The Inside Scoop: Jeni Britton on the Art of Entrepreneurship
Jeni Britton is the founder of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams and Floura & Co. She launched Jeni’s when she was only 22 years old, and since then has grown from its origins at a farmers market in Ohio into a national treasure, with over 80 scoop shops, pints available in over 12,200 grocery and retail locations, and revenues exceeding $125 million in 2023. Jeni’s ice cream is famous for its inventive and sensory-driven flavor combinations. More recently, Jeni launched Floura, a fiber-focused wellness brand crafting functional, plant-based bars that support digestive health and reduce food waste. Jeni has been featured on publications like Forbes, The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, NPR, MasterClass, and more. She truly embodies what it means to be an entrepreneur, so I am so excited to talk to her today to learn about her journey.
Lauren Stenger: For the very few people who may not know who you are, do you mind just giving a very brief introduction?
Jeni Britton: I'm Jeni, and I started the company Jeni’s Ice Creams when I was 22. I walked out of a college art class to make ice cream, and then I started in the farmers market a few months later and raised that company over 26 years. I recently was able to step away from Jeni’s over the last few years, and I've started a new company. It's called Floura, and we make dietary fiber from produce trimmings like apple cores and watermelon rinds here in New York. Jeni’s is in Ohio, and this company is based in New York, which is where I'm at right now. I'm really happy to talk to you, Lauren, and I love entrepreneurship so much. I'm such a champion of just the American dream of entrepreneurship.
Lauren Stenger: Do you mind talking a little bit about your upbringing? Was entrepreneurship something that you were interested in growing up, or is that something you developed later?
Was entrepreneurship something you were interested in growing up, or it is something you developed later?
Jeni Britton: I was definitely an entrepreneur from birth. I think a lot of people who are entrepreneurs will say that. I don't know how that all works, but it does feel sometimes genetic. It feels like it's a little voice inside of you from the time you were little that tells you can't just do things the normal way. What other people find very easy is very difficult for you. Following the rules, every single rule, doing tests, doing homework, standing in line, following everybody around school, those things were very difficult for me. I just thought, why is everybody doing this? Why would any human being born to this incredibly gorgeous world want to stand in a fluorescently lit prison-like-school? From the time I was in school, kindergarten on up, I just could not imagine why anybody would voluntarily do that. So that in itself, that idea of questioning everything, never feeling like I was I fit in, as I got older and as I became an entrepreneur and as I grew up, I realized every entrepreneur was born with that kind of rebellious quality, but it's something that we can't help. We have to build our own worlds. And that is literally like the definition in many ways of entrepreneurship.
“I don’t know how that all works, but it does feel sometimes genetic. It feels like it’s a little voice inside of you from the time you were little that tells you can’t just do things the normal way.”
Lauren Stenger: So back when you were 22, I'm 22 so that's crazy to think about, where was your mind at when you were contemplating starting this ice cream company? I think it was Scream initially, right?
Where was your mind at when you were contemplating starting this company?
Jeni Britton: Yeah, it was called Scream. I was studying art at Ohio State University, and I was taking all the classes that I wanted to take. First of all, I did not get into Ohio State University in my first pass. As I've mentioned before, I did not do well in high school. I did not do well really in school in general. I also sort of gamed the system a bit; I just didn't like being in school. I liked working, and I had a job. I just made it so that I could barely pass, and I did this kind of on purpose. I actually was very good at doing tests. I would get A's on tests, but then I never did homework, ever. I had never done homework from kindergarten through 12th grade, and I grew up in a family that was very accepting of that. They weren't helping me do my homework every night or whatever. I just never did homework.
My mom actually didn't like homework. She thought it was wrong, that kids when they're home should be home and roaming around the streets and out in the backyard and playing and things like that. And so anyways, I hadn't done homework my entire life, but I did very well on tests. So I kind of gamed that and it didn't bother me, even though I went to a very high performing high school. I moved almost every year, but by the time I got to high school, I went my last two years to the same high school, and it was a very high performing college. All of the kids were very good at doing homework, very good at staying in the lines except me it felt like, and a couple other art kids that I hung out with. I managed to basically get straight Ds or Cs, just enough to graduate and I just kind of always knew I'd be on my own.
