Episode 20
Northsiders Skinner & Barton of Paulin’s Provisions
About BizCast Greater La Crosse
We bring you news from the business community. From startups to experienced problem solvers, you’ll get in-depth insight on the challenges and opportunities of doing business in Greater La Crosse. Our show is a collaboration between WIZMNews.com and BizNews Greater La Crosse ( GreaterLaCrosse.media ).
Full Transcript [ generated by AI]
Chris Thornton 0:03
There’s something happening in lacrosse and the the greater Driftless region that we haven’t really figured out a way to greatly articulate yet at this point,
Ben Skinner 0:11
but it’s happening it’s a percolating thing.
Vicki Markussen 0:12
Welcome to BizCast Greater La Crosse a weekly podcast brought to you by biz news. We bring you news from the business community. I am your host and founder Vicki Markussen. And joining me today is Ben Skinner and Chris Barton you both own
Speaker 1 0:30
Paulin’s Provision? Yes, my my son my mom’s maiden name, my grandpa’s name. Ben and I’ve known each other since we were 10. Maybe even younger, known each other forever. So we’re basically brothers at this point,
Ben Skinner 0:41
right? Yeah. I’ve been grandpa Leroy.
Speaker 1 0:44
Leroy ball and owned a market in grafted. Yeah. Wisconsin over by Milwaukee. Yeah. Small from about the 50s to the 80s real small family market. And we just kind of wanted to carry on that tradition. He does business.
Ben Skinner 0:56
Like he was one of the last remaining small grocery stores in the area. He would like, have neighborhood folks who had a tab right. Like, Oh, you don’t have the money today. Give it to me next week. Like, yeah, he’s doing credit
Speaker 1 1:09
like way before even credit cards worthy. Yeah, like, and that that community vibe that he fostered is like something that’s super important to us?
Ben Skinner 1:18
Yeah. Like he wasn’t focused on like, let’s open a new location. Let’s grow as a huge, which is, there’s nothing wrong with that at all. You know, His thing was like, I’m comfortable. I’m happy. I own my own business. I got my family here working with me. Everyone in the community knows us. We help the community. Yeah, right. Life is good. Yeah. So I mean, like, yeah, Leroy was he was like, kind of the inspiration for the name.
Speaker 1 1:38
The two products that we’re currently using, I’ve been doing variations of for 15 years at all kinds of different restaurants. So really what the two we started with, so we make an orange marmalade and a plum mustard. Two things we make right now. Those two landed on like, Okay, this is the most delicious thing we can do at scale. Right? And they’re super, super delicious. So it’s it’s shelf stable foods. So there’s just, it’s kind of boring. It gets a bad rap, right? It’s like canned beans, canned corn, like Shell stables like, shelf stable food can be good. It’s hard to find right now. But you’re starting to see more companies, I think like ours pop up and show that like, yeah, this actually you can. You can have food like this that actually tastes good. And it’s fun
Vicki Markussen 2:22
to talk about where you were in life. At that point, when you started talking about this,
Speaker 1 2:27
Ben and I have always talked about kind of doing business together. Since we were 15 or 16. We always knew something was gonna happen. We had been in Seattle for 1011 years at that point, you know, pandemic health scare, burned out tired working like crazy. And something I just honestly, it just kind of clicked and I was like, Okay, it’s time. Let’s make a move here. Let’s figure something out. I think we need to move back home. For a lot of reasons. Our family’s here, economically, too. We could not start our business and Seattle,
Ben Skinner 3:01
way too prohibitive. I mean, it was one of these things where we were having kind of like congruent thoughts, right, like you. I think we’re thinking like, it’s time to leave the city, it’s time to get out. I’m burnt out, I was having the same kind of thoughts. And then we just kind of like, we came together. I think it was like, honestly, in the summers in July. And both of us were like, let’s just do this. Let’s move home. My parents were shocked when I gave them that call. I thought I’d come back here. But like Chris said, it was all those reasons. I was also burnt out right before, like locked down part of the pandemic in March of 2020. Chris and I had like, basically sold a restaurant concept to the two people that we were working for under coral foods, they opened this like it was kind of like a burger, they started as a burger thing. And we keep very close to doing that. Yeah, I think it was gonna morph into more of like a chalkboard cafe, like just a road rash kind of deal. We were looking at, you know, we had contractors coming to look at the space because we actually already had a space that we just weren’t using. So we had a lot of irons in the fire. I was getting farmer’s markets going, I was getting this new restaurant going, I was running there already functioning restaurant location, Chris was running a very, very busy restaurant in the Capitol Hill area. So when everything stopped, it was like, you know, like a lot of people you had that moment to kind of think incessantly like, I’m on I realized when things stopped, I was like, I’m really unhappy doing all this. This isn’t fun for me anymore.
