Cookie Falack is a serial entrepreneur who is best known as the founder of Cookie’s Kids, the largest children’s department store in America.
Some of his other businesses include:
- A 3PL (third-party logistics) company that serves clients nationwide
- Real estate investments across the country
- Genesis, and Israeli-focused fund that backs companies improving humanity
- And, most recently, a partnership on cutting-edge photonic chips used for AI and Quantum Computing
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Transcript
Victor M. Braca: You’ve built the world’s largest children’s department store and the number one children’s uniform retailer in America.
Cookie Falack: So there were some nights that I would have to sleep on the floor in the warehouse. That’s how bad it was. I see my father with a hammer and he’s breaking down a wall. I said, “What are you doing?” He says, “We’re going to open the second floor. We need more space.” All our merchandise was in a warehouse in Virginia. We had a hurricane and everything was destroyed. The whole business was gone and no insurance. I was 70 years old and, you know, here I am starting in a new business. If you’re going to sit back and wait for Hashem to give you something, you don’t deserve to get it and I don’t think you’re going to get it. He’s going to give you, but you got to work for it. If you want to be successful, you have to.
Victor M. Braca: My guest today is a true serial entrepreneur, if I’ve ever seen one. Cookie Falack is best known as the founder of Cookies Kids, the largest children’s department store in America and the number one retailer of school uniforms nationwide. But in typical serial entrepreneur fashion, Cookie has many other ventures. Let me just name a few.
He was one of the first big apparel companies to dominate e-commerce. He launched a logistics company that now serves clients nationwide. He’s a huge player in real estate markets across the country. He co-founded a company called Genesis, which is an Israeli-focused fund that backs businesses improving humanity. And most recently, he even partnered on cutting-edge photonics chips used for AI and quantum computing. Guys, don’t worry, I don’t understand that either, but trust me, this guy is no joke.
We really covered a ton in this episode. To name just a few things, Cookie shared how he turned a $15,000 investment at age 20 into one of the largest retail empires in the country. He tells us about how a hurricane destroyed all of his inventory, how retail was a natural segue into real estate, and possibly the most fascinating, how he’s such a good negotiator that suppliers let him set his own prices. I’m Victor Braca, and Momentum is where I dive deep into the stories behind business success. But guys, let’s get into the episode with Cookie Falack. Big thanks to Kosher Media for sponsoring this episode. More on them later.
Cookie Falack, welcome to Momentum.
Cookie Falack: Oh, thank you. Thank you for having me.
Victor M. Braca: Thank you for being here. It’s really an honor to be here with you. You’ve built what’s been called the world’s largest children’s department store and the number one children’s uniform retailer in America by many measurements. I want to start at the beginning. Tell me a little bit about yourself and about the different businesses that you’re involved in.
Cookie Falack: I’m 74 years old. I started in business when I was 20. Way before that, maybe when I was 14 years old, I worked for my father in his stores. But I got married when I was 24 to the love of my life. We were married for almost 50 years. She passed 13 years ago. I raised three beautiful daughters. They are my life, my daughters and my grandkids.
I think with me it’s all about balancing family and my career. But I never ever left my business after a hard day’s work and brought that home. When I got home, I was there in the moment with my family, with my kids and my grandkids, and that’s the way I live my life.
Victor M. Braca: I know that your career is multifaceted. You have many businesses that you’re involved in. Take me through that.
Cookie Falack: So, my main business, which I started in 1973, is the children’s clothing store. My first store was a little small 1,800 square foot children’s store. We grew that to be many many times the size. We bought buildings next to ours. So, we bought other buildings and we opened stores in all different areas in New York. We never ventured outside of New York because I just didn’t want to have to travel to look after my stores. We were the type of people that we were hands-on. So, we needed to be at least some part of our time in the stores and making sure that all our employees were part of a family. We became family with all our employees. We grew that business over the years to, like you said, one of the largest children’s retailers in the country. We did it with hard work, with passion, with love for our business. We treated our business like it was a child.