When I applied to Ohio State, first of all, my counselors at my high school were like, “You'll never go to college. This is not going to be for you. Maybe you started community college if you really want to, but it's probably not for you. Like, it's pretty clear you do not like school”. So that just kind of riled me. I just sort of felt like, you know what, if I want to, I will. Like, why are you telling me that? So a couple of years later, I applied to Ohio State University, and of course they were like, no thanks, we don't accept straight D students. I wrote them a letter of appeal, not knowing that there was an official appeal process necessarily, but I wrote them a letter. I can't even remember what was in the letter. It was handwritten. It was not even on a computer, which yes, I had a computer at the time.
A few weeks later, I got a letter in the mail that said I could come fall quarter and so that was pretty cool on its own. It's part of that idea of no is never no. I mean, you know, yes, obviously there are instances where the door is closed. Most people turn around when they hear a no, especially from a system of authority or an institution like Ohio State University or any number of them in my life that have said no to me. I have learned, and now I'm almost 52 this month, so now I can look back at my life and be like, yeah that's really the thread that connects everything is that I literally never took no for finished. That is just one example of that.
I went to Ohio State University, and I was studying everything I wanted to study. Because I didn't really have family that was like hounding me to get a degree, I was just taking everything. I mean, I took everything from vampire folklore to art. I also was dating this guy in the chemistry department. He's French and was amazing, and I learned more from him and his culture than I at that time than almost anything else. He was bringing me vials of scent, because whatever it was that he was working on had something to do with scent, and I decided that I should become a perfumer, and maybe that was how I should use this art.
I started to think how can art be scent and how can scent be art? Long story short, I started to use ice cream as a carrier of scent. What happened, and the point I'm really trying to make here, is because I was on this journey which made no sense to anyone else outside of me and would have never made sense to any counselor or parent today, but it all coalesced because I was following all the things that I was interested in. All of my curiosities came together, and I found this new way into ice cream that nobody had ever sort of thought of before, or not in that way. I started to think of ice cream as a carrier of scent, and I started to make ice cream from that perspective.
Six months later, I walked out of Ohio State University and started my first company in the farmer's market called Scream. I was using all of this stuff from the market, sweet basil or rose petals, to steep in ice cream. At the time, you have to imagine too, this was in the in the mid 90s. America did not need more ice cream. Ben and Jerry's was huge, they were just becoming this really big company. I already thought they were kind of, you know, the other generation. We had famous ice creams in Ohio. Nobody needed more ice cream. It'd be like somebody starting a granola company now. Nobody needs another granola company, there's too many out there. But the right one with the right way in, we do need. So you have to find your way in. You have to find your specific unique thing. And for me, it was ice cream as scent, ice cream as story, ice cream as art, and can I make an ice cream company that speaks to the people like my generation and my people, which were all the punk rock kids, the skateboarders, all the kids that weren't going to the traditional ice cream store. That became Jeni’s over time. So that was a way of to get there.
“Ice cream as scent, ice cream as story, ice cream as art.”
Lauren Stenger: That's so interesting. And I feel like your flavors, as you were kind of saying, you're really able to differentiate yourself because of these really high-end, unique, fun, creative flavors that have a lot of thought and intention into them. I'm sure that takes a very creative person to create these amazing, unique blends that people have never even really heard of. So how does creativity, how has that played a role for you in your personal life and being a businesswoman. What does creativity look like in your life?
What does creativity look like in your life?
Jeni Britton: Well first of all, as an entrepreneur it was actually better for me to study perfuming and vampire folklore and the French Revolution and sociology and art and art history and learn how to write and communicate and think and see patterns in the world than it was for me to study business. No to say that business isn't important because our entire team that we build are the people who study business. You have to have that foundation. But it's important to learn how people think and how to inspire people I'm saying this right now, I forget the question you actually asked, but that's what it led me to say.
