How to think like an entrepreneur in all areas of life

By Sarah Lindner, AMERICAN-STATESMAN, Sunday, January 04, 2009

Is becoming an entrepreneur on your list of New Year's resolutions? "Life Entrepreneurs," a new book by Christopher Gergen and Gregg Vanourek, argues that the concept isn't limited to your career – it's about creating the complete life that you want.

The book takes readers through a process of getting in touch with their core identity, creating their vision for their lives and making that vision a reality. It features interviews with 55 entrepreneurs from a variety of fields about how they created work that they love, that serves others and that aligns with their values. It's all about an "electric attitude of what's possible," says Vanourek, who talked with us by phone last month. He is a founding partner of New Mountain Ventures, an entrepreneurial leadership development company. This is the first installment of a two-part column featuring excerpts of our conversation (edited for length and clarity). This week, Vanourek talks about having an entrepreneurial mind-set even in a tough economy.

Austin American-Statesman: In the current economy, I could imagine readers of your book having two very different reactions: 'I can't afford to try this approach' and 'I can't afford NOT to try this approach.' What would you to say to each group of readers?

Gregg Vanourek: I think that for those people who are forced into a situation where they've lost their job security and it's a tough hiring market, we could make the case that this is the time to be entrepreneurial. The book "Free Agent Nation" (by Daniel H. Pink) talks about this trend that's already under way of more people being free agents and contractors and having the flexibility to move from project to project, company to company. All the principles and practices of entrepreneurship – being motivated, ambitious, resourceful, having a vision, taking action, taking risks – I think can be helpful for people who are put into this position by necessity so that you can keep your head above water. It could be a wonderful opportunity, surprisingly, for those people.

On the other hand, there are people sitting there thinking this is the worst time to be an entrepreneur – that if they're not forced into it, they hunker down and won't take risks. But these kinds of downturns and recessions often present some pretty significant opportunities. There are some big changes going on in the economy, and that's great fodder for an entrepreneur who's got a good idea, who's got a vision and can go execute. But it is risky. One of the points we make about entrepreneurship is it's not just risk for its own sake. It's not blind risk. It's risk but with risk mitigation and with good strategy behind it.

It also seems like we're shifting away from a mind-set of materialism and consumption toward wanting to work for something more substantive.

There is a little bit of a hangover, or a pendulum here, of a period of excess. People got caught up in playing the game. And I think it's likely the pendulum will swing back in the other direction, where people are going to look to other things that are more lasting and enduring and more meaningful and fulfilling.

I think your book makes the case that an entrepreneurial mind-set is just as important for companies as it is for individuals.

I think that's right. I think there's a war for talent that's been going on for a while, and part of the competitive advantage for companies is that you need great people. You've got much more job mobility and churn, you've got much more people saying "I'm out of here. This place isn't working for me anymore."

In many of the stories in the book, the stars seem to align for the subjects as they start taking steps toward their vision. How would you explain that?

It's difficult to explain, maybe impossible to explain, but there does seem to be some kind of phenomenon that has to do with people deciding and committing themselves to something with conviction, and also tapping into their passion, which often happen to be correlated with our strengths. Once they start doing those things, things start falling into place. I think a lot of entrepreneurs will tell you, looking back, that it wasn't all about money, and in some cases it wasn't even mostly about money. Sure, we want to do well – we want to build wealth for ourselves, our families and to pass on and do great philanthropic things. But what really drives many of these people is finding something that they're passionate about, finding an idea to do something differently, to do something better, to do something more efficiently, to do something exciting, to do something that benefits humanity or their community. And they get excited about it, and then that passion becomes a competitive advantage.

slindner@statesman.com; 445-3826

Love food? Think twice before jumping in

By Micheline Maynard, New York Times, August 27, 2008

WHEN Linda Lipsky taught a course called “So You Want to Open a Restaurant” at Temple University in Philadelphia, she deliberately made the business sound like a minefield. She warned her students that it is possible to lose their homes, their life savings, and even the rights to their own names. Her goal, she said, was “to get two-thirds of them to quit.”

