HOST (Jennifer) (00:02):

Hello, welcome to this podcast called finding inspiration. It's a 20 or so minute weekly podcast where we interview someone with an amazing story. After the show, I know you're going to feel energized, invigorated and inspired. I'm Jennifer Weissman. Welcome to finding inspiration. Here's the conversation I had with this incredible young man who was hit by another car, going a hundred miles an hour, took him four years to learn to walk again, decided to go on an eat. Pray love tour ended up in Israel and then went on to become a pickle entrepreneur, stay tuned and listen to the story of Jake Harriet. So Jake, tell me what happened to you.

GUEST (JAKE)  (00:58):

I was a sophomore in college. It was in Maryland where I'm from and I was driving my 1969 Camaro. It was my baby, something. I had three jobs to afford and I was hit head on by two guys racing the other way in a back road, more or less, I took the brunt of the force. It was a hundred miles an hour brand new Acura hitting me in my soda can Camaro doing 45 miles an hour. And my left leg was hyperextended ankle folded. My hip exploded my pelvis split in two pieces in my aorta tour. Not all the way open and my sciatic nerve got pulled, paralyzing. My lower left.

HOST (Jennifer) (01:31):

Sounds like you're lucky to be alive. Absolutely. Wow. So you recovered from this in a hospital.

GUEST (JAKE)  (01:37):

I was taking a Baltimore shock trauma center. A lot of people agree. That's the only reason I'm alive. It's like a standalone trauma center that world renown, they did experimental stuff to stop the bleeding, the gel that freezes the arteries in place allows the people to do their work. While you pause. They put more metal in my pelvis than they've ever put in a human it's, a 33 screws, eight plates and two bolts. It took eight months to walk again. My mother convinced them to bring in rent all of the equipment to our house so that I wouldn't be in an outpatient facility. I was really intolerant just of little things and things that bothered me as a kid. And so my mom was so worried that this was the worst person that something like this could happen to and set you over the edge. Yeah. She fought really hard to build a hospital in our house. So I wouldn't be somewhere else for eight months.

HOST (Jennifer) (02:19):

So you lived in your living room at home for eight months with care coming in and out.

GUEST (JAKE)  (02:23):

Yeah, the, the money I eventually got from the insurance was I became an art collector of bongs.   And so that was a phase. I traveled all over the country, meeting artists and I had a really good time. And that was kind of a healing situation for me, just because I had to put my mind on something that wasn't being a hospital patient.

HOST (Jennifer) (02:44):

You bought the glass bongs. And then just as an aside, that when you sold them or you traded them or you used them?

GUEST (JAKE)  (02:49):

After my money had run out, I started to live the same lifestyle by selling them because people heard about me, wanted them. And for a good two, three years, I was still living with the same lifestyle budget, but just selling the pieces. I had sold to other enthusiasts.

HOST (Jennifer) (03:04):

You learn to walk again. How many years did it take to recover fully?

GUEST (JAKE)  (03:07):

Four years. You could see me not with a brace and a cane. And you might laugh when I say I'm handicapped. You might say, oh no, you're not handicapped. What's wrong with you. It took about four years to get to that.

HOST (Jennifer) (03:17):

So four years you were selling bongs, traveling around the country, you ran out of money. How did you get you your next phase?   Which was, I believe a trip on birthright to Israel.

GUEST (JAKE)  (03:27):

Yeah. So it's a good question in there. My dad did a pass away. He's somebody that was a huge figure in my life. He was a legend of a man on his own. Right. And he was an epic father to me. I lost him at a time when I thought I had lived my whole life, which is so weird because hindsight that certainly not the case. How old were you at that point?  My dad's death forced me more into adulthood. You know, everything he tried to say to me before he left, you know, I heard it the moment that he was gone. And so through the strength, I built through my accident and through the, you know, the kind of growth turning the page that happened with my dad leaving, I was left feeling just a little what's going on, what am I doing? I'm treading water.

