Eric Helms: Founder & CEO of Juice Generation

Episode 572

In this episode of The Kara Goldin Show, we're joined by Eric Helms, Founder and CEO of Juice Generation, who shares how Juice Generation was created and scaled since its inception. Plus how it spearheaded the juicing movement in New York City, growing from a single shop to a major player in the health and wellness industry. From introducing first superfruits like mangosteens and pitaya to the U.S. market to the importance of sustainable sourcing, we learn what set a growing business apart in a competitive field. Plus we learn about Juice Generation's latest innovation, Juiced Gelato, and his vision for the future of the company. This episode is packed with inspiration and advice for anyone interested in health, wellness, and entrepreneurship. Now on The Kara Goldin Show.

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Transcript

Kara Goldin 0:00
I am unwilling to give up that I will start over from scratch as many times as it takes to get where I want to be I want to be, you just want to make sure you will get knocked down. But just make sure you don’t get knocked down knocked out. So your only choice should be go focus on what you can control control control. Hi, everyone and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. Join me each week for inspiring conversations with some of the world’s greatest leaders. We’ll talk with founders, entrepreneurs, CEOs, and really some of the most interesting people of our time. Can’t wait to get started. Let’s go. Let’s go. Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Kara Goldin show. So excited to have my next guest here. I’ve been a fan of his brand for some time now. Eric helms is the founder and CEO of Juice Generation. And since launching the company in 1999, he’s been at the forefront of the juicing movement, transforming it into a lifestyle that embraces healthier, greener choices. So he’s been in business now for 25 years, definitely, you know, really was on the forefront of this entire trend, and has now served over 18 million customers. I mean, that’s, that is wild to think about that. So it’s become a staple in New York City’s health food scene, you can still find stores today. But recently, he launched juiced gelato, which is I got an early taste of it, and is absolutely incredible. You can get it online at Juice Generation, but hopefully even more accessibility in the future, but definitely available today on Juice Generation.com. But we are super excited to dive in and hear more about the backstory around Juice Generation and also hear Eric’s story. So Eric Helms, welcome, super excited to meet you and have you here. Thank

Eric Helms 2:08
you, I’m happy to be here. Big fan of everything that you’ve done with hand as well. So I’m excited to talk to you.

Kara Goldin 2:15
Thank you so much. So talk to me back in the day of, you know, 1999, or maybe it was even 1998 When you were actually dreaming this idea of like, what kind of brand did you hope or company did you hope that you were going to be launching and what problem were you going to solve for people,

Eric Helms 2:35
I wasn’t that sophisticated. I wasn’t thinking of a brand. I knew I didn’t want to work for someone else. And I, I was working in a gym, I was a swim instructor for 10 years. And I taught swimming lessons all day. And I’d saved money from all my lessons. And I had worked in about four or five different juice bars over a period of two years. And I was looking for an investor, I thought I had one and the owner of the gym. And they backed out. And I decided I was going to do it myself with the little bit of money that I had. And without without knowing anything. I I signed a lease without an attorney. I opened a business without having any employees. And that was how I started. I call it like stupid courage.

Kara Goldin 3:29
So those early days you described, you know, just opening up a shop and and what do you remember? What were the biggest challenges? I mean, you definitely were trying to do something new. So I would imagine there was a lot of education around, you know, people walking by the store saying, What is this? And but what else was really challenging for you. I

Eric Helms 3:55
think the biggest challenge was this was before juicing was as mainstream and is accepted as it is today. And I think people come in in the store and saying like, Wait, this is all that you sell all you have this juice of good luck. Good luck with that. So it was a challenge. This was we open the same time that the first Starbucks came to New York. So I think that a beverage only concept was new to people 25 years ago, we didn’t serve food. And it was very much a niche customer that we had people that would come in and want to linger and get a shot of wheatgrass and sort of stay for a little while. So I think the challenge was just educating people and trying to get more customers in the door really.