In fact, two of every three new restaurants, delis and food shops close within three years of opening, according to federal government statistics, the same failure rate for small businesses in general. “It’s very easy to fail if you know what you’re doing, and even easier if you don’t,” said Ms. Lipsky, president of Linda Lipsky Restaurant Consultants, a firm based outside Philadelphia that has advised restaurant owners and chains for 20 years.

While restaurants have long been a dream for the hospitality-minded, the industry has never had such a high profile, thanks to the Food Network and celebrity chefs whose restaurants have become launching pads to marketing empires.

The allure is easy to understand, said Peter Rainsford, the vice president for academic affairs at the Culinary Institute of America and co-author of “The Restaurant Startup Guide.”

“So many people love to cook, they like food, and they think, boy, I’ll have a job where I’ll do what I love,” Mr. Rainsford said. “They don’t realize how hard a job it is, both financially and physically.”

Charlita Anderson learned, but it was a painful and expensive education. Ms. Anderson, 47, went to law school at Cleveland State University, and has worked in the legal field for 20 years, most recently as a judicial magistrate in suburban Cleveland, hearing cases involving juvenile crimes and traffic violations. But she always longed to run a restaurant that would feature her mother’s recipe for gumbo, a family favorite.

So in 2002, she opened Pepper Red’s Blues Café in Lorain, Ohio, a Cajun restaurant and nightclub. She did everything at the cafe, from making gumbo to scrubbing the floors and singing torch songs, while still putting in a full day as a magistrate.

Today her restaurant is no longer in business and she is back to her previous career, where she has paid off the debt she incurred during her 15-month foray into the hospitality business.

Ms. Lipsky has repeatedly seen restaurant novices make the same costly mistake: vastly underestimating the money it will take just to break even. She counsels them to have enough money to cover every aspect of a business for the first six months, including food, salaries, benefits, kitchen equipment, rent and utilities.

Indeed, Barry Sorkin and his four partners were well aware that the odds were tough for Smoque, a Texas-style barbecue joint they opened a year and a half ago on the northwest side of Chicago. But they were determined to beat those odds, with both research and financing.

The partners – Mr. Sorkin; two former co-workers at a technology firm; his uncle, who works in the building materials business; and a lawyer – were all barbecue fanatics who frequently met to grill in each others’ backyards. They spent more than a year analyzing the business.

Mr. Sorkin quit his job in 2005, and visited restaurants all over the country, including North Carolina and Memphis. (His wife supported the family while he traveled, before the restaurant opened and he started taking a modest salary.)

After tasting samples, the partners settled on Texas barbecue, known as “low and slow” because it is cooked at a lower temperature for a longer period than other styles. It was a variation they felt had been overlooked by Chicago’s numerous rib spots.

Mr. Sorkin, who has a degree in journalism, wrote a detailed business plan that ran for more than 40 pages, comparing his concept to the menus of his potential competitors. It featured a heartfelt essay, “Our View on ’Q,” that set out the group’s philosophy on barbecue; a version of it is posted at the restaurant’s Web site, www.smoquebbq.com.

Along with a simple menu of ribs, brisket, chicken and side dishes like macaroni and cheese and twice-cooked fries, the plan also included an extensive analysis of the expenses the restaurant expected in its first three years.

Determining that the North Side of Chicago lacked sufficient rib outlets, the group zeroed in on a storefront on North Pulaski Road, about 15 minutes north of the Loop and 10 minutes from Mr. Sorkin’s house.

Two members of the group pledged their homes to secure a $440,000 Small Business Administration loan to get the restaurant off the ground.

In the months just before and after Smoque opened, Mr. Sorkin and one of the partners spent 120 to 130 hours a week tying up loose ends. “I seriously thought we were going to die of exhaustion,” he said.

Since Smoque opened, Mr. Sorkin has scaled back to a relatively relaxed 90 hours a week. Now, he is at work by 7 a.m., for a day that starts with stocking wood in a smoker, accepting an order from a meat deliveryman, checking the previous night’s receipts and supervising as kitchen assistants chop peppers and prepare peach cobbler. He is on his feet all day, and rarely gets home to see his two toddlers before their bedtime. He can only occasionally catch a beer in a bar near his house.

