Small Business Summit Center

Sarah Endline, sweetriot

[I met Sarah Endline at lunch during the Summit. Good luck — or a sixth sense for chocolate — drew me to her table, where she was passing out her tiny chocolates. We talked later about her business. - Andrew]

AB: One of the things that grabbed me about your product was the nifty little tin. Tell me what was going on in your head when your team designed the package.

SE: I used product design methods I learned at Yahoo! that really focus on the consumer and what the world trends are going on around us. For instance, we live in a highly mobile on the go culture and I wanted it to be easy for individuals to carry the product. I also believe in connecting with the community and thus the artwork is featured on each tin. Finally, I wanted people to have a guiltless pleasure, so we made the product in a small, controllable, low calorie portion.

AB: Running a small business for the first time means lots of new challenges. What part of entrepreneurship have you worked hardest on?

SE: One area is certainly managing the capital process – however, I’ve learned this is about more than just cash capital – there are numerous forms of capital including human capital, partner capital, customer capital and more. All of them take time to oversee and one of the key jobs of an entrepreneur is ensuring you have enough resources marshalled towards your cause.

AB: What would you do if you weren't in business for yourself?

SE: I honestly never think about it – it’s thrilling to be an entrepreneur, and I don’t have any plans to do otherwise. It’s such an engaging job that you don’t really plan what may come next – the business itself is captivating. In the future, I do see myself investing in other entrepreneurs, traveling, and personally giving back to the community.

Here's a Today show video with Sarah…

Business Bio

Today, Sarah Endline is creating sweetriot - the world's greatest candy company with a global social mission as well as fantastic, delicious, all-natural consumer products based on the cacao (chocolate) bean.

Sarah launched sweetriot in late 2005, and its products are already sold in over 1,500 stores including Whole Foods, Balducci's, Pier 1, Zingerman's, and Zabar's. sweetriot also owns the title of being the very first food product ever at the MoMA Design Store in NYC.

Sarah has grown sweetriot over 100% each year since its launch in 2005. In addition, Sarah continues to run an award winning company which has received the following awards over the past six months:

• Fortune Small Business Competition 2007, National Top 3 Winner
• Make Mine a Million 2007, Count Me In for Women's Economic Independence, National Awardee
• Official selection 2007 - Green Festival Film Fest - "sweetriot Goes to Sundance"
• Official selection 2007 - "SustainAbility: Design for a Better World(tm)" New York International Gift Fair
• Winner "Green" New Product Award 2007, Expo East Natural Products Expo

Sarah used to walk through the cornfield from her small-town home in Michigan to her grandparents' farm. Along the way, this is likely where her dreams of cacao began. However it was her drive and determination that turned those dreams into a "sweet" reality.

Despite the fact that her parents did not attend college they supported her decision to attend the University of Michigan for undergraduate degree. She was the first member of her family to attend graduate school and proudly received her MBA from Harvard Business School on scholarships.

After studying in Europe, Sarah's university thesis research took her to Hungary, Kenya, Pakistan, Thailand, Mexico, and Venezuela, which was the first time she circumnavigated the globe and saw Asia, Africa, and Latin America - one minute a safari at 6 am, the next minute salsa at midnight. She has lived, traveled and worked in more than 50 countries.

Sarah has launched products, created brands, founded and run organizations, and worked many places like Yahoo!, Microsoft, the World Bank, AIESEC, and The National Foundation for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE); Sarah loves the work at sweetriot best. Sarah has been an active member of many non-profit boards including those for NFTE, Harvard, UMichigan, and AIESEC.

She is an advocate of socially responsible business and cacao and has spoken at elite conferences and events around the world at Harvard Business School, Whole Foods, the University of Michigan, Net Impact, The Leadership Gathering, AIESEC, the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, and the GEL Design Conference. Sarah's entrepreneurial work has been covered by The Today Show, Forbes, Fortune, Crain's, Newsweek, Business Week, Gourmet Magazine, Time Out, Bloomberg TV, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Boston Globe, and more. sweetriot has been called out as a 'Sustainable Product & Green Gift' by Vanity Fair, CNN, Food & Wine.

Sarah is an avid New Yorker - she loves the Parks - Bryant, Central, and Washington Square are her favorites, and she adores off Broadway and Broadway theater. She also loves drives up the Hudson River during the autumn and just walking around her Village neighborhood and taking in the eclectic hum of the city. Although she grew up in a small farm-town of 500, she has been in NYC since 1994 and can't imagine leaving.