Speaker 1 4:22
I think that pandemic really was the moment for everybody to kind of assess where they’re at in their lives, you know, in one way or another.
Ben Skinner 4:30
And I had great bosses out there like for Costco, but I was just like, if I don’t do this now, if I don’t take the leap of faith now. You know, we’re talking like, I’m gonna cash out all my stocks. My 401k is like everything. I don’t do this now and take the gamble, take the risk. I might just end up here for another 1020 years. And I’ll probably have a great career I’ll probably have an like, you know, a lucrative career. But I just want it we just always wanted to be independent and kind of like, be the guys calling the shots and making the decisions. So that’s why I’m Really pleased that we ended up kind of just taking the leap. Too scary. You know, don’t get me wrong, it’s hard to walk away from like a career that’s going well. Good trajectory, as Chris was a pretty well known chef out there had been getting some media attention. And when getting profiled is not a restaurant that he worked at, had been nominated for James beards while you’re the chef. Chef de Cuisine, by the way, is just a title for a chef when the owner of the restaurant is the executive chef. So he was essentially running that kitchen. But we had a good thing going, but it was just time to come home. Plus, the other thing I’ll say, is we could sense the percolating culinary scene, culture, whatever you want to call it. We could sense that happening here in like the Driftless. Region.
Speaker 1 5:48
Yeah, there’s something happening in lacrosse and the the greater Driftless region that we haven’t really figured out a way to greatly articulate yet at this point, what has happened is a percolating thing, like a collective capitalism type situation where there’s more people doing small businesses, particularly in food, collaborating where yeah,
Vicki Markussen 6:08
let’s touch on that in a second. Because I want to rewind us before we get to what the potential is. So you two were friends. You grew up here, right? Yeah,
Ben Skinner 6:17
yeah, we went our families went to the same church. And that’s how we’ve met each other in like Sunday School. And in middle school, we both went to Lincoln Middle and we became like best friends in like sixth grade, and have been best friends slash brothers ever since.
Vicki Markussen 6:30
And what took you both out to Seattle then or was there another step along the way?
Ben Skinner 6:34
There was Minneapolis. Okay. So yeah, we graduated we went to Minneapolis. Chris has a degree in sociology. I’ve won an anthropology.
Vicki Markussen 6:42
Wow. That’s a lot of ology.
Ben Skinner 6:46
The entire time we were in college we cooked right. We cooked for work to pay the rent and all that stuff. Yeah. I would say that we kind of at least for me, I kind of started to take it take that part of my life a little more seriously. We graduated in Oh, eight, right. So financial collapse, the economy was in shambles. People were still going out to eat. We were still employed. And then I basically my journey for restaurants. Minneapolis was as a line cook. When I showed up. I was like, essentially running kitchens as an executive chef when we left. And as as was Chris, he was, we were the CO chefs at this place called kings wine bar. Okay. And I don’t know, I guess we left for Seattle. Because again, burnout, right? Yeah, we’re like 23.
Speaker 1 7:26
For sure. Burnout. Yeah. But Seattle, I think is where both of us really kind of cut our chops and ground our teeth, as it were,
Ben Skinner 7:35
and then got serious about growing up a little bit to dues but I ended up working for a restaurant to name Tom Douglas. And at the time, I think he was about to open his like 14 or 15 restaurant. Wow, I was there for a few months before you I don’t remember when you showed up to this restaurant. But that’s a lot of times how it works, right? One of us gets hired somewhere and then brings the other one in.