Lauren Stenger: It was just about creativity.
Jeni Britton: Yeah, so yes, exactly. So when you think about the idea of creativity, and everybody thinks about it in a different way, a lot of people I've found see creativity as a mystical thing that you're born with. And a lot of people relate it to art, design, the experience of the senses. Actually, creativity is a way of thinking. From a business point of view, I love to point out that the most creative people are the people who can do the most with the least, right? In any profession that you are in, if you're doing the most with the least, you're probably adding story to something, you're adding emotion to something, you're motivating people, you're doing these things that don't cost anything, but they're very powerful. Right? And that is creativity. We need creativity in business, we need creativity in law enforcement, in parenting, teachers, in every single element of our society. So thinking about creativity from that place of almost efficiency, right? Because efficiency is making the most with the least. That's actually finance, removing complexity and making the most with the least.
Lauren Stenger: Yeah, trying to generate the greatest output with a minimal input.
Jeni Britton: High impact, low effort is literally what business is. But it's also what creativity is. Not to say that artists aren't putting effort in. It's just that even artists are confined to the canvas. You have boundaries. One thing creativity is definitely not is no boundaries. People think you just throw things at the wall and see what sticks, and you have no guardrails. It's absolutely not that. The tighter the guardrails, the more creative you have to be. The better you are at creativity. So the guardrails of business are obviously your resources, which can be financial, but they can also be geographical. Making a business in Ohio is different than making a business in Brooklyn or in New York. So anyway, so you have to just be very aware of your resources.
Lauren Stenger: Do you feel like people are born with an amount of creativity or do you feel like it's something you can work on and practice? Is that something that you have to kind of work on to make sure you have a strong sense of creativity?
Do you feel like people are born with a certain amount of creativity, or do you feel like it's something you can work on?
Jeni Britton: There is a sense that people are born with creativity and that's where you get this idea that it's like mystical. People tell me all the time, you would do this even if you weren't getting paid. It's not true. People think it's like a calling. I reject that completely. I do think that creativity is a muscle, and anyone can start doing that at any time. We are actually in a time, my opinion here, of very low creativity. Very low creative thinking because nobody wants to stand out as different. But, what makes you different is what makes you interesting. It's what gives you your advantage.
“Whatever happens today that is different, what you didn’t expect and you had to adapt to, that is your memory of today.”
But also even more than that, whatever happens today that is different, what you didn't expect and you had to adapt to, that is your memory of today. You will not remember today if something different and unexpected doesn't happen to you. Even when we think about time, and how we process time and how we process our lives and whether we live a life well lived, it's always about what happened today. What did I make happen that's new, that expanded me, that made me think. So you open your phone and see the same stuff over and over again and we're in that rhythm.
It's like working with that idea of how do you make memories even for other people? In ice cream, that's really what it's about. How do you slow time? You slow time by telling them something about their ice cream, getting them to think like, I never thought about vanilla bean like that, that it could have a note of jasmine and leather and smoke, but it's delicious. It kind of has these beautifulness. You slow people down by telling them something unexpected. And believe me, that's all of Jeni’s in a nutshell, how we created our company. It's being there with people and thinking not about the ice cream but thinking about how you make somebody slow people down to experience the ice cream. But also, we know that you're on a date. Whether it's with your best friend or your grandmother or somebody who's a potential love interest, maybe if we can slow you down, you can have a little more of a conversation with them. And then when they leave, that memory is solidified. So anyway, this is all connected, it's all very complex. I think we're in this reductionist time of life, of human development, and we forget how beautifully rich and complex life can be and should be.
