Jayson Gonzalez is a 21-year-old accounting student of Metropolitan State University in Minnesota. Earlier this year, when he was in Clive, Iowa for a soccer game, he noticed a Krispy Kreme outlet there, remembered that Minnesota doesn’t have a Krispy Kreme outlet (Krispy Kreme launched in Minnesota in 2002, but 4 years later, they shut all their outlets) and asked on Facebook Marketplace if someone, back in Minnesota wanted donuts from Krispy Kreme.
That post got 300+ replies. So, he thought that there is demand for the brand’s donuts and set up a Facebook page called ‘Krispy Kreme Run Minnesota’.
He takes orders on the page, consolidates them, starts his drive to Iowa at 2am every Saturday, in his Ford Focus (he emails his orders to Krispy Kreme store manager in advance) and picks up the donuts (about 100 boxes, each with 12 donuts).
Then he parks his car at Target store parking lot on the way back (cities like Burnsville, Bloomington, Minnetonka, St. Louis Park, Little Canada, Fridley, Brooklyn Park, Coon Rapids) with a Krispy Kreme pack on the top. People in those cities see his route on the Facebook page, pull up next to his car and buy the donuts, usually at double the price ($17 to $20 per box for a box that costs about $7.99. That’s a profit of about $9 to $12 a box, excluding fuel cost, car maintenance and his effort/labour cost).
It seems he has always been this entrepreneurial (having previously failed at businesses like candle-making, selling iPhone cases and creating a game app), and tries them to pay off his student loan.
Now, this is clearly a black-market operation, taking advantage of the lack of availability in one location. And where Krispy Kreme itself shut off operations because the demand wasn’t as big as the cost of operating a store in that city, at his smaller operation costs, he has found a steady demand for orders.
When this story went viral through a media mention (in ), Krispy Kreme got to know about this operation too.
What should Krispy Kreme do?
They called up Jayson and asked him to stop.
They have every right to of course. It’s their brand, he’s making a profit off it, in a delivery business started without their permission. and they have no control of the quality of their product after it has travelled for 4+ hours out of their store, on the highway in just a car (without specific refrigeration for the products).
Jayson posted this on his Group.
The video he posted a few days later was even better!
He says, in the video: “It was never my intent to make Krispy Kreme seem like the bad person, or the bad company. It is kind of upsetting that I had to stop, but it is what it is. One opportunity closes, another one will open. But we’ll kind of just see where we go and what happens and, who knows? Something amazing could happen from it. But whatever happens, I’m always willing to embrace it. Always looking for the positive.”
That’s a hugely mature outlook from a 21-year-old!
Because of the tone he took in his video and posts, people started taking his side, instead of Krispy Kreme! He wasn’t antagonistic in his tone and that turned it into a David vs. Goliath story, despite him running what was primarily a black-market operation.
The comments under his post turned to his favor thanks to his tone. And Krispy Kreme noticed this turn of events too. And finally understood that this was all the good for them – there is an established delivery operation, with a lot of demand, in a location that they do not operate in! They just need to work towards legitimizing it and take advantage of the whole thing. Which they goofed up the first time by simply asking him to stop.
Now, they got the message and are actually working with Jayson to make it legitimate!
The whole story hinges on how Jayson dealt with the first cease and desist note from Krispy Kreme! That literally turned the story around for him, making people rally for him. He could have easily kept quiet, or berated Krispy Kreme for being the villain, trying to shut his ‘illegal’ business down. His attitude, and tone, helped him win this.
As for Krispy Kreme, they should have seen the business potential of what they were missing easily through the Facebook Page. That they did not and behaved like a corporate overlord, was a blunder. But, I’m glad to see that they did see the potential soon enough, thanks also to the way Jayson handled the situation.