Vicki Markussen 7:51
Nice. Yeah, tag team.
Ben Skinner 7:55
We did diverge, right. And like 2012, I wanted to learn the business end of the restaurant, the front of the house, the performance part, the numbers part. So I asked some folks at that company if I could do that. So they were totally willing to help me out and I got really educated you, on the other hand, continue to being
Vicki Markussen 8:12
a chef. Yeah. Which makes for a good combination,
Ben Skinner 8:15
right? Because the idea was, we always thought we’d open a restaurant. And somebody’s got to know how to do that front of house stuff. Absolutely. If you notice, I’m the one who’s constantly talking that I did Hone and was coached along the way to kind of, you know, temper it because I came from the back of the house, right? And it was kind of rough and gruff.
Vicki Markussen 8:41
Talking to me, I’m trying to work, right? Yeah.
Speaker 1 8:44
I always loved cooking. Yeah, being in the back of the house, because I’m not a talker. I’m very introverted. When I think the biggest thing for us was, yeah, so we want to do our own thing we’ve worked for very good people. We’ve worked for very bad people, big companies, mining companies. Yeah. And a lot from both. But the biggest thing for us was like, okay, so we want to do our own thing. And we want to do it in a way that we can maintain integrity, and treat people well, which at that time was not really a thing in the industry. This, you know, this what we got into the shelf stable. Wholesale game is definitely a departure from what we always thought we wouldn’t be doing.
Vicki Markussen 9:26
So where did that concept come from?
Ben Skinner 9:30
Yeah, so that was, as we mentioned, before, coral foods, we was a salami company. The I had to had this idea when they hired me that we should do a shelf stable program and like the idea being, if it goes on a charcuterie board, no jams and mustards and ponies, whatever it is, like we could sell that as a line. It would contribute to expanding our offerings, our brand, our growth, all that stuff. So we actually pitched it to them. Right. And they were like, yes, use our resources to do this. Yeah, it was summer of 2021. That was when we had launched the provisions program for them and like April or May, and within two months, I mean, we had seen like $50,000 in sales. It’s pretty crazy. And we’re like, hey, we can do this. And what keeps us engaged is like being challenged and new stuff like, not repetitive stuff. Which is why when we feel like we kind of have mastered this shelf staple thing, that’s where we can go to our next step. It’s not really like the, it is partly financial. But for us, it’s more of a gut feeling instinct as to what’s good for us, when the next move is expand, when to make that net net next significant investment, whatever it is, that was like, hey, the startup cost is low. You don’t even really need a commercial kitchen. And until a certain point,
Vicki Markussen 10:36
well, the other interesting thing is you’re you’re really in the craft food area, the round, right? Like you’re not trying to be Smuckers grape jelly, right, actually. 100% Correct. So you have a higher profit margin as a result. So you can in theory,
Speaker 1 10:50
yeah, yeah, you know, we, as of right now, we are keeping our prices super competitive. We’ll see how that continues down the road. But we are 100%. A specialty food company, I would say like, you’re like you landed on it 100% correctly. Like we don’t want to compete with smokers. And we never can compete with smokers. Possible, right? They’re a massive multinational corporation. That’s just not our thing. And so you’re right, like, we do have a better profit mark. They’re a volume business. And as of right now, we are not.
Ben Skinner 11:23
Yeah, so it was just like, we need to make sure we can maintain this because we need to do the deliveries, we need to do the marketing, we need to do the events, we needed to do the production. So it was it was a very intentional decision to just pick two products at
Chris Thornton 11:36
launch. The company is just us too.
Ben Skinner 11:39
Yeah, yeah. 2024 or 20, I would say 2025 is a very good possibility. But 2024 seems unlikely for adding any staff. First thing that one of our investors wants us to do is hire salesperson, because you hear all these, here’s this complaint about how we don’t necessarily love doing sales. But
Vicki Markussen 11:56
so what’s going to be the trigger? Right? Is it a certain sales point? What is that when you want to launch another product? What What will trigger flash?
Ben Skinner 12:04
I think you should start with this.