“That’s all of Jeni’s in a nutshell, how we created our company. It’s being there with people and thinking not about the ice cream but thinking about how you make somebody slow people down to experience the ice cream. ”
Lauren Stenger: That's so interesting. I was going to ask about memory kind of in a different lens. I feel like scent and ice cream are so strongly tied to nostalgia and memory. I'm curious for you, like what does that look like in your own life? Like the role of like aroma and scent and evoking emotion, memory, past times. There's such a strong connection between scent and memory, so I'm just curious what that looks like for you.
What does the role of aroma and evoking emotion, memory, and past times looks like for you?
Jeni Britton: Scent goes up your nose and it's right next to your brain. We can only taste five things on our tongue: sweet, sour, bitter, salty, and then this other thing called umami that people don't really understand. I don't either. But everything else is in our brain or is in our olfactory, which is then in our brain. There are thousands of things we can smell. When you start mixing those together it becomes tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions even. I even heard that humans can differentiate like a trillion different scents. It's a lot. This is where I talk about complexity and this interbeing of everything. We are not even aware of the scent that is everywhere around us and how it impacts us, but it is impacting us. I love playing with that.
“We are not even aware of the scent that is everywhere around us, and how it impacts us, but it is impacting us. I love playing with that.”
We know that scent can become the next nostalgia too, when you're on a date having something new and then that becomes your memory. Many people go on dates and then even get engaged in our stores, and that flavors become their future nostalgia. But also, every flavor that we do, even if it's something you've never eaten before in ice cream, there's always an element of nostalgia. Even if we're doing something like roasted beets in ice cream, which we haven't done in a long time, but we used to do a lot. We will connect it with something that you know. Thinking about beets, well beets are very similar to carrots, but they're just hot pink. So, let's make a carrot cake only using beets, a bright pink carrot cake, but it's a beet cake. It's cream cheese, walnuts, all the spices and it's beets. You have a way in because if we don't have connection to it, if there's nothing recognizable, and believe me, I've done ice creams like that too before, people ignore it. You don't even process it. If you have a business idea, it can't be something so brand new that nobody knows how to process it. You have to have some element that connects with it, and then from there you can change something.
One of the things that was like that was actually Segway. I remember when they first started nobody really knew what to do with it. There was not a step in, and you have to step people into it. You have to create something that people understand. Over time, we figured it out, but I don't think we ever quite really figured out how to use those. And part of that was that there just wasn't something that connected deeply with us that we understood. They didn't connect it with skateboards or whatever. And they would have done better if they had connected that. I don't know. Maybe that's not a great analogy, but when they first started, people were like, I don't know what to do with that.
Lauren Stenger: I'm imagining that you're taking all of these perspectives and skills that you have to learn just from experience to your next company, Floura. What are some other really important things that you've learned at Jeni’s that you are brining bring to your new venture, Floura?
What are some other important things that you've learned at Jeni’s that you are bringing to your new venture, Floura?
Jeni Britton: It's interesting that you say that. We're making a dense fiber bar; it's somewhere between food and supplements. You're supplementing your fiber. Fiber is really, really important to us. Only 5% of Americans extra protein in our diet and need to supplement protein, but 95% of us actually need fiber. The whole world is bowing to this idea that we need protein, but most of us don't. Most of us though need fiber. Fiber feeds our microbiome, and our microbiome is actually responsible for every realm of our being, things like hope and optimism come from the chemicals that released by the microbes that live in your microbiome. So if you're not feeding those diverse fibers, not just single source fiber but diverse fibers, then you're not nurturing this garden inside of you that can help you in every realm of your being, literally on every front, whether it's mental, physical, emotional, and even this spiritual thing of hope.
“Things like hope and optimism come from the chemicals that released by the microbes that live in your microbiome. So if you’re not feeding those diverse fibers,... then you’re not nurturing this garden inside of you that can help you in every realm of your being...whether it’s mental, physical, emotional, and even this spiritual thing of hope.”