Victor M. Braca: Amazing. You built a team and you built a family is what it sounds like.
Cookie Falack: Exactly.
Victor M. Braca: And when we were on the phone, you were telling me a bit about some of the other ventures that you’re getting involved with. Can you get into that a little bit?
Cookie Falack: Yeah. So, you know, it must have been about 30 years ago, we started an online business, which I had no idea what online was. I didn’t even know how to work a computer. Somebody came to me and said, “We need to sell online.” I said, “I don’t even know how to use the computer.” But I learned. I had an open mind and I said, “Wow, this is really interesting.”
So, at the time it was AOL. If you weren’t with AOL, you weren’t in business. So, we made a deal with AOL. Unfortunately, that particular business was unsuccessful because just I guess Hashem didn’t want us to have that at that time. We had a hurricane and all our merchandise was in a warehouse in Virginia and the river rose and everything was destroyed. The whole business was gone and no insurance. But you know, we picked ourselves up and moved on and then like five or six years later or seven years later we decided to try it again. And thank God that one became very successful.
At that point I was in the tech business, it was all technology and I had to learn. As you get older it’s not so easy to learn new things but I was always open-minded to figure out what the next new thing is. So when we were doing very well in the e-commerce business, somebody came to us and said, “Could you help me ship my merchandise? I need a warehouse.” We had room in our warehouse, so we brought them in and we started doing that. Then other people came and said, “Could you do it for us too?” So we started this new 3PL business which is, thank God, doing very well.
Victor M. Braca: What does 3PL mean?
Cookie Falack: Means we ship merchandise for third parties—third-party logistics business. We opened our warehouse to other companies that we would ship for. Then we opened another larger facility in California and we’re doing pretty good with that. It’s very interesting because I had no idea what 3PL was a few years ago too. If you asked me 10 years ago what’s 3PL I would think it was some kind of a robot or something.
Then from that business we partnered with the software company that does all the logistics. We’re not so involved in that software business but my nephew is. He takes a lot of pride in that company because they’re very unique. They’re growing very fast and thank God it’s been working out.
Then you asked me about my other businesses besides the real estate and investments. One day I was on vacation with a friend of mine and he was telling me about Montana. I said, “Montana sounds like a great thing.” He says, “I think Bozeman, Montana is going to be the next new thing in terms of real estate.” So we went, looked around and we found a property in Bozeman, Montana because I told him, “If you do it, I’m in. I want to be your partner.” So he found this property and we bought it to build affordable homes because they didn’t have anywhere for the workers to live and the place was growing very rapidly.
We had to make a lot of different contacts within the government to get all the approvals. So, we went to Bozeman and we met with the governor. We’re sitting in the governor’s house and we’re just chatting, trying to navigate through all the red tape. He started telling me that he comes from the tech world. So, I said, “You know, it’s funny. I’m involved with a company that makes photonic chips.”
Victor M. Braca: Laser chips?
Cookie Falack: These are the chips that they use for AI and for quantum computing. I invested in this company and I became very close to the CEO. He tells me, “This is Bozeman, Montana. We just got designated as the photonics chip center of the United States.” I said, “Oh my God, what a coincidence.”
He says, “Well, why don’t you build it here? We have all the infrastructure.” So I called my partner in from Israel. I said, “Get on a plane. I’m taking you to Bozeman, Montana.”
He says, “What? Bozeman, Montana?”
I said, “Yep, get on a plane. Come. We’re going.” So, we built a team to do this project. We went to Bozeman and they loved us. They gave us real red carpet treatment because the governor recommended it. Then we were going to partner with the university there.
As time was going on we saw that things were really going to be much slower and it was going to take much longer than we expected. So in the interim, we went partners with the photonic chip company in Israel to build factories here in the United States. And as time went on, we got a phone call from somebody that said, “We have this running factory in New Jersey and we want to vacate the factory. Do you guys want it?” They manufacture chips. So, it worked out where if we took that factory, we would save three or four years of building a facility and we would be ahead of the market because what we have is brand new technology.
