a $275,000 deal for 11% fairness with Lori Greiner (therefore the title of Oleksak’s e book) in 2014. Within the subsequent a number of years, it noticed gross sales hit $45 million because it expanded the product line to incorporate mini stuffed pancakes and egg bites, landed in 10,000 shops and eight,500 Starbucks and was finally acquired by the Ohio-based T. Marzetti Firm for $34 million in 2018 earlier than ceasing operations in 2022.

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“We have been going to die within the wake of our personal success if we did not do one thing about it quickly.”

Like many entrepreneurs who discover themselves on the helm of a fast-growing enterprise, the Oleksaks had an “aha second” once they realized their cash-versus-growth dilemma. “We acquired to a degree the place although this was our child and it was one thing that we had owned at close to 100% for therefore lengthy, we have been going to die within the wake of our personal success if we did not do one thing about it quickly,” Oleksak says. So the Oleksaks bought to T. Marzetti. It felt like an ideal match, Oleksak recollects, and the couple stayed on in advertising and marketing and product growth capacities.

Nevertheless, getting used to her new relationship with the corporate wasn’t simple, Oleksak admits. It is a wrestle that did not make it into the e book, she says, however an vital one however. In keeping with Oleksak, with all the give attention to success tales and flashy gross sales, there’s an all-too-common expertise that will get misplaced within the narrative as a result of “folks do not speak about” it: How do you cope when all your exhausting work pays off and your dream lastly comes true?

“Each single ounce and fiber of our being was devoted to the survival and progress of this firm [for years],” Oleksak explains, “so if you function on this struggle or flight mode for therefore lengthy, it simply turns into who you might be.” Concurrently chasing success and steeling for calamity takes a critical psychological toll, Oleksak says, and when there have been no extra fires to place out, her mind started “inventing disasters” that did not exist and subsequently had no concrete options — a unending “spiral.”

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“Once we have been left feeling protected and at peace, I nearly did not know what to do with that security and peace.”

“We discovered loving arms for our explosive youngster,” Oleksak says. “We did it. However each single sense of self and success [had been] wrapped on this swirl of panic always, so after we have been left feeling protected and at peace, I nearly did not know what to do with that security and peace. Your mind nearly does not know what to do when it stops. I personally went by way of an excessive breakdown.” Oleksak likens the expertise to these of skilled athletes who need to redefine themselves after a profession in sports activities.

Seeing your greatest dream develop into a actuality will be wonderful, however you must put together your mind for an entire mindset shift and choose up the suitable instruments to navigate that, in accordance with Oleksak. The entrepreneur is a big proponent of remedy and credit it with serving to her recalibrate what it takes to get from someday to the following with out contemplating chaos a foregone conclusion. “I labored by way of loads to seek out psychological peace and stability and be capable to be current once more within the second,” she says.

Sadly, simply a few years after T. Marzetti acquired Bantam Bagels, the pandemic put stress on the provide chain, making it a problem to inventory the identical number of merchandise as retailers streamlined processes wherever attainable. By that time, Oleksak says she and her husband had given up loads of decision-making authority and weren’t concerned within the conversations that finally led T. Marzetti to cease manufacturing of the model. Nonetheless, Oleksak — and the almost 1,500 individuals who signed a petition in assist of Bantam Bagels’ return — would like to see the merchandise make a comeback someday.

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As Oleksak mirrored on her entrepreneurial journey “stuffed with ups and downs,” she stored coming again to all the connections she’d made alongside the way in which — from each buyer who bought a Bantam Bagel to the producers who took an opportunity on the product, movie star endorsers together with Oprah, Sarah Jessica Parker and Whoopi Goldberg, and so many extra — and needed to provide again with a behind-the-scenes have a look at classes realized through the years. So Oleksak put pen to paper and drafted A Shark Ate My Bagel, then opted to self-publish it “the entrepreneurial manner,” with a advertising and marketing plan that included her personal web site and an Amazon push.

“Thank God I organized all these classes as a result of, man, did I make loads of errors,” Oleksak laughs. Nowadays, she’s approaching the publication of her e book as she would the launch of a “mini enterprise” and says she’s placing most of her power into that proper now. However she additionally appears to be like ahead to working with small companies sooner or later, serving to them keep away from the errors she made and safe wins of their very own.