Speaker 1 12:06
That’s a very good question. Bands trigger is much more metric based numbers and sales based trigger is what we can do from a creative and talent standpoint, like what we I know what we can pump out in our facility and keep it consistent and quality at all times. Yes. And if we try to grow too big, we’re not going to be able to do that. Right. And that is a bit of a gut feeling like, okay, we’re doing these two products. We’re not maxed out right now. But I think if we add a third and a fourth, right now, we’re not going to be able to ensure the quality.
Ben Skinner 12:43
Yeah, mine is more mine is metric basement is also, you know, I want to be able to offer more when we’re doing sales calls. As the guy who’s more of like the business driver, I just wanted to expand, right? That, that instinct to just to grow. But that’s why we’re so complimentary, because I have that instinct to push us to do that. And I’m not gonna stop pushing us to do that. But Chris is gonna temper that with some typical, quite honestly, reality to be like, listen, we can’t the reason why we can’t do this is X, Y and Z. There’s not an argument.
Speaker 1 13:16
But it’s inherent tension. Yeah, that’s good, though. Exactly. Right.
Vicki Markussen 13:19
Well, yes. And so where my brain goes is like time is also a huge limiting factor, right? That’s the one thing where we are on the same page. Yes. And so it becomes how else could you use that time. And then if you can create that process to have quality control, and then train someone on that, it’s just then your creativity is being tapped in a better way. Maybe you’re not doing some of the food tastings because you now have someone else to do that. So you’re just able to keep growing in more creative ways. That’s going to fuel you long term, Chris. Yeah. And then you can then justify the sales that are happening off the other end. So absolutely correct. Yeah. And then you’ll get into the hard stuff, right, like, physical space capacity, and all of those things.
Ben Skinner 14:06
And I think part of my push to always do it is to be honest with you some insecurity about being viewed as stagnant. At the end of the day, I really do look at Chris to tell to give me the reality check to be like, Can we do this or not? Right? Like, I think it’s the guy who comes up with the recipes, and the guy who knows about the manufacturer of them and what it’s going to take to source everything.
Vicki Markussen 14:27
Yeah, and it almost becomes a teeter totter, if you will, between stagnation and risk, right. So you want to be creative, but there’s a risk in trying something new. A lot of this
Speaker 1 14:39
stuff is unspoken, and we’ve just worked together and known each other for so long that it just in a way it’s like an invisible force that just proposed true
Ben Skinner 14:47
Vicki actually, when we started we never talked about what our specific duties would be. We just knew Yeah, you know, yeah, you got that regulatory document. Yeah. Okay. Got the sales dot, you know, whatever. Yeah, like we just we got it. It’s also cool because I don’t really like doing a lot of stuff that he does. Yeah. Like, I don’t really, Chris has a lot of like really precise scientific, like, you know, measurements and that kind of thing.
Vicki Markussen 15:11
And then you have investors, right. So that adds another complexity to how, how much freedom? Do they give you a kind of I’m assuming they want to return on their investment. Yeah.
Speaker 1 15:20
But like, we’ve Great question, Ben. And I each shown 40% of the company. Yeah, we have two investors each has tempers, we have, you know, complete control of the company, they will eventually want to see a return. We’re not even paying ourselves yet. So all that stuff is down the road.
Ben Skinner 15:36
But also culturally, we’re on the same page, just like what we want to do, if we do grow, and if we are successful, right, like, you know, part of what we want to do is, if we can grow this thing into a much larger thing is provide good high paying jobs, flexibility, and just a culture that is really focused on like the people who work there, because we think that if you focus on that, everybody else, customers, everybody is going to be happy in the process.
Vicki Markussen 16:00
Well, and if you hire the right people, you start to become the company that you came from, like, how do you have that? That innervation? Right, not the innovation, we where someone goes and launches their own company? How do you create a culture where all the sudden people you hire are adding to your creativity, the only
Ben Skinner 16:15
way that I think you do that is autonomy. That’s, that’s really for me, if we’re gonna start bringing in people who to manage things, it’s like, yeah, I’m gonna oversee it, we’re gonna help you with the processes that we put in place. But if you want to alter them, or change them, do it. I mean, that’s what you’re here to do. You’re not here just to do the thing I tell you to do. You’re here to use your brain. Yeah, committed to be invested in what we’re all doing here. Because at the end of the day, if we’re all doing well, you’re gonna do better. I did,
Vicki Markussen 16:40
I see that you’re now looking at pickles as your next.