But he is not complaining, because Smoque has served many more customers – thousands more – than the business plan forecast.

“My old job was challenging, even interesting at times, but I never got the same buzz from knowing that someone got their e-mail fixed,” Mr. Sorkin said. “I love barbecue. I love to feed people barbecue, and I love to watch them enjoy it.”

Ms. Anderson began in a far less ambitious way, relying on her family’s encouragement far more than on financial planning, a step that Ms. Lipsky said often proves fatal.

Her suburban Cleveland cafe was named after her late uncle, whose nickname was Pepper, and her father, dubbed Red. The cafe was the culmination of her lifelong dream to gain more exposure for her mother’s gumbo, a recipe handed down from generations of cooks in Louisiana and Mississippi.

“People who have tasted that gumbo say it’s the best this side of New Orleans,” she said. “It’s a big deal in our family.”

Still working as a magistrate, she began to shop for a location in downtown Lorain, a working-class town, in 2002. Ms. Anderson chose a former Woolworth’s store about 40 miles from Cleveland on the shores of Lake Erie, on the hope that long-rumored casino hotels would soon be built.

Ms. Anderson also felt that local residents, who had few options to hear live music, would patronize a club in their collective backyard rather than drive into the city.

Even an economic slowdown that gripped the area after Sept. 11, 2001, did not deter her, because, she figured, “people have to eat, they want to be entertained.”

She had a truly secret recipe in her mother’s gumbo. Her mother, Claudia Anderson, who had never shared her methods with her daughter growing up, required that she learn the gumbo recipe by heart and make two batches from scratch, without help, before she would agree to let her offer it on the menu, which also featured Southern classics like red beans and rice, cornbread and crawfish.

Meanwhile, family members, including her husband, son and a flock of relatives, volunteered to work there, meaning she had to hire only one employee, a waitress.

But before the cafe opened, unexpected costs appeared. To pass inspection, the restaurant needed doors that pushed outward so customers could easily exit. The two doors each cost $1,000. Toilets for the restrooms arrived with no seats.

“The tiny little things you don’t even expect, they’re going to pop up at any time,” Ms. Anderson said. She was responsible for every detail. “I went from a highfalutin position to scrubbing the floors,” Ms. Anderson said.

The summer after the restaurant opened in May 2002 was promising. Acting as the hostess, Ms. Anderson rushed every evening from the courtroom to the cafe, where she tied a custom-designed apron over her business clothes to seat the guests.

Ms. Anderson, who is not a trained musician, learned to sing blues songs and regularly took a turn on the bandstand. “It was the most fun I ever had, notwithstanding the stress,” she said.

But the joy did not last long. The hotels did not open, and by fall, the crowds that she anticipated would fill the restaurant every night had thinned. The friends she expected would be her regulars were often missing. “People will encourage you,” she said, “but they won’t show up every night.”

Ms. Anderson, who had borrowed $17,000 in a small business loan, fell deeper into debt.

Despite a bump during the 2002 holiday season, her business dried up over the first winter and did not rebound to her first-year level the following summer. Ms. Anderson did not have enough money coming in to cover the rent, $1,000 a month, and she could no longer afford to keep on her employee. In September 2003 she decided to close, a move that left her depressed and embarrassed.

“How could someone with a law degree and as smart as you blow it this big?” Ms. Anderson said she asked herself. But she ultimately decided that it was better to be realistic. “You have to appreciate that this might not work,” she said. “If it doesn’t, get out.”

Ms. Anderson’s experience is far more typical than Mr. Sorkin’s, said Mr. Rainsford. He should know. For five years, when he was a professor at Cornell University’s hospitality school, Mr. Rainsford ran a restaurant called O’Malley’s on a lake just outside Ithaca, N.Y.

