135. Mike & Jen's Cocoa Founder/CEO Dean Packingham

By All Means

It started as a fun project with his kids: creating the “best hot cocoa in the world.” After countless tries, Dean Packingham thought he had succeeded, and everyone who tried his instant cocoa mix agreed. Named for his kids, Mike & Jen’s Hot Cocoa debuted at specialty shops in their hometown of Duluth. Today, it’s sold in more than 1,300 stores nationwide including Costco, Target, and Meijer. Packingham has grown his home project to a regional brand with just one partner and no outside investors. “It’s a little bit of a sleeper category, hot cocoa—there wasn’t much in the premium part of the category to compete with,” Packingham says. It may have started as a hobby, but Packingham went all in: selling his house, living in a trailer, leaving a 27-year career in meteorology, and even buying a fitness franchise to fund the hot cocoa business. He talks about scaling, from finding a co-packer to planning for a seasonal product to being disciplined about not adding other products too quickly. Mike & Jen’s has already attracted some interest from larger companies, but Packingham says he’s in no rush to be acquired. “As long as we’re having fun, we’re happy to keep doing this.” Following our conversation with Packingham, we go back to the classroom with Jay Ebben, an entrepreneurship professor at the University of St. Thomas Schulze School of Entrepreneurship. Ebben talks about the challenges of scaling a consumer products goods business without raising money. “It forces you to figure out what the selling equation is and how to get it done,” Ebben says. “Raising money… might take away some of the financial stress, but at the same time, right now, they’ve got the freedom to grow as they like, operate as they like, and not feel some of the pressure that comes along with having investors on board.”