So we make fiber out of produce trimmings. We're using watermelon rinds and apple cores. We do this right outside of New York City at a big produce processing company, and they cut produce for Whole Foods, Trader Joe's and all these other companies. We can take the trim from that and make these products. It’s a pretty cool thing. But again, if you can't relate to people and if people don't have some kind of way into it, then it's just invisible. So the way that we did that was through design, of course, we have a sweet design, but also through scent. I wanted to make it feel nostalgic for people sort of to be like fruit leathers, like that candied fruit scent to it. They're all fruit flavors right now, we have chocolate coming out next year, but when you open a Floura bar, you smell it first. Our flavors are Brambleberry, Lavender, which is a Jeni’s flavor, Raspberry Rose. So when you open it, actually, it's really fun to be on a plane because you create a little cloud of this really lovely scent of lavender. So that's really important. When people eat it, they get this nice scent. It makes them feel bright and joyful.
Lauren Stenger: I like how you've been able to connect two seemingly very different companies, ice cream and nutritional bars, and create a connection via scent.
Jeni Britton: It’s so funny because you think they're not related, but I kind of feel like both of my companies I started to solve a problem in my own life. What Jeni’s solved was I wanted creativity, I wanted to do something creative, I wanted to be an entrepreneur. But also I needed to build my own world because I was I felt different I was very much an introvert. I liked to be sort of on my own. I just needed to build a world where I could make the rules and the standards and live in that world, which I did for 26 years and learn everything I know through that. So this idea of community really came from Jeni’s too of making my own community and attracting people to that. Then fiber came from a need for fiber. I realized that fiber can make me feel better on all fronts. And so I certainly learn more about that. I realized there's just not enough fiber companies out there. That's the other thing, if you're studying business or if you're in school or if you're not studying business, and especially if you're not studying business, whatever you need, somebody else probably needs that too. Keep digging into that because it could be a really great business idea.
Lauren Stenger: I want to go back to your early 20s when you were trying to find this world and this community. What was that like search process like? Do you feel like one step led to another and it all fell into place, or do you feel like there was a period of time where you were trying to search for what the right business would be? What was that like search process like and how was that time in your life emotionally? When we look back at a time it looks like everything kind of fit into place, but in the moment it could feel very daunting and overwhelming.
Going back your early 20s, what was that like search process like when you were trying to find this world and this community?
“I needed to make this work, and I was willing to put my whole life on the line to do it. Sometimes that struggle is the best thing actually, even though most want any of us to struggle. Struggle is good.”
Jeni Britton: It’s hard to have complete conviction, but once I found this idea of ice cream and scent that worked together, I projected it on the future and I could see a world. I could see this idea living in the world. Once I locked into that vision, I just kept taking steps and it just started to happen. I don't want to say that it was easy. I think sometimes, you need struggle and scarcity. So at the time I was on my own, my family had sort of broken up and I wasn't in contact with anybody. I was really struggling. I was living off of loans, and I also was working, and I was just on my own. That's really obviously very challenging as a young person. I needed it to work because it was my entire life on the line. Actually, having very little is an instigator. It makes you fight harder. There's something to that, that if you're sort of somebody who's just struggling, but you're a creative person and you've got a lot of hard work in you, understand that that is actually an advantage. It can be a major advantage. Whatever it is, whatever your disability is, we all have abilities and disabilities, it's actually weirdly also your superpower.
And for me, it was being on my own and having to fight to survive every day. So I wanted to do this ice cream idea. I wanted it to work, and I gave it everything that I could to make it work. I was telling everybody about it. I was having a dinner parties, making ice cream at home, and I was trying to find somebody who had a little bit of money who could help me start because I didn't have that. I ended up going into business with a friend. Her parents gave us a little bit of money for that first business. She had another business and so it ended up working out kind of great.
“Whatever your disability is, we all have abilities and disabilities, it’s actually weirdly also your superpower. And for me, it was being on my own and having to fight to survive every day.”