HOST (Jennifer) (04:05):

So you didn't really have any direction in your life at that point. Yeah. And so you heard about Birthright.

GUEST (JAKE)  (04:11):

Birthright. Yeah. This was so fun. My mom's Jewish, my dad wasn't, she wasn't religious anyway, there was no hope in me being brought up Jewish. And so I knew nothing Jewish to the point of being a nightmare. So I'm 26 years old, my most Jewish relative. I hadn't met my aunt. She comes to visit she's in the kitchen with my mom. And after my dad passed, I moved back with my mom kind of like, you know, we were best friends and help her out and, um, help each other out. And so my Jewish aunt, she's just like, oh, he's got to go on this birthright. And he's free trip to Israel, get on a plane. And I was checking on them on the plane, the map to see where Israel was. Cause I didn't know. Wow. Um, and I came here, did the, you know, the whole birthright thing and advancing myself, this was the place to move and where I'd spend time in Tel Aviv. I got the bug. Yeah, I did. Yeah. I did make the flight. I sold everything that I had remaining. I did a three-month farewell tour.  I came with two bags and plopped myself in a hostel.

HOST (Jennifer) (05:06):

You're in a hostile year in a country that you just figured out where it was on the map.  And you didn't know anybody here. Okay. Fast forward a little bit. We're sitting in your pickle jar studio where you turn the humble pickle into a canvas for flavor. You have a cult following now of people dying to have pickles from the pickle jar. Tell us about how you transform yourself from a drifter in a youth hostel to an entrepreneur.

GUEST (JAKE) (05:39):

It's quite interesting. This drifter, he had a hankering for pickles and I'm guilty of my friend, my friend back home that I left. I couldn't fit him up in one of the backpacks that I brought. Um, he was a green thumb, always growing vegetables in the garden. And every time a year that he had cucumbers, he would make pickles, bring them, bring them around to us. And he brings us these pickle jars and we would inhale them. On-site we would shake him for more because they were just so good. So here I am seven months into living here. Um, I hadn't found my first job yet. I hadn't, I hadn't run out of money yet. Then, the little I came with and, uh, basically I just really wanted some pickles. So I asked my buddy, I said, you know, Hey, how do you make pickles, Jeremy? And he sent me a recipe. I'm good at following instructions. So it came out just as good. Um, I made two jars and I was so fanatic about it that I immediately made another batch of four jars. The next proceeding month, I did get a job. It was customer support, uh, for rideshare in New York City, something boring. I was just getting yelled at by people ordering taxis. Um, and so then I was like, you know, Hey, let's make pickles for people at work. So I made a batch of like 20 jars and then I had 20 people inhaling the jars and shading me for more

HOST (Jennifer) (06:49):

At 20 jars. Were you making money? Was it profitable?

GUEST (JAKE)  (06:51):

 I was selling them, I think, but I, that was before I even understood what looking at costs were, um, thinking about, I, I w I'm not a born businessman, so, um, I, I know things now, but it was all through, uh, through experience, right?  Like at that time I was just like, oh, if you want to pay me, pay me. Sure. If you don't wanna pay me, I'll lose a lot of money, blah, blah, blah. I don't care because I had the job, you know, this was like kind of a hobby at the time. Um, you know, after doing, after doing 20 jars, uh, I did already jars for people at work, went from 20 to 40. Yeah. And then, uh, from 40, I was just kinda like, I would rather sell pickles than get yelled at, by people ordering taxis in New York City.

HOST (Jennifer) (07:30):

Yeah. So you were, you were inspired by, uh, working for yourself and it sounds like in a strange way, pickles, pickles gave you a lot of comforts. Maybe they reminded you of home?