Speaker 1 16:43
Yep. So that’s the next product. The next big thing that’s the next big inherent tension between bands, it’s kind of funny, we’re going back to that. So we finally landed on like what we’re going to do, because bands like let’s just do pickles, let’s make an app. And we’ll get palates stuff. And we finally landed with a compromise. So we’re gonna, we’re recipe testing right now a bunch of different variations of pickles. We’re going to start selling those at farmer’s markets, we’re going to be at Cameron Park and the crescent farmers market. We’re going to see how that does. If we get good reception, you know, good sales, then we are going to do a shelf stable version that will sell along with our other two products wholesale.
Ben Skinner 17:25
Yeah, but we want to shelf stable at first, it’s more of just
Speaker 1 17:30
a really like a, what do they call that and like a proof of concept? Yeah.
Ben Skinner 17:34
But it takes it’s a lot of combat, like it takes a lot of our time and a lot of capacity to do the new thing. But we also really want to and have been talking about going to some of the local growers around here and see what we can secure for produce to make our next Jam, which you know, in my head will be like a Blackberry, some sort of raspberry BlackBerry situation, but who knows, I mean, we’re not married to any idea committed to anything. We just want to go start eating produce when the harvest happens and see how much we can get. Yeah, like all of that products in like a short amount of time for the year basically. Yeah,
Speaker 1 18:04
a single product. And this is cheap. I mean, it’s usually more than other companies. But just for context, like just to bring on one other product, I’d say we’re looking at about $10,000. and months and months and months of time. Yeah. Yeah. At least six months. I mean, yes, we’ve seen regulatory stuff, you have to do recipe testing, branding, labeling ingredients, sourcing the package, and then purchasing everything. Yeah, it’s a big. Yeah. And the marketing materials.
Ben Skinner 18:31
I mean, you name it. Yeah. So it’s just what the two of us. I’m not, I would never complain, cuz it’s so fun. But yeah, we do really have to pick where we’re going to spend our time and our energy. So I think this is perfect, because I really don’t think this will require the same intensity shell stable wood. It’s essentially in my head and I so this is the other thing, too, is like in my head. Chris is gonna go grab some cucumbers. He’s gonna have a little fun,
Vicki Markussen 18:58
super simple kitchen. He’s
Ben Skinner 19:00
gonna make a quick pickle, bing, bang, boom, we’re good to go. Yeah, like, and that’s the other thing is I’m I make these assumptions. And that’s when Chris also be like, Well, no. Here’s what’s actually going
Vicki Markussen 19:11
on. Right, right. times longer. Yeah. Well, and don’t forget the conversations either. And I’m sure you’ve thought about it of you still have two products that you’re hoping to continue growing while you’re launching this one. And so how do you find the pickle? That’s very complimentary. So you’re not having to create new distribution outlets for a separate product, like how can you put it on the shelf next to what you’re already doing? Absolutely. Yeah. Because
Speaker 1 19:38
there is kind of a connective tissue to our products. It is basically like it’s condiments, right? That would go good on a short report. Essentially, it’s kind of our connective tissue,
Ben Skinner 19:53
but also could be used as, you know, components in in cooking like, are out there in the field. talking to customers and people who are sampling our products. When we, whenever we mentioned the pickle the reaction is excitement. It
Speaker 1 20:05
is kind of how much people seem to love pig. Yeah. Like,
Ben Skinner 20:09
that’s one part of our of it too is like I’m seeing the excitement, the possibility the I wouldn’t call it demand, but like, it seems like there’s a lot of interest in us making this products. Yeah, the sales
Vicki Markussen 20:20
area in my brain is just like whirling because there’s so many different avenues you can take, right? You can look at how do we create a bigger glass container and then restaurants are buying from you right with the same product and
Ben Skinner 20:35
now is trying to go non shelf stable bulk for you know, we’re talking with some folks at the Charlemont. Right, right, you know, and a couple of the restaurants around town. I’m actually going to talk to the Rivoli about hey, once you guys dropped the pizza, do the pretzels serve with our mustard, right? So y’all make those little suggestions.