Kara Goldin 4:40
So choose generation has been a pioneer in introducing new superfruits to to the American market. Things like mangosteen and Pitaya. So what drove you to kind of think I’m going to go and figure out how to get these fruits and introduce The market. I mean, that’s it. That’s a huge concept. It’s definitely thinking outside of the box.

Eric Helms 5:05
Yeah. And at the time, I was a guy with two very small stores. And I had read that mangosteen was going to be allowed in the US at the time, it had been banned. And it had a very romantic, sexy quality, because it was banned. And I something clicked and I thought, you know, I want to be the person that gets this first. And I literally got on the phone, sent emails to different farms in Southeast Asia. And I got someone on the phone and I struck a deal and bought a crop of mangosteen. And, again, look, I was in Hell’s Kitchen, The New York Times was there and Florence fabricant would pass the score regularly. And she came in and saw it. And it was, it was just good, good timing, and luck, we had brought in mangosteen. And we got a lot of press for it. And I kind of rode that wave afterwards, it worked once. So I kind of put myself in a position to do other superfoods. And it worked for a while until he did it. No,

Kara Goldin 6:13
yeah, definitely. So how do you differentiate yourself? Obviously, you’ve, you’ve grown significantly, you also have competition, you’re not the only one there? How do you differentiate your style yourself and continue to grow as a as a company? I think so often founders think, you know, when they’re launching something, or I should say, entrepreneurs, when they’re launching something, you know, they don’t want competition, right? They’re secretly like saying, No, I just, I just want it to be there. But the reality is, is like, you know, your business can grow. If you have competition, as long as you’re focusing on your brand, and making sure that consumers know, things like quality, or, you know, many other things as well. But I’m just curious what your take is on that. You

Eric Helms 7:04
know, I think I think of it as being in a long term relationship with our customer. With New York City, we’ve been here for 25 years. And we listen to our customer, we grow, we evolve, we introduce new things, not everything works. But we’re incredibly attentive to the business. And I mean, through everything, not only through the menu, but the stores and the entire customer experience. And I think the customer gets that they get that we are tuned in and that we are ever evolving and changing. And I feel like that that’s a big secret to longevity, and staying the course and keeping our customer engaged and coming back to the doors.

Kara Goldin 7:49
That’s awesome. So you have 20 locations, is that right? We have 20 locations. That’s amazing. All in the New York City area. All

Eric Helms 7:57
in New York. We’re in Queens, we’re in Brooklyn, and we’re throughout Manhattan. Yeah.

Kara Goldin 8:01
That’s amazing. Did you ever think of going outside of New York,

Eric Helms 8:05
many, many times we’ve flirted with it over and over, looked in other markets, negotiated leases and other markets. And at different times, we’ve had offers to go in grocery store chains, in department stores in airports. And at some point, I think, when we were experiencing, like the huge boom in juicing into huge, the trend, you know, wasn’t really at its peak. And we had, we were sort of in the middle of that hurricane, so to speak. I it was really overwhelming. And there were so many opportunities presenting themselves. And I really took took some time, because funnily enough, I was probably the most unhappy sort of working and making decisions and all that chaos. And that was when I took a step back and really thought about the power of saying no, and deciding what was working, not only for my company and the brand, but what worked for me personally, what was going to keep me engaged in the business and keep me present and interested. Because I think getting disengaged and losing my passion for the business was a fear. And I thought, you know, either I’m going to continue guiding this business with passion and, and a real strong hand or I’m not so I said no to a lot of things. And I think it was probably a real pivotal moment, in the trajectory of of my company, and staying on course, and it was it was a smart decision. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 9:45
no, I think that’s that’s a really great piece of advice. Because I think so often, people think, Okay, I’ve got to, you know, do the playbook of what other companies are doing and keep up with them or I’m going to be going out of business. And clearly you’re not you’ve been able to continue growing your business also continued to grow your business, I think without taking any outside capital, is that correct? It’s

