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Read more from our EO Mentors!
April 25 at 1:00 p.m. Eastern
Eileen Spitalny
President
Fairytale Brownies, Inc.
Chandler, AZ
Fairytale Brownies, Inc. is a mail-order gift company specializing in scrumptious gourmet Belgian chocolate brownies. As the President and co-founder of the operation, Eileen Spitalny serves as the Marketing & Sales Team Leader. Eileen is responsible for all direct mail, catalog design, Web site, wholesale, advertising, public relations and new product design for the company.
Starting the company in 1992 with her partner, David
Kravetz, the consummate entrepreneurs have grown from a team of two
baking brownies at night in a friend’s catering kitchen, to a 55 employee
operation which bakes and ships 4.5 million brownies a year. In 2002, they were
named the Ernst & Young Arizona Retail Entrepreneurs of the Year.
Eileen is a graduate of the University of Southern California, and in April 2002 was named USC Alumni “Entrepreneur of the Year.”
The following discussion was hosted by Eileen Spitalny, Fairytale Brownies, Inc., on Friday, April 25, 2003. Don't miss our next discussion.
| bob | The discussion will begin momentarily. Thanks for your eagerness! |
| eileen_spitalny | Hi Everyone! My name is Eileen Spitalny, and I am the president of Fairytale Brownies, a mail-order gift company. I am the president and co-founder of the company, which employees 55 people, and bakes and ships 4.5 million brownies a year. |
| JAKids | <Q>How long have you been baking brownies? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>We started baking brownies in the Fall of 1992 in a friend's catering kitchen, |
| maggie | <Q>How do you get new ideas for your brownies? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>We always look at what our competition is doing, be aware of food trends by reading trade magazines and visiting tade shows and internally here at Fairytale Brownies we use employee and customer comments. |
| joseph | <Q>What is your busiest time of year? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>The Holidays - we do half our annual sales between Thanksgiving and Christmas!!!! |
| RVRHSbusclass | <Q>How much time did it take to start up your business? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>The first year we kept our day jobs, wrote a business plan and baked at night in a friends' catering kitchen experimenting with different chocolates from around the world. Then we quit our jobs and went for it full-time. |
| BurlHSecon | <Q>What classes did you take in college that helped you do this? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>My degree is in Spanish and Business and I worked at the Entrepreneur Program at USC. My role here is Marketing and Sales so all of my marketing and business classes were helpful and working in the Program I saw how important business plans and professional advisors are to your company. We have an Advisory Board. My first corporate job was helpful, too. |
| econclass | <Q>How much is a pack of brownies? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>Our most popular gift is the Fairytale Dozen which has one each of our 12 flavors. The cost is $29 plus $6.95 for shipping within the US. We do ship worldwide. |
| jaco | <Q>Do you only do mail orders, or do you have stores? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>More than the majority of our business is from our mail-order catalogs and website brownies.com. The only store we have is here at the the facility where we bake our brownies (open 6 days a week). This year sales will be just shy of $6 million. |
| romesclass | <Q>What is your favorite brownie flavor? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>I love the Original since we bake
with such good chocolate and the Toffee Crunch which has pieces of uncoated
Heath Bars - yum!  |
| JAKids | <Q>Were you in Junior Achievement as a kid? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>No, but one of my best girlfriends was and she is very proud of me today. As I kid I was very involved in Dance and Student Council. |
| maggie | <Q>How would one research the designer food market to determine if it would be profitable? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>By writing a business plan you go through cash flow analysis and a feasibility study. Also, you can get a lot of statistics from trade organizations and talk to similar companies to see how they did it! |
| jaco | <Q>Are you a good cook with other foods? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>When David and I first started the company it was the first time we had ever baked so many brownies. I do love food, though. My friends and I have a supper club and every month I get to experiment cooking a new food. |
| RVRHSbusclass | <Q>What made you choose brownies as your product? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>#1 David and I decided in high school we wanted to start a business together when we grew up because we worked so well together. #2 We wanted to create or invent something! So when time came to start we had 2 ideas - teaching kids computer skills or baking his mom's fantastic brownie recipe. We thought we could create more of a brand and identity going with the brownie idea. |
| jaco | <Q>What do you do in a typical day? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>This time if year in Marketing we are planning for the holidays. New packaging design has just been completed and we are beginning our photo shoot. As Marketing and Sales Team Leader I oversee the new products, catalog, public relations, customer service center, internet and database and catalog circulation. In Marketing it's hard to have a typical day - always exciting! |
| joseph | <Q>How did you come up with the name "FairyTale" ? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>When you look up the word "brownies" in the dictionary, Brownie is a square chocolate cake and also an elf that performs good deeds at night. So we investigated more and elfs, brownies, nymphs and so on live in Fairyland together so we named our company after the elf that bakes our brownies for us in the wee hours of night; hence Fairytale Brownies. |
| BurlHSecon | <Q>Do you have any plans to offer something other than brownies in the future? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>Yes, we are always working on new products. Things we have added since we started besides new brownie flavors are Fairytale Coffee, Fairytale Cocoa, chocolate coated espresso Wish Beans and Jumbo Cashews. |
| joseph | <Q>Did you do well this past Easter? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>Yes, we sent more boxes than we did last year. This year we had a little spurt for Admin Day and next is Mother's Day. Nothing is like the holidays, though. |
| econclass | <Q>Do you enjoy your work? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>Love it and I am always learning which is wonderful. If any of you ever come to Phoenix, come for a tour! |
| maggie | <Q>Do you see the online designer food market as a growth industry or could it suffer the same set backs as the .com industry? |
| eileen_spitalny | <A>We are a high-end product but brownies is also a very approachable product and everyone loves chocolate. We also have various price points so we can be affordable or extravagant. We are experiencing growth this year even though the economy is uncertain. |
| JA_Webmaster | Thank you all for participating in the discussion. You can find more information on Eileen's delicious brownies at www.brownies.com! |