CEO's wife convinced him to keep his college side hustle going—now the company brings in $200 million a yearSeth Berkowitz remembers a time when his business was"really, really struggling," and he wasn't sure if he wanted to go on — until he got a pep talk from his wife., a chain of late-night bakeries he started in 2002 as a college side hustle while attending the University of Pennsylvania. Today, Insomnia has more than 260 locations across the world.
"I called my wife," he says."I was driving from O'Hare airport to our location in Champaign, Illinois, and it's, like, a three-hour drive ... There's nothing to see. There's very few rest stops. It's a tough drive. And I called her on the phone and I said, 'How did I get here?'" "She said: 'You believe in this. You've always believed in this. People love what you sell and I believe in you. Just go make it happen,'" says Berkowitz."I'll tell you, for that one moment, I wasn't sure . She kind of flipped me over back to a believer."
It worked. By 2012, Insomnia was able to fund the opening of a new location with its own internal cash flow for the first time, finally making the company"self-sufficient," Berkowitz says.