{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Making It with Jess Ekstrom","title":"From the Locker Room to Oprah's List: How Cookie Society Built a Cult Following on Grit, Data, and Really Good Cookies","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2555,"description":"Have you ever started something just to make people happy — and accidentally built a business? Have you ever landed your biggest dream moment (hi, Oprah) and found yourself on the other end of it crying... because the crates broke?Marissa Allen knows both sides of that coin intimately. She didn't set out to be a founder. She was an NFL wife, a former college soccer player, a stay-at-home mom of two tiny humans (one of whom was six months old, crawling around the kitchen), and someone who just really loved baking cookies for her husband's teammates on the Houston Texans. It was a teammate trying to buy those cookies that planted the seed. She was reluctant. Her husband wasn't.What followed wasn't a clean, linear launch story. It was a $5,000 website (the ancient kind where you still typed in your credit card), a rented commercial kitchen at $20 an hour, Sunday baking marathons, and Monday morning 6 AM flights back from Kansas City with two kids in tow. Today, Cookie Society is a multi-location, nationally shipping, Oprah's Favorite Things-certified, cult-followed gourmet cookie brand with 88 employees — and a breakfast-only March menu that people literally line up overnight to get. They didn't build it by throwing money at it. They built it by doing every single job themselves first, scaling incrementally, and trusting the data.Tune In For:How Marissa accidentally launched a business by baking for NFL locker rooms and getting an offer she almost turned downWhy opening during a global pandemic was actually grace — and what would have happened if they'd gone full send without itThe Taylor Swift ticket strategy: how Cookie Society created a holiday around scarcity, seasonal drops, and Cinnamon Roll Sundays to drive demand most brands only dream aboutDaily tears behind Oprah's Favorite Things — the collapsed wooden crates, the angry emails, the call from New York, and the lesson that even your biggest win can bring you to your kneesWhy Marissa knows less now than when...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/UeJn2_qX0SbHd9je8M1i3xYiHk_fwyHMoyDCBRs8oF8/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9mNTBk/MGE4MGJlZWNlNDM5/ZjAxOTM5MzA2ODI3/MzUwMS5wbmc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}