So, that’s basically what we’re doing. I got involved in a world that 10 years ago I wouldn’t have even known existed. Actually, when I met the guy from this new photonics company and he was talking to me about the chip and the whole thing, I didn’t even know what he was talking about. It was like as if he was talking Chinese. But I kept my mind open and I learned and I figured out what’s involved, and thank God it’s all about keeping your mind open to new things. That’s it. If you want to be successful you have to be open to anything.
Victor M. Braca: So we have the children’s retail store, the e-commerce facet of the business, the photonic chips, the real estate and other investments. Am I missing anything?
Cookie Falack: Oh, the logistics.
Victor M. Braca: Logistics. Okay. Take me back to the beginning for you. I know that you were 14 years old when you started working for your father on Fifth Avenue in his store. First off, why did you work at 14 years old?
Cookie Falack: My father woke me up in the morning and said, “Come on, get dressed. We’re going to work.”
Victor M. Braca: Was this on Sundays?
Cookie Falack: Actually in those days we worked on Saturdays. So we worked Saturdays and some Sundays. Sundays wasn’t a big thing for us in those days; most stores were closed. But yeah, Saturdays—if I had a day off on a holiday like Columbus Day or Veterans Day, any day we didn’t have school, I would be in the store.
Victor M. Braca: And what did your dad sell in that store?
Cookie Falack: So he sold objects of art and fine linens and regular art paintings and jewelry. He was like the first of the Syrian retail stores but much more upscale. We had very famous celebrities that used to shop in the store and we sold jades and ivories and porcelain.
Victor M. Braca: As a 14-year-old did you see that as the thing that you would do for the rest of your life?
Cookie Falack: Yes. At that point, that’s what I knew. That was the world that I was brought into. It was all about being around very wealthy people. The customers were all very wealthy and Fifth Avenue was the place to be—we were right across the street from Saks Fifth Avenue. Actually my father and his brothers bought the building on Fifth Avenue and I figured that’s where we’re going to be for the rest of my career.
Victor M. Braca: Guys, there’s a very good chance you found out about Momentum through Kosher Media. These guys are the premier advertisers throughout Jewish communities all over the world. Momentum currently has however many thousands of listeners per episode. David and the Kosher Media team have been helping me expand my reach for over a year now. They have dozens of Instagram accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers, tens of thousands of contacts for email and text blast. Whatever it is you’re trying to advertise, call Kosher Media. It’s an amazing experience working with them and I promise you will not regret it. Guys, https://www.google.com/search?q=koshermedia.com. Tell David I sent you and let’s get back to the episode. Did you go to college?
Cookie Falack: I did. I went to Brooklyn College. I went to college for two years and the end of my second year is when all the riots broke out during the Vietnam War. There were a lot of protests and I got involved in that. I certainly didn’t want to go to Vietnam. So, we were protesting the war and my father caught wind of me protesting with guys like Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin and he said, “This is stopped for you. You’re not going to school anymore. You’re coming to work.” So, that’s basically what I did. I left school after two years. Then he told me that they rented the building and they’re closing the stores.
Victor M. Braca: At this point, you’re 20 years old?
Cookie Falack: Yeah, I was maybe 20 years old. I had nowhere to go. My father wasn’t feeling well when we were closing the store, so that responsibility was mine to open up a warehouse and move the merchandise. It took about a month and now it was the summertime and I just needed to relax because we were working 18 hours a day at that point. There were some nights that I would have to sleep on the floor in the warehouse. That’s how bad it was. Moving all that merchandise over was just a big task.
Sitting on the beach one day, my cousin came over to me—Stanley Chera—he said, “I hurt my eye and I need to go to work. Could you drive me to work? I know you’re not doing anything now.”
So I said, “Sure.”
He said, “I’ll give you whatever it was $50 a day.”