Eric Helms 10:12
true, it wasn’t, you know what really conscious decision, I just as a person, I don’t want to be told what to do by investors. And I think as I grew and learned more as a business owner, I just reject the notion that scale is the same thing as success. You know, to me, as I got older, the thing that I value the most is being able to make my own decisions. And when I want to make those decisions, as an entrepreneur, to me, that is the greatest success, you know, making your own decisions based on when you want to make them not being told you have to grow or you have to open X number of stores, because you’ve taken capital, that’s a kind of reject that idea. Yeah,

Kara Goldin 11:03
well, I think also, as, as I always tell other founders, you know, as you grow up, your wisdom just increases. Hopefully, I mean, you know, you have moments of doing, you know, stupid things along the way, for sure. But I think that the wisdom and sort of understanding, hopefully what you want, I think you’re, you’re a testament to that. So how do you maintain like, quality and consistency as you scale up the production because, you know, you have a product that is shelf stable. It’s, it’s really hard, I always share with people coming from, you know, my own experience that, you know, our product was hot, filled and pasteurized. I mean, that’s not what you guys are doing. And it’s really tough. So how do you do that? And you’re also sourcing fruit and things like that, that it’s hard to get get the consistency. But for anybody who’s thinking about doing a brand that sort of has the same kind of challenges as you do, like, how do you how do you do that?

Eric Helms 12:08
Well, I was a guy, I, as I said, I didn’t come into the business with investors, and a lot of people behind me. So for many years, in the beginning, I was a shopkeeper. And I was the guy that opened the store, and I made the juice. So in a way, it was like the best education you can have as a business owner, because I know how to do everything in the business. And I was lucky and smart enough in the beginning to surround myself with some people that taught me how to standardize operations. So I spent a number of years standardizing everything. So when juicing sort of became a trend, and the boom started, I was in a position, I’d saved enough money, I could find new locations based on success of the first stores. And I’d standardized it. And I knew what I was doing, I knew the business, I wasn’t a guy who didn’t know the business inside and out. So I think, without that knowledge, I don’t think I could have grown the business as I did. And I think dealing with employees and going into stores, I can troubleshoot. And I can speak the language with all of my operators, I’m not, you know, I’m not a person that’s more involved in finance, I consider myself an operator and a creator more than anything. So I think that has been immensely helpful. I’ve never had to outsource creativity or operations in the business.

Kara Goldin 13:39
So what has been the most effective strategy for attracting and and really retaining consumers over the years has? And like how do you continue to grow your business? And I think people often think that once you get to a certain size, no matter what industry, it is that you should be happy with some kind of growth, but obviously, as a founder, you always want more. But how do you continue to get the word out about your products and about your company overall, and what has what kind of strategy has worked?

Eric Helms 14:19
You know, I don’t have a calculated strategy per se, again, like doing this for 25 years, I tried to remain open to things that sort of come into my path. For instance, the juice gelato, if you would have told me, you know, 10 years ago, that we’d be selling gelato, it was very unexpected, but I’m open something like that happens just with an email from someone, they wanted to meet with me and kind of go with it. And I get emails all the time from young business owners, and I’ll go and meet with people and that’s what I thought I was doing with this. And I went and there was someone who had an idea. They taken our juices and made them into gelato. And I thought, oh, that’s kind of an interesting, interesting idea. We weren’t looking to do gelato, we always have, you know, 10 or 20 projects sort of in various stages of development. And I try to be open and not work in a calculated way, when the time is right. When it’s something that I’m excited about or feel that customers would be excited about it. I kind of go for it. But I don’t, I don’t have like, an agenda per se, I tried to remain open to the things that appear, you know,

Kara Goldin 15:42
I always share with people that there’s challenges along the way for every single business, and especially the business if you’re in your years and years of being in business. There’s been a challenge along the way. Can you share an instance where you had to pivot in some way you had to, you know, really make some big decisions in order to, you know, really continue to grow, in some cases stay alive, right, that that you really thought, Okay, we’ve got a huge problem. And obviously, you made it out and you’re able to rebuild, you know, baby from that situation. But I’d love to hear your response to that.