This is where hustle comes from, when you really don't have anything, you have to find the people who can help you. Help them with whatever they need that they help you. I mean you're really transacting on these very primal things. That was what I did. I knew it was the right thing for me, and I wanted it more than I wanted anything else. I wanted it more than I wanted a degree. I knew that if I was going to go into some corporate career, I would probably wither and die. I needed help. I needed to make this work, and I was willing to put my whole life on the line to do it. Sometimes that struggle is the best thing actually, even though most want any of us to struggle. Struggle is good.
If people think that you're not capable of it, that's awesome, because it becomes your rocket fuel. Business is so hard, starting something from nothing is really so hard. It's brutal and it's challenging. I love to say it's an adventure, but adventures hurt. It's not an adventure if it's easy. It's only an adventure if you literally break bones doing it. You have to understand that you're going to fight really hard for your ideas, and a lot of stuff is going go wrong, and you still have to the one sole fighter for it. Even as the company grew, even 10 or 15 years into it, I was still the only one who would put my life on the line for the company. And today, that's still true. Everybody else in the company is devoted to it, they care very deeply, but they don't care as much as I still do. It's the way that entrepreneurship works. You have to be willing to fight for your ideas.
Lauren Stenger: It's your concept. It's like your inner workings.
“If people think that you’re not capable of it, that’s awesome, because it becomes your rocket fuel.”
Jeni Britton: It almost becomes like your shadow. You can't separate from it. Especially my first business. Floura is a little different because my business coach and my business advisor founded the company together. We're thinking about it a little differently because we want to grow much faster and serve people faster. It's still very personal to both of us, but it's not the same as like, you know, being 22 and having to get this thing off the ground.
Lauren Stenger: What's a hard lesson you had to learn at Jeni’s that you're grateful for because it's going to help you have Floura?
What's a hard lesson you had to learn at Jeni’s that you're grateful for because it's going to help you have Floura?
Jeni Britton: Yes, you're right. Every day was something different, and I already mentioned that I was a shy person, introverted, high anxiety, very scared to be in public kind of person. Anyway, I loved serving people, but I didn't want to have to do a presentation. I would have died. Now I'm okay with all of this because it's been my whole life.
At some point, I realized the thing that I'm actually really good at is doing the hard shit. Actually suffering, you have to sort of see yourself as really good at feeling the pain and really good at being uncomfortable. That's what I'm good at, and I think all entrepreneurs will tell you that.
“At some point, I realized the thing that I’m actually really good at is doing the hard shit. Actually suffering, you have to sort of see yourself as really good at feeling the pain and really good at being uncomfortable.”
You put a table of entrepreneurs together and the one thing I know that we have in common is that we're all good at suffering. I'm also very good at having extreme amounts of joy. The highs are high; the lows are low. But, if you think of yourself like a soldier, that I'm really good at getting through it and at surviving, anxiety and all the stuff that you have to deal with becomes easier, right? Because you think of yourself like, I'm not going to let that stop me. I'm going to go through it and it's going to hurt. One speech I almost passed out on stage. I had to leave the stage; I blacked out. You know it's going to be hard, but you put yourself in the position to do it anyway. I'm in my 50s, and I look back and say that is what I got good at is doing hard stuff.
Lauren Stenger: You can’t teach that.
Jeni Britton: You can't, you have to just decide it in your core that I'm not going let being scared stop me. And in fact, I'm going to get good at being scared and taking the pain of that because that's how you overcome everything. So yes, all the stuff at Jeni’s that was in the early days was hard. I couldn't figure out how to get a permit, you know, you have to get so many different permits. All of that stuff was so overwhelming. Now I look back at that, and I think all that stuff was so easy. That was the hard thing of the day. There's always something, trying to figure out how to clean out a drain, how to get ice cream into the distribution.
Lauren Stenger: Shipping ice cream, it would probably melt.
Jeni Britton: Getting it over the Rocky Mountains, when you get into altitude it melts differently.
Lauren Stenger: The supply chain of all these ingredients.
Jeni Britton: Just getting distribution. Getting into grocery stores, you have to be in a distributor. So in order to get a distributor, you have to have an anchor grocery store, but you have to be selling before you can do that. So it's all heavy, hard, all almost impossible.