I said, “Okay, that sounds like good money.” I just couldn’t sit in the car and wait for him, so I went and worked in the store and got my hands dirty. All of a sudden after a few weeks, he made me manager of the store.
Victor M. Braca: What type of store was it?
Cookie Falack: A small children’s wear store in Newark, New Jersey. It was almost the size of this room, that’s how big it was. But we did a lot of business. I said, “Wow, this is so easy. I could do this myself.” So after a while, I decided to open my own store with $15,000. I had no other money. I went and it was right before Thanksgiving. I took some of that money for key money to get the lease and the rest of it was about $2,000 left. I bought wood, made shelves, and went out and bought toys on credit. The guys gave me credit. We sold every last toy by Christmas Day.
Victor M. Braca: Where was the store?
Cookie Falack: In Jamaica Avenue. That was my first store in Queens. After that, there was no merchandise left, so I said, “Okay, now I’m going to take the money.” We made a lot of money that season. I bought clothing from the market and the rest is history.
Victor M. Braca: You were how old when you opened your store?
Cookie Falack: 20. I had opened a first store, actually a department store, with my father and my uncle and we just couldn’t get along after a year. My uncle was a very tough guy. So, I left that and that’s when I went and opened my own store.
Victor M. Braca: You’re 20. What does it look like opening up a store from scratch?
Cookie Falack: I knew the game plan to source vendors because I did that first in the department store. I was hungry and I wanted to learn and that’s what I did. I went to Chicago and bought housewares. I went and bought warehouses full of closeouts. I used that knowledge and opened up my own store.
Victor M. Braca: You still have it today?
Cookie Falack: I still have it today. 50-something years later. But that store when we first opened it was like a small mama-papa store, 1,800 square feet. But we ran it so well that we became very popular. I remember one day I came into the store and I see my father with a hammer and he’s breaking down a wall. I said, “What are you doing?”
He says, “We’re going to open the second floor. We need more space.” He actually ripped down the wall with his own bare hands and put the staircase up. We opened the second floor, then the basement, and it still wasn’t enough space. Then we bought the building next door to us.
Victor M. Braca: When did you buy the initial building?
Cookie Falack: I think we were there for about a year and a half or two years. The landlord came to us and said, “You want to buy the building?”
We didn’t have enough money. My father says, “Anytime you have a chance to buy the building, we buy the building.” So it was $125,000 in those days. We figured it out and we bought that building. Then probably seven or eight years later we bought the building next door and expanded behind us.
Victor M. Braca: When did you open up more locations?
Cookie Falack: I would say the second location was probably six years after the first location. My brother-in-law needed a business—we take care of our family—so we said let’s open up a store and we’ll go partners with him. Then my other brother-in-law needed a business, so we opened up a third store. In the interim they left the business and went on their own, and we kept the stores going and we kept expanding.
Victor M. Braca: How does it work when you’re going from one retail location to 10? Is there a franchising model?
Cookie Falack: We never thought about that. As a matter of fact, we were very slow to grow our business and to expand into new stores because we needed to know that we would be able to control it. I wasn’t going to open up a store just to fail. We needed to make sure we had the right proper help. We expanded within ourselves. Going from an 1,800 square foot store to a 60,000 square foot store in the same location—that’s expanding, but it’s within your own realm. So we were able to control it and not open 12 more stores and lose control.
Victor M. Braca: Was the vision to open up a significant amount of stores?
Cookie Falack: No. The vision was to open more stores as we were able to. I remember when a store became available on Fulton Street. It was much bigger than any other stores we had, probably 75,000 square feet. It was an opportunity we couldn’t refuse. I convinced my brothers that we should take the store. “What, are you crazy? It’s too big for us.” But we did and that store probably helped put us where we are today.
Victor M. Braca: When I started Momentum I did it because I love talking to business people. I wanted to inspire people with real stories—stories of how people built something from nothing. But what I didn’t expect, not in a million years, is how much those episodes would mean to the families of my guests. I’ve had people reach out to me and tell me, “Victor, I watched my dad’s episode three times. Thank you for capturing a piece of him forever.”