Eric Helms 16:26
I think just to echo what I touched on briefly earlier, I think back I think probably like 2017, right? I mean, juicing was such a trend. And I think we were sort of in the middle of that trend. And we were lucky enough. We had thrown out a lot of superfruits. We’ve done Pattaya, we’ve done mangosteen, we had introduced activated charcoal, and we were getting a lot of attention. And there were so many inquiries, we had entered into so many partnerships, that it was becoming overwhelming. And we weren’t doing anything well, like everything that we were doing. I was sort of halfway involved in and couldn’t really give anything, my full attention. And a lot of the people close to me, my Chief Brand Officer, my Director of Operations, all of us were overwhelmed. And I felt key people that I’ve worked with for many, many years sort of disengaging, just because of the stress and the chaos sort of in the organization. And it was a period for a couple of months where we talked a lot. And we agreed that we needed to say no to things. And we needed to simplify what we were going to say yes to and do it better. And that was really a pivotal moment, turning down great opportunities that I saw other other companies and brands say yes to that went on and had tremendous success with that. But for us, we had to say no then just to sort of carrying on and reinvent ourselves in a way as a company. We it was at that time we got into more philanthropic work, we got involved with a company of organization called Harlem Grown. We built a greenhouse in Harlem here in New York, things like that. It was it was important to our company culture to the people working with us. And I think it was it kind of gave us a new outlook. And that to me, it was probably the most pivotal moment for the company and sort of redefining who we were as a company and how how we were going to move forward.

Kara Goldin 18:46
So you’ve stayed involved in the brand, as a fellow founder, I can speak to you I think it’s just very, very important to not get too bogged down in sort of the operations, obviously, but you talked about some of the partnerships that you’re still involved in, and how is that role important inside of your company to in terms of partnerships that you’re doing? And, you know, you’re you’re still the voice of the brand, and we’re How do you see that having impact and continuing to have impact?

Eric Helms 19:21
Well as myself as the voice of the brand. I mean, I think internally I think I have you know, 450 people that are sort of connected if I’m passionate if I bring it when I come in. If I have ideas and crazy things that I want to do like launch a line of gelato, I kind of have to sell it to everybody in my team. My Chief Brand Officer thought that you know, she usually says no to everything I bring in because I bring a lot of crazy ideas. So she’s really the voice of reason in the company. But I think people are connected to any leader or CEO that comes in with passion and has excitement about wanting to do new things. And I think that’s, I would hope that’s the fun thing about working with me for people to do work with me that I’m still after 25 years excited about doing new things, and want to reinvent things. And I, my goal always is to make juicing accessible for everybody. And I think whatever twists and turns that may take being, you know, fresh juice, cold pressed juice, juice in a powdered form, juice and gelato form, I think I like to keep on finding ways to make juicing accessible. And I think that is infectious to people that work with me, just that kind of is my mission, and I try to sell that mission first two people that work with me, so they are empowered and excited by that. And, of course, to the customers that we have a long term relationship with, I want my customers to see that we are always trying to make juice accessible in every form, that health and wellness is ever evolving and changing. And we’re sort of riding that wave. So so it seems.

Kara Goldin 21:21
So you started and 1999 with one store and an idea, and and obviously have learned many, many lessons along the way you’re dealing with in probably one of the most challenging competitive cities in the US as well. But what what are some of the big lessons you’ve learned about entrepreneurship in the health and wellness industry in particular? I mean, you’re dealing with regulations, and like all kinds of stuff that I think is even more challenging than then even what some entrepreneurs have to deal with. But I I’d be curious what you’d say to that.