Then you have to deal with safety. Jeni’s had a recall in 2015, and that was not something we ever intended. We did the right thing. We recalled everything, and we prevented any kind of an outbreak. It was all okay, but it was the hardest thing we ever went through. But it ended up making us as a company because we realized we can really do really hard things. We can be dragged over the coal with our values intact, that our values are actually our values, because we've tested them.
So I would say none of it is easy, but when I say the lows are low, really truly the highs are equally as high. It is so incredibly fun and I wouldn't give up any of it. It was such an incredible adventure to do entrepreneurship and to found a company and to raise it. I wouldn't trade any of it. It is literally the most incredible thing ever. And life should be about adventure. I mean, if you're up for it.
Lauren Stenger: That definitely resonates with me. I'm agreeing with how you could never picture yourself doing the fluorescent lights.
Jeni Britton: That path is already carved. It's got fluorescent lights over it, but it's an easy path. It's structured, it's been done before. You can follow all the rules and go right down that path. And it's not that hard. Yeah, you have to work a lot, but it's not that hard. The hard part is showing up every day because it's boring, to me.
“But the other path which hasn’t been carved yet is the other one you’re talking about which means you have to get your machete and blowtorch out, and you have to carve it. That’s going to be with your whole being and that is a different kind of heart.”
But the other path which hasn't been carved yet is the other one you're talking about which means you have to get your machete and blowtorch out and you have to carve it. That's going to be with your whole being and that is a different kind of heart. So you're trading one for the other but actually when you carve your path what happens is kind of interesting because you get out your machete, you're carving this path out of the jungle, and it starts to work. Then, you look back and you realize all these other people are coming down your path because you carved it for them and now it's open as a path they can take. That’s actually kind of cool, but it's also kind of infuriating. But you know, to me it's a more fun life. Sometimes those paths that you carve don't work and you go carve another one and you just keep doing it. This is all a metaphor, but like it really is how it feels to do it. And it's much more fun, I think, for the right people. It's not for everybody, that's for sure.
Lauren Stenger: My final question for you is, where do you see yourself within the next five years?
Where do you see yourself within the next 5 years?
Jeni Britton: I'm going to be 52 this month. When I was your age, I would have thought that that would be like grandma territory, like my back is hurting, like I'm probably, I don't know, wearing ugly sweaters or whatever. And maybe that was the way it was for people when I was young. It's not like that now. So, to all of your listeners, life is a lot longer now than you think it is. And I built Jeni’s for 26 years of my life. I made a ton of mistakes for a decade, things didn't work, then they started to work. So just keep going and you figure it out. Then I was able to step away from Jeni’s with an amazing team there, let them go fly, do their thing and start something new. But I also got a divorce. I mean, I have an amazing ex-husband. We were together for 20 years. We raised amazing kids. We have a really good relationship. And I'm now in New York. I have a wonderful new partner; I have incredible friends here. My life, I feel like I've been reborn.
When I think about 5 years, 10 years, even 20 years, there is so much more adventure that's just starting now for me. Both of my grandmothers lived to be in their 90s. My grandmother was sailing the Nile when she was like in her 80s. That's going to be me. Don’t limit yourself ever, especially when you're young, but even throughout life. Understand that you still look good, you can still be so fashionable, like you can still be in the mix in the middle of all of the coolest stuff. Now I have money, and I have what I need to like actually live in this city and have a brand-new life and a renaissance. So anyway, my whole thing is don't ever stop. I don't know where I'll be in five years, but I'm on an adventure and it's just going to be so much fun.
Lauren Stenger: Well, thank you so much. I'm super appreciative and grateful to have 30 minutes of your time. It was great to hear your journey and your story, and I’m wishing you all the best.
Jeni Britton: Well, thank you so much and it was great to spend this time with you.
Lauren Stenger: Thank you.
Jeni Britton: Take care. Best of luck with everything.