Vicki Markussen 20:52
So I have two questions left, because I think I could talk to you guys forever. But the the first one is, what is that big vision. I mean, it sounds like your brain is going big.
Ben Skinner 21:06
Oh my god, it’s a big one is
Speaker 1 21:08
going big. For me. It’s not. I don’t want to be Smuckers. It’s not giant multinational, right, it’s have a market slash convenience store slash deli, specifically on the north side, which is where our facility is right now. Because I think that area could really use it absolutely terrible food desert at this point, unfortunately. So have a market and also grow our wholesale business nationwide, and get to the point where we’re just basically able to be comfortable to pay ourselves a reasonable salary 50 to 60k a year, have a good business that we really love, have fun doing, maintain our integrity.
Ben Skinner 21:50
Yeah, I would be forward I would be completely content with that. But the difference with us is that I do I do dream and have a lot of ambition. So like, you know, logistically, we do want to a few years hopefully get a storefront of some kind, we just can’t set ours right now, because we have to do everything but we want to have a store, that’d be kind of step one in our brains. Step two would be to move the operator Well, I guess Step One would be to move the operation to the basement for billing to have that store or point us to another business i We have a lot of space in our building that we don’t have to use all the part of what I want to do is work with other business owners in the cross and lease some of that space, I want a coffee shop like a little coffee nook in there, we actually need very small amount of space to do what we do. Like Chris said, we grow the read, we grow the line, eventually, you know have some sort of distribution hub, I’d like to be doing our own distribution and integrate as much as we can. If we do grow to that point. So we’d have like a central hub would be awesome. And there’d be several business models that would do what would be like the kind of fresh and ready to eat, we could supply you know, grocery with that stuff or events or whatever part of it would be catering part of it would be our actual storefront. And hopefully there’ll be more than one location, eventually. And then culturally, right is the big thing. So like if we can get to that, that mid size or large size where we make a really significant impact. If we’re maybe even a household name and a part of the country, we employ anywhere from 100 to 1000 people for getting to that point. That to me is amazing, because then we can be contributors into showing that you can do capitalism without being like, so so greedy, like we are not, we’re capitalists, we are guys who believe that capitalism can work. If it’s tempered a little bit like this hyper capitalism that we do right now. It’s more of like an oligarchic cold greed based system, that doesn’t really work for everybody. I still think it can work if we just temper it with some stuff. And I’m not saying that we need to go out there and put in regulations that business owners need to be compassionate. That’s kind of silly, I mean, just takes us as people to do it. But if we can demonstrate that if like you can demonstrate that it can be done, maybe you can inspire or influence other people to change or to if they’re going to grow to grow into that model of behavior and culture, the culture of flexibility, the culture of employees, first people first all that right. Yeah, you
Speaker 1 24:07
have to show them I think that not only is it the right thing to do, but it’s also a good business decision.
Ben Skinner 24:12
Like Chris said, I would be completely satisfied if we have a company that’s just supporting ourselves making enough money to survive, pay the mortgage, you know, pay the bills, I don’t need to be rich, I don’t really necessarily want to be what I would like to do is just be able to provide for the community or for other people and make it so they can have a cool place to work that just isn’t soul sucking.
Vicki Markussen 24:36
Well, and that’s a good segue to my last question because it’s funny because I had Emily Boland on here with huntin gather racing boards. I love Emily too, and she sent me a picture holding one of your jars like you need to do podcasts with these. My I know I met them at a north because business association meeting. But what we had what I had paused was you talked about some things have running here and lacrosse and that collaboration and that’s a prime example. Right? It wasn’t about her it was about how does she help you guys? So talk about that, that when you said something’s happening here, what is that? It is
Ben Skinner 25:10
it’s the culinary scene that is kind of becoming co it. There’s cohesion happening,
Speaker 1 25:17
when everyone we’ve been talking to and meeting in the industry too is like, they’re super friendly, super nice. Your values align, everybody’s like, Yeah, let’s do a pop up here, we’ll do this event at your space. And then you guys can come do an event at this space we have and there’s just this really cool organic collaborative thing happening was like everybody we’ve talked to, just seems to be on the same page.