And that’s what led me to start Life Vault Films, guys. It’s a way to professionally capture your parents or grandparents or your full life story from where they were born to how they built their life, their family, their business, all of it on film forever. It’s not a tribute, it’s not a slideshow; it’s them telling their story in their own voice so that your grandchildren and great-grandchildren can know them, too. Imagine you felt like you knew your great-great-grandmother. Wouldn’t it be amazing to see her smile and hear her voice? That’s what Life Vault Films gives you. Click the link in the description to learn more. Because stories fade unless we capture them. Let’s get back to the episode.
Your brothers didn’t want to open up over there because it was too big?
Cookie Falack: They were afraid of the competition. There were threats at the time from other people on the street that didn’t want us to open. I saw that as a great opportunity. The rent wasn’t too bad and the street was the best street in New York at the time. That opportunity doesn’t come around more than once in a lifetime, so we ended up doing it and that propelled us.
Victor M. Braca: Did you always have the mindset of seize every opportunity even if you’re not ready?
Cookie Falack: No. I always wanted to make sure that I was ready. You could have great ideas, but when you bite off more than you can chew, that’s what hurts people. You have to have an open mind, but you got to weigh the consequences. You have to do it within reason.
Victor M. Braca: How many stores do you have today?
Cookie Falack: Today we have five retail stores. We had six, but one of them we actually built the building from scratch—a whole block in the Bronx, 80,000 square feet. After maybe six years, Burlington made us an offer that was too good to be true. We could never make that much money running the store than we could from renting it out to them. So we rented it to them on a long lease.
Victor M. Braca: Are the partners all family members?
Cookie Falack: Only myself and my two brothers. We started out from the beginning. I was 23, my brother was 18. When we opened that first store, I didn’t think I was going to be even enough for one family to live off of, but he asked me to be partners. I said, “Okay, come. We’re not going to be able to make a lot of money, but we’ll do it together.”
Victor M. Braca: Was there any other time that you had to close down a store?
Cookie Falack: We closed the second store we opened, Pumpkins, because that neighborhood changed. The landlord doubled our rent and it didn’t pay to stay. The neighborhood used to be all Italian and then they all of a sudden they became Russian and Chinese and they didn’t spend money. So we ended up closing that store.
Victor M. Braca: Can you tell me about a time where the entire business went through a period of failure?
Cookie Falack: In over 50 years, you go through cycles. The one I really remember was early on. We were in Jamaica and they decided to take down that elevated train right above our store. The construction was—it basically almost put us out of business because people couldn’t even walk on the street.
Victor M. Braca: What”d you do about that?
Cookie Falack: We just did the best we could. We built a good reputation and we became a destination. People needed children’s clothes, they knew to come to us. A lot of other stores on the block failed. It took about three years to get that elevator all done and the construction finished, and after that the street came alive again.
Victor M. Braca: Was there ever a consideration to shift completely into the real estate business as opposed to selling product?
Cookie Falack: Yeah, there was. But my business was almost like a child and I just couldn’t give up on my kid. I love my business. We brought it up from a baby. It’s been good to us all these years.
Victor M. Braca: At what point did you get into e-commerce? You guys were pretty early to the game.
Cookie Falack: We were too early the first time. Way too early. At that point it was dial-up and computers were much different. That must have been early 90s. We made a deal with AOL. I actually went to their headquarters in Virginia and made a deal where we were the exclusive seller of school uniforms or children’s clothes. But circumstances were just not in our favor. We lost a lot of money because the deal cost us a lot and we lost inventory during the hurricane. I just gave up at that point and said stick to retail.
Then my nephew Alan, my brother Marvin’s son, finished school and said, “I need something to do.” He said, “Let me try and do the e-commerce.” I said, “Well, Al, we did it once before and it didn’t work.” He says, “Well, things are different now.” So we did. We started off slow. That was the late 90s, beginning of 2000. Like anything else, it takes time. We didn’t know what we were doing in the beginning. We were shipping out of our stores—the girls were picking merchandise off the floor. Then it grew into something and we took the place in Pennsylvania.