Eric Helms 22:07
I have so many stories that would blow your mind about doing business in New York, but but I think actually, it’s sort of a philosophy that I know you share as well. And I think it’s it’s as simple as if you, if you think that you have to know everything, before you jump and and do it, then you’re never going to do anything. You know, I’ve heard you say that before. And I it’s really the sort of the most valuable lesson that I’ve learned. I call it stupid courage. And especially when you’re starting out as a young entrepreneur, if you wait until you have all the pieces aligned, and you think you know, everything in the business plan is perfect, and everything is aligned. It’s really never gonna line up. I think often you just have to take a leap and do it. And you kind of learned trial by fire. So

Kara Goldin 23:04
true. Yeah, I totally agree. And you can make the best predictions in the world. But until the consumer actually tells you what they really want. Have you ever launched a fruit that has not worked?

Eric Helms 23:20
Also many times, way more failures than success, we’ve launched. I think just part of my learning process. When I had some success launching fruits, I thought I could stay on that trajectory and continue. And we’d launched a few too many that just didn’t resonate with customer, we launched the aronia berry, which you probably haven’t heard of. But it really didn’t resonate with customers. And I went to Nebraska, and purchased an entire crop of aronia berry, and a lot of fanfare, we went we took videographers, I got on a tractor we helped. It was really, we were really excited to do it until we put the drinks in the store and people just didn’t care. And then we went with a jackfruit after that. And again, jackfruit smells really, really bad. And I think people didn’t respond to jackfruit at all. So yeah, I’ve launched a lot of fruit that people don’t care about. One of one of the great things, though, about sort of having a higher profile when we did launch Brut and we got attention for now, a lot of farmers from all over the world, send emails and send fruits to us and want us to try things. So it’s a lot easier for us to sort of find new and innovative things because we’ve had this platform in the past where we have launched things successfully. So We get a lot of stuff just sent to us every month, maybe 20 to 30 farms or purveyors have interesting new products every month. So it’s fun to sort of try that out. And it’s, it’s a lot easier than it was back in the day to sort of find the next the next big thing so to speak.

Kara Goldin 25:19
Yeah, no, so, so true. So finally, what do you hope will be the lasting impact of Juice Generation on the wellness industry? You just launched an incredible product that we talked about juice gelato, which everyone can go on to Juice Generation and get that in the mail. But I’m curious that what is the lasting impact of Juice Generation for people, you’re building an incredible brand that is meaningful to so many people employing 450 people to which is just incredible. 450? Plus, I would imagine, but what what is it that you’re kind of most proud of? But also what do you hope for, for people to think about when they think about Juice Generation?

Eric Helms 26:05
I hope it’s thought of as a brand that’s all inclusive, and it can make juice accessible for everybody, which is always been my mission from the book that I wrote, from the way that we set up our menus. I think, going into a Juice Generation, we see all demographics coming into our store. And I think no matter where you are on your on your health and fitness journey, I think Juice Generation is has something that everybody can like, and I think we meet you where you are. And if you’re not ready to doubt, a 20 ounce green juice, maybe you can try a juice gelato. And that’s maybe an entry point for you to have some fresh juice in gelato form. So anything that can sort of turn you on and get you excited about juicing. I think that’s that’s the mission of Juice Generation. And that’s how I’d like people to think of us. Love

Kara Goldin 27:05
it. So Eric Helms, founder and CEO of Juice Generation, thank you so much for coming on and sharing all of your wisdom for sure. We’ll have all the info in the show notes, but really appreciate you coming on. Thanks. It

Eric Helms 27:19
was fun. Thanks for letting me be here.

Kara Goldin 27:21
Thanks again for listening to the Kara Goldin show. If you would, please give us a review and feel free to share this podcast with others who would benefit and of course, feel free to subscribe so you don’t miss a single episode of our podcast. Just a reminder that I can be found on all platforms at Kara Goldin. I would love to hear from you too, so feel free to DM me. And if you want to hear more about my journey, I hope you will have a listen or pick up a copy of my Wall Street Journal, best selling book undaunted, where I share more about my journey including founding and building hint. We are here every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Thanks for listening and goodbye for now.

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