Mr. Rainsford and his wife soon discovered that the restaurant was not a sideline to his job, but a full-time undertaking for the entire family, especially during the summer. Eventually tiring of the disruption to their routine, and with their children losing interest, the Rainsfords sold O’Malley’s to a young couple for a small profit.

The experience has helped him give advice to students at the culinary institute, where about half are traditional undergraduates and the rest are older students, many of whom have changed careers or want to enhance skills they have picked up on the fly.

Many of those students have a romantic vision of life in the food business, he said, fed by the success stories of people like Ina Garten, known as the Barefoot Contessa, who was a White House budget analyst before buying the shop in the Hamptons that started her food career.

Back in Ohio, former customers still rave about Ms. Anderson’s gumbo. She often passes the cafe, now reopened under new ownership and with a new name, on her way home from court.

Each time she passes, she said, she is tempted to give the restaurant business another try. “But then I just keep driving, and I say to myself, don’t look, don’t look, don’t look.”

What is artisanal chocolate?

I get questions from students on just what makes an operation "artisanal." I think this quote from Rob Tanner of NASFT says it all:

"...the fast-growing American movement of artisanal food makers, people who've discovered that rescuing food production from the jaws of soulless manufacture, means re-establishing a deeply satisfying human connection with what we eat.

"Today, in every state, there are people whose passion for recapturing true flavor gives their lives fresh meaning, filled with tradition and authenticity. They make retail products that gladden our plates and our palates. In the best sauces and sausages, vinegars and marmalades, the hand of the maker comes through. It's finesse you can taste, and it always begins with the best ingredients, the purest pork, the highest-grade chocolate.

"Tentacles of this movement drill deep into sustainable agriculture, supporting the livelihoods of the kinds of small farmers and producers for whom sane practices and quality matter. It's a precarious life, entrepreneurial in all the scariest, self-financed ways. Turning passion into a business has a way of sucking away its pleasure. Ingredients are alive, and thus, tetchy. Perishable. A fine strawberry field is devastated by a freak storm and there goes the jam.

"Yet, in 2005, more Americans than ever have turned to producing quality food as a way of life. Let's define our terms a bit. Most manufacturers, Big Food, would argue they produce good, safe food at affordable prices – they feed America. And they do. But when production lines heat the flavor out of ingredients; when plants buy loads of chemically altered, inferior raw materials to cut costs; when they over salt and over sugar to pack in cheap taste; when they lay on additives and preservatives to increase shelf life (remember trans fats?); when they process the very life out of food in the name of convenience and affordability, yes, they feed us, but they do not nurture us.

"Artisanal businesses still bear the hand and the heart of their originator. They are small by definition, dedicated to high quality and high flavor. For this, they usually have to charge more. They work harder and work always, they make their work a way of life, almost a religion."

Dorothy Kalins, Sept 19, 2005

Also check out the Fine Chocolate Industry Association (FCIA) glossary for their take on the term:

Artisan chocolate This term refers to chocolate produced by small chocolate makers – artisans – who understand their craft intimately. Artisan chocolate must be made under the care and supervision of a knowledgeable chocolate maker who could be defined as an artisan. If there is no artisan at a company, then the chocolate cannot accurately be called artisanal.

China's chocolate war

For seven years, between 1998 to 2006, I was a foot soldier in China's chocolate war, first as an executive with Hershey, and later Nestle, two of the world's largest manufacturers and marketers of chocolate; as such, I was on the front lines of a battle for the hearts, minds and taste buds of more than a quarter billion people constituting China's emerging consumer class.

Chocolate Fortunes: The Battle for the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of China's Consumers is the story of the "Big Five" global titans of chocolate – Ferrero, Cadbury, Hershey, Nestle and Mars – that are battling to capture a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to establish their brand with one-fifth of the world's population. It is also the inside story of East meeting West through the introduction into China, a xenophobic land of austerity and deprivation, of an icon of the Western world's decadence and self-indulgence: chocolate.

Even today, the amount of chocolate sold in China is relatively tiny, accounting for less than 2% of total global consumption. A nation of more than a billion people, it consumes about 146 million pounds (66.5 million kilograms) of chocolate annually, or 1.8 ounces (50 grams) per person.