Victor M. Braca: Why?
Cookie Falack: Because now we’re not just picking merchandise off the floor. Now we had a real organized warehouse with labeled bins. Then we got into robotics. Everything just led into everything else—like real estate led to the business in Montana, which led us to building a factory in New Jersey. I think most of it has to do with Hashem’s help. But you got to work alongside Him. You can’t just expect Hashem to give and sit back. I always felt as though I needed to be Hashem’s partner in this.
Victor M. Braca: How do you learn about an entirely new industry? Do you immerse yourself personally in it?
Cookie Falack: I didn’t immerse myself in the logistics business from the beginning. My brother called me and said, “I have a friend that needs help. He wants us to ship merchandise for him.” That’s really how it started. He was doing a favor. Then they saw that we were doing it very efficiently. I didn’t spend a lot of my time in Pennsylvania but I did guide them in important decisions.
Victor M. Braca: How do you budget your team’s time when it comes to these new verticals? Do you hire a new person to figure out a new industry?
Cookie Falack: We’ve always liked to promote people from within. We had people that worked as a stock clerk who became managers of our largest store.
Victor M. Braca: You told me about Genesis, the Israeli technology company idea. Tell me about that.
Cookie Falack: About five years ago, during COVID, I have a friend who’s a visionary. He says, “I want to build a company that deals in Israeli technology, but I want it to be humanitarian. I want to only promote companies if it helps humanity.”
I said, “You know what? That’s a pretty good idea. If you can get this off the ground, I’m your partner.” Six months later, he called me and said, “I think we’re going to do it.” He had another partner in Israel, Ronnie, to be the boots on the ground.
Victor M. Braca: What type of partner were you if you didn’t know anything about the tech industry?
Cookie Falack: It was just identifying companies in Israel that needed to navigate their way into the United States.
Victor M. Braca: Most people wouldn’t have taken that step because they don’t know anything about it.
Cookie Falack: Exactly. But that’s why I always say you have to have an open mind. I was 70 years old and here I am starting a new business. He calls me and says, “How do you like the name Genesis?” because it’s Bereshit. We were four partners at the time and four years later, we’re probably 85 members of this group. Every one of these projects we take on, we really feel like we’re improving not just the company but contributing to bettering humanity.
Victor M. Braca: What would be your guiding advice to young entrepreneurs who are hesitant?
Cookie Falack: Trust your gut. Your soul knows what you really want to do if you just listen to yourself. Follow your instinct and don’t waver from it.
Victor M. Braca: In the different businesses you’ve been in, you’ve dealt with a lot of people. Do you have any negotiation tactics?
Cookie Falack: My biggest strength in business was being honest and being fair. When I used to go in to negotiate, I would know the value of the merchandise. There was no haggling. I wanted them to make money also. There was a time when I would walk into someone’s showroom and they wouldn’t even give me the price—they were telling me just put the price that you want. They trusted me to put the price I was willing to pay. And 99% of the time they accepted it because I was being fair.
Victor M. Braca: I never heard that before—the buyer names the price.
Cookie Falack: Right, and I don’t think you’ll hear it again. They just trusted me. Choosing the people you want to work with is key. Choosing the companies because of the people that are running them was something I felt very strongly about.
Victor M. Braca: Should people follow their passion?
Cookie Falack: I always did. Unless the passion has a big negative connotation, yes.
Victor M. Braca: Are you passionate about children’s clothing?
Cookie Falack: I’m passionate about children. When I first got into the business I said, “What could be better than this? Giving to all the needs of the kids.”
Victor M. Braca: And do you think you’re also passionate about the business end of it—deal making and negotiating?
Cookie Falack: Yep. It’s always very rewarding to come out of a negotiation and see that you accomplished something you set out to accomplish.