Ben Skinner 25:40
Emily, Emily was one of the first folks that we’ve met that’s kind of doing the similar thing that we’re doing in our tiny little company. She actually is in the same wheelhouse with the Sharkoon. Exactly. We’re hoping to collaborate and get her hooked up with like tiny pollens, jars that she can put in everything
Speaker 1 25:55
that’s she’s better at us than doing the things she does. Words are amazing, far better. Most Beautiful selves where we where we come in is we can give her delicious condiments for those boards. Yeah, right. Yeah, like,
Ben Skinner 26:06
and then also like, it is cool to when you have somebody who I think is in our same mindset, maybe age demographic, like reading the Sharma like Danielle over there. She seems really interested in the kind of collaborative nature, the fellow who just opened daily row. So Spencer, we’d love to do some collaboration stuff with him the dirty dozen guys. So we’ve been able to like meet some of these people. And I think all of us are in such young stages of our business. Yes, that we all kind of can commiserate. That’s the wrong word. But what’s the opposite of misery? Yeah, we’re happy about that. Yes, yes.
Speaker 1 26:45
I also do think that there’s got to be a generational thing to it. Because I do think that millennials tend to be more collaborative than other generations.
Vicki Markussen 26:54
I think a lot of this was triggered by the pandemic, you guys are prime examples, right? of people going, why not go out on our own and people want, they value that unique experience, particularly in food. And so you’re seeing just a ton of these companies, cupcakes, and yeah, to
Ben Skinner 27:11
artisans. Yeah. And that’s what I love, like Mississauga, like all these people that are popping up in town, there’s, like, what we want to do is we want to bring more cohesion to that I love to foster more of like, we all know each other, we all hang out. We all do pop ups and stuff. Yes. Yes. But again, like you don’t force that that just kind of happens,
Vicki Markussen 27:31
right?
Speaker 1 27:32
I think so. Yeah, it’s hard, you can kind of foster it as much as you can.
Ben Skinner 27:37
Just gotta let it happen is happening, like it’s all of us are meeting each other, we’re all beginning to go to the similar events, we get to spend time with each other. So like, you know, and that’s just gonna lead to conversations about we should do this, we should do that. We should team up on this. And so I think you are gonna see some more of this really cool collaborative capitalism happening with the younger businesses that are opening up foodwise here, but also non foodwise. Like
Speaker 1 28:00
that. Yeah. I mean, there’s no doubt that the pandemic I’ve made people reassess. And I think you are seeing a bit of like a mini explosion of people who are like, Okay, I want to, I want to take this risk and see what
Ben Skinner 28:14
you can look at it and statistics to like, how many businesses are formed every month, and Wisconsin has skyrocketed since the pandemic?
Vicki Markussen 28:20
Yes. Right. And we were pretty stagnant here and like we legged for in terms of lacrosse County for the states. And it’s it’s taking up and it’s about time, right?
Ben Skinner 28:31
Yeah. Well, it’s all it’s, I think it is generational because we are the millennials are kind of getting to the age that, you know, people are going to trust you with investment money. It
Speaker 1 28:40
makes sense, right? Like, we’re the biggest generation bouts behind the boomers and the boomers are starting to retire. So yep, we’re starting to finally come into the age where we can start our own businesses because we either have time, money or experience. Yep. You know, or a combination of the three.
Vicki Markussen 28:56
Yes, or one of the three and someone else says the other two.
Ben Skinner 29:02
Yeah, yeah. We’re just we just wanted to be a part of it, which is why we’re back here.
Vicki Markussen 29:06
Ben Skinner and Chris Barton. Thanks for joining me. You’ve been listening to BizCast Greater La Crosse. We’ll catch you next week.