Switzerland, with a population of less than 8 million, consumes 167 million pounds (76 million kilograms) annually, or 22 pounds (10 kilograms) per person. Americans, by comparison, consume approximately 3 billion pounds (1.4 billion kilograms) a year, or 11.7 pounds (5.3 kilograms) per person annually.

But per capita consumption figures don't really tell the story, because most Chinese can't find chocolate in their vicinity even if they were willing to buy it. When sizing up the opportunity in China, the key for the Big Five was identifying "geographically accessible" consumers – those to whom the product could be marketed and sold with relative ease.

Defined this way, China wasn't a market of over a billion, but something far smaller: at most, 100 million in the 1980s, 200 million in the 1990s, and 300 million after 2000 – or roughly the population of the United States. But even this grossly overstated the potential, since the vast majority of Chinese consumers with access to chocolate were not likely consumers, either because of their age, their resistance to foreign foods, or their level of disposable income.

Thus, despite the population size of China's geographically accessible areas, the likely market for chocolate was probably only 10 to 20 million through the 1980s, 20 to 60 million throughout the 1990s, and is only about 100 million today, roughly 8% of China's population. Among this smaller group, per capita consumption is still low by international standards: about 1.5 pounds (700 grams) per person, or one-eighth the average American's consumption.

The difficulty in estimating something as basic as China's market size was symptomatic of one major challenge faced by business managers operating in it: the lack of basic business information.

A far bigger challenge still, was a supply chain of make-do solutions that put the product at constant risk of being heat-damaged. This began the moment the shipping container landed on the dock where it may wait in port for weeks due to bureaucracy and shortages of suitable delivery trucks. Inland, trucks might be unloaded bucket-brigade-style, up fire escape stairs into a second-floor apartment with a window air-conditioner and newspapers taped to the windows to block the sun. From such makeshift warehouses, distributors would often deliver to retailers using small non-air-conditioned vans, tricycle carts, and even bicycles. And, once in stores, cost-conscious retailers would commonly turn the air-conditioner on only during the day, putting their temperature-sensitive products at further risk.

For the Big Five, China's supply chain amounted to a gauntlet that their products had to run in order to simply be put in front of consumers.

For all the daunting logistical challenges of China's antiquated supply chain, which would rapidly improve over time, ground zero for the chocolate war has always been China's consumers. American chocolate consumers pretty much know what they want when they enter the candy aisle of a food store, since most of them typically make a beeline for their favorite chocolate bar. And at the cash register they demonstrate the same, almost reflexive decision-making when plucking their favorite selection from the chocolate display rack.

However, consumer behavior in the chocolate aisles of China's supermarkets was quite different. Consumers spent significantly more time making their purchase decision. There was a great deal of product handling: picking products up; reading the back panel; comparing weights, prices, and ingredients; and putting products back on the shelf.

It was obvious that Chinese consumers were still in the process of acquiring basic knowledge about chocolate and chocolate brands. They were a blank slate from the standpoints of chocolate brand awareness and taste preference, and for the Big Five this was a rare and limited opportunity to establish their brands as the preferred chocolate taste with China's first generation of chocolate consumers.

Lawrence L. Allen is a 20-year China-business veteran, leadership advisor with Heidrick & Struggles and author of the book Chocolate Fortunes: The Battle for the Hearts, Minds, and Wallets of China's Consumers (AMACOM, 2009). He lives in Beijing.

This article is adapted from the book Chocolate Fortunes by Lawrence L. Allen, ©2010 Lawrence L. Allen, by permission of the publisher, AMACOM Books, A Division of American Management Association, New York, New York. All rights reserved. www.amacombooks.org.

Sweet success: Building an empire from chocolate

Step aside, Willy Wonka. According to its creator, Vosges chocolate is not just chocolate, it's "an experiential chocolate story-telling vehicle that's meant to be indulgent and sensual and opening to the mind."

More than that, 38-year-old company founder Katrina Markoff intends to "break down stereotypes through chocolate."

Having traveled around the world, Markoff's goal is to get people to try the exotic flavors she discovered, something that's more achievable if those flavors are enrobed in chocolate.

Among her best-selling items is a truffle collection that includes sweet Hungarian paprika and Chinese star anise, fennel and pastis confections.

While chocolate with once-unusual ingredients like chilli or sea salt is now increasingly commonplace, when Markoff first tried selling her product to department store Nieman Marcus in Chicago in 1998, she recalls "the guy looking at me like I'm crazy when I'm telling him what's in it."

But today, Markoff's product sells through 2,000 outlets worldwide, and in eight dedicated boutiques. Last year, her business made $30 million, up 50% on the previous year.

This year, she has brought the Vosges experience to a mass market, launching a new, less expensive brand that will sell in places like Walmart and Target. Where a box of 16 Vosges truffles costs $40, a 2oz bar of Wild Ophelia, which features flavors such as beef jerky and BBQ potato chips, is $3.99.

A Vanderbilt University chemistry and psychology major, Markoff moved to Paris upon graduating, to study cuisine and patisserie. On the advice of renowned chef Ferran Adrià, who ran what was regularly described as the world's greatest restaurant, El Bulli, in Spain, Markoff toured Southeast Asia and Australia.

In keeping with her international perspective, Markoff plans to devote her next few years to cultivating cacao in Haiti, and opening a lodge in Belize where tourists can learn about chocolate making.

Here, she tells CNN about how she came up with her winning concept.

On her first chocolate epiphany ...

I had my first chocolate experience in the Place des Vosges (in Paris). I went to this restaurant called L'Ambroisie and they had taken chocolate ganache (which is like the center of the truffle), they froze it and dipped it in a beignet batter and fried it.

That experience of eating this donut-crusty exterior and, when you bit down, this molten explosion of chocolate ... that started piquing my curiosity about chocolate.

On her second chocolate epiphany...

It wasn't until I got back from my trip and moved to Dallas to get a job with my uncle that I realized there was no innovation going on in chocolate.

He wanted me to find chocolate for his catalog business, and (everything) was just loaded with sugars and artificial flavorings and extracts and wax, and there was no story.

I had all these spices from my travels, and this necklace from the Naga tribes in India. (They told me it was made out of shells, turns out it was all tigers' teeth). There was a lot of struggle over territory and missionaries tried to get them into new religions, and I was just like "we shouldn't kill culture like that."

I went into my kitchen that night and made a curry and coconut truffle. I decided to pay homage to the Naga people and call it Naga.

Everything made sense in that moment: there was this illuminated path that said "just use chocolate as a medium to tell stories."

I ended up working on 20 different flavor profiles that night -- saffron with white chocolate and sugar crystals to represent Gaudi's mosaic work, a Hungarian paprika and chocolate ginger -- all based on my travel experiences.

The next day I went into work and brought this collection of chocolates. Dallas in 1997 was still very much a BBQ town, and these people were like "I am not trying that curry thing."

I got one woman to try it. She took a bite and her face went from disgust and worry to awe and surprise to "Oh my God, this is actually good." She was like "let me try wasabi." She was totally open to try whatever, and it was really, really cool to see that.

On how to succeed ...

I think it's really important for women to have confidence in her individuality and not try to conform to being someone she thinks she needs to be, to compete in the legal world or in the corporate world.

It's so important to find your own voice. People respect it so much. People are very attracted to people who are passionate in their own way, that are respectful, but that are smart and speak their mind.

You have this guiding light within yourself. Always go to that as your sounding board and your voice of truth. Follow that instinctual space in your solar plexus -- you know, that place that says what you need to do is right or wrong. Following that gut instinct is so critical. You have to have your little niche and carve it out and then follow it with all your heart and success will come to you.

On her management style ...

I've been told I can be a little "big picture" for some people, because I think things can get done very quickly and I want them done very quickly.

I don't rely on other people's opinions or consumer research to make new products, which is somewhat unusual ... I don't always follow processes. I skip steps, and I always make last-minute changes -- and usually that's the right thing to do.