GUEST (JAKE) (07:40):

Pickles were my entrepreneurial escape plan and absolutely comfort from home. It's, uh, you know, it's something that I can bring here, even though it's already a Jew Jewish thing, pickles, This was a funny thing for me. I've also learned a lot of, uh, of pig, pickle, history roundabout, because, you know, in America, um, all of our pickles, pickles are a Jewish thing in America. And why is that? And it's because they're coming from, you know, Eastern European Jews back when they came over, you know, so here we are. And, and I, I sometimes will tell like a, you know, a Russian woman is like, oh, it's, here's a New York style. And she's like, this is a Russian style. Wow. Wow. It's a, it's very funny that it helped pickles, you know, make their way through history and culture and how they remain a Jewish thing. And here they are, again, uh, in Israel,

HOST (Jennifer) (08:22):

You quit your job, started the pickle jar, and rented a cement box with a storefront. 

GUEST (JAKE)  (08:30):

Yeah. When I moved in here, um, there was nothing, it was a slab, with no walls. I built this wall here. Um, there, there were no lights, just wires. There was no, there's this plumbing coming out of the ground.

HOST (Jennifer) (08:42):

Did you take a loan or did somebody help? 

GUEST (JAKE)  (08:45):

So I actually moved into the store and I worked at my job for two years while I painstakingly did research and built the store,  Finally, the neighborhood finally yelled at me, they said, you know, enough building the store. We want pickles, you know, um, I'm a perfectionist. So they're like this store isn't even done being built by my standards. There's a lot of things I want to do, but everybody got sick of it and they're like, stop telling us you're going to sell his pickles and sell his pickles. So, I picked the date of October 4th, 2019 to open up. 

HOST (Jennifer) (09:14):

Um, how many pickles did you sell the first month you were in business? You know, at least a thousand, but a thousand jars, a thousand jars. At that point where you're making money?

GUEST (JAKE) (09:23):

I'd say we were making money the whole time, but we weren't really tracking. We weren't really tracking all business expenses until things were immediately serious.  There are lots of things that I had to learn the hard way myself. Um, my stepdad, who, uh, my mom did remarry and my stepdad is very business-minded. He's my advisor. It was a lot of just trial by error. You know, nobody's trying to open a pickle store here before.  And so much bureaucracy.  Many very unique challenges. 

HOST (Jennifer) (10:08):

Are you inspired by your own story? 

GUEST (JAKE)  (10:12):

My story here is just taking into my own hands. You know, it's kind of similar to how I went through my healing process. There's a way that it's supposed to be done. There's a way that they'll tell you to do it. And then there's the way that I did it. They had me on 29 medications a day. I'm on zero. Um, only because I chose.

HOST (Jennifer) (10:31):

A self-directed person. You, it sounds like you take my own advice. You take your own advice, you chart your own path. And what is the plan for the pickle jar? I can, in five years, if we were sitting here, what would the pickle jar look like?

GUEST (JAKE)  (10:43):

So right now, as much as I love the store, the goal is to turn it into a brand where you see my pickle jars in other stores, in stores, all across the country. So somebody who doesn't have the time to get here, or, or doesn't even know about it to come here, you know, they just go into their local supermarket and they find the pickle jar there. You're

HOST (Jennifer) (11:01):

Gonna get them distributed in large commercial stores.

GUEST (JAKE) (11:04):

I want the same quality, the same crazy shawarma flavor, pickles, spicy.

HOST (Jennifer) (11:08):

What is a shwarma flavored pickle? It's a pickle. You, I, you know, I'm going to ask for a sample.

GUEST (JAKE)  (11:16):

Like shawarma. Amazing. So you've got New York sours, a Gavi and bay, Eastern onion.  We have over 30 flavors of pickles now. 

HOST (Jennifer) (11:47):

It's like a shawarma explosion in your mouth. Yes. I love your story. I read it. I read it in, in the newspaper and I just thought, oh, he, you know, he's a determined guy. He's had a lot of hardship and found his drive and direction to create a business, which is pretty darn hard to do just with an idea and not a lot of money. And you've created a cult following. Thank you for joining us this week on finding inspiration. Hey, I would appreciate it. If you would click on that subscribe button and share this podcast with a friend, see you next week. I'm Jennifer Weissmann.