Victor M. Braca: A lot of young people have this inner conflict—safe job vs. chasing a passion.
Cookie Falack: If you’re young enough, you should always chase that passion because if you don’t, you’ll have regrets later. If you’re not young enough and you have a family to take care of, there’s a responsibility to make sure you’re going to succeed, so you take the path leading to the highest return.
Victor M. Braca: Why go above and beyond in giving back?
Cookie Falack: I think it makes us feel good. We need to be in the mindset of helping each other. Outside of our community, I think civilization is losing that. But what we have here is unique and we need to keep it going and empower our community.
Victor M. Braca: What’s your requirement for people who want to get involved with Genesis?
Cookie Falack: We require that they give back. If they make money they have to give a portion to charity. We require it.
Victor M. Braca: Powerful. You said you succeeded because you always tried to be at the forefront. When hip-hop clothing became hot, you were the first to have it. How do you keep a religious mindset while working hard?
Cookie Falack: If you’re going to sit back and wait for Hashem to give you something just because… you don’t deserve to get it. Hashem wants to know that you are a partner in this. He’s going to give you, but you got to work for it. You can’t just sit back because most of the time that’s not going to happen. When you work hard for something, you love it and you respect the fact that you worked hard for it.
Victor M. Braca: I was thinking “Cookie” is a good name for a children’s wear founder.
Cookie Falack: That was my name since I’m two months old. My legal name is Jack. Very few people know that. I didn’t know it until I was in school when the teachers thought I had a hearing problem when I wouldn’t answer when they called Jack. My aunt came to visit when I was two months old, looked at me in the crib and told my mother, “Wow, he’s really a Cookie.” And that name stuck.
Victor M. Braca: What would you pinpoint as your momentum moment?
Cookie Falack: I think when I got married. I was madly in love with my wife and I just wanted to do whatever I could to make her life the best it could be. So that really propelled me. The second moment was when my first child was born. We had trouble having kids in the beginning. When she was born, there was nothing in the world I wasn’t going to do to make her life the best. My kids and my grandkids, that’s my motivation. I never really needed anything for myself; I’m not a showy guy.
Victor M. Braca: I think we covered a lot.
Cookie Falack: I never ever expected to be on a podcast! It’s like starting a new business, something I never dreamed about.
Victor M. Braca: I’m very happy we got you here. Thank you really for coming and sharing your story.
Cookie Falack: I have to say I really enjoyed you. I think you’re an amazing guy and in 25 years from now, we’re going to be interviewing you because you’re going to be very successful. You have what it takes to be a leader.
Victor M. Braca: I hope you’re right. Thank you for coming. I really think we could do another interview in five years because there’s going to be a whole new hour of things to talk about. All right, Cookie. Thank you.
That wraps up this episode with Cookie Falack, guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Here are my top three takeaways from our conversation.
First, jump at opportunities for growth. Cookie was the first to enter the e-com space at a time when most companies were going out of business. He expanded his net worth by buying the buildings his stores were in, and he seized the chance to take over a 75,000-foot store even when his brothers thought it was too risky.
But second, and this should act as a counterbalance, don’t grow too quickly. Make sure you can handle the bandwidth. Cookie explained that while other companies rushed to open new stores, he and his brothers expanded more cautiously. They chose to grow existing locations rather than chasing dozens of new ones they couldn’t properly manage. Don’t bite off more than you can chew.
And third, guys, trust that God is with you, but you have to put in the work. Don’t just throw your hands up and say, “It’s all up to God.” As Cookie mentioned, God wants to know that you’re His partner in the process. You have to put in the effort and do everything in your power to make it succeed. Only then does the blessing come.
If you enjoyed this episode, you’re going to love my conversation with Joey Shamie. Joey is the co-president of Delta Children, the largest manufacturer of children’s furniture in the world. Joey shares how Delta became an industry leader and how he balances running a massive company with his philanthropic efforts. Check that out on any platform or search Momentum Joey Shamie. Thank you so much for watching and until next time.
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