Here is an earlier article with more from Katrina:

Sweet success: Building an empire from chocolate

BY Becky Anderson, CNN, July 10, 2012 

With Valentine's Day just around the corner, chocolate lovers across the land are anticipating heart-shaped boxes of Russell Stover, Godiva, or See's chocolates.

But those whose tastes run a bit more to the wild side are really in luck. There's a delicious new world of innovative, artisanal chocolates out there creating new tastes, experiences, and sensory perceptions. And among the new generation of chocolatiers, few are as consistently daring and innovative as Katrina Markoff, the founder of the exotic luxury chocolate line Vosges.

Markoff studied in Paris at Le Cordon Bleu and later with the legendary Ferran and Alberto Adrià of elBull i-- which, before it closed last year, was considered by many people to be the best restaurant in the world, one that elevated and popularized the concepts of serious molecular gastronomy.

Markoff was inspired to bring what she thought was much-needed innovation to the world of chocolate. Since its launch in 1998, Vosges' chocolate bars, truffles, ice creams, and other specialties have regularly been mixing the sweet taste of chocolate with exotic ingredients from around the world including hot chilies, olives, wasabi, wattleseed, Himalayan sea salt, curry, and bacon, to mention just a few. In addition to a strong web presence and e-commerce engine, Vosges has opened retail boutiques in Chicago, New York, Beverly Hills, and Las Vegas.

As the company's products and locations have diversified, sales have boomed to an anticipated $30 million for 2012. Markoff also launched a new chocolate line last year focused on the theme of "American heritage." Branded as "Wild Ophelia," this product line emphasizes local ingredients and is now featured in many Walgreens, Fresh Market, and Wegmans stores.

Fast Company spoke with Katrina Markoff about the power of chocolate and her worldwide search for the perfect ingredients. We learned what she means by "an experiential realm of storytelling through the medium of chocolate."

And as a bonus for all you chocolate addicts out there, we found out what she has in store for Valentine's Day -- so email this story to your better half.

FAST COMPANY: People have been eating and enjoying chocolate for millennia. Why does chocolate need or benefit from innovation now?

KATRINA MARKOFF: I went to culinary school after college at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. I worked at elBulli in Spain. I traveled all over the world and studied indigenous foods. I went to these amazing restaurants where the meals had all this innovation in the ingredients, the combinations of flavors, and the presentation. But there wasn't really much innovation on the dessert side. When I came back to the U.S., I didn't want to open a restaurant, so I went to work with my uncle at a mail order company. One of the things he asked me to look for was really great chocolate. But when I started looking into chocolate, I realized that there was nothing really innovative and nothing particularly high quality. Everything was loaded with preservatives or some kind of weird flavoring. There was this huge hole in the chocolate space that called out for innovation. I I came home one day and I had this necklace on that was made by the Naga tribe in India. I was researching a little bit about the culture. Then for some reason I went into my kitchen and made a curry and coconut milk chocolate truffle and called it Naga. That's when it hit me that I could use chocolate as a way to tell stories about cultures, art, people, and the world.

How do you tell a story through chocolate?

On the simplest level we tell the story on the chocolate bar itself. There is finite space on the chocolate bar's packaging, of course, so rather than putting marketing fluff on the wrapper, we use that space to give you tips on how to taste the chocolate. The first thing it says is close your eyes and try and take three deep breaths. We don't want it to just be a sugar fix, we want it to be a deep experience. We do these experiential collections that focus on big ideas. We did one called The Groove Collection. That collection was focused on the influence of African-Americans on American music genres from the field songs to hip-hop. For each genre we looked at what foods and flavors were relevant during the time period of each genre's popularity. The collection has 12 different chocolates that correspond to each genre. A vintage LP with all the music comes in the package.

Where do you get your new ideas and recipe inspirations from?

I travel a lot. I read a lot. I buy lot of old things. I buy a lot on Etsy and eBay. I go to new places and go to grocery stores and markets in those places. I try and meet people around the world who will cook for me so I can learn even more. Something usually catches my eye because I'm curious about an idea, or because it looks beautiful. Inspiration for me usually comes through a cultural or visual experience. It's not really about taste in the beginning, it's about sharing an impression of a place I fell in love with. But I am also very open to finding the best products out there. Nothing is totally sacred to me. If I find a wattleseed supplier who has better wattleseed than Australia, I'll gladly go there. I'm constantly trying to innovate. I want to evolve. The recipe today will probably not be the same recipe 10 years from now.

Most of your inspiration has historically come from exotic global destinations. But now you are "telling chocolate stories" in an American idiom.

We'd received a lot of offers from stores like Walgreens and Target to sell there. So I created a new line that was more moderately priced. It's called Wild Ophelia. I like to think of it as the spirited younger sister to Vosges. It's focused more on American heritage and agriculture. There's been this big movement towards local and organic food, but it hasn't connected with the chocolate space yet. We're working with a peach farmer in California, a banana farmer in Kauai, a baker in Michigan. We're getting our cherries from Traverse City, Mich. and our pecans from New Mexico. We hope that this line can help connect people with their food and help them understand where it's coming from.

So you are pushing people to try new experiences through chocolate.

If people try something for the first time, if they appreciate it and enjoy it, I think that they are more open to trying new things in life, whether it's new food or new people. The foodie movement has helped to create a new sensibility. People still want their comfort food but they are much more willing to explore new kinds of food. How many items have bacon in them now? You have bacon in popcorn, cinnamon buns, everything! How does that happen? I think Vosges is part of that evolution.

You were early to the "bacon trend." What inspired you to make the bacon bar?

When I was little my mom would make chocolate chip pancakes. The bacon would be on the same plate. I'd pour the maple syrup all over it and invariably the maple syrup would run into the bacon. Years later, we were opening our Vosges store in SoHo. We were planning our press party and I was trying to think of some savory hors d'oeuvres. I made a maple syrup milk chocolate pudding. Then, I stuck some well-baked bacon into the pudding which functioned as a spoon. Then I thought, I wonder if I could just put the bacon in a chocolate bar? Could I do that? We did, and it just soared. It's eclipsed every other bar we've made. People really have an affinity for bacon! Apparently chocolate and bacon are the perfect duet.

Why are people drawn to counterintuitive mixes of chocolate with ingredients like bacon and sea salt?

A lot of people give our chocolates as gifts because they are adventurous spirits. In a way, Vosges represents a part of their spirit. I think people are also less inhibited now. The digital age has made people so open about expressing their opinions. Now it's important to be different and express your own opinions. As for the chocolate itself ... I think chocolate is the most powerful word in the food dictionary. If you were to run down a list of food words: caviar, wine, beer, scotch, chocolate, pastries, bread, chocolate would elicit the strongest reaction. It's the most complex food in the world – that has been scientifically proven. It has a rich history. It was used as currency and it was used in rituals. It's immensely powerful. I think that will always excite people.

For all the last-minute shoppers out there, what do you recommend from Vosges this Valentine's Day?

We have these chocolate masks made with aphrodisiac ingredients. They are on dowels wrapped in leather. You can wear them and you can eat them. We have a smoked tomato flaming heart lollipop. Some of the smoked tomatoes are from California and the rest are semi-dried Sicilian tomatoes. We mixed the tomatoes with poppy and smoked salt and put it all in dark chocolate.

What about someone who just wants a gift box of chocolates for Valentine's Day?

I think on a really straightforward level, you walk into our store and you'll see gift boxes and heart-shaped boxes for Valentine's Day. One is called the "Sweet Coquette Collection" and if you read deeper you can see a whole aphrodisiac story... but maybe you just open it and eat it. Or you'll see some of the chocolate bars with ingredients like bacon or olives, and you'll understand there's something different here. But we also have comfort foods like caramel marshmallows and peanut butter bonbons. There is definitely a range. Our story is one you can access at different levels. If you go deeper into our creative process because you talked to me or because you read something about Vosges, you will see the deeper story.

Note: This interview has been edited for content, clarity, and length.