151: From Dish Sink to Owner: Ryan Novak on Building Chocolate Pizza Company

Ryan Novak started washing dishes at his hometown chocolate shop in Marcellus when he was just fifteen. Six years later, while still a student at Syracuse University's Whitman School of Management, he became the owner. Since 2010, Ryan has grown Chocolate Pizza Company into a nationally recognized gourmet chocolate brand that ships across the country and around the world, with features on ABC World News Tonight with David Muir, Food Network, Hallmark Channel, CNBC, and Forbes. In this conversation, we talk about what it really took to buy a business at twenty-one, how you take a small-town brand to a national stage, what happens the day after you're featured on network television, and the ideas behind his first book, Inner Armor: Why Passion, Resilience, and Character Shape Entrepreneurs and the Brands They Lead, launching October 14th. This episode is presented by Mooney Marketing Group. MMG is a full-service advertising agency right here in Syracuse, and they're the marketing and PR partner behind Chocolate Pizza Company. They work with law firms, car dealerships, healthcare providers, banking institutions, home services businesses, and more, executing campaigns across Central New York, the greater Upstate market, and nationally. Learn more at https://www.mooneymarketinggroup.com/, or start the conversation with my friend Jake Etoll directly at jake@mooneymarketinggroup.com. 0:00 Meet Ryan Novak of Chocolate Pizza Company 2:30 The Cocoa Price Crisis That Nearly Broke the Business 5:00 How a 15-Year-Old Dishwasher Became the Owner 8:00 What Made Him Fall in Love With Chocolate Pizza 10:30 The Peanut Butter Wing and How It Took Over Everything 13:00 240,000 Pounds of Chocolate a Year 16:00 Whitman School Walk-On Kicker and Future Entrepreneur 19:00 He Bought the Business Between His Junior and Senior Year 22:00 $1,200 in the Bank and a Couch in the Back of the Shop 26:00 Grassroots Marketing When You Have No Budget 29:00 The ABC World News Tonight Call That Changed Everything 33:00 150 Clicks Per Second and a Website That Crashed 37:00 16 Years of Hard Work Met One Moment of Readiness 40:00 Why He Wrote Inner Armor and the Story Nobody Expected 44:00 What a Bad Day at Work Looks Like After Losing Your Mom at Nine 47:00 The Element of Play That Is the Real Unlock for Entrepreneurs Connect with Ryan and Chocolate Pizza Company: https://chocolatepizza.com/ Get Ryan’s book, Inner Armor: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HLY1QT3V/... Chocolate Pizza Company on Instagram: @chocolatepizzacompany Chocolate Pizza Company on Facebook: @chocolatepizzas Join us for Camp Collective, a weekend retreat for growth-minded women, November 13 to 15 at Vanderkamp. Use code CULTIVATE for $50 off your spot: https://luma.com/cny-k2uc Get your tickets to Cultivate Live on November 12 at Vanderkamp, an intimate evening featuring a keynote from Arel Moodie and a live podcast conversation with Jeff Knauss of Arcovo AI. Use code CULTIVATE25 for a special discount: https://luma.com/ebumpab6 📝 Follow Cultivate with Alex Canavan on Substack: https://substack.com/@cultivatewithal... 🎥 Follow Cultivate with Alex Canavan on Instagram:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠   / alexcanavanpodcast   Apply to be a guest on Cultivate:⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FA... Connect with Alex Canavan, the host of Cultivate: Website: https://www.alexcanavan.com/ LinkedIn:   / alexcanavan   Instagram:   / alexcanavan.co   ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ This episode is brought to you by ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Diam Media Group⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠: https://www.diammedia.com/