ASHEVILLE, NC — Entrepreneurship is not a linear path. It’s often full of unexpected circumstances, and for some entrepreneurs, it takes an unforeseen turn of events to bare the next opportunity. For Laura Shafferman, co-founder of Asheville, NC-based Legally Addictive, the story of her cracker cookie brand and entrepreneurial journey began bound in legal tape.
Shafferman worked in real-estate development marketing in New York City for more than a decade until she was laid off in 2015, a situation that triggered a non-compete agreement that locked her out of the industry for a year.
“Losing my job to no fault of my own and being held to this non-compete — that they would not let me out of — I was like ‘What am I going to do with my life?’” Shafferman said. “After over ten years in an industry, I’m just supposed to all of a sudden change industries? It’s not very easy to do that.”
During that time, an opportunity opened the door to an industry she had not initially sought out: food. A friend who ran Etsy’s holiday markets in New York City — multi-day events in Chelsea and Williamsburg featuring handmade goods — encouraged Shafferman to sell the cracker cookies she often brought to parties. Shafferman agreed to try selling them at the event, and the first domino fell for her new venture.
“The holiday market was a huge success,” Shafferman said. “The cookies sold out the first and second day. Now that I’ve been in business for a little over six years, I know that’s not necessarily proof of concept. But it was enough to give me the confidence to go out and try to make this into a business.”
While the type of cookie Legally Addictive makes is not a complicated baked good — saltine or graham crackers, toffee and chocolate are the primary ingredients — Shafferman found that no one was producing them on a commercial level. This discovery gave way for her to enter this niche category.
“I figured out that nobody was actually making this product anywhere else, or selling it with shelf stability, so I was like, ‘I’m going to make it my mission to create a shelf-stable version of this product using better ingredients,’” she shared.
Shafferman’s early success sparked her confidence to go all in on her new venture, even though she had no experience in the food space. Yet, in contrast to the 9-to-5, spreadsheet-filled grind she’d been living, the creative opportunities it offered were too good to pass up.
“Entrepreneurs have to be a little bit delusional in that you have to believe that whatever idea you have is going to pan out, and in order to move forward, there’s no other choice [but to believe that] because the amount of businesses that fail very quickly is extremely high.” — Laura Shafferman | co-founder | Legally Addictive
“In the beginning, this was really such a microbusiness powered by my credit card,” Shafferman said, revealing she worked five jobs to keep the business afloat in the early days of Legally Addictive. “We’re talking really early on when my only expenses were ingredients, raw materials, rent, insurance, packaging — the basics.”
Business went on like that until 2017, when Shafferman met her co-founder and future husband, Seth Eisman, a former television producer for programs such as Chopped.
“Between his organizational skills and my creative side, this was a perfect match,” Shafferman recalled. “It couldn’t have been better complementary skills.”
The pair was scrappy in building the brand, operating on a skeleton budget and not paying themselves for several years. The name came to Shafferman in the weeks ahead of the Etsy holiday market, and she established the LLC in 2015. She shared that believing in the concept played a major role in keeping the business in motion.
“Entrepreneurs have to be a little bit delusional in that you have to believe that whatever idea you have is going to pan out, and in order to move forward, there’s no other choice [but to believe that] because the amount of businesses that fail very quickly is extremely high,” she said. “To have that belief that you can make this happen and go against the odds is incredible.”
This story has been adapted from the April | Q2 2024 issue of Commercial Baking. Read the full story in